Separate Kingdoms (P.S.)

by Valerie Laken

  “I got that too.” Arnie smiled. They were talking. “Yeah. It’s interesting.”

  “The worst moment of their lives, and they want to peddle it around to perfect strangers.”

  “Maybe it’s just part of the whole process of getting used to this new life. In a year or two, maybe you’ll think it’s the most ordinary thing.”

  “Why on earth”—she turned on him, suddenly glaring—“would I ever want to do that?”

  Arnie sat silently, wishing he knew that magic trick she’d learned in the accident, the ability to slip away, evaporate from your most unbearable moments. He envied her.

  “Why don’t you just go,” she said, “to the banquet down there, without me. If you like these people so much.”

  “I will,” he said, first bluffing, then meaning it. “I will. As soon as you get out of that tub.”

  “Arnie—”

  “You’re going to pass out in there. I can see it.” His voice rose up beyond his control. “And I’ll come back later and find you dead under the water.”

  The words echoed over the tile like a wish.

  “Get out,” she said.

  Arnie stood up, swelling, wanting to be elsewhere, unconnected, but here he was, dumb socks stuck on the wet tile, dumb white hairs poking out of him everywhere in the mirror. On his way out he punched furiously at the curtain, which gave way only briefly before falling back into place.

  Downstairs, the banquet room was empty. An hour early, Arnie paced by the doorway, alone with his useless anger. On the table next to him someone had arranged dozens of name tags in perfect little rows, with so many pairs of matching surnames. Arnie couldn’t stand them. He scooped one hand across a row, but the pins snagged on the tablecloth and only five or six took flight. Then suddenly a group of little boys in swimsuits raced through the hallway screaming, leaving their wet footprints and echoes everywhere. Arnie stepped out to scold them, to tell them to slow down, but they disappeared around a corner, their little brains already deleting him from their day.

  He went back in the room, kneeled down, and picked up the name tags. Rearranged them. Pinned his own name on. Marion’s he left there with the others.

  He walked down the winding hall past an arcade room and a coffee shop, until finally he came to a dark, wood-paneled room that had a long bar at one end. There were wide bay windows behind the bar, so that you could look out on the lake as you drank. The only other person at the bar was a young man sitting alone with a beer. Arnie took a seat one space away from him and ordered a beer himself.

  “Are you here for the golf tournament?” Arnie said after a while.

  The young man turned and nodded, and Arnie saw that he was scarcely more than a teenager, maybe not even old enough to drink.

  “Is it your parents who are playing? Or your, uh, wife?”

  “No. I’m playing.” The boy smiled and lifted his other hand up from where it had been hidden under the bar. When he waved it around Arnie could see it was really only half a hand: He had his thumb and forefinger, but the rest of his palm and all the other fingers were gone.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Arnie said, trying to act casual. “Well, how’d you shoot today?”

  The boy shrugged. “Pretty good. I got a seventy-eight.”

  “Holy cow,” Arnie said. “You going to win the whole tournament?”

  “We’ll see,” the boy said. “How about you? You here with your wife or something?”

  “Yeah, my wife’s playing. She’s an above-the-knee. I don’t think she did too well today though.”

  “It’s a tough course,” the kid said. They sat quietly for a long time, watching the water-skiers out on the lake. There was a ramp set up in the bay, and some kids were trying to do tricks jumping off it, but mostly they kept falling on the landings, sending up great splashes of thick, greenish water.

  “I was surprised there weren’t more women players,” Arnie said after a while.

  “Oh, you know why that is, don’t you?” The kid smiled.

  Arnie waited.

  “Women don’t do nearly as much stupid risky shit as guys do.” The kid laughed at this, then sobered up and said, “Seriously.”

  Arnie’s stomach turned over. It wasn’t as if everyone was here because of an accident. Sometimes it was medical—cancer or blood clots or diabetes—and sometimes people were just born this way. “Well, how did yours happen?” Arnie asked.

