Gerald’s Game

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The water brought her back wonderfully, and when she at last turned off the tap and looked at herself in the mirror again, she felt like a reasonable facsimile of a human being-weak, hurting, and shaky on her feet… but alive and aware, just the same. She thought she would never again experience anything as deeply satisfying as those first few swallows of cold water from the gushing tap, and in all her previous experience, only her first orgasm came close to rivalling that moment. In both cases she had been totally commanded by the cells and tissues of her physical being for a few brief seconds, conscious thought (but not consciousness itself) wiped away, and the result had been ecstasy. I’ll never forget it, she thought, knowing she had forgotten it already, just as she had forgotten the gorgeous honeyed sting of that first orgasm as soon as the nerves had stopped firing off. It was as if the body disdained memory… or refused the responsibility of it.

Never mind all that, Jessie-you have to hurry!

Can’t you stop yapping at me? she responded. Her wounded wrist was no longer gushing, but it was still doing a hell of a lot more than trickling, and the bed she saw reflected in the bathroom mirror was a horror-the mattress soaked with blood and the headboard streaked with it. She had read that people could lose a great deal of blood and keep on functioning, but when they started to tip over, everything went at once. And she had to be pushing the envelope.

She opened the medicine cabinet, looked at the box of Band-Aids, and uttered a harsh caw of laughter. Her eye happened on the small box of Always maxi-pads sitting discreetly behind a clutter of perfumes and colognes and aftershaves. She knocked two or three of the bottles over dragging the box out, and the air filled with a gagging combination of scents. She stripped the paper cover from one of the pads, which she then wrapped around her wrist like a fat white bracelet. Poppies began to bloom on it almost at once.

Who would have thought the lawyer’s wife had so much blood in her? she mused, and uttered another harsh caw of laughter. There was a tin wheel of Red Cross tape on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. She took it, using her left hand. Her right now seemed capable of very little except bleeding and howling with pain. Yet she still felt a deep love for it, and why not? When she’d needed it, when there had been absolutely nothing else, it had grasped the remaining key, put it in the lock, and turned it. No, she had nothing at all against Ms Right.

That was you, Jessie, Punkin said. I mean…we’re all you, Youdo know that, don’t you?

Yes. She knew that perfectly well.

She pushed the cover of the adhesive tape and held the roll clumsily with her right hand while she used her left thumb to lift up the end of the tape. She returned the roll to her left hand, pressed the end of the tape to her makeshift bandage, and revolved the roll around her right wrist several times, binding the already damp sanitary pad as tightly against the slash on the inside of her wrist as she could. She tore the tape off the roll with her teeth, hesitated, and then added a white, overlapping armlet of adhesive tape just below her right elbow. Jessie had no idea how much good such a makeshift tourniquet could do, but she didn’t think it could do any harm.

She tore the tape a second time, and as she dropped the much diminished roll back onto the counter, she saw a green bottle of Excedrin standing on the middle shelf of the medicine cabinet. No childproof cap, either-God be thanked. She took it down with her left hand and used her teeth to pry off the white plastic top. The smell of the aspirin tablets was acrid, sharp, faintly vinegary.

I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, Goodwife Burlingame said nervously. Aspirin thins the blood and slows clotting.

That was probably true, but the exposed nerves of the back of her right hand were now shrieking like a fire-alarm, and if she didn’t do something to damp them down a little, Jessie thought she would soon be rolling around on the floor and baying at the reflections on the ceiling. She shook two Excedrin into her mouth, hesitated, shook in two more. She turned on the tap again, swallowed them, then looked guiltily at the makeshift bandage on her wrist. The red was still sinking through the layers of paper; soon she would be able to take the pad off and wring blood out of it like hot red water. An awful image… and once she had it in her head, she could not seem to get rid of it.

If you made that worse-Goody began dolefully.

Oh, give me a break, the Ruth-voice responded. It spoke briskly but not unkindly. If I die of blood-loss now, am I supposed to blameit on four aspirin after I damned near scalped my right hand in order toget off the bed in the first place? That’s surreal!

