Self-Esteem (34 page)

“I’m a Scotch man these days, Melvin,” Crawford said, already thinking of excuses to get the Lowlander Pure Malt.

Melvin cocked his head and looked out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t tell me you haven’t longed for a little ‘kansan over the years. Now, come on.”

Just the thought of it made Crawford’s stomach turn. Instinctively, he tossed back his beer, which was awful but still better than the thought of that paint.

“I’ll get the shot glasses,” Melvin said, stomping into the kitchen.

Crawford drank the rest of his beer and sat down, putting the empty on the coffee table.

“Where the hell are they?”

“I don’t have any shot glasses,” Crawford yelled back.

Melvin came back with two small juice glasses with Mickey Mouse on the front — glasses Crawford assumed had long been thrown away.

“This’ll do,” he said, putting them side-by-side on the coffee table.

“I don’t…”

“Oh, yeah you do,” Melvin said, sitting opposite Crawford and lighting a cigarette. “Got this bottle from an old man in my hometown. Been savin’ a case for years. He told me it was
for special
. Can you believe that shit? How he could keep from drinking it I’ll never know.”

Melvin put his cigarette on the edge of Crawford’s empty beer can and poured three fingers of Old Arkansan in each glass.

“What are you doing here, Melvin?” Crawford asked.

“Just passing through is all,” he said humbly. “I didn’t come at a bad time, did I?”

“Well, I…”

“Let’s celebrate m’new marriage, ol’ friend,” he said, handing Crawford a glass. Crawford took it, looking carefully at the color. It was almost the same color as Melvin’s polyester pants and about as inviting.

“Gosh, I don’t know, Melvin.”

“Come on. Just a shot or two and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Crawford took a deep breath then put the glass just under his bottom lip. The caustic bouquet made his watering eyes blink.

Melvin smiled, “Just like eatin’ pussy. So bad, but so good.”

The smell brought back faint memories of college, not in any specific way, like a particular place or circumstance, but in a strange collective way, like remembering how it felt to be in your mother’s arms before you were capable of memory. Crawford was ready to say a few Hail Marys first,
but oh fuck it,
he thought and downed the shot.

“Get that Arkansan in ya,” Melvin said, using the company’s rarely used slogan.

Crawford put the glass back on the table, and to his surprise, it wasn’t that bad. The aftertaste was decent and as a matter of fact,
that went down pretty damn smooth
. “Hey,” he said nodding. “Not bad.”

“No, sir,” Melvin added, just before downing his own. “To you. And to self-esteem.” Crawford didn’t know what Melvin meant by “self-esteem.” Did he mean to
our
self-esteem or to the book
Self-Esteem
? He knew it didn’t matter.

Melvin started to talk. And talk.

And talk.

And with the drink, Crawford wasn’t sure how long.

It was just like the old days: Melvin talking and Crawford drinking so he could stand it. He talked about the end of his “daddy’s” Old Arkansan company. He talked about being in Asia — living in the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand — working as a consultant for various alcohol distilleries, mostly helping with issues like waste disposal.

“You see, the problem in most of these countries is that they distill their hooch with formaldehydes. No kiddin’.”

An hour went by. Then another. Melvin was still talking. Crawford was still drinking. The sun had gone down. The dark outside reminded Crawford, even in his listlessly intoxicated state, that he was again fleeing responsibility for the sake of warm escape. Melvin had talked about all those “manly” things that men often talk about: work, work, and more work, but had not yet mentioned his new wife. Crawford asked about her, trying to avert attention from his own.

“Her name’s Frida. That’s her English name. I can’t pronounce her Thai name. And oh, she’s really something. She waits on me hand and foot. It’s like she was put on this planet to make this Arkansas cracker happy.”

Poor thing, Crawford thought, taking another sip of Old Arkansan.
She’s just getting out of poverty the best she can. And Melvin is the best she can do. Poor thing.

“And you remember how I like big pussies?”

Crawford felt his stomach turn.

