by Mark Richard
In Powell’s coat pocket was the empty nine-shot pistol, Bill Doodlum’s personal choice, the one Louise Doodlum had called Powell to come over and fetch from her, she said, come fetch what she had put Bill Doodlum out of his less-than-one-half-lunged misery with, her calling when Powell and Lisa Lee were sitting around their trailer-home kitchen table cutting out commas, colons, and question marks for Lisa Lee’s grammar class. I did it like he said, careful not to bounce the bullets off the oxygen tank so to blow up hurting anybody, Louise said to Powell, as with a top and bottom hand movement he slipped the pistol away from how she still held it when they arrived, slipping it away as gently as he would have a mitten from a sleeping child’s curving hand.
Upstairs, Powell pushed open Bill’s bedroom door. Bill was listing to his left off a cloud of pillows, his left arm and hand a little over the sideboard edge of the bed, as if he had awoken with a sudden thought and was reaching for his slippers on the floor. His pale blue pajama top was to Powell a reckless spread of red punctuation, mostly periods and an exclamation. In the gunsmoke smell of after-violence, Powell sensed a building modulation in the room counted off by the clicking bedside clock and the steady hiss of oxygen. At first calming, its sudden familiarity to Powell as sounding like something about to explode urged him back downstairs.
In the kitchen, Louise and Lisa Lee held each other like wrestlers in a headlock, the thick-wristed arms run up under each other’s same-waved hair and down over the same muscle-wound shoulders, faces in necks talking and fronts not touching. Powell sat at the telephone table in the den watching the two women in the slice of kitchen light, they having already gotten out on the counter the tough steel four-legged five-gallon coffee-maker indefinitely now plugged in for days. Powell pulled the telephone into his lap, thinking who to call, still studying the two women in the wrestlers’ embrace in the kitchen light. These two women, each in their time the closest thing to best-looking the county had, Bill had said, they both with the up-jutting bows of sharp, swelled breasts and the high rounded sterns exactly built like the workboats in the Bay needed nearby for local waters, boats that bore the names of the captain’s wives, even out there a Lisa Lee and a Miss Louise from a former husband and a forties flame, the form inspirational and practical, the wide wrists and sturdy legs to keep paint on the houses, to shore up the barns, to wrestle machines that turn the soil and cut the hay, machines that broke down always when the men were gone to sea, the same time as everything else, gone when babies were born, houses burned, cars collided with Doodlum children beneath and at the wheels, the highway patrol saying, What do you expect from children left to run wild with the daddies sending sometimes money from Taiwan or Tel Aviv or a telegram dictated in drunken, divided words, saying, STRAIGHTEN UP BACK HOME, YOU, these daddies, these husbands bringing gifts back ten years too late to matter, these women cheated by half-life marriages to half-married men, strangers always coming home, drinking, restless to return to sea, to some little empty bleak strange strip of desert sand in the ice at the bottom of the world, while these women shouldered it all, the everything else, all on those thick-muscled shoulders and sturdy legs Powell admired from the telephone table in the den, Powell holding the telephone in one hand and the pistol in the other, still wondering who to call.
Doc Mackenzie said he had Perry Como on the TV, the Christmas special, was it an emergency? Powell said no, it didn’t seem to be an emergency, but there seemed to be some circumstances. Doc Mackenzie asked would these circumstances bring Bill Doodlum back to life? and Powell said no, these were more like family circumstances, and Doc Mackenzie said oh, all right, he would pack his bag next commercial break.
Doc was a sideways Doodlum like Powell, that is, marrying high into the family but on somebody’s secondhand time around. For Doc, it was a Hudgins Doodlum off a golf pro in Richmond at the country club where he used to play, Mary Beth Hudgins Doodlum Walker Mackenzie now. Doc had done the Doodlums a favor because, like bouncing genes in the Doodlum clan there were women like Lisa Lee’s own sister, Claudia, who had certain notions, especially after spending some time up North like Mary Beth and Claudia both had, and if Doc had not stepped in when he did to marry Mary Beth, she said she would have gone ahead with her plans to turn her corner of Doodlum County, inherited as potato fields, into a high-walled playground for her Richmond friends to come and sit in the sun naked, playing cards, but Doc gathered up what he called her loose ends, so that mostly what she did now was paint, on pieces of weathered potato-shed siding, picture after picture of seagulls circling Wolftrap Lighthouse, the same pictures in every Doodlum home, piles of which show up unsold year after year at the Fourth of July bazaar, Doc not getting much credit for his stepping in although the county did need a doctor, taking even one from Richmond, Richmond not being all that far away, but to people used to distant ports and postmarks, Richmond could as well have been Rangoon and just as foreign too.
