The Dark Lake (9 page)

I took some kind of plea bargain when my turn came (first of course)
, and agreed to some classes and assault on my record, and a one-year probation. I would have to come back here and meet with an officer once a month.

I waited for my mom to pick me up in the courthouse waiting room. When she got there
, I had to try to figure out where the car was. Once I did, I told her I was too afraid to drive, and didn't think I could make it. She said we would leave it there and try to get it later. I told her I'd lost my job, and that I think I needed to see Miriam. She seemed to soften up, and the drive home wasn't too unpleasant.

"Mom," I began
. "I want to get help. I know something is wrong with me."

"We'll get you some help,” she
said, choking back a sob.

"I'm trying. Or, at least I was."

"Maybe this will be a real turning point."

"I just want to know one thing
, Mom. Why are they dragging the car out of the lake?"

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"Talk to Miriam about that. I'm in over my head."

The drive home was quiet after that.

I had a few peaceful weeks. I went back to AA. I was told I would need to be taking a drug test monthly, or weekly I guess. I said all the usual things at the meetings about how I had a slip, and how it was no different out there.

I was actually glad to be there. And I could sense the pressure was off about me getting a job
, too. In fact, my mom started talking about how I might qualify for disability.

I took to sleeping a lot, and watching a lot of TV. I went to my weekly
anger-management class. I had to jump through some hoops to get them located in Oshkosh as opposed to Milwaukee, but in the end I ended up really liking them. The guy who ran them seemed genuine, and he seemed to want to help. And I also had to take an alcohol class.

Things were beginning to stabilize.

During the first few
anger-management classes I kept arguing with the teacher. After a few weeks I began to settle in, even learn a few things.

Among other things
, I learned that Angela—a woman with long, red hair down to her fat ass—had a worse anger problem than I did. I learned that she was completely in denial about her temper as well. And I learned that Colleen—a pretty, young blonde with a ponytail—had a serious drinking problem. In fact, she passed out while driving with her two kids, all under three years old, in the car, and she was going to lose her kids if she didn't straighten up her act.

The patience of my moderator never ceased to amaze me. I could actually see myself doing his job. It was a thought that made me regret, once again, that I had never finished high school. I even thought about taking my G
ED and going on to college. But it was just a thought.

We had a handout we read. It had a lot of interesting things in it
, like how to appropriately assess your values.

It made me ask myself, “How did I assess my values?” I was deep in thought about this, so deep in fact that I had to be called on twice when it was my turn to share about it, just like when I was in elementary school.

"Oh me? Um, yeah. I've actually been thinking about that. I appreciate the question. I wonder. Something seems to be really wrong with my values. My priorities. It's like I don't have any?” I don't know why I formed this as a question.

"Would you like to elaborate on that?"

"Sure, sure, uh … Well, I know I'd really like to get a job. And keep it. But then I do things…"

"Like what?"

"Well, like what got me here in the first place…"

"I know what ya mean,” Angela interrupted
. "I got the same problem, like my husband Jerry? He won't get off his ass and look for a job. He sits around playin' video games all day. And I got a two-year-old kid still in diapers …"

"Jane? Would you like to expand on
–"

"And he tells me the other day, he tells me
—when I was just coming in the door—that he don't think it's a good use of his time to look for a job. I said a good use of your time? You got to be kidding me!"

"I can't get a break here,” I interjected.

Angela looked at me, her eyes popping a little bit, just taking a few seconds from her diatribe to notice my insolence it seemed.

"He asked me the…"

"How dare you, lady? I paid just as much money to be here as you did and I—” Her head swayed side to side in little rhythmic jerks.

"I have not even had a chance to speak. He asked me about my priorities
—"

"I am not gonna take this shit from her
—" said Angela.

"My priority is to get the fuck outta here
—” said a woman—Lou, I think her name was—who rarely spoke at all. "Can we get this shit on the road?"

"I'm trying to
—" I tried to say.

"All I know is I don't wanna sit here and listen to you two argue it out any more
; I'm sick of listening to you—" said Lou.

The moderator said nothing, except that
it was time to go.

I didn't mind the classes, even with these interchanges. They broke up the week for me. I felt busier and more productive at least. On Mondays and Thursdays I had therapy, on Tuesday
s Anger Management, on Wednesdays AA, and on Fridays I had to drive to Milwaukee for my probation appointment. That one I hated.

It was downtown during peak traffic, and I had trouble finding my way around. Then I had to pay for parking, and it was a lot of quarters, and it looked like I might have to run out and fee
d the meter during the session.

Her office was on the third floor. I took the stairs to avoid any potential problems, like the elevator getting stuck or something.

Then when I met her I was shocked by her behavior.

"The sun's in my eyes, could I close the blinds?” I said as I stood up to close them for her. You'd have thought I pulled a gun on her.

"I'll get my own blinds, thank you.” She stood up, ready to knock me down. I sat back in my chair, blown back.

"What'd I do? Nothing? I don't get it."

"You seem very nervous. What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing. I just don't get why you got so upset when I got up to close the blinds. I mean … I was just trying to help."

