John's Wife: A Novel (62 page)

She could hear his nasal squawk in the darkness, calling down eternal hellfire and dangnation on all around him, a voice that belonged to her old life though she could not name it, knew only that she feared and hated it, yet loved it, too, in some sad painful way. There were other voices and a distant flickering of lights in the trees like insects in grass. They had passed close by, gone on, were coming back again. Her little friend who’d been helping her all day had vanished into the night and she was alone and hungry and afraid. There was more food somewhere but she couldn’t find it, she’d torn up the forest looking for it, until the men arrived and sent her scurrying for shelter. Now she squatted there in the scratchy darkness, trembling, waiting for she knew not what, nor knowing just what she’d do when the waiting ended. As his voice drew near, she remembered that he used to tie her up and yell at her and do bad things to her, though what he did exactly was less clear than how much it hurt and where, and how she couldn’t get away no matter how she tried. And he was kind to her sometimes, too, if she did the things he liked, and sometimes he cried and hugged her and called her his little baby, though this was bad because he always got angry afterwards and hurt her all the more. She closed her eyes and sniffed the air and picked up the odor of his old leather jacket, worn and often wet, which smelled like just-turned cider, and there were other smells as well, those of tobacco and body lotions and breaths soured by drinking, and the acrid smells of the sweat of men she might have known (she could almost taste them on her tongue), others strange to her, and the smells, too, of fear and excitement and confused desire, and when she opened her eyes they were standing all together down in the trees, shining their little lights on her, hushed it seemed by what they saw. Most of them had weapons, pointed at her, and bunched together like that, they looked like a single glittering animal with quills erect. A burly little fellow who was familiar to her stepped forward and shouted up at her through a thing in front of his face: “Pauline! We don’t aim to harm you none! It ain’t your fault, but you been seriously outa line here and you got the whole town shook up!” When he said her name, it brought back something about who she was, and she looked down between her legs and scratched herself there. This got the other voices going again and focused all the lights. “Now stop that, Pauline! Listen to me! You come along peaceful-like and we’ll figure out some way to take care of you and get you covered up proper and find you something to eat!” She was still afraid but his voice through that thing soothed her like something on the radio and she thought he might help her like her other friend did and she reached down toward him. He yelped and fell backwards, trying to get away, and there was a bang and then another one and something pinched her in the arm and suddenly there were more bangs and pinches and light beams flying in all directions and all those little men falling and scurrying away like they had wasps in their pants. The burly one jumped up and cried out: “No! Don’t shoot, goddamn it! Hold your fire!” Several of them had run off, but those who’d stayed picked themselves up and chittered and laughed nervously and hid behind trees to watch. There was a very funky smell all around her now and she knew they were afraid and there was nothing she could do to make them less afraid. It was then that the one whose squawky voice she had first recognized hopped forward with his hands and feet stuck together and came right up and stood by her knee with a rifle he’d picked up off the ground and shouted out that was enough, he’d send any sinner here to hell and beyond who tried to hurt his little girl. “We ain’t fixing to hurt anyone, Duwayne,” said the burly one, coming forward. “You done your bit. Now get your ass back here before it gets shot off!” She picked the chubby little fellow up and put him in her lap so the one with the rifle wouldn’t shoot him. All the others went scrambling away again and there were more bangs and shouts: “You okay, Otis—?!” “Christ-amighty, what do we do now—?!” “Nothing!” he yelled back, hanging onto her tummy wrinkles. “Don’t shoot! It’s all right! Just gimme a minute to think!” “It ain’t all right, you miserable hind tit of the goddang Prince of Darkness! The time of the tribulation is at hand!” Ah. She remembered that. And the wide gate and the narrow gate, and the rod of wrath that always got stuck into both of them. And something else: that this was the one who’d done something bad to her mother and sister. She’d nearly forgotten that, but it came back to her now clear as a picture in a storybook when everything else in her head was slipping away. She lifted him up to have a better look. “No, I never,” he protested. “I done a lotta sinful shit in my time, Pauline, mostly on accounta demon drink, but I never done that.” He was wriggling around in her fist, so she squeezed a little harder, while cuddling the other one close against her tummy. “Now hold on, Pauline! Your momma killt your sister with her kitchen shears, and she was gonna git you, too, that whorish old gash had the devil in her, so I, you know, brought an end to her persecutions before she could do her wickedest.” An end? “Well, we got company here, Pauline. Let’s say I chased her diabolical hellhole off the premises and she ain’t been beholden since. Hey! Wait a minute! The wicked hosts is them down there! Smite
them
, not me! Not your own daddy! Pauline—?!
