Angry Management

  “Well, he didn’t eat four scones with every cup of coffee. And he turned out for swimming.”

  I brush the crumbs off the table. “That’s not fair. I was a football player.”

  “I kind of owe him everything, but that’s about what he owes me, so it’s even.”

  “Swimming, huh?”

  “It’s not for everyone.”

  At three-thirty in the morning, an hour before Sarah usually gets here, I sign in to 24-Hour Fitness. There’s only one other person here, if you don’t count the girl behind the counter and the guy running the vacuum and washing mirrors. Mirrors are the one thing I’d have taken out of this place if I ran the zoo.

  In the dressing room I take a swimming suit out of my workout bag that was designed for Shrek. Man, how did this Moby guy get through those first days swimming? At some point he would have had to don a swimming suit of similar design and hit the water, in front of an entire swimming team. Gutsy dude.

  I pull on the suit, reach under my gut to tie it, throw an extra-wide-body beach towel around my shoulders, and make my way to the pool. No way is anyone here ahead of me.

  Someone’s here ahead of me. And she is not the person I want witnessing the maiden launch of Tugboat Angus. She is like an arrow—an arrow with breasts—and could make four of the suits she’s wearing from my one. She stands under the showerhead stretching, touching her toes; looks up to catch me staring, smiles, and reaches for her toes again. It’s too late to run, so I walk onto the deck like I’m not afraid it will give way under my poundage, clutching my towel like Superman headed into a deep freeze.

  I stand, goggles in hand, waiting for her to choose a lane and get her head underwater where she can’t watch Mr. Goodyear dive in and empty the pool.

  Only she isn’t a swimmer. She’s an aqua jogger.

  The reason I believe in God is so I can curse Him. And I know God’s a man, by the way, because no way a woman would put me through the stuff I go through. Aqua joggers run in the water. Their heads do not go under it. She hauls out the Styrofoam dumbbells and resistance paddles, hops into lane one, and begins jogging toward the other end, head high, only one lane removed from the spectacle that will be my entry.

  I curse the Lord God once more, drop the towel, and lunge. The slim beauty next to me almost loses her balance in the wave action as the lane separators undulate to the far end of the pool and back. I adjust my goggles and start the first lap of what I generously call swimming, vowing to hunt this Moby dude down like the dog he is.

  “Let’s go find her.”

  “Been there, done that,” Sarah says.

  “Yeah, but like you said, she was afraid to come back because your dad was still on the loose. You said he’s in prison till he’s a bona fide geezer. You don’t even have to bring her back now. I mean, look, she had to feel ambushed when you guys showed up that first time, but she’s seen you now. You’ve seen her. We can go back to Reno and get all your questions answered.”

  “What you need to worry about is taking me someplace besides to coffee,” she says. “If you don’t take me on a real date pretty soon, people will start to believe you think I’m ugly.”

  Man, you get nothing past this girl. When my eyes go soft—like out of focus—or with no glasses, there’s nothing ugly about her, but she’s right; I’ve been avoiding going on a real date. I tell myself it’s not because she’s scarred, and I believe that. It’s that I’m scared I’ll blow it with her like I’ve done in spectacular fashion with every girl I ever allowed into my weirdball fantasies. Sarah Byrnes has so much…substance. When I first see her, the scars are evident. But then they disappear the minute we’re talking. Jesus, maybe I’m getting mature.

  “A date it is,” I tell her. “Circus Circus. Coupons for free breakfast and a roll of nickels to play the slots. Yours with no questions asked. What happens in Reno, stays in Reno. I’ve got superb wheels, thanks to my parents’ collective guilt; we could be there in two days easy. Drive straight through, we could do it in one. You drive, right?”

  “Yes, Angus, I drive.”

  “That’s it then,” I tell her. “I’ll even let you plug your iPod into the radio.”

