≠
“Mama.”
“Mama!”
“Stop it, Mama. Stop.”
∀
Reprieve.
Blessing.
Mysterious ways.
There is a husband breathing. On the floor. And bleeding sweetly.
Once, for a whole month, as a girl, Abigail pretended she was getting married to a dentist. Even sent out engagement announcements. It was her greatest act of creativity. Once she pretended she was actually attending college, and not just washing dishes in the cafeteria. Once she followed the skinny boy with dirty fingernails around the mall, followed him through the hasty decision to join the Army, followed him out to his car, and pretended not to be embarrassed, terrified, and ignorant when he pulled her underwear down. There he is, on the floor.
Where is that card? That business card? Abigail Augenbaugh wants to call Carole Onkst.
Come over, she’ll say. We’re doing good. Come over and have some supper. Things are good, she’ll say.
Abigail turns the oven on high.
Abigail cannot remember the last time they were all in the same room. Together. It had to be sometime before Burns took the TV downstairs. Months and months ago. Now, here they are, three days before the end of the world, the Augenbaughs in their kitchen. It’s nice, she thinks. It occurs to Abigail that she ought to thank the Lord for the opportunity. She does so. Abigail finds a baking sheet, dumps the pizza bites into a mound. There are pubic hairs stuck to the thawing dough.
≠
I am bleeding. He is bleeding. She needs to bleed.
Daddy is a hero. I know it. The boy knows it.
I remember a car trip. Daddy came home from the Army. Mama drove. Daddy, the father, slept with his head against the window. Mama, the mother, listened to the radio. The man on the radio talked about Heaven. The road curved back and forth, up and down, through the mountains. I was carsick. The boy was carsick. So much fog. I was scared. The boy was scared.
“Look!” the mother said, at the top of the mountain.
The boy saw them, the whole line of windmills, their skinny white poles standing taller than anything the boy had ever seen. The three massive blades of their propellers chewing away at the sky. The boy, Willie, was scared.
“They’ll cut my head off, Mama,” he said.
“I don’t want to go to Heaven,” he said. “I want to stay here. Stay home.”
∀
How was your day, she asks her son. How was school?
I’m making us a nice supper, she says to Willie. Pizza bites.
Abigail thinks to change out of her Slinky smock. To put on something pretty. Something she’d wear to church, even. She’ll make dinner. They’ll sit together. When Burns wakes, she’ll be sensitive, and not put him on the spot. She won’t talk about unemployment or nightmares. She doesn’t know yet what she’ll talk about, but it’ll be great. Maybe they’ll all go for ice cream after.
Won’t she be surprised? Carole Onkst. To see how well the Augenbaughs are doing. Abigail wishes she had time to wash the curtains and sweep the sidewalk. “I’ll wear my brown dress,” she says. “The one with the flower belt. The one I wore to Willie’s baptism. Won’t she be surprised?”
Abigail reaches out, puts her hand on Willie’s shoulder. “We had pigs-in-the-blanket that day,” she says.
Then Abby notices his bloody toes. She looks at her son. The naked boy. The oily smudges on his face and hands, the gritty detritus in his hair, the filthy hands and feet. So sweet. So beautiful. These things fill her with motherly love. Abigail’s heart swells. She practically cries.
“Did you get a boo-boo, Willie? Honey?”
≠
What happened next? I don’t remember. I do remember.
The mother stopped the car in a gravel pull-off. She rolled down her window.
“Listen,” she said.
And the boy heard. I heard.
The gigantic windmill blades turned in slow motion. Every time they swept past, the blades moaned. Called out. Cried. It was almost magical. Almost.
“I’m scared, Mama,” I said.
“They’ll cut my head off, Mama,” he said. “I don’t want to go.”
Then Daddy woke up. Terrified. He yelled. He cussed. He put his fist through the windshield. After that, we went home.
∀
“My poor baby,” Abigail says.
She reaches to brush something from his hair, but Willie pulls away. The boy smells like fire. No. Something is burning. Is something burning? Abigail wants to ask what happened. How’d he get so dirty? So hurt? She doesn’t. But she has to do something.
“I’ll take care of you, Willie. I am the mother. You are the son.”
Abigail goes upstairs.
