15

For five months after leaving Sarah’s cottage, seren­dipity pushed and pulled me around the West. I grew increasingly frustrated and angry over feelings for which I had no names. There were no definitions, no dividing lines, no labels for the torrents of emotion that ravaged my soul.

I knew I was special, I knew I had a purpose, a calling—but during this confusing time I hated it, hated the thought of it. I raged against God, against Nature; I thought of myself as a joke. There was nothing, nothing, for which I was suited.

I tried to keep on the move and away from Westwater, Nevada. It continued to haunt me; my weird attraction for Boyd continued to pull on me.

My life was a disaster. My memories of this period are foggy, like looking back through warped, smoked glass. I moved all the time, barely resting, barely eating. I dared not get caught up with anything, dared not become attached to anyone or anything. There was no joy in my life; there was no companion­ship. I heard no music, no words of sweetness were whispered delicately into my ear; I learned little, except about misery.

I kept thinking about Sarah and Samuel. The words “healthy” and “balanced” always came to mind. Sarah had made mistakes, even public ones, and she continued to live, work, thrive, in the same community. I tried to remember all the things she told me, but my shame kept interfering. I had lied to her, accepted her hospitality, and acted like a fool. Even more discouraging was the gentleness with which she let me go. She forgave me.

Someday, I thought, I will have balance. Someday I will have health, and my skin will glow like Sarah’s and my eyes will shine like Samuel’s. Then I will return to Red Creek, New Mexico, and thank her for the profound influence she had on me.

Someday, I thought.

In the meantime, my skin was papery, my hair lifeless, my eyes either heavy-­lidded or half-­vacant. I tried meditating, whenever I stopped working long enough, but there was nothing, nothing.

I must have been insane, I thought, to believe that there was someone who loved me, someone who was committed to me, someone who would take care of me.

I couldn’t believe I had really killed those people. Three people. Three people! Three people and a lamb. And Earl Foster.

I must have been insane.

My nights were filled with bizarre nightmares. I dreamed about those three people in Westwater. I dreamed with sad tenderness about the old man’s retarded daughter; I dreamed about the young boy’s intended fiancée. I dreamed about the punk’s mystified parents. These dreams held over into the day­time, until at times I thought of the dead as characters I would occasionally play. Their memories lived within me and occasionally I answered questions as one or the other of them. I was losing my identity. Isn’t that part of insanity?

For five months after leaving Sarah’s, I worked at odd jobs for cash. I either worked or traveled restless­ly, compulsively, during the day, and then fell into exhausted sleep at night.

And then, late one afternoon in mid-­June, I walked into Seven Slopes, Colorado. I was tired, hungry, dirty, and discouraged. Though my emotions still raged out of control, I knew it was time to release them, stop feeling sorry for myself and do something positive. Settle down.

Settling down, I realized in a flash of wisdom, didn’t have to mean bondage. Again I thought of Sarah, and for the first time I understood that a routine itself could be liberating . . . If I didn’t spend all my time and energy looking for a new place to sleep every night, maybe I could successfully rest, or meditate, or—heaven knows—maybe enjoy some­thing.

At the gas station I got directions to the laundro­mat, then walked through the quiet little town with its Swiss-­chalet shops. As I walked, I admired, and as I admired, I felt my face relax, felt the scowl fade away. Seven Slopes would probably be as perfect a home as I could find.

Suddenly a lifestyle of normalcy was the most attractive thing I could imagine. I wanted yellow kitchen curtains, just as Alice had once had.

Seven Slopes, Colorado, was nestled in a bowl where six valleys converged. The seven slopes rose dramatically on three sides of the little town, and while they were green and pleasant in June, they surely were awesome snow-­skiing territory in the winter.

A winter trade would mean transient outsiders from October through April. Tourists. Where a small town might get stale after a while, outsiders would probably sate my appetite for newness, freshness, aliveness.

As I walked, I noticed that the gondola ski lifts were still operating on one slope. Summer tourists. The quiet little towns­people in the off-­season proba­bly had their noses in each other’s pockets from May through September, but I could stay aloof, apart. I could have an orderly life without becoming overly involved. I could live here and enjoy the visitors. Year ’round.

