The Evil B.B. Chow & Other Stories

by Steve Almond

  Zach had his eyes fixed on the bouncing red lights of the equalizer, which were rising and falling with Al Green’s voice. We could hear my upstairs neighbor, dragging something heavy from one room to another.

  “I could see how much it meant to her, you know, to have me accept that part of her. And the flesh there, it’s extremely sensitive, the way scars can be. It was kind of a turn-on for both of us. So it just sort of evolved from that.”

  “Evolved?”

  “Well, the first thing, she would start to touch me while I rubbed in the balm.”

  Zach glanced at me. His eyes were glassy with the accumulated booze; I could see now that he’d been prepping himself. “It gave her great pleasure to have me touch her there. You know, anyone can love the other parts of her. You’ve seen her, Pete. She’s a beautiful woman. But to have a man accept that part of her, it drives her crazy. That’s what we all want anyway, to have our lover accept the most damaged part of us, right? Am I right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “So from there, it was a pretty natural progression.”

  “What was a natural progression?”

  “That she would want me to rub myself there.”

  “Like a massage?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “But not with my hand.”

  “Time out,” I said.

  “This balm we use, it’s practically like a lubricant.”

  “Get out of here,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  But Zach was not the sort of guy who joked around. He lacked the imagination. And he wasn’t cruel enough. That was maybe the worst thing about talking to him: everything he said was the truth.

  “I didn’t understand what she wanted at first. I thought she just wanted, you know, to put me in her mouth. She likes to do that. And she’s excellent in that department, by the way. But then she moved. She moved down a little and she said, ‘Do you trust me, baby?’ I said, ‘Of course I do.’ It’s true, Pete. I do trust her. ‘I’m going to do something,’ she said, and I told her whatever she wanted to do, that’s what I wanted, too. So that’s how it started. She took me and began to massage that area, very gently.”

  Zach was silent for a few seconds. Al Green was singing, Here I am, baby, come and take me.

  “I don’t want to get too technical,” Zach said.

  “No,” I said. “You don’t have to get technical.”

  “But to her, like I said, that’s the most intimate part of her anatomy. So in that sense, what she wanted was just for the most intimate parts of our bodies to be joined, to be in contact.”

  “How much contact are we talking about?” I said.

  “Well, at first, it was just, like, a massage. Using me to massage that area. But you have to remember, I mean, we were both naked.” Zach was speaking quite softly now, fading in and out. He wasn’t looking at me, thank God. He was on the other side of the couch, staring at the equalizer.

  “I mean, it began as something more sensual. But at a certain point, it sort of pivoted over and there was a sexual component to it, as well. She was using her hand. She was using her mouth. I was all over the place. I couldn’t always tell where I was, to be honest.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It’s what she wanted,” Zach said. “She wanted me to be turned on. She wanted me to get excited.”

  I was trying not to picture what he was talking about. But it was difficult. I kept flashing to this image of a skull and how naked all skulls look, how terribly stark and vulnerable. It was like an idea of what people really are, after all the pretty flesh has rotted away: white bone and black holes.

  “The first time it was just sort of gentle like that, this gentle play. But since then, it’s gotten more intense.” Zach belched softly and excused himself. “There are times when I can feel she wants me to use more force. She wants me to take charge. It’s not like she’s issuing orders. But I can tell from the way she positions herself.”

  Zach glanced at me. It occurred to me he was waiting for me to say something, so he could go on.

  “Wouldn’t this be considered sort of dangerous?”

  “Yeah,” Zach said. “That’s what I figured. I mean, it’s a part of the body that’s been traumatized. It’s right near the brain. There’s all this scar tissue. That’s what sort of freaked me out. I was having these fantasies of, like, something bad happening. But Sharon kept telling me, ‘It’s okay. I like the pressure.’” He frowned. “It’s not like there’s any real penetration, or what have you. The area we’re talking about isn’t that big. I mean, feel your eye.”

  I was afraid that Zach might really want me to do this, right there in front of him, but he kept talking.

