Bethel's Meadow

by Shultz, Gregory

  I would have tried to explain to Tricia why it happened, but I didn’t want to take the chance of pissing her off or hurting her feelings. “Well, you’re just too easy,” I could have said. I opted not to go that route.

  “I have never had this happen to me before,” she said as she zipped up her dress. We were back in the living room. “You really are a freak, you know that? Everyone is right about you. You have big time mental issues. You black out, you run off when someone tries to feel you up and give you pleasure, and you can’t even manage a hard-on.”

  I could hardly wait for her to leave. I was sure that if she had said this to a lot of other men they’d have knocked her right on her ass. God knows I wanted to do that. But I thought it better to let her insult me and get it off her chest. Then she could leave and blab to the entire town that Smith couldn’t get it up.

  “Do you have any alkaline water?” she asked. An odd request. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Normal bottled water won’t do?” I knew right away that was a stupid question.

  “You’re the last person on the earth who doesn’t drink it,” she said as she searched for the shoes she had kicked off fifteen minutes earlier.

  “Behind the couch,” I said.

  “You don’t even drink the water,” she said a minute later as she laced up her heels.

  “The water?” I asked archly.

  “It’s wonderful for your digestive system. That’s the main benefit for me.”

  “What exactly does it do for your digestive system?”

  After fastening her heels, Tricia stood and snapped her neck sideways and quickly back again, a nifty maneuver that swept the jet black hair out of her eyes. It was quite a sight. This woman had some dazzling moves. There wasn’t a single damned thing she did that lacked drama. It pained me to think of what I was missing out on between the sheets.

  “It makes me shit,” she answered. She was looking me straight in the eyes when she said it, serious as an assassin about to make a hit. “It keeps you cleaned out. It’s much better for you than an enema.”

  “What does it do for your soul, though?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The water. What does it do for your soul?” I wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

  “You know what, clown?” she said. “Fuck you and your soul. You think it’s funny, don’t you? God, I don’t know what Glory ever saw in you.”

  I remained seated, so as not to be threatening. “What about Glory? Does she drink . . . the water?”

  Tricia picked up her purse and headed for the door. I didn’t think she was going to answer me, but she stopped at the entrance to the foyer and turned to eye me with contempt.

  “That’s about the only thing you two have in common. She doesn’t drink alkaline water either. She also has her toilet paper rolls feed from the bottom just the same bullshit way you do. Maybe you two are a match for each other.”

  “You think so?” I said, genuinely hopeful.

  “Oh, don’t get your hopes up, clown. After I tell her about your limp cock, that’ll pretty much finish you in her book. Besides, she has no interest in babysitting schizos.”

  28

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT I was seated across the table from Rachel Draper (aka the Water Girl) at Dusty Pond’s most expensive steak house, wondering why she needed the pushup bra from hell to exaggerate what was already a damned fine set of knockers (I also wondered if I should start walking about town with a sock stuffed in my pants). It was on this cool and brisk Saturday evening that I finally came to grips with the realization that I would never understand why hardly anyone seemed to be happy with what God had given them. It was time to give up the ghost on that one.

  The restaurant had a dark, quiet, romantic atmosphere, and my mouth was watering from the enticing aroma of U.S. Prime beef being seared to perfection. From the menu Rachel Draper had ordered the most expensive cut of beef and chosen the most expensive of the red wines. She apparently thought I was billionaire software magnate Bill Gates instead of Smith, the lowly computer tech, down to his last fifty-five grand in the bank.

  Sidebottom had warned me about her when he’d called earlier in the day. I’d stopped him from dishing out the gossip, though, and told him I’d like to find out for myself what made her tick. “Fine,” he said, “but just keep on eye on your tab—Water Girl has extravagant tastes.”

  And so she did.

  I had to hand it to good old Rachel Draper, though. In her elegant and revealing purple dress she really was quite the stunner. More importantly, however, she knew how to really pour it on with the bullshit. Besides cooing like a fawning college coed from time to time, she was quite adept when it came to striking a pose. For example, when asking a personal question, she’d place her left elbow on the table, settle her chin between her thumb and forefinger, and then turn her head in slight profile to me in the sexiest way imaginable. Each time she did this I thought of Lauren Bacall for some reason. And her evil yet captivating blue eyes—or were they really green?—contrasted pleasingly with her ruby red lip gloss. In conversation she did her absolute damnedest to make me feel like I was the most interesting man in the world.

  “I really don’t think I need a life coach, whatever that is,” I said to her. After the obligatory and boring small talk had ceased, she’d switched right to this subject. “Why do you think I even need one to begin with?”

  Rachel regarded me as if I were a lost child she’d come upon in a shopping mall. “I can tell from just the short amount of time we’ve known each other that you’re a man whose soul is in a state of chaos. You’re confused and very angry. Furthermore, you carry your heart on your sleeve. And I can see that your heart is crying out for help, asking to be led from going astray.” She reached across the table. “Give me your hands.” Okay, whatever. I gave her my hands. “As your life coach I will guide you safely into the open arms of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. But that will only be the beginning. There will be much work to do after that.

