Lies of the Heart (39 page)

After a moment Eddie Rodriguez appeared on the wall, a body shot of him sitting at the table.—She abused him all the time, horrendous things. Reciting from the Bible like a high priestess the whole time. She’d recite to the social workers, too. Katie, you wouldn’t believe some of the things she said to them. Eddie shifted in his chair, looked off to the side.—Sorry, he said, and cleared his throat.—I forgot not to address you directly.

Patricia was back after a few seconds of blank space.—During his formative years, when most children learn to communicate and establish loving, trusting relationships with adults and other children, Jerry was locked in a dark room with only minimal contact from his unstable mother. And that contact. . . . Patricia shakes her head angrily.

—She may have forgotten to feed or bathe him for days at a time, but she never forgot to torture him.

Dottie was back, explaining how Jerry finally escaped this abuse; how, when he was six years old, a nurse at Kent County Hospital went to the Department of Children, Youth and Families and demanded that they take a second look at the numerous medical reports of Jerry’s “accidents.” Jerry and his mother were woken in the early-morning hours by a social worker, accompanied by two police cars, their lights spinning; afterward, Evelyn made sure Jerry took responsibility for the meddling presence of the police.

—Even now, after all this time and all his progress, Dottie said, when Jerry sees police cars with their lights on, he panics.

—There was a lengthy investigation after that, Patricia said next. —Then, and only then, did some of the neighbors finally come forward.

—Can you imagine keeping that sort of thing to yourself for so long? Eddie Rodriguez asked the camera after a brief space in the footage. He sat back in his chair, shook his head sadly.—All the crying and yelling, and they did nothing.

Eddie described the police report given by an elderly neighbor, detailing the haunted look of the small boy who she thought was deaf and mute on the few occasions she saw him being led to and from the house.

—How can you be mute if you spend six years screaming for help? Nick was the last interview, an extreme close-up of his face.

—Jerry was finally removed from Evelyn’s custody, Nick said.

—And then he was shuffled from one foster home to another. As a teenager, and then as an adult, Jerry was housed in group homes, where it was easy to get lost in the commotion of demanding, mentally challenged adults.

It was a miracle, then, Nick told the camera, that Jerry survived at all, that he was able to communicate or trust adults after so many years of abuse and neglect.

—But we have hope, Nick said, a confident smile on his face.—His past is starting to work its way out of him, and we’re going to keep him safe. We’re going to make sure Jerry has a very loving, supportive, and peaceful future with us. Only good things in his life from now on.

The third time it happened, they were at the zoo, Katie watching from behind the camera, Nick slipping coins into the feeder for the baby goats, Jerry giggling in anticipation with cupped hands. Then a small bubble of thunder in the distance, a mother moaning loudly,
Oh, God, not a storm!
and Jerry’s instant reaction: eyes lifting to the sky, lips moving—then fists punching the air, punching Nick, who had a bruise on his neck for weeks. The fourth time was at Chelo’s by the Sea in East Greenwich, Nick dipping steamers into butter, trying to persuade Jerry to try one. Jerry laughing, shaking his head, saying, —No way, day like boogers. And then, at the table right beside them, too close, a woman clicking her lighter. She lit her cigarette, took a long drag, stared back at Jerry, whose eyes had attached to hers. She held the cigarette up for him to see.
What?
her gaze asked.
This?
She pushed it forward in his direction.
You want one?
And then the other patrons were rising, standing back and watching in stunned horror as Nick wrestled a thrashing Jerry onto the floor, the tablecloth inside Jerry’s fists. Their lunch skidded across the table, crashed down on top of them: plates, silverware, creamy New England clam chowder, small cups of hot butter, and dozens of tiny steamer shells that crackled underneath their rolling bodies (later a trip to the ER, because Nick needed stitches where a shell had dug in, and a tetanus shot). Katie glared up at the woman, her cigarette still poised in front of her mouth.

—Put it out! Katie yelled.—This isn’t the smoking section.

—It isn’t? the woman had asked. And took another long, fascinated drag, watching Jerry sob and reach for Katie, already on her knees beside Nick, who was shaking his left hand in pain (an X-ray revealing his index finger broken in two places).

And then only one more, the last violent episode of his past twisting out of his body, groaning its way into the world. Out on their boat, waiting for the sun to set completely, a time to celebrate the end of summer. Waiting for fireworks, but then that scissor of lightning in the distance. Afterward Nick’s fractured wrist, Katie’s hip mottled black and blue and yellow from where she clipped it on the corner of the cooler on her way down.

