Ecstatic

by Victor La Valle

  On our right and left fields of corn took the place of vacant grass lots. I actually pulled off the road because I was so confused. I feared that we had traveled one thousand miles in a blink and asked, –Are we still in Pennsylvania?

  Mom looked out the window. I looked at her in my rearview. She had been sleeping, but was roused enough to panic.

  –We’re in Pennsylvania, Nabisase said. Just look at the markers.

  Thirty yards ahead there was a small black-and-white metal marker for US-22 off the shoulder. Grandma wanted to know why we stopped; Mom did too. They both asked if I was feeling sick; they asked me fourteen times. Enough that they sounded more concerned for their own safety than mine.

  I drove again and never explained; it was because I thought corn was only grown in the Midwest. That in the East it came out of cans. I was just a simple, small-time city boy. A rube.

  We reached Baltimore. –What exit? I asked my mother.

  – None.

  – I thought we were going to Maryland.

  –Virginia. You don’t listen.

  I had been to Baltimore once, that bipolar city. On one block was the moderately regal Penn Station, then four blocks over a quadrant of desiccated row houses. The neighborhoods went like mood swings, good to bad, horrendous to opulent, without warning.

  I had been to Baltimore when an old friend was getting married.

  The night before his wedding his uncles drove us to a small strip club called Eldorado’s. Even with the wonderful nudity I spent that night glum for gaining so much weight and for failing out of school. For wearing the same clothes four days straight and not showering quite as daily as people should.

  One of my friends paid a woman to stand on a platform the same level as my chest and shake her ass at me for twenty minutes; a party favor. She was sweaty from working too long and her butt was cold, icy even.

  She cheered me up, something she couldn’t have noticed because her back was to me the whole time. I might have started speaking to her if she’d turned around, and I guarantee she wasn’t in the mood for one more vapid compliment.

  While she shook I clapped my hands right onto her ass cheeks. I put a five-dollar bill in her stocking, that kept her around. The groom-to-be had a lady upside down on his chest with her pussy dangling inches below his chin; he was so strong that when he stood up he held her there, wearing the stripper as a locket.

  Eventually my dancer got wigged out by me because I didn’t caress her butt or smack it lightly or try to reach for her tits or move. I was there with my hands against her backside with my eyes closed so it looked like I was crying. I might have been.

  So how bad do you have to act to make a stripper twitch? Well ‘bad’ is the wrong word because ‘bad’ is common. I could have torn her hair and she’d have understood that more; it would be well within the spectrum of a drunken male’s aggression. She got uncomfortable because sad men in strip clubs are always pathetic. It’s just that I’d seen the money in her G-string and mistook it for a collection plate. I thought I knew where I was.

  –You were looking in the wrong place for that kind of thing, my mother said glumly.

  The oblong sun cast daylight vigorously. I hoped she was speaking to my sister. I tried, surreptitiously, to glance at my family, but they were all watching me.

  Quiet car.

  Quiet car.

  9

  We were going to be late for the Miss Innocence pageant because Mom was collecting dog figurines on I-78. This trip was turning her young.

  – Rest stop! Mom called.

  At a Maryland gas station she bought a yellow scarf to tie around her neck. Twice already we’d watched her flirt with gas station attendants; Grandma sucked her teeth while my sister rested her limp face against the window. In warmer country Mom didn’t have to wear a dumpy coat over her airtight figure.

  –Rest stop! Mom yelled again.

  I parked the car and Nabisase helped Grandma walk to the bathrooms. In a minute my mother would go foraging through the rest stop gift shop for any statuette with canine features.

  In the trunk we already carried a few stuffed toy dogs, a cast iron German Shepherd, a basset hound made of anthracite. Blame me for her newfound interest; I’d made the mistake of going on about how, when I was a child, I wanted a dog so much. I brought it up when the car ride went hush after my Baltimore story. I mentioned the dog idea only to blot out words like ‘stripper,’ ‘backside,’ and ‘me.’ I didn’t expect my mother to get frenzied. But she heard me blaming her for a parenting failure.

