The Dream of Doctor Bantam (3 page)

3

The morning of her seventeenth birthday, Julie knocked on the bathroom door for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes—her mother had long ago left for work.

Jesus Christ, she moaned. I’m going to die of a burst bladder on my birthday, you bitch, open the goddamned door—

Then Tabitha finally pulled back the inside bolt; Julie came inside. She was on her side on the matted burgundy bathroom rug, beginning to lie down. A pile of shampoo and conditioner bottles lay scattered around her, their contents oozing against their plastic sides as they rolled against the tile.

Julie, said Tabitha. Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

She tried to lift her head, smiled, tried to lift her arm. Slowly, slowly her arm reached toward her sister’s face.

You have to go to the doctor, said Julie, her voice shaking.

I’ll be fine, said Tabitha. Just fine.

She wiggled her legs and made herself sit up. Her energy gone, she sat there breathing on the bathroom floor while Julie watched. Then she pulled herself into a standing position against the counter. She’d never been this fucked up before.

Just fine, she said again. Her eyes closed and her head lolled forward.

Julie caught her and helped her to bed. She could carry her sister all of a sudden.

Linda and Michael came home, ready to take them all to dinner. She told them they’d have to wait. Tabitha slept all day and the next day besides. Julie stayed away from school the whole time. She sat with her sister, played Hole and Garbage on the psychedelic-painted stereo, and she cut out the newspaper comics and pasted them into her composition book. It was a habit she had, something that relaxed her. You could paste the panels in order, keep the plots the same, or you could mix things up, make members of the Patterson family flame out in terrifying traffic accidents involving Crankshaft’s bus, send bears from Mark Trail’s refuge into Montoli’s Pizza. She cut and cut and let the word balloons bubble up through her head as Tabitha shifted and sometimes moaned.

She called into Einstein’s Arcade, pretending to be Tabitha, and she told them that she had a fever and that she couldn’t work that night.

Yeah, I’ll bet you have a fever, cackled the manager.

Julie gripped the phone receiver with both hands and held it until she felt like she could speak without shouting.

Thanks, she finally said, see you soon.

She put the receiver down and she started the Hole album over again.

Linda and Michael talked her into going out to dinner that night. She’ll be fine, they told her; she just needs to sleep it off. The flu, it must have been.

You can go wherever you like, Michael said. Sky’s the limit.

I want to go to IHOP, she said. The one you can smoke at.

Michael looked at her.

I’m fine with it, Linda said.

She picked at her lingonberry pancakes; she hated these things, actually.

If you tell them to sing to me, she said, I’ll grow up to be stunted and hateful.

Too late, coughed Linda.

We’d never do that, said Michael. True to their word, they didn’t.

They got home to find Tabitha gone.

She’d called her boyfriend, one of them; he’d known her in high school. He’d always loved to watch her smoking by the parking lots before one day she wasn’t there anymore. He’d met her again at the arcade just after moving on campus; he thought she was still so beautiful, even if her eyes always looked tired, from staring at all those video screens, he guessed. He picked her up in his graduation SUV and took her to his dorm room. His roommate was there; he was one of those creeps who wanted to learn to play the guitar now that he was in college; he kept playing parts of the solo from “Little Wing” over and over and over while they smoked on the bed with towels stuffed under the door and dropped broad hints. Tabitha kept insisting and insisting. He didn’t know what was wrong with her, how she was talking. She was talking like she didn’t make sense, like things weren’t connecting. He should never have agreed with her to leave the dorm. He’d just felt so good—the legendary Tabitha Thatch, his at last.

They left the dorm, though, and they drove into Hyde Park, into a cul-de-sac where there were no streetlights. They put back the front seats of his graduation SUV.

She said something weird while they were, you know—just one of the weird things she said, actually. She said it was her sister’s birthday today, and that he should, you know, do her harder in honor of this. We’re all getting older, she said, older and smaller every single day.

They finished; he was resting. They had the air conditioner on full. It was already the end of May; it was already sweltering.

That was—the best sex of my entire life, he said to her.

And here’s how she said it: I know the secret.

