Praying for Sleep

5

He encircled her with his arms and pressed his mouth against hers. It was not a gentle kiss. Her fingers found his solid biceps and pulled him closer. Against his bare chest she rubbed her breasts, covered by only the thin cloth of her blouse.

I’m out of control, Owen thought. Out of goddamn control. He closed his eyes and kissed her again.

His tongue slipped between her lips and played with hers. She gripped his lower lip between her teeth and sucked it into her mouth. Then she hesitated and turned away, uneasy.

“No,” he commanded. “Kiss me.”

“What if she sees us?”

Owen shushed her, observing that her protest was halfhearted. It was as if the risk of being caught was part of her passion. Perhaps most of it.

His hands dropped to her blouse. She shuddered as a button popped off and fell at their feet but she gave no other resistance. The garment separated, and the backs of his hands brushed her exposed breasts.

“Are you-?” she began but he kissed her again and spread his large hand, so that a thumb and little finger each touched a nipple. His other hand curled around the white flesh of her back and pulled her closer.

His hand yanked her skirt high and stuffed the hem of the cloth into her waistband, exposing pale skin. She lifted her hips but he stroked her taut silk panties once and then didn’t touch them again. Instead he took her hand, unzipped his trousers and pulled himself out, closing her fingers around him roughly, silently instructing her to stroke, hard, so hard he was nearly in pain. When she flagged he ordered, “No, harder!”

And she did.

A moment later he stopped her, urgently gripping her shoulders and turning her around so that her back was to him. He rested his palm on the back of her hair and pushed her forward, then tugged the panties down. With both hands on her hips he entered her hard and instantly lost whatever self-restraint remained. He slammed against her. His hands clutched her breasts and he pulled her into him, her breath popping from her mouth in small bursts. He lowered his teeth to the back of her neck and closed them on the nape, biting hard, tasting sweat and perfume. She squirmed and pressed back against him, whimpering.

The sound triggered him. He slipped out and amid fierce spasms left a glistening stream down the inside of her thigh. He let his weight sag onto her back, gasping.

Then he was aware of motion and he realized that she’d been stroking herself all along. His hands slid around to her breasts once more and he pulled on her nipples. A few moments later he could feel her legs tense and, as she called his name in a high-pitched moan, once then again, her body shivered hard. She remained still for a moment then eased forward and rolled onto her back. He rested beside her, on his knees.

Inches apart, not touching.

As if words were wrong, as if words would give away this secret, he said nothing but leaned over and kissed her cheek in a formal, brotherly gesture. She squeezed his hand once.

Then Owen hefted his shovel and disappeared down the culvert, leaving his wife to lie like a trysting college girl beside the dark lake, on a neatly stacked row of sandbags.

Lis Atcheson watched the dull clouds overhead, and glanced uneasily at the house to see if Portia might have witnessed their exhibition.

The water lapped on rocks only feet from her head but seemed, despite the rising level, quite peaceful.

She breathed deeply a number of times and closed her eyes momentarily. What on earth had brought that on? she wondered. Owen was a man with an appetite stronger than hers, that was true, but he had a moodiness too; sex was the first thing to die when he turned sultry or preoccupied. It had been three or four weeks since he’d eased over to her side of the bed.

And the last time they’d found a more adventurous venue? The kitchen, the Cherokee, outdoors? Well, she couldn’t remember. Months. Many months.

He’d come up to her ten minutes before, carrying a load of burlap bags from the greenhouse. Her back had been to him and she’d been bending down to muscle a sandbag into place on the levee when she heard the stack of empty bags fall nearby and felt his hands on her hips.

“Owen, what are you doing?” She laughed, and felt herself being pulled against him. He was already erect.

“No, we don’t have time for this. My God, Portia’s doing the upstairs windows! She can look right out!”

Silently he closed his hands over her breasts and kissed her hotly on the back of the neck.

“Owen, no!” She turned around.

“Shhh,” was all he said, and his unyielding hands moved up under her skirt.

“Owen, are you nuts? Not now.”

