The truck slid onto the open road, undulating like a puppy with a long tail. The cab was cold and smelled like piss. I put the heat on and it smelled like carpet. The sunrise looked like my wolf had clawed at the foot of the earth trying to escape. I don’t blame him. Even if he did find his pact, how the hell could he relate after all that? After being put on a pedestal as an art piece in New York City? Eating Cocker Spaniel pellets the whole time—how embarrassing! He was a wolf, folks. Fangs and a built-in charm. No one should treat a wolf like that; abuse is what humans are for. I went from the cover of the New York Post to the cover I’ve slept under since my ninth birthday, and I handled it fine. Nobody even came to see me in the hospital, let alone an entire pack of people with antiseptic tongues ready to lick my wounds. When my family came, they were there to see Carol. I slept on a purple plastic couch beside her beeping bed. In a turquoise hospital room by a balloon that said Hope you feel better soon. Why did I stay? The doctors had said I could go. Nurse Haircutter, at your service, dumber than a two-dollar can of pop. Morphine Carol, pooping herself, waking up into a nightmare where her leg is backwards and I’m above her holding a jar of green salve. I put salve on her squashed thigh and lifted my shirt to put salve on my heart. Boo-hoo! We were both recouping from getting crushed.
We never turned the TV off—we were afraid of being alone together in the dark.
Small-town hospitals are in-patient sparse, yet there was a 24-hour priest snoring on a grade-school chair down the hall.
In the middle of a 3:00 a.m. movie about chimpanzees, she said, “I’m ugly!”
Her saliva connecting her lips together like spider webs over a hole, “I’m butt ugly!”
Her chin a walnut, “You think I’m ugly?! Why didn’t you disagree?”
As the chimp was shrieking, about to be slaughtered—“CUT IT OFF!!! Cut this leg off! It’s staring at me!”
She smelled putrid.
She was visited by her dad Rev and her mom Trish and Trish’s husband Ricky. They all smelled like cigarettes and they all wore jeans and belts and boots. Trish brought us a paper plate of cookies that had a pubey underneath one of the cookies as a remember-me-by. I wanted to point it out to Carol but we were doing the Silent Treatment so we ate around the pubey until it was the only thing left on the plate. We couldn’t look at each other, so the pubey became something to focus on, or something to blame for our problems?, or something to fake-smile at during commercial breaks, and it was our main focus for about half the week. We shouted, “NO!” at a nurse who offered to throw the plate away. It made me feel dumb, so I blew the pubey to the floor, really pissing Carol off.
Her cross-armed declaration, “I needed spice besides just salt and pepper.”
I pissed in her bedpan any opportunity I could get to remind her of how she once loved my dick.
She became tender as a drugged sloth, “I can’t believe he put a spell on me.”
Her voice so high it went silent, “It was a mistake!”
I discovered “Fiestatas” from the cafeteria—a Mexican pizza shaped like a stop sign covered in Ranch.
“I can’t believe I hurt you,” she whispered before she fell asleep snot-clogged from crying.
Patty came in with Romances and sat by the bed while Carol read lines aloud from them.
“These people don’t know how to F,” Carol said.
And through the plots of those dramas, story streams glistened like young teachers, telling The Haircutter more about how women think. Carol noticed him halt his pencil in his spot on the plastic couch as he seemed to strain to hear her read a particular scene, teach a particular lesson.
“Dang, see Lance is bein’ too possessive, huh Patty?” Carol would say, and H.C. would grouch, “Bein’ too what?”
“Possessive,” Carol taught. “He’s treatin’ her like she ain’t her own person. Like she’s just Mrs. Lance Quest instead of a woman with a whole set of needs and feelings.”
H.C. would respond in a grunt that packed the lesson firm into his being. So Patty came in cross-eyed with happiness holding her old wedding dress, “Carol I wonder if you’d fit in this! I used to be thinner, but I was still fat according to magazine standards.”
And I snapped at her, “She can’t wear dresses anymore, Ma! Or it’ll look like she has a boner!”
