Charles D'Ambrosio - The Dead Fish Museum

“Momma thinks I can tow you with the tractor,” he said.” I say she’s right. I went and looked at it this morning.”

“I’m not sure we can afford any major repairs,” Kirsten said.

“You work for a children’s charity,” the old woman said.

“That’s right.”

“We’ll get you going,” the man said.

“Up to the Mennonites, right, Momma?”

The old woman nodded. “I put towels out. You kids help yourselves to a hot shower, and meanwhile Daddy and me’ll tow your car up to the plain people and then we’ll just see.”

“We’d like to go into town,” Kirsten said “If that’s okay.”

“Sure,” the old woman said. She looked at her husband. “Yeah?”

“Of course, yes. Yes.”

____

Main Street was wide and empty, the storefronts colorless in the flat light. A traffic signal swaying over the only intersection ticked like a clock in the quiet. Feeling faint, her stomach cramping, Kirsten sat on the curb. A hand-lettered sign on a sheet of unpainted plywood leaned against a low stucco building, advertising Fresh Eggs, Milk, Broccoli, Cherries, Bread, Potatoes, Watermelon, Strawberries, Root Beer, Antiques.

“No corn,” Lance observed, pitching a rock at the sign. “So, you gonna tell me?”

She shook her head. “I just went for a walk, Lance. Nowhere,” she said, pressing a print of her hand in the dust. She was wary of Lance, knowing that if she let him he would tap her every mood. He believed that a rich and deserved life ran parallel to theirs, a life that she alone could see, and he would probe her dreams for directions and tease her premonitions for meanings, as if her nightmares and moods gave her access to a world of utter certainty, when in fact Kirsten knew the truth — that every dream was a reservoir of doubt. A life spent revolving through institutions had taught her that. Foster care, detox, detention — even the woman she called Mother was an institution, a fumbling scheme. Kristen’s improvised family of shifting faces sat together in common rooms furnished with donated sofas and burned lampshades and ashtrays of cut green glass, in lounges that were more home to her than home ever was, the inmates more family than she’d ever known.

It was in those lounges, on mornings that never began, through nights that wouldn’t end, that Kirsten had elaborated her sense of the other world. She had stripped her diet of the staples of institutional life — the starches, the endless urns of coffee and the sugar cubes and creamers, the cigarettes. She’d cropped her hair short and stopped wearing jewelry, and one afternoon, while the janitor mopped the hallway, she’d slipped the watch from her wrist and dumped it into his bucket of dingy water. She’d cleaned her room and kept it spare, and she was considered a model inmate, neat and quiet and nearly invisible. By experimenting, she discovered that the only deeply quiet time on the ward was in the dark hour before dawn, and so she’d begun to wake at 4 a. m., first with an alarm clock, then automatically, easing from sleep into a stillness that was as spacious and as close to freedom as anything inside detention could be. Then she would pull a candle from her dresser drawer, melt it to her bedpost, sit in her chair, and stare at the mirror bolted to her wall. For weeks, she waited for something to appear in the clear depth, looking into the glass as if into a great distance. An instinct told her she was trying too hard, but one morning her arms lost life and went leaden, her hands curled, and the mirror turned cloudy, her face fading as if it had sunk below the surface of the glass, and her true mother’s fingers reached toward hers. The next morning, she learned that guiding the images made them go away, and she spent another disconsolate hour staring at herself. Eventually she was able to sit without panic as her image sank and vanished, and often she emerged from her trances with her own hand stretched to meet the hand in the mirror.

Early in her detention, a social worker had advised Kirsten that the only thing better than heroin was a future, and that had been Lance’s gift, a restlessness that seemed focused on tomorrow, a desire that made the days seem available. But he was impatient, and his sense of her gift was profane and depleting, with every half thought and reverie expected to strike pay dirt.

“Okay, fine,” Lance said. “Let’s hit the trailer court.”

“I’m tired of those smelly trailers.”

“We’ve talked about this I don’t know how many times.”

“I want the nice houses. Those people have the money.”

“They have the money,” he said, “because they don’t fall for bullshit like ours.”

They started up the steps of the biggest and nicest house on the street. With its wide and deep veranda, it seemed to have been built with a different prospect in mind, a more expansive view. Kirsten knocked and wiped her feet on the welcome mat and shuffled through her pamphlets and forms. Dressed in overalls, stuffed with straw, a scarecrow slumped on a porch swing, its head a forlorn sack knotted at the neck with a red kerchief. Kirsten knocked again, and then once more, but no one answered.

“See?” Lance said.

“See nothing,” Kirsten said. She marched across the lawn to the neighbor’s door. Lance sat on the curb, picking apart a leaf. No one answered her knock. She shuffled through her materials, stalling.

“Time to hit the trailer trash,” Lance said.

Kirsten ran to the next house. A ghost hung from the awning, and the family name, Strand, was engraved on a wooden plaque above the door. She drew a deep breath and knocked. For some time now, she’d done things Lance’s way. She’d solicited only the homes where she found signs of a shoddy slide — a car on blocks, a windowpane repaired with tape, some loss of contour in the slouching house itself — fissures in somebody else’s hope that she and Lance could crawl through.

But what had happened? They’d become sad little children, petty thieves and liars, swiping things that no one would miss — five dollars here, ten dollars there — and laying siege to it with large plans, intricate calculations. Lance had his theories, but lately it had occurred to Kirsten that he was conducting his life with folklore. He had a knack for discovering the reverse of everything — the good were bad, the rich were poor, the great were low and mean — and it was no surprise that they were now living lives that were upside down.

A little girl pulled the door open a crack, peering shyly up at Kirsten.

“Is your momma home?”

“Momma!”

The woman who came to the door, wiping her hands on a dish towel, was a fuller version of the little girl, with the same blond hair and blue eyes. Kirsten offered her one of the brochures.

The little girl clung to her mother’s leg. She wore one yellow sock and one green, orange dance tights, a purple skirt, a red turtleneck.

Kirsten said, “Did you get dressed all by yourself this morning?”

The little girl nodded and buried her face in the folds of her mother’s skirt.

The mother smiled. “Cuts down on the fighting, right, April? We have a deal. She dresses herself, then she has to eat all her breakfast.” She handed Kirsten the pamphlet. “I just made some coffee,” she said.

Kirsten sat in a faded green chair by the window and leaned forward to watch Lance aimlessly tossing rocks and sticks in the street.

The woman brought two cups of coffee and a plate with Pop-Tarts, toasted and cut in thirds, fanned around the edges.

“You’d be surprised how many around here get into drugs,” she said.

“I’m not sure it would surprise me, ma’am,” Kirsten said. “Everywhere I go I hear stories from people who have been touched by this thing.” She sipped her coffee. “This tragedy.”