On April 4, April 5 and April 7 purchasing copies of the Yewville Journal since she no longer read it at home.
“I knew that guy. You’d see him around.”
The 7-Eleven clerk, a stocky young man with slick quills of hair, a scruffy beard and a harsh asthmatic breath craned his neck to see what his customer was reading so intently between swallows of Diet Pepsi.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Reigel. Plumbing guy. He’d come in here for cigarettes—Camels. And next door.” Next door was the beer-liquor-wine store. “He’d hang out at Artie’s over there.”
“He killed himself, they’re saying. You believe that?”
Surprisingly, the clerk shrugged. Sharon regarded him slantwise through her dark-tinted glasses. “Sure. There’s lots of people kill themselves, these days.” He spoke sadly, as if recalling names, faces. “Somehow it’s easier now.”
“It’s a sin, no matter what.”
Sharon left the 7-Eleven as if she’d been obscurely insulted.
Across the way was Artie’s—pink neon sign HAPPY HOUR HAPPY HOUR winking in the window. So inviting! She was dying for a drink. But a lone woman in such a place, packed at this time of day with men on their way home from work, truckers stopping for supper, even a plain, dumpy middle-aged woman with a sallow skin and no makeup, might attract undesired attention.
She wasn’t prepared for any pig’s company. Hadn’t her protection with her. Not so soon after S.R.
Sharon entered the Circle Beer-Liquor-Wine to purchase a single half-bottle of wine. Chardonnay like the kind her brother-in-law had served at that first dinner they’d all had together—the Merricks making her feel so welcome. So wanted.
God, I love them all.
God, thank you for bringing me to safe harbor!
It was a thunderous late afternoon. Fluorescent lights illuminated ten-foot shelves, row upon row of gleaming bottles. All the customers except Sharon in her disguise were male; no one gave her more than a cursory glance; pigs’ eyes sliding off her, a woman of no evident sex. I am invisible, like God!
Sharon located the wine she wanted. Her nerves were taut as piano wire, mouth watering for a drink. Certainly I am not an alcoholic she was explaining to her sister Lily, whose only fault was she pried into Sharon’s life, forever thinking thinking thinking about Sharon and several times bringing up “Starr Bright”—why, exactly? Alcoholism is genetic. No one in the Donner family was alcoholic. Momma and Daddy never drank for God’s sake! So don’t you look at me accusing me! Lily’s only fault was trying to tell Sharon what to do. Issuing commandments like when they’d been girls. When they were girls no longer.
Still, Sharon adored Lily. Lily, and Wes, and Deedee. What a happy family. What a good, decent, generous family. And what Wes and Deedee would never know, could never hurt them. Wild!
Sharon was about to bring the wine to the cashier’s counter at the front of the store when she heard a familiar voice, and saw a tall, burly, graying-haired man in a light jacket pushing six-packs of beer along the counter—her brother-in-law Wes.
Wes Merrick, here!
Sharon held back, partly hidden by a display of discount wines. Thinking what a coincidence it was, she’d been thinking of the man and he’d appeared. She’d been thinking of him innocently and he’d appeared causing her heart to race as in the long-ago days when she’d see Mack Dwyer at school and feel an actual stab to the heart loving him so until he’d betrayed her.
Sharon could overhear Wes talking with the cashier whose name he knew, did she hear the name “Reigel”—“poor bastard”—“terrible thing”—couldn’t be certain. In the weirdly convex mirror above the cashier’s register was Wes Merrick’s handsome ruddy face distorted yet to Sharon’s eyes instantly recognizable.
Her brother-in-law Wes, in neutral territory.
Never glimpsed the man before outside the house on Washington Street—Lily’s house.
Suppose they’d met by accident? The first day Sharon had come to Yewville. In fact she’d had a drink at a place next to the Greyhound station downtown before getting into a taxi. Suppose Wes had dropped in. An accidental meeting. It might have happened—why not?
Big-boned, clumsy-gentle. A fleshy mouth for eager damp kissing. A strong-willed man who would not be pushed beyond a point but until that point he’s putty in your hands.
