The Best American Short Stories 2017

  “Are you hungry or are you not?” He is hungry. He is always hungry. But he doesn’t want to go there in his new suit and with his haircut, and he doesn’t want to go with his mother. He says, “I’ll pass, I guess.”

  “Well, I’m starving,” his mother says.

  They load the valise into the back of the blue Aerostar and drive to Broadway, where Sander watches as his mother consumes a Gordita Supreme and an order of tortilla chips. She eats slowly and carefully, and she reads from a small black Bible as she does. Next to them, a tableful of senior girls laugh and scream like girls at a swimming pool: Elin Peterson, Morgan McKay, Nora Austin. Anna doesn’t seem to notice, but Sander is worried for her. Something dangerous in that screamy life.

  After lunch he is twice as hungry and feels like an idiot. They go back to the same neighborhood and begin to canvass. Two houses into it, a screen door is open, and a man in an undershirt, his hair pulled back in a graying ponytail, answers.

  “I’m here to invite you to a special event,” Sander’s mother says.

  “All right,” the man says.

  “I have some good news about God’s love,” she says, holding a pamphlet out toward the door.

  “Come on in,” the man with the ponytail says. This is not quite a surprise—every day or two they are invited in somewhere. Usually it’s a drunk person or someone lonely and old. This man just looks angry.

  “You want some coffee?” he asks. “I’ve got hot coffee. I’ve got plenty.”

  “No, thank you,” Sander’s mom says.

  “Is that against your religion?” the man says. “You don’t look like Mormons.”

  “We are not of that faith.”

  “Well, do you want some coffee?”

  “I’d love some,” Sander’s mother says, and settles with a small ladylike sigh onto the sofa and takes the valise. Sander doesn’t know about this. Maybe the man is not drunk, but there is certainly something wrong with him.

  “So am I going to Hell?” the man asks, setting a steaming mug of coffee in front of Anna.

  “By my lights, you are not,” she says. “No hellfire and no eternal damnation.”

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Just nothing?”

  “A blank eternity.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Consider the alternative,” Sander’s mom says. “An eternity of bliss in the company of God Himself.”

  “You want to get high?” the man asks Sander’s mom.

  “Why, no, thank you.”

  That eagle stare he gives her, ignorant and proud. Why do the heathen rage? This happens, not too often, every couple of weeks and then not at all for a month or two, the sinful man who is proud of his sin. Sander is a sinful boy—he knows this about himself. But he has the grace to be ashamed of it.

  “Oblivion,” the man says, lighting a little brass pipe, smoking, pointing it toward Anna, who shakes her head no. Then toward Sander.

  “I’d ask you not to do that,” Anna says.

  “Why not? If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Your soul is at stake.”

  “If it’s just nothing,” the man says, and takes another hit off the brass pipe. Sander has seen it done, in the smokers’ pit behind his school, though it’s odd to see a grown man puffing on a tiny pipe.

  “If it’s just oblivion,” he says, exhaling the words through thin smoke, “then I don’t care. I like oblivion. I seek after it.”

  “Think of what hangs in the balance.”

  “Or not,” he says. “Clara!”

  “What?” a petulant voice answers from the kitchen.

  A needle of fear. Sander knows that voice, that name.

  “Come on out here.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on out here is all.”

  It is exactly the person he was afraid it was, Clara Martinson, she of the ripped T-shirt, raccoon eyes, pierced anything, the next grade up from his, this girl who looks and dresses the way every teen girl would if there was nobody to tell her she couldn’t. Which there isn’t. Please, dear God, make me disappear, Sander thinks. Send me to the solar surface and vaporize me.

  “What do you want?” she says. Then she notices Sander in his black suit and haircut. Okay: there is something in each of us, in every sinner (and Sander knows that we are all sinners), that wants to climb toward the light, and for a moment, in Clara’s eyes, Sander sees the longing for grace.

  Then, just as quickly, the window shuts. She says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dad.”

  “Come have a hit with your old man,” he says. “Just a little toke.”

  “I’m sorry,” Clara says to Anna. “He gets like this. You should go.”

