Miroslav Penkov - East of the West

“You little Communist shit,” John Martin says. He stares me down and I can’t get my eyes off his epileptic eyebrow. I try hard not to laugh. “This here truck is an American truck,” he says, in case I ever doubted it. The statement alone is meant to refute the shittiness of the vehicle and put a full stop to any further discussions. “Like you ever drove something as fine in Russia.”

“I drove a tank, John,” I say. “And you know I’m not Russian.”

“You’re all alike to me.”

“Cool it, John,” I say. “God is watching.” I nod at the cross that dangles from the rearview mirror — a tiny wooden crucifix on a black string John Martin received as a gift from the fifty-year-old Mexican widow he’s in love with at his church.

He grabs the cross and kisses it. “Shame on you,” he says, and I apologize right away. I tell him I didn’t mean anything, really, that I was just yapping, nervous because of my daughter. Because we’re late. His truck is fine, a fine American truck. “Here,” I say, “Peace,” and hand him a beer from the cooler at my feet. Miller High Life. America’s finest. The Champagne of Beers. He rolls the can against his neck, cheeks, forehead, and sweat runs in dirty creeks. We both slurp hoglike and wait for the car to cool. I watch a flock of Texas crows land far in the field and I can see their heads twisting to peck dead earth.

“You should call her tonight,” I say, meaning Anna Maria, the widow from church. “You should take her on a date. Taco Bueno? Taco Bell, even.”

“I don’t know,” John Martin says, and takes a big gulp from the beer. He watches the heat gauge still in the red. “It might be too early for that.”

“It’s never too early for Taco Bell.”

He crushes his can and throws it back in the cooler. “You don’t know shit,” he says. He raps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Last time I checked,” he says, “another dude was boning your wife.”

“Great talk, John,” I say. I say, “God is watching. Besides,” I say, “I’m working the situation. It’s all a temporary matter. I’m getting her back, one step at a time, even as we speak.”

“One step?” He shakes his head. “Look at yourself. At least shave that stupid mug of yours. Wear a shirt that’s not brown with dust. You don’t get women back like this, man. Especially one married to a doctor.”

“Why bring up his occupation?” I say. And I tell him, less time spent listening to Delilah on the radio might do him good. He starts the truck and we’re back in motion. Across the field the crows, too, rise up and head in the opposite direction, flapping chaotically. “I swear, man,” John goes, “I feel sorry for you. That’s the only reason I put up with your shit.”

“You know it,” I say. “And it’s God that puts this pity in your heart, don’t forget. Love thy neighbor. Love, love.” John Martin first started going to church in hopes of finding a wife. That’s a fact, he told me so. To look good, an eligible bachelor, he assumed the role of a pious Bible abider. Soon he grew into that role and finally convinced even himself. John Martin is not a religious man, he’s not a believer. But he doesn’t know it yet and that’s exactly what I’m banking on.

We pull outside my wife’s house half an hour late. I step out and the heat feels cool after the sauna of the truck.

“Five minutes,” John Martin says. I take a swig from the canteen in my back pocket and he shakes his head again disapprovingly. At the door I smooth my hair over, brush my face with a sweaty palm. I pop a mint in my mouth and check my breath.

No one answers the bell for five minutes. When I look back, John Martin is drinking beer against the truck, its hood open. He taps my watch. I ring the bell again and finally there is a voice on the other side. “Buddy, buddy,” I hear, a thick, ugly, stupid Bulgarian accent. “Sit. Good boy.” One lock turns, then another, then a chain falls.

My wife’s new husband emerges before me, absurdly obese in the door frame. He’s wearing flip-flops, American ones, a single string between his wet, puffy toes, long shorts that drip water on the parquet, and a cell phone clipped to his waistband. He has no shirt on, and his chest hair, and the hair on his legs, is smoothly glued to his body, layer upon dripping layer. By his side is an equally obese, equally wet dog whose breed I can never remember.

“Buddy!” he yells at me in English. “What’s going on! You’re late. We’ve been waiting.”

“Traffic,” I say.

“Oh, no, buddy. English. We speak English here.”

“Traffic,” I repeat. “That’s an international word.”

He swats a mosquito on his shoulder with a thick slap of his meaty palm. Droplets splash my face. “Well, get in,” he says. “Hurry, hurry.”

I bet he’s eager to get back to the pool before my wife has seen him inside, all wet and with that dog. I know she’d be furious if I ever did such a thing. So I stand where I am and tell him all is well, that I’m only here to pick up Elli, that I don’t want to impose. I keep peeking behind him, hard as that is, waiting for my wife to show, waiting for the parquet to get well soaked and start peeling up. I even reach for the dog and my heart melts with joy when the dog growls and shakes its shaggy coat, sending water all over the shoe rack.

At last my wife appears from behind Buddy, in a two-piece red swimsuit, her bronze skin oiled up and gleaming. She’s trying to dry her hair with a towel, but it’s not her hair I’m looking at. Somehow she manages to squeeze herself between Buddy and the door frame and attempts to put an arm around his waist — an impossible gesture, really. “We’ve been waiting,” she says, also in English.

I don’t know what to say.

“Buddy, hey, buddy,” Buddy says. “Up here,” he says and snaps his fingers. “Yeah? You like those? Ten grand each. We got them done in Dallas. Best investment I ever made, if you know what I mean.”

I want to ask him why, but they’re already walking through the house. I wave at John Martin.

“Five minutes!” John yells, licks his finger and touches his sweaty shoulder with a gesture that’s meant to convey eroticism, among other things. As I start through the living room my wife orders me to take my shoes off and keep the floor clean. Shoes in hand, I follow them to the pool.

Their yard is full of people — all in swimsuits, all holding broad, stemmed glasses, margaritas, martinis. There are people in lounge chairs, on towels spread in the grass, on the concrete by the pool. A large grill on one side sizzles with burgers and steaks. Everyone turns to me, and all conversation seems to hang in the heat, but only for a moment.

My wife brings me a Dr Pepper. “Have a Dr Pepper,” she says.

I’d rather not, but I take it. “What’s the occasion?” I say.

She sticks out her chest, in case I didn’t get it. I get it all right, but I refuse to stare. Instead, I search for Elli, who’s nowhere to be found, not even in the pool with all the other splishy-splashy children. I ask where she’s gone.

“It was Buddy’s idea,” my wife says. Maybe she doesn’t say it exactly like this, maybe she calls him Todor or whatever his real name is, but it sounds like Buddy to me.

“You shouldn’t have,” I tell her. “They were great to begin with.”

“What? No,” she says, “no, these were my idea, a self-esteem issue. I mean the scuba set. Buddy thought of that.” And then I see it — through the crystal-clear water, at the bottom of the deep end of the pool — my daughter with a tiny oxygen tank on her back.

“It’s all safe,” my wife says. “We hired a diving instructor. You see him down there? All Buddy’s idea,” and laughs as if she’s cracked a great joke. So much for working the situation. I have no desire to talk to her now; all the little lies I planned on telling her — that I was declared employee of the month yet again, that I found a great little place I’m thinking of moving to — will now remain unspoken. All I want now is to pick up Elli and get the hell out.