Close Encounters Read online

  lt was around this time that Harmon had begun to notice Lincoln’s body as well. Sometimes, when Lincoln’s mother worked nights at the convenience store, he would come in to kiss her goodnight, something he had not shown much interest in a year ago, or even six months ago. His chest hovered over her in the bed. She thought she would suffocate, his gold cross pressed against her cheek, scraping up and down, creating a riverbed for his sweat to traverse down to her neck. Lincoln learned about her body through Harmon’s thick, calloused hands, which would rub and roughly stroke the length of her body, his rough cheek against hers, his babymaker a hard cylinder against her.

  She learned that she did not like her body. On nights after he left, Lincoln unlearned everything there was to know about it, the strange, slightly erotic sensations she felt when Harmon touched her a certain way, the sharp gasp of penetration. She also unlearned her face, the sensations in her lips, the sound of her voice, the world before her eyes. At night she lie, stiller than anything she’d ever known, until she could pinch the soft insides of her arms and not feel it, slice the soft of her wrists in the shower and not care. She could vacate herself so thoroughly that if someone, anyone looked at her, it was as if they were looking into her eyes and out the back of her head, as if she were a veil, or a rustling collection of tree branches that showed glimpses of the sky.

  She named the body Peter. She lifted his arms and folded them across his chest. His arms were thin, with dark hair rorshacked across them. She felt deftly around his jeans pockets, although she knew no one would be stupid enough to leave Peter’s personal effects on him. But she hoped anyway; a train ticket, a talisman, a quarter, something to place Peter on this plane, at the Laundromat, the bar.

  Lincoln closed her eyes and tried to imagine this faceless man in town, maybe, by the roadhouse where Harmon played darts. Did any of Harmon’s friends have sunken chests and dark, hairy arms? She could imagine Harmon getting into a fight in the parking lot, shifting his weight from one foot to another before he took a swing, the momentum of weight in his body mass running through Peter’s like a Mac truck. Peter was probably innocent, a victim of Harmon’s paranoia, much the same way Lincoln and her mother were at times. But could Harmon kill Peter, take a tire iron or whatever it was he grabbed, and beat Peter’s face out of memory? And would he still see it at night while he was trying to sleep, like a ghost from the Dickens’ tale, transparent over the bed?

  “I don’t like him, either,” Lincoln said to Peter, her knees hiked up to her face. “He’s a fucking asshole. You should have carried a gun. That’s the only way he would have respected you.”

  Sometimes when neither Harmon or her mother were home, Lincoln would go into her mother’s room, take the gunbox from where Harmon had kept it under bed, the key on the nighttable, and hold the gun with both hands, aiming at dirty piles of his clothes, her mother’s pile of celebrity magazines, her hairbrush and lipstick. Sometimes she would jump on her mother’s bed, legs wide, and point the gun at herself in the mirror, staring down her own eyes, daring to shoot. She would laugh if Harmon came home early, like he did now and then, and she imagined his expression as his skull took the bullet. And she would burn the body so that not a trace of him, except for some pitiful dust, was left behind.

  A few days later, Peter had begun to smell. Even as Lincoln had unlearned how to smell, Peter’s decay was too acrid and foul and noxious. A smell she could not unlearn. Lincoln breathed into the sleeve of her sweatshirt as she undid his belt buckle and coaxed it out of his pants. It was smaller, softer than Harmon’s of course, and discolored and slightly maggoty. She withdrew her hand quickly and examined it. How many bodies had it entered, how many children did it create? Children that may not have even wanted to be here, not given a choice as to whether to be a body or just an unspoken thought, beautiful, free potential.

  Lincoln stood up and dug her foot deep into Peter’s member. Liquid so dark it was almost black shot out, along with pus and maggots. She stomped hard on it repeatedly, until it was a donut without jelly. But Peter did not feel it, she knew, and she did not either, anymore. Or so she thought. It began first as a slight pressure on the bottom of her foot, a slight ache where she overextended her knee pushing into Peter. She walked back to the trailer, a pot of boiling water in her heart. By the time she got home it had bubbled over, and after she squirted her sneakers she pointed the hose toward herself, letting the cold pressure dull her hot, sticky face.

