by Martin Clark
Room 118, a brown door, a yellow light. Falstaf opened the door to the room and then went in with Jo Miller. He walked in before she did, Evers noticed. A light came on, and the curtains were drawn until only a slim, tall crack of white space showed in the middle of the room’s window. Falstaf came back outside and got something out of the car, something in a brown grocery bag.
“I’ll go get the key, Judge.”
“You mean a room key?”
“Yeah.” H. T. cleared his throat.
“How?”
“I just will.”
“That’s a bit irregular, isn’t it, H. T.?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Wouldn’t that be sort of unlawful?”
“So’s what they doing, huh? Plus, I am the law, right? I got me a badge and a hat and all that other good shit, all of which says I am the law.”
“That’s a pretty good analysis, H. T., given the state of things.”
Harry Truman Moran was gone for a few moments, then returned with a key that had a square metal head and a hole cut through its top. “You wanna ’comp’ny me inside, Judge?”
“Sure, let’s go.” Evers opened the door of the El Camino and noticed the cigarette smoke when the interior light came on. “Unbelievable,” he said.
Evers’ wife, his fiancée, his girlfriend, a bright, engaging, porcelain-fine, boyish girl was in the room. Evers’ wife. He and H. T. walked to the door, stood in the air, both of them looking down. Evers could hear noises through the door, but he couldn’t understand what was being said. A few times he heard laughter.
After five minutes or so, a car pulled into one of the spots near where Evers and H. T. were standing and left its lights on. The room had turned quiet, no sounds, no voices.
“Let’s us go in, Judge. Pretty soon now.”
“Let’s.” Neither man was eager to open the door.
Evers could hear noises again, coming out of the room, as he and H. T. stood outside, not looking at anything, but he couldn’t tell who was speaking or make sense of any of the words.
When H. T. opened the door, Jo Miller and Falstaf were so engrossed in their flailing that they continued on for several moments after H. T. and Evers entered the room. Evers recalled that his wife’s mouth was rounded open, her legs lifted, both of them perpendicular to the bed and going up as high as she could push them, and—this he especially saw—Falstaf’s hands were cupped over Jo Miller’s rear, one on each side of her, dark hands with veins all the way up to the knuckles.
They were pounding each other when Evers first saw them. Slamming. A pair of white, tiny panties with a cotton band was lying beside a man’s boot that had a thick black sole and laces crisscrossing their way well up past the ankles. Jo Miller looked at her husband, saw him over Falstaf’s shoulder and arm, and pulled away from the man on the bed. “Jesus.” Her eyes were wide, and Evers could hear her breathing. She put her hand against Falstaf’s chest, rolled off the bed and stood up.
“Good to see you, Jo Miller.”
“Evers—”
“Officer Moran, would you draw your side arm and point it at the man in the bed?”
“Yessir. Ten-four.” H. T. was the law. The law drew his gun.
Falstaf licked his lips and held his hands in front of his chest, palms out, fingers spread.
“Okay now. Would you, Mr. Falstaf, get up and leave?” Evers was surprised how little animosity he felt toward the man who was just violently screwing his wife. Perhaps he was simply numb. His stomach felt knotted, heavy, as if it were full of rotten earth and slick, red nightcrawlers.
“How ’bout my clothes?”
“Just hit the road, okay?”
“No problem. Right. I’m not lookin’ for trouble.” Falstaf walked to the door. He was naked and large and still wet from being inside Evers’ wife. He looked at H. T. and Evers and then opened the door and walked out. Evers heard the Cadillac start and saw the car’s lights through the curtains.
His wife, his girlfriend, his fiancée. He had made her hot soup from a can when she was infirm, and allowed a cat into the house when they lived together before getting married. And now Jo Miller was standing on matted shag carpet in front of a motel sink with yellow-brown cigarette burns all around it, transformed into a bare, naked woman with angry red splotches on her neck and cheeks, a different, foreign, shadowy thing, staring at Evers and H. T. Moran, her arms folded across her breasts.
