Bury This (20 page)

And Beth silent.

But tonight Shauna wanted to “forget it all, let it all hang out.”

She had to come, she insisted.

“C'mon. It'll be ladies' night! . . . It's ladies' night and the feeling's right . . . ”

And Beth relenting, guilty.

Wanting to say no . . . wanting to be only with Jeff, wanting to lie in Jeff's arms, curled up, slow fucking. Jeff. Jeff. Jeff. The pit of her stomach, a constant longing. A constant lack. Nothing makes sense, all is prologue, an endless smattering of pre-show music, the orchestra in the pit warming up, violins, reeds, strings, oboe. Until Jeff, swinging in, the symphony. The aria. The requiem.

And he's not here.

Watching Shauna at the pool table, bending consciously provocatively, to shoot the orange ball into the corner pocket. Lotta green in between. And the licking of lips. The endless need of hers to be noticed, be the center. Look at me. Men. Look at me! I am here. I exist.

(I exist because you see me.)

Beth slips out into the ladies' room, never meant for a lady. Plum-painted cement with black Sharpie marker, lipstick, pen graffiti. “Amy sucks donkey-dick.” “Berry's a fag.” “Todd and Mira True Love Always.” “For a good time call Carla: 1-800-SLUT-CITY.”

There's a stall in the back and toilet paper in wads and ribbons
on the ground. Beth waits by the mirror, pausing to catch herself. No, I'm not a rare beauty but I'm not that bad. I can't be. Jeff loves me. I am loved. I am beautiful now.

And here comes Shauna barging into the tiny cleaning-product vomit-girl room of Dreamers. All voice. Leaning in, best friends for sure, teetering sideways, speaking a little too loud.

“Lookit. I gotta talk to you.”

The toilet flushing from behind the stall. Out of the stall, skittering, a middle-age frazzled blonde ducks behind them and out the door.

“Beth, I don't want you to get hurt.”

In the background, Led Zeppelin screaming the speakers off.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jeff. I'm talking about Jeff. I know it's you, okay? I know about you and Jeff.”

“Shauna—”

“I just . . . I think you should know something.”

“Look, I don't—”

“I'm still fucking him.”

Suddenly the screaming music, far away, slowing down.

“I'm still fucking him, Beth. And I'm not the only one. I just don't want you to get hurt.”

Such a stupid kind of concern. A hate concern. A Sunday Baptist picnic concern. A gossip-over-deviled-eggs concern.

“But, hey, you know, what do you expect from a thug, right?”

Beth pushes past, out of this puke Windex plum box.

“You're drunk, Shauna.”

“Beth.”

And now, a sensitive smile, a look of concern . . . laying her hands on her shoulders gently.

“Beth. He gave me your locket. See. I have proof. He stole it from you and he gave it to me.”

And, magically, it appears now, that blue-and-white Wedgwood cameo locket, out of Shauna's hand. Evidence.

“Look. I'm real sorry, Beth. I couldn't believe it myself. I know how much this means to you. I just. Well, I really care about you and I thought you should know. And I wanted to give it back to you. 'Cause we're friends.”

The plum box getting smaller, crushing in, the walls of the trash-compactor toy death star. Closing in. Closer. Closer. Closer.

The walls closing in and Beth gulping up for air, seeing herself in the mirror, weak, defeated. Styrofoam trash in the trash compactor toy. Garbage.

Hands, hands, reaching up and over and out onto the lip of the sink. Throwing water on her face. Awake! Alert! Not a victim. Not a patsy. I'm no one's fool. I'm not a fool. Tearing off her sweater, letting down her hair. Now she's a girl with tousled hair in a flimsy white tank. Pinching her cheeks, she turns to her too-tall friend.

I need a drink.

Forgetting made easy, by the glass. Bottle up and explode, shatter your heart like a sunburst. You can't hurt me now, nothing can hurt me now. I am invincible. Led Zeppelin means I'm invincible. That steel crescendo, crushing time. Building up to me hurting you, I will get you back. See how I get you back. In gestures. Watch me now. I'd like to take this opportunity
to show you how it's done. I am trying to break your heart. I'll show you. I'm gonna show you tonight.

