Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (51 page)

The little house Alice Ann
had rented looked like a turd with windows, a squat brown stucco
affair with a dirt yard in some subdivision of similar sad abodes.
Several Mexican women were sitting in metal lawn chairs on the
concrete porch of the house next door, and a group of plump
brown-faced children ran about the yard. Lindsay declined Alice
Ann’s invitation to come in for a drink, saying she was dead tired
and the traffic back up to the city would be bumper to bumper. They
sat parked in front of the little brown house and listened to the
car tick.

Alice Ann sat there and
cried. Alice Ann’s heaving, narrow shoulders felt amazingly frail
to Lindsay, brittle, birdlike, as Lindsay held her and began to
weep, too. God knows how long they blubbered like that, before
Lindsay began to hiccup, and Alice Ann drew back to look at Lindsay
through streaming tears. Both of their noses were running, and when
one of Lindsay’s hiccups came out more like a burp with a juicy
bubble on the end of it, they both started to laugh, and they
laughed until they almost started to cry again. They sat there
then, dabbing at each other’s noses and faces with tissues Lindsay
found in her purse, laughing again at intervals, until they both
slumped back on the seat exhausted. Alice Ann lit a cigarette, and
so did Lindsay. When they finished those cigarettes, they both lit
another and smoked those, too, without much comment. The Mexican
children were standing in a line along their front-yard fence
watching wide- eyed, and the women on the porch kept giving Lindsay
and Alice Ann furtive glances.

Presently Alice Ann reached
up and turned the rearview mirror toward her. She tore the bandage
off the side of her face with a single jerk. Squinting her eyes in
the smoky air, Alice Ann gazed in the mirror, studying her
face.

That fucker tried to launch
my face like a ship, Alice Ann said, and laughed, as she ran her
fingers lightly along the stitched wound high on her left jaw. —The
face that launched a thousand fucking bottles, she said. She lit
another cigarette, as did Lindsay.

When Lindsay finally said
that she really should be heading back, that she would call Alice
Ann in a couple of days and things would proceed from there, Alice
Ann clutched both of Lindsay’s hands in her own, and squeezed them
tightly, almost painfully. Against all odds, Alice Ann told
Lindsay, she and Lindsay had found one another in this lifetime.
And as soon as she was rested enough and back on her feet, she and
Lindsay would set forth again, launch their lives together again as
sisters. Let Ralph enjoy his ill-gotten fame alone, let your own
so-called husband have his little boner-breath slut, who was not
fit to lick Lindsay’s boots, for Alice Ann and Lindsay had each
other now, and their sister hearts beat as one. They would make up
the stories of their own lives from here on out, and live them
purely for themselves. All their tomorrows were their own from here
on out. They would find happiness, goddamn it, if it killed them,
Alice Ann said, and laughed. Alice Ann’s thin, pale face was
radiant. Alice Ann kissed the backs of both of Lindsay’s hands, and
then she got out of the car. Alice Ann took her suitcase from the
backseat and walked up the crumbly walk toward the little brown
house, where her daughter appeared in the open doorway. Alice Ann’s
daughter pushed open the screen door and stood there puffing
furiously on a cigarette. Hey, Mom, Alice Ann’s daughter said, what
in the fuck happened now, huh?

Alice Ann turned when she
reached the door to smile and give Lindsay a little wave. Behind
Alice Ann her daughter gave Lindsay the finger. Alice Ann blew
Lindsay a little kiss and then disappeared inside the house, and
that was the last time Lindsay would ever see Alice Ann. Lindsay
and Jim would call Alice Ann for months, letting the phone ring off
the wall, or leaving messages with one of the kids, which remained
unanswered, until finally they let it go.

3

When Lindsay arrived back at
the flat, she found the place ablaze with lights. She found Ralph
sitting at the kitchen table as usual watching television, while he
smoked and munched on hard spaghetti noodles he took from a box two
at a time.