  “This is a value, too,” Clara’s dad says. “This is a family.”

  Anna presses a pamphlet into Clara’s hand, into her father’s as well, as she rises to her feet. “Please come to the meeting,” she says. “We have good news for you.”

  One more glance from steely Clara is all it takes to set Sander off into a fury of blushing. She trails them to the door while her father sits fuming on the couch. As Anna leaves, Sander turns to Clara.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “She’s just . . .”

  “Don’t apologize for her,” Clara says.

  “Then me,” he says.

  “No.” Clara shoves him out, blinking, into the bright miracle of the day. The door closes firmly behind them. Sander sits on the curb, his big black valise between his feet, and wishes he could cry. He can’t—he doesn’t know why. Doesn’t remember the last time.

  When he looks up, his mother is beaming. She says, “That was really something, wasn’t it? You never know what’s going to happen.”

  “But the two of them . . .”

  “We plant our seeds on stony soil,” she says. “It is not up to us which grow and which do not. Are you hungry yet?”

  “No,” Sander says, although he is starving.

  Clara turns up at Fellowship on Wednesday.

  She seeks out Sander and says, “There’s no Hell. There’s really no Hell?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll stick around and listen.”

  She melts off toward the back of the hall before the meeting starts. It’s a basement—knotty-pine paneling and framed pictures of the ex-presidents of the Elks on the walls. Sander is out of the suit, but the haircut remains. And he dresses as if his mother dressed him, which she does: chinos, plaid shirt. What had Clara been wearing? He can’t remember—only her face, which was mostly clean of makeup and had a look of inquiry. He wants to turn around and look at her. But he must keep his mind on God’s path. Then they stand and sing, all of them at once, “What God Has Yoked Together.”

  They are in the same room and singing together. They are one soul, one breath, at least in this tiny moment. That’s what Sander feels.

  After Fellowship, the hens and chicks of the congregation spirit Clara away, and he doesn’t see her again. He will never see her again. The skirts alone, down to the ankle, will drive her away, and the plain faces, the blouses buttoned to the neck. Clara will never have the vision to see through the shell, the earthly costume, to the joy that waits for her. Words, words, words, Sander thinks. She is a girl who might talk to him. These women will spoil it for him, these women he has lived among all his life. Just now, he hates them for it.

  But she comes to Fellowship again on Saturday, and afterward, before the hens and chicks take her away, she asks Sander if they can go for a walk on Sunday. No, he tells her, but Monday might be all right.

  “And what are your intentions?” his mother asks.

  “I don’t have any,” Sander says.

  Anna laughs out loud. They’re in the kitchen, Sunday afternoon, summer rain beating against the windows. Sander still in his Sunday suit, though he’s taken his tie off.

  “That’s impossible,” his mother says. “Everybody has intentions, good or bad or all
mixed up. What we want. It’s what sets people in motion. But you,” she says, and leans closer. “I don’t want you to lose your way. She’s a very pretty girl.”

  Not really, Sander thinks. Compared with the chicks, maybe. But there are some real knockouts at school. Clara’s got the edge, maybe, the interest—she’s got a snake tattoo that curls out from under her shirt, a little ways up her neck, emerald and garnet—but there are definitely prettier girls.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” his mother says. “You’ve seen how she dresses. She has no compass.”

  “We’re just going for a walk,” Sander says.

  “Do you wish me to come along?”

  Oh, no, Sander thinks. A hot ball of disappointment rises in his throat. He forces himself to speak: “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Then think of what you are asking.”

  “I’ll pray on it,” Sander says, and his mother radiates approval, and at that exact moment he splits into two people, the one he has always been and some itchy, wayward newborn.

  The old Sander will do as his mother asks, will pray and puzzle, working toward the light and out of the morass of sin. The old Sander thrills at his mother’s smile, at her approval. Old Sander, full of grace.

  The newborn Sander schemes. That night, in his bed, as he is supposed to be searching his conscience, he thinks instead of the snake tattoo. He thinks about what exactly he might say to his mother to keep her from chaperoning, without thinking whether this might be lies or truth. His dreams are full of open windows, speeding cars. The ex-presidents of the Elks laugh down at him.

