Big Bad Love

by Larry Brown

  Essentially, yes. That’s correct.

  He thought they were a bunch of old geezers, didn’t he?

  Well. Not in so many words. I guess you could put it like that.

  Didn’t he actually say that once, though? Didn’t he once, in the presence of two other prisoners, call Sophocles ‘a dried-up old fart’?

  I . . .

  You don’t remember.

  No.

  Your memory just comes and goes, doesn’t it? Well, why don’t you just see if you can remember what happened on the afternoon you met Mr. Varrick in the yard, before you were taken in for involuntary sex? I’m sure everybody would just love to hear that.

  It may take a while.

  I’ve got all day.

  [Deep breath, gathering will] Well. Like I said, we thought it was beer call. I mean, it was almost four o’clock. We just thought they were a little early.

  Were they ever early for a beer call?

  Not usually, no.

  Up until that time, had you ever seen an early beer call?

  No.

  Wasn’t everything timed to a very strict schedule, right up to the minute?

  Yes. Well anyway. I saw How—Mr. Varrick, standing in line on the yellow footprints, and I went over to him. We talked for a minute. He’d been writing some poetry—

  Whose? Raymond Carver’s?

  and he said he thought something funny was going on. He said they’d been heavy on his grading. He said all his papers were coming back with red marks on them, and they’d caught him with three comma splices in one week. And he’d lost his thesaurus. He was worried.

  Under oath, Mr. Lawrence. Did he mention anything to you at that time about involuntary sex?

  He said . . . he said he thought we were in for it. Those were his words.

  He didn’t specifically mention involuntary sex?

  No. Not in so many words. I just told you what he said.

  But you knew. You knew what was coming.

  We didn’t know for sure. They hadn’t told us anything.

  You knew it wasn’t beer call yet. Didn’t you?

  Well, everybody else was beginning to line up. They all had their papers. We hadn’t been given any reason to suspect. We . . . we thought they’d let us slide. At least, I did.

  And why was that? Had they ever let anybody slide before?

  [Ghastly smile, horrific remembrance, flood of emotions rapidly flickering across face] No. They never had.

  Then why did you think this time would be any different? Why did you think they weren’t going to take you out and torture you? Were you friendly with any of the guards?

  No. Certainly not. They were all former editors. That was one of the requirements.

  I’m well aware of the requirements. This court is not questioning the integrity of the guards.

  It should! If you call yourselves lawmakers! This hearing is a farce! Howard Varrick was a humorist! If he’d been published he’d have been one of the greatest writers of this century! He was on his way! He was making some real progress until he was tortured! I read his drafts! I laughed!

  [General confusion, buzzing from peanut gallery, rapping of gavel, uneasy order quickly restored. Small gaping faces at door swiftly pushed outside] Thank you. [Turning, pausing, acknowledging appreciation to judge] If we can proceed. . .. Tell us about that afternoon. Tell us what happened after you and Mr. Varrick discussed your problems.

  We had to turn our papers in. That came first. Dr. Evans was the personal guard and senior editor.

  Did Dr. Evans review your revisions in the exercise yard?

  Yes. He did. But that was common practice. We had to get the initial okay from him before we could go to beer call.

  And how long did that usually take?

  [Ruminating, chin in hand] Not long, usually. He’d just give it a quick glance. He wouldn’t read all the way through.

  How long would you say? Ten minutes? Five?

  Probably about five. Maybe a little less.

  And how many words of copy are we talking about here?

  Well. It varied.

  How much?

  It depended. On what we were revising.

  How many words would you say, on the day in question?

  Between us?

  Yes, Between you.

  Oh. Probably. About six thousand. Somewhere around that.

  He was a fast reader, wasn’t he?

  Fairly quick, I suppose. I’m sure he’d had a lot of practice.

  But you didn’t go to beer call that day. Did you?

  No. We didn’t.

  What did it, Mr. Lawrence?

  I don’t understand.

  Whose work was it that caused Dr. Evans to cancel your beer break and send you in for involuntary sex instead?

