The Rain Twins

When I was in tenth grade I took a health and fitness class. Stretching and jogging and badminton, no classroom. Our teacher changed his clothes and worked out with us. One day he wore a tee shirt that read “No Fat Chicks.” Even though I wasn’t a fat chick yet, my feelings were hurt. There were only two other girls, cheerleaders, and they thought it was funny. I never said anything; he never wore the shirt again. After that day I paid attention to the way he walked—like a man with nothing to prove, a man with all the privileges of being a man.

I’ve been out of school for two years and I’m tired of people asking me what I’m doing now. I’m fat and I’m a cashier at Wal-Mart. No, I’m not seeing anybody, and yeah, I go to college sometimes. But I hated high school and I’m not sure why I’m supposed to like community college.

One day someone sent me a link to a website called “hamsterdance.com.” It’s a bunch of ridiculous cartoon hamsters, bouncing up and down to that song from Disney’s Robin Hood. All of the hamsters stare straight at you, repeating the same moves, looping and looping. It starts when it stops. Never ending, just dancing and smiling and dancing. I broke down and cried, then had that stupid song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

When I was a freshman our basketball team almost went to the state championship, led by a guy named Teddy Burke. God in sneakers. Teddy was in my health and fitness class, and he was the only reason I didn’t try to drop it after the fat chick incident.

We had never come within breathing distance of a state championship before, and our little town was fired up in support for our boys. Farmers painted their hay bales in school colors, and half the town drove all the way to Columbus for the championship game. The other half stayed home to baby-sit.

I wasn’t there—to tell you the truth, I hate basketball—but I know that a controversial Hail Mary shot at the buzzer dashed our little town’s hopes of a state title. The referee said the shot counted for three, later the tape would say his foot was on the line. So that was it. No state title, just a bus ride home, and for Teddy, what?

For a long time, all anyone could talk about was that stupid game and that stupid shot. Everyone kept talking about how Teddy could play college ball, get a scholarship, how he could be great. He was everyone’s dream, the boy the whole town wanted to get behind and hurry along to a better tomorrow.

But there was a grim shadow hanging over Teddy all through that season. His girlfriend of three years, Miranda, was pregnant. They were each other’s first real steady, and everything they knew about love they learned from each other. They were beautiful, and made just for each other. The minute he heard she was pregnant; Teddy became a daddy and wouldn’t ever be anything else.

That basketball season was his last romp through childhood, his only chance to play hero. Maybe one of the reasons he was so great is that all the other players on the court were boys, and he was already a man.

I remember that he did win a scholarship to some school I’d never heard of, probably far away. After he graduated he dropped off the radar, and went wherever people go after they take their walk down the aisle of pomp and circumstance.

Higher Education

Last week I sat down in my English 200 class at the community college. It was a night class, so most of the students were moms and dads and other people taking second chances at life. I had been in the class for two weeks, didn’t care about it, hated the teacher, and stayed out of sight.

Our first assignment in that class was to write a one-page response to Amy Tan’s Two Kinds. Our motley band of empty nesters recovering from life handed in their assignments on time, like good students. The teacher, Mrs. Wender, must have been aghast at the response she got. The next class, she announced we would spend the week, and maybe part of next week, working on basic grammar. Commas, semicolons, quotation marks.

What the hell was I doing here?

Over the next week or so, I mostly slept through the class. I couldn’t bring myself not to come, because I was paying for it. Or the government was paying for it. Whoever was paying for it, it sure wasn’t my parents. I attended every grammar lesson, filled out the worksheets, and kept my head down.

The high school girl behind me shook me awake. “It’s break time, if you want to get a pop or something.”

I lifted my eyes and did a periscope peer across the room. Sure enough, everyone was stepping out, except for me and some familiar-looking guy with a beard talking to the teacher. I went back down.

A minute or so later, I heard, “You sleepy there, Beth?” The bearded guy was sitting a couple of seats over from me. He had his head cocked, parallel to mine. The machinery in my brain sputtered, then at once I placed him.

“Teddy? I didn’t know you were in here.”

“Yup, all quarter long.”

“Huh. So are you, uhm...what are you doing now?” I wonder if he hated being asked that as much as I do.

If he did, he didn’t let on. “Well, still married, got two little boys. Working construction, and it slows down a lot in the winter, so here I am. Taking a class where I can.”

“Why? I mean, what are you, what’s your thing for? Your, what are you going to do?”

“Uh, well, I’d like to teach. Phys Ed., probably, then coach or something.”

“Might take a while to get there.”

He shrugged. “I don’t want to haul lumber the rest of my life.”

Mrs. Wenders was gathering everyone back into the class, and a fat woman sat between Teddy and I. “Nice talking to you,” I said.

“You too,” he nodded.

My head was up for the second half of class. I took notes, on hyphens and commas and quotation marks. I answered questions. At one point I glanced over and saw Teddy looking at me. We traded smiles.

On the way home. I couldn’t believe what had happened. Had that really been Teddy Burke, gorgeous Teddy Burke, god in sneakers, talking to me? I didn’t even know that he knew my name in high school; how did he know it now? Maybe he had a crush on me, and couldn’t admit it? Nah, he and Miranda had been together since ninth grade. But that didn’t mean that a man couldn’t look, did it? All guys did.

He looked so different. Bearded, with a weathered face, eyes that had aged beyond their time. But the smile, the muscles, the way he cared about me, just for a few seconds there. When was the last time anyone had made me feel like this? It couldn’t have been the same Teddy from high school. This was some Teddy from an alternate dimension where he and I had a little house together and did our English Comp homework on the coffee table before necking on the couch.

