First the Thunder

by Randall Silvis

  He pulled up close to the rusty post that used to hold the speaker. Now it was just an old metal pole growing out of the weeds, paint flaked and corroded, its blunt, rounded top looking somehow naked and exposed.

  He remembered his first night there with Jennalee. Even then the drive-in was a rarity, one of only two in the entire county. This one played nothing but old movies from the last half of the century. The movies that night were Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, both starring Roddy McDowall and Natalie Trundy. The good thing about watching old movies was that you had probably already seen them a dozen times, and didn’t feel that you were missing anything by making out.

  That first time, Harvey, who had already been with dozens of girls, was awkward and unsure of himself, and did nothing more than take Jennalee’s hand in his for the first hour. Then, halfway through the first movie, she snuggled up close to him, and after kissing for a while she took his hand and placed it under her shirt. He could still remember how warm her belly felt, how soft her skin. He kept his hand there through five more minutes of kissing, fingers spread so as to encompass as much of her as he could, but never sliding his hand up or down, afraid to offend her and end the wonder of this night.

  Then she said, “You don’t have to keep your hand in one place, you know. What if it gets stuck there?”

  “You think it might?” he said.

  “Unless you don’t want to move it anywhere else.”

  “I do,” he said. “Up or down?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” she said, “seeing as how I’m not wearing anything underneath in either direction.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” he said.

  She laughed softly and flicked her tongue against his ear.

  “I think I better go up,” he said. “I’m likely to have a heart attack if I go the other way.”

  “You’re a big strong boy,” she told him. “Why don’t you take a chance and see what happens?”

  Fifteen minutes later her top was off and her shorts were down on the floor mat. He had already given her an orgasm with his hand, yet he was still surprised when she unbuckled his belt and unsnapped his jeans, then squished down to the floor, kneeling atop her shorts, and worked his jeans down over his thighs. He said, “You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to,” and she told him, “I never do anything I don’t want to.”

  He had had sex on first dates before but this was Jennalee Fulton, a third-grade teacher, for chrissakes. Until two minutes before she took his penis into her mouth, he had never once believed he could have sex with her. He had fantasized about it a thousand times but never imagined it actually happening. The mere realization that it was happening made him come hard and fast, and though afterward he recognized a disappointment that she had been so easy and skillful, by the time he took her home he was already longing for the next time, which took place the following night on a blanket on the seventeenth green of what used to be the country club course before it went public in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy.

  And now after years of marriage, they still had sex at least twice a week. He had begun to want it most when she was on her way to have dinner with her mother. Then it was always rushed and usually in an awkward position, such as leaning her over the sofa or kitchen counter. It felt fast and desperate to him and he did not ask how it felt for her. She always smiled and kissed him afterward and promised to be home by nine but seldom was. On weekdays he had to be on the road by 5:00 a.m., so he was usually asleep when she got home.

  Now and then he would awaken before the alarm buzzed at 4:00 a.m. and his erection would be so hard that it hurt. He would slide over against her, and if she were sleeping on her back he would gently roll her onto her side. She would wake just enough to cooperate and turn her back to him. Even in winter she slept naked, and soon she would be wet and he would slide inside. Sometimes he tried to fuck her so hard that she would cry out for him to slow down, but she never did. She lay there with his left hand pressed against the small patch of trimmed pubic hair, his middle finger on her clitoris, his right hand under her neck and sometimes squeezing so hard he thought for sure he must be hurting her.

  Afterward he would lie very still, his mouth pressed between her shoulder blades. Sometimes he would whisper “Sorry,” and sometimes “Thank you,” but she never answered and continued to pretend to sleep. When he saw her again twelve hours later, she would smile and kiss his mouth and ask, “How was your day, baby?” as if he had never been rough or selfish with her.

  No matter how he behaved, she remained unchanged. And maybe that was why there seemed—to him, at least—to be a distance between them. When he tried to talk about it, she denied a distance existed.

  “Don’t be silly, baby. We’re as close as we ever were.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he’d once said.

  “Then what are you worrying about? Everything’s fine.”

  Had he been better with words he might have been able to make himself understood. He was good with his hands but could never find the right words to express himself clearly. His senior English teacher had repeatedly admonished the class to expand their vocabularies, because “words are tools for shaping your thoughts,” but the only word tools he could call forth seemed to be the blunt and cumbersome ones, the mallets and sledgehammers fit for little but demolition.

  And now, sitting there in the desolation of a place that had brought him such joy and wonder, he realized, sadly, that he no longer liked his wife. He still loved her desperately, and was afraid of losing her and living the rest of his life alone, but he resented the desperation, and resented her for invoking it in him. He resented himself as well, and disliked himself even more than he disliked her. But what could he do about it? What could he do about anything?

