Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 11 published books of fiction and poetry and 5 stage plays. She has been nominated 20 times for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry. Her play ‘The Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Another play, LADY IN A POST BOX, co-written with poet and writer Ciaran O’Driscoll is moving toward production in Ireland. Her third play, 28 MARVIN AVENUE is making the rounds. A new Novel ‘Hair of a Fallen Angel’ will be out in the winter. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review.
EXCRUTIA
By Susan Isla Tepper
I knew I would always hate her. From the first time Dudley brought her around to Finnemore’s, that balmy June night, to introduce her to the group. When I put down my cigar and frosty beer it was only out of long-time friendship with Dud that I bothered to wipe my wet palm against my jeans, before extending a hand.
“This guy, here, we call RT,” Dudley told her when I failed to deliver my name.
They had been last to arrive. We were already eight around the big table in the back room, actually the back porch of the old farmhouse-tavern. Three sides were pure window and shoved wide open to the night. It was warm. Colored paper lanterns tipped in the breeze like mysterious globes of the world. In the blackness outside fireflies sparked: on and off, on and off.
Who was she — this large, unsmiling creature of the shadowy eyes, yolk-yellow hair, heavy paint job? Some wandering ghost Dudley picked up to spook us?
This was Sleepy Hollow territory. The seminary a quick spin up Route 9. Dud, a failed Jesuit, liked to hang with some of the brothers up there; reminiscing, I guess, about the good old days, when he, too, was a practicing celibate. Some of those guys were pretty far out on the ledge, and Dud had a pitch that seemed to say: Jump! Come on, you can do it!
So the woman had to be a joke. Or a pay-off on some pretty heavy debt.
Hunched over the table I slurped my beer, ignoring the conversations going on around me, ignoring my girlfriend, Alicia, smiling pretty in the next chair. Intent on Dudley’s woman, I watched her skirt the table doing just enough to get by— swinging those mighty hips, putting out a big paw — hello hello — pulling it back. During her meet and greet she stuck like flypaper to Dud. Who, by the way, was no squirt. And she topped him by a couple of inches. And he just kept on smiling. When everything about her seemed deliberately wrong; deliberately un-American.
***
Slammed with what he called a hundred-count indictment, Dudley had been told to pack up and leave the mission. Exit the sacred order. Hopefully (in the words of his Jesuit superiors) vanish from Bulgaria forever— was how he put it.
His second or third day home he rang the bell to my garden apartment — no big surprise — he’d phoned Max from overseas so naturally we were expecting him. Straddling an old Schwinn bike that must’ve been borrowed Dud relayed a few more details concerning his ouster. A strange curl to his lips giving him a sort of gremlin face. I’d been leaning with my back holding the door open — half cooking in the sun, the other half of me cool from the air conditioner pumping heavy in my living room.
Come inside for a brewski, I said.
No can do, was his ready answer. He had to get right back.
To what?
I watched his spacey green eyes zing around in his head: the woman being an unknown commodity at that point. Then he tried ringing the bell on the Schwinn; jammed his fist against the rusted stem a couple of times, looking surprised he couldn’t make it jingle. Jumping on, shouting Cheerio, he took off through the parking lot, weaving close to a moving SUV, before he disappeared down Bucket Road. After a two year absence he’d spent less than five minutes in my company. I still knew less than nothing about why they canned him from the mission.
In Finnemore’s smoky back room, under swaying light from the lanterns, I watched Dudley interact with the woman. And began to imagine the start of such an odd-ball pairing.
***
In Bulgaria it’s his final morning as a priest. Dudley wanders the land he’s grown fond of. Looking with hope toward the future, he spots what he thinks are quality raw goods and plucks her off a windy hillside on some sheep farm— a mile or so down the road from the piss-poor compound he helped build with his own sweat.
Driven by a sympathetic priest-friend, they make the day-long journey to the airport in a banged-up car over impossible roads. The priest reveals knowledge of a secret town along the route, still undiscovered by the tour buses. At some point they stop there. It’s dumpy.
At a sagging wooden building with no sign all three exit the car. Inside is mostly barren space. Sullen hawkish men stand around smoking. Rough tables hold cardboard trays of anemic chickens, loose potatoes, dented cans: peas, beans, lentils — everything thrown together with pieces of clothing. Crushed hats, scratched shoes, grayish transparent underwear. Cold as it was in the car, it feels colder in there.
