Lullaby for the Rain Girl (46 page)

“Bullshit. Goddamn
bullshit.”
He was speaking quietly but very, very intensely.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Sons a’ bitches. Fuck. Bullshit.”

“Can I help you with something, Dad?”

“Shit.”

I watched him.

“Goddamn fuckers. Goddamn motherfuckers.”

“Dad...can you hear me?”

“Goddamn fuckers.”

“Dad? It’s Ben. I’m here, Dad. Can you hear me?”

“Fuck. Fuckin’ bullshit.”

“Dad? Look at me.”

And, suddenly, he did. He came back from whatever faraway place he’d been in and looked straight at me.

“Dad. It’s Ben. How are you doing?”

He studied me silently for a long time, his eyes narrowed.

“Shithead,” he said finally, very quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right. It’s—it’s Shithead.”

“Fucking shit-for-brains. Fuckin’
shithead.”

“That’s...right.”

“Fuckin’ shit-for-brains fuckhead. Good for nothin’. Probably a homo. Probably a fuckin’ homo.”

“No, I’m not a homo, Dad.”

“Probably a fuckin’
fag.”

“No, Dad.”

“Calls himself a son of mine. Good-for-nothin’ piece a’
shit.”

“Dad...I...”

“Think I don’t know?” he said, not looking at me. I couldn’t tell if he was really addressing me. “Think I don’t know? I know. I
know.”

“I’m—sure you do, Dad.”

“Dad.
Eat
shit.”

“Dad, I...I think I’ll go now, okay?” I stood. “It was nice to see you.” My throat was tight, my eyes hot.

He looked up suddenly. “Bullshit,” he said. Then he shouted it.
“Bullshit!”

“Dad—I’ll see you—” I moved to step away, but he sprang up unbelievably quickly and grabbed my arm.

“Bullshit
fuck.
Put me in this fuckin’ place. Hopin’ I’ll
die.
You’re hopin’ I’ll fuckin’
die.”

“I’m
not
hoping that...”

“Bullshit!”
He pulled violently at my arm, pushed his face into mine.
“Put the old man away! Tell the old man to fuck off! Tell him to die! Fuck! I know you! Shithead! Fuckin’ Shithead!”

I was hardly aware that two nurses had rushed in to restrain him. I stepped away slowly, the world tilting strangely under me. I stumbled backwards, fell against Alice.

“What happened, Ben? Oh my God...”

“Fuckin’ bullshit! Fuckin’ bullshit liars want me dead! Gonna murder me in my fuckin’ bed! Gonna get a buncha buck niggers to murder me in my fuckin’ bed! Fuck ’em! Fuck all of ’em!”

One of the nurses looked back with a surprisingly calm and pleasant expression on her face. “Could you step out, please? Don’t worry. We’ll take care of your father.”

I stood frozen to the spot, watching them overpower this deranged husk, this screaming idiot, my father. Alice tugged at me. “Come on, Ben. Come
on.”

We stepped out and closed the door. I could still hear his ravings. I rushed from the door, from the TV room, ran gasping to the elevator and stood there pressing the button again and again and again. Alice stood there with her arms folded beneath her breasts, tears trickling down her cheeks. But I hardly noticed her. I felt that if I didn’t get downstairs, outside into the open air, I would suffocate, my heart would seize up and I’d die right here, right here by the elevators in the old folks’ home. My demented, delirious father would outlive me, outlive everyone, forever. He would never, ever die. Not him. Not my dad.

# # #

In the parking lot I stood next to Alice’s car, shivering and desperately wanting a cigarette.

“My God, Ben,” she said. “What did you
say
to him?”

“Me? I didn’t say anything. I just asked him how he was. I told him how my job was going. He just started in. He doesn’t even know where he is anymore, but he remembers that I’m a shithead.”

“Ben...He doesn’t mean it...He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“Alice, he
does.
Come on. You know that. He’s called me that since I was a kid. He believes it. Don’t say he doesn’t. Don’t defend him.”

Her eyes dropped. “Okay.”

I’d been ready to argue with her, but her sad acquiescence deflated me. “He’ll forget his own name before he forgets that I’m Shithead,” I said quietly.

She touched my face gently with her palm. “You’re not a shithead to me, Ben.”

“I know that.”

We stood there in the cold parking lot, each in our own misery.

“Do you want to go back to the house?” she asked finally. “I’m sure the kids would like to see you. We can rustle something up for lunch.”

“I guess not,” I said, Rae crossing my mind. “Maybe if you can just drop me at the Metro.”

“I’m sorry this went so badly.”

“So am I.”

“But at least you know where he is now.”

“Yeah.”

We rode in silence back up Route 50 and onto Arlington Boulevard again. Eventually we pulled up to the station.

“Well...thanks, Sis.” I started to open the car door.

“Ben, are you sure you don’t want to come back to the house?” She looked seriously at me. “Come on. This has been rough. I don’t like picturing you going back to that apartment just to be by yourself.”

“I’m okay, Alice.”

“You don’t seem okay. You haven’t seemed okay for a long time.”

I looked at her. “What does that mean?”

She glanced away. “Never mind.”

“No, what?”

She sighed. “Ben...I don’t know where it went wrong between us. I don’t know why you shut me out like you do. I don’t get it. I’ve tried to be a good sister to you. A good big sister.”

“You are.”

“Well, then...” She looked sharply at me again. “Then what’s
wrong?”

