Well

by Matthew McIntosh

  III.

  When he was sure that his wife was asleep, he snuck out of bed and went downstairs and got on his office phone. He called the number and they started talking. She’d been waiting for him to call. She knew he’d call. He wanted to know if she liked to be with men and women at the same time. She loved it. She’d been with lots of women—she loved women and men—and she’d been waiting for—No, he didn’t like that. OK, she’d never been with a woman but she’d always wanted to try. In fact, there was another women with her right now and she really wanted to be with her if it was all right with him. By all means. So she was with another woman, a young coed with long blonde hair, they were both young coeds with long blonde hair, and they were both in their panties—You know what, how about this? She was with a young brunette coed and she was an older woman—a friend of his mother’s from when he was a teenager—Rebecca White was her name. She had beautiful long red hair. Her husband’s name was Dave White and they had two teenage sons. Her husband was obese and she didn’t love her husband and what she’d always wanted was him. What she’d really always wanted was to be with a bond trader. No, what she’d really wanted was to be with a young coed and a teenage boy who might someday be a bond trader. The boy has dreams of becoming a professional baseball player, see. The bond-trading thing is a last resort because his dad has a—Some things just don’t work out in life. You know what, let’s just forget all about this bond-trading business.

  OK. They were all together now. The young blonde, that is, the young brunette coed, the older woman, that is, herself: Rebecca White, and him: the teenager with aspirations of playing pro ball—You know what, let’s just get rid of the coed. It’s too confusing with the coed and it’s sort of beside the point.

  OK. So it was just the two of them. Right. It’s just the two of us. The two of us: you, a young baseball-player-in-the-rough, and me, Rebecca White, wife of David White, mother of two, and best friend to your mother. Right. And what am I wearing? She often wore a jogging suit, which I liked quite a bit, but I always imagined she would meet me at the door in a towel and we would proceed to the couch. Are you wearing your baseball uniform? It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing.

  OK, you’ve just been playing baseball with your friends and you’re hot and thirsty and you figure you might stop at my house for a drink of water. I’m all alone. You ring the doorbell and I answer the door in a towel. You can see the tops of my big, round tits. I’m dripping wet. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve wanted you so bad, ever since I first saw you at your mother’s birthday party. Do you wanna go into the living room and sit on the couch?

  Her breasts were small actually. Regardless—yes, that would be fine.

  OK. I take you into the living room. I push you down onto the couch because you’ve been a bad boy. Naughty boy! I know you’ve been thinking about me when you’re in bed at night, under the covers. I kneel down and unzip you and take your cock out because I’ve been wanting it so bad. Whenever I’ve been fucking my fat husband. Oh my God, it’s so big!

  I’m sorry; just a second. How about this: I’m remembering a girl in my band class that year. Kimberly Something. What was that girl’s last name? Played alto sax. I guess her last name is irrelevant. My thought is this: possibly, she could come out from upstairs. Say she’s been up there taking a bath with you or something. I know I nixed the coed thing but maybe it would help if there was another female presence. Tell you what, let’s bring the coed back. I’m sitting on the couch and you’re in your towel and the coed comes downstairs in a blue and gold cheer-leading outfit. With pom-poms. Shirtless, of course. Wet, soapy breasts. Ponytail. All right?

  It’s your dime.

  Fine, let’s do that then. You, Rebecca White, young coed, towel, cheerleading outfit, pom-poms. Me, young pitching prospect, sweating hard after a long day of playing baseball with my friends. All right. Let’s take it from the top.

  Me and my girlfriend Kimberly have been—

  You know what, now I’m thinking latex.

  Do you realize what this is costing?

  IV.

  Davin and Sarah were very happy and after they married they lived all over the West Coast and spent some time in Texas and Louisiana for kicks. They loved that they didn’t need much money and they embraced the punk lifestyle. They spent most of their money on alcohol and records. Sometimes they’d borrow money from friends, and when they had to, they’d each go and apply for a warehouse or a picking job, depending on where they happened to be. They didn’t mind the work so much and they prided themselves that they could pick up and move whenever they wanted. If they couldn’t afford an apartment and no one was around to let them crash, they’d live in Davin’s old Volkswagen bus and shower at the Y. Davin loved Sarah. He loved making her laugh and he really loved the things they’d do in the sack. They would fuck like crazy. There was nothing they wouldn’t do together. Sometimes Sarah would dress Davin up in a dress and makeup and she’d put his long hair in pigtails and have him fuck her. Sometimes she would fuck him. He thought she was the greatest and she liked him too.

