After communicating a few more details, I awaited the arrival of the NYPD at my door.
Can’t say I was surprised they were coming, not after what I’d found out on the Internet about the “Smith” case. Love, betrayal, incest, rape. All of it carried out in the confines of a tiny little town in upstate New York. And these family secrets belonged to Ralph, not me. The very fact that he had changed his family name meant he would rather leave some of that behind.
Turns out that Mama and Papa Smith were not the nicest people. Papa had a bad habit of impregnating women. Any kind, including his own sister—that would be Mama to poor Ralph, who was, of course, illegitimate, as siblings cannot legally marry in New York State. Seems Papa also liked to beat up women, including Mama, who never left him, being one of those downtrodden females, who believe they somehow deserve vile treatment. He also beat up Ralph, and Mama did nothing to stop him. Sometimes, it seemed, she joined in. Sometimes, the worst bullies are ones who were bullied themselves. Police reports were filed. Social workers were summoned, but nobody, except Ralph, actually knows the true story of what went on in that rural home. So when the hatchet murders happened and Ralph rather cheerfully confessed, nobody was terribly surprised.
An abrupt knock on the door took me out of my reverie. After the check of credentials, the police came in and told me that they had answered a call with two victims. Both were now in the hospital, but, apparently, one had tried to commit suicide, and the other was wounded in the prevention. I was given as the only contact. So, I bundled up to head to Lutheran Medical Center, where I went to check up on Ralph and the woman I knew only as Sister.
ON a sunny, but brutally cold, day a few weeks later, I trundled down to Ralph’s with a sack of cat food, a box of cookies, and my six-quart plastic storage container of spaghetti. Tucked into my carryall was also a five-liter box of my cheapo Chianti. We’d been sipping a bit more of that stuff lately. Not Ralph, of course, just me and Sister. I know her real name now, but I like calling her that. I feel a bit like Ralph, in that Sister is the kind of person who is sort of like the kind of sister you wish you had.
Sister lives with Ralph now. They are cozy. Ralph goes off on the little yellow bus to his “school,” and Sister works as a trainer in the local gym. Sometimes, I think they are a little fragile and I worry, but mostly they seem to be doing fine. Ralph still feeds the kitties, including one of the calicoes that just gave birth to some kittens. He made them a little home in the yard out of blankets in a big plastic storage bucket. We’ll see if they make it to spring.
One thing I don’t do anymore is worry about whether or not Ralph would hurt them, or me, or Sister. Especially not since the night when Sister had an extra few glasses of Chianti and told me that she had murdered the “Smiths.” Seems that Sister used to be a tiny, little, itty bitty thing, and Papa had his way, as he tended to do. Rape and terror. Almost killed herself back then, too. But she and Ralph sort of saved each other. It’s not a night they choose to talk about in detail. But Ralph knew he was the stronger one when it came to who should take the rap.
Being the curious sort, I did wonder what made Sister feel so vulnerable right now. I mean, it had been years since the Incident. But every time I thought about digging deeper, I remembered being in the hospital with her and seeing the chunks of scarred flesh on Sister’s wrists, and I refrained. Maybe more cheapo Chianti and a whole lot of time would yield enough trust to tell me the whole story one day—or maybe not. Either way is all right. I tend to be flexible that way.
So, I went to the little basement apartment and did my shtick with the spaghetti and the Chianti. You see, Ralph takes care of the kitties, and Sister takes care of Ralph, but I am the one who looks out the windows and spies from the fire escape to keep watch on my neighborhood, and fix the people who are like the birds with broken wings.
FRIENDS
Anne-Marie Sutton
THEY met as freshmen at Columbia in 2002. Janine, uncharacteristically late for the first Philosophy 101 class, had slid quietly into a seat at the back of the room. Tim, in the next chair, turned and gave her a broad, toothy Hugh Grant smile as he gestured toward the man at the front of the room, already into his lecture.
The middle-aged professor was speaking in a loud voice, his hands waving to punctuate the end of every sentence. Janine giggled as Tim whispered, “I think he’s high.”
