OK, first day of pheasant season. Mike is off with Don somewhere. They leave before daylight to be ready to head out into a field, fully armed, with the first rays of the morning sun crossing the horizon. They've done this, so I gather, since they were old enough to hunt.
There were a few years off there while they let Don's getting married and Mike's enlisting in the service keep them apart, but they've been kind of mending fences since I've known Mike, and I say let them. It's tough enough finding good friends, but keeping them, that's even tougher. And you need them in this world.
Yeah, Don is straight as one of Tonto's arrows. Well, who knows for sure how straight that was, but you get the idea. And from spending a few days with him last summer on that road trip in search of Kirk, I know he wishes Mike was straight, too, so they could be the Lone Ranger and Tonto together, like the good old days. He's probably even holding out for Mike to discover he's not queer after all, and for me to drop out of the picture.
But be that as it may-and I seriously doubt that's ever going to happen-it's all right with me if they can get back to enjoying one another's company. Mike would feel the same way for me.
Though I can tell you right now, there's little chance of that happening either. I've begun to see that I used to hang out with some real duds. Mike, of course, would never be so uncharitable-he can find some redeeming quality in just about anybody-but what I like about Mike is exactly what was missing in all of them.
He's not afraid. And fear is one of the personality traits I like least about myself. I've been scared of just about everything. And the friends I had at school were a bunch of other guys who were just the same way. They'd be the last to admit it, of course, because they covered it up with a shit load of cynicism.
Who needs that? That's what I want to know.
So I've got no real friends, and while that's pretty goddam pathetic, I'm willing to cut my losses and leave the welcome mat out for any who may some day come along. And either way, one thing's for sure, I'm sticking with Mike. He's the real thing-not to mention one helluva lot of fun in bed.
I'm having thoughts like this while I'm standing in the kitchen, having my third cup of coffee and looking out the window at the fields beyond the barn. First thing I notice is Ranger standing there in the horse pasture, gazing out across the fence into the distance, and when I see where he's looking, I can make out what looks like some hunters pacing through Mike's corn stubble.
Which is exactly where they're not supposed to be. The fields down that way are posted "No Hunting" because one of our neighbors, Tully, has turned out a bunch of his feeder steers and a couple dry milk cows there to forage.
I can see three hunters heading across the field, carrying their shotguns, and they're already spooking the cattle, who are eyeing them, curious, but ready to run off, tails straight in the air. Or if one has a mind to, give them a good chase. The hunters don't seem to care about that. Maybe they're dumb enough to think that with guns they can defend themselves.
I go to the phone and call Tully.
"Looks like we got some hunters over here with your cows," I say when his wife Alice picks up, and she hands the phone to Tully.
"Sonofabitch," he mutters.
I picture him already reaching for his coat to go put a stop to it. He's easy-going normally, but always ready to swing into action when something needs doing.
"You want some backup?" I ask him.
"If you're not busy," he says.
And I agree to drive out to the field and meet him there.
I put on a pair of boots that are like ice on my feet from sitting overnight on the porch, and I try to dress warm since for all the golden morning sunshine illuminating the world outside, it's cold enough to freeze your butt. Even if I did see the sport in firing buckshot into small, colorful game fowl, I'd draw the line at this.
When I sit down on the frigid seat in Mike's truck and start it up, a cold blast of air from the heater blows between my legs, and I am instantly chilled to the bone. Rusty jumps into the back, happy at the prospect of an adventure, huffing clouds of his breath into the air.
"Fuck this," I tell him. He, in his fur coat, thinks I'm delighted as he is by this new development.
I drive down the road to where the hunters have parked their truck, a beat-up old GMC pickup with a sprung tailgate, decals for petroleum products and additives in the windows, and a bumper sticker on the back: "I Got a Gun For My Wife-Best Trade I Ever Made."
The plates are from some county I don't know. You can reason with most local guys, I'm thinking, but some yahoos far from home-and maybe drunk to boot-they could take some persuading.
I stay inside Mike's truck looking at them already half way across the field, Tully's cows scattering then turning to watch them pass by. I leave the engine running, waiting for the heater to kick in. Rusty is still in the back, letting out a woof or two, anticipating he doesn't know what yet.
