Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

  Blood filling my cock full, and me stuffing my cock in a big wet cunt and fucking the shit out of it.

  Fuck you, Father, for I have not fucked and sinned.

  Yet I’ve committed the gravest sin, sinned exceedingly.

  My body is ugly. The casket for my smashed-flat roadkill soul.

  Monsignor’s ear was pressed up against the screen.

  My T-shirt and my white Sunday shirt were soaked through. My sweat smelled like sour tobacco, German beer, Billie’s cunt.

  The words in my throat that wouldn’t come out. Words stuck down there in all that phlegm. I swallowed, cleared my throat.

  Father, I said.

  Down in my voice box, I hacked and cleared, trying to get the words through.

  How could I confess about George and Billie? How could I confess about me?

  Monsignor was waiting. I was waiting.

  Waiting is praying.

  What came out of my mouth next were words I didn’t expect to hear.

  I broke the ninth commandment, Father, I said.

  The ninth? Monsignor said.

  The ninth, I said. Not the sixth.

  I committed the sin of bearing false witness, I said. Once.

  False witness? Monsignor said.

  The tone of his voice — you could tell, he expected the sixth, the other, more interesting, sin.

  Only once? Monsignor said.

  Only once, Father, I said. They’re all one big once.

  Monsignor’s hand was up to his mouth, then just his index finger against his lips.

  To whom did you bear false witness? Monsignor said.

  My lips were dry. I licked my lips.

  A friend, I said. I bore false witness to a friend.

  My first confession in four years that wasn’t about the sixth commandment and self-abuse and the details of self-abuse.

  When I finally opened my eyes, Monsignor was mumbling through the prayers, making the sign of the cross with his hand. I was totally surprised. I expected a lecture, an argument, at least a discussion. Maybe he was late for Mass, and there wasn’t any time.

  Three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys and three Glory Bes. I swear you could say I fucked Christ on the cross in there, and that’s what you’d get. Three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, three Glory Bes. Maybe five. Certainly at the most, it would be five.

  During Mass, I hated God.

  Mass was long and hot, and I yawned once so big, my throat made that stretching sound. During the sermon I did a drift, snap, drool. Wiped my mouth. Took a deep breath. Mom’s sharp elbow jabbed me in the ribs. Her wrinkled, wrinkled lips. Her almond-shaped hazel eyes straight into my heart.

  Fuck.

  After Mass, Mom and Dad go down for coffee hour. I’m standing alone on the steps of Saint Joe’s, trying to figure out what the fuck, when all of a sudden it’s Sis who’s got a hold of my elbow. She’s wearing a fall with a lace prayer cap on top and a blue dress the size of a house. In her Roosky eyes, I’ve never seen in Sis’s eyes, her be so happy.

  I guess it was just being close to Sis again. I felt them. Two big tears rolled down my cheeks.

  Sis grabbed my hand, the way she’d always grabbed my hand when we were kids. I snuffed up, wiped my tears. Sis’s eyes stayed right on mine as she pulled the Marlboro out of its pack, lit it. She took two puffs, looked around, then quick handed the cigarette to me.

  I was on my first puff.

  Sis whispered: Sorry about Billie.

  My French inhale was good, but then the smoke went all wrong, and I started to cough.

  Billie? I coughed.

  Sis took the cigarette, took a long, long puff. Sis flipped the fall like it really was her hair.

  Yah, Sis whispered, you know — Billie!

  Jeez, this was a small town, but how in the hell could Sis possibly know already?

  What? I said.

  Sis looked around, leaned in close, handed the cigarette to me. Grabbed my hand that way again.

  My deep inhale. Smoking is praying.

  Sis’s hand went up to my forehead, pushed back my hair.

  Smoking is praying is waiting.

  Billie’s pregnant, Rig, Sis whispered.

  I know all about it, Sis said. Chuck diPietro is at the house half the time, she said. Him and Gene, they’re like brothers. It’s like I didn’t marry one man but two.

  Into my sour-smoke lungs, more smoke. The inhale deeper and deeper.