  “Ah, stupidest thing ever. I’ve got ’em all beat I bet.”

  “What happened?”

  “Fireworks, you know, a cherry bomb, M-80, whatever you call it. I found it in my dad’s truck and lit the fuse, then I just sort of panicked and didn’t let go of it. Now that’s pretty stupid.” He put his hand back under the bar, between his legs.

  “You must have been a little kid,” Arnie said.

  The boy nodded. “It was a long time ago. Hopefully I’m smarter now.”

  A new bartender came on shift, and when she walked over to get their next order she didn’t believe the boy was of age.

  “I can vouch for him,” Arnie said, when the kid couldn’t produce a driver’s license. “Born in 1988, October tenth. My wife was in labor with him for forty-one hours.”

  “Really,” the bartender said. “What sign would that make him?”

  “Libra,” Arnie said. The bartender decided to concede defeat. It was a resort, after all; they were supposed to make people happy.

  “Thanks,” the kid said once she’d left. “I’m not that far off, you know.”

  Arnie nodded. “I heard of a guy today who lost his foot trying to jump his motorcycle over a pickup truck.”

  “I met that guy,” the kid said. “I played a round with him last year. He’s got one of those weird tall putters.”

  “You’d have to admit,” Arnie said. “That makes a firecracker not seem so bad.”

  “Stupidity-wise?”

  “Right.”

  “I suppose,” the kid said. “But still.” There was another long silence, when Arnie could hear the boy’s teeth crunching down on the bar peanuts, and, in the background, the computerized songs of video games. Finally the boy stopped chewing and said, “So what happened to your wife?”

  “Car accident,” Arnie said.

  “That’s rough. You driving, or her?”

  “Does it make a difference?” Arnie said. But of course it did.

  The kid looked away, played with the label on his beer for a while. “What happened?”

  It was time to follow the usual drill. Arnie shrugged. “Just, you know. Dark night, wet road. Somebody crossed over from the other side, straight at us, and before we knew it we were flipped over in the ditch. I jerked the wheel.”

  The boy stared at him for what felt like a long time. He had eyes like a horse, weary and huge. “Were they drunk or something?”

  “No.” A pocket of air escaped from Arnie’s lungs, burst up through his mouth. How he’d wished for that. “No. But they died.” He caught his hands making a quick jerking motion, and put them down. “It could happen to anyone, any night.”

  A few seconds, a few degrees in an angle, a different brand of tires. A moment of distraction, a flash of panic could cost you this much in life.

  Finally the kid looked away, turned back to the window. “That’s terrible.”

  “Stupidity-wise, it’s up there,” Arnie said.

  Sometimes in the middle of the night Arnie would wake up to find Marion twisted away from him and shuddering, her fingers wrapped tight around the iron bars of their headboard. There were no words for this. When he tried to touch her back, she reeled away. He just had to watch.

  “There’s something I’ve always wanted to know,” Arnie said. “Do you mind if I ask?”

  The kid stared at him, unwilling to make any promises. Kids could be cruel. Probably this boy had heard more than his fair share of vulgar questions. But Arnie went on anyway.

  “Does it ever hurt there, in the hand, you know?”
r />   “You mean like, what do they call it, phantom pain? Nah.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. Not at all. I mean, maybe some people have that.” He shrugged. “Not me.”

  “Do you ever have dreams about it, the accident?”

  “I don’t think so, no.” He reflected for a minute. “Because in my dreams, it’s still there, all whole.” As he said this he spread out his bad hand next to his good one and studied them. “My mom said I slept almost constantly the whole year after it happened.” The kid smiled, as if this were another of his foolish acts. “Must’ve been trying to dream it back or something.” He laughed.

  At last one of the water-skiers, a girl in a yellow life jacket with long dark hair that whipped through the air, went off the jump and landed without falling. She threw one fist up and shrieked, and the kids in the boat ahead of her applauded.

  “It’s probably time for the dinner by now,” Arnie said. “Do you want to go?”

