Mira Corpora (14 page)

They must have entered the bus station. I fight my way
through the surging crowds and scurry past the newsstand, the flower cart, the shoe shine attendants. I frantically scan the rows of ticket windows. I haven't formulated the details of this mission, but it doesn't matter. Gert-Jan and the infant are nowhere in sight. I scan the dingy atrium once more, then sprint for the escalator. I hurdle the steps three at a time toward the departure gates.

I'm afraid I'll race into the waiting area only to witness the bus pulling away with Gert-Jan staring out the rear window with an expression of mystery and malevolence. But instead none of the scheduled buses have even arrived. Jaundiced lights buzz overhead. The edges of a color-coded transit map peel off the wall. The few waiting passengers keep to themselves. An elderly man with thick glasses secretively tugs chewed gum from beneath the wooden benches. As I stroll down the passageway, I remove my knife and release the blade.

At the far end of the corridor, Gert-Jan stands cradling the infant. I wipe my palms on my jeans and clench the knife handle tighter. There's nobody else for fifty yards. Gert-Jan gently rocks the blue blanket and sticks out his tongue at the newborn. He's so absorbed that he doesn't register my approach. I move several steps closer, but am halted by soft blissful coos. The baby affectionately dotes on Gert-Jan. A minuscule arm reaches from the swaddling to pat his nose like a comrade. The sight sends a spiraling chill through my entire body. Whatever my plan was, it falls apart right here.

I descend the escalator with heavy steps. I toss the knife into the nearest trash can. Overhead there's the familiar rumble of a bus entering the station, breaks squealing like a high-pitched siren. I picture Gert-Jan boarding the vehicle with his new pet and surveying the landscape as they're conveyed beyond the borders of the city. I should be relieved, but instead it feels like I've been abandoned.

There's a bar tucked away in the far corner of the station
and I find myself at the furrowed wooden counter. A shot of something sits in front of me. The bartender pays me no mind, mechanically cleaning glasses with a black towel. I see a small arm sticking out of my bag and unpack the doll that I had intended to give Ruth's baby. Despite its glass eyes and fixed antique expression, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the real infant. The smooth skin has an almost translucent sheen. The crinkled hands extend as if imploring to be held.

I lift the baby by one of its miniscule arms. It detaches with a soft snap that sounds like a sigh. The other limbs come apart just as easily. Several sharp turns are all that's required to unscrew the head. It's as if the poor creature was made to be dismembered.

I cradle the torso in my arms. It feels unspeakably vulnerable. I place my lips against the empty space where there used to be a neck. My voice whispers consoling words into that hole. There's only the faintest echo.

When I reach the end of my history, I stop before etching the final phrase. I switch on the lamp on my desk and focus my eyes on the circle of light. I inhale a series of deep breaths until my pulse thrums in an unwavering rhythm and my hands remain perfectly steady. I'm about to perform a delicate operation.

I take the notebooks I've completed and methodically remove the pages. I slide each one beneath the aureole of light. Beginning with the last word I've written, I gently massage the letters away using a white eraser. I blow the rubbery residue from the paper and work my way backward, word by word, until I arrive at the beginning.

After the first phrase has been studiously scrubbed from the first page, I take a moment to admire my handiwork. The paper glistens with an otherworldly sheen. The ghostly traces that cling to these pages are my true story. I conclude my tale by inscribing the final line with the now sharpened point of my eraser.

(18 years old)

 

 

“The hunting dogs are playing in the courtyard, but the hare will not escape them, no matter how fast it may be flying already through the woods.”

–Franz Kafka

LET'S PRETEND THE LANDSCAPE OUTSIDE THE BUS isn't familiar. At least for a little while longer. Through the dusky tinted glass, I imagine the scenery is nothing more than a filmstrip of anonymous images. I pay no attention to the unevenly paved turnpike, the flower-choked median, the vista of rolling hills, the rows of religious billboards. The names of the approaching towns are just another collection of signs. I don't want to know how fast I'm closing in on my final destination.