It made no sense. She said she knew how to run so fast that she could escape history altogether. She could go back into the past, could find the place where it had all started to go wrong—the moment that had rippled outward in waves of causality, that had struck their father, that had floored their mother, that had kicked up Tabitha and Julie from the sea like some Joan Baez lyric: twin Venuses on the half-shell. Tabitha would fix all of that. She would twist time, save everything, make the world clean again without her.

I finally know how to get outside of time, she said.

She got out of the SUV—she had some trouble with the seat belt, her eyes were amazing. She believed in it, perfectly.

Then she ran barefoot and naked down the dark length of the cul-de-sac, its sidewalks damp and glittering with summer rain, gathering speed, tearing the veil, breaking free, and the approaching Geo Prism turned to meet her, and she continued to run.

Summer 1997: Tabitha Thatch came into the living room where Julie was reading her Madeleine L’Engle paperbacks.

It’s time for you to learn about your body, Julie, she said. Come with me.

Julie put down her book and followed Tabitha into their mother Linda’s bedroom. Their mother was at work, like every day; she wouldn’t be home until after six. A stack of Jackie Collins novels held up the TV remote on the table by the bed. Tabitha pulled the still-unmade comforter and blankets off—the sheets beneath were pink and rumpled, sour-smelling, and old ashes had been pressed into their 400-count weave.

Take off your clothes, said Tabitha. And lie down.

Julie felt a thrill of badness as her khaki shorts and her blue-hemmed motorcycle underwear fell to the floor. The air conditioner clunked on and she shivered and she lay back on the bed like a dab of pink cloud on a sunset sky.

Don’t be scared, said Tabitha. Open your legs. Take a look.

Between her chubby thighs was smooth and pale, accented by a crenellated stripe. Smaller, plainer than she would have thought. She stared, at once impressed and repelled.

It’s your cunt, said Tabitha.

Julie kept staring.

That’s a dirty word, she said.

It’s not a dirty word, said Tabitha. Say it.

Cunt, said Julie, fast and quiet.

Cunt, repeated Tabitha, and her clothes rustled as she shifted her weight. You can touch it, if you want.

She did. She tingled: a slight nausea, a pain. She withdrew her hand.

Tabitha waited, then stepped into Julie’s view, just beside the mahogany frame of the mirror, the Freon alive around her. She pulled off her rhinestone T-shirt, unsnapped her skirt, shivered it around her hips and carefully to the ground. She unhooked her lime-green bra. Her breasts were already in at fourteen; her hips were wide; the curls of blond hair that covered her own suddenly-revealed thing, her cunt, were frightening and inviting at once, a warm cornfield lined with crows somewhere just beyond the hill from home. Julie’s own body in the mirror was still smooth.

Tabitha climbed onto the bed next her. She filled up all of the space between them when she spread her own legs. They lay together for some time, looking into the mirror. Julie looked at Tabitha. Tabitha looked at herself.

It’s yours, said Tabitha.

The air conditioner hummed and rumbled through the tiny cold spaces between them, and the heat rose from Tabitha’s warm, dry body.

Then Tabitha got up, scratched her left rib, and gathered her clothes. She held them in a bundle in front of her as she walked to the door.

Mom gets home at six, she said. So be out of here before then, okay? And come see me when you’re done.

She blew a kiss from her red lips, outlined in black, and she closed the door, leaving Julie alone and naked in her mother’s room.

Julie sat there for what must have been half an hour, an hour, just staring, nearly falling asleep. Then she got up from the bed, put her shorts back on, and went to find her sister.

Tabitha was in her room, shuffling a pack of tarot cards, her eyes circled in insomniac blackness. She hadn’t slept at all the night before. Julie stood in the doorway and scratched her leg and watched her.

Come in, Tabitha said, not looking up at her. It’s totally time for us to predict your future.

