Yes, and he still had the audacity to keep hassling me to sign a release form to exhibit the photographs of me at Melanie’s gallery.
I kept refusing.
He stopped calling.
I got fatter and more depressed. I couldn’t understand how I’d gotten from Chicago—fulfilled, successful, and in a relationship—to this lonely, humiliating existence in Miami. I was so desperate that I went back to Potters Prairie for a break, weighing in at over two hundred pounds. Dad didn’t seem to notice. He only really spoke about his work, usually to complain about Menards driving him out of business. Mom was actually pleased. — I thought you were anorexic before, and she’d shovel another slice of pie toward me. — I was so worried!
It wasn’t all a waste, though. I’d enrolled to do another taxidermy course with an experienced instructor who gave one-on-one tuition. Kenny Saunderson was a manic guy who existed on coffee and chain-smoked. He was an amazing taxidermist, specializing in waterfowl, and had once been world champion in this category. I admired his skill at gutting, cleaning, stuffing, and reconstructing dead swans, ducks, geese, and restoring them to some sort of former beauty. I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty. It was the only time I felt like myself.
But most of the time I was slumped with Mom and a jumbo bag of Doritos in front of daytime TV. My depressive descent was even more rapid than back in Miami. How could people live like this? I wanted to go, but couldn’t face Miami right away; I drove back to where I now regarded as home, Chicago.
I returned to the West Loop. The building that housed the Blue Gallery was now being remodeled as condos. All that was left of Blue was the website. Although most of my friends had gone, Kim was still there, working for a downtown advertising agency, and I stayed with her in her Wicker Park apartment for a while. It was great to just hang out, to see the towers of downtown, hit the old neighborhood bars like Quenchers and the Mutiny, hear the El train rattling above me in its baritone of turbulent metal. But I couldn’t stay, as I had to try and get reengaged with my work. Although I had done nothing in it for a while, I missed my studio and headed back down to Miami.
Seeking to continue my taxidermy education, I found another tutor there. I wasn’t exactly revitalized by my break, but I was at least trying to work, on both smaller and larger mammals. Davis Reiner was a tall man with a hangdog expression and a smoker’s cough. His lean body, and his tanned, sagging jowls, drooping down the sides of his wrinkled face, reminded me of a friendly Great Dane. Although he was much older than me, I was lonely and warmed by his kindness, and I slept with him. Like many taxidermists, he had the rough, heavy hands of a man who worked for a living but which were so deft when it came to more intricate measures. I scarcely minded the slack flesh of his wattled turkey neck swinging down on my chest, and his flinty but glazed eyes, fierce with purpose. Aged and a little gross he might have been, but this guy wanted to fuck me.
But Davis’s attentions didn’t stop my eating. I ate and I ate and I ate. Jerry started calling me again. Telling me I was worthless in one breath, begging me to let him show the pictures in the next. I was ashamed and humiliated by his hold over me. Broken, I told him to send down the contract. That I would sign. I was confused and depressed. I stopped sleeping with Davis, stopped going to class. I sat in my house, unable to work: eating, watching TV, watching the walls close in on me.
It reached its zenith that night, when I was driving around, thinking that I would stop the car on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, get out, push through the jagged undergrowth, climb the balustrade, and drop off into the dark, cold waters of the bay. It seemed the only way out. There could be no other salvation. I wasn’t just driving around aimlessly. I had put a small note inside a Ziploc bag, placing it in the pocket of the ridiculous pink sweatsuit I was wearing to make myself appear “breezy.” It had the words scrawled in capitals:
THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
The embarrassing thing was that I had snagged myself on some thorns and it took a while to work free from them. Then I was too small and fat to scale the barrier with ease. Instead, I was soon crying in frustrated rage as I tried to haul myself over, screaming hatefully through the lashing rain that I was useless, even to the last. Then I heard the screeching of the brakes from the highway and lights spilled everywhere. I grabbed my phone and called the police. Then came the shots. I saw Lucy get out the car, and the terrified look of the man who had been banging on her window. Then the gunman came into view. He walked right past her. Then she kicked him and he went down. I moved closer, filming her straddling him. When he peed I stopped recording.