As the scenery reels past the window, I focus on my reflection floating out over the yellow fields. I feel like a piece of thread being pulled forward by some unseen hand. The other passengers also seem lost in their own private dramas. Murmurs of distracted conversation. Half-remembered jokes and stunted anecdotes. People talking with their hands, carving incomprehensible patterns in the air. My seatmate switches on the radio and the sounds of a call-in show leak from his headphones. The shouted arguments are almost lulling. I lean my head against the windowpane, letting my skull vibrate along the same jittery frequency as the motor.

The cause of this trip is a letter. I had started to create a new life for myself when it tracked me down via registered mail. It arrived in a crimson envelope addressed in oversized letters to Jeff Jackson. Too intriguing not to open. On official legal stationery, a lawyer informed me that my mother was dead. He offered his sincere condolences concerning her sad and untimely passing. The letter stated I was her sole heir and included a bus
ticket so I could settle the estate in person. The lawyer emphasized the estate was significant. After several days convincing myself I was more interested in the money than curious about my mother, I boarded this Greyhound heading south.

When I step off the bus, the lawyer is there to meet me at the station. He insists on being referred to as the “Estate Disbursement Attorney,” a term that so perfectly encapsulates both his physical and spiritual dimensions that it might as well be his given name. He drives us straight to the house where my mother had been staying. As he navigates a series of bumpy back roads, I'm relieved not to recognize anything. But the rows of modest houses and neat lawns are soon replaced by stands of pines, rangy shrubs, empty lots. The sky is steadily darkened by green clouds of leaves. We're heading into the woods. As we travel under the crosshatched canopy of trees, there's a shudder of terrible recognition. When we turn off the asphalt lane and pull into the winding dirt driveway, there's no longer any doubt: This is the house.

It's a modest cottage with quaint wooden shutters. The place has been spruced up since we lived here. The flowerboxes burst with geraniums. A pile of stones have been used to start blocking out a garden. Someone has applied a fresh coat of yellow paint to the walls and smartly etched the trim. But none of that camouflages the fact this is the first house my mother and I shared together. My first so-called home after an endless series of orphanages and foster nightmares. Our first attempt at being a so-called family. We lasted here about nine months, I think. A small eternity by the calendar of our relationship.

The Estate Disbursement Attorney unlocks the front door to let us inside. The sharp chemical smell is new, but the layout of the rooms and even the severe angle of the afternoon light in certain rooms are exactly how I remember them. These were the sites of our first tentative encounters and occasionally successful attempts to bond with one another. When I was sick, she
stayed up one night holding compresses against my fluttering chest. She taught me to read, patiently sounding out syllables and letter combinations. I recited the words back to her, imitating her own halting pauses.

But this isn't a lost Eden or anything. It was also the place where my mother first exhibited her savage temper. At any moment, the house could transform itself into a showcase for her binge drinking and sudden blackouts. She devised scarring punishments with oven burners, space heaters, and curling irons. But it was painful when she abandoned me, just the same.

As I survey the sparsely furnished rooms, unanswered questions about the house begin to nag at me. My mother had always been nomadic, ceaselessly shifting from one part of the country to another, rarely staying anywhere long enough for dust to collect behind the refrigerator. So I can't figure why she bothered to return here. Perhaps it was a simple decision of convenience, something close to coincidence.

There's a strained silence in the room. The Estate Disbursement Attorney clears his throat. In a hesitant voice that sounds like crumpling receipts, he says: “If you're curious, I'd be happy to tell you how your mother passed on.”

His statement is so far outside my realm of caring that it takes me a moment to realize he's expecting a response. “Of course,” I say. “How did she die?”

“Cancer.”

The significance of the word is slow to register. This means she knew the end was coming. Her return to the house must have been purposeful. A gesture of sorts.

“Do you know why she rented this place?” I ask.

“Rent?” The Estate Disbursement Attorney shakes his head vigorously. “She bought the house. There's not even a mortgage. She owns it outright.”