  At four o’clock Monday, after Sander and his mother have returned from a short, hot day, Clara shows up on her bicycle. The sun is shining and the sky is an empty, mindless blue. She parks her bike alongside the house. Sander is surprised: Clara’s wearing a skirt down to her ankles, a turtleneck that hides her snake, even a beret on her head. Plain-faced. He barely recognizes her.

  True, she’s wearing combat boots, but Sander’s mother approves. She says, “Very becoming.”

  Clara knocks politely. His mother invites her into the parlor and offers her tea, which Clara accepts. Sander hangs around the edge of the room like a curtain, a piece of furniture, while they talk about nothing: the weather, the summer, the beautiful yellow irises that Anna planted by the ditch in front of the house, now in full stalky bloom.

  Clara has tits under her clothes, little ones, as far as he can tell, or maybe medium. And she has a pussy, too, a hairy one, or maybe a smooth, pretty one—he’ll never know. Last year, when he was fifteen, he let this thought torment him until he was undressing every counter girl and lady cop who passed by. Lately, he’s better, most of the time. Until he can’t help it.

  “An hour,” Anna says. “Then right back here, all right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sander says, and Clara looks at him to see if he’s being sarcastic, which he is not. It’s a whole new world for her, Sander can tell.

  The park: The newborn Sander, soft, defenseless, feels every green leaf, every flower, every shaft of evening sunlight penetrate into him. A bright chattery mountain stream runs the length of the park, and on either side are tangled thickets of birds and flowers. Here, though, is the picnic area: bright grass, wooden tables, barelegged couples lying next to each other on quilts, touching.

  “The world is ending,” Clara says.

  “It is,” Sander says. It’s nothing he wants to talk about.

  “When?”

  “Soon,” he says. “I don’t know. People said it was going to happen a couple of years ago, but then it didn’t.”

  “But you still believe it.”

  “I believe in Jehovah,” Sander says. “People make mistakes. They interpret His word, they add and subtract. People are people. Jehovah doesn’t change.”

  “The end of the world—that’s a terrible thing to believe,” Clara says, and sits down on a bench. Sander sits on the same bench, not quite as far from her as he can get. He feels so full of desire and fear—it might spill out. Yet he speaks what he believes.

  “It’s God’s love at work,” he says. “He’s given us a chance to redeem ourselves. To mean something.”

  “But only through Him.”

  “Only through Him,” Sander says. She’s right there on the bench. Perhaps he could kiss her. People have certainly kissed her before.

  “Have you ever touched a baby’s head?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you have,” she says. “That soft spot, up on top of their head, the place they’re so vulnerable. Or the way they smell—not the powders and the ointment but just the smell of a baby.”

  “Sure,” he says, and he’s almost certain he has.

  “Fontanel,” she says, remembering. “Or what about this, the flowers and all, the green grass and the rain. There’s so much that’s pretty about the world.”

  “It’ll go on.”

  “Without us.”

  “Without most of us,” he says.

  “Then it won’t really exist,” she says. “Without somebody to touch it, see it. Without somebody to breathe that smell of baby.”

  Sander is amazed. It’s something he’s known all along, this passing sadness, the beautiful dream of the world, only to have it all end. Clara has put her finger on it.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she says.

  “It doesn’t have to make sense,” he says. “You don’t have to understand it. That’s for faith to do.”

  Her eyes swim up to him from someplace deep under the surface.

  “You do believe,” she says.

  “I do,” he says, and in that moment he does.

  “Okay,” she says, and gets up off the bench and starts down the path into the woods, in a fury of thought. Sander follows. It’s what he does, in his chinos and black shoes: he’s a follower. Small birds scatter and chirp as they pass. Sunlight glints on the water of the creek. The world, he thinks, this generous world. He is looking at a bird by the water to see if it is a dipper when she stops short and he runs into her, bang, almost knocks her down.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, sorry. I wasn’t looking.”

