Canine Blues
by
Geoff Slavin
s
long as the weather stays pretty, 'Buelito and 'Buelita Montoya are out on their
porch, sucking cans of low-cal. Their
house is two below mine so they catch me every day.
"Hiya Stan, buenos dias.
C'mon, hombre.
Teck a load off. Marta, andale,
bring him a Sprite or Pe'si. Whachu
haf, man? We only got diet."
Impossible
to get by without being downright, east coast rude.
Actually, I like the old guy. He
worked in the mines years ago, when Bison was a boom town.
His skin's like tooled Mexican leather.
He's a lean dog so I don't know why he drinks that diet stuff, except
maybe to keep his wife company. Abuelita's
pretty hefty. She hands me a cup of
instant. I found out coffee's
easier than soda to dump over the porch in one quick stroke.
He
offers me one of his wife's menthols. Doctor
"made him" quit a while back, but he can't or won't remember that I
don't smoke. "Heh heh, Stan's
gonna go to heaven. He don't got no
bad habits," he says to his wife. She
nods and blows out smoke.
"Josita, Rosita," she coos to the Chihuahuas who sit in her lap shivering like wet
rats.
"Nest
week my son is comin'," 'Buelito tells me.
"My baby." He
shakes his head. "Thir-fife
years old, amigo. You're gonna like
Doug. Pues,
his name is Diego, but all hiss anglo frens, they call 'im Doug."
Once
the coffee's spilled into the dirt, I can leave.
Float up to the house weak with hunger, soothe my nagging hypothalamus
with sucrose, carbohydrates, and a couple of fatty acids.
Smoke a little doobie in the sunshine.
Guitar's my last old pal. Call
me happy.
* *
*
"Que
tal, amigo? Come over here an'
meet my boy." Doug is swarthy,
with silky black bigotes. A
keg-belly swells out his tee shirt. His
wife Sunny, a slattern blond with a paunch to match her hubby's, wears red
stretch pants. She looks like those
tomatoes you get in the Safeway, bulging under Saran Wrap. "Howdy, howdy," says everybody.
They
become a permanent fixture down there, Doug and Sunny, and to tell the truth,
it's kind of a relief. Nobody
invites me for diet pop anymore. Now
I'm the one goes "Buenos dias" as I pass.
"Hey Stan. Howzit goin'?"
Doug don't mess with low-cal, he's a Coors man.
* *
*
"God,
you never want to do anything," Jennifer says.
"You're like a rock dweller... a lizard, or a scorpion, or
something."
"And
you're a dyke." She laughs.
Her short black hair's combed like feathers against her head.
She's right. I am like a lizard, 'cause I love that sun.
Like a scorpion too, maybe, because I'd rather stay home than go with her
and her fat-assed girlfriend to the annual Bison Thanksgiving dinner.
On
the patch of level ground that's my porch and front yard, the late November
sun's balmy. Scattered on the hillsides, the houses of Bison are dug in
and stacked on anything that resembles a flat piece of land.
Wild flowers cheer the weather on.
Jennifer
smiles like an Eskimo. "Play
'Mariah.'" My fingers pick out
the tune. She sits down on the
broken chair and from her clear voice the song sails like a lonesome bird over
the canyon.
Norma
comes up looking for Jennifer. What
a face, like stormy tropical nights. Jennifer
changes right away, gives me a dirty look to reassure her lover.
But then, just as they leave, she turns back. "Sure you won't change your mind? Free food..."
"Thanks
anyway. Reckon I'll just set here
on my piece of the rock and catch some flies."
"Right."
Her teeth flash white in the sun and she turns and touches the sullen
Norma. Why are all the women I love
either dykes or two thousand miles away?
Laughter
and shouts waft up from the BINO (Bison Neighborhood Organization), an old
schoolhouse. Snatches of music. Idling motorcycles echo up the canyon so I can hardly hear
myself play.
The
high Arizona clouds turn rosé. In
Mexico, fifteen miles to the south, glowing red hills rise like pyramids.
Nick-toi, an alley tom that's adopted me, comes to the front of the
house, his scruffy tail kinked like a knuckle.
He licks at a bald patch on his shoulder. I have to keep his dish on the roof because of the damned
dogs that roam in packs at night, strewing garbage.
The town commission passed an ordinance, but dog owners pay no mind.
There's dog shit everywhere. Even
downtown in front of the P.O., big smears where the good folk have stepped right
in it.
"Okay,
Nick." I throw some leftover
beans and a few chips of cheese into his dish. "Same
diet as me, old buddy. No fancy
holiday dinners around here."
* *
*
We
get three solid days of rain. I
hide out under wool. When the sun
returns, 'Buelito's truck is gone. "Yeah,"
Sunny tells me, "they had to move to Tucson.
For the warmth. We're taking
care of the house."
Few
weeks later, Doug brings in a couple of dogs, pups, I guess, but they're tall
and lean, with clipped Martian ears, and paws as big as my palms.
These things tumble around the fenced yard, real cute, except for the
shit they're squirting all over. Doug
and Sunny stay inside, quaffing beer. The
dogs hurl themselves in eager silence against the chain links at everything that
passes, unsure yet whether they're glad or mad.
By
the end of winter, they're not puppies anymore.
They charge the fence with bared teeth.
Every night they're chained to the house.
"Rauf rauf rauf," one of them starts, as the latch goes on his
collar. "Rauf rauf rauf,"
the other one fills in the spaces. It's
a solid all night bark.
"Sounds
like they're right in my room," I tell Jennifer when she comes to complain.
"It's the damned Chinese barking torture."
"Don't
make me laugh, please. My head is
killing me." She rubs her eyes
without messing the
black arch of her brows.
"I don't know what we're going to do.
I mean we haven't had a
decent night's sleep in months." She looks tired and sad.
"We're thinking of leaving."
"Everybody
tells me it's useless, but I'm gonna' talk to Doug."
As I go down the steps, I see him toss hunks of meat into their bowls. Looks like
porterhouse.
Fangs dripping, they gobble it up like water.
"Hey
Doug."
"Yawfyawfyawf."
They fling themselves at the fence.
