Little Wrecks Read online

  She pulls Magda out of the doorway and into the dining room across the hall. The curtains are open and the room is dark. Across Baywater Avenue is a row of porch lights, shining on freshly painted arts-and-crafts doors.

  “What if every woman on this street got mad at the same time? What if they let it out instead of all sitting in their separate living rooms drowning it in vodka and prescriptions?” She’s kind of shouting now. “We’d burn this place down, Magdalene. There’d be nothing left.”

  They look at each other for a minute. Mrs. Hancock’s blue eyes are shining behind a layer of water, and the thin Irish skin has gone pink over her cheeks. She waves at the dining room door and waits for Magda to head back into the den. What did she come here for? Mrs. Hancock is obviously in way worse shape than she is.

  “I miss your mother,” she says from the doorway.

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Could you be friends with Mrs. O’Sullivan?”

  “Jeannie O’Sullivan? You’re friends with her daughter, aren’t you? She as pretentious as Jeannie?”

  “Um . . .”

  “She hangs around in Mariner’s bookstore, I know that. Her mother was friends with Sam Lipsky in high school. You’re not good enough for those two unless you made it all the way through Ulysses.”

  “Well, you know what my dad’s like.”

  “Yes, Magda. I know; he’s a snob too. A mean one. Your mother did the right thing. It’s tough on you, but one day you’ll see. It was that or burn the place down, like I said.”

  “I get that, Mrs. Hancock. I already get that. I should go.”

  Magda stands up, but Mrs. Hancock just keeps talking.

  “He could use taking down a peg.”

  “My dad? Yeah, I know. Trust me.”

  “Him too, but I meant Sam Lipsky. Like he’s allowed to just crush you, like everyone is a whole person but you. If I could live by myself in a stupid bookstore, I would.”

  What the hell is she talking about?

  “I should go.” Magda shrugs at her and puts the rocks glass down on the coffee table. “School night.”

  “As soon as you get a chance, get out of here.” Mrs. Hancock comes over and grabs Magda’s shoulders. Her breath stinks. Give her a match, she could breathe fire. “Take a leaf out of your mother’s book.”

  “I intend to.”

  “You know, you’re just as beautiful as her.”

  “No, Mrs. Hancock. I’m really not.”

  “You just carry it different, that’s all.” While they’re walking to the door, she says, “The other one is Ruth Carter. You sure you should be hanging around with her? She’s nearly as old as her mother was when she had her.”

  “Which I think makes your husband the bastard, not Ruth.” It just comes out before Magda can stop it. Mrs. Hancock’s mouth drops open, but then she closes it and smiles.

  “Yes. That’s what I’ve been telling you, isn’t it? See what I mean? We can either keep quiet, or start making Molotov cocktails. There’s no middle ground.”

  Well, it’s definitely true, then. He’s Ruth’s father. Mrs. Hancock didn’t even pretend he wasn’t. Wow. She opens the back door, and a chilly smell of lilacs drifts right through Magda’s body, like she’s stepping through a ghost. They both shiver.

  “Remember,” Mrs. Hancock says. “Keep it all tucked in. Don’t let them see it touch you.”

  Another gust of wind shakes the riggings on the boats in the harbor. The sound is like someone breaking glass in the distance.

  That same wind is tossing around dust and leaves and used-up paper bags in the empty park, scooping everything up and then dropping it again. The only people around are Lefty and Robert, which is what Magda was hoping. She should have taken Mrs. Hancock’s whiskey. She never would have noticed, she was so drunk, and whiskey that good would have made Robert’s whole year. If her and Ruth and Isabel were going to start thieving, they should have picked on people like the Hancocks.

  Lefty and Robert are using the bandstand for a theater, doing a dialogue. “I refuse to be seen in this light,” Robert says in a thin little southern voice. Spooky.

  She climbs the steps and stands looking down at him. He’s being faint with an arm resting on his forehead. Lefty is trying to look disturbed over by the steps.

  “Hey, cigarette anyone?”

  “Magdalene, Magdalene!” Lefty says, like she’s part of the act, come to save him.

