Beowulf for Cretins

by Ann McMan

  “Hey, Joe?” Grace called out to him. “What’s up?”

  Joe nudged one of the boxes of discarded beer cans. “Slimy bastards skipped out. Owed me four months’ back rent and pretty much trashed the place. I came by this morning to kick their asses out.” He snorted. “Too late for that.”

  Grace wasn’t too surprised. Her now former neighbors hadn’t been much for what you’d call housekeeping.

  “Bummer,” she commiserated. “Guess they took the dog, too?”

  “Dog?” Joe sounded like he was chewing on a mouthful of glass. “What dog?”

  “Um.” Grace pointed down at his shit-covered boot.

  Joe’s eyes followed her gaze. “God fucking damn it!” He gave the box a swift kick and PBR cans dispersed across the lawn like a flock of shiny metal birds.

  “Lemme guess,” Grace offered. “You didn’t know about the dog?”

  “No. I didn’t know about the fucking dog. I wonder what other damn surprises they have in store for me.”

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out. His two helpers were fighting their way down the back steps wrangling what looked like the remains of a curiously stained and supremely ill-used mattress.

  “Where do you want us to put this, Joe?” the taller of the pair asked. He looked familiar. Grace thought she recalled him not exactly enjoying a brief tenure in a section of her English Lit class . . . Tyler something. From Swanton. Or “Swa-in,” as the locals called it.

  “What the fuck is that?” Joe was trying to clean the dog shit off his boot.

  “It was on the bedroom floor.” The guy who was or wasn’t Tyler jerked his head toward a gaping black hole that encompassed most of one side. “I think it got burned. There was a pizza box full of cigarette butts beside it.”

  Joe was nearly apoplectic. “They torched a goddamn mattress? Why didn’t the fucking smoke alarm go off?”

  “Oh.” The other student set his end of the mattress down on the warped top step. He held up a round, plastic-looking disc cinched to his belt loop by a skinny black wire. “Here’s the smoke alarm. It was in the pizza box, too.”

  Joe sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. He remained rooted in place while stray raindrops began to soak his thinning hair and anger swirled like a fog around his face. Eventually, he glared at Grace. “I hope to hell they did take their damn dog—’cause if I find it, I’m gonna use it for target practice.”

  Grace knew better than to comment. She wasn’t sure which fate would be worse for Grendel—having Joe take potshots at her with the .22 he was always packing, or having to face more of her life tethered to the loose whims of the people who’d just fled during the night.

  She felt a pang of sorrow for the paranoid little dog. No wonder Grendel was so suspicious. It was apparent she didn’t have much to feel secure about.

  She raised her coffee mug in a mock salute. “I wish you better luck, Joe. Sorry you have to deal with this.”

  He shook his head and trudged across a minefield of dung and debris to join his helpers on the steps. Grace took advantage of the chance to beat a hasty retreat and stole back inside her house.

  Her telephone rang while she was fixing herself a second cup of coffee. She glanced at the caller ID and smiled when she read the name.

  “Hey, Grady. We still on for the weekend at the cabin?”

  Grady and his wife, Karen, owned a sweet little weekend cottage out on Butler Island—a six-hundred-acre slice of heaven rising out of the middle of Lake Champlain. Life on Butler Island was simple. No phones. No electricity. No potable water. And—Grace’s favorite part—a complete dearth of assholes. It was her idea of nirvana. She loved it out there and she jumped at any chance to spend time on the island during the season—which in Vermont, meant June through October. The place had been in Karen’s family since the ’60s, and was little more than a fishing shack when she inherited it from her bachelor uncle. But Grady had great plans for it and Grace was his willing accomplice. Together they had replaced windows, installed a new roof, added a screened porch, and were making good progress on the interior. The cabin now sported a propane-fueled stove and refrigerator. A couple of solar panels connected to a bank of 12-volt batteries generated enough power to run lights, an FM radio, and a ceiling fan.

  It was bliss.

