Love Stories in This Town

by Amanda Eyre Ward

  So, we live in Butte, Montana. The richest hill on earth, ha, ha. They dug a pit the size of the city next to the city and now it's filling with toxic water. It'll overflow in the year 2000 they say, so I say, well, a year is a year. Now they're talking about mining the water.

  My dad was a miner. He's dying now of cancer—it's in his bones—and all his friends are dying of cancer too. They come over to the house and drink Guinness and smoke like fiends and what's Mom going to say? It's bad for your health? When I get home, there's some kind of meat or some Beefaroni, and when I get in bed, my sheets smell like Downy. In between my dad's coughing, I can hear my mother's soft laughter.

  They hired me at the library out of Butte High. I was the class valedictorian. At the graduation ceremony, I said, “Go forth and find your dreams.” I could have gone to Missoula and played for the Lady Griz, but my coach was like, “Annie, that knee's going to give in less than a season.” I had to tape it for the last game as it was, but the Lady Griz still wanted me. They are the best women's basketball team in Montana. They went to State and then to Florida to play in the championships this year. I watch them on TV. They're all as tall as me, with their hair in little ponytails, and they were on the beach with suntan lotion all over their noses because hey, they're from Montana and their skin isn't used to Florida sun. One of them married the quarterback of the Grizzly football team. She wore a cowboy hat with a veil, which I think is tacky.

  So, people used to send their daughters to Butte because their skin would get pale here, and that was fashionable. The arsenic in the air will bleach your skin. Our Lady of the Rockies is white as snow.

  Our Lady of the Rockies is a hundred-foot marble statue of the Virgin Mary. Butte bought her and helicoptered her up to the Continental Divide to give the town something to be proud of, when all the copper was gone. At night, with the moon over her shoulder, she is something out of a dream. No matter what goes wrong or crazy, staring at Our Lady of the Rockies makes me calm. She's right where she should be, and it's a good thing, because she weighs eighty tons.

  After work, James picks me up and we go driving. Sometimes we drive over to Pork Chop John's for sandwiches, sometimes to the flats for a beer, and sometimes we go all the way out to Deer Lodge where the prison is or to Anaconda where the smokestack of the old smelter rises up like an arm. James! He smells like hard work—a cinnamon, cigarette smell. When James started calling me, he had just dropped out of tenth grade. Butte is small; I knew who he was, of course, and that he lived with his deadbeat father in a drafty double-wide. Nobody thought it would last, the studious girl and the grocery guy with a tattoo of his dead mother on his back.

  After work, James plays saxophone for the Toxic Horns. His hair always looks messy and sticks up like a little chickadee. His tongue is the softest thing in the world.

  Back to Monday. By the afternoon it's raining, and that's the best time to shelve. It's quiet and warm in the library, and the books are all organized and beautiful. I'm humming and checking out the Romance section when there's a shriek from the second floor. It's Pearl and she goes, “OH NOOOOO! AAAH!” and the upstairs exit slams shut and Pearl comes running down the stairs like a puppy. Her mascara is smudged and her wiglet is askew.

  “What? What?” goes Rosie, and Pearl can't say it. She breathes in and out and finally she says, “There was a man upstairs.”

  A man? (All the librarians are spinsters or divorcees and hate men.) I was like, “Pearl, men are allowed to go wherever they—”

  And Pearl goes, “NO! You don't UNDERSTAND!” And she starts crying. Rosie leads her by her little liver-spotted hand into the bookbinding room and Pearl's shoes make this shuffling sound. You can hear the two of them talking quietly and then Pearl's crying, Rosie's soothing sounds. A few minutes later, Rosie comes out. Her mouth is drawn together tight as a prune.

  “There is a masturbator loose in the Periodical area,” says Rosie.

  By now all the regulars have dropped their newspapers. Nobody's even pretending to browse. Old Ralph (of course) leads the way. He runs up the stairs with determination on his face for the first time since I have known him. Abe follows him and the little biddies stand at the foot of the stairs chirping encouragement.

