by John Jodzio
Ellen was downwind and Nelson could smell the scent her skin gave off —cocoa butter and sweated gin. It made him remember Corrine, how she would come home after riding Sugarfoot and he would kiss her on the neck and taste sunblock under the dust.
“I kept telling Steve he was lucky to have me,” Ellen said. “I thought that maybe if he heard it enough, he’d start to believe what I was saying.”
They exited the stand of trees. Down the hill about a hundred yards away, Nelson saw Sugarfoot grazing. Ellen took off at a sprint. Nelson followed behind her as quick as he could.
By the time he caught up to Ellen, she was rubbing Sugarfoot’s flank and whispering into his ear. Maybe she liked horses, Nelson thought. Maybe now that Steve had ditched her he’d try to sweet talk her into coming with him to Tennessee. Maybe she’d still be crazy or angry enough at Steve to say yes.
When Nelson got closer, he heard a rustling in the scrub. And then a man with shaved head and a goatee walked out, pointing a .45 at Nelson’s chest.
“Hi there,” the man said, giving a little wave to Nelson. “I’m Steve.”
Steve was short and twitchy, wearing khaki shorts and flip flops. He wrapped his arms around Ellen and planted a hard kiss on her lips.
“I told you this would work,” she said. “And he’ll put up way less of a fuss down here, now won’t he?”
Ellen had looked frail and pretty by the gas station, but now that she was grinning maniacally instead of crying, Nelson saw how shadowy and severe her face actually was, how his loneliness had blinded him to this fact.
“Toss over your wallet and the keys to the truck,” Ellen told him.
Nelson pressed his left thigh with his thumb. Nothing. He looked over at Sugarfoot gnawing on some fescue a couple of yards away. He palmed the knife in his pocket.
“Am I supposed to ride the horse back home?” Nelson asked.
“Fuck if we care,” Ellen said.
Nelson chucked his wallet and keys a few feet short of where they stood. For a second he thought about letting these dopes take what they wanted, letting them drive away without a fight, but now he had decided he wanted to make them earn their reward, show them how hard it was to take something from someone who had so little to lose. He guessed he had at least fifty pounds on Steve and so when that fucker knelt down to pick up the keys, Nelson charged.
Steve’s first shot sailed wide. The second one nicked Nelson’s stroked shoulder. Nelson leapt on Steve’s chest, slapped the gun out of his hand. The two men wrestled in the high grass. Nelson reached for his knife, but Steve kicked himself free from Nelson’s grip and scrambled to his feet. Ellen was sprinting up the hill already and Steve ran after her.
Nelson pressed his jacket against his wound. Stood up and coaxed Sugarfoot toward him. He was dizzy and his heartbeat filled his ears. When the horse came near Nelson draped his body over him like a saddle blanket and then urged the horse toward the lights of the gas station. Sugarfoot obeyed, strode forth, clomping his hooves up and down as he walked, tamping down the bitten undergrowth in the gully with each step.
THE EAR
Alexi’s mother died and as was the custom in his family he sawed off her left ear. Before the police came, he slid the ear into a Ziploc bag and hid it amongst a box of turkey burgers in the freezer. When he led the officers upstairs to the body, he told them this was how he found her. Then he started to sob.
“Did she have any enemies?” one of the officers asked.
Alexi shook his head no. He’d just turned twenty three and his mother had been sick for the last year. Every night she made him practice his mourning face in the bathroom mirror. She taught him how to cry on demand by reminding him how his childhood dog, Shep, had been nailed by that mini-van.
“Remember all the dog blood squirting out of neck?” his mother asked. “Remember how the dog blood mixed with the snow and made the snow all pink?”
Even when Alexi cried perfectly, when he howled with real grief, his mother wasn’t satisfied.
“The cops won’t believe you’re sad unless you make your eyes look like they’re being sucked back into your skull,” she told him.
