Percival Everett - Erasure

The police rang the bell of my mother’s house. She thought they had come to read the gas meter. They told her about my sister. The officer, a woman, said, “She was pronounced dead on the scene.”

My mother undid the clasp of her watchband, then fastened it again, then she said, “Thank you for coming to tell me. Would you mind telling Lorraine for me?” She called Lorraine into the room.

Lorraine upon seeing the police was immediately in a panic, her hands starting to shake.

“Lorraine,” Mother said, “these nice people have something to tell you. I’ll be upstairs. It’s time for my nap.”

I took a taxi from National to my mother’s house, stared down at the river as the car crossed the Fourteenth Street bridge. I had vague and unsettling memories of everything that had ever gone wrong when I was a child, times when I accidentally hurt my sister, times when I hurt her on purpose, when some boy had crushed her feelings, when her grades weren’t what she had wanted, Bill ignored her, I ignored her, Mother paid me more attention. I admired her, but hardly knew her and it was all my fault, had to be my fault, because she was not alive to blame. But that thinking was bullshit and I quickly dropped it, replacing it with consideration of my familial duties.

At the house, my brother opened the door to let me in. Our embrace served only to amplify the distance between us, though our grief was very real.

We stepped back and looked at each other.

“How’s Mother?” I asked.

“She’s asleep,” Bill said. “I gave her something. I got here a couple of hours ago. Lorraine’s the one who’s bouncing off the walls. I gave her something, too.”

“Maybe later you can give me something,” I said. “Have you figured out what happened yet?”

“Someone shot into the clinic and killed Lisa,” he said. “I talked to the police thirty minutes ago. A rifle.”

I walked into the living room and sat on the sofa. “Did they catch who did it?” I asked. It felt like a stupid question, a pointless concern. It really didn’t matter. Lisa was dead and nothing would change that. “Do they know why?”

“Some zealot, they think. One of those anti-abortionist idiots.”

“Lisa mentioned that murder in Maryland when I was here,” I said. “Good lord. I can’t believe this. I was halfway expecting Lisa to open the door when I arrived.”

“Me, too.”

“I should go up and see Mother,” I said.

“I guess. She’s pretty out of it. After that, we should go over to Lisa’s and look at her papers, see if she left any instructions.”

Mother was, as Bill had said, out of it. She looked up at me through her haze and wondered aloud if I were my father. “Is that you, Ben?” she asked. “They’ve taken away our little girl.”

“No, Mother, it’s me, Monk. You just rest, okay?” I helped her back down into her pillow. “Get some sleep.”

“My baby is dead,” she said. “My little Lisa is gone.”

Klee: What are you thinking about?Kollwitz: Why is it that bloody-minded men are such prudes? Why are they so hostile to sexuality and images of the body?Klee: You’re referring to mustache boy.Kollwitz: You were lucky to leave when you did. I couldn’t bring myself to abandon my home. But back to the subject. That monster and those like him are as threatened by those silly nymphettes of Mueller as they are by Kirchner.Klee: Ferkel Kunst. Kollwitz: Pardon?Klee: That is what he calls what we do.Kollwitz: I lost my son in the first war and I fear I will lose my grandson in this one. All because of a man who is afraid of his pee-pee.Klee: And other people’s pee-pees.Kollwitz: They’ve established a new bureau. The Commission on the Value of Confiscated Works of Degenerate Art. They’re selling our works to foreigners. They sold them for nothing and burned the rest. I want the ashes of the bonfire to mix with my paints.Klee: That’s a lovely idea.Kollwitz: Imagine the smell of those ashes.Klee: Indeed.

My sister’s apartment was full of life. I never knew her tastes in anything after she became an adult. She liked pastels. She listened to R&B. She enjoyed color photographs of horses and birds. Her bed was neatly made. Her kitchen was clean. Her bathroom smelled sweet. Beside the sink was the ring box I had made for her four years earlier. There was an inlay of wood on the top. I remembered vividly making the box and hoping the while that she would like it as much I enjoyed constructing it. I lifted the lid and looked closely at the spalted maple inlay. It had darkened with age, but was still considerably lighter than the ebony box. There was one ring in the box and I guessed it had been Lisa’s wedding ring.

Lisa wanted to be cremated and that was what we did. We had her body burned and her ashes collected in an urn that we brought home and set on the mantel over the fireplace that was never used. Mother cried. Lorraine cried. Patients and co-workers and colleagues and Lisa’s ex-husband-sans-new-wife all came to a service at the Episcopal church my family never attended and they cried, too. When younger, I despised religion. Later, I didn’t care, viewing the trappings with vague amusement and almost always finding the practitioners somewhat dull of spirit and thought. They said their words to their god and Lorraine, at least, was made to rest somewhat easier. Then we went home and sat at the kitchen table. Bill and I sat at the table, Bill having given Mother and Lorraine little somethings to help them sleep.

Bill asked me if I was still making chairs.

I told him I was. I finally asked him where Sandy and the kids were.

He told me they were in Arizona.

Bill asked if I had a new book coming out soon.

I told him that I was trying to sell one.

He didn’t ask me what it was about.

I asked Bill where his wife and children were.

Bill told me that he admitted to Sandy that he was gay and that she took him to court and took the kids, the house, the money, everything. He told me his practice was failing because everyone now knew he was gay.

I asked how something like that could happen.

He said he lived in Arizona. He said: “Sandy actually deserves everything. I lied to her for fifteen years. I endangered her life, or so she believes. The judge believed her anyway. I’ve confused my children and it will take a while for them to be able to understand what’s happened. If they ever will. I deserve what I got. Which is, basically, nothing. I can’t look my kids in the eye. I owe more money than I make. And I live in Arizona.”

I felt bad for my brother and, truthfully, I was impressed by his understanding response to his wife’s anger and his children’s confusion. But it was sad that the most significant bit of information in his admission of guilt and failure was that he owed more money than he made. Mother needed caring for and I didn’t believe that Bill was up to it. Lorraine was nearly as old as Mother and would perhaps require the same care, as never had I been made aware of any family of her own. The spotlight was falling squarely on me. My skin crawled, my head ached, my neck itched, all as I watched my life as I knew it change before my eyes. While sitting at that kitchen table with Bill, I was already packing up my apartment in Santa Monica.