Corky’s 100 percent against any kind of pervert but sometimes you know why a guy will “expose” himself as it’s called, just to make some of these bitches look. Anything less, they’re out of reach.
Corky’s old custom from his Catholic boyhood, and it’s a custom he knows at least one guy (Nick Daugherty) shared, probably all Catholic males in fact, he’d settle in a pew where he could fix on some sexy girl he could watch through his eyelashes without being detected, drift almost immediately into a dreamy-horny state kissing her fondling her undressing her fucking her doing all sorts of dirty extravagant things with her but nothing rushed, take your time, s-l-o-w, even old Father Sullivan couldn’t rattle through the mass in under thirty minutes, a little’s got to go a long long way. Corky’s prick filling up with blood like a balloon filling with air blown bigger and bigger to the danger point so by the time the bell rang for Holy Communion he’d be slack-jawed and drooling staring glazed-eyed at the object of his lustful thoughts who’d sometimes glance around nervous as if she sensed somebody staring at her in just such a way. And after mass then as soon as he was home Corky’d jerk off violently in the bathroom, almost fainting with the pleasure of it, the terrible paroxysm of the pleasure, nothing like it. Sunday after Sunday, Holy Day after Holy Day for years in dread of Aunt Frances suspecting what was going on, what he was, her nephew Jerome she loved like a son.
Do women suspect, Corky wonders. What utter pigs, what filth we are. Do they have half a clue.
The only disadvantage was, every time Corky masturbated after those years, all of his adult life to this very day, he’s susceptible to envisioning, not the naked female form, but the interior of a church.
But he can’t line up the silvery-haired woman in his sights and the young one who reminds him of Thalia is blowing her nose loudly into a tissue, a real turn-off. It’s shitty being so stone cold sober, reality stark as an overexposed photograph. The chapel is ornately decorated like the reception room, oppressive and humid, marble wall panels, bronze bas-relief columns, intricately carved mahogany pews and doors and pillars and velvet tapestries and a ceiling of some undersea-greenish stone. The rose window is garish with color, bright reds bright greens bright blues, decorated with nonsectarian figures like pyramids, unicorns, suns, the Tree of Life. Corky’s feeling a little dizzy, taking it all in. Like an underground candy box. Candy box–tomb. He can’t stop yawning.
Drink, need a drink. O sweet Christ.
At the front, shaking hands and whispering with the family, there’s a middle-aged guy must be their minister. Or does a nonsectarian chaplain come with this deal? The coffin on a riser at the altar (or what would be an altar if this was a real chapel) is offensive to Corky’s eye—plain unfinished wood, like a shipping crate. A human body’s in that? Nothing like what you’re used to at a funeral—like Marilee Plummer’s coffin for instance which was heavy, solid, ebony-shiny, dignified, not cheap. Corky understands this is only practical since the coffin is going to be burned but there’s something insulting about it anyway. Why not zip up the corpse in a body bag. Dump it in one of those dark green plastic garbage bags. Christ I need a drink.
The organ music thunders to a close. The minister, or chaplain, introduces himself, a name Corky forgets at once. Bulbous-nosed old guy in polyester black suit and bow tie, earnest and fawning and smiling showing pink gums and rubbing his hands together speaking of the deceased “Jerry van Heusen” beloved by all—“a man of honor”—“a man of integrity”—“an exemplary son, brother, husband, father, grandfather”—“a loyal and good friend”—“a pillar of charity and philanthropy”—“an employer much respected by his employees”—“a selfless public servant”—Corky listens without hearing, doesn’t want to hear, it makes him uneasy the dead man’s first name is “Jerry” which is the name people call Corky who don’t know him well or who want to get his goat.
If Charlotte calls him “Jerry” tonight, Corky’s going to give it to her in the mouth. Sometimes it scares him, how angry he is at that bitch. As if it isn’t her fault about Thalia screwed up as she is.
Corky shifts his buttocks, the pew’s cushioned but he can’t get comfortable. There’s something wrong with this chapel and only now does Corky get it: no Christ on the cross, no Christ with His sorrowing face and bloody wounds, no Christ blessing His sheep, no fucking Christ at all.
Corky’s shocked. As if the marble floor has tilted beneath his feet.