Lucy.
In my mind’s eye I see her jogging in Lummus Park, hair pushed severely back in a ponytail, magnificent breasts bouncing (although in reality they never did, secured as they were by an unyielding sports bra), her face set in that mode of cool, vicious determination.
Who is she? Why does she care about me? What is the pathology that drives her, in the way my subconscious pushes me—with its need to be dominated, bossed, and manipulated? My low self-esteem—treating every compliment and accolade like it was a booby trap. But that’s me; what is going on with her?
Do I try to understand me or her? Are we opposites, or twins—like the Arkansas girls?
We’re entrenched in our positions over the operation for the conjoined Wilks sisters. Lucy is for the surgical separation, while I’m against. She says that the odds of 40 percent are worth the gamble for Amy, and that it’s her choice. But I know that Amy has been bullied into this by Annabel. I also know that the odds are nothing like 40 percent. I believe the other experts, not the glamour boy who wants the kudos of performing the operation live on television.
What about my aberrant “sister,” my “twin”? What does that magnificent, hardassed bitch want with me? Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. The cracks are showing. I have to keep you strong. To keep encouraging you. Because this is all going to be so worthwhile. We really need to find out exactly who we are. It’s time.
I take that sliver of soap, the one I used to wash my feces- and blood-stained face, from its secreted location in my sweatpants pocket. Also in there is the fur material from the cuff, which I’ve been slyly tearing away at. I apply the soap to my wrist and pull and push and pull again. My hand goes a little white, but I’m amazed at how easily it slips off. A bolt of fear strikes me in the chest. I slip my hand back in, look at it, and wave the shackle like a bracelet, as my pulse slows back to normal. Then I start to laugh.
On–off. On–off.
My body hurts with pleasure then trembles in a sick fear as I cross the room, moving carefully, stealthily, over that formidable space, as if each step might detonate a land mine. I feel my free arm, liberated from the weight of that shackle, almost rising ceilingward of its own volition. I look back at the chain, lying sprawled on the wooden floor like a slain snake. Move over to the support pillar. Kick it. Kiss it. Swing gleefully around it like a kid in a park.
I go to the bathroom. How good to do a supported piss and shit! Stepping into the shower, a hot shower, I can feel the water jets blasting layers of my sweat and grime away, as if actual fat is vanishing down the drain. When I’m done I gaze at myself naked in the mirror: my body is so lean and toned, I almost expect a fat girl to come lumbering into the reflection and elbow this strange elf out of the picture. My ridges of muscle, which have replaced the soft fat, leave me awe-struck. Most of all, I can’t believe my neck. It is swanlike; I’ve never had a neck like that!
In the kitchen, on the countertop, sits my purse with my cellphone and my credit cards. I deftly slide a card from the wallet, leaving everything else as it was. I go back into the room Lucy’s been using, and find some sweat pants and a top. I get dressed and ride the elevator down and head out to the warm, deserted street, moving nervously along the sidewalk. Outside is so strange. At first I fear my own shadow, overwhelmed by a sense of danger lurking on every corner. But then I see that my shadow is so much thinner and I’m loving the glimpses of my
reflection. I squint up at the green, glassy tower, trying to count the floors up to my prison. Forty.
Walking a while, I pass a bar full of people I can see through the big plate-glass window. They all wear fancy-dress costumes and are drinking beer and shots. A man inside meets my eye and points drunkenly at me to two girls in sequined masks, his face breaking into silent laughter.
I cross over to Bayside, watching the people in the bars and restaurants, all eating and drinking garbage that holds absolutely no interest for me. I stop a taxi and ask the chatty driver to take me to the nearest mall, to go shopping for some important items. He looks at me as if I’m another of Miami’s transients. — Looking good for the Heat, he says. — LeBron on fire last night.
I don’t know what he’s talking about but I reply in the affirmative, shocked at how my voice sounds—strange, higher and faster than I recall, as if every word is a butterfly fluttering just out of my reach.
