Soul Catcher (21 page)

Ted said, ‘It sounds like you want it to get infected. Taking a razor to your wrist... what were you really trying to do?’

Janet turned a startled face to Sandra, and held her hand. ‘She just wanted the star off.’

Sandra stared at her black stockinged knee. She nervously pulled a snag, and a run zipped up her thigh.

‘It’s not true, Ted,’ Sandra said in a quiet voice. ‘I just don’t like the star anymore. When I put it there, well, I just didn’t think it was going to be permanent. It was stupid.’

‘You put it there yourself?’ Ted asked. ‘How did you do it?’

‘India ink and a needle.’

‘Did you sterilize the needle first?’

She stared at her knee. ‘I don’t remember.’

We had all spoken now, and everyone appeared innocent of theft. But then, were one to confess, one would simply confess. Our glimmer of hope that someone might have said
I had soccer and showered and took Nicky’s two dollars
was gone. We were all innocent, yet we were all guilty, too. Guilty
until proven innocent. That’s what the meeting was really all about.

As we sank into late-night-early-morning silence, fatigue engulfed us, and slowly we reclined into our own private thoughts. I think Pam would have reached into our heads if she could have, and turned off our minds. But she couldn’t.

I escaped through an empty frame that hung on the wall. It was a picture frame but with no picture inside. I had put it there myself one day, and called it a ‘picture of silence.’

Ted was my English teacher, and when we were reading
The Stranger
he said to us, ‘Let’s not just talk. Remember when we read
The Hobbit,
we spun the room with latex like a giant web? We didn’t have to think about it. The web was our expression of the feeling we got from the story, the hobbits, their world. Now, what do you feel about
The Strangerl
How can we visually express the feeling we get from it?’

The classroom became completely still. I remembered finishing the book one night. I pulled my covers up to my chin and stared at the ceiling. Inside me was a great universe of empty space, no boundaries, just a sense of limitless space. That was where
The Stranger
had taken me — nowhere — and so I said, ‘It was the most depressing book I’ve ever read in my life. I would never suggest it to anyone. It’s full of meaninglessness.’

‘Did you say “full” of meaninglessness?’ Ted asked.

‘I mean,’ I tried to be clear, ‘that the meaninglessness is vast, big, too big, with no limits at all. I know that existentialism is famous in France, but I don’t like it, and I don’t believe it’s true.’

‘How would you articulate that visually?’ he asked.

My mind went blank. ‘I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘Off the top of your head, what would you do to the story, say, if you could do something to make it feel more comfortable to you? How would you change it? Quickly, without thinking.’

Since he was going to persist until I answered, I gave it a try. ‘I’d limit the space the man lives in, because it’s too big, and he can’t see his own self, where his life is,’ I said.

‘Become an artist and show me that.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Don’t think. Just do it.’

That night after study hall, I sat in the lobby and thought about it. How to sketch emptiness? How to structure nothingness? How to sculpt air, mere space, into form, limits? At that moment, my view was of Laura smoking a cigarette on the couch. Behind her was the bare wall painted an ugly milky green. Then I saw it: a simple frame around nothing, kind of like the dome. The frame would define space and give the bare wall meaning by interposing on its square blank surface a miniature likeness of itself, an imbedded mirror reflection, a capacity for introspection. I went to my room and removed the picture and glass from an eight-by-ten-inch frame, found a hammer and nail, and hung the frame above the couch.

Later, when Ted walked in and saw it, I could tell by his face that he knew. I told him I called it a ‘picture of silence’ because space without limits frightened me and limits made me feel safe. That I could only endure silence when I felt safe.

Now I looked around the room at the dreamy faces of all my dormmates, and wondered if we were safe. Safe at that moment, in the meeting, and also safe in general in our lives. It was impossible to know. Certainly we couldn’t walk around with frames around our necks. Somehow we had to frame our souls. I looked at Nicole’s face. Her lids were halfway down her eyes, and she was staring at her hands which were folded on her lap. She didn’t look very safe. In fact, she looked particularly unsafe, too frightened to even lift her gaze. There were thoughts inside that gaze, hard thoughts and troubles. Her eyes were too set, too solid to be full of dreams. I had a feeling there was something to understand in those eyes.

Then, out of the blue, Pam’s voice snapped: ‘Okay, that’s it, it’s time for the x’s. Let’s vote on it.’

