Primal (24 page)

The operator asks, “City and State, please?”

In Hobbs’ cabin, Curtis reaches for the ringing phone.
“Sport Fishing.”

“You really did get a regular landline up there.” She tries
to make her voice sound normal.

“Alison?”

“Not indoor plumbing too I hope.”

“And ruin the ambiance? No way. Evidently, you city folk
like a good crap in the woods. How’s civilization?”

Her voice cracks, “A lot harder than I remember.”

“True that. Reality sucks. People are animals.”

“Yes. That’s been a hard lesson.”

“But useful.”

“Maybe. Maybe we’re better off not knowing that. Maybe we’re
better off living in a dream world.”

“We’re surely better off that way,” he says almost
wistfully, “but once you wake up…well, you’re up, ya know?”

“Yes.” She sighs.

“Why don’t you come for a visit? Be my guest.”

“Not a chance.”

“This time you could really go fishing.”

“I hyperventilate when I see fish sticks.”

There is an unnatural pause. Curtis waits for her to
continue. He knows she called for a reason.

She says, “So he’s dead, you know, the last one.”

“Yeah, I saw that on the AP. You must be relieved.”

“Uh…not actually.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t shake him.”

“Oh.”

“It’s like he put some kind of invisible cage around me. Or
more like he’s actually inside in my brain. Sitting there pulling strings.”

“That doesn’t sound too healthy.”

“Actually I may be seeing things…you know, things that
aren’t there.”

“Uh, oh.” Now, Curtis realizes the seriousness. She was such
a fragile thing when she burst into his cabin that night. He remembers thinking
she looked like a half-drown kitten in his doorway: wet, freezing, terrified.
No one was more surprised than he was when she survived. But that kind of
violence has a cost. She has images in her mind that must shake her sanity.

“How serious is it?” he asks.

“Hank left me. He took Jimmy.”

“Oh, that sucks, Alison.”

“I got laid off.”

“Ouch.”

“Truth is I’m not completely sure what’s real anymore. A few
minutes ago I was wondering if you were real.”

“I feel real.”

“But maybe you’re not. Maybe I didn’t actually call you
right now and I’m not really talking on the phone. Maybe I’m sitting in an
asylum at this very moment staring out randomly and being spoon-fed succotash.”

“I can’t confirm anything else except you are definitely
talking to me and no one has said succotash since 1950.”

“Everyone around here thinks I’m crazy.”

“You gotta right to be crazy for a bit, but then you need to
get your act together, get your job back, and start doing mom things again. If
you don’t, then, it doesn’t matter whether Burne’s dead or alive; he still owns
your ass.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s right.”

“You know it.”

“What about you? You know we have a guest room. It’s yours
when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, but I hear you’re crazy.”

She smiles. She hears him chuckle.

“Take care, Curtis.”

“Bye, Alison.”

Night slipped into the kitchen as she sat there immobile.
She had adjusted to the darkening room and hadn’t noticed. When she finally
rises from the kitchen chair and grabs the teacup, she has to turn on the
lights to put the cup into the sink. Her right leg, which was bent underneath
her, had fallen asleep and she shakes it as she walks toward the stairs. She
and Hank have never voluntarily slept apart. By tomorrow, surely Hank will be
back. He will talk to me. I will go to therapy. I will do whatever it takes to
bring them home. She turns off all the lights downstairs. She walks over to
switch on the alarm system. She reaches for the touch pad, but yanks back as
though she has been shocked. No. This is part of it, she thinks. The alarm, the
weapons, the night watch, they are all symptoms. This fear is like an infection
that has spread out and devoured my life. Enough. She turns her back on the
alarm panel and she feels empowered by this simple move. She starts up the
stairs to the second floor. The aggressive adrenaline that has been fueling her
muscles for a month turns off like a spigot, and as she lifts her feet from one
step to the next, she feels crushingly weary. Her legs are dead as stumps, and
her arms hang useless and heavy by her side. She feels as if all the blood has
been drained from her body. She drags herself up the last few steps to the
little landing that separates her and Hank’s bedroom from Jimmy’s. She stops
and peeks into Jimmy’s room. The paradox hits her: stuffed with so many things
and yet utterly empty. She hates that his bed is perfectly made and it reminds
her that Polly had been there that morning. Yes, how could she forget that?
Poor Polly. She will call her tomorrow, call and apologize. How does that
conversation go? Gee, hi, sorry I tried to stab you with the butcher knife,
could you finish the laundry now? Damn. How could I have been that confused? I
must have scared her to death.

