The Lonely Polygamist

by Brady Udall

  “Sorry I’m so late,” Golden said. “Had to wait two hours for the darn electrician—”

  Rose-of-Sharon slipped from under his hand, ducking, and went to the drawer next to the stove, where she began sorting a collection of embroidered hot pads and oven mitts. Such an act of hostility, even one so mild, was so unlike her that for a few moments Golden’s hand hovered in midair as if he really couldn’t believe there wasn’t a woman’s shoulder positioned firmly beneath it.

  Now all three women had their backs to him and in the sudden silence of that room he knew that minty breath and tied bootlaces weren’t going to make a bit of difference. The wives waited for him to say something but his tongue hung in his mouth like a hunk of old bread. He sat down at the table. Unaccountably, he needed to pee again.

  “I’ve been looking for you downstairs,” he said. “The kids didn’t know where you were.”

  There was a drawn-out silence, broken by the clank of dishes, the whang of a cookie sheet. Finally, Nola sighed. In a tone that sounded, if you didn’t know any better, quite jolly, she said, “Hey, girls, we’ve been discovered! Ha ha! Wives ahoy!”

  Nola could always be counted on to break the silence; she simply didn’t have the capacity to keep quiet for long. She was a bosomy, wide-bodied woman with a barroom laugh and the small, pouting mouth of a child. Rose-of-Sharon had her younger sister’s freckled skin and pale green eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. She was long-boned and big-jointed, and her face was handsome, sometimes pretty if the shadows fell across it the right way, but her face almost always took a back seat to her hair, which was done in a new style nearly every week. She and Nola ran the Virgin County Academy of Hair Design in town. Nola, the head stylist, used Rose-of-Sharon as a sort of hairstyle guinea pig, and, if the style came out well, a walking advertisement for the academy. Tonight Rose-of-Sharon’s hair was done up in a way that made Golden think of the word milkmaid. The sisters had shared Big House for the entire eleven years of its existence and Golden had never once seen them argue or disagree.

  “You’re mad at me,” Golden said. “Why don’t you yell and get it over with? Throw a plate at me? Something?”

  “We’re not going to yell at you,” Trish said.

  “Oh, we’ll see about that,” Nola said. “And if we hadn’t just taken the trouble to wash all these dishes you might have gotten that plate you were asking about.” She stepped back from the sink and whapped Golden across the shoulder with a dish towel. Nola was always whacking him with something or other, usually as demonstration of her affection for him, but this dish towel had more of a sting to it than he was used to. He rubbed his shoulder and wondered if everybody in the house was going to take a shot at him before the night was out. “Nola,” Rose-of-Sharon said. By the tremor in her voice, he could tell she was about to cry. Golden hoped it was because she felt bad about turning her back on him; he needed any scrap of sympathy he could get.

  “I’m sorry,” Golden said. “I’m real, real…sorry. Terribly. About everything.”

  “Sorry’s nice,” Nola said. “Real, real sorry, oh that’s pretty good too. But what are you going to do about it? Are you going to leave it where it is or are you gonna make us haul it out back and break it up into kindling?”

  Golden looked up. “Kindling?”

  “Or maybe we could put it out in the Spooners’ pasture,” Trish said. “That way their mangy cows could have a seat when they get tired of standing around looking stupid.”

  All three women laughed, each in her particular way: Nola, loud and hooting; Rose-of-Sharon with her hand clapped over her mouth; Trish, like an evil witch in an old black-and-white movie: eee-eee-eeeeeeeeee. Golden had nothing to do but sit at the table with his mouth half open.

  They were happening more and more lately, these moments of dislocation when it seemed everyone was speaking in a kind of pig latin that he could not quite make sense of. He’d come home and the children would start asking him questions that stumped him, the wives would mention places and names that meant nothing to him, would refer to the children by nicknames he’d never heard, and once in a while everybody’d start laughing, just like now, and Golden lost, the only one not in on the joke.

  He said, “I’m, I guess I don’t, I didn’t—”

  This made them laugh harder, and though Golden wasn’t happy about being the grinning jackass at the table, it made him hopeful: if they could laugh like this, things couldn’t be that bad.

