Sometimes Rachel
chapter 3 - silence brightly
Past midnight when I get out of the Hole. I replay my sister’s voice in my head. Rachel is here. The words cold and flat. It might be nothing. Light rain falling. The car stinks of bad milk. I crank the window down and smoke. The left side of my face is wet. I park in the alley and when I get out of the car I hear music, thick and distorted. Sounds like Elvis and it's coming from Zoe's place. Little misunderstanding. The door is wide open and Zoe sits on the floor as if she fell there. She’s barefoot. She wears a short red dress, a cocktail party dress. Like she stumbled out of bed in the dark and pulled something from the closet. One strap falling down over thin white shoulder. She looks stoned. She looks up as I turn down the stereo.
Where is she? I say.
The bedroom. With Henry.
What's with the music? I say.
Zoe shrugs. Rachel says the baby is deaf and that's why he can't talk.
Do you think so?
No. I think he has brain damage. From the accident.
What is she doing back there?
I don't know. Do you have a cigarette?
Are you okay? I say.
Zoe shakes her head. She looks tired, scared. I crouch next to her. I touch her face. Her eyes are raw and dilated. She has a narrow lock of hair in one hand, wet and curved like it's been in her mouth. A mosquito bite near her collarbone. Between her small breasts the silk is crumpled, as if recently pulled and twisted in a fist. The dress clings to her belly. I glance at her legs. She has a small cut below one knee from shaving. And her thigh is badly bruised. Purple skin in the shape of a mouth turning white along the edges. I touch it, and pull my hand away. Her skin seems to breathe.
What the fuck is this?
Her lips shake and she starts to laugh. I light a cigarette and give it to her.
Did Henry do this?
She trembles and I move my hand up, along her inner thigh.
Zoe tries to inhale, choking.
Rachel, she says. Rachel bit me.
Rachel comes out of the bedroom, Henry asleep in her arms. She lowers him to the sofa and reaches for her jacket. I stand to face her and she smiles.
Travis, she says.
What are you doing, Rachel?
I'm taking Henry.
Why?
Your sister is very sexy, she says. And delicious, as you know.
Fuck you.
But I’m afraid she’s not much of a mother, says Rachel.
I can only watch as my closed fist swings through heavy bright silence. Try to pull it back but it's long gone. Rachel doesn't move or try to duck and I hit her just below the throat. She crashes over a chair. Henry screams. I look at my hand, then at Rachel. My head is buzzing with insects and I can’t think. How to stop this and it's already happened. Rachel lies crumpled on the floor, her breathing ragged. She flashes a broken smile at me as she pulls herself up.
I sit on the couch, holding a glass of water. Muscles tremble in my legs as if I have just narrowly missed wrecking my car. Rachel whispers nonsense to the kid, who still cries violently. Zoe packs diapers and baby gear into a pillowcase. She doesn't look at me. Her face gray and stony. I slap at my pockets, looking for keys. Fingers numb. I remove the key to my apartment and give it to Rachel, who takes it without a word. She gathers the boy, the pillowcase packed by Zoe. She doesn’t say goodbye.
She doesn’t love that child, says Zoe.
I don’t answer. I don’t know what the hell just happened.
She just wanted your fucking apartment.
Maybe.
I’m going to bed, she says.
Zoe walks away from me, pulling the red dress over her head. I stay up for a while, smoking in the dark. I can hear Zoe crying in the other room, a soft jerking sound. I strip to my underwear and crawl quietly into her bed. I wrap my arms around her, around my sister but not my blood. The crying stops and now she has the hiccups. I pull her hard to my chest and her lips brush my arm. She kisses the crook of my elbow. The curve of her ass presses against me. I will my erection to shrink but it’s hopeless. I’m about as hard as I can be. Zoe doesn’t move away from me, nor does she move closer. Her breathing deepens slowly and she mumbles in her sleep and my arms are bright with needles holding her.
Zoe was thirteen when she got her period. She was terrified and didn’t want anyone to know. I found her panties, smeared brown with blood. She had buried them in the bathroom wastebasket, beneath a heap of ripped tissue. I imagined she was afraid of what Big Jim would say. But the bathroom wasn’t exactly safe so I took the wastebasket outside. I burned the panties and tissue in the alley, then scattered the ashes. I had ten dollars saved in a coffee can. I went to Zoe’s room and asked if she wanted to go to the store. Why, she said. I have some money, I said. I’ll buy us candy. At the drugstore I held her hand. The floors were bright and waxed. I let Zoe choose a bag of butterscotch candy, then led her past the shaving cream, the Band-Aids and cold medicine. There were dozens of different tampons and pads. Zoe was sucking the candy, her face red. What kind do you need? I said. Her hand small and sweating in mine. Zoe just shook her head. She said she was going to throw up and went outside. I found a lady with a nice face and asked her to help me. She told me what kind to buy, what size. Zoe was waiting for me outside. I gave her the box of pads and told her to hide them in her room when we got home.