Yes indeed. Everything seemed surreal now. Except that wasn’t exactly the right word. The right word was…

“Hyper-real,” she said in a low, musing voice.

Yes, that was it. Definitely it. Jessie turned around so she was facing out the bathroom door again, then gasped in alarm. The part of her head which monitored equilibrium reported that she was still turning. For a moment she imagined dozens of Jessies, an overlapping chain of them, documenting the arc of her turn like frames of movie-film. Her alarm deepened as she observed that the golden bars of light slanting in through the west window had taken on an actual texture-they looked like swatches of bright yellow snakeskin. The dust motes spinning through them had become sprays of diamond grit. She could hear the fast light beat of her heart, could smell the mixed aromas of blood and well-water. It was like sniffing an ancient copper pipe.

I’m getting ready to pass out.

No, Jess, you’re not. You can’t afford to pass out.

That was probably true, but she was pretty sure it was going to happen, anyway. There was nothing she could do about it.

Yes, there is. And you know what.

She looked down at her skinned hand, then raised it. There would be no need to actually do anything except relax the muscles of her right arm. Gravity would take care of the rest. If the pain of her peeled hand striking the edge of the counter weren’t enough to drag her out of this terrible bright place she suddenly found herself in, nothing would be. She held the hand beside her bloodsmeared left breast for a long moment, trying to nerve herself up enough to do it. Finally she lowered it to her side again. She couldn’t-simply could not. It was one thing too much. One pain too much.

Then get moving before you pass out.

I can’t do that, either, she responded. She felt more than tired; she felt as if she had just smoked a whole bong of absolutely primo Cambodian Red by herself. All she wanted to do was stand here and watch the motes of diamond-dust spin their slow circles in the sunbeams coming in through the west window. And maybe get one more drink of that dark-green, mossy-tasting water.

“Oh jeez,” she said in a faraway, frightened voice. “Jeez, Louise.”

You have to get out of the bathroom, Jessie-you have to. Just worryabout that, for now. I think you better crawl over the bed this time; I’mnot sure you can make it underneath again.

But…but there’s broken glass on the bed. What if I cut myself?

That brought Ruth Neary out again, and she was raving.

You’ve already taken most of the skin off your right hand-do youthink a few more lacerations are going to make a difference? Jesus Christ,tootsie, what if you die in this bathroom with a cunt-diaper on your wristand a big stupid grin on your face? How’s that for a what-if? Getmoving,bitch!

Two careful steps took her back to the bathroom doorway. Jessie only stood there for a moment, swaying and blinking her eyes against the sundazzle like someone who has spent the whole afternoon in a movie-theater. The next step took her to the bed. When her thighs were touching the bloodstained mattress, she carefully put her left knee up, grasped one of the footposts to ensure her balance, and then got onto the bed. She was unprepared for the feelings of fear and loathing which washed over her. She could no more imagine ever sleeping in this bed again than she could imagine sleeping in her own coffin. just kneeling on it made her feel like screaming.

You don’t need to have a deep, meaningful relationship with it, Jessie-just get across the fucking thing.

Somehow she managed to do that, avoiding the shelf and the crumbles and jags of broken water-glass by crossing at the foot of the mattress. Each time her eyes caught sight of the handcuffs dangling from the posts at the head of the bed, one sprung open, the other a closed steel circle covered with blood-her blood-a little sound of loathing and distress escaped her. The handcuffs didn’t look like inanimate things to her. They looked alive. And still hungry.

She reached the far side of the bed, gripped the footpost with her good left hand, turned herself around on her knees with all the care of a hospital convalescent, then lay on her belly and lowered her feet to the floor. She had a bad moment when she didn’t think she had strength enough to stand up again; that she would just lie there until she passed out and slid off the bed. Then she pulled in a deep breath and used her left hand to shove. A moment later she was on her feet. The sway was worse now-she looked like a sailor lurching into the Sunday morning segment of a weekend binge-but she was up, by God. Another wave of darkheadedness sailed across her mind like a pirate galleon with huge black sails. Or an eclipse.