  Mom stayed in the backseat while Grandma and Nabisase walked away; I touched the steering wheel where it was still cool. My mother and I were in the car looking out through the windshield.

  –We’ve got enough by now, I told her gently, diplomatically.

  –You said what you wanted, so I’m getting it for you.

  –I was just mentioning that. To pass time, not for you to get all serious.

  –I heard you. She deepened her voice, Dog! she said.

  –How many words do I say in an hour? For you to focus on that one?

  –You can’t have me buying you all these nice things and then get angry because I did, she said.

  This rest stop was flying three flags: of the United States, Maryland and POW-MIA.

  Could there still be Americans in Vietnam? I wondered if I even had the right to wonder. Those black flags with hangdog silhouette were memorials that anyone alive could own, but what good were they doing the phantoms in Cambodian cells. It’s the living who don’t release the dead. My Uncle Isaac might as well have been on this trip with us, there was room; Mom and Grandma left a space between them in the back seat.

  –Again? Nabisase cried as she leaned for ward to see the car clock.

  My sister had been feigning nonchalance about these stops, but now this was our seventh. Nabisase was nearly hysterical, squirming like she was churning doo-doo butter in the seat.

  – I have to register, Nabisase whined. And try on my dresses.

  –I know, Mom said.

  –And I’ll need sleep, Nabisase continued. I probably should go to church in the morning.

  When we parked only my mother left the car.

  Grandma, Nabisase and I stayed. I craned my neck to rub the top of my head against the ceiling fabric. The noise it made was soothing.

  Grandma reached forward and touched my sister’s neck. –We have all seen Mom acting like this before.

  Nabisase slouched, half-alive. –Anthony, if you drove off now we wouldn’t mind.

  I nodded to show my kinship, but knew my sister didn’t mean it. How many terrible things do people say.

  At 8:30 PM we crossed the Mason-Dixon line. We were the South’s problem now.

  10

  By the ninth rest stop Grandma, Nabisase and I had been defeated; Mom held control. She saw the exit and directed me off. Up a sloping ramp. We all got out because my mother told us to. Excitable people lead.

  But instead of an empty rest area, there was a crowd surrounding the McDonald’s.

  College-age kids were throwing rancid meat at the public, protesting chemically treated beef. It was night, but we could see clearly. The rest stop lamps were on and a film crew had set up floodlights too. A small globe of starshine on the hill.

  The college students had parked a long yellow school bus across the outgoing truck and car lanes. Drivers arrived, but couldn’t leave. The parking spaces were full. Minivans were up on the grass. I drove as close as possible, but this was still a logjam.

  A white banner was tied up against the yellow hide of the bus, it read: Pretty Damn Mad.

  Myself, Grandma, Nabisase and Mom walked toward the commotion because they couldn’t walk away. I wanted to get in the Dodge Neon, drive backward down the ramp and try to get onto the interstate again. But my family was raised on tabloids and enjoyed the habit. They wanted to get closer and see.

  Inside the McDonald’s restaurant another thirty-odd cust
omers pressed against the glass, looking out. The manager stood at the door opening it to let a few of the normal folks inside, but he couldn’t have us all. That left many middle-aged men and women trapped out here; they wore comfortable slacks and white running shoes.

  The college students didn’t run right up to the McDonald’s doors. They wouldn’t go more than ten feet from the bus. It showed their age. They were courageous only in numbers. I’d been like that in school, willing to commit to a sit-in with a hundred other boys and girls, but stridently polite on my own.

  –No meat, it’s murder! Don’t eat, that burger!

  My family was as close as possible now. A lot of families were watching from their parked cars. While the mass of protestors were a bold ball in front of the McDonald’s individual kids walked around giving out flyers.

  I was so close to the front door of the restaurant that I could see the shake machine being used inside and started to salivate. A chubby girl wearing platform sneakers interrupted my strawberrysmoothie reverie to hand my sister and I the facts about beef production. The horrid truth was printed on magenta paper.

  Grandma held on to my left arm; she was so light I could have carried her on my head. She might have been safer then.

