Sometimes Rachel
chapter 5 - perish the sun
For two days I stink and fester on the couch. Zoe cleans my wound but I won't let her bandage it. The bleeding stops anyway, and she smears it with antibiotic. My skull aches so badly I think I’m blind. Zoe won't let me have aspirin because the bleeding might start again. She brings me iced tea cloudy with sugar. I put the melting cubes on my eyelids. She brings a mirror so I can look at the ear, a torn bird’s wing. Grinch sleeps on the floor beside the couch. Zoe moves, rippling like water around us, doing mother and baby things. Her small soft feet whisper across the wood floor. She thinks I fought Rachel for the baby and I don’t tell her different. She sings to the boy when he cries.
I wake up and my head feels clear. Looks like mid afternoon. My bladder burns and I desperately need to bathe. My legs feel funny when I get up. I hear voices and splashing. Zoe is in the bathtub with Henry. I stand in the doorway and she smiles at me. Henry has soap on his head. He slaps the water with his tiny open palms. Zoe asks how I feel. Her small round breasts are shiny and wet. She makes no move to cover them. I stare at them a tick too long. I feel cold as hell. I’m freezing. I feel sterile.
I feel better, I say.
I bend to kiss the top of her head and it occurs to me that she can smell me. She can smell Rachel on me. Henry squeals and chatters. I lift the toilet seat and urinate loudly.
He's talking more, she says.
He sounds like a fucking monkey.
She doesn't answer and I turn to the mirror. My hair is just long enough to hide the shredded ear.
Henry goes to sleep without a fight. Zoe and I stay up, drinking coffee. Talking back and forth in meaningless splinters. Zoe curls up next to me on the floor. Her hand restless on my stomach, moving like a spider.
I’m sorry about everything, I say.
Don’t be, she says.
I’ll work on that.
How is the couch, she says. Comfortable?
It's not bad.
Come to bed with us. With me and Henry.
I follow her to the bedroom. She wears a short cotton nightgown with nothing under it. She bends to pet the dog and I see a flash of dark blonde pubic hair. I wear a pair of ridiculous striped boxers she found in her closet. They belonged to some boyfriend of hers, I don’t ask which one. Henry sleeps between us. Grinch is a shadow in the doorway, watchful. I try to control my breathing, I try not to move.
Henry is crying and the bed is wet between us. Zoe gets up to tend to him and I head for the bathroom. When I come out of the shower Zoe is gone.
She left me a note.
Gone shopping. Henry needs clothes. Keep an eye on him, please. Change the sheets if you don’t mind & please put some medicine on your ear. Back soon. I’ll cook a nice dinner tonight and we’ll eat together, the three of us.
Love, Z.
I rip the rancid sheets from the bed and leave them in a knot on the floor.
Henry seems to be learning to walk. He pulls himself up, wobbling with small fists on the table. I smoke and stare at the television. I open the door for Grinch. The dog sniffs around the alley, pisses on some shriveled wildflowers and comes back. Henry falls over, his head cracking against the floor. He wriggles there like a beetle. I go to help him and faraway, in the back of my head, I hear screaming.
Zoe crashes through the screen door carrying shopping bags, groceries. She has treats for the dog. I tell her she looks beautiful. She nods and asks where Henry is. I don’t answer and she finds him asleep on the kitchen floor. His face is grimy.
Travis, she says.
What.
Don't let him sleep on the floor. It's not healthy.
She carries the boy to the couch. After we put the groceries away she wants to show off the baby gear. Little white socks and red Chuck Taylors. Overalls and pajamas. A baseball cap and t-shirts with Batman and Bugs Bunny. Henry wakes up and she strips off his dirty clothes. She dresses him up in a new outfit. He doesn't resist. The hat is adjustable and she cinches it tight. Yosemite Sam, pistols blazing.
I smile and make approving noises.
Isn't he cute? she says.
Oh, yeah. He looks just like Owen.
Really? I think his eyes are like yours. The same green.
He isn't mine. Remember?
White silence.
Did you change the sheets? she says.
I didn't, actually. I forgot.
I’m making pasta for dinner, she says. Clam sauce and a salad.
That sounds good. I'm sorry about the sheets.
I got ice cream, she says. For later.
Zoe goes to the kitchen and begins chopping vegetables. She talks out loud as she works. She doesn't wait for me to answer. She seems happy.
