The Carpenter's Wife

by G. H. Holmes

  Again.

  The foolish heiress lay on a golden sheet, carefully arranged, inviting men’s eyes.

  “Oh, folks…” Tom slowly shook his head.

  Next to Paris lay Star magazine. It’s cover featured the blurred black-and-white image of a woman in ecstasy…

  Stark swallowed. “What’s this—?”

  Beside the change tray sat Playboy’s cover girl, her private parts all covered. But next to Star’s ecstatic lady, on Coup magazine, sat another bare model, her pose precarious.

  “Guys, you’ve never put stuff like this out to where just everybody—”

  What was that…?

  Stark’s nose dipped closer. Below the model on Coup’s cover sat a series of stamp-sized pictures…

  Tom held his breath.

  Stark’s head snapped up, his eyes shooting fire. “Excuse me!” He slapped the counter. “ This is pornography! You’re exposing me to pornography!”

  A hush fell on the mart. The Ranger and the queue of people behind him stood still, watching with bland faces.

  The bald teen in the cashier’s station stared at Stark, unsure. His gum-smacking made the rings in both his earlobes wiggle. “What’s to it?” he finally said, his voice thin.

  “What if your kids saw this?” Stark asked.

  “I don’t have kids,” the kid answered.

  “Other people have kids,” Tom said. “I don’t believe this.” He shook his head. “Look, I’m your customer, I pay your salary, and I don’t care for images like that. I don’t want to have to look at them!”

  “Then don’t,” came the smart reply, a little too quick.

  “Take them out of my sight…!”

  Slow gumsmacking sounds. “…Can’t do that.”

  Silence.

  The air grew thicker with each passing second.

  “Buddy…” Tom’s eyes narrowed and his voice turned into a menacing growl. “I’ll tell you something, and I’ll say it only once, so you better open those tackered ears of yours and listen. Got that?”

  The kid stared at him, breathing through the mouth, his jaw hanging open.

  Tom’s eyes became hypnotic. “Don’t swallow your gum.”

  A mouth closed slowly.

  “Now listen.” The hoarse growl was back. “There’s a law on the books in this country that says you can’t expose somebody to pornography against his will.

  “See this?” He picked up a copy of Coup magazine and pointed to the stamps. “This is pornography.”

  The kid’s smacking became louder. “It’s not.”

  “What’s it then?”

  The kid squinted. “Too small; I can’t discern it.”

  “Would you say it’s two people?”

  Nervous breathing. “No, it’s not.”

  Madness.

  Stark turned around and asked the crowd, “Who can tell me if this picture here shows two people?” He stepped up to the Ranger, who took a step back.

  Coward.

  A granny stood in line behind the soldier; he couldn’t ask her.

  Anyway.

  He turned around and faced the kid again. “I’m telling you, take. It. Off the counter.”

  “Sir…” The cashier exhaled laboriously.

  “Or I’ll make sure you’ll lose your job, squirt! I’ll hand you to the law! Got that?”

  The kid’s eyes widened. The nut case in front of him was broad, muscled; he wore leather pants and a fly-smacked sleeveless T-shirt that said “American Eagle” in small orange print across the chest.

  He drove a Harley.

  He seemed determined…

  “This is illegal,” Tom ranted. “You’re polluting the culture; you’re polluting young minds. You’re distributing offensive material, you’re furthering the proliferation of pornography, all highly illegal.

  “Besides, there’s a spiritual dimension to this. Public nudity is of the devil. God doesn’t like it.” It was hot in here.

  The kid extended his hands, a defensive gesture, a motion of surrender. “All right, sir. All right. I see your point.” He reached over and took the stack of Coup magazines off the counter. “There you go.” He placed them on the floor next to himself.

  “That too.” Tom pointed at the Star.

  “Sure.”

  Star mag wandered across the counter and disappeared.

  “What about Paris?”

  The kid cocked his head and looked at him reproachfully.

  “All right.” Tom let her pass.

  The group in the queue behind him got restless but remained silent.

