Visits from the Drowned Girl

by Steven Sherrill

  “I got some quarters,” Becky said, fishing in her purse. While she was distracted, the other old man, the one who stood on her side, took the opportunity to gawk. When Becky pulled the coins out, held tight in her stubby fingers, the old man stepped back, as if her condition were communicable.

  “I think they are,” Benny said when they pulled away from the gate. “Jeeter’s coming, anyway. I don’t know about Dink.”

  Benny, conscious of Becky’s struggle with walking long distances and of his own still-tender ankle, circled the haphazard rows and rows of cars in the makeshift parking lot—a rutted, grassy field—until he spotted a rusty Mercury Grand Marquis full of kids pulling out of a space near the entrance. Even before the van came to a full stop, Jeeter, as prophesied, roared up beside them on his motorcycle, a skinny woman clinging to his back. Benny looked at the woman, then Jeeter, who looked at Benny, then Becky, then Benny again. Then Benny, again, looked at the woman, who’d just taken her helmet off. No flush rose from up her neck; no obvious dilation of her pupils. The woman looked at Benny and Becky, then at the back of Jeeter’s head. Benny looked at Jeeter, who seemed to be fumbling with a switch on the motorcycle handlebar, then, as subtly as possible, looked at the woman’s crotch. Nothing. No damp spot. No throbbing con­tractions. Jeeter’s passenger was definitely not a woman in the throes of orgasm. Finally, Jeeter looked at Benny, shrugged his shoulders, palms up.

  “Hey, y’all,” Jeeter said. “This is Angie.”

  “Hey,” Angie said. She must’ve been forewarned, because when Becky hopped out of the van, no surprise registered. Jeeter, however, raised an eyebrow at Becky’s short plaid skirt.

  The group said their hellos then wandered into the fracas of the 4-H show.

  “Let’s get some cotton candy.”

  “I want to see them big hogs.”

  “Who’s gonna win me a stuffed animal?”

  So they roamed, a freakish lot in their own small and individual ways, through the stands of homemade fudge and fried pies, past the lemonade vendor and his swarm of yellowjackets, through Building 3, the exhibitor’s hall where they were, as a group and singly, urged, entreated, beseeched, wooed, and besieged to bone up on their watershed-conservation knowledge, hone their turkey-calling skills, test the qualities of buck urine, practice using a blowgun, and take a cool drink of water for Jesus, all in the same aisle. Becky refused to enter the taxidermist’s booth, for several reasons, the main of which hinged on the practical joke of a creature hanging over his table. At one time, the creature was a rooster. And groundhog, maybe, or gopher. Had she looked hard enough, Becky would’ve seen the raccoon tail hanging from a hole cut in the bib overalls the thing wore. Through grafting, shape-shifting, form-altering, and sheer determination, Ed, of Ed’s Taxidermy Arts, had cobbled together a little monster to serve as his mascot. Benny clearly saw Becky go pale.

  Angie, seduced by the flourish of his hands and his collar microphone, had to be pulled away from the man who alternately cut tin cans then vegetables with an assortment of serrated knives.

  “Let’s go,” Jeeter said. “They’ll be starting soon.”

  “What?” Angie said.

  “What?” Benny said.

  Becky sat on a low bench taking deep breaths.

  “Hill climbs,” Jeeter said. “Regional championships of the American Hillclimbers Association. Motorcycles and fools of every size trying to ride to the top of that hill at the back of the fairgrounds.”

  “Aha,” Benny said, feigning seriousness.

  The four of them stopped at a pavilion sagging over half a dozen picnic tables; there they shared a heaping plate each of chili fries and nachos deluxe. Then Jeeter started telling Becky about his uncle, Reverend Small Smalley, who lost an eyeball in a baling-wire accident as a boy.

  “He used to say that Jesus took that eye, and when medical science rilled up the hole with a worthless glass bauble, Jesus came back and blessed him with special sight.”

  “What do you mean?” Angie asked.

  “He held tent revivals all over the state. And let me tell you, those tents filled to busting. Small’d be up on the platform stage, stomping around and hollering; half the backsliders hunched in their chairs like they’d just eked out a church poot. The other half whooping and praising the Lord like there was no tomorrow.”

  Jeeter held the moment; a contrived dramatic pause.

  “Yes?” Becky said. “Then?”