“Let me get my clothes, Evers,” Jo Miller said.
“No.”
“I want to leave.” Her voice was low.
“Then go.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Evers.” She looked at H. T., who looked away. “How big of a surprise can this be?”
“I can see where you must feel aggrieved,” Evers said.
“You could be decent.”
“Even though you haven’t been.”
“Even though I haven’t. At least not right now.”
“Nice understatement.”
“You’ve probaby cheated on me, Evers. I’ll bet you have. What’s the difference?”
“You know better than that. What a pathetic thing to say, Jo Miller.”
“Well, you’ve certainly been a sorry husband in a lot of other ways, Evers. Selfish and cold and headstrong.”
“Officer, would you gather up the adulteress’ clothes, please.” Evers nodded at Jo Miller’s pants.
“That’s so childish and silly, Evers. I mean, in terms of all this it’s just small, what you’re doing. It’s like letting the air out of my tires or signing me up for a record club or something. Really impotent. Better to do nothing if you can’t be effective.” She didn’t raise her voice.
H. T. picked up the clothes in the room, getting to Jo Miller’s underwear last and balling it up inside her shirt and pants. Evers collected Falstaf’s clothes and then the towels from the bathroom, the sheets from the bed. Jo Miller watched him, stepping back when he passed, her arms still folded.
“Great, Evers. Just great. What is it exactly that you’re trying to accomplish here?”
“Are you taunting me, Jo Miller?” Evers looked at his wife. “Are you? Do you remember what you just said? Or are you coming unglued, standing there naked and guilty?”
“Do you think that it matters that you’re taking my clothes?”
“Who knows?”
“You’ve caught me, I’m committing adultery, our marriage is in trouble, and you and Sergeant Pinhead are acting like two sixteen-year-olds. I’m waiting for you to demand your preengagement ring and AC/DC tape back. Why don’t we just cut our losses and go? Or you beat and bloody me. But don’t be sophomoric about this, okay?”
“I’m going to leave you. You know that, don’t you, Jo Miller? And, I’m going to make sure that you have to get off your ass and get a job and that your sport shopping and nouvelle cuisine lunches from noon to three end. Perhaps that will be substantive enough for you.”
“The fuck you will.”
“We’ll see.”
“We will,” said Jo Miller.
“Nice Cadillac your boyfriend’s got.”
“Why don’t you just give me my clothes and let’s leave.”
Evers was quiet for a moment. He leaned against the back of a chair and put his hands in his pockets. “Officer?”
“Yessir?”
“Would you please handcuff the adulteress?”
“Ten-four, sir.”
Jo Miller’s mouth opened. “What the hell are you suggesting, Evers? Are you mad? You can’t do something like that.” She moved her feet. There was a trace of fright in the last few words. Fright and uncertainty.
“Sure we can.”
“I haven’t done anything. He can’t do something like that. You know better, Evers. It’s against the law. God.”
“Officer Moran is the law. Behold the badge and gun and hat. Am I correct, Officer?”
“Affirmative,” H. T. replied, hands on hips, legs spread.
“Affirmative, my ass. You and your friend will regret anything you do. I promise you that.”
Evers thought, listening to his wife, how odd it was that she was undressed and splotched and that the three of them—Evers, Jo Miller and Moran, a stranger really—were standing in a motel room debating points of honor and justice. “How bellicose,” Evers said.
“You’d better not do anything to me, Evers.”
H. T. had very little difficulty subduing Jo Miller, and Evers was surprised at the policeman’s strength and proficiency. Jo Miller, at first, shook away, swung at H. T. and tried to bite his arm. He moved behind her, caught one wrist and trapped her leg between his calves, and the scuffle was over. He put handcuffs on Jo Miller. “What now, Judge?” H. T. asked.
“There’s a town not too far from Greensboro called Climax. Climax, North Carolina. It’s next to another town called Julian. I’ve seen the road signs. Let’s drive out there.”
“Ten-four. Yessir. How do you want to transport, uh, the lady here? Is she gonna be a ridin’ with us or what?”
