The Spot: Stories

Oklahoma

Trying to make it look like we were going somewhere, we worked up and down the rows, holding keys in our hands, moving from one car to another in case the guy who monitors the security screens inside the store happened to glance up from his magazine, or his coffee, or his ball game, to catch sight of us. Anyway, no one has ever stopped me, Lester said, and the return policy is sweet because they’ll take anything back, no questions asked. You just get the receipt, go inside, find the goods, and then take the stuff to get your money back. In the parking lot that night we had three receipts, including one for a large load of groceries — three hundred dollars’ worth. I said, Jesus, this is a lot of food. Lester said, What do you think most people do, starve, you think they don’t go in and buy whatever they want? I said, No, I think most kind of save money and then go buy stuff. He said, No, no, they just go and pile it up like that. I said, Okay, okay. He said, You’re a dumb shit, for sure. I said, Shut up. He said, Talk more like that, you’re out. I said, Sorry. He said, Get looking. I looked, came up with a receipt for a Sony something, called him over, and he said, Bingo, that’s it, a bigticket item. Then, clutching his key, holding it out, he went back out to the edge for one last look along the curb where stuff might blow up. Augusta came hunching up, saying, Hey, Genevieve, we’ve got to try that Sony. I said, Keep looking.

Augusta was a horrible sight: hunchbacked, with pocks on her face, an Oklahoma harelip, Lester called it, and lithium teeth, all gone. The soles of her feet had calloused so thick Lester took his razor knife and whittled them out of boredom. Ugly enough to stop a clock, he said when we found her. Ugly enough to stop traffic. Yes, sir, a traffic-stopper indeed, he said, drawing her tight the same way he’d drawn me, making those soft kiss sounds, touching her cheeks, tracing the shape of her face. Oklahoma ugly, he added, lifting up one of her breasts. They’re gonna make a movie about this one, he said, taking a step back and boxing his thumbs and fingers to make a frame. Lester had his hopes pinned on being a film director. Post-cleanup, he was going to head to Hollywood. Nothing up in Red Carpet Country can match that for sheer ugliness, he said. I said, You’re getting redundant. He said, What? I said, The ugly thing, it’s getting old, fast. He said, What did you say? I said, Nothing. He said, I thought so, that’s what I thought you said, working a crick out of his neck, twisting it around and around. It was a cold wet October night, somewhere outside Tulsa.

An old farmhouse with a streetlamp attached to the back to ward off prowlers (like us), a huge orb of light casting itself into a mud-rutted backyard filled with whirligigs of all types attached to poles, heaving and rattling in the wind, creating a terrible shudder. Take out that light, Lester said. What? I said. He said, Get a rock and smash that out. I said, Okay, and went amid the whir of sound to find a rock, picking around for one, looking up at the seesawing figures, the whirling ducks, the swinging shapes. I found a nice round rock and heaved it up at the light and took pleasure in the loud pop and darkness. Get up here, get up here, Lester was yelling from around front. I stood for a minute in the dark and felt the wild ratcheting of the whirligigs in a burst of wind from the west. I knew how they felt. Stuck in eternal toil. I had to save at least one, so I gave a pole a hard kick: a small lumberjack boy in a little green hat, gripping a long saw, looked up at me from the ground and smiled. Get up here, Lester called again from around front. At the front door, working the gray rubber grips of a chrome walker, Augusta’s grandfather blinked into the darkness. As soon as he figured out what was going on, he lifted the walker up and used it as a battering ram to hold us back.

When the tape worked lose from his mouth he said, Augusta, my dear grandchild, you sweet thing. Augusta just stood with a bewildered look on her face. Give me a smoke. I need to catch my breath. Give me a cigarette from that pack over there on the counter, he said. Augusta went over and picked up the long green pack of menthols, shook one out, put it between his lips, found a kitchen match, lit it, and watched while he took a puff, blew and sucked, blew and sucked, blew and sucked until the cigarette fell to the floor. Put it back, he said. Please put it back.

