The Southern Cross Page 11

  Alabama plays Mississippi State at two thirty this afternoon. Andy and our boys left last night, rode over to Starkville in his brother’s new RV. That Fleetwood puts our old Winnebago to shame, and I can’t imagine that she’ll be making too many more trips.

  So here I am again, all by myself. Not that I’m complaining. I worked an eleven–seven at the VA last night, so burning a pig in some dusty parking lot—not exactly my idea of Saturday fun. Andy can keep all that for himself.

  I slide over to the cool side of the bed and close my eyes, block out the ‘Bama red and try to catch just a few more hours of sleep. In good time I’ll pack a bag and leave the house, maybe drive down the road for a couple of hamburger sandwiches before I pick up Ryan and we set out for Rock City. I’m sixteen again, alone in my bedroom and in love with a boy.

  Life happens in hospitals. That’s one thing I’ve always liked about being a nurse. Babies arriving in one room, folks dying in another. There’s no emergency department in the VA, but I still see plenty—and besides, I cut my teeth as a traveling nurse, so I’ve already experienced more than my fill of ER excitement. Back then they’d farm me out to hospitals with a shortage, or I’d play scab if nurses were striking somewhere. The money was good, and this girl from the hills of Tennessee got to see America, so to speak.

  Andy calls those my whore days, half kidding, I guess. That started our first night together. He wasn’t a minute inside me before he asked that I tell him about all the doctors I’d fucked. Said it just like that—drunken dirty talk—but I was game. He was on top of me in the motel room, and I was telling him, whispering in his ear about the Apache doctor and the Flagstaff supply closet; this famous neurosurgeon who flew me and another nurse out to the Hamptons for a week, put us up in a condo where we slept three across the bed every night. Damn, those stories would get Andy hot—still do when I’m willing to play that ace. I can see us one day, grandparents, Andy asking me to tell him about my whore days. I think about that sometimes and laugh. Christ, that there’s reason enough not to stick around forever.

  We met back when I was starting out as a nurse. I was just a girl—twenty-two, twenty-three—and pretty, real pretty. I would work my shift and change clothes at the hospital, hit the bar across the street. And, trust me, every hospital had a bar across the street. Places with goofy names like Scrubs and Stitches, Code Blues. I know, right?

  Agency nurses were popular because we were temporary, wouldn’t be stopping by Timmy’s soccer game to see what the wife looked like. It was all about fun for us—but a month in a Howard Johnson will drive a girl crazy lonely. So crazy she’ll find herself being double-teamed by EMTs in the back of an off-duty ambulance. So crazy she’ll wake up and share a saline drip with the bastards just to kill the hangover. High times.

  So this was how I met my husband: I was sitting at the bar in a place called Triage, just a stone’s throw from Ochsner in New Orleans. It was eight A.M.— happy hour for the night shift—and I was drinking Cuba libres with this fighter-pilot ER doc when Andy walked up in his hardhat, said, Thanks for saving my seat, mister, your wife’s looking for you out in the parking lot. The doctor wasn’t buying it, but I could read his mind. This mountain-trash jackleg nurse isn’t worth the ass-whipping. That was exactly what he was thinking when he shuffled away. I was pissed but not very. The kid was real cute, and he was also my age. He might not have been a doctor, but he didn’t look to be married neither.

  Andy was an Alabama boy, in town to work a turnaround at one of the Norco refineries upriver. We drank till noon at Triage, then he followed me in his pickup to my motel near the airport. We went at it so hard the maids were giggling outside our door, slept for a few hours, and then did it again. That night we both left for our shifts, and the next morning he was sitting on the hood of my rental car waiting for me to get off work. For a week we lived almost like a couple. Almost. The Ochsner strike ended about the same time Andy’s refinery got back on-stream. We exchanged phone numbers and went our separate ways.

  Two months later I was working a crowded ER in Orlando when Andy strolled in to surprise me. I told him that was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me—and, I’m really glad you came because I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.

