Sweet Lamb of Heaven (65)

I sat there sipping my wine and wondering if Don was, finally, a crank. I think like that when bold pronouncements are made; I wonder if both sides are nothing but cranks, with one simply more powerful than the other. Ned’s Bible-thumping friends think they’re right and all others are wrong—their powerful fear of other groups that turns to hatred and plays into the hands of the profiteers. But the profiteers themselves, with their millions of tentacles sunk deep into every crack in the earth, don’t give a shit about being right. They’re powerful. When you have enough power, right or wrong is for kids. Then there’s Don, with just us, this small crowd of overeducated, confused liberals who also believe the other side is dead wrong, his small stable of adherents to the Hearing Voices Movement.

“No,” Don said into the silence.

I guess I’d spoken out loud, though I could have sworn I hadn’t. But I was drunk enough not to worry about it.

I probably still am.

And I did know what he was talking about, I knew what he meant by last chance. He meant what Kay had written to me in her rambling and half-coherent email. He meant the world that had evolved over millions of years, the mass of living things through which all forms of intelligence cycle, through which a billion variations move and express themselves, the ark of creation over eras and eons. He meant the spirit and expression of all creatures and all people, their cultures and tongues and arts and musics, from the vaunted to the unknown; he meant what was organic and alive, the broad, branching tree of evolution that was history and biology and all kinds of astonishing bodies full of ancient knowledge.

He meant that it was on its way out.



THE PUSH IN FRONT of the subway train, all four tires going out on a fast road, the house fire while we were fast asleep—they seem too multiple for sheer coincidence, but they don’t add up to an understandable pattern. Also, after the subway push someone had grabbed me and pulled me back. That was the first attempt, if I want to see it that way. The second: our tires went out on the Interstate, but in the end we hit no other cars—not the car so close on our left, not the dinged-up, rusting gray guardrail on the right. And the third: Will’s house burning. But I woke up and I smelled the smoke, and ten minutes later Lena and I were standing safely outside in the snow, watching an empty building burn.

Will barely believed in the fire when I called him at work. He’s seemed to be in a mild state of shock ever since, a man who’s been pushed too far: many of his dear old books were destroyed, all the books on his living room shelves.

I want to tell him: Really, Will. You don’t have to be in this with me. I’m grateful. And I don’t know the difference anymore between gratitude and love. But I’m willing to cut you loose.

I know he wouldn’t go.

I wonder what’s more important, the fact that all these events occurred in the first place or the fact that they were only close calls, that in each case none of us have succumbed.

So far.

Since the fire I’m obsessed with when the next “accident” will occur, when the new onslaught will begin.

The subway episode was ten days ago. The car accident was less than a week. The fire was the day before yesterday. They fall closer together now.

I lie awake thinking of Lena, of what will become of her if something happens to me, or if she is also a target. She was there two out of three times, after all. I harbor wild thoughts, such as: Maybe I should have fallen in front of the subway train, because at least then I was alone. At least she might be safe right now. But I fear what would become of her if I die, so there’s cold comfort there.

I lie awake worrying about Ned having custody. It’s Solly I’d want to raise her, I guess, but since Ned and I aren’t even divorced I’m pretty sure there’s no way to legally exclude him. If he wanted guardianship, regardless of his craven reasons, he would get it. And I lie awake berating myself for my lack of leverage. I’ve brought this down on our heads, but I cast bitterness in Ned’s direction too. I blame myself but I also know hatred.

I never knew it before him.



I TOLD WILL I was going to turn in with Lena last night, that I was exhausted—because I was—and then I lay in bed wearing Lena’s earphones, which are large and shiny plastic discs in the shape of monkey faces. I thought of what Don had said to me, what Kay had written, of how I’d seen a city crumble beneath a cloud of dust.

Lena rolled away from me as I prepared to say Goodbye to Stress, and before long fell asleep clutching her duck.

The images didn’t feel like a dream. I was aware of the room as I lay there, the shape of the TV cabinet, the bathroom door slightly ajar, the mirror on the dresser showing glints in the dark. I lay in an indoor twilight holding those dim motel-room shapes in front of me as I began to sink under. Did I keep my eyes open?

Into the dark room came a thin, stooped man. My impulse was to fling my body over Lena, shielding her and keeping her safe with me forever. But I couldn’t move.

The thin man turned to look at me, and I recognized him. With his bloodshot eyes and tobacco-stained mouth, his gray, grubby mechanic’s workshirt with the franchise logo on the pocket, I recognized him instantly: B.Q.

I felt repulsion, then fear; I knew I couldn’t turn onto my side or cover her with my arms, I knew I had to lie just as I was, belly up and exposed. And she was exposed beside me. That was the worst of it.