Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (50 page)

No, Ralph, you dickhead, you
couldn’t hurt me if you tried. The only person you hurt around here
was your wife, Ralph. You’ve really done it this time, old
boy.

I know, old Jim. God, I
know, Ralph said, and buried his face in his hands. —

What have I done, old
Jim?

2

Jim saw the first splotch of
blood on the runner rug in front of the bathroom door. There was a
trail of splattered blood all the way down the staircase, and on
the tiles of the entry, where perhaps Alice Ann had paused for a
moment, there was a pool with a footprint in it. Out on the
sidewalk Jim looked up and down the deserted street. The
streetlights were hazy yellow and haloed in the fog, and fog
crackled on the wires overhead, and from far off a car horn blared
in alarm. The trail of blood led down the hill, and Jim started off
in that direction just as he saw Lindsay and Alice Ann turn the
corner down at Mason. Lindsay had an arm around Alice Ann’s
shoulders and a hand pressed against the side of Alice Ann’s head,
and they wove back and forth across the sidewalk as they stumbled
up the hill. Jim ran down to them.

She’s bleeding badly,
Lindsay said, her voice surprisingly calm and steady. Lindsay took
her bloody hand away from the jagged cut on the side of Alice Ann’s
head, just above her left ear, and blood bubbled from it. Jim
whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it tightly against the
cut.

Can you get her on up the
hill? Lindsay said.

Yeah.

I’d better nm up and call
for help.

Call an
ambulance.

Yeah, I’ll call emergency.
My God.

Throw some towels or
something down the stairs, Jim said.

You’re going to be fine,
hon, Lindsay said, and patted Alice Ann on her arm, then ran up the
hill.

Jim half-carried Alice Ann
up the hill, and then helped her sit down beside him on the front
steps. His handkerchief was soaked with blood, and blood ran down
his arm and dripped off his elbow. He reached behind them for the
pile of towels in the entry at the bottom of the stairs, then
pressed one firmly against the cut. Blood spread through the white
towel immediately, blossoming red and wet about Jim’s fingers.
Alice Ann, who had not said a word, put her head against Jim’s
shoulder. Her eyes were wide open and glassy, with a vague, faraway
look in them, but her face was perfectly composed, serene even, and
there was a slight smile on her pale lips. His fingers slippery
with blood, Jim began with great difficulty to button the front of
Alice Ann’s dress, which was wet and red with blood.

I hope I’ve made Ralph happy
one last time, Alice Ann said, her voice no more than a whisper. —I
hope I’ve finally given him everything he needs.

Don’t talk, sweetie, Jim
said. —Ralph is grief-stricken.

Tell Ralph I did it all for
him, Alice Ann whispered.

Don’t, hon, Jim said. —Help
is on its way.

I wonder how even Ralph will
make something timeless out of this tawdry business, Alice Ann
said. —I wonder if he can make even this shit sublime. Oh well, my
work is done now. I give up. I’ve lost. I’m throwing in the towel.
Now I simply want to rest in peace, Alice Ann said, and she shut
her eyes.

Hold on, hon, Jim said, and
pressed the towel even more tightly against the cut. —Help will be
here any minute.

My only real regret, Alice
Ann whispered, as she settled her head against Jim’s chest and
sighed, is that I didn’t stab myself in the heart when I had that
knife. That would at least have given my story a happy
ending.

Bathed in the flashing red
lights of the ambulance, Jim and Lindsay silently watched the
paramedics quickly administer to Alice Ann and then strap her onto
a stretcher and roll her to the ambulance, where they maneuvered
her into its back. Jim and Lindsay decided that she would follow
the ambulance to the hospital and Jim would stay with Ralph, who,
Lindsay had reported, was in pretty bad shape himself back in the
kitchen. Without another word, Lindsay headed up the hill to where
her car was parked. As Jim turned back toward the house, he caught
a glimpse of their little Chinese landlady peeking from behind the
curtains of her living-room window, and Jim smiled weakly and waved
at her.

