Spell Heaven, page 10
I so misjudged the depth of this curb.
“You know, what caused people to fall is only discovered much later. After the fact.”
It’s the end of another day. Stevie is filling me in on the results of today’s Fall Rounds.
“It turns out one patient put his shoes on the wrong feet and backward and that did it. One person went to sit down in a common-room chair and missed. One patient said the floor opened up, the devil was waving and said, ‘Come on down.’ Another told me she took the elevator to the second floor, but there was no elevator.
“And, more often than not, two people will go down together. A staff member will see a person start to slip and will get to them as they are about to fall. To break their fall. They’ll reach out, grab the patient, and both end up going down together. There’s less damage that way. We have a term for it,” she says. “It’s called voluntary descent. Another person volunteered to go along for the ride.”
If I had been there at the moment my mother started to go, I could have been that person. I would have raised my hand. I would have volunteered. I could have reached out for her, and we could have floated down together to that carpeted beige sea.
But I wasn’t there when she fell. I wasn’t there to catch her.
On Friday morning, I call to tell her we’re going to spring her. “Sunday,” I say. “Be ready.”
When there’s no response, and to make sure she doesn’t think she’s going to another temporary way station, I say, “Home sweet home.”
“Oh, I’m going to kiss the four corners of that place,” she says. “I’m going to get home and kiss the four corners.”
The four corners of that place. Her tiny apartment. Her world. Her flat, lovely world.
Spanning the four corners of the globe. Where does that come from? Some old riff comes back, a TV program’s intro. What was it? Four corners. Remember, it had something to do with a sports show. Skiers on a downward slope. The name of the program doesn’t come to me, but the voice and image do. I can see radio waves spanning the globe, reaching across Europe, Asia, Antarctica.
The four corners of the globe. Four corners, as if the world were flat.
If the world were flat, no one would fall.
On Sunday, my sister calls with the details of the liberation. She sprung her at 10 a.m. My mother was up and ready, dressed, packed, in her wheelchair. Holding her purse on her lap in a tight grip. When my sister walked into her room, my mother whispered, “Get me outta here.”
That evening, after I know she’s had time to settle back in, I give her a call.
“I bet you’re glad to be home.”
“Oh, I opened the door and it was like heaven.”
Those four walls, that tiny apartment. Those four corners. That Rachael Ray. That Jeopardy, that Wheel of Fortune, that 24 Hour Brake Repair outside the window. That heaven: four hundred square feet. That dreamy floor plan. A rose-patterned chair. The TV controls within reach.
Spell heaven. All those ways to spell heaven.
Over the phone I can hear a baseball game on in the background, her Mariners. The tinny cheers of the crowd. The announcer’s play-by-play. The team is in the middle of a pennant race. The Fall Classic.
When I get off the phone I turn on the game just in time to see Ichiro connect on a fastball. The ball rockets up into the left-field stands, up near the nosebleed section. As the ball continues to lift, I hear the announcer say, “He got a piece of that one. He skied one to left.”
“Skied one to heaven,” I say.
I know she’s watching that ball ascend. Is she rising, as the crowd rises, to join in that ovation? Is she getting up from her chair to cheer? Is she lifted, as they are lifted, as we are lifted, above this ground-level view, above this turmoil? I know that’s what she’d want for all of us. She’d want everyone to have a chance. She’d want all of us to fall up.
THE YEAR OF MERCY
I NOTICE HER RIGHT OFF, THE ONLY WOMAN IN A SEA OF men who gather every morning at the parking lot near the pier, a lot that serves as our town’s wrecking yard, our Motel 666. She’s hanging there with the rest of the drifters, the sniffers, the castoffs, cast outs, leaning up against a busted-up truck, painted a dull, dark, burnt orange, burnt something, as if someone slapped a bucketful of Rust-Oleum all over that thing. The truck’s chassis is raised up high on muddy tires, the luggage rack on the roof holds a rolled-up tarp or tent, an old gas can. The kind of vehicle you’d find in Death Valley or the Mojave, Mad Max at the wheel, driving across the flats, kicking up a dust cloud in the high heat. Mel Gibson in full apocalyptic sportswear, in Cormac McCarthy’s new athletic line.
