Distortions

Marshall’s Dog

She was eighty-two when she died. She had the usual old-lady fears — Democratic Presidents, broken bones. When the spaghetti was snapped in half and dropped into the boiling water she heard the sound of her own bones cracking. She loved spaghetti. They had to eat so much spaghetti. She wouldn’t eat the sauce. She had butter with her spaghetti. She used to knit for her son, Marshall. She loved her son, she knitted all the time. Once she knitted him a bathrobe and he broke out in a rash all over, an allergy to wool. She cooked for Edna. She made alphabet soup. Edna remembers fishing out letters, saying, “Let’s see what Mom wants to tell us this time.” Fish. Fawn. Up. Dollar. She wouldn’t be left alone. When Edna went to work at the sporting-goods store she was there. At the store snowmobiles are sold, and wool hats, helmets, boots. Edna rode to work on her snowmobile; Marshall brought his mother in the car. She sat in a comfortable chair behind the counter and waited for Edna to finish work. She watched television. When customers came in, she turned up the volume. When the reception was bad, she listened to the radio instead. Marshall is talking to Edna. Edna has held the door open too long — the house is getting cold. Where is the dog? Didn’t she call the dog in? Edna closes the door. But then it’s open again — Edna and Marshall go out for a walk in the snow.

*

The boy at the table behind Mary is singing to her. He is no longer at the table behind her, he is at her table, and Kathy, her girlfriend, has gone to the bathroom. Now there is laughter in addition to the music. His friends are going crazy. They looked drunk when Mary and Kathy walked in an hour ago. One of the boy’s friends has a harmonica that he is blowing.

“Can you see?”

The boy has pulled the neck of his shirt down. Across his chest is a scattering of moles, a brown blur of them.

“It looks like the Milky Way galaxy,” he says. He waves his arm, motioning his friend to stop playing the harmonica. The music is replaced by a cappella singing. Kathy comes out of the bathroom and looks the situation over. She orders a Coke at the bar and returns to the table. Two summers ago, Mary danced for the boy and his friend. They paid her two dollars. Since then the boy’s friend lost a finger that got infected after he caught it in a mattress spring. He used to play electric guitar.

The waitress is at the table. Beverly tonight. Beverly has bright-blue eyes and wears blue eyeshadow. Her sister Miriam is on weekends. Miriam has green eyes and wears green eyeshadow.

“Miriam comin’ in Saturday night?”

Beverly puts the boy’s drink down.

“Rest of you want anything?” she says.

“Bring her a hamburger,” the boy says, nodding to Mary.

“Who’s paying for it?” Mary asks.

“I already paid,” the boy’s friend hollers. “They’re tradin’ hamburgers for fingers tonight. Tomorrow night there’s a spaghetti special.”

Laughter. An explosion of music. A dog has wandered into the bar. The dog is confused, running everywhere. Two women in a booth across the bar meow. Finally Sam sees the dog.

“It’s Marshall’s dog,” he says to Beverly. “Want to call him?”

“Take my toes,” the boy’s friend calls to Beverly. “I want a hot dog.”

“I’ll come back for your orders,” Beverly says over her shoulder.

“I’m leavin’!”

One of the boys is yelling. He has gotten up from the table. The dog has wandered over to their table. Mary recognizes the dog — her uncle’s. She reaches out to pat the dog, but the boy has grabbed the dog up into his arms. He starts to run.

“Did he pay?” Beverly hollers.

One of the boy’s friends holds up a wad of dollar bills.

“Well, what about the dog?” Beverly asks Sam.

“I told you,” Sam says. “Call Marshall.”

“He took it.”

“Tell Marshall.”

Beverly lifts the phone and dials.

*

“It’s Marshall, George. Things aren’t very good over here.”

“No? Is Mom’s cold still hanging on?”

“Yes and no. Edna took her to the doctor a week ago, and the medicine he gave her has helped. She gets around better. She’s depressed, though. Really, Edna wanted me to call you …”

“George,” Edna says, “she says that at night her heart stops, and if she’s very still it starts again. I know that isn’t true, but she’s very depressed. She’s cleaning out her drawers and gave me things to give you.”

George is speaking to Marshall again.

“The doctor recommends a cardiologist, but she says she won’t go. I think she’ll pay attention to you, George.”

“Anna and I’ll come over tomorrow night after work.”

“It’s no emergency. We wanted you to know.” Marshall lowers his voice. “Can you hear that?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“The television and radio. She’s got them both going … stays right with them.”

“Wouldn’t the doctor give her sleeping pills?”