Two days later, Janine arrived early and took the same seat. When Tim came in he sat down next to her.
“How did you do with the reading?” he asked. “Tough going, huh?”
Janine, who was on academic scholarship, only shrugged. “You had to read it twice.”
“I’m impressed,” he said as she busied herself opening her notebook.
“And she takes notes, too,” he said. “I’m going to sit next to you all the time. Maybe we can have a study group for this class.”
Janine turned and smiled. She’d noticed Tim hadn’t taken notes during the first class. He was very good looking, with dark, curly hair and liquid blue eyes.
The class began, and Tim seemed content to sit and listen to their increasingly shrill professor as he lectured his way through Socrates, with a nasty recreation of his death which Janine found distasteful and Tim hilarious.
“How can you laugh at that?” she whispered.
“Are you kidding me? This guy is Robin Williams and Lenny Bruce all rolled into one. I love it.”
“WHAT are you doing tonight?” Tim asked as they left philosophy class several weeks later. They had yet to schedule the study sessions he had suggested. Janine said she had some studying to do. Did he want to join her?
“Don’t be daft. Let’s go for a drive.”
“You have a car?” A college student with a car in Manhattan. She was astonished. “Where do you keep it?”
“A garage over on Broadway.”
“Isn’t that expensive?” She frowned. “And it’s your car?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Tim said wearily. “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. Tell me where you live.”
“Seven-thirty,” she repeated. Janine was careful to keep her voice neutral as she told him she lived in Carman Hall. “On 114th Street,” she added when Tim seemed not to recognize her dorm’s name.
Back in her room, she agonized over her wardrobe, which had a definite thrift shop look. She finally settled on jeans and her dark green roll neck sweater, a birthday gift from her aunt. After several tries at taming her unruly brown hair, she finally pulled it into a pony tail. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was ordinary. She knew she was lucky she had gotten brains. No money, no looks. But plenty of intelligence.
Tim was waiting in the driver’s seat of a black sports car. Janine didn’t know a lot about cars and examined the name on the trunk: Carrera.
“This is a cool car,” she said as she opened the door of the passenger side and got in.
“It’s a Porsche, right?” She pronounced it like porsh. Without hesitation, Tim corrected her.
“It’s Porsche, with an eh at the end.”
Janine flinched. She didn’t like being corrected in such a manner. She’d always been a bright girl who easily tuned into things she didn’t know. She supposed Tim, with his moneyed background, didn’t need such skills.
THE Upper West Side avenues were busy and congested, but the Porsche dodged pedestrians and bicyclists, maneuvered around standing taxis and double-parked cars on Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway with no effort. Tim kept his eyes on the landscape as he turned on to 125th Street, his face showing pleasure in the way the Porsche handled city traffic. Janine relaxed in the passenger seat, content to feel the motion of the car. She hadn’t driven in any sports cars. Nobody she knew had ever owned one.
Tim reached a bridge—the sign said it was the Willis Avenue Bridge—and headed over it. She had never been in this part of the city. “Is this the Bronx? Where are you going?”
“We need to get on the Deegan,” Tim sa
id, his attention firmly on the road.
Janine didn’t know what the Deegan was, but decided not to ask. Her question was soon answered when they entered the I-87 on-ramp. The highway’s name was Major Deegan Expressway.
After a few miles, Tim took the exit for 233rd Street. Janine looked at the view until Tim parked the car beside the green sloping hills of a cemetery. He didn’t say a word as he got out and opened the trunk. He grabbed an old canvas bag.
Janine followed him toward the fence. Was a relative of Tim’s buried here? He didn’t talk much about his family, except to say that he never could have gotten into Columbia unless his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather hadn’t all graduated from the university.
He led her through a side gate with a damaged lock and up a grassy hillside to where several headstones were all inscribed with the name of the same family: Scott. Tim went up to one and flopped onto the grass in front of it, his back against the last resting place of Hannibal Scott and his wife Rosemary. He pulled out his pipe and began to light it.
