Sourland Page 8

  AMPUTEE

  You’re wondering how we meet. People like us.

  “Excuse me?”—near closing time at the library & suddenly he’s looming over me. His manner is friendly-anxious & his eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses are dark & shining like globules of oil. He smells of wettish wool, something chalky & acrid. He’s a neatly dressed man in his late thirties whom I have seen previously in the library, at a little distance. Or maybe I have seen him elsewhere in Barnegat. His breathing is oddly quickened & shallow as if he’s just run up a steep flight of stairs with a question only Jane Erdley Circulation can answer.

  In fact Jane Erdley has been observing this person for the past hour—he’s tall, lanky-limbed & self-conscious—as if he’s ill at ease in his body—there’s a glare in his clean-shaven face, a look of intense excitement, yet dread—for the past hour, or more, he’s been sitting at the long polished-pine table in the periodicals & reference room across the foyer, covertly glancing over at me while reading, or pretending to read, a copy of Scientific American.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have a, a question—”

  “Yes?”

  Vaguely I remember—in the way a near-forgotten dream is recalled not by an act of will but unwittingly—that I’d first glimpsed this man shortly after the New Year. He’d worn a dark woolen overcoat—another time, a hooded windbreaker—now it’s late winter he’s wearing a tweed herringbone sport coat frayed at the elbows, black corduroy trousers & white dress shirt open at the throat. He might be as old as fifty, or as young as thirty-five—his thick dark hair is threaded with filaments of gray & receding unevenly from his forehead.

  On the previous occasions I’d sighted him in the library, he’d been watching me, too. But not so fixedly that I took note of him.

  For others stare at me, often. Mostly men, though not exclusively men. Rarely do I take note, any longer.

  When I was younger, yes. When I was a girl. But no longer.

  Today has been an odd, ominous day. Icy pelting rain & few people came to the library & abruptly then by late afternoon the sky above the Atlantic Ocean cleared & now at dusk there is an eerily beautiful blue-violet tinge to the eastern sky outside the Barnegat library’s big bay window a quarter-mile from the shore & somehow it has happened, who knows why at this moment, the man in the herringbone coat has decided to break the silence between us.

  “There is a writer—‘Triptree’—”

  “‘Tiptree.’”

  “‘Tiptree.’ That’s the name?”

  “‘James Tiptree, Jr.’—in fact, Tiptree was a woman.”

  “A woman! I guess I’d heard that—yes.”

  How eager, his eyes! Behind the steel-rimmed glasses a terrible hunger in those eyes.

  In this way we meet. In this way we talk. There’s both excitement between us & a strange sort of ease—a sense that we know each other already, & are re-meeting—reviving our feeling for each other. Later I will learn that Tyrell premeditated this exchange for some time. Tiptree is just a pretext for our meeting—of course. Any reader interested in Tiptree would know that “James Tiptree, Jr.” is the pseudonym of a female science-fiction writer of the 1950s, of considerable distinction—but Tyrell’s question is a shrewd one since as it happens I am the only librarian in the small Barnegat library who has actually read the few Tiptree books on our shelves & can discuss Tiptree’s stories with him as I check out other patrons at the circulation desk.

  In the Barnegat Public Library where I’ve worked—in Circulation, in Reference, in Children & Young Adults—for the past two years, since graduating from library school, it’s common that visitors pause to speak with me like this; it’s common that they hope to establish some sort of bond with me, which I find repellent. With what absurd sobriety do people regard Jane Erdley—with what respect they speak to her—as if the youngest librarian on the Barnegat staff were composed of the most delicate crystal & not flesh, blood & bones, or afflicted by some hideous disease which causes the victim to waste away before your eyes & wasn’t a reasonably attractive & healthy young woman of twenty-six with long curly rust-colored hair, hazel-green eyes and skin flawed only by tiny tear-sized scars at my hairline—ninety-seven pounds, five-foot-three—small hard biceps & sculpted shoulder muscles just visible through my muslin blouses, silk shirts open at the throat & loose-crocheted tops. You might expect me to wear trousers like the other female librarians but I prefer skirts; from vintage clothing stores I’ve assembled a small but striking wardrobe of velvet, satin, lace dresses & shawls & in winter I am sure to wear stylish leather shoe-boots. In warm weather, quite short skirts: & why not?

  Deliberately I’m not looking at the man in the frayed herringbone coat leaning his elbows on the counter as we speak together of the mysterious & entertaining fiction of James Tiptree, Jr. I’ve become so accustomed to checking out books—a mindless task like most of my librarian duties & therefore pleasant & soothing—that I can manage a conversation with one library patron while serving another—though sensing how this man is staring at me, turning a small object in his fingers—car keys?—compulsively, like dice; I can sense his unease, that my attention is divided—I’m withholding from him my fullest attention—when he has surprised himself with his boldness in speaking to me, at last. Clearly this is a reserved man—not shy perhaps but secretive, wary—the kind of person of whom it’s said he is a very private person—& now he’s feeling both reckless & helpless—resentful of the other library patrons who are taking up my time.

