Joy, PA

by Steven Sherrill

  “Next time you won’t be so lucky,” he says. “Go home,” he says, again, as if it’s just that easy. “Go to bed. You look like you need the rest.”

  Abigail drives away, cautiously, but the magnitude of the policeman’s compassion overwhelms her. She wants to turn around. To run the light. To speed through the streets and sideswipe cars until she is back in his good grace. His judgment. Kind. Forgiving. Handsome. Her boy, Willie, could maybe be a policeman, if there were more time left. He’d be good at it.

  ≠

  And forever. Then my lungs explode. Lightning flashes inside my head. I drown. I rise up. I resurrect. Tornadoes spill from my open mouth. I have all the elements at my command. I am unstoppable. I am naked and shivering. I am brave. I’m a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my weapon of mass destruction. I go downstairs. The dead mama is gone. Daddy is not dead in the kitchen or the living room. I step carefully, avoiding the land mines scattered on the floor. I hear someone on the front porch. I yank open the door. The mail lady looks at me, looks up and down my brave naked body. I push against the screen door. She drops the mail at her feet, puts her hand on the can of mace at her belt, backs down the steps. I decide to let her live. She may be of use to me later. I take the mail. I push it deep into the trash can. Something pierces my palm, slices it open. The gash is pretty. I move my thumb, and the cut opens and closes, like a little mouth.

  ∀

  Abigail drives cautiously, despite the panicked mouse that is her heart hurling against its cracked cage, yearning for escape. There was something so delicious about her brush with the law that Abby entertains, for one mad moment, giving the last few days of her earthly life over to sin. Sin. But she wouldn’t know how to start. No. Not true. Abigail knows all about sin. Abigail knows exactly where she would begin. Abigail hurts. All over. Adrenaline barely tempers the pain. Duty prevails.

  Abby looks at the Rapture tracts in the passenger seat. She drives obediently down Wright Street, past the six-pack shop where, on a window less side wall, a peeling mural of Colonel Bartholomew Joyner and his dog oversees everything. Abigail drives past the trophy shop; the outstretched arms of the faceless and sexless figurines in the window catch and hold the morning sun. She slows to let a pedestrian—man or woman, she can’t tell—cross to the laundromat, bent nearly double under the massive bags balanced on their back. When the laundromat door opens, the stink of fabric softener and bleach fills the car. Abigail gags. The cracked rib throbs in her chest. It takes everything she has not to stomp the accelerator.

  She has to get to work, has to get away from the policeman, the boy, the man, and all that happened last night, has to get through the day. To get through whatever is left of the days. But a block away, Abigail is impeded yet again. In an enclave of Section 8 housing an open-topped U-Haul trailer, jackknifed behind a rusty pickup, blocks the road. In the bed of the truck, the thin iron post of a floor lamp with a dented yellow shade leans against an old La-Z-Boy recliner. Cardboard boxes are scattered haphazardly on the weedy yard. In and around the trailer, half a dozen men grapple with the massive plaster fish strapped there. Trout? Bass? Abby doesn’t know the difference, but the greenish thing is longer than her car, and almost as big around. Its toothy mouth gapes. Its white eyes big as plates. Abby hears a thump, and a tall, rail-thin man with wild red hair and beard curses loudly. The fat man standing opposite, with spiked gray hair and a too-small Grateful Dead T-shirt, laughs. Loudly. She can’t tell if they’re moving the fish in or out. Several onlookers gawk from the apartment windows. Kids and adults.

  Abigail wants to scream at them all. “Stop!” she wants to yell. She can think of nothing else.

  Why? Why is this happening? Why the obstacles in her path? Abigail knows that suffering is a favorite tool of God’s. Everybody says so. God’s true love is found deep within His wrath. The more He loves, the more you hurt. Right? Abby knows that God makes her suffer in order to teach her things. She’s known this her whole life. She’s never understood how it works, though. She’s never, ever—not even once—been able to see the lesson clearly. She doesn’t understand why Burns lives in the basement, or what she is supposed to learn from last night. Her boy, their son, an unsolvable puzzle. Maybe Burns is God.