It’s strange, how quickly that short conversation made me happy. I felt like a new woman, not like an un-person, a fat chick. I smiled at customers. I cleaned the house. I picked up a college catalogue for the next quarter. I thought about buying a Yoga tape, but then put it down.

I knew the reason I was happy was stupid. But it had been so long so I had felt this good—so long since feeling anything—that the reasons didn’t matter. It was nice to be happy being me. The next class was just two days later, which meant I could see him again. A tiny voice kept whispering to me that this was stupid, so stupid, that it was just one conversation, and how pathetic was I, getting all worked up over a high school crush like some stupid fat chick, dumb dumb dumb dumb.

I was early to class, and he was there. He smiled when I took my usual seat, two rows across from him. “Well hello,” he said, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

What was that supposed to mean? “Well I wasn’t fast enough for her, I guess.”

“What?”

“The cat. I was too slow and the cat caught me.”

“Oh.” Realization came to his face and he laughed, “You know, I never really thought too much about that expression. That’s a good one.”

We started chatting about the class, and he complained about the work. I thought the work was a little easy, but kept my mouth shut. It was only a matter of time before I said something stupid and broke the spell being woven between us. I was living on borrowed time; a guy like this talking to a girl like me? It was like a lion talking to a rabbit. I remembered a joke I heard some guys telling in high school: “What do a fat girl and a moped have in common? They’re fun to ride till your friends see you on one.”

Harharhar. Fuckers.

“I don’t think this class is as hard as Mrs. Waits’s was,” I said. There. That was something everyone could agree on. Everybody hated Mrs. Waits’s class. She was Hitler in curlers.

Teddy shrugged. “Aw, I really can’t complain. I got away with a lot in that class.”

“What? She sent me to the office for popping my gum during reading time.”

“Well, not that stuff, but during the tournament and stuff. She let me retake a lot of tests and stuff. I probably couldn’t have played if she hadn’t.”

My mouth dropped open. I had never, ever heard of Mrs. Waits doing anything like this. Valerie Harper needed .01 of a point in her class to be co-salutatorian, and she refused to give it. “You get what you get,” she said. And she had loosened Teddy’s chains?

“What? Mrs. Waits did that?”

“Well, her and my other teachers. I was really blessed. I’ve had more luck than I deserve.”

We grew quiet. If I could, I would have hugged him. Most people had to settle for being themselves, but Teddy got to be a hero for a little while. Growing up to be anything less would have crushed most people. He had his life taken away from him. Like Bruce Springsteen would say, his graduation present was a union card and a wedding coat. Yet there was no anger at the universe, just gratitude. In his heart he felt like he owed a debt he could never repay.

Without a word he moved his stuff over to the seat next to mine. My heart skipped a beat and I could have thrown up on my shoes. When the fat woman that sat between us entered she shot Teddy a stare, and he disarmed her with a smile. When she sat down in his old seat she was smiling too, and gave him a wordless pat on the arm.

This is what Teddy could do. He made people feel good about being people.

We talked again during break, and then in the parking lot on the way to our cars. I was still afraid of saying something stupid, so I just listened. He talked about his kids and movies he liked and television shows. One thing he never talked about, I realized later, was his wife.

I fantasized that she would leave him and take the kids and we could build each other up from the bottom. It’s the only way a man like him would need me as much as I needed him.

Meetings at Mecca

The next day was Friday, and I worked the second shift until eleven o’clock. I took some time to dress for work. I usually wear shirts a size too big to disguise my weight gain. I do own a couple of tighter tops, but whenever I wear them I can just feel my love handles trying to stretch out the bottom and escape. My red top is like this, but it also does a good job of showing off my boobs, which have gained weight along with me. Every now and then I’ll catch a guy staring at me in this shirt, and I’m never sure if he’s seeing the fat or the cleavage.

That night, I decided I didn’t care.

Eight o’clock is always busy on Fridays. For a lot of poor families, Wal-Mart is a fun time out on Friday night. Do some shopping, maybe buy a movie, get the kids some McDonald’s and go home. That’s when I spotted Teddy in my line, without kids, just a couple of items tucked under his arm.

He was already looking at me. I smiled and waved, mouthing the word “hi.” He waved back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Helen was opening up the aisle next to mine. No Helen no don’t!

“I can get you over here, sir.” I hated Helen. Hated hated hated her.

“Nah, I’m already over here,” he said, smiling. “Thanks, though.” The two carts in front of him were gravid with future possessions, but he decided to stay, with me. In my line.

Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

I scanned everyone else through as fast as I could without looking frantic. I glanced up at him occasionally, when I was getting change or waiting for a lady to write a check. Sometimes he’d be looking at me, sometimes not. Once I caught his eyes darting below my neck and my stomach gave a little gurgle of glee. My breasts felt heavy and for once, the rest of me didn’t.

He was buying The Last Samurai on DVD and a box of tin foil. I pictured him sitting around the house, restless, thinking of me wondering if I was working. He drives over here, sees my car and carefully cases out which aisle is mine. He grabs a couple of items, who cares what, and comes to see me. After all, Miranda couldn’t be suspicious of a trip to Wal-Mart, could she?

When I finally slid his tin foil through my scanner I said, “Well look what the cat dragged in.”

He laughed. “Hey, that’s my line.”

I smiled up at him, “Guess I beat you to it.”

There were people collecting behind him, so he couldn’t stay and talk. But I’m sure he would have, if he could’ve. I had a feeling that I’d be seeing a lot more of him in my line.

He was gone, and the next three hours of work dragged like a drunk’s feet. I kept craning my head to the door, hoping to see him walk in. “Oh, I forgot something,” he’d say. “How about we get together and study sometime?”

I hated myself for thinking this stuff. I hated myself and I hated my life, but it just felt so good to have something different. When you’re climbing it never seems like you can fall.