  “Bad news, Grace.” Grady sounded downright somber. “Karen’s sister went into labor this morning. The whole friggin’ family is heading for Manchester—including us.”

  “Oh, man,” Grace’s heart sank. “Can’t you get out of it?”

  “You know I would if I could.” Grady’s voice was near a whisper. “I’d rather stick a branding iron in my eye than have to spend an entire weekend with Gladys.”

  Gladys was Karen’s castrating mother. Grady said she had the charm of a stump grinder—and a voice that matched one in decibels.

  “I’m sorry, dude,” she said.

  “Not as sorry as I am, believe me. But, hey,” Grady continued. “Why don’t you go on out by yourself? Take the pontoon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Totally. It’s not like we’ll be using it. You know where the keys are.”

  Grace was elated. “Thanks, man. I could really use the solitude.”

  “Yeah. At some point, you’ll have to fill me in on that. We have a lot of catching up to do. And I want to hear your thoughts about the superwoman who just became our new head honcho.”

  “It’s nothing new, believe me.”

  “Grace? Don’t kid a kidder. I know when you’re lying. Besides, I ran into CK at the library yesterday. She told me your face had a textbook Catholic guilt streak about a mile wide—and that meant you were up to your ass in alligators about something.”

  CK? Christ. She’d be done for once CK got wind of this . . .

  “Did she elaborate?”

  “Nope. But she said she was gonna hammer you until you fessed up.”

  Fabulous. Now she really was in deep shit.

  “Okay.” Grace sighed. Grady and CK were her best friends in Vermont. She knew she could trust them—and she needed solid advice and a safe harbor where she could talk about the mess with Abbie. “I promise I’ll come clean when you get back.”

  “Okay. And we also need to compare notes on the new prez. I never did get to hear your reaction.”

  “It’s a deal.” That one was gonna be fun . . .

  “Hang on.” Grady lowered the phone. Grace could hear Karen’s voice in the background, telling him to hurry the fuck up. “I gotta go,” Grady said. “You have a good time this weekend—and don’t do any work out there. Just take it easy.”

  She knew better than to argue. “Okay. I promise.”

  “Cool,” Grady said. “I’ll catch up with you next week.” He hung up.

  She stood in the middle of her kitchen, tapping the phone against her thigh.

  “I am so totally fucked . . .”

  # # #

  The persistent rain that had been hanging around since Wednesday was supposed to move out by early afternoon so Grace planned to head for the island after lunch. In the meantime, she resolved to take the bull by the horns and save CK a lot of sweat equity—and herself the pain of an inquisition—by asking her best friend to meet her for lunch. CK didn’t hesitate. She accepted Grace’s invitation immediately—an indication that Grace’s come-to-Jesus moment was at hand.

  CK wasn’t known for her subtlety.

  They had met two years ago when CK came to St. Allie’s on a high-dollar, higher-prestige teaching fellowship. CK was the reigning rock star of the faculty—one of the youngest-ever recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship for her pioneering work in the “quantum physics of free will.” And that fact, if you knew anything about CK, showed up in the dictionary as the best illustration of the word “paradox.”

  “CK” was short for “Clover Kale.” Clover Kale Greene, BS, MS, M.Div., JD, Ph.D., LMNOP, XYZ, etc., etc. She had an academic pedigree that rivaled “floccinaucinihilipilificat
ion” in its number of letters. Knowing CK, she probably held advanced degrees in that field, too—especially since it referenced the estimation of things that were regarded as valueless.

  Grace and CK were complete opposites. Grace was forty-six, CK was twenty-eight. Grace dressed in clothes she liked to think of as shabby-chic (her mother called them “early rummage sale”). CK looked like a higher-octane version of Cyndi Lauper. Despite her best efforts, Grace plodded through life dragging a guilt-ridden, Catholic world view behind her like a ship’s anchor. CK had no time or patience for any of that. She believed Grace’s “scruples” functioned entirely as bourgeois stumbling blocks that were nothing more than pathetic offshoots of Cartesian Dualism.

