The Girl Next Door (15 page)
Later, during the Sixties, I would realize what it was. I would open a letter from the Selective Service System and read the card inside that told me my status had now been changed to 1A.
It was a sense of
escalation.
escalation.
That the stakes were higher now.
I stood in the doorway. It was Ruth who acknowledged me.
“Hello, David,” she said quietly. “Sit down. Join us.” Then she sighed. “Somebody get me a beer, will you?”
Willie got up in the dining room and went into the kitchen, got a beer for her and one for himself, opened them and handed one to her. Then he sat down again.
Ruth lit a cigarette.
I looked at Meg sitting in a folding chair in front of the blank gray eye of the television. She looked scared but determined. I thought of Gary Cooper walking out onto the silent street at the end of
High Noon.
High Noon.
“Well now,” said Ruth. “Well now.”
She sipped the beer, smoked the cigarette.
Woofer squirmed on the couch.
I almost turned and went out again.
Then Donny got up in the dining room. He walked over to Meg. He stood there in front of her.
“You brought a cop here after my mom,” he said. “After my
mother.”
mother.”
Meg looked up at him. Her face relaxed a little. It was Donny, after all. Reluctant Donny.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just had to be sure it wouldn’t...”
His hand shot up and slashed across her face.
“Shut up! Shut up,
you!”
you!”
His hand was poised in front of her, ready, trembling.
It looked like it was all he could do not to hit her again and a whole lot harder this time.
She stared at him, aghast.
“Sit down,” Ruth said quietly.
It was like he hadn’t heard her.
“Sit down!”
He pulled himself away. His about-face was practically military. He stalked back into the dining room.
Then there was a silence again.
Finally Ruth leaned forward. “What I want to know is this. What did you think, Meggy? What went through your mind?”
Meg didn’t answer.
Ruth started coughing. That deep, hacking cough she had. Then she got control.
“What I mean to say is, did you think he was gonna take you away or something? You and Susan? Get you out of here?
“Well I’ll tell you it’s not gonna happen. He’s not gonna take you anywhere, girly. Because he doesn’t
care to.
If he’d cared to he’d have done it on the spot back at the fireworks and he didn’t, did he?
care to.
If he’d cared to he’d have done it on the spot back at the fireworks and he didn’t, did he?
“So what’s left? What’d you have in mind?
“You think maybe I’d be scared of him?”
Meg just sat there, arms folded, with that determined look in her eyes.
Ruth smiled, sipped her beer.
And she looked determined too in her way.
“Problem is,” she said, “what do we do now? There’s nothing about that man or any other man that scares me, Meggy. If you didn’t know that before, then I sure hope you know it now. But I can’t have you running to the cops every ten, twenty minutes either. So the question is, what now?
“I’d send you someplace if there was someplace to send you. Believe me I would. Damned if I need some stupid little whore out ruinin’ my reputation. And God knows they don’t pay me enough to bother trying to correct you. Hell, with what they pay it’s a wonder I can even feed you!”
She sighed. “I guess I got to think about this,” she said. Then she got to her feet and walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator.
“You get to your room. Susie too. And stay there.”
She reached for a beer and then laughed.
“Before Donny gets to thinking he might come over and smack you again.”
She opened the can of Budweiser.
Meg took her sister’s arm and led her into the bedroom.
“You too, David,” said Ruth. “You better get on home. Sorry. But I got some difficult thinking to do.”
“That’s okay.”
“You want a Coke or something for the road?”
I smiled. For the road. I was right next door.
“No, that’s okay.”
“Want me to sneak you a beer?”
She had that old mischievous twinkle in her eye. The tension dissolved. I laughed.
“That’d be cool.”
She tossed me one. I caught it.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” she said and this time all of us laughed, because
don’t mention
it was a code between us.
don’t mention
it was a code between us.
It was always what she said to us kids when she was letting us do something our parents wouldn’t want us to do or let us do in our own houses.
Don’t mention it.
