Barrel Fever and Other Stories Page 11

  Rochelle stood in the doorway with her fists in the air. "Not but twenty minutes ago I had forty-one dollars," she said, hobbling closer toward me. "Do you expect me to believe that the rest of my money got tired of being cooped up in that packet-book and decided to walk off on its own and explore the world? Is that what you expect me to believe? Is it? Because, let me tell you something, Mister, I can't stand a thief."

  She brought her fist up against the side of my face. "Somebody needs to box your ears, Mister, and it might as well be me because if there's one thing I can't stand it's a thief, a lazy, sneaking thief."

  She kept hitting me, her voice rising until my father came from the bathroom and pulled her off of me. After listening to her side of the story he calmly placed his left hand on my shoulder and, with his right, punched me very hard in the stomach.

  "That's what he needs," Rochelle said, "someone to box his ears. Thief! Liar."

  Just like Vicki before me, I packed my belongings into paper bags. At the time all I felt was shame and regret not for taking the money, but for my pitiful lie that I was just counting it. I know how I must have looked at that moment, washed out and sneaky and stupid. I should have said I was collecting for services rendered and stood my ground. I should have predicted my father's punch. Should have, should have. I spent the night in the woods behind my father's house thinking of all the should haves. That night I should have packed a sleeping bag.

  The following morning I presented my case to Vicki, who said she'd bring it up with Marty when the time was right. I spent the next two nights in their backyard before he decided I could stay in the garage. It doesn't have any heat but at least it's dry. I ran an extension cord in from the house so now I can choose between having a lamp or the broken TV, which has sound but no picture, just a snowy gray screen that I find I can't take my eyes off.

  Marty Jr. can walk now. He can even think. If you point and say, "Bring me the book, Baby, bring me the book," he will do it. When you ask, "Where's Big Bird?" Marty Jr. will toddle over and pound on the TV set, hoping to drive him out. He's not stupid far from it. Soon he will speak and I have been working to coach him. Everything I touch I hold up and name in an instructive tone of voice. "Cushion," I'll say. "Ashtray." "Can opener." I do this only in the daytime, when Marty's not around. Last Sunday, at dinner, he started making fun of me. He picked up his fork and turned to the baby saying, "Douche Bag." Then he pointed at me and said, "Dip Shit. Dip Shit."

  Marty Jr. clapped his hands together and said, "Dishyt, Dishyt."

  I thought Vicki and Marty would never stop laughing. They patted Marty Jr. on the head, and he said it again: "Dishyt." It burned me up that he might turn on me like that. He said it once more while I was putting him to bed and I took the meat of his thigh and twisted it between my fingers.

  A few weeks after I moved in, Marty caught the baby making a long-distance call. It was just dumb luck he punched in some numbers and made a connection. When Marty took the phone out of the baby's hand, he found himself speaking to a woman who kept saying, "C'est toi Julien?. . C'est toi?"

  Marty thought the baby had dialed China. Vicki said it sounded like Hawaii to her.

  Marty said, "Hawaii, China, or Puerto Rico, what the hell difference does it make? I'm the one who's stuck paying for it and, in case you haven't noticed, I am not made of money. Is that what you thought, that I'm made of money?"

  Vicki said, "No, sir, I do not."

  Marty Jr., on a roll, gurgled and dialed 911.

  The next day Marty placed all the telephones in high places, where the baby couldn't reach them. Then he went out and got himself a dog. A puppy might have been nice for the baby but Marty brought home a full-grown Doberman, a used dog given to him by a guy he works with. Jamboree has a bullet head and a stumpy tail, like a big black thumb smeared with shit. I think perhaps the previous owner trained him to be unpleasant. I've seen that in a magazine before, men with thick pads around their arms, provoking dogs to attack so they can qualify for high-paying jobs patrolling department stores and car lots. Jamboree was here only two days before he took down Playboy, the neighbor's old basset hound. Poor Playboy didn't know what hit him. Marty took the body and set it in the street, hoping his owners would believe Playboy had been hit by a car.

  Right, Marty, a car with teeth.

