spring quarter short story #2

Some women marry houses

And that’s how it was for Mary Lark, who had always wanted some place all her own. Not that she hadn’t owned things, or been a part of something nice and good—she had. She had grown up with her momma, who got them into a double-wide when Mary was twelve. That had been the best day of Mary’s life, up until the day she got married. There was so much more room, an actual kitchen with an oven and wooden cabinets, and her own room with a tiny canopied bed her momma’d got a deal on.
And then there was the day Mary got her hamster—her own pet, something smaller than a dog to prove to momma that she was responsible and would do good, though momma always said dogs do nothing but whine and shit so Mary doubted whether her hamster-raising skills would earn her a dog. But the hamster was beautiful; furry and fat and made fun for itself on that squeaky hamster wheel that kept Mary up sometimes late into the night. Mary wished she could make her own fun, but she couldn’t. She sat sometimes on the couch, or on her bed, and said to herself “come on, fun, let’s go,” but that’s when she was young and didn’t know any better.
So, yeah, she’d had stuff and life had been good, sometimes holy, because for two years Mary believed she was Jesus’ momma, because that’s what momma said—how she was named Mary and Mary was in the Bible and had a baby though she hadn’t done the bad thing with any boys. Mary was seven then, and knew what the bad thing was—she’d looked at Micah’s down-there once and momma had spanked her raw. So she knew not to look and knew her name was Mary and knew Jesus loved her and that was enough for her to believe.

Sweet, sweet Jesus, she was married now, eighteen and married, and had already got all her stuffed animals, school ribbons, and such and moved them to her new house, not just her husband’ house anymore, but hers too, because man and wife were one, the preacher had said. Her new house was brick, with a big bedroom and a hallway, and there was brown carpet that tickled her feet, and this man with wet lips who said he loved her. And Mary was eighteen and love came easy, so she loved him too, though she had met him only two months ago, at Mack’s, the only bar in Brockton, Tennessee with one dollar shots on ladies’ night. He’d said the most beautiful thing to her, how it must have hurt when she’d fallen down from heaven and then he bought her three shots of schnapps but then closed his tab because he said “a lady never goes past three.”
The day she got married, her momma told her she couldn’t be at the courthouse—she’d already just got time off from K-mart for visiting her cousin in Hattiesburg, so the morning of the wedding, she handed Mary a twenty dollar bill and patted her on the back.
“You’re not gonna be no Virgin Mary anymore, sweetheart,” she said, winking. “You think you’ll be alright? You know what’s coming to you?”
“Sure, momma. They made us watch that video in class last year, and Mookie Spitzer said the bad thing isn’t bad…I think I’ll be fine. And Louis, he’s a gentleman. He says first base is as far as two unmarried folks should go…”
“That’s enough, Mary,” momma interrupted. “I sure don’t need to know about no first base. Look, I have to be going now, so you be good, and I’ll call you soon to see how you’re settling in. Love you,” and momma was out the door and gone.
So Mary took a taxi with that twenty to the courthouse, signed a paper, and was suddenly not Mary Lark anymore but Mary Heimlich, wife to Louis, aged 28, reporter for the local paper, the Brockton Good News. After they signed their names, Louis ahem-ed and asked the justice of the peace, “Can I, sir, if you don’t mind, recite a devotional to my new and mighty pretty bride?” (Louis composed the daily devotional for the Brockton Good News, and took special pride in doing so). The justice shrugged, so Louis began, “It was blessed Paul who said ‘tis better to marry than to burn.’ Bless his Holy Name. Amen!” and he opened his mouth and planted it squarely on Mary’s.

Gray birds obsess my heart

Driving away with Louis, Mary wondered how long it would take them to get to their honeymoon location. Louis had asked Mary if Nashville was a good place to “start honeying that moon,” and she’d hardly been anywhere outside of Brockton so she said sure. Louis planned that they should take a gander at the Grand Ol’ Opry, see Graceland, but mainly they’d want to be alone, he thought, so he didn’t make too many plans. He also understood, vaguely, that women liked to plan trips, to go places they saw on the way, to visit gift shops and buy t-shirts and key chains. He’d saved up for that very thing.
As they drove towards Nashville, Mary studied Louis’ profile, his face, his features: he had dirt-brown hair, his nose leaned a little to the right, his lips were a little too big for his face, and he had a small hair line above his upper lip that never seemed to want to grow into a full-fledged moustache. He was a good man, Mary decided. She’d known that ever since Wednesday night Bible group, where she met up with him a few days after their date at Mack’s. She was rocking back and forth, lost in the psalms. She hadn’t noticed that she’d started to bleed. She stood up to pass the basket, when Louis got close behind her.
“Honey, you’ve bled straight through your pretty white skirt. You need some help,” and he took his jacket off and tied it around her waist. “That should tide you over till you get home.” And he’d done it quickly and kissed her on the cheek so that everyone thought they were sweet and young and no one knew she’d made a mess of herself except Louis.