At a signal from Dudley, the woman probably steps behind a pile of boxes and other garbage, shucking her sheep rags for the shapeless red sweater with the strange foreign-looking buttons marching across the shoulders. The shoulders!
***
Puffing hard, I clamped down on my cigar, watching the crowd pouring into Finnemore’s, keeping the woman in my peripheral vision. That red sweater was ugly; weird-looking. Wearing a sweater on such a warm night indicated a definite mental disturbance. Of course, if she gets really uncomfortable she can always unbutton the shoulders! That busted me up laughing which started me choking. The smoke in the back room had risen to the level of blue. Not a good sign. Alicia would start twitching and we’d have to leave.
I decided the woman’s sweater was her security blanket; the last thing she brought from her homeland. The dark, too-tight skirt with the front kick-pleat that made her plump knees look funny wasn’t your basic cool fashion look. Picked-over clothes. Probably bartered. Dudley had been a missionary; was capable of anything. What’s a few clothes, some dope, black-market cigs in the overall scheme? I imagine him saying.
Alicia reached over and took my hand. A country band working the front room had wrapped-up with something Willie Nelson. On the other side of the wall an invisible person picked a guitar tuning for the next set. I ordered another beer. Wine for Alicia. Double portion of Buffalo Wings. Two chairs at the table still remained empty: ghost chairs. Dud and the woman continuing to stand. I noticed her how-de-do’s coming out flat as the soles of my feet. Also, dammit, without a trace of accent! Was she deliberately deadening her voice?
The wings arrived tepid with too much tabasco. The waitress was frazzled and a sweet young thing; I decided to let it pass. I ate a few. Going down they felt slimy, under-cooked. From the back of my throat a bad taste came up and I had a major coughing fit: spicy, phlegmy, gross.
Alicia looked my way to see if I was dying.
“RT, honey, you OK? Drink some water. It’s those cigars,” she announced to no one in particular.
Lately Alicia engaged in a lot of upbeat talk about tongue cancer, gum cancer. Not sure what one had to do with the other, I promised her recently that I’d quit cigars when I was too old to get down, get down. Drying my eyes and cleaning my mouth off on a napkin, I looked up just in time to see Dudley kissing the woman. So! The gig was for real.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I picked up the beer and chugged. Cracking a peanut I popped the meat in my mouth, flicking the shell into the sawdust and thousands of other shells blanketing the crooked floor. Finnemore’s back room was a rat’s paradise. Alicia coined that.
A fussy little high-class puss, she was a decorator who specialized in Americana. Kept her own place very tidy. Quilts on the walls, jugs of daisies, needlepoint toilet cover — that sort of thing. No matter the weather, Alicia pranced over to Finnemore’s in her yellow rubber clogs — no rat was getting at those toes!
I picked another peanut out of the basket and held it under her cute, upturned nose. “What do you think? Is this peanut different from every other peanut in the world?”
She smiled and I smiled back. I chucked her under the chin. She leaned her head on my shoulder and strands of her long, brownish-gold hair spilled down the front of my T-shirt; splattering the Foo Fighters logo.
Then with a mighty drum roll the band was back, amps cranked. Leather-boys in vests and chains strolled by arguing loud over who gets to sit where. Finally piling around a table in a dark corner. One of ’em, a pop-eyed, pudgy carrot-head, I recognized as Sweeney the handyman’s son from my apartment complex. The kid was a real no name. Tagged behind his old man — lugging the ladder, ballast at the bottom, while Sweeney climbed. The kid did the scut work while Sweeney got to wear the thick tool belt and swagger around the flat roof waving to people on the ground. Does Sweeney know?
I nudged Alicia, still nestled on my shoulder. “Will you take a look at Sweeney’s kid with that bunch,” I said.
“Leave it alone.”
At times Alicia could be disgustingly liberal. I looked around our table— overflowing with ashtrays, crushed napkins, glasses and bottles of beer, plates of leftover food. Everyone, except the woman, friendly as pie. Finally seated, she was wedged between Dud and Max. Conveniently angled to face Dud; and only Dud. Acting like Max didn’t exist, like we all didn’t exist.
I stuck my nose into Alicia’s hair and sniffed. “Clean.”
Reaching in my pocket I pulled out a wad of twenties, dropped some on the table and stood up, grabbing her by her slinky arms, lifting her out of the chair. “C’mon.”