As the cops moved around his house now, Alexi saw one of them pull a small flask from his pocket and take a quick gulp. Alexi could tell this cop was near his pension by the way he walked—one foot flat on the floor boards before the other foot even thought about leaving the ground. He put his hand on Alexi’s shoulder, tried to calm him.
“I’ve long been resigned,” he told Alexi, “to the backward thinkers of this world.”
After his mother’s funeral, Alexi’s found his cousin Het standing outside the church. Alexi and Het had played together as kids, but Alexi hadn’t seen him in years. He’d gotten occasional updates from his mother about him. He’d heard how Het had a metal plate in his head from a motorcycle crash, how he’d nearly died from a snake bite. Het gave Alexi a long, uncomfortable hug.
“You got the ear,” Het said. “Good for you. My mom had a heart attack in a Long John Silver’s bathroom. Way too many people around for me to get hers.”
Alexi looked toward the street where a truck with a payload full of old appliances and scrap metal clattered past. In their family, this tradition was performed without fanfare, never discussed in public. Het knew this, had it drilled into him at any early age.
“Was it a big ear?” Het asked. “Like maybe big enough to share?”
Alexi looked up at the clouds, fingered his keychain. Het’s button down shirt was baggy, the kind of shirt you might wear if the police had taped a microphone to your chest.
“Wonderful to see you, cousin,” Alexi said, climbing into his car. “It’s been far too long.”
Three days after the funeral, Alexi went back to work. All of his co-workers at the bookstore had heard about his mother. Alexi was surprised to note that her death had brought out a kindness toward him that had been previously missing. He hadn’t been well liked before, but now his co-workers offered him donuts, invited him along when they went to the Chinese buffet for lunch.
“Are there any clues?” his manager, Eric, asked. “Do the police have any leads?”
“Nothing,” Alexi told him, “and they’re not particularly hopeful.”
There was a woman at work, Sophia, who began to take an increased interest in Alexi’s welfare. She began to pick him up every morning for work. Most nights, she gave him a ride home. One night, instead of simply dropping him off, she got out of her car and followed him inside.
“We need to brighten things up around here,” she said as she surveyed his living room. She was wearing a short skirt and a sweater that hung off her left shoulder. She ran her finger along a windowsill, held it up to show Alexi the dirt.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m still grieving.”
“Of course you are,” she said, spinning open the living room blinds to let some light in. “I wouldn’t have expected anything different.”
Sophia went into the kitchen and filled up a coffee cup with water. She went around watering his mother’s plants. After she was finished she sat down next to him. She took Alexi’s hand in hers.
“Is this okay?” she asked as she nestled into his body.
“Sure,” he said.
Soon she kissed his neck and then moved upward to his lips.
“My skirt unzips on the side,” she whispered to him.
As was the custom, Alexi brewed tea with his mother’s ear on the one month anniversary of her death. He wrapped the ear in cheesecloth just as his mother taught him. He steeped it in the traditional herbs and then poured the tea into the ceremonial cup with the family crest stamped on it. Drinking the tea would give him some of his mother’s strength and wisdom. That was the idea anyway.
While he was sipping on the tea, Het knocked on his door. Alexi ducked under his kitchen table, hoping Het hadn’t seen him.
“I’d recognize that ear tea smell anywhere!�
�� Het yelled to him from outside. “Smells just like beef bullion.”
At first Alexi thought Het might leave but after ten minutes straight of pounding on the door, Alexi let him in. Het knelt down in front of Alexi, holding up two crumpled twenties.
“For chrissakes,” Alexi said, handing him the cup. “Put your fucking money away and take a fucking drink.”
Sophia came over that night and Alexi made her spaghetti. He’d cleaned the apartment, dusted. After dinner, they sat down on the couch. He moved to kiss her, but she slid away.
“I think this relationship has run its course,” she said.
“What?” he asked. “Why?”
“I only date sad men,” Sophia said. “That’s my thing.”
She began to move around the house gathering up the things that she’d left there, a necklace, a book, her toothbrush.
