Sourland Page 4

  What other meaning was there? What other meaning was possible?

  Rhonda’s father shaking his head marveling Like nothing you could imagine, nothing you’d ever forget, the way the poor bastard kept walking—Jesus!

  That fetid-hot day in Manhattan. Rhonda had been with Daddy in the station wagon. He’d buckled her into the seat beside him for she was a big enough girl now to sit in the front seat and not in the silly baby-seat in the back. And Daddy had braked the station wagon, and Daddy’s arm had shot out to protect Rhonda from being thrown forward, and Daddy had protected Rhonda from what was out there on the street, beyond the windshield. Daddy had said Shut your eyes, Rhonda! Crouch down and hide your face darling and so Rhonda had.

  By the time Rhonda was ten years old and in fifth grade at Princeton Day School Madeleine Karr wasn’t any longer quite so cautious about telling the story of the stabbing—or, more frequently, merely alluding to it, since the story of the stabbing had been told numerous times, and most acquaintances of the Karrs knew it, to a degree—within her daughter’s presence. Nor did Madeleine recount it in her earlier breathless appalled voice but now more calmly, sadly This awful thing that happened, that I witnessed, you know—the stabbing? In New York? The other day on the news there was something just like it, or almost… Or I still dream about it sometimes. My God! At least Rhonda wasn’t with me.

  It seemed now that Madeleine’s new friend Drexel Hay—“Drex”—was frequently in their house, and in their lives; soon then, when they were living with Drex in a new house on Winant Drive, on the other side of town, it began to seem to Rhonda that Drex who adored Madeleine had come to believe—almost—that he’d been in the car with her on that March morning; daring to interrupt Madeleine in a pleading voice But wait, darling!—you’ve left out the part about… or Tell them how he looked at you through your windshield, the man with the knife—or Now tell them how you’ve never gone back—never drive into the city except with me. And I drive.

  Sometime around Christmas 1984 Rhonda’s mother was at last divorced from Rhonda’s father—it was said to be an amicable parting though Rhonda was not so sure of that—and then in May 1985 Rhonda’s mother became Mrs. Hay—which made Rhonda giggle for Mrs. Hay was a comical name somehow. Strange to her, startling and disconcerting, how Drex himself began to tell the story of the stabbing to aghast listeners This terrible thing happened to my wife a few years ago—before we’d met—

  In Drex’s excited narration Madeleine had witnessed a street mugging—a savage senseless murder—a white male pedestrian attacked by a gang of black boys with switchblades—his throat so deeply slashed he’d nearly been decapitated. (In subsequent accounts of the stabbing, gradually it happened that the victim had in fact been decapitated—even as, horribly, he’d tried to run away, staggering forward until he fell.) (But was decapitation so easy to accomplish, cutting through the spinal cord?—Rhonda couldn’t think so.) The attack had taken place in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses and no one intervened—somewhere downtown, below Houston—unless over by the river, in the meat-packing district—or by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel—or (maybe) by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, one of those wide ugly avenues like Eleventh? Twelfth?—not late but after dark. The victim had tried to fight off his assailants—valiantly, foolishly—as Drex said The kind of crazy thing I might do myself, if muggers tried to take my wallet from me—but of course he hadn’t a chance—he’d been outnumbered by his punk-assailants—before Madeleine’s horrified eyes he’d bled out on the street. Dozens of witnesses and no one wanted to get involved—not even a license plate number or a description of the killers—just they were “black”—“carried knives”—Poor Madeleine was in such shock, these savages had gotten a good look at her through her windshield—she thought they were “high on drugs”—only a few yards from Madeleine my God if they hadn’t been in a rush to escape they’d have killed her for sure—so she couldn’t identify them—who the hell would’ve stopped them? Not the New York cops—they took their good time arriving.

  Drex spoke with assurance and authority and yet—Rhonda didn’t think that the stabbing had happened quite like this. So confusing!—for it was so very hard to retain the facts of the story—if they were “facts”—from one time to the next. Each adult was so persuasive—hearing adults speak you couldn’t resist nodding your head in agreement or in a wish to agree or to be liked or loved, for agreeing—and so—how was it possible to know what was real? Of all the stories of the stabbing Rhonda had heard it was Drex’s account that was scariest—Rhonda shivered thinking of her mother being killed—trapped in her car and angry black boys smashing her car windows, dragging her out onto the street stab-stab-stabbing…Rhonda felt dazed and dizzy to think that if Mommy had been killed then Rhonda would never have a mother again.