“Yes,” he said. “Now.”

And from behind, too. A position he generally didn’t like; he preferred to pin her on her back, helpless, and watch her face as he pulsed on top of her.

What had gotten into him?

Maybe, above the clouds, there’s a full moon.

Maybe it’s…

The water lapped with the rhythm of the blues.

… the cowboy boots.

She glanced at the yellow windows of the house-windows from which she was now fully, if dimly, visible. Had Portia seen?

And if she had? Lis wondered. Well, so be it. He’s my husband, after all.

She closed her eyes and was astonished to find herself drowsy-despite the adrenaline that still coursed in her bloodstream, despite the urgency to finish the sandbagging. Well, here’s the miracle of the evening. Oh, my God, forget about floods, forget about orgasms out of doors… I think I’m falling asleep.

Lis Atcheson suffered from insomnia. She might go twenty-four hours without sleep. Sometimes thirty, thirty-six hours, spent wholly alert, completely awake. The malady had been with her for years but had grown severe not long after the Indian Leap incident last May. The nightmares would start fifteen or twenty minutes after she’d slipped under-dreams filled with black caverns, blood, eyes that were dead, eyes that begged for mercy, eyes that were cruelly alive…

Like a whipcrack, she’d be awake.

Eventually her heart would slow, the sweat on her temples and neck would evaporate. And she’d lie in bed, a prisoner of consciousness, growing ill with fatigue and teased by hallucinations. Hour after hour after hour. Gazing at the blue-green digital numerals that flicked ever onward. These numbers took on crazy meanings-1:39 seemed snide, the shape of 2:58 was comforting, 4:45 was a barricade; if she didn’t cross it asleep she knew she’d lost the battle for that night.

She could recite all sorts of facts about sleep. Einstein needed ten hours a day, Napoleon only five. The record holder for not sleeping is a Californian who was awake for 453 hours. The average person sleeps between seven and a half and eight hours, a tomcat sixteen. There was a fatal type of insomnia, a type of prion disease that destroyed the thalamus region of the brain. Lis owned exactly twenty-two books on sleep disorders and insomnia; sometimes she recited their titles in lieu of counting sheep.

“It’s just a way to avoid the nightmares,” Lis’s doctor had told her. “You have to tell yourself they’re just dreams. Try repeating that. ‘They’re just dreams; they can’t hurt me. They’re just dreams; they can’t hurt me.’ ”

She did as instructed but the awkwardness of this tongue-twisting mantra tended to waken her even further.

Yet tonight, Lis Atcheson-lying outside, bare-breasted and skirt to her thigh-felt sleep closing in fast. She grew more and more relaxed as she gazed at the greenhouse, the lights glowing ultramarine blue. She heard Owen slam the shovel onto a sandbag with a ring. She saw Portia’s shadow in an upstairs bedroom.

Odd images began to dance in her mind. She recognized this as lucid dreaming. She saw faces melting, people becoming dark shapes, vaporous forms, flowers mutating.

Lis pictured a dark-red, a blood-red Victorian John Armstrong rose and that was the last image in her mind before she slipped under.

It was perhaps no more than ten seconds later that a branch snapped, loud as a gunshot. Lis, her ruddy hands folded scrupulously on her chest like the effigy of a long-dead saint, sat up, instantly and irrevocably awake, drawing closed her blouse and pulling down her skirt, as she stared at the dark form of the man who appeared from a row of hemlocks and trod forward.

Easing the ’79 Chevy pickup off the back road onto Route 236 he goosed the lazy ticking engine until the truck climbed to seventy. He heard what he diagnosed as an ornery bearing and chose not to think about it further.

Trenton Heck sat nearly reclining, his left foot on the accelerator and his right straight out, resting on the bench under the saggy flesh of a four-year-old male dog, whose face was full of lamentation. This was the way Heck drove-with his leg stretched out, not necessarily with a hound atop it-and he’d bought a vehicle with an automatic transmission and bench seat solely because of this practice.

