(41) Dead Like A River

Want to cheer up a girl? Take her shopping.

We got back on the 68, south to Highway 7 and headed toward downtown. We hit a Goodwill first, where Moira bought two vintage hippie shirts and a seashell necklace, then a dollar store where she got all excited by a pair of dungarees with quilt-like patches on the thighs. Next we pulled in to a supermarket, a Safeway or Kroger's, I forget which, and I bought horseradish, a block of sharp cheddar cheese, and beef sticks. After that we went to a park to snack and drink our beverages, until a security guard sauntered over to tell me that it was not permissible to drink beer in the park. I held the bottle out to him. "You want to finish this off then?" He didn't think that was funny, so we left.

I took Moira around town, its streets narrow and congested, where again I marveled at the elevated monorail system that links together the various university sites. Everywhere were clumps of college girls. The police there have a special unit whose duty is to keep an eye on the welfare of the co-eds. I wondered if the girls found that comforting or a nuisance. I didn't wonder how the men felt about it.

I settled the rat in a greenway by the M River as the sun was about to touch the canopy of green and warm-colored hills. The water was molten gold in places and dark like blued oil in others, oozing past half-submerged roots and stalks of cattails, sliding past us, a current of murmuring blood, so like a warning without words. I put on my leather jacket against the increasing chill. I left it unzipped so Moira could snuggle with her back to my stomach and I could feel her heat and the pulse of her breathing. And the river kept sliding past, going where it must go, having a voice but no choices, forever reaching its end, never dying and never free.

"Where do things go when they die?" she asked.

"Either up or down," I said, recalling my sister's friend, a nurse, who had turned from a patient to prepare an injection, and suddenly felt something go through her from behind, through and then upward. She knew, she absolutely knew, that the patient had died. She turned around to check on him, and sure enough he was dead. Dead like a river.

"I hope sort of sideways," Moira said, pressing a cheek to my chest, "if Alicia is to come. Come and look like me. Or like Roberta. And what would that mean? Why would she look like me? Or like Joe's mom? I can't figure."

"Top talk," I said and linked my hands under her bosom. "But I think it's about changing your past in some way. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"But how? I don't see how. What she did has been done. How could it be undone? She doesn't know anything about how I really felt then, or feel now. She doesn't know what happened to Nightie, her little black cat. She doesn't know how Joe feels, either. She wants him to be normal, but what about me? She just doesn't know how unnormal she made me."

"She doesn't have to," I said. "I don't know what Top thinks he can do to put this right. But whatever it is he's planning, it won't be any more normal than you or Joe, or that witch mother. And it's certain, I think, that the ghost, if there is one, will be something from Top's mind, a manifestation of something within himself, a part of himself. It will personify his idea. If it does anything at all, it will do what is within himself to do."

Moira shivered theatrically. "That's spooky, and I don't even know what you mean exactly. I'll just have to wait and see. You're right, I'm not bored! Even if... well, even if nothing happens I won't be bored. Maybe if it doesn't happen tonight it'll happen later. Tomorrow or whenever. You said there's more than one way..."

She wriggled around and breathed hotly on the hollow of my throat. "I heard you tell Neal that I was a little crazy. You made it sound like we are all crazy. But it's not us who're crazy, it's the crazy things that happen to us, and we just have to be crazy in return. Right?"

"That's as good a philosophy as any. Look, I don't want to have to put up with those four old fuckers at the cabin at dinner. I know this cheap but nice little restaurant. I'll order a double gin and tonic, empty out my water glass, and pour half the drink in it and give it to you with my compliments. We'll order some finger food and just...laugh about things."

"Let's!"

And so fifteen minutes later we were sitting at a corner table that had a red-and-white checkered plastic cloth and a slim glass jar with plastic flowers in it. The lighting in our corner was so dim that we looked like pale shadows with diamonds for eyes.

Moira talked of knowing four guitar chords that were good for any rock song I could name. I said I had ten thumbs that could sort of play the piano. Our mouths were happy with the hot greasy crunchy fish sticks and zucchini; with words that were loosely connected with dreams we had dreamed for years past counting. Mine and hers were not too dissimilar, but mine were aged and tasted like wine that was turning into vinegar, while hers were still fresh with the tang of the grapes.

And the clock ticked above the diner counter where the old men sat flirting with the waitress; the thin red second-hand dropping downward like a troubled scar.