I’d like to describe her face as otherwise, but truthfully Augusta’s eyes in the kitchen that night were flat and mute and silly-looking. They weren’t lifeless, exactly, but they were glazed over and sat above her fat cheeks like two raisins pressed into dough while Lester went back into the mudroom, rummaged around, and came out with a broom handle. Give him a whack, he said, holding his fingers up to frame the scene, taking a few steps back, trying as usual to find the right vantage, because from the start, when we met on the train up in Bartlesville, he was making a movie in his head. We were hiding — just two fucked-up kids pulling a ticket scam — in the bathroom, hunched up in there, listening to the conductor whistle as he passed between cars, going through the vapor-seal doors. Lester said something like, My name’s Lester and I could make a movie out of your life, leaning low into my face, pressing his beard against my cheek, keeping it there and then moving back, fumbling for a pill and scooping a bit of water from the tiny faucet into his palm — with the pill — and then flopping it expertly into his mouth. You could make a movie of my life? I said. Yeah, he said. I said, Okay. He said, Give me your life. I said, Girl named Genevieve, fucked-up Mom, boyfriend named Vernon, when I slept with Vernon Mom kicked me out of the house, street, street, more of the street, now here. He said, I could do that. I said, Yeah. He said, Okay, I got it, where’s all this take place? I said, I’m an Okie girl, all the way, and he said, Hey, me too, that’s weird, I’m from Oklahoma, too, the crank state, the old dust bowl state. I said, Okay, that’s where we’re at. He said, Try this, giving me one of his pills. I said, Okay, taking it while he nuzzled my face, saying, Guys named Vernon are always assholes, for sure. I said, You’re right, and we went into one of those high-powered laughing fits, you know, the kind that says we’re gonna be together united in love and joy forever, bound by this laugh and this laugh alone. He said, Yeah, I could film your life, leaning down and giving me a kiss, the smell of blue toilet water stinking between us, the coast clear, the train rocking. I said, Where you going and what for? He said, Chicago, to scam tourists on the tour boats. You go on and, like, sit next to them and when they’re looking up at the buildings, gawking at the superstructures, you just steal their stuff. I said, That’s the plan? He said, It’s not much but it works because they’re all hayseeds and leave their purses right there, under their chairs, gaping open when they go back to the snack bar to buy cookies and soda. Just reach in and take, take, take, he said, touching my cheek, running his hand while the pills took hold good and tight.

In a movie Augusta would lift her swing over the old man’s head and take Lester out with a blow to the temple. Then she’d get me in the brow, or the back of the head. A movie would give you the Bible reading she’d done; you’d get early scenes, in Sunday school, up in the church classroom, smelling of wood wax, of gardenias, Augusta studying the book of Jeremiah, the prophet looking upon Jerusalem, at the wretched state of things, the scorn of the people, saying: the prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. . Then while the camera panned the whirligigs outside (including the one that I smashed up) a voice would read: the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth. . You’d see her in Sunday school, listening carefully, her face now beautiful and soft, her skin clear, her eyes bright, her hair held back in a ponytail. In the movie you’d see her growing up; you’d see her father trying to get at her; you’d see her own Vernon, Asshole #1, in the flesh. Then you’d see her trying her first, a pale greenie, and you’d watch as it filled her eyes like a fishbowl. Then she’d untie her grandfather’s wrists and rub them and cry and they’d do a little square dance of joy, a little do-si-do of happiness. (Because her grandfather had worked the Muskogee square dance circuit as Burt Wolverine. He was one of the best.) You’d see them dancing and then there would be a fade to a scene of him calling a large dance, people moving in and away from each other, hooking back, catching, arm in arm, flying out, making kaleidoscopic formations as they moved.

Lester put his fingers up into a box to make a frame of Augusta swinging, two-handed, and said, Bingo, that’s a take, cut. I said, Stop. He said, Cut. I said, Stop, Augusta. He said, Cut, cut, and grabbed her from behind, drawing her up and kissing her head, saying, That was great, just great, that’s a keeper for sure, you were wonderful, Augusta, you’re a brave girl, you’re going to reap awards for that scene alone. Outside, I stood for a moment in the yard and listened to the soft chatter of the whirligigs ratcheting, swirling around, sawing and bucking in the wind. Then I got in the car and sat on the seat next to Lester.