I found the laundromat, and availed myself of the restroom to clean my body while the machines cleaned my clothes. When I was again tidy and refreshed, I hiked up the hillside to spend the night. I walked through waist-­high grass and wildflowers, my boots kicking up a fresh, green smell. My heart felt lighter in this place; I was anxious for the morning. In the morning I would begin to settle down and make this magnificent setting my home.

I watched the sun set behind the Rockies, and felt the excitement of living. I barely had time to wonder where that excitement had been before falling asleep with the sweet smell of fresh mountain air all around me.

In the morning, I awoke to the song of the birds and the dramatic vision of the sun on the mountains.

I knew this was home. I felt it in my bones.

The apartment I could afford was a converted basement under a clothing warehouse. It was dismal, the only windows little push-­out ones next to the ceiling along one side, but it had two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and kitchen, and nondescript gray-­brown carpeting throughout. The smaller bed­room and bathroom had no windows at all, but I loved the place. It was my first apartment, my first home, my first step on the road to responsible adult­hood. After I paid the landlord, I walked through the empty space, touching the walls, and I felt proud.

Within the week, I had spent the last of my odd-­job money scrounging the basics for my apartment—mattress, chest of drawers, linen, kitchen table, and chairs. I needed a job.

My luck was running. The first day out, I was hired as an operator for a telephone-­answering serv­ice.

The weeks went by. A new life unfolded before me, and I began to understand Lewis’s point of view for the first time. There was pleasure to be found in responsibility. There was pleasure—almost animalis­tic pleasure—in nesting and feathering one’s nest. Other animalistic urges filled my dreams and much of my waking hours, but I had not forgotten the sickness with the medicated lamb, nor had I forgotten the feeling of inferiority when I sat, sick and confused, in the corner while Sarah and her perfect baby radiated such health before me.

I avoided the night. I was afraid, for the first time, of the night, of its hold over me, its relentless pa­tience. I could see where I had been crazy once—seriously mentally ill—but I had put all that be­hind me. I had a chance to make a new start in life, and I was pursuing it. I had a life in the daytime; I wanted no part of the night tide that turned my mind.

I bought furnishings for my small apartment, bought new clothes for myself. I began to dress like a young lady, with nice summer dresses and jackets and slacks and tops that were becoming to my petite figure. My apartment began to assume a personality of its own, with draperies and creative use of some discarded materials and plenty of fabric. It was not fancy—it was just all mine.

The answering service consisted of five switch­boards filled with message lights and holes, and we used old-­fashioned cords, plugs, and headsets. I en­joyed my work, talking with the faceless population, taking messages. Three of us worked during the peak morning and evening hours, two during the daytime, and one at night. Mrs. Gardener and her secretary worked in the office on the other side of a glass window, where they kept an eagle’s eye on us.

Most surprising to me was how much I could enjoy the companionship of the girls with whom I worked. Eventually I even began to feel as one of them.

I learned to laugh.

In my off-­hours, I explored the town, which seemed small only at first glance. Behind Main Street, with its facade and after-­ski entertainment for the visitors, were the shopping malls and warehouses and little suburbs where the local people lived. There was little poverty. It was a pleasant place; it appealed to my latent snobbery.

One day it occurred to me that I no longer felt different. I felt like a person; I even felt that soon I would consider myself “normal.” The thought even passed through my mind that one day I would erase the past and find a young man and settle down to a family. The idea made me smile. It didn’t seem likely, but I felt my options widening; I felt it was important for me to leave the doors to my mind open. I was young.

I was very young.

The evenings turned cool. Soon the days short­ened; the nights lengthened. I was afraid for my new life­style. I knew what could happen if the night took me again. I carefully guarded myself against it. At times I felt that since I would not go to the night, it was coming for me.

Strangers began to roam the streets; whole vacant areas of town opened up and made ready for the season. The answering service took on extra help, as did everyone else in town, and the air of excitement intensified. The lazy summer was over. The winter, and its attendant darkness, was about to descend.

