Hick (18 page)

“What about the color, you like the color?”

“No. I look like Elvis.”

“Well, I think you look real pretty. I fixed you up nice now and I think you look real pretty.”

He continues stroking my hair. I sit, frozen.

“That why you got these ropes on me?”

He stops stroking my hair and sits down on the side of the bed, facing me.

“Nope. I got these ropes on you because if you leave I’ll die.”

He reaches out for my hand, holding it tight and talking into my eyes, trying to make good. “Now, I know what you must be thinking.”

He’s got that wrong.

“What happened there, what happened back there was, wull, it wasn’t right.”

I am too amazed to do the screaming I had planned.

“It wasn’t right. And I know it.”

I wriggle my body in the other direction, just enough to look at the wall.

“Luli? Luli, listen to me.” He grabs my chin and tries to turn me towards him. “I promise. I promise, as God or Satan or the president is my witness, I promise that will never, ever happen again. Okay?”

He grabs my head, gentle, with both his hands and lays a kiss on my forehead.

“And besides, I think you were an angel sent to me to be mine and make things better. I think you were put on this earth to save me, Luli.”

I look up at him, smiling down at me like a goofy milkman, lost in love. I muster a smile, trying to figure out where he put the key to that padlock.

“And just to show you that I mean business, I’m gonna untie these things right now. And just so you know, for future reference, you never have to wear them again. Never. Except when I’m gone.”

He reaches round his neck and pulls out a tiny key, strung on a piece of twine. He smiles back at me, pulling off the covers and fumbling with the padlock. I notice my legs are bruised where the ropes are too tight, digging in, leaving red marks. If I hadn’t put this
day in a jam jar, that might just be the kind of thing that would turn me into a blubbering milksop. But, lucky for me, I took precautions.

Eddie unhitches the lock and begins unraveling the ropes, delicate, looking up at me now and then with an embarrassed smile, like he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He unties the last of the ropes and puts them under the bed. When he comes up, he’s got a little red velvet box in his hands. He tucks the blanket up to my neck like he’s wrapping me up for Christmas and hands me the box, sticking his chin in, bashful. What the fuck have we got here?

I open it and, get this, it’s a gold chain with tiny gold cursive swoop letters that spell out, “Hot Stuff.”

“See, it says ‘Hot Stuff,’ like you, you’re hot stuff.”

At this point, I can’t even look at Eddie. I can’t even begin to start to fathom what the hell has gone on between that night in the dirt by the side of the road, and now, where all the sudden I’m the love of his life, his angel, hot stuff. Seems to me this is either some kinda set-up or he is certifiable out of his tree.

“Like it?”

“Um, I guess so.”

“Good.”

He snatches it out of my hand and before I know it, it’s round my neck.

Hot Stuff.

“I got it outside the Pincus Ranch, while you were snoozing away.”

He looks so proud and is acting so stupid I almost feel sorry for him.

“They got wild horses there, you know, maybe sometime we could go there. I could show you around.”

He winks now and I swear to God I woke up in a parallel universe. I’m starting to feel like maybe I died out there by the side of the road and this is some sorta stop-off before heaven, some netherworld precursor where you go to get all your ducks in a row before floating off to the great beyond.

There’s a knock at the door.

Eddie and I both look, caught. The fear in his eyes is that I’m gonna open my mouth and the fear in mine is that someone meaner and crazier is gonna walk through that door.

Eddie opens the door like a 1950’s housewife, all smiles and gesturing. Outside, the setting sun throws an orange light at the room.

“Well, hey there, Beau!” he says. “Didn’t think you got up to this neck of the trail much. Thought you’d be down in Reno.”

“Headed there.”

“How’s Karl?”

“Karl’s fine,” he says, shaking his head. “Well, he’s getting a little long in the tooth, so, it’s only a matter of time till—”

The man stops abruptly when he sees me, as shocked as I am shell-shocked.

This guy makes you want to run for cover. He must be six-foot-six, and his head shaved smooth, all around. He wears old-timey glasses, with black around the rim, like a science teacher, and he’s the tallest man I’ve ever seen close up, not counting television. Don’t be fooled by his big black boots and shaved head, cause he looks more like an overgrown baby or a big retard. There’s something about him that looks like a little kid that just got oversized in a nuclear accident.