It was
yes, yes, yes
down the line.

‘Okay,’ Dana said. ‘I’ll volunteer. Who else?’

No one spoke up, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’

A bucket was placed in the bathroom connecting Jimmy’s and Pam’s rooms. Dana sat alone in Jimmy’s room, and I sat alone in Pam’s. Lee Lee ripped looseleaf paper into small squares. Half the slips of paper were left blank, and the others were marked with a single x. She distributed one blank slip and one x to each person, so everyone had two slips of paper. You had two chances to confess privately, to Dana or me, and one — the bucket — in complete anonymity.

‘I want to remind all of you,’ Pam said, ‘not to drop your x in the bucket unless you took the money. Once we got two x’s in the bucket. Both people were trying to end the meeting and it didn’t get us anywhere.’

‘Have the x’s ever worked?’ Marissa asked.

Silence. The answer was no.

One by one, starting with Ted, they filed through Jimmy’s room, into the bathroom, through Pam’s room, and back into the lobby. Some of them walked by me in complete silence, as if the occasion were too solemn to speak; others nodded or said hello.

Meanwhile, a commotion erupted in the lobby. The sounds were those of a good time, a party. Somebody was singing, and soon Amy’s and Rawlene’s voices rose in harmony above the din. I pictured Pam standing in the middle of it all, trying to stop it. She was clearly failing. Or maybe the festivities had her golden approval; maybe she was letting them have a good time just until the x’s were over.

I didn’t expect a confession. As far as I was concerned, doing the x’s was just another system for passing time. And so I was surprised when, instead of automatically passing,
Janice sat next to me on Pam’s bed. I leaned toward her, thinking
maybe...
but she shook her head.

‘I didn’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘It’s better than that. Jane and me, we were dancing near the windows just now, and we saw his car.’ She handed me a piece of white paper folded into quarters. ‘Patrick’s here,’ she said, and winked. ‘No one else knows.’

I held the note in my hand while the last few people filed through. When the last person stepped back into the lobby, I unfolded it and read.

Dear Kate,

I’m driving down to Florida. I had to leave Eddie’s. Silvera won’t let me back into school so my parents said they were going to put me in a rehab. I’m straight now, I swear. Will you come away with me?
Please.
I don’t know when I’ll be back North again, maybe not for a while. I know we’ll be happy.

I love you.

I have to leave at sunrise, before someone sees me. I’ll wait until then. Love Me. (Patrick)

My mind reeled. Leave with Patrick? I could, I really could if I wanted to. I’d never been to Florida. What did it look like there? What would we do? I had three dollars and some change in my room. How would I get out of the meeting? What if we ran out of gas? And then there was the dome: I had worked so hard, poured so much of my heart into it, that it had almost become my love for Patrick. The thought of leaving before it was finished confused me — I wanted to see it through, and I also wanted to go with Patrick. If Dana had had a confession, or if there was an x in the bucket, then I would be free to choose.

I heard Dana in the bathroom collecting the bucket and shoved the note into my pocket. She came into Pam’s room and looked at me hopefully. I shook my head. She sighed. I followed her into the lobby. The party fizzled out quickly, and everyone sat. I went to the window and looked into the
pitch black morning. I could see the reddish gleam of a car, but Patrick was nowhere in sight. I was numb as we went through the slips of paper in the bucket. If only there was an x, a single x...

‘What now?’ Gwen pleaded.

‘Who did it?’ Suzie shouted.

‘It isn’t going to work,’ Jane said.

‘Quiet!’ Dana shouted. ‘Quiet! It
is
going to work. Just think for a minute!’ Her voice cracked, her eyes were teary.

Rawlene pounded her fist on the floor. ‘I’m sick a’this! This is crazy!’ She looked around the room with drawn, stubborn eyes. ‘I think Laura took it! Why don’t we get down to business?’

‘I didn’t take it,’ Laura said softly.

‘I don’t think Laura took it,’ Alison said. ‘I think it was Jane and Janice!’

Janice’s voice was torn between laughter and defense. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You. You think you own the world. You act like you can do anything you want. You’re always saying you think rules are made for breaking. Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was you who took Nicole’s two dollars.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Maybe I am. It’s just what I think.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Okay then, who took it, smart ass?’ Alison said.

‘Girls!’ Pam shouted. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere.’

