“I have a token,” she said. “Is a token all right?”
“Fine. Yes. Hurry!”
“I’m trying to get it out.”
“Hurry! They’re all after me.”
Mrs. Tilden bit her lip as she hunted the token out of the wallet’s cloth folds. They’re all after me? she thought. The woman must be some sort of paranoid.
BLUESTOCKING HOUSEWIFE SLASHED BY MADWOMAN!
But she was aware of the sirens now too. All those sirens, lots of them, baying like hounds, like a pack of hounds gathering down on First. Oh God, this really was the real thing. This was really serious.
SICK DAD’S DAUGHTER EVISCERATED IN KILL SPREE!
“Here it is!”
She held the token up, pinched in her fingers. The woman snatched it.
“Thank you.”
She kept standing there. Glaring up at her. Mrs. Tilden hardly dared to look her in the face, but she sensed her youth. Her young, hot misery and desperation.
“I really appreciate it,” the woman said.
“All right.”
“I’m really a very nice person.”
“I—I’m sure you are.”
“Maybe I better take a five too.”
“For God’s sake, take everything.”
“I haven’t eaten.”
“Here!” She snatched a fistful of bills out of her wallet. Held it out to her.
“Just a five,” said the snake woman. “I’m nice. I mean it.”
“Please,” said Mrs. Tilden. “Don’t hurt me. I have children. Just take whatever you want.”
The woman pulled a bill out of Mrs. Tilden’s clenched fist. She was still holding up the letter opener. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it. Really. I’m nice.”
Mrs. Tilden nodded, trying not to steal glances at the blade, trying to look nowhere.
At long last, the woman lowered the opener. She began backing away. Staring at Mrs. Tilden, but backing away. Mrs. Tilden cringed by the balustrade. Didn’t move a muscle. She was excruciatingly aware of how quickly the woman could change her mind. Change her direction and leap at her, hurt her. On First, the sirens kept gathering, siren upon howling siren, growing louder, more numerous. But not one car came this way. Not one other person appeared on the sun-dappled block.
Mrs. Tilden huddled into herself as the woman sidled off. And the woman still eyed her. Still studied her crazily with those creepy, baleful, Nature Special eyes. And then, she stopped.
Oh please, Mrs. Tilden thought. For God’s sake, please.
The snake woman leaned toward her. Whispered to her in a voice like a sizzling fry pan. “I wish I were you, lady. Watching me go.” Mrs. Tilden stared. The snake woman’s eyes filled with tears. She turned away, her shoulders hunched. “But I’m myself,” she muttered dismally, “whoever I am.”
And with that, she shuffled off toward Second.
Avis was thinking about going outside when Perkins came through the window. She hadn’t really been outside all day. She had been stuck in this stupid apartment all day, ever since she got back from Perkins’s. She had been reading—a 750-page manuscript called A World of Women. Which “might be something for Julia Roberts,” according to the cover letter from Victory Pictures. The cover letter also said she had to finish the book and get her report in by tomorrow. Because Julia was waiting with baited breath to find out what Avis thought, har har har.
Anyway, the novel was garbage; she could hardly follow it closely enough to write the synopsis. And, of course, the baby had to be nursed and changed and played with and kept out of trouble. So by three-thirty, when Perkins came up the fire escape, Avis was only on page 400. The brilliant blue of the autumn sky was starting to fade to violet. She could see this happening above the brownstone cornices and it filled her with a growing sense of claustrophobic despair. She would never get out, she thought. The novel’s prose had turned her mind to tar—it would take forever to finish it. And the baby was sitting under the folding card table, making a funny noise by putting his hand in his mouth, so she had to stop and smile at him every two minutes to let him know what a wonderful thing he was doing. And the sky was growing darker by the minute and soon the crowds would gather for the parade and there would be no point to going out anyway and she’d be stuck here for the rest of the night and she hated her life and she glanced up from manuscript to baby to window for maybe the seventieth time—and there was Perkins. Arms spread, face pressed to the pane. Well, her little heart just went pittypat.
She waved him in. Perkins ducked down under the sill and jumped to the floor.