  Chuck is the father, Sis whispered. And that’s the God’s truth. And the bum won’t marry her.

  Smoke blew out my lungs like I was on fire.

  Air, air all around, yet not a drop to breathe.

  Sis took the cigarette. The ashes on it were hanging off all weird. Hot-boxed.

  Sis’s inhale, then deep-sigh-exhale, old Marlboro smoke.

  Men are such assholes, Sis said. Really fucked up.

  Sis’s eyes and my eyes. Roosky and hazel. Dad’s eyes and Mom’s. She reached up, put her thumb and index around my chin.

  You need a shave, she said.

  Then: You know, Rigby John, Sis said. You’re such a sweetheart, Sis said. What this world needs is more men in it like you.

  10 Hey There, Georgy Girl

  AGRAY, HOT SUNDAY after church, my head thick with hangover, my lungs full of sour Marlboros. I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and threw myself on the bed. The smoldering fire inside. The delicate balance on the grain elevator one giant step too far. I was going down fast. I was the most disgusting human being in the world. I was ugly. My dick didn’t work. I couldn’t fuck my girlfriend. And the guy I’d been haying with turned out to be a female impersonator. I was stuck in my bedroom, stuck in a Sunday, stuck with my parents, stuck in the house. There was nowhere to go to get away to because I was the one I needed to get away from.

  The universe had conspired, and there I was, stuck with myself.

  When my parents were both finally out of the house I called Billie. Just made a bigger mess of everything. My whole body was shaking. There was no breath, and when I went to speak, something jumped out of my throat and started screaming.

  I called her a little whore and asked who else she’d fucked.

  Fucking great, Billie said. Typical fucking male.

  Fuck you, Billie, I said.

  No, fuck you, Rig, Billie said.

  I was in the middle of yelling another fuck you when Billie hung up.

  I wanted a cigarette but couldn’t bear the thought of another cigarette, so I just walked out the door. The gray had burned off, and the day was late-afternoon gold sun. I didn’t want the sun. I wanted a cold rainy day. I walked along with my shadow. George always said you can tell how you’re doing by how your shadow looks. My shadow stayed close around my feet, too ashamed to show itself. Tramp and I went to all my safe places. First on top of the granaries. Then in the spud cellar, then crawled up on the grain elevator. Didn’t even try to hit balance, just walked up one end, then walked down the other, smacking the elevator down. Scared the wits out of Tramp. On top of the railroad cars, there were no faraway places, there was only me.

  The pain that day inside me, I’d never felt the likes before. Pain kept pulling my head down like I was a sinner before an angry God. But I wasn’t a sinner, I was still a virgin. Moments from the night before crowded up in my head. The Sunset Motel, freezing in room 58. Flashes of Billie’s breasts, her cunt, her soft hair down there, the way her hands had touched my skin. How could something so natural be so frightening?

  Differnt. I was differnt all right. A fucking freak.

  But most of all, even more than not being able to get it up, the hardest thing to face was Billie and Chuck diPietro together, fucking their brains out.

  Billie had betrayed me.

  Tramp and I were curled up in the straw in the hayloft of the barn. I’d run the Billie and Chuck scenario over and over in my mind so many times, I can’t tell you. Then lying there on the straw, I reached my hand up and brushed my knuckl
es across my mouth and I remembered George.

  Only the day before, when I pulled up to the first stack of bales in the field, I’d just shut the truck off, when George leaned up and went to put his Camel out in the ashtray.

  I had my eye on that half-smoked Camel.

  George’s dark eyes looked at his cigarette, then he handed the cigarette to me.

  Thanks, I said.

  The cigarette that was on George’s lips was on my lips. I took one puff, two, three, hoping I wasn’t hot-boxing. I handed the cigarette back to George.

  The look on George’s face when I handed him the cigarette back. Really, I don’t know how to describe it. Shocked, I guess, and maybe a smile under the shock.

  George sat there with that look on his face and stared at the cigarette.

  You can have your own cigarette if you like, George said.

  Oh, I said, it’s just.

  Like most of the times with George, I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say, so my mouth just started talking.

