A Place Of Light

by Mary Bucci Bush

  The woman struggled to shut the door, and now Mrs. Woody made out the hallway with its line of closed doors. Behind the door they’d just entered sat a box of junk. Old clothes, a tattered lampshade, a broken toy truck, and ripped magazines spilled from the box. Propped on top of everything, and leaning against the wall, stood a plastic flamingo with part of one wing missing. It looked like the kind of thing people might stick on their front lawns – if they had front lawns.

  “Now I climb the mountaintop,” the woman said. She had already shuffled her way up a few steps.

  Mrs. Woody glanced up at her, then back at the door. When she caught sight of the box again, with its flamingo perched on top, something came over her. The tips of her fingers barely touched the railing, and she took careful little breaths as she followed the woman. The air was cool and filled with a crazy mixture of smells: cigar and cigarette smoke, a hodgepodge of cooked food, enamel paint, and something else, sour, like stale wine or vomit.

  The smells frightened her. But when she looked back down the stairs at the door she thought of one thing: the other side of it. At least here she knew there was a telephone. And those who lived in this building were, after all, only people, she told herself (although she hadn’t seen any of them and was afraid to imagine what they looked like). Harmless people, with their own lives to worry about. In the dim light below, the flamingo appeared almost alive. It perched in its corner and seemed to be telling her, “Go, find your telephone. No harm will come to you.” She turned and followed the woman to the top of the stairs.

  The second floor was in worse condition than the first. Plaster fell from the walls, and the numbers on some of the doors were missing. Behind one door, with its number 5 dangling upside down, a baby cried. Muffled TV sounds came from another apartment and, from somewhere, the sound of people arguing.

  All her life Mrs. Woody had found herself drawn to the very things she swore to avoid. There was no love in the world, only terror – she’d figured out that much a long time ago. When the terror got too much, you clutched at whatever was in front of you and held on for dear life. Like she’d done with Roy’s father, and later with Roy himself. She knew her son was shiftless, with a cold stone for a heart, and that she was nothing but a piece of baggage to him, something to cash in. There was nothing she could do to change any of it.

  The woman wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe she was entirely crazy. Maybe she didn’t even live in the building, Mrs. Woody thought. She looked like she planned to walk right into the wall ahead of her.

  Mrs. Woody determined that she would very clearly, once and for all, ask for – demand – directions to the bus station, and then get out of there. She passed a door that stood open a crack, and a brown child dressed only in underpants peered out. Mrs. Woody stopped and stared at him. She moved closer to him and as she did an arm reached for the child and pulled him inside. The door shut in her face, and a bolt slid into place.

  The old woman stopped at the last door. She stood fumbling through a small change purse. “There,” she said, looking up at the door.

  Mrs. Woody reached her. “What?” she said at last, looking at the door, too. “What’s there?”

  The woman pulled a piece of string from her change purse. At the end dangled a key. She gave Mrs. Woody a sidelong glance, as if she couldn’t figure her out. “The telephone,” she said. “What you think we been talking about?”

  Mrs. Woody was confused. And then she saw, just a few feet away, at the very end of the hall, a pay phone.

  “Well, God in heaven,” she said. She turned to the phone, and as she did, she heard a click. She looked back in time to see the woman disappear through the door, the fastest move she’d made all night.

  Her quarter would not go in the slot. She tried dimes and nickels, but every slot was jammed with slugs. She dialed anyway, and nothing happened. She kept dialing 0, then slamming the receiver up and down, then shouting into it, but the phone was dead.

  Mrs. Woody knocked on the woman’s door. “Let me in,” she called. When the woman didn’t answer, she called louder, “Open up. Please. Open up!” But there was no answer.

  She leaned against the door, trying to think. If she made too much noise, people would come out to see what the commotion was, and there was no telling what they would do to her. There was nothing left for her to do but go back the way she’d come. Hopefully the men outside the bar would be gone by now. She would go as fast as she could in the other direction and hope to heaven she didn’t run into any other characters. If worse came to worse, she decided, she would run out into the middle of the street and scream at the top of her lungs for the police.

  The door gave, and Mrs. Woody almost lost her footing. The woman peeked at her through the cracked door. She still wore the yellow hat, but had taken off the coat. Her dress hung on her as if there was nothing more than a wire coat hanger underneath it. Great splotches of pink flowers and green ivy grew up the dress, reaching for that yellow hat.

  “The phone’s jammed,” Mrs. Woody cried. “It’s jammed full of slugs.” The funniest smell wafted out the door. It was pungent, like eucalyptus.

  The woman looked at her with those watery eyes and slowly nodded her head. But then something seemed to sweep over her face, a look of pity or compassion, as if she was finally understanding what Mrs. Woody had been trying to tell her all night. And now Mrs. Woody felt relief, at last, at having gotten through to her.

  “You in a mess, ain’t you?” the woman said.

  She pulled the door open. Mrs. Woody saw a flicker-

  ing black and white TV with a plastic flower arrangement sitting on top of it. Curled photographs that all looked vaguely familiar were taped to the wall above the overstuffed sofa. She stood trying to figure out if the woman meant for her to come inside.

