by Jean Andrews
Leona’s tires ripped around the closed iron gates, and across the dump and around the north side, to a humongous hole in the ground with about fifteen cars parked atop it, their lights shining across the rim of a deep pit. Several of the men had battery-powered searchlights that beamed down into the darkest crevices of the crater.
Everyone had a bottle of beer in hand, and a few of the men had their vehicles backed up to the edge of the cavernous hole, their trunks open and lined with blood-pooling plastic, making it easier to sling ten-pound pieces of raw meat out of the back and into the pit without trashing their car or truck bed. I glanced into a trunk at the pile of remains. Must be what a mobster’s car looks like when he’s trying to dispose of the body.
Meat flew through the air and landed down below, where the lumbering black bears shambled back and forth picking it up and devouring it. It seemed disrespectful to the bears, turning them into a bad circus act. It was, nonetheless, mesmerizing in its otherworldliness. I didn’t feel comfortable and kept having dark thoughts. Maybe just like the subway pusher, some crazy, beer-guzzling guy would shove someone over the side, into this grand canyon of carnivores.
“Idn’t this the wildest thing you ever seen?” Leona asked me, arching her back against the hood of her car as she slugged down a beer, revealing a large expanse of bare belly with tattooed flowers that rode her waves of flesh and disappeared into a large hole, euphemistically known as her navel, where a brass belly-ring protruded. Her arched position seemed to be more of a topographical advertisement than the most effective way to drink beer.
“Well, lookee who’s here.” Marilyn swooned as Frank Tinnerson ambled over, and I realized who her advertising was targeting. He gave her a hug and leaned over and kissed the top of her huge breasts, which were struggling to escape her NIPPLE NATION T-shirt, flashing those blue eyes up at her. He was dressed all in black—hunting boots, jeans, shirt, bandana, and an ornate MUSKIE CHAMPION belt buckle, featuring a man swinging an enormous fish over his head.
“How are my girls?” he shouted, then focused on me. “Now what are you doing running with these two, who’ll get you into nothing but trouble, I promise you.” They laughed, and I was pretty sure Frank’s being here wasn’t coincidental. “You’re in for a treat. Lemmee show you somethin’.” He put his arm around my waist and dragged me ten feet away to the edge of the pit. “See that mama bear right there?” He pressed on my upper back, forcing me forward to peer over the edge. “She’s meaner than any of these boy bears ever thought of being. She’d bite yer head off as soon as look at you. And don’t be fooled. If they ran out of meat down there, next stop is us. Can I get you a bear…I mean a beer?” And he laughed at his joke.
We walked toward the beer coolers, past two cars with the radio blaring and bare butts in the air, boffing in the backseat. The groans and shouts and car-rocking didn’t turn anyone’s head but mine.
Leona and Marilyn, apparently having done their job, had moved on, leaving me with Frank. I hadn’t been there thirty minutes, but I could sense trouble brewing. Something about Frank made me feel trapped, like a seat belt that wouldn’t unbuckle. I’d now seen bear-baiting, and I was done with it.
My mind raced as I thought about how to leave, suspecting Frank would try to stop me. I did have one party trick that had gotten me out of trouble before. I could throw up on cue—or at least sound like I was going to.
As Frank kept cuddling me, and pulling me along with him, I went into full-boat stomach-virus vomiting noises. One thing about men, they usually run from a woman vomiting, bleeding, or giving birth, so Frank backed away. I walked backward toward my car, still gagging, and a throng of beer-bellied bear-baiters parted like the Red Sea. “So sorry, I’m terribly sick,” I said, and got in my car and locked the doors, thinking, actually I was telling the truth. Massive chunks of meat dripping in blood, hungry bears slurping the cow carcasses down, bare butts in the air copulating above the bears, and being cuddled by a guy who killed his wife did make me a tad queasy.
* * *
Saturday night, adopting my “just friends” mode, I used my bear-baiting adventure as an excuse to stop by and see Levade. She was home and seemed glad to see me; however, I reminded myself that it often started out that way, and then later, not so much. I told her I’d had the most unusual night of my life at the bear pits.
“I went with Leona and Marilyn. Do you know them?” I asked.
“I know who they are.” I gathered she was applying the “if you can’t say something nice” rule.
“I’ve never seen so much beef being slung around—in truck beds, the bear pit, and in the backseat of cars! It was the strangest combination of raw pleasure and rancid entertainment I’ve ever witnessed. Frank was there, and I had to pretend I was sick to get away from him.”
Levade wasn’t viewing my adventure as humorous, and she interjected, “Promise me you’ll stay away from him completely.”
I paused. “Has he done anything to you, or said anything to you?”
“I know what he’s capable of. Promise me.” What more, beyond the murder of his wife, could Frank be capable of?
“I want nothing to do with him. He’s the reason I bought a gun. I didn’t know he’d be at the bear pits. His appearing was less coincidental and more like an ambush.” After a long pause, I finally said, “Well, just had to share my extracurricular activities. I’ll head back to the cabin.”
“I’d like it if you would stay.”
My heart leapt. She is actually inviting me to spend more time with her.
