Splayed, dusted with light, they nosed up from the ground, above the earth’s parched surf. Half eaten. Half eaters. Petrified moles, molars. Red leaves, dry, brown leaves, potato chips, twinkled and swept along the wind, grooved deeply along tracks of air, along all of the wrinkles of fall. A day late, under a leaning lattice gate rasped bilious by time, Thom’s car trod slowly into the Colonel Tom Parker County Cemetery.
Whitepantsuits pulled potted plants, and roses, all roses wrapped in plastic from the foot of each stone. Hotpotatoed, they gained the air, bounced hand over hand and landed in the C. T. P. C. C. GROUNDS CREW truckbed slowly rolling over the gravel road. Ciggy smoke leaked from the stubbly lips of some real rough numbers, sweat slicking their brow. Thom watched the undecorating committee plod, drop shit, and recover. Disappear. He navigated his car through the stone rows, craving to nudge just one or two of them with his bumper. Finger‐tip them over the edge.
The lot remained as it had been years ago, though a cleared patch of trees in back suggested the membership had certainly grown. Brake depressed. Motion ceased. Thom dropped two feet onto gravelly ground, rose from his seat and skelped the door closed harder than intended. Deafened, the stony court emptied of all its indolent winged things.
Rockwalking, he rolled foot over foot. Balanced on the path. Equidistant from stonerows. Stonesthrow from the hack and belch of the highway.
He took the path and followed as it slunk around a corner, headed slowly forward, forward toward the edge of the cemetery. A grass carpet lined the path’s edge as a slumberous breeze wafted by bowing each narrow grass blade.
Thom skeltered on. Bone after stone. Sedentary. Sedimentary. See de men tarry.
Vacant plot.
Waiting for spouse.
Waiting for spouse.
Sleeping in stereo.
Gravetone.
Siamese dream.
RAYMOND A. EVANS
Ahhh, and there he was. Rowed. Subterranean shish kabob. Prone. Sleeping alone. Quadrants away, the grounds crew truck skulked under the burning autumnal peacock of tree leaves feathering the air. Forward, but hundreds of years away, positioned precisely on either side of the stone, two lean obelisks raced to the air and helped prop up the sky. Smoky clouds proposed rain. Thom aimed his eyes on the deepcut grooves in the stone ahead of him and caught a cold slab of air as it collided against his chest.
He tried a toothy laugh, but nothing would follow. The crickets in the thickets. The breeze in the tress. An old song drifting inside the imbricated folds of his brain began to rise to the surface. Still standing, he closed his eyes one shutter at a time, halving the world like a cantaloupe and then erasing it completely.
He couldn’t remember the name of the song switchbacking through his head in jagged tantrums, activating forgotten memories as the bolt moved backward, driving in, connecting two points. The words played faster and faster, looping along at the wrong speed. Spinning around some Copernican spindle, the wet, viscous trenches of sound, the orbits of memory shook off their tracks and rippled away. It was confusing. Two voices at the same time. One in one ear. Another in the other.
Maybe it was the stress of always having to have something at the ready, cued up. Maybe it was the problem of constant numbing, the flood of adrenals needed when you’re always “live.” Maybe it was the loneliness that allowed Raymond to pick her up at the bus stop and drive her to the radio station before his show. Maybe Kelly Branson was lonely, too. Somewhere it’s all coiled up on a reel like a clear tongue that won’t ever stop stretching forward and flicking.
And just then, in front of the rows of stones bearing earthen brown gums, Thom’s memory tilted preposterously backward like a dentist’s chair. One afternoon while on the air, as everybody listened, Raymond Evans just lost it…
His voice came to one ear and passed neatly through like an arrow through brass rings.
–I want to start tonight’s request and dedication hour with a special treat, at least for me. What’s your name, sweetheart?
The anxious hum of fallow technology filled the airwaves.
–Go ahead and tell me your name.
Dead air is worse than radio static.
–Go ahead, it’s all right.
Her vo ce stu kt ogether like clumpsof riceand rushedtogheter lurching with nerves and strung together with too many cocktails.
–It’s, ah…
[Giggling, glasses clinking]
[–Go ahead, it’s all right. ]
–It’s Kelly.
–Kelly, that’s unlawfully… Oh, my, goodness…
[Giggling, glasses clinking]
–It’s an awfully sweet name. Kelly rhymes with Jelly.
