Earth Angel, page 25
“There is no gravity. The earth sucks.”
“Yup. And that’s all I told Lieutenant Trump. I have no idea what that meant, but she nodded and said, ‘Yes, that makes sense.’ Then she handed me a new note.”
“What’s it say?”
“ ‘Do not contest my will or it will be the fire next time. Ask Popeye the tailor. Or robin the roadkill. Or thy wife, neighbor.’ ”
He laughed. “Christ. What’s it mean?”
“I have no idea.” I stretched out on Josh’s bed. “David, what if I’ve never seen the movie he’s referring to? He picks such obscure ones.”
“Then you don’t figure the note out. It’s not your fault.”
Isn’t it? This wasn’t like a game show where you miss an answer and then smack your forehead and say, “I knew that.” If I was wrong here, if I messed up, children would be hurt. The kind of hurt that lasts a lifetime.
Piled next to the bed was a stack of graphic novels featuring Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, the X-Men. I picked up one of Josh’s comics. Batman scowling at me. That’s what I needed, a mask and a cape. Swing into David’s home at night, hand him the money, and disappear.
We heard the front door open and close, brief arguing between Rachel and Josh. Then heavy footsteps up the stairs. Josh entered the bedroom, saw me lying on his bed and frowned. “Who’s been sleeping in my bed, asked Baby Bear.”
“Open the safe, Josh,” David said.
“It’s my safe. It’s none of your business.”
Rachel stood in the doorway. “Don’t be an asshole, Josh. You’re in enough trouble.”
“So are you,” he snapped and I realized then that he knew about her pregnancy.
Rachel glared at him for his betrayal and walked away. I thought about going after her, but I didn’t know what I’d say to her. I hadn’t been all that helpful when she’d first told me at the kitchen table. We’d sipped matzoh ball soup silently for a few minutes when I’d finally asked, “What about the father? Is he Jewish? Is that what your conversion is all about?”
“No,” she’d said. “To both questions. He’s just a nice guy from school I’d decided to lose my virginity to. We used condoms so I thought we’d be safe. And Vaseline because it was my first time. I didn’t want it to hurt.”
“Vaseline damages the condom. You should have used K-Y jelly.”
“Really?” She shook her head. “The whole sex thing’s much more complicated than I thought. Especially now.”
“Are you sure you’re pregnant? Did you go to a doctor?”
“I took three different brands of home pregnancy tests. They all said I was.”
“Then you probably are. Do you know how pregnant you are?”
“We only did it twice, but over the same weekend. That makes me about six weeks.”
“Don’t you think you should tell David? Go over your options with him? I’m sure he’ll be very understanding.”
She’d absent-mindedly begun unscrewing the top off the salt shaker, spilling tiny granules onto the table. She’d pushed them into a pile with her finger. “David’s cool. But he’ll be disappointed in me. He must have given Josh and me a dozen sex talks. He’ll think I’m stupid.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Why not, I was stupid. I didn’t take enough precautions. I didn’t love the boy. I was just tired of being a virgin and I knew he’d never tell anybody. I figured it was like practice.” She’d pressed her fingertip against the salt until it stuck to the skin, then scraped the granules back into the shaker. She went after every last sparkle of salt. “I don’t want you to think I’m so frivolous as to pick a religion because of a boy. But this whole thing taught me a valuable lesson. I’m not capable of making smart decisions when I have too many options. I need some rules. Jews have lots of rules, six hundred thirteen commandments. I figure if I stick with them, I’ll probably end up doing some good in this world. It’s mathematically inevitable.”
“That’s fine. But in the meantime, what do you want to do about being pregnant?”
“I don’t know yet. I have to think.” She’d closed her eyes tight as if making a wish. “Orthodox Jews are against abortion, you know?”
“Open the safe, Josh,” David repeated. “Let’s get this over with.”
“It’s my safe, my stuff. Dad gave it to me years ago. It has nothing to do with you.”
