Eileen (6 page)

He knew how to hurt me. I understood, nevertheless, that he was a drunk, that whatever cruel words he had for me were the nonsensical mumblings of a man who had lost his mind. He was convinced he'd need witness protection from all the work he had done “pinning down the mob.” He seemed to think of himself as some kind of imprisoned vigilante, a saint forced to contend with evil from the confines of his cold abode. The shadowy pranks of those ghostly hoodlums, he complained, tormented him even in his dreams. I tried to reason with him. “It's in your mind,” I said. “Nobody's out to get you.” He'd scoff and pat my head like a small child's. We were both a bit crazy, I suppose. Of course there was no mob in X-ville. In any case, my father had hardly done more as a cop there than pull a car over for a broken taillight. He was terribly confused.

Soon after my father retired, the chief of police took his license away. He'd been caught driving in the wrong direction on the freeway one night, and parked his car in the public cemetery the next. So he stayed at home. On foot, he was nearly as menacing. He'd wander outside in a blackout, knock on neighbors' doors to perform invented investigatory searches, pull his gun out at shadows, lie down in the gutter or in the middle of the road. Cops dropped him off quietly at the house with a pat
on the back, and one of them would scold me for letting him get so out of hand, always with an apologetic sigh, sure, but it still filled me with spite. Once, after a good six-day absence, a bender of greater proportions than I had ever seen my father go on, I got a call from a hospital two counties over and drove out there to pick him up. That persuaded me to gather up all his shoes and keep them locked in the trunk of the car from then on. He did stay indoors for the most part after that, at least in the winter. I wore the car key like a pendant around my neck. I remember the weight of it dangling there between my measly bosoms, thudding around, sticking to my hard and sweaty breastplate, scraping against my skin as I walked out the door.

Before I go on describing the events of that Saturday, I should mention the gun again. When I was growing up, my father would sit at the kitchen table after dinner and clean it, explain all of its mechanics and the necessity of its upkeep. “If you don't do this and that”—I don't recall his exact words—“the gun will misfire. It could kill someone.” He seemed to tell me this not as a way of inviting me into this intimate procedure, his life and work, but as a warning, to say that what he had to do was so important, sacred in fact, that if I should ever distract him, or if I should ever touch his gun, God forbid, I would die. I tell you this simply to put the gun into the scenery. It was there, from childhood until the end. It frightened me the way a butcher knife would frighten me, but that was all.

Outside, the yard was filled with exhaust and windblown snow and already dwindling sunlight. I got in the Dodge and drove toward Randy's, biting my chapped lip in anticipation of
catching a glimpse of him through his bedroom window—he didn't have curtains either—or, better yet, on his way out, so I could follow him secretly through the X-ville streets, led by the heavenly roar of his motorcycle engine. Then I could imagine what he did when he was not at home. If there was a woman in his life, I would know, once and for all. And I could find a way around her, I reasoned. There was a limit to the lengths I would go to win Randy's affection—I was lazy, after all, and shy—but my obsession with him had become such a habit, I really lost all good sense. Who knows what I would have done had I found him French-kissing some Brigitte Bardot type? I don't know that I was really capable of real violence. I probably would have punched myself in the head and rolled the windows up in the Dodge, prayed to die. Who knows?

But Randy wasn't home when I got there. His bike wasn't parked out front. So, for whatever reason, I decided to make good on my lie to my father and go to the cinema. Seeing movies has never been a favorite pastime of mine, but that afternoon I craved company. I didn't like movies for the same reason I don't like novels: I don't like being told how to think. It's insulting. And the stories are all so hard to believe. Furthermore, beautiful actresses always made me feel terrible about myself. I burned with envy and resentment as they smiled and frowned. I understand that acting is a craft, of course, and I have great respect for those who can toss themselves aside and assume new identities—as I have done, one might say. But generally speaking, women on-screen have made me feel ugly and lackluster and ineffectual. Back then especially, I felt that I had nothing to
compete with—no real charm, no real beauty. All I had to offer were my skills as a doormat, a blank wall, someone desperate enough to do anything—just short of murder, let's say—simply to get someone to like me, let alone love me. Until Rebecca showed up a few days later, all I could pray for was some kind of fluke or miracle wherein Randy would be forced to need and want me, like if I happened to save his life in a fire or a motorcycle accident, or if I wandered into the room with a handkerchief and a shoulder to cry on the moment he heard his mother had died. Such were my romantic fantasies.

