Knockemstiff

by Donald Ray Pollock

  He was standing in a green pasture pitching a perfect ringer when Geraldine shook him awake. “Get your ass up,” she ordered. “It’s your turn to babysit.”

  Geraldine was still pissed because Del had slipped out that morning while she was in the shower. It was his day off, and they were supposed to attempt a trip to the Columbus Zoo, but at the last minute he decided to flee. He couldn’t stand the thought of dealing with Geraldine’s panic attacks all the way up Route 23. Her doctor had suggested the trip weeks ago, but she’d kept putting it off, hoping the medication would eventually make the outside world a friendlier place to visit.

  Instead Del had driven out to Knockemstiff that morning in the beat-up Cavalier, then spent the better part of the day pitching horseshoes with some of his worthless cousins. “It’s cleaner than the last batch,” Porter assured him, handing him a joint laced with angel dust. Del hated PCP; it seemed like the gods fucked with him every time he smoked the shit. And sure enough, by the time he headed back to town, some bearded bastard with bad teeth wrapped in a piece of outdoor carpet was popping on and off in the rearview mirror like a beer sign, talking crazy shit about Del’s old high school.

  . . . . .

  “WHAT?” DEL SAID, REARING UP FROM THE COUCH, BLOWING some pillow fuzz out of his mouth. “Where you going?” he asked Geraldine. She’d smeared some lipstick across her face, put some limp curls in her oily hair.

  “None of your goddamn business,” she spat. “Maybe I’ll go to the Topper. How would you like that, you prick?” The Topper sat right across the street from the plastics factory. All the patrons had raw, red faces from the heat of the ovens, splatter burns up and down their arms. No one who drank there was ever completely healed.

  “What about Veena?” Del said, looking around on the floor for his pants. He knew his wife wasn’t going anywhere; Geraldine hadn’t been out of the house in six months.

  “She’s all yours tonight, daddy,” Geraldine said hatefully. “And by the way, where in the fuck did you go this morning?”

  “I think I got hold of a green beer.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “You’re pathetic, Del, you know that?” She lit a cigarette and stood over him with an ugly sneer on her face. Her crotch was just inches from his nose. “I’ll tell you what, buddy boy, you better start paying attention.”

  “I know, Geri, I know,” Del said. Then he added, looking up at her, “I’ll do better, I promise.” Lately, though, he’d begun wishing for the old days, when he’d only known her as the Fish Stick Girl, and they were bumming spare change at traffic lights. Groaning, he pulled on his jeans and trudged across the hall to Veena’s room. He picked her up out of the crib. “She’s wet,” he yelled.

  “Then change her,” Geraldine said as she started toward the front door. She was jangling the car keys in her hand, twisting her ass as if she were taking off on some runway in a fashion show. She had on her good jeans, had her big feet crammed into a pair of cheap spiky shoes.

  Del laid Veena down gently on the couch and pulled the last diaper out of a Pampers box. There, in the bottom of the carton, lay a small cache of fish sticks wrapped in a greasy paper towel. He stared at the brown, crumbly wafers in disbelief. Geraldine hadn’t touched a fish stick since he’d become her legal guardian; it was part of the agreement. He wiped Veena off, sprinkled some baby powder on the raw red rash that covered the insides of her pudgy thighs. Looking at his daughter, Del suddenly felt a great sorrow well up inside him. Falling to his knees, he was just beginning to ask the baby for her forgiveness when he heard his wife tromp back down the hall and slam the bedroom door shut. Both daughter and father jumped at the sound, one still flush with innocence, the other guilty of a thousand trespasses.

  After he fed Veena and put her to bed, Del sat in front of the window fan eating slices of white bread and watching the TV with the volume turned low, listening to the nurses party upstairs. He waited impatiently until he figured Geraldine was asleep, then stole the few dollars she had managed to stick in Veena’s college-fund jar. Next he filched a couple of her Xanax from the medicine cabinet and swallowed them dry. Slipping out of the house, he jumped in the Cavalier and drove straight over to the Quikstop for a twelve-pack. A shiny new Cadillac was parked right up next to the glass entrance door. A fat man was leaning against the counter checking out the little clerk, his big belly smashing the candy bars on the shelf underneath. The girl was bent over tearing open a carton of cigarettes, nervously chewing on a strand of her long brown hair. Dressed in a pair of white slacks and a silky purple shirt, the man was decorated in gold jewelry, matching chains and bracelets, big rings that twinkled like stars under the fluorescent lights.