–I like it. Thanks.
She held the “s” for some reason.
–Kelly, why don’t you tell the good people what’s up next…
[nothingness]
[Giggling, glasses clinking]
Callers soon began to hunt for the number of the radio station.
[Giggling, glasses clinking, wet sounds]
–I’d like that.
Her voice sounds so young. There wasn’t much time.
[You can always turn the dial]
–That feels good.
–Why don’t you let me kiss you on the mouth?
It was going to end soon.
[Automatic doors opened and closed]
[Rustling, giggling, clinking, -ing -ing -ing]
[Slathering wet, audibly, uncomfortably, -ly -ly -ly]
They would eventually cut the power. They would eventually dispatch a clutch of security guards, the last line of defense.
[A line of defense]
–Okay, I have a feeling it’s about to… I think…there’s light coming… Okay, it’s “What’s Your Name?” by Don and Juan, which went all the way to number seven on the charts back in the summer, actually, the end of the summer, back in late September, 1962. Okay, the label was Big Top. The flip side was “Magic Wand.” It’s in perfect mono…
What’s your name? I have seen you before.
What’s your name? May I walk you to your door?
The scoff of a lawnmower starting in the distance carved through the silence in the cemetery. Thom shook free, for the moment, from the nagging pull of memory. Buzz. Bellow. Gag. His eyes opened, aimed forward at all of the text locked in stone. All of the stone crannies spelled something out, meant something. The mowing grew louder and louder as the whirring blade neared. Thom’s skin began to itch. All the spinning would soon stop. The allotment was nearly played out. Ideas hemorrhaged out of the stones as he looked on. Letters fell to the ground one after another. Tabula rasa. Table rose. Rabble toes. Green grass snipped from the earth. The droning from the mower grew louder, the blade inescapable. His eyes closed.
Please be quiet.
Please be quiet.
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.
His skin itched even more, sizzling under his clothes. His head shifted. Sopped with booze, back the night, front the day, he could smell his breath floating over his face like a mask. The mower’s approaching motor twirled leaves and dirt Mayday, Mayday around his body.
Please be quiet.
Please be quiet.
The vapors weep their burthen to the ground.
Whirling, he brought the rosebud to his face and offered the tip to his nose, rolling the grooves of the grove around. He pulled bestially at the rose until the stalk separated from the bud, then released the remains to the ground and carefully unzipped his pants.
The petals twitched against the firing squad, red rose, surly mixing with aroma, roaming below the ground.
He dropped an R
then an A
then an I
then a L,
laying the liquid on the plot so that it would read properly from below—much harder than it sounds. Touching without touching. The laser beam. See D. The mower approached, and Thom’s skin itched as if it were half covered in scabs, which, upon a more careful examination, it was.
But that didn’t work, did it? The copy was all…backwords.
Out of ink, he listened to the roar of the approaching blade.
He could smell it from here. Maybe it was the constant stench of ammonia that’s used to help set the rubber. Maybe it was the addition of more ammonia. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was loneliness.
The mowerman flashed a sincere smile then dropped his jaw. His teeth were partially crooked, like some of the older stones at the front of the lot. Thom echoed, flashing his set, and closed his eyes. He imagined swinging his hand forward like an unflinching blade through the air. He’d catch him across the neck, knocking him backward off of the mower. The machine’s roar would soften to a whimper, and it would roll along slowly, bumping a tiny headstone to stop.
He could see them all now. Automatic doors opened and closed.
–Buddy, what the hell are you doing? You can’t do that to them stones!
Thom opened his eyes still holding the tip of his quill. The mowerman dismounted from the machine and came at him fast. Thom turned back toward his car, still unzipped, and never looked back. He put foot after foot forward. Row after row flicked and recessed. Watch ticking, feet flopping, toes rowing, he screamed as he ran through the aisle. Fingers flourished outward and slapped at the stones like Mantles in bikespokes. Prickle, come trickle on windshield, come droplets that seep through the glass and sneak into bones, cunning bullets. After years of faithful employment, it was only now that he realized how near he was to the Lott-Faye rubber company, proud makers of the Stud Rubber, the Stud Rubber X-L, and introducing the new super commodious Bell Bottom.
Excel with the Stud Rubber X-L.
