Drowning in Gruel

by George Singleton

She turned her head toward the bathroom.

  Watt said, "You ain't going to flush this puppy down the toilet, I can tell you that right now."

  LaDonna moved her hands farther down, to the small of Watt's back. She said, "I don't want to bring up how you signed a contract that stated how we would know what's best. That you had no say in what we thought was best." She cradled Watt's neck with her breasts, like some kind of airline's U-shaped comfort pillow.

  "I need to call my wife," he said. He thought, I need to see how much money it would cost to fly home with Sister and her puppies and forget about this here arrangement. "There'll probably be something on CNN about that woman killing this puppy."

  LaDonna kneaded and kneaded. She said how Bunky probably took care of anything airing on CNN that didn't need airing.

  Mattie Pinson didn't forget what she said about how if Watt didn't call one night then she would know what had happened. On the evening of the first puppy's death Watt never called. Mattie drove the Pinson Carpet Cleaner van out to Wingding's Wings and Things—a place that only got its carpet cleaned once a month at most. Watt hated the joint, and made mental notes as to how teriyaki sauce sucked off a carpet much easier than honey and mustard or Fireball 666, how a special Memphis BBQ_blend almost gripped itself into the nap.

  Mattie opened the door at one in the morning and locked it behind her. She didn't pull in her hoses. She didn't go straight to the Sprite or Dr Pepper dispensers.

  Mattie hit the liquor shelf, and took down a mini-bottle of amaretto, another of Jim Beam, and another of cheap cognac—three things she didn't make a point of drinking, ever. She turned on the television and sat at the first cushioned barstool with the channel changer.

  Wingding's Wings and Things' manager Tony Rice came out of the storage room. "What're you doing?" He looked like an ex-fraternity boy who waited only for his next yearly homecoming. Under "Things" on the menu he offered a side order called "Tony rice."

  Mattie jumped up. She said, "Oh, goddamn it, I didn't think anyone was here. I'm sorry, Tony."

  He said, "You're Watt's wife, right?"

  "Watt's off with our dog touring the country. I'm supposed to be running the show alone. I just needed to sit down and take a break. If I'd've known someone was here I would've yelled out something."

  Tony Rice walked behind the bar and pulled another mini-bottle of Jim Beam off of the shelf. He poured it into a short glass without ice, and topped Coke into it. "I heard about that wonder dog of y'all'ses. How many puppies did she have, like eighty?"

  "Twenty-four." Mattie slugged down the cognac in two gulps. "Two dozen. All of them were runts. Hell, I guess if everyone's a runt, then they could all be alpha dogs."

  Tony Rice stared at Mattie. He had no idea what she meant. "I thought about pledging Kappa Alpha, but didn't."

  Mattie pushed the remote past sports stations and settled on CNN. "I'll be pushing the tables aside and cleaning the carpet in a minute, I promise. And I'll pay you for this here booze." She looked up at a piece about how the president would bomb anyone who didn't agree with him, then another about how the president's economic team quit en masse.

  Tony Rice brushed back his sun-bleached hair, fingered his loop earring, kept breathing through his mouth. "I'd help you, but I have to meet some people over at Ricky's Got a Hangover bar. They stay open till four, you know. You get this place all cleaned up and can meet us over there if you want. I'll put you on the guest list out front. It's a private club, but they don't care. It's open till four, you know."

  Mattie twisted the top off of the amaretto. She took one swig, not knowing how sweet it would be. Mattie tried not to make a face. Tony Rice pointed at the television.

  "Where's the volume on this remote?" Mattie yelled out.

  There was a picture of Sister and her puppies, with Watt standing behind them, his arms spread out. It was a promo shot that Bunky Tucker sent all around. By the time Mattie got the volume turned up, she and Tony only heard from the anchorwoman, "So, sadly, there are only twenty-three left."

  Then the news went on to some kind of supposed cure for Alzheimer's that involved a concoction of wormwood seeds, milk thistle, fennel, pokeroot, and high dosages of vitamins B and C. Tony Rice left through the back door. Mattie Pinson got up from the barstool, moved half of the room's chairs and tables to one side, then sat back down. She drank the bourbon. She got up and grabbed three more mini-bottles of bourbon.

  They always show these news items every hour, she thought. I can wait an hour and they'll show what's going on with Sister.

