Robert Coover - John's Wife

Meanwhile, back at the center of the dying day’s doings in John’s backyard, where the garden lights were coming on, the guests were reluctantly preparing to make their farewells, lingering for a last drink or maybe a couple, perhaps one more of those juicy quarter-pounders, said to have been ground from the flanks of blue-ribbon winners at the last 4-H Fair upstate, or else a final handful of crunchy liqueur-filled chocolates, imported direct from Switzerland, or even both at the same time, in the same bun, why not — any macaroni salad left? — Pioneers Day only happens once a year. This was what Lorraine saw when she returned with Waldo’s shotgun, loaded with buckshot, in her fist: a lot of drunks falling goofily about in the gathering dark with their jaws snapping. How long had she been gone? Off-key party songs were erupting here and there, yips and shouts, loose laughter like belches, the birds and crickets, slow off the mark, now making up for lost time in raucous chorus behind it all. Reverend Lenny and a deflated Trixie were cradling a newborn, still red in the face, under a bug light on the back deck, surrounded by oohers and ahers, Daphne among them, telling everyone Stu had something to do at the garage, he’d be here soon; Lorraine heard the same thing twice like an echo: it was a recital, the woman desperately clinging to the only thing she could remember, her mind otherwise murky as a sump pit. The shotgun got a certain amount of attention as she passed through the crowds, but as far as Lorraine could tell not many people even knew who she was. Out in the pot-scented rose garden, where children were chasing lightning bugs, John’s daughter, in a seething rage, was snorting something through a straw; the girl’s furious thoughts were incoherent, but Lorraine empathized with their import: insult, betrayal, murder on her mind. “Sure, be glad to give you a lift,” some guy standing in the flower beds said as Lorraine drifted past, “how’s this?” “Woops! There went my drink!” “Ha ha! Wait here, I’ll bring you a new one.” “Just a little one!” “Don’t worry, honey, it’s all he’s got!” No one tending the glowing barbecue pit, where meat burned quietly. Caterers were collecting empty pans and dishes, picking up some of the rubbish in black plastic bags. Lorraine found an abandoned whiskey glass and downed its contents. Yeuck. Stale and watery with a butt at the bottom. Still a shot or two at the bottom of one of the bottles: she finished that off, too, sucking from the neck. Nearby, Veronica sat slumped in a lawnchair, still as a stone. The image in her head was fetal and slimy and its name was Second John. The image seemed locked there like a fixed exhibit in an empty room, and Lorraine understood that head was badly damaged. Takes one to know one, she said with a shudder, and rubbed her aching brow with her free hand. She climbed up past the Holy Family, kicking a couple of beercans aside (Daphne was saying: “Something he had to do out at the car lot…”), and went into the kitchen, where Marge’s one-eyed Trevor was huddled miserably over a hot cup of coffee, his sick hangover making Lorraine’s hurt head hurt the more. Kevin was in the hallway, leaning against the john door, hustling a bank teller with a sad story. No Sweet Abandon, all tattered and torn. No Waldo either. Lorraine didn’t need to tune in to get the rest of the story. She knew where they were.

Thus, John’s annual Pioneers Day barbecue drew, somewhat abruptly, toward a close, for some a pleasure, others not, some lives changed by it, most merely in some small wise spent, a few wishing it could go on forever, others that it had never happened, or, having happened, that it could be forgotten, of all wishes wished, the one most likely to be granted; but first, while many were still finishing their last, or nearly last, drink, police chief Otis arrived, raised his bullhorn, and addressed the remaining guests in John’s backyard.

He said: “Folks, sorry to butt in here when you’re having a good time, but this town’s got a serious problem and I need your help!” There was applause, and Edna clapped, too, because Floyd did. But were the others applauding the police officer or the problem? It seemed a touch wild out here and she wished she was back home, just her old simple home with the running toilet, forget grand ambitions. Like her stepmother always said: Edna, sometimes the worse thing can happen to you is getting your dreams come true. “If you haven’t been home today,” the burly police officer hollered through his bullhorn, “you probably been robbed!” Oh dear. That got everybody’s attention. At least the new porcelain lamp was safe in the trunk of the car, though she didn’t know if she ever really wanted to see it again. The officer went on to tot up all the crimes that the giant lady and the mental boy from the drugstore had committed, and she could see by the tall list why he hadn’t wanted to bother about a mix-up with one little secondhand rug. His voice, which sounded like an old radio broadcast, seemed to be coming out of the night sky. It had got dark almost as soon as he’d begun to talk and now you couldn’t hardly see his face, it was like a curtain had dropped. “People around town are reporting dented cars and broke doors and windows and shingles knocked off roofs,” his voice said. “They’ve used a airport hangar like a latrine, there’s a church been desecrated and busted up, she’s almost completely indecent and scaring little kids, and everywhere she goes she’s leaving a filthy trail of slime and garbage!” “If I was completely indecent,” some lady squawked in a high voice, “I’d scare everybody!” The people around her laughed and said “I know what you mean,” but if it was a joke, Edna didn’t get it. But then she was not in a humorous mood. She felt ashamed and confused and responsible for the change that had come over Floyd ever since leaving the police station. She and Floyd were standing talking to the bank president and his wife, he having taken a sudden new interest in Floyd what with his promotion, and what his wife said now was: “You work so hard to make a decent life for yourself and then these irresponsible ruffians come along and try to take it away from you, it just doesn’t seem fair!” “No,” said Edna, “it don’t rightly,” and the policeman with the bullhorn said: “And now she’s got so big she’s disrupting traffic and bringing down phone lines and TV antennas!” Fortunately the lady’s husband was so drunk he didn’t notice how Floyd, who’d been so friendly and fairly popping his britches with big money talk before, had pretty much shrunk back into his old squint-eyed meanness, untrusting and shutmouth, except when he had something to recite from the Bible, and moresoever since the police turned up. The sour old Floyd was not so good at impressing bankers maybe, but Edna knew how to talk to the old one better than the new smiley one who scared her with his noisy swoll-up ways, and so she told him now plain out that she never took that rug, that John’s wife give it to her and just went away and left her stuck in all that trouble, and where was she anyhow, and Floyd, finally listening to her, said what the hell are these buggers trying to do to us, you think? The police chief meanwhile was introducing the new mayor who got up and declared that this was a tough ballgame, but they all had to hunker down and dig in and get ready for a butt-kicking bone-crunching free fight. “We gotta get our back off the mat!” he shouted through the bullhorn. “That’s one big piece a meat out there and she’s playin’ hardball with us, so now it’s our job to team up and take her out! Together, neighbors, we can do it!” Floyd said: “We’ll be goin’ now.” “We should oughta say goodbye and thank you,” Edna said, but she wasn’t sure who to, except maybe the little boy. “It don’t matter,” Floyd said. “Come on.”