“Well,” he continued, leaning back with a contented smile on his face, “she got one, and lemme tell ya, that som’bitch is huuuuuuge.”

Crawford felt his stomach turn again, this time deeper, more painfully. All they needed now was George Jones and they would be back in Melvin’s tiny dorm room, getting peckered for no reason at all.
And who was this poor Thai woman? And where
… “You just get back from Asia today?” Crawford asked.

“I did, yeah,” he said. We got a hotel room and came d’rectly here.”

That’s why Melvin hadn’t mentioned the Hershey show.

“So this woman — your wife — she’s at the hotel?”

“No, she’s out in the car.”

“What?” Crawford asked, slightly sobered by the remark.

“Hell, I told her that she wouldn’t be interested in what a couple’a old bar farts like us’d have to say. So I told her just to wait in the car.”

It’s May, Crawford thought, and a hot one at that.

“You mean you’ve been here…” Crawford glanced at his watch with blurred vision.
Screw it.
“You’ve been here all this time and she’s been waiting out in the car for you? The whole time?”

“I told you she wants to make this Arkansas cracker happy. Bet
your
wife wouldn’t wait in the car.”

Crawford felt a rush of anger. He was asking himself the same question he’d asked himself a million times in college:
What are you doing drinking with this stupid hick?
But he couldn’t believe what Melvin was telling him, so he pressed it further. “So you got this woman waiting out in a hot car while you get drunk with an old college buddy and talk about her vagina? Is that it?” Crawford said, raising his voice to Melvin like he never had before.

“Careful,” Melvin said in that
I’m still a redneck and I can still kick your ass
voice. “Don’t be gettin’ persnickety.”

“You’re a piece’a shit. You know that?”

“What?” Melvin said, putting his beer down. “What did you say, you bastard?”

“I
said
you’re a piece of shit. Know
that
?”

Melvin’s demeanor changed and he stood slowly, his brown and green polyester rising like a giant oak growing in time-lapse. “I’ll talk about my wife’s vagina all I want, hear?”

Crawford, not being able to sit beneath Melvin, stood to meet his eyes. Suddenly he felt something he hadn’t felt in years: courage.

“I never liked you Melvin. It’s not that I only realized that just now. I just realized that you need to know so I don’t have to see your stupid face again. You just always had booze and were someone to drink with. That’s all. That’s why I hung out with you in college.”

Melvin took a step back looking like a dejected child.

Crawford continued nevertheless. “After two semesters of you, I was so sick, so
sick
, of hearing you talk about jacking off and about big pussies and hairy assholes that I wanted to fucking puke when I heard your fucking name!”

Melvin gave an embarrassed laugh. “Uh… this is just a joke, right?”

“No, I’m not fucking joking, you big lug!”

Any benevolence on Melvin’s face now turned to sour indignation, but Crawford couldn’t stop. “Get the fuck out of my house. And take that poor girl out there in the car,” he said pointing toward the street, “back where you found…”

Crawford didn’t get out the last word before Melvin’s giant right fist came rolling across his jaw. He fell back a step and put his hand to his face.

This is my house. This is my house. And nobody in my house is going to…

“You know what?” Melvin said. “Them books you wrote…”

Melvin’s left came crashing into Crawford’s right eye and Crawford fell to the floor, pain shooting from his temple into the rest of his skull. He looked up but could only see a green and brown blur.

“Them
Self
books you wrote… them’s bullshit,” Melvin said. “I was sent here by the Lord to tell you that.”

“Sorry, but I never liked you,” Crawford gasped. “I should have just told you that,” he said, raising his hand to shield the next blow. It was the last thing Crawford said before the scuffed bottom of Melvin’s size-12 boot brought the next oblivion.

CHAPTER 17

Dust, Mud, and Blood by James Crawford. A short dream. Less than 500 words. The kind of dream people don’t have these days, but should. They’re a dying art form — short dreams — and if they were good enough for the previous generation, by God, they’re good enough for us.

