In reality, though, my life was now on a downward course. Under the influence of the Oxy, I lost even the ambition to steal other people’s belongings. Tex picked up a new partner, and the bank repossessed the Monte Carlo. Luckily, we’d kept the Pinto as backup. By the time my opiate honeymoon was over, we were renting a leaky, mildewed trailer on the outskirts of Knockemstiff, the holler where I’d grown up. Though I’d sworn a million times that I’d never go back there, I broke that promise, just like I did all the other vows I’d made before my accident.
The last renters of the trailer had cut a hole in the floor for a toilet after the plumbing went bad. When we moved in, the landlord reluctantly fixed the busted pipes and Dee covered the hole with a piece of plywood that sagged and creaked whenever somebody stepped on it. On a warm day, the stench of strangers’ waste hung in the narrow rooms like the thick fog of failure. My son was terrified of falling in the hole because, according to Dee, I’d once threatened him in one of my blackouts that I could stick him down there and he’d never get out. And though I was certain that I must have been joking, it was evident that my sense of humor had been bred out of him.
Every time I came to, it seemed like Dee was lying on the couch in her Marlboro sweatpants, drinking bargain Big K pop from a plastic jug that looked like a gas can, while Marshall scratched the bottoms of her feet with a hairbrush. Sometimes, as I watched her stuff another bag of Fritos into her mouth, I thought about the time I’d invited Tex over for a beer. Walking up to the front door, we could see Dee through the curtains, sitting on the couch with her silk robe parted, letting the baby suck on her swollen brown nipples. She was beautiful that night. “Damn,” Tex said. “Would you look at that!”
“Better let me go in first,” I said.
Then later, after Dee had gone to bed, as Tex was leaving, he stopped outside the door and said, “Look, I don’t know how you feel about stuff like this, but I’d give a pretty penny for one night with your old lady.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“How ’bout two grand?” he said. Tex was sawed-off and hairy in all the wrong places. “Manly,” he called himself, whenever anyone had nerve enough to comment on his fur. He looked like an ape in cowboy boots and a leather jacket.
“I won’t ever need your money that bad, Tex,” I’d said, shutting the door in his face.
That had been only a couple of years ago. Now Dee was nothing but patches of pimples and rolls of fat. The only thing she seemed capable of doing besides watching the tube was pointing out my defects. And even if she happened to be in a good mood, it was just as horrible. She’d got on this kick where she pretended to be a movie star, and she’d go on for hours about crab cakes and evening gowns and the sunset over some beachfront hideaway. That she stayed with me was just another sign of her indolence. In a more advanced society, they would have probably killed us both and fed our bodies to the dogs.
Meanwhile, Marshall was quickly turning into one of those sullen, creepy kids who never says a word, the kind who goes on to communicate telepathically with a pet rat and sincerely dreams of eternal infamy. It aggravated my condition, all that silence, not even a Dad Dad. His muteness was a thorn in my side whenever I was alert. Even retarded talk would have been better than no talk at all. Even a garbled Fuck you would have been nice once in a while.
Sometimes I’d suggest to Dee that she have Marshall checked out. “He’s deaf!” I’d scream in her ear. “Can’t you see he’s fucked up!” I’d grab him by his thin shoulders and try to shake a sentence out of him. “Marshall, say something, goddamn it,” I’d plead, but when I turned him loose, he’d just roll away in a corner like a ball of lint. Then Dee would act insane and start waving her hands around in some sort of make-believe sign language as if she were making fun of me for caring. If I kept pressing her, she’d warn me that she was on the verge of calling her family over to settle me down. They’d kicked my ass a few times for what they called rude behavior, and I’d become careful about how I performed domestic abuse. So I’d back off and chew another Oxy, then crawl into bed and dismiss Marshall’s silence as just another one of those problems that Dee refused to recognize.