Tully arrives in his truck, jumps out and is crossing the ditch, his long legs high-stepping through the dead weeds. He's already shouting at the hunters when he gets to the fence. His voice rises high and shrill, in that flat, tight way of country men who need to be heard above the sound of loud machinery, a herd of cattle bawling, or-as in this case-over a considerable distance.
"Can't any of you fuckers read?" he's shouting, pointing to the no-hunting sign on the fence post beside him. "Get the hell off this property!"
Rusty woofs again, getting more excited.
Maybe one of the three men turns to look our way, but they show no signs of hearing or understanding what Tully is saying.
"Goddam it," Tully says and stomps back to his truck. He takes the shotgun from the gun rack in the cab, pops in a couple of shells and fires it into the air. The sharp blast echoes back to us from across the countryside. Tully's cows stand where they are, too startled to move.
This gets the attention of all three hunters, and Tully shouts some more. He's aiming the gun now at the tires of their truck. I've never seen him so mad.
I can hear them shouting back at him, shaking their fists and sounding pissed off. Part of me, from watching too many "Gunsmoke" episodes with Mike, is expecting this to turn into a shootout, me unarmed and diving for cover. Rusty barks again, like he's ready for a showdown.
Then one by one they begin walking back toward the road, one of them with a hand over his head, as if he's surrendering.
Tully comes over to where I'm sitting in Mike's truck, and I roll down the window.
"Idiots," he's muttering. But he's grinning at me, as he shakes his head, like this is all in a day's work.
"What's Mike up to today?" he wants to know, and I tell him. And while we wait for the hunters, we small talk like this, as country men do who meet each other on the road and are in no hurry to get someplace else.
I don't know Tully very well, but I like him. He's solid as bedrock, a man of his word, decent and dependable. He was born and raised out here, and he's farming the same farm he grew up on. Too many years to stay in one place, if you ask me, but he'll live the rest of his life this way. He's already been married long enough to have teenage kids.
When the three hunters are finally close enough and we can hear them walking through the corn stalks on the ground, Tully stops talking and turns to watch them, his elbow in my open window and his shotgun cradled in his other arm.
They're an unsavory looking bunch, unshaven and scowling. One of them has a face that's been through more than a few fist fights and seen the bottom of way too many bottles of booze. He stumbles crawling through the barb wire fence like he's started into another one today already.
"We could report you to the sheriff for this," he is saying. "Threatening us with a firearm."
"I know the guy personally," Tully says. "If he's not already too busy today with assholes like you, I'm sure he'd love to hear your story."
The guy gives Tully an evil look, but nothing more is said. They take their time getting into their pickup and finally drive off, spinning tires in the gravel. The driver sticks his arm out the window and gives us the finger.
"Thanks for coming out," Tully says to me when they're gone. "Made it easier with the two of us-and Rusty." He reaches into the back and pats Rusty on the head.
When Tully says stuff like this, you know it's from the heart. I admit, coming from him it gives me a little feel-good surge.
"No problem," I say.
"Did you get a good look at those suckers?" he laughs. "That one had a face on him even a mother'd find hard to love."
Tully seems in no hurry to get back home, and since the heater has finally started working-I can feel the beginnings of warmth around my ankles-I invite him to come sit inside.
"Don't mind if I do," he says and walks around the front of the truck to get in. He's a big guy, and his big coat makes him even bigger, his knees almost touching the dashboard. He pulls off his cap, flipping the ear flaps back into it and snaps it onto his head again, tugging it real snug. Then he puts his hand into an inside pocket and takes out a rolled-up pouch of Red Man.
"Chew?" he offers, holding it to me before he takes some himself.
I decline.
"Filthy habit, I know," he chuckles. "So Alice keeps telling me."
He pulls off a stringy wad and puts it in one cheek.
"I like Mike," he says, when he gets himself settled. "He's a good neighbor."
"Well, he says the same thing about you," I tell him. Which sounds lame, I know, but it's the truth.
"And you're related to him?" he asks.
