Joy, PA

by Steven Sherrill

  It’s a Pinnacle you see half-buried in the black dirt. You dig around the ball with your finger and pluck it free. You wipe it clean on your pant leg. No cuts, no gouges. A perfectly good Pinnacle. You settle the ball onto a tuft of grass at the path’s edge.

  “Watch this,” you say.

  The boy steps back, waves a mosquito away from his face. You can see excitement in his eyes. You interlock your fingers on Bertha’s rubber grip, plant your feet at shoulder width. Your gut is in the way, but it doesn’t matter. You never told the boy this stuff. You’re going to show him things he never knew.

  Where do you aim? Doesn’t matter. Somewhere back up on the course. Maybe you’ll get lucky and hit somebody. You address the ball. It’s been a long time. You flex your knees. It hurts more than you expect. The boy watches, looks like he’s about to piss his pants. You center the ball on the clubface. You bring her head back. You’ll show the boy what you’re made of. You swing. You duff it. You dig a trench in the dirt, and the ball topples an inch or two away.

  Fuck.

  Did you say it aloud?

  It’s her fault. It always was. Original motherfucking sin.

  It’s been a decade or more since you’ve swung at an actual ball. Take your time. It’s just you and the boy and the garbage. You’re going to drive this ball into orbit. You have to. For the boy’s sake.

  You address the ball. You work hard to block the thought-bombs exploding in your brain. You focus. You shut out the basement, the desert. You shut out the pills. The garbage. The boy. The bloat. The blood. Everything becomes the swing. You swing and catch the ball with the toe of the clubface. The Pinnacle rockets wildly to the right. You grip Bertha tight. Who is failing here? Is it the club? You? The boy? He looks retarded standing there in his Evel Knievel pajamas. You see his mama in his face. You turn away. It’s all you can do.

  You jab at the underbrush with your club. You know what you’re looking for, and it’s there. “Get that ball,” you say to the boy, and he wades into the weeds without hesitation, comes back with a muddy Top-Flite cupped in his palm like it’s some kind of delicate egg. You snatch it away, shake your head in disgust, find another tuft of grass.

  “What?” you bark, thinking the boy spoke. He looks confused, but doesn’t reply.

  You swing, and the ball slices up and out of sight.

  Focus. Control. Focus. Control. You learned it in boot camp. Let the rage go. Let the fear go. Pay attention to the moment. You can’t see another ball from where you stand. But you know beyond any doubt, with a certainty that tramples anything called faith, that there are other balls in the thicket of briars and thistles between the riverbank and the golf course.

  You kick an opening in the dense, thorny weeds, use Bertha to widen the ersatz warren. Big enough for the boy to crawl in. You look at him. You hope he’s smart enough to figure it out. You can’t remember the last time you heard the boy speak. You can’t remember if he actually can speak.

  After a while, you tell him what to do. “There’s balls in there,” you say.

  The boy gets on his hands and knees. He hesitates until you prod him with the club. The boy sticks his head into the thicket, wriggles his shoulders in, pulls back out with a mud-caked orange Titleist and two range balls with red stripes and deep nicks.

  “More,” you say. He goes back into the briars. When he pauses again, you push his ass with your boot. You are the father. You’re teaching the boy lessons. About golf, about waste, about obedience.

  Your son disappears fully into the dense patch of burdock, nettle, and beggar lice. You hear him thrashing around. You hear him stifle a cry. You wait. You wish you had some peanut butter crackers. Sometime later, maybe half an hour, maybe a decade, he emerges. The boy has made a little pouch by folding up the hem of his pajama shirt. You are proud of his resourcefulness. A thick briar stalk is tangled in the boy’s hair; a jagged scratch marks his forehead. The boy’s face and arms and bare belly bleed. His pajama pants are filthy. You are the father. He is the son. The boy kneels, pours his treasure at your feet.

  A dozen balls. Good. Good boy.

  “More,” you say.

  ∀

  Through mysterious divination, or maybe just pain—the pain, transcendent, becomes paean—Abigail Augenbaugh finds her way to, her self in, the expansive Walmart parking lot, with its crisp orderly lines and abundant signage. She drove past her first destination, Surplus City, and its cramped gravel lot—even though her meager budget would go further there—because she didn’t think she could face the narrow aisles of jumbled, precarious stacks of closeout items or the disarray of expired-date dry goods.

