Keepers (23 page)

“Can you tell me who checked him out? Was it his daughter from Los Angeles?”

“I can’t give out that information, sir, and no forwarding address was provided.”

This went on for about ten minutes. I was transferred to three people, all of whom gave me the same story, word for word:
Mr. Weis is no longer with us
.

I hung up while being transferred yet again, paced my room for a few minutes, lay back down on my bed, and listened to some more music.

I began to nod off again as side one of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s
Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy
came to a close, and the first thing I saw when my eyes shut was an image of myself standing in the kitchen last night, filling the morning compartment with Mom’s medications and placing the caps back on the prescription bottles and—

—and then it was a blur.

I jolted awake, snapping up my head so fast I heard the bones in my neck crack and felt a sharp stab of pain.

Yanking off the headphones, I headed downstairs. If I remembered filling the compartment and replacing the lids on the bottles, then I must have put the meds back in their hiding place as I usually did; even drunk, your body more times than not will remember certain physical routines even if your brain doesn’t.

As I hit the bottom of the stairs I heard the familiar voice of Dan Donovan, host of WHTH FM’s
Donovan in the Morning
, Mom’s favorite. I felt such relief I slumped against the wall. So Mom was up and listening, good.

Then I noticed Donovan’s voice seemed garbled and more nasal than usual; like he was talking while holding his nose against some rude smell.

“And I’d like to remind everyone out there that I’ll be appearing as Louis in Welsh Hills Players upcoming production of
Pippin
, which opens this Friday night at eight p.m. For tickets, please call....”

I felt the laugh rippling up from my gut as I remembered the way he’d looked at me when he’d asked, “You got a problem, buddy?” Christ! I’d pummeled Dan Donovan, the voice of Cedar Hill Radio. I’d smeared a small-pond celebrity’s nose all over his face. Good thing Louis didn’t have any solo numbers in the show.

I stood there laughing quietly for a few more moments and then went into the kitchen; I didn’t know if Mom would get a kick out of the story or not but I’d tell her, anyway.

She was sitting at the table, face-down, her nose pressed against the
Local
section of
The Ally
. One hand was still clutching the newspaper, the other held the cup of now-cold coffee she’d taken the pills with.

On the counter, five bottles of prescription medications sat where I’d left them last night. The “Morning” compartment was unopened, as were all the bottles except one—the sedatives; it lay on its side, displaying the depth of the nothing it contained.

Oh, hon, I didn’t think it would hurt anything, I’ve just been real jumpy
.

I knew she was dead before I even touched her. I sat there, holding her hand and saying over and over again: “You rest now, Mom, you’ve earned it. You rest now, Mom....”

I wondered what song I’d been listening to when she’d died. I wondered if she’d called for me but I didn’t hear her because of the headphones. I wondered if she’d died thinking that her life had been wasted and no one would remember her. “...You’ve earned it. You can rest now....”

I wondered if her hands had ever held blossoms.

I made the necessary calls, I waited with her body until the coroner’s wagon and police arrived; I answered all their questions, let the police collect the items they requested, and agreed to come down to the station later that day and let them take my prints (“A formality,” said the officer. “It will help us make a determination.”). After they left, I called Criss Brothers Funeral Home and told them what happened and, yes, I could come over in a little while and make the arrangements; then it was only a matter of gathering together all the necessary papers (insurance information, etc., which Mom kept in the same metal filing box with everything relating to Dad’s death), calling what few relatives Mom still had in the area, and going about the rest of the awful business.

A lot of the next several days is something of a blur, so I’ll skip around and just hit the high points, if you don’t mind: her death was ruled accidental, I was not charged with Gross Negligence or anything else, her doctor was quick to mention her depression and confused state of mind, and the fact that she’d lost her husband only four weeks before confirmed for everyone that the entire incident was a terrible tragedy. Her obituary ran three short paragraphs and read more like a job resume than the summation of a life. There was a brief and bleak memorial service held in the chapel at the funeral home with about thirteen people, myself included, in attendance. Less than half came for the graveside service. When all was said and done, I was left sole owner of an empty paid-for house, and had a respectable amount of money left from their insurance policies. At twenty-one, I was “set” for a good while, provided I used my resources intelligently.