The symbols in the rose window and elsewhere in the chapel are only symbols, chump change. What’s a pyramid but some asshole tomb the ancient Egyptian pharaohs made slaves build for them so they could live forever!—a joke. What’s a sun but a star that’s going to burn out, its history over in milliseconds! What’s the Tree of Life but the Tree of Death without Christ even if you don’t believe in Him for Christ’s sake don’t you need Him? Without religion what’s the point of any of it?
Corky sees the coffin’s hooked to a rubberized belt, the oven must be fired up behind those purple velvet drapes while the old guy in polyester black yaks about “Jerry.” They won’t really do this, will they? Roast a man like you’d roast a pig? You have to honor the dead even if you don’t give a damn about them—don’t you? Isn’t that how it is? Don’t you owe them that respect?
Corky’s panicked thinking That’s me. That poor fucker in there, that’s me.
“Wait! No—”
Everybody in the chapel turns to look at Corky Corcoran, who’s on his feet shaky and swaying, appalled. The coffin has jerked forward, the velvet drapes are open and the oven door has lifted and there’s a muffled roar of fire. Corky stares, sees these strangers staring back at him, fear and dread in their eyes, too. What’s he doing making a public asshole of himself? Intruding where he isn’t wanted? A flush comes over his face, hot as actual flame. He shakes his head and mutters, “Sorry!—excuse me—” backing off deeply embarrassed as if he’d farted on a speaker’s platform or on TV. Jesus, what’s wrong with him? He’s cracking up.
Corky’s on his way out of the chapel but he’s lightheaded suddenly needing to sit again, a roaring in his ears Death is catching Death is catching Death is catching shutting his eyes willing himself to snap out of it, c’mon Corky for Christ’s sake. You’ve been here before, right? You’ll be O.K., right? He sees Christina’s face, her frightened eyes. You just need a drink, right? This is the D.T.’s, it isn’t real. Right?
Then it’s over. The service for “Jerry van Heusen” is over. The coffin has vanished like it’s never been and the oven door is shut tight and if there’s a powerful searing fire inside you have to imagine it, you can’t see it. Or smell it. Most of the mourners are on their feet preparing to leave. More embraces, handshakes. Corky wipes his damp face on his sleeve, Christ, he is embarrassed, but nobody knows his name here, and nobody’s holding his behavior against him, in fact what’s Corky but the mystery man at the van Heusen cremation service, the man “Jerry’s” family and friends will long recall as that sweet scared stranger who burst out “Wait! No!”—who was he?
Corky sees to his horror they’re headed for him. Even the elderly, pushing eagerly out of their pews. The man with the narrow squirrel-head. The silvery-blond wet-eyed and fierce staring at Corky as if they’re old lost lovers now to be reconciled—except she isn’t even middle-aged, she’s in her late sixties, hair not silvery blond but just silver, beehived to disguise its thinness. Kim Novak!
On shaky legs Corky manages to slip out of the pew, escape into the corridor. The only one to catch up with him is the little man with the squeezed-in head, a pert squirrel-face—“Why, Mr. Corcoran! Jerome! What a remarkable coincidence! I never realized you were a friend of Jerry’s, too.”
Is it possible? That pushy little bastard Teague, or Tyde, who’s been bugging Corky?—he’s here? God damn!
“—Maynard Teague, Jerome, we met just the other day at the Athletic Club, unfortunately we didn’t have time to talk—” As before, the little man advances familiarly upon Co
rky extending his hand to be shaken; he must see the hostility in Corky’s face, but it seems to make no difference, he’s smiling warmly. “This is a sad occasion, heaven knows, but—it must be serendipity, eh? Our paths crossing without either of us intending it?”
Corky, backing off, mutters rudely, “Sorry, no time now, I’m in a hurry.” Turns and walks away, fighting the urge to run.
“But, Jerome—we have so much to discuss—”
“No time now.”
The cremation service was fast and efficient: it’s only 6:42 P.M.
Outside at the Caddy that’s so weirdly parked fumbling for his keys to get the hell out of here Corky’s distracted by movement overhead, beyond the pinnacle of the slate roof: he looks up astonished, sees coils of smoke rushing out of the tall brick chimney, ashy-gray, creamy, dense, writhing as if alive, the air about it and seemingly the very sky itself irradiated with heat.
Rooted to the spot, staring upward, mouth slack, not knowing what he does Corky Corcoran makes the sign of the cross—fingertips to forehead to breast to left shoulder to right shoulder. Slowly.
