Come Closer (9 page)
“I’m here for, uh, to see Sister Maria.”
He went to the back of the shop, opened a door, and called out in a language I had never heard before—Portuguese, maybe—but somehow I knew what it meant.
“A white woman’s here to see you,” he called. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Send her in right away,” the woman called back. “Then lock up and go to lunch.”
THE BACK room was pretty much what I expected a low-rent reading room to look like; walls draped in deep red velveteen, a folding card table with more velveteen draped over it, anchored in place with a crystal ball, a cup for reading tea leaves, a pen and paper, and a deck of tarot cards. At the table sat a woman five or ten years older than me, with nutmeg skin and pretty features hidden behind cheap makeup. She wore blue jeans and a tight denim jacket. She gestured for me to sit in a folding chair across the table from hers. I sat down.
I was curious. It would be good for a laugh.
“What’s you name?” she asked. I told her. She wrote it down on the paper and did a quick calculation.
“You number is seven,” she said. She took the deck of tarot cards and laid seven of them out on the table. Death, The Tower, Queen of Pentacles, The Moon, Five of Swords, Eight of Swords, The Lovers. I had no idea what any of them meant. Maria looked at the cards for a few minutes, then back up to me with her eyebrows pushed together, then down at the cards again.
“Someone’s watching you,” she finally said. “She’s right next to you. Beautiful, but black. Evil. Have you tried to get rid of her?”
This wasn’t so good for a laugh. This was less funny by the moment. “Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s not a who,” Maria answered. “It’s a what. A demon. I see her; she has long black hair and pointy teeth.”
“Are you sure she’s a demon?”
Maria nodded. “No one else has a black aura like that. So you haven’t tried to get rid of it?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know.”
“You really didn’t know what that was?” Maria asked. Her voice was suspicious. I had a sick nervous feeling as she looked at me; it reminded me of being in school without having done my homework. I felt like I had been caught at something naughty.
“No,” I told her. “How was I supposed to know?”
Maria looked at me crook-eyed again, like she wasn’t quite buying my excuse. “You have to do exactly as I say, it’s very important. I’m going to give you a wash. Number Five. For three nights in a row you pour it over yourself while you pray. Pray to God to help you. Then you stop for three days, then you use it again for three days. Use it until the bottle’s all gone. It won’t make her disappear but it will cleanse your spirit so you can fight her better. But the most important thing is that you never, ever give in. You give even an inch, she’ll take a hundred miles.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” I asked.
“It always works.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“She’ll possess you. She’s probably already started. Not all at once. You won’t lose yourself all at once. But a little bit at a time. That’s why you have to do exactly as I say.”
“I understand,” I promised.
Maria stood up and I was clearly dismissed. Out in the store I settled the bill with the young man who had come back and was eyeing me curiously. He handed me a large jug of thin, greenish gray liquid in which floated a few leaves and twigs and some small berries that looked like peppercorns. On a white label with black letters was printed: “NUMBER #5: DEMON FIGHTING.”
SISTER MARIA had held me spellbound, but back at home it was easy for the whole matter to be
good for a laugh
again. Except I wasn’t laughing, and I didn’t tell anyone else about it, either. But I thought I might as well use the wash. I mean, it couldn’t hurt. It’s not like it would do anything, of course, but it wouldn’t hurt. I rubbed off the neatly typed label with vegetable oil, so if Ed noticed the bottle I could tell him it was bubble bath. I stood in the bathtub, naked, and asked God to help me as I poured the liquid over my head. It smelled like licorice, and it stung slightly where it dripped into my eyes. I kept my mouth closed so I wouldn’t swallow anything—I had forgotten to ask about that. I spread out my arms and let the wash trickle down my body, leaving a trail of goose bumps where it flowed.
good for a laugh
again. Except I wasn’t laughing, and I didn’t tell anyone else about it, either. But I thought I might as well use the wash. I mean, it couldn’t hurt. It’s not like it would do anything, of course, but it wouldn’t hurt. I rubbed off the neatly typed label with vegetable oil, so if Ed noticed the bottle I could tell him it was bubble bath. I stood in the bathtub, naked, and asked God to help me as I poured the liquid over my head. It smelled like licorice, and it stung slightly where it dripped into my eyes. I kept my mouth closed so I wouldn’t swallow anything—I had forgotten to ask about that. I spread out my arms and let the wash trickle down my body, leaving a trail of goose bumps where it flowed.
Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to rinse afterwards or just let it dry on my skin, but it smelled strong and so I took a quick warm shower, and then dried off and put on pajamas and spent the rest of the night paying bills and watching television.
T
HE GERMAN SHEPHERD was waiting at the train station again a few days later, looking right through me. The idiot didn’t even know who I was anymore.
HE GERMAN SHEPHERD was waiting at the train station again a few days later, looking right through me. The idiot didn’t even know who I was anymore.
“Go,” I snapped. “Get out of here.”
The dog looked at me and I looked back. I really hated him now, this stupid beast, staring at me with those big chocolate accusatory eyes.
“Go,” I yelled again. I pointed toward the wasteland of our neighborhood, in the opposite direction from our house. Still holding my eyes, he pulled his shoulders down and his tail up, as if he were stretching his back. Then he leapt up to my outstretched hand and bit me.