Ralph, Lindsay said, all you
have to do is drop those noodles in boiling water. That’s all there
is to cooking spaghetti, you know, dear. You can boil water, can’t
you, Ralph?

Sure I can, Ralph said. —But
this is the way I happen to like my spaghetti, real, what do you
call it? Al dente. This is the way my old mom would serve up
spaghetti when she was in a big hurry. Right out of the box, with
maybe a jar of good old Chef Boyardee spaghetti sauce on the side
to dip the noodles in, if she was feeling fancy.

Who turned every light in
the house on? Lindsay said. —Where’s Jim?

I did I guess, Ralph said.
—I was getting a bad case of the willies. I heard some things, you
know, noises. Strange noises. And the wind was blowing up outside.
Those chimes drive me nuts, by the way. Binging and banging around.
Jim’s making a grocery-and-booze bolt. He’s going to stir up some
supper, he said. It’s the last booze run I’ll ever chip in on, by
the way. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it this time. I
do. I’ve hit that rock bottom they tell you about, and I know it. I
called Duffy’s, that place, you know, north of town, where a
drinking fellow can get on his feet. They give you hummers up at
Duffy’s, which is a little drink every so often, so a fellow can
withdraw without going into convulsions and lapsing into a coma and
dying from the DTs, if he’s lucky. I’m going up there tomorrow,
bright and early, if I can get a ride from somebody.

Here, hon, Lindsay said, and
placed a set of car keys on the table before Ralph. —Alice Ann said
you could keep the heap. Her word.

Well, Ralph said, and cupped
the keys, I guess this is my fair share of our community property
after eight thousand or so years of matrimony. Well, I’m not
complaining. Water over the dam and all that. All’s well that ends
well, you know. Don’t tell me anything about Alice Ann right now.
Please don’t, please.

She still loves you very
much, Ralph. And you still love her. You know you do.

I can’t not love her on some
level, can I? Ralph said. —How could I not always love Alice Ann on
some level? After all these centuries, these countless lifetimes.
But I don’t love her the way I love you now. And I won’t ever be
able to again. Not like I did.

You two will endure, Ralph,
Lindsay said.

I can remember when our love
for each other, Alice Ann’s and mine, and I know how corny this
will sound, but it was so sweet and childlike and unconditional
that loving each other was no harder than loving yourself. But I
just don’t see how we can stay married to each other anymore. I
don’t really know how I’m going to live without her after all these
years, but I don’t see how we can live together without both of us
going down the drain.

Those are among the most
honest words you’ve ever uttered to me, Ralph. You owed me those
words a long time ago.

This could be it, you know,
Ralph said. —This could be our last chance, Lindsay.

We’ve been down that road,
Ralph. But it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let things get out of
hand again. Now I have to live with that mistake, too.

It’s not your fault, Ralph
said. —I know I’m just beating an old dead horse. Or old dead dog
is more like it.

What I need to think about
is Jim and me, that we, Jim and I, have to find a new place to
live. I am utterly heartbroken about it. I feel undone right now,
utterly. What will we do?

I’m not the one to ask,
Ralph said. —That’s a question for your husband.

What question? Jim said. He
was standing in the doorway with two shopping bags in his arms. He
walked into the room and deposited the bags on the kitchen
counter.

About where we’re going to
live, Lindsay said. —I’m freezing in here, by the way. I’ve got
goose bumps. Look at my arms.

Like somebody is walking
over your grave? Jim said. —My old mountain granny used to say that
about goose bumps.

I thought it was just me
being cold, Ralph said. —Cold as a witch’s, you know, bosom, as
they say. I thought I was getting a bad case of the old shakes and
shivers, which are my usual first symptoms of the raging
willies.

Our little landlady probably
turned the furnace off again. Letting us know how welcome we are
here, Jim said, and he turned the stove’s burners on and then lit
the oven and left its door open. —I’ll go build a roaring fire out
front directly.

What are we going to do,
Jim? Lindsay said. —We can’t be out of here in a month.

Don’t sweat it, baby, Jim
said. —I’ll take care of everything.

