The Lonely Polygamist

by Brady Udall

  He stopped off in his old bedroom and found Herschel playing Chinese checkers by himself. Herschel was the little doughboy who had taken Rusty’s spot in his bedroom, who’d been promoted to the Older Boys’ room even though he was only nine. A house full of kids and you can’t find somebody to play Chinese checkers with? That was Herschel.

  So Rusty sat down for a quick game and Herschel said, “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” and Rusty said, “Do you want to play or not?” and Herschel said that he did but he had forgotten the rules, which was the other thing about Herschel: he was dumb as a stick. But unlike Rusty, he was nice and knew how to give people compliments, so nobody minded him.

  After Rusty beat him two games in a row and Herschel said, “Hey, you’re really pretty good at this game!” Rusty got him in a headlock and gave him an Apache head burn, just for old times’ sake. He then told Herschel he’d give him a dollar if he’d stand guard outside the door while he conducted some private business. Once Herschel was gone, he lifted up the mattress of the top bunk, the one Herschel now slept on, where he had hidden his paperback copy of To Love a Scoundrel. He kept it here, along with a few other special items, so if his secret hiding place in Old House was discovered he wouldn’t lose everything. He was, unlike Herschel, not dumb as a stick.

  On the cover were two people in front of a castle at midnight, grabbing at each other under a tree. The man was wearing black riding boots and insanely tight purple pants and for some reason, even though it looked like it was a pretty cold night, he didn’t have a shirt on. The woman was wearing what appeared to Rusty to be a shiny pink curtain, and her head was dangling backward so you could get a load of her dewy cleavage.

  Dewy cleavage! That’s what it said in the book. Their eyes met, and slowly, sensuously his gaze drifted downward, lighting for the briefest moment on her dewy cleavage. This was one of many lines in the book that Rusty had committed to memory. He had already made a secret vow his firstborn son would go by the name of Dewy Cleavage Richards. He’d first seen To Love a Scoundrel at the swap meet a few months ago. It was just sitting there with piles of other junk and a cardboard sign that said,

  Everything On Table

  25¢

  No Haggling PLEASE

  Of course, Rusty didn’t have twenty-five cents, so when the codger was distracted by a crazy-eyed hag who claimed there was no way in shinola she was going to pay good American coin for a plastic spatula with a crack in it and the codger responded by picking up the sign and jabbing at each word with his finger as if he were leading a bunch of preschoolers in a sing-along, Rusty swiped the book off the edge of the table and stuffed it down his pants.

  He had meant to give it to his mother for her birthday, but he started reading it and before you knew it his mother’s birthday had passed. Sir Nigel Mountcastle and Lady Jane Welshingham were secretly in love, even though she was married to the Earl of Buckington, who was away most of the time hunting pygmies in the jungles of Siam. Even though Sir Nigel was kind of an a-hole, and the book was confusing, with words Rusty didn’t understand and people saying things like, “Unhand the marchioness this instant!” it was easily the best book he’d ever read.

  Rusty had stolen the book for his mother because he knew about her secret; not only did his mother read books like To Love a Scoundrel but she had a collection of them hidden in her closet. Rusty discovered this one Sunday last summer when he claimed he was sick so he didn’t have to go to church, and while he was home alone and had nothing better to do he went snooping around in her bedroom, where he found dozens of these books, the kind with half-naked ladies and long-haired muscle-guys wrestling each other on the covers—a couple under her bed, a lot more stacked up behind clothes in her closet, one in her nightstand drawer under the Book of Mormon. Comanche Bride, and A Stranger Comes Calling, A Cowboy of My Own, The Impostress, Slightly Married, The Damsel in This Dress. The first time he saw these books, he was scared. He picked up the first one—Tropical Fever, with a picture of a pirate trying to mount a hula chick—and whispered, “Oh my holy fudge.” These were his mother’s? His mother, who never cussed, who blushed when the old fart on PBS said social intercourse, who hated nakedness so much she duct-taped Ferris’s clothes to keep him from streaking, who clapped her hands over her eyes and screamed homicidal murder when she saw Cooter trying to impregnate the neighbor’s old blind cat, Mr. Sugar? Though Rusty was feeling weak from looking at all these ladies and their gigantic bosoms, it made him a little sick to think about his mother looking at them too.

