Saturday, September 19, 2015

On the other side of the tracks

Her eyes he would remember years after, how they could go from sunny and wide to dark and dull in an instant. He never knew when or why this happened but he was smart enough to understand that those dreams she had were connected to her eyes' chameleon qualities.

But that is in the future and this story is about the present. The brilliant, bright, burning present.



“Billy!” his mother’s voice was shrill. “Billy!” He rolled his eyes and yelled: What? “A spider!” His room was hot under the roof but at least he was alone. “Billy!” He sighed loudly and rolled out of bed. His mother stood in the middle of the kitchen floor and pointed to one of the corners. A big black spider clung to the ceiling. “Kill it,” she demanded and gave him the broom.  He swept the ceiling and hoped he would get the spider. If it didn’t die his mother would have him crawl around on the floor and look for it.

In June it had been great to come home from college. See his parents, sleep late, have dinner and hang out with his old friends. Now in August he started to long to go back. He missed the freedom of being away from everybody he knew. In that loneliness he had changed, perhaps it was called finding yourself.

The spider was a mush on the broom when he looked and his mother let out a satisfied sigh. He put the broom in the cabinet. “I’m going out.” His mother got that wrinkle between her eyes. “Will you be back for dinner?” He shrugged. “Probably not,” he said and pulled on his Converse.  “Are you seeing Tess?” His mother’s voice got that tone he didn’t really recognize every time she said Tess’s name. “Mm.” He pushed open the screen door but his mother got hold of his arm. “Is she really good for you?” His mother’s hair was frizzy from the humidity and she had a thousand freckles on her face now in the late summer. “She is older.” He shrugged. “She is…” his mother’s voice faded. He pulled his arm out of her grip and she let him go. “Be careful!” she called after him.

He walked down the street; the day was still hot even though it was after five. Some boys were playing street hockey and had to move when a car turned down the street.  His father was on the train by now coming home from the office. The office, the word made him cringe. He would never be able to put on a suit and sit in an office every day.

At the train tracks the gates were down, for a short moment he hesitated then he bent down and walked under them. The train blared the horn but he didn’t care. On the other side of the tracks the houses started to change. The Cape Cods from the forties disappeared and brick townhouses with stoops lined the wide street. His mother had grown up on this side of the town among first and second generation immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe. The houses were still impressive but had started to look run down by now. After the riots of the sixties this part of town had never truly recuperated.

She sat on the stoop when he stopped in front of her house. She had a couple of take-out boxes from the Chinese place on the corner next to her and ate from one with a plastic fork. She looked at him as she chewed with her mouth full and when she had swallowed she smiled her crooked smile. “Are you here again?” Before he could answer she spoke. “Did you eat?” He shook his head and walked towards the stoop. “I have fried rice, fried shrimp and noodles.” She pointed to the different containers. “Fork is in the bag.” She pushed the white plastic bag with her foot. He sat down next to her. She smelled sweet, tea with milk in his grandmother’s kitchen in the winter or those pink roses that climbed his grandparent’s house in the summer.

 “How is your father?”, he asked. She made a few incoherent sounds of irritation before she swallowed . “You would think he could have the decency to die before school starts again.” The noodles had small pieces of egg stuck to them; he spun them around his fork and took a bite. Tess put down her box and reached behind her and brought out a bottle of Southern Comfort. She took a swig and gave him the bottle. First sweetness on his tongue then the burn down his throat. He grimaced. “You really have the worst taste in liquor.” She laughed, loud and clear.

The Chinese food was gone and half the bottle, she laid with her head in his lap on the porch swing. He slowly rocked them back and forth. The cicadas filled the evening with their whirring. “I wish I could just leave,” she said and made circles with her finger on his arm. Her touch was comfort and thrill in one. “I wish I wasn’t so good so I could just leave.” She walked her fingers up his arm and down again. “Billy,” she whispered. “Mm,” he whispered back. “Let’s go inside.” Her words rushed in his head, down his spine into his groin.

She slept in the small bedroom downstairs. The room that used to be her younger brother’s. The blonde haired, blue eyed angel who as a three year old had run out the door one day. Straight out in the street and instantly got hit by a car. He died two days later in the hospital. “It never was the same again, she often said with a flat voice. But now the room was hers. Her smell, her things, her persona. She stood in front of him in her blue dress and she pulled it over her head. The skin around her breast shone white in the evening light. The tan line as sharp as a marker line. “Come.” She took his hand in hers and pulled him close. Her skin was so warm, so soft against his. Her arms were around his neck. Her lips on his. She nibbled on his bottom lip. His body reacted immediately. She purred under his touch. Slithered under his tongue. Curved under his weight.  He melted into her, surrendered.

Sleep was about to bring him under when Tess whimpered in her sleep. She laid with her head on his arm and one hand across his chest. Her hand twitched and she whimpered again. Suddenly she sat up and he was wide awake. “Are you ok?” he whispered in the dark. She didn’t respond so he put his hand on her back. Her whole body jerked under his touch and she moved away from his hand. “What is wrong, Tess?” She laid down again, curled up against the wall and seemed to be deep in sleep. Then another whimper, a thin, childlike whimper filled with fear and pain. Then another, and another and she started to breathe fast and shallow. Billy sat up, didn’t know if he should try to comfort. Reached out his hand put pulled it back, afraid he would only make it worse. Make whatever was haunting her more real. The feeling of being inadequate and powerless was a soggy stone in his body as he listened to Tess’s cry filled breaths.

