Mother Lode (42 page)

“You mean the diary?”

Jorie sat up. “No, the
book in my head! The book of
my
life.”

“Tell me about that.”

“That’s it — the story’s
different every time. The characters change, I mean they’re the
same ones, but they’re
different.”

“How different?”

“Good, then evil, then good again. It’s a
plan to make me go mad.”

“Whose plan?”

“The demons.” His voice was rising.

“What demons, lad?”

“In here, in my head! They won’t leave me
alone!”

“Maybe they would if you let the whole story
come out, Jorie. It’s too hard, holding it all inside. You haven’t
enough fingers to plug the dike forever.”

Jorie buried his head in his hands. Earl
waited a few more moments, but nothing more was forthcoming. He
opened the lunch pail, spread the food for Jorie on a napkin, and
placed it on the cot.

Jorie took his hands away from his face,
glanced at the food. Suddenly the color left his face. He picked up
the hard-boiled egg and seized it tightly in both hands. At the
same time he started shaking. The shell cracked, then completely
shattered in Jorie’s grasp.

With unexpected force, he thrust the odious
object across the room, where it splattered and bounced off the
wall. With quick rejoinder, he followed the egg, bouncing off the
wall himself.

Earl heard the plaster crack and the lath
splinter, as the termites scrambled for new lodgings.

“I won’t! I won’t eat any goddamn egg! You
can’t make me!”

Jorie picked up a piece of cheese from the
napkin.

“Limburger! You know I hate it! You can’t
make me swallow that. I will not!”

He held the cheese flat in his hand and
smeared it over the wall, over his drawing.

Earl watched with mounting concern, as the
boy’s past erupted in a deluge.

“Take off this blindfold!” He tore at his
face. “Take it off!”

Earl grabbed him by the arm and pushed him
down on the cot. “That was a long time ago, Jorie. There’s no
blindfold, nothing like that now!”

“I hate her! I tell you I hate her! She,
she—” He was grabbing for breath in large, uneven gulps.

To have triggered such an outburst, Earl
knew he’d probably just witnessed the tip of the iceberg.

“Did you ever want to kill your mother,
Jorie?”

He was panting. “No!
No.
Yes!
”

“
Did
you kill her?”

“I don’t know!”

“Think hard, Jorie. Did you take your ma out
there to die?”

Earl waited, listening to the gradual
cessation of the painful sobs. Like a train coming to a halt, each
revolution was a little slower, less powerful than the last.

“What are you hiding, boy? Was there some
terrible thing you had to stop her from doing, at all costs?”

“I don’t know! I would tell you if I
did!”

“Do you
want
to
know?”

His fists were clenched. “Yes, yes, I have
to know!”

Finally, exhausted, Jorie lay back on his
cot. Earl put his blanket over him, and sat beside him, upset that
he’d provoked this explosion. But it had served some purpose. Maybe
like the egg, Jorie was beginning to crack.

Earl’s eyes traveled back
to the tortured drawing, trying to make sense of it. Perhaps some
small detail would give a clue. In one part he saw two lovers
floating upwards in the sky, surrounded by a ring of stars and the
moon. It was the only happy thing Earl could find in the picture.
Maybe it was the girl he’d met at the John Muir lecture. In another
he saw what could only be his mother lying prone under snow, with
more falling. Although it gave no clue as to whether foul play was
involved, it did indicate Jorie had some awareness of what had
happened.
At least at the moment he’d
drawn it.

Something far down in one corner caught his
eye. He went to take a closer look. In small, but unmistakably
clear formations, surrounded by scribbles and smudged spots, were
two figures, each was on a cross. There were tiny initials under
each—‘J’ under one, and ‘I’ under the other.

The ‘J’ could be for Jesus. Then again, it
could be for Jorie. But what was the ‘I’?

Jorie could not stop reading the second
diary.

He will come to see punishment as an
expression of my love, as its sting will be tempered with soft
caresses and my words of love. And he will understand that
sacrifice is an expression of his love for me.

For some of the things he read, scenes came
to life as clearly as the day they happened. For others he couldn’t
recall anything at all.

Nights under the stars, teaching Mummy the
names of the constellations.

Nights under the stars, Mummy teaching him
the redemptive powers of punishment:

She’d held him close, rocking him, humming
to him. “You must have no secrets from me, Jorie. When you’ve done
something wrong or you think might be wrong, write it in your
journal, and let Mummy decide if you need penance. Do you
understand?”

“
Yes.”

She’d kissed his forehead.

“
What will leave you if Mummy punishes
you?”

“
The guilty feeling “

“
And what will take its place?”

“
The peaceful, clean feeling.”

What do you have to do for that to
happen?”

“
Surrender to the punishment
completely.”

“
Are you ready, my Darling?”

Jesus! She’d made him actually want it, ask
for it! It made him cringe with shame, just to remember. And how
much better he’d felt afterward—just like she’d said. My God, how
twisted it all had been.

“
And what kind of chastisement do you
think would be appropriate?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Find a solution.”

“
Should I make a switch?”

“
Oh, Jorie, a switch again? Does my
little lamb have such paucity of imagination? Think of something
else, for heaven’s sake.”

She’d insisted that he not only confess his
offenses, but was as particular of his sentence structure as his
behavior, often criticizing him for faulty grammar or vague
detail.

“
What do you mean by ‘the whack’? Did it
feel like a sting or a thud?”

He’d honed his writing skills working in his
discipline journal.

Overcome by a legion of
emotions, Jorie slammed the diary shut and added his bootprint to
the others on the wall. No wonder she didn’t want him to have any
other friends. He might reveal their secrets, their bloody
Golden Bubble
. Or they
might tell about their lives — their
freedom!
He had worshipped her, and
she was a monster!