≠
I wish Daddy would wake up. Get up, Daddy. I wish Travis was here. Travis would know what to do. Travis knows everything. Travis knew about the girls who suntanned by the golf course. Travis knew about the secret hideout under the train. Me and Travis went to the pond, on the seventh hole, and threw rocks at the carp and turtles. Sometimes they chased us away, the men on mowers, the boys with golf clubs. Me and Travis made plans for revenge. The boy misses Travis. I miss Travis.
One time Travis stole a rifle from his daddy’s closet. We took it to the pond. Revenge. It was hot, and the big fat carp floated at the surface gasping for air. They breathe, Travis said. Travis knew everything. Travis shot one of the carp. It rolled belly-up in the middle of the pond. The rest of the fish submerged, out of sight. Travis made me wade in, clothes and all, to get the dead fish.
Travis held the rifle. I held the dead fish. Its tail was slick. Blood dribbled from the bullet hole, onto my foot.
“Listen!” Travis said.
Travis knows everything. Of course I listen.
“Somebody’s coming!” Travis said. “Run!”
We did.
∀
She goes upstairs. Comes back with one of her old nightgowns.
“I got this,” she says. “It’s all I could find.”
“Lift your arms,” she says. “I’ll take care of you.”
The boy smells like fire. Why does the boy smell like fire?
Abigail fills a shallow bowl with warm water and soap. She takes the dishrag from the sink, kneels at Willie’s feet. She cradles the boy’s foot in her palm, holds it over the bowl, and with all the gentleness in the world, bathes the toes until the dried and crusted blood softens, drips and stains the water.
≠
“Let’s eat it,” Travis said.
Travis had a pocketknife. We stabbed and sliced at the dead fish. The blade was too dull. The back door opened. It was Daddy. Run, I said. No. I didn’t. I wanted to. Daddy wore his uniform. He wasn’t fat. Not yet. He had something in his hand. It was a skinny knife in a leather sheath. Daddy took the fish from me and Travis. Daddy took the knife from its sheath. Daddy slid the thin blade along the spine and ribs of the carp. Daddy returned to the house, came back with a camp stove, a frying pan, some flour, salt, pepper, and lard. We cooked that dead fish, right there in the backyard. We ate it with our fingers.
I miss Travis. I miss Daddy.
Daddy is a war hero.
Me and Travis played Army. Travis always got shot. Low in the belly. I always doctored him. Travis had a birthmark, a big purple flower blooming across one cheek and over his forehead. Some boys made fun of it. I didn’t. One time, in the hideout, I told Travis the birthmark was pretty. Travis almost threw me in the river. I cried. Travis moved. Bulldozers came, knocked his house down. Filled in the basement. Someone planted grass. It’s like Travis was never there.
Sometimes the boy misses Travis more than he misses the father.
∀
“I got us a lottery ticket,” she says.
“We’re gonna win,” she says. “Let’s go to Red Lobster. It’s Daddy’s favorite. We’ll play Goony Golf. You’d like that.”
Abigail is pleased with herself. I
f they could see her now, how carefully she washes her son’s feet. If they could but witness the perfect love she pours out over the boy, they’d take back all the insults, all the hurtful, spite-filled, mean things that have held her back, kept her down, that have bound her forever to the millstone of fear and doubt. But they can’t. Abigail knows that Jesus is watching. And that is enough.
≠
Stop, I say. Don’t touch me, I say.
I hate her.
I hate her. I will not look at her. She is the enemy. Daddy is the hero. I am a hero. She is not a hero. She works for the dark forces. The water stings. I am a prisoner of war. She is the torturer. I will not crack. The kitchen is my prison. The water stings. I grab the salt shaker. It’s made of glass. It’s shaped like a donkey. Daddy won it at the fair. I look down at her head. I could slam the salt shaker into her head. She is the enemy. She is stupid. She is ugly. She is evil. I hate her. Her ancient Chinese water torture is powerless against me. I eat hope. I spit fear. I am made of stone. I will not crack. I will drive the glass donkey through her skull. She is stupid. She is ugly. She is not my mother. Not our mother. I hate her. She smells like fire. No. There is smoke. It hurts. My foot. It bleeds. Stop, I say. Don’t touch it, I say.
