V.N. Ebert

Marcus was in a sleeveless white shirt and his biceps were like pale hams. Was fat and self-satisfied on the courthouse steps with his legs stretched out in the direction of Kyle and Jody. Kyle and Jody were shirtless and stripped to their briefs in the morning sun and wrestling on the courthouse square like it was Marcus’s personal gymnasium. Kyle and Jody were close friends who fought like bitter enemies because Marcus encouraged them.

“Get your hate on, boy,” Marcus said to neither of them in particular. Jody had Kyle’s back at that moment and so it might’ve been to Jody to hand Kyle’s ass to him and it might’ve been to Kyle to get his ass in gear. “Ain’t nobody respects a bitch-boy,” Marcus added like he was a coach giving life advice to his team. Both had skinned knees and Kyle’s face was flush with the wet grass and both were covered in that grass which was glued to them by the morning dew and their own sweat. Made sounds like they were in a concerted struggle, harsh controlled breathing and limbs hitting against each other like the sound a bruise makes and occasional obscenities which Marcus would repeat and enlarge on.

Marcus was in the shade of the courthouse which was gingerbread brick with white trimmings. Still sweat like a pig in his idleness on the steps and kept wiping himself with a rag how the old men around him did. Old men were sitting on the courthouse steps because they had nothing better to do but sit and wipe themselves and smoke or chaw in the heat. When Marcus was a younger son he’d worked overseer and would come into town sweating like a pig and wiping himself and bitching about how his niggers weren’t worth a bucket of warm piss and while Marcus was overseas winning a medal his brother had died from polio. When Marcus had come back wearing his medal he was the only son and started managing the family property. The courthouse was the seat of Wayland County and Marcus was a Wayland. Was the last of the Wayland’s after his parents had followed his brother beneath the ground, and a bachelor.

Vera lived in a shotgun shack within walking distance. Was necessary seeing as daddy’s truck had been out of gas for a good while. Vera was a high school beauty queen who hadn’t finished high school and a returned serviceman had told her that he had taken a pinup of Lana Turner over the Rhine and that she was a dead ringer for Lana Turner.

“Dog walk that little bitch boy,” Marcus said like he was calling fieldhands scattered across rows of cotton. Jody seemed close to clinching the match.

Vera’s daddy had sent her into town to haggle with the widower that ran the dry goods store. She was dressed to show her figure and it had been enough to get her two sacks of flour and hominy on an overstretched line of credit. Stood outside with her bag and Wayland Goods looked out on the square and Marcus sitting at the center of things. Bag was heavy like poverty in her hands. She had a fifty-cent piece in her pocket that she had saved for the pictures and she could watch the matinee with the bag at her feet. Had hung on to that piece all through the negotiations.

Last time she had been at the pictures had been with Marcus who had told her she was sexy enough to be on that screen and she had crossed her legs even if he had bought her popcorn and added rum to their sodas. Had bought her dinner, too, cheeseburger and a milkshake at the diner. Had tasted better than hominy grits with plenty of water.

“Boy, break that bitch-boy’s back so he don’t get up again.”

Marcus hadn’t changed since going to the pictures, except for having more money. Was always making more money and wasn’t holding onto fifty-cent pieces. And was sitting there, in a sleeveless white shirt with his biceps like pale hams and no ring on his finger.

Had told her she was a dead ringer for Lana Turner. After his soda with rum in it, he had told her she was prettier than Lana Turner loud enough for the whole theater to think she was about to do something with him more than watching the picture. Then he had said that he ought to get something for spending his money. Had tried to put his hand between her legs and she had crossed them. With the rum in her, she had told him that if she was prettier than Lana Turner, she ought to make her way to California and that she oughtn’t to see him anymore.

“Suppose you taking yourself a Greyhound all the way there,” Marcus had said.

“I’ve got the money for the ticket,” Vera had said, and Marcus had said it was the money he’d given her and taken his hand away without forcing her legs open. Hadn’t said much after and they had agreed without saying the words that they weren’t still seeing each other.

Vera hadn’t taken the first bus out or the next one. The money for the ticket had been there until it wasn’t, and now she was left with a fifty-cent piece and an overstretched line of credit. And Marcus hadn’t changed, except for making more money, and still didn’t have a ring on his finger, and still had that pinup of Lana Turner.