Morning, bright. I realize just how small Zoe’s place is. She brings me coffee, black and sweet. I sit in the armchair.
Are you still keeping that dog? Zoe says.
Grinch, you mean.
Do you think Rachel will feed him?
He's okay.
How long will you stay here?
Not yet noon and the sun is brutal. The heat is like a glove in my mouth. The door to the apartment is open. A man and woman argue in the alley. Their car won't start. Dead battery grinding. The man let his brother borrow the cables. The woman can't believe it.
You trust her, then. Zoe stares at me.
No. I don’t trust her.
Then how could you leave your dog with her? And Henry?
I am sweating so intensely I can taste salt on my upper lip. The fan blows steadily, rattling as it turns. Zoe goes into the kitchen and crashes around. She’s worried, that’s all. I think of Grinch. The dog is full grown, a white shepherd mix. He weighs seventy pounds and his jaws are massive. He would be much harder to kill than a puppy. The kid, on the other hand. The kid worries me.
Tonight, says Zoe. I think it might be best if you slept on the couch.
Yes, I say.
Zoe disappears for a while. Pipes crying in the walls and I decide she’s in the shower. I stretch out like a corpse on the floor. I smoke cigarettes and stare at the ceiling, searching for patterns in the grooved paint. The phone rings twice and stops. Zoe comes out of the bedroom, hair dripping. She puts water on to boil and soon brings me a cup of tea without speaking. She sits on a barstool. She wears a long sleeveless white T-shirt, wet and transparent around the neck. The tea is green, bitter. I blow on it, watching her. She smokes one of my cigarettes. The ash grows long and fragile and I wait for it to fall.
Owen called, she says.
Fuck. What did he say?
Not much. I told him you weren't here.
And?
He said he could hear you breathing.
Motherfucker is crazy.
How did he get this number?
I rub my mouth. I gave it to him.
Why? she says.
I had to. I didn’t want him to find Rachel.
She crushes her cigarette. A string of smoke rises.
That’s sweet. What about me? And Henry.
Henry isn’t here.
Zoe’s eyes are needle black. I wish you would do something about this, she says.
In the bathroom I throw water at my face. I clean my teeth. I try to clean the bathroom but it’s hopeless. I hear a pounding, heavy and sustained, coming from the front room. As if someone is beating on the front door with the heel of a shoe. I come out of the bathroom and Zoe still sits on the stool.
Someone at the door, I say.
The pounding continues, now with long pauses.
I think it's for you, she says.
I go to open it and Owen stands there. The fishing hat is pulled down tight over his skull. His eyes are swollen and red, his face sweating.
Hey, he says. You want to go to a movie?
Owen. This isn’t it a good time
The matinee, he says. It's cheaper.
I hesitate. Come in, Owen.
Who is that? Owen takes a step back.
I glance around at Zoe. Pale yellow hair still dripping. The sun behind her. Long white T-shirt. Long naked arms and thighs. Bright flash of panties as she crosses her legs, like a shooting star. I stare hard at her and she presses her thighs together.
That’s Zoe, I say. My sister.
Oh. It's a pleasure. Owen's mouth falls open. The edges of his teeth glow like silver. He scratches his throat. Do you like movies, Zoe?
Let's go, Owen.
My car is hot and damp inside, with the faint smell of dog. The engine coughs and dies. I light a cigarette. I notice there’s a raw place inside my mouth. I’ve been chewing it and can’t seem to stop. The engine coughs, dies. I‘m wondering how Owen got hold of Zoe’s address. The engine catches finally and I wait for it warm up. Try the radio but it's dead, and Owen commences to hum, tunelessly.
I like your sister, he says. Might tell her to put some clothes on, though.
We weren't expecting you.
Huh. I told her over the phone I was coming, he says.
And how’d you find us? I say.
Owen shrugs. Followed my nose.
Right.
Anyway. She’s got a nice little body. Maybe she's proud of it.
