The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  He was still tilted back in his chair, smiling at her lazily through half-closed eyelids. “Yeah, I’d really like to fox you up,” he said, and now there was no mistaking what he meant.

  He leaned forward in his chair now, and touched the back of her hand with his fingertip and drew a careless zigzag pattern there, and Alex thought for a moment that she was going to faint.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  “I’m putting my brand on you,” he said. “That’s an S, for Skipper. Now my brand’s on you.”

  She looked at the back of her hand and, for an instant, saw, or thought she saw, the letter S rising from her skin as a great red welt and, even more terrifying, she felt a sudden wetness between her legs, and she heard herself utter a little cry.

  “Look,” he said easily, “it’s almost five o’clock.” She hadn’t realized that they had been talking for nearly two hours. “My gig starts at eight, but I’m not going to have you standing out there on that highway with your thumb up after dark. I’ll drive you back to that little town where you live—”

  “Paradise!” It came out as a gasp.

  “I’ll drive you back to Paradise. I’ve got time to do that, and still get back in time for my gig. C’mon.”

  They drove home in silence, but she seemed to hear a kind of whirring, almost like an electric current, passing between them.

  As he pulled up in front of her parents’ house, he said, “Tomorrow. I could pick you up at the same time, same place. We’ll go for a drive. I want you to show me that place where the two rivers meet.”

  “All right,” she said.

  He whistled softly. “Nice place you got here.”

  “That’s our zoysia lawn,” she said. “It’s the only one in town.” And she was grateful that it was getting dark, and he could not see the angry blotches that had turned from yellow, to brown, to dead white.

  As she reached for the handle to the door, he suddenly seized her left hand, pressed the back of it hard against his mouth, and licked it with his tongue, and she thought she was going to faint again. “Gotta lick my brand,” he said. “To make it heal real good.” Then he said, “Tomorrow.”

  She stepped out of the car, and started up the front walk.

  He leaned out the window. “Hey!” he called. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  She turned. “It’s Alexandra,” she said, and raised her hand.

  He answered with a little jaunty wave that was almost a salute, and drove away.

  She turned toward the house again, walked up the front steps, and let herself in the front door. She knew her father would be sitting alone in the kitchen, with an open bottle of beer, deep in the fathomless well of his own regrets. She went straight to her room, and lay down flat across her bed.

  She knew what had happened. She had fallen in love. But she had never suspected that love would come with such thundering suddenness and terrifying force. It was more than the sudden spasm she had felt in her groin, sitting there in the Dairy Queen. Other parts of her body were involved as well. It came as that whirring in her eardrums, and a dull ache at the base of her skull. It came from the back of her throat, too, with a feeling of heaviness of her tongue, and a dryness at the roof of her mouth. But mostly it was a feeling deep behind her eyes, from wherever it was that tears sprang, and it blurred her vision. The lungs also seemed to be involved in the feeling too, for her breathing was rapid, and if she had tried to speak just then she could not have done so. Why had no one ever told her that this was what falling in love was like, that love made you feel so bruised and beaten? With her fingers she tried touching the parts of her body that hurt with love, thinking: I hurt here, and here. And here.

  It was a feeling she had never had before or since. Wasn’t it strange, she often thought, that a love so intense and raging, so violent and noisy and passionate as that first love had been, could have turned to hate?

  “This is just great,” Mel was saying, as he paced her library, a Scotch-and-water in his hand. “What an opportunity for you, Alex! What a way to tell that Rothman outfit to sweet fuckoff! McCulloch really does have all the money in the world. Just think—a whole new magazine that will be yours and yours alone!”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said from where she sat. “A whole new magazine sounds great, but you don’t start a magazine by saying presto-chango, here’s a whole new magazine. A magazine requires a concept, and I don’t really have a new magazine concept.”

  “You’ll come up with one, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Will I? I wish I felt that sure. And if I do come up with something, what if it—?”