"Oh,
hey, Stan." He comes to the
gate, the dogs prancing around him as if they hope he'll whip me like he whips
them. "Whu's hap'nin',
bro'?"
He
knows damn well what's happening, but I play it straight.
Ask him if he can't just take his dogs in at night.
"Doesn't the barking bother you folks?"
He
gives me a nasty look. "You
don' like dogs, do you? Man's bes'
fren, ain't they, Diablo?" The
dog smells his hand and cringes.
"They're keepin' people awake, neighbor."
He
doesn't know how to take this, decides to smile. "Sure, man.
I'll put 'em up. I was gonna
build 'em a dog house this weekend anyway."
The
weekend comes and goes, dogs have no calendar.
Jennifer brings me a petition with a dozen signatures.
"Never sign nothing," echoes Uncle Rod's advice, but I add mine
anyway.
Maybe
that's why the beasts are so ferocious when I walk by.
Doug slips into the house just as I pass.
I say nothing. Let the
community handle it. One of the
dogs leans on the gate to bark in my face.
To our mutual surprise, the gate flops open.
He recovers fast and sinks his teeth into my ankle.
Doug
runs out and whistles. The dogs
grovel, obey. He shuts them into
the house. "You okay,
man?" Blood's running into my
sock. "Wow.
That looks pretty bad. You
shoultn'a tried to open the gate."
Whoa.
Pain takes a back-burner. I
search his bloodshot eyes. "Waste
no words," says my internal guru, so I limp to the police station, while
the blood is still fresh. File a
complaint with corpulent Daniel Laine.
The
dogs aren't in sight as we pull up in the BPD car.
My foot hurts like hell but it's all worth it.
They're gonna be put to sleep, something they can't seem to do while
alive. Doug comes to his door as
Officer Laine gets out of the car. "Hiya,
Danny."
"Whaddaya
say, Doug?" They shake hands
over the fence. "Sorry to
bother you about this, man, but I got a complaint about one of your dogs.
Fella here says it bit him." Doug
shoots me a crafty look, brings them out on leashes.
They cower at his feet, panting.
"Okay, now Mr., uh, Thorne, which one of these
dogs is the one that bit you?" the officer asks me.
"Huh? I can't tell 'em apart."
"In other words, you can't identify the animal?"
"In other words, it was both of them attacked me.
They're both menaces."
"I'm sorry, sir. Before
we can act on a complaint like this, we got to have positive identification of
the animal in question. See you,
Doug. Sorry to take up your time."
"No pro'lem, bro'. You're
just doin' your job."
"Rauf rauf."
Clang. I've got a new game.
Every time one of the dogs barks, I heave a stone onto Montoya's tin
roof. I aim for a spot directly
above the TV. Not as much fun as
the guitar.
Three or four days of this wear on Doug's nerves.
One morning at seven both dogs are carrying on and I chuck a saucer-sized
piece of concrete onto the roof. The
front door slams and Doug makes it up the fifty steps pretty fast for a fat guy.
"You better quit it, man."
He's panting so the words come out broken.
"Because I might have to go to the police."
"You better put your
fuckin' dogs up, before something happens to
them."
He takes a step towards me. "You
threatenin' me? Because if anything
happens to them dogs, I'm gonna come up here-"
"If you ever come up here again, Doug, I'm gonna get my friend to
take care of you."
"Oh yeah. Who's your friend?"
"Name's Colt."
He laughs. "I ain't afraid of you." Lights a cigarette, low tar, and turns. Fifteen feet away he calls back.
"I was born here, man. No
way I'm gonna let a bunch of New York fags and dykes run my life."
* *
*
Jennifer walks in while Harlan, the local deer-slayer, is showing me how
to work the gun. It's a crummy thing, with tape around the handle.
For twenty bucks, he'll throw in a box of shells.
"Oh Stan," she says when we're alone, "don't do it."
"Don't do what?" I'm
not sure yet what I'm gonna do. Lure
the dogs out of the yard and shoot them in a field?
She's chewing her nails. Things
aren't going well between her and Norma. "Get
rid of the gun, Stan, please." Then
she floors me. "If you get rid
of it I'll sleep with you." She
looks away.
"Sleep with me now."
"Promise me you'll get rid of it?"
"Let's make love, Jennifer, not promises."
I slide the pistol under the old sofa and take her in my arms.
She smells like clean clothes and cocoa butter, but her lips are dry,
unyielding. She pulls away.
"I dunno Stan. I
can't." She's at the door. "I'm
sorry."
* *
*
"Rauf rauf rauf."
Clang clang clang.
It's afternoon and I'm almost out of rocks. I hurl an old car part and it hits the roof with a loud
clatter and rolls around on the tin. From
the way the front door slams, I can tell that got to Doug.
I slip into the house.
"Open up, goddam it, open up!"
He's smashing at my door with an old shoe.
I open the door, the gun aimed right at his face.
His eyes widen. "I told
you not to come up here anymore." My
mind is clear, my hand steady as stone. He
licks his lips. His dogs are
yowling in the yard. I don't let
myself think what'll happen if he comes at me.
He backs away. "You son of a bitch," he mutters, but he's leaving.
I lean against the closed door while the shakes hit me.
If the gun had gone off...
I throw stuff into my pack. Stick
the guitar in its case, look around. Five
years. Good-bye's easy when there's
nothing left. Set the bags by the
door and take the gun outside.
The sky is still a deep clear blue.
Dump out the bullets, toss them at the roof.
Ping ping ping. With a
melon-sized boulder I smash the gun against the concrete till the chamber falls
off and the barrel's bent.
With all my might, I fling it at the roof where it lands with a
resounding crash. Then I grab my
stuff and head up the stairs to the dirt road.
That'll put me on the highway unseen.
Catch the night bus to Mexico, where dogs are perros,
and a man's best friend might be a woman, or a flat rock high up in the red
hills in the sunshine.
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Revenge
by Jack Swenson
atsy
found out he had cancer after he hurt himself drowning a skunk. When he went to
the doctor, they found a spot on his liver. Patsy knew his goose was cooked, but
his friends told him to keep his chin up, there was always hope. Patsy had
trapped the skunk and dropped it, trap and all, into the lake. Patsy is a little
guy, and the skunk was heavy, and he figured he pulled a muscle or strained
something carting it down to the dock.
