Tim Sandlin - Social Blunders

Shannon’s spine snapped upright, but she made no noise. Her hand flipped up as if she were throwing salt over her shoulder, only instead of salt, my face caught pulp. The pumpkin slime in my mouth gave me another metaphor for the taste and consistency of a turned-on woman, which I needed. There’s a limit to how often you can compare something to raw oysters.

I cupped my hands together for a double load of what felt like alfalfa-fed cow poop. Lifting my hands high, I brought the whole load down on her head. Take that, trollop.

Shannon turned to face me. The only sound was the gentle crunch of Gus chewing seeds. I glanced over at Gilia. She hadn’t decided if this was family horseplay or an all-out fight. I hadn’t either. Shannon was just like her mother in that I couldn’t tell squat about what she was thinking until she decided to tell me. At the moment, for instance, as she pulled my belt toward her and dumped a pint of goo down my boxers, was she angry as hell or amused to no end? My next move should have been dictated by attitude, but not knowing attitude, I answered her shorts shot with cleavage filler.

Shannon’s mouth and eyes went rigid. She looked so much like Maurey I wanted to apologize. I wanted to hand her a handkerchief and say, “Whoops, let’s forget the ugly incident. We’ll pretend it was a recurring dream.”

Fat chance.

She started to circle, which made me nervous. I’d expected more goop and was prepared to take my medicine, but this empty-handed circling threw me off. We rotated like the Earth keeping track of a pissed-off moon. What was the moon up to? She had a glop of pumpkin on her forehead and a seed stuck in her right eyebrow.

Then Shannon stopped. “It’s not nice to slime your daughter,” she said.

“You slimed me first.”

She shook her head. “You’ll never learn, will you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her eyes were bulletproof glass—space age plastic. Ten thousand howling Zulus firing spears at helpless Redcoats. Unable to meet such fierceness head on, I looked away, first at Eugene, whose face revealed an intellectual interest in father-daughter dynamics, then at Gus, who was chewing and watching something behind and below me.

Maybe I heard her, or maybe I simply felt Gilia’s presence. Whatever the cause, I glanced between my legs just as Shannon charged.

Splat! The classic Three Stooges kneel-behind-the-knees-and-push maneuver. What the Bowery Boys called a number seven. I landed neck deep in slop.

I read in one of Wanda’s Cosmo magazines that men often express a desire to crawl into women they copulate with. Cosmo took this as a return-to-the-womb neediness. I, personally, have never had any desire to return to Lydia’s womb. The fact I was once that close to my mother is appalling, and I have no wish to be inside a woman again. However, for those men who fantasize about crawling up the crotch of an excited woman, I suggest they first try bathing in pumpkin pulp. A lesson might be learned.

Shannon and Gilia thought my predicament was a hoot. Cause for belly laughs all around. Eugene had fallen on the floor, struck down by hilarity. Even Gus chuckled.

I sat up, grabbed Gilia by the arm, and yanked her into the pile—where her intense laughter turned into a shriek. Shannon put out a Blackfeet war cry—taught to her by Maurey, who learned it from Hank Elkrunner—and dived on both of us.

Shannon apologized to me the next morning, an event worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

“I’m sorry I said you were woofing it up on a married woman yesterday,” Shannon said. “You’re such an easy target, sometimes I forget you have feelings.”

I hung my head and stirred my red beans. “You cut me to the quick.”

“I realized that afterwards. You got so pale.”

Was she being ironic? Lydia and Maurey taught me long ago never to take a woman’s word at face value. I decided the proper course was silent yet wounded. Lies of omission are easier to cover than the out-loud kind.

Shannon brought her coffee and sat down opposite me. “Gilia is amazingly nice—I can’t remember the last time a nice woman liked you—but you know how it is when a daughter’s father gets a new girlfriend. There’s a moment of jealousy.”

“Gilia isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Daddy, don’t be a fool. Of course she’s your new girlfriend. I think she’ll make a wonderful mom.”

As a responsible parent, my job was to disagree. “She’s only five years older than you are.”

“If the shoe fits, don’t ask how old it is.”

“Who told you that?”

“You did, the night you went off with Jimmy Otake’s grandmother.”

Why don’t children ever forget? Shannon had been seven when I went off with Jimmy Otake’s grandmother.

“But Gilia’s a blonde,” I said. “I don’t care much for blondes.”

Shannon’s laugh was effervescent. “Daddy, you want any woman who wants you. This time you lucked out and found a good one, so don’t blow it. Here, she left me her phone number. It’s a personal line into her room, so you don’t have to deal with the family.”

I looked at the slip of paper in my hand. Gilia was a high-quality woman, which was the last thing I needed coming off the hard rebound from Wanda. Gilia was young, good-looking, and energetic—all that potential and long legs too—and she would break my heart. No, now was not the time to mingle with lovable women.

“I’m not going to call her,” I said.

“Give me one semi-rational reason why not.”

“To start with, Gilia might be my sister.”

“Gilia told me her father is left-handed. You’re right-handed, therefore her father isn’t your father.”

“Gilia’s right-handed.”

“Perfect. He’s not her father either.”

Gus stood in the parlor with her arms crossed over her chest. Orange slop hung from the piano, the chairs, the table, the William and Mary desk and bookcase, a Matisse print, and a Schenk original. I tried to remember the difference between stalagmites and stalactites.

“It’s drying hard,” Gus said.

“I don’t suppose you’d—”

“In a pig’s eye. I’d quit and go work for Jesse Helms before I’d clean this room.”

I’d suspected as much. Spontaneous messiness always brings backlash.

“Call Manpower and have them send over a team of winos. Tell them I’ll pay double.”

“You’ll pay triple.”

Gilia answered on the seventh ring. “What took you so long?” she said. “I thought you’d never call.”

“I planned to never call, but I thought I should explain why I can’t call you.”

“Are you going to Tex and Shirley’s for breakfast? Skip’s detective says that’s what you usually do about now.”

“Two days in a row. I hate it when you do something two days in a row and people start calling it a rut. That detective is damn presumptuous.”

“He’s only been on the job a day and a half.”

“I refuse to be predictable.”

“I only asked because I’m thinking I might join you there.”

“At Tex and Shirley’s?”

“We could talk.”

“What about?”

“Sam, didn’t you ever meet someone for breakfast? You sit and drink coffee and shoot the shit.”

“I’m real bad at shooting shit.”

“I’ll teach you, Sam. Hanging out is one of my talents.”

Blues music came from Gilia’s end of the line. She must have been listening to it when I called, but if so, why take seven rings to answer?

“Won’t the detective tell Skip, who’ll tell Cameron, and Ryan will box your ears?”

“I’m twenty-four years old, they can’t control me with threats.”