Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (17 page)

Ralph buried his face in his
hands. Tears squirted from between his fingers. He was breathless,
choking with silent laughter. Then Ralph felt the rain again, its
drizzle warm on his head. Jesus! Ralph gasped, and crawled crablike
frantically from beneath the big-time businessman’s golden shower.
Ralph gasped and gagged and whipped his handkerchief out. Ralph
spluttered and muttered and wiped his hair and neck desperately
with the handkerchief and then tossed the damp, horrible thing away
into the darkness. Up above, the fat businessman stopped pissing
into the pool and stood there stiff as a statue. Then he seemed to
lean out over the edge of the pool and peer into the blackness
below where Ralph hovered and held his breath. Then the big-time
businessman clicked on a lighter and waved it over the dark,
drained pool. In the flickering light the fat businessman’s mouth
was agape with astonishment, and his eyes were bugged out like
boils. Sounding not unlike the chains of a ghost, when he
inadvertently tipped it over, Ralph’s bottle of Four Roses rolled
rattling down the concrete incline toward the deep end. By the time
the ghost of the haunted swimming pool had stumbled to the ladder
and awkwardly ascended, the big-time businessman was a blur beneath
the dark trees as he flew like a fat bat out of hell down the
gravel road through the drizzle, running with all his heart in the
general direction, it had occurred to Ralph, of Egypt.

4

Ralph’s hands shook as he
slipped the quarter into the pay phone on the porch wall of the
main building. Insects swarmed crazily about the bright porch
light. They flicked in blind and confused from the darkness. Bright
points in intricate elliptical motions, they were helpless. On
hands and knees Ralph had searched in vain around the bottom of the
drained pool for the lost bottle of Four Roses. Unless he could
figure a way to rat out the big-time businessman, lay the blame on
him, Ralph’s number was up here at Duffy’s. All Duffy had to do was
check that bottle for fingerprints. Out beyond the frail light
from the porch, the darkness under the trees was immense,
impenetrable. Earlier on the night he died, Ralph’s dad had been
working the swing shift at the sawmill. He got home at midnight
hungry

for his big meal of the day:
pot roast, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans with
bacon, garden salad with Thousand Island dressing, fried apples,
cherry pie a la mode, a fifth of Four Roses. Nothing out of the
ordinary. Ralph’s mom watched Jack Paar while his dad ate his
supper and drank. She took a notion to stay up and watch the Late
Show that night after she had bickered with Ralph’s dad about the
usual old stuff, and he had staggered off to bed with his bottle
bitching and fuming as usual. Just another day in America. It was a
hot August night and Ralph’s mom was worked up from the argument
and resdess, and the Late Show was The Moon Is Blue, one of her old
favorites, starring William Holden, in her opinion the most
handsome star who ever came down the pike, a star who, in fact, she
always fancied Ralph’s dad looked like before the bottle had taken
its toll. Ralph’s mom often stayed up late like that, watching TV
or writing a letter to her sister back in Little Rock. Ralph’s mom
had dozed off on the sofa and did not wake up until dawn to face
another day in America. She put out a bowl, spoon, and box of
Frosted Flakes for Ralph’s breakfast, then headed off to bed
herself, whereupon she had discovered Ralph’s dad drowned in
vomit.

Ralph let the phone ring
twenty times, then decided to go for thirty. The hot night was
thick, heavy, so sluggish a fellow could hardly suck air. Ralph
wished with all his heart it would just pour down rain. He’d stick
his head out in it. He’d wash that fat businessman’s godawful
urine out of his hair. He was sure he could still smell it, that
godawful piss. God, that was awful. God, he hoped that fat
businessman had dropped dead of a heart attack somewhere down the
road. Ralph hoped those black clouds to the west were thunderclouds
thick with lightning. Let the sky cloud up and Alice Ann gets edgy.
A clap of thunder and she was hiding in a closet, trembling from
memories of those terrible Midwestern storms of her childhood, when
lightning seemed to seek appointed people out. How often had Ralph
sat in a hot, closed closet holding that chosen woman? Dozens upon
dozens of times, hundreds of times, that’s how many. Ralph couldn’t
begin to count the times. Over the years.

