This is when the reading started. A few days after she moved in, she came home with Cherilynn Fenster’s A Call to Nature: Finding God in the World of the Everyday. We read and discussed. A week later, it was Michael Chen’s The American Buddhist: Paradoxical Love. Then Religions of the Mayan World, by Dr. Walter Sloan, which we both found rather dry. More books followed more weeks and months, the books’ subjects running further and further afield, until one night I asked her if we couldn’t just see a movie, just go to the Duck, just go to bed. I’d been feeling restless lately, I guess. Molly had pretty much told me I didn’t need to look for a job anymore—she was the general manager of two of Ray’s fitness centers, and she made a nice check—and that instead I could spend my days praying and reading and annotating Biblical commentary and New Age memoirs to prepare for our discussions later. What I mainly did was drink, starting most days around noon, and when I prayed, it was usually for Molly in the bicycle shorts, Molly in the short red dress, Molly in the farm-girl jeans with the rip in the seat. It had been a long time since Molly in the farm-girl jeans, so that night I asked her, “Couldn’t we just skip it tonight? Go put on the farm-girl jeans.”
She set her vodka and tonic on the end table and said, “Charlie, you said yourself that you wanted to do this. I need it too, Charlie. The world gets so confusing to me sometimes.”
“Okay, Molly,” I said, finishing my drink.
“I’ll do the farm girl later,” she said. “And you can be the upright revenuer looking for Daddy’s filthy old still. I’ll need to protect my Daddy—we’re poor and the still is the only way Daddy can put any food on the table.” She slid over to my side of the couch. I could smell the heat on her neck, one of my favorite parts of her. “I’ll try to distract you, but you’re too upright for that, and soon I’ll realize that behind my flirting and my coquettish gaze, I really do want a taste of you, you mean old revenuer with your high-flung city ways.” She put the back of her fingers to my chin and neck, then suddenly turned her fingertips on me with a gasp. “You see it, too—and now there’s no escape from our passion. I’ll take you to the bed I share with my three little sisters, and you’ll deflower me there. Afterward, I’ll want to leave with you. I’ll tell you everything, the whereabouts of Daddy’s still, the whole bit. It’s the biggest bust of your career, and you’ll be famous and go to Washington, DC, and work for J. Edgar Hoover himself, and introduce your little farm girl to the world of big-time politics. But first, we need to talk about Lyman Fullerton-Hupja’s Totems for the New Millennium, so go get us another drink.”
It went on like this, more books, less farm girl, but still more and more booze. We took beer with the Bible, wine with the Torah, rum with voodoo, gin with the Celts. One night she came home with a bottle of saki and a copy of Kazumi Morikatsu’s The Maple and the Carp. And as the months went on the talk became so much less theoretical, so much more personal. She began to confess her sins to me, and wanted mine as well, although since I hardly left the house anymore except for a rare outing to the Duck, the only sin I could really think of was drinking too much. The one I didn’t admit to was feeling like a kept man.
She had more, many more. She had lustful thoughts almost constantly, couldn’t even pull into the parking lot at the gym without getting wet. The very smell of the place wobbled her knees. All day, every day, she plotted ways to entice one of the fine Christian exercisers into her private office. It took all of her self-control and love for me to keep her from it, she said. She went further back, all the way back, her childhood wrongs still weighing on her now as much as then, all the little awful things that kids do because they’re kids and not because they’re evil or bad, all the little lies and hurtful things and petty thefts she thought she needed to atone for, things she thought I could forgive. We started drinking even more, sleeping later, making love not at all. She felt too dirty, she said through the tears of repentance, felt she’d infect me with venality, her filthy mind, her ruined past.
The last night, the final straw, was when she showed up with a case of wine coolers and a copy of The Third Annual Report of the Cyrrilean Council on Intergalactic Affairs by someone calling herself Zulundi of Venus, a book Molly paid thirty-five dollars for that looked like it was run off this afternoon on someone’s basement mimeograph. It was one thing that I would be expected to read this book and then try to formulate some sort of response that in some way connected the workings of the Intergalactic Council to Jesus and his everlasting love and our lives here in St. Louis, Missouri; I was a full-fledged exegete by now and could easily do that with any book. It was another thing that after this performance, I would be expected to listen to more confessions and wailing. But to have to drink wine coolers on top of all that was just too much. I put her and her book and her wine coolers, all three, in my car, and drove Molly to her brother’s handsomely appointed mansion in Chesterfield, hoping never to see her again.