“Pa!” said the baby. And he stuck his arm into his mouth up to about the elbow and added, “Arrragherageraggah …”
“Whoa, nice going,” said Perkins, smiling at him. And then his smile vanished. “I need you, Ave.”
“Jesus.” She stood up. Her head was so heavy with A World of Women it felt like a cinderblock. She stared at the poet through her huge, square glasses. “You’re all pale, Ollie. Have you eaten?”
“No, I don’t need to eat.”
“I have cold chicken in the refrigerator.”
“Avis! My baby brother is wanted for a murder he didn’t commit.”
“What? Holy shit! Let me get the chicken.”
“Avis …”
But she hurried into the kitchenette: getting him fed would help her to think. She bent into the refrigerator while he, trying to follow her, was waylaid by the baby. The baby had crawled out to him from under the card table. Perkins gave a quick flinch of annoyance, but the kid loved him; he couldn’t just walk away. When Avis brought her aluminum foil-wrapped plate to the counter, Perkins was there with the baby on his hip. The baby pulled at his hair, crying “Pa! Pa! Pa!” and farting happily.
“He’s hiding in my apartment,” Perkins said. “The cops’ll kill him if they hunt him down.”
“Oh my God,” Avis said. “Dark meat or white?”
“I gotta go out. I gotta see if I can find his girlfriend.”
“Give me the baby. Here, take this.”
She traded a drumstick for the baby. The baby complained as Perkins handed him over.
“Zach’s not feeling well. He’s gonna catch some z’s,” Perkins said. He wagged the drumstick at her. “Just do me a favor, okay? If the cops come, call down there. Two rings then hang up, then call back, that’s our signal. And watch what you say on the phone.”
“Okay, okay,” she said quickly. She blinked across the counter at the poet’s haggard, angular face. She felt worried and excited and warm for him all at once. Already, racing through her mind, were half-acknowledged, jumbled scenarios. Handsome Zachary. Persecuted. Brave. Or frightened. Loved her, his head buried in her breast, and she was prettier. She was Jessica Lange in Country. Or Oliver loved her for helping Zach … Avis was eager to be more involved in this. “I’ll go down when he wakes up,” she said. “I’ll check on him.”
“I should be back by then,” said Perkins. He tore into the drumstick as he headed back toward the window. “Thanks, Avis.”
“The baby goes down for an hour at six,” Avis called after him, working it out. “I’ll come down then and bring you guys some food.”
“Yeah, forget the food.” Perkins had one leg out the window. “He’s got the quickstep.”
“Ooh, poor guy,” said Avis. (Zach was lying in bed, gazing up at her weakly. She was hovering over him wearing a nurse’s cap.) “I’ll bring chicken soup with rice then. That’s good for that.”
“Avis …” said Perkins. But then he only shook his head. He blew her a kiss and was gone, the fire escape rattling behind him.
Avis stood alone, watching after him, her baby wriggling in her arms.
The bus pulled away from the curb. The police sirens whooped and bayed. The sound seemed to spread out over the low-flung avenues. Dart up over the sidestreets. Echo down off the blue sky. The hounds seemed to be everywhere.
Then the bus gave a roar of its own. It rum
bled downtown, smaller cars clinging to its wheels. Nancy looked out the rear window at the traffic scuttling along behind. She saw the shopping center falling away. And not a police car in sight. The sirens grew fainter under the bus’s grumble. They grew fainter still as the bus gunned and picked up speed. Nancy faced front in her seat, the corner seat against the rear wall. She leaned her head back, her crown to the window. She gazed up dully at the emergency exit in the bus’s ceiling. “Push up to open for ventilation.”
I’m the one who’s going to kill him, she thought blankly. She closed her eyes. I’m going to kill someone. I’m a Murderer! Murderer! And you said you were nice!
But her inner voices were growing dim too, as if the bus were also leaving them behind. After a few moments, she became aware that her mouth was open. She ought to close it, she thought. But she just sat there, head back, eyes shut. Not even hearing the engine anymore. Not knowing what to think about or daydream. She felt herself floating in a strange, pulpy element: the blackness of not knowing who she was—or really, not knowing what she was like. Because she was still sure she was Nancy Kincaid. She just didn’t know what that meant anymore. She didn’t know what Nancy Kincaid was going to do from one moment to the next. What decisions she would make. What cruelties she was capable of, what kindnesses. How were you supposed to know that? How were you supposed to find it out?