  Jamboree shouldn't be allowed on the street, even on a leash. Everyone but Marty is afraid of this dog. Even cars speed up when they see him on the sidewalk. During the night jamboree sleeps on a pad beside his master's bed. Vicki told me that she no longer drinks fluids after 9:00P.M. as she is afraid to leave the bed and risk going to the bathroom. Jamboree has already bitten her once, nipped her when she tried to remove an ashtray from the mattress. Marty tells her that jamboree can smell her fear and that she has no one but herself to blame for being a coward. Vicki asked him what her fear smells like and he said it stinks like a carton of milk left out in the sun for five days to a week.

  "Where's my champ? Where is he? Where's my boy?" Marty will ask, and jamboree will come kneeling before him, the stump of a tail moving back and forth, hitching for a ride.

  After he leaves for work in the morning, Vicki and I coax the dog into the spare room and shut the door. Then I take the baby out of his crib and carry on about my business. We can all hear jamboree passing time in the spare room, whining and scratch-ing at the door. At first I was afraid Marty Jr., curious, would open the door but he's smart; he knows what's in there.

  My fear smells like damp wood, so I built Marty Jr. a playpen. I made it myself with my own two hands. When Marty returns from work he lets the dog loose and I set Marty Jr. in his pen, where I hope he might be safe. Jamboree circles around, trying to get at him but Marty Jr. is smart and knows to keep back from the bars. He stands in the center of his pen, watching. Once in a while he'll throw something over the top. Last night jamboree ate E.T. The dining room floor was littered with tufts of plush fur and Styrofoam BBs.

  This morning I set Marty Jr.'s crib atop a platform a dining room table I found in the neighbor's trash pile. I stood on a chair and settled him in, thinking he might marvel at this new perspective. "Look at you," I said. "On top of the world." He cried then and when I went to comfort him he grabbed my hair and didn't let go until I popped him across the face. I tell myself that it's not his fault, that things will be different when it's just the two of us on our own. And it will be different. I found the place where Marty hides his money. There's close to three hundred dollars here, enough to take the baby and me to Florida, where it's warm. We can camp out there, live in the woods until I get a job. Marty would have the national guard on my ass if I were to poison his dog, but I don't think he'll care one way or another if I take off with his son. And Vicki she might think about it for a week or so, and then she'd let it go, saving it up for a year or two down the road, when she'll turn to the person sitting beside her at the tavern and say, "Did I ever tell you about the time my very own brother ran off with my fucking baby? Did I?"

  After Malison

  7:45. I ARRIVE at Malison's hotel an hour and fifteen minutes before his lecture is due to begin at the Pavilion of Thought. The desk clerk shoots me a look that suggests he might be interested in throwing his weight around. Rather than pass him, I take a seat in the lobby, pull out my journal, and light a cigarette. He gives me another look.

  "My husband hates for me to smoke in the room," I say.

  He says, "What?"

  I say, "My husband, he hates the smoke, so I'm just going to sit here for a moment before going up to our room."

  The clerk says, "Fine, whatever," and turns his attention back to a little TV set, one of those Watchmans.

  I can't believe that Malison is staying here at The Chesterton. It's so ironic, so unlike Malison. It's perfect. I'd called every hotel in town asking if they had a Malison registered, but of course they didn't. We're not talking about Mr. Small Press Nobody here. Malison is MALISON, and he's got to protect his privacy. I can u
nderstand that. I can respect that. I called around again asking if anyone had a guest by the name of Smithy Smithy, the name of all the characters in Malison's second novel. All the hotel clerks said no. They said, "What the hell kind of name is that?" Really, I think Smithy Smithy would have been too obvious, so I tried again and again, thinking he might have registered under the name of one of the minor characters in Rotunda Surf. I finally found him here at The Chesterton registered under the name A. Davenport, the character who under-goes a needless colostomy inMagnetic Plugs. Malison is here in room 822.

  How like Malison to use an assumed name, and especially here at The Chesterton, where he'll be rubbing elbows with every shallow middle-class clichZ you'd never want to meet, the exact type of people he exposes in his novels. How like Malison, how perfectly ironic.

