John's Wife: A Novel

by Robert Coover

  Wife theft of course was an old joke, as old as wives, but as Stu would say if he had any spit left to say with, it’s not the theft but how you steal it. Rex, now tucking his old boss and rival in for the long night out at the Ford-Mercury car lot, using methods more direct, less consoling than those Barnaby presently enjoyed, had figured all the angles and knew nothing could go wrong now from here to the tagline. Rex had had a lot of jobs in his life—stockboy, fridge and TV repairman, taxi driver, deliveryman, mechanic, gigolo—but for this gig he’d cut his chops killing pigs for bacon-makers. Probably the spot in his life, short though the run was, that had given him the most satisfaction. Not all that easy on the old olfactories, but at least at the end of the day you felt you’d accomplished something. Which was how he felt now, cooled out at last after an edgy time. Rex had been noodling along without direction for too long, trying to think his way through every move, every bar, like a goddamned greenhorn, but now that he was onstage at last he found himself relaxing into his own sense of time, on top of the beat and ready for his break when it came, knowing that it would all happen as it had to happen so long as he kept to the score. At the same time, he was able to let in a lot more space, to stretch it out just for the pleasure of it, to enjoy, in a word, the telling, and for openers, there was Stu’s record collection which the old jughead beamed out over the lot most days and which sorely offended Rex, twangy whining country and western shit for the most part. He ordered Stu to take them out of their jackets and hold them for him while, one by one, he dug deep raw X’s into them with a screwdriver. The old shitkicker, sneezing explosively, gave it his best attention, probably hoping that was the worst that was going to happen to him, and when Rex spared a couple of classic rockabilly discs Stu’s eyes lit up there in the dimness and a grin twitched on his loose lips. “Reminds me of the one about the old boy,” he wheezed, “who was chawin’ tobacca in church one day when the preacher’s missus come in and—” Rex poked the barrel of the rifle into his flapping jaws, chipping a couple of crooked teeth, told the dumbfuck to chaw on that awhile, and then laid out for him his plans for a long creamy set with his own fat missus, now waiting for him back at Stu’s crib. Not too long a set: he loathed the boozy bitch and her big spongy ass, but he didn’t say so. One lick at a time. He emptied the chamber of the garage handgun and gave it to Stu to hold while he still sweated fingerprints, planning to reload it afterwards and fire off a couple of rounds, turn the old yuck into a heroic defender of the fort, if a dead one. Okay, time for the main theme: stay inside, follow the chart, and take it out. At the last second, the old used-car shark tried to pull the cornball someone-behind-you dodge—“Winnie—?” he gasped—but Rex only grinned and, straightahead, no frills, completed his closing rip. But when he turned around, there in the shadows: there was someone! He panicked for a moment, thinking: setup! But wait: wasn’t that the thin streak of piss who stole the truck? Perfect! He eased up, feeling the beat again. Not the tag expected, but he could play it. You’re all right, my man, if you just keep listening.

