Tales of the Madman Underground

by John Barnes

  “What I had in mind.”

  Find a good work partner and there’s always something to talk about.

  We moved the two finished storms to join the others leaning against the wall of the toolshed, and set up the last one on the horses.

  Without saying anything, I started knocking out the old dry compound from the top pane, and he started on the bottom.

  After a while he said, “You know what they tell you about dating somebody who still drinks. Especially somebody who thinks that your not drinking is criticism of their drinking.”

  “They say it’s pretty stupid, sir.”

  “Better call me Bill, on the off chance that we have to get used to each other.” He sighed. “Yeah, well. I know they say that. And I think . . . look, Karl, your mom told me a lot of stories and I can kind of piece things together. And I’m not exactly the right guy for this job. They say saving people is the biggest addiction of all. Besides, shit, I chickened out on Friday night and went and got drunk instead.”

  “Should’ve called her, she’d’ve come along.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  We had that storm mostly done when he spoke again. “Something your mom said—it made me think, uh, for a while you went to Alateen? How is it?”

  “A lot like AA. You thinking of Al-Anon?”

  “One more meeting a week, in the life of a professor, is another grain of sand on the beach, Karl.” He bent to his work. When we finished glazing, he asked, “Think she’ll be in there a while longer?”

  “Yeah, usually. She’s going out drinking with her friend tonight, so first they have to have the predrinking phone call, which takes an hour or two.” I was surprised at how blunt I felt like being.

  “Yeah. Well, I got a meeting to go to tonight. And I sure shouldn’t be out with her when she’s that way. Looks like you’re planning to prime with oil, paint with latex?”

  “Yeah.” That had always been what Dad recommended, and it did seem to last longer.

  “Might like to help you out. Don’t suppose you have an apron?”

  I grabbed him mine from the toolshed. We did the little bit of scraping that was needed, just where stuff was crumbly, and then painted. There didn’t seem to be much else to say, but he was stranded; he needed to talk to Mom before he went. And he couldn’t very well sit there for all the time she’d be on the phone talking about the elves who flew in on spiritual energy to inspire the Beatles and the pyramids, versus the grays who flew in on flying saucers to inspire Nixon and Vietnam, or whatever the mix was today.

  We painted for a while. Then he said, “Your mom wanted me to talk to you about going to college, I guess because you’re thinking about the army.”

  “Yeah, I am, it seems like the best way to be sure I’m out of Lightsburg, and I’ve had enough school for right now.”

  “Hey, drop those shoulders and relax, man. I’m not doing a sales number on you. College is already full of kids who shouldn’t be there and we don’t need more. And I was in Vietnam—eight years ago—just driving a truck, though. Not as awful as your mom imagines but no fun. So I think you should do what you want, whether it’s college or the army.” The cigar in his mouth flipped up in a way that I was sure he told himself was “jaunty.” “There, now we have talked about your going to college versus your going into the army, which is what I promised I would do. We can have this conversation again as many times as your mom wants us to.”

  “Thanks.” We finished the painting in silence, and I said, “Okay, I should clean up and lock up.”

  He took off his apron carefully, even though he hadn’t gotten paint onto anything, folded it neatly, and handed it to me. “Thank you,” he said, “that was definitely better than sitting in there with all the cats.”

  As he turned to go inside I said, “Good luck,” and he said, “Thanks.”

  His hat still looked stupid. Probably she’d toss him within a week.

  Another advantage about having help: even with time to clean the brushes and putty knives, and put the paint away, I was done almost forty minutes before Darla would be getting off work, so I’d have time to shower and change before heading over to Pongo’s. I was thinking about that nice body she had, and figuring maybe I’d see if she’d kiss me. Might even be able to get a feel, I thought. Definitely the biggest tits I’d ever have felt, too. Like a personal record.

  As I hurried through the house, Mom had just opened up a bunch of almanacs and maps to work on her UFO-Nixon thing, a pack of Kents just opened beside a clean ashtray. I waved at her, jogged upstairs, grabbed a change of shirt, and galumphed back down the stairs to the bathroom. The shower felt great, it was nice to have a few hours to do whatever I wanted, and I let myself think about sliding a hand under Darla’s bra. It was a little longer shower than I’d intended, but it felt great.