Even though I got my medication for free with the welfare card, and the government sent me a check every month for my bad back, we were always broke. Toward the end of the month, we’d run out of all the essentials that make living that sort of life bearable—candy and ice cream and cigarettes—and I’d start hinting to Dee that we should sell some blood. It was the only type of work that I could get her to do. Mine was no good because of my hepatitis, but Dee was AB negative and still pathogen-free, so the technicians welcomed her with open arms. We’d go to Portsmouth and sell a pint at the clinic on Fourth Street, then unload another one at the lab down along the river. By the time they siphoned the second one off, she’d be white as a sheet, as cold as ice. It made her feel special, having that rare blood. It was the only piece of her that anybody still desired.
So one bitterly cold morning in November, we found ourselves driving down the highway on a trip we’d made a hundred times, to sell the fluids from her body. The exhaust system on the Pinto was shot, and because carbon monoxide kept spewing up through the rotten holes in the floorboards, we had to roll the windows down to keep from getting gassed. Marshall was sitting in the backseat quiet as a snail and all snotty from a cold, and I shucked off my coat and threw it to him. Yesterday’s cereal crud was still caked to his face like dry-wall mud, and the new clothes that Dee had bought him last week were already filthy.
The damp, gray sky covered southern Ohio like the skin of a corpse. The landscape was a seemingly endless row of squat metal buildings full of cheap junk for sale: carpet remnants, used furniture, country crafts. Because Dee had insisted that I do the driving, I’d held off on my morning Oxys, and was feeling a little more on edge than usual. But still, the cold air blowing through the windows was refreshing after a month spent penned up in the trailer. As I drove, I even began to look around for businesses that might be suitable candidates for burglary.
Then Dee started talking her bullshit, stuff about rich celebrities and their private lives. A stranger would have thought she knew these people personally, the way she described their wants and desires. I shut her out, started thinking about the two 80s I’d stashed in the dash for an emergency. “Poor Brad,” she said wistfully.
I thought she was commenting on my cousin’s bad luck; he’d been arrested again for stealing hubcaps. “Shoot, he’ll be out in three months,” I said. “That bag biter can do that standing on his head.”
“Brad Pitt, you idiot,” Dee said.
“Fuck him.”
“Oh, believe you me, mister, if I ever got the chance.”
“Ha, that’s a good one. You hear that, Marshall? Shit, you and a fuckin’ donkey maybe.”
“Or Tex,” she said, sticking her big round face out at me. “What about Tex, you asshole? Maybe you could even get him ready for me.”
“You mention that bastard’s name again, I’ll knock your teeth out,” I said, regretting again that I’d ever told her about the offer of two grand. And though it was true that Tex had driven me to the hospital that night instead of smashing in my head, he’d gone on to ruin my reputation, told around that I’d begged for my life that night behind the drugstore, that I’d offered to suck him off in exchange for mercy. Every day I prayed for his capture.
We were stopped at a red light right outside of Portsmouth when a silver Lexus pulled up beside us. Glancing over, I was startled by the bold, sparkling eyes of the most stunning woman I’d ever seen. She was checking us out, laughing into her cell phone. Every inch of her radiated money and happiness and fine genes. Though there had once been a time when I would have yelled over and asked her to fuck, now all I felt was shame that she’d had to look at me at all. My hair was uncombed and greasy, my teeth coated with yellow scum, my tattoos meaningless and outdated. I turned my head and waited for the light to change.
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As the Lexus sped on down the street, I let out the slippery clutch on the Pinto and started cramping. Because of the opiates, I seldom ate anything but candy bars and ice cream, but that morning Dee had insisted on stopping at Mickey D’s for breakfast. I’d poisoned myself with sausage gravy and biscuits and Egg McMuffins and a chocolate shake. By the time we got downtown, I knew I couldn’t hold it. “Jesus Christ, stop somewhere,” Dee said. But I couldn’t face the public now. All I could see was that beautiful woman in the fancy car turning her nose up at me.
