Everett

It was three hours to Valdosta and three back, and so despite the recent improvements in his digestion, Everett began fasting as soon as he opened negotiations with Bobby. The hunger made him lightheaded, and he could not understand Bobby’s croaking voice on the phone, and so there was a great deal of confusion regarding the purpose of his visit – he wanted it understood that he was coming to do an evaluation of Bobby’s wife, but was prevented from entering a sober negotiation of the ground rules by Bobby’s crackling ruminations on what they might have for lunch, and after several calls which ended with a mystified Everett shaking his head and muttering, he grew frustrated, and during the last call he held the speaker close to his mouth and repeated three times, in his loudest voice, “Don’t want no food. Got a tricky gut.” When he brought the phone back to his ear Bobby was saying something about his cancer. Everett wanted to know what this had to do with luncheon. When Bobby’s wife picked up on the extension to sort things out, her accent was so thick that Everett could not understand her, either.
Despite his anxiety, Everett was determined to go. It was important to follow through. He packed a cooler with some cold water and set out for Valdosta, eschewing the expressway for the country roads. His truck, the color and texture of a robin’s egg, rolled past double-wide trailers and emaciated silos, and lonely clumps of pine trees, and shrinking shadows. Everett sat erect in the cab with the white bristles of his chin pointing at the horizon.
Bobby lived close to the expressway, on a renovated army base where hoses wound through patchy lawns, and children were taking advantage of the sunny day to form packs of wobbling bicycles or to squat over chalk drawings on the sidewalks. Bobby’s house was green, with the trim painted the same color green, giving it a camouflaged appearance. Bobby and his wife sat in the watery light beneath the carport, and as Everett’s truck passed, and then reversed back to the house, Bobby’s head swiveled to follow its progress.
The sound of traffic twisted down from the tight sky, and Everett crouched in the shadow of his truck until he could orient himself; he was so engaged in this process that he missed Bobby’s initial nod of greeting, which prompted Bobby to raise his eyebrows to his wife in a silent continuation of their debate on Everett’s mental fitness. Bobby rose. One of his shoulders drooped like a broken wing. His head with its bright pink complexion wobbled atop his neck, which had been carved away on the left side so that when Everett thought about it later he was sure that from the front one could see the outline of vertebrae behind the rings of the esophagus. Bobby shuffled forward, and, swinging out an underhand grip, caught Everett’s hand in his.
“This time he acknowledges me. Good. Good ta see ya. Bobby James,” he croaked, thumping his chest. Then, indicating with his hand the Vietnamese, who had remained in her chair, he said, “This is my wife, Jennifer.”
Everett glanced quickly at the wife. The image in his mind did not make him hysterical, and so he worked up the courage to look again. She was short and dark. She had a vaguely popeyed expression, which did not correspond with his memories of Vietnamese women, and he wondered what sort of foreign strains might be present in her heritage; he now realized that he’d been hoping for a purebred Vietnamese, although he considered that with women, like animals, a cross-breed might be healthier and more even-tempered. She smiled, and nodded demurely, and pumped his hand with a small dry hand. She wore plastic sandals and a pressed white top. Everett could make out the line of two well-proportioned thighs below a linen skirt of acceptable length. There were only two folding chairs, and so, laughing silently, Bobby beckoned him inside. Bobby touched his neck often; a gauze pad covered a hole through which air whistled on every exhalation, and his speech was a crackling whisper which Everett could only make out by putting his good ear uncomfortably close to Bobby’s mouth. Jennifer seemed to understand him quite well, or not to care what he said; she sat on the other side of the living room in an overstuffed yellow chair, smiling and nodding. All the furniture was new; the coffee table was glass and chrome, and Bobby, who wore khaki pants, slid constantly into the crease of a leather sofa, and then worked his way back to the edge. To have any chance at understanding him, Everett had to pull a kitchen chair very close. He scrutinized the art on the walls: pictures of the jungle! He moved quickly to the next picture of a brown sun above yellow mountains, then to a sulky leopard. The cushions were vividly striped and shaped like peppermints. The house had been recently updated, which was disappointing, because he wanted to assess the Vietnamese’s grasp of home economy; how well could she clean? How did she work? He wanted to see her in action with some dishes or carpets.