Patsy seemed amused by the turn of events. "Isn't it wonderful how my body
keeps producing these exotic growths?" he asked me that summer. I was
visiting my mother in Minnesota, and I had stopped by the lake to see my old
friends.
When I got back to California, I told my wife to be sure to put out extra food
for the skunks. Every night we put out food for the stray cats, and usually a
gaggle of other critters would show up to see what was on the menu: skunks,
raccoons, and an occasional possum or fox.
"No use taking chances," I told Katie. "Let's keep the skunk gods
happy."
I saw Pat the next summer, and he looked great. A few weeks later, however, he
got sick, and by the end of the summer, he was dead. I sent flowers for the
service and a card and letter to his wife along with a check for the memorial.
"That man of yours had the guts of a burglar," I said in my letter.
I'm not a religious person, but I don't believe in luck, either. I like to keep
all the bases covered. But I don't know what to do about the walnut tree in the
back yard. I think the tree is trying to kill me.
It's a formidable tree. I don't know how tall it is, but the trunk is over three
feet in diameter at the base. I've had the tree trimmed several times, and when
the men with the chain saws are doing their precarious balancing act in the
upper branches, they look like ants.
The tree keeps throwing its branches at me. The last one could have killed me.
I
measured the branch that fell, and it was six inches across at the end where it
broke off. The foliage filled one side of our back yard. I had been working on
the planter box at the base of the tree, spackling cracks in the wood, and I
went inside when I heard the doorbell ring. When I came back outside, the branch
was on the ground, the splintered edge of the fallen limb not more than a foot
or two from where I had been working.
The next day I told my friend King that the big guy upstairs must have been
looking out for me. King said, "No, he tried to hit you, and he
missed."
Maybe. Do you suppose it's possible that God's aim is bad? If that's so, it
would sure explain a lot of things.
I still think the tree has it in for me. Maybe it blames me, and rightly so, for
letting the tree trimmers whack off its arms. Or maybe it's because I take the
walnuts to the dump each fall when the tree rains them on our back yard. I don't
know what else to do with them. Except as food for squirrels, I know of no
earthly use for black walnuts.
Payback? Could be. What goes around, comes around, I know that for a fact.
Sometimes I get back at my wife because I want to have sex and she doesn't want
to. My wife is a nurse. She works hard, and she has a long, tiring commute.
She
leaves the house at six in the morning and gets home at five or six at night.
I'm retired, and I have plenty to do, but I've got time to help around the
house, and I do. I feed the cats and clean the litter boxes. I wash the dishes
and vacuum the carpet. Sometimes I wash and dry the clothes, I take out the
garbage, and I sweep the kitchen floor.
When I'm out of sorts because I think my wife is neglecting me, I'll
"forget" to do the laundry or sweep the floor.
One day a week or so ago, I left a dirty, crumpled towel on the kitchen counter
by the sink. My wife hates that.
Katie and I had an interesting conversation one evening earlier this week.
We
were talking about quitting smoking. We were sitting on our back porch after
Katie got home from work. Both of us had cigarettes in our hands.
Katie told me to quit the evil weed, by all means, but she said she wasn't
planning on quitting any time soon. "I'm just getting back to where I was
when we quit the last time," Katie said. That was in 1997. We had both
stopped smoking at the same time, and it didn't bother me, but Katie went nuts.
It took her months to get her brains unscrambled.
Katie said she knew what happened, but it took her a while to understand it.
"I shut down," she said. "I didn't want to feel bad, so I shut it
out. The trouble with that is that when you build a wall, you shut out both the
good and the bad."
"I've got a lot of good things in my life," Katie said. "Our
house, my work, and you. Especially you. And I haven't been taking care of these
things. I do my job, but I haven't been taking care of the house, and I haven't
been taking care of you."
Katie said that the truth hit her one day that week. She ran into an old friend,
and it brought back memories, some good, some bad.
"I thought about people I no longer see and things I no longer own and my
dead cats," Katie said. She could feel the walls go up, Katie said.
That night after dinner, Katie was lying on the couch, and I was sitting next to
her, watching a baseball game on TV. Katie was exhausted, but I was feeling full
of piss and vinegar. I pushed up the hem of her shirt and kissed her on the
stomach.
Katie giggled. "I can't move," she said. "You'll have to take me
here."
"Okay," I said. And that's what I did.
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Wild Horses
by
Anu Kumar
|
 he
land curved sharply towards the south, in almost a sudden arc. And the sea
rushed in to fill in the nooks and crannies that jutted sharply inland. Old
cliffs looked down towards the onrushing sea, out towards where the island
stood, almost forgotten, ignored by the swirling waters. Only a narrow channel
separated it from the mainland, but it might just as well have stood isolated by
itself, in a vast ocean. For the people who lived there, eking out an existence
by fishing and repairing the sea-going vessels that often stopped by, the island
was their own world. It was small, but enough to sustain them.
Beyond
the island, across the sea and hidden by the sharp cliffs, was the kingdom of
Purvadesh. Its king was the young, tyrannical Abu Sayed, with a passion for
collecting diamonds, land and horses. Travelers, voyagers and seafarers would
frequently lay anchor on its shores and dare the cliffs to reach the king's
capital to show off their treasures to him. And when pleased, the king would
reward them handsomely.
One
day, a merchant from the far away land of Bedoina, located deep in the deserts
across the raging seas, was driven to seek shelter on the island by a fiery
storm. His ship straggled to the shore, tired and beaten by the tempestuous
wind, and the weary travelers limped to the shore, watched by a few island
onlookers. It was then that the islanders saw that their guests had also some
odd creatures with them, animals they had never seen before. They trotted
ashore, following the men, led by a long rope held around their noses, oblivious
to the looks of the curious bystanders. These four-footed creatures,
magnificently built, elegant and agile in their silken coats, with a long mane
of hair darkening their heads and neck, an elongated head and hooded eyes, were
unlike anything the islanders had ever seen before. The islanders stood in
silence as the horses waded ashore, eager for a bite of food and some
much-needed rest.