Though I fought it, tensing my muscles and squeezing the steering wheel with both hands, the pains kept getting worse. Desperate, I turned down an alley and saw a Dumpster behind an old brick building. I stomped the parking brake and jumped out. Diving behind the metal container, I jerked my pants down and cut loose. For a second, the relief was better than any drug, but then I heard tires crunching in the gravel behind me. Looking around, I saw a police car approaching slowly. I was trapped, my skinny ass shining at the two officers inside. There was no way I could stop—the stuff was pouring out of me like pancake batter. I gave a little wave, cursing them under my breath.
As the two cops got out of the cruiser, I tried to stand, but another wave of cramps forced me down into a squat again. I saw shit splatter on my jeans, inside and out. “What the hell we got here, Larry?” one of the cops said, an older man with a red nose and a thick mustache. He pulled a black club out of a holster attached to his belt.
Foul watery slime squirted from me again, and I lowered my head. “I ain’t sure, Dave,” the other cop said, a young man with sharp features, muscles sticking out of his shirtsleeves. “The only thing that I ever see doing that in public is a dog.” He kicked some loose gravel at me. “Are you a dog, you dirty bastard?” he asked me.
“No,” I managed to say.
“Check him out, Larry,” the older cop said with a chuckle. “I’ll cover you.”
“Fuck, I ain’t touching that skanky bastard,” the younger cop said. “He’s probably got the AIDS or something.”
They stood there for a minute watching me, then the older cop said, “Dog, where in the hell do you think you are?”
“Portsmouth,” I said.
“Stand up when he’s talking to you,” the younger cop ordered.
“I can’t,” I groaned. “I’m still sick.”
Then he pointed his gun at me. “I said to stand up, motherfucker.”
I stood up, holding my pants out of the mess with my hands. “Put your hands in the air,” the older cop said. I bit my lip, then raised my hands and let my jeans drop to the ground.
“Now, I want you to march in place, like you’re in my army,” the younger cop said, nudging his partner with his elbow. “You know how to do that, dog?” They both stepped back. I raised one knee, then lowered it and pressed my jeans down into the spreading puddle. As I lifted the other leg, I looked over and saw Dee scoot behind the wheel, a blank look on her face. Marshall had covered his head with my coat. If I could have wrestled a gun from one of the cops, I gladly would have killed us all at that moment.
“Please, officers,” I said, my voice shaking. “I don’t want no trouble. I got my family in the car.”
The older cop looked over at the Pinto. “Go call in the plate,” he told his partner. Then, as the younger cop walked back to the cruiser, he asked me, “Where you from, dog?”
“Meade,” I answered. “Can I pull my pants back up now?”
“Not yet,” he said.
We stood in the cold until the other cop came back and said the car was clean. “All right, go the fuck back where you come from,” the older cop said.
“Yeah, and you better think twice before you take a shit in Portsmouth again,” said the muscled one. Then they both busted a gut as they walked to the cruiser.
I pulled my pants up and watched them back down the alley, then I started to get in the car. “You’re not getting in here like that,” Dee said. I looked around, pulled a flattened cardboard box out of the Dumpster and laid it on the passenger seat. “Oh, God,” she said when I slid in and slammed the door shut. “You should kill yourself.” My jeans and hands were pasted with shit.
Jerking open the glove box, I fumbled around for the Oxy I’d brought with me. “It’ll be all right,” I said as I chewed the tablets up, and tried to calm down.
“Oh, Marshall, did you hear that?” Dee said sarcastically. “Daddy says everything is going to be just fine and fuckin’ dandy.” She wheeled out of the alley and drove a block down the street, then pulled over. Even with the windows open, the smell of me was sickening. “Walk over there and clean up,” Dee said, pointing to a Chinese restaurant across the street.
“Just go sell the fuckin’ blood,” I said. “I ain’t going nowhere. It’s your goddamn fault I got sick in the first place.”
Twisting around in the seat, she began punching at me wildly. “I should make you get out right here, you sonofabitch,” Dee screamed.