Be careful, Owen.
Sorry. I don't mean any harm.
Owen sits with his knees clutched together. I fasten my seatbelt and Owen shakes his head violently. He hits the release button and my seatbelt snaps loose.
Dangerous, says Owen. I don't believe in them.
I stare at him. How’s that?
Like to cut your damn head off.
I refasten the belt.
That wreck me and old Sally had, says Owen. I wasn't wearing a belt. Not a scratch on me.
Yeah. What about Sally?
The Lord wasn't watching out for her.
Oh. Why not?
Owen shrugs. She's a woman.
Right. What does that mean?
Book of Genesis. Woman eats that apple and her destiny is her own.
Owen again reaches for my release button and I stop his hand.
Tell me this. Are you an organ donor? Owen says.
No. As a matter of fact, I’m not.
Smart boy.
How do you figure?
Hell, son. They don't let you in Paradise with a missing kidney.
At the Paris Theater the porn flicks run all day. In the lobby they sell incense and cock rings and wooden pipes. Condoms and cigarettes. Bright yellow popcorn and candy. A silent black man stares at us from behind the counter. Owen shrugs and defers to me. I hold up two fingers and put ten dollars on the counter, for the tickets. Owen produces a wet clump of singles and buys a vial of rush and a giant bucket of popcorn.
Extra butter on there, he says.
We enter the dark. I count maybe twelve heads. None of them sitting together. Owen insists on sitting in the front row. He passes the bucket of popcorn and begins huffing deeply from the vial. The popcorn smells like burnt hair and the butter is slimy. I wish I’d gotten some candy. Owen leans back with a blank grin on his face. He offers me the vial and it's like sniffing bleach, dizzy at first then a headache.
The first movie features a young girl with vacant stare and massive breasts. The dialogue is minimal. The girl has car trouble. A salesman stops in a rental car. He wears a bad piece, like a gutted squirrel. It slips down over his eyes as he fucks the girl. They do it on the highway shoulder. The girl naked, on her knees. There's a lingering shot of his penis going in and out of her asshole.
I bet you like that, says Owen.
Next, a truck driver comes along. He drags the girl into the back of his truck and fucks her in the mouth. She appears to swallow his entire scrotum, and presently jet of egg white come splashes across her greedy face.
Owen giggles, stuffing popcorn in his mouth.
Last is a highway patrolman. He reads the girl her rights and takes her to a shitty motel. He handcuffs her to the bed and shoves his black billyclub deep inside her.
Now, that’s what I'm talking about, says Owen.
That’s got to be fake.
Owen jerks in his seat. Are you kidding me?
That thing is at least two feet long.
Don't know much about modern film do ya?
Like what?
Method acting, Owen says. It's all for real.
The credits roll and I get up. Outside the sky is white as a salt flat. Owen follows me out. I smoke, leaning against the car.
The second feature is starting, Owen says.
I have to go, Owen.
There’s still some of that popcorn left.
Owen, please. What do you want from me?
Nothing, he says. I’d like us to be friends though. I figure we're friends you have to tell me where my Sally is.
I don't know where she is.
Owen stares at the sky. Reckon I'll give you a call.
Do that, I say.
We'll get high and go to the zoo. The reptile house is crazy.
Zoe sits on the floor with photographs scattered around her. Black and white body parts. Arms and legs and feet. Shoulders, breasts and throats. She avoids faces because of her portrait work. She uses a razorblade to dismember her images. Some of these she will display alone on gray paper. Others she touches with paint, using a fine hair brush. Her shirt is smeared with paint. She still wears only the T-shirt and panties and I remember what Owen said. She knew he was coming. She doesn't look up.
Be careful, Zoe.
What, she says.
The razor. Don’t cut yourself.
I sit in the chair by the window. I smoke two cigarettes, one after the other. My hands shake. I would kill somebody for a drink. I reach for the phone and dial my apartment. Rachel isn't there but I tell the machine I want to see her. I tell her to meet me for breakfast the next day, and name a cheap diner. I tell her to bring Henry. My voice is hard, echoing back at me. Zoe looks up then. She looks at me the way she used to, when we were kids.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, I say.
She gets up, walks toward me. Brown and green fingerprints like bruises on her long thighs. She leans to kiss me. I turn and her open lips find my mouth then pull away. The red tip of her tongue like a ghost against my teeth.
I made some iced tea, she says. It should be cold now.
I stare through her, touching my mouth. I think it's going to rain, I say.