  The Walmart is newish. It reeks of eternity. A vast windowless block that consumes acres of what used to be pastureland on the outskirts of Joy, where Homer’s Gap allows the highway through the mountains. It’s difficult to enter or leave Joy without passing it. Abby parked near a cart corral—mindlessly crushing the contents of a paper bag on the asphalt— and now leans on an empty shopping cart for support. She pauses. She can barely walk. Her ribcage feels as if it is caving in on her heart. Everything else aches. Her thighs, her buttocks, her belly, and her back tremble with each sluggish step toward the entrance. There are two sets of doors to choose from, quartering the broad storefront. Each a pair of vertical hydraulic mouths that hiss admittance or expulsion between plate glass lips.

  Abby watches people come and go. An obese man in an electric wheelchair kicks at one door when it hesitates to open. Abigail follows him inside because it seems right.

  She didn’t make a list. She isn’t exactly sure what her husband and son will need, post-Rapture. There in the cavernous narthex, she prays for guidance. But as soon as the second line of doors closes behind her, Abby doubts that any answer (Heaven-sent or not) can penetrate the sterile interior.

  ≠

  I am The Mole. I am blind. I need no sight. I feel no pain. Touch is my superpower. I burrow into the earth. My skin is one with the briars and rocks. I am on a mission for the Dark One. I am the son of the Dark One. I surrender the hurt. I will not cry. I will not bleed. I will not cry. I will not bleed. Nothing can stop me. I seek treasure for him and him alone.

  The boy tunnels into the thicket three times. Your boy. Because you make him. Three trips into the underbrush, burrowing deeper each time. Returning, each time, looking more and more like he crawled from the grave. Bloody, filthy, stinking, he piles salvaged golf balls at your feet. Kneels there, waiting.

  “That’s enough,” you say, sick of the whole thing. “Set them up.”

  You don’t know what you’re doing.

  The boy squats by the mound of balls. Plucks one. Settles it onto a tuft of crabgrass. You line up and swing. You top the ball. It skips the surface of the river, hits a rock and thuds into the bank.

  “Hurry,” you say. The boy positions another ball. You shank it.

  “Hurry up, goddamn it.”

  It’d be so easy to miss altogether. To slam Bertha’s titanium head into the boy’s skull. Mercy is bitter. Mercy is sweet.

  You hit more balls. Poorly. You’re out of breath. Wheezing. You sweat. The rolls of fat beneath your clothing are slick and wet. But you can’t tell if it’s really hot or your body is just fucking with you. You don’t know what you’re doing. In the distance, up on the fairway, you hear laughter. A foursome. Men and boys, you can tell. Fathers and sons, probably. Members of the Scald Mountain Country Club: assholes and assholesin-training. You don’t know what you’re doing. Those men on the course, laughing with their sons, they confuse you. How does it work? What you ought to do is to march right up in their midst and start swinging. Teach them some lessons. Upend their goddamn tables. What you ought to do is knock heads all the way into the clubhouse. Take your boy with you. Teach them all some lessons. There are fifteen, maybe twenty balls left in the pile. The boy squats, ready. You turn and align your toes with an unseen, an un-seeable, target up over the bank, beyond the sumac and thistle. You aim for
the fairway. You aim for the voices.

  ≠

  I watch. I wait. I bleed a little, for him. Daddy swings. The Dark One. He hits the balls. Some go high. Some scorch the earth. He’s laying a trap. We’re laying traps for the enemy. When they get close, Daddy will unleash his full force. The sky is blue and empty. Empty except for the jet, too far up to hear. I see the smoke trail. It writes our names. Daddy swings the club. The jet explodes in midair. I see it all. I see all the way up into the nasty bowels of Heaven. I see the worms and the Slinkys, watch them eat the believers. I hear the enemies scream as they plummet to the ground.

  “Hey!” they scream all the way down.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey!”

  ∀

  The inner doors close tight, with engineered precision, excising Abigail Augenbaugh from the outside world. She is welcomed by a greeter, almost ecclesiastical in his sincerity. The high white ceiling stretches into infinity. Row after row after row of bare fluorescent bulbs purge the environment of shadow and beat all color into dull submission. It’s clean. So incredibly clean. Immaculate is the right word.