I woke up the next day with the taste of him on my brain. It was Saturday and I had the day off. I was in a panic, imagining that he’d go there, looking for me, and I wouldn’t be there for him to find. He’d go through Helen’s line and he’d be too afraid to ask if I was working and then he’d go home all sad and disappointed when I could have made him feel so good.

I wanted to make a man like Teddy feel good. I needed to be needed.

My cleavage shirt was technically dirty, but it didn’t smell or anything, so I wore it again. I took time to apply my makeup, when I usually get it the hell over with. My hair was curled, my cheeks were rosy and I had fashioned myself into a fine little Lolita, all before nine o’clock in the morning.

Now I’m not a complete idiot. I knew that the odds would be long that he would be at Wal-Mart right when I drove up there. But still, getting dressed and hoping to run into him there felt right to me. Like I was giving destiny a little push between the shoulder blades. I drove at old lady speed through the parking lot, looking for his red truck with the extended cab. Half the men in town drove red extended cab trucks, and there were at least 30,000 of them parked in the lot that morning.

I wished that I had paid more attention to the thing: what company made it, license plate, bumper magnet—something. For me, trucks are kind of like jellyfish. I’m sure someone can tell them apart, but it ain’t me. Ever since I was a kid I’ve hated cars. I remember being very little and just staring at my dad’s old brown car. Its headlights were eyes that never blinked, its grill an unceasing grin devoid of human expression. It was like everyone was driving along in huge Cheshire cats. Put-puttering on and on and on.

All these cars, row after row. People flock to Wal-Mart like it’s a shrine; they spend money like they’re trying to save their souls.

Finally, I decided to take the campaign on foot. Better to case the aisles under the guise of a normal, un-obsessed shopper. La-dee-da-da, pay no attention to me, just buying Post-It notes and gum, la-dee-dee. Have you seen a god in sneakers around anywhere? Ha-ha, just kidding.

I hate myself.

I opened the automatic doors with a wave of my hand, like a Jedi. Kaiser Dave was standing by the carts and greeted me with a smile and a wave. He had the smile and wave of a seasoned professional greeter, but still made the greeting seem genuine. You working today?”

“No, just had to pick up some things.”

“Huh. Can’t stay away, can you?”

“I guess not.”

We called him Kaiser Dave because he had a Kaiser Bill moustache, waxed and upturned at either end. He taught music and band at the high school for years, and that moustache was in every yearbook photo except for one. His first year teaching, back in 1988, you could faintly see the shadow of a budding strip of hair on his upper lip.

He was fired my senior year for touching a student’s budding strip of pubic hair. If the kid hadn’t been eighteen, Kaiser Dave would be greeting visitors to cellblock D. As it happened, the student’s parents didn’t want the town to know their son was a homosexual, and were anxious to keep it quiet. It didn’t matter; word got around anyways. Wal-Mart didn’t care what he had done, just that he could wave and smile. Everyday Kaiser Dave, defrocked music teacher, has to kindly greet the suspicious, hating eyes of half the town making their pilgrimage to the shrine of wailing Wal-Mart.

I took a cart as casually as I could and hurled myself into the store. Somewhere among these aisles of cookie jars and baby shoes and frozen dinners, my destiny awaited me.

If you’ve ever been separated from your party in a large department store, then you know how frustrating searching the aisles can be. Constantly jerking your head from side to side, scanning for a visual clue, a shirt color, a small child, something. Like walking through a tennis match. Try doing that without looking like you’re doing it. You have to use a lot of eye movement and casual glances. Exhausting.

I saw Brad, a skinny white kid with a face piercing who thinks he can rap. He’s anxious to show off this gift, often in the break room. I think the management pays him to go back there and rap so we’ll all get back to work again. “Hey Beth,” he said, “Can’t stay away, can you?”

“I guess not,” I answered, breezing by his aisle.

“Hey wait, I want you to hear something.” He shuffled up next to me.

“I really don’t have time.”

“Just a second, listen to this.” He shut his eyes and froze, concentrating like a skinny Buddha. I was braced for another clumsy, dying beat box routine. Instead, a weird moan came from his pulsing adam’s apple. It was a long, sustaining moaning, without any real tone. Then a second monotone wail, a little higher, joined the first, then they both disappeared in favor of a shrill, high-pitched wail that escaped through the small sliver of his parted lips. He raised his palms up, like Shiva, and the wailing ebbed to feeble close.

He opened his eyes and smiled to see me there, as if he expected that I had cut and run during his little show. To tell the truth, I almost had. “It’s called toberlophona. It’s Asian. See, in most Western music, we can only sing two notes at a time. Using the ancient art of tuberlophona, one can sing as many as sixty-five notes at once.”

“And how many was that just now?”

“I’m not sure. How many did you hear?”

“I’m not sure. Uh…twenty? Twenty-five?”

It was hard to read his blank stare. He blinked once, then twice more, and finally pumped his fist. “Yesssss!” he let out in one long hiss. I gave him a high five and he bounced down the aisle, clapping his hands together.

I was creeping by the canned food aisle when I stopped to watch a pregnant woman and her two kids. The woman was young, her round face buried in a book of coupons. Both kids were in the cart, one in the seat and one peering over the bow like a ship captain. This captain kept seizing booty from the shelves, and storing it into the ship’s hold while his mother’s gaze was turned.

She shifted the cart ever so slightly, making him lean out over the edge to scrape his fingers against a can of tomatoes. Finally he knocked it loose and it repelled down the shelf and rolled to the floor with a thud. Their eyes immediately locked and the mother let out a long, hissing breath. The smaller baby let out a fast shout. The tomatoes rolled toward me and I knelt for them as the mother was replacing his ill-gotten booty on the shelves.

I approached her with the tomatoes. “Hi Hannah.”

