Self-Esteem (33 page)

He’ll know what to do. He’ll know what to do.
Crawford put his briefcase on the desk and put the tape inside. He folded the little piece of yellow paper with the S-shape and threw it in there too. Then the bottle. Lowlander was difficult to let go
right now. I’ll have that mindfulness later, Crawford thought.

Then the phone rang again.

Crawford put his hands over his ears then looked at the telephone, thinking he would never be able to answer a phone again. But as the phone rang, then rang again, then rang again, he was a coward crouching in a hole.

He grabbed the phone, imitating a gesture he’d seen in a Lee Marvin movie. “What do you want!”

“Whoa, now. Just whoa there big guy,” a gruff voice with a Southern accent said. “That’s no way to talk to ya best buddy.”

For a second Crawford thought that all this Happy Pappy business had been a dream or a joke, but missing a punch line.

“Who the hell is this?” Crawford said under his breath.

“Who the hell
is
this? I’m offended, ya sorry sack-a-shit. This is ya old college buddy, Melvin.”

“Melvin. Melvin Sprawn?”

“Who the hell else you know named Melvin, ya sorry son of a bitch.”

Crawford caught his breath. “Just you, Melvin. I guess.”

“Ya guess?” Melvin said with glee. “Ha! Ya sorry sack-a-shit!” His voice was still a few decibels too loud, just like in college. “What say we knock back a few cold ones tonight, just like in college?”

“Look…”

“Ya sorry som’bitch.”

Crawford felt a sense of relief hearing Melvin’s voice. And as much as he needed to tell this guy that his plate was currently full, he couldn’t help but sound welcoming. “Melvin. It’s not a good time, man,” he said softly.

“Not a good time? Hell, you can’t tell
me
it’s not a good time, ya sorry sack-a-shit!”

There was that same belly laugh. “Yes I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can.”

“
No
, you can’t. Look out ya window, ya sorry bastard.”

“What?”

“Look out ya window.”

“What window?”

“Your front window.”

“I can’t talk now,” Crawford said, hanging up the phone.

Crawford rose from his desk, putting his briefcase securely between the file cabinet and the wall.

Melvin Sprawn. Surely he’s not here. Look out the window? What the hell?

It had been almost seven years since Crawford had seen Melvin, and he didn’t remember too much about that occasion except that he found him even more irritating than in college. He had almost completely put the memory of the old boy from Arkansas out of his mind, but after hearing his voice, every little idiotic idiosyncrasy came roaring back.

Too damn loud. Too many stupid drawn out stories. Too much juvenile talk about sex.

Crawford met this big, hairy, college freshman named Melvin during the first week of his freshman year in college while they were next-door neighbors at the Hopkins dormitory. With a round mug and the ungainly jowls of a hog, Melvin was a hulking good old boy from a little town in Arkansas who had nothing in common with Crawford except his love of drinking and a penchant for using hangovers to justify the avoidance of academic responsibilities. Crawford first got acquainted with Melvin after knocking on his door to complain about some blaring country music (George Jones, he seemed to recall). It wasn’t that Crawford was trying to study; quite the contrary. It was just that the music was competing with his music (Led Zeppelin, he seemed to recall).

Crawford had seen him from a distance once before, in the dormitory’s common room, and assumed he might have a confrontation on his hands if he ever stepped on Melvin’s toes. Asking him to turn his music down would definitely fall into that category and a confrontation might have ensued, but Crawford never asked. He thought he would, but once Melvin opened the door, Crawford, like the timid 18-year-old he was, didn’t say anything about the music. As a matter of fact, he didn’t say much at all.

“Yeah,” Melvin said with a scowl that stretched across his broad face, his giant body covered in flannel and denim filling the doorway.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Crawford said meekly.

“Nothin,” Melvin said with a nod. “Can I help you, Sir?”

“Oh, I’m just… I live next door and I thought I’d…”

“Just coming to introduce ya’self?” Melvin said straight-faced. “Well come the hell on in. I like sociable folk,” he said, as he gave Crawford a painful slap on the shoulders.

Melvin guided Crawford into the small room, which was identical to his own except for the Southern memorabilia covering the walls: a Lynard Skynard poster, an old Civil War combat photograph, and a Confederate flag.

