The Canal (19 page)

The cashier tapped on the glass. "You can't
do that here."

Alan blushed. He'd been standing there
looking down at...at them.

Alan pointed to the shelf just behind the
cashier. "One of those." He dropped money in the silver drawer and
pushed it shut. It reopened with his change, a matchbook, and a
pack of cigarettes.

Alan had reached the point where this sort of
thing made sense.

He sauntered around the corner to the
payphone. Another glass box. He had finally learned his lesson --
no more doctors. This time he asked to speak to one of the men
guarding Rose. While on hold, he wondered how many strangers had
smeared this receiver with their fingers and mouths, or even other
parts of the body. Even, you know, in the pants area. But Alan
could muster neither interest nor indignity. It was as if he had no
more repulsion left in him. Probably because all of it was already
being directed at the most vile thing he had ever encountered or
could have imagined. Some asshole. Some guy by the name of Alan
D'Angelo.

Alan unwrapped the pack and stuck a cigarette
in his mouth. A bored voice came on the line. "How is she?" asked
Alan, shakily striking a match.

After much consideration the guard decided,
"Far from well."

Alan took a drag. He really went for it,
going all out. There was noise, smoke, fire. It was fantastic.

"Just tell me this," he hacked, drawing
painful air, " is she awake?"

"Buddy, are you okay?"

"Answer the fucking question."

"I uh, I think she might have been awake
earlier. Maybe. More or less. Say, are you sure you're--"

"I'll be there in ten." Alan hung up. He
embraced the telephone, leaning his face against the metal, his
mouth glowing. He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. Smoking
was a thing you could do. So he did it.

He coaxed the pack into his pocket. He
touched something dry and thin there. He pulled it out, a folded
paper square, and shook it flat. It was a clipping from the
newspaper, a photo actually, of pallbearers and the pall they bore
-- a gray, grandfather clock of a coffin. They carried it like a
battering ram, like they were storming the cemetery. No note, no
caption. A veiled woman's blurred head was trapped in the bottom
corner. For some reason, the pallbearers wore mirrored
sunglasses.

Susan. Just another friendly reminder.

Alan thought about that later as he sat in
Rose's hospital room. Had Rose and Joe ever done that? Argued about
dying? Was that normal?

"How are you feeling, Rose."

The novelty of nicotine was waning. Alan had
smoked another cigarette on the ride to the hospital. There was too
much saliva in his mouth, too much tobacco taste. His head felt
slanted.

The guards were outside, keeping an eye open
for the MD. Alan leaned forward. "I know who you are, Rose. Tell me
about your home. You know, the top floor. Do you like living there
with your buddies? Are you guys into satanism? Murder rituals?
What's the tub for? I know, tell me a number -- how many people
have you guys murdered? Are there some bodies we don't know about?
You can tell me."

No answer. Alan's attention drooped
floorward. Legs. It was easy taking their cooperation for granted.
But you think they didn't resent you? You think they took pleasure
in their slavery? Think again. Oh they hated you all right, those
legs. Alan could see it now. It was so obvious. Legs weren't nearly
so benevolent as everyone thought. You think they didn't want their
independence? You think they wouldn't do anything to roam free?

Alan jerked his face away. So unlike himself.
And when he turned back toward the bed, Rose was watching him. With
one eye, the right one. The white part was more of a sherbet color.
Alan leaned towards the window. The orb followed. He leaned toward
the TV. It did the same. The other eye stayed shut, probably stuck
with infection.

"Rose?" asked Alan. It came out nervous and
wet. This was all Alan had left, this woman. There was a knock at
the door. Alan ignored it.

Rose's lips were moving. They actually bent
and opened. Like she might...like she might speak.

"Its time to wake up," Alan trilled, feeling
on the verge of something, something he need badly, something
hopeful.

"Rose," he said, "it's time."

*

Rose, he kept saying. Rose. Rose.

"Rose."

Sometimes he'd say Joseph. And then Lombardi.
And then Rose Lombardi. Names. All these names.

She didn't feel right. She felt...healthy. He
kept saying it. Rose.

That was her name. Names. YES. Rose. YES.
Joseph. YES. Go away, already.