  She turned the TV's volume up all the way, and waited. Mattie didn't steam-clean the carpet. She lost patience, and left for the after-hours club one segment before the story of Sister's dead puppy re-aired.

  Runts two through eight died natural deaths right after being handled by some of the college interns who worked for Good Morning America. Nine through sixteen died the next day, on a Sunday morning when Sister was supposed to show up live on CBS. LaDonna took care of the dead puppies both times, and Watt knew not to ask questions. In the RV, out of New York City, he said, "I don't know why we should go on with this."

  "As long as Sister doesn't die, we have something America wants to see," LaDonna said. "She's a fucking martyr, as a matter of fact. It might be best if all of the puppies died. Then we have something for people to feel bad about. No. We have something so people can feel better about themselves. It's like catharsis."

  Watt didn't say anything about how he needed to find a Laundromat. He got up, walked two steps to the RV's kitchen, and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, some Coke, and made a drink. He thought about how his liver probably suffered over the last couple months, that when he got back home with Mattie he would fall into her arms, and curl up, and let her heal him as she always did when he couldn't take the pressure of carpet cleaning.

  LaDonna drove down 1–95. Watt sat in the back with Sister and her eight puppies, all of which now weighed in at about four ounces each. Sister had gotten to the point where she couldn't even lift her head. A couple hundred miles down the road he said, "I know that word. I know the word catharsis. Don't think I don't know what that means." Watt kept his face close to the intercom.

  "I didn't say that you didn't," LaDonna said. In her voice Watt heard a strain, a tenseness, a snap. "I'm demanding a raise," LaDonna said under her breath, while wheeling through Delaware.

  All of the puppies died by Washington, D.C. Watt said he couldn't go on. LaDonna called Bunky Tucker on the hour. Tempers flared. Sister mourned.

  When LaDonna pulled the RV back into Watt's driveway a day later she didn't say a word. She didn't say, "Well that was a magnificent tour and we made a bunch of money." She didn't say, "The big markets didn't do so well, but boy, we sure did do a killing with the independents," meaning the SPCAs were moneyworthy even though the state fairs weren't. She didn't say, "I hope we can do this again real soon."

  LaDonna pretty much quit talking—or giving massages—when Watt Pinson said he didn't want to do a photo book of Sister, or a Sister cookbook, or a Sister twenty-four-month calendar.

  LaDonna let Watt out with his sad, confused dog in his front yard. She kept the Tupperware kennel. LaDonna backed up onto the road, and drove off without honking the horn, without waving, then drove west.

  This was at two o'clock in the afternoon. Watt's carpet cleaning van wasn't parked in the driveway.

  Sister took off running after the RV for a good hundred yards down Old Old Greenville Road. Watt chased her, and called. The dog, though, didn't turn her head. Then she vanished into the tree farm, the place from which she entered Watt's life.

  Watt took out his key to enter the side door but found it unlocked. He walked inside, put down his suitcases, and smelled the difference. There was no carpet anymore. He only smelled wood, or grainy chemical particleboard.

  Watt walked in, and saw where Mattie had taken up every square foot of Berber. All of the furniture stood against the den's south wall�
��couch, chairs, end tables, television set, useless armoire, thin bookshelf. Watt yelled out, "Mattie! Hey, Mattie, I'm home."

  He walked into the bedroom, the guest bedroom, the dining room. Watt stepped into the living room and yelled out his wife's name twice.

  It wasn't until a telemarketer called at eight o'clock that night and he didn't answer the phone that Watt heard the outgoing message. Mattie's voice went, "I'm not here. Leave a message for the son of a bitch."

  Later Watt told anyone who would listen at places like Roughhouse Billiards about how he got ruined by the media, that he got all caught up in the spotlight. Everyone looked at him like he made it all up, for within a year no one remembered Sister the Wonder Dog. At nearby convenience stores and flea markets and trade shows Watt Pinson found ways to tell stories of his old life. He went to state fairs in North and South Carolina, in Georgia, and in Tennessee to find people who underwent similar circumstances.

  "I had this dog had twenty-four puppies, and the next thing you know I'm being seduced by a woman who drove me around the country in an RV, I lost my business, and my wife ran off and left me," he started off most conversations. Men and women alike looked at him, and nodded in the way they might nod at a person who purported to have a direct line to God. "It's true," Watt said. "It's true. It's true, it's true, it's true."

