Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (29 page)

You mean you haven’t heard
about pyramid power yet? You spent too much time in Montana, old
Jim. Pyramid power is all the rage these days. Among Alice Ann and
her cosmic chums, anyway. It all has to do with these divine
vibrations and cosmic energy coming in from the universe. Pyramids
are sort of like television antennas you see. Pyramids attract and
arrange all that cosmic energy raining in from the universe. If you
tap in on pyramid power, you can have a better life. Just ask
Alice Ann about it.

What’s inside the little
glass pyramid, Ralph?

You want to know what’s
inside that goofy, goddamn thing? You really want to know? Food for
the gods, that’s what.

Why, Ralph?

Living proof that pyramid
power truly works. It can preserve things forever. Why do you think
those old Egyptians put their dead pharaohs in pyramids? Pyramid
power! That’s why. To preserve those royal stiffs throughout the
ages. Yeah, just ask Alice Ann and her fruitcake friends all about
it. Here’s what I, for one, think of pyramid power, Ralph said, and
jumped up. He rushed over to the counter and picked up the glass
pyramid. He smashed the egg in the sink and then ran water and
turned on the garbage disposal.

Consider that a
demonstration of my personal opinion about pyramid power and its
living proof, Ralph said. He picked up the blue-green sandwich and
waved it at Jim. —You hungry? Here, help yourself. This bologna
sandwich has only been under here a month or two! Take a bite, Jim.
Be my guest. You’ll love it. It’ll taste like goddamn King
Tut.

I think I’d prefer some
pizza, Ralph, Jim said. —With pepperoni. Jim held the nearly empty
pint bottle up before his leaky eyes. —We need fresh supplies
pronto, Ralph.

Where are those women? Ralph
said. He started to throw the blue-green sandwich into the sink,
but hesitated. He paused and then put it back on the pyramid’s
little platform. He took an egg from the refrigerator and gently
placed it upon the platform and then repositioned the glass
pyramid. —No sense in getting Alice Ann all riled up, Ralph said,
and then he smacked his forehead and said, Mother of
God!

Ralph rushed back to the
refrigerator and threw open its door. He pulled out the vegetable
bins in the bottom and jumped back and smacked his forehead again.
—We had four bottles of Mumm’s chilling. We had to drive almost all
the way to San Jose to find a liquor store foolish enough to take a
check of ours. Do you know what a bottle of Mumm’s goes for these
days? I’ll tell you what it goes for. An arm and a leg is what.
Will you look at what’s left, Ralph said, and brandished a single
bottle in the air. He slammed the bottle onto the kitchen table,
making three pink cats leap for their lives. Ralph sat down at the
table heavily and held his face in his hands.

I say we pop that sucker,
Jim said as he polished off the pint.

Those wives are up to
something, I’m telling you, Ralph said. —They should have been here
by now. I’m telling you, they’re out fucking bikers.

Bullshit, Ralph. Not
Lindsay, anyway. Satisfied brides don’t go around fucking
bikers.

Come on, Ralph said. —Let’s
go out to my office. I’ve got some bourbon stashed there. I’ll get
us some ice to take.

Ralph threw empty ice tray
after empty ice tray against the kitchen wall, where they crashed
and clattered like castanets.

Hey, Uncle Jim, Ralph’s
daughter said from the doorway. She was wearing a black Grateful
Dead T-shirt with a skull and cross- bones on its front, and her
unshaven legs were bare. —Hey, what’s all the fucking noise out
here, anyhow?

Hey, kiddo, Jim
said.

Why doesn’t anybody but me
ever fill up the goddamn ice trays around this house? Ralph said,
and threw one final empty ice tray against the wall.

Don’t lay that trip on me,
Dad, man, Ralph’s daughter said.

Did you and Paco graze all
the goodies your mom made? And I want the truth about this
matter!

God, Dad, man! There wasn’t
nothing to eat in like the whole fucking house, man. I guess you
think it would have been cool for me and my old man to like starve
or some shit, huh? Did you bring any toilet paper, Dad,
huh?

