Sacrificial Ground

24

It was late in the evening before Karen left, and as Frank sat on his sofa, staring at her painting, he could still feel the warmth of her body as it had clung to him hungrily hour after hour. She had talked once again of leaving this city full of ghosts, and as he continued to gaze at the painting, it struck him that she had not painted the flowers themselves, or the almost translucent blue vase that held them, but the airy ghosts of these things. It was as if she had been able to feel the slowly fading pulse of each leaf and petal, and it was this overall sense of steadily departing life which she had captured.

He had bought the painting because it was hers, and because he thought it might brighten the space around him. But now he could see nothing but its sorrowfulness, its mournful sense of departure and farewell.

He walked into the kitchen and fixed himself a quick meal of beans and nearly burnt bacon. He ate it with a single slice of white bread. It was a joyless, bachelor’s fare, he realized, and each mouthful tasted of a life that had itself turned utterly flavorless.

He returned to the living room and once again sat down on the sofa. He felt the need to view his life as some kind of whole, as if it could be captured in a single tone or color. But nothing held firm. Nothing but his work, his pursuit—however blind and full of error—of something which could be called justice, or at least, retribution. People had to pay for what they did, and he was one of the ones who made them pay. It was the badge which gave him the right to do that, and he suddenly found that he wanted to cling to it with all his remaining strength. Nothing could bring back Sarah or Angelica or Ollie Quinn, or any of the scores of others whose bodies lay torn and broken in his memory, but whose spirits still moved sleeplessly through him. They were more real to him than all the living who crowded the streets and buses. They lived more fully in his mind, and their flesh was warmer and more tangible. It bled and bled, as if the one great heart of all the unjustly dead still beat on through the ages, their cries still ringing out through time, heard like a low moan in the ground, or like a scream echoing above it.

He took a bottle from the cupboard, returned to the sofa and took a long, slow drink. Its warmth moved down into him, and he could feel its comfort settling in. He started to take another, but stopped himself. He knew that if he took another, then he’d take another after that and still another, until the world grew hazy around him, and he would find himself on the floor in the morning, the stink of his own breath in his nose, and feeling so tightly wrapped in his own skin that he could hardly breathe without splitting open and spilling his insides across the plain wooden floor.

He put the bottle down on the little table beside the sofa and glanced up at the painting. The afternoon had stretched into the night, but nothing that had happened had convinced her not to go. She was leaving, like everything else, and so it seemed that only his work mattered. Everything else went away. Children and wives, and women who loved for a few sweet hours and then took planes to distant cities. The painting was right; everything lived in a certain stage of fading. What lasted was what you did, your work. Everything else was a phantom.

He reached for his notebook and started to go through it. He flipped one page, then another, his eyes combing each line intently, as if something might be drawn from even the most routine details. He noted the abandoned lot, the rusting car, the beautiful body laid out in its shallow grave. He read about guardians and trust funds, private schools and plays, dreams of acting and plans to leave for New York. One by one, the pages fell away. He read and read and read about a little girl’s room, a telephone that was used only once, a date, May 15. He read about pregnancy and a late-night ride through Grant Park. He parked with her again at the Cyclorama, then left with her and drove up and down some obscure street. Then he went with her to an alley and made love to her joylessly, and with a frantic anger. He searched her closet again, and found none of the clothes she’d been seen wearing at various places in the city. His finger moved through the neatly arranged skirts and blouses, still looking for the frilly laces and black velvets that were the costumes of her secret life. He talked to a dying painter once again, and then to the woman who had loved him futilely all her life. He listened to her song of art, to her efforts to find her artists certain dignified forms of work, touch-ups, restorations. He read again and again, until the words dissolved into one black line, and, at last, he fell asleep.

Thunder awakened him. It came from far away and lingered in the air, rolling heavily over the city in a deep baritone groan.

He walked to the window and looked out. It had stopped raining, but he could tell by the thick feel of the air that it was about to begin again, hard and heavy, a jungle torrent. He thought of the animals in the zoo at Grant Park, soaked in their thick fur, their eyes staring vacantly at the deserted grounds. He could feel his mind wandering through the zoo, then over the grassy knoll that bordered it, and across the wet swamp to where the Cyclorama rested with immense heaviness on the bare earth. He could see the rain-soaked area around the building, the sea of mud which no doubt now encircled the great granite edifice. That was the only place she had stopped that night, the only place she had lingered. She had pulled up to the storm fence, glancing occasionally into her rearview mirror, and then straight ahead again, her eyes fixed on the far corner of the building.

