Inappropriate Behavior: Stories (10 page)

Give me one of those bumper stickers right now, young man, the Dry Lady says. Her scarf is a swirly red and purple paisley. She points at the bumper stickers in the milk crate on the ground near my left shoe. I move between the Dry Lady and the crate, nudge the crate backward with my heel. I still have not said a word.

What are you, some kind of idiot? the Dry Lady says. Are you nuts? Are you retarded? I'll have you know I am an extraordinarily influential Lubbock voter. And I'd say you just lost my vote. And I'm calling the campaign. I'll talk to the candidate himself about you. I can't believe that the nice young man I saw speaking the other night would have anything to do with you. I believe if he saw this he'd throw you in jail. That's where you belong. You fat jerk.

I still have not said a word. I have a gun at home, and from now on I'm bringing it to work. From now on, I'm bringing it everywhere. Lubbock is lubricious. Clive does not know about the gun.

Here is a man who stood up.

A small crowd begins to gather at the corner of Broadway and Tenth. Five or six people. Some of them I've seen before, walking around. We don't want to give bumper stickers to just anyone off the street. But today I give each member of the gathering crowd a bumper sticker—the couple of students who have wandered by, wondering what all the yelling is about, the guy who runs the sandwich shop across the street, the taxi driver, the old professor who shuffles by every weekday at this time, his briefcase scuffed and worn. I have to actually move out of the crowd to hand him a bumper sticker, and he looks confused at first and backs away, putting up his briefcase in front of his chest, and when I move toward him, the Dry Lady goes for my milk crate.

Here is a man who stood up.

I dive back into the small crowd and lunge for the milk crate. The Dry Lady's hand is nearly inside the crate, she nearly has
her hand on a bumper sticker when I land on the crate, and her, and we're rolling out into Broadway. The Dry Lady is slapping at my head and my hands, and I'm trying to cover the crate and push her away and stand up all at once, and instead we both roll over again, farther into the street, and horns are honking, and the milk crate upends, spilling fliers and bumper stickers into the street, where all the people who have gathered, many more, most of them students, have now run into the street to grab the literature.

The Dry Lady is screaming and scratching at me. She scratches my face terribly, from just below my right eye all the way across my mouth and down onto my neck. Other people are grabbing at us now, hands on me, pulling, grabbing, kicking, several people.

When they finally pull us to our feet, the sleeve of the Dry Lady's shimmery shirt has been torn from her shoulder, her scarf is gone, and she's bleeding heavily from her mouth. My milk crate is still in my hand, but it's empty, and people are running everywhere with fliers and bumper stickers. There are two men yelling at me, and a man and woman are leaning in to talk to the Dry Lady, who is touching her hair with her hands and breathing quickly. My face hurts very badly and there's something wet in my shoes. But the Dry Lady does not have a bumper sticker, because here is a man who stood up.

You stay here with him, one of the men holding me says to the other one. I'm going to go get a cop. The other man holding me is very small, and when I turn to look at him it appears he has no interest in holding me. I pull my arm away from him, and he says—Wait a minute, buddy. But I don't wait. I walk back to the corner of Broadway and Tenth. We've rolled around for nearly half the block.

Across the street, on the campus green, a group has formed around a hipster guy in a striped pink shirt, who is holding my sign with the candidate's face and jumping up and down. The students all seem to have bumper stickers, and they're peeling them and sticking them on their shirtfronts.

Allison is at the edge of the crowd with her little slut roommate, who is letting another hipster boy stick the bumper sticker to her rear end. Soon the hipster with the sign has formed his group into a parade, and he's off, leading the students in a happy march up the hill toward Bledsoe Hall. Allison looks back over her shoulder, once, for a brief second, and she recognizes me. She looks at me, and in that moment, for the first time in what has to be months, I smile. I know I'm smiling because it hurts my mouth where the Dry Lady scratched me. Allison is about to smile back, but just then that little bitch monster of a roommate comes to her and pulls her away, and off they run, chasing the hipster with my sign and laughing. I watch them finally disappear over the hill.