  There was something very big lurking at the shadowy edge of the woods out back and the reformed motelkeeper, holding down the fort but still far too sober to play the hero, heaved his beercan at it, then ducked inside and locked all the doors and windows and pulled the blinds and, rubbing his sore arm (used to be able to throw a ball as far as most guys could hit one—now he probably couldn’t get it back to the pitcher), went back to the bar for another beer. Or more than one, some resolutions would have to wait. “Otis? Are you there? Can you hear me? Otis?” Nothing but static. At first he’d thought it might just be squirrels or raccoons rooting around in the garbage and he’d gone out back to shoo them away. But then he’d heard a branch come down and could swear he saw something peeking out at him over the treetops, and what might have been a flexed knee sticking out, catching the parking lot light, at least ten feet off the ground. Shit. “Otis, do you read me? This is Dutch! I got a major problem here!” Fucking useless. The fat-necked sonuvabitch was probably home in bed. Or playing poker somewhere with Dutch’s bartender and the rest of the staff that he’d volunteered away, leaving Dutch alone on the front line and the whole damned motel to run. Luckily it was all but empty tonight, most of John’s barbecue guests staying out at their new hotel on the interstate, the barbecue itself having sucked up the Getaway’s ordinary evening trade, but that was no real consolation, Dutch could use some company. He thought about rousting out Waldo and his milky-breasted bimbo, but supposed they’d both be bombed out of their minds by now and more trouble to him than help. He turned on the TV over the bar and watched a baseball game for a while and, after an inning or two and a few more beers, began to doubt what he thought he’d seen and was even glad he hadn’t got ahold of Otis and his boys after all and dragged them over here, they might have thought he was off his rocker, and what was worse, they might have been right. Dutch had not been sleeping well and sometimes it felt like he wasn’t sleeping at all, even in the middle of what had to be nightmares. He knew what his problem was. Oh, not too much pud pulling: hell, if anything, keeping his hand on his rod and his mind on both kept all three out of worse, an old sportsman’s dictum. No, it was that mirror. That dicked him. It was living too close for too long to that borderline between what was real and what, like a movie, for example, even if made out of real stuff, wasn’t. And it wasn’t really a line so much as a kind of thin film, and when it dissolved: well, you were fucked, buddy. “I got the bad, bad Back Room Blues!” he growled to the tune of an advertising jingle between innings on the TV, and poured himself another beer. So he was closing it down. He should probably dismantle it altogether, but he thought he might need it again some day more desperate than this one, or John might for other ends. Dutch was tempted, feeling so lonely, to take in one last farewell performance, but beefy old Waldo looked out of his depth tonight so it could be a pretty depressing show. Like watching sick carp in an oily pond. Stick with the baseball. That’s what he was thinking (top of the eighth, tying run on first, nobody out) when Waldo’s harpy of a spouse came rocketing in, stuck a shotgun up his nose, and demanded the key to her husband’s room. Dutch gave it to her, figuring on maybe giving Waldo a warning call, but she spun around at the door, swinging the gun his way, and yelled: “Don’t even think about it, fatso!” Whereupon Dutch decided this drear night might have something to offer after all and went back to his old movie seat to watch the action.

  Thanks to the daylong rumors and sightings, Otis’s stirring twilight speech in John’s backyard, and the fleeing Country Tavern patrons surging back into town, news about the big thing in the woods was getting around. In fact, as always happened, people were seeing big things everywhere, and Otis had to field a lot of nuisance calls, as when someone called to say the big thing had got into their basement and blown all the fuses, please help for god’s sake, while others claimed to have seen it hiding behind the darkened mall or in the deep end of the civic center swimming pool or under the humpback bridge, and everywhere it went, people said, it was leaving a mucky smear. There was even a report that the stolen truck had been seen heading north out of town without a driver and with two big feet sticking out the back. Shackled in the backseat of the patrol car, Duwayne cackled at all these calls coming in and said it sounded like the great Whore of Babylon had this fiendish sinkhole of iniquity by its diabolicals and wouldn’t let go till the Day of Rupture come to kick ass and send them all to hell and perdition, praise the Rod of Wrath and His Holy Spirits, go git me a drink, Otis. In spite of Duwayne’s crazed running commentary, Otis took all the callers seriously and had their stories checked out, as he always did, but he had his own sights set now on Settler’s Woods. He’d been narrowing their escape options all day and he knew that was where they’d have to go. Before leaving the barbecue, he got the doctors present to put the hospital on alert, deputized a dozen or so of the younger fellows, sending those without weapons of their own to the airport with Mayor Snuffy who had the keys
to John’s gun cabinet, and told the others to meet up out at the Country Tavern in an hour’s time. He talked with old Oxford about his simple son’s shenanigans and the deep trouble he was in right now, and then fended off as best he could Oxford’s clubfooted daughter-in-law, who came bobbing violently out of the night and attacked him again with her steel crutch, this time for partying it up instead of keeping the public order as he was paid to do. When she found out he was recruiting for an armed posse to try to capture the two bandits, she insisted on being deputized in spite of her obvious disabilities, which included being blind as a bat. He told her it was against the law to use relatives of the accused, though he didn’t know whether it was or not, but in any case it didn’t snuff her wick, she got more fired up than ever. He figured, for her own safety, he ought to lock her up for the night, but he didn’t know which of his men would be willing to take her on and he was not keen to. Finally, Oxford’s heavyset daughter, who had the most influence on her, was able to persuade her to back off, though Otis supposed he’d see them both again before the night was over. He tried to reach the motelkeeper out on the highway next to the woods to warn him that the two they were looking for might be in his neighborhood, but he got no answer. The Country Tavern, having taken casualties, seemed to have shut down as well. This was it then. He could feel it, like atmosphere: Last quarter. Last big play, game on the line. Before he could break away to join Mayor Snuffy and the boys at the airport, though, old Stu’s wife grabbed his arm. She said she thought Stu was about to get hurt, hurt really bad, he should get out to the car lot as soon as possible and try to stop it, but when he impatiently asked, stop what? she couldn’t say. Almost too drunk to stand. “Hell, I don’t know, honey, just something he, you know, had to do before coming.”