The woman catches my eye, sees that I’m staring, stares back. Gives me a little smile.
I turn away, keep walking. Something about her scares me. A woman in a fake fur coat, her greasy blond hair pulled back into a black scarf. Not young, not old, but getting there fast. She’s thin, way too thin, and stands in that familiar smoker’s stance: right arm held tight across her chest, right hand cupping left elbow, left arm held perpendicular to the sky, cigarette between her fingers. Thin squirrely line of blue smoke rising up in the air.
Squirrely. As in sped up, fidgety, jumpy.
The next morning, she’s there again but this time she’s sitting behind the wheel of the truck, throne high. And she isn’t alone. Right beside her, riding shotgun on that bench seat, a small head pops up. A little girl, maybe six or seven, long blond hair hanging down in her eyes.
Mad Maxine and her sidekick, Mini-Max.
Now that they’re on my radar, I see the two of them whenever I take a drive down to the sea. They’re always there, day and night. Usually the little girl is playing in the dirt median next to the parking lot where nothing grows, where cans and cigarette butts and paper wrappers collect. I watch as she twirls her toes in the dirt or piles crushed beer cans into a pyramid, while the woman leans against the truck and talks with the other dudes, the hey buddy, give me a toke hangers-on who hang around in their dented vans and ancient RVs, guard dogs tied to the fenders on rope leashes, frayed tethers. Snarling. Ready to make a breakfast snack out of my dog as we walk by.
And always, in the middle of that swirling, squirrely scene, that little girl.
People have always lived by the sea. Misfits, outliers, drawn to the edge, past the edge, who pull up and pull in for the night to bed down in back seats, front seats, though it’s against the city ordinance in this Northern California beach town. But everyone knows once you get close to the sea the laws of the land don’t apply.
“Oh, let ’em sleep,” I once overheard a guy say to a cop who was writing out a ticket for a tent pitched on the asphalt next to an old VW van. “What’s the harm?” And really, what is? Ever since the tech crowd bought up this town, found that they could live coast side and in the morning rocket down to Silicon Valley in time for their first game of air hockey, the rents have skyrocketed. Where are people without that kind of wherewithal to live?
Over time I’ve come to know every junker in this used car lot: Kite Man’s van, front windshield busted out by a rock or a fist, a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe visible on the dashboard. The rusted Econoline where a long-haired vet lives with his three cats. An RV from Arizona that houses the biker guy who got kicked out of the mobile home park. The souped-up GTO of two runaways in love, their bodies entwined like licorice sticks in the back seat. All are owned by drifters at the mercy of the elements, drifting away on a cloud of something stronger than the onshore breeze coming in off the sea. Everyone here is floating, like that young woman I saw last summer on a bus speeding downhill.
Stevie and I hop on the city bus headed for downtown Seattle, tourists for the day. We’ve just left the old cathedral on the hill where we always make a stop to light a candle or three. Even though we’re both “fallen away,” some rituals remain. This morning, walking in during the middle of a mass, I heard the priest say that new Pope what’s-his-name proclaimed this year “The Year of Mercy.” Amazing that he can just name a year like that. That he can give everyone something to shoot for.
After paying our fare I take a quick look down the aisle. A bus full of people going to work. Most stare down at their cell phones. A few look out of the bus windows, daydreaming about a life beyond the 9-to-5. All the seats are taken except for a pair of senior and disabled seats that face each other on either side of the aisle, right behind the driver’s perch.
The bus takes off with a jolt, so we quickly sit down in the senior section. The seats across the narrow aisle are already occupied by three young people. They look to be in their early twenties. Two young men and, sitting between them, a young woman.