Here it comes, I'm thinking. He's fishing for information about Mike and me. I'm sure the people around here must have begun to wonder about us by now. Tully would be no exception.
"No, we're just friends," I say and offer nothing more. How, I wonder, would I explain the "just" in just friends anyway?
"He's smart," Tully says. "Stayin' single like he does. Put it off as long as you can, gettin' hitched. I wish I'd done that."
As I hoped, Tully doesn't pry where information isn't offered. Instead, as it happens, he decides to be more roundabout.
A car comes down the road toward us now, a big old Buick. The driver, a woman, slows and waves as she goes by. The girl beside her on the front seat only glances our way.
"That's Alice," Tully says and sighs. "And my daughter. They're going into town to shop for a wedding dress."
And then the story tumbles out of him. His daughter, Nadine, seems to have rushed things with her boyfriend, and now they're organizing a quick wedding.
"Alice thinks they'll be all right, but I got my doubts." His voice takes on an edge. "Sure as shootin', it'll turn out like the last time with my first daughter." And he explains how she married two years ago and is already separated and living at home again, with two little ones.
"I don't know what's the matter with young people today," Tully says, and I hear both regret and dismay in his voice. If you asked him, I know he'd say it's not all that hard to just stick to your guns and make the best of things come hell or high water. Nobody said getting along with a spouse was supposed to be easy.
"They read those romance magazines until they're boy crazy," he says. "And they think you and me and every other good lookin' man is gonna sweep them off their feet and keep them livin' happily ever after."
He rolls down his window and takes a spit out onto the road. "Hell, it ain't that way, and anybody could tell 'em, but do any of 'em want to hear that? Hell, no."
I am still turning that "good lookin' man" remark over in my head and starting to feel a glow of self-regard that is not coming from the heater. Tully is a good looking man, even at his age, and it tickles me that he not only considers himself so but includes me along with him.
"I have three uncles, every one of 'em stayed single-Ernest, Albert, and Richard-and I can't see it's done any of 'em a lick of harm." He was on a roll now, and I just let him talk.
Two of his uncles, it seems, were not really marriage material anyway. One of them is hunch-backed and another is so shy around other people everyone takes him for mentally disabled. The oldest, however, did well working for the railroad and, living on his pension now, still manages to buy a new Chrysler every couple of years.
"A Chrysler, for crissake," Tully says. "That second-hand Buick you saw my wife drivin' and that sorry excuse for a Ford truck you're lookin' at right there are the best I've ever been able to manage." I look through the windshield at his pickup and, besides the heavy-duty splashes of manure-colored mud and a paint-chipped stock rack that leans a little to one side, I can't see anything wrong with it.
Those three bachelor uncles, he goes on, ended up living together and looking after each other. The one car gets them everywhere they need to go, and until they bought a TV, you could find them most days sitting at home playing cards and passing around the occasional pint of schnapps.
Over the years they have worked out most of their disagreements, each tolerating the others' eccentricities-and there were many. Then Tully laughs. About the only problem anymore is agreeing on which shows to watch on the TV.
The two youngest have never had steady work, just jobbed out as manual labor, mostly for local farmers when someone needed an extra hand. Tully himself hired his uncle Richard for a while one year, getting two of his daughters to double up in one bedroom so the old guy could have a room of his own.
He had odd table manners-or so the girls complained-and because his idea of talking to them was so old-fashioned and quaintly courteous that he seemed to be from Mars, it was hard maintaining anything like harmony in the household. Only his youngest daughter, a first-grader then, would accept his uncle's offer of a candy bar-he kept a grocery bag full of them on the dresser in his room.
The others were downright rude, until Tully had finally threatened them with whippings-something as unlikely to happen as an actual invasion from Mars, since soft-hearted Tully had never raised a hand to his daughters.
Richard finally went back to his brothers, and that was the end of the discord for a while. Until the girls returned to squabbling with each other. There's never a moment of peace under his roof it seems. Trapped, he's been, in a house full of women.
"Sometimes, I think the only satisfaction I ever had from those girls was the five minutes it took to get their mother pregnant." He laughs ruefully and spits out the window again.