  As Del approached the counter with his beer, the fat man turned and scowled at him, then stomped out the door. The minty smell of cologne hung in the air where he’d stood. Del watched as he lowered himself daintily into the Caddy. He thought the man looked vaguely familiar, but then all rich people looked the same to him.

  “Thanks,” the clerk said when Del set the beer down on the counter.

  “Huh?”

  “See that guy?” she said, nodding toward the window. They both watched as the expensive car slowly pulled out onto the street. “He’s in here every night almost,” she explained. “Just stands around staring at my butt, offers me money to go out with him. It’s creepy.”

  “I figured him for a queer,” Del said. “All that disco shit he’s wearing.”

  “I think he could go either way,” she said with a shrug. “You should hear some of the stuff he talks about.” Del looked at the girl. Her name tag said AMY in raised white letters. She had big eyes like funhouse mirrors; a gray metal stud stuck through her tongue like a nail. All the while she was talking, she kept chewing on her hair, rearranging the cigarettes in the case above her head. When he first walked in, Del had figured her for just another speed freak; crank had spread like a virus all over southern Ohio that summer. But suddenly he understood that the fat man was the real reason the girl was so twitchy.

  “Call the cops,” Del advised.

  “Shoot,” she snorted, “they’re in here every night for the free coffee, but they won’t do nothing. They’re afraid if they say something, he won’t hire their kids for summer help. Heck, I don’t even get free coffee.”

  “What do you mean, hire their kids?” Del asked. “Who is that guy?”

  “He’s some big shot over at the plastics plant,” the girl said. “He’s like a millionaire.”

  Suddenly Del recalled the first time he’d seen the man. Three months ago, a meeting was set up for all the workers to meet the new manager. When they got to the conference room, a TV with a VCR was wheeled in on a little stand. Then the foreman turned on the set and everyone watched the fat man give a speech about productivity. He told them if things didn’t pick up, they were all out of a job. He mentioned China, Vietnam, Alabama. The speech lasted fifteen minutes, then the foreman shut off the set and spat on the screen. “Imagine that fat bastard running a press,” he said as he rewound the tape. “His candy ass wouldn’t last one day.” Then he turned and faced the workers. Half of them were already asleep. “Boys,” he said, “you heard what the sonofabitch said. Let’s get back to work.”

  “Well,” Del said to the clerk, “he’s gone now.”

  “Oh, he’ll be back,” she said. “He’s like some kind of crazy stalker or something.”

  “Aw, maybe he just wants to be your boyfriend,” Del joked, slipping his wedding ring off and sliding it into his pocket. “Who could blame him for that?”

  “That’s the other thing,” she said excitedly, suddenly pulling her hair out of her mouth. “Guys like to come in here and flirt, you know? But he gets pissed about it. He even ran this one boy off the other night. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “You’re kiddin’ me,” Del said.

  “No, I’m serious,” she said. “And when I told him to leave, he just laughed at me.”

/>   “Jesus, maybe you better be careful,” Del said. “Hell, he could be some kind of goddamn sex fiend.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said with a shudder. “It’s already bad enough being in here at night by myself.”

  “Hey, I’m serious,” Del said. “What about the woman who got attacked down there by the cigarette store? They never did catch that guy.”

  The clerk gave a little laugh. “Yeah, but that woman was some kind of nutcase, homeless person or something,” she said, handing Del his change and sticking the beer in a bag. “She used to come in here with all this rotten food in her purse, trying to give it away. Believe me, she was like totally gross.”

  His face turning red, Del jammed the pennies and dimes into the pocket of his jeans, then grabbed the beer. He started out the door, but suddenly stopped, his hand frozen on the metal handle. “That’s bullshit, what you just said,” he said angrily, his back to the clerk. “That woman? She’s married to some guy I know.” He stared out into the illuminated parking lot, empty except for his old beater. He pushed the door open. “They even got a little baby,” Del added, his voice on the verge of cracking.

