by Larry Doyle
“I’m sorry,” Denis said.
Beth sipped her beer. “Why?”
RICH HAD NOT NOTICED the barbed wire fence at first and this had caused a slight delay. He was now in the field, approaching the west face of the cow, not nearly fast enough.
“Go, go,” Treece insisted. “Go!”
Rich turned around, tamping his hands as he stepped backward, “Don’t…wake…the…”
PLORP.
Rich felt his shoe sinking into a thick mud that was not mud. It made a wet sucking sound, pulling his foot in deeper. He had stepped in quickshit.
He jerked his leg up. Balancing on one foot, he inspected the befouled area. It was bright yellow, the exact color of his socks. In horror, he looked down. The cow plop had swallowed the toe of his shoe and was methodically oozing up the tongue, threatening to breach the rim. He reached down to rescue it, lost footing, hopped and
SQUITT.
THERE SHE WAS, feet on the seat, arms around her knees, rocking back and forth, not at all in time to the music. Denis had something to say but decided to wait until the song was over in about twenty seconds.
“Beth,” he jumped in anyway. “I lied before. About this song. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to be listening to it with anyone, you especially…”
Beth opened another beer. “Life’s full of surprises.”
“Not mine,” Denis said. “Usually.”
Beth turned off the car; the radio went silent. She swiveled toward Denis. She swigged her beer and perched the can on a kneecap.
She was staring into Denis’s eyes, not saying anything, but asking something. Denis didn’t know what, and didn’t care. He couldn’t get enough of this eye-to-eye stuff.
And yet, just below Beth’s eyes, her knees were ten inches apart.
It took all the willpower Denis possessed to not look up her skirt. You’ve seen everything there is to see down there, he told his visual cortex, there’s no need to—
spoke the panties.
Beth closed her knees without calling attention to Denis’s pubic snooping. She smiled at him in a tentative way.
“So…why me?”
Denis had never considered this question, putting it on a very short list of unquestioned aspects of his universe. Beth Cooper was an axiom, an irreducible truth, like the sky being blue (though the latter is a more complex phenomenon, involving the differential scattering of electromagnetic radiation by particles with dimensions smaller than the wavelength of the radiation, as Denis exhaustively lectured Mrs. Anclade in the third grade). The choice of Beth Cooper was simple, and pure, and for Denis’s purposes here, completely inexplicable.
“You?” he said after much too long a pause.
“Why not Claudia Confer? She’s prettier than me, and a lot nicer.”
“I don’t think she’s…” Denis began compiling a Beth Cooper vs. Claudia Confer Benchmark Comparison, but lacking sufficient data, he said the only thing that came to mind.
“I didn’t sit behind Claudia Confer.”
Beth laughed, dribbling beer onto her chin. She wiped it off and licked her fingers. Denis decided that if reincarnation was real, through some heretofore undiscovered nonquantum mechanism, he would like to come back as one or more of Beth Cooper’s fingers.
“You never even talked to me,” Beth said.
“You didn’t seem too interested.” He stated a truth he had successfully repressed until now. “I’m surprised you even know who I am.”
“I know who you are!”
Beth had two distinct memories of Denis Cooverman:
Denis, at a blackboard, finishing an equation. He turns around, his fly open, stars on his underpants;
and
looking up Denis’s nose as he says, “I love you, Beth Cooper.”
Beth took a long slurp of beer. “How could I not know Denis Cooverman?”
RICH SCRAPED THE SIDES OF HIS SHOES along the grass as he approached the cow in anger. Earlier he had no beef with this specific cow, was merely going through the motions of tipping it. But now it had attacked him, indirectly, and it was going down.
The cow stood there, eyes closed, legs locked. This was the secret to tipping cows: they were fast asleep yet completely rigid. One push and they were sideways cows.
Rich positioned himself at mid-cow and placed his hands on its side about two feet apart. He pushed. The cow’s belly gave slightly but its hooves remained firmly in the meadow. He shoved. The cow remained upright.
“Use your physics!” Treece advised from the sideline.
