by Larry Watson
Edie is on her way out of the office when Dr. Hackett says, “I see Kenneth Aldinger is coming in too.”
“For a cleaning. Yes.”
“For a cleaning he doesn’t need.”
“Is that what Bonnie said?”
“That’s what I said,” Dr. Hackett replies. “You know what I’m talking about. Kenneth Aldinger is in hot pursuit.”
“He doesn’t quite know what he wants.”
A laugh as booming and bawdy as Dr. Hackett’s would turn heads in a crowded bar. In a dental office it’s close to violence. Dr. Hackett says, “Hell, if ever there was a man who knows what he wanted it’s Ken Aldinger. And that’s you, my dear. Just last week Denny and I were at the country club, and Ken Aldinger came up to me and asked me if I’d give you some time off so you could go to Denver with him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’re a grown-up. You can go wherever you damn well please. But if you’re asking me what I advise, I’d say go.”
“I’m too old.”
“For what?”
“Going to Denver.”
Dr. Hackett waves her hand dismissively. “Bullshit. And let’s stop with the going-to-Denver euphemism. I’ll tell you what you ought to do. When Ken Aldinger comes in today, you take him back in the X-ray room and fuck his socks off. And then let him give you the life he wants to give you. Wouldn’t you like to live in that big house of his? Drive around town in something other than your little shit-box Honda? Sleep in for a change instead of coming to work and listening to people complain about their goddamn teeth? Aren’t you sick and goddamn tired of going home to an empty apartment?”
“You know I’ve been married twice before, don’t you?”
“And you think Ken Aldinger is keeping count? He doesn’t give a shit.”
“I’ve learned how to live alone,” Edie says. “I have my routines. And I like my apartment.”
Dr. Hackett turns her attention back to the list of the day’s patients. “Fuck your routines,” she says. “You can learn some new ones.”
Edie turns to leave the office but stops in the doorway. “His socks?”
“I have confidence in you.”
FROM THE RECEPTIONIST’S desk Edie can look out onto Gladstone’s downtown business district when she’s stared too long at the computer screen. People walk in and out of Payless Shoes, J. C. Penney, and Anytime Fitness, but no one enters or exits the heavy glass doors of Stockman’s First National Bank, where Edie worked in her first full-time job out of high school. Back then a steady stream of customers drifted into the bank to deposit their paychecks, to pay their mortgages or their car loans, to cash a check, or to flirt with the tellers, all of them women. Someone unfamiliar with Gladstone and its stores and businesses might believe that the bank is closed, like the Pioneer Cinema down the block, with its empty marquee, or Beierly’s Boots and Saddles, with its sheets of plywood where the plate-glass windows once were.
As Edie looks out at the main street, she sees Ken Aldinger walk by. Twice. He’s a tall, slim man who carries himself stiffly straight like the military officer he once was. It’s a hot day and he doesn’t have an office to go to, yet he’s the only man on the street who’s wearing a suit and tie.
BOTH MEN ARE smoking, which prompts Jesse to say, “Not too many places left where we can do this.”
Jesse is shirtless and wearing the baggy cargo shorts from the night before. The man on the adjoining balcony looks to be about the same age as Jesse. But he has a weightlifter’s muscled upper body; his gray T-shirt is strained tight on his biceps, shoulders, and pectorals. His bulked-up torso, held up by only one leg, makes him look unbalanced, as though he could topple over if he moved too quickly. His amputated leg ends just above the knee, and the skin there appears as if it’s been folded, tucked, and stitched inside the stump.
“I meant smoke,” Jesse says.
“I know what you meant.”
“We’re here with Mrs. Dunn’s granddaughter.”
“So I heard.”
“Kind of traveling around the country visiting family.”
“Good for you.”
Jesse moves closer to the other balcony. He points to the man’s stump. “Where’d you get that?” he asks.
“Get? Get?” The man says, turning toward Jesse. His brow is so heavy and low he’d look as though he were glowering even if he were smiling. And he’s not smiling. He says to Jesse, “I didn’t get it. I lost it.”