After dinner, I gather the dishes and pile them in the sink. I dump in liquid soap and crank up the water, staring through the wall as the bubbles form. Hiss of insects outside. I light a cigarette and balance it on the windowsill, then start washing the dishes. I feel so sober it’s like my skin is made of bleached wood. I could kill someone. Zoe sits on the living room floor with a book. Henry stands next to her, unsteady. He holds onto her blonde hair. Zoe reads aloud from Winnie the Pooh, her favorite when she was little. I finish the dishes and come to sit beside her and listen. I massage her feet. Her legs are bare. The mark of Rachel’s mouth is almost gone.
Your legs feel cold, I say.
She keeps reading. I reach under her shirt and stroke her ribs. My finger grazes the lower curve of her breast. She isn’t wearing a bra. Henry has sinus trouble. His breathing is hoarse and labored and Zoe abruptly pushes my hand away.
Aren't you going to be late for work?
No, I say.
Henry flops over onto Zoe’s lap and begins to howl. I pull away from her, gather my keys. I leave for the Hole.
The night is deathly slow. I rake in eleven dollars in tips. At closing there's a drunk who won't leave. The bouncer has gone home. Keith comes out of the back.
Fucking sucks, he says. Eight bucks, I got.
He starts to comb his hair, squinting into the dirty mirror. His nostrils are raw. A lit cigarette hangs from his mouth.
Pull me a draft, Travis.
I reach for a glass. Foam spurts from the tap. Keith notices the drunk.
Let's go buddy, he says.
The drunk is muttering softly. Abruptly he starts crying. He has a crumpled dollar in one hand. Maybe an inch of beer in the bottle before him.
Let's go. Hey.
The drunk doesn't answer. Keith slips the comb into his back pocket and pats his hair. He comes around the bar fast and without pausing knocks the weeping drunk off his stool.
I said let's go. Fuck.
Keith takes a handful of hair and collar, starts dragging the drunk toward the door. Then changes his mind, swings the drunk up against the wall. He slaps him across the face. The sound is wet. I dip my thumb into Keith's beer, rub it across my lips. Tell myself to hate the taste of it.
What's the matter? You fuck. You fuck.
Keith slaps the drunk again and again. Then he looks at me.
You want some of this?
The drunk is hanging from Keith's fist like a sack of clothes. I come around the bar and study the drunk close. Breathing heavy like a wounded horse.
Think he fainted, I say.
What the hell? says Keith. Give him some.
I bring my fist up from below the waist, slow and heavy, as if I’m wading through water. I put my weight into it and at the last moment everything accelerates and like a hammer my fist sinks into the drunk's belly. Breath escapes his mouth, the smell of sick. Keith releases him and he collapses to the floor. I feel calm and faraway. Together we drag the guy to the curb and dump him.
In the car on autopilot and I forget where I’m going. I arrive at my own apartment and it smells empty. It doesn’t smell like me. I slap at the light switch and I get nothing. Try another one and still nothing. The electricity has been cut off. I light a match and look around. Feel like I’m seeing it for the first time and it's really an ugly little place. The furniture is torn and broken and the windows are all blacked out, like a crazy person lives here. The television and stereo are the only things of any value. I take the TV down to the car, thinking I’ll hit a pawnshop tomorrow. The rent will be due soon, though I’m not sure I want to pay it. I’d rather live with Zoe. I know it’s not really a family. It barely resembles one. I’m dead inside and I’m shacked up with my stepsister, a borrowed dog, and a retarded kid. I shake my head and go back upstairs for the stereo. On the couch is Rachel's bandana. She must have left it the other day, as I have the only key.
Zoe is still awake when I come in. Her eyes are raw and shifting.
What’s wrong? I say.
Owen was here. He just showed up.
Why did you let him in?
The door was open. It was hot in here. He just walked in.
Did he see the kid?
No. Henry was asleep, in bed. But there was a pacifier on the table.
Well. Did he see it?
I don’t think so, she says. I think Grinch made him nervous.
Good. What else?
He got me high.
That’s nice, Zoe. What was it?
He said it was hash but it tasted like dirt.
How do you feel?
Stupid, she says.
Her hands are white, tangled in a knot.
Zoe. Did something happen?
He asked me to go to the zoo with him.
Jesus. What did you say?