A woman called out a man’s name on the street and Tess stopped hyperventilating. He relaxed an inch.  The woman called out one more time and Tess moved a little, she pushed away from the wall and turned over. He heard how she patted the bed and searched for him. When her hand found his thigh where he was sitting she got up on her elbow. “Why are you sitting there?” she asked sleepy. He took hold of her hand, her palm was sweaty. “I am watching over you.” She sniggered. “What is that supposed to mean?” She moved closer and put her head on his leg. He caressed her bare back. “Don’t you remember?” She yawned widely and moved a little closer. “Remember what?” Her body was so relaxed against his. “You cried,” he said but she didn’t answer. “Maybe it was a dream.” A tension went through her body. “Did I hurt you?” The question surprised him. “No, no not all. You were hyperventilating and I worried about you. I didn’t know what to do.” She laid still on his leg, he could tell how she was thinking. “Sometimes...” she started and then the phone rang. “What the fuck?” She sat up, the phone rang again and again. “Maybe it is the hospital,” he said and she jumped out of bed, ran out and slammed the door behind her.

As he heard her muffled voice he started to get dressed, suddenly his nakedness felt awkward and out of place. As he pulled his t-shirt over his head he heard the door open. Tess stood in the doorway. She had an odd expression on her face. A mix of surprise, sadness and relief. “Was it the hospital?” She nodded and took two steps into the room. Her arms hung by her side and her hair was unruly. “I guess I am supposed to go in, right?” Her voice uncertain. “What happened…did he…” She looked up at him; her eyes were huge, glossy, and empty. “He…his…he…his heart gave up.” Her bottom lip trembled and he put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. She sobbed a few times then she grew quiet. “It is ok to cry,” he said into her hair. She smelled of their closeness, their tenderness, their passion. “I know,” she said quietly, then she pulled away from him. “I…I have to go. I am supposed to go.”

He watched as she opened the closet and pulled out a few dresses, she put them on the bed and then she opened her dresser and pulled out tights. “The hospital is so freaking cold,” she said and smiled at him. On top of the tights she put a dark dress with white flowers. She French braided her hair then she sat down on the bed. ” I will take a cab from Main Street.” He nodded. “I don’t know when I will be back...”her words stopped short. “I can come back tomorrow.” She shrugged. “I might need to sleep,” her voice was very soft and polite but he got the message. “Ok,” he said, “I will come back some other day.” She stood up and grabbed her bag. “Good.”

He watched as she walked up the street, she looked very determined as she walked with her back straight and head held high. He wanted to go after her, hold her hand, be with her at the hospital but he had a feeling she wouldn’t want him there. But he stood still and looked after her until he couldn’t see her anymore.

His parents were sleeping when he came home. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and drank from the tap. When he looked in the mirror he saw long red streaks down his arm from Tess’s nails and for a reason he didn’t even know he started to cry.

Thunder woke him up, the room was shady, his head heavy. He laid and listened to the rain.  It started slow but it soon  pounded the roof. It was past ten in the morning, his father was gone for hours and his mother was working today. He had the house to himself. He rolled to the side, closed his eyes and tried to will himself to fall asleep again. His mind dove down into slumber but was abruptly brought back up when fire trucks came down the street. Not one, but several. The sound stirred something inside of him. Something worrisome. A premonition.

The rain was coming down hard as he ran down the street. Lightning cut across the navy blue clouds. He slipped on the tracks but got up and kept running. The fire trucks, he counted to five, were parked outside Tess’s house. Flames were licking the windows on the top floor. Smoke was rising through the roof. People had gathered on the street, stared, whispered. He tried to run up to the house. What if she was sleeping? A broad shouldered firefighter put a hand to his chest and stopped him. “Can’t go in there, son.” He tried to move past the hand, move past the uniform but no use. “She might be sleeping,” he said and his voice was shaking. “In the small bedroom on the first floor.” The fireman looked down at him with curious eyes. “I had the smoke divers in there already. No one is in the house. Do you know the family?” Billy shook his head. “No, only Tess.” The fireman put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “She is not in there.”

He backed away from the house, stood by the other spectators, heard the whispers.
“The father is in the hospital”
“I heard he died last night.”
 “Where are the boys?”  
“That girl…”
Billy turned and looked at the woman who said the last thing. She was probably around sixty, her hair in a typical old lady style. Her mouth a disapproving line.
“I know,” the woman next to her said. “Something wrong with that girl.”
A third lady leaned closer. She had straight grey hair in a bob.
“After little Tommy died…and the mother left…not easy for that girl.”
“The mother was crazy too,” the first woman said.
Billy felt the blood pumping. He bit down hard on his teeth. Wanted to yell at the women.  The woman in the bob looked at him. She put her head to the side, squinted a little, pondered.
“You know Tess,” she said and the other two women turned their heads and stared at him.
He nodded. It looked like they were waiting for him to say something. He took a few steps backwards, and then he turned and walked home. He waited that day, and the next, and the next…then school started and eventually he stopped waiting.


One time at Disneyland, many years later. He had his three year old son on his shoulder and he saw this woman with a little girl. They sat on a bench, their heads close together, talking to each other, it was something about the shape of the woman’s shoulders. Or the way she held her head or how the hair hung over the little girl’s forehead. He wasn’t sure but he thought it was her. She must have sensed his eyes because she lifted her head and looked at him. Then she smiled her crooked smile. He wanted to talk to her. Ask how she was. Where she had been. But at that moment his wife called for him and his son pointed in excitement at Mickey Mouse. The next time he looked they were gone.