  “This must be what love feels like.” Man, this girl has sarcastic down. But she didn’t say no. We’ll miss one of Mr. Nak’s groups, but shit, we should get extra credit for this.

  There is such excitement building in me. Crazy as my life has seemed, if I lost either of my parents the way Sarah lost hers, I don’t know that I could stand up every day. I want her to feel better. I’m telling you, having parents that love you trumps everything, even I know that.

  We’re shooting through the Palouse, past rolling wheat fields, about a hundred miles south of Spokane, near the Idaho border where Washington State University and the University of Idaho play Dueling Universities just nine miles apart. Sarah is supposed to go to WSU in the fall; I’m headed for U of I. Nine miles apart; could be worse.

  “If I say turn around, we turn around,” Sarah says.

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “I’m serious, Angus.”

  “Do I look dumb enough to keep going if you tell me to turn around? Don’t answer that. But I’m serious, too. If you say turn around, I’ll show you true stunt-driver action.”

  “Even if I say it at the Reno city limits.”

  “Even if you say it at the front door of the restaurant,” I say back. “Even if you say it when we’re sitting in the booth.”

  “If you’re just saying that, and you think you’ll figure some way to change my mind if it happens, I’ll punch your stomach so hard your cousins will double over.”

  “Man, that other fat guy must have been a deceiver of the first order.”

  She’s quiet a minute. “That other fat guy did play fast and loose with the truth on occasion.”

  “Not all fat guys are alike.”

  “All guys are alike,” she says. And then, “All humans are alike.” She plugs her Nano into the radio and turns the sound high enough that I know to shut up. It’s a beautiful day, cool for midsummer, hot for any other time, and the contrast between fields and deep blue sky is so stark we seem like figures in a masterpiece. Words begin to stream through the speakers.

  A friend of mine is going blind

  But through the dimness,

  He sees so much better than me.

  And how he cherishes each new thing that he sees

  They are locked in his head

  He will save them for when

  He’s in darkness again.

  “Who is that?”

  “John Dawson Read.”

  “Who?”

  “Old guy. English. You wouldn’t know him.”

  “He’s good,” I say.

  “He’s better if you shut up and listen.” She flashes a smile.

  “Going blind, huh? There’s a thought.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. He’s singing about a guy going blind.”

  We cruise along the Salmon River outside Riggins, Idaho, a little past noon, watching river rafters looking like cool-dude astronauts in their thick life jackets and sunglasses, bucking the light rapids. By late afternoon we’re just south of Boise, and finally I’ve jerked awake enough times that I’m getting whiplash, so I pull over to let her drive.

  We’ve not talked a lot—Sarah doesn’t have that need to fill the lapses in conversation, and I’m wondering what we’re heading into. The closer we get to Reno, the more remote she seems. We hit the Nevada border in the dark, me blinking in and out of sleep, Sarah with her eyes glued to the road. My glasses are on the dashboard and she is completely beautiful to me, her blurred features smooth in the dim dash lights. I see what would have been, but for a fit of rage. I wonder how much of her personality has been shaped by people’s reactions, by not looking into that store window for fear of seeing herself, or wondering if those people crossing the street a half block up are crossing because they really have something to do over there
or because they don’t want to walk past her.

  How does a man do that to a child? What is there in being human that allows that? Can you imagine pressing a three-year-old girl against a hot wood stove? I get it that he was drunk, but he still had to do it. He picked her up and walked to that stove. I’ve consumed enough alcohol in a sitting to put me over the limit and under the table; hugged the commode like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic. And I’ve been pissed. I’ve said things to people I would’ve taken back in a second, were I given the opportunity. I’ve punched guys for calling my parents names, and I’ve punched guys for calling me fat or embarrassing me in front of people. I suppose you could say that’s on the continuum to doing the kind of damage he did, but on a scale of one to ten, mine is a 0.0003 and his is a sixty. Plus, if I’d ever done anything close to that, I’d kill myself. How do you live with the shame of burning a little girl?