When the rings reached
thirty, Ralph decided to go for forty, give Alice Ann the benefit
of the doubt. All right, Ralph thought when the rings reached
forty, fifty was the limit. There had to be a limit. Ralph’s
trembling hands were bloodless in the bright porch light. Corpse
hands, Ralph thought, and shuddered. Ralph froze when he saw a face
in the porch-door window. It was his own reflection. His heart beat
wildly.

At fifty rings Ralph hung up
the phone. It was all over now, he thought. That chapter in his
life was over and done. End of story. Well, at least he wouldn’t
have to accompany Alice Ann to that horrid bankruptcy proceeding
now. Ralph was shaking by then almost uncontrollably. He looked out
into the darkness beyond the porch and imagined the worst. Motion
in those dark trees, the murmur of voices, low drums like
heartbeats, returning alone and unarmed to his cabin, a white man
in the tropics.

Ralph decided then to call
long distance to Lindsay. Lindsay would answer the phone pronto,
two, maybe three rings, and she would accept the charges. No
question. Ralph would explain things. Standing under the porch’s
white light, Ralph trembled with the urge to travel. All he had to
do was get body and soul back together, bail out of this Duffy’s
dump, tie up a few loose ends, then relocate with Lindsay in
Missoula, Montana, the garden city of the Northwest, where life
would be sweet for him, where he would write one thousand words a
day, rain or shine. Finally Lindsay answered the phone and accepted
charges, albeit, it seemed to Ralph, hesitantly. Whereupon out of
nowhere Lindsay brought up stuff, blindsided Ralph with it,
low-down stuff that that asshole Jim Stark had led her to believe,
and Ralph had no real answers, or alibis, that he could make
Lindsay believe, before she abruptly said good night and hung
up.

The next time Ralph let the
phone ring fifty-one times (one hundred and six was his record)
before Alice Ann finally answered, whereupon Ralph gasped to her,
Honey, honey, whatever you do, don’t pay the ransom. I’ve
escaped.

One-Whore Town

Lindsay took the two
leftover pieces of cold pizza from the greasy box and put them on
separate plates. She loaded up with items from the fridge and
carried them over to the kitchen table. She sliced a tomato thinly
and spread the slices over the pieces of pizza. She sliced an onion
thinly, then some mushrooms, took a handful of black olives, then
scattered them all over the pizza. Lindsay popped an olive into her
mouth and suddenly laughed. She returned to the fridge for other
items. On Jim’s piece of pizza Lindsay layered sliced sweet
pickles. She added a layer of sliced beets. She covered this piece
of pizza with chocolate fudge sauce. She covered both pieces of
pizza with slices of American cheese and placed them in her
microwave.

Back up in the bathroom
Lindsay placed the plates on a stool beside the tub. Several
scented candles lit the room, and from her bedroom stereo floated a
Mozart violin concerto. Lindsay removed her robe and tossed it onto
the floor. Her flesh was golden and shadowy in the candle flame.
Jim lay back in the big old-fashioned tub that sat up off the floor
on lion paws, his arms resting on its rim, his old fedora tilted
over his eyes as though he had died and gone to heaven.

You can’t be asleep, you
turkey, Lindsay said. —That’s not fair. You made me go get the
pizza. I almost fell down the god¬damn stairs. God, I’m stoned.
That damn dope of yours.

I ain’t asleep, Jim said. —I
just passed away and went to heaven. I am the late Jim Stark now.
Please donate my organs, such as they are, to medical science.
Donate my liver to the Bud- weiser Research Institute, for serious
study.

Goody, goody, Lindsay said,
as she slid into the steaming water. —The late Jim Stark ran more
hot water before he passed.

The late Jim Stark likes to
keep things steamy.

You want me to donate this
little organ, too? Lindsay said, and wagged waves in the steaming
water with Jim’s dick.

Shore, why not? When I was a
kid I’d stretch my nightly bath out until I’d used up all the hot
water in the house, if adults would let me get away with it. The
air would get to feel like the hot breath of some real big animal.
Like the hot breath of an old bear in a close cave, say.

