Unsightly Bulges

by Kim Hunt Harris

I shrugged.

  She looked pointedly at the uneaten tamales at Marky’s place, then back at me.

  “No,” I said firmly. I hadn’t been kidding about the intestinal explosions. That was not the way I wanted to end this crappy day.

  Mario came in wiping his hands on a damp dishtowel, grinning his big grin. He looked back the direction Marky had gone and then back at me with a questioning eyebrow. “Bueno?” he said.

  I shrugged to him, too. “He wasn’t happy?”

  His grin immediately turned to a look of concern. “The tamales were not good?”

  “Oh, no, the tamales were excellent, as always.” I rubbed my tummy to illustrate. “Very good. He’s just mad because...” How to explain? “He’s mad.”

  Mario nodded, then we both stood there for an uncomfortable moment. He motioned toward the tamales. “I’ll wrap up some tamales for you,” he said.

  As much as I secretly agreed with this philosophy that good food can brighten the most rotten situation, I forced myself to shake my head. “No,” I said. “Thank you, but no. I can’t.”

  This concerned him more than Marky’s abrupt departure. His brow drew together and he frowned.

  “Actually, you know what? I’d love to take some home. Thanks. That would be great.”

  Smiling once again, Mario headed back to the kitchen. Stump and I followed him through, and he put three more packages of six tamales in a paper bag for me. “Refrigerate,” he ordered sternly, then smiled again.

  I nodded solemnly, then asked, “How is the delivery business going?”

  “Oooh, busy. Busy busy,” he said. “Can’t keep up.”

  “Do you ever go to Channel 11?”

  “Channel 11? The news?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They have a lot of people there, and I know they’d love some tamales.” I gave him the address.

  He scrambled it down on a pad beside the phone, then nodded enthusiastically. “Bueno, bueno,” he said. “Good.”

  I drove home, feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I couldn’t even feel good about the possibility that Tri-Patrice might fall for the tamale temptation and not lose more than I did for a change, because I felt so crappy about intentionally trying to sabotage her. Fat Fighters had an entire weeklong curriculum devoted to how to deal with people like me.

  Plus, I was full. Somehow in all that I’d eaten six tamales, when I’d planned to eat only two. This was going to wreak havoc with my Strat-EAT-Gic Plan.

  I flopped onto the sofa and hauled Stump up to me. She sniffed intently at a spot on my thigh. I must have wiped tamale residue on my jeans. I checked the clock. The news was about to come on, so I dug around for the remote control and switched the TV on.

  Les again. Apparently, he’d gone viral. The reporter who’d been at the Watson Building the previous night was giddy with excitement. She smiled brilliantly as she stood to the side of the anchor desk.

  “Patrice, it’s not often that something that happens in Lubbock reaches the national news, but one local man is garnering attention all over the country, and in less than twenty-four hours!”

  Then came a montage of clips of comedians, anchors from other stations, and people on the street quoting Les. She’d even put music behind it. It looked like one of those how-many-people-can-fall-on-their-butts-in-this-thirty-second-video bits from the home movies shows. Les saying the words, “won’t inherit the kingdom of God,” and “bestiality.” Then his words repeated soundbite-by-soundbite by solemn talk show hosts, sarcastic comedians, indignant people on the street. Again they showed with the startled cow, and to this was added a bleating goat, a wary tail-switching cat, and a seemingly oblivious hamster.

  It was all supposed to be funny. Except it was Les, and he was being made to look the fool, and he was my friend. It made my heart hurt.

  The reporter started talking again, and I hit the mute button. I didn’t want to hear it when she managed to work in the phrase “swirling around Lubbock” yet again.

  To her credit, Tri-Patrice looked annoyed when the taped portion ended, but I probably picked up on that better than her general audience member did. I’d spent enough time annoying her to detect the subtler signs.

  I clicked the sound back on when she was the only one in the shot.