  “Fails? How can it fail? You’re Alexandra Rothman, the best in the business. Where’s the old self-confidence, darling?”

  “But the thing is, I’m comfortable with Mode. It’s home to me. It’s—”

  He turned on his heel, snapped his fingers again, and pointed at her. “And that,” he said, “is the exact moment when it’s time to move on to something new, darling! When the old job has become just a comfortable old routine, that’s the time to take the giant step to the next big challenge, isn’t it? So this couldn’t have come at a better time for you.”

  “It couldn’t?”

  “Of course not. Go for the brass ring!”

  She still looked dubious. “If I were still in my twenties, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute,” she said. “If I were still in my twenties, I’d give it the old college try. But I’m not in my twenties, Mel. I’m forty-six. Do you know how long it takes to start up a new magazine, even when you’ve got a concept? At least a year—probably closer to two years. And then it’s another two years before you know whether you’ve got a hit or not. Wouldn’t I be better off fighting to hold on to what I’ve achieved already? If I take on this project of Rodney’s, I’ll be fifty before I know whether it’s a success or a failure. That’s the thing that worries me, Mel. Am I getting too old for this sort of thing?”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe Mona Potter’s columns,” he said.

  “It’s just a fact,” she said discouragedly. “It’s just arithmetic.”

  25

  “Tell me again, which river is which,” he said.

  “The one from the west is the Kansas River.” She pointed. “The one from the north is the Missouri.”

  “Isn’t that somethin’?” he said. They were sitting in his car on the bluff. “When two rivers meet like this, there’s nothin’ in the world can pull ’em apart. But people aren’t like rivers. Sometimes people have to say goodbye.”

  She nodded. She knew what he meant. This was to be the last night of his gig in Kansas City.

  “Tomorrow, Wichita,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “How far away is it?”

  “Couple hundred miles as the crow flies. Four, five hours’ drive.”

  She sighed. It seemed an enormous distance. “Any chance you’ll be coming back?”

  “Not real soon, at least. Coupla years, maybe. No telling, really, in this business. You see, in this business, when you hit thirty-five, you’re on your way to being washed up. At forty, you’re over the hill. New guys coming in who can do a lot of things you don’t do so good anymore. So I’ve got to think of my future, ’cause I’m twenty-seven right now.”

  It was the first time he had mentioned his age, and the ten-year difference in their ages suddenly did not seem like much. “What will you do next?” she asked him.

  “That’s what I got to think about. I’m thinking about maybe buying a little business of my own. A bar, or a little café. I even got a name for it thought up—El Corral. What do you think of that?”

  “I like it,” she said.

  “I’d hang a lot of pictures on the walls,” he said, gesturing around him, turning the interior of the Corvette into the interior of an imaginary place called El Corral. “Like, over there, I’d hang some pictures of me bustin’ broncos,
and over there some pictures of me wrasslin’ steers and cuttin’ cattle. I got a slew of pictures from my career. I’d get ’em all framed, you see, and over there—well, over there—well, over there against that wall I’m thinking of putting an upright piano, so there could be music a coupla nights a week—maybe just Fridays and Saturdays. Music can make a place seem real homey. And over there, behind where the bar would be, I’d have stained-glass windows. Stained-glass windows, just to add a touch of class.” And, as he described it, she could suddenly envision it all—El Corral, with lariats and chaps and ten-gallon Stetson hats, and spurs and stirrups hanging from the ceiling, photographs covering the walls, Western saddles for barstools, the glint from stained-glass windows behind the old-fashioned bar, the upright piano being played by a fat man in striped shirtsleeves, red suspenders, and a derby hat, a chewed-off cigar between his teeth, just like in the movies, and she could hear the lively honky-tonk music. And where was she in this picture? She was there, in a tight skirt, dancing with Skipper to the music.

  “I could help you,” she said.

  “Help me?”

  “I’m good at decorating. I’m good at sewing things. I could help you decorate El Corral.”

