Authors: George Dawes Green
She says crisply, “Oliver.” Her voice echoes in the dark lot.
“What.”
“Come.
Now.
”
In the Grand Union she plows the aisles, Oliver trailing. Up one aisle, down the other. Since she has only an anti-appetite,
a revulsion toward food, it’s an act of will every time she puts something in the cart. No fresh vegetables. She’s not up
to cutting veggies. But Rice-A-Roni, sure, four boxes. She hasn’t had Rice-A-Roni since one summer in Pittsburgh with her
aunt. A raft of Lean Cuisine frozen dinners and Stouffer’s pizza. Oliver mopes along, keeps his head low. Once or twice she
asks his opinion about what to get, but he doesn’t give a damn. They pause before the cereals. A fat puffy-faced guy in a
Day-Glo windbreaker can’t get past her cart, and she jerks it aside for him. She tells Oliver, “Pick what you want.”
He shrugs.
She grabs a box of Corn Chex, tosses it in the cart.
Says a voice, “Hey, I know you.”
She turns. The puffy-faced guy has spoken to her. Nose crushed. One cheekbone looks like it got pushed in by some giant thumb.
He gives Oliver a friendly smile. He says to Annie, “You’re the artist. The box lady.”
He has a merry chuckle. But how does he know her? Probably from the little show she had at the Pharaoh Library last year.
“From the library?” she says.
“From the bakery, don’t you remember? I met you at the bakery.”
Forcing herself to breathe. Now what does she do? What is she supposed to do, she can’t remember.
The ugly man looks at Oliver and says, “This your boy?”
OK. He wants her to lose Oliver.
“Hey hon, we need some… What are those frozen things you like?”
He mumbles. “RoboPops?”
“Go get some.”
He starts off. Sleepwalking.
When he’s gone the man says, “Tomorrow. Seven
A.M.
YOU know where the Park & Ride is? In Banktree? Off 684?”
“Mm.”
“You gotta
know
.”
“I know.”
“You wait there. I’ll come, you get in my car. OK?”
“Yes.”
“You OK?”
“Yes.”
“You look kinda woozy.”
“I’m all right.”
“What did I say?”
“The Park & Ride off 684. I wait, I wait and then I… get in with you.”
“That’s right.”
He looks like he’s about to go but he doesn’t. He says, “Listen, you gonna be just fine. He’ll take care of you. He’s a good
guy. I mean he can be tough. Somebody crosses him, he goes crazy. But you do what he says? You’ll be fine.”
She stands there trying to get a grip on her breathing.
He says, “I got a kid too. I got one just a little older than him. I know what you’re going through.”
Then he starts pushing his cart away from her, up the aisle.
“What’s your name?” she says.
He turns. “What?”
“What’s your name?”
“You don’t want to know my name. How can I—I can’t tell you my name.”
“What do I call you then?”
“Don’t call me nothing. Call me what you want. Call me—” He looks around and his eyes light on a display of Johnny Appleseed
granola. “Call me Johnny Appleseed, I don’t give a shit.”
Oliver comes back with two boxes of RoboPops.
She says, “OK. Johnny. Thank you. For what you said, thank you.” She’s thinking, Maybe if you can make them like you, if you
can let them
know who you are
, and who Oliver is, maybe they’re less likely to hurt you.
S
LAVKO
waits till Sari gets into the car, shuts the door and puts her head in her hands. Then he hands her a greasy napkin. It’s
all he has. No idea what to say so he keeps his mouth shut. He wouldn’t mind holding her but that’s probably not called for
either.
She gets hold of herself and takes a deep breath and shakes her head sadly. Slavko thinks maybe now’s the time to speak. But
then the line of her mouth starts to give way again. Then the tears come spurting out of her eyes and she’s bawling and banging
her fists against the dash.
It takes her a long time to regain the ground she’s lost.
Finally she says, “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything. Talk to me. Tell me a story.”
“What can I tell you about?”
Long silence.
“Tell me about her,” she says.
“Who’s that?”
“You said you’d been through this. So who was she? Was she a pathological liar? Like this bastard of mine?”
“No. She was, she just didn’t love me. She’s a doctor. I mean a resident. At St. Ignatius, you know where that is? We just
went out for a little while, maybe a month or two.”