Rich repositioned his hands closer together, bent his head down, and put his back into it. He switched his feet back and forth, marching in place to gain a hold, and then running, his shoes spinning on the shit-slick grass.
He went down.
“Little help, ladies?”
CAMMY AND TREECE WERE LAUGHING at Denis again; he could hear their merriment in the wind. It was quiet in the car. Beth had stopped talking, the music wasn’t playing, and Denis didn’t know what to do. Before tonight, he had never spoken to Beth without her speaking to him first. He had had plenty to say, much of it well-rehearsed, but when the opportunity arose to say it, he had always pussed out, in Rich’s helpful analysis. The lone exception had been graduation, and even then he had been careful not to look in her eyes, knowing that if she had seemed the slightest bit upset or saddened or repulsed by his declaration, his heart would have arrested and his face would have bounced off the lectern as he crumpled to the podium, dead. Or thrown up at the very least.
There were her eyes now, two delicious dog’s breakfasts, watching him from behind a sixteen-ounce can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
What was she thinking?
“What are you thinking?” Denis asked, cheating.
“Nothing.”
Goddammit. That was all he had.
How could that be? Denis spoke nine languages, three of them real, had countless debate trophies (16), had won the Optimist Club’s Oratorical Contest with a speech the judges had called the most pessimistic they had ever heard. Was there no romantic line, no conversation starter, no charming anecdote, no bon mot, no riddle or limerick he could pull out of his ass right now?
He swallowed some beer. And it came to him. Alcohol was amazing.
“We did talk,” Denis said, arguing with something Beth had said nearly seven minutes earlier. “You borrowed a pencil once. You signed my yearbook.”
Beth allowed the pencil, but “When did I sign your yearbook?”
Alcohol was a bastard, Denis realized. “Seventh grade.”
“What’d I write?”
“I don’t—”
“You remember.”
He remembered:
Denis cringed as he recited it, and left off your friend, Beth, because it was already sufficiently pathetic.
Beth put down her beer. She reached out and touched Denis’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I led you on.”
Denis almost thanked her for the apology, but read her eyes, and laughed. So did she.
This was going incredibly well. Denis was determined to keep it going until he figured out a way to destroy it.
“So, we can talk now. Here, how about: what are you doing after graduation? I’m going to, it’s this six-year combined pre-med/med-school thing. After that I’m not sure if I want to practice or maybe do research…”
Beth retrieved her beer. “Hey, good luck with that.”
“So, where are you going?”
“I dunno.” She finished the can. “Maybe Harper’s.”
Offering credit courses in:
Applied Porcelain Sanitation;
Certified Dining Assistance;
Apparel Folding Science…
“Oh,” Denis said. And: “Yeah?”
“Maybe. If I can afford it.”
There, that wasn’t so hard. It only took him thirty seconds. Not a record, but a solid effort. Denis couldn’t determine what was worst, his dweebish braggadocio, Beth’s disturbing
educational plans, or that his condescending horror at them was so obvious.
“I have to pee.” Beth got out, walked behind the car and squatted out of view.
Denis sat in the car, not sure of anything, only that he hated himself, and listened to her pee.
TWO GIRLS AND A BOY lined up along the cow.
Treece sniffed. “Don’t these things ever take a shower?”
“Sh,” Rich hushed. “Okay, on four.”
“Four?”
“You want to supervise this project?”
Cammy demurred.
“Then, on four.”
Cammy was almost as bad as Denis, Rich thought. Almost. Denis was a real killjoy. He could construct a timeline between any idea and fatality. This had prevented Rich from pursuing many intriguing notions, such as sticking Alka-Seltzer up his butt (at seven, Rich had never heard of an embolism, but Denis made a convincing case against wanting one). Rich chafed at Denis’s brain ruining all their fun, and by mutual agreement went to amusement parks without him, but the doom-modeling had saved Rich’s life on at least five occasions:
the “Super Juice” made from Orange Powerade, Batman Returns cereal, crushed Superman vitamins and topped with Mr. Muscle oven cleaner (age 5);
the reenactment of the mining car chase from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (age 9);
the Harold and Maude fake suicide reenactment and sympathy ploy (age 14);
the bulk-up and get-revenge plan predicated on taking “steroids” supplied by Henry Giroux (age 16);
the April Fool’s Day Columbine “gag” reenactment (age 17).
