Harness

Harness

by Sam Ford

In the beginning it was gravy. But ain’t it always. It was you and Rainey and Donna Sue at Walker’s for a little singer-songwriter action. He was third on the bill. Jeans all beat to hell and back. Work boots. Fuckin’ trucker hat. It was either well designed or he’d just gotten off his shift. Either way you were watching. He wasn’t no John Lennon that’s for shit-sure. All country chords and a voice somewhere between the Man in Black and a medium sized dog howling at a quarter moon. But he’d seen some things and they showed up in the words. He sang about his father’s daily bourbon, his mother’s hair gone gold to grey. He sang about love failing time and time again like a blind clown trying to juggle. He sang about his hometown feeling less and less like home and more and more like a tomb.

His little set ended. People clapped. Some scratched their faces, took a drink. You clapped.

His Harmony Sovereign was covered in nicks and dings, checked all to hell. It looked like leprosy. He put it in its case. The case had a sticker on it: BORN BLUE.

“I’m Jenny,” you said, putting your hand out for his.

“Hey Jenny,” he said. “I’m Wayne.” He took that hand.

You offered to buy him a drink. You offered to buy him a drink. Sometimes irony don’t show its iron until it’s too late.

You dropped fast; a butterfly colony in your duodenum. It wasn’t immediately clear how far gone he got, but he hadn’t smiled once on that stage and all he could seem to do was smile for you.

It was tequila. Rainey and Donna Sue were in for one. Then they left. You and Wayne at the bar. He needed a shave that wasn’t coming anytime soon. You wanted to be the one to shave him. In the morning and then breakfast. His eyes were like old tooled leather, the patina set in and sad. You were wearing a dress and he complimented you on it. Said good dresses were an endangered species. And that young women never wore ‘em anymore. He said “young women.” You laughed and he took a drink and he laughed. And then when you both stopped laughing you looked right at each other. And that was it.

At the Traveler’s Inn his legs were hairy and his lips were soft and alive. Against the wall you pinned each other. You put your tongue on him and felt his bones rattle. He was a dark sombitch though. Not very audible and you couldn’t help but wonder how hot you had him. But he got you good. Strong shoulders and his kiss told you things. You held him like a sparrow fallen from the nest. Be my boyfriend. Boyfriend. Last beyond this. You wandered in your heart.

Half booze, half first impression, you stretched the bed that night. You were there with him but couldn’t come all the way; he was still stranger enough. Could almost feel your father frowning at you, dipping his salisbury steak in the mashed potatoes and shaking his head, a gruff exhale popping from his nostrils. You kept your eyes open. The ceiling was like curdled cottage cheese. You could feel ghosts in the motel room, fucked to death and waiting for cupid to get it right. And so you faked out a moan to mark his memory, give him something to miss if he ever got away. And that finished him. His breath was wind ripping through a screen door, touching the whole house before it faded. He rolled off of you, wet as a newborn.

“That ceiling looks like cottage cheese,” he said, searching for oxygen.

“Don’t leave before we figure out how long we got,” you said.

***

He caught work at The Home Depot just outside town off Route 90. Played Walker’s every couple weeks until the tequila started getting cheaper and then started getting free. You were there every time. The songs started getting familiar. Soon enough you were singing along. You were a fan. And you even got to take him home.

Your days were spent buried in Veterinary Anatomy & Physiology and Clinical Techniques 1 amongst others. TriCounty Tech’s campus like a prison compound, the highway stretching past it like a dare. It was hard work. A lotta’ science. But all you wanted was to start caring for the only creatures that were always honest.

Your early mornings and late nights were short stacks and whiskey downs. The Starlight Diner. Home of the Pound-And-A-Quarter. Fresh pies baked on the premises. Truckers in and outta’ there like flies in a stable. You wore the pink and white lace trim. Paper hat. Smile.

