Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (48 page)

Billy, Lindsay called out,
what about your boots?

Billy! Jim called out. —Come
back, Billy! Ralph needs you, Billy! Alice Ann wants you,
too!

Bill paused at the corner of
Mason and stood there weaving under the streetlight for a few
moments, while he gazed about for his vehicle and tried to recall
the best road back to Montana, and then Bill lurched across Union
Street and was gone.

3

Back upstairs Lindsay found
that Alice Ann had disappeared into the spare bedroom. Lindsay went
into the bathroom and locked the door. She sat on the edge of the
tub and smoked a cigarette, flipping the ashes into the sink. When
she had finished, she ran water over the butt, then dropped it into
the wastebasket. She filled the sink with hot water and washed her
face, then rinsed it with cold water. She studied her face in the
mirror. She began to reapply makeup, but stopped.

Lindsay found Ralph standing
at the stove in the kitchen stirring something in a pan. Jim’s
little black-and-white television set was playing soundlessly on
the counter by the sink. Ralph didn’t look at her when Lindsay
walked into the room.

It’s okay, Ralph, Lindsay
said.

I’m sorry about all the
problems Alice Ann has caused around here, Ralph said.

It’s not Alice Ann’s fault,
Ralph.

Well, I know I’m a part of
the problems. And I’m sorry.

We are all a part of the
problems, Lindsay said. —We are all in the same boat of
bullshit

Well, Ralph said, poop
floats.

Maybe so, Lindsay said. —But
you can’t keep pretending that a turd in the punch bowl of life is
a chocolate ice cube. Dear God, where did that one come from? I
sounded like bullshit Billy. Bill shows up for a single evening of
craziness and his special brand of bullshit and I am utterly
undone. Where’s Jim?

I don’t know where your
husband is.

Maybe you should find your
wife, Ralph. See if she’s okay.

Right. Maybe tell her a
bedtime story. Except my wife knows all my stories by heart. She
made up most of my stories anyway herself. Just go ask her. Why
don’t you sit down for a minute? Let’s smoke a cigarette. Where’s
the harm in us having a nice relaxing cigarette together? You want
any soup?

Go check on your wife,
Ralph, Lindsay said.

I want to talk some more,
Ralph said. —We need to. Nothing is settled. We need to talk some
more.

Everything & settled,
Ralph, Lindsay said. —Oh, Ralph, Lindsay said, and mussed his
hair. —Ralph, Ralph. I need to go check on my own
husband.

4

Jim was lying bareback on
his old sleeping bag before the front- room fire with little Sappho
curled asleep on his broad hairy chest. Lindsay studied Jim’s
bearded face in the faint light of the dying fire. Who was he? Whom
did he love? Lindsay sat down on the sleeping bag beside Jim. She
put Sappho on the hardwood floor in a slant of streetlight, where
Sappho had an immediate cute-attack, rolling about on her back,
twisting her head, the star of her own litde kitty movie. Lindsay
laughed quietly and rubbed her cat’s tummy.

Lindsay ran her fingers over
the skin of Jim’s muscled arms. She loved the feel of his skin,
faintly moist, smooth. She loved his skin’s smell and its taste.
Milo’s skin had been dry and had an acrid odor. More than anything,
Lindsay wanted to be a real person at last. She wanted to be a
real woman, a real wife, a real mother with breasts filled with
real milk. How in God’s name was her life going to turn out? Would
she ever have a life with her husband full of common purpose,
shared motives? Shared vulnerability, security, repetition? What
scared Lindsay the most about Jim, besides the facts that he drank
too much and did too many drugs and was essentially a criminal who
could end up behind bars, was the manner in which he always seemed
to be writing things up somewhere in his mind, always mining his
life, their life, for material. What Lindsay feared the most was
becoming a character, the wife, in somebody’s collected stories,
forced into fiction. Please God, no more fucking hopeful
beginnings, crises, crash landings. Please God, no more three-act
fucking melodramas.