Why would you do that? Use
up all the hot water in the house? Here, mister, you better eat
your pizza, Lindsay said, and she held up a piece for Jim to bite.
—Here you go, this is good for you. Let Mommy feed you,
baby.

I can safely say, Jim said,
as he chewed the bite of pizza Lind¬say had maneuvered into his
mouth, that this is unlike any pizza pie I, for one, have ever
eaten before in my lifetime.

This is Mommy’s mystery
pizza pie, Lindsay said, and held the piece up for Jim to bite into
again.

Somehow this don’t exactly
taste like that there perfectly pre-dictable pizza we ate for
supper, Jim mumbled as he chewed extravagantly.

Don’t you just adore it? I
used all my culinary skills preparing this special pizza for my own
boy.

You don’t say? All your
culinary skills?

You don’t adore it, I can
tell. My culinary spirit is crushed. I distinctly recall you saying
you would eat anything of mine. Even raw, I remember you saying.
Were you being insincere with me, Jim?

To the best of my
recollection, I didn't mention no mystery pizza.

But it is so good for you.
It’s covered with such healthful items. You'll be able to see
better in the dark. And always land on your feet. And your boners
will be the talk of the town.

Maybe I will have me another
bite or two, Jim said, and gnawed off another hunk.

Eat your head off,
honey.

Now, what's this here
healthful thing? Jim said, and held up a greasy item between his
thumb and forefinger.

That is either a very
healthful beet or an enormous booger.

Well, Jim said, and popped
the thing into his mouth, it shore hits the spot.

Would adults spank you if
you used up all the hot water in the house? I’ll bet when adults
spanked you you wouldn't even cry, you’re such a tough guy. I
always cried. I wept for days sometimes. Even if I did something
bad and didn’t get caught, I’d cry and cry. I’d cry just imagining
the spanking I should have gotten. I always believed what adults
told me about God seeing everything, every little-bitty sin. So to
get into heaven I was certain I would have to endure days, weeks,
months of saved-up spankings from God because I had been such an
evil girl. Anything that drew my atten-tion to the sky, a soaring
bird, beautiful clouds, a starry night, the moon, anything, would
inevitably lead me to thoughts of heaven and the waiting hand of my
spanker Lord.

Adults pounded the shit out
of me, all right, Jim told Lindsay. —But not about the hot water.
They would be too embarrassed at those times. Adults would just
bang on the door and yell, You’re using up all the hot water in the
house, you little piece of shit.

Why would adults be
embarrassed?

It was an adult’s duty each
night to come in after I had my bath and check out my deformed
condition. This meant for an adult, usually my old drunk daddy, to
finger and poke about between my slippery little legs and have me
turn my head to one side and cough my head off. My slippery little
pecker would bounce against the back of his or her adult hand.
Sometimes I’d even inadvertently tinkle on his or her adult hand.
Or my little weeny would start to magically bonerize. Now, that
would really make an adult blush red as a beet.

Adults are so
bizarre.

You can say that
again.

Adults are so bizarre. Why
do you wear your hat in the bathtub?

It’s my lucky
hat.

Why do you have to be lucky
in the bathtub?

I like to be lucky
everywhere. Fire up that last joint, why don’t you. Did you and
Ralph ever take a bath together?

That is an adult question.
That’s not playing fair.

Let me shave you.

Do I need one? Lindsay said,
and rubbed her chin.

Let me.

I just shaved yesterday,
Lindsay said, and rubbed her legs.

Under your arms, Jim said,
and picked up the Lady Schick safety razor from the soap dish.
Lindsay smiled sweetly and raised her right arm, and Jim soaped
her. He ran the razor gently over the slick skin under her arm. He
soaped and shaved under her other arm. Lindsay lifted each of her
long, sleek legs in turn, rest¬ing her heels on Jim's shoulders,
and he soaped and slowly shaved them while she hummed softly. Then
Jim took the bar of sweet soap and rubbed it over her
breasts.