by Chris Stuck
How could things have changed? They were so good in the beginning. She was on the pill. You were spoiled with sex. Neither of you wanted kids. It was paradise. But only a few years later, she decided she didn’t want chemicals running through her body. Prescription drugs were suddenly killing people. One day, eggs and aspirin were good for you. The next, they gave you herpes. But it didn’t end there. She got health conscious. No more smoking. No more drinking. She started doing Pilates every day with DVDs in your living room, wearing the tightest spandex outfits you’d ever seen. You’d be sitting there feeling all pubescent, sex on the brain, while she was gyrating and sticking her ass in the air like she had stripper tryouts in the morning. It was torture.
How could she abandon you? Without the pill, you had to try every condom on the market—latex, polyurethane, lambskin, glow in the dark—thinking one of them would make sex seem bearable. Once, you brought home Magnums for shits and giggles, but they were just too embarrassing to use. You haven’t bought condoms on a regular basis since college, and now, because of your low frequency, you order them one at a time from an online condom store so you don’t have to see a pack of expired ones every time you open your dresser drawer. And still your lovemaking, or the idea of it since you still ain’t getting any, is the same. Nada.
Maybe it’s just you, but why does it seem like you can’t touch her anymore without her taking it the wrong way? A hug and a kiss and suddenly she thinks you want to do anal. Has your sexual life simply run its course? Has your marriage devolved into just companionship, something only old people want? You have so many questions. Doesn’t every relationship need something physically pleasurable, dare you say it, an expression of your love for each other, to keep the thing going, so you can forget the times when they make you want to pack a bag late at night and slink out of their lives the first moment they aren’t looking?
Then again, maybe it is just you.
* * *
Okay. Don’t be alarmed. You’ve had five, maybe seven or eight, beers. You might feel like you’re hammered, but really, you’re not that bad. You’ve been here before. Besides, Billie is worse off. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but she’s trashed. Obliterated. You’re pretty sure of it. So, be a gentleman. Steer her toward the bar door. Walk straight. Tell her not to worry about the cheer she gets when she leaves. When Musty says, “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya,” it sounds racial to your ears. You tell Billie to be cool, but she doesn’t even hear you. She just waves and says, “See you degenerates tomorrow.”
Don’t be surprised or even a little confused when everyone waves back happily. “See ya, Billie.”
Walk her to your father’s pickup, which is now your pickup. Though it’s true, try not to think about it like that. Fumble with your keys. Then, of course, drop them. Don’t trip about it. People drop their keys all the time. Even sober people. You stoop over to pick them up. Billie pushes you out of the way and snags them before you can. She unlocks the passenger door and gets in. You walk to the driver’s side, and she acts like she’s going to unlock your door, but she just crosses her arms and smiles at you.
“Is Black girl having fun?”
“Yep. And she wants to have more.”
“No, Billie,” you say. “No.” Your center of gravity is only slightly off, but you just want to go home and sleep.
“Yes, oh, yes, oh, yes.” She laughs at you, and you know what she wants. She slides over and cranks down the window. “It’s swim time, you big nigga.”
There’s no talking her out of it. Fine. Pull up your door lock and get in. Let her have this last moment. She puts the keys in the ignition and starts the truck for you. “Vroom, vroom,” she says. Close the door. Back up the truck. For God’s sake, don’t hit any cars. That pole you just backed into, that just took out your taillight? That doesn’t count. Pull out onto the road. Get this heap of a truck going, put it through its paces. Forget first. Jump straight into second, air the puppy out.
Just so you know, Granite Road will take you to Highway 13. Follow that for a few miles. Roll your window back down so Billie can smoke. Listen to her comment on the mechanical state of the truck. The clutch slipping. The carb needing a rebuild. Stuff you already know.
“I can fix that for you.”
“It’s okay. I’ll take it to a shop.”
“No, we’re gonna do it. Wouldn’t take but a few hours. Lily can watch.”
You suddenly don’t like her saying your wife’s name. Say, “I don’t work on things anymore. I pay people to do it.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she says. “I forgot. You don’t like to get your hands dirty anymore.” She jabs you in the ribs, tries to goose you. Nudge her away.
Luckily, the quarry is coming up on your left. Slow to take the turn into the secret entrance only truckers know about. Follow it as it hugs the rim of the mile-wide pit. Slow to go over that big bump that you two used to jump with your little Mazda in high school. Billie sticks her head out the window and tells you to jump it. “C’mon.” She sticks her arm out and slaps her door. You say no and go over it easy. She calls you a pussy. Never you mind. Just descend, coast down the switchbacks. Watch that loose gravel.
By the way, you’re having déjà vu now. The night you two had sex, this was exactly how it happened. You were both shit-housed, drunk as skunks. After you’d gone skinny-dipping, you got back in your father’s pickup. You were wet and gritty. It was only then that you could see each other’s bodies. She kept looking down and then back up at you, shyly, as she cradled her breasts in her arms. Without a word, she turned around and faced her ass toward you. The light in the distance played off the curve of her spine. She peeked back as you moved in close. You could smell all her scents, see her pores go to goose bumps. You read the small range of pimples on the round of her buttocks with your fingertips like braille. She flicked her long, thick braid, and it landed right in front of you. “Grab it,” she said. “Pull it. Fuck me.” You wrapped it around your hand. You felt like a bull rider. Her back bowed. The truck rocked. She said, “Pull harder,” and you wondered how many men she’d done this with since you’d been gone. Maybe none. You realized right then, as you came, as you hoped she was also coming, that out of everyone in the world you were the only person who understood her. She was the only person who really understood you. Because of this, and because you are what you are, you thought it would never work. That window had closed.
