Joy, PA

by Steven Sherrill

  “Put the weapon down now!”

  What? What the fuck? How’d you get here? You see your wife. She’s on her knees, on the sidewalk, raking cheese puffs into a pile.

  “Put the weapon down now!”

  What? Who keeps saying that? It’s the two-headed lady. You see the tattoo on her ankle. You’ve seen it before. Cunt. Bend over. Who is yelling? Why is there so much yelling?

  “Drop the weapon and put your hands over your head.”

  There is a cop behind a lady. Two bodies and two heads. A monster. The cop steps out. No monster. You are the monster.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” you ask the cop. You think so anyway.

  “Bend over,” you say to the woman. Your tongue is glued to the roof of your mouth. The cop looks like a robot, in his Kevlar vest and his belt full of kickass. You see your wife. She is on fire. No. Who is your wife? Where’s the boy? Things move fast and slow at the same time.

  “What the fuck are you looking at?”

  You say it to your asshole neighbors. They stand in the grass, showing their tattoos and tans. He’s made of plastic, or gold. Her bathrobe is so white it hurts your eyes. Bend over, you say. You feel good. Horny. For the first time in your whole life. To hell with your wife and the cheese puffs. Fuck the police. Then you remember the boy, and the basement, and the couch. Then things move slower and faster, at the same time.

  You see him, hunched, practically naked, against the wall like a dog. Bootlicker. You start to kick him. The wife screams. It comes out like a cartoon bubble. It floats over all the heads. It snags in a tree and pops. The cop reaches for something. A train whistle rattles your teeth. The cop pulls a train whistle from his holster. The boy scrabbles across the porch. You kick. You miss. The boy starts to run, looking over his shoulder. Looking at you. Then the little bastard is airborne. You didn’t know he could fly. It makes you proud. Really proud. All of a sudden, like. To think your boy is something special.

  It’s a miracle, you say. But you’re lying. You don’t believe in miracles.

  ∀

  “Stop. Please stop,” Abigail Augenbaugh begs. But the scale of her cry does not equal the scope of her plea. She wants it all to stop. She wants her boy to stop running, naked, from the house. She wants her husband to stop the trajectory of the past few years. She wants her own weary body to stop hurting. She wants the police officer to recognize her from earlier in the day, and to say he’s come to take care of things. She wants something from her God that she cannot articulate.

  “Mrs. Augenbaugh. Mrs. Augenbaugh. Mrs. Augenbaugh—”

  She wants to talk. To talk about Willie. To talk about the man on the radio and the end of the world. But she wants Willie’s guidance counselor to stop talking, to move away from the policeman, to go back to wherever she came from. She wants to hold on just one more day.

  “Stop—”

  Your boy doesn’t fly. Your boy hits the cop midbelly, bounces to the ground. The boy is a fuck-up. You wanted him to fly. You wanted a miracle. You got a fuck-up. The wife is a fuck-up. She birthed a fuck-up. It’s not your fault. You are a fuck-up. It is your fault. You have things to teach him. It’s not too late. It is too late. The cop grabs him. Grabs your boy. Your son. Grabs him hard. You think you hear the boy cry out.

  “Take your goddamn hands off my son,” you say.

  You are the father. The son cries out. You are the father. The hero. The warrior.

  “Put your hands over your head, now!”

  For God so loved the motherfucking world. Your son.

  The cop. He looks like a goddamn movie star in those shades. In those shades you see the whole world reflected. Except for you. You have no reflection.

  ∀

  Abby, on her dirty knees and in the grass now, watches it all. When her son runs, naked, stumbling, from the porch, and hits the officer, Abby, fearing a host of bad outcomes, cries out, louder than she’s ever cried out before. “No!”

  The officer, holding tight to the squirming boy, turns to look, and Abigail is blinded by the May sun bouncing off the mirrored lenses of his glasses. Abigail blinks, looks again, and in that ruptured moment, sees a bifurcated eternity play out on those two ovoid screens. Heaven on one side, Hell on the other. Past, present, and future. She’s there in the front yard with her whole family, a day before the Rapture. Maybe the officer is her savior. Their savior. But as quickly as the divine visitation comes, it fizzles.

  Burns takes a step forward.

  “Take your goddamn hands off my son!” you say.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” you say.

  “Taser! Taser! Taser!” the cop says.