  She hands out cigarettes and a Zippo. She’s widened the nozzle so the flame is eight inches high, but now it uses up a shitload of lighter fluid. Fun, though. Robert screeches and rolls away when the flame shoots up over his face. Maybe that was mean, actually.

  “Wanted to ask you two something.”

  “Ask on, Mary Magdalene. You can wash my feet if you want to,” Lefty says.

  “That wasn’t Mary Magdalene; it was one of those other Marys. You having a bad day, Lefty? You never get stuff like that wrong.”

  “Martha Mary. There’s three Marys, you know. But only one Magdalene.”

  “Two, actually. Me and the one who got it on with God. So, listen, if you had a large quantity of marijuana, like enough to sell and make some money, where would you guys go with it?”

  “Irkutsk,” Lefty says without hesitation.

  “Guam,” Robert says at the same time. “You can hide it in an air force plane. Sell it there. It’s cheaper there.”

  “I think you got that kind of backwards, Robert. The principles of capitalism have passed you by, which is cool, but anyway I was thinking of somewhere kind of closer to home.”

  “I got it.” Robert wags his index finger like he’s about to deliver the crucial point. “We could give it to cops. You know, so they could have a smoke and contemplate stuff? Get mellow. Yep. We could change the world if we gave the cops a couple pounds of weed.”

  “Yeah, that’s a great plan, Robert. Glad I talked to you guys. Cleared stuff right up.”

  A Highbone police car crawls by, above them on Baywater Avenue. Mrs. Hancock will still be up there, watching out the window and dreaming of fire. Lefty and Robert will do Tennessee Williams on the bandstand until either a cop or the morning comes to chase them away. Magda will go home to play with gears and live through the darkness until it all starts over again. When the sun finally rises, everything will still be there, and it will all still be her problem.

  eleven

  MAGDA HUGS HER knees and watches the sun fall behind the smokestacks. It’s Thursday evening, and most of the people are gone from the beach at Fiddler’s Cove. Someone, Ruth or Isabel, asked a question at least a whole minute ago, but Magda hasn’t answered. The threads of silence between them are so thick and tangled now, it’s hard to find her way through them. Any minute, all the words the three of them are trying so hard not to say are going to just pour down from the sky and soak them.

  “Hello, Magda? The machine you’re making? What’s it for?”

  “It’s not a machine; it’s a mechanism.”

  “Oh, sor-ry,” Isabel says. “Mechanism. And the difference would be?”

  “A mechanism is a system of interrelated parts that has, like, a holistic function. I’m not sure I mean holistic. Unified? A unified function.”

  Why is she trying to explain it to them? Does it matter?

  “Which is not a machine, ’cause . . . ?”

  “A machine applies power,” Magda says. “Like a car. Know what car is in Italian? Macchina. Machine. Now there’s a useful thing my mom taught me before she fucked off.”

  More talking, but Magda hasn’t said anything that matters in days. She’s keeping it all tucked in, like Mrs. Hancock said. She definitely hasn’t said anything about visiting Mrs. Hancock. Ruth would freak. She hasn’t said how different her skin feels, either. Her body is screaming all the time, but it isn’t using words. She hasn’t said that there are still bruises left, or that there ever were any bruises.

 
“Your mom used to make you say stuff in Italian, Magda. I remember that.”

  “Yep. La macchina. Cars are girls if you’re Italian.”

  “So,” Isabel says, “you’re building this mechanism, for why?”

  “I like it. I told Ms. Farrow at school it was art. I kind of believed it. Really it’s just satisfying to put parts together and make them work. It makes sense, like. It takes up your brain, all your thoughts kind of go away when you’re paying attention to what goes where and how it works. In a mechanism nothing is extra; nothing gets in the way.”

  “Your dad doesn’t care that you’re building a big, greasy, pointless motor in your room?”

  “It is not a fucking motor! It’s a mechanism.”

  Someone has a burger and fries in the parking lot. Gulls are circling and screaming behind them. Any minute their screams will turn into words. Look at her. She’s the weak one. It will echo down out of the sky and all the strangers in the parking lot will turn on her. Ruth points up at the birds.

  “What do you think we look like from up there?”