George Jones (or whoever it was) was lamenting the loss of a woman by getting smashed in a bar, as he would do all semester long.

“So the name’s Melvin, Melvin Sprawn. Studyin’ business,” he said, sitting down and handing Crawford a beer from a 12-pack box on the floor. “Have a seat.” The first thing Crawford noticed about Melvin was his very direct form of communication — perhaps
efficient
would be a better way of saying it. Not only did he not speak in complete sentences, he didn’t speak in complete words. “Y’self?”

Crawford immediately began imitating Melvin’s disjointed style of communication. “Jim Crawford. Undecided.”

“Undecided about what?” he asked.

“You know, my major.”

“Oh yeah,” Melvin said with an embarrassed laugh. “Y’don’t have t’ decide, y’know. I didn’t decide myself. My daddy decided for me. I got to get all educated so I can run his business one of these days, you know, when he gets old and wants to jus’ fish and stuff. That’s why I’m studying business. Chances are you won’t ever decide. Someone or something will decide for you.”

Crawford thought that was a surprisingly intelligent remark. “So what kind of business?”

“Bourbon. The kind we make in Arkansas.” Melvin leaned over the side of the bed and grabbed a bottle that he held directly in front of Crawford’s face — Old Arkansan.

“Old Ark… an…”

“Ahr-kan-zun,” Melvin said deliberately, accentuating his Southern drawl. “Dad’s jus’ gettin’ started. Tough business, whiskey. But we gon’ do it. Like a shot?”

“You bet,” Crawford said with contrived enthusiasm. He gulped down the noxious liquid and coughed violently, which Melvin enjoyed.

“Yeah. Get it, man. Get after it!”

Crawford and Melvin drank many bottles of Old Arkansan together during their first year, and Crawford would later speculate that the gestation of his drinking problem was born from this dreadful brew, distilled by a company destined for bankruptcy. But it wasn’t just the drink that was awful; the conversation wasn’t that great either, to say the least.

“So what d’ya bench?” was a standard get-to-know-you question, one that Crawford knew only an idiot would ask.

But like most humans wanting to please, Crawford gave him an answer. “Bench? Oh…,” Crawford said, before making something up. He’d never actually “benched” in his entire life. He met his high school physical education requirement with tennis and cross-country track, and no benching was involved.

Melvin was one of those people that tried to show interest in other people — what they liked and what they didn’t — which was one quality Crawford appreciated. But there was one conversational topic (and later he would discover others) that Melvin was comfortable with that Crawford was not. And that topic was sexuality, and in particular, masturbation.

“Do you like to jack off to magazines?” Melvin asked out of the blue. Strange for their first encounter, Crawford thought. “Or are you a shower man, like to just use your ‘magination?”

With several shots of Old Arkansan in him, Crawford let down his guard a bit and responded. “You’re saying you jack off?”

“Never have,” Melvin shot back. “Too many farm animals in Arkansas,” he said before guffawing loudly. “Hell, yeah. Of course I jack off. And you do too, you sorry som’bitch,” he said giving Crawford another slap. “Now you a magazine man or you just think about your ninth-grade teacher or som’ shit.”

“I, uh… I would rather not say,” Crawford answered nervously.

“Fine. Fine and dandy. You don’t use your handy, ‘specially when it’s sandy.”

That would have been a tolerable stopping point, but Melvin had a way of forcing a conversation into dismal territory. “You know what I like?” he said. “I’m a magazine man. But I like a big damn pussy is what I like, one s’big I can’t even produce in my own ‘magination. I get mags with the beefy beaver,” he said with a wink and a nod before taking a hefty drink of beer. “Know what I mean?”

Crawford’s face dropped and his stomach began to churn. Melvin’s brand of openness wasn’t his kind of conversation. “You know, I’d like to be a writer,” Crawford said unexpectedly.

“Say what?” Melvin said.

“You asked what I was studying. I’d like to write a novel someday and…”

“Hey, man,” Melvin interrupted. “I’m talking about pussy. I guess you aren’t a magazine man. Like to make up your own stuff, huh?”

