Large Animals in Everyday Life Read online

  “Take a lesson from Lafitte,” Dallas’s mother said. “On the road, he found what he was looking for all those years.” Before his death, Uncle Lafitte had invented, marketed, and made famous throughout the Panhandle a powder that took the itch right out of your skin. He had sold a riding mower to a blind man who had bumped into it while trying to find the store’s rest room. He’d sold a stereo system to an old couple so deaf they had to lie on the floor of the store with their heads next to the speakers in order to hear anything. But Dallas knew no one would ever buy anything from him, and he felt anyway that his own life must be stupid peas compared to whatever would make a man drink tequila. He hated tequila. If Lafitte were alive, he would probably pace once around Dallas’s tiny apartment and spit. “What is your exact problem this instant?” Dallas’s mother said.

  “I can’t take a shower,” Dallas said.

  After he hung up with his mother he immediately dialed Donna Long. “When am I allowed to take a shower?” he said, as soon as she answered.

  “This ain’t Donna,” the woman’s voice said.

  “Great,” Dallas said. “Well, I have to go to work, so where is she?”

  “You that Texas guy?” the woman said. “Boy, I’m still waiting to hear the end of you. You better watch it. Wink at her once and she’ll be moving in the piano, the chandelier, and all the fine china.”

  “Wait, oh my God,” Dallas said. “Donna has a piano?”

  “Figure of speech,” the woman said. “I’ll give her your message.” She hung up.

  Dallas went to his shower and looked at the hole. It was the size of two tiles and its edges were uneven with crumbling dry-wall and bits of mildewed caulking. It reminded him of a wound. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to put his hand into it.

  He worked the lunch shift unshowered, his forehead shining with oil. He could certainly have washed his face in his sink, but this hadn’t occurred to him at the time. Feeling oily, he was subdued and preoccupied, and a couple of Suzanne’s buddies started calling him “Mr. Business.” Suzanne herself kept her usual distance, though this time Dallas felt that Donna, rather than he himself, was to blame.

  He had a full three hours off between lunch and dinner, but he drove back to his apartment weaving and swearing as though someone were having his baby there. The Impala shone snazzily under a maple. “Thank God,” Dallas said.

  Inside, he heard low quick talking, a hoarse unfamiliar voice. But he could see Donna’s heavy legs, it had to be her. She was sitting on his bed, using his phone. “No, because I’ll be gone,” she was saying. “I’m fixing to leave, do you understand me? Goodbye, dude.” But she didn’t hang up. Her voice sounded like a little girl’s. “I would too,” she said. “Texas. So think about that. You didn’t think about that, did you? Did you? I didn’t think you did.”

  Dallas stood in the bedroom doorway and pretended to sneeze.

  “Dude, shit,” Donna said, and hung up so hard that the ringer dinged. Her face was wet, guilty, desperate. She stared past him, over him, then back at the floor.

  “It’s okay, you can use the phone, it wasn’t long distance, was it?” Dallas said. Her face looked swollen, distorted in places, and he forgot what he’d been planning to say.

  “It was local,” she sobbed. She bent her head down over her knees and her yellow doll hair made a smooth upside-down bowl. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she cried into her knees.

  “Hey, whatever,” Dallas said. He was relieved that her blackened eyes were now hidden from his view. Nothing about her crying here in his bedroom seemed real. He had no idea what was required of him.

  “Nothing ever works out for me,” she cried into her knees. “It’s not fair, man, you know?”

  “Maybe if you didn’t try so hard,” Dallas said. “You know, you’re a pretty intense person.”

  She snapped her head up and looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?” she said.

  “I just mean, you know, you might be giving people the wrong impression,” he said. “People get uncomfortable …”

  She rose and pushed past him in a wind of deodorant soap. “I’ll come back,” she muttered.

