Cloud Nine (19 page)

I backed him to the hall, with her walking beside me, whispering wonderful things, about how proud we could be of each other, for what we’d done together, and I guess I whispered back—it looks as though I must have. Then all of a sudden she said, out loud so he could hear her: “Gramie, give me the gun and I’ll hold it—then you beat him up, like you did that other time, except now you really beat him up, so his face is just a jelly, and he stays that way for a while.
That’ll
settle his hash, so we see the end of him!”

“Sonya, will you call the police?”

“The police?
The police?”

“Of course—eight-six-four, seven thousand!”

“But suppose he talks? Suppose it’s a mess?”

“If he talks, he’ll be putting himself behind bars, which is just where I want to see him. ... It’s what your father wanted to do! For once we could do the right thing, and listen to him!”

“My father wanted to kill him.”

“Oh that’ll be a help, if a mess is what we want!”

I waited, but instead of calling, she began blowing out the candles, which were pretty well burned down, but still lit, on the cake. She blew out two or three, and on the next puff got two or three more. But I jerked her back to the phone, said:
“Sonya! Will you—for God’s sake—call?”

At last, she left off with the candles and started to dial. We were standing there, all three of us, so close you could have covered us with an umbrella—she at the edge of the table, having pushed the chair to one side; he sat at the table too, within a few inches of her; I in front of him, the gun pressed to his gut. I didn’t see him move. I must have been looking at her, so I’d taken me eye off him. And I didn’t see the flame—at least, at first I didn’t. What I saw was her mouth, as it opened when she screamed. Then I heard her hair kind of crackle as it caught fire. Then at last I saw the flame, where she was smacking it out, or trying to smack it out, with her hand, on her bottom. I grabbed her, lifted, and flung her to the floor, to get her horizontal, so I could smack out the fire with my hand, which I did. Then I smacked at the cake, on the table, to put out the candles, at last. Then I held her close, kissing her, and whispering: “I had to—it’s how you do, when somebody catches on fire, it’s the only way!”

She was moaning in pain, but nodded. All that took, I suppose, three seconds, but it seemed more like a year, and I give you one guess, when I looked, who was holding the gun. He was completely unexcited, as calm as a wooden Indian, but seemed to be waiting for something. Pretty soon, in a minute or so, here it came: the ring of the phone. He told her: “Answer it, Sonya. And see that you talk right!”

“Answer it: How can I talk? I’m hurt! I’m burned!”

“I said answer it. Now!”

I started to argue with him, to curse at him, to bawl him out, but she said: “No, Gramie, no—or he’ll kill us.”

She scrambled to her feet, me helping her, while the phone bell went right on. Then she answered, in a chirpy, conversational way, kind of teary, but not much: “Hello? ... Oh. Mrs. Persoff—I’m sorry I took so long, but I was out in the kitchen... Yes, I did scream, I certainly did—after doing the stupidest thing! It’s Mr. Kirby’s birthday, and I got him a cake, with candles. I was just blowing them out, when I stepped too close and my sleeve caught. ... No, it’s not bad, but I could have burned myself, I could really have done myself in. ... Oh, no thank you, Mrs. Persoff, Mr. Kirby is fixing me up—I’m not dressed, and you’d just be complicating things for me. But thank you ever so much.”

She hung up. He said: “I told you, take it off.”

“Take what off?”

“The dress! Whatever you’ve got!”

“How can I? It’s stuck to me, where you set me on fire, like a rat! Listen, I need a doctor! I can’t—”

“Take it off!”

She took it off, loosening the places that were stuck, two patches on her hip, and lifting it over her head. She was stark naked except for the shoes, and livid red blotches showed, on her shoulder, hip, and neck. All around the place on her neck was a mass of singed black hair. He said: “Get in that closet.”

She stepped in the hall closet, the one I had for guests’ coats and hats. He closed the door and turned the key in the lock. To me he said, “Face the wall.”

I faced the wall.

“Put your hands flat against it.”

I put my hands flat against it.

Something crashed on my head.

