Trying the Knot

by Todd Erickson

  They were Three Musketeers and a Tab pop for lunch types who starved themselves to retain Charlie’s Angels’ figures. Malnourishment was probably responsible for their bitchy dispositions. Semi-retired from the local bar scene, they had ceased competing for wedding rings, and their lives were presently consumed with producing the most obnoxious kid. The poor little goats, as Evangelica referred to them, were saddled with such sexually ambiguous names as Taylor, Lauren, Mackenzie, Bailey, and Connor.

  The She-Wolves, as Vange collectively referred to her fellow waitresses, hated her for her thinly veiled disdain of their chintzy J. C. Penny wardrobes and their Woman’s World aspirations. Evangelica was voluptuous, haughty and arrogant. After work, she refused to accompany the flock of barracudas to local taverns, where she was renowned as Karaoke Queen. If Vange was not home bitten by a bout of depression, she invariably bumped into them with a microphone in hand. If they dared confront her abut her antisocial behavior, she rebuffed in her lone wolf fashion, “Sorry, I don’t prowl in a pack.”

  Whenever Ginny left town, she requested Vange assume her role as hostess. Even though the job paid less, Vange seized the opportunity to piss off her comrades by becoming a militant dictator. Even so much as an eye roll could render the offender banishment to tables in Siberia near the kitchen. In Ginny’s words, Evangelica defied legislation. She was a true original, in a genre all her own.

  As her grand finale came to a rousing finale, and it was always the same – the Jazz standard “Lush Life” – she basked in the glorious adoration of her fans. Applause, curtsies, kisses and more applause until she felt satisfied.

  Emanating unadulterated contentment, Vange left the stage to soak in the free booze awaiting her compliments the misty-eyed audience. For a short time, the patrons had been transported a half-century to the glory days of their youth, and as always, they were eternally grateful and expressed as much with gracious sweetness. Evangelica kissed the heads of a few bald men on her way to the bar, where Ben had a dirty gin martini already waiting. On nights like these, she came across as a dazzling free spirit, a whirling of dervish energy.

  “That was grand,” Ben said as he handed her the martini. Knowing all eyes lingered on her, Vange gulped down the contents in one swig and threw her head back with laughter.

  “Ever think of taking your act on the road?” asked one of the caustic Jan Bradys.

  Evangelica smiled broadly and asked through her teeth, “Ever consider getting a life worth living?” She turned away and downed the second drink Ben had lined up. “Remind me, Benji, why we stay in this godforsaken place, surrounded by all these poverty level Reaganites, who’re still waiting for whatever it was that was supposed to trickle down?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Ben said. He went back to work and tried not to pay Vange too much attention. Ben did not aspire to alienate the girls or make his boss jealous, although he seriously doubted Ginny noticed or cared.

  Hungry from a long day’s worth of embalming, Ginny’s beau sat in a corner booth hovering over a slab of prime rib. Confident and clad in well-fit clothes, he wore his weight like a successful heavyset man. Ben guessed the town’s only mortician gave Ginny the weed she passed along to him in return for his afternoon pleasure sessions. Ben wondered if the mortician was really a local drug lord, or if it was another vicious rumor, like anything else anyone in Portnorth ever repeated half under their breath. For all Ben knew, Chelsea sent her the pot by USPS or carrier pigeon.

  Before Ben had the chance to ask Vange if she felt like indulging in bong hits later after work, Dr. Paull sidled up next to her. Nick’s father was ready to sail away to Key Largo in his white slacks and open Hawaiian shirt. After buying Vange a drink, he proceeded to critique her performance. For as long as she could withstand, she tolerated his fawning attention until it digressed into pawing and leering.

  “That’s all I need,” she said to Ben, “is the father and son comparing notes. Hell, I’d rather do his frigid wife.”

  Ben laughed with evil on his mind, and he continued to mix drinks without much thought or effort for it had become second nature.

  “Shouldn’t we start working on the wedding tape soon?” she asked.

  Ben nodded. “Alexa said this week for sure.”