“Do you know these people?” Janine asked.
“Who?” Tim asked, puffing on the pipe to get it going.
“Mr. and Mrs. Scott.”
Tim smiled. “Let’s say I’ve come to know them. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company on several late evenings in the Bronx.” He opened the canvas bag and took out a fifth of Jack Daniels. He unscrewed the top, took a swig and then offered it to Janine. She took a hesitant sip.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s strong.”
“Good stuff,” Tim said as he took another healthy swallow. “Sit down.”
Janine sat down cross-legged in front of him. “So you come here often.”
“Yeah. I’ve always liked cemeteries. This one is Woodlawn. Miles Davis is buried here. A lot of famous people are buried here. I find being here calms me. It helps me forget my troubles.”
“I didn’t know you had troubles, Tim.”
“Well, you might not think I do, but I do.”
“Like what?”
“Like what I’m going to do with my life. I get a lot of pressure from my father about what to do with my life. All he wants to talk to me about is Wall Street. You’d think he was never young himself.”
Tim took another long drink of the whiskey and sighed as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“I’ll never work on Wall Street,” he said, staring hard at her, daring her to challenge his statement.
But Janine only shrugged. She didn’t care about the future, only the present here with Tim, memorizing his deep set blue eyes and perfect nose. She longed to run her fingers through his thick black hair, pushing back the unruly lock that skimmed his forehead.
Nothing happened that night. At least nothing that Janine had wanted to happen. Tim drank and smoked and talked about his future as if he were the heir to a European throne, who wanted to break away from the constraints of the court. Janine thought it best to say sympathetic things. She encouraged him to think positive thoughts. She certainly didn’t want Tim to drop out of school, which she guessed might be an option he had sometimes considered to spite his family.
“You’re terrific. You know that, Janey?” Tim finally said, his speech slurring. “You’ve got to help me study for the philosophy mid-term next week. I can’t flunk any courses.” He smiled at her and his soft blue eyes mesmerized her. “Remember you promised.”
“Of course,” she said, brightening. “I’ve got my notes. Let’s go to the library tomorrow after classes.”
Tim’s eyes were closed now, and she realized he was drifting off to sleep. Janine stretched out her legs and continued to watch him.
JANINE aced the mid-term; Tim’s grade was a C-minus. She was disappointed after all her hard work drilling him in the differences among the ancient philosophers, but Tim seemed pleased and shrugged off her suggestions that next time they would study harder.
“Actually,” he said with a boyish grin, “what I need now is help with an English paper. What do you know about Herman Melville?”
Not a whole hell of a lot, but research brought knowledge, and Janine threw herself into the project. This time Tim received a B-plus. She was making progress, all the while clinging to the hope that Tim would begin to see her in a different light. She had begun to pay more attention to her hair and make-up. Trying to mimic the fashion trends she saw in the city, Janine was using her limited budget to buy some new clothes. But Tim appeared indifferent to the changes in her appearance.
AND then finals were looming, and Janine found herself helping Tim study for all his exams, plus putting together a last minute paper on Sparta.
“You guys are so lucky,” Janine’s roommate Devon told her after she’d had a messy break-up with an especially oafish boyfriend. “You’re friends. Nothing will ever split you up.”
No, Janine thought, we’re great friends. But that’s hardly what I want. By sophomore year, people had begun calling them The Glimmer Twins, after Mick and Keith. Tim loved it. Janine tolerated it through gritted teeth.
They each had dates. Tim, with his money and good looks, had his pick of the women in the campus area bars, a privilege he exercised frequently. Janine dated a succession of liberal arts majors, whose impassioned intellectualism was no substitute for the passionate romance she craved with Tim.
During junior year, Tim spent first semester abroad. Janine yearned for his presence. But when he returned for the second half of the year, she found the affectations he had picked up in Italy annoying.