  [Mad panic now, sudden, furious, eyes searching the court, hands gripping chair arms wildly] What?

  I said whose work was it?

  I don’t have to answer that question!

  Answer it.

  No.

  Answer it!

  Damn you! Damn you and your court. I’m not saying anything else. I want to see my lawyer.

  Well, there he is. Sitting right there at that table.

  [Unable to decide. Fear. Horror. Mouth chewing knuckle] I . . .

  Answer the question. Wasn’t it in fact your work that got Mr. Varrick sent in for involuntary sex along with you? Hadn’t he been cribbing your notes? Didn’t you drag him down with you? Weren’t you still secretly copying Faulkner, at night, under the covers, with a flashlight?

  Eee . . . yes! Damn you! Yes!

  Weren’t you laboring along, in the ‘great southern gothic tradition,’ using heavy, frightening imagery?

  Yes! [Beaten. Whipped. Chastised. Chastened. Cowed. Diminished. Uncertain. Afraid. Tentative. Sick]

  Ignoring punctuation, running whole pages of narrative together, incorporating colons, semicolons, hyphens, making your characters talk like Beeder Mackey on LSD?

  [Softly] Yes.

  All right. What happened after Dr. Evans finished reading your . . . work?

  [Trying to regain composure] He became irrational.

  Irrational? Was it irrational for him to show displeasure over unacceptable work?

  No.

  Was it irrational for him to have little patience, with two longtime inmates who refused to be rehabilitated? Repeaters?

  No.

  Then why did you say he became irrational?

  He . . . [shifting in chair, crossing legs, uncrossing legs] he started taking the paper clips off the papers. He was shouting.

  What was he shouting?

  Obscenities.

  Were these obscenities pertaining to the work at hand?

  Yes.

  Did he tell you he was about to take you in for involuntary sex?

  No. He didn’t. He just told us to wait, that we weren’t going to beer call with the rest.

  What happened then?

  Well. We waited. We waited in the yard.

  Did everybody else take a beer break?

  Yes. They did. We could hear them. They sounded like they were having a good time.

  Really whooping it up, eh?

  Yes.

  And that really bothered you. Didn’t it?

  Yes. It did.

  You thought you weren’t being treated fairly, didn’t you? You thought even a convicted copycat should have rights, didn’t you?

  Yes. I do. I mean I did.

  When did you first realize that you were about to be taken in for involuntary sex?

  When they brought the blindfolds out.

  Were the earplugs and the nose plugs applied at this time, also?

  Yes. They were. [Eyes downcast] We knew, then.

  Were you afraid?

  I . . . [Ashamed] I was very afraid. I’d never had to do anything like that before in my life.

  But you’d been given plenty of warning.

  Yes.

  You’d been told to
pick up the level of your writing. Both of you.

  Yes.

  Were you blindfolded before you were taken inside?

  No, they—made us look at them first. For several minutes.

  And then.

  [A whisper] Then they blindfolded us. [Whole court straining forward to catch words, reporters scribbling furiously] I tried to hold Howard’s hand but I couldn’t find it. I told him . . . I told him to be brave. He was crying. I was, too. We were both . . . at the lowest point of our lives. They’d reduced us to animals.

  What happened then?

  [Eyes closed. Huge gulp] Someone touched me. She said—she said she was a member of a book club. And a poetry society. She put her arms around me. They were big arms. Huge.

  Were you scared?

  I was terrified.

  Can you describe it?

  Describe what? Do you want to hear about the act? Oh, you filthy animal. You dirty, dirty man. You want to hear about it? I’ll tell you about it. I’ll tell you all you want to hear. If it’ll keep one person from going through what I went through. She was fat, okay? She was big, and fat, and heavy, and she sweated, all right? [Rising from chair, face heated, turning red, carotid artery protuberant, teeth gritted] She couldn’t have sat down in two chairs, okay? She didn’t have any teeth. She was covered with tattoos and she was hairy, and she had bad breath. Now. You want to hear some more?

  Bailiff?

