Gimme Fiction: "But You're Down In Marietta" (Pt. II)

[Click here for Pt. I... ]

Southern tap water was a lousy beverage but an excellent truth serum. Dee had slipped two ice cubes in a glass, waved it under the faucet and placed it in front of him. Jimmy hadn't stopped talking since.

"... so I hadn't been thinking about it much, not really. Helping Chuck down at the shop. Fixing up the Challenger. Getting lit up when I could, wishing I was when I couldn't. But I just sort of had this... feeling... like when the tag on a new shirt won't stop scratching, scratching, scratching at the back of your neck? Except I couldn't just, you know, snip it out with fingernail clippers. Because it felt like everything just... sucked. Ever get that feeling?"

"Actually, I've been very happy lately," said Dee, atonal, unwilling to meet his eyes. She paced the little wood-paneled kitchen. She shuffled the collection of shot glasses on the corner shelf. She washed the same fork once, twice, three times before flinging it into the dish rack. Each small nicety - an extra ice cube, a potholder to tuck beneath his swollen wrist - was delivered silently and grudgingly. Her brain had tried and failed to thwart her body's kindnesses and was more than a bit pissed off at the fact. The uncharacteristic quiet was a coping mechanism. Jimmy had seen it hundreds of times. She slammed the doors shut, flung the windows closed, defied the twister to implode her rather than carry her away.

He'd never known what to say. It was perversely comforting to see that this hadn't changed. Not with tears, not with time, not with their freshly altered existences… his slow disintegration, her eagerness to remount the marital steed which had not only thrown but trampled the shit out of both of them. It'd been a year and change since he'd seen her face. The days melted away, however, the second he opened his mouth and said exactly the wrong thing.

"I'm not here to, you know, fuck up your little domestic bliss situation, Dee," he began, "I'm sure you and Darrell and your two Cuisinarts are real happy – "

"He's Derek. They're KitchenAids, " snapped Dee, "Even if we've got some redundancy issues and one of them is charcoal instead of crimson like it said right there on the damned registry, yes, I love him, he loves me and I can't for the life of me figure out where you fit into the picture. Other than maybe raising our homeowner's premiums with your friggin' acrobatics." She slapped her hand against the thick oak tabletop, startling Jimmy. It wasn't until she'd paced over to the stovetop and begun chipping off a fleck of carbon that he noticed the two Advil. He spun one around with a fingernail. Looking up, he ventured a crooked smile.

"I'm guessing... that means... you're not gonna want to pack a bag and head back up north with me?"

"Oh, good christ, Jimmy...". He locked eyes with her. She crossed her arms tightly, scooted backwards against the sink. But she didn't avert his gaze. She was monumentally lovely in her polyester kimono and her uneasiness. Each little imperfection made her deeper, more complex, closer to the masterpiece than the rough sketch. Yet again, Jimmy was smitten. He'd been smitten for years. Sometimes it smoldered - like while he was rediscovering his bachelorhood, ekeing an existence from cases of Busch Lite and payday loans. Other times, it blazed with a fury.

The match had been lit when Dee's cousin Shirleen had called. The flames started small... flitting over his heart, leaving the odd soot-streaked ventricle. He’d tried to ignore it, flinging the phone behind the couch and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. The attempt lasted for three hours, two six-packs and six exploitative reality TV shows. By the time he staggered away from "World's Most Lethal Conversion Vans", the damage had been done. The combination of ethanol and introspection had kindled a massive wall of flame within his chest cavity. He was crying when he got in the car, sobbing when he fueled up at the BP. By the time he hit I-95, he was leaning out the window, howling her name, only occasionally followed by, "... you fucking bitch!"

"I meant what I said. I could give a fuck what we said and did, how long it's been, how... how... married you are," said Jimmy, "I kinda knew it all along... I just needed a little help remembering. Thank Christ for your meddling cousin."

"Goddamned Shirleen," said Dee, sinking into the chair beside him and fiddling with a loose curler, "I advised that bitch to keep her beak in her own seed dish back before we even booked the DJ. What’d she say?"

"Oh, nothing much," said Jimmy, "How was I doing, blah blah blah, Cheryl had her twins, blah blah blah, family misses me, blah blah blah, oh, and didja hear that Dee remarried?" He ran his hands through his hair, a sticky, inky mess after eight hours of highway driving.

"Oh, god. I'm... I'm...", stammered Dee.

"I'm sorry, too, baby," said Jimmy, fresh tears springing to his eyes, "But I'm not sorry I came, not at all. Looking at you... shit, I love you so hard I can't even take it. I know he can't love you like that... like you need. So what if some words got said, some bottles got thrown - "

"It was a full magnum of cheap red," sighed Dee, "I still remember you giving me shit about it while you spackled over the hole in the wall so we could get our security deposit back."