  He stood for a while in the middle of his living room when she was gone. Finally he went and checked the bathroom, but the hole was still there, gaping at him. He stared at it, squinting, trying to see it as smaller, but it wasn’t. It was an innocent-looking hole, but he could picture the geyser that might explode from it, should he turn on the faucet. Then a terrible thought came to him and he sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

  It could not be her sister punching her. He’d seen her sister once, and she was tiny, she looked twelve. How could he have forgotten? She had come by to drop off some pliers Donna had forgotten, and when he saw her coming up the walk he had thought she was a Girl Scout coming with cookies. It was a man hurting her, someone like Bill Laimbeer, the kind of man Lafitte would have whipped, would have laughed at Dallas for not whipping—he pictured her trailer littered with broken dishes, like in a TV movie. Poor Donna! He looked back at the hole. Unless Donna has another sister, the hole seemed to say.

  He went quickly to his telephone, glancing over his shoulder as though he were going to steal something. He dialed Donna’s number, craning his neck to keep an eye on the front door, in case she should come back in with her passkey. He didn’t think to plan what to say, and when the woman’s twangy voice suddenly said, “Hello,” he was startled.

  “How big are you?” he whispered.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said, and hung up.

  This sobered him. There was nothing to do but go back to work. He thought of leaving her a note: I didn’t mean anything bad by what I said. Take your time with the shower. I will do whatever I can to help. And maybe he would do something small in the meantime, like get her some more peanuts. He ran a damp washcloth over his face and up and down his arms, whistling a quick, nervous version of what he was sure was “I Missed Me.” The end part sounded like “Pop Goes the Weasel,” but the rest he was sure he had down. He smelled good, and except for his hair, which waved unnaturally out on the sides like wings, he looked fine. He was dying to tell someone about the drama all around him and he drove back to work as wildly as he’d driven home.

  “You look different,” Suzanne remarked to him during a lull.

  He could not remember her ever initiating a conversation before, but tonight it didn’t surprise him. “I know,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on with my shower.”

  “I thought you got your hair cut,” Suzanne said, yawning. She was leaning against an empty wine rack in the kitchen, looking as though she wanted to go take a nap.

  “No, but I’ve been helping my friend Donna,” Dallas said. “Her husband’s a Neanderthal. I think he’s some kind of trucker. She’s been staying with me. She said she feels safer that way.” He had not known he was going to say any of this until he said it, but as he said it it seemed true.

  “That’s nice,” Suzanne said, and yawned.

  “It was the least I could do,” Dallas said.

  “Uh huh,” Suzanne said. She shut her eyes, showing pearl-shaded lids.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” Dallas said. He wanted her to open her eyes.

  “What?” she said. Her lids did not twitch.

  “Do I smell different to you?” he said. He thrust his wrist under her nose, actually brushing it against her soft upper lip. He was aware that it was the first time he’d ever touched her.

  She jerked back, knocking the wooden rack over against the wall. “Get away from me!” she said. Two white-aproned cooks turned their heads and stared.

  Dallas lowered his arm and stood there. Suzanne blushed and busily righted the wine rack, not looking at him. “Phone!” someone called from the front, and she shot through the silver swinging door. Dallas waited for the door to stop swinging, ignoring the cooks, who were still watching him, and went and stared at Suzanne through the door
’s greasy porthole. He could see her profile, her lips moving in a measured way, but he couldn’t hear her over the noise of the mixers and kitchen fans. He felt a blush deep in him that wanted to rise to his face, but something heavy and stubborn was holding it down.

  • • •

  He had forgotten to leave any lights on. He walked through the dark to his room and went directly to bed. The heaviness in him was like a fever, and he fell into a busy, dreaming sleep. He was with Robin Hood, riding on an old upright piano that was sinking into a swamp. They were trying to get to Suzanne, but they got everywhere too late. They boarded a plane the shape of a needle, but the plane would not fly with Dallas on it. Then he was at the wedding again, watching Lafitte and the knowing, unreachable whipped cream. “Don’t just stand there,” Lafitte shouted at him. “Grab her now before your grab is gone!” Lafitte’s eyes bulged whitely, and Dallas jumped back, horrified. The man was dead. He turned and Donna was right behind him, her flannel arms open, and he pressed himself into them, sobbing. The flannel smelled like a memory. “Let me stay with you,” he sobbed, his throat aching, and she tightened her arms around him, pressing him close to her large body.

