Distortions (10 page)

“That was their cat!” the waitress says, pointing.

“Oh yeah?” one of the cops says. “I don’t think we’ve got anything on it, though.”

“You’re real comedians,” the waitress says angrily.

“This town just puts you in a good mood all the time,” the cop says. “You folks here for a little vacation in vacationland?”

“I don’t know what we’re here for,” David says, trying to comfort Sheila.

“Well, don’t lose what you already got,” the other cop says. He finishes writing something on a piece of paper, rolls up the paper, and holds the door open for his partner.

S
he was eighty-two when she died. She had the usual old-lady fears—Democratic Presidents, broken bones. When the spaghetti was snapped in half and dropped into the boiling water she heard the sound of her own bones cracking. She loved spaghetti. They had to eat so much spaghetti. She wouldn’t eat the sauce. She had butter with her spaghetti. She used to knit for her son, Marshall. She loved her son, she knitted all the time. Once she knitted him a bathrobe and he broke out in a rash all over, an allergy to wool. She cooked for Edna. She made alphabet soup. Edna remembers fishing out letters, saying, “Let’s see what Mom wants to tell us this time.” Fish. Fawn. Up. Dollar. She wouldn’t be left alone. When Edna went to work at the sporting-goods store she was there. At the store snowmobiles are sold, and wool hats, helmets, boots. Edna rode to work on her snowmobile; Marshall brought his mother in the car. She sat in a comfortable chair behind the counter and waited for Edna to finish work. She watched television. When customers came in, she turned up the volume. When the reception was bad, she listened to the radio instead. Marshall is talking to Edna. Edna has held the door open too long—the house is getting cold. Where is the dog? Didn’t she call the dog in? Edna closes the door. But then it’s open again—Edna and Marshall go out for a walk in the snow.

*

The boy at the table behind Mary is singing to her. He is no longer at the table behind her, he is at her table, and Kathy, her girlfriend, has gone to the bathroom. Now there is laughter in addition to the music. His friends are going crazy. They looked drunk when Mary and Kathy walked in an hour ago. One of the boy’s friends has a harmonica that he is blowing.

“Can you see?”

The boy has pulled the neck of his shirt down. Across his chest is a scattering of moles, a brown blur of them.

“It looks like the Milky Way galaxy,” he says. He waves his arm, motioning his friend to stop playing the harmonica. The music is replaced by
a cappella
singing. Kathy comes out of the bathroom and looks the situation over. She orders a Coke at the bar and returns to the table. Two summers ago, Mary danced for
the boy and his friend. They paid her two dollars. Since then the boy’s friend lost a finger that got infected after he caught it in a mattress spring. He used to play electric guitar.

The waitress is at the table. Beverly tonight. Beverly has bright-blue eyes and wears blue eyeshadow. Her sister Miriam is on weekends. Miriam has green eyes and wears green eyeshadow.

“Miriam comin’ in Saturday night?”

Beverly puts the boy’s drink down.

“Rest of you want anything?” she says.

“Bring her a hamburger,” the boy says, nodding to Mary.

“Who’s paying for it?” Mary asks.

“I already paid,” the boy’s friend hollers. “They’re tradin’ hamburgers for fingers tonight. Tomorrow night there’s a spaghetti special.”

Laughter. An explosion of music. A dog has wandered into the bar. The dog is confused, running everywhere. Two women in a booth across the bar meow. Finally Sam sees the dog.

“It’s Marshall’s dog,” he says to Beverly. “Want to call him?”

“Take my toes,” the boy’s friend calls to Beverly. “I want a hot dog.”

“I’ll come back for your orders,” Beverly says over her shoulder.

“I’m leavin’!”

One of the boys is yelling. He has gotten up from the table. The dog has wandered over to their table. Mary recognizes the dog—her uncle’s. She reaches out to pat the dog, but the boy has grabbed the dog up into his arms. He starts to run.

“Did he pay?” Beverly hollers.

One of the boy’s friends holds up a wad of dollar bills.

“Well, what about the dog?” Beverly asks Sam.

“I told you,” Sam says. “Call Marshall.”

“He took it.”

“Tell Marshall.”

Beverly lifts the phone and dials.

*

“It’s Marshall, George. Things aren’t very good over here.”

“No? Is Mom’s cold still hanging on?”

“Yes and no. Edna took her to the doctor a week ago, and the
medicine he gave her has helped. She gets around better. She’s depressed, though. Really, Edna wanted me to call you …”

“George,” Edna says, “she says that at night her heart stops, and if she’s very still it starts again. I know that isn’t true, but she’s very depressed. She’s cleaning out her drawers and gave me things to give you.”

George is speaking to Marshall again.

“The doctor recommends a cardiologist, but she says she won’t go. I think she’ll pay attention to you, George.”

“Anna and I’ll come over tomorrow night after work.”

“It’s no emergency. We wanted you to know.” Marshall lowers his voice. “Can you hear that?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“The television and radio. She’s got them both going … stays right with them.”

“Wouldn’t the doctor give her sleeping pills?”

“She won’t take them.” Marshall hesitates. “What Edna told you about.”

*

Mrs. Anna Wright. She signs her name to a note she has written Mary’s homeroom teacher—an excuse for Mary’s absence from school on Monday and Tuesday. She writes so many notes. She feels obliged to offer details now. In this note she mentions a specific drug given to Mary by the doctor: penicillin. Rainy, cold weather, a sore throat, a tendency toward strep, penicillin. Her husband has told her to stop writing notes, but what is she supposed to do? Mary is overweight and embarrassed to go to school. The only place she socializes with boys is at Sam’s … they never ask her out. It is the week of the dance. If Mary isn’t in school, she can say that’s why she wasn’t invited. On Tuesday she made Mary dress for school. But she was crying; she couldn’t send her out of the house crying.

