Poachers (13 page)

“Who made that?” Paul wants to know.

“Jan. In art school.”

“Damn.” He takes the glass I offer.

“She’s for sale,” I say.

We sip, eye the pregnant lady.

“How much?” Paul asks. “Not cheap, I bet.”

“You’ll have to ask the artist.” It sounds more sarcastic than I mean it to.

“Bet she’d cost a small mint,” he says. “Christ, she’s beautiful.” He reaches a finger out, touches her breast.

“Paul,” I say, glancing toward the kitchen.

“Nice tits,” he says.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Hell, yeah.” He takes out his cigarettes, taps the pack against his palm.

“How often”—I lower my voice—“do you and Prissy, you know, do it?”

He closes one eye while he lights a cigarette.

I raise my hand. “If it’s too personal…”

“No,” he says. “I’d guesstimate about three, four times a week. More during the holidays. Vacations. Why?”

I finish my wine. “Jan and I, we hardly ever do it.”

In the kitchen, the girls laugh.

“Jesus,” Paul says. “Y’all’ve only been married what, two years?”

“Eight or nine months.”

“Jesus. When me and Prissy first got married, we did it every night for like the first year.”

“If it was up to me,” I say, refilling my glass, “so would we. But Jan’s frigid or something. I don’t know. She never gets horny. If it was up to her, we’d never do it.”

“Jesus.”

“Even on our honeymoon. She was still pissed about my bachelor party, so then I get pissed and go, ‘You wanna just skip it?’ and she’s like, ‘No, we ought to consummate.’ Shit. What a word. ‘Consummate.’”

I drain my glass. Paul finishes his, too, and I pour us more.

“With Prissy it’s something about how she was brought up,” he says. “I don’t think she’s ever turned me down. Even if we’re throwing ashtrays and picture frames at each other all afternoon, once we hit that bed, boom. She’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

His eyebrows go up. “Name it.”

“How long have y’all been married?”

He thinks. “Nine years?”

We don’t say anything. You can hear the girls chattering in the kitchen.

Then I say, “Jan claims it has to do with losing the baby…. She says it’ll get better. That I have to be patient.”

“Yeah, that was probably tough on her. How long’s it been?”

“Like three months. But I’m not sure it’s just that. I think she’s really frigid and this gives her an excuse. Hell, even when she does let me, she just lies there. Won’t even put her arms around me. Never says anything. I’ll be like, ‘Want to?’ And sometimes, if she went shopping and bought new shoes or something, she’ll go, ‘Okay,’ and follows me into the bedroom and drops her panties and gets on the bed and goes, ‘Do it.’”

“Have a drink,” Paul says.

I fill my glass to its rim, then fill his. “Cheers,” I say.

“I wish I knew—cheers—what to tell you.”

I laugh. “What I wanted you to tell me was that you and Prissy never do it, either. At least then we’d be normal. Shit. It kills me

that there’re women out there who do it, who enjoy it, who
initiate
it!” I look toward the kitchen. “I’d give a hundred bucks for a blowjob.”

Paul grins. “Tell Prissy. She needs a new jukebox for the bar.”

The bottle is empty. We go into the kitchen for another one.

“You rascals take it easy on that wine,” Jan says. “It’s gotta last us all night.”

“Not to fear,” Paul says, lifting his glass. “Me and Prissy disobeyed your orders and brought a little something. It’s in the car.”

“You’re so bad,” Jan says, smiling.

“Paul’s idea,” Prissy says flatly. She turns and faces the counter, begins to cut up something. Her ass is round, nice.

Paul heads for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll help,” I say.

Outside, with Paul’s car’s trunk opened, I say, “You mean you just ask, and she lets you?”

“I don’t even ask. Just start rubbing her tits.” He gets three bottles of red wine from a box in the trunk.

“Does she, you know, make noises?”

“Hoo boy. She’s a wild thang. She likes it on rugs, chairs, tables.”

“Shit.” I take one of the bottles.

“Prissy would kill us both if she knew I told you that.”

“I’ll trade you, even money, Jan for Prissy.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Paul says. “No matter what you hear, sex ain’t everything.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Paul.”