But try not to think about that now. Let her down easy. Skulk out of this as smoothly as you skulked in. Everyone has been a coward at some point. Fret not. Just park and don’t say anything at first. Take in the sights. Let her get the drift. You’re in the center of the pit, terraced rock walls half a mile in every direction. You haven’t been down here after dark in a while, not since that night. You are 286 feet below the surface, in the bowels of a man-made crater, a big-ass hole. Surrounding you are piles of aggregate, and way over there, cranes and work lights that look like large sleeping insects.
Billie lights another smoke and slides over to you. She leans against your arm, puts her head on your shoulder. “What’re you thinking about, Black boy?”
She wants you to say her. Look at your watch, but don’t be obvious about it. “Just stuff.”
She rubs her cigarette out in the perfectly clean ashtray. She sits up and looks at you, grabs you by the collar. You flinch as she kisses you so hard your lips almost split.
Your eyes are still open. You don’t part your lips, though you want to. You don’t care that she smells like beer and ash, that she smells like a man. You want her again, but it’d be a bad move.
She senses your reluctance and opens her eyes. She sees yours have never closed. She wiggles her tongue, going for a frenchie, but you don’t budge. Her eyes go to anger. “Well, fuck it, then.” She pushes you away.
Say, “I’m sorry, Billie.” Say, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
She slides to the passenger side and says,
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going for a swim.” She peels off her tank top and throws it out the window. Her magnificent breasts are right there, perky and large. You could reach out and cup them, lean over and kiss one. For a split second, you really, really want to. You remember how you were scared to touch them when you were sixteen. She had to put your hands on them for you. “You know, you really are a sucker,” she says now. “I had you going this whole time.” She gets out of the truck, forcing a laugh.
Watch her slam the door. The dome light goes off. The cabin goes black. She disappears in the darkness and then there she is, lit up in the beams of your headlights. She kicks off her Red Wings. She unbuttons her jeans and wiggles out of them. There are her broad hips, her muscular legs. If you gave her the chance, if you let her wrap them around you, like you wish you could, she would break you like a twig. Watch her twirl her jeans over her head by one of the pant legs. There are no pools where you are. She sees this and decides to just dance around. She whoops and hollers, ignoring you.
Stick your head out the window and say, “Billie, get in the truck.”
She tells you to fuck off.
Say, “C’mon, girl, it’s a school night. We’ve got work in the morning.”
She lets out a ridiculing laugh. “Fuck work. Fuck school. You sound like you’re sixteen, you punk.” She’s right. It’s something you used to say when you were kids. She never wanted to leave this hole. You had to beg her. Her laugh turns into a scream. She’s screaming at you now. Asshole. Deal with it. You deserve it anyhow. She throws her jeans, and they land somewhere in front of the truck. She looks around for something else to throw. Her boot. She picks it up, reels back, and hurls it. You realize she wishes she could hit you in the face. The boot tumbles through the air, goes out of view. Then it lands on your hood with a thwap, perfectly upright, as if she’s walked up and placed it there. She calls you an asshole again.
Say, “I know.” Say, “I’m sorry about that. Seriously.”
“If you know you’re an asshole, then why do you still do asshole things?”
Tell her the truth. Say, “I don’t know why.” Say, “I still love you, Black girl.” You could say so much more. You could get poetic, apologizing for your lives diverging, for leaving her behind, for never thinking of her. But you leave it there because you’re beginning to see how much of an asshole you really are.
She stands there in her underwear, a small American flag on the back. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT is written under it. She looks off, away from you. She searches the dark horizon, as if for an answer. Slowly, she looks down at her clothes scattered everywhere. She gathers them up and gets dressed, climbs back into the truck.
You want to say something to make her feel better, to smooth all this over. You open your mouth, and she says, “Don’t say a fucking thing.”
So, you sit here as she finishes getting dressed.
“Start the truck,” she says. “Take me home.”
You head toward the haul road. You climb back up the switchbacks. In a matter of minutes, you’re cresting the surface. That big hole is behind you, receding. You rumble slowly down the access road. You don’t know what to say. You keep looking over at her. You just want her to understand, but then you realize she already does. This is it. The end of everything. You don’t know what to do. You want to say, “No. We can make this work. We can still be friends. Come over. We’ll fix up this stupid truck. Me and you. Lily and my father can watch. Bring Tyrone. We’ll make a day of it.” But the suggestion would just make things worse.
You bounce along. Up ahead, you see the big bump. It’s coming. Billie finally looks at you, but doesn’t say anything. She still thinks you’re a jerk. So, speed up. Don’t say a word. Feel the torque throw you both into the seat. Now look at her. You swear you see her smile, even for a second.