“She won’t take them.” Marshall hesitates. “What Edna told you about.”

*

Mrs. Anna Wright. She signs her name to a note she has written Mary’s homeroom teacher — an excuse for Mary’s absence from school on Monday and Tuesday. She writes so many notes. She feels obliged to offer details now. In this note she mentions a specific drug given to Mary by the doctor: penicillin. Rainy, cold weather, a sore throat, a tendency toward strep, penicillin. Her husband has told her to stop writing notes, but what is she supposed to do? Mary is overweight and embarrassed to go to school. The only place she socializes with boys is at Sam’s … they never ask her out. It is the week of the dance. If Mary isn’t in school, she can say that’s why she wasn’t invited. On Tuesday she made Mary dress for school. But she was crying; she couldn’t send her out of the house crying.

Now it is Wednesday. She didn’t think Mary would go to school, but she is dressed, sitting at the breakfast table. She cooks Mary a big breakfast — she doesn’t want to spoil her mood. George tells her to serve Mary only small portions, but he isn’t home when Mary eats, he doesn’t have to hear her complaints or watch the way she stalks out of the house, deliberately leaving her books behind on the hall table. Last week she had a big scene with Mary — not about breakfast or school, about the Parents’ Association. Mary said the Association was no good, that they spent their time thinking about parties and dances and that the guidance counselor was no good. Why couldn’t they do something about the guidance counselor? She had been surprised — what did Mary want to talk to a guidance counselor about? Mary had argued with her, saying that she didn’t understand anything, that it wasn’t only her — they all needed a good guidance counselor so they’d be able to get into college.

“Did you write a note?” Mary says.

“I left it on the table for you.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you had a sore throat.”

“She always has something to say about your notes.”

“What do you mean? What has she said?”

“When I put it on her desk she reads it right away.”

“That’s her job, Mary.”

“As soon as she reads it she says something to me. The last time she came over to my desk and asked me if my cold was gone.”

Mrs. Wright is turning eggs. What Mary says must be true. Once she forgot to write a note when Mary had been sick, and the homeroom teacher had called at home that night. Another time the guidance counselor called to say that he was disturbed by the number of absences. What is she supposed to say to these people? She tells them that it was her mistake not to have sent a note promptly, that it’s better to nip things in the bud so Mary doesn’t miss a whole week of school, that Mary has a good academic average.

Mary is eating her breakfast. But it is late — eight-thirty — and she should hurry. It makes people sick to hurry, it gives them indigestion. She sits down across from Mary.

“You uncle Marshall called last night. Grandma isn’t feeling well, and your father wants us to visit her tonight.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She had a cold … she has trouble sleeping.”

“She just wants to stay up late and watch television.”

“No, she doesn’t,” she says angrily. “Edna took her to a doctor and he had to give her medication.”

Mary does not look up.

“Do you think you’re dressed warmly enough?”

Mary will not continue the conversation. Eventually she gets up, her napkin carefully folded beside her plate. It is eight forty-five. Mary will be late to school, and there is no excuse for tardiness in the note.

“I’ll drive you,” she says.

Mrs. Wright looks at the car through the frosty window.

*

It is cold in the house. She is making soup and baking a roast for dinner. The dog barks and jumps. Marshall is home from work. He and Edna are talking in the living room. Soon they will go out to ride their snowmobiles; she’ll hear them making a circle around the house, will look out the window, cupping her hands so she can see clearly the tracks in the snow. She had been for a ride on the snowmobile with Marshall. She wore scarves on her head, afraid to put on the helmet. There is talk about outlawing snowmobiles. Edna and Marshall are always upset about it. On the television they said people died on snowmobiles, riding them through barbed-wire fences. She rubs her throat, thinking about barbed wire piercing the skin.

“Are you all right, Mom? Sore throat hasn’t come back?”

“No, Marshall.”

“We’re going to take a ride for a few minutes. I’m looking for some bread to feed the birds.”

Marshall has opened the breadbox. Marshall explains everything. The other night when he was fixing a kitchen cabinet she came in for a drink of water and he explained to her how an electric drill worked. He wanted her to hold it. Edna came in. She told Marshall it was too heavy, it vibrated too much. She got the drink of water and left.

