YOUR OWN DARKNESS

Remember when he used to come home drunk and they’d start fighting?

Yes, she nods. Of course she remembers.

And you and I would hide in the closet. Yes, she nods again. And I’d be afraid of the dark and you’d tell me to close my eyes because then it was my own darkness and I could fill it with whatever I wanted.

Did I? she asks.

Yeah, you did. Charley’s skin is pale, when he tosses back a lock of dirty blond hair she can see the little boy in his face.

Maddy is still trying to recover the scene almost twenty years ago: the closet under the stairs, clothes hanging there, smell of heavy wool coats and rubber boots--it would be winter--she and Charley huddled in the corner, Charley sniffling, his shoulders shaking, and she telling him, yes, if he said so she must have told him that about his own darkness. Yes, she says, I remember. Wishing she could.

And the way they used to yell? The way it used to sound there in the closet? Muffled, as if they were the ones hidden away somewhere.

She nods. Was there a smell of moth balls or is she inventing that? Camphor, medicinal, a comforting smell. But the yelling stopped on a strip of wet two-lane twisting above the Hudson. Madeleine, she remembers Sister Cecilia’s whisper, I’ve got some very bad news for you. Touching her shoulder: an avenging God reaching down from Heaven. In the sunlight of this pleasant southern town Maddy’s heart tightens. Because certainly there were times in the closet when she wished for exactly that.

Warm air swims around them, tawny stone is soft as cork, a green street dips into a hollow, then rises, loping toward the countryside. In the little makeshift museum they’ve just left there was a collection of hats from the 30’s and 40’s donated by a local woman now living in a nursing home. A typed card in the glass case described the donor as having been spoiled by both her father and her husband. Those prim white, pink and blue shapes arranged under glass connect in Maddy’s memory with the awful day when Sister Cecilia bent over her desk, smelling of soap, and whispered to her. Maddy touches Charley’s arm. He’s frailer-looking out here in the sunlight, he blinks like someone just emerging from the dark spaces of that house on Farwell Street.

I guess I was never destined to stay in the closet, he says and she smiles politely, her heart suddenly filled with fearful love for her brother. Things are going to be better now, she tells herself, he’ll be happy again. Though has he ever really been happy? And how can she know he’ll be safe in the future?

We’ve got to see the graveyard, he says. The smell of Sister Cecilia’s soap lingers and once more Maddy’s heart clenches. But Charley’s talking about a graveyard full of strangers, another historical exhibit in this town where every few feet a marker memorializes some dead worthy: a supreme court justice, a governor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Like political posters, Charley says, as if they’re competing with each other even after death. It’s the old Charley, ironic, irreverent, but though the words are sharp his gray eyes are tired. The eyes of a drowned man, she thinks. Resuscitated except for the eyes.

An arrogant bunch of dead people, Charley says. And Maddy smiles at that too. She remembers the old guy in the museum who reverently showed them the civil war minie balls, the very ordinary church organ and the exhibit of cartoons on the upper floor. Pointing to a photo of one of the town’s historic houses, he kept telling them he was the last child born there. Turning himself into a historic exhibit, joining the privileged dead.

Charley runs his hand along the top of a brick wall that encloses a family plot. Interesting notion, he says. To keep out the riffraff, I suppose. He leans against the wall as if for support. A scratch triggers an orange flame. When he exhales pale smoke drifts over the stone markers and Maddy savors the sting of its smell: her brother is alive, they’re both alive, they’ve survived. The willows sigh in the gentle breeze. Beyond the iron fence the purple wash of redbuds moves languidly against the spring greens.

I suppose Captain Kirk is managing fairly well by himself? Charley asks.

Maddy feels a slight tremor at the reference to her husband but she covers it with a theatrical frown. Richard doesn’t look at all like William Shatner and certainly he wouldn’t ever go around in the kind of tight pants they wore on the Enterprise but Charley’s name for him fits, there’s a kind of passionate reasonableness to Richard. Maddy, he’ll say, I think we have to go back a step or two before we can even begin to ask that kind of question. He’ll get a faraway look in his eyes, sharply focused and distant at the same time, exactly like Captain Kirk peering into the blackness of space. When she first met him she found that incredibly sexy: she had to keep herself from touching his forearm where the blue sleeve was rolled up and the down that covered his skin seemed like the velvety fringe of reason.

Richard is up to his ears in work, she says, disturbed by the memory.