I picture him for a moment, sliding into bed with his long legs, the start of a hard-on in his underwear, reaching over to interest his wife in something conjugal at the end of a long day's work on the farm.
"When I was young," he says, "I never stopped to wonder what my uncles did for sex." Ernest, he could have had girls stashed away here and there. With that Chrysler, and the sharp way he can dress, he wouldn't have had any trouble picking them up.
But if a woman ever caught his eye, no one ever knew of it. Ernest was his mama's boy. He looked after her till she was gone, and to this day he still looks after his two bachelor brothers.
"Sometimes I look at the situation this way," Tully says. "You and I know how boys are. They can get to playing with each other. I suppose some boys never outgrow that."
And there it is. There's his theory about Mike and me. He's worked his way around to it without ever saying it in so many words. And then, as if to make sure I don't take it the wrong way, he says, "If that's how it's been for them, I say what the hell. Live and let live."
I feel a kind of relief flood over me, that this man with his farmer's way of thinking has found a way to make sure I don't misunderstand him - that as far as he's concerned, Mike and I are free to be "just friends" in whatever way that means to us. And he doesn't need to know.
He falls silent for a while, hands on his knees, gazing out the windshield. Then he stirs, pulls a pair of leather work gloves from the back pocket of his jeans, and begins putting them on.
"No, if I had a son," Tully says, "I'd tell him to take a lesson from Mike. Sow your wild oats if you have to, but stay away from the marryin' kind as long as you can."
And if I needed a father, I'm thinking, I'd pick a man like Tully. Anyone who could go to the trouble to give Mike and me his blessing-and even consider yours truly good looking-well, he is king in my book.
I look over at him with the big wad of chew in his cheek, and I picture him living his life out here on his farm and giving it all his best, year after year, letting himself think sometimes how he might have done it all differently, shaking his head, and then just getting on with it.
"You know," I say. "I may be out of line saying this, but if you were my dad, I'd be proud of you."
He looks at me, a grin now on his face, like it was the last thing he expected anyone to ever say. "You would?" he says.
"Yeah, I would."
He slaps me on the knee, giving it a good shake. "I don't know," he says, "but I might come around some day just to hear you say that again."
He opens the door on his side and starts to get out. "Been real good talkin' to ya, Danny," he says. "Give my regards to Mike when you see him." And a wave of cold air washes over my legs before he closes the door again.
Instead of walking to his truck, he steps down into the ditch and crosses through the fence. I roll down my window, and he says he's taking the time, as long as he's here, to have a look at his cows to see if they're doing all right.
"You want me to stick around in case those hunters come back?" I ask him.
"Naw, they're gone for good," he says and waves me on.
I watch him for a while, walking out into the field, calling to his cows. And then I turn the pickup around in the road and head back to the house.
I'm thinking, well, it's back to my writer's life, lonesome as it may be, pouring heart and soul onto the typewritten page, dreaming my long-shot dreams of fame and fortune.
But my day that started with Tully and a truckload of drunk pheasant hunters has only just begun.
OK, what I was working on that morning when I discovered the hunters in the cornfield was a poem that started coming to me as I lay in bed, half-awake. I'm not a poem-writing guy, and it surprised me, but it must have been something I dreamed about during the night that got me going.
With my dick rock hard in my pajamas, I was just lying there staring at the ceiling, lifting my arms over my head, like I do, life returning to the rest of my body, a feeling like electricity singing along my skin as I stretched out under the covers.
Whatever it was-just horny maybe-I found myself already well into a poetic frame of mind, and the first words started coming to me.
How come there aren't any love songs for you and me?
I feel one coming on right now, but the words, the tune,
They're just not there-a chorus of voices dumbstruck,
Standing together with mouths hanging open
Making not a single solitary sound.
I shook my head a little. This was a new development. The novel I've been working on has been coming along, slowly but surely. It's the first one I've ever written, so I don't know if that's good or bad.
Poems, I'm thinking, do I write poems? Or is this some way to keep from working on my novel? I'm guessing that writers have conversations like this with themselves, and so I take this little dilemma as a good sign.
Maybe I should write this stuff down, I say to myself, and I get out of bed.