The
islanders made them welcome and listened in all seriousness as the merchant
narrated his woeful tale. The horses were for the maharaja of Purvadesh; they
were of the finest Turkish quality, and were indeed very superior and noble
creatures, but the maharaja was now destined never to possess such fine
specimens because of an ill wind that had suddenly arisen, driving the
merchant's ship off course. But the chief of the islanders was a thoughtful,
wise man, and he had a solution.
"You
may spend some time with us while we see to your ship's repairs. Or, if you are
in a bigger hurry, you may sail to Purvadesh immediately on one of our small
fishing boats, taking some horses with you. The rest you may leave behind in our
care. Once you return, they are yours."
The
merchant was only too happy to agree. He wished to set sail as soon as a fishing
boat could be made available to him, for everyone knew of Abu Sayed's swinging
moods and one could never tell when a particular whim would take possession of
him. So with some of the finest Arabian horses, laden with adequate provisions,
the merchant set sail again.
The
remaining horses were led away and placed in a fine enclosure of their own--a
large enough open space, where the grass grew greener than anywhere else on the
island, for the islanders were known to be generous hosts and wished the horses
every comfort. And they watched in admiration as the horses grazed on the fine
grass. All waited for the merchant's return.
Days
passed into weeks, and then the weeks grew longer still, and the islanders
scanned the sea from their hilltop positions for any sign of the merchant's
return. But the sea remained calm and undisturbed and displayed no sign of any
arriving ship. And soon the islanders grew worried and the horses restless.
For
the islanders knew that the grass would soon run out, and the horses would soon
fret and fume. They had already begun stomping their heavy hooves on the barren
ground, shaking their heads so that their fine manes ripped in the wind. Every
day the horses were moving closer and nearer to the islanders' fields and their
homes, in search of the grass that grew so rarely on the barren, rocky island.
The
islanders had planned their colony well. The field where the horses grazed stood
at one corner away from their homes and fishing boats; the streets ran at right
angles to one another and every house had its own vegetable patch to grow the
few vegetables that the sparse rain and dry soil would allow. But the horses
proved to be voracious. In a matter of days, the fine green carpet of grass had
given way, revealing dry, caked patches of brown earth. The horses craned their
necks in an attempt to devour the leaves and twigs that grew on the lowermost
branches of trees, they crowded around kind-hearted islanders eager to feed them
a morsel or two of grass they had collected on their own and a few vegetables.
But soon the islanders, too, found themselves hard-pressed.
The
merchant showed no sign of returning and the horses, hungrier than ever before,
trotted out of their former green enclosure and ventured forth into the town.
They moved down its streets, eyes burning in a frenzied search for food, noses
held high to sniff in any certain smells of grass, vegetables, anything that
would still their voracious appetites.
The
streets were narrow and the islanders had to press themselves to the corners,
stand sideways, with their bodies held against the abutting houses, as the
horses thundered past, raising a fine cloud of dust. The horses leaped across
earthen walls, boldly trampled down straggly fences and reached out to eat to
their hearts' content from the many vegetable patches that were a source of
pride and joy for many an island woman. They ate, chomping and gnashing their
food with their handsome-looking teeth, making a noise much akin to the cracking
of stones, and the islanders could do little else but watch with stupefaction
and a helpless horror.
And
as more days passed, the horses grew bolder still. They walked the streets as if
they and not the islanders were the original inhabitants of the island. They
slept in the patches that had once seen a fine crop of vegetables. Soon their
triumphant, long-drawn neighs had drowned out the sounds of the islanders'
voices, and the islanders could no longer hear each other say anything.
The
cries of the birds, too, were drowned out by the wild, uncanny neighing of the
horses, driven to a frenzy in their hunger and sudden abandon. And in their
sudden and newfound freedom, their numbers increased, so that over a few short
days, the number of horses had doubled, tripled, indeed multiplied several times
over. They grew ever more daring, raiding the weekly island bazaars where the
islanders exchanged their wares. They brazenly moved into the central square and
with a fair toss of their elegant heads upset the vendors' carts so that their
exotic vegetables rolled over onto the ground. The horses would wage their own
private duels to get a share of the prize goodies and foodstuffs that now lay in
ignominy on the ground.
And
the islanders would often find when they looked up that the horses would be
looking in at them, through the open windows. Everywhere the islanders went,
they smelt the same horse smell, overpowering and brutal; horse dung sat like
patches of cake on streets and in front of doorways so that the islanders had
soon to hop, skip and jump carefully over it. And soon more sinister events made
themselves apparent. The horses boldly entered kitchens, upsetting vessels,
scaring the women. When they found nothing to eat, they gobbled up linen,
clothes, toys so that newborn babies and infants shriveled up in fear and died,
choked by their own silent cries.
The
islanders were increasingly being driven to desperation. Because they could no
longer hear each other, they conversed in signs and read each other’s lips,
unless their vision was clouded by some horse or the other blocking their path.
At long last, they decided to meet. They knew they had to put their heads
together and think, for now they knew their very survival depended on it.
They
met in the same field that had once housed the horses. The few remaining
islanders trudged into the fields, weariness and fear writ large on their faces.
The island chief opened his mouth to speak, but no one could hear him say
anything. Days and weeks of silence had somehow suppressed his voice and the
evil neighing of the horses in the distance and all around them drowned out
what few sounds he made. The islanders' ears now throbbed to the daily rhythm of
this plaintive neighing, it surged into their ears, rushed into their blood and
choked their minds so that as they stood in the field, hoping to find a solution
to end the evil days into which they had fallen, they found themselves facing an
immense void. Long hunger and desperation had dimmed the previous brilliance of
their eyes. Thoughts once coherent were now disjointed, and, coloured by
thoughts of food, drifted past their minds. So they moved closer to hear their
chief, for if there was one person who could see a way out, it was he.