  8:04. I had really hoped to catch Malison before he left for the reading, but since nobody answers his door I can only assume that the department heads have him hogtied at The Crow's Nest or Andrea's Butcher Block, one of the upscale slaughter-houses this town calls a restaurant. I can see it now: the dean and his spaniels are shoveling forkfuls of red meat while poor Malison just sits there, tuning out their petty conversation and gagging at the sight of the carnage on his plate. Even the vegetables in this town are cooked in blood. I think it's pretty obvious that the English Department knows nothing about Malison. They just see him as another feather in their cap, a name they can use to attract new students. It makes me sick. They fly him in for a few days, race him around campus like a greyhound, and then bore him to death with their talk of funding cutbacks and Who's Who on campus. I've been standing outside this door for the last twenty minutes, so I think it's also very obvious that they're herding Malison straight from the restaurant to the Pavilion of Thought.

  At first I was excited about tonight's reading, but now I say forget it if Malison has been rushed around by these university types all day, then I know he'll be too exhausted to express himself. I had a feeling this might happen, so I arranged for a few people to tape tonight's reading at the Pavilion. Bethany, if left to her own devices, can tend to get a little too artsy for her own good, so I got Daryll as a backup. Deep down in his middle-class heart Daryll would just love to be a cameraman for some big TV studio. He'd love to wear a jumpsuit and boss people around. While I really hate his politics, I trust his overall skill much more than I trust Bethany's. She taped last month's John Cage lecture and kept the camera aimed at his feet the entire time, and he wasn't dancing or anything!

  Another reason for boycotting tonight's lecture is that I don't think I can sit back and watch while Malison wastes his time reading to an audience of a thousand kids who can't even begin to understand his work. The students began lining up outside the Pavilion hours ago. They're holding Malison's book in one hand and some bullshit economics text in the other, economics or political science or whatever it is they're really interested in. Most of them had never even heard of Malison before Rotunda Surf, but they act as though they've been reading Malison forever. I want to confront them. I want to ask them where they were when Malison was physically attacked after the release of Magnetic Plugs. Where were they when Malison needed support after the media trashed Smithy Smithy? These kids all act like they understand Malison and it makes me sick to hear their lame opinions on his work. This afternoon I overheard a girl telling her boyfriend that Malison's work mirrored the oppression inherent in Western capitalist society. She read that off the dust jacket. She doesn't know shit about Malison. She was wearing clothes that Malison would really hate. Here at the university I am surrounded by jokes like her.

  My head is still spinning from the reading Malison gave in my master's writing seminar this afternoon. I'd looked forward to some one-on-one contact, but the room was packed with people who aren't even enrolled in the seminar. These kids weren't writers, they were fakes. But did the teacher ask them to leave? Did Professor Nobody tell them that this was a class for serious writers? Of course not. He masks his cowardice with this "we're all here to learn" cheeriness that really makes me sick. It was perfect then when Malison walked into the classroom. He saw all the copies of O'Flannery on our desks and he picked up my copy and said, "Who's making you read this shit?" It was so perfect. Professor Nobody just stood there pretending he hadn't heard Malison's remark. He just stood there and tucked in his shirt. He couldn't even own up to it! I think Malison hates O'Flannery for the same reasons I do, because she's a fascist, a typical bourgeois racist, a judgmental Christian right-wing parrot, and a timid writer who relies on grammar to carry her through the page. I hate O'Flannery, I really do.

  Malison's reading was wonderfully assertive. He read a few sections from Rotunda Surf, parts that I had practically memorized even though the book only came out last month. He never numbers his pages, but I was with him for a good quarter-inch at the beginning of the second part. I just mouthed the words while he read. I wasn't doing it for attention; it's just a reflex action because I know his work, all of it, so well. After the reading, Professor Nobody opened the floor for questions, which was a mistake because it's always the stupidest people who ask the most questions. For example, one guy who's not even in the writing seminar raised his hand and said, "I tried reading your third novel but gave up when I realized that all of the characters were going by the name Smithy Smithy. I found it confusing; I had a real problem with it."

  Oh right, he had a problem with it.

