by Paul Flower
“Hello?” Elvis said into the phone.
“Thought you’d be home by now—hoped it anyway,” Donnel said. “Sure could use a barley pop, sure could use one burly barley pop, yessiree sir. Hear about Jubal Brown? That’s one white boy won’t be talking no trash for awhile.”
“Hi Elvis, is ummm... Lavern there?” The voice on the phone was nervous and soft; it sounded like one of Lavern’s friends. Elvis couldn’t place her.
“Yeah,” Elvis said.
“Got the shinola kicked right out of him. People are talking about it all over town,” Donnel said.
“I speak to her?”
“Won’t be able to talk or eat or nothin’ for a month. Wired his jaw shut,” Donnel said. “You hear about that?”
“Yes,” Elvis said, eyes on Donnel.
“Okay, thanks,” the woman answered.
“No. No. Not you.”
“What’s that Elvis? Elvis, the king. What’s that my man, the king of Bonner Wire?”
“Sorry, she’s umm... busy right now.” Elvis hung up. He walked to the open door, intending to close it. Instead, he stood in the cool fall air, facing outside. A light flicked on in the window of a neighbor’s house. A car started. A dog barked. The Mexican guy swore loudly, in Mexican.
Elvis looked back over his shoulder. Lavern had disappeared, probably into the bathroom. There was a dark spot on the floor where she’d made the mess. He breathed deeply and turned back to face outside, thinking the outside air was a welcome break from the polish and remover stink. He pictured himself running down the street, out of the subdivision and away from here, leaving Donnel and Lavern to themselves and this lousy town. Then he remembered what the cop had said about sticking around.
Beer bottles clanked as Donnel swung open the refrigerator. They clanked again as the door swung shut. Pshhtt—that would be Donnel twisting off the cap. Clink—that would be the cap being thrown into the sink. Donnel always threw it there because he knew it made Lavern mad.
“Hey, my man,” Donnel said loudly, like he was Elvis’ best buddy and not the man who was stealing his woman. “How ‘bout closing the barn door? It’s getting chilly.”
Elvis stepped back inside and swung the door shut behind him. Lavern was back in the room, standing next to Donnel, staring up at him as if she was waiting for him to say something. Donnel looked at Elvis and then stared down at her. There was an awkward, strained moment of nothing and everything. The smell of the remover and polish was sweet and made Elvis a little woozy. Slowly, carefully, Donnel shook his head. Lavern frowned and pouted and gave him a quick, hard nod.
Donnel held her stare long enough to make Elvis feel sick, then his huge shoulders sagged. He and Lavern turned and looked at Elvis. Elvis couldn’t breathe. Questions ping-ponged inside his skull.
Donnel had a huge, football-player body—he probably would have been all state in high school, but his grades had gone south their senior year—and a chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed little kid face. His face was very expressive, their Freshman English teacher, Mrs. Carlton, had said. Mrs. Carlton had said it because it was true and because she wanted Donnel to try out for one of the plays she directed. Donnel had never wanted anything to do with the plays. He thought plays were for fruitcakes. Standing there, watching Donnel, Elvis couldn’t help but hear Mrs. Carlton’s voice. She’d scolded him good for using the word “fruitcakes,” and Elvis had agreed with her. Donnel wasn’t nice, talking that way.
“Hey, dude,” Donnel said nervously, that face expressing, to Elvis, a world of worry and trouble. “Me and Lavern ah, well, let’s just say I got to borrow your old lady just for a little while. We, um, got to run an errand.”
Yeah, I bet, Elvis thought. He couldn’t believe they were doing this.
