Beautiful Children Read online

  For part of an afternoon, she pulled herself together. For three full consecutive days she stayed under control. Unexpectedly the phone rang.

  This was it. This was her child.

  “Hi. Can I please speak to Mr. or Miss . . . ah . . . Blewing?”

  “You are speaking to Mrs. Ewing.”

  “Hi. My name is Ron. I'm calling on behalf of public broadcasting. We're doing our annual pledge drive and—”

  Her son had been trouble from the beginning: a breech birth; three weeks early; Lorraine had unexpectedly dilated and then the child had been reversed in her uterus, caught in his own umbilical cord; Lorraine had been cut open and the cord had been unwrapped from around his feet and the fetus had been physically removed from her body, and she had been all of twenty years old. That had been the end of her in a two-piece bathing suit, the end of any possibility at a swimsuit modeling career. (They can airbrush, Lincoln had said, it's no big deal.) She'd wanted to be a good mother, wanted a healthy baby, and she didn't want a boob job afterward, so goodbye to her life as a showgirl. Now her child did not call, did not let her know he was alive. Silence held the limitless depths of torture for Lorraine; silence was its own hell, its own purgatory, the definitive confirmation of Lorraine's shortcomings as a parent, the final result of every obnoxious trait she had ever let slide, the character deficiencies she had not been able to control. Had she been overprotective? Too permissive? Had she given the boy too much attention? Not enough?

  She was not able to drive past a school yard without breaking down, and she could not prevent herself from cruising school yards, from going by that comic book shop. The boy had never been to a Hooters, but he had known that men liked Hooters, and whenever Lorraine used to drive past, he had enjoyed chanting Hooters, Hooters, and therefore she no longer could turn right on Lindell. She could not look across a grass field without thinking of trying to get him to play outside, and she could not look upon a skyscraper because it was not grass. The news broadcasted reports about what appeared to be the remains of a human hand being found in the Mojave Desert. Court TV had daily coverage of a drifter on trial (he was accused of taking a nine-year-old girl from a Stateline casino's child care center, then raping her in a bathroom stall). Lorraine could not look away. Even when exhaustion finally took her, she had complicated nightmares, and upon waking could not remember a moment of them. Instead she harangued her son in extended mental monologues, remaining angry at him for that last comment in the car that afternoon, for disappearing, for causing this ache, this hole inside of her. Never a barrel of laughs in the best of times, Lorraine became humorless, grim, her eyes growing haunted, even as she continued to hoard images that reminded her of reminders of her son, filling her purse with snapshots, and copies of the police report, and three randomly selected action figures from his shelf, her world shrinking by the day, reaching a point where any news that suggested the world did not revolve around Newell's absence repulsed Lorraine, and any object that could not facilitate his return was useless to her. Whether pushing a cart in the market or locked in her own bathroom, Lorraine would start bawling—inconsolable, gut-wrenching heaves. For a time she became militant about yoga, and grimly chanted the ninety-nine names of a god she alternately did not believe in and despised, praying to this god nonetheless.

  Interest on Newell's college fund accrued unabated.

  The days started getting dark earlier; and although it was still unusual to see people wearing light sweaters or jackets, the air had cooled noticeably, with the first carved pumpkins appearing in windows. The boy was just old enough to disdain trick-or-treating, but still was young enough to covet bags of candy. Lorraine remembered him in costume as a pirate. As the action hero from some movie whose plot she had pretended to follow. On something more than a whim, but certainly less than a plan, she found herself near the main branch of the public library. She could have visited a bookstore and asked for help. She could have looked online. She'd brought her son to this library for story time and after-school programs; went upstairs with him and watched puppet shows when he was just learning how to walk. Lorraine had checked out books from this library that had helped Newell learn to read and she had dropped him off and gotten all her shopping done and then come back to pick him up and found him underneath the stairwell, pretending to be a bank robber with one or two other children, hiding from patrons as if the adults were policemen, using their fingers to point and shoot as the supposed cops marched up to the periodicals. Entering the large open arboretum that marked the building's entrance, it occurred to Lorraine that she had not been inside a library without Newell for the entirety of her adult life. She took the elevator to the main floor. Senior citizens sat at tables, reading newspapers and magazines; middle-aged women listlessly pushed carts. Books about missing children. Memoirs on how person X got through tragedy Y. Lorraine eschewed the computer system and waited at the information counter behind a stooped old man, trying to be patient as he asked for help finding a book whose title and author he could not recall. She stared at the flyers on a nearby bulletin board. Tutoring Services Offered. Senior Citizen Reading Group. The gray image of a kitten. The many hardships stray felines had to endure during winter. Poor little darlings. Attracted to the taste of antifreeze, they foraged through trash bags outside auto body stores, licked the toxic remains from discarded plastic containers. In search of warmth they nestled underneath the hoods of parked cars, got mangled in engine gears.