  I dried and dressed and sprinted back upstairs to put a couple things away, and make sure the door was locked. I came around the corner from the steps and discovered the door was open a few inches; shit, Hairball must have worked the knob again.

  I opened the door, and there was Hairball, squatting right in the middle of my bed, just squeezing out the last of a massive shit.

  “Qrph?” he asked. It was almost like he was trying to play innocent.

  I almost just whipped the first thing off the dresser at him, but instead I closed the door firmly behind me, sighed, and walked over to him. He mewed again, and I put a hand down and stroked his head.

  There’s an old saying about being careful what you pray for because you might get it.

  I was going to miss him, even if I wouldn’t miss his shit on the bed. I picked the pile up carefully with the dustpan and old spatula I kept in my room for these occasions. It was damp but not bad.

  I dropped the mess into my wastebasket to be disposed of later, and folded up the bedspread with the damp spot facing out so it wouldn’t get gross before I got around to washing it tonight.

  Hairball kept bumping his big stupid orange head against my leg and purring. He knew I was mad, and something was up, but I wasn’t behaving like I usually did when I was mad at him, and that made him nervous.

  When I had the mess all under control I took a deep breath, picked up Hairball, and set him on the bed, rubbing his tummy the way he really liked. He blissed out right away, stretching and purring, and hardly fussed at all when I stuffed him into the pillowcase. He squirmed a little, but I petted him and told him he was a good kitty, and he pretty much went to sleep in there. Stupid little fucker trusted me.

  I called Pongo’s from the upstairs phone, got Darla, and said, “I have a cat in a bag. Would you have some time after work to go down by Makeout Bridge?”

  “Romantic bastard, aren’t you?” she said, but I could hear the grin in her voice. “You bring the cat, I’ll bring the pussy,” and kept going with more over-the-top dirty talk till I was about half crazy and Michelson told her to get off the phone.

  I gently picked up Hairball—he hardly woke up, snuggled as he was in the warm pillowcase—reached in to stroke him a little, and headed down the stairs and out the door, hollering “Bye, Mom,” as I went. From the shed, I picked up a five-foot length of scrap rope—funny, but I made sure it was nylon, not hemp, I guess I didn’t want it to chafe—and a box cutter, and the garden shears. I’d figure out what exactly to do when the time came—it was the same plan I had for Darla.

  I wished I had a gun. I didn’t care what Darla wanted, this was going to be quick and as near painless as I could make it.

  I dropped the rope into the pillowcase with Hairball, who “qrphed” again and rubbed his face on my hand; I tickled under his jaw, I knew he liked that too, and he settled right back in. I picked up the bag and started walking up the alley at the back of our place.

  The bridge over West Lock Creek was just a half mile away, and my tunnel into Darla’s pants was just as close.

  23

  Water Under the Bridge, Letting the Cat Out of the Bag, Everyone’s Be
autiful Naked, and Several Other Clichés

  I’D WALKED ABOUT three blocks when Darla pulled up alongside me in her old Plymouth Spear-a-Chick, as she called it, one of those late-fifties ones that had an ornamental cone right in the middle of the steering wheel, which were pretty cheap used cars if you could find them. She always said she liked the idea of driving with death pointed right at her like that, and besides, with her boobs, probably it wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near her sternum.

  She opened the passenger-side door and I climbed in; she stayed leaned over, wrapped her arm around my neck, jammed her mouth onto mine, and tongued me deep and hard. The taste of cigarettes on her tongue, and the way she moaned when she kissed, was like everything I’d ever thought about. I told myself to get brave and squeezed her breast, feeling that nip come up against my palm. She kissed me deeper, and I started to slip my hand into her Pongo’s uniform, which was so low cut she was halfway out of it anyway. She broke the kiss, gave me a big theatrical sigh, and said, “Well, we should get to our picnic, young man. I take it you’ve got the cat there.”

  “Qrph?” Hairball asked.

  “Right in the sack.”