He slams the trunk. “Would I do that?”

We walk back into the kitchen, where Jan is dicing onions. We all laugh as she dramatically wipes a tear. Prissy smiles, stand

ing against the counter, a glass of wine in her small hand. She sips. I stare at her until she catches me and I look away. Jan’s talking about how much she misses her art school days. How now there’s never enough money for her to sculpt.

“How much will you take for the pregnant chick?” I ask her.

She looks at me. “Seven hundred?”

“Hoo boy,” Paul says. “Go look at it, hon.”

I offer Prissy my arm. “I’ll show you the way, madam.”

We go into the living room. Prissy’s short so I have to get the pregnant lady down for her.

“Careful,” I say. “She weighs a ton.”

Prissy takes the statue. She examines it, runs her tiny dark fingers over the lady’s belly, her thighs, her bottom, her unsmiling face.

“It weighs about twenty-five pounds,” she says—she has a slight accent. “I’m a lifter.” She flexes her bicep for me to feel.

I linger a squeeze on the hard muscle. “Wow.”

She hands me the statue and I replace it, and without a prop we’re suddenly shy and aware. We look at each other for a moment, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. “We should have coffee sometime,” I say. She shrugs. “Coffee. Sure.” Then we go back to the kitchen. Paul’s opening another bottle of wine and Jan’s tasting something from a big pot. You can tell they’ve been laughing.

I ask Jan what the pregnant lady weighs.

“Oh. Twenty-seven pounds,” she says.

“You were close,” I tell Prissy.

She flexes at me.

Jan claps her hands. “Anybody hungry?”

I turn down the lights and Jan lights tall candles on the table. I put Tom Waits on the stereo. We eat the chicken, the glazed carrots, the salad and store-bought bread. Everybody raves, and Paul demands that Jan give Prissy the carrot recipe.

After dinner, Paul and I face each other, partners, and Jan and Prissy face each other. The boys against the girls. Jan gets our new playing cards, removes the cellophane and takes the jokers from the deck.

Paul says, “New cards, hmmm.”

I smile and open one of Paul’s bottles.

Prissy shuffles, deals. I bid two. Jan bids three, Paul four and Prissy one.

“Prissy’s sandbagging,” Paul says, lighting a cigarette. According to him, Prissy always bids for less than she can win. Jan lights a cigarette, too. I help myself to more wine. I’m feeling loose and warm.

We go through a few hands, nothing spectacular, then we start telling jokes. Jan gets the ball rolling with the old Why-is-six-afraid-of-seven? that I’ve heard a thousand times.

“You got me,” Paul says, drinking.

“Why?” Prissy asks.

“Because seven ate nine!”

Everybody laughs.

Then Prissy tells her favorite: “What’s the difference between parsley and pussy?”

Paul’s heard it a million times, he says.

Jan and I say we don’t know.

“You don’t eat parsley,” Prissy says.

I spit out some wine, which cracks Paul up. He has the funniest laugh—he actually goes, “Ha ha ha,” like a comic-book character.

Under the table, Prissy’s foot brushes mine.

We play more spades. Prissy sandbags. The cards are cut, shuffled, dealt, more jokes told—longer ones that I won’t be able to

remember later. I turn the radio to the oldies station and we switch to poker, bring out our dimes and nickels, go through a few games, dealer’s choice.

Paul looks over his fan of cards. “Let me ask y’all something.”

“Ask us anything,” Jan says.

“’Cause I’ll tell anything back,” he says, ha ha ha. He stops and lights a cigarette, then holds his lighter for Jan. “How can somebody have absolutely no ambition?”

Jan and I glance at each other. The room gets quiet.

“He’s talking about me,” Prissy says. “He always goes off on this when he’s drunk.”

“And I am drunk,” he says.

“Yes, you are,” Prissy says.

“I wouldn’t say she has no ambition,” I say. “She owns a bar. She’s a wife. And just look at those biceps.”

She grins.

“Well, take me,” says Paul. “I got a day job, but it’s not enough. So I play the stock market a little bit. A few investments. I tend bar on the weekends. And now I’m taking this goddamn pubic speaking class. And when I’m doing my homework, where can you find Prissy? Watching TV.”