  The thunder in his head, always there as a distant rumble, now grew louder, became a low, muted roar. He turned the ignition key on and turned the radio up loud. The sounds of the Allman Brothers’ “One Way Out” filled the cab, the rapid-fire guitar licks kicking against Harvey’s eardrums, the beat hammering sonic nails into his eyes. He could feel something building inside him, music or madness, he did not know which. And when the song’s chorus began the second time, he acted without thinking; he turned the volume up high, yanked the gearshift into first, and floored the accelerator. The tires spun and whined, turning the weeds to gel and throwing up clouds of dirt. Up and over the mounds he flew, bouncing in his seat, cranking the steering wheel this way and that, wheeling around in a huge circle until he careened over the side of a mound and lost control for an instant, and barely managed to keep the vehicle from flipping onto its side.

  And then, hands shaking, breath coming in shallow, shivering gasps, he punched the Off button and silenced the radio. Then guided the truck to the exit, where he waited for an opening in the traffic, then pulled out onto the highway. He wanted to pull over and hug the steering wheel but was afraid to. Afraid that if he stopped driving, he would lose the last and only thing over which he had any control.

  31

  Even at 50 percent off, the shoes were too expensive for Laci. She could never justify spending ninety dollars for a pair of heels she might never wear, even though they did look spectacular on her feet. Reluctantly she sat down beside Jennalee on the padded bench, pulled off the heels and replaced them in the box.

  “Normally there are people here to do this for you,” Jennalee said as she admired herself in the mirror, her feet in a pair of white suede sandals with four-inch heels. “Putting them on and taking them off. I can’t believe how fast this place has gone downhill.”

  Laci slipped her feet back into her Skechers. She’d had to wait for a sale and a 30 percent off coupon in her email to buy these shoes for thirty-nine dollars. The most expensive shoes she owned were the black high-top skate shoes she wore when taking photographs for the police. They were sturdy and washable and provided good ankle support for all the crouching and squatting the job re
quired. With a pair of gel soles, they were nearly as comfortable as the Skechers.

  “Do you always buy such expensive shoes?” Laci asked.

  “Expensive? Honey, Stuart Weitzman for under a hundred dollars is the opposite of expensive.”

  Laci watched her try on eight more pairs of shoes before settling on the sandals and a pair of Schutz sneakers with a leopard-skin pattern. Jennalee paid with a platinum card, then turned to Laci and said, “Now let’s celebrate with another cappuccino!”

  “I should get busy taking some shots.”

  “You should have taken some of me trying on shoes. Just the feet, I mean. For a series. Like Warhol.”

  “I should have.”

  “We can still do it,” Jennalee said.

  “Let’s just grab that coffee,” Laci said, “and then I need to get to work.”

  On their way to the food court, Jennalee asked, “What’s the job?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said earlier that you need to take some shots to fill out your portfolio. Are you applying for another job?”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “Something local?”

  “One’s a part-time teaching position at a community college. The other one is, I don’t know, probably never going to happen.”

  At the Starbucks counter, Jennalee ordered for both of them. They carried their cups to a small table overlooking the parking lot.

  “Mmm, this is so good.” Jennalee said after a sip. “I deserve this. I was both practical and sensible today.”

  “Cheers,” Laci said, and toasted with her plastic cup.

  “So how’s the family?” Jennalee asked. “Molly? And Will?”

  “All good,” Laci said. “Molly’s skating with her friends today.”

  “And Will? How’s the bar doing these days?”

  “Slow as always. The bar, I mean. Not Will.”

  Jennalee chuckled, sipped her cappuccino. “I saw Will this morning when he was talking to Harvey. He looks good. Looks like he’s lost a couple of pounds. Is he working out?”

  “Will was talking to Harvey this morning?”

  “At our place. Out in the driveway. Harvey was changing the oil or something in our vehicles.”

  “He must have walked over while I was still in bed.”

  “You’re sure everything’s okay?” Jennalee asked.

  “With Will?”

  “I only ask because Harvey seemed in a bad mood afterward. For a couple of days now, in fact.”

  “Well,” Laci said, and wondered how much she should say. “I do know that Harvey’s been upset about that motorcycle thing. About Kenny not letting him have it.”

  “The bike is for sale,” Jennalee said. “Anybody can buy it.”

  “Well, Will said that Harvey told him that Jake wanted Harvey to have it. Because he’d done all the work on it.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that,” Jennalee said. “All I know is that Kenny has the bike up for sale.”

  “I wish they could work things out. It’s not like Will doesn’t have enough to worry about already.”

  “You want me to talk to Kenny about it?”

  “Could you?” Laci said. “It would make life a whole lot easier for us. Will is half-crazy already just worrying about the bar.”

  “Yeah, well, men are born half-crazy, if you ask me. The trick is to keep them from getting worse. Fortunately, it’s not all that hard to do.”

  “It’s not?” Laci said. “What’s your secret?”

  “It’s no secret, sweetie. Give it to them whenever they want it. Keeps them happy and dopey, just the way I like them.”

