The Edge of Sleep (28 page)

He wept silently, the pillow pressed against his face. Moving as slowly as he could, he rolled to his other side, away from Dee, so that he could face Ash, who sat against the door, watching television with the volume turned down. Just seeing his big friend was a comfort to Bobby and sometimes they whispered to each other in the night while Dee slept. Sometimes they would giggle at the sounds she made in her sleep, the little puffs and snorts and sighs that made it seem as if she were having a conversation with her dreams. Occasionally she would emit anguished cries and sit up, startled and sweating, eyes rolling in terror. She would cling to Bobby then as he clung to his pillow until the terror passed. He would have to tell her again and again that he loved her and that he would never let anyone hurt her, never, never, never.

But mostly she slept through the night as if exhausted by the ebullience of her days. Bobby and Ash could whisper together then and the big man would tell him the stories from the television. Bobby could not get out of bed to watch with him because that was not allowed, but he could listen to Ash’s stumbling, garbled versions and construct his own movies in his mind to distract him from his life. Eventually, holding very still so as not to awaken the pain, Bobby would fall asleep again, lulled by his friend’s voice.

This night Bobby saw something he had never seen before. Ash sat in his usual position facing the television, back against the door, but his head had fallen forward onto his chest and to one side. The big man was asleep. “Ash,” Bobby whispered. “Ash.”

The sight of his sleeping friend frightened him. Ash was his one constant, a presence he could rely on to be there at any time, day or night. Dee came and went, capricious and willful as a storm, but Ash was always there, always the same, friendly, solicitous, concerned. Loving. Even when Dee savaged Bobby, purging her furious demons on his back and legs, it was Ash who held him still so he would not squirm. Ash who spoke into his ear as the lashes fell, telling him to be brave, be strong, hang on, hang on, hang on, and when the beatings stopped it was Ash’s arms Bobby collapsed into. Ash who soothed him, bathed him, fed him, cared for him. Seeing him asleep was seeing him transmogrified into a different creature, a person with failings and weaknesses. A man whose strength was gone.

“Ash,” he hissed. “Wake up. You said you’d kill people if you went to sleep. Ash! Ash!”

The big man slept on, his head rising and falling with each surge of his chest. Bobby watched him, fighting back the fear. If Ash killed someone because he slept, who would it be? Would he kill Dee? The thought thrilled him. Dee dead. His tormentor gone, her body still and rolled under the bed, out of sight. No longer touching him, embracing him, kissing him, hurting him, hurting him, hurting him. And then the guilt swept over him. Dee loved him, she said so. Ash said so. At times Bobby believed it himself. It was like wishing his mother dead.

He had not thought of his mother in some time now; it was almost as if she had ceased to exist. He had long since given up the hope that his father would burst through the door, that his mother would take him in her arms and make the pain subside. He had a new family now, strange and more violent than his first one, but still his. He depended on them as he had on the other for food, shelter, identity. Without them, he was alone.

His tears had dried but he began to weep once more now that he realized his new position. For the first time since he had followed Dee through the mall so long ago, he was alone.

It did not occur to Bobby to try to run away. He almost never thought about escape anymore. Like his parents, it had become a memory without reality.

He wept and held himself still and prayed for Ash to wake up.

Reggie was on her feet again and yelling at him, and George was planning a trip to Arizona. Just pick up and go. Buy a mule and hike out to the mountains or desert or whatever was out there, and live by himself for a while. He wasn’t too old for a sleeping bag. He could eat beans out of a can and do as well as Reggie’s cooking, and he wasn’t too old to get a companion, either. She seemed to have forgotten that, she seemed to have lost sight of the fact that he was a very attractive man who could get another woman in the time it took to change his shirt. She had definitely forgotten whom she was dealing with when she was dealing with George—but now was not the best time to remind her. Reggie was always mad as a wet hen after she got over being sick. She found fault with everything, especially George, and he had learned long ago that the best way to deal with it was to make himself scarce. If she thought everything was in such an awful mess, let her straighten it up herself. Maybe it would lire her out enough to calm her down.