This news leaves me dumbstruck. It's difficult to process the fact that she would own any home. That she chose to buy this
particular house is beyond the pale. Is it possible she nurtured a sentimental attachment to the time we spent here together?

The Estate Disbursement Attorney leads me into the kitchen. Atop a cheap formica table, my mother's ashes sit in a bright silver urn. After unpacking a stack of collated papers from his briefcase, the Attorney shares some preliminary details about my mother's estate. “There was no funeral,” he says. “Instead, she's presented her heir with a formal series of last wishes.” He picks up the first page of her instructions, scrupulously wipes his glasses on his tie, and begins to read.

First: She wants me to dispose of her ashes in a ceremonial fashion. I'm to follow the local river up into the mountains and sprinkle her remains at its source during sunset.

Second: She wants me to read a specific eulogy while I scatter the ashes. A notebook is provided that contains a lengthy existential reflection. She claims this ritual will be a healing ceremony to provide closure with the past. To break the circle, or start a new one, or some other predictable metaphor.

Third: She wants me to have this house. The deed to the property will be turned over to me, provided I carry out her last wishes and sign a legally binding document stating I'll make this my sole residence. If I agree, she expects me to move in immediately. There's not even the smallest hint about the place's possible significance to either of us.

“You either live here or you lose it,” the Attorney emphasizes. “If you don't sign the form, the house goes to another relative.”

My mother's will concludes with several brief lines about love. At first, I assume these are included out of deference to the conventional emotions that mothers are reported to feel for their offspring. But the awkward and halting phrases have a disturbingly genuine ring. They aren't much, but they're more than she uttered while she was alive.

The Estate Disbursement Attorney produces a copy of the residency document that I have to sign if I want to keep the
house. I push it aside. It's too overwhelming to contemplate. “You've got a week to decide,” he says. “I'll leave the form with you.” Before he departs, the Attorney also hands over an official copy of the will, the notebook with the eulogy, and the silver urn full of ashes.

Once I'm alone, I wander through the house in a daze. I try to examine the place with an objective eye. Maybe it isn't so bad. The construction appears sturdy, the rooms are spacious, the southern windows offer scenic views of the surrounding woods. Even the weathered pieces of leftover furniture—the queen-size bed, the leather recliner, the expansive sectional sofa—seem comfortable. After all these years, it would be nice to have a place to call my own.

The walls are bare and the rooms scrubbed of personality, but a few of my mother's possessions have been salvaged. As soon as I pry open the cupboards and closets, they start to spill out. In the master bedroom, piles of neatly folded sweaters and faded dresses. In the foyer, a stash of yellowed paperback romances. Best of all, under the bathroom sink, rows of oversized plastic jugs filled with gin and vodka. An unsurprising stockpile.

I investigate the guest bedroom. In the far corner of the closet, a series of cardboard boxes have been stacked. I'm startled to find them brimming with bits of my childhood. I place each piece on the floor, like an archeologist separating the various strata and undertaking a careful inventory. There are a few scraps of clothes. Ancient T-shirts, mostly. A series of drawings hail from different eras. Many are pure splotches of exploded color. A few resemble splayed and dissected bodies.

The last box dates from the time just before I ran away. A tattered school text about the civil war, a mangy baseball cap, and one of my treasured cassettes. I used to make mixes for myself by taping favorite songs off the radio. The black ink has paled, but I can still decipher the song titles scratched across the plastic
case. I thought I'd brought all these tapes with me, but I must have orphaned this one.

I uncover a cache of equipment in the hall closet. From an ungainly heap of clocks and lamps, I extract an old boom box. At first, I hesitate to set up the machine and insert the cassette. My finger presses play with a mixture of dread and anticipation. I watch the black tape wind a precarious path through the spools. The music has a slightly warped warble, but the sound comes through clear enough.