They
milled closer, ever closer, and then finally caught the sound emanating faintly
from his lips. Low and harsh, shrill and often long-drawn, it sounded very much
like a horse's neigh. At that sudden realization, they looked at him, and then
at each other. Their faces somehow looked changed, ears that were once flat now
stood raised up and their hair now grew in a long, thick rush that tumbled below
their long necks. They looked downwards at where their feet had been--they now
looked like strange solid grey blocks that clattered as they tapped on the
stones. Then they saw that the grass had now reappeared and looked very
inviting.
Without
a second thought, the islanders bent their long necks to the ground and grazed
contentedly on the fresh new grass.
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Permanence
by
Abira Jacobs
he
girls had been told they wouldn’t be going to the beach that afternoon. They
only had two weeks down the shore, and they protested, but Florinda, their
mother, had informed them they would be going with Grandmom Essie to get
permanents in their hair. They would be doing this in a beauty shop owned by
Florinda’s Aunt Rue, a mountainous, nasty woman they usually had to see for
only an hour or two a year. The girls were not pleased.
“Ewh,
c’mawn, Es,” Rue had insisted in her Philadelphia accent, thick as tar, to
Essie. “Florinda keeps her daughters so plain. I’ll just add some curl t’th’children’s
hair. B’lieve you me, they’ll look byoodiful.”
In
private, Florinda tried to protest. “I don’t want my girls looking overdone.
I want them to look elegant, like Grace Kelly. Rue does not know how to
accomplish that, Mom. Why are you dragging us?”
“Florinda,”
Essie commanded. “Rue knows exactly what she’s doing. She has a very
successful business. She is family. She’s going to give the girls a little
extra oomph. That’s all.”
“Oomph
is what I’m afraid of,” muttered Florinda.
The
mother and adult daughter, accompanied by six-year-old Jenny and three-year-old
Mim, tumbled into the car and headed down busy Ventnor Avenue, toward the
Atlantic City end of the island. In the back seat, watching the buildings become
more and more rundown, the girls knew their hair, like Aunt Rue herself, would
be stubborn. It would not come out curly, no matter who did what to it.
“This
is a waste of a good beach day,” complained Jenny.
“I
want an Eskimo Pie,” added Mim.
“Not
now, girls,” answered Florinda sternly, glancing over at her approving mother
in the passenger seat.
They
pulled up to a decrepit row of storefronts. The façade seemed to Jenny and Mim
to be like the cover of a bad book, practically screaming, “If you read me,
you will be sorry.” To them, the hint seemed perfectly clear, yet neither of
the grownups appeared to be heeding or even noticing it. Instead, like tourists
in an exotic locale, Florinda and Essie scanned the block until they spotted the
broken neon sign: Rue’ Be uty Pa lor.
“Tiptoe
carefully, girls,” instructed Florinda. “Step over the broken glass and dog
mess.”
The
salon was one room, small and airless. The pink vinyl seats were spotted and
torn, the mirrors chipped and streaked, the floor grimy. Bit by bit, Jenny and
Mim absorbed the shocking scene, their eyes taking in one section at a time.
When they got to the middle of the room, they beheld Rue.
“Hi,
ladies,” chirped the behemoth. “Come give Aunt Rue a kiss.” She kneeled
down as best she could, jabbing her sandbag arms in their direction, gesturing
for the affection she’d apparently been promised.
“Go
on, girls, say hello to Aunt Rue,” Essie ordered. Slowly, tentatively, they
inched toward her, until they were an arm’s length away. With the swiftness of
a mantis eating her mate, she grabbed them, pulled them in toward her
mountainous chins and chest, and planted a desperate kiss on each of their left
cheeks. She dropped her arms. The girls thought they were free, but she swiftly
rebounded, grabbing one cheek in each hand.
“Shayna
mayna punim. Such beautiful faces.” She finished off the pinches with an extra
little fillip of pressure and shoved the girls backward the slightest bit as she
released them.
Jenny
and Mim looked at each other, terrified. Their grandmother had taken them to
visit some some strange relatives before, sometimes against their mother’s
will, but Rue was the scariest. What if there were others like her?
Jenny
noticed Rue’s red lipstick mark on Mim’s cheek and lifted her hand to rub it
off. Essie stopped her. “It’s not ladylike to touch someone else’s face,
Jenny. Put your hand down.” Maybe this was some sort of family initiation
rite. Perhaps there was some sort of etiquette rule Jenny hadn’t learned yet.
She was young and had to follow orders, yet she didn’t know if she should or
not. The red mark stayed.
The
perming room was a tiny closet with a small sink below the single window. Rue
sat Jenny in a chair, draped her with a heavy smock, and tilted her back toward
the sink. Then, she drenched the hair, section after section, with an acrid
permanent wave mixture and rolled it tightly, painfully onto little curlers.
She
repeated the process on Mim, who shrieked every three or four seconds, as though
the hair were being been ripped from her head.
Essie
warned, “Mim, hush. You’ll distract Aunt Rue and your hair won’t come out
beautiful.” A tense silence ensued.
The
day was warm, and as Rue worked, she began to perspire profusely, the odor
wafting directly from her cleavage and armpits to the girls’ noses. Yet the
girls dared not move or recoil, because they feared Essie’s wrath.
Then
came the climax of the day. After wielding a scorching hair dryer on each child,
Rue ceremoniously unrolled the curlers, first Jenny’s and then Mim’s. One
curler, and Rue looked puzzled. Another, and she appeared deep in thought.
The
next, and she began to breathe heavily. Another, and she began grunting
rhythmically. Finally, all were out on both heads, and Rue was seething.
“You
girls have th’straightest hair I have ever seen! Essie, Florinda, I have tried
my very best. You have seen how hard I have worked. Their hair is hopeless.
And
that Mim is an obnoxious little girl. Florinda, you need t’teach her some
manners.”
Florinda went rigid in her seat. Essie started tapping her foot, hard and fast, and
shifted her weight forward as if preparing to stand. A long moment passed.
“Florinda,
you heard what Rue said. It’s not going to work. It’s not taking.
Why you
agreed to this, I’ll never know. I had things to do this afternoon, and I’m
sure Rue could have used the time on regular customers. Ruehleh,” she
continued, addressing her sister-in-law in the Yiddish affectionate, “you did
your best. What can you do when even that isn’t enough?”