Put her bag down on a bench and straightened herself out like she didn’t have poverty on her anymore. Puffed herself to show her figure and walked over towards where Marcus was sitting. Marcus looked her over with one eye and with the other watched the boys locked against each other and hurting. Smiled like a minstrel show. Had small clever blue eyes and sweat glazed his forehead and ran down his chin.

“Been a minute,” Marcus said and rapped the stair next to him with his palm like he was inviting her to sit uncomfortably close to him. She positioned herself so the boys wrestling couldn’t see up her dress. Cheek brushed against Marcus and felt like she’d stick to him.

“Thought you had hopped a bus to California.” Drawled it out to five syllables and a long a. Put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

“Was an idle thought.” Head was against Marcus’s armpit and had a warm rank gymnasium smell like a men’s locker room.

“Idle threat,” Marcus said like he was correcting her. Wiped himself and Kyle tapped out by slapping his palm into the grass and Jody released. Marcus told them they didn’t think they was finished did they and they went to starting positions without bitching about it.

“These boys might as well be a couple of queers pawing at each other,” Marcus said to Vera. “Ought to cut their goddamned balls off if they ain’t going to use them, rassle like queers pawing at each other or like girls quarreling over a doll.”

Kyle took Jody’s back and both were straining and breathing short like they didn’t have much left in them and Marcus told them to get their goddamned blood up. Marcus had his eyes on them instead of Vera and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. Jody and Kyle were one fighting and sweating mass while Marcus was a separate and superior idle and sweating mass.

“I tell you about winning my interservice championship,” Marcus said, “rassling for the Army?”

“You did the first time you took me to dinner and I heard about it near enough to every dinner after that one. Not sure how it’s got anything to do with this.”

“I rassled with boys were actually goddamned men instead of these two bitch-boys and handed their asses to them.”

Marcus had said to her when he was on his second or third rum and soda that he had intended on staying in the service. They would have kept him through the reductions in forces because he was an interservice champion. It had suited him and he wouldn’t have gotten so fat in the peace like the rest of the country.

“Goddamn, boy, put some goddamned spirit in it.” Jody had broken Kyle’s stance and Kyle was near to being pinned again. “Could break these boys backs so they never got up again. Boys would thank me for it.”  

“You like breaking people,” Vera said.

“Sure do,” Marcus said. “Broke these boys in and got them by the balls.” Said like those were two different and interrelated elements that arose together in human relations or at least Marcus’s relations with others. Marcus pulled her tight to him and the sweat wet her dress and the smell saturated her and her nostrils flared. Couldn’t have broken his grip on her if she had a crowbar and was like being pulled into hot tar.

“Girl, you going with me,” Marcus said. “Take you out Friday to the city. You ain’t getting to California but I’ll take you to the city for a night.”

Wiped himself and showed her the stained oversized dial of the watch with the oversized band stretched taught against his wrist. Had given her a bracelet and her daddy had taken it off her and Vera hadn’t seen the money it had brought in. Watch was more expensive than the bracelet and was streaked with oils from where the rag had brushed against the dial.

“Ought to get you another pretty dress,” Marcus said. “I give you some cash, you swear you’ll spend it on something pretty for me?”

“If I don’t have to spend the money on groceries.”

“Just make you a list and those boys’ll deliver right to your door. Hell,” he said as Jody had Kyle pinned and Kyle looked like a beaten animal and Jody looked like a predatory animal, “those boys will stock your shelves for you. Ain’t good for nothing else.”

Vera pulled a list out of her handbag that had been aspirational when it’d been written and gave it to Marcus. He pulled a roll out of his back pocket. Cash held by a clip and Vera had an impulse to count it. Peeled off bills like he was taking off her dress and gave her more than she could reasonably spend. Dollars were warm and moist and like as not smelled like him, but for being next to him couldn’t distinguish the smell of him on the dollars from the smell of him on himself.

“Boys,” Marcus told Kyle and Jody as they were both spent on the square, “y’all ought to quit acting like a couple of goddamned queers trying to make it with each other and put your clothes on.”

They stood up and helped each other as they did, leaning against each other. Were both deep tanned like they had worked the fields without wearing a shirt there either and built like they had come straight from Muscle Beach but for dark eyes with traces of hunger around them. Said yes sir at the same time and would’ve thought Marcus had just patted them on the head.

She spent her fifty cents on the picture and popcorn and thought about other things than what was happening on the screen. The short picture before the main show was a cheap animation derived from Uncle Remus and the story was the tar baby story. Brer’ Fox trying to catch Brer’ Rabbit contrived a little baby made out of tar and put it in the middle of a path that Brer’ Rabbit frequented. Brer’ Rabbit came across the tar baby and got into a confrontation with it. Brer’ Rabbit slapped the tar baby thinking it had insulted him by its silence, and his hand stuck to the tar baby, and he slapped using the other hand and the same thing happened, same as it did when he kicked at the tar baby with both his feet. Brer’ Fox was licking his chops with Brer’ Rabbit as good as hog-tied stuck on the tar baby, and when she walked out of the theater after the main picture and was met by the two boys, Vera realized that her thoughts having been on other things she couldn’t recall how Brer’ Rabbit had managed to disentangle himself. The two boys had taken the lighter bag and added several heavier bags all in the bed of Marcus’s truck.

Vera couldn’t shake the smell of Marcus off of her in the air-conditioned theater and in the truck was like she was sitting next to him again. Wondered if the boys who were bickering with each other like boys who had grown up together had gotten so they wouldn’t be able to wash Marcus off of them.

“Boy,” Jody said to Kyle in the backseat, “ain’t my fault you couldn’t pin me.”

“Ain’t right,” Kyle said. “You winning all the time.”

“What’s it matter,” Vera asked.

“Ma’am, Marcus told him just after you left what it mattered,” Kyle said.

“That isn’t an answer.”

Kyle was sheepish all of a sudden like he had just walked out of a privy.

“Ain’t nothing concerns you, ma’am.”

“What is it that doesn’t concern me?”

“What it is Jody gets for winning and I get for losing.”

Jody looked itchy like a child with a new toy he wants to show off and Vera asked him what it was that he had won.

“Well ma’am, Marcus told us to drive his Cadillac into the city to get it checked on. For you and him to go into the city. And while we waiting for it, Marcus told us to go to a place that’s got girls that ain’t your kind of people. Marcus takes us there some and pays for us to do, well, what it is a man does there, and they know him real well so they’d extend us the courtesy of extending their services on his credit. And for winning and showing I was something of a man, Marcus told me I could have myself some fun with two of those girls and for losing and showing he ain’t a man at all Kyle couldn’t and would have to content himself with watching.”

“You went after each other until you were both spent and bloodied so that one of you could go to a brothel on Marcus’s dime?”

“No ma’am, that ain’t why,” Jody said. “It’s a nice thing to get out of it but that ain’t why me and Kyle went at it how we do. You have seen us go at it plenty often and most those times weren’t for nothing Marcus was going to give us. Why, ma’am, you don’t mind my saying so, suspect Marcus only decided he would send us to the city when you started going with him again. He’s been talking about you like he lost something since you stopped going together.”

Vera ignored the invitation to discuss her falling out with Marcus.

“If it isn’t for something he gives you, why act as though he has the whip hand over you?”  

Jody parked the truck in front of Vera’s home, such as it was. Hadn’t needed directions.

“Ma’am, we tied up with Marcus. Got so we love him. Ain’t nothing more complicated than that.”

“He told once me that you’d both suck his ass in a shop window and tell him you liked the taste.”

Kyle laughed from the backseat and Jody joined him as he opened the door.

“Ma’am, we surely would. Only surprised that we ain’t had to yet.”

Vera hid the money in a copy of a magazine about picture stars before telling her parents that Marcus was taking her to the city. They had been indifferent to the boys bringing in the groceries same as they would’ve been if Vera had brought her single bag, her momma hardly eating anyway and her daddy being wronged by everything especially good news. Her daddy asked if Marcus had given her anything else and after she said that Marcus hadn’t her daddy said the man was cheap for having money.

“You going with him again,” her daddy asked.

“Suppose I am.”

“Be sure you sell yourself for a good price,” her daddy said.

Her momma nodded at everything she heard with her eyes bleary and she nodded at that with unusual force.

Marcus picked her up in his Cadillac and was dressed for their date. Bolo tie and a Stetson hat and black leather cowboy boots matching the leather of his belt with a large buckle like he was playing a boy from Texas. Dark suit that was generously cut to accommodate his stomach and shoulders and shape. Vera had bought a silk dress in a fashionable Oriental cut, sky blue with lotus blossoms like halos across it. Marcus put the car in park and looked her over and whistled. Dressed how he was, reminded her of a coyote.

He took a swig from a flask and leaned in to kiss her. Whiskey on his breath and a fine layer of sweat on his flushed face. Vera thought to protest her parents could be watching them but knew neither of them would believe it.

“I was hoping you’d buy that dress,” Marcus said after he’d taken his tongue out of her throat. Tongue had been wider than her mouth and coated in whiskey and was like she had taken some of his drink. Blamed the boozy wheeling feeling in her head and stomach on the whiskey. “Saw Jap girls wearing dresses like that in Tokyo and thought that a pretty white girl wearing it would be more than I could stand.” Had his hand on her breast and couldn’t wear a brassiere with the dress. With his mouth open showed his large pink tongue and with a layer of shoe polish would’ve suited a minstrel show. 

Wiped his forehead with a fresh rag that was already soiled. Palms left a wet mark on her dress and her face and mouth felt slick like she had showered with hard water.

Took her into the city that was a boozy drive along the new highway. Vera hadn’t been on the highway since the last time Marcus had driven her. Vera ran her hand over the smooth leather seat when she felt like it and turned up the air-conditioning. Passed fields and he would take a hand off of her and point towards them and tell her which were his and count the acreage.

“Ain’t hardly money in growing things, as it stands can make more money from the government paying me to destroy the crop and leave the land fallow, but I got the land making me money one way or the other and that’s something father never did understand.”

Was formal when he referred to his family and the formality showed his upbringing. Early years when he had been the younger son of a wealthy family and before he’d made himself into a redneck or revealed himself to be one.

“Brother didn’t, neither.”

First time he had mentioned his brother to Vera. Brother lived in Vera’s memory as a sickly boy that was a head shorter than Marcus, and for a long stretch of years in her mind was better defined for being present through the war and Vera coming of age during the war. Marcus had left when she was too young to take much notice of him and returned when she was old enough to take notice and be taken notice of. His brother had been too preoccupied with dying to notice, and Marcus had come back with a medal and a hard on.

Marcus took another swig from the flask and took his hand off her long enough to put the cap on it and didn’t mention his brother or kin the rest of the drive into the city.

Handed his keys to a valet who addressed him by name and he tipped five dollars. Got seated at a steakhouse in spite of there being a wait and he was served a whiskey sour without asking for it first. He ordered a T-bone rare and baked potato loaded when the waiter got him his second drink and Vera had to look at the menu.

“Get yourself something substantial,” Marcus said. Had left his rag in the car and wiped his forehead with the tablecloth and the waiter didn’t give him the eye. Face had flushed bright red and he’d drunk from his flask in the interval between his first drink being empty and the waiter bringing him another. “Your kin ain’t feeding you enough.”

Vera ordered a ribeye and Caesar salad and when she was asked how it should be cooked Marcus told the waiter that she’d like it rare. Added that she wanted the Caesar with the egg in it and the waiter said of course, Mr. Wayland.

“Being well fed ain’t been my problem,” Marcus said, and held his gut in his hands. “Rest of my kin wouldn’t hardly eat at all and think I was the one got their appetites for them. Like there was only so much for the whole family and every bit of it went to me and so I got big and strong and fat and they all withered away.”

“Have them on your mind tonight?”

“Suppose so,” Marcus said. “I ever tell you about mother’s wedding ring?”

Vera said she hadn’t and Marcus said he supposed wasn’t something he’d have told her.

“Ring’s a real thin band of gold like it’s meant to be a wire for electricity instead of worn on a rich woman’s finger. Been in the Wayland family since before the war, not mine but the big one. Should have gone to a daughter and since mother had no daughters should have gone to brother but brother died a bachelor. Hell,” Marcus added and had an expression like a man superior to the dead, “brother died with his virginity intact. He didn’t have no appetite there neither and I might’ve inherited that appetite for him too because once my balls dropped you couldn’t keep me off girls. You don’t mind me saying so, but I get so I feel heavy like I got a weight between my legs if I don’t get on something pretty with real regularity.”

Vera said he’d talked about his manhood before.

“Tried to get on me and put it in me, too.”

“Sure did, and you crossed your legs,” Marcus said like he didn’t hold it against her. “Might’ve relieved you of your virginity and dropped that weight off me with one quick hump.”

“What does my virginity have to do with your mother’s wedding ring?”

“It’s all of a piece,” Marcus said and his second drink was empty. “Mother told me after I came back from overseas that as brother was dead she wanted to be buried with her ring. Was her way of calling me a bastard. Father told me straight that I was one, believe he comforted himself with the idea that mother had been raped by an overseer and had been too proper to tell him or destroy the offspring before she started showing.”

Had his wide minstrelsy grin and his tongue was showing pink through his teeth, set in a flushed red race and his alcoholic blue eyes. Was fat and stinking and proud.

“Why’d do you cross your legs on me,” he asked and was like a gentle sort of question. “Made me go to the whorehouse in this city and those girls ain’t nothing compared with you and might’ve caught something for my trouble.”

“Because if you’d had me that would have settled matters between us.”

“Couldn’t stomach being tied up with a bastard like me and in the moment of decision a bus to California seemed a fine alternative.”

“In the moment, that it did.”

Marcus wiped his face with the tablecloth and concealed his face a moment and when the tablecloth was back on the table his expression hadn’t changed or had changed and then reset itself.

“And when you saw me spread out like an oil slick on the courthouse steps and you had your bag half-empty and California a long ways away, in that moment being tied up with me didn’t seem so hard to stomach.”

“No, Marcus, that it didn’t.”

“You a smart girl, Vera,” Marcus said. “Least, you got a survival instinct and see the shortest and surest path to a feather bed and peaches and ice cream for breakfast.”

Vera had the uncomfortable feeling of being known better than she’d like to be.

“I don’t want to be broken,” Vera said. “How you have Kyle and Jody broken. Broken in. How you broke the whole county in, and worse for me being something to put your manhood in.”

“Girl,” Marcus said, “I been riding this county like a bitch since I came back, and I’ll break you in how I got those boys broken in and it ain’t only a matter of breaking your virginity either. Ain’t no doubt about that and you ain’t got a doubt about it either. Only doubt’s why you softened on me knowing all that.”

“You think I’m going with you for the money,” Vera asked.

“I know that because I got eyes in my head. What I’m trying to figure is how much you interested in me for reasons other than my money, and whether that interest has been growing in you like you got your own weight.”

Uncomfortable feeling hadn’t gone away and remembered what Marcus looked like wearing his medal. Had grown up hearing him boss fieldhands around and now he bossed the county around. Wasn’t entirely a matter of his money, seeing as his brother hadn’t bossed anybody and his daddy hardly had, either, and hadn’t had the excuse of being born practically dying. Or his mother, who she remembered as a well-dressed and disapproving woman of little consequence how Vera’s mother was ill-dressed and alcoholic of little consequence. Was how he carried himself in the world and how he treated the world, and how the world acquiesced to him.

“Did you bury her with it,” she asked, “with the ring?”

“Buried her with it like the ante bellum. Had to buy a fine new one from a Jew in New York.”

Waiter brought them their food and another drink. After they had cleaned their plates, Marcus had a cigar brought to him with his Irish coffee. Waiter cut it for him and Marcus struck a match against the table leg. Looked towards the ceiling that was embossed and turn of the century like he was considering the past as he breathed deep and then looked at her through the smoke coming out of his mouth.

“Girl,” Marcus said, “we are getting down to nut cutting time.”

Vera said that was so and Marcus paid the check and tipped generous like a man confident in his future prosperity. Tipped the valet again when the boy brought his car around. Marcus took off his suit jacket before getting behind the wheel and had sweated through the white shirt underneath it so that around the belly and under the arms and through the sleeves it was practically transparent. Contoured to the fleshiness of him and saw his stomach swivel as he turned to kiss her again and she let him while they were in front of the valet and the parking lot and the restaurant and the city. Tasted his whisky and Irish coffee and cigar and her mouth felt red and inflamed after and tasted of him, and the car smelled strong of him as they drove out of the well-lighted city and he pawed at her the same under the lights same as he did when they were in the dark area towards Wayland County. Felt her dress was getting stretched and torn and wrecked and said as much to Marcus who told her that her dress was made for getting a man het up and had served its purpose.

“Besides, I ain’t got a shortage of credit and the world ain’t got a shortage of dresses.”

The Wayland home was a big house on the hill with electric light against the night sky. Had stars behind it that weren’t over the city, and Vera was looking up at both of them as Marcus drove them through the gate that had WL over it in iron cursive letters. Gate was anchored into a stone wall that Marcus said was part of the original property. Was expansive regarding his property.

“First Wayland came off the boat and came down south put these stones down and that was where Indian country ended.”

Still had on his bolo tie and boots and Vera wondered if he had dressed like a cowboy trying to resemble a pioneer. Like the two had gotten mixed up in his head like in the American story, cowboys taking the place of pioneers after the Mohicans had died out and the frontier had moved over Appalachia and past the Southland and took in the grassy and desert West. West to California, where everything was new, where there weren’t old families because nobody had been there long enough.

“Must’ve been a tough sort of person,” Vera said and had her mind on California and her eyes on the house that was getting bigger as they were getting closer. Were driving in relation to the strip of pavement going uphill that was stones laid against each other instead of concrete like a colonial street, and the Cadillac was sometimes at one edge and sometimes the other and occasionally straight down the middle how it had been the entirety of the drive. Was going slower now because Marcus liked the view and knew Vera liked the view too, and her thoughts moved from California to the house in front of her.

“Sure fucking was,” Marcus said. “Real heavy metal. Got here at the beginning of things and pulled this land out from the formless swamp and dark forest and made it into something. And, girl, you know the damndest fucking thing about this land?”  

“Marcus, I’m not even going to try to guess.”

“When father died this was all liened up,” Marcus said and pulled the car under the porte-cochere. “Father told me as he was dying that the bank was going to do what the Yankees hadn’t managed and that was to make the Wayland’s landless in Wayland County. Told me like I was the one had wronged him and I deserved what I got.”

Opened the door and hit the white-washed pillar holding the porch over them. Sound was hard like he was emphasizing a point.

“Mother and her ring and Father and his land, but I got a new ring and I kept the land. Making more money off it than Father ever did or Brother would have.”

Opened her door for her and she was looking up at him in his shirt that was transparent for being sweated through, with the light behind him so that his face was shadowed.

“You’re one of those folks who aren’t going to be poor,” Vera said.

He nodded his large head and the edges of his profile caught the light as he moved.

“Sure ain’t. Father sat on his genteel ass and waited on poverty and mother sat with him, and brother would have sat with them too if he’d lasted.”

Vera thought of her parents sitting in the tar paper shack and they were sitting idle how Marcus’s had, only instead of idleness in gentility waiting for poverty they were idle in poverty waiting for annihilation. Indifferent to themselves and their condition and resigned to it.

“You coming inside,” Marcus asked and had his hand out like she might take it if she wanted it. “Ain’t going to be just for the company.” Had his grin dark against his face and might’ve been cork on him.

She took his hand and was like holding onto tar.

Entrance hall was larger than Vera’s home and lit with an electric chandelier that had been imported from somewhere European. Showed the portraits of the Wayland’s going back to the first one. Marcus had moved that portrait by the entrance so it would command attention and Vera paid it attention while Marcus chewed out a domestic for not meeting them at the car. Man in the faded portrait was slimmer than Marcus and looked like a whetted bowie knife. Marcus told the domestic to get him another bottle and they had the same eyes, small dabs of blue in narrow slits and looking out like they knew more than the person they were talking to. Put an arm over Vera and used the other to slap her rear. Made a loud sound and could feel the redness shaped like the palm of his hand.

“You going to like ordering the house niggers around,” Marcus said.

Forced her mouth open and with his tongue choking her Vera thought that having domestics was something she could tolerate before all she could think on was being choked by him. Had both his hands on her and was pulling hard so there’d be sets of bruises the length and width of his fingers. Belt buckle dug into her hips and the hardness below the belt buckle was against her. All of him was too big for her.

Marcus took his time and the domestic interrupted to bring them the bottle. Marcus stopped long enough to say that the domestic was supposed to bring them the drink in the garden and bring a glass with it.

“My girl ain’t drinking straight from the bottle.”

Picked up Vera and wasn’t an effort for him, like it was easier for him to handle her than it had been for her to handle her half-empty grocery bag. Took her in his office and shut the door and could do that with one hand. Office was hardwood furniture and French windows opening onto the enclosed garden, decorated with Buddha statues and Japanese masks that Marcus had brought back from overseas. Took off his belt in a single motion like he was unholstering a gun. Put Vera in a low armchair facing the desk and the chair was positioned at an angle so she had to look up at Marcus as he pulled open a drawer and pulled out a bottle with clear dangerous liquid. He held it up to his lips and before he drank gave her a look like they were in on a secret.

“This ain’t for you,” he said. “Ain’t even legal but a man’s got to have his poisons.”

Had a mask mounted on the wall him. Was a gold mask of a Buddha with closed slanted eyes and overlong ears like they had been stretched out, and thin lines around the tight-shut mouth like an Oriental mustache. Mask was like an expansive and alien silence. Vera turned her eyes and everywhere she looked were other Buddhas, thin and severe like emptiness. Other masks were brightly colored with artificial angry features that people didn’t have and others were unnaturally white and featureless but for their upturned mouths like the masks knew more than they let on.

Marcus drank from the bottle straight and wiped his mouth with his hand before using the hand that held the bottle to make a gesture taking in the whole room.

“Mother and father hated these. Said they gave them bad dreams.”

“Why do you keep them?”

“Because I dream about them,” Marcus said, “and I wake up feeling empty and peaceful before I start sweating again. That’s how I feel once the day gets going, sweating and itching and like I got a heavy weight hanging on my balls and if I got to take it out on something, treating boys that I got by the balls like little bitch boys or getting on a bitch and humping her, like I got to spread out like oil over the surface of the water or a wagon train over a prairie.”

He took a mask off the wall and held it over his face and his face was obscured and replaced by the white and nearly featureless mask that still looked like it knew more than Vera did. Like Marcus was gone and was something alien and empty and knowing in front of her.

“Think these’ll give you bad dreams, too?”

“I’m not sure, Marcus, I’m really not sure.”

Marcus put the mask back on the wall and looked at her and was pity on his face.  

“Was a story I heard in Japan about the Buddha fighting a giant. The Buddha, who weren’t the Buddha yet but was lifetimes before he became the Buddha, stumbled across him some way and the giant antagonized him. Buddha went up to the giant and hit him with one hand and his hand stuck to the giant. Used his other hand and that stuck to it too, and same with his legs and then finally the Buddha headbutted him and then the Buddha was wholly stuck.”

“Why’d he stick to the giant,” Vera asked.

“Because the giant was made out of desire and desire’s like tar.”

“How’d he get out of it?”

“Stopped desiring anything at all, including being free of the giant or getting where he had been going before he stumbled onto the giant.”

“What good did that do?”

“Giant dissolved and the Buddha was free to get where he was going.”

“Even though he didn’t want to get where he was going?”

“Didn’t desire it and that ain’t the same thing, least according to the Nip who told it to me.”

“Who was that?”

“Old monk who’d taught himself some English and took a liking to me because I gave him enough to keep him from starving to death.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because it suited me,” Marcus said. “Kept a couple pretty girls alive and demanded more out of them and might’ve been my way of squaring things up.”

“Why’d you tell me that story?”

Marcus took off his bolo tie and unbuttoned his shirt to the breast and with his shirt sweated through gave the impression of being naked to the waist.  

“Wondered if you’d take anything from it,” Marcus said.

“I’m not sure that I did,” Vera said, “only that it sounds like a picture I saw lately and didn’t pay close attention to.” She had a feeling like she was missing something of great importance.

“Might be I need a moment to think on it, away from these masks. They aren’t sitting well with me.”

Marcus checked his watch and scratched himself and the gesture had finality to it. Looked up and his expression had reset itself and become hungry and unrestrained.

“Suppose we can take some time, if we ain’t letting go of everything than we’ve got the night and all the ones after to get satisfaction.”

Vera went out through the French window on her own power and Marcus put away the bottle before he followed her out. The domestic was waiting under an arbor bordered on two sides by aged brick walls with a trellis anchored at the top of the walls and beneath the trellis was a bench and an electric light and doing his best to look like he hadn’t been impatient for them. Marcus took the bottle and told the domestic to fuck off and the domestic said yes sir and bowed to Vera and exited through a servant’s door.

Arbor had a vine of Confederate jasmine growing along the trellis above them and in the electric light the blossoms were pale white like an actress under an unfriendly spotlight. Gentle and delicate smell and Vera thought rich women in the ante bellum must’ve smelled like that. Like an easy and fragile life, and something lost to most of the world and clinging on in small patches. Vera sat on the bench and Marcus put the bottle and the glass on the bench next to her and kept standing. Was looking down at her and the alcoholic sweating smell of him mixed with the jasmine around them.

“I’ve managed to have too much to drink,” Marcus said. “Got to take me a piss.”

Stood by her and undid his fly and relieved himself against the brick wall. Piddling sound against the wall and the sharp smell of urine and he whistled while he emptied himself like he was trying to draw attention to himself. Didn’t hurry to put himself away after he had finished.

 “You’re always looking for an excuse to take out your thing,” Vera said.

“Have something worth showing, ought to show it off. Besides,” he said and turned to her with his fly still undone, “from here on out what I got in my hand’s going to play an outsize role in your life.”

Tucked himself and sat besides her and his drawers were showing and could hardly smell the jasmine. Sweated through his drawers same as his shirt. Caught Vera looking down at it what was visible through the fabric like it was sheer. Pleased him and showed in the response between his legs.

“Ain’t any reason be modest about it. Ain’t a modest man anyway and don’t believe in it.” Pulled Vera close to him and was overwhelming and took the bottle of wine in the other hand. Was positioned under his armpit and felt like she was against a damp used rag, like an athlete having toweled off might throw in a bin.

“Modesty’s just another way of being a bitch afraid of yourself and lying to yourself.”

Marcus put the bottle between his legs like he was making an obscene gesture.

“Thank God every morning he didn’t make me a bitch or a bitch-boy. Brother was one, and father and mother were too. Life ain’t kind to them and I ain’t kind to them.”

“What’re you, then,” Vera asked.

“I’m a real mean bastard,” Marcus said. Played with the bottle by shifting it around. Decided he wanted to do something else and shifted Vera onto his lap and the bottle was pushed forward until Marcus pulled it away and was still a hard thing against her. Small blue eyes were clear as the spirits in the bottle in his office, and his expression was as set and composed as the Oriental masks.

“Why you are with me right now. I was a bitch or a bitch-boy, you wouldn’t give me a second thought.”

“I don’t want to go hungry,” Vera said. “A person can be blameless for that.”

“I ain’t saying I disapprove, and I ain’t saying you here just on account of my money. You ain’t hungry how Jody and Kyle was hungry before they started with me. And even if you was there’s plenty of boys would keep a girl like you comfortable and there’s always a bus to California where there ain’t no hunger and only opportunity, but you ain’t going for those boys and you ain’t hopping the bus to Hollywood and the Los Angeles assembly lines. No, girl, you sitting on my lap and breathing heavy because you want a real mean bastard.”

Vera slapped him on the cheek. Hand stuck to his flushed cheek and he put his hand over hers before she could try to force it away. Slapped with her other hand and he caught that one too. Cupped her hands his and they might’ve been stuck in hot tar. Face was as cartoonish and wide as a minstrel show and might’ve been corked, but for the eyes and the knowing corners of his mouth that reminded her of those goddamned masks.

“You getting tied up with me and that’s the only way you’re going to understand what that Nip learned me.”

Vera heard her breathing rapid and irregular. Wasn’t trying to get off of him even if the effort would’ve been futile.

“I’m going to be real good for you,” Marcus added, “how I am for Kyle and Jody and the rest of this county.”

“You aren’t good for any of us,” Vera said.

“Sure I am,” Marcus said, “I’m how you dissolve and find the perspective that ain’t bullshit.”

Marcus pulled her to him for a kiss Vera wasn’t ever getting untangled from. World smelled like Marcus and felt like submerging in sticky tar and towards the bottom of the tar was a mask with clear narrow blue eyes looking like they saw more than Vera did through the tar covering the world.

© V.N. Ebert 2023