In Persuasion Nation (14 page)

"Buddy, no, bad dog!" Doris shouts from the living room.

"Yikes," says Buddy, and hops down from the chair, and
skids out of the kitchen.

What the heck is up with Buddy? Brad wonders. He's "advocated"
for Brad? He finds Brad "workable"?

Possibly the self-castration has made Buddy a little mental.

Brad returns to the living room. Doris, on the love seat, wearing the
black lace bustier Brad bought her last Christmas, is straddling
Chief Wayne, who, pants around his ankles, is kissing Doris's neck.

"Doris, my God!" shouts Brad.

Doris and Chief Wayne? It makes no sense. Chief Wayne is at least ten
years older than they are, and is overweight and has red hair all
over his back and growing out of his ears.

"Doris," Brad says. "I don't understand."

"I can explain, Bradster!" Chief Wayne says. "You've
just been TotallyFukked!"

"And so have I!" says Doris. "No, just kidding! Brad,
lighten up! See, look here! We kept a thin layer of protective
cellophane between us at all times!"

"Come on, pal, what did you think?" says Chief Wayne. "Did
you honestly think I'd let your beautiful wife straddle and pump me
right here, in your living room, wearing the bustier you bought her
last Christmas, without using a thin layer of protective cellophane?"

It's
true. There's a thin layer of protective cellophane draped over Chief
Wayne's legs, chest, and huge swollen member. A TotallyFukked
cameraman steps out from behind a potted plant, with a release form,
which Doris signs on Brad's behalf.

"Gosh, honey, the look on your face!" Doris says.

"He sure takes things serious," says Chief Wayne.

"Too serious," says Doris.

"Is he crying?" says Chief Wayne.

"Brad, honestly, lighten up!" says Doris. "Things are
finally starting to get fun around here."

"Brad, please don't go all earnest on us," says Chief
Wayne.

"Yes, don't go all earnest on us, Brad," says Doris. "Or
next time we TotallyFukk you, we'll remove that thin sheet of
protective cellophane."

"And wouldn't that be a relief," says Chief Wayne.

"Well yes and no," says Doris. "I love Brad."

"You love Brad but you're hot for me," says Chief Wayne.

"Well,
I'm hot for Brad too," says Doris. "If only he wasn't so
earnest all the time."

Brad looks at Doris. All he's ever wanted is to make her happy. But
he never really has, not yet. Not when he bought her six hats, not
when he covered the bedroom floor with rose petals, not when he tried
to cook her favorite dish and nearly burned the house down.

What
right does he have to be worrying about the problems of the
world when he can't even make his own wife happy? How arrogant is
that? Maybe a man's first responsibility is to make a viable
home. If everybody made a viable home, the world would be a connected
network of viable homes. Maybe he's been mistaken, worrying about the
Belstonians and the Filipinos, when he should have been worrying
about his own wife.

He thinks he knows what he has to do.

The tallest Filipino child graciously accepts Brad's apology, then
leads the rest of the Filipinos away, down Eiderdown Path, across
Leaping Fawn Way, Bullfrog Terrace, and Waddling Gosling Place.

Brad asks Chief Wayne to leave.

Chief Wayne leaves.

Doris stands in the middle of the corn-filled living room, looking
gorgeous.

"Oh, you really do love me, don't you?" she says, and
kisses Brad while sliding his hands up to her full hot breasts.

We see from the way Doris tosses her bustier over Buddy, so Buddy
won't see what she and Brad are about to do, and the way Buddy
winces, because the bustier has landed on his genital stitches,
that Buddy is in for a very long night, as is Brad, and also, that
it's time for a commercial.

Back at the Carrigans', Doris's family is over for the usual Sunday
dinner of prime rib, Carolina ham, roast beef, Alaskan salmon, mashed
potatoes, fresh-baked rolls, and asparagus à la Monterey.

"What a meal," says Grandpa Kirk, Doris's father.

"We are so lucky," says Grandma Sally, Doris's mother.

Brad
feels incredibly lucky. Last night they did it in the living
room, then in the bathroom, then twice more in the bedroom.
Doris admitted she wasn't hot for Chief Wayne, exactly, just bored,
plus she admired Wayne's direct and positive way of dealing with
life, so untainted by neurotic doubts and fears.