Her brother shakes his head. Richard’s ears would be naked if they weren’t covered with work. She waits for more but Charley doesn’t say anything. She knows he thinks Richard is dull and she’s used to defending him, but now Charley just stops, takes a deep drag on his cigarette and looks out over the graveyard. Like an old man, she thinks.

And you, Charley says, you can take time off from your important work to come see little brother?

She shrugs self-consciously. Charley was already out of danger when his friend called her: I’m worried about him, he said. He needs something. It was no longer an emergency to come down here but she insisted on doing it, knowing someone else could crunch her numbers for a while at the Census Bureau.

Her brother has bent over to draw on his cigarette as if it’s taking all his strength. He probably shouldn’t be smoking at all but how can she ask him not to? She looks at him and their eyes avoid meeting. Neither says anything but each understands what they’re both thinking about.

At last he says, Hey, don’t worry, I’m not planning to try it again in the near future. She listens to the leaves rustle. Not on a beautiful day like this anyway, he says, and Maddy tries to content herself with this qualified assurance.

Not just beautiful, she says; it’s gorgeous. And it’s true: dogwoods and redbud are everywhere; wisteria is growing wild in the countryside, the purple flowers spill down groves of pines like melting wax or scented waterfalls. It’s killing the trees, Charley told her, but what a way to go.

When he moves out of the shade now he looks gaunt, his skin is the color of paper. It’s been only days since his overdose and though he’s recovered physically the despair that drove him to it has left its mark. It was just a silly boy-boy thing, he told Maddy, lying on his sofa and looking toward the white ceiling. It’s something more, she wanted to tell him, that turns a silly boy-boy thing into this. She worries about what will happen to him when she goes back to D.C. How can she be sure her coming down here has helped him at all, that she’s brought him anything he can keep when she leaves? She remembers that closet on Farwell Street where she could hold him in her arms and protect him. Protect both of them.

Maddy, he says, am I going to have to cheer you up?

Sorry, she answers. I guess I drifted off.

You seem to have drifted into one of the circles of Hell. He’s looking at her closely. Is everything O.K. between you and Richard?

She can hear the silence before her answer: Oh, sure. What do you mean?

I don’t know. Is anything different?

She takes a willow branch between her fingers and traces the curve of one of its long smooth leaves. At last she says, Richard is talking about our having a baby.

Charley squints in the sun. She can see he’s determined not to say the first thing that comes into his head. He looks serious, older. Do you want one? he asks after a while, his voice empty of irony.

I don’t know. She lets go of the willow leaf.

That doesn’t sound like a ringing yes to me. Charley drags on his cigarette thoughtfully. Sounds like Captain Kirk is hotter for this idea than you are. He strokes his chin. Did the captain see something out there in deep space that scared him?

Charley! I’m serious.

He waits a moment before answering. Well, so am I, Maddy. He kicks idly at the grass. Your womb can’t provide immortality for him. He should know that.

For long seconds she listens to the whispering leaves around them, moved by a confused emotion: she wants to hug Charley but she feels a sense of betrayal. After all, this is a matter between Richard and her. Charley, she says, her voice consciously calm, it’s a reasonable enough idea. We’ve been married almost five years. It doesn’t seem anything out of the ordinary. It’s something we have to discuss.

Charley looks at her steadily. The captain can be pretty insistent when he gets an idea in his head, I’ll bet.

She looks at the dark slabs marking the graves of men, women and children. The truth is, she tells Charley, he wants a child pretty desperately.

Desperately? That’s strong language.

I guess I didn’t mean it that way, I didn’t mean desperate in that way. But she did, of course, she realizes, having said it, she did mean it that way. She takes a step or two over the worn flagstones. There was a time when she couldn’t have imagined a greater gift than the reasonableness and order Richard brought to her life. But lately she’s come to think that his rationality is a one-stringed instrument, she’s heard something disturbing in its hushed music. Richard is frightened, she knows. Lying in bed after they’ve made love, his hands behind his head, his lean body moving efficiently to his breathing, she can feel it, smell it: he needs something more. In the last few months, a look she’s never seen before has come into his eyes. This young punk fresh out of Georgetown, he’ll tell her, trying to make a joke out of it, he comes into the office and Stevens and the rest of them are treating him like a rock star. I guess they think I’m supposed to be part of his entourage. He laughs through his nose but in the silence afterward Maddy can imagine him replaying the scene over and over, seeing himself from the outside, an onlooker destined to play that role from now on. These days Richard has taken to pointing out couples with small children. When Maddy sees the look that comes into his eyes then she knows that, however calm his voice, desperately is the only word she would use to describe the way he feels about it.

