The New Valley

by Josh Weil

  Jackie liked it fine up till that one. It wasn’t the story what was the problem. It’s a good story about this boy Sam what runs off from home and makes hisself a life all alone up on a mountain. It was how it was told, the whole thing from the first page like I did this or I did that, what was too much for Jackie.

  Oh come on, she said, Like a lie can tell itself.

  Well maybe it’s true, Dad Kreager said. Maybe its writ down by Sam hisself. Bullshit Jackie said and Dad Kreager said, Watch it, and Jackie pointed out the name of who writ it right there on the cover. Jean Craighead George.

  Well maybe Sam’s growed up and changed his name, Dad Kreager said. You ever thought of that?

  I told her, Maybe it’s a fake name so’s he can stay hid up there on that mountain and nobody come and bug him.

  Whatever Einstein, she told me and showed the picture on the back. It was a woman.

  You think you’re so smart, Dad Kreager told her. You got no more brains than your brother. That’s the editor, smarty pants. She’s just the one who found all this how it was writ and put it in a book to make her some money. You think Sam even needs money? No sir. He got no taxes to take it, no woman to spend it. What’s he need it for? Right? And he winked at me to let me know it was him and me what seen the truth.

  That night Jackie said to me from the bottom bunk, Try not to be such a retard, Geoff. Even if it was Sam wrote it, how’d he remember all what this one said or that one said exact enough to put it down as truth. Hm? No one remembers that good. So even if some of it was true, which it ain’t, the details is all lies.

  When you think Jackie’s wrong it’s best to keep it to yourself. I just stared at the glow stars we’d stuck on the ceiling and thought out what she just said. Thought it out exact. Thought it out to what I said before. Thought that out to what she said before that. All the way back through story time, exact, and then supper and then school and what everyone said. All exact and I could hear all of it perfect.

  Ma B says the Lord makes everyone good at something and it’s up to you to make sure you use it the way He meant. After church, when she had the guests, she would sit me by her side and let me eat cookies and taste her coffee and when they was done talking she told me stand up and say back what was said and who said it. All them thought it was a blast. But Ma B never laughed at it. She just said quiet when it was done, Now there’s a child who tells the truth like the Lord Himself was checking notes. She took me to a doctor once who named me a photo memory but he didn’t know what he was talking about. I don’t do so good with seeing the color of this or size of that or details like a picture. It’s in my ears what I remember. I can play it back just like rewinding to that part of the tape.

  Just to show you, how about this?

  Someone’s gonna get hurt. We’ve known that from the beginning.

  Remember when you said that?

  And she said, You’re such a coward. And you said, Is that so? And she said, A pussy. And you said, Okay that’s it.

  Or the time you told me, Get off her.

  See? This ain’t a novel, Mister Podawalski. There ain’t no editor like there was for what Sam writ from his mountain. There is just the Lord checking His notes. I am going to play it back just like it was a real tape and even if there is cuss words or ungodly acts to come I hope you will agree speaking the truth is what counts in the Eyes of the Lord. Everything I put down here is just what my ears remember. It is how it was.

  Everyone else was gone that night by the time your wife come out again. She shut off the light inside and locked up.

  She’s going to her car, Vic said like he was worried. Shouldn’t one of us go out and—

  Hold your horses, Russ said.

  Her car was right under the lamp pole. She opened a door and stood by it and took her apron off. It was a tiny little apron and she threw it inside the car, and got in after it, and shut the door.

  We do it in there? Vic said.

  Nope, Russ said.

  She had the cab light on and the sun visor down and she was drawing on her face. When she come out again she was holding a towel. She gone behind the propane tank. That tank is so big once she squatted down you couldn’t see her at all.

  Now here’s the rules, Russ said. You don’t touch her. You don’t talk to her.

  Not even thank you? Vic said.

  Not nothing. You do you’ll fuck it up for everybody.

  Who else does it? Vic said.

  You just go back there and undo your pants.

