Golden States

by Michael Cunningham

  “Yes you are,” he told her.

  “Sitting out here like a refugee. It’s a good thing I brought my cigarettes. You must never start smoking, David, because if you do it will ruin most of your best exits. Half the time you’ve left your cigarettes behind, and you’ve got to go back for them”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Don’t mind my blithering. It’s nerves, is all.”

  “Uh-huhDavid said.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest and dug at a kneecap with her thumbnail. “I’m just afraid I’m going to lose my mind again, is all. I’m making it my spring project not to lose my mind.”

  “Are you still worried about Ray?” David asked.

  “Well, I’d damn well better get over it if I am. It’s been fourteen years. And three psychiatrists. You don’t have bad dreams anymore, do you?”

  “No,” David said. Back when he first heard the story of Ray getting hit by the van, he’d had dreams so strange Mom and Dad took him to a doctor, a woman with her hair pulled back in a thick gray braid. He didn’t remember much about the doctor. He did remember that her office was in a children’s hospital, where he saw kids no older than he being wheeled down the hallways on carts. He had worried ever since about getting sick.

  “Good,” Janet said. “You shouldn’t even know about a thing like that. It isn’t fair, a kid your age.”

  This turn in the conversation made him uncomfortable. He didn’t like people talking about taking his knowledge away.

  “Look up there,” he said, to change the subject. “There’s the Great Waldo.”

  This was an old game. They made up constellations because they didn’t know the real ones. “Where?” Janet said. “See that bright, bright star over there?”

  “Which one?”

  “Over there.” He pointed, squinting one eye and laying his finger on the star.

  “Okay. I think I know the one you mean.”

  “That’s the tip of his hat.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Then his body kind of curves around.”

  “To the left. I see it.”

  “No. To the right.”

  “To the right? There’s a tree in the way.”

  “Are you sure you’re looking at the right star? His hat isn’t by the tree.”

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m not. I’m going to smoke a joint, do you mind?”

  “No.”

  She took a joint from her shirt pocket and lit a match. Her face in the match glare was like an old photo in an album, and he could imagine himself as an elderly man, looking at Janet’s picture and saying, “Wasn’t she beautiful?”

  “Mom could see us from the kitchen,” he said.

  “She’d just think it’s a cigarette.”

  He could smell the sweet smoke and see the pale gray thickness of it, drifting over her head. “Can I have a hit?” he said.

  “Do you smoke dope?” Her voice was pinched, from holding the smoke in her lungs.

  “Yes,” David said.

  She exhaled, a languid plume. “Since when?” she said. “Since the middle of fifth grade,” he said. It was not quite true. He and Billy had found a couple of joints in Billy’s brother’s drawer, along with a bone-handled knife and a roll of money. They’d thought about smoking one, but Billy said that Carl, his brother, would probably kill them. Carl had a half dozen uncured snakeskins tacked to the wall over his bed. They had left the joints in the drawer.

  “Is that right?” Janet said. “Damn. They get younger and younger. In fifth grade, I was still playing Barbies.”

  “When did you smoke for the first time?”

  “Let me think. High school. Tenth grade.”

  “I remember you in high school,” he said.

  “You were pretty little then.”

  “You were in the science club.”

  “Well, I pretended to be. The truth is, I was sneaking off to smoke dope with Margie and Luanne.”

  “What happened to Margie and Luanne?”

  “Well, they got married. They sort of faded away.”

  “Oh. Can I have a hit now?” David said.

  “Sure. Is Mother standing at the window?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Here.” She passed him the joint. He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, as he’d seen her do, put it to his lips, and sucked in the smoke, which filled his mouth. He swallowed it, automatically, and coughed it back up. His eyes burned. The smoke hovered for a moment in a rough crescent, and vanished.

  “Strong stuff,” he said.

  “Try another hit,” she said. “Pull it straight into your lungs, don’t hold it in your mouth.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay.”

  He tried again, drawing the smoke in like oxygen. It seared his lungs but he held it, then let it go in a whoosh.

  “Good boy,” Janet said. He handed it back, and she took a long, deep drag. The tip glowed, firing its finger of white ash. “Hey look,” Janet said. “There’s Homunculus the Crow.” “Where?”

  “See that big star by the TV antenna?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the tip of his beak ”

  “Okay. And there’s his eye.”

  “No, he doesn’t have an eye.”

  “Yes he does.”

  “Where are you looking?”

  “Right over there. Straight up from the chimney.”

  “Oh, that’s not his head at all. His head isn’t half that big.” “Can I have another hit?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where’s his body, then?”

  “See those two stars over the Munsons’ roof?”

  “No.”

  “A little one and a much brighter one.”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s the spat on his left foot.”

  David, who had no idea what a spat was, said, “Oh yeah, I see,” and gave her back the joint.

  “Are you getting stoned?” Janet asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, though he wasn’t sure. A tightness had crept up into his head, and he thought that when he looked straight ahead at the house it loomed big as an ocean liner, its windowsblazing. It was hard to tell, when he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

  “It’s subtle,” Janet said. “This particular stuff, it just sort of creeps up on you. It makes things funny and a little remote, like you’re watching your life from a safe distance.”