  You want ask what, but there is no time. Bertha clatters to the floor. There is body, and there is mind. You are in Joy. It is spring. Your body is rigid, on the porch. There is pain. Thorough and sudden hurt. You cannot move. It’s not so bad, you think. This agony. This agony brings with it a clarity of mind so delicious you want to eat it forever. The cop lets off the trigger. You take a swing.

  ≠

  I scream. I am Scream. My howl is a shotgun blast to the sky. The sun curls up and dies. The clouds bleed. And still, and still, they will not set my daddy free.

  It’s OK. You want to tell the boy that it’s OK. This hot current that’s surging through your body, you like it. You think dying might be like this. This might be dying. You like it. You think. An endless hallway of doors slamming open as you pass. You want to tell him about it, but you can’t move. You’d like to see him. Maybe tell him to take care of his mom.

  A rock bounces off the porch. Then another. You hear the cop yelling.

  “Lady, get that boy now, or I’ll take him down too!”

  You hear the woman, the boy’s mother. “Willie, please! Willie!”

  You hear the other woman. The one with the butterfly tattoo. “Mrs. Augen baugh—”

  The cop releases the trigger. The Taser charge leaves your body, instantly. Instantly, you want it back. But. Can’t. Find. The. Strength. To. Fight.

  You try to breathe. He presses a kneecap into your spine. Cuffs your wrists tight.

  “I know you, asshole,” you say. Gasping. “I know who you are.”

  You don’t mean it, though.

  “We went to school together, Burns,” the cop says. He means it. “You played on the golf team, didn’t you?”

  The boy runs. A school bus passes slowly. You refuse to look.

  “Want me to go after him?” you hear your neighbor ask.

  “No, Tim! No!” you hear his wife say.

  Sweat trickles from your armpit and runs down your gut. You wonder what color her panties are.

  “Go back inside,” the cop says. “Mind your own business.”

  ≠

  I run. Across the street. I run into the graveyard. I am not scared of the dead. I jump headstones. I stomp the grass beds of the sleeping dead. Wake up, you bastards, I say. A day early. Wake up. I am not afraid of the dead. I am afraid of the living. Their words, their chopped-up sentences, chase me all the way through the graveyard, to the top of the hill. I hear them now, just behind me, biting at my heels.

  “Willie,”

  “Boy—”

  “—it’ll take a miracle—”

  “What if—”

  “—squad car—”

  “—he never comes back—”

  You are in the backseat. You lie down. The vinyl is cool against your cheek. Your heart explodes. You hear the explosion. Maybe it’s your head. You hear the explosion again and again. The back seat smells institutional. Like Army. You can’t tell if this makes you feel better or worse. You lie down. The vinyl is cool against your cheek. Something is crushing you. It’s your own bloated body. You think you might be on TV. You think there are cameras everywhere. There’s a blood spot on your chest and one on your belly where the Taser probes went in. They might hurt, but you can’t tell. You want a drink of water. The cop’s radio chatters away. Squawks. Just l
ike TV. You remember something about a boy. A son, maybe? You’ll ask the cop later. He’s talking a lot. He tells you a story about high school. Something about a girl and an egg. You couldn’t care less. It’s the greatest story ever told.

  ∀

  “Come on, honey. Let me help you up.”

  What? Someone is speaking to Abby, but she is too busy scooping the spilled cheese puffs back into the jug to look up.

  “My name is Carole,” she says. “Carole Onkst. I work for the school. I’m William’s guidance counselor.”

  “I have to get these. These are for Willie and Burns. For, for after—”

  “Let’s get you inside, hon. We’ll talk about it there. We’ll talk all about it. About it all.”

  The woman lays a hand on Abigail’s shoulder. Softly.

  “After, after I’m gone, after Jesus, after the Judgment—”

  “Just lean against me,” she says. “We’ll get you there.”

  Though she has to pry Abby’s fingers apart—spilling out the crumbled snack food—the guidance counselor does so gently, and is at last able to help her stand. As if leading a cautious waltz, the woman nudges, steers, directs Abigail up the steps, across the porch, and into the house. Abigail looks back over her own shoulder all the way.

  Carole Onkst guides Abby to the kitchen. Carole Onkst clears some space. They both sit at the table. No one mentions the squalor. They sit quietly for a moment. Abby cannot face those unrelenting, albeit kind, eyes.