"Talk, Rose. Come CLEAN."

She missed the top floor. She missed its
Mesozoic swampiness and cradle-like warmth. It was home. But here,
in this place the water was filtered. They kept the temperature
cold and the air ventilated. Here in this church. And these priests
with their white robes and stethoscope rosaries, she could sense
their anticipation, could hear their excited whispers -- they
sensed a conversion in their midst. Health of course being the
religion here, drugs being the prayer, disease being the
temptation. Health, our Lord and Savior. A very busy religion, on
call 24 hours. Drive-through available. Exorcisms performed daily.
Fuh-ree this woman's sowl from the devil's pnew-moan-yerrr.

Not that this situation didn't have one
advantage. With so many sick people under one roof it was an ideal
place to harvest. More than a few patients had awoken that morning
to recall dreaming of a ghost, a woman with her finger in their
mouth (this finger to be later wiped across her lips), or her mouth
otherwise hovering above theirs, a near kiss, capturing their
exhalations (moist and cabbagey, they were to Rose exquisite) --
anything to prolong her disease. Because they were killing her by
bringing her back to life, why were they bringing her back? They
were making her forget, erasing the one thing she'd sworn she'd
preserve, the one memory.

This memory was where the names were. Joseph.
Rose. And there was another one, an important one. A name she
remembered. A name that belonged to her and her husband. They'd
picked it because it rang so mature, so very adult-like for a
child.

This other name. It was the underlying
texture, the skeleton on which everything depended. She could still
remember. She could still see that day... It had been...it had been
late. Evening was on the verge.

Tell him the names if he wants them so much.
Tell him the names if it will help the memory to stay...

You could hear it. Cicada's buzzing in the
trees like rattlesnakes. And see. The humped streets, the traffic
lights, the heaving roofs, everything's soft at the edges, the
peripheral molecules a bit slower than usual, over-warm and
over-tired.

She had said, "Henry, get down from
there."

Henry. That was the name.

He was ahead of them. Running -- you don't
care if it's hot when you're that young, you're still too immortal
(give it a few decades though, then you start to care, then you
start to feel each degree on the thermometer -- it's the young and
the old that die during heat waves, the young who don't know enough
and the old who know too much).

Henry jumps and turns, choreographed looking,
an exuberant five years old. He has his father's mild ugliness, but
the thing is, he's turned it handsome. There's Joe's kaiser roll
nose -- that was Joe for you, with a face that belonged in a
cafeteria -- but softer and daintier. Also Joe's popsicle chin, but
stronger and more distinctly spade shaped. Joe's potato chip ears
and soup colored hair -- Henry had somehow bested them both. He had
even inherited Rose's questionable complexion, which was smooth but
devoid of human tint, although on Henry it was rather exotic,
reminding her of indulged children who live in palaces so vast that
they never had to venture outdoors. That Henry had done so much
with so little seemed to bode well, seemed to indicate such things
to come.

And he was smart. Lately he'd been thrilling
her by spelling out the word Mississippi (dear Mississippi, that
golden standard of childhood parent-pleasers). Henry, bless his
heart, would inevitably falter at about the second I, like a
tightrope walker stumbling above the big-top floor (you feared for
that elegantly crafted work in progress, the M-I-S-S-I-). Then,
with faux concentration -- his fingers pressed to his temples, his
eyes closed -- and faux sweat (she'd never notice it until this
point, the tap water he'd sprinkled on his forehead) Henry would
bring it home, gliding into a smooth and triumphant, I-P-P-I to a
"Tadaa!" and her cries of joy.

"Watch it, Henry!"

Henry is there and so is Joe. Joe squeezes
her waist as they stroll. "Half the department -- no clue," he
says. "With a little rank, I'd own the place."

Her attention doesn't stray from Henry's
gamboling path. It was best to be watchful -- the world,
unfortunately, could be a minefield, and a particularly child
hungry one at that. Birth wasn't the miracle, surviving to maturity
was.

"Careful Henry! Drop that!"

"Stay away from there, Henry!"

"Do not eat things from the ground,
Henry!"

"Think about it," said Joe. "Mr. Lombardi --
Squad Super."