The house went up in a giant wind-fueled blossom that glowed in the back window of Lester’s car while we headed west. I don’t do arson, man, Lester said. Arson is too low on the ladder, it’s at the bottom of the crime totem pole, for fuck’s sake. That was an act of God, that was something we had nothing to do with. Even your best arsonist depends too much on the whims of the elements. What’s at the top? I said. He said, What’s at the top? screwing his face up and drawing his fingers through his beard, pinching it tight. He thought a few minutes. Crucifixion is the top crime, man. No doubt. You nail the palms, you crown the head with thorns, and let slow, natural death take over. The guy up there is high as hell on opiates. Doesn’t feel a thing. No, sir. He’s blitzed on opiates. No pain, no gain. That’s a fact, he said, staring out through the windshield. We were flying swiftly toward the horizon. Darkness was all around us, stretching out across empty plains. The sky was sparkled with stars. Besides us, there wasn’t a sign of life in the universe. We were all alone, rattling along at full speed. Just ride the glazed highway to the Holy Land, Lester said. You hang up there on the cross until the birds are pecking your eyes out and then you feel it. When the birds start to peck, the pain begins. When the birds get to your eyes, the opiates cease. Without eyes you’re just blessed pain, man, just more and more pain. Lester got quiet for a minute. He reached up one-handed and stroked the tip of his beard. In the dark it was impossible to see his eyes, but I knew what they’d contain if they were visible: he’d have that silence in there, that kind of calm I’d seen before, all dark gray with bits of blue swirled together into the deepest black. When he started talking again, about ten miles later, his voice came out dry and tight. Then all the pain folds up on itself into this vast silky darkness, man, that gets tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter, until you’re dead, he said. I said, Until you’re dead, and tapping the wheel, he said, Yeah, until you’re fucking dead. You know how those old TVs used to have that little dot of light when you shut them off? The whole picture would zip into that single little pinpoint of light and then it would sit there, just sitting for a minute, sitting and sitting and then it would zing off to the side and that would be it, you’d be left with just darkness. Well, that’s how it is, man. You bundle it all up, crunch it, and ping, it’s gone. He went on about it for a long time that night, nothing more than that memorable to me now, mostly theorizing about why crucifixion is the top crime on the pole, and about what it’s like to die, what it’s like those final few seconds, just before you sign off, as he said, just before everything becomes static and sizzles out. I said, If it’s so top why isn’t it done more? He said, Because it’s too difficult to find good victims, man. Here in this part of the state it’s impossible. Nebraska folk are cleaner, more purified. Tulsa has plenty just waiting for it, man. I said, If they’re waiting for it why don’t we just go there and find some? He gave this long pause then, rapping the top of the wheel again, adjusting the rearview, looking back at Augusta. You’re really a dumb shit, he said. I said, Why? He said, Because Tulsa ones are junkies, and what’s dope? Dope’s dope, I said. He said, Dope’s dopamine, for fuck’s sake. You’re a Tulsa junkie and you’re already there, man. No need to go for the ride because you’re on the ride, you see. I said, I see. I didn’t, but I said I did. Get up on that cross and you’d like it too much, he said, and then he went into all of the details again, how you’d have to find a couple of pressure-treated railroad ties to make the cross, some of those galvanized nails you use to hang gutters. (Lester had done a lot of roofing in his life and could lay down shingles in his sleep, said thick tar smells remained in his nostrils.) You’d get some high-grade nylon rope. But if you like it too much, I said. What? If you like it too much, I said. What are you talking about? You said if you like it too much, on the cross, you said they’d, the Tulsa guys, would like it too much. He said, So what? So if you like it too much it’s not a crime, I said. He said, Yeah, that’s it, that’s right, exactly, you put some skinny-ass Tulsa junkie up there and he’d go for the ride of his life, but for Augusta you’d have to use a — what’s it called? — a block-and-tackle thing, like getting a piano up to an apartment, you know, like that Abbott and Costello routine, he said. I said, What are you talking about? He said, Just thinking about what it would be like to get her up on a cross. We drove. Drove more. By the time we got to Elk City the wind was coming in swoops, nudging us onto the shoulder and then back onto the road. The rage behind it was apparent to us all. You can’t go breaking small fragile things without ramifications, I thought, watching Lester grapple with the steering wheel as the wind ground us to a dead stop, hit with such ferocity that the car just couldn’t make headway, and we ended wayward on the shoulder, spinning our wheels until Lester eased up and said, Gotta make a pit stop, and opened the door into the roar, crossed in front of the headlights, bending down into the wind, the dust roiling around his head. Out there he was a space walker lost to the world while we sat waiting. I said, Augusta? She said, Yeah? I said, Are you okay? She said, Yeah. I said, You’re really beautiful, you know. She said, Yep. I turned and looked: a big mound of flesh topped by a moon face lit by the interior light, her eyes invisible but glassed over, dead to the world because Lester had pumped her full as a reward for her acting skills, for being so brilliant in her role. He’d found the lab in the back shed, a bunch of old bait buckets and chemicals, tubes and glassware, and a huge amount of product. The old coot’s a crank cooker, he’d said. You put him in a movie, nobody would believe it. Put him in a movie and they’d bow into their popcorn and mumble: Bullshit, man, he’d said, framing it up with his fingers to see what it might look like.