“Yeah, baby, we, well, it’s a surprise, okay?” Lavern joined in. She touched Donnel’s big, meaty, ex-football-guy arm. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Trailing after them like a loyal dog, Elvis found himself again in the doorway. His feet were nailed to the floor by the blood rushing from his heart. For the first time in years, he thought about the three of them back in elementary school. They had sat together with the rest of the class on that big dusty rug in the middle of the room. Mrs. Hillburg had read to them. Donnel always sat close to an edge of the rug. He’d probe around under the rug, one knee and one side of his big butt cocked up in the air, as he stared straight ahead at Mrs. Hillburg. Donnel would nod his head and use that expressive face of his to say, “Oh my, yes, Trusty the tugboat is in trouble,” and “The little engine can do it, I just know he can.” All the while, he’d be probing, probing, probing with those sweaty chubby fingers. Lavern’d shake all over, trying to smother a giggle, as Donnel finally pried a dustbunny free. Like Donnel, Lavern was chubby even back then, chubby enough for the back of her pants to be open a little when she sat on the floor like that. Donnel would tuck the ball of dust back there. Then the two of them would look like they were going to explode with laughter, Lavern’s face going pink, her brown eyes dancing. She’d have to put her head down so Mrs. Hillburg couldn’t see. Her hair, which was dark and shiny—it hadn’t been dyed red yet—would fall forward over her face.
Elvis would sit there and try to ignore them. He’d feel jealous, sure, but what could he do about it? Nothing. So he’d sit and watch the light play with Lavern’s hair. And he’d try to get close enough to smell her; he loved the way she smelled like watermelon perfume, Zest soap and Butterfinger candy bars. To him, today, she still did smell that way. Or it was a combination of good, fun, happy smells that was pretty close to watermelon perfume, Zest soap and Butterfinger candybars.
There they were, out at the street. Donnel opened the passenger door of his rusty truck. Lavern got in and Donnel slammed the door. Elvis watched as his best buddy crossed around to the driver’s side. Donnel stopped and looked at Elvis across the sad excuse for a lawn. To Elvis, Donnel was like a kid on his first date. He was wearing his best flannel shirt, jeans and jean jacket and his breath was pumping out in little white bursts. Lavern was looking straight ahead. Donnel hung his head and then opened the door and got in.
Elvis heard something—a humming—somewhere in his head.
Donnel pumped the gas pedal hard, the way he always did; Elvis heard it thump two times before Donnel hit the ignition. The truck wubble wubble wubbled then found its voice. Elvis stared as his friend jammed the shift lever into gear and lifted off the clutch. The truck nodded once and stalled. Donnel pumped the gas again and cranked the ignition. He ducked down so Elvis could see his face through Lavern’s window, waved, and grinned. Suddenly, the truck lurched forward, the rear end shimmying. Donnel gave it the gas. They were gone.
Elvis turned slowly, walked back into the house, closed the door. He leaned against it, breathing hard, feeling his heart slamming doors in his chest. Numbly, he walked to the kitchen counter and picked up Donnel’s open beer. He paused, fighting back the urge to put the thing down, run for his car and go after them.
He closed his eyes and started drinking slowly, then picked up speed. He downed the beer, belched, and slammed the empty on the counter. She never liked it when he chugged beer. Elvis belched again, a long low one. She’d hate that too, he figured.
He walked slowly, woodenly, around the bar and into the living room. He fell, face-down, on the couch. It felt like walls were crumbling inside of him. He hadn’t cried in forever. But now, again, the tears rushed forward; this time, for the first time, Elvis didn’t hold them back. “Oh, Lavern,” he mumbled. “Help me baby. Help me.”
****
The old truck bellowed down the road toward town. Behind the wheel, Donnel leaned forward, as though that would get them to the hospital and Jesse faster.
“Is he following us?” Lavern said softly.
Donnel glanced in the rear-view mirror at the empty road behind him. “No—no one back
there at all.” He shook his head, backed off the gas and settled back in the seat. “What exactly are we doing? We going to keep going along with this Jesse, that it?”
She thought, took a deep breath and said, “Donnel, listen to me.” Her voice wobbled. “Something awful did happen when we was little. It happened to his daddy. It was something so bad, he could never tell me about it. I was there, Donnel. Not for what happened. But after. He came to me, Elvis did. He was a mess. But I don’t know what happened. You got to believe that,” she said. “I never knowed what it was, and I still don’t. We don’t talk about it. He’s either forgot it on purpose or he just don’t remember or... I don’t know.” She bit her lip as a tear rolled down one cheek. Glancing her way, Donnel reached for her shoulder and she brushed his hand away. “There’s a chance, just a chance, and I hope I’m wrong, that what Jesse’s telling us is true. In that case, well...” Lavern’s voice trailed off as she looked out at the passing scenery.
