The OK End of Funny Town

by Mark Polanzak

  “I’m a reliable source, dude.” “Word.”

  Wes runs through his ABCs ten times without so much as a yelp from Anna. Then, he wonders if it should be in lowercase. When Anna’s still not screaming that certain scream that Wes needs to hear, that sweet release that he is beginning to forget the sound and feel of, he traces the letters in NOW-I-KNOW-MY-ABCs-WON’T-YOU-COME.

  Anna lifts his head and looks at him.

  “Nothing?” he asks, but he knows the answer.

  “Come here.” Anna pulls Wes up to her and places his face on her collarbone. He swipes at his exposed cheek. “I just can’t focus on that right now. It’ll pass.”

  Wes is thinking that Joe is an idiot. “Sorry, I was trying something new.”

  “Wesley, baby,” she begins, and Wes knows that this is going to be something not about sex, but about love, and he’s just going to wait it out, seeing as how it’s all a coverup for his stupid alphabet fiasco. “The most important thing to me is that you love me and that …” And Wes is right, and he stares at the door. What was it before? How was he able to do it? He reaches under his tongue, massaging the tender tether of muscle that holds his tongue back: it’s tighter, sore. His tongue wants to retreat. He hits a tiny tear on the tether, and his tongue shoots back. “Be honest,” Anna says. “Do you want what I want?”

  “Of course, baby.” He tastes blood; it hurts to form the words.

  Anna’s waving at a toddler at the coffee shop while Wes wonders why he’s never been able to picture having a kid of his own. It’s natural. People start asking if a baby’s on the way. Wes’s mom is too curious. Anna’s older sister’s got a bundle of joy for her mom to spoil.

  “That is the cutest thing.” Anna sips her chai tea and indicates the goofy little kid with the sippy cup. “When we have babies, I’m going to fill bottles with milk and tell them to wander around the house and bump into things for Mommy.” Wes looks at the kid, and the kid cries.

  “Fucking adorable.”

  “Wesley!”

  “What?”

  He shrugs and pulls out a pack of Newports.

  “You’re smoking again?”

  He’s not getting into it with her. He lights up.

  There are self-fulfilling prophecies. His friend, Earl, always said that if he were to have a kid and the kid turned out to be special, he would give it up for adoption, arguing, “I’m not going to dedicate my life to something like that.” Anna was there when Earl said this, so, of course, Wes told Earl that he was heartless and that all children are blessings. They were still courting. But then, Earl’s kid was special.

  Thing is, though, Wes really can’t envision a child. Not anything about the idea. Is he sterile? All the pot smoking in high school, all the Mountain Dew consumption in college? He forces his creative mind to imagine himself in the hospital room, wearing the green scrubs, the nurse handing him his own swaddled infant. Wes watches himself tug on the soft blanket to see his newborn. But he can’t reveal his child’s entire face. In glimpses, he catches fangs. Yellow eyes. He hears a growl.

  “What if I can’t have children?” Wes asks.

  “I doubt it, lover,” she says and glides her foot up his calf. “But, we’d adopt.”

  “What? And get some monster!” Wes gets a slap on the shoulder, but he’s serious. He can’t picture being a father to his own son or daughter, let alone someone else’s.

  He’s convinced himself it’s not cheating: it’s a test. He lied to Anna, saying that he had to meet up with Earl for cards. He actually said the word, “cards,” which he’s never met Earl for, but it worked. She believed him, or maybe honesty is going undetectable. He’s at a club. A meat market.

  Coming to places like this, to pick up, years ago, used to be a constant struggle with how to act. Wes had tried it all: buying drinks, pretending to throw around money; playing it cool, as if he didn’t want to get any; lines; all of it, but he notices that entering a club, armed with only the thought of servicing a willing woman is working like fly tape. He regrets, for a second, not having this state of mind when he was screwing around.

  “You’re sexy,” says a girl with gigantic yellow hoop earrings.

  “You should see me dance,” Wes agrees.

  “I’m a cheerleader at BC,” she proclaims, possibly her pickup line for older men with assumable fantasies.

  “Let’s see if you can keep up, then.”

  It’s freeing. Wes does the robot, which he can’t do, but Hoop Earrings loves it, because she’s wasted.