Bottoms up? Be well with the one and only Bell Bottom!
In one moment, without leaving his car, Thom pushed through the rusting gates of the cemetery and the last full memory of his father, and they both clove.
Clove cigarettes, red suggestions of smoke, swam the air in backstroke before finding fat scrolls of scarlet lips and hungry lungs preparing for the task of wintertalking and smoking, when ineluctably, the two become so easily confused. Mouth ajar, Thom passed between two sunforgotten girls and took in a lungfull, believing if he pulled hard enough, their eyeshadow, their eyes, their breath, their frail spines, their fat breasts, would board the smoke current and follow him inside. One everlasting suck. Crown to tail. Automatic doors opened and closed. The clot of students standing, smoking cigarettes outside contracted and expanded, spun in staged cyclones over smart stockinged feet as he approached. They seemed to finally notice this time as he passed. In college, you can believe in anything.
Thom shivered, diggadumed diggadumed down slipfree stairs toward the landing. He stared at the door to the basement floor for a moment, but decided it better to just head to his room. In college, he occasionally found himself tuning in.
Last month, under the charms of fishbowl vodka, he’d swum around campus looking for something, for space maybe, but the basement of his own dormitory held the most interest. He brought down a psychology book and a poetry anthology, trying to figure out which was the shot, which was the chaser. He’d opened the FIREDOOR as quietly as he could, and before it fully closed, he could already hear it.
Some nights it was a different kind of chant, not like last night, or the night before. A few nights back it was lower and slow, a different fingering on the instrument.
The words sunk low, right to the floor after they left her mouth.
–Oh, please, Oh, my God, Oh, sweet God right there.
People actually say that? It was all right behind this door; he could feel the pulse of the floor. If he knocked, coughed, picked too deeply at his nose, it might stop. But he was quiet. How long would—could—this last?
He quietly laid his cheek against the metal door and felt it go checkered and numb. Slowly, he issued the rest of his body, barely touching the door except at the ear. He looked around and raised a knee like a reflex, quietly tracing imaginary contours, trying to find the rhythm of the secret droning. It stretched, but he didn’t care‐ he’d been drunk on fishbowl vodka good and hard. He could hear their breathing and deliberately tried to match it.
Uuuuhhhhh
Uuuhhhhhh
Uuuhhhhhh
Consonants paddled through the wetness of all the vowels. Each blood cell in his body became gyroscopic.
–Oh yeah. Are you my little sunpussy?
–Yeah.
–Are you my filthy pussybubble?
–Yeah.
–I’ll pop you like a balloon.
–Do it.
–Yeah?
–Yeah.
Thom joined in, pressing the smallest whisper he could against the door.
–Oh, Thom. Oh, yeah, Thom.
In cadence, the hidden tableau behind the door took on a screeching frenzy. Her palms must be open. It all must be open, all of it open. Thom offered the door his entire flattened body.
Just then the FIREDOOR exploded open. He collapsed into himself, falling to his knees and slid away while listening to the now apoplectic ranting that emptied into the hallway. The FIREDOOR leading to lustrous blue night air hung open. Footsteps preached loudly of an impending body, but no one passed through. When he realized he was kneeling, Thom pretended to tie his shoe inches away from where the balloon was being popped. A naïf giggle leaked out from the crack under the door. In college, you can wiggle your toes for credit.
He thought again about strolling back down to the basement tonight but didn’t. His stomach muscles were sore from new movements the night before and ached as he took up the stairs, dashing off toward his own room. He paused to read the message board on his door:
He put the key to the lock, clutched on a digital swivel, and pulled the door to a tiny, silent closure. The echoic ping of a lock gathering into immutability pricked the hall. Minutes later the soft wet slapping of bare feet preceded a knock at the door. Thom froze, looked around his empty room—Troy gone—but collected himself. They can see through walls. He pudded with the lock for a second and finally got it open.
She looked sunburned. Her skinny neck was a stalk, her body taut and looming; she held herself upright in a way that made it clear she was in full possession of her faculties. A STATE WRESTLING CHAMPION T-shirt ran nearly down to her knees. Small bruises were forming just above her elbows. Privately, greatwhites stirred.
–Hi. I don’t know you. Hi…do you have a light?
–I do. Do you have an extra…extra smoke?