  “You mind paying now?” The kid’s Adam’s apple bounced.

  Stark shot him another withering glance; then he looked around, his eyes searching. He began to walk among the racks.

  “Can I help you?” the kid asked.

  “I’m looking for flowers…”

  The Adam’s apple bounced again. “You want to transport those on your motorcycle?”

  A subdued giggle arose in the queue.

  “Not your problem.”

  The kid snorted and made noises. “We don’t have any left, I’m afraid.”

  Today was Sunday; all other stores were closed.

  Tom’s eyes scanned the racks for gifts. There. His eyes settled on what looked like single roses. He side-stepped the Ranger to have a closer look. Marzipan. The roses were made of marzipan.

  Not what he had in mind. He searched for the price tag.

  “They’re seven fifty a piece,” the kid informed him.

  Ten dollars. Stark huffed. For a spindly marzipan rose. “Keep it then.”

  Smacking noises emanated from behind the counter.

  Tom came and inserted his credit card into the slot of the small reader to the left of the counter. After signing the slip he grabbed his paper, turned around, and swaggered off.

  The Ranger stepped up and stood, glaring at the kid in silence. Tom had reached the exit; the sliding doors opened, when he heard him utter one word, real low. “Coup?”

  Stark stopped dead in his tracks and blushed. Looking down the line, he yelled, “Shame on you!”

  Then he left.

  9

  Sunday, 6 July 2003, Evening, 93°F/34°C

  He honked, and they came running.

  “Daddieee…!” Sarah shouted, clapping her hands.

  “Open up, Sweetie!”

  A second later the handle moved, and one side of the metal gate swung open. The Harley growled as he drove in and stopped again, and the gate fell shut with a clang. The kids squealed, Coco barked, and small faces full of elation looked up at the masked man, who now pulled the bandana off his nose and smiled.

  Sarah in her blue bathing suit and beach sandals jumped up and down, yelling at the kitchen window, her brown curls bouncing, “Mom! Daddy’s home!”

  Ben appeared by his side, grinning from ear to ear. He wore black shorts and a gaudy-colored T-shirt. His blue eyes sparkled. “Can I go with you?” Without waiting he flipped down the hind footrests and climbed aboard.

  “Moo-oom! Daddy’s home!” Sarah again.

  “She’s on the phone,” Ben explained from the back seat. “She’s been on it a lot.”

  “I see...”

  Stark kicked into first gear and rumbled down the drive beside the house, across windblown chalk paintings. He turned left on the little plaza by the single-car garage, then right into the back yard, where he drove on grass until he reached the open garden house. Carefully working clutch and gear, he rolled through the door, came to a halt in the small room, and shut the engine down.

  “Hey, big guy,” he said to Ben after swinging off the bike. “My, you’ve grown since I saw you last.” The strap lock clicked and his helmet came off.

  Ben looked at him, unsure, then said, “You too.”

  Both laughed, and Stark put the helmet on the table and hugged his boy, who was a good head taller than other boys his age. “You got blonder,” he said, brushing over his son’s hair.
r />   “Mom says it’s the sun.”

  “I think she’s right. So, how’s school?”

  Ben swallowed. “Well,” he said. “Deutsch is not so good.”

  Tom didn’t want to harp on that now. “But I heard you made Math King again.”

  “Oh, that.” Ben waved dismissively. “That was easy.”

  “Why,” Stark said, wagging a professorly finger. “That’s the area of your gifting. We’ll have to develop that—”

  The rest of his sentence got drowned out by Coco the fluffy pup, who waddled in, wailing like a miniature freight train, her whole body shaking under the force of her wagging tail. Stark bent down and patted and stroked her golden fur. “Yes, girlie. What’s the matter, eh? Tone it down, will you.”

  The pup lay down on its belly in front of him, still whining.

  “Aw, shame on you.”

  Her wail turned into a whimper, but her tail kept sweeping the tiled floor behind her.

  Sarah came running, arms extended. “Daddy!”