  “Well, you know what I’ve got,” she said, and flicked her skirt way up her thigh. My nuts were throbbing. “I brought you some dinner,” she said, “since I figure my insane cat killer needs to keep his strength up, and I think I’ll just torment you while we talk, and you eat, and then you can do the kitty, and then . . . do anything you want.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just looked at her, hoping I was looking cool while trying to figure out, from the angle, whether she was wearing underwear under her uniform. After a minute the silence got so awkward I said, “So work was probably like it always is?”

  “Like it always is on Sunday afternoons. It’s the Lord’s Quarter Shift. This one was thirty-nine dimes, seventeen quarters, and three one-dollar bills. That was all my tips, even though all my tables covered at least twice, most three times. Normal for after church. Old Michelson says it’s because when it comes time to give a waitress a tip for coping with fifteen people—a lot of them old, fussy, indecisive, and half-fucking-deaf—plus three screaming babies, they suddenly realize they already put their quarter in the offering plate. So he calls it the Lord’s Quarter Shift, because you hustle your butt off trying to get the Lord’s quarter. But the Lord almost always wins. He gets to try first, and besides, he can send them to hell and all I can do is shoot a nostril inside their sandwich.”

  She descended the dirt road carefully. There was enough gravel and drainage so there weren’t any mud holes, and we drove all the way into the sandy area down below the bridge. We got out and walked over to sit near the creek behind the dredge pile that blocked the view from the bridge.

  I set the pillowcase with Hairball down next to me. She handed me a sack that turned out to contain a Pongo’s Double Monkey Burger with Three Cheeses and Russian Dressing, the biggest wad of food on the menu, plus a big load of fries. “Weird,” I said, “I just realized I’m really hungry.”

  “Well, that’s what the food is for,” Darla said. “Eat. You’re gonna need your strength, and so am I.” It sounded like she wrote it out beforehand, and so did the next thing she said: “I’ve been thinking about it since eighth grade when you did Squid’s little bunny wunny.”

  The burger smelled good. I started ramming food in, wanting to make sure I got the meal before everything got weird, and through a full mouth I tried to explain. “I didn’t want to hurt it, not really, I wanted to hurt Squid. I almost let it go. I got sick after I killed it. I don’t like to kill things.”

  “And here you are, with a cat, and a knife, and me. I know what you’re like whether you’ll admit it or not, baby.” She stood up and took off her uniform top, and then her skirt. “No hands till I say. Enjoy your dinner with a view.” Her bra looked kind of complicated, but she took it off before I had to start figuring out how to.

  I made myself not be a chickenshit and not worry about whether someone would see. The hollow behind the low dredge pile, just below Makeout Bridge, had a lot of privacy; hence the name.

  She lit a cigarette and sat smoking and watching me eat. Beside me, Hairball stirred and poked his head out. “Qrph?”

  “Hey, don’t let the cat get away.”

  “He sticks real close to me whenever he’s outside the house,” I said. “He’s a real fraidy.”

  Hairball climbed onto my lap, sniffing at the bacon in the burger, so I broke off a piece and gave it to him.

  “Ugh, you say I’m gross but you let animals touch your food.”

  I shrugged. “Well, he’s kind of the one that’s mine.” She licked her lips and said, “This gets better and better. So this isn’t just like any old one of your mom’s cats. You picked a special one for me.”

  He was trying to stand on his hind legs and put his paws around my neck as he sometimes did—he wasn’t being affectionate, he was just after the burger. I pushed him down and said, “Hairball, behave.” Then I explained to Darla, “I caught him shitting on my bed.” Hairball curled up in my lap and batted lazily at the burger; I dripped grease and mayo on his upturned face and he licked at it.

  “Hey, you’re looking at the wrong pussy.” She pulled her panties down and stood in front of me, hands behind her back. Compared to slim, girlish Bonny, Darla really did look like something out of Playboy. I felt all stupid and nerdy but I really just wanted to touch and look and find out what her body was like.

  Darla pulled that stupid rabbit out of the pile of her clothes and said, “Mr. Babbitt wants to know, isn’t this better?”

  “It’s great,” I said, meaning it. I set the last bit of sandwich down and Hairball pounced on it, gobbling at the meat.

  “Yuck,” she said. “No wonder you want to kill him.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said.