I recognize the songs immediately, but something about them has changed. The tunes have fermented and soured. Instead of remembering the solace they brought me, the music hurtles me back to the desperate time when I taped them. It's as if the sadness of that younger person has leeched into the very fibers of the magnetic tape. I start to feel lightheaded. It's hard to breathe. By the third song, I've fled the room.

After a few minutes pacing the garden, I regain my composure. I scoop up a stone from the nearby pile and return to the house. I unplug the boom box and tip it gently onto its side. Then I attack the machine. I strike it with the stone over and over, harder each time, thrashing it with a reckless fury. I smack it until the plastic cracks, the interlocking gears fracture, the metal innards break apart. I smash each of the pieces into still smaller parts. Plastic splinters spray everywhere until the machine is dispersed to a fine scattering of faceless trash. Until it's finally something I can bear to look at.

I've earned a bottle of vodka. I slump onto the living room floor and take a serious swallow. The burn could never be strong enough. I ease onto the living room floor opposite the urn, as if we're engaged in a staring contest. I open my mother's notebook and flip through the pages of her elegy, hoping they'll offer some insights. But there's only empty platitudes about rituals neither of us understand.

I keep drinking to dilute the floodtide of memories about the
times my mother did X, Y, and Z. Soon I'm so blind drunk that I can barely stand. The walls feel like they're contracting around me. The sunlight filtering through the windows shrinks until it's nothing more than a spotlight at the center of the room. This house is my mother's trump. Her way of staking a claim on me. Exerting an influence in death that she couldn't in life. I'm a child again, buried alive in the same hole. I've boomeranged back to the beginning.

There has to be some way to break her spell. I drink my way through the upper part of a bottle of gin, then careen into the kitchen carrying her ashes. With a dramatic flourish, I dump the silver urn at the bottom of the trash can. I throw back my head in defiant laughter, but the sound is a pinched whinny trapped in my throat. Maybe an hour later, I find myself digging the urn out of the trash. I return the canister to its position opposite me.

A few glasses later, I stumble out of the house with the urn tucked under my arm. I head into the woods. It's a relief to be outside and there's a lightness to my unsteady steps. But as I travel further, an eerie familiarity settles over the sights. The feathery quality of light filtering through the branches. The purposeful arrangement of gigantic boulders under a lightening-struck oak. The trickling water patterns of the creek at low rainfall. In a lonely place in the forest, I begin to dig a hole.

I scoop out the raw reddish earth using my hands. Dirt smears my forearms. Fibrous roots collect under my nails. I place the urn in the rutted ground and cover it with mud, twigs, and pine straw. I stamp down the grave until it blends seamlessly with its surroundings. Once I figure that I've camouflaged the spot well enough that I'll never be able to find it again, I weave my way back to the house. I crack open a fresh celebratory jug of something or other.

It's probably morning when I find myself weeping in the middle in the woods. I'm bent over, hands clutching my knees, sobbing hot tears. A beard of snot covers my chin. I stagger
through the forest, my feet wandering about somewhere beneath me. Every few steps, I tumble to the ground. Finally it's easier to crawl on my hands and knees. I'm convinced I'll never be able to locate my mother's ashes, but the awkward mound of earth is easily spotted even by my bleary eyes. I plunge my hands into the hole and with surprisingly little effort pull out the silver urn.

Back at the house, I puke in the kitchen sink. I heave up watery mouthfuls of undigested alcohol and sticky plumes of black-green mucus. My throat is red and blistery. I collapse on the floor and lie half-conscious next to the dirt-encrusted urn. The seal has broken and some ashes spill out. They're nothing more than sooty snowflakes. Maybe I've been uncharitable toward my mother, incapable of seeing the house as an olive branch from beyond the grave, a gesture of forgiveness, a gift. I try to absorb some vibration through the urn's metal casing. I keep turning it over in my hands, hoping the right angle will release a signal from my mother, the way sea shells contain the sound of the ocean. Soon the exterior of the canister is covered with fingerprints, its shiny surface blotted out by my own greasy whorls.