  And so Rhonda would not be Drex Hay’s sweet little stepdaughter he had to speak sharply to, at times; Rhonda would not be living in the brick Colonial on Winant Drive but somewhere else—she didn’t want to think where.

  Never would Rhonda have met elderly Mrs. Hay with the soft-wrinkled face and eager eyes who was Drex’s mother and who came often to the house on Winant Drive with presents for Rhonda—crocheted sweater sets, hand-knit caps with tassels, fluffy-rabbit bedroom slippers which quickly became too small for Rhonda’s growing feet. Rhonda was uneasy visiting Grandma Hay in her big old granite house on Hodge Road with its medicinal odors and sharp-barking little black pug Samson; especially Rhonda was uneasy if the elderly woman became excitable and disapproving as often she did when (for instance) the subject of the stabbing in Manhattan came up, as occasionally it did in conversation about other, related matters—urban life, the rising crime rate, deteriorating morals in the last decades of the twentieth century. By this time in all their lives of course everyone had heard the story of the stabbing many times in its many forms, the words had grown smooth like stones fondled by many hands. Rhonda’s stepfather Drex had only to run his hands through his thinning rust-colored hair and sigh loudly to signal a shift in the conversation Remember that time Madeleine was almost murdered in New York City… and Grandma Hay would shiver thrilled and appalled New York is a cesspool, don’t tell me it’s been “cleaned up”—you can’t clean up filth—those people are animals—you know who I mean—they are all on welfare—they are “crack babies”—society has no idea what to do with them and you dare not talk about it, some fool will call you “racist”—Oh you’d never catch me driving into the city in just a car by myself—even when I was younger—what it needs is for a strong mayor—to crack down on these animals—you would wish for God to swipe such animals away with His thumb—would that be a mercy!

  When Grandma Hay hugged her Rhonda tried not to shudder crinkling her nose against the elderly woman’s special odor. For Rhonda’s mother warned Don’t offend your new “grandma”—just be a good, sweet girl.

  Mr. Karr was living now in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for Mr. Karr was now a professor at Harvard. Rhonda didn’t like her father’s new house or her father’s new young wife nor did Rhonda like Cambridge, Massachusetts, anywhere near as much as Rhonda liked Princeton where she had friends at Princeton Day School and so she sulked and cried when she had to visit with Daddy though she loved Daddy and she liked—tried to like—Daddy’s new young wife Brooke who squinted and smiled at Rhonda so hard it looked as if Brooke’s face must hurt. Once, it could not have been more than the second or third time she’d met Brooke, Rhonda happened to overhear her father’s new young wife telling friends who’d dropped by their house for drinks This terrible thing that happened to my husband before we were married—on the street in New York City in broad daylight he witnessed a man stabbed to death—the man’s throat was slashed, blood sprayed out like for six feet Gerald says it was the most amazing—horrible—thing he’d ever seen—the poor man just kept walking—trying to walk—with both his hands he tried to stop the bleeding—Gerald shouted out his car window—there was more
than one of them—the attackers—Gerald never likes to identify them as black—persons of color—and the victim was a white man—I don’t think the attackers were ever caught—Gerald opened his car door, and shouted at them—he was risking his life interfering—he’s utterly reckless, he has the most amazing courage—the way Gerald describes it, it’s like I was there with him—I was in middle school at Katonah Day at the time—just totally unknowing, oblivious—I dream of it sometimes—the stabbing—how close Gerald and I came to never meeting, never falling in love and our entire lives changed like a tragic miracle…

