A. Homes - The End of Alice

She doesn’t shut up long enough for me to respond. This is not a conversation, not a dialogue, but her hysterical purge.

Do you even have a clue? My life is completely different because of you. I doubt you realize it, but your influence is everywhere. And it’s not only me, it’s all the mothers and all the girls. Everyone is afraid.

I wasn’t allowed to play in the front yard, “Out back, ” my mother would say. “Play in the backyard, it’s fenced, no one needs to know we have a little girl. ” She said it as though my playing on the front lawn was an advertisement for things that might be taken from my parents’ house, burgled.

And I couldn’t walk to school alone, they were afraid we’d evaporate, disappear right off the sidewalk, that the sidewalk itself was the path that led straight to men like you. “And never go in the woods alone, ” my mother said. I never knew if that was because you’d be there, hiding in your secret headquarters, or if it was for fear of what I’d find — the forest is your burial ground. Once in New Hampshire on a beach by a lake, my father saw something in the sand. “Look, ” he said, pointing at it, “there’s something for you to play with. ” The small hand of a Barbie doll was poking up. I pulled it out of the sand and that’s all it was, an arm, just an arm, amputated. I screamed. My father laughed. That hand, that arm, could have belonged to someone, could have been part of a real girl, buried in the woods, chopped up and left in pieces, in Dumpsters, in assorted plastic bags, that arm could have been something you did.

Excuse me, but you said New Hampshire? A lake in New Hampshire? Maybe I am not so confused.

Keep an eye out, report anything strange. They say a man like you can be anyone, someone I know, someone I trust, a friend of the family, a relative, even the mailman. How do I know which one is you? What are your distinguishing characteristics? What makes you different from everyone else? Do you walk with a limp? Have scars? Do you leer? Will I feel you coming up behind me? Will your fingers reach around and cover my mouth? How do you pick your girls? Do you look as crazy as you are? And why do you hate me? Or more specifically, why do you hate little girls?

Hate is hardly the word.

There’s more. I drive to Sing Sing. I’ve been going there a lot, hanging out on the hill at State Street by the fire station. From there you can hear the noise inside the prison, you can hear the men.

Jealous, I’m jealous and worried that you’re shopping for a new man, a more convenient prisoner, someone with a better location.

Last time I took Matt with me and he totally freaked, he kept saying, “I don’t want to see any people, whatever you do, don’t make me see the people.”

There are trailers in the back, weird little Winnebagos where I guess the guards live, and out front there’s a parking place reserved for “The Employee of the Month.” Bet you didn’t know that.

Visit me. Let’s make a time and date, and in the same place where the tourists press their Nikons through the wrought-iron gates, you’ll put your face, pushing your nose, mouth, and tongue through the bars and into my fetid air. At the appointed hour I’ll look out my window and you’ll do it for me, make a mean little dance, working your hands against yourself. Do as I ask, do as you’re told. Come in time for my release. Come so that when I’m let out, you’ll be there, ready and waiting to catch me. We can take off in your parents’ car for that lake in New Hampshire where finally we’ll have our right reunion.

More still. Last week, I drove by myself to the motel in Chatham. I told my mother I was going to visit a friend from school. I slept in the very room you did it in. I asked the housekeeper which one it was and had the manager switch me. There was no hint, no sign that anything had ever happened. And yet, I could feel you, I could feel you everywhere. I live differently because of you, there is no such thing as safety.

Come. Come here. You are coming so close, come a little closer still.

I hope this doesn’t turn you off or wreck our relationship — is it fair to call it that? I really like talking to you. Does that make me weird? And what does it mean that I write to you, that I ask your advice? Frankly, I think you owe me something, you owe me a lot.

Silly bug, fly on the wall, our first fight and how quickly we are over it. Of course I don’t hate you, dearest, beloved, most cherished, I owe you everything.

“Sweetie,” I imagine her mother calling up the stairs. “What are you doing? It’s a beautiful day, why don’t you go outside? Want me to call Matt’s mother for you and arrange a tennis date? How would that be? It’s not good to just lie around. You get depressed. Lighten up.”

Matt. I don’t feel like dealing with Matt. I don’t know what I’ve been doing with Matt. It was an experiment, I needed him, needed someone who didn’t scare me. Is it such a terrible thing? Did I hurt him? Will he tell on me? Do I need a psychiatrist? Should I tell someone? Confess? Am I completely crazy? I’m trusting you to let me know. There really is no one else I can ask. Will I do it again? Am I the same as you?

How did you get to be the way you are ?

Practice.

When I was growing up, they used to say that we should report anything that made us uncomfortable, bnagine if I went downstairs right now and told my mother. Imagine if I walked into the kitchen and said, “Mom, I’m fucking Matt.”

What would she say? “That’s wonderful, dear, you’ve got a little crush. Older women, younger men, it’s all the rage. I’m so relieved, your father and I were starting to think you were a lesbian. ”

“He’s not a man, he’s twelve years old.”

“I’m just glad that you’ve found somebody, that’s the important thing. It really doesn’t matter who, as long as you’re happy. Even if you were a lesbian — which thank God you’re not, I really was worried — regardless, your father and I love you. We only want you to be happy — that’s what matters most. Are you happy?”

“No.”

“Do you know where my racket is?” the girl calls downstairs.

“You left it in the hall, so I put it away. You know me, always cleaning up after everybody. I can’t stand a mess. I’ll get it for you. And I bought you a fresh can of balls. Just come downstairs, it’s all waiting for you.”

Yesterday they were fucking. Naked in his parents’ garage, mixing with the damp, oily smell of cars, the twisted tinge of insecticide, lawn fertilizer, hidden secrets. They were in the backseat of his mother’s Volvo, doing it, and Matt’s mother came down to get something from the deep freeze. Matt’s mother came downstairs and looked right at her. They made eye contact, but the mother’s expression never changed. The girl wanted to know if she really didn’t notice or if she just didn’t care.

The girl wanted the mother to notice, wanted her to think something, to do something, to either fetch a bucket of cold water, douse them with it, and pry them apart like dogs in a yard, or invite them upstairs and offer them the use of her king-size bed. The girl wanted a reaction, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing. She didn’t mention it to Matt, who was on top of her, oblivious, hymnal Hendrix seeping out of his headphones.

Sweat collected, forming a pool, a greasy slick dripping off their linked loins. Their bodies were slippery, sloppy, not enough friction, he slid in and out of her too easily, everything had gone loose and lazy, they’d lost their grip.

They were fucking because they were compelled to fuck, because it was free, because it was something they could do themselves, because no one had to take them there, because there was nothing else to do, because it was easy.