“Much obliged for the hospitality,” he said.
“Thank you. My wife did all this.” Bobby croaked, waving his hand. “So you’re a lonely old prick, looking for a wife? Today is your lucky day, because I already did the hard work for you.” He launched into an account of his courtship; the phone calls and letters, and the visit to Tam Ky where they’d treated him like a king, and where one of his disability checks had been sufficient to purchase a new house for the family, after which they had literally carried him about the streets.
“I’m a hero in that village, I can get anything you want,” Bobby said. “Big change from the last time I was there. But you know what it was like.”
“Sure,” Everett said, uncertain what “it” meant, then understanding too late that Bobby meant the Vietnam War.
“I ain’t going to make you talk about it, don’t worry. Want something to drink?” He croaked for Jennifer to get them two beers and then, as his wife exited, he caught Everett staring intently at the slosh of her rump, and hit him on the arm. “That’s my wife, fella,” he said.
“I didn’t mean no harm, I’m just trying to see how good she walked, how her legs worked and such.”
“What are you looking for, a horse?” He made a drinking motion with his hand. “Relax, have a beer.”
“I don’t drink much,” Everett said. “At least I ain’t in some time.”
“That’s all right. I don’t either. It would run right out this hole.” Bobby shrugged, then backhanded Everett’s shoulder. “Her sister. Even younger. Real nice. Make you feel young again. Sweet as sugar.” Bobby narrowed his eyes, which were a bright minty green, and fringed with long lashes. “She says she wants a young man, but I think she’d do good with an older man, myself.”
“I need a woman who ain’t afraid to work a little bit, ” Everett said. “Someone who knows how to be happy in work.”
“They’re only girls.” Bobby leaned back and shrugged. “But I guess you remember how they work.”
Jennifer placed the beers on the glass table. Beads of moisture inched down the cans, each carrying a faint replica of the dark girl, the crippled man, and the bearded cowboy. The sun blazed, and Bobby’s eyes began to water profusely. Jennifer drew a pair of heavy curtains across the window. The girl was thinner than he’d first imagined. Thinner and shapelier, with hints of an elegance that might continue into her forties. Everett noticed a smell of medicine creeping from the hallway, astringent and sweet.
Bobby smiled at his wife. “Thanks,” he croaked.
Now why would you spoil her with all that thanking? Everett glanced sharply at Bobby, then back at the wife.
Jennifer murmured something into Bobby’s ear, and he nodded, and turned to Everett. “You plan to stay around here, right? No plans to move?”
“None I can think of,” Everett said.
“Good, because, you know, the sisters will want to be close. Raise their babies together, that kind of thing.”
“I think you and me should speak alone sir.” Everett delivered his salutations in the old country way, tacked on to a word like a diminutive: alonesir.
Bobby laughed soundlessly, wagging his head to indicate the extent of his mirth. “He’s ready for the altar, look at him. You haven’t even seen a picture,” he croaked.
Bobby glanced at his wife. She sprang up, catching at her lower lip to stifle a triumphant smile, and returned a moment later with a picture in a silver frame. Floating above the blue background that is the default choice of photo studios the world over was a young woman who looked very much like Jennifer, only with a longer nose and her bangs cut short. She was thin. Everett scrutinized her face, looking for traces of impudence or deceit. He could keep her away from television and other corrupting influences. He could still chop wood for her, he could work side-by-side with her. They’d grow happy without the need for conversation, because from conversation came lies. He had some old pictures of himself standing nearly naked beside the upended carcass of an alligator, with his skin blue-white and his hair flaming atop his head. He would show these to her so that when they made love she could sense the young man inside him, and she would not feel cheated.
“Pretty huh? Pretty? Come on.” Bobby hit his shoulder. “Prettier than you thought.”
“Let’s have us a little talk,” Everett said.
