Give My Love to the Savages

by Chris Stuck

  Whenever she contemplated her latest mishap, it made her go back to her first one, getting married in the first place. She and Chuck were almost done at Columbia. They were twenty. Maybe, like all their other decisions, it had been a hasty one. What if they’d never gotten married? Would they even be the same people now? Would they be together? Sometimes, while out at their local bar Chuck would ask if she ever regretted getting married so early. She’d say no and then ask if he did. He’d say no, but they were never sure if the other one was telling the truth. But they loved each other, and here they were. Their mild doubts weren’t enough to disassemble an entire life just because they were bored and getting older.

  “Right?” Erica had said.

  Fucking Erica, Tina thought as she looked for Chuck’s cigarettes. She’d smoked all of them, but there was the joint she got from the bartender. “Okay,” she said. “It’s your turn.” She was standing on a quiet street. She had to figure out which end of the joint to light. When the coast was clear, she took a few good drags and then saw an older Mexican couple approaching on her left. She felt lighter as she moved to her right. Whoa, she was already feeling it. It was good stuff. She hadn’t smoked in so long. In her younger days, she’d liked it a little too much. Now she wondered why she was even doing it. She thought of her mother. Tina was contemplating whether to put it out or just get rid of it, when a pack of young guys came around the corner. They took one look at her and were now saying, “Hey, mami,” and “Mira, mira” in mocking American accents. “Can we get some, señorita?”

  Tina took a last drag and tossed the joint at them. “Here, fuckos.” It hit one of them in the chest, the ember exploding. They started to surround her. She thought of calling them other names. One kid with zigzags cut into the side of his hair picked up the joint and puffed on it, reaching out for her hand. A lighter-skinned kid with a mole on the very end of his nose grabbed her arm and said, “You’re kind of fine for an older lady.” Her first instinct was to slap him, which she did. The flat of her palm connected with his cheek. Smack. The boys gasped, and she let out a snort of laughter. Nose Mole looked back at her, slightly angry and slightly smiling. She ducked under his arm and took off running. She looked back to see if they were chasing her. They were coming around the corner, saying, “Where are you going? This weed’s good. You got any more?” They sounded like kids now.

  The apartment was just at an angle across the plaza. She sprinted past a mariachi band and people dancing in formation on a stage. Tina unlocked the street door and closed and locked it. She ran up the stairs and then closed the main door behind her, locking that, too. She let herself cry quietly in the foyer, bending over so her tears would fall away. When she was done, she went into the bedroom and told Chuck about the break-in. The weed was really hitting her now. She was high, and he wasn’t quite awake. He sleepily asked if everything was okay. Law & Order dubbed into Spanish was playing on the TV. It was the end of the episode, where they got the suspect to confess to everything. She said, “Yeah, everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

  “You sure?” He sniffed the air. “You smell like weed.”

  “Go to sleep.” She suddenly loved him so much, but maybe that was the ganja talking. “You’re imagining things.”

  He looked at her one last time as though she were a stranger, and then he closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Their last day, Chuck was feeling well enough to finally leave the apartment. They had a lunch reservation at an organic restaurant and farm just outside of town. It was a long, bumpy taxi ride, but they got to see what lurked in the lowland in the daylight. The Centro was eclectic and cosmopolitan, up on the hill. The lowlands were dusty and crumbling. Even the light-headedness of being up there in the Centro was gone. They felt heavy now, but oddly their minds were clearer. The lowland was where all the factories and garages and transmission shops were. People ambled along, carrying things on their heads, pushing old shopping carts full of junk. One poor man limped down one of the cracked sidewalks, and it appeared his deformed feet were not facing the right way.

  The organic farm was away from all that, five miles out of town, in the middle of nowhere. It was run by British expats. The farm’s small restaurant looked out over lush fields where every kind of vegetable ripened in the sun. Chuck’s appetite was finally back. He ate everything in sight. He said “Muchas gracias” so much that Tina finally said, “They’re British. They understand English just fine.”

  She watched him eat pasta with meat sauce and duck confit and pâté and profiteroles. She had just a salad. He was pale and depleted, looking like he’d lost weight. “But the food is so good. Maybe we should move here. Right here.”

  After a moment, she looked over at him and said, “You don’t mean that.”

  “You’re right.” He laced his hands behind his head and sat back. One of the farm’s cats jumped up on their table, and he stroked it.

  * * *

  Their flight the next day wasn’t too early. They took their private car to the airport. They checked in and were on their plane by noon. It was the end of another vacation. They were already thinking about work and the errands they should’ve run before they’d left. They thought about their regular lives and reality and their bar friends. Maybe this was a good-enough life for them. New York wasn’t so bad. They were broke. They would never own an apartment or a house, but at least they had culture and friends and each other.

  The plane took off, and they were up in the air, leveling out. The FASTEN SEAT BELT sign was turned off.

  Chuck smiled at Tina. “I had a dream that you’d been smoking weed one night. Isn’t that crazy?”

  She smiled and rubbed his head. “That is crazy.” She made a sad face. “You were so sick. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Did you at least have a good time?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It was great.”