The memorial service was held the Friday morning Beth’s show was scheduled to open. The night before she called at eight-thirty from a phone at the theatre. I hung up as soon as I heard her voice. Less than a minute later the phone rang again and I let the answering machine pick up.

“Listen,” she said, “we’re taking a dinner break. The dress rehearsal was a disaster and we’re running through the whole thing again at ten. We need to talk and—God! I just heard how stupid that sounds. I’m so sorry about your mom, I really am, and so is Mabel. Did you get the flowers we sent? I’d really like to come to the service tomorrow morning. I would’ve called sooner but I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to—”

I grabbed the phone. “You show up at the service tomorrow and I’ll break your fucking nose, too.” Not me, it couldn’t be me saying this; the woodland beast was loose again.

I heard the sharp intake of breath followed by tears. “
Please
don’t be like this, please? I understand why you did what you did, but, still.... it was everything I could do to convince him not to call the cops on you.”

“And that amounted to what? You
swallowed
for him?”

“
Stop it
! Please, just...don’t. I couldn’t feel any more terrible about what’s happened if...if...I don’t know how I could feel more awful.”

“Well, then, that makes everything okay, doesn’t it? You still fucking him?”

“I’m still seeing him, if that’s what...yes. I’m still fucking him.”

“I can maybe understand
how
it happened—you spend enough time with the same person in an intense situation and things...feelings...can emerge. It’s the
why
I don’t get. Why would you do something like that?
I love you
.”

“I know. I want to say ‘I love you, too’ but I don’t think it would mean anything.”

“Would it mean anything if the situation were reversed and I said it to you?”

A slow, wet, staccato sigh; she was in bad shape and trying not to let me know it. “Could we not get sidetracked on ‘what-ifs’? There’s already enough to deal with.”

“Then would you just tell me why? C’mon, Beth, make me understand why you felt the need to fuck someone who wasn’t your ‘soul-mate’—and by the way, don’t ever use
that
phrase around me again. C’mon, let’s hear it.” It’s really quite a rush to discover just how much of a vicious bastard you can be when pushed far enough. I was both proud of myself and ashamed for being proud of myself when she said something that made pride and shame superfluous:

“He wasn’t the first.”

I knew I was trying to say something, I could feel my mouth moving, but nothing came out.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah...” It was a pathetic little squeak.

“I thought you should know.” And then she told me: it started a couple of months after we first got together. Some guy from her high school class she’d bumped into at the grocery store. They’d gone out for drinks. He’d begun complimenting her on how beautiful she’d become. She ate it up. He flirted, she flirted back. She’d had the most wicked crush on him in school. Another round. More compliments. Chairs scooting closer. She was drunk on liquor and memories of her high school fantasies. They fucked each other about half a dozen times over the next two weeks and that was that. She felt horrible about it until the next time, the next guy, four months later. She wasn’t used to being wanted, not
genuinely
wanted. In school, it was different; if you had a reputation, then you were never alone—you were never with the same person for very long, but your weekends were always spoken for.

Somewhere in here I managed to find my voice and ask: “How many?”

“What?”

“How many guys have you fucked since we—”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do. So since we’re doing this sharing routine....”

“I’m not sure. Five, six. I always used protection. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d given you any—”

“Please stop talking for a minute, will you?”

In the silence a hundred different moments paraded through my memory: times when she’d seemed simply distracted took on ominous undertones that bespoke her guilt; things she’d done in bed—that at the time seemed like these incredible bursts of “Let’s-try-this” spontaneity—now seemed degrading and humiliating because they were different things, and it was important to keep trying new things, things to keep the relationship fresh, but they were things she’d done with or learned from
them
; times when she’d held me too tightly, when she had to get off the phone almost immediately, throwaway remarks she’d make—all of it now stood in a much different light, and the shadow it cast was ugly and duplicitous and demeaning. Two-thirds of my life had been spent with her, and with four short words she’d destroyed everything I thought I could count on.