“Only if you tell me about your life and loves,” I joked, thrilled by the invitation.
“Does everything have to be a story for you?” she teased.
“Yes, of course. So please make it interesting.” I gave her my “addictive” smile.
“Let’s see.” Her tone showed she was toying with me. “In my youth I was living with my aunt, who was painfully afflicted with lovesickness, because she was madly in love with someone who was married. I watched her, lost in desire and sadness, and told myself I would never let that happen to me. After she died, my life has been with her horses and now Alizar, the one who is left, the son of my aunt’s youngest and most talented stallion. Your next question is about my lovers—I’ve had three.”
My heart jumped at the idea of this exquisite woman giving herself to another woman and what that must feel like.
“They were all the same. Sell the horse, sell the house, move with me to the city.” She gestured into the air with her lovely, artistic hands.
“Did you love any one of them enough to do that?”
“I could never love someone who asked me to cut out my heart.”
“If they had stayed here with you—”
“I didn’t want them to stay.”
We sat quietly for a while before I said, “I’ve had several lovers…maybe more than several. Actually, I’ve never been sure how many ‘several’ is. I wouldn’t call them lovers—more like friends. I’ve never had a problem with friendly intimacy—sex as an exercise—because both of you know what you’re getting out of it. Expectations set and met.”
“So sex for you has been similar to asking someone to go jogging?” Her pretty forehead furrowed.
I laughed. “Well, I had to like them, or be very high. I don’t drink that much anymore, and I don’t like that many people.”
“Weren’t you afraid of getting an STD?” she asked in her straightforward manner.
“I was more afraid of not feeling anything. So I got married.” I laughed loudly. “Oh my God, how ridiculous that sounds in hindsight! And then after ten years of still not feeling anything, I just tired of it. I didn’t need it at all.”
“It?”
“Sex, love, any of it.”
“Everyone needs it. You’re numb without it,” she said quietly.
“Well, so I guess I’ve been numb…really numb.”
She leaned in and took my face in her hands and slowly place
d her lips on mine, and she kissed me, her mouth open and hot, her tongue in me. It was soft and sensual, the sexiest kiss I’d ever experienced, and it melted me.
“Can you feel that?” she whispered as she pulled her lips away. In response, I pulled her down on the couch and kissed her again, this time with more intensity, and parts of my body awoke that had been sleeping for decades. Her small frame curved neatly into mine, and the smell of her skin was beyond intoxicating. Heat rose in my groin.
Levade turned her head to one side and glanced at the door, and I realized she thought there was danger in being with me. “I…you have to go. It’s too soon,” she said, rejecting me.
“I don’t know what that means, but I can promise you it’s not too soon.” I gasped, feeling that to abort lovemaking now could cause me to implode.
“It means I’m protecting you, Taylor. Trust me.”
“From what? From you, from getting hurt, from—”
“Please just go.”
I got up feeling awkward, and she backed away as if she knew that one more kiss would make it impossible to separate me from her.
Maybe she can’t let anyone in. I mentally attacked her for rejecting me. There’s a reason she lives all alone with no one out here in the woods. And then I quickly turned on myself. Why am I psychoanalyzing her? My ability to let anyone in, or to love anyone in return, has been abysmal. But at least I know that about myself, I mentally huffed.
I seemed unable to get my bearings, as I headed back to my cabin, and I had a serious conversation with myself. Holy, God that was terrific! It was beyond terrific, whatever the next level of terrific is. Stupendous! But where does it go? Nowhere. It can’t go anywhere. Get real.
Then the wind whipped up in the pines again and spun my body around against my will, and I walked back to her cabin. I’ve lost my mind when it comes to this woman.
“I have two tickets to the church dinner,” I called out. And I almost laughed out loud. If Ramona could see me now, acting like a lakeside Lothario, pretending I care about church-dinner tickets.
Levade cracked the door and peeked around it, and all it took was that amazing smile to make me no longer care what my behavior looked like.
“Is the church dinner fun, weird? Will they try to convert me?” I asked.
“You should go. You’ll like it,” she said softly.
“Will I see you there?”
“Maybe.” Her eyes twinkled.
* * *
The following night was Sunday, the third week in August that everyone on the lake talked about all summer in anticipation. I attended the church dinner wearing my one pair of good slacks and my Native American shirt with the ponies on it.
Every year all the churches—Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Unitarian, and Episcopal—held their dinners at the same three-hour interval, on the same night, so tourists and locals alike could move from one church basement to the next, testing all the homemade food created by the parishioners—Norwegian ladies who learned to cook from their grandmothers. There were women I’d never seen before, who arrived from farms and cabins outside town, and men who came from logging camps out in the woods.
The women proudly dished up their special recipes and handed plates to all of us with tickets. Wild-rice casserole was a favorite, and cookbooks featuring that dish sold out. I was awash in love for this tiny town that came together to share this night of food and friendship and include strangers like me with equal affection.
