by Bruce Jones
Enough ruminating. Richard stared at his little short story. Tried to think of an ending.
The weirdest thing of all was that he couldn’t even decide anymore if it was a story about a dog. He had never actually described the main character as a dog, not in so many words, not in any words at all, in fact. What he had described was no description at all--just a kind of amorphous shadowy blob that his writer’s mind had followed down familiar Topeka streets and avenues, to familiar Topeka shopping malls and school grounds, to less familiar Topeka fields and woodlands, just about everywhere but his own…his own…
…s’matter, Richo, afraid to say it? the BEDROOM!…
He was afraid to say it, even to think about it.
Afraid he’d get start getting moist under his armpits and slightly feverish and slowly and quietly nauseated.
No, never had the little doggy of his story come anywhere near his bedroom.
He stared now at the monitor screen and thought about that.
Never near his bedroom or anyone else’s.
Which was strange. Considering he kept experiencing the same dream. About the same, nearly identical…dog-thing. Trundling reeking from the woods, staggering through moonlit fields to teeter up their mutual footboards at night. And none of them had ever owned a dog. None of the other Enders had, anyway. No one he could recall from either child or adulthood had owned such an animal. At least nothing like the size of the creature in his all-too-realistic nightmare.
So how come he was still drawn back to this same damn story?
To rereading it, analyzing it, and now even attempting to finish it? There had to be some kind of connection, right?
…yeah…it’s called a loose one…happens to guys dying of cancer…
Which was the other thing. He didn’t feel like he was dying.
Didn’t even feel sick. He felt, other than the random depression and occasional flights of fear and panic attacks, just fine. For a writer who couldn’t write.
Shouldn’t a guy with spreading cancer be feeling a wee bit queasy by now? He could certainly remember a time when he had. It was shortly before the chemo. And then certainly during the fucking chemo. Therapy they called it? How about the seventh level of hell? But not now. Nothing now for weeks. He was chipper as a pig in shit, as Shivers used to say. Last night—finally having drifted off after all the fun in the cellar--he’d even had another mildly erotic dream about first love Laurie Seasons. It was Laurie who was doling out the lip service and Laurie who was the reciprocate of a little fun afterwards doggy style in the backseat of his dad’s old Chevy. He had even imagined, in the giddy swim of half-wakefulness that proceeded, that he’d managed something of an honest-to-God night-time hard-on. Ridiculous, of course. He never had them anymore. Not since the day Maser had started probing and poking and finally biopsying his prostate. Even though Maze had assured him his new impotence was mostly psychological, even though he had removed a small tumor, that theoretically Richard could still have sex, that “such a thing is not beyond the realm of possibility.” Yeah, yeah, right. And pigs could fly. And Stephen King ain’t rich, and James Dean is alive and brain dead in a West Virginia rest home for the silly.
“Now, we can talk about penis implants,” Maser had gone on. Gone on but stopped just about there when he saw the look in Richard’s eyes—because Richard had already seen the look in Maser’s eyes, which said: “You ain’t gonna live long enough for a new pair of Reeboks, pal, much less a plastic wang pumper—“
“I’ve got fresh coffee,” Allie said from the den doorway.
Richard broke reverie and turned, swivel chair creaking. He smiled at his beautiful wife and told her thanks.
His beautiful wife nodded. “I’d ask you if you want eggs and toast but you never do anymore. Do you want to shower first?”
Another thing he’d lost along with his sex life: his appetite. Oh well, some weight too along with it, at least, which for now made him actually look younger. Something cancer did, he supposed, before it made you a whole lot older.
Richard nodded and went back to his monitor screen. But found himself spinning half around there in his bathrobe and lifting a finger to stop Allie. “Hey, you know, eggs and toast sounds good, actually. Can I have them before my shower?”
Did her face brighten just the slightest? “Of course.”
But she didn’t smile back at him on her way out the door and back downstairs like he’d hoped. Did not smile and, in fact, gave him a strange, even kind of look. Was she worried about the weight loss? Never acted like she was before. Was she worried about him, period?
Richard turned back to his screen. And the same four lines that ended his dog story that didn’t sound like an ending at all. He shook his head. Finally he sighed, pushed back, and got up. Headed for the den door.
Stopped, turned back and sat down again.
Lifted his fingers to the keyboard. And typed this:
“…THEY BURIED THE DOG IN THE WOODS.”
Put a period at the end of “woods.” And sat there a while staring at the screen, at the stupid little green cursor winking up at him.
Seemed like an ending all right, no doubt about that.
Not an ending that made the least bit of sense.
He sat there a while longer, scratching the crown of his head and probing his new tooth with the tip of his tongue as if waiting for something: an actual plot, maybe.
He was still staring desultorily at this monitor screen, mind beginning to drift away to nowhere in particular, when it came to him. Rushed upon him, actually. One line.
…it was diminutive…
An Icelandic chill bloomed in Richard’s chest.
He felt himself pushing back from the monitor almost as though it were alive, felt himself going all damp in the pits, had to will his heart to not start knocking wildly again.
What? he asked his inner mind. What was diminutive? Somehow hoping he wouldn’t answer himself.