“When police come into this home to arrest you, then it has to do with me.”
“Why? It’s not your house. You didn’t buy it.”
“Just open the safe, Josh.”
Josh went over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down. “No.”
David stood up, bouncing a little on his bad leg, which seemed to have stiffened. “Josh… ” he began softly, but stopped. David looked tired and sad. He limped to the safe, knelt down, and began spinning the combination lock. He pulled the door open in less than twenty seconds.
“You know the combination!” Josh hollered.
“It was among your father’s papers. I never opened it before now. Maybe I should have.” David reached into the safe and began pulling out the contents. Three shoe boxes and half a dozen floppy disks. He flipped the lid off the shoe boxes; each was filled with cash. “Where did you get this?”
“I earned it, every cent. And no, I don’t deal drugs or guns or any of that shit.”
“How much is here, Josh?”
“Almost ten thousand dollars.”
David waved the floppies. “What’s on here?”
“Records.”
“Of what?” When Josh didn’t answer, David snapped, “Stop being such a goddamned brat, Josh. I can stick these in your computer and read them myself. Now tell me what’s on them.”
Josh hesitated, then sighed resignation. “Betting records, okay? I’m a bookie at school. I take the kids’ bets, give ’em odds, and rake in the cash. It’s easy. A slacker’s dream job.”
David dumped each box’s contents onto the carpet. He poked at the cash as if it might be a dead skunk. “You don’t even like sports, Josh. You never read the sports section of the paper. I mention the Lakers, you yawn.”
“The kids aren’t betting on sports. That’s for jock-sniffing wannabes and washed-up high-school MVP grunts. Nobody cool gives a shit about sports.”
“What are they betting on then?” I asked.
“Movie grosses. How well a movie is doing.”
“You guys bet on how much money a movie is making?” I said, stunned.
“Basically, although it’s a bit more sophisticated than that. Weekend takes. Per screen amounts. Top-five rankings. Cumulative grosses. There are lots of variations. I also have a separate book for television, weekly Nielsen’s, season rankings, that sort of thing. I mean, isn’t that why those lists are published? Why else does the general public need to know how much money a movie is making?”
“You told me you didn’t like movies,” I said.
“I don’t go to them, I just take bets on them.”
“Business must be good,” David said, restacking the money into the boxes.
“It is.”
David slumped against the safe, looking tired and disappointed. “Why’d you do it, Josh? What do you need all this money for? A lousy car?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Josh turned away, straightened some things around on his desk, the stapler, tape dispenser. “I just want enough that I don’t have to rely on anyone else. God bless the child who’s got his own, right?”
Another song lyric. Perhaps life was that simple after all.
“How much would that be, Josh?” David asked. “How much do you need not to have to rely on anyone else? Do you have an exact figure in mind?”
Josh looked at the shoe boxes and shrugged. “Yeah. More.”
The news on television was filled with reports of little Zelda Cummings’s kidnapping and recovery. We saw shots of her parents arriving at and leaving the hospital. Home video of Zelda playing with her black lab, Zorro. Interviews with her friends about how sweet she was, a straight-A student and the goalie on her soccer team. News anchors always referred to her as “brave little Zelda Cummings.” Much was made of her drinking her own urine, at which time she was referred to as “resourceful little Zelda Cummings.” An expert from UCLA explained how drinking urine helped. A press conference with her doctors was shown announcing her condition, which they said was stable. They refused to elaborate on the physical damages except to admit molestation. There was talk of prosecuting the parents for negligence because they allowed a twelve-year-old girl to frequent the donut shop that late. The parents’ attorney claimed that Zelda had just tagged along with her older sister. The parents hadn’t even known. The police spokeswoman said that extra police were patrolling the streets and that a special task force was working on the case, the largest task force ever assembled in Santa Barbara. A reporter asked about the alleged notes from the kidnapper. The spokeswoman declined to comment.