  Nothing.

  The masturbator had escaped. That afternoon, Rosie gets the whole story out of poor (Catholic as they come) Pearl. She had noticed a strange man in the Science periodicals. (I was like, “What was he reading? Discover? Scientific American?” but Rosie told me to zip my lips.) The man was tall with brown hair combed back. He had a receding hairline and was wearing jeans, a brown leather jacket, and white penny loafers.

  So, Pearl's organizing the magazines, maybe reading a bit as she usually does, which is why it takes her forever and a day, and she hears sounds from the man. What sounds? Grunting sounds and breaths, little short ones. (Pearl kept saying, “Like a bear, like a bear,” but nobody wanted to explore that statement.) So finally she looks up and his back's to her. He's hunched a bit.

  You have to understand about Pearl. She's sixty-five, and her husband was brought over straight from County Galway. He was killed in a mine explosion, but not before he left Pearl for a stripper. She never remarried, or went on a date, or even talked a whole lot to a man after that. In short, the masturbator had to turn around, raise an eyebrow, and give Pearl an eyeful before she realized he was no regular library patron. She was paralyzed for a minute. According to Rosie, who appointed herself official psychoanalyst, he finished the job right there and then, and that is why Pearl doesn't use the water fountain anymore. Pearl finally screamed and came galloping down the stairs, and the masturbator escaped.

  James drove past Pork Chop John's. He had showered, and didn't smell like his lunch-break Winstons but like Paco Rabanne. “What, did you leave work early?” I said.

  He looked at me, and put his hand on my knee. “Annie,” he said, “I did. I left work early today.” He was talking like a movie, which pissed me off. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Usually, we couldn't find enough to say to each other—what food must be like in foreign countries, why our parents failed, MTV. In summer, we lay in the bed of James's truck and made up stories of our bright future, our heads cradled by James's winter parka and snow pants.

  While James was busy squeezing my knee, he missed the light on Mercury and almost ran into a hippie Volkswagen van. “Van!” I cried, and he hit the brakes in time. “I'm hungry,” I said.

  “Darling, you shall be fed,” said James.

  “I'm in an onion ring mood.”

  James shook his head. “So, James,” I said, “a masturbator is loose in the library.” James sighed.

  “I don't want to talk about that,” he said. He licked his lips. “Annie, if you could go anywhere, anywhere for dinner this evening, where would it be?”

  I thought for a minute. “Tower Pizza,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Yes! You said I could choose, James. What's your problem?”

  James was breathing hard and talking strangely. He was making me nervous. “Skip it,” I said. “Mom's making meat loaf anyway.”

  “Fine!” yelled James, jerking the steering wheel and pulling into the parking lot. James didn't even touch his salad or the double pepperoni with mushrooms. He listened glumly as I told him about the masturbator.

  Then, the moment. The moment went like this:

  Curtain opens on a young couple in Tower Pizza, an orange-walled restaurant with waxed yellow floors. The couple is smoking cigarettes and eating pizza from small plastic plates. The woman uses a knife and fork and the man uses his hands.

  ME: Should we have gotten extra cheese?

  JAMES: No. This is fine.

  ME: I sort of wish I had caught the masturbator.

  JAMES: Why?

  ME: At least it would be exciting, you know?

  JAMES: Annie, I got a promotion today. I'm leaving produce.

  ME: Awesome! I wish we had extra cheese.

&nbs
p; JAMES: I'm going to be manager of the meat counter. I almost have enough money to get us out of this place. This fucking place! I'm taking you to New York. We can stay with my cousin in Armonk, and then we'll move to the city.

  ME: Can we get cheesy garlic sticks, babe?

  JAMES: Annie, will you marry me?

  So I said yes, and we went up to Our Lady of the Rockies and had sex. James fell asleep, but I lay awake and gazed at Our Lady. At night she's lit up like a Christmas tree, her arms open to us all.