  Just taking the flyer would have been disrespectful so Lorraine purchased a copier card. She drove home and, for the first time in two months, thought about something other than her own pain. When Lincoln came home, she showed him the copy. He looked it up and down, considered the information, and did not appear to enjoy reminding Lorraine that Las Vegas winters rarely dipped below fifty degrees. He calmly explained that antifreeze automotive liquids were not necessary in desert environs, and that it was unlikely cats could find much of the stuff sitting around to lick. Evenly and with much sympathy he said that warmth-nestling wasn't really imperative in fifty-degree weather, and besides winter was a good two months away. What was she proposing, anyhow?

  She did not answer. What good did it do to tell Lincoln her plans? Why tell him anything when he would shoot her down in that passive-aggressive shit-eating manner of his? Being around Lincoln exasperated Lorraine, and made her lose it, and made her so sad as to render her mute. And inevitably, once she had no more fury inside of her, once her sadness had been out in the sun for too long and had fermented, it made Lorraine hard. She could no longer tolerate Lincoln's throat clearing, his cautioned inquiries on her state of mind, pep talks so soggy that he barely pretended to believe them. He could talk until the end of time for all she cared, the facts remained: people needed to dispose of their antifreeze containers in a sealed and safe manner; drivers had to honk before starting their engines. Something had to be done for all the helpless kittens wandering those hard cold streets. Lorraine placed calls to local shelters, found out about vaccination laws, even started buying twenty-five-pound bags of cat food, fifty-pounders of kitty litter. And if her husband happened to feel a measure of relief in the sight of her beginning to come out of her shell, great. But by the same token, if the prospect of wholesale volumes of stray animals in his home concerned Lincoln, freaked him out, and/or made him wonder about her mental health, Lorraine told herself, she did not care. If Lincoln noticed what was going on and would have liked to talk with her about this whole, you know, rescue deal; if he himself was exasperated and near the end of his tether; if he felt all sorts of anger—toward himself, toward Lorraine, toward the whole stupid world—and was literally swimming in regrets, and as such was in no shape to deal with his own grief, let alone his wife's; if Lincoln knew he was a fucking mess and understood that Lorraine also was wrecked; if, to him, this meant they needed each other more than ever, if any of these possibilities, or a combination of them, or every single one, was true, it also was true that, at the end
of the business day, the guy was around the house less and less. Said he was at the office. And Lorraine, she did not particularly feel the need to verify the truth right about then. She had cats to save here, dammit.

  So let him judge her with cordial silence. Let him dig at her through his absence. Let him tell himself she had driven him away. But that son of a bitch was going to find out about the grand opening of the Newell Ewing Animal Rescue Shelter the old-fashioned way: his trifling ass was going to come home in the middle of the night and find twenty strays in that spare bedroom.

  After couches had been shredded and neighbors had circulated a petition about the illegally zoned cat compound, and no less than three felines had met gruesome fates at the jaws of the Nelsons’ Rhodesian ridgeback, finally, Lorraine was forced to admit the futility of her noble endeavor, and send the cages back to the ASPCA, at which point kittens gave way to a very strange flirtation with the Mothers United for the Protection of Unborn Children, and a bizarre meeting in a classroom at a church, where Lorraine sat uncomfortably in a metal folding chair and listened to a bunch of otherwise normal-looking people spew hatred with an intensity that was truly unsettling.