  Stay. Abigail wants to just stay, there, in Walmart purity. Forever. There is air, but it is still. There are people all around. Shoppers, kids and adults, move in and out of the aisles, dwarfed by the wide, heavy shelves, guided and/or confounded by the ubiquitous advertising. Employees in blue smocks, wielding their price guns, transfer stock from wooden pallets, or manage the herds at the checkout. People everywhere, and they must be making noise. They must be talking; bemoaning prices, or relishing bargains. The kids, no doubt, are whining to get toys or treats. The cash registers have to blip and beep and churn out receipts. There is all this activity that warrants noise, but Abigail can’t hear anything, save for a low-grade pulsing murmur. Like chanting in the distance.

  Abby takes a shallow, painful breath. She doesn’t know where to begin. She doesn’t know if she can face this crowd, this place. This kind of piety. Maybe this is a version of Heaven, here on the shopping floor, where everything she could ever need is available. Maybe she doesn’t belong in Heaven. Maybe God hangs just above the lofty ceiling tiles, passing judgment. Out of sight, like the ducts and cables and beams. She makes a plan. This is her plan.

  The bastards start shouting after the fourth or fifth ball. You must’ve hit one of them. You hope so. You laugh when they curse. The boy laughs too. You’ll show them. You’ll show him. “Line them up,” you say.

  The boy does as he’s told. You swing, finally getting into the groove, and fire the golf balls up over the weed-choked bank, onto the fairway.

  “Hey! Goddamn it!”

  “Cut it out! Hey!”

  They curse. You laugh. The boy laughs. You feel good. You are the father. You are in control. You command the chaos. You hear them knocking back the brush, looking for you.

  “Run,” you say to the boy.

  He charges up the path, and you try to follow. Your body, sluggish and lumpy, won’t cooperate. You lurch and stumble. When you finally get to top of the path, off the course, the boy waits by a dumpster swarming with flies. Blood pounds your eardrums, your whole fucking skull. Adrenaline so thick you can almost taste it. You almost feel good. You almost feel in control. You are the father. He is the boy. You are teaching him important things.

  ≠

  He rains death and destruction down upon all who stand in our way. He spares few. I am spared. I am with Daddy. He could kill me if he wanted. Squash me like a bug. He doesn’t. I am with Daddy, and we rule the world. He says run, and I run. He doesn’t have to run. He is the Dark One. He takes his time. No one stands in his way. No one can stop us. He doesn’t kill me dead, like the rest. He has plans. He has reasons. I wait. I wait by the trash. I brush dirt from my uniform. I stand up tall. I hope to be seen. I serve the Dark One, and I am to be feared. Too.

  You feel good. You feel like you might be having a heart attack. It’s OK, then it’s not. You come up on the boy. He looks wild and stupid. He has his mama’s eyes. You gouge them out. No. You can’t breathe. You showed him some things. Important things. He’s looking at you like you’re some kind of God. You are. A few minutes ago there was adrenaline. You feel it leak from the soles of your feet, fill up your boots. Or maybe it’s piss. You can’t tell. You felt good, just a few breaths back. Now there is sand in your eyes, blood in your mouth. Blood in your eyes and sand in your mouth. You hold tight to Bertha. You’re in a parking lot, somewhere. You slump against the dumpster. The metal is cool to your cheek. Comforting. You could die here. Your mouth is so dry. A desert. Grit clots your esophagus. Your tongue shrivels and snags against your teeth. You want to speak, say something to the boy, to get him ready.

  “Water.” It’s all you can manage. You finger the dollar bills from your pocket, crumple them, toss them at the boy’s feet.

  “Water,” you say again. You hope he’s smart enough to figure it out. The boy takes the money and runs toward the store. You hope he can find his way back. You hope you’re still alive when he gets here. A school bus passes, its windows full of gawking eyes. You can see yourself reflected in all the eyes. You’re dead already. You can tell. You lean against the dumpster. Wait.

  ∀

  Her plan is simple. Abigail wants to get through the store. Just. Abigail wants to provide what she can, to help the husband and son she will leave behind. Two plastic bins, some canned goods, a flashlight. Maybe a couple magazines. Coloring books, for the boy. Does the boy still color? She can’t remember. What else? She can’t breathe. There is a wheezing, a sucking sound, in her chest.

