by Karen Pullen
“Any comments, John?” she asked, too sweetly.
John hadn’t been the focus of Nattie’s professional buzzing before, and he didn’t like it now, but he knew any response would only fuel her interrogation. That was Nattie. If she smelled the slightest hint of scandal, she seized it and twisted. And when she published her article, she made sure the controversy mushroomed into such an uproar the entire town couldn’t talk about anything else for another week, until the next edition.
Pastor Clyde clasped his hands and looked up, as if seeing beyond the plaster ceiling to heaven’s gates. “I pray a wholesome store is built upon a solid rock in its place.”
John knew Pastor Clyde’s picketers. Most carried sins more damning than any they protested. But their sins—theft, physical abuse, substance addiction—were more easily hidden than Darrel’s wares. What Pastor Clyde claimed to be wicked indulgences invented by the devil himself, Darrel displayed before all the town. But John didn’t understand how sexual stimulants were immoral, especially if shared between husband and wife. The Bible didn’t forbid handcuffs or edible lingerie.
“Do I hear an Amen?” Pastor Clyde asked.
“Amen,” said Jennifer, swigging from her beer bottle. She climbed onto a bar stool next to Pastor Clyde, strands of her loose long brown hair swinging forward and sticking to moisture on the bar counter.
Jennifer owned Sweet Scoops, the ice cream store next door to The Pleasure Chest. For her, John knew, the timing of this fire was ideal. This time last spring customers had crowded Jennifer’s shop, overflowing to the sidewalk benches outside. But families hadn’t been visiting as much since Darrel’s shop opened. Jennifer set her bottle down with force, her hair still caught on the countertop. “Maybe my customers will return, now they don’t have to take their kids past a window with a light-up doo-hicky writhing around like a finger without a hand. Cheers.” She grabbed her beer again and clinked it against Pastor Clyde’s bottle of old-fashioned orange soda.
“Was your store damaged?” Nattie asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s a blessing,” Pastor Clyde said. He looked at John. “I’ll have one more, as it’s a special day.”
John popped open another orange soda and slid it across the countertop.
“Me, too,” Nattie said. “And give me a quote. Tell me what you first saw when you looked out your window at the fire.”
“Flames,” John said, though he remembered something—someone—else, a silhouette moving in the shadows beside the building.
“The question is,” Miss CeeCee said, “who had the balls to do it?” She looked around the pub. “They say an arsonist returns to the scene of the crime to admire his handiwork. I bet the arsonist is here among us.”
John agreed with Miss CeeCee. The arsonist probably sat here in his pub, drinking and smiling and proclaiming satisfaction. No more blow-up dolls mocking the town, no more mannequins in lace tatters causing fender benders, no more “What’s that, mommy?” from children as parents hurried past the window display. John felt a sudden, sharp pang above his ear—the beginnings of a migraine.
“Jo-ohn,” Nattie said, singsong. “Hel-lo-oh.”
John frowned. He wanted to tell Nattie to beat it, go somewhere else for her interviews. But he didn’t want attention, not when the town wanted someone to blame. He didn’t want to be the next target of their hatred, their hypocrisy. A good bartender listened, didn’t talk. Never be the story; be the paper soaking up the ink. Once he and Nattie shared that. But it was also where they differed, as he swallowed secrets, and she spilled them.
“You’re not answering my questions,” Nattie said. “So far I’ve just asked the easy ones.”
“I don’t want to be quoted in the paper,” John said.
“But you’re a vital part of the story.”
Vitality. The one ware Darrel offered that John could find nowhere else in this town.
John first met Darrel when he came in the pub for a drink. Olive-brown skin beneath bushy black eyebrows. Black eyes that had mesmerized John, captivated him, magnet-like, Darrel’s presence awakening him like the electric charge he felt swimming in cold saltwater. John’s other patrons pretended to be offended by Darrel’s presence and deserted the pub. Darrel said he was sorry for spooking them, and John refused the apology. He gave Darrel a drink on the house, a first. From there a relationship had grown: a relationship overflowing with firsts, unfamiliar feelings, new experiences for John. Darrel had prompted him to do all sorts of things—wondrous things—he’d never done before, never knew could be done, with acceptance, without judgment.