  Besides a gas-station and the McDonald’s under siege there wasn’t much to this rest stop. There was a second parking lot, but the way the protestor’s bus was situated no cars could get to it. The street lamps over there weren’t even on. My only proof that it existed were the faint white parking-space stripes on the ground.

  After Nabisase and I threw our flyers on the ground the chubby girl returned, making a round, picking up the many discarded sheets. She didn’t look at us, but her lips were moving.

  Mom, Grandma, Nabisase and I were stuck by then. Between McDonald’s and the people behind me. I’m not talking about the protestors, just other families. As more of us walked close to the scene, it emboldened the ones still in their cars.

  Even amongst the loud demonstrators one woman distinguished herself. She was long, as in tall, and black, unlike most of the vegan kids. Sometimes she went along with the murder/burger chant. At other times she made less sense. –Anchorage! she cried. Where is Anchorage?

  –Alaska, I whispered involuntarily.

  The McDonald’s manager came outside yelling, –Police are coming!

  The tall woman answered, –You told us already.

  –You stay out of this AnnEstelle!

  –These kids are just visiting Claude, but I see people eating your poison every day. Where’s Anchorage?!

  I didn’t know who she was asking about, but the manager seemed to understand. – Don’t you bring that thing around here again, AnnEstelle.

  The film crew was there for the college kids. Four men with cameras, another recording sound and a colossal gentlemen, seven feet I bet. He wore a quality suit and was taking notes.

  –I recognize that man, my mother said.

  Right now my family was closer than we’d been in years. Four people squeezed into room for two. Nabisase and Grandma had practically climbed on top of me.

  Nabisase said, –He’s been on TV. She pointed at the gigantic man, but I couldn’t place him. It was the suit that captivated me. A muted brown number. And he had the vest. Oh my, that was tasteful.

  My movie could be about a homicidal mob of vegans.

  Yeah, well. I’d have other ideas.

  Then AnnEstelle threw animal bones in front of the McDonald’s entrance. Femurs actually. Which are big.

  Like she was emptying a laundry sack AnnEstelle turned her bag over. The harsh lights of the film crew made my face warm. Claude, the McDonald’s manager, locked the door again. The bones were still covered in blood; a liquid, like mucus, glowed on them.

  I was aware that even the other protestors cooed because they were surprised by the bones. Many of them dropped their handbills. One spindly boy ran back into the yellow bus.

  A woman next to me, in her fifties, wearing white jeans and high heels, said, –Well, I’ll be goddamned.

  The man with her had too much facial hair. I mean seven helpings of beard and mustache. If he actually had cheeks I couldn’t see them. –I’ve never liked Maryland, he said.

  The only sound I remember was a hollow –bloop– as the banner flapped against the yellow bus.

  Everyone, everyone, everyone ran.

  I couldn’t have kept my family close even if I’d been so inclined. A centrifuge is less effective at separating elements. One hundred and some–odd people went in as many directions. Trampling is a hazard for elephant trainers and anyone in my way. I know Grandma got knocked down, it might even have been by me.

  While others tried to get inside McDonald’s and many more went toward the parked cars, I found my way to the back parking lot. I was the only one.

  Where the lot lamps were out. An outline of hills listed back to the horizon. A space so remote I thought it had been sacrificed back to the land. And the noise of shouting, car engines, police sirens didn’t follow me. It was replaced by the heavy breath of night. A snorting sound, actually.

  In front of me a cow was running toward a parked truck.

  – Hey, I said, but the cow kept moving.

  – Hey cow.

  It stopped, but didn’t look at me. The truck was one hundred yards away, closer to the hills than to us. The cow was even more enormous than me.

  –Keep quiet, it whispered.

  Talk about making money. If I actually had encountered a cow using human speech I knew we could sell the story. Forget the Enquirer or the Star, those were only celebrity gossip magazines now. The National Examiner or the hearty Globe instead. I wish I didn’t know these distinctions, but I do. Mom and Grandma had subscriptions.