  Davin played bass and Sarah played a little guitar and sang a little although she wasn’t the greatest singer. But singing wasn’t the most important thing. They would often play with their friends and sometimes record on 4-track. Davin wanted to make it big in the indie scene—he had a dream of being king and queen of the indie scene—and he was good enough to—he was an excellent bass player—and Sarah liked the idea well enough, but she wasn’t too optimistic. She thought that Davin would never amount to much of anything and she had always thought this and she told him so whenever she got angry enough. As for herself, Sarah had no idea what would become of her in the end. She wasn’t a smart or attractive or talented girl in any way, and she thought, although she didn’t want to, that she would go back to South Seattle someday and get a job in a bar like her mother, live in a shitty little house on a piece of dead land like her mother. She didn’t see Davin in this picture and didn’t mind. She liked Davin, she liked how nice and funny he was, but she couldn’t see herself staying with him for very long. In the end, he probably wouldn’t stop her from going back to South Seattle and she hated that. He’d want to go with her. What she wanted was someone with a nice job and some money to set her down in one place and make sure she never went back.

  Sarah got pregnant in Madera County and when she was almost due, she and Davin drove up to Washington to stay with Sarah’s mother in her house. Davin got in an argument with Sarah’s mother the first day and she kicked him out, so Davin drove down to his friend Gary’s house by the Home Depot in Federal Way. He called Sarah many times a day telling her that they could stay with Gary, that he was going to come pick her up and get a job at a warehouse with Gary and she could stay home all day until she had the baby and afterwards, and Sarah always told him to leave her alone for awhile to think.

  Sarah’s mother worked all night and slept in during the day, and Sarah lay on the couch all day watching TV. Her mother smoked and drank a lot and looked much older than she was. Her face had deep grooves through it and her nose had been broken before and it was flat in one place. Men would sometimes come over after her mother got off work and Sarah would listen to them fuck in her mother’s bedroom, her mother always sounding like the wind was being knocked out of her, and afterwards they would fall asleep and Sarah would hear the man snoring. She had heard these men snoring all her life. After a few weeks, she called Davin and he drove out and picked her up.

  They named the baby Dylan after a TV character Sarah liked and when Davin had saved enough money, they moved out of Gary’s house and into an apartment behind the Wal-Mart. Davin worked long hours in the warehouse driving the forklift and he liked coming home to his wife and playing with the baby. They would go for walks with the baby in the stroller and sometimes they’d go on picnics. Davin loved having a family of his own. He’d never gotten along with his family and he was going to do all he could to make sure this one turned
out right. He never raised his voice around the baby and he let Sarah make all the decisions. He didn’t mind. He and Sarah weren’t having sex anymore and it frustrated him and depressed him sometimes, but he told himself that he didn’t mind. He always tried to make her laugh. Sarah let him watch porno movies after she went to bed, so he watched them and after he was done he was always very depressed.

  Sarah was often depressed, herself, and she didn’t like Davin touching her anymore and she didn’t know why. Sometimes she couldn’t stand the sight of him, and she would stare at him while he slept and feel sick to her stomach. She didn’t know why and she felt guilty about it. She loved Dylan and now that she had him, she vowed she would never go back to South Seattle, she would never get a job at a bar like her mother. But she knew that Davin was never going to be able to give enough. She didn’t like Davin touching her anymore, but she still liked him and appreciated what he did for her, which was all that he could. One night she came into the living room while Davin was watching a video and she told him to bend over the couch and she fucked him. They felt better for awhile.

  Davin kept practicing his bass. He jammed with various people on the weekends and formed various bands that never managed to stay together for more than a few weeks. He and Gary stayed together and they played well together. Gary played the guitar and wasn’t bad. He’d been in jail for almost killing a man one night at a bar. The judge had made him take anger management classes. Davin liked Gary because Gary was loyal to his friends and he treated his friends like family and would do anything for them. But one night, when they were both drunk and playing in Gary’s basement, Gary got mad at Davin and blindsided him with a shot to the temple. The punch severed the optic nerve in Davin’s left eye and left him paralyzed down his left side. When he was unconscious in the ambulance, Davin dreamt he was an old man in a huge mansion with children all around.

  Gary was ordered to take more anger management classes and Davin stayed in the hospital and worked on physical therapy. He spent months picking up paper clips and learning how to walk again and he regained some movement and feeling in his left side. Sarah didn’t like being at home alone with Dylan and she would bring him to the hospital during visiting hours and they’d stay with Davin and watch TV. Davin was always very happy to see them and he did his best to keep up a pretense of contentment. The government paid the hospital bills and gave Davin a thirty-thousand-dollar settlement that Gary would someday reimburse. Davin’s left eye died and turned a very beautiful turquoise color. It shrunk down to half its original size and the doctors removed it. They fitted him with a glass eye. When he went home, he still had trouble walking, and he had no vision in his left eye and only half in his right. He stared straight ahead and walked with his arms dangling loosely at his sides. Sarah thought he walked like the creature from the Black Lagoon.

