“No,” he screams. “You cannot leave.”
He forces me back to my knees and abruptly I see the razor blade on the bed, dried blood on its edge, and reality dawns. It wasn’t an accident.
“Oh my God,” I cry, gaping at my husband in shock as I say over and over—“What has happened, what’s wrong? You cut yourself on purpose? Oh my God—you tried to—”
He begins walking in a circle, he’s off-balance, leaning over and holding that bandaged arm—the bandage is coming loose—close to his chest. When he runs into the kitchen, I pitch the razor blade under the bed and run after him, follow him back to the bedroom. He and I go back and forth in front of Lyra’s door, and I’m crying in some voice I’ve never heard, “Come and sit down, William. Come and sit down and talk to me, please.”
But he sprints through the house as though chased. Lyra must be terrified, I think, must wonder what to do, she’s cold and hungry by now and I hear her crying but softly because she doesn’t want him to hear her. William reappears and throws me down beside the bed again, his red hands on my shoulders, and he says that we must pray all night for forgiveness, for those we have killed, and I tell him I will pray, though my voice quakes with terror as I begin the Lord’s Prayer and William says, “That’s right, we will ask him to spare us.”
I think I must do something about my baby and I stop praying. “William, please let me check on Lyra—”
He screams, “No No No.” Then he turns and talks to someone who isn’t here. When I look at my husband, he’s not William anymore, he’s someone else. He screams at me to pray, and I begin praying again, rotely, as though my exhausted mind has separated from my body, and as I pray my faith in life drains away, my blood feels spilled onto these sheets too, and there’s William walking down the aisle with his college degree, how spiffy he is in his uniform, I can just imagine what young French girls thought when he marched in to save the day, and there he is again, William, so shy on our wedding night, and we’re splashing in the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, and I steer myself into that past. I am no longer beside this bed and my husband is no longer bleeding and screaming at me and—
—from her doorway Lyra watches us, I see her watching her mother and father in a room turned red, a room of screams to God. While I’m still on my knees mumbling prayers, she lies down at the end of her bed so she can see me, but she doesn’t look at her father. It’s dark night now, dark long past supper, the dark of bedtime. I know she wants to come to me but is afraid of her father, and I pray under my breath, Please God, don’t let her come in here.
William jumps up for the thousandth time and runs to the living room and then back, and I slump against the bed as he yells at me so loudly I clap my hands over my ears.
“You tried to kill me! My own wife—you despicable woman.”
I’m crying insensibly though my mind can’t yet form the fact I know—that Lyra and I are alone now. I’m a child once more myself, something has gone wrong, someone is not right and I don’t understand what has happened, and my own father is crying for the love he can’t bring back, we know now that the person we count on can’t be counted on anymore, and this is my husband William to love and to cherish who throws me to the floor, and till death do I pledge thee my troth, this stranger, this person of sin and blood and razor blade—
William moans and talks to spirits. He tells me I’m going to hell.
Lyra jumps down from her bed and runs to our door and stands there shaking, and I’m desperate to go to her but William might follow. I gaze helplessly at my child as more belief in life drains out of me. William falls down beside me, he’s still mumbling to God, and it’s getting darker and darker, and then it’s a little lighter. For hours William babbles and cries—I never look up. I sense morning after a while but I don’t want morning anymore. When I do look up, Lyra is standing in the doorway—she’ll paint doorways and windows forever—and I know she wants her mother to come to her right now—please God, let me go to her—and she cries out but I barely hear her as William begins screaming again—
And on the night goes.
While William shouts and moans, the stark white moon slips into the room. The solstice is coming early for us, this moment when time changes from one direction to another, this moment which marks both the beginning and the end.