Exactly thirty-two years older than the dog, Trenton Heck was sometimes referred to as “that skinny guy from Hammond Creek” though if people saw him with his shirt off, revealing muscles formed from a life of hunting, fishing, and odd jobs in rural towns, they’d decide that he wasn’t skinny at all. He was lean, he was sinewy. Only in the past month had his belly started to roll past his waistband. This was due mostly to inactivity though some of it could be traced to chain-drinking Budweisers and to single suppers of twin TV dinners.

Heck tonight massaged a spot on his faded blue jeans under which was a glossy mess of old bullet wound dead center in his right thigh. Four years old (coming up on the anniversary, he reflected), the wound still pulled his muscles taut as cold rubber bands. Heck passed a slow-moving sedan and eased back into his lane. A big plastic Milk Bone swung from the truck’s rearview mirror. It looked real and Heck had bought it to perplex the dog though of course it didn’t; Emil was a purebred blood.

Heck drove along the highway at a good clip, whistling a tuneless tune between uneven teeth. A roadside sign flashed past and he lifted his foot off the accelerator and braked quickly, causing the hound to slide forward on the vinyl seat, grimacing. Heck eased into the turnoff and drove a quarter mile down a country lane of bad asphalt. He saw lights in the far distance and a few shy stars but mostly felt an overwhelming sense of solitude. He found the deserted roadside stand-a shack from which a farmer had years ago sold cheese and honey. Heck climbed out of the truck, leaving the engine running and the dog antsy on the seat.

Heck’s outfit tonight was what he always wore unless the temperature was crackling cold: a black T-shirt under a workshirt under a blue-jean jacket. Covering the curly brown hair that dipped over his ears was a cap emblazoned with the logo of the New York Mets. The cap had been a present from a woman who could recite all the vital statistics of the Flushing Meadow sluggers going back fifteen years (Jill had a great knuckleball herself) but he didn’t care for the team and wore the tattered hat only because it was a present from her.

He looked around uneasily and wandered in a slow circle through the dusty parking area. He glanced at the idling truck and concluded that it was too much of a beacon. He shut off the engine and lights. Enveloped in darkness, he resumed his pacing. Rustling sounded nearby. Heck immediately recognized the sound of a raccoon’s footfalls. Moments later he identified a residue of musk on a skunk’s ass fur as the animal passed silently behind him. These creatures weren’t a threat, yet as he paced he kept his hand on the black Bakelite ribbed grip of his old automatic pistol, dangling from an even older cowboy holster, complete with rawhide leg thongs.

Clouds filled the sky. The storm was overdue. Rain if you’ve gotta, he spoke silently though not heavenward, but keep that wind away for another few hours, Lord. I could use some help here and I could use it bad.

A twig snapped behind him, loud, and he turned fast, coming close to drawing down on a conspicuous birch tree. He knew of few animals in the wild that would snap twigs this way; he recalled only a towering moose lumbering along with her calves, and a seven-foot grizzly bear, gazing at Heck hungrily from the amiable haze of his protected-species status.

Maybe it’s a drunk deer, he thought, to cheer himself up.

Heck continued to pace. Then lights filled the parking lot and the car arrived. It parked with a leisurely squeal of brakes. Upright as a boot-camp sergeant, the gray-suited officer walked over the damp ground to where Heck stood.

“Don.” Heck offered a limp salute.

“ Trent. Glad you were free. Good to see you.”

“That storm’s on its way,” Heck said.

“That Emil of yours could scent through a hurricane, I thought.”

That may be, he told Haversham, but he wasn’t inclined to get himself lightning-struck. “Now, who’s the escapee?”

“That psycho they got at Indian Leap last spring. You remember it?”

“Who don’t, round here?”

“Snuck off in somebody’s body bag tonight.” Haversham explained about the escape.

“Crazy maybe but that shows some smarts.”

“He’s over near Stinson.”

“So he drove a ways, this nutzo?”

“Yup. The coroner’s boy, the one who was driving’s over there now. So’s Charlie Fennel and a couple troopers from J. He’s got his bitches with him.”