A while later, I've been sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and writing with a ballpoint on a pad of yellow paper. And this is what I've got so far:
If there were a love song for you and me,
It would surely go something like this.
I can't decide which way I like you,
Standing there with that big grin for me
And that bulge in the front of your jeans,
Or turning to look the other way,
With your butt just a poem in motion.
Either way, I want to hold you tight
And take your handsome body in my arms.
I'm not so sure about that "butt" line, but I couldn't think of how else to say it. I kept picturing Mike's backside in a pair of his wranglers and how nearly impossible it is for me not to touch him-first patting one of his back pockets and then slipping my fingers into the seam between them.
"I'm warning you," he'll finally say, "Keep that up and I won't be able to control myself."
And more than once we have ended up where we were-the kitchen floor, the barn, out in a field on a summer afternoon behind a thicket of wild plums-pants around our ankles, breathing hard, and spent.
How do you put all that in a line of a poem? I am gaining new respect for every poet I ever read in English class.
And I get to thinking about Walt Whitman, that great bearded American poet who loved men and surely struggled with words the same way. No wonder his poems are so long.
Read him between the lines-sometimes you don't have to read too far-and you sense the sweaty lovemaking that went on, either for real or in his imagination. And I wish he'd been able to just say all that plainly, so I'd begin to see how to do this. Instead, it's like getting the words herded up and domesticated like wild ponies who just want to break free and run for the hills.
Well, there I go again. I've been thinking Hemingway all along as I write my novel, and there's this streak of Whitman in me wanting to get out-giving me a hard-on before I wake up and filling my head with metaphors like flowery wallpaper before Hemingway even has a chance.
You gotta be bored by now with this literary shop talk, and if you're still reading this, I give you A+ for effort and a pat on the butt for perseverance and patience.
Anyway, onward.
Like I say, I keep writing until my dick relaxes and there's a big wet spot growing along the leg of my pajama bottoms, and I put down the pen to get dressed, fry up a couple eggs, butter some toast, and pour more coffee. A poet's got to eat, too.
Not long afterward, my writer's morning is interrupted by three pheasant hunters who've crawled through Mike's fence, ignoring the no-hunting signs, and you know the rest of that story.
Back in the kitchen now, I find my poem-in-progress on the kitchen table and go to work on it again.
I haven't mentioned some other things I like,
The way you put your chin out as you shave,
The cowlick in your hair when you get up
Sometimes it stays there all day under your cap
No matter how hard you brush it away.
Your hands, strong and work-hard,
A fingernail always black or blue or both.
The part of you naked where your belt goes around you,
The curly trail of hair on your belly
And the thick dark patch of it over your cock.
The milky smell of you there as I . . .
Rusty has started barking outside and won't stop. I'm trying to pay no attention. And finally there's a loud knocking on the door that brings my train of thought to an end. And those wild ponies go off in all directions.
When I go to the door, it turns out to be Ernie, our mailman. Rusty, who has never liked him, keeps on barking and Ernie has to shout to be heard.
"Morning," he says. "Got your mail here for ya." And he hands me a fistful of it.
Normal delivery is in the mailbox out by the road. I'm thinking he must have a package for one of us that won't fit into it, but I don't see anything else in his hands.
"Thought you might like to ride along on my route today," he says.
We've had a conversation like this before. Because rural mailmen, I guess, get to know all the people they deliver mail to, he's one of the first to know I've moved in with Mike. And with the stories I've sent out to magazines and got returned in SASE's (self addressed, stamped envelopes), he knows I'm here all day most days at my typewriter.
It's not from kindness or concern that he's asked whether I'd come along with him on his route. He doesn't seem to have that in him. I think he just likes company and is the kind of guy who should have some other type of job, where he can be with people he can talk to all day. And he's a talker.
If you're trying to picture this guy, I can say what Mike and I have always said about him. He reminds us of Steve Reeves, the muscleman. But he's got the personality of L'il Abner in the comic strips. And that same shock of hair, the dopey grin, and the beefy shoulders with the little butt.
"I got something I need to talk to you about," Ernie says, and when I look at him, I can see he's got kind of a worried frown.
