Earth Angel (15 page)

I didn’t know what to expect; I knew nothing about David Payton. I didn’t even know what he looked like. I had tried to research
him, but there was nothing in the local papers about him, nor was he mentioned in any of the national wire services or even
the tabloids. As far as the media world was concerned, David Payton did not exist. But there was no reason he should be known.
He wasn’t directly involved in the shooting at the clinic, except that his ex-wife Lisa Demme (the amphetamine woman) had
been there. And now she was dead. In the tiny article
announcing her suicide, David Payton had been named as being her closest survivor. I felt sorry for Lisa Demme; when your
ex-husband is your closest survivor, then you have reason for suicide.

I knocked again but no one came to the door. I checked my watch. After six. Surely he would be home from work soon. Did he
have a new wife, children? Where were they? I decided not to wait and headed back down the sidewalk when a white Honda Civic
pulled up to the curb behind my car. A boy about seventeen emerged from the passenger side carrying a huge bucket and bag
from Kentucky Fried Chicken. A girl about fifteen climbed out of the back seat clutching a small white paper bag that said
Midtown Deli. They both wore swimming suits with towels wrapped around their waists. A man about forty got out of the driver’s
side. He was lanky and tan, with longish, wavy brown hair. He wore swimming trunks and a dark green sweatshirt. He was barefoot
and when he walked, sand sprinkled from his legs. He carried a battered white volleyball under his arm.

He and the girl were laughing about something, singing snatches of a song that wasn’t in English nor any language I recognized.
They kept trying to sing and make some gagging sound at the same time. When the man saw me he squinted as if he recognized
me, but that dropped from his eyes. He brushed some sand from his feet and said, “It’s ‘The Click Song’ from South Africa.
The natives there make this clicking sound when they sing. It’s kind of like drinking water and talking at the same time.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Try it. It goes like this.” He said some foreign word and at the same time there was a double click at the back of his throat.
He opened a palm at me as if he was introducing a stage act. “Your turn.”

I shook my head. “I’ll pass. I’m still struggling with pig Latin.”

“Are you looking for someone?” he asked.

“Do you live here?”

“If you call it living,” the boy muttered. He was tall and skinny and walked clumsily as if his long arms and legs were brand
new and took some getting used to. The girl was pretty but expressionless, her dark hair in a braided bun that made her look
Amish. Whatever joy they’d been experiencing previously seemed to be vaporized by my presence.

“Who are you?” the man asked. As he came around the car I could see that he was limping slightly.

“Grace Weiss,” I said. So much for the direct and honest approach. I started speaking, spontaneously creating myself as I
looked at him, as if my lies were reflected in his face. “My family used to live in this house when I was a girl. I’m passing
through town and dropped by to…” I shrugged. “I guess I don’t know why I dropped by. I’m not normally the nostalgic type.”

“Did you grow up here?” he asked.

“For a few years. Twelve to sixteen.”

“Ah, the Wonder Years. First french kiss on the porch, that sort of thing?”

“Something like that. Anyway, I didn’t mean to impose.”

“No problem,” he said, standing next to me now. His green eyes were collared by deep laugh or squint lines. Also, his front
tooth was slightly chipped. He reminded me of Sam Shepard in
The Right Stuff
. He brushed sand from his bare arms. Some flew into my face. “Oh, shit. Sorry. We were at the beach.”

“Isn’t it a school day?” I asked. I had no idea why that slipped out. What did I care? It was just that there was just something
so relaxed about him that annoyed me. I felt as if he were somehow mocking me.

“Yes, indeed, it is. But it’s also a holiday.” He smiled. “Robert Burns Bicentennial. English poet. Died two hundred
years ago. It was in the paper this morning. We decided not to let another two hundred years go by without celebrating.”

The girl chuckled. The boy rolled his eyes.

“Actually,” I said, “Robert Burns was a Scottish poet, not English. True, he lived between seventeen fifty-nine and seventeen
ninety-six, but he died on July twenty-first, so you’re a few months ahead of yourself.” My head filled up with more Robert
Burns trivia the way the tank at the back of a toilet fills with water after it’s flushed. Data swirled up and flushed out
of my mouth. “He died of rheumatic heart disease, the result of overwork and ill diet as a youth on his father’s farm.” I
snapped my mouth closed and felt the endless stream of information slamming against my teeth. How much useless trivial crap
that was of no possible use to anyone nested inside my brain like the sluggish, bloated larvae of some carnivorous insect?

