Deathgrip

by Brian Hodge

  He walked Lorraine to her car, found half a block away in a nose-to-bumper string of vehicles. She drove one of those old abominations that Volkswagen had christened The Thing. She dug into her purse for the keys.

  And then her shoulders slumped, deflated, and she looked up into his eyes. Profoundly miserable all of a sudden, as if the prospect of her empty house were the last thing on earth she wanted to face.

  “I don’t want to go home, Paul. I think I’d sooner sleep in the gutter tonight. Can … can I borrow your couch or something?”

  It was the last thing he’d expected, packing a heavyweight wallop. Roll with the punches, he was loose enough. “Sure, sure. You probably shouldn’t even be driving, anyway.”

  They abandoned her car and kept going, Paul doing most of the navigating. Prolonged exposure to the night air seemed to benefit their legwork, practice makes perfect. Two sots who pass in the night. He wondered what upwardly mobile Craig would have to say if he saw her now. Probably wouldn’t find much humor in the situation, and this infused Paul with a wonderfully exhilarating rush of one-upmanship, however short-lived it might be. We got you this time, Craig.

  “You are one nice man. You know that?”

  He felt the flush of low-grade embarrassment creeping into his cheeks. “Right. Saint Paul.”

  “Seriously!” She gestured emphatically with her hands. The lethargic wind-down that had been overtaking her in Tappers was being driven out by renewed energy. “Everybody says so.”

  Paul grunted. “Peter says I’m too nice for my own good.”

  “Peter Hargrove is a Viking who was unlucky enough to have been born a thousand years too late. Lorraine leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder a moment. “I respect you.”

  “Good for you. That’s one.”

  “I’ll bet anything you’re not from a city originally. Are you? You have this kind of, oh, small-town compassion about you. Am I right? Bet you anything, bet you a pitcher at Tappers. Where were you born and raised?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Oh, you smartass!” she wailed, wounded. “I feel so stupid now, thank you so much.”

  “You want me to rub your nose in it some more?” He cackled and ground his palms together, Torquemada at the Inquisition. “I was born in the back of a taxi. My mom went into labor a couple of weeks early, really sudden. The cabbie couldn’t even make it to the nearest hospital on time. It happened the day Kennedy was shot.”

  “No kidding? Cause and effect, you think? Did the news shock her that much?”

  “More like coincidence, I’m sure.”

  She was clearly impressed, the most interesting birth story she’d heard, she said. “Do you get back to visit your family much?”

  He shook his head, and right, here’s where memories became treacherous. “I haven’t been to Chicago in years. My dad died when I was twelve. Cancer. Mom, I don’t know. She just wasn’t ever really the same after that. When I first left for college, she moved to Ohio, to be close to her sister. She works as a checker in a convenience store. She’s … not all there anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Paul.” Lorraine was nearly whispering. “I didn’t mean to stir up bad memories.”

  Bad memories, such gentle understatement. The threshold to puberty was a double-barrel blast of atrocious memories. Watching Dad drop pound after pound, shriveling into himself a piece at a time. Lines cutting into his face while he fought the good fight, even as he radiated the stench of rotting from within. And watching Mom shrink into herself, as well, a psychological counterpoint to the way Dad had died. And young Paul himself, suffering in silence most of the time, unable to shake the creeping sense of being somehow to blame, all this was his fault, and he had only to figure out why.

  He remembered the diagnosis, cancer, and what a horrifying awakening that had been, the first true sign of weakness in this man who had once been immortal, who had stood taller and firmer than the Colossus of Rhodes. It’s my fault.

  Intellectually, even at such a tender age, he knew better. He understood death. Pets had died. Relatives had died. As had classmates and neighbors and strangers with familiar names. But in the best of all possible worlds, fathers should be spared. At least until their sons and daughters were grown, until they had balanced grandchildren on their knees. Only then, one day, could they be allowed to go to the grave, secure in knowing that a legacy did indeed exist, that they had not fretted and toiled for nothing. Unfinished business was the worst loose end of all.

