Further Out Than You Thought (20 page)

She thought of another sunrise, just after she'd graduated from high school. She'd walked home from her girlfriend's house through the still neighborhood of her youth, past the dark, dreaming houses. She wore a black dress and walked in her bare feet, holding her shoes, as she did now. At home, she'd stood in the door of her father's bedroom, the room that had been
theirs,
his and her mother's, and she'd watched him sleep. Gwen had grown, changed into someone else without his noticing. She had wondered how he could sleep when she was so awake. Her mother would have noticed. She would have sensed her restlessness, her newfound vibrancy. And Gwen, standing on that threshold, felt her mother's absence carve itself like a canyon through her, a passage made of water and time. She had closed the door on her sleeping father and gone out to the swimming pool where she took off her dress and dove naked into the cold water. Holding her breath from one end of the pool to the other, she knew then that her childhood was over.

She wished she could get in a pool now, could spread her arms and kick and fly through the water—sleek and free and on to a new chapter. “Mexico,” she said, because the word itself was a warm embarkation, a flight of the mind.

“
O meu Deus!
Yes.” Valiant sighed. “Darling, take me away from this monstrous city. Save me.”

They crossed Sixth Street, disregarding the constant red light. Still no cars, but the sky was a pale blue-white, like the film on a blind eye.

The curfew was lifted. Morning had come at last.

She stepped onto the flower bed, the soil cool and soft under her feet, and boosted Valiant through her open bedroom window. He tumbled into the bedroom. “Ow!” he cried, and Fifi trotted in, barking her high-pitched alarm of a bark. Gwen followed him through their apartment. He was moaning, dragging his shoulder along the wall, disrupting the hall of fame. In his wake, their framed photos clattered to the floor. Gwen picked hers up. The glass was cracked, and she took out the photo, glad to have it off the wall.

Still on the sofa, Leo rubbed open his eyes. “What the hell happened to you?” he said, looking at them both.

“We nearly died,” the Count said. The gash on his chin, Gwen saw now, was open and bleeding. He collapsed onto the sofa as Leo moved his legs. “We nearly died and you, what did you do? Savior of the whole goddamn city? You slept. Hope you had fan-fucking-tastic dreams while we had guns pointed at our goddamn foreheads.”

Disregarding his drunken tirade, Leo got up and put a pillow under the Count's head. His flag was right there on the coffee table and he didn't hesitate. He brought it to the Count's chin, used it like a handkerchief to wipe the blood. “Hold it there,” he said, pressing the Count's hand to the fabric.

“Leo,” said Gwen. “Your flag.” Or was it her flag? She'd been the one to fashion it, to thrust it into his hands.

“Good use for a white flag, don't you think?” he said.

“So you're not marching?”

Leo was in the bathroom, the water was running. “There's time. There's more fabric,” he said, coming out with a wet washcloth in his hand.

He knelt beside Valiant. With the washcloth he cleaned off the dried blood. He seemed to be careful, folding the washcloth so the blood didn't touch his hand. But what if it did? And what if he had a small cut on his finger? It was hard for her to watch. She turned, hating herself for thinking this way, for not being more generous, more brave.

Now Leo's open hands hovered over Valiant's chin. Leo had his eyes closed and was moving his hands back and forth in a slow, waving motion, as though he were performing a magic trick. Voilà, she half expected him to say, pulling a rose from Valiant's mouth.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Shhhh. I'm healing his chin.”

“Oh. Well, I'm going to his apartment. Valiant, you need anything?”

“Handcuffs,” Valiant said.

“I'm sorry.” Leo's hands fell to his side. “Handcuffs?”

“Love,” said Valiant, gazing up at Leo, “means never having to say you're sorry.”

“I'll be back,” she said, and laughed. It was an easy laugh, deep and true. It had been so long she hardly recognized the sound.

In Valiant's bedroom, the outfit he'd worn on the roof when the city was burning was in a heap on the floor. She grabbed the clothes with their reek of stale smoke and his pair of worn black cowboy boots.

