The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac

by Sharma Shields

  Marion’s too old for school but too young to work, he says. He looks like he could be seventeen or thirty. His dad gives him whatever money he wants so he’ll stay out of trouble. Before me, he didn’t have any friends in Lilac City, so he used to go on these long drives in the crappy car his dad bought for him, going nowhere, just driving around the South Hill, where his dad rents an apartment, bored to near insanity, bored to the point, he once told me, that he wanted to kill someone. Instead, he just drove, usually down Regal Street to the Palouse Highway, cruising a bit in the rolling green farmlands before turning around and driving back. Once he made it all the way to Pullman. He said those drives were cleansing, but they didn’t stop the killing feeling. Then on a whim one day he turned down 37th Avenue and looked to the right and saw me standing there, smoking with my friends, and he stopped the car. He bummed a cigarette and we talked. He told me he planned to shoot Nixon in his fat guts when he came to speak in Lilac City in June.

  All presidents are liars, he said. All presidents are dicks. They all need to be shot in the leg, at the very least, but Nixon needs to be shot in the balls.

  I laughed. My girlfriends stamped their feet, nervous like big-faced horses, but I wasn’t nervous at all. He wasn’t like the ugly goons we hung around.

  Marion knows stuff. He’s interesting, has opinions. He’s good-looking, too, skinny but tough, with searing black eyes and plush, girlish lips. His mother is South American, he says, or maybe Portuguese, but he has no idea where she is now. His dad is just a gringo.

  The way he approached me was half crazy, his gaze locked onto me like I was something to be conquered and vanquished. I liked that look. No one ever looked at me directly. Not Gladys. Not Eli. Definitely not Vanessa. Not my teachers or my friends. No one. After that day, he returned every afternoon to meet me on lunch break and smoke with me and eat half of my banana-and-honey sandwich and bitch about the world. It was the best part of my day.

  After school we would drive to the Palouse. Once he kept me out all night and made me lie down with him in a dirt field. He kissed my bare stomach beneath the flickering starlight. I had never seen the stars so bright, like they had fallen out of a crate and spilled across the sky. I returned home in the morning expecting police cars, expecting an angry speech at the very least, but Eli hadn’t even noticed I was gone. He was sitting on the couch with his new wife, Vanessa, and their baby girl, Ginger, and they were all blissed out on one another, and all he said was, Hi, there, Amelia. Not How was your night? Not Where the fuck have you been? Just, Hi there. I wanted to tell him that I’d almost lost my cherry to an older boy, but he wouldn’t have cared, anyway. He’d already turned away to change Ginger’s diaper.

  And then I wished very seriously that I had given in and let Marion do me, and so the next night I begged him for it, even if it wasn’t as magical as that starry field. We were in the back of his car, and a pop bottle was pressing against my back, and I could hear his knees crushing a bag of chips, and the car smelled like cat piss, and when it was over I just felt glad that it was over. It wasn’t mystical or earth-moving. I hadn’t crossed over into some glorious new womanhood. I was just me, only pawed and tired and disappointed.

  Marion sat up and saw me frowning at him and said, What?

  It was no good, I told him. It didn’t feel good and it sucked.

  I opened the car door to let in the fresh air. I breathed it in and felt better.

  It’s the first time, honey. It’s always bad the first time.

  I like it more when we kiss.

  There are other places to kiss, he said.

  Not right now. I pulled on my underwear and pants and lowered my shirt.

  Okay. Marion sat back against the seat.

  We sat there for several minutes, silently. Marion put a warm palm on my thigh. His knees began to jump. I could have just stayed there, doing nothing but watching the valley, the peaceful twinkling house lamps of Lilac City, but Marion was always restless. It was his restlessness that had found this quiet place, the top of a hill called Tower Mountain. It was called that, stupidly enough, because it was covered with electrical towers, high steel structures tipped with ugly flashing red lights. There was nothing else on the mountain but forest. The view was copacetic. It was illegal to be here but no one cared, not really. No one was there to notice.

  Let’s do something crazy, he said.

  I shrugged. Sure.