  But after reading To Love a Scoundrel he thought maybe he understood. His mother read these books because she wanted to be like Lady Jane Welshingham or Pollyanna Dansforth or the Comanche Bride, ladies who were beautiful and had adventures and boyfriends who loved them and only them, guys like Sir Nigel Mountcastle, who was ravishing and said things like, “Oh, Jane, you possess me, you enrapture my very soul.” As far as Rusty could tell, none of the ladies in these books had seven children and had to share a husband with three others, the husband being a Sasquatch who smelled like Ben-Gay and stumbled around blinking like he didn’t know where he was, who was never around, who paid almost no attention at all to Rose-of-Sharon Richards, his very own wife.

  It took him a while, but in his studies of all those books Rusty figured out another of his mother’s secrets. She had named her children after people in the books. The mothers got to name their own children—this was one area where they could do what they wanted and nobody, not even Sasquatch, had a say—and while the other mothers were going around naming their kids after Book of Mormon prophets and historical people from olden times, Rose-of-Sharon named hers after the beautiful newspaper reporter in Scoop of a Lifetime or the secretly lonely millionaire in A Gentleman in My Bedroom. Rusty was named after Deputy Marshal Rusty McCready in Ride the Fire, which was kind of a gyp, because Gale got to be named after some kind of wizardess of Nature who controlled the wind, and Ferris was an Irish warrior with a braided red beard who went around smashing people’s brains in with a stone club.

  Before he went to see his mother, to give her his gift and convince her once and for all that it was time for him to come home, that he could repent and act like a normal righteous person if only she would let him come home and have his party at Skate Palace, he had to really quick read his favorite part, where Sir Nigel and Lady Jane get locked up in the dungeon by the Earl of Buckington and escape by covering each other with lamp oil and squeezing through bars. He boosted her up and stood back for a moment to admire her plush and glistening bottom clamped tight between two rusty iron rods.

  Rusty sighed and shut the book. He counted to ten to allow his pants to settle. When he got out into the hall Herschel said, “Where’s my dollar?”

  Rusty reached into his pocket, and pretended to put something in Herschel’s sweaty palm.

  “What’s that?” said Herschel.

  “An invisible dollar,” Rusty said. “Don’t lose it or you might not be able to find it again.”

  At his mother’s bedroom door he made a little knock. “Mom?” He thought he heard her say something, so he let himself in.

  The room was dark, the drapes glowing at the edges, and the mirror on top of the dresser shimmering next to the big block of blackness that was his mother’s bed. At first he was sure she wasn’t there, but then he heard breathing and took a step closer.

  His mother was on the bed, half under the covers, asleep. And here was the thing: she was wearing her earmuffs. Blue plastic earmuffs, like the ones guys on aircraft carriers wear to keep their eardrums from breaking. Which meant things were bad. Which meant his mother had given up, she was sick, she couldn’t take it anymore.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They said they had sent him away to Old House for the Family Exchange Program, but he knew it was really because he was a troublemaker who needed to learn how to behave, because he was a pain in everyone’s butt, especially his mother’s, who had a fragile psychol
ogy and needed her rest. But here she was hiding in her room with her earmuffs on, which meant it hadn’t worked. Even with him out of her hair, he was still causing trouble, plus his father was still gone all the time, the mothers were still fighting, which meant the kids fought even more, and his mother couldn’t stand it, she just wanted everyone to be good and love each other, which definitely wasn’t happening, so she stayed up here in her room, trying to disappear.

  He took a few steps back. “Mom?” he said. “Mom?” He nudged the mattress with his knee.

  She lifted her head and blinked. “What happened?”

  He said, “It’s me.”

  “Who?” She pulled a muff off one ear.

  “Rusty.” He reached out to touch her foot under the covers, pulled his hand back. “I came here to give you something.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I brought you something.”

  “You can’t be here. You can’t. I’m sorry about your party but there’s nothing I can do.”

