Robert Coover - John's Wife

Oldtimers would argue that the Pioneers Day fairs that so excited Jennifer were merely dim imitations of the great fairs before the war, back when Pioneers Day was the town’s most wonderful event of the year after Christmas, and even better in some ways, because Christmas was a family holiday spent in wintry weather behind closed doors, whereas Pioneers Day was a sunny celebration of civic pride during which everyone in town got together: at the parade, at the political rallies where candidates outdid one another with promises of even greater Pioneers Days in the future, at picnics and ball games and swimming parties, and above all at the great fairs which ran all day for three days and three nights, and which had everything from livestock judging and church raffles and booths selling local home-canned and home-baked foods, caramel apples and cotton candy, through the usual penny arcades, funhouses, and freak exhibits, to awe-inspiring carnival rides straight from the World’s Fair and famous musical acts down from the big city. The austerity of the war years reduced all that to a local fair, highlighted by the occasional visiting movie or radio star selling war bonds, and after the war they never really recovered their old glory, though so long as the city park existed they continued to be held and the townsfolk, especially the young, continued to enjoy them when they weren’t off on vacation. Pauline, who was forbidden by Daddy Duwayne to attend them, sinks of iniquity that they were, never missed a one and in time even had a booth of her own, so to speak, sometimes back of the carnival company trucks, sometimes under the wooden bandstand, sometimes just behind a bush, it didn’t take long, and she almost always got a present. One night she was lingering near a shooting gallery where the boys always gathered, when John showed up with his pretty young wife, and she watched, fascinated, while he shot at the little mechanical ducks wobbling creakily on a rotating chain at the back of the gallery. He never missed and once two ducks fell over at the same time, though maybe the gallery operator was just being friendly and made it happen. He won a beautiful stuffed teddy bear with bright button eyes and a big red ribbon around its neck and he gave it to his wife, who already had an armful of such prizes. She turned and saw Pauline staring and, with that lovely smile for which she’d been famous since her Homecoming Queen days, she gave it to her. Pauline glanced up at John to see if it was okay, and for a fleeting moment she saw that magical prince with hair alight of a year before, but then as quickly he was just the handsome young man who owned the hardware store and he had turned away with his wife and they were gone. Pauline, still clutching the teddy bear, saw then that some moments transcended ordinary time and could not be sustained or repeated or even in any way approximated again, though that was obviously what all these holidays were trying to do; they could only be experienced at the moment they happened or not at all, and then, afterwards, they might be remembered or they might not, but it didn’t matter, they just were what they were. Nevertheless, though it really didn’t matter, she was feeling happy in a sad but peaceful sort of way, so she decided to close shop for the evening and, hugging her teddy bear, to go home to the trailer. Where she was met by a red-eyed ranting Daddy Duwayne, who made her crawl around naked on her hands and knees like the animal he said she was, whipping her as she circled round him for going to the fair and doing whatever it was she did to get the teddy bear. Then he nailed the bear up over the old TV from the junkyard and, while assaulting the gates of hell from behind with his rod of wrath, he blasted it to smithereens with his shotgun. Afterwards, he cut off the shredded body and left the eyeless head nailed up like a hunting trophy. It was still up there when she and Otis visited the trailer and it was one of her daddy’s crimes she reenacted for him, or that they acted out together, several times in fact, it was one of his favorites, though Otis only pretended to shoot his pistol, instead shouting out “Bang! Bang! Bang!” in his funny wheezing voice, which she always thought was because he buttoned his shirt collar too tight around his throat. Dear Otis. They’d been such good friends, and for so long. Not anymore. He’d been chasing them all over town, blocking their escape routes with patrol cars, putting armed guards up around restaurant kitchens and collecting the garbage bags before they could get to them, it was a desperate situation. They couldn’t sneak out of town unseen in that big circussy truck Corny had borrowed, and everywhere they’d gone they’d been recognized and teased or chased away and even shot at. Finally, there was no place left except Settler’s Woods, where they’d come after first leaving a trail of false clues leading out of town on a back road. Corny could not hide the truck, and she didn’t really fit in it anymore anyway, so he’d decided to unload their supplies in the woods and return the truck to the Ford garage and try to trade it back in for his old van, which was all he needed for picking up groceries. So now Pauline was all alone and, big as she was, a bit scared. The trees were too close together, she couldn’t move without bringing down limbs and branches and making huge crashing noises, and now that her red cloak barely reached her armpits and didn’t cover her front at all, she was getting scratched all over. Corny had told her to keep out of sight, but, even when she scrunched down, she could see over most of the scrubby trees out here, and so, she supposed, she could just as easily, if anybody wanted to look, be seen. And there was another thing. Why she needed Corny. She’d never been a great thinker. But now (as if her head were imitating her bowels) she was becoming less of one.

