The Dark Lake (7 page)

"No
, they mean once you take the first drink you are powerless, which means that now I'm powerless."

"That's a bad understanding
; that's not what they mean. Would you like to spend a few days in…?”

"No!"

I got up to leave.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm not going to send you there against your will."

"You did before,” I snapped at her.

"That was because your behavior was a danger to yourself and others. If you ac
t…"

I flopped into the chair and grabbed a Kleenex.

"What's wrong with me?"

Miriam paused and then said, "Let's talk about that."

"No, I know what you’re thinking, and I
don't
think that's it."

“I don’t meant just the party, Jane, I am talking about your refusal to grow up. I think in order to gr
ow up, you need to let go of the…”

“The past, you want to say. I won’t let go of the past. You think I need to let go of the past.
How in the hell, no, how in the
fuck
am I supposed to live in the present?”

“That’s the thousand dollar question, isn’t it Jane?”

Those lazy summer days before Ziggy went off to Yale that went on forever. Days that stretched into nights in the in-between space that separated Siegfried and his sister’s room—like an apartment that belonged to all of us.

Back then time really was standing still.

Midnight bong hits, half-forgotten conversations on that wild back porch, forgotten because we were all too stoned to remember them. All the excitement of new music I'd never heard before and can't listen to anymore, slamming screen doors, dim, glowing lightbulbs, empty bottles of Rolling Rock, laughter.

Who is that standing in the shadows at the party? No … after the party.

"Krishna's mouth filled up with water, then up to her eyeballs."

"You saw Krishna.” She put her glasses back on and started writing. She had a file four inches thick on me.

"There was a bloody hand. There was an angry person chasing us.”

"In the dream," said Miriam.

"Right."

"Are these all things you remember from that night?"

"No. I can't—can I just … I need some water.” I got up to leave her office and she didn't stop me. I came back from the bathroom. I had filled up a large plastic cup. I sat holding it. My leg shook. I put my hand down to stop it from shaking and that caused her to look at it.

"The ceramic hand," I said.

“The one on Krishna’s coffee table?”

“Yes. Have I talked about that before?”

“Yes.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

"What does it?"

I stared out the window. It was dark outside. I could see the gibbous moon.

"The moon is not full,” I said.

"How have you been sleeping otherwise?"

"I haven't threatened anyone, I haven't threatened to hurt myself. I don't think about hurting myself."

"But
you
are
hurting."

I guess I was.

I managed to get myself to work. While I was there, I got so sick of the tension that could be cut with a knife. I could sense Francine’s hostility the moment I walked in the door. I don't care. I don't want to be there anyway. I walked along the hall with a sense of unease, and performed my duties feeling all the time like someone was behind me watching. I sat uneasily on my break. I hated that feeling.

Then Francine chose her moment, right around shift close. Make sure they got a full shift out of me first, huh?

"Why do you think it is me? You have absolutely no reason to assume it's me. How dare you? This is unfair; this is discrimination."

"I wasn't aware of your minority status,” the smart-ass bitch said. "I should have known there was probably only one of you
, though."

"You are accusing me of stealing
, basically. And lying. On what basis? I am not a thief or a liar."

"You were the only one in her room that night
, and she can't make phone calls."

Although I had no answer to this
, I managed to stare until she broke eye contact.

"You are right
; I cannot technically prove that you did it. I can, however, justify terminating your employment here, based on my suspicions, and your chronic lateness and absence."

"What do you mean chronic? I was absent one day."

"You've only been working here a short time. That's a ratio of ..."

"Oh please, don't flaunt your math skills to us plebes
."

"And you're insubordinate
.” She closed her notebook. I suppose that was supposed to mean something.

I felt l
ike a dog walking out of there.

"Bitch!” I yelled from the parking lot.

I wanted to throw a brick through the glass door. Ooooh, I wanted to do that so bad. I even picked one up and stood next to my car for a long time thinking about it. I put the brick in the passenger's seat and got on Highway 41 and drove south. I drove and drove. It made me feel free to do that. And I didn't stop until I got right in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. It felt like I was
somewhere
, finally. I got out.

I got off on 6th
Street, took a right on Wells, and parked on North Riverwalk Way. For a while I just sat there staring out the windshield. I had money in my purse from my job, but I wouldn't be getting any more. I locked the car door and started walking. It was about midnight now. Maybe 12:30. The streets, littered and filthy; the parking meters looked so lonely out here. So many closed businesses, dark, some boarded up. The streetlights didn't seem to cut it.

I walked about five or six blocks an
d wandered past a Zak's Tavern.

"Zak's Tavern," I said aloud, standing outside the rather steep
, curved, round, odd-looking set of steps that led up to an ugly, green door. The loud, pinkish sign blinked on and off in large, overly angular letters above the door. The angle made them appear distorted, like in old German expressionist film. I walked up the steps, and the more I ascended them, the dizzier I got. When I put my hand on the door handle, I felt that I would reel backward, and that the opening of it was partly due to my sheer reliance on it as I really did fall back. But then another force pushed me through the door. Whoosh. I was inside. There was a cool staleness to the air. A jukebox with the same unreal colors and quality was off to my right. I'd seen all this before.