  On the way home from the hospital, Sarah drove the van and they stopped for ice cream and took Dylan to the park to let him play on the jungle gym. Sarah and Davin sat on a bench and Davin watched Dylan, who was now two years old, with his hands on his thighs and his head forward and a sad expression on his face. Sarah watched Davin peer through his periscope. She stared at the side of his face and knew that he couldn’t see her. That night they went home and Sarah moved Dylan’s crib into the living room and put him to bed and then took Davin into the bedroom and undressed him. She gave him a blowjob and let him come in her mouth, and when he could do it again, she got on top of him, then moved off and got on all fours. After he was done, she lay next to him and looked at the side of his face. He was breathing hard, staring at the ceiling and she knew he couldn’t see her.

  He wanted to save the rest of the settlement for a rainy day so Davin went back to the warehouse. He couldn’t drive the forklift anymore so they had him sticker items. He sat on a chair all day and put the price tags on and sometimes his fingers wouldn’t work right, and he was always the slowest one. Still, he kept a good attitude and told jokes and laughed with the people there. Gary had left the state and everyone at the warehouse told Davin that none of them had ever been able to stand Gary and they all wondered how Davin ever had. Everyone liked Davin and he made them all laugh. He started hanging out with a kid named Jim, who hadn’t known Davin before the accident, and they’d go down to the Trolley and around to the other bars, and crack each other up, sometimes laughing until they cried. When he’d drink Davin would have even more trouble walking, his left side would seize up and sometimes he’d fall. When he’d fall Jim would pick him up and brush him off and Davin would stand there, quiet, looking straight ahead.

  One night Davin came home from the Trolley and he picked Dylan up from the floor and carried him into the bedroom and set him down roughly in the crib. Dylan cried and Sarah ran into the room and started shrieking, yelling at Davin to get away from her son. Davin started crying, himself, out of his right eye, and he kicked the side of the crib and grabbed Sarah by the shoulders and threw her against the wall. She ran at him to hit him but he grabbed her shoulders and threw her against the wall again. He looked crazy. He felt crazy and Sarah was scared. He squeezed hard on her shoulders and pushed her down to the floor. Then he ran out, stumbling as he ran down the steps in front of the apartment.

  When he got back early in the morning, he passed out on the couch and woke to someone tapping his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw a policeman and when he turned his head he saw another one and when he kept turning, he saw Sarah standing in the hallway with Dylan in her arms. Davin spent the rest of the night in jail and he tried to reach Jim to bail him out, but Jim wasn’t home and he couldn’t think of anyone else to call. So he spent two more nights in jail and when they released him, they told him he couldn’t come within five hundred feet of Sarah or Dylan and if he did he would go back to jail for a long time.

  He stayed with Jim and worked at the warehouse and saw his parole officer every week and took a drug test twice a month and sometimes randomly. Sometimes his parole officer would take a cup out of his desk and make Davin fill it. They made him take expensive anger management classes and go to Alcoholics Anonymous and to life-restructuring therapy. He didn’t have an anger problem or a drug problem or even a drinking problem. He didn’t need his life restructured. He was twenty-eight and all that had happened was he’d had a hard year. Half of his paycheck was taken out each month by the State and given to his ex-wife and son. He would have liked to move out and get a place of his own but he couldn’t afford it. He’d already hocked two of his basses and his guitar and most of his records and recording equipment, and all the money the State had given him was gone. He missed Dylan and Sarah and loved them both the same as he always had.

  After a year, Sarah let Davin come over to the apartment and see Dylan. Dylan had missed his father that year and he recognized him immediately. Sarah sat on the couch and watched Davin play with his son. Davin pulled up Dylan’s shirt and blew into his stomach and Dylan laughed hysterically. Sarah liked watching them play together but it made her sad. She didn’t know why. She’d been working at a day care for almost a year. At the day care, she’d met a man working construction and they were dating. He lived in South Seattle and sometimes spent the night with her. They were starting to talk about marriage. She watched Davin kissing his son and laughing and she thought about her new boyfriend, the construction worker. He was a good man and very stable. He was what she needed. She was almost thirty and she had a son. She liked the construction worker. He could be mean sometimes and he wasn’t very funny but it was all right. He wouldn’t let her fuck him but that was all right.

  IT’S TAKING SO DAMN LONG TO GET HERE (III)

  Somebody passed me a gas mask and I put it on. I tend to get claustrophobic so I wasn’t really into wearing shit like that on my face, but I put it on anyway and someone put a joint up to the part where the filter would go—they’d unscrewed it. I think they have better ones nowadays, this one these people got at a junk store. But somebody puts a joint up to that part and
I start breathing in. I’m already pretty high by this point, but the gas mask is filling up with smoke, and it’s good weed—this was London, so we’d get that Amsterdam Skunk. The guy takes the joint away and I’m supposed to leave the mask on for a minute or so and when I take it off, the thing is, I’m supposed to be the highest I’ve ever been in my life: You’re gonna fly.