  “We look like crap that washed up on the beach,” Isabel says. “The tide line is behind us, look. From far away we’re just flotsam. Jetsam? Whichever.”

  “You can’t see us from close up either,” Ruth says. “You can’t see the stuff that matters, even when you’re right next to somebody.”

  “See what I mean, Magda? That is the kind of shit Ruth says lately.”

  Magda hears but she can’t answer. Memory has ambushed her again, slamming down a wall between her and the present moment. Sometimes it comes in order, like a story, sometimes in flashes, like a series of snapshots. Sometimes it comes in a split second, cutting through the middle of another thought. It grabs her and won’t let her pay attention to what is being said around her. Other times it just settles softly down on her like a pillow, cutting off the air.

  Isabel jumps up. “Come wading, you guys.”

  “Wait,” Magda says. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Okay, tell us in the water,” and Isabel runs away into the sliding foam.

  When Ruth stands up, sand and shells fall from her jeans. Magda realizes she’s staring at her. They lock eyes for a second, and all the questions are there. It’s Ruth, though, so she doesn’t have to answer out loud.

  In the water they turn towards the red-and-white-striped smokestacks of the LILCO plant, their colors saturating in the slipping sunlight. Everything blue is fading from the world. Looking down into the shallows, the pulling waves make Magda feel like she’s sliding along, even though they’re all standing still with their feet sinking into the sand.

  “Jeff,” Magda says, and then stops.

  “Yeah, when are you gonna tell us about Jeff?” Isabel splashes water in Magda’s direction. “You’re always sticking your nose in my sex life.”

  “Never,” Magda says. “Forget it.”

  “So you’re just saying his name?”

  “No. He figured out where the weed came from. And”—Magda looks at Ruth—“Charlie thinks we did it, too.”

  “Let’s remember not to apply for jobs at the CIA. Seems like we’re not way stealthy.” Isabel brings up cupped hands full of foamy water and splashes it over her face. “Also, the mass-murder part is kind of not my thing.”

  “Can you be serious for two seconds, Isabel? You’re not going to be alive to murder even one person. People are gonna murder us.”

  “Listen,” Ruth says. “I have an idea.”

  “Again?”

  “Well, Magda, you seem kind of busy spacing out in the middle of conversations and shouting insults at us for no reason. I just thought I’d step in.”

  “Fine. So?”

  “So . . . what about Underground Highbone?”

  “What about it?” Isabel says. “You didn’t want to hear about it the other day.”

  “Yeah, but I asked Old Mr. Lipsky. He got me thinking. We should check it out. We could stash Matt’s weed down there and wait for things to blow over.”

  “Oh yeah, how long do you think that’ll take?”

  “Uh, Ruth?” Isabel splashes her. “The harbor has tides that go up under Main Street. I don’t think anybody’s gonna buy the shit after it’s soaked in sewage water.”

  “We don’t know what’s under there,” Ruth says, “and obviously some of it must stay dry if it’s still there.”

  “What Isabel means is Underground Highbone doesn’t exist.” This is why Magda always does the thinking. Those two can’t be trusted to stick to reality.

  “Old Mr. Lipsky said it did, Magda. He should know. He was there at the time.”

  “He was a kid, Ruth.”

  “No, it really does,” Isabel says. “My sister went under there with Sal Lipardi and a bunch of other people the night they graduated. I told Ruth. She brought back this big, thick coffee cup. That’s what they used to drink gin out of during Prohibition, apparently. She said there’s a bowling alley under there and—”

  “All right,” Ruth interrupts, “but Old Mr. Lipsky said the stairs were behind the deli. That door in the alley is all chained up. We’d need bolt cutters or something.”

  “You guys, listen.” Isabel pulls Ruth’s arm. “My sister Elizabeth and them went in through the drainpipe in the harbor. The one I showed you, Ruth, remember? You just have to time it with the tide.”

  “Okay, women, just let me get this straight,” Magda says. “We’re gonna go up a sewage pipe while the tide’s changing and crawl around someplace in the pitch dark until we find some damp place anybody could get to, so we can’t really hide anything there anyway, for why?”

  “First of all, Ruth can get Danny’s tide table.”