  “I got some money saved up to do this,” he said. “How much money you reckon I got saved?”

  “How much?”

  “Thirty-two thousand dollars. Couple more years, if my luck holds out, I reckon I’ll have close to forty.”

  She nodded, impressed. It seemed like a small fortune.

  “And I’ve got it all right here,” he said, patting his flat belly with the palm of his hand.

  “Where?”

  “Money belt. Don’t trust banks. Men like me, who’s always on the move, can’t trust banks. So, will you come with me? I can take care of you.”

  “Come with you? Where?”

  “To Wichita.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” But all at once she couldn’t think of reasons why she couldn’t go with him.

  “Look,” he said. “Look at it this way. Your mom’s in the loony bin—you don’t know how much longer.” She had finally told him even that. “Your dad? Well, it sounds to me like he’s got plenty on his mind already, without you to worry about. If you came with me, you’d almost be doing him a favor.”

  She closed her eyes. It was almost true. “But—” she began.

  “I mean, I’m talkin’ about takin’ you along as my legal wife. If you say yes, I’ll take you right down to City Hall tomorrow, and make you my legal wife. What do you say?”

  She felt dizzy, almost ill. “But I haven’t finished high school,” she said. “I’m only seventeen.”

  “At City Hall, we’ll say you’re eighteen. Besides, you look eighteen.”

  “But don’t you have to show some kind of proof?”

  “Naw. They call Missouri the Show-Me State, but they never ask you to show them nothing. All it takes is five bucks for the license. I’ll be your proof. Look at it this way. You got nobody on this God’s green earth that gives a damn about you, or where you go or what you do. Except for me. You say you got a plan. Well, I could help you work that plan, ’cause I like a person who’s got a plan. I admire that type of person.” He patted his money belt. “What’s mine would be half yours to help you work your plan, ’cause it won’t take no forty thousand dollars to open the kind of little café I have in mind. Hell, don’t think I’m trying to bribe you into marrying me. I’m just pointing out the advantages. Fact is, I like your style. You’ve got a lot of built-in fox in you. All you got to do is get out of that little old corral you’re in with the loony playwright in Paradise, and that man who’s in love with his lawn. Another fact is, it gets lonely on the circuit. I’ve got nobody much either, except a bunch of rodeo buddies—nobody who really gives a damn, and I think you’re the kind who gives a damn about a person like me. And I’m off to Wichita tomorrow, irregardless, and if you don’t go with me chances are I’ll never lay my eyes on you again. I’m offering you an honest proposal. Take it or leave it. And that’s the end of my proposal speech.”

  “But I’ve only known you for two weeks.”

  “What difference does how long you’ve known me make? I ain’t gonna change, and what you see is what you get.”

  But there had to be more to it than that. Something, some potent key ingredient, was missing. She waited for him to supply it, but he did not. She felt suspended, dangling, awkward, a girl poised, on tiptoe, waiting for a kiss that hadn’t come. “Do you love me, Skipper?” she asked at last.

  His answer was a sigh. Then he said, “Let’s take a walk.” He pulled his lanky frame out of the driver’s seat, and crossed in front of the car to help her out of the passenger side. They started along one of the rocky paths that followed the rim of the bluff.

  The view from here was not particularly inspiring. To the right, below them, lay the Kansas City Municipal Airport, with its intersecting V’s of runways, where a small plane was kicking up dust as it took off. To the left were the city’s famous stockyards. Beyond the river, to the west on the horizon, lay the low shapes of what were called the Flint Hills. At this time of the year, late summer, and at this time of day, late afternoon, there was a yellowish haze in the air, and the air smelled of farming—livestock, wheat chaff, and flowering corn. As she walked with him along the path, she knew that if she did not say yes to him soon, she would never see him again, and her eyes blurred with tears. Whenever she thought of him she would remember the sweet, pungent smell in the air that day.