  He woke up sweating, deeply embarrassed. He thought immediately of quitting his job. He wondered if what he’d done to Suzanne could legally be considered anything. He was pretty sure it could not be, but this didn’t make him feel any better. He had until dinner to decide what to do.

  In the bathroom the smooth wall shocked him. It was perfect, not even a crumb of putty, as though nothing had ever happened. He touched the tile as gingerly as if it were a face, then turned on the faucet to make sure it worked. A pink Post-It note was stuck on the mirror: Sorry for the inconvenience—forgot to say it was OK to use it. I meant to tell you. Have a nice day. Donna Long.

  “Thank you,” he said aloud, running his hands under the hot water. The water felt wonderful, better than regular water, and he felt something turn over in his chest. He wanted to thank her. He had to thank her. He left the tap on and ran to the bedroom, the telephone. They would take a trip! They would drive off to Texas together in the royal-blue Chevy called Destiny. They would sit in the roomy front seat together like grandparents, enjoying enormous Texas sunsets through the windshield. They could even sleep in the car if they had to, in each other’s arms, and having finally caught up with fate, he would be reminded of nothing at all when he smelled her soapy, flannel smell. They would leave Suzanne and Robin Hood and the restaurant and the trailer full of broken dishes behind them forever. He would do all the cooking.

  “She’s gone,” the woman’s flat voice said.

  “You mean she went out?” Dallas said. “When will she be back?”

  “She left town,” the woman said. “But she said she got you all taken care of.”

  “No, this isn’t about my drain,” Dallas said. “Where did she go? Vacation?”

  “She just left,” the woman said. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business. You got another problem with your drain?”

  “No!” Dallas shouted.

  “I’ll give her your message,” the woman said, and hung up.

  Dallas sat on the bed, his heart still pounding, the water still rushing in the bathroom. He was not going to give up. It was different this time, he knew her last name, he wouldn’t need the reverse phone book, even if there were one. He could follow her, or he could wait. If he waited, surely she’d come back. And if she didn’t come back right away, he could quit his job anyway. He didn’t ever have to see Suzanne again. He didn’t ever have to return. His heart pounded all around him, filling the apartment with sound and movement. He had until the dinner shift to decide what to do.

  undisclosed location

  I said yes to Borden’s proposition because I was vulnerable; I’d just been turned down for a job at the local rodeo as one of the girls in shorts and boots who get the crowd excited by pretending to rescue the clowns from the bull. I was after some color and action, anything but typing, and I already owned a pair of quality boots, but this was an insider’s job—you had to know a cowboy, or at least a clown. Plenty of girls had hand-tooled, snake-trimmed boots like mine, or so the smirking rodeo administrator said. He seemed not to like my looks. So, back home, when fat Borden hissed at me from his doorway, his big gleaming face and shirtfront filling the crack between door and jamb, I stopped. Usually I tried to cat-foot across his landing, a tough trick on our building’s old hollow hardwood stairs, but this time I was already resigned, and still wearing my fancy, clunky boots from the rodeo interview.

  “Hey, CeCe, stop a minute,” he said. “Where you been? Those are nice boots you got, none of that endangered shit, right? Listen, I got something you ain’t gonna believe.” He always said this, and it could mean anything: macaroons, a ceiling leak, new mollies in his tank, Kristy McNichol all grown up on TV. He worked late nights watching over the parking lot of a small-time chemical plant, and spent his days, as far as I could tell, sauntering heavily around his apartment, turning his appliances off and on and looking out the window. When I came up the block he would often appear there, wave, and then let the curtain fall briskly, as though he had to get back to some top secret business or lingerie model in his bed. Of course I knew that wasn’t the case—his girlfriend showed up sometimes in the afternoons, and she was faded-looking, bottom-heavy. She wore a droopy uniform tied with an orange sash, and her name, Frieda, in orange italics across the breast pocket, and though I recognized this as some fast-food getup, I hoped vaguely for his sake that she was something more like a crossing guard—kind, maternal, respectable.