I’m twenty-two years old. I work for Fernando Woodlawn. I live on Gramercy Park with my mom and dad …
The words dropped away, down into this pliant interior mass. Down and down and down, as if into a well, and she waited for the splash and it didn’t come. And she slumped now in the corner, her mouth hanging open. The bus jostled her gently. So sorry, she thought. She felt the soft mother breasts against her. White sheets. Soft mother lips against her cheek and the smell of dishwater. I was a teenager and I was angry and crazy and I’m so sorry. The reassuring weight of her mother sitting on the end of her bed as she lay with the covers pulled up to her chin. The reassuring rhythm of her mother’s voice, like lapping water. Storybook in her frail, red hands. White cover, black letters. The Animal Hour. And Other Poems.
What if we went off together into the hills
and on into the hills beyond the hills where the
leaves are changing?
Where the first remark of gray among the branches
is insinuated in me now like something one
learned before youth
and has, in consciousness, forgotten.
Her mother’s voice like water. Water bearing Nancy away. Carrying her away in waves from the night bedroom. From the shadowed, half-visible hall threatening beyond the door. From the half-open closet and the monster’s eye pressed to the crack. From the mutterings in the street and all the chill emptiness around her since her father fell in … fell in … Wait—there he was. Oh, I was so angry about it. She could see him falling. Down into the dark well where the words had gone. Daddy … Daddy fell in … Tumbling backward, his arms pinwheeling, his mouth agape …
Daddy!
Nancy started in her seat, her eyes coming open. She lifted her head and looked around her. Licked her dry lips. Tasted her dry mouth. A woman in a nearby seat cocked an apathetic eye at her. The other passengers—there weren’t many—huddled over themselves, backs to her. Without thinking, she glanced at her wrist. No watch. Right. She remembered. They had taken her watch.
What you’re experiencing is an episode of schizophrenia.
She glanced out the window. A suggestion of dark coming on over a low, drab, brick landscape. It got dark early this time of year, but still … She did not know how much time she had left.
Eight o’clock. Eight o’clock.
The bus pulled to the curb. The doors gave a whoosh and opened. Nancy got up quickly. Grabbed seat backs, went hand over hand up the aisle to the rear door. She pushed out, tumbled down the steps to the sidewalk. With a blast of exhaust behind her, the bus pulled away, left her alone.
She was standing on the shore of a desolate territory. Low buildings. Curtained windows. The first slate-blue of evening in the air. A few cars moving back and forth but no other pedestrians. Just a cluster of unshaven men at a tavern a few doors down. Black and white men, five of them, all smashed beyond comprehension. Gesturing at one another with great conviction. “Anudder ting: fauben at bish in sunight. Ha!” one of them said.
They turned when Nancy got off the bus: She was something to look at anyway.
“Hey, mama,” one muttered.
She walked by them quickly, her back primly erect. When she figured she was safely past, she stole a quick look at them. They had gone back to their conversation, but a ghostly figure was watching her now from inside the tavern. A disheveled specter under the neon sign for Coors. A woman. Just as seedy as the men. Clothes torn, hair in tangles. Nancy met her eyes a moment. And then her guts plummeted as she realized it was …
Murderer!
Herself. Reflected in the dark tavern window.
Oh boy. Terrific.
It brought the whole muddle crashing back on top of her. It’s me! I’m the one. Look at me. I’m the one who’s going to kill him! Jesus, just look! She was past the tavern now. Facing forward again. Walking on. But that spectral stare, that glassy, baleful stare from the window … It walked with her, beside her. I’m you. I’m who you are. She was beginning to take a sort of grim satisfaction in torturing herself with it. Remembering the sweet doctor staring at her as the pain flooded up from his crushed testicles. The terror in Nurse Anderson’s eyes as she yanked her head back. And then that poor rich lady—whom she had mugged, for Christ’s sake. Mugged! That’s what you’re like, Nancy, she told herself, hurting herself, glad to hurt herself. That’s the sort of thing you do. You’re bad, you’re not nice, you’re bad. Bad Nancy.
