Membership Dues

a novel excerpt by Chris Ross

 

Ivers planned to visit LaSalle on weekends, but the way it is with Robinson Farms if it isn’t raining then you’re working, and it’s been three straight weeks of sunshine since LaSalle admitted herself to the mental health ward of St.Vincent’s.

The call comes on a Wednesday. Ivers is told that time is up. “Come and get her.” He makes the three-hour drive the next day, finds LaSalle sitting on a bench outside the ER. She’s dressed in hospital blues and her purple Cons.

“Don’t get mad,” she says.

“I’m not mad, LaSalle.”

“The days got mixed up. I can’t leave until tomorrow, but I can go out for an hour or two today if you want?”

Ivers looks at the brown glass of the ER doors. Understanding that complaining won’t change anything, he puts on his sunglasses and takes LaSalle by the hand. They leave St. Vincent’s on foot. An ambulance nearly hits them as they cross the street. The warmth of the ambulance’s grill is like an animal’s breath on their shoulders.

Walking along the storefronts of downtown Indianapolis, Ivers wonders if he should buy her something like flowers or chocolate or lunch at Red Lobster. They grab a couple of Sunkists and head over to the courthouse. Lunchtime, crowded, the courthouse lawn is roped-off to be seeded. A stroll around the perimeter, LaSalle stops to inspect a plaque set within an enormous wedge of granite.

“Centennial Time Capsule,” she reads. “To be opened in 2103 A.D.”

They find a bench and sit staring at the roped-off lawn. Above them, the sky is all kinds of clouds, torn and grey, full and white. LaSalle kicks off her sneakers, rolls up her hospital pants, and says, “I think I make better friends on the inside than I do on the outside.”

Ivers digs his keys out from a front pocket of his jeans. “The plus side to suffering.”

“But inside friends don’t last.”

“And outside friends do?”

“I think it’s all the recreational therapy. How we’re told to focus on the here and now?”

Ivers watches her look around at the people lunching along the perimeter. It’s like watching someone who’s asleep and wondering what they’re dreaming about. He tries to take a hold of her hand. She pulls back, not just her hand but all of her.

“I haven’t been in a real huggy environment, you know?”

“It’s not like anybody forced you to go in there.”

“Everything tastes like celery.”

“Again, all your idea.”

She turns and brings her legs around his waist, draws him in. He puts his face in her hair, pleased to find she doesn’t smell like hospital. And for the first time since her decision to admit herself, he tells her what he feels. “I’m sorry, LaSalle. I am.” She asks if he missed her. “Very much,” he hears himself answering.

She takes his sunglasses, relaxes back on her elbows and reaches for her Sunkist.

“No lying on the benches.”

This comes from a man in a brown uniform. Instead of a badge, he wears a green patch. Instead of a gun, he’s armed with a little steel arm and claw. “Benches are for sitting,” he says.

Ivers looks at LaSalle in his sunglasses, wonders what she expects of him, if anything. “Listen,” he tells the guy. “We’re just trying to get some air, huh?”

The man pinches a Twix wrapper from the protected lawn, and says, “Rules are rules.”

Ivers stays at the Marriott that night, gets half-drunk at the hotel bar watching a Pacers game. He wakes up the next morning to the sound of cars honking in the rain. The wake-up call comes in. He picks up the receiver, lets it drop. The complimentary toothpaste tastes like drywall.

They had agreed to not meet at St. Vincent’s but back at the time capsule in front of the courthouse. Ivers is standing in the rain now, waiting, watching umbrellas snapping open over people stepping off buses. A young girl approaches him and asks, “Hey, am I anywhere near the children’s science museum?”

Ivers says, “I wouldn’t know. I’m from Dekker?”

She drops her umbrella to her knees, gives it a good shake and moves on, leaving Ivers to wonder why Dekker had to come out like a question. Inspecting the plaque to the time capsule he finds it hard to believe there was a time when the future meant people going to work in spaceships, having robots for friends, families living in glass cities at the bottom of the sea.

LaSalle comes up smiling in the rain. She’s dressed in her pink corduroys, World Wildlife t-shirt and purple Cons. No umbrella. “Don’t get mad,” she says. “There was paperwork.”

Tired of telling her he’s not mad, Ivers asks if she’s hungry.

“Totally,” she says as if she had just gotten off of work. She pecks him on the cheek. “Let’s eat.”

At an Amish buffet on the south side of Indianapolis, Ivers talks about clearing land for Robinson Farms.

“It’s not Robinson land,” he explains. “The real owner can’t afford to have it cleared, so in exchange he’s allowing the Robinsons to farm it next year.” He waves down an Amish waitress for more coffee. “I hope it’s raining back home. They’ll replace me if I’m gone for too long.”

“But it’s only been a couple of days.”

“Everyday counts, LaSalle.”

She cuts into her cured ham. “So I’m told,” she says.

They make love when they get home, order Dominoes and watch an episode of Frasier in bed. Ivers wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of running water. He finds her in the bathroom sitting at the edge of the tub in the dark. She looks up at him, and he has to tell her, “I’m not mad.” He turns off the water and guides her back to bed. They sleep the rest of the night holding one another.

The next day is warm, windy, the sky low and grey. Claiming he left his cell in the car, Ivers makes the call out in the driveway. When he asks if they need him, he’s told to call back tomorrow. Back in the house, LaSalle is at the kitchen table smoking her Carltons and catching up on her funnies. This time, it’s not as if he’s watching someone who’s asleep and wonders what they’re dreaming about. But if she dreams at all.

“They’ve got work for me today,” he tells her.

She sits back, sets her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Listen,” he says, wiping the pout from her face as if it were a milk moustache. “It looks like it’s going to rain anyway. I’ll try and cut out early.”

She tells him, “You don’t have to do that.”

Ivers drives around Dekker for a while. What was once the post office is now a Verizon. The high school is now the middle school. Swastika graffiti can be seen beneath the swipes of battleship grey at the foot of the columned storage bins of the grain elevator. He grabs a donut at the Shell station. Just paying for the donut makes him feel fat and useless, so he heads over to the YMCA. The receptionist at the Y reminds him, “Hey, Ivers, membership dues don’t pay for themselves, you know?”

“I know what I owe,” he says, and gives the receptionist two dollars for towel rental. Pushing through the heavy blue doors to the men’s locker room, he’s met by the comforting reek of bleach and chlorine.

 

Chris Ross lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn where he teaches at Medgar Evers College. His debut novel, Born & Raised, was published by Tell Me Press in 2013. Membership Dues is an excerpt from his novel-in-progress Sparkler Bomb.