  “It’s more like the skin rubbing against the rim, that sensitive part just below the tip, you know, rubbing, sort of up and over the rim. I don’t even know what you’d call it. The thing is, Pete, it felt good. It feels good. Not the same as making love, but I guess it’s a way of making love.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “And Sharon, she’s made it clear that she likes how it feels. She especially likes to feel me, you know, complete the act. I hope I’m not being too graphic here. Am I being too graphic?”

  I paused. “It’s sort of the nature of the thing,” I said.

  “Right,” Zach said. “Precisely.” He let out a long, beery sigh. “Anyway, it’s something I’ve been sort of carrying around. Not like I’m ashamed. But it’s just fairly intense, in terms of early relationship issues.” He leaned toward me and set his hand on my arm for a second. “So thanks for listening, man.”

  “Of course,” I said. I felt honored that he’d chosen to tell me, actually, but also a little put upon and also worried that I wouldn’t be able to resist telling someone else.

  “I hope this doesn’t make you feel any differently about me or Sharon. I mean, I’d hate to think—”

  “Not at all,” I said. “What people do in the bedroom, how ever they find happiness, that’s all good.”

  “I knew you’d understand,” Zach said. He stood, a bit uncertainly, and stretched his arms out wide. “Man, I’ve got to piss like a racehorse.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Zach took his leak and shambled back into the room. He said he should probably go. I could tell he wanted to see Sharon. The beers and the talk had swollen his heart.

  “You okay to drive?” I said.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “I can call you a cab.”

  Zach cocked his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll do a quick lap around the block. If I still feel drunk, I’ll come back up. Promise.”

  Zach had survived a pretty serious car wreck in junior high and it came out later that his mom had been drinking, so I knew he wasn’t bullshitting. He paused in the doorway. “Listen man, scout’s honor on that stuff before, right?”

  “You know it,” I said.

  “Cool. Cool.”

  I listened to him trundle down the stairs, the flap of sneakers on the damp sidewalk as he started his lap. I was kind of relieved he was gone. And then, on the other hand, I sort of missed him. The Reverend was still singing his songs, I’m so tired of being alone, and Let’s stay together, all the things lovers should tell each other. It made me feel lonely, to be in possession of such a sudden intimacy. A secret can be a lonely thing to bear sometimes.

  And I wouldn’t have expected Zach to be the one. Of all my friends, I mean. He’s not the one you’d pick out of the lineup and say, Yeah, him, he’s the one diddling his girlfriend’s eye socket.

  I don’t mean to cheapen the thing. It’s no joke. This was something real. Sharon was a real person. Some kid, long ago, had shot her in the eye with a BB gun. And now she was carrying around this injury. She wanted her lover to touch her. There was something beautiful to the story. I could see that. But still—it left me a little shaken.

  Later on, I managed to convince Lucy to come by. There was a lot of coy begging involved, though she’d
had a drink or two, which helped.

  It wasn’t like that night was some breakthrough in our relationship. That’s not the point I’m making. It just felt good to have her in my bed again, the familiar shape and heat of her. Just before we fell asleep she set her head on my chest. I could see her face in the moonlight: the round cheeks, the swell of her mouth, the shallow well of her eyes, which were wet and delicate, as precious as rare stones. Then this awful thought flashed through my mind: the worms would attack her eyes first.

  I didn’t want to think about it, but somewhere across town old Zach was with Sharon and they were finding their own path to love. It was—whatever, not strange or absurd, but human. Lucy closed her eyes and I let my fingers drift along her brow, her jawbone, the rim of her eyes. It was her skull I was tracing.

  “That feels good,” she said drowsily.

  “Good.”