The Troop’s dogs weren’t true trackers but hunting dogs- Labradors -occasionally drafted for scenting. They had fair noses and being spayed bitches they stayed clear of posts and trees and weren’t easily led astray. But they did get distracted. Emil was a track-sure dog; when he was on scent he’d walk right over a rabbit sitting in his path and ignore it, and the only sound you’d hear was the rasp of his anxious breath as he charged along the trail. The girls on the other hand were track-happy and spent much of the time quartering with sloppy enthusiasm and yelping. Still, when you were after a dangerous escapee, it was good practice to go with a pack. He asked Haversham what they could use to scent on.

“Skivvies.” The captain handed over a plastic bag. Heck was confident that Haversham knew how to handle scent articles. He’d have made sure that the underwear hadn’t been laundered recently and that nobody had touched the cloth with their fingers. The trooper added, “He’s running mostly naked, near as we can tell.”

Heck thought the captain was joking.

“No sir. He’s a big fellow, got lots of padding on him. Adler, that doctor at Marsden, he was telling me these schizos don’t feel cold like normal people. It’s like they’re pretty numb. They don’t feel pain either. You can hit ’em and they don’t even know they’re hit.”

“Ooo, that’s good to know, Don. Tell me, does he fly too?”

Haversham chuckled then added, “They say he’s pretty harmless. He does this a lot. Adler says he’s escaped from seven hospitals. They always find him. It’s like a game for him. The bag he snuck out in? The fellow’s it was, was a suicide.”

“Harmless? Didn’t they read about Indian Leap?” Heck snickered, and nodded down the road toward Marsden hospital. “Who’s crazy in there and who isn’t?” Heck was suddenly unable to look at Haversham. “Say, over the phone you mentioned five hundred for my fee. And the reward. Ten thousand. That right, Don? Ten?”

“Yessir. The fee’s from my assistance fund just like normal. The reward’s from the state. From Adler’s budget. He’s pretty anxious to get this fellow.”

“I don’t suppose he put it in writing?”

“Adler? Nope. But he’s really anxious to see this boy caught. You collar him, you’ll get your money, Trent. And you’re the only civvy on the case. My boys can’t take a penny.”

“We’ll get him.”

The captain looked off into the night and seemed to be debating. Finally he said, “ Trenton? I know I told you he wasn’t dangerous but keep that close to you.” Haversham indicated the pistol on Heck’s hip. “I gotta tell you-was probably an accident, from what Adler says, but Hrubek might’ve attacked a couple orderlies. Cracked one of ’em’s arm like a toothpick. Could’ve died if nobody’d found him.”

“Well, is he dangerous, or ain’t he?” Heck asked.

“All I’m saying is, keep your eye out. Say, what is that piece?”

“That old P-38 of mine.” Heck patted his holster, remembering in detail the day he handed his Glock service automatic over to this very man, Heck’s eyes frozen on the black gun as he turned it in, grip first, clip out, slide locked open. The badge and the ID card followed. Heck had bought the uniform himself so they let him keep that though he had to sign a form that said he’d never wear it in public, and his face was red with anger and shame as he set his name to paper.

“They still sell ammunition for that old thing?”

“Nine-millimeter parabellum is all it is.”

Haversham stuck his head through the passenger window and stroked the hound’s head. The dog sat insensible and bored, staring at the motion of the captain’s gray hair. “All right, Emil, go do us and your master proud. You hear? You go catch us a crazy man. Good boy, good boy.” Haversham turned to Heck. “Isn’t he a good old boy?”

And Trenton Heck-who’d midwived bitches and nursed pups with eyedroppers and sucked snake venom out of the shoulders of retrievers and sped to vets at ninety mph to save dogs that could be saved and shot them remorselessly with a merciful bullet when they could not, who didn’t speak to dogs except to command them-Trenton Heck just nodded at the captain with a cautious smile. “Better be going. ’Fore that track gets cold.”

“How the hell did it happen?” Owen barked. “He’s a madman. He can’t escape! Did they leave the son-of-a-bitch door open?”