That evening Earl came toward his cell with
an extra bounce in his step. “I brought you something to read. And
it’s not a diary. They called me from the post office and wanted to
know what to do with your mail. I said I’d come and get it. Guess
what they had.”

Earl handed Jorie a
package. The return address read
Journal
of Modern Poetry.
Jorie tore open the
paper. Inside he found five copies of the fall issue. He picked up
one and scanned the Table of Contents. And there it was –
The Intruder, by Jordan Radcliff.

He looked up with the first hint of pleasure
Earl had seen on his face in weeks.

“Looks like you got yourself published,
kid.”

Jorie handed the sheriff a copy.

“What page?”

“Seventeen.”

They both found the poem. Earl said, “Will
you read it to me?”

Jorie stood up. He wasn’t sure why — maybe
because in school he’d always had to when it was his turn to
recite.

He cleared his throat.
“It’s called
The Intruder.
It doesn’t rhyme or anything. It’s the new ‘free
verse’ style.”

Earl nodded, waited. Finally, Jorie began.

Arriving before anything else, and after all
these years,

Still, you loiter on the dark side of my
mind,

Fill its crevices with sadness and pain,
rage and guilt.

I know you only by your sounds, your low
grunts and wails

That drag me from serenity.

Familiar, unwanted tenant, I'm following
your vein—

Jorie halted. He hadn’t read it in so long,
he’d forgotten how revealing, naked it was. He couldn’t finish it.
He sat down and closed his eyes. It was so quiet, the sound of
water dripping from a pipe was all that reached his ears.

Suddenly, he heard the sheriff’s voice:

Familiar, unwanted tenant, I'm following the
vein,

Searching for the mother-lode. I want to
take you by surprise,

Grasp you, make you look at me, talk to
me,

Tell me who you truly are.

Come out! Come out of hiding! Tell me what
you want.

I demand to see you in the light, where I
will look you

Straight in the eye and have a good
laugh,

Come out and dance with me. I will love you
to death!

And then, I will be free.

When the sheriff had finished, Jorie’s eyes
were still closed, squeezing back the tears.

Earl came over and embraced him. Jorie
finally pulled away. If he didn’t he was afraid he’d bawl like a
baby.

They sat quietly while Jorie looked at the
other verses, or pretended to.

Earl figured he’d learned more about the
clock-works of this kid through his poem than by any conversation
they’d had so far. What kind of hell did the boy live in? And for
how long? But there was kind of a bright ending to the piece.

The sheriff had meant to tell Jorie that the
preliminary hearing was the day after tomorrow at nine o’clock. But
after the poem, he couldn’t say any more.

Again his eyes traveled to
the corner of the wall with the two crosses. ‘J’ and ‘I’. He felt
it was the one thing in this horrendous drawing that might offer up
some answers. But what did the ‘I’ signify? Was it
Isis
, Catherine’s middle
name?

Maybe.

Jorie looked out the window and saw the snow
descending again. Some of it landed on the sill, reminding him of
home. The snow he’d used to cool his passions, the guilt he’d felt
for having them. During the night the clouds blew away, leaving the
sky clear for the first time since he’d been in jail. He could see
the Pleiades. With the sisters in sight he tried once again to
connect with his star line. Bringing all his powers to focus, he
was, at last, able to get the line straight. No longer did the
veils of illusion, like the chimney smoke swirling out the window,
provide a barrier to reality. For the moment they were gone, and
nothing was left but the truth. He stopped resisting it.

He’d taken his mother out in the storm to
die.

Gradually, he remembered
with painful clarity the sequence of events that led to the
planning and carrying out of his crime. But
why
had he done it? Even her deceit
and trickery didn’t explain it; he could have just left town.
Severely edited, this version omitted any motive for his actions,
leaving him feeling like the most depraved of souls.

There was no penance harsh enough to absolve
him. No string of beads or repetitive prayers would offer
pardon.

Forgive me. Please forgive me!

But he knew it was too much to ask.

He thought of how she’d tried to protect him
from his father, made his punishments more bearable by the stories
she’d woven, and the salve she’d used to soothe and heal. She’d
threatened to leave Papa if he didn’t stop the whippings.

He took out her picture, looked at her
lovely face, and held it to his breast.

Once after seeing the
opera
Othello
in
the new Kerridge Theatre, she had come home and told him the
story.
“Oh, Jorie, isn’t it just too sad,
that a man could love a woman so, and yet there be such
misunderstanding that he could kill her, and she be
innocent?”

Pervasive feelings of guilt worsened. The
pressure in his head was building up, as these thoughts took up
more and more space. He clutched his head. The internal frenzy
mounted to such a maniacal pitch that all he could do was knock his
head against the wall until the throbbing forced him to lie down,
and the demons left him alone for a spell.

Arthur Johnson came the next day.

Jorie could only look at the floor. How
distressing to have the person who’d always been so kind to him see
him in his present state.

“Good of you to come, Doctor,” he
mumbled.

“How are you doing, Jorie? Are they treating
you all right?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. The doctor handed him a
jar.

“What’s this?”

“A sarsaparilla I thought you might
enjoy.”

Jorie took the drink and smiled shyly at the
doctor. “Thank you.” He ran his finger around the rim of the
container.

“I have to be frank with you. I’ve been
appointed by the court to determine — your state of mind.”

“Whether I’m sane or not, you mean.”

“Yes, precisely.” The doctor looked at him
kindly. “So let’s just talk.”

Doctor Johnson started reminiscing about
days gone by, the animated discussions of biology they’d had in his
room. He could make anyone feel at ease, and Jorie thawed
somewhat.

“Sometimes I pretended to be sicker than I
was, just to get a visit from you.”

“I suspected as much.” The doctor
chuckled.