Written in Iowa City, 1993
[Click here to start at Chapter 1]
[Click here for Table of Contents]
Jack found himself finishing his third whiskey back at Sedgewick Tavern.
“Another?” the bartender asked, reaching for Jack’s glass. He seemed a nice enough guy, but could anybody really tell their tale of woe to a man in a three-pointed hat?
“I’m okay, thanks,” Jack said.
He slid off his stool and back out onto the colonial street. It was at least 6:30, everyone was at dinner, except for Jack. They had missed their reservation. Or maybe Ramona had gone without him. For all he knew, she could be there right now, watching them roast a goddamned pheasant.
There was not a single, blessed Pepsi can to be kicked as he shuffled along, no half-finished McDonald’s shake he could stomp down into an explosive, creamy mess.
Not knowing where to go, wondering if he should take the bus back to NYC even, he stumbled upon the last store on the last street. There was a mixing device in the window winding to a stop, the green gunk clinging to its mechanical arms was ready for consumption. It was the Olde Taffy store, Jonas Kibble’s place.
Jack imagined smashing the window, ripping the mechanical arm off the taffy machine and going apeshit on the whole goddamned store. There were two children inside standing before the display case, much like in the photograph Jack had seen earlier. Little did they know that, not too long before, good old Jonas had dealt in used firearms and pawned wedding bands instead of taffy. They saw only the promise of the dainty, sugary cylinders wrapped in yellow, blue, and green. They could almost taste the sweet juices gathering in their tiny mouths as they chewed and chewed and chewed.
Then, from behind the counter, came that horrendous, guttural voice, like a fork jammed in a trash compactor:
“You gonna look at the candy or buy the candy?”
Just what Jack needed at the end of a monumentally lousy day, Stan himself, his least favorite person in the city of Kingston. Old feelings of injustice at having been taken by this guy, mixed with new feelings of unfairness that a guy like Stan was still finding a way to thrive in whatever Kingston had become.
But then something occurred to Jack. That voice, that attitude, disgusting and loathsome as it might be, was the same voice Jack knew from childhood. Stan was the one thing that hadn’t changed.
Jack went running into the store. “Stan!”
“Who the hell are you?”
“You probably won’t remember me,” Jack said trying to catch his breath, “I used to come into your store when I was a kid, you sold me a single pick-up electric—”
“Whadda you want,” he grunted.
“I don’t want anything. I just want to hear you talk. All day long, blacksmiths, glassblowers, horses and bullshit—you’re the only proof I’ve had all day that I’m not losing my mind. You know what I mean?”
The children’s mother leaned nervously into the store and called for them to come out. They took one look at Jack raving there and left without argument.
“Wait, lady, I have no idea who this crackpot is,” Stan called, but to no avail. He turned back to Jack, “Okay, that’s it, out now or I call a cop.”
“Look, Stan, have you ever read Alvin Toffler?”
“Are you deaf? Get out!”
“Just listen to me for a second, there’s this thing Toffler wrote about called Future Shock, where everything changes but you. Stan, you’ve lived in this town longer than I have, look what they’ve don’t to it, doesn’t it drive you crazy? How do you live with it?”
Stan at this point did something entirely unprecedented, he reached over the counter and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder. In an astoundingly collected voice he said, “Okay, kid, calm down, just calm down. Take a few deep breaths.”
“But—“
“Breathe!”
Jack, uncertain of what else to do, followed Stan’s advice. Stan kept his hand resting on Jack’s shoulder while Jack stood there, breathing. They looked each other in the eyes for the first time.
“Look, pal,” Stan said, “you got somewhere to go?”
“I did, but I don’t think my girlfriend wants to see me right now.”
“I knew it was a woman.”
“No, you don’t understand, it’s just—“
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Listen to me, I don’t care what you did, just go apologize.”
“How did you know I—“
“Come up with some romantic gesture, ask for her forgiveness, be done with it…now get the hell out of my store.”
It couldn’t be that simple, could it?
“You think I should?” Jack said.
“GO!!”
# # #
The sun was setting as Jack crept into Rita Anderson’s backyard. He found a ladder resting beside her garage and trampled a few of her dahlias getting it over to the house. He propped it with a thunk against the siding just below Heather Hochstetler’s old bedroom window.