  Last summer, I said, Flaco and Acho. We hauled hay. We shared cigarettes.

  We were best friends, I said.

  Just like that, George’s eyes went red-rimmed and wet like Granny’s eyes. Eyes so full of Jesus right then.

  Slow, George’s big hand reached out and took the cigarette, put the cigarette in his mouth. His black eyes differnt, even darker, not so much Jesus.

  He inhaled the smoke, blew smoke out his nose and mouth, handed the cigarette back to me.

  Then we can share cigarettes too, George said.

  The sore place next to my heart where I smoke. It wasn’t just Billie, George had betrayed me too. In a way I wasn’t sure how exactly. But somehow a good friend doesn’t parade around town in a yellow dress and red high heels showing off, making a spectacle of himself. I mean, not if he’s a man. I mean it was embarrassing.

  Fuck.

  The train wreck of George Serano.

  Boy, did I have a lot to learn.

  The hay, the hay, the goddamn hay.

  Monday morning, I was slamming things around. I didn’t eat my mush. Didn’t eat the hard fried eggs. I didn’t drink the glass of milk. I went straight for Mom’s pot of coffee and poured myself a cup. The coffee was terrible. It tasted like half the amount of coffee there’s supposed to be. Why was I surprised? Why should coffee be any differnt from anything else of Mom’s? She’d probably reused the coffee grounds.

  I spit the coffee out in the sink. I’d have a cup at Granny’s.

  Flying down Tyhee Road in the hay truck, Monday morning early, Saturday night George all dolled up, dressed up like a girl sitting on the steps was something I couldn’t bend my head around. How was I even going to look at George, let alone spend the day hauling hay with him?

  What’s worse was my lungs were still too sore to smoke. I tried, but my old buddy Viceroy tasted like horseshit. It was all horseshit. Everything was horseshit. The whole fucking world, one big pile of fucking horseshit.

  In Granny’s yard, the magic light and dark was only the goddamn sun coming down through a bunch of old dead trees. The high sigh on top of the trees was only the wind. Granny’s green screen door made the same old Inner Sanctum squeak. The wood grain of the gray front door in front of my eyes, swirls and swirls. Bonanza barked before I knocked.

  Granny opened the door. Woodsmoke and coffee and frying grease. Same old, same old. The smell of buckskin and Prince Albert.

  Then it was Granny’s red handkerchief. Strands of white hair stuck up like cobwebs all around her face. Her red-rimmed eyes so bright always, like they’re crying. Nothing in between.

  When her eyes looked into mine, Granny saw right into my soul.

  That quick, everything changed.

  It took all I had not to cry.

  Rigby John, Granny said. You don’t look no better than the last time I saw ya. You still eating horseshit?

  Shut up, Bonanza! she said.

  Bonanza, his toenails little clicks on the shiny floor, made it to the Pendleton pillow and then fell over.

  I bit my upper lip. Breathed hard through my nose.

  Still eating it, Granny, I said.

  Granny’s old brown-rope hand pointed over at the table, then pulled out the wood chair with the high back.

  Here, she said. Sit down. You want some coffee?

  Granny’s high-backed chair, me in that chair, my elbow on Granny’s table, the light bulb hanging down shining on the wood table. In the red rez, I was not in yellow Bannock County no more. One of the safest places in the world.

  When I sat down, the way I was sitting was just like Mom and Dad. My shoulders up around my ears. I looked around for George.

  Sure, I said. Love some coffee.

  Granny’s hand was on the back of my shoulders.

  Relax, Granny said. I’m not going to bite ya.

  My shoulders came down an inch.

  Do you have any of that other stuff? I said.

  What other stuff? Granny said.

  Your special remedy for horseshit, I said.

  Granny smacked her lips together, sucked her lips in over where she didn’t have any teeth. That smile of hers so big, her whole face collapsed around it.

  She had to stop and catch her breath, she was laughing so hard.

  Stars and garters, Rigby John! Granny said. You sure do make me laugh.