  Bunky Tucker sent Watt's large share of the money six months after Sister's tour. Watt spent a portion of it on telephone calls trying to get LaDonna to move south. More often than not she said, "Hey, it's great talking to you again, Mr. Pinson, but I have to go. I'm about to embark on another tour," involving an actor or writer or ex-child actor.

  Watt bought ten doghouses for his other strays, and set them out equally in the backyard. He bought and paid for a three-foot-deep swimming trough so the dogs would never want of water or exercise. At night Watt went out and called for Sister, but she never returned. He waited at home for Mattie to call, so he could explain everything, so he could apologize, but she didn't.

  He kept thinking about that first dead puppy. At night he dreamed of the Madison woman yanking that dog's head and body away.

  Then Watt Pinson bought two shotguns, in case one didn't work right.

  Migration over Gruel

  MARKHAM ZUPP WENT BY MARKHAM—not Mark, Marky, Ham, Hammy, not even Zupp—and whenever someone made the mistake of offering an endearment, like I did, something occurred from deep within Markham's malformed sense of recognizing social pleasantries. He squinted. His lip curled to one side and he pulled his head upward. Markham inflated his chest and bowed his back. He turned one foot—usually the right one—inward pigeon-toed. Then Markham, inevitably, either popped his so-called accuser in the chest a couple times with the flat of his palms or threw a roundhouse outright.

  I had seen it happen on a few occasions, usually in Roughhouse Billiards, when either Larry or Barry tired of miscalculating trick shots and said something like, "Hey, Mark-o, the table's yours," or "Hey, Zuppinator, the table's yours," or "Hey, Mark-ham-on-rye-wha'Zupp? the table's yours."

  Normally I pretended that I didn't know Markham about the time his first punch landed, then Barry or Larry beat the shit out of him. Oh, I might've stepped in on a couple occa sions, but mostly I looked at Jeff the owner and lifted my finger for the tab.

  We sat on a bench on Gruel's square, right beside the statue of Colonel Dill, Civil War hero. This was October, and we awaited the first-annual fake hawk migration. Bird-watchers from as far away as west Texas surrounded us, all holding live white mice, barely weaned bunny rabbits, the occasional brown trout all gasp and wiggle.

  The hawks weren't fake, but the migration was. In an ongoing process to reinvent Gruel and bring in some kind of tourist trade, members of the volunteer Chamber of Commerce came up with the hawk migration concept, though most hawks came south for the winter following the Appalachian Trail, the Blue Ridge, fifty miles one side or the other, on their way to wherever. Paula Purgason bought ads in Southern Living and a couple bird-watcher trade magazines for upcoming festivals and such. She promised thousands of swirling redtails, kestrels, and Cooper's hawks performing gyres overhead during a weeklong spree.

  I said to Markham, "Hey, a dyslexic might accidentally call you Zuppo Markham—almost like Zeppo Marx. I never thought about that before." We didn't buy live mice or bunnies or fish from Victor Dees, who ran a makeshift concession stand there on the square. Supposedly, according to him, the hawks would come down and take prey from one's hands. Everyone from far away wore those big leather gloves that one lacking tongs might wear when pulling a hot, hot raku bowl out of the fire.

  Markham stood up and said, "Stand up." I did. Because he tilted his head upward I thought maybe some migrating hawks arrived.

  He pushed me hard on the chest, right above my nipples. I fell back on the ground, of course, and my shoulders hit a khaki pants-wearing woman in the back of the knees, thus causing her to fall over. Unfortunately, she held binoculars to her eyes, and when she hit face-first immediate bruises formed in such a way that made her look like a raccoon. I thought to myself, Oh God, I hope some wayward hawk doesn't look down from the sky and attack her. To Markham I said, "Hey, man," and punched him twice in the Adam's apple, hard. To the woman I said, "Let me help you up," and did.

  She said, "Ow, ow, ow!" like that, and some people turned around momentarily until they saw her stand up. Then they stared back to the northeast, waiting for birds that would never appear. Maybe they thought she said, "Owl!"