Wayne rented a room on Grove Street just off Main. The apartment was on top of an old sporting goods store, Jim Early’s Hunt N’ Fish. More the shotgun and nightcrawler sorta’ joint than the high-top and tennis racket kind. You helped him decorate until it became your own.

It was shrimp and grits when you announced you were moving out. Your daddy dropped his fork on his plate, pulled the napkin from his neck, and widened his eyes like two constipated assholes. Your mama threw a concerned glance at him and then at you.

Mouth stuffed, Daddy said: “What? What the hell?...”

Mama said: “Gently Earl…”

“Where’re you movin’ inta’?” Earl said.

“I’m movin’ in with my boyfriend,” you said. “I figured ya’ll would be happy. Time I grew up.”

Daddy: “That goddamn Wayne?...”

Mama: “Earl…”

You: “Yes, Wayne. He’s my boyfriend, daddy, and don’t be surprised if he winds up my husband someday.”

“Whaddoes he do?” Daddy asked. “Goddamn guitar player? Singer? Where’s the future in that? He ain’t no George Jones what I’ve heard…”

“Earl please…” Mama said. She turned to you, face like a dove. “Jenny...What about veterinary school, baby? What about your career and all?”

“I’m still goin’, Mama. I’m just movin’ in with Wayne. Nothing’s changin’.”

(Eyes and silence.)

“And Wayne works at Home Depot, Daddy. He’s got a steady job. He plays guitar in his spare time. He’s responsible. I wouldn’t be with ‘im if he wasn’t.”

“We’ll see.” Daddy slurped from a glass of sweet tea and rubbed his tongue against the inside of his mouth. His pink face produced a grimace and then a grin. “Well see.”

***

They didn’t see. But you did. Five months in and it was all roses and no thorns. He cooked pasta and fish and made turkey burgers from scratch. He stayed with you in sickness and in health, sunshine and rain. Ya’ll adopted a shepard mix, named him Shooter. One ear stood straight up, one ear flopped down.

You let go of the strings in bed. Wayne learned your science and took you apart. You’d never had an orgasm before. And actually, though he’d never know or want to know, he’d never caused one before. So up and off, you two became rabbits in spring.

He held the job down just fine. That orange smock wasn’t exactly Armani on him, but he accepted it, albeit with his jaw locked in a half-scowl. He started cracking his knuckles. Didn’t play guitar as much, quit writing songs. Gained about twenty pounds. Grew a goatee. Watched television like it was a tired whore pole-dancing in a nursing home. But he still smiled at you. He encouraged your veterinary ambitions. Came to visit you at the Starlight where you gave him coffee and winks, pretended he was a stranger, turned him on like a chainsaw. He ran his paws through your hair as you slept. Bought you flowers sometimes. Loved you the best you knew he could.

Ya’ll went out drinking. Maybe more than you woulda’ liked, but there was something a bit outlaw in it and you were willing to ride it out for a while. He drank tequila like a Spring Break frat boy in Tijuana. On a few nights you saw the bartender crack a second and third bottle and it was clear that Wayne was responsible for a good deal of the action.

“Why tequila, baby?” you asked him on one of those easier moons.

“The color,” he said. And you didn’t get it and then he laughed and then you smiled.

You put your hand on his thigh. He slid your hand up to his dumber parts. Under the bar and against the lights. The cackle and cry of barflies and barwitches bounced off the walls and cut through the cigarette smoke till it was music. You took his sleeve, led him into the bathroom, and did things in there would’ve made your daddy choke on his country ham. He sucked on your chest. He grunted like a fireman in a four-alarm. Till that stall had your stink in it. You each lit a Winston and took a walk in each other’s eyes.

“Marry me,” he whispered.

“Goddamn right,” you answered. Like Calamity Jane. Like a general. Like a thing you never thought you’d be.

