Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

  “Up! Up!” said the lion tamer, and two snarling lions obeyed, holding their arms up, paws hanging. The other lion thumped her tail and panted.

  “And now jump! Jump!”

  The lions jumped, at first without incident, but then Michael stepped on Gil’s tail and Gil swiped his paw at Michael’s face.

  “Lions! Lions! Cut it out!” cried Bryan, cracking his whip as Flicka ran in circles around them, barking.

  The lions suddenly collapsed in a snarling heap.

  “Lions! Lions!”

  Kari wondered if this was unrehearsed or part of the act. Dave didn’t seem to care; he was bent over in his chair by the record player, laughing.

  “Lions—back in your cages!”

  Suddenly the lions turned on their trainer, chasing him up the aisle, past Dave, and around the side of the house, snarling and roaring and, in Flicka’s case, barking all the while.

  As the pleas of the lion tamer grew fainter with distance, Julia stepped out, urging the audience that everything was under control and no one would be hurt by the killer lions.

  “Unless you make them really mad,” she amended.

  The clowns were next on the bill, and Flannery, Bonnie, and Joe, with clown faces courtesy of Faith and costumes from Kari’s magic sewing machine, bounded out, Flannery riding a tricycle sizes too small and Bonnie bouncing on a pogo stick.

  It was Joe who had the real appreciable skill, though; the boy had been teaching himself to juggle and did so now, with three red balls he was able to move through the air with few slipups.

  This earned rousing applause, but the audience favorite was yet to come.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Julia, “now’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for—no, but we’ll get to the ice cream soon—ladies and gentlemen, the Amazing Slipperini and, appearing for the first time, her new partner, Beaulioli!”

  From behind the circus tent, a sprite in a shiny green leotard executed two backflips. Behind her, in a costume like Superman’s without the cape, Beau did the same.

  “Oh, my gosh, Faith,” said Kari, turning to her. “I didn’t know Beau could do that.”

  “He’s been practicing like crazy,” said Faith.

  “And now he’s saying he wants to join the circus—the real circus—when he grows up,” said Wade with a smile.

  “Slip still threatens to do that,” said Jerry. “Although she’s down from four backflips in a row to two.”

  Kari watched Slip, feeling the same awe everyone else did. How could an adult body still do those things, twist and bend and fly through the air? When Kari had first gotten to know Slip, she’d mentioned how much Slip reminded her of a leprechaun, a comment at which Slip took great offense.

  “No, no,” Kari had blustered, “I mean it as a compliment. You know, with your red hair and energy and high spirits and—”

  Slip’s raised hand ordered Kari to stop.

  “I’d like to know why I never get compared to redheads like Lucille Ball or Arlene Dahl. Why is it always ugly little leprechauns? Please, if we’re ever going to be friends, don’t ever ever compare me to anything that might be called upon to be a mascot in a St. Patrick’s Day parade.”

  Kari honored that request, but it didn’t mean the comparison still didn’t come to mind.

  Beau struggled for a moment, but then, getting his balance, followed Slip as she walked nonchalantly, albeit on her hands, toward the audience.

  “I always wanted to do that when I was a kid,” said Helen Hammond, “but my mother said it wasn’t ladylike.”

  “Sounds like your mother,” said her husband.

  Beau was able to do everything Slip did—several front flips, a few round-offs—but the topper of the evening was when he got up on her shoulders and then did a somersault in the air as he dismounted.

  The crowd applauded wildly, and as Julia called out the rest of the acts to take a bow, flashbulbs shot little blue explosions in the air.

  The western sky was flushed with the setting sun as everyone began folding up chairs and cleaning the yard. Slip began whistling the song “Whistle While You Work,” and the adults and all the kids who could whistle joined in. Again the words came to Kari: halcyon days.

  JERRY AND WADE had agreed to supervise the camp-out. That is, they would spear the marshmallows that were roasted over the coals of the grill, tell a few ghost stories, and, when the kids had fallen asleep, stretch out on the chaise longues with a cooler of beer between them. It was the fourth year they had hosted the camp-out (Paul Forrest had joined them the first year), and Faith knew Wade adjusted his schedule for the event.