I'm torn because I want to keep writing, but he looks so pathetic, I know Mike would find it in his heart to spare him some time.
"How long we gonna be?" I ask him.
"Couple hours."
"Can we stop in town to pick up some things?" We need some groceries, and I know Mike has been waiting for a fuel pump at the parts store.
"Yes, sure," he says, brightening. I can see now that he expected me to turn him down.
But I figure what the hell. There's always the possibility of an idea for a good story. My writing teacher at school would approve of that attitude. So I take the mail from him and say, "Gimme a minute."
"Can you call off your dog?" he says before I go.
"OK." And I tell Rusty to go sit in his dog house. Which he does, after giving me a look of disbelief.
Inside, I stack the mail neatly on the kitchen table the way Mike would do it himself, I grab my coat, and bring along the yellow pad, to write down any more lines as they come to me.
"Whatcha got there?" Ernie says right away, curious.
"Something to write on," I tell him.
"That's right. You're a writer," he says, like I'm already a famous author. And he struts along ahead of me to the mail truck. He's wearing his blue postal carrier pants, and he's squeezed into a postal carrier jacket, with shoulders so wide they must have to special order it.
He's driving his new Jeep mail carrier truck, with the left-hand drive. There's only one front seat, so I climb into the back and sit on a tool box with a bunch of parcel post packages around my feet.
I'm wondering what he wants to talk to me about, and it takes him a while of beating around the bush before he gets to it. Meanwhile, he's stopping every half-mile or so to pick up letters left in people's mailboxes and leave a batch of mail, flipping down any flags when he's done and snapping shut each door with a sharp flip of his fist.
He may look slow, but he's got this down to an art.
"How's the family," I ask him. I know he's got a bunch of little kids. His wife Emily just had their fourth or fifth. He's still young, hardly thirty, and I'm thinking it must feel like a lot of responsibility for someone his age. Maybe that's what the frown is about.
"Kids are fine," he says. "The new one's gonna be a corker. I can tell that already." He grins at me for a moment over his shoulder.
"Emily doing OK?" She's the one has to spend all day with them, and I'm wondering how on earth a person does that.
He doesn't answer my question, like he's thinking of a way to say something.
"I dunno," he finally says, shaking his head. Now the cat's out of the bag. This is what he wants to talk about.
Afterwards, I couldn't tell you why for sure he picks me to tell all this to. Maybe it's because being a writer I'm supposed to know about these things. Maybe it's because I don't know anybody he knows and he can tell me things that won't get back to them. Maybe it's because I've been to college, and that makes me some kind of expert. Maybe there's no reason.
What's happened is that Emily, who encountered motherhood before she even got out of high school, has had enough of Ernie. Raising kids, she's taken that on as a full-time job, but enough is enough. There will be no more.
Trouble is, she's Catholic and doesn't believe in birth control. No pill, no rubbers. This last one, Ernie's still not sure how it happened. He'd been pulling out before he, you know, shot his load.
A little sex education could have made a difference, but school boards in their wisdom seem to think kids are better off learning by trial and error. So Ernie chalks up another error.
Now, desperate, she's taking no chances. She won't have sex with him at all. And Ernie, in his turn, is desperate. He never expected to spend the rest of his days and nights like this.
"I wish I was in California," he says, wistfully. "They have free sex out there."
I'm trying to picture what he's thinking.
"You know, hippies and all," he explains, and then hits the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. "Aw, I'm just dreamin'."
The appeal of California, it turns out, is partly because his situation here is confounded by something else he'd like to get away from. One of his co-workers at the post office has been putting the moves on him. She's older by more than a few years and by the sounds of it pretty forward. She sneaks up behind him when he's sorting letters and pinches his butt, and she makes remarks, like asking him if he's big all over and how about showing her.
I'm wondering if he realizes that a glance at his crotch removes all doubt about the size of his dick. From the right angle, it looks like a banana in a hammock.
Lately, she's been putting the pressure on, her whispered comments having graduated into outright propositions.
"Even while Emily was expecting," he says, still shocked at the idea.