“Iraq?”
The man turns back toward the parking lot. At the edge of the asphalt, near the rusting dumpster with its shape reminiscent of a beached ship’s hull, two crows search for garbage.
“Afghanistan,” the man finally says.
Now Jesse extends his hand. “Jesse Norris. I’m sorry, man.”
The man looks at Jesse’s outstretched hand. “Why? Was it your fault?”
“Fuck. You know what I mean.”
The man inhales deeply on his cigarette, exhales, and then flips the butt out over the balcony. “George Real Bird,” he says, though he doesn’t move to shake Jesse’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” says Jesse. “Did they give you a leg for your trouble?”
“What the fuck kind of question is that?”
“I mean, you fought their fucking war for them. You ought to get something in return. Like a—what do you call it—a fake leg.”
“Prosthetic.”
“Yeah. Prosthetic. At least. And a big fucking pension.”
By a combination of hopping and balancing hand-over-hand along the railing, George Real Bird moves around the balcony to move closer to Jesse. “You know what it’s like wearing one of those goddamn legs? Try jamming your foot into a fucking steel shoe about four sizes too small, strap the shoe on with buckles that bite into your leg, and then walk around on that all fucking day. And the money? Sure. It’s enough so you can just sit instead of walking around on your fake fucking leg.” George Real Bird leans back from the balcony and stares at Jesse. “So what do you think? You ready to enlist?”
Jesse holds his hands up in surrender. “Not me, man. I can’t take orders worth a shit.”
“Maybe you want to give me one of those inspirational talks? All about how I need to suck up my warrior spirit and keep fighting, how I can’t let something like a missing limb hold me back?”
Jesse leans close to George Real Bird. “What you need,” Jesse says, “is what I’ve got. Some weed so kick-ass you won’t care about your legs or your feet or your fingers or your toes.”
George Real Bird shakes his head. “No thanks. I don’t go for anything stronger than Pepsi and Marlboros. And I sure as fuck don’t need anything that’ll kick my ass. That’s been taken care of.”
DR. HACKETT, BONNIE the hygienist, and Edie sit at a table by the window in Applebee’s. “What time’s the next appointment?” Dr. Hackett asks Edie.
“Not until one thirty.”
Dr. Hackett twists around in her chair to look toward the kitchen just as the waitress comes their way balancing a tray of salads. She sets the bowls down in front of the women.
“About time,” Dr. Hackett says and eagerly picks up her fork. She eats her salad faster than the other women, and when she finishes she sets her bowl to the side. “You see who’s coming in this afternoon?” she says to Bonnie. “Ken Aldinger.”
“I saw,” Bonnie says and glances at Edie.
“What do you think?” Dr. Hackett asks Bonnie. “Is the man trying for the cleanest fucking teeth in town?”
Bonnie Yoder is a shy young woman, a practical dresser with a trim figure, straight brown hair, and pleasant features.
“I guess,” Bonnie says.
Dr. Hackett leans across the table and says, “He. Wants. Edie. You haven’t got that? He doesn’t give a damn about clean teeth and healthy gums. The man might look like he’s ready for the home. But he’s just an old horny toad. I told Edie—”
Edie puts her fork down on the
tabletop with such force it makes a noise like a mousetrap snapping shut.
“Do you think,” Edie says, “it would be too much to ask if we could have a conversation that isn’t about Mr. Aldinger or any other man?”
Dr. Hackett rises slowly. She drops her napkin on the table and picks up her purse. She takes out a ten and a five and slides the bills under her unused knife. “That should take care of my share,” she says. “You two take your time. I’ll watch the front desk until you’re back.”
She starts to walk away and then stops. “Which one of you is going to take care of the dogs next week when Denny and I leave? Or is that subject off limits too because they’re male?”
“I’ll do it,” Bonnie says. “I said I would.”
After the doctor has left the restaurant, Edie says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m surprised you took it as long as you did.”
“I’ve heard her say things to you too.”
“My husband says she talks like that because she’s not getting any at home.”
“Well, if she’s not getting it at home, she’s not getting it.”