Jimmy smiled, "Woman, throw the entire south of fuckin' France at me if you want. I need you. You need me. I knew as soon as I heard that he wasn't right for you, and I sure as shit know it now. Look at your hands."

Dee swallowed and wiggled five crimson-slicked fingers in the air. "What about them?"

"Look how smooth they are. Those are girl hands, Dee. When was the last time you gapped a spark plug, or smoked a joint, or climbed a chain-link fence you weren't technically s'posed to?"

Dee scowled. For a second, Jimmy braced himself for another head injury. Dee was within reach of a NASCAR cookie jar which looked like top-notch concussion material. For once, however, she elected to leave his cranium unscathed. If he specialized in the wrong words, Dee was a Zen master of the unexpected.

"Were you serious about me going back with you, Jimmy?"

He'd been in shock once before... he and his younger brother had been swordfighting with old lawnmower parts behind his grandfather's shed; Dougie had managed to hack a decent-sized divot of flesh from his forearm. That had been over a decade (and numerous tetanus shots) ago, but the sensation was identical. Time momentarily froze,. then began to thaw and drip. Even in mid-July, you still felt frostbitten... numb and chilly and slow.

"I… I never thought you'd... well, do anything but smack the shit out of me for asking. But... I... I would be... so damned happy, baby. You've got no idea. No idea whatsoever.”

“Oh, I might,” she said. Her hand shot out – Jimmy flinched for a second – and she pressed the tip of her index finger lightly against his palm. It was the smallest touch which could still be called a touch... a centimeter of flesh spelling things big enough to require a freeway billboard.

“Wait here. Wait here for me, just a minute. Shit, we’ve waited this long,” said Dee. She stood up fast, knocked a Cabela’s catalog off the table. Her eyes glimmered and her breath hitched. She tore from the room, shiny roses fluttering behind her.

Jimmy’s mind, hovering somewhere near the dusty ceiling tiles, watched his body pick up the Cabela’s catalog, watched it flip idly through the camo and crossbows. He shifted his wrist on the potholder, drummed his fingers against the table, whiled away the minutes as Dee scurried around the house. He reached up with his good hand and traced the goose-egg throbbing away merrily behind his left temple. He listened to Dee fling open the front screen door, and he talked to himself.

“You know this isn’t gonna end well.”

“Never tends to, does it?”

“Then why the fuck do you keep trying, super-genius?”

“Because I love her.”

“You love whatever part of her she shows you, good buddy. Lotta makeup and obfuscation with that one. Hey, that’s a Dee word right there…”

“Rather have part of her than all of some other ditzy bitch.”

“Would you rather be marched out of here in handcuffs?”

“Oh, shit.”

He whipped his head around and stared at the window. Blue lights… flashing instead of flickering this time, discreetly announcing the presence of a police cruiser in the driveway. He heard Dee’s voice, an octave higher and a good deal dumber than before.

“... don’t be too rough with him, Hank. Think he’s just a little jealous and lovesick and, well, probably drunk.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dee. Happens all the damned time. Not even going to say to whom, on account of their husbands are still mighty pissed, but it happens. Where’s he at?”

“Sittin’ in that little breakfast nook you and Leon helped Derek put in last summer. Making no sense and not making for the door when asked, either.”

“Oh, lordy. When’s the old boy getting back, then?”

“Monday, and it can’t come soon enough. The dogs and I have had enough excitement for one weekend.”

“Okay, then, Dee. Let’s do this. Just wait right here for me.”

The rest of the conversation was comprised of inaudible murmurs; Jimmy had flung his good arm over his head, which was resting against the tabletop. Holding it upright had suddenly become a good deal harder than usual. He breathed deeply (varnish? Varnish. Bastard probably finished the damned thing himself…) and waited for the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the questions, the long harsh hours to come. He thought of what he’d tell Officer Hank. The heavy hand fell on his shoulder before he’d made up his mind; he tried out various lines as Hank nudged him towards the squad car.

“Betty Lou Homemaker in there went to Vassar, y’know.”

“I don’t give a fuck. I’ll love her ‘til the day I die.”

“Goddamned... fucking... fucking... fuck!”

“I was working two jobs back then, we were living on ramen and sex, it was never enough for her, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t exactly what I... what I...”

He trailed off, the thought completed with a little half-sob. Office Hank rolled his eyes. “I’ll letcha choose the radio station if you promise not to yap so much once you’re in the car.”

“... country,” hiccupped Jimmy.

“It’s all country around here, bucko.”

“Well, when in Rome... apparently...”

She was standing on the porch as they pulled away, scowling and batting magnolia petals from her hair. A vision of dewy luminosity, awash in pale sunlight and Patsy Cline. If he squinted hard enough, the sparkles playing across her perfect cheekbones almost looked like tears.