It’s the next day, Saturday, and there’s still blood on his pajamas, still blood on my dress, but it’s afternoon and he’s back in the house after hitting the dogwood tree with the car. Blood is seeping out from beneath the bandage on his wrist but he won’t let me look at it. He’s been rummaging through household objects, or he’ll begin a project—“I think I’ll fix that leaky faucet”—only to abandon it twenty minutes later and take up another. He’s painted a kitchen cabinet on the inside only. Often he just disappears. I’ll find him on the porch steps—still in his pajamas, crying. Talking to himself. I drag him inside—
It’s night now, it’s always nicer in a hospital at night. With no eyes to see, my reality is what I hear. It’s reassuring when the night nurse comes by to check on me, she has a soothing voice and always whispers, Hope you feel better soon, dear.
I doubt I will.
During those terrifying days, I realize now, there wasn’t as much blood as I thought there was. But while it was happening it felt like a gory spectacle.
I think it was around noon that Saturday when I tried to phone a doctor and William jerked the phone away, said if I tried to use it again he’d cut the line. He took all the pots out of the kitchen cabinets, said the stove wasn’t safe to use and unplugged it, said he did not trust Mrs. Moazen and that I was forbidden to talk to her again. He walked through the house several times as though giving a tour to someone, and then dashed out the front door and flailed down the street. I tore out of the house and chased him, crying, “William, William, please come back.”
I’m sure Rosa watched from her front window, even the Fahertys on the corner undoubtedly saw William run by in his pajamas. Mrs. Flo, who delivered flour and milk to an invalid on Lincoln Street every Saturday, saw me running after him. Finally he went back in the house. Before I followed him, I noticed you and Johnny in his front yard, where I’d sent you earlier, both of you staring at our house.
That afternoon William raised his right hand into the air and held it there for four hours, staring at the ceiling, not uttering a word no matter how much I tried to get him to talk. A fixed stare, vacancy, as though in a waking coma. When he finally lowers his arm, he still doesn’t move from the bed. I smell urine. He hasn’t spoken in seven hours. I leave a bowl of soup by his bed but he never touches it. Often he seems to be asleep, but his eyes are eerily open.
Eventually I go to Rosa’s and get you and put you to bed; you stare at your father as we walk past him into your room. I tell you that things will be better tomorrow and pull the covers up around your neck and kiss you.
“I love you, sweetheart. I know things feel—funny—right now, but it’s all going to be okay.” As I leave, I wonder how.
I close your door tightly and drag a kitchen chair into the master bedroom and sit down; I’m between William and your door. I watch your father until I finally slump over and fall asleep. My dreams are terrible: a body on a bed, and I’m wandering in the backyard in Brantley—
I awake with a start. Morning light. William slept through the night; his eyes are closed but his arm is back in the air. How can he hold it there? There’s a soft knock at the front door. I stare at the clock—seven-thirty. I stand up stiffly and smooth my dress. I look like I’ve been in an automobile wreck. At the front door I peer through the lace curtain and come eye to eye with Rosa.
Her face is less made up than usual; she’s wearing pedal pushers, a white shirt, a cardigan. Her subdued outfit takes me by surprise. If she’d wear that to PTA meetings instead of low-cut dresses, people would be friendlier to he
r.
When I crack the door open, she says, “Louise, I wondered if I could do anything for ya. I’ve had a few men problems in my time.”
Of course they all know.
“That’s very kind, thank you. My husband isn’t well, he’s sleeping, maybe a cold coming on.”
I wait for Rosa to tell me that any fool knows William has a lot more than a cold.
“Well, maybe Lyra would like to have some dinner with me and Johnny. I been wanting to test my goulash recipe, the man who gave it to me was a count or something—or maybe a no-count. I know him from back when I was a secretary. They fired me when I got divorced, I couldn’t even get a charge card in my name after that. I was secretary for this toy company that made pogo sticks. Don’t that just beat all?”
Pogo sticks? I start laughing, too loudly, hysterically.
She’s still smiling. “So I’ll give the kids some dinner?”
I hear William stirring. “Thank you, but it’s Sunday, we should get to church this morning.”