  Trish wiped her eyes. “I think we could find more than one good use for that junky old couch.”

  “Ha ha,” Golden said, still deeply confused. And then from his slump he straightened up so quickly that he banged his knees on the underside of the table. “Couch,” he said. He’d meant to say ouch, but couch, like a stone dislodged from a hillside, was what had tumbled out of his mouth. And then he knew why: the anger, the noise, the cold looks, the plate covered with tinfoil, all of these things had nothing to do with the whopping lies he’d been telling for months now, the deception that had overtaken his life. It was about a stinky, broken-down, truly wonderful old wreck of a couch.

  “Couch!” Golden said again, as if he were delivering the clinching answer on a game show. “Where is it?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t see it downstairs?” Nola said. “She had her boys bring it in before dinner, acting like she was doing us a great favor, like we’d never had a couch before and were lucky just to be getting a look at one.”

  Without another word Golden shot out of the kitchen and hobbled as fast as he could down the stairs, eventually taking two steps at a time. He remembered now. Remembered how Beverly had called him at the construction site a few days ago, saying she’d found a once-in-a-lifetime deal on a new Churchill hide-a-bed from Steltzmeyer Furniture in St. George, which was going out of business. She’d been complaining about the old couch for at least two years. Because of its fishy smell and enormous size, the children referred to it as the Barge, and regularly took it on jungle river expeditions, slaughtered bands of pirates and man-eating sharks from its decks, and had contests to see how many of them could crowd onto it at once (the record was eighteen). It slumped in the middle, its ruined springs poking through the burnt-orange plaid fabric, and had been haunted by the smell of fish ever since one of the Three Stooges threw up his tuna casserole dinner all over the cushions.

  Golden, in a flustered effort to get off the phone as quickly as possible, told Beverly to get the couch, no problem, go right on ahead. Beverly wondered what she should do with the old one and here was where Golden made his mistake. Just before he hung up he’d mentioned something about the sisters finding a place for it in Big House.

  Under their present financial circumstances, allowing Beverly to buy a new couch was bad enough, but telling her to give the old one to the sisters—he really needed to have his head examined. The other wives had become so sensitive over the years at getting Beverly’s hand-me-downs and castoffs that even bringing up the subject could result in instant accusation and tears. So it was no wonder how things had turned out: the three sister-wives had gone upstairs to fix their portion of the dinner away from Beverly and the offending couch, and Beverly, for her part, had stayed downstairs, feeling unjustly accused. She was, after all, simply carrying out Golden’s wishes.

  When Golden couldn’t see the couch from the stair landing, he hit the living room at a fast walk, and, before he knew it, was trotting along, only the slightest hitch in his gait; all these years, and he’d never once given the racetrack a try. He took the first bend, following the ratty, worn-down groove, and it was like he was being whipped along by a spontaneous gravitational force. He felt strong and weightless, loping past the dinner table like a lead-off hitter rounding second, children in every room turning to watch him go. He leapt over a tub of wooden blocks—carpentry pencils and his toothbrush bouncing out of his shirt pocket—and felt only the slightest twinge of pain in his knee. He was feeling so fine he missed the c
ouch entirely on the first go-round. Only when he’d nearly completed another lap did he see it—how could he have missed it?—pushed into a corner in the family room, given a wide berth, looking sunken and exhausted, as if it had spent the night sobbing in despair.

  Golden went into the kitchen and rang the dinner bell, an eight-inch length of old rail hanging from the ceiling by a chain. “Boys! I need boys!” he called, and they came running. They were sweaty and red-faced and ready for action. “Every available boy—let’s see—ages nine through fourteen, I guess. We’ve got furniture to move. Deeanne, you go upstairs and tell the mothers in the kitchen that we’re going to get them another couch. Boys, let’s get this one outside.”

  Before he could start giving orders they already had it up off the floor, weaving and banging into the doorjamb like a crew of drunken pallbearers. Suddenly Beverly was behind him. “What’s this?” she said.

