Case of Lucy Bending (24 page)

"What?"

"Dance. I'd love to go dancing. I can't, of course, because of my leg, but I'd love to. I dance all the time when I'm alone. It's not real dancing, I know, because I'm not with anyone, but I love to pretend. Would you like to watch me dance, daddy?"

"Maybe I'll have another beer," he said hoarsely, "and then I'll watch you dance."

"You won't laugh at me?"

"I won't laugh. I promise."

She brought him a beer, then switched on a little transistor radio in a cracked red plastic case. She turned the dial until she found a station playing a slow instrumental: Noel Coward's "I'll See You Again."

She began to move slowly about the room, thin arms held out, wrists cocked, fingers curled just so. Her head was back; long tresses streamed. She tried to swoop and glide, dip and turn.

He gulped his beer and watched her gravely. Her eyes were half-closed, lips parted. She moved in a dream all her own, off and floating. Arms waved like feelers. Hair flickered like black flame. He saw her dancing brokenly, dragging her leg, and lost.

The music ended. She stopped. He put his beer can aside and applauded softly.

"That was beautiful," he said. "Just great."

She came over to him, eyes shining. She stood before him, lifted the hem of her nightgown to her waist.

"Kiss me, daddy," she said.
"Please."

He leaned forward, pressed his face against her soft belly.

She held the back of his head, pulling him closer. The nightgown tumbled down about his shoulders, and he was hidden there, alone and secret in that fragrant tent.

He smelled her and tasted her. She was young, fresh, free of taint. He dreamed she was a virgin, pure, uncorrupted, and he owned her.

It wasn't love, he convinced himself. He could endure the thought of losing her. But if he did, he'd want another child-woman exactly like her.

It never occurred to him that this might be the nature of love: the image but not the object.

Dr. Theodore Levin was continually surprised and saddened by the number of children he treated who were soured and embittered. Youth, he felt, should be a time of curiosity and delight, the world opening up, life bright and limitless. But so many of his young patients already seemed ancient, weary, without hope.

When Wayne Bending slouched into his office, Levin guessed at once that this boy was one of the defeated. He could hardly believe this dark, dour youth was the son of Grace and Ronald, brother of Lucy.

Wayne was short for a twelve-year-old, stocky, with hunched shoulders and short legs. There was truculence behind his slouch. And on his face, not a sneer, but a carefully arranged implacableness, a mask presented to a hostile world.

Levin got him seated and switched on the tape recorder. The boy still hadn't met his eyes, but stared at a spot over the doctor's head.

"Wayne," he said, "thank you for coming in. I am sure you know that I am Doctor Theodore Levin, and I am treating your sister, Lucy. I hope you will be able to help me."

The boy didn't reply.

"Are you aware of the reasons why your parents brought Lucy to me for counseling?"

Wayne shrugged.

Levin leaned forward, hands clasped on the desk. He had hoped the movement would bring the youth's gaze down to his. It didn't.

"Wayne, Lucy has a serious problem. It's going to take her cooperation, and the help of her parents and brothers, to find the best way to, uh, deal with her problem. I'm sure you want to do everything you can to assist."

"The kid's a nut!" the boy burst out, fidgeting fretfully in his chair.

Levin sat back, laced fingers across his middle. He regarded the brother solemnly.

"Why do you say that?"

"She's always doing nutty things."

"Like what?"

"You know," Wayne said, almost accusingly. "The reason my folks brought her to a shrink. She's always feeling up old guys."

"Anything else?"

"Telling stories all the time. Crazy stories. And she swears they're true."

"Wayne, you're old enough not to take the storytelling too seriously. I imagine that when you were Lucy's age, you told stories too. I know I did. But as we grow older, we learn not to tell other people our dreams and fantasies. That doesn't mean we don't have them. But we keep them to ourselves. Don't you create stories or dreams or fantasies you don't tell anyone about?"

The boy didn't answer.

"I'd like to hear some of your stories, Wayne."

"I don't have any."

"No matter how wild or crazy they might be," Levin persisted. "I'd like to hear them."

Wayne hunched forward, hands clasped tightly. "Listen, doc, Lucy is your problem, not mine. I don't have to tell you anything."

"That's true. But if it will help Lucy? You love your sister, don't you?"

He shrugged again. "I guess."

"How do the two of you get along?"

"Okay."

"Do you spend much time together?"

"What for? I see her around the house, at mealtimes—like that. We don't hang out together, if that's what you mean."

"Who
do
you hang out with, Wayne?"

"Friends."

"Boys your age?"

"Some. Some a little older. I don't hang with kids."

"Girls? Do you have any girlfriends?"

"A few."

"Anyone special?"

"No. How the hell is all this bullshit going to help Lucy?" "I don't know," Levin said equably. "I'm just trying to find out as much as I can about the Bending family. That makes sense, doesn't it?"

The boy shrugged.

"Wayne, what grade are you in at school?"

"Seventh."

"Do you like school?"

"It's all right."

"How are your grades?"

"I get by."

"No special problems?"

The boy jerked. "Like what?" he asked suspiciously.

"Problems at school," Levin said blandly.

"No. No problems."

"How about at home? Anything there bothering you?"

"No."

