by J. R. Helton
“Hello. . . . Martin’s not here right now, so please leave a message . . .”
I waited for the beep. “Betty Sue. . . . Betty Sue? It’s me, Jake. Are you asleep? I’m sorry, this is important. Hello? Betty—”
She picked up. “Yes, Jake.”
“Hey. Were you asleep?”
“No, I just got into bed,” she said calmly.
“I’m sorry but, uh . . . hey, do you know how I could maybe reach Susan down in San Miguel, down in Mexico?”
“No I don’t.”
“See, it’s just . . . something’s come up, and I really need to get ahold of her.”
“No, I don’t think she can be reached down there.”
“Don’t you have Tina’s number? I mean, she lives in a house and everything, right?”
“Yes, she lives in a house, but she doesn’t have a phone. There’s only one phone nearby, and it’s a pay phone.”
“Betty Sue, it’s really important that I get ahold of Susan.”
“Why don’t you write her a letter?”
“No, you don’t understand. I need to get ahold of her right now. This instant. It’s very important.”
“Is there something wrong?”
I started to speak, and my voice broke. I stopped, took a deep breath. “I’m not sure. It’s this letter, this note. Listen, Betty Sue—”
“Yes?”
“What the hell is Ian Watt doing in San Miguel de Allende?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. What’s he doing there? He’s not down there learning Spanish. And Susan isn’t learning how to paint. It’s kinda scaring the hell outta me, ya know? I feel like somebody’s hit me in the stomach with a hammer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jake.”
“Come on, Betty Sue, don’t do this to me. They’re having an affair, aren’t they? They’re having—they’ve been having—an affair for months, only now they’re consummating the son-of-a-bitch. I should’ve known it. I—I cannot believe I didn’t see this.”
“Jake, this is very personal.”
“Please don’t give me that ‘personal’ crap, okay? I’ve known you since I was a goddamn teenager.”
“I’m sorry, but this is something you should take up with Susan. This is between you and her.”
“Look, I just want to talk to her, all right? I’ve got to get ahold of her. What do I have to do, beg you?”
“Okay, Jake.”
“Do you have the number of the pay phone?”
“Just relax. Tina has a service she checks periodically at her house in Fort Worth. All I can do is call it and leave a message that you want to talk to Susan.”
“That’s it!? That’s all you can do?”
“That’s all we can do. Please relax. Getting worked up with negative energy—”
“You know we were supposed to go down there? To San Miguel. We planned it. We were going to go down there and live for six months. Jesus Christ!”
“Please relax.”
“I think I’ll fly down there tonight and break every fucking bone in Ian Watt’s body.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Let me leave a message for you.”
“No wonder I lost her at every goddamn party. No wonder every time I turned around someone was shaking my stupid hand telling me what a beautiful, wonderful wife I had. Jesus Christ, Betty Sue, Ian sat at the goddamn table right in front of me and told her what beautiful eyes she had!”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“No, no, you don’t know how he said it, you didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.”
“I really think you should just go to sleep right now and try to think of happy things.”
“ ‘Happy things’? The happy things are down in Mexico right now sweating all over each other.”
“You don’t know any of this.”
“Really? Why the fuck was it such a big secret that Ian Watt was down there? Huh? You think they’re not going to bump into each other in San Miguel? I mean, it’s a small town, ya know?”
“Jake, just relax. I’m going to get off the phone right now, and I promise you that I will call Tina’s service and leave a message that says you want Susan to call you as soon as possible. Okay?”
“Right.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re not going to do anything drastic, are you?”
“I don’t know, what’s ‘drastic’?”
“You’re not going to fly down there tonight, are you?”
“No, and I’m not going to slit my wrists either, in case you were wondering.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Jake.”
“That’s right, I forgot. You and Susan have the monopoly on drama.”
“I’m getting off now, dear. Please relax and think positive thoughts.”
“Wow. ‘Positive thoughts.’ . . . So, this is it, huh? It’s over. This is it.”
“Try to get some sleep.”
“You know, I have to admit: Karen was a very smart move, an incredible distraction.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, right. Listen, I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“You didn’t. Have fun in Chicago.”
“Okay.”
“Good night, Jake.”
“Good-bye, Betty Sue.”
The dial tone came on. After a few seconds I hung up the phone. I turned on a small, black-and-white television set near the bed but then quickly turned it off, before a picture could materialize on the screen.
There were supposed to be four of us, on a Sunday. We were going to roll a concrete floor in the back of a large warehouse in far East Austin with a clear, lacquer-based sealer. The floor was half as big as a football field. Twenty-foot concrete-block walls surrounded it on three sides, and there was a steel-girder-and-concrete ceiling. Only one side around the floor was open, with four roll-up doors over loading docks.
I rode over with a painter named David, who was chain-smoking in his little Chevette and making me sick with the smoke. Michael Jackson sang loudly from the radio, “The way you make me feel!” I asked David to maybe quit smoking so much, and he said, “Hey, roll down the window.”
