Women Drinking Benedictine

by Sharon Dilworth

  “That’s ’cause he falls in love with it.”

  “It’s got to be something like that.” Their voices echo over the open fields. The guy with the turkey is right behind us. He can hear what they’re saying about him.

  “Is that what it is?” one of them shouts. “Are you in love with your bird?”

  “Just forgot to kill her,” the guys says in his own defense. “I just forgot to do it until right now.”

  This cracks everyone up, including Pete and me.

  Hunter’s is full. Most everyone is standing around the dance floor with their turkeys. There are plenty of empty tables on one side of the bar. I tell Pete I have to go to the bathroom. I’ve had to go since we left the last bar. He says he’ll get us a table.

  Claire is waiting for me when I walk out of the stall. She has washed the dirt off her face, but her sweater is stained with large brown-green circles. Her elbow is cut but clean and she has matching dirt circles on the knees of her pants. She is talking, but with the sound of the toilet flushing, I don’t hear what she’s saying.

  “Listen,” she says and points her finger at me. “I want to talk to you about the way you treat Evan,” she says. Her makeup has faded, making her look younger. Her sentences are clear, her words not slurred, though it takes me several minutes to understand what it is that she wants. “You don’t treat him very good. Not very good at all.”

  “I don’t?” I am surprised by her accusation, but do not deny it.

  “Not at all,” she moves closer. I am trapped in the corner, where the smell of industrial cleaning solution is strong. “He’s a real sweetheart. He is always saying nice things and you don’t care about him.”

  “I think you’re being melodramatic, Claire.” I try to step away from her, but she puts her arms on either side of my shoulders, caging me in further. Guys have been buying her drinks all afternoon, and I imagine she’s a bit out of it.

  “You better start appreciating him a whole lot more than you do.”

  “I appreciate him just fine.” I push away her arms to break free of her trap.

  Our conversation is so strange, even for Claire, that I don’t take her seriously until I go out to the table and find Pete sitting there alone.

  I assume Evan is in the bathroom. The dance floor is packed with people and turkeys. The women hold them like babies, cradled in their arms, while the men hold them by their necks, their bodies dragging on the wood floor. The bar smells of the dead birds. It’s a rotting smell, nothing at all like Thanksgiving.

  “Evan left,” Pete tells me.

  “He left?” I ask. I give the bar a quick search as if I don’t believe him. “Why? Why’d he leave?”

  “He said he was tired,” Pete tells me. “He wasn’t in the mood for all this.”

  “How’s he going to get home?” I didn’t think Pete would lend his truck to Evan. Not that they’re not buddies, but Pete wouldn’t leave us stranded out in Frenchtown. It’s not like we could call a cab or hop on a bus.

  “Randy Coyne didn’t make it into the final competition,” Pete says. “He was eliminated in round two. Evan drove back with him.” I can tell Pete is uncomfortable having this conversation. He’s someone involved in something he didn’t want to be. Pete stays out of other people’s business.

  “Randy Coyne?” I ask, and though Pete nods, I ask again. “Evan drove back to town with Randy Coyne?” It’s odd that Evan would leave like that, even for the kind of dark mood he was in. He has never done something like this and I find it odder still that he would choose to ride home with Randy Coyne, who is one of the most famous locals around. Everyone can tell stories about him, even those of us who don’t participate in gossip and don’t listen for it. We all know that he has been blamed for every accident in town, even the burning of the Meadville Press office when there were four witnesses who swear that he was out at camp deer hunting. They did convict him of one robbery. He robbed the town bakery on its last day of business, three hours before it closed for good. The owner said that Randy didn’t even have a gun. He simply asked for the money—all twenty-eight dollars and fifteen cents. The guy handed it over to Randy because, he said, he didn’t think there was any reason to fight. Randy spent a month or two in the Crawford County jail. Evan’s not the kind of person to drive home with someone like that. This much I know about Evan.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I know Pete can’t answer these questions, but I want somebody to tell me what’s going on. “I mean, was Evan upset about something?”