Henry strutted over to Mr. Grion's stoop. Mr.
Grion was relaxing; shirt off, fanning, with black socks pulled all
the way up his skinny, powdery legs. Mr. Grion made a git motion.
Henry pointed his fingers like a gun. Kapow.

"Henry we're turning! We're crossing the
bridge!"

Henry did a showstopping leap, real
razzmatazz, hanging in the air, hands out like, "Showtime," and
then he ran straight into the street.

"What did I say? WHAT DID I SAY? Look both
ways!"

Streets were little boy meat grinders,
continually watered clean by the tears of mournful mothers. Henry
hopped back onto the sidewalk and zoomed close. Rose made a grab
but he spun away and careened onward.

"What's a matter with you!"

Joe splashed his hand in an arc.
"Or...Commissioner Lombardi."

Rose made a point of removing his hand from
her hip. Joe just didn't understand the possibilities, the
thousands of them that could cause Henry harm: cars and roads, of
course, but also leaded paint chips, loaded guns, kitchen knives,
scalding water, sharp glass, plastic bags to be put on heads,
firecrackers that call out with candy colors, trees easily climbed
and just as easily fallen from, allergic reactions to bees, razor
blades in candy apples, the inviting gaps of electrical sockets,
mustached strangers offering treats. To name a few.

Henry galloped over the bridge. With a
curtain call flourish he stopped and pinched his nose. "Pee-yuu,
right pop? Real stinker."

"Yup," called Joe. Then, "I know. Governor.
Make me Governor. I'll set 'em straight. Give me the mansion and
the chauffeur. I'll pass a bill. You know I will."

Henry stopped midway across and gazed at the
canal. He put a foot on the railing and pulled himself up.

"Henry, you're this close," warned Rose.

"Let him play," complained Joe. "He's
alright."

"He's halfway off it already."

"Be serious, he's fine."

You couldn't take these kinds of gambles, not
with the lives of children. You couldn't let them balance on the
sides of bridges. You couldn't let them go away to camp. You
couldn't let them eat dessert before dinner or wander barefoot. And
you definitely couldn't let them play sports, sports being the
number one most brutal purveyor of childhood concussions, mutilated
limbs, smashed teeth, and heat stroke.

"Listen to what I say, Henry," she
ordered.

Henry squeaked, "Look, Pop!" By now he was
leaning over the rail and pointing at the water -- a red balloon
was languishing there like a pimple. The wind seemed to want to
save it, to nudge it towards land, but the balloon refused to
move.

Rose hurried the remaining distance and
snugly gripped the tail of her son's shirt.

"Come on Henry, let go."

"If he wants to stay, let him stay," said
Joe.

"Henry..."

"He'll catch up," said Joe, starting
away.

Henry clung to the rail, eyes intensely shut.
"I don't want to go," he said.

Joe yelled, "For chrissakes, Rose--"

Maybe Rose would let go of Henry's shirt and
absolutely nothing would happen. Maybe one day she'd let him go by
himself to purchase milk at the corner store and nothing would
happen. Maybe she'd let him jump on the bed and nothing would
happen. Nothing seemed to happen all that often to Henry's friends
at school. No cases of lunch box salmonella, no jungle gym
bloodbaths, no escaped circus lions making off with the kickball
champion. Maybe she was being too harsh. Maybe Henry would be all
right. And maybe she should try letting go, just once. She could
take these things case by case.

"I swear," said Joe.

As soon as she released him, she regretted
it. Henry held her gaze defiantly. She realized that she had just
let him win. And suddenly, this wasn't Henry anymore, not her
Henry, not her five-year-old darling sweetheart. This was...someone
else. Like he was already some...some kind of...

Some kind of teenager.

She backed away, Henry now unfamiliar to her,
a complete stranger. She hurried to catch Joe. He was saying, "And
why not a Senator? Or maybe Congress?" Joe reached for her and she
reached back, tightly. He started to say something else, when there
was a thud from the canal. A mouthy shoom.

Joe's face must have reflected hers. First it
lifted upward, but just to gain altitude before smashing downward
and really making a mess, one big shrieking, terrified mask.

Where their son was supposed to be, now stood
a gaping, blinding emptiness.