  And how in hell do you live with the shame of leaving that girl with the guy who burned her? How do you live with yourself after you tricked a terrified little kid into running to her room to get her stuff while you made a clean getaway? Offer her a glimpse of a chance to escape the desperation with you, only to leave her crying at the window. I fucking know her mother looked back up at that window. I know it. If I were Sarah, I wouldn’t know who to hate either. Man, I’ve eaten some shit in my life, but compared to what Sarah has tasted, my shit tasted like angel food cake.

  “How much for two rooms?”

  “Two-twenty a night,” the woman behind the front desk at Harrah’s says.

  “Do we get free movies and a private masseuse with that?” I ask her.

  “Are you being smart with me?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am. Sorry. Do you mind if we huddle?”

  I’m eighteen and so is Sarah. Consenting adults.

  We sit on a couch amid the din of bells and buzzers announcing jackpots of unimagined size, people moving through the place in a herd, curses. “Look,” I tell her, “it’s been awhile since you were here. If she doesn’t work at the same place, we might have a tough time finding her. We need to conserve our funds. Why don’t we get a room with two beds?”

  She hesitates a second, says, “Okay.”

  That was easier than I thought. “We might have to tell them we’re married. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

  “This is Reno, remember?” Sarah says. “What happens in Reno, stays in Reno? You could bring your favorite sheep in here and they wouldn’t stop you unless she shits on the floor.”

  “We decided we want one room,” I tell the nice woman behind the desk. “Two double beds.”

  “What happens in Reno, stays in Reno,” she says, looking from me to Sarah and back, thinking, I’m sure, what could possibly happen in Reno between a 270-pound man-child and a crispy child-woman.

  “All right then,” I say. “Process us in.” I peel off six twenties from my roll and hand them over, hoping there’ll be a day when I can do that without the pit of my stomach falling out.

  “She said two double beds.” I stare at the king-sized Sleep Number bed covering about three-quarters of the floor space. I know it’s a Sleep Number because there’s a sign on the bed that says so, encouraging us to order one off sleepnumber.com if we like it or, for just a little less, we could buy a condo. “I’ll call down and see if they can put us in a different room.”

  I pick up the phone as Sarah sits on the bed. She bounces it a couple of times while I wait. “Hang up,” she says.

  “They haven’t answered.”

  “Drop the phone.”

  I do.

  “I’ll bet they don’t have these beds in every room. Sit here and check this out.”

  I walk over and push on it with my hands.

  She says, “Sit.”

  I sit. Whoa! The Sleep Number bed has my number. I fall back and stretch my arms out, like Jesus on that last bad day, minus His discomfort. “Amazing.”

  “We might not get one if we change rooms,” she says.

  “There’s only one bed.”

  With her finger she draws a line down the middle and says, “Cross that line and die.”

  “Right,” I say, “and besides, we probably don’t have the same sleep number.”

  “Let’s unpack.”

  I’m sleeping with a girl tonight.

  My parents brought me to Reno about eight years ago, but it was a whole different experience. They were walking down the sidewalk four abreast, holding hands with me trailing as far back as possible. The sidewalks on the Strip are wide, but you haven’t seen wide until you’ve seen my biological parents. People were walking over the tops of cars to get around them. I spent the night shrugging. People would gawk at them, then back at me, and I’d just shrug, like, who the hell are they?

  My parents told me in the old days how dangerous it was to come out of the closet, how often they’d been threatened or belittled. They were so happy to be here in Reno where no one knew them, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Well, even though prejudice against gays and lesbians has been on the decrease since Ellen DeGeneres smiled sweetly and told the world to kiss her ass, it ain’t all gone, and I still take my share of hits for having parents so far to the left on the bell-shaped sexual curve. So I just tried to stay below the radar that night.

  But now it’s Sarah and me walking down the strip and she’s burned and I’m fat and it’s possible I’m feeling a little of the release my parents felt here. I grab her hand.