“Fuck you,” I said, grabbing her fists. “And keep your voice down before those fuckin’ cops come back.”
“We’re going home,” she said, breaking loose of my grip and jamming the car into gear.
“I’ll be goddamned. Go to the clinic.”
“It’s my blood, you bastard.”
“Jesus Christ, Dee,” I said. “Please.”
“No. Things got to change.”
She headed the car north on High; we were going home empty-handed after all that trouble. I lit my last cigarette and stared out the window. By the time we reached Waverly, the pills I’d swallowed had cast me into a sweet, warm ocean. For the next few minutes, I dreamily considered changing my life; I decided to quit the Oxy once I’d finished the ’script I was on. With the right therapy, I could land a decent job. I saw myself as a construction foreman, maybe even a drug counselor. We’d move out of the stinking trailer and into a nice house. I could see us in church on Sundays, our son singing in the choir. And then I nodded off.
When I woke up, I was lost and confused. Darkness had settled all around me, and I was shivering with the cold. It took me a minute or two to figure out that I was sitting in the Pinto in front of our trailer. As I started to climb out, I discovered the cardboard box stuck to my backside. For a few seconds, I thought that some sonofabitch had pulled a sick joke on me, but then I recalled the trip to Portsmouth, the cops in the alley, the fight with Dee. I dropped back down into the seat, lit my lighter and searched around for another pill. But the dash was empty. Then, getting out of the car, I tore the cardboard off me and got more of the cold, clammy shit on my hands.
Stumbling up to the concrete porch and digging for my house key, I happened to glance in the window. Dee and Marshall were cuddled together on the couch like two happy birds. They were eating toast and crumbs were flying everywhere, my son was talking so fast. I watched his lips moving, forming words I’d never heard him say. I pressed my ear to the door, my heart pounding, and listened to his excited, stuttering voice. For a moment, I thought I was witnessing some kind of miracle. But then, as I stood there, I slowly began to realize that Marshall had been talking all along, just not around me.
I stepped away from the door and took a deep breath of the cold air. I realized I was in the middle of one of those moments in life where great things are possible, if a person is willing to make the right choice. A car drove by, shining its headlights on me, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. I could already see myself coming back in a year or two, clean and ready to do right by my family. Everyone would praise me, maybe even forget my past. But then I thought about the bottle of Oxy in the medicine cabinet and I stopped. I lifted my filthy hands and smeared the shit across my face, through my hair. Turning back, I grabbed hold of the door handle, and stuck my key in the lock. I heard everything go silent and sad inside the trailer as I pushed the door open, but I didn’t care. Just one more time, just once more before I left, I needed to feel blessed.
HONOLULU
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HALF THE TIME NOW THE ONLY THING CRAWLING AROUND in Howard Bowman’s worn-out head is that four-letter word, the one swear that his wife no longer allows in the house. Back when he was still in good shape, Peg gave him an ultimatum. “No more, Howard. If you say that damn word one more time, I’m leaving. My Lord, you got the grandkids saying it.” Now look at him, afraid to say it, the only goddamn thing that makes sense anymore. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
. . . . .
SITTING STRAIGHT UP IN HIS STICKY PLASTIC RECLINER, Howard peers into the large photograph hanging on the wall while methodically twisting curly gray hairs out of his left arm. Peg’s always pestering him with a new goal—names, dates, numbers—but every morning it’s as if another fuse has popped, another important connection ripped out of his brain while he was sleeping. Sometimes he wishes the woman would just let him rot. He yearns for the day when he’ll be wiped clean.
Earlier today, she flew into the living room and said, “Okay, Boss, see that picture?” Howard jerked awake, looked up at her with a pained expression. “On the wall over there,” Peg pointed. “Your retirement picture? Give me the names of those men by suppertime,” she told him, bending over and scraping a dab of oatmeal off his chin with the corner of her apron.
Howard stared blankly at the wall. Something was expected of him. “Which one?” he finally asked, just as he lifted his thin leg and squeaked out a small pocket of gas.