  The kid swigged the last of his beer and tightened his jaw. “I’ve never really liked the banquet part. I mean, the golf is golf. The banquet is…No offense. It’s a lot of old people.”

  Arnie smiled. “Of course.”

  “You know what I was thinking?”

  “What?”

  The boy squinted through the window into the setting sun and pointed at the girl waterskiing. “I was thinking I’d go introduce myself.”

  “Really?” Arnie said.

  “Nah.” The kid threw down his good hand in a dismissive gesture. The girl leaned back against the rope to spray an arc of water through the air near the pier, then dropped the rope and sunk slowly into the lake.

  When he got back to the banquet the room was already full, the round tables crowded with so many happily chatting couples that Arnie felt he’d been dropped down into a wedding. He stood in the doorway kneading his back with one hand, scanning the room to see if by chance Marion had changed her mind. Cheryl and Bill waved him over to their table, which sent a pulse of relief through him, until he got closer and saw that their table was full.

  “Where’s your wife?” Cheryl said, working her tongue against her molars. “What’s her name again?”

  “Oh,” Arnie said. Behind him someone whooped with laughter, startling him into a blank state. “Oh…we’re over in the back.” He pointed vaguely at a corner.

  Cheryl craned her neck. “I don’t see her.”

  “Bathroom,” Arnie said. “I better get back to her.” He shook Bill’s hand and tried to hurry away but the room was too crowded, the aisles cluttered with canes and crutches, clogged with hobbled people. He wanted out. He was sick of them all, with their stupid afflictions. The beers were working on him. He doubled back, rerouted, waited behind an awful woman with a walker. Finally he made it to the side doors and shoved through, sucking at the air in the hallway like the room had been contaminated.

  He started the long walk to their room, down the halls that were wide and muted and spooky. He tried to calm his hands, his shoulders. He mouthed out some words he could say to Marion, trying to memorize them. He always lost track. It was impossible to be angry with her, and impossible to go on.

  When he reached their room an empty tray with used-up dishes was sitting in the hall. He picked up the metal cover to see what she had eaten. He was hungry, even to the point of swaying a little. When he found the remains of her cheeseburger under the cover he looked up and down the hallway and decided to eat it.

  Inside, the room was already dark and quiet. He didn’t care. He turned on the lights.

  Marion was curled up on the bed by the window, and she didn’t stir. She had turned down the blankets of the other bed as if to suggest that Arnie sleep over there. Well, he wouldn’t. He went around turning on all the lights, even the TV and the radio, then he stood over her for a long time, trying to maintain his focus until she woke up. But her chest just kept rising and falling peacefully. Finally he took off his shoes, his shirt and pants. Stripped down to his underwear, he put his hand on the sheets by her neck, started pulling them back.

  It was a long lavender nightgown she was wearing, one that Lizzie had given her. It was soft. To make her cold he pulled the sheets and blankets down all the way past her foot, so it was just Marion there on the blank white sheets, all alone. Still she didn’t stir. Arnie took the bottom of the nightgown in his hand and pulled it up little by little, and when he got it to her thighs, he began to see. The stump was raw and chafed. There were red bumps and blisters all over, and a terrible inch-wide line rubbed raw just under her bottom, where the top of the fiberglass socket had rested all the hot day under her hip bone for support. He sucked his breath in. He turned the TV off.

  Arnie went into the bathroom and washed his hands. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long time. Then he began rooting through her bag of toiletries. When he found the tube of ointment he read the pharmacist’s directions to be sure, and brought it back out into the other room. On his fingers it felt cool and sticky and man-made. He touched it to her thigh as delicately as he could, fearing the skin would peel away under the slightest pressure. He dabbed and rubbed, as softly as possible, moving his eyes from her thigh up to her face every few seconds, to see whether she was still sleeping up there, still walking around in her dream world without the need of him or any canes or props. Just her. But on his next glance up he saw her eyes beginning to flicker, and he pulled back, torn between two wishes. He lifted his hand, suspending it, knowing that soon he’d be caught, there’d be questions, but first there were only her eyes, opening green, dimly searching, until they found him there in the half light and settled on him, watching, as yet uncomprehending, sweeping him up and taking him back with her.