Melvin continued to describe in graphic detail just what excited him sexually. Crawford hoped that he could get this conversation behind him and never have to hear about large vaginas again. But unfortunately Melvin persisted the whole school year, talking about things like brawny vulvas, large furry anuses, and efficient masturbation techniques. It always made Crawford uncomfortable, always. But instead of telling Melvin Sprawn to shut the hell up — or better yet, just leaving the room — Crawford listened to Melvin talk about every facet of his sexual proclivities all year long. And as time went on, Melvin loved Crawford more and more for allowing this indulgence, while Crawford grew to hate Melvin. It was Crawford’s first experience of paying for the pleasures of drinking by compromising his character. Free Old Arkansan came at a price — and a high one.

Crawford walked nervously through the kitchen, then into the living room where he peeked out the window. There was no one there — only a large convertible Chrysler LeBaron parked in the street, and
Melvin wouldn’t drive a LeBaron or a convertible
. He was more of a truck man.

Crawford walked to the front door and looked out the peephole — nothing but the afternoon sun saturating the neighborhood with its brutal hue. Crawford slowly cracked the door and again saw nothing. He relaxed a bit.

That asshole. Why did he call me? Why now?

“What the hell you doin’, ya som’bitch!” Melvin yelled, springing from behind the door. “Hey, ya famous sack-a-shit!” he said thunderously, slapping Crawford on his shoulder blade with his enormous right hand. The first thing Crawford saw, even before looking at Melvin’s face, was the case of beer he held under his left arm. Crawford rubbed his shoulder and looked at Melvin’s face, which was just inches away from his own. His appearance hadn’t changed much — he was older and heavier, which was to be expected — but the funny thing was he looked… well, dumber.

“Melvin, this is surprising.”

Perhaps it was his used-salesman clothing, which was even more unflattering than his redneck attire in college. He wore a lime-green polyester jacket with large flaps on the pockets, and a not-so-complementary pair of brown pants. He looked like a human-sized mishmash of slime and shit.

“Well, invite my ass in!” he said, grinning like a politician.

Without a gesture from Crawford, Melvin walked right in as if they’d planned a get-together for months. “Nice-ass place,” he said nodding.

“Melvin, I’m glad to see you, but…”

“I’m glad to see your ass, too,” he said, still appraising Crawford’s house. “Oh hell, I’m sorry,” he said, ripping into the box of beer. “Still cold,” he said, handing Crawford a can. “Still ice fuckin’ cold!”

It was like Crawford had never left college: free cold beer, but with an annoying asshole.

Well, maybe just one, he thought. Especially if it’s
ice fuckin’ cold
.

He took a drink, and like Melvin’s voice, at first it was comforting.

“Bought this from one of them camel jocks down th’street. They’s the one that told me where you live.”

“Great. Glad they could help you,” Crawford mumbled.

“Huh?” Melvin said even louder. “Where’s the pisser, amigo? I’m sloshin’ like a whore on Sunday morning.”

“On the left,” Crawford said, pointing.

“Put this in the fridge for me, would ya?” he said, shoving the box into Crawford’s torso.

You gotta tell this asshole to go away now. There’s no time for politeness in this situation. Do it!

“You know, I got married!” Melvin hollered from the bathroom, the door wide open. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking:
again
,” he said laughing. “But this one is the last. Till death do me part, I tell you.”

Crawford didn’t know he was married before and didn’t care. He put the case in the refrigerator and grabbed three cans from the box. You were just going to have one, he thought, taking them into the living room.

Crawford heard the toilet flush and Melvin walked in still buttoning up his fly. “Yeah, I found one of them bitches that might jus’ put up with my ass.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Melvin,” Crawford said politely. “But…”

“But I’ll tell you all about that later. Guess what I got?” he said with an anticipatory smile on his face.

Oh, no.

“That’s right,” he said, reaching into his polyester jacket. “I got something that’s hard to find these days. But I thought of you, Crawford. I thought of you first.” He slowly pulled a 750-milliliter bottle from inside his coat, its label old and frayed. “This here’ll do somethin’ for ya self-esteem,” he said proudly, holding up a bottle of Old Arkansan. “Get me a goddam shot glass, boy. Get me two goddam shot glasses, now!” he grinned.

Old Arkansan certainly was difficult to find, especially since the distillery had gone out of business almost ten years prior, and for good reason. Crawford couldn’t help but laugh to himself.
Melvin had proudly brought some of his own vintage ‘kansan
.