Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (23 page)

After getting estimates,
Ralph and Alice Ann settled on a cheap Chicano crew to landscape
their yard, which turned out to mean a week of overtime chopping
jungle from the junked appliances beside the garage and peeling
the back yard’s layers of rotting oranges in a fog of
flies.

Late one afternoon Ralph
jumped his hoodlum son by surprise, got him in a pretty good hold,
and tried to reason with him about the goddamn dinosaur of a Dodge
which had been rusting on cinder blocks in the driveway for two
years while the son tinkered on it with stolen parts. Although
this discussion had ended in the back yard on the ground with the
son holding Ralph in a headlock for nearly a half hour before Alice
Ann returned home from work and squirted them with the hose, the
goddamn Dodge was hauled, along with all the junked
appliances.

After his hippie daughter
had pulled one of her days-long disappearing acts, Ralph had
stalked the house with a pillowcase one Saturday morning bagging
the dozen or so stray cats whose karma, according to his daughter,
had led them to his daughter’s door. One by one Ralph tossed those
filthy felines into the trunk of his car. Ralph would teach those
cats karma all right, and his daughter, and Alice Ann, too, if she
butted in. Ralph was going to put his foot down around this karma
carnival, and he was going to shake those spraying, hissing,
clawing cats out of his life like a bad habit. There could be no
real fresh start with those creatures skulking around ready to
pounce on it like a rat, and Ralph getting no respect.

Ralph fixed himself an
eye-opener and sat at the kitchen table smoking. He was letting
Alice Ann sleep in. She needed it after these last few days.
Goddamn that hippie daughter. Making her mother sick with worry.
Casting a pall over this fresh start. Ralph could hear those cats
yowling from the car's trunk in the driveway. Maybe he should just
pull the car into the garage, leave the motor running, close the
garage door for a time. Wipe that slate clean before Alice Ann got
up. No, he had to have Alice Ann’s backing in this business. She
had backed him at last about hauling the boy’s heap. That was a
first. Alice Ann had to realize that it was them against those
kids. They had to stand up to those criminal kids shoulder to
shoulder or be buried alive.

God, it’s almost eleven,
Alice Ann said when she walked into the kitchen. She poured a cup
of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette
from Ralph’s pack. She exhaled through her nose and ran her fingers
back through her long, tousled hair. She was wearing a short blue
nightie, and Ralph could see that she had not shaved under her arms
for days. —Why didn’t you wake me up, sweetie? Is there any sign of
her yet?

Not to my knowledge there’s
not.

Did you check her
bedroom?

I checked her
bedroom.

She could have slipped in
and gotten some things and gone again. How would we know? I tried
to listen for her. But I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. The last
time I looked at the clock it was nearly three.

She hasn’t been here, Ralph
said.

How do you know? How do you
know that?

Elementary, my dear Watson,
Ralph said, and jiggled his glass at Alice Ann. —We forgot to hide
the vodka last night. We left it out like dopes and I left my
cigarettes out here on the table, too, and everything was still
here when I got up. She hasn’t been near the place. For that
matter, the lout isn’t around either. As far as I can tell, he
didn’t stagger home last night either.

He didn’t? He didn’t ask to
stay over anywhere, did he?

Of course not, Alice Ann.
He’s probably out casing some house to break and enter. And she’s
probably high in some hot tub engaging in unspeakable acts of
sex.

Don’t, Ralph, please. What’s
that noise?

What noise? I don’t hear any
noise.

I don’t know. Some noise.
Like babies crying or something. There it is. God, that’s
weird.

There are no babies around
here, Alice Ann, that’s for sure. Maybe some asshole neighbor is
mowing his lawn. Maybe it’s a siren in the distance. Probably the
police chasing our children.

Ralph, we have to go look
for our daughter again. I’ll go get dressed.

That’s crazy, Alice Ann.
Just tell me where we start. Tell me that. You’ve called everybody
who has known that girl since childhood. That’s humiliation enough.
I don’t understand why you’re so worked up, Alice Ann. She’s pulled
this disappearing act before.

She’s our daughter, Ralph.
Our only daughter, Ralph. I keep seeing her beside some
road.

Right. Hitchhiking to
Hollywood. Alice Ann, honey, this is old business. She wants that
old car, Alice Ann. That’s the long and short of this business. We
just got rid of the boy’s rattletrap, honey. You backed me on that
business. We vowed no more eyesores rusting away in the driveway,
Alice Ann. It has to be you and me and our fresh start or we’re
goners.

Our children have to be a
part of our fresh start, Ralph. Sweetie, our whole family has to
share in this new beginning.

The way I see it is that old
business is going to ruin our fresh start. That’s the way I look at
it. I’m sorry, but there it is.

Ralph, are you calling our
babies old business?

I’m calling a spade a spade.
I’d like to enlist our old business in the Marines is what I’d like
to do. Do you want an eye-opener, by the way? I’m going to freshen
my screwdriver. Here I am getting all hot and bothered. I’m
getting all worked up, and we said those days were behind
us.

Is there any tomato juice?
I’d like a Bloody Mary if there’s any tomato juice.

Ralph opened the
refrigerator and said, There’s tomato juice here. But it’s in a can
somebody opened and just stuck back in here, who knows when. That
could poison a person. When you open a can you should put any
leftover contents in something plastic. Nothing would give those
kids more pleasure than to poison me.

Settle down, Ralph. It’s no
big deal. Besides, you’ve never put anything in anything plastic in
your life.

This tomato juice could be
poison, I’m telling you, Ralph said, and shook the can and sniffed
it. —Have you ever watched while that boy chugs right out of a
carton of milk? He chugalugs half a goddamn carton of milk at a
time and doesn’t give a second thought to contaminating what’s left
for the rest of us with his awful germs.