  She doesn’t punch me in the gut.

  “Think we should look for her tonight?”

  Sarah bumps me with her shoulder, a little aggressively. “Let’s do it tomorrow. Last time Ms. Lemry and I caught her on the morning shift in a restaurant in the Sands. Let’s take a time out for now.”

  “You’re not sure you’re going to do this, are you?” I ask. “The deal is still on, you know. Say the word, and we’re burning rubber outta here.”

  “I need to sleep on it. I’ll know in the morning.”

  We crawl into bed in our sweats. The lights are off but for the dim glow of the TV. Sarah draws the line down the middle of the bed again, though she’s laughing. Her side. My side. Never the twain…all that. It reminds me of those stories I used to read about the Puritans or some other way too uptight folks “bundling” before marriage. The groom- and bride-to-be would put a board down the middle of the bed, get in with their clothes on, and rack out. It was supposed to be a test; see if they could reign in their horns and prove they believed sex was for procreation only. The way I’m thinking now, I’d have been feeling along that board for the knothole.

  Sleeping in one’s sweats is not the order of the day for a man of Bethunian girth. I carry my own down covers under my skin and if I bundle, I sweat. We’re not talking minor seepage. We’re talking rain.

  When I think she’s asleep, I slip off my sweatshirt ever so carefully, then my sweatpants. Monster boxers I can handle. I crowd the edge of the bed, a good foot from Neverland.

  The twain meet. Sometime in the middle of the night, her foot touches my calf. Innocent enough; she’s facing the other way. I push my calf into the pressure. Her toe runs up to the back of my knee.

  I cannot recount the sequence of events, I don’t care to remember the details, lest I discover some way crazy indiscretion I committed, like maybe she was asleep except for her foot, and I took advantage. But somehow her sweats end up in a monster wad at the bottom of the bed with mine. I don’t know how to proceed, and she doesn’t either, but evolution takes over.

  I won’t speak a word of it. Our secret dies here. I don’t know if it was good sex or bad sex, because those terms are relative so you have to do it at least twice to get a measuring stick…I mean, standard. I only know that when it’s over, everything I thought about her, and most of what I thought about myself, is changed. Not like some huge revelation where I want to go to Mexico and build houses for the poor, or take a job as a male stripper. But it is like
there was this one new possibility. There is the possibility that somebody could want me.

  That’s all you get in terms of graphic details, because intimacy is, well, just that.

  I reach over and touch her hair. It’s wet. I trace the trail of moisture with my finger, right to the corner of her eye.

  “You okay?”

  She nods.

  “Listen…”

  “Shut up.”

  “I…”

  “Angus, shut up.”

  Can’t say I haven’t heard that before. I wonder if she’s mad at me, but when I put my arms around her, she backs into me, so if she is, she has a funny way of showing it.

  At about three, I pop awake. I didn’t use a condom. To a regular-sized guy, information like that causes debilitating panic. For a guy my size, it can turn cardio. What a jerk! I didn’t even ask! All those times I watched that squiggly swimmer reach the egg first in sex ed, it never occurred to me it could be my squiggly swimmer. And there is no chance Sarah Byrnes is on birth control.

  I start to wake her, but I can’t. Unanticipated childbirth and matrimony aside, something in this feels so right, I refuse to mess it up. But either I don’t sleep the rest of the night, or I dream I’m awake. Either way, I start the day beat.

  Sarah jostles my shoulder. “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  I start to say we already did, but that’s a really bad guy joke, plus I know she’s talking about finding her mom.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Let’s get it done before I’m not.”

  We both start to get out of bed, stop simultaneously when we realize there will be a plethora of nudity if we do. I’m at a way disadvantage. Sarah has a great body, all worked out and buff and everything. She worries about her face. I, on the other hand, look like fifty pounds of porridge in a twenty-five-pound bag. Man, I gotta get the swimming thing down.