  From out of nowhere a man appeared and stood next to the woman. He was a muscular black man, mean-looking, with a closely shaved head and wearing a dingy undershirt and blue jeans. Mrs. Woody took a step back. The man looked hard at her, as if he would bellow an insult at her for interrupting them. She shook her head helplessly, ready to explain and make her exit, when he thrust the crumpled drugstore bag the old woman had been carrying in her face, and she jumped.

  She opened her hands to him to show she didn’t understand what he meant and that she’d meant no harm. He did not back down. He held the bag in front of her eyes as if to remind her of something awful she’d done.

  “Please . . . what is it?” she asked, desperate to straighten out the misunderstanding and leave.

  He watched her face closely. There was something strange about him.

  The woman took the bag from the man. “That’s all right,” she told him. “I get you some now.”

  She fumbled to open the bag, and finally took a roll of candies from it.

  “This is my boy, Axel,” the woman told Mrs. Woody.

  When he heard his name, the man gave Mrs. Woody a wide, open-mouthed grin that showed teeth and bright pink gums. She felt her own mouth open, as if to shriek, but nothing came out.

  The man turned his eyes back on the woman as she unwrapped a piece for him. Mrs. Woody tried to back away, but nothing worked on her.

  When the woman handed the man the candy he popped it into his grinning mouth. Then he moved forward suddenly and gave the old lady a slobbering kiss, right under the yellow hat.

  Mrs. Woody ran. She reached the stairs and nearly fell as she hurried down them sideways, both hands on the one railing. The door was stuck, and she had to yank on the knob until it finally gave. The sudden movement threw her off-balance, but she caught the wall with her arm and kept herself from falling. When her fingers brushed against the plastic flamingo in the box of junk, she took hold of it and ran out of the building.

  She headed toward the boarded-up gas station at the corner, even though she’d been afraid to go that far earlier. She put her hand to her heart, feeling for the palpitations, afraid that she would drop dead right then and there.
Just let me make it to the bus station, she thought, and I’ll gladly die, if it has to be. But not here on the street. She made herself slow down, so as not to agitate things.

  It was nearly dark out. But as she glanced across the empty car lot, she saw a few streaks of red and purple light in the sky. The sight made her stop, in spite of her palpitating heart. Because of the way the land sloped, the city seemed to fall away, and she could see the dark shapes of hills, far in the distance. She was struck by it all: to be standing in the middle of a dirty, torn-up city, lost and terrified, yet able to see clear outside into the forgotten hills, the farmland, maybe even her home, too, out there somewhere. If she had a home. She felt like a gypsy who owned only the clothes on her back and what few things she carried. It seemed that every little thing she cared for had been wrenched right out of her.

  She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and moved on, the pink flamingo and purse clutched awkwardly in front of her, the broken glass and debris crunching under her shoes.

  She reached the corner and there it was, right down the street. The bus station was small, but well lighted. If she had gone just a little farther in the first place she would have seen it and wouldn’t have been terrorized all night.

  There were people inside the bus station. She could see them through the plate glass window. Outside, a bus rumbled, sending puffs of smoke out its exhaust.

  As she reached the doors, the dangers of the night seemed to disappear for a moment, and she almost felt a little exhilarated at all she had been through. She pulled the door and it yielded. She tucked the flamingo under her arm and went in.

  Here and there a head turned, then went back to its magazine or newspaper. The people sat scattered in molded plastic seats, their bags and bundles on the floor next to them as they waited to be taken places, and her moment of exhilaration passed.

  Mrs. Woody took a seat to collect herself. She tried not to think about what had happened to her, but the black woman’s face and her son’s grinning mouth kept looming in front of her, as if she were having a nightmare right there with her eyes opened. She looked at the posters on the wall of places people could visit and blinked her eyes. It was hard to believe she’d actually gone inside the black woman’s building. In fact, Mrs. Woody found it hard to believe she was sitting alone right now in a cold, dirty bus station in the middle of nowhere when she was supposed to be home in front of her TV, watching people sing and waltz and laugh with each other.

  She felt that she was missing something, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She checked her purse, the money, the sweater. Everything was there.

  The flamingo stood propped against the side of her chair, pale and broken in the fluorescent light. When Roy saw it he would have a fit, calling her a junk collector, and her house a trash heap. They’d start right in fighting where they’d left off. Maybe she was a junk collector. But at least the junk was hers. At least she had something. Mrs. Woody looked out at the few passengers, to see if they were noticing anything odd about her. But no one was looking her way.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if she could shake all the unpleasant feelings right out of her. But instead of going away, everything came clear: Roy and Candy happy together, after her for whatever they could get; and Mrs. Woody alone in her house, knowing what she’d suspected all along that she’d always be able to hold on a little bit longer in this awful world, no matter how bad things got.

