by Toni Graham
How long has SueAnn hated working in the Dollar Thrift-O? She has realized a few things recently, and one of them is that even Walmart seems like Neiman Marcus when compared to her place of employment.
SueAnn sweeps the money from the counter, sorts it into the register drawer, and manages a fake-pleasant rendering of have-a-nice-day. Last week at the suicide survivors group meeting, her new friend and fellow survivor Holly stated that she was thinking of giving the clerk in her bookstore his walking papers. When SueAnn woke the next morning, the plan was as clear as a supermodel’s skin: she will see if she can convince Holly to hire her for the bookstore job, which will mean she may be able to let the door to Dollar Thrift-O swing shut behind her for the last time.
“Where ya keep your Bugler’s papers?” asks a man who has just approached the counter. She points to the back left corner of the store. He has an enormous lump in one cheek and an obvious can of Skoal in his back pocket. If he uses dip, she doubts he plans on rolling only plain tobacco with the papers. Does every druggie in Hope Springs shop in the Dollar Thrift-O?
She remembers now that her husband asked her this morning to pick up a tin of Skoal. She is no longer willing to overlook his habit. Before she joined the grief support group, she had not completely realized how red-necky dip actually is. Gilbert has always used Skoal, and her daddy was never without a tin of Grizzly in his back pocket, so spit cups and stained teeth have long been part of her life. A couple of weeks ago before the grief support meeting, she heard Dave and Holly snickering about all the bulging back pockets in Hope Springs, and Holly said “dip,” making little quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
“I read an interview somewhere recently,” Dave had said, “that claimed ‘smokeless isn’t just for rednecks and baseball players anymore.’ Baseball has even discussed outlawing it, so guess who that would leave.” SueAnn felt herself blush and felt relief that her new East and West Coast friends had never met Gilbert. She had once been proud of her husband, but that was long ago, when he was a handsome young oil rigger. Since their son died and she made new acquaintances, nothing is as it was before. As for the problems in the bedroom, she is not so sure there is any hope left in that area.
The man who asked for Bugler’s returns and tosses the papers down onto the counter. “Gimme a packa Trojans,” he says, smirking lewdly and pointing to the rack behind SueAnn. For a nanosecond she wishes both him and her in their coffins—caskets far removed from each other. Forgive me, Lord. He’s a fool, though. Buying condoms at a discount store is not the greatest idea; they are close to their expiration date.
SueAnn and her husband eat in silence, the thrum of the refrigerator and the scraping of cutlery the only sounds in the kitchen. Gilbert repeatedly loads his fork with big chunks of baked ham and slides them into his mouth, looking down at his plate and showily not at her. She has become accustomed to this weekly scene, and inwardly dubs it the Wednesday Night Freeze-Out. His silence during supper is Gilbert’s way of reminding her that he does not approve of her going off to the therapy group meeting. She and Gilbert will leave the house about the same time, she driving off in the Silverado, headed for the Bethel Baptist fellowship hall, and Gilbert driving the Dodge Dakota and heading toward their own church for Bible study. Why do they have to have two gosh-darn trucks, anyway? She would prefer to drive one of those cute little Nissan Cubes or a convertible like Holly drives, but Gilbert insists on American vehicles and believes anything but a truck is a waste of money.
Gilbert’s voice startles her. “Last Wednesday,” he says, “Pastor Russ read from Proverbs that we should always avoid bad company and not walk away with them.”
It’s not worth mentioning to Gilbert that he just put forth a slight misquotation from Scripture. “What are you trying to say, Gil?” She stares across the table.
“I’m saying,” he replies, “that if you skip Bible study and instead hang out in bars with a Hebrew and some mackerel snapper from California, maybe you’re on the wrong path.”
She reminds him that she and her friends do not “hang out at bars”; after group, they have one margarita in a Mexican restaurant. “As for ‘mackerel snapper,’ I haven’t heard Catholics called that since I was a teenager.” She adds, “And Jesus was a Jew.” Gilbert’s holier-than-thou attitude about the margaritas annoys her. Sure, they’re Baptists, but she and Gilbert have always allowed themselves a low-point beer or two, and even a beer-and-a-shot during Super Bowl. Gilbert says nothing.