  “This controversy started last week with the coming out of CJ Hardin, whose body was found Monday in a City of Lubbock garbage container. His death has been ruled a homicide, and the Hardin family held a press conference today from the Lubbock Police Department.”

  Four women and four men stood behind the podium that Lubbock PD always used to deliver their press conferences. I recognized Bobby Sloan and another detective who routinely served as a TPD spokesman, and I thought one of the women was assistant police chief. There was a younger woman who could have been CJ’s sister, and another woman that I was fairly sure was his mother. Desiree Shaw stood between them, red-eyed and solemn. The man at the podium, however, could only be CJ’s father. He was an older, sadder version of the large picture of CJ that stood on the stand to the side of the podium.

  “We are heartbroken,” he said, his voice cracking, “at the loss of our son. Our brother. Our friend. CJ devoted his life to making the lives of others better – whether through his work at Lubbock Children’s Hospital, his volunteer work, or his daily walk through life. He was the most giving and generous person I’ve ever known.” He stopped then and swallowed, gripping the edge of the podium and blinking. “We will stop at nothing to bring the person responsible for this disgusting crime to justice. We are announcing today a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for CJ’s murder.”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, I whistled. Now there was a reason to be chasing people down alleys, I thought to myself. In addition to all the exacting-justice-on-bad-guys fun stuff, that was a nice chunk of change. Even split two ways. Or three. Stupid Dale.

  I caught my breath then as Bobby’s face filled the screen. I forgot for a second that I was mad at him. He looked like someone who could solve any problem, or handle any bad guy. I was glad for the Hardins that Bobby was on their side.

  My phone rang and I picked it up, muting the TV again.

  “It’s Marky.”

  I was so shocked – it was the second time in one day he’d shocked me by appearing out of the blue. I didn’t even answer, but it turned out that I didn’t need to.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry I spazzed out on you today. I regretted it as soon as I got down the street.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say. “Sure, okay.”

  “I understand that guy is your friend and you want to be loyal to him. I admire that, I really do. I’m coming at this issue from a different angle, obviously.”

  “I understand.”

  “I just...” He blew out a gust of air, and I could practically see him pacing the floor of his small apartment. “That way of thinking – it looks nice, Salem. It looks good. It looks honorable and earnest and – and even Godly. I’m sure he seems like a really nice guy.”

  “He is a really nice guy.”

  “Well, I’m sure he is. And I can’t blame you for not seeing that it’s people like him that are behind the violence that people like me face every day.”

  “But he is not, Marky. Les would never – ”

  “He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to lift a finger, Salem. He gives the bullies the moral high ground, and that’s all he has to do. It’s his rhetoric that fuels all the violence. People have always looked for a reason to dominate each other. They always will. And people like Les give people a target for that domination. Rhetoric like that makes it okay. They make it justified.”

  “I really don’t...” But I didn’t know what to say.

  “You know, a few hundred years ago, people were beaten for being left-handed. It was considered wrong. Unnatural. Demonic, even. And you know who was behind that? The clergy. It sounds crazy now but it’s a f
act. These guys went around speaking for God, spouting righteousness and holiness, and people trusted them. They were the experts on right and wrong.”

  “Marky, that was a long time ago. People were different then.”

  “Really? Were they really?”

  I thought about all the ignorant-sounding comments I’d read lately.

  “They had a Bible verse to support everything they did. Back then. They didn’t just get the abuse out of nowhere. They had justification to back it up.”

  I sat in silence for a long moment. Les had saved my life. Les was the reason I was not either dead or in prison at that very moment. Les had found me, hungover and suicidal, in a jail cell, and he had not let me go since then. He had refused to let me go back to drinking and doing my best to screw up my life. He had refused to let me say that I was anything less than a child of the Most High God, even when I despised every ounce of myself. He had refused to do anything but allow me to pick myself up and slog through another day, day after day. Until eventually, I built a life: A life with people I loved, people who loved me. I had built a life where I treasured things like sunsets and snuggling with my dog. If Les hadn’t shown up that day, none of that would have happened for me.

