“Hap’s,” I said, dabbing at a trickle of wine running off Albert’s chin.
“I should have figured,” she said, and left the room. Other than Hap’s Bar, the only other business that was still hanging on in Knockemstiff was Maude Speakman’s store. Even the church had fallen on tough times. Nobody had loyalty anymore. Everyone wanted to work in town and make the big money at the paper mill or the plastics factory. They preferred doing their shopping and praying in Meade because the prices were lower and the churches were bigger. I figured it was only a matter of time before Hap Collins sold his liquor license to the highest bidder and closed up the only good thing still left in the holler.
After Albert nodded off, I killed the inch of dregs he’d left in the bottle, then went out to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. From the back window, I could see all the way across Knockemstiff. It had snowed a bit during the night, and smoke rose from the chimneys of the shotgun houses and rust-streaked trailers scattered along the gravel road below. A chain saw started up somewhere over Slate Hill. I ate a piece of cold toast while watching Porter Watson fill his truck with gas at Maude’s, then stumble across the parking lot in all his camouflage padding and go inside the store.
Looking across to the other end of the holler, I could just make out the frosted nose of the Owl’s car sticking out of the hillside across from Hap’s Bar. It was an abandoned 1966 Chrysler Newport, but people around here called it the Owl’s ride, the Owl’s castle, the Owl’s this and that. Nothing was known about the car’s original owner, but Porter Watson made sure nobody in the fucking county ever forgot the screech owl that had roosted in the front seat the summer after the car, plates missing and engine busted, mysteriously appeared parked halfway up the hill. You’d have thought they were cousins the way Porter went on about that stupid bird.
I rinsed my cup and walked into the living room, eased myself down into the saggy couch. Scenic vistas torn from old calendars were pinned to the walls, looking like windows into other worlds. Triple A guidebooks were scattered everywhere. Though Mary had never owned a car, she had a book for every state. She was always pretending a trip somewhere.
“She’s nuts,” Sandy had told me the first night I went home with her. We’d just knocked one off and were lying in bed drinking our last quart of beer. “She laid a goddamn rock on my bed the other morning, claimed she’d found it at the Grand Canyon. Kept blowing off she wanted to bring me home something special.”
“So?” I’d said.
“So? I’d just watched her pick it up out of the driveway. Hell, that old bitch ain’t never been out of the state of Ohio, Tom.”
I kept my mouth shut, sucked down the suds in the bottom of the bottle. My wife had finally kicked me out, and I was desperate for a place to stay.
“Besides,” Sandy said, getting up and heading for the bathroom, “what kind of present is an old dirty rock anyways?”
. . . . .
WE WATCHED THE TUBE ALL THAT WINTER DAY, SMOKING cigarettes and drinking weak coffee and eating cheese crackers from a box. With the house sitting on top of the knob like it did, the TV could pull in four channels, so there was always something to watch. Still, there were times I wished they had cable. During the commercials, Sandy worked on another drawing of the Ideal Boyfriend, and Mary flipped through a book about Florida. Every so often I’d get up and check on Albert, give him another straw of wine to keep the war away.
Then, right after dusk, Mary ran out of smokes. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she ransacked drawers, looked under cushions. Finally, she straightened up and went down the hall talking to herself. When she came back, she held out a wrinkled twenty and asked us to go buy her a carton. Sandy grabbed the money and jumped up, ran back to her bedroom. “The store will be closin’ before long,” Mary yelled. “You don’t need to fix up just to go to Maude’s.”
I knew we were in for it as soon as Sandy pranced back out to the living room. She was wearing lipstick and her tightest jeans; she’d combed the rat’s nest out of her hair. The bitter scent of the perfume I’d bought her for Christmas cut through the stale air. Mary’s eyes clouded over with worry, but she didn’t have any choice. She hadn’t walked the hill in a coon’s age, and she couldn’t go without her smokes. I pulled my coat on and followed her daughter out into the winter darkness. It was the first time we’d been outside all day. “This must be how vampires feel,” I said, looking up at the stars through the bare branches of the trees.
“Huh?” Sandy said as she started to trot down the hill ahead of me.
“Slow down,” I said. The gravel was icy from where all the cars had packed down the snow. “What’s your hurry?”
