Tales of the Madman Underground

by John Barnes

“If you are going to be that way about it, Rose,” Mom said, with a voice that would freeze vodka solid, “then I think Karl had better be tested for VD. You never know what he might have gotten off a girl like that.”

  “Fine!” Mrs. Nielsen was pretty loud; I felt sorry for anyone trying to sleep. For a second there I thought we might get to see our moms brawling on the floor. But instead they seemed to agree on something while communicating entirely by glare. All of a sudden we had grabbed up our few things, and Mrs. Nielsen took Marti’s car, Bill took Mom in his car, and Williams took me and Marti in the oinkmobile. “Probably it will be better if you two don’t communicate, officially,” he said. “But was what you said true, you didn’t have sex, you were just sleeping, and didn’t want to put dirty clothes back on?”

  “We didn’t have sex, we didn’t plan to have sex, we just needed a place to sleep,” I said.

  “Martinella?”

  “Same thing,” she said. “Christ, my mother is embarrassing.”

  Williams sighed. “She’s upset and terrified and you’re gonna have to take care of her. She thinks she’s a complete failure because of this, you know.”

  That kind of killed the conversation for the next three miles as we rumbled onto the interstate and out through the cornfields. It was the same time of day I was used to being out with Browning, gray-white sky that would be blue as soon as it got more light, sun crawling up over the distant tree line, but I wasn’t getting paid for this one.

  After a while Williams said, “So, Karl, no drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Drinking?”

  “No, really, we just needed to sleep some—”

  “Who killed Squid’s rabbit?”

  “I did,” I said. “Everybody knows that.” Then I realized what a cheap trick that was, and didn’t care, because obviously I’d passed the test. I’m sure old Williams thought he was the cleverest son of a bitch of a pig old Lightsburg had ever produced, but if he was willing to believe us because of it, I guess he was welcome to think he was Sherlock Fucking Holmes.

  He was nodding. “You’re acting like a kid who isn’t lying. Keep that up and we can probably get you through all this bullshit okay. You do the same, Martinella, and this can just be a mildly unpleasant day or two.”

  “All right,” she said.

  It was grayish dawn with the sun just coming up when we turned into the driveway for the emergency room at Gist County Hospital in Vinville. There was no one waiting this morning.

  Marti’s mom was already there, having captured a very embarrassed young doctor. “All right, now I want both of them tested,” she barked, in a tone I wouldn’t use on a bad waiter.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “now that everyone is here, let me just repeat, a pregnancy test is useless right now. The tests we do here don’t even start to mean anything until about a week after a missed period, and for the new tests we still need to wait at least two weeks and then send a urine sample to the lab in North Carolina. This is just going to be money down the—”

  “Money!” Mrs. Nielsen got madder, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. “This is the care of my daughter we are talking about! I want a pregnancy test and right now. My husband has good insurance, he’s an important scientist and a professor. This is the kind of thing we have insurance for. Give her whatever the best test is—give her the expensive one. And I want her tested and treated for VD. That is what she was with,” she said, pointing at me.

  Bill had had Mom by the elbow and been talking to her quietly, but now she shook him off and said, “You go right ahead and do that, Rose Lee Nielsen.”

  I had a feeling old Rose was no longer a super super lady.

  Williams stepped between them. We all watched Marti, her mother, and the doctor disappear down the white, fluorescent-lit corridor. When he could see they were all out of earshot, Williams said, “Look, Mrs. Shoemaker, I think we can trust your son and the girl, they really didn’t have sex, and there’s really no reason for him to have that test or—”

  “I don’t care,” Mom said. “If that bitch is going to talk about my son like that, and call him a liar and say he raped that ugly little zit-face girl—”

  “Mom, Marti is my friend—”

  “Karl, don’t argue, I mean it. If that bitch, who just got to this town a month ago, is going to say that kind of crap about my son—I mean, a Shoemaker—well, then we’re going to act just like he was with a whore.”