If I wanted some I’d better boogie. Come morning, I had to be on the road by six. On the road till Friday. If the traffic cooperated I could make Wilmington in time to grab lunch and hit a few major accounts before Happy Hour. Before. Before before before.
Before the big take-over the job was choice. No, prime. It was prime. My product— raw paper. My sales territory resembling a huge shaded whale swimming north on the marketing graph, spitting revenue from the southern tip of Florida straight up to the Canadian border, with a nice sweeping bulge to the Great Lakes. A gold mine of a whale. Before the big boys split the territory. Cruised in on the company jet: La La on the company jet. I liked singing it to the tune of The Company Way from my all-time favorite Broadway Show: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. Playing it on the road, from north to south, I swear I wore that disc down to pulp.
Alicia started working me the moment we got outside. I maneuvered her into the car. “Not here, honey,” I said, starting the engine. “We’ll be home in a jiffy.”
“I wish you weren’t gone all the time.”
“I need the buckeroos.”
They carved me up like a fat Thanksgiving turkey. My best southern-fried juicy states passed on to some frosted, helmet-head of a woman named Marilyn; from Memphis.
Before — I averaged sixty percent over quota every quarter; most of my sales calls being of the phone variety: How’re ya doing, just checking in, need anything? Those kinds. A dreamboat territory that practically ran itself. Lots of leftover time for running and racket-ball. And rack time. Plenty of rack time with Alicia.
Most weeks, now, four to five nights it was Motel Six. I was redeeming those cardboard, punch-out dining cards (Buy 9 the 10th is on us!) more frequently than I was doing my laundry. The corporate heat was on: the pushing pushing pushing. Now I had to squeeze every piddling account dry. Thirty sales calls a week they wanted. Thirty real calls! If I made thirty personal sales calls a week they’d have to peel me off the seat of my Mazda.
Heading toward home I was thinking about Dudley’s date. Excrutia should be her name. For an excruciatingly bad woman. Bad on the eyes, bad on the ears, bad on the spirit. He’d introduced her as Janet.
***
Late that fall, with most of the leaves down, Dud and Janet were married by a lady Justice of the Peace, at the Park Royale Hotel. A tight room with a lap pool. No chairs. The guests stood crowded together like lowing cattle alongside heavily chlorinated water made foamy from the wave machine.
During the ceremony, I noticed people eyeing the bar set up along the wall. Personally I couldn’t wait to get my hands around a scotch. Max was best man and stood beside Dud. Which thrilled me, actually; got me off the hook when it came to the toast, and safeguarding of the ring and garter. In a shiny lavender dress Alicia stood beside me. Looking down at her angel face, I knew then and there, that my bud, Dudley, had spilled his marbles.
“Better Max than me,” I told Alicia the next morning. “Under the circumstances I could never have pulled off that best man bit.”
We were at her place. On top of the covers on her big cannonball bed. Twice during sex I had to push her damned Siamese off.
Afterward, Alicia always slid away. All on account of this one little mistake. Our first time, when she turned her back to me, I’d figured it was her shy way of asking for a poke or two in her sweet ass — something I’m not opposed to under the right conditions. Well! No go! Pig she called me. Practically kicking me out in the cold. That night my knees were sore from so much serious begging.
Now I had her from behind, but strictly on the up-and-up — my arms criss-crossing her breasts, the soft peachy skin of her butt curved into my stomach. With the tip of my nose I was exploring a mole on her shoulder.
Alicia yawned. “Even on her wedding day she was still kind of horrible, don’t you think? All that white lace and huge puffy veil — I don’t know — she still seemed mean.”
“How about the bit with the garter,” I said. “What a joke. That woman should’ve been strapped into leg irons.”
A damp tangle of hair lay on Alicia’s neck. I swirled my face in it. My own little beauty. Shifting, she moved against me. I tightened around her. “Quick,” I said, “put on your socks. The ones with the pink argyles.”
She got off the bed with a thump on the bare wood floor. “I’ll never get married.”
My throat went dry. “What makes you say that?”
I had wanted more sex. Suddenly I needed a Bloody Mary; or two; garnished with a pale, crisp curly piece of celery. A couple of fancy eggs with Hollandaise. “Let’s go to the Bull & Bear.”
I wanted to be served at a table next to the roaring fire by that cute other curly: a blonde who spent a lot of time bending over while she poured. During a visit home, while still a priest, Dudley had been the first to uncover her charms.