She was startled at her own name, but when she saw it was me she let out a quiet little wail. “Beth!”

She hugged my neck, then the rest of me, showering me with questions. But for every question she asked me, I had two in turn for her. The last time I had seen Hannah, she was pregnant, engaged, and moving to a little town called Gibraltar, Kentucky. She was still prettier than me, even if she was about twenty-five pounds richer.

After the standard old “How have you beens” and “you look greats” we apologized for not keeping in touch with each other. “You know, I’ve been so busy with the kids, and Travis’s always working, and there’s never time for anything. We just moved back up here.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Travis’s got a job up in Elgin, and this way our moms can help with the kids.”

“Beautiful babies.”

“Thank you…they’re a handful.” The boy had taken advantage of her distraction and was plundering the shelves for dry goods. With a mother’s patience she slapped him on the hand and did her best to reshelf the items. “Will you look at this? I don’t even remember what’s mine anymore.” A frown froze on her face and for a moment the only sound between us was the dense clang of cans being stacked on top of the other. As long as she stood here, trying to talk to a friend, those cans would keep coming off the shelf and she’d have to replace them.

She was caught in a hamster dance.

We were best friends through junior high and most of high school, until she got pregnant and dropped out. We used to race go-carts at the beach and go down the same water slide over and over so the cute lifeguard on top would have to keep shoving us down. We made each other mixed tapes and stole beers from her dad and choreographed our own dance to “Pump Up the Jam.”

I couldn’t see any of that Hannah in the sad, frustrated woman in front of me. Maybe a little, around the edges of her eyes and smile, tiny refugees from her childhood hiding in corners of her face, where motherhood hadn’t yet burned them away.

Before I could ask when her baby was due, she blurted out, “Oh, you should come to the church tomorrow!”

Immediately alarm bells sounded in my hand, and the little women in my brain went scrambling for lies and excuses. “They’re doing a Bible school program and Wyatt’s got a little song part in it.”

“Who’s Wyatt?”

“This is, my son.”

“Oh. Hi Wyatt.” He turned at the mention of his name, then jerked away, bashful. He looked exactly like his dad, down to the teeth. It was weird. I hoped for a moment that Travis still didn’t drink so much.

“So yeah, you should come. Like old times.”

I surprised myself by saying, “Sure. Why not? Like old times.”

We parted with hugs and exchanged phone numbers. I did one last quick reconnaissance mission through the store. I couldn’t hang around here all day waiting for Teddy because I might run into Hannah again, and I hate running into people again. The second hellos in a day are kind of funny, but after that they just get awkward. Not worth the energy.

God’s Office

Next thing it was daylight and the phone was ringing. It took a month of rings for me to reach across the table and hoist it to my face. It weighed eighty pounds.

“’Lo?”

“Hey Beth, did I get you up?”

“Hi Hannah. You got me up.”

“Well sorry about that. Do you want to ride together to church?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Be there in an hour.”

“Kay I love you.”

The gravity of what I’d just agreed to took a moment to take hold. I couldn’t move. I have no idea where my arms and legs were. My chest was underneath a rock pile; my head was in a lion’s jaw.

What was worse, getting dressed for church or rummaging for her number to call her back and say I wasn’t feeling well? Wasn’t feeling well, oh yeah. Just like the old days when I had to lie to avoid her on Sundays. There were months in my youth where I never felt well on Sundays. Nobody ever feels well. We lie when we say we’re fine. It’s a lie.

Aw, fuck I felt bad.

I pulled myself through the house, surveying the damage from last night. Pam’s velvet pillow was damp and sitting next to a heating vent. It smelled like detergent. I’m glad I didn’t remember what it had been soiled with, that it needed a washing. The bathroom smelled like bleach and cleaner.

I crashed on the couch with my head hanging over the cushion like an icicle. I remembered the magazine, trying to read it and drawing something in it. I fished around and found it half buried under a cushion, rolled and crumbled like a sad cigarette. When I saw what I had done there was only one word:

“Whoa.” Every margin had been packed with stick people, doing all sorts of things. Walking, running, fucking, drinking. Dancing, getting married, going to the zoo. It was a rich pageant of terrible artwork, telling the stories of hundreds of nameless drawings with wobbly heads hoisted on beanpole bodies.

It was the most intricate thing I’d created in months, and it was absolutely meaningless and stupid. Writing a story without verbs. After throwing the crumbled pages away, I went to my closet for a dress that didn’t make me look fat.

I hadn’t been to church since the last time Hannah asked me. That was after she got pregnant, so I’m guessing spring of our senior year. I can’t lie and say I hated it. I went with her quite a lot, I guess because it was nice to be near something. I especially enjoyed the Joys and Testimonies part of the service, when people would stand up and say why they were happy. Then the pastor would usually make some inside joke and the whole congregation would laugh.

The music was good too, especially during revivals. Sometimes that tiny chapel of hers would pound so hard the pews and the walls pulsed with bass. They were people making a joyous noise unto the Lord, and it was hard not to be near that. Except.

Except I didn’t feel anything. Not like them.

I don’t know if I wanted it, that happiness, that life. If someone offered you a life of no emotion apart from happiness, from love, what would you say? I wasn’t one of these people. Every moment with them I felt like an imposter, a tiger in lamb’s clothing. During altar calls I could practically feel Hannah’s elbow in my side, but I never felt convicted. Nothing inside me ever cried out for salvation; I never craved the arms of the Lord. After a while I just stopped going, and then Hannah got pregnant, and none of it seemed real anymore.