Donnel’s voice had an edge. “Look, you know I didn’t know his family much. I don’t know nothing about his dad or a brother or nothing, but I tell you this, he can’t, won’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, hasn’t, will not never no way hurt no one. It’s just not in the man. Elvis, he’s the King. He’s the King of Mellow. He’s my man. Always has been. Always will be too, I tell you that.”
There was another long silence. Lavern noticed for the first time that Donnel had gotten the old 8-track player working in the truck. One of his Parliament/Funkadelic tapes was playing softly, the funky beat barely audible above the rattle of the truck. She turned it up and allowed herself a small grin.
A cement truck lumbered toward them in the other lane and roared past. Lavern let the noise subside, then turned down the eight-track player. “Jena Lamley, she told me once she saw this thing on Oprah. It was about people who were, like, abused as kids. They’d ‘repressed’ what happened, she said—same thing Jesse called it. Tara Wickers saw this, too. So I did some checking on the Internet. Repression is a real deal, Donnel. Things happen when they’re young, and people can’t handle it emotionally or whatever, and they just shut it away in a room in their brains. Now a lot of these people all eventually remember. It takes something else—some real strong emotional thing, a crisis or, like, a transition in their, like, lives—to push them back to remembering it.”
Donnel chewed on this for a moment. He glanced at her. “So we’re gonna screw with the man’s mind ‘cuz you don’t trust him.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well, here’s what I’m saying. I’m saying let’s just ask him what happened.”
Lavern sighed. “We can’t just ask him.”
“Yes, we can.”
“No, no, Donnel. The people I read about say it’s better to give them some sort of nudge and then let him take it from there.”
“You sound like the one making shit up now.”
“Donnel, he’s got to put it together on his own. If we ask him about it, he’ll just shut down.”
“Oh, so you’re an expert on this thing now?”
“No,” she said softly. “I just think it makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense. None of it.”
“Donnel, I know.”
Donnel stared off down the road. Finally, he grunted. “This just isn’t right.”
“It isn’t. I know. But,” Lavern began to cry. “I love him, Donnel.”
Eyes still on the road, Donnel reached out a big hand and squeezed Lavern’s shoulder. “I know. I know,” he said. “I do too.”
They both watched the scenery, each chewing the thing over. Finally, Donnel turned up the volume on the eight-track. “See I got the tape to work? The Clones of Doctor Funkenstein. It’s a classic. Maybe that’s what we need. Pipe this into his head and all the ghosts come out his ears. Voodoo, funken-style.”
“Pull off the road a second,” she said suddenly.
“Why?”
“Just do it,” she said, slamming her fist on the dashboard. Donnel braked fast and eased the truck off onto the gravel shoulder.
Lavern sat up, looking through the windshield, a scowl on her face. He followed her gaze across a deep ditch, to the cornfield that bordered the road. The corn had been harvested; only nubs of the stalks remained. “You ‘member back in high school or whenever, we used to drag race along here?” Lavern said, her voice low. “One guy, Skinky Thomas I think it was, wiped out...”
“It was a ‘69 ‘Cuda. And he walked away—not a scratch.”
“Yeah, so you and Elvis did the same thing with that old Chevy Nova. You did it on purpose, just to see if you could take the ditch and not get hurt.”
“Yeah, we did it too, did it perfect, except for ‘bout getting knocked cold when my head hit the roof.” Donnel stopped. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Again, she studied the field. “Just do what I say, baby. This might work. Trust me. Just trust me.”
Donnel looked at her and frowned.
“Don’t sound like I got much choice,” he said.
Chapter Nine
The evening had left a scum in his mouth. But his toothbrush wasn’t to be found. Neither was his mouthwash. Damn it.
Damn.
It.