I screamed, more from shock than pain. The skin on my hand was barely punctured, and it felt more like a book had been dropped on my hand than what I had imagined a dog bite would feel like. Then he lay down with his head between his paws and whimpered. Now, finally, the old adage had become true. He was more scared of me than I was of him.
“Fuck off!” I screamed. The idiot got up and ran away. I went home, washed my hand, wrapped it in a clean white dish towel, and called Ed, hoping he would drive me to the emergency room. He wasn’t in, so I called a taxi to take me instead. By the time I got to the hospital it hurt at least as much as I had imagined a dog bite would. I tried Ed again. Still out. For three hours I sat in the waiting room and tried to guess what the other people waiting had wrong with them. Some were obvious—hacking coughs, swollen appendages—but most I had to guess. Finally I was ushered into a brightly lit little examination cubicle, where a doctor washed the wound and then asked if I knew the dog who had bit me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if you don’t, you need to get two shots now, another in three days, another in seven, another in fourteen, and another in twenty-eight. Whenever there’s a bite by an unknown dog, there’s a chance of rabies.”
“What if I’m really, really sure this dog doesn’t have rabies?” I asked.
“If you don’t know the dog,” he said with irritation, “you’re not really, really sure. The only way to avoid the shots is to get a brain sample from the dog. Now this is going to hurt.”
The doctor gave me a shot with a thick needle in my right hand, near the bite, and then another shot in the upper arm. The shots hurt worse than the bite had.
It was obvious that a brain sample couldn’t come from a living dog.
Good,
I thought at first,
serves the stupid fucker right.
Then I thought of that dumb old dog, the fellow who used to be my pal, my best buddy, how he never gave up trying to seduce me, even after I made it clear I was married. I couldn’t. So on the third, seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-eighth day after the bite I went to the doctor’s office for more painful shots, and I never saw the dog again.
Good,
I thought at first,
serves the stupid fucker right.
Then I thought of that dumb old dog, the fellow who used to be my pal, my best buddy, how he never gave up trying to seduce me, even after I made it clear I was married. I couldn’t. So on the third, seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-eighth day after the bite I went to the doctor’s office for more painful shots, and I never saw the dog again.
ED WAS in a state when I got home at eleven that night, furious that I had let him worry. When I explained where I had been and showed him the ugly red puncture marks on my hand he relented and showed appropriate sympathy.
“Really, though,” he said, after kissing my hand, “you should have called.”
We were sitting on the sofa, curled up close. He gently held my bitten hand. For a few minutes we had been in love again. Friends again. And now this.
He wants an apology,
I thought. “I tried,” I told him. “Twice.”
He wants an apology,
I thought. “I tried,” I told him. “Twice.”
“Still, hon, I was worried.”
Where was he?
I thought. “I tried,” I said. “Where were you, anyway?”
I thought. “I tried,” I said. “Where were you, anyway?”
Ed made a face. “What do you mean, where was I? Working, you know that.”
“Just asking. You ought to get one of those cellular phones. In case of an emergency. You’re out of the office so much these days.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “I’m always out of the office a lot, Amanda, that’s half my job. You know that.”
Then why not get a phone?
“Then why not get a phone?”
“Then why not get a phone?”
“Why, so you can keep tabs on me?”
“No, not so I can keep tabs on you. So if I get bitten by a rabid dog you can drive me to the emergency room.”
Ed dropped my hand. “Do you plan on doing this often? Bothering stray animals and then getting rabies? Because if so, maybe we can get you vaccinated or something.”
We sat stiffly on the sofa, side-by-side now. “Yes, Ed,” I told him. “I plan on doing this often.”
W
HEN I WENT TO Dr. Flynn for my seventh day rabies shot, the story about fainting a few weeks before at the magazine stand came out. Dr. Flynn was my age and blonde. She had been Ed’s doctor for years. The first time I saw her, the day after my trip to the emergency room, I was immensely jealous. She wasn’t who I would have picked to examine my naked husband. But my own doctor, Jeff Winston, had died of a stroke two months before, and Ed raved about Dr. Flynn.
HEN I WENT TO Dr. Flynn for my seventh day rabies shot, the story about fainting a few weeks before at the magazine stand came out. Dr. Flynn was my age and blonde. She had been Ed’s doctor for years. The first time I saw her, the day after my trip to the emergency room, I was immensely jealous. She wasn’t who I would have picked to examine my naked husband. But my own doctor, Jeff Winston, had died of a stroke two months before, and Ed raved about Dr. Flynn.
She gave me a full physical, took blood for testing, and interrogated me for half an hour about the day I had fainted. What had I eaten? When had I eaten it? Did I have any strange food cravings? Strange dreams? Irrational thoughts? Had I been exposed to any toxic chemicals? On and on.
At the end of all the questions and tests and needles and samples she said I had low blood pressure and ought to eat more salt. I liked the sound of Dr. Flynn’s diagnosis. Everything could be explained, my life could go on. All I needed was more salt.
I took the fact that Sister Maria’s potion had done nothing as proof that there had never been anything wrong. Of course it had only been for a laugh, anyway. Just out of curiosity. But the dreams about a woman on a red beach continued just the same. And Ed and I continued to fight, and I kept doing things like snapping at cab drivers and occasionally going back for a drink to the bar where I had drunk all that tequila. A heat wave came over the city and everyone was on edge. Ed would come home each night and complain about the heat and I wanted to kill him. I knew it was hot. I didn’t need to talk about it.
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