  That sick-drowning look in the man’s eyes—it would be embarrassing of me to acknowledge.

  This is one who wants me. Badly.

  When he walks away I don’t glance after him—I am very busy checking out books. I assume that he has exited the library but no—there he is in the front lobby a few minutes later, peering into glass display cases at papier-mâché dinosaurs made by grade school children, best-selling gardening books & romance novels.

  How strange! Or maybe not so strange.

  He isn’t looking back at me. He’s determined not to look. But finally he weakens, he can’t resist, a sidelong glance which I give no indication of having seen.

  Don’t look at me. Try not to look at me.

  Go away. Go home. You disgust me!

  Much disgusts me. For a long time I was encouraged to count myself blessed, for of course it could have been much worse, but in recent years, no.

  Since graduating from library school at Rutgers. Since having to surrender my life as a student, a privileged sort of person in a university setting in which, though never numerous, others like myself were not uncommon; that large & varied sub-species of the disabled of which I am but a single specimen & by no means the most extreme.

  Wanting to say to the somber faces & staring eyes Save your God damned pity for the truly piteous. Not me.

  This I resent: though I could be trained to drive a motor vehicle—with mechanical adjustments for my disability, of course—I’m forbidden by the Motor Vehicle Department of the State of New Jersey which will not grant me a driver’s license. How ridiculous this is, & unjust!—when any idiot with two legs & half a brain can get a license in New Jersey. And so I’m dependent upon accepting rides with co-workers or taking the shore bus.

  For the first several months of my employment at Barnegat I rode with one of the other librarians, who also lives on Shore Island, three miles to the north. Until one day it became abundantly clear that this woman was too curious about me. Too interested in me. So now I take the shore bus. Now I ride with predominately dark-skinned commuters—African-American, Hispanic—most of them nannies, cleaning women & day-laborers of various kinds. This is something of a scandal at the library—something of which my co-workers speak ruefully behind my back—Why won’t Jane let us help her? If only Jane would let us help her! To their faces I am not at all unfriendly; in fact I’m very friendly, when I wish. But the bus stop is less than a block from the library.
The trip itself is less than three miles, from my (rented) apartment (duplex, ground-floor) on Shore Island to Barnegat; if you continue south from Barnegat it’s another three miles to Lake View, & so along the Jersey shore—densely populated in the summer, sparsely populated in the winter—forty-three miles to Atlantic City.

  Yes I’ve taken the bus to Atlantic City since moving to the Jersey shore.

  Yes I’ve gone alone.

  My family disapproves of course. My mother in particular who is anxious & angry about her cripple-daughter of course.

  Why on earth would you take public transportation when you could ride with a friend, she asks.

  Not a friend, I tell her. A co-worker.

  A co-worker, then! But why live alone on the Jersey shore when you could live in Highland Park, with us.

  (Highland Park is a very nice middle-class suburb of New Brunswick not far from the sprawling campus of Rutgers University where my father teaches engineering.)

  Because I do what I want to do. And not what you want me to do.

  My mother & I are not close. And so I would not tell her how fascinated I am by others’ fascination with me. How I love the eyes of strangers moving onto me startled, shocked—by chance, at first—then with deliberation—making of me an object of sympathy, or pity; an object of revulsion. Love making you feel guilty for having two normal legs, feet. For being abled, not disabled. Staring at my face fixing your eyes on my eyes to indicate how pointedly you are not looking away nor are you glancing down at my lower body to see what is missing in me that makes me irremediably different from you who are whole & blessed of God.

  Now at the rear of the darkened library he’s waiting.

  In the parking lot, near Library Staff Parking Only—he’s waiting.

  Later he will say I tried to go away. But I couldn’t.

  He will say Do you know why, Jane? Why I couldn’t go away?

  By 6:20 P.M. the parking lot behind the library is empty except for a single vehicle, a station wagon, which must be his. In no hurry I have prepared to leave. For I know he’ll be there: already between us the bond is established, should I wish to acknowledge it.

  Like an actress preparing to step out onto a stage & uncertain of the script—uncertain what will be said to her. By this time the sky has darkened. The clouds are thickening. There is a wan melancholy beauty remaining in the sky in the heavy massed clouds like a watercolor wash of Winslow Homer, shading into night & oblivion. On the pavement are swaths of snow pockmarked with the grime of the long Jersey winter but at this hour, imperfections are scarcely visible. I am wearing a long military-looking dark wool coat swinging loose & unbuttoned—a chic, expensive designer coat purchased at an after-Christmas sale at the East Shore Mall—my face is stony & composed & in fact I am very uneasy—I am very excited—pushing open the rear door that bears on the outside the admonition No Admittance—Library Staff Only—& at once the man in the herringbone coat steps forward to take hold of the door & pull it farther open, as if I required assistance. In a thrilled voice saying, “May I help you, Ms. Erdley? Let me get this door.”

