Sorrow Floats

by Tim Sandlin

  On my stomach, I watched through the insect net as people walked up and down the street, pretending they had errands downtown. Or the dog suddenly needed relieving or something, any excuse to check out the Talbot spectacle. Cars drove by slow, as if my camp were a prizewinner in the Christmas outdoor display contest.

  I ate two candy bars and drank half the pint of Yukon. Inside the tent was hot and airless, so I rolled Sam’s sleeping bag into a pillow and took a nap until Dothan coming home for supper woke me up. When he slammed the truck door, I jumped like I’d been shock-therapied. Sleeping in the afternoon always makes me skittish.

  The sunset was great. I may have been depraved, and I may have been a drunk, maybe I was even town tramp for a while, but I never lost my appreciation for the sun going down behind the Tetons. Even then, I had standards.

  Besides, town tramp was a matter of perspective. We’re talking a college coed between 1968 and 1971 here—the very height of the sexual revolution. I slid through that remarkably short gap between the pill and herpes when for the first, possibly the last, time in history the young reveled in sex without consequences. A dozen boys before age twenty-three was not that rare or squalid.

  After dark I unscrewed the Yukon bottle, switched on the flashlight, and pulled the notebook from the pack. Between sips, I made a list—one dozen pricks I have known.

  Sam

  Dothan

  Rocky Joe

  Park

  Randy

  Lonnie

  Chuck

  Joe Bob

  Joe Bob

  Winston

  Akeem

  Leon

  I went back and put a check next to the ones who sleeping with had made me feel better about myself instead of worse.

  Sam

  Park

  Lonnie I’m not totally convinced happened because if we made it, he was a tequila screw that I blacked out. All I know is I woke up naked beside him in a Cowboy Joe homecoming float, and afterward he told anybody who would listen that we’d made it. Lonnie may have been lying through his teeth. He wouldn’t be the first to say he did when he didn’t or he didn’t when he did.

  One of the Joe Bobs was from Archer City, Texas, and the other from Great Falls, Montana, but I couldn’t tell you which was which. The bigger one had a ’58 Corvette tattooed on his chest. I remember that. I met him at a frat party, where he slammed a thirty-two-ounce Miller High Life and said “Lick my chrome, baby.”

  Winston was a married English professor specializing in Camus and Kafka. He’s the one who denied me. Akeem was a black guy who collected white women. Honest to God, the headboard of his bed was covered with silver stick-on stars like you give little kids for doing their chores. I asked him what they were for, and he said it was to remind him of the night sky over Mecca. Then when we finished what wasn’t near all it’s built up to be, he jumped from the bed to add a star to the collection.

  Even a tramp can be naive.

  Sipping the Yukon so as to conserve warmth for the long night, I played with the flashlight beam on the roof of the tent and came to generalizations concerning the male gender. A few, a very few that I’d met, see women as individual people with both good and bad traits and unique fears and needs. The giant majority of boys said things to each other like “Gettin’ any lately?” and “If she’s ugly, put a flag over her head and fuck her for Old Glory.”

  Boys plied girls with whiskey in hopes of tricking them into doing stuff they didn’t want to do. If a woman gave anything of herself willingly, boys interpreted it as proof of their manly superiority. The worst insult one boy could hurl at another was to call him female body parts—boob, pussy—or the action most wanted from a woman—cocksucker.

  Was I the first female to figure this stuff out? Maybe Lydia knew and wouldn’t tell me for fear of causing disillusionment. At nineteen I’d wanted someone to like me, so I came at this human connection thing open to sincerity, and now at twenty-two I was bitter, cynical, and smart. If I met any of them now, the good ones, the Parks and Sams, they would avoid me like walking gonorrhea. Five years out of high school and I’d lost hope. What a gyp.

  ***

  I filled in the rest of the page with doodles, then I couldn’t think what to do next, so I turned the page and did it again. My problem, besides retrieving my child, was that I could chug the Yukon and turn off my mind, knowing that running out meant we were in for a long night, or I could drink slowly, which meant sobering up between sips. The quandary was kill the bottle and be out of whiskey, or save it as security and never quite cop a proper buzz. I began to regret drinking in the afternoon as a nap inducement.

