Sorrow Floats (19 page)

The day John Kennedy got killed, Dothan Talbot beat me up. Technically, I threw the first punch, but I maintain to this moment that Dothan had it coming. After we heard the news, Dothan and that idiot sister of his raced around the playground taunting the way kids will who have been raised by redneck ignoramuses from Alabama.

I wasn’t in the mood. So I decked him.

American folklore considers it quaint when a thirteen-year-old girl hits a boy, he hits back, then they go steady. By Critter’s age, at seventeen, the same scenario is sick. Boys who hit their girlfriends are abusive apes, and girls who stay with boyfriends who hit are spineless chickens.

Dothan never hit me again. After I got old enough to realize the humiliation of violence I always swore that if he ever laid a hand on me I’d be out the door, but that’s one of those blank declarations almost every woman makes while the situation rests in theory. I’m done with blank declarations. Like the death of a father, or alcohol addiction, no one knows for certain how they’ll behave when reality rears up and blows theory to the wind.

Critter, obviously, had given herself an excuse to stay. I’d created an excuse for Dothan to make the decision for us.

We, Critter and I, were supposed to be the vanguard of the first generation of smart women. I was the Be-Here-Now chick of the sixties, she the free-soaring spirit of the seventies, yet neither of us did squat about our cheating, controlling men. It took Marcella, the Betty Crocker of the fifties, to stand erect and shout, “Fuck you, jerk, I’m outta here.”

Or whatever was the cookies-and-milk equivalent of “Fuck you, jerk” in Amarillo, Texas. Maybe she called him a lout.

Whatever she called him, it worked when our way didn’t. Hugo was following like a puppy who’d been slapped in the nose with a newspaper. Where was Hugo now? Had he given up and returned to Amarillo and the cotton flowers of Annette Gilliam, or, like the Shadow, had he simply faded into the night?

I kind of hoped he was lurking in the darkness; I don’t know why. All cheating men should be castrated—the cynic could make an argument that all men should be castrated—but the thought of Hugo Sr. hovering somewhere out of sight, never with us yet always nearby, struck me as kind of sweet.

***

The music changed from Doobie Brothers to Deep Purple—“Hey, Joe,” a song about a man with a gun in his hand. One unassailable truth, Freedom held Critter, not me. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. More coffee—coffee would knock me off my natural state of high center and give me the impetus to get Lloyd and Shane on the road. I needed a liquid impetus.

Inside, Shane was bent over his harmonica, blowing blues notes that didn’t match with Deep Purple. The tanned girl, who’d put on a tank top, sat at his feet next to a very intense-looking young man who held the baby. The others still sprawled in various postures of decadence, but you could tell from their body language that Shane was center of the deal.

Midway through a riff, Shane broke off and said to the intense young man, “Don’t throw your blame for the uptight bearings of Christianity on Jesus. Jesus was cool, he taught love your enemies, love your neighbors, love yourself. He never said a word against mixed swimming. Or getting high.”

The young man clenched his eyes. “But the Buddhist theory of nurturing negates my Nazarene upbringing. I’m left with emptiness.”

Shane raised himself on his hands. “Christianity was noble for one hundred years, until that anal repressive St. Paul started writing letters. He’s the one took sex off the cross.”

The tanned girl raised a fist. “Right on.”

Dog Whiffer twirled in her corner. “Tell it like it is.”

I had a doll once that talked with more creativity when you pulled a string out her back.

“Andrew and Thomas were gay,” Shane said. “Jesus didn’t care.”

“Who were Andrew and Thomas?” Dog Whiffer asked.

In the kitchen a kid with a totally bald head and hoop earrings sat staring at the closed refrigerator door. As I poured coffee, he exhaled. “Heavy, man.”

“What?”

“Listen to the rhythm. It’s like Africa. I’m really into black people.”

I listened. “The refrigerator motor?”

“Very heavy.”

“No, it’s not.”

He looked at me. “It’s not heavy?”