I didn’t come to all at once, only little by little. First I felt pain, a jolting pain in my back, as though something was hitting me. I tried to fend it off, but couldn’t move my hand. Then I realized it was tied, that both my hands were tied behind my back. I didn’t know with what, but it turned out later it was with kitchen towels, knotted hard and wetted, to set the cloth. Then, as I tried to move, I found my feet were tied, too. The jolts to my back kept on, and suddenly I heard her scream: “Stop it! Stop it, I tell you! You stop kicking him, do you hear me?”

“I kick him where he kicked me.”

“You could kill him, doing that!”

“Oh wouldn’t that be awful!”

That went on for some time, a couple of years, so it seemed, with me flopping around, straining to pull loose. Then my shoulder was jerked to flop me on my back instead of my stomach. When at last I opened my eyes, the two of them were there, she naked as before, the red blotches bigger it seemed, and he naked too, except for underpants. He had her by the wrist, yanking her around, and the sight of it made me furious, but I couldn’t get loose to stop it. They wrestled around, she trying to break away, he trying to make her hold still, and each stomp of their feet shook the floor, so I felt it in my head, which wanted to split. I realized pretty soon that he didn’t have the gun, that he’d put it on a chair, and that that was what she was doing, trying to pull clear and get to it. But he flung her clear and picked it up. “Now,” he snarled. “Quit fooling around, get on the floor.”

“I will in a pig’s eye.”

He corrected her, with words I don’t put in, and she agreed, repeating them back at him, and twisting them around, so they applied to him. She turned and went to the side table, and he asked: “What are you doing there?”

“Getting a napkin, stupid. “Maybe I have to get raped, but let’s not mess up my rug. It’s a beautiful thing, and Gramie takes pride in his house.”

“Goddam it, okay.”

She faced him again, the napkin over one arm, and he beckoned her to him. He said: “I told you, get on the floor.”

“And I told you, I won’t.”

Then, in a saucy, come-get-me way, she sashayed up to him. But to grab her he had to put down the gun, which he did, once more, in the chair. She said: “You poor cripple, you had to have help before, two people to hold me for you, do you think you can rape me now, with no one to help you at all? Oh boy, is that a joke.”

It seemed funny, after saying that, that she didn’t duck to make him catch her. However, she didn’t. She just stood there, smiling to show her teeth, and then came marching to him, both her hands held out, the napkin flapping in one. He grabbed at her, and she slapped with her free hand, fired one right at his face. He grabbed it with both hands. Then began a waltz that made no sense, with him staggering around, his hands gripping his side, and her staggering with him, beating with her fist at something inside the napkin. It went on a long time, or what seemed a long time to me, with each lurch and jerk and stomp shaking the floor under my head. But then, just for a glimpse I saw red under the napkin, but not the red of blood. It was the red of the ice-pick butt, and I knew then what she had done—chocked that ice pick into him, that she’d got when she got the napkin, and hidden inside its folds when she turned away from the table. She was hammering the butt into him, while he fought to pull it out. Then suddenly he gasped, went straight up in the air, and came down in a heap on the floor.

My head almost split, and red flame shot in front of my eyes.

N
EXT, I DIDN’T KNOW
where I was, or when it was, or who I was, or anything, except that I was awake, and was somewhere. When I opened my eyes I seemed to be in a bed, though in what bed I had no idea, as it looked quite strange to me. Then I caught sight of a tube that ran down to my arm from a bottle up above me somewhere. Then, in a chair a few feet away, I could see Sonya, in a blue gingham dress looking very sloppy, the upper part unbuttoned, head twisted around and her mouth open. If I made some noise I don’t know, but suddenly her eyes opened and she looked at me, apparently in surprise. Then she got up and came over, staring down at me. Then she started to cry and picked up my hand, kissing it over and over. Then she knelt beside me, putting her face in the covers and starting to whisper, I thought in prayer.

And not to string it out, what she was praying about, she was offering thanks to God, that at last I’d come to, that I
could
look at her and know her. Because I’d been in a coma for days, from that crack on the head Burl gave me with the butt of his gun, so nobody really knew, not even the doctors, if I’d come out of it or not. When I did was when she cracked up, and took it out praying. Except for that, the whispering she did to God, I don’t remember anything said.