We were watching all this from David’s small bed. We were both naked and I felt a little ashamed being naked with him while watching the news about Zelda Cummings. Suddenly everything about sex and nakedness seemed perverse and dangerous.
“He’ll probably kill himself,” David said. “The cops will close in and he’ll stick a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.”
“Why do you think that?”
“He wants to be caught. Why else send notes? I mean, yeah, he wants to outsmart everyone, but he’s already doing that simply by pulling these kidnappings and getting away with it. That’s not enough for him.” A pair of reading glasses rested low on his nose and an open book was propped on his lap, a thick hardbound tome about religious rituals in the Australia outback.
I had a photocopy of the kidnapper’s note on my lap. Do not contest my will or it will be the fire next time. Ask Popeye the tailor. Or robin the roadkill. Or thy wife, neighbor. I’d been making lists of movies since we’d gone to bed. I looked at the legal pad David had given me. Movies that involved a will or contesting a will: Greedy (there had to be a hundred more, what were they?). Movies with Popeye: Popeye (with Robin Williams; is he the “robin” who’s the roadkill?). Note to myself: Did Robin Williams ever play a tailor? Movies with roadkills: Wolf (with Jack Nicholson), Harry and the Hendersons. My pen was poised to write more but I couldn’t think of anything. I stared at what I had written. Gibberish.
I looked over at David. “You sure this is a good idea, me staying here tonight?”
“Rachel felt comfortable enough to phone you in an emergency. Plus, you sacrificed yourself to save Josh. I think they’ll understand.”
“Not Josh. He seems even madder at me than before.”
David closed his book and sighed. “He’s a handful.”
“No, David, a two-year-old is a handful. Josh is angry. And his anger is not going away.”
“I took all his money, which I’ll put into an account for him for college. I destroyed his computer disks. And I grounded him for two months. What more can I do, Grace? You want me to rough him up a bit?”
“Maybe.” I dropped my pad on the floor and rolled over to face him. “Not really. Hitting a kid doesn’t change behavior, especially at his age. Besides, I’m not so sure you could take him.” I grinned at him to let him know I was teasing.
David got out of bed, lifted his side of the mattress, and pulled out a paperback book he had hidden there.
“Jesus, you’re not going to start reading porno to me, are you?” I said.
He handed the book to me. Tough Love. I leafed through it. It was about how to handle children who are particularly troublesome.
“This is what I’ve been reduced to, reading self-help books on parenthood. Is anything more pathetic? Now you know my darkest secret.” He climbed back into bed. “Josh is a good kid. He has values, he cares about his sister. I think he even cares about me. For my last birthday he made an exact replica of a Mantamba ceremonial mask for me. He hand-painted each detail, including the caterpillar on the cheek. It was magnificent. Whatever resentment he feels toward me as a substitute for the anger he feels at his parents for dying, I have to just ride it out. Let him battle his demons and be there for him no matter how much he tries to push me away.” He took off his reading glasses, folded them, and set them on the nightstand with the book. “Of course, if he pulls another stunt like this, I may just nail his tongue to the kitchen table.”
We lay on our sides facing each other.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, holding my hand.
I smiled. “No one’s asked me that since college.”
“What was your answer then?”
“Same as now. I was wondering if we were going to have sex tonight.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know whether I can handle it with the kids just down the hall. Can you?”
He laughed. “I’m not that provincial. I spent a couple of months with the Mangaians, a Polynesian people who inhabit an atoll southwest of Tahiti. They are—”
I pretended to snore.
“Hey, aren’t you interested in my keen insights?”
I snored louder.
“Fine.”
“Okay, what did those zany natives do?” I tickled him and he jumped.