  He cleared his throat and looked at her. “So, we’re good, right?”

  Just him asking made her have some kind of emotion. Sadness? Love? Probably both. “I think so.”

  They smiled at each other just as the plane shook through a few pockets of turbulence. They thought it would end, as it always did, but then there was chatter from the pilot, something like, “Sit down. Hold on.” The cabin panels rattled. Their window shade dropped shut. Chuck and Tina gripped their armrests and were overcome by dread. This vacation was over. It had been a wash, and now they were going to die. They turned and looked at each other. They were just beginning to see the fear in their eyes when the ride smoothed out. Chuck lifted the shade and saw they were flying through a city of clouds, the biggest he’d ever seen. He reached for his phone to take a picture, but Tina put her hand over his. They looked out again, feeling like the only people up there in the air. And for a moment, they were mesmerized.

  This Isn’t Music

  You are an asshole. Remember that when you meet Billie at the bar. She’s in a booth in the back. A beer sits across from her. Every few seconds, she looks for you over her shoulder and then turns back around. You’re so late you could just go home to your wife and let Billie think you’re a no-show. You are a known asshole. Another person thinking so won’t be the worst thing in the world. Yet, here you stand in the bar doorway, thinking, This is Billie. You have history. She already knows you’re an asshole. You might as well just walk over to her.

  “About time, dicko,” she says.

  You are a dick, so distract her. Say, “Black girl, don’t you know it’s bad luck to sit with your back to the door?”

  “Shut up. Sit down.” She fires up a fresh smoke. “I’ve been waiting so long I’m drunk already.”

  “Of course you are,” you say. “You drink too much.”

  “So?”

  “So, stop your griping. I’m here now. You can get drunk all over again.”

  Don’t worry. She will.

  Billie is an everlasting tomboy. Though you won’t admit it, it’s always turned you o
n. She lifts weights, heavy ones. She fixes old cars. She drives a truck down at the quarry. Once, she was even voted runner-up for Women’s Arm Wrestler of the Year by the American Armsport Association. She nearly won the world championship, too, but she was defeated by a six-foot-five woman who many thought was on more steroids than a horse. Billie’s toughness has been obvious to everyone since you were kids. It was even obvious to you, so much so that to this day you’re pretty sure she can still whoop your ass.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  Remember, you’re an asshole. Answer accordingly. Say, “I was home. Unlike you and everyone else in this bar, I actually have a life. Dreams. Aspirations.”

  Her tank top is stretched over her breasts like the skin of a drum. Try not to look at it. Instead, watch her make a fist out of one of her big hands and wave it at you. “Your dreams and aspirations will only get you hurt, Black boy.”

  She’s probably right, but don’t say so. Say, “As usual, Black girl knows nothing of what she speaks. Black girl has never been anywhere.”

  She mimics you. “‘Black girl knows nothing of what she speaks.’” She waves her thick middle finger now. “How come you always sound like you’re talking backward?”

  “College,” you say. “It does that to you.”

  “Hm,” she grunts. “Lucky I never went.”

  * * *

  You are at the Weigh Station. Not the actual weigh station out on Highway 13, where vehicular weights are inspected, but the bar called the Weigh Station. It’s a trucker bar. Yes, you hate it. It’s the kind of theme bar you find only in towns like Rock City, your hometown, population just over a thousand. No one but you can see the humor in having “city” in the name of a place so microscopic. Barely anyone in the state has even heard of it. When you went off to college eons ago, you told your two white roommates that you were from Rock City, and they thought you were talking “Black.” They thought you were referring to some East Coast drug-infested metropolis. They said, “Is that Baltimore or New York City?” You said, “No, it’s Rock City, as in Missouri, the state we are presently in.” They nodded at each other. They could already tell you were an asshole, but at least you wouldn’t steal their IBMs.

  Never mind that. Marvel at the kitsch of the Weigh Station. Yes, it looks like a junkyard that’s been awarded a liquor license. Rusty manifolds, carburetors, and transmissions hang by thick wire from the ceiling. The bar stools and tables are made out of old truck wheels, and there’s an actual Peterbilt dumper parked on the roof. It spews exhaust out of the side pipes when the place is open.

  Now check out the crowd. You grew up with everyone here, by the way. You know all their nicknames. There’s Brillo and Fishin’ Bait, Wrinkles and Giggles, and Herman the German because he’s, well, German. They’re playing foosball in the far corner as though the game is being televised. The jukebox, that crusty thing that still plays actual 45s, has the entire Kenny Rogers catalog. And wouldn’t you know it? “The Gambler” is playing right now. There’s a lot of flannel, a lot of chains hanging from wallets, a lot of scar-toed work boots. An old guy named Racist Randy, who actually used to be your high school shop teacher, is even sitting at the bar wearing green hip waders. It’s your worst nightmare. Everyone smokes, everyone drinks, and every last one of them, including you, to your utter dismay, drives a truck down at the quarry, hauling rock and gravel out of a big hole in the ground.