Bonnie pushes her bowl aside. “Maybe you could sue her. The things she says—that’s sexual harassment, I bet.”
Edie smiles at the suggestion. “I don’t think courts look kindly on sixty-four-year-old women claiming they’re being sexually harassed, especially not in an office with nothing but women. Besides, at my age we’re supposed to be flattered. Not filing law suits.”
“You’re sixty-four?”
“Just like the Beatles’ song.”
“How about this,” Bonnie says. “When is Mr. Aldinger coming in? I’ll come up to the front and check him in, and you can just wait in the back until he’s in the chair.”
Edie waves away the offer. “I can handle Ken Aldinger. That’s not the point. And aren’t we doing it now? Talking about men?”
“I thought we were talking about work,” Bonnie says. “But maybe there isn’t any difference.”
“The thing is, I like Ken Aldinger. He seems like a serious, sensitive man, and I think you’d agree there isn’t an abundance of that type in our part of the world.”
Bonnie nods eagerly. “He’s such a gentleman.”
“I used to have an aunt,” Edie says, “who was obsessed with people’s illnesses. And the more serious the problem was, the more fascinated Aunt Ethel was. I still remember how she’d sort of say under her breath, ‘She has to see a specialist in Billings.’ Or ‘They opened him up and the cancer was everywhere. Nothing they could do but sew him back up again.’ And sometimes it was just a word. ‘Complications,’ she’d say. She loved that word. ‘It turned out he had complications.’”
Edie looks at Bonnie so intensely that the young woman involuntarily leans back from the table. “What I don’t want in my life are complications. However many years I have left I would like them to be free of complications. And Ken Aldinger, no matter how much of a gentleman he is, no matter how kind or how sensitive, would come with complications.”
THE PRAIRIE VIEW Mall is nearly deserted, and Lauren Keller has the floor and the merchandise of rue21 to herself. She moves through the store with astonishing alacrity, lifting a scarf or a T-shirt and holding it up and then dropping it again, pulling a dress from its hanger and bringing it to her body only to put it back, trailing down a line of jeans with her finger as if touching the denim for an instant were enough to tell her all she needs to know.
On a bench outside the store Jesse and Billy sit and eat their pretzels.
“I don’t get it,” Billy says to his brother. “Don’t they got all kinds of organizations to do shit for them? The VFW or American Legion or what not?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, man. I’m talking about what the government won’t do for them. And the shit they don’t want to ask their wives or their folks or anyone else to do. You know, like get dope for them. Or women. Or porn videos.”
“Get women?” Billy says. “Fuck, man. That’s nothing but a goddamn pimp. And who watches porn videos anymore? You got a computer, you got porn.”
Jesse takes another bite of his pretzel and then tosses it into a nearby garbage receptacle. He leans closer to his brother. “We’d be like personal assistants. These veterans have needs and we serve their needs. Especially the ones who are crippled up or disabled. I mean, think of a blind guy. He can’t do shit for himself. Or somebody who got his hands blown off. And they all got money. Pensions and disability and all. And guns. We’d have a fucking arsenal in no time.”
“Why’d you throw that away?” Billy says, pointing to the garbage can. “I’d have eaten it. And how we going to talk women into this deal?”
“First off, these are fucking heroes. Men and maybe even women who lost an arm or a leg or an eye or got their heads messed up defending our country. I mean, who doesn’t want to help them? Hell, dope dealers might be willing to give a discount.”
Billy shakes his head. “No fucking way. And what about Cousin Mike? You said we could get on with his construction crew. Or head up to Williston. Them guys make so fucking much money they can’t spend it fast enough.”
“You want to break your back doing construction? Or work even harder on an oil rig and maybe lose a finger or two in the bargain? What I’m talking about is hardly even working. Doing errands is more like it. Besides, Mike isn’t really a cousin. Dad just said that to impress us or something. Like there was somebody in the family who wasn’t a fuckup.”