There was a small cinema in X-ville that played only the most tasteful, childish movies. If I wanted to see
Contempt
or
Goldfinger,
I'd have had to drive ten or more miles south where the X-ville Women's League's clout ran out. I can't say I was relieved or disappointed that my plans to stake out Randy's place for the few remaining hours of sunlight fell to the wayside, but I do remember a sense of impending doom descending upon me as I drove toward the cinema. If I lost Randy to another woman, I'd have to kill myself. There'd be nothing else for me to live for. As I parked the car outside the cinema and rolled up the windows, it struck me again how easy it would be to die. One snagged vein, one late night skid on the icy interstate, one hop off the X-ville bridge. I could just walk into the Atlantic Ocean if I wanted to. People died all the time. Why couldn't I?

“You'll go to hell,” I imagined my father would say, busting in on me as I slit my wrists. I was afraid of that. I didn't believe in heaven, but I did believe in hell. And I didn't really want to die. I didn't always want to live, but I wasn't going to kill myself.
And anyway, there were other options. I could run away as soon as I had the courage, I told myself. The dream of New York City beckoned like the twinkling lights of the cinema marquee—a promise of darkness and distraction, temporary and at a cost, but anything was better than sitting around.

I bought a ticket to
Send Me No Flowers
and padded down the black and red diamond carpet leading to a studded leather door. An acned teenage boy guided me inside the theater with a small flashlight. The movie had already started. In the warmth and darkness and aroma of cigarettes and burnt butter, and despite Doris Day's squawking, I could barely keep my eyes open. And when I could, what I saw bored me to tears. I vaguely remember the film. I slept through most of it, but it had something to do with a housewife whose husband becomes consumed by hypochondria, or perhaps just a paralyzing general fear of death. Doris was already an old lady at that point—a paper doll now frayed and haggard, hairdo like an infant's, a wardrobe fit for a maid. Rock Hudson couldn't have cared less for her charm. As it turned out, even Doris Day could barely get a man to love her.

Once the credits were rolling, I shuffled out of the theater amongst the crowd of X-villers, young and old, each of them wrapped in brightly colored wool coats and hats and mufflers. The cold evening air refreshed me. I didn't want to go home. Across the street, Christmas lights in the window of the donut shop caught my eye. I went in and bought a Boston cream, ate it in one gulp, as I was wont to do, and walked out immediately remorseful. I didn't want to be like the woman behind
the counter—greasy and fat, body like a sack of apples. In a storefront window of a boutique next door I saw my reflection clear as day. I looked ridiculous in my huge gray coat, alone and stunned in the headlights of a passing car like a dumb and frightened deer. I tried to fix my hair, which had gotten messed up while I'd slept. I looked up. The awning over the door spelled the name of the boutique in canned girlish cursive: Darla's. My eyes rolled as I went inside.

“Yoo-hoo,” said a voice when the bell over the door chimed. The shopgirl came out from the back room. “I'm closing soon but take your time and look around. Anything you need, just holler.”

My death mask didn't seem to perturb her at all. It always peeved me when my flatness was met with good cheer, good manners. Didn't she know I was a monster, a creep, a crone? How dare she mock me with courtesy when I deserved to be greeted with disgust and dismay? My manly boots tracked dirty snow across the carpeted floor as I circled the racks and fingered the wool and silk crepe dresses. It was preposterous to think I could wear such fine garments, let alone afford them. I remember all the bright colors and bold prints, satin and wool, everything cute and tailored, big bows and pleats and all that nonsense. I was greedy, of course, turning over each tag, tallying everything I coveted but despised. It wasn't fair. Others could wear nice things, so why not me? If I did, certainly people would pay me the attention I deserved. Randy even. Fashion's for the fools, I know now, but I've learned that it's good to be foolish from time to time. It keeps your spirit young. I suspected
as much back then, I suppose, since despite my contempt—or maybe because of it—I asked to try on the party dress in the window.

