Trying the Knot

by Todd Erickson

  “I should hope not,” she slurred. “I’m totally plastered. I could drive away from here and careen my car into a family of six, all because all I’ve ever eaten in this slaughterhouse is rabbit food.”

  Jane Feldpausch offered Chelsea her dinner roll and exchanged a wide-eyed glance with her daughter. Alexa pushed her plate toward Chelsea, and taunted, “Try the smoked loin.” Under the table, her foot entwined its way around Thad’s ankle. “It’s the other white meat, and it’s a real pretty color, it matches your shirt.”

  “Don’t you carnivores get it?” Chelsea asked. “All I want is a vegetarian entree, is that so wrong?”

  As if dropped from heaven above, a waitress plopped a plate down in front of the incredulous dinner guest.

  “What is this?” Chelsea demanded, “yet another one of my mother’s unholy attempts to thwart my life and ridicule me?”

  “Nope, just French onion soup with garlic bread and mozzarella. Ginny prepared it especially for you,” the waitress said. Then she set down another dish before an outraged Chelsea. “For dessert, cottage cheese on a bed of lettuce, topped with a peach half and maraschino cherry.”

  “Is this a sick joke? I’m a Vegan!” Chelsea roared loudly for everyone at the table to hear. “Hasn’t anyone around here ever heard of a macrobiotic diet?”

  From a few seats away, Tristana announced facetiously, “I’m also a vegetarian. I don’t eat any meat whatsoever, except for Notdogs.”

  Chelsea pushed the plate away and demanded in a fit of rage to the waitress, who stood back amused, “Get rid of this garbage and bring me my mother.”

  Before the plate could be whisked away, Thad speared the peach half with his fork and stuffed it into his mouth. With her napkin, Alexa dabbed at the juice dribbling down his chin.

  “Really, dear, you shouldn’t take food so personally,” Mrs. Feldpausch said lightly, and then she asked Thad for a cigarette. When Alexa pulled her shirt collar over her nose, Jane shook her head in dismay. “You kids today are so weird, I can’t stand it. I’ll be at the bar, where I can drink myself into tomorrow.”

  As she moved her chair away from the table, eager guests clanked their silverware against their glasses, and an all too familiar voice bellowed, “Another toast!” Rolling her eyes at her ex-brother in-law, Jane plunked back down in her seat and buried her face in her hands.

  “Oh, just great, here we go again,” Jane remarked, slumping in her chair.

  Ed Hesse stood in the middle of the room, and he prepared to make yet another toast in honor of his mortified daughter. It seemed to Jane many sailors, including her own father, lacked the most basic, everyday social graces required to conduct a normal existence on land. Twenty-odd years ago, she purposefully steered clear of the seafaring breed in her search for a husband, who was presently at home where he should be in front of the television.

  Openly disgusted, Jane watched Chief Hesse with the too-fresh memory of his treatment of her dying sister. They had called him ship-to-shore and begged him to get off the freighter because his family needed him. It was not until after finding the courage in the bottom of a fifth of scotch, he staggered to his oblivious wife’s deathbed. Kaye passed away the next day, and a year later Ed was married to the bimbo presently hanging off his arm.

  “A toast to my lovely wife,” Ed chuckled. “I never knew married life could be so marvelous.” Champagne bottle upraised, he searched for Shayla. This time, Nick had the honors of capturing the ineloquent, tasteless toastmaster on video. Nick scanned the room for Kate, who had momentarily slipped away, and he was grateful she was spared this latest tacky display.

  With his arm around Shayla, Ed called out, “We’re not losing a daughter, we’re gaining free medical care – Ha ha ha!”

  Jane Feldpausch shook her head incomprehensibly at the polite smattering of laughter and applause, and she made her way to the bar where she indulged in a shot of whiskey. Smoking without interference, she glanced up at the TV screen and watched CNN coverage of a Bangladesh cyclone that had wiped out a mere 125,000 people. That was approximately 50 Portnorths. She was sorry there was no chance of catastrophic weather annihilating her surroundings. When finished with her cigarette, she made a beeline for the restroom, where she found Shayla picking at a blemish in the mirror. The bright fluorescent lights enhanced the dull ash tint of her hair, and her heavy black eyeliner emphasized the sagging bags beneath her half-closed eyes.