  Grace wasn’t exactly sure what all “Cartesian Dualism” entailed, but she assumed it was something like the philosophical equivalent of mixing plaids. Their energetic discussions of free will vs. determinism had kicked into high gear the day Grace came home from school early to discover CK and her brother, Dean, sprawled across the bed in her guest room, engaged in dualism of another kind.

  Grace stood frozen in the doorway, uncertain about whether she most wanted to turn the garden hose on them—or claw out her eyes. They both were so engrossed they didn’t realize she was there.

  CK noticed her first.

  “Um, Dean?” she muttered.

  Her brother ignored her. He was too intent on the commission of his . . . errand.

  “Dean!” CK smacked him on the back of his head.

  “Whattsamatter?” he grunted. “Not hard enough?”

  “No, you stupid asshole.” CK smacked him again. “Your sister is here.”

  “Where?” he asked, dumbly.

  CK pushed him off her. “In the goddamn doorway.”

  Grace had seen enough. “Take your time,” she said. “I’m gonna go make coffee.”

  Five minutes later, CK joined her in the kitchen. Alone. Grace heard a door slam, followed by the grind and rumble of her brother’s HEMI-Powered Dodge Ram.

  “Dean took off,” CK explained.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  CK sat down and held up one of the three pottery mugs Grace had placed on the small table.

  “Are you pissed?” she asked.

  “That depends.” Grace uncorked a bottle of Bar Hill and poured her a couple of ounces.

  CK raised a red eyebrow. “I thought you were gonna make coffee?”

  “I was.” Grace filled her own mug. “But seeing my brother’s hairy ass made me realize I needed something stronger.”

  CK laughed. “I won’t disagree with that.”

  “What the hell were you doing?”

  CK shrugged. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

  “Not that part,” Grace clarified.

  “Well.” CK tossed back her gin in one gulp. “Do you really want me to explain it to you?”

  Grace held up a hand. “No thanks. I nearly lost my eyesight.”

  CK reached for the Bar Hill and poured herself another healthy portion. “I really hate gin that’s this heavy on the botanicals.” She took another lusty swallow. “It’s like drinking aftershave.”

  “All evidence to the contrary.”

  CK gave her the finger.

  Grace sipped from her own mug. “Seriously . . . you and Dean?”

  CK shrugged. “He’s great in the sack.”

  “Yeah,” Grace pointed toward the front of the house, “not my sack.”

  “Oh, don’t get your panties in a wad. Any port in a storm.”

  “He’s a total cretin.” Grace waved a hand in frustration. “He chews fucking Red Man. He flunked out of Penn State—twice. He watches NASCAR . . . with the volume on. He has ‘Trump Train’ stickers all over the back of his pathetic, over-chromed pickup. He always leaves my TV tuned to the Fox News Channel.” She shook her head. “You two have nothing in common.”

  “Not true.” CK held up an index finger and wagged it back and forth. “We’re exploring physics theory.”

  “What theory?”

  “Relativity.”

  Grace blinked.

  “Absolutely,” CK explained. “How long he takes to shed his pants is relative to how fast he can get me off and still leave time for takeout.”

  Grace closed her eyes. “I so do not need to know this.”

  “That’s the beauty of science. Once you establish a working principle, it’s infinitely repeatable.”

  “CK? You have no scruples.”

  “Of course, I do. Unlike you, I simply do not allow them to get in the way of a great fuck.”

  “Give me a break.”

  CK smiled at her. “I might—once you get your shaggy head out of your ass and rejoin the land of the living.”

  Grace had no response to make, and they finished their too-florid gin in silence.

  That had been more than a month ago. Today?

  Today, Grace was meeting CK for lunch—and her shaggy head was no longer anywhere near her ass.

  They agreed to meet at Twiggs, a popular gastropub on North Main Street. Grace could see CK, holding court at a table near the bar, as soon as she entered the place. She groaned when she saw, too, that Brittney McDaniel was working today. Great. The hits keep right on coming.