  Anyone from school?

  Quit your fucking questions, Russ said. And don’t try to make her take it deep and don’t try to make her swallow. She does it how she likes and it’s good. He opened the door. Be back soon, he said. Don’t wait up.

  When he come back Vic got out and met him. Russ slapped him back the head. You’re it, he said.

  While Vic was behind the propane tank, Russ lit up a joint. I climbed over the cooler into shotgun and he passed it to me. I buyed the beer and they buyed the weed is how it worked. Over at the propane tank you could see the top part of Vic with his back to us.

  What about the end? I said.

  He looked at me like What do you mean?

  If I ain’t allowed to say nothing to her—

  Geoff, you don’t say a word.

  How am I gonna—

  And don’t touch her, Geoff. Put your fucking hands on your head if you have to.

  Okay, I said. But how am I gonna—

  How you gonna what?

  How am I gonna warn her?

  Oh, he said. That’s what’s got you worried. Man don’t even. You don’t got to do nothing but stand there. She knows what happens. You just give her a sign. Okay?

  What kind of sign?

  You know, he said.

  How do you do it?

  He laughed. Fuck, he said. I’m not showing you. Just make a noise. Wave your arms or something.

  I tried to think how I did it in the men’s room, but I always tried to be super quiet and not give away nothing in case there was a customer outside the door waiting to pee. Vic was coming back. I was hoping maybe if I waited long enough she would get up and go back to her car. Vic opened the side door. He was smiling.

  I don’t think I’m gonna, I said.

  Fuck that, Russ said.

  Fuck that, Vic said too, and took the last of the joint from Russ.

  Get out Geoff, Russ said. This is your fucking chance.

  She’s actually kinda pretty, Vic said before he sucked in.

  Do I got to? I said.

  Fuck yes, Russ said. Friends don’t let friends miss blow jobs.

  Why? I said.

  Because anyone old enough to be out of high school and hasn’t had a blow job’s got to be a fucking retard.

  I’m not a retard, I said.

  That’s what I’m saying, he said and give me a shove.

  Missus Podawalski was sitting on the towel with her knees under her. Come on, she said. I put my hands on my head like Russ said and she undone my button and zipper and had got my thing out by the time she said, You the last one? and looked up. Oh shit, she said. She leaned back a bit. I told him, she said. She said, Sorry pal. Put it away.

  I stood there with my hands on my head looking at her.

  Put it away, she said. I told him I only do kids.

  Back in the Party Van Russ and Vic had turned the music up. I could tell even from that far it was Clapton doing Cocaine. They gave me thumbs up through the windshield. When I looked back, she was staring at me.

  Hey, she said, You a mute? which I guess means your hands don’t work because right after she said, Well your hands work don’t they?

  I tried to lean down a little.

  Don’t touch me, she said. Use your goddamn hands to zip up or keep them on your head, I don’t care, but don’t touch me.

  Russ said don’t touch anything, I told her. Even my own pants. I tried saying the words without making any noise.

  What? she
said.

  I whispered it this time. She gave me the look people give me.

  Then she told me, Well I say you can stop holding your hands like I’m gonna shoot you, and you can put your own dick back in your pants, and I’m old enough to be his mother so I should know.

  I did it and stood there with my hands by my sides.

  You with those boys? she said.

  They’s my buddies, I whispered.

  She said, Huh. Well you better go back to them.

  Missus? I said.

  Yeah?

  Can I please just stay here for just one nother minute?

  She pulled her knees out from under her and leaned back. Her hands was on the gravel and I thought it must hurt but she was looking at me like she wasn’t thinking about her hands. They make fun of you? she said.

  No, I whispered. They’s my buddies.

  We spent the next minute with me standing there trying to look like Vic had looked from the van and her wiping at herself with a corner of the towel. Every now and again she’d spit on the gravel and make a face and spit again. Between spitting she looked at me.

  Hey, she said. You work at the Sunoco don’t you?