  And guilt belonged in the past. But this was not the best of all possible worlds. Even so, sometimes you still get lucky, and someone, somewhere, offers a small gesture of support to make it bearable.

  Like when Lorraine reached down to hold his hand. The cool press of interlocking fingers, he let it happen, relished it.

  They had the giggles again by the time Paul figured out which key to use to access his building. The night could no longer swallow their voices after they entered through a rear doorway. The hall seemed to amplify them at once, hugely so. Massive audio shock.

  “Shhhhhhh!” Paul raised a finger to his lips, spluttered laughter again. If he looked her in the eye at this precise moment, he knew he wouldn’t get off the floor for a half hour. “We have to be quiet so we don’t wake the wicked witch of the second floor.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. DeWitt.” Once they had reached the staircase, he peered dramatically upward, holding her back, here there be dragons. Coast clear. “You don’t want to meet her.”

  “Is she really that bad?”

  “Remember that scary old bitch in Throw Momma from the Train?” he asked, and she said she did. “This could be her younger sister.”

  They hauled themselves upward, hand over hand along the banister, Lorraine softly chanting, “Wake the wicked witch, we wake the wicked witch.” Paul trembled with suppressed laughter and demanded silent stealth, but she would have none of it. She dropped her voice into Elmer Fudd, his little chugging laughter, “We wake the wicked witch, you wascally wabbit.” He couldn’t stand this, his seams were bursting, and finally they slogged through his doorway, awash in silly drunken hilarity, moments that seemed funniest after midnight, and the later the better.

  Paul hit the lights, then the stereo. A cut from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was drifting from KGRM. Captain Quaalude’s Classics. He was probably tracking albums tonight, fewer chances to screw up before total sobriety set in. Paul collapsed into his couch’s embrace while Lorraine set off on an expedition into the kitchen, yanked open the fridge door. Clinked every single bottle and jar inside.

  “Hey! Cream cheese!” A squeal of delight. “I love cream cheese! Do you have any bagels? Please say you have bagels!”

  “No, I don’t, and don’t open that. It’s toxic waste by now.”

  He listened to her muttered disappointment as she continued to rearrange his fridge. Then, silence. Could be trouble. A moment later, Lorraine shuffled in across the well-worn carpet with a carton of blueberry yogurt. She nibbled a spoonful, grinned at him. With her hair in her face, blouse only half-tucked into her jeans, and posture abysmal, Lorraine looked disheveled and frowzy. And absolutely adorable.

  “I found yogurt.” She held up the refilled spoon to prove it. “Can I have some?” He said no, and she chose to ignore it and shuffled past, leaning over to peer at his pets within their glass walls. She smiled and waved to them.

  “What cute little hamsters,” and she then squeaked in an apparent attempt to establish communication, I know just how you feel in there. They remained aloof. “What are their names?”

  “Calvin and Hobbes. And they’re not hamsters, they’re gerbils.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Gerbils take longer in a crock pot.”

  She whirled, eyes wide with horror. “Oh Paul Handler, you’re the sickest human being in the entire world. And you deserve punishment.”

  Lorraine bounded onto the sofa, and he bounced alongsid
e her, and she set the yogurt container on the coffee table. The spoon she retained, and the sizeable blob of yogurt it held. Clasping the end of the handle, fingertips only, she drew the business end back like a catapult and sighted in. Steady…

  Paul sat erect, chin thrust defiantly. “Lorraine…”

  Aim…

  “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare—”

  Fire! The yogurt splatted onto his right cheek like a creamy bird dropping. Lorraine tried to compose herself, prim and perfectly innocent, but the giggles got the best of her all over again. Giggles turned to shrieks when he hooked his fingers onto her ribs, he knew those were ticklish, the chink in the armor. Paul was laughing as hard as she when they both thudded to the floor, rolling and rebounding in a horizontal clinch as she kicked weakly and whooped and gasped for breath. She squirmed like an eel and they ricocheted off an orange crate, she begging No no no stop stop, and he insisting You’ve gone too far this time, and she vowing I take it back, I’m sorry, I’ll be good.

