The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore - Benjamin Hale [139]
In retrospect, I may allow myself to surmise that perhaps Lydia had become known to the local inhabitants of the area as “that crazy woman who walks around everywhere with her chimp.” In retrospect, rumors about Lydia and her past (“She used to teach at the university?”—“She was fired?”—“Some suspect her of…”—“With the chimp? Really? No…”) may have been swirling. In retrospect, I realize that even many months after moving back into our—in retrospect, dingy—apartment in Chicago, we still had never fully unpacked our boxes from the move. In retrospect, I realize that Lydia wasn’t taking as much pride in her appearance as she used to—that her hair was often tangled and unkempt and unclean, that her smart, crisp style of dress had been largely replaced by sweatpants and floppy-sleeved dirty sweaters. I also remember how, during this time, her headaches and her insomnia were so miserable, and so miserably frequent, that she was taking her knockout drops not once or twice a month but every single night, and every morning she would drag herself out of bed as if from out of a pit of mud.
And then, one morning, one morning amid all this disturbing directionlessness, Lydia rolled—literally—out of bed, and fell facedown on the floor. She was wearing her nightgown. The bedroom was stacked full of unopened cardboard boxes. It was late—almost noon (we rose to greet the day late during this confusing period in our lives). I shook her. She didn’t wake up. I turned her over.
“Lydia?” I said.
“Mmmmnnnnnnnhhhhgh,” she said.
Her eyes opened briefly to slits, and then shut again. Her pretty blond head flopped over to one side, cheek to the carpet. Her face was—was twitching. Her cheeks and nose and lips were making all these quick, erratic jerking movements. Her body was jerking and flopping around all over, like a fish just hauled from the sea. I shook her again, again she grumbled incoherently, flopped around and twitched. My confusion quickly became fear. Then I aimlessly ran around the apartment for a while. Then I shook her again.
“Lydia?”
“Mbbrrmmngnnn,” she said, without even opening her eyes. She had quit shaking and twitching, and now she was just lying limp with a lolling head and eyes aflutter on the bedroom floor. I screamed a primal scream of terror. I shook and shook and shook her with my hands, and Lydia continued and continued and continued to not wake up.
I thundered out of the front door of 5120 South Ellis Avenue, Apartment 1A. I ran around for a while in the yard in front of the building. I was still wearing my pajamas. My sky-blue pajamas were spangled with representations of superheroes, such as Batman and Superman. I looked up at the day through the bare brown canopies of the deciduous trees in front of our apartment building. The sun was out and the light was yellow and bright and crisp, but despite that it was cold, with a cutting wind. The wind whipped up dervishes of dead brown leaves on the sidewalk and in the street. I think this was in October. No one was out on the street, except for a woman in a puffy red coat up ahead of me on the other side of the street, walking a Doberman.
“HELP!” I shouted at her. The Doberman began to woof barbarically at me, and the woman checked him with his leash, and then turned heel and went the other way. Then I ran back into the apartment building, clattered up the entryway stairs and began battering my chimp fists against the door of 5120 South Ellis Avenue, Apartment 2A. I banged on the door until my fists were mushy with bruises. I’m surprised I avoided bashing my hands to bags of blood and broken bones against that door.
“HELP! HELP! HELP!”
The door remained obstinately shut, obstinately silent. I continued to bash my fists against it and scream for help. After I do not know how many minutes