Topping From Below (47 page)
“The fire extinguisher,” I say, and run from the room. I grab it out of the broom closet from the kitchen, then dash back. I freeze in the doorway, overwhelmed by what I see. In the seconds that I was gone, the fire expanded, more than doubling in size. The corner of the room looks like a giant bonfire, golden hot flames shooting upward, the stacks of boxes a fiery blaze. Flames lick the walls. The rug is burning, the ceiling blackened with smoke. M., his face a contorted mask of fear, watches as flames snake toward the foot of the bed, just inches from it.
I pull the ring pin out of the extinguisher and spray near the bed. There’s a whooshing burst of white powder. I spray again, smothering the flames closest to the bed. Then I aim the nozzle at the boxes and squeeze the handle. White powder dribbles out of the extinguisher. I squeeze once more. Nothing. I look at the dial on the top. It’s in the red zone. The extinguisher is empty.
I throw it down, roll up the rug as much as possible so the entire floor won’t be covered with fire, then run from the room. I hear M. screaming after me. He thinks I’m leaving him there to die. I run into the master bedroom and grab the phone. I start to dial 911, then hesitate. I could just leave him there to die. I could. He deserves to die. The world would be a better place without him. For the second time today, I play God to M.’s existence, debating the value of his life. I hear a wrenching scream from the back room, and my choice becomes clear: I am not an executioner.
I dial 911, give the dispatcher all the information he asks for, then slam down the phone. I pull the bedspread off the bed. Running back to the room, I hear M. screaming my name, begging me not to leave him there to burn.
When I reach him, I see the fire has completely covered one side of the room. The heat is oppressive, the air suffocating, heavy and thick with smoke. I throw the bedspread on the flames blazing near the bed, and beat out the fire by M.’s feet. The bedspread catches fire. I try to put the flames out with my hands, then back away, not knowing what to do. M.’s screams ring in my ears. I look around. There’s nothing I can use to put the fire out. I could get a bucket of water, but that wouldn’t help. I need a hose. The fire fans outward, creeping up to the bed again and moving toward the door.
“Do something!” M. screams. He’s twisted halfway off the bed, his legs—bloodied and marked from the cane—over the side, his arms stretched tight, still shackled to the wall. The skin around his wrists is bloody, rubbed raw from the handcuffs. He pulls on the chains, desperately trying to yank the bolts from the wall. It is useless, they’re screwed into studs, but he is beyond rational thought.
“My tools!” he says. “In the garage! The tool box!”
It is too late for that. The window is blocked with fire, and the flames are almost at the door. Within minutes, perhaps only seconds, we’ll be trapped in the room, without escape.
I see the sword on the wall. I take it down.
Hoarsely, with a futile resignation, M. says, “That’ll never work. The chain is too thick.”
“I know,” I say, walking nearer to him.
M. coughs, choking from the smoke, looking at me blankly, not understanding why I need the sword, then a new wave of panic crosses his face. He thinks I’m going to kill him.
I stand over M., looking down at him. If I don’t do something now, we’ll both burn. Thinking of how he made Franny suffer, I move closer to the wall so I’m directly over his forearms. With both hands on the hilt, I lift the sword over my head.
A look of horror covers M.’s face, the same look Franny must have worn the day she was killed. “No!” he screams, when he sees that I’m not going to kill him. “No!”
I bring the sword down, freeing M. from the bed.
I think quite often about justice, frontier justice: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. When I chopped off M.’s hands, did I do it to save or punish him? I don’t have the answer to that question. Franny was on my mind as I brought down the sword, but he would’ve burned in the fire if I hadn’t acted immediately. I like to think that I’m not like M., that I’m not his real-life doppelganger: cold, manipulative, cruel. But maybe we’re more similar than I care to admit. I have the capacity to be like M., that much I know, but it’s a part of myself that I choose to suppress. Twice that afternoon, I could have killed him—and I wanted to, badly—but twice I pulled back. I didn’t strangle M., I didn’t let him die in the fire.
I saw M. only once after that, in the hospital, his arms, ending in stumps below the elbows, wrapped in white bandages. He accused me of deliberately cutting off his arms to exact revenge. Maybe. But I know, upon reflection, I had no alternative.
