Donald Pollock - Knockemstiff

Then, right after dusk, Mary ran out of smokes. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she ransacked drawers, looked under cushions. Finally, she straightened up and went down the hall talking to herself. When she came back, she held out a wrinkled twenty and asked us to go buy her a carton. Sandy grabbed the money and jumped up, ran back to her bedroom. “The store will be closin’ before long,” Mary yelled. “You don’t need to fix up just to go to Maude’s.”

I knew we were in for it as soon as Sandy pranced back out to the living room. She was wearing lipstick and her tightest jeans; she’d combed the rat’s nest out of her hair. The bitter scent of the perfume I’d bought her for Christmas cut through the stale air. Mary’s eyes clouded over with worry, but she didn’t have any choice. She hadn’t walked the hill in a coon’s age, and she couldn’t go without her smokes. I pulled my coat on and followed her daughter out into the winter darkness. It was the first time we’d been outside all day. “This must be how vampires feel,” I said, looking up at the stars through the bare branches of the trees.

“Huh?” Sandy said as she started to trot down the hill ahead of me.

“Slow down,” I said. The gravel was icy from where all the cars had packed down the snow. “What’s your hurry?”

“I’m thirsty,” Sandy said.

“Girl, I ain’t got no money.”

She turned around, pulled the twenty out of her pocket, and waved it in my face. “I do,” she said with a laugh.

“Don’t you think we oughta get your mom them cigarettes?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “She smokes too much anyway.”

…..

IKNEW ALL ALONG WE’D NEVER LAST, BUT WHEN I CAME OUT of the john at Hap’s and found Sandy gone, I still felt a sick feeling in my stomach. We’d been drinking the cheap draft and listening to her favorite Phil Collins for a couple of hours when she ditched me. I went outside and hunted for her in the parking lot, then came back in and sat down at the bar next to Porter Watson. “You see where Sandy went?” I asked Wanda, the barmaid. My voice was trembling, and I lit my last cigarette with shaky hands.

Wanda set another draft in front of me. “As soon as you hit the pisser, she left out the door with that logger that was in here,” she said. “Hell, they’d been eyeing each other since you two got here.”

“The Ideal Boyfriend,” I muttered.

“The idy what?” Porter asked, turning toward me. His bushy beard smelled like stomach acid.

“Nothing,” I said, staring down at the mug of beer. I started to pick it up but then pushed it back toward Wanda. “I ain’t got no money,” I said.

“I already poured it,” Wanda said.

“I’ll buy,” Porter told her, throwing a five on the bar.

And so I sat there until closing time, drinking on Porter and listening to him go on and on about the Owl’s car. When you first heard him talking about it, you’d figure he was bat-shit crazy, but really, he was just trying to latch on to something that would fill up his days so he didn’t have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It’s the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we’ll ever do.

“I’d still like to know the history of that car,” I said, just to show him I was still listening.

“History?” Porter snorted. “Man, that car’s like part of the landscape. It’s like fuckin’ nature.”

“No,” I said, “I mean, like, how you figure it got there in the first place?”

“It landed there.”

“Landed?” I looked over at him. His bloodshot eyes were locked on the wavy mirror behind the bar. “You mean like…”

“Hell, yes,” he said. “And we’re damn lucky it did,” he added, a sob starting to erupt from deep inside his throat.

A few minutes later, Wanda yelled, “Last call!” I looked over at the Miller Beer clock above the door. It said 1:00 AM. Then I remembered the old lady’s cigarettes. I couldn’t go back to the house without some Marlboros. Hell, she probably wouldn’t let me in. I waited until Wanda started to flick the lights off and on, then hit Porter up for the money to get a pack, hoping that would pacify Mary until morning.

“Last call!” Wanda yelled again, as I dropped eight quarters in the cigarette machine.

…..

WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT BACK TO SANDY’S HOUSE, THE gray light of the TV still glowed through the sheets of plastic stapled over the windows. I knocked on the door and watched through the glass as Mary struggled out of the recliner and slowly made her way across the room. Her blue fuzzy housecoat fit her round body like a cocoon. Her pockets bulged with wads of used Kleenex. Pulling the door open, she peered past me into the darkness. “Where’s Sandy?” she asked.

“I ain’t sure,” I said, my teeth chattering from the cold. “She took off.”

“What about my cigarettes?”

“I brought you a pack,” I said, holding them up to the porch light. “Sandy’s got the rest of them.”

“That girl,” she said, unlatching the screen door. “She don’t have the sense to pound sand down a rat hole.”

I stepped into the cramped living room, shrugged off my coat. The Love Boat was playing on the tube. “Jesus,” I said, “I ain’t seen that show since I don’t know when.” It had been one of my mom’s favorites, though I always felt it was bullshit, the way everyone fell in love and got what they wanted in the happy ending.

We stood in the middle of the living room staring down at the TV. “I’d give anything to take one of them cruises,” Mary said, as she peeled open the pack of smokes.

“Where is that?” I asked. It all looked so beautiful on the screen, the tropical scenery, the sexy bikinis, the sparkling blue water, even the bald captain in the tuxedo.

“Hawaii,” Mary answered. “I seen this one a dozen times. See that woman standing by the rail? The poor thing don’t know her hubby’s on the ship with his new girlfriend.” Mary dropped down into her recliner, lit a cigarette. The tip of the Marlboro began to glow like a stoplight in the middle of her wrinkled face.

“Is that them?” I said. Two has-been movie stars were strolling on the deck, their arms wrapped around each other, their smiling faces pointed up at the sun.

“Yep,” Mary said. “The shit’s gonna hit the fan pretty soon.”

…..

AFTER A FEW MINUTES, MARY NODDED OFF IN HER CHAIR. Taking one of the cigarettes from the pack I’d brought her, I went into the kitchen. I stood by the window smoking and wondering if Sandy and her logger were somewhere fucking right at that moment, their two hearts pounding against each other like sledgehammers while mine barely beat at all. Suddenly, I remembered Albert. I pulled a fifth of Rose from the refrigerator and walked down the hall to check on him. Though it was against Mary’s rule, I figured he could do with a snort. A nightlight plugged into an outlet above him shone on his face like a pale blue star. Sitting down beside him, I uncapped the bottle. “Hey, old man,” I whispered, “let’s have a drink.”

I stuck the straw down into the bottle before I realized that Albert was dead. It was probably the first time he’d ever turned down a drink in his life. I sat beside him for a while sipping from his jug and thinking about Sandy. Sometime tomorrow she’d roll in, and I made up my mind I didn’t want to be around for that. My job was done here anyway. I turned on the lamp and rummaged through the drawer of pills, found the bottle of Demerol. Then I leaned over, and as gently as I could, pushed Albert’s dry, pink eyelids down with my thumbs.

Going back out to the living room, I pulled on my coat and slipped the bottle of wine in my pocket. As I headed for the front door, I looked down and saw one of Sandy’s drawings lying on the coffee table. She’d printed WANTED in bold letters over the man’s shrunken head. I stuck it in my other pocket, then tiptoed over and gently pried the pack of cigarettes from Mary’s hand, leaving her three in the ashtray.