"I guess I just want some fun," she'd said. "Maybe
that's how I'd put it."

"I know," Brad had said. "I get that now."

"I just want to take life as we find it and enjoy its richness,"
Doris had said. "I don't want to waste my life worrying
worrying worrying."

"I totally agree with you," Brad had said.

Then Doris disappeared beneath the covers and took him in her mouth
for the third time that night. Remembering last night, Brad starts to
get what Doris calls a Twinkie, and to counteract his mild growing
Twinkie, imagines the Winstons' boxer, Mr. Maggs, being hit by a car.

"This meal we just ate?" says Aunt Lydia. "In many
countries, this sort of meal would only be eaten by royalty."

"There are countries where people could live one year on what we
throw out in one week," says Grandpa Kirk.

"I thought it was they could live one year on what we throw out
in one day," says Grandma Sally.

"I thought it was they could live ten years on what we throw out
in one minute," says Uncle Gus.

"Well anyway," says Doris. "We are very lucky."

"I like what you kids have done with the place," says Aunt
Lydia. "The corn and all?"

"Very autumnal," says Grandpa Kirk.

Just
then from the TV comes the brash martial music that indicates an
UrgentUpdateNewsMinute.

Americans are eating more quail. Special quail farms capable of
producing ten thousand quail a day are being built along the Brazos
River. The bad news is, Americans are eating less pig. The upside is,
the excess pigs are being slaughtered for feed for the quail. The
additional upside is, ground-up quail beaks make excellent filler for
the new national trend of butt implants, far superior to the
traditional butt-implant filler of ground-up dog spines. Also, there
has been a shocking upturn in the number of African AIDS babies.
Fifteen hundred are now dying each day. Previously, only four hundred
a day were dying. An emaciated baby covered with flies is shown,
lying in a kind of trough.

"We are so lucky," says Aunt Lydia.

"There is no country in the history of the world as lucky as
us," says Grandpa Kirk. "No country where people lived as
long or as well, with as much dignity and freedom. Not the Romans.
Not the Grecos."

"Not to mention infant mortality," says Uncle Gus.

"That's what I'm saying," says Grandpa Kirk. "In other
countries, you go to a graveyard, you see tons of baby graves. Here,
you don't see hardly any."

"Unless there was a car accident," says Uncle Gus.

"A car accident involving a daycare van," says Grandpa
Kirk.

"Or if someone fell down the steps holding infant twins,"
suggests Grandma Sally.

Some additional babies covered with flies are shown in additional
troughs, along with several grieving mothers, also covered with
flies.

"That is so sad," says Aunt Lydia. "I can hardly stand
to watch it."

"I can't stand to watch it," says Uncle Gus, turning away.

"So why not change it?" says Grandma Sally.

Doris changes it.

On TV six women in prison shirts move around a filthy house.

"Oh
I know this one," says Grandma Sally. "This is
Kill the
Ho
."

"Isn't
it
Kill Which Ho
?" says Aunt Lydia.

"Isn't
it
Which Ho Should We Kill
?" says Grandpa Kirk.

"All
six are loose, poor, and irresponsible!" the announcer says.
"But which Ho do you hate the most? Which should die? America
decides, America votes, coming this fall, on
Kill the Ho
!"

"Told
you," says Grandma Sally. "Told you it was
Kill the Ho
."

"They
don't actually kill them though," says Grandpa Kirk. "They
just do it on computers."

"They show how it would look if they killed that particular
Ho," says Uncle Gus.

Then it starts to rain, and from the backyard comes a horrible
scream. Brad tenses. He waits for someone to say: What the hell is
that screaming?

But nobody seems to hear it. Everyone just keeps on eating.

We see from the concerned look on Brad's face, and the way he throws
back his chair, and the concerned look Doris shoots him for throwing
back his chair in the middle of dinner, that it's time for a
commercial.

Back at the Carrigans', Brad is struggling through a downpour in the
familiar Carrigan backyard.

"What is it?" Brad shouts. "Why are you screaming?"

"It's the rain," screams the corpse who died fending off
blows. "We find it unbearably painful. The dead do. Especially
the dead not at peace at the time of their deaths."

"I never heard that before," says Brad.

"Trust me," says the corpse who died fending off blows.