But he did.
…the figure in the office doorway last night. It was small...
He pushed away hard now from his computer hutch, the wheels of his swivel chair catching on the Navajo rug, nearly tipping him over, only reminding him more of last night’s midnight stroll in the cellar. No, he told himself, please, I don’t want to hear anymore…
But ‘himself’ just smiled mental sarcasm. …small…as in a small--
“Shut-up!”
“What?” Allie called from below. “What, honey--?”
Richard gripped the oak arms of the western-style swivel chair, pushed up weakly and stood, holding onto the chair arms a moment for support as a brief wave of dizziness caught him. He almost hoped it was from the cancer. But he didn’t think so.
And before his inner voice could spout any more incredulities, he lurched from the den and came quickly downstairs to Allie’s good cooking smells and the bright security of the kitchen and the warm safety of her smile.
* * *
Allie had rustled up more than just eggs and toast; also bacon (which he loved as a kid but had stopped eating because it gave you—ha-ha--cancer), orange juice, a slice of cantaloupe and two plump sausages.
When Richard ate most of it with great, savory delight, feeling full—really full—for the first time in months, no one was more amazed than he.
“My,” Allie expressed behind him.
Richard stared at his empty plate, beaming. He looked up at her expansively. “My darling,” he announced at the breakfast table, accepting another cup of fresh Folger’s from her, “I do not in any conceivable way deserve you!”
To which she said nothing. Unless a barely audible little “um” was something, muttered with that same flat, even look. And—now that he looked closely—slightly chilly expression.
Something was coming. He just knew it.
He had only to sit quietly and sip his coffee and wait.
Allie rattled around at the sink a few minutes, poured herself a cup of coffee and finally came to j
oin him across the breakfast table. Just before she took her own second sip of Folgers Black Silk, she asked with a forced casualness that was almost funny, “Who’s Laurie Seasons?”
Oh, God.
Had he talked in his sleep?
Was she telepathically picking up the Laurie dream erection he’d never had? Can a wife who hasn’t had sex in months do such a thing? Was it some kind of secret talent known only to the female of the species?
“An old girlfriend,” Richard replied, not looking up from his eggs, wondering vaguely if his cheeks looked slightly flushed.
“Ah,” was his wife’s response. Which didn’t bother him.
It was the silence that ensued that bothered him.
He finally glanced at her across the rim of his orange juice glass. “Why? Didn’t I mention her before?”
Allie was staring directly, unflinchingly into his eyes, a small bite of toast revolving slowly behind her pretty mouth. “Not once.”
Not good. Not good at all. Bad tone. Worse expression. She knew something. He had talked last night, talked a blue streak, apparently. Still, he found himself smiling wistfully. The truth was, Allie would have liked Laurie. They were—in some ways—not unalike. And he was older now, and he had cancer, and the idea of childhood secrets between them about a girl he’d had sex with were as silly as, well, the idea of having sex now. With anyone.
“Goodness,” his wife crooned. “Such a smile. Were you in love with her?”
Richard kept the smile, all he had left of Laurie now, and surprised himself by nodding at his wife. “As much as a seventeen-year-old kid can be.”
Allie arched a puckish brow above her cup. “That can be a lot.”
He nodded again. “And a lot of years ago. I’m so absolutely charmed that you’re jealous, sweetie. You are jealous, right?”
Allie watched him a moment, then set down her cup with a musical tink. It was his mother’s old Fiestaware, he noticed; Allie must have unpacked it from the attic or garage. Or maybe the cellar, maybe that’s what she was doing down there when she pulled Dad’s old swivel chair from his desk, left it out by accident…
“Who’s ‘Bubbles?’ she asked, not looking at him now, looking and thinking about another slice of buttered toast, but with that same even expression.
Richard frowned. Bubbles. He hadn’t the slightest idea.
“Who—?“he asked pointedly and with properly perplexed expression, just to be sure.
Allie picked up the buttered toast and appraised it. “Bubb-els,” she enunciated deliberately, and put most of the wedge in her mouth before biting down. He hadn’t seen her touch anything buttered in years.
He shook his head. “I’ve not the foggiest.”
Allie chewed toast with the same slow revolve, already eyeing the last wedge on the platter. Between swallows she managed, “Did you enjoy it?”
Richard put down his coffee cup and sat back, hands atop the table, giving her the kind of stern look his own father might have given him in this very kitchen; maybe in this very chair. “Allie, darling, what are you about this morning?”
She retrieved the final wedge without taking her eyes away from him. “Please answer the question…this could be important information.”
Richard made a hopeless gesture, shaking his head. “Afraid you’ll have to bring me up to speed, officer. Did I enjoy what?”
“Little Laurie Seasons posing in the nude.”
Richard stared at her.
Just stared.
He’d never written about someone just staring like that because he’d always felt it was so clichéd, such cheesy prose—yet here he was in his own kitchen across from his own wife with his own mouth actually hanging open like a demented Loony Tunes character.
“You’ll catch a fly,” she told him, then smiled petulantly as he blinked and pulled his trap shut, and poured herself another cup of coffee.
