All Things Cease to Appear (35 page)

What took you so long? his wife asked.

Long line.

We need to go.

He finished his drink and dropped some bills on the bar. He saw Willis weaving back to the boy, her face illegible to him under the dim lights. That would be the last time, he thought.

Out on the street it occurred to him how bright and stark the town was, how empty, and he pulled Catherine close and kissed her, praising her in his mind for her purity, her shame.

3

SHE ENDED UP
getting pretty drunk and going back to Eddy’s. She was sick and he helped her and then let her sleep on the couch. She woke the next morning with the chills. His uncle was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

I’m a friend of Eddy’s.

He nodded. You want coffee?

Okay. Sure.

You look like you need it.

He wore an old hobo robe. Dog tags around his neck. POW bracelets on each wrist. There was only one way to get eyes like that. He’d probably been good-looking once, she thought. She sat down at the table and waited while he shuffled to the counter and poured her some coffee. With a trembling hand, he set the cup down before her, and she thanked him.

Rough night?

She nodded.

Drink that down.

The coffee was thick and bitter. It made her feel even worse, but she finished it.

You’re that girl, he said.

What girl is that?

Let’s just say I’ve heard things.

Just then Eddy came down the stairs in his undershirt and undershorts. He kissed her forehead and whistled. That’s hot! Maybe you’re sick.

That ain’t sick, his uncle said.

Eddy drove her home.

He doesn’t like me, she said.

He doesn’t like anybody at first.

They went up to her room and he put her to bed, pulling off her clothes and laying a wet cloth over her forehead. I’ll come back later to see how you’re doing.

She nodded. She wanted to cry. She wanted her mother.

Eddy, she said as he was going out the door. She was going to tell him, but when he turned and looked at her, his eyes as blue and open as the sky, she changed her mind. Instead, she said, I need to leave here soon.

He nodded. I know it.

Soon, she said again.

Yes, soon.

It was cold in the little room. She watched the white rectangle of bristling light. She thought maybe she’d hitchhike out west. The important thing was going. Getting away from George. It didn’t really matter where.

Back home, her father would talk about his clients, especially the murder cases. Most of the time he believed they were innocent. He claimed he wouldn’t take a case otherwise, but sometimes they weren’t. You can’t get emotionally involved, he told her. It came down to connecting with the jury. With the smarter ones, who could sway the others. There were always one or two.

She had seen him in court a few times. She watched the jury watching him. They didn’t want to like him, but they did. They saw in her father the same weaknesses they knew in themselves. How he moved like some burdened, nearly extinct animal—a water buffalo, maybe, humpbacked, disabled by life and its myriad infidelities. Balding, liver-spotted, overweight, divorced, a shitty father, resigned to excess. That was who he was. And they loved him for it.

The judge would come in; they’d stand. All the seats flapping at once like the galloping of horses. It was quite a show. They tried not to look at the defendant, wondering if it was his own suit or some charity offering. The accused, as ordinary and evil as the best kind of drug. And the prosecutor, pushing his generic brand, pointing out the evidence, the souvenirs of menace. Discounting the defendant with queasy detachment. Curating his destiny with blowups of disfigured dead people, bloody sheets, weapons of torture you could find around the house, unflattering pictures of girlfriends, wives.

When it was his turn, her father took his time rising from the table, like it was a sacred act. Like he knew something they didn’t and he was above this charade, it was all just a show. And here was a life—
this man’s
life
—hanging in the balance. Then he’d stare the jury down: His fate is in your hands.

In his boxy suit and shined shoes he meandered over to the stand like a man approaching a slutty woman in a bar, but he’d ask his questions with the voice of a priest. It didn’t matter what they were thinking now, because he
knew
the defendant was innocent, and eventually the jury would, too.

Her father could make you think he understood you, even if you’d done things that bordered on the surreal. Somehow, he justified it in his mind that, under certain circumstances, you could be driven to do anything.