  The next day, there are posters all around the library. They say: CAUTION, PLEASE, THIS MAN MAY BE MASTURBATING IN THE PERIODICALS ROOM and then there's a picture that Pearl drew of a man's face. It looks like a cartoon pig. I tell Pearl and Rosie the signs might lead people to believe the man should be left alone, but they look at me with their brows furrowed and I zip it. Everyone is very upset about masturbation going on in the library.

  Jan and the Morning Crew keep making jokes about us on the radio and repeating the description of the masturbator, down to the penny loafers. All of a sudden everybody wants to hang out at the library, and the books are in disarray. I can't bear it.

  After an hour, Rosie tells me I need a break. I tell her somebody's got to shelve the damn books. She puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “Honey, the books aren't going anywhere.”

  I call my mother and ask her to have breakfast with me. She wasn't awake when I left for work, and my father was coughing too hard to notice the ring on my finger. It was a thick gold ring with a diamond the size of a pencil eraser— James's grandmother's ring. She was a famous lounge singer who was given the ring by a movie star I can never remember the name of. It glitters and flashes around as I file the card catalog. Nobody notices when I slip out a side door.

  My mom is waiting at the Squat and Gobble. She has ordered her tea and my creamy coffee, and is wearing a pillbox hat. When I come in, she looks up, and in the bright sunlight her face is lined and dry. Jesus, I think, she's an old biddy. Then I feel guilty and give her a big hug. And don't you know she sees that rock on my finger before I even sit down.

  “Margaret Ann,” she says, “is that what I think it is?”

  I say, “Yes,” and her eyes fill with tears.

  “James is a good boy, he is,” she says.

  “I know.”

  We eat eggs and bacon, and my mother dabs at the corners of her lips between bites. She comes from a wealthy Irish family and never lets us forget it.

  “James was promoted to the meat department,” I say. She smiles. “He wants to leave Butte.” Her smile widens. “How do I know if this is the right thing, Mom?”

  “Do you love him?”

  I think of James and his baby chick hair. “Yes.”

  “I loved your papa, too,” says my mother, and she shakes her head slowly. “Thank goodness you'll get out of this town,” she says. She looks through the window, and I look too. There are old cars glinting in the sun. A man with a beard leans against Frank's Pawn Shoppe and draws a circle with his toe. He has only one arm. A woman comes out of Terminal Meats holding her dinner wrapped in paper. Her face is rosy and her shoes are shiny and new. Her coat is lined in fake fur and she holds it closed with the hand not holding the meat. She nods at the one-armed man, who smiles tiredly. “Maybe you and James could go to Florida,” says my mother. “Just like the Lady Griz.”

  “My knee is broken!” I yell, by mistake. My mother shuts up like a clam and her face goes even paler.

  “I'm sorry,” I say. My mother stares at her eggs. She looks like what she is: an old lady with a husband who has cancer in his bones. Her pillbox hat is faded and her lipstick creeps into the wrinkles around her mouth. She doesn't dab at her eyes but lets her cheeks get all wet, so they look like they're made of clay.

  “Why aren't you happy for me?” I say. “This ring belonged to Marlon Brando!”

  My mother meets my gaze. “I am happy,” she says.

  “Why don't you come with me?” I say. “Why don't you go instead of me? I don't care.”

  “Breakfast is my treat,” she says, and I watch her count change from her purse. On impulse, I grab her soft fingers. She looks up, startled, but does not pull away.

  The masturbator has already left by the time I return to the library. This time it was Mrs. McKim who saw him in the Newspaper Nook. He was working himself into a frenzy by the stacks. Mrs. McKim didn't get a gander at the whole package. She saw the leather jacket and the loafers and ran screaming before he even turned around. He had gotten away by the time the police arrived. “Secure all the doors!” the police say to us. Nobody shelves the whole afternoon, and the books are not in order on the cart. All the peepers who have started hanging around begin to pick up books, look at the covers, and then drop them somewhere else. I find a Young Adult novel in the Reference Room! That night, I can barely sleep. I have my mother tell James I'm too sick to go dancing. In bed, I listen to the sounds of my house: the clink of silverware going in drawers, the hum of the TV. The creakings of two old people moving around each other in the night.