Maser! That bastard Maser told her!
But that was silly, of course. When did Maser ever see Allie, except when he was around?
Richard’s wife chewed toast patiently. Waiting.
“Allie…what are you—“
And she brought the Polaroid up from her shorts pocket and tossed it at him across the sausage and marmalade.
And from the look on his face his dear wife could no longer fake her dour, even expression or hold back the volley of pent-up, raucous laughter that made her spit tiny crumbs of toast at the Fiestaware...
* * *
He had to fight with her over it, of course—for actual possession of it.
Allie kept snatching the photo from his hand and skipping just out of his reach, laughing like a schoolgirl and playing tag-around-the-kitchen-table with him, all the time holding the scandalous Polaroid over her head and shouting as if to alert the neighbors things like, “Who’ll start the bidding?” and “genuine antique 1960’s amateur smut, guaranteed to increase in value!” and “Do I hear fifty cents? How about sixty? Grade A teen porn here, folks!”
Around the kitchen table and through the dining room—squealing and dodging when he got too close—down the hall and up the stairs and finally to their bedroom, where she leaned gasping with laughter at the window, arm extending past the sill, threatening to drop the photo to the wind if he came any closer.
When all that got eventually too tiring both figuratively and physically, she fended him off a few more giggling minutes on her back across the bed, grabbing up the phone and “calling” in rapid succession any and all names that came to mind from her Aunt Edna in Oklahoma to their old friends the Clennons in Sherman Oaks to her own mother in Cleveland. “Mom, you wouldn’t believe it! Richard’s just given me the loveliest little anniversary gift! Well, of course I’ll make you an eight-by-ten, I’m running off scores of prints for everyone we know!”
Finally giving it up, letting him have the silly damn thing, and flopping back on her pillow, cupping her breasts and moaning histrionically at their bedroom ceiling while undulating like a drunken snake.
Somewhat recovering her senses, Allie stretched across the mattress on her tummy and peered over her husband’s shoulders as he tilted the now slightly more wrinkled photo under the light, slowly shaking his head, chuckling irony under his breath. “Where in the world?” he said over and over between slow headshakes, “where in the world?”
Allie took the photo from him again—this time less playfully, more studiously—and gave it a critical going over. “In the top drawer of your study desk,” she told him. She tapped the dark smudge of Laurie’s Seasons’ youthful head with a red nail. “Is this what you use for inspiration?” And her suddenly regretful expression from the unintended faux pas took all the grown-up élan from her face. It made her look incredibly vulnerable there beside him on their bed, made him realize with a quick ache just how long it had been since they’d wrestled there together for whatever reason at all, and how much he’d missed it, how much she must miss it as well, to let show quite so much Freudian slip.
“Sorry--” she began, dropping her forehead to the concealing mattress.
But Richard smiled and said “No,” and squeezed her arm and leaned back to prop himself on his elbow and just watch her, just soak her in for a moment, the soft morning window light, his lovely younger wife, all rosy cheeked and heated from the excursion. He’d have gladly given whatever days left to him just to hold her at that moment; just to kiss and caress and finally make love to her, love her then fuck her, fuck her good and proper, long and deep and oh so sweet one last final time. He would have given the world for that.
I should have done better by you, he thought--but not with sadness or great regret, only a silent, immutable resolve.
Allie softened under his eyes, cocking a robin’s head at the photo and its curious sheen of antiquity. “She’s pretty. Did you love her?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You don’t have to say that just because she’s…it’s quite lovely in its own way, you know, not at all pornographic.�
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“I loved her. Too much.”
Which coaxed a little smile of jealousy from his wife at Richard’s decades old nymphet. “How can anyone love too much?”
Richard glanced at the photo in her pale hands: the wisdom of aged eyes accessing the moronic beauty of youth. “One can,” he assured her.
Allie returned a scandalous smile and arched brow. “And I’m assuming you took the picture yourself? How libertine of you!”
He smiled. “You sound like such a screenwriter sometimes. Actually, she changed her mind at the last minute and started to push me with her foot--”
“That explains the canted angle of the shot. And here I thought you were being artful.”
“The best art is often accidental.”
“Now you’re just fishing to cover your smutty little act. Which was your intention, I think, to be smutty. Which can be an art itself. She was lovely…”
Both brows going up this time with what might have been both jealousy and envy. “Was she, now? Well! And was she your first?”
“Yes.”
Allie nodded as if checking off a golf score. “And did she swallow?”
That seemed crude, even for Allie, who was never one to mince words.
He was trying to picture it, remember it. Found it vaguely interesting that he couldn’t, not with any real clarity. The memory was slightly burred and fuzzy, like the snapshot itself. Longer ago than it seemed, perhaps. He thought he’d loved Laurie completely; but he hadn’t thought of the photo again until just now. Allie was right; there was something lovely about it, he supposed, simultaneously smutty and innocent in a way only youth could make it. Laurie looked inexperienced and callow. She might as well have been wearing a bikini on the beach. “Richard?”
He blinked, turning to her. “What?”
“Was she better than me?”
“Little obsessed, aren’t you?”
“Little evasive, aren’t you?”