  “If only we could skip what’s sure to be the social event of the season,” Vange said annoyed, at the thought of Kate and Nick’s nuptials. “What’re you, an usher or some damn thing?” Ben nodded. “You’re his oldest best friend, and what does it get you, the opportunity to meet, greet, and seat.” She took the straw from between her lips and tossed it aside. ”Tell me, Benny, won’t it break your heart to see the epitome of feminine perfection trying the knot?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  Evangelica shot him a hostile look. “Oh spare me, you’ve never stopped worshipping the ground Kate walks on.”

  “We’re not in the eleventh grade anymore.” He cracked open a beer and handed it to one of the anorexic waitresses’ outstretched talon.

  “All the more reason why it’s so nauseating to watch you go blank and drool whenever she appears,” Evangelica said. “You don’t know her well enough to know she has faults. She wakes up with bad breath and shits, just like the rest of us, but who am I to shatter your illusions?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen, helping your other girlfriend. Ginny give you any Tea lately?” Vange asked. Tea was her Boho Beatnik euphemism for pot. “You owe me, Benji.”

  Growing weary of his silent nods, she left him alone behind to the bar to tend to the drunks, but she continued to dispense free entertainment until the place closed. As usual, she was buzzed by the end of the night and bummed a ride home on the back of his crotch-rocket. As soon as they entered her apartment, she put on a Miles Davis record and began brewing coffee.

  “Stay, Benny. Let’s get high awhile and listen to tunes while watching my Christmas lights.” Which were still up in May.

  She was wide-awake and could stay that way for marathon stretches. Every night she went out, danced on tables and left a party wherever her winding trail blazed. Typically, during these manic phases she ate nothing and walked everywhere singing show tunes accompanied by her Walkman CD player, and she compulsively read anything metaphysical she could get her hands on. It was not uncommon for her to wake Ben in the middle of the night with an obscure bit of Wiccan or New Age mysticism.

  For a joke, she cajoled Alexa and Jack into letting her cruise main with them, and just to be idiotic she convinced them to make prank phone calls to different states, which they often recorded. In the middle of September, she swam in Lake Huron despite her professed fear of water. One February she single-handedly loaded her truck full of sand and dumped it on her living room floor. She jacked up the thermostat and threw a Spring Break beach bash lasting an entire weekend.

  Then she inevitably crashed and did not leave her bedroom for two or so months. After failing to show up for work, Ben usually found her in bed surrounded by a sea of discarded junk food wrappers strewn about the floor. Evangelica curled up in the fetal position and glued herself to the TV with the volume off. With hard-core Punk Rock music blaring continuously, she watched the flickering images of old movies and insisted, “If only I could be this angry, Benny, then I’d be truly happy.”

  “Go get some chocolate covered wafers made by those elves, my beautiful Benvolio,” she invariably begged. “Get me Cracklin’ Oat Bran, too, and a pizza. And don’t forget the grapefruit juice; I need juice to wash it all down with. And get some of Little Debbie’s Swiss Rolls. Hurry, Benny, or I’ll die, and Zingers, too. Don’t forget those. And ice cream.”

  Generally, he ran all over town fetching the unhealthiest garbage imaginable for her to cram down her throat in an eating frenzy. Sometimes she puked it all up, but more often than not she passed out after gorging herself.

  This depressed state progressed until she bloated up like a mini-Elizabeth Taylor durin
g her less-than-svelte years. Not long afterward, Vange would drive deep into the countryside to an area of wetlands she affectionately named the Swamp of Sadness. Sitting catatonic like a zombie in her truck she would take stock of her life along with its accompanying disappointments. From the Swamp, she gathered the strength to reclaim inner serenity. She returned to her apartment and took her first bath in months, squeeze into a jogging suit and excessively worked out to VHS tapes. She only jogged at the crack of dawn in order to keep her excess poundage from the eyes of the small town that threatened to engulf her. Her diet consisted of smoothies and oatmeal and grapefruit, or other weird combos, and she fanatically stuck to this bizarre regimen until becoming a mere shadow of her former bloated self.

  Then one day she would decide it was time to pack up and move, and Ben always had a hand in picking out whatever house she rented. After all, he was always the one who moved her. Once settled into her new place, she phoned Ginny and asked to be put back on the schedule. As if in a cyclical pursuit of eternal redemption, she diligently resumed attending church services and took up various volunteer opportunities until those unexpected pangs of mania once again disrupted the natural rhythms of her life.