The fire engines arrived just minutes after, not in time to help M. but his home was spared. The fire destroyed only the training room. I was taken to the hospital along with M. My hands were burned in the fire—just second-degree burns, some redness and blistering—although I had no knowledge of this until after the fire trucks arrived.
The two videos, the only evidence that M. killed Franny, were destroyed. He will never be prosecuted for her murder. But I believe in karma, and evil people will ultimately suffer, if not in this lifetime than in another. One cannot commit evil acts and walk away untouched. There is an ineffable order to the universe—I must believe this—and although M. will not go to jail, he has suffered a fate that, for him, is truly worse than death. His life with music—the only part of life he truly cherished—is destroyed; he will never play the piano again.
No charges were filed against me. The district attorney concluded the bondage was consensual, the fire accidental, and that I acted in good faith to prevent M.’s death. M. claimed he was drugged and handcuffed without his consent, but it came down to his word against mine. The charred remains of the room, the leg irons and shackles and hoist, indicated that he willingly participated in sadomasochism; also, he was unable to provide the district attorney with a reasonable motive to explain why I drugged him: he could not say it was revenge for killing my sister. I wait to see if his attorney files a civil suit against me.
No one is being prosecuted for Franny’s murder, and it’s been several weeks since the district attorney’s office dropped their case against Ian. I related M.’s confession to Joe Harris—which, predictably, M. denied—but more important, Ian has secured an alibi. He was hiking with a friend in Desolation Wilderness on the day Franny died, and although his friend couldn’t recall the exact date of their trip, he belatedly remembered they’d run into a forest ranger that afternoon. Wilderness permits are required every day of the year in Desolation Wilderness, and neither Ian nor his friend had obtained one. Luckily, the ranger remembered them; it was his first day on the job and he leniently gave them a verbal warning rather than issue the obligatory violation notice. In the tumult of the arrest, neither Ian nor his friend recalled the incident; had they not remembered it later, and had the ranger forgotten them, Ian would be in jail today. Even though he’s no longer a viable suspect, his reputation is tarnished. I feel personally responsible for the terrible suffering I’ve caused him, and only wish I could ease his pain.
Today, I sit at the computer and begin writing the last section of Franny’s story. I began it with the intention of seeking publication. My written account of her story, of which M. knew nothing, was to be my final retaliation, to expose him as Franny’s murderer. But it has grown into something much greater, and much more personal, than that: a painful journal, a memoir, of my sister’s life and death, a postmortem reconciliation.
I work for six hours, then take a break. Ian is on my mind. I have so many things to tell him. I’ve tried, numerous times, to contact him, but he has spurned all my efforts. He wants nothing to do with me, which, of course, is understandable. I leave messages on his answering machine, but he doesn’t return my calls. I’ve written him letters, but he doesn’t respond. I’ve even asked Maisie to intervene, but she said he refuses to discuss me.
Later this afternoon, I decide to drive to Sacramento. All day, the sun has been trying to sneak out from behind flat, gray clouds, and now it succeeds in struggling through, throwing down slender slants of light. I go out to the garage. I’ve paid a neighbor’s teenage son to take care of Franny’s old Cadillac. It’s been washed, waxed, and tuned up, and although I’ve come out here to sit in the front seat often, I still haven’t driven it. I put the key in the ignition and let it warm up, its deep rumbling mercifully drowning out the apprehensions screaming in my mind. The tailpipe puffs out frosty clouds that roil around the car.
I pull out of the garage and drive up Rosario, then turn left on Montgomery. I honk and wave at a neighbor—whose name and identity I haven’t a clue—an elderly man bundled in a plaid mackinaw, who is out walking his fluffy-haired poodle. I sail up the street, feeling as if I’m in a barge going upriver. I’m not used to the size of the Cadillac, of its sheer, black, shining immensity. Whenever I went to the garage and sat in the car, I seemed to shrink a few inches. I felt like a small child who had to peer through the steering wheel and whose feet could barely touch the accelerator. This was all in my mind, of course—I have no trouble reaching the floor pedals whatsoever—but I still feel overpowered in the Cadillac.
