by Chuck Kinder
Thirty thousand? Thirty fucken thousand?
Yup. What’s the point?
There’s no point really. The Buffalo told me you’d fucked about half the men in town. But I was under the impression that Missoula was just a one-horse town.
Did he say one-horse or one-whore? You jerks. He’s such an asshole.
I’m just kidding around.
How wonderful to hear that my love life is such a hot topic of conversation among you bozo boys. Don’t you boys think with anything besides your boners?
I’m kidding around, I told you.
Jim, it’s you I love, Lindsay said. She took the fedora back off his head and replaced it on her own. —See. Now all I need is a black beard, about a hundred pounds, a hairy chest, and a peepee, and we’d be like the same person, we are so close. And it has happened so quickly. That’s how I feel about us. I trust in us. I trust in you, hon. I’ve never really talked with another man about having, you know, rug-rats, as you call them. Really, I’ve never felt this way with another man.
I reckon we had best get hitched, then, Jim said.
Is that a proposal, Mr. Stark?
It ain’t no proposition.
Wouldn’t that effectively make you a bigamist? Isn’t that against the law, even in California?
You know what I mean. As soon as I get divorced, let’s go on and just do it.
Well, why not? I’ve always aspired to be some sort of hillbilly bride, barefoot and pregnant, Lindsay said, and laughed. —Are you really a dangerous man, Jim Stark? Lindsay said.
I can be.
Are you a fringy?
I can be.
How can you be a fringy and teach at a place like Stanford?
Stanford has fellowships just for fringies. I can just be a little dangerous now and then, that’s all. I had to learn to fight when I was a kid. It was totally against my basically sweet, cuddly-teddy- bear nature, of course, but I had to learn. Because of those scars from the operations, the other kids liked to make fun of me. You know how kids are, cruel little fucks. Kids would point at me in gym showers and make fun of me and my scars, so I learned how to kick their asses for it.
I love my scar, Lindsay said. —My scar made me beautiful. Not that I’ve ever really felt beautiful a moment in my life. People just told me I was beautiful. I was a fat girl all my life. A fat fringy. Then I had to have an emergency appendectomy, and in what seemed like overnight I lost twenty-five pounds. I was deathly ill, but that was okeydokey by me. Well, afterward it was okeydokey. Suddenly I was this new thin girl. It was like having a baby in that respect, losing all that blubber. That is one dumb analogy. But anyway, suddenly everybody told me I was beautiful and love was just mine for the asking. Would you like to touch my scar for luck?
Anything for luck, Jim said.
Here you go, Lindsay said, and took Jim’s hand. She traced his forefinger along the small blue scar on her lower right side. —Not much of a price to pay for becoming beautiful overnight, huh? Now it’s my turn, Lindsay said.
Say what?
I could use some luck, too. You aren’t afraid I’ll laugh and make fun of your scars, are you? I’d never do that. I don’t want to get my ass kicked, that’s for sure.
It’s nothing like that, Jim told her.
Lindsay smiled and softly jabbed a finger into Jim’s stomach, whose muscles he attempted to tighten without grunting.
You can’t really see my scars anymore, Jim told Lindsay. —I’m too fucken hairy.
I can feel them, Lindsay said. Lindsay slid her hand down onto Jim’s lower abdomen, the back of her hand pressing against the back of his boner as her fingers felt through his hair for his scars.
I think I feel them, Lindsay said. —I really hope this will bring us luck. I want a houseful of kids someday.
We can do that, Jim said. —With just a little help from med¬ical science, like I told you. How many kids? Jim said.
I’ve heard they’re cheaper by the dozen, Lindsay said.
That’s what I’ve heard, too. But I’d settle for a single son. I’d teach him stuff. I’d teach him the sort of stuff a son needs to live by.
You mean manly stuff? All-American-boy stuff? How to hunt and fish and play football?
No. I mean really important stuff. How to hot-wire a car. The ancient art of sucker punching. How to case a joint. How to be cool. You know, important stuff.
I see, Lindsay said, and laughed. —Really important all- American-Criminal-Boy stuff, Lindsay said, and cupped her hand under Jim’s dick, gently rubbing her fingers over what passed as his scrotum. —Now exactly what were those meany adults hop¬ing to find down here? Your tonsils?
My balls. Finally they just threw in the towel.
And you were at the Mayo Clinic three times?
Four. I was at the world-famous Mayo Clinic four times. For all the good it got me.
Turn your head to one side and cough, please, Mr. Stark.
Cough cough cough.
Again, please.
Cough cough cough.
Have you been eating your beets, young man?
I recken. I clean up my plate, Doc, ma’am.