He released the blind and it clattered shut. Then he walked out onto his porch and peered out toward the park. He couldn’t see it from where he was, but he knew it was there, swept with rain, deserted except for the few homeless souls who clung to shelter beneath the enormous trees. Some of those same trees rose gracefully around the Cyclorama, and he could see Angelica as she sat beneath them, thinking of her next move. It had been to leave the park and ride up and down a particular street a few times and then drive directly to the alley. He tried to put all these things in their proper, sequential order: stopped at the Cyclorama, waited for a few minutes, then drove to a street and went back and forth along it for a few minutes, and then, after that, headed for the alley. It seemed to Frank that Angelica had made her decision to go to the alley only after she had not been able to find what she was looking for on that street. But which street was it? He flipped through his notes, found Stan Doyle, Jr.’s phone number, and called him immediately.

“Hello?”

“Stan, this is Frank Clemons.”

“Oh,” the boy sputtered. “Yeah, right.”

“I need a little help.”

“Like what?”

“I want to drive you around the Grant Park area for a few minutes.”

“But I told you everything I knew.”

“I want you to show me exactly where you and Angelica went that night.”

The boy seemed to consider it for a moment. “Well, okay,” he said at last.

“I’ll pick you up in half an hour,” Frank said. He walked to his car, glancing back toward the house as he pulled himself in. Something stirred in him suddenly, and as he continued to look back at the old house, he realized that he had always sensed a strange grief all around it, as if some ancient wrong had seeped into it and was still there, absorbed into the woodwork, held there forever like a deep, abiding stain.

Stan ran hurriedly out to the car as Frank pulled into the driveway.

“My daddy’s due back tomorrow morning,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve been trying to clean up all the mess.”

“I’ll get you back pretty quick,” Frank said, as he steered the car back out into the street.

“I hope so. I’ve got a hell of a lot to do.”

“I just want to take you back over the route you went with Angelica that night,” Frank explained. “Maybe something will come together in your mind.”

“Yeah, okay,” Stan said. “No problem.”

It took nearly half an hour to get back to Grant Park. The long rains had cooled the air considerably, and the moisture on the leaves seemed almost icy beneath the streetlamps.

“I just want to retrace your movements that night,” Frank said, as he pulled the car over at the corner of Sydney and Boulevard. “She turned right at this corner, isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“This is where she turned,” Stan said confidently. “I’m positive about that.”

“Then what?”

“She headed up this street until she got to the end of the park,” Stan told him, “then she turned left.”

“Did she turn off anywhere?” Frank asked.

Stan shook his head emphatically. “No, she went all the way down the length of the park.”

“Then what?”

“She circled the park.”

“How many times?”

“Three, I think, maybe four. I don’t know for sure.”

Frank pressed his foot slowly down on the accelerator. “All right, let’s do it,” he said.

The car veered left off Cherokee and headed down the park. At the end, Frank turned left, then at the far corner made another left.

“Now this is what she did, right?” he asked at each turn.

“That’s right.”

Frank headed down Boulevard, this time from the opposite direction, circling the park entirely.

“That’s what she did,” Stan said, as Frank eased the car onto Cherokee again.

“And she did it about three times?” Frank asked.

“That’s right.”

“Did she act like she was looking for someone?”

“No.”

“She was staring around, glancing left and right?”

“No. She kept her eyes on the road.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “What happened next?”

“She drove down into the park.”

“Where?”

“Wherever it is, if you’re trying to get down to the Cyclorama,” Stan said.

Frank drove around the park once again, then turned left down the winding road that led to the Cyclorama.

“Where did she park exactly?” he asked.

Stan pointed to the left. “Over there, by that fence,” he said.

“Facing it?”

“Yes.”

“Show me exactly.”

“Where that sign is,” Stan said. “She parked right in front of it.”

Frank eased the car into position. A huge sign all but blocked his vision. It was white with red lettering:

CYCLORAMA RESTORATION

DEPARTMENT OF PARKS

CITY OF ATLANTA

“I must have read that sign a hundred times that night,” Stan said, as Frank brought the car to a halt.

“How long did she stay here?” Frank asked.

“It’s hard to say. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe a little more.”