  Evangelica usually explained her absences away by saying she met a rich foreigner, and he flew her out of the country for a while. She varied the lie and told everyone her lover was from New York City or Hollywood. Occasionally, this actually did happen, and so she kept stashes of pictures for proof of her travels because The Lounge wenches never took her word at face value. If appropriate, she acquired a fake bake tan, and she always made sure to flaunt a cheap old thrift store antique such as her authentic Grecian urn. Although her coworkers never knew for sure, they oohed and ahhed politely to her face, afraid of whatever violence she was capable of spewing if they questioned her

  After her lounge act, Evangelica and Ben lay across her brass bed, sipping lukewarm tea with honey while smoking a joint and listening to the old records that once belonged to her dead father. Compliments of her plant, Vange had an endless supply of weed, whereas Ben managed to get by on what Ginny periodically gifted him, and most of the time, he passed along the illegal stash to Vange.

  Evangelica painted Ben’s finger nails blue-black while singing along with Sarah Vaughn. Her bedroom walls were dripping with liquid Tide that gleamed menacingly under black lights. The Satanic hue freaked out Ben, who did not really enjoy spending time in the glowing morgue she periodically did not leave for months. Ben preferred to relax in her living room overgrown with every houseplant known to man, including her infamous Hemp plant named Marley. Dressed in their underwear, they made up fantastical Soap Opera epics among the venerable jungle with Star Wars action figures.

  “Since you never asked, I spent Easter weekend with Thad,” Evangelica said. She was still basking in the afterglow of her successful performance and his generous gift of multiple orgasms.

  “I saw him downtown the other day. He was trying to get a job with the newspaper,” Ben said as he blew on his fingernails. “I don’t know about that guy.”

  “Why?”

  “Nick thinks Thad might be a little gay,” Ben said, and he tested to see if the nail polish was dry.

  “Whatever, that’s old news,” Evangelica said. “Maybe he’s a little bit bi-curious.”

  “I’m just saying, Nick swears Thad made a pass at him once when they were drunk.”

  “What’s the big deal? I’ve made plenty of drunken passes at Nick. Don’t you remember when all the boys wanted to be Nick, and all the girls wanted to swing from his dick?” Vange asked, feigning nostalgia. “Oh those were the days.”

  “But Thad’s not a girl, so if he wanted to be Nick’s bitch, that’d make him a little gay.”

  She handed him the nail polish and wiggled her toes. “Hey, maybe with those beer goggles on, Thad thought Nick was pretty handsome. Don’t you think Nick’s cute?”

  “Not enough to turn me queer,” Ben insisted as he began to paint her toenails.

  “Well, FYI—he boinked me just fine.”

  “You slept with him?” Ben asked, trying not to sound overly interested.

  “Are you shocked? He was depressed, and it was Easter, so it was the least I could do. It cheered him up. I took this necklace from him. It’s a gift from his ex-girlfriend, it’s the key to his sadness.” Vange removed the silver blue rhinoceros necklace and handed it to Ben. “Take it.”

  “Um, no thanks.

  “Thad wouldn’t want Nick anyway. He’s not exactly well-endowed.”

  “What about me?” Ben asked, taking the necklace.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Long Dong,” Evangelica lied. “It’s the magic that counts, not the size of the wand.”

  Ben inspected her freshly coated toenails and put on the necklace. “A weird little Hippo, how does it look?”

  “It’s a rhino, and it’s beautiful. Keep it, Long Dong,” Vange said, and she laughed because she could not stop saying the word dong. “Some words are so strange. What are other weird words? Garrulous is one.”

  “Meal is pretty freaky, and supper.”

  “Yuck to all those dinner words.”

  “So, maybe we’ll hang out with Thad now that he’s back in town, even if he is a depressed flamer and shit,” Ben said. “We should tempt him with a threesome to find out if he’s really gay.”