  The next afternoon she drove to a large shopping center on East Tropicana and entered a small storefront office. Overhead lights hummed, the walls reflected the shade of curdled milk. Lorraine did not catch the name of the harried woman who came up from the back and took her name. After a time, the woman reappeared and guided Lorraine down a short aisle of sloppy, unmanned work cubicles. They sat at a table in the back. Slick posters, done in hard and dramatic colors, hung in cheap frames. The woman offered Lorraine coffee whose quality she apologized for. Mousy brown hair pulled back into a bun, unimpressive olive-green pants suit; early forties or so, Lorraine guessed. With a minimum of small talk the woman asked why Lorraine was there, and kept quiet when Lorraine explained about Newell's case. Every so often, the woman nodded slightly or asked a pointed follow-up. She commiserated and told Lorraine a little about the center and said, as Lorraine could see, they could use all the help they could get. Without any fuss, the woman walked Lorraine through the dos and don'ts of stuffing fund-raising letters into envelopes. “When you get finished, if you're up to it, maybe we'll get you a script and a mailing list. Try you on some calls.”

  A lopsided table, weighed down with incoming mail that needed sorting, mailing labels that had to be applied, work that was not important enough for a paid staffer to do, yet needed to be done. Lorraine applied. She sorted. The table was just around the corner from a small room with vending machines and a bathroom, and she bought herself stale pretzels and took breaks to use the facilities. She went through two boxes of stationery and also, for long stretches, stared at the old posters: Van Gogh's Sunflowers reprinted from an exhibit at the L.A. Guggenheim; a primitive crayon drawing of a teddy bear (block letters beneath it conveyed statistics concerning child abuse). She could not avoid a third poster, a teenage boy enveloped in shadows; he was huddled on a stoop, his elbows resting on the knee holes in his jeans, his Mohawked head hanging in his lap. Scrawling red block letters, designed to look like they'd been spray-painted on the wall behind him, read: life on the street is SO glamorous.

  Police did not categorize Newell Ewing as a runaway. Nor did they classify him as a victim of kidnapping, nor a possible homicide victim, although they also hadn't eliminated any of these options. He was missing and his case was open and the officer Lorraine dealt with refused to lean one way or another. What had happened to her son was a Rorschach test that revealed the worst inclinations and fears of the person who considered the possibilities. Lorraine herself did not know if she believed her son had run away. She did not necessarily believe that Newell running away from home was preferable to the other choices. But that poster hit somewhere deep inside her. It brought a chill that no mother should experience. So Lorraine returned to the office of the Nevada Child Search the following day. And every day after that. The clock struck two and lunch hour ended and she drove east on Tropicana. And as she sat at that lopsided table and drudged through slush, bits of stories and pieces of information drifted her way: the counselor laughing about the guy who called in, thinking it was a psychic hotline; the disgruntled social worker who could not stop railing against bureaucratic idiocy. At the vending machines, Lorraine talked to a heavyset woman who had the hard, rough demeanor of someone whose life had been spent doing menial and physical labors. The woman told Lorraine about how she'd lived through a tough divorce and had worked up the courage and started dating again, and very slowly had fallen in love, so when her fourteen-year-old daughter claimed the guy followed her into a bathroom at IHOP, this woman had not known how to respond.

  And other volunteers: the army mom who came in during mornings—her husband discovered their boy sold drugs and laid down a my way or the highway ultimatum; the grandfather who'd taken in kin as a last option, only to grow tired of calls from the police. Lorraine discovered that about every volunteer she talked with had either lost a child to or been a child of the streets.

  She answered their inquiries without a tremor. “I don't know. He went out and didn't come home.”