In a movie I would have ditched Lester right there, snapped the locks, moved over into his seat, and torn out into the night, doing so for my own sake and for Augusta’s, saving us both, knowing right from wrong, solving the riddle of our own situation with a single, swift act, turning the tables, finding a foothold on a newfound sense of goodness; he’d be out there in some frozen field, amid the dead husks, taking a piss, when he’d hear the tires squeal, zipping himself up while making one of those funny staggers across the dirt, holding his fingers up into a frame and calling, Cut, cut, cut. In the car we’d give little hoot laughs, girl to girl, and Augusta would speak to me, her voice dry and tight in a Red Carpet tone, and she’d talk in a strange manner, like she was in an old play or something, and she’d say, We’ve torn ourselves free of the demonic, of the oracle that has given us the word, or something like that in a haunted voice, babbling on and on while I drove all the way to Oklahoma City. We’d get to the memorial in heavy snow. We’d get out of the car and there would be that fake movie night, that night that’s not really dark, or light. At least not dark enough to be real. There’d be fake snow on our shoulders, too, sticking to them, refusing to melt, while we went from chair to chair. One chair for each dead person. (I’d sit in one and say something along the lines of: My poor mom died in the blast, gone in a flash, got up one morning and headed for social services unaware that it was her last, and then Augusta, taking her turn, would talk about how her own sister had gone to the day-care center that morning, because her daughter was having problems with separation anxiety, problems parting, saying so long. With the snow coming down — still crying — we’d move from chair to chair, sitting in each one, leaving an impression in the snow on the dark stone. Then the camera would begin to rise above us, up and up, and you’d see the whole scene, chair, snow, girls, night light, the monument to the blast, the empty space, the shadows cast by the chairs, the road leading out, the buildings around it; up and up but always both of us visible, two girls who had somehow rescued themselves from a complete fuckup, from a demented Wind Country guy.) But, you know, the movie ending wouldn’t be that simple. Nothing ever is. You’d sit in the theater, scraping the last bits of popcorn from the bucket, knowing that Lester is still out there, probably up in that park, near that rock where the first Oklahoma oil well was sunk, the place that started the whole fucking mess, smoking a joint and racking his brain over where I might be. You’d be aware of this in the theater, as the camera kept moving skyward, and you’d feel a bit of the fear that I felt, then, in the car, knowing that he’d be lodged in your mind, waiting to pop up suddenly, to take advantage of the situation. You’d leave the theater with me in your mind, too, and with Augusta (but a better version of what she really was), and you’d carry me right back to your nice house in Tulsa. You’d drive into your garage, the door closing behind you, and go up the stairs into your warm kitchen for a glass of milk, maybe a cookie, and then to your warm bedroom, with the king-size bed; you’d take me under the covers with you, my eyes, my mouth, my long brown hair, and you’d lie with the blankets up around your chin, safe and sound, and see me inside your mind. I’d be giving you a huge smile, grinning a big, fat, shit-eating grin. Only later, waking to use the bathroom, would you remember Lester. You’d think of him out there, sneaking around, bottled up with a bunch of harebrained schemes, lifting Augusta’s breasts. You’d try to shake him out of your mind. But he’d lurk there. Lurking Lester. He’d bug you. Like a tick behind a dog’s ear. He’d bug you like the rattle of trucks on an overpass. He’d bug you like the squeal of bats in a cave. Then you’d know how I felt, in the car, when he came back across the headlights, tugging his fly, stopped for a second so that the light carved up under his chin and made his face hollow and skulllike, staring at me, staring hard, as if he knew what I was thinking, and then he slid in next to me, smelling like field mud. I said, What’re we gonna do? And he said, We’re gonna find a shopping mall, do some receipt hunting, find a way to make some money. Turning around to face Augusta, who had a long silvery strand of drool dripping from the side of her mouth, framing her with his fingers, he said, Then we’re going to make us that movie.