“It’s a refrigerator motor.” I narrowed the space between our faces to four inches. His pupils were huge, unfocused pits. “Listen, my son. I am a messenger sent from God.”

He nodded. Hell, he was on mescaline. People on mescaline are like old Blackfeet, they expect messages from God.

I pronounced distinctly. “God said to tell you: Grow up.”

The boy repeated. “Grow up.”

“Stop taking drugs. Get a job with the post office. Plant trees. Buy a lawn mower.”

“I don’t know if I can remember all this.”

“Say it aloud so you don’t forget.”

He licked his dry lower lip. “Who did you say you are?”

“I am the Virgin Mary.”

“A real virgin?”

“You better believe it. Say the words.”

He licked his lips again and chanted in a near whisper.
“Stop taking drugs. Get a job with the post office. Plant trees. Buy a lawn mower.”

“Very good. Now, do it.” For the first time since Dad died, I felt proud of myself.

***

Back in the living room Shane was doing his Socrates-to-the-students thing, sort of what I did in the kitchen, only I did it from good motives to help the poor kid while Shane did it because he got off on adoration.

“‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ means it is proper to love yourself,” he lectured. “Jesus often practiced masturbation. It was a regular ritual of early Christian ceremonies until the fourth century, when Pope Pius the Second dried his stem and proclaimed self-love a sin.”

The intense young man gazed at Shane. “You know so much information.”

“Hey,” I called over the loadies, “when Lloyd comes back, we’re leaving.”

His chins formed a frown. “I like it here.”

“You would.”

The tan girl leaned back on her hands to look straight up at me. I could have poured coffee down her cleavage. “Father Rinesfoos is explaining the smooth-side-up, rough-side-down balance of astral perspective. It’s totally amazing.”

Captain Beefheart must not be as deep as Hank Williams. “Father Rinesfoos?” I said.

Shane said, “I am a priest of the One Day at a Time Chapel. Where’s Lloyd?”

At that point confusion broke out on the porch. What sounded like lawn furniture hit the side of the house, Freedom’s voice rose, then Owsley’s above it, then Freedom’s, then the door opened and Lloyd popped through.

“I’d like to go now,” I said.

Lloyd’s eyes took in the room. “Marcella wouldn’t come back. She and the kids are waiting at the cafe.”

“I like it here,” Shane repeated. “These people recognize my worth.”

The door burst open and Owsley did a headlong into the room, followed by Freedom holding the boy’s art pad.

“You’re going to school!” Freedom shouted.

Owsley crouched on the floor, eyes jumping like a beautiful coyote. “School sucks. The kids make fun of my hair.”

Freedom tried to rip the pad asunder, but it was too thick so he went to tearing out a page at a time. When the destruction wasn’t fast enough he threw what was left out the door. His voice was Moses, pissed off. “I won’t have you bringing heat on this house. One more truant officer shows up here…”

He left the threat unfinished, but from what I’d seen punishment would not be “You’re grounded.”

Owsley was brave though. He barked, “Ha! There’s more cops in those woods than squirrels. I couldn’t possibly bring more heat than you do.”

“I won’t go back to prison because of you.”

“I won’t go back to school.”

Freedom doubled his fists and advanced on Owsley. Shane cut his chair between the two. “Let us meditate on peace,” Shane said.

“Get your ass out of my way.”

“Fat chance.” Shane set his hand brake.

Freedom hesitated, then came around my side of the chair. Owsley darted low around the other side and took off out the door. Freedom made a two-step run after him, then gave up. He turned on Shane.

“Don’t meddle in my affairs, cripple.”

“I can take you, shit-for-brains.”

Something in Shane’s demeanor gave Freedom a flash of insecurity. His slit eyes did a room scan, searching for support among the followers, but they returned only blank stares, although whether they sided with Shane or were too stoned to process the action is a toss-up.

Freedom came back to Shane, whose face gave an involuntary tic. As they sank into the macho male stare-down thing, I looked around for a weapon. A coffee cup isn’t worth much when you’re used to a bottle.