Now it is Wednesday. She didn’t think Mary would go to school, but she is dressed, sitting at the breakfast table. She cooks Mary a big breakfast—she doesn’t want to spoil her mood. George tells her to serve Mary only small portions, but he isn’t home when Mary eats, he doesn’t have to hear her complaints or watch
the way she stalks out of the house, deliberately leaving her books behind on the hall table. Last week she had a big scene with Mary—not about breakfast or school, about the Parents’ Association. Mary said the Association was no good, that they spent their time thinking about parties and dances and that the guidance counselor was no good. Why couldn’t they do something about the guidance counselor? She had been surprised—what did Mary want to talk to a guidance counselor about? Mary had argued with her, saying that she didn’t understand anything, that it wasn’t only her—they all needed a good guidance counselor so they’d be able to get into college.

“Did you write a note?” Mary says.

“I left it on the table for you.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you had a sore throat.”

“She always has something to say about your notes.”

“What do you mean? What has she said?”

“When I put it on her desk she reads it right away.”

“That’s her job, Mary.”

“As soon as she reads it she says something to me. The last time she came over to my desk and asked me if my cold was gone.”

Mrs. Wright is turning eggs. What Mary says must be true. Once she forgot to write a note when Mary had been sick, and the homeroom teacher had called at home that night. Another time the guidance counselor called to say that he was disturbed by the number of absences. What is she supposed to say to these people? She tells them that it was her mistake not to have sent a note promptly, that it’s better to nip things in the bud so Mary doesn’t miss a whole week of school, that Mary has a good academic average.

Mary is eating her breakfast. But it is late—eight-thirty—and she should hurry. It makes people sick to hurry, it gives them indigestion. She sits down across from Mary.

“You uncle Marshall called last night. Grandma isn’t feeling well, and your father wants us to visit her tonight.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She had a cold … she has trouble sleeping.”

“She just wants to stay up late and watch television.”

“No, she doesn’t,” she says angrily. “Edna took her to a doctor and he had to give her medication.”

Mary does not look up.

“Do you think you’re dressed warmly enough?”

Mary will not continue the conversation. Eventually she gets up, her napkin carefully folded beside her plate. It is eight forty-five. Mary will be late to school, and there is no excuse for tardiness in the note.

“I’ll drive you,” she says.

Mrs. Wright looks at the car through the frosty window.

*

It is cold in the house. She is making soup and baking a roast for dinner. The dog barks and jumps. Marshall is home from work. He and Edna are talking in the living room. Soon they will go out to ride their snowmobiles; she’ll hear them making a circle around the house, will look out the window, cupping her hands so she can see clearly the tracks in the snow. She had been for a ride on the snowmobile with Marshall. She wore scarves on her head, afraid to put on the helmet. There is talk about outlawing snowmobiles. Edna and Marshall are always upset about it. On the television they said people died on snowmobiles, riding them through barbed-wire fences. She rubs her throat, thinking about barbed wire piercing the skin.

“Are you all right, Mom? Sore throat hasn’t come back?”

“No, Marshall.”

“We’re going to take a ride for a few minutes. I’m looking for some bread to feed the birds.”

Marshall has opened the breadbox. Marshall explains everything. The other night when he was fixing a kitchen cabinet she came in for a drink of water and he explained to her how an electric drill worked. He wanted her to hold it. Edna came in. She told Marshall it was too heavy, it vibrated too much. She got the drink of water and left.

One of the women in town, Beverly Brent, helped her husband build a house. She knew Beverly when she was young. The Brents built a big house. But when the house was built she lost twenty pounds and went to New York to become a model. Beverly got
sick in New York—she had an appendectomy and returned to the house. She gained weight. Not long ago she came into the store and asked if they needed any saleswomen. Most of the women in town disliked Beverly—the men too. Beverly was never very popular. People liked her sister Miriam. She can remember when they were little girls, fighting on the sidewalk outside the drugstore. Girls fighting! No matter what flavor ice-cream cone Miriam got, Beverly wanted it. Beverly would throw her own ice cream on the sidewalk. Marshall buys her little white bottles of niacin to improve her memory. But she could remember all the things before she took the pills. Edna doesn’t think she needs to take the pills either, but she does it to please Marshall. Marshall takes vitamins every day. He never has a cold. Edna gets sick and can’t go to work. She herself feels pains in her chest and can’t sleep at night because she hears her heart beat and stop, beat and stop.

She is a little surprised that Marshall doesn’t say that he is shutting the door when he shuts the door. She stops stirring the soup and looks at them on their snowmobiles. Marshall looks up and sees her. He points to the snowmobile and smiles. Just as he said, he is going to take a ride on the snowmobile. It is snowing lightly outside. She watches until the snowmobiles are out of sight. She fears they can’t see in the snow, that they’ll run into barbed wire. She goes to the closet and looks on the top shelf. Their goggles are there. She takes them down and puts them on; everything turns bright yellow. She goes back and pours a bag of alphabet letters into the soup. She forgets that she has the goggles on until they begin to steam up. She quickly puts them back on the top shelf so Edna and Marshall won’t see her in them. She goes into the bedroom and empties the niacin pills in the trash and replaces them with aspirin from the medicine cabinet. But she takes too long. She hears Marshall and Edna in the kitchen, realizes that they are calling her. The dog is barking. The soup is boiling over.