Can You Feel It?
Fiction: a short story
I’ll never forget Lorraine’s attire the day she flung open the door to her trailer and told Officer Mastiff she’d caught me peeking through her window as she undressed. Nobody had ever seen her naked before, she said; I should fry in the electric chair for such perverted behavior. That I would touch myself while watching an old woman slip off her nightie was disgusting and had already given her nightmares. Her tone was convincing. Spittle flew from her mouth. Her arms flailed with her words. Appalled, aghast, beside herself, she’d never been so embarrassed. Even though she wasn’t wearing pants, I believed her. I understood she was under the influence of grief. Still, I couldn’t fathom why she would vehemently squeeze her breasts and accuse me, her son, of rape.
Two officers brought me to the police station, uncuffed, and questioned me. I explained Lorraine’s history of undiagnosed mental illness and said her falsely accusing me of lewd acts was probably a ploy to push me away, or a cry for help. I never would’ve been there, I said, if Hal hadn’t asked me to check on Lorraine’s welfare. I looked through her window because she wouldn’t answer the door. True story. The police let me go and said they’d send somebody to evaluate Lorraine’s condition and to ensure she wasn’t a danger to herself and others. That was last year, shortly after 9/11, and the day after my twenty-third birthday.
I hadn’t spoken to Lorraine since and had no intention of ever seeing her again. Judge me all you want. You can’t help a woman who doesn’t want your help and refuses to acknowledge you exist. She was grieving the loss of a son that day, yes, but she’d been grieving for as long as I could remember. Nobody ever knew why or what she was mourning, only that her behavior suggested she was among a terrible loss and that the world was her purgatory.
During my childhood, when Lorraine wasn’t doing chores and routine activities, she’d be in the kitchen, perched at a small round table, a police scanner intermittently chirping in the background and an eight-inch, black-and-white TV within reach. The TV would stay muted on a news channel. She would only watch the clock above the fridge. Hal would empty her ashtray five times a day. We rarely spoke to her.
One time, after a neighbor’s cat had scratched me, I went to Lorraine for help because nobody else was home. I was six years old and thought every wound, no matter how small, needed a bandage, including bruises. When I asked Lorraine for a Band-Aid, she scurried off, crying, and hid in her room until morning. That day, I decided I didn’t have a mother.
I often wondered, once I’d reached the age to do so, whether Lorraine’s instability and her detachment from reality had resulted from birthing two boys she didn’t want, couldn’t care for, and didn’t know how to love.
You see, it wasn’t my fault. I was a product of my environment, conditioned at an early age not to need my parents’ affection. As I matured, I didn’t need anybody’s love and affection. Love was a concept beyond me, a mythical sensation portrayed in movies and music as if anybody could have it, as if it were worth it. People put love on a pedestal, suffer to climb it, endure pains to stay on it, and seem to think they might wither and die when knocked off it. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Why bother?
Unlike me, Hal had maintained a meager relationship with Lorraine through his adult years. I say “meager” because Hal occasionally spoke to her on the phone and was always too busy whenever Lorraine needed him in person. So every year or two, he would guilt me into visiting her, like now, but I wasn’t giving in this time. No way.
“Uncle Lenny left her his house,” he said.
“Lenny’s dead?”
“Ice fishing. Fell in the lake drunk.”
“It’s November.”
“I guess he’s been dead a while, sometime after Paul went, I think.”
Paul was the product of Lorraine consuming six too many apple martinis and deciding unprotected sex with a stranger in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler parked at a Wal-Mart was good fun on a Tuesday. Despite being over fifty and living alone, Lorraine was excited to have Paul and considered him a second chance, said Hal, a chance to be a real mother and really be there for him, for Paul.
According to Hal, Lorraine carried Paul home from the hospital three days after birthing him and managed without help for a few hours. Desperate, she tracked down his father. He agreed to help financially and said he would occasionally visit them. That wasn’t enough for Lorraine. So he sent over his parents. They took Paul in and allowed Lorraine to stop by whenever she wanted, provided she called first. Hal said Lorraine had no qualms about the agreement. She knew Paul’s grandparents would care for him better than she could.