“Some mix-up of some kind. They were kind of, you know, sketchy on details.” Stanley Weber, duly elected sheriff of the Incorporated Village of Ridgeton, turned out to have been the intruder who’d wakened Lis from her brief sleep. He’d passed by without even noticing her, directed by Portia down to the culvert where Owen was working.

His news was far more disturbing than his unexpected arrival.

“My God, Stan,” Lis said, “it’s a hospital for the criminally insane. Don’t they have bars?”

She was remembering: Eyes set deep in the moonish jolly mad face. Teeth yellow. His howling voice. “Sic semper tyrannis… Lis-bone… Hello Lis-bone!”

“There’s no excuse for it.” Owen paced angrily. He was a large man, strong in many ways, and he had a temper that scared even Lis. The sheriff crossed his arms defensively and leaned into the anger. “When did it happen?” Owen continued. “Do they know where he’s going?”

“Within the last couple hours. I was on the radio.” He pointed to his squad car as if trying to lead Owen’s fury off track. “I was speaking to Don Haversham. With the state police?” He added significantly, “He’s a good man. He’s a captain.”

“Oh, a captain. My.”

Lis found herself staring at the sheriff’s feet; in his heavy, dark boots he appeared less a civil servant than a man of combat on a combat mission. A breath of air stirred, reaching damply into her blouse. She watched a dozen leaves fall straight from the branches of a towering maple as if seeking cover before the storm arrived. Lis shivered and realized the kitchen door was ajar. She closed it.

Footsteps sounded suddenly and Lis glanced at the doorway to the living room.

Portia paused then entered the kitchen, still dressed in her thin, sexy outfit, her abundant breasts provocatively defined by the white silken cloth of her blouse. The sheriff nodded at the young woman, who smiled indifferently. The lawman’s eyes dipped twice to her chest. Portia’s Discman was stuffed into the pocket of the skirt and a single earplug was stuck in one ear. A tinny chunka-chunka sound came from the dangling plug.

“Hrubek’s escaped,” Lis told her.

“Oh, no.” The second earplug was extracted and she flung the wire around her neck the way a doctor wears a stethoscope. The raspy sound of rock music was louder now, shooting from both tiny plugs.

“Say, could you shut that off?” Lis asked, and Portia absently complied.

Lis, Owen and Portia stood on glazed terra-cotta tile as cold as the concrete stoop outside, all in a line, arms crossed. Their formation struck Lis as silly and she broke ranks to fill a kettle. “Coffee or tea, Stanley?”

“No, thankya. He’s just wandering around lost, they say. He got away in Stinson, nearly ten miles east of the hospital.”

And fifty miles east of where they now stood, Lis thought. Like having a full gas tank or two twenty-dollar bills in your pocket this was a comfort-maybe insubstantial, maybe useless, but a comfort nonetheless.

“So,” Portia said, “he’s heading away from here.”

“Seems to be.”

Lis was remembering: The madman bursting to life, hand and foot shackles jingling, his eyes molesting the trial spectators. And she was the person he undressed most eagerly. “Lis-bone, Lisbone…”

Lis had cried then-in June-hearing his hyena-pitched laugh fill the courtroom and she wanted to cry now. She clamped her teeth together and turned to the stove to make a cup of herbal tea. Owen was still firing angry questions at the sheriff. How many men are out looking for him? Do they have dogs? Did he take any weapons? The sheriff endured this cross-examination gamely then responded, “The fact is they’re not doing a whole lot about it. It went out as an information bulletin only. Not an escape-assistance request. I myself’d guess they’ve pretty much cured him. Shocked him, probably, like they do. With those electrode things. He’s out wandering around and they’ll pick him up-”

Owen waved his hand and started to speak but Lis interrupted. “If nobody’s worried about it, Stan, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I come by to ask if you still got that letter. Thought it might give ’em a clue where he’s got himself to.”

“Letter?” Owen asked.

Lis, however, knew exactly which letter he was referring to. It’d been her first thought this evening when the sheriff had said the word “Marsden.”

“I know where it is,” she said, and went to get it.