Jenny
felt trapped. If she protested these insults, Essie would make her feel awful.
If she didn’t, she’d be letting Essie get away with hurting Florinda, and
that would be even worse.
In
a small voice, she ventured, “Grandmom Essie, you were the one who got us here
in the first place. Why are you blaming Mom because it didn’t work?”
She
turned abruptly to Florinda, looking for validation, but Florinda had retreated to
fixing her own hair and applying fresh lipstick. Only by looking closely could
Jenny see the rim of tears under her eyes and the almost imperceptible slump in
her stance.
Florinda gave her hair a final pat and gazed at herself in the mirror. She took a couple
of deep breaths and seemed to plant her feet more firmly on the floor. Jenny
felt sure she was gathering the courage to stand up to Essie.
But
all Florinda said was, “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Come on, girls, let’s get ready to go. Tell Aunt Rue thank you.”
“That’s
right, girls,” added the victorious Essie. “Give Aunt Rue a kiss.
Kiss her
again, Mim, this time like you mean it.”
On
the ride home, Essie and Florinda were silent, each afraid to speak lest she
throw a fatal verbal dart. The girls stayed quiet, too. Their impulses to
comfort the women, to remind them they were family and would love each other no
matter what, seemed irrelevant.
The
next day on the beach, the other children asked where Jenny and Mim had been.
The girls answered that they had gone with their mother and grandmother to visit
an ugly old aunt. They told horrible, scary tales, not so far from the truth,
about the way the aunt had locked them in a closet and doused them with
chemicals. The other kids listened, amazed the girls had survived and envious
that their own families could not offer such adventures. Jenny and Mim knew that
most families could not and wondered why.
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The Contestant
by
Gary Sloan
or the first time since his retirement, Alexander
Prittle arose before 6 a.m., an hour at which he had punctually arisen every day
for ten years. Since four o'clock he had lain awake in a fit of nervous
excitement, and now, at ten to five, every inch of the mattress pressed against
him, thrusting him upwards.
Standing next to his bed, he began unbuttoning his pajama top, his fingers
aquiver, and, when he had it off, he stepped out of the bottoms, nearly tripping
in the process, folded the garments and placed them on an old brown coffee table
flush against the foot of the bed. He then slid off his baggy boxer shorts and
dropped them into a large plastic trash can, his hamper, that stood next to the
bedroom closet. From the closet he took out his favorite suit, a gray gabardine
he had bought at a thrift store a few years before his retirement, a white
shirt, and, finally, from a shoe box piled high with assorted colors of them, a
red bow tie. As he was about to place the items on the crumpled bed covers, he
shook his head, laid the garments beside the pajamas, and then, with the
efficiency of long practice, spread the covers into place.
The task completed, he walked down the short hallway that led from his bedroom,
past his study, to a small bathroom at the end of the hall. Before stepping into
the shower, a coffin-sized tin box with a discolored rubber mat, he tinkered
with the "hot" and "cold" knobs until he coaxed from the
nozzle a steady stream of lukewarm water. While he soaped himself, his left foot
beat a tattoo against the mat, and several times the bar of soap shot from his
fingers, ricocheted off the shower wall and boomeranged against his shin. Once,
as he retrieved the soap, he bumped his head against a knob, piquing him to a
muffled howl of indignation
After drying off, he began to lather his face. As he peered into the mirror,
speckled with mildew, above the wash basin, he tried to work around his
pencil-line gray moustache, but his trembling fingers betrayed him, and, before
he was through, his moustache, nose, and ears were streaked with white. While he
shaved, the straight razor kept getting off course, making perverse sallies at
his temple, forehead, and upper torso. When he at last finished, he had to apply
styptic to chin, jaw, and lower lip.
As he slapped on shaving lotion, he surveyed his left profile, then his right,
and afterwards, tilting back his head, examined the frontal view. He nodded,
despite the nicks, at what he saw. In the high brow and smooth dome fringed with
silver, he thought, they will see intelligence and in the thin lips, assertive
chin, and long nose strength of character. Before he returned to his bedroom to
dress, he took from the medicine cabinet a pair of tweezers and, musing on
camera close-ups, plucked from his ears and nostrils a few wayward gray hairs.
After putting on his suit and tie and black dress shoes, which he had shined the
night before, he went to the front door, ready to begin his ten-block trek to a
small drugstore café where, every morning except Sunday, when the place was
closed, he had a breakfast of poached eggs, toast, grape jelly, and one cup of
coffee with cream. When he was halfway down the walk that led from his compact
frame house, the paint flaked and dingy, to the quiet residential street lined
by modest homes and small yards, it occurred to him his stomach was in no shape
to receive food, and, besides, he remembered as he pulled out his pocket watch,
he was an hour ahead of his usual schedule. The café wasn't open yet.
He checked his watch again. No wonder the sky was dim. 5:40 a.m.
Four hours,
twenty minutes to go. If he caught the cab at nine, he would arrive at the
studio about a half-hour before airtime. He didn't want to get there any
earlier. Too much waiting would frazzle the nerves. When the cameras began to
roll, he must be the soul of poise, all faculties under control. The stakes were
monumental. "Alexander Prittle"--this time tomorrow the name would be
on millions of lips.
Swelling at the possibility, Prittle marched back to the house, resolving to
make use of the three hours before his departure. Inside, he went to the living
room, his study, and stood before a Victrola, the top of which served as a book
shelf, the only one he had and, he reminded himself, the only one he needed.
Atop the Victrola, arranged in parallel rows of equal length, were the complete
Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, the whole of his
library.
He had read each, cover to cover, several times. When he was a CPA, he had read
every weekday evening and on weekends, holidays, and vacations from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m., with only a brief time-out for lunch, when he had a liverwurst sandwich, a
few chips, and a glass of milk. The all-day schedule he had kept in the years of
his retirement. Sometimes, when visions of glory made him forget the pain in his
back and the burning in his eyes, he stretched his workday to eight or nine
o'clock. His efforts had already paid handsome dividends, nearly forty thousand
dollars, the take coming from five quiz shows he had been on during the last
twenty years. In that time he had sent monthly postcards to every program whose
format boded success to contestants with a vast recall of facts.