"I am not the one who is upset. I was never upset," she yelled.

"Oh, ok
ay,” I said.

"What's the eye-roll about?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"You need to calm down," she shouted.

"Okay I will!” I nearly shouted myself.

On my way out of there
, I was literally shaking. "What'd I do?” I kept muttering to myself. And then when I got to my car it turned out I had a parking ticket, too.

I drove home from Milwaukee thinking about my classes and my meetings and my job search and my therapy appointments
, and I actually felt pretty good. It seemed like things were looking hopeful. Things were going by fast, my weeks, and my days. So fast the summer was almost over.

I drove up and parked in the driveway and walked inside the house. My dad was mowing the front lawn. He was wearing these brown and white plaid shorts and a silly
, yellow baseball cap. I laughed out loud to see him. He couldn't hear me over the lawn mower so I just went inside.

I had a good talk with my mom, and we drank iced tea and looked out at the backyard. He had already mowed that one. It was such a huge one, and it looked wonderful when freshly mowed. We talked about how therapy was going, and she seemed really encouraging. She didn't ask about job-hunting at all. But the subject of money still came up.

"We need to think about you getting down to the social services office and applying for disability."

"What? I can't believe you think I'm disabled."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Why do you think it?"

My gaping jaw probably made me look really stupid, even more stupid than I was feeling.

"Oh, come on Jane, just get it, you're entitled to it. It wouldn't mean you couldn't work."

"I can't believe it. I can't believe you would say this to me."

"Miriam will vouch for the fact that you can't work. You
can't
work."

On the one hand, I loved hearing the words 'you can't work'
; but on the other hand, it made me want to cry.

"I just need to get my
high-school diploma,” I argued.

"That's ridiculous."

"Then a GED. And a college degree."

"Maybe someday you can think about doing that too. But for right now…"

I didn't want to hear anymore.

Disability? This was a first.

I might as well be in the grave.

We used to hang around in graveyards at midnight.

"I think we should get used to lying in graveyards,” Krishna says, lying on her back on Ed Becker's grave, born 1866, died 1928.

"What difference will that make?” Ziggy asks, after an elongated silence. "Getting used to lying here, no matter how long, will still be the same fraction of eternity."

More silence. Except for the night owl hooting. He lingers in a leafless tree.

"True."

We can, in the silence, also hear cicadas, crickets
, and bats.

"Mine says Millicent Janine Baker, who loved life. Born 1903, died 1964. That's the year I was born,” I say. The moon is full, and it is easy to read the carvings.

"Mill loved life,” Krishna begins, "and what difference did that make?” Then she begins to giggle softly to herself, as if she alone were in on some joke.

"And so it passed more q
uickly I would imagine,” I say.

"Therefore, the trick is to be miserable, and hate every second of it, and then it will pass very slowly. And you will be very glad when it's over. You will long for it to end," I continue.

The night has an eerie, dim, yellow glow. The clouds keep passing the ghastly moon. The branches of the trees cuts the midnight bleakness into fractured patterns. The gravestones people the leaf-blown lot like a small town. The wrought-iron fence reminds me of my kitchen. Moonlight reflects off the headstones, and I can even see and read some of the names from gravestones far away. Edna Marie Smyth. Walter Rydell. Clay Cormack. Jay Peter Wilkinson.

"No,” I sigh
. "Unfortunately, no matter how miserable one is, one wants to live forever. Pass me that God-awful Mad Dog."

"Kind of like, no matter how bad the alcohol tastes
, you still want to drink it."

***

"Jane, you already do know what happened at the party,” Miriam said.

"What are you inferring?"

"It's not infer, it's imply. When you infer something you are deciding or interpreting something about what's being said. When you imply you—"

"Ok
ay, then, what are you implying."

"I am implying that pe
rhaps if you looked at what you already know, you might be free of it."

"How do you know I would be free? Maybe it would be much worse. Besides, there's nothing I'm unwilling to look at. No one will talk to me about the photo in the newspaper of the car being pulled from the lake."

"How so? I've been willing to talk about it."

"Yea
h, but you're the only one. My mom won't talk about it, my dad, even in the angry group they didn't know what I was talking about. None of them had seen it."

"They just weren't looking for it."

"There is nothing I'm not looking at,” I said, and folded my hands, as if to say, “and I'm staying with that point of view.”

"Ok
ay Jane. But as long as you're unwilling to talk about it or look at it, I don't really know how I can help you."

That sent a shiver down my spine. Was she threatening to leave me? Oh God
, don't leave me.

"Ok
ay, I'll talk about it. What do you want to know?” I said, and then, after a long pause, "My mom wants me to get on disability."

"Don't you think that would be a good idea?"

"Why? Do you think I'm disabled?"

"Well, how do you think you're doing?"

"Fine. Great. I don't even know what everyone's talking about when they say I should get disability. I mean, it's kind of shocking,” I said, “and insulting.”

"You think you're doing fine?"

"Yes. Why?"

Miriam gave a long sigh, looked at her watch, and said if I was fine this might as well be our last session. So I tri
ed, just enough to satisfy her.

"Why are they digging up that car?"