  He walked quickly across the lot and got into the Cavalier. He sat there trembling, thinking about what the girl had said about Geraldine. “You think you’re scared of that fat man, you just wait,” he said out loud. Then, pulling the beer out of the bag, he tore two ragged eyeholes in the brown paper. He could see the clerk inside, now sitting on a high stool, her hand crammed into a bag of Doritos. Taking a deep breath, he slipped the sack over his head, then jumped out of the car and raced up to the window. “Hey!” he screamed, slamming his fists against the plate glass. The startled girl tumbled backward off the stool, banging her head against the sharp corner of the deli case. Del stood there for a moment in the humid night, his sour breath trapped in the bag, looking down at the still figure lying on the tile floor. Then he slipped his wedding ring back on, walked quickly to his car, and drove home.

  RAINY SUNDAY

  IT WAS ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING ON A RAINY SUNDAY, and Sharon was sitting at the kitchen table debating whether or not to stuff another slice of American cheese into her mouth when Aunt Joan called, begging her niece to ride into town. “Would you mind we try one more time?” she said. Her voice sounded thick and fuzzy on the phone, and Sharon figured she had been taking somebody else’s pills again. Ever since her father died, Aunt Joan had been working in a nursing home in Meade, changing diapers and spooning soft food into the mouths of old people who’d worn out their welcome in this world. She considered their medication one of the perks of the job.

  Sharon pulled back the curtain and looked out the window. In the glow from the security light, she could see water standing several inches deep on the road in front of the house. “Lord, woman,” she told her aunt, “it’s still pouring down out there.” She didn’t want to go outside again. Earlier that day, she had gotten soaked chasing Dean, her damaged husband, around the yard. Now her throat hurt and she could feel a cold coming on. Sharon dreaded wet weather more than anything.

  “Please, honey, I’m so lonely tonight,” Aunt Joan said. “I cross my heart, I won’t ask you again.”

  Sharon sighed. She had told her aunt the last time that she wasn’t doing it anymore. Not only was it dangerous, it made her feel dirty. Besides, if Dean ever found out, she would never cash another one of his social security checks again. But tonight she couldn’t think straight. Dean had the TV turned up full blast in the living room, listening to some big-mouth preacher with frizzy blond hair stuck up around his head like a halo, and no matter where Sharon went in the cramped house, she couldn’t escape the sounds of televised religion. Everything was either pearly gates or boiling pits. So with Dean flapping his arms like an angel trying to fly through the ceiling and the preacher pleading for more money and Aunt Joan promising it was just the one more time, she caved in. “Look, this is the last time,” Sharon said. “Are you sure you can drive?”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Aunt Joan said, her voice already perking up. “And, honey, don’t wear that stupid ball cap. I need you looking nice.”

  Sharon hung up the phone and peeled the plastic wrap off one more slice of the waxy cheese. She yelled again at Dean to turn the TV down. Then she went into the bathroom and started putting on her face. In the last year, she had picked up five men for her aunt, but according to the older woman, not one of them had even stuck around for a sausage-and-gravy breakfast the next morning. When Sharon pressed her for details, she clammed up, refused to talk. It was hopeless. Though only in her forties, Aunt Joan wore old-lady dresses that hung like tired sheets on her fat body, and rubber galoshes over her black orthopedic shoes, even in dry weather. Her gray hair was piled on top of her head in a knot the size of a softball, and she had never tasted lipstick in her life. Sharon was heavy, too, but over the years she had learned the secrets of makeup application and how to camouflage her thick body with brightly colored sweats. It wasn’t that hard to keep a man if you took care of yourself.

  Just as she was finishing her eyes, Sharon heard Dean yell something about a giant turtle and run out the back door. She was too tired and discouraged to go after him, even though she hated for anyone to see him when he was having one of his episodes, especially her aunt. By the time Aunt Joan pulled in the driveway, he was hacking away with a chop ax at the tall TV antenna propped against the side of the house. “My God,” Aunt Joan said as Sharon got in the car. “What in the world’s he doing now?”