Sunk deep in a burnished-leather armchair, I wanted to peer down the low neck of her white peasant blouse that was part of her serving wench uniform. Feeling the familiar stir in my pants when she looked up smiling, saying, buffet or a la carte?
Alicia was frowning. “Bull & Bear. I don’t know.” She opened the closet taking out a green striped robe.
“Don’t put that on yet!”
Yesterday Dudley threw his life away. Now I needed to burrow inside Alicia one more time before having my drinks, my eggs. The blonde could wait; would wait; would have to wait. In a little while we’d be camped in front of the great stone hearth, big enough for three men to stand inside. Breathing the roasty smell of wood smoke. But first I had to be empty of Alicia. No leftover longing, no bouts of sudden lust, sneaking my hand under the tablecloth to squeeze between her legs.
When the blonde sauntered over, carrying the silver coffee pot, steam rising out of the black liquid, I wanted to be all hers.
Using my best hang-dog look I patted the mattress. “Please?” Ignoring me, Alicia put on the robe. But didn’t tie it. Let it hang open. Exposing her sweetest parts. I loved that she was gorgeous and a bitch sometimes, and would commit these teasing kinds of murderous acts of sexual treason.
On my belly I shimmied across the bed, hung off the edge reaching for her. Making my voice rough I commanded her to get back in.
“You look like a monkey,” she said.
Scooping up the gray Siamese, she held it against herself. Kissing it, she asked was it hungry?
“I’m the one who’s hungry!” I yelled. The cat bolted. Alicia yawned and stretched and went in the bathroom. Left the door two-thirds open. I rubbed my chin stubble against the mattress. Was that an invitation? Did she want it standing up? Her soft rump slapping against the wet tiled wall?
Without warning Dudley popped in my head. How could he sleep with that woman?
During the bachelor party, while Dud was off taking a leak, the jokes started flying. It’s gotta be like trying to mount Moby Dick, someone said. Yeah, only try and find the blow hole , somebody else said. Why do you think they invented light switches? That was Max’s contribution. Which, I’ll admit, in Dudley’s case wasn’t such a bad idea. Not that I haven’t slept with my quota of bad women — hell — who hasn’t?
At a share-house in the mountains, I bedded down a woman with a crew-cut and a nose flattened out like a prize fighter. Of course, I was drunk when she jumped me. Smothered me like a grave blanket. Wouldn’t go away until she got the old pumperoo. But marry her?
Pushing back against Alicia’s crocheted pillows, I crossed my arms behind my neck, looking past a hanging, half-dead spider plant to the gray sky beyond. The room chilly. I could hear water splashing in the shower. Alicia using a soap perfumed with lilac. All wrong for the Bull & Bear on a morning that looked like snow.
Two velour blankets lay puddled against the footboard; reaching for one I pulled it up to my waist; thought about having a cigar while waiting for her to finish up in the bathroom. And what was that crack about marriage? What was going on in her mind? What the hell was going on period? I never brought up marriage, Alicia never did either. Leaning over, I picked up a small gold clock from the night table, held it against my ear, listened to the tick, put it back down. Eleven-thirty-five.
Besides. My old man never married my mother. Right off the boat from Palermo he was devout Catholic. Already had a wife. Left her behind on a farm that grew black olives or green grapes; or the opposite. It wasn’t clear. I don’t think he ever went back for a visit. I don’t think he left any kids behind. He was bad, but no dead-beat Dad. Money would have crossed the ocean in spaghetti boxes. Screaming would have occurred.
Right off her own boat from Limerick, my mother kept the brogue and heavy dependency until her liver burst. I buried her cracked and yellow with most of her teeth missing — shortly before I met Alicia. My old man was always old; died while I was still in my teens. Tired of being slapped around, I was glad to see him go. Stashed way back on a shelf in my closet is a picture from their early days. Tinted that brownish-gold. Posed on the stoop of a brick row house, where we lived a while in Philly, they were all spiffed-up in coats and suits and hats. The way even poor people used to look. I showed it once to Alicia who studied it for a few minutes — she’s got this habit of scrutinizing inanimate objects (leftover from her decorator training). When she handed it back all she said was: The flowers look so soft.
Up till then I hadn’t paid attention to the corsage pinned on my mother’s lapel. Possibly white. It’s hard to say whether or not it was real. In that picture she may have already been knocked-up. It’s hard to say.
Alicia’s cat jumped on the bed rubbing against my leg. Growling, I gave it a shove.
My birth certificate has separate lines for the names of the mother and father. What is that? A Philly special — like cheese-steak? Do other places in this country pull that same stunt?