  Yeah, I whispered. Then I said, Five bucks of regular please. And I said, Would you mind giving the back windshield a wash? It was what she’d said last time she come through and I’d been remembering it ever since she come out under the lamp post and I recognized her.

  She laughed. That was the first time I heard her laugh and I didn’t know what it meant yet, the way I would later when I had learned all the different laughs she got for all the different ways she feeled. But I remember thinking then it was a nice person’s laugh.

  You better go back, she said.

  Okay, I said. Will you please don’t tell I talked to you?

  She pretended to zip her lips.

  Sunday of July

  I know in my deep deep part of my heart what this ain’t a thing you gonna want to read. I can see the hardship of it for you. I wouldn’t write it if I didn’t know for sure it had to be writ. I’ve seen your anger up near, Mister Podawalski. I know come this time next year you is gonna be out. I’ve forgive you and I ask what you forgive her. She’s a good good good woman, Mister Podawalski. She done a good thing. Thanks to her, I sit here tonight a new man looking at a new life. I ain’t the same Geoffrey Sarver what met her that first night back in spring. Sometimes a person can’t even know hisself till someone else figures him out, and then he got to look at her who’s figured him and see in her what she knows before he can know it too. That’s kinda how it was.

  It’s summer now and my jaw’s just about good again. It still makes noises in the places where it was broke and they give me some new teeth what take getting used to, but my good eye is all cleared up. The other eye they said I ain’t never gonna get back to see with. I expect once I can turn my neck all the way without it hurts I won’t miss that one so bad anyhow. I been home from New Castle Memorial for weeks. Don’t live in the Sunoco office no more neither. Got my own place. I guess it ain’t much bigger than yours what you got now, but it’s nice. Jackie said she woulda give me the spare room but the baby. It hollers all night anyhow. I’m better off here in My Hall.

  Roy fixed it up for me while I was in New Castle Memorial. The long way I can lie down flat two whole times plus put the beagle between my head and the wall, and the short way I can do it one time plus one more time if I scrunch up in a ball, knees to my nose. Roy cleared off some of the metal shelves in the garage and put them in here for my clothes and there’s the old rug what the beagle used to use before it got so old and bony and needed a fluff bed. I’ve got a bed what’s not even on the ground. Jackie names it a cot and showed me how I can fold it up if I want. Give you some space in here, she said. She even put a picture on the wall for me. Not a old picture neither. I know it’s a new one cause it’s got the baby in it just after it was brung forth into the world, as they say, and the beagle looking near dead and Roy and Jackie sitting close like they never do. It ain’t more bigger than a postcard, but My Hall’s not big enough for a big picture anyhow. And plus she even writ cross the top in gold Merry Christmas from the Kreagers. They don’t charge me but half rent. Since I’m Jackie’s half brother she says which Roy says laughing I best be glad I’m not her full blood and how it worked out good for me.

  We call my place My Hall or Geoffrey’s Hall instead of My Room or Geoffrey’s Room because it used to be the hall before I rented it out. Not a hallway, so much as kind of its own little house, like Roy says, what just so happens to be the connection between the real house and the room what Roy calls the Bahamas. One end of My Hall’s got a door to the office part of the house where Roy does his numbers. The other end’s got a door to Roy’s Bahamas, what used to be a big glass greenhouse back in the olden days, as they say, but what he’s got filled up with sand now. I got to go through His Office to use the bathroom but he got to go through My Hall to get to His Bahamas so I figure we about even.

  I have just looked at all I put down and it seems a lot about me when I’m trying to tell you about Missus Podawalski. What I mean is just I got a real place now and most off I mean what it’s due to her. Before, I was with the guys doing kid stuff living in the Sunoco and now I’m living like any man with my own bed and my own place and paying real rent. I don’t got my own mailbox. I wish I had my own number. But then there I go looking God in the mouth, as they say. After all, you most like got your own number and your own mailbox and life ain’t perfect for neither one of us, nor no one.