The corpses, on their backs, are doing the weirdest craziest writhing
dance. They do it ceaselessly, hands opening and closing, feet
bending and straightening. With all that motion, their dried hides
are developing surficial cracks.

"What can I do?" says Brad.

"Get us inside," gasps the woman corpse.

Brad drags the corpses inside. Because the house is a ranch house and
has no basement, he puts the corpses in the back entry, near a bag of
grass seed and a sled.

"Is that better?" Brad says.

"We can't even begin to tell you," says the corpse who died
fending off blows.

Brad goes back to the dining room, where Doris is serving apple
pie, peach pie, raspberry pie, sherbet, sorbet, coffee, and tea.

"Anything wrong, hon?" says Doris. "We're just having
second dessert. Say, what's that on your shirt?"

On Brad's shirt is a black stain, which looks like charcoal but is
actually corpse mud.

"Go change, silly," says Doris. "You're soaked to the
bone. I can see your nipples."

Doris gives him a double-raise of her eyebrows, to indicate that the
sight of his nipples has put her in mind of last night.

Brad goes into the bedroom, puts on a new button-down. Then he hears
something heavy crashing to the floor and rushes out to find Doris
sprawled in the back entry, staring in horror at the charred corpses.

"Bradley, how could you?" she hisses. "Is this your
idea of a joke? Is this you getting revenge on me in a
passive-aggressive way because I wouldn't let you waste our corn?"

"The rain hurts them," Brad says.

"Having my entry full of dead corpses hurts me, Brad,"
Doris says. "Did you ever think of that?"

"No, I mean it physically hurts them," says Brad.

"After all we shared last night, you pull this stunt?"
Doris says. "Oh, you break my heart. Why does everything have to
be so sad to you? Why do you have so many negative opinions about
things you don't know about, like foreign countries and diseases and
everything? Why can't you be more like Chief Wayne? He has zero
opinions. He's just upbeat."

"Doris,
I—" says Brad.

"I
want them out," Doris says. "I want them out now, dumbass,
and I want you to mop this entry, and then I want you to mop it
again, shake out the rug, and also I may have you repaint that wall.
Why do I have to live like this? The Elliots don't have corpses in
their yard. Millie doesn't. Kate Ronston doesn't. The Winstons don't
have any Filipinos trying to plunder their indoor vegetables. Only
us. Only me. It's like I'm living the wrong life."

Doris storms back to the kitchen, high heels clicking sexily on
the linoleum.

Dumbass? Brad thinks.

Doris has never spoken so harshly to him, not even when he
accidentally threw her favorite skirt in the garbage and had to dig
it out by flashlight and a racoon came and looked at him quizzically.

Brad remembers when old Mrs. Giannelli got Lou Gehrig's disease and
began losing the use of her muscles, and Doris organized over
three hundred people from the community to provide round-the-clock
care. He remembers when the little neighborhood retarded boy, Roger,
was being excluded from ball games, and Doris herself volunteered to
be captain and picked Roger first.

That was Doris.

This woman, he doesn't know who she is.

"Your wife has a temper," says the corpse who died fending
off blows. "I mean, no offense."

"She is pretty, though," says the one-armed corpse.

"The
way they say it here?" says the woman corpse. "They say:
'She is hot."'

"Your wife is hot," says the one-armed corpse.

"Are you really going to put us back out there, Brad?" says
the woman corpse, her voice breaking.

It seems to be raining even harder.

Once,
back in Brad's childhood, Brad knows, from one of his eight Childhood
Flashbacks, his grizzled grandfather, Old Rex, took him to the zoo on
the Fourth of July. Near the bear cage they found a sparrow with its
foot stuck in a melted marshmallow. When Old Rex stopped to pull the
sparrow out, Brad felt embarrassed. Everyone was watching. Hitching
up his belt, Old Rex said:
Come on, pardner, we're free, we're
healthy, we've got the time who's gonna save this little dude, if not
us?

Then Old Rex used his pocketknife to gently scrape away the residual
marshmallow. Then Old Rex took the sparrow to a fountain and rinsed
off its foot, and put it safely on a high branch. Then Old Rex lifted
little Brad onto his shoulders and some fireworks went off and they
went to watch the dolphins.

Now that was a man, Brad thinks.