  “Once you accept my offer to help lead you down the holy path, simply declaring yourself as a born-again Christian won’t be enough. You will have to know how to properly lead your life as a Christian man. I’ll teach you how to find the right people to interact with and the proper way of interacting with them. I will help you pick the right clothes, choose the proper places to congregate with other—”

  “To congregate with other drinkers of alkaline water,” I interjected somewhat sarcastically. I admit it was a rude interruption, but the needle on my bullshit meter had just spun off the dial. I began to pull my hands back, but she foiled my escape attempt by firmly grabbing my wrists. Not wanting to cause a scene, I relented and allowed her to maintain possession of my mitts. She was, after all, smiling lovingly at me. Yes, lovingly. You would have thought we’d just become engaged.

  “Yes. Jesus Christ and the holy water I provide to my customers do go together.” Rachel then paused and gave me an inquisitive look. “Why can’t I call you by your first name? It isn’t even on your business card.”

  “I’ll explain it all to you if we ever fall in love with one another,” I said. “When we get to that point of trust, I’ll tell you the whole story. But for now I’m not bothered if you just call me Smith.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think Samantha Fleming would appreciate it right now if we fell in love.”

  “Why would she care?”

  “Aren’t you two still together?”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t be wining and dining you to the tune of six hundred bills if that were true. We would have gone out for beer and wings instead. Besides, Dr. Fleming and I weren’t together long enough for it to matter anyway. She and I are done. I’m here with you, not her. So let’s not talk about Dr. Fleming, okay?”

  Rachel Draper wasn’t convinced. She held my gaze firmly and said, “I was at a party last night in Isleworth. Your pal Wally Sidebottom was there. This was before he floated off to the party you
were at in Bay Hill. You apparently had told him about you and me having become acquainted with one another. I know for a fact he told Samantha about it, because she walked right up to me and let me know in no uncertain terms that you were still her man.”

  “Really?” Rachel piqued my interest with that bit of information. “Did this party happen to be at the home of a millionaire in his seventies?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Was Samantha keeping fairly close to the host of the evening?”

  “They weren’t holding hands or anything, but yes, they stayed close.”

  The server then brought our food. The juicy steaks looked every bit as grand as their aroma had promised. For what this was going to cost, I was going to enjoy every morsel of it without arguing about who was and who wasn’t my girlfriend.

  “Let us enjoy the feast that this gentleman is serving us,” I said. “We’ll discuss my marital status later.”

  “Okay,” she said with a friendly smile. “But may I please ask that we pray first, to thank our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this blessed meal?”

  “Of course,” I answered. She looked a bit surprised. But I bowed my head as she prayed, and then we feasted.

  …

  An hour later we were standing outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to bring my car around. As it was still April, the Orlando weather was behaving unpredictably. Fifty degrees with a brisk north wind is not the type of weather the Orlando Chamber of Commerce advertises in its national ad campaigns. The meal, though, had been fantastic. The only bit of trouble I encountered came when Rachel asked if I had been drinking any of the alkaline water she had gifted me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had used all of it to water my plumbagos. Instead I lied, telling her I’d make a point of having a glass of it before bedtime.

  The valet said my car was sixth in the queue. To pass the time Rachel placed her hand in mine and led me to an area behind the valet station that overlooked a manmade canal. From our vantage point we could see clear blue water flowing from half a mile downstream, feeding into a fountain occupied by statues of Greek gods, including Zeus gallantly riding atop Pegasus. Underdressed tourists strolled along the canal walkways, cursing those very same gods for the cold weather that wasn’t mentioned by any of the travel agents. They huddled close together to stay warm, inquiring with the locals about just where the hell in Orlando, Florida, you could buy a coat in the middle of April.

  Our plan was to visit a nearby Latin dance club, where Rachel would teach me salsa and merengue. Last night I had finally scored three hours of sleep. While it wasn’t much it was certainly better than nothing. I’d experienced no blackouts today, and I felt I had the strength to keep up with anyone on the dance floor. I was ready to boogie, hoping that if I danced nonstop for the rest of the evening I could exhaust myself to the point of achieving a good six solid hours of sleep.

  But it appeared to me that Rachel Draper had another plan in mind.

  “You’re a very handsome man,” Rachel whispered as she drew herself closer to me, “and I’m a very lucky girl tonight.” I placed my hands around her waist and we passionately embraced. She then initiated a dry hump, and we established a nice, rhythmical groove—nothing too raunchy or out of control, but enjoyable nonetheless. A minute into it she reached for one of my hands and brought it to her lips. Slowly, one by one, she sucked my fingers, guiding my digits through her moist lips and into her warm mouth.

  Being pretty well horned up by the time she had devoured each finger, I figured a kiss would be appropriate. Before our lips met, though, she turned her head and offered me her cheek instead. Okay, I thought, a little teasing is fine. Besides, we were in plain view of God and everybody. But she continued to grind, and she moaned in ecstasy when she felt the full form of my hardness. She brought her lips back to mine, but within a millimeter of contact she stopped; still teasing me, I supposed.

  It went on like this for another few minutes. I finally decided to take charge. I firmly placed my lips against hers, but then she pulled back and shook her head.