Alexi made the face that his mother had taught him, thought about Shep and the mini-van and then tears poured from his eyes.
“Look,” he told her. “I’m still horribly sad.”
“That does look pretty sad,” Sophia said, “but you might be faking.”
Alexi buried his head in hands and sobbed uncontrollably. Soon he felt Sophia’s arms around him and then they were pulling off each other’s clothes.
Het showed up a couple of days later, looking worse than before.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said. “Nothing’s improved. Maybe I needed more than a couple of sips of tea. Maybe I needed the entire cup. ”
“I’ve heard that sometimes it takes a while to work,” Alexi told him, even though he’d never heard that from any of his relatives. “And I’ve heard that sometimes it doesn’t work at all.”
Het flopped down on the couch, closed his eyes, drifted off. Alexi couldn’t summon the energy to make him leave, so he left him there, snoring. He called up Sophia.
“I’m totally sad now,” he told her. “I can’t stop crying. It seems like there isn’t any point to any of this.”
“You’re probably leading me on,” Sophia said, “but I like it.”
“I’m thinking about taking some pills,” he told her. “I’m thinking about cutting myself. I’m in a dark ass place.”
“That sounds hot,” she said. “I’ll be right over.”
Alexi dressed in all black and rubbed his eyes to make it look like he’d been sobbing. When Sophia arrived she didn’t seem to notice his extra work because she was looking at Het sleeping on the couch.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“My cousin Het,” Alexi said.
“He looks awful,” she said.
Sophia and Alexi went into his bedroom, but Alexi could tell that she was distracted. They made out for a while and then Sophia told him she was exhausted and fell asleep. Alexi fell asleep next to her.
He woke around midnight and Sophia wasn’t in bed. He got up and walked into the living room and he found her kissing Het.
“Shit,” Het said, pulling away from her. “I’m sorry.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Sophia told Alexi. “He’s way sadder than you’ll ever be.”
Alexi ran into his bedroom and buried his head in his pillow and sobbed real tears. He thought that Sophia might come to comfort him, but instead he heard the two of them leave. They walked over to Sophia’s car and drove away. Alexi got up and went to the kitchen. There was still a little bit of ear tea left in a Tupperware container in his fridge. He thought about dumping it down the sink but then he thought better of it and gulped the rest of it down.
WILLEM AND TRUDY, DEUCE AND ME
I was hired to care for Willem Cosgrove after his first hospice nurse quit. He was dying of lung cancer and between coughing fits he called out for someone named Doris. This was not his wife’s name. His wife’s name was Trudy. She was in the room next door. She was dying of bone cancer and luckily she could not hear for shit.
Trudy had her own home health care aid, Deuce. Sometimes Deuce brought a bottle of Captain Morgan and we sat at their kitchen table and drank. Deuce was married, but after Willem and Trudy were asleep, we’d usually make out or watch television.
“Lisa,” Deuce told me once. “I’m totally falling for you.”
Willem and Trudy were bedridden, but they still tried to talk to each other. Neither of them could hear and so Deuce and I were left to translate.
“Is he saying something about my fat arms?” Trudy asked. “He’s always hated my arms.”
“He says he loves you,” Deuce said.
“Is she telling you I slept with her cousin?” Willem asked me. “That one’s a lie.”
“She says she misses your touch,” I told Willem.
There was a bell by Willem’s bedside that he rang when he needed me. Mostly what he wanted was water, but also he kept begging me to tickle him.
“C’mon,” he said. “Just one time?”
“Maybe Trudy would like to tickle you,” I said.
“Have you looked at her hands?” he said. “They’re like garden tools. And don’t even get me started on those fat arms of hers.”
One night, when Trudy and Willem were asleep, Deuce and I ordered pizza. Then we got naked and rolled around their couch.
“This just feels right,” Deuce said. “You know?”