Lindsay slowly unzipped
Jim’s jeans and spread his fly wide open. She gently tugged his
shorts down and took his penis in her hand and studied it intently,
rolling its foreskin gently with her thumb. Jim farted a little
fart and smacked his lips in his sleep, and Lindsay laughed
quietly. She squeezed his penis lightly and he farted again. Sappho
lifted her little black face and looked at Lindsay and mewed
softly. Lindsay scratched the top of her little cat’s head, and
Sappho licked her fingers and then yawned greatly.

Lindsay bent forward and
licked the skin of Jim’s shoulder then sniffed it. She rubbed her
nose lightly around the ridges of an underarm. She parted the hair
over a nipple, then flicked it lightly with the tip of her tongue.
Then suddenly Lindsay thought of Ralph, his huge wonderful, gentle
hands, the wonderful way he smelled. Lindsay shut her eyes and
shook her head. When she opened her eyes, she traced a finger along
those two long scars barely visible through thick hair that carved
a V down Jim’s lower abdomen, whose point was his limp penis, which
she began to rub gently, until Jim mumbled in his sleep. It sounded
as though he had mumbled a name. Lindsay bent over him, put her ear
next to his mouth, as though listening for her husband’s last
words.

Jim mumbled again. Natalie,
was that the name? Natalie, Lindsay whispered back into Jim’s
dream, while she gently pulled upon his stiffening penis. Natalie,
Jim mumbled again, then mumbled another name. Sally? Sally, Lindsay
whispered in Jim’s ear. Whereupon Jim mumbled Susie. Then Jim
mumbled Annie, Peggy, Jenny, Belinda, Bobby Ann, Bobbie Jean,
Lolita, Mary Louise, Robin, Janet Sue, Jackie, June, Mae, Martha,
Megan, Diane, Donna, Molly, Margaret, Annie, Lynn, Camille, Connie,
Amy, Leslie, Debbie, Bev, Beth, Bossy .

You turkey, Lindsay said,
and laughed. —You’re not asleep, Stark. Bossy? Who the fuck was
Bossy?

I loved Bossy, Jim mumbled,
grinning, but with his eyes still shut. —When I was a boy back on
the farm, Bossy and I would meet out in the old barn late at night.
Mooooooo, Bossy would go when she came. Mooooooooooooo.

You turkey, Lindsay said,
and gave Jim’s member a mighty squeeze. —Consider this one
extremely choked chicken.

Yeow, holy cow! Jim cried,
then gasped, Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay Lindsay
Lindsay ...

Whereupon Jim sat up and
rubbed his eyes. For a time he simply sat there staring into the
dying fire.

What are you thinking about,
honey? Lindsay said.

Nothing much, Jim said. He
stood and zipped up his jeans, then walked over to the table in the
turret. He took a drink of wine from a long-stemmed glass, then
picked up a roach resting in an ashtray and lit it. He clicked on
his little portable radio, which was on the table, dialed to that
station he liked out of San Jose that played Mexican music all
night; border-town gunfight music, Jim always called it. Jim sat
down and began cleaning his gun, which was on a newspaper spread
out on the table. Jim looked up at Lindsay as she walked over to
the table.

What are you doing, Jim?
Lindsay said.

I’m cleaning my heater, Jim
said. —My rod, my roscoe.

Why are you cleaning your
roscoe, Jim?

You never know when you
might need your roscoe, Jim said, and took a long drag on the
joint, letting the smoke swirl dramatically up over his shadowy
face.

You know I hate that
thing.

Shorty and I are going
target-shooting. Take a gander out at Alcatraz tonight. It looks
like either a great ghost ship anchored in the dark bay or an
island city of the dead. I can’t make up my mind. Are you glad you
married me instead of Ralph? Jim said.

Ralph was never serious
about marrying me, Lindsay said.

That don’t really answer my
question, ma’am.

I hate when you call me
ma’am. You know that. I love you, Jim. So, are you going back to
New York?

I ain’t studying on no New
York. Where is everybody?

Here and there. I’m going to
bed.

