Bethel's Meadow (25 page)

“Sir, you’re third in the queue now. It’ll be just a few more minutes.”

“Tell me where the fucking thing is parked and I’ll go get it myself. Give me the keys.”

“Sir, we can’t—”

“Look asshole, how do you feel about having a broken neck? Give me the goddamned keys so I can take Princess Blueballs here back home.”

Twenty minutes later I pulled into her driveway and ordered her out of the car, and then I fled home to safety.

29

A
ND YET ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT.

When the sun came up the next morning, I wanted to pulverize it with a nuclear bazooka. Lacking the proper weaponry, I decided instead to do the next best thing. I reached for the digital alarm clock on my nightstand and yanked it from its electrical socket. I then took to my feet and spiked that motherfucker down onto the hardwood floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. No longer would I have an electronic reminder of how miserable my life was between midnight and the dawning of a new day.

I was almost convinced I was going insane. But then I recalled from having read
Catch-22
that if you think you’re crazy, you’re really not crazy at all. It’s only when you
don’t
think you’re crazy that there’s any real possibility of being certifiably bonkers. By that logic, I figured I wasn’t quite there yet.

I said to myself repeatedly: “You’re okay, Smith. You’re just fine.” But I wasn’t very convinced of it, especially when I looked at myself in the mirror. Gonzo from across the street had been right: I really did look like hammered dog shit.

I was having my morning bowl of Cheerios when Sidebottom called. It was only nine o’clock. It was a bit early on a Sunday morning for him to be calling.

“You okay, bubba?” he asked. “I just got a call from the Water Girl this morning. She was asking me if you and Sam were still together. I swear I don’t know who is more off of their rocker right now, Sam or Water Girl. Dude, you got two of the hottest chicks in town battling it out for you.
Meow
.”

“What did you say to Rachel?”

“I told her to ask you. Damn, I have both of them to deal with now. You should be paying me to be your agent or something. I don’t even know how the hell Water Girl got my number. I did try to sarge her once, but I never gave her my number.”

“Wally,” I said, still crunching on my Cheerios. I wasn’t going to stop eating. For some reason I really had the munchies. “You were going to give me a little history on Rachel Draper—or Water Girl, as you call her. Give me the
Reader’s Digest
version of what you know.”

“Okay, here it is: Water Girl, the short story. First, she tells everyone she’s thirty-five, when everyone knows for a damn fact she’s forty. She was married once—it ended a few years ago. She was married for a grand total of one year. But she’s been engaged at least four other times, all engagements ending in odd circumstances, including one guy coming home from work one day to find a damn snake, about six feet long, in his living room. That happened the very day after he’d broken it off with her. Coincidence? I think not. But one other time, though, about five years ago, she went Glenn Close on some poor bastard. She—”

“Wally,” I said, “I get the picture.”

“Okay, okay, okay. But I thought you should know that she has twice been committed to a mental institution. She didn’t get Jesus until
after
she’d spent the night in a drunk-tank over in Windermere. This was just last year. How the alkaline water nuts and the Jesus freaks are mixed up, I don’t know. But it bothers the hell out of me that they exploit God to sell their shit.”

“Then I reckon I need to be careful,” I said. None of it really alarmed me. I’ve never been afraid of snakes for one thing, and for another I’ve never known anyone who went into a psychiatric ward who came out better than when they went in. In college I had a girlfriend who’d spent two weeks in a mental hospital, only to kill herself three days after being discharged.

“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Sidebottom asked. “She’s one of those chicks who steals other women’s boyfriends, fucks them on a Saturday night, and then goes to church the next morning to repent. Then the cycle repeats and—”

“She’s just as fucked up as I am or anyone else is,” I said. “Besides, wasn’t it you who just the other day accused me of being too judgmental?”

“Yeah, but this is different. I mean—”

“Jesus, Sidebottom, you’re the one who manipulates women straight into the sack. Yeah, maybe she’s a religious hypocrite, but she’s no better or worse than you are. Remember that, okay?”

…

After I finished putting Sidebottom in his place, I turned my cell phone off so I could think about things for an hour or two without any distractions.

I knew I had to deal with Samantha sooner or later. Though she’d made no attempt to contact me, it was clear that she was making trouble for me by proclaiming we were still together. I wondered if it was Samantha who’d gone to the library to tell Glory about my manic depression. If she was bold enough to openly confront the Water Girl the way she had, I knew I couldn’t put anything past her.

But I didn’t want to call her. I just wasn’t prepared for a confrontation with someone that much on the edge. I realized, though, that the longer I waited, the more trouble it could be in the end. And dammit, it just made me madder than hell that I could be a hundred percent sexually compatible with such a beautiful woman, yet we couldn’t get it together on the emotional end of the equation. All she seemed to care about was money, and all I wanted was someone I could be with and laugh with. Together we could have somehow made things work out financially. But she wanted all the money that was to be had in the world, and she wanted it now. She wasn’t interested in starting over with another man. She was burned out and too jaded to contemplate such a relationship.

And then I thought of Glory. I had given her too much credit. I didn’t want anyone to fix me. I’d never viewed myself as a broken man—not now and not ever in my life. If, after learning I was a manic-depressive, it was her intent to somehow reform me, then she didn’t know me that well. She should have told me what she’d heard about me and from whom she’d heard it. She should have given me a chance to offer a counterpoint.

And then there was Caitlin. After being together for nearly a year, I owed her more respect than I had shown her. I should have broken up with her in person—not over the phone. Yes, I was mad and had good reason to be, but still. . . .

I turned my cell phone back on and called her up.

“Why are you calling me?” Caitlin asked. “I think we’re pretty much dead now.”