I just got toilet paper the
other night. I got a family pack of toilet paper.
Charmins.

Sure, Dad. Well, like
there’s not any shit paper in the house now, Ralph’s daughter said,
and took a handful of paper napkins from a drawer. —And you’re
looking at the last of the napkins in the fucking house, too. My
asshole is so sore I can hardly sit down, man. Did Mom pick up my
tampons, Dad?

What? How would I know a
thing like that?

I’m getting pretty fucking
bored with sanitary napkins, if you know what I mean, Ralph’s
daughter said, and waved the napkins at Ralph.

That sort of business is
between you and your mother. Leave me out of that sort of business.
What I want to know is what happened to the three bottles of
expensive Mumm’s we had in the refrigerator. Was that your work,
too? And Paco’s? We were planning on having a celebration with
guests here tonight before some criminal broke and entered this
house and stole us blind.

So like where is Mom,
anyhow? I need those tampons, man.

They’re right behind
us.

So that Lindsay chick is
actually coming over? Wow! Far- fucking-out. Me and Mom read her
letters. So how’s married life, Uncle Jim?

Far-out, Jim
said.

So where’s the missing
Mumm’s? Ralph said. —Quit trying to change the subject. I’m going
to get to the bottom of this matter. I’m going to put my foot down
around here for a change.

Hey, Dad, man, me and Paco
will pay you back okay, so how about being cool, all right! Paco’s
got some bread coming, dig? Anyhow, we were celebrating a little
ourselves. I got my period, man.

Here, Ralph said. —Here, he
said, and handed his daughter the botde of Mumm’s.

Hey, far-out, Dad, Ralph’s
daughter said, and took the bottle. —Sometimes, Dad, you aren’t
such a big asshole. Sometimes, man, you can be a really hip
dude.

As Jim and Ralph started to
leave the kitchen, Ralph stopped at the stove and above it removed
an oddly out-of-place print of a green pepper, revealing a hole in
the wall. Ralph fit his fist into the hole. —This is my work, Ralph
said. —You know, I always dreamed of owning my own home someday. I
dreamed it would be a house filled with laughter and joy and
serenity and music, you know, classical music, and grace. That was
once my dream, old Jim. I ask you, was that such an impossible
dream?

3

Ralph turned off lights as
he and Jim made their way back through the house. In the game room
Ralph’s sister-in-law Erin’s twin blond boys were roller-skating on
the flagstone floor. They skated about slowly, aimlessly, the metal
wheels clacking over the flagstones. The boys’ jaws were slack,
their wet red mouths hung open, and their unblinking blue eyes
looked as though they could have been painted on those faces, which
were white as mushrooms. At the room’s far end a television set
blared unwatched. Somebody had dialed its light deep purple and it
was tuned to one of Jim’s favorite religious channels out of San
Jose. A purple preacher dressed in a suit of sequins was praying at
the top of his lungs for dollars to fight the devil, who, it
seemed, was on the verge of winning city council seats for
homosexuals. Ralph and Jim stood at the sliding glass doors that
led out to the back yard, and they watched the skating blond boys.
The twins skated slowly about each other, weaving, circling,
somedmes one seeming to lead nowhere in particular, and then the
other, like reflections freed and moving in and out of an
invisible mirror. Clicking a switch on the wall beside the sliding
glass doors, Ralph turned off the bright overhead lights of the
game room. The blond twins skated on in their solitude and
oblivion, around and around, slowly, enchanted in the purple
light.

Those boys never give me a
moment’s trouble, Ralph told Jim as he clicked another switch and
they stepped through the sliding glass doors into a back yard
flooded with yellow light. When they reached Ralph’s office, Ralph
fumbled his keys out of his pocket.

They picked my locks again!
Ralph said. —I’ve changed locks out here ten times at least.
Nothing works. Nothing keeps the little criminals out.