  I don’t remember turning on the light but I must have. It’s got dark. Roy just come out the old greenhouse door and gone through My Hall to His Office. He been back in His Bahamas from after supper all the way till now, scraping and shoveling and cussing. Weekends he’s out there all day and I got to hear him. He’s got it pretty good already, but he says wait till her first birthday. I said it was gonna be the best sandbox in Ripplemead, but he said, Ripplemead my ass. It ain’t a sandbox, boy. It’s a goddamn beach.

  Once the baby’s big enough to walk on her own she gonna be going in and out of My Hall to get to the Bahamas all the time and there’s gonna be sand. He done lots of sand, and little banana trees what don’t got bananas, and every time he goes to the Kroger and buys a coconut we got to save the shell for his pile. All his lizards is escaped, but he’s got plans for frogs. Some kind of special warm weather frog what glows. He can’t quit talking on them. Says they look like they’s from another world what he’s gonna make for hisself and for the baby too right here in Ripplemead. I don’t know about that. Last time he tried turtles. They got out. The coons ate them. In the morning they was just two shells out there in the lawn. I’d like to see what’d happen with them frogs. I wonder if their bones glow too.

  There goes Roy talking to hisself again. I can hear him walking back and forth in the Office on the house side of My Hall. He talks to hisself like a nut job is what Jackie says and she’s right too. He’s got his numbers on now. The radio’s going through the door, Up .08 to 59.16, Up .45 to 73.92, Up .30 to 74.14. In a second I’m gonna shut the lights out and look for the coons. This time of night you can see them come out the woods. If you stand in the dark and look out the window you can see their eyes. They got shiny eyes and there’s lots of them. Roy says they wanna get at the trash. If he sees one in the day he’ll shoot it. I like them though. I wonder what them critters do all day in the woods. I bet they just sit there waiting for dark so’s they can come into the yards and not get shot. Sometimes I can hear them right outside and it sounds just like they want in. Imagine them run loose in the house.

  Up .39 to 62.52, Down .12 to 44.06, Down .07 to 53.17. There Roy goes talking to hisself again. I was gonna send you this bit by bit, but I think I best not. I think I best get it all down and make sure it’s right, the whole entire thing, before the day what I will personal bring it to you in your cell.

  Tuesday of July

  The next time
I seen Missus Podawalski I brung her a Coors.

  Thanks, she said. I can use that.

  It tastes bad, huh?

  She shrugged while she swished the beer around in her mouth then spit. Next time tell the skinny one to go first so I can get him over with.

  I said, His name’s—

  I don’t want to know, she said and took a real swallow. She made that furry mmm noise down back in her throat like she does when she’s glad on something. That’s sweet of you, she said.

  How come you do it if it tastes bad?

  Honey, don’t nobody do it for the taste.

  Why you do it then?

  Why would you do it?

  I could feel Russ and Vic looking at me from the van. They had give me trouble about bringing the beer. I thought about what she said. I guessed maybe it felt good to her on the inside of her mouth. I put my guess out loud.

  To me? she said. And then, Try sticking your fingers down your throat see how good that feels.

  I tried it. The laugh she give was her one loud surprise laugh which was the first time I heard it. She shut her mouth around it to keep it quiet, like she does. When she’d got it done she said, You are funny. You sure you ain’t a kid?

  No ma’am, I’m full growed.

  And still a virgin?

  That was my turn to laugh. I may be stupid, I told her, but I’m not a girl.

  She looked at me and said Huh in her quiet way like you must have heard her times when you talked close. Well, she said, there’s some things that feel good but with a bj you give it cause you want to make the other person feel good okay?

  I thought on that while she picked her rings off the towel at her side. She had a pile. When she was done putting them on the fingers of one hand, I said, Like I brung you the beer?

  She gave me her Linda smile. Kinda. While she did the fingers of her other hand she said, How old are you anyway?

  Least thirty.

  You don’t know for sure?