The Safety of Objects: Stories (3 page)

She takes the license from the cop. “Thank you.”

The cop nods. “No problem.”

She wonders if he knows that she’s naked inside the coat. She wonders what he thinks of that. The phone rings.

“Telephone, ma’am,” the cop says.

“Oh, right, thanks again,” Elaine says.

*  *  *

“I’m bringing the boys home early,” her mother-in-law says. Her voice is amplified by the answering machine. It sounds like God is talking.

Elaine turns off the machine and picks up the phone. “Is something wrong?”

“The baby is too young to be without his mother.”

She doesn’t understand what is going on. She wonders if maybe her mother-in-law is slipping, getting too old to deal with children.

“Daniel came to me early, but that was different,” her mother-in-law says. “You put him in day care at eight months. He didn’t know you. He didn’t need you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing, just that Sammy is different; it’s always that way with the youngest.” Her mother-in-law doesn’t say anything for a minute. “The plane gets in at five.”

Mother is coming, Mother is here, everything is going to be all right, Elaine thinks.

Elaine goes upstairs, wakes Paul and tells him. They are both silent. They are protective of their freedom. There are other things they want to do. They want to go further. They want to be alone with each other, and alone with themselves.

Paul and Elaine stand in the center of their bedroom, undressing. Paul pulls the bandage from his foot, and strips off his underwear. Elaine strips the sheets off the bed, goes down the hall, strips the sheets in her sons’ room, and stuffs everything into the laundry chute. They smile at each other. They shower together. In the shower, Paul shaves and Elaine scrubs the tiles with the fingernail brush, not getting out until the whole wall is done.

Elaine combs her wet hair back and Paul tells her she looks beautiful.

“It was good,” Elaine says.

Paul puts clean Band-Aids on his foot. They dress. In a way they are relieved. Together they put clean sheets on the beds, puff the pillows, vacuum the bedroom, empty the trash, and load the dishwasher. Downstairs, as they are cleaning, Elaine and Paul look at each other and as if they’ve each had the same thought at the same moment, as if they’re sharing a secret, they go into the living room and carefully check the cushions on the sofa making sure there’s nothing there, no empty vials.

Looking for Johnny

I disappeared a few years ago; I disappeared and then I came back. It wasn’t a big secret. It wasn’t one of those beam-me-up-Scotty deals where I was here and then all of the sudden I was there. I didn’t get to go to another planet or anything. I was gone for a few days and then I came home and the police wanted to know everything. They wanted to know about the car, who was in the car, where I went, what happened. They said I could draw pictures, show them with dolls, but I didn’t know what to say. I disappeared when I was a child. I disappeared when I was nine.

I came home from school, had cookies and Kool-Aid, and went into the living room to watch TV. My retarded sister Rayanne was in there and she kept imitating the people on TV. She was older than me and really was retarded. She kept talking to the television and didn’t stop when I told her to. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore so I left. I said, “’Bye, Mom, be back in a while,” and I picked up my basketball and went to the playground. There were other kids there and almost everyone had their own ball. There were about ten balls going, and sometimes they would hit each other in midair and go off in completely the wrong direction. Sometimes I’d trip over another guy going in for a shot and he might kick me in the butt and say “Asshole,” or something.

It got late and it got dark, and the other kids left one by one or sometimes in twos and threes. I was alone on the court shooting baskets, and I couldn’t miss. The ball kept dropping through the net, and I felt like I had magic in me. I was making all my shots, counting them to myself. When I got to fifteen in a row, I heard someone clap. I stopped playing and noticed a guy standing at the far edge of the court.

“That’s fifteen straight up,” he said. I shrugged. I shot again and the ball sailed through the hoop.

“Nice going, Johnny.”

I caught the ball coming through the hoop and put up a hook shot. It went wide. The guy ran in, caught the ball, and held it pressed into his hip, like a teacher confiscating it.

“My name’s not Johnny.”

“Johnny’s not a name. It’s like ‘hey you,’ only nicer.”

He bounced the ball a couple of times and then held it. “You ready to go? Your mother said I should pick you up. She had somewhere to go.”

I remember being mad at my mother because she was like that. She was the kind of person who would take Rayanne somewhere and send someone I didn’t know to pick me up. She knew lots of people I didn’t know, mostly on account of Rayanne. She knew all the people who had retarded kids and I never wanted to meet them.

“I was looking for you, Johnny,” the guy said.

I shrugged. “My name’s Erol. Okay? Erol,” I said.

He kept my basketball and walked toward his car. It was an old white station wagon, a Rambler with a red interior.

“Did she have to take my sister somewhere?”

“It’s okay, Johnny. We’ll stop at McDonald’s.”

He talked like he didn’t hear anything I said. He talked like it was something he had to practice in order to get it right.

“Are you hungry?”