“I’m thirsty,” Sandy said.
“Girl, I ain’t got no money.”
She turned around, pulled the twenty out of her pocket, and waved it in my face. “I do,” she said with a laugh.
“Don’t you think we oughta get your mom them cigarettes?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “She smokes too much anyway.”
. . . . .
I KNEW ALL ALONG WE’D NEVER LAST, BUT WHEN I CAME OUT of the john at Hap’s and found Sandy gone, I still felt a sick feeling in my stomach. We’d been drinking the cheap draft and listening to her favorite Phil Collins for a couple of hours when she ditched me. I went outside and hunted for her in the parking lot, then came back in and sat down at the bar next to Porter Watson. “You see where Sandy went?” I asked Wanda, the barmaid. My voice was trembling, and I lit my last cigarette with shaky hands.
Wanda set another draft in front of me. “As soon as you hit the pisser, she left out the door with that logger that was in here,” she said. “Hell, they’d been eyeing each other since you two got here.”
“The Ideal Boyfriend,” I muttered.
“The idy what?” Porter asked, turning toward me. His bushy beard smelled like stomach acid.
“Nothing,” I said, staring down at the mug of beer. I started to pick it up but then pushed it back toward Wanda. “I ain’t got no money,” I said.
“I already poured it,” Wanda said.
“I’ll buy,” Porter told her, throwing a five on the bar.
And so I sat there until closing time, drinking on Porter and listening to him go on and on about the Owl’s car. When you first heard him talking about it, you’d figure he was bat-shit crazy, but really, he was just trying to latch on to something that would fill up his days so he didn’t have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It’s the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we’ll ever do.
“I’d still like to know the history of that car,” I said, just to show him I was still listening.
“History?” Porter snorted. “Man, that car’s like part of the landscape. It’s like fuckin’ nature.”
“No,” I said, “I mean, like, how you figure it got there in the first place?”
“It landed there.”
“Landed?” I looked over at him. His bloodshot eyes were locked on the wavy mirror behind the bar. “You mean like…”
“Hell, yes,” he said. “And we’re damn lucky it did,” he added, a sob starting to erupt from deep inside his throat.
A few minutes later, Wanda yelled, “Last call!” I looked over at the Miller Beer clock above the door. It said 1:00 AM. Then I remembered the old lady’s cigarettes. I couldn’t go back to the house without some Marlboros. Hell, she probably wouldn’t let me in. I waited until Wanda started to flick the lights off and on, then hit Porter up for the money to get a pack, hoping that would pacify Mary until morning.
“Last call!” Wanda yelled again, as I dropped eight quarters in the cigarette machine.
. . . . .
WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT BACK TO SANDY’S HOUSE, THE gray light of the TV still glowed through the sheets of plastic stapled over the windows. I knocked on the door and watched through the glass as Mary struggled out of the recliner and slowly made her way across t
he room. Her blue fuzzy housecoat fit her round body like a cocoon. Her pockets bulged with wads of used Kleenex. Pulling the door open, she peered past me into the darkness. “Where’s Sandy?” she asked.
“I ain’t sure,” I said, my teeth chattering from the cold. “She took off.”
“What about my cigarettes?”
“I brought you a pack,” I said, holding them up to the porch light. “Sandy’s got the rest of them.”
“That girl,” she said, unlatching the screen door. “She don’t have the sense to pound sand down a rat hole.”
I stepped into the cramped living room, shrugged off my coat. The Love Boat was playing on the tube. “Jesus,” I said, “I ain’t seen that show since I don’t know when.” It had been one of my mom’s favorites, though I always felt it was bullshit, the way everyone fell in love and got what they wanted in the happy ending.
We stood in the middle of the living room staring down at the TV. “I’d give anything to take one of them cruises,” Mary said, as she peeled open the pack of smokes.
“Where is that?” I asked. It all looked so beautiful on the screen, the tropical scenery, the sexy bikinis, the sparkling blue water, even the bald captain in the tuxedo.
“Hawaii,” Mary answered. “I seen this one a dozen times. See that woman standing by the rail? The poor thing don’t know her hubby’s on the ship with his new girlfriend.” Mary dropped down into her recliner, lit a cigarette. The tip of the Marlboro began to glow like a stoplight in the middle of her wrinkled face.