  No! She got on top of me! They’d told her I was famous! She was mashing me! I was trying to get out from under her but she was too big! It was horrible, do you hear me? Horrible! I can’t forget about it! I wake up in the night screaming from it, screaming from it, screaming huh huh huh. . .. [Complete breakdown, hands over face, gradual grading off to racking sobs loud in hushed awe of courtroom]

  All right, Mr. Lawrence. [Going back to table for manuscript pages, waving them in the air] The state has one more piece of evidence to present in this parole hearing. [Approaching witness stand, thrusting papers rudely forward] Read this. Out loud.

  [Looking up, face still contorted, eyes wet, nose snuffling] What?

  [Shaking pages belligerently] You wrote it. I should think you’d be proud to get a chance to read it in public. I want this court to hear the real reason your parole should be denied. Go on, read it.

  [Taking papers slowly, recognizing them] Oh. God, no. [Head shaking, papers trembling slightly in fingers] You can’t mean . . . I don’t want to read this. Please. It isn’t fair to make me read this. If you have one shred of decency . . .

  Read it.

  This . . . this is just a rough draft.

  I thought you’d revised it, Mr. Lawrence.

  I was drunk when I wrote this.

  Wasn’t beer call yet, Mr. Lawrence. Remember? Read it.

  You. You got this out of my files somehow. This was locked up in my study. [Looking up, amazed] You won’t stop, will you? It’s never going to end, is it? You want to keep me in there forever, don’t you? You don’t really believe in rehabilitation. It’s just a way to keep us out of print. [Soft, unbelievable horror. Pause. Bitter resignation. Determination] All right, I’ll read it. I’ll read every damn word of it. It may be the only time I’ll get to. [Bracing himself, adjusting tie, one hand on knee, beginning . . .] And it was with a timorous expression of the wide upturned Afro-American nostrils that, arched and slightly hissing, Otis McQuay paused and turned toward his eating, sitting, brother, the twin, the Aquarius, the one with whom he had shared the dark bloody nacreous unlighted cavern of his mother’s womb, and sniffed, hesitantly, not blatantly or in open astonishment or anything so challenging as that, at the malodorous gases drifting cloudlike and thick as turtle soup down the rough unplaned splintered wobbly table to where he sat eating his butter beans and cornbread, his stance like that of a bluetick on a mess of birds. For it was not in his nature to be challenging. Then he heard it, the slight thin whistle like steam escaping, and his eyes shifted quickly in their sockets, huge and white and rolling. Trapped, with him now, his own supper but half eaten, frozen in that indecision or flight or willingness to endure, to stand, the muscles of his legs coiled tight as screen-door springs, his hands on either side of his plate like dead or wounded or dying blackbirds, while all around him the fumes grew stronger and more malodorous, more pungent. The air grew rank, grew right funky. There came a long ragged sound like paper tearing and it was chopped off short, immeasurably loud in the close silence. Then like two toots on a bugle came the next two toots: toot, toot. But it was not the brass mouth of a trumpet, not an instrument of music that played that sorry scale. It was something deeper, more sinister—

  I think that will do.

  a sound born not of clean air and lungs but a fecund, a ripe smell, like burning shoes . . .

  Your Honor, I think we’ve proved our point. . .. Bailiff, would you show this man to his seat?

  . . . like dead rattlesnakes, like soured slops, like contaminated sheepdip—

  Could we get the bailiffs to perform their duties, please?

  [Bailiffs surging forward, babble of voices rising from courtroom, judge rapping gavel]

  Like moldy mattress stuffings! Like bad cheese!

  Your Honor! Could we have order restored! Please!

  [Judge rapping gavel louder, bailiffs grappling with defendant on witness stand, now wild-eyed, smiling! Defiant! Eyes ablaze!] Like putrid prairie dog meat! Wait! There’s more! Do you hear me! Just listen!

  PART III

  92 Days

  for buk

  1

  Monroe came over to see me one day, shortly after I divorced. He had some beer. I was glad to see him. I was especially glad to see his beer.

  “How you taking it?” he said.