The two guys stare straight ahead. One has a scruffy light-brown beard that doesn’t mask the red sores on his chin. The other is dark-haired, lazy-eyed. Both could be poster children for the grunge look, Seattle’s old claim to fame. The young woman’s head is bent low over her chest, her long straggly hair hanging down, covering her face. She’s sleeping. Her head bobs up with each bump the bus hits, eyelids flickering for a second. I hear her mumble something incoherent, then she drops off again.
I’m wrong. She’s not sleeping. She’s out of it. So far gone she can’t hold her head up. The guys sit close to her, use their bodies to prop her up. She can’t sit up straight, can’t look up. She’s on heroin or downers or is coming down off speed, is far gone, too far gone to say what she’s on.
Her hair is in her face. I can’t see her face.
Stevie can’t not respond. At the county hospital, she takes care of whoever comes through the door in whatever shape they’re in. She always says, “Everyone deserves health care.” Even the man who beats his wife. Even the woman who sells her script for pain meds on the street. Judgment can’t have a place in the equation.
She gets up, crosses the aisle, and asks the guy with the dark hair, “Do you need help?”
“No ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” he says and smiles as if nothing’s wrong. “We’re getting off soon.” Super polite.
Grabbing hold of the overhead rail, she slowly inches her way forward to the bus driver.
“Sir. You’ve got some people in trouble back there,” she whispers.
“Listen, lady. They were in trouble when they got on.”
Everyone on the bus is pretending not to look, but they’re all looking, watching. The bus heads down a steep hill, jerks hard with each pump of the brakes, and finally comes to a full stop at a bus shelter. The two guys try to get the young woman to stand, but she can’t. Her legs are rubber, are jelly, as if her limbs are deboned. Each guy puts one of his arms under one of her armpits to hoist her up. Her feet don’t touch the bus floor, dangle puppet-like. Quickly, they lift her down the bus steps and out the front doors of the bus.
The doors close with a sucking vacuum sound. As the driver takes off I hear one of the guys outside yell, “C’mon! Dammit!”
Mercy.
That night, in our hotel bed, I can’t sleep. When do we intervene? Is there something more we could have done? That I could have done? In the morning, Stevie tells me all we can do is offer help. You can’t force people to accept what’s offered. Sometimes the person in trouble accepts a hand. Other times they’re too far gone.
The too-far-gone gang. Last month, in the news, there was another trio. One morning, three faces stared up at me from the newspaper, young drifters who shot and killed a Canadian backpacker in Golden Gate Park, then shot and killed a Marin hiker and stole the hiker’s station wagon. After committing the murders, they drove up to Portland with the station wagon’s GPS on, leaving a trail any amateur bloodhound could follow.
Usually I can’t start the day with murder. Every morning I take a quick scan of the headlines. If there’s a story about a man who sliced up his girlfriend and put her in the freezer or a woman who drove her kids over a cliff I head right for the sports or arts sections. Only after I’m fortified with strong coffee am I strong enough to return to read the gruesome.
But that morning I didn’t turn the page. There was something about those drifters. They were so young. The acts so senseless. Then I thought about that other trio, that bus ride, and kept reading.
The article offered up a series of mug shots. In the first arrest photo, taken who knows where or when or for what charge, the trio looked like three young, white, fresh-faced college kids on a camping trip. Then, in the next arrest photo, this time for possession of meth, they looked more disheveled. Dirtier. Scruffier. Finally, in the most recent shot: three ravaged faces. One young man with dark bushy hair, an insolent fuck you look into the camera lens. The other guy, blondish, shaved head, red-rimmed eyes, pockmarked skin. In the middle photo a young woman, skin rash, rat nest of hair, Rastaman Vibration white girl look, dreads she wasn’t quite pulling off. During the police interrogation, she admitted to being in love with the guy with the shaved head, said that she would do anything for him.
What she did for him was help tackle the woman backpacker right before he shot her.
A meth users triptych. Even though it’s been a month since that story, their images continue to haunt me. How they stared up at me from the paper. What was it about them? Something familiar in that stare. Something that said: Go ahead. Dare to judge me.
Then it hits me.
The mother at the beach.
I pull up WebMD: symptoms of meth use.