  You’d have thought that Mr. Karr would try to stop his silly young wife saying such things that weren’t wrong entirely—but certainly weren’t right—and Rhonda knew they weren’t right—and Rhonda was a witness staring coldly at the chattering woman who was technically speaking her stepmother but Mr. Karr seemed scarcely to be listening in another part of the room pouring wine into long-stemmed crystal glasses for his guests and drinking with them savoring the precious red burgundy which appeared to be the center of interest on this occasion for Mr. Karr had been showing his guests the label on the wine bottle which must have been an impressive label judging from their reactions as the wine itself must have been exquisite for all marveled at it. Rhonda saw that her father’s whiskers were bristly gray like metal filings, his face was ruddy and puffy about the eyes as if he’d just wakened from a nap—when “entertaining” in his home often Mr. Karr removed his glasses, as he had now—his stone-colored eyes looked strangely naked and lashless—still he exuded an air of well-being, a yeasty heat of satisfaction lifted from his skin. There on a nearby table was Gerald Karr’s new book Democracy in America Imperiled and beside the book as if it had been casually tossed down was a copy of The New York Review of Books in which there was said to be—Rhonda had not seen it—a “highly positive” review of the book. And there, in another corner of the room, the beautiful blond silly young wife exclaiming with widened eyes to a circle of rapt listeners Ohhh when I think of it my blood runs cold, how foolishly brave Gerald was—how close it was, the two of us would never meet and where would I be right now? This very moment, in all of the universe?

  Rhonda laughed. Rhonda’s mouth was a sneer. Rhonda knew better than to draw attention to herself, however—though Daddy loved his sweet little pretty girl Daddy could be harsh and hurtful if Daddy was displeased with his sweet little pretty girl so Rhonda fixed for herself a very thick sandwich of Swedish rye crisp crackers and French goat cheese to devour in the corner of the room looking out onto a bleak rain-streaked street not wanting to think how Daddy knew, yes Daddy knew but did not care. That was the terrible fact about Daddy—he knew, and did not care. A nasty fat worm had burrowed up inside Daddy making him proud of silly Brooke speaking of him in such a tender voice, and so falsely; the stepmother who was so much younger and more beautiful than Rhonda’s mother.

