Tim Sandlin - Social Blunders

Sonny played cheerleader. “Wipe the pavement with the bastard. Show him never to mess with real men.”

I decided to go like-father, like-son. Ryan was calm, yet dangerous; I should turn my attention to Sonny the rat terrier.

“You’re no better than your dad,” I said. “Our dad. You make threats, then find someone else to carry them out.”

“I’ll break your neck.”

“Either hurt me now or shut your fat face.”

Sonny hit me in the gut. As I doubled over, Ryan let go of my shoulders, then teed off on my chin. Gilia screamed. I remember that detail—Gilia screaming.

I made it to the pavement, went fetal, and rode out the pounding. All in all, it was pretty typical of two guys beating the snot out of one guy while a woman goes ballistic in the background. I’d written the scene several times for Young Adult sports fiction, so it was as if I’d been there before.

Lying with my forehead stuck to concrete, part of me disengaged from reality and sat on the hood of the Dodge, taking notes: Sonny goes for the face, Ryan for the kidneys, someone is dragging Gilia into the house. There was more lower back pain and less blood than in the versions I wrote. Otherwise, I’d pretty much nailed the sensation.

Katrina Prescott stood in the middle of the street, less than a block from what I’ve come to call Sam’s Massacre. It’s a wonder I didn’t run her down, what with being slumped over the steering wheel with blood dribbling in my eyes.

I braked hard and avoided killing her, but Katrina didn’t seem to notice the brush with death. Instead, she hopped in the passenger seat and started talking.

“Skip is cruel and abusive. I’m so glad you’re driving him nuts; it’s a wonderful turn of events.”

“Mrs. Prescott, I’ve had a hard day. I’d just as soon go on home now.”

“He forced me to take tennis lessons.”

“That is cruel.”

“Against my will, he made me get a breast enhancement—silicone. Are you going to drive or not?”

I tried not to look, but, heck, women get silicone implants so you will look. Why is it whenever a woman tells you she’s had an implant, she’s offended if you look down there?

I shifted into first and moved on up the street. “Couldn’t we talk another time, Mrs. Prescott. I have a headache.”

“You look awful.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

Katrina didn’t want to hear it. “Skip diddles his secretary, he diddles Cameron’s secretary, he diddles the jailbait in the shoe department. The one time I had a lover, Skip planted dope in Sean’s trailer and called the police.”

“I saw that story on Dallas .”

“Before that, Skip gave me syphilis and to this day he accuses me of giving it to him.”

“All men do that.”

“I hate Skip.”

“Everybody hates Skip, Mrs. Prescott. Can I please go home now?”

“Do you believe in phrenology?”

It seemed like I’d passed out and missed a transitional statement. “Telling the future by bumps on someone’s head?”

“Phrenology is not fortune-telling. It’s the science of character analysis through the study of skull structure.”

“My housekeeper hears the future from coffee grounds in the garbage disposal.”

Katrina pulled her legs up under herself and sat facing me. “Listen, the skull is made up of twenty-six round enclosures with vacant interspaces. Each enclosure corresponds to a trait, and the larger the enclosure, the more prevalent the trait.”

“I’ll give you a hundred dollars to get out of my car.”

“May I feel your head?”

“Do you have to?”

Katrina clamped her hand on my forehead and let her fingers slowly drift to my eyebrows. She touched the side of my head in what on TV they call the Vulcan death grip. Meanwhile, I turned right twice, trying not to roam too far from Starmount Forest.

“Poor self-esteem,” she said. “A disfigured parental love, unconventional sex preferences, no wit whatsoever.”

“Don’t touch my ears, Mrs. Prescott.”

“The benevolence node is prominent. You must be very kind.”

“The node wasn’t prominent until your son hit me.”

“Shush.”

I think boredom causes insanity. Look at rich people. Or Southern California where the weather never changes so people go crazy from nothing else to do. Katrina went into a kind of spell with her fingers on my head. Her eyes took on that glaze professional women get when you eat them.

“Now, you feel my head,” she said.

“I’d rather not, Mrs. Prescott.”

“I felt yours.”

Another right turn past a Presbyterian church. “Frankly, whenever I’ve touched a woman on the head, sooner or later, I go to bed with her, and I don’t think that would be a good idea for us.”

I glanced over to see how she took this. Many women don’t like it if you say you don’t want to go to bed with them, even if they don’t want to go to bed with you. Sure enough, her lower lip trembled.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“You don’t want to feel my head, you think I’m repulsive.”

“I want very much to feel your head, Mrs. Prescott, but your husband may be my father and your son just kicked me in the face. I don’t think feeling your head would be appropriate.”

Tears leaked. “I am a desperately unhappy woman and all I want is for you to feel my head.”

Ask anyone I’m related to and they’ll tell you my tragic flaw is the inability to say no to a woman. I felt the top where she’d found my self-esteem, then down to sexual preferences and on to wit. She did have a lump over sexual preferences, but other than that, all I felt was hair on a head. Katrina leaned forward so I could rub the muscles at the top of her neck.

“Now, tell me all the details,” she said.

I touched her about a second longer than I had to, and that made me feel guilty. Gilia might not understand.

“Which details?”

“The details about Skip and your mother. He said she was a whore.”

“Lydia is no whore. Skip and the guys raped her.”

“Oh, my God. You know, when we were freshmen in college, I think he date-raped me. I was never certain.”

“Can I go home now? Can’t you see I’ve been beat up?”

Katrina pouted. She was a woman who controlled men with her lower lip. “Not until you promise to tell me everything.”

“I promise—but only if you let me go.”

“Tomorrow.”

I drove back toward the Prescott-Saunders houses while she gave directions to some private club she belonged to where I was supposed to show up at eleven the next day. I didn’t pay much attention because I had no intention of showing up.

I stopped the car at the spot where I’d almost flattened her. Katrina opened the door but didn’t get out.

“If you don’t show up tomorrow, I’ll come to your house.”

“You don’t know where I live.”

“Don’t be silly. Skip has a private detective on retainer. By dark we’ll know every single detail of your life.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t stand me up now.” She kissed air and left.

It was almost dark when Katrina went her way, which meant Skip would soon know every single detail of my life. I wondered what that meant. I guess we’re all curious as to what a thorough investigation of ourselves would turn up. Would Skip hear about my interest in clitoral manipulation and general distaste for men, or would he receive a Dunn and Bradstreet on the health of Callahan Magic Carts? And which of these was me?

I hoped he didn’t try the plant-the-dope, call-the-cops trick. I’d long since traded in my amyl nitrate for beta carotene, but there would always be a certain fragrance of unresolved college karma wafting on the breeze, waiting for a chance to haunt.