Дуглас Престон - Jennie

Anyway, we went driving with Jennie one day. Early 1974, I think. Jennie didn’t like being around Sammie, but by this time she pretty much ignored her. We drove around, with Jennie as usual hanging out the window and scaring passing motorists and screaming at pedestrians. It was always pretty funny. Then we went by Sammie’s house. Jennie had never been to Sammie’s house before, and she was always nervous in a new house. I mean really nervous. I think Sammie wanted to pick up her pot or something. She was a real pothead, the poor kid.

We came in the house and there was Sammie’s mother upstairs moaning about something, yelling downstairs at Sammie. Jennie got even more nervous. She liked dealing with people face-to-face. And she was hypersensitive to people’s moods. So the mother was yelling downstairs, and Sammie said something like “Fuck you, bitch” under her breath, but a little too loudly. So her mom started yelling “What was that? What did you say, you little whore? Come up here and repeat what you just said, you little whore.”

Jennie maybe didn’t understand the words, but she got the gist. Her hair stuck out just about as far as it would go and she had this grin of fear on her face. Sammie ignored her mom and we went down to the basement. The problem was, although Jennie picked up on everything that went on around her, she often didn’t understand what exactly was going on. All she knew was that hostility was in the air. So she got really nervous and hostile herself. Am I making any sense to you? When people argued around her she often got aggressive. It was dangerous to start yelling at somebody in front of Jennie.

Down in the basement, the darkness of the place and all the posters and the black light made Jennie even more nervous. I should have done something, put her in the car. I could see she was getting really upset.

Sammie bent down to open a drawer, and I put my hand on her back, or I guess it might have been her ass, you know, affectionately, and then Jesus . It happened so suddenly. I heard Jennie make that barking sound and felt this sudden rush and I turned and then there was a shooting pain in my hand. I don’t even remember Jennie even touching me. It was so dark I couldn’t see much, but I could see this sudden sticky blackness all over my hand. Inky black under the black light. Sammie started screaming and I went upstairs and ran some water in the sink and put my hand in to wash it off. The water instantly turned red . I pulled my hand out and that’s when I saw — I mean I had this horrible sickening feeling and I saw that, well, this had happened. My pinky was gone. Well, I said to myself, there goes my career as first krummhorn with the Boston Pops. [Laughs.]

So you see, it was my fault. It was stupid to bring Jennie along with us, it was stupid to let her in the house, and it was stupid to bring her down to the basement. I knew Jennie was getting nervous. I knew she didn’t like Sammie. I knew she got worried and even aggressive when people touched each other around her. It was just plain stupid.

What? Why didn’t she attack Sammie? I don’t know. You know, there was something about Sammie that kind of scared her. I don’t know. In the dark like that, maybe she just miscalculated. I’m sure she didn’t intend to hurt me or anybody. She didn’t know her own strength.

At that point I threw up. Sammie was pretty good about it. Her mother was upstairs hollering her head off and yelling about not ruining the carpet. At least that’s what I remember her saying. “What happened? Is he bleeding? Don’t drip on the carpet! Get that boy out of here!” She didn’t even know there was an ape in the house. Sammie told her to fuck off again and got me in the car and to the hospital.

The funny thing was, we forgot all about Jennie, just left her there shut up in the house with the hypochondriac mom. I was feeling very weird and didn’t really know what was going on. Shock, I suppose. Sammie was so scared it was all she could do to drive the car.

So we got to Newton-Wellesley and they got me inside. The doctor wanted to know what had happened. He was really concerned that we go get the finger. He wanted to send someone back to get it. We tried to explain that it was probably in this chimpanzee’s belly, but I think he thought we were delirious. And that’s when I suddenly said, “Where the hell is Jennie?”

Sammie turned white and said she was still in the house with her mom, and she jumped up and left. The doctor was saying “Go look for the finger!” But she went and called the police. I have to tell you, it was pretty funny.

See, all the commotion had finally gotten the old drunken bitch out of bed. She came staggering down the stairs, saw blood on the carpet no doubt, heard some noises, and went down to the basement. Apparently Jennie was hiding under the covers of Sammie’s bed, whimpering. Her mom, thinking it was somebody, started yelling and when there was no response whipped the covers back. Oh my God. The poor old sot screamed and fainted.

The police found Jennie curled up on the bed, crying. They revived the mom. She was hysterical. She refused to leave the house so the cops searched around for the finger, couldn’t find it, and left with Jennie and brought her to my parents’ house. By the time the police got there my parents were on their way to the hospital, so they sat there and waited. Jennie felt terrible about the whole thing. She was so ashamed and sad. When my parents came home, Jennie went to the bathroom all by herself and shut herself in. To punish herself. She stayed in there for the whole day. Not even eating.

I really don’t remember much of anything. They’d given me some shots that made me feel like I was floating about two feet off the bed.

They fixed me up pretty well. After about six months I stopped missing it, except that once in a while it itches right on the tip and I can’t scratch it. Damn, that’s annoying!

So that’s what happened. My parents blamed Jennie and decided to send her away. End of story.

I got over losing a finger pretty fast. I wasn’t mad at Jennie at all. It was my fault. But my mom kind of freaked out. She kept Jennie locked up in her room most of the time and she had bars and screens put on the windows and door. It was like a prison. And Jennie treated it as such, banging and yelling and raising holy hell when she was put in there. My mother and I had pretty bad fights about that, arguing almost nonstop. Sarah was her usual uptight self, walking around with her nose wrinkled up. Sarah was basically a good kid but she really had a thing about Jennie. My father did his usual disappearing act. Did you try to talk to Sarah? I knew it. I knew she wouldn’t talk to you. You might as well forget her; she’s as stubborn as an ox. When she says no that’s it.

So then Prentiss came around with some kind of offer to take Jennie to Florida. Prentiss and that pompous old egomaniac Epstein. Epstein thought he had the answer to everything. My parents jumped on that. I was surprised, because my mother didn’t like Prentiss. My parents pretended to have a talk with us, to let us feel that we were part of the decision, but their minds were already made up. I was against it right from the beginning. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I tried my best to stop it, but being a sixteen-year-old kid I didn’t have much say.

They had a going-away party for Jennie. I thought that was the cruelest thing of all. Like giving a condemned man a last meal of steak and lobster. Jennie had no idea that in three days she was going off to prison. It was so phony, this party. I wasn’t going to go to the party, but then I changed my mind and showed up near the end. I guess I’d had a bit too much to drink. They were all lined up for a picture and I just ripped into the whole lot of them. I said some pretty terrible things. I asked them how they could stand there laughing and smiling and having a good time, when they were sending Jennie to prison camp. I called them hypocrites, motherfuckers — I mean, you name it, I said it. And you know what? Nobody said a word. Nobody defended themselves. The knew. They knew in their heart of hearts that I was right. They stood there looking guilty and then they slunk away and went home.