Riding Fury Home (13 page)

“Christ!” I ran back down the hall and flung open the front door to call my father, but he was long gone.

I slogged back to Mom, bending over her. “Come on, Mom, get up,” I pleaded, grabbing her arm hard.
I thought she was better. I thought nothing like this would ever happen again.

“Ouch!” she bellowed.

“Sorry, come on, let's get you up!” I grabbed her under the armpits and we staggered toward the study where she slept. She plopped onto the twin bed and giggled while I struggled to help her out of her soaked pajamas. “Come on, turn on your side! Lift your legs, Mom. Lift your behind!” I went and got a towel and patted her dry as best I could, then pulled the covers over her naked body. For once, thank God, she fell right asleep.

I went back to the living room, where the hose was still adding water to the lake. I followed it out the French door, where Mom had threaded it through, and turned it off. I waded to the phone; my father should have reached the Highland Park apartment by now. I picked it up and began to dial, but halfway through, I hung up. What was the point? I'd been conditioned not to ask for help, trained for so long by his silence and his absences. Anyway, I didn't want to humiliate Mom and myself by Catherine's knowing.

I got the mop and opened the French doors that led to the terrace and backyard. My feet were cold and soaked, and as I looked down to start mopping, I saw that the leather dress shoes I'd worn for the night out were destroyed. I began to mop, pushing the water out the doors. The terra-cotta concrete floor had been painted the day before as part of the preparation for selling the house. Now, bits of red paint, looking like congealed bits of blood, were bubbling up and floating in the water.

I mopped and mopped. I mopped until the water was gone and I could drag myself to bed, leaving the ruined floor damp and molting.

WE MOVED THE SUMMER between my sophomore and junior years. Our apartment was in an old four-story stucco building that bumped right up against the sidewalk on Grand Avenue, a busy thoroughfare. The hospital was two blocks away, and day and night ambulances blared their sirens, wailing down the street. In the dark, I could see the flash of their pulsing yellow and red lights reflecting off my bedroom wall. Now, we lived in simple boxy rooms with white plaster walls. I couldn't let myself think about having lost a solace deeper than words: a house of ever-changing light, its view connecting me to the bloom and ebb of nature. I told myself the ugliness didn't matter; life would be better here.

That first summer in Englewood, Ruth introduced me to Joan, a girl my age who was a daughter of a friend of hers. Ruth and Mom dropped me off at Joan's for a little while to get acquainted. The house was a small two-bedroom wooden bungalow, where Joan lived with her divorced mom. Joan had long, thick brown hair, parted in the middle and down to her waist, and wore wire-rimmed glasses
like I did. I silently admired her hair, since I was trying to grow mine out, but mine was thin and stringy and wouldn't grow much beyond my shoulders. We hung out in her room awhile, but she didn't have much to say to me. Finally, she asked, “Want to smoke a joint?”

“A what?”

“You know, a reefer.”

“Oh.” I tried to act cool. I was scared of drugs because of watching Mom stagger around on them, and had vowed never to use them, along with cigarettes. Just as I'd vowed never to be suicidal.

“Hey, um, listen,” I stammered, “my mom is coming back soon, and I have to help her unpack, so I'll . . . I'll just pass this time. But cool, thanks, gotta go,” I mumbled as I left, waiting anxiously on the sidewalk outside her house for Mom and Ruth to return. I felt dizzy, as if things were whirling around me, shifting faster than I could assimilate. It had seemed so hopeful, moving to a new place; now I wasn't sure.

For the rest of the summer, I withdrew to a world where I was more comfortable: the world of adults. Mom and I spent lots of afternoons at Ruth's. Her husband would be off at work in New York City, and the three of us would sit at her kitchen table, drinking Lipton's instant iced tea, eating pretzels, and discussing politics. Ruth had an odd habit: When she was most engrossed in some passionate political argument, perhaps about Vietnam, or unions, or organizing the working class, her hand would reach down her blouse, under the cloth, and rest on her breast, cupping it as to emphasize her point.