  Laci realized then that in all their years of acquaintance, she had never before spent time alone with Jennalee, time without their husbands sitting nearby or at least in an adjacent room. In truth they had little in common, Laci from a blue-collar family, daughter of factory workers, Jennalee a country club kid. Yet Jennalee worked as a teacher, even though she didn’t have to. Before her father died he had sold off his business, three car dealerships and half ownership of four Cinnabons, her father’s weakness. So she was set for life. Still, she taught. She went to work five days a week. There was obviously good in her.

  “So this teaching job,” Jennalee said.

  “Just part-time. Teaching basic photography skills. It’s no big deal.”

  “It is for the people you teach,” Jennalee said.

  “I guess so.”

  “I hope you get it.”

  “Me too. Thank you.”

  “And the other job?” Jennalee asked.

  “Hmm. Yeah. I’m not even sure it’s a real job. Besides, it comes with strings attached.”

  “Ah, intrigue! What kind of strings?”

  “Well, the guy who offered me the job is a man. So I’m sure you can imagine what the strings are.”

  “So predictable,” Jennalee said. “On the other hand, how badly do you want the job?”

  “If it’s real? I think it would be amazing. I’d travel, meet lots of interesting people, probably get lots of great opportunities.”

  “Then why are you hesitating?”

  “Because I’m married.”

  “Is the guy repulsive?”

  “Not entirely. A little boyish for my tastes.”

  “Variety is the spice of life, you know.”

  “Are you, uh . . . speaking from experience?”

  Jennalee smiled. “All I’m saying is this: you deserve to be happy. Would this new job make you happy?”

  “If it’s everything it’s supposed to be. However . . .”

  “You would feel soooo guilty.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Jennalee looked out the window, watched an old woman in a hatchback trying to back into a parking space. She said, “You know how marriage got started, right?”

  “Not really.”

  “For strictly economic reasons. So that a man’s property would stay with his family when he died.”

  Now she turned away from the window and leaned across the table. “It wasn’t about who you could or couldn’t have sex with,” she said.

  She leaned back in her chair again, took a languorous sip of coffee. “Men used to marry their own mothers, their sisters, their brothers’ wives. Just to protect their assets. The men had a dozen wives, and their wives all had lovers. This whole monogamy thing, it goes against human nature. Our bodies tell us to fuck and enjoy it; they don’t tell us to hold off, suppress your desires, be good little girls and boys. That’s what society tells us. It’s not sex that’s wrong, Laci, but society’s attitude toward it. We can thank the screwed-up Puritans for that.”

  “So you’re saying . . .”

  “I’m saying make yourself happy. I mean, think about it. What’s the best thing you’ve ever felt? Can you think of a single thing that feels better than having every cell in your body blasted by a level-ten orgasm?”

  Laci smiled, was about to say There’s some truth to that, then shuddered at her own thoughts. She looked down at the coffee cup, the glint of gold on her finger. Then she said, “The best feeling in the world is seeing my child happy.”

  “Well,” Jennalee said, “I guess they ran out of that gene when they got around to me. Besides, I’m not talking about procreation here. I’m talking about physical pleasure. And if your man is falling a little bit short in that department . . .”

  “Will is a good, good man. Everything he does is for us.”

  Laci heard her own words and felt the shift in the atmosphere, a subtle increase in the conversation’s barometric pressure. She noticed too the nuanced change in Jennalee’s smile and the dimming of her eyes, as if she felt insulted by Laci’s comment.

  “Sure,” Jennalee said. “Of course. The same goes for Harvey. We’re both very lucky; we have good, happy marriages. I’m just talking theoretically here.”

  “I know,” Laci said. Then, a few moments later, “Okay, two cups of coffee and now I have to
pee. And I really do have to get busy with this camera.”

  “Let’s get together like this again sometime,” Jennalee said, her voice flat now, void of its earlier excitement.

  “It’s been fun,” Laci told her, and stood. “Thanks again for the coffee.”

  “Anytime,” Jennalee said.

  32

  Will leaned against the side of the building, invisible from the school’s parking lot, and tried to calm his breathing, to command his stiff muscles to release their tension. He had come so close to attacking the kid. A boy, he told himself. He’s still just a boy.

  Would Molly ever speak to him again?

  He should have handled it differently. Should have been the same old imperturbable Will he always was. Except that always no longer applied. What was wrong with him?

  For one thing, he told himself, the bar. The money pit. And then Harvey dragging me into his misery. And Stevie nearly getting himself arrested. And then my sweet baby girl, my all and my everything.

  It didn’t help that Laci was about to spread her wings too. He wanted her to have opportunities, wanted her to soar, but what if she soared away from him? What if, surrounded by college kids and professors, she started to see him differently? He knew he was a plodder; he knew he was boring. And had always prayed that she wouldn’t realize it too.

  He leaned his head against the rough brick and closed his eyes. Concentrated on his breath going in, going out. Let his shoulders droop and his arms go slack.

  So okay, he thought. You can’t fix everything. You can’t control the world. Just try to control yourself.

  He should apologize to the boy. Not because the boy deserved it, but because Molly did. His and Molly’s relationship deserved it.