  “Sure thing, queer bait,” she teased. Abruptly, she suddenly bolted upright and smeared black polish across the hardwood floor. She faced him and said severely, “I need you to take me to get an abortion. I keep putting it off.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t think I can go alone.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “No, dork, I thought I’d get one for the hell of it while they’re still legal,” she said, and she smacked his bare back with her open palm.

  Attempting to rub his stinging flesh, he asked, “Have you considered keeping it at all?”

  She did a double take and burst with laughter. “Are you serious? Right, me and my bastard child Pearl would lead a fine life of persecution at the hands of our Puritanical neighbors.”

  “Pearl? That’s kind of an ugly name.”

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  “Lots of women raise kids alone in this town, more so than not, I bet.”

  “A lot of women aren’t me, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly Murphy Brown. I can’t afford the hassle— it’s tacky when you’re poor,” she said.

  “But—

  “Listen, Benji-dawg, I’d make a horrible mommy dearest. Help me or not?”

  Ben nodded as if the alternative never crossed his mind. “No doubt about it, whatever you chose is fine by me.” Full of ambivalence, she flashed him a sardonic glance of appreciation and continued to sing along with the music.

  Evangelica did not like owing people favors, and so on the day of the abortion she showed up on his doorstep with a huge black velvet portrait of fat Elvis along with an overnight bag. Elvis and the bag tipped off Ben the procedure might get psychologically complicated. The round trip to Saginaw took several hours. Once at the clinic, Vange discovered she was too far along to be eligible for an abortion. Then they sent her back to her regular physician, where she obtained blood tests and an ultra-sound, which ultimately worried Dr. Paull. Something was not right.

  Ben accompanied Evangelica back to Saginaw, but this time to a hospital where she was told her fetus suffered from a rare chromosomal disorder. Chances were the baby would never grow to term, and if it did, it would not live more than a few hours.

  “Your baby appears to be missing vital organs in order to sustain life outside the womb,” the OB/GYN informed her.

  “I want it out of me,” Vange said blankly.

  “That’s not exactly an option,” the doctor informed her. “You’re too far along to have a legal abortion.”

  “So, if I’m hearing you correctly, I’m being forced to deliver a baby in
order to watch it die?” Vange asked incredulously.

  “The alternative is euthanasia,” the specialist said. “Not an option.”

  “The alternative would be humane,” Vange said horrified as it sunk in what she was being coerced to do. “It’s bullshit.”

  “It’s the law.”

  “Maybe I’ll try horseback riding or arrange a flight down a set of stairs.”

  “Are you threatening to harm yourself in some fashion?” the doctor asked. “I can arrange for psychological counseling.”

  Vange spent the next several months in shock, waiting to deliver her deformed baby. She was not sure when the growing zygote inside of her went from fetus to baby, and she swore Ben to secrecy. He was to tell no one. She wore baggy clothes and pretended nothing was wrong, but her capacity for self-denial was only so strong. Eventually, she felt the fetus move as it grew within her. By the time she had grown used to the idea of being pregnant, she had grown attached. Vange became hopeful for a misdiagnosis, and when she felt the baby kick she began to think the doctors had made a mistake. Everything would be fine. How shocked and overjoyed everyone would be when she delivered a healthy baby girl, especially when no one even knew she was pregnant. She began to worry about not having a crib, car seat, or any baby things whatsoever. Secretly, she began to buy clothes and such baby accoutrements as bibs, bottles and blankets. She did not dare share the news or items with anyone.

  Then late one evening, after a dinner shift at the lounge, she felt herself seized by an overpowering pain ripping at her insides. Ben rushed in the bathroom when he heard her blood curdling screams. He found her standing over the sink, gasping for breath as blood streamed down her leg.

  It took nearly all day to convince her that a trip to the hospital was necessary to successfully eject the malformed fetus. But before relenting, Evangelica had decided she would stay at the Dooley household because she did not want to deliver her baby at the hospital only to be told it would not live. On Ben’s waterbed, she rolled around emitting agonized screams until her voice gave out. When Ben became so frightened he began to hyperventilate, he dialed 911 and the EMTs insisted Vange accompany them to the hospital. The doctor reassured her she was experiencing premature childbirth or a miscarriage, and when the contractions started the ordeal would be no more painful than an intense period.