Death Will Help You Leave Him (15 page)

We faced into the sun, already low in the sky. It shed a golden light on the buildings and made glass windows flash like signal flares. The crowd of pedestrians thinned out a bit as the Chinatown part of Canal receded behind us. Laura, head out the open window like a dog enjoying the wind, drew in a sharp breath.

“Stop!” she said. As the driver complied, the light changed to green. Impatient horns sounded behind us.

The driver stuck his head out the front window at the same angle as Laura’s behind him.

“Shut up, you bloody idiots,” he bellowed. “Where the fuck do you think you can go? Assholes! Stupid bastards! Cocksuckers!”

“Easy does it,” I muttered. An AA slogan. The trouble with road rage is that people return it. In the back seat with the windows down, we were sitting ducks.

“Oh!” Laura exclaimed. She craned out the window so far that I grabbed her waist, afraid she’d topple over. She ignored me. “Mac! Mac! Follow that motorcycle!”

“Make up your mind, lady,” the cabbie said.

“Just follow it,” she said.

I couldn’t see any motorcycle. The driver did. I doubted it was Mac.

“How do you want me to do that, lady? This traffic isn’t moving.”

She took him literally.

“Go around the block,” she said. “Cut ahead of him.”

“You’re the boss,” the Sikh said. He added something I suspected it was just as well we didn’t understand. He signaled a right turn. The car ahead of us pulled into the intersection, giving us access to the side street and creating gridlock for everybody else. The narrow side street was dim with shadow. Parked cars lined the curb, but we had the street to ourselves. We bumped along over ruts and a few of the original cobblestones.

“Faster! faster!” Laura urged.

Singh stepped on the gas. As he accelerated, I got flung forward against Laura so she almost sat in my lap, her back against my chest. I held on. The taxi shot ahead three blocks as if going through a flume.

“That’s far enough,” Laura snapped. “Make a left.”

The taxi squealed around the corner.

“Now a right onto Canal again. Do you see the bike— the motorcycle? Can’t you go any faster? We’ve got to catch up. I’m sure it’s Mac.”

Like me, Singh read her final words as, “I’m not sure it’s Mac.” As he made the right-hand turn, he looked back at her, exasperated.

“Lady, this is not my cab. Will you pay the ticket I’m gonna get for speeding? Neither will my boss. I tell you now—”

As the taxi poked its nose into the wider street, an SUV impatient to get home to Jersey smacked into the left side of the hood with a sickening thud. The impact flung Laura and me apart. Her head cracked into the upper frame of the window, mine into the partition between us and the front seat. The cabbie hit the windshield, but his turban must have cushioned the blow. He had enough breath left to emit a stream of curses. First in Punjabi or whatever, then in English.

“He’s getting away,” Laura wailed. “Just go on, go after him!”

“Lady, you are crazy!” the driver screamed. “Look at my cab! How will I explain this fender to the boss? Forget about it, I follow no one. I want you out of my taxi.”

Meanwhile, the driver of the SUV emerged, slammed his door, and rounded the front of the vehicle to survey the front of the hood. He bent and ran his hand along the grill. He straightened up and wheeled around to face us, fists bunched.

“Goddamn motherfucking sonofabitch turbanhead, look what you’ve done to my car!”

Singh flung his own door open and surged out, nose to nose with his opponent.

“Who are you calling turbanhead, cocksucker?” He waggled the offending headgear in the SUV driver’s face. “I am not an Arab— stupid dickhead Americans, don’t know the difference between a cow and a sheep because they both have tails.”

Laura ignored this. She slumped back against the back of the rear seat, rubbing her head.

“Hey, Bruce. Guess what? There are two of you.”

I turned my head toward her. It didn’t want to go. That and the shooting pain in my neck told me I had whiplash.

“Let me see, Laura. Look at me. Open your eyes and look straight into mine.”

I had a vague idea that if someone had concussion, their eyeballs would be different sizes. No, it must be the pupils. I stared at Laura’s. I couldn’t tell.

“My head hurts,” she said. “I want Mac.”

“Laura, I think you have a concussion,” I said. “We’d better get you to the ER.”

I slid to the right and opened the door on that side. I helped her out and steadied her as she wobbled between two parked cars to the sidewalk. As we limped toward Sixth Avenue, where traffic would be moving uptown, the two oblivious drivers were in each other’s face, bellowing in different languages but communicating very well.