Next thing I knew it was night, with a dim light somewhere, and Sonya still there, though not in a different dress. But also with her was Mother, in a black instead of her usual red, holding her hand. Pretty soon her eye caught mine and she waved, twinkling her fingers at me. I twinkled my fingers back. It seemed to startle Sonya, and she gripped Mother’s arm. “Hey!” I said. “That’s my mother—can’t I wave at her?”

“Honey,” she whispered, coming close to the bed. “Of course you can wave at her—that you
can
wave’s the wonderful part—no one was sure that you would, never. That you wouldn’t be paralyzed.”

“Yes, Gramie, I’m shook,” said Mother.

“Then I’ll make it unanimous.”

I laughed, but then suddenly sobs were shaking me, and Mother said: “He’s weak, that’s all. Gramie, take it easy, don’t try to talk.”

“It’s not weakness, it’s
her.”
I pointed at Sonya. “She got burned, where that rat set her on fire. What about that?” I asked her.

“Second degree, is all. I’m blistered but won’t be scarred.” Then she lifted a ribbon she had on her hair, to show me her neck, which was red with white blisters on it, and then hiked up her dress, to show me her bottom, which was also blistered. I said: “It’s still the prettiest backside that ever was on this earth.”

“They don’t bandage a burn inny more,” said Sonya. “They leave it so the air can get in. They put stuff on it, though.”

Then it was morning, and a nurse was there, a girl in green uniform, with a glass of orange juice. “What?” I said. “No eggs? No bacon? No toast? What is this, Starvation Hall?”

“You think you can eat all that?”

“Try me.”

She went back, then came in with a full tray, and I started wolfing it down. An intern came in and watched me. Then: “I don’t see any need for more intravenous feeding,” he said. “I think he can do without
this.”
He pulled a glass pin from my arm, that the tube was connected to, and took the bottle down. About that time Sonya came in, saw the tube in his hand, and the breakfast tray. Right away she started to cry.

Then the girl washed me and bathed me and changed me, and I was alone once more with Sonya, but for the first time I was myself and not just talking along but not knowing right from left. I asked: “Honey, where am I?”

“Prince Georges General.”

“And how long have I been here?”

“Six days.”

“...Six days?”

“Gramie, the longest days of my life—they didn’t have inny end, because none of these doctors knew if you were going to live. Once you did die—your heart stopped, right there on the bed, and hadn’t been for that doctor, the one who took your tube, you’d have been carried out feet first. I saw your jaw drop and called him, and he massaged your chest. I thought he’d rub all the skin off, but at last your face twitched, and you breathed. That was after they operated—you’ve been trepanned and I don’t know what-all, they took five ounces of blood off your brain. It was an awful thing that Burl did to you, banging you with the gun.”

“Oh yeah. What happened to him?”

“Got cremated, was all.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“I mean I killed him.”

“You had the ice pick under that napkin?”

“I did, and I stuck him with it, but only got it half in. I was beating on it, to hammer it the rest of the way, and he was battling me, trying to pull it out. I won, though. The autopsy showed it entered his heart. And your mother, she ordered the cremation job, ashes to be scattered, ‘so no trace of him remains on the face of this earth,’ as she said.”

“He’s no loss.”

“You can say that again.”

We spent the morning checking things back, so I got kind of caught up—beginning with the wire, that came to where she was staying, at the Truckee Motel in Reno, that Burl got the address of by pretending to be the Post Office, calling her mother to ask. “Like I said,” she explained, “left me all jittered and shook, but instantly, when I saw him dead on the floor, I knew we’d made our fresh start, so don’t worry about that
inny
more.”

I said I wouldn’t, and she told how she called the police, “knowing the number, thanks to you.” She said I was still tied when they got there, “as I couldn’t loosen the knots in the towels he’d tied you up with, on account of how he had wet them.” It seemed she’d been held, a few minutes, till they checked her story out, but then they hustled her off to the hospital, in the same ambulance they called for me.

But in the middle of her telling about it, the door opened and there were the Langs, both on their lunch hour. And Mr. Lang you would hardly have known. From the meek, hangdog guy of the last few weeks, he was completely different, with his shoulders thrown back, his head up, and a smiling look in his eye.

“Well, well, well!” he burst out, after shaking hands with me. “I guess we found out, didn’t we? Whose number was up? Who was on that hook? I’m so proud of her I could dance the Sailor’s Hornpipe.”