  The next day, I take the ring off and put it in my pocket. It's getting in the way. I'm at the counter when they come in: three little kids brandishing pens. “We,” says the tallest one, throwing her shoulders back, “are the Future Problem Solvers of America.” I recognize her—she's Katie, the granddaughter of one of my dad's miner pals. She has black hair parted in the middle and combed behind her ears. She wears glasses, and through them, her eyes are wide and blue. I know Katie's mother, June, who dropped out of Butte High and drinks too much.

  Another kid chimes in. “We are working on deforestation,” he says.

  “Check the card catalog under ‘forest’ or ‘woods,’” I say. The Future Problem Solvers of America look sheepish.

  “We can't read,” says Katie.

  “No worries,” I tell her. I spend all afternoon helping the kids. We find pictures of clear-cut forests and pictures of lush, green ones. We find pictures of log homes, and rugged men with axes. The FPS of A leave satisfied. They promise to return next week, when they will begin to cure cancer. When they open the library entrance, the late-afternoon sun makes Katie's hair shine.

  I tell James I have the flu, and watch television with my father. I wrap myself in an old blue blanket and laugh so hard that my father tells me to shut my piehole.

  By Thursday, things have settled down at the library. The masturbator has not returned, and James has stopped coming by and asking what's wrong, what's wrong.

  I'll tell you what's wrong. It took me all day to get that library back in order. What's wrong? People and their ability to mess everything up. Disorder always increases. That's the rule, according to Einstein or whoever. Well, I'm no Einstein, but I'll tell you this: I tape my knee every day. It won't get worse, and that's a promise.

  I like being a librarian. I like the peace and quiet, and the smell of old paper. I like listening to Old Ralph and paging through magazines. Each book is stamped with a history: who's read it and when. Who needed a renewal. Nowadays, everybody loves mysteries, but I can prove that people used to like history books.

  My kids are going to know all about history. Pocahontas to Columbus to Marcus Daly, who took all the copper out of Butte and left us with his empty mansion and a cancer pond. I'm going to teach them to be a part of history, like the Lady Griz and their championship. Like the masturbator, even.

  At three or so P.M., I hear the front door open. It makes a click sound and by the time I turn around, someone is climbing the stairs. I know without seeing that it's him. But I keep filing for a time. Really, I don't know what's the matter with me. Finally, when nobody else goes about catching him, I climb the staircase. It's a wooden staircase, and it makes a creaking sound with each step. Outside the door to the Periodicals area, it's silent, and smells like chicken soup. I push on the door, and of course, there he is, the masturbator, whacking away.

  “Hey!” I say, and he turns around. His face is red. Hi
s hair is neatly combed, and his shirt is white and pressed. He looks like somebody's lawyer, or somebody's dad. Granted, his dick is hard and he's got his meaty hand around it. But the expression on his face is not panic. He looks relieved, or like I had walked in with a present all tied up in a bow. He says, “Oh.”

  What is there for me to do? I am eighteen years old, and a grown man is standing between me and the weekly periodicals and he's got his pants unzipped. I am a librarian, and a Montanan.

  I recognize the look in his eyes.

  “Go home,” I tell him. “Can't you just go home?” And something changes in his face. His eyes fill up with tears.

  Rosie comes through the door. She has been fixing her hair and she smells like Aqua Net and a new dose of perfume. Her mouth opens wide, and she grabs me. The man (dick completely soft by this time, and swinging wildly) pushes us to the ground and heads for the door. Old Ralph tackles him downstairs, and when the cops arrive, the masturbator is tied to the card catalog with packing tape.

  It turns out that the masturbator has a name: Neil Davidson. He lives in Helena with his wife and two kids. He's a mortgage broker. His picture is on the front page of the Friday paper, along with my name and the name of our library. It is an old picture: his hair is thick, and he wears a tie. His smile is full of hope.