“Is it cold in here?” Bobby made a face and turned to his wife. “You cold?”
“I ain’t cold,” Everett said. “Let’s talk a little.”
Bobby nodded. “Let’s go to my office.”
This arrangement troubled Everett, as it should be the woman who left the room, but he let himself be led down a hallway so short and so filled with doorways and thermostats that there was no place to hang a picture. Bobby’s office was a shrine to his military career; there was a folded flag in a glass case on the wall, and a jumble of photographs behind the desk, within which sweaty men leaned on one another, or helicopters drooped amid menacing verdure. On the far wall was a photo of a swarthy tough with dog tags resting in the cleft of his pectorals. Everett reached out to steady himself, then shut his eyes tightly as the sweat poured out of his hairline. He had learned that if he could count to thirty, the worst would be past.
“I was a mothafuckin’ killer then. Afraid of nothing,” Bobby croaked, jerking a thumb at this photograph. “In the Mekong long enough to get a good dose of the orange, blue, pink, green, purple, you name it. What about you? Air Force? Navy? I know you weren’t getting juiced like me. Too healthy.”
“Now listen, does she talk back to you?”
“We’d see the planes overhead, lined up in formation. We’d cheer. What did we know? You could hear the chemicals fizzing on the leaves, like snow. Ever hear snow falling?”
“Is your wife a helpmeet, or does she give you attitude? I don’t stand for attitude. I can’t take no attitude.”
Bobby opened wide the purring, sooty eyes of an old womanizer, and shrugged. “She has moods sometimes. Don’t you?” He leaned in, working himself up to another statement. “We didn’t get it as bad as the Vietnamese. We just got trace amounts. Them, we really fucked up. Gutted ‘em and burned their villages, and if they got away from all that, we gave ‘em cancer. What a mess, huh?”
“Did you meet the sister?”
Bobby shook his head. “She was working at a farm when I went over. But listen now, she’s a good girl. A good, good, girl. Got me? All you got to is love her and you’ll be fine. Forget everything else.”
“And I guess your wife gives you sex whenever you want it, I guess there ain’t none of that sitting on the pussy like women here try to do.”
Bobby frowned and punched the metal desk. The other hand slowly wiped his face, which was suffused with pink tints. “God dammit, this is my wife here. This is the woman I love.”
“What do you want me to do, bubba? Just take this girl off your hands sight unseen? That don’t make no sense.” God damn, why did these things have to be so hard? It was a mistake, this whole crazy idea to have a Vietnamese wife. He’d never survive it, and to top it off this romancer would be his brother-in-law, and he’d have to hear about love and the war every time they visited. Everett’s stomach turned over heavily, and, fearing some explosion, he asked the way to the bathroom.
He found a sprawl of creams and prescription bottles atop the carpeted lid of the toilet tank; a line of grease ringed the bathtub, and hanging from the shower rod were IV bags which fluttered like bats in the gush of hot air from the vent. His dribbles of urine fell, and his stomach turned over violently, but held itself in check. He was grateful now that he’d fasted, but he was weak; he saw black spots in front of his eyes. On the way back he took a wrong turn and found himself in a kitchen among the disdainful company of sleek black appliances. Three trays were laid out, with slices of pork and clusters of gravy-covered beans on white plates. When Jennifer got him back to the living room he turned toward the area near Bobby’s crackling voice and declined forcefully the offer of lunch
“Seems like since you got here, you’ve had a problem,” Bobby said. “My wife worked hard on this meal.”
“I told you on the phone, bubba, I got a bad gut, and I can’t eat nothing. Now, I told you that.”
“She doesn’t use much spice, hardly any grease. You would never believe by the way it tastes that it’s good for you. You could at least taste it.”
“But I can’t eat it. That’s what I’m telling you, I can’t eat it.”
“You came back able-bodied, but you got something wrong in your head, is that it? You think someone would have an emotional problem it would be me. You know how many times I’ve been operated on? Twenty three times. Twenty three. Here I am beating cancer, and you don’t see me complaining. You don’t see me turning down a meal. You came back without a scratch, and you have emotional problems, is that it?”