I couldn’t find my Bible anywhere. It was a nice annotated Student Bible that was given to me by the youth group, many years ago. Its spine had to have been in immaculate shape, because I hadn’t cracked it open in three years. Instead I found a little Gideon Bible in the desk drawer, under eight years’ worth of phone books. Why would anyone need so many phone books? I only threw away two of them, just as I heard Hannah’s car horn outside. Had I done this before? How many phone books had I ever thrown away?

Hannah was driving a Jeep Cherokee with some of the side paneling torn off. Her kids were strapped in their car seats in the back, and her zygote was bursting from the confines of her safety belt. The ride was mostly silent, just like when we were kids. Mornings have ever been my sworn enemy, and I don’t like to honor them with chitchat. There’s no chance I’ll lose my virginity before eleven AM.

We were a mile outside of town before I noticed we were headed in the wrong direction. “They built a new church,” Hannah explained, “They finished it a couple of months ago. It’s only my second time here.”

I smiled a droopy show of interest and slid back down in my seat. The extra fifteen minutes of sleep is never worth the coffee that you miss. Never.

After a while we pulled into the parking lot of a huge brick office building with a weird, coiled roof. There was a flashing arrow sign out front. “Have an errand to run?” I asked.

“No, why?”

“Why are we…?” Then I read the sign: If God Had a Fridge, You’d be On It. “This is a church?”

She carried the kids inside, and I hauled all 87 pounds of their belongings. It’s a mystery of small children; they have to carry everything they own with them at all times, like snails.

Inside people were smiling and shaking hands, and I endured a few hugs. “Well hey stranger, where you been?” “Look at this young lady oh my!”

A flurry of hands shot out in front of me, and I took them nearly hand over hand, like I was campaigning. One hand was wearing a silver Timex and gripped me a little funny. I looked up and jumped when I saw the man’s face. I knew him in high school. He had gotten fatter, but we all had done that. He also had a goatee, but there was no mistaking Brownie Haslam.

Brownie used to date my friend Crystal. When she tried to break up with him, he held her throat to the floor and said he would never, ever let he leave him.

This smiling Christian face in front of me, full of God’s love, was once inched from Crystal’s face, spitting threats at her through gritted teeth, while she sobbed.

I yanked my hand away and shot past all the other well-wishers. Hannah didn’t say anything. She knew about Crystal. She understood.

The carpet was new, and the whole building had the smell of a doublewide home that hasn’t been lived in yet. Everything was shiny. In many ways, it seemed like a movie set. I half expected the walls to fall down with a slight shove.

The Sanctuary was huge. It looked like a convention-meeting hall, with high arched ceilings with red-varnished support beams. Speakers seemed wired to every corner, and shiny silk linens on the pulpit gleamed from the glare of the stage lights. I felt like I was stepping into a theater.

We took our seats as near to the back as Hannah would allow me to sit. I noticed that across the aisle several rows were missing. Before I could ask Hannah about this, she turned to chase her son, who was crawling through the pews like a squirrel.

It’s just as well, because soon my question was answered. Men in suits opened two large double doors in the back. Then men and women in white nurses outfits entered, pushing wheelchairs. The chairs kept coming and coming, four deep and ten broad until finally they were capped off with an iron lung. The hum and steady Darth Vader breathing of the thing was hypnotic, and I wondered how anybody got any praising done around here with that racket.

When Hannah returned, I tugged at her sleeve like a kid at the zoo. “What in the world is this?”

“Pastor Bill has them brought from the nursing home,” she explained. I took a good hard look across the aisle. Some of our less infirm neighbors were alert, shaking their fragile hands and offering weak smiles. Most seemed to be barely conscious at all. “I guess they’re only allowed one visit outside the home a week, so we drive them over here.”

“What? That’s terrible. Why don’t they take them to bingo or something?”

Hannah shrugged. “Pastor has a bus that comes and brings them here.”

These poor folks seemed were seized by their chairs, some of them staring off into space, with slimy rivers of drool collecting at their chins like stalactites. Before I could press the issue on, the deacon took the stage. The organ music started up, the lights dimmed ever so slightly. The show was about to start.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile.

“Good morning,” we all returned in that haunting, unanimous way congregations have of speaking in one voice. “Let’s turn our songbooks to page 442. 442.”

The congregation rose without needing to be asked, and I grudgingly went up with them. The music had changed in my absence, and I was startled to hear a drum, bass, and guitar accompanying the piano. The congregation wasn’t any livelier, though. They still sang “How Great Thou Art” like they’d just been pelted with rocks.

The band sounded great though, and the sound system couldn’t have been more crisp and polished. In a building this new and firm, there was no way the windows would hum with a steady bass beat like they did in the old church. On those revival nights, the church had to make noise of their own. Now the speakers did it for them.

After the song we gave a prayer and were finally allowed to sit down. I was really starting to feel the hangover after the music stopped, and I was ready to curl up inside my eyelids and die. Hannah’s little daughter, Jasmine, had two bright ribbons in her hair, white and red. She curled up on my lap and I drifted away to sleep.

When I woke up a man was shouting and Jasmine’s fingers were in my mouth. My head had a mattress wrapped around it.

“Because when he was there, high on Calvary, and the man said Lord why don’t you summon these angels to your aid and burn them with fire from your eyes and smite them with your power, what did he say, he said get gone from my sight! Because the Man had an Eternal perspective. Things of this world will not last, they do not last. This fine new church we’re so proud of will be dust someday, but praise God and Jesus, our souls will go on forever. What is one day of suffering against an eternity of peace, and love, and heavenly beauty? Amen, God praise, amen.”

He dabbled his brow and slowed down, more meaning now weighing in his voice.

“After 9-11 President Bush said, ‘Adversity introduces us to ourselves.’ Adversity introduces us to ourselves. What happens when you squeeze that old ketchup bottle? You find out what’s inside, don’t you. Find out what’s inside. Let us pray.”