  “Well, we decided what we’re going to do here is get a different couch, it doesn’t really go all that good with the carpet and the, you know, furnishings.”

  “Right now? We need to be getting these kids to bed. We can discuss the couch tomorrow.”

  “Won’t take but a minute. The boys will help me. Back in two ticks.”

  Golden felt Beverly’s hard glare on his back, but he avoided it as best he could, ducked and sidestepped, told himself not to turn around or he’d never make it out alive. He helped the boys squeeze the couch through the front door and shouted encouragement when their arms started to give out. The sky was clouded with stars and it was cold out, so Golden decided that instead of the pickup he’d better take the old Cadillac, a 1963 hearse he bought from Teddy Hornbeck when Teddy sold his funeral business and moved to Florida, where people were known to be dying on a more steady and dependable basis. The hearse had only four thousand miles on it and was one of the most beautiful machines Golden had ever laid eyes on: ultra-long and sleek, with just a hint of fins at the back and velvet drapes at the windows that concealed an interior so large you could host a bridge tournament inside. Behind the single back seat Golden installed three removable benches he’d made out of welded steel tubing and oak planks, and there you had it: the family man’s dream machine, a car that could haul five adults and thirteen children with a certain kind of style. Of course, some people thought it was morbid, even disrespectful to God and the departed, but Golden didn’t mind; he loved the profound, vibrating hum of its eight-cylinder and the way it drifted effortlessly down the road like a baby grand launched into a river.

  With the couch loaded up and the boys inside, he counted heads; if he didn’t have every boy in the proclaimed age range there would be hell to pay later. To make sure he had them all, he resorted to his habit of singing the names of the children, under his breath, to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare”—EmNephiHelamanPauline NaomiJosephineParley NovellaGaleSybilDeeanne…—it was the only way he could come close to remembering them all. After sorting out the girls and younger boys, he discovered that the Three Stooges were missing. Golden asked if anyone knew where they were and noticed Clifton sliding down in his seat.

  “Speak up, Clifton,” Golden said.

  “Why are you asking me? I don’t know anything!”

  “No need to shout. You tell me right now or you’re staying home with the girls and the babies.” On cue, Pet had come out on the porch and, with her head thrown back, started up an operatic wail of anguish at being left behind.

  Clifton punched the seat in disgust. “In the closet.”

  “Closet? What are they doing in the closet?”

  The boy pulled himself up, put his mouth next to Golden’s ear. “The bucket.”

  Sure enough, they were in the closet, all three of them, pants down, jostling for position, trying to fill the bucket at the same time. Little Ferris was there too, still nude below the waist, patiently waiting his turn. For Golden it was hard not to think that there might be something wrong about a household in which the dog was wearing underwear and the children weren’t. “Boys,” Golden said when he stuck his head in the closet. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  They must have sensed their father’s good mood because the boys merely looked up at him, grinned, and continued tinkling. Golden swore them to secrecy before herding them all out into the hall, including Cooter, who he smuggled out underneath his shirt. They snuck past the all-purpose room, where Beverly was back at work on her sewing, and just as they were about to slip outside, Golden felt a tug on his shirt from behind, which startled him so badly he squeezed Cooter under his arm like the bellows of a bagpipe.

  It was not Beverly behind him, but Trish. “Are you going somewhere?” she whispered.

  “Going to exchange that couch,” he whispered back. “Taking the boys here. We won’t be too long.”

  She took a step closer to him so that he could smell the citrus shampoo she favored. “Do you know who you’re with tonight?” she said.

  The truth was he never knew who he was supposed to be with on any given night. Every weekend the girls convened, and according to some arcane algebraic formula decided in whose bed he would be sleeping on which night of the week. He was always grateful when somebody was thoughtful enough to tell him outright instead of making him guess.

  “Let me see,” he said. “With you?” He shifted uncomfortably, and she gave a curious look at the lump under his shirt, which was Cooter licking his armpit.

  “Good guess, Charlie Chan,” she said, taking a step closer. She wore a blue dress he’d never seen before, and had her hair up in a ponytail.