Doc said, standing beside Bill Doodlum’s bed, that he was surprised Bill did it not having finished the paperback thriller on the nearby table with a bookmark in a place about halfway through, and Powell said that was part of the circumstances he wanted to talk about, that Miss Louise had … but Doc cut him off sharply and said, Son, do I look that ignorant to you? Doc said, I can count eight or nine holes here, any one could have been the only one Bill needed. When I say what I say about him doing it, in my mind and in what I write down he did do it, whether this suffering man pulled the trigger or not. Then, sounding like his raised voice would waken Bill, he said to Powell, Son, this is a suicide under what you yourself said were family circumstances. You didn’t call the sheriff, you called me. What does that tell you to yourself?
Powell looked down at the pistol he was still holding.
Doc sat down hard on the bed, shifting Bill almost over the edge before Doc pushed him back onto the pillows. Bill did this, said Doc. Call Claudia so she can get a head start home and then call the sheriff. I’ll go down and see to Miss Louise. Leaving the room, Doc pulled the bookmark from the pages of the bedside paperback thriller, losing Bill Doodlum’s place in it forever.
Powell called Claudia, already overdue down from art college for the holidays. Powell called the number three times to make sure it was the right one, and each time before the leave-a-message tone he heard over and over only the trumpeting call of elephants. The Mary Beth Hudgins Doodlum Walker Mackenzie now bouncing gene of notions had struck Claudia Doodlum too, her notions carrying her through a room of men in a way that made them shift with their shirt collars suddenly too tight and an itch to flare nostrils in a scent of some sort, irritating a nervous urge to either murder or make love, and in Claudia’s case maybe both. When Powell first met her at a roadside bar, in his That Man days, he looked from Claudia to Lisa Lee back to Claudia again, instantly thinking, Jesus God, I got the wrong one, until he began to see how her clothes barely contained her, like her lips could barely contain her rippling tongue as she talked in lower and lower growls about anything slick, fast, or hard, Powell recognizing the exciting little lethal dangers in Lisa Lee he loved fullblown and free of rein in Claudia, out of control, Claudia, in Powell’s That Man days, barging in on him and Lisa Lee on the couch into it as far as shirtless, Claudia begging wildly, Strip me naked and tie me up, strip me naked and tie me up and make me watch something horrible! and Powell and Lisa Lee, complying, strapping her into a kitchen chair, sitting her in front of the television, switching it to “History of the Harmonica Part 4 of 6” on Public Broadcast. Even then Claudia moaned and struggled with her bonds, complaining when they would come loose. Powell left a message to come home after the final elephant blast, hanging up, remembering suddenly an old hurt in Lisa Lee’s voice saying one time Claudia had always been Bill Doodlum’s favorite.
In the den, Doc had Louise Doodlum in a headlock on the couch and Lisa Lee was turning his bag out on its side, digging under Doc’s directions. Louise had suddenly begun to pull everything out of the den closet and was
flinging it across the room, some of Bill’s books, a Panama have a box of family photographs. Louise took down a balsa-wood clipper model Bill had started and never finished and hammered her heel through it until the hull was flattened, crying, Lisa Lee letting her until Doc said, Enough is enough, Louise, and opened his bag for a shot. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind but it will do, Doc said, slipping the needle into Louise Doodlum’s arm that began to relax and turn fleshy again. This will make you tell us all your secrets, Doc said, noticing his watch and making a motion for Lisa Lee to turn on the color television in the corner. Yes, Louise, said Doc, straightening her legs on the sofa, you’ll be telling us everything you know, every little Doodlum-hearted secret. A green and red smear in the middle of the television screen opened like a flower into a Christmas show winding up in song. Powell and Lisa Lee gathered up the closet-thrown things and settled Louise Doodlum in on the sofa with blankets and a pillow. I’m floating in the clouds, she informed them all.