Previously she accepted that everything in the Bible was fact, that homosexuality was an abomination, that those who did the Lord’s work were assured of their rightful place in Heaven, that those who did not follow God’s will and laws were doomed to burn in Hell. Now she is not so sure.
At Hope Springs Cornerstone Baptist, Pastor Russ presses extreme concepts on the congregation. He embraces the idea of the Rapture, which has brought SueAnn up short. Yes, she still accepts Jesus Christ as her personal savior, but isn’t the Rapture something of a hybrid of superstition, wishful thinking, and theater? If she had wanted to join a Pentecostal church or hook up with the Assembly of God folks, she would have done so.
Since her son’s death, though, she has begun to think a lot about the nature of the afterlife. Trying to envision where her son’s spirit now resides has become something between a preoccupation and an obsession. Visions of the Beyond move across her mind like the crawl at the bottom of the screen on the Weather Channel. A zillion degrees in Hell today? Maybe things are as Dave believes: that when consciousness ends, everything ends, and that this nullity takes place with death of the brain. But she has been a person of faith for too long to be able to accept that particular notion of what happens at death, though in some ways such a scenario would be a blessing—for Kyle and for her. There is something appealing about just falling asleep, dreamlessly, and never waking up. The void is nothing to fear, not at all like Hell. Or, maybe Pastor Russ is correct: one will either be routed to the flames and eternal torment of Hell or ascend to be with Jesus in a paradise so dazzling we are unable even to imagine such a venue. The only place she has ever been that sounds like Pastor Russ’s description of Heaven is Las Vegas. She stands, clears her plate and cutlery, and excuses herself from the table before Gilbert finishes.
Dr. Jane is late to group for the very first time, and Clay has not arrived yet, either, so SueAnn and Holly and Dave chat while they wait. Clay, a machinist who barely ever speaks and whose wife of forty years gassed herself in their car in the garage, lives in Ponca City and sometimes comes in a few minutes late from the hour-long drive. SueAnn usually sits next to him, as he is the only other native Oklahoman in the group. She and the others have already confirmed that the three of them will meet as usual for a margarita afterward, so SueAnn plans to go ahead and broach the subject of employment. She will not sidle up to the topic, but do as New Yorker Dave would and just blurt out her request to Holly: Would you consider hiring me to work in your bookstore? Her stomach pitches as she envisions Holly laughing at her or just turning her down flat, but she tells herself Holly has never acted that way and that this nerve-concocted scenario is unlikely. SueAnn has plenty of experience in retail, but she is not a well-read person like the grad student who now holds the job.
She has been inattentive for a moment while thinking about asking Holly for employment but snaps to as she hears Holly mention the Left Behind books.
“The lowest I’ll sink,” Holly says, “is to stock Rick Warren in the shop, which galls me more than I can tell you. But if H. Hemenway, Booksellers, has to file for bankruptcy, fine—I’ll go there before I’ll pander to the Left Behind crowd.”
SueAnn says nothing. She and Gilbert own all sixteen of the books in the series.
Dave emits one of his scornful laughs. “I’m Jewish,” he says, “so I’m not the audience for the Left Behind books. But then again, I won’t have a Thomas Kinkade painting in my living room, either.”
Holly laughs. SueAnn does not really un
derstand the humor in Dave’s statement, but she smiles along.
The door flings open and Dr. Jane wheels into the room, bringing a fruity essence of perfume with her. “Please excuse me for being late,” she says breathlessly. She takes her regular chair. “I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news to share.”
No one says anything, not even Dave. There is a brief silence, and SueAnn observes that Dr. Jane’s bottom lip is trembling.
“It’s Clay,” she says. “I’m sorry to tell you he passed away last night.”
“Oh, my god—he did it,” Holly says, rattling the metal chair against the floor as she halfway jumps up.
Dave sits apparently dumbstruck, silent for once. He blinks rapidly.
“What happened?” SueAnn asks Dr. Jane. Maybe Holly assumes Clay killed himself, but SueAnn knows that’s not usually the Oklahoma way. Clay is a man of faith. Was. If God had a wallet, he’d keep a photo of Clay inside.
Jane says they cannot be sure until after the autopsy. “Clay’s daughter says he was being treated for heart failure,” she says.
