In Memory of Angel Clare (27 page)

“Michael’s all right,” Peter claimed, then groaned and added, “Poor Michael.”

And Jack, sitting at his kitchen table, thought, “Arcalli, you’re nuts,” wondering how he had gone directly from fear for Michael to annoyance with him, without even a moment of relief when he found the boy alive and sitting on his front stoop. He suddenly remembered the look Michael gave him out there when Michael snapped out of his dream. A look with none of the arrogance Michael usually hid behind. The look of a frightened child. What kind of pain and confusion did Michael mask with his arrogance?

Jack listened carefully, and heard no slosh or dribbling of water. You’re a buffoon, he told himself. A dotty, stupid buffoon. But he stood up and walked across the kitchen. He stood in the doorway and listened more carefully. He felt ridiculous, like a father worried that his son was playing with himself. But he drew a breath to call in to Michael.

Michael heard someone coming to stop him. He pressed his wrist against the blade and pulled.

He felt nothing, then a mild sting across his wrist. Watching a dark red globule appear at the center of the cut, he became frightened, excited. The globule broke. A drop rolled off and fell into the water, where it slowly opened like a rose.

“Michael?”

Jack was outside. He had to finish this or he would look like a fool to Jack, a coward, a wimp. He cut lengthwise and more blood welled up. It was hypnotically beautiful, his own blood dark on his arm, bright red in the water. The stinging through his arm was clean and satisfying.

“Michael!”

“What!”

There was a pause, then a sheepish, “How much longer will you be?”

“I’ll finish when I finish,” Michael called out.

Strings and skeins of red floated beneath his arm, unwinding through the water like smoke. He was sorry he would never see the look on Jack’s face when Jack found him here. He remembered the note. Had he said enough? It was too late to rewrite the note. And the fingers of his left hand were getting numb. He should do his other wrist while the fingers could still hold a blade. Very carefully, he passed the metal sliver from the fingers of his right hand to the fingers of his left. He cut across again. The thin red line looked like a little mouth before the incision filled with blood. The note was unnecessary. He was giving himself extra mouths to say what he needed to say.

He finished his right wrist and laid the blade on the edge of the tub. He sat back and sank down, wanting to taste every second of his going. His arms lay in the water, a warm constant stinging, a comforting release of pain, as if his whole body were weeping through his arms. The water turned pink, then red. Time passed quickly even as it seemed to stand still, the way time passes when you watch the second hand sweep around the face of a clock. He was frightened he might change his mind before he was finished.

A book thumped shut.

Jack was still out there. Michael was annoyed he had to think about Jack. There was something else he should be thinking about now. But he had to keep Jack away. He had to assure Jack everything was fine until he was finished here. To assure Jack things were fine, Michael began to sing:

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily—

Jack remained in the doorway, chastened by Michael’s “I’ll finish when I finish,” but unwilling to go back to the kitchen. He automatically pulled a book from the stuffed bookcase there, just as he often pulled a book on his way to the toilet. He opened it and actually read a page before he realized what he was reading—Gore Vidal—then read another page to stop himself from thinking. Feeling distracted and calmer, he snapped the book shut and wedged it back on the shelf. He was returning to the kitchen when he heard Michael singing.

A child’s song. Sung cheerfully? Mockingly? Its tone was so different from everything else about Michael tonight, the song sounded bitterly sarcastic, then deranged. Michael sang it over and over, the song running down like a motor, then speeding up again. He sang like someone having a nervous breakdown.

Michael kept singing, not knowing how to stop once he started. He was getting lightheaded, even dizzy, but the song took over without his having to think about it. He sank down further, until his ears were underwater and his voice sounded very deep and echoey. The tub of water was an enormous ear, picking up sounds and voices through the pipes that branched all over the building, maybe all over the world. Michael stopped singing so he could listen to the world. Dishes were being knocked about in a sink. A toilet was flushed. A man and woman argued over how to bathe a baby. Michael could hear everything. When he was finished, he would know everything.