They’d seen each other by an unspoken code. Darrel understood their relationship had to be clandestine. If the townspeople detested Darrel for his business, and ostracized him for his skin color, how much more would they damn him for his sexuality? And what would they do to John if they knew? Pastor Clyde’s protests would expand and Miss CeeCee’s prolific pen would scribble across the street.
“You don’t think Darrel will reopen, do you?” Jennifer pushed her hair behind her back. “It looks like he lost everything in the fire.”
“What do you think, John?” Nattie asked. “Will Darrel reopen?”
“How would I know?” John bit his tongue, instantly sorry for his outburst.
“You sure you want me to answer that?” Nattie let half of her upper lip curl into something that would have resembled a smile, if only the other half of her mouth matched it.
She knows. The thought struck John with such force he gripped his bar counter to steady himself. “You want to tell me why you think it’s arson?”
Nattie glanced at the detective in the corner. “Someone told me off the record. A brick was thrown through the window. Inside the store were a couple shattered glass bottles. Molotov cocktails.”
The front door clanged open, and Commissioner Buckers—up for reelection—entered like an actor on a stage, swinging an arm upward, embracing a captive audience.
“Evening, all! I’ve an important announcement.” Buckers waited for the room to hush. “Regarding the building across the street, I’ve talked to the owner in Atlanta. It’s still unofficial, but the town is in negotiations to buy the property. We’re going to level the ruins and sell the land—for a profit—to the highest bidder.” He paused for applause. “A round of drinks for everyone, on me!” Applause kicked up again as Buckers sauntered to the bar and ordered a scotch.
John disliked the commissioner’s arrogance, but the distraction may have spared him from Nattie’s questions. Maybe, after John had served drinks to everyone, Nattie would disappear and forget about crucifying him for his relationship with Darrel. John bustled into action, going from table to table, freshening beverages. By the time he reached the back of the room to refill the detective’s diet coke, the commissioner had joined the detective.
“Arson is a serious crime,” Commissioner Buckers was saying, “but a shop of that nature was a crime against family values and our citizens’ quality of life.”
The detective shifted in his seat.
Buckers slapped the detective’s shoulder. “No one was hurt, and I’m sure Darrel has insurance. So Darrel gets reimbursed, the town gets a new property, and everyone is happy.”
The detective didn’t look happy.
“I understand you’re not going to be able to put much effort into the investigation,” Buckers said. “You’ll be busy tying up loose ends with your eligibility for retirement coming up so soon—what is it, in a year and a half, two?”
“Four months,” the detective said.
“That soon!” Buckers said. “Why, you’re almost there. The town has an outstanding pension and healthcare program for retirees, don’t you think?”
John set the detective’s refill on the table and returned to the bar where, unfortunately, Nattie still perched.
“My police scanner lit up like stage lights at a rock concert,” she said. “I sleep with it on so I don’t miss anything. I got
some great photographs of the smoke.” An elated flush covered her face. John’s stomach turned.
“It’s a wonder Darrel wasn’t burned with the store,” Jennifer said.
“He wasn’t there last night,” Nattie said.
“How do you know?” Miss CeeCee asked.
“Where was he?” Pastor Clyde asked.
“John?” Nattie asked. “Surely you know.”
And then Miss CeeCee’s eyes widened. Did she finally understand what Nattie threatened to drop on John? “Do you know where Darrel was last night, John?”
John knew. Darrel had slept beside him, until they heard the crash of the store window and then the whomp as the fire caught hold. Darrel raced outside half-dressed and kicked open his door. Smoke gushed out; Darrel couldn’t even crawl inside to save any merchandise. John dialed 911, knowing it was too late, knowing it was over.
“John?” Pastor Clyde said. “Where was Darrel last night? A man like that probably visited your pub, drunk himself silly, and let personal details slip.”
John thought about what he could say without condemning himself. “I don’t turn down a customer.”
Nattie snorted. “I don’t suppose he’d turn one down, either.”
John clenched his teeth again, tried to swallow the anger back down. “I wasn’t his customer.”