I knew. I’d never looked forward to coming to work before, but now I hated to drive back to my lonely apartment with my stupid cat and my dumbass collection of state quarters that was still missing Oregon.
After a week of Willem begging me to tickle him, I gave in.
“Where?” I said.
He pointed to his armpit and I reached my hand under his nightshirt. Willem’s face broke into a grin. He giggled a little, but then his face turned serious.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“There comes a point when tickling turns into scratching,” he said.
- - - - - - - -
Trudy died first. It was peaceful, in her sleep. The next day, Deuce was assigned to a new job across town.
“Can we still see each other?” I asked him.
There was a pause, a crackling across the phone line.
“Sometimes the loveliness of something is its utter conven-ience,” he told me.
Willem died two days after Trudy, as often happens with couples who are deeply in love. I pressed his eyelids shut and called the ambulance.
“No need to hurry,” I told the dispatcher. “He’s not going anywhere.”
After I made the call, I sat down next to Willem’s bed. I took his hand and ran his fingers up and down my forearm, gently, lightly, over and over, until the paramedics arrived.
THE BOG BODY
Chucho and I were searching for golf balls in the protected wetland on the 12th hole when my feet found a body. There were already several hundred golf balls sitting on the edge of the marsh ready to be cleaned and sold and I’d dug my feet into the mud expecting to feel the cool dimpled cover of another one, but instead, I felt a face.
Buried in the mud, a golf ball feels like a rock, and you curl your foot like a hawk’s claw and yank it out. Over the course of the summer, searching for golf balls in water hazards, my feet had become very sensitive. I likened them to a blind man’s hands, something you could substitute for eyes.
Sometimes Chucho and I played this game where he dropped some pocket change on the sidewalk and I put my foot over it and told him exactly how much it was. It was useless knowing that there were seventy-eight cents underneath your foot instead of, say, eighty-two, but the skill came in handy at times like this. When I patted my toes around in the brackish water I knew right away that my foot was pressing down on someone’s nose.
“There’s a body buried where I’m standing,” I told Chucho. I ran my big toe over its pursed lips. “And it didn’t die happy.”
“Hold still,” Chucho told me.
He dove under the water to get a closer look. He was down there forever, swimming rig
ht by my feet. He came up with three golf balls, chucked them over to the shore.
“Well?” I asked.
“Bog body,” he said. “I’ll go get Dutty.”
Dutty was the greenskeeper. He was a drunkard with a legendary mean streak, but he let us rummage around in the creeks and ponds on the municipal golf course in exchange for a cut on anything we sold. His mail-order bride had recently arrived, a Russian girl named Kika. Chucho and I figured it was partly our doing that Dutty had been able to finance such a venture. We were none too pleased.
Three days ago, instead of making us wait on the stoop when we dropped off his money, Dutty had ushered us inside.
“My trenchfooted friends,” he’d said, “I’d like you to meet the missus.”
His place smelled of grass seed and cigarette butts. There were bags of fertilizer leaning against his TV cabinet. Kika was sitting on the couch; she was smoking and watching a TV show about penguins.
“Boys, this is Kika,” Dutty said. He turned to Kika. “Kika, these are the boys.”
Kika glanced up at us for a second. She had dyed blond hair and a slightly turned-up nose. She grunted something in Russian and then returned to her TV show. She scratched her scalp and cracked her knuckles and then put her feet up on the milk crates that were doubling as a coffee table. She was sitting right there next to us, but I felt like we were staring at her in some sort of cage, waiting to see what she’d do next. She snuffed out her cigarette in an ashtray and immediately lit up another one.
Dutty extended his arm out beside Kika like he was showcasing a brand new coupe at a car show. He was beaming. I was thirteen, old enough to understand that I was expected to congratulate him.
“You’re a lucky man,” I said.
“I most certainly am,” he crowed.
As I waited in the water for Chucho to return, I watched the endangered herons peck at their nests about thirty yards off, their urgent cawing and their skinny legs impatiently tamping the earth to find solid ground.