“Are you sure? Lyra’ll be fine at my house, I give you my word.”
Was William getting up? “I’m sorry but I have to see if my husband’s doing all right. Excuse me.”
I step backward, am about to close the door when Rosa steps forward. “Louise, I know when a man’s gone off his head. You should call the cops. Uta and me can take turns watching Lyra—we already talked about it, and you know it ain’t no small thing when she and I agree. You gotta look out for yourself and your little girl. Ain’t no tellin’ what he’ll do.”
There’s a crash in the bedroom. “Rosa, I have to go.”
Our back door is open when I reach the kitchen. I run down the back steps and scan the yard. Noise in the garage. Inside, William is perched on a wooden bench—he’s put on a shirt and work pants, and he’s looking down at his hands mumbling to himself. He looks so fragile—he’s misbuttoned his shirt—but when he looks up, he doesn’t seem to recognize me.
“This is your fault,” he growls. He stares at his hands again and I think he means the bandaged wrist.
“I’ll do anything for you, William. Please let me change the dressing on your wrist. I think you should see a doctor.”
His eyes are inky dark. “I know what you’ve been doing behind my back.”
Then I hear you calling me from our back steps. I step out of the garage and yell, “Lyra, go to Johnny’s house.”
You look hurt but scamper down the driveway. William is pacing in a circle in the garage, counting aloud; he reaches a hundred and stops.
I plead, “Please come in the house.”
Miraculously, he goes inside and gets in bed and closes his eyes. Soon he seems asleep. I stand in the bedroom doorway—I’ve no idea if he really is asleep. I walk to the front door. Is it safe to get Lyra? I hesitate on our porch; I don’t see you or Johnny but Rosa is walking toward me. She waves me to the sidewalk, her face determined.
“Louise, Lyra told me a little of what’s going on. You got a gun in your house?”
“I don’t know where his army pistol is, I’ve looked.”
“Well you gotta find it.”
“William wouldn’t hurt us.”
“Listen, this ain’t just about you and yourn. He could take that gun and come raving into the streets. Shoot anybody. Has he got someplace he keeps stuff from the war?” When I say no, she asks, “What does he care the most about? What’s his favorite stuff?”
I go back inside and peek into the bedroom—William is still sleeping. I tiptoe into the hallway. He had recently lined up all his books about the Civil War on the second bookcase shelf and ordered me not to touch them. Even when he attacked the bookshelves yesterday, he left that shelf alone. I pull the books off, careful not to drop them on the floor, and find a paper bag containing his service revolver.
When I go across the street and give it to Rosa to keep, she says, “You need to call somebody.”
We both hear the back door of our house slam open. William sprints down the steps. I rush back to our house. When he sees me, he runs up the stairs to the empty apartment and knocks, then runs back down, taking the stairs three at a time. I’m certain he’ll fall but he doesn’t. I call to him but he doesn’t respond. He notices the downed dogwood and stops to stare at it. Next he runs to the car and looks at the dented fender and says, “I knew that man would do that,” and crawls under the car.
Uta stands on her porch, watching; I pray that William does not see her.
He peers out from under the car as though looking for something or someone; suddenly he screams so loudly everyone on the block can probably hear him. He rolls out from under the car, his head tucked, opens the back car door and takes the bench seat out and throws it on the ground. I start toward him just as he climbs into the driver’s side and starts the engine—
Everything that happens fast happens slowly.
The roar of William starting the car, the crunch of tires on driveway gravel, William spinning the car around toward the street, it nearly hits the back stoop, comes within a hair of the outside staircase, it’s weaving wildly, going way too fast.
The scream isn’t coming from me, it’s from Uta, who’s running toward me, who seems an unlikely screamer. Then I realize that my husband—I can see his intent eyes behind the windshield—is aiming the car directly at me.
“Run, Louise, get out of the way.”