  Looking haggard, Shayla lifted a burning cigarette off the sink and puffed deeply. She pointed at the stall with her thumb and said, “Someone’s on the pot.”

  “I’ll come back later,” Jane said. She paused, and then added, “I’m sorry about your daughter being in the hospital. I hope everything works out for Vangie.”

  “Should I be touched by sympathy?” Shayla asked loudly. “I know you all think I’m a gold digger.”

  “Let’s not go there,” Jane said. She treated her dead sister’s replacement like a kind of aberrant freak of nature and refused to get too close.

  “I might’ve been a tramp once, but at least the plumbing worked, and I was woman enough to birth a child,” Shayla shrilly referred to Jane’s scarred ovaries. In reference to her adopted brood, Shayla asked, “You’re kids don’t much look like you, do they?”

  “This is no place for a fight,” Jane said. She backed away and eyed the occupied toilet stall.

  “I’m not fighting with you, but as the new Mrs. Edward G. Hesse, I’m telling you something here and now,” Shayla said haughtily. Her words bounced off the bathroom tiles. “Yous people act like I’m scum of the earth.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “If you think I’m so bad, just ask Ed who he was balling when Saint Kaye was suckin’ her last breaths. If you only knew, you’d get down on your knees and thank God Almighty he married me!”

  “So crude,” said Jane. “So vile.” Before she could rip Shayla to shreds, the stall door flung open wide, and Kate emerged with the back of her hand covering her mouth. Kate looked at neither her aunt nor her stepmother, and she fled the restroom as fast as her feet could carry her.

  Shayla’s sallow cheek felt the stinging blow long after Jane’s reflexes overpowered her rationality.

  Mountainous and bearded, Ed Hesse maneuvered himself around the room while skillfully balancing a cigar between his teeth and carrying the video camera over his shoulder. He towered above the crowd, and his booming voice frightened everyone he snuck up behind with his recording equipment. “Gotta get you for pros-pear-tee sake, aye,” was one line catch phrase with which he coerced his unsuspecting subjects into posing for the video camera. He scanned the room for his daughter, but she was nowhere to be found, and he figured she was hiding behind her out-of-own guests.

  “Hey, let’s get Friar Tuck on film.” Chief Hesse aimed his camera at Father Tim and commanded, “Say, Th-th-that’s all folks!”

  The priest smiled and waved politely.

  When Ed turned the camera loose on his future son-in-law and requested that he record another toast, Nick replied, “Dad, too much of a good thing would only spoil them.”

  Chief Hesse bypassed the snooty out-of-towners to the dismay of the familiar faces that were no longer related to him. Whenever Ed neared their table, Alexa sniffed and said, “Is that Scent o’ Farm I smell?” And mistaking them for friendly locals, Ed swung by often.

  Attempting to encourage Alexa to spew soda from her nose, Tristana insisted they were related. “He’s your uncle.”

  “Hell no,” Alexa said. “He’s my dead aunt’s husband.”

  “Well, I imagine the camera loves you,” Tristana said, waving to summon Ed back over.

  “All right!” Chief Hesse boomed. “A working man has come to slave for the camera.”

  “Hey, dad,” Jack waved. He let his father affectionately rough him up. While being manhandled, Jack enthusiastically whispered to Alexa, “Dude, meet me outside in 30 minutes.”

  “I’ve already extended h
er an invitation,” Tristana said, and she gave Alexa a little wink.

  On his way back to the kitchen, Jack noticed a monster truck patrolling the restaurant parking lot. The Czerwinski twins were home on leave from the Army. They had forewarned him after Jule’s funeral the next time they came to town they would avenge their sister’s death. He shuddered to imagine what injuries the newly buff twin brothers would inflict on him.

  Trembling fearfully, Jack gave his father’s camera one last wave and returned to work. Chief Hesse carried his camcorder wherever he went, much like hunters carried their guns in racks fixed to the rear windows of their pickup trucks. There was nothing he enjoyed more than to cruise a country byway with a six-pack, filming graceful deer herds sweeping across autumn fields. Not all his video footage was so highbrow, for he also had high hopes of one day catching a spectacularly funny sequence to submit to America’s Funniest Home Videos. One time he thought he obtained it when he videotaped a cow unloading on Shayla’s red stiletto shoe, and she failed to notice until it was too late. A surefire award winner was lost due to a low battery, but that happened back when he was still an amateur.