I’m not retarded. If something had been really strange, like if the guy had a wooden leg, I would have noticed. I would have gotten up from the table and walked away. I would have walked when he got up and said he was going to call my mom. He said he was calling to ask if she wanted us to bring home food for them. He left me at the table with burgers and fries, and I thought more about how many of his fries I could steal than whether or not I was ever going home again. I had no reason to leave; I was at McDonald’s with two burgers, large fries, and a shake. I didn’t know what crazy was. I didn’t know that sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a real crazy and a regular person and that’s what makes them crazy in the first place.

The guy came back, said my mother wasn’t home, and that he was going to take me to his house until she got back. “Hey, hey, Johnny,” the guy said. In the car I played with my basketball. I turned it around and around on my lap.

“I have to pick up something. Is that okay, Johnny? Do you want anything?” I shook my head. “Is there anything you want?”

“No,” I said.

I waited while he went into the drugstore. It was one of those times when the sun goes down but it isn’t dark yet. There was a weird blue light pressing down on everything, outlining it. I stood next to the station wagon and bounced the basketball.

“Hello, Erol,” Mrs. Perkins said. She was pushing a grocery cart across the parking lot even though you weren’t supposed to. She was pushing the cart and it sounded louder than a train. The wheels kept going all over the place. Her two kids were there, squished into the little seat up front that barely holds one.

“Hi,” I said as she passed me.

“Are you with your mother?” she asked. Mrs. Perkins lived three doors down and thought that everything that had anything to do with anyone on our street was her own personal business.

“I’m waiting for a friend of hers.”

Mrs. Perkins shook her head and started pushing the cart again. My mother always said that Mrs. P. didn’t like us because there wasn’t a man in our house. She didn’t think that it was right, and my mother agreed with her. My mother thought there should be a man in the house, but after my father left she couldn’t find one. I think it was because of Rayanne. No good guy would want to live in a house with a retarded kid.

“Who was that?” the guy asked when he got back into the car. “Don’t you know not to talk to strangers?” He slammed the door.

“It was Mrs. Perkins. She lives on my street. She has two little kids. She’s not a stranger.” The guy didn’t answer and we drove away real fast.

“I’ve got a little something for you, Johnny,” he said. He pulled a bottle out of a paper bag. “Preventive medicine. You look like you might be coming down with something.”

“I feel okay,” I said.

“We don’t have a spoon, so you’ll just have to take it from the bottle cap.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Look,” the guy said. He took his eyes off the road to look at me and the car swerved into the other lane, the wrong-direction lane. “If I tell you to take your medicine, you take it. I’m not used to children talking back to me. Your parents might stand for it, but I won’t. Got it?”

I wanted to tell him that I didn’t have parents, that my dad didn’t even live with us, and didn’t he know that, but I couldn’t. It seemed like he was already annoyed with me. I figured it was because my mother wasn’t home, he couldn’t just drop me off, and now he was stuck taking me everywhere with him.

He put the bottle between his legs and twisted the top until it opened. “Four capfuls,” he said, handing the bottle to me. Even though I felt fine, I did it. It was hard as hell to pour it in the car and I was scared I’d spill, but I did it. I swallowed the stuff. Cough medicine, grape only worse. It tasted like the smell of the stuff my mother used to polish the furniture. “Good,” the guy said. He pulled a Kit Kat bar out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me. “To clear the taste.”

We were quiet and he kept driving. It was dark. I watched the cars coming toward us, two white eyes, staring me down.

“Is my mom home yet?” I asked. I was getting tired.

“I called her from the drugstore and she said not to bring you home tonight. I think she wanted to be alone.”

“What about Rayanne?”

“Alone with Rayanne. She needed you out of her hair for a while, no big deal.”

I shrugged and thought about how much I hated retards, and how they stole the whole show for nothing.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“We’ll be there in a while.”

“I’m tired,” I said. “And I’m supposed to color maps for Geography.”

“Don’t worry, Johnny.”

“What’s your name?”

“Randy,” he said.

And then I don’t know what happened. I had my head out the window and felt sick from burgers, fries, shakes, and candy. I was throwing up out the car window while Randy was driving, and he didn’t even pull over. He didn’t put his hand on my forehead like my mother did. He just kept driving and calling me Johnny.

*  *  *

“Wake up, Johnny,” Randy said, shaking my shoulder.

It took me a few minutes to get my eyes to stay open, to remember where I was. “Here you go,” he said, pushing a spoon of the same grape medicine into my mouth.

“It makes me sick,” I said, after I’d swallowed the stuff. I told myself that I’d never swallow it again. I told myself to hold it in my mouth, in my cheek like a hamster, but not to swallow.

“I said you were sick. You didn’t listen, did you?” He brought me a glass of water. “Do you want some tea, some toast, some ginger ale?”

I shrugged and felt dizzy.

“You have to eat,” he said and then left the room.