A young Native American woman intercepted me in the food line at the Unitarian supper and told me she liked my shirt and it would bring me luck. I asked her about the seeming deification of wild rice, and she said that during the harvest, Native Americans paddled into the quicksand bogs and knocked the precious rice grains off into their canoes, then brought them back to the tiny processing plant, and from there they made their way into local kitchens, and even more often to other cities and towns. It was the town’s one industry, and many worked there as a second job.
The food was beyond delicious, especially the desserts, and aside from having to learn that salad meant Jello and hot dish meant casserole, I was getting along just fine. I wasn’t sure if it was the setting, or the friendship, or the food, but it was a perfect night. Helen and Thor greeted me on the sidewalk in front of the Methodist church, and they seemed extra jovial.
“Hey!” Thor shouted, “You eat all that food so there’s none left for me?”
“I sure ate fast when I saw you coming!” I teased back, and he roared with laughter.
Gladys and Casey were inside dishing out blueberry pie, and down the street Marney and Ralph were at the Catholic Church trying to outdo all the Unitarians, everyone warm and laughing and telling jokes like one big family.
As I walked from church to church, I searched for Levade’s Jeep along every street, and I looked up expectantly every time someone entered. Where is she? Why hasn’t she shown up? Maybe she was upset over what happened between us and doesn’t want to see me. My obsessing over her was marring the experience, because the experience I wanted was with her.
At my last stop, the Episcopal Church, a voice boomed, “Taylor James!” and I felt instantly shy as heads turned to see who was shouting. Judith the law professor waved excitedly, her bobble-bracelets banging against her sizeable wrist, as she wheeled her mother, the judge, down the food line. Judith’s conservative A-frame skirt and high-buttoned blouse didn’t seem to match her loud outburst, but since tonight’s high point was apparently buffet with mom, maybe she was creating her own excitement. “We need to get together and have some fun!” she shouted.
Like play board games with your mother? I thought, and then immediately felt so wicked I agreed out loud that we did need to get together, then hurried off to avoid that happening.
Still thinking of Levade, I prepared a platter of food, covered it, and decided to take it to her so she could share in the celebration, and in truth, so I could see her.
Happy at the idea of surprising her, I drove fifteen miles to her cabin, got out, and walked through the woods to the door. It was dark and Levade wasn’t there. A note was jammed in the screen door between the screen and the wooden cross pieces. I didn’t remove it but simply read: “Had to go out of town. May not be back before you leave. Hope you’ve been inspired.”
Inspired? How arrogant! Is that what that kiss was all about, to inspire me? And why does she think I’m leaving? I was inexplicably bereft and sat down on the steps for a moment to collect my thoughts. Then I got up and reread the note.
The word inspired seemed carefully chosen, perhaps so that if a stranger read it, they wouldn’t know it was a personal note, but assume it was just a note for a client. I took hope that I was right. Then I looked closer at the L on the word leave, and it had the same flourish as the L on the old postcard at the cabin. It’s some kind of message. She’s saying something to me. But why the big mystery? I write mysteries. I don’t want my life to be one. Depressed, I traipsed back to my cabin.
If the young Native American woman at the church dinner was right, that my shirt would bring me luck, then I needed to know who to phone to activate it, because I sure wasn’t feeling lucky. At least not lucky in love. Odd thing to think.
Chapter Thirteen
Levade had vanished. I inquired, but no one in town had a phone number. Why hadn’t I gotten it? Because Muskie Lake people don’t phone each other. They take cool walks and tap on screen doors in that old-fashioned, neighborly way. But I still should have gotten her damned phone number.
I rang Ramona, more dejected than before, which was evident by the fact that I’d phoned her, something I never did. Ramona probed until she finally got it out of me.
“You had sex with the woman on the Point? Oh, my God!”
“No, not sex. Near-sex.”
“What is near-sex? Are you Bill Clinton?”
“She wants me, but then she runs.”
“Excuse me, but we’re talking about a woman. Do I need t
o remind you that you’re straight? You’ve seen more cocks than a brood of hens.” When I didn’t laugh, Ramona sighed. “Okay, Taylor. Listen to me! Frank, your taxidermy guy, killed his wife because she had an affair with a woman, so Frank undoubtedly hates lesbians. Frank was never arrested because apparently the men in Muskie felt that what his wife did to poor Frank and his manhood far outweighed whatever misfortune happened to one of them.
“Levade has sense enough to know it’s a small town and everyone is in everyone’s shorts, so unlike you, she’s probably keeping her panties on to protect your ass. Think about that. If Frank wants to date you, what could possibly go wrong if his competition is once again a woman? That has danger written all over it.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Everyone in town knows all this, except the part about you lusting after women, so stop it. Maybe you’d better come back to New York. If you want sexual experimentation, this place is crawling with lesbians who’ll take you to dine at Per Se, instead of some lake-bump, chigger-bitten island.”
“I’m staying until I get things sorted out.”
“What things?” She seemed exasperated.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, unable to explain myself lately. “I just feel this amazing attachment to her. Wanting to spend every moment with her. Is that crazy?”
“Yes,” she said decisively, “unless you’re considering a sex change.”
I tried to formulate a response or defend my feelings, but nothing came out. After a beat, Ramona broke in. “Just write something, will you? And be careful. I don’t want it published posthumously.”
