David Gates - Preston Falls

"Something else you might want to figure out," says Jean. "What role, if any, do your children have in this real life of yours? Not to mention your wife. Have you given thought to any of that?"

"To my shame, no," he says.

"I'm not that interested in your shame," she says. "I know you find it fascinating."

"Hey, give the little lady a brass ring," he says. "The low blow award." He strokes Rathbone's silky side and stands up again. Reelin' and a-rockin', but basically okay.

"Oh, I'm sure you took it to heart," she says. "You've fixed it so nobody's even in the same universe with you. I don't know, I just truly worry about you. As someone who knows you."

"You know me very well."

"Oh, please," she says. And goes inside.

He sits down on the stepstone; Rathbone comes over, circles, then lies at Willis's feet sniffing the night air. There's the good old Big Dipper up there, the only constellation Willis knows. Or gives a rat's ass about. Light from the upstairs window makes a night-baseball-green parallelogram on the wet grass. Lawn needs mowing. Tomorrow, without fail.

Jean gets her nightgown from the closet, shoving aside old shirts of Willis's that he's put on hangers even though they're dirty. He'll wear them when he's working, sweat them through, then hang them back up.

PRESTON FALLS

Unbelievable. No wonder it smells in here. She makes space on both sides of her cotton dress with the cerise flowers, the one halfway decent thing she keeps in Preston Falls. Willis bought it for her three birthdays ago at — where else? — Laura Ashley, and it's actually not that dreadful, though she had to exchange the six he'd gotten for an eight. So obviously he should have married Laura Ashley, some willowy honey-haired size-eight hippie princess with a fetching little English accent and Pre-Raphaelite pallor and breasts that get magically gigundo once she takes off her chaste Laura Ashley dress. Jean puts her underwear in the laundry bag, gets the nightgown on and goes downstairs to the bathroom. Through the screen door she sees Willis sitting out on the stepstone with his back to her. Feeling lonely and misunderstood. Or sensing his own insignificance in the vastness of the universe. Or planning how he's going to dump her. Or wondering whether to buy a motorcycle or another guitar. Really, at this point, how would anybody know?

She pees, puts in a new Tampax, washes, brushes her teeth and pops two Advils. The cramps have pretty much passed, but Advil might help her sleep. In addition to everything else, she's worried about the kids. Though it's crazy to suspect Arthur Bjork is a pedophile just because he's overweight and because he and Katherine have marriage trouble. After all, don't she and Willis have marriage trouble? Isn't that what this is?

When the upstairs light goes out, Willis gets to his feet and goes inside, holding the door for Rathbone, who comes clicking in, leaving wet footprints on the kitchen floor. The footprints make Willis think the seat of his pants must be wet too, but damned if he can feel it. He reaches around: yep. He gets down that bottle of Dewar's and pours himself some. Pours himself really quite a bit, actually. He brings his glass into the living room, stretches out on the couch — Rathbone lies down on the floor by his side — and starts looking through Dombey and Son for just any scene with Old Joe Bagstock, old Joseph, Joey B., Sir. Funny as shit. When he's polished off the whole glass he rests the open book on his chest and closes his eyes. Then the room starts to spin. Oh shit. Shit shit shit. He tries to pretend this is actually desirable and he can just merrily spin away into dreamy dreamland. No good. He opens his eyes, sits up a little and tries to read, but now that's no good. He eases back down and the room goes so crazy he wonders if he's having a stroke on top of being drunk. He gets to his feet and moonwalks into the bathroom.

closes the door behind him, drops to his knees and flips up the toilet seat. The sight of a pubic hair on the rim does the trick: he sticks out his tongue and out it pours, vanity after vanity, this whole evening's stupid history. He wipes his mouth with toilet paper and lies sweating on the floor, thinking At least that's over with. Knowing God damn well it's not.

He wakes up on the sofa, mouth nasty, head throbbing. Still in his clothes. Turns his head, and the son of a bitch throbs worse. Yellowish daylight in the living room. Rathbone rises from the floor, stretches and sniffs Willis's face. Willis pats his head and tells him Good dog, then gets up to piss and take Advil. The house is silent. Before going into the bathroom he gives Rathbone fresh water and makes sure he's got food, hoping to placate whoever might be watching and judging all this shit from on high.

He's putting on water for coffee when he hears somebody coming downstairs. Jean? Please, no. Rathbone's tail gets going. But it's Champ, thank God.

"Hey, the hostess with the mostest," says Champ. "Didn't expect you to be up." He squats and tousles Rathbone's ears. "Yes, you're a good guy."

Willis spoons coffee into the filter paper. Then he turns and sees Champ's t-shirt and says, "Jesus H. Christ."

"What— this}'' Champ tugs out a Httle tent of fabric with thumb and forefinger. "Had a guy silk-screen it. He's got the image on file, if you want one."

"I'll pass," says Willis. "Listen. You just put this on to model it for me, right?"

"No, not — oh. I see what you're saying. Too punk for Preston FaUs."

"Well, not just that."

''Oh. Gotcha. Okay, that's cool. I got another thing I can put on."

"That's a real autopsy photo?" says Willis.

"Yep. Well, actually sort of yes and no. It's like it's reaUy him dead, but the CIA dicked around with the photo. Or they dicked around with the body. Like right here, see?" He cranes his neck to look down at his

chest, then puts a finger just above and behind JFK's ear. "When you look at the Z film, right? This area here should be completely blown to fuck. So something's fuckin' weird. I don't know. Shit, I like wearing it, you know? Tina has the same reaction you do, by the way."

"I'm past the point of having reactions," says Willis. "All I want now is an easy life." Champ plays an invisible violin at him as he gets down the JOE mug and the mug with the green band around the rim. "What got you started on this shit? You were like three years old."

"I don't know. I saw the movie and then I just started reading up on it."

"Yeah, but I mean why this?''

Champ puts palm to elbow and fist to forehead. "The Thinker is thinking," he says. He puts index finger to temple. "The sum of the hypotenuse is equal in angle to the square root of the sum of the remaining three sides."

"I should know better by now," says Willis.

"You're afraid I'm going to wind up like the old man. And lose my mi-yi-yind." Champ sticks his tongue out and twirls index fingers at his ears. "Speaking of which, you been in touch with the mom?"

"Talked to her a couple weeks ago. I probably should go visit sometime while I'm on leave."

"You're a hero," says Champ.

The water's boiling; Willis goes over to turn the burner off. "You are going to change out of that, right?" Jean could come down any minute.

"No worries, mite." A couple of years ago. Champ would keep up the Aussie-talk for a whole conversation. "Listen, you remember that time you drove me up to see the old man? I think I was like ten? You had this thing back then about him and me spending time together and shit?"

"Yeah, I remember I was on spring break. I had that black Ford Fairlane."

"Right," says Champ. "I remember that."

"I guess we picked a bad day."

"What you mean, we, Kemosabe? I remember he spent the whole time playing this, like, Dave Brubeck record—"