“In the whole history of revolution,” Ruth was saying—and there it went, her hand reaching under the open collar of her shirt—“there has never been a social experiment like”—now her hand was getting close to her breast as I tried not to gawk—“in the Soviet Union.” Bingo, she'd landed home.

“Oh, come on, Ruth,” Mom retorted, “it's a totalitarian state! You just don't want to let go of your dream of a communist utopia.”

But by now, I was barely listening, instead wondering if Ruth was unaware of her gesture or, if she was aware, feeling fascinated that she made no effort to stop herself.

At night, I took to watching hours of television. The TV was in Mom's room. We would lie on her bed side by side, propped up on pillows, while she smoked nonstop. When her sleeping pills kicked in, her head would start to droop, the cigarette dangling limply from her lips. That was my cue to grab it before it dropped into the bedcovers, and snuff it out in the ashtray. Sometimes I would drift off and wake to stare at the test pattern on the screen. It was often 2:00 AM when I would stumble to my own bed.

 

 

DWIGHT MORROW HIGH School was a gothic structure that from the outside resembled my image of an ivy-covered English boys' boarding school. It was much swankier than ugly Somerville High. School was more challenging now that I was again in tracked classes, this time labeled “college prep.” It should have been much less boring than Somerville, and in many ways it was, but I had a new obstacle: cynicism. I no longer believed I was being taught information that was relevant or accurate.

I started to cut school. At first, it was just occasional. My homework procrastination worsened, and I sat watching TV with Mom in her bedroom until late before starting on it. Mom had given me the bigger of the two bedrooms so that I had room for a desk, but I hated the room. It seemed so desolate in there. Often, I started working at my desk after Mom was asleep. In the morning, if I hadn't finished an assignment, or if I was too exhausted, I would pretend
to be sick. I would lie in bed and say how awful I felt: a headache or a stomachache or nausea or just generally crummy. Mom let me get away with it. But we had to keep up the mutual pretense that I was actually sick, which required that I stay in bed. Mom took care of me, bringing me aspirin, toast, and scrambled eggs in bed. And as I lay there during the day, I often felt more and more ill. It was almost as if Mom and I had a deal: We needed each other for company, and we'd be depressed together.

 

 

IT TURNED OUT THE journey to Dad's took a lot longer than forty-five minutes. I visited every other weekend. Dad said he would drive me home, but I had to get there on public transportation, a trek that took two to three hours, depending on connections. There was no direct bus from our New Jersey town to his. Instead, I had to board a bus in Englewood, cross the George Washington Bridge to New York City, descend into the subway and take the A train through Harlem to Port Authority Bus Terminal, and then board another bus to New Brunswick, where I would call from a phone booth and Dad would pick me up. In the underground corridor from the subway to Port Authority, I felt very worldly tramping with the multiethnic crush, past the nun in full habit sitting with her metal cup soliciting donations, up the grimy stairwell. By then, I always needed to use the Port Authority women's room, where I never knew whether there would be some woman slumped to the floor, nodding out against the wall next to the sinks, heroin tracks covering her arms. On the bus ride, the acrid smell of the infamous New Jersey petroleum refineries penetrated the air, and the gray industrial landscape, with its metal pipes and flaming smokestacks, perfectly echoed the bleak place inside me.

At Dad and Catherine's apartment, things felt tense because of the alimony they were still paying for Mom and me. Catherine was pregnant and new expenses loomed. Dad grilled me now and then. “What's with your mother? Is she looking for a job?”

What could I answer? I just shook my head.

 

 

ONE DAY IN LATE summer, after I had been in Englewood over a year, I was surprised by a phone call from Barbie. We had not been in touch since I left Millstone. She said that her mom was bringing her to New York City on a shopping expedition for fall school clothes. Did I want to meet them for lunch and then shop together?

On the day of our reunion, I put on the hippest outfit I had: a bright yellow minidress, an A-line that flared widely to its hem halfway up my thighs. I paired this with matching yellow pumps and white fishnet stockings. I wanted to impress Barbie with how groovy I'd become since I'd left our small town.

