John's Wife: A Novel

by Robert Coover

  Clarissa’s understanding friend could hear the phone ringing when she arrived at the manse, but she told Philip, gripping his arm, not to answer it. He flushed and said he didn’t mean to. Without letting go of his arm, Nevada said: “Your sister’s gone, Philip.” “Yeah, I know, she’s up in the air with Clarissa’s Uncle Bruce.” She gazed at him gravely and, somewhat sheepishly, he looked away. She could see how Rex must have had fun with him, but he wasn’t an ugly kid, just scrawny and awkward with a bit of an overbite a beard would hide and a pimply complexion he’d probably outgrow. If he bulked up a bit, he might almost pass for cute, and later she would tell him that and change his life. For now, she said: “It’s worse than that, Philip. Listen, do you have anything to drink around here?” “Uh, well, my dad … in his library …” “Okay,” and still clinging to his bony arm while that damned phone kept ringing, she shrank toward him as though needing his support, letting her hand tremble just a little, and his body quivered in return. He reminded her of somebody, something in his brow or eyes, an old adolescent boyfriend maybe, or some guy who’d kissed her at church camp. She’d taken this on as a job she had to do, but she began to think she might have fun as well. It had been a while since she’d had one of these to play with. “Let’s go there. We can talk.” Once, when she was young and her parents were still trying to get it together, she’d been sent to live for a while with grandparents who were very religious in a gospelly oldtimey way, and for a time Nevada had been taken in, hook, line, and sinker, by the whole Jesus scene, down the aisle, soul to Christ, and all that, so it gave her a special kick now, even though his dad’s study looked more like a prof’s than a preacher’s, to be seducing a green-ass kid in a place like this. Before she let go of him so he could get the drinks, she pulled him close and whispered in his ear: “I don’t think she’s coming back, Philip. Ever.” She pressed her cheek against his scraggy pecs to hear his heart banging away as if he’d just been through a massive workout, and Philip, clumsily, put his hand on her back, then took it away. She withdrew, turning her face aside as though she might be crying, and went over to examine his father’s books while he got the bottles out. “There’s some brandy and, uh—” “Great. Just a couple of fingers. No ice.” Keep it simple. “I feel so shaky.” Jen had told her about the sex manuals, so she looked for them, all the while telling Philip how much she cared for his sister and how upset she was about what might be happening, dropping hints that Bruce was her lover and had made her do this (Philip had overheard their conversation, after all, something she had to worm her way past), and so she also felt betrayed and vulnerable and, well, just a bit heartbroken. When Jennifer had told her about her brother listening in, Nevada had asked in barely concealed alarm if he was going to tell her parents: “No, he’s going to tell Clarissa.” And of course Clarissa would be pissed off and probably run to her father and then they’d all be up shit creek. So, yes, she’d assured Jennifer, shepherding her to her tryst, she’d figure out some way to keep Philip home from the party. “Trust me.” Though now she had different ideas. The poor boy, she knew, had an unrequited crush on John’s snotty daughter and she’d have to get around to Clarissa sooner or later, that was after all why she’d said she was coming over here, and anyway she’d be useful: Nevada had a note in her purse that Philip would have to deliver soon, and Clarissa would be the bait. But not yet. There was still some time to kill. And a novice dong to blitz: she might as well enjoy this. “I’ve been so worried,” she said softly. She’d found the book she wanted, picked out a good page. “I feel somehow calmer … with you, Philip … in a place like this.” Philip was pouring brandy out self-consciously, his back to her, so she stepped up behind him and laid the book open in front of him, wrapped her arms tenderly around his chest, and murmured, her jaw gently massaging his meager traps and dorsals: “This is some kind of church, Philip! I think I’ve, you know, seen the light! How do I join, lover?” She let her hand slide down over his fly, while the other crawled under his shirt. “Like they say,” she whispered, stretching up to lick at his ear while unzipping him, “if you can’t save the soul, at least bless the body.”

