“He was sadder than all that, man. It must have belonged to someone who died. A brother or a sister. Someone he loved. Maybe they offed themselves in it. You saw his face.”
Sometimes we dare each other to drive a Voodoo, or to take one home. A 1970 Cutlass SS will come in, triple black, and before we load it into the crusher, I’ll tease Marco, who drives a broken-down Chevy truck, about what a nice ride it’d be to bring home to his wife.
“Go on,” I’ll say. “Take it. You deserve it. I won’t tell.”
He’ll laugh and shake his head. “No, no. You’d look better in this one. A Cutlass is your style.”
“I insist,” I’ll say.
“So do I,” he’ll say, even as I push the button that starts the crusher.
That’s what Rose and the other two remind me of—Voodoos. Cars you know can’t really be that dangerous, but you avoid all the same. I look through the telescope at Rose—small, bony Rose, hobbling across the grass, stooped, the other old women at her side—and I am fascinated.
“Jacob, how long have you been up here?” Laura asked.
This was just the other day. I was watching the women get ready to take a sculpture class. There were seven of them sitting around a picnic table with a big bowl of water in the center. In front of each woman sat a gray, brain-like lump on a paper plate.
“Not so long,” I said. I swung the telescope to the left a little, to see which one of the women was going to pose for the others, and I spied the money manager already standing on the far picnic table, getting nude. She was not one of my favorites. Young and attractive, she had long blond hair and a slender, graceful body, but even so, there was something slightly repugnant about her. Maybe it was the hint of snobbishness in her face, the upturned nose, the small, darting eyes always assessing people. She’d stolen millions of dollars from her clients, investing their money in risky stocks without telling them. She would reside at the camp for seven more years.
I watched as she stepped out of her jumpsuit, then peeled off her panties. Her body gleamed, so pale in the sun. She was a little small, a bit bowlegged, but her breasts were full, the nipples bright pink. The hair between her legs was trimmed in a perfect diamond.
The telescope went black. I looked up to see Laura’s hand clamped over the lens.
“What’s the deal?” I said.
“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, that’s all.”
“The women are taking a sculpture class. The three killers, too.”
“Jacob, are you sure you’re all right?” Laura said.
“Of course,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. You’re just a little distant lately. And you haven’t been sleeping.”
The night before, I’d had a dream about being chased by a man on fire. He was driving behind me on the highway, flames streaming from his eyes and nose and open mouth.
Laura ran a hand through my hair. “And you’ve just been spending a lot of time in here. You’ve been spending a lot of time inside your head.”
“I’m spying on the prison. I’m relaxing.”
She put her hands up. “Okay. Sorry. I was just checking in. Want to eat soon?”
I turned back to the telescope. “Just two more minutes. Roger, Kitty Kat?”
“Sure,” she said, waiting there. “Roger.” Then she headed downstairs.
I went on watching the women sculpt for a few more minutes, enjoying the last of the sun, the warm breeze coming through the window. Most of the sculptures were hopeless, deformed and mangled, but a couple were quite good. It was a thrill to observe the better sculptors, to watch them slowly draw human figures up from the clay, tease out arms and legs. The eye surgeon was working on a bust that looked more and more like the money manager with every pass of her hands. I was impressed by how carefully she molded the facial features—smoothing out the money manager’s brow, pinching up the bump in her nose.
Rose was sitting at the far end of one of the tables. I watched as she molded her flattened clay into a square gray slab, all the while thinking about what those hands of hers had done. As soon as she finished shaping the corners, she began plucking out the slab’s edges, picking the clay apart with her spidery fingers. She worked quickly, snatching at bits of clay, now and then shooting a glance up at the naked money manager, studying her.
Soon enough Rose peeled her sculpture off the table and stood it up. It was a twisted shape, almost like a gnarled, barren tree, or a system of veins squiggling off from a single artery. Nothing human to the shape at all. Still, there was something about those squirmy, desperate tentacles that reminded me very much of the money manager standing on the table. Maybe it was the way the sculpture seemed to speak of greed, a kind of veiny, slurping greed. I don’t know. But Rose Deach got it right. She saw right through to the money manager’s ugly heart.
iv.
THE DAYS SLIP BY. THEY SLIDE INTO ONE ANOTHER AND DISSOLVE. The wrecking yard is only a few miles from the aquarium, so most afternoons I’m able to visit Laura at work for lunch. Sometimes we eat in her office, other times we eat outside, in the aquarium’s amphitheater, where the shows happen. Jed, the trainer, rides across a pool on a chariot of dolphins. Baby sea lions tumble through the air like footballs.
I worry that one day soon I’ll break Laura’s heart. And not by accident either. I’m afraid I’ll do it violently, bust her heart wide open.
I’ve done it before. I’ve dated a woman, fallen in love, and then turned on her. I don’t know why.
It always happens the same way. I’m going along fine with someone. One month goes by, two, six. I’m attached. I care now. I think about her all the time. I look forward to seeing her. She starts leaving things at my house: a hair clip, earrings; she starts bringing things over: a toothbrush, an extra pair of glasses to leave on the nightstand, old sneakers to go biking in.
And wham: I start waking up sweaty in the middle of the night with a strange crackling in my chest; waking up angry, even furious, my fists clenched, aching. And from there it all starts to slide. I feel it happening and don’t know how to stop it. The fear and resentment, the rage; I feel them all blooming in me so fast, like something from a fairy tale, a vine sprouting overnight, its black leaves slapping open.
But that’s too pretty a way to describe what happens to me. The change is much uglier than that.
Does this ever happen to you? You’re going about your day with the person you love, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your spouse; maybe you’re in the car together, on your way to the home improvement store to pick up supplies: paper towels, glass cleaner, lightbulbs, dusting rags, a plunger. You’re waiting at a traffic light together. Your person is talking to you, saying something about a musician they like, or a commercial they saw, and you’re listening to them, watching them talk, and all of a sudden the strangest sensation comes over you. This feeling of total disorientation, almost like you’re seeing your life through a new set of eyes, like you’re watching yourself from afar. And what you see is so unfamiliar to you, so wrong. This is you? This is your car? These are your hands on the wheel?
And who the fuck is this person sitting next to you, talking to you? Who are they? Of course you know they’re the person you love—
But then someone behind you hits their horn and breaks the spell.
“It’s green,” says your person, who’s beautiful to you now. Just as they were seconds before.
“Hey,” they say. “You can go.”
I understand that moments like this are common enough; that they happen to most people at one time or another. But what if the moment didn’t end for you? What if you couldn’t find your way out?
That’s what happens with me. The feeling hits me and it won’t go away. I get angry and mean and, most of all, restless. Everywhere I look I see chances to go back and correct my life, chances to start over alone or with someone new. I see opportunity in the starry night painted across the checkout girl’s fingernails. I see it in the cars
