David Wallace - Broom of the System

Lang looked at her. “Hey now please don’t cry,” he said.

“When I didn’t ask for it at all?” Lenore said. “When I didn’t even like you? I didn’t want you.” She looked past Lang at the door and began to sob, felt her shoulders curl down over her chest.

Then there was Lang, and her face was in Lang’s shirt, and a Kleenex got pressed into her hand from out of nowhere, and the wood in her throat seemed to break apart and go in all different directions, hurting.

Lang was making a soft rhythmic sound with his mouth into Lenore’s hair.

“I hated you,” Lenore said into his shirt, talking to his chest. “You came in that time, and terrorized us, and were drunk, and that guy’s stupid bottom, and Sue Shaw was so scared. ”

“It’s OK,” Lang was saying softly. “It’s OK. We were all just kids. We were just kids. That’s all it was.”

“And I say I don’t want you, that I’m mad, and have a right to be, and everybody just winks, and nudges, and gets a tone, and pushes, pushes, pushes.” Lang’s shirt was getting wet. “I’ve just felt so dirty. So out of control.”

Lang pushed her away a bit and dried her eyes with his sleeve. Lenore looked into his eyes for a second and thought for no reason of mint, lima beans, tired grass. His eyes were totally unbloodshot. “Lenore,” he was saying, “it’s OK. Just believe I don’t want to push you, OK? Just believe it,” he said, “OK? You can believe that, ‘cause it’s true. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, one bit.” He rubbed at his perfect eye and Lenore went back to smelling his chest. It was true that even while she was crying she had been able to feel him through his clothes, and her clothes.

“Lenore?” Lang said after he’d let her breathe into his shirt for a while. “Hey, Lenore?” He bent and cupped his hands around her ear and made as if he were talking into a bullhorn. “Lenore Beadsman.”

Lenore laughed a convulsive laugh and brought the Kleenex up to her face. It was hot, and wet, and little bits of it were all over her hand.

“I’ll just say it, Lenore,” Lang said. “I sure don’t want to control you at all. Believe that. But I’ll just go ahead and say that I think the one’s maybe trying to do more controlling than’s good for anybody is old R.V.”

For no reason Lenore looked up past Lang at Misty’s ceiling, her own floor.

“Lenore,” said Lang. He stroked the white sleeve of Lenore’s dress with a big warm hand, and through Lenore’s body from the hand went heat.

“Lenore,” he said quietly, “R.V. sat there in that plane, with his little feet dangling and all, sweating like a freaking pig”—he put his hand through his hair—“and just flat out told me you were his, and said I had to promise not to even try to take you away from him.” He looked down at her. “I just thought you should know that.”

Lenore took Lang’s hand from her sleeve and held it while her eyes dried. She could smell herself.

“Like you were his car, or a TV,” Lang was saying, shaking his head. “He wanted me to promise to like respect his ownership of you, or some such.”

His arm brought Lenore into his chest again. She felt something pressing against her stomach, and didn’t even think what it was until later.

“How does he think something like that’s going to make us feel?” Lang was saying into her hair. “Where’s what’s fair in that?”

/h/

“Just sorry, is all.”

“….”

“If such is appropriate.”

“….”

“Which I rather think it is.”

“Ricky that’s silly, don’t be sorry. There’s no need to be sorry.”

“….”

“The situation, the way it turns out we are, sorry doesn’t enter into it at all.”

“As it were.”

“What?”

“….”

“You’re probably just all tense and worried, Rick. Being tense and worried is world-famous for doing this.”

“Look, even if I weren’t tense and worried, you wouldn’t have been able to tell. Is that not clear?”

“You’re probably just tense and worried about your fiancée being in the arms of my husband right now. God knows I’m not exactly thrilled myself.”

“Not after tomorrow I’m not upset. Tomorrow is the end.”

“End of what?”

“Tomorrow Lenore and I are going to melt into the blackness, united in discipline and negation.”

“Discipline?”

“…..”

“Negation?”

“All so to speak.”

“You’re just going to go out and buy admission tickets to Andy’s desert and look for Lenore’s grandmother climbing some dune. I know all about what you’re supposed to do tomorrow.”

“Why on earth does Lenore tell you things like this?”

“….”

“Lenore never tells me anything, really.”

“Rick, I don’t know how long I’ll be around, I mean I’m pretty sure I’ll have to go to Atlanta at some point in time, if you know what I mean, but while I’m here I think you’ll find I can do all kinds of things she can’t. Or won’t.”

“I think it is always can’t. It now occurs to me that there has probably never been a bona fide won’t.”

“You know Andy’s had your ex-wife, too, don’t you? I’m almost positive. I’ve seen him coming out of your house.”

“She is a good person, it occurs to me.”

“Who?”

“Do you think of yourself as a good person, Mindy? When you think of yourself, do you think of yourself as good?”

“Well of course, silly. Where are you if you don’t think of yourself as good?”

“….”

“Then you can’t even like yourself, and then where are you?” “….”

“This is the Christian Broadcasting Network. Stay tuned for the Reverend Hart Lee Sykes, please.”

“What about my son?”

“What?”

“Vance, my son.”

“I think Andy’s pretty much left Vance alone. I don’t think you have to worry about Vance.”

“I mean have you seen him. Does he come home, ever. Do you see him around the neighborhood.”

“Remember when Vance would be out kicking footballs all day long? Honestly, I never could see how anybody could just kick a ball for hours and hours, over and over. And remember Daddy would spend the whole time looking out the window, making sure the ball never hit our lawn, and if it did he’d run out with a screwdriver and let all the air out of the ball?”

“….”

“I haven’t seen Vance for years, Rick. I don’t think I’ve seen Vance since I got out of school. Where is he now?”

“He’s in the city. He’s at Fordham. At least I certainly pay tuition to Fordham. ”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Nor have I.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Certainly not your fault.”

“….”

“….”

“Look, you can take it off, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your beret. You can take it off, you know. I like a spot. Daddy has a simply humongous spot, now.”

“Great.”

“Anyway, don’t be sorry, is what I want to say.”

“Thank you, Mindy.”

“But roll over.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I think I can help you out if you’ll roll over.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is… going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Is that what I should say, Rick?”

“Good Lord. What on earth have you been told?”

“Daddy used to say I knew… everything from the… beginning… of time. A… witch in a tartan skirt, is… what he said.”

“Jesus.”

/i/

“Now this is definitely cuddling,” Lenore said. “Am I right? I think I know cuddling when I see it, and this is it.”