The Lonely Polygamist

by Brady Udall

  “La la la,” he sang. “Do do do.”

  Too busy enjoying his own nudity to notice Golden, the boy rubbed his butt luxuriously along the pine wainscoting and then shimmied to the other side of the room, where he pressed himself into a potted plant. Only when Novella appeared, threatening to tell his mother, did he gallop off around the racetrack, slapping his haunches as he went.

  Alone again, Golden regarded the plate on the table. Despite everything—he could not help himself—he lifted the foil and carefully extracted a barbecued chicken wing, which he slurped at guiltily as he took mincing, sidelong steps down the hall. He turned the corner to find chubby and ever-sweating Clifton at the locked bathroom door, kicking it in rhythm with a kind of plaintive boot-camp chant: “Open up, open up, right now, right now, open up, open up, hey-hey, right now.”

  When he saw Golden he wailed, “Are we gonna do something about the girls in this place? What are they doing in there all the time? Huh? I hate ’em!”

  Golden slumped against the wall, defeated. The boy was right—the girls were bathroom hogs. Even the preadolescents could take half an hour to straighten their clothes and check their hair and perform other cryptic ministrations the boys could only guess at. And when a bathroom did become available they always seemed to get there first, as if they were trading insider information to which the boys—who saw using the bathroom as nothing more than a nuisance—were not party. Golden should have had some genuine sympathy for Clifton, but at this point all he felt was annoyed that the boy had beat him to the punch.

  Under the cracking thunder of kids jumping off the bunk beds in the room directly above him, he could hear the ratcheting of a sewing machine and turned to see a sight that made his blood turn to water: Beverly, the first wife, in the all-purpose room across the hall, working intently on a length of sheer fabric. In excruciating slow motion Golden tried to step backward out of sight, but just as he was about to clear the doorway she glanced up at him, stopping him cold. She went back to her sewing without a word.

  Until now he had been sure the wives were assembled in an upstairs room deciding his fate, grimly analyzing the evidence against him, united in their desire to see him pay for his lies and transgressions. But here was Beverly, alone, and Golden couldn’t decide whether this was bad news or a positive development. Maybe the scheming was already over and they had retired to separate quarters of the house, or maybe there had been no scheming at all and there was something else brewing which he could only guess at. Golden was in no state of mind to be making guesses; he felt fortunate just to have been able to locate the bathroom.

  He tried to read something into Beverly’s posture, but there was nothing to read; she always kept her back straight, her elbows close to her ribs. Even in her most distracted or carefree moments she never slumped or loafed or dragged, never allowed herself to sit back and take it easy. When she slept she lay with her head just so on the pillow, her hands clasped across her chest on top of the blankets, as if posing for a mattress commercial.

  Pressing his thighs together so he wouldn’t wet his pants, Golden hobbled across the hall and leaned against the doorjamb in a desperate attempt to look casual. He realized he was holding the half-eaten chicken wing right out in the open and in a moment of panic stuffed it into his pocket.

  “Ah, hey, hello.” He gave a little wave as if he were talking to her through a pane of glass. He raised his voice so she could hear him above the sewing machine and a round of sustained caterwauling that had started out in the family room. “Sorry I’m late! That darn concrete guy didn’t show until four o’clock!”

  There was the tiniest rise and fall of her shoulders, but she kept feeding the fabric through the machine. He stepped closer to her and felt a drop in temperature; Beverly was a woman whose moods held sway over the immediate atmosphere, who seemed to be in control of everything, including the weather. She had kinky iron-gray hair she kept in check with an assortment of clips, barrettes, clasps and stickpins. Tonight, as usual, she had her hair up in a barely contained bun, which bristled with what looked like an arsenal of miniature weaponry.

  Only after she had hemmed the entire length of the fabric did she get up to deliver a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and tell him that there was dinner waiting for him at the table. She then sat back down and checked her hem under the light of a jeweler’s lamp.

  “Your drive?” she said.

  “Long like always!” he said. “I’m thinking maybe I should trade my pickup for Elwin’s old crop duster and do belly rolls all the way home. Least that way I could stay awake.”