  * * *

  Your wife? Good question. She’s well aware that you’re an asshole but in a lovable way. You’re her asshole. Well, no, not literally. It’s just, that’s what you are to everyone, the friendly neighborhood jerk. You can be snide and opinionated to the point that people think you’re compensating for something. But you’re not. It’s just the way every guy feels, or at least that’s what you think. So, Lily, your wife, your white wife, has to put up with a lot just by being with you. At the end of the day, she’s resigned herself to this simple fact: you’re always going to be Captain Butthole. For example, you don’t always see the gray areas, which she has a problem with. You’re not a chauvinist, but sometimes you lean that way. Occasionally, it’s all the woman’s fault. You think all relationships are the same, all men and women are the same. You think every married man has this moment once in a while when he realizes, Holy shit, I’m fucking married? How could I be talked into such a bad deal?

  Like when your wife reminds you every day to take off your shoes as soon as you come in the house. She doesn’t say, “Can you please take off your shoes?” She just says, “Shoes.” And once you get past that part of it, you’re still left to think, Jesus, I can’t wear shoes in my own house? It’s all the rules and regulations that come with living with a woman. You think all marriages are like this, women ruining everything. This is how you relate to other assholes.

  Like when she goes out of town and gives you a list of things that she wants done, as if all you’re going to do while she’s gone is sit in front of the TV playing with your balls. Or how when you’re driving in the rain and she can’t stop telling you to be careful. Or how every night before you go to bed, your wife spends an hour in the bathroom getting ready just to go to sleep. When you finally get in there to brush your teeth, to have a moment of isolation and freedom, you look down and what do you see? The limpest length of green dental floss draped over the edge of the sink. She’s left it for you. You never remember to floss. Bacteria from a person’s teeth can cause heart disease. She’s thinking of you. She doesn’t want you to die.

  All you can think is, This is my life? Rock City, looking down at a piece of dental floss? Sometimes, out of spite, you don’t even use it. You wet it and throw it in the trash on top of hers. But then you imagine yourself in a coffin and someone saying, “If he’d only flossed twice a day.” Every married man has that kind of moment, you think. You’re that kind of dude. If you could only leave, if you could only be 100 percent sure that you could survive without this person, you’d be in the wind. That’s what you think every night as you get out another piece of floss, in the rare chance that she’s right about the heart disease thing.

  You are an asshole. You are cheating on your wife, but for fuck’s sake you don’t want to die.

  * * *

  Even though Billie’s the only other Black person at the Weigh Station besides you, she fits right in, more than you ever will. You’re a snob, but only because you’re observant, hyper-observant. That’s your excuse. So, watch her now. You’re smart. You have a graduate degree. Study her as she sucks down half her cigarette with one pull and holds the smoke in her lungs for an ungodly amount of time. Record it in your head. Look at the black crescents of grease under each bitten fingernail on her big, hard hands.

  “So?” she asks. “How’s Lily?”

  “You mean your competition?” God, you’re an asshole.

  She rolls her eyes. “Black boy, this Black woman’s got no competition.” Her wiry hair is tied up into a loose braid, and a few grayish strands stray from her head like bolts of electricity. She gets quiet for a moment and picks at the warning label on her Bic. “Is Lily still lily white?”

  Finish your beer in two gulps and strain against the fizz threatening to bubble back up. Against your better judgment, wave at the bartender for another. “Actually, she’s even whiter. She gets whiter by the hour.”

  “Yeah, you like your women white, don’t you, OJ?”

  Say, “Whiter the better. I keep her locked up in the basement so she never gets color.”

  This makes Billie smile. Notice the wide gap between her front teeth, that small open doorway into the darkness of her mouth.

  If you haven’t guessed, your little racial jokes are the only thing keeping this relationship alive. You’d have nothing to talk about otherwise. It’s all left over from your time as the only two Black kids in school, when you dated simply because everyone expected you to. When you got back into town three months ago, after years of living elsewhere, and you saw Billie for the first time,
you both were like, “Wow, you’re married, too?” Then you both said, “Let me guess, white, right?” And she said, “Who else is there to marry in this town? What’s your excuse?”

  After a quiet moment, Billie now says, “I can’t believe you married a white girl named Lily. It’s so ironic.”

  Say, “It’s barely an anecdote.”

  “Will you speak English, you freak?”

  Say, “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “No, let’s,” she says. “It’s stupid, but stupid’s good. Stupid passes the time.” She holds her cigarette like a guy, pinching the filter between her thumb and forefinger. “I mean, really, did you hear the name Lily and just cream your pants, you big Blackie?”

  You’re supposed to be ending this. That’s really the only reason you’re here. You have to kill this relationship before it kills you, before your wife gets wind and kills you. You and Billie have had sex, but just the one time. You’ve confused yourself enough. Because of this, up the asshole quotient. Say, “What about you, Black girl? You married the one and only white guy in the world named Tyrone.”

  “Shows what you know,” she says. “Tyrone is an Irish name. I thought you were smart.”

  Google it on your phone under the table. To your shock, she’s sort of right. No matter. You’re the one with the degrees. Confuse her with words. “That notwithstanding. Black girl, are you not self-aware? Your husband’s as white as my wife.”