Over lunch with Mrs. Fredrickson and Barbie, Barbie gabbed about her new boyfriend. She didn't ask me about myself, and I couldn't think of any topic for discussion other than halfheartedly grilling her about her boyfriend. Our common language had been our bodies in movement: playing tag, riding our bikes, building forts. Of course, that discourse was lost forever. I felt a sinking feeling; she didn't really want to meet with me, to know about me. I wondered why she'd called.

Mrs. Fredrickson finally asked, “So, how are you, Karen?” in that stiff, closed-faced way she had.

“Fine.” My answer evoked no further probing.

Barbie had grown tall, busty, and long-legged during our separation, more and more like her fashion-model sister, Monica. She
had glowing, pale skin set against dark brown hair, a delicately chiseled nose, and long eyelashes. Her mom dropped us at Macy's on Thirty-fourth Street and said she'd meet us outside in two hours. We grabbed clothes from the racks and hauled them into a shared dressing room. There was a momentary flash of very white skin and bright pink nipples as Barbie took off her bra and pulled a yellow tube top over her head.

“So, whaddaya think?” she giggled. This top was a daring and sexy choice. I imagined it was for a date with the boyfriend.

I stood behind her as we both faced the mirror and stared at her. Her lightly freckled complexion was luminous against the yellow cloth, her long slender arms and neck rising elegantly from the clinging tube. Not an inch of fat on her ribs where the tube clung and then rose over her high breasts. “Looks great,” I muttered.

And then in the mirror I saw myself behind her. My yellow dress made my olive skin turn its most sallow. My short legs looked pudgy in the minidress, the flaring A-line exaggerating my squat, chunky shape. I realized with horror: This was the most hideous outfit I could have ever worn. I wanted to hide my body, not strip to try clothes on. At that moment, I wasn't sure whether I hated myself or Barbie more. Beautiful, tall, dumb Barbie. I never wanted anything to do with her again.

 

 

BY MY SENIOR YEAR, I averaged one to two days absent a week. Mom always wrote me a note. Later, I stopped bothering her and simply forged the notes myself. No one at school confronted me about my absences, perhaps because I still managed to have an A average. No one said the word “depression” to me or asked me what I might be going through.

On my walks to school, I would scan the sidewalk in front of me for bumps and cracks (there were virtually no other pedestrians), and then close my eyes and walk as far as I could with my eyes closed, then open them, scan the sidewalk, close them, over and over. Or I would half-close my lids and walk in a twilight torpor, as if I didn't want to be awake. My body felt heavily weighted, in spite of the fact that I was dieting to ready myself for college and had lost twenty pounds. I was just so weary. I told myself I was being efficient, resting while walking, as if this made sense. As if it were normal to be exhausted.

 

 

MOM NEVER DID GET a job during my two years of high school in Englewood. We eked by on alimony supplemented with the modest amount left over from the house sale. She seemed to hover, not getting worse or better. I only had to call the ambulance once in those two years, and that turned out to be a false alarm. One Sunday evening, I came home from my weekend visit to my father's. “Hey, Mom, I'm home!” I called out after I'd let myself in with my key. The lights were blazing throughout the apartment, and it was still early evening. Silence.
Shit
. My belly tightened, my body going into that automatic state of emergency:
No time for fear; just see what has to be done.
I found her lying on the floor next to her bed, already in her pajamas, the bedcovers ripped askew. I shook her by the shoulders. “Mom, Mom.” Her eyes fluttered open. “Mom!” I yelled. “Tell me, Mom, how many pills did you take?”

“Arraruh . . . ” Her eyes closed again.

I shook her again. No response.
Damn
. I called the ambulance. While I was waiting for them, Mom came to. I was crouched next to her when she opened her eyes
. “How many pills, Mom?”

She slurred out her answer, “Jus one 'tra one, 's all. Couldn't sleep.”

When the doorbell rang, I stared into the face of two blue-uniformed policemen, not the white-coated volunteer squad like in Millstone. I stammered, “Really sorry, officers, I made a mistake. I thought my mom had taken too many sleeping pills.”

One policeman turned and looked at the other, who shook his head and threw up his hands. “Okay, miss, don't do that again.”