Mr. Clark’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Clark, was a perfect specimen, too, a true goddess from the tranquil highlands of paradise. She was so, so pretty, and the stylish woman always had a nice tan and a curious sparkle in her emerald eyes. Her smile was warm and sexy, and she looked clean and fresh like a white cotton sheet drying in the gentle summer wind. She was petite, but her breasts were large and firm and utterly impossible to be ignored by any heterosexual man with rat’s blood running in his veins. She liked to wear those tiny pink shorts when she left the house with her white tennis racket and that fancy designer bag that had a picture of a yellow rooster on it. It was an expensive accessory, and I was a little worried that Eden would want to get her own rooster, too.
The local health club, Annabelle’s Dream, was Lucy’s favorite place to murder some of her long homemaker’s hours, and she knew that she needed to look good for Sandy and be ready for him when he came back from work and maybe wanted to have intercourse with her before brushing his teeth with his blue toothbrush. She was an intelligent woman and well aware of the scary fact all that equality, mutual respect, and financial security that the minister had so generously promised her in the stone cathedral existed only as long as Sandy wanted them to exist.
Sandy was indeed a powerful man in Lucy’s eyes—the sacred breadwinner, the little domestic God almighty himself who could destroy her future and throw her in the empty streets whenever he wanted to. That’s why she worked so hard in the gym and shaved and smiled and pretended and faked and moaned, and so goddamn religiously wore those stupid support bras all night long even if they hurt like hell and pinched the delicate skin under her armpits, keeping her awake, forcing her to listen to the disgusting sound of that broken chainsaw that lived in the mouth of a man who had stolen her freedom and trapped her inside a life she now desperately wanted to escape.
Lucy was a good wife, and sometimes when she looked at Sandy, when he was eating his favorite barbequed chicken and had forgotten to wipe all the sauce off his face, she saw that young, exciting man again whom she had met a long time ago in the dimly lit high school gymnasium—the one who had fought so hard for her and defended her, but who now only tolerated her, took her for granted, snapped at her, ignored her, treated her like a piece of rotting garbage. At that very moment, when the warm brown sauce started dripping from his aging cheeks, she pitied the man she had once adored and felt some distant love in her lonely heart for that peculiar, meaty creature that surely didn’t taste better with age. But when Sandy was on top of her later that night, she closed her eyes and dreamed of that yummy wine she kept in her private cabinet behind the closet door. She wanted to drink more and more of it and drift into that place where Luca from the health club was waiting for her in his fire-red Saab, true love sparkling in his cobalt eyes, and his potent, tight body ready to fulfill her every desire. She wouldn’t even need that colorless and odorless jelly she had secretly purchased from the pharmacy because Luca’s tender, but, oh, so passionate love would lubricate her and pleasure her every nook and cranny and take her to that rare orgasmic heaven where Sandy’s little shrimp and his clumsy hands could never take her. She wanted Luca so badly, oh, so badly, because he was a glorious blue whale, and Sandy was just a dreary shrew. That glorious whale was intelligent and kind, and it even understood that belittling words weren’t just words; they were the sound of love dying.
I secretly lusted after Lucy because I knew that the female was horny and insatiable, and sometimes when I was alone, I thought of her, and I sinned hard. At least I was taught that it was a sin to do what I was doing in the shower with my lewd hands. To me it was, though, nothing except a damn good masturbation.
I loved to sin hard and frequently, but I felt a little awkward when I saw myself in the foggy mirror after the lonesome act was over, and, for a transitory moment, I hated sin—I hated Lucy. But when the next day arrived, and the yard birds started singing their afternoon serenades, I started craving sin again. It was an endless elevator ride that nature had for some reason cursed me with, and sometimes I felt that the constant sexual cycle made my life overly complicated and stressful. It affected my judgment, and it tried to influence me and exploit my weaknesses. I despised it for that, and I had learned not to make any big decisions right before or right after I sinned. I just couldn’t trust my brain and body when they were either horny or totally turned off. Dead calm was as bad as a violent storm, and they both resulted in decisions that I wasn’t totally comfortable with. Sometimes I was so disgusted with my body and its animal design that I questioned the whole idea of human exceptionalism and superiority. I didn’t understand why on earth the beast in me had to mess with my appetite for control and balance. Why it had to go against my will and force me to fulfill its pathetic, Neolithic needs. Why was it more powerful than my brain, and why was everything in the world still about screwing if we were so goddamn special, cultured, and sophisticated?