The next thing she knew, she was heading downstairs. Moving down through the dank concrete of a subway entrance. She hadn’t even been thinking about it. It had just taken care of itself. Now, she was slipping her stolen bill out of the waistband of her skirt. Out from under her famous letter opener. She was buying a token, pushing through the turnstile. And, she realized, she knew exactly where she was headed. She had known all along, in fact: that was part of the hurt, part of the misery of it. She knew where she was going and she hated it but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t make it stop.
I wanted to be a dancer! she thought, waiting for the train. But she had taken the job with Fernando. She had stopped looking for an apartment, even though she had wanted a place of her own. Her own actions had seemed to just happen to her. She had not seemed to do them herself. She made fatalistic little wisecracks and she complained to her friends—and then she went ahead and did exactly what she didn’t want to do. She was not in control of things.
I wanted to be a dancer.
But somehow—she could not even remember how—she had turned into this instead.
Now, she was on the subway. Sitting in her corner seat, pressed into the corner, almost cowering there. There were nine or ten other passengers in the car, and they were all sort of ignoring her and keeping tabs on her at the same time. Just another bum on the train. Nothing dangerous, but peep over there now and then to make sure. She peeped back at them sullenly. The subway was getting closer to her destination. With every stop, she felt heavier inside. Sicker with herself. And the others just sat there. Reading newspapers. Stroking their children’s hair. Why didn’t they stop her? Why didn’t anyone stop her?
City Hall. Her heart was beating harder now. Her tongue kept going to her lips to keep them wet. She couldn’t be doing this again. It was crazy. She couldn’t. But when the doors slid open—sure enough, she got out of her seat. She joined the small crowd exiting. She stepped out onto the platform. She couldn’t make it stop.
A thin line of passengers were on the platform, waiting for the train, pressing in on it as the doors opened. She slipped through the line to the center of the station. She scouted out the long cavern
. Scoped its pillars, behind its stairways. Two black men lounged on a bench. A woman hugged her briefcase to her chest, gazing off dreamily. No cops. Not a cop in sight. She started moving. Casually as she could. Sidling away from the exiting crowd toward the far end of the platform.
Nobody watched her go. She swallowed hard, turned and walked faster. She saw the station wall ahead. The white sign with its red lettering. “All persons forbidden to enter or cross tracks.” And there the concrete ended and the blackness began. Blackness like the sludge inside her, and she thought: Not again. I can’t. Really.
And then she had reached the end of the platform, the metal ladder there. She looked back once. Saw a beatnik-type near the stairs, watching her with wan interest. She ignored him. Took hold of the ladder. And lowered herself down onto the tracks.
She did not look back again. She walked quickly into the tunnel, hanging between the track and the wall. She tried to keep her eyes straight ahead, her mind straight ahead, like a laser, narrowed to a beam. But boy oh boy was her heart going now. Her pulse at her temple was like one of those small steel hammers: In case of emergency, take hammer and break glass. Her senses were heightened. Every aspect of the tunnel grew sharper as she went in deeper. The underground pillars loomed out of the murk. Bare bulbs burned like eyes amid pipes and wiring. The click of switches in the distance sounded like rifle shots. And every time she thought she had the mind-laser going, something scuttled suddenly: a rat? Something worse? Her eyes flicked swiftly over the four tracks as they fanned off into nothingness. Her breath trembled. But she kept walking. Fast. Straight ahead.
And there it was. A few yards away. That spot where the tunnel narrowed. Oh, she thought. Oh no. But she kept walking. And then the walls were rising up around her. The high corridor of snaking graffiti. Coiling letters. Tendrils of sprayed paint. She could hardly breathe at all now with her heart in her throat this way. She was in the ghost station again. The platform took shape, and the shapes of the abandoned bags and wiring on it. The smoky shapes of the graffiti on the wall above. And the shape, the silhouette, under the platform’s ledge, of the little arched alcoves. The place where she had hidden her purse. Her gun.