And how big a penis, blood-engorged to its full size, only Lily would know; and, being Lily, wouldn’t ever tell.
It was unfair, Lily had always had all the luck. Not many boyfriends in high school but the few she’d had had respected her. Not crazy about her maybe, for how could any guy be crazy about Lily, but nice to her and decent as the guys tended to be to one another if they were friends; but rarely to girls; and never to Sharon. Who was the beautiful one of the Donner sisters, so unfair!
Not that Sharon had been seriously jealous of Lily. She’d had all the guys she wanted. Except they treated her like shit. Mack Dwyer who was the first she’d allowed to … touch her. That way. Mack she’d loved like crazy and would have died for and he’d gotten bored with her and treated her like shit saying If you don’t like it, leave me alone but she was so weak, desperate in love and he’d passed her on to his buddies and even then … for a while … well, what could she do, she was just a kid. Stan Reigel had been one of them.
Well. He’d died. Twenty-two years afterward but that began to even things up, almost.
Yes, Lily had had all the luck without seeming to realize it. And still did.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Merrick”—so most of the mail came, delivered to 183 Washington Street. Lily of the Valley, a married woman! A woman with a daughter! Who’d even come to resemble her, and Wes.
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Never had Sharon understood these harsh words of Jesus Christ, and she did not understand them now.
Wes had his wallet out, was handing the clerk bills. Sharon bit her lower lip smiling like a mischievous child thinking why not step out, declare herself H’lo Wes! Can I ride back to the house with you, I’ve been getting some fresh air and exercise and Wes would blink at her amazed Jesus, Sharon—is that you? And laughing she’d snatch off the dark glasses so he could get a good look liking it meeting her like this in neutral territory. And Lily who was “Mrs. Merrick” nowhere near. Wes would say How about a drink, Sharon, at Artie’s before we drive back and Sharon would say, touching his wrist, Hell, no, Wes, I have a better idea, let’s get a bottle right here and we can park somewhere private and secluded—how’d you like that?
Sure, he’d like that.
He was a man, any man’s a pig in his innermost heart.
Instead, Sharon waited until Wes was safely gone from the store before coming forward.
Never, God help me! Never.
Never to Lily her own sister she adored. Lily of the Valley who was all that remained of the old, lost world of Shaheen.
That could not be part of God’s plan for her—could it?
She was sickened thinking of it. Icy-cold in her bowels.
“Starr Bright” and—Wes?
Never had God suggested such. He had guided her across thousands of miles seeking sanctuary here. Where she might heal herself in Lily.
God, You would not be so cruel.
She would read the Bible that night until dawn seeking a sign, if any sign be offered.
3
Bleeding a Pig
There had been no plan, of that she would swear.
One day run to earth by her enemies and confronted with her crimes and made to plead guilty as “Starr Bright” butcherer of pigs and duly sentenced to death by the State of Nevada by lethal injection to which she would acquiesce as a lover the most passionate and voluptuous of her lovers she would so swear. No plan, no thought of vengeance bringing her east to home.
I don’t want to kill. Not the most filthy of pigs
deserving to die. I am Rose of Sharon, I am not one who kills.
That was so! God help her.
It was a safe harbor with her sister Lily she had wished. Only that. Lily whom she loved solely of the earth’s inhabitants. Lily of the Valley who was her almost-twin and wiser than she in many respects. Lily she adored. Whose husband she would never she would never! seduce and bring to harm.
Wes who had opened his household to her though guessing (ah, she knew!) her sluttish past. Yet magnanimous, kindly. Like Christ extolling Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.
Though he look upon her with lust in his heart, knowing not it was lust for her he felt, she would never bring the man to harm.
Lily, I promise!
Certain too that there had been no wish of vengeance bringing her home to set “Starr Bright” upon those who had used her cruelly more than twenty years ago. Destroying her innocent girlhood with their grunting pig-lust.
Statutory rape, it had been. For Sharon had been only fifteen years old, her high school lovers had been seventeen and eighteen.
