Robert Coover - John's Wife

Maynard’s fright was of a similar order: confusion, exposure, and imminent danger. When he’d awoken he’d not known where he was. He was in a darkened bedroom, not his own, fully dressed, even to his shoes, and curled up around the backside of a sleeping woman, his hands cupping a soft smooth bottom under a silken nightie’s hem, his face in her loosened hair. His wife’s? No. Then—? This sweetness … His whole body had gone rigid as though suffering a seizure when the truth hit him, and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue stifling the cry that rose to his throat. He’d lain there in a kind of ecstasy of terror, not knowing what to do, but not wanting to let go of the greatest joy he’d ever had in life, had literally in his grasp. That bottom! Hers! The piece of silk between his cheek and pillow, dampened by his tears, had then been freshly dampened, but now by tears of incredulous bliss, his hands suddenly aware of their being in the world in a way no part of him had ever been before. He’d longed to press beyond where now he touched, but had been afraid to break a spell that held him as much as her in thrall. She’d stirred slightly, and Maynard had felt a fury at his chest that it would not stop heaving, and at the noisome breath he breathed and at the scratchy beard that roughed his cheeks, the clothes that walled him off from her, the odors of his unwashed body which rose now to thwart all hopes of declaring, even by the gentlest gesture, the desperate love that so consumed him and made him tremble, head to foot, this trembling angering and frightening him as well. He prayed to let this moment last forever, but it couldn’t, he knew, no moment could, something had to happen and something did: a car pulled into the drive below, startling him so, he jerked his hands away, and then, the damage done, no way to put them back. Nor had he time or liberty: he heard the car door slam and knew he was a dead man if John should catch him here. He slipped out of the bed (she sighed and rolled over, making his stuttering heart race the faster, his stomach turn) and crept from the room, trying desperately not to fart until he reached the hall, and succeeding only so far as the door. “John—?” she murmured sleepily. John was coming in the door downstairs, which one, the back? The side door by the drive? Maynard had forgotten the precious garment soaked by his lovesick tears, but too late now. He heard steps below and ducked into a room where a child with two heads stared at him from under a blanket on the floor. “Nighty-night,” he whispered, terribly confused, and again his gut betrayed him, making the two heads giggle and whisper. This was worrying. He slipped out, listened from the head of the stairs: John was in the kitchen opening the refrigerator door, popping a beercan, shushing the dogs. That’s right, the dogs, he had forgotten about the dogs. What could he do? Crawl out a window and jump from the roof? Hide in a closet with all his gases until John had slept and gone again? Cut his throat? Finally, what in a blind funk he did was take off his shoes and, muffling the stuttering put-put from his treacherous behind as best he could, he’d tiptoed barefoot down the stairs, through the hall, past dining room and living room, and on out the front door into the soggy dawn. It worked! Or nearly. John called out from inside the house just as he reached the front sidewalk and knelt to put his shoes back on: “Call me later on today, Maynard! I’ve got a proposition!”