“I think we should wrap her in these sheets, toss her in the back of the El Camino and roll.”
“Have you lost your mind, Evers? Have you? Are you mad? Fuck you, Evers. Fuck you.”
Evers looked at his wife. “I just want my retribution to meet your lofty standards.”
“You’re crazy,” Jo Miller shouted.
They set out in the El Camino with Jo Miller, naked and trussed, lying in the back of the half-car, half-truck underneath a sheet and bedspread. H. T. and Evers smoked cigarettes and listened to a Jeff Foxworthy cassette, but didn’t talk much. A large truck passed them about twenty miles outside of Greensboro, and the driver blew his horn and pointed at the bed of the El Camino as if he thought Evers and H. T. somehow might be unaware that a nude woman was riding behind them. Jo Miller was screaming at the truck driver and flopping around like a fish on a stream bank. “I hope no one calls the state police or something,” Evers said.
“I am the law, remember?”
“Good point, H. T. I appreciate the reassurance.”
Evers had H. T. stop the El Camino at the Climax exit sign. The two men left Jo Miller, without clothes, at two-fifteen a.m., tied to the metal support pole of the road sign, along with a note:
I am an Alpha Sigma Sigma pledge.
I must stay here until sunrise. No matter
what I tell you, you must leave me here.
If you release me I will not become an
Alpha Sigma Sigma sister.
Thank you,
Jo Miller Wheeling
Class of 2003
Jo Miller was enraged, kicking, cursing, twisting, crying, threatening. “You’re a judge, Evers. Think about it. I’ll get you for doing this. I promise you that I will fuck up your life.”
“I’m just a really pissed-off husband. Women have a way of defeating our titles and pretenses. Strip us right down to the nub.”
“There’s not much I can do now, but you’ll regret this. You will.” Jo Miller pulled against the pole and strained toward Evers. “And, Evers, you know, no matter what you do to me, I’ll always have the upper hand—I’m the one who left you and chose to be with someone else. That’s a rejection you’ll carry around forever, and you’ll have self-doubt that eats you alive. I’m just bulletproof where you’re concerned, and what you’re doing now is feeble and weak and pitiful.”
“Perhaps you’re right. We’ll see, I guess.” Evers looked at H. T., who looked down at the highway.
A car passed while H. T. and Evers were starting back to the El Camino. It seemed loud and fast, and Evers heard the wind and the engine’s sound as it went by; he shielded his wife with his body so she wouldn’t be seen and the car kept going, red lights getting smaller and smaller. Evers felt strange standing in the gravel and dirt beside the road. Everything outside was large, empty and dark. He got into the El Camino and shut the door. Jo Miller was tugging at her bonds, screaming and crying, a jerking white form with dark hair.
H. T. and Evers drove home in the El Camino. Evers managed to smile as they were driving, in spite of all that had happened, in spite of the fact that the certainties in his life, all his routines and braces, were now little more than vapors; everything now would be different, even the past, the things that already had happened. H. T. glanced at Evers and saw the smile. “You done showed her ass, Judge. Yessir.”
“I don’t guess that we’re quite even though, huh?”
“I don’t guess so, nope,” said H. T. in a flat, literal voice.
“Oh well.”
H. T. paused. “So how come we done drove all the way down here, Judge? I reckon there was closer signs, weren’t there?”
“Metaphor, H. T.”
“Gotcha.” He nodded sharply.
Right, thought Evers.
“How come you think she kept seein’ Falstaf after I done jumped him?” H. T. asked a few miles later.
“I don’t know. Either he didn’t tell her or she just didn’t give a shit.”
“I guess.”
“You know,” Evers told Harry after they had ridden for about thirty miles and not said a word, “I just figured something out. This is the second part of the equation. Not only do you leave Princeton and become paler and paler and paler still, but you also discover that acts swirl and dance and fall without your ever touching them, just above your head or out of your reach. It’s bad that the trestles crumble, and worse that you have no idea where the debris will fall.”