I nodded my head and shut my eyes, waiting for the prayer to start. After a moment I felt like an idiot. I must have misunderstood. They weren’t praying. I was the only person with her head down. Then I peeked and saw everyone around me, even Hannah, kneeling on the floor with their faces buried where their asses were not ten seconds ago. Everyone was mumbling and moaning, I saw some raised hands. I didn’t know what to do.

My knees felt heavy all of a sudden. I went to the bathroom. I can’t do religion anymore. The problem is, I learned the Bible is full of terrible, pleasant lies. We’re told that the meek will inherit the Earth. Lie.

The only thing the meek get to inherit is themselves.

When I returned, everyone was up and smiling, shaking hands again. I had a Twilight Zone moment. One minute, everyone is as catatonic as the folks in the wheelchair, the next they’re awake and smiling. Like everyone was being attacked by aliens that fought for control of their brains for a few painful seconds before gaining total control. I could hear them already: “Yes, yes, hello. Yes, I too worship this Earth-Savior called Jesus. Say, where is your Earth Capital?”

But all of this was soon to be an unpleasant memory. A rotten hour and half out of my life. Soon I would be in bed, burying my face in a pillow and sleeping this one off. I was in the car. The seatbelt was strapped and locked. Hannah was talking forever.

She strapped the kids into their car seats. I didn’t try to help. Their bags of books and toys and food were crowding my floorboard. We were maybe a mile away when she pulled over on the shoulder, cars whipping around us. “Hannah, what are you doing?”

I looked at her for the first time since church and saw her cheeks were raw with tears. She bent to embrace me. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I know you didn’t want to, and that you fell asleep, but, thank you.”

“It’s fine, no I wanted to go. I did. I’m glad I came.”

“It’s just that Travis won’t come. Not even on Easter. I asked him and asked him and asked him, but he won’t. And I told him how I want to raise the kids in church, like I was, but he doesn’t care. He just…does whatever.”

“Mommy stop?” said little Travis.

“No, we’re going now, sweetheart.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. We were off again. I wanted to give her advice. I wanted to offer to pray for her. Mostly, though, I wanted her to stop crying, and I wanted to give Teddy a backrub. I needed to be good enough for him.

“Maybe you could come over to the house for a little while,” she whimpered through her Kleenex. “I hate coming home on Sundays. We always fight, and if we don’t fight, he just sits there. When he’s sitting there I’m still all alone and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Fuck fucking shit fuck. “I guess I could come over for a while.”

She smiled at me, dropped the car into gear, and my Sunday stay in hell just got a little longer. “Last Dance With Mary Jane” came on the radio and she turned it up. As she was singing along, she looked at me and nodded, like I needed to sing along, too. She looked so happy to be with me, so grateful. She was happy because of me.

I panicked.

I could feel my chest getting tight, like someone was wringing out my lungs like a sponge. My neck was hot. My eyes were cold.

“Ah shoot, Hannah, I can’t.” Her eyes were confused; her mouth was hurt. “I’ve got to do some employee training thing today. We all have to do it. Something about immigration or something.”

“Aw, really? Can’t you skip it? Just today?”

“I would, but I skipped it last week, and we have to do it. This is the last day the guy will be in to do it.”

Her smile crumbled like a sack of potatoes. “Work sucks.”

Was she on the verge of tears again? I couldn’t do this shit. I couldn’t be responsible for someone else. Especially someone who was responsible for two small someones. I was still a small someone.

Why should I be made to feel guilty for the shortcomings of someone else? Are we required to prop up other people when we can’t even prop up ourselves? I had nothing to feel guilty about, but I felt like a bug squashed on her windshield. But, the lie was already told and there was no changing it now.

“Well, next Saturday the Daytona 500 is on, and Travis always has a big party every year. And it’s kind of a housewarming party, too. Can you please come to that? Bring whoever you want.”

The little woman in my brain was scrambling through the index card file to find just the right excuse, when I played back that last part. Bring whoever you want, she said.

“Yeah, that sounds cool!”

“You’ll really come? You won’t forget?”

“Yes, I’ll come. Geez, if I say I’ll come I’ll come.”

“Okay, just making sure.”

Another minute and we were at my house. Commercial on the radio, volume turned down. We gave awkward, restrained-by-seatbelt hugs. “It was really nice spending time with you today.”

“Thanks, you too. Bye.” I was out of the car before the crying police could storm in again.

Between her van and my door the whole scenario had been planned out: I would ask Teddy to the party. He wouldn’t know anyone, I wouldn’t know anyone, and we’d both find the whole thing boring as hell. We’d slip onto a quiet sofa together, and chat while everyone partied around us. To escape the noise, we’d take a walk together, under the summer moon, and we’d admit our feelings for each other.

This was a man worth losing your virginity to.

The Plan

The next day was Monday. No class. I hung around the college lounge for a couple hours anyway, hoping to catch him coming to or from his Psych class. When the class let out he wasn’t among the throngs leaving. I was going to be late for work. I left.

Then he wasn’t at class the next night. The fat woman that sat next to us even went so far to ask, “Where’s your friend?”

I just stared at her, grabbed my things and walked out, before the teacher could open her mouth.

That night I laid in bed, my heart thudding, fueled with panic. It had all been laid out so well, why were things going wrong? Where was he? Hurt? Dead? Divorced? The timing was crucial. He had to be there Saturday. Had to be.

I called in late to work the next day to try and see him at the college. Still not there. No red truck in the parking lot. I though about calling him, but no. If anything did happen, I didn’t need Miranda seeing my name on the caller ID. We live in a small town, and the rumors were probably already flying around like mosquitoes.

The next night would be my last chance. He missed every class of his that week (that I knew of). This would be our last chance to see each other before the weekend.