Holding his volleyball between his knees, the man vigorously scratched his head with both hands. More sand flew out. “Apparently
we found the perfect person to chair our Robert Burns Cotillion.” He gestured with his chin at the house. “Would you like
to come in, take a look around? I don’t know if it looks anything like it did when you were a kid, but you’re welcome to browse.”

“Sure, thanks. Just for a couple of minutes.”

“I’m David Payton.” He shook my hand. “This is Josh and Rachel.”

“Grace,” I said to them.

“Amen,” Josh muttered and hurried ahead to unlock the door.

David sighed. “He’s in his cynical phase. Everything is ironic. We try to ignore him, but in a sensitive and supportive way.”
He led me back up the sidewalk, with Rachel close to his side. I saw a bronze
mezuzah
nailed to the doorpost. According to Deuteronomy 6:7 and 9, Jews are
required to write the Torah’s commandments on their doorposts. The tiny box contains the first and second paragraphs of the
Sh’ma
, the most famous Jewish prayer. The most devout attach a
mezuzah
(Hebrew for doorpost) to each doorpost throughout the house, the constant sight of which reminds them how to behave. David
Payton and the boy walked past the
mezuzah
without notice. The girl, however, reached up and touched it, then kissed her fingers in the traditional Jewish fashion.
I was surprised. Payton wasn’t a particularly Jewish name.

I entered the house behind her.

“Bring back any memories?” he said, flipping on all the light switches next to the door. The living room and dining room illuminated
brightly like a furniture showroom. Rachel and Josh were already in the kitchen fussing with plates and silverware, dispensing
food, and arguing.

I looked around, surprised at the decor. The walls were covered with tribal artifacts: shields, masks, spears, musical instruments
made from gourds. A giant wooden drum served as an end table to the sofa. The coffee table was a wooden carving of a tiger
biting into the neck of an antelope with a slab of glass sitting in the tiger’s back. The place looked like a safari lodge
for tourists. Yet, intermingled with the painted masks and dolls made of nuts and reeds were various items of the Jewish faith:
a menorah, a wall hanging of the Ten Commandments, a statuette of Michelangelo’s
Moses.

“Very eclectic decorations,” I said.

“I used to travel,” he said. “I’m addicted to duty-free shops.”

I could tell that these items had not come from duty-free shops. They were too authentic for tourists. I picked up the menorah.
It was heavy, made from copper. The candles were half burned, which meant they used it. “Are you Jewish?” I asked him.

“Me? No. Rachel is converting.”

“I’ve already converted,” Rachel hollered from the kitchen.

“Christ-killer,” Josh laughed.

“Shut up. Hey, not that fork. That’s mine.”

“Oh, c’mon, the others are dirty.”

“Those are kosher, you moron. You can’t use them. David, tell him.”

“Leave your sister’s silverware alone, Josh,” David said quietly. He seemed more amused than annoyed. He looked at me and
smiled. “Would you like me to show you around?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He ushered me up the stairs ahead of him, limping, but not slowed because of it. I had the feeling he was staring at me, but
when I looked around at him he glanced away.

“Ring any bells?” he asked.

“Faintly. It all looks so different.” I turned and caught him staring. He smiled, embarrassed. “Is something wrong?” I asked
him. “Do I have bird droppings in my hair?”

“No, sorry. It’s just…” He pointed back down the stairs. “Outside there when we first drove up, you looked a little like my
ex-wife.”

“Is that good?”

“She was very beautiful. But now I see you don’t really look like her at all.”

“Thanks a lot.”

He laughed. “You know what I meant.” He gestured at the upstairs rooms. “Anyway, I’m going to help the kids with dinner before
Josh stabs Rachel with a non-kosher knife. Feel free to investigate the rooms. Poke around in your past all you want.” He
started down the stairs, adding, “And if you go through my drawers, be sure to return the pornographic playing cards to their
rightful place. Come to think of it, they were here when I moved in. You don’t think your folks left them, do you?”