“It’s an ulcer, bubba. An ulcer ain’t in your head, it’s in your gut.” Everett’s fists were clenched, and his chin was outthrust, and his glasses danced on his twitching temples.
Bobby waved his hand. “You worry too much. Look at you. What are you going to do, if you marry her sister? You won’t let her cook for you?”
“I tell you what I think.”
“Go on,” Bobby croaked. “Tell me.”
“You’re turning her head, bubba. It’s going to end bad for you, letting her play house. A woman will spoil quicker than milk, and then you’ll be in trouble. I guess if you think I’m going to do the sister this way, you got me all wrong, bubba. That ain’t for me, bubba.”
“And let me tell you something,” Bobby said. “I bet your wife left you, yeah? Your wife left because you were crazy, yeah? And you were hoping to pick up one of these Vietnamese gals because you wanted to fix the war? You figured they’d be grateful you could forgive yourself?” Bobby thumped his temple with a forefinger. “But you’re crazy. It’s in your head, and nothing can help you, there. And guess what else, friend? You were crazy before you went to ‘Nam, and there ain’t nobody to blame it on except yourself. I’ll bet you talk about flashbacks and shit. I know your kind. I been to the groups. Flesh cooking in the jungle. Heads rolling down muddy rivers, all that shit. You talk that, doncha?”
“Boy, you got no idea what you’re getting into.”
“You think I’m scared of you?” Bobby’s face was the color of old wine, his fists too were balled, and he lurched to his feet. “You insult my wife, you think I’m afraid of you?”
The leave-taking was brief. Everett said if there wasn’t ladies present he’d pop Bobby’s head clean off. On the sidewalk Everett turned and leered openly at Jennifer, letting his eyes linger on each usable part. When Bobby shuffled toward the house, presumably to get a weapon, Everett climbed into his truck, afraid for a moment that his back would lock up and prevent him from bringing his legs into the cab, but then he was in, and driving away. In his rear-view mirror he could see Bobby holding something in his hands while his head swung back and forth on that reedy neck.
He had difficulty focusing on the drive. The truck felt too large, the day remote, his body fluttered and flapped like a sail loose from its rigging. Bobby was letting his wife make a fool of him and it would end real bad. Everett had already been down that road. Not again, no sir. So many went down that road. An orange car flashed past; as it flickered over the asphalt a memory of fire, of green foliage writhing in flames as tall and broad as houses, returned to him, and despite his shame that his mind worked exactly as Bobby had surmised, he could not stop the damned memories, and with that memory came the sense of all he’d lost since then, including his wife and his daughter who was lost to him as as if she were dead, even more profoundly lost, because the dead can’t stop you from visiting them, and now he was out fooling around with these mail-order brides, anything to keep from being alone. Everett’s stomach produced a lower, sharper sequel to the squeeze he’d felt in Bobby’s office. Afraid to deny his bowels, he jerked the truck into a gas station. He shouldered into the bathroom and latched the stall and waited for the familiar issue of stinging mash. On the door was a poem which he’d read a thousand times before:
Here I sit with trembling bliss
Listening to the thundering piss
Now and then a fart is heard
Blended with a dropping turd
Everett’s bowels unknit. To his amazement, the production was solid. Then the urine started, warm and steady, Everett felt the sudden rush of clarity that comes with a satisfactory bowel movement, and with this new acuity of thought he observed that this poem was incorrect because one always shat and then pissed, that was the way of the body. Fishing his keys carefully from his pocket, he scratched “bullshit” in the khaki-colored metal, and put an arrow to the poem. He felt a plume of pride rise in his chest, intermingled with the triumphant spoor of the brown zeppelin circling in the bowl below. In this moment of clarity it occurred to him that Bobby was right, that he was trying to fix what could never be fixed. He was trying to fix the past, and fix the tragic things which had befallen him, in which he had participated, but all of that was remote and untouchable, beyond human influence. He’d been terrified to be alone with his demons, but when he really considered the facts, it was true that he was sleeping more, and fishing more, and that he’d even read a book recently, granted it was a Readers Digest abridged version, but he’d read it from start to finish. And with Sunny gone, there was no urgency to get better. Without Sunny to worry and shame him he might build something of his own. He could stay as sick as he was now, as long as he could tolerate himself, that was all that mattered. If he woke in the middle of the night with the urge to kill, if he took valiums and watched the pond all day, there was nobody around to be horrified and disappointed, nobody to urge him into VA programs and church prayer groups. So he had flashbacks. So he had paranoia. So what? At least he wasn’t like Bobby, setting up some woman to dominate and madden him. It hadn’t worked out the way he’d hoped with Bobby but maybe that was for the best. He’d survived those pictures of the jungle, those pictures which were as familiar and alien as a picture of one’s own entrails, he’d survived seeing a woman up close whose mother or whose uncle he might have killed in any number of ways, he was still alive. Alive and, by god, producing clean stools. That was a victory. Upon this turd he might raise up a tolerable life.
