Jerkwater

by Jamie Zerndt

  “I don’t know if I get it,” Douglas said, feeling Jenna hovering behind him. “But I like it.”

  “You don’t think it’s too macabre?”

  “A little, maybe. But is that a bad thing?”

  “No, I guess not. And Shredder seems to like this one for some reason. When I was working on it, he’d just sit on the couch and wag his tail. It was a little weird.”

  They heard a scratching at the door and Jenna let the dog in. Douglas went back to looking at the painting, at the expression on the baby’s face. The face was wizened, almost like an old man’s. It was the focal point of the painting, the place your eyes kept going back to.

  “Can I ask you something? About the painting, I mean.”

  “You want to know what it means.”

  “Or is not supposed to matter? I’ve heard that from some artists.” He paused a little, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “Okay, so I read that somewhere. I guess I’ve never actually talked to any real artists.”

  Jenna turned the painting so that it faced the couch and took a seat. When Douglas didn’t follow suit, she patted the cushion next to her.

  “I guess it’s sort of like a memoir.” She paused, staring at the painting. “Can I see something of yours sometime? I promise not to judge.”

  “Sure,” Douglas said, “but prepare yourself for massive disappointment.”

  Jenna ignored this artfully by sipping from her coffee and simply arching an eyebrow at him before telling him her story.

  “I was married once. To a wonderful man. But then, one day, everything changed when he was hurt at work.” She paused and looked at Douglas. “I’m sorry, I better start earlier. I don’t talk much about this, so it’s not so easy for me.”

  “However is fine,” Douglas said. “Or not at all, if you don’t want to.”

  “No, I want to. It’s good for me. At least that’s what they say.”

  My dad died.

  “Okay,” she said, her eyes settling on the painting again. “So Matt used to paint bridges. We were young and had met in college and both of us wanted to be artists. After we graduated, he took this job painting bridges because he liked to be outside and both of us wanted to travel. So he takes this job and soon we’re moving across the country from one city to another, usually only staying for a few months at a time. This went on for a couple of years. Both of us were pretty happy. I didn’t have to work because we didn’t need much. I was painting like crazy then. Just staying home most days, or maybe going for a walk if I felt like it. What I’m trying to say, Douglas, is that I was happy. It wasn’t perfect, of course. We still had our quarrels. But, overall, looking back, I was the definition of ignorant bliss.” She stopped again. Douglas figured she was probably trying to compose herself. He had noticed a slight quiver come into her voice, something trying to shake loose, but when she started speaking again it was gone. “Then he fell and broke his back. The doctors said he was lucky to be alive, but, and I know this is going to sound shitty, it never felt all that lucky. What I mean is that the Matt I brought home from the hospital that day wasn’t the same Matt I married. That fall broke more than his back. He turned, changed into something, someone, I didn’t recognize. I tried, Douglas. I really did. I did everything for him. Changed him, bathed him, fed him, wiped him. You name it, I did it. And I did it with kindness. I truly did. But that didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did. He became angry. Hateful and bitter.” Again, she paused, looking at the floor now. “Have you ever seen an abused animal? You know, the ones they find half-starved and beaten in a basement somewhere? You have to be careful if you try to help them because they’ll try to bite you. That’s how it was with Matt. No matter what I did, he’d snarl and try to tear my throat out. I stayed with it, though, for about two years. Which may not sound like a long time to you, but, trust me, it was. I had no life of my own. Everything I did, I did for Matt. Every second of my day belonged to him in some way.”

  “That’s why the baby.”

  “That’s why the baby. You must think I’m horrible.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “Well, I do. Or, I used to. Anyway, one day I’d had enough. He’d called me a talentless whore one too many times, and I just up and left. I called his mother, who never liked me much to begin with, and told her I was done. I left with nothing, took nothing except my clothes. Can you try to remember that when I tell you what I did next?”

  “Okay.”

  “We were living in Oregon at that time. To be close to his parents. Which is where he’s still living now, I think.”

  “You haven’t spoken to him?”

  “Not in five years. When he told me he’d signed the divorce papers, he started crying, telling me he’d changed, that he was sorry for how he treated me. But it was too late by then. I wasn’t the same person anymore.”

  “But how’d you end up here? I mean, you could have gone anywhere. Mercer’s not exactly a bucket-list destination.”

  “I didn’t actually go anywhere for about a year. But he didn’t know that. I told him and his family that I was moving back to San Diego. That’s where most of my family is.”

  “But you stayed?”

  “I stayed. And because I needed money, I started dancing.”

  Douglas was about to ask what kind of dancing she did, but then he realized what she meant. They had dancers there, too, up in Hurley. He’d gone once. The girl was nice, kept talking to him and Marty while she swung drunkenly around the pole. It hadn’t been anything like what Douglas had expected. The talking part had made him feel like he was at a barber shop.

  “You started stripping.”

  “Yes. And drinking.”

  Douglas looked at the painting again. It wasn’t a toy lying on the ground, or a streamer. It was a tassel.

  “Does that bother you?”