I catch Interstate 80 and go east, carried along by the late-afternoon traffic. Is it my imagination or do other cars edge away from me? I seem to be taking up more space than I should—but, no, I’m well within the broken white lines dividing the freeway. I crack the window open and let the chilly air seep inside the car. It makes me more alert, puts me on edge, like a cup of hot, strong coffee.
I go over the bridge, around the state capitol, then pull up to Ian’s condo, my tires crunching through brown, fallen leaves in the gutter. I turn off the car. It rattles for a long moment before the engine shuts off. I huddle behind the steering wheel, stalling for time. A breeze stirs the branches of the tree under which I’m parked, and a few brown leaves float lightly to the pavement. The tree is nearly bare, its naked branches reaching out in supplication. I get out of the Cadillac.
Ian isn’t home, but I use my key—for only the second time—and let myself in. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen him, the last time in September, before he was arrested. I hope it isn’t too late.
I wait on the couch, wondering what I’ll say. The walls are white, pristine, blank except for the Georgia O’Keeffe print. I close my eyes, and the cow’s skull remains an imprint on the back of my eyelids. Where do I begin with Ian? I am not the person I was a year ago, that I must tell him first. M. knows so much more about me—my secrets, my insecurities—yet it is Ian with whom I should have placed my trust. I know it’s time to put my life in order, to regain the freedom I so passively relinquished to M.
I open my eyes when I hear the key in the lock. The door swings open and Ian enters. His body—husky, blond, a little clumsy-looking, the opposite of M.’s sleek, almost elegant appearance—fills the doorway. He’s wearing the gray pinstripe gangster’s suit, the same suit he wore the last time I saw him, before he was arrested. The suit is wrinkled, the coat unbuttoned and hanging on him crookedly. He slams the door shut and takes two steps before he notices me. The surprise registers on his face, then the annoyance.
“I know I shouldn’t be here,” I say quickly, rising to my feet. “I had to see you and I drove over, even though I knew you’d probably be at work.”
He’s frowning, his blue eyes wary. “You should’ve called.”
“I was afraid you’d tell me not to come. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“I don’t. Give me my key back.”
He looks tired, his face drawn, his shoulders slouched. He walks over to me, a hand extended for the key. Even his gait, which used to be springy and full of life, is sluggish.
“Give it to me,” he says.
I work the key off my aluminum key ring. I see the hurt in his face, the distrust. “Let me explain,” I say. “I’ll give the key back, but let me explain. Please.”
“Why should I listen? You’ve caused me enough trouble. There’s nothing you can say that will make me forgive you.” His voice is cynical, hard, the voice of a bitter man. He’s lost so much all at once, his untarnished reputation, his girlfriend, his best friend, and his innocence—and I am the cause.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” I say. “I just want to tell you what happened. You loved me once. Give me a minute to explain, then I’ll leave.”
Ian sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Looking defeated and very tired, he walks across the room and takes off his coat and tie. He hangs them on the back of a chair, then looks over at me. He remains there, the entire room between us, a distance greater than the length of the room itself.
“I’m moving back to Sacramento,” I say. “And I’m going to start working again.” I pause. I’m not sure how to continue. Ian has, undoubtedly, drawn his own conclusions. The newspapers were quite thorough in covering the fire, reporting how M. and I “were engaging in activities involving bondage,” during the course of which a fire was accidentally started, and I “saved his life” by cutting off his hands. This Ian knows. But how do I explain everything that led up to that day? How do I tell him everything we did together?
I start with something easier. I tell him of M.’s private confession to me, that he was the one who killed Franny. I also tell him how Franny’s diary led me to suspect M., and how I worked myself into his life, hoping to expose him. Then I tell Ian we were lovers, which he must have guessed by now. He cringes, just slightly, when I say this, his nose wrinkling in distress, but he doesn’t interrupt. I leave out the sexual details—those will come later.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” I say. “My judgment was clouded.”
He listens from across the room, saying nothing, pulling absently on his lower lip.
“But my biggest mistake,” I continue, “was not trusting you,” and then I tell Ian of all the years I spent trusting no one. I fill in the blanks of my history. I tell him I have changed, then walk over and wrap my arms around his waist. His body stiffens at my touch, and I can feel him pulling away. I hold him tighter. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Give me another chance,” I say, feeling that I should be able to stand alone. But I can’t. Not now. I need Ian’s strength and honesty.