You are an extremely good boy. Now you continue to eat all your beets and anything else your Mommy waves in front of your face and you will grow up with a great, big, amazing boner. That will be fifty dollars, please. Pay the nurse on your way out, please.
Fifty bucks was worth this.
I can tell, young man, Lindsay said, and squeezed Jim’s hard dick. She moved her hand under the water between his legs and kept going. She slowly slid her middle finger up his ass.
Holy moly, Jim said. —Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you just stuck your finger up my, you know, behind.
Hurt, baby?
Nope. Well, yes, but I plan to be a very brave boy. Holy moly. What a neat maneuver, Nurse Nancy. Do you take all the boys’ temperatures this way?
Only if they have been good. God, I’ve found it, honey! Found what?
Whatever it was those meany adults were always looking for. I’ve found it. I’ve struck gold, hon.
You mean you really feel something? Really? Jesus. What do you feel? Is it like a, you know, lump or something?
I’m not certain, hon. But I think it feels like . . . Yes, that’s what it feels like.
Like a lump or something? Jesus. Really?
No, not exactly like a lump, exactly. It’s more like ... like ... Jesus, Lindsay, more like what?
Like what?
Pizza poop!
Sacred Cows
1
The pool was in the center of the motel courtyard amid a garden of palms and flowering plants. It was kidney-shaped, with a small cabana, tiled like the pool red and white at its larger end. At the pool's smaller end stood a small marble statue, a pink Cupid with a thin stream of water arching from its pursed lips into the pool. Blue and green spotlights were arranged in the palms with their beams playing on the pool. Here and there in the thick flowering bushes under the palms stood brightly painted plaster-of-Paris peacocks.
That first and only night they were there, Ralph sat, fully clothed, at a poolside table holding a glass of whiskey and ice. On the table was one of those motel-room buckets filled with mostly melted ice, a half-fifth of Four Roses (his daddy's favorite brand), and a small red transistor radio which Ralph had tuned to a Dodgers' game (his daddy's team). Alice Ann floated on her back in the center of the large end of the pool. She seemed to be star¬ing up through the thick palm fronds into the darkening sky, and Ralph reflected on her thought. Several blocks west the sun was setting over the Pacific, and the darkening sky above the palms was the deepest purple. Ralph could smell the ocean, and in a warm, easterly breeze he felt from the Santa Ynez Mountains he thought he could smell blooming pittosporum, maybe jasmine. At a time like this, what would be on Alice Ann’s mind? Ralph had to imagine the worst. Ralph had to be on his guard at every moment.
They were alone at the pool now. Earlie
r a couple of boys had spent a noisy half hour shooting forefingers at one another and grabbing shot guts as they took turns tumbling face first into the pool to float like little dead men. They had given Ralph a migraine, but now he missed the little shits. The pool’s calm water looked like rose wine to Ralph. In the aquarium-quality light Alice Ann’s tanned flesh shone greenish, vegetal. In that light the pieces of her dark red bikini could have been blood leak¬ing from wounds. Ralph shuddered. This scene became fixed before Ralph as though it was a moment carved from a bad dream.
It was a lovely evening, though, and Ralph had sat beside a pool in Santa Barbara, California, on the eve of his second bank¬ruptcy hearing in seven years, and told himself again and again that things could be worse, for he and Alice Ann had been smarter about a bad situation this time around the bend. For one thing, they had homesteaded their house, which was simply legalese meaning they had filed the right papers so they wouldn’t find themselves and their children out on the street. I am an American homesteader, Ralph kept repeating to himself. They had initiated the bankruptcy proceedings in Santa Barbara, three hun¬dred miles south of their actual home in Menlo Park, a smart move to avoid local embarrassment and creditors. By hook and by crook, it looked as though Alice Ann would be able to hold on to her darling red Cadillac convertible, signing its title over to her sister for safekeeping. The convertible was parked in its appointed place in front of the motel. They had driven down that day in the thing. The drive had been leisurely. They had stopped at a seaside park just south of Big Sur for a picnic Alice Ann had packed of her famous fried chicken, some German potato salad, assorted cheese, and a good jug of Chablis. At one point Ralph had said to Alice Ann, Alice Ann, this is all just a crazy dream we’ll wake up from.
Right then at poolside what worried Ralph the most was Alice Ann’s calmness of late. There had been no recent snarls, no shouting, screaming, laying of blame, not one drop of recently shed blood. Ralph took a long drink. He watched his wife float¬ing peacefully in Cupid spit in a pool shaped like a giant human organ. From the surrounding darkness under the palms fantails of terrible eyes fastened on Ralph’s every move. Alice Ann was saving it up. Ralph was nobody’s fool. It was not fair. Any moment plaster birds of prey would pounce shrieking across the crazy light for Ralph. Ralph exhaled, closed his eyes, and rubbed them until they hurt.