  Poof. They’re at her apartment.

  Smooch. They’re on her couch.

  Grope. Her shirt’s off.

  Finger. They’re in her bed.

  “Now, Shelly,” Wes starts to explain his test.

  “Rebecca.”

  “Whatever.” He pushes her pom-poms onto the floor. “I am going to go down on you, then I’m going to leave. That’s all this is.”

  She sits up, suddenly sober. “What is this? Are you a lesbian?”

  “Yeah. No. What? Listen: Will you just let me do this for you? Will you tell me how I am? I want you to have an orgasm. Not that I think you would, but will you just not fake anything? Is this simple enough?”

  Rebecca considers this long enough for Wes to start thinking she’s a police officer. “Okay,” she says, finally, falling back, laughing, suddenly smashed again.

  The cheerleader’s sexual routine is confusing to Wes, with all the clapping and chanting for Eagles’ touchdowns. Wes traces out the alphabet, at first, but then begins licking out words that run through his mind. True words. Real things. Brutal honesty. I-AM-CHEATING. I-WA NT-NOTHING-TO-DO-WITH-YOU. YOU-ARE-NOTHING-TO-ME-SHELLY. SORRY-I-MEAN-REBECCA. YOU-ARE-A-TEST. And when he’s finished spelling out how tired he is and how he’s disappointed in himself for smoking again, he hears her yell: “GIVE ME AN O! O! O!”

  So, it isn’t all his fault.

  Wes tells her to stay in school, then he splits.

  One night, Anna’s got her shirt off, holding her breasts, inspecting them. Wes watches this with mild curiosity over his laptop.

  “They say that your boobs get bigger when you have a baby,” Anna declares.

  Anna’s a C cup, which Wes likes. He’s dealt with A’s, and once a DD. Usually boobs are a pair, but he can only recall the larger set as two entirely glorious but separate entities. “I love your breasts, babe.”

  Anna puts on a T-shirt and says, “What are you reading?”

  “The Weekly’s listings.”

  “Checking out your work?”

  “It’s so fucking weird: the whole world is in the classifieds. There’s everything from ‘Alex and Sarah Peterson married’ to ‘$6 hubcaps for sale.’ I look at the whole world every day until I’m typing someone’s holy matrimony with the same enthusiasm as some scam run out of Seattle for telemarketers or mystery shoppers—I look at the stuff that makes life worth living right next to the bullshit that makes life inane and absurd. Real love and con artists.”

  “Wesley? Are you okay? You love the listings, I thought.”

  “I don’t know. I just get confused sometimes about what matters, what’s honest and good and what’s just some more junk.”

  Wes catches himself and tosses the laptop onto the couch. He leans over and pulls Anna to him. He clicks off the light. They stay quiet for a time. In the dark, in their bed, in their apartment, in their little life, he traces words on her back, like they used to.

  “See if you can tell what I’m spelling.”

  “I love this game.” Anna yawns.

  Wes feels tender for a moment and traces S-O-R-R-Y on her back.

  “I love your hands. That feels nice.”

  “What did I spell?”

  But Anna’s asleep already.

  “Do you know?” Wes stares at the door until he slips into dreams.

  After staring at yet another day’s emails of things to list: marriages, real estate for sale, medical studies, Fantasy Fulfillm
ents, bartenders needed, apartment rentals, drummers needed, psychic readings, pot legalizing rallies, cuddle parties, I Saw You On The Subway love connections, used cars for sale, lectures at Harvard and MIT, and babies’ births; after smoking menthols and seeing Joe, the copy editor, each time; after asking him if he actually does any work at the paper at all; after listening to the BC Eagles beat the BU Terriers 21–10; after thinking about Shelly or Rebecca or whoever sleeping with someone new; after talking to Earl about how he’s never had a poker night and maybe would like to have one; after telling his mom that there’s no baby on the way; after, finally, clicking on the Most Popular Baby Names website and checking how far down the list the name Gun is; after reading the week’s paper and seeing word after word after word and not knowing what anything means anymore; after tracing TONIGHT-IS-THE-NIGHT on the roof of his mouth so that only he could feel it; Wes heads to the adult shop.