At the mall, I make my purchases, then, anxious to get back before Lucy, I return to the apartment.
Back to my comforting prison.
46
EMPTY CUFFS
THE FIRST DEAD body I’ve seen. Already waxy, already something other than human. A small kidney-shaped lake of blood leaking from it. I start to cry, my throat swollen in an unstable mix of emotions. I’m thinking about what Jerry must have been like as a kid. I see a small boy, full of astonishment at the world, and wonder how he grew into such an asshole. And where did it get him? A hated, loathed pile of flesh and bone on the floor, still a young man, dead before his time, and only the air conditioning stopping him from putrefying.
In my paralysis, the only move that suggests itself is to drive back to the apartment. Freeing Lena and telling her everything about Jerry, showing her the notebook, the pictures and the negatives. It chills me to think of it that way, but Dad’s bullshit story was a prophecy. Yes, I’m a killer. Okay, it was self-defense, but I need Lena’s backup or I’m on a diet of pussy minus plastic for the next twenty. I’m a killer; possibly a double killer; fuck knows what shape I left Winter in. And what it all means is that I’m now at the mercy of my hostage.
Self-defense. I keep saying it over and over again as I walk outside into the dappled light, climbing into the Caddy, my movements like an automaton. Noises—faint but keen and insistent—leak from a source that can only be me, but are like the sound of someone whispering in my ear.
Self-defense. Though on another level, I know I’m lying to myself; wasting that Jerry asshole was something I was destined to do for years. I knew that prick before, or at least versions of him. That bastard was fucking toast as soon as he crossed me, and now I have to pay for that.
Rubbing my eyes. A dense night sky, lit by two brilliant stars. The lights of the cars around me muted in the patchy dark. I stop by my apartment, to pick up something, then I’m back across downtown. I’m a fucking mess, my hands shaking on the wheel. Trying to turn at the last minute, I almost collide with a convertible at a crossroads. A driver honks me, a dapper guy dressed in a suit and a Panama hat. — Cheese and crackers! he shouts, tapping the side of his head, — Eyes on the road, please, lady! Thank you! Hello!
When I get into the apartment Sorenson’s fucking gone! The empty cuffs lie there, attached to the end of the chain. Then suddenly I can hear her, rustling about in the kitchen. I expect her to have a knife, and come at me with it. I’m not even scared; if that’s my fate I’m resigned to it, too broken now to assume a defensive stance. She can do what she wants. Or perhaps the cops are already on their way, summoned by my former prisoner. Either way, I’m totally fucking screwed. But as Lena comes through, she just waves at me and steps onto the treadmill.
— Don’t mind me, Lucy, I got another fifty cal to shed today.
— You . . . you got out, I say in disbelief, as she switches on the machine and goes for it. — How . . . when . . .?
— I first slipped out of the cuffs the day before last. My wrists . . . I’m 131 pounds, Lucy. She gawps in delight, pushing up the speed controls. — I haven’t been that since sophomore year at the Art Institute!
— You look great, I tell her and I feel myself tearing up. I’m seeing her for the first time as she really is. She isn’t fat anymore. — You . . . you could have escaped before now . . .
— Why would I, though? I can see the results, she beams. — Of course, I really wanted to kill you as well, she giggles, then gasps, keeping her breath and holding her stride, — but instead I went out and got some champagne! It was weird and scary just going outside at first . . . you crazy fucking beautiful bitch you, she grins, pulling up her tank top to show a gut so drastically reduced as to be almost gone, — but the means really do justify the ends!
I can’t fucking believe this. — Wow . . . I dunno what to say, I thought you’d hate me! I thought you’d go straight to the cops!
— How could I? She shakes her head. — You saved my life! I must admit, there were times I wanted you dead, but I was in cold turkey. Now I see what you’ve done, what you’ve given me . . .
— What YOU’VE given you, I gasp, — . . . but, Lena, listen, there’s something I gotta tell you—
— What you enabled me to do, she cuts in. — To bring back me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart . . . she looks at the monitor on the treadmill, — . . . and fiff-tay . . .