Though he was pleased with his performances to date, the big opportunity had,
until recently, eluded him. It was exactly three weeks ago to the day that, when
he answered the phone, a crisp female voice said, "Alexander Prittle?
Congratulations, you've been selected to be a contestant on 'The Million Dollar
Question.'"
Now, as he sat in a vinyl recliner a neighbor had thrown away and prepared to
re-read the "X" entries in the dictionary, he mentally computed the
number of postcards he had sent the show during its twelve-year existence.
Around 140, he figured, at a cost of about twenty-five dollars. Not a bad
investment, he chuckled, that returned forty-thousand to the buck.
Though no one had yet, Prittle was confident he could win the million. The few
times he had watched the show, he had been able to answer every question,
including one worth a half-million, the farthest any contestant had gotten.
To
win the million, you had to answer ten questions without a miss. The hitch was,
once you missed, you forfeited all but one percent of what you had earned and
you had to keep playing until you either missed or answered every question.
Prittle viewed his participation on the other quiz shows as mere calisthenics, a
limbering up for the big battle. He was, he knew, endowed with amazing powers of
retention. There was hardly a sentence, a word, in either the Britannica or
Webster's he couldn't flash at will before the mind's eye. And since these works
were the sources for the questions, a triumph of Olympian proportions was within
easy reach. The thing was to keep one's poise, not to be rattled by the glamour
of it all.
Shortly, he laid the dictionary aside and leaned back in his chair, his nerves
suddenly calm. A short snooze was in order.
At 9:30, a yellow cab screeched to a halt in front of a glistening skyscraper
whose third floor housed the studio from which "The Million Dollar
Question" aired. Inside the building, Prittle took an elevator to the third
floor, got off, and walked down a shiny parquet hallway to a door marked
"Studio B Reception." Inside the thickly-carpeted lounge, he walked
past several large sofas and easy chairs to a big oaken desk behind which sat
Ms. Duper, or so the name plaque read, and in front of which the stalwart
contestant came to a halt. When after a few seconds the aging, spectacled
receptionist still hadn't looked up, Prittle cleared his throat. The woman
looked up from a pad she was scribbling on and said, "Yes, may I help
you?"
"Alexander Prittle. I'm here for 'The Million Dollar Question.'"
The woman lowered her glasses and peered over them. "Yes, Mr. Prittle, you
are today's warrior. Do you know how the game is played?"
"Yes, indeed. I've watched the show any number of times."
She told him to seat himself on a sofa and shortly before airtime she would
escort him to the studio. Once on stage he could take his cues from the show's
host, Mr. Clint Gleason.
When the host said, "And now ladies and gentleman, I'd like you to meet
today's contestant, Alexander Prittle, who makes his home right here in our fair
city," Prittle left the alcove to which Ms. Duper had led him a few minutes
before and steered himself in the direction from which his name had sounded.
His
legs were rubbery and his heart pounding, and he was alarmed at the dampness of
his body. Serried ranks of an armed enemy might have lain ahead.
Walking on stage, he had the impression of having stumbled into a giant
fireworks display. All about him colored neon arrows shot this way and that, and
multi-colored lights blinked on and off and, permeating all, a high-pitched
whizzing sound that made him involuntarily duck as though he were in the line of
fire of a lethal Roman candle. When he straightened back up, he was relieved to
spot the tuxedoed, smiling host, unruffled by the pyrotechnics, only a few steps
away with hand extended.
Prittle quickly brushed his right palm against his trouser leg in a vain effort
to banish a film of sweat. While wringing the contestant's hand, the host said,
"So glad to have you on the show, Mr. Prittle. Please tell the audience in
the studio and the millions watching at home a little bit about yourself,
sir."
Turning himself in the direction the host was facing, the front of the stage,
Prittle could see nothing but bright floodlights, yet knew that beyond them a
thousand eyes were on him and in living rooms across America legions more.
When
he tried to speak, all that came out was a muffled squeak. Rapidly clearing his
throat, he tried again. "I am an expir-, uh, retired CPA, a bachelor, no
children, I like to read and prepare for . . . contests."
He assumed he had done all right because the host patted him on the back and
said, "Well, that's marvelous. And now, strap on your armor, it's time to
begin today's exciting game. Please take your seat on the Wizard's throne.
Right
over there behind you, sir."
When the host spoke, he managed to expose both his upper and lower front teeth
and, Prittle would later remember, the mannequin-like display of incisors,
canines, and bicuspids didn't cease until the cameras flashed the closing
credits.
As Prittle seated himself on the throne, covered with purple velvet, his eyes
adjusted to the point where he could make out a receding rectangle of dark
shapes beyond the floodlights. Above the shapes, on platforms suspended by wires
from the high ceiling and nearly indistinguishable from the cameras they stood
behind, were the cameramen. Suddenly, Prittle threw back his narrow shoulders
and tilted his head upward and slightly to the left. He tried to affect a
relaxed, confident grin but discovered, to his horror, that both corners of his
mouth as well as his right nostril were twitching uncontrollably. He flung his
left hand over the culprit members but, realizing he couldn't speak distinctly
with his mouth covered, he yanked the hand away and jammed it into his coat
pocket.
As he struggled to calm himself, a crescendo of whistles and wolf calls came
from the audience. Just as Prittle was about to retaliate with a contemptuous
sneer, he realized the din was directed not at him but at a shapely young woman
in bikini and high heels mincing her way up to Clint Gleason. She handed him a
large red envelope, received a "Thank you, Daphne," and, accompanied
by a swelling chorus of whistles, wiggled off stage.
Pulling a sheet of paper from the envelope, the host said, "Our questions
for today. All girded, Alexander?" The ex-CPA nodded and took a gulp of
air. The host, eyes fixed on the cameras rather than Prittle, said, "Looks
like our gladiator is all set, ladies and gentlemen. Cool as a cucumber. Now,
for one-hundred thousand dollars--and, please, no help from the audience--give us
the name of the capital of Idaho."