  “Can I get you some water?” the guest asks, as if it’s her home.

  No.

  The guidance counselor mentions a doctor. Mentions the emergency room.

  No.

  “It’s hard,” the woman says. “Raising kids, these days. So hard. Isn’t it?”

  The guidance counselor puts a stack of papers between herself and Abigail. She has a lot of papers. She talks to Abby, quietly, but insistently. She talks about William. Willie. Her son. She uses words like “at risk” and “best interest.”

  “I just cross my fingers and pray every time my own girl leaves the house,” she says.

  Abigail Augenbaugh wonders if Burns will be home for supper.

  Carole Onkst talks and talks. Says “child welfare.” Says “social services.”

  Abigail wonders if Jesus will notice the earrings she’s planning to wear.

  “Willie?” Abigail says.

  “They’ll find him,” Carole says. “They’ll find William. They’ll keep him safe.”

  Abigail wants to believe. Wants to have faith. Unshakable faith.

  “It’s very important that you read these over, Mrs. Augenbaugh. And sign them.”

  She talks still more, but eventually Abby nods her head.

  “Get some rest, then,” the guidance counselor says. “I’ll make the phone calls and get back in touch with you tomorrow.”

  Abigail hears the door close. She wonders if that’s Burns coming home for supper. Willie? She has a son. His name is Willie. She wonders where Willie is. Decides he must be out playing with friends. They’re probably playing Army. He always gets so dirty playing Army. Abigail struggles to her feet. She holds on to the table’s edge. She wishes she knew why her side hurt so much. There are some papers on the kitchen table. Abigail stuffs them deeply into the trash can. She smells something. A perfume. Some earthy oily scent, like patchouli. For a fraction of second she thinks she remembers someone being in the house just now. Abigail looks in the refrigerator. There’s nothing inside. She steps gingerly over and around the mess on the floor. She opens a cabinet. Then another. There is something she’s supposed to do, but for the life of her Abigail can’t remember what it is.

  “Hello?” she calls out.

  It’s called a holding cell. It holds you. You can’t go anywhere. There are four walls. Cold tile. There’s a bench and a toilet and a sink, stainless steel. There is too much light. There is a door. One skinny window with thick dirty glass. Wire mesh. You hear talking. Somebody is crying nearby. Dumbass. You forgive them. You wonder how you got here. You remember the electricity. You want more. You bang your head against the dirty window. You flush the toilet. It’s so loud you go deaf. You flush it again and again. Each time the vacuum sucks you deeper and deeper. No. You’re too big. You hear talking. Maybe yelling. Crying, too. There are four tiled walls. Graffiti in the grout. So and so sux cocks. I didn’t do it. Jesus Saves. You touch one side. You feel something surging through the tile, through the grout. You reach out and touch the other side. So and so is a whore. I love Lucky. You stand there with both arms out, palms pressed against the walls. You feel something. You face the door. You feel a surge. You complete the circuit. You hear the voices. Every dumb son of a bitch that’s ever been locked up here speaks. You press your hands to the tiles. There are nails. You don’t know where the nails come from. Blood pours from your palms. Look at me, you say. I’m crucified. The floor buckles. The walls cave in. The sky boils, red then black. Look at me, you say. I’m crucified.

  ≠

  But they do, they do wake. All the dead. They rise up, teeth and bones loose and rattling, and they come. They come after me. No, I say. Go back, I say. Not today, I say. Tomorrow. But the dead won’t listen. They come and they come. I know what to do. I know where to go. I go to the bridge. I scurry along the track. I climb down to the concrete trestle. And the dead can’t follow. I wait. The dead keep coming, and the dead keep falling down between the railroad ties. They hit the water without a sound. The dead come after me. They fall, endlessly, into the river. I look down, see them writhing underwater. Reaching up. Calling out. The dead keep coming. The dead keep drowning. I wait. I’ll wait until the cows come home.

  ∀

  The last night on earth finds Abigail Augenbaugh alone in the house, in Joy, for the first time in months. Years, maybe. The last night on earth comes skipping down the sidewalk, up the steps, through the squalid living room, into the wrack and ruin of the kitchen, and sits right down at the table. Where Abby sits, still, waiting upon her Lord.