Blind, rocking back and forth on her feet, she thought: Please,God, don’t let me pass out. Please God, okay? Please.

At last the light began to come back into the day. When Jessie thought things had gotten as bright as they were going to, she slowly crossed the room to the telephone table, holding her left arm a few inches out from her body to maintain her balance. She picked up the receiver, which seemed to weigh as much as a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, and brought it to her ear. There was no sound at all; the line was smooth and dead. Somehow this didn’t surprise her, but it raised a question: had Gerald unplugged the phone from the wall, as he sometimes did when they were down here, or had her night-visitor cut the wires outside someplace?

“It wasn’t Gerald,” she croaked. “I would have seen him.”

Then she realized that wasn’t necessarily so-she had headed for the bathroom as soon as they were in the house. He could have done it then. She bent down, grasped the flat white ribbon that went from the back of the phone to the connector-box on the baseboard behind the chair, and pulled. She thought she felt a little give at first, and then nothing. Even that initial give might have been just her imagination; she knew perfectly well that her senses were no longer very trustworthy. The jack might just be bound up on the chair, but-

No, Goody said. It won’t come because it’s still plugged in-Geraldnever disconnected it at all, The reason the phone doesn’t work is becausethat thing that was in here with you last night cut the wire.

Don’t listen to her; underneath that loud voice of hers, she’s scared ofher own shadow, Ruth said. The connector-plug’s hung up on one of the chair’s back legs-I practically guarantee it. Besides, it’s easy enough tofind out, isn’t it?

Of course it was. All she had to do was pull the chair out and take a look behind it. And if the plug was out, put it back in.

What if you do all that and the phone still doesn’t work? Goody asked. Then you’ll know something else, won’t you?

Ruth: Stop dithering-you need help, and you need it fast.

It was true, but the thought of pulling out the chair filled her with weary gloom. She could probably do it-the chair was big, but it still couldn’t weigh a fifth of what the bed had weighed, and she had managed to move that all the way across the room but the thought was heavy. And pulling the chair out would only be the beginning. Once it was moved, she would have to get down on her knees… crawl into the dim, dusty corner behind it to find the connector-box…

Jesus, tootsie! Ruth cried. She sounded alarmed. You don’t haveany choice! I thought that at long last we all agreed on at least onething, that you need help, and you need it f-

Jessie suddenly slammed the door on Ruth’s voice, and slammed it hard. Instead of moving the chair, she bent over it, picked up the culotte skirt, and carefully pulled it up her legs. Drops of blood from the soaked bandage on her wrist splattered across the front of it at once, but she hardly saw them. She was busy ignoring the jangle of angry, perplexed voices, and wondering just who had let all these weird people into her head in the first place. It was like waking up one morning and discovering your home had become a boarding hotel overnight. All the voices were expressing horrified disbelief at what she was planning to do, but Jessie suddenly discovered she didn’t give much of a shit. This was her life. Hers.

She picked up the blouse and slipped her head into it. To her confused, shocked mind, the fact that yesterday had been warm enough for this casual sleeveless top seemed to conclusively prove the existence of God. She didn’t think she would have been able to bear sliding her stripped right hand down a long sleeve.

Never mind that, she thought, this is nuts, and I don’t need anymake-believe voices to tell me so, I’m thinking about driving out of here-about trying, anyway-when the only thing I have to do is move that chair and plug the phone back in. It must be the blood-loss-it’s drivenme temporarily insane. This is a nutty idea. Christ, that chair can’tweigh fifty pounds…I’m almost home and dry!

Yes, except it wasn’t the chair, and it wasn’t the idea of the Rescue Services guys finding her in the same room as the naked, chewed corpse of her husband. Jessie had a pretty good idea she would be preparing to leave in the Mercedes even if the phone were in perfect working order and she had already summoned the police, the ambulance, and the Deering High School Marching Band. Because the phone wasn’t the important thing-not at all. The important thing was… well…

The important thing is that I have to get the fuck out of here rightaway, she thought, and suddenly she shuddered. Her bare arms broke out in gooseflesh. Because that thing is going to come back.