  “Uh,” Bill said, “I think what Officer Williams is trying to tell you is that the test is pretty uncomfortable and if we—” He stopped because she was glaring at him. “Karl,” he said, “I am sure Officer Williams will say it’s up to you, and I have to tell you—”

  “You don’t have to tell him anything. He’s taking the test.” It was so weird to see Mom so angry and not yelling, just hissing everything through a clenched jaw. I hadn’t seen that since Dad died.

  “Mom,” I said, “I really wasn’t with anyone, but if it’ll keep the peace, I’ll have the test.”

  Williams and Bill both seemed to shrug, like they’d tried, and then Mom and me filled out the forms and they led me back to a little room. They told me this was something Mom wouldn’t want to see.

  The nurse was Mrs. Freeberg. She went to First United Methodist and was super-active there, so I figured she wouldn’t be too happy with me. Her husband, Hal, bought a ton of radio ads from me every month for his car dealership. I really hoped this wasn’t going to cost me an account that good.

  Mrs. Freeberg had big curls of gray hair, soft and loose. Her thick red cheeks looked like they’d been slabbed on with a tuck-pointing trowel, and her little blue eyes behind her horn-rimmed glasses were hard and business-like, so I guess she knew what I was in for. The set of her jaw made her look ready to bite somebody. But her voice was soft and sympathetic when she told me to get into that little green gown.

  After I’d sat scratching, and trying to find a way to get it to close around my butt, and squirming to try to find a comfortable position on that silly Naugahyde-covered table, and gotten bored enough to wonder if it would be okay to lay down to go to sleep, this million-year-old white-haired guy that stank of cigarettes came in and said he was Doctor Adler. He asked me a bunch of questions, all the stuff everyone had already asked, and finally said, “Well, you say you didn’t have sex, and I believe you, but your mother is insisting that you be treated, and that guy with her—is he your stepdad?”

  “Her boyfriend. He’s okay.”

  “Well, he’s definitely on your side, trying to talk her out of this, but she’s pretty determined that you be tested. I was trying to give him a little more time to work on her, but it looks like she won’t change her mind.”

  “Nobody ever gets her to do that. It’s nice that you tried, and Bill tried. I suppose we’d better get it over with.” I guess I was thinking, how bad can it be?

  “You’re a good sport,” the doctor said. “Mrs. Freeberg will come in to take the samples for the tests, and give you the shot and the pro.”

  “The pro?”

  “Prophylaxis. Prevents gonorrhea. Technically it’s redundant with the big shot of antibiotics we’re giving you, but we’re supposed to play it safe.” Then he was out that door like a greased coward.

  Mrs. Freeberg came back in and said, “Okay, Karl, this is not going to be fun. And Dr. Adler says it’s unnecessary, so I’m really sorry you have to go through with this. There’s a blood test, a shot, a swab test, and the pro, and we’ll do them in that order because that’s the order that doesn’t mess up the test results. I guess your mother is having some kind of fight with the girl’s mother, and this is some kind of proving a point, and I have to say it’s really nice of you to go along with it. Okay, blood sample first.”

  That was almost interesting; she put a needle in to connect the vein in my arm to a test tube and filled the tube up with my fresh dark blood. “We check this for syphilis,” she said. “It won’t tell us if you just c
aught it but it will tell us if you might have given it to the girl. If you both come up blanks, then neither of you had a developed-enough case to give it to the other one. Next is your ampicillin. It’s like more-modern penicillin, and it should kill everything—for sure it will kill any syphilis you have. It should also kill gonorrhea, but we still do the swab and pro for that.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She prepped the shot and gave it to me in the butt, because there was a lot of it; it stung a little and I could tell I might be sore there for a day.

  “Most men tell me the swab is the worst,” she said. “Stand up and lift your gown and hold very still. For the swab test most guys are more comfortable if they don’t look.”

  She got out a container of individually wrapped, sealed sticks that ended in little cotton tips, and a sample bottle, and I suddenly knew what she was going to do. “We need to get a sample swabbed from the site of the infection,” she said, pulling on her rubber gloves. “For gonorrhea, that’s the interior of the urethra. It has to go a long way in, and stay there for a bit, and I’m supposed to rotate it a little to make sure I pick up whatever’s in there. It won’t get any easier if we wait or talk it over, so raise your gown, hold still, and look away.”