  Abigail is in Joy. There is no doubt about it. The streets, these people, these details, are all ancient and oppressive facts in her life. She just wants to get to work. She just wants to clock in once before Jesus returns. Abigail feels an obligation to the boxes. To Jinx, even. She will work. She will dream of riding the Slinky float one more day. She will work through the pain of broken ribs. She’ll pack, with one arm if need be, and lay a ragged shard of memory from last night (from every night of her life) in the box with each toy. She’ll seal them up, send them down the conveyor, and let those two boys on the loading dock ship the hurt far away. If she could only get past these men and their giant fake fish.

  Abigail slumps against the steering wheel. The Celebrity’s horn startles her more than anyone else. All the men wrestling the fish look at her.

  “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” Abigail prays.

  Are they going to hurt her?

  Are they God?

  “I will fear no evil,” Abigail prays.

  Abigail prays without need. One of the men blows her a kiss, then they all go back to their struggle with the plaster behemoth; they leave her alone. It’s just a broken rib, Abby thinks through the scrim of hurt. Her Lord suffered so much more. She can endure. She bumps the shifter into drive, works at the steering wheel with her good arm, turns and inches forward. Then reverse, then forward, and eventually she gets the car turned around.

  But a block away, where Wright Street merges into Pulp Way, Abigail sees a train emerge from the tunnel, like some terrestrial black leviathan scuttling from the belly of Scald Mountain to wreak havoc. There is no way she can make the crossing in time. Abby knows this train. She’s watched it unfurl forever, dragging its mile-long tail through Joy. The hoppers full of coal so black it sparkles, like they’re hauling broken chunks of the starry night sky itself. The boxcars, nearly always empty; gaping doors on both sides play peekaboo as they pass. And the tankers, so many tankers full of sloshing chemicals on their way to or from the paper mill, with their warnings emblazoned seductively at both ends. Like the rest of humanity, Abigail feels the irresistible draw of toxicity. The crossing gate comes down clanging and herky-jerky. Abby puts the Celebrity in park. She smells diesel fuel and hydraulic fluid. Every time a train car rolls across the grade, its tonnage quakes the roadbed and rattles the Chevy’s chassis, and Abigail suffers. Another lesson?

  It’s just a broken rib, Abby thinks, again. Burns didn’t mean it. He loves her. Just like God. Her Lord suffered so much more, she thinks again. Can she endure? She wishes for some guidance. For aid. And then, even through the hurt and doubt, she sees it. The message, blinking in and out of view between the passing train cars. The billboard she’s passed so often on the outskirts of Joy that she’s stopped noticing it.

  JUDGMENT DAY WILL OCCUR, MAY 21, 2011

  “blow the trumpet … warn the people”

  Details @ FamilyRadio.com

  Abigail looks at the billboard. Sees it. She looks at the gospel tracts. She knows what to do now. She knows how little time is left. She understands her obligation. Her duty, her debt, is to her coworkers. Her neighbors. The townspeople. Her poor family, husband and son. The billboard states it, plain and clear. God put her here, in agony, put the train in her way, so that she could be still and see. The man on the radio is speaking directly to her. To Abigail Augenbaugh. Abby has the Rapture tracts, each a missive from God himself. The Truth. Abigail has the Truth scattered on the front seat of her Chevy Celebrity. More Truth than she can ever use. She knows what to do, at last. And inasmuch as conviction is an adequate balm, however temporary, with the train’s passing, Abigail Augenbaugh drives through the lingering and familiar stenches of diesel and hydraulic fl
uids (tinged now, ever so faintly, with the rare scent of glorious triumph), around the block and back up Wright Street.

  ≠

  We talk. I bleed a little bit. I lick my palm clean. I make a fist. It hurts, but I eat the pain. Someone knocks, on the door. Maybe it’s the mail lady, come back to get what she deserves. Come back to join forces, with me. I’ll take on all comers. I yank it open. The door. I don’t know this enemy. I stand there naked, ready to attack.

  “William,” she says.

  I don’t know this enemy. I push my nakedness against the screen.

  “William. It’s Mrs. Onkst. From school.”

  She is strong, this one. Masks her fear well. She looks me straight in the eye. Her lies are perfect.

  “Is your mother here, William? Are you OK, William?”

  She knows the mother is dead. She helped kill the dead mother. I put the dead mother out of my mind.

  “William, I need to speak to your mother or your father.”

  No, I think. I think I say. I say aloud. “No.”

  “William. Look at me, William. Do you know who I am?”