Uta keeps yelling, but no, William wouldn’t hurt me, William loves me, he’s just tired and confused—
The front of the car bears down, everything feels unreal, time is slow and objects out of focus. I hear yelling, it sounds like a child’s voice, I notice the grating sound of the taxicab engine, feel the vibrations of the ground nearby. I gaze trancelike at the front of the car, and suddenly see William’s face clearly, that’s our car, that’s William driving it—that’s my husband—he’s going to run over me.
If I keep still, this will stop, I won’t have to live through any more, I won’t have to figure out what to do, where it all went wrong, I’ll just stay right here and it’ll be easy, he’s going so fast, there’s no question, the only awful thing will be my—
The world goes to slower motion. Another sound. A child’s voice. You’re running down the driveway. Rosa is chasing you, shouting at you. You’re screaming in a high-pitched voice—
You’re running toward me.
“Lyra, no. No.”
I dive for you and we hit the ground and I shove you away just as a wheel runs over my right foot. I shriek in pain as the car roars by. William whips the car around in a circle and heads into the garage. You’re screaming and crying as I grab you and try to get up, but I fall back down, pain shooting up my leg. I try to rise again, I hear people running into the driveway. I have to get away before he comes out of the garage. I throw myself onto the injured foot and pull myself up with you in my arms and limp-run down the driveway as fast as I can.
Chapter Ten
For years, I tried to decide on the right word for the first days of your father’s breakdown. Much more than chaos or pandemonium. Bedlam? The word I favored was maelstrom: a violent whirlpool of strange sights and sounds and events. A tornado whipped through our house and sent everything flying—lightning hitting us a second time. I was in shock through much of it; for the first time I understood, at least partially, what shell shock had done to William. What it feels like to go frozen and numb internally, even as you must outwardly, and relentlessly, confront and deal with what is terrifying you. It’s a nightmare you do not wake up from.
You cannot realize how unprepared I was for what happened during those days. The 1950s exalted being ordinary, normal, coloring within the lines; it was a cruel, unforgiving time for those of the “wrong” color, income, or chemistry. Imagine for a moment this prehistoric era: only primitive psychiatric drugs
and no one admitting to taking those, no books on mental disorders in every bookstore, no talk about depression on television. My college curriculum included a class in “Moral Ethics” but nothing vaguely resembling the “Abnormal Psych” of yours. As was typical, I thought most patients in mental hospitals had schizophrenia, the diagnosis given virtually every patient then, which meant you were deranged beyond repair. I had no idea that in places like New York and Boston—remember, there was no real “media” then—poets and artists with mental illness were well-respected. Most people I knew believed that a “nervous breakdown” resulted from over-exertion, that the sufferer simply needed rest. Isn’t that what doctors told Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Gilmore Perkins? I didn’t know that the euphemism “nervous breakdown” was created when psychiatrists realized madness was, as they put it, a genetic defect. Exactly who was going to admit to a family of defectives? Instead, we had a benign word for what isn’t benign at all.
Mental illness has always been tricky business in the South—some would say because we have a lot of it. The South has always specialized in eccentrics, harmless oddballs on street corners waving Bibles. Flannery O’Connor made being “turned funny” into legend: oddballs, then and now, provide regional character. Can’t this heat make anyone a little strange? Remember the woman in Brantley who gave away all the trash cans in her house and removed the doorknobs? But local color wasn’t always amusing. An eccentric who truly misbehaved—that was something else. No one could say what separated harmless idiosyncrasy from the madman’s evil, but everyone knew when they saw it. Those who vaulted, usually not at their choosing, over that barrier were hidden in back bedrooms, sometimes tied to a four-poster, or remanded to jails and asylums when relatives couldn’t cope. You’ve no idea the extent to which I and everyone around me had been taught that the mentally ill were other people, another race—primitive, violent, dirty, and dangerous.
And now—my husband, your father.
Against the Ruins Page 15