  I did.

  She pulled my dick out straight, gently enough but firmly, and then that little stick went in and kept going. The swab was dry, I guess to catch more goop, and it hurt going in, staying in, turning around, and coming out. It felt like it was in me for like three thousand years.

  She dropped it into the sample bottle, closed it, and wrote something on the label.

  “All right,” she said. “The pro goes to the same place, but not as deep. Thanks for being a big boy about this.”

  I sighed and lifted my gown. I was still hurting, but I wasn’t going to be a pussy.

  The gadget was sort of a plunger syringe without a needle; it hurt a little as she fit it into me, and it felt weird to have that goo squirting up there inside, but compared to the swab, it wasn’t much. When she’d squirted it and pulled out the syringe, she said, “There will be some yellow glop in the toilet, next time you pee, with perhaps a few drops of blood, and it might sting a little bit. That’s just the pro coming back out, and you might have gotten a little scraped up inside from the swab. County Health will call you if it comes out positive.” She shook her head. “It makes no sense to give you a swab and a pro. If you had it, you don’t now.” She scribbled a few notes on my chart, and put it on the outside of the door. “Stacy, chart up.” She closed the door. “Okay, get dressed and go out to the waiting area. Your mom is out there.” She went out into the hallway, closing the door after her.

  As I dressed, I thought, Stacy? and figured there had to be a lot of girls with that name, and besides, the one I knew didn’t seem like the brainy type that becomes a candy striper, or the ambitious type that takes the early-morning shift.

  I continued to reassure myself on that subject until I came around the corner on my way back to the waiting room. Headed my way, carrying a bunch of file folders, was that Stacy, the same one who had seen me by the tar pond with Cheryl, and a couple of times with Darla, and hugging Paul on the street. She wore a dorky uniform that looked very 1962, thin red stripes on a white, knee-length dress, and silly white cap and shoes, kind of like a cover on a Harlequin novel, but not so classy.

  For a second she looked like she was trying not to see me. I don’t know what my facial expression was, but it must’ve been something, because all of a sudden she gave me this big goofy grin and said, “See you in school.”

  Something about that grin made me want to laugh. “Believe it or not, I can explain everything.”

  Damn if she didn’t smile like she thought I was cute or something, and over her shoulder, as she walked away, she even gave me the cutesy-wave social girls do. Okay, it wasn’t just my mom and all my female friends, all girls made no sense.

  It also occurred to me that aside from being with two different naked girls in twenty-four hours, I’d also just been touched on the dick by someone female for the first time since I’d been toilet trained. I decided if that was how it was going to be, I’d just look from now on, thanks.

  At the waiting room, Mom had sort of settled into exhaustion, and was about half asleep on Bill’s shoulder. “Williams already left,” Bill said, “and he said that officially you’re free to go. They have one of those new answer-machine things at your mother’s office, so she’s already called in sick. My plan is, I’m taking you both to the Elias Brothers here in Vinville for the breakfast bar, ramming food into all of us, and then taking you and this young lady home”—he squeezed Mom’s shoulder and she looked sort of happy through her tired—“where you will change clothes. Then I’ll drop you at the high school. Good chance you’ll actually be on time.”

  It seemed strange, but it’d only been about an hour and a half since Marti and me had been awakened at the Carrellsen, and there was actually plenty of time.

  Mom was rubbing her face. “God, food,” she said. “I don’t know if I can face it.”

  Bill shrugged. “It’s plain old breakfast. Easy on the stomach.” He glanced sideways and then asked sharply, “How long have you been sweating like that?”

  Her clothes were drenched; she looked like she’d been in a rainstorm, and her face shone from the sweat.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel really upset.”

  “Okay,” Bill said. “Let me check something. You didn’t drink while we were up at Put-in-Bay. And I know you didn’t have any while we were out looking for Karl. Did you have any in between?”