“Is that them?” I said. Two has-been movie stars were strolling on the deck, their arms wrapped around each other, their smiling faces pointed up at the sun.
“Yep,” Mary said. “The shit’s gonna hit the fan pretty soon.”
. . . . .
AFTER A FEW MINUTES, MARY NODDED OFF IN HER CHAIR. Taking one of the cigarettes from the pack I’d brought her, I went into the kitchen. I stood by the window smoking and wondering if Sandy and her logger were somewhere fucking right at that moment, their two hearts pounding against each other like sledgehammers while mine barely beat at all. Suddenly, I remembered Albert. I pulled a fifth of Rose from the refrigerator and walked down the hall to check on him. Though it was against Mary’s rule, I figured he could do with a snort. A nightlight plugged into an outlet above him shone on his face like a pale blue star. Sitting down beside him, I uncapped the bottle. “Hey, old man,” I whispered, “let’s have a drink.”
I stuck the straw down into the bottle before I realized that Albert was dead. It was probably the first time he’d ever turned down a drink in his life. I sat beside him for a while sipping from his jug and thinking about Sandy. Sometime tomorrow she’d roll in, and I made up my mind I didn’t want to be around for that. My job was done here anyway. I turned on the lamp and rummaged through the drawer of pills, found the bottle of Demerol. Then I leaned over, and as gently as I could, pushed Albert’s dry, pink eyelids down with my thumbs.
Going back out to the living room, I pulled on my coat and slipped the bottle of wine in my pocket. As I headed for the front door, I looked down and saw one of Sandy’s drawings lying on the coffee table. She’d printed WANTED in bold letters over the man’s shrunken head. I stuck it in my other pocket, then tiptoed over and gently pried the pack of cigarettes from Mary’s hand, leaving her three in the ashtray.
I stood outside the old house for a moment, and then started down the road. As the cold air quickly seeped through my coat, I realized I’d never make it out of the holler tonight. All of Knockemstiff was asleep, even the dogs, and I had no place to go. By the time I got to Hap’s cinder-block building, I was damn near frozen. I stood shivering in the middle of the road trying to decide what to do, then leaped over the drainage ditch and scrambled up the hillside. The briars and brush ripped my skin and tore my clothes, but I finally made it to the Owl’s car.
I pulled open the rusty door and crawled inside the Newport. I flicked my lighter and looked around. Dirty gray feathers lay everywhere; dry, pale droppings caked the faded cloth seat. I heard a scrunching sound like dried twigs under my boots. Holding the Zippo near my feet, I saw the thin white bones of small animals scattered on the floorboards. It occurred to me that these were probably some of the Owl’s victims. I rolled the stubborn windows up as far as they would go and hunkered down in the seat, with just my eyes above the cracked dash.
After finishing off Albert’s bottle and popping two of his Demerol, I stretched out as best I could across the front seat. I closed my eyes and sank deeper and deeper into that lonely world known only to those who sleep in abandoned vehicles. As a car rattled past on the road below, I recalled the story about Sandy’s uncle Wimpy Miller freezing to death in a Dumpster behind the Sack N’ Save, his body buried in outdated lettuce. Then I thought of Hawaii, tried my best to conjure up the hot sand of a tropical beach, the warm silky nights of paradise.
The wind picked up, rocking the old car back and forth. Flakes of snow blew through the cracks and swirled above me. Reaching down, I picked up the tiny skull of a wretched little bird. I held it in my hand for a long time. It seemed as if everything I’d ever done in my life, the good and the bad, rested there. Then I slipped it, as thin and fragile as an egg, into my mouth.
I START OVER
EVERYBODY’S SEEN IT, THE COMMERCIAL WHERE THE OLD man is running along the moonlit beach with the beautiful pink-haired starlet clad in the silver thong; the one that says it’s never too late to start over. This guy’s bounding along like a fucking gazelle, his feet barely touching the sand, a bulge the size of a sledgehammer knocking around inside his plaid swimsuit; and then this young girl, she can barely keep up he’s moving so fast. It’s bullshit, another lie they tease you with, hoping you’ll fall for the special effects, dial the toll-free number with a credit card clenched between your false teeth. And it’s like all those other artsy commercials nowadays, where they don’t actually tell you what they’re selling. I mean, they might have a little drama going on about an elephant and a sunflower, but then someone figures out it’s just an ad for sanitary napkins, that sort of thing.