  “Then he’d pluck it right out.”

  “What?”

  “What do you think? That glass eyeball. And the church honeys would swoon so. Anyway, when he gave the altar call, all them sinners spilled out into the aisles ready for miracles. Even pitiful little ones. They brought up their grocery lists, their driver’s licenses, prayer requests, letters, and bills. Small took ‘em, every one, held them up to that empty socket, and read every word.”

  Jeeter left it there. Let the story resonate.

  “You’re so full of shit, Jeeter,” Benny said.

  Jeeter laughed, but neither denied nor accepted the charge.

  “Well, look what the cat drug in,” Jeeter said, and everyone turned as Dink stepped up to the picnic table.

  “What y’all eatin’?” Dink asked. “Can I have some of them corn chips?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Dink,” Benny said.

  “Angie, this is Dink,” Jeeter said. “Dink, this is … Dink, where in God’s name did you get them ugly-ass shoes?”

  “Wha—?” Dink asked, shoving a thick pinch of nachos into his mouth.

  “Them boats? Jesus fucking Christ, those shoes are big enough to strap an Evinrude to!”

  Dink reached into the plate again.

  “Big and ugly. They look like something you get free with the purchase of an ottoman down a Pug’s Bargain Furniture. Made from the leftover Naugahyde.”

  Dink ignored him. Watched Benny carry the paper plates to the trash can.

  “What’s the matter with your foot, Benny?” Dink asked.

  “Got hit by a truck,” Benny said.

  Dink, sweet, stupid Dink, believed him.

  “Let’s go see some hill climbing,” Jeeter said.

  Becky whispered something in Benny’s ear.

  “We’ll be along in a little bit,” he said.

  Dink, Angie, and Jeeter headed toward the back of the fairgrounds.

  Becky, debating between joining the lines formed at a row of Porta-Johns at the back of Building 3 or braving the dank, spider-infested, cement-block facilities in one of the other buildings, chose the former, more because she knew the seat height was okay.

  “Want to feed the donkeys in the petting zoo?” Benny asked when she returned.

  The donkeys, several chickens, a llama, and some sheep and goats were corralled in a dusty, straw-strewn lot between the two show barns. Kids with their nervous and/or bored parents waited their turns by the gate; the gate’s attendant—a pimpled boy in pointy-toed cowboy boots—frazzled to the point of exhaustion by the Sisyphian task of keeping the lot free of animal feces, admonishing the older troublemaking boys not to chase the animals or feed them cigarette butts or rubber bands, and reimbursing for the quarters that regularly jammed in the food-pellet dispenser, that boy paid little attention to who came and went through the gate, and even less attention to the animals themselves.

  “I’ll get us some donkey food,” Benny said, digging in his pocket for change. Finding none, he asked Becky if she had change for a dollar.

  “No,” she said. “Maybe you can get change at the snow-cone booth.”

  “Be back in a minute,” Benny said.

  And truly, he was only gone five minutes at the most. In that brief span of time, Becky had entered the petting corral. When Benny came around the show barn, it took him a moment to spo
t her—given her stature—among the busy swarm of children and the animals, all at about the same height. Benny almost called out Becky’s name, then he saw her. Part of her, anyway. Just the top of her head. The rest of Becky was blocked from view by three goats who had her pinned in one corner of the wooden fence. She wasn’t struggling. She didn’t cry out for help. But Benny knew she couldn’t get away from the goats.

  There was a parcel of time, calculable however fleeting, during which Benny could have acted. Ought to have acted. Should have. Should have dropped everything and rushed to aid his friend. But he didn’t. Benny stopped to watch what happened.

  That he stopped to bear witness, a sour little nugget of wickedness in and of itself, was bad enough, then another parcel of time—as brief as the first in the chronological march, but vast in its implications—unfolded. Something tectonic, something seismic shifted deep inside Benny Poteat. Transference? Reversal? Who knew. The important point is the change occurred without a struggle in Benny. One instant he was watching a terrible thing—realized it was a terrible thing; realized he was just watching—and the next instant he took pleasure in the spectacle. Benny claimed his inaction, his passivity, and wanted more. He found palpable power in doing absolutely nothing.