Talkative? Check.
Skin irritation? Picking at skin? Check.
Twitching? Tics? Finger twitching? Rotted teeth? Check. Check. Check. Check.
Why has it taken me this long to see the signs? Was I too far gone in my safe little world to notice?
“Oh. There you are!” she shouts over at me. A morning in early fall. It’s been weeks since there’s been a sighting. I’ve been looking for her, scanning the parking lot for that truck. Maybe she’s been looking for me too. We’ve been playing hide-and-seek, the adult version. She’s standing with the regular gang, in her regular spot, leaning against a champagne-colored Jaguar. If that’s hers now, she’s definitely moved up in the world, has found better digs with leather upholstery, bucket seats, a wood-grained dash. Where’s the little girl? In the plush back seat taking a nap, her small cheek resting against that cool leather?
The woman’s thinner than the last time I saw her. She looks ghostly, barely there. An apparition. Her arms and legs as thin as pencils. Tweaker thin.
I give a quick wave, mouth a noncommittal “hey,” and keep walking. I don’t want her to think I’m interested in opening this door any wider. A few yards past I glance back and see the little girl come running out from behind some trash cans, bouncing a red rubber ball like it’s morning recess. She skips over to the passenger-side door of the Jaguar, opens it, hops on in.
It’s September. Midweek. Midmorning. Hasn’t school started yet?
Is the girl being homeschooled? Car schooled? What is she learning in that parking lot, a child in the middle of all those men? An old jump rope chant rises like a puff of blue smoke. What did you learn in school today, dear little girl of mine? How to scam? How to lie to authorities? How to disappear when the man in the rusted white utility truck comes around and Mommy is striking a deal?
Another singsong rhyme rises up, a fall classic: Time for pencils, time for books. Time for teacher’s dirty looks. Or was it a summer classic—no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks? Either way, the implicit message: the teacher wasn’t friendly. In truth, I never wanted to go to school. What I most wanted was to ride down to the docks with my fisherman father and run around the nets and boats while he stood around bullshitting with the rest of the men, all of them escaping from the 9-to-5. My earliest role models had a few things in common: they were dirty, foulmouthed, and fun.
My mother had other plans for me. A cleaner life, a respectable life. A white-collar job in white-collared clothes. She always made sure I had a new school outfit for the first day. A red tartan skirt with a big safety pin or a navy corduroy jumper. New saddle shoes. And an important accessory: a brand-new pencil box.
Mercy, mercy me, Marvin Gaye. Nothing’s like it used to be.
A month later it’s a black BMW.
An older model but still. A BMW with black-tinted back and rear windows. The driver’s-side window is open, her thin pale arm resting on the window frame, thin blue stream of smoke rising up in the air.
That car’s a cut above is what Stevie would say.
“Hey!” she shouts over at me. Like a neighbor waving to me over the fence. As if it’s time for our morning coffee klatch. A beachy “Come as You Are” party.
“Hey,” the woman shouts again. “How do you like my new wheels?”
I’m caught. I look over and spy the little girl behind the car. See her lifting a small scooter out from the BMW’s open trunk.
Okay. If not now, when? I need to get closer to find out . . . what? That my suspicions are confirmed? If I should call child protective services? I know what they’ll ask. Does the child appear to be in harm’s way? Have you seen evidence of drug use by the mother?
Well, Officer, not specifically. All I have is a hunch. And the image of those three on meth I can’t seem to shake. And the look of that young woman on the bus.
I walk across the parking lot, go over to her window. Mime like I’m a carhop with a pencil and tablet in my hands. “Can I take your order, ma’am?”
She lets out a big laugh. I notice she has more than a few teeth missing.
“Nice car,” I say.
“Daddy gave it to me,” the woman says.
Who is Daddy? I don’t ask but have a good guess. The man in the bashed-up white utility van who circles by the parking lot, usually late in the afternoon. Slicked-back black hair. Grizzled face. Glassy-eyed. He looks a lot like Mel Gibson did in his mug shot for drunk driving.