  “Then I said unto them, ‘What is the high place whereunto you go?’ And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.” Ezekiel 20:29. That’s the gem Andy snuck into his vows at our wedding ceremony. Roll Tide, amen. You know my Tennessee family just loved that.

  We married in Chattanooga, then moved to Tuscaloosa. Andy took a factory job, and I had Irish twins, two boys only ten months apart. Since I wasn’t looking to field a team myself, I went ahead and had my tubes tied.

  They’re typical teenagers now, Bryant and Paul, don’t ever want much to do with their mama. Every now and then I think that I should have held off on getting fixed, that if I’d tried for a girl everything might have turned out different, at least in some slight way.

  The Winnebago sleeps like a hibernating bear in the carport next to the house. I drop my wedding ring in with the ashtray coins and back her down the driveway too fast, just miss clipping our mailbox before I straighten out and roll on.

  I called ahead to the lunch counter at the Texaco, so the sweet black girl has my order sacked and ready when I pull up. The game’s playing on the TV behind her, and I can see that Mississippi State’s just kicking off. The girl catches me looking. “Roll Tide, Miss Karen” she says.

  “Roll Tide,” I say.

  “You look real pretty.”

  I’m wearing tight jeans and a thin white peasant blouse that sits low on my shoulders. It feels nice to be noticed. “Thank you,” I tell her.

  “You going on a trip?”

  “Maybe. Wanna come?”

  The counter girl smiles a big toothy smile, and I wander to the back for two cold drinks. On the way I pass a rack of magazines and see a cheap one called Husband & Wife. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are on the glossy cover, her in a tiny dress and him in his black hat. On our tenth anniversary, Andy took me to see them both in concert. They closed with a duet, and when they were finished Andy laughed and said, Boy, that Faith sure is something. I punched him in the arm and said that Tim’s not too bad himself. I guess that gave Andy an idea. “Hey,” he said. “You ever get a chance to roll with McGraw, you go on and take it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll give you a free pass.”

  A free pass. That was before Andy had begun to stray, and so I played along, gave him Faith for our anniversary. It was a joke at the time, but I realize now that it’s dangerous for a couple to start playing games like that. I swear, I think he was cheating before the month was out.

  I linger by the coolers and try to remember whether it’s Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew that Ryan likes better. I don’t want to get this wrong, am hoping every little detail will be spot-on and perfect. I go with Mountain Dew, then pull three hundred bucks out of the cash machine. There’s a dirty window off to my left. I look out and see the Winnebago at the pump, still steady drinking gas.

  Lance Corporal Ryan Jordan began his stint in the VA about four months ago. Tuscaloosa by way of Germany by way of Baghdad. Before all that: Alpine, Alabama—a flyspeck hill town east of here. Poor Ryan’s been stuck in a wheelchair for close to a year, will be for life, barring some miracle not even on the horizon. I’ve got fifteen years on him, could even be his mother, as they say—or would say, if they knew how I feel about him.

  I work the inpatient rehab floor, one nurse monitoring a handful of spinals—young men being taught how to live the rest of their lives broken. Ryan’s first night I rounded on his room, saw him quivering in his sleep like some dreaming dog, saw that he had sweat clear through his hospital gown.

  Nightmare patrol, that’s a lot of what I do for these boys.

  I placed a wet cloth on his forehead, and he woke up shivering, staring at me with these blue eyes that were like swimming
pools in his pretty face. I did a little double take. He looked just like Andy at that age. A dead ringer, I swear. My mouth went dry, and there was a taste like metal. I mopped his brow with that washcloth, and we just kept on staring at each other. He told me later that he recognized something in me as well, that I reminded him of an actress whose name he could never remember.

  “Can you lift yourself up?” I’d asked him. “Can you lift yourself up if I help you?”

  Ryan nodded. “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  He latched his hands on to the side rails and struggled to pull himself into a sit.

  “Great,” I said. “Now stick out your arms.” He did as I asked, and I peeled the filthy gown from his body—then I spread a clean towel across the bed and told him to lie back down. “Thank you,” I said. “Perfect.”