One of the women in town, Beverly Brent, helped her husband build a house. She knew Beverly when she was young. The Brents built a big house. But when the house was built she lost twenty pounds and went to New York to become a model. Beverly got sick in New York — she had an appendectomy and returned to the house. She gained weight. Not long ago she came into the store and asked if they needed any saleswomen. Most of the women in town disliked Beverly — the men too. Beverly was never very popular. People liked her sister Miriam. She can remember when they were little girls, fighting on the sidewalk outside the drugstore. Girls fighting! No matter what flavor ice-cream cone Miriam got, Beverly wanted it. Beverly would throw her own ice cream on the sidewalk. Marshall buys her little white bottles of niacin to improve her memory. But she could remember all the things before she took the pills. Edna doesn’t think she needs to take the pills either, but she does it to please Marshall. Marshall takes vitamins every day. He never has a cold. Edna gets sick and can’t go to work. She herself feels pains in her chest and can’t sleep at night because she hears her heart beat and stop, beat and stop.

She is a little surprised that Marshall doesn’t say that he is shutting the door when he shuts the door. She stops stirring the soup and looks at them on their snowmobiles. Marshall looks up and sees her. He points to the snowmobile and smiles. Just as he said, he is going to take a ride on the snowmobile. It is snowing lightly outside. She watches until the snowmobiles are out of sight. She fears they can’t see in the snow, that they’ll run into barbed wire. She goes to the closet and looks on the top shelf. Their goggles are there. She takes them down and puts them on; everything turns bright yellow. She goes back and pours a bag of alphabet letters into the soup. She forgets that she has the goggles on until they begin to steam up. She quickly puts them back on the top shelf so Edna and Marshall won’t see her in them. She goes into the bedroom and empties the niacin pills in the trash and replaces them with aspirin from the medicine cabinet. But she takes too long. She hears Marshall and Edna in the kitchen, realizes that they are calling her. The dog is barking. The soup is boiling over.

*

“What a mess.”

“Your mother’ll kill you.”

It is summer. Mary and Kathy are fifteen. They are in Sam’s, with several boys, and Mary has pizza down her shirt. The boy who caused the accident has spilled his beer on her too. He is twenty-one, the oldest one at the table. Sam saw what happened and is coming over. Mary stands and screams at the boy; he stands too. He is drunk. Mary swings at him — to push, really, not to hit. Sam grabs the boy’s arms.

“It was an accident,” he hollers in Sam’s face.

“Go throw some water on your face,” Sam says.

Kathy is wiping pizza off Mary’s shirt. The pizza sticks to Kathy’s hands, cold and greasy.

“Give her a towel,” Sam says to Beverly.

“Never mind,” Mary says, “I’m going.”

“Let me get it,” Kathy says.

One of the other boys is handing Kathy napkins.

“It’s not doing any good,” Mary says. “I can feel it through my shirt.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” the boy says.

“It’s got to come off,” Mary says. “She’ll find out I was here.”

“So what? You can’t smell anything on you.”

“I’m just not supposed to be here,” Mary says.

“Okay. I got an idea.”

Mary and Kathy leave Sam’s with the two boys. All four are in the front seat. Sam has come out; he is still trying to give them a towel. Mary thanks Sam and takes it. She puts it in her blouse so she can’t feel the cold pizza against her chest. They are going down a narrow road. The car windows are rolled up because it has started to get cold at night. Nobody talks until they turn into a driveway.

“Go wash your blouse in the bathroom. We can iron it dry.”

“Where are we?”

“My parents’ house.”

“Well, where are they?”

“Out.”

They are going up the front walk. Mary even has pizza in her hair. Everything is sticky. Kathy laughs at her.

“Thanks a lot,” Mary says.

“It’ll come off,” Kathy says.

The boy turns on a light. His friend sits down in the living room. A white cat rubs against his legs, rolls on its back and grabs his pants leg. The boy shakes his leg.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Over here.”

Mary and Kathy are in the bathroom. Running water in the sink. Mary starts combing her hair, but it is matted. She scoops some water out of the sink and wets it. She wets it again, then reaches for a comb on the windowsill. She yanks a little and the comb goes through her hair. She pushes her hair behind her ears. Kathy has her blouse. She is dipping it in the water. She soaps it, kneading the material into a tight ball. Mary dries her chest with a towel. It leaves pink stains on the towel. She refolds the towel so the stains are on the inside, and hangs it up again. Kathy is running fresh water in the sink. Someone is knocking on the door. Kathy opens it! Mary steps in back of Kathy.

“Here,” the boy says. He has opened two bottles of beer.

Kathy’s hands are wet and soapy. Mary stands in back of Kathy.

He puts the bottles down. “I’m going to get you the iron,” he says.

Kathy and Mary go out of the bathroom. Mary has a towel around her.

“I’ll do it,” Kathy says.

Mary is left standing next to the boy. She stands there a minute, then goes back into the bathroom and gets the bottles of beer the boy left on the windowsill. She leans against the wall and drinks some beer.