  It’s arresting, the sheer onslaught of colors coated on the paraphernalia of sex. The fat brushstrokes Wes sees in the purple, red, and neon green dildos, vibrators, pocket pussies, on the packaging of lubricant, the sticks and blocks of incense. It’s new and tempting, the caresses of feathers, tails of whips. And the names on the videos and magazines: GONZO, HARDCORE, KINK, and ORAL. There are red light bulbs for sale in this blue store. He sees rainbow arches of condoms. Wes sniffs the edible panties. Everything under the sun. Anything to get that certain scream from Anna.

  He carries a mess of color and sex to the register, pays, and marches out, not at all self-conscious.

  When Anna returns, Wes has transformed their apartment into a sex cave. He’s on the bed, naked, under the glow of a rouge light bulb, in a haze of perfumed smoke, with the porn scenes flashing on the walls, surrounded by sex toys, waving her into the room.

  Anna melts into bed, and Wes slips her clothes off, flinging her panties onto a blade of the slowly spinning ceiling fan. There’s no talking. No words. Before anything starts, Anna’s already breathing heavily and flipping her hair around on the bed.

  Wes is made of pleasure from his loins out to the tip of his tongue. He kisses Anna from her chin down to her breasts, to the ridge of her hipbone. He gathers himself for a moment and begins with his usual down there.

  She’s up there doing her yoozh: moaning, head back, eyes closed. But it’s still not happening. Wes will not stop, though. He will not fail. He goes through the alphabet, for variety. He traces I-LOVE-YOU. Anna touches his ears, tugging a little; she wants him to stop. She just wants sex. But Wes spells out: N-O. She lets go and moans again. Wes licks out the words. He lets go, too, finally, and traces it all on her pussetta stone. The letters, the words, the truth: I-DON’T-WANT-WHAT-YOU-WANT. Anna thrashes. I’M-NOT-THE-MAN-FOR-YOU. Her breath quickens. I-CHEATED. Anna grasps the sheets, twisting the fabric into nipples. I’M-LEAVING-YOU-ANNA-I’M-LEAVING-YOU. And Wes hears, at last, what he’s needed—that certain scream, that sweet release.

  KIND EYES

  You could steal stuff if you had a car waiting. Late at night, the families were asleep. No one knew you were in there, would even dream it. Quiet town in summer, unlocked front doors, open windows, garage bays like yawns. I never took anything though. I was always more an observer type.

  I slipped into this stranger’s house through a side window. I was on the way to my mother’s, back in town to see her. The layout of this stranger’s place was like all the others. Every one of them was the same thing. A colonial, two rooms deep on the first floor, dining room to kitchen, living room to office, office to deck. I could feel everyone sleeping, up there on the second floor. It had been seven years since the summer I turned eighteen, since I was last here, going through strangers’ homes, but that stillness, that calm of the place felt exactly the same. Photos and notes about phone calls covered the fridge. “Excellents” ran down the list on a report card, except for one “Satisfactory” in Spelling. Still, though, pretty good. The first-grader probably had the first bedroom on the left upstairs. One of the photos showed this family in front of a seawall, but all wearing jackets. Mom, Dad, pink-haired girl, beaming bowl-cut boy, who I could’ve been. They maybe asked some guy at the beach to take the photo. I get asked to do that a lot. Somebody once told me I have kind eyes, which I took to mean I look too naive to know how to steal, how to hurt someone. Maybe that’s why I never felt guilty for looking in places I probably shouldn’t.

  A list of chores on a kid’s chalkboard showed Jessica hadn’t emptied the dishwasher. I pulled down the door, slid out the rack, and grabbed a white mug with a sketch of a blue whale. Before I opened it, I knew which cabinet the mug belonged to. Every place was the same. I took my time, moving the plates and glasses and silverware to their cupboards and drawers. They always said no one got broken into in my hometown. Me, I never broke in. Everywhere was wide open.

  A game I used to play was to see how close to the sleeping kids I could get before getting too scared and booking it. To check if I could do better now, I climbed the carpeted stairs. On the landing, two doors faced me, but, just to see, I rounded the banister and made for the master bedroom instead. I pressed my ear to the door and heard snoring. A dead sleep. The mistake some people make when sneaking in or out is to open the door too slowly, trying to will the hinges into silence. But to kill the creaking, you have to throw the thing open in one quick sweep. I grabbed the doorknob and pushed into the room. The door brushed the carpet, making a sound like a sharp inhale.