  He and Jerry weren’t the kind of close friends the Angry Housewives were (the women discussed this, deciding it was the rare man who could have such close friendships), but they enjoyed each other’s company and could sit companionably talking about weather (Jerry’s choice of topic) or flying (Wade’s) or how the Twins or Vikings or North Stars were doing—Jerry had taken Wade to his first ice hockey game, and now Wade was a convert, convinced that it was the sport of the future. And on camp-out night, although it was unexpressed, they felt a sort of privilege in watching over these wild and exhausted lions and ringmasters and acrobats and clowns. Both men couldn’t help but smile up at the late summer sky, beers balanced on their bellies, listening to the crickets and the whispered scatological jokes of the kids who hadn’t yet fallen asleep.

  “What did the sailor find in the toilet?”

  “What?

  “The captain’s log!”

  Both men laughed; a kid’s dumb joke laughed at on a late summer night in a yard that was still littered with circus popcorn and tutu netting was a tonic that neither of the men could quite articulate. Later, Jerry would tell Slip, “It’s just such a peaceful way to end the summer,” but those words conveyed only a fraction of the bigness that filled his chest.

  Slip knew exactly what he meant. Many times she had sat outside with her friends, watching their children play in the sandbox or examine something incredibly interesting—a rock, a stick, and once the carcass of a blackbird—and thought, This is the whole wide world, right here, and I’m in it.

  So with the children under the watchful eyes of two dads drinking beer, the mothers decided to cap off their own summer with a drink themselves at Kari’s house.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Slip,” said Audrey, pushing back on Kari’s porch swing, “that was one hell of a circus. I’d say the best yet—even though my firstborn decided he’s too old for such ‘kid stuff.’ ”

  “Audrey,” said Faith, who sat on the swing with her, “you sound like you’re ready to cry.”

  There was a sound of a match striking, and a flicker of flame illuminated Audrey’s face as she lit her cigarette. “I think I’ll be ready to cry for the next ten years—or however long it takes for my boys to get through puberty.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Slip. “Flannery’s already taller than me—not that a lot of sixth graders aren’t—but she’s starting to get a little sassier, and practically everything I do either embarrasses her or inspires her pity.”

  Kari laughed. “Will you tell her, by the way, what a great job I thought she did writing those lines for Julia?”

  “Sure. She will still accept compliments from me.” Slip took a sip of her apple wine and tried not to shudder. She had given up hard liquor for good, and Kari, knowing this, had stocked her bar with a few bottles of wine. This particular one had been on the liquor store counter, on sale. “But thanks, I thought it was good too.”

  “Hey, wasn’t Merit coming over?” asked Audrey.

  “She said she was,” said Faith. “Pass me that ashtray, will you?”

  “How about her girls for the Cute Prize?” said Slip, and she took another cautious sip from her glass. “Kari, no offense, but what is this wine I’m drinking?”

  “I don’t know—Anne of Green Gables or something.”

  Audrey laughed. “Annie Green Springs. The prefer
red wine of underage drinkers.”

  Kari shrugged. “All I know is, it was on sale.”

  “I can see why,” said Slip, but she took another game sip. “So what’d you think of your little acrobat?”

  Faith smiled; she had been wondering when someone was going to mention her children. “He’s good, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. You don’t mind if I take him on the road, do you? I’ve been thinking of getting a job outside the house.”

  “No kidding?” said Faith. “Me too. Well, first I need to go back to school. I’m thinking of getting an associate’s degree in interior design and—”

  A faint crash and a muffled scream stopped one sentence and started another.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “I did,” said Slip.

  “It’s not the kids, is it?” asked Kari.

  “Not ours,” said Audrey. “Probably those bratty Lindgren kids from across the alley. I know Ray and Alice are out of town and those kids always throw a party when—hey, here comes Merit now.”

  They looked to see that Merit had stepped out in the rectangle of light that shone from her opened front door, but instead of answering their waves with one of her own, she was suddenly yanked back inside.

  “What was that?” asked Slip.

  “It’s Eric,” said Audrey, rising so quickly that the chains of the porch swing jangled. “It’s that bastard Eric.”

  Without saying a word, Faith jumped off the porch steps and raced across the lawn.