  “I don’t know,” Pete shrugs, then asks if I want to play a game of pool. The tables at Hunter’s are usually crowded. They get serious players out there, but today, because of the contest, because there’s more money at stake in turkeys, both tables are empty.

  “Is Evan mad at me?”

  Pete tells me he doesn’t know.

  “Would he tell you if he was?” I pick up a pool stick and rub rosin on the tip. It occurs to me that I sound an awful lot like Claire, and this bothers me, but I have to find out what’s wrong.

  “Who knows?” Pete shrugs.

  “Does he talk to you about things like this?” I ask, insisting that I get an answer.

  Pete breaks and the balls scatter to the sides of the table. The seven ball rolls into the corner pocket and he shoots again. I don’t look to see if he makes the shot. I don’t care if he cheats.

  Claire walks up to us and someone follows right on her heels. I don’t recognize him. I figure she’s going to introduce him to Pete. It would seem fitting to end the day by letting her new boyfriend meet her old boyfriend.

  “Evan’s the only decent single man left in Meadville,” Claire says, and again I’m so surprised by what she’s saying that I don’t register her remark. For a minute, I forget that I am Evan’s girlfriend, but then remember and tell her that he’s not so single.

  “He is as far as I’m concerned.” Claire moves in closer, and right then her teeth whistle. Pete smiles at the way she’s trying to be so serious about everything and still sounding like a kid’s toy.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask. “What did Evan tell you?” I know she knows something I don’t. I look to Pete to see if he is in on it, too, but he’s concentrating on his shot, trying deliberately to stay out of our argument.

  “He said he was planning on breaking it off with you,” she tells me loud and clear. This time there is no whistle. “He said there was nothing interesting about the two of you together.”

  The guy behind Claire tells us that he’s going to the bar. He wants to know if we want anything. “A beer, maybe some whiskey?” he offers.

  “We’re leaving,” Claire turns slightly as if just remembering him. “You promised to give me a ride back to town anytime I wanted it, and I’m calling it quits on this place right now.”

  The guy seems unconcerned if they stay or go.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to Evan’s tonight,” Claire tells me. “I don’t do things behind other people’s backs. I’m not sneaky or underhanded. I told Evan I wanted to come over, and he said that was fine with him. He said he’d like that just fine.”

  “He said that?” I ask and I put it all together and realize that Evan’s leaving was his way of breaking it off with me.

  Pete is quiet, not saying anything, not acting surprised, so I know that Evan must have told him that he wanted to let things cool between us.

  “That’s what he said,” Claire says. “I promise you. I’m not making any of it up. I’m not a cheat. He said those things and I have to go now.” She looks at her watch, and I wonder if she timed herself in finding a new boyfriend. Has she set a new record? Has she at least beaten her own best time?

  Pete and I are quiet on the car ride home. The road turns sharply five or six times before we see the lights of town. The clouds have lifted some and the sky is almost clear, but not quite. There are no stars. From here, Meadville looks quaint, almost inviting.

  “Did he just
get bored?” I ask without mentioning Evan by name. “Is that what you think happened? Did he just get bored with me?”

  “Maybe,” Pete says. “That kind of thing happens.” Then he speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived three years in northwestern Pennsylvania. “That kind of thing happens all the time around here.”

  We coast down the hill into town and Pete asks me if I’m hungry.

  “Not really,” I say. I am upset, but I can’t quite figure out what it is that bothers me. I don’t think it’s Evan specifically. I will miss him, but Claire’s right. We were never that good a match. I’m mad about the way he’s handled the whole thing and wonder if I’ll ever mention it to him or if I’ll just let things go their own way.

  “It’s not that late,” Pete tells me and I agree. Neither one of us teaches on Mondays, but we usually go into school to grade papers, to check our mail, to be around people.

  “We could watch TV at my house,” Pete says. “There might be a movie.”