9
Corky in Pursuit
And then, while smoke still lifts in soundless billowing clouds from the crematory chimney, this happens: Corky is driving down the rutted puddled lane back to the main drive, he’s got a cigarette already lit and in his mouth, deep restorative drags, compulsively he’s punching radio stations anxious for news, a blast of teen music like shattering glass, a high-pitched ad for Dyer’s Discount Drugs, his thoughts leap desperately ahead to the car wash on Schoonover as a man covered in filth fantasizes being cleansed, he’s thinking there’s nothing so therapeutic so sane so good as getting your car washed in one of these places with all the accessories, he’ll have the inside vacuumed too, toss out the crap he’s been accumulating (except for the begonia plant: he’ll visit Aunt Mary Megan tomorrow!), and if only the car wash is open Sunday evenings, how eager Corky is to get off Mount Moriah vowing he’s never coming back under any circumstances but especially not in a box, no cremation for him, he wants his own plot of Earth and his own fucking grave marker JEROME ANDREW CORCORAN there in Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery with his family if it’s only for pigeons to crap on, the Caddy’s jolting along at no more than ten miles an hour, a quick turn onto the main drive, where Corky’s eye takes in a car parked by the side in the grass and a woman behind the wheel leaning far forward both elbows on the lower rim of the wheel and her fingers pressed against her eyes as if she’s exhausted or weeping or both her dark tangled hair all but hiding her face but Corky sees it’s a young face a dead-white face the face of an apparition—Thalia?
Corky’s already past when the realization hits him. But as he jams on his brakes, the other car starts up suddenly, lurching past him. It must be Thalia, who else would so react, desperate and dangerous, Corky sees the car’s a Saab 900 S but it’s bottle-green and he doesn’t remember Thalia’s car that color. “Thalia?—wait!”
But of course Thalia doesn’t wait, doesn’t hear. As Corky stares astonished the Saab’s pulling away bouncing and skidding in the bumpy, puddled drive throwing up gravel in its wake, Corky curses under his breath starting off in pursuit, God-damned motherfucker! why didn’t he see who it was quick enough to block her! a split second’s advantage and Thalia’s escaping driving recklessly picking up speed as the Saab hits lower ground, and a paved street, speeding heedlessly into the residential neighborhood of Mount Moriah where the speed limit is twenty miles an hour she must be going fifty, and Corky following, cursing leaning over the wheel gripping the wheel like an Indy driver, the Caddy’s tires too skidding and churning mud and gravel then taking hold hitting solid pavement lunging forward like a rocket as Thalia already a block ahead rushes through a four-way stop and Corky hits his brakes when he comes to the stop not willing to risk driving through seeing out of the corner of his eye two boys on bicycles gaping after the Saab and now at the Caddy shuddering to a stop then leaping forward, and at the next intersection Thalia rushes through this time narrowly missing a car just entering the intersection from the left and this car God damn it brakes and skids turning approximately 180 degrees flailing like a stricken beetle so by the time Corky arrives there furious in pursuit and blaring his horn like a maddened bull elephant he’s blocked for several precious seconds finally cursing and maneuvering around the car stalled in the intersection (Corky has a quick glimpse of the driver’s stunned face: the plumpish face of a young housewife-mother, a child in the seat beside her, two more in the back) and the Caddy’s tires screeching in the wake of the bottle-green Saab now a full block away, turning onto a larger street that must be Seneca, as Corky watches Thalia takes a sharp skidding reckless right onto Seneca indifferent to traffic and when seconds later he gets to the corner again he’s blocked this time by a fucking city bus, the fucker just pulling out in that slow-wheezing way of Union City Transit buses belching black exhaust from its rear powerful enough to turn Corky’s stomach, he’s got a choice of waiting till the bus gathers speed and following in its wake gauging when it’s safe to pass or simply careening out into the farther left lane to pass it immediately which for a split second Corky’s primed to do then comes to his senses seeing in his rearview mirror vehicles hurtling toward him, a man’s face contorted in rage behind the windshield of his Cherokee Jeep blaring his horn at Corky who’s only considering cutting him off so Corky hangs back, Corky loses more precious seconds behind the bus and by the time he’s able to swing around the fucker pressing down on his accelerator pushing the Caddy from ten miles an hour to fifty in the space of a single indrawn breath the bottle-green Saab’s nowhere in sight.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”—Corky’s pounding the steering wheel with both fists. But not slackening his speed, God damn he’s not going to give up, he’s responsible for that crazy cunt and he’s not going to give up fuck it if it kills him.