  All he wanted to do was lie down next to her; if he could just lie down next to her for a second it would be all right. When he was little, she used to let him crawl into bed with her and put his face into her neck, which smelled like Dove soap, and sing “Eidelweiss” and “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.” But now he was older and sort of fat, his leg was always jiggling and his feet smelled like old hamburger. He wanted to ask her if she wouldn’t mind if he lay down with her for a few seconds, just one second, but the only thing he could say was, “Skate Palace.”

  She turned her face away. “I tried. I’m sick. I can’t do it anymore. Please leave me alone now.”

  “I came to give you something,” he whined. He didn’t want to whine. He didn’t want to think about how his special birthday was going down the tubes, or about his mother being sick again like this might ruin all of his plans forever. If he could learn to control himself and behave, then maybe his Grand Master Plan wouldn’t be in very serious trouble, and his mother wouldn’t be getting sick again. He had figured that if he could get June fixing Aunt Trish’s toilet and roof, then June could start doing some of the work around Big House and Old House that Sasquatch wasn’t around to do, and that way June and his mother could meet, and of course fall secretly in love, just like in one of his mother’s books, and then Rusty and his mother and his new stepdad June Haymaker could go live in a bomb shelter, happily ever after. If it were one of his mother’s books it would have a cool title like Atomic Love Bombs or maybe World War Lust, and it would feature Rose-of-Sharon, the sad and overlooked housewife who only needed a sensitive and semi-handsome stranger with a bomb shelter to bring out her inner beauty, and once the stranger whisked Rose-of-Sharon away to the bomb shelter, along with her clever and brave son Rusty, who she could not bear to leave behind, World War III would come and blow the living crap out of civilization as they knew it. Except before the bombs crashed down, Rusty, with his extra-perception abilities, would detect the sound of the missiles coming on their way over Greenland and he would jump on his bike and pedal like a madman to Aunt Trish’s house, where he would find Aunt Trish doing some gardening in cut-offs and some kind of tight top that made her boobs stand out, and he would tell her the end of the world was at hand and if she wanted to live she better hop on the back of his bike pronto. She would say, “What about Faye?” and he would hold out his hand and say, “I’m sorry, but there’s no time,” and she would take his hand and hop on the bike and hold him tight around the waist with her chin on his shoulder as the missiles screamed overhead, and they would make it to the bomb shelter with only seconds to spare.

  Afterward, they would venture out into the deadly apocalyptic wasteland, everything black and smoking and burnt to a crisp, and Rusty would say, “It’s really sort of beautiful in its own way, don’t you think?” and Aunt Trish would squeeze his hand, which was her secret way of agreeing with him. They would visit Old House and Big House and the Duplex, which were all just piles of ashes now, and Rusty would bow his head and say, “Such a terrible shame,” and they would all nod their heads and take a moment of silence and then go back to the bomb shelter and play Monopoly and drink alcoholic beverages until way after bedtime, because what did rules matter now, anyway? After a few days, when Aunt Trish had gotten over her daughter and everybody else getting blown to bits, she and Rusty would take off their clothes until they were nude and start doing some serious kissing and maybe even sexual relations in their own private section of the bomb shelter, because they loved each other and then there was the survival of the human race to think about, wasn’t there?

  He took the book from the waistband of his jeans and held it out to his mother. “It’s a present. For you. I didn’t have time to wrap it, but I got it special, it was hard to get, but I wanted to give you a present, because you never get good presents.” He wiped the book on his jeans because his hands had gotten it all sweaty.

  “I know you’re upset—” his mother started to say, but he held the book out to her so she had to take it. She put it right up to her nose to see it in the dark and when she read the title and got a good look at the cover, she said, “Where did you get this?” Her voice was suddenly all high and crazy. “Why did you give this to me?”

  Something had happened to his mother’s face. Her eyes were black and shining and her lips shook. He took a step back. He raised his arm to point at the closet, let it drop back against his side. “It’s a present?” he said. “I got it for you.”

  “You take this,” she said, waving it at him. She wouldn’t look at him now. “You get it out of here. You’re not supposed to be here. You want me to call your father? You want me to tell Aunt Beverly?”