  While Philip, on this annual Pioneers Day, was finding adventure, not by leaving home, but by returning to it, an ironic experience that must have been shared by many of those forgotten stay-at-homes the oldtime pioneers left behind in the glorious past, his missing sister Jennifer had, earlier in the day, embarked upon the more traditional course to fresh discovery, launching herself irrevocably (Nevada was right, she would never return) into the unknown, feeling herself literally uprooted as she rose into the air inside the magic chariot (as she thought of it, for it did all feel like a fairytale, thrilling and enchanting, but not quite real) that was taking her, princess of the moment, to the royal ball. Though she had no clear idea as to what that ball might be like, Jennifer was not afraid and chose to let herself be surprised, letting her thoughts drift instead to what it was she was leaving behind—willingly of course, but sadly, too, and with nothing but an overnight bag—even as it shrank away below her. Her parents had come here when she was not even five years old and the only thing she remembered from that seemingly infinite time before then was a sudden happiness after great unhappiness, like when (like now!) an impossible wish comes true. And also a favorite Red Riding Hood doll she once had with all its clothes gone except for the hood (whatever happened to it?) and holding Zoe as a newborn baby. All the rest of her remembered life had transpired in that little town down below which now looked like a model village for a train set or a Christmas department store toy town. She could see the shopping mall where she and Clarissa had spent so many funny and exciting times together, and, silly as it looked from up here (it was like an ant farm she’d once had—she’d always called it her “ant theater”—which she’d spent long hours staring at and which had led her to write a line in her diary that said: “If you can’t help doing it, then you might as well make a show out of it!”), she knew she was going to miss it, just as she’d miss her family and especially her dad and her new brother or sister she’d never know and also school and the swimming pool (she could see that, too, like a bright blue postage stamp on her little postcard town) and her own bedroom and her father’s church and Sunday School, and above all her friend Clarissa, who would be hurt and would absolutely hate her for what she was doing, but hopefully not forever, because she just couldn’t help it, and she thought that Clarissa, more than anyone in the world, would understand, since it was Clarissa who had first talked to her about how when you wanted something badly enough nothing else made sense, no matter how crazy your wanting was, back when Jennifer had never known that kind of wanting nor could even quite imagine it, though she’d tried, since Clarissa had made it sound so interesting. The title of an X-rated movie at the mall which they never saw had finally summed it up for them: “Helpless Victims of Desire.” That’s what she now was, one of those. “I’ll never go to my senior prom,” she said out loud, and then she asked to circle the town once again before they flew away forever. As she picked out the places she knew, she realized that they were all associated with some memory or other, such that her life, which was lived in time, and so was here and then, as quickly, not here (when had they taken off? it seemed like a century ago! no, more like: once upon a time …), had somehow got imbedded in all those places down there, so that the town was, well, not her life itself, but a kind of map of her life, and of course the lives of everybody who lived there, all laid on top of each other. And so, though from up here it looked like something you might see in a geography book, a fixed and geometrical something you could pinpoint in space and anchor yourself by, it was not a real place at all, you couldn’t have pinpoints in infinity, after all, didn’t one of her teachers tell her that? That was just an illusion, the sort of illusion she was now leaving behind, escaping, in her fairytale fashion, the fairytale of her childhood. The only thing real was right now. And then again (her heart was banging away like crazy): right now.
“Okay,” she said, feeling a bit woozy from staring down at the turning town (it was like being on a fairground ride, and it reminded her of those magical fairs they used to have down there in the city park when they first moved to town, and how excited she always was before they all went, the whole family was, her mom and dad, too, and how one night she got sick on a scary ride that whipped and spun her about like suddenly the world was broken and wouldn’t stop no matter how much she screamed); she leaned back in her seat with her eyes closed, searching for the right words for saying goodbye, which, when found, she spoke, calmed by them, with a dreamy smile: “Let it happen.”