  He scooped her up in his arms. “Hey, my Princess!” He kissed her on both cheeks and she giggled. But then she smacked back, full force. “I missed you, Sweetie.”

  “Missed you too,” she said. Then she hugged him in a fit of wonderful, clean, innocent daughterly passion. Releasing him, she asked, “Are you going to tell us a story tonight?”

  “Yeah.” Ben nodded, full of excitement. “A Simselim story! One where Slim gets eaten by an octopus?”

  Slim was the bad guy in those stories.

  Stark laughed. The kids seemed to enjoy listening to his silly tales as much as he enjoyed making them up. “Suuure,” he said genially.

  “Hey, there’s mom.”

  Romy came jogging down the concrete path between the garden house and the plaza by the garage. She wore a sleeveless shirt, baggy jean shorts, and Birkenstocks. A pretty sight, really. But he could tell by the way she ran that she imagined herself to be heavier than she actually was.

  With some people it was all in the mind.

  Pastor Stark’s wife held a black telephone in her left hand.

  “He’s killing her,” she said, her voice filled with concern. Offering him the phone, she wiped a rebellious strand of gold-brown hair off her forehead.

  “Who?” Tom asked, putting Sarah down.

  “Carlos Maria.”

  “Again?”

  Harried screams and other awful noises emanated from the little speaker.

  “I think you should see them.”

  Stark took the phone and sighed. “Hello to you too.”

  “Hi.”

  She bent forward and they kissed briefly.

  Turning toward his son he said, “Ben, you take those saddlebags and put them in my office.” Tom loosened the clamps with one hand and set the bags down next to the bike.

  “They’re heavy,” Romy objected.

  “He’ll manage.”

  “I can do it.” Ben said. “Lookit me.” He grabbed the first one and groaned as he lifted it off the ground. Then he wobbled off with it toward the house.

  Romy still stood in the doorframe. “Don’t you want to talk to them?”

  Stark looked up. “Can you shut the door on your way out?”

  “Sure.” She turned around on her heels.

  He turned to Sarah. “Sweetie, go with Momma.”

  “Okay.” She ran to her mother, and the garden house door clicked into its lock.

  Leaning on the chopper, Tom stared at the object in his hand, which transmitted shrieks and the sound of dull beatings.

  This was too much.

  He made sure the door was shut and the window closed; then he said, “Hey, Carlos! Stop it, you moron! Get your stinkin’ hands of your wife, you hear me?”

  The poundings and the shrieks subsided; static crackled.

  “Pastor Tom?” It was Carlos.

  “Yes, it’s me, buddy. And if I hear that one more time—”

  “Pastor,” the voice in the phone said. “You’ve got to come over. She’s pounding me, Pastor. She’s out of her mind…”

  Tom’s eyes narrowed. “She’s beating you?”

  “Well, you see—”

  A woman’s high-pitched scream warbled across the ether. She rambled on in Spanish, which Tom didn’t understand.

  “See what I’m saying? If you could come by, Pastor, maybe douse the flames…”

  Tom sighed.

  “…she may get her bearings. You know how much I love the gringa, but this week…”

  “Okay,” Stark growled. “I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Don’t break any more stuff.”

  “Oh no, Pastor. She’s just—”

  A shattering of glass; splinters scattered on hard tiles.

  Carlos turned away and began to yell at his wife. She yelled back, and Tom pressed the rubbery “end” button. He placed the phone on the little hutch by the wall, opened the door, and pushed the Harley back out.

  Maria Meier de Gonzales was a well-proportioned beauty of 33 years. A little long-faced, she had velvety doe-eyes, chestnut-brown curls that fell to her shoulders, and a pleasantly dark complexion; one could easily mistake her for a hot-blooded Latina. But she was fully German, coming from old Franconian country stock.

