by Jarod Powell
Every Sunday, the Hansens take a joy ride through Southeast Missouri. Sometimes they’ll cross the bridge into Illinois if the talking head on the radio catches Jim’s ear, or if the comfortable silence between them is broken by random banter.
Conversation between them rarely springs from anything substantial, such as the death of Judy’s mother in 1991. On the day that the news was broken via telephone conversation, Jim spent half of the day fumbling his hand around, caressing an inconsolable Judy’s shoulder blade until she wished it would just dissolve so he wouldn’t touch it. He just didn’t know what to say.
She briefly recollects the droll ache of that day every time the avocado rotary sends its angry clang through the Hansen house, infiltrating the silence they’ve gotten so accustomed to, insisting on reminding them that bad news is always waiting, adjacent to the front door.
No, the conversation Between Jim and Judy Hansen seems to exist only faintly, and out of necessity. Married couples don’t have to touch each other, but they do have to live together and they should speak to each other. Were that to happen, Jim’s military background would force that the issue be addressed.
As their rapport sits stagnant, Jim takes the many empty moments to reflect favorably on his past with his wife and children and service to his country. In truth, he is satisfied that his years of obligatory productivity are behind him, content with the pleasantness of doing nothing, happy to be retired, fat and well rested. Meanwhile, Judy’s discomfort with the present intensifies.
“Look at that goofy thing.” Jim points to a plywood raccoon poking out of a giant plastic trash can, a homemade lawn ornament. “I kinda like it.”
“It’s silly,” Judy burbles. “And ugly.”
Silence, as they cross the bridge into East Cape Girardeau.
The satellite radio gets suddenly louder after Jim is seen fumbling with the steering wheel. There is an advice talk show on, featuring a now-famous local “doctor,” a woman who sounds sweet and blonde and thin, and who has a penchant for saying obnoxious, and in Judy’s opinion, anti-women remarks with a small dose of relationship advice on the side. This is the type of bitch Jim wishes he’d married, Judy thought.
The emptiness of McClure brought sweet interference to the conservative tart on the radio. Judy fantasized about one of the big, butch young ladies from Evergreen, her Alma Mater, literally stuffing a sock in her mouth. The blips and abrupt pauses were vain cries of protest.
Since The Death, Judy had actually manifested a desire to “please her man,” not unlike the advice the radio-accredited doctor would give to countless self-loathing women throughout her tenure on Clear Channel syndication, and then Conservative Talk 98 on the satellite radio: The meat-centric Sunday dinners with Jim’s disgusting brothers and their zombie-like wives, the countless pairs of lingerie (which, Judy realized after her latest Spring cleaning, either resembled Pilgrim or Angel Halloween costumes, a realization that unsettled her deeply). All of this was meant, probably subconsciously, to jar some kind of reaction to The Death other than clumsy groping or desperate glances, and by extension, to make Jim view their marriage as more than an obligation to tradition, to manhood. To make him--somehow, by speaking his language--view Judy as a full-time partner with psychic energy, dimension, and a libido. The acknowledgment of her failure to shake Jim was a long journey of strained energy, resisting defeat the main goal, and it was corrosive as it should have been.
Everything was expected, and each step down the drain a natural progression.
Highway 13 between McClure and Anna is a long tunnel of trees, and light is occasionally reached where a Wal-Mart or Dairy Queen is visible behind several local businesses, and Judy is no longer alone with Jim and the silence isn’t as awkward for her.
In the light, the daze Judy imposed on herself five miles earlier relents. She considers asking Jim questions, questions one might ask on a third date. Everything she knows about Jim she learned through a combination of sleuthing, supernatural cues and amateur psychology. She knows he’s a Capricorn; she also knows that as a Scorpio, she and Jim are not a match.
(That is, depending on which astrology e-mail spam she takes to. The results are all moderately varied, but none of them have gushing things to say about their future, or their present. Had she known this prior to marriage, it wouldn’t have changed things, but it might have given her a slight, comforting education. An inkling.)