What I want to know, said Doc, settling himself into Bill Doodlum’s La-Z-Boy recliner and coaxing out the television remote from a stack of Reader’s Digests, is why you, Louise, gave our Sweet William the whole load of the pistol. Christ, Louise, he said, any one would have done it.
Louise seemed to push and roll beneath the blankets as if she felt she was some heavy object floating slightly submerged in a just-disturbed tub of water. Well, she said faintly, the first one was for love. Then, as if she was reciting the first ingredient in a recipe for something sweet to eat, she said again, The first one was for love, and the other eight were for something Bill said to me over dinner in front of company in nineteen sixty-six. Louise Doodlum’s laugh was a slowly pumping hiss of air, finally inaudible beneath the blanket she pulled over her head.
Good night, Louise, said Doc, turning up the volume on the television with the remote.
Merry Christmas to you all, said Perry Como.
I feel so wonderfully wicked, said the blanket on the couch, its form gently heaving.
What Powell would stand wanting with Lisa Lee later at the left-open broken place for the laying in of Bill Doodlum, was for her to slip the pistol beneath the starched, cedar-smelling folds of clothes in her chest of hopes, but Lisa Lee held her fingers to his lips for a silence, as if waiting for some sonic explosion of something that had just passed without sound overhead, Lisa Lee seeming to know that words are just sounds and that the sounds of love always follow where love has been.
GENIUS
GENIUS THINKS HIS BIG BELLY fits Carol’s lumbar the way the Gulf Stream runs hot and close up the back spinal curve of the Carolina coast. Genius thinks Carol is the hot semitropics and he is the jislike filament of sun-broiled current running snug inshore. Genius pretends the air in his lungs is the southeast trades that blow the Gulf Stream in to the beach, turning water toeclear neck-deep. Genius likes to dog-paddle past the clear-breaking waves to where the bottlenose dolphins play. Fish-drunk and curious, the dolphins slap happy against Genius’ big belly before arcing out to sea in the Stream.
Genius is waking fat and happy until he kicks off the top sheet and sees it’s not Carol the semitropics. Instead of Carol the semitropics he has Barbara the frontdesk clerk. Genius can’t think beyond mud flats at low tide when he looks at Barbara from the front desk. Genius goes out on the balcony of his room in the motel where Barbara works and hands his big belly up on the balcony railing. The real Gulf Stream looks like cut gray ribbon out past the breakers and Genius is downspirited. I have deceived myself again in my sleep, says Genius to himself. It downspirits me to think I am not the Gulf Stream. Genius holds his big belly in both hands and squeezes it like he wants to shoot something out of his belly button. A big belly takes energy away from even being flotsam today, he thinks. Genius goes back into his motel room to consider mud flats at low tide.
The last time Genius saw any part of Carol was when her fist came rushing up to his right eye and didn’t stop and came right on coming. Genius saw part of her pretty pastel Easter skirt as he flipped over the railing on his way to the sidewalk, but Genius doesn’t think that counts. It was Easter and they had been to the Easter parade. Carol had on her new pretty pastel skirt and the round straw Easter bonnet Genius had driven all the way to Williamsburg to get. The round straw Easter hat had a blue silk sash that matched Carol’s eyes. After Carol had punched Genius out and he sat leaning against the gutter curb feeling skin puff out from his cheek, Genius saw the round straw Easter hat with the sash that matched Carol’s eyes sail over his head like a Frisbee. It sailed over his head and out into the street where it got run over flat by a car full of people who had come to see the Easter parade and were now going home.
The lifeguard on the beach is waving a red flag that matches his red lifeguard swim trunks. He is waving the flag and blowing a whistle for Genius to come in from so far out. Genius is floating on his back out past the breakers, out even farther than the good swimmers go. Genius floats and watches the lifeguard wave the red flag from his lifeguard stand. Sometimes Genius has to wait until the gentle swells turn him just right so he can see the lifeguard because sometimes Genius’ big belly gets in the way. If Genius works his hands like flippers back and forth it looks like the lifeguard is moving back and forth behind a big hairy hill. If Genius relaxes his head deeper into the water the sun blinds his eyes and the water fills his ears so he can’t see the lifeguard waving the red flag that matches his trunks or hear the whistle the lifeguard is blowing. He won’t come out after me, thinks Genius. I have lived on the beach a very long time.