  Get out of the car, he ordered.

  I got out.

  Leave the doors open, he told me.

  I left the doors open.

  Push, he told me.

  I clutched the open driver’s side door and pushed. He pushed from the passenger side. His shitty little car glided easily enough over the grass, toward the boulders and the darkness below the cliff face.

  The world opened up before us like a cruel black mouth.

  I asked, my breath labored, Marion?

  He grunted. Keep pushing. Faster.

  And then the car was really moving. I started to panic.

  Dive! Out of the way! Dive! He was yelling and laughing, and then I saw him fling himself away and I screamed in terror and did the same.

  Some part of the car or some sharp stone slapped my ankle, but I barely felt it or cared, and I watched in absolute breathless glee as the car careened over the cliff and into the darkness, and then the forest below received it with a shuddering crash that seemed like it would never cease, but then suddenly it did, swallowed up by the trees.

  You’re fucking crazy, I shouted at Marion. I was happier than I had ever felt.

  A sacrifice for you, he said. He ran to me and wrapped me up in his arms, and I smelled the sweating musky smoke of him. Despite his affection, he sounded furious.

  Listen, he said. My car for your love. For your love always. Now you’ll never leave me. You and me are always.

  You’re fucking crazy, I repeated, and I kissed his mouth just to shut him up, but there was some weird shift in me, a lightness blooming like wings. If I’d taken a running leap off the cliff, I’m sure I would have flown.

  Instead, though, we walked. My ankle swelled. I wrapped my arm around Marion’s neck, and he guided me steadily onto the forestry road and down the hill. It took us nearly three hours to walk all the way to my house.

  I asked Marion what he was going to do for a car now.

  He said, You’ll get me one, honey.

  Then we hatched the plan to borrow Eli’s car and to leave Lilac City for good.

  When I finally limped into the house, it was morning. Vanessa was cooking breakfast and Eli was knotting his bow tie.

  Eli saw me and said angrily, What the hell is happening here?

  Finally he was pissed, like a normal dad.

  Nothing, I said. I’m dating this guy and we’re together. That’s what the hell.

  You’re ruining your life, he said. Your life was like this—and he splayed his hands wide—but now it’s turning into this—and he narrowed his hands into a little funnel. Why are you doing this?

  It’s just a phase, I said. My bored teenage-angst phase.

  You have to find what you love and apply yourself to it, he said. That boy does not count. Are you trying to hurt me? Is that what you’re trying to do? Because it’s not working. You’re only hurting yourself.

  Vanessa stood in the corner, poking at the stove, pretending to cook an omelet. I could see the leer in her brow, even if her face was blank. She was so fucking smug. I mean, what a bitch. She didn’t even leave the room.

  This is a private conversation, I said to Eli. I crossed my arms and glared at Vanessa.

  Goddamn it, Amelia, he said. This is her house as much as it is yours. Even more so, in fact. She’s the mom here. You’re going to have to get used to it. However much it bothers you.

  I should shoot you both in the balls, I said. I heard Vanessa drop her spatula, but I wouldn’t look at her now. I wasn’t even angry, just embarrassed. I didn’t want to be screaming and
crying like a baby, but there I was, my hands crimped into little fists.

  Both of you! I screamed. Shot to hell!

  I hurtled past him for the stairs. He called after me—ever so calm, ever so repetitive, my father—that if I wanted to squander my life, so be it; it didn’t hurt him any. I stayed in my room all that day, sleeping on and off and crying on and off. Sometimes while I was crying, I would hear Ginger crying, and I thought it was funny that we were just a couple of babies living under the same roof. I refused to come down for dinner, which was the worst time of day in our household, when Vanessa would drink too much wine and blab in this weird flighty way, radiating this plastic happiness that made me want to barf, and Eli would ignore her behavior and pretend everything was hunky-dory, and Ginger would watch me from her high chair and grin, and I would accidentally smile back at her and then hate myself for it.

  When Ginger cries, it’s not long before Vanessa is there, cooing to her, changing her diaper or readying a bottle, telling her it will all be okay.