  How I doodle is I draw pages of wavery lines with arrows on both ends. I’m very careful—no lines cross each other and every single arrow is a perfect wing-like V pointing the way to look next. I don’t know why I doodle that way; I guess I never made the grade with faces.

  Halfway through my third page of arrows, a sneeze exploded outside my tent. I would’ve liked to pee my pants.

  “Who’s there?” No sound came except the slight swish of someone trying to walk on grass without making noise. “I’ve got a gun.”

  “It’s not loaded,” a voice whispered.

  Jesus, what good is a pistol if the whole county knows you don’t have bullets? “Who’s out there?”

  “Pud.” He waited a moment, then whispered again. “Pud Talbot.”

  Pud Talbot—all I needed was that retard sniffing around the tent. “Did Dothan send you out to bother me?”

  “Dothan’ll be real mad if he catches me here. Can I come in, Maurey?”

  The whisper action seemed to indicate he was telling the truth, the visit was unauthorized, but I’d known the Talbot family too long to trust anything that seemed the truth. “What do you want, Pud?”

  “I brought you food. Can I come in, Maurey? I don’t want Dothan mad.”

  “Okay, but try anything weird and I’ll break your nose with Charley.”

  Pud knew who Charley was. “I won’t try anything weird.”

  The zipper made its sound, then Pud pushed a greasy paper sack and a lit flashlight through the door. He crawled in head first. “I thought maybe you were hungry.”

  I hadn’t considered it, but he was right. “What all did you bring?”

  He shined the light on the bag. I picked it up and shined my own light inside—bologna and American cheese on white bread sandwich, a carton of chocolate milk, and a box of Milk Duds.

  “Thank you, Pud.” Maybe almost dying had made me susceptible to emotion, but I was kind of touched. Here was someone I hadn’t known about who cared whether or not I ate.

  “It’s what I had for supper,” he said.

  “Didn’t happen to bring anything to drink, did you?”

  He raised up on his knees and flashed the light beam down the bag with mine. Our heads almost touched. “I put milk in,” Pud said.

  “I meant alcoholic to drink.”

  He lowered himself again. His voice sounded disappointed, as if he’d failed in his good deed. “I didn’t think about alcohol.”

  “Wish I could say that. Thanks again, Pud. I do appreciate the food.”

  Pud sat quietly while I ate my sandwich. His flashlight beam explored the tent some, but he was careful not to illuminate me. He seemed to accept it when I shined my light on him. Pud was shorter than Dothan, with curly dark hair and eyes the same brown as the backs of his hands. I figured his age at eighteen or nineteen. I’d known him most of my life and married into his family, but I doubt Pud and I had ever had a real conversation. The guy in front of me was different somehow from the kid we’d mocked in junior high.

  “Thank you,” I said again. “This is what I needed.”

  He nodded twice. “I thought you might be upset and forget food. He took your baby.”

 
What I saw when I looked at Pud that I’d never seen before was compassion. I never know what to do with compassion. Lydia had it, she’d give her right arm if you needed it, but she’d joke like it didn’t matter and call you trouble as she saved you. Her compassion had to hold the illusion of hard ass or the whole Lydia image would collapse.

  Pud’s compassion was straight. Men too simple to hide themselves get to me. Right in the middle of chewing bologna I suddenly got the urge to crawl into Pud’s arms and cry for six hours. I hadn’t touched a human, when I was awake, anyway, in a week. Having a baby, you get used to skin-touching affection, even when you don’t have a man.

  But I was afraid if I touched him Pud would take it wrong—all other men would. He might think he could touch me back.

  “Can I ask you something personal?” I asked.

  His hands turned over, palms up, but he didn’t say anything, so I went on. “For as long as I can remember people have said you’re not smart, but I’ve seen you work on cars and stuff and you seem on the ball then. Why do people think you’re not smart?”

  He turned off his flashlight. “I can’t read.”