  Here was the strangest thing: when Rhonda was living away from them all, and vastly relieved to be away, but homesick too especially for the drafty old house on Broadmead Road where she’d been a little girl and Mommy and Daddy had loved her so. When Rhonda was a freshman at Stanford hoping to major in molecular biology and she’d returned home for the first time since leaving home—for Thanksgiving—to the house on Winant Drive. And there was a family Thanksgiving a mile away at the Hodge Road house of elderly Mrs. Hay to which numerous people came of whom Rhonda knew only a few—and cared to know only a few—mainly Madeleine and Drex of course—there was the disconcerting appearance of Drex’s brother Edgar from Chevy Chase, Maryland—identified as an identical twin though the men more resembled just brothers than twins. Edgar Hay was said to be a much wealthier man than Drex—his business was pharmaceuticals, in the D.C. area; Drex’s business was something in investments, his office was on Route One, West Windsor. The Hay twin-brothers were in their late sixties with similar chalky scalps visible through quills of wetted hair and bulbous noses tinged with red like perpetual embarrassment but Edgar was heavier than Drex by ten or fifteen pounds, Edgar’s eyebrows were white-tufted like a satyr’s in an old silly painting and maddeningly he laughed approaching Rhonda with extended arms—Hel-lo! My sweet li’l step-niece happy Turkey-Day!—brushing his lips dangerously close to Rhonda’s startled mouth, a rubbery-damp sensation Rhonda thought like being kissed by a large squirmy worm. (Call me Ed-gie he whispered wetly in Rhonda’s ear That’s what the pretty girls call me.) And Madeleine who might have observed this chose to ignore it for Madeleine was already mildly drunk—long before dinner—and poor Drex—sunken-chested, sickly pale and thinner since his heart attack in August in high-altitude Aspen, Colorado, clearly in some way resentful of his “twin” brother—reduced to lame jokes and stammered asides in Edgar’s presence. And there was Rhonda restless and miserable wishing she hadn’t come back home for Thanksgiving—for she’d have to return again within just a few weeks, for Christmas—yet more dreading the long holiday break—wishing she had something useful to do in this house—she’d volunteered to help in the kitchen but Mrs. Hay’s cook and servers clearly did not want her—she’d have liked to hide away somewhere and call her roommate Jessica in Portland, Oregon, but was fearful she might break down on the phone and give away more of her feelings for Jessica than Jessica had seemed to wish to receive from Rhonda just yet…And there was Rhonda avoiding the living room where Hay relatives were crowded together jovial and overloud—laughing, drinking and devouring appetizers—as bratty young children related to Rhonda purely through the accident of a marital connection whose names she made no attempt to recall ran giggling through a forest of adult legs. Quickly Rhonda shrank back before her mother sighted her, or the elderly white-haired woman who insisted that Rhonda call her “Grandma”—sulkily making her way along a hall, into the glassed-in room at the rear of the house where Mrs. Hay kept potted plants—orchids, African violets, ferns. Outside, the November air was suffused with moisture. The overcast sky looked like a tin ceiling. A few leaves remained on deciduous trees, scarlet-bright, golden-yellow, riffled by wind and falling and sucked away even as you stared. To Rhonda’s dismay there was her stepfather’s brother—Drex’s twin—wormy-lipped Edgar—engaged in telling a story to a Hay relative, a middle-aged woman with a plump cat-face to whom Drex had introduced Rhonda more than once but whose name Rhonda couldn’t recall. Edgar was sprawled on a white wicker sofa with his stocky legs outspread, the woman in a lavender silk pants suit was seated in a matching chair—both were drinking—to her disgust and dismay Rhonda couldn’t help but overhear what was unmistakably some crude variant of the story of the stabbing of long ago—narrated in Edgar’s voice that managed to suggest a lewd repugnance laced with bemusement, as the cat-faced woman blinked and stared open-mouthed as in a mimicry of exaggerated feminine concern My brother’s crazy wife she’d driven into Manhattan Christ knows why Maddie’d been some kind of hippie fem-ist my brother says those days she’d been married to one of the Commie profs at the University here and so, sure enough Maddie runs into trouble, this was before Giuliani cleaned up the city, just what you’d predict the stupid woman runs into something dangerous a gang of Nigra kids jumping a white man right out on the street—in fact it was Fifth Avenue down below the garment district—it was actual Fifth Avenue and it was daylight crazy “Made-line” she calls herself like some snooty dame in a movie came close to getting her throat cut—which was what happened to the poor bastard out on the street—in the paper it said he’d been decapitated, too—and the Nigra kids see our Madeline gawking at them through the windshield of her car you’d think the dumb-ass would’ve known to get the hell out or crouch down and hide at least—as Rhonda drew nearer her young heart beating in indignation waiting for her stepfather’s brother to take notice of her. It was like a clumsy TV scene! It was a scene improbable and distasteful yet a scene from which Rhonda did not mean to flee, just yet. For she’d come here, to Princeton. For she could have gone to her father’s house in Cambridge, Massachu
setts—of course she’d been invited, Brooke herself had called to invite her, with such forced enthusiasm, such cheery family-feeling, Rhonda had felt a stab of pure loneliness, dread. There is no one who loves me or wants me. If I cut my throat on the street who would care. Or bleed out in a bathtub or in the shower with the hot water running…

  So she’d had a vision of her life, Rhonda thought. Or maybe it was a vision of life itself.

  Not that Rhonda would ever cut her throat—of course! Never. That was a vow.

  Not trying to disguise her disgust, for what she’d heard in the doorway and for Edgar Hay sprawling fatuous-drunk. The ridiculous multi-course Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t yet been brought to the dining room table, scarcely 5:30 P.M. and already Edgar Hay was drunk. Rhonda stood just inside the doorway waiting for Edgar’s stabbing-story to come to an end. For maybe this would be the end?—maybe the story of the stabbing would never again be told, in Rhonda’s hearing? Rhonda would confront Edgar Hay who’d then gleefully report back to Drex and Madeleine how rude their daughter was—how unattractive, how ungracious—for Rhonda was staring, unsmiling—bravely she approached the old man keeping her voice cool, calm, disdainful O.K then—what happened to the stabbed man? Did he die? Do you know for a fact he died? And what happened to the killer—the killers—the killer with the knife—was anyone ever caught? Was anyone ever punished, is anyone in prison right now? And Edgar Hay—“Ed-gie”—looked at Rhonda crinkling his pink-flushed face in a lewd wink How the hell would I know, sweetheart? I wasn’t there.