Bullseye. The problem wasn’t Gerald, or the chair, or what the Rescue Services guys might think when they got down here and saw the situation. It wasn’t even the question of the telephone. The problem was the space cowboy; her old friend Dr Doom. That was why she was putting on her clothes and splashing a little more of her blood around instead of making an effort to re-establish communications with the outside world. The stranger was someplace close by; of that she felt certain. It was only waiting for dark, and dark was close now. If she passed out while she was trying to push the chair away from the wall, or while she was crawling gaily around in the dust and the cobwebs behind it, she might still be here, all alone, when the thing with the suitcase of bones arrived. Worse, she might still be alive.

Besides, her visitor had cut the line. She had no way of knowing this… but her heart knew it just the same. If she went through all the rigamarole of moving the chair and plugging the t-connector back in, the phone would still be dead, just like the one in the kitchen and the one in the front hall.

And what’s the big deal, anyway? she told her voices. I’m planningto drive out to the main road, that’s all. Compared to performingimpromptu surgery with a water-glass and pushing a double bed across the room while losing a pint of blood, it’ll be a breeze. The Mercedes isa good car, and it’s a straight shot up the driveway. I’ll putter out toRoute 117 at ten miles an hour, and if I feel too weak to drive all theway to Dakin’s Store once I make the highway, I’ll just pull across theroad, put on the four-way flashers, and lay on the horn when I see someonecoming. No reason why that shouldn’t work, with the roadflat and openfor a mile and a half in either direction. The big thing about the car isthe locks. Once I’m in it, there’ll be doors I can lock. It won’t be able toget in.

It, Ruth tried to sneer, but Jessie thought she sounded scared-yes, even her.

That’s right, she returned. You were the one who always used to tellme I ought to put my head on hold more often and follow my heart,weren’t you? You bet you were, And do you know what my heart saysnow, Ruth? It says that the Mercedes is the only chance I have. And ifyou want to laugh at that, go right ahead…but my mind is made up.

Ruth apparently did not want to laugh. Ruth had fallen silent.

Gerald handed me the car-keys just before he got out of the car, so hecould reach into the back seat and get his briefcase. He did do that, didn’the? Please God, let my memory of that he right.

Jessie slipped her hand into the left pocket of her skirt and found only a couple of Kleenex. She reached down with her right hand, pressed it gingerly against the outside of that pocket, and let out a sigh of relief as she felt the familiar bulge of the car-key and the big round joke fob Gerald had given her for her last birthday. The words on the fob read YOU SEXY THING. Jessie decided she had never felt less sexy and more like a thing in her entire life, but that was okay; she could live with it. The key was in her pocket, that was the important thing. The key was her ticket out of this awful place.

Her tennies stood side by side underneath the telephone table, but Jessie decided she was as dressed as she intended to get. She started slowly toward the hall door, moving in tiny little invalid steps. As she went, she reminded herself to try the phone in the hall before going outside-it couldn’t hurt.

She had barely rounded the head of the bed when the light began to slink out of the day again. It was as if the fat bright sunbeams slanting through the west window were connected to a dimmer-circuit, and someone was turning down the rheostat. As they dimmed, the diamond-dust revolving within them disappeared.

Oh no, not now, she pleaded. Please, you’ve got to he kidding. But the light continued to fade, and Jessie suddenly realized she was swaying again, her upper body describing ever-widening circles in the air. She groped for the bedpost and instead found herself clutching the bloody handcuff from which she had so recently escaped.

July 20^th, 1963, she thought incoherently. 5:42 P.M. Totaleclipse. Can I get a witness?

The mixed smell of sweat, semen, and her father’s cologne filled her nose. She wanted to gag on it, but she was suddenly too weak. She managed two more tottery steps, then fell forward onto the bloodstained mattress. Her eyes were open and they blinked occasionally, but otherwise she lay as limp and moveless as a woman who has been cast up, drowned, on some deserted beach.