From the knee to the foot, Carol’s right leg would forever be sticking upwards at an eighty-degree angle, because the boulder had landed on her thigh. When she was to sit in a wheelchair from now on, her right foot would be eye-level with her.
But the mention of marriage made us blush and hold eyes longer than we had since the accident. Cupid bullshit passed like gas through the turquoise room. So—finally, we were about to kiss. I’d forgiven her enough, or she’d manipulated me into thinking as much. Our faces were close together as I adjusted her pillow, and the moment felt right. But then a beep in the hallway started beeping and I didn’t want it to make our kiss feel dumb. So I said to myself, I’ll wait for later, and I told her, “I’m goin’ to get more food from the cafeteria.”
I picked up our tray and said, “See you in a bit, little lady.”
She said, “Get more Mountain Dew.”
I selected new foods and a few Fiestatas five floors down in the cafeteria. While Scott Harp walked the tungsten-lighted hall toward Carol’s healing room.
When I came back, I heard curious voices at Carol’s bed. I tiptoed in on my puffy white sneakers and stood on the other side of the dividing curtain.
“I can’t believe this. I’m literally in shock,” Carol said.
Scott Harp said, “I’m taking you back with me.”
Carol said, “Who says I wanna go? What happened to your heartache gettin’ out?”
Scott Harp said, “It got out, like I said, but definitely not all the way, because the minute I heard about your accident … it came back. We’re going to be together now. That’s enough now, Carol.”
H.C. silently put his tray down on a chair and got under the bedskins of the neighboring bed for the story.
Carol wept quietly.
The Haircutter’s mind’s eye saw Harp’s hairy hand stroking narrow Carol’s.
“Aw dang it, I must look like a hag,” she said.
“I love you with you hair curled and your makeup on,” he said. “You look best like that.”
“Shit! If I’d known you were coming I would’ve found a way to curl my hair and put makeup on,” she said.
“Well, you’re in the hospital,” he said. “Jesus, I wish I could bring you to a good hospital in Jersey. You could meet my parents. Come watch my dad and I play squash.”
“Don’t say squash. I think my leg’s gonna be stuck up like this forever,” she said.
“I’ll wheel you around then,” he said.
“Seriously though?” she said.
“Yes,” he had thought about it.
She heated up, “I can put a fancy shoe on it? Always have a different fancy shoe?”
“You’re so creative, Carol! I love it!” he said.
“I love art!” she said. “Will you salve my thigh?”
The Haircutter had just salved it.
“Like this?” Harp said.
“Yeah, in circles like that,” said Carol.
“Does that feel good?” Harp said.
“Yeah, you do it way better than him.”
The Haircutter burst into flames.
“It’s squishy,” Harp said.
“It’s gonna harden up,” said Carol.
“I love you so much, Co-Co,” Harp said.
“This must be a dream,” she said.
“Don’t cry. Where’s The Haircutter?” Harp said.
“He went to go get more food on his tray.”
Scott Harp snickered and Carol swatted him, “Stop!”
Then they giggled hard together like he’s fat!
“Your, uh … your vaginal area? Does everything still work?” he said.
“Hee-hee-hee,�
�� as she said it does.
“YES!” as he was relieved he could still fuck her.
“What are we doing, he’s gonna come back any second. Are you ready for this?” Carol said.
“Yes,” he was ready for it.
Carol whispered, “I love you.”
Scott said, “God, I love you.”
“Shh!” Carol said.
Then H.C. heard kissing.
“No, stop, he’s gonna come back any minute!” Carol said.
They waited. Two patient motherfuckers waiting for the fat Haircutter.
“It smells like mashed potatoes and gravy,” Scott Harp said.
“Maybe you should go wait in the hall. He’s gonna drop the food when he sees you,” was a suggestion.
Scott Harp came around the dividing curtain and saw one walrus-fat H.C. under a hhhhwhite bedskin that went up to his chin. His eyes were fixed wide at the ceiling. His instinct was to play dead.
Scott Harp said, “JEsus.”
Silence.
“Are you alright, man?”
Silence, still.
The Haircutter remained “dead.”
Scott looked back to Carol, “Uhh, Carol?”