—

ONE DAY,
soon after they’d met, George took her to Hudson. He’d taught that morning and was still in his preppy work clothes, but he looked sexy in his little green Fiat and they drove with the top down and he put his hand between her legs. Like a bird’s nest, he said, clutching her hair.

They went to Olana, touring the rooms and walking the grounds, and he pointed out the glorious vista that Frederic Church had made famous.

For lunch, he brought her to a Mexican restaurant where no one spoke English. They drank sangria and talked about art and she pretended not to know anything. He liked knowing more, being the expert. She didn’t mention her mother’s collection, which included a Picasso, a Braque and a Chagall, because it would only make things weird. Nor did she tell him about the four-million-dollar penthouse her father had just bought for his new girlfriend, Portia. Or about her own money, and that with a phone call she could basically get anything she wanted. She didn’t tell George any of that, because she knew who he was. Her mother had taught her to read people. It was a mechanism of safety, she’d told her. Because you have so much.

George was someone with a limited menu, as her father always put it. Like most people, herself included, he was the product of his upbringing. He wanted to capture her. He didn’t know about real money, that getting rich could happen to anyone.

After they ate, they wandered down Warren Street, looking at the antiques. He knew a lot about furniture. They went into a shop with hulking old cupboards and armoires and rooms full of chairs. This is Chippendale, he said, very good quality. And this one’s Federal. He explained that a certain chair was diamond-shaped so soldiers could sit down without removing their swords. He told her that he’d worked in his family’s furniture stores every summer in high school and his father had made him study antiques, even though the stuff they sold was new and most of it made in factories. His job was to polish the furniture, he said, and he hated it. His father couldn’t stand how all the customers touched everything, so they had a special polish to get the fingerprints off.

On the drive back to Chosen he started talking about his wife, the possibility of divorce, the fact that she’d get the kid.
Over my dead body
was the phrase he used—a cliché, she knew, but it made its point. Still, it sounded creepy.

And there were other things. How he talked about the other professors and made fun of his boss. He was competitive. Thought he was smarter than everyone else. You could tell he didn’t care. He could be ruthless.

Then they hit something and the Fiat swerved to the side of the road. They got out. It was a deer, still alive. There wasn’t any damage to the car, but there was blood on the fender and splattered across the windshield. The deer was making an awful sound.

George stood over it, watching it. The deer kept jerking its head, nervously glancing up at him with its wide, panicked eyes.

What should we do, George? It’s suffering.

But he didn’t seem to hear her.

George!

He looked at her then, his face drained of emotion. And then he kicked the animal in the head, over and over and over again, and she screamed and screamed for him to stop, to please just stop.

And then it was quiet. His shoe and pant leg were all bloody.

Get in the car, he said.

For a minute they just sat there, watching the wipers clean the glass. Then he pulled onto the road.

After a while they came to a gas station, where he threw his shoes in the trash and pulled a thick wad of paper towels from the dispenser by the pump. Go and wet these down, he told her.

She had to get the key. The room was filthy and stank of urine. Someone had written
Cuntalingus
on the mirror with a Sharpie. She looked beyond the loopy letters at her reflection—pale, anemic, like a girl who’d been depleted of something.

Wipe that off, he told her, pointing at the fender.

She wiped off the blood as he stood over her. It made her think of his father barking out instructions—
Clean this, wipe that!
—and she wondered what it had been like for George.

She put the dirty towels in the garbage, then saw the blood on her hands.

Get in the car, he said.

Just let me wash my—

But he grabbed her arm. I need to get home, he snapped. My family’s waiting for me.

4

MIDWAY THROUGH
the semester, he chaperoned a student trip to MoMA. When he stepped onto the bus, he was surprised to see Justine. The other chaperone couldn’t make it, she told him. Floyd asked me to help out.

To his relief, she was sitting with one of her students; he sat alone. When they hit traffic at the GW, he looked down and studied the people in their cars.

