Heft (14 page)

I am . . . so . . . sorry, says Lindsay. Let me get my mom.

Before she can I say I have to go. I do not want her mother out there writing a check to me.

Please, says Lindsay, she’ll want to help you . . .

But I get into my car. I am already leaving.

Wait, she says. Just wait one second.

I roll down the window.

—We’re, there’s a thing we’re having, that we have every year after Thanksgiving.

I wait for her to go on.

My family? she says.

OK, I say.

You’ll come? she says, and then: It’s a whole thing. Lots of people are coming. Christy is.

Sure, I say.

OK great, says Lindsay. That’s good.

Then I’ll see you then, I say. Or before then in class.

It is a silly thing to say and I squeeze my right fist shut in embarrassment.

I keep it squeezed shut as I back out of her driveway, as if opening it would break a spell.

Believe it or not I am very happy on the way home, despite the taillight. I see Lindsay’s face before my face and I feel her body next to mine. How foreign she is to me, every part of her, and my foreignness. Recalling any aspect of her sets me off. The frayed cuffs of her pants, the legs beneath them, her hair and its overwhelming girl smell, her hair—slightly damp from the shower (Lindsay in the shower—oh—). I imagine her imagining me and this also excites me. I have never felt this way about any girl.

I decide to take a drive. I drive up the Hudson a little ways to a beach that I know, where I have taken several girls. I park the car there and kill the lights. A few boats are dry-docked on a small marina and they remind me of what I might have someday. Lindsay herself reminds me of what I might have someday. Normally I don’t skip ahead in my life but this is what Pells Landing does to a person: makes him dream of the future, of a huge rambling house and dogs named Angelo and Maxie and of having a baby boy and naming him after yourself. Of having a real job. Of richness, unbearable richness. I sit there until I get too cold and then start the engine and drive home.

• • •

S
omething about Lindsay makes me feel both brave and
lucky, and I decide, while driving, that tonight is a good night to tell my mother that I’ve made up my mind completely. I will tell her firmly that it is my plan, my intention, to sign with a major league team if one wants me. That I will not go to college—not yet. If she’s sober enough, I’ll tell her these things.

When I pull into the driveway I see that the door is ajar and it confirms something for me. It is always a good thing when the door is ajar. It means my mother has been outside, to the corner store, or for a walk. When she has a good day sometimes she sits on our front steps and smokes a cigarette and waves at people who walk by on the street. Who are probably all afraid of her. But still.

I’m going to tell her that I have good news: this is how I will introduce the topic. I’ll tell her about my meeting with Ms. Warren. I’ll lie, and say that Ms. Warren encouraged me to do what I have to do.

Inside the house smells better than normal. She has cleaned. It smells like Pine-Sol. All the dishes are put away and her magazines are stacked in one place on the table. She has lined up my shoes and hers in a little place by the door. I try not to get my hopes up. Since she first got bad I’ve always had this feeling that one day I’ll come home and she’ll just be better, she’ll have baked me cookies or some shit like that, she’ll be wearing an apron. She’ll smell good.

I don’t hear the television.

Mom? I ask. Not loudly. No answer.

I walk into the living room to confirm that the television is off. It is the first time in recent memory that I’ve come into the house without the TV being on. Once I forgot to pay the basic cable bill and I came home to find my mother crying about it.

Mom, I say again.

Upstairs it is dark and silent.

There is a note on her closed bedroom door.

Dear Kel,

Do not come in. Call police.

Love, Mom.

Time slows. I kick the door open before I am too scared to open it and see the shape of her in her bed. The room is freezing and dark. I flip the overhead light on and see that she has gotten herself dressed for the first time in months. She is wearing jeans and a sweater. She is curled into a ball on her side. Her back is to me. Her knees are up by her chest. She looks as if she is asleep.

I understand suddenly that every other night I’ve come home and found her like this was just practice.

That this is what it feels like. This, this. Now.

Let me think a minute, I say aloud. For no reason. In a flash I am leaning over her and I see that she is white-faced and motionless. Different than she is when she’s passed out. Deader. Again I shake her thinking it won’t work this time, it won’t work.

I turn her on her back and press my head to her chest and I can’t hear anything. Suddenly she gasps. Then once again goes quiet.

I shout at her. Nothing that makes sense. No words. Just shouting and shaking. She does not respond.

I bring my cell phone out of my pocket and try to dial but I am trembling too badly and crying and I can’t see it well. I grab the portable house phone and try that instead. I tell the 911 people MY MOTHER HAS KILLED HERSELF. I drop to my knees and say it again.

OK, stay calm, please, sir. First tell me if she’s breathing.

I DON’T THINK SO, I say.

You’ve got to tell me for certain whether she’s breathing, says the operator.

I hold a hand up to her mouth and nose. I feel nothing.

SHE ISN’T, I say.