She took his camera from the kitchen table. Half the roll was left. She slung it over her shoulder. In the living room, she took the handcuffs from the windowsill. Behind the buildings, the haze was brightening. She blew out the candles—Saint Sebastian and his semicircle of clones—and stood before the Virgin, her face aglow. Gwen closed her eyes and wished—though not for any
thing.
She wanted to glow the way the Virgin glowed, as though she housed a flame, a single, slender tongue of a flame, with its numinous blue window into another world. She opened her eyes and with a small breath blew her out.

On her way to the door she turned. There was something about the room. Something odd. The center canvas of Valiant's triptych—the image of his cock in black paint—was missing from the wall. She saw it then, in the corner, on the floor. The canvas had been stabbed to shreds and the boards that had stretched it were broken. He'd had an even harder night than she'd thought.

She ran back down the stairs. She was racing the sun. It was called daybreak for a reason. They were getting out; they were leaving. The riots could go on without them.

Inside her apartment, Valiant lay on the sofa, groaning, the flag still pressed to his chin. She handed him the clothes, and told him to put them on.

The teakettle whistled. Leo was making his morning English breakfast tea. Ever since he'd started dressing as a revolutionary he preferred tea to coffee. It makes no sense, she'd told him one morning. The revolutionaries threw the tea in the harbor. Exactly, he'd said. But I have to really miss it when I give it up. Otherwise, what kind of revolutionary would I be?

She wanted coffee. It was time for this revolution to progress, full speed ahead. Before she tied Leo up, she'd make a quick espresso. She brought the handcuffs into the bedroom. She'd have to rely on herself to pull this off, now that the Count was indisposed. She'd bring them out when all was ready.

She threw off her robe and fastened a bra, which was tight, the lace just covering her nipples. And the plain white T-shirt—she realized when she stared at herself in the mirror—had never looked quite so much like, well, an invitation. Was it possible to grow a whole size in one night? Or had the ballooning been gradual, something she had chosen not to see?

She knew her body was making a body, knew she wasn't just getting fat. But she cringed at the sight of herself. And it was her father's voice she heard. Her father's stiff, omniscient commentary. She'd been all of twelve, settling in beside him on the sofa one Saturday night to watch
The Love Boat,
a plate of s'mores on her lap. Before she could bite into one of the gooey, sweet graham cracker sandwiches, he'd said, his eyes still on the TV, “Eat it now, honey. Enjoy every bite. In another year, you eat something like that and wham, it'll turn straight to fat.” He paused as if for effect. “And I can't imagine you fat,” he'd said, patting her thigh to reassure her.

He had no idea she'd take that bit of advice and run with it. That she'd live on a hard-boiled egg and a cracker a day. No idea that she'd take it as a challenge. She could watch what she ate all right, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Another three years and he was spoon-feeding her ice cream on that same sofa. Her favorite—rocky road. At first she refused, and then, she swallowed. And this was the gateway to a whole new obsession. She'd polish off cartons—mint chip, butter pecan, black cherry—and then she'd barf them down the drain. He couldn't understand it. The ice cream vanished, the cookies, the chocolate. Anything sweet. She'd hated herself for it. And she'd put on weight in spite of the purging. Enough so that he'd stopped worrying, stopped noticing her altogether.

Since she'd started stripping his only comments had been compliments. “Wow, honey,” he'd said when she swam in the heated pool at Christmas in her bikini. “You look like a million bucks.” Had he known the cause of her body's full, taut shape, the cause of the new acceptance she'd gained for her own curves, she knew he'd have had other things to say. She could hear him now. Why hadn't she asked him for the money for her school? Or why hadn't she gotten a real job—using her mind rather than her body? After all, didn't she have a college degree?

Someday, when her life was different, she'd tell him the truth. Even the thought made her stomach flip.

She stretched out her T-shirt as best she could and stepped into her black combat boots, a pair she'd bought years back at the Army Surplus Store. She laced them up tight. Like Barry said, you don't know, you just don't know.

The piano filled the apartment with music. It was Leo, improvising. The thin notes shimmered, and she felt she was animating them, moving to their rhythm, unable not to move to it. Life and time was this river of piano set in motion by the tips of his fingers, and here she was bobbing along on it. And she was happy for now, this very moment; and she knew that what would happen would happen, and she'd be glad in that future moment, too, because it would mean she was living her life—this life that belonged to her alone and not to anyone else.