  Well, she’d tried. She could do no more. One story ending, another revving up. Her life seemed full of them. She used to be the nice girl next door, back when the idea of excitement was a school field trip to a dairy farm; now she was not so nice but it was more interesting. So was she. Obviously. She ached to be home in bed, but not alone. Had to time it right. Alibi and all that. So she lingered, killing time and bottle dregs, keeping up her hellos and excuses, so all could say: I remember Daphne. More and more, not hellos but goodbyes: the joint was emptying out. The fuzz had wrecked the party. She watched as the preacher and his otherworldly wife packed up their new baby and cuddled it off into the night, thinking that, hell, she wasn’t too old to get one of those things. That hunk could make her a beauty that’d knock the pants off all the other babies in town. But what would she do with it after she got it? Hard to imagine. Reverend Lenny’s older boy, with his nose broken and face in plaster, had not seemed all that ecstatic about the new arrival. Or arrivals: that act was pretty funny, even if young what’s-his-name, pencil-peter, he of his father’s Our Fathering vocation, didn’t think so. He’d fled the scene his mommy’d made, either in chagrin or else to go gawk at the famous desperados with the rest of the tourists. Maynard’s repopped brat, star of Mikey’s magic show, had seemingly taken off, too, though his parents were still here. Twat of Twit and Twat was sleeping with her eyes open down by the barbecue pit (poor thing, she’d got so ugly it was heartbreaking); Twit, as Daphne discovered when she went for a pee, was in the master bedroom fondling someone’s panties. Guess whose. The Mange still had the hots for her after all these years. Daphne might have gone in there and taunted the snarfing sleazebag, as was her wont, but she saw that he was crying and figured the shitheel had suffered enough humiliation for one night, let him be, especially since she was in such a celebrative mood, or should be. Wasn’t she? What was wrong? Why these flashes of the blues? Well. She was at heart a good woman who wished everyone could live forever. She didn’t want one story to have to cancel another. Something like that. And also, give him credit, she’d miss the jokes. Of course, there were compensations, one big one in particular, but she’d been without it for a while, would be at least a night longer, and badly hooked, she was hurting: didn’t junkies get the blues? So she wanted her steady fix but she wanted it to be painless. Had it already happened? It was a pity one had to live all these stories in tandem instead of all at the same time. Why couldn’t life be spread out like memory was, with past and present all interwoven and dissolving into one another, so you could drift from story to story whenever the mood struck and no one really hurt by it? Instead: out of the old and into the new. Get ready to gasp and cry. Could she do it? Could and would. She looked around but found no one who belonged here to say goodnight to except little Mikey, who was busy rehearsing a new number with a little girl who looked like the youngest of Lenny and Trixie. They must have forgot her. Mikey was staggering around clumsily with his hand in the underpants of a Raggedy Ann doll, and the little girl was coming after him with some kind of plastic space cannon, firing table tennis balls. Who was that supposed to be?