  I cannot look into her eyes. That’s how they get mind control. I see the butterfly tattoo on her anklebone. I recognize the tattoo. I chew it off. No. I don’t. I grab my dick, like Travis taught me. But it hides from me. And she doesn’t move. I think quick. I have to become one of them. If I want to survive, I have to play their evil games.

  “They’re not home,” I say. The sentence feels too big for my mouth.

  “I’m sick,” I say. “Alone.”

  “You’ve been absent, William. Are you OK? Is that blood?”

  I will not give her my eyes. Of course it’s blood. What else would it be? She tries to look around me, into the house. I wish I had my cape. I wish I had my Hulk pajamas. My hurt fist throbs. Turns green. Swells. No, grows. Massive. Bigger than my head. I raise it high. My mighty fist comes down through the screen door and onto the head of my enemy. I smite her. I drive her, like a nail, through the floor of the porch. It happens so fast. She has no time to move. No time to speak. She can’t even scream.

  “William,” a voice says. “Put some clothes on, William. I want to talk to you.”

  It’s her voice. Cloned, or resurrected, or regenerated, she stands there again before me. I underestimated her powerful magic. I must plan my counterattack.

  “No,” I say. “I’m sick. I’ve been sick.”

  “I want you to come with me, William. I want you to put your clothes on and come with me.”

  I wish I had my cape. I wish I wasn’t naked. I’m glad I am naked.

  “Fear the beast,” I say. Show her my weapon. She will not leave. She will not take her eyes away. They get you through the eyes.

  “Where is your mother?”

  “Not home,” I say. Not Dead. Not On her way to Heaven.

  “At work,” I say. I can lie too.

  I do know this enemy. She is tricky. She has captured me before, at the school, the enemy camp. She lies. I’ve been in her torture chamber before. It smells like girl, like lady. She makes me sit on her couch. Nothing to do but look at the stupid pictures of her stupid perfect family on her stupid desk. Stupid perfect freckles. She pretends to be nice, pretends to like me. I almost gave in once. I will not give in now. I will not tell her about my superpowers. I will not tell her about last night. I will not tell her about the end of the world.

  “William, where’s your father?”

  And then, like a god or a wizard, he appears.

  ∀

  Back up Wright Street to the drive-thru at Joy Savings & Loan. She pulls into the far lane, serviced by a clear capsule pipeline, a small oval speaker, and a clunky camera. Abigail empties their meager bank account for cash. Between the harsh suck of the withdrawal slip making its way and the somewhat gentler return, she clings to the wheel, looks straight ahead; but her hands palsy as she removes the thin envelope. Abigail pauses before pulling away.

  “Will there be anything else?” the teller asks.

  Abigail hurts too much to twist her body, to crane her neck, in the direction of the window two lanes over. She looks up at the camera and the speaker.

  “May I help you with anything else?” the teller asks.

  Everybody deserves a chance, Abigail thinks. Everybody deserves the Truth. She tucks a Rapture tract into the clear shuttle and presses the button to send it back up the pneumatic tube.

  Abby feels good. Almost.

  ≠

  Like a god. Like a storm trooper, he swoops in and destroys mine enemies. She is powerless, this Mrs. Onkst, against his force. Blood and guts splatter the porch. Her head bounces off the neighbors’ roof. An arm and its flopping hand land in the road. I put the butterfly tattoo in my pocket. Up and down the street people close their blinds, lock their doors. He’s here now, and there’s no stopping him. They all know it. They all tremble in fear.

  I’ll put on my cape. I’ll join him in battle. We will march down the street and lay waste the town. Any minute now he’ll call me to his side.

  “Willie,” he’ll say. And I’ll go.

  “Willie,” he’ll say. “Willie.”

  “Willie?” It’s like the voice is right behind me. “Willie, what the hell are you doing?”

  I open my eyes. The lady is driving away. There’s no blood on the porch. Daddy stands behind me, in the door to the basement.