  I was just meaning to correct her, like tell her I really just wanted to lose my virginity with a great-looking friend. That was what I meant when I said that.

  But as soon as I said it, I realized it was true.

  There was a presentation Don gave once at the AA meeting about life decisions. He said to imagine all the bad parts, and then ask if you’d pay that much, have all the bad parts on purpose, to have the good parts.

  How many times would I wash my sheets while dead exhausted, to have this big hairy idiot purring and loving me?

  And here was Darla, naked, big tits hanging out for me to look at, posing really, cocking her cigarette to look all slutty and sophisticated, sticking out a shoulder, letting her hair fall half across her face. She put on that pouty sexy face that girls do when they’re acting all spoiled and want you to win them a stuffed animal at the carnival, or change a tire for them.

  How much would sticking it in Darla compensate me for the look on Hairball’s face when he knew I was killing him? And I’d see it; I knew I would.

  “Kill it now,” she said. “I want to see it thrash around and watch your face while you do that to it.”

  “Him,” I said, because, you know, you correct people about things like that.

  Some part of me heard Paul saying there’s nothing deader than an overrehearsed show. Right then I knew she wasn’t getting to me. So here I was, ten feet from busting my cherry, with the sexiest girl I’d ever seen, and all of a sudden I couldn’t even think about reaching into the pillowcase for the rope and the tools. “Tell me what this is about, Darla.”

  I sat there, rubbing the soft white and orange fur around Hairball’s throat, not thinking of anything except that, sexy as Darla was, all I wanted to do was leave.

  “Fuck,” she said. “You really want to know, don’t you, Karl?” I looked up and she was sitting cross-legged, her knees up. I was getting the best view I’d ever had of the whole anatomy thing, but it wasn’t sexy at all. She was just sitting. “Fuck,” she repeated.

  I’d really only gotten as far as deciding not to kill the cat, but obviously she had alr
eady slid on over to some other topic.

  “Okay,” she said, sighing. “So let me explain it to you. I’m smart. I’m rich. I’m young and sexy. I could go anywhere and be anything, be a legend, I’m going to be an artist and people are going to know my name and they are going to die to be invited to my table and brag that they knew me. Except . . . Except when my life really starts a year from now, what am I going to tell my room-mate at Barnard? ‘I’m from this little cornfields town in Ohio and I waited tables a lot and studied hard’? ‘My parents left me home from everything and I hung around with losers and read magazines about the cool stuff in the world and now I’m here for it, Miss Dumb Hick With Shit On My Shoes’? ‘Hi, I’m nobody from nowhere but I sure am lucky that I had good grades and Daddy had good money, please let me be here’?

  “Fuck that. I’m not going out into the world as Little Missy Good Grades from Lightsburg, Ohio. I’m going as the wildest most interesting bitch they’ve ever fucking met. I can already say I gave a guy head while he was driving at ninety on a dirt road, and I’ve ridden ten miles naked on a motorcycle, and a guy taught me to shoot a gun while I was naked. And I have a year more of stories I’m gonna build up.”

  She was wiping her eyes and her whine sounded more frustrated than hurt. “I was gonna have this story to tell about fucking the school’s crazy killer right after he killed a cat. Fucking stupid, hunh?”

  “Everybody wants to have a good story,” I said. I’d never quite felt so stupid before in my life.

  “Yeah, everybody does, but looks like I’m not going to, hunh? Fuck you, Karl, you like that cat better than you like me.”

  I thought, Well, he’s not fucking nuts, and he isn’t trying to get me to do something awful so he can tell a story about it, and well, shit, yeah, maybe I do. I asked, “I know this is a dumb question, but . . . uh, why do you want to tell awful stories like that about yourself?”

  “So I can be hot shit like my mom, I guess, or be the kind of girl my dad talks about, or maybe . . . fuck. You know how I’m always saying about how places like Manhattan and Acapulco, and Marin County and Jack-son Hole, all those places my parents are always flitting around between—you know how I’m always saying they’re shitholes? I used to love it when I was little and they’d take me to those places. They always said I was a good little traveler. I had my own suitcase and my own passport and when I was just nine years old, I had to get extra pages in the passport for the visa stamps. Don’t laugh at me, it was a big deal.”