  “Where’s she going?” asked Slip.

  “Probably to get Wade and Jerry,” said Audrey as she watched Faith run down the street. “But we can’t wait for them. Come on.”

  She was off the porch and had run halfway across the dewy lawn before Kari and Slip caught up to her. They all crossed the street, Slip wincing as her bare feet made contact with a nugget of gravel or a sharp stone.

  Racing up the wide stairs, Audrey banged on the door with one hand and turned the doorknob with the other. The door opened, and the women tumbled into a scene that would be relived at least once in all of their nightmares.

  Stinking of liquor, Eric was standing under the living room archway, holding on to his wife by the hair. Blood surged from her lip, and one eye was closing in a swelling, purpling mass.

  “Oh, look, honey,” he said breezily, “we’ve got company.” He pulled Merit’s head up, and as she whimpered he turned to the women, smiled his bright white smile, and asked, “Now will you please get the fuck out of my house?”

  “Eric, let go of her,” said Audrey. “Let go of her right now.”

  “Who’s gonna make me—you?” He laughed an unamused laugh and then, changing his voice so that it was smooth, almost solicitous, he said, “Merit, honey, your friend who dresses like a prostitute is here to rescue you. Please tell her you’re not in need of rescue and to get some decent clothes on and get out of my house!”

  As he yanked her hair again for emphasis, Slip said, “Let her go, Eric.”

  “Is this where you learn to be so disrespectful?” he asked Merit. “From these bossy so-called friends of yours?” His free hand smacked Merit across the face, and the act was so violent, so shocking that the women were frozen for a second.

  But only for a second.

  Kari could have sworn she heard someone scream “Aieeeeee,” like the martial-arts expert she had seen on Johnny Carson, and suddenly all the Angry Housewives, at their angriest, flew at Eric, pulling at his arms, prying apart his fingers, trying to get him to let go of Merit.

  Slip had never felt this element of fear with her brothers, but it reminded her of when she used to wrestle with them. She was always impressed how hard male muscles were, how strong a determined male could be.

  “Let her go, you asshole.”

  They all looked up to see Faith standing just steps away, her arms outstretched and holding a gun.

  “Oh, dear God,” whispered Kari.

  Eric laughed and in a poor approximation of a drawl said, “Why, look, it’s the crazy cracker, here to blow us away with her son’s toy gun.”

  “It’s not my son’s toy gun,” said Faith, “it’s Wade’s. And it’s real. Now let Merit go.”

  Like chorus girls wanting to showcase the principals, Slip, Kari, and Audrey stepped to the side. Eric still held on to Merit by the hair, and the look that he gave Faith was beyond contempt, emitting an evil Faith had a hard time staring back at.

  “Merit, tell your southern cracker bitch friend that she’s real funny—ha-ha—but we’d appreciate it if she took her stupid little toy gun and her stupid little friends out of our goddamn house!”

  “Faith, you’d—”

  Interrupting Merit, Faith cocked the pistol.

  “Listen, you sorry son of a bitch, I’ve got witnesses, and if I shoot you, they’ll make sure the law knows it was in self-defense.”

  “Oh, I’m scared,” said Eric, but Faith could tell by the set of his jaw and by the question in his eyes that he was.

  “I’m going to count to ten,” said Faith, “and either you’ll let go of Merit by then or I’ll shoot you. One . . . two . . . three.”

  Eric let the count go to eight before he let go of Merit, pushing her to the floor.

  “Satisfied?” asked Eric as Audrey, Slip, and Kari gathered her up. “Now get out of my house.”

  “Gladly,” said Faith. “Let’s go, girls.” Walking backward toward the door, she held the gun on Eric until they were all safely outside.

  BACK AT KARI’S HOUSE, after locking the front and back doors, they hunkered around the kitchen table, sipping at the coffee (the brandy of Minnesota) Kari had brewed.

  “I wished I still smoked,” said Slip as Faith tried to light her and Merit’s cigarettes with a trembling hand.

  “Here,” said Audrey, offering the flame from her lighter, which shook a little too.

  “My stars, I have never been so scared in my life,” said Kari.