  Granny’s Minnetonka moccasins with the blue beaded bird were a soft scratch along the shiny wood floor. At the green porcelain Majestic, Granny leaned over, picked up a piece of wood in the pile by the stove, opened the iron door, and stuck the piece of wood into the stove. On top of the stove, she started moving things around.

  The curtain on the window above the sink had a big brown scorch on it. I was thinking about that scorch. George had told me Granny always set the kerosene lamp in that window at night.

  Every night, George said, rain or shine, you can bet your life on it. That light is on and in the window every night.

  Why is that? I’d asked.

  The ancestors, George said. Our ancestors live in a sacred tree. The Shoshone ones. Granny wants to honor them after the sun goes down.

  Trouble is, George said, sometimes she gets the lamp too close to the curtains. One of these nights she’s going to burn the damn house down.

  A brown scorch on a white curtain. Funny what little things can mean if you look close at them.

  Then it was Granny’s refrigerator. The refrigerator door was open and inside the refrigerator it was empty and dark.

  What’s happened to your refrigerator, Granny? I said.

  Granny slid a pan across the stove.

  Broke, she said. Motor’s dead.

  Twenty years now, Granny said. That damn thing wasn’t ever worth a goddamn, Granny said. Now it’s broke for good.

  Granny set the blue pewter cup of coffee down on the table, then another cup, a white cup with a broken handle, and a can of Sego Milk.

  You going to get a new one? I said.

  Plan to, she said, when the eagle shits.

  Then: Milk’s good for ya, Granny said. Put some in your tea. Build your bones.

  Granny’s coffee with the Sego Milk and one teaspoon of sugar was the best thing you could want to taste in the morning. I drank the coffee like I was eating candy. When I got done with the coffee, I went to the horseshit remedy. With Sego Milk and a teaspoon of sugar, the horseshit remedy was almost as good as the coffee.

  Granny sat down across the table from me. I’d never seen Granny sit before. She was so slumped over, her head just barely cleared the table. With the empty refrigerator behind her and under the hanging-down light bulb, Granny looked old in a way I’d never seen her. She folded her brown-rope hands, her wood-stick fingers together.

  She moved her lips over her gums a couple of times before she spoke.

  Rigby John, Granny said. I’m sorry to tell you this. But George won’t be hauling hay with you today.

  A big gust of Idaho wind blo
wing around in my chest. So pissed. Then scared. Scared for myself somehow. Then I was scared for George.

  Granny watched my face go through all this.

  What’s up? I said.

  Granny’s rope hands, her twig fingers, her brown arms branches of trees.

  He’ll get over it, Granny said. I’ll doctor him up good. Then you can work his ass off for him. Give him something to do.

  Part of me wanted to start slamming things around some more. Light the kerosene lamp and start the curtain on fire. Kick the refrigerator. Maybe go stomping out the door. Then there was the other part.

  Is he all right? I said.

  Granny put her brown-rope hands, her fingers crooked twigs, on top of her red bandanna, then let her hands slide down her face. White spider webs flying out all around her face.

  All there was in the world right then was Granny’s red-rimmed eyes and my eyes.

  He’s a little under the weather, Granny said. Why don’t ya come back tomorrow and see how he’s doing?

  That day and the next day, I hauled hay by myself. I hated George, but I hated Dad worse.

  I stacked and loaded and drove, the whole shootin’ match. By myself. Don’t think I ever worked so hard. Didn’t once let up. Never rested one minute. Rested when I was driving. Part of it was, it felt so good. It felt good to push myself, to do the work of two men. To push and push and push at something in the world, hay, bales of hay I could move, progress I could see, see I could make a differnce. Plus, if I worked hard I didn’t think about Billie, or George. Plus, Dad didn’t know. I loved it that I was hauling hay alone, and Dad didn’t know.

  I got away with it for a while. At least I thought I did. It was about four in the afternoon on the second day, Tuesday, I guess. I was about ten loads left from finishing Hess’s forty, when I looked up just as Dad pulled the pickup alongside the truck.

  The loud metal-to-metal pop of the driver’s door.

  Where’s your helper? Dad said.