I’m right behind
you.

Good night,
honey.

I’m right behind you, I
said.

Good night, Jim.

5

The canopy draped above the
bed resembled a pyramid only vaguely. The thin hollow metal tubing
of its frame had been bent and wobbled like delicate old bones when
Lindsay sat down on the edge of the bed. The tent’s tie-dyed fabric
felt wet and slippery like silk and was as thinly translucent as a
scarf.

When in the world and why
did Alice Ann put this up, Lindsay wondered. Lindsay undressed and
lay down naked on top of the covers, gazing upward at the canopy.
In the soft glow from her vanity lamp across the room the filmy
material above her shimmered like stained glass turned molten with
her breath. A foghorn sounded its distant, forlorn low from the
Bay, like the boohoo of some pathetic, drowning cow. The plaintive
albeit menacing Mexican music drifted in from the front room, where
Jim sat drinking his wine and smoking his dope and cleaning his
roscoe. Good night, Jim. Sleep tight, Jim. The pang Lindsay felt
she thought would burst her heart. Across this box of broken dreams
was her grandmother’s antique vanity and chiffonier and that
ancient cradle wherein she and her mother and grandmother had been
rocked to sleep. Lindsay felt her life tremble. Her memories felt
like an undertow.

Sappho jumped up on the bed
and came mewing toward her, then stopped to sniff between Lindsay’s
legs. Come on, honey, Lindsay said, and reached down to scratch her
kitty’s head. Don’t be a dirty litde kitty. Come on, Lindsay said,
and lifted her kitty up beside her own face on the pillow. They
breathed into each other’s faces for a few moments, and then Sappho
curled up on the pillow in the cusp of Lindsay’s neck. Lindsay bit
her lip until it hurt. She made her mouth water, then tasted and
swallowed it like a bitter kiss. She touched her right nipple. Good
night, Jim, Lindsay said to herself as her fingertips brushed her
nipples. She felt the heat rise in her stomach. Good night, Ralph.
Good night, Alice Ann. Sleep tight, Lindsay whispered as her
fingertips traveled slowly down the starry sides of her night
body.

He was a shadow in the
doorway for a moment, then closed the door behind him and walked
slowly across the room to bed.

Say Uncle

1

Lindsay awoke to loud
voices. For a moment she lay there with her eyes shut, Jim’s big
arm resting across her bare stomach. He was sound asleep. Lindsay
reached beneath the covers to reposition Sappho, who was nestled
between her legs, and Sappho gave an annoyed nip to one of her
fingers. She blinked open her eyes and looked at the glowing alarm
clock on the table beside the bed: 3:23. The voices were coming
from the kitchen. Lindsay slid from beneath Jim’s arm and slipped
into jeans and a sweater in the dark.

Alice Ann and Ralph were
sitting at the kitchen table in the dim light of the little
black-and-white television on the counter. When Lindsay clicked on
the overhead light, they both turned to look at her. Alice Ann
stood up and swirled around. She was wearing a long, lovely,
full-flowing white dress, that billowed about her as she spun
around. It had long sleeves and a brocade front with
mother-of-pearl buttons.

Oh, hon, Lindsay said, that
is absolutely gorgeous.

It’s my second-honeymoon
dress, Alice Ann said. —I paid an arm and a leg for this thing, God
knows. I got it especially for our second-honeymoon
trip.

That’s what we’re having a
litde discussion about, Ralph said. —Just what constitutes an arm
and a leg.

I was going to save it for
later, Alice Ann said. —I think I’ve already told you, I made Ralph
and me reservations at a really fancy hotel in Seattle, and I
thought I’d make Ralph take me out dancing wearing this. In one of
those fancy rooftop-restaurant nightclubs overlooking the romantic
lights of the city. And if I can’t get Ralph out on the dance
floor, I’ll dance the night away with strangers, if it comes to
that.

I love Seattle, Lindsay
said. —And your hair. Your hair looks terrific, hon.

How much did that dress
cost? Ralph said. —Tell me.