Sandy worked as a sales manager at a local Chevy dealership, and he always had a beautiful new vehicle in his garage—a garage that had a door he could open and close with the push of a button. It was an absolutely immaculate space, and all kinds of tools and expensive gadgets hung neatly on an outlined pegboard that was attached to the back wall. The floor had a shiny epoxy coating with blue, white, and black color chips, and it was so clean that a starving man could have eaten a fried egg off it without any hesitation. A 27.6-cubic-foot stainless steel refrigerator for semisecret beer and manly food was sitting in the far corner of the garage, ready to fulfill his every craving, and a neon Corvette clock was ticking on the wall to remind Sandy to open another beer before Lucy would ring the dinner bell. The place looked like a Cadillac showroom, a lair of perfection that all his friends drooled over like starving wolves in front of a Nick & Sam’s prime aged rib eye. It was a true masculine paradise, a steel nirvana and a legitimate man-heaven where your penis gained easily an inch or two in length.
Sometimes I heard Mr. Sandy singing Beatles songs in his paradise and laughing like a hyena that had just finished a luscious springbok. He was drunk and happy, and he loved his life so much. I listened to him with envy ringing in my inferior ears, and I wanted to be drunk and happy, too, but my garage was small, and my car stole almost all the floor space. The goddamn thing just sat there like a useless lump on the dirty concrete slab while I was left out in the cold to dream about Sandy’s life and occasionally masturbate a little. I didn’t even have enough room for a secret fridge, and I had to get my drinks from the kitchen where Eden was sitting and keeping careful count of my beers. Every time a cap popped, she was listening, and that made me stressed and nervous and slowly diluted the taste of the beer and turned it into a rancid bottle of strong morning urine. It was, sadly, true that the pleasures of drinking were greatly diminished when a thirsty man had two judgmental eyes following his every move, and two nosy, puritanical ears listening to his footsteps like a stalking terror bird.
I tried to enjoy my inebriation the best I could, but I was constantly tense and apprehensive. I had to sound sober and walk a straight line to avoid any unwanted attention because I didn’t want to give Eden any reason to point out that I had had enough beer and that it was time to end my super-happy-fun-time. Oh, it was so goddamn hard to be a responsible husband. Oh, how I missed those nights when I was alone in my dorm room, unaware of the horrors of marriage and the hardships of forced compromise and involuntary unselfishness. Oh, how I drank that full glass of strong Amarone so fast, so fast and took that long, unhurried drag from the Chesterfield, exhaling gently, masterfully, and beautifully like a graceful cigarette artist, making Alex DeLarge on the wall disappear in the forbidden smoke. Oh, how that perfect combination of nicotine and alcohol relaxed my whole body and slowly wrapped me in a warm, thick blanket. Oh, how I missed you, the absence of responsibilities and watchful eyes.
Sandy didn’t have any such problems in his life. He had everything that a neighbor with a somewhat comparable lifestyle and expectations c
ould have ever wanted but wasn’t able to quite afford. He was a superwinner and the proud owner of that handsome body that controlled his perfect life and pleasured his flawless wife every night. Sandy was so lucky in love that even the bachelor moon was watching him with envy burning in its lonely eyes.
I knew exactly how the moon felt, because I was jealous, too. I even envied Sandy’s clothes, and when I saw how goddamn good his blue Lacoste shirt looked on his perfectly formed torso, I wanted to hide in the backyard bushes with the starving hedgehogs and never come out again.