  His face stung and his throat closed up. He swallowed and tried not to cry, but it was already coming. What a gyp! He started to do the hiccup thing where he could hardly breathe. “I’m not, uh…uh…uh…taking it,” he cried, shuddering and gulping. “It’s not fair.” He was really bawling now. Trying to stop only made it worse, and he started making the snorking sound every two seconds and going uh-huck uh-huck uh-huck. Why was he such a big effing bawlgut? Why did he have so much spit in his mouth?

  “Please, Rusty, please,” his mother said. “I don’t want you to get into more trouble.”

  “It’s a present!” he choked.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Please.”

  He said, “It’s my special birthday!” but it sounded more like somebody gargling a bucket of spit.

  She put her head back on the pillow. “I can’t anymore.”

  He backed up to the doorway. He waited, but she didn’t say anything. “It’s me, Rusty,” he said. “The deputy marshal?”

  He waited, but she was quiet. “Mama?”

  “Okay,” she said, as if she’d just been woken up. “I’ll see you…soon.”

  He stood in the doorway and waited some more but she had put the earmuffs back on and closed her eyes. He let the door shut and looked at it for a while. He sniffed, he gulped, he went, uh-huck, uh-huck.

  He stopped crying when he thought he heard his mother say something, but it was only Aunt Nola downstairs yelling at somebody. He put To Love a Scoundrel down his pants. He went down the hall, past Herschel, who was still holding his invisible dollar, down the stairs and past the clicking dryers and then he was outside and on his bike and pedaling like a madman, but at the place where the driveway met the road he stopped. He looked around. There was nowhere for him to go.

  22.

  JUST MARRIED

  IT ALL STARTED ON A SWEET SUMMER DAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE twentieth century, a perfect day for a picnic. The unblemished sky, the stand of fragrant ponderosas stirred by a mountain breeze as warm and steady as an oceanic current. The day was perfect, and so was the picnic, which Beverly had planned to the last detail: a broad gingham cloth spread with cinnamon bread, fresh-squeezed orange juice from a thermos, croissants, sugared ham, slices of melon, a few wilting sunflowers arranged in a porcelain vase. Golden i
n his silk tie and gabardine suit jacket, she in her tea-length gown of cream peau de soie. The whole thing a vision, a scene from a movie, just as she had always wanted.

  They had been married less than an hour. Down the mountain, in a small opening in a stand of old ponderosas, a piece of black basalt stone thrust up at an angle out of the pine needles, furry at the base with lichen, long and flat on top like a narrow table. According to the Prophet, this was a sacred place where Book of Mormon prophets had come to make their blood sacrifices and hold counsel with the Lord. Though it was a rough forty-minute drive from Virgin, this was where many of the binding church ceremonies were held, and despite the bullet-riddled NO HUNTING sign that had come to look like an antique cheese grater, the place felt as hushed and spiritual as any chapel built by human hands.

  The ceremony had been simple: in his guttural, failing voice, the Prophet had instructed the couple to hold hands, facing each other across the stone, which he called the altar. Then he pushed himself up out of his wheelchair, Uncle Chick at his side, and found a sturdy spot in the dirt with his cane. His body trembled like a tuning fork, lightly and without cease. He proclaimed his authority, granted by the ancient priesthood of Melchizedek that stretched back to Moses and Adam. It was just after dawn, and sunlight came through the trees in broad, dusty bands. As he pronounced them man and wife, almost growling with the effort of it, Beverly stared hard into Golden’s eyes, as if daring him to blink. He smiled apologetically, sighed, and blinked several times in succession. His face, stark in the morning light, was the picture of terror.

  There was no ring, no vows. It was over before it began.

  For a fundamentalist wedding, it had been a sparsely attended affair: Uncle Chick and the Prophet and a few chosen church members who’d been coerced to make the drive. Beverly had no family to speak of, and none of Golden’s had come. His father had passed away eight months earlier, and his mother, back in Louisiana, had no idea what was happening because he’d had the good sense not to mention it to her.