“It came out pretty good,” Kathy says. “It’s awfully wet to iron.”

Kathy takes a sip of beer.

“I was gonna ask you to dance,” the boy says to Mary, “before you got all that crap on you.”

“We dance all the time.”

“I’ll give you two dollars if you’ll dance now.”

Mary considers. “What records have you got?”

“Without records.”

“All right,” she says. “Come on.”

“Without me.”

“Just dance by myself?”

He nods. Kathy laughs.

Mary shrugs. She turns toward the boy and starts dancing. Her wet hair swings in front of her face. The other boy has left the living room. He is stroking the cat in his arms, watching. Kathy has stopped ironing and is watching too.

“Are you going to give me two dollars to dance?” Kathy asks the other boy.

He shakes his head. His friend grabs the front of Mary’s towel and pulls.

*

Edna pulls the cord. The engine starts. She rides her Arctic Cat over the grave in the snow. Edna goes to the store early, before the customers arrive. She turns on the television and the radio. There is no picture on the television, only bright streaks rolling down the picture tube. She turns up the volume on the radio. It has been so quiet at home since she died. Marshall and George and Anna speak in whispers. It is so quiet you can hear the snow in the wind. She sits in the chair and shakes the radio, then throws it hard against the door of the shop. The television pushes over easily. It is snowing hard — there will be a lot of people on the weekend, but unless the snow lets up, few people will come into the shop today. The broken glass is only in back of the counter. No danger to the customers.

*

“It’s not going away.”

Beverly is talking to George in a bar in New York.

“You’re very pale,” George says. “Do you feel any better?”

Didn’t he hear her? Maybe she didn’t say anything. It hurts to talk. She feels drowsy, but at the same time she is in pain. Her hands are on her ribs. No — his hands are on her ribs.

“Let me get a cab outside. Did this just happen suddenly?”

He nods. She must be answering him. Suddenly there is no more pain. She is talking to more than one man, several men, or a nurse and a man, in a hospital. Then there is pain again. She is on a bed. The man is not with her any more. The doctor sees her looking around.

“Your husband is in the waiting room. He has your things.”

“He comes to New York. He’s my lover. Someone else’s husband.”

New York was a crazy idea. Seeing George in New York was a crazy idea. The pain has come back; it makes her feel like she’s going crazy. The doctor is still talking. She is having trouble hearing. They have given her an injection. His hand is out to pay the cab driver. His hand is out putting a needle in her arm. The nurse’s hand is on top of her hand. They are holding hands in a bar. Someone’s hands are on her ribs. Someone’s hands remove her appendix.

*

He takes them out carefully, throwing the crumbs low so the wind doesn’t take them away after he crumbles the bread in his hand. Edna watches. He is so methodical, so thorough. She imagines that just for him there will be one bird that otherwise might have starved that will find these breadcrumbs. But the sky is empty, except for snow.

“There aren’t any birds, Marshall.”

“There are animals.”

“I’m surprised you don’t scatter vitamin pills in the snow.”

Edna’s helmet sparkles. Marshall has scattered all the crumbs. He looks satisfied. Usually she tries to disturb him when he looks satisfied. She laughed at his vitamin pills when he first took them. She decides that, yes, there will be one bird — just as God punished her with a cold because she ridiculed Marshall’s vitamin pills. Marshall does not seem to notice when she tries to disturb him. The only way she can disturb him is by being a martyr about his mother, and even then Marshall can offer no response: Edna is with the old lady all day; Edna drives her to doctors; Edna sits up with her at night when Marshall is asleep. They both know that she is dying. Edna sits on her snowmobile and watches. He has carefully put the empty bread bag in his pocket.

“Want to go back?” Marshall asks.

There is snow all over Marshall’s coat and hair.

“You told her we’d be right back,” Edna says.

She is cold and doesn’t want to ride any more. But Marshall understands something else. There is nothing he can say.

*

Mary picks up the phone, but the boy doesn’t say anything. He can see her at Sam’s — he doesn’t have to ask her to the dance.

*

“I don’t know what to say, Marshall. You don’t think it was deliberate, do you? I thought he came back in when I was holding the door open. I thought I saw him.”

*

Why say anything to the cardiologist? He is a young man, his office is filled with books. Would he believe that her heart stops and starts again? That she knows when her heart is going to stop?

It’s awkward; they run into each other in town. There is a boutique, painted white and yellow, where the card shop used to be: a post office, a drugstore, beauty salon, movie house, sporting-goods store. They both hate the town — no need to say anything about that. When they walk through town they think of New York. Neither of them understands what happened in New York. When she got well she came home. They can’t think of anything to say.