  The next thing he knew her face was pressed against his and she flicked out her tongue, licking the offending yogurt from his cheek, her hands tickling him in retaliation, and their lips brushed accidentally — or was it, really? — and then their mouths made a second dive for each other and this time lingered. Tight, so tight, so fervent.

  The rolling, the struggling, these dwindled, ceased. The music pulsed on, murky saxophone wringing melodies of desperate futile melancholy. Lorraine lay still beneath him, cradling him with parted legs, muscles taut and straining. He propped himself onto elbows to better gaze down at her, her wide startled eyes. Her breath was coming in sudden little hitches; he could feel it beneath him, the quick rise and fall, could feel its sweet peach scent upon his throat. Her parted lips were trembling. Trembling. He had never thought he could make a woman tremble.

  “Paul?” Quietly, timidly. “What’s happening here?”

  “I don’t know.” An honest whisper. “Do you mind it?”

  Eyes wider still, a tiny shake of her head. Voice now a hush. “No.”

  He stayed put, secure in that pelvic cradle, motionless. Balanced atop some judgmental fence from which he could tumble down one side or the other. So many things to consider in mere seconds, the decision not just a matter of simple lust — never that, not with her. He thought of marriage, how he still believed in its sanctity. How he could truly love her if she would allow that. How Craig hurt her in ways he probably wasn’t even aware of, Craig, this night over the hills and far away while she was here of her own free will.

  He wanted this so badly, more than just one night, but if one night was all that it was, then it would have to do. Things are what they are.

  He felt that peculiar delicious fear of shared vulnerability, allowing another to risk the dive within your soul. To turn back from this brink now would be so very difficult, so very painful.

  The decision was made, had been made all along, and if only dawn might never come.

  Chapter 7

  The morning sun was brutal even through his bedroom curtains. Paul turned away in a witless attempt at escape, and as it burned away sleep, along came recollection. The past twenty-four hours, the tragedy and the ecstasy, all leading up to this agreeable feeling of not waking up alone.

  Complete thoughts, finally, present situation.

  Number one: I have beer farts.

  Number two: How can I discreetly deal with this?

  He glanced at Lorraine, who slept in a childlike curl with the sheet in loose folds up to her shoulders. He bent forward to lightly kiss the exposed shoulder, and she rewarded him with a happy murmur of sleep, sweet dreams. He could easily grow accustomed to beginning his days with that sound.

  Suffering the jet lag of new morn sobriety, he tiptoed into the bathroom and shut the door, alone with his traitor digestive system. Selfish thing that it was, caring not a bit that a lovely young woman had shared bed, body, and soul with him, and he wished to avoid offending her. An old clawfoot tub hunkered across the room, tattooed with stains that defied all known cleansers, and he ran water to mask his noise. Master of diversion.

  Lorraine awoke when he crept back into bed, and she groaned, stretched with the sinewy grace of a cat. She played racquetball, and he could tell it; he was pleasantly sore in places he had forgotten he could be. The sheet pulled away to waist level, and her breasts were pale against the gold of her tan. She relaxed, licking dry lips to moisten them.

  He was a little dry himself. Ironic, this proclivity of people to pair off and go home to exchange bodily fluids after having drunk enough to dehydrate themselves. So bad that Gatorade became an aphrodisiac.

  “Hi,” he said. A light opener for the day, easygoing, not at all indicative of having just broken Commandments Seven and Ten.

  “Hi yourself.” Lazy little smile, which — for some reason — didn’t seem quite enough. He wanted more. Cartwheels would do.

  Married. Oh yeah. Shit.

  “You don’t have a maid, by any chance, do you?”

  He swept his arm to show off the room’s floor, one giant underwear and sock drawer. “I gave her the year off.”

  “Rats. No room service.”

  “I could fill in. You should see me in a frilly apron and heels.” He scooted up to sit, molding a pillow between back and headboard. The clock radio read 8:52.