“I’d like to meet you in person,” I said. “I’m very sorry for how I handled things. I really am. Maybe you could come over and—”

“You’re just calling me because you’re lonely,” she said. “You’ll get over it. You’ll get over your precious librarian turning you away because of what you are.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “What do you know about any librarian?”

Oh well. At least now I knew who the blabbermouth was, and it wasn’t Samantha.

“I trusted you with my life!” Caitlin shouted. And she didn’t stop shouting. “I did nothing wrong while I was in Minnesota, you insecure little prick. You left me for some slutty redheaded bitch that makes minimum wage!”

“Cate, come on, stop.”

“No! I’m not done with you yet. Don’t let your guilt bother you about me, because I’ve fucked you over good, you pathetic little piece of shit. I told your library chippy all about your bipolar bullshit. And any other girl I find out you’re with, I’ll hunt them down and tell them also. I’ll tell them all!”

I clicked off the line. She immediately called back. I rejected the call and then she called again. And two more times after that. I finally just turned the damned phone off again.

My immediate thought was to call Samantha to let her have her two cents also, just to get it over with. But then I thought better of it.

Caitlin was absolutely dead on the money with her harsh assessment—I was feeling lonely. And absent an adequate amount of sleep, I had more than enough time to dwell on my other misfortunes. During the nighttime hours I’d been experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, which blurred the lines between reality and dream states. As far as my manic depression was concerned, I was rapid cycling to the point that I couldn’t distinguish between mania and depression. The two phases seemed to be bleeding into one another now—I felt simultaneously manic
and
depressed. When the sun had greeted me each morning with a smile, all I had wanted to do was black out every window in the goddamned house and hide inside. And then there were my financial worries. To keep up with my bills, I only had enough money in the bank to last me six months at the most. I was also developing quite an inferiority complex to boot. I feared I would never be good enough for a woman that truly had her act together. Yes, I was doing a damned fine job of feeling sorry for myself.

I needed to take a step back and take a hard look at my life and make some changes. I had to get away from the Dusty Pond scene. Those people weren’t so bad, I had conceded. As I’d told Sidebottom, I wasn’t much different than they were. He was right—it wasn’t my place to judge. But still, I needed a change. I wanted to turn it all off and start over again.

But instead of doing that I lay on the couch all day, drinking whisky and continuing to feel sorry for myself. I hadn’t exercised in weeks. My body was turning to mush. I had lost nearly ten pounds. I looked like a fucking ghost. I wondered what any woman saw in me. Maybe I
was
a charity case.

I decided I would bow out from the scene. I’d sober up and resume my meds. I’d return to being a doped-up robot.

No, no, no,
I thought.
I can’t give in.

And later, somewhere around five o’clock, I turned my phone back on. I played through all the voicemails, most of them angry and hysterical messages from Caitlin. But the last one was calm and friendly.

It was Rachel Draper. She invited me for dinner over at her place. She wanted to make amends.

Why the hell not?

30

W
HEN RACHEL DRAPER GREETED me at her door, I knew things were about to get seriously out of control. She wore a diaphanous white blouse that afforded me a grand view of her undeniably adorable breasts—she was operating sans brassiere. Her long dark hair was shocked in a deliciously lopsided way, a chaotic state of being not usually achieved until
after
sex. I also couldn’t help but notice that it was only the blouse she was wearing—well, except for the gold hoop earrings that dangled from her lobes, that is.

Lord have mercy, she was indeed quite a sight to behold.

She smiled and said, “Come on in, handsome.”

As soon as I crossed the threshold into her apartment, she was all over me. I was locked in what felt like the most desperate of embraces—witnessing it, you’d have thought I was a military man who had just returned to his wife following a yearlong tour of overseas duty. The feverishly impassioned French kissing made me completely forget about the blue-balling incident from the night before.

For two minutes I managed to restrain myself from feeling up her breasts. Right when I finally made contact, she closed the door behind me and body-slammed me against it.

“A little later I have something special planned for you,” she said in a barely audible but sensual whisper. “I want to make up for what I did to you last night. I was a very, very naughty girl. And tonight I want you to punish me.”

When I spoke my lips moved, but the words barely made it out: “What’s for dinner?” I really don’t know why I asked. Even if she had served up a thirty-two ounce rib eye steak right at that very moment, I would have swallowed that damned thing whole in one bite, just so dinner would be over and we could get on with it. I wanted to be inside of Rachel Draper so bad I would’ve murdered for it.

Ignoring the dinner query, she laughed with a jolly insouciance that, in retrospect, didn’t seem to fit her. But, as she led me by the hand into the living room, I wasn’t pondering that particular incongruity at all. We sat on the couch and she began kissing me again. She massaged my chest while moaning in sheer ecstasy, as if just touching me alone was enough to bring her to the brink of orgasm.

“God, I was so
bad
last night,” she said as our lips departed. Then she looked at me, and I could have sworn I saw a she-devil’s visage, though I didn’t really care. Her piercing eyes, whatever the hell color they were, were voraciously hungry; Rachel Draper looked as though she wanted to tear into me and devour my flesh until my bones were picked completely clean.

Her hot breath was the enticing scent of mint, honeysuckle, and pure sex. She reached for my hand and guided it up to her breasts. “My nipples are so hard for you, baby. Rip off this blouse and suck my tits. Do it now!” As she issued the command, she pulled me by the neck into her breasts. I did as I was told—I ripped off the blouse and went to work on her.

Though I was drunk from a daylong binge on whisky, I felt none of its effects now. Instead I was drunk on Rachel Draper’s flesh. My thirst for her blood, her very essence, was insane. I didn’t care about a damned thing in the world. I just wanted to take her on that couch and make her mine.