  “That sounds good,” I say, because it does. I would like to avoid my apartment, avoid being alone as long as possible. And just as if he has the same idea, Pete passes his house and we drive downtown. The streets are heavy with traffic. It’s the high school kids cruising around the diamond, the park in the center of downtown. They circle the diamond every night in their parents’ cars and trucks. If it’s a nice night like it is right now, the kids from the farming community drive in and join the townies. We drive around and around the diamond honking at one another, drinking beer, and calling out to one another. They always drive in the same direction, clockwise, as if following some predetermined pattern. Like all rituals, the customs are complicated, some not even apparent.

  Pete cuts over on North Street and we get into the cruising line and follow the traffic around the gazebo, past the bronze statue of Crawford, the man who founded the county and who some say was eaten by Indians. Others insist that no one ever found his body and have no concrete proof that the Indians even touched him. We circle past the Meadville Public Library and the fifteen-foot American flag dedicated to the town by the Daughters of the American Revolution, even though there is no chapter in Meadville. We pass the funeral home where the clay point setter stands by the front door. The dog is frozen in motion. His ears stick straight up, his right paw is bent as if wounded. His face is illuminated by the small yellow spotlight. He looks almost alive. Denying all town rumors, Bradford, the owner and mortician of the funeral home, insists that it was never a real dog. He claims the statue is not his own dog killed, stuffed, and set on display. He thinks it makes the funeral home less frightening—more inviting—especially for the kids in town.

  Pete turns down the radio and we lower our windows and listen to the noise and music coming from the other cars. The air is still damp from the afternoon rain. It smells of spring—of warmer days to come.

  After two turns around the diamond, Pete pats the edge of the seat and asks me if I want to sit closer. I think about Evan before I make a move. Evan has made it clear that he wants out of my life. He didn’t even discuss it with me. He never gave me an option or cared to hear my opinion on the matter. Our relationship doesn’t seem a reason not to get close to someone else, so I do. Pete puts his arm around my shoulders. He rubs my upper arm and I cross my left hand to my chest and hold his hand so he will know I like what he is doing. We circle the diamond four more times, not saying anything important, just commenting on the trucks and the kids. Pete turns off the diamond and we drive to the west end of town where the dark streets eventually wind into Cleveland.

  Pete slows the car and pulls onto the graveled shoulder in front of a farmhouse. The inside lights flicker, and the shadows bounce off the ceiling, telling us that the family is inside watching TV. They won’t be paying attention to a car parked on their property. We’re making out even before Pete’s turned off the engine. He’s holding me on the back of the neck, his grip firm on my skin, his hands warm. He pulls me into him. His kiss is strong. He seems sure that this is what he wants, and I kiss him back to tell him that I want it, too. What I’m doing no longer feels small-town. All over the world, people are called upon to replace love. It happens everywhere, even when we don’t expect it. Meadville’s not the exception this time. Not on this.

  Me and Danno Booking ’Em Good

  VOLCANOES ON UNINHABITED ISLANDS erupt without fanfare. Like a tree falling in a forest, Hawaiians ask, Is there sound if no one is there to hear it? What about fear, if no one is there to feel it? Perhaps there is only the brilliant flash of light as the fiery liquids pour down the mountainside. Maybe this is all there is.

  Barney’s mother warned us that the sky over our house was an odd shade of blue. My mother believed only in the Bible. She read between the lines and found good truths in these words. Superstitions were not part of her religion. She paid Barney’s mother to do our wash and to iron my father’s shirts, but she would not listen to her predictions of doom and despair.

  Barney’s mother saw dark clouds everywhere. She bowed her head and told us to chant, “I give my heart to the sky,” three times over. In this way we could be saved from the volcanic ash carried in with the evil winds.

  “I give my heart to God,” my mother cried. She had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice and liked to pitch it so that it rang in that sing-song way evangelists have now made an art.

  “I left my heart in San Francisco,” I cried.

  Barney and his mother chanted their prayer, but the ash fell on our house and two weeks later my father died of a twisted liver.