I was ten minutes early to class, so I could save our seats. I pretended to read while students trickled in around me. No Teddy. No Teddy. No Teddy.

Then, with seconds to spare, he swung into the room, slammed his books down, and practically threw his backpack to the floor. “Hey there,” I smiled at him.

He returned the smile, weakly, “Hey.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My wife’s a bitch, that’s what’s wrong.”

Those words. Those wonderful, breathtaking words. Not since Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” had the cherished hopes of human kind been so eloquently laid before us, a fitting light to guide our path.

“Haven’t seen you all week,” he said, “What’s been going on?

I had run this speech through my head a thousand times. I knew just what to say. “Now that you mention it…are you gonna watch the Daytona 500?”

And so, with a few deft movements, the plain was laid out perfectly. “I could use a night out of the house,” he said. We would meet at the party, so as not to arouse suspicion.

The teacher took the lectern, and just before she spoke, I put a finger up to my lips. At the time, I was trying to be coy, saying, “Let’s keep all this party business to ourselves.” Looking back, Teddy probably thought I wanted to pay attention.

I was off work the next day and drove 40 miles to the closest mall. I used to plod through the aisles of clothes like a child being forced to choose her switch from a fencerow: “Which of these items will hurt me the least?”

Now I was filled with a new confidence. I felt like I could look good in anything in the store. Every top I tried on seemed to show off my breasts, not my love handles. I bought a twenty-six dollar bottle of perfume. A light blue low-cut top: $31. A frilly skirt that reached just above my knees: $42. A matching light blue thong and bra: $28. But high expectations?

Priceless.

Saturday was the day, the day I would come alive. I resisted the temptation to drive around looking for his truck. This was like a wedding day, and it would be bad luck to be seen before the big moment.

The party was at six. I decided to arrive fashionably late, at 6:30. Then, around 11, the phone rang. “Teddy!” I thought madly, and lifted the receiver.

“Beth? This is Ken. Why aren’t you here?”

“Ken? What?” I was thrown off-balance. It was supposed to be Teddy on the other line. Ken was wrong. The universe was wrong here. “I don’t work today.”

“It’s on the schedule. Been posted all week.”

“No, that’s not right, I—” looked at my calendar. He was right. He was a prick, and he was right. I worked, 11 to 7. I always worked Saturdays. What the hell was wrong with me? “Shit. I’ll be in.”

I ran upstairs and threw on clothes befitting the dignity of a Wal-Mart cashier. In the flurry of tops thrown on my bed I wondered, why the hell didn’t I lie? Say I was sick, my grandma died, something. I’m so stupid, fucking stupid. I’d have to be late for the party.

I grabbed the hanger I carefully hang the skirt and top on last night. I’d have to wear the thong and bra to work. I checked myself out in the mirror, scooping hair and makeup supplies into my tote bag.

Three miles down the road I started crying and cussing and slapping the steering wheel and didn’t stop till I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

All day and night I kept running scenarios through my head. I would be late. Teddy would be early, anxious to see me. He’d leave ten minutes before I could make it there. I was dying one breath at a time.

The whole day I kept shifting my butt cheeks. I had never worn a thong before, and I hated it. How could women like having a string up their butt cracks all day? I needed to pick it, just pick, and pull that little fucker out. I don’t know what made me think I could be a thong-wearer, but I wasn’t that kind of animal. I scan items and scan them and scan them and all around me there are bright lights and smiley faces and people buying dog food and lousy movies and I can’t stop looking at the black balls filled with security cameras, thinking, Just pull that string out of your ass, Beth. One pull and you’ll feel so good.

Around six, one hour to go, and Brad comes through my line. I think he’s added a new face piercing, but I wouldn’t want to ask because of the three-paragraph story I’d get. He was buying some CD with a fat Chinese guy wearing a robe on the cover.

“Hey Beth, you look nice tonight,” he smiled.

Was this flirting? I can never tell. Not that it mattered. I had Teddy, Apollo in sneakers. Brad paid with a hundred. “Oh, Mister Moneybags!”

“Ah, it’s my mom’s money. The CD was only ten bucks, and I’m supposed to get KFC for the family on the way home.”

“Don’t you have a lot of brothers and sisters or something?”

“I’m the oldest of eight,” he said, with a sort of pride. “Well, I’m really the second-oldest, but my brother died when we were kids, so…”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Ah, don’t be. Shit happens. All right, you got a line here, so I’m gonna make like a tree and get outta here.” A moment passed, and he added, “Back to the Future.”

Reindeer Games

Forty-five minutes later, he returns, looking like someone just shot his puppy. He watched the floor, like he was trying to spot as four-leafed clover.

“Hey Beth, he asked, sweat pooling around his eyes, “Has anyone found, like eighty bucks in your line? Four twenties and some ones?”

I was ten minutes away from punching out at this point. I told him no, said we’d keep an eye out. “But honey,” I told him, “No one’s just gonna turn that kinda cash in.”

He looked at me soberly, near tears, and said, “I would.”

He left me, and those two words thudded into my heart like a stone.

Seven o’clock and I’m sprinting across the parking lot. They make the employees park in the rear of the lot, which is bullshit. After that woman was kidnapped after getting off her shift, all the Wal-Marts are supposedly supposed to provide security escorts to the car. Mine didn’t.

It was getting darker earlier. While the yellow purple above me was giving was to black, Teddy was sitting on a couch around a herd of NASCAR fans, looking back and forth between his watch and the door. Watch. Where’s Beth? Door. Where’s Beth?

I was slipping out of my work clothes and into a prettier me, with my doors locked. It’s hard to apply hair and makeup in a rear view mirror under an overhead light, but I was managing.