  Paul watched her for a moment, increasingly uneasy over what he saw. Her hand, performing the utterly useless task of smoothing out sheet wrinkles. Her eye contact, fleeting at best. He felt the first fearful quivers in his belly, high and nervous.

  A treasure trove of things he wanted to say had accumulated over the night. That he could love her, deeply. What would happen when Craig returned home, and what of the more distant future? Countless variations and repetitions of each, none of which seemed remotely appropriate at the moment. Overstepping his bounds, perhaps? Where did the boundaries even lie anymore?

  “How do you feel this morning?” An open-ended question.

  “Pretty decent, considering.” She leaned into the sun’s rays, soaking them in as if to recharge. “I thought I’d be more hung over.”

  It wasn’t what he’d meant, but that’s what you get for open-ended questions. Last night had changed everything, and he was burning to know to what degree. Because some genuinely wonderful magic had been conjured up in the living room and bedroom just hours ago. For better or for worse, magic changes things. No stagnation allowed in the Magic Kingdom.

  “Are you happy?”

  She didn’t turn around, not yet, still faced the filtered sunbeams. It took several seconds, but she finally nodded. It didn’t matter how long it took, seconds or an hour, the effect was still the same: It hurt like hell. She’d had to think about it first. And no matter how much the rational left side of the brain told him that this wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for her, either, the intuitive right would have no part of it. Emotion flexed muscles the size of Schwarzenegger’s; logic was built like Pee-wee Herman.

  “Are you scared?”

  She turned, at last, sunlight firing a golden forge through that glorious tousled hair. Her eyes huge, nakedly vulnerable, allowing neither lie nor rationalization to escape. He knew the answer before she nodded again.

  “Are you sorry?”

  That did it.

  Lorraine shut her eyes and scooted closer, let the sun melt her into his waiting arms, and he rested his cheek atop her head. Her hair still smelled faintly of smoke from Tappers.

  “No. I’m not sorry. And right now, I don’t know if that’s okay, or if I should be. Because that means … that means there’s a lot in my life that I have to get sorted out, before…”

  I really don’t want to hear this.

  “…before I go making any important decisions.”

  He shut his eyes, tried to soak in every last nuance of the moment. The physical closeness; the deepened emotional bonds, however tenuous they might turn out to be. Odds were, he was quickly realiz
ing, that this scenario was a one-shot, unlikely to repeat soon, if ever. So he became a sponge, absorbing whatever he could, preserving it, whole and perfect, so it could later be pulled out and cherished like an heirloom. So he could assure himself that, yes, they had happened, if only for one lovely, shining night.

  Better that by far than turning it into something tawdry. Furious bathroom copulations during the newscast between their airshifts. Skulking about in dark bars and restaurants, entering theaters after the show had already started, and even then worrying who might see them, who might talk. He couldn’t live like that, love like that. And could play no part in forcing her to do likewise.

  Believing that she could simply have turned her back on her current life and walked straight into his? Delusional thinking. A rationalization. But honest, so painfully honest.

  Lorraine pulled back, ran fingertips along the sides of his face in sweet caress. Kissed him. No obligatory kiss, this one, meant to serve as some emotional pacifier, but wholly genuine.

  “I’m sorry, Paul,” her eyes begging for a depth of understanding she seemed to fear she could not reasonably expect. “Plus … we’ve been talking about maybe having a baby.”

  Insult to injury, salt in the wounds. Babies meant that major-league commitment was still in the cards. He felt sicker than ever, the hot squirm of regret. A child, just what her husband needed. Her husband, don’t say his name and he becomes less real, right? A child, someone to follow in his Gucci footsteps. What, me, bitter?

  Another fierce hug, another futile try at making time stand still and bottling the essence of the moment. Then she was up and off the bed. As he took in the sight of her before all would be forever-more hidden in clothes, it was a classic case of the unattainable goal looking infinitely more desirable.

  Was anything worse than unrequited love? But of course. The genuine, two-way real thing roadblocked by prior commitment.