Borderlands 3

by Thomas F. Monteleone (Ed. )

  Finally, as Joe was getting ready to leave, she simply informed him, "Joe, you won't forget to make a deposit in the bank, in my account?"

  Give him credit, he didn't complain, he didn't raise his eyes, he just said, "How much?" and she said the first figure which popped into her mind, which was "two thousand" and he nodded. Which was very nice so she went over and gave him a kiss and a hug and of course he at once started getting ideas and of course Beth knew how to handle him and gave him a little pat and sent him off to work. So that was that and that was alright.

  Well, two thousand dollars, to a child that is all the money in the world, but, after all, to an adult used to a moderate but respectable standard of living, what is two thousand dollars? Two thousand dollars is nothing. It would have been a perfect day if Beth hadn't taken pains to add up the cost of the few absolutely essential little accessories which it had been necessary to purchase for the sports car, and thus observed that the two thousand dollars was barely adequate to cover her expenditures. This is what is meant by maturity, a child imagines that two thousand dollars will last forever and is angry if it doesn't, but to a mature person the matter is otherwise.

  Nevertheless this matter must have rested on Beth's mind because she had exactly the same sort of dream again; but whereas before in the funny dream Joe had been lying on his side, now he was lying on his back. His pajamas seemed made out of paper money and his legs and arms sticking out seemed made out of checks and it seemed as though his hands and feet were made out of gold coins, and his head too, except that his hair was money orders and his nails were silver coins. It sounds crazy but it was really the most realistic thing imaginable! Like—here's a tiny little detail which stuck in Beth's mind, just for an example—as she tiptoed over and in her dream stood looking down at Joe it seemed as though one of his eyes was just a little bit open the way it sometimes is with a person, even though he's asleep, and it seemed as though the eyeball was gleaming under the eye-lid. Actually, of course it was only an edge of a silver coin shining underneath a gold coin—but so real!

  Well, it was all so silly that Beth, in her dream, could hardly help laughing but, thinking to herself that "business is business", she helped herself quickly to some money, only this time she observed what she was doing in greater particulars and this time she took $5,000. She wondered, where should she put it this time, and the thought occurred to her, why not put it in the toes of one of the new shoes in her closet? And she glanced at Joe while she was crouching by the closet, but his pajama-top just kept on rising and falling just as if it was really a man breathing and not a pile of money in the shape of a man. Then she went back to bed and fell asleep.

  Sure enough, next morning the shoes weren't in their usual neat lines but do you think that any money was in them? Not on your life! Beth had this idea again, just seemed to feel it; he'd been awake the entire time and looking at her and after she had fallen asleep he'd gotten up and taken the money! Oh, she was burned up! But... after all... what could she do? Face him with the facts? He'd deny it, of course he would; who was it who said, "If you find an honest man, breed him"? Some joke. So she took the only sensible action, she thought, Well, Beth, so you have a $5000 line of credit with your husband, so to speak, and she restricted her next credit purchases to that amount, and not for any inducement could she have been persuaded to exceed that sum.

  And despite Joe's sneaky behavior in taking her money, let it be said to his credit that Joe did not complain about these bills, he merely paid them all in full for the new things, the envy of all her friends and family; not only because it was no more than right, but because it was his duty. The wife keeps the house and the husband pays for it. That is what is meant by equality.

  Anyway to avoid repetition, this same scene or variations on this or similar scenes, continued. Why Joe Braidel had to play this silly little game, Beth could not imagine; why he didn't simply say, I understand that there is an inflation, that I am married to a polished and sophisticated woman used to a certain standard of living which must on no account and under no circumstances be diminished. So therefore I am raising your allowance and increasing the household money, I am doubling and tripling both of them—why Joe did not simply say and do this, who indeed can tell? He didn't have the money? He did have the money, if he didn't have the money could Beth have spent it? But there you are, men are just like children, so immature, they have to play these games all the time in order to bolster their infantile egos. So Beth simply shrugged. If Joe wanted to play these foolish games in the world of dreams, well, go ahead. Some wives would have made scenes, but that is not Beth's way, another reason why she is so widely admired and envied.