  And it wasn’t just me. The awards banquet had proved that. Les wasn’t just a nice guy. He was the closest thing to a Saint I’d ever known.

  People trusted them.

  “Look, I called to apologize and here I am, getting worked up again. Please, don’t be mad at me,” Marky said. “I don’t have a lot of friends here in Lubbock, and I’ve been so freaked out since CJ died. I just...I need a friend. I’m not even going to insist that you think about what I said. Just...please don’t be mad at me. Please don’t stop being my friend.”

  “I won’t,” I said. To be honest, I was really flattered. I hadn’t known Marky that long, and aside from this murder investigation, we had nothing to talk about, really, nothing in common. I supposed that he had sensed some kind of connection with me, and I wasn’t about to mess it up. I had too few friends of my own. “You’re going to stay in Lubbock, aren’t you?”

  “They can’t get rid of me that easily,” he said vehemently. I wasn’t sure who he was talking about – CJ’s detractors, his killer, or the opposition to Friends of Joshua, probably all of them. “I came here with a job to do and I’m going to do it. This has made me more determined than ever.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”

  “We could use some help,” he said. “On the house. This Sunday is clean-up and demo day. I’ve rented a portable dumpster and we’re getting a group together to clean out the place and maybe get started with some of the gutting. Rip up the rotten floorboards, tear down the old wallpaper. That kind of thing.”

  “That sounds great,” I said, but in my head I was uncomfortably aware of the theme of dumpsters running through my life.

  Eight

  The jerks did it to me again. Saturday afternoon I was busy scissoring away at a poodle when Dale breezed out the door and hopped into Viv’s car. I honestly thought I was going to cry. It seemed supremely unfair that I was saddled with grownup problems – money, relationships, annoying co-workers – while also having to haul around childish emotions.

  I tried to talk myself out of it. I reminded myself that I had a new friend. I was going to help with the Friends of Joshua house the next day. They say that the best way to forget your problems was to focus on helping someone else. But, while I didn’t go so far as to hope Dale was actually bumped off by some hardcore cockfighting cartel thug, I didn’t think it would be such a bad idea for him to slip quietly out of town and never come back. Ever.

  That Viv and Dale came back and were waiting for me in the Bow Wow Barber’s parking lot when I got off work didn’t do much to improve my mood. By then I’d had a good couple of hours to stew, and for a moment I considered putting up a pretense that I wasn’t going to go with them. I knew it was a bluff, but part of me wanted to make them wonder a bit.

  See? Childish emotions. I’m not proud of it.

  “Hurry!” Dale shouted. He stood beside the Caddy, one hand on the back door handle, ready to open it for me.

  It was going to be really hard to be rude to him if he was going to insist on acting like a gentleman, I thought grumpily.

  “Move quick,” he said. Then he jerked the door open and shouted right in my face, “Hurry! Get in!”

  Completely freaked out, I jumped in, thinking there must be a crazed gunman after us or something. Stump grunted as I landed hard on the seat and I swung my legs in after me. Dale slammed the door.

  Helium balloons bobbed cheerfully in the back seat.

  “What the heck?” I struggled to sit up. I pushed balloons aside to look out the back window. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Dale turned in the seat and pulled on one of the balloon ribbons. “I just didn’t want you to let any of the balloons out. They’re for Viv. Did you know her birthday was last week?”

  I looked at Viv. “No, I didn’t. You didn’t tell me that.”

  “She did, too,” Dale said. “She told you six weeks ago and you completely forgot.”

  “Hush,” Viv said. She looked uncomfortable. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dale’s voice was way too shrill, in my opinion. “It’s a huge deal. How many people ever see their ninetieth birthday, anyway?”

  “Oh my gosh, Viv. I missed your ninetieth birthday? I am so sorry.” I felt like a complete tool. How could I have forgotten something like that?