Leaning against Jimmy’s doorway, Alison would prefer it if
his room were a complete mess, the kind of childhood jungle that only a
nine-year-old could create, the kind of mess that would indicate without
question that her little boy was home. I want him. Her chest aches. She looks
around at all of his toys; they are waiting, too. His noisy prized robot is
silent in the corner. His school books are gone from the desk and when she sees
that she feels a sickening free fall inside. She is all alone in her own home
at night. When has that ever happened? Not since before Jimmy was born. She
turns toward her bedroom. Even with all the furniture, the family photos, the
drapes, the bookcases, and silk flowers, her house feels hollow. She feels
hollow. She thinks, if I open my mouth right now there would be nothing but a
long hollow echo because the inside of me is dark and empty. She enters her
bedroom and walks over to the window blinds where she has stood diligently
night after night since their return, scanning the street for a dead man. She
couldn’t even count the number of hours she has wasted staring into the bleak
nothingness of the night, instead of making love to her husband, instead of
curling up skin-to-skin in his arms where she belongs. She grabs the cord, and
she takes a slow long breath, and then, she shuts the blinds. She steps back
and stares at the blocked window. Her home has finally closed its eyes. The
relentless vigilance has ended. Alison turns her back on the window blinds and
she proceeds into the bathroom. She feels compelled in an almost ritualistic
way to wash thoroughly and finally. She forces herself to close the bathroom
door and she does not lock it on purpose. She pulls down a big fluffy towel and
twists the shower faucet to hot. She strips down and catches sight of herself
in the mirror. It stuns her. Turning fully front, she tilts her head, and
blinks her eyes. The image in the mirror slaps her face. Naked, she studies
herself honestly shocked: her chest looks corrugated as the bones that make up
her ribcage are prominent, and the space on either side of her collarbone looks
like a trough. How much weight have I lost? Her skin is loose and sallow. At
the hairline, she sees the beginning of grey roots. Her shoulders appear
hunched and the whites of her eyes are bloodshot. So, this is what crazy looks
like, she thinks bitterly, not a pretty picture. Bereft, she turns away from
her reflection and steps into the shower. This time, however, she forces
herself to completely close the shower door and not leave it part way open so
she can hear. Instead, she turns the water on full force, gets under it, and
stands with her head submerged in the downpour. She prepares for the panic.
Here it comes: heart rate up, puffy breathing, jumpy muscles. Now, she will
mount a different kind of fight. She will not give in to the panic. She must
master her negative thoughts and pull herself back from the lip of destruction.
The enemy is no longer outside of her. In the gush of the shower water, she can
finally understand this and even as she does, her primitive instincts taunt her
screaming: Open your eyes! Open the door! Open the blinds! Listen. Watch! She
clenches her fingers and her toes. “Stop!” Do you want your life back? Your
husband? Your son? Your job? Feel the water hot on your head, good and hot on
your back; feel it, you’re fine. See, you are fine. I am done being a hostage.
Tomorrow I will go to the therapist. Tomorrow I will start the meds. Tonight
will be my one and only lonely night. She scrubs her hair and scalp vigorously.
She soaps every inch of her body twice. She tips her head up and allows the
free flowing water to flush her face, hoping it will flow through her eyes and
ears and pores and wash her brain clean.

Fifteen minutes, later she steps out of the shower. The
bathroom is steamed up; the mirror is fogged to a solid white. She slips her
puckered skin into her favorite pair of flannel pajamas and they feel glorious.
She takes the few steps to the bathroom door. She reaches for the doorknob and
hesitates. What if…what if right behind this door…it’s not as though she could
have heard anything in the shower like that. He could be… No. Stop. The problem
is inside me. She closes her hand around the knob. Blood rushes to her face.
Adrenaline swamps her limbs: pump, pump, pump. Do it. Do it. She swings open
the bathroom door and sees…no one. This is the tiny reinforcement she needs.
She breathes out a long slow stream through pursed lips, calms, almost smiles.
She has turned the corner. She climbs into bed and grabs the novel on her
nightstand. This is a transitional night. Tomorrow she will start the real
journey home from the island.