  “No kissing,” she said sternly. A dreadful vision of my German third grade schoolteacher appeared before me. I could hear that old bag with her German accent really giving me a good dressing down. It took a few seconds for that face to morph back into that of Rachel Draper’s.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said in disbelief. “You’re giving me the dry fuck from hell, and you won’t even kiss me?”

  “First,” she said as she pulled completely away from me, “I don’t appreciate that kind of language. Second, we won’t kiss until you break up with Samantha. Period. It wouldn’t be fair to me if we were to kiss while you’re still with another woman.”

  “But I’m not with her, dammit.” My anger was building. This gal wasn’t making any fucking sense at all. Or maybe she truly was that obtuse. But aside from that, honest to God, I hate getting blue-balled more than anything. No guy likes that. It’s high school bullshit.

  Rachel shook her head defiantly. “You have to make her believe that. Until then, no kissing. What we just did is as far as I will go.”

  “Rachel Draper,” I said as I walked past her toward the valet station, “you’re a piece of work if there ever was one.”

  I tapped one of the valet guys on the shoulder. “Where’s my car?” I was trying to control my anger, but man was I ever fuming.

  “Sir, you’re third in the queue now. It’ll be just a few more minutes.”

  “Tell me where the fucking thing is parked and I’ll go get it myself. Give me the keys.”

  “Sir, we can’t—”

  “Look asshole, how do you feel about having a broken neck? Give me the goddamned keys so I can take Princess Blueballs here back home.”

  Twenty minutes later I pulled into her driveway and ordered her out of the car, and then I fled home to safety.

  29

  AND YET ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT.

  When the sun came up the next morning, I wanted to pulverize it with a nuclear bazooka. Lacking the proper weaponry, I decided instead to do the next best thing. I reached for the digital alarm clock on my nightstand and yanked it from its electrical socket. I then took to my feet and spiked that motherfucker down onto the hardwood floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. No longer would I have an electronic reminder of how miserable my life was between midnight and the dawning of a new day.

  I was almost convinced I was going insane. But then I recalled from having read Catch-22 that if you think you’re crazy, you’re really not crazy at all. It’s only when you don’t think you’re crazy that there’s any real possibility of being certifiably bonkers. By that logic, I figured I wasn’t quite there yet.

  I said to myself repeatedly: “You’re okay, Smith. You’re just fine.” But I wasn’t very convinced of it, especially when I looked at myself in the mirror. Gonzo from across the street had been right: I really did look like hammered dog shit.

  I was having my morning bowl of Cheerios when Sidebottom called. It was only nine o’clock. It was a bit early on a Sunday morning for him to be calling.

  “You okay, bubba?” he asked. “I just got a call from the Water Girl this morning. She was asking me if you and Sam were still together. I swear I don’t know who is more off of their rocker right now, Sam or Water Girl. Dude, you got two of the hottest chicks in town battling it out for you. Meow.”

  “What did you say to Rachel?”

  “I told her to ask you. Damn, I have both of them to deal with now. You should be paying me to be your agent or something. I don’t even know how the hell Water Girl got my number. I did try to sarge her once, but I never gave her my number.”

  “Wally,” I said, still crunching on my Cheerios. I wasn’t going to stop eating. For some reason I really had the munchies. “You were going to give me a little history on Rachel Draper—or Water Girl, as you call her. Give me the Reader’s Digest version of what you know.”

  “Okay, here it
is: Water Girl, the short story. First, she tells everyone she’s thirty-five, when everyone knows for a damn fact she’s forty. She was married once—it ended a few years ago. She was married for a grand total of one year. But she’s been engaged at least four other times, all engagements ending in odd circumstances, including one guy coming home from work one day to find a damn snake, about six feet long, in his living room. That happened the very day after he’d broken it off with her. Coincidence? I think not. But one other time, though, about five years ago, she went Glenn Close on some poor bastard. She—”

  “Wally,” I said, “I get the picture.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. But I thought you should know that she has twice been committed to a mental institution. She didn’t get Jesus until after she’d spent the night in a drunk-tank over in Windermere. This was just last year. How the alkaline water nuts and the Jesus freaks are mixed up, I don’t know. But it bothers the hell out of me that they exploit God to sell their shit.”

  “Then I reckon I need to be careful,” I said. None of it really alarmed me. I’ve never been afraid of snakes for one thing, and for another I’ve never known anyone who went into a psychiatric ward who came out better than when they went in. In college I had a girlfriend who’d spent two weeks in a mental hospital, only to kill herself three days after being discharged.

  “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Sidebottom asked. “She’s one of those chicks who steals other women’s boyfriends, fucks them on a Saturday night, and then goes to church the next morning to repent. Then the cycle repeats and—”

  “She’s just as fucked up as I am or anyone else is,” I said. “Besides, wasn’t it you who just the other day accused me of being too judgmental?”

  “Yeah, but this is different. I mean—”

  “Jesus, Sidebottom, you’re the one who manipulates women straight into the sack. Yeah, maybe she’s a religious hypocrite, but she’s no better or worse than you are. Remember that, okay?”