  “I think I feel that,” David said.

  They sat for a while, looking for constellations. David thought he heard it again, the sound that was no sound, the flutter of the moth’s wings.

  “Are you thinking about me right now?” he asked.

  “Mm-hm,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I must be stoned.”

  “It’s not like what you expect it to be.”

  “Janet?” he said.

  “What?”

  He couldn’t think what he had to tell her. It had to do with his own actual size, which was bigger than his body. She was safe with him.

  “Never mind,” he said.

  “No, what? Wait a minute, is that Lizzie there?”

  “Where?”

  “Right there at the back door.”

  “Is the joint out?” David asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Go back inside, Lizzie,” he called.

  “No,” Lizzie said. She stood in the doorway for a moment, then walked onto the grass. Her blue nightgown shone, as if she were bringing the light of the house outside with her. “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Watching the stars,” Janet told her.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” David said.

  Lizzie positioned herself between their two chairs, spine erect, hands clasped over her belly. The pool was bright behind her. She still couldn’t swim; she refused to learn. Whenever

  Mom tried to teach her she would pull herself out the first time she got a nose full of water and sta
nd red-faced on the coping, screaming about how she’d never wanted to learn in the first place. If Dad were still around he’d have picked her up and thrown her back in. That was probably why Mom never did. Although it was ridiculous for Lizzie to live in danger of drowning in her own backyard, David had a grudging respect for her determination not to know anything she didn’t want to know.

  “Mom is all alone in the house,” Lizzie said, as if the idea was funny.

  “Yes she is,” Janet said. “She’s going to think her children have all run away.”

  “I am going to run away,” Lizzie said.

  “And go where?” David said.

  “Nowhere.”

  “The next time it rains, you’re going to get washed away,” he said.

  “Shut up, you asshole.” She was afraid of floods too.

  “Hey look, you two,” Janet said. “There’s the Fat Lady of Fargo.”

  “Where?” Lizzie said.

  “Right there. Right up over our heads.”

  “1 see her,” David said.

  “I see her too,” Lizzie said.

  “You do not.”

  “I do. Those three stars over there are her crown.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Janet said. “How did you know she had a crown?”

  “I can see, ” Lizzie said.

  They all kept quiet for a while, watching the sky. David could not see anything but the usual pinwheels, belts, triangles. “I see her too,” he said.

  “She’s great big,” Lizzie said. “Her head is way over by the Munsons’ roof.”

  “Yes it is,” Janet said.

  “Right,” David said. “She’s huge.”

  “And she doesn’t have anything on,” Lizzie giggled.

  “No she doesn’t” Janet said. “This is really amazing, Lizzie.” “My feet are cold,” Lizzie said.

  “Well, I guess we’d better get back inside,” Janet said.

  “Not yet,” David said. “Look, the lady has flowers in her hand”

  Janet and Lizzie glanced at one another. “What’s nine times seven?” Lizzie asked.

  David put his fingers in his ears. “Don’t do that,” he said, and his voice sounded to him as if he was speaking from a cave. Janet said something, and he unstopped his ears. “What?” he asked her.

  “My feet are cold,” Lizzie said.

  “Then go inside. What did you say, Janet?”

  “Let’s all go in,” Janet said.

  “That’s not what you said.”

  “Men,” Janet said to Lizzie, in a lofty, lecturer’s tone, “always want the facts.”

  “That’s not true,” David said.

  Janet patted his knee. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get the lizard inside before she freezes to death.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Lizzie said. She had begun hopping on one foot, and shivering.

  “Go on,” David said. “I’m going to sit here a little longer.” He hoped Janet would send Lizzie in alone, but she got up and slipped her arm around Lizzie’s skinny shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “See you inside.”

  “See you,” David said.

  Lizzie tucked her hand under Janet’s belt, glanced over her shoulder, smiled knowingly, and said, “Sixty-three ”

  James Watt, the secretary of the interior, said we might as well use things up because Jesus was coming anyway, and it would be a shame to leave a lot behind. He was on the six o’clock news, talking from inside his large, immobile head.

  Janet laughed, and sputtered cigarette smoke. She, Mom, and Lizzie sat in a row on the sofa, and David lay on the floor, with Watt’s pink-orange face flickering on the screen before them.

  “That’s the best one yet,” Janet said. “I still can’t believe these men are in power. I keep thinking it’ll turn out to be a joke.”

  “What assholes,” Lizzie said.

  “Lizzie,” Mom said, “I don’t know where you picked up this asshole business, but I think you’d better quit it.”

  “Yeah, Lizzie,” David said. “You talk like a hooker.”

  “You look like a used Band-Aid,” she told him.

  “Enough,” Mom said.

  David turned back to the television. This morning, he had gone over to Billy’s house to see if Billy was all right. Billy’shouse wasn’t in the tract; it and half a dozen others sat in an isthmus of old lemon trees, with the tract on three sides. The air there was dim and sweet from the trees. Billy’s house had a porch on which old, matted-looking easy chairs were lined up. Billy had been sitting on one of the chairs when David came up. Before they had a chance to speak Billy stood, raised his imaginary rifle, and shot David, again and again, notching the air with the hiss of his bullets. David had stood for a while, getting shot, then turned indignantly around and come back home.

