Sourland (10 page)

“Has there been any other—? Any other who—like this?”

“No. No one.”

“Am I the first?”

“Yes. The first.”

Seeing the look in the man's face, the adoration in the man's eyes I burst into laughter, it was not a malicious laughter but a child's laughter of delight & playfulness & tears spilled from my eyes—a rarity for
Jane Erdley
does not cry even stricken with phantom-pain in her lower limbs—& I kissed the man hard on the lips as I had never kissed anyone in my life & I said, “Yes you are the first & you will always be the first.”

Throbbing veins & nerve-endings in the stumps. The stumps of
what had once been my legs, my thighs—years ago in my old, lost life. Spidery red veins, thicker blue arteries deep inside the flesh. Where the stumps break off—where the
amputation
occurred—about six inches below the fine-curly-red-haired = of my groin—there is a delicious shiny near-transparent skin, an utterly poreless skin, onion-skin-thin, an infant's skin; in wonderment you would want to stroke this skin, & lick it with your tongue yet in fact this skin isn't only just soft but strangely sturdy, resilient—a kind of cuticle, a protective outer layer as of something shimmering & unspeakable.

“And you, Jane—you will always be my first.”

 

On Shore Island in his station wagon he kissed me. That first night shyly asking permission & several nights in succession I told him
No—that isn't a good idea
& at last as he persisted I said
Well—all right. But just once
for the man knew that I would say
Yes
finally, from the first he'd known.

On Shore Island in my (small, sparely furnished) apartment he first kissed me
there.
Undressed me & unbuckled the plastic legs & kissed me many times
there.

On Shore Island overlooking marshland: six-foot rushes that swayed & thrashed in the wind, a brackish odor of rotting things & at dawn a crazed choir of gulls, crows, marsh birds shrieking in derision, or in warning.

Kissing & sucking. For long delirious minutes that became half hours, & hours. Shivering & moaning & kissing/sucking the stumps, the soft infant-skin at the end of the stumps, so excited I could feel the blood rush into his penis, in my hand his penis was a kind of stump, immediately erect & smallish then filling out with blood leech-like filling with blood & hardening with blood & at last a hard yearning stump with a blunt blind soft head that seemed wondrous to me, so vulnerable & beautiful—a ludicrous thing, yet beautiful—as the stumps that are all that remain of my girl-legs are ludicrous, ugly & yet to this man's eyes beautiful, as I am beautiful—the female torso, the upper limbs,
the spread-open thighs, stump-thighs, & the openness between the thighs, moist & slash-like in the flesh, thrumming with heat & life & yearning—
I will love you forever, there is no one like you my darling Jane you are so beautiful, my darling! Love love love love you
—& in his delirium he seemed not to comprehend how I did not claim to love
him.

 

For to be loved is to bask in your power, like a coiled snake sunning itself on a rock.

To love is weakness. This weakness must be overcome.

 

“I first saw you with some other women. I think they were your colleagues. The other librarians. You were walking into town”—this would be a distance of only a few blocks, on Holland Street leading into Barnegat Avenue where there is a very good inexpensive restaurant named
Wheatsheaf
—“you were laughing, & so beautiful—the braces just visible beneath your skirt shining, your crutches—the other women were just—so—ordinary—plain & heavy-footed—they were just
walking.
All the light was on you, & you were
flying.
Your beautiful shimmering-red hair, your beautiful face, all the light was on you & you seemed almost to be seeing me—taking note of me, & smiling—at
me
!—you passed by so close on the sidewalk, I could have reached out & touched you…I felt faint, I stared after you, I had never seen anyone like you—beside you all other women are maimed, their legs are clumsy, their feet are ugly. I could have reached out & touched you…”

“Why didn't you touch me?”

I laugh in his arms. I am very happy. In the man's arms, my thigh-stumps lifted to fit in that special place. He is caressing, kissing, the pit of my belly. My tiny slant-eye belly button. With his tongue. & my shoulder tucked into the crook of his arm. So snugly we fit together, like tree-roots that have grown together. & this not over a period of years but at once, all but overnight as by a miracle.