  She’ll be a much better mom to Ginger than Gladys is to me, but that’s not saying much, really.

  Finally, the house went still. The baby was down for the night. Eli and Vanessa’s bed creaked and then settled. I heard a rap on my window. I was already pulling on my jeans, planning a late-night fridge raid, having eaten nothing all day, and I went to the window and opened it and there was Marion. He’d pulled a ladder over from behind the garage and had climbed up to my window. It was cheesy, but I sort of swooned. I removed the screen so he could climb through, and we embraced and kissed and rolled around together on my bed.

  We should leave tonight, he murmured into my hair. I think we should get married.

  What are you talking about?

  I’ve made sacrifices for you, he said. I destroyed my car for you, honey. What have you done for me?

  I rolled my eyes. I gave you my virginity, I said sarcastically. I gave you my innocence. My wonderful squeaky-clean innocence. That’s what I sacrificed.

  We both knew I didn’t think of it this way, that what I really thought was that the whole virgin/non-virgin thing was a bunch of ridiculous hooey. So Marion laughed.

  What I want, he said, is your life.

  I don’t know what you mean.

  We’ll take your dad’s car. The fancy one. We’ll take it and we’ll drive to Seattle. And when we get there, we’ll get married.

  I laughed, loudly. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

  I’ll buy a ring, he said, grabbing my hand and kissing it. We’ll have dozens of little babies.

  And what will we feed them? I asked. Dirt?

  I’m serious, Amelia!

  You’re a serious spaz.

  He threw my hand down.

  Ow, I protested, even though it didn’t hurt.

  You’re always telling me I’m crazy, insane, stupid. He rolled off the edge of the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor. I’m sick of it, Amelia. I’m the only serious person in your life. Don’t you see that? Why can’t you take me seriously?

  I shushed him, worried he would wake Eli.

  I’m sorry, I told him. You’re right. I’m the stupid insane idiot. Not you.

  He rolled up on one knee and wrapped his hands together. Marry me, honey, you tall goddess of a girl. Marry me. Please.

  Well, I said. Are you serious?

  I smiled a little, amused. Mrs. Marion Grimes. I liked the sound of it, even. It was funny. I would be the only married girl among my friends. They would think it was super weird. I would move away from Eli and Vanessa and Gladys and go somewhere with Marion. To Seattle. To the West Side.

  Okay, I said, I’ll do it.

  Marion grinned and slapped his thighs.

  But you have to get a job, I warned him. I want to be a fat rich wife who doesn’t work.

  You could never be fat, Marion said adoringly.

  He didn’t know, like all the kids at school knew, that I had been fat for years, until I sprouted suddenly and the fat stretched away into nothingness. I loved that he didn’t know this about me. Although I didn’t want to be tall, either. Vanessa was tall. And now people thought she was my mom, as though two tall women must be related.

  You could never be fat, he repeated, not if you ate Twinkies and drank Cokes all day. You are my beautiful tall goddess. You’ll always be just her.

  Marion had traveled the world, had seen all sorts of women. He’d been on nude beaches in Spain and Italy and Thailand. And he thought I was the most beautiful girl ever in the history of everything.

  There were worse husbands to have than that.

  But you can’t marry me to get back at your dad or anything shitty like that, he said. You have to marry me because you love me. Unconditionally.

  Unconditionally? As in, you mean, shampoo only?

  He punched himself in the leg and looked like he might cry. Stop fucking joking. This is not a joke. Tell me you love me. Mean it.

  I felt sorry for him. I was such a mean girl, I knew. It wasn’t fair that he was so nice and so stuck with me.

  Fine, I told him. Okay. I love you. Happy? I fucking love you. Unconditionally. More than the stars. More than the moon. More than my beautiful sweet self. More than anything on this whole stinking planet.

  The smile that broke open his face was a bright and beautiful thing, and I thought how easy it was to say something and make it true, no matter what you really thought deep down.

  Come on, he said, pointing out the window to the star-swept sky. Let’s do some shit. Some dynamite shit.