  Maybe the goats came to her out of curiosity, drawn by her dwarfish-ness. That, as a human, she was more unusual than most they dealt with. But that theory gives too much credit to the animals. Perhaps their drive was less cerebral and more biological. Rut. Estrus. Becky’s. The goats, like most male creatures, were attracted by smell. Benny watched as the smaller of the goats nuzzled and pushed against Becky, working to get its snout under her skirt. She slapped the goat on its nose, which slowed it down only briefly. Benny saw her mouth moving; he knew she was talking. He knew, by the look on her face, that Becky was afraid. He watched another of the goats actually nip at the hem of her skirt and begin to tug. The third goat insinuated itself behind Becky, between her and the fence, and began to push at her heavy rump.

  Becky screamed, a tentative, embarrassed cry, but the gate attendant had his hands full with a little boy who’d been kicked in the shin by the llama; no one, it seemed, but Benny heard her call out. No one, it seemed, but Benny saw the biggest goat push Becky forward, down onto her knees. Saw all three goats butting against her backside and against each other, jockeying for position. Saw the biggest goat step over Becky, who struggled but could not move the beast. The goat straddled the dwarf, one knobby goat leg on either side of, and pressing into, her rib cage. No sooner did the goat mount her than it began that most ancient of dances; the mechanical, the maniacal, hump, hump, hump of sex.

  “Benny!”

  That time everyone heard.

  Benny scrambled into action, as if he’d just returned. His need to see how far the goats, the situation, would go, overridden by something closer to shame than chivalry. Using his hands on the top rail, he vaulted the fence, but misjudged and fell to his knees in the dirt.

  “Fuck!” Benny said.

  “Benny!” Becky shouted.

  Everyone in the petting zoo had turned to see, and by that time one of the other goats had climbed onto Becky from the side. Benny, and he was sure everyone else, couldn’t help but noticing their goaty penises, erect and glistening, leaving wet tracks on Becky’s clothes.

  Benny and the pimpled gate boy reached Becky at the same time. The smaller goat, the one pumping futilely away at Becky’s kidney, bleated in protest when the boy yanked it away. With the larger goat, Benny was less gentle. Benny punched it, first in the jaw, then in the ribs. But the old goat was so focused that it didn’t stop its hump until Benny punched it in the temple.

  After it was over, after they’d gotten away from the staring crowd, Becky began to sob.

  “Why didn’t you do something?”

  Benny, terrified, wondered if she’d seem him watching from the fence.

  “Why didn’t you stop them?”

  “I did, Becky. I did.”

  Benny got her a lemonade, and a handful of paper towels to clean up with as best she could, and when Becky had calmed down enough, they headed toward the hill-climbing event. The closer they got, the more the sound of revving engines drowned out everything else.

  As sporting events go, motorcycle hill climbs draw an edgier, more churlish group of both participants and spectators than most. All you need is a clear path several hundred feet up a mountain (defoliated and stripped of roots and rocks, ridiculously close to vertical), a specific date, some targeted advertisement, and throngs of boneheads towing, or hauling in vans, unmuffled motorcycles with modified gears, stretched wheelbases, and tires with bolts screwed in for traction (along with their wives, children, coolers of beer and bologna sandwiches, gallons of gasoline, quarts of motor oil, all the necessary—and dozens of unnecessary—tools, several dilapidated lawn chairs, extra chains, very few Band-Aids, and even less common sense), will arrive ready at your command to charge like hell up that hill, knowing full well that nine times out often they’ll topple backward before they reach the top. And it’s that guaranteed topple that draws the other half of the uncouth equation. Those who choose—not out of wisdom or an overall healthier sense of self-worth and preservation, more likely out of fear and doubt, and out of the driving need to watch others fuck up that tends to fester and grow amid that negative energy—to sit on weed-choked sidelines, in their own lawn chairs, with their own coolers of provisions, and watch. And hoot. And shout. And pray quietly to themselves that the next guy falls, too. Luckily, the falls rarely hurt anyone.

  “Look at that,” Benny said, hoping to distract Becky, to take the mood in a different direction.