“My parents didn’t have playing cards. They took Polaroids of each other naked and taped the envelope with them to the back
of the bed’s headboard.”

“So, the fond memories are coming back.”

“Yes, thanks a lot. That’s exactly the nostalgic tone I was looking for.”

He laughed and hurried down the stairs pretty quickly for a guy with a limp.

I didn’t move. I just stood there thinking, wondering what I should do next. I heard the TV go on downstairs and the news
anchor was talking about the serial kidnapper. Police were warning residents that another note had been received and they
expected the maniac to strike again within the next few nights. The last child had been kidnapped right out of her kitchen,
so they were advising that doors and windows be locked. A police spokeswoman was asked about what the new note said. She refused
comment. Experts were working on it.

I strolled down the hallway. The first door I came to I pushed open. Rachel’s room. A bed, a desk, a dresser, all neat and
tidy. Like a nun’s room. A poster of Golda Meir looked down from above the bed, her tight gray bun and loose gray skin looking
like the loving mother of all humankind. I slid open her closet door. Several white blouses hung beside navy blue skirts.
Dark sweaters were stacked on the shelf. At the bottom of the closet were large plastic garbage bags. I untwisted the ties
and peeked inside. Bright blouses and sweaters and pants. Suspenders with Bart Simpson on them. An assortment of hats that
she probably looked very cute in. I retied the bag and left.

Josh’s room was just as sterile in its own way, even though it was sloppy. The sloppiness seemed deliberate, clothes strewn
here and there to give the impression of sloppiness rather than an expression of it. Books were scattered across his desk.
A Macintosh Classic with a
Star Trek
screen-saver showed Captain Kirk sitting in his chair
at the helm. I jiggled the mouse and the screen-saver disappeared. I wanted to see what he was working on. But the screen
was white except for one word: “Password?” The bookshelf beside his desk was filled with magazines and newspapers: local papers
and some from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago; magazines that included
Time, News week, Atlantic Monthly, People, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, High Times, Discover
, and many more. A lot of them had yellow sticky notes poking out of the pages. Maybe he was writing a research paper for
school. The most unusual piece in the room was a large, old-fashioned safe that you see in old gangster movies and Westerns,
the kind they have to blow open with dynamite. It was as big as a washing machine. I tried the handle but it was locked.

David’s room was secretive and open at the same time, the way a bluffer might say, “Go ahead and call my bet if you don’t
believe me.” No clothes lying around. The bed was made. On the floor next to the bed were three empty bowls with spoons stuck
to the bottoms. I stooped down to inspect. Looked like ice cream remains. He liked a big bowl of ice cream in bed at night.
I opened the drawer of his nightstand. The TV remote control. Loose change. Pens. Reading glasses. A couple of condoms. I
picked up the
TV Guide
, which was opened to last night. Several programs were circled with yellow highlighter pen. I flipped through the magazine;
his week’s watching was marked. He had stars next to the daily reruns of
I Spy
. A book was wedged between the lamp and clock/radio:
Foxfire
by Joyce Carol Oates, with the store receipt used as a bookmark about a third of the way through. I went to his dresser and
opened his top drawer. Five pairs of white briefs, each rolled into a hot-dog shape, were snuggled against each other. I checked
the size: 32.

I walked back down the hallway feeling guilty for digging through their personal stuff. I’d wanted to discover something about
them, something they needed that I could
provide. But I hadn’t found anything. I stood at the top of the stairs and wondered how I would maintain my contact with David
Payton now that I’d lied my way in and had come up empty. A family is like a fortress. There is no easy way for an outsider
to enter. Like a vampire, I had to be invited in. I inhaled deeply. I could smell the scent of a family—sheets that needed
to be changed, multiple shampoo bottles for each person stuck to the rim of the tub, greasy takeout food, crusty dishes too
long in the dishwasher. I pressed my hand against my abdomen. For the first time in a long time I felt the sharp emptiness
of my dead baby. The broken link to family that had destroyed Tim. Or was it something else? Tim had stood there in the clinic
waiting for me to do something. To save him. And I hadn’t moved. Had it really been indecision on my part, or had I glimpsed
my own perfect future ruined by what Tim had done? Had I in that moment of nonaction told Tim that I was removing myself from
him as I had expelled our unformed child?