Hole: A Ghost Story Page 7

  Hank shook his head. Steve’s revelation had knocked a hole in his stomach... and made him hate his mother-in-law just a little bit