  Maria had once studied medicine at the University of Erlangen, planning on becoming a pediatric physician like her sister, when, in her sixth semester, she was sunbathing on a shore, studying Spanish for fun, having gained an interest in the language by way of her Latin medical terms, when she aroused the interest of one Carlos Gonzales, a 27-year-old seeker of political asylum from La Paz, Bolivia. Carlos almost stumbled over her in hot pursuit of a hovering Frisbee, when he noticed that she was reading a book in his native Spanish. He questioned her about it, liked her physique, and “taught” her Spanish for the rest of the afternoon. She enjoyed it, not least because Senor Gonzales was no ugly slouch either. Broad in every sense of the word—forehead, jaw, chest, arms, and legs—Carlos was a Latin lover, the archetypical exotic male certain fair-skinned women found irresistible. Usually a gaggle of infatuated girls hung around him, but that day he had only eyes for one.

  The two continued to meet every day for a week, until Maria finally consented and slept with him, under terrible pangs of conscience. But Carlos released a firestorm of passion in the young lady, and she fell madly in love with him, which in time smothered the terror of her pangs—until one day the border police showed up to arrest him. Carlos’s application for political asylum had been rejected—like 95 percent of all such applications—and he had overstayed his grace period by more than two years. He’d jumped the gun in the past, but now they had found him and were taking him to Stadelheim prison, to detain him for deportation.

  Maria nearly panicked when she heard the ghastly news. Visiting him in his dungeon and, seeing how he suffered, she quickly married him to stay his banishment. Six weeks later Carlos was a free man again.

  To be sure, the odd circumstances of their nuptials cast a pall over their relationship, but, undeterred, she continued her education while he worked off and on and collected benefits in between. But one sour day he concluded that he’d always be the lowest figure on the totem pole here in Europe and decided to return to Bolivia with the small amount money he had saved. And with his wife, naturally.

  But Maria had no mind for that.

  She intended to finish her studies. Then she was going to open a practice. Here. In Germany. She had pictured herself as a busy lady doctor with an exotic stay-home husband on the side. She was going to have a life.

  Carlos however, a true southern macho, expected her to submit to his natural, god-given authority, and to do so gracefully. Doc or no doc, he expected her to obey, and to bear children, a whole nursery full—she could practice on them. He intended to make his mother proud. Here or in Bolivia.

  Cultures clashed and a time of major dissent followed, during which he almost despaired, since Maria’s witty barbs were so much more prickly than hi
s own, when he met a group of Christians in a discotheque one night and got born again. Caught up in his wave of glory, Maria found back to the Lord, too, and for a while they were truly happy, their cultural differences eradicated by a common love for God.

  Then Carlos got fed up with his low-paying job again, backslid, and began to drink. There were also nights when he didn’t come home. Now she was desperate, since she loved him. What could she do? He spoke of Bolivia constantly. He wanted to move. In the end she relented and quit her medical studies, one year before graduating, and in March of ‘99 they relocated to La Paz. And Maria Gonzales, formerly Meier, of Euerdorf in Schweinfurt County, Germany, found herself overwhelmed by a garish Third World that suddenly swirled around her, and experienced major culture shock.

  But what was she to do?

  On arrival they moved into a small house bordering on one of the numerous and nameless slums of the city, where she got introduced to his family, who fell into the questionable habit of calling her La Gringa.

  She shrugged it off.

  Used to clean and tidy neighborhoods, she began to dress up the dilapidated edifice they inhabited to the best of her ability. Not squeamish, she swallowed hard and exterminated the four, six, and eight-legged creatures crawling about. But nature was different here, and she found that her constant efforts effected no more than water dripped on a hot stone. In time she adapted to poverty and dirt, made the best of an impossible situation, and within a year had her first baby, a boy, Ramon.

  Right about then her husband decided to become rich in order to give his gringa the life she deserved. He broke a large hole into the family room wall, put in a door and a window, and opened up an impromptu butcher shop.

  But Maria, the proud and independent former grade A student, struggled tremendously when she found herself dressed in the ragged clothes of a Bolivian momma, mop in hand, cleaning up the blood of slaughtered animals in her husband’s shop late at night. Instead of performing with scalpels on humans in sterile operating rooms, she now cut up reeking pigs and cows with a hatchet in an unventilated living room day after day, while scraggly children played in the mess under the table.