  “It’s all right,” Clara says.

  But Sander doesn’t hear. The after-print of her body on his is too strong, just the accidental touch—he doesn’t get touched enough. Not nearly enough.

  “Faith,” she says. “Where do you get it? Where can I buy some?”

  Sander doesn’t know. Just now he’s nowhere near his God, dazzled by the sunlight, the girl. He says, “It’s work sometimes.”

  “Just sometimes?”

  “All the time,” he says. “And half the time it doesn’t come, and you’re just nowhere. Sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay,” Clara says. She takes his hand and says, “Thank you. Thank you for being honest.”

  “Oh,” Sander says, and blushes.

  “I’m not supposed to do that, am I?” she says, dropping his hand.

  And Sander almost catches the moment, almost manages to hold on. “It’s all right,” he says. “No harm done.”

  Clara’s there at Fellowship again on Wednesday night and on Sunday, dressed modestly in her own way—long skirt and combat boots, a navy woolen beanie on her head instead of the lace frill favored by the hens. Sander barely sees her. The chicks are so delighted to have a new face among them that they surround her. At one point, a long wistful look as Clara searches out Sander’s eyes and smiles at him: What’s to be done? They have me.

  On Monday, they go walking again, with his mother’s blessing.

  Clara wants to talk about Hell and why they don’t believe in it. This is where she comes in: A God who doesn’t hate His people. Come to me or not. Sander explains, but his mind is on the body. Her body, his. It’s a warm afternoon, almost hot, and girls in swimsuits and cutoff jeans are lounging in the shallows of the creek, sitting on fallen logs and letting their feet dangle in the rushing water, laughi
ng, drinking beer. This wide world of pleasure, and Sander with his blinders on. When he can manage it.

  “I tried this before, when I was twelve or something,” Clara says. “I was Catholic for a year. I was confirmed and everything. Catherine,” she says. “That was my confirmation name.”

  “I don’t know how that works.”

  “It’s like being baptized again, kind of. My mom had me baptized when I was a baby, but then when I was trying to be a Catholic . . . I don’t know. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

  “You change your name?”

  “You get, like, an extra name, from a saint. They’re supposed to help you after that. They have their specialties.”

  “What does St. Catherine do?”

  “I don’t know, exactly—I just thought it sounded cool. Clara Catherine. Also, she has a torture thing named after her.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Catherine wheel,” she says. “They tie you to it and then they break your bones.”

  “Nice!” Sander says, which makes her laugh, a coarse, cawing laughter that sounds at home in the woods. Animal cry, he thinks.

  “The Catholic boys were worse than the regular boys,” she says. “All they want is blow jobs, blow jobs, blow jobs.”

  Sander feels it rising but he can’t make it stop, and even the trying to stop it makes it worse, and then he’s blushing, a hot and awful mess, and Clara sees it—how could she miss it?—and the pause in her face makes it worse, the hot blood pulsing through his face.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  She walks off ahead of him, to give him a chance to recover. So she is considerate. He follows, every footstep throbbing in his face. Slowly, slowly, it subsides. It’s hot anyway in the afternoon sun, and his face is engorged. Just thinking the word, engorged, and he blushes more. Engorged, engorged.

  She’s waiting a ways down the path, by the creek, in the shade of a big cottonwood, sitting on a log and taking her boots off.

  “I’m hot,” she says. “It’s the turtleneck. I’m going to take a dip, just for a second. Come in the water with me?”

  “No, thanks,” he says immediately, then immediately regrets it. The stream here falls over a tumble of rocks into a deep, nearly still pool, shoulder-deep at least. The bank is smooth round pebbles. She stands, all modesty in her long sleeves and skirt, and takes the hem of her skirt in her hand and walks out into the still water, raising the skirt as she goes so it won’t get soaked. It still gets wet in places, water darkening the gray cloth. Between the water and the hem of her skirt, Sander glimpses the cool white outline of her thigh, the palpable flesh. Just an inch or two. If she wades out any deeper . . . but she stops, and looks back at him. Is she laughing at him? Or just smiling?