***

The marriage was small and quick. A few friends. Immediate family. A by-the-hour preacher in a by-the-hour chapel. You had flowers tied in your hair. Wayne’s tuxedo fit him. Your daddy stayed quiet. Mama smiled and took pictures. It didn’t rain. Wayne unveiled a new song he’d been hiding. One of the lyrics went: “I could never leave the only one who keeps me.” You cried. Your daddy farted. Your mama cried. People cheered when Wayne kissed his bride. It was one of the happiest days of my life, said your journal the following afternoon.

Ya’ll saw four seasons before you started to feel the descent. He got quiet in ways he never did before. His brow grew heavy and cast a shadow across the rest of his face. He pawned his guitar and didn’t say why. He was repeatedly given the ol’ one-more-chance over at the Depot. And he started drinking in the morning. His skin started to yellow like rust on a tin roof. Every reaction carried a degree of anger.

School was challenging and exhilarating. Nothing could ever compare to the intense study of something you loved so much. You brought your books with you to the Starlight and read-up in your downtime. You waited for Wayne to show up toward the end of your shifts. He never did. Even though they saw your ring, men threw their best and worst lines your way. All it did was ache. Made you think of your guitar-picker and your first days with him. You called home and he wasn’t there. Your nerves got up like horses at the gun.

You’d be sleepless waiting for that familiar jingle of keys, drunken mumble, munken drumble, key into lock, door sighing open, light from the hallway pouring in like a tongue, door slamming shut, body swaying and working toward the bed, body collapsing in bed beside you. There wasn’t another woman ‘cause he was and always would be too shy. It was the bottle and its open-armed lack of judgment that turned him.

You knew he’d never run away entirely ‘cause he was too fat and too tired. He had given up the ramble and was too settled in to get it back. But that made him dangerous. He started yelling at you and the yells were half words, half ugly inhuman sound. He broke plates, the toilet seat, and his own nose. Home Depot fired him and he set part of the Outdoor Living section on fire with a book of matches and half a bottle of butane. It only took out a few pieces of patio furniture and somehow Wayne was never charged or caught. Money got scarce and he stayed at home, usually clutching a bottle of Pepe Lopez in one hand and the remote control in the other. He watched soap operas and took them personally.

You tried to ignore it. Crossed your arms, nodded your head, and hoped it’d go away. You worked harder in school till you were at the top of your class. But every night you’d come home to Wayne. He stalked around the house like an ogre, his footsteps pounding into the floor accompanied by the occasional moan. You tried to pacify him with your hands and your lips and his face would twist up in an awful scowl. You tried to console him the way you would a kitten, your voice like a pillow, your fingers gliding over his neck.

The first time he struck you he knocked one of your teeth out. You drove to the hospital yourself, a wad of toiled paper pressed to your mouth; a beach stained crimson from the ocean of blood. They stitched your lip and sent you to an all-night dental office where a peaceful looking man, thin and balding, earned his stripes and sent you home with a temporary replacement, telling you to return in a week for the more advanced surgery.

Home was a motel room that night. You considered your parent’s house but were deathly afraid of what your father and his gun cabinet might do. He’d been right about Wayne. Your acknowledgement of this made you hang your head over the shitter till it was splattered with your vomit, a mix of purple blood and thick water. Your mouth throbbed like a teenager’s heart. It felt like your upper lip had been ripped apart with a pair of rusty pliers and your teeth had then been smashed with them. Tears muscled out of your eyeballs like sperm. The motel room smelled like cheap tobacco and even cheaper carpet cleaner. Next door you could hear a couple fucking. She yelled “don’t stop!” He called her a “fuckin’ slut.”

You considered calling Wayne. You considered going to the apartment. A part of you wanted Wayne to see what he’d done. The damage in all of its science and disrepair. You wanted to calmly explain to him what the procedures were, what the doctors said as the needle slipped in and out of your flesh, what the dentist said as he jammed the enamel up in the root of your gum. You wanted to crucify him with highfalutin medical terms that you yourself had only a vague understanding of. Till it turned him right again. Till it got him to Jesus or whatever else might step in and play the scratch-n-savior. But you didn’t call him. You fell asleep and dreamt of a child falling off a rooftop.