  “Boys,” Golden said, “you go out to the Cadillac and I’ll be there shortly. Go on now.” Jostling each other with their elbows, they zigzagged out onto the lawn, bending at their waists and doing furtive head bobs and kung-fu poses.

  Looking over her shoulder, Trish slipped an arm around his waist and seemed to be moving in to attempt a kiss when Herschel came bounding down the hall, shouting, “Hubba-hubba!” A moment later Cooter gave Golden’s armpit another lick and he grunted, stifling a laugh.

  “Okay,” she said, releasing him, looking confused now. “Don’t take too long.”

  He groaned, suppressing the laugh that was like a bubble about to pop in his throat, and turned to follow his boys. From the stable where the hearse was parked he waved and called out, “Back in a flash!”

  Once everybody was loaded, Golden pulled onto the highway and aimed the Cadillac in the direction of town. His plan was simple: he would trade the couch in the small waiting room of his real estate and construction office for Beverly’s plaid monstrosity. He would return the new couch to Big House and everything to its rightful order. Sister Barbara, the old lady from church who performed the occasional bookkeeping and receptionist duties, was not going to be happy about losing her new couch to a domestic dispute within the Richards clan, but the simple fact was that Golden did not sleep with Sister Barbara on a regular basis.

  The moon was now hidden behind a low bank of clouds and the light of the stars overhead seemed to thicken and gather like smoke. Golden drove slowly past the darkened forms of water tanks and outbuildings and sandstone bluffs, piloting the car easily around potholes and darting jackrabbits caught in the triangle of his headlights. With the heater blowing gusts of hot wind and Cooter dozing in his lap and the boys talking drowsily in the back, Golden held his foot steady on the gas pedal and for the first time tonight felt relaxed enough to fully exhale and settle his sore butt into the plush seat. Then he heard whispers and snickering from the back.

  “Rusty’s acting like a dead man,” someone said.

  Golden turned to see Rusty laid out on the couch, his eyes closed, his hands crossed over his chest in the official posture of death. Some of the boys were giggling and Rusty himself was working hard not to smile.

  Golden stomped on the brakes and the car ground to a hard stop, the back end fishtailing as the tires bit into the road. His teeth ground hard against each other and his voice was raw with
sudden anger. “You stop that. Don’t you ever play like that. Never.”

  Rusty, the weird one, the troublemaker, the one always doing the wrong thing, rolled off the couch and crawled to the very back of the car, whimpering that he was sorry. Golden had hit the brakes harder than he intended, sending Cooter onto the floor and pitching several of the boys on top of each other. They all looked up at him now, frightened, their eyes round as dimes.

  Golden turned and gathered Cooter back onto his lap. He sat for a while looking out the windshield, his hands on the steering wheel, until his breathing slowed. The smell of exhaust had entered the car and the only sound was the deep underwater gurgle of the engine. “I shouldn’t’ve—” he said, and shook his head. It was the second time tonight he’d yelled at them, the second time he’d given them a scare. He turned around to face them. “I’m sorry,” he said, and for one generous moment allowed himself to feel that he was apologizing not only to these boys, but to their mothers and the rest of the family, for the lies he’d been telling them, for his absences in body and spirit, for the joke of a husband and father he’d become.

  And just as he’d hoped, they absolved him. Of course they did; they were boys. “No problemo,” one of them said, and the others sighed with relief, nodding their sweaty heads.

  He put the hearse into gear and gradually opened her up, let the big car fly over the old blacktop with its tarred creases and sudden dips, the headlights cutting through the darkness like the point of a hurtling plow, tossing the black outlines of windmills and hay sheds and road signs to either side. The boys, their faces pressed to the windows, murmured and hummed their approval. Only when they reached the outskirts of town did Golden tap the brakes. The old hearse slowed reluctantly and as it glided under the still-lit Christmas lights of a quiet main street, the words PEACE and LOVE and JOY spelled out in glowing red and green bulbs overhead, Golden felt, for the first time in what seemed like months, something akin to hope: maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right.