She asked Julie to put her hand on the Significator she’d chosen: the Queen of Wands, the force that could do anything. The card was still warm from Tabitha’s palms. Tabitha closed her fingers over Julie’s, closed her eyes, began to move her lavender-painted lips. The opening notes of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” were playing and the room smelled like nagchampa, so Julie knew that Tabitha had been smoking no more than an hour before, and then Tabitha smiled and Julie felt old, felt the weight of her sister’s heart on her, and still she smiled in return as Tabitha invented her future.

It was an excellent future, promising nothing but good fortune and well-deserved success.

4

Julie put on her clothes—white tank, black-and-green camo, blue jean jacket, green galoshes—and she stole her mother’s cell phone from the table in the kitchen. Behind the plaster walls the water heater hummed. She let the front door creak shut and she walked to the corner—out of the house she could breathe—and she sat on the curb beneath the neighborhood watch sign. The eyes of the neighbor’s houses still looked like they were staring at her; she’d long since stopped caring.

Robbie’s number was the same as pi to start, 31415, and then you just had to remember that it ended with 66. Robbie was her boyfriend, or something, or at least he had invited her to the science club dance—she had gone, for novelty; he had tried to build himself up to kiss her on the front porch; she had said good night. And now he called her a lot, and she let him most of the time. This time she called him.

Hello, he said carefully. People on cell phones always sounded like they were being hunted by someone.

It’s me, said Julie. Can I come stay at your place tonight?

There was static on the line.

Hello? she said.

Sure, said Robbie quickly. You can stay if you want to. You remember where it is, right?

I’ve never been to your house before, she said.

Oh, it’s not too hard to find, he said. You’ll remember it the second time.

She swiped Tabitha’s old bicycle from the backyard shed, kicked up the rusted kickstand, and rolled into the night. She’d always envied this bicycle, and now it was hers—it just went to show you that if you stayed alive long enough, you could have anything you wanted.

Julie lived north and west of Robbie, further along the Mo-Pac expressway: churches, car dealerships, houses with lawn ornaments. She liked riding past houses; she liked imagining the rooms inside and what she would do with them, one day, when she had the money to do whatever she liked. Get rid of the lawn ornaments, for one, nothing senseless, no Christmas lights in bushes or neon chili peppers or any of that crap: stark yards, thick curtains, good chairs on the porch for sitting and surveying your domain.

She turned her bike off Mo-Pac onto Enfield and entered the rich part of town.

It wasn’t a weekend but downtown was still full of people. The women were all tanned orange and wore the same little black dress or silver lame blouse; the men all wore blue jeans and cotton dress shirts open to the navel over white tank tops. She pedaled up as far as Hut’s Hamburgers before she realized she’d missed her turnoff and she cut left to Tenth. The street sparkled like a thousand cigarette butts and dark neon bar after dark neon bar rose and fell around her shoulders.

Once she passed the police station, the neighborhood bloomed: the houses got larger and shrank behind curlicued gates; the trees stretched out until their branches met in blue-green arches over the pavement; the moon vanished among the leaves. The spokes of her tires whizzed like a hoverbike through the rustling streets; this really was a great bike, and it was awesome that only one person had to die for her to get it.

The address Robbie had given her was a fucking mansion. Red bricks peeped from behind crisp landscaping and black wrought iron.

Robbie was waiting on the steps. He was skinny like always, hair dark and curled and clipped fascist-short. Sometime after the last day of class he’d pierced his eyebrow; a spiral of bone wound its way through the skin. He stood up when he saw her wheeling her bike in through the gate; his knees poked from the frayed hems of his anarchy-patch shorts.

Yo, she said. I didn’t know you were rich.

It’s my aunt’s, Robbie said, flushed for some reason. We gotta be quiet when we go in. She works early.

It’s okay if I stay? asked Julie.

Yeah, said Robbie. She works early.

The foyer behind the old oak door was silent and blue from the light of the idle computer monitor in the den just past the stairs. The southwestern marble tiles were cool and still and the coats on the hat rack, its tip carved in the shape of an owl, rustled in the summer breeze from the opening door. There was a painting of a psychedelic coyote matted in white that hung, lopsided, over the cherry-wood credenza along the wall.

The third door on your right, upstairs, Robbie whispered. I’m going to the fridge. Just, you know. Make yourself comfortable.