But, unfortunately, here she was at the Duck, a couple of days and one serious beating for me later, sitting on a stool at a table by the shuffleboard game, talking with her hands to a bearded lumberjack type I’d never seen before. Her green eyes reflected the light above the table, her blond hair in curls lit the rest of the room. She was crazy as hell. It occurred to me, only at that moment, that that’s the only way I could have ever wound up with a girl who looked like her.
I went over.
“Your brother took stuff that wasn’t even yours,” I said.
“Hi, Charlie,” she said.
“Yeah,” said the lumberjack. “Hi, Charlie.”
“He even took my clothes, then they really beat the hell out of me, Molly.”
“I know, Charlie,” she said, crossing her legs in the tight black skirt she wore. “And for what, really?”
“I’m sending your brother the hospital bill.”
“Good idea,” said the lumberjack.
“So, Molly,” I said. “You setting this guy up for some of your Jesus talk?”
“I’m not really into Jesus that much anymore, Charlie,” she said. “I realized that you’d been hemming me in, spiritually, with your narrow world view. It’s so constricting. I’m going further back. Old Testament, Zoroastrianism. It pulls everything together for me.”
“That, and the Buddha,” said the lumberjack, wagging a fat, red-haired finger. They clinked their bottles together and smiled.
“I’m all about taking from everything, Charlie,” said Molly as I reeled with hate. “You really helped me to see that with your darkness and your patriarchal instincts. I was cutting myself off from joy. Now, I’ve got the East, the West, pre-Christian, even pre-Hebrew. I’m for beauty and kindness now, Charlie. Oh, Ridley,” she turned to the lumberjack. “Tell Charlie what you were saying about William James.”
“Ridley?” I said.
“In his seminal text, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James—”
“Your name is Ridley?”
“So?”
Molly put her hand on his arm. “Tell him about William James, honey.”
Ridley began again. “In his seminal text, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James posits that Man labors under a misapprehension of the religious paradox and the dichotomy of the natural—”
“So this is it, huh, Molly?” I said. “This is the deal. I can’t even come into my own bar anymore?”
“How absurd, Charlie. Ridley is sitting here trying to tell you something interesting. We’ve had our troubles, you and I, but I’m including you. It’s not an either/or thing.” She made a slashing motion with her hand. “It’s an and thing.” She brought her slash-hand into a plump and lovely fist. The other hand held her beer. “Ridley even has a theory that Jesus may have been Chinese.”
“The other night, Molly,” I said as Ridley rose slowly from his stool, “I threw you out of my apartment. I knew it would mean I’d have no furniture. I knew it might even mean a beating from your idiot brother. But I didn’t think it would make me
feel anything but glad you were gone. Now it does. I feel something, Molly. Before I was just tired of you. Now I truly hate you.”
Ridley took a swing but I was ready, ducking it and giving Molly the full force of his lumberjack left. She tumbled from the chair, and Ridley was stupefied for a moment, couldn’t decide whether to render her aid or come after me. It was all the time I needed to head for the door, my cracked ribs knifing in my side.
When I got home I opened the fridge, glad to see they’d at least left the beer. I opened one and the pop of the can echoed tinnily against the bare textured walls. I pressed the can against one swollen eye, and with the other I looked around for a moment. Then I went back to the fridge, grabbed the rest of the six-pack by the plastic rings, and went outside to my car. At Target I bought a few pairs of jeans and some shirts, underwear, socks, just enough until I figured out how to get my stuff back from Ray. I was planning to buy a chair, but the furniture at Target was both cheap and overpriced. Instead I went by the lawn and garden section and bought a patio set, one of those plastic tables with the green and white umbrella in the middle and the four plastic white chairs. This one even had a rotating tray you could attach to the umbrella, about halfway up, for holding munchies and such, to conserve table space. On the way home I stopped at QuikTrip and spent my last twenty dollars on beer.