Another painter, whose name was Ray, brought the supplies over in his truck: empty metal buckets, roller set-ups, lacquer thinner, a few drop cloths, roller poles, and about ten metal five-gallon cans of sealer. We started unloading everything on one of the docks. Ray was dripping with sweat, and he gave us a little Bic pen-cap bump of crank for breakfast. He kept wiping the sweat off his forehead and cleaning his glasses over and over.
“Man, I’m beadin’ bad. Six-thirty in the morning an’ I’m beadin’. I’m goin’.”
“Fast,” David said.
We had most of the heavy cans unloaded. We stopped to look out across the concrete field.
“Man, this is gonna suck,” David said. “Why couldn’t we do this yesterday?”
“They were doing something in here on Saturday,” I said. “Isn’t there supposed to be another guy here?’
“Who?” Ray said.
I pulled a joint out of my shirt pocket, lit it, and passed it to Ray. “Some old guy. Cole . . . colon . . .”
Ray laughed. “His name’s Colon?”
“Collin?” David said. “Collin?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Mike said we gotta finish this today, so he was giving us somebody else.”
“Oh fuck,” David said, “the Rummy.” He took a hit off the joint, gave it back to me, and lit a cigarette.
“You know him?” Ray said.
“I had to work with him last week,” David said. “He’s totally fucking worthless. He talks the whole time an’ doesn’t do shit. An’ he’s a fuckin’ rummy.”
“I thought you had to be a sailor to be a rummy,” Ray said.
“No,” David said. “I think he was a boxer in England or somewhere. He’s punch-drunk on top of everything else.” He started
laughing. “You should see him try to paint.”
I looked at my watch: 7:05. “Well, he’s late already.”
“That asshole, Mike,” David said. “We really needed some help today.”
“We’re gonna have to work now,” Ray said.
“Shit.”
We stood out there and finished the joint. The sun started coming up over the buildings.
I took a deep breath. There was an odor of rotting eggs and old burning meat in the air. “What’s that smell?”
“There’s a chicken factory over there,” Ray said.
“Speaking of chicken . . .” David said.
“Here we go,” Ray said.
“You won’t believe this,” David said.
“You’re right,” I said.
Ray pulled out a screwdriver. I grabbed a stiff-blade putty knife, and we started opening all the lids on the cans of sealer.
David puffed on his cigarette. “My sister-in-law let me fuck her in the ass last night.”
“Goddamn, I’m sweating,” Ray said. “I can barely hold this screwdriver.”
“Your wife’s sister lives with you?” I asked David.
“Yeah, she watches the kids. Crazy bitch. She an’ my old lady got all cranked up and horny last night. I been giving them go-fast an’ trying to fuck ’em both for days. I finally got her to eat Sally out—”
“That’s incest,” Ray said.
“—and she had her ass up in the air, so I just got up there and started fucking the shit out of her.”
“Literally,” I said.
Ray started laughing.
“I did,” David said.
“Sure you did,” Ray said.
Ray and I both stared at David.
“What?” David said.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Come on, what?”
Ray shook his head.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” David said.
Ray wiped the sweat off his forehead. “No, I was just thinking how much you look like Mr. Magoo.”
“You really do,” I said. “Your head’s too big for your body or something. You look like a freak.”
Ray pointed to David’s large dirty tennis shoes. “Look at those giant feet on those short skinny legs. You’re like a cartoon character.”
“Hey,” David said. He inhaled on his cigarette.
“What?” Ray said.
“Fuck you.”
Ray pulled a lid off a bucket and made a face. “God, this stinks.”
“Is that lacquer?” David said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s lacquer, and you better put out that goddamn cigarette.”
“No shit,” David said, and flicked the butt over the loading dock into the parking lot.
“Did Mike send any respirators with you?” I asked Ray.
“Uh, no.”
“Why not?”
“I guess he thought we had some.”
“Well that’s fucking great.”
“Man, we’re gonna get wasted,” Ray said. He poured some of the sealer off into an empty metal bucket.
David bent down to read the label on the can. “That’s okay. It says here it just causes central nervous system damage, lung cancer, stomach cancer, brain cancer. . . .”
“Listen,” Ray said. “Two stupid motherfuckers broke into my house yesterday.”
“No shit?” I said.
“Yeah, an’ they took my TV, the VCR, my stereo, an’ about forty-five grams of peanut butter all done up in little brown jars.”
“Oh shit,” David said.
Ray cleaned his glasses. “I know. I was really pissed. Catherine could have been there. She just turned eight yesterday, an’ we were at my wife’s mom’s for her birthday party. We come home an’ everything’s gone.”
I started setting up the buckets. “That sucks.”
“So I made one phone call to my Bandito friends.”
“I see,” David said. “It was their speed.”
Ray nodded vigorously. “They had those two idiots”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. I mean, not one hour. Those guys didn’t go five blocks before they hocked my TV and VCR.” He started laughing. “Right around the corner. These guys, these Banditos, are total professionals. I really enjoy dealing with them, except for the violence. They tracked these guys down an’ called me immediately.”
“Little better than the cops,” I said.
“Right. So they called me up an’ they asked me to come down there, an’ they’ve got these two stupid Mexicans—”
“I thought you were Mexican,” I said.
“I’m half Mexican, half Japanese.”