He stares at me, sizing up the situation from outside the door, his silhouette framed by the amber dusk, behind. Before Eddie can get in his way, he pushes through to the foot of the bed.

“My name’s Beau,” he says. “This is my place.”

No one told him he’s in the wrong-size room. He makes the whole place look like a dollhouse.

“Um. My name’s Luli.”

“Hm. that’s an interesting name. So . . . you okay, Luli?”

Eddie steps in close behind him, staring me down. Beau sees me look past him and turns around, catching Eddie stew. There’s a second of just the two of them till Eddie breaks, stepping back, shirking. Beau strides across the room, purpose casual, and takes a seat in the green plaid chair, sitting back big.

“So, Eddie, how’re things back in Jackson?”

Eddie sits next to me on the bed. I can see his reflection in the mirror, trying to look kind-hearted, sensitive, but making sure to block the line of vision between me and Beau.

“Oh, well, Jackson’s Jackson, you know.”

Beau nods politely from his chair, stealing a glance at me every few seconds, trying to make eye contact. Eddie keeps adjusting and readjusting his place, blocking us off from each other.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love Wyoming. Love it. But every once in a while you just gotta get out there and—”

“These your pamphlets, mister?”

Eddie stops short, pissed that I’d have the gall, the gumption, in present circumstances, to interrupt. He forgot that I got sassy in my blood.

Beau smiles. “Yes, I believe they are.”

“You kill your own chickens?”

“Affirmative.”

“Don’t you feel sorry for them?”

“Negative.”

“Do you name them before you kill them?”

“Nope. I name them after.”

“Yeah. Lunch and Dinner,” I say, trying him out.

Beau smiles. it’s been a long time since I seen a smile like that, with nothing pushing on it to make it sneer or fade or squiggle. it’s been God knows how long since I’ve seen something pure without all the bells and whistles covering up something mean. And I know this because it seems just plain foreign to me, like speaking Dutch. Hell, he might as well be speaking Japanese, even, cause this straightforward act is new to me.

Then Beau stands up and Eddie moves fast to get him out the door. But Beau’s not quite ready. He takes his time on the steps, looking back. Eddie keeps making small talk but Beau’s not listening. Finally he looks back though the doorway and says, “You take care of yourself, Luli.”

Eddie closes the door quick, before I can think what to say to get Beau back.

“Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

I yawn, leaning down into the covers and making pretend I’m just too tired, too tired for any of it. I fake close my eyes and peek out at Eddie fumbling around, up to something. He’s getting up, sitting down, getting up again. He’s talking to himself, busy, busy. He locks the door, goes to the table and starts cutting up something white. He’s got that bag out on the table and he’s gonna make a
dent. He likes that white bag cause he keeps getting back to it and getting back to it again. I bury my head in the pillow and start thinking of ways to get to Las Vegas.

“Eddie, where are we?” I say it sweet and sleepy, pretend drifting off.

“Nevada.”

“Yeah, but where?” Say it drifty, say it halfway to dreamland.

“I dunno. Somewhere between Elko and Jackpot.”

I nod soft, faking, trying to make a map in my head, tacking it up, putting in the pins, straightening up the paper. You-are-here and this is where you want to be, put a pin there and a pin there, too. Plot it out step-by-step.

Two hours later I open my eyes. Eddie is sitting right beside the bed in the green plaid chair, staring me down. He’s got the ropes back on. He’s got the ropes back on, and now he’s getting up, sniffing back, walking round the room. He’s got the ropes back on, but now he’s got an idea and he’s moving them. He’s moving them out the way cause he’s got other stuff to do. He’s got other stuff to do now. He’s got other stuff to do, close your eyes. He’s got plans for you. Big plans.

You can count the days by watching the sun make triangles slimmer and slimmer across the ceiling. You can memorize the spider web all the way up top to the left, from the ceiling to the rafters. You can raise your eyebrows when you make the discovery, early morning, that that there spider has caught itself a fly. You can fix your eye on that trapped little speck of black and then, when Eddie comes in and starts waxing poetic about my little angel and sweetheart and darlin and spreads your legs open and gets on top of you and starts making the bed go squeak squeak squeak, you can keep your eyes fixed on that stuck little fly and then throw yourself across the room and next thing you know you’re that trapped little thing, looking down at some roped-up little China doll going squeak squeak squeak and getting moved up and down, up and down, and you don’t have to stay down there. You don’t.

