Matt Cowper - The Clerk

Thomas’s parents weren’t leaving, as was the custom, and they chastised Thomas for abandoning the cause.

“What if she’s… well, mentally unstable?” his mother whispered.

“I think that’s already been established,” Thomas replied.

“You know what I mean…”

“Yes, consider the family history, son,” his father said forebodingly. “I know you have to work tonight, but in this case, the situation here trumps work.” It caused him great psychic pain to say this. To Frank Copeland, very few things trumped work. During his own working life, he’d missed graduations, ignored his wife’s sicknesses, skipped church, and drove through hurricanes to get to his furniture store. This, however, was different. Something had happened, was happening, to Emily, and while he didn’t understand all of it, he knew that tragedy was likely at the end of the trail she was slashing for herself — and maybe death. He thought back to his father’s suicide, to the bloody remains of Wallace Copeland’s head, and shuddered — though when his wife noticed his shudder, he grumbled that the room was too cold.

No, Dan clearly couldn’t handle the situation. Frank Copeland would have to solve everything, as he always did, though no one ever gave him any credit.

Thomas was worried about Emily, of course, but he didn’t see any point in staying. All they’d do was wait. And wait. And wait. With no one having any idea where she was, and with Dan not wanting to involve anyone outside the family, it meant the ball was in Emily’s court — and Emily had made it clear she’d deflate the ball and burn it rather than keep playing the game under someone else’s rules.

So Thomas had returned to Oxendine’s Grocery. Since then, Emily had sent two more text messages to Dan, both on the 28th. One said “I’m fine, stop worrying. The more you try to contact me, the more you drive me away,” and the other said, in response to Dan’s harsh accusation of adultery, “NO I AM NOT CHEATING ON YOU GOD.” Thomas was informed of these epistles via e-mail from his mother, who was still, along with his father, staying at the Dowling residence “until this all blows over.”

“And that brings us up to the present,” Thomas said now, completing his story.

Throughout this tale, Reggie continued to be remarkably patient. He only interrupted to ask a few clarifying questions, and when someone from the party came outside and tried to pull him back into the fray, he jokingly but firmly sent them back in empty-handed. Thomas, who’d never before dropped such a monologue on Reggie, was impressed with his friend’s comportment.

But now Reggie laughed. It was a side-splitting, tear-inducing, snot- and spit-blowing laugh. He careened off the landing’s railings like a pinball, at one point even tripping on the stairs and nearly tumbling down disastrously to the yard.

Thomas was irritated at first, but the longer Reggie laughed, the faker it seemed. It occurred to Thomas that his friend was trying to dispel the depressive fog Thomas had socked in by employing an over-abundance of mockery and hilarity.

“Man, oh man, if that don’t beat all…” Reggie finally managed, heaving as if he were in labor.

“Reggie, it’s not that funny,” Thomas said, smiling. “You’re overreacting.”

“It is that funny, Tommy. I knew you liked to twist yourself up into knots sometimes — heh heh heh — but I didn’t know it was this bad. What you need is some Reggie Willis Wisdom.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Good!” Reggie’s mostly-fake fit was finally subsiding. He wiped his eyes and massaged his laugh-stretched mouth. “You’ve talked enough, now it’s my turn.”

“That’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Well, first off, this Orianna chick. You thought she was The One, didn’t you? Don’t give me that sheepish look! You know ol’ Reggie speaks the truth. She was so cute, so pure, so — what’d you say about her? ‘Like moonlight on the ocean.’ Ha! When a man starts getting all poetic like that, you know he’s fucked!”

“Reggie…”

“Don’t Reggie me! This drama queen played you like a fiddle. Got you all wrapped up in her — what’s the word? — wanderlust, that’s it. And now she’s gone, and she’s laughing at you, the guy she left behind in that little grocery store. You were the Nice Guy, and she poured her little heart out to you, because you were so kind and willing to listen — that is, until you told her to fuck off. I give you props for that. But you should’ve told her to fuck off as soon as she started rambling about her Life Goals, and how tiny old Oxendine’s couldn’t handle her greatness, and you should’ve forgotten about her as soon as you walked away. I mean, you’re still hung up on her, and ya’ll never even fucked! What the hell, man?”

“Sounds like no woman has ever gotten inside the almighty Reggie Willis’s head…”

“Hell no they haven’t! I hit it, then I quit it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, plenty of women have tried to tame me. ‘But Reggie, don’t you care about’… fuck no, bitch, I don’t care about your complicated female bullshit, how this one guy at work said this one thing to you and it cut you so deeply you might never recover, or how life is just so cold , and it just freezes your insides, or how your mom criticized you because you did something stupid but she’s the one who’s the fascist because she just doesn’t understand. They want to talk about Feelings, they can go to a shrink. They want their pussy pounded, they can come to me. If they don’t like it, there’s the door.”

“Well, we’re different people…”

“Obviously! And what’re you doing mooning over a twenty-three old? Even I know not to mess around with those young’uns anymore — most of the time.”

“I don’t know, Reggie. She just struck me, I guess.”

“Well, un-struck yourself. You didn’t act like this with what’s-her-face, that single mom.”

“No, the situation with Kara is, uh, different. She’s…”

“Trash?”

“Yeah, sure, might as well call it like it is. Orianna isn’t Kara, that’s for damn sure.”

“You think so, because you ain’t thinking. They’re the same, pretty much. They both messed with you, but Orianna got to you more because she’s cute and has a super-duper smile and she says something that isn’t bumfuck stupid every once in a while. You’re just like those morons who put up with the worst shit imaginable from their woman just because she’s hot. Treat ’em all equal, I say. Ain’t that what they’ve been yelling for all these years? Equality?”

“Yes, they have. Alright, Reggie, thanks for the advice. Glad to get all this off my chest.”

“Glad to hear it. Wait, you ain’t leaving yet! Reggie ain’t done laying down his Wisdom!”

Thomas closed the door, shaking his head. “Reggie isn’t done? What else does Reggie want to say?”

“I have a few words to say about that wild sister of yours.”

“Ah.”

“Now, I know family’s family, and blood’s thicker than water, but you know what happens when those arteries get clogged? Heart attack. Death. Kaput.”

“Reggie, that’s one mixed metaphor I’ll always remember.”

“Thank you, Professor Von Brungenstein the Fourth. This sister of yours is hellbent on blowing herself up. Anyone who’s around her when the bomb goes off is gonna lose a few limbs. I’ve seen it happen. When they get those crazy eyes, run, and don’t look back.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think? And s he’s the one who ran away all crazily. We still don’t know where she is.”

“She’ll be back, trust me. And there’s a lover-boy involved in all this, has to be.”