“That explains a lot,” David said.
Ray took off his glasses and looked at me. “Can’t you tell from my slanted eyes?”
“No, they’re too bloodshot.”
“Anyway, listen to this. So, they have these two guys an’ they’ve already beaten the shit out of them. An’ Victor, he’s the guy I deal with, real nice guy, normally. He pulls me over an’ he says, ‘Ray, I want you to hit them.’ An’ you know me, I hate violence. The Road Runner cartoons make me nauseous. So I say, ‘No, no, no, come on,’ an’ Victor like insists: ‘I want you to hit these guys.’ ”
“What did you do?” David asked.
Ray cleaned his glasses. “I hit ’em. I hit ’em both, one time, in the face. All those guys just started laughing. Victor said, ‘Jesus, man, get out of the way. I told you to hit him. Like this.’ An’ Victor, he’s pretty big, an’ he just gives this one Mexican—I think they were straight over from Mexico—just gives this guy a bone-crushing blow. Man, he just caved that guy’s whole face in. I could hear the bones crunching. That other guy saw that, an’ he just started crying. He knew what was coming. They pulled out the two-by-fours and crowbars then, an’ I just said, ‘Man, I’m leaving,’ an’ Victor’s like, ‘Come on, man, stay, watch.’ I said, ‘No way, I’m gone. Thanks, but I’m leaving.’ ” Lee shook his head and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I don’t think those guys made it, man.”
“Did you get your TV back?” I asked.
“Yeah, but they kind of fucked up my VCR at the pawnshop.”
“The moral of that story,” David said, “is don’t steal speed from the Banditos.”
“Or big bad Ray,” I said.
Ray started cradling his right hand. “My hand still hurts. . . . ”
“I hurt my wrist yesterday too,” David said.
I looked at my watch again: 7:35. “Man, where is that motherfucker?”
“I really feel like I should have gone to church this morning,” Ray said.
“It’s too late,” I said.
“You’re gonna burn in hell,” David said.
“That’s not funny,” Ray said, and looked at me. “So what did you do last night?”
David and I had four of the buckets set up now, three-quarters full of sealer, and a roller and grid in each one. I started attaching the poles.
“Hey,” Ray said. “What did you do?”
“I was finding the cure for cancer.”
“Somebody needs to do that,” David said. “I’m really startin’ to get worried.”
“Seriously,” Ray said. “What did you do last night?”
“Fuck, man, I don’t know. I got drunk and passed out in front of the TV.”
“I’ve done that before,” David said.
“I bet you have,” I said.
We saw an old dirty yellow VW van pull up just then and park. An old man stumbled out.
“Hey, there are old people here,” Ray said. He pulled out a small brown bottle, filled with crank, and took a little hit.
We watched the old man make his way toward us. He was very short and thick. He wore glasses, dirty painter’s whites, an English-looking cap on his giant ears. I noticed that he walked funny.
“Goddamn,” I said. “He’s bowlegged.”
“Leave it to Mike to send us a bowlegged, punchy Irish drunk wh
o can’t paint,” David said.
“I thought you said he was English,” I said.
“What’s the difference?”
“What’s his name again?” Ray asked.
“Collin,” David said. “He looks lost already.”
Ray waved to the man. “Over here, idiot.”
The old painter slowly walked up and stopped in front of us. He was smoking a cigarette. His eyes were squinty behind his thick glasses, and his face looked like a plate of pink mashed potatoes. He smelled bad, and his fly was open.
“We were wondering if you were coming,” David said.
“Huh?” Collin said. His mouth was hanging open.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” David said. “He’s deaf, too.”
“What’s that?” Collin said.
David shook his head and flicked away his cigarette. “Jesus . . .”
“How are you doing?!” I said very loudly.
Ray started laughing.
Collin nodded. “Oh, oh, good, good. Good as can be expected. Gonna do some rollin’ today? I gotta roller in the car.”
“That’s all right,” David said and pointed to the buckets. “Mike gave us four new setups.”
“Huh?” Collin said.
“We’ve already got you one!” David yelled.
Ray started laughing again.
“Oh, I’ll use yours, then?” Collin asked.
“Yes!” Ray said, nodding up and down, very slowly. “Yes, we, have, one, for, you.”
“You might want to lose that cigarette,” I said.
“Put your cigarette out, Collin!” David yelled.
Ray started laughing and held his ears. “Hey, man, cut it out, you’re killing me.”
“You gotta talk to him like that,” David said and laughed. “He really can’t hear. Put it out!” David said and pointed to the cigarette in Collin’s mouth.
“What for?” Collin said.
“You’re gonna blow us all up!” Ray said.
Collin glanced over at the sealer in the buckets and shrugged. He flicked his cigarette back over the loading dock and walked over to a bucket. He made a noise of disgust. “This shit’s lacquer. Bad stuff. . . . You boys see the fights last night?”
“Here we go,” Ray said.
“No,” David said.
“Huh?”
“No, goddammit!”
“Well, you shoulda watched ’em. They had a little Mexican boy, Sanchez. Very fast. Hard hitter for a little man. Reminded me of myself in other days. . . .”