  I turned off mine. It was kind of nice in the dark. The moon outside was bright enough that I could make out Pud’s form, his arms and the outline of his head, but I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “Can’t read at all?” I asked.

  The head outline dropped and I could tell he was looking at the ground instead of me. “Not very good. I try, I used to try hard, but the letters don’t stay still.”

  We were quiet a long time, aware of each other’s presence. Reading books was important to me, maybe most important after Auburn, Yukon Jack, and horses. It was hard to conceive of not being able to read.

  I was curious about something else, too. “There’s this other thing people say you do, Pud, that I always wondered if it’s true.”

  “Mess around with animals.”

  I was glad he said it. Even in my frank frame of mind I’d have had trouble saying “Hey, Pud, do you fuck sheep?”

  Pud’s flashlight came on and he shined it on me for the first time, although he kept the beam out of my eyes. “Do you believe it?’’ he asked.

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “My brother tells everyone I mess with animals.”

  “I’ll ignore what Dothan says about you if you ignore what he says about me.”

  Pud slid closer. I needed to hold his hand, nothing more, but I needed a hand.

  He tapped a rhythm on the tent floor with his knuckles. “When I was a kid Dothan had a club, the Rough Riders, that he wouldn’t let me in. He said I was too stupid.”

  I saw a glimpse of what being Dothan’s younger brother must be like. I’d lived less than two years with him and already tried suicide.

  Pud went on. “Dothan said I could be a special cadet of the Rough Riders if I’d give Stonewall a jack job.”

  “Wasn’t Stonewall that God-ugly dog of yours?”

  “He wasn’t so ugly.”

  I didn’t see any reason to fight over it, but Stonewall was ugly. “How do you jack off a dog?”

  Pud held his hand in the light and made his thumb and first finger into an O. “I didn’t like being left out, so I did what he said. The boys in the club laughed at me.” His voice was sad. “Dothan said special cadet meant I had to jack off a different animal before every meeting. I wouldn’t do it.”

  How could I tell him Dothan was the screwed-up one, not us? Everyone in town had it backward. “Jacking off an ugly dog isn’t so bad, Pud. Hell, I’ve jacked off Dothan himself.”

  His head nodded. “He told everybody, too.”

  Pud’s eyes came up and met mine. He moved his hand toward me, I closed my eyes and felt his fingers gently touch the side of my neck. I almost groaned.

  Pud said, “You’ve got a tick.”

  “What?”

  “Hold still, I don’t want to leave the head inside.”

  I went rigid, afraid to even blink. Pud’s fingertips on my neck turned slowly counterclockwise. He exhaled and drew his hand back to hold the tick under the flashlight beam.

  “See,” Pud said. “I got his head.”

  The tick kicked its tiny legs into Pud’s palm, and its head rose and fell, like it was blind and wanted to re-enter my body. Pud pressed its middle with his thumb until the tick popped and blood splattered from the base of Pud’s fingers to his wrist.

  He wiped his hand off on his jeans leg and said, “You should check yourself. Stonewall used to get hordes of ticks this time of year.”

  8

  Ticks and dead babies roamed the night. Bloated, sucking ticks, crawling-out-my-ear ticks—my dreams reeked of the buggers. I found them in my pubic hair, hanging off my breasts, imbedded in my lower eyelid.

  But the tick revulsion was diddly compared to opening my locker in GroVont Junior High to find Shannon smothered on my math book or lifting the toilet lid on Auburn with open eyes staring up from under the water.

  Time after time I came awake choking, sweating like a stuck pig. Nightmares based on true fear must unleash a reaction in the sweat glands. Being in a coma was easy thrills compared to that night in my own yard.

  The mid-morning sunlight caught me curled up against the far panel with the sleeping bag wrapped around my neck. My fist clutched the empty Milk Duds box.

  When I crawled from the tent Mrs. Barnett was standing on the sidewalk holding a cut-glass bowl of candy. She wore a synthetic dress, and her tongue made those little click sounds you think of when you think disapproval from an old woman. She stepped past me and went up the sidewalk to where Sugar Cannelioski waited in her matching slacks and top outfit looking like the Barbie doll from hell.