With unsteadiness to my feet, I floated to the bar and sat down on the high stool, steadying myself against the surface.

The bartender eyed me from across the bar with an expression that indicated no intention of coming toward me, wiping a glass with a dishtowel.

"Hey, gimme a
vodka gimlet!” I finally yelled.

He changed his pose not a hair, of course.

I waited.

Of course I waited. What else was I going to do?

He finally ambled over, filled with that same hostile attitude. People like him made me sick.

"A
vodka gimlet? And you mind telling me what I did to deserve this bad service?"

"You got a problem
, lady, there's the door,” he said, and slammed down what passed to him for a vodka gimlet.

"That's not made right,” I said.

"Oh it ain't?” He smiled, monstrously.

"No it isn't, and I stress
isn't
."

"I
’ve had just about enough of you."

"It's watered down, and it has no green olive in it."

"Green olive?” He laughed, raising his ridiculously heavy, red eyebrows. They looked like two cheese doodles above his eyes, to the point where they actually made me hungry.

"Yes, a green olive. With a red pimento. Very important."

"You gotta be kiddin' me."

"No. Don't you know anything about
–"

"It's just not a
vodka gimlet without the green olive,” someone said to my right.

"Oh my God, how long have you been sitting there?” I spun around to look at her, praying she would still be there.

She was! With a great big 'hey I gotcha' face.

Krishna
, in the mirror across from me, next to the reflections of the very dusty cash register, the bits of cluttered receipts, the wine bottles and the pints of vodka and whiskey. There she was, exotic and Hindu, next to a stunned version of my all-American, blonde self.

"Come with me
." She led me to the restrooms. "Wait till you see what I have."

"How did you…?"

"Look at this," she said, and pulled out a beautiful, gold case that snapped open, decorated on the outside with red and gold and green silk, with tiny scenes printed of tigers and women by the water.

Inside it there was a small
, square mirror, a vial of coke, a gold razor blade, and a tiny glass tube. She tapped out a line of the white powder onto the mirror.

"Go ahead
.” She gestured, smiling.

"Don't let her sneeze
, Krishna!” A voice came from the bathroom stall, and then broke into drunken giggling.

"Is that her in there?” I leaned my head under the stall door.

Unmistakably, boy's pants. No girl would wear them.

"Oh my God! How did you two
… did you know I was here?"

Gay bust out of the stall and headed for the coke.

I leaned over the bathroom counter next to the sinks. I grabbed a paper towel after noticing how disgusting it was and wiped down the sink.

"Only Jane would clean the sink in a tavern bathroom,"
Gay said.

"I'm not putting my face close to that filthy surface."

I leaned over once it was cleaned, snorted the line, conscious the whole time not to sneeze or blow out accidentally. My long, blonde hair touched the surface.

"See
, my hair would have touched that filthy sink," I said.

The toilet flushed and Gay came out of the stall
, wearing her standard smart-ass expression, and strutted toward the sink to snort another line.

"Freak?” she greeted.

The music began, or rather, the pounding, driving, raucous punk noise.

"The Transistors are playing?” I asked.

They stared at me.

"What?” I asked
. "Is that really them?"

"Are you tripping?” Gay asked, and headed out the door into the smoke and amplified buzzing.

Krishna was closing up her case and replacing it into a little black bag with long, thin shoulder straps.

"Oh my God
, I'm so wasted,” she remarked, and left me alone in there.

When I went out
, they all were there.

Ziggy leaned against the wall in a green parachute suit. The Transistor boys
’ lead singer leaned into the microphone and nearly made out with it. The others leaned back and played bass guitar with what I knew was deliberate cool.

The lead singer, Walt, grabbed the standing microphone at the end of his last ranting (which seemed to end out of nowhere) and garbled incoherently
, but I think he said, "Thanks for coming to our show; this one's for the bartender.” And then began blasting out his next selection, which sounded exactly like the previous one.

"Krishna,” I yelled in her ear
. "Krishna!"

"What?"

"I've been meaning to tell you something,” I shouted.

She didn't seem interested, just kept watching the band
, but I went on.

"I saw a hand rolling up the window."

"What?” she screamed.

"Or maybe rolling it down
, I am not sure!"

"I can't hear you!"

"Someone's hand rolling the window!"

"No!"

"No?"

"We wouldn't have had time!” she screamed.

"Why not?"

"We had to get out, silly girl! Besides, you can't roll it down or up under the water."

I didn't get angry right away. But for some reason, after a few minutes of sitting with this latest piece of news, I began to rage inside. I sat boiling with it for a long time, and fueling it with more alcohol. She stood with her back to me, swaying unsteadily to the loud banging, drinking her beer, her long, black curls spilling down the back over her black coat. She had the collar up. I suddenly felt an urge to yank that collar back and throttle her. I got up and went back to the restroom.

I looked in the mirror.

There were worry lines between my brows set there by the years. The crinkle lines spread to the sides and then curved around my smile lines. The lines from laughs and smiling weren't as deep as the crease in my brow. I tried to sober up, but couldn't.