Rock Bottom

1

Jim found Ralph sitting at
the table in darkness save for the flickering light from the
little black-and-white television set. Ralph was fumbling with
something on the table, and from their glowing embers in the
ashtray Jim could see that Ralph had a couple of cigarettes going.
Jim clicked on the overhead light and Ralph nearly fell over
backward in his chair. Ralph dropped whatever he had been fooling
with onto the floor. His eyes were wild-looking and his big frame
was trembling. The floor was covered with broken glass, which
glinted green in the bright light and crunched under Jim’s
boots.

Jesus, old Ralph, Jim said,
and walked over and put his hands on Ralph’s shaking shoulders.
—Settle down, old dog. Everything is going to be all right, boy,
Jim said, and rubbed Ralph’s shoulders for a few moments. Jim bent
down to pick up the can of Campbell’s soup .Ralph had dropped and
placed it on the table.

A little soup, Ralph said,
and patted the can. —I thought a little soup would be a good thing.
You’re out of chicken-and-noodles. But I like tomato soup, too,
Ralph said, and began fumbling with the can opener. His hands were
shaking.

Here you go, boy, Jim said,
and opened the can for Ralph. —Zip, zip. Just call me the
chef-of-the-future. Do you want me to heat this up for you, old
dog?

No, that’s okay, old Jim,
Ralph said. —I’ve kinda got used to eating my soup this way. Right
out of the old can. I can’t tell you all the times in my life I’ve
had to sort of eat on the run. Jim, just tell me right out, is
Alice Ann going to die or something? Tell me the truth, old
Jim.

Jesus, Ralph, no. No way.
Calm down, boy. Just cool it, old dog. Alice Ann’s going to be all
right. She will.

Will they be coming for
me?

What, Ralph?

Will they, you know, the
authorities, be coming for me? Am I going to be put under arrest,
Jim? Tell me the truth, Jim.

No, Ralph. Not unless I make
a citizen’s arrest, which ain’t out of the question.

Nobody is coming for me,
really?

No, Ralph, nobody. Jesus.
Calm down, old dog. We told them it was some sort of dumb, freak
accident. They were too busy trying to save Alice Ann’s life to be
much concerned about how it happened, anyway. Lindsay is at the
hospital. She’ll handle any questions.

I thought you said Alice Ann
was going to be all right. You said that.

She is. She is. For somebody
who lost about all the blood in her body, anyway.

Is she really going to be
all right? Is she? Really? What did they say?

They said she had lost a lot
of blood but that she was going to pull through all right. Except
maybe for some serious brain damage due to loss of
blood.

Oh, Jesus! Did they say
that? Did they?

No, Ralph. No. I’m just
jerking your string. I’m sorry, old dog.

Whew, Ralph said, —Whew.
Jim, you don’t happen to have any crackers around, do you? I like
crackers with my soup. Especially some of those little, you know,
animal crackers.

Animal crackers? Jesus,
Ralph, you gotta be kidding, Jim said.

Jim took a broom from behind
the kitchen door and began to sweep the kitchen floor. He swept the
broken green glass into little separate piles all around the floor,
and then swept the piles one by one into a dustpan, which he
emptied into the trashcan under the kitchen sink. Jim dampened a
fistful of paper towels and ran them over the grit of glass flakes
on the kitchen counters. On top of the canisters next to the
television set Jim came across the bottom of the wine bottle, like
a large, smooth green coin of glass. If it had flown a mere inch to
the left, the television screen would have been smashed to
smithereens and Jim would have had to kill Ralph.

Old Jim, Ralph said, do you
think it really happened?

What, old dog?

That business with Bill.
What Alice Ann said.

You mean about her giving
Bill a world-class blowjob until his fat, old cheeks near caved
in?

Yes.

Nope.

Really, you think, old
Jim?

Yeah, really. I, for one,
didn’t believe it for a second, old Ralph. And neither should you.
Alice Ann was just pissed off and trying to drive you crazy as a
bat, Ralph.