Some go softly. I go loud. Hit me again. I'm gonna burn this night to the ground.

Billy's here. He's the one that has it for me. I know what I will do with Billy. I know what I will do. Start slow. Start with laughing. Start with laughing and play swats. Turn this bar inside out. Play swats and giggling. Girl-style revenge, made easy by the glass. I can play pool, too. I can make that corner pocket shot and turn all eyes on me when I set it up, too. Look at me. All of you. Play swat and giggle. I will eat you alive. I will turn you against each other. Who gets me? Who gets me tonight? Wouldn't you like to know, fuckers, fight it out.

Shauna's taking pictures and I don't give a fuck. Look at me now. You don't stand a chance. You made a monster. The room starting to spin now, keep spinning spinning spinning. Let's spin this wonder wheel. Let's see what happens with Led Zeppelin in the background and me on laps, his lap and then his lap and then his. I can do what I want. Watch me now, fast and loose. Revenge made easy, by the glass. Here's how I hurt you back.

How quickly you can tear the night to pieces, stumbling forward into the back room. Dark, sweat-smelly, sticky-floor room with a passed-out drunk on a red puff booth, lining the walls. Beer swill and cigarette smoke drift drift drift with “Sympathy for the Devil” building up from the jukebox. Billy with his ash hair, tumbling down into the booth, yes, now it is coming.

I know how to make revenge in cool blows to the heart at dive bars. Watch this, Billy. Before you know it I am sitting on your lap.
Little girl jokes. “Tell me what you want for Christmas, little girl.” Ain't it a gas! What a hoot! I can pull your hand between my legs, under my skirt. Here, in a public place. In a back room with whiskey air and see-through smoke. Here. With that dead man snoring in the corner, belly up, I will show you how bad a good girl gets. Now, you never think I will do this but you never knew me anyway, yeah, that's right, we're in the back room of Dreamers, being bad bad bad but you are in love with this moment and we will kiss and lick and suck but you are not Jeff but we will kiss lick suck this heart to pieces, kick them to the floor and shatter the ground.

All you have to do is not think of Jeff. Not-Jeff. Not-Jeff. Jeff. Not you is who makes me go. Not-Jeff. Not-Jeff. Jeff is what makes me. Jeff doing this. Not-Jeff is the one between my legs now. Not-Jeff trying to burrow into me. Not-Jeff trying to lift my skirt. Not-Jeff thinking it's all a joke. Not-Jeff trying to get me.

Not you! Not you, fuckface!

Get the fuck away from me. Don't touch me. Get off me. No I don't care if you “get off,” go fuck yourself. Kicking you off me and leaving you cold, stumbling out the back door, through the parking lot, stumbling home.

Yeah, I left you high and dry, so what? That's how you get to see who I am. Yeah, I'm gone now before you knew what the fuck happened. Now you see me. Now you don't.

The blind light from the road swooshing by. I know, I know, I shouldn't be walking. Teetering home in the dead night, I can make it, it's not that far. Fuck Shauna. Fuck Shauna and her oh-so-earnest “I don't want you to get hurt.” Oh, yeah? Isn't that exactly what you want? Stupid cow. Pudding face.

Snow and ice-slush on the ground. I got this one. I got a home and a bed I can get to. I got a car pulling up now. A middle-age fat-bag with an unsteady smile.

“Need a lift? It's awful cold . . . ”

Tumbling back a step, taking him in. What would it be to get in a car with an ox of a stranger? Who would I be then? What would that make me?

It doesn't matter now. He's got me. He's got me, heave-ho, and lifting me to the passenger seat.

“We gotta get you someplace warm. Geesh. Your lips are blue.”

Who gives a fuck about my lips and someplace warm. There is nothing warm anymore. The front seat, a spinning cage, spinning dash, spinning rooftop, spinning window. Outside the street-lamps looming by like sentinels.

TWENTY

“I
just don't want you to get hurt.”

Giddy with satisfaction. Giddy with revenge. Giddy with watching it unfold. It's working. I think it's working.