Here is a list of things Carol has thrown at Genius: a sneaker with a toe full of sand in it, a coffee cup with a crescent of coffee in it, a raisin box with a half a box of raisins in it, and a picture of Genius holding a young girl under red and green plastic lanterns strung beside a pool. All of the things Carol has thrown at Genius have hit him in the face. The picture of Genius holding the young girl beside the pool Carol had to throw at Genius’ face over and over because Genius was asleep. While Genius was asleep was always when Carol looked through his stuff and read his mail. When she found the picture of Genius holding the young girl she had to throw it as hard as she could on Genius’ face over and over again until Genius finally woke up.
The southeast trades are blowing the Gulf Stream in and Genius has a bat kite hung up in the high-voltage wires by the motel. Genius is jerking on the bat kite string walking up close then backing back away. Barbara from the front desk has said to let her buy him a drink and forget the kite. Some surf nazis have skateboarded up and are making loud zap and sizzle sounds with their teeth and tongues. A police cruiser slows by, sees it’s just Genius, and then speeds up to run over a cat. Genius pulls on the string to the bat kite hung up in the high-voltage wires until the string breaks and white-ribbons itself over a row of tourist cars parked in the motel parking lot. Genius winds in the string over the cars that the surf nazis check for dashboard change. From the bar in the motel Genius drinks a drink and watches the Gulf Stream blow in on the southeast trades.
Carol has said over the telephone there is no chance. Carol has said over the motel telephone there is no chance so much that the motel telephone bill is more than the motel room bill. Barbara at the front desk reads tourist people’s postcards that tourist people send and listens in to Carol saying there is no chance to Genius over and over again. Once when she was listening in she heard Genius say he was going to shoot himself, and then there was a loud bang just as some surf nazis came into the lobby to steal matches and put boogers in the breath mint plate. Barbara from the front desk took out the master key and flung open the door to Genius’ motel room. Genius was standing big-bellied naked by the telephone table, studying the heel of a shoe he was holding. The way he stood by the coiled-up cord, studying the heel, made Barbara from the front desk think at first the coiled cord was a snake Genius had just hammered with the shoe in the head and that maybe Genius was studying where he had gotten some snake head o
n the heel. When Barbara went back down to the front desk to listen in, Carol had already hung up and the surf nazis had cleaned out the petty cash drawer and were gone and so was her purse. When the switchboard rang it was Genius who asked her to go to Ocean Eddie’s seafood buffet and she went.
The girl Genius held under the green and red plastic lanterns is coming down to the beach. She says she has made the national swimming finals and she is coming down to practice and to see Genius. Genius thinks he is too fat for her now. His belly has swollen out drinking beer at the motel bar watching the Gulf Stream blow in and out on the southeast trades. Genius thinks when she sees him she will be disappointed. Genius thinks the lifeguard will get her if he is not careful. Genius is mad that she is coming down because she is too pretty for him and he is certain the lifeguard will get her. I’m coming down to the beach to practice and to see you because I like you says the girl Genius held under the green and red plastic lanterns. Genius is mad hanging up the telephone and Barbara the front desk clerk is unplugging her headset from listening in and she is mad too.
Carol and the reason there is no chance come down to the beach. The reason there is no chance drives a heavy-duty pickup truck with extra suspension. The doors on the heavy-duty pickup say Mr. Tire. In the back of the truck are brand new tires and retreads chained around canisters of compressed air. Carol and this reason there is no chance go out to Jungle Acres Putt-Putt and Genius hides behind the black plaster gorilla near the twelfth hole. Genius wants to page Mr. Tire over the intercom that is playing rock and roll. He wants to page Mr. Tire away from where Carol is bent over a short adult putter. If he can get Mr. Tire paged away he wants to break through the transplanted tropical reeds dying in the semitropics at Jungle Acres and say Mrs. Tire, I presume. Then Genius will fend off Mr. Tire with the short adult Jungle Acres putter. But Mr. Tire putts holes-in-one on the front nine and birdies the tenth so Genius gender checks the black plaster gorilla he’s hunkered by and decides to go home.