You just throw yourself up into the corner and watch the day burn itself down and watch that pink little hunk of flesh getting moved up down up down and used up, over and over with, and
then left alone, all alone, until the next night or the next afternoon or the next set of darlins, when words come out of Eddie sweet, but you don’t have to care about that ever again, cause you can throw yourself across the room and never come back.

You get all day and night to watch yourself from across the room and daydream and nightdream and daydream some more. Today I got a daydream about rafters and Halloween and candy leftovers.

My mama, at first, took a shine to Halloween. She tried to participate. she’d buy something, some kind of Sweet-Tarts or Pixy-Stix or whatever was on sale last minute. she’d dress up like a witch with a black dress and pointy hat and paint dark-purple circles under her eyes. she’d sit around like that for hours, next to the candy bowl, ready and set. she’d practice her little witch routine, making up scary voices and different maniacal laughs. Ha ha ha! she’d sit and wait and practice. Hee hee hee! she’d click her nails and re-check her pretend wart.

But they never came. Not ever. Not a knock or a doorbell or even a prank to acknowledge her effort or the occasion. Just silence, like some unknown, unjustifiable shunning. Nothing. Tammy did that for three years straight and then just stopped. We never said anything to her about it, Dad and me, never mentioned it. We just kept it under wraps that it ever happened at all, like some shamey secret we all felt best to just sweep under the rug.

So then we stopped bothering to get Candy-Corn or Pixy-Stix or any other such disappointments. We just kind of chose to ignore that day until we just forgot about it altogether, which may account for why, the one time when someone actually did come round, we made such a fiasco of the thing.

Tammy was out at some dress-up party and my dad was sitting across from me at the kitchen table, reading a shamey-girdle magazine while I played solitaire. The doorbell rang and we looked at each other in stunned silence. Then someone outside yelled, “Trick or treat” and it dawned on us that it was, yup, Halloween and that we were, actually, expected to answer the door. So we kind of shuffled over to the door, side by side, opened it and looked out to find the strangest looking costume you thought must be a joke.

It was this green plastic deal, in the theme of an insect. It had the head of the insect inflated to about two feet diameter and rigged up above the actual head of the kid, making it look like he had two heads, one on top of the other. One human, one insect. This was made double-strange by the skinny, bug-eyed five-year-old enveloped within the costume, unaccompanied, out in the middle of nowhere in the brisk dark night. He might as well have alit from planet Zorg.

The green bug said it again: “Trick or treat,” and that sent me searching through the cupboards for an appropriate offering. After what seemed like an eternity of clacking, open and shut possibilities, I finally came up with an artichoke. I hurried back, expectant, with my great solution, and found my dad was giving this kid his shamey-girdle magazine, October issue.

We dropped these treats into the kid’s sack and smiled, waiting for him to go. But he didn’t. He just stood there staring at us, holding his sack outstretched, looking down into it, confused. Then he turned back slow and walked off into the night, carrying a sack with a shiny new shamey-girdle magazine and an artichoke.

If you think about that, you can keep yourself busy. Just throw yourself across the room and tell yourself stories.

That’s what you can do.

I have a special perfect story, it keeps coming.

I have a special favorite story where Glenda comes to me inside a bubble and grabs me and flies me down to Mexico inside her bubble-chariot. We pass over canyons, cliffs and coves with beaches slamming down waves into the rocks, with palm trees and white sand. We alight together and she smiles a big red smile with lipstick and flips her hair. She lets me down gently, squeezes my hand and floats away in her shiny plastic bubble, up into the blue sky, between the billowing clouds and up to heaven.

I wake up to Eddie scurrying around the room. I keep my eyes closed and pretend-sleep, not wanting him to start spouting sweet words, talking gentle and acting rough. All the sudden he grabs the keys off the chair, turns out the light and hurries out. Outside, I hear the gravel crunch under his boots, further and further away. And then the sound of an engine. The truck sits idle for a second, gearing up, then the wheels crunch backwards, off into the night, leaving nothing but silence.