  Out in the hall Clifton gave the closed bathroom door a good kick and sang, “I’m dying out here! I’m dy-ing!”

  Beverly nodded, didn’t look up. Normally he would have waited her out, but Clifton wasn’t the only one on the brink of a serious accident.

  “I, uh, is there—is there something going on?”

  “There’s a lot going on, Golden, there always is.”

  “Everything seems a bit, you know, crazy.”

  “Well, that’s how it is around here, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Not the normal crazy, that’s not what I’m talking about. Something seems, I don’t know…”

  Beverly looked squarely at him for the first time, and his mouth moved silently as he searched for the word he wanted. Words: they were difficult for Golden in the best of times, and nearly impossible when he was under the gun like this.

  “…awry,” he said, finally.

  “Awry.” She took special care with the pronunciation. She held his gaze for a second more and went back to her work. “Okay, awry. Awry it is. And you’re right, there’s a lot that is awry tonight. For example, your dog, who has found it necessary, for the third time in two weeks, to piddle in my shoes.”

  “Cooter?” Golden said.

  “Unless you keep another dog I don’t know about. I locked him in the utility closet, and if he’s piddled on something in there I’m going to let the neighbors use him for target practice.”

  For a second or two, Golden felt a twinge of optimism. Could this be what it was all about, Cooter doing a number on Beverly’s shoes? Beverly and Cooter had been carrying on a feud for years, but the other wives tolerated the little dog, even had shown a fondness for him, which was probably why he had never piddled in their shoes. No, the other wives had no reason to be upset by Cooter’s misdeeds, and even mighty Beverly did not have the power, by herself, to make things go this awry.

  “By the way,” Beverly said as she tied off a length of thread, “you’ve got something on your lip.”

  THE CLOSET

  In the dusty darkness of a closet that smelled like shoe polish and Pine-Sol, and warmed by a fifty-gallon water heater that occasionally released a contented gurgle, he felt buffered, momentarily safe from the perils of the house. He’d come here after talking to Beverly, after wiping the barbecue sauce from his mouth and staring at his boots for a while before finally taking the only good choice available to him, which was to cut and run. He’d mumbled something about having a word with Cooter and, before Beverly could protest, made his escape.

  By a stroke of luck the utility closet was only twenty feet down the hall. Golden pulled the door shut behind him and it was like he’d stumbled out of high winds and flying debris into a storm cellar made of reinforced concrete: the noise dropped away instantly and left nothing in his ears but a distant ringing and the sound of Cooter panting at his feet. He wondered why he hadn’t discovered this place before—it was downright pleasant in here. When things got out of hand, when everybody was at him and he needed a little peace, he wouldn’t have to sneak out to the garage where he kept his tools and a spare army cot; he could slip in here and polish his shoes and keep the water heater company for a while.

  None of this, however, changed the fact that he had to pee right now. In fact, this unexpected tranquility was having a relaxing effect not only on his state of mind, but also on his bladder (the gur
gling water heater wasn’t helping either). He felt his buttocks unclenching for the first time in several hours and then a deflating sensation in his bladder and he knew that it had come: the point of no return. He bit his lip and groped in the dark for a light chain—wasn’t there a light chain in here?—and when he couldn’t locate one he fell into a kind of resigned panic: knocking over brooms and plungers, grappling with an ironing board in the pitch-dark—Aw, wouldn’t you know it, aw, darn it, oh no, no, no, come on, please—sweeping spray bottles and canisters of Ajax off the shelves, sending Cooter, who had been drowsing against the warmth of the water heater, into blind, scrabbling hysterics. By some miracle Golden’s hand settled on what he had been searching for: a five-gallon plastic mop bucket.

  Five gallons, Golden thought. Let’s hope it’s enough.

  After a frantic battle with his zipper, Golden was finally able to relax and, as his father would have said, “make a bargain with mother nature.” The relief was profound, like coming up for air after a long submersion. While the bucket filled, Golden had time to locate the pull chain with his free hand and switch on the light. He figured that if someone happened to open the door on these proceedings it all might somehow appear more legitimate with the light on.

