Inappropriate Behavior: Stories (11 page)

When I get back to the house the next day, Clive is there, reading a magazine, acting like I hadn't shot him and buried him in the desert at all.

The police have been here every day, Clive says. They say you are a fugitive from justice, he says. I showed them your songs about Jodie Foster. Tell you the truth, I'm pretty impressed by your emergence, Clive says, but they told me if I see you I'm supposed to call them right away. Also your brother has called over and over again. The landlord came by and said she was going to evict us if we didn't pay this month's and last month's rent by the end of the week, so I called your father.

Whose corpse is lately on my mind.

He sent me the money for the rent, Clive says. He wired it Western Union yesterday afternoon. He wanted to know what was going on with you. He wanted to know why you were acting
so strange. He said the police had called him, too. I told him about the night you pooped your pants. I told him you got in a fight with an old lady. I told him I thought this was a very bad sign. I need you to drive me to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up the money.

Clive says this, who is dead and buried in the desert outside Plainview, Texas. For all the mysteries surrounding this case, I am almost positive of that one fact.

He wanted to know about Allison, Clive says.

What did you tell him, I say, reaching inside my windbreaker for the gun. I've already killed Clive once, I think, so what's the big deal?

I didn't tell him, John, Clive says. I think you have to tell him, Clive says. I think you're a pretty all right guy, you know, you're just having some problems with things. I don't think you like Lubbock very much, for one, and I don't blame you for that. And I don't think you like yourself, or your family. I think you need some help. But you've been a good roommate to me—you help me with my errands, and you don't watch too much television, and after you get out of jail and get your other problems sorted out, I'd be happy to have you for a roommate again, so long as you can talk your father into paying your half of the rent while you're away.

I take my hand away from the gun inside my windbreaker.

Thanks, Clive, I say.

He's coming here, Clive says.

My father?

Yes, he said he was going to drive out this morning. He'll be here tomorrow.

He's coming here?

Yeah, Clive says. You ought to get this place cleaned up. But first, take me to Piggly Wiggly. I'll wait a couple of hours before I call the police.

This time I drove Clive well into New Mexico, dug another hole near Vaughn, and buried him again. We drove all night, me and Allison, with Clive dead in the trunk. Allison liked the mountains and the desert landscape. She said it reminded her of the hills in Ernest Hemingway's story “Hills Like White Elephants,” which I know we were supposed to read for English class.

I didn't read it, I say.

No, she says. You wouldn't have.

When Allison and I get back to Lubbock, we make love in the front seat of my car in the dorm parking lot at Knapp Hall. She'd invite me in, she says, but after I took a shot at the security guard, it isn't safe for me around here. She kisses me deeply, holding my penis in her hand, then she scampers from the car and up the steps to her dorm.

I'm still watching her when she stops and comes back to the car.

Come and get me tomorrow, she says, and take me to vote. And after that we'll kill my roommate and you can move into the dorm with me.

There's a rally that night for the candidate at the ballroom of the Lubbock Ramada Inn. I have the gun in my windbreaker. The crowd at the Ramada is a good bit bigger than the one at the VFW a few weeks ago, and I see some people I know, but more that I don't. I have on a green baseball cap I bought at a filling station in Roswell, New Mexico, where Allison and I stopped on our way back from burying Clive.

The candidate is standing on the stage in front of the ballroom. One more day, he says. I thank you for your support, he says, and I ask you for your vote. I see my brother in the crowd holding a sign just like mine. There is a man standing next to him who claims to be my father. On the other side of him is
Clive, whom I am frankly surprised to see, since I have killed him and buried him twice in two different states.

I can still smell Allison. Of all the things that have happened, I was gladdest to determine that she was not involved in the plot. Christopher Marlowe was a spy. I have my hand on the gun, and I'm moving toward them. I will shoot my brother once, my father three times, and the candidate twice. But in what order? I should probably shoot the candidate first. I will also have to shoot Clive again, even though this apparently doesn't do any good.

It's hard to believe how calm and happy I feel. But then, maybe it shouldn't surprise me. This is it. This is what my life has been moving toward. Pure force. And then, the end.

Song for Jodie, #200 (a ballad—poss. title: The Last Song?)

You don't know me but

You'll never know me now

You'll never know how

Much I need you

How much I need you—————————————

I am within ten yards of my brother and Clive and the man who claims to be my father. They have not seen me. The crowd seems to part from the force of my will. My hand is on the gun. I am going to kill them. And after that, my life will be different. I will never be a person like other people.

But when the candidate says, I'd be happy to answer some of your questions, I stop. I look to the stage. I am wearing a green baseball cap. I raise my hand. The candidate is looking directly at me.

You there, he says. The young fellow in the baseball cap. Nice to see the young people out here tonight, although my momma always told me to take my hat off indoors. He chuckles. I take off my hat.

The candidate is looking at me and smiling the smile from the sign. He is waiting. People are turning to look at me. My brother and Clive and the man who claims to be my father. They are all looking at me, one hand raised for the question, one hand still on the gun.

What do they see? Do they see a man who stood up? Do they see a person like other people? They're moving toward me now, not just my brother and Clive and the man who claims to be my father. The whole crowd, the candidate, Lubbock itself. The whole entire world, all those dead babies and those old men who died and all the women anyone ever loved and all the women who went unloved and the animals and the stars and the distant planets—it's all moving toward me, and I can feel myself in the center of it. I am no longer God's lonely man. I just need some help, some direction. I can be redeemed. I
can
have a different life.

I look back to the candidate, he is still smiling, still waiting patiently. He is looking at me as if he admires me, as if he knows that I
am
a person like other people. At that moment, whatever else the candidate may ever do in his life, he's heroic. He has saved not only his own life, but my brother's and Clive's and the man who claims to be my father's, and probably mine, and at this moment, I would do anything in the world for him. I realize that holding my sign in the heat and the dust and the rain and the sweat for six weeks, every day for eight, ten, twelve hours a day, that is nothing. That's the least any man should do for his candidate. You get a job, you become the job. If he could look into my soul and see the gun in my hand, and if he asked me to pull it out and kill, I would do it, without hesitation. If he sent me to war, I would go. I am his, and he is mine, and I will
never forget the goodness he has done for me, and the goodness in his beautiful heart.

Go ahead and ask your question now, son, he says. I love him. My brother and Clive and the man who claims to be my father are here now. I am ready to ask my question.

We need to drill for more oil in this country, I say. I spent thirty minutes at the filling station tonight for two gallons of gas. It seems like your opponent doesn't care about people like me. He wants us to keep depending on Arabs for our oil, when we've got good American oil right here in Texas. My brother reaches me and puts his hand on my arm. The man who claims to be my father is on the other side now, and they're leading me, gently, away from the stage and toward the door. I look back up, one more time, to the candidate, who smiles and says, Thank you, I'm glad you asked that.