  “Thank you—but no. I can manage the door myself.”

  “Then—let me carry this bag for you.”

  “No. I can carry this bag myself.”

  On my crutches I’m strong, capable—swinging my Step Up! legs like a girl-athlete in a gym. On my crutches I exude an air of such headlong & relentless competence, your instinct would be to jump out of my way.

  No I tell him. And again No. Almost I’m laughing—the sound of my laughter is startling, high-pitched—a laughter like breaking glass—it’s astonishing to me, this sudden sexual boldness in the man in the tweed coat & white shirt who’d been so polite, earnest & proper, inside the library. No one is close by—no one is a witness—he can loom over me, taller than I am by several inches—he can coerce me with his height & the authority of his maleness. Very deliberately & tenderly he appropriates my leather bag—slips the strap from my shoulder and onto his own.

  “Yes. This is very heavy. I can carry this.”

  I can’t tug at the shoulder bag—I don’t want to get into a struggle with the man. We’re walking together awkwardly—as if neither of us has a sure footing—the sidewalk is wet, icy—my crutches are impediments, obstacles—my crutches are weapons, of a kind, & make me laugh, so ugly & clumsy & this man isn’t sure how to appropriate me, armed as I am with both crutches & prosthetic lower limbs that clearly fascinate him even as they frighten him—I can’t help but laugh at the situation, & at him—he’s trying to laugh, too—but agitated, embarrassed—daring to grip my arm at the elbow as if to steady me.

  “Ms. Erdley—maybe I should carry you? This pavement is all ice…”

  “No. You can’t carry me.”

  “Yes. I think I should.”

  “No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Where is your car?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “I said no. Now leave me alone, please.”

  “But—how are you getting home?”

  “How do you know I’m going home?”

  “Wherever you’re going, then—how will you get there?”

  “The way I got here.”

  “Ms. Erdley—how is that?”

  “I think that’s my business.”

  “Just tell me—how? You’re not walking home, are you?”

  “And what if I am?”

  “Well—are you?”

  “No. I am not walking home.”

  “Then—where are you going?”

  “I’m taking the bus.”

  “The bus! No—I’ll drive you.”

  “How do you know where I live?”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  How we meet, people like us.

  He tells me his name: Tyrell Beckmann.

  He knows my name: Jane Erdley.

  He was born in Barnegat Sound, thirty-seven years ago this month. Moved away for all of his adult life & just recently moved back for “family & business reasons.”

  He has a wife, two young daughters.

  Matter-of-factly enunciating Wife, two young daughters in the stoic way of one acknowledging an act of God.

  A miracle. Or a natural disaster.

  Solemnly he confides in me: “After my father died last fall the family put pressure on me to return to Barnegat—to work with my brothers in the family business—‘Beckmann & Sons’—I’d rather not discuss it, Jane! In February I enrolled in a computer course at the community college—anything that’s unknown to me, I’m drawn to like a magnet. Also it’s a good excuse for getting out of the house in the evening. Until I came into the library. Until I saw you.”

  His breath is steaming in the cold air. Shrewdly he has shifted the heavy shoulder bag to his right side so that I can’t tug it away from him, & he can walk close beside me unimpeded.

  Here is a surprise: the man’s long-legged stride is a match for me on my crutches. Despite my so-called disability I normally walk a little too fast for other people especially women in impractical footwear—it makes me smile to hear them plead laughingly Jane! For heaven’s sake wait—but Tyrell Beckmann keeps pace with me, easily. Though he doesn’t seem very coordinated—as if one of his legs were shorter than the other, or one of his knees pained him. His head bobs as he walks, like the head of a large predator bird. His forehead is creased with the intensity of his thoughts & the corners of his mouth have a downward turn except when something surprises him & he smiles a quick startled boyish smile.

  Already I take pride in thinking I will make this man smile! I have the power.

  As we walk, Tyrell does most of the talking. Like a man long deprived of speech he tells me how as a boy he took out books from the Barnegat library—how he loved the children’s room, & read virtually every book on the shelves. He tells me about the writers he’d read since boyhood & most admired—Ray Bradbury, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London (The Call of t
he Wild), Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick—then in high school Henry David Thoreau, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Dostoyevsky—the Dostoyevsky of Notes from the Underground & not the massive sprawling novels. As a “mystic-minded” adolescent he fell under the spell of the Upanishads & the Vedantists—the belief that the individual is one with the universe. As a young man in his twenties he read Søren Kierkegaard & Edmund Husserl & at Union Theological Seminary—where he’d enrolled with the vague intention of becoming some sort of Protestant-existentialist minister—he fell under the spell of the theologian Paul Tillich who’d once been on the faculty there & whose influence prevailed decades later.