But still, they suck you in, this new way they tell a story. The bastards prey on your regrets, divine all your little sorrows. Take me for example, Big Bernie Givens. I’m fifty-six years old and sloppy fat and stuck in southern Ohio like the smile on a dead clown’s ass. My wife shudders every time I mention the sex act. My grown son eats the dead stuff that collects on windowsills. I must watch that damn commercial twenty times a day. I dream about it at night, about starting over. I wake up with that background music knocking holes in my heart. Like I said, it’s bullshit.
. . . . .
“WHAT’S THOSE THINGS WHERE THEY BURN YOUR DEAD body?” I ask my wife. We’re inching forward in the drive-through line at Fedder’s Dairy Queen, sucking car fumes and listening to Jerry thrash around in the backseat like an ape caught in a net. It’s been the worst summer on record, just one massive heatstroke. My new white shirt is already stained the color of pus; my shades are fogged over with greasy vapors. Fumes from the paper-mill stack across town make the whole county smell like a giant fart. The sun is everywhere.
“Crematorium?” she yawns. She rubs her eyes, runs a freckled hand through her thin brown hair, dead as straw now from too many dye jobs.
“No, not that, like over in Asia,” I say, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I should have gone ahead and driven the air-conditioned Mercury today, left the Chevy covered up in the garage. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I watch Jerry struggle against the plastic webbing we use to hold him down and keep him from jumping out into traffic. Blue veins thick as fingers bulge in his scarlet neck. The poor bastard never lets up.
“Shit, how should I know?” Jill groans. She begins fanning herself with a wrinkled map of Ohio she’s dug out of the glove box.
“That’s it,” I say. “That’s what it feels like.”
. . . . .
LATELY, I’VE BEEN FUCKING UP
LEFT AND RIGHT. THE other night on my way home, I even tried to pick up some young girl. She was walking along Third Street and I drove past first, checking her out. I could see that she was junior high, but I whipped around the block anyway, then pulled over to the curb. “Hey, you need a ride?” I asked. As soon as the words spilled out of my mouth, my teeth started chattering, even though the sign on the bank said it was ninety-two degrees.
The girl looked up and down the street, then edged closer to the car. “Where you going?” she asked. Her voice sounded like tinfoil. Pictures of butterflies covered her pink shirt. She had the body of a woman, but the face of a little kid. Cow hormones have the young people all fucked up.
It was still daylight, and I was nervous about being seen. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just ridin’ around.” I could smell my sweat, taste the bologna sandwiches I’d had for lunch.
She leaned in the window, looking the car over inside. She wore one of those necklaces strung with candy hearts, and they were melting against her throat. I tried to suck in my gut, but it still rubbed the steering wheel. “I got to be home in two hours,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” For one brief moment, it was like that commercial come true, I swear to God. I was already picturing the stuff we’d do. But then, just as she opened the door to slide in beside me, someone began yelling from across the street. I looked over and saw a tall stocky woman with curlers in her hair standing on the porch of a big red-brick. “Oh, shit,” the girl said. “That’s my volleyball coach.” She stepped away from the car just as the woman leaped off the porch and began running toward us. I blew through two red lights, and then made a fast right out of town. That’s the reason I didn’t drive the Merc today. I figure every cop in Ross County has a description of Jill’s car stuck in his sun visor.
. . . . .
THIS AFTERNOON WE’VE BEEN OUT TO THE MOTHER-IN-LAW’S for another one of her Sunday dinners—a raw pink chicken stuffed with bits of blue grass that I swear the old bag foraged from an Easter basket—and now my ulcers are screaming for long dogs with sauce and limp, greasy fries. Jill’s always on me about my clogged pipes, but I’m a big guy—they don’t call me Big Bernie for nothing—and I crave junk food like a baby craves the tit. Besides, I’m beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.