Jesse slammed the door of the bathroom cupboard. Nothing was where it should be. What was wrong with him? Where was the toilet paper? Couldn’t a half-drunk, half-stoned brain doctor take a crap in his own house?
A thin sliver of lucid thought broke through the fog in his head. He hadn’t unpacked.
He found the toiletries, brushed his teeth, washed his face, relieved himself, then fell into bed.
****
He kept floating in and out of what seemed to be dreams. If they were dreams and were not, as he worried, disjointed movies of his life being projected on the ceiling, they were vibrant, high-color dreams, Dolby-enhanced-stereo-sound dreams. He could hear, smell and feel. The water was hot on his skin. In fact, the water was so hot it made him cringe. Jesse had to squint his eyes against the pain as he started scrubbing. He rolled over in bed, and heard, saw, felt himself scrub everything, every part of himself, four times. Scrub, two, three, four, he murmured, scrub, two, three, four. When he was finished, he let the water out, refilled the tub and started again.
He heard the slap slap slap of bare feet running down the hall past the bathroom door to the kitchen. There was a pause, then the sound, muffled, of Elvis, the boy Elvis, throwing up.
Jesse had to swallow hard.
Still in the kitchen, boy Elvis started crying.
Scrub two, three, four.
“You’re lucky you made it to the sink, little mister. That’ll teach you to get overheated and gulp water like a dog.” Mom’s voice, high and nasal, echoed down the hallway with the country music from her radio. “Get upstairs now and get in your bed.”
Scrub, two, three, four.
“Can I please have one more drink?” Elvis pleaded.
Mom cackled. “What’s wrong with you?” Jesse shuddered involuntarily at the sound as she hit Elvis. “You drink enough water to make you upchuck, now you want more?”
“I just want to rinse my mouth out.”
She hit him again.
Jesse kept counting as he scoured his skin, trying to ignore the sound of Elvis running from the kitchen, his feet thump, thump, thumping now, growing louder as he passed the bathroom door, rolling like thunder as he hurtled up the stairs over Jesse’s head, then fading down the hall to their room. The door slammed.
A faucet squeaked in the kitchen; he heard the water run briefly, then another squeak as Mom turned off the water. On the radio, Conway Twitty sang about some woman who’d done him wrong. Jesse kept on scrubbing, head down, the sequence throbbing inside his head.
He looked up to see Mom peeking through the partially ope
n door. He dropped the wash cloth and soap and slid down into the scummy water, covering himself.
“Don’t worry, I can’t see nothing..”
Jesse stayed low in the water anyway, his hands still covering his crotch.
“I’m going to be upstairs talking to your brother for awhile. It’s time to set him straight on some things. You take your time.”
She was gone.
Jesse slid to an upright position, fumbled underwater for the washcloth and soap, and resumed his washing. Scrub, two, three, four.
He could hear Mom yelling at Elvis to let her in, the door of the bedroom opening and closing, then voices, so low you couldn’t hear them. Jesse pictured her on the edge of Elvis’ bed, talking in a soft sing-song voice.
Scrub, two, three, four.
Scrub, two, three, four.
Scrub, two, three, four.
Jesse lost track of time. The music on the radio and Mom upstairs with Elvis, both were forgotten. His world became the soap, the water and the soothing, cleansing power of the washcloth.
The shadows in the cramped, narrow bathroom grew long yet he kept at it, his mind clear and focused on his chest, then his stomach, his right shoulder and left. From there, he scrubbed steadily downward until he’d reached his knees. He arched his back to get at his butt, then he plopped back down and finished, all the way to his legs, ankles and feet. Then he started over.
His skin became pink, then bright red and sore. Some of the mosquito bites and scratches tore open and bled. Still, the washcloth kept at it, cleansing and cleansing, ignoring the part of him that sensed this was wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing it quite this much.
Scrub. Please no. Please no. Please no.
Scrub. Please no. Please no. Please no.
“You fall in in there?”
This time, Mom’s face was shadowy. With a sinking feeling, Jesse realized it was getting late. The water had gotten cool, and it was pink from his blood, yet he still didn’t feel completely clean.