  SCAVENGERS

  SO MANY PEOPLE had moved out of the neighborhood that the dogs had just about taken over. Mostly they were forlorn and peaceful, but every once in a while a frenzy of barking and low-level madness would erupt in the back alley and lurch through the side yard toward the street. At the window I’d catch their silhouettes, a group of them tussling over some piece of garbage. Then they’d settle the matter and drift apart down the middle of the wide street, where hardly any cars went anymore.

  The day the girl showed up it was the odd sound of a big old car grumbling to a stop out front that drew me to the window. A dark and rusting Cadillac stood there, its back corner hanging so low I expected a huge fat man to emerge, but when the door popped and swung open it was just a scrawny girl in black jeans and several layers of sweatshirts. She had dark, bobbed hair that clung to her head damply. A little older than me, midtwenties maybe.

  When she rang my doorbell I watched her for a while from the window, trying to decide if she had the jittery anxious look of a dangerous person. I’d already heard every kind of endless tall tale from the desperate types who get stranded here. They’ve got broken-down cars, they’ve been mugged or beaten, they’re lost, evicted, foreclosed, someone’s taken their kids. They park themselves on your porch, shivering, and break down until maybe you give them a few bucks or some leftover pizza or a ride to the bus station. You could threaten to call the cops but even they know the cops won’t come. As soon as you get rid of them and have time to comb over their story you discover its many impossibilities and know you’ve been had. It’s hard to know how to feel about yourself on such days. My dad’s old friend Lenny warned me, “Tommy, it’s folks like those that’ll get you.” Like I’ll head out to jump-start their car or something and their unseen partner will come in my back door and rob me.

  I don’t have much to steal, I told Lenny. And his face twisted up and went sour, because he was thinking of all my dad’s old things in here.

  I’m making the neighborhood sound like a dirtbag haven, but it isn’t. It’s no Brush Park; it’s not leaking mansions filled with squatters. Until the last couple of years it was pretty much normal like anyplace, rows of little two-bedroom brick houses built in the fifties. Sidewalks, alleys, normal working people. I ca
me up fine.

  When I opened the door she showed me a mealy grin and said she was here about the room for rent. Does it matter if she’s good-looking? Imagine her however you want: big eyes, high cheekbones, wet lips, whatever, then throw in some little flaw so you can believe she’d actually materialize before the likes of you. Her teeth in front were too short—stunted and gray. I said I didn’t have a room for rent. This was one I hadn’t heard before.

  The Olsons’ former black lab, Dooley, came vulching toward us and the girl hugged herself closer toward my door. I shooed him away no problem, but he glanced back at me in an insulted way, as if to say there’d been some big misunderstanding and he belonged indoors. All of them gave you this look at first. Eventually they got over it, forgot about who they’d been.

  The girl was pointing at her car along the curb for some reason, like that qualified her as nondesperate. Then she showed me her little notebook where she had my exact address written down and the word ROOM in big black letters, as if that verified everything.

  “From an ad in the paper,” she said. As if anybody reads papers anymore.

  “Maybe you got the address wrong?” I said.

  At this point the average conniver would start asking for something, trying to touch my arm or call up some tears. But she just nodded, like she was used to getting things wrong. Her mouth moved into a funny cramped-up position and she couldn’t look at me. She turned and headed back to her car, which was filled to the ceiling with stuff.

  “Shit. Hang on.” You never know. You never know about people. There might be one in three telling the truth now and then, and what kind of asshole do you want to be in the final tally? I grabbed my keys and my coat and we headed down the street a ways, looking for a ROOM FOR RENT sign on a block of empty houses. Before we turned the corner I glanced back, fearing some crew of guys with crowbars would pile out of her car. But nobody did.