“I’m happy watching TV,” she says.

“Being happy, that’s all that matters,” I say.

“But I’m not happy,” Paul says.

“That’s your problem,” Jan says. “I think Prissy’s right.”

“But shouldn’t she try to improve herself all she can?” Paul asks.

Prissy shuffles the deck. “You’re talking about me like I’m not here.”

“You’re not,” Paul says. “You’re watching the fucking TV all the time.”

“Paul,” Prissy says, “you wouldn’t even be in that goddamn class if I wasn’t making you go.”

“All I’m saying”—he blows smoke from his nose—“is that somebody ought to do all they can to improve theirself.”

“Sure,” I tell them. “To a point.”

“To what point?” Paul says.

I don’t say anything. Instead I pour another glass of wine. We’re down to Paul’s last bottle.

“All I know,” he says, looking sadly at me, “is that if I had to choose between a horny, happy couch potato who watches every goddamn sitcom on the tube, who tapes fucking soap operas, and somebody who can do that”—he points to Jan’s pregnant lady—“I’d choose the statue. Even if she was frigid. Goddamn,” he says, “sex ain’t everything.”

“Paul,” Prissy says, “you’re embarrassing me.”

“You’re embarrassing
me
,” Jan says, giving me this cold look.

“What?” I say.

“Deal the fucking cards, Prissy,” Paul says. “Everybody ante up.”

We play a few more hands, pretty much in silence. Jan won’t look at me. Prissy deals a hand of five-card stud that I win with a full house. I deal a game of baseball that Jan wins with five jacks. Paul belches and says he’s folding and goes to the sofa. He flicks open his knife and begins to dig at his fingernails.

Jan gets up and hurries into our bedroom, closes the door.

“Excuse me,” I tell Prissy, and follow Jan.

She’s lying on the bed, face in the pillow.

“You have guests,” I say. “Some hostess.”

“You told Paul, didn’t you?” She still won’t look at me.

“Course not. It’s our problem.”

“It’s
your
problem.”

I raise my voice. “What about that marriage counseling? Remember that guy saying it’s not you against me, but it’s us against the problem? What about that? How come this isn’t us against us?”

In the other room, the television comes on.

“Oh, God,” Jan says, her face hidden.

I stand over her for five minutes, until the clock says 2:18

A.M.
and my head stops spinning. Now I’ve even lost my buzz. I go out the door, back into the living room, close the door. Paul’s asleep on the sofa, his mouth open. There’s a movie about Alaska on TV. Two guys cracking whips on dogsleds, crossing the frozen earth.

Prissy is at the table, playing solitaire. I see that she’s gotten Paul’s knife away from him. It’s lying opened on the table by her elbow. She looks at me. I look back at her.

“Deal me in,” I say.

dinosaurs

On the day
he saw the rhinoceros, Steadman woke an hour before dawn. In the living room, in the dark, he stared at the fish tank for so long his coffee grew cold. Something, the end of a dream maybe, nagged him, left him uncertain and pensive. The house seemed too small, so he loaded his equipment and left early. Soon the knobby buckshot tires of his truck were humming comfortably along the interstate, Mobile behind him, Montgomery far ahead, the gas station signs at every exit colorful smudges in the fog.

He drove a company pickup, a big silver Ford F-250 with four-wheel-drive he rarely had to use. On the back glass he’d attached a Greenpeace decal. He knew the gas-guzzling truck and the sticker contradicted each other, but Steadman had been at odds with himself lately, a bit distracted. He nearly missed his exit, for example, and had to jab his brakes and swerve. Soon he found himself on a quiet, unfamiliar two-lane with the eight o’clock sun hazy over the trees. Where had the miles gone? Lines of barbed wire, red-tailed hawks on fence posts, cattle licking dark salt blocks. Occasionally he’d pass a rusty harrow, kudzu climbing its spikes, and think of his father, a retired geologist who loved refurbishing antique tractors. Now, in a nursing home, he called Steadman more and more but remembered him less and less.