Don’t mention it.
“I won’t,” I said.
I stuffed the can into my shirt and went outside.
When I got back to my house Linda was curled up in front of the TV set watching Ed Byrnes comb his hair during the opening credits of 77
Sunset Strip.
She looked sort of glum. I guessed that Steve wasn’t showing up tonight.
Sunset Strip.
She looked sort of glum. I guessed that Steve wasn’t showing up tonight.
“’Night,” I said and went up to my room.
I drank the beer and thought of Meg. I wondered if I should try to help her somehow. There was a conflict here. I was still attracted to Meg and liked her but Donny and Ruth were much older friends. I wondered if she really even
needed
helping. Kids got slapped, after all. Kids got punched around. I wondered where this was going.
needed
helping. Kids got slapped, after all. Kids got punched around. I wondered where this was going.
What do we do now?
said Ruth.
said Ruth.
I stared at Meg’s watercolor on my wall and began to wonder about that too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
What Ruth decided was that, from then on, Meg was never allowed to leave the house alone. Either she was with her, or Donny or Willie. Mostly she didn’t leave at all. So that I never had a chance to ask Meg what she wanted done,
if
she wanted something done, never mind deciding whether I’d actually do it or not.
if
she wanted something done, never mind deciding whether I’d actually do it or not.
It was out of my hands. Or so I thought.
That was a relief to me.
If I felt that anything was lost—Meg’s confidence, or even just her company—I was never all that aware of it. I knew that things had taken a pretty unusual turn next door and I guess I was looking for some distance from it for a while, to sort things out for myself.
So I saw less than usual of the Chandlers for the next few days and that was a relief too. I hung around with Tony and Kenny and Denise and Cheryl, and even with Eddie now and then when it felt safe.
The street was buzzing with news of what was happening over there. Sooner or later every conversation came back to the Chandlers. What made it so incredible was that Meg had gotten the police involved.
That
was the revolutionary act, the one we couldn’t get over. Could you imagine turning in an adult—especially an adult who might just as well have been your mother—to the cops? It was practically unthinkable.
That
was the revolutionary act, the one we couldn’t get over. Could you imagine turning in an adult—especially an adult who might just as well have been your mother—to the cops? It was practically unthinkable.
Yet it was also fraught with potential. You could see Eddie in particular stewing over the idea. Day-dreaming about his father I guessed. A thoughtful Eddie was not something we were used to either. It added to the strangeness.
But apart from the business with the cops, all anybody really knew—including me—was that people were getting punished a lot over there for seemingly little reason, but that was nothing new except that it was happening at the Chandlers’, which we’d all considered safe haven. That and the fact that Willie and Donny were participating. But even that didn’t strike us as too odd.
We had The Game as precedent.
No, mostly it was the cops. And it was Eddie who, after a while, had the final word on that subject.
“Well, it didn’t get her
shit
though, did it,” he said. Thoughtful Eddie.
shit
though, did it,” he said. Thoughtful Eddie.
But it was true. And strangely enough, in the course of the week that followed our feelings slowly changed toward Meg as a result of that. From admiration at the sheer all-or-nothing boldness of the act, at the very
concept
of challenging Ruth’s authority so completely and publicly, we drifted toward a kind of vague contempt for her. How could she be so dumb as to think a cop was going to side with a kid against an adult, anyway? How could she fail to realize it was only going to make things worse? How could she have been so naive, so trusting, so God-and-apple-pie stupid?
concept
of challenging Ruth’s authority so completely and publicly, we drifted toward a kind of vague contempt for her. How could she be so dumb as to think a cop was going to side with a kid against an adult, anyway? How could she fail to realize it was only going to make things worse? How could she have been so naive, so trusting, so God-and-apple-pie stupid?
The policeman is your friend.
Horseshit. None of us would have done it. We knew better.
Horseshit. None of us would have done it. We knew better.
