Behind her, someone has cranked the volume on Maddy’s little record-player and that terrible song blares louder than ever, triumphant and glittery and sadistic: “IT HURTS ME SO INSIDE… TOBE TREATED SO UNKIND…SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE…TELLHER IT AIN’T FAIR…”
She tries again to get rid of the mallet-to throw it away but she can’t do it; it’s as if someone has handcuffed her to it.
Nora! she cries. Nora, you have to help me! Stop him!
(It was at this point in the dream that Jessie moaned for the first time, momentarily startling the dog back from Gerald’s body.)
Nora shakes her head, slowly and gravely. I can’t help you, Jessie.You’re on your own-we all are. I generally don’t tell my patients that,hut I think in your case it’s best to be honest.
You don’t understand! I can’t go through this again! I CAN’T!
Oh, don’t he so silly, Nora says, suddenly impatient. She begins to turn away, as if she can no longer bear the sight of Jessie’s upturned, frantic face. You will not die; it’s not poison.
Jessie looks around wildly (although she remains unable to straighten up, to stop presenting that tempting target to her impending brother) and sees that her friend Tammy Hough is gone; standing there in Tammy’s white shorts and yellow halter is Ruth Neary. She’s holding Tammy’s red-striped croquet mallet in one hand and a Marlboro in the other. Her mouth is hooked up at the corners in her usual sardonic grin, but her eyes are grave and full of sorrow.
Ruth, help me! Jessie shouts. You have to help me!
Ruth takes a big drag on her cigarette, then grinds it into the grass with one of Tammy Hough’s cork-soled sandals. Jeepers-creepers, tootsie-he’s going to goose you, not stick a cattle-prod up yourass. You know that as well as I do; you’ve been through all this before.So what’s the big deal?
It isn’t just a goose! It isn’t, and you know it!
The old hooty-owl hooty-hoos to the goose, Ruth says.
What? What does that m-
It means how can I know anything about ANYTHING? Ruth shoots back. There is anger on the surface of her voice, deep hurt beneath. You wouldn’t tell me-you wouldn’t tell anybody. You ran away. Youran like a rabbit that sees the shadow of some old hooty-owl on the grass.
I COULDN’T TELL! Jessie shrieks. Now she can see a shadow on the grass beside her, as if Ruth’s words have conjured it up. It is not the shadow of an owl, however; it is the shadow of her brother. She can hear the stifled giggles of his friends, knows he is reaching out to do it, and still she cannot even straighten up, let alone move away. She is helpless to change what is going to happen, and she understands that this is the very essence of both nightmare and tragedy.
I COULDN’T! she shrieks at Ruth again. I couldn’t, not ever! Itwould have killed my Mom…or destroyed the familyor both! He said! Daddy said!
I hate to be the one to send you this particular newsflash, tootsie-wootsie,but your dear old Dad will have been dead twelve years come December.Also, can’t we dispense with at least a little of this melodrama? It’s notas if he hung you from the clothesline by the nipples and then set youon fire, you know.
But she doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want to consider-even in a dream-any reappraisal of her buried past; once the dominos start to fall, who knows where it will all end? So she blocks her ears to what Ruth is saying and continues to fix her old college roommate with that deep, pleading stare that so often caused Ruth (whose tough-cookie veneer was never more than frosting-deep, anyway) to laugh and give in, to do whatever it was Jessie wanted her to do.
Ruth, you have to help me! You have to!
But this time the pleading stare doesn’t work. I don’t think so,toots. The Sorority Susies are all gone, the time for shutting up is over,running away is out of the question, and waking up is not an option.This is the mystery train, Jessie. You’re the pussycat; I’m the owl. Herewe go-all aboard. Fasten your seatbelt, and fasten it tight. This is anE-ticket ride.
No!
But now, to Jessie’s horror, the day begins to darken. It could just be the sun going behind a cloud, but she knows it isn’t. The sun is going out. Soon the stars will shine in a summer afternoon sky and the old hooty-owl will hooty-hoo to the dove. The time of the eclipse has come.
No! she screams again. That was two years ago!
You’re wrong on that one, toots, Ruth Neary says. For you it neverended. For you the sun never came back out.
She opens her mouth to deny that, to tell Ruth she’s as guilty of wild overdramatization as Nora, who kept shoving her toward doors she didn’t want to open, who kept assuring her that the present can be improved by examining the past-as if one could improve the taste of today’s dinner by slathering it with the maggoty remains of yesterday’s. She wants to tell Ruth, as she told Nora on the day she walked out of Nora’s office for-good, that there is a big difference between living with something and being kept prisoner by it. Don’t you two goofs understand that theCult of Self is just another cult? she wants to say, but before she can do more than open her mouth, the invasion comes: a hand between her slightly spread legs, the thumb shoving rudely at the cleft of her buttocks, the fingers pressed against the material of her shorts just above her vagina, and it is not her brother’s innocent little hand this time; the hand between her legs is much bigger than Will’s and not a bit innocent. The bad song is on the radio, the stars are out at three o'clock in the afternoon, and this
(you will not die it’s not poison)
is how the big people goose each other.
She whirls, expecting to see her father. He did something like this to her during the eclipse, a thing she supposes the whining Cult-of-Selfers, the Live-in-the-Pasters like Ruth and Nora, would call child abuse. Whatever it was, it will be him-she’s sure of that much-and she is afraid she will exact a terrible punishment for the thing he did, no matter how serious or trivial that thing was: she will raise the croquet mallet and drive it into his face, smashing his nose and knocking out his teeth, and when he falls down on the grass the dogs will come and eat him up.