The New Valley

by Josh Weil

  “I don’t want to keep it,” he said.

  “It’s not yours to keep or not.”

  “It’s half mine.”

  He could hear her drumming her nails against the door. She was doing it out of sync with the music thumping from the bar and it was getting at his brain.

  “Can you stop that?” he said.

  “No,” she said.

  “Stop it.”

  “My fingers ain’t yours to control.”

  “We’re talking about a child,” he said. “I’m not ready for a child.”

  “I am.”

  “Ginny,” he said. “How can you possibly think—”

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  “I care,” he shouted at the door. “It’s my child.”

  “It’s your future.”

  “Right.”

  “You don’t care about it,” she shouted at him. “You care about your future. About having your goddamn control over your goddamn … You just can’t stand to have something thrown in your lap you can’t fix to run regular as a truck.”

  “We’re talking about the child!” he said.

  “We’re talking about everything. Smoking, dancing, driving, drinking. I mean look at you. You choose this one night to get drunk? We’re talking about California.”

  “I don’t want to talk about California.”

  “You don’t always get to talk about what you want to talk about. You don’t get to make me. You don’t get to control this, Stillman. This is a whole person in me whose gonna be a whole person you can’t control. And if you ain’t ready for that, then you’re right: you ain’t ready for a baby.”

  “If you’d just listen to me,” he said, but she cut him off.

  “If I listened to you, I’d be like you. I’d be a scared safe female version of you.”

  “If you’d just—”

  “And if my mom had listened to you, I’d have never lived at all.”

  He stood tilted with his forehead against the old tile, holding himself up by the brass pipe that jutted from the wall. “Blueberry,” he said.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Caroline—”

  “Old Lester told me, Dad.”

  “I didn’t know you yet.”

  “That’s the whole point,” she said. “You didn’t know me when I was a year old, either. Or two, or three, or even when they shipped me back to you.”

  He tried to say Blueberry again, but his lips wouldn’t seem to get past the first B.

  “Did you sit there that first night I was home and look at me sleeping in your house and wish I was dead?”

  He tried to answer, No, but it came out a dribble of a moan.

  “I bet you did,” she said. “I bet you couldn’t stand not knowing how this kid was gonna change your life. Well, you know what, Dad? You don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring any more than you know my baby. And no matter how much ass-bark tea you drink and Chinese wing-bat shit you do, you don’t know what’s going to get you in the end. And I won’t live with someone who can’t love what they don’t know, what they don’t control. And that’s why I moved out. So tell me, Dad, what is this thing you made for me that’s going to show me all the big, big size of your love?”

  He shut his eyes. A numbness was creeping down the left side of his face. In his ears there was the ringing, again: that half-dead man’s warning bell. Somehow old Les Pfersick had rolled in here in his wheelchair and was scraping at Stillman’s brain with that goddamn sound. It was coming from the stall behind him. He tried to turn his head to see, but he couldn’t make his neck work. His daughter was saying something through the door that was drowned under the ringing and above him there was the drumming of all the children’s feet. They danced over his head and he could feel each time they landed—boom!— and landed—boom!— on his heart.

  He didn’t know how much time went by before he could move again. His daughter was out there beyond the locked door saying, “Dad?” and “Dad?” and “Dad?” One half of his body was working well enough that he could shove himself off of the wall. “I’ve called the fire department,” she said. He dragged himself toward the broken window. With his movable arm, he broke away the remaining glass, and hauled himself high enough to roll the rest of the way over. It cut him in places he could feel but not understand. Lying where he landed, he could hear the fire truck coming. There were no sirens, no flashers, just that sound of that engine coming near and near.

  He got himself up enough to crawl. Then on two feet. And he discovered he could stumble and drag his way across the back lot. In the shadow beneath the elm waited the Deutz. All the long way to it, he could feel the painted eyes on him and when he reached the tractor, he clenched its side to keep from falling and turned to look: the mural was shaking, surely as if the figures, too, felt the dancers’ footsteps thudding in their veins. But no paint flaked, no bits of brick crumbled off. And he knew then what was wrong with it: someone had retouched the thing, or scrubbed it clean, or somehow—impossible, awful—in all these years not one of the faces had changed.