Dust, mud, and blood — that’s all he could remember when he awoke. It was Saturday; he knew that for some reason. He was walking down a long corridor in an industrial building. It looked like an old factory of some kind, but he wasn’t exactly sure what for, he just knew it was like a factory. There were no people there to confirm the function of the facility, just very industrial looking
things
lying around — not machines, not products, just
things
— manufactured things or maybe things that manufactured things, but not machines, not products. As he looked down at the floor in front of him, he could see dust — dust as if something covered in dust had been dragged, leaving behind a sandy trail about the width of a human body. He kept walking; he didn’t want to, but he kept walking. Why did he walk? He needed to. He saw more manufactured things or things that manufactured things — perhaps they were both. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure. All of a sudden he could see shapes forming among the manufactured things or things that manufactured. They looked like smiles

or laughter

or frowns

or sobbing.

Then below there was mud — black, sticky mud that must have been sprayed out of the bowels of the earth — a lifeless gunk, food for worms, death itself. Then the manufactured things or things that manufactured seem to notice him.
Had they noticed him before?
They seemed to be laughing or sobbing at him. He walked faster

faster

faster

faster.

They were still there — same as before. Then looking down: there was blood — the blood of
being
, the blood of
life
, spilled on the floor like a million pigs slaughtered for a Roman orgy. The blood did not look like it came from something dragged; it looked as if he was standing on the very spot of the carnage —

looking,

laughing,

sobbing.

Then the manufactured things or things that manufactured looked at him, tilting their bases to the side with childlike curiosity. Then the manufactured things or things that manufactured looked at him with sympathy. Understanding. They pulled back their bases in judgment, then in fury. Then his life — his very soul — became one of the manufactured things or things that manufactured. His very being had disappeared evermore, evermore, leaving nothing but blood spilled on the floor.

Like pigs.

Then the manufactured things or things that manufactured rang with the sound of a thousand bells — not beautiful bells, but ghostly bells; disgusting bells; appalling, mechanical, industrial-sounding bells; bells made from the used parts of obsolete machines.
Ring, ring
.

The first thing Crawford thought was that he had gotten drunk and caused a car accident and now he had to face a family of six in a crumpled station wagon, a family that he’d just murdered.

Ring, ring
.

Dust, mud, blood.

Crawford turned sideways to see a pile of crumpled beer cans and cigarette butts on the floor next to the coffee table he was lying under. The phone was ringing, but Crawford had no intention of moving. He wasn’t sure how much of his pain was caused by the pounding Melvin had given him and how much was caused by the Old Arkansan. Could be the ‘kansan was still working as an analgesic.

Ring, ring
.

There was the phone again. What time was it? The sharp morning light coming through the transparent inner curtains suggested it was around 6 or 7am, too early for anyone to call, except for family members or the psychopaths holding them hostage.

Crawford struggled to hoist himself up by putting his left hand on the coffee table and shifting his weight toward it. About the time his face was parallel to the table, his hand slipped and he fell with his right shoulder on a stray beer can.

“Goddammit!” he yelled, howling with pain.

With his nose against the floor, Crawford could smell a strong combination of Old Arkansan
,
cigarette butts, and cheap beer.

Great. I’ll hear about this later.

“Or will I?”

I never did get Dorothy at her mother’s. Wait. I didn’t try. He said don’t call the cops. He didn’t say don’t call her mother. Maybe she’s at her mother’s. Maybe I’m losing it. Oh God, please let me be losing my mind.

There was a mumbled sound coming from the family room adjoining the living room. At first Crawford thought that Melvin had decided to stay and perhaps he’d find him in the living room chatting with his new wife with the large vagina.

Crawford got to his feet and limped toward the family room. He looked around the corner, fearful he might run into a redneck fist. The noise was just the TV — a morning talk show with some young pop star as the guest.

On the coffee table sat a fresh bottle of Old Arkansan with a note taped to the table in front of it. Melvin had apparently written the note with a marker he must have found in the kitchen. The sight of his writing immediately elicited sympathy since it looked like the writing of a child — and not a smart one.