  “What can I do for you, Borden?” I said. The canned spaghetti smell of his apartment drifted out and surrounded us, filling the hall.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I noticed you been around a lot lately, and I thought maybe you were between jobs.”

  “Actually, this is my paid vacation,” I told him. It was true. I’d set an office record by holding the position of typist for three years, so they’d given me this—nothing sparkly or engraved, but a week. Borden didn’t have to know how I was spending it, looking for work in rodeos and water parks and petting zoos.

  “Well, more power to you,” he said. “God bless. You enjoy yourself, okay?” He ran a crumpled, cornucopia-patterned paper towel over his brow.

  I could have gotten away then, but for some reason I asked him what he had wanted.

  He flushed, lit up. “I need a house-sitter,” he said. “Starting Monday, for a month. Maybe your cute friend with the Mantra? She sure is a sweet thing.” He meant my best friend Jeannie, who was pointy and petite and drove an Opel Manta.

  “She’s full-time at the bank now, and she’s busy planning her wedding,” I said. “So she’s not available. So what’s up, Borden? Everything okay? Where are you going?” In two years I doubted he’d ever spent more than twelve hours at a stretch away from his place.

  “Undisclosed location,” he said. He glowed strangely; drugs occurred to me.

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Are you sick?”

  “No, just trust me,” he said. “Why do you always look so suspicious? Jeez, you’re like what’s her name, ‘Murder She Wrote.’ Listen, you just gotta keep up the aquarium. I’ll give you seven bucks a week, that’s a buck a day. You don’t have to stay here or nothing. I know you got a busy life. You can bring your cute friend over if you want, though.”

  I pictured Jeannie’s evil grin, her small hands rifling through his personal belongings. She referred to him as Elsie. “Okay, Borden,” I said. “Show me what you want me to do.”

  “I gotta show you later,” he said. “I got a meeting.” He stepped out and shut and locked his door. I stood there on the landing watching his fat back, his baggy hips retreating down the stairs. FBI, I thought. America’s Most Wanted. Something Anonymous. Betty Ford.

  The next morning, there he was, unbelievably, in the paper, holding a giant reproduction of a check from Florida Lotto like
a clown’s prop: 2.4 million dollars. His happy, grainy face was the size of my thumb. Thomas Borden, read the caption, thirty-two, and I was shocked; I’d thought that Borden was his only name—like Dopey or Dumbo—and also that he was years and years older than me. There was no story, only the paragraph-long caption, which noted that this particular win was especially poignant and thrilling because of the death of Borden’s parents in a house fire four years previous. Things were finally taking a turn for the better for Borden. He was quoted: “My advice to everyone is keep playing Lotto, don’t give up. You never know when the ball will start to roll in your direction.” His grin looked knowing and wholesome, instead of fat and sad.

  “Seven bucks a week,” I said out loud. I thought of my mother, who’d recently had to have a marble-sized lump removed, and then there was a distant cousin of mine whose baby got a fever and could now no longer speak: I deserved to win. But those items weren’t bad enough to go in a caption, and neither were the real items of my life: my stuck-up sailor boyfriend getting sick of me, for instance, saying he had to “move on” because I “lacked serious ambition,” when I’d only started dating him as a joke, a game, something to tell Jeannie—sailor seeming as believable a profession to me as pirate or lion tamer or Indian chief. Or the rodeo man, a stranger, deciding I was too ugly to save clowns. Or Jeannie, the wild one of us, shopping for rings with her professor. Looking at Borden’s smudgy 2-D face, I felt panic, realizing that if he won, no one else I knew could ever win; Borden, only Borden, was the one among us who deserved to win.