The upright man blinked first. “Jesus,” he said.

Shane answered, “Yes.”

Freedom stomped off down the back hall, making as much racket as you can in wimpy sandals. I heard him fling open a door, and his voice: “How long does it take to suck off an asshole?” The door slammed, more stomping, then the back door of the house crashed open and shut.

***

Shane reached down to cut off the stereo. You never realize how quiet a room full of people can be until you contrast it suddenly with a room full of noise. He pivoted his chair to face the tanned mother.

“That man has more problems than any of you. Don’t follow him,” Shane said.

“But Freedom takes care of us,” the woman said.

“You may now take care of yourselves. Arise, gather your child, and leave this house tonight.” Shane swiveled slowly, making eye contact with each member of the group. “Getting high is okay, making love is okay, but that man’s hatred will destroy everything near him.”

He didn’t know the half of it; he hadn’t seen the battery-acid-powder and blow-jobs-for-drugs tricks.

Shane’s voice thundered.
“Arise and flee!”

They didn’t flee, but they dispersed. I’d been so proud of the one kid I saved in the kitchen, but Shane was set on converting the lot. The grandstander.

“You want some coffee?” I asked Lloyd.

“Yeah, that would be nice. I got the straw bales. You can’t see Coors from anywhere.”

Some gathered clothes from what I’d earlier thought were trash heaps. Others wandered away, shoeless, shirtless, clueless. From outside came the knock of a Volkswagen engine kicking in, then another.

“What’s going on?” Critter stood in the doorway. The tapestry skirt had been replaced by a pair of cutoffs.

“The cripple told them to leave,” Arlo said. “They were all on mescaline, so they did.”

Arlo was like the old Indians Hank Elkrunner told me about who could shut down their auras or charisma or something so as to make themselves functionally invisible. The guy was missing a self.

“They’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “How did the slurp job compare to others you’ve given? I’ll front you three Quaaludes to do me.”

Critter didn’t even look at him. “Get lost, Arlo.”

“If you don’t take them, Freedom will.”

I crossed the room to stand in front of her. “When will you escape?” I asked.

“When it’s time.”

“Don’t wait too long, you’ll lose your innocence and end up like me.”

Her glazey eyes came to rest on my face. “You’re not so bad, Maurey, you just think you are.”

I hugged her. Never, in my whole life, have I initiated a hug with a woman.

She spoke over my shoulder. “I’ll be okay.”

“Leave the bastard,” I said.

“Someday, not today.”

Behind me, Shane celebrated the mass exodus.
“Banzai, motherfucker.”

I sat in back and nursed Jesus. Has a nice ring, doesn’t it? I sat in back and nursed Jesus. I’d never thought about naming a bottle Jesus until I told the skin-headed tripper I was the Virgin Mary. Spanish people name each other Jesus all the time, although they pronounce it “Hey-soos,” but for some reason you never hear of English speakers named Jesus. Maybe he’s off limits to white guys.

Whatever, Jesus and I were in back with Marcella and the kids because I was drinking and would soon sleep, and Shane was in front because he had a cough. He pretended he didn’t, of course—“Must be an allergy. I have an allergy to cumin that manifests in the lungs, and, no doubt, the chili was spiced with cumin”—but the truth was old Shane looked a bit peaked. The head twitches had taken on a rhythmic pattern. I’d have been concerned if he hadn’t called me
little missy
when I helped him in the passenger’s door.

“I need no assistance, little missy,” he said, then he pulled a harmonica from somewhere and went into “Hey, Joe.”

“Don’t sit on my Etch-A-Sketch, little missy,” Andrew snapped, and I almost nailed him with Jesus.

I hadn’t seen his Etch-A-Sketch. A person could have hidden a small pony in the back of Moby Dick and I wouldn’t have seen it. Up to the Comanche exit scene, I’d managed to avoid any close looks at the Dick’s cargo section, but now I had to notice a few things just to find a stretching-out spot.