He walked forward like an eraser deleting the divider curtain.
“AAAAAAH!!!!” she screamed.
I snapped to.
“Now what the hell’s this?” I croaked out of my throat.
“I’m going to wait outside,” said Scott as he walked away.
“Oh my GOD!!!!!!” Carol said.
She covered her mouth, “Oh my god!” she said through her fingers.
“Now see I’m gonna grunt and stand up. And I’m gonna come over to you and ask you what you expect me to say,” is what I said.
I did as intuited—I grunted as much as my body was damn well requiring, and when I went to her bedside she said, “I can’t believe you were just spyin’ on me!”
“Wake up, Carol,” I said.
She looked appalled and then started crying.
Scott Harp came back with two cups of water, whispering, “The Haircutter, I’d like to say a few things.”
And The Haircutter fast as a bat knocked the water cups flying.
“It’s John to you,” I said.
“Assault me!” Harp challenged, spreading his arms, then immediately cowering behind them.
I tried to fart but couldn’t. I walked out the door. That’s the last time I saw her.
Now here I come.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A LADY SCREAMED
Carol isn’t dead, sorry. Fuck you. There was no funeral, I’m so sorry.
I left the hospital in my fat body and didn’t call Patty for a ride home because I didn’t want her to see me cry. I started walking the highway, and after a while I came upon a cemetery. I knew what to do as soon as I saw it. I entered the gates and walked the sloping grounds until I found the most condolence-card spot—under an apple tree on a hill. I sat on the wrong side of a headstone and pretended I was sitting at Carol’s grave and they just hadn’t been over yet to etch her inscription in:
Carol Mary Mathers
1969-2001
“It was a whirlwind-type dil.”
I pretended that the boulder had fallen on her head and that she was dead. It worked. I imagined the funeral she would’ve had. I buried all of Carol’s things. Said aloud, “Oh you poor man, that’s the worst thing anyone can endure!” “Yes, a boulder fell on her head.” My family caught on and played along with my therapy. They didn’t say anything about the hour-long sessions where I punched the living room couch repeatedly. Father John said, “Just grabbin’ my glasses,” quietly when he came into the room as I was bellowing, “You do it way better than him!” and giving the couch its blows. Patty and Darron drank milk and whispered about the signs they saw in Carol’s darting eyes and whistling S’s. They pretended she was dead, solemnly dropping me off at the cemetery. Patty borrowed a book about grief for me from the library. It was the nicest thing they’ve ever done for me.
When the boulder landed on Carol’s leg, it made her calf point up in the air with her camping boot pointing at me like, “You did this!” Darron puked into the hole when he found us. Father John held the rescue ladder to the top of the car with his arm out the window as we sped to the hospital that we were all born in. I put pressure on Carol’s squashed thigh. She screamed like someone burning in hell, her boot ripping up the fabric roof, her fingernails tearing bloody rivulets into her face until she blacked out.
After a week in the sunny turquoise hospital room The Haircutter was ready to kiss, but there was a pussy ass beep in the hall that made him go get more food …
I was slicing down the road toward Carol Mary Harp. To show her where that rock should’ve landed and to get a million dollars for the statement. The route was familiar now. I remembered almost everything on the road. (“Oh, there’s that sex bookstore Kitty Poos-Poos.” “Oh weird, I remember that tree.”) But I didn’t stop at that rest stop with the bronze eagle, I didn’t stop to buy cherries from Genderless-stuck-in-its-chair, I didn’t stop at the gas station where the attendant stole my per diem when a thousand dollars was a fortune to me. My adrenaline was pumped to the maximum and I drove twenty hours straight. I didn’t even listen to the radio. I only stopped for gas and snacks, but I don’t remember eating the snacks at all. The edges of my vision were black with late-night landscape and regret. I don’t need a girlfriend! I don’t even know you!, I’d said. I cared less and less about having Carol see me show up with The Headstone (I actually didn’t care at all) and more and more about Anna-Patrick. Anna-Patrick! I should’ve been riding my flatbed like a lardy little boy riding a tortoise on the best day of his childhood, but all I could think of was tall Anna-Patrick squatting over a dick that looked like a witch’s finger. She was all alone. She wanted connection with people. Like haircutting. They entered the room inflated and left deflated like a stupid balloon. A fever throbbed in my heart, eradicating the beat. Playing it like my head landed on a bongo drum for a while during a seizure on my way to the floor: Aaaa-na Pat-rick, Anna-Patrickkkk, ANNNNNNa-patriiiick, Anna-Patrick …
I finally said, “Sleep!” and it woke me up and I saw a sign for a truck stop. I pulled in and parked like dying after slipping on a banana peel but before hitting the ground. There were a few other trucks around, and some booze bottles tumbling through oil puddles like stepping on a banana peel but not slipping because you’re a cool alcoholic.