  “I’m glad you called.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Keep going,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said. “Why would I stop?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book of short stories comes into this world without the help of many brave and foolish citizens. The following list is ridiculously partial: The entire Almond mishpochehzim, every single Algonquin book warrior, most especially Kathy, Michael, Craig, and Aimee, the various lynx-based life forms of the Bean, most prominently Erin Falkevitz, Eve Bridberg, Petey Keating, Zach Leber, Billy Giraldi, Young Bull Patterson, Timbo Huggins, Ricardo Gregg, Andrea Shea, Michelle Toth, Boris McCutcheon and his blessed Salt Licks, Web God Michael Borum, old friends and trusted rabbis Tommy Finkel, Kirkus McGurkis, Pablo Sallowpecker, and Patruchio Flood, the large body of kickass writers whose company I have been honored by and whose prose you would be foolish not to find and absorb immediately, which includes Keith Morris, Davie Blair, Chris Castellani, Jen Haigh, Redneck Machart, Karlos Roboto Iagnemma, Victor Cruzado, Juliana Baggott, Tommy Perrotta, George Skunkie Singleton, Camille Dungy, Margo Rabb, Sheri Joseph, Jim Shepard, George Saunders (and I mean that—find their books, they will cure you), the magazine folks who have allowed me to foster an illusion of relevance, most especially those at Other Voices, Zoetrope, Missouri Review, Tin House, and Playboy (the last of whom have yet to extend me an invitation to the Mansion, not that I am bitter), all of my beloved students, who remind me why I’m in the game, anyone—I mean anyone—who takes up the holy office of making sentences, songs, paintings, those artifacts which serve as testament to our otherwise unarticulated fears and wishes, and last but not least Abraham Lincoln, a man of astonishing eloquence and moral courage, who died, many years ago, for the sins of this country. Let us, in this age of unremitting grievance, choose as he did: to love, to sacrifice, to forgive.

  Published by

  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2005 by Steve Almond. All rights reserved.

  Stories in this collection originally appeared in the following publications: “The Evil B.B. Chow” in Zoetrope, Best of Zoetrope II; “The Soul Molecule” in Tin House; “Appropriate Sex” in Playboy; “I Am as I Am” in New England Review; “A Happy Dream” in Book magazine; “Lincoln, Arisen” in Antioch Review; “The Idea of Michael Jackson’s Dick” on Nerve.com; “The Problem of Human Consumption” in Virginia Quarterly Review and Falling Backwards; “Wired for Life” in Missouri Review; “Summer, as in Love” in Other Voices and as “Daisy, over Helpless Shirts, Weeps” in Arena; “Larsen’s Novel” in Other Voices; “Skull” on Nerve.com.

  “The Soul Molecule” also appeared in New Stories from the South.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.

  E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-864-4

  Praise for The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories

  “The inimitable Steve Almond is at the top of his form and that, as his many fans already know, is saying a lot. These are wild, funny, tender stories filled with remarkable characters doing remarkable things. A wonderful collection.”

  —Margot Livesey

  “Domestic drama, revisionist history and plain old lust—offset by a healthy dose of humor—fuel these twelve fictional tales… . Almond’s darkly comic sensibility guides characters both real … and imaginary … through emotionally charged situations.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Powerful… . Almond serves up something for everyone, offering insight into the human condition from a rich variety of perspectives.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “With his energy and restraint, [Almond] shows the strange, utterly true, believable weirdness of our times, in riveting, clean, funny, diamond-bright prose.”

  —Matt Klam

  “Nobody today is writing better short fiction.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Almond brings a vivid, sensual imagination to the observation of our sexuality… . In The Evil B.B. Chow, [he] expands the record of who we all are.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “What makes [Almond’s] latest collection so impressive is that he’s broadened his emotional palette and craftsmanship to the point where mention of his name alongside our best contemporary short story writers—Tobias Wolff, Tim O’Brien, Lorrie Moore—seems equally sensible.”

  —Creative Loafing

  “[A] sexy, fast-paced second collection… . [Almond’s] easy, natural storytelling and consoling reminders that intimacy is awkward and messy will carry readers happily along.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Almond’s stories are often bittersweet and bordering on the absurd… . They are also wildly inventive and highly recommended for academic libraries and all contemporary short story collections.”

  —Library Journal, starred review

  “The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories is filled with men and women who generate their own particular radiance, who remind us that everyone’s a saint when it comes to the naked spirit, and who never let us forget that we’re wonderfully, terribly alive.”

  —Jim Shepard

  ALSO BY STEVE ALMOND

  My Life in Heavy Metal

  Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

  Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott)