The New Valley

by Josh Weil

  When she got me Ma B said we’s just gonna call it fourteen and go on from there.

  You still in school?

  No ma’am. Like I told you, I ain’t a kid.

  Okay, she said.

  I’m least thirty.

  Too bad, she said and finished the beer.

  When she was done I asked her, Can I have that back?

  Don’t you think they’ll have seen the whole time that you wasn’t drinking it?

  I looked back at the Party Van. I told her, If I don’t say nothing neither way it’s not a lie.

  Well, she said, next time how about you bring one and I’ll bring one and we’ll drink our own.

  * * *

  Next time I brung one and she brung one. We drank them together. I asked her if she liked Russ and Vic. She said she didn’t know them. Well then how come you want to make them feel good? I said. She just drank her beer.

  Do you think you’d like them if you knowed them?

  Not particularly.

  Do you like me?

  She drank her beer.

  I don’t get it, I said. If you don’t even like them why would you—

  What? She said. Have you been thinking about it all week?

  Yes.

  Well stop.

  We drank our beers. When we was done she gave me her empty can.

  Now you got to take two back, she said. Explain that.

  I was turning to go back to the van when she grabbed one of the cans from my hand and threw it into the weeds behind the lot. It didn’t even make a sound where it landed in the grass. You could just see it shiny in the dark.

  Jesus, she said. You are stupid.

  They figured it out anyhow. Next time, I shut my ears to the words they give me and brung us two. She didn’t even say thanks, just wiped at herself and drank her beer and put on her rings and threw the can into the weeds and waited for me to go back.

  You know how she gets when she is real mad, like she pretends not to be Linda no more or Missus Podawalski and to be someone who looks like Missus Podawalski instead but’s got none of her feelings, till she really ain’t Missus Podawalski at all and don’t even look like her because her face is so cold? You must have seen that in all your years together. You must know what I am talking about, so I will just say that is how she was the time after that.

  Fuck, Vic said when he come back from his turn, She was really into it this time, huh?

  I told you, Russ said. She must know summer vacation’s coming up.

  I might just stick around, Vic said. Fuck that counselor shit.

  I don’t know, Russ said. There’s other mouths to try. Right Geoff?

  I had got the two beers and was sliding open the van door.

  The silent treatment, Russ said. I think Geoff’s got a thing for her.

  A beer and a blow job, Vic said.

  Simultaneous, Russ said.

  I just might try that next time, Vic said.

  I told him, You better not.

  Whoa, he said. Easy loverboy.

  Don’t even try it, I told him.

  Russ laughed. You got it backwards, he said. Don’t you know she’s supposed to bring you the beer?

  I’m not, I said. I left a can on the mattress and walked over carrying just one.

  I had forgot to shut the van door and standing behind the tank I could hear them still laughing.

  She was sitting Indian style rubbing at something on her shirt and she didn’t even look up before she said, Why do you hang around with them?

  One look at her I could tell she was gone cold how I said. All it takes is seeing it once you know it.

  They my buddies, I said.

  They’re in high school. You’re thirty. Excuse me, at least thirty.

  You’re mean tonight, I said.

  What could you possibly do with them? She said.

  We hang out. We got a band.

  She laughed that laugh she does when she’s being Not Linda. Jesus they must be losers, she said.

  I guess she figured on me bringing two beers again, cause I didn’t see none what she’d brung of her own. I opened the one can, took a drink myself. I could tell she seen that, too.

  Listen to them, she said. They’re laughing at you.

  At least they don’t give blow jobs to people what they don’t even like.

  Hey, she said. I’m just being kind here. I’m just letting you know. She looked at me drinking the beer and worked up her own spit in her mouth and spit it out on the gravel. And while I’m at it, she said, here’s another piece of advice. Standing out on the curb waving like that makes you look like a retard.

  Well you waved back, I said.

  Everyone waves back, she said.

  No they don’t, I told her. There’s all kinds of waves. You can wave at someone so they barely know you doing it and you can do it so they don’t know whether to wave back or not or so they think you waving at someone else or you can do it so they know what you really telling them is futz off. I know them all. I got them down. I stand out there every day and do them.

  I know, she said. Your boss lets you?

  I told her, Let me tell you something about the Sunoco. Its two cents higher than the 76 cross town. But you know what? We got more customers. We got more regulars. You think it’s cause it’s better gas? No ma’am. It’s cause of the service attendant is what. Mister Gilkey says so hisself. He says I’m the best service attendant he ever had and I can stay in his office long as I want. Why do you think he keeps my sleeping bag in there? My wash stuff? My bag of clothes? Cause he knows I leave and he’s sunk, is what. I bring in the customers.

  That’s why you do it?

  No. I took another drink of the beer.

  Why then?

  I only stand out there when it’s slow.

  Hey, she said, I’m not too proud to ask for a sip of that.

  I took my own sip. I told her, Sometimes they say, Good evening Mister Sarver.

  What do you mean?

  Sometimes it’s How do you do Mister Sarver. Sometimes they turn around to the kids in the back and tell them, say hello to Mister Sarver, and the kids say it. Hi Mister Sarver. What’s up Mister Sarver.

  They don’t really say that, she said.

  Sometimes a guy shouts through the window at me.

  What’s he say?

  See you at the game, Bud. Whyn’t you come by for supper, Bud. Sometimes it’s a woman and she says, I’ll see you at home, Hon.

  What do they really say?

  Just going to do the shopping, Baby.

  Hey, she said.

  Be back by seven.

  You could hear the yard dogs and a ATV somewhere and Russ turning on the engine of the van. Hey, he shouted, Hurry it up Superman.

  It’s not all you think it is, she said. I’ve been married eight years. My husband says all that. That everyday stuff. And says the other stuff too. The lover stuff you probably say to yourself, don’t tell me you don’t. He says plenty. You know the last time he actually touched me?

  Hey, Russ shouted again.

  Leave him be, she shouted back at him. Then she reached up and took the beer from my hand. I let her. She took a swig and washed it around in her mouth.

  They my buddies, I said. They like to hang out with me.

  She gave me the beer back and I drank and handed it back to her and she drank it and we finished it off that way.

  Wednesday of July

  I never had no one to write to before. It’s strange, not like it was at first cause I didn’t know you, but in a new way now because I begun to. Or least you begun to know me. Which ain’t so different. Sometimes I expect I must be hurting you. I’m sorry for that too, atop of everything else. There’s times I want to leave bits out or just pretend it wasn’t never said like that. But it was. And you’d know good as God I was leaving bits out if I did. And then what’d be the good of it? The truth is, from here on out it’s just gonna get harder and hurt you more. Ma B always said the more you
fight it the more it’s gonna sting, and Mom Kreager told how if you lie still it gets over quicker and less painful, and Dad Kreager said you touch me I’m gonna push ya, You push me I’m gonna slap ya, You slap me I’m gonna slug ya. So I figure you add up all three of them they most like right.

  It was the weekend after we shared the beer what your wife stopped by the Sunoco to fill up.

  Hi, I said.

  Hi, she said.

  We said how much gas for how much money exact the same way exact the same time. While it pumped I did the rear window. She looked at me in the mirror the whole time. When I give her her change she said, What’s your name?

  Geoffrey, I told her.

  I’m Linda, she said.

  I’m sorry, but she didn’t say Missus Podawalski. She didn’t mention Podawalski at all. I hope you got somebody to write to there in jail.

  Saturday of July

  I was wanting to go down to the river. Do some fishing. But it’s raining the slow big kind what ain’t gonna let up. Sides, I want to write to you. Truth is, now I begun it I want to write to you all the time. I want to put down everything. For instance, I got to tell you what I have decided not to call her Missus Podawalski. I have decided not to call her your wife neither. I’m gonna call her Linda from here on out. The reason being Jackie at supper last night, what she said.

  She said, Geoffrey Sarver you got to leave off that woman, hear?

  She was feeding the baby. Her and Roy’s got two supper times. One for him and her. And one for me and the baby. They do the baby first so’s it’ll sleep sooner enough what they can eat them a late supper without dealing with its fuss. No you can’t eat with us, Roy said. That’s adult time, Sharpie, is what he said. If he don’t call me Sharpie, he calls me Boy. I’m more years than him. I used to tell him, Don’t call me Boy, and I got a name, Geoffrey Sarver. But he never pays heed. So I don’t figure I got to pay heed to nothing he put a name on neither. I just say it like the baby this, and the beagle that, and it riles him. But not like when I call him Mailman which he hits me. Roy don’t name his work the Mail like everyone else. He names it the Service. He says it’s the United States Postal Service and people oughta give it more respect. There’s a tattoo on his arm down after his elbow what shows USPS with a eagle chewing on the letters. If I name him Mailman he hits me and makes me look at it. He don’t hit for play neither. So on that one I mostly use his name, Roy.

  I was just asking, I told Jackie. Just wondered if you seen her.

  The baby was spitting out food and Jackie was scooping it up and stuffing it back in. Till my jaw’s full better I got to eat my supper out my own baby jar. The doctor said Jackie could blend up regular food and told her the name of a recipe book but soon’s we got into the parking lot she told me what she wasn’t gonna work extra to make me my own special supper and what no I couldn’t futz up her kitchen stuff and baby food was good enough for hers it was good enough for me.

  Anyhow, I was just asking if she seen Linda and she got all mad no account.

  She’s not who you think, Jackie said.

  I know her pretty good, I told her.

  Oh yeah?

  I just ate my spoon.

  He thinks he knows all about her, Jackie shouted to the TV room. Roy was in there watching a sitcom. He was still in his postal worker uniform, minus the shoes.

  Who? He shouted back.

  That Podawalski woman, Jackie told him.

  I don’t want to hear another word about it, he said. You understand? Both of you. The whole thing’s a disgrace.

  You know so much about her, Jackie said to me, why don’t you tell me just why she did it?

  I started to, but she said, Swallow that. I got enough of a mess to clean up. Let me tell you something, Nimwit. Few months from now she’s not gonna have the same name, same address, same nothing. And you ain’t gonna know her from Jack.

  I asked her what she meant by that.

  You don’t even know, do you? Mister I Know Her Pretty Good. Whyn’t you go down to the courthouse check who filed for divorce?

  Who? I said.

  Day after it happened. And her husband stuck in jail.

  Bitch, Roy said from the TV room.

  They divorced? I asked.

  Separated, Jackie said.

  Put something in that thing’s mouth, Roy shouted. I can’t hear my own head think.

  What do you think I’m doing? Jackie said.

  Well then give her a tit, Roy said.

  She’s hardly—

  Give her a tit Jackie, he said. Shit. Something funny happened I didn’t even hear it.

  Why don’t you give her a tit, Jackie told him.

  Ha, he said. Then, Shit. They’re still laughing and I don’t know what the hell’s going on. Everybody shut up till the commercial.

  Jackie took it out and put it at the baby even though there was still baby food all over everywhere.

  When she’d got it quiet enough I asked her, What’s separated?

  Same as divorced, she said.

  Mister Podawalski, if this is the first you heard of it, I hate to be the bear of such bad news. It must be bad, there where you is, knowing this. It must give you a whole lot of hurt. I will not lie to you and say it’s bad news to me, but I don’t take pleasure in your pain, neither. After all, you and me is bounded by something what’s most like even more thick than blood. You and me is both the only ones what know her in the deep places of our heart. Jackie says I should find another woman more my speed. She don’t understand. You and me, we understand. We most like the only ones in the whole world what do.

  Your exxed wife was not the first woman what I ever kissed. I have kissed them before. Two of them, in fact. I know that ain’t no grand number to brag on. You most like kissed much more than that. But you stopped when you hit upon Linda, and I stopped when I hit upon her, and don’t you miss her? I wish you was here so I could ask you what parts you missed and put them next to mine and see if they was the same. I’ll make a list and some day when you read this you can put ex-marks next to the parts you don’t and chex-marks next to the ones you do.

  WHAT’S TO LOVE IN LINDA

  Them tiny wrists

  Them long long fingers

  How her elbows come to them points what are so sharp

  The skin between her chin and her neck

  Dark spots on the skin between her chin and neck

  What she’s so shy about them and don’t like them talked on, but liked the way I talked on them. I could tell by the way she tried to hide her smile.

  I never knowed a person had so many kinds of smiles and could make them mean so different.

  Do you like the way she does her fingernail between her teeth when she’s listening to you talk? At first I wanted to ask her to stop, but then it got so’s the sound of it kept rhythm to what I was saying like she was saying it too, but just with her fingernail on her teeth instead of words.

  Her french fry smell. Her sitting in quiet how I never met a person could sit like that and make it loud just by thinking together.

  She loves crickets. She’s the first who ever made me feel full growed. She’s who growed me.

  She’s who fit me into my whole age. She put me in me and said to look around and where did I fit now and told me it was time to prove it.

  Sometimes sitting here writing to you I don’t even know how quiet it’s got till something makes a sound. A second ago there was a boom what should’ve woke the whole house, but they all still asleep, even the old beagle. One of the yard critters must have knocked over the trash can. Most likely coon. I can hear him working at the lid, but he ain’t gonna get it off. Roy’s got them kind with latches.

  Yup. I just gone to the window and brung the flashlight and it’s a big fat coon. He keeps on, he’s gonna wake Roy, get hisself shot. In that book what Dad Kreager read us there was a coon. If someone tried and sneak up on Sam out there on his mountain that coon gone and told him so he could hide. Them critters is just
about my best company out here. Hardly a night goes by one of them don’t come and try to get at something. I wonder what they do in the day. I wonder if they head back to the woods or just hole up in what yard scrub they can find and wait it out till dark. They is strange critters. They ain’t like woods critters what know they’s meant for the woods. You come on a mess of turkey you can tell they’s satisfied with life beneath the trees. There is house critters too, such as dogs, what spend some time in the yard but know they place is with the people what live in the house. But them yard critters don’t seem to know. They don’t seem never satisfied. It’s like all the day they’s in the woods they got one eye on the yards, and all the night they’s in the yards they got one eye on the next step, what’s the inside of the houses shut off to them. Roy’s got squirrels in his walls. You can hear them chew at night. Week after I moved into My Hall, Jackie found a possum in the basement sitting there hissing at her so’s she screamed to set the baby crying and Roy gone down there with his shotgun saying, I don’t want no bitching about the mess. That possum shoulda just stayed in the yard. They all oughta. But you can’t blame them. They got them flashlight eyes what look back at you with longing for the inside like they want so bad outta that yard, and why should they got to stick with it just cause God up and decided one day that was their spot.

  I just come back from outside. I took off that lid. If Roy knowed, he’d shoot me and the coon both. But there ain’t nothing coming from the house end except the old beagle breathing and snorting his old lungs out what keeps me awake so I wish he’d die. In Roy’s Bahamas the lagoon is making its lap lap lap. He left the wave maker on. Outside, the coon’s come back. I wish you could hear him get at it. What with all the tearing and ripping it sounds like Christmas out there.

  Sunday of July

  Weeknights, the Sunoco goes self serve after eight what meant when I was living there I’d got to hustle if I was gonna get supper before the Pine Top closed. If you ever tried to get such as a piece of cornbread from Noreen after 8:30 you know what I mean. So I’d wash my face and lock up the Men’s Room and get on my bike. Ride cross town. Mister Gilkey didn’t much like how I give my money to them at the 76 what’s competition, but them’s what had the hot food and he was too cheap to pay for a microwave, so I didn’t see much choice. Sides I didn’t so much do it for the food. Don’t get me wrong, I like to eat at the Pine Top. I miss it now. You never knowed what was gonna be the special that day and it give me a surprise every time I come through the door. The whole time I lived at the Sunoco I never once ordered nothing but whatever was on that special board, and I wasn’t never sad at it, neither. I’d come in and sit at the counter and no matter if Noreen was near or cross the room she’d shout over, What’ll it be tonight, Hon? And I’d shout back Give me what’s special, and she’d shout, Well, I can’t give you yourself, now can I Hon? Sometimes she named me Hon but more times she named me Aqua Boy. Like, Now how’s Aqua Boy like them chops? Or, I bet Aqua Boy wants some of that coconut cream, doesn’t he? I told her it was Aqua Man what was in them comics, but she said how I’m giving her lips and she don’t need them and has knowed me since I was just a little water head so I should eat quiet. She has been around a long time and gets lips from everybody, but she always brung me extra at the end to show I was a valued customer and I miss the excitedness what come from not knowing dessert.