I thought about it. What was wrong? With me, with my life? I didn’t even know how to begin to tell her. I wasn’t sure that I knew. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“Nothing’s wrong, Sis.”

She sighed. “Ben, do you have any idea how jealous I’ve always been of you?”

“Jealous? You? Of me?”

“Sure.” She looked out the windshield. “Things always seemed like they were—
easy
for you. In a way they weren’t for me. You were so smart. You were so talented. Not like me.”

“You’re smart. You’re talented.”

“Well, I didn’t see it that way. I had this dazzling little brother, this fantastic-looking boy, that everybody liked. All the girls. And you wrote those stories. They were so good, for somebody your age. I didn’t have anything like that.”

“You were good-looking, Alice. You still are. You know that.”

“It doesn’t do much for your self-esteem, though, at that age, if all the guys want to do is get in your pants.”

I thought about it for a minute. “You never seemed to lack self-confidence.”

“Well, I did. Especially around you. You were too smart for me. You still are.”

“I never had any idea of that. Growing up.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Yeah.”

“If it sometimes seemed like I was—I don’t know, putting you down—talking down to you—that was why. I could do it because I was so much older. But it was because you always seemed better than me.”

“I wasn’t better than you to Dad.”

“No. And I really worked on my relationship with him, just for that reason. I had him. You didn’t. It made me feel better.”

“I’m—I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Well—thanks. For telling me.” I thought for a moment. “I guess you’ve discovered your dazzling little brother isn’t so dazzling after all. In recent years.”

“That’s why I asked you what’s wrong. I’ve wondered. For years. What happened to you.”

“I—I don’t know, Sis. I don’t know what happened to me. One day I looked and—and I wasn’t there anymore.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Not much of a Christmas,” she said. “I didn’t even get you a present. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“God, Alice, forget it. Who cares? I didn’t even get you a card, anyway. I meant to. I forgot too.”

“I was going to get you a cell phone.”

I chuckled at that. She smiled a little.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like lunch?” she asked. “Back at the house?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got to get going.”

She looked at me. “I love you, little brother. You know that, right?”

“I know. And I love you. I’m sorry I don’t always—always show it much.”

She took my hand and held it for a minute. It felt good.

“See you later, Ben.”

“Bye, Sis. Thanks for everything.”

I stepped out of the car onto the curb, shut the door behind me. She waved at me as she pulled away.

9

It was mid-afternoon when I returned home. I opened the door softly, nearly wincing with anxiety as to what I might find there. The apartment was quiet. Rae was still in my bed, in her rumpled pajamas, the blinds closed in the room: I stepped close to her, studied her profile in the semi-darkness. For a moment I wondered if she was breathing at all. Then suddenly she inhaled, as if waking from a very deep sleep, and turned over onto her back, throwing her arm across her forehead. She opened her eyes. They were huge dark saucers set within a face that had lost all softness, reconfiguring itself into the hard planes and angles of longstanding hunger. Her shoulder blades seemed to stick out from her skin. Her wrists were hard branches, her fingers pale white twigs.

“I’m back, sweetheart. I had to go out.” I sat next to her.

“I know,” she croaked, her voice cracked and dry. “I read your note.” It was no longer attached to her sleeve, I noticed.

“I’m sorry. I thought about waking you, but then just decided to let you sleep. I had to go see my dad, Rae. My sister’s had to put him in an—an old folks’ home.”

She stared at me expressionlessly.

“It was—sad,” I said. “Seeing him there. And my sister—Alice, your—your aunt—it’s hard on her. She’s had to take care of him, make the decisions. It’s just—difficult. For everybody.”

She turned her face away slightly. “You forgot about me.”

“What?”

“You did. While you were gone. You forgot about me.”

“Honey, I did not. I thought about you all the time.”

“No, you didn’t. Not all the time.”

“Well...” I
had
thought about her, damn it. I knew I’d thought about how I would introduce her to Alice and her family. But she was right, of course; I hadn’t thought about her
all
the time. Guilty, I supposed, as charged.

“Honey...nobody thinks about another person
all
the time.”

“I do. I think about you all the time. I never think about anything else but you.”

“Well, I...You think about other things too, Rae. When you read a book. When you watch TV.”

“But I don’t stop thinking about you. I think about those things but I think about you at the same time.”

“Well...sweetheart, the point is, I’m here. I’m home.” I touched her forehead, reflexively; it felt hot to me, but I was still no expert in telling kids’ temperatures with the palm of my hand.

“You have to think about me all the time.”

“I...honey...”

She looked at me. “All the time, Dad.”

“Honey, are you okay? You don’t look very well. You’re sick.”

“Not in the way you mean.”

“What—what way, then?”

She took my hand. “Dad, you have to love me.”

“Rae...” I felt defeated. Visions of my mad father rattled around in my skull, competing with the whispered complaints of my impossible daughter accusing me of not loving her enough. I was suddenly tired. Exhausted. I wanted to sleep for a day, two days. At least until the millennium had passed, until all the bad things that were going to happen, that couldn’t happen but which I knew were
going
to happen, had swept over the earth. Until all the planes had exploded and the elevators smashed to the ground and the patients flatlined on the operating tables. Until darkness had descended, water stopped flowing from the faucets, until we found ourselves in some sort of post-apocalyptic landscape of violence and death. At least I’d know where I was then. I’d know the rules. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. Here, now, I had no idea what the rules were, or even if there were any.

“I’ll—I’ll make us some tea, Rae,” I said, standing, my throat tight. “I’ll make us some tea, okay?”