  RUDE AWAKENING

  Hannah and her father understood each other. There were times when they had to get away from the noise and commotion of family life. They’d go for rides in the hills, then, to look out over planted fields, or to assess the quality of so-and-so’s cows; or else they’d just drive along, keeping their eyes sharp for deer or pheasants or redtailed hawks. He’d take her in the pickup when he went to make a grain deal, or when he drove to the mill for lumber, or to Agway for seed. When one of the men made a comment about his little helper, he’d wink at her, then shove his hands deep into his pockets and rattle the change, as if he was embarrassed.

  Hannah’s mother went along with it all. She had other things to worry about. She’d married late in life, her babies had come one after the other, and in between babies she worked at the upholstery factory. She liked to warn her children that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and that they were the cause of it.

  She would eye Hannah now and then, though, and complain that she didn’t know what would happen when she got older and still preferred working in the barn to helping out in the house. And now that it was time for Hannah’s First Communion, the worst battle of all was on between them. “I always thought our family would meet again in heaven after we died,” her mother told her. “I never dreamed my own daughter wouldn’t be there with us.”

  “If the boys can wear white pants and a jacket, so can I,” Hannah argued one last time. “If you tell the nuns it’s okay, they’ll let me.” She turned to her father. “Right, Daddy?”

  “Jesus,” her father mumbled. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know about that.” He rattled the change in his pocket and walked out of the room.

  She’d always worn pants, even to school, although the teachers were starting to send notes home to her mother about it. Her father was the one who always said clothes didn’t matter and people should wear whatever they were comfortable in. And now he wasn’t even sticking up for her.

  Of course, she’d known all along that the white organdy and lace dress was coming, but she believed she would somehow be saved from her fate. At the last minute she would become deathly ill and be rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Or else the bomb would finally drop and the family would have to leave everything behind and scramble for the fallout shelter. And then she wouldn’t be able to wear the radioactive dress.

  Hannah waited until the very last minute before she put the dress on. She would not stand still to let her mother adjust the belt or collar, nor would she let her brush her tangled hair or put the starched veil on her head. For emphasis, she flung the miraculous medal outside the blouse of the dress, where it did not belong, and it dangled off one shoulder.

  Her mother shook her head. “I just wish you could see what you look like.”

  “I don’t care,” Hannah answered.

  “Someday you’ll care,” her mother told her. That was one of her favorite expressions. “Someday you’ll have a batch of kids just as bad as you, then you’ll care. I hope you have a dozen of them.”

  Katie stuck her tongue out at her sister, and Hannah knew she would have to slap her for it later.

  Then the baby started in. Their mother had put her in the crib to keep her out of trouble while the others got dressed. The baby hated the crib because she knew she was too big for it. She tried to climb out, but her leg stuck between the bars, and now she hung head down over the railing, screaming.

  Their mother ran to rescue her, then dressed her for church while Katie – mother’s little darling – looked after their brother. He was crying because his church shoes were too small and pinched his feet.

  Their father paced through the house, swearing to himself. Finally, he went out back to walk in his corn lot until the family was ready.

  Hannah stomped outside behind him, to wait on the porch. She brushed off the top step and sat down, the dress billowing in her lap. The skirt was made of layers of slips and netting that swelled around her and that scratched and rustled whenever she moved. When she sat, she had to press her hands against the material in her lap to keep it from flying up and baring her legs.

  From where she sat, she could see her father walking along the freshly plowed field, dressed in his blue suit. Every now and then he’d bend to pluck a weed or stone from the earth and toss it aside. Hannah wanted to be out there in the field with him, dressed in her overalls and flannel shirt, helping him like she always did, and a new flurry of rage went through her.

  The problem with First Communion wasn’
t just the dress. She felt she was being forced to give in to all the threats and accusations she’d ever heard about her needing to “straighten out” and become a “proper girl” – something she already thought she was – if she wanted to get through life. Going through with the ceremony meant she agreed with them: that she must have been born with something terribly wrong.

  Her mother came onto the porch with the other three and called for Hannah’s father. Hannah waited for them near the car, feeling trapped in the dress, as if she were a stick that had been skewered through the center of a great white paper flower. Before they got in the car, Hannah’s father looked at her. It was the first time he had seen her in her full Communion outfit, and he shook his head.

  “Aren’t you something?” he said. “We can’t put you to work in the barn dressed like that.” He chuckled to himself as he got in the driver’s seat.

  Her face burned. She knew he meant to say she was hideous, which she didn’t need to be reminded of. It was bad enough having ever yone else after her, but to hear it from him, too, was too much. There were times in her life when she had played with the idea of murdering her mother and sister. She now added her father to the list.

  As they drove off, she crumpled the veil in her hands, hoping she would be able to ruin it before they got to church.

  The baby blabbered to herself in the front seat. Katie and Anthony gabbed on about the party their grandmother was having for Hannah after Mass. They were excited about everything – the big dinner, the presents Hannah would get, the cousins they’d see. The happier they sounded, the angrier she became.

  “Shut up,” she told them.

  “Don’t have to,” Katie said. Then she piped out for their mother to hear, “She’s wadding her veil.”