  Real late at night, houses never get fully dark. Even with drawn shades and a dull moon and low clouds, somehow a little light spread out, and my eyes adjusted. The mother and father faced each other in their sleep, not touching, but like fetal position and facing each other. Sometimes you could see a thigh, a breast. I could have done anything to them, unconscious below me, right then. I could’ve stolen the wallet off the dresser, flicked on the overhead light, freaked them out. It’s something to realize what you can get away with, that you have the tools to hurt, to hit, to scream, if not the will or want to. But, like I said, I was a watcher. I just looked at them: a mother and father sound asleep together. Just to see, I reached out and stroked the mother’s hair. She let out a two-note sigh.

  Before closing the front door, I leaned in and shouted, “Hey! Lock up!” Then, I booked. I shot a glance back to see a light on upstairs. It would be denied down to a dream. Nightmare. No one would notice the blue whale mug and the emptied dishwasher. Even if one of them did, Jessica would take credit and begin an okay relationship with small lies.

  It was after midnight, and my mother would be comatose no matter when I showed: witching hour, lunch, dawn—she was on her way out, I had heard—so I went to my old friend Pete’s. He worked at the town’s restaurant in winter, the golf course in summer. One of those guys with a lot of potential in high school and just like couldn’t hack it after. A guy like that, you hope he didn’t notice that the compliments stopped coming, or that at least a girl would someday smile by his side while he told a story. But Pete thought I was the crazy one, for taking off. I was “misguided” for going away.

  I peeked in through the dark windows at Pete’s. I knocked without even trying the knob. A light clicked on deep inside. Pete appeared in his doorway, a massive silhouette. Then, he was hugging me and slapping my shoulders.

  Pete cracked two beers, and I told him about the house and family.

  “Jesus Christ. Do you still do that shit? You shouldn’t do that,” he said.

  “It’s not how it looks. And, no, it’s been years.”

  “Still, though. You’re like a peeping Tom. Your eyes aren’t for some things. You got issues, man. I always said you had issues.” He was beaming at me, pointing at me.

  I watched a car light sail across Pete’s living room wall, up onto the ceiling. Slow. Then gone.

  “You see your mother?”

  “Not yet.”

  “See her. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

  “I’ll see her,” I said.

>   Visuals flare up, die down. Images demand you look, then you get fooled. You got to be ready to look, to be nice to whatever you see, but then you give up because there’s too much. You check out a girl getting dressed with her hair up in a towel and think of comforting morning rituals. You watch a balloon float up and hope the kid’s not too sad. You spot a romance book in a stranger’s kitchen trashcan and hope they know actual love. But you got to ration. Some things can empty the well. You got to look away.

  I got sick of looking at Pete, living his little life in his little place, and found a house with a glowing window. I knew the house, the family, on my street. They had older kids, but I guess they sold it because these were young boys, hanging out in the lit-up room. I started a cigarette, watching them do the same, pass it around, and bend their heads to the open window. Then the light cut out. I figured they heard footsteps in the hall, but a minute later they creaked the front door too slowly. One of them, maybe the one who lived there now, spotted me. They formed a tight wall, staring me down. I stepped onto the black-green grass.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, and I looked at all of them at once. When they didn’t respond, I figured I was scaring the shit out of them: I would be the mystery man, the outsider, who snuck into this town and terrorized young boys. I pictured it on the news, on the firsts. So I added, “I used to live up the street. The Nelsons, you know?”

  “Where?” said the one who I guessed lived there.

  “Twenty-four. Cardinals on the mailbox.” And, hearing this proof that I was local, they calmed down, or the weed was mellowing them. There was no bad man in this town, no thought of the possibility for long.

  “You want to see something?” one wearing a backwards hat asked. And the group headed around the house, into the woods there. I followed a safe I’m-not-going-to-killyou distance behind. They unearthed a cache of sparklers, firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles. Each grabbed a weapon of choice and continued through the trees until it opened out to a dark field. The sounds of the night-cars rolling on the highway now came to me, like ocean waves.