You dream. You dream yourself off of the couch. You dream yourself out of the basement. Out of the house. The house holds the woman, the boy. You dream yourself out of the desert. And back and back through time. You dream your own father. That asshole. That motherfucker. You dream yourself nine years old and camping in the spring. Early spring. Ice on the lake. You dream the dark woods and your own fear. You dream the cold. Dream the camp in a small meadow by a frozen lake, the men drinking beer. You dream your own drunkenness. Small mountains, overgrown by leafless trees, dotted with bare patches of rocky scree. You dream yourself at the bottom of a massive empty bowl.
They drank and drank, told jokes you didn’t understand. You laughed anyway. You dream the near-dark, and yourself half in, half out of a pup tent. You dream the sound. Not thunder but just as big. An earthbound noise, like the crust of the earth itself cracking open, swelling up all around. As if from everywhere at once. Too big to have a source. Then, immediately, a wailing, a moan, a hungry, crazed geometry of noise.
You dream a boy leaping up, running to his father’s tent. Nearly weeping from fear. The men all laughed. You dream it. Again and again. One of the men made up a story. About the sound. Said it was the growling belly of the giant valley troll. Said the troll guarded the lake. Said the troll had to be fed before it would let anybody fish the lake. Said the troll liked to eat little boys. Dream a sleeping father. A drunken father. A laughing father.
Again, the horrible sounds filled the bowl in which the boy lay.
The men all laughed and laughed. The father laughed too. The troll was hungry. The troll has to be fed in the morning. The boy, of course, was meant to be troll food.
“Such a pipsqueak,” somebody said. “Swallow you up in one bite.”
You dream your ignorance. You dream no way of knowing that the sounds were nothing more, or less, than spring thaw. The great slab of ice pulling away from the shoreline, undulating ever so slightly, amplified each and every crack. Dream the boy going back to his tent alone, awaiting his fate. All night long, the ice cracked and cried out in the dark. All night long, you try to ready yourself for death.
∀
Abigail’s heart flutters. Pure hope churns in the pumping muscle. She is washing her boy’s feet. Burns is breathing. She is cooking supper. There is a lottery ticket. Spring, in all its reckless fury, rages just outside the door, and Joy is drowning in fecund desolation. But in the Augenbaughs’ kitchen, a miracle is happening. Abigail allows herself the luxury of a daydream. She and her husband and their son stand in the front yard, clean and smiling, and Jesus swoops down in a cloud, or maybe just his arms, wide as the county, scoop them up. Or maybe he rides a golden chariot. Abigail struggles with visualizing exactly what is supposed to happen, so she skips to the next part.
“It’s not too late,” she says.
Abigail and her husband and their son, rising up through the pollen-choked sky, holding hands, singing songs. High above the train yards and the mines. Above the stinking plumes of smoke from the paper mill. Up over the Alleghenies. Up where mountains and borders and boundaries become irrelevant. And they’re wearing pure-white robes. But she wonders what happened to their clothes. Doesn’t matter. Soon they’ll be at the feet of God, worshiping. Forever. She wonders how long the trip will take. She wonders if her ears will pop.
You keep dreaming. You have nothing else to do. You didn’t die that night. The valley troll spared your life. The father, the fucker, spared your life. You dream a car trip with him. Pittsburgh. Summer. Sweltering. You dream an air show. All the way there, the father talked about crashes. He wanted to see some crashes. You spent all afternoon looking up into a cloudless sky. There were no crashes. By suppertime you both had blistering sunburns on your faces.
You dream, later maybe, his disability checks. His Gideon membership. Once, on the way home from a doctor’s appointment, he told you to stop at Walmart. He wanted to slip some Gideon pamphlets under the windshield wipers of the parked cars. He wanted you to help him. It was a windy day. Clouds charged across the sky. You stopped the car at the far end of the lot and he stepped out with a handful of Good News. You sat in the driver’s seat, wanting a moment. You watch him cross in front of the car. Watch a gust of wind pick up a thin plastic Walmart bag, carry it, gaping open like a feral parachute, over the shoppers and their cars, bobbing and swirling, until it catches and covers the father’s head. You watch the man, suddenly blind, terrified, confused, drop his pamphlets, began cursing and wildly swinging at the air.