I told him to call me. I was afraid to say no.
Don't worry. If anyone goes to the zoo with Owen it will be me.
Is he going to take Henry away?
No, I say. Don’t worry about it.
Zoe lights a cigarette.
Did you hear me? I say.
Zoe smokes.
He looks like Gilligan in that hat, she says, finally.
In the morning I’m restless, jumpy. Zoe is feeding the boy. I tell her I’m going out and not to answer the phone. I stop at a pawnshop downtown and unload the TV and stereo for forty bucks, then just drive around a while, aimless, smoking. Almost noon and the sky, thank God, is like flesh on a slab. I don’t think I could stand to see the sun today. The streets are deserted. I stop for coffee at the corner store. The owner is an old Greek woman named Odessa. She likes me and always remembers my brand of cigarettes. I remind her that I owe her a dollar but she waves it away, tells me to keep it. She says a fresh pot is almost ready. I wait, looking at a magazine. A woman about my age comes in. She wears cutoff jeans and a sweatshirt, canvas sneakers unlaced. Three little kids trail along behind her. She acts like their mother. She tells them to hush so she can think. The little girl gets milk and cheese and butter, holding them in her shirt. In the back of one aisle the two brothers find a bag of sugar, spilled open on the floor. They hunch over it, shoving and muttering. They spoon it up with fingers, smearing their mouths white. The woman hollers at them to get out of that shit. The smaller boy stops and moves away. I pour coffee into a cup, peel open the cream substitute. The other boy is eating sugar as fast as he can. Odessa watches the mother. I stir my coffee. The mother sees her boy still bent over the sugar and her face twists into a knot. She comes up behind him slow and silent. She looks at me and touches a finger to her lips. I stare back at her, stirring my coffee. In a fluid motion the woman slips off one sneaker and smacks the boy in the back of the head, with a sound like a paddle slapping water. The boy chokes, spits a mouthful of ropy half-digested sugar, and pitches forward on his belly. He rolls over on his back and refuses to get up. The other kids run outside. The woman is screaming at the boy and now Odessa comes around the counter with a baseball bat in hand. I come to life and step between them, then think better of it. On my way out I leave two dollars at the register. The boy and girl wait together by a payphone, sullen and watchful. I feel like I should reassure them, tell them everything is going to be okay, but I don’t think it is.
I pick up a whore two blocks away. She looks ravaged but she's young and skinny. Dark red hair shiny with product. Slick white dress clinging to her hips like rubber. Pale yellow stains under the arms. High silver boots splattered with mud. She gets into the car, clutching a silver purse. She stinks of perfume and her face is strangely lopsided. There’s something wrong with her nose.
What? she says.
Nothing. Is your nose broken?
She wipes it, violently. You a freak? she says.
I shrug. The car idles.
Okay. What do you want?
What’s on the menu?
Twenty I’ll blow you. Fifty for the whole throw.
I give her fifty dollars. She counts it and slips it down one boot.
And I don't do any freak shit.
I ease the car away from the curb and drive toward the river. She complains bitterly about the broken radio. I tell her it only works sometimes, when I hit a bump. She grunts and sniffs. I park near the old bridge. The whore looks out the window.
I hate the river, she says.
Don't look at it.
She snaps open the silver purse and gives me a condom, then yanks the white dress up around her waist. She doesn't wear panties and she has no pubic hair at all.
Wait a minute, I say.
What for?
The condom is bright green, slippery under plastic. Hot breath of wind through my car window, the stink of the river. I have an image of my stepfather, Big Jim, drunk and gutting a fish.
Let's get out of the car, I say.
She stares at me. I push open my door.
Let's go, I say.
No way, she says. I don't do it in the grass.
In the backseat she crouches over me, the heels of her boots tearing into cloth seats. She pulls the dress over her head and drops it to the floor. She has small breasts with big pink nipples. I suck one of them briefly. It tastes like a cigarette. Her mouth is open, a string of spittle hanging from the lower lip. Her breathing is ragged and from this vantage I can see her nostrils are nearly collapsed. I wrap my hands around her throat. She stares out the window, blank. My thumbs find the soft hollows under her jaw. I squeeze just hard enough to stop her breath and now her eyes focus. I release her and let my hands fall like stones. I’m inside her but I can’t feel anything. I close my eyes and again I think of gutted fish.