  Under the dour yellow light of the forty-watt bulb it took him a second to locate Cooter, who was wearing underpants.

  Golden shook his head. “Oh man, she got you again, didn’t she. I’m real sorry about this, boy.”

  Cooter turned away, his damp eyes bulging with resentment, apparently not yet prepared to accept apologies from anyone. Cooter was a skittish, bug-eyed dachshund mix who had been first required to wear undershorts several years ago when he’d suffered a period of obsessive licking, in which he licked his hind end so much it bled. The underwear helped him curb his habit, but when he started peeing on Beverly’s belongings she took the tiny jockeys out of retirement and employed them as psychological torment. The dog hated them and would not urinate or defecate with them on unless he had no other choice. They were dainty little things that had once belonged to a baseball doll named Swingin’ Baby Timmy (the doll had also sported all the realistic baseball gear: socks, stirrups, cleats, wristbands and a complete baseball uniform) and were all white except for a yellow explosion on the rear, inside of which the words HOME RUN!!! were printed in blue.

  Cooter was extremely sensitive to the attention he got while wearing his HOME RUN!!! underwear and Golden decided it was probably a blessing in disguise that Beverly had put him here in the closet, out of public view.

  Golden tried giving the dog a friendly nudge with the toe of his boot, but Cooter backed into a bag of rock salt and turned his head as if he’d been the object of a cruel insult.

  “Come on now,” Golden whispered. “Don’t give me that. You deserve what you’re getting, you big baby. How many times have I told you about going on Beverly’s shoes? Huh? Huh? You’re going to get us both tossed out into the cold, you know that? Huh? You think I’m joking? You think this is a joke? You think—” Golden flinched, struck by the moment he found himself in: standing in a dark closet, knuckles smeared with barbecue sauce, tinkling into a bucket while delivering a lecture about bathroom manners to a dog wearing jockey shorts. Could it get, he wondered, any worse than this? Sure it could. It probably would before the night was over, which was why he couldn’t find the wherewithal to laugh at himself, not yet, not until his fate, for better or worse, was decided. After he finished his business he crouched next to Cooter and proffered his sauce-covered hand. Cooter sniffed at it uncertainly and looked up at Golden for guidance. Golden felt a welling of affection for the little dog; he was a weasel-like creature with bulging Marty Feldman eyes and a hairless butt who had no idea how hideous he was.

  “Go on ahead,” Golden sighed. “Knock yourself out.”

  While Cooter snaked his tongue between Golden’s fingers in an attempt to get every last bit of sauce, Golden opened the door a crack and hissed at Clifton, who was still on bathroom vigil down the hall. Clifton came up, bobbing and bending at the waist, his face red with indignation. “There’s two of ’em in there,” he said. “Girls. I can hear ’em giggling and running the water. And Mom told the boys if we went out in the bushes anymore she’d ground us. Why won’t somebody help me?”

  “I’m going to help you if you keep your voice down.” Golden held the door open for him. “Number one or number two?”

  “Number one, mainly.” Clifton looked from Cooter to Golden. “Did Aunt Beverly lock you in here too?”

  Golden took the bucket down from the shelf. “You see this bucket? You can go in this bucket, and forget all about the bathroom or the bushes, if you do one little favor for me.”

  “Did you go in the bucket?”

  “Well. Yes. But you can’t tell anybody about this, understand? It’s a secret.”

  “Can I have my own bucket?”

  “This is an emergency bucket. There’s only one, and it’s for emergencies. You can use it if you do this one favor for me and don’t mention it to anyone.”

  “How about I go in the bucket first, and then the favor?”

  Golden shook his head. He knew that if he let the boy go in the bucket first he’d likely never see him again. “It’ll take just a few seconds. I want you to go upstairs and take a look around and find out where your mother and Aunt Trish and Aunt Rose are. Then come back and tell me. Like a spy mission. Top secret. Don’t talk to anybody. Me and Cooter’ll wait for you right here.”