You got out of the car. This isn’t in the dream. You get out of the car. The old man is slumped to the macadam. You get out, take the plastic bag off the father’s head, help him into the car only moments before a sudden downpour drenches everything in sight. You drive away, drive right over the forgotten Good News pamphlets quickly becoming a pulpy mess in the parking lot.
You dream another man. It might be you. Fucker. He had a plan. A criminal justice degree from the community college. Play a little golf on the team. Get hired at the prison.
Fucker. Getting too big for your britches. Everybody said so. Fucker. Dropout.
You dream smoke. You dream something on fire. You dream that girl, that day, at the mall. You dream you remember the X-rated aisle at Spencer’s. She laughed. You got hard. You remember the Army recruiter by the Orange Julius, and the climbing wall that rose to the ceiling two stories up. Dropout. Fucker. You climbed that wall.
“Show your girl what you’ve got,” he said. So you did. Back on the ground, he let you try on some GI body armor. “I don’t let everybody do this,” the sergeant said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you got over there and single-handedly kicked Hussein’s ass,” the sergeant said. “I’d kill the bastard,” you said. “You’re the man for the job,” the sergeant said. “Sign right here,” the sergeant said.
You had a fucking death-boner. You were invincible. You climbed that wall. You married that girl. You were bigger and stronger than anybody in Joy, PA. You ate ham and pineapple pizza, because it seemed exotic. You fucked her in the parking lot, in the car. Because it seemed exotic. You went to the desert. You missed Parenting Classes. You went to the desert. You dreamed yourself a Shower/Laundry and Clothing Repair Specialist. No. It’s the goddamn truth. The bloody uniforms never stopped coming. Ever.
∀
When she gets to Heaven Abigail is sure that Jesus will stroke her cheek and tell her what a good mother she was. Abigail will forget all about leaving Willie and Burns behind to face the Apocalypse. When she gets to Heaven. When she gets to Heaven.
≠
Don’t touch me.
I am invisible.
I am a mirror.
I am a stone.
I am air.
I a
m water.
I am nothing.
∀
There, in the darkening kitchen, with her bleeding son and her bleeding husband, on the cusp of a new day, on the outskirts of Heaven, Abigail manifests her Christian love. She lifts Willie’s other foot over the bowl, draws the wet cloth slowly along the arch. He winces. What is it? Abigail sees the splinter. A poison arrow. A tiny wooden minnow swimming beneath the surface of his flesh. She holds the boy’s foot firmly, presses the hard sickle of her thumbnail at the buried tip of the splinter and pushes.
Willie curses. Kicks. Kicks the bowl of water. Douses his slumbering father.
They hit you. They hit you hard, while you sleep. It might be a mortar. It might be suicide bomber. You are wet. It might be blood. Yours or anybody else’s. There is smoke and fire. Your head throbs. You can’t see. Where are you? You see legs. Bare feet. A kid’s bare feet. You kick. You jump up, back to the wall. You have your weapon. You raise Big Bertha high and ready to swing. Someone calls your name. Someone calls you Daddy.
There is smoke. You are wet. Daddy. Daddy.
Burns. What? What the fuck? Burns. Everything is OK. Daddy. Burns. I made supper. I got us a lottery ticket. Burns. Daddy. You swing and swing, your back to the wall. You can’t tell what you hit. If you hit. There is smoke. There is blood. There is always the blood.
Burns. What? Daddy. What the fuck? Who is talking? What do you want?
Then you see. Your vision clears a little. You wear your uniform. Your head throbs. Someone calls your name. Someone calls you Daddy. You’re in a kitchen. It’s your kitchen. In Joy, PA. The war and the desert are somewhere outside. You remember now. You went for the pills. You remember the bomb threat. You look across the room. A woman crouches by the door. It’s your wife. You don’t remember her. A boy sits at the table. You remember him from the morning, naked at the door with the asshole neighbor. He’s your son. He is naked still.
You lower your weapon. The room spins. You sit at the table. The boy doesn’t look at you. The wife gets up, says something about dinnertime. She sounds so happy you want to beat her with the club. You raise your club. You are the father. The husband. The hero. The man.
Joy, PA Page 9