His heart pumping by this time fast and rackety as the fucking Roto-Rooter drain-cleaning pump he’d needed to hire to clear his fucking cellar drains last week after the fucking rainstorms.
Corky speeds south on Seneca reasoning that Thalia must be ahead, he’ll catch up with her. The question is will she stay on Seneca leading back into the city or will she turn off onto another street, if it was Corky fleeing in the Saab he’d for sure turn onto Meridian west and hook up with I-190 north and out of the city but he doubts that Thalia knows these streets as he does, his major disadvantage is he has no idea where Thalia’s been staying lately thus can’t know where she might be heading to hide if at such a desperate time she would even wish to return there. He’s driving impatiently maneuvering around slower-moving assholes in his way, passing on the right with a staccato blast of his horn, Out of my way! out! yeah fuck you too, sister! risking an accident risking a speeding ticket at sixty miles an hour which is twenty miles over the speed limit but what the hell this is a desperate situation Corky can’t let Thalia escape very likely she’s got the German Luger with her and he’s got to get it back, it’s his responsibility as her stepfather and as a citizen, wincing seeing SPEEDERS LOSE LICENSES! SPEEDERS GO TO JAIL! a billboard he’s rushing beneath through a railroad underpass and up into the waning daylight where to his surprise he sees the bottle-green Saab only a half-block ahead!—no mistaking it. Corky renews the pursuit certain now he’ll catch up with Thalia and when he does she’ll see the futility of trying to escape him, he jams down his accelerator daringly cutting in front of a carload of blacks seeing the Saab just rushing through the next traffic light as it turns from yellow to red but Corky’s not going to be fucked this time speeding through on the red risking his ass and provoking horns in his wake now seeing the Saab rapidly cutting over unexpectedly into the right-turn lane, is it Meridian?—no, not Meridian—a smaller commercial street, Tuscarora—the Saab turning onto Tuscarora and God damn Corky can’t cut over quickly enough to follow, he has to wait till the next street to turn but instead of doubling back onto Tuscarora he keeps on going for
a second block and then doubles back reasoning Thalia isn’t far ahead, turning a sharp skidding left on Thalia’s street and seeing her, or imagining he sees her, a block or so ahead, Corky can’t go very fast on Tuscarora which is only two and a half lanes, parking allowed, he’s riding his fucking brakes half the time hearing his tires scream in protest seeing the faces of pedestrians and of other drivers turned toward him, not much traffic on this street but enough to obscure his view so though be believes he sees the bottle-green Saab ahead he can’t be 100 percent certain so pausing at intersections he glances swiftly left and right to make sure Thalia hasn’t turned off again, it’s her desperate strategy to lead her pursuer on a zigzag course and so lose him, yes but he sees her, God damn her she is turning off, at a Hoagie Haven Corky takes a sharp right, realizes a moment too late that the car that turned is a green Mercury, can’t make a U-turn in the street and so has to turn up a drive and jack himself around and so return to the intersection though it’s a one-way street but fuck it Corky doesn’t have any choice, sounding his horn so oncoming traffic halts for him and he makes his turn continuing on Tuscarora past Fitness Our Bizness past Fin Feathers & Fur Pets past Mykonos Pizza past Taco Bell past Fertility & Sex Counseling Institute past Comfortum Prosthetics “State-of-the-Art Silicone Limbs” past Tuscarora Clinique of Hair Removal past Grimm’s Allstate past Leathergirls Ltd. past La Vogue Unisex Hair Salon past Extermino Termite & Pest Control seeing, or thinking he sees, the bottle-green Saab turning right another time, this time in such careless haste the car’s right tires jolt over the curb, who else but Thalia so desperate, and within seconds Corky’s there turning in pursuit, he’s cutting off a Ford mini-van and the van’s coming faster than Corky estimates he steels himself for the collision straining against the seat belt but the vehicle veers aside brakes squealing and Corky’s miraculously in the clear seeing wincing through his rearview mirror that the van has skidded up onto the sidewalk, sideswiped a parked car—“Jesus!”—an icy sweat breaking out at Corky’s every pore but he doesn’t so much as pause, he’s in the clear.
What I Lived For Page 50