“Then tell us.” Nattie flipped a page on her notepad and poised her too-sharp pen above the virgin sheet. “What are you to him? What is Darrel to you?”
Partner sounded cold. Soul-mate, cliché. Darrel was straightforward and quirky. Quiet but full of life: Darrel was life! Utterly unlike Nattie who sucked life out of others then regurgitated a bastardized form of it for the town to devour in newsprint.
“So where was Darrel last night, John?” Nattie asked.
“I don’t know,” John lied.
“Come,” Miss CeeCee said. “You admit he was your customer.”
“I don’t know,” John repeated. His heart pounded. It was none of their business. “I don’t really know Darrel,” who then stepped into the pub, witnessing John’s most shameful denial, rending John’s heart in two.
Every conversation died; every head turned; every eye fixated on Darrel. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top, revealing tufts of coarse chest hair and smooth, tan skin. He held his lean, muscled body stiffer than usual, but still he reminded John of a superhero in plainclothes—his beauty and strength, his worth unrealized by most everyone in John’s Pub & Grill. Darrel carried a tote bag, probably all he’d salvaged from the blaze. John had forgotten to turn on the pub’s background music. In the silence, Darrel stood, with a proud tilt to his head as always, but his eyes held something—tears?
“I wanted to tell you all,” he said, “I’m leaving. Unless anyone has something they’d like to say before I go.” His gaze landed on John.
If John asked Darrel to stay, if he spoke the truth, his bar might be boycotted, even set afire. His reputation, his life, ruined. He’d lose his business, his investment, his livelihood. Customers, friends. Everything he knew and built his life around, almost. But if he didn’t speak he’d be dead inside; Darrel would be lost to him forever. The joy—the energy and quickening—he’d experienced these past few months would be gone—a memory gathering dust. Fear trapped the words in his throat.
“We’ll pray for you,” Pastor Clyde said, finally, breaking the silence.
“Pray for me?” Darrel set his bag down, folded his arms, and studied their faces, one by one. John realized it wasn’t tears he’d seen in Darrel’s eyes. It was something fierce, indomitable. Darrel, like a destroying angel, possessed the power to shred their façades and reveal their secrets.
John knew what Darrel could say. Darrel could tell Miss CeeCee, now The Pleasure Chest was closed, how to order her special lubricant online. Could tell Nattie that new batteries for her personal gadget were sold at the watch counter. Could tell Commissioner Buckers if he tired of his current films, a certain website offered a good selection. Could tell Jennifer, who loved to read the kind of books they didn’t carry in the library, where to find more.
Would Darrel reveal their relationship? John was the worst pretender of them all, Darrel’s disciple in love, now too pragmatic—no, too cowardly—to admit the truth.
But when Darrel spoke, instead of anger and judgment, his quiet voice held disappointment: “If you want to pray, pray for yourselves.”
And he left.
Pastor Clyde hummed “Victory in Jesus,” until murmurs buried the solo.
“Darrel sure stared at you like you might have something to say,” Nattie said to John.
John unfroze himself, wiped an invisible smudge from the counter. “He was staring at you.”
Nattie’s mouth popped open. John wanted to cram his rag down it.
“Why would Darrel stare at me?” Nattie asked, her voice elevated. “Why me when it’s you he–”
“Nattie, I could have sworn,” John said, following instinct, “I saw you outside his store last night.”
“I was there for the story,” Nattie said.
“Before then. Hiding in the darkness.” John’s vague recollections of what he’d glimpsed in the shadows outside Darrel’s congealed into solid recognition. “You made the story.”
Miss CeeCee and Pastor Clyde glanced at each other and then back at him and Nattie. Jennifer set down her empty bottle, nearly missing the counter.
“I will not be disgraced,” Nattie said. She clutched her fist against her chest. “Darrel was polluting this town. If you’re going to make accusations, make them against him. You knew him intimately. Do you deny it?”
John’s ears burned. Somehow Nattie knew all about him and Darrel. But John knew this town. And he knew enough about Nattie. As much as the townsfolk liked to bemoan The Pleasure Chest, as loud as they’d howl about John and Darrel’s relationship, they would recognize that an arsonist posed a much greater threat.