Laura leaned heavily on my arm and whimpered.

“Bruce, you’ll take care of me, won’t you? You always took good care of me.”

Not the way I remembered it. Mutually out of control, we had spiraled down in free fall toward the inevitable crash. I had found a net. Laura had not.

“Sure I will,” I said.

Her green nails raked my forearm as she clutched at me.

“I hate hospitals,” she said. “They always want to lock me up.”

“I know.”

“You’re the only one who understands,” she said. “Don’t leave me, Bruce, don’t ever, ever leave me.”

I already had. It hadn’t done me any good. It seemed I was still her yoyo, bouncing on her string as it came unwound.

At Houston Street, where there was a lot less traffic, we flagged down another cab. I squinched over to the left so she could lie down. She eased her body onto the creaking back seat and moaned as she lowered her head onto my lap. We arrived at the ER without incident.

A triage nurse came bustling up. I explained we had been in an accident and thought she might have a concussion. Looking around the waiting room with its tired plastic chairs and baleful fluorescent lights, I couldn’t see any gunshot wounds or incipient heart attacks ahead of us. But there might be any number of them beyond the No Unauthorized Entry doors. A fender bender wasn’t much of an emergency. I didn’t bother to try to make it sound worse than it was. I didn’t mention my possible whiplash, and the nurse didn’t ask. She took Laura, still limp as a puppet, away from me. Someone shoved a clipboard at my chest. I knew plenty about Laura— her family, her history, her symptoms, what she liked to do in bed— but not if she still had health insurance.

A clerk with a computer helped me out. They knew her here.

Time stretched as I hung out waiting for whatever came next. Last time I’d been in the ER, I was the emergency. Now I discovered the true meaning of boredom. A Puerto Rican mom fed an endless supply of junk food— Fritos, Hershey bars, potato chips— to her flock of screaming children. A black dude in a hoodie jounced to the music in his earphones, shaking not only his own molded chair but the string of three attached to it. I went out to smoke and chose a different seat when I returned. A yuppie couple dressed in track suits held a low-voiced argument. They were still at it when I came back in. Hanging out in front of the building beyond the length of a cigarette didn’t appeal. I didn’t mind other people’s smoke, but secondhand cell phone conversations might kill me yet.

More likely, Laura would be the death of me. She got crazier and crazier. If I wanted to get laid, I could find a safer way. Too bad I wasn’t gay. Cruising the park with a condom and a dream might be less dangerous. Of course the sex was not the point, or not the whole point. I could barely remember how I’d come to marry her, but I remembered why. Maybe if she hadn’t been bipolar, I would have found her less compelling. It was all Laura, the whole frenetic package. The mood swings. The meds or lack of them. The drugs or more drugs or different drugs. The crackle of energy, all wired together yet fragile too. The zany creative spark, whether she was making a pair of earrings or crafting her body into a performance piece.

I looked at the wall clock for the umpteenth time. The hands gave the illusion of standing still. Maybe hospital clocks suffered from burnout and had to go someplace time flowed normally for R&R. I got up to ask yet another futile question about Laura. As I started toward the desk, a black woman with cornrows and a nostril ring, also a white lab coat and a stethoscope around her neck, came toward me.

“If you are the gentleman with Ms. Dare,” she said, “you may come in and see her now.” She had an Islands accent. “She has a slight concussion, but you may take her home. The nurse will tell you what to do to make sure she remains stable.” Laura Dare. Her name suited her. She hadn’t changed it when we got married. Not even a topic for discussion. Her middle name was Deanna. But we used to say the D stood for whatever fit at the moment. Laura Double Dare. Laura Depression Dare.

I wondered why the doctor looked over my shoulder rather than meeting my eyes. Her words had reassured me. Now I wondered if she had held something back. A problem she hadn’t told me? News she had to break gently?

“I’ll do whatever she needs.” A deep voice spoke behind me, hated and familiar. “I’d like to see her now. Then tell me where to find the nurse.”

Dammit. Mac. She must have called him on her cell phone. Even though cell phones were
verboten
inside the hospital. Laura Devil Dare.

I walked away without a word.

“How’s Luz doing?” I asked Barbara.