  It was edifying in a strange way, almost empowering, really: the looming posters, the patronizing smiles of office staffers, the grim work of the phone counselors (talking to a worried parent, trying to guide a tweaking street kid). Any other place she went, Lorraine was isolated by grief, stranded on an island. Volunteer work not only eased, but also fed her suffering. Every time she came in, Lorraine politely asked a staffer if Newell had left a message. If anyone matching a description of him had been picked up. And could someone run a check through the police network? She supplied the coffee machine with gourmet blends, brought in expensive doughnuts, and even made a point of remembering each volunteer's favorites. Lorraine went so far as to volunteer for the thankless project of organizing the boxes and files in the back room, and spent hours on her knees amid dusty documents. If any of the tasks she performed could indeed be considered a favorite, then her favorite was reading through the letters and printed e-mails that had come in to the switchboard, picking out inspirational missives, examples that imparted hope, and could be used in fund-raising or informational literature:

  Dear Switchboard,

  My daughter returned on Tuesday and is back with her counselor. I believe the only reason she came home is because I left a message with you folks and after hearing the message she knew we were here to help, no matter what.

  Thank you & God bless.

  Dear Nevada Child Search,

  I am so glad that the switchboard still exists. I ran away in 1985 and when I was on the streets and living on the run, you helped make things easier. It helped to call the switchboard and get advice. The people I spoke with were never pushy or preachy. They did ask if I was safe, but never tried to tell me what to do. I can honestly say I do not know if I could have survived without the switchboard. It meant so much to be able and call and hear my mother's voice from time to time without having her there to judge or question me. Now that I am a mother myself I know how much it helped her to be able to receive messages from me, too. Thank you so much. Keep up the good work.

  Street Teens

  c/o: the Nevada Coalition for Homeless Teens

  Three years ago my son ran away. For nearly a year I anxiously awaited his calls from many different places in the country, not knowing what to expect from one day to the next. Finally I received a call from him asking for money to come home. I promptly wired him the money. Four days later he called back, saying he'd lost it. It broke my heart to tell my son that I didn't have any more to send, but I did it. I lived in fear of what would happen next and what the next call might bring. A month later I was contacted by your organization saying that my son had contacted you and was on the other line. The counselor not only arranged a bus ticket for him, but also helped develop a plan to assure that the problems which led up to my boy's leaving would be addressed. What th
e National Runaway Switchboard did was to enable my son to come home at his (and my) hour of need. Please accept this donation. I can never pay for what you gave me, but I can try to help others feel the gratitude I did on that December day when my son arrived home.

  The first time Lorraine posted flyers at neighborhood stores, she cried the whole time and was so drained that afterward she promised herself this was it, no way she could do it again. A week later she was at the post office, staring at the ancient postings, children who had been missing from other states for no less than six years. As she waited in line for a clerk, then for an office manager, Lorraine felt assurance in the idea she was indeed doing something larger than herself. Blowing snot into the sleeve of a cashmere sweater, she taped up notices at her son's favorite comic book shop, inside the movie theater he most often frequented, and the pizzeria from the Little League party. On alternate weekends she staffed a table in Caesars Palace's glitzy shopping mall. Crowds passed her little space outside the food court, and their apathy filled Lorraine with righteous outrage, with self-satisfaction, even as it added logs and lighter fluid to the sense of culpability that constantly burned inside her. She grew accustomed to the hollow reverberations of dropped change inside a gallon jug, the leers of bored husbands. What never took was the sight of the teenagers. All those teenagers. Skulking. Effervescent. Awkward. Teenagers in monstrously oversize clothes and floppy hipster beach hats. Teenagers riding the escalator. Hanging out in packs, in pairs, cruising and flirting, laughing, wasting their afternoons like they had all the time in the world. It was too much. Too hard. She did not want to wish they were the ones who had disappeared but fuck help her she did. After her second weekend, Lorraine gave up the table and returned to the back of the old office. When the social workers took to the conference room, or had a junior high assembly to preach to, Lorraine read through three-ring educational binders. Used the wheezing desktops to pore through databases. And what she learned was that more girls ran away from home, 60 percent to 40. That California was the most popular state to run to and from. That call volume to the hotline increased by 50 percent at the beginning of each school year.