Already his mind was making connections he hadn’t known before. He was lightheaded with wisdom. Losing blood made you wise, put you in touch with the oneness of things, or nothingness of things. There had been a particular reason why he did this, but Michael could not remember it. Nevertheless, he was glad he was doing this, relieved he had done it. Soon he could go under, into a warm ocean where he breathed water instead of air and would never need to come to the surface again. Weightless and naked, he could swim among the dead, watching for—who? Clarence. He groped around with his legs and back, trying to find the underwater door that opened into that ocean. All he found was the smooth, watertight surface of a bathtub.

The singing wore down to a mumbled hum, and stopped.

“Where are you going dancing tonight?” Jack called out, just to check on the boy.

Something thrashed in the tub and water splashed on the floor, then there was a long silence.

“Michael?” Jack stepped toward the closed door. “Are you okay, Michael?”

No answer.

The arrogant little bastard. He was doing this deliberately, trying to spook Jack, wanting to make Jack think he was crazy and had drowned himself in a bathtub. Or maybe it was Jack who was having the nervous breakdown.

He knocked on the door. “I have to come in, Michael. I need to get something.” He reached for the doorknob, deciding to play the voyeur when he found Michael sitting naked and indignant in there. He preferred to be read as a dirty old man than as a nervous nelly panicked by worry. He turned the knob. The door was locked.

“Michael.” He pounded on the door. “
Michael!
Say something, dammit!” His mind raced with everything he had feared that afternoon, racing back against itself in an attempt not to believe any of it. “This isn’t funny! If you don’t say something, I have to break down my own fucking door, you ass!”

Nothing. Not a damn sound.

“You self-centered little prick! You self-important little shit!” Jack turned the knob and pressed against the door. Anger replaced fear, and he threw his weight against the door. Once, then again, and the old wood around the template cracked and the door flew open. The door swung against the tub, blocking the tub from view so all Jack saw at first was an empty bathroom, clothes piled in the corner and his own absurdly bug-eyed, furious face in the mirror above the sink.

In a corner of his left eye he caught a bit of bright color. He glanced.

There was a roar from deep in his body, diaphragm, and lungs driving up a groan louder than any cry.

The bathtub was full of blood. White legs lay folded in blood. Behind the door, Michael’s face was slumped against the side of the tub.

His cry still rushing from his chest, Jack plunged both arms into the blood to pull Michael from it, as if it were the blood that hurt Michael. He swung the long body around and the head banged against the open door.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” Jack cried and held the head to lift it around the door, wanting to rush the body into another room. The body felt hot and soaking against him. Then Jack saw a bleeding wrist and understood where the blood was from. He swept the weightless body down to the bathroom floor. The head hung over the threshold, stretching a pale throat over an enormous Adam’s apple.

Jack grabbed the boy’s jaw and shook the head. Nothing. But his white ribs rose and fell. He was breathing through his open mouth. “Help me!” Jack shouted into the apartment. “Somebody!” But he was alone with this. There was nobody here to help or to tell him what to do.

Dark blood crept through the net of seams between the tiles. The wrists still bled, slowly, steadily. Jack grabbed a wrist in each hand, pressing the wounds into his palms to stop the bleeding. Direct pressure, he remembered. But that was for arteries and these had to be veins. There had to be more water than blood in the bathtub. It was brighter than the fresh blood on the floor and nobody had that much blood in them. Jack saw a tiny silver blade set neatly on the white enamel, like a spot rubbed there.

He gripped the wrists more tightly, afraid to let go of them, yet horrified to think he was doing the wrong thing and Michael would bleed to death no matter how tightly Jack held him. He gripped so hard he could feel no pulse, but he looked and saw Michael still breathing. The boy’s face was relaxed, even content, mauve lips pulled back from his teeth like a smile.

Elisabeth Vogler appeared, and primly stepped around Michael’s head to sniff at the tiled floor, where there was blood.

“No, Elisabeth! Don’t!” Jack couldn’t let go to push her back. He brought his leg around and kicked at her.

She leaped through the door again, coldly looked on, then stretched her back and strolled toward the kitchen.

Do cats drink blood? Was Jack hurting Michael? He half sat, half knelt over the boy and changed his position to give Michael more room. He lifted the boy’s arms so the blood would have to climb before it could bleed out. He felt the blood only as a hotness in his palms. How long did it take for a person to bleed to death? How much time had passed? Jack’s heart was pounding, but time seemed to stand still. Could he let go long enough to call the police or an ambulance? Or to tear a sheet in strips for bandages or something? Afraid to let go, Jack was trapped with a bleeding boy. If he shouted, was there anyone in the building who could hear him through the airshaft?