We have our health, Alice Ann suddenly said.
Ralph jerked and opened his eyes.
Our what? Ralph said.
Health, Alice Ann said. —Our health.
Health? Ralph said.
Alice Ann kicked and backstroked toward the pool’s smaller end. Slivers of blue and green light twitched across the water’s surface like a dance of severed nerves. Ralph drank down his whiskey. He put fresh ice in his glass and covered it once more with whiskey. He leaned toward the radio as though he hoped to catch the game’s score.
We have our health at least, Alice Ann said.
Alice Ann draped her arms over the poolside near her glass. She rested her long chin on the backs of her hands and looked up at Ralph’s face. Her eyes looked like black pools. Ralph could see the backs of her long legs floating out behind her in the pale red water. Behind her knees had been a favorite place for Ralph.
And our children have their health, Alice Ann said. —That’s the main thing. My sister always says that when you have your health you have everything.
Health, Ralph said. —What are you talking about, Alice Ann? What in God’s name does your sister know about health? That woman has been having the same pitiful heart attack for as long as I’ve known her. And what about her brain tumors, Alice Ann? A dozen of those babies over the years? Fifteen maybe? Don’t ask me how many.
You’re the one with all the little symptoms, Ralph, Alice Ann said. —All those little fainty vapors. The seven warning signs like clockwork.
A minute ago you said I had my health, Ralph said. —Which is it?
It’s your diet, Ralph, Alice Ann said. —You have a rotten diet. Your stomach is a graveyard, Ralph. It is a cemetery for the dead flesh of fellow creatures.
I know the state of my health, all right, Ralph said. —I have no illusions. I know I’m a shell of the man I once was. I’m not even the man I was six months ago, and I know it. Or yesterday, for that matter. I don’t kid myself. But it doesn’t have a thing to do with eating meat, I’ll tell you that.
Oh, come on, honey, Alice Ann said, perk up. You are in the prime of your life.
That is probably the crudest thing you could say to me right now, Ralph said. He drank down his whiskey and poured another. He lit a cigarette and watched its smoke rise in the eerie pool lights.
This time tomorrow it will all be over, Alice Ann said. She pulled herself out of the water and sat at poolside, her back to Ralph. She hugged her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. Her long hair was darkened with water and hung down her slender back in a rope. Ralph followed the soft slope of spine down her brown back to the deep dimples above her hips. Those dimples had been a favorite place. Ralph had licked champagne from those sweet pools.
Why don’t you come over and sit beside me, Alice Ann said.
I’m listening to a game, Ralph said. —I’m smoking.
Let me have a puff, Alice Ann said, and wiggled a hand behind her.
You’re all wet, Ralph said. —I’ll light you one of your own.
No. Forget it. Later maybe. Are you getting hungry yet?
I don’t know, Ralph said. —I hadn’t thought about it, I guess. I guess my graveyard is still pretty full of that fellow crea¬ture you fried up.
Ralph, Alice Ann said, how many times do I have to explain to you that chicken is not red meat. Chicken is fowl, and fowl, like fish, is better for your blood than red meat.
You mean, in the great scheme of things, chickens are less our fellow creatures than our bovine brothers?
Red meat, Ralph, is simply not good for your blood, that’s all, Alice Ann said. —I simply wanted to fix you something nice you liked, Ralph. That’s all. I knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with a nice salad. All I needed today was to have you carrying on about bean sprouts, choking and gagging around the way you do. I wanted us to have a pleasant picnic together, like old times. I didn’t want us to drive down here today grim as death.
It was great fried chicken, Ralph said. —I mean it. It was a nice picnic, too. I don’t remember a cross word, do you? I don’t, anyway.
Remember the time we went skinny-dipping in that motel pool? Alice Ann said, and laughed. —Drunk as sailors. At three o’clock in the a.m. Those were the good old days, when we just flipped off the world.
That was all your idea, Ralph said. —You put me up to it.
Well, whose idea was it to make love in the water? Remember? We were all naked and slippery. You kept diving after me under¬water. Muff dives, you called them. It’s dark and dangerous work, you kept saying, but somebody has to do it.
We woke up the manager, that’s something I remember. We were lucky he didn’t call the cops.
Ralph, tell me how it’s going to be after tomorrow, Alice Ann said. She finished her drink and handed Ralph her glass. —Light me a cigarette now, too, pretty please.
What it’s going to be like? Ralph said. —What is that, Alice Ann, one of your trick questions?
It will be another fresh start, that’s what, Alice Ann said. —That’s the way we can look at this ordeal. What frightens me the most is that someday we’ll run out of fresh starts. Let’s really do things differently this time around, Ralph. Let’s pretend we really are new, different people.