  “How thoughtful of you,” Sugar said in this drippy southern accent she must have picked up overnight. “I just love pralines.” Sugar held the door so Mrs. Barnett could totter inside, then she looked at me on my hands and knees in the corner of the yard.

  “Don’t even think about asking to use my bathroom,” she called. I flipped her off, but she was already inside hostessing and missed it.

  “My bathroom, you flat-chested slut,” I said to the ground. Memories of that bathroom left a bad taste in my mouth, anyway. Every time Dothan went righteous the first place he looked for a bottle was the tank on the back of the can. What an insult. I may have been drunk, but I wasn’t stupid.

  I didn’t even want Yukon Jack right then, which I took as a sign I wasn’t an alcoholic but a regular person temporarily thrown off by her father’s death. Or something. Something had thrown me off.

  What I wanted was black coffee followed by a hot shower and more black coffee. What I had to do was get my butt upright and down the road.

  Except for the Teton Mountains, the Killdeer Cafe had been about the only consistency in my young life. The dump had gone through maybe six name changes, but for me the cafe had always been Max in back slinging grease and Dot out front taking care of people who didn’t eat at home. She’d quit for a couple years about the time Shannon was born, and I don’t think I ever had my bearings the whole time she was gone.

  Dot has all this curly black hair that goes with her rounded cheeks and chin. I wouldn’t say she’s fat, but fat is such a subjective deal. If I was shaped like Dot, I’d say I was fat. Half the single men in Teton County were in love with her. Single men will fall in love with any woman who brings them food.

  When I came through the door she was sitting at the counter, eating a sweet roll and staring at a paperback book propped against a napkin dispenser. The first instant Dot saw me shock flashed in her eyes, but she hid it quickly. I appreciated the effort.

  “Coffee, hon?” Without waiting for an answer she grabbed the pot and brought it to my normal booth by the window. Dot talked to fill in that uncomfortable space when you f
irst see a friend who has screwed up.

  “Have you read this Teachings of Don Juan book? Jacob picked it up somewhere and now he has his heart set on becoming a sorcerer. People turn into crows and fly over the ocean. They eat hummingbird hearts. I think it endorses drugs.”

  Booths, tables, and cracked-plastic-covered stools, the Farmer Brothers stainless-steel coffee urn, the pyramid made from single-serving cereal boxes, a calendar with the months framing a University of Wyoming football schedule—the name might change, but the restaurant had achieved a glacial kind of pace that gave me comfort. The newest decor addition was three years old. That came about when Max changed the name to the Louis L’Amour Room and the real Louis L’Amour threatened a lawsuit. Max framed the personally signed threat letter and hung it next to the Dutch Master box turned cash register.

  The coffee cup kind of quivered in both my hands. “Taking drugs isn’t healthy, Dot, no matter what that Mexican says. God wants us to drink whiskey.”

  Dot laughed like I was kidding. “What can I get you, Maurey? Max went to the dentist after the breakfast rush, so I’ll fix it myself.”

  “Nothing but coffee, I only need coffee.”

  “Pooh on that, girl, you need nourishment. Why don’t you freshen up in the ladies’ room while I whip us up a snack.”

  Dot coming close enough to criticism to suggest I freshen up was the equivalent of Lydia telling me I looked like something the cat threw up.

  “Yeah, maybe I will,” I said, “but no food. I don’t want your food.” I took my coffee cup to the John. As I passed the counter I stopped to look at the Don Juan book. The cover showed a man and a cactus in burnt orange and burro brown. It was just the sort of drivel Park would have changed his life over. Myself, I distrusted all guru types. None of them wore jeans.

  ***

  In the bathroom I stripped down for a tick check. From what I could see of myself it was easy to understand the shock flash I’d caused Dot. A week like the one I’d just gone through is tough on the old body. A coma, or wherever I spent Monday afternoon through Friday morning, is great if you’re trying to lose weight but hell on the complexion. Only color on my entire body came from these bags under each eye. They were the same burro shade as the man’s blanket on the Don Juan book cover.