"No problems at school, no problems at home, plenty of friends . . . You've got a wonderful life, Wayne."

Now the youth was staring at him.

"And you're full of shit," Levin thundered, slapping the desk with a crack of his palm that made the boy jump. "Don't tell me everything is sweetness and light. Don't give me this crap about not having any problems.
Everyone
has problems. And because you're too goddamned stubborn to talk about them, you're making your sister's treatment that much more difficult. Is that what you want?"

"So I have problems," the boy said, almost shouting. "They're none of your fucking business."

"They
are
my business," Levin shouted back, "if they affect Lucy's happiness."

"They got nothing to do with Lucy."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Screw you!" Wayne cried.

They sat there and glowered at each other.

"What makes you such a snot?" Levin demanded. "Whoever did anything to you?"

"Who? Who? Everyone—that's who! You sit there on your fat ass and think you know everything. Shit, you haven't got a clue."

"Give me a clue."

"Why the fuck should I? You'll just dump on me like everyone else. Why should I trust you?"

Good question, Levin thought. Why should
anyone
trust him? But having started this charade of anger, and convinced it was the only way to break through, he had no choice but to continue.

"Well, why the hell should I trust
you?"
he said hotly. "All you've told me so far is probably a lot of bullshit. You say you have friends. Maybe that's a goddamned lie. Maybe you're so fucking mean you haven't got a friend in the world, and—"

"I do so too!" Wayne screamed, leaping to his feet. "I got a better friend than you'll ever have, you fat turd. A friend who really likes me, and he's the only one I can trust and talk to, but not you, you stupid, fat fuck."

Then, fighting it but not able to hold back, he began to cry. He fell back into his chair, snuffling, drawing the back of his hand across his streaming eyes.

"All right," Dr. Levin said. "All right now."

"Son of a bitch," the boy said bitterly. "You miserable shit. I haven't cried since I was eight. You lousy bastard."

"It's not so bad to cry," the doctor said coolly. "Nothing so terrible about it. Who's the friend?"

"Who?"

"The friend you can trust and talk to."

"Just a guy. A guy I know."

"Your age? Or older?"

"Older."

"How old?"

"Sixteen, I guess. What difference does it make?"

"I'd like to hear about him."

"Why?"

Levin sighed. "Because I'm a mean, miserable, fat, stupid fuck—that's why."

Wayne's tear-streaked face wrenched into a lopsided grin.

"And because I want to be your friend, too," Levin went on. "And I want you to trust me. So I want to know what kind of a guy could be a friend to a shithead like you."

The boy didn't flinch, and Levin thought that was the way to talk to him: insults, profanity, with tenderness hidden, sentiment camouflaged. Everything casual, obscene, cynical.

"He's just this guy I know," Wayne Bending said. "His name's Eddie Holloway. He lives near me. A big, blond guy. Good-looking—you know?" "Gets the girls, does he?"

"A stud," the boy vowed. "A fucking stud. But cool—you know? A great surfer. I go surfing with him all the time. He's better than me, but I can throw a football farther than he can."

Levin shook his head as if in puzzlement.

"I don't know," he said. "A cool, good-looking stud like that, with all the girls he wants, what the hell does he hang around with you for?"

"He likes me," Wayne said defensively. "And ..."

"And what?"

"I'm smarter than he is," the youth said, lifting his chin. "That's God's own truth. In lots of ways I'm smarter. He's a klutz when it comes to school. And other things. So I give him advice sometimes."

"About what?"

"Oh . . . this and that."

"And he takes your advice?"

"Sure."

Levin switched gears on him. Sometimes this verbal shock therapy worked.

"Ever take a drink, Wayne?"

"A beer now and then."

"You smoke pot?"

"I tried it once. It didn't do anything for me."

"You on any other drugs? Uppers? Downers? Coke?"

"No."

"What do you and this Eddie do together? Besides surfing?"

"Oh . . . you know. Just fart around."

"Ever go on a date with him? With girls?"

"No."

"The two of you ever have a girl together? You know— just farting around?"

"No."

"Does this Eddie have one special girlfriend?"

"No," Wayne said, moving restlessly. "He plays the field."

"Uh-huh," Levin said, watching the boy wriggle nervously in his chair.

This talk about Wayne's best friend and girls was disturbing him. That wasn't unusual. A boy in early adolescence was torn between male bonding and reawakened sexuality. But Levin wondered if that's all it was: normal growth, normal change.

"Wayne," he said, "have you ever been with a girl? Ever screwed a girl?"

"No."

"Ever seen a girl naked?"

"Once. The girls at my school, in the shower room of the gym, you know, they pushed this girl out and wouldn't let her back in. She didn't have any clothes on. A joke, you know. I saw her. A lot of guys saw her."

"Have you ever seen your mother naked?"

"Christ, no!"

"Lucy?"

"Not since she was a little baby."

He had, Levin reflected, learned a great deal about Wayne Bending in a short time. But nothing much that illuminated Lucy's problem. Wayne's disillusionment was
another
problem. Not serious, yet, and not one he was being paid to solve.

Still, he was nagged by the notion that this boy's deep disenchantment and his sister's hypersexuality might possibly spring from the same source. Hardly unusual to have two siblings react in different psychopathic ways to a common traumatic experience.