  “Dance a Polka for the camera, pretty lady!”

  Ginny Norris jumped, startled by the loud voice still echoing in her sore ear. “Geez, you scared the hell out of me.”

  “You’re too pretty not to film for pros-pear-tee sake,” Chief Hesse complimented.

  Ginny groaned. “Oh nice, I’ve become a sex symbol for old men with video cameras.”

  “Young men, too,” Ben added. A wicked grin spread across his face as he fondly remembered the last time he and Ginny videotaped fornicating against the old, swing-set slide decaying in the Dooley’s fenced in backyard.

  “Oh, stop your needless torture.” Ginny laughed heartily and flashed Ben a look of invitation as she excused herself to check for more lettuce in the walk-in cooler. The salad bar needed replenishing.

  Ben, under the guise of having to use the restroom, followed her inside the refrigerated room. She playfully slipped her fingers between the buttons of his fly and pulled him close. Her tongue slid from his adams apple up his neck and over the slight trace of his Fu Manchu whiskers. He tongued her mouth vigorously, and she moaned, “You make me so crazy.” Her whole body was instantly swept up in a state of frenzied arousal, and she collapsed against his compact frame. With the fingers of one hand entwined in hers, he massaged her buttocks with his free hand. Ginny gasped and hungrily sought out his pierced nipple. He undid his pants as she melted, but the sound of someone entering the walk-in cooler fearfully froze her close to him.

  “Um, oh, uh, oh,” Kate sputtered shakily. “I’m so sorry.” She remained immobile and looked as if she had fled a gruesome crime scene. Ben immediately reached out to comfort her, but she shirked away and backed closer to the door.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kate repeated needlessly. She scurried from the chill of the icy tomb and collided with her stepmother, who had stumbled wildly from the bathroom.

  “That bitch hit me!” Shayla exploded, rubbing her red cheek. She mindlessly toppled Kate over sideways, and before she could regain her balance, she bumped into Father Tim as he was putting on his coat. The priest grabbed hold of Shayla and suggested she calm down, but she shook free of his grasp and slugged him until he staggered backwards.

  As she hurled herself through the swinging restroom door, Shayla screamed viciously, “Who the hell do you think you are? I’ll clobber you, fucking cunt!”

  Shayla’s vehement assertion summoned a number of the guests to the small intersection outside the kitchen and coat rack between the walk-in cooler and the restrooms. On the floor, Kate sat crouching among the coats, and she drew her knees to her chest. Shaking inconsolably, it was as if she was suffering from an epileptic seizure to the beat of the yelps and shrieks echoing from the restroom. As an oblivious mob encircled around her, Kate curled up in a fetal position amongst a sea of ankles. The crowd stepped past Kate as they curiously peered into the bathroom to catch a glimpse of the unfolding fiasco.

  Unaware of the melodrama transpiring in the toilet, Chelsea stormed around the corner and pushed her way through the crowd. She also failed to notice Kate curled up in a ball on the floor as she stumbled over on her way inside the walk-in refrigerator.

  “Mother, I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse,” Chelsea called out, watching her own breath stream out of her like a fire breathing dragon.

  Ginny replied nervously, “But, honey, you don’t eat meat, remember?”

  Benjamin whizzed past them, but he was prevented from proceeding beyond the walk-in cooler entrance because the increasingly noisy herd of spectators blocked the doorway. A few guests were attending the doubled over priest, who pointed haplessly at the lavatory door while gasping for breath. Chelsea opened a jar of olives and grabbed a handful. Popping them into her mouth like movie popcorn, she slipped past Ben and cleared a path for Thad, who was struggling to get a closer view of the debacle unfolding in the restroom.

  “Who’s in there,” Thad asked.

  “Shayla and your mother! Stop them, or they’ll kill one another,” Chelsea ordered, and she pushed Thad into the direction of the dueling women inside the restroom. Thad stepped over his cousin huddled on the floor, and he disappeared behind the swinging door. Chelsea popped more olives into her mouth and attempted to follow him, but Ginny protectively reeled her back into the hallway.

  Nick fought his way through the crowd, which had gathered inside the cramped corridor, and he searched the gawking faces for Kate. While attempting to maneuver around Chief Hesse, Nick unintentionally jostled Chelsea into Ginny, and she fell back into the arms of her lover, who nearly toppled over. She clutched onto Ben, fraught with maternal concern until he regained his balance.