  You wake up in the desert. No. It’s damp. You wake up in the desert. No. It’s damp. You keep trying to wake up in the desert, but it’s always the goddamn basement. Your head pounds. It might be the sump pump. You wake up in the basement. Your mouth is full of sand. You wear the uniform. It proves something. Your dick hurts. It proves something. You lie on the couch. Daylight cuts a hard edge around the garbage bags you’ve taped to the window. Daylight. You should be asleep. Still. You reach for your pills, remember that you are out of pills. The sump pump rattles your skull, your ribcage. You sit up. Your fly is open, button and belt too. You scratch your swollen gut. Scratch your crotch. Everything is sore. Your cock hair is matted and crusty. What the hell? Oh. You remember. It’s been a long time. You feel, a little bit, like a man. Like a husband. You puke, but nothing comes up.

  You think about her, the wife. Her soft behind. She used to be pretty. You think so, anyway. You like her fat ass. You think so, anyway. You think about her a while, try to stir something up down there. You remember a rayon dress. No. It’s gone. She shouldn’t have said what she said. You did what you had to do. The sump pump pounds. On the door upstairs. No. Someone is knocking. You hear voices. It’s your boy. You’re not sure what day it is. What month. Why he’s up there. You feel like a man, like a husband. It makes you feel like a father. Almost. You put your sweats on, go upstairs. You’ll take care of things. The boy stands at the door, naked. Someone drives away.

  “Willie,” you say. “Boy. Willie. Boy. Willie …”

  Over and over, until, finally, he looks your way.

  ∀

  Good. Almost. Wright Street.

  Abigail doesn’t go to work like she is supposed to. She quits her job. Sort of. She just decides not to go back. Not to clock in. The decision makes her heart surge hard; blood roars in her eardrums like the beat of the box-and-tape machine she is abandoning. Schkkk-chick-chicka. Schkkk-chick-chicka. Schkkk-chick-chicka.

  Andy, Mitch, Sue, Darnell. Even Jinx. Abigail knows she’ll never see them again. Not even Sue, who’ll surely be Raptured. Heaven’s probably too big. She tried to warn them, tried to spread the gospel. But they mocked her. The man on the radio said it would happen. He said the True Believers would be mocked. He said prayer is the only weapon. But the man on the radio is stronger than Abigail. She feels, despite the momentary thrill of quitting Slinky, inadequate. She wishes she could hear his voice again. One more time before the end.

  The bank envelope is propped against the tracts on her seat. Abigail realizes she could buy another radio and hide it from Burns. She pulls
into the parking lot of a failed party supply concern, and counts the money.

  Two hundred sixty-eight dollars. The whole of the Augenbaugh life savings amounts to this paltry sum. Much as she wants a new radio, Abigail knows there are other things to buy first. She has to take care of her family, to provide something for her husband and son, to help them into the last days. Soon Abby will be gone, called up, lifted out of the torrent, to be with Jesus. Burns and Willie will, surely, be left behind. The man on the radio explained that there will be four months between the moment of Rapture and the final destruction of the universe. Millions, billions of people will die that first day. But some will live on. Burns—her sad and hurtful husband—and Willie, their poor son, might get lucky. But they’re not ready. Burns doesn’t know. He doesn’t believe, or care. And Willie.

  Abby folds the money, puts it into the pocket of her Slinky smock, and drives, unhindered, to, where? Surplus City, maybe. She’ll buy plastic bins, one for each of them. She’ll buy flashlights and batteries, extra pairs of warm socks. Canned food. A couple chocolate bars. What else would they need at the end of time? What else?

  She feels good. It is almost a plan.

  She is almost a real wife.

  Almost a real mother.

  Almost a True Believer.

  “What’re you doing, boy?” you ask.

  “Put some clothes on,” you say.

  You have to take charge. You are the father. The father takes charge. He doesn’t move. The boy seems scared. Or stunned. Who was at the door? You ought to ask the boy who was at the door. You’ve seen her before. You think it was that bitch from school. What does she want? You ought to ask the boy what the hell she wanted. You know your red tape well. She shouldn’t be here by herself. She’s going to cause trouble. She’s probably on her way to call Child Welfare. Who does she think she is? You are the father. You are the man of this house. You serve. You protect.

  The boy slams the door, and a thought-bomb explodes in your head. You flash to last night. You and the mother, fucking. The rut. The boy in the doorway. Did you hit her? The mother? Did you kill her? You don’t think so. But you can’t ask the boy. Where is she? She might be upstairs. Dead. You did what you had to. You ought to go look. For the body. You don’t know what you’ll do when you find it. You’ve seen bodies before. You are a soldier. A warrior.