Donald Pollock - Knockemstiff

I stood outside the old house for a moment, and then started down the road. As the cold air quickly seeped through my coat, I realized I’d never make it out of the holler tonight. All of Knockemstiff was asleep, even the dogs, and I had no place to go. By the time I got to Hap’s cinder-block building, I was damn near frozen. I stood shivering in the middle of the road trying to decide what to do, then leaped over the drainage ditch and scrambled up the hillside. The briars and brush ripped my skin and tore my clothes, but I finally made it to the Owl’s car.

I pulled open the rusty door and crawled inside the Newport. I flicked my lighter and looked around. Dirty gray feathers lay everywhere; dry, pale droppings caked the faded cloth seat. I heard a scrunching sound like dried twigs under my boots. Holding the Zippo near my feet, I saw the thin white bones of small animals scattered on the floorboards. It occurred to me that these were probably some of the Owl’s victims. I rolled the stubborn windows up as far as they would go and hunkered down in the seat, with just my eyes above the cracked dash.

After finishing off Albert’s bottle and popping two of his Demerol, I stretched out as best I could across the front seat. I closed my eyes and sank deeper and deeper into that lonely world known only to those who sleep in abandoned vehicles. As a car rattled past on the road below, I recalled the story about Sandy’s uncle Wimpy Miller freezing to death in a Dumpster behind the Sack N’ Save, his body buried in outdated lettuce. Then I thought of Hawaii, tried my best to conjure up the hot sand of a tropical beach, the warm silky nights of paradise.

The wind picked up, rocking the old car back and forth. Flakes of snow blew through the cracks and swirled above me. Reaching down, I picked up the tiny skull of a wretched little bird. I held it in my hand for a long time. It seemed as if everything I’d ever done in my life, the good and the bad, rested there. Then I slipped it, as thin and fragile as an egg, into my mouth.

EVERYBODY’S SEEN IT, THE COMMERCIAL WHERE THE OLD man is running along the moonlit beach with the beautiful pink-haired starlet clad in the silver thong; the one that says it’s never too late to start over. This guy’s bounding along like a fucking gazelle, his feet barely touching the sand, a bulge the size of a sledgehammer knocking around inside his plaid swimsuit; and then this young girl, she can barely keep up he’s moving so fast. It’s bullshit, another lie they tease you with, hoping you’ll fall for the special effects, dial the toll-free number with a credit card clenched between your false teeth. And it’s like all those other artsy commercials nowadays, where they don’t actually tell you what they’re selling. I mean, they might have a little drama going on about an elephant and a sunflower, but then someone figures out it’s just an ad for sanitary napkins, that sort of thing.

But still, they suck you in, this new way they tell a story. The bastards prey on your regrets, divine all your little sorrows. Take me for example, Big Bernie Givens. I’m fifty-six years old and sloppy fat and stuck in southern Ohio like the smile on a dead clown’s ass. My wife shudders every time I mention the sex act. My grown son eats the dead stuff that collects on windowsills. I must watch that damn commercial twenty times a day. I dream about it at night, about starting over. I wake up with that background music knocking holes in my heart. Like I said, it’s bullshit.

…..

“WHAT’S THOSE THINGS WHERE THEY BURN YOUR DEAD body?” I ask my wife. We’re inching forward in the drive-through line at Fedder’s Dairy Queen, sucking car fumes and listening to Jerry thrash around in the backseat like an ape caught in a net. It’s been the worst summer on record, just one massive heatstroke. My new white shirt is already stained the color of pus; my shades are fogged over with greasy vapors. Fumes from the paper-mill stack across town make the whole county smell like a giant fart. The sun is everywhere.

“Crematorium?” she yawns. She rubs her eyes, runs a freckled hand through her thin brown hair, dead as straw now from too many dye jobs.

“No, not that, like over in Asia,” I say, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I should have gone ahead and driven the air-conditioned Mercury today, left the Chevy covered up in the garage. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I watch Jerry struggle against the plastic webbing we use to hold him down and keep him from jumping out into traffic. Blue veins thick as fingers bulge in his scarlet neck. The poor bastard never lets up.

“Shit, how should I know?” Jill groans. She begins fanning herself with a wrinkled map of Ohio she’s dug out of the glove box.

“That’s it,” I say. “That’s what it feels like.”

…..

LATELY, I’VE BEEN FUCKING UP LEFT AND RIGHT. THE other night on my way home, I even tried to pick up some young girl. She was walking along Third Street and I drove past first, checking her out. I could see that she was junior high, but I whipped around the block anyway, then pulled over to the curb. “Hey, you need a ride?” I asked. As soon as the words spilled out of my mouth, my teeth started chattering, even though the sign on the bank said it was ninety-two degrees.

The girl looked up and down the street, then edged closer to the car. “Where you going?” she asked. Her voice sounded like tinfoil. Pictures of butterflies covered her pink shirt. She had the body of a woman, but the face of a little kid. Cow hormones have the young people all fucked up.

It was still daylight, and I was nervous about being seen. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just ridin’ around.” I could smell my sweat, taste the bologna sandwiches I’d had for lunch.

She leaned in the window, looking the car over inside. She wore one of those necklaces strung with candy hearts, and they were melting against her throat. I tried to suck in my gut, but it still rubbed the steering wheel. “I got to be home in two hours,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” For one brief moment, it was like that commercial come true, I swear to God. I was already picturing the stuff we’d do. But then, just as she opened the door to slide in beside me, someone began yelling from across the street. I looked over and saw a tall stocky woman with curlers in her hair standing on the porch of a big red-brick. “Oh, shit,” the girl said. “That’s my volleyball coach.” She stepped away from the car just as the woman leaped off the porch and began running toward us. I blew through two red lights, and then made a fast right out of town. That’s the reason I didn’t drive the Merc today. I figure every cop in Ross County has a description of Jill’s car stuck in his sun visor.

…..

THIS AFTERNOON WE’VE BEEN OUT TO THE MOTHER-IN-LAW’S for another one of her Sunday dinners — a raw pink chicken stuffed with bits of blue grass that I swear the old bag foraged from an Easter basket — and now my ulcers are screaming for long dogs with sauce and limp, greasy fries. Jill’s always on me about my clogged pipes, but I’m a big guy — they don’t call me Big Bernie for nothing — and I crave junk food like a baby craves the tit. Besides, I’m beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.

As the row of cars creeps forward, I drift back to one of the daydreams I’ve been having lately, the farewell one where I douse myself with gasoline, then hand Jill the gold-plated lighter the guys at work gave me when the company forced me into early retirement. “Fire when ready,” I say, standing at attention, flipping her a little salute. Fantasizing myself as a brave orange fireball is damn near the only thing that makes me hard anymore; but today, for some reason, I crank it up a notch, and the flames in my mind leap across to Jill’s hair, then onto the house, and finally to Jerry. Whoosh! In less time than it takes Larry Fedder to burn a burger, the only thing left of the fucked-up family that lived at 124 Belmont is ashes.