I only met Paul once, six weeks before he died of Leukemia. Because Hal was two hours away, stuck at a job site in New Bedford, he called and talked me into going to the hospital to see how Lorraine was handling Paul’s sudden decline. The visit was short. Paul departed at six years old, a few days before Lorraine tried to have me arrested.
“. . . I don’t know,” Hal was saying, “Lenny’s lawyer kept babbling, was all upset because it took him so long to track down a relative. I told him about us changing our names and how mom’s never had anything in her name. He wasn’t entertained.”
“What’s Lorraine gonna do with a house?”
“I want the house—for me and Cindy. My place is too small for a family. Plus, Cindy’s sister is moving here next month from Oregon. Olivia, I think that’s her name. I’ve never met her. All I know is Cindy gave her an open invitation.”
I reminded Hal of what happened the last time he talked me into visiting Lorraine.
“Come on, you’re better at this stuff than me. And according to Sandra, mom’s been doing really well: taking her meds, no outbursts—even smiles from time to time. Just talk to her, man. Take Vanessa with you, if you think it’ll help.”
“No thank you.”
“Besides, mom always liked you more.”
“Nice try. You’re the only one she talks to. And she never spoke to either of us when we were kids.”
“Never spoke to—how many times do I have to remind—”
“Dad did everything. You know that.”
“Dad was an asshole. You forget that. You forget a lot of things.”
Hal Senior was a decent father, just strict, which was why Hal didn’t get along with him. Big Hal worked a lot, would be gone for four or five days, home for one or two, and then leave for a week. At home, he spent most of his time in the garage, fixing up beaters to sell for small profits. His conversations with me usually involved chores and promoting masculinity. “You wanna be a man, don’t you? Good. The lawn needs mowing.” Needless to say, he wasn't a hugger. But he was soft on Lorraine, loved her dearly, and would’ve done anything for her, if only he knew how. He asked her to get help once. She locked herself in the bathroom for a week. Six months later, he hit a sheet of snow-coated ice on I-93 while returning from a three-day haul and rolled his rig with a trailer into the Merrimack River. He drowned. I was eight years old.
“Hell,” Hal continued, “I packed your lunches and made your meals. I walked you to and from school and helped you do your homework. I even went to your little league games and then took you out for ice cream. Do you think I wanted to do all that? I was only fourteen.”
Every time Hal wanted me to do something for him, he mentioned how he took care of me after our father’s death. Lorraine wouldn’t get out of bed most days. Hal gave her a bell to ring when she needed water and food. I wore earplugs to bed.
I told Hal I’d think about talking to her. I lied.
“I was hoping you’d do it this morning.”
“Can’t. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
“Something wrong with you?”
Vanessa walked into the living room, still in her robe, and looked at me as if I’d already ruined her morning.
“Hey,” I told Hal, “I gotta go.”
“You’ll do it, right?”
“She still riding the bus?”
“Far as I know.”
“Great . . .”
Lorraine had been riding the Crosstown bus during the weekdays since Paul’s death. Nobody knew why. She wasn’t going anywhere. Still, Monday through Friday, she was outside Saint John’s Church at 6:10 a.m., waiting for the bus to arrive. She rode all day and didn’t get off the bus until 6:35 p.m., its last stop outside the church. She didn’t bother anybody, just sat there, riding. The drivers didn’t charge her a cent, not that she could afford it while on state assistance.
“Who was that?” Vanessa wanted to know.
“Hal.”
“And who’s Lorraine?”
“Seriously? What were you, spying on me?”
“I have every right to, the way you’re always flirting with girls at work.”
“I work for tips.”
“You still didn’t answer me.”
“She’s nobody.”
“You were talking about her, so she’s somebody.”
“It’s not important.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“What?”
“Why do you have to be so difficult all the time? You always do this.” She tightened the knot of her robe. “Yesterday, I asked you what the electric bill was and you said ‘High.’ I said, ‘How high?’ And you said, ‘Hundreds,’ which is dumb because it’s always over a hundred since you go to bed with all the lights on. Then I asked if it was more than two hundred, and you said, ‘Warmer.’ Sometimes I think you do this on purpose just to piss me off. Like, how hard is it to be direct and have a friggin conversation with me?”
“She’s my mother, okay.”
“Since when do you have a mother?”
“How could I not have a mother?”
“You never mentioned her.”
“And for good reason. Can we be done here?”