Mary must have nodded off because she woke up lying in a bed, and it was dark and she was frightened. “Momma!” she called. Then she remembered who she was now, and called again, “Louis?”
A covered form moved beside her and rubbed her shoulder. “You were out like a light, Marybaby, so I got us this hotel room, figured we might take the driving slow, get some good rest.”
“Sleep’s nice. Thanks, Louis. Thank you for being so good to me.”
Everything was quiet and dark again. Mary began to breathe slowly so that Louis would think she was sleeping. Then he might fall asleep quickly—they’d never slept together in the same bed. She was proud of herself for being so stoic, so thoughtful, when she felt her shirt being lifted slowly, felt his hand nestling upwards towards her right breast; he cupped it, softly, and it was almost too much to ask of herself to relax, to keep pretending to sleep. But then he rearranged her shirt, made sure she was covered up, and a few minutes later, began to snore.
The next day they got an early start, after fueling up on a few of the hotel’s free muffins, juices and coffee. The day was gloomy. The sky threatened rain, and Mary was on edge. When she was eleven, she’d gone on a trip to Alabama with her momma, and they’d gotten caught in a big rainstorm while they were driving down the Interstate. Momma couldn’t see anything and the radio was saying there was a tornado warning for the county and Mary kept asking “momma, are we gonna die? Are we gonna die?” until her momma really believed they probably would die. That’s until Jesus (momma was sure it had to be Jesus—she couldn’t see a thing for all the rain that night) shone a light on a blue “lodgings” sign that directed them to a Motel 6 right off the exit. Ever since, driving in rain was something Mary never did if she could help it, and it was worse for her now, being in a strange town in a strange place, because she might as well be out of Tennessee, seeing as she knew so little about geography in general. The air was different here—she breathed it in deeply and smelled exhaust, early morning chill, and something indefinably foreign.
But that was foolishness. It was a gloomy day, that was all; the air here was the same as the air in Brockton. So Mary climbed into the car and turned the radio on, determined not to be bothered by anything today. She smiled at Louis, who had been kind of quiet all morning, but he smiled back, and took her hand in his for a minute.
“I sure am glad we decided to do this, Mary,” he said. “I don’t think I realized how lonely I was until I met you and started wanting you with me all the time. It really hits you, just like they all say it will, though you don’t ever believe it. I think it first hit me that one night in Bible study. What about you? When’d you feel it?”
Mary considered. “Shoot, Louis, that’s a tough one.” She looked out the window, at the blurred trees—always the same ones—passing. She started to feel like it was the earth, the trees, the hills, all moving seventy miles an hour, and not them. Maybe they were just sitting there and the trees were doing the passing. The thought made her nauseous. “I guess I felt it that night too. You were awfully nice to me that night.”
“Meant to be. That’s what it was, I expect. If we knew it at the same time—I guess it fits like it’s supposed to, Lord willing.”
Mary said nothing. She kept looking at the trees, testing how long it would take her head to begin to spin, then she’d close her eyes and do it again. It was something to do, until she got thirsty and asked if they could stop at the next gas station for a couple of Pepsis. So Louis slowed and began to exit when suddenly they heard a metallic noise, something between a thump and a pop towards the hood of the car. “Wouldn’t it be something if my car decided to give out now!” Louis said as he pulled into a parking spot.
But it hadn’t. “Mary, come over here and look at this!”
She walk to the hood and looked.
“I wanted a new hood ornament, but this wasn’t what I had in mind,” he said, and laughed. “I’ll run in and get you that Pepsi, sweetpea. Then I’ll take care of this.”
He went into the station but she stood still, unable to look away from Louis’ “hood ornament”: a robin, flown straight into the grill of the car, its head crushed, tucked somewhere inside the grill, and its body and feet stuck straight out, its gray feathers wind-beaten and broken. She was surprised there wasn’t any blood.
Louis seemed to skip out of the store with two bottles of soda in his hand, and he whistled as he scraped the bird off the grill. Mary retreated to the car, cringing every time the car shook with the force of his strange labor. She sipped her soda and looked vacantly out of her window even after Louis was done and begun to drive away. “You okay, honey?” Louis looked concerned. “I forgot how ladies get about stuff like that.”
“I’m fine. Thanks, though.” Mary smiled to reassure him, then turned back to her window. She looked out but no longer saw the moving tree line. Now all she could see were birds, beautiful and many, swooping in circles, flying happily before turning their heads towards the ground and diving to their deaths. The funny thing was, they were singing full-throated all the way down.