You do the same thing,
Ralph. Make me a Bloody Mary. Tomato juice is too acidic to go bad
that fast.

I don’t either.

Ralph, I’ve seen you do it a
thousand times. I keep hearing that awful sound, Ralph, what in the
world is it? Maybe something has crawled up under the house. Maybe
you ought to get the flashlight and take a look,
sweetie.

First thing in the morning,
Ralph said, and turned on the radio. —Do you want a touch of
Tabasco? Worcestershire sauce? The works, or what?

The works, Alice Ann said.
—Why not? Some celery salt, too, Ralph. Ralph, that noise is making
my skin crawl.

I've been the busy beaver
all morning, Ralph said, and turned up the radio. —I started a new
story. I think it’s sure-fire.

Ralph, look at these goose
bumps on my arms. Somebody is walking over my grave,
Ralph.

When the doorbell rang,
Ralph dropped the can of tomato juice into the sink.

Jesus Christ, Ralph said.
—Who could that be? Don’t answer it, Alice Ann.

Don’t be crazy, Ralph, Alice
Ann said, and got up from the table.

Me? Me crazy, Alice Ann?
Don’t answer it. Whatever it is, we don’t need it.

Why are you so weird today?
Alice Ann said, and left the room.

Ralph looked down into the
sink at the spilled tomato juice as red as blood. Ralph turned on
the hot water full blast and sat down at the kitchen table. He lit
a cigarette and polished off his drink. He could hear Alice Ann
speaking with somebody at the door. Steam rose from the sink. Ralph
saw he had forgotten to close the refrigerator door. He saw an
uncovered plate of something gone green. Ralph could hear an
actual siren somewhere in the distance and the insane cries of
those cats.

2

Where’s my Bloody Mary?
Alice Ann said when she returned to the kitchen and sat down. —I’m
going to need it.

Jesus, Ralph said. —I knew
you shouldn’t have answered that door.

You had better make yourself
a stiff one, too, Ralph. You’re going to need it, too.

I told you not to answer
that door, Alice Ann. Didn’t I tell you?

Ralph stood up from the
table and went to the sink. He turned off the hot water and then
turned on the cold and rinsed his glass. He took a tray of ice from
the refrigerator and that plate of green fur. Using a fork Ralph
scraped the green fur into the garbage disposal.

Sweetie, just remember that
no matter what the future holds we’ll face it together. I’ll stand
by you, Ralph, through thick or thin. For better or worse, Ralph,
that’s us.

My goose is cooked, isn’t
it, Alice Ann? Just go ahead and tell me the worst.

Why in the world are you so
paranoid today, Ralph? Alice Ann said, and laughed. —Why are you so
paranoid, puppy? Have you been up to something I don’t know about?
We have a few checks bouncing around, but so what? What else is
new? So what are you so paranoid about today, Ralph?

I am not paranoid, Ralph
said. —Well, if I am, it’s your fault. You’re making me paranoid.
You’re the one. Who was at the door? Who was it, anyway? You’re the
one who’s acting like it was the sheriff or something. You came
back in here acting like there are armed men at the door with a
warrant for my arrest.

Did it ever occur to you
that it might be news about our missing daughter? Bad news
maybe.

Well, yes. Sure it did. Is
it? Bad news, I mean.

No, it isn’t, Ralph. In
fact, it wasn’t bad news at all for a change. It was just a
delivery I had to sign for, that’s all.

Delivery? What delivery? A
delivery of what? You know, Alice Ann, we can’t carry this
fresh-start business too far. We’ve been throwing money around like
water. There has to be a limit, Alice Ann.

I don’t know what it was a
delivery of, Alice Ann said. —I, for one, am too worried about the
old business of our missing daughter to pay much attention to
anything else right now. It was a big box. Maybe it’s the new
twenty-five-inch color television set I bought on
credit.

Ralph sat down at the table
and put his face in his hands.

You big paranoid puppy,
Alice Ann said, and laughed. —Get back up and fix my Bloody Mary,
you big baby. And turn that radio down.

What’s going on here, Alice
Ann? Tell me, please.

Ralph, sweetie, it’s your
books. I’m just jerking you off, you big fuckhead. It’s your
fucking books, Alice Ann said, laughing, and jumped up from the
table. She ran to the hallway and returned lugging a big box. —Your
ten free copies from your publisher, puppy. Our books are
here!

Oh golly, Alice Ann! It’s
the books! Look, it’s the books! Here, let me have those babies,
Alice Ann. Let me at that box! Get me some scissors. Or a knife.
Alice Ann, get me an ax!

3

Ralph and Alice Ann had
toasted the beautiful books stacked on the table between them. They
toasted themselves. The white dust jacket with its dramatic black
lettering was striking, they agreed, and toasted it. They toasted
themselves. The jacket copy was brilliant, they agreed, and in his
dust-jacket picture Ralph looked ten years younger, they agreed,
and Ralph made them fresh drinks in the two new, long-stem
Waterford-crystal glasses that Alice Ann had paid an arm and a leg
for.

Read Lenny Michaels’s blurb
again! Ralph said, and then he read it out loud again himself:
“Ralph Crawford’s stories are extraordinary in their language,
their music, and their huge terrifying vision of ordinary human
life in this country.”

It’s true, Ralph, Alice Ann
said. —Just because you and Lenny are friends doesn’t mean he’s not
being sincere.

How would you, Ralph said,
and held a foot-high, cherry- wood pepper grinder up to Alice Ann’s
mouth like a microphone, you, a typical human-being-type person on
the street, describe Ralph Crawford’s vision?