“John—?” “Yes.” “Something terrible! Clarissa—!” “I know. I saw the woods smoldering when I flew over and stopped off there. They told me.” “I was with her until now. She was so brave—” “So they tell me. She was pretty well sedated by the time I got there.” He set his tumbler of whiskey beside her earrings on the night table, sat down on the edge of the bed to work his boots off. “She’ll be in traction awhile and have a sexy scar or two, but she’ll be okay.” “What-what’s all that?” “Some flowers for you.” “Oh. That’s very nice, John. It was sweet of you to remember.” “I dropped some off at the hospital, too. A lot of people got hurt at the fire. Did you know Dutch got shot?” “I’d heard.” He stripped off his leather vest and jeans, his shorts, tossed aside the panties lying on his pillow, and stretched out beside his sleepy wife to finish off his whiskey. Remember what? Had he missed their anniversary? “When I find out how she got the keys to the Porsche, somebody’s going to eat them.” “There was some man with her.” “I know. A guy who used to work for me.” “They say she was—” “My guess is they both were.” He’d been found in sweats, but the pants were on backwards. “It was just lucky your secretary was driving past.” “Yes, luck or something.” “She pulled Clarissa out of the creek and gave her the kiss of life. The doctor said she would have died.” Flying back, he’d traced out the series of Nevada’s double crosses, of himself, of Bruce, of everyone, Lenny’s boy included. He’d concluded that Clarissa never was a target, not of Bruce anyway, and so he’d probably punched Jennifer’s brother for the wrong reason, though the kid no doubt deserved it for something all the same. And now, it was just too convenient that Nevada was at the wreck at almost the same time it happened. Had Clarissa been a target after all? Was that why he’d been lured out of town? “Is Bruce all right?” his wife murmured. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” “I’m very sorry, dear.” Sleepily, she curled into his outstretched arm. “It was all just a joke to him,” he said, setting his glass down, and rolling over between her thighs. She lifted her knees, adjusting to his weight, hooking one foot atop his butt. “A joke?” “Life. His problem was, he couldn’t wait for the punchline.” Watching his town seem to sink away and vanish into the shadowy earth as he lifted away on his wild Bruce chase, he’d felt that something was being taken away from him, something valuable he could not afford to lose, though he could not quite name it, and the feeling had stayed with him all through the night, even as he labored to cleanse the cabin of all evidence of that ruthless overweening motherfucker’s violations, indeed of his very existence (had the puffed-up asshole greased himself? good riddance!), an inner purging matching the outer one, and that feeling of some impending but ineffable loss had pursued him until his return at dawn when once again his town had risen up out of the misty soil below him, its resurrection signaled by the dying flames and smoke from Settler’s Woods, sent up like a beacon in the disintegrating night as the violent storm which he’d had to skirt sheathed its weapons and withdrew. She kissed his shoulder as he rolled away, picked up his glass again. Loose Bruce was gone, like a joke when it’s been told, and like a joke, once heard, you really didn’t want to hear it again. But. “I feel like some part of me has died,” he admitted. “Oh, that reminds me,” she said with a sleepy yawn. “Stu’s dead.” “Stu?” “He was killed. And they ruined all his old records.” “But wasn’t he here at the barbecue?” “He never turned up. I tried to call Daphne, but her phone was off the hook.” Why did that old jug-head’s death make him think of Marie-Claire? John didn’t know, but now he knew what had been missing up at the cabin, that feeling of unnameable loss that he couldn’t put his finger on. Bruce had taken away with him Marie-Claire’s slashed canvas.

The funeral for old Stu, held two days later, was a memorable event whereat it was proved that one could indeed enjoy an old joke twice, and twice again. The church lawn, before and after the brief memorial service, was filled with a great congregation of ordinary townsfolk, young and old, all recalling jokes the old car dealer had told them, as well as amusing anecdotes about his life, which in retrospect seemed funnier than when he was alive, and though most had shared in these events, especially the older generation, and so had heard all the stories before, the sudden violent death (“Talk about your punchlines,” someone said, and another added: “It’s like the one he liked to tell about the guy who took a leak at the power plant…”) of the town’s favorite raconteur had, just as suddenly, made them all new again: there was a lot of laughter out on the church lawn that day, sighs and tears, too, and expressions of alarm that such a thing could happen in this town, but even more laughter, and everyone agreed, they don’t build ‘em like ole Stu any more, that old boy was a vintage model. There were a lot of flowers in the church, as though to provoke the corpse into a resuscitative sneezing fit, but the service itself was a soberer affair, mainly out of respect to the widow, who seemed to have lost her sense of humor and was taking it all pretty hard. She’d obviously been hitting the bottle and looked haggard and distraught, and when John brought her into the church during the singing of “Amazing Grace,” she stumbled and nearly fell and those near her heard her hiss: “Stop that, damn you! Go away and leave me alone!” Who was “you”? Most knew. It was what she’d told the police: it didn’t matter who’d pulled the trigger, it was that old ghoul’s fault. The police had their own more mundane theories. No one had as yet been charged, but the manager of the downtown hardware store, who’d skipped town in dramatic fashion after the killing, was the prime suspect. Rumors of a violent past, a prison record, a falling-out with Stu over a lemon he’d been sold, money troubles. The general view in town was that Floyd might have done it, might not have, but nobody liked him anyway. Under the circumstances, it was something of a surprise when the fugitive’s wife turned up at the funeral and timidly took a seat in the back pew. She sat alone, others shying away as though they might catch something if they got too close, until John’s wife came in, no doubt straight from the hospital, and sat down beside her and took her hand in hers for a moment, which startled her at first, but then she calmed down. As always, a healing presence, John’s wife, and the pew soon filled up, people acknowledging that the poor woman was only trying to do the Christian thing and had herself been effectively widowed by the tragedy. As the preacher, whose own daughter was missing and feared dead, reminded them, the point of many of the deceased’s favorite jokes was that things were not always what they seemed and there was often a consoling surprise at the end, and he asked them to pray, in these times that tried the human spirit, for strength and guidance, recalling for many of the mourners, perhaps on purpose for he’d heard it told many times at his own expense, old Stu’s story about the young preacher and the old widow on their wedding night: “You just take care of the strength, Reverend, and leave the rest to me.”