Shauna sits tight. Rifling through, rifling through, watching Jeff from the corner of the room. Dark blue carpet and a wood cork wall. A picture of a lighthouse in a pale beech frame. A seascape.

Soon they would be shipping out to Scranton. All of them. Soon he would be gone. No more Jeff. No more dark hair and swagger and heart-killing nights at Dreamers.

She could make him love her. She could. It was easy. All she had to do was show him these pictures, tell him the story, get a few witnesses—if he needed. No, he wouldn't want anyone to know how deeply it struck.

Leveled.

Jeff, sitting on the far corner of the bed, muffled sheets of teal and peach, staring down at the tiny white squares.

There she is. Pictures in the middle of the white squares. Look at her. Boy, she is really the life of the party, this one. Let them paw you. Let them ogle you. Let them do what they like. My Beth. My little Beth. Elizabeth.

Not mine.

Not mine anymore.

Now she belongs to anyone. Now she opens her legs to anyone. Now she hikes up her skirt for anyone. What else does she do?

“I just thought you should know.”

A voice from the depths of the sea, not ten feet away, but a world away. A voice rings out of the darkness. Imagine. Coming out of this potato girl. Potato face. Girl made of pudding who I used to fuck. Look at her now. Standing there, earnest, yearning, leaning in, concerned tilted eyes. Professing what? What does this blue-jean girl in the earth-stripe sweater want with me? Why is she here? Why did she come here? Why is she still here?

Go away. Go away, blue jean. Just because I turned you out doesn't mean shit, you hear me. I turned you inside out like I did a million girls, a million times. Do you think I remember their names? I'm a fucking crook, for God's sake. A low-level jackleg crook, no less. Couldn't be more less. Yeah. I fucked you, pudding girl. White thighs. Why are you still here? What do you want from me?

Not enough pills to make it go down, not enough pills to erase it. Jeff swallowing the amber bottle, tipping it back like a shot glass, who the fuck cares, right?

“It's just. Beth is like that. I know. I'm her best friend. . . . She hurts people.”

What a crock! “She hurts people.” What after-school-special schoolhouse drama is this. “I'm her best friend.”

Some best friend.

Showing up here, out of the blue, out of some kind-heart act,
with pictures, evidence, of your oh-so-best-friend getting pawed, getting licked, getting off.

Out of the abyss, out of the blue pitch carpet, she's emerged, to spy, to report, to ruin.

“Jeff—”

Without a word pudding-face is pinned to the wall. A-ha! I've got you by the neck. Held up to the wall by your stupid neck, stupid face. I'll fucking kill you right now. I'll fucking strangle you right here at the Green Mill Inn. I will make you pay, you gloppy little piece of shit spy reporter. Shatterer.

Shatter her.

I will shatter her.

No, no, it's not you I want, pig-face. It never was. I want something else now. Something frail and beautiful and betraying. Something I wanted to take with me to Scranton. Something I wanted to marry and move to California and make a home with baby and Mommy and me. Something I would tear my hands on the stars reaching for.

Beth. My little Beth. Elizabeth.

Nobody makes a fool of me. Nobody.

TWENTY-ONE

W
aking up in an unknown place. Not knowing where, what happened, why am I here? Staring at the stranger pig on the sofa. A nice place. Made of brick. Wood floors even. An afghan pulled over him, stranger blob snores into the morning.

I woke up here. In this nice room, a bedroom, a boy bedroom. Man bedroom. King bed. Green sheets. Bedding. A design. A thought behind it. He lives here. This is his house. His green bedspread. His things. How did I get here? Waking up in an unknown bed, tucked in the sheets fully dressed, even my shoes. Funny.

Tiptoeing past the stranger and out the side door, through the pantry beige beige beige and out into the white snow blanket. Morning, no clouds now. Just crisp white sun and a bright blue sky, freezing cold, freezing cold bright white light glare off the snow. There's a sidewalk and a street and a diner four blocks down on the corner—look at that O
LD
M
ILWAUKEE
sign coming out from the brick-lined streets. Not far from the library. I know where we are. I know where I am. Me. I know where I woke up. Not far from the library. There's a diner and I'll call for a cab. Say I spent the night at Shauna's.