* * *

Hank’s old room smells of familiarity. There is a
distinctive scent in his mother’s house: a blend of cinnamon, which she uses
every morning in her coffee, and Charlie perfume, which she sprays liberally on
her clothes. It is an odd mixture but that is what makes it so uniquely his
home. The scent reminds him of innocent times when all he cared about was music
videos, winning at tetherball, and grapes. He smiles nostalgically and tries to
fix the time when he started wanting so much more. What he wanted and needed
when he was young felt so immediate, so much more visceral than the things he
wants now. He remembers, in middle school, wanting to kiss Heather Roseman that
day she came to school in her little sky blue shorts. And he did kiss her when
she leaned over the water fountain. He got a detention for that, which seemed
grossly unfair since everyone wanted to kiss her, and he was just the only kid
who had the courage to do it. He thought he deserved a medal. He also remembers
vividly when all he wanted in the world was to punch Mr. Caughey right between
his beady eyes.

“Henry Kraft, your homework was not in the pile yesterday.”

“Yes, it was, Mr. Caughey,” Hank responded surprised.

“No. It wasn’t. I went over all the papers last night and
yours was missing.”

“I put it there with the rest!”

“Are you calling me a liar, Henry?”

“Um…no? But I did the homework and I put it right there.”
Hank’s cheeks were blooming red and fiery as the attention of the entire class
was on him.

“You get a zero.”

“No! That’s not fair.”

“You should get graded on homework you didn’t turn in? Is
that fair to the students who worked hard?”

Every cell in little Hank’s body was outraged. He had put
the homework there, just like he always did. Mr. Caughey was so mean, he teased
kids and called it humor, he was petty and self-important; and then he became
solicitous and sickly sweet in front of the parents. Hank’s feeling of
powerlessness was eating away at his insides. He could feel it chewing up his
stomach. He had put his homework on the table with the others. Why wasn’t he
believed? The zero would ruin all the good grades he had struggled for all year
long. He slammed his fist on the desk.

“I did it and I put it there.”

“See me after class.”

After school, Hank waited outside Mr. Caughey’s classroom
and turned wide-eyed when he saw his dad striding down the school hallway.

“Dad! What are you doing here?”

“I thought I should ask you that. Mr. Caughey called my
office.”

“I did my homework, Dad.”

Once inside the classroom, Mr. Caughey turned into an alien
being from planet Suck Up. There was a sympathetic lilt to the tone of his
voice that Hank had not heard in six months of daily class. Hank’s eyes
narrowed as his teacher spoke to Hank’s dad as though they were colleagues and
they both understood how trying middle school boys could be. Hank sat there as
the teacher explained to his dad about Hank’s outburst in the classroom, his
disrespect, and his lying about his homework. Hank’s fists were clenched
beneath the desk and his desires were simple, direct, and all consuming. He
waited for his dad to defend him. Mr. Kraft said, “I see” a few times and then
apologized for Hank’s behavior and Hank thought his head would blow off. That
was a moment of pure want, one item want, one thing wanted - to punch out Mr.
Caughey. No rage in life is more passionate than the rage of the disrespected
and defenseless. He couldn’t believe his dad was even listening. Why didn’t his
dad believe
him
? Why was he
unbelievable just because he was a kid? Why are all of the parents around
always demanding respect but never showing any? Where was justice? He wanted to
hit Mr. Caughey full-fisted right in the jaw. He wanted to do it so badly he
jumped up out of his seat and ran from the classroom. Mr. Caughey shrugged his
shoulders in complicity with Mr. Kraft who apologized again and went after his
son.

Hank rolls over big in his childhood bed trying to get
comfortable but not wake Jimmy. Some teachers are like his wife, a gift to
every child in her classroom, and some are petty bullies who humiliate with
impunity and are fetid with arrogance. Since it can be hard for the parent to
determine which teacher is which, that day Hank made a decision that he carries
with him every single time he steps onto school property. Hank promised that he
would always believe his own child, at the cost of being wrong, at the cost of
alienating the teacher, at the cost of taking down the entire School Board, he
would always side with his child, and he has always done so.