I started getting my sleeping stuff gathered to take to the hole and I felt sad about “Scram! I don’t need a girlfriend!”
“Ah, fuck,” I said. “All I care about is Anna-Patrick now,” I said, and started to cry.
And just then, a hooker walked by.
She was short and old with short maroon hair.
“Hey!” I said.
She heard me through the truck windows and squinted until she found me.
“Hi!” she smiled, and came around to the passenger’s door.
I unlocked it and she got right in, hoisting herself up by the truck step and landing on the seat like a trick.
“How are you?” she said.
She looked around fifty.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I got a hole in back and I want you to go down into it with me, and then leave when I’m ready to go to sleep,” I said.
“Okay, and where are we going to do this?” she said.
“In the hole,” I said.
“Where though? We’re not doing anything here,” she said.
“We gotta climb back there.”
She craned back to look at my box.
“It’s an art project,” I said.
“What’s an art project?” she said, snarling.
“The whole thing is. It’s a sinkhole in a coffin,” I said.
“You have a coffin in there?” she said.
“No the box is the coffin. That’s why it’
s mahogany. There’s a life-sized sinkhole inside. What happened to your ear?” I said.
The prostitute had a ripped earring hole, so her earlobe was split like tiny vagina flaps as her cutesy advertisement.
“My daughter hugged me and my earring got caught in her jacket zipper. How does a person get a sinkhole inside a box and what the hell does a person use a sinkhole for?”
“I filled it with dirt and scooped a hole out. It has my ex-girlfriend in the bottom, but her head is smashed by a boulder, that’s why it’s called The Headstone. NO—not smashed. Ah fuck, never mind,” I said. “You know what? Never mind.”
“I’m leaving,” she said.
“She’s just a mannequin!” I said. “Quit askin’ me about art! I’ll get in my sleeping bag and you can sit on the ladder rungs. I just wanna ask you questions.”
“I’m not getting in your fuckin’ box,” she said.
“I know it!” I said. “Dang, Woman! I just wanted to ask you questions in privacy with a flashlight.”
She said, “Why can’t you ask them in here? I don’t see anyone else sitting in this truck.”
“MAYBE I HAVE INTIMACY ISSUES! YOU’VE GOT THE MOON ALL BRIGHT! BOTTLES ROLLIN’ ON THE FUCKIN’ GROUND!”
I took out a toothpick, irritated by the loud man in the truck until I realized he was me.
She put a hand on his thigh.
I said, “Don’t touch my thigh! Is that normal?”
I started to cry again.
“I have exhaustion,” I said. “I’ve been driving for twenty hours straight and I don’t remember it. I could be dead on the side of the road right now for all I know. I just wanna sit here and ask you questions about what it’s like being a prostitute so I can understand my girlfriend.”
“You’re falling asleep,” she said, and opened her door to get out.
“Don’t leave. I’ll pay you two hundred dollars,” I said. “If I fall asleep I’ll pay you fifty dollars for every hour I was asleep.”
“A hundred,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” she said and took off her shoes and put her legs up on the bench. She opened her pocketbook and got out a cigarette. I saw she had a nice gold tooth when she sucked in the cig smoke with that teeth-baring inhale people do like a leaf blower has quickly passed over their face. I thought really hard about something to ask about Anna-Patrick having sex, but kept forgetting what I was asking it for. I slapped myself.
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