  There was a news item the next day. An unidentified body had been found behind the trailer park in which Lincoln lived. An unbearable odor had wafted into the trailer park, and someone had called the park service, fearing a dead animal was in the woods. Lincoln watched footage of the cloaked body being removed by the authorities, and she knew she would never go into the woods again. She imagined herself in the bag, clinging to the body, or maybe just her own body, zipped into plastic and placed within a heavy metal drawer, where it would later be touched and dissected for clues, but not clues about Lincoln, rather Lincoln’s body, its time of death and the cause. But this would not matter, because it would no longer be a body that was hers. Later that evening, her mother at work, Lincoln stroked the hard cylinder of the gun on the inside of her thigh as she heard Harmon turn the knob of her bedroom. When he appeared over her, a dark, heavy form, it went off.

  DISCOUNT

  WHEN SHE SEES THE GARBAGE TRUCK heading down the alley, Helen thinks of her electroshock treatments back in the fifties. She was nineteen or twenty had had what the doctors had called “premonitions” that kept her inside the house. Visions of Baltimore City being bombed or Saint Stanislaus Church burning brighter than the sun, angels shooting out of the steeples and becoming gentle white clouds. Except the visions never really came true. And after the treatments, she stopped having premonitions, but began hearing voices. Although she didn’t tell anyone about those.

  The garbage truck also reminds Helen of a furniture store truck that Francis Kopeck used to drive around town back then. It was metal painted green with the name of his family’s business, Kopek Furniture, stenciled in neat white script. Francis used to give her and her sister Beatty heavy discounts on scratched and dented items.

  “You like this wardrobe, Helen? It would look great in your bedroom,” he would say, pulling a pocketknife from the pocket of his short, trim waist. He nicked the corner off one of the doors. “I give you thirty percent off now, huh?”

  The rowhouse that Helen and Beatty shared was full of handsome cherry wood furniture, each piece having some nicks or small scratches. Francis would sit on the couch next to Helen, paring his fingernails with the same knife that sometimes had a fleck of Brill Cream on it from where he would smooth a wayward lock of hair with it.

  “So you wanna go to the movies, Helen?” he would ask. “They got the new Elvis movie down at the Patterson.”

  Helen could not speak. The voice in her right ear was telling her when the world was going to be invaded by creatures that looked like sea monkeys, only they were taller and skinny and communicated via telepathy, the way they were communicating with her now. She needed to start eating and get fat, the voice told her, so that when they did come, they would recognize her as their queen.

  “Helen? The movies?” Francis nudged her foot with his.

  “You want some ice cream?” She asked, standing up.

  Helen gained one hundred pounds in six months. She went back to the hospital. It was an old Victorian structure with recent additions fabricated mostly of cement block. The ECT room was in one of those additions with lime green walls. Slowly the voices began to fade, but Helen did not lose the weight, no matter how much she stopped eating. When she was released again, Francis came by. He wore a wedding ring on his finger.

  “You look good, Helen,” he said. “I can get you a discount on a queen-sized bed if you need one.”

  The aliens never came; she was no one’s queen. Her sister Beatty died in an accident down at the cannery in the sixties. F
rancis died of cancer ten years ago in New Jersey. Helen has lived in the house alone for fifty years now. The knicked cherry wood furniture still gathers dust in her bedroom. A new voice speaks to her. It is quiet and feminine, mousy, unlike the others. It is her own.

  “I am a queen,” it says to no one in particular.

  As the garbage truck lumbers by, scattering the rats in the alley, Helen takes the paring knife from the utensil drawer and begins nicking herself, starting with her soft, marshmallow thighs. The blood is dark, rich, like cherry wood. She runs into the yard, stained from the neck down, knife still in her hand.

  “You like this?” she asks the startled garbagemen. “It’s nice, huh? I can give you a discount.”