I tapped the iron radiator— cold; pulling up the other blanket.
On my birth certificate, in scratchy black ink, some hospital clerk had filled in my mother’s name: Edna McGreevy. Eddy she used to like to call herself. On the line below, the father line, in the same scratchy scrawl it said Bastard. I got my father’s name — Roberto Alphonse Trotta; even though he never made it official. RT for short. Whenever I meet a woman I really like, I tell her straight off: I’m a bastard.
Chuckling, I sniffed my hand for traces of Alicia’s scent. The wedding. That’s what got her all stirred up. All women want to get married when they go to a wedding. I heard that line somewhere. Nothing to worry about. I rubbed my armpits. For nothing they’d turned sweaty. I played with my chest hairs. Did I see gray coming in? Wow! Tempus fugit as Dud would say in his Latin. Yeah— time flies.
I tried separating the gray hairs from the dark but it was too dense — a regular Black Forest. Alicia called me a monkey. Did she mean it? Nah. Just vicious talk. Being a naturally cagey sort Alicia would say just the opposite to try and throw you off. Stretching, feeling unusually tired, I let out a long yawn. No. Nothing to worry about.
In fact the cigar seemed like a great idea. A great beginning for the Bull & Bear. We’d eat hearty. Then hang out in front of the fire sipping more drinks. She liked Orange Blossoms at brunch. A few of those she’d soften up quick.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed I was about to retrieve the cigar from my jacket when she wandered out of the bathroom.
“Oh, no,” I said.
She’d ditched the robe. Her brownish-gold hair piled loosely on top of her head — the way I loved it best — springy wisps escaping the rubber band. She wouldn’t look my way. But wouldn’t get dressed either; made a pretense of straightening up. Strolled around the bedroom saying tsk tsk, blowing at so-called dust on the night stand. She hung a few things in the closet, shoved something in a drawer. The lilac soap was strong. Overpowering. I felt a definite tug between my eyebrows. Uh-oh. A migraine?
Just thinking about it caused the tug to intensify. Clutching the mattress I got back in, pulling up the blankets, as real pain began to travel through my skull; a nauseous spin starting in my belly. With a loud grunt I kicked off the blankets but searing pain slugged me back.
Forget the cigar, you idiot — you’re in big trouble. Using my forearm I tried blocking the glare coming from the space above the window shutters. Light being an enemy now. I wouldn’t have Alicia. Or the curly blonde. Or my eggs and Bloody Marys. I wouldn’t have anything except crushing pain that could last for days. A whimper escaped my lips.
Alicia froze, a padded hanger suspended midair. “What’s the matter?”
I stared up at a crack in the plaster. The cat landed on the bed making the whole room vibrate.
Through dry lips I croaked, “Terrible headache.”
She came and stood beside the bed looming over me. Her own lovely lips pursed and I could do nothing.
“I don’t mean to sound negative,” she said. “But I read an article about migraine. You do everything all wrong.”
Trapped. I was trapped. In her cannonball seventeen-seventy-something bed. I gritted my teeth. Migraine she said. Not migraines like everyone else said. One article, and Alicia becomes the official expert.
I shut my eyes. A red smear like hot paint moving into the throbbing space. Fading out, it was replaced by an image of the big Chinese gong up at the seminary.
***
In a leafy quadrangle, at the bottom of a steep hill, the gong stood by itself. A short distance away were these massive granite seminary buildings connected in a horseshoe. Green copper gargoyles hung from the eaves. The main chapel, an awesome structure, had angels and saints perched above arched doors and windows. Stained-glass plastered everywhere. A monster cross on the roof. All very Catholic, very traditional.
Then along came the gong. Up close, about the size of a mini-trampoline turned on its side. Cast from about a ton of dark-gray steel.
The first time Dudley took me there I’m thinking: how does this huge piece of crap fit into this all-Catholic scheme? Then he goes on to say the gong’s only struck once a year, when the new priests get ordained. Across it were words, crowded everywhere, Chinese words burned into the centuries-old, Chinese moon-faced disc.
It happened to be one of those cool fall days, most of the leaves still on the trees but already turned colors. And, quiet. Nobody besides us in the quadrangle. I asked Dud: Where is everybody? Masturbating?
I began to get a weird feeling. I kept looking at the gong, running my hands over it, digging my fingers into imprints of words that didn’t mean shit. I began dancing around it, totally stupid, making noises, bird-calls, singing chinka dinka doo.