  It was hours later and the clouds had thinned enough to show the breath of the moon when he came within sight of the old Demastus farm. Bent over the steering wheel, he headed upland toward the lights of the buildings where his daughter had made her home. He could just make out the windows busy with the flitting shadows of commune life. They must be preparing, he thought, for the moment they would come down to here, to the pond, to perform their ceremony of bones and risk. The Deutz shook and murmured beneath him. Let it run, he thought, and slid himself off.

  A dozen feet away, the pond spread black beneath the clouds. Its waters were so still the reeds at the shore might have been scratched into the rest of the night. He crawled through the cold grass, until he felt the mud, and then the water, and then was in. For a few feet, he splashed his way, limbs sliding along the slippery mud beneath, and then he let the water take him.

  Slowly, he swam out to the very center. Over his splashing he could hear the people in the commune singing. Someone playing a guitar. Laughter. He turned on his back, filled his lungs as best he could, and, floating, listened to them. He could imagine those voices calling her Blueberry. He could imagine her liking it. He tried to make the word the way he thought one of them might, then loosened his throat and tried again, then just let the feeling of the sound leak out of his mouth on its own, drift across his lips, shape itself however it would.

  For a while he looked up at the night sky: traces of cloud edges made by the moon, then disappeared again as they moved on. He wondered how deep the water was beneath him, how far down lay the bones. In his mind, he could see them: the white-picked rib cages, the tangled horns, huge teeth coming loose in the jaws, those black empty eye sockets staring up at him. His wet fingers found his face, lifted the glasses off. He let them sink. He leaned his chin forward over his floating chest until the water lapped at his mouth. He opened it and drank.

  Now, either it would come or it would not. He could not see the ridges around, or hear the river, or recognize the lay of the stars, and he felt ready, unafraid, even eager to see at last what a new valley might look like. He drank again. The pond cooled his innards. Whether it came now, or later, didn’t really matter; he could already feel the rest of time unspooling itself, rolling down a swale he did not know into a landscape more foreign than he could imagine. He shut his eyes. Each time the water lapped at his ears he went deaf. And each time it cleared again he could hear the commune’s singing coming nearer.

  When he opened his eyes again, he could see them. Over his floating chest, across the still water, beyond the reeds, the field was full of blurred shapes moving slowly down the slope towards the pond. His daughter’s chosen family, his grandson’s blood. They came on. Soon they would be all around him. Listening to their whispering passage through the dry grass, to their voices flooding the night, he waited. From the shore came the murmuring of the Deutz—that giant softness of dark blur—
standing there, watching him, as if it was waiting, too.

  SARVERVILLE

  REMAINS

  Friday of July

  I want to say right here what I am sorry. I am sorry for where you is at and how you got there and I am sorry for calling you to the scene of the crime, as they say, and for the crime, and for if I hurt you something what’s took too long to heal. Most off I am sorry about your wife.

  You is most like thinking sorry ain’t no excuse. Ma B says Excuse is just Use with a big X in front of it. So please do not think I do not know. It was just what your wife wasn’t like any of the others at Eads High. I want you to know that cause that was why at first. Though why wasn’t just what she was a full adult woman, or what she’d knowed so many jobs, or what she smelled like this or weared her hair like that or put her smoke behind her ear to free up her mouth. Please know at first she wasn’t your wife. She wasn’t even her. She was just the woman the guys knowed to do it.