Now Billy wads up the waxed paper that held his pretzel and tosses the ball toward the garbage can. He misses. “And how do we find the vets who’re going to pay us for doing this shit? Nail up a sign? Hey, Need Dope? We’ll Score for You! Or put an ad in the paper? Looking for a Woman to Blow You? And I’m supposed to be the stupid one.”
“Help out a couple of these guys,” Jesse says, “and word will get around. They’ll find us.”
“Even if they do,” Billy says, shaking his head, “then we got to set something up with dealers. And with women? Shit, man. It’s just more trouble than it’s worth if you ask me.”
“Leave it to me,” says Jesse. “I can get us started with connections. And as for women, they’ll be lining up to volunteer once they find out what we’re trying to do for our wounded warriors. Some of those dudes got their dicks blown off. And others got PTSDs or something so they can’t get it up. A woman might not have to do anything more than sit on someone’s lap. If that’s not easy money, I don’t know what.”
Billy shakes his head even harder. “That’s still pimp work. Is that who you want to be? Hello. My name is Jesse Norris and I’m a goddamn pimp and a dope dealer. Jesus, man. Have some pride.”
“You know what your problem is?” Jesse asks. “You’ve got no fucking imagination.”
As if this remark has the force of a physical blow, Billy lurches on the bench. “Okay,” he says. “Here? Are we supposed to start up this business here?”
“Probably not enough of those guys here. Though maybe I’ll see what we could do for the neighbor before we leave. I bet the government pays him a fucking bundle every month for hopping around on one leg.”
Their conversation stops when Lauren comes to the doorway of the store and signals for them to come inside. She says, “They’ve got men’s stuff in here too.”
Two boys, no older than fourteen or fifteen, walk by, their attire so similar they could be wearing the cowboy uniform—boots with riding heels, Wranglers that bunch around their boots, hand-tooled belts with big silver buckles, snap-front shirts, wide-brimmed straw hats pulled low. They’re walking as though they have a destination in mind, but then they see Lauren Keller standing in the doorway of rue21—and to them she must look like a clothing-store mannequin come to life. Her long legs and cutoffs hanging loose and low on her hips, and her hair, her hair in that style they’ve seen only on television . . . The cowboys stop in their tracks, and for a moment they stand
between Lauren and the Norris brothers.
Lauren gives the cowboys a little finger wave, but before they can respond to that gesture—oh, perhaps there’s time for their hearts to speed up a little—she reverses the wave and shoos them on their way.
As they walk off, one of the boys punches the other in the shoulder as if he’s to blame for their embarrassment.
Billy points to where the cowboys just stood. “I think they left a little cow shit on the floor there.”
“That could be their shit,” Jesse says.
Lauren is still standing in the store’s doorway.
“Go ahead,” Jesse says to his brother. “Let her dress you up like her own little Ken doll.”
Billy gives his brother the finger. Then he stands up and follows Lauren into the store.
EDIE ENTERS HER apartment and calls out hello, but no answer comes back to her. Beside the door is the table with the small bowl waiting for her keys, but she keeps them in her hand as she moves from room to room.
In the sink are three bowls and three spoons. Juice glasses with dried pulp clinging to their sides are on the counter.
The doors to the bathroom and to Edie’s bedroom are open, and she glances briefly into both. Towels are draped unevenly over the shower bar. Edie’s bed is made but clumsily so. Lauren’s new royal blue suitcase is open on the floor, and nylon duffel bags lie close by.
The door to the guest room is closed, and Edie knocks. There’s no response and she knocks again. She opens the door slowly, peers into the room, and then walks in. Jesse’s bed is also made, more neatly so than Lauren and Billy’s. His guitar case is open, and Edie bends down and plucks the B string. She can see into an open duffel bag, and there, among the balled-up socks and the carelessly folded jeans and T-shirts, is the barrel of a gun. The sight is enough to make her react as if it were a rattlesnake. She gasps and takes a step back.
Perhaps she’s mistaken. The shape after all is wrong—rectangular, not round. But there’s no mistaking the color—blue-black steel. With her foot she prods the shape through the nylon. The feel of it gives back just enough information. Yes, it’s a gun. Here. In her home.