Stop!”

Rex, though invited to the party, missed all this, his odor not among those that Pauline sniffed out, nor would she have recognized it had it been, for he was not of this place. He of those mighty pecs, traps, and dorsals that Nevada so admired was at the moment jogging toward the road out to his motel, mission accomplished (not of this place, not yet, but soon), not exactly as he’d scored it, but close enough that the original tune could still be heard. He’d been surprised when the scrawny dweeb who’d stolen the truck turned up in old Stu’s office out of nowhere like that, but he’d struck him a quick blow with the rifle butt that had caved his wispy-haired conk in like an overripe melon. Okay, so forget the old vendetta against John, my man, play the changes, improvise: put the rifle in the dingaling’s hands and let Stu shoot him with the pistol, the perfect crime. He’d pulled the door closed, arranged both bodies, turned to load Stu’s handgun, and when he’d turned back the door was still closed but the dingaling was gone. The next thing he’d heard: a van driving away. Hey, more to think about, but no sweat, back to the main theme. The head. Get John. He’d been tempted to speed things up with a car off the lot, why not, the place was half his now, he could take a new Connie for a spin, for example, but, no, play it like it’s written, man, save the joyrides for your fat tomorrows. More problems at the airport where he’d intended to return the murder weapon to John’s gun cabinet, but this time found the office door locked. He was just resolving that when the police showed up with some drunken tourists, and he thought for a bad moment he might have to waste all these people, few of whom seemed armed, but none friendly. Not a pretty thought, but life was like that sometimes. When the ancient bumpkin with the long snout reached for his rifle, he figured he’d have to be the first to go, but then it leaked through to his hyped-up nut that these yoyos thought he was on their side. So he was. Cool, man. What’s your story? They had to go shoot a woman. Sounded like a dead moose hunt to Rex, not his scene, but he went along with them until he could find a chance to break away. The redneck copper made it easy for him by posting him as a rearguard tailgunner, the only witnesses to his stealthy withdrawal being the preacher’s kid and some buddy, sitting by themselves in a ditch he was cutting through on his way out of the woods. He recognized the little dumbfuck more by his sudden panic than by his plastered-up face, which looked like a hockey mask glowing faintly in the dark. By now he’d shed the ax, so Rex just grinned as he loped past and chanted out an “Our Father,” his retreat marred only by the shit he had to slop through at the bottom of the ditch. Speaking of slopping in shit, he had a score to settle with old Daph next time he saw her: the bitch had lost her nerve, her tip-off meaning the body’d been found much too soon to suit him. But not tonight, she could sweat this one out on her own. Tonight, after this long run: a good shower, a joint, some jazz, and then, never know, Nevada might drop by, they could celebrate their latest business successes together. A pair of real tycoons, they were. A Porsche came bombing up from behind, roared past, making his sweats flap, then screeched to a spitting fishtailing halt a few hundred yards ahead. Rex knew this wet dream machine. He’d had to bathe and pamper it for John when he worked out at the airport, and had had a run or two in it himself at times when John was up balling some bird in the sky, being careful to set the speedometer back and top up from the airport tanks afterwards, John being touchy about people playing with his toys. So what did the abusive shit want now? Too late to switch tracks; Rex trotted up to the car, ready to punch him out if it came to that, and John’s barebreasted daughter opened the door and stepped out and asked him, leaning back and stroking her crotch, if he wanted a ride. It was like Christmas: his alibi, his shot at John, and a hot lick or two to top off the night, all handed to him gift-wrapped. The kid was fried to a crisp, her eyes like stones: her pinpoint-nippled tits showed more expression. Sure, baby, he said. What kind of ride can you give me? Get ready to fly, mister, she said. But, first, off with the sweats. Off—? Take them off! They stink, I don’t want them in the car! Come on! Is there nothing but blushing wimps around here? She whipped off her own shorts as a challenge and flung them over the hood into