She adopted a psychiatrist’s or maybe a mentalist’s persona when speaking to Jim’s mother and brothers, or at least she persuaded herself that she did. When his mother spoke of Jim in casually glowing terms, Judy decided that she was not only trying to convince Judy, she was trying to convince herself, and probably Jesus too.
There was not a lot of background information to sift through, and Judy decided that either her gift of intuition was not as sharp as she’d led herself to believe, or there was simply nothing underneath her husband’s projecting, dull eyes.
That’s it. She had given up. Jim, Judy’s partner and husband and father of her stillborn children, is a body at motion with no soul, just circuitry.
As they reached Carbondale, Jim’s old stomping ground, Judy opened her window and pressed her face into the wind as if she were a curious and anxious Bassett Hound. Jim shot her a perplexed glance that she gleefully ignored. She was savoring their final moments together. She was psyching herself up for months of agony and mourning. She was allowing herself to go nuts, to look unmedicated and undignified. A sneak peak, perhaps, or maybe she was testing the water to see if being her own woman was something she’d be able to sustain forever.
“Roll up your window,” Jim grumbled, unmoved by Judy’s whimsy. “Irrigation’s coming up about a mile.”
“No.”
“You’ll ruin the interior.”
“I don’t care.”
Jim, not knowing how to react, said nothing, but shook his head. The irrigation came, and when it did, he jerked the transmission to park. He looked straight ahead. This is how it’s going to be, Lady. Act like you have some sense or get wet.
The drops fell really hard, feeling almost like hail on Judy’s head. Her streamlined silver bob turning black, she leaned back for a second, smiling. Jim sat in silent protest, hoping that a stone face would put emphasis on the sheer ridiculousness of Judy’s behavior. Judy opened the door and got out as the irrigation made its way past the car and onto the tall crop of corn. She ran to chase the water, though her hips were tight, and forced a girlish laugh the world had never heard from her. Jim just glared at the drops of water, forming a puddle on the leather upholstery beside him; the vandalism of Judy’s mood swing would probably warp the seat a little bit. Ten spill-free years at Sonic Drive-Ins, willfully discarded at the whim of a post-menopausal wife.
Judy spun around and around under the water. She opened her mouth to catch it. When it gagged her, she laughed. She sat in the 3 foot corn.
“Judy!”
“JUDY!”
She was out of Jim’s sight, and he started to realize she may not come back to the car for several minutes. He was thankful they were not near their home, their local VFW, their church. He was not worried so much as annoyed. Judy did not crackup; she showed off. She made statements.
Jim honked the horn. He waited several seconds for a deranged, soaking woman to rise from the crops. Judy’s response was a ridiculing cackle.
Knowing she could hear it, he turned the ignition on and revved, as if to signal he’d be leaving soon, with or without her.
She slowly stood, wafting her face above the corn as if she was playing peek-a-boo. He thought she might levitate above it.
Instead, she strutted over to the driver’s side. The irrigation followed her, as if magnetized. She looked Jim in the eye through the window, smirking. “Would you like to join me?” She asked.
“What is the matter with you?” Jim snapped. “Get in this car right now.” Judy motioned for Jim to roll down the window. Instead, Jim shif
ted to drive with a shaky right hand, glaring at her.
Judy stepped backward and shrugged. “Go on if you want!” She yelled from across the road. “I’ll be okay.”
Jim stayed in the car until Judy was ready to leave, which would turn out to be over an hour. He flipped channels between several talk radio personalities, including the sexy blonde doctor Judy hated so much. Finally he settled on an FM station, with old faux-psychedelic pop music Judy may have approved of had she been sitting there with him. He turned up the volume as he sat, watching his dignified, reserved wife crack up, dancing in the irrigation. Subconsciously, as one of Judy’s old college mates might describe it, Jim may have been trying to lure her back to him with music. His own words would fail. He knew these were probably their final moments together. He cranked the volume on the classic rock station all the way up, rolled down the windows, and plugged his ears. He hoped she heard it, and that it soothed her.
Inheritance