  Abigail takes her shoes off, digs her toes into the filth on the floor. Her ribcage hurts. She is hungry. She is weary. The man on the radio says we’re supposed to come to the Lord broken. Abigail has never felt more broken. All she’s ever wanted was to belong. Somewhere. Anywhere. And to feel sure about her place. She wishes it wasn’t so hard, this being a True Believer. This business of faith. She’s never understood. She’s never felt smart enough to figure it out. The man on the radio says not to question. Says to question is a sin. Abigail wishes she could pick up sin, wishes she could pluck a piece of sin from the floor and hold it, smell it, lick it, so that she might know for sure what it is.

  But the mysteries of her Lord are not so easily fathomed. All her life, she’s heard talk of a grand plan. Of God’s everlasting wisdom. Of God’s finger in every pie, thumb on every scale, eye on every sparrow. Of God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s wrath. All her life, she’s heard talk of her own fallibility, her own weakness. Of unworthiness. Of wickedness. Of immorality. Transgression. Trespass.

  All her life, she’s never been able to keep the stories straight. How did it start? Whose fault is it? And why? The floods of Genesis drown her still. The plagues of Moses torment. All her life she’s endeavored to understand, but no one could ever, would ever, help her untangle the knots. All her life, loaves and fishes, the jawbone of an ass, the slaughter of the firstborn. All her life, Abigail Augenbaugh has tripped over parables, choked on beatitudes. And now her life is coming to an end. One more day. Tomorrow. She hopes. She waits. She hopes.

  ≠

  It is dark. I am hungry. I eat the dark. When the dark is gone, I eat the emptiness. I strike a match, then eat the light. I eat the box of matches. When I speak, buildings erupt into flames. The river gurgles below me. I eat the river. Overhead, the railroad ties gouge the sky. I eat the railroad ties. Creosote drips from my chin. I eat railroad spikes and concrete. When the train crawls by, just above my head, within r
each, I open my mouth and suck its roar deep into my lungs.

  I eat the moon, from the bottom up. It is dark. I am not cold. I am not scared. Night is here. It will not be eaten.

  ∀

  But her hope, there in the dark, is bilious. Emetic. When Jesus returns, when he plucks Abby from the face of the Earth and carries her up to Heaven, it means the earthquakes will have started. It means that death and destruction will roll like a tidal wave across the town, the county, the state, the country, the whole world. When Jesus comes to get the True Believers, everybody else will be left behind. To suffer. To die. That’s what the man on the radio says. Her husband and her son will be left behind to suffer and die. And the True Believers will watch it all from up there. In Heaven. Abigail wonders if there will be seats, or benches. Or will she spend eternity standing, in worship? Will she be too busy worshiping God to care about the torment down below? The man on the radio doesn’t speak about that. The man on the radio says it’s all part of God’s Salvation Plan. That He knows the end from the beginning. That He has it all mapped out. That He knew, that He chose the True Believers before He made them.

  Abigail has a son. His named is Willie. He’s gone. She doesn’t know where he is. Abigail has a husband. Burns. The police took him away earlier. She doesn’t know why. Abigail had a job, at the Slinky plant, but she quit. She’s supposed to choose God over them all. She thinks it was God’s will. But why? Why would God do these things to her husband? To her son? Or is she just being greedy? God sacrificed his own son, right? Begotten. What makes Abigail Augenbaugh so special that she thinks she ought to keep her son to herself?

  One time, beneath the aluminum roof of the picnic shelter behind the Slinky plant, while eating lunch, Darnell Younce asked a question that Abby never forgot. “So, Sue,” Darnell said, biting into a dill spear. “If Jesus started out up in Heaven, and ended up back there, after the donkey ride and the cross, what exactly did God sacrifice?”

  Abigail remembers the pickle juice dripping from Darnell’s chin.

  Abigail never forgot the question. She wants to call the man on the radio and ask it of him. She wants to ask the man on the radio what she’s supposed to do about Willie and Burns. How she’s supposed to endure this ache in her heart for the remaining hours. Why God would create a world so cruel and hard. Why God needed so much worship. Why. Why. Why. What if the man on the radio is wrong? What if everything she’s been taught is wrong? What if her whole life has been a mistake? The questions roil (with rare clarity) in Abby’s mind. Hobble her. Blind and deafen her. She wants to get up, to march over to the phone, to call the man on the radio and demand some answers. But there is no phone in the house. And she can’t remember the number anyway. She’ll have to ask God himself.