“That’s too fucking ironic,” Dave says. “A broken heart.”
Jane says quietly, with a tremor in her voice, “Let’s share a moment of silence.” She bows her head and closes her eyes, and they all follow suit, even Dave.
SueAnn offers up a silent prayer for Clay, but Satan has his way, because selfish thoughts set in. Why couldn’t she, instead of Clay, die of a broken heart? Clay was a good man who always tried to do the Lord’s work and to walk in the light, whereas SueAnn feels her work on earth is done, that she just wants to be with Kyle. Loud laughter from the A.A. meeting down the hall breaks the silence in the room.
Finally Dr. Jane says, “Who would like to begin this evening?”
For a moment or two the room is again silent, save for the continued haw-hawing from the A.A. room. “Do you think we could just, you know, cancel for tonight?” Holly says. “Our own problems seem a bit trivial just now.”
Before Dr. Jane can respond, Dave says, “Dammit all to hell! I was planning to ask Clay along tonight when we go out for a drink. We’ve been excluding the poor guy.”
“David,” Jane says, “don’t put anything on yourself. Whether you invited Clay for cocktails or not has nothing to do with his death.”
They all agree to adjourn, and Jane tells them to feel free to telephone her if they need individual counseling. Once outside the church, SueAnn says, “Shouldn’t we skip Siesta Sancho’s tonight?” Holly and Dave look at her, seeming puzzled. She adds, “Out of respect for Clay?”
“I think it would be good for us to talk about Clay,” Holly says. “To help us process what happened.”
Dave nods in agreement and adds, “Besides, after that, I need a drink, big-time.” As they walk across the parking lot to their respective vehicles, Dave places his hand at the base of SueAnn’s back, just above the waist, the first time he has ever touched her. The gesture is one of comfort, yet SueAnn is ashamed to realize that the heat of his hand through her blouse strangely stimulates her, a completely inappropriate response for a moment like this one. What is more notable is that she no longer feels anything when Gilbert touches her, so she is not clear why Dave’s heated palm should be any different. She quickly branches off to the left to get into the Silverado.
SueAnn has some trouble parking her truck in the Siesta Sancho’s parking lot. She does not wish to scrape against another vehicle as she did one day in the Dollar Thrift-O lot, which obliged her to cough up a thousand-dollar deductible, enraging Gilbert. By the time she enters the restaurant, Holly and Dave are already seated at a small table not far from the bar.
“We took the liberty of ordering for you, hon,” says Dave. “Rocks, no salt, right?” SueAnn feels mildly flattered that he has remembered her preference. She nods and sits down with them.
“I just can’t believe the poor guy is dead,” Dave says, shaking his sizable head. “Now he’s here, now he’s not, like a puff of smoke. Crap, I wish I still smoked.”
Holly says, “It’s just like when Reed died. When I said goodbye to him that morning, he was alive—he looked over at me with this look in his eyes that I didn’t realize was so …” She makes a little moue with her red mouth. Chanel lipstick, the shade Fire, Holly told SueAnn once when asked. “And when I got home that evening, he was lying on the bedroom floor with no …” She reaches for the drink the waiter has brought.
SueAnn knows the remainder of the sentence could have been “no life in him,” or “no face” or even “no head.” There’s no way SueAnn can ask for a job now, with Holly looking dazed and ashen, her red lips like a gash.
“Dammit, we should have been asking Clay along for cocktails all this time—what’s wrong with us?” Dave says. He asks the waiter for an extra shot of tequila on the side.
Dave looks stricken, and SueAnn feels bad for him. “But wasn’t it because he lived in Ponca?” she says. “I mean, probably the last thing he would have wanted was to go out after group and then get home even later.” Dave’s yellow polo shirt is unbuttoned at the neck, and she finds herself looking at the curly chest hair that coils from beneath the garment. She cannot help but notice that there is not a trace of gray. She looks away and takes a biggish sip from the margarita. It’s nothing, Kyle—I’m faithful to your father. Another thought creeps into her mind, one not directly addressed to Kyle. Gil had been hard on their son, bullying him from crib to casket. He had whipped him with a strap if Kyle was even half an hour late beginning his chores; he had forced the boy to sign up for the Pop Warner league, even though Kyle wanted to take guitar lessons on the weekends. Once, and she will never forget this as long as she lives, she overheard her husband call Kyle the p-word, that feline word men say sometimes, a word SueAnn had never heard Gilbert say before then. Still, she has somehow restrained herself from hurling accusations at Gil; he has enough suffering and guilt to bear.