  If you is wondering why I’m writing to you it’s just to explain so you’ll know how it happened and won’t hate her or hurt her when you get out. Which once I’m done showing you, you’ll understand the fault ain’t on her. It’s on me. Sometimes I lie on my mattress in My Hall and listen to Jackie and the baby scream at each other on the house end, and on the glass end the big coon scratching to get in at Roy’s Bahamas. Scratching and talking, scratching and talking. The rest of the street all quiet. I think about what you must think about. You and me, if Roy was here he’d say, You guys are like a pair of tits. Which is just the kind of mouth he’s got and not my way of talking. But he’s right. After all, you knowed her as your wife. I knowed her as your wife. It was only who was doing the knowing what made the difference. After all, it’s because of her what you is there and I am here and everything.

  Plus there’s the fact what we’s the only ones who knowed her through that kind of love. It’s most like not okay for me to tell you how much I felt for her, so I will not disrespect you, though it was very very very strong. It’s also most like not okay for me to use the word Love. You most like think it’s a husband’s word. But now what she’s gone from you as much as me we’s even more two of a kind, as they say, so I will just use it. I want you to know I never called her your Love words of Peach or Sugar Puss or your Hate words neither, not even Whore. The guys called her Whore, but to me she was just Linda. Linda I will guess is what you call her if she makes a visit. The guys say she don’t even and Fuck off Geoffrey, but even if she don’t visit Do you call her Linda in your head? In my head I call her Linda. But here out of respect to you I will call her Missus Podawalski.

  Nobody is making me write this. Not Roy or Jackie or the cops or nobody. Do not even think for one iota what it’s Linda. What it’s Missus Podawalski I mean. Never erase is what Ma Wasco always said. Never cross out. She was a art teacher before her accident and she teached me what was sloppy and what was presentable to look at, so I am sorry also for any mistakes I’m due to make. But Missus Podawalski has nothing to do with this, rest assured. Truth be told, as they say, I ain’t seen your wife since you ain’t seen her. It is just one more way what we is like a pair of tits, you and me.

  It’s hard to put a handle on where to start. Jackie would say, Start at the beginning Nimwit. But it’s hard to put a handle on what’s the beginning. Get on with it Nimwit, is what Jackie would say. Well she may be older and have charge of me, as she says, but I’ve heard her style for telling stories and she don’t got it down, believe me. Like Dad Kreager liked to say, she don’t know her butt from her boobs. If you ain’t seen her, she’s so skinny there ain’t no difference anyhow. Sides even a Nimwit knows what’s got to be told. You don’t got to be smart to see I’m the only one who can tell it. Me and Missus Podawalski. But she’s gone.

  Mister Podawalski, believe me I didn’t even know Missus Podawalski till the night I met her. It was Russ made the hellos. This was weeks and weeks and weeks before you found out, but I just thought it was like any Monday done with work. Hanging out on the curb by the Sunoco. Waving at vehicles. Waiting for Vic and Russ to come by in the Party Van and pick me up. But that night, after supper and our practice time and near midnight when we was putting away the band tools, Russ said he had a surprise. Let’s hustle, he said. Fifteen minutes later we was taking 502 for Crigger’s Den at top speed. Top speed in the Party Van ain’t much for highways, but on them curves how Russ takes it I was layed out in the back on the big bed hugged up with Mister Bean Bag.

  What’s the rush? Vic kept asking and Russ saying Who’s rushing? and me from the back through Mister Bean Bag saying I gotta barf, and Russ saying, No you don’t we’ll be there in a sec you can barf then.

  I don’t do so good with vehicles.

  Vic said, I don’t like it.

  Ho you will, Russ said. You gonna want to go back tomorrow and get more.

  He wouldn’t tell us more what, just pulled in out back behind Crigger’s Den.

  Why we going out back? I asked him.

  I mean you have seen how Crigger’s Den is Monday night midnight, just hardly no vehicles even on the road and the ones parked in the front lot under the beer signs pretty much just them’s who work there, so seeing how we was going around back instead, Vic said, Geoff’s got a point.

  I got a point, I said.

  I don’t want to buy no shit off no fucker I don’t know, Vic said.

  I’m not talking about weed, Russ said.

  Well what the fuck, Vic said.

  This is better than weed, Russ told him and turned the engine off.