  It’s late May, and the man on the radio says fire will destroy the Earth. They won’t need coats or warm socks, unless they live into the winter. Abigail doubts they’ll live into the winter. She’ll get some burn ointment. A camp stove. Twine and duct tape.

  These decisions, and the rare clarity that they arise out of, comfort Abby. Displace her despair. She feels brave, facing such difficult choices. The heavy blue plastic shopping cart bears her weight well enough. She enters the labyrinth of aisles with a labored confidence. Yes, she can do this. Yes, she is a mother, a mother who provides. She is a wife. She does what good wives do. Provides.

  Abigail drops a socket set into the basket. She moves slowly, deter-minedly, deeper into Walmart. A dozen cans of Vienna Sausages. A case of powder Kool-Aid. Three thick packs of baby wipes. Abigail feels in control. Of her pain, and of the well-being of her family. She finds the bins, uses her foot to put them on the cart’s bottom shelf.

  Good. Abigail Augenbaugh feels good. Despite her broken rib. Despite what happened last night. But why? She tries, but can’t put her finger on the reason. And it’s not merely good she feels. There is something more. She runs some possibilities through her addled mind, to no avail. Abigail cannot name the thing, the feeling, the new, fanciful, and rough beast champing at the bit of her consciousness.

  From an aisle endcap Abby plucks an American-flag pillow and a GI Joe blanket. Willie will like these. For Burns, an American-flag pocket knife and a box of 9/11 commemorative golf balls. See, she thinks. A good wife pays attention.

  Purpose-driven, and fueled by the knowledge that God is on her side, Abby moves steadily, albeit slowly, through the aisles, decisively filling the basket of her cart. She will provide. She will. Provide.

  Halfway into the store, on the far right, a wide lane separates Automotive and Pet Supplies from Sporting Goods. There, Abigail has a realization. She knows. It is freedom she’s feeling. The awareness of the impending end of everything brings with it a feeling of liberation. Surprising. Delicious. Sustaining. Abigail remembers a television commercial from her childhood and wishes she could jump up and click her heels together. What she does instead is nudge a two-gallon jar of turkey jerky into the cart.

  But conviction is fragile, and the mind behind it fickle. Abigail shops and shops and is practically giddy by the time she rounds the corner into Groceries. Her plan, her goal, is to fill
the little space remaining with cans of beans and fruit cocktail, with boxes of assorted Helper meals. Then she hits the little girl.

  The little girl, three, maybe four, lies at the base of a waist-high, open-topped freezer that runs nearly the depth of the store. The little girl wears a diaper and a Care Bears T-shirt. The little girl is playing with a Slinky, there on the Walmart floor.

  Abigail doesn’t see her. Abigail can’t see her, small and tucked against the vast black base of the freezer. But when Abby’s heavy cart rolls over the girl’s foot, everybody hears the shriek.

  Everybody.

  Abigail slumps back in shock, bumps a display of Red Bull energy drinks. The blue-and- silver-and-red cans rattle across the floor. The enormous cardboard bull topples, bouncing off Abby’s head, blocking—momentarily—her vision. When she can see again, everything has changed.

  ≠

  He is God. He is playing a God-trick. Laying a trap. Against the forces. The forces against us are powerful. Attacking from every side at once, and invisible. One minute the Dark Lord is standing strong; the next, he is down. I didn’t see what hit him. Their weapons are mysterious. It is the God-trick. He bides His holy time. Ready to strike. Now, Daddy. Now. Get up, Daddy. God. I run back down the path. My toes bleed in my boots. I have to hold my pajama pants up. I am sweating. The sweat stings in my cuts and scratches. I am on a mission. I seek the potion. The magic salve. I have to save the Dark One. I wish I had a weapon too. I wish I had a club, like the Dark One. Like Daddy. Daddy needs me. I run. I run so fast. Nobody can catch me. Nobody can stop me.

  ∀

  The piercing shrieks that spill out of that tiny gaping mouth fill all the available aural space, rend the prevailing murmur. The girl wails, and her mother, a low and very wide woman who is bent deeply into a Buy-One-Get-One-Free bin, struggles to right herself, cursing all the way. By the time she gets to her child, and Abigail Augenbaugh, who cowers between the freezer and shopping cart, they are all swarmed by Walmart employees.

  “I’m, I didn’t, it wasn’t,” Abby stammers.