I was home in my own apartment for a change. I had called to talk to Jimmy. But some guy in Australia had IMed him with some information about the transportation of the British criminal classes to Botany Bay. He had been chasing this particular fact for days, and off he went into cyberspace to retrieve it. Barbara, as usual, was already on the extension.

“Still sad,” she said. “Still minimizing how awful Frankie was. Trying to go on one day at a time. You like her, don’t you.”

“How do you mean?” I stalled. “Sure. She’s okay. Nice. Poor kid. Rough time.”

“Only okay?” Barbara said. “She could use a corrective experience with a decent man.”

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damn unstoppable,” I said. “Though I’m glad to hear you think I’m decent.”

“You are, now you’ve stopped drinking,” Barbara said. “All you’ve got to do now is stay stopped.”

“And change my whole life.” Another of those little slogans with a sting in its tail.

“Well, please don’t stop being sardonic. You wouldn’t be Bruce without it.”

“I don’t have to surrender my whole personality? What a relief.”

“Speaking of Luz,” Barbara said, “we had better keep circling the wagons. Those two detectives still drop by every few days. I don’t know how they think evidence that didn’t exist in the first place will suddenly appear. And if they think she’ll change her story, they’re wrong, because it’s not a story, it’s what really happened— at least all she knows.”

“What do you want us to do?” I asked. I felt more comfortable when Barbara played detective than when she played matchmaker.

“How about going back to the bakery? We never did talk to Massimo. We could call first— you know, see if he answers the phone. And I bet if I could somehow manage to talk to Frankie’s mother, I’d hear things we don’t know yet.”

“Aw, you just want more of those little cannolis.”

“Cannoli. You and Jimmy ate just as many as I did.”

“I don’t suppose you could get Jimmy to go with you? I didn’t do anything but stand around and carry the cake boxes last time.”

“It’s a miracle he came to the funeral. Getting him on the subway to Brooklyn twice in one calendar year would be a record. Forget it. You’re the man.”

“Oh, so now I’m the man,” I said. “Okay, okay, I’ll come with you.”

“You can choose the pastries this time,” Barbara offered.

When we arrived at the bakery, Massimo was carrying a tray heavy with mini-cheesecakes from the back room. A blast of hot air propelled him into the cooler café. He set the tray on the counter and took out a large white handkerchief to mop his brow and forearms. His silver hair was lightly powdered with flour. He wiped his hands on the handkerchief and ran them down the sides of his enveloping white apron for good measure.

“Can I help you?”

We both stepped up to the counter. With an older generation Italian male, I didn’t think being a girl carried any advantage. ’Scuse me, a woman.

He tried to form a professionally genial smile. It sat like a mask of comedy on his sad face.

“The cheesecakes are very good today, and we have the chocolate cannoli, both the big and little— but I know you,” he said. His face registered recognition, but the sadness didn’t lighten. “You are friends of my boy.”

It wasn’t a question, so we didn’t have to lie.

“We are so very sorry,” Barbara said, “especially for you and Mrs. Iacone. She must be grieving terribly.”

Massimo shook his head, not in denial but in dismay.

“She cries all day long. I cannot comfort her, her sisters and her friends cannot comfort her. Even the children can’t make her smile. They say, ‘Nonna, don’t be sad. Papa is in Heaven.’ When they leave, she says to me, ‘I don’t believe in Heaven.’ Never have I heard such a thing. My Silvia has always been devout. This weeping woman is her ghost.”

“Nothing can be worse than losing a child,” Barbara said.

Barbara’s family would be devastated if they lost a child. On our block, the mothers used to tell the children to go play in traffic. Mine once offered me a hundred bucks to leave town.

“All his friends are mourning, sir,” I said. “He was on the brink of such a future, too.”

Massimo took that the way he wanted to.

“So much promise lost,” he said. “ ‘It’s a turning point, Papa,’ he tells me. I think, Now maybe he will come into the business and become a fine baker.”

I doubted it.

“He had broken away from the evil companions.”

Parental delusion: good boy, bad company.

“Some of them had the
coglioni
to come to the funeral.” Indignation colored his voice. “They dishonored my son by being there. They insulted me and his mother. I spit on them!” He added, “I would have thrown them out, but it would have embarrassed Silvia.”