And you’re not ready? Charley suggests.

The willows hiss. I didn’t say that.

No, you didn’t say that. The dead lie behind walls of old dark brick set among the bright spring colors.

Maddy and Charley walk along aimlessly in the graveyard, like a couple on their way to a party they don’t expect to enjoy. Well, Charley says, I guess boy-girl can get as crazy as boy-boy.

If it took you all these years to learn that, Charley, you’re slower than I thought. But she’s glad she told him, glad someone else knows.

Want to take a stroll along the street? he asks.

Sure. Seeing him make his way toward the exit, Maddy’s struck again by how slowly he moves, as if he’s got a sea bag slung over his shoulder. He isn’t past this, not yet. And it hurts her to know he isn’t going to let her into his story.

She comes up alongside him, determined to walk slowly, to keep him moving at a pace he can handle. Charley, she says.

Yeah?

You should make sure you drink a lot of orange juice. Get your vitamin C.

Sure, he answers, an odd gentleness to his voice.

We need each other, she says.

He laughs softly. She expects him to respond with some wisecrack but he doesn’t. Yeah, he says after a moment, I know what you mean: we’re the last survivors of a lost country, the mad king and his queen and all that. We’re the only ones who remember the language. All those poems, the great speeches.

Yeah, she says. Something like that. Charley, she asks impulsively, do you think you’re O.K. now?

She’s aware of his pulling into himself, as if he’s actually increased the distance between them. At last he says, Maddy, I can’t give you any guarantees.

A flash of sudden anger overwhelms her. Damn it, Charley, she says before she can check herself, why can’t you think about other people? As soon as she’s said it she regrets it. And she’s scared.

He looks at her with empty eyes. What the hell do you suppose got me to where I am today? There’s no more gentleness to his voice. He could be talking to a stranger.

Oh, I’m sorry. She touches him--she can feel the resistance in his tensed muscles. Charley, she begins, but can’t think of anything to follow it with. Of course that was the only answer he could have given, she knows that. But it twists her heart nevertheless. She shouldn’t have asked. They walk along in silence.

For a time as they make their way along the stone walks Maddy’s back in that lost country. Sometimes, she says, I wonder what they passed on to us.

Charley shakes his head. I have to admit it, he says, I’ve got something of the old man in me. They walk along for a while and he adds, I guess like him I want to ride the tiger’s back.

Maddy remembers again the smell of wool in the closet. When I was a kid, she says, all I wanted was peace, I’d have given anything for peace.

You wanted Captain Kirk, Charley says.

Charley.

Well, let’s be honest. So did I. I mean, look at who I always gravitate toward.

And? She’s hoping he’ll tell her more.

He shrugs. Why are you here?

The answer is obvious enough but the question unsettles Maddy, as if her brother has accused her of something. She came down here to help him, she tells herself, to bring things back to normal. Though that isn’t it either, since you could say what’s normal for Charley is what got him into this situation. Why did she feel she had to come here?

For a long time neither of them says anything. They cross the street. And do you ever get the urge to ride the tiger’s back? Charley asks.

She doesn’t say anything.

He shrugs. Is this the game of being honest or what?

Sure, she says, feeling backed into a corner. Yes, I get the urge to ride the tiger’s back every now and then.

He laughs. Every now and then. Don’t worry, Maddy, we can’t do anything about it: it’s in the blood.

She contemplates this a while as they continue their slow, invalid’s walk.

They were lucky, Charley says, going the way they did.

Lucky? What a terrible thought.

Maddy, can you imagine him an old man? He wanted that. Wanted to be out of...everything.

What’s he saying about himself, she wonders. And mother? she asks.

Look, why did she pick him of all people? Why didn’t she leave him? What attracts people to each other? But really, Charley says, let’s leave the dead to their own quarrels. On a day like today...

He doesn’t have to finish. Maddy agrees: the important thing on a day like today is to let the living live. Though just now Charley doesn’t look very lively. She can’t tell if it’s the effect of being outdoors after lying around for days or whether he’s started to think about things he’d rather not remember.

And you, he asks. I’m not letting you off the hook. Is this one of the times when you’re itching to get on that tiger’s back?

Charley, let’s just look at all this great stuff here in this wonderful old town.

He walks along with her. They pass an old-fashioned soda fountain, a doorway opening onto stairs trimmed with lights that rise to a bookstore on the second floor, they pass restored buildings and more historical markers. All their steps, she knows, are leading to the end of her visit, to her return home.