Shane’s chair was folded against the back of the driver’s seat next to his built-in perch. Marcella had created a kind of family nest from blankets, clothes, sleeping bags, cookie packages, and magazines with their covers torn off. She’d even rigged an orange-crate crib lined in socks and Jockey shorts for Hugo Jr., who lay on his back staring up at a Snap-On socket wrench calendar featuring a breasts-and-ass floozie in a cleavage-stretcher top, shrink-wrapped hot pants, and painted fingernails caressing a socket wrench the way I used to caress Charley.

“What’d you do with my pistol?” I called up front.

“I’ve never seen your pistol in my life,” Shane called back.

“If I find him in your stuff, I’ll shoot you.”

“Little lady, if that dratted cannon is in my possession, you have my permission to gun me down.”

“Thief.”

“Harlot.”

I propped myself next to the side doors against a hundred-pound bag of bad potatoes. They had erupted eyes and these white tentacle things that would cause me trouble if I ever DT’ed. From the spud sack to the back window was like an avalanche had swept through Lloyd’s Salvage City. Fan belts, hub caps, clamps, more blankets, more slick-to-bald tires, piles of
National Geographies
,
Guideposts
, Max Brand and Ian Fleming novels, an empty gerbil cage, loads of clothes—why would two men who appeared to wear the same outfits every day need a thrift store wardrobe? From deep in the pile came the petite
mew
of the unnamed kitty.

Andrew screeched, “Don’t look!”

Of course, I looked. Marcella was pulling a jammie top down over his upstretched arms and head, while his bottom half was little boy naked. White fanny, remarkably skinny legs, dirty feet—I felt a pang for my Auburn. Who pulled on his Hopalong Cassidy jammies now and tucked him in and said Lay-me-down-to-sleep for him until he was old enough to say it himself? Dothan sure as heck wouldn’t stoop to mother work, and I couldn’t stand the feeling of Sugar Cannelioski touching my son.

The best of all bad possibilities would be Dothan’s mother. At least she’d give him a bath. They’d all three be telling Auburn what a sick, scum-sucking Yankee his mother was. If I never saw my baby again, the Talbot family would probably invent a story where I died. Probably in a car wreck. Car wreck is the story most people make up when they create a death myth.

“Read to me,” Andrew demanded.

“Mrs. Talbot is cultured. She doesn’t have time to read,” Marcella said. “I’ll read your bedtime story.”

“No. I want Maurey.”

He stood in his red cotton pajamas with black oil derricks pointing every which way, clutching a Golden Book. I’d been raised on Golden Books. Sam Callahan and Shannon had both been raised on Golden Books. If I didn’t pull my act together and get back there to save him, Auburn would probably never know the smell when you first crack open a brand-new Golden Book. Dothan would raise him to converse fluently on cubic inches of truck engines and the Boone and Crockett point system for rating trophy heads.

I said, “I’ll read him the story. I used to read stories to my children.”

Andrew’s face puckered in disbelief. “You have children?”

“A girl and a boy.”

“Are they dead?”

I held the book in my left hand and Jesus in my right with Andrew snuggled on my lap in between. He smelled clean, like children do even when they’re dirty.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
—not my favorite selection. It encourages passivity until a man comes along to save you, and I think Dopey is a caricature of a kid with Down’s syndrome. I wouldn’t let Shannon read it back when I had some control.

The cover showed a flat-faced girl surrounded by seven midgets holding hands in a circle. They all had bulb noses like Shane and plucked eyebrows.

“‘Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a lovely Queen sat by her window sewing,’” I read.

Andrew shifted against my left breast and popped his thumb in his mouth. Page one was about a woman dying in childbirth. On page two the King gets lonely and marries the biggest bitch in literary history. Why was he lonely? He had Snow White. Men always want more than loving daughters, they want bitch women to nail.

And where was dear old Dad later when the Queen shipped Snow White off to scrub floors in the basement?

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who is fairest of us all?