  It was a relief though to find a short woman on its other side leading the cow on a leash. I lost the article, but kept my senses. She was five feet tall and wearing duck boots. –That your cow? I asked.

  –My family’s, she said.

  I had on my suit so I should have seemed authoritative, but she was unintimidated. The small woman shook a hand through her brown hair; she reminded me of a cockatiel, looking at me sideways.

  – I’m going to put Anchorage up. If you don’t mind I just need you to be quiet.

  –Let me help you and I will. Is this Anchorage? What can I do? Push?

  – It’s not a shopping cart, she said.

  – I’m just asking you. I don’t know.

  – Go open the truck and pull down the ramp.

  –What if I yell?

  –Then the cops will come here and take my animal from me.

  Even as I walked to the rear of the truck’s cabin I looked back at Anchorage. It’s head was as big as my chest.

  –I think that other lady was looking for this, I said again.

  –Anchorage isn’t hers to have.

  – Is she yours?

  – She’s our father’s.

  –You mean God?

  –Mine and AnnEstelle’s.

  –AnnEstelle is that loud woman.

  –AnnEstelle is my sister. I’m Fane.

  She touched the cow near the hind legs to urge it up the ramp. Anchorage walked two feet closer to the truck, which was nearly enough.

  Over the top of the McDonald’s I could see that police lights had arrived. They were red and flashing, from the ground and up into the sky.

  –I have a family, I said as an excuse to go. We still had two hours of driving till Virginia. It was 9:00 PM. Why’d they hold the rally so late?

  –It’s only a stopover for those kids. This isn’t their last destination. But my sister heard they were here, so she had to come on out and get them started.

  – Will the cops arrest AnnEstelle?

  –They’ll bring her back home to me anyhow. In a few hours.

  She went up to the head of the monster. That’s what Anchorage was to me. If I’d seen it on a deserted strip of land I’d have shot the devil down. Fane brushed its ea
rs which made Anchorage pull back. Fane whispered, or more like hummed, into the side of Anchorage’s face. I felt like there was dirt in my nose; so grainy that I squeezed my nostrils together, but that only drove the muddy smell up behind my eyes.

  I didn’t actually touch the skin, but held my hand an inch away from it then scanned my palm along the wealthy body. That was pretty close for me. I wouldn’t have bothered for any better, but I noticed this discolored patch, a circle little bigger than my fist, between a pair of ribs. I touched this and when I did yelped so loud I bet the Grand Tetons heard me.

  – Shut up! Did she clip you?

  –Your cow is made of plastic, I said. Did you know that?

  She laughed even before reaching me which made my face flush; I put my hands over my mouth less out of surprise than a need to conceal my shame. I didn’t know what else to say to her; there was a fist-sized black plastic cap in the cow’s side.

  –That’s what I mean, I said when she stood next to me. I snapped one knuckle against the little plastic disk. Then Fane unscrewed it.

  It came out of the animal like a gas cap from a car. I moved my hands from my mouth to cover my eyes because I thought blood or the acids of four stomachs would shoot out. She said, –Don’t be scared.

  With the top pulled out, this eighty thousand pound mammal stood calmly in the parking lot; there was an open tunnel leading inside.

  –Did you do that to her? I asked.

  – I didn’t, but I would have.

  –Don’t you like Anchorage?

  –I love our animals.

  – How many do you have?

  – Six more Holsteins. Two sow.

  –Do they all have that plastic tube in them?

  – Of course not. The other cows produce milk fine. Anchorage is the one who can’t. It was to help her. We can put a hand in there to make sure she’s digesting her food. We thought that might be the problem.

  –Let me put my hand in there?

  – What do you think is going to happen?

  I felt an urge toward honesty. – Magic?

  I should have been wearing a long glove before putting my hand in there, that’s what Fane told me. I took off my jacket, rolled the sleeve. The way this worked was to push my hand through the opening. There were a few inches of plastic like the inside of a straw. When my arm went in to the elbow I’d reached a wet stomach; I rubbed my fingers against the walls. I wanted to find a bar of gold inside.