  THE ASSISTANT

  I HAD HER FOLLOWED. It wasn’t that I was suspicious of her intentions; I mean, Audrey was always loyal and tight-lipped. I expect nothing else of my assistants. It was the others I was worried about. The Dara Robinsons of Entertainment Today TV and the editors of Daily People and the other gutter-dwelling gossip columnists, who feel every nuance of my life is available to grace their pages. I imagined them wining and dining Audrey, trying to get her to spill the exclusive scoop on me, Diana Spriggs, America’s housewife. I have given so much already, so much. I give so much of myself to you, my American Family (and incidentally the name of my home show)—I give you my decorating tips and my relationship advice and my television program and my magazine and my hip blog (written by Audrey, of course). Can I not have a little for myself?

  We all have our idiosyncrasies, yes. Audrey knew that from the start. No doubt she’d been warned by my previous assistant, Tiara Brooks (who told the National Daily that I liked to smell my earwax and sometimes saved used cotton swabs to sniff them—a lie) that I was difficult. However, after the Tiara fiasco, I’d warned Audrey from the beginning: You work for me forever.

  Meaning that even if she didn’t work for me anymore, she still worked for me, at least according to the terms of the signed confidentiality agreement. So I was legally within my rights, kind of, to have her followed. To ensure her confidentiality and loyalty to me. And maybe just to see how she was doing—what she was doing, as I missed her a teensy bit.

  You see, things weren’t always this way with Audrey. At one point, she was the best assistant I had ever had, and I’ve had quite a few. Most get turned off—well, burned out—within a few months, maybe a year. But I never want for offers. Young PR people consider becoming my personal assistant to be the stepping stone to the highest ring of media relations—albeit it’s a step that, I’ve heard described, anyway, as coming from a circle of hell.

  I think these reports of my being difficult are exaggerated. As you know, I am the hardest-working woman in the business. I have to be to keep up my numerous projects that are designed to make your life Easier. Better. Smarter. Of course my assistants will be expected to work as hard I do.

  Audrey was quite understanding about moving in. After all, I need access to my assistants at any time of the day or night, and what easier way than in person? It was a generous arrangement—a private apartment within my estate that allows access to all the amenities—pool, tennis court, horses, spa, fitness room, Zen garden. In the mornings, she was instructed to read off my schedule as I had my facial and massage and wheatgrass, during which time she also transcribed my various ideas and ghostwrote my autobiography and updated a live feed to my blog. Then we’d head to the studio to tape my show, do appearances on other shows and meet with my image consultants, my media consultants, my feng shui consultant, my acupuncturist, my nutritionist, and my yoga instructor. The usual. Her day off was Sunday, although I admit I cut it back to half a day during network sweeps and to three hours during the planning of my holiday extravaganza.

  Audrey was understanding about all these things. Truly, she was an angel sent from heaven. Unlike my son Adrian, who ran off with some bohemian skunkweed of a girl and now lives in an adobe house in New Mexico. It’s not like Adrian would listen to my ideas about my “recipe iPod” like Audrey did at four in the morning, while watching TiVos of my latest Larry King appearance. It’s not as if Adrian wanted to hear about my divorce from his father, either, a move which I admit was encouraged by my PR team. Having a husband, they argued, distracted from my image as America’s housewife. How could I serve America if I had to serve Allen?

  So you might say I was feeling a little vulnerable during this time in my life. Not that Allen and Adrian were my cosmic connections—hell, they were back-stabbing little rats of men—but they were my back-stabbers. And they didn’t need to blackmail me for money; God knows I’d paid enough alimony and child support to keep a third-world country dressed in Old Navy and eating McDonald’s (neither of whom I have any endorsement deals with, although I have pitched a Spriggs Salad to that redheaded trans-fat clown more often than someone in my power should have to).

  So maybe I leaned a little bit on Audrey during this time, yes. Did I mention I had recently learned that Adrian had written a book? Son of Sprigg: My Life With America’s Housewife—my agent got me a copy of the galleys, and I can say I was none too pleased. Granted, Adrian didn’t expose enough to get himself written out of the will—his lawyers combed that worthless piece of pulp over a fine-bristle brush—but it is another chink in the iron apron.