***

You went home two days later to get your things for school. Wayne was nowhere to be found. The place was in shambles - empty bottles everywhere, vomit on the bathroom floor, a window smashed, a wall busted in. You found your bag stuffed under the bed. All your textbooks were missing. Then it occurred to you that the TV was missing. The stereo. Your CD’s. You imagined the apathetic pawnshop owner gnawing on a toothpick as Wayne placed the items on the counter.

You tore open the closet and your clothes were gone. Then you glanced down and saw Shooter. He was curled up in a ball, not breathing. There was no blood, nothing broken. Just a dead dog. You went to your knees, opened your hands and wept into them.

The kindling of hurt and sadness that cracked inside you burned down into rage. You could feel your body tighten, your eyes dry up and harden. Your breath was like bricks being broken.

You heard the front door open. The ugly clop of his feet thundered into the floor. You stood up instinctively, braced yourself against the wall. He lumbered into the room, didn’t notice you at first. He looked like he’d aged thirty years. His eyes were piss colored and his hands shook like politicians debating.

“You picked the wrong one,” he said. He didn’t look up at you, didn’t even acknowledge you.

“Where’re my books?” you said.

“I drank them,” he barked. Then he looked up at you, moved toward you like a tank descending on a village. Soon he was standing over you. His scent made your sinuses throb.

“You better kill me,” he growled. “Or I’m gonna’ kill you slowly everyday for the rest of our lives. There’s an evil inside a’ me I can’t get out. So you better fuckin’ put me down. You better put me down.”

You softened. Your eyes curled like caterpillars and you reached to touch him.

“Wayne…”

He grabbed you by the throat and pinned you against the wall like a trophy. He gnashed his teeth till you could hear them cracking against each other. Air became scarce. Your right foot tore into the lilies on the wallpaper. Wayne began sobbing, his throat let out a wail like a fighter jet going down. You could feel your eyes rolling back into their sockets. You were dying. So you wheeled your knee as far back as you could and brought it up into Wayne’s groin. You heard a muffled thump accompanied by a manic inhale. His grip weakened and he fell to the floor.

You gasped, gasped. The sweat on your face was cold. He was beneath you, writhing on in agony, holding his crotch, whimpering like a pig. You gathered yourself and started to step away but he grabbed your ankle and yanked you down like a church bell. You fell straight on your hipbone and cried out. He came crawling toward you, desperate and gone. You scrambled away, searching for something to use, any object that might provide a chance. A spent Michelob bottle seemed to smile at you as you picked it up and smashed it against his nose, breaking both. He kept coming, spitting his own blood at you as it ran from his nostrils into his mouth. His hand became a claw and he whipped it toward you, ripping your shirt apart.

“TAKE ME DOWN!!” he screamed.

You held the broken beer bottle by the neck and shoved the jagged bottom into his face, puncturing his eyeballs, tearing into his cheeks, and cutting apart his mouth. You let go of the bottle and stayed right where you left it.

His body seemed confused. It twitched and buckled as he reached out into space. You watched in horror as he slowly started to give up. His motion quieted and his breath became sparse. Every inch of you tingled with the residual adrenaline. You got up, went to the bed, removed a pillow, returned to him. You held that pillow down across his face with all your weight and kept it there forever.

***

You answered the pounding on the door in a total daze. Your shirt hung open, your bra exposed, your chest spattered with blood. It was your neighbor, Shirley, a silver-haired woman in her sixties. She wore a heavy off-white cotton cardigan with felt hearts stitched into it. Her face was wracked with concern and astonishment; it aged her another ten years. She looked like your grandmother and you collapsed into her arms.

“Oh my lord…Oh my…”

She held you there, stroking your hair instinctively.

“Call the police,” you said. “Call the police…Call the police…”

You were 22 years-old. The best was yet to come.

Brooklyn, NY (3/31/07)