“Ciao,” he insisted upon saying each time they met or parted. Cara mia was another favorite, although it seemed to Janine that he had little command of the language in which he had been immersed for four months. She imagined that he’d found an Italian version of Janine among his classmates.
Their late night excursions to Woodlawn resumed. They sat on the old stones, while Tim smoked his pipe and drank whiskey, and Janine drank from a bottle of wine. Then, for Christmas senior year, Tim’s parents gave him a silver flask, and he began filling it with an expensive cognac he brought from his Long Island home.
“I’m really worried, Janey,” Tim said that February. He had declared himself a history major junior year, but he was always behind on his reading and papers.
“My father will kill me if I don’t graduate this May. He’s promised to cut off my allowance if I don’t get my degree.”
Janine was used to hearing about the threats from his father over money and the panicked calls that brought her to his apartment, where they sat up until all hours while she pored through books and prodded him to pull the notes together to construct the semblance of a thesis. She had lost count of the times she ended up grabbing his laptop and writing just to make a late night session end before dawn. She was resigned to doing it. Tim’s academic success was her goal, and she had to see it through to the finish.
“I’ll never forget this, you know, Janey,” was Tim’s constant refrain. His grandfather had died the year before, and Tim often spoke of the money that had been left in trust for him until he turned twenty-five. “I’m going to be very rich then. I won’t even have to work,” he would say with satisfaction. “And I’ve put you in my Will. You’re my best friend.”
So she had a reason to stay best friends.
WHEN graduation day came, Janine felt as proud as any parent as she watched Tim receive his diploma. His parents, exuding wealth and charm, greeted the college president and administrators with the authority of visiting royalty. The crowd seemed to part as the family moved through its ranks. Janine stood with her own parents to one side. She longed for Tim to approach them, to explain to his family how much she had done for him these last four years. But to Tim, Janine and her family were invisible. She was glad that she had not told her mother and father about their friendship.
Janine’s parents took her for lunch. She chose Shun Lee West, across from Lincoln Center. Tim had invited her there for her birthday the previous fall,
and she had loved the huge golden dragons that stretched high around the black and white dining room. She asked the waiter to sit them in the same plush booth she had occupied with Tim.
During their meal, Janine told her mom and dad of the job offer she had accepted working as a grant writer for one of the city’s social services organizations.
“That kind of work doesn’t pay any money,” her father protested.
“And we expected you to come back home to Philadelphia. All the family is there,” her mother said, the disappointment heavy in her voice.
“It’s a tough job market. I was lucky to get this,” Janine said, thinking bitterly of Tim and his family connections. During the last month, despite his vow, he had gone on several interviews his father had set up for him with financial firms in the city.
“You always made the dean’s list,” her father said. “Surely—”
“Even a Columbia liberal arts degree doesn’t guarantee you a job these days,” Janine interrupted him. “But no matter what, I’m not coming back to Philadelphia. I love New York.”
BEFORE graduation, the two friends had promised to keep in touch. Janine had the same cell phone number, but she found, when she tried to call Tim, that his had been given up. Janine had the email address he used while he was in Italy. She waited until she was settled in her Brooklyn apartment and was comfortable with her work before she emailed Tim to tell him how she was doing. He took about eight weeks to answer, but the news that he was taking the trip to Europe that his parents had given him for graduation came as a surprise. He had said nothing of it beforehand.
Perhaps he hadn’t known about the trip. She was full of curiosity, envious naturally, but focused on the hope that he would contact her on his return. She had made it a point to let him know that she hadn’t changed her cell phone number.
MONTHS passed, and suddenly, it was a year since she’d last heard from Tim. Her disappointment in being shut out of his life had morphed into a dull anger that she tried desperately to ignore. Little things reminded her of her former friend: a bottle of Jack Daniels on the bar at a party, spotting a copy of Moby Dick at the branch library’s book sale, and whenever a Hugh Grant movie was on TV. She clenched her fist in the way she had read in the paper was a good technique for reminding yourself to have willpower. She knew it was time to forget him.
Family Matters Page 19