  “What’s going on here?” Nick demanded.

  “Whatever it is, I’ve got it all in here on tape,” the Chief said, patting his camcorder. He was diligently recording the entire chaotic scene. “If nothing else, then for pros-pear-tee.”

  “Don’t you mean, posterity?” Nick corrected.

  “It’s a cat fight,” Ben said. “Thad’s mom and Vange’s mom are slapping one another silly in the john.”

  “Where’s Kate?” Nick asked.

  “She was here a second ago,” Ben said above the increasing din of confusion.

  “Those crazy broads will kill Thad!” Chelsea screamed. With all the strength her small body could muster, she grabbed hold of Ben and pulled him away from her mother and whipped him into the bathroom.

  After a few tense moments, she demanded of Nick, “Go see what’s taking them so long, don’t just stand there and let those lunatics beat one another senseless.”

  Nick stormed the fighting ring, and he emerged almost instantaneously. Victorious, he guided Jane Feldpausch with one hand and Thad with the other. Jane wore scratch marks across her face and appeared to be bloodied above her left ear. Thad was hunched over groaning about having received a boot clad Karate kick to the gut. But in order to prevent any further provocation of the crazed cowgirl, Thad led his frothing mother away.

  Without hesitation, Nick again returned to the ring, and a few moments later he and Ben appeared with a hysterical Shayla restrained between them. With all their strength, they held onto her writhing frame fearful of the extent of the carnage if she broke free. Issuing inane words of support, Chief Engineer Hesse brushed Ben aside and followed his wife and future son-in-law down the long hallway in the direction of the fire exit.

  Chelsea rushed to Ben’s side as he dodged Shayla’s blows. Half free, Shayla threw random punches at Ben while administering surprisingly agile kicks in the direction of her husband’s video camera.

  “I used to be a cheerleader,” Shayla screamed. Her cowboy boot delivered a final blow to Ed’s precariously perched camera, and it fell from his shoulder and crashed to the ground. She yelled, “Take that, bitch.” When Shayla showed signs of shaking herself free, Chelsea yanked a handful of
hair while restraining the possessed Mrs. Edward G. Hesse.

  “Fuck all y’all,” she cried out as Nick dragged her down the hallway out the back door.

  “Oh my God, where’s Kate?” Chelsea finally asked no one in particular. Ginny let out a horrified little cry as she spotted the bride huddled on the floor in a quivering ball.

  “Good heavens,” Ginny exclaimed, pointing downwards. She barked to a passing waitress, “Bring a glass of water!”

  The dispersing mob issued gasps of terror at the sight of Kate on the floor, and they once again circled around. Chelsea single-handedly corralled the gawking onlookers back into the lounge.

  When there was enough room, Ginny knelt down beside Kate and said, “Katie, dear, can you hear me?” She was unresponsive. “Benjamin, help me get her to her feet. Where’s the doctor? Somebody, get him now!” Ginny pleaded.

  “He got a page, he’s on the pay phone,” a voice answered.

  “Where’s Katie?” an official voice asked, and everyone moved aside to let Nick’s father through. Squatting down beside Kate, Dr. Paull hastily checked her over and made sure she could sit up on her own. The doctor ordered, “Wrap her in a blanket, and get her to the ER quick. I’ll meet you there.”

  Ginny demanded, “Aren’t you even going to help us?”

  “There’s nothing I can do for her here.” Obviously pressed by more pressing matters, Dr. Paull added, “I’ve got an emergency.”

  “What could possibly be more important,” Ginny asked, “than your own daughter in-law as of tomorrow?”

  “It’s Evangelica,” said Dr. Paull severely.

  “My baby! Oh, no, not my baby girl!” Shayla’s agonized cries grew distant as the back door closed behind her.

  “Wh-what’s wrong with her?” Kate asked groggily. Although frazzled and shaking, her grasp on the doctor’s arm was reassuringly firm.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, nothing that can’t be fixed,” Dr. Paull said serenely, and he turned toward Ginny and Ben. “It seems Evangelica has cardiac arrested. She’s been stabilized, but she’s in critical condition. I’m on my way there now. Gotta run, bye.”