I started the car and my headlights shined on Brad, walking along the pavement, his eyes nailed to the ground. He was stepping carefully, as if he would miraculously spot his money among the Marlboro packs and soda cans that littered the parking lot.

People like him, who fucked up with their lives and weren’t afraid to parade it around in front of the world, pissed me off. Why couldn’t he just move on? It was money. He was never going to find it, so give up.

When I pulled up to Hannah’s, her driveway and yard were full of cars. The music was loud and I was thinking that the race was probably over already.

I let myself in, hoping to sneak in among the crowd before being spotted. Not only did I not want anyone to realize I was having an affair with Teddy, but no doubt Hannah would try to latch on to me.

And she found me.

“Oh my God!” she beamed in my face, alcohol on the fringes of her breath. “I can’t believe you came!” Everything was a shout, even though we weren’t that close to the stereo.

“Are you drunk?”

She made a small gap with her thumb and forefinger. “Lil’ bit. The kids are at grandma’s. You want a beer’s girlfriend?”

“Sure. Hey, who all’s here?”

“Oh man, everybody! I haven’t seen these people since school! And I still hate them all! I hate everybody but you!”

“Is Teddy here?”

“Oh my god, how did you know? It was so weird and random that he came at all. I haven’t seen him in, like forever. He’s playing cards in the garage. So do you want to play cornhole? It’s great, it’s—“

“I won’t keep you.” And with that I shot past her to the garage, which wasn’t easy. The place was wall-to wall with alumni from my school, and I had to stop every six or seven inches to say hi and hug people. Fucking fake fuckers. They didn’t care about me then, why would they now?

The garage was well lit with a TV set, couch, and two card tables. It was clearly the domain of men, but I saw some girls through the smoky air, mostly gathered at a second card table playing beer pong.

But then at the nearer table, playing euchre, was Teddy, my man. He was wearing a tight gray tee and had a ball cap on backwards. He was looking down at his cards, concentrating with a cigarette squeezed between his lips. There was an empty barstool behind him. Oh sweet destiny, guide my sail.

I threw my head next to his, “Hey!”

“Hey!” he said with a start, flicking some ashes. He played his card for the next trick.

There was no, “Where you been?” or “Gosh I was worried” or anything. He must have been mad at me. I sat on the stool, watching the game from over his shoulder. It was a pretty tight score, and all the men seemed pretty serious about winning. Always the competitor; he would never give up on life, even when it seemed like it had given up on him.

We were around friends, I figured. A small, public display of affection couldn’t hurt. His broad shoulders were rippling in front of me, and I stroked them with the tip of my finger. His back tensed, and some of the other fellas glanced at me, probably jealous. Receiving no protest, I continued, tracing my fingertip around his shoulders and down his spine. Maybe I could work this into a backrub later.

“What time is it?” Teddy asked the table. When the answer, “quarter till eight,” came back, he leaned forward, just out of my reach.

“I’m starting to get worried,” he said. He really took this game seriously. I scooted the stool closer to him, and took more liberties with him, stroking the sensitive hairs on the back of his neck.

“You should get a cell phone, “Matt Puckett said, “if it’s gonna be an issue.”

“I’m gonna call again,” he stood up, nearly knocking me over. “Hey Beth, play the hand out, would you?”

And he was gone, and there were three euchre players looking at me with expectant eyes. I sat down and took up his hand. “Where’d he go?”

“Probably to go call the wife,” came a short response. That made sense. Call the little woman and make an excuse to her, now that I’m here.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the door, like a puppy waiting for her master to come home. I really didn’t care about the game, and I’m not sure what cards I threw down. It was pronounced, after two more hands, that my partner and I were losers, and I left the table without a word to find him. He hadn’t seen my outfit yet, and we had a romantic walk to take.

I found him in a remote corner, sitting on a chair holding a cordless phone. “Hey,” I aid for the hundredth time that night.”

“Hey,” he said back again, still not noticing my outfit. I slipped onto his lap, still not feeling like myself.

“You want to go for a walk?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on. It’s a nice night.”

“God Beth, what the hell do you want from me? I said no. Fuck!”

The words came from the sky like lightning and burned a hot reality into the back of my brain. A hard, sinking slag of molten rock fell down my spine and settled in my stomach. I did get the fuck off him. Then I walked out of the room. Through the house, out the door. It was raining outside, and I bumped into a pretty woman with big hair and too much makeup on the porch.

“Beth?” she asked, and I saw it was Miranda. My fantasy rival. She kept her figure she looked like a model. “Hey, Teddy said you were still around. Is he inside?”

I didn’t want to do it. I had to do it. I hated her so much, almost as much as I hated myself. I exploded in a fit of tears, smearing the careful makeup I had applied in the car. She took me into her arms, like I was one of her kids. She was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her. I felt the words resonate through our chests like warm echoes, and I peeled away from her and walked into the rain.

I had to park far away because there were so many cars, and the rain was soaking through my blouse, my bra, my thong. Behind me there was a party and music, a place where wall-to-wall morons were forgetting themselves and drinking the nectars of life. Oh, how I wanted to be one of them, but I never could. I could never let go of myself like that, just be an ordinary person, a happy wanderer. Because wherever I went, I’d have to bring me with me.

You lie, you sham, you absolute waste of bone and breath.

Why couldn’t I be the person that he needed? Just once, I want to be enough for someone, even myself. We’re taught a lie, geeks like me. We’re told since high school that we will inherit the earth, that our brains and creativity will win the day. All these gifts do is show us the particulars of why life is unlivable. Meanwhile, the happy wanderers go to parties and have sex and meet beautiful people and seem to understand each other.

People like me are born, and die, deeply alone.

Higher Education

Meetings at Mecca

Friday Night Line-Up

God’s Office

The Plan

Reindeer Games

The Engine