Sacred Monster

Flashback 15C

The living room without its party, without the fire crackling cozily in the central fireplace, seemed larger and more impersonal. Moving through this space as though it were truly large, a vast desert, was a Guatemalan maid, slowly and ineptly dusting. Dust motes in the air followed her lazily from place to place.

Mom entered, in a vicious mood, clutching handfuls of snapshots. “Where’s my Jack?” she demanded, glowering at the maid. “Where’s my Sonny Boy?”

“Gone away,” the maid told her.

“Gone away?” Mom glared so hard she looked as though she wanted to bite the maid’s nose off. “Gone where?”

“Topanga Canyon,” the maid said.

Mom blinked. She looked around. She said, “With Buddy? When’s he coming back?”

“He no comin’ back,” the maid said.

Mom rose on the balls of her feet, red splotches appearing on her cheeks. “What? What the hell do you know?”

“They no comin’ back,” the maid repeated. All of the unfairness of her life was summed up in those words.

Mom squinted her eyes down to little slits and thrust her jaw at the maid. “Who are you, anyway?” she wanted to know.

The maid curtsied; dust motes ebbed and flowed all about her. “I am Constanza,” she said. “I’m an illegal, so I gotta stay in the job.”

Mom said, “You mean, Hoskins is gone, too?”

“Oh, sure,” Constanza said. “He no illegal. He can quit any damn time. He say so.”

“Dammit to hell and back,” Mom said. “I wanted to show him these new pictures.”

“Well, he gone,” Constanza said, and sighed.

Mom studied the maid, then thrust photos at her, saying, “Here, you can look at them.” Shoving a picture into Constanza’s hands, she said, “This is the twins with their rock polisher. Don’t they look alike? Bet you can’t tell which one is Bobby.”

Constanza dropped her dust rag on a chair and considered the photo. She pointed. “That one,” she said.

Impressed, Mom said, “Pretty good! Come on, sit down here. Let’s take a look at these.”

Mom and the Guatemalan maid sat side by side on a sofa that faced the sea. They did not look out. They bent their heads together over the pictures, one by one.

All this light, this light, this glaring light. I can’t even look up anymore. I have to talk to my interviewer’s gray shins. I sit tailor-fashion, legs folded in front of me, knees rising winglike on both sides. I lean forward over this nest of legs, and I pull my brows down low over my eyes because of all that sunlight, and I tell my interviewer’s shins, “Mom and Dad were happy there at the beach. It wouldn’t have been fair to take them away to the ranch.”

“Did they ever see the ranch at all?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t see any point in confusing them.” I touch my fingers to my forehead, and something is cold. Which is it that’s cold? Is it my fingers, or is it my forehead? Shouldn’t a person know these things? Shouldn’t a person be able to tell these things about his own fucking body?

I am atremble with rage. I can feel it. I know it’s bad for me. I am not supposed to feel great emotions, not the large emotions; they are all very bad for me. I can perform them, none better, but I am not supposed to experience them.

I take a deep breath, full of splinters and broken glass. I exhale dark, foul, noxious vapors. My hand (possibly cold) moves down from my forehead (possibly cold) to my lap (oh, most definitely cold).

“The ranch,” my interviewer says.

“The ranch. Yes. The ranch was good for me then. I found peace.” I lift my head, ignoring the harsh glare, my own face gleaming and shining. I smile, my light brighter than the sun. “I also found God,” I say.