Thom’s eyes dilated as she lifted up her shirt and pulled back the top of a pack of cigarettes clamped against the waistband of her gym shorts. She appraised the cigarette package, still tucked against her thighs.
–I don’t.
She smiled.
There’s a thing, a real thing. They can smell it on you.
–I guess we could…share?
Pyrotic human cologne flared, sprayed aerosol as Thom followed her air outside. He took the matchbook from his pocket and handed it over. She followed the string of numbers across the flap and then struck savagely again and again, ripping one stick after another from the booklet until one lit.
–Thanks.
She passed back the booklet.
–Looks like you might want to hold on to that.
–Sure.
She smoked it like a milkshake. Three pulls hard and fast before passing it in a specimen-like manner to Thom. Grey smoke calmly festooned the air. Her eyes fluttered slightly…now she was finished.
He stared at the filter, at the patches of pink that were lost from her lips. It was wet when he brought it to his mouth. He pressed the blond edge of the cigarette along his lip without inhaling. She didn’t move. He pulled and gagged impossibly on the cigarette. She turned into the mere outline of her figure, the slope of her breasts evaporating, step by step, back inside.
–Thanks for the light. You can have the rest.
Standing with the basement girl’s cigarette between his fingers, her lipstick practically on his lips, he thought maybe they’d been in a class last semester. Or was it this one? Maybe it was the Victorian Literature class, which he liked to shorten the name to Vic. Lit. and say it together fast, over and over while walking there. The “clit” in the formation of the rush of words was moderately to exceedingly arousing, depending on the day. He liked molesting the words a little in his head. And some of the names of the poems too. What was that from class yesterday? Hit this tit? Tit in this:
The wood delays, the wood delays and falls.
Thom replayed and replayed the words Vic. Lit. over and over in his head on the way back inside to his dorm, trying to compose the first line of a poem of his own about a woman and her fabulous thighs.
When he returned to his dormitory the phone was ringing, but no one moved from their seats. Troy was there, everyone was there for fuck’s, just all showed up, these four pink boys with smooth faces all holding beers and watching television through huge stoned eyes. Jurry was on. The topic was: FORBIDDEN FANTASIES. Out of the silence one of the boys howled at the television and dropped his beer, but nobody seemed to care. Thom began to perspire slightly, and Samantha’s musk still hovering over his chest seemed to activate. He hadn’t even showered since. The phone continued to ring. Thom leaned over and picked up the receiver, but there wasn’t a voice on the other end, only the soft liberation of a smoke-filled breath. Black wind.
–Hello. Hello.
He was about to hang it up when a noise came through the darkness.
–Thomas.
–Yeah?
He didn’t recognize who was on the other end. On screen, twin blondes licked each other’s tongues. Their nipples touched behind pliable neon fabric.
–Something’s happened.
It sounded like his mother. But the voice was lower and flatter; the luxuries of rhythm and pitch were stripped from her words.
–What?
Through the receiver, he could hear a TV set chatter in the language of another program.
You need good soil. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time.
Automatic doors opened and closed in the background.
–I didn’t find out…
Her voice sharpened as if she were trying to pin the words in place.
–I didn’t find out until like an hour ago, but I didn’t know what to do.
–Find what out?
–It was too late when they got there, Thomas. The other guy’s… fucked. He got smooshed.
–What?
Her voice was lost in the wire. He thought again about hanging up the phone when she broke back through.
–They couldn’t find his head in the car.
–What?
–They couldn’t find his head…
–No, I heard you, but what?
–They couldn’t find your father’s head in the car.
Thom stood up and threw the phone across the room, through the windowpane. Five boys rigidly held beers with hands like lobster claws and looked on silently at Thom. The crowd on the TV cheered...
Slipping out of from his memory he realized he was following the repeating lines of a familiar road as they skipped forward; the lines broke into intermittent dashes, dash after dash, like an endless stretch of loose yellow stitching that could break off the black fabric of the road with a slight pull. The wheels shellacked the asphalt with the mud, the tarry mud from the gravy yard and washed over the glass and orts mushed into the stone soup of tar, the gorgeous glimmer flecks that beat out from the blackness of the road. As he headed toward the factory, the tires below his seat spun over twinkled firehewn notes and read over the streaming dark staff of travel, rolling along as the radio spun out carol after carol after carol.