Sometimes Rachel
chapter 4 - big empty
Voices drift past like television. Dead weight in my lungs. Rachel wears a short yellow dress. Legs long and curved. I watch her from across the street. The yellow dress is thin, transparent in the sun, and when she turns I can see the dark angle between her thighs. She holds the struggling child to her chest. She breathes heavily. Sunglasses black across her face and blue bandana tied around her throat. She stops to shift the child and he throws open his mouth. Long piercing cry. Rachel pulls open the heavy glass door of cafe and even from where I stand I can smell the air conditioning.
I cross the street, watching them through the window. Rachel goes to a booth. She removes the sunglasses and her face is defined by visible bones. Lips like a cut across her face. The scars thick around her left eye. Her hair is tangled, brown and white. She bends to put Henry on the floor, his feet drumming. A waitress comes over, who says something, pointing at the boy. Rachel appears to agree. She tries to lift him by the armpits. He jerks his head and tries to bite. Blue of a vein at her temple and her mouth clamped shut. Grinding her teeth. The boy is strong. He refuses to sit in a chair. Rachel releases him to the floor, turns to glare at the waitress. Henry puts four fingers in his mouth. Suck and chew. Rachel sits with her hands flat on the table.
I wait another minute before going inside. Hot air swallows behind me with swing of door. I scan the room before facing her. The waitress is about forty. Her legs are shapeless in fleshy tights. She has grease stains across her shrunken bosom. Rachel is staring at me. Her mouth twisted, amused. The boy is asleep now, safe under the table. My hands are dirty. Hair falls in my eyes and I brush it back with my fingers. I am shivering in the sudden cold and now I sit down across from her.
I’m sorry for hitting you, I say.
Long silence.
Does it hurt?
Bruised, she says.
I want the key to my place.
She licks her teeth. Do you have any cigarettes?
I grope myself for the wrinkled pack.
She pulls out matches, lights one, snaps her wrist and exhales through the nose.
You look like shit. Does Zoe tell you that? she says.
I open my mouth and immediately close it. Rachel places my key in the center of the table. The waitress appears, a pad and pencil between dull nicotine fingers.
What can I get you folks?
Eggs, over easy. Hashbrowns, I say. And ice water.
Rachel smokes and says nothing. The waitress goes away.
Is Grinch okay?
The dog, you mean?
Yes. The dog.
Rachel shrugs. He's lonely.
I take a stone egg from my pocket, place it on the table.
What is that thing?
Owen gave it to me. He said it was found in the hand of a dead prostitute.
The blue coin of her good eye. She twists her lip.
Is that a threat? she says.
It's a gift, I say.
I'm not a prostitute.
That's right. You're a mother.
Rachel drags her nails across table.
My head feels clotted, as if hungover. Brief clarity then sick. But that’s not possible. I have been hatefully sober. Rachel is watching me.
One thing, I say. Why did you bite Zoe?
Rachel laughs. An accident, she says. I was kissing her thigh and got excited.
How do you do that? I say. With your eye.
Do what?
It changes colors. When you lie.
No, it doesn’t. She takes another cigarette.
The waitress returns with a tray. She unloads the food, two waters, and a shotglass of sugar packets. I reach for a fork. The hashbrowns are yellow, glistening. The child wakes up growling. Rachel pulls him to her lap and he slaps a water glass to the floor. I take a small bite, then cover my plate with salt.
The child howls, no. His only word. He kicks the table and Rachel's coffee spills, spreading dark as blood. The waitress moves around us, pushing water and glass with a mop. I look at the boy, then at my food.
Is he hungry? I say.
No. Give me your water.
I slide the glass over. Rachel tears open four sugar packets, dumps them into the water, swirls it with spoon. She lifts the glass to the child's open mouth, blows in his ear. He drinks noisily, becomes calm. For a minute he looks like a normal baby. One fat red hand pulling his mother's hair. Rachel smiles, eyes glittering. Ruined lips thin, almost touching.
Sugar, she says. I think he’s diabetic.
A storm is moving in. The morning sky is dark and the waitress turns on the overhead lights. Rachel is watching me.
I'm sorry, I say. I don't want to hurt you.
What do you want?
Zoe wants the baby.
Okay, she says. But I want money.
The waitress comes back, dangles the check in my face. I fish out a wad of bills and coins scatter from my hand. Rachel whispering to child. I pick up a fallen coin, put it in my mouth. The taste of dirt. I lift the stone egg, turn it in electric light. Smooth gray with webs of pink. I offer it to Rachel and she takes it.