“You said she kept looking out her rearview mirror, is that right?”

“Yes.”

Frank glanced at his own rearview mirror. The curving road which led down to the Cyclorama was clearly visible within it.

“Did any other cars come down the road while you were here?” he asked.

“No,” Stan replied. “It was just Angelica and me.”

“You didn’t see any other light?”

“No. Nothing.”

Frank drew his eyes from the mirror and looked straight ahead. Behind the sign there was nothing but a muddy’field. He could see the discarded materials used in the restoration, piles of cement blocks, wood slats, yards of torn and rain-soaked cloth. He could see the north side of the building, blank and white, with nothing but a small door at the rear. A large pile of torn and paint-splattered drop cloths lay outside the door. Various crates and empty paint cans were scattered about the grounds, along with the jagged, broken parts of metal scaffolding. It looked like a place that had been pillaged of every scrap of value and then left to the rain.

“So you two sat here for about ten minutes,” Frank said.

“Yes.”

“Then what happened?”

“We left,” Stan said. “She floored it. I mean she peeled out of here. I remember seeing a spray of gravel thrown up behind us.”

“Peeled out?”

“Yeah, and really loud, too,” Stan said, “enough to wake the whole town up.” He motioned to the right. “She whirled around this lot and just highballed it out of the park.”

Frank hit the ignition and drove the car back up to the main road.

“Which way did she turn?” he asked.

“Left.”

Frank made the turn. “Did you circle the park again?”

“No,” Stan said. “She drove to the end of it, then she turned left and headed straight down that road.”

“Good,” Frank said. “It’s coming back.”

“I just remember going straight,” Stan said.

Frank drove on, heading the car in the way Stan had indicated. He turned left at the edge of the park, then went almost its full length, passing under a single traffic light.

“She turned here,” Stan said, pointing to the right.

Frank made a right onto Ormewood Avenue.

“She went straight, like we are now,” Stan said excitedly. “This is getting to be interesting. Is this what it’s like to be a cop?”

Frank kept his eyes locked on the road ahead. “No,” he said. He continued to move forward, passing under one traffic light, then another, until the car nosed up a small hill, and then over it.

“I remember this,” Stan said suddenly.

Frank eased his foot off the accelerator. “What?”

“We went over this hill.”

“How do you know?”

“It has a little dip at the bottom,” Stan said. “That’s where we turned.”

Frank let the car cruise slowly down the hill. He felt the dip, like something hard and blunt pressed against his belly.

“Next right! Next right!” Stan cried. He looked at Frank excitedly. “That’s the street. The one she went up and down a couple of times.”

Frank made the right turn, then stopped and looked at the street sign: Mercer Place. When he turned back to Stan, the boy’s face was pale.

“I know this is it,” he said, slowly. “She took me up and down it a couple of times. Then we went to the alley. “ He shivered slightly. “It gives me the creeps.”

Frank made a slow turn onto Mercer Place and then headed down it.

“Did she seem interested in any particular house?” he asked.

Stan shook his head. “No. She just looked straight ahead. But she did get a look in her eye, like she was forcing herself not to look one way or the other.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No.”

Frank glanced left and right as he continued to cruise slowly down the street. Small, dilapidated houses lined it. Some leaned in one direction, some in another. But all of them looked as if they were trying to let some unbearable burden slide from their shoulders at last.

It was almost midnight by the time Frank returned to his apartment. He’d gone back to the Bottom Rail for a while, just to see if it still had any appeal to him. He found that it didn’t, but he didn’t know of anything to replace it with, except a solitary drink on a soiled sofa, with his eyes locked helplessly on a square of painted flowers.

His green notebook still rested where he had left it earlier in the evening, curled up next to the bottle on the little table by the sofa. He reached for it immediately and went through it once again. Facts and suppositions swarmed in and out of his mind. He saw people and places that were real enough: Cummings and Morrison and Jameson and Theodore; offices and great halls and small, spattered studios. Karen’s portrait of Angelica came back to him, and then dissolved will-lessly into her vase of flowers. Ghosts. A city of ghosts. He thought of Linton, then of Miriam Castle, then of the little paved street that wound down from the edges of the park. He could see the storm fence, the muddy ground, the small door and mound of speckled drop cloths.

Something caught like a hook in his flesh. He sat up slowly, and all the great, teeming chaos suddenly came together in a dead and frozen order.