  Oldtimers would argue that the Pioneers Day fairs that so excited Jennifer were merely dim imitations of the great fairs before the war, back when Pioneers Day was the town’s most wonderful event of the year after Christmas, and even better in some ways, because Christmas was a family holiday spent in wintry weather behind closed doors, whereas Pioneers Day was a sunny celebration of civic pride during which everyone in town got together: at the parade, at the political rallies where candidates outdid one another with promises of even greater Pioneers Days in the future, at picnics and ball games and swimming parties, and above all at the great fairs which ran all day for three days and three nights, and which had everything from livestock judging and church raffles and booths selling local home-canned and home-baked foods, caramel apples and cotton candy, through the usual penny arcades, funhouses, and freak exhibits, to awe-inspiring carnival rides straight from the World’s Fair and famous musical acts down from the big city. The austerity of the war years reduced all that to a local fair, highlighted by the occasional visiting movie or radio star selling war bonds, and after the war they never really recovered their old glory, though so long as the city park existed they continued to be held and the townsfolk, especially the young, continued to enjoy them when they weren’t off on vacation. Pauline, who was forbidden by Daddy Duwayne to attend them, sinks of iniquity that they were, never missed a one and in time even had a booth of her own, so to speak, sometimes back of the carnival company trucks, sometimes under the wooden bandstand, sometimes just behind a bush, it didn’t take long, and she almost always got a present. One night she was lingering near a shooting gallery where the boys always gathered, when John showed up with his pretty young wife, and she watched, fascinated, while he shot at the little mechanical ducks wobbling creakily on a rotating chain at the back of the gallery. He never missed and once two ducks fell over at the same time, though maybe the gallery operator was just being friendly and made it happen. He won a beautiful stuffed teddy bear with bright button eyes and a big red ribbon around its neck and he gave it to his wife, who already had an armful of such prizes. She turned and saw Pauline staring and, with that lovely smile for which she’d been famous since her Homecoming Queen days, she gave it to her. Pauline glanced up at John to see if it was okay, and for a fleeting moment she saw that magical prince with hair alight of a year before, but then as quickly he was just the handsome young man who owned the hardware store and he had turned away with his wife and they were gone. Pauline, still clutching the teddy bear, saw then that some moments transcended ordinary time and could not be sustained or repeated or even in any way approximated again, though that was obviously what all these holidays were trying to do; they could only be experienced at the moment they happened or not at all, and then, afterwards, they might be remembered or they might not, but it didn’t matter, they just were what they were. Nevertheless, though it really didn’t matter, she was feeling happy in a sad but peaceful sort of way, so she decided to close shop for the evening and, hugging her teddy bear, to go home to the trailer. Where she was met by a red-eyed ranting Daddy Duwayne, who made her crawl around naked on her hands and knees like the animal he said she was, whipping her as she circled round him for going to the fair and doing whatever it was she did to get the teddy bear. Then he nailed the bear up over the old TV from the junkyard and, while assaulting the gates of hell from behind with his rod of wrath, he blasted it to smithereens with his shotgun. Afterwards, he cut off the shredded body and left the eyeless head nailed up like a hunting trophy. It was still up there when she and Otis visited the trailer and it was one of her daddy’s crimes she reenacted for him, or that they acted out together, several times in fact, it was one of his favorites, though Otis only pretended to shoot his pistol, instead shouting out “Bang! Bang! Bang!” in his funny wheezing voice, which she always thought was because he buttoned his shirt collar too tight around his throat. Dear Otis. They’d been such good friends, and for so long. Not anymore. He’d been chasing them all over town, blocking their escape routes with patrol cars, putting armed guards up around restaurant kitchens and collecting the garbage bags before they could get to them, it was a desperate situation. They couldn’t sneak out of town unseen in that big circussy truck Corny had borrowed, and everywhere they’d gone they’d been recognized and teased or chased away and even shot at. Finally, there was no place left except Settler’s Woods, where they’d come after first leaving a trail of false clues leading out of town on a back road. Corny could not hide the truck, and she didn’t really fit in it anymore anyway, so he’d decided to unload their supplies in the woods and return the truck to the Ford garage and try to trade it back in for his old van, which was all he needed for picking up groceries. So now Pauline was all alone and, big as she was, a bit scared. The trees were too close together, she couldn’t move without bringing down limbs and branches and making huge crashing noises, and now that her red cloak barely reached her armpits and didn’t cover her front at all, she was getting scratched all over. Corny had told her to keep out of sight, but, even when she scrunched down, she could see over most of the scrubby trees out here, and so, she supposed, she could just as easily, if anybody wanted to look, be seen. And there was another thing. Why she needed Corny. She’d never been a great thinker. But now (as if her head were imitating her bowels) she was becoming less of one.