  “I know,” said Slip, “and then when Annie Oakley bursts in with a gun—holy full bladder, I thought I was going to pee in my pants.”

  “I think I did a little,” admitted Kari, and, scared as she was, a chuckle bubbled out of her.

  They allowed themselves a laugh, but their fear was a wind that blew it out before it could ignite into something big.

  “Well,” said Kari, reaching for the phone mounted on her wall, “I think it’s time we called the police.”

  “What?” said Merit, and the panic that had disappeared from her mashed face was back again. “No, no, Eric would kill me if I called the police.” Her words were fuzzy through her swollen lips.

  “Merit, he might kill you if you don’t,” said Faith.

  “Yeah,” said Slip, “and you won’t always have Annie Oakley here to protect you.”

  Holding ice wrapped in a washrag to her eye, Merit tried to smile at Faith. “I owe you, Annie,” she said, “and I’ll pay you back someday, but I’m not going to call the police.”

  “Merit, listen—” began Slip.

  “Actually, she may be right,” said Kari. “I know this teacher whose husband beat her, and she said all the police ever did was give her husband a reprimand. No matter how many times they were called to the house, they never took him down to the station.”

  “Christ,” said Audrey. “If Paul ever hit me, I’d knock his block off.” She splayed her hands as if regarding her manicure. “ ‘Course, his method of hurting me was to have sex with the rest of the known universe.” Sighing, she took a drag off her cigarette. “Has this . . . has this been going on for a long time, Merit?”

  Merit nodded, and Slip asked what would set him off.

  “Oh, the way I wore my hair or didn’t wear my hair, the way I cooked a steak or didn’t cook a steak, if I said something stupid or if I said something smart . . . really, it was anything and nothing at all. And when Jewel came along—well, he can’t forgive me for not giving him his precious son.” She fumbled at the pack on the tab
le and placed a cigarette between her swollen lips.

  Slip snorted a laugh. “No offense, Merit, but you look like you just went nine rounds with Muhammad Ali.” Tears sprang up in her eyes. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very funny. I’m just so . . . shocked.”

  “Me too,” said Kari. “I had no idea he was doing this to you, Merit. Why . . . what happened tonight? He seemed fine at the circus.”

  Merit shook her head. Tucking back a strand of hair that hung on her face, she winced and touched her sore scalp.

  “He thought I was ignoring him at the circus,” she said. “See, he thinks all things should come to a stop for me when he’s around, but I guess I found the kids too entertaining, socialized too much, had too good a time.”

  “Is he always drinking when he goes after you?” asked Audrey.

  Merit inhaled the cigarette and her lips formed a battered O as she exhaled. “I used to fool myself into thinking it was something he only did when he was drinking, because then I could make an excuse for it—’oh, he’s drunk, he doesn’t know what he’s doing’—but no, he hits just as hard when he’s sober.”

  Kari asked him if he’d ever hurt the kids.

  Tears welled in Merit’s eyes—at least in the one that wasn’t swollen shut.

  “Not like he does me, but . . . they’ve heard him come after me. He would usually wait until they were sleeping or out of the house, but once he kicked me to the ground and as I was trying to crawl away I turned my head and saw Reni standing at the top of the stairs, watching. If you could have seen her face . . .” Merit took a napkin out of the little dispenser shaped like a cow and wiped her nose. “Well, she started to run down the stairs to help me as I was pulling myself up, but I motioned for her to get back to her room, hoping she’d leave before Eric saw her, but then he did see her.”

  The women around the table held their breaths, waiting to hear what Merit had to say, even though they knew she was going to tell them something awful.

  “He smiled his big handsome smile—God, how I hate that smile!—and said, ‘Oh, Irene, go back to bed, your mother is fine. She just did a very bad thing today and I have to teach her a lesson.’ Reni asked in a tiny little voice, ‘What bad thing?’ and I saw the muscle in Eric’s cheek bulge out and he said, ‘I’m not going to tell you again, Irene: go back to bed. Now.’ And she did, but not before she walked all the way down the steps to where I was leaning on the newel post. She put her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss, and as she turned around and started walking upstairs, I prayed hard for two things: one, that Eric wouldn’t touch her, and two, that I would be worthy of my brave little girl’s devotion.”