  “No,” Douglas muttered. “Why would it?”

  “Matt had been accusing me of sleeping around for as long as I could remember, so I guess I sort of saw it as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Not that I was actually sleeping with the customers, but you know what I mean.”

  Douglas nodded. She went on to tell him that at first it had terrified her, getting up on stage in front of strange men, that she’d never been very confident before, or even that much of a dancer really, but that after a while she started to get better at it. And, eventually, even came to like it.

  “I made friends there. Good friends. It was like a whole new family.” She smiled at him, stroked Shredder’s head which was now resting on her lap, a ringlet of drool seeping into her jeans. “I miss them. They’ve all promised to visit me here someday, but I doubt it’ll ever happen. Mercer wouldn’t know how to handle them.”

  “No,” Douglas said. “Probably not.”

  They were quiet for a bit, both of them staring down at Shredder, when, in a near-whisper, Jenna said, “Do you think you know how to handle me?”

  It startled Douglas at first. Her voice was different. Lower. Thicker. Almost like he could taste it.

  “I could try.”

  Jenna smiled and nudged Shredder off her lap. Then she stood up and turned the painting around so that it was facing the wall again. “C’mon then,” she said, holding her hand out to him. “Prove it.”

  Chapter Seven:

  Shawna

  The Lake of the Torches Casino was busy Saturday night. Shawna clocked out for her break a few minutes early so she wouldn’t be late meeting up with Elmer out on the receiving dock. He always took his breaks there so he could smoke in private. And while Shawna didn’t smoke, she often found that sitting with him calmed her.

  “Hey,” she said, pulling up a crate. She counted two butts on the ground already obliterated by Elmer’s shoe.

  Elmer nodded, took a drag of his American Spirit. Shawna had always thought it funny that he smoked the brand.
It was a white person thing to do.

  “How are you?” he asked quietly after a bit.

  “I’m okay. Just another magical night in busser heaven.”

  He smiled a little, nodded toward the fence a ways in front of them. “Could be worse.”

  Beyond the fence was a row of ramshackle houses and a shirtless little boy chasing his dog with a stick. She could see somebody wearing a robe sitting in a chair, a hand with a beer rising and falling every few seconds, the faint din of a TV going that nobody was watching.

  “I’m sorry about the other night,” Elmer said quietly. “You know. On the island.”

  “Not your fault,” Shawna said back just as softly.

  “There’s a noose around that kid’s neck and he doesn’t even know it.”

  Shawna kept quiet, watching the boy and the dog. There was no telling what waited for the boy inside that house later, no telling how long that hand had been rising and falling.

  “Why do you smoke those?”

  Elmer turned and looked at her. His hair fell over his plump cheeks, cheeks that seemed to her almost like a baby’s. “I used to smoke them Camels, but they’re not as good.”

  Shawna reached out, tucked some of his hair behind his ear. Elmer Rising Sun rolled his eyes at her. She knew he was seeing himself running around that backyard while his mother drank on the porch. Shawna was about to tell him about burning the loon down with Douglas, something she’d been putting off because she was afraid he’d get jealous, when she heard somebody whistle nearby.

  “Hey, this where we go to file a complaint?”

  Shawna immediately stood up when she saw the three men, but Elmer remained sitting, staring off at the little boy. It was almost like he’d been expecting them.

  “You people get a kick out of this, don’t you, watching all us white people throw away our hard-earned pay? Well, we don’t think it’s so funny. My buddy here lost over a thousand dollars. Now what’s he supposed to tell his wife when he goes home?”

  The faces of the men were all pasty-looking and puffy, like they’d been up all night drinking. The smallest one, the one doing the talking, seemed to be the leader. Shawna, in a voice as solid as she could manage, said, “Maybe you should tell her you suck at gambling.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, the two big ones swaying there, dumbfounded, before the little one spoke again. “Hey, that’s pretty good. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Go home.”

  “Well, now, that’s a funny name. Isn’t that a funny name, Marcus?”

  Marcus, the one who’d lost the money, looked like he was about to lunge at Shawna. “I bet her real name is Squaw Bitch.”

  Elmer slowly stood up, like he’d only just noticed them. “Tell me,” he said, “where do we go to file a complaint?”

  “A complaint for what?” the ringleader said. “You lose some scalps or something?”

  The others laughed at this. One of them even puckered his lips and began bouncing the palm of his hand off his mouth.

  “We lost our land and our people,” Elmer said, hopping down from the dock. “Now you tell me where we go to get a refund for that.”

  The little one began to snigger and Shawna jumped down, went to stand by Elmer’s side. If something were to happen, she decided she would fight right alongside Elmer. Please, she found herself thinking, just try something. One of the men started to lumber toward them, but the little one held him back. “No,” he told him, his voice a hiss, “not here.” The big one nodded his head, reluctantly backed off.

  “Okay, chief,” the leader said to Elmer, turning and walking back the way they’d come. “We’ll be back. You can bet on that.”