  Markham said, "Goddamn you, son of a bitch," and took one of those long, long swings at me, but I ducked, then got him with an uppercut right in the solar plexus, like a champ. He sat back down on our bench.

  The woman said, "I've lost a contact! I've lost one of my contact lenses! If these hawks show up and I don't see them I'm going to send you the bill for my KOA campground and rental car fee."

  Man, she was gorgeous, outside of the purpled rings around her eyes. I said, "That man over there fell into me, and I fell into you. I apologize." I stuck my right thumb toward Markham Zupp. "I think he's drunk or something." I said, "Let me run over to the concession stand and see if I can get an ice bag. I'm thinking that fellow has some fish on ice to slow them down a bit."

  I looked over at Markham Zupp and fake-lurched his way to let him know that I might, at any moment, decide to turn unpredictable bird-watching redneck on him. "I appreciate it," the woman said as we headed over to the concession stand.

  To Victor Dees I said, "Hey, man, let me buy some ice off you."

  He said, "I got Italian ice for two bucks each. You want orange, cherry, cola, pineapple, blue, or mixed?" Victor Dees wore mirrored sunglasses and a camouflaged outfit. His hat advertised 3.

  I said, "I just need some ice. Shove over one of those fish and give me some ice."

  "That'll cost you extra," he said.

  I turned around to point at the woman, who now crawled around Gruel Square looking for her contact lens. I said, "I'll take two blue, that's it."

  I gave Victor Dees a five and told him to keep the change. He whispered, "Hey, that's good, Freddie Kerns. Make people think they's birds really on their way" Dees bounced his eyebrows up and down a few times until the hat fell off the back of his head.

  I didn't punch him in the nose, even though I only went by Fred, not Freddie, not Frederick, not Frederich. Not Kernels. Not Kern-dogs. I said, "Uh-huh. I don't want to tell you how to keep up your business, but when the hawks don't show up you can keep your dead fish and rodents for the first-annual fake black buzzard migration. They travel, too."

  "We gone have one them coming up?" he asked.

  I showed up with my two blue sno-cones to find the bruise-eyed woman seated next to Markham, though he was more heaved forward than seated. I said, "Here. I know you might think it weird, but take one of these in each hand and stick them to your eye sockets. It'll be a lot like when you had binoculars to your face."

  She said, "Thanks. My name's Sharo
n. I'd shake your hand but I don't want to lose my ice."

  She didn't need to tell me that she was from the lower part of the state. It sounded like she said, "I'd shake your hand but I don't want to lose my ass."

  I said, "I'm Fred. Now time's a-wasting. Stick your ass up to your eyes," of course.

  Markham Zupp, to whom I will forever be grateful, said, "Sorry about that. Good punch, Fred."

  I looked upward to the bleak, blue, empty sky. "You got to get ahold of yourself, man. You might want to look over some psychology textbooks and see what makes you act thusly."

  Sharon stood there with two sno-cones to her face, the paper cup tips stuck out like a porno bra. "Are you some kind of paramedic, or athletic trainer, or doctor? How'd you know to do this so fast, Fred?"

  I said, "Uh-huh," even though I only used Gruel to hide out in while I waited for one of the big companies to buy out my invention. I said, "Well not really—I just know, you know."

  Markham Zupp sat up straight and took two or three deep breaths. He winked at me and said, "Man, is that a sharp-shinned hawk flying in? Is that a broad-winged?"

  Sharon took the ice from her face, causing the frozen balls to hit the grass. She blinked toward the sun, then stuck the empty paper cones to her eyes. I said, "Mean joke, Markham. Mean joke, Markhamisole. Markhambodia. Markhamembert cheese. Markhamomile tea. Mark-hamfiregirl."

  Sharon pulled the cups from her eyes and said, "Don't start."

  Markham said, "Fred's just jealous 'cause they ain't no hawks coming today to show you off to."

  I bent down toward ring-eyed Sharon and said, "Please trust me on this one." I took her by the elbow and led her in the direction of off-the-square. She didn't resist. "I'm always glad when people come visit here, but in another way I'm embarrassed about it. There's really nothing to do, except find a way to make a fool out of yourself in front of strangers."

  Sharon said, "I've never spent time with the voodoo people from down where I live, but I have this suspicion that we've all been duped to come visit Gruel. Should I feel this way?"