  The driver from the funeral home had to stop twice to wipe the ash off the windshield of the hearse. “Can’t see a thing,” he complained. His shirt cuffs were black with the soot that clung to everything it touched. We were an hour late to the cemetery. The funeral director and his sons were already busy with another circle of bereaved. My father and his coffin had been moved to the gazebo, where it sat in the cool shade of the coconut trees. My mother knelt on the stone steps, made the sign of the cross, and bowed her head. A few minutes later, she stood and ushered her prayer people up the paved path to the crest of the hill where they could be closer to God.

  My brothers and I drank scotch from a silver flask we found in the pocket of my father’s only formal dinner jacket. He probably hid it there—afraid my mother would have tossed it out with the morning trash. My mother kept a clean house. Clutter was a sign of a wandering mind; a wandering mind, the sign of a sinning body. Nothing to her had sentimental value—nothing should be saved except the soul.

  My brothers only shared their stash with me because it was a special occasion. “Don’t get hooked on this stuff,” they warned. I was fifteen and had already been drunk more times than I could count. The hearse driver joined us in a toast to long life. To mention death in a graveyard would have been redundant.

  I blacked out before the service started and don’t remember burying my father. I have seen photographs of the afternoon. My blue blazer and white shirt had been pressed carefully by Barney’s mother, but the expression on my face was one of impatience, as if the bus I was waiting for was late. My brother Rob, front row center, was fast asleep. Dave had wandered off by that time and was found puking in the bushes. I puked with him once we were back in the hearse. The driver shouted that we were worse than pigs. My mother said we had ruined our father’s funeral. She said she did not have it in her heart to forgive us.

  Barney was my best friend back then. I was not popular. He might have been my only friend. Mr. Matthews, the science teacher, once asked Barney if I had been drinking whiskey. “He reeks,” the teacher said. “That’s the way he always smells,” Barney said. Barney was not bright. That’s why he liked me.

  Barney was HBC—Hawaiian-born-Chinese. His hair was black and his eyes were thick. His mother and father washed and ironed the clothes for all the families in our neighborhood, but Barney screamed in protest if you called him Chinese.

  “I am west
ern,” he said. “I am from this island. I am just like you.”

  My parents were from a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania, where everyone complained about the good old days when there were jobs to be had. They moved to Hawaii hoping to find a financial paradise. I was born on the island of Oahu.

  Not one to argue, I told Barney he was right. “We’re Hawaiian-born. Natives. We’ll make the tourists take pictures of us. We will ask for money, and when they won’t give it to us we’ll steal their expensive cameras and expose their film. Later we’ll hang out in the Sheraton and Marriott parking lots and jump in front of slow-moving tourist cars. When they think we’re hurt, we’ll play on their fear and their pity and extort cash from the poor out-of-towners.”

  My father was promoted to desk manager of the Oahu Marriott after twelve years of working the midnight shift. He could say, “Here is your safety deposit box key. There is no charge for the box, but there’s only one key, so if you lose or misplace it there will be a sixty dollar drilling fee,” in several languages, including Japanese, Malay, Tagalog, French, German, and Spanish. He had access to the bar of the Banana-Boat-and-Moon restaurant and brought home red, white, and blue bottles of liquor, which he drank all at once.

  “Let me make you a Stars-and-Stripes,” he’d offer and pour the trio of liquors into a tall glass with lots of ice. It tasted like a sweet watery milk shake. I drank it as fast as I could, hoping he would give me another.

  “Here’s to our new country,” he’d say. We’d salute each other, then break into a chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” or “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.”

  “The neighbors,” my mother would yell from the bedroom. We shouted out cocktail invitations in loud, clear voices, but none of our neighbors ever joined our predawn patriotic celebrations.

  My father was a distracted man. He liked bars and long rambling stories full of interesting characters. My brothers and I were not colorful enough for him. He wanted tough life stories. “Sagas,” he’d beg for when the whiskey pinched his cheeks red. “Give me a long saga and I’ll listen to every word.” I bored him more than most people, and he quickly drank blenderfuls of his stars-and-stripes concoction, as if this would make me more fun.