"That would be Boise." Now that the game was underway, Prittle felt a
resurgence of confidence, even though he had expected the first question to be
absurdly easy. Still, the instant he heard it his twitching miraculously went
away and his body relaxed.
"Boise, indeed," beamed the host. When the audience broke into
applause, Prittle glanced in the direction of the cameras, wondering how his
face looked on television screens across America.
"For two-hundred thousand GWs, Alexander, and remember, you have a full
thirty seconds to answer, tell us who, in Greek mythology, abducted Helen of
Troy?"
It sounded too easy, too pat, but Prittle could detect no ambiguity: "Paris, as I recall."
He felt a vague anxiety, which at first he couldn't pin down. Then, just as he
was about to dismiss the feeling, the idea materialized before him with the
appalling clarity of a death blow. They were going to string him along.
They
would give him, as it were, the first nine questions. Then they would spring it
on him, some tricky teaser of a question that he, that no one, could correctly
answer. That way, they wouldn't have to fork over the million, and, at the same
time, they would give cynical viewers the illusion the million-dollar question
was not, as it had up to now appeared, out of reach. And the ignominy of it was,
reflected Prittle, he could do nothing to stave off the crass trickery.
Or could he? What if he purposely missed the next question? That would
constitute a bold peremptory strike. But, no, he would still, in the eyes of the
unknowing world, be just another loser, his derring-do unsung.
Besides, how, after all these years of dedicated preparation, could he bear to
miss a question deliberately? Then, too, he would always be pricked by the
nagging suspicion he had done himself in. What if everything was above-board
after all?
Prittle decided he must proceed, not blindly, but resolutely, with all the
courage he could muster to his foredoomed slaughter. Let the chips fall where
they would.
He sat erect on his throne and tilted his head higher. He answered the
three-hundred thousand dollar question with wry aplomb: "Ah, a 'millepore,'"
he said, the Webster's entry looming before him, "is a large, stony
hydrazoan reef-building coral of encrusting, branching or massive forms."
In response to the next question, Prittle, with a trace of sarcasm, recited:
"'Pr' is praseodymium, atomic number 59, a yellowish-white trivalent
metallic element of the rare earth group." Then: "'Xeroderma'?
Much
what the etymology suggests: a disease characterized by roughness and dryness of
the skin, accompanied by scaly desquamation."
As the host's "That is corrects" mounted, Prittle, betwixt questions,
tried to sort out what was happening. There was no doubt the questions were
getting tougher. Your man-on-the-street would stumble over the likes of
"praseodymium" and "xeroderma." But of course that was
precisely the point. Contestants on "The Million Dollar Question"
weren't average. They were exceptionally well read and had keen powers of
retention. Still, the producers were certainly playing it fast and loose.
Caution would have dictated more of the "Boise" and "Helen of
Troy" types of questions.
And yet, Prittle reflected with a mixture of umbrage and respect for their
audacity, they were on the verge of pulling it off. A few more
"corrects" and they would have him right where they wanted, hemmed in
and weaponless. Prittle's eyes hardened. Nothing for it now but to go down
swinging.
A few minutes later, Clint Gleason, shaking his head and, in a genuine Olympian
feat, exposing all his teeth, gushed: "For the first time in the history of
our show, ladies and gentlemen, a contestant will go for the Big One. The whole
enchilada. Okay, all right, Alexander Prittle, brace yourself--and silence,
please, in the audience. Now, Alexander, for all the marbles. Are you
ready?"
"Fire away." Prittle resisted the urge to add, "Do your dirty
work." It would, he knew, be futile. He would be condemned as a sore loser,
an elderly juvenile. After all, and this was what made it so diabolic, he could
never prove their chicanery. Their question would be technically licit, within
the letter if not the spirit. They might have a spanking-new supplement to the
encyclopedia, something hot off the press he hadn't had access to. Or, more
likely, they would phrase the question so it could be construed more than one
way, and then, no matter which way he went, they would say they meant it the
other way.
Taking a deep breath, Prittle said to himself, his lips unconsciously forming
the words: "Into the valley of death rode the six hundred."
With hostly ebullience, Clint Gleason said: "Okay, here we go! Can you tell
us, Alexander--can you tell us: what is The Brut?"
A barely perceptible smile played on Prittle's lips, the gallows smile of a
prophet of doom perversely consoled by his own infallibility. They could,
Prittle marked, mean the popular cologne, a clipped form of "Brutus,"
a dry wine--they were now taking no chances. Their quiver bulged with arrows.
Endgame, thought Prittle, with a trace of self-amusement. Might as well go out
in a blaze of erudition.
"It's a poem, a rather good one. It has thirty-two thousand lines and dates
back to 1200 A.D., an era, I might add, when one's foes showed themselves openly
rather than pusillanimously slinking in shadows. It's an English paraphrase of
the Norman chronicler Wace and deals with the founding of the British kingdom.
The poem contains, I believe, the earliest known reference to King Arthur and
his knights."
As Prittle readied himself for the coup de grâce, an "oh, I'm so sorry,
Alexander," the host grabbed his hand and started pumping it while shouting
hysterically: "That is correct! You are correct! Incredible!
Ladies and
gentlemen, he did it! Our contestant did it!"
Whizzing noises filled the stage and studio. Offstage, a cannon-like explosion
sounded, and the colored neon arrows ran amuck. The audience clapped, whistled,
stomped, laughed, shook their heads, and cheered in rabid adulation of the
Contestant, the palpable embodiment of consummate Triumph.
Prittle scarcely heard. Out of nowhere, two lines of poetry popped into his
head: "That day you won your town the race / We chaired you through the
marketplace."
He was dumbfounded by his error in judgment, his baseless suspicions. He
couldn't deny what was going on around him. This was no hoax. The laurel crown
was his.
For a few weeks, Alexander Prittle basked in his renown. His picture was on
television and in all the newspapers. He got long-distance calls from strangers
and old acquaintances. He even got a proposal of marriage, which he speedily
declined.
Then, gradually, he faded from the public eye. Even before he became yesterday's
news, he had fallen into a blue funk. He grieved there was no great quiz show
left to conquer, no "Billion Dollar Question."
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