Tim Sandlin - Social Blunders

A knock came at the door, which is always interesting in the middle of the night. I welcome late night knocks. I marked my place in Madame Bovary with a Kleenex strip as Shannon walked through the door wearing her pac boots without socks and her cold weather flannel nightgown.

She held out two wrapped Fudgsicles. “You hungry?”

I nodded even though I wasn’t, particularly.

She gave me a Fudgsicle, then pushed my feet over under the blanket, clearing a spot so she could sit on the end of the bed. I could see her looking around at my living situation, critically. Even though the room had been home for over six weeks, it wasn’t much more personal than a monk’s cell. I had a bedside stump for my Kleenex box and Madame Bovary and a length of clothesline between two nails for a closet. Five or six dirty coffee cups sat mired in dust bunnies under the bed.

“I’m planning to fix the place up after Christmas,” I said.

Shannon said, “Don’t go out of your way on my account.” From somewhere in the flannel nightgown she produced a baby blue envelope. “Gilia sent you a letter.”

She must have originally planned to mail it because the letter had been addressed and stamped. It was one of those personalized stationery envelopes women give each other as gifts, the kind with the return address embossed in white. The uncanceled stamp was a painting of a Baltimore oriole—it said so under the picture—but best of all the envelope smelled ever so lightly of Gilia.

“What did you do to her?” Shannon asked.

“How do you mean that?”

Shannon tore the top off her Fudgsicle wrapper and pulled the paper down over the stick. I don’t do it that way. I pull the wrap up over the top, like a sweater.

“Gilia’s been moping around ever since you dumped on her. I asked what was the matter and she said you two connected intellectually and emotionally.” Shannon did this arch thing with her right eyebrow. “You didn’t screw her, did you?”

“Of course not.”

I turned the letter over and looked at the back. It didn’t have any of those Xs and Os most women put on letters.

“She’d be nuts to give you another chance.” Shannon sucked the curved tip of her Fudgsicle. “But if she does, you better not blow it again, Daddy.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want a parade of Wandas in and out of my life.”

“Me either.”

We each slurped our ice cream bars in silence for a while. I poked my fingertips with the sharp corners of the envelope and hefted it for weight—didn’t feel like more than one page. I wondered if it would be rude to read it in front of Shannon. She seemed lost in thought. She was staring at her Fudgsicle the way I stare into coffee when I’ve got something intense on my mind.

Suddenly, with no warning, Shannon raised her head and hit me with the full force of her brown eyes. “Dad, we need to talk.”

I bit off a chunk of chocolate ice and waited, in no hurry. Whenever a woman says “We need to talk,” it means she’s reached a decision and it’s already too late for you to talk back.

She said, “A couple of girls from UNC-G have an apartment on Carr Street, there across from the school. They needed a roommate and I applied and they took me.”

I didn’t understand at first. “But that would mean moving out of the Manor House.”

“Yes, moving in with them means moving out on you.”

“All your stuff is at home.”

She reached over and patted my shin under the blanket. “I’m getting a new home.”

Pretend your sacred daughter sticks a knife between your ribs into your heart and twists it and you’ll get an inkling of how I felt. “Why would you want to leave our house? You need more space? I’ll give you more space.”

“I’m nineteen, Daddy. I’ll be twenty next summer. It’s time I got out on my own.”

“You can be on your own at home. Ask the girls to move in with us. There’s plenty of room and they won’t even have to pay rent.”

“Living with girls isn’t the point. It’s a matter of independence. I’m leaving the nest and you have to let me.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

Melted chocolate ran down the stick onto my fingers. Shannon was staring at me hard, the way Gilia used to. It’s not fair women can do that and men can’t.

“Will you be living with Eugene?” I asked. “Is this an excuse for unbridled sex?”

When I said unbridled , Shannon smiled. She knew in my imagination I was picturing her as a debauched harlot. “I’m done with Eugene, and this doesn’t have anything to do with sex. It’s my freedom.”

She was too young to talk about freedom. Only yesterday, she’d held my hand when we crossed the street. She used to run all the way home from first grade because she missed me. Hell, I used to run all the way home from eighth grade because I missed her.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“We’ll see each other.” Shannon’s laugh was a clear bell. “I’m bound to be over with dirty laundry.”

Maurey was right: Life is the shits. “But all I’ve ever done is take care of you.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to do something else.” Shannon leaned forward to kiss my cheek and take the stick out of my hand. “See you in the morning,” she said. Then she was gone.

Dear Sam,

Shannon says you don’t conquer females the way my ex-husband did. She says you have an obsessive compulsion to save lost women, that you meet miserable women who need love which you translate as sex and you convince yourself their lives wouldn’t be miserable anymore if only you would do them the favor of sleeping with them.

According to your letter, you were planning to commit to me at some unnamed point in the future, but I don’t see how you can commit to anyone if you have an obsessive compulsion that forces you to sleep with sluts.

Atalanta Williams says you have never been loved by a good woman and if a good woman were to ever love you, you would straighten up.

My father says you are a truthless satyrmaniac and Skip Prescott says you’re a “pussy hound,” among other things.

I don’t know what I say. All I know is I miss our talks and you are a villain.

Sincerely,

Gilia

I dreamed I was trapped in an elevator with thirteen Greco-Roman wrestlers. Their nude bodies glistened in virgin olive oil. Testicles hung down like baseballs in the toes of full-figure panty hose. I was wearing a Victoria’s Secret crepe chemise with nothing on underneath. The wrestlers milled back and forth, moaning and jostling me with their shoulders, thighs, and slick buttocks. Suddenly, over by the elevator controls, an Indian pull-started a Poulan chain saw. Lydia shouted, “Castrate the homophobe!” and the wrestlers rushed to the opposite corner of the elevator, crushing me between layers of naked male flesh.

In the morning, I dropped Maurey and Shannon off in Jackson so they could Christmas shop for the boys. The plan was for me to drive back to GroVont, reconcile with my mother, then pick the women up around noon and go back to the ranch, where Maurey had a job lined up for me and Pud—something about elk in the hay.

The plan reminded me of when I used to write lists of what to do today:

Take a shower.

Buy socks.

Write great American novel.

Pick up film at Wal-Mart.

It’s like if you sneak the big chore in, maybe you’ll check it off without noticing, only this would be harder because I’d written novels before; I’d never reconciled with my mother.

“Go to her with your heart in your hand,” Maurey said. “Lydia can’t deal with open vulnerability.”