  “Who knows?” Sharon said. She crammed some empty pop cans and fast-food containers under the seat to make room for her feet. “This rain’s got him all screwed up.”

  As they started to town, she waited for her aunt to begin her usual speech about marrying a man with a steel plate in his head, but instead, Aunt Joan began telling stories about her sister, Bessie, Sharon’s mother. “All the kids in Knockemstiff used to call me and your mom the Cave Women when we were growing up.” Sharon had heard most of Aunt Joan’s stories a hundred times, and she hated them all, especially this one. The image of some hairy, stooped, apelike creatures always came to mind. “Your mama, though,” Aunt Joan said, staring through the cracked windshield of the New Yorker at the dark, wet road, “she didn’t deserve all that name-calling, being compared with me. She was pretty, just like you.”

  “Yeah,” Sharon said, “but look how she ended up.” Sharon bummed a Kool off her aunt, thinking the menthol might soothe her throat. “Maybe you were better off in the long run.”

  “What? Being the ugly one? Slaving away for Daddy all those years?” Aunt Joan said. She rubbed her nose, wiped something on her coat. “No, I don’t think so. At least your mom, she had some fun.” Most everyone in the county had heard of Big Bessie. She had left home as soon as she turned eighteen and tended bar around Meade all her life. Men fell in love with her face and tried to imagine a different, slimmer body when they bedded her. One night she didn’t come home from work, but Sharon just assumed she’d gone off with one of her trucker boyfriends. Bessie would do that once in a while, after Sharon was old enough to look after herself, just up and quit a job and take off for Florida or Texas for a couple of weeks. She’d been gone only three days when Sharon got a call from a detective in Milton, West Virginia. Her mother’s body had been found in a Dumpster behind a pancake house. Even now, ten years later, Aunt Joan still called the police department down there to see if they’d made an arrest yet.

  “I miss her so much,” Aunt Joan said.

  As they approached the cement bridge in Knockemstiff that ran over the little creek called Shady Glen, Sharon said, “Be careful.”

  “Oh, you always say that,” Aunt Joan said with a laugh, but she tapped the brakes anyway.

  “I know, but I can’t help it.” She didn’t trust anyone’s driving anymore. Dean had crashed his car into the bridge four years ago, just before he and Sharon were supposed to get married. Some people he’d gone to vocati
onal school with had thrown him a bachelor party, and the highway patrol estimated Dean was going eighty miles an hour when he flew through the windshield. The next morning, after the last of the emergency people had pulled away, one of the Myers boys from up in the holler found a pair of black panties and a sliver of pink brain in the grass. Nobody dreamed he would live, but eight months later he walked out of the rehab center on crutches. A thin layer of skin they’d peeled off his ass covered the steel plate in the back of his head. Sharon still thought about the panties occasionally, tried to picture the girl who wore a size five. She hadn’t worn underwear that small since she was in the third grade.

  . . . . .

  “I THINK YOU WAITED TOO LONG,” SHARON SAID AS THEY drove slowly past the dark Tecumseh Lounge. It was the last dive her mother had worked in. The owner still had a photograph of Big Bessie on the wall behind the cash register. Twice, she and Aunt Joan had gotten lucky there.

  “Damn, I was hoping we’d beat last call,” Aunt Joan said. “The drunks, they’re the easiest.” She pulled the car over at the edge of the empty parking lot and hunted in her purse for a fresh pack of cigarettes. The rain, which had practically stopped on the long drive into town, started up again. Sharon wondered if Dean had found his way back inside the house. “Oh, well,” Aunt Joan sighed. “What about we go get some doughnuts? I always got a sweet tooth, don’t you?”

  Besides the cross-eyed waitress, there was only one other person in the Crispie Creme, a wasted-looking young man in a booth near the back who seemed to be talking to himself. As they stood waiting for their order at the glass counter, Aunt Joan whispered that he was the same guy who’d been in there the last time they’d come to town. “Remember?” she said. “He was with some guy had a split-looking mouth.”