I don’t blame her one bit
for throwing us out.

You’re right, I reckon, Jim
said.

I hate to mention it, old
Jim, Ralph said, but I’m about to faint from hunger. What did you
get for supper, old boy? Something real quick and dirty, I
hope.

Real quick and dirty and
real American, Jim said. —Hot dogs.

Hot dogs! Ralph said. —I
love hot hogs. Take me out to the ball game, that’s my motto. Buy
me some peanuts and popcorn and hot dogs. Hot dogs are the best
cure known to man for the raging willies. Hey, old Jim, did you
pick up any, you know, hooch?

Yeah, Ralph, I got some
hooch. But only for hummers, Ralph. I’m starting you on the hummer
regimen as of tonight.

I can’t tell you how weary I
am to the bone tonight, Lindsay said. —Jim, go ahead and fix Ralph
something to eat. I’m going to go soak in a steaming bath for a
while. Here in what used to be my home. God, but I always loved
that huge old tub.

We’re gonna wait for you,
Jim said. —Ralph can contain his fat ass for a while.

I can wait, Ralph
said.

Okay, guys, I won’t be too
long. I just want to lower what’s left of this debris I call myself
into that wonderful old tub for a while.

Take your time, babe, Jim
said. —I’ll get a fire going out front. Then I, for one, am going
to repair to the deck for a spell. Check out that full, bloody
moon. Have me a hummer or two.

Can I have a hummer or two,
too, old Jim? Ralph said.

I’ll study on it while I’m
building the fire, Jim said.

I need a hummer bad, old
Jim, Ralph said, and placed his hand over his heart. —My heart is
going a mile a minute. That little devil is banging around in there
like there’s no tomorrow.

Lindsay stepped over and
placed her own hand on Ralph’s chest. —You’re not kidding, Ralph.
Maybe we should get you to an emergency room, hon. Jim, feel
Ralph’s heart.

No way, Jose, Jim
said.

I’m all right, Ralph said.
—This is nothing new. Sometimes it bangs away like this even in
those rare moments when I’m not on the edge of hysteria, or in some
blind state of panic. I’ll tell you what’s really scary, though.
Those times when my old heart just stops beating altogether. It
jerks me from sleep sometimes. Or from what passes as my sleep,
anyway. My sleep is a joke. I haven’t put together a good, solid
hour of deep sleep since my early childhood. Back when instead of
getting some good old regular childhood illness like the chickenpox
or the measles or mumps or even polio, I came down with an acute
case of the raging willies.

God only remembers why.
Probably just the prospect of all those tomorrows stretching before
me. And there’s no such thing as a vaccination or cure for the
raging willies. So I’ll finally doze off. The next thing I know,
I’m sitting bolt upright in bed with the sweats and shivers. Then I
notice this deafening silence. Then it hits me. The sound that’s
missing is the sound of my own heartbeat.

Target Practice

Jim and Ralph stood on a
rooftop deck in San Francisco’s North Beach passing joints while
they studied a fat full moon that moved palpably across a night sky
hysterical with stars. They were waxing philosophical. They did not
know that this would be the last time they would ever stand
together on this deck overlooking the lights of North Beach and the
dark Bay and a glowing Alcatraz Island beyond.

What Jim had been waxing
philosophical about was how a vanished race of ancient Indians,
people who were once alive on the curved surface of this planet not
unlike he and Ralph, had looked up into the night sky in wondering
dread and awe, and that hope that beat so humanly in their ancient
Indian hearts, and when those ancient Indians considered that fat
pie of a moon up yonder what they saw was not some mirror-image
ancient Indian man in the moon. Rather, what ancient Indians saw in
the moon were creatures from nature that were symbols of hope and
renewal, like a great leaping blue trout. Now, there’s the ultimate
big one you can never really land but which can never get away
either. Honest to God, old Ralph, ain’t that just the most
satisfactory fucken leaping blue trout in the moon you’ve ever seen
in your miserable life?