While she was ripping through the kitchen, bitching about his housekeeping prowess. George slipped outside and hurried toward the stand of trees that divided the motel property from the lot belonging to the neighbor, a small firm that sold and serviced business machines. The trees ran only three deep, but George thought of them as his woods. If he was very still and Reggie wasn’t searching for him very hard, he could stand in the shade of the spruce and feel as if he were somewhere else, somewhere in a different time when the forests enveloped everything and domesticity was nothing more than a temporary growth in a clearing, no more substantial or demanding of a man’s time and consideration than a squirrel’s nest in a tree, doomed for disintegration in a year or two. George could shelter in the security of his woods and peer at the doings of the motel like something divorced from himself and his concern, as superior in philosophy and dignity as an Indian looking bemusedly at the first scratchings of the Pilgrims.

After a time, still leaning against his favorite tree where the bark was worn smooth from seven years of accommodating his shoulder, George saw Reggie come out of the office and head for cabin six as directly as if she were going to put out a fire. Dee’s car was gone, which meant that Reggie was going into the cabin again, or, if the husband was there, to confront him. In direct contradiction of George’s order. In flagrant breach of his promise to Dee. Which left George with two alternatives. He could assert his authority and rush over there right now, grab Reggie by the scruff of the neck and drag her away before she did any damage—or he could not be a witness and therefore remain ignorant of her open defiance. George turned and walked into the parking lot of the business machines firm to see what they were up to these days.

Reggie had the appropriate key in her hand when she knocked on the door. She was in no mood for excuses or delays; one way or the other she was going in and she was going to have some explanations. And if the answers didn’t satisfy her, then “Dee” and whoever was in there with her were history, she didn’t care how much they had paid in advance.

In truth, things being what they were these days, it was very difficult to evict someone unless they were in flagrant violation of the law. If the cops weren’t prepared to arrest them and haul them off, and the tenants understood their rights, it was a long and costly procedure to have them evicted. Most tenants had no clue to their rights, of course, and Reggie was prepared to rely on a combination of Dee’s ignorance and her own self-righteous anger to get the woman out.

She rapped once on the door, then listened. It was hard to make out anything specific above the noise of the television set, but she thought she heard the sound of scuttling and whispered voices.

She rapped again, then put her key into the lock. The door opened three inches, then was held by the chain, but it was enough for Reggie to hear clearly the panicked noises of someone in the bathroom. Guilty, she thought. The noises sounded guilty, as if Reggie had caught the monster “husband” in the midst of some filthy act. She did not want to think what.

“Open the door. This is the owner.” she said firmly. It was important not to give the man time to think or he might come up with some courage that right now she had scared clean out of him.

“I know you’re in there.” she said. She could see the opening of the door but not into the bathroom itself. A dark green plastic leaf bag lay on the floor just outside the bathroom. Reggie wondered what size garbage these two could have. Although some people used bags like that for suitcases these days. People with children.

The box of plastic gloves was still atop the dresser. What on earth did they use those for? She shuddered to think. Everything she saw fed her outrage. She didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, she didn’t like it

“Open this door or I’m coming in,” she called. In truth she had no way to get in short of a hacksaw to cut the chain and she thought, pot for the first time, that all the locks in the motel needed to be changed to ones that she could control. But for the expense, she would have done that job long ago. If George were the least bit handy, he could have done it. Even then he would have complained, of course. Siding with the tenants, as per usual. Babbling on about privacy and tenant rights. George and his precious privacy. Nobody needed privacy unless they had something to hide, Reggie thought. Thinking of George only made her angrier and she pounded on the door.

“Right now!” she demanded, and, as if on command, the man stepped out of the bathroom and faced her.

At the first knock Ash was off the floor from his station by the door and into the bathroom in three strides, bundling Bobby in his arms like a loose package of so many sticks of wood, his hand clamped over the boy’s mouth. His shoulder brushed the plastic garbage bag that Dee had brought home from work and it fluttered from the dresser to the floor.