“Because one touch would not have been enough for me. That's why.”

 

At the Jersey shore spring is slow to arrive. Still in early April there are dark-glowering days spitting icy rain. Fierce swirling snowflakes & ice-pellets—flotillas of snow-clouds like gigantic clipper ships blown overhead—yet by degrees with the passing of days even the storm-sky begins to remain light later & later—until at last at 6
P.M.
—the library's closing time, weekdays—the sky above the ocean, visible through the broad bay window at the front of the library, was no longer dark. “Jane! Your friend is waiting at the front desk.”

“My friend? My friend—who?”

My face flushed hot with blood. My eyes welled with tears of distress. So it must have been known to them, casually known to the other librarians, that crippled
Jane Erdley
had a
friend
; that the tall, taciturn slightly older man who came frequently to the library was Jane Erdley's special
friend
.

This was a day I was working at the rear of the library doing book orders on a computer. Another librarian had taken over the circulation desk.

“He—isn't my friend. He's a relative—a cousin—a distant cousin—he lives over in Barnegat Sound.”

I did not meet the woman's eye. My voice was husky, wavering.

Though I was smiling, or trying to smile. A flash of a smile lighting up my face, in defiance of pity, sympathy.
Whatever you are offering me, I am not in need of.

On this windy April day I was wearing a pleated skirt made of cream-colored wool flannel, that resembled a high school cheerleader's skirt, & I was wearing a crimson satin blouse with a V-neckline glittering with thin gold chains & small crystal beads, & if you dared to lean over, to peer at my legs, or what was meant to represent my “legs,” you would see the twin prostheses, shiny plastic artificial legs & steel pins & on my (small) feet eyelet stockings & black patent leather “ballerina slippers.”

My crutches were nearby. My crutches have a look of having been flung gaily aside, as of little consequence.

“Well. He seems very nice—gentlemanly. He's obviously very fond of you.”

The woman spoke in a voice of mild reproach. A chill passed over me.
She knows! They all know, & are disgusted.

This was clear to me, suddenly. & there was no pleasure in it, only a shared disgust, dismay.

& so that evening I told Tyrell I did not want to see him anymore, I thought it was best for us not to see each other after this night. In his station wagon he was driving us along the ocean highway to Shore Island & gripping the steering wheel tight in his left hand so the knuckles glared white & with his other hand he held my left hand & spread his fingers wide grasping my upper thigh, that was my “stump”—the living flesh that abutted the plastic prostheses, so strangely—compulsively he was squeezing the pleats of my skirt & the tip of his middle finger pressed against the pit of my belly; it was past 6:30
P.M
. but not yet dusk, the eastern sky above the ocean was streaked with horizontal strips of clouds of the color of bruised rotted fruit & quietly I told him I did not think that this was a good idea—“seeing each other the way we do”—I told him that people were beginning to talk of us in Barnegat—& eventually, his family would find out—his wife…

My voice trailed off. I knew that I had upset him & knew that he could not turn to face me while he was driving, to protest.

Yet: without speaking Tyrell pulled the station wagon off the highway & turned onto a gravel service road—the abruptness of his behavior was exciting to me, & unnerving—behind us traffic streamed on the highway but this was a desolate place amid stunted trees & sand dunes & scattered trash & out of sight of the highway Tyrell braked the station wagon & turned to me & his shadowed face was anguish & his hands were on me roughly & in desperation—his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth hungry & strangely cool & I held him in my arms in triumph feeling the strength of my biceps & my shoulders flow into the man, though I could not match the man in physical strength yet he would have to acknowledge the strength & the suppleness of
my body & he said, “Don't say such things, Jane—I love you so much, Jane, there is no one but you. There is no one”—pulling at my clothing, at the pleated skirt & now his hands were on the prosthetic limbs fumbling to detach them from my thigh-stumps & he was moaning—trembling—he was desperate with love for me & behind the rain-splotched windshield of the vehicle that same waxy-pale moon now a diminished quarter-moon, winking.

 

No one Jane but you.

Nothing but this.