He wasn’t the first
.

“I don’t think I want to talk anymore,” I said.

“Then don’t say anything, just listen for a minute, okay? And if you still want me to go to hell when I’m finished, I’ll never call you again.

“Happiness scares the hell out of me, it always has. I mean, it’s great at the time but I know it’s never going to last. I didn’t come to live with Mabel right away, you know. Mom tried palming me off on other relatives for a long time, and I’d stay with them for a couple of weeks, a month maybe, but eventually they’d always send me back because I was in the way, or didn’t get along with their cat, or made them nervous or whatever. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, how I concentrated on changing myself, re-making myself so they’d like me better and want to keep me, it was never good enough. This went on for a few years, and after the first couple of times I learned how to adapt, okay? I wasn’t going to be in any place for very long, so I found a way to make fast friends. Mostly boys. If I put out, they didn’t treat me like I was some kind of dog—and I’d spent so long being treated that way I started to believe that’s what I was, a dog—I still do, sometimes. But if you act like some bitch in heat and spread your legs for them and you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, even if it’s just for one night. I knew it was okay to enjoy their company and stuff and not care about the consequences because I wasn’t going to be around long enough for anything I said and did to matter. I learned to trust happiness only if it was temporary, because then it’s okay when it ends. You can always find another quick fix in the next place.

“Then Mabel took me in and that was that. I stayed. And that meant having to trust I’d be happy for the long run, but the long run wasn’t in my repertoire so I just kept acting like I was going to be moving on any day now. But I didn’t. I stayed. Then one day I meet the cutest little boy in the world while I’m in the hospital and even though he’s only nine he acts like he’s thirty and I know that he’s going to be something really great when he grows into himself, and he was, and I loved him—I
still
love him, even though he can’t see what a great person he is. I got...I got
comfortable
, all right? And I always associated ‘comfortable’ with bored, because I always wanted things to be
new
, do you understand? I hate that about myself, but things are only interesting to me when they’re new—
that’s
when I feel the most alive. So anytime I’d start feeling bored, I’d see someone else for a week or so and
that
was new, I made myself new with them, and it was exciting and unpredictable and when it ended, when I’d get back in synch with you,
we
were new again. I’ve just been so used to re-making myself for so long that I couldn’t stop.

“I know that doesn’t justify what I’ve done—what I’ve been doing—and I’m not trying to make excuses, right? I just wanted to give you an explanation because I
do
love you and I’ve hurt you so much and you didn’t deserve it and if there’s anything I can do, any way to make it good again, to fix things—”

“Are you done?”

A soft breath, a softer swallow. “Yes.”

I looked at the room, at the furniture and the small bits of dust here and there and the faded pictures on the mantel and decided that I couldn’t remain here. This was an alien shelter in an alien world where outside the walls people you thought you knew were just stacks of carbon hiding behind a scrim of humanity you put in front of them so you wouldn’t have to deal with what they really were.

“I’m sorry I hit him. I’m sorry I said those horrible things to you. I’m sorry you got bored with me. And I’m sorry there’s no way this can ever be fixed. I can’t be your friend after this, and that makes me sad. Please don’t come to the service tomorrow, and please don’t ever call me again. I hope the show goes well. Break a leg.”

I hung up. She did not call back.

I spent the next two weeks making all the necessary arrangements to leave Cedar Hill, stopping only long enough to eat or sleep, neither of which I did in any great quantity.
Pippin
received decent reviews, especially for Beth, and one reviewer even complimented Donovan’s “goofily inspired” portrayal of Louis, and how the prosthetic nose only amplified his flair for the farcical.