Harry Truman Moran didn’t understand what Evers was saying, just as Evers hadn’t understood it himself until the deputy had told him about Jo Miller, his wife, and they found her in a motel with Hobart Falstaf.
Evers didn’t go to work the next day. He stayed at his apartment by himself and cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill on his balcony and drank red wine. He drove to Winston-Salem to Vaughn Ford-Lincoln-Mercury-Jeep-Eagle-Isuzu, but he did not turn in. He rode past several times, back and forth on the highway. He finally saw Ruth Esther at about seven-fifteen, talking to a man and a woman in front of a green Crown Victoria. She shook hands with the couple, and they walked off. Evers drove his car into the turn lane, slowed down and blew the horn. He’d just opened a beer and set it between his legs. Ruth Esther turned toward him and looked at his car for a moment. When she recognized him, she smiled and motioned for him to pull into the lot. Evers didn’t turn in and stayed in the road, stopped and blocking traffic. A car jerked up behind him and flashed its lights. Ruth Esther started walking toward the highway, and Evers rolled his window down and waved at the driver on his bumper. The car didn’t move. Another car appeared and passed both Evers and the vehicle waiting on him. Ruth Esther opened the door, got in Evers’ car, and he steered back into traffic. The car behind him turned into the dealership.
“Goodness. It smells like alcohol and cigarettes.” Ruth Esther reached down to the floorboard and picked up a fast-food bag and an empty soft-drink can. She put the can in the bag and dropped the trash into the back.
“I’ve been drinking beer and smoking.”
“I’m glad you’re here. Did you decide to help Artis?”
Evers drove and didn’t say anything. “Do you want me to strip again? If that’s what it takes, I will.”
Evers turned to Ruth Esther and then looked back at the interstate. He rolled his window down several inches and lit a cigarette. He put his hand in his shirt pocket and took out a napkin. He held the napkin between his thumb and index finger and nodded at Ruth Esther. The napkin had OK written on it, and Ruth Esther moved closer to Evers so that she could see it.
“So you’ll help?” she asked.
“I’ve told you I can’t,” Evers said. He nodded his head and shook the napkin at Ruth Esther. “I just came to see you about the truck.”
“You don’t have to be so paranoid.”
“About the truck?” Evers asked.
Ruth Esther sighed. “Yeah. About the truck
.”
“Good.”
“I have a lawyer. You’ll need to talk to her.”
“A lawyer? About what? A lawyer. Shit. You’re kidding, right?”
“Her name is Pauletta. I’ll give you the address. She lives in Charleston, West Virginia.”
“Why would I want to talk with your lawyer?”
Ruth Esther reached across the seat and lifted the can of beer from between Evers’ legs. “Do you have another one? May I finish this one?”
“Sure.” Evers licked his lips. “I can’t imagine why I’d need to see your lawyer about anything. You must be out of your mind.”
“To draw up the truck papers, of course.” Ruth Esther giggled. She put her feet on the seat, her knees in her chest and set the beer in her lap.
THREE
THE LIGHT SHINING IN FROM OUTSIDE THE DOOR CAUSED Evers to see his shadow on the wall, and he and his shaded image looked like Pan straining to avoid a cattle prod. Evers was standing about fifteen tiles away from his target with his feet spread past shoulder width, his knees locked, and his eyes slit and sotted. That much wasn’t particularly distinctive. What caught his attention when he saw his outline going up the wall, what he noticed more than anything, was the exaggerated bloat in his middle, the way his back was arched and his abdomen was convexed well past its usual position. Evers was not heavy or fat or overweight, nor was he as unbalanced as his posture would suggest. To grow so misshapen, he had contorted his form intentionally, stretching and swelling himself so that he could transform his midsection from a thin, bland drop-off into one of the brazen, brown-’n’-serve guts which you generally find brooding atop a warehouse shipping crate or squirming free from the flesh-packed shirtfront of a third-world policeman. Evers rubbed his eyes, peered down at the sway, blinked once and closed his lids.