  Malison was great. He just looked at this guy and said, "Well, if it's giving you trouble, then I guess I'll just have to rewrite it in simpler terms. I thought I might continue work on my new project, but if Smithy Smithy confuses you, then I guess it's back to the drawing board." Everyone laughed but you could tell that they had problems with Smithy Smithy too. I didn't laugh because I don't have any problems with it. I have no problems with Malison. Bethany raised her hand and asked Malison if he had grown up in New York City, which of course he had. It's right there in his writing, and besides, it says so on the back of all his books. Malison answered her; he just said yes, but in a bored way that acknowledged the dumbness of the question. It really was a stupid question and I laughed when she asked it. I was the only one laughing, which simply proves how well I know Malison's life. He gave me a little glance, a little smile, when I laughed. I've spent a lot of time in New York City, and I'm often asked that same question myself. I wasn't raised there, but I could have been. I'm incredibly street-smart.

  The questions continued and were all incredibly stupid until I asked Malison if the tall blond character inRotunda Surf was based on his former girlfriend Cassandra Lane, the fashion model. I just wanted Malison to realize that there are some of us who understand his life and work. My New York friend Russell Marks had gone to the Foxmore Academy with Cassandra Lane, and he used to fill me in on a lot of details, like what a bitch she really is and how she uses people. Cassandra Lane really put Malison through the wringer over that phony abuse scandal. She'll do anything for media attention. She's not even that pretty.

  I asked the question, and Malison looked at me with a lot of pain, a great deal of pain and anguish in his eyes, and said thatRotunda Surf was a work of fiction and that his inspirations were none of anyone's business. A group of people laughed when he said that. I laughed too because I know that, on the surface, my question sounded nosy, but I didn't mean it that way. I realize it would have been impossible for him to open up and really talk about his work in that atmosphere, surrounded by so many people who don't know him the way I do. I can understand Malison's creative process and his life, and that's why I really need to sit down and talk with him. I saw that pain in his eyes. I need to sit him down and let him know that I'm behind him one hundred percent.

  After a few more questions, Professor Nobody asked Malison where he saw this postmodern metafictional movement headed, and Malison just picked up his books and papers and said, "Anywhere but here," and walked out of the room. He meant anywhere but the small world of academia, but
it went right over everyone's head. After he walked out, I picked up my shit and walked out too, but Malison had already left the building. I haven't been able to find him anywhere.

  9:19. I'm sitting in the cocktail lounge of The Chesterton, a grotesque, brassy place ironically named Reflections, which erroneously suggests that I will see myself mirrored in this bar or any of its customers. I sit at a table, pull out my journal, and, when the waitress arrives, I order a boilermaker. The waitress acts shocked that a woman might order a beer and a shot rather than some frozen daiquiri product, and I shoot her a look that sends her off toward a group of people she thinks might find her cute.

  Malison's reading is starting right at this moment, I can sense it. I think it's very appropriate, very revealing that right now he is standing before an audience of people who don't understand him, and at the same time I'm sitting in this bar full of people who, I am certain, have no hope of ever knowing or understanding me. It's a lonely feeling, but I'd rather be alone than stoop to a lower level of understanding. The waitress brings me my shot and my beer and gives me a look while I empty the shot glass into the beer. She acts as though I'm spoiling all her fun. Whatever fun she might have working in a place like this, leading her dull, unexamined life, she is more than welcome to. She can have it. The customers are all looking at me the same way. They can't deal with anyone who isn't into their Mr. and Mrs. Jovial scene, with someone who takes a hard look at the crumbling building blocks that are the foundation for their wasted suburban lives. With someone like me.

  This place reminds me of the bar that Malison depicted inMagnetic Plugs, except the people are fully dressed and they're not drinking out of gas cans. The waitress returns and I order another boilermaker.

  10:20. I'm sitting in the fancy lounge area of the women's rest room here at The Chesterton. I shouldn't have had that champagne on top of those boilermakers, but if I sit very quietly I'm sure I can pull myself together. Actually, I'm not even embarrassed about throwing up in the bar. I was having problems putting my feelings into words, so vomiting was actually a very ironic, very appropriate gesture. I'm not going to let it get me down, but still I curse that crippled man for distracting me the way he did. Malison's lecture is probably over by now, and he'll be heading back to his room. Thank God I brought that change of clothes. It's not my favorite outfit but, seeing as my first choice is spattered with vomit, I guess I'll have to go with the second choice.