Up the street, the man from before is coming back with a cop. I turn toward the campus, where some people are still milling around, and looking away, I move quickly toward the English and Philosophy Building. I plan to ask my English teacher for asylum if I have to. I perform several acts of tactical evasion, including blending in with a crowd that has gathered to hear someone recite Shakespeare, and I cross from there into the cafeteria, and back through Lowndes Hall to Eighth Street, where I've parked my car. I've escaped.

It is one week until Election Day. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention.

Song for Jodie #186 (an urgent ballad)

When you smile at me

I know you're just a child

I know you're just a child

When you smile—————————

Clive says—The police called, your brother called, the landlord called, when are you going to pay the rent, have you seen my latest copy of
Field & Stream
, what happened to your face?

It's 2:15 a.m. outside Knapp Hall. Allison is inside, her light is out. This is the third time I've walked around the dorm tonight. I can't sleep nights. I haven't had a solid bowel movement in over a week. I feel something is building here. This afternoon, fighting with the Dry Lady, I felt that if someone killed me, if a cop or somebody walked up and shot me dead on the streets of Lubbock, Texas, it wouldn't mean anything, that they wouldn't even file a report or give me a funeral.

I am not a person like other people.

After the fight with the Dry Lady, my brother said I couldn't stand on the corner anymore. He said the police had come to campaign headquarters looking for me. He said, Why can't you just do one thing right, John? He said he was being demoted.

This is the third time now the security guard has seen me pass the front doors of Knapp Hall. He comes outside and stands on the steps, looks at me. I keep moving toward the corner of the building. I keep looking up at Allison's window. I keep looking at the security guard, because I want him to. I really do. I want him to, just this once.

I have the gun tucked in my windbreaker. From now on, I carry it everywhere I go. It finally made sense to me after I killed Clive earlier tonight. The whole thing, for the past several weeks at least, has been planned by someone who means me harm.

I think a person ought to be like other people. I don't have that exactly right.

Anyway, I left Clive dead on the couch with four holes in his chest. Later, I will take him out into the desert and bury him.

Hey, buddy, the security guard says. The security guard is slim and wiry. I have always had great respect for the wiry.

Hey, he calls again, coming farther down the steps. What do you want around here, pal?

This is what I've wanted, what I want. So why do I keep walking? I suddenly think that maybe this wiry security guard has kids. That, even if it is a plan, and my brother and my father and Clive and the candidate and the hipster and Allison and her roommate and the Dry Lady are all involved, this guy's just a security guard who would be working here whether they ever launched their plan or not. At the very least, my studies have suffered irreparably, and you don't have the right to do that to other people. For any reason.

I keep walking, putting my head down. I only want to check one more time, to make one more circle round, then I'll go to my car, drive home, put Clive's body in the trunk, and take him out to the desert to bury him.

Now the security guard is coming toward me. I can hear him behind me, feel him reaching for me.

What's the problem, buddy?

I turn.

Jesus, he says, what happened to your face?

I point to Allison's dark window.

You see that bitch up there in that window?

He turns to look. I move my hand inside the pocket of my windbreaker and take it out. He looks back at me. He does not have a gun, but he sees that I have one, and he puts up his hands and begins to back away.

Take it easy, buddy, he says now, his palms facing me, shaking. I fire one shot just past his ear. Lights go on in Knapp Hall. The security guard falls to the ground and curls into a ball with his hands over his head. I fire one more shot at the front door. The bullet makes a tiny hole the size and shape of a nipple in the glass before continuing its trajectory through the building,
unseen. More lights come on. The light in Allison's room comes on. I see her face in the window. I hear voices around me.

It took three days to find a good spot to bury Clive. Texas is large. I was surprised at how I felt when I put Clive in the ground. I was touched by the look on his face and the sadness I experienced, which I think must be like the sadness other people might experience in a similar situation. After I buried him, I said a few words over his grave.

The night I buried him, I stayed in a motel in Plainview, where I had an exquisite and perfectly natural bowel movement. Almost a foot long, well-turned, smooth, colored in an appropriately normal way. It left no seepage afterward, and I felt so light I could fly. I thought at that moment—this is how people always feel.