And what concerns him is that in his desperation he finds himself beginning to come around. He's been making sure that the two of them are never alone together, but he doesn't know how long he can hold out. It's starting to look like a losing battle.
"One of these times, I'm afraid I'm just gonna cave in," he says.
"There's a way to keep that from happening. Buy a Playboy and jerk off whenever you get the urge."
"Aw, I couldn't do that," he says. "For godsake, I'm a grown man with a wife and kids."
Once again I marvel at how married men manage. It all seems to get so complicated.
He has to make a stop at a farmhouse, where the widow who lives there runs some kind of business. Ernie says she buys and sells Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls-"Big money in that, can you believe it?" he says-and he's got parcels to drop off.
I watch him take two packages, one under each arm, to the front door. A gray-haired, grandmotherly woman meets him with a big smile, and he goes inside. When he doesn't come back, I figure this is another female with an interest in him. She's probably got hot tea and fresh-baked cookies waiting. He wouldn't say no.
I take my yellow pad and write some more.
The milky smell of you there as I take you in my mouth.
The taste of your cum on my tongue
As I press my lips into the curve of your throat,
Right there under your ear,
Where the blood pumps from your heart.
And I put my hand on your muscled chest
Oh, so tenderly, oh so warm.
Touch you anywhere and I'm home.
Suddenly Ernie is opening the back door of the truck, setting down an armload of new packages. Granny is on her porch, waving warmly. Who knows, Ernie with his good looks, eager-to-please smile, and broad shoulders probably makes her day.
Soon we're back on the road again.
"What am I going to do, Danny," he's saying to me. "Help me out."
I think about the women who have found their way into and out of my life. Finding me hard to figure out-going through the motions of romance but curiously lacking the desire to get them into bed-they eventually lost interest, one after another.
What must they have made of me when they got to comparing notes in the girl's dorm? Surely it must have occurred to at least one of them that it was all just an act. What fooled them for a while was that my act was better than a lot of other guys, who had the hormones right but the moves all wrong.
"You kinda got yourself boxed in," I say. Not a very helpful remark, but I'm trying. I decide to explore the hypothetical. "What happens if you have sex with this woman at the post office?"
"It'll be wham-bam and thank you, ma'am," he says, like the quicker it's over the better.
This gives me an idea. "And with Emily?"
"Aw, man, if she found out, she'd kill me dead."
"No, I mean what is it like with her when you two have sex?"
He spins around and glares at me like I've said something unpardonable.
"I'm just asking," I say, glad he still has both hands on the wheel and is not about to punch me. "Seems like you got to make yourself as irresistible to her as you are to this other woman."
"Huh?"
He obviously doesn't know what I'm talking about.
"A little romance goes a long way," I say. And I imagine myself into his situation-maybe this is the writer in me he's come to for help-and I talk about flowers, an evening out away from the kids, maybe a nice little gift, her favorite perfume or some jewelry, and a whole lot of tenderness. "Show her you love her."
He ponders this and says nothing for a while. Finally, he says, "You really think that'll work?"
"It's gotta be worth a try."
"Maybe you're right," he says, and I wonder how much it's been like this for her, that big oaf climbing on and off like he jumps in and out of his mail truck. Make a quick delivery and then off and running again. I can see that getting pregnant wouldn't be much of a trade-off.
I look at the yellow pad in front of me. "Buy her a card today when you're in town and write a little poem in it."
"A poem?" he says, like I'd just asked him to swallow a dead mouse.
"A few nice words. They don't have to rhyme."
He shakes his head. This is obviously a tall order.
But by the time we get back to town, he's weighed all the pros and cons, and he stops at a drug store to look for a card. He's gone a long time, and while I sit in the truck, feeling my feet and ears go steadily numb with the cold, I work some more on my poem.
The smile in your eyes when you're happy,
The look on your face when we kiss,
The feel of your hands as you undress me,
The touch of your cock against mine.
Your sigh as you hug me naked,
Then press yourself slowly inside me.
You make loving you so easy.
That's the love song I sing for you,
And when the day comes that I can,
The door rattles and Ernie is getting inside. He has a little, flat paper bag, and I'm guessing there's a card inside. But when he turns to me, I see he's still got some kind of problem.