“Darrel deserved what he got,” Nattie said.
No. But Nattie should get what she deserved. John put down the bar rag. “The detective,” he said, “will be interested in what I saw last night.”
“John. Nattie,” Pastor Clyde said. “Cool down.” He held his hands up as if in surrender. “Whoever set the fire committed a crime. But they also prevented further damage from that man’s temptations into an eternity in hell. Surely you both understand.” He looked at the detective, immersed in conversation with the commissioner. “I think, in this particular situation, we should agree he—or she—who is without sin should cast the first stone.” He glanced at Miss CeeCee, who pursed her lips.
Nattie stared at John, as if daring him to speak. A minute passed, and the moment to condemn, too, and John felt those unspoken revelations settle like dark stones in the pit of his stomach. He’d made a covenant with Nattie stretching forward, an unvoiced pact—if you ever tell, so will I.
She chugged the rest of her drink. “I’ll take my bill,” she said, and left with the same wiggle to her gait John had observed from his upstairs window as the arsonist retreated into darkness and The Pleasure Chest exploded into flames.
So the witch hunt ended. Not with a burning at the stake, but with a drowning—Nattie in her rum and cokes, Miss CeeCee in her Bloody Marys, Pastor Clyde in his righteousness, and John in his silence.
HEART SURGERY, by Toni Goodyear
Sara gave a grim chuckle as she slid the plastic vial into her carry-all. She knew that stealing Jake’s Viagra was a ridiculously childish thing to do. Not to mention pointless. He was a doctor, for God’s sake; there was plenty more where that came from.
Still, she supposed as she closed the nightstand drawer, it was kinder than castration…or something even more spectacular. That had been her first impulse, like that gal some years back who’d severed the family jewels and then chucked the offending member out a car window. Or the lady who’d made her point with super glue.
Other remedies had been proposed. A woman who des
cribed herself as SoVeryPissed made headlines when forty thousand women joined her discussion of the moral pros and cons of serving ground glass to unfaithful partners. A federal prosecutor barely kept a straight face as she explained to television reporters that no charges would be filed. She couldn’t have people arrested for pondering general principles—and anyway, ground glass was so obviously unpalatable that it wasn’t a serious threat unless you hid the shards in a piece of meat and served it to a man who, like a dog, swallowed his food whole.
Incidents like these, Sara decided, were milestones in female sexual history—tales that richly deserved to be, but, alas, almost certainly wouldn’t be, included in the next scholarly treatise on human sexuality.
Jake’s copy of Certain, the hip new sexual bible for the modern American male, stared up at her from the nightstand. Sunlight streaming through the bedroom window—the great bay window that overlooked the Pacific—set the voluptuous colors of the paperback cover art shimmering like baubles on a belly dancer. Two men and three women, quasi-Rubenesque figures in a western parody of the Kama Sutra, lay knotted together pretzel fashion, a blob of human plastique. A yellow sticky note marked page 188: “techniques for the three-orgasm encounter.” For Jake, at fifty-nine, that was the gold at the end of the rainbow, the Maltese falcon of his sexual fantasies. His Land of Noir was a place of glory and conquest, a world devoid of things like high blood pressure, cold wives, and finicky heart valves.
Sara had been part of that fantasy for the past two years—two years in which she’d clung to the belief that Jake had outgrown his wife and now belonged to her. Today was their anniversary, the official celebration of that delusion; tonight the noir playing field was to be in motion, bathed in its signature smoky light. They had made the plans weeks ago. First, a romantic dinner at Charlie’s, the ultra-discreet little bistro where the wine cellar was exquisite and the oysters and clams to die for. Joe, their favorite pianist, would play the perfect Sam to their Rick and Ilsa. Then a quick, private plane ride down the coast to the midnight jazz concert at Capito’s, with tickets that had been so scandalously hard to come by. Afterwards they would wander back to their favorite small hotel carrying Capito’s decadent demi-monde zabaione, a crème-de-menthe-infused whip of mascarpone and ganache that gave new meaning to the term foreplay.