“‘If the mirror replied that she was fairest, all was well. But if another lady was named, the Queen flew into a furious rage and had her killed.’”

Andrew’s thumb came out of his mouth. “How did the Queen kill the other lady?”

“Crucifixion.”

“Like baby Jesus?”

“She made them go swimming during their periods and they died of shame.”

Marcella gave me a look, but Andrew seemed satisfied. He either knew the implications of swimming during your period in the olden days, or he didn’t care.

I read, “As the Queen was a dog, soon the kingdom had a shortage of women.”

“That’s not the right way it goes.”

“This is the way I’m reading it.”

He slapped the book, right on the Queen’s mirror. “Do it right. The story goes one way.”

Marcella looked over from her baby maintenance. “Andrew has all the books memorized, you can’t change a word.”

“Then why read to him?”

She looked at me funny. “I thought you had children.”

Put me in my place. I took a sip of Jesus and read the right way. “‘As the years passed, Snow White grew more and more beautiful, and her sweet nature made everyone love her—everyone but the Queen.’”

I didn’t really need Jesus. I mean, I needed Jesus the half-pint, what I didn’t need was to get drunk. Three of my favorite things—a book, a child, and a bottle—were all within reach, and I was content to wet my mouth with him every few minutes to stabilize the buzz.

Shane had told the hippies that Jesus masturbated, but Mom took me to Sunday school every week for years, and
The Upper Room
daily meditation guide never mentioned self-love in the physical sense. When I was Andrew’s age and going through a precocious stage, I asked the teacher if Jesus was a virgin because Mary was and it followed that a virgin mother would have a virgin son. I had the deal mixed up with Virgo. The teacher made me pray for God’s forgiveness.

A lesbian from San Diego I knew in college told me Jesus was homosexual, like her. “Look at his gang—twelve guys, two whores, and a mother who claimed she’d never done it.”

“Is that a normal configuration to turn out gay guys?”

“Put it this way, would a person with an extended family like that one be into man-on-top, get-it-over-with-quick?”

I told Sam Callahan about my lesbian friend’s theory, and he wrote a short story in which two anthropologists found some scrolls that proved absolutely, beyond any doubt, that Jesus was homosexual.

“My story explains how this discovery would affect Fundamentalist Christian faiths,” he told me.

“They would crucify the anthropologists and ignore the truth,” I said.

“The ending is too obvious?”

***

The concept that God might involve himself in retaliation for bad acts came to me the summer after I graduated from high school, one stormy day on the Forest Service lease when Dad, Hank Elkrunner, and I were fixing fence.

It was between showers, and Dad was using the wire stretcher, his muscles all bunched up and sweaty, and I had a semi-incestuous thought. Nothing disgustingly incestuous like me-and-him—don’t you just hate a dream where you’re romantically entangled with a member of your immediate family? God, that makes me feel icky. This was a daydream where I wondered what Dad was like with a woman. Was he any good? Did he grunt? Did he dig his chin into her right shoulder?

In my wildest imagination I couldn’t picture him with Mom, so I ran through all the possible women in the valley and ended up with Lydia Callahan. She was with Hank, but he wouldn’t mind. It was only a daydream.

Hank was working the crimpers and I was leaning on the post hole digger with one hand on the barbwire fence; I’d just come to the part where Dad uses his tongue on Lydia, and I couldn’t decide if his beard tickled, when lightning hit the fence about two miles up the mountain.

Here is a verifiable scientific fact: Electricity travels through barbwire faster than thunder through air. The jolt paralyzed my arm for like a half second, then blasted me ten feet into the sagebrush.

I was on my back, doing yellow-and-black spots, when the thunder passed over. Two of the spots gelled into Dad’s and Hank’s faces. They were both grinning, which was the only way I knew I wasn’t dead.

Dad’s beard split. “God give you a wake-up call?”

Hank touched my ozone-smelling hair. “Maurey, what did you do to anger the thunderbirds?”

I closed my eyes and swore to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost all three that I would never fantasize my Dad naked again.