Ralph hurried across the
dark room. He turned on a desk light and picked up a coffeepot and
shook it at his ear. Ralph chuckled and then drank from the
coffeepot spout.

Fooled the little bastards
this time, Ralph said, and handed the coffeepot to Jim. Ralph
picked up two coffee cups from the desk and tossed their contents
into a wastepaper basket, then ran his fingers around the cups*
rims and handed one to Jim. —Wonder what our wives are doing, Ralph
said. —We were fools to get those two together, much less leave
them alone together.

They seemed to hit it off,
Jim said, and took a drink. —Why are you so paranoid,
Ralph?

It’s Alice Ann’s fault,
Ralph said.

How so, Ralph?

It just is, that’s all. She
can’t lay every single thing on my doorstep, Ralph said. Ralph
cocked his ear as though he had heard something, and then he
tiptoed across the room and stood up on the chair by the wall. He
slid the framed photograph of Hemingway aside and peeked through
the tiny hole.

Anybody home? Jim
stage-whispered.

Nope. She’s hardly ever home
these days. More’s the pity. Wonder what has become of our wives,
old Jim?

How did you feel when you
saw Lindsay today, Ralph? Jim said, and took a drink from the
cup.

Me? What do you
mean?

I’m just curious, Ralph. I
don’t mean anything really.

I already told you. She was
a sight for sore eyes. I hold Lindsay in the highest
regard.

I hold Alice Ann in the
highest regard, too, Ralph.

Jim, we have to go look for
our wives. We’ve got to find them before it’s too late. I’ll bet
there’s a happy gang of bikers somewhere right now.

I just don’t understand you,
Ralph. Your enduring paranoia and lack of trust. So Alice Ann may
have made a few slips over the course of her life. Big deal.
Considering your track record, you can’t hold anything against
her.

Slips? What do you mean
slips?

Our wives are both wonderful
women, Ralph. But human beings make slips, Ralph. To err is human,
right, Ralph? After all, you weren’t exactly being virtuous when
you were involved with Lindsay, now were you, Ralph?

I want you to tell me what
you mean by slips, Jim. Jim, you owe me the truth, as you know it.
Go on. Tell me. Just do it. Come out with it, Jim. What do you know
about Alice Ann and slips? You know things I don’t know in the
slips department, don’t you, Jim? Okay, let me ask you this, do you
have any solid evidence, Jim? All right, just tell me the worst.
Don’t hold anything back. Give me both barrels of the truth, Jim.
No. No. Wait a minute. If it has to do with bikers or sailors or
tattooed truck drivers, just keep the truth to yourself. If it’s
about sordid characters and blowjobs or any other monstrous acts
of love, Jim, I don’t want to know, after all. Jim, you don’t know
what I’ve had to deal with. Jim, Alice Ann has a tattoo on her
behind. There it is. Out in the open at last. God knows when or
where she got it. I hadn’t taken a really good look at Alice Ann’s
behind in ages, when one night when I was about half sober she
climbed out of the shower and was parading around nude, and by God
I saw it. There it was! I thought it was a little bruise at first.
But it wasn’t anything of the kind. It was a parrot. A tiny
green-and-gold parrot on my wife’s behind. How does a man deal
with that sort of revelation, I ask you? She said she just got it
on a whim once when I wasn’t around for a few days and she had no
idea where I was, as though that were excuse enough for such
outrageous behavior on her part. But even if that much is true,
think about what it means. It means that at the very best she bared
her behind so that some sordid tattooed stranger could get at it
with a needle. Too much, I say!

Settle down, Ralph. Listen,
I don’t know anything about any slips. I’ve been busting your chops
about the slips business.

But why, old Jim? You got me
all worked up, Jim.

I know, Ralph. I don't know
why I treat you mean sometimes. I love you like a brother. No. I
know why I’m being mean to you tonight. You’ve seen the naked body
of my wife, Ralph. I hate that about you, Ralph.