the weeds beyond, glared at him for a moment while he took in the lightning-illuminated sights, then she popped back in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. You coming or not, ace? Wouldn’t miss it for anything. He kicked off his shit-stained runners, peeled his socks away, stripped off the sweats, the jockstrap. Took his time about it. She watched him all the while but he wasn’t sure she could actually see anything, so ripped was she. He wasn’t hard but didn’t want to be. That’s pretty good, she said. You do that in front of a mirror every day? The little ball-buster. Every day, all day, he said, just waiting for you to come along. He dropped his bare ass onto the soft leather. You blow a pretty mean horn for such a scrawny little snotnose. Let’s see if you know shit about driving this mother. She hit the floorboard and they spun out of there, popping gravel, hit fifty at the first crossing, were doing better than eighty when she ran the first light. She had a lean adolescent shape with a prominent ass, a little slack, sinewy thighs, breasts like small muffins, was probably still a cherry; should be fun, he figured, in a fragile kiddiefuck sort of way. She stayed on the back roads, not all paved, doing over a hundred on straights and not much less on turns, took intersections without a slowdown, left the ground more than once, then hit rock bottom, never taking her bare foot off the pedal. Okay, mister, she said. Eat me. Sure thing, doll, but that wheel cramps my table manners. I got a—
Now!
she demanded, lifting her left foot off the brake pedal and up on the seat, knee against the door. Get to it, asshole, or get out! He figured this was not the moment to slap the little mink and so instead worked his fingers into her pussy, trying to open up a groove, but it was tight as a green walnut down there. This was going to be like blowing a stoppered sweet potato. As he leaned down to search out a mouthpiece with his tongue, he glimpsed something looming up ahead of them in the road. It was that old humpback bridge out by the selfsame woods he’d just departed, coming at them out of the heavy night at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
“Now! “
she yelled, and jammed his head down under the wheel between her trembling thighs.

When the murderer came jogging through the ditch in Settler’s Woods, Fish—or Philip, rather—was just telling Turtle that he’d finally grown out of being hung up on Clarissa and that now that his sister had taken off, he’d soon be leaving, too, which Turtle was sorry to hear. “Why can’t you at least stay until I finish school, so I can go, too?” The breaking up of an old friendship was a hard thing. Though maybe it was already over. Fish, who didn’t want to be called Fish anymore, wouldn’t even talk to Turtle at the barbecue at first and said he was disgusting and stank like something dead and made him sick. Fish had finally got over his crummy mood and apologized, saying mostly he was just upset about the new baby, but every time Turtle tried to tell him about the amazing things he’d seen, about all the fornicators and the splitting movie screen and the beautiful colors and what happened when his weenie exploded, Fish told him to shut up, he really didn’t want to hear about it, and anyway it was stupid and boring, and asked him instead: “What made your old man so mad? Why did he hit you?” “He said it was all my fault, I’d made him lose something.” “Lose what?” “He wouldn’t say.” The police had come to Clarissa’s house then and asked for volunteers to hunt a monster lady and Fish had volunteered and then so had Turtle, but the police told them they were too young, go home and go to bed, which got Fish mad again. “I’ve done more stuff today than those dickheads have done in a lifetime,” he said mysteriously, scowling around the bandage in the middle of his face. “Let’s go out there anyhow.” That suited Turtle. His old man had promised him a good tanning, so he was in no hurry to go home. On the way out, passing under a streetlamp, Fish showed him the hickey on his neck that an older woman had given him that day and told him then all about what had happened in his father’s library. “You mean you fornicated her?” “I didn’t fornicate her, man, I fucked her! Lots of times!” “Yeah, really? Is that different?” “Sure. It’s not what you do, but how you feel about it while you’re doing it.” He told him about the game the woman had played with him, seeing who could think of the most names for the things she pointed to in the pictures in his father’s