“How long ago was it?”
“Almost a year.”
“Jesus. And you still think about her?”
“Oh no, not so much anymore. I mean nowadays sometimes five or six seconds will pass and I won’t have had a single thought
about her.”
Sari giggles, sniffs. She asks him, “So why didn’t she love you back?”
“Amazingly unbelievable, isn’t it?”
He reaches past her for the glove compartment. The little door swings open and he withdraws a fifth of Jim Beam.
He says, “I don’t like to drink on the job but I’m not sure this is the job anymore. You want some?”
She sort of nods. He unscrews the cap and passes it, and she takes a snort. It surprises him, how deeply she draws on the
thing. As she passes the bottle back she murmurs, “Slavko, if this is hard for you to talk about—”
“No, the hard part was going through it. The talking? That’s neither here nor there.” He takes a swallow to match hers. “She
wanted something else. I don’t even know why she went out with me in the first place. Maybe she thought I was kind of funny.”
“You are funny, Slavko. And you’re also kind of cute.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“No, you are.”
“I’m not even
remotely
cute. But that’s not why she dumped me. She just… she wanted a poet or something. You know Derek Walcott?”
“No.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have either except she made me read him. He’s black. He’s Caribbean, he’s got a dancing soul, he’s pure
sexiness, he writes all this poetry I can’t even read, he’s just the kind of guy she wants, he’s a poet so OK, that’s fine,
so why didn’t she just leave me alone?”
“Well she did, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. When it was too late. When she’d cracked my heart in a lot of little pieces like she did to everybody else.”
He shrugs. He starts telling Sari about this heartbreak and he takes a sip of the liquor and she takes a sip, and the next
time he glances at the clock on the dash it’s already eleven o’clock and two hours have blown past.
And Sari is telling him about the moment she first noticed a certain remoteness in her Eben’s demeanor.
She says, “But it was so subtle I thought I was just paranoid, you know?”
“Yes,” he says. “Oh, Christ, I know about that. You
hope
you’re being paranoid, but really you know something’s wrong. You know you’re losing.”
She says, “It’s like everything’s sunny and perfect but you feel this, it’s like a little tiny breath of cold wind on your
face—”
“Exactly,” says Slavko.
“And you know this big cold storm is coming and everything’s going to change and everything’s going to be lost.”
“Yes,” he says.
“Is there any more?” she asks him.
“Well no, after you feel that chill I think you’re doomed—”
She puts her hand on his arm. “No, I mean is there any more Jim Beam?”
“Oh. There’s a swallow.”
“You take it then.”
“No, I’m, I don’t need any more.”
She drains the bottle and wipes her mouth and she says, “But you’re right, there is nothing you can do. Nothing. Nothing nothing
nothing nothing nothing. You know? Everything’s sunny, everything is wonderful. And then that, that coldness.”
When next he looks at the clock it’s one in the morning and both of them are hunched low in their seats and her knee is touching
his knee.
And just from the presence of her, just from her breath filling this car, and her voice, which is sort of brave and cheerful,
and from the pressure of her knee against his, he finds he’s nursing a hard-on. Not a painful one, though, because the alcohol
and the easyness of the talk combine to keep the edge off it.
She’s telling him about this guy she was dating three years ago, this guy who was playing drums in a garage band and how long
it took for her to realize he wasn’t
affecting
a vacant expression, he truly was vacant.
Then abruptly she says: “You know I have to tell you something. Guess what?”
“What?”
“I think I’m going to live through this.”
She laughs. “I mean I wasn’t so sure I was going to. But the truth is, I’m OK. You know? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because
I’m with you, and you’re nice to talk to.”
“So are you, Sari.”
“Why do you think you’re weak?”
“What?”
“I said, Why do you think you’re weak?”
“Did I say I was weak?”
“The other night when I said I didn’t like weak men you got strange.”
“I did?”
“I get the feeling you think you’re a failure.”
“Oh yeah? Really? I thought I
exuded
self-confidence.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you think I should, being a detective?”
“You should, yes. I’m thirsty.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m such a lousy detective.”
She checks the bottle again. “All gone. You’re not a lousy detective.”
“I don’t make much of a living.”
“You don’t?”
“Not really.”
“Well, Slavko, maybe you should try something else.”