  And did he really have such a terrible life? The private schools, the summer vacations in Geneva, the Lamborghini for his sixteenth birthday? He should be happy I didn’t meddle in his life like some psycho queenie. The only wire hanger I ever waved at him was when he got that heroin addict from Sarah Lawrence knocked up—no grandchild of mine will be spawned by a Sarah Lawrence grad.

  So Audrey, I decided, would be America’s daughter. Photo-ops, please: Diana Spriggs and her assistant Audrey at soup kitchens, ladling Campbell’s soup into Styrofoam bowls. Diana and Audrey combing scraggly mutts at the SPCA, handing out sun visors at the race for MS.

  “She’s like the daughter I never had,” I told Daily People at the breast cancer awareness walk. “Audrey has helped me to not only be America’s housewife, but America’s Mom as well.”

  I never should have said that last bit. It’s hard enough getting dates being just America’s housewife. Yes, I have needs. And Audrey was like family—her family is my family. I can’t count how many excruciating autograph and photo sessions I have engaged in when stuck at Audrey’s mother’s house in Kansas, trapped among women who wear every one of my brooch and earring and necklace sets from Homeshopping America and look none the better for it. If I had to share the pain of an extended blue-collar family with Audrey, then she could share the cream of her life with me.

  Such as her dashing young stud, Carl, a sailing instructor and frequent visitor to the Sprigg compound. It wasn’t something I went into with the worst intentions. In fact, I was able to get my rocks off in a purely voyeuristic fashion for some time, courtesy of the Sprigg compound security cameras. I discovered one night while making a surprise inspection of the security room (I always suspected our night watchman was a drunk who slept on the job), that Carl and Audrey had conjugal relations at about one o’clock on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. I mean, it was my right to make sure Audrey wasn’t doing anything unwholesome in her apartment, like smoking crack or pilfering Diana Sprigg collectable items for sale on Internet auction, right?

  Carl had a kielbasa. And he knew where to stuff it. A pure specimen, it inspired in me hundreds of Eastern European sausage recipes for my next cookbook. How I loved to watch it bounce on the security camera. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, when I was at home I sat with a container of gingerbread Spriggs and a high ball and watched Adonis come to black and white, grainy life. I even had my tech guru send me a live feed to my laptop on those nights I wasn’t home, all in the interest of compound security.

  “Why wouldn’t terrorists threaten Diana Sprigg, America’s housewife?” I pondered aloud to his skeptical, smug face. I waited until Ramadan to fire him. Then so
mething extraordinary happened. Carl, conniving little con man he was, became aware of the security camera. Instead of the outrage I expected, its existence seemed to bring out the exhibitionist in Carl. He made sure to position himself in front of the camera, adjusting the bedroom lights so that the gleaming sweat of his chest seemed to dribble from the monitor into my highball. He waved it around before ramming it into the half moons of Audrey’s behind. He was a little porn star. My little porn star. He began to wink at me as we passed in the house, out by the pool, riding horses. I winked back. We were family, right? I had given Audrey so much, so much more than her little clean-face Midwestern upbringing could ever afford her, and besides, Carl was a little leech, a star-fucker.

  In other words, my kind of guy. Audrey found us in the sauna halfway through the Kama Sutra. It was a very quiet incident; we settled with Carl to keep it out of the tabloids, a mere 45 grand once my lawyers presented him with evidence of his previous arrest record for sleeping with a minor. As for Audrey, I convinced her that the whole incident was for the greater good. Surely Carl would have mistreated her. I was only looking out for her. I am such the martyr for all of you.

  Once Audrey demanded the security cameras be removed from her apartment, I began to feel a little empty. I began to feel that part of Audrey was taken away from me, and not just my ability to know what conditioner she used in the shower. Fearing mutiny, I raised her salary. I sent her family tickets to see the Rockettes and Phantom of the Opera. I let her snot-crusted nieces and nephews ride my Shetland ponies. I sent the whole clan to Disneyworld.