Charley, she asks, do you remember Tommy Hammond?

Your old boyfriend?

She nods.

Mister Banana Republic? Tell me, did that guy sleep in cargo pants?

She doesn’t say anything.

Oh, no, he says. Sweetie, I probably ought to warn you against old flames: they usually wind up causing smoke damage.

Charley, I just asked if you remembered him.

Is he back in the states? Is that what you’re telling me? Charley’s suddenly animated, even excited. He asks, Where’s he back from this time: filming the Antarctic wastes or voodoo rites in Haiti? She’s happy to see him like this. What I remember about him was this little scar on the jaw, Charley says. Not enough to have caused a lot of pain or loss of blood, just enough to give him a kind of mysterious panache. Come on now, did he confess to you that he had it surgically inscribed?

Maddy smiles: Charley has him down pretty well. She doesn’t know where he is today but she’s been thinking of him lately, about that time when she was starting out with the Bureau and did field work near Panama City, Florida: long days of surveying, hot nights at local bars where people talked about their hopes and dreams and promised to stay in touch no matter what happened.

Charley stops and turns toward her, he gives her a wide, slow grin. Do I foresee a little drama here? Are you telling me to tune in next week?

Charley, she says, you have a dirty mind. And a simple one. Still, she’s happy to be talking to him about this, she’d like to kiss him here in the street. At the same time she thinks of Richard. Richard, she wants to say, you’re a wonderful person but I can’t help you in the way you’re asking me to help.

Look, she takes Charley’s arm, her voice falling into a whisper. On the corner. There, standing near the traffic light, is a man without legs. He looks to be in his fifties, he’s wearing a baseball cap, there’s a cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand. It takes Maddy a moment to realize the man is not a double amputee: he’s sitting back on his heels, his legs folded into his body like a jackknife blade. How does he do that? she asks.

My Achilles tendons ache just watching, Charley says.

As they come nearer the man’s posture is even more impressive: his thin buttocks are almost touching the pavement but his back is as straight as a Marine sergeant’s, there’s a fierce self-absorption about him, the cigarette taut between his lips. Still, Maddy can’t shake off the sense that he has no legs: the cup in his hand might hold coins, not coffee.

When Charley coughs she turns to see him hunched over. He looks unnaturally thin, the half-man on the corner seems more vital, his torso erect while Charley’s bent into a question mark. Suddenly she can’t control the feeling of terror that overtakes her. What’s going to happen to Charley? He’s survived this episode but what if he’s right and he can’t stop the itch to ride the tiger’s back? Where will the ride take him? She remembers the empty white apartment.

Hey, she asks, are you getting tired?

Something has come back into his look, the drowned man has returned to life and there’s pain in his eyes. A little, he says. Yeah, just a bit.

Should we sit down somewhere?

No, let me rest on that bench a while. I want you to see that old courthouse. It’s one of my faves.

Does it have a john? she asks, suddenly needful.

My dear, what kind of courthouse would it be if it didn’t? Go ahead. Maybe I’ll practice sitting back on my heels like that old dude.

You’re going to be all right?

Out of my face, girl.

I’ll just be a minute.

I insist you give it a good look. I’m going to quiz you on it.

Hey, she asks, what happened to the guy on the corner? Both of them look at the place where they saw the man sitting back on his heels. An indistinct music floats out from a radio into the warm air of the street: steel guitar, the accents of lamentation.

Charley shakes his head. I think he was some dead supreme court justice come back for a visit. Go ahead, go to the courthouse. I’ll keep an eye out for that guy.

She crosses the stone walk to the Greek Revival building and pushes back the door. The peaceful smell of enclosed air envelopes her and she’s surprised by the quiet inside. Shiny floors, empty rooms: the courthouse is unoccupied, unattended--she’s the only person there. She feels the thrill of trespass, a sense of anticipation, and all at once in the delicious privacy of this public place certain things seem very clear. As she hears her footsteps breaking the silence a recognition arises calmly, peacefully: that her life with Richard is already over. She says it to herself, then repeats it aloud, It’s over. No lightning bolt searches her out, no thunder crashes; there’s only the sound of her footsteps. Then a wave of sadness rises up, she feels a flutter of dread, her knees go weak. Still, under everything is the calm.

