William Vollmann - Butterfly Stories

And how are you getting on with your wife now?

Pour you another shot?

Sure.

Well, just recently she started coming on to me again, but she's getting older and doesn't attract me quite so much, aye? And now she's having some kind of mid life crisis. Suddenly she wants to be Inuk more than ever. She insists on eating walrus meat, which she always hated before and which I hate because it's a putrid jelly. It really stinks up the house. But that doesn't matter; she has to do it. And then there's the matter of striking the kids. That's what burns me up. I think it's a good idea to discipline the kids a little. Hell, the rest of the world does it. Maybe those Inuks should realize that if everybody else does it, maybe there's a reason. Maybe they could learn something, aye? Look how fucked up all the kids are up here! But no, the wife won't have it. One time she wanted some caribou from the freezer to boil for dinner, so I said to our eldest, Cecily, I says, go and get your mother some caribou. And she had the cheek to refuse! Well, I said, if you don't do as your mother wants you'll have nothing to eat tonight. - I was defending my wife! — And my wife turned on me and said: Don't you dare threaten your children!

So you think you made a mistake to marry her?

Damned right I did! Just last night she struck me again with the hairbrush; tell me if you don't see the mark!

What about Stuart and his wife? They don't have problems, do they?

Oh, yes, Stu has problems.

Well, what about Roger and Annie? the husband said in triumph. Roger and Annie were the couple at the Bay store, the perfect ones who had told him to drop in for dinner.

Oh, but they're young yet, eh? — A grim and monitory laugh. - Only in their twenties. I'd like to uhh! her! But give her ten years, and she'll be just like my wife.

What about me?

What about you?

That Inuk girl I had that crush on -

Easy enough to get a crush, now, isn't it?

So you really think it would be a mistake to marry her?

Oh definitely, said Jeremy, pouring himself another drink, it would be a mistake.

I feel like I have a spirit inside me like a flame, his friend Ben once said. And I have to sleep with my spirit. If someone gives me something that I think is too good for me to accept, then 1 try to get up my courage to get my spirit to accept it. Because my spirit deserves the best. But my spirit isn't the only thing inside me. There are a lot of different souls.

The husband listened to all the different souls clamoring inside him, his fears piercing the sky with their sharp and dusty backbones. .

The two whores stood in the parking garage, eating the husband's fortune cookies and smiling. Light harshened their teeth and wrapped their bodies in glittering sheets. The husband's whore put the money into her shoe. The photographer's whore put her money into her pants. The husband's whore kept hugging herself. She was a little cold. The garage attendant kept popping out of his office and saying: How long you will be here?

Shut the fuck up, you dirty A-rab, said the husband's whore. You're gonna get paid, too.

How long you will be here?

Not much longer, said the husband. This is such a sentimental spot for us. We're just standing here with our wives remembering the old times. Would you believe we first met here, on a double date?

Okay, okay, said the attendant. How long you will be here?

Shut the fuck up, ya dirty A-rab, said the whore.

She stood fat and beaming with her hands behind her back. The other had her hands in front of her, leaning into a quick and wary smile. .

Doing this I get the strangest feeling, said the whore. Her upper arms were the size of pumpkins. She had to be over two hundred and fifty pounds. She smelled so bad the husband had to breathe through his mouth.

You must have strange feelings too sometimes, said the whore, cupping a cigarette in a freckled hand whose puffy flesh reminded him of a cod's or a haddock's, and the match ignited and showered light over her freckles; her hand seemed to glow with its own blood; yawning, she dug her dirty black fingernail under the lacy black bra strap to scratch at her freckled shoulders which quivered with dimples so soft and deep and greasy she didn't really need a cunt; tilting her cigarette-end upward the whore said: I mean, don't you feel strange right now?

I always feel strange, said the husband.

Well, what are you looking for?

Love, I guess. A new wife.

But does it feel STRANGE?

It feels strange to me that I'm here with you because I don't love you and you don't love me and all I'm here for is some clue.

I'll show ya what you're here for, crooned the fat whore, suddenly becoming a heavy meaty bomb in action; stinking of urine she streaked for him, the neckless freckled seal-head hurtling for his fly, which she unzipped expertly with her teeth — hey, that was part of the SERVICE! — and now she was pulling him forward by his zipper; she was barefoot against the wall with her head uplifted for the blowjob, coughing and jerking like a red-haired bird; I have no patience, she mumbled, her belly jigging with all this effort; I just wanna make you feel strange is what I think.

After awhile she got up and spat. - You like my hair this way, Ginny? she said to the other whore. I decided to wear it this way just today.

You don't have any kids? said the other whore after a long pause.

Ten minutes later, when they were in the cab rolling down the brick-flickers, smell of piss in the back, the husband said to himself: Vanna is not this erythrismic whore, that's all I know. . but I have to love this whore, too, because she tried to be there for me. . No, I can't love her. I want to, but I can't. She makes me feel lost. Can Vanna be there for me? She's so far away… — and the husband's mind kept flying on steady fever-wings past the replicated squares and Xs of bridge-struts; he flew with a sunny nausea past hot palm trees and low warehouses. There went a nice convention of whores on the corner, in big black boots, bare thighs; one in red rolled her mouth into a kiss -

Hello, Sien? Yes.

Do you know who this is? Yes.

Any news for me from Cambodia? Not yet.

Do you think everything's all right? I don't think so, sir.

Coming back from Battambang they'd stopped for a piss break by one of the half-ruined bridges and he picked a yellow-calyxed white flower, its leaves half eaten by insects; it was studded beneath its bloom with a cluster of pointed buds like bullets. He took it with him when they got back in the car, holding it in his hand and thinking that it might be Vanna. Two ants came out of it, then two flies. Within ten minutes it wilted.

Lights whirled around the CAMPUSmarquee. Dirty ragged men leaned in the darkness. A troll in a skullcap squatted in a doorway on Turk Street.

Uh no you have to go down Hyde, said the transvestite with the pale made-up face. I'll tell you when to turn right. Not this right but the next right.

Not this wife, but the next wife, said the husband.

The transvestite wasn't listening. That was fine with him; he didn't care, either. - I got beat up just last week but I'm too depressed to talk about it, she said.

The high heel twitched. The voice was soulful and whispering like a dead grandmother's.

I couldn't go out for a week, I was so scared, she said.

Water dripped steadily into the fish tank. Blue eyelids, cheek lines. Lips a sideways heart, she blinked disgustedly in the mirror.

I'm not forcing you, he said quickly.