Then he heard somebody at the front door of the building.

“Somebody!” he shouted. “Somebody help me!” Would they hear him back here?

They did, because there was a knock at Jack’s door. “Jack? Is that you, Jack?” It sounded like Margaret, the stocky old lady who lived on the third floor. Her voice was frightened and croaky.

“Margaret! Whoever it is! Get in here! It’s life or death.”

The door clicked then rattled in its jamb. “Jack! Jack, dear! It’s locked!”

“Just a minute!” Of course it was locked. What should he do? Jack let go and jumped up, ran through the bedroom and opened the door, racing back to Michael without seeing who was there. “Call an ambulance!” he shouted. “911! 911!” He straddled the body again and tried to remember how he had done this. He crossed his arms and grabbed the wrists. The blood in his palms stuck to the blood of the wounds.

“Oh, Lord!”

Jack looked up and saw Margaret standing in the kitchen with her white hair and house dress, staring through the bedroom.

“Call the damn ambulance! Somebody’s bleeding to death!”

She snapped out of her trance. “Oh! Where’s your—? I see it.” And she stepped off to the side, where Jack heard her pick up his phone and dial. “This is an emergency. We have somebody bleeding to death.” Margaret instantly sounded very tough and no-nonsense. She gave the address and insisted they hurry. “Jack, they want to know if it’s an accident or a crime?”

“A suicide,” Jack shouted back. “A suicide attempt, I mean.” He hoped. He leaned down and whispered, “Help is coming, Michael. Things’ll be fine. Things’ll be okay.” Talking to the boy, he wanted to lightly slap his face to bring him to. Wanting to slap his face, he suddenly wanted to slap him hard, hit him across the face, grab him by the throat, and bang the bastard’s head against the floor. He could not let go of Michael’s arms, but he was suddenly furious with him. It was as if Jack had been knocked unconscious and only now came to and began to understand what had happened. He was breathing hard, choking up, sobbing. He was crying over this little idiot who wanted to kill himself. The pale face and bony body with bleeding wrists: “You phony bleeding Jesus,” Jack muttered. “You cheap imitation Christ. I’m going to make you live, you twit. You’re not getting out of this so damn easy.”

“Jack?”

Margaret again stood in the kitchen where Jack could see her. Her arms were folded across her breasts as if she were freezing. She had not heard what Jack said, only his sobbing.

“They’re on their way,” she announced, shook her head and sighed, “Oh Lord. The world we live in.”

The police arrived first, two uniformed patrolmen whom Margaret waved into the apartment. One cop put his hand on his holster the instant he saw Jack on the floor with Michael. The other cop said, “Oh shit,” lifting a hand to his eyes as if he thought they’d walked in on something else. When they understood, the second cop, who was Jack’s age, stuck his head into the bathroom and said, “Uh oh. Looks like somebody’s been playing with Daddy’s razor.” There was nothing they would do before the ambulance arrived except take a blanket off Jack’s bed and wrap it around Michael while Jack continued to hold the boy’s wrists. “For trauma,” they explained.

Then there were paramedics in the kitchen. A man in white waded into the bathroom. A young woman crowded in, taking over from Jack and ordering him out. His apartment seemed packed with people. Stumbling out to the kitchen, Jack passed a black man who yanked a white latex glove over one hand as he hurried back. Jack realized all the paramedics wore white plastic gloves. “These faggots can’t do anything right,” somebody said, but Jack couldn’t tell who. Everyone he looked at seemed furiously busy, irritable yet intent on saving Michael.

A collapsed stretcher was brought in and carried back. The young woman came out, looking mildly uncomfortable as she handed Jack a torn sheet of paper. “This was in there. I think it’s for you.”

It was a note. Jack quickly read it. The note was terse, the way Michael was terse, afraid to go too deeply into anything for fear of what he might find. But Michael had gone deep tonight, hadn’t he? “You never understood before.” No, Michael hadn’t done this solely for himself, but to them, to Jack.