Two anarchy symbols etched in the steel mirror fit over his eyes like a pair of glasses. He felt weak, and he was a long time soaping his hands. When re-entered the afternoon, purple blotches rested like thistledown on the fields. He felt a powerful hunger.
He would stop and get some ice cream. He could do this, that he could spend hours on the toilet if need be, if he wanted the taste of ice cream all that bad. If Bobby wanted to make his woman fat and bitchy that was his business. Women were women. No matter where she came from she would know how to take a man’s happiness and squeeze it to death between her thighs. He would eat ice cream! The day was obscenely bright. Everett brushed at the sunlight behind his glasses and wished he could search in his glove box for a pair of tinted overlays, but his relaxation was so profound that it was all he could do to steer the truck. In the BiLo parking lot he sat and watched a mother and her three chunky children waddle into the store. Then he followed. He took four half gallons -- one vanilla, one chocolate, one mint chip, and one butter pecan – along with a bottle of ginger ale, these choices representing his traditional ideas about floats along with some of the more dangerous combinations with which he’d never allowed himself to experiment.
On the drive back to his house he clicked on the radio and listened to a news report about a plane that had exploded midair, hurtling a flight attendant 40,000 feet into the ocean. When they found her bobbing in the waves, gray with cold, she asked them for a cigarette. Everett laughed and, guarding his buoyant mood, clicked the radio back off. The spots in front of his eyes had grown more pronounced. Bobby’s wife was a dark-ass thing, and awfully cute, no question, and it would be hard to give up a woman as a goal, as a sexual and romantic destination, as a reason to live, as a bulwark against your panic and self-loathing, but it was probably for the best– he’d only hurt them and god knows how they hurt him.
The house came into view, molting in the sunlight, then the old oak tree, and the corn crib, and the trees peering at their reflections in the pond. He entered the back porch. In the kitchen window he saw an orange and black shape move noiselessly into the shadows. He was pulling his keys out of his pocket, wondering idly what sort of bird would cause that reflection, when the door swung back, and the smell of lemon soap drifted out, and he saw Sunny moving around in the gloom, using a towel to pat her hands.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “Oh, honey, I had to come back. Look at you. Just look at this place.”
“How’d you get here?” Everett said, dumbfounded.
“Buford brought me. Oh, honey.” She moved forward to embrace him, and in those few seconds his mental picture, his hagiograph, underwent a series of rapid alterations to conform to reality; pockets of jowl were hung from the jaw, wrinkles etched about the mouth, the hair coarsened, the body broadened; then she had him in her embrace, her teats pressing into his abdomen. When she pulled back she saw the look on his face and, misinterpreting the entreaty she found there, patted his bearded cheek. The rustle of the grocery bag caught her ear, and she reached down to pull the handles apart. She shook her head and clicked her tongue.
“What are you trying to do, kill yourself? Don’t worry, you sit there on the porch, and I’ll get you something easy on your stomach. Go on, go on and sit. “