*

The snow continues to fall, three nights after the funeral. Mary and Kathy are sitting in Sam’s. The boys are sitting with them. Kathy is already at the jukebox, putting money in, and Beverly has come to the table to offer condolences. A cold night. There aren’t many people in Sam’s. Beverly sits down a minute, rearranging her hair. She complains that her car acted funny earlier and decides to call her sister to pick her up after work.

“I’m staying until closing if Miriam’s coming,” the boy says.

Kathy is dancing with his friend.

“Christ, look,” Beverly says. “I couldn’t move my feet that much. They’re so painful now that I’d like to cut them off.”

“That’s what I did,” a boy tells Beverly, looking at her through the gap in his hand where his middle finger is missing.

“You get crazy when you’re drunk,” Beverly says. “I remember the night you almost hauled off and hit Mary.”

Beverly leaves the table. She makes a phone call, then waits on two women at a table on the other side of the bar. Mary is listening to the boys at the table in back of her, singing along with the jukebox. She can’t tell what they’re singing because the jukebox is turned up full blast. Mary takes a bite of the hamburger. One of the boys ordered it for her. They order food for her without telling her, then Mary has to argue with them about who pays for it. Tonight she doesn’t care, though. Her father gave her some money and told her to go have a good time. It’s depressing at Edna and Marshall’s house night after night. It’s worse than school. Edna is very upset, but she doesn’t talk about the death. She says things that make no sense — that she’s going to sell her snowmobile and never ride again. Her mother and father go to her aunt and uncle’s every night; Edna sits in the rocking chair by the window and rocks back and forth, holding her knees, asking what they’re going to do. One of the boys is smiling at Mary. He’s the one who ordered the hamburger.

“Who’s paying for it?” Mary asks automatically.

He makes a crude joke. There is loud music; it gets so loud that she blocks it out. Two people come in in raincoats. Wind blows across the floor; the wind is blowing so hard that they have to force the door shut behind them. Mary is glad when the door is closed. She is tired of looking at snow. The four stained-glass squares in the top of the door shine brightly. The street light outside illuminates them. Mary is listening to the music, looking at the colors. There aren’t many people. Sam tells Beverly to go home early. Beverly makes another phone call, comes back to the table for last orders. The people in the raincoats are telling some other people that it’s not their dog. There is a large brown-and-white dog in Sam’s; it is wet, confused, stopping to shake itself, then running forward to sniff under a table. Mary recognizes the dog — it belongs to her uncle. But the dog doesn’t recognize Mary. It runs forward to sniff under another table. Beverly goes after the dog, intending to lead it outside. One of the boys watches what’s going on through the space in his hand, then goes after Beverly with his arms out, grabs her from behind, lets her go. Then the boy grabs the dog. Sam is talking to Beverly.

“I told you,” he says. “It’s Marshall’s dog. Call Marshall.”

“The boy took it.”

“Tell Marshall.”

Beverly shrugs. Sam can be as unreasonable as a drunk. Years ago she was going to get away from all this. She looks up Marshall’s number. She stares at the last name. Then she dials him. The phone rings and rings, no answer. Later, when Marshall does answer the phone, they’ll tell him his dog is dead.

*

The boy runs out of the restaurant, into the snow. He hadn’t realized how warm it was in Sam’s. He left his jacket behind. He is shivering. The dog is shivering, trying to jump out of his arms. He sees the streetlight; the light is higher and higher above him. He has fallen. The dog is gone. There is a noise, a thump, the noise he makes falling into the snow, the noise the dog makes running into the car. There is someone else outside Sam’s with him. Miriam. Miriam is just walking in the snow. He smiles at her — he waited all night to see Miriam, and now she’s here, walking in the snow. There are more lights — car headlights as well as the streetlight. Miriam’s car is stopped in the middle of the street. Miriam is kneeling in front of it, then walking back and forth, shaking him, lying there in the snow. It’s noisy — as noisy as it was inside, but it’s all Miriam! She’s calling Beverly, but Beverly’s already there, and she doesn’t have a jacket either. The door opens and closes. More snow blows into Sam’s. There is cold snow all around him.

“He took it.”

“Tell Marshall.”

Beverly shudders. She runs into the restaurant.

“Forget it,” Sam calls after her. “I’ll call him.”

“What about the boy?” Miriam whispers to Sam.

Sam knocks some snow off the heel of his boot.

“Snow’ll sober him up.”