  “Pretty good, I guess.”

  “Have a beer.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Women,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Right.”

  We sat there and drank his beer. I was almost out of money. I was too upset to write anything. I’d tried it a few times, and wound up just gnawing my knuckles. I was afraid I’d lost it for good. I was almost out of food, too.

  “When you gonna get a job?”

  “I don’t know. I need one. I need some money.”

  “I can let you paint houses for me a few days.”

  “Thanks, Monroe.”

  I started that afternoon. It went pretty well. It was soothing, mindless work, and I didn’t have to think. I thought plenty, but not about what I was doing. What I had decided to do was just live hand to mouth. Work a few days and then quit and live off the money and write until the money was gone. Then work a few more days, and so on. It was a spur-of-the-moment plan, and as soon as I planned that, I promised myself I’d never plan anything else as long as I lived.

  At the end of three days Monroe gave me a hundred and eighty dollars. I bought some food and some beer. That was all I needed. Well, two cartons of Marlboros. I had a place to stay. I had a bed, a chair, some books and records.

  The first night I just sat there looking at a blank sheet of paper.

  Next night, same thing. Nothing would come. I knew I’d lost it. I’d have to be a house painter for the rest of my life.

  The third night I typed one paragraph and threw it away. The fourth night I started a new story.

  2

  I got a letter back in the mail along with a manuscript of one of my novels from an agent in New York. I read the letter while I drank a beer and smoked a cigarette. It said (along with Dear Mr. Barlow):

  We are returning your novel not because it is not publishable, but because the market at this time is not amenable to novels about drunk pulpwood haulers and rednecks and deer hunting. Our comments relate more to its marketability than to its publishability, and even though this novel is hilarious in many places and extremely well-written with a good plot, real characters, refreshing dialogue, beautiful descriptions and no typographical or spelling errors, we don’t feel confident that we could pl
ace it for you. We would, however, be delighted to read anything else you have written or will write in the future.

  It was signed by some asshole. I didn’t read his name. I rolled a piece of paper into the machine and wrote my own letter. It said:

  You, sir, are an ignorant man. How the fuck do you know it won’t sell if you don’t try to sell it? And do you think I can just shit another one on five minutes’ notice? I worked on this cocksucker for two years. You got any idea what that takes out of a man? You like to play God with all of us out here, is that it? You kept my manuscript for three months and didn’t even send it around. Here I was thinking the whole time that maybe somebody was thinking about buying it. I wish I had you down here. I’d whip your ass. I’d stomp a mud hole in your ass and walk it dry. You turd head. I hope you lose your job. You’re not worth a fuck at it anyway. I hope your wife gives you the clap. I wish I had your job and you had mine. How’d you like to paint a few houses while it’s a hundred degrees? I can tell you it’s not any fun. I hope you get run over by a taxi cab on your way home. And then die after about a month of agonizing pain.

  I rolled the letter up and read it. I thought it was pretty good. It expressed my feelings exactly. It made me feel a whole lot better. I read it twice and then I took it out of the machine and tore it up and threw it away. Then I started working on my story.

  At four a. m. I was still working on it. I liked working in the middle of the night. There wasn’t any noise anywhere. You didn’t have to think about anything but what you had right in front of you.

  I finished the story, read it, then addressed an envelope and stuck a few stamps on it and put the story inside it and carried it out the door, down the driveway to the mailbox. I knew it would go off for a while and then probably come back with a marvelous note on the rejection slip.

  I was knocking, had been knocking for years, but it was taking a long time for them to let me in.

  I went back inside, turned off the lights, and went to bed. Alone.

  3

  Lots of friends came by to see me. One of them was Raoul. Raoul had been in the crop-duster business and had made a fortune by flying in a load of marijuana to Jackson, Tennessee, one night. He had cousins in Caracas. He had plenty of money, and now he was trying to write. He wrote poetry mostly, and wanted me to read it. The night he came over he had three or four poems. He also had a lot of beer with him. I was glad to see him. I wasn’t so glad to see his poems.