  Suddenly he squatted on his haunches. “Look at this here dandelion,” he said, poking the scrawny bloom with his fingertip. “Look how it can grow right in the crack of a rock. No soil, no water, all it needs is a crack in a rock. That’s how I grew up,” he said, “like this here wild dandelion, growing up in a little crack in a rock. They didn’t talk about love where I grew up. They talked about death and hellfire and sin and damnation. My daddy was a Baptist minister. He knew what sin was, and sin was anything that felt good. I was called a sinner. I was called his bad boy. I was called the devil’s tool. Seems like every day I was assigned to purgatory, and told I was going to roast on a spit in hell. And, yeah, I got in a fair amount of trouble as a kid—nothing serious, mostly mischief, kids’ stuff, stealing candy or a pack of smokes from the grocery store, stuff like that. ‘Down on your knees,’ they told me. ‘Pray for your eternal soul.’ And then he beat me. Made me stretch face first across the bed, and came down on my back with the back of a chair.” He stood up. “Want to see my scars?” he said, and pulled up his shirt to show her the welts across his back, shoulders, and stomach. “Some of those scars came from wrasslin’ bulls and breakin’ ponies, and some of them came from fighting men, and even a few from fighting women, but most of them came from my lovin’ daddy. And I got other scars that I can’t show you here.” He tucked his shirt into his trousers again. “So I ran away from home when I was fourteen,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know how I made it, but I made it, struggling up like that little old dandelion through a crack in the rock. And I won’t lie to you—I’ve known a lot of women. But I’ve never been much of your Don Juan, Clark Gable type of loverboy. I never told a woman that I loved her. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to be tied down, or fenced in, like the song goes. I was scared. I was scared of love. To me, love was like the Big Rock Candy Mountain—there just couldn’t be such a thing. Love was like the God my daddy talked about—it didn’t exist, not if someone like my daddy had been made God’s messenger on earth. Anyone who talked about love was worse than a Goddamned fool. He was a Goddamned liar. One thing I did know, though. I knew that everybody sooner or later needs somebody else. Didn’t want to admit I knew it, but I always knew it, knew I was always looking for someone to need—didn’t know who it was, or where that person would turn up. Maybe needing somebody is even more important than loving somebody—could that be? And then on
e day, toolin’ down the interstate in my ’Vette, I see this girl with her thumb up. It was her thumb up that got to me first. Her thumb was up, and so was her chin. In fact, everything about her looked up to me. She had the name of some fairy-tale Russian queen, and I thought right away maybe this is the one I’ve been looking for, looking to need. I still don’t trust love, but I trust need. Seems like you and I have both been alone too long, is what I’m trying to say. Seems like you and I met, and flowed together just right, like those two rivers down there. If you get me, maybe you won’t get much, but you’ll get a man who needs you. Is that enough?” He held out his arms. “You need somebody. I need somebody. Maybe it’s you and me,” he said.

  “Oh, Skipper, I love you so. Make love to me, Skipper. Now.”

  He held her at arm’s length. “I told you I’d like to fox you up,” he said. “I still would, and I’m going to—but only if you marry me. Because you’re not like other girls. You’re the kind of girl I want to fox up as my wife, and that makes you kind of special, see? But believe me, when I fox you up, it won’t be something that either of us is going to forget real soon. So come with me. I don’t care where we’re going, so long as it’s somewhere.” She felt his arms fold around her shoulders, and he kissed her then, and she heard herself whispering, “Need … need,” through her parted lips, and she found that she was weeping, weeping with both joy and terror.

  “Dear Daddy,” she wrote:

  A friend of mine and I are going away on a trip, and I may not be back for a fairly long time. I hope you won’t mind my doing this, but it has seemed to me for some time that, with Mother gone, I am more a hindrance than a help to you here. And you have so much on your mind right now that I’m sure you’ll really be glad not to have me underfoot anymore, as just another one of your worries. I think that what I have decided to do is really the best thing for our family at this time.…