  “I said it’s not a big deal. After a while they all start running together anyway.” She flapped a blue-veined hand.

  “You’re being too generous,” Dale said. “Every person deserves to be celebrated on their big day, but most especially someone who’s been such a good friend to so many. I’m really surprised your friends didn’t have a big shindig for you.” He eyed me sideways.

  “Viv, seriously, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t realize...”

  I was such a loser! No wonder VIv had been acting kind of distant lately. She was the best friend I’d ever had (besides Stump) and here I’d gone and blown her off like that. I guess I’d been so caught up in my own issues that I couldn’t think of anyone else. Loser. “We should have a big party at – at –” Where did one go to have an alcohol-free party, anyway? Chuck. E. Cheese? I had no idea...

  “Don’t worry, I’m all over it.” Dale held up his hand and counted off on his fingers. “Balloons, check. Cake, check. Flowers, check. That’s what we’ve been up to for the past two hours.”

  “You really don’t have to do all that,” Viv said. “I keep telling you, it’s not a big deal.”

  Dale shook his head emphatically. “Nope, this is happening. We’re your friends, and we’re going to celebrate with you. That’s what true friends do.”

  I really wanted to point out that he’d known her less than a week and couldn’t exactly count himself a true friend so soon. But seeing as how he had known her less than a week and he was the one to get her balloons, flowers, and a cake (check!), whereas I didn’t even know what day her birthday was, and I’d known her for over a year and we’d been through life-altering events together – in fact, she had actually saved my life—I couldn’t think of an effective way to reassert my first-place seat.

  “That’s right,” I said faintly, sitting back in my seat. “That’s what we do.” And to think I had been ticked off at how they left me. They were busy catching up on all the best friend duties I had unknowingly shirked.

  “I can’t get her pinned down on where we’re going to celebrate, but we’re going somewhere.” Dale nodded decisively.

  “I told you, we’re just going out to the church to interview them, and then calling it a day. We don’t have to do anything special.”

  “And I’m telling you, this is happening.” Dale crossed his arms over his chest. “This is the turnoff up here.”

  Viv frowned, but didn’t say
anything else. In fact, she was uncharacteristically quiet. She must have been really hurt that I’d forgotten her birthday. What a position to put someone in, I thought as I groaned inwardly. If you don’t say anything, your birthday passes unnoticed, and that sucks. If you do say something, you risk sounding like a petulant child who didn’t get what she wanted.

  As we bounced over the pocked gravel road, I thought that as soon as we got back to my house, I was going to the store and getting a planning calendar. This kind of thing kept happening to me. I kept missing important things and feeling like a loser. Enough was enough. I was going to get organized if it killed me.

  The church we came to looked like every little country church you’ve ever seen in movies. White, square, with a white steeple and a small set of steps leading to the front door.

  Dale took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, listen. These are my people, so I think I ought to do the questioning here. I know how these people think, so I know the best ways to get information out of them.” He looked from me to Viv. “Okay?”

  I shrugged. At the moment I was feeling incapable of basically everything, so the background seemed like a good place for me.

  Viv finally nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it. She looked out at the church. “Is this that place where they have the snakes?”

  I had heard about this church. It was one of the Pentecostal sects who took the shall in “they shall take up serpents” to heart. Rattlesnakes were the serpent of choice, being relatively easy to find and dramatic to boot. Ever since I’d read that verse and realized it included the words, ‘they shall drink poison,” I’d wondered why there weren’t charismatic meetings of people jumping around drinking from little vials of cyanide and shouting to the Holy Spirit, but as of yet I had not seen that topic addressed.

  But here’s the thing. I didn’t like it when my religious beliefs were ridiculed. I knew that to a lot of people the idea of a divine creator and holy savior sounded like something out of a fairy tale. I knew I couldn’t prove what I believed in, and that made some people think I was a gullible fool. Even I sometimes thought, from time to time, that I was a gullible fool.