In high school, you two ruined your Mazda’s suspension jumping the little hill over and over, taking turns, seeing who could fly farther. It was all the entertainment you had. A bump. A bump to jump, you used to say. Bumps are hard to come by here, since it’s so flat. You both loved the launch, that moment of flight. It was better than drugs, better than sex. You’re an asshole, but there are still some things you can appreciate. Going too fast in an old pickup. The wall of blackberry bushes sweeping by on your right. The pulsing chirp of a million crickets singing at once.
Floor it. Do forty. Do fifty. Watch the speedometer climb. Look in your rearview at that trail of dust. Know this: No matter how much you hate it, this is your life. It isn’t a mistake. It isn’t a joke. Watch out. The bump is coming.
Look at Billie. Reach out for her hand. Hold it until this is over.
The Life and Loves of Melvin J. Plump, Esq.
We were near the end of another boring therapy session when out of nowhere Dr. Neblitt said I should go on a cruise, a themed one. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a liberal after all, a lefty. I thought only a lefty would think a themed cruise would bring anyone inner peace, especially me, but for once I was wrong. Evidently, in Therapy Land, quacks of all kinds now considered themed cruises a new approach in healing. You didn’t have to go on a regular cruise anymore. It could be one involving your specific interest or affliction—AA cruises, NASCAR cruises, even Democrat cruises, an affliction if there was one.
“O-kay,” I said. “So, what cruise should I go on, then? One for the—disturbed?” Even though this was court-ordered therapy, I, for damn sure, wasn’t crazy. That being said, I did speak in a spooky voice sometimes just to get on Neblitt’s nerves.
“Melvin,” she said, “no one thinks you’re—‘disturbed.’” She made air quotes. “And no one thinks you’re all that funny either. No, this particular cruise is for people known as—unseen souls.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course. Unseen souls.” I was reclining on her chaise, my shoes off, my head back. Believe it or not, given the year I’d had, I was actually comfortable. Whenever she started with all the mumbo jumbo, though, it set me off. “What in the holy hell are unseen souls?”
“People who are shunned by society because of their physical appearance. It’s just like how it sounds. Unseen souls, Melvin.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that’s what we’re calling them now. Whatever happened to ‘freaks’ and ‘cripples’?”
Neblitt cringed noticeably. “Those terms are outdated because they’re, you know, really offensive. This new one, however, is trending in the lexicon quite nicely.”
“Great,” I said. “What else is it doing? Farting? Fucking? Opening a 401(k)?” I sat up, ready to say something else about her liberal foolishness, but Neblitt brought me down with a slow, soothing, “Melvin?”
Truth be told, I was already keyed up. We’d just conducted a postmortem of my marriages, and for some reason I was stuck on my fifth ex, my most recent ex, Deb the Democrat. She was an unruly pill popper, a left-wing loony, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her and her heart-shaped derriere, the perfect dimple above each buttock, as though two fingers, my fingers, were gently pressing her waist.
“In literal terms,” Neblitt said, “it’s a cruise for people like you, people with—conditions.” She held out the brochure, which I took only to humor her. The cover displayed a collage of pictures: a cruise ship on Caribbean water, a wheelchair-bound Latino man shooting craps in a casino, a one-armed white woman being spit down a waterslide.
“Tell me again why I should go on this.” I tossed the brochure onto her coffee table. “I don’t look like any of those people.”
“No,” Neblitt said, “but you do have a unique physical condition. Meeting other unique people with whom you can commiserate might allow you to grow.”
I glanced over at the brochure again and bit my lip. “You are aware there will be cruise people there. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding those people.”
Neblitt deflated with one of her nose-whistling sighs. “And just what kind of people are they?”
“You know, sun visors a
nd fanny packs, socks and sandals. The true soul of America.” I laughed because it was so true. Why I thought she, a pinko, would laugh, I don’t know. When I looked up, there she was, an old dreadlocked hippie, frowning at me like I was a senior citizen who’d just shit himself again.
“You know,” she said, “maybe you should stop avoiding people you think will make you uncomfortable.” After a moment, she added, “Maybe you should stop calling other people ‘those people’ all the time, too.”
I nodded and shifted on her chaise. I gazed out her window at the Manhattan sky. “I see. So, you’re saying I do that a lot, then.”
Neblitt winced, clearly embarrassed for me. “Um. Yeah, Melvin. I’m afraid you do.”
* * *
It was the spring of my fifty-first year, the spring I, Melvin J. Plump, noted Black conservative, suddenly turned white. The condition, vitiligo, a pigmentation disorder, had taken hold over just a few months, record speed. Day by day, moment by moment, the melanin in my skin vanished in patches shaped like states and congressional districts until the only color left on me—save for a few spots—was the stark pinkish hue of an albino. My face, my arms, my legs. Even my little friend down there. I was the most uniformly white, or pink, Black person my doctors had ever seen, and nothing except makeup on my face and spray tan on my hands could make me presentable to the world. Quite a ridiculous situation for anyone, especially a person of color, but despite what others may have thought, I was taking this dilemma in stride, especially given my recent past.