The building is silent, clean and orderly. Apparently it’s no longer in use since there’s a new courthouse directly across from this one; but she can imagine these halls decades ago, can imagine sharecroppers who, after their bleak lives burst into violence, would be brought into these intimidatingly orderly spaces to have judgment passed on them. People like the man who was on the corner. She remembers his look of steely imperviousness to his surroundings. She can see him being led through this corridor manacled, his face drained of color but the eyes hard, resisting the temptation to show fear. Yes, she repeats to herself, getting used to the thought, I know how things are going to turn out with Richard.

Charley told her there were rest rooms on the second floor and she mounts the white wooden stairs, climbing to where the air is thick and still. Near the courtroom itself she follows the sign to a pair of swinging doors that open to a small, shaded hallway. A few feet further is another more substantial door and when Maddy pulls it open she can see, even in the dim light, that the tiled room smelling of soap is spacious, as if it were originally used for some other purpose. She stands at the weighted door and flicks the lightswitch but there’s an ineffectual click, nothing happens. By now, though, her need is great. Quickly memorizing the layout of the room, she crosses the floor to the toilet as the heavy door closes slowly behind her, sucking out all the light: it’s suddenly, shockingly dark. Seated, she remembers Charley’s story and closes her eyes, entering a darkness of her own making, a more intimate darkness. She relaxes, emptying her bladder, and she’s a child again until the man on the corner invades her reverie: he is legless now, smoking angrily, and he’s looking directly at her.

The accusatory apparition startles her, she opens her eyes to a darkness that’s somehow different, more opaque, more threatening, vague fears swim about her. Nobody is in this building, after all, and only Charley knows she’s here. Is he still out on the street, could something have happened to him? It’s possible they could close the courthouse, locking her in. Space has changed around her, the darkness is now as palpable as the thick walls that hold it in and there isn’t enough air to breathe, the smell of soap fills her nostrils.

Still seated, she reaches out tentatively but she can find nothing solid. Against all reason, she’s convinced that the walls are a great distance away. There are no sounds in this enclosed space but the accelerating gusts of her breathing and she remembers she’s behind two sets of doors. Now she’s in the midst of a full-fledged panic. Where is the way out of this blackness? She should have checked to make sure there’s an inside handle to the door: this could be a place for prisoners who have to wait for the bailiffs to release them. She has a sudden certainty of being trapped here, behind doors that are behind doors. Space itself has fallen away, the borders of the universe are unreachable.

She clings to the cool bowl, fearing there may be nothing beneath her, then she gathers up her clothes, gets up and takes a step, moves haltingly forward. She forces herself to reach out, stabbing repeatedly until she finds the wall, but there’s no door, only a smooth blankness without detail. She runs her open hand over it frantically, like a blind person trying to get hold of a surface that keeps moving. She wants to cry out but she knows that no one will hear her. Terrified, she turns quickly back toward the cool porcelain of the sink and she stumbles, striking her head against something. Stars of light explode in the darkness, pulsing to her heartbeat. She’s on the floor, on all fours. Her hands explore the firm tiles, she feels some sense of orientation, though she’s panting, trying to hold back the rush of buckling panic that surges in waves like food that refuses to be digested. Her face is hot, her heart pounds, her fingers probe the places between the tiles. Determinedly, she crawls to the wall and runs her hand across its surface until she finds the indentation where the door begins and she gropes her way to the knob.

She picks herself up, opens the door and steps into the muted light of the anteroom, her gratitude coming in heaving breaths. In just moments she’s become covered with sweat. She holds on to the wall, still trembling. She knows she can’t leave the building until she’s collected herself: she’ll be no help Charley looking like this.

In a few moments Maddy is downstairs among the cooler spaces of the first floor, searching for a mirror where she can make herself more presentable. She finds a small room with a desk and a couple of chairs. A judge’s robe hangs on a hanger, a door opens on to a private rest room--she could have come here first, she realizes, before she went upstairs. Though the light in the room works she doesn’t close the door behind her. She studies her reflection in the mirror: there will probably be a bump on her forehead, which will make a funny story to tell Charley, but there’s no blood. When she’s fixed herself up she steps back into the room and goes to where the judge’s robe is hanging. She runs the material between her fingers. Somewhere in the building a clock is ticking. Do they still use this building, she wonders, or is this just something for the tourists? The folds of the robe make a gentle hissing sound in her hand and she hangs on to the cloth for a long time. At last she lets it go.

She stands there a long moment, her skin still remembering the feel of the judge’s garment. Her breathing has returned to normal. She’s almost ready to leave the courthouse now. She’s going to return to Charley, then home to Richard. Before she sets out on that journey, though, she closes her eyes to the scene before her and enters her own darkness.