She has taken a sip from her margarita prematurely, it seems, because Dave is now proposing a toast. She raises her glass. Dave says, “To our man, Clay, wherever he may be.” He adds, “Though I don’t suppose he can hear us.”
“Maybe he can,” SueAnn says, though she had not planned to weigh in on the topic of the afterlife. “I mean,” she says, “I still talk to Kyle, sometimes. And lots of the time, I feel as if he’s watching me, watching everything I do.”
“Like Dr. T. J. Eckleburg,” Holly says.
“I’m sorry?” SueAnn does not recognize the doctor’s name.
“Oh, you mean The Great Gatsby, don’t you?” Dave says.
SueAnn says nothing. She can see that Dave is trying to be sensitive, not wishing to bring attention to the fact that SueAnn seems not to know who Dr. Eckleburg is. “If I remember correctly—and tell me if I’m wrong,” he says, “Dr. T. J. Eckleburg was the optician pictured on a big billboard in Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. The billboard was on the road somewhere between West Egg and New York City—isn’t that right?”
“Right,” Holly says. “Two huge, unblinking, bespectacled eyes watching everything that happened in what was called the ‘valley of ashes.’”
SueAnn plunges in. “I haven’t read the book, but I’d like to,” she says. “I’ll come into your shop tomorrow and buy it. Which reminds me …” She does it; she asks Holly for a job.
SueAnn reads the afternoon Clarion on the sofa next to Gilbert, who has his feet up on the hassock and is watching O’Reilly on TV. Gilbert never looks at the newspaper, so she feels free to tear out a recipe for tamale pie that sounds like it might be good. After she does so, she spots through the ragged hole a lurid piece about a couple in England. Their young son had passed away, and rather than call the police or the undertaker, they put their child’s body into the car, drove to a steep cliff, and jumped to their deaths from the precipice with their son’s body clutched between them.
She does not mean to cry out, but once the “Oh!” has escaped her mouth, Gilbert turns his head and says “What?” in a
n irritated tone, and then “What!” again after she says nothing. If she were quicker witted, she might make up a falsehood on the spot. Instead she reads the news story aloud to him.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Gilbert shouts, his voice shaking with rage. For a moment she thinks he might be going to hit her for the very first time. She says nothing, too stunned to respond. “That’s the problem around here,” he continues. “If I would have suggested we kill ourselves when the boy died, you would have been pleased as punch. That’s your idea of romance. Well, I ain’t going there, woman—you’ve turned into a dang ghoul.”
She leaves the room without responding, just gathers up the newspaper and heads toward the back of the house. She goes into what used to be Kyle’s room. She now uses Kyle’s old desk-top Mac, so she guesses this room could be described as the “study,” though really it remains her son’s empty bedroom—empty of Kyle, anyway. She should get rid of most of the furniture; the room is crammed full in the way Kyle favored. Better still, she should do as Gil wishes, get everything of Kyle’s out of the room and make over the space, change it to a spare bedroom or a computer-and-sewing room. Anything but a de facto and semi-funky memorial to their son.
She wants to check if there is anything online about Clay’s funeral or about when and where his ashes will be scattered. But instead of logging on, she sinks into the green armchair that used to be stacked with her son’s CDs and athletic equipment and seldom used for sitting. Across from her on the wall is the Kid Rock poster Kyle had hung there—the same spot where a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster had hung when Kyle was younger. She wonders what the next set of posters would have consisted of, after Kid came down. Most lads hang posters of young starlets or rock goddesses or even Hooters Girls calendars. Would Kyle have carried on a charade and displayed posters of women? She cannot imagine that he would have taken a chance at angering Gil with a poster of some matinee idol like that boy who was in the vampire movie all the kids watched. Had it not been for the confession in his suicide note, she and Gil might never have learned of Kyle’s orientation—his “lifestyle choice,” as Pastor Russ refers to homosexuality.