  She couldn’t help but see what Benny referred to. A battered and muddied Kawasaki sat on an upturned milk crate so that its rear wheel could spin freely as its owner fiddled with the clutch. The man wore stiff knee-high boots and racing leathers that were unzipped nearly to his crotch, revealing an expanse of hairy white flesh that made Benny wince. Screwdriver in one hand, pliers in the other, the man would squat and tinker, then stand and rev the engine until it screamed. What caught Benny’s attention, what he called to Becky’s attention, wasn’t the motorcyclist’s obscene belly. No. It was his kids. Two of them. Boys. Shirtless and tanned. Already at work on bellies of their own. Both the boys stood behind their father’s bike, a foot, maybe less, from the exhaust pipe. Every time the man revved the engine, a billowing mushroom of blue smoke washed over and surrounded his sons. Every time the cloud hit the boys, they laughed and danced in its intoxicating warmth until it dissipated. Their mother, or at least the woman with the group, lay asleep on a blanket in the shade of the van.

  “Them boys ought to quit that,” Becky said.

  When they found Dink and the others, Jeeter was reading aloud from a slip of paper held up with both hands.

  “One free breakfast, eat-in-only; one fish dinner, eat-in-only; woodcraft item; afghan; bucket of balls; flashlight; oil filter and change; beauty-care package; spinal exam; one gallon cleaner.”

  Dink saw them first, and spoke directly to Becky.

  “Dang, girl! You been calf-roping or something?”

  He must’ve been referring to the straw and dirt on her clothes.

  “Dink!” Benny warned, his forefinger aimed between Dink’s eyes. “Don’t start.”

  Dink, remembering his busted lip, said no more. But Jeeter kept reading.

  “Electric toothbrush; ceramic item; wreath; Smith & Wesson model 686 357 Magnum!; choice of sandwich and fries; nautical picture, mug, and apron; hair-care package; steering wheel cover.”

  “What the hell is that, Jeeter?” Benny asked.

  “Raffle ticket, my man. One hundred and nine prizes. One dollar per ticket. Small wood carving item; furnace cleaning; one case of oil; cast-iron griddle…”

  Becky wanted to leave. She never recovered en
ough from the goat incident to enjoy the hill climb.

  “See you guys later,” Benny said.

  The perfunctory kiss on his cheek when he dropped Becky off let Benny know clearly that he’d not be spending the night, nor any portion of it, at Claxton Looms Luxury Apartments. Becky walked through the door and out of sight, without looking back at Benny.

  Over and over again, images of those goats climbing onto Becky flooded Benny’s mind. He drove home with them.

  Dec. 11, 1999 • • • Rec

  10:00 A.M.

  “Lilith Kickin’ Ass”

  This was the tape that won the award. Jenna stands before the camera. She wears a white T-shirt. The only other thing in view is a table at her side, and on it a small bowl of something. Jenna dips a fingertip into the bowl, and begins to write red letters on the shirt, across her breasts. LILITH, just beneath her collarbones. KICKIN’—the apostrophe marks her left nipple. ASS, at the base of her ribs.

  Then Jenna lifts her shirt and the word BEFORE is written on her flesh.

  What follows is a series of shots with Jenna lifting different shirts or wearing different bras or bathing suits, all with the word before written on her belly. Jenna is giddy; overly so. A wide manic grin accompanies each scene. It’s hard to tell if she’s alone, shooting everything herself, or if she has help.

  The next scene is the table alone, and, in place of the bowl, a book lies open. The camera circles at a dizzying pace, then stops and begins to zoom in. It’s a telephone book. It’s opened to the yellow pages. The camera tightens focus to the heading PHYSICIANS & SURGEONS (MD): PLASTIC and RECONSTRUCTIVE, and, circled in red, the same red with which Jenna wrote on herself, BODY BY BURK. AS SEEN ON TV!

  Even Benny knew what was about to happen. The camera had paused long enough for him to read the entire ad. Benny had no clue what botox injections were, nor “endermology.” He was intrigued by nose reshaping and lip enhancement. And in true male form, blind and limited, thoroughly intrigued by breast augmentation. Finally, he thought, a good tape. Voyeurism at its most base. But those dreamy, premasturbatory musings gave way to shock as Jenna, God knows how she arranged clearance, showed the entire procedure on videotape. Benny, fully prepared with a washcloth to wipe up the ejaculate, never got more than semierect throughout the whole operation. Even during the series of “after” shots, written on her belly as before, exposed when she lifted the same shirts as before—obviously taken over time since the shock to her breasts, the redness and swelling gradually abated—even then Benny couldn’t muster a full-fledged hard-on.