I will, whispered Julie.

If you can, you know, said Robbie. With all this stuff.

Julie nodded.

Do you want me to take my shoes off? she asked. So I won’t make any noise? Or kick your aunt’s stuff?

He frowned; she wondered why; she’d needled him worse before.

Do what you do, he said.

She went upstairs, past still photographs under glass of people she guessed were family members. There was one of Robbie, no smile on his face—fatter when he was younger. He was surrounded by toys and grown-up legs on a brown carpet that she knew, somehow, had been pulled up and thrown away long ago.

The screen saver on his computer was running: a swift marquee of orange letters on a violet background, something he’d lifted from Rimbaud by way of Patti Smith. The blue light from the screen blended happily with the cerise-and-gold of the lava lamp and the soft twinkle of the all-white Christmas lights that hung in tangles over the well-made black-sheeted bed.
Decorations
. She sat on the bed and felt guilty for a moment about messing it up, then she took off her green galoshes and flexed her bare toes.

Robbie came in with food in his arms: a day-old box of tofu mixed with tomato/basil/coconut curry, a bag of spelt bagels with soy butter, a big plastic mug of organic carrot juice with two sad remnants of ice cubes that bobbed and clacked within. He set the food down on the glass-top computer desk and sat down in the plush computer chair.

I wasn’t too loud? Julie asked. Everything’s cool on the cell block?

Auntie’s sleeping on the couch, said Robbie. It’s just us up here, tonight. Do you like tofu?

She stared at him. His feet were restless, spinning him from side to side in the chair.

Tofu’s cool, she said.

She had a spelt bagel and a third of the tofu; Robbie had two bagels and all of the rest. They passed the mug of carrot juice between them, each taking healthy swallows. She set her clammy feet on his sheets.

So, he said. What do you want to do?

She frowned at him, licking her lips clean of tofu and carrots.

Um, I want to stay here tonight, she said. I’m doing it, see?

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked into the corner; she cocked her head.

So, he began, so you smoke, right?

I’ve done it before, she said.

He nodded, still not looking at her, and he rolled out of his chair and pulled a beat-up flute case from the bottom shelf of his redwood dresser. She watched him.

I’m gonna put some music on, he said. That okay?

Sure, she said. Everyone likes music.

He put a sitar-heavy record on the stereo and then joined her on the bed. She shouldered up to him; he smiled. He rolled a joint from the stash of KB in the flute case, sealed it with thick, carroty saliva, and handed it to her.

You inhale and hold, he said.

I know that, she said as she snatched the lighter.

She drew, then started to cough and dropped the joint on the comforter. Robbie scooped it up and handed it back to her.

You need some juice? he asked. You’re supposed to hold it in before you swallow.

I
know
, she said.

Okay, he said. I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to know.

She blew her bangs off of her forehead.

What type would you have pegged me as? she asked.

I dunno, smart, he said. Um, and like, beautiful?

She squinted, pained, and didn’t respond. This was such a stupid idea; she should really be leaving now. She drew on the joint again.

They smoked; sitars twinkled. He got quiet; her thoughts followed the notes up to the Christmas lights and back down to the sheets.

Shit, she said, and she laughed. He laughed too. Shit, she began again. Thanks for letting me stay here. I had to get out of there tonight.

I know, he said. Hey. It sucks that your sister died.

She looked at him sideways.

That’s true, right? he asked. That’s what I heard.

Yeah, it’s true, she said. She’s a goner, that one. Where’d you hear?

Some kids, he said.

That floored her somehow; she couldn’t even imagine what kids he meant. She remembered all the names of the kids in her class, but that was it; when she thought of them the thing that stood out most to her was the little plastic sign propped at the feet of their elementary school photos:
Miss Salamasick’s K–3
. Their faces were gray and blurry; only Tabitha’s had fluoresced, five grades up and five inches taller, then, this fancy future life she’d led.

She was thinking of Tabitha again; she found herself lying back on the cool, thick sheets. Her legs were hanging off the edge of the bed, her feet flat on the floor. Waves of ice moved through her body and the prickling sitar surrounded her like a ghost chandelier.