  Elmer and Shawna both stayed quiet, watching. Shawna placed her hand in Elmer’s as they left, her anger soon swallowed up by his calm. Something that happened, she realized, more often than she’d care to admit.

  “We should get drunk,” Shawna said after a bit, “and show up at their work some time.”

  “And vomit in the suggestion box.”

  “I bet they all work at an insurance company or a bank or something.”

  “And they beat their wives.”

  “With bibles.”

  As they headed back inside to finish their shifts, Shawna looked back and saw the little boy standing at the fence. His face was blank. It was an expression she’d seen many times on her people. One of being lost. Of disbelief rather than wonder. She could almost feel the sick in the pit of the boy’s stomach. She waved to him and the boy waved back, the expression on his face not changing one bit. Behind him, the hand on the porch went up and back down again. The dog barked. And then Shawna went back inside to scrape potatoes and half-eaten eggs from the plates of strangers.

  The rest of the night moved at a slower pace than usual, and by the time Shawna’s shift was over all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Her body ached and her feet throbbed from zigzagging among the tables all night. She tried to imagine herself married to Elmer, tried to picture him rubbing her feet when she got home and the two of them curling up on the couch to watch a movie. She tried, but she couldn’t quite picture him that way. And it wasn’t because he wouldn’t rub her feet. She knew he would if she ever asked him to. It was something else. Almost like future-Shawna didn’t exist.

  Shawna found present-Elmer sitting on the hood of her car in the parking lot. He did this sometimes, usually because he wanted a ride home. Or the other. She hoped it wasn’t the other. She was too tired tonight. Then again, Elmer always seemed to have this knack for giving her a second wind. She wasn’t sure how he did it because, frankly, he wasn’t all that charismatic. There were other boys far more interesting, far better looking, than Elmer. And she wouldn’t have all that much trouble finding someone to keep her company seeing as most boys weren’t all that complicated. They thought they were, but they weren’t. Elmer was different, though. Even though four out of seven days a week he wore the same stupid Slayer t-shirt, even though he smoked too much, Shawna loved him. Because underneath all of that, Shawna saw the sadness. It was there when she was alone with him, when he kissed her. There was pain inside of him, rivers and rivers of it, similar to the ones that had been coursing through her ever since her mom died. And that was something other boys couldn’t understand.

  “Heya,” she said. “You need a ride?”

  He slid off the hood, tossing the cigarette down. “Sure.”

  “You don’t say “sure,” Elmer. You ask if that’s okay, if I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “C’mon, idiot,” she said, opening the door for him. “Where to?”

  “Don’t matter,” he said, sullen as a toddler.

  “Fine. To a foot spa then.”

  As they waited at a stoplight in town, Shawna found herself staring at a fire hydrant. It resembled a little girl in a red coat, and, for some reason, this little girl looked to Shawna like she was about to jump off the sidewalk into traffic. When they got close to Elmer’s, Shawna parked next to a basketball court about a block away from his place and cut the engine.

  As Elmer waved at the smoke curling back into the car, Shawna found herself thinking about the fire hydrant again. Things like that had been happening to her more and more lately. It wasn’t so much that she really thought she saw a little girl in a red coat standing on the corner instead of a fire hydrant. It was that a fear had come over her, a desperate urge to slam on the brakes and run out and save the girl. Even though it only lasted a few seconds, it had felt very real to her.

  Elmer let out a long sigh and rested his hand on her thigh. It was awkward, the way he placed it there while looking out the open window. Like they were on a first date, rather than already having left scratches and bite marks on each other. She put her hand on top of his and then waited. It had become a sort of game to her,
seeing how long Elmer could stand for her to touch him. Soon he’d reach for another cigarette, not because he wanted one, but because it would give him an excuse to pull his hand away. It was, she’d realized long ago, just how he was.

  “You worried about school?” Shawna said, placing her hand on the steering wheel when Elmer pulled his away.

  “A little, I guess.”

  He let out another long, heavy sigh and slid down the seat so that his head was resting on Shawna’s lap. It was another rarity. And one Shawna didn’t want to disturb. So, rather than do something as stupid as run her fingers through his hair, Shawna craned her head under the windshield to get a better look at the moon as it came out from behind a cluster of clouds. It wasn’t a full moon, but it was close. The Freezing Moon. That’s what her mother had called it. The moon that came after the Falling Leaves Moon.

  “Do you remember the story of Chakabesh?” Shawna asked him.

  “Sure. That’s what my naan called me when I was a kid. I don’t think she meant it affectionately, though.”

  “Do you remember the story?”

  “Some.”

  “He never listened to his older sister.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She was always trying to warn him.”

  “But he would go off with his bow and arrow anyway.”

  “And he killed the elephant and inside he found the hair of his mother and father and he wanted to bring them back to life.”

  “But he didn’t because death was natural or something? I can’t remember.”

  “All I know is he didn’t bring them back to life.”

  “No.”

  “I wouldn’t either.”

  “Wouldn’t what?”

  “Bring my mother back to life.” Another smaller group of clouds, darker and denser, passed over the moon and Shawna sat back.