It was a gold shift dress with a high neck and lines of alternating gold and silver baubles patterned from the neck to the bust. It reminded me of photographs I'd seen of African village women with necks painfully extended by stacks of gold rings. The shopgirl looked at me wide-eyed when I pointed to it, then smiled and hopped to the window. It took her several minutes to unzip the garment, then scoot the mannequin to the side to tip it over so that the dress could be taken off. I casually sauntered to the back wall to have a look at the hosiery. Keeping one eye on the girl wrestling with the mannequin, I slipped four packages of navy blue hose into my purse with ease. I looked in the mirror on the glass jewelry display case, which was locked from the other side, removed my gloves and rubbed the chocolate off the corners of my mouth. I wiped my hands on a scarf hanging decoratively from a bamboo staff. The shopgirl carried the dress to the fitting room as though it were a sleeping child, arms extended, careful not to rustle the baubles. I followed her, folding my purse inside my parka as I took it off. I didn't care if the shopgirl judged my pathetic outfit. She herself wore a demure but ridiculous circle skirt which, I recall, had pom-poms on it, maybe an embroidered kitten. “I'll be out front if you need anything,” she said and shut the door.

I took off my sweater, blouse and brassiere and took an earnest look at my bust, assessing the heft and shape of my little breasts. I shook my shoulders vigorously at the mirror, just to
horrify myself. When I menstruated, my breasts were sore to the touch and heavy, like lead, like rocks. I pinched and poked them with my fingers. I took off my pants, but didn't look at myself below the waist. My feet were fine, my ankles, my calves. That was all passable. But there was something so foreboding and gross about the hips, the buttocks, the thighs. And there was always a sense that those parts would suck me into another world if I studied them too closely. I simply couldn't navigate that territory. And at the time, I didn't believe my body was really mine to navigate. I figured that was what men were for.

The dress was heavy, like the hide of a strange animal. It was too big on top, buckling awkwardly between my arms and breasts, the baubles crashing against each other like a tribal instrument as I zipped up the back. And the whole thing was too long. In the mirror I looked tiny, frumpy, my hairy calves poking out at the bottom like the hind legs of a farm animal. The dress clearly did not fit me, and yet I wanted it. Of course I did. The tag said it cost more than I made in two weeks working at the prison. I thought to rip the tag off, as though that would make the dress free. I considered pulling one of the metallic baubles loose and slipping it in my purse along with the panty hose. But instead I used the sharp point of my car key to poke a hole in the inside lining around the hem and tore it a little. I pulled on my old clothes, which felt all the more old and stank of my sweat, the shirt under my sweater cold and wet in the armpits. I walked out back through the store.

“How'd you do?” I remember the shopgirl asked, as though I may have done well or poorly. Why was my performance
always called into question? Of course the dress looked awful on me. The shopgirl must have predicted that. But why was it
I
who had failed, and not the dress? “How did the dress do?” is what she should have asked instead.

“Not my style,” I said to her and walked out quickly, fat purse under my arm, wincing in the sudden cold but smiling in triumph. When I stole things I felt I was invincible, as though I had punished the world and rewarded myself, setting things right for once—justice served.

I drove around for a while that evening, passed by Randy's place again, clucked my tongue at the disappointing dark of his windows. Then I headed up 1-H to a lookout over the ocean where young lovers went to park. I pulled on my newfound knit hat as I drove. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. One needed a car to go there and neck, so there was no risk of running into Randy on his motorcycle with some girl, I supposed. Still, as I rolled up the steep, snow-filled drive, I tried to see through the fogged-up backseat window of every car to make sure he wasn't in any of them. I'd been up there many times before, just snooping. That night I parked and stared out at the black night over the ocean. I rolled up the windows for a few minutes and enjoyed myself, thinking of Randy. At my age, I'd still never been on a proper date. Later, once I'd left X-ville and had some romantic experiences behind me, I'd sit in parked cars with men—“the view is beautiful from up here,” they liked to say—and I'd know the sweet thrill of opening my eyes in a moment of ecstasy to see the moon blazing and the stars like Christmas lights strung across the sky as if just for my own
delight. I'd know, too, the delicious shame of being caught by highway patrol in a breathless moment of passion and love, dear God. But that night I just sat with myself and looked up and wondered where my life would lead if I chose not to drive off the cliff in front of me. Inevitably it led back down to Randy's place—still dark, maddening—and home again. Did I cry and pout with self-pity? I didn't. I was used to my loneliness by then. One day I'd run off, I knew. Until then, I would pine.