  And we snuck downstairs to make sandwiches. We shook my dad’s keys out of his wallet. We stole all the dough out of it and out of Vanessa’s purse. We backed my dad’s Jaguar out of the garage, out of the driveway, into the street. We put it in gear and shot out of that shitty town like it had been set on fire by a thousand atomic rockets. I was ready for us to drive all night, but Marion stopped at a motor lodge just past Airway Heights. He wanted to be naked with me, he said, one more night before our nuptials. And I was in such a glad mood I didn’t fight him on it even slightly. The woman at the front desk looked at us nervously when we gave her cash for the room. She asked if we were minors. Marion showed her his ID with a proud grin.

  This is my little sis, he said to the woman, shucking his thumb at me. We’re going to Alaska to see our dad.

  I liked this story. Alaska sounded like a great place to live. I felt a strange longing to have an older brother, a doting Alaskan father. We could go fishing, maybe. Bear hunting. What a better life that would be.

  I asked Marion if I could see his ID. The woman had laughed at his picture, called it goofy. He shook his head.

  No way, he said. You’ll make too much fun of me.

  We took our backpacks to the room, and I let Marion touch me all over and have sex on me. I didn’t fake anything or moan or do any of that crap. It felt less uncomfortable than the last time but not at all amazing. Not like things I’d read or heard rumors about. I smiled and patted his head when he finished, as though to tell him good job, and he went right to sleep. He always said he was really skilled at sex, but he wasn’t. Or maybe it was me. Or maybe he was lying when he said he’d done it lots.

  Just like we all lie to seem better, cooler, tougher.

  I like it when people lie. I like how vulnerable it makes them.

  I stayed awake for a few hours. I ate a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and watched TV with the sound dial turned completely off. Eventually, I slept. When we awoke, it was near ten and already hot in our room. The TV was still on. A sudden terror rose in my throat. Eli would know his car was missing. Vanessa would notice her empty purse. The police could be after us already.

  We have to go, Marion. Now. Get up.

  He moaned. He grabbed at me and tried to pull me down.

  We’re fugitives, he said. That makes me horny.

  Too bad. I’m leaving. You can come with me or not.

  He stumbled out of bed, grinning. He
had a boner that stuck straight out. I tried not to laugh at it, but I did.

  You think it’s funny, huh? Funny? And he poked it into my thigh as a joke and I screamed in mock disgust, which was really real disgust. We grappled with each other, and I enjoyed being kissed. And then there was no choice but to let him fool around with me again.

  Finally, we made it out to the car. We were already sweating. The heat made us groggy. And then the air conditioner spat out more hot air at us, stinking and raw like onion breath, but it was sort of funny that my dad’s fancy car had this bogus side, just like everything else in life. We were laughing at it by the time we pulled into a diner for breakfast and coffees. After coffee, our grogginess receded and we felt like we could drive all the way into the guts of the sun. Not that we needed to: it straddled our car with its big hot legs, dripping onto us.

  Marion drove us the first hour or so but then said he was bored. He pulled over in Davenport and told me, Your turn.

  I don’t have a license, I told him, and he said he didn’t much care if I didn’t.

  So I took over. It was thrilling to feel the wheel against my palms, to press the ball of my bare foot hard on the accelerator. I turned up the radio and crooned along to a song I didn’t know, making up the words. Marion complained about the heat, but when I glanced at him, still singing, I saw that he was smiling.

  My silly honey, he said, putting his long skinny fingers in my hair. He leaned over and kissed my cheek before releasing me. My silly gorgeous honey girl.

  This, I thought. This is what it’s like to be loved.

  * * *

  I WANT TO park on the boat ramp, I say.

  The boat ramp is a lovely gravel road sloping into the lake. It would look wonderful underneath the car.

  We can’t, Marion says. It’s for people with boats.

  I don’t care. I’m parking here. What are these assholes going to do?

  Arrest us, he says. Check my ID and call me a kidnapper.

  But I ignore him and park on the boat ramp anyway. Not enough to block it, but just enough so that I can get out of the car and see what my first parking job looks like.