  It was Pioneers Day and the Ford-Mercury garage that was Cornell’s destination was officially closed, but by chance—or perhaps not by chance, more by quizzical design, the sort of design, for example, that governs the formal structure of a joke—its venerable owner and his young mechanic, the latter chauf-feuring at his own insistence, were also headed out there in the old tow truck, though by the main road which Cornell was no longer free to travel. The ostensible purpose, being duly acted out by both as if it were the real one, was the theft of the very truck which Cornell, though they didn’t know this nor would much have cared if they had known, was now returning. Along the route, which was a sunny well-used thoroughfare, Stu spied several people, some clients, mostly fellow duffers and elbow-benders—whom he might have hollered out to, but they’d have only smiled and hollered back and gone their way, even if he’d have shouted something like “Help, police!” or “I’m being murdered!” which everybody would have supposed was just a punchline to another of his dumb jokes. Which, truth to tell, it would have been, dumbest of the lot. He and Daphne had just been staggering blindly toward the door with John’s annual barbecue vaguely in mind when Rex appeared there as if out of nowhere. Stu was momentarily startled but he was not surprised. He’d been expecting this moment ever since Winnie started turning up at the foot of the bed at night, and today his little darlin’, uncommonly sober of late, had been uncommonly drunk since breakfast. Which, in shared apprehension, had sent Stu to the pump, and so both their engines were pretty well flooded by the time Rex made his sudden appearance at the door, dressed in his sweatsuit, to tell Stu they had to go out to the lot because a truck had been stolen, Daphne would have to go on to the party alone. It don’t matter, Stu declared magnanimously, waving his hand about, plenty more where that one came from. Rex protested that it did matter and they’d have to get going right now. They played out this no-it-don’t, yes-it-does routine for a turn or two, and it reminded Stu of a famous old wedding-night joke, but Rex didn’t want to hear it and Daphne compla
ined she already had. Stu said, all right, go ahead on out, son, I’ll drop Daph off at the barbecue and meet you out there. Why are you always patronizing me, I can get there by myself, said his little peach among the lemons, hitting the doorjamb with the side of her face as she tried to lurch out past Rex. The blow seemed to have turned her around because she marched away straight into the dining room and hit something else, then came hack into the hallway, yowling and cussing like the old girl who got her tit caught in a wringer and wanting to know why the hell he was being such an irresponsible asshole, my god, this young fellow, who was only trying to be of help, was more interested in his business than he was, and of course that was genuinely true, as Stu had to admit, and did. Stu asked Rex then if he’d heard the one about the old boy who goes to the doctor because his dingus has gone soft and he can’t get it up anymore and he wants the doc to do something about it. The doc takes one look and tells him—goddamn you, you old fart, turn it off and get outa here! Daphne screamed, you’re driving me crazy!—tells him that his job is to cure the sick, not—oh stop it! stop it!—raise the dead. Rex grinned at that and said that’s a good one all right, come on now, let’s haul ass, and meanwhile, as though by accident, flashed a handgun from his sweatshirt pocket which he’d probably stolen from the garage. It seemed to Stu like there could be other things he might be doing on behalf of his own well-being, but he wasn’t doing them, he was walking a docile path toward the tow truck, Rex just behind him, pointing him aright when, like a leashed hounddog sniffing the flower patches, he tended to stray. He aimed for the driver’s seat, but Rex pushed him roughly away and said he was too fucking drunk, he’d drive. Stu couldn’t get up on the high seat by himself, Rex had to help, pitching him up there like he was made of straw. That boy had a bit of gristle on him. Also he had a rifle. Stu had glimpsed it in the back while getting tossed in. Plan on doin’ some shootin’, do you? Stu asked when they started up. His young mechanic grinned a wicked grin and said he thought maybe together they’d go after that guy who stole the truck. That got a hollow cackle out of old Winnie, ever the backseat driver, who was now hovering, Stu felt, just behind his shoulder, her fiery eyes all lit up with diabolical delight, even though this wrecker didn’t have a backseat. Stu told her to can it and Rex said can what? and Stu, running on automatic, crooned: Can it be true / that you / have someone new / left me alone / and feelin’ blue, and Rex growled: Jesus, nothing I hate worse than somebody wrecking a good song, Winnie’s hot laughter all the time singeing Stu’s ear. Stu kept thinking, all the way out to the car lot, about jumping out of the car or twisting the wheel out of Rex’s hands or grabbing the handgun or in some other way escaping his fate, but like that old boy who wanted his sex drive lowered, thinking about it was about all he could do about it.