"Danny, do me a favor, would you?" he says. He's been thinking about what I said. Maybe a Playboy would help get him through this. They sell them in the drug store, but the problem is he's too embarrassed to buy one. Would I go in and get one for him?
"Sure," I say, and he lets me out of the back of the truck. For a moment, I'm not sure what to do about the yellow pad. I don't want him looking at it for poem ideas. So I tear off the pages I've been working on and fold them into my back pocket. He's fishing some money out of his billfold to hand me and doesn't seem to notice.
Inside the drug store, I find the magazine racks, and I have to reach over a couple of junior high school boys reading "Tales From the Crypt" comic books to where the Playboys are on the top shelf. A long-haired brunette smiles back at me from the front cover, in a long-sleeved tee shirt. For a buck you get her in a fold-out, without the tee shirt, plus an article on "The Bizarre Story of an American Millionaire's Mexican Jailbreak."
In a short while, I'm thinking, these boys will graduate from what they're reading to this-not a big jump-and what passes for literacy in this country will find its way from one generation to the next.
The cashier, a Sunday school teacher type, barely touches the magazine and asks me if I want it in a paper bag. She's looking at me like I'm some kind of pervert-and I'm trying not to laugh because she's got me pegged for the wrong kind-and I say, "Yes, I'll take the paper bag," figuring that Ernie would want it that way.
Back in the truck, I hand it to him, and we're on our way again.
As we're driving through town, he slips it out of the bag, opens it across his knee, and starts flipping through it. And before I know it, I can hear him making little high-pitched moaning sounds. He quickly closes the magazine, opens it to another page, and moans even louder. No mistake, this is a kind of torment for him.
Suddenly, he veers into a Mobil station, past a "clean restrooms" sign and around back, where he parks behind a big delivery van. He slips the magazine into the bag and jumps out, shoving it inside his coat.
"I'll be right back," he says. "This won't take long." And he hurries to the men's room.
I take out my yellow pad and ballpoint. I don't have a title yet for my poem and begin considering possibilities.
Suddenly, I realize he's back, sliding open the door and getting in. He just sits there for a while, kind of catching his breath. I'm thinking, "You're right, Ernie. That didn't take long at all. Maybe you oughtta do this more often."
He takes another look at the magazine, pulling it from the bag, and he lets out another moan. And then he's in motion, throwing open the door and getting out again. Without a word of explanation this time, he's headed straight back toward the men's room.
He's gone a little longer-maybe three minutes. Returning to the truck this time, he's walking a little more slowly, a little dazed, like a man who's just seen a ghost or had some hair-raising, narrow escape.
"You all right?" I ask him, more than anything reminding him that I'm still there.
He nods and sets the Playboy on the letter tray beside him. The center-fold is still hanging from it-I get a glimpse of a pair of bare legs-and the paper bag has disappeared.
After a moment, he starts up the truck.
"You gonna be OK to drive?" I ask him. I'm beginning to have my doubts.
"Yeah," he wheezes. "I'm OK now."
* * *
Later, when he drops me off at the farm, he hasn't said more than a few words. But he manages to thank me as I get out of the truck. And he shakes my hand-probably with the same hand that's getting reacquainted with his dick. Silently, I wish both of them a long and happy reunion.
"Some TLC on the homefront," I remind him, honestly hoping, for Emily's sake, that he takes my advice. "A little change, you know, can make a big difference."
He thanks me again.
Mike is home, returned from hunting, and I'm happy as anything to see him.
After I set down the groceries I got while I was in town and the fuel pump I picked up for him at the parts store, I decide to show him my little surprise.
"I wrote something for you," I say and hand him the folded-up pages with the poem.
As he reads it, concentrating on the words, I watch for his reaction, and gradually a big grin spreads across his face.
"Aw, Danny," he says when he gets to the end and looks up. I can see that his eyes have filled with feeling. "Aw, Danny," he says again and slips his hand behind my neck to pull me toward him.
I know that I'm going to get one of his bone-crushing hugs. And, by golly, I get one.