books. “She said talking dirty made her hot. Proper words like fornication and penis and vagina didn’t even count. She always won, of course. But, boy, I really learned a lot!” “Yeah, me too. One thing I saw—” “I said shut up about all that!” “Yeah, sorry, Fish, I keep forgetting.” “And don’t call me Fish!” “Right.” “You know what else she said? She said I had a prong like a Tex-Mex chilidog! She said fucking with me was like dipping a jalapeño pepper in a pot of hot sauce!” “Wow! That’s great! Was it?” “Sort of. Better even.” They’d reached the meeting place just in time and had hovered at the edge while the police chief gave all the orders and then led everybody into the woods, bellowing through his bullhorn: “We’ll all stay together now!” But they didn’t. He and Fish peeled off at the ravine because Fish said he saw a man with a gun who was a murderer and who might want to kill him. “Why?” “Because I know he’s a murderer. And I fucked his old lady.” Fish was full of surprises. Turtle had missed a lot while he was gone. It was nice and quiet in the ravine, and Fish was in the middle of explaining about wet thighs (“I don’t know, they just sweat or something, it’s messy but it’s great!”), he was full of conversation now, so they stayed there to talk awhile. “It was the first time my athlete’s feet didn’t itch.” Turtle sat down on a round stone and, while trying to make himself comfortable, found a sort of wristband and put it on. “Kind of frilly, isn’t it? Looks more like something a girl would wear.” “I don’t care.” It was weird talking to Fish in the dark because the white bandage around his nose was like his whole face, only a midget face, it even had little dents and shadows that looked like eyes and a mouth, so Turtle kept talking to the bandage eyes instead of the real ones. “Do you smell something funny here?” Turtle asked. “You know, something like a toilet?” “Are you kidding? I can’t smell anything!” Turtle asked him why Clarissa’s father had hit him, and Fish said he didn’t have the foggiest idea, it was the biggest surprise he ever got, but it had sort of cured him of ever being interested in Clarissa again. Which was when that man came running past and Fish jumped up like he was going to run away and whispered that was the one, that was the murderer, even though he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer and cried out to Jesus Christ from the bottom of the ditch. When he was gone, Fish sat down again and said that praying didn’t mean he was religious, in fact just the opposite, that scum was really an atheist and a blasphemer. Turtle tried to get Fish to talk about doing it to the man’s wife, but Fish suddenly didn’t want to talk about sex anymore. So instead they talked about religion, Turtle asking him what blasphemy was. “It’s like swearing, or when you make fun of religion.” “You mean, like when we say, ‘Our Father which fart in heaven, hollow by Thy name?’” “Like that.” “What happens if you do blasphemy?” “You go to hell forever and ever.” “Wow, maybe we better stop.” “But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe there is a hell.” “You don’t?” “I don’t know what I believe anymore. I don’t think I believe anything. Nevada said religion was for wimps.” “Nevada?” “The woman I was telling you about. She made me read the Bible out loud, putting dirty words in place of the ordinary ones while she gave me head. It was maybe the most religious experience I ever had.” “While she what?” But before Fish could answer, they heard yelling and gunshots and then people running their way, so they jumped up and started to run, too. When they reached the road into town, they stayed at the edge of the woods so they wouldn’t be seen, though Turtle didn’t know exactly what the secret was about. He heard the crackle of fireworks and then a spooky noise like a far-off howl and he glanced up in the sky and saw a surprising thing. “Wow! Look!” How did he
do
that?! “Shut up! Here comes a car!” “No, look! Up there!” He had his hands together and his feet and he was pumping wildly like he was riding a pogo stick. Was that the trick? “There’s a guy flying!” There was a far-off ripple of lightning just as his ballcap flew off. “Yeah, sure, but come on, duck down before they see you!” “No, really!” But the flying man was already gone and Fish was dragging him down into the bushes as a car shot past on the road. “What are we hiding for? Why can’t we just ask them for a ride?” “Don’t be such a dumb jerk! Those old farts are completely out of control! They’ll shoot at anything that moves!”