It was Pioneers Day and the Ford-Mercury garage that was Cornell’s destination was officially closed, but by chance — or perhaps not by chance, more by quizzical design, the sort of design, for example, that governs the formal structure of a joke — its venerable owner and his young mechanic, the latter chauf-feuring at his own insistence, were also headed out there in the old tow truck, though by the main road which Cornell was no longer free to travel. The ostensible purpose, being duly acted out by both as if it were the real one, was the theft of the very truck which Cornell, though they didn’t know this nor would much have cared if they had known, was now returning. Along the route, which was a sunny well-used thoroughfare, Stu spied several people, some clients, mostly fellow duffers and elbow-benders — whom he might have hollered out to, but they’d have only smiled and hollered back and gone their way, even if he’d have shouted something like “Help, police!” or “I’m being murdered!” which everybody would have supposed was just a punchline to another of his dumb jokes. Which, truth to tell, it would have been, dumbest of the lot. He and Daphne had just been staggering blindly toward the door with John’s annual barbecue vaguely in mind when Rex appeared there as if out of nowhere. Stu was momentarily startled but he was not surprised. He’d been expecting this moment ever since Winnie started turning up at the foot of the bed at night, and today his little darlin’, uncommonly sober of late, had been uncommonly drunk since breakfast. Which, in shared apprehension, had sent Stu to the pump, and so both their engines were pretty well flooded by the time Rex made his sudden appearance at the door, dressed in his sweatsuit, to tell Stu they had to go out to the lot because a truck had been stolen, Daphne would have to go on to the party alone. It don’t matter, Stu declared magnanimously, waving his hand about, plenty more where that one came from. Rex protested that it did matter and they’d have to get going right now. They played out this no-it-don’t, yes-it-does routine for a turn or two, and it reminded Stu of a famous old wedding-night joke, but Rex didn’t want to hear it and Daphne complained she already had. Stu said, all right, go ahead on out, son, I’ll drop Daph off at the barbecue and meet you out there. Why are you always patronizing me, I can get there by myself, said his little peach among the lemons, hitting the doorjamb with the side of her face as she tried to lurch out past Rex. The blow seemed to have turned her around because she marched away straight into the dining room and hit something else, then came hack into the hallway, yowling and cussing like the old girl who got her tit caught in a wringer and wanting to know why the hell he was being such an irresponsible asshole, my god, this young fellow, who was only trying to be of help, was more interested in his business than he was, and of course that was genuinely true, as Stu had to admit, and did. Stu asked Rex then if he’d heard the one about the old boy who goes to the doctor because his dingus has gone soft and he can’t get it up anymore and he wants the doc to do something about it. The doc takes one look and tells him — goddamn you, you old fart, turn it off and get outa here! Daphne screamed, you’re driving me crazy! — tells him that his job is to cure the sick, not— oh stop it! stop it! — raise the dead. Rex grinned at that and said that’s a good one all right, come on now, let’s haul ass, and meanwhile, as though by accident, flashed a handgun from his sweatshirt pocket which he’d probably stolen from the garage. It seemed to Stu like there could be other things he might be doing on behalf of his own well-being, but he wasn’t doing them, he was walking a docile path toward the tow truck, Rex just behind him, pointing him aright when, like a leashed hounddog sniffing the flower patches, he tended to stray. He aimed for the driver’s seat, but Rex pushed him roughly away and said he was too fucking drunk, he’d drive. Stu couldn’t get up on the high seat by himself, Rex had to help, pitching him up there like he was made of straw. That boy had a bit of gristle on him. Also he had a rifle. Stu had glimpsed it in the back while getting tossed in. Plan on doin’ some shootin’, do you? Stu asked when they started up. His young mechanic grinned a wicked grin and said he thought maybe together they’d go after that guy who stole the truck. That got a hollow cackle out of old Winnie, ever the backseat driver, who was now hovering, Stu felt, just behind his shoulder, her fiery eyes all lit up with diabolical delight, even though this wrecker didn’t have a backseat. Stu told her to can it and Rex said can what? and Stu, running on automatic, crooned: Can it be true / that you / have someone new / left me alone / and feelin’ blue, and Rex growled: Jesus, nothing I hate worse than somebody wrecking a good song, Winnie’s hot laughter all the time singeing Stu’s ear. Stu kept thinking, all the way out to the car lot, about jumping out of the car or twisting the wheel out of Rex’s hands or grabbing the handgun or in some other way escaping his fate, but like that old boy who wanted his sex drive lowered, thinking about it was about all he could do about it.