When I got home, I set to assembling my patio set in the living room, but the umbrella was too tall to open all the way. I took a couple of beers from the fridge and went next door to Dick Kohler’s apartment.
“What the hell happened to you?” Dick said, standing in the porch-lit doorway, his back to the dark apartment inside, taking the beer I offered.
“Got the hell beat out of me the other day by Molly’s brother.”
“I wondered what all the fuss was.”
“What did it sound like?”
“Like you were getting the hell beat out of you.”
“Got a hacksaw, Dick?” I said.
“What you got to hack, Charlie?”
“Aluminum pole, about like this,” I said, my thumb and finger together.
“Can I come?”
“Sure, Dick.”
He went away for a moment, back into his dark apartment. Dick was forty and small, single, also out of work, always home and the home always dim, if not dark. He was a good neighbor, I guess, quiet, always up for a beer if you brought one, had tools. He was also, quite probably, the world’s leading amateur authority on St. Louis sports. Inside his apartment, Dick had bookshelves filled with every media guide, every history, every program and yearbook, every statistic for every team.
“Ray did this, huh?” Dick said, returning from the gloom with a hacksaw and his can of Busch.
“With a little help from his friends.”
“Ray’d hit you, if he could catch you,” Dick said. “I remember the Bills game in ’98, he hit Doug Flutie so hard it looked like he just swallowed him up. His only sack that year.”
He handed me the hacksaw.
“But he was too slow,” Dick said. “Best he ever ran was a 5.4 forty. That was in ’95, rookie year. He just got slower after that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was trying to outquick them, but they sort of triangulated me.”
“He’s doing real well with those gyms of his.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“And I hear he’s opening a restaurant, family-type place. St. Louis needs more of that.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“Home cooking, but healthy,” Dick said.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The pole sawed easily, and I cut a foot or so off the bottom and gave the umbrella plenty of room to spread.
“That’s fine, Charlie,” Dick said, taking a seat in one of my new plastic chairs. “It’s sort of elegant, in fact.”
“It’ll do,” I said, attaching the plastic tray and giving it an easy spin.
We sat in the new chairs for a moment or two, silent, sipping our beers in the greenish glow the umbrella gave to the overhead light. We looked up at each other when we heard the tires screech outside.
And in came Ray with the same two guys from before, the three of them wearing matching black polyester sweat suits emblazoned with Nehemiah 6:9 in a red and fiery font.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Ray said. “I’m gonna rip your fucking head off.”
“Ray Sizemore!” Dick said, standing from his chair and backing toward the wall. “Thirty-two solo tackles in 1996, sixty-one assists, two sacks. Thirty-one solo tackles in 1997, fifty-six assists, two sacks, one interception. Returned it for a touchdown against Dallas. I saw you hit Doug Flutie in 1998—”
“Easy, Dick,” I said. “There’s just a misunderstanding here.”
“Bullshit,” said Ray. “And I had three sacks in ’96.”
“Well, factually—” Dick began, but Ray cut him off.
“What the hell is this?” he said, pointing at my patio set.
“What does it look like?” I said. “It’s a pagoda, Ray. A temple to the shit your sister made of my life.”
“You punched my sister in the face.”
“Not me,” I said, still sitting in my plastic chair, but slowly reaching for the hacksaw where it leaned against the table leg. “It’s Ridley you want.”
“Ridley?” Ray said.
“Ridley,” I said. “Big guy, lumberjack, red hair.”
“Lumberjack?”
“Pragmatist.”
“Fuck you,” Ray said. The two men with him looked down for a moment, closed-eyed, sheepish. “I told you to stay away from her, and then here she comes home tonight with a black eye talking about Vishnu and Chinese Jesus.”
“There was the sack against San Francisco,” Dick said, “and the one against the Saints. That was a good one, Mr. Sizemore.”
“I sacked Mike Tomczak in the Steelers game.”