 

In the night he cries out in his sleep. He thrashes, he shivers, he shudders & I am frightened of his sudden strength, if he tries to defend himself against a dream-assailant. From his throat issue loud crude animal cries, like nothing I have heard from him before. With some difficulty I manage to wake him & he's uncertain of where he is & agitated & by degrees becomes calmer & finally laughs—he has turned on the bedside lamp, he has fumbled to find a cigarette in a trouser pocket—saying he'd had a nightmare. Some “ridiculous” creature with sharp teeth & a stunted head like a crocodile was trying to eat him—devour him.

I ask him if he often has nightmares & he laughs irritably saying who knows or gives a damn—“Dreams are debris to be forgotten.”

 

Later: “I dreamt that we were both dead. But very happy. You said
Maybe we will never be born.
”

 

Then in early April, I saw him.

In the East Shore Mall, I saw him.

Suddenly then & with no preparation, Tyrell Beckmann & his family.

On their strong, whole legs. As in the central open atrium of the Mall I approached these strangers & saw how one of them, the male, the
husband & father
, materialized into Tyrell who was my lover—this
was a shock!—this was an ugly surprise—yet I did not falter unless for a half-second, a heartbeat & immediately then I had recovered & on my crutches gripped beneath my arms like paddles or wings & my useless but showy plastic legs swinging I flew past them—swift as an arrow
Jane Erdley
can move, at such times propelled by adrenaline like a wounded creature.

His
face. A startled blur as I flew past on my crutches staring straight ahead & ignoring him. Tyrell, the wife, the two daughters—within seconds I was past them. The younger of the two girls sucked at her fingers murmuring to her mother
Ohhh what happened to that lady—oh did it hurt!

Beside her an older sister, ten or eleven, fleshier & resembling the mother crinkled up her face & rudely stared after me.

Ohhh is she crippled? Is she missing her legs? Ohhh that's ugly.

But already I was past, unseeing. And not a backward glance.

Immediately I left the Mall. Immediately retreating to lick my wounds & to prevent further humiliation & on the bus back to Shore Island my brain in a frenzy replayed the scene. Helpless & furious replaying the scene like one digging at a raw wound with a fingernail.

I did not choose to linger on my guilty lover's face. For in that moment it was clear that Tyrell Beckmann
was not my lover
. The man's allegiance was to his family—the wife, the daughters. In his shocked face & alarmed eyes there was no discernible love for Jane Erdley only just startled recognition & a cowardly terror of being found out, exposed. Instead, I concentrated on the wife—I did not know the wife's name, Tyrell had not told me—a woman in her late thirties or perhaps older—solid-bodied, husky—brown hair of no discernible style brushed back from her face round as a moon—fleshy cheeks, flushed with color—staring eyes though veiled, unlike her rude daughter—not a striking woman but you could see she'd been attractive when younger, with slackening jowls, a fatty chin—a look of
competence, capability
about her & yet some slight worry, anxiety—a tiredness in the fleshy-female body—a no-longer-young mother harried by two children of whom the
younger was fretting & dragging at her arm & her husband—her prince of a husband—walking a few feet ahead of his family in corduroy slacks, pullover sweater, running shoes frowning as he leafed through a glossy brochure advertising some sort of expensive electrical appliance. In the positioning of wife/mother—husband/father—you could see the dynamics of their family & the thought came to me, as consolation
She is wary of losing him. Of course she is anxious, & she is resentful. As she ages, her prince of a husband will remain young.

What I saw was: the woman's eyes glancing onto me, dropping to my lower body & to the artificial limbs—taking in my crutches, & the dexterity with which I manipulated the crutches—you could see that I'd been doing this a long time & had learned to propel myself forward with a kind of defiant ease—& the woman's eyes that were smallish, piggish, with scanty brown lashes—narrowed in disdain or revulsion just perceptibly & in those eyes not a glimmer of sympathy for me as for one like herself who has been afflicted with grievous bodily harm, this woman who was Mrs. Tyrell Beckmann did not wish to acknowledge
There but for the grace of God am I.