Mark Dwyer, Stan Reigel, Budd Petco—and others, their names faded as their faces. She would have supposed they might still be living in Yewville; but truly had not thought of them, not once, set upon her long pilgrimage home.
How “Starr Bright” eluded the police of several states alerted for a young glamorous beauty who did not exist.
How “Starr Bright” wiped away all fingerprints, all traces of her being in the wake of carnage. In Malibu shrewdly leaving behind twisted in the dead man’s fingers three strands of hair taken from beauty salon debris in a Dumpster behind a strip mall. In Malibu as subsequently in Yewville leaving in the wake of carnage a single page torn from the Bible.
Yet not the Bible lying on her bedside table, which she believed Lily had seen. But the second of her Bibles, hidden in the lining of a suitcase. For the one Holy Book was her own, the other to be desecrated in the service of the Lord.
No. She’d had no thought of Dwyer, Reigel … the others. There had been no motive except wishing to be healed, bringing her home.
The ugly memory of the swimming pool at the park and the jeering boys Hey Blondie Blue-Eyes! Don’t be scared! was fresher. Billy Ray Cobb had paid richly for that memory.
For where one pig could not be touched in vengeance, another might take his place; in butchery, one pig is identical with any other.
For truly she believed God will not allow us to commit any act that is evil. That is not ordained by His wrath.
In Yewville, she would consecrate herself to good.
In Yewville, she would emulate her sister Lily.
Truly she’d vowed. In her innermost heart. On her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Scouring the sinks, the grease-splattered interior of the oven. Speedy from a pill she’d swallowed one day when all the Merricks were gone and she was blissfully alone in the house kneeling panting in each corner of each downstairs room to swab it clean with wetted paper towels. And along the baseboards, crawling on hands and knees which was the only way to clean the room absolutely. In such a way erasing sin from the world. Never doubt, it can be accomplished!
Carefully rinsing each plate and each fork, spoon, knife in hot water before placing it in the dishwasher. Setting the kitchen cupboards in order—canned goods neatly aligned on the shelves, boxes in regimented rows. In the recreation room, dusting and polishing and taking up Deedee’s tossed-down things to fold and set aside. Stacking magazines and papers as they accumulated. Cleaning with Windex the TV screen which she never watched.
So Lily laughed uneasily, saying Sharon, we don’t live in a church!
Yet of course they did, not knowing.
Lily laughed saying Sharon, you never used to be like this when we were girls.
Sharon smiled in silence. Thinking How many ways I didn’t use to be when we were girls, Lily will never know.
And then one day. Fourth day of her visit. Restless, and suddenly bored. Alone in the house. An actual house! Not a condo, and not rented. Lily had been begging her to see a doctor, let me make an appointment please Sharon, get a blood test at least; did Lily, did Wes, worry she was infected with AIDS? That was an insult if so. Never would God infect “Starr Bright.”
Lily was out, Deedee was at school, Wes was at work.
There came “Sherrill” boldly to a mirror, trying on her wigs and examining herself critically. Only two wigs remained, curly strawberry blond and shoulder-length silky jet-black like Cleopatra. The others, utilized by “Starr Bright,” had of course been carefully destroyed: burnt.
No evidence. No trace.
Restless in the strawberry-blond wig. And naked. Boldly prowling the house upstairs and down, in high-heeled shoes. (What if: a delivery man rings the doorbell, peers through a window, sees her, wild! Mistaking her for respectable Mrs. Merrick, wild!) She appeared floating as a ghost—a beautiful, naked ghost—in a mirror of the master bedroom upstairs; Wes would be lying, buck naked, giant erection flopping on his belly, on the bed. She used the adjoining bathroom which Lily had decorated in a fussy-pretty Laura Ashley style. “Sherrill’s” naked buttocks on the powder-blue plastic toilet seat. Where Lily sat her bare ass. And Wes.
Used wads of faintly scented blue toilet paper to dry herself, fastidiously wetted from a faucet. Never, in “Sherrill’s” romantic experience, do you know that within the next hour some ardent lover isn’t going to want to kiss you there.