Tipping a cow was less potentially deadly than any of the above, but Denis’s joy-killing might have proven useful here.
“Uno, dos, tres, catorce!”
On catorce, they all began pushing and Cammy muttered quatro. Had Denis been there, he would have pointed out it was nearly impossible to tip a cow, for the same reason Treece could not sleep on her stomach: ballast.
“This is stupid,” Cammy grunted.
Denis would have agreed. Because, in addition to the mechanical difficulties of overturning an underslung half-ton object, cows can’t lock their legs and they don’t sleep standing up. This cow was just resting her eyes, and though she was laid-back, even for a cow, she had come to the conclusion that these people weren’t going to go away by themselves. Her head turned with remarkable swiftness, her muzzle close enough to Rich’s face that her whiskers tickled his lips when she screamed, “Moo!”
A HIDEOUS SOUND followed by a shriek disrupted absolutely nothing in the Cabriolet.
“What was that?!”
“Sounded like a cow,” Beth said.
“A cow? That was no…ordinary cow.”
Beth was deep into her fourth beer. “You’re not afraid of cows, are you, Denis Cooverman?”
“Vaccaphobic?” Denis shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Jesus fuck!” Rich sprinted out of the mist and hurdled into the backseat, winded. Cammy and Treece, falling over each other with throaty and nasal laughters, staggered up a few seconds later. Treece had to lean against the trunk with both hands to keep from passing out with amusement.
“What’s wrong?” Denis asked.
“What’s so funny?” Beth asked.
“Nothing’s funny,” Rich wailed. “A cow bit me!”
“Cows can’t bite,” Denis said. “They lack upper incisors.”
Rich jabbed viciously at a fantastically large hickey on his neck. “Well, this one fucking could, Tiny Einstein!” He had never called Denis that in front of anyone else before.
Cammy traced a nail along Rich’s throat. “It’s just a love bite.” She puckered her lips next to Rich’s ear. “Moo moo moo moo moo,” she cooed.
“Hey,” Rich said, “what if it was a mad cow?”
“She was pretty mad,” Treece agreed.
Cammy gasped dramatically. “You’re going to turn into a werecow.” She glanced up, saw the full moon, and gasped again.
Rich turned to Denis, with need and regret.
“Now you want my expertise?”
“Yes. Please.”
“There hasn’t been a confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United States for four years,” Denis uploaded. “And even if this one did have mad cow disease, it can’t be transmitted by biting, which cows can’t do.”
Beth’s cute nostrils flared in an unpretty way. “What’s that smell?”
Rich said nothing.
Cammy directed Beth’s attention to the backseat. “He pooped his shoes.”
Beth did not allow poop in her car. “Lose the shoes.”
“These are my best shoes!”
“Well, now they’re shit.”
“I paid for these shoes!”
“They go,” Beth said, “with you in them, or not.”
Rich got out of the car. He shuffled to the side of the road, slipped off his shoes, and got back in the car. Treece and Cammy settled in around him.
“So!” bubbled Cammy, rubbing her palms together with camp perkiness. “And what have our head cheerleader and Tiny Einstein been up to?”
That didn’t take her long, Denis noted. He didn’t know she was saving Dick Muncher and The Penis for later. What had they been up to?
Were they connecting, opening up, sharing, in preparation for making out, or were they merely dancing around one another with Denis doing the herky-jerkoff?
“We were just—”
“Storytime!” Beth announced.
13.
SUBURBAN LEGENDS
HOW COME YOU DON’T HAVE ANY STORIES?
I’VE GOT LOTS OF THEM, AND YOU DON’T HAVE ANY.