She carried her suitcase into the living room. Leo quit playing and studied her. “Going somewhere?” She smiled and looked to Valiant for support. He had draped the washcloth over his face, and his body lay so still it made her heart stop. She stepped closer, watched his chest rise and fall to be sure he was alive.

She saw the telephone on the arm of the sofa and remembered.

She dialed his number. His machine answered after the first ring.

“Dad,” she said to the tape recorder, “I got your call. Just wanted you to know I'm fine. And we're leaving. We're getting out of the city, so don't worry. I'll call you soon.” She hesitated. What the hell. “I love you, Dad,” she said, and hung up the phone.

Leo sipped his tea at the kitchen table. “So we're leaving, are we?”

She opened the refrigerator and filled a few empty plastic bottles with the cold filtered water. “Morning,” she replied, as if she hadn't heard the question. She was aiming at cheery, but she felt sick to her stomach. The refrigerator reeked. Old garlic? Onions? Tuna—maybe that was it. She swallowed, turned from him so he couldn't see. She wasn't going to run to the bathroom. Too obvious. What she needed were crackers. It was her mother's standby remedy for nausea. Saltines—the kind with actual salt—and soda water. She remembered there being Saltines in a cupboard. On her tiptoes, she opened the cupboard door.

Running from the light, the roaches scattered. She was sure these were the same roaches she'd relocated to the trash bin only hours before. She thought she could hear them cheering for Leo.
Hey! Hey, it's Leo! Friend to all! We salute you! Hey, Leo, brother, what's for breakfast?
They'd never leave. So long as Leo lived here, the roaches would, too. She saw the box of Saltines in the far back and extracted it. Inside was one sealed sleeve of crackers.

She tore it open and ate one, washed it down with water. She felt better.

Leo was still drinking his tea, observing her as if from a distance. Behind him, just to the right of his head, hung the crucifix,
his
crucifix. It framed him strangely. If he were in a comic strip, it was where his thought bubble would be. The brass Jesus, darkened with age, nailed to the wooden cross—what his mother had given him when he was twelve and he'd wanted more than anything to be a priest. My little saint, she'd called him.
Il mio salvatore.
How could she have known he'd end up thinking he
was
Jesus. It had hung on this wall since Gwen had known him. Odd place for it, she'd always thought, there by the kitchen table. Christ looking down at them as they ate, smoked, drank, and talked. His head drooping like a heavy flower. His body wounded and anchored, bound to the earth, and the spirit—up and gone. Free.

“You're making another flag, then?” she said.

“I suppose.”

“Don't you know?”

“Gwen—”

“You're not backing out now, are you? Covering your tracks?” She knew he wouldn't get past the door, not if he were naked, and yet, she realized now, she wanted him to reach the threshold, maybe even put his hand on the doorknob, give it a turn. She wanted the chance to pull him from the brink, to save him from himself. It was all about timing. She wanted him to at least pretend he was going to follow through. If he didn't act his part how could she play hers?

“I feel,” he was saying, “I don't know, different this morning.”

“You haven't smoked your morning bowl, that's all. Let me pack it for you.” She broke a sticky green bud and pressed it into the metal cone, filled the bong with fresh water. “And maybe you don't even need a new flag, hm? Why not use the bloody one? More symbolic.”

“Tink,” he said. He stood, and took her face in his hands. He searched her eyes. “Tell me what's going on. I look at you and it's like I don't know you anymore. Are you okay?”

Was
she
okay? Why the hell was everyone asking?

“Fine,” she said. “I'm fine.” But he stayed there. He didn't budge.

Faced with his intensity, his focus and quietude, this unaccounted-for presence, she wanted to bolt. She would get the rope, the handcuffs. She was on a roll. She wouldn't give up her momentum. She turned her head, her whole body from him. She couldn't look at him right now. Not like this. She'd break. She'd tell him everything. She flicked the espresso machine on, packed the grounds for a double, added water, and pulled the lever. A present from her father when she turned eighteen, it was already showing its age, and it moaned as it forced the water over the grounds. The smell reached down to her bones, her blood; it filled her.