  I opened the door and got out to puke.

  Don’t go nowhere, Russ told me, Or do nothing stupid.

  When I was done I got back in and asked him, Like what?

  Like fuck this up, he said.

  I made the point, How can I futz it up if I don’t know what it is?

  You mean how can you avoid fucking it up, Vic said.

  You’ll know it when you see it, Russ said and put on the music. He put it on low. It was House of the Rising Sun. We sat there nodding to it.

  I said, Is it gonna drive back here? Russ shook his head. I asked him how we was gonna know when it got there then.

  It’s gonna come through that door, he said.

  I knowed he meant the screen door back the kitchen. For the next I don’t know how long I tried to guess what it was, kept on till they was both laughing. Not atchya laughing, like Ma B says, but wichya laughing what’s the only kind I oughta give my allowance to. Then the door opened and she come out.

  She pushed the screen door open with her hip. That was the first nice thing. She was carrying the trash out in a bag near big as her. Her hair was come undone and stuck funny on her forehead. Her eyes looked punched. Russ turned the headlights on and off quick. She looked at the Party Van. She nodded, not like Hello but like Okay, and chucked the trash bag in the Dump-ster and held up a hand with her fingers spread to five and gone back inside.

  So? Vic said.

  So we wait five minutes, Russ said.

  And? Vic said.

  And then I get to go first.

  Who gets to go second? Vic said.

  You want to go second, Geoff? Russ said.

  Hey, Vic said.

  Okay, I said.

  You want to go third? Vic said.

  Okay, I said.

  That was how we got straight on the order. The radio was on ads. I listened to the Ripplemead Hardware one what they do that ch-ch-ch-chainsaws like David Bowie.

  I don’t know, Vic said. I don’t want my first to be a whore.

  She’s not, Russ said. He asked me, She look like a whore to you?

  I told him I thought she looked tired.

  Well it’s the end of her shift, Russ said.

  How old is she? Vic asked.

  I don’t know, Russ said. Forty?

  I’m not paying for no forty-year-old whore, Vic said.

  Dipshit, Russ told him, She doesn’t charge. She gives free blow. />
  Vic was quiet like he gets when he’s trying to keep what he’s thinking hid.

  When was the last time you got some head? Russ said.

  When was the last time you did? Vic said.

  Last week, Russ said. Exactly about now. How about you, Geoff? When was the last time you got blowed? You know. Blowed. Like a blow job. Sucked off. You know what a blow job is don’t you?

  Yeah, I said.

  He’s never had one, Vic said.

  You never did neither, I said.

  Yeah, Vic said, but I just turned fifteen.

  You really never had one? Russ said. Man the shit in your balls must be fucking fermented. Seriously fucking beer.

  Fucking beer balls, Vic said.

  Russ said, When it’s your turn Geoff, tell her you got it on tap.

  With good head, Vic said and they was laughing it up.

  Sometimes when I don’t get what’s funny I just laugh along anyhow. Like Ma Wasco said, you fool them so they think you understand and how damn smart is their asses then hm? Mom Kreager used to swear up a storm, as they say. But I learned better from Ma B. Ma B always told to just stay quiet and let them laugh. Lying don’t make no one look good in the Eyes of the Lord. The Eyes of the Lord is especially upon me since I’m one of them what needs extra care. Ma B says them Eyes of the Lord is the only eyes what matter and they’s especial on all the diminished ones what’s why I don’t never lie.

  I guess you’re thinking that’s a whopper right there. What Russ said. What Vic said. How I put it down exact. Just like a novel, I bet you think. Ma B said either a story’s true or it’s called a novel, what’s just another word for fiction, what’s another word for false, what’s another word for pack of lies. She didn’t allow it in the house. But when Jackie and me was small, before Mom Kreager took The Ride on High, Dad Kreager used to read us lies. He did it on the one about Narnia and the one about the boy and his coon dogs, and on My Side of the Mountain, what was my favorite.