She shuts the machine down and steps off, heading to the kitchen. I’m following her in stupefaction, all those thoughts and images cascading through my brain. I find her pouring two glasses of champagne. — Lena, we need to talk, something’s happened—
— No, we drink first. She turns to me and says forcibly, — After what I’ve been through, give me one fucking moment before you hit me with any more of your shit. Jesus!
There’s nothing I can say. She really does deserve this moment and a lot more besides. Certainly more than I do, and so I’m trailing behind her again, following her to the living room. — Cheers, I say grimly, raising the glass of Cuvée to my lips, and thinking of Jerry on the rug, in his puddle of blood. I take a long drink.
— You’ve made me what I am, Lena says, — by making me confront who I was. What the others took away . . . but I can barely hear her as this shit is going straight to my head, and I feel so slack-jawed and heavy-limbed, — . . . you gave back . . .
— Gave back . . . I repeat numb and dumb, aware of Lena Sorenson looking at me with a shit-eating grin.
— But you’re an evil fuck and you need to be punished, she smiles, as I sit down on the mattress, sinking back into it. And I’m powerless to do anything as she clips the cuffs onto my wrist.
I’m back at junior high and I’m running in the track event against Sally Ford, the fastest competitor. I was always number two. I could see my dad’s red face, willing me on, and I almost beat her. Almost. It was the closest I’d ever gotten to the bitch.
Dad was silent on the drive home. — I nearly won, I pleaded.
— Nearly’s no good. You let that stuck-up little thing beat you again. He shook his head. — But you can’t help it. You’re just a girl.
And then it comes back to Clint Austin smiling at me in class, asking me if we’re gonna make out. Me saying maybe. But then when he and his friends surrounded me in the park, I just froze. Then he kissed me, put his tongue in my mouth. They started cheering. Then he took me into the bushes beside the tree, a big make-out spot, an almost concealed cave of overhanging branches and thick shrubs, but then he shouted for his friends to come in. — We wanna see your pussy, he said, and then I was on my back and they were grabbing me, holding me, and pulling at my clothes, and Clint was on top of me, and in me. I didn’t struggle, I didn’t protest. I was determined not to be a girl, like Dad said, not to cry and be weak and beg. I just lay there, in a trance and let him do it. I shut my eyes. Dug my nails and fingers into the ground beneath me as I felt a burning sensation sear me between my legs. Then the rest of them were scattering like flies, and Clint was out of
me and off me and I saw Dad’s face looking down. I forgot the pain between my legs, and stood up and pulled up my panties and smoothed my skirt down. I didn’t want to tell him that I was raped, that I was bullied by a psycho and his gang, and that I couldn’t or didn’t fight back, like a real Brennan would have done. That I would have been probably been gangbanged by the rest, had he not found me then. No, I’d rather he thought me a slut than a weak coward, or even a girl: that would have been the biggest shame.
After that I went to tae kwon do, kickboxing, and karate. I wanted to show them all that I would never be scared, would never freeze like that, ever again. That I could do any fucking thing they could do. That I could damage those motherfuckers, that I could break them . . .
. . . I blink into sludgy consciousness with a team of miniature construction workers laying the foundations of another Walgreens inside my head. Lena Sorenson is standing over me. There’s an assortment of McDonald’s and Taco Bell fast food in bags on the floor, beside the two buckets. — Similar game, slightly different rules, I hear her explain, my throat too dry for me to speak out in protest. — You’ll be in here until you weigh two hundred pounds. That’s doable: thirty-five hundred cals per day equals an extra pound of fat. If you cram you should be out of here in no time. I’ve got Coke and potato chips for you to snack on, and cans of beer and wine boxes . . .
I look at the bags she’s placing before me. My mouth is so dry. There’s no water so I pick up a can of Coca-Cola. It tastes like battery acid in my mouth and throat, and even more corrosive when it hits my gut, but it helps me find my voice. — Lena, I can see why you might feel that you want to do this, but you have to listen to me . . . back at your place—