Balancing three boxes of taffy and a bouquet of flowers, he began the perilous ascent to the second story. He’d climbed maybe five rungs when Ramona, who’d been sitting on the front porch with Rita the whole time, leaned over the railing, looked back, and saw him.
“Jack, what the hell are you doing?”
“Ramona, go up to the room.”
“Jack I don’t know what you—“
“It’s a romantic gesture,” he said, halfway up the ladder, “now will you please go up to the room?”
Steam was all but coming out of her ears but she stomped upstairs and threw open the sash just as Jack was reaching the top of the ladder.
“Here,” he said handing her the bouquet, “these too,” he added handing her the boxes of taffy. “Now could you throw’m on the bed and give me a hand?”
She yanked him probably harder than he would’ve liked, he sailed past her and onto the floor. He brushed himself off as he stood back up.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said.
“So have you,” he said. They could smell it on each other’s breath.
“Rita and I have been commiserating on the front porch. Now do you mind telling me what you’re doing?”
“I’m kidnapping you, it’s a romantic gesture.”
“I don’t want to be kidnapped, Jack.”
Ignoring her, Jack recklessly set about stuffing their clothing into their bags. Ramona played tug of war over a few items, but he persisted until he got the bags packed and zipped, at which point he threw them out the open window. Then he went for Ramona.
She kicked her legs and beat on his back as he threw her over his shoulder. There were several techniques she could have employed had he been an actual attacker but she restrained herself.
Jack, growing winded more quickly than he thought he would, wound up setting her back down when he realized there was no freaking way he was going to be able to carry her down the ladder. He kept his arms around her.
“Look,” he said, “I know I said something stupid before and I’m sorry, okay? I’m really sorry.”
Ramona brought her arms up through his and with a single outward thrust broke free of his grasp and sent him falling back onto the bed. “It’s gonna take more than a feeble apology if you think I’m going to have anything to do with you, you’ve been nothing but a big jerk all weekend.”
“I know, I admit it,” he said standing up from the bed. “You were trying to do something nice for us and I blew it, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. But you know how I get, it’s hard for me not to be critical sometimes.”
“Well you went too far, Jack, especially with this different plane of reality shit. What was that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t mean to insult you, Ramona, we’re just different people, that’s all.”
“Thank God,” she said, folding her arms and turning to look out the window.
“Look,” he said, approaching her more slowly this time, putting an arm around her waist, “if I climb out first will you follow me?”
“What are you trying to prove, Jack, we can’t go doing this to Rita.”
Ramona had developed an additional fondness for Rita, having by now over gin heard all about a messy divorce among other things. Rita had landed on her feet in this nice house. And yet, she was alone.
“Just trust me, will you?” Jack asked.
Ramona gave him the eyes which managed to smile slightly while still conveying the urge to kill. Jack knew this look, it meant she was on the verge of putting him on probation. The slightest dick move on his part would cause her instantaneously to revert back to being majorly pissed.
“Can we just take the stairs?” she asked.
Jack smiled, he knew he’d got her. He grabbed the taffy on his way out the window. “Would you mind grabbing the flowers?” he said.
Rita was standing on the lawn watching with disbelief as two loonies climbed down the side of her picture-perfect home in the fading light of day.
“Nothing personal, Rita,” Jack said, grabbing the bags as he headed for the car.
“I’m sorry Rita, we’ll be back.”
“No we won’t,” Jack called.
“I’ll call you,” Ramona whispered.
She turned to Jack in the car, “You’re as drunk as I am,” she said.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far.”
Jack drove back out near the Thruway to the Holiday Inn. There were various sorts of colonial crap hanging on the paneled walls of the red carpeted lobby but it was your basic Holiday Inn just the same.
Soon they were in a room with a bed that didn’t squeak. Jack opened Ramona’s shirt button by button, kissing her skin as it was exposed to the dark, rented air. Ramona, stretching back, laid a languid arm across her forehead and said, somewhat lazily, “You know something, I’m kind of hungry.”
“We’ll order out.”
As he worked his way to her belly button she reached down and started playing with his hair. “You know, Jack, we can’t always solve all our problems by having sex.”
“I know,” he said.
They did anyway.
Interesting how deluxe heritage-based Bed&Breakfast rooms drain one of all sexual energy, while "dark, rented air" of cheap roadside motels unleashes our most primal urges.