  She burst into the room, shotgun at her shoulder, slapped the lights on, and shouted: “Okay, asshole, say your prayers!” But the room was empty. Should have known better than to read a corkhead’s mind. Or maybe Dutch tipped them off after all. Probably. Room looked used. But the bed, though indented here and there, was still made. Lorraine sniffed the air. A certain sweaty aura maybe, but no clues. Had she really intended to shoot him? Or just scare the pants off him? Most likely, if his pants had already been off, to shoot him. She looked under the pillows and found a packet of fancy imported rubbers. Unopened. She pocketed them as evidence. Evidence of what? Thwarted intentions. Ditto, the girlie magazine in the wastebasket, the toothbrush in the bathroom. Though she didn’t recognize it. The tub was dry, but one of the hand-towels had been used and tossed on the floor. There was a glass that had had whiskey in it. What kind? No idea. In the little plastic wastebasket by the stool, there was a thick wad of chewed gum. She left it. Some evidence she didn’t need. The inside bathroom wall, she saw, could be rolled back, half of it sliding into the other half, making the bathroom in effect part of the bedroom. Cute. This was a real little lovenest. Overheads with dimmers, adult video channel on the TV, an abundance of directional lamps, mirrors, speakers, soft polymorphous furniture, odd suggestive knickknacks. Maybe there were always condoms under the pillows, porno mags “left” in the bins. But, wait. What did she mean, “suggestive”? Well, just that: objects that at first glance meant nothing to her at all, when looked at individually, seemed, almost literally, to suggest another use, inevitably sexy. For example, a little twist of silken cords with knots at the ends, like something cut from old-fashioned curtains and sprayed on a tabletop as a decoration: pretty, she thought, until another thought reached her, as though from the cords themselves: a whip. A chest of drawers drew her attention next, the bottom drawer: in it she found a vibrator. She’d never had one, never even seen one, but she knew, as if it were telling her so, that was what it was. She turned it on (she knew where to turn it on!), just to check the batteries. Well, why not? She kicked off her shoes, hauled down her slacks and panties, then thought it might be a good idea to wash it first. While she was soaping it up in the bathroom, she had the peculiar sensation of observing her own broad sagging backside; not used to bathrooms with open walls, made her self-conscious, she clearly wasn’t meant for the erotic life. You’re an ugly old cow, she heard herself saying, but what the hell, live it up! She had a sudden hunch, opened the medicine cabinet, found a jar of skin lotion, and understood its purpose immediately, took it back to the bed with her, where the shotgun lay like a discarded lover. She lathered the vibrator with the lotion and watched herself in the mirror as she inserted it and turned it on. Wow! Pretty good! She lay back on the bed, raised her feet, and let her rip. It was weird, but the whole room seemed to be encouraging her, and what she was thinking as she came was, yeah, terrific, the power of visual metaphor! When it was over, it wasn’t over. She still felt restless. She washed the vibrator and put it back, but she didn’t feel like putting her pants on. It was weird, but it was like the room was talking to
her. And what it seemed to be saying was: how about the shotgun? That would be something different. It had a little ridge at the top of the barrel for sighting and it felt good to rub that against her clitoris. It was already pretty oily, but she applied a little more lotion and worked it in. How deep can it go? she seemed to be asking herself. How big a one can you handle? She pushed it in, watching herself in the mirror, inch in, half inch out; inch in, imagining the stud who would be hung with something like this. Whoo, this was even better than the vibrator, slower but reaching deeper, just the madness of it was turning her on, and she could feel an orgasm coming unlike any she’d ever known, oh fuck, she whimpered, and the whole room seemed to be feeling it, too, it was like she was fucking the room as she shoved the shotgun in, or the room was fucking her, deeper and deeper, it was savage and delicious, and the thought came to her as though out of nowhere, this is it, it’s never going to get any better, go for it, take all of it you can, then blast away! Yes, yes, she was gasping, and she reached for the trigger, but as she did so she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and, even as she was coming, what she saw instead of a scene of pure ecstasy was her own ugly puss, puffy with rut, her fat misshapen ass and flabby thighs, and something very alien stabbing her vagina. She whipped it out, mortified and angry, and blasted away her mirrored image, registering, just before she pulled the trigger, a sudden wild panic in her image she didn’t feel in herself.