Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

What could a man do but try? Try and then try harder, that was what.

Yet for all the secret time he spent trying to learn how to play the boy's video games, for all the pride Lincoln took in his son's quick wit, there were evenings when Lincoln's migraines were pounding and his stomach was upset, and about the last thing he needed was to step inside his house and hear the little bastard's sass. Even worse was when the kid pretended to be interested in his ol’ man's life — buttering Lincoln up and wanting to hear the birth story again, all to mooch a few more bucks. There were evenings when the single thing on this planet that Lincoln least wanted was to step inside his house and have his wife lecture him about everything that was wrong with his kid (like he was an idiot, like he couldn't see for his own damn self). Evenings he would have given her a million dollars if she would just let him eat in silence, okay? When, short of taking a dinner knife and cutting out each of their rotting hearts, about the only thing he could do was get up, stand right up from the dinner table, and walk out of the dining room he had gone into debt for, wordlessly and without comment heading through the house he was still paying for, and into the clandestine tomb of his garage with all its dusty cartons and boxes of obsolete crap that he'd bought his family over the years. There were evenings when Lincoln would get inside his car and sink deflated into the driver's seat of artificial leather, and a bottle of peach schnapps would be withdrawn from the glove compartment, and Lincoln would not for one second longer be able to ignore the beast his child was turning into, and for one minute longer he would not be able to deny the shrew that his wife had become, and there would be nothing in his power that could be done to delay the inexorable destruction of his homestead, the all-but-destined dissolution of his family, and Lincoln would feel deathly afraid because the awful and cold and most assured truth was that he welcomed this dissolution, he wanted the destruction.

You bet your ass there were evenings. Evenings the clock struck six and the end of another workday had fallen upon him and he was feeling fairly on top of the world, and sure as hell he did not want to go home and have that feeling demolished. Evenings when his boss was riding him and deadlines were looming and he was too plumb worn out to deal with any more of his wife's mind games, too beaten down to give a shit about the difference between a woman who pouts and frets so that she can be consoled and one who is permanently pissed off. And so, during this past spring, sure, there had been one or two evenings when Lincoln had joined his fellow middle-management types, headed to this little dive on Industrial, and watched live lesbian sex shows. During this past spring and summer, admittedly, more than a few sunsets had been under way when Lincoln had taken a detour on his way home, heading past Vixxen's, Little Darlings, the Can Can Room, and the Crazy Horse Too.

Cars never parked in front of the small and windowless storefront, but drove around to the side. Here, a cinder block wall blocked any view from the street, and no passersby, by chance or through purposeful snooping, could identify someone's make, model, or license plate. The store's entrance was covered with black glass; a small, red lettered sign announced that all entrants had to be eighteen years of age. Inside, the store was brightly lit, with top-forty bubblegum pop piped in like Muzak, and aisles stocked with glowing cardboard boxes. In these and many other ways, the shop had a normalcy and matter-of-fact surface resemblance to thousands of stores and franchises. This always rattled Lincoln, for no small part of pornography's appeal to him was its naughty thrill, its illicit and libidinous nature, the sense that you were headed somewhere you knew better than to go. Lincoln kind of wanted his porn shop to be sleazy, a red-light-district hole in the wall, with female groans carrying from everywhere, and the smell of chemical disinfectant all but permeating the dinge.

Slowly, he'd muddle his way into the maze of aisles, wandering beneath the makeshift cardboard signs: General. Amatoors. B&D. fetish. Man n Men. Trannies. SheMales. Like every other guy in there, he kept his head low, avoided eye contact, and picked up various cardboard boxes, studying each brightly colored, weathered, well-handled cover, examining their nubile, scantily clad women. Sometimes he dispensed with browsing, and headed straight toward the back of the store, the rows of stalls in the style of Old West saloons. An unshaven Arab-looking guy was usually there, listlessly sloshing his mop into a half-filled bucket. Lincoln never said anything to him, but found an unoccupied booth and pushed through the two small swinging doors. He knew better than to sit on the small chair inside the stall, touch anything that did not need touching. There was a slot for coins, and an illuminated bill feeder had been embedded in the wall. Above that were two glowing yellow buttons. As soon as Lincoln put his money in the machine, the stall went dark and the television screen was activated. Lincoln used the buttons to flip through the channels, whirring amid the ungodly number of offerings, checking out what kind of women were getting it in which positions — by how many men; how many women; with what kinds of objects.

—

From a lower shelf, he grabbed the jelly glass that he normally rinsed with after brushing, and filled it with cool, refreshing water. If he saw the dripping faucet, he ignored it. Same for the black ants that marched behind Lorraine's bottles of moisturizer. His lower lumbar region was stiff, albeit in the best possible way. The stiffness was familiar to him, reassuring, an old neighborhood friend whose life had taken a different direction, but whom he still met every once in a while at a bar. So much of Lincoln's energy these days was spent at work and being a parent, it was spent trying to figure out how to maintain this lifestyle and at the same time plan for the boy's future. The stiffness reconnected him to company parties and the collective eyes of a room following Lorraine; to Lincoln next to her, smiling steadily at everyone and sneaking his hand up the back of her skirt. It connected Lincoln to Lorraine's hand down there during sex, to the small purple vibrator he knew she kept in her panty drawer, the handcuffs they'd once kept on the nightstand.

Between men and women there is a point where words become useless, where the physical, bestial sides of the sexes undo every knot that language can tie. A point where sex is its own language. Their most serious problems had always been solved this way, through these rhythmic dialogues.

He switched off the bathroom light and carried the jelly glass toward the bedroom. The bathroom tile was cool underfoot, and Lincoln moved down the short corridor, unencumbered testicles swinging easily between his creaking legs, confidence surging through his body. For all his fears, Lincoln felt a rightness with the world. They'd straighten everything out. Like any venture, marriages were elbow grease and overtime. At the end of the night, he had the prettiest wife in the great Silver State and the luckiest child. The funnest job and the dreamiest home. He was the goddamn camel who'd made it through the eye of that needle.

He called his wife's name. Heard the muted beeping of her activating her phone. The second time tonight she'd done this.

Moving stiffly, he reentered the bedroom.

She remained silent, sitting up in bed, luminously bare, only her raised knee shifting underneath the covers. Her head was cocked, the phone to her ear. The sweep of her bangs hid any expression, her face a polished surface of disciplined concentration. Lincoln knew her well enough to see she was trying to remain in control. He sensed her rising concern, her cold intellectual fury. He could hear the voices coming from the phone, the violent shouting. For the rest of his days, he would remember Lorraine's expression. The moment when life as he knew it ended.