MICHELLE FLAHERTY
TREECE CLAPPED. She loved Storytime. Cammy smiled, too, in a slightly sinister way, Denis thought. Beth nestled her beer between crossed legs. She raised her hands, a call for silence. Her eyes widened. Her voice was soft but urgent.
“It was thirty-three years ago tonight…”
Treece began to sing,
Sweeeeeeet emohhhhhhtion
Cammy backed her on drums,
Dit-dit dah-dah dit-dit dah-dah
This was quite a production. Denis felt privileged they would go through all this trouble for him.
“…on this very road,” Beth continued. “A VW bus was parked in this exact spot.”
Denis could see the bus. It bore a remarkable resemblance to the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.
“It’s a moonless night.”
Denis killed the moon.
“Inside, this hippie and his chick…”
Denis had always identified with Velma, but took on the Shaggy role. He cast Beth as the hippie chick who stuck flowers in rifles in his Anti-American History class (its official name was “The History of Patriotic Dissent: Boston Tea Party to Kent State” and was taught by Ms. Calumet-Hobey, who probably should have worn a brassiere in the seventies).
“…were smoking this humongous bong.”
His seventies bong knowledge being limited, Denis improvised something psychedelic with a bright yellow smiley face on the bowl.
“The chick starts to tell this story…”
Hippie Beth spoke but Treece’s voice came out.
“So, it was, like, the fifties, man.”
Treece was the perfect hippie chick, but Denis was disconcerted at the sudden change in narrator.
Cammy and Beth sang,
One o’clock, two o’clock,
three o’clock rock…
This wasn’t the first time the girls had told this story. Denis felt a little less special.
“And like, this, ’57 T-Bird comes to a stop in this exact spot, dig?”
Denis questioned the use of dig but re-dressed his mental set. Big-finned coupe, sock-hop rock, and for some reason, the fifties were in black and white.
“And this dude, like, tells his lady he’s out of gas…”
The biker jacket and ducktail looked good on Denis.
Beth wore Chantilly lace and a ponytail all hanging down, with a light pink sweater and magenta poodle skirt. An ice cream soda with two straws sat between them in a historically inaccurate cup holder.
“…and then he tries to get groovy.”
Groovy was entirely the wrong word; at any rate, Denis was way ahead of her. His greaser doppelgänger took bobbysoxer Beth into his distressed leather arms and—
“She’s not copacetic with that, and, like, bags him and tells him to go get gas…”
“Wait,” Denis protested, “is this ‘Hook Man’ or ‘Trippin’ Hippies’? You’re mixing up your urban legends.”
“Shut up,” Beth said sweetly.
Denis shut up. In the backseat, Cammy and Treece quietly secured their seat belts. Rich didn’t notice; he was mesmerized. It was like drama club, only the girls were popular and didn’t cry all the time.
“So the chick is totally alone in the car…”
Totally an anachronism.
“…and she, like, turns on the radio to keep her company.”
Out of the radio came Cammy. “Hey all you cats and kitties,” she growled in a truly remarkable impression that large-print readers will recognize as Wolfman Jack. “News flash, baby: a deranged killer with a hook for a hand has escaped from the local mental hospital!”
This was awfully elaborate, Denis thought; it must be a skit they did at cheerleading camp or something. Rich, meanwhile, was upgrading his opinion of Cammy.
“Now here’s the Surfaris, y’all!”
Treece mimicked the deranged falsetto perfectly:
Yihahahaha hahahaha…Wipeout!
Okay, now it was just weird. Never mind the Surfaris didn’t come along until the sixties…
Denis looked over at Beth. She was sitting forward, her hands on the wheel; the engine idled quietly.
“Just then,” Beth picked up the narration, breaking the story-within-a-story structure, “there’s a scratching at the door!”
Cammy did the scratching, quite effectively.
Didn’t Beth turn off the car a few minutes before?
“The girl is so freaked out, she…”
Beth stepped on the gas.
THE CABRIOLET HAD EXCELLENT PICKUP. It helped that they were going downhill at a fifty-degree angle. The car plunged into the toxic haunted fog.