You could actually almost resent her for it. It was as though in failing with Mr. Jennings she had thrown in all our faces the very fact of just how powerless we were as kids. Being “just a kid” took on a whole new depth of meaning, of ominous threat, that maybe we knew was there all along but we’d never had to think about before. Shit, they could dump us in a river if they wanted to. We were
just kids.
We were property. We
belonged
to our parents, body and soul. It meant we were doomed in the face of any real danger from the adult world and that meant hopelessness, and humiliation and anger.
just kids.
We were property. We
belonged
to our parents, body and soul. It meant we were doomed in the face of any real danger from the adult world and that meant hopelessness, and humiliation and anger.
It was as though in failing herself Meg had failed us as well.
So we turned that anger outward. Toward Meg.
I did too. Over just that couple of days I flicked a slow mental switch. I stopped worrying. I turned off on her entirely.
Fuck it, I thought. Let it go where it goes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Where it went was to the basement.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The day I finally did go over and knock on the door nobody answered, but standing on the porch I was aware of two things. One was Susan crying in her room loud enough to hear her through the screen. The other was downstairs. A scuffling. Furniture scraping roughly across the floor. Muffled voices. Grunts, groans. A whole rancid danger in the air.
The shit, as they say, was hitting the fan.
It’s amazing to me now how eager I was to get down there.
I took the stairs two at a time and turned the comer. I knew where they were.
At the doorway to the shelter Ruth stood watching. She smiled and moved aside to let me by.
“She tried to run away,” she said. “But Willie stopped her.”
They were stopping her now all right, all of them, Willie and Woofer and Donny all together, going at her like a tackle dummy against the concrete wall, taking turns, smashing into her stomach. She was already long past arguing about it. All you heard was the whoosh of breath as Donny hit her and drove her tightly folded arms into her belly. Her mouth was set, grim. A hard concentration in her eyes.
And for a moment she was the heroine again. Battling the odds.
But just for a moment. Because suddenly it was clear to me again that all she could do was take it, powerless. And lose.
And I remember thinking
at least it’s not me.
at least it’s not me.
If I wanted to I could even join them.
For that moment, thinking that, I had power.
I’ve asked myself since,
when did it happen? when was I, yes, corrupted?
and I keep coming back to exactly this moment, these thoughts.
when did it happen? when was I, yes, corrupted?
and I keep coming back to exactly this moment, these thoughts.
That sense of power.
It didn’t occur to me to consider that this was only a power granted to me by Ruth, and perhaps only temporary. At the time it was quite real enough. As I watched, the distance between Meg and me seemed suddenly huge, insurmountable. It was not that my sympathies toward her stopped. But for the first time I saw her as essentially other than me. She was vulnerable. I wasn’t. My position was favored here. Hers was as low as it could be. Was this inevitable, maybe? I remembered her asking me,
why do they hate me?
and I didn’t believe it then, I didn’t have any answer for her. Had I missed something? Was there maybe some flaw in her I hadn’t seen that predetermined all of this? For the first time I felt that maybe Meg’s separation from us might be justified.
why do they hate me?
and I didn’t believe it then, I didn’t have any answer for her. Had I missed something? Was there maybe some flaw in her I hadn’t seen that predetermined all of this? For the first time I felt that maybe Meg’s separation from us might be justified.
I wanted to feel it was justified.
I say that now in deepest shame.
Because it seems to me now that so much of this was strictly personal, part of the nature of the world as I saw it. I’ve tried to think that it was all the fault of my parents’ warfare, of the cold blank calm I developed in the center of their constant hurricane. But I don’t quite believe that anymore. I doubt I ever did entirely. My parents loved me, in many ways better than I deserved—however they felt about one another. And I knew that. For almost anyone that would have been enough to eliminate any appetite for this whatsoever.
No. The truth is that it was me. That I’d been waiting for this, or something like this, to happen all along. It was as though something starkly elemental were at my back, sweeping through me, releasing and becoming me, some wild black wind of my own making on that beautiful bright sunny day.
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