That white rush, the strange heart beating

The Nashville skyline popped up in the horizon around ten, and Mary got excited then, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a real city, buildings taller than trees. “Are we going to actually drive into the city?” she asked.
“Just passing it, but we’ll get pretty close. Let’s head to Graceland; our check-in time isn’t until four.”
So they drove for three more hours to tour Graceland, and Louis was in awe and like a child, wanting to see this and touch that, but Mary had never been an Elvis fan, so she didn’t understand, but she tried to be sweet. They held hands. He hummed tunes. Before they left, he asked her if she wanted to visit the gift shop. She said no.
“Do you mind if we run in for a minute? Maybe get some postcards and a keychain or something?”
“Why, sure, Louis. You ought to get to the gift shop before we go.”

When they finally got to the hotel, it was almost ten, and they were tired and sweaty. They checked in, and went up to their room. Mary turned the air conditioner on the highest setting, and for the first time, they stood facing each other, without knowing what to say.
Finally, Louis spoke up. “Why don’t you grab the shower first? And use all the towels you want, sweetpea. I don’t mind using yours when you’re through.”
So Mary took a shower, scrubbed her body clean as thoroughly and quickly as she could, so Louis could have his shower hot too. She came out with her long brown hair wrapped in a towel, and her nightgown on. “I wasn’t sure if we were going back out or not, so I thought I should be comfortable while we’re resting,” she said.
“Sure. Sounds right to me. Let me get clean and I’ll come out and join you,” and Louis disappeared into the bathroom.
Mary heard him turn on the faucet, heard him step into the tub and begin whistling a song she didn’t know. She sat down on the bed and began combing her hair. Her heart began to pound. She knew what was coming, knew what Louis would want when he was fresh and clean. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want it too, or hadn’t wanted it in the past. They’d kissed before, long kisses, French kisses, though she didn’t know what was particularly French about a tongue kiss. She’d enjoyed the kissing well enough, sometimes.
She sat and waited, and told herself not to think, though for some reason, pictures of that dead bird kept appearing in her head, and she didn’t know why she felt like she’d throw up now if she heard You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog; or why she felt so much love for Louis right now though she’d die before she said it to him. She didn’t know why she unbuttoned the first few buttons of her nightgown, or why she sprayed a little perfume on her neck.
And then he was out of the shower, and he walked out with just some boxer shorts on, and came to her and cupped her face with both hands. “May I kiss you, Mary?” he asked, and he had that tone in his voice, that gravelly tone he’d gotten a few times before when they’d been kissing and he’d suddenly pushed her away.
She leaned into his kiss and it was nice, and he must’ve liked the perfume because he growled softly and nuzzled her neck. He pulled her down on his lap and she could feel how hard he’d gotten and there was something wrong about this—something too fast. She was too high up and he wanted her to fall.
“No.” She’d said it? No. “Not now. Later.” She’d be tired later. He was probably so confused. Poor Louis.
But he didn’t look poor. His eyes were still a little glazed, and he nuzzled her neck again and said “now, you’re better now,” and pushed her down on the bed. Then, she thought of that last thing her momma had said to her before she’d gone to the courthouse, you’re not gonna be no Virgin Mary any more and she thought of what she’d learned in Bible class about the Annunciation, how Mary had been bewildered but then grateful. He had his finger in her and she thought of that robin, feathering and padding its nest, then flying out for a few more twigs and being caught up then dead, and how these things must happen every day, and his mouth was hard and on her neck and she felt like she was floating up, lifted and caressed by feathers. Mary, Mary…. how contrary she had been. Maybe one day she’d have a garden too, but oh first she had to kneel, and sweat, and plant the little seeds.