Did Owen really give it you?
No. I found it.
What about the prostitute?
She was dead. Like I said.
What about Owen?
Owen. He's easily confused.
Outside the sky is contorted. Fat drops of rain. I swear her eye changes from blue to gold. She reminds me to get money and we stop at a machine. Her voice is slick. The wind blows hair in her mouth. She spits. I shove in the card, punch my code. Salt on my lips and I wish I had something sweet. Rachel waits, bouncing the child. The money is bright and new. I push it into my pocket.
She smiles. Do you want to carry the baby? she says.
Together we cross the street. Rachel walks ahead with arms swinging. Her elbows remind me of scissors. The heavy smell of tar. She stops in the far lane and crouches, her feet apart. The hem of her dress flapping in the wind. Muscles jump in my legs, watching her. Her head is lowered between her knees, her hands loose dangling. Warm raindrops crash around me, large as eyes.
I stop behind her. Henry is heavy and smells like urine.
Look, she says.
Black roots and stiff clumps of grass, knotted in the iron mouth of the sewer. A clot of intestinal matter at her feet, the color of mucus. A bird, freshly killed.
Broken wing, she says. Fell to earth.
The bird is large and black, a crow. It appears to be headless but the neck is only crushed beneath its body. The light changes to green. With a finger Rachel pokes the creature, rolls it over. A car approaches, fast. The crow's head is mashed to its chest, the skull like jelly. Broken glass in a cloth sack, wet.
There's a car coming, I say.
The feathers appear to move. I glance at the boy. His thin hair is still. There's no breeze at all and I realize Rachel is blowing on the bird’s body. She looks up, pleased. She returns the crow to its original position. The car blows past us, its horn screaming. Rachel shrugs, smiling. Wrinkles twist around her eyes.
Beautiful, isn’t it? she says.
Come on, I say.
She walks away. I follow her to my apartment.
I break the elastic of her panties getting them off. I hold her down by the hair and tear at her mouth with mine, fucking her on the floor. The laces of my left boot in a knot, my pants tangled. I fumble with her bandana. Then her tongue snakes into my ear. Her breath is white, hot. The pain is brilliant, shining but distant. The telephone rings once, stops.
Then black.
I wake up blind, my hands numb asleep. Rachel is gone. The rush of needles under skin. A shirt covers my face. I pull myself upright, naked but for one boot. She must have gotten my pants off. The money. The right side of my head is hot and throbbing. My throat feels sticky. I swing a dead hand and the phone crashes to the floor. My own bed is unfamiliar and I smell vomit. I go to the bathroom and run cold water over my hands. In the mirror my hair is rich with blood. Dried and black around my right ear, which looks like nothing so much as a torn leaf. I examine the wound, holding my breath. She bit off the upper half of my ear. The toilet is right beside me and still I throw up on the floor. Acid in my throat and nose. Dry heaves. I swallow a mouthful of bile. I dip my hand in the toilet, splash water to my ear. The water burns and I’m bleeding again. Porcelain cold and hard against my chest. I wait to be sick again. It’s coming as sure as thunder.
Grinch appears in the doorway. He gives my ear a casual lick, then turns to eat the vomit.
I kick at him, weakly. Then I hear a low whimper. Henry is asleep in the bathtub.
Tucked under the boy's round head is a scrap of paper. I glance at it and the words swim in my head and I put it in my pocket for later. I arrange the boy in a nylon knapsack, padded with some clothes, so his melon won’t bounce too much. Zip him up around the armpits. I wrap the end of the dog’s leash around my fist and clip it to Grinch’s collar. Near to passing out. The dog pulls us down the street. He seems to know where he’s going. The wind is to our backs, thank god. My hair is stiff with blood. People turn to look at me and I feel strangely serene.
I can’t manage the door. Zoe opens it and Grinch bolts through, the leash trailing behind. He finds the toilet and lapping noises echo. Dimly it occurs to me that Rachel was probably starving him.
Travis. Your head, says Zoe.
I give her the knapsack. She unzips it and holds the baby as he slides free.
The boy is heavy, I say.
What happened to your head?
I brought some extra clothes, too. And the dog.
Travis, she says.
I just hope the little fucker didn't piss on my clothes.
Travis, she says. Why is your hair full of blood?
Zoe is screaming.
Her hand on my head and the ear burns at her touch.
I look around, confused by the horizon.
Zoe please. I just want to sleep.