“Actually, this is interesting. At first they seem very reserved and prudish. Husbands and wives never show affection in public, not even holding hands. But in truth, they are obsessed with sexual genitals. While we find endless fascination with breasts and butts, they don’t care about either. They focus only on the penis and the size, shape, and texture of the pubic mound. Young men compete to see who can achieve the most orgasms in a night. Young women do not want to hear any romantic crap about love or devotion, nor are they interested in physical foreplay. What a woman looks for is a man who can achieve numerous orgasms in a single night, thereby proving his virility and her own desirability. The average number of orgasms for eighteen-year-old males is three times a night, every single night. By the time they reach twenty-eight, it drops off to about twice a night.”
“What are you saving? You need sex twice a night, every night?”
“Are you kidding? I’d be dead in a week, make that a month. Six months at the outside.”
“Was there some point to this story, professor?”
He rolled onto his back. “Yup. Sex is weird.”
I cuddled up next to him, pressing my nose to his chest. He smelled of the ocean. He always smelled of the ocean.
“Truth is, Grace, I feel a little creepy right now, after what happened to that Cummings girl. A guy does something like that, it makes all guys feel a little guilty.”
“It’s not just a guy thing, El Macho. I feel guilty, too. I think it’s more an adult thing. We feel as if we should do better by our children, protect them better.”
“At least she’s safe now.”
“Is she? You know what those doctors do when they take her to the hospital? They break open a rape kit and examine her anal and genital areas with an ultraviolet light because semen fluoresces and glows white—”
“But you said Lieutenant Trump told you she hadn’t been raped.”
“They still have to check. They can’t count on a traumatized girl remembering. After they shine a light on her vagina and anus, if they find anything, they do an acid phosphate test on the samples to see if they turn purple. If it does, it’s semen and it gets placed into a plastic evidence bag and sealed. The girl is not through yet. She lies there on the table while being examined for foreign pubic hairs. Also, any cuts, bruises, or lacerations are documented. Next, swabs from the mouth, vagina, and anus are taken to check for gonorrhea; a sexually transmitted disease is considered excellent proof of molestation. It’s all bagged and sealed and signed by the doctor, then returned to the rape kit. Then, just to make sure, an AIDS test will be conducted. Even if she contracted it, it will be too soon to tell since the test measures antibodies and it would have been too soon to develop them. But they check because if she develops it later they have evidence that she didn’t have it right then. More evidence. And more months of torturous waiting for the girl and her family.” I rolled away from him, suddenly angry. “How does that compare with your multiple-orgasm story?”
“How do you know so much about these cases?” His voice was quietly concerned. “Were you raped?”
Yes, I wanted to say. Every time I had to treat one of these kids. Every time I had to open a rape kit. But where did I get off feeling sorry for myself when it was these kids doing all the suffering? This was the kind of world I’d almost brought my own child into. “No, I wasn’t raped,” I said. “I saw it in a documentary.”
There was a long silence as we each lay on our side of the bed. David Letterman was on the television interviewing Geena Davis. He was flirting. He never handled women well on his show. Either he was in awe of them and acted like the nerdy high-school newspaper editor who only took the job so he could meet girls, or he treated them as if he was the star quarterback and they were lucky he was talking to them at all. I was mentally composing a letter to him pointing out this flaw when David rolled toward me and propped his head up on one hand.
“You know what is bothering you about your involvement in this case?” David said. “I finally figured it out.”
I frowned at him. As if he could possibly know what was bothering me. “Tell me.”
“You’re bugged because the whole thing hinges on someone—in this case you—knowing useless information. You resent that your head is packed with all that crap about movies, not to mention song lyrics, historical minutiae, celebrity gossip. You know all this junk, but you also know all this useful stuff about being a dentist, stuff that can ease suffering and help people. But what is it that is needed right now, your knowledge of trivia.”
Until he’d said it, I hadn’t realized that was exactly right. I was a trained and competent doctor who’d held beating hearts in her hands. But that knowledge was useless now, had been useless in saving Tim. What information is useful? I’d read hundreds of biographies over the years, famous and admirable figures who changed history. But did I know individual people any better?