—Is she bleeding? How did she try to kill herself?

It is then that I see a bottle tipped over next to her. Two pills are out. I grab the bottle and it says Valium (Diazepam). I don’t know how she got it and I am stunned to think of her doing anything secretly without my knowing it. A goddamn half-empty Cuba libre is on the table next to her. She has puked a little bit on the pillow beside her.

SHE TOOK PILLS, I say.

What’s your address, please? says the operator, and I tell her.

An ambulance is on its way, says the operator. Now here’s what I need you to do. Tell me what kind of pills she took, sir.

VALIUM DIAZEPAM. I can’t stop shouting. I can’t stop shouting. I’m still trying to wake her up.

I hear a wail. It is not my mother. It is the ambulance. The front door is still open and I hear them come in. EMS, they say, Hello, Hello, and it sounds faraway and underwater.

I whisper. I have stopped shouting so I whisper.
She’s here.

Our house is small. I hear boots on our terrible old staircase.

In here,
I whisper again, and when they come in I’m on my knees beside the bed.

I get out of the way by falling over, sort of. There are two of them a man and a woman.

Is this the victim? asks the man, and I nod.

Is this your mother? What’s her name? he says.

Charlene,
I whisper.

CHARLENE, they say together. CHARLENE. The man knuckles her chest very hard. TIME TO WAKE UP, says the girl. I realize suddenly that I know her, that she possibly is an older girl from the neighborhood.

How long has she been like this? says the man, putting his hand in front of her face.

—
I don’t know. I just got home from school.

They are putting their hands all over her. Her limp body. The man puts his hand before her face where I had mine. They are lifting her eyelids. They are lifting her shirt. I look away and then back. Sticky things go on her very pale skin. A tube goes down her throat.

Chair, says the man, and the girl pounds down the stairs and while she is gone the man asks me things I can’t process about medication. My mouth opens and closes like a fish and I breathe faster and faster and faster.

When the girl comes back she looks at me for a moment and I see from her gaze that she recognizes me too and pities me. She says nothing. They strap my mother to the chair and shuttle her down and out and I am not sure if I am invited until the man says Come here.

I try to stand up but all of my limbs are numb as if they have fallen asleep. I force myself.

On my way out I notice an envelope on the floor. And my name is written on it. My baby nickname. Kelly.

I fold it and put it in my back pocket. Then I run downstairs.

Blessed

• • •

• • •

A
fter over a month of silence from Charlene, I had begun to
lose hope of hearing from her ever again. & I had begun to feel quite foolish for the ways in which I preemptively turned my life upside down in preparation for some visit that, by this morning, I felt sure would never in fact take place.

I didn’t regret them, the several changes I had made—I feel very glad for having met Yolanda, & of course it is better for me to have someone to converse with & all that—but it reminded me once again of the foolishness of always being hopeful throughout my life, & then always being let down, in one way or another.

I was in the midst of contemplating this, when the strangest & most magical thing happened. & it felt to me as if someone really was answering my prayers. & for the first time since I was a child I felt close to God & blessed by His presence.

Charlene Turner Keller called me. Finally. When she did I nearly cried—despite my best efforts to persuade myself to move along, I still care deeply for her—& I buckled. I am very glad that I was sitting down.

This was our conversation.

M
E
: Hello?

C
HARLENE
: This is Charlene.

M
E
: Charlene. [You see I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, for I had worried that she would never call again.]

C
HARLENE
: Miss you. How you doing. [Again it was clear that she was intoxicated. It was early afternoon.]

M
E
: Very well, Charlene. How are you?

C
HARLENE
: Not so great. [In fact she sounded teary & strange.]

M
E
: I’m so sorry to hear that. Is anything the matter?

C
HARLENE
: Just the usual. [A very long silence.] Have you been calling me?

M
E
: Yes, I have. Did you receive my letter.

C
HARLENE
: Yes.

C
HARLENE
: I’m sorry.

M
E
: That’s all right.

M
E
: I’m sorry too. Were you shocked?

C
HARLENE
: Has my son called?

M
E
: No, he hasn’t. Was he supposed to?

[Another long pause ensued, and I could hear her breathing, heavy and labored, & I could hear in it that she was upset but I did not know what to do. So I said nothing. Until finally she spoke.]

C
HARLENE
: I want you to call him.

M
E
: Me? [What I was thinking I cannot say.]

C
HARLENE
: Yes. On his cell phone. [Her voice: higher than it should have been.]

[She dictated his number in that same strange high voice, the wavering high voice she has recently used that sounds both like and unlike the Charlene I once knew. I wrote down each digit she gave me on the newspaper in front of me, taking a pen from my shirt pocket.]

C
HARLENE
: You’ll call him?

M
E
: I will.

C
HARLENE
: He needs your help.

M
E
: I certainly would like to help him.

M
E
: When should I call him?

C
HARLENE
: Today.