  “No, Isabel. I’m not stealing anything else from Danny or my mom. Not for you, anyway.” Ruth walks backwards now, facing them and moving away into water higher than the rolled-up cuffs of her jeans.

  “Will you two just listen? It can be our secret cave. We can stash anything we can carry under there. We need a place to hide.”

  “Get real, Isabel. You don’t have anything to hide from. Stop being so melodramatic.”

  “How would you know that, Ruth? You’re the only one of us whose life is perfect.”

  “Seriously, Isabel? You float in and out of my life like it’s your own personal daydream. You can’t even see the blood and guts through your rose-colored glasses.”

  “Why are you so judgmental, Ruth? Who died and left you God? We are older than you, you know.”

  “No you’re not; you were just born first.” Ruth keeps backing away, shouting through cupped hands. Her shadow stretches across the waves towards Magda. “‘How’s Danny, Ruth?’ ‘Oh, he’s fine, Isabel. It’s really nice that you asked.’”

  “I’m sorry.” Isabel actually looks it. “I thought you hated Danny. I don’t see why you care.”

  “You don’t see anything but yourself, Isabel O’Sullivan. There’s a mirror where your heart’s supposed to be.”

  None of the shouting takes away the tension all around them. Magda can still feel it, pressing against her ribs and stopping the air like a rag in her throat.

  “So I guess we’re going to go into Underground Highbone and get trapped in a tunnel collapse or something. Great. That’ll round off this week nicely.”

  “Come on, Magda, it’s an adventure. We’re us, we have to go under there at some point. We can’t leave town without checking it out, can we?”

  Magda squints out onto the water. The outline of Ruth arches up against the sun then disappears. “She’s in the water. Naked. Look, those are her jeans up there.”

  “I’m not getting her out,” Isabel says. “I’ve been underwater with her once this week. She’s a fucking mermaid, that woman. That’s not her jeans, it’s her human skin. I’m telling you.”

  “Fine, I’ll go. It’s gonna be dark soon and the water’s freezing. She might cramp up and we won’t see her.”

  It hits again just as M
agda drops her shirt on the sand. She feels her body spinning around and into that tree. There on the beach, she can see the texture of the bark right in front of her eyes. She turns in a circle, looking for a way out. She can still make out the dark smudges on her arms, and the scrape down her thigh. Her body is a loud stranger, saying things to her that she doesn’t want to hear. She throws it at the cold, green water and dives. There is one beautiful, blank minute when she can’t breathe or think.

  Darkness under the first wave, and the taste of salt under the second. The scrapes on her legs sting and then go numb. She comes up and rolls over onto her back, gasping at the first star that’s winking now over the smokestacks. Then the burning cold subsides, taking everything away with it. Everything that’s written on her skin is carried up and erased in the darkening sky.

  twelve

  ONCE RUTH UNSCREWS the bulb on the O’Sullivans’ kitchen porch light it’s hard to see in their backyard. There’s no sound either. No one is out this late on a Thursday night. Friday morning, technically. It was one o’clock when Ruth left her house. She climbs down off the picnic bench and puts it back by the table. There’s no need to rush. She has time to do everything that needs to be done before the sun comes up.

  Virgil Mackie said the reason you have an imagination is to give you a map for making things real. He said she shouldn’t be scared of anything she thought. At night sometimes, he comes to stand under the window, like Isabel did. When Mackie comes, though, Ruth stays inside and just leans out. They talk, sometimes for hours, to each other and the darkness. Mackie comes back again. Isabel doesn’t.

  Now Ruth stands against the O’Sullivans’ house under the mudroom window, waiting for her pupils to open up and adjust to the darkness. The shadows soak into her skin, making her less visible, muffling the sound of her. Mackie showed her how to see herself like a candle with the light burning towards the inside, how to burn and hide at the same time. He said she was right to be mad at Isabel, anyone would be.

  They talked about fighting back, about how justice works, about war and fire and women. Burning, hanging, or drowning—those used to be the choices outlaw women had, back when Highbone was first built. Mackie said the way you became the judge instead of the outlaw was to appoint yourself. Nothing else to it.