In the museum, he was able to lose her and felt victorious wandering alone through the bright galleries. They stumbled together on the fourth floor, in front of a Cy Twombly.

I think it’s brilliant, she said.

He lives in Rome.

The way he uses the pencil, one line can become everything.

She made this sound like something ominous. She vanished for a moment and reappeared in front of Barnett Newman’s
The Voice,
a big white square with one of his famous zips along the edge. This is cool, she said. I really like it.

He glanced at it indifferently. It wasn’t the sort of painting you liked or didn’t like; that wasn’t always particularly relevant, especially when it came to things of beauty. The room seemed overly bright, its edges throbbing. The lights were keening. His head began to hurt.

She was standing there with her hands on her hips, tilting her head from side to side. I like how it doesn’t ask for anything, she finally said. It just is.

He grunted in response. It’s getting late, Justine. We’d better round them up.

Just as they were leaving the museum, pushing through the crowded lobby, somebody tapped him on the shoulder and said his name. It was a familiar voice, bright with accusation. He turned warily and saw his adviser, Warren Shelby.

Warren, he managed.

I got a call from someone about you, Shelby said. About your degree? The letter I wrote on your behalf? He shook his head like someone with a toothache. Then there was an awkward pause when it occurred to each of them that Justine was listening intently.

I don’t know where you get your nerve, he said, rubbing his forehead absentmindedly. I just don’t.

They watched him wander away.

What was that about? Justine said as they walked to the bus.

I have no idea.

I think you do, she said.

Here’s what I think, he said. I think it falls into the category of total unimportance, especially where you’re concerned. That was another chapter of my life. It’s in the past.

Justine shook her head. That guy seemed pretty pissed off.

They climbed onto the bus and sat down together as the students filed in, taking their seats. A moment later, the driver pulled out into the Midtown traffic.

I get the distinct impression you don’t trust me, he said.

Maybe I don’t. She waited for him to say something to allay her suspicion, but he found himself at a loss.

I hate myself for that night, she told him, then got up and moved to the only vacant seat, right behind the driver. She turned her head slightly, sending telepathic poison arrows at him, and he made himself look out the window as the bus slogged through the city, and the low sun, so bright and sharp, forced him to shut his eyes.

When he got home, Catherine had dinner ready. The table was set. The kitchen smelled of cumin. She was flushed from the oven. This new Catherine made him nervous. He looked at the food on the table, some strange rice dish, and felt a little sick.

It wouldn’t be long now, he thought. That wasn’t the last of Warren Shelby.

How was your day? she asked, taking his briefcase.

It smells good. I’ll be down in a minute.

Weary, he climbed the stairs, hoping that if he washed his face…But then Franny ran out of her room and gripped his leg like a monkey. He wasn’t in the mood. He pulled her little paws off and kept going, and she burst into tears.

George?

Ah, Mother to the rescue. For Christ’s sake, he muttered.

George, what happened? Franny, come down here to Mommy.

You don’t have to come running every goddamn time—you’ll fucking spoil her.

Momma! Franny cried, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists.

Come down, Franny. Right now, please.

For Christ’s fucking sake.
She’s all right, Catherine! Hold the banister, he told his daughter.

Okay, Daddy, Franny said, still sniffling.

George? His wife looked up at him, waiting for an explanation.

I’m tired. I’m going to lie down for a minute.

In their room, he stretched out on the bed, gazed up at the ceiling and then closed his eyes.

You fell asleep, she said. The room was dark.

I’m not feeling well.

What’s wrong?

He shook his head. His eyes watery. Maybe a cold.

I noticed you were pale.

I’m fine. He turned away and she went back to the door. He could feel her watching him. Finally, she closed it.

Their voices drifted up through the old boards. Wife and daughter, his only true claim to success, to life. Franny’s little feet running through the house. On the TV something about baboons. They were always doing shows about baboons, for some reason. Given those alarming hindquarters, it was a wonder they endured with such dignity.