Dudley was frowning, shaking his head. “Some of the stuff that comes out of your mouth— it ain’t right—to say those things.”
Ignoring his PC bullshit, I asked if the gong was really a giant fortune cookie with sayings like: If you work hard you will have all the lotus blossoms life can offer.
He was looking kind of pinched, his mouth puckered-up like someone’s asshole. Refusing to dance or join in my craziness; unusual for him. “That ain’t life the way I know it,” Dudley finally said.
“You mean that big bowl of hot soup where we get to be the crackers? Ever see a cracker didn’t first get crumbled before it lands in the bowl?”
“Original sin,” Dudley mumbled.
“Wha?”
“It’s a Catholic thing.” He was looking down at the ground, hands stuffed in the pockets of his corduroys, mouth set in a grim line. He said the gong was Chinese, because, like — it’s a missionary order of priests, you know? And, like, missionaries go, like, everywhere.
Something was off. For starters, there were too many likes coming out. Like he was putting me down for being too stupid to get it on my own. I quit jumping around. I watched his long blue neck vein dancing: boom-ba-da— boom-ba-da— boom-ba-da.
I said it again: “Why Chinese? Why not a Swahili symbol? Or a plaque of two turtles fucking in the toilet?”
That last one broke him. Laughing in spite of himself, Dudley tried throttling me. Then he said it was something a bit more profound. But didn’t get specific.
***
With my skull growing tighter and tighter in Alicia’s bed, I began having visions: shrunken heads wrapped in tight belts left out to dry in the sun.
Panicked, my eyes flew open. The lids felt pulled back like they were missing: my eyeballs totally uncovered. Still in the buff Alicia was still hanging over the bed. And, parting her lips, seemed about to shower me with more of her wisdom.
“Keep it to yourself, OK?”
Arching one eyebrow she stared down at me. “Only certain personality types get migraine. Therapy can help a lot.”
I groaned. “It’s plural, you idiot. Migraines! Say it! Migraines!” I licked my dry lips. “For your information it was too much chocolate wedding cake caused this.” The minute it came out I was sorry. Thoughts of food threw my stomach into over-drive. Listless, I slapped the bed. “I throw up in here it’ll be your fault.”
“What!” she said.
Ha! Let Little Miss Smart Ass mull that one over.
“The smell never comes out of the mattress,” I added.
She backed away. “Jesus! You’ve flipped.”
“Yeah, right, I’ve flipped, right.”
To talk hurt like hell but I felt triumphant. Closing my eyes again I tried willing the pain away: Relax your neck, relax your neck. Relax your forehead, relax your forehead.
Alicia was walking. Back and forth, back and forth, making the pine floor creak. Then some rustling. The familiar scraping sound of the warped doors on her antique high-boy dresser was like a knife scratching my brain.
“Don’t touch those doors!”
“I really don’t care for it when you order me around my own place,” she said. “I’m going out for a while.”
“What do you mean?”
Keeping my eyes shut I maneuvered into a sitting position against the headboard. I flapped an arm in the direction of where I thought her boudoir chair was. “Just sit there till I fall asleep. Please. It won’t take long.”
The last few years of her life my mother stayed cooped-up in bed; too soused and sour-smelling and sick in her head to care. I couldn’t stand to look at her. I wanted to pound her till she stopped breathing. I had to stop going over there.
Squinting through my pain, I saw Alicia standing in front of the long pier mirror, back arched, her graceful ballerina arms raised to adjust a sweatband around her hair. In a black spandex running suit every curve and crack in her body screamed to be noticed.
“And what do you think you’re doing?”
If Alicia heard she wasn’t letting on. Our unwritten pact was she wore the black spandex only when we ran together; when running alone it was strictly baggy sweats.
“I’m fucked,” I said.
Then I no longer cared. Because, mercifully, I was falling into that painless place where only sleep mattered. I felt myself being lifted through the air. The curly blonde had me on her big round serving tray, weaving through the main dining room of the Bull & Bear, past the crackling heat from the stone fireplace, past the starched white buffet table, up the narrow stairs that led to the rooms of the inn.
A faint hum, like bees, coming closer, a swarm, growing louder, building to a chant. Rising and swelling to a full chorus: Excrutia in excelsis Deo…
Briefly, before nodding off, I wondered whether Dudley’s bride wore black spandex when running alone?
END
The Galway Review 