  Which is more than can be said for some people.

  After Beth realized that her pent-up talents for creativity were now to have freer play and that Joe wasn't going to make silly fusses, well, for one thing, she had the entire house redecorated. To show how inconsiderate some people are, who showed up then but Joe's parents, sneaking and peeping nosily asking how much it was all going to cost and other matters none of their damned business. And then had the nerve to ask if she didn't think that Joe wasn't spending too much money.

  "No, I certainly do not," was Beth's crisp answer.

  And she let them know that she was not the kind of wife who interfered with her husband's desires.

  However, the matter preyed upon her mind to such an extent that as soon as the redecorating was finished and completed, she simply had to yield to her fatigue, and went to the Bahamas for a month.

  Upon her return, of course, needless to say that Joe was overjoyed having her back, he was really very sweet. But once the novelty had worn off, who could say where things would be? In fact, so little had Joe gained in maturity, no sooner had he fallen asleep and was dead to the world, when Beth observed that once again he was indulging herself in the selfsame dream fantasy as before, once again he was imagining that he had turned into a big pile of money. Though one or two signs indicated that things were not quite as before. Although the outlines of this so called "body" in the bed were Joe's outlines, and the "body", in fact the corpus delectus, was composed of such things as treasury notes, government bonds, federal reserve notes, checks, money orders, and silver and gold coins; yet the pile was of lesser bulk. So Beth merely extracted the money needed to cover accumulated bills and perhaps an equal amount, or maybe even just a bit more to stay on the safe-side, as a contingency. And she put it all in the upper left-hand drawer of her vanity.

  Feeling much, much better after this, and feeling fully able to cope with the problems of every day existence, she had now to face the fact that one reason why her husband seemed so restless and at the same time listless at home was that it still contained almost of all the same old junk which had come with them when they'd moved, more or less. So regardless of the toll which such exertions had always taken, Beth fearlessly began to tackle this next problem. Who could deny, therefore, that many of the obsolete items anyway, did not fit in with the houses brave new decor. The old order must change, or something like that.

  But Joe's new attitude struck her like a thunderbolt, to wit; he informed her that he'd been advised on medical grounds to stop work, leave home and to enter a small private hospital for what was obliquely termed "observation"! He added, as though it mattered, that his parents agreed. His parents! His mother, he meant! No wonder Joe was showing the strain.

  But Beth had to steel herself on these points, though her heart ached, because it would not only have been unfair to her, it would have been unfair to him. Imagine what a thing it would be if she had allowed a man of his age to begin yielding to his mother, for heaven's sake! A man's duty wasn't to his mother, was it? Of course not, ask any psychologist; a man's duty, first, last and foremost, is to his wife. After all, was it for herself that Beth wanted new furniture and so on? Don't be ridiculous. But the fact is that she wanted it and so it was his duty to provide the wherewithal. When a wife wants something she has a right
to have it, a man assumes this responsibility at marriage. It is his duty to care for his wife in all things and, if not, then that's his fault, and if it's his fault, than obviously it's not her fault.

  And another thing, suppose Joe were to play this game of his about turning into a pile of money at night, right there in the hospital. How would it look to the doctors and the nurses? How? To have his ego destroyed in this manner by strangers? And therefore she couldn't consent. Why should strangers be plucking and pulling at him while he was in that condition? It would be simple robbery, because who could check up on them?

  No!