Amid the frantic images of Jerry’s anger and whirling fists, amid the footage of Jerry working at the Warwick Center and the interviews with the center’s staff and Nick working with Jerry in their sessions (Jerry holding a mirror, watching his mouth stretch wide to train his muscles—
Ohhhhhhh
,
Eeeeeeee
—or Nick holding a tongue depressor against his tongue, coaching him:—Say “that,” Jerry. “Thhhhhhat”), there was also Jerry, hauling boxes into their new house in Warwick Neck, grinning into the camera. And Jerry, standing in the spare bedroom,
his
bedroom, turning in circles with his arms out at his sides. Staring in amazement.

—
True?
he asked Katie behind the camera.—Mine?

The room bobbing up and down as she nodded behind the camera. —Yours, Jerry
.

The camera lingered on his face, on the expression of relief and happiness so potent, so powerful and real that Katie put the camera down to go to him.

—A family, Kay-tee? he said into her hair, buckling her into his arms.

—I told you, Jer, you’re stuck with us.

—
Better.
The word like a sigh.

Nick popped his head inside the room.—Let’s get a move on, slackers.

—Mine, Nick! Jerry told him, releasing Katie and running to Nick. —
Mine.

Nick turned inside Jerry’s arms, whispered to Katie.—You should be filming this.

They set up his bed, plugged in the Bugs Bunny night-light Katie had picked up at Toys “R” us, taped his pictures onto the wall. Right beside the bed, they filled a small white bookcase with his “best” books, an assortment of drawing pads, and a jar of pencils. On the dresser a framed photo of the three of them squinting into the sun at a seaside restaurant in Mystic, Connecticut, Jerry’s stuffed beluga whale from the Mystic Aquarium propped up beside it.

Jerry lay in bed that night, eyes locking onto every object, his hair still wet from a shower.

—Did you remember to shampoo? Katie asked him, sitting at the edge. She ran her fingers through his thin brown hair.

—Uh-oh.

—That’s okay. Tomorrow.

—I forget.

—It’s okay. We’ll have to change your contacts tomorrow, too.

—Yuck.

—I know.

Jerry’s eyes were wide as he scanned the walls, the dresser.—Dis
my
room.

—It really is.

—Wow.

—It will always be your room, buddy.

A few seconds of thoughtful mumbling, then looking at Katie expectantly. —God not come here mad.

—Never, Katie said.—No way.

—Oh. I forget.

—That’s what I’m here for, right?

—Right, Jerry said, hiding his relieved smile under the sheet.

—Now, what book should we have on your first night? In the mood for a Gruffalo?

He looked around his room again, at Katie.—No book, he said. He wriggled closer to her.—You know.

—Again?

—It May, Jerry said, and waited.

Months later, when the weather turned cold and she started editing the footage in the basement—months later, when they realized that Jerry’s episodes had suddenly ended because he finally had a home, a real home with a mother and a father every weekend, and sometimes during the week, too—Katie knew she had the perfect ending to his film: Jerry twirling inside his room, staring in wonder, the kind of amazed relief you could almost touch.

After the holidays Katie reviewed the final edited footage while Nick was at work. She kept rewinding to that last episode caught on film, Jerry’s final outburst of anguish on their boat before the incidents disappeared forever—the only one captured from beginning to end, because Katie had neglected to turn the camera off before she put it down on the cushioned seat of their boat to race to Jerry’s side. The camera recording the aftermath for the first time—Jerry clinging to her, gulping his fear into her neck, calling her name. Why, she wondered absently as she looked at the screen, why hadn’t she edited herself out? Katie stood in her cold basement, watched herself in Jerry’s arms, saw her own arms securely around him. And she knew.

It didn’t matter that her old classmate who worked at PBS hadn’t returned any of her calls since the initial one, wasn’t important that she didn’t have any real contacts she could call. Jerry’s film was everything a filmmaker could wish for: compelling, sweet, frightening, hopeful—the journey of a mentally handicapped man who had risen above his past, who had discovered the secret to living with his fears. The film would be snatched up, there might even be bidders—but still, Katie knew.

Standing alone in the basement, she replayed this entire scene, again and again—strange to see herself on the screen like this, a part of Jerry’s life for the first time on film. Strange that her time behind the camera, and watching and editing footage that didn’t include her had in some ways erased her existence in his story. But here she was now, and here was Jerry, holding her, needing only her, and Katie knew in that moment, before she turned off the projector, that she couldn’t do it. Knew, for reasons she couldn’t explain right then, that displaying Jerry’s private pain and offering his tortured history to strangers would be a betrayal. Katie could easily edit herself out of the scene, out of Jerry’s story on film, but she couldn’t erase those times when Jerry’s past came bursting out of him, when the camera was put aside and he fell into her, trusting that Katie would keep him safe. And without the actual violent episodes on film, the entire direction of the documentary crumbled.

She turned off the camera, and the darkness unfolded inside their basement. She pictured Nick’s reaction when she told him tonight that they didn’t need to do his voice-over after all. When she told him they were done, and started packing the reels away forever.