Donald Pollock: Knockemstiff

“Just go sell the fuckin’ blood,” I said. “I ain’t going nowhere. It’s your goddamn fault I got sick in the first place.”

Twisting around in the seat, she began punching at me wildly. “I should make you get out right here, you sonofabitch,” Dee screamed.

“Fuck you,” I said, grabbing her fists. “And keep your voice down before those fuckin’ cops come back.”

“We’re going home,” she said, breaking loose of my grip and jamming the car into gear.

“I’ll be goddamned. Go to the clinic.”

“It’s my blood, you bastard.”

“Jesus Christ, Dee,” I said. “Please.”

“No. Things got to change.”

She headed the car north on High; we were going home empty-handed after all that trouble. I lit my last cigarette and stared out the window. By the time we reached Waverly, the pills I’d swallowed had cast me into a sweet, warm ocean. For the next few minutes, I dreamily considered changing my life; I decided to quit the Oxy once I’d finished the ’script I was on. With the right therapy, I could land a decent job. I saw myself as a construction foreman, maybe even a drug counselor. We’d move out of the stinking trailer and into a nice house. I could see us in church on Sundays, our son singing in the choir. And then I nodded off.

When I woke up, I was lost and confused. Darkness had settled all around me, and I was shivering with the cold. It took me a minute or two to figure out that I was sitting in the Pinto in front of our trailer. As I started to climb out, I discovered the cardboard box stuck to my backside. For a few seconds, I thought that some sonofabitch had pulled a sick joke on me, but then I recalled the trip to Portsmouth, the cops in the alley, the fight with Dee. I dropped back down into the seat, lit my lighter and searched around for another pill. But the dash was empty. Then, getting out of the car, I tore the cardboard off me and got more of the cold, clammy shit on my hands.

Stumbling up to the concrete porch and digging for my house key, I happened to glance in the window. Dee and Marshall were cuddled together on the couch like two happy birds. They were eating toast and crumbs were flying everywhere, my son was talking so fast. I watched his lips moving, forming words I’d never heard him say. I pressed my ear to the door, my heart pounding, and listened to his excited, stuttering voice. For a moment, I thought I was witnessing some kind of miracle. But then, as I stood there, I slowly began to realize that Marshall had been talking all along, just not around me.

I stepped away from the door and took a deep breath of the cold air. I realized I was in the middle of one of those moments in life where great things are possible, if a person is willing to make the right choice. A car drove by, shining its headlights on me, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. I could already see myself coming back in a year or two, clean and ready to do right by my family. Everyone would praise me, maybe even forget my past. But then I thought about the bottle of Oxy in the medicine cabinet and I stopped. I lifted my filthy hands and smeared the shit across my face, through my hair. Turning back, I grabbed hold of the door handle, and stuck my key in the lock. I heard everything go silent and sad inside the trailer as I pushed the door open, but I didn’t care. Just one more time, just once more before I left, I needed to feel blessed.

HALF THE TIME NOW THE ONLY THING CRAWLING AROUND in Howard Bowman’s worn-out head is that four-letter word, the one swear that his wife no longer allows in the house. Back when he was still in good shape, Peg gave him an ultimatum. “No more, Howard. If you say that damn word one more time, I’m leaving. My Lord, you got the grandkids saying it.” Now look at him, afraid to say it, the only goddamn thing that makes sense anymore. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

…..

SITTING STRAIGHT UP IN HIS STICKY PLASTIC RECLINER, Howard peers into the large photograph hanging on the wall while methodically twisting curly gray hairs out of his left arm. Peg’s always pestering him with a new goal — names, dates, numbers — but every morning it’s as if another fuse has popped, another important connection ripped out of his brain while he was sleeping. Sometimes he wishes the woman would just let him rot. He yearns for the day when he’ll be wiped clean.

Earlier today, she flew into the living room and said, “Okay, Boss, see that picture?” Howard jerked awake, looked up at her with a pained expression. “On the wall over there,” Peg pointed. “Your retirement picture? Give me the names of those men by suppertime,” she told him, bending over and scraping a dab of oatmeal off his chin with the corner of her apron.

Howard stared blankly at the wall. Something was expected of him. “Which one?” he finally asked, just as he lifted his thin leg and squeaked out a small pocket of gas.

Peg groaned and took a step back. “All of them, Howard. You worked with those people at the paper mill. Remember?”

“Y-e-s,” he said slowly, lightly stroking the hair on his left arm like some kind of pet.

“Good,” she said. “Here, better write them down.” She handed Howard a little notebook and pen, then walked over and turned the TV off. “What about the bathroom?” she asked. “Do you need to go?”

Howard looked around the room, under the coffee table. The tall, big-boned woman was standing in the doorway, still watching him. “There’s a lot of them,” he said.

…..

HE STUDIES THE PHOTOGRAPH ALL AFTERNOON, HIS EYES slowly turning to sand, but the only thing he can recall is that the little guy wearing the railroad hat used to buy a new Lincoln every year. Hell, even the supervisors couldn’t afford that. Out in the kitchen, Peg drops a pan that bounces across the cold linoleum, sounds like a goddamn cymbal clanging in his ears. Lately every little noise gets on his nerves, tears his guts up, makes him forget shit that no man should ever forget.

Glancing out the big picture window, Howard watches the new neighbors fall out of their trailer laughing, roll around in the snow like dogs. Convinced the ponytailed man and his fat wife were thieves from the moment they moved in across the road, Howard had Peg buy locked gas caps for both vehicles, but so far all he’s seen the bastards do is hang a dead ground-hog from the maple tree. “We’ll be damn lucky if the sheriff even finds our bodies,” Howard predicted, when he first saw the swollen carcass rocking in the breeze like a kid’s swing. He watches them jump into a banged-up Festiva plastered with bumper stickers advertising OHIO’S SCENIC CAVERNS and something called MONSTER MAGNET, then burn a little patch of rubber in front of Howard’s mailbox. A trail of black smoke follows them all the way up the road. A valve job, Howard thinks, and starts to write a note to himself to check the oil in the Buick. But then, in that mysterious way his memory works now, he suddenly recalls a night in Honolulu and a shipmate’s name. He yells for Peg.

“What?” she asks, sticking her head through the doorway.

“That guy I was telling you about the other day — the one from New York — his name was…Damn, I had it. Had a nose like a…that guy’s nose was…”

“Jesus, Howard, what about the people on the wall?” Peg yells. “You know what the doctor said. If you don’t try, it’s only going to get worse.” Suddenly, she stops and leans against the wall, takes a deep breath, counts to ten silently. “Okay, how many did you get?” she asks, her voice careful and quiet now.

“His nose was like a…” he replies.

She walks over and takes the notepad from his hand. “Oil,” she reads aloud. “That’s it? Oil? Oil what?”