A vicious lover of hers, years ago hallucinating on peyote, Deedee’s father possibly, now dead, once screamed at her Wash yourself! Between the legs! I can smell you across the room!
Wanting to die of shame, slash her breast, cunt and wrists and die.
She’d tried. And no luck.
In Deedee’s room she stood naked in high heels posed in a mirror. Ghost-body. One of the pigs had actually killed her and she was a ghost prowling a house in which she didn’t belong. In which others were happy. Unknowing of their good luck, and happy. And that was unjust.
It was unjust, God must understand. Lily had all the luck.
Deedee’s room was a dull-girl’s room you could see. And Deedee for all her sweetness and admiration of Aunt Sharon was a dull girl. Wasn’t beautiful, and would never be. Her features were only so-so. And that pudgy chin, nose. Baby-fat. At least fifteen pounds overweight. Why didn’t Lily make the girl diet? Sharon had to laugh: Deedee more resembled Lily than she did her real mother, and more resembled Wes than she did the very man, that bastard, who’d fathered her. In a careless squirty-spasm in a Mexican hotel.
At least, Sharon thought she recalled Deedee’s father. Though possibly she was mistaken.
In those days she’d been a careless girl. When you looked like her, you could be careless. Traveling with whoever was most crazy for her, could spend the most money.
Downstairs, Sharon prowled through Wes’s office. Any secrets here? All men have secrets though possibly not at home. Not where someone might snoop. She drew her fingertips across the edge of Wes’s desk, patted the seat of his well-worn swivel chair. He was a hefty, heavy man; with the look of an athlete beginning to go to fat; must weigh two hundred twenty pounds at least. Lily’s husband! You’d have thought Lily Donner would have ended up with someone meeker, less manly. Sharon methodically looked through Wes’s files and desk drawers where, she knew, Lily would never venture; discovering, in the lower left-hand drawer beneath a folder of tax forms a pack of Camels, two-thirds full. And Lily was so proud her husband no longer smoked! Sharon laughed. “Love you, big guy.” She took one of the cigarettes to smoke in solitude, later, in her room. The cigarette was harsher than her own brand, lacking a filter-tip. The taste of Wes Merrick on her lips, tongue.
She’d found his name in the telephone directory—Dwyer, Michael.
On an impulse dialing the number but got only an answering machine. And a nasally woman’s voice on the tape. Mrs. Dwyer? Furious, she laced her fingers over the ph
one receiver and grunted You tell that fucker husband of yours to keep his filthy hands to himself fuck him and fuck you! And slammed down the receiver. Panting.
“Oh my God, did I do that?”
Shaking, she’d been so excited. Hadn’t known. A tight, keen sensation between the legs she hadn’t felt in quite a while.
Wondering at the look on the woman’s face. Serves her right, married to him.
Big Mack Dwyer. She’d wanted to die for. Almost did.
A sword shall pierce through thine soul.
Better luck with Reigel Plumbing. Just dialed the number, no secretary or answering machine, a man answered on the second ring. And “Starr Bright” begins cooing, as only she knows how. Hello! is this Stan? Stan Reigel is it? and he says yes and she says Hey you’ll never guess who this is back in town on a visit and he says who? and she says C’mon hon: guess! and there’s a pause like the guy is blown out of his skull and in a lowered voice at last he says Cindy? and “Starr Bright” moans like she’s hurt and mock-growls Who the hell’s Cindy? Better guess again! And so it goes, back and forth for a while, “Starr Bright” is funny and easy going never in the slightest reproachful just out for a good time and sounding as if she’s had a few drinks already this early in the afternoon finally cooing Stan, honey, if you have a few minutes one night this week we could meet like old times and you’ll remember me, fast.
That easy. You’d never think so, but “Starr Bright” knows men.
So it had not been intended, had it? It had simply happened.
I accept my fate. I bow my head to Your will.
He’d picked her up at 10:30 P.M. of April 3, on Bank Street near Washington, where she waited sheltered in a darkened doorway of All Saints Church. There was a light drizzly rain, but freezing. And “Starr Bright” in miniskirt, high heels and silky textured black stockings.