I guardedly enjoyed it all; I enjoyed the changes in the town, in the people. I felt happier and healthier than I ever had in my life. My dreams were of normal things, I thought rarely of Boyd. I busied myself planning a trip back to Red Creek, to see Sarah and Samuel in the spring, after the visitor season waned.

And then the first big snowfall came. The town filled to overflowing. Condominiums that I had never noticed before suddenly swept to life, and the moun­tains dazzled their white brilliance by both sunlight and moonlight.

Fashion ski wear was everywhere; even the clerks in the stores were so attired. Sunburned fresh faces with flashing white teeth were everywhere. Bars and restaurants were loud with celebration: music, sing­ing, happy voices. Pairs of skis lined both sides of Main Street as they stood in racks, leaned against buildings and cars, were carried on shoulders, and on the sides of great huge buses. It was a fascinating spectacle, twenty-­four hours a day.

All the girls at work were avid skiers; each was horrified to learn that I had never strapped a pair to my feet; each vowed to introduce me to what she considered the highest form of sport. I continued to excuse myself from their forays into the powder, but I could not keep my eyes off the main street of town.

It was the after-­ski activity that fascinated me.

The sky was darkening as I finished work, and I plunged my hands deep into my pockets and hurried home, afraid to be out in the growing night, afraid of the attraction it held for me, afraid of the fascination that I had with all the parties. At times I would find myself standing in the snow, staring through the windows at the fireplaces, the colorful sweaters, the charming alcoholic glow on the sunburned faces, and I would have to shake myself and run home before the darkness turned me past the point of good sense, past the point of no return.

The day before Thanksgiving, one of the girls at work attempted to ski “Sucker,” one of the most difficult of the third-­slope ski runs. Thereafter she was put into a cast from armpit to toes, and I was called in to assume her hours at work.

She worked the midnight shift.

At first, I was all right. I felt the pull, and resisted it. I knew what normal behavior consisted of, and I practiced it all night long. I tried my best to sleep from four in the afternoon until nine, then get up, go out and have breakfast, and then get to work at midnight, where I would work until eight in the morning. The routine was simple, and I had no problem with it. My only problem was with the tug, the tug from the other side.

I kept the fluorescent lights brightly lit, kept the draperies drawn. I wanted no dark influence to touch my switchboards.

But of course it did. It was there the first time I walked in at night. The girl I relieved from duty was tainted. I rushed her out the door and double bolted it. The switchboard room was quiet, empty; the office was dark, the desks cleared, the typewriters and calculators covered. The darkness was already inside.

The darkness was already inside, and more of it seeped in through the calls that I had to answer. The personalities of those people—customers, clients whom I had talked to during the daytime—were obviously altered by the night, and at night, when they assumed I was not busy, they wanted to talk.

And as they talked, I knew the influence the night had on them, and soon I began to sway with the motion.

Within weeks, the darkness owned me again.

GLORIA GARDENER: “She was a good worker. I hated to have to put her on midnight when Becky broke her leg, but she was really the only candidate. All the other girls had families, or boyfriends, or something, and Angelina was all alone. She didn’t seem to mind too much, at least she didn’t say anything to me about it. I gave her a big raise for the inconvenience.

“She got along just fine with the other girls. A little shy at first, I think she’d been through some pretty rough times, didn’t like to talk much about her past. I mean she was just a little thing, young and all, but her face had no innocence left, if you know what I mean. I thought I was giving her a break, when I, you know, hired her, so young and all—and an orphan at that. She worked out real well. The other girls, well, they’re just precious, and they made her feel real welcome. I didn’t have any idea at all that Angelina would give me any problems here at night. But then, I guess, well, young girls have their temptations, don’t they?

“Anyway, Becky was out of work flat on her back for six months. It was six months full before she came back to work. By that time, of course, Angelina didn’t want to give up her shift, so Becky started back daytime. But Becky wanted her night work, so she’s the one who discovered what-­all Angelina’d been doing at night, and then told me about it. The other girls had been covering for her, I guess, because apparently she’d been at it a while, and I’d never had a clue.”