I hate white Christmas lights, she said. They’re like Michael Bolton infomercials. They’re like a man explaining to you how to do your taxes. They’re like throwing up in ivory bathrooms. I don’t know what I mean.

Which of these describes your sister the best? Robbie asked, rummaging somewhere else in the room. Water, earth, air, or fire?

Water, she said, closing her eyes.

Pressure on the comforter beside her as he got back on the bed.

What do you want to ask about? Robbie said. He was cross-legged before her, his bony knees everywhere. He drew out the Queen of Cups and set it on the bed between them.

Jesus, tarot, she said. My sister was into this shit.

You have to ask a question, Robbie said. It’ll be fun.

She stared at the card: the red hair, the smile, the suffering eyes. The Queen looked off into the distance at nothing.

Okay, she asked. Can someone escape from time?

Robbie giggled.

What? asked Julie. Fuck you; I know it’s a weird question.

Nothing, said Robbie. Nothing. It is a weird question. That’s all.

They went through all ten cards of the standard spread: the Nine of Wands, crossing, the Eight of Cups, crowning, the Empress in its place at the roots, Justice behind, the Five of Cups ahead (a longer-than-normal pause when this one was revealed). The Star reversed, the Lovers reversed. The Sun, again reversed. The final card—the outcome—was the Three of Cups, reversed. Three women in a field, their garish four-color dresses in spumes of fabric at their feet, each with a hand on a golden goblet that dangled, reversed, from their arms. The wine spilled upward in that reversed gravity. Three women turned upside down, spilling their wine into the air.

What does it mean? asked Julie.

I don’t know, he said. The white Christmas lights were shining in the black of his eyes.

She let her head flop back onto his pillow.

Okay, she said. Thanks.

Thanks for the reading? he asked.

Oh, who knows, she said. Thanks for everything.

She laughed and fell backward. He didn’t. The joint had long since burned out.

How’d she die? he asked.

Oh, it’s too funny to tell you, she said. It’s too funny for words. It’s so funny veins would pop in our brains and like that we’d become vegetables. We’d never stop laughing again.

He took a breath then; she turned to look at him, startled, and here he was, hovering over her, his bony head blotting out the lights—suddenly she realized what he thought was going on, oh God—here he was pressing his face against hers. Stubble on his lips like pimentos in a salad. Sour saliva and rough and clumsy and all a waste of her time.

Oh shit, she said. I …

He kissed her again, and that was when she should have stopped, but he pulled off her tank top and she let him; her baggy camo pants fell off; he let her keep her socks on. He hooked his fingers under the hem of her gray cotton underwear and she clamped her fingers over the bracelet at his wrist.

Wait, she breathed.

She let go of his wrist. He glared at her, breathing heavily. She tugged off her underwear, reached between her legs, and pulled out a tiny white something on a string and tossed it aside. She hoped it hadn’t fallen on the carpet until she realized that she didn’t fucking care.

But now here she was. She knew what she looked like to him. Small, smooth breasts with pale, drooping areolas and large gumdrop nipples. Thick thighs under thin hips, braced up by knotty calves. Pale, slight roll at her belly, wisps of brown rising from her thighs, her
cunt
, all of it spread beneath him. Her body had turned into Tabitha’s. She stared breathing, suddenly, hard. The sitars sped up; the notes fell in domino crescendos around her ears. He was staring at her.

I d-don’t want to pressure you, he said.

You’re not, she said, wincing and feeling her thigh goosepimple; him talking ruined it. —You’re not. Just like, go for it, okay?

And as good as his encouragement, he did: he plunged right in, inch by dry inch, and her bitten nails closed on his back. He must have thought this was a good sign because he closed his eyes tight and went further.

She lay in the bed she’d stolen and gritted her teeth. She squeezed her eyes tighter, squeezed them into a fuschia kaleidoscope, squeezed him out. She was Tabitha—getting it fucking right this time. He was ejaculating. She pulsed as he pulsed. This time, survive, she thought. Survive. Survive.