Ted raised his hand. ‘Pam? Maybe it is.’

‘Okay, ladies, who wants to box?’ Janice challenged the whole room. ‘Say it. Just say it! You all think I’m just a piece of shit!’

‘Janice doesn’t steal,’ Jane defended her. ‘And don’t anyone say I do, either, because I don’t! You’re all mixed up, thinking tough means bad. You’re all throwing value judgments to the wind.’

‘Sleep is escape,’ Suzie said. Everyone turned to her. ‘Sandra’s asleep.’

Eyes fled to Sandra, who lay huddled in sleep at Janet’s side.

‘Let her sleep,’ Janet pleaded. ‘She hasn’t been sleeping well lately. She’s been exhausted.’

‘We’re all tired,’ Pam said. ‘Wake her up.’

Janet nudged Sandra, who drowsily raised her head and propped herself up on her elbows.

‘Sleep is escape,’ Suzie said.

‘Sleep is sleep!’ Janet said.

My heart raced. The only way I could end the meeting would be to confess myself, but then I’d have to stay up and talk with the dorm parents. That would be impossible. If I wanted to go with Patrick, I would have to be free to leave the dorm, even through a back window, if necessary. I couldn’t tell how much time passed, standing at the window, thinking. It felt like forever. I still couldn’t see Patrick outside, and I still couldn’t decide, if the meeting did end, how or even if I would make my escape.

It was a quarter past five. Sandra was asleep again.

‘Wake her up.’ Pam ordered.

‘Everyone’s falling asleep,’ Janet said, pointing. ‘Look, Gwen’s asleep, Loretta’s asleep.’

‘Wake them up! Sandra, Gwen, Loretta, stand up!’

‘Stand?’ came a vague murmur from the floor.

‘From now on, anyone who falls asleep will stand. No more second chances. And no more cigarettes, for anyone.’

‘Nicole,’ Dana pleaded, ‘think back.’

Nicole’s head rested against the wall. She pulled her head up and gazed at our faces.

‘Nicole,
think.”

Her face was too still. Something was happening behind her glassy eyes.

‘Nicole...’

Early orange light began to temper the darkness. Was the sun rising? I searched for Patrick.

‘I don’t know,’ Nicole said.

Brisk, clean air filled the room. It was better without smoke, but harder without cigarettes. Without the grey haze, morning seemed to rush in faster. Seven girls were standing now, including me. But I stood because I wanted to; I was keeping watch on Patrick’s car and on the horizon line beyond the woods.

Finally, I caught a glimpse of Patrick moving restlessly beneath a tree.
Patrick.
There he was, in the flesh, for real, waiting for me. I still didn’t know if I’d really leave for Florida, but I had to have the choice. I couldn’t let the meeting make the choice for me.

‘There’s one question nobody’s asked,’ I said. I couldn’t hold back my own suspicion, a crazy knowledge that had begun to haunt me.

Exhausted eyes turned in my direction, all full of the same question: who would be accused next?

‘Nicole,’ I said, ‘did those two dollars really exist?’

Her eyes flickered, and she muttered, ‘Yes.’ Then, suddenly, she squeezed her eyelids shut. Her body jolted forward and she almost fell over. Amy moved to catch her. Nicole’s eyes snapped open. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘No.’

‘What do you mean, Nicole?’ Pam asked. ‘What are you saying?’

‘She’s so tired,’ Amy said.

‘No. There weren’t any two dollars,’ Nicole said, and she wept.

Everyone woke up. Faces were more alert than when the meeting had started.

‘Nicole took her own money,’ Suzie said.

‘There wasn’t ever any two dollars,’ Nicole cried. ‘I just said there was. I wanted to be with you all. I couldn’t stand to be alone.’

‘Why?’ Ted crouched down next to her and held her hand.

‘My mother’s got no money left. Silvera says I don’t do well enough for a scholarship. They say I have to leave here. I don’t want to go. I can’t go back! Mom said she was coming to get me today. I thought if the meeting went on a few days,
she’d leave without me. But it’s not even morning yet. I’m sorry. But I’m so scared.’ Her voice shook. ‘I’m so
scared.’

‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ Ted asked.

‘I want to stay here.’

‘Your mother has no money left at all?’ Pam asked.

‘She says she doesn’t have any,’ Nicole answered. ‘She says she can’t pay for me to stay here anymore.’