I lay in the bed and felt like I would pass out just lying there. I realized that I was almost naked. I wasn’t wearing any clothes—except my underwear—and I thought about how my mother told us, especially Rayanne, to be careful of people who might want to mess with you. She said that anyone could be a person who would do a thing like that. She said it might even be someone I knew. She told me this a million times but never said anything about what if someone took off your clothes while you were asleep. She never mentioned that, and still I knew I didn’t like it. I sat up and saw my clothes all folded up at the end of the bed. I saw them and thought everything was okay because someone who folds your clothes up and puts them on the end of the bed doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would mess with a kid. I reached down, grabbed my clothes, and put them on under the covers.

“Hey, Johnny,” Randy said when he came back into the room. He was carrying a tray made out of cardboard. On the tray was a plate of eggs and toast and a glass of juice.

“I’m sick, I can’t eat.”

“Oh, but you have to eat, you’re a growing boy.”

“I want to go home.”

“Your mother won’t want you back if you’re sick.”

“She’ll take care of me.”

“Don’t be a baby, Johnny.”

“Today’s my day to collect lunch money,” I said.

You said you were sick. Do you go to school when you’re sick? Don’t play games with me. Eat your breakfast.”

I shook my head.

“What did I tell you to do?” he yelled. The veins in his neck popped out and he went white like sugar. “You do what I tell you and never say no to me, you hear. Never say no to me.”

I looked at Randy and thought about how some people were jerks. I thought about how I couldn’t wait to be grown up, to have my own private TV, to be alone always. “Now, what did I tell you?”

“Eat the breakfast,” I said.

“So do it.”

“I’m allergic to eggs.” I took small bites of the toast.

“Are you really allergic?” he asked. “Do you want cereal? There are some Rice Krispies in the kitchen. Do you want Krispies?”

“No.” I paused. “I want to call my mother and tell her I’m sick. She’ll come get me.”

“I don’t have a phone, Johnny. There isn’t a phone.”

Randy stood there watching me. He watched everything I did like I was something under a microscope. “Do you like to read?” I shrugged. He pulled a stack of old magazines out from under the bed. “I saved these for you. I have to do some work outside. Is there anything you need?”

“Where’s the TV?”

“Don’t say television to me. It’ll kill you. It makes you so you can’t think. Can you think, Johnny?”

I shrugged and he walked out. Randy’s magazines were the slippery kind that parents read. They were the kind that Rayanne would spread out all over the floor of the dentist’s office and then go skiing on until my mother stopped her. I got out of bed and walked down the hall. The first room was Randy’s. It was small and filled with light. There were two windows and a breeze was leaking in from somewhere. The air seemed to spin around, picking up dirt from the floor, making it dance and glow like gold. There was a mattress with green striped sheets, and rows of empty soda bottles, alternating Yoohoo, RC, and Mountain Dew, were lined up around the edges of the room, across the windowsill, everywhere. I was in the room, looking, and Randy’s hands sank down on my shoulders as if they were taking a bite out of me. He gripped me by the muscle across the top of my back, across my shoulders.

“I was just looking,” I said.

“Whose room is this?” he said.

I shrugged.

“Whose?” he asked.

“Yours.”

“Did I say you could look? Did I say you could come in here? Did you ask? No!” he yelled into my face. “Some things belong to a person himself. They’re private and you can’t take them away.”

I could smell his breath. It was hot like a dog’s. I tried to turn my head away, but he held it straight. He held it with his thumb pressed under my chin.

“You can’t have everything. I don’t go into your room, looking at your things, do I?”

I wanted to tell him that my room was at home and the room down the hall didn’t have anything in it except a bed with blue flowered sheets and a Pepto Bismol–colored blanket. I wanted to tell him that he was starting to remind me of Rayanne because she always asked me to tell her things and then would explain them back to me all wrong.

“You really are a case,” he said and then walked out of the room. I followed him down the hall. “Are you a lost dog?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

He put his hand on my shoulder and I thought he was going to push me away and say get lost or something. I thought he might crack my head against the wall.

“Are you feeling better, Johnny? Are you ready to go fishing? Do you have a fever?” He pressed his hand up to my forehead, held his palm there for a minute, and then flipped his hand over so that the back side was against my head. I felt his knuckles digging into the thin crevice in the middle of my forehead. “It’s gone,” he said, taking his hand away and walking farther down the hall.

When his hand was off my head I could still feel the knuckles in that small crack in my skull. I thought about how I’d always figured that gap was a sort of structural deformity. I didn’t know it was normal. I thought it was something that could start moving, an earthquake of the mind. I thought the two halves might separate and split my head open. I thought the gap could close and force my brain out through my ears. It always seemed that if anything happened to that place, I’d end up the same as Rayanne. It was like a warning that something could go wrong and I’d be just like my sister. I rubbed my forehead, letting my fingers dip into that place. I rubbed and wished Randy hadn’t touched me there.