“Oh, sure,” Dick said. “That was preseason. I was talking about official stats.”
“I sacked Steve Bono in the preseason. The Pittsburgh game was regular season.”
“Is there going to be another beating here or not?” I said, my hand now firmly on the hacksaw’s handle. I was starting to sweat some, ready to get this over with. I couldn’t let them beat me up again. If they did, I was pretty sure I’d die.
“You better believe it,” Ray said, and the three of them started for me before one of the other guys stopped.
“Should we beat this one up, too?” he asked, pointing to Dick, who lost all color in his face, who put his hands up in front of his chest as if to say, No, no thanks, none for me.
“Go ahead,” Ray said. “But then come back over and help us with this one.” Dick managed a little groan.
I let them get almost on top of me before I drew the saw. I plunged it straight into the goon’s crotch, drew it back and forth hard, could feel the teeth tear through the cloth and into flesh and something harder still, like gristle or bone.
It wasn’t until I released the saw that I heard him scream. He fell over into a compact polyester ball on the floor, and then he screamed again and the blood came, lots of it. The goon who was going to work on Dick came to the aid of his friend, and Dick sprinted from the apartment, shouting something about unrealized potential and concrete feet. Ray simply stood there and looked at the scene for a moment, a long moment, before he spoke.
“Jesus, Charlie,” he finally said. “I mean, my God.”
The hacksaw was still in the goon’s crotch. He’d roll away from help, then thrash his locked-together legs as a muscular set, then roll up again screaming, “No, no, no!” as his friend tried to pull the hacksaw free. I picked up the only other weapon I could find, the foot or so of aluminum pipe I’d cut off the bottom of the umbrella pole. I made a move at Ray with it, and he backed up, dodging it, putting his hands up much as Dick had done, before bending down near his fallen colleague and saying, “Stop . . . shit . . . enough.”
“Get him the hell out of h
ere, then,” I said.
“I mean, Jesus, Charlie,” Ray said. “That was a little much, don’t you think?” The man on my floor screamed, “No!”
“We need to call an ambulance,” the other guy said. “He’s going to bleed to death right here on the floor.”
“It used to be you could get in a fight and just go home afterward,” Ray said now, lost in the philosophy of what had happened, unable, it seemed, to act. “This is just so . . . excessive.”
“We got to get him out of here,” said the other guy.
“I’m dying,” said the bleeding man, his first coherent statement.
“Oh, no you’re not,” said Ray, who then kneeled and raised this enormous man almost effortlessly. Ray began to shout, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me! I can do all things in Him who strengthens me!”
Ray got the man into a fireman’s carry, blood now streaming down the shoulder of Ray’s black sweat suit.
“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me,” Ray bellowed once more beneath the man’s weight. Then he spun toward the door, then ran for it, the hacksaw still gleaming red from between the bleeding man’s soaked and ruined thighs.
After I heard them drive away, I went to Dick’s apartment, to check on him, yes, but also to borrow a mop, a bucket, a scrub brush, anything I could use to get the evidence off my floor. I saw Ray’s footprints all down the steps, shining black and wet in the parking lot floodlights. I knocked at Dick’s door.
“I’m checking,” he shouted from the inside. “I’m looking it up. I’m sure you’re right!”
“Dick, it’s me. It’s Charlie. They’re gone.”
“I think you killed him, Charlie,” Dick said from just behind the door. I hadn’t wanted to. I just knew I couldn’t take another beating. All I’d wanted was to get myself out of a relationship that, mere months before, I’d hoped would never end. All I wanted was to get back to work, get my life straight again, find another girl, maybe not as beautiful as Molly, sure, but sane, or saner at least. All I’d wanted was to cut down some on the drinking, and a lot on the trouble, and to try to feel like myself again, and now I’d ended up killing someone, and I’d go to jail for a long time, maybe forever, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had no money, no way to run, nowhere to run to, and running would only make it all look worse. The only thing I could do was try to make it all look better, clean up the blood, wait for the cops to come, and try to explain the whole thing.
Inappropriate Behavior: Stories Page 12