Karen Russell - Vampires in the Lemon Grove

“Sorry I’m a little late, Bev,” he says, like it’s a joke.

“Your appointment was three weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot. Honestly, it just kept slipping my mind.”

“I’ll see you now,” says Beverly through gritted teeth. “Right now. Don’t move a muscle. I have to make some calls.”

Through the crack in the door she watches Zeiger changing out of his shirt. Colors go pouring down his bunched bones. At this distance his tattoo is out of focus and only glorious.

“So, American Hero. Long time no see.” She pauses, struggling to keep her voice controlled. She was so worried. “We called you.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I was feeling too good to come in.”

“The number was disconnected.”

“I’m behind on my bills. Nah, it’s not like that,” he says hurriedly, studying her face. “Nothing serious.” His mouth keeps twitching like an accordion. She realizes that he’s trying to smile for her.

“You don’t look too good,” she says bluntly.

“Well, I’m still sleeping,” he says, scratching his neck. “But some of the pain is back.”

He climbs onto the table, smoothing his new cap of hair. It’s grown and grown. Beverly is surprised the former soldier can tolerate it at this length. The black tuft of hair at his nape is clearly scheming to become a mullet.

“Is the pressure too much?”

“Yes. But no, it’s fine. I mean, do what you gotta do back there to fix it, Bev.” He takes a sharp breath. “Did I tell you what’s happening to Jilly?”

Beverly swallows, immediately alarmed. Jilly Mackey, she remembers. Arlo’s sister. Her first thought is that the girl must be seeing the pictures of April 14 herself now. “I don’t think so …”

In Lifa, Texas, it turns out, Jilly has been having some trouble. Zeiger found out about this when he spoke on the phone with the Mackey women last night; he’d called for Arlo’s birthday. “A respect call,” he says, as if this is a generally understood term. She’ll have to ask one of the other veterans if it’s a military thing.

“Her mother’s upset because I guess Jilly’s been ‘acting out,’ whatever the fuck that means, and the teachers seem to think that somehow the tattoo is to blame — that she should have it removed. Laser removal, you know, they can do that now.”

“I see. And what does Jilly say?”

“Of course she’s not going to. That’s her brother on the tattoo. She’s starting at some new school in the fall. But the whole thing makes me sad, really sad, Beverly. I’m not even sure exactly why. I mean, I can see to where it would be hard for her — emotionally, or whatever — to have him back there …”

Beverly squeezes his shoulders. A minor-key melody has been looping through her head since he began talking, and she realizes that it’s a song from one of her father’s records that she’d loved as a child, a mysterious and slightly frightening one with wild trumpets and horns that sounded like they’d been recorded in a forest miles away, accidentally caught in the song’s net: “The Frozen Chameleon.”

“It’s probably a weird thing to explain in the girls’ locker room, you know? But on the other hand I almost can’t believe the teachers would suggest that. It doesn’t feel right, Bev. You want a tattoo to be, ah, ah …”

“Permanent?”

“Exactly. Like I said, it’s a memorial for Arlo.”

Grief freezing the picture onto him. Grief turning the sergeant into a frozen chameleon. Once a month Beverly leaves flowers in front of her parents’ stones at St. Stephen’s. Her sister got out twenty-five years ago, but she’s still weeding for them, sprucing daffodils.

“You don’t think the day might come when you want to erase it?”

“No! No way. Jesus, Beverly, weren’t you listening? Just the thought makes me sick.”

She smooths the sky between his shoulder blades. The picture book of Fedaliyah, stuck on that page he can’t turn. After an instant, his shoulders flatten.

“I was listening. Relax.” She shifts the pressure a few vertebrae lower. “There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

By March 10, she estimates she’s survived hundreds of explosions. Alone in her apartment, she’s watched Pfc. Mackey die and reincarnate with her eyes shut, massaging her own jaw.

From dusk until three or four a.m., in lieu of sleeping, she’s started sitting through hundreds of hours of cable news, waiting for coverage of the wars. Of course Zeiger and Mackey won’t be mentioned, they are ancient history, but she still catches herself listening nightly for their names. One night, spinning through the news roulette, she happens to stop on a photo still of a face that she recognizes: Representative Eule Wolly, the blue-eyed advocate of massage therapy for the new veterans.

Who, she learns, never served abroad during the Vietnam War. First Lieutenant Eule Wolly was honorably discharged from the navy while still stationed in San Francisco Bay. He lied about receiving a purple heart. The freckled news anchor reading these allegations sounds positively gleeful, as if he’s barely suppressing a smile. Next comes footage of Representative Wolly himself, apologizing on a windy podium for misleading his constituents through his poor choice of wording and the “perhaps confusing” presentation of certain facts. Such as, to give one for instance, his alleged presence in the nation of Vietnam from 1969 to 1971. Currently he is being prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act.

Beverly switches off the TV uneasily. Just that name, the “Stolen Valor Act,” gets under her skin. She pushes down the thought that she’s no better than the congressman, or the rest of the pack of liars and manipulators who parade across the television. In a way his crime is not so dissimilar to what she’s been doing, is it? Encouraging Derek to twist his facts around as she loosens his muscles; trying to rub out his memories of the berm. Thinking she can live the boy’s worst day for him.

“He’s doing amazingly well,” Beverly hears herself telling her sister, Janet, during their weekly telephone call. Bragging, really, but she can’t help herself — Zeiger is making huge strides. His life is settling into an extraordinarily ordinary routine, she tells Jan, who by now has heard all about him.

“He’s got a full-time job now, isn’t that exciting? He signed the lease on a new apartment, too, much nicer than the cockroach convention where he’s been living. I’m really so proud of him. Janet?”

She pauses, embarrassed — it’s been whole minutes since her sister’s said a word. “Are you still there?”

“Oh, I’m still here.” Janet laughs angrily. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You want to throw it in my face?”

“What?”

“Nice to hear you’re still taking such excellent care of everyone.”

Fury causes her sister’s voice to crackle in the receiver. For a second, Beverly is too stunned to speak.

“Janet. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t pretend like I didn’t do my part. I was there as often as I could be, Beverly. Once a month without fail — more, when I could get away. And not everybody thought it was a good idea to skip college, you know.”

Beverly stares across her kitchen, half expecting to see the dishes rattling. Once a month? Is Janet joking?

“Do you want me to get the calendar out?” Beverly’s voice is trembling so hard it’s almost unintelligible. “From September to May one year,” she says, “I was alone with her. Don’t you dare deny it.”