  On television, Watt finished talking. The camera switched over to Weinberger, who was talking to reporters about nuclear capability. He said too many of our bombs were planted in farmland, where the enemy could dig them out. He said we needed a more efficient system.

  “The king of the assholes,” Janet said.

  “Please don’t encourage Cattle Annie here,” Mom said. “Jeez, how do these men get into office?”

  “Elected by the public,” Janet said. “Who did you vote for?”

  “You know who I voted for. I just didn’t think they’d be so ... I don’t know. At least Reagan’s not as bad as Nixon.”

  “Nixon was the worst,” David said. He thought he remembered Nixon, from years ago, when everything was as bad as it could be. Whenever he saw a picture of Nixon it gave him a nervous thrill, the same way pictures of Charlie Manson and Hitler did.

  “Maybe we should think about moving to Switzerland,” Janet said.

  “I don’t know about you,” Mom said, “but I’m too old to learn Swiss.”

  “When I get older, I’m going to move to London,” Lizzie said.

  “They’ll nuke London right off,” David told her. “They’ll just polish it off with a couple of extra bombs on their way to America.”

  “No they won’t,” Lizzie said. “They’ll only nuke America and China and Russia.”

  “That’s enough, both of you,” Mom said.

  “They won’t nuke London, will they?” Lizzie asked.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. No. The men in government don’t want bombs any more than we do, I don’t think.” “There’s no point in lying, Mother,” Janet said.

  “They’re going to nuke everybody,” David said to Lizzie. “There’s going to be nothing left.”

  “Shut up, you asshole,” Lizzie said. She laid her head in Mom’s lap. After a moment’s hesitation she let the tip of her thumb creep into her mouth.

  “Lizzie, I want you to clean up your act,” Mom said, stroking her wiry red hair. “I’m serious.”

  “It must be hard to be ten in an age like this,” Janet said. “It’s no picnic being forty-eight, either,” Mom told her, smoothing and smoothing Lizzie’s hair.

  “Well, what can you do about it?” Janet said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. What can you do about anything?”

  A few minutes later, the telephone rang.

  “I think it’s for me,” Janet said. “I’m going to take it upstairs, all right?”

  “If you want,” Mom said.

  Janet left the room. David heard the whisk of her feet on the carpeted stairs, and then the phone stopped ringing. He could hear the tone of her voice but couldn’t distinguish the words.

  He got up and sat on the sofa, on Mom’s other side. He was worried that no one had contradicted him very sharply about nuking everybody, about there being nothing left. “Do you think Janet is scared of Rob?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” Mom said. “Well, if she is, she’ll get over it. That’s what she’s here for.”

  “I know,” David said. Lizzie’s head rose and fell slightly with Mom’s breathing. On television, the news moved throughweather and sports to the funny parts. An old w
oman in Florida showed the camera a ring of burned grass in her backyard, and said it marked the spot where a flying saucer had landed the night before.

  “I was just doing up the dishes,” she said in a strong, nasal voice, “and there it was.” She wore glasses that came to points.

  “It sort of glowed,” she said, “and it was just hanging out there, don’t you know, with the lights going on and off. It was, well, beautiful, and I knew I ought to call Ed, that’s my husband, but I just stood there watching it and I felt very, well, relaxed and happy. It was so peculiar. I thought, It can see me, don’t you know, but I wasn’t at all afraid. I felt wonderful. Then I opened my mouth to call Ed and whoosh, it was gone.”

  After everyone had gone to sleep David lay in bed, listening to the nocturnal sounds of the house. Darkness seemed to be the house’s natural state. Lamplight hung in the rooms like smoke, resisting the corners, and when the last light was out the house relaxed into itself, the pipes grumbling.

  In the hills, close by, coyotes yipped and howled. The rain had not driven them back. Now that they knew how much easy food could be had in the neighborhoods, they were not about to stay in the hills hunting rabbits.

  It wasn’t long before David heard Janet’s door opening. He knew suddenly that the sound of her door was what he’d been expecting, though he hadn’t known until he heard it. Janet walked along the hall, past his door. She went softly down the stairs, knowing to step over the fifth tread, which squeaked.

  He let some time go by, then got out of bed. He took off his pajama jacket, changed his mind, and put it back on again. Before leaving his room he checked himself in the mirror. He couldn’t make out his face clearly in the dark, but could tell that his hair wasn’t sticking up at any peculiar angles.

  The darkness in the stairwell was deeper and more velvetythan that of the hall, a dark within the dark. He walked downstairs, stepping over the fifth tread..At the bottom he paused to listen. Janet was so silent he thought she must be hiding, holding her breath. He strained into the still air, eyes wide, as if better vision would improve his hearing. His senses radiated out from him like needles of light, and it seemed that if any one was sharpened they would all grow stronger. Dining room, he decided.