Sandy’s life was, sadly, unattainable to me, but I had yet managed to get one thing he had: a nice car. I had saved money like a madman for years and been finally able to walk into the dealership and buy the damn thing. I had decided that I, at the very least, wanted to be happy in my car like Sandy was. It was my little stolen slice of that delicious Sandy pie that he ate every night before making love to Lucy, and my only chance to dip my eager tongue into the succulent life of a real-life superwinner.
The car was indeed beautiful, and it made me happy—I think. I argued a lot about the payments with Eden, though, but I didn’t care about that minor detail because I had something that Sandy had in his garage: a shiny new Chevrolet pickup truck that filled a real man with supreme, unmatched confidence and primordial pride. It was, therefore, absolutely inarguable that my happiness should prevail over the rotten marital problems that the stupid thing so often ignited. Eden had to understand that. She had to, even if I couldn’t fully understand myself why I wasn’t quite as happy about the truck as I had imagined. I just didn’t know why things always started to lose their allure after I had managed to get my hands on them—why they became uncool as soon as I was the owner.
In addition to reminding me of Sandy’s happiness, the devil also spoke to me about my job. He particularly liked to talk about the boss woman, the school principal who flirted with me openly. He never forgot to mention how she had once said that I had such nice skin and a brain that made me sexy, and how she had told me after a team-building event at a local tavern that when she saw me walking in the school halls in my tight brown pants, something started to tingle “down there” in a funny way and her whole body felt hot and slimy. Then she had started giggling like a schoolgirl and covered her mouth with her greasy hands that had just transported a bucket of cheap chicken wings into her voluminous belly. After that, the cow had pinched my cheeks with those same disgusting hands and said that sometimes she could notice the shape of my testicles shining through my pants.
I still remember how I smiled a nervous smile and presumed that a statement like that was some sort of twisted compliment, even though I didn’t understand why she said those things or flirted with me in the first place. If she wanted to have sex with me, she should have just asked for it. I would have said no. Well, not just no, but hell no. If she didn’t want to sleep with me because she was married or scared or whatnot, then why flirt with me at all? Maybe she did it because it was a fun little game that her position as my superior allowed her to play—I don’t know—but I was seriously pissed off because I was never asked to be part of that game. I wanted to tell her that flirting without the will to go all the way was just pointless nonsense that made everybody confused and uncomfortable.
The devil also pointed out that it was so incredibly unfair that the old cretins on the school board had decided to make that horny beast the principal and abandon me in the stuffy classroom with my calculator and small yellow pencil. He reminded me that I was so much better than she was, so much more competent than she was, and so much smarter than she was, that it was only fair that the board would admit the huge mistake they had made and replace that invasive swine with me as soon as possible. The devil insisted that I was more than ready for the job and that I deserved to have the distinguished title of the school principal in my pocket. He whispered to me that I had earned the right to walk into my church with my pockmarked chin held high and introduce myself to the congregation as the new apex predator residing permanently at the top of the school food chain.
I agreed with the horned bastard wholeheartedly simply because he was right, and I had learned already a long time ago that arguing with facts was a game designed exclusively for fools. I wasn’t going to challenge his wise words and claim that I hadn’t earned the right to become the principal and rule the school halls—even if I didn’t want to do the actual work that the job required. Just like any sane person, I detested any involvement in the horrors of parent and community relations, but I desperately wanted the title, the money, and the prestige that came with the promotion. I also knew that my fellow men and women would be so much more respectful to me and treat me so much better after I became the mighty principal. The job was nothing less than a gateway to a middle-class heaven where respect and admiration reigned over indifference and low self-esteem.
The best thing of all, however, was knowing that the extra cash would allow me to put a sparkling pool in my backyard and expand the garage. I could even buy a few of those alligator shirts that Sandy and his friends wore every day and become part of the crème de la crème of my social class. Then I was going to travel to Hilton Head with Eden so she would get a beautiful tan just like Lucy, and I wouldn’t have to masturbate anymore in the shower with my disgusting hands because we would just make love all the time and giggle a little afterward; maybe even smoke a Chesterfield or two in the sizzling bed that would still be smoldering from the fiery act of ultimate pleasure that had wrapped the whole room in a thick, orgasmic veil of uncompromised ecstasy and that rare middle age euphoria that the whole married world was so desperately trying to rediscover.