  “No. Things got kind of . . . you know, fraught,” she said.

  “Welcome to alcohol withdrawal.”

  “You mean DTs?”

  “Alcohol withdrawal,” I said. I’d been through the Alateen classes enough, before she got so nasty about them, to know this stuff, too. “DTs is seeing snakes and bugs on your skin and seizures. This is just withdrawal. I had it a little when I quit.”

  “I had it a lot when I did,” Bill said.

  “Don’t you have to be an alcoholic to get it?” Her whine was pretty desperate, and she was rubbing her head like it ached.

  “Yep,” Bill said, and he was smart enough not to give her any more time to argue. “We’re going to pour water and coffee into you, and food if your tummy will take it, and then take you home and put you to bed. Best way through is to sleep it off and sweat it out.”

  Neither Bill nor me was gonna mention the hair of the dog.

  She thought about that for a while and said, “Shit.”

  “Just have water and coffee if it’s all you can handle, but food will do you good if you can keep it down,” Bill said. “Then home to bed. And stay there. You weren’t lying about phoning in sick, Beth, not anymore. You’ve got a day or two of something that’s going to feel a lot like the worst flu you’ve ever had. But I’ll take care of you, and Karl will.”

  She groaned, but she didn’t argue.

  At Elias Brothers, Bill had the waitress set up a pitcher of ice water for her and kept filling her glass, too. Mom actually had about half a pot of coffee, plus some scrambled eggs and a couple waffles from the buffet. We made a few lame jokes about the waffles not being up to our standards, and told Bill he’d have to come by some morning for those. He looked almost as happy as his hat looked stupid.

  Aside from having to squirm a bit to find a comfortable position to sit in, I enjoyed the breakfast. Once Mom settled down and fell half asleep on his shoulder, Bill was smart enough not to talk. I concentrated on exploring the wonderful concept of “all you can eat.”

  On the way back to Lightsburg, Mom suddenly asked, “Karl?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you not kidding, you really didn’t have sex with her?”

  “I really didn’t, Mom.”

  “But you were naked.”

  “We didn’t have any pajamas. We held hands and stuff. We just didn
’t do anything else, that’s all, Mom. Honest.”

  “I bet she was nice and tight.”

  “Mom!” I said, just as Bill said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Beth!”

  “Just testing. As long as you don’t get them pregnant, Tiger, have all the fun you want. The way girls are today you might as well.”

  “Mom, I didn’t—”

  “And remember, even if you are a dreadful perverted boy with a taste for ugly girls—”

  “Mom, Marti is my friend!”

  “—the starlight shines on you just as much as it does on anything else in the universe. Even that stupid cat. By the way, before Rose called to say Marti was missing, and I went out to look for you, and Bill talked Rose into not driving drunk—it was a complex kind of evening, you know?—I did make sure your door was closed tight, and if Hairball did get in there, this one’ll be on me—I’ll wash your sheets this time.”

  As we came in off the interstate, I saw Pancake Pete in the McDonald’s window, sitting at that counter that faced outward, finishing his shift with a big pile of breakfast and having a good old time. I waved and he waved back, though I doubt he knew who it was. I just figured, somebody might as well be happy and having a normal day.

  25

  A Completely Normal Monday, If You Happen to Be a Madman

  BILL’S LITTLE SAAB would have been embarrassing to drive, but it was okay to be dropped off in. Not nearly as embarrassing as arriving with Marti, let alone in a hearse.

  A couple of blocks from the school, Bill said, “I’m planning to go to every meeting I can get to today, here, Vinville, all around. You go have a completely normal school day.”

  “Aren’t you teaching?”

  “Phoned in sick. First time I’ve done that since I stopped drinking. I figure if I could take time off to drink—like it added up to a couple weeks out of every term, it was getting like that—I can take one day to get better.”

  “You know everyone will tell you you’re crazy to get involved with Mom. And chances are once she’s slept for a while, she’ll get up and head right for the booze in the house.”