“Like what?”
“Isn’t there anything else you want to do?”
“I want to be Derek Walcott.”
She laughs.
“I did use to be a cop,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, but I screwed that up.”
“How?”
“I better not get started but there was a woman involved.”
“Of course.”
“Also some drinking.”
“Shit,” she says. “I don’t know, Slavko. You want to be a poet why don’t you try it?”
“I have tried. All I can write is how I feel like a pinball.”
She enjoys that, she laughs.
He says, “Like they dropped me down on this bizarre planet and I’m getting knocked all over the place and I don’t know what
the hell I’m doing here, sometimes I think I can make sense out of this place but most of the time I’m just lost. With my
jaw hanging open. You know? I can’t write for shit about sunsets and the soul of me, you know, and Greek gods and all that
shit ’cause I’m getting bounced around like a dunce with my jaw hanging open. No wonder Juliet broke up with me.”
“That was her name? Your doctor? Juliet?”
“Yeah.”
“Romantic name.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I gotta go, Romeo.”
“You can’t go.”
“I
got
to go.”
“You can’t drive, Sari. You had too much to drink.”
“Less than you.”
“Yeah but me, I’m staying right here. I’m not done with this stakeout.”
She scowls. “Oh, what, you’re still worried about that son of a bitch, that Eben? Forget that son of a bitch. Don’t even bother.
I’m through with him.”
“That’s what
you
think. Wait till you get my bill.”
“Kiss me,” she says, and he moves toward her clumsily. He holds the saddle of her back. He rasps his lips against hers and
breathes in her breath and he wants for a moment to call her Juliet. But he catches himself.
“Sari,” he murmurs.
They’re holding each other so hard they’re crushing the wind out of each other. He tries to gear his brain up to print the
message that this is an infatuation, this is a quick grope of a lonely client, it’s part of the job and I better forget it
in the morning. But he’s drunk and what he knows to be true is this: He’s in love again. He’s in trouble. Still in love with
Juliet but additionally with this one. The shit just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
She breaks away.
“Thank you,” she says.
Then she opens the car door and says, “Yeah, I’m going to be OK. This is going to be easier than I thought. OK. Soon, Slavko.”
And he can’t think of anything to say to hold her and so before he knows it she’s gone.
A
NNIE
writes:
Dear Turtle,
It’s the middle of the night and
he
wants to see me again tomorrow and I wish I could talk to you. I keep waiting for you to call again or write me, I go to
the mailbox every day and pray I’ll find a letter but I know you’re too proud and I’ve hurt you once before, but still I keep
thinking I’m going to turn around and you’ll be right here. And if you were here? I know I’d break down and tell you. I have
to tell somebody. Turtle. I HAVE TO TELL SOMEBODY. But I can’t go to the police so don’t even ask me don’t, I can’t. Okay
you would. I know you would. You’d think he was bluffing. You’d think that once I tell the cops, why should he bother to come
chasing after me and Oliver—what good would it do him then? But he made that book that scrapbook of those people he’s gone
after, and he knew that even if I didn’t believe it still it would scare me so much I couldn’t do anything.
You’d want me to take a chance. Wouldn’t you Turtle? But why? I don’t care about that world out there anyway, why should I
sacrifice my child to that world? Tonight when I was looking in the paper for something about the trial instead I found an
article about a judge in Colombia. Three of his kids have been killed by druglords but he still
shows up for work
. He’s a hero Turtle but I don’t understand him at all—what does he believe in so much he believes in it more than his children?
You have to explain this to me Turtle, you have to come here and take us away and explain all this to me. I love you and miss
you.
Annie
She carefully tears the page out of the notebook and folds it. She rises and goes downstairs. Down in the kitchen she rifles
all the drawers looking for a match, but she can’t find any. Then she forgets what she’s doing and stands there a while. Then
she remembers. She roots around some more. She decides she’s going nuts here. Her hands are rummaging too quickly, they feel
loaded up with static electricity. She quits looking. She turns up the burner on the electric stove and when the coils are
bright she holds the letter to them. It smokes, and she blows at it fiercely. Finally it flashes into flame, and she carries
it over to the sink. When the flame starts scorching at her fingertips she drops the page. When it’s all ash she douses it
with water.