But why? I didn’t do
anything to her. Not recently, anyway. I’ve been trying to mind my
p’s and q’s with her lately. A big flareup was the last thing in
the world I wanted to happen on this trip. Maybe I should just turn
myself in. Old Jim, who in the world am I, anyway? Who did that
terrible thing here tonight? Who was that person going around doing
terrible things and calling himself by my name? Is this it, then,
Jim? Is this what it all comes down to, then? Is this that tomorrow
I’ve been clinging to life to reach? Ralph said, and turned to look
at the television screen as the station switched to commercials and
the sound rose abruptly to a blare.

2

Lindsay did not return from
the hospital until nearly nine o’clock. She found Jim sound asleep,
with his head on the kitchen table, and Ralph staring wide-eyed at
the television. Alice Ann is going to be okay, Ralph, Lindsay said
to him, and Ralph merely looked at her and nodded. Do you have any
cigarettes? Ralph said. —I smoked all mine up. Lindsay took a pack
out of her purse and tossed them on the table before
Ralph.

Lindsay took Alice Ann’s
blood-soaked dress out of the plastic bag a nurse had given her,
and she put it in the kitchen sink to soak. Lindsay flopped down at
the kitchen table, blind with fatigue, as heavy-hearted as she had
ever been in her life. She took a cigarette from the pack in front
of Ralph and lit it. Alice Ann, Lindsay told Ralph, who smoked and
stared at the television, was going to be all right, but she had
lost a lot of blood and the doctors wanted to hold her for
observation for a day or so. As soon as she took a long, hot bath
and napped, Lindsay planned to return to the hospital with Alice
Ann’s things. Alice Ann, Lindsay told Ralph, preferred that Ralph
not visit her or call her right now. Ralph smoked and watched the
television. I hadn’t planned on it, Ralph said.

Later that morning, when Jim
left the flat to go to the corner market, he found a sealed
envelope slipped under the front door. He read the enclosed note as
he walked down the hill. When he returned to the flat with a bag of
booze and groceries, he found that Lindsay was up again and
drinking coffee at the kitchen table with Ralph, who was sipping
his third or fourth bourbon-and- water breakfast of the morning.
When Jim placed the litde box of animal crackers in front of Ralph,
Ralph looked up at Jim with an expression of utter astonishment.
Ralph immediately tore the little box open and plucked a cracker
giraffe from it. Jim placed the note in front of Lindsay, who
simply gazed at it for a time through the curling smoke of the
cigarette dangling from her lips, before finally picking it up to
read, and then read again, that eviction notice.

After work that Tuesday
evening Lindsay went to pick up Alice Ann at the hospital, in order
to drive her down to the little tract house she had rented in
Cupertino after selling their home in Menlo Park to save Ralph’s
bacon. Alice Ann had looked somehow both awful and beautifully
tragic to Lindsay, thinner and pale and yet dramatic for it, and
Alice Ann (or somebody) had chopped off her long, lovely, blond
hair. Because of the short, severe haircut, the bandage on the left
side of Alice Ann’s face looked like some fat, mushroomy growth.
Lindsay had felt horribly sad and nervous and resisted an amazing
urge to weep. Alice Ann was also nervous and edgy, with virtually
nothing to say, and she chain-smoked incessantly as they drove down
Route 280 south, while Lindsay chattered away a mile a minute. Out
of the corner of her eye Lindsay kept glancing at Alice Ann’s
shaking hands. Lindsay told Alice Ann that she had soaked and
bleached and washed the white dress several times, but that it was
still somewhat discolored and would obviously need professional
cleaning. Lindsay told Alice Ann that she had pressed the dress, or
tried to, including its elaborately pleated front. Lindsay told
Alice Ann the dress was in a box in the backseat. Lindsay
chattered on about the various cleaning remedies she had tried as
Alice Ann turned to retrieve the box. Alice Ann took the dress from
the box and held it out in front of her to examine. Alice Ann
crumpled the dress into her lap and lit a cigarette. When Lindsay
glanced at Alice Ann she saw that although she was not making any
sounds at all, tears were running down her face. After a time Alice
Ann rolled down her window and flipped the stub of her cigarette
into the wind. And then, without comment, Alice Ann tossed the
dress out the window.