  "I didn't marry a man who's in the hospital," she reminds him. "I want a husband who's here at home when I need him," she says. "All the doctors want is your money; who owns that small private hospital? The doctors," she says, no longer able to control her emotions and, unlike her usual self, talking in a somewhat loud voice. "I'm the one who should be in the hospital, I'm the one who has the worry and the concern and aggravation. Sickness is for old men and I didn't marry an old man!" Sometimes it's necessary to be blunt. Sometimes you just have to tell them about it and hammer it home. "You'd better wake up before it's too late," Beth reminds him, aghast to realize that she is practically shouting—

  —but, after all, it's not her fault—

  And what does Joe do then? Sit there with tears crawling down his face! How weak he is, she thinks, how weak he is. Beth is obliged to take control and for his own good make him admit she is right and he is wrong. "Yes," he says. "Yes, yes... yes..." And she gets him up to bed and brings him his medicine and brings him warm milk and she tucks him in and sits on the edge of the bed until she is ready to drop and finally he falls asleep. After all, what is a wife for?

  However, Beth was gaining in maturity and ceasing to engage in projecting infantile fantasies. She was still dreaming that when asleep Joe turned to a pile of money, only with her decreased interest in the game, it was really not a pile any longer, it was just an outline on the bed. One layer of paper money and underneath were make-believe bones of gold coins. Beth stood there very thoughtfully. Just suppose that Joe did something unwise, such as spending the night somewhere else at a time when he was still under this delusion? This far-out possibility continued to prey upon her awareness, and it seemed that her entire life was just one worry after another. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair.

  So Beth, with a sigh she was unable to conceal, gathered all the money from the bed, every single bit of it, and she put it in her safety-box. However, at the last minute, with a shrug and a slight smile, because no one has a keener sense of humor than Beth, she withheld the tiniest coin, a two-dollar gold piece no bigger than a fingernail, and put it back on the bed. And then, unable to keep her eyes open any longer, she yawned and stretched... but no one was there to appreciate her exhaustion.

  And so there you are. People talk so easily about tragedy and heartache, but do they even know what the words mean? Joan Raisen can tell you that people don't even know what they are talking about, and so can Joan Kaye. Between themselves they speak in whispers, they think that Beth can't hear them, but she hears them all right, even though she is under very heavy sedation, because it is a thing of the past that a woman should be expected to go through an ordeal of this sort without the protecting miracles of modern scientific medicine. Although she hears what they are whispering, nevertheless she doesn't mind, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that she get through this very difficult period without breaking down. They are protecting her, she doesn't need to see other people at a time like this; what good would it do Beth? —old Mrs. Braidel, with her screaming and carrying on, as though she didn't have other children, and even grandchildren, and what is so much more important, she still has her own husband.

  And not only her, the mother-in-law, but this horrible old man, Harry Goodworth, and an insurance-man is supposed to be a comfort to you at a time like this. But do you call this a comfort, the way he kept sneering and intimidating as though it was in some way Beth's fault that her husband was a mere shadow of himself, mere skin and bones so to speak, when he passed away?—as though it were Beth's fault somehow that it turned out that Joe had been milking his business and taking everything out of it and putting nothing back into it and how he had borrowed, borrowed, borrowed on the business and on the house and on the insurance policies and who knows for what? Who knows for what? Whether he was gambling or whether he was keeping a woman or whether he was taking drugs—until who knows what would be left for Beth if she hadn't been able to put aside a little something, and if she didn't have her jewelry and her this and that and a few other things? No.

  No. Nobody needs old Goodworth hanging around and slandering the living and the dead. However, Beth is after all a young woman, she still has her good looks and her good friends, and they will look out for her. They will see to it that she has a good lawyer, and if Joe's family thinks for one moment—

  —but her friends don't want to raise their voices—Beth will find someone else. There are lots of good men who go along thinking that they will never get married but you would be surprised, a young widow with no children hanging around her neck—well, well, time enough to discuss that afterwards. As for Joe, who would have thought of it, so deceitful, so irresponsible and after everything she did for him... well, no doubt he had his purpose to fulfill in the world before he left it; that's what the greatest philosophers all say and we have to believe them.