  CK waved her over.

  Grace dropped her messenger bag on a spare chair and sat down.

  CK looked her over. “What the hell is the matter with you? You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No.” CK waved at a server. Mercifully, it wasn’t Brittney. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

  “Nothing alcoholic, okay?”

  Too late. CK held up her glass and pointed at Grace. The server nodded and headed toward the bar.

  “One beer won’t kill you.” CK narrowed her eyes. “Grady said you weren’t right. What’s up? Are you sick?”

  “No.” Grace shook her head. “Not sick . . . exactly.”

  Grace decided to cut to the chase. There was no reason not to. CK would drag it out of her eventually. “So, remember a few weeks ago when I told you about Rizzo’s party?”

  “Of course, I remember. How often do you hook up with anybody—much less a total stranger? I added it to my finite roster of verified religious miracles.”

  “Yeah. Well.” Grace fiddled with her menu. “Turns out she’s no longer a total stranger.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “I saw her again the other day.”

  CK’s eyes widened. “No shit? Where?”

  Before Grace could answer, their server appeared and deposited two fresh pints of dark brown beer. Grace eyed them with suspicion. “What is this?”

  “Something you’ll hate.” CK handed her empty to the young waitress. “Thanks, Tif. Keep ’em coming.”

  “You got it, CK.” Tiffany winked at her and sashayed off.

  Grace shook her head. “Why do you let them call you by your first name?”

  “Why not?” CK shrugged.

  “I find it breeds too much familiarity and interferes with my ability to deliver constructive criticism.”

  “You would.” CK snorted. “I don’t give a flying fuck what they call me as long as they turn their work in on time and don’t bug my ass after ten at night.”

  Grace knew it was pointless to argue. She held the pint glass up to her nose. “This smells like ass.”

  “Yeah, but it tastes like ambrosia.”

  “Whatever.” Grace set the glass down. “What are we eating?”

  “Nachos. Extra beer cheese. I already ordered.”

  “Veggie?” Grace asked, hopefully.

  “Nope.” CK shook her red head. “Beef—the way god intended them.”

  “You’re really trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “No. But I might consider it if you don’t soon get to the point.”

  “What was I saying?”

  CK rolled her eyes. “You were about to tell me where you saw the ephe
meral Madam X.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Grace decided to try a cautious sip of the beer. CK was right—it didn’t quite taste like ass. It tasted more like . . . a damp basement. “It was here,” she said.

  “Here? Like here, here?” She waved a hand to encompass their surroundings.

  “No. Here as in St. Albans. On campus.”

  CK was incredulous. “Where?”

  “Well. It was the other day. In the auditorium. During the announcement.” She paused before continuing. “On the stage.”

  “On the . . .” CK repeated. Her eyes were like saucers. “No fucking way.”

  Grace sighed. “Way.”

  “Williams?”

  Grace nodded.

  CK dropped back against her chair. “Boy, when you finally decide to fuck around, you don’t fuck around.”

  “It wasn’t intentional.”

  “No.” CK shook her head. “I don’t imagine it was.”

  “So.” Grace knew she’d probably regret asking, but she took the plunge anyway. “What do I do now?”

  CK snickered. “You’re asking me this question?”

  “Apparently.” Grace nodded. “You should correctly understand this request as an indication of my level of desperation.”

  CK laughed. “In retrospect, you could’ve done a lot worse. She’s pretty hot.”

  “Thanks a lot. That doesn’t really help.”

  CK leaned toward her. “Say more about that.”

  “Nice try. You’re not my shrink.”

  “Do you have a shrink?”

  “No,” Grace took another cautious sip of her beer. “But I might need one by the end of this lunch.”

  Tif arrived and plopped a massive platter of cheese-covered nachos onto their table with a thunk. “Enjoy,” she said, before sailing off.

  “That looks revolting,” Grace observed.