I wanted to become the principal so badly that I pretended that I adored that aroused hog who ruled over me like a randy tyrant, and I kissed her portly bottom every day even if it made her tingle “down there” even more and almost caused her gassy carcass to explode with perverse, one-sided pleasure and spray the school walls with green rutty slime. I did all that because I knew that she was old and tired, and I needed to make sure that she would pick me as her successor in the unlikely situation that the board wouldn’t kick her out before she would retire or die. I needed to behave, be patient, and just think about those alligator shirts, Lucy’s beautiful tan, the pool, the garage fridge, and all the secret beers and forbidden foods that I would put in it. I knew that if I played the filthy game for just a little longer, I would succeed and smile a victorious smile. Then I could finally rip off my mask and stop pretending that I liked other people or cared about their problems or families. I could be rude to all those fools who worked at the school, and I could pay back the snide comments I had to endure during my years as a measly math teacher. I was finally going to breathe freely without the constant need to adjust my words to please the ears of people who had power over me. It would finally be my turn to be the one whom they addressed with careful words and fake smiles—the one whose stupid jokes they would have to listen to, time and time again.
I was so eager about my bright future that I was often tempted to visualize my life as the principal and let the images of uncompromised success and true admiration flood my brain. A little preparty seemed, indeed, more than justified, but I still resisted because I knew that celebrating an unrealized victory was premature and foolish. I had my eye on the prize, but I didn’t want to lift it up because it was still just a mirage. I had my weaknesses, yes, but I wasn’t going to waste time on living in a future that I hadn’t yet secured, no matter how much it would tingle my body and lift my spirits.
Apart from the occasional conversations with the devil—and the horrors of inferiority his provocative words ignited in my feeble mind—I was stable mentally and more than able physically. I could smile even when the rain was falling from the dark skies, and it didn’t feel forced or fake. I could answer my wife’s questions without having to first subdue conflicting thoughts in my head, and I felt no physical pain that would have interfered with my will to live. Ho
nesty and genuineness were constantly present in my home, and I had health, and I had love. I had trust, and I had beauty. I had found a place where problems were just a stupid sideshow, a necessary part of any life, and something that I had to reluctantly learn to appreciate. I knew that a journey totally devoid of challenges would allow complacency and arrogance to sneak in and send a signal to Commander Trouble to start mustering his forces. Then, one day, he would arrive with his greedy soldiers and attack me with such a vengeance that it would leave me crying on the dirty concrete, bruised and filled with disbelief and shock.
Eden was stable, too, I think, and she genuinely enjoyed the simple things in life and seemed to believe that once our basic needs were met, we were allowed to let happiness and laughter in. Her highlight of the year was our annual trip to the High Hampton resort. She liked the name High Hampton so much that she always called her friends and told them that we were going there, even if the place was just a modest resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. She never forgot to mention that it was the same place where a certain congressman used to vacation with his family. Her pride and excitement about that fact were so adorable and innocent that I didn’t want to tell her that the same congressman had also overdosed there on Quaaludes and died with madness dancing inside his hypocritical bones.
The best thing in our lives was, however, our daughter, Annalise. She was a true miracle of life, and I adored her beautiful face and kind heart more than anything in the whole world. She was so pretty that sometimes I seriously thought that the nurse had given us the wrong baby at the hospital. The undisguised truth was that we weren’t pretty people, and I wasn’t sure what had happened during the insemination. Our families on both sides looked less than ordinary, and we grew old and wrinkly fast. Maybe Eden had some distant supergene in her body that concealed great beauty, I don’t know, but Annalise was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was my life, my soul, and the only reason I was brought into this world.
The Sapphire Express Page 2