  The Brotherhood by John Alfred Taylor

  I've seen John Taylor's work sporadically over the years in the occasional magazine and most often in the various volumes of Karl Wagner's Year's Best anthologies. His work is marked by a sense of literary decadence that is both charming and disquieting, and always informed by an intellect of great scope. John teaches at Washington Jefferson College in Pennsylvania and is not afraid to let his scholarship elevate his fiction. He has sent me many fine stories for the Borderlands series that didn't cut it for various reasons, but I always knew it was just a matter of time before he hit me between the eyes. And then "The Brotherhood" came rollicking into my post office box...

  "On your bellies, jarheads!"

  Don Broca dropped with the other pledges, barely taking the shock on his knees before he straightened out flat on the indoor-outdoor carpet. The carpet smelled of dust and old vomit.

  He'd heard a grunt of pain to his right, and now Sam seemed to be snoring with every breath.

  "On your feet!"

  As he leaped up Don glanced sideways, saw Sam with head bent, bleeding from his nose, the front of his t-shirt already crimson.

  "What are you looking at, faggot?" screamed Walker, the brother in charge. "Look straight ahead—"

  Don realized Walker was addressing him. "Look at me, dipshit! Or we serve your balls for prairie oysters."

  Walker went on chewing Don out till his face turned purple, finally moderating his invective enough to explain: "Don't any of you worry about each other, just worry about yourself, because you're gonna need to—

  "So down on your bellies this instant!"

  Crash. "Now up, up, up, jarheads."

  When Don jerked up he saw Sam still on the floor, but stared straight ahead. Walker noticed the empty space, glanced down, nodded silently, and a brother came up from behind and bent over Sam. "OK you dorks—Jumping jacks. One-two, one-two, one-two—"

  A second brother came up on the other side of Sam and helped the first half-drag, half-carry him away.

  ▼

  When they were finally set free Don and another pledge walked Sam back to Gardner Hall. Sam was a little dizzy, and still had one nostril plugged with a wad of toilet paper, but tried to see the brighter side, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going, right?"

  Though Don had the bottom bunk, he wasn't going to make Sam climb, even if he bled on the sheets. Sam started to snore like a bucksaw the moment he hit Don's rack: it was going to be a great night, a real great night.

  D
on went into the bathroom to piss.

  Afterwards he looked in the mirror, and wondered why he was pledging Alpha Pi Omega. How had Sam talked him into it? Or had he talked Sam into it? Don was too tired to remember—the rings under his eyes had rings under them.

  They'd agreed Alpha was the boss fraternity on campus, dominating the Greek Council. Off campus too, because the alumni always came back, always stuck together, always got the younger brothers jobs. And Sigma Gamma ("Smegma Gummy") was full of weenies, the jocks in Beta Delta Phi were second-stringers.

  But was Alpha worth this?

  In spite of the anti-hazing rule, the other frats gave their pledges rough times: the Sigma Gamma pledges counted cadence as they jogged, the jocks in Bubba Felta Thigh couldn't bathe and wore burlap undervests.

  Alpha was tougher. Don knew the "jarhead" business and the pledge haircuts and brutal physical training came from the Second Founder, real name Jack Martin, because in the tradition talks he'd heard much more about the Second Founder than about the First Founders of the last century. Martin had been an ex-Marine, flying for the CIA in Guatemala in 1954 and, after the success of the coup, had hung around long enough to bring a great secret out of the jungle. Afterwards he'd decided to get an education, coming to Frobisher on the Korean GI Bill to share his secret with his fraternity brothers. The secret was what made Alpha special.

  It had to be worth the agony. Because even though the brothers never talked about it, you could always sense something unspoken, something that gave them an edge.

  Don went back and climbed up into his roommate's bunk, but couldn't get to sleep for a long time, turning over repeatedly to find a more comfortable position for his aching shoulders and thighs while Sam snored thickly below.

  "Relax jarhead," Parisi said. "We're just going to have a little talk after you look at a few educational pictures."