  In practically no time—about fifteen seconds, by Golden’s estimation—Clifton was back. “They’re in the upstairs kitchen. All three of ’em.”

  “What? You already went up there?”

  The boy shrugged. “I can run fast when I have to.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Washing stuff and talking. Where’s the bucket?”

  “Just one more thing. Do they look mad?”

  Clifton sighed. “I think they’re probably mad at you. I think that’s why you’re hiding in this closet.”

  Golden handed Clifton the bucket. “When you’re done, put it behind the rag pile. And don’t let Cooter out or Aunt Beverly will have your hide.”

  THE BARGE

  Out in the bright lights and noise, Golden was overcome by a wave of dizziness, and suddenly felt vulnerable again. He wished he’d taken more time in the closet to gather himself, to prepare a defense. As he climbed the stairs, a gang of children pulsing around him like a school of fish, he decided he wanted it over with. No more faking it. He would offer no apologies or excuses. He would place himself at their mercy.

  The wives were gathered in the upstairs kitchen, all three of them, just as Clifton had said. Golden had installed the upstairs kitchen so Nola and Rose-of-Sharon would have the option of cooking for and feeding their families separately. Not much more than a galley kitchen, it turned out to be too small for even one of their families, and was used only when the kitchen downstairs couldn’t accommodate the cooking and cleaning for several dozen people. Slowly, Rose-of-Sharon was converting it into what Golden thought of as Estrogen Ground Zero: its drawers were filled with the tools of womanly crafts, of knitting and needlepoint and tole painting. On every available section of wall space were hung portraits of kittens and poodles and elaborate framed embroideries that declared BLESS THIS HOUSE and LOVE IS SPOKEN HERE. Macramé and beadwork dangled from the ceiling, and the countertops and windowsills were decorated with doilies and little pincushions in the shapes of smiling tomatoes and plump snowmen. The air was thick with rose-petal potpourri and lilac-scented candles, and Rose-of-Sharon had recently plastered the walls with daisy wallpaper so bright it made Golden feel like he was in a room full of popping flashbulbs.

  Golden tried to make sense of their conversation, but the constant hiss of water in the sink made the voices blur into one another. His back pressed to the wall, he performed a maneuver that involved craning his neck and holding his head at an extreme angle so
he could eyeball the situation without being spotted. Rose-of-Sharon was at the table, sucking on her shirt collar, carefully mapping out a new quilt on a sheet of graph paper. Nola and Trish were out of sight, probably standing at the sink.

  Golden took a moment to deliver two generous squirts of Afrin nasal spray into each of his nostrils. All his life he’d had the bad habit of sneezing when he was nervous—anxiety and dread would build like a physical pressure inside his head, and the slightest itch or irritation of the nasal cavity would trigger a great, ripping sneeze, the sound of which could make children cry and adults recoil as if a grenade had gone off. The spray was the only thing he’d found that kept the sneezing in check, and now that he’d made it this far into the heart of enemy territory, he wanted to make sure he didn’t give his position away until he was absolutely ready.

  He gave himself a quick once-over and found his bootlaces untied, his shirt untucked, and the back of his left hand covered with a residue of barbecue sauce and dog slobber. Doomed, he tied his laces, patted at his hair, and tried to wrestle his shirttail into the tops of his jeans until he gave up, nearly yanking his shirt clean off in a spasm of frustration. The heck with it. No more stalling, he was going in. He started forward, paused, stepped back to check his zipper.

  One more toot of nasal spray, one more breath mint for good luck, and he was ready. In what he considered to be an act of reckless bravery, he strode into the kitchen, put his hand on Rose-of-Sharon’s shoulder, and, with all the confidence he could muster, croaked, “Hello, girls.”

  Nola and Trish, who were indeed standing together at the sink in a rising curtain of steam, did not turn around. Rose-of-Sharon’s shoulder, soft and pliant when he first touched it, now felt like something made of wood. Trish cast a quick, nervous glance back at him and Nola fished a basting pan out of the dishwater, went to town on it with a ball of steel wool.