The woman was yelling and Ash was panicked, but he knew what to do; Dee had taught him, he had done it before. He was to stay out of sight, simply stay out of sight until Dee returned. She would take care of it, she always knew how to take care of everything. Ash just had to hide with the boy until she came home.

Ash stood in the bathroom, clutching Bobby tightly to him, as if for protection. Everything was going to be all right, he whispered to the boy. Or he thought he was whispering but then wasn’t sure if he wasn’t just doing it in his mind. Bobby’s eyes were staring at him over Ash’s hand clamped over his mouth. As the boy wasted away his eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger and now they looked enormous. And frightened.

The woman was yelling again. Ash made sure he spoke aloud this time as he whispered, “Don’t be afraid, this will be okay, she’ll go away and Dee will come back and take care of us.” Bobby’s eyes seemed to show understanding and Ash did his best to smile.

Then it was the woman again. Threatening to come in! Ash didn’t know what to do, but he knew for a certainty that he couldn’t allow her to come into the room. No one had ever actually come into the room before. When they came to the door Ash had just taken the boys and hidden until they left—but if she came in ... He could not let her in. It could not happen. He must not let it happen.

Ash placed Bobby in the empty bathtub.

“Don’t make any noise,” he said.

Bobby nodded his head. His eyes seemed to fill his face.

“Please, Tommy. Please, please, please. No noise, no noise.”

Bobby squeezed his good luck medal. He looked as frightened as Ash felt.

Ash closed the shower curtain, leaving the boy standing in the tub, the medal held in front of him as if to ward off witches. The big man left the bathroom, carefully closed the door behind him, then turned to face the woman who was yelling at him. He could see only one of her eyes peering through the crack of the outside door.

“Open this door, please,” she said, but the “please” sounded like a threat.

Ash stared at her, uncertain what to do.

“Hurry up, now,” Reggie insisted. “I’m the owner, let me in.” The big man just stood there, staring at her. Reggie could not believe his size or the kind of bovine stupidity on his face. It was like looking into the eyes of an ox.

“What?” he said finally, the sound rumbling up as if from some cavernous depth through a passage seldom used.

“What?” she repeated. “Well the bedspread, for one thing. Where is the bedspread?”

He swiveled his big head slowly toward the bed. To Reggie’s chagrin the spread was there upon the bed where it belonged. Now they were trying to play tricks on her. It had been gone, she knew it.

“You’re not allowed to take that out of the room, you know.”

He was looking at her again, his movements slow and studied, as if he were moving under water. Reggie thought he must be on drugs. One thing was certain, this man was nobody’s husband. Certainly not Dee’s. Certainly not that sharp, sly, energetic young woman’s husband. She would .just as likely be married to a steer in a feedlot. And if he wasn’t her husband, then Dee was lying to them. Reggie didn’t know what the woman’s relationship was with this huge oaf, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but it wasn’t marriage and that meant she was lying, and if she was lying about one thing, she was probably lying about everything.

Reggie pushed at the door in annoyance, jolting it against the chain. The man was startled. As if I could force it open, Reggie thought. Just as stupid as he looks. And one thing was obvious: he was frightened by the thought of her coming in. Not just resistant; he was scared.

“What are you hiding in there?”

“Nobody,” Ash said. He shook his head from side to side to demonstrate his innocence.

Reggie squinted her eyes, studying the giant. Nobody? Why not
nothing?

“You let me in right this instant.”

“I’m sick,” Ash said.

“I have a right to come in there and I insist that you open this door right now.”

“I’m sick,” he repeated.

“I can call the police if I have to,” she said. “Is that what you want me to do?”

Ash closed the door in her face and sat with his back against it while his mind raced in panic.

Bobby heard the woman’s voice angrily haranguing Ash and he pulled back farther from the shower curtain until the coldness of the wall tiles against his back startled him. At first he knew only that his friend was in some kind of trouble.