  That’s really a CNA’s responsibility, giving a sponge bath. But, again, it was Ryan’s first night on the floor, and I didn’t want him thinking that I couldn’t be bothered. I filled a small tub with warm, soapy water and did his arms, then his legs, was moving across his stomach when I saw that he had an erection. That’s common enough with quads and paras—and I don’t think Ryan even realized it because he was still just watching me. I was cleaning his privates when he finally saw what was going on down there. He covered himself with his hands and gave me this horrified, humiliated look. And then he started to cry, apologizing, calling me ma’am.

  “It’s fine,” I told him. “Really.” I pushed his hands away and finished cleaning his front. “Now let’s roll you on over.”

  His legs were still pretty well built, and his body was more or less perfect in proportion—but my eyes welled up when I saw his back, the angry red scars laid out like the lashes of a thick whip. He kept crying just a little as I washed down those scars and so, again, I told him that it was okay, don’t you worry, baby.

  And then I proved it to him shift after shift, washing him clean after every last bad dream.

  I realize now that I was teasing him, that I liked the way it felt to have somebody want me again. But then one night I let him kiss me, and the score got a lot less lopsided in that game we were playing. I have an older sister I trust and tell everything. She lives back home in Tennessee with her perfect husband and her perfect kids. That next morning they stopped by on their way down to Gulf Shores. They spent the night, and I called in sick. While everyone slept, us sisters went on the back porch together and drank a bottle of wine. Charlotte’s a real good listener, and she let me get it all off my chest about first base with Ryan. I told her that she probably couldn’t understand how I could go and fall for a crippled boy. God bless Charlotte. She said, No, I get it fine. He digs you for you, and so you dig him for him. Just be careful, Karen. You know it has to stop right there.

  But of course it didn’t. Near the last of August, Ryan finished up with his PT, and they released him back into the wild. By then we’d been fooling around for a month, but I told myself that would have to be the end of it. My first shift without him, the remnants of Katrina dumped three inches of rain on Tuscaloosa County. The power went out, and the generators kicked on. I spent the night wandering those bright empty halls feeling miserable with worry. At last it got to where I couldn’t take it. I went poking around in Records and found Ryan’s phone number, the address of his apartment. I called him, and he said that he was doing just fine—but please please please come and see me sometime. I repeated what I’d told him the night before his discharge, my speech about how this thing between us was impossible. “Fine,” he said to me. “Fine.”

  After that, a couple of times a week I’d ease by his place, sit in my car, and stare at the wheelchair ramp that led to his front door. I kept up my stalking through September but never once saw him. Then one day I peeked in his window, and he caught me watching. “Come on inside,” he hollered. “Door’s open.” He didn’t ask me to explain myself. He just took me and stripped me, put his head between my legs until it happened just like they write on this state’s rocket-pop license tags. The stars fell on Alabama, and I was finally in love again.

  It’s November now, and I never let more than a few days go by without sneaking over to see him. He’s got a drawer full of mail-order toys that he likes to use on me; seems like every visit it’s something new and different.

  At the very top of Lookout Mountain sits Rock City, a collection of big boulders arranged by God in such a way as to create a fairy-tale village of paths and lanes. It’s like a little half-assed piece of Disney World in the hills, sort of tacky and beautiful all at the same time. My parents went there, and my parents’ parents went there. You go for the views—that, and to look at funny rocks.

  There’s a bullshit legend that my family passes off as gospel. A story about Indian lovers who ran off together—our idea of romance. They came from feuding tribes, this couple. A Chickasaw boy and a Cherokee girl. The brave was captured by Cherokees and thrown to his death off Lookout Mountain, tossed from the same spot where they now say it’s possible to see seven states on a clear day. They call that spot Lover’s Leap—call it Lover’s Leap because the Cherokee maiden jumped right on after her man.

  When I was a girl it was my dream to be married at Lover’s Leap, to exchange vows there on a pretty mountain morning. I’d wear a simple white dress and weave wildflowers into my hair. I’d told that to Andy, and he’d laughed, said that was just way too hippie for him.

  Ryan lives on the first floor of this trashy apartment complex stuck between railroad tracks and the highway. It’s a black neighborhood, really, what my hillbilly daddy would have called Jacundaville. I give the door a knock, and Ryan hollers me in like he’s been expecting company.

  He’s shirtless in his wheelchair. The apartment is dark like a tomb, and a Marlboro haze hangs under the low ceiling. I set the food down on his shaky coffee table, then move across the room and give him a quick tongue kiss. His mouth tastes like charcoal. He starts to pull my blouse down, but I slap at his hands. “I brought you a hamburger,” I say. “Thought you might be watching the game.”

  “Thanks.” Ryan nods at the flickering television. “We just kicked a field goal”

  “Great,” I say, though I don’t really care. “You’re looking good.”

  That’s only half true. He’s broad across the chest and arms, but his legs are getting more and more thin. I can see that even through his jeans. He smiles and crushes his cigarette into the plastic ashtray balanced on his dead lap. “Clean living,” he says.

  I fetch napkins from the kitchen and notice dirty dishes, some broken glass. After we eat, I get to work. I clean the kitchen and the bathroom, pull up the blinds, open the door so as to let some of that beautiful fall weather inside. I know it embarrasses him, but I can’t help myself. The mother in me, I guess.

  Cleaning doesn’t take too long, not for this tiny one-bed, one-bath. I hand Ryan a white T-shirt and his worn field jacket, talk him into having his next cigarette outside. He says okay, and that makes me glad. I’m hoping that maybe he’ll get into the habit of taking fresh air when I’m not around.

  Children have emptied out into the parking lot for a halftime recess. I roll Ryan over to the side, right where the asphalt drops off into a kudzu-choked washout. He smokes his cigarette, and we watch a group of black boys play a game—this game where one tosses a football up real high for the rest, then they fight and claw for the catch. Near as I can figure, three catches and you get to throw. It’s a poor kids’ game.

  “So I have an idea, Ryan”

  “Yeah?”

  I nod over at the Winnebago, and for the first time he connects it to me. “That’s us,” I say.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re taking a trip.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  “The kind you don’t talk about.” I pat him on his knee, like that’s something he can feel. “Wel
l?”

  A boy hollers over at us. “Heads up,” he says, but I turn too late. Ryan flinches as the football lands hard on the asphalt next to him; it skips past his wheelchair so low and fast that even I’m thinking grenade.

  “Fucking niggers,” Ryan whispers, real poisonous and mean. He’s shaking a little, glaring at the spot where the football has disappeared into the kudzu. Finally those familiar blue eyes dart back my way, and he shrugs. “What else am I gonna do, Karen?”

  It was his birthday; I knew that from his chart. Big twenty-one. I had spent all day making a red velvet cake, and I’d surprised him with it in his hospital room just before midnight. We’d washed down two great pieces with cold milk from the cafeteria, and later, Ryan got to staring at what was left of that cake and went serious. He asked me what kind of family he must have that doesn’t even visit him on his birthday. I didn’t know what to say, and he wouldn’t stop concentrating on that cut cake, the red velvet looking like a bleeding wound. I held his hand and told him that time would make things work, though I’ve always believed that the opposite is probably true. That was when he started petting my wrist, real light at first, but I didn’t move away and so I guess I let it become more serious. He tugged me closer and started kissing me like I hadn’t been kissed in a decade. Damn, you have no idea how much I wanted to climb into that hospital bed with him, even just to hold him and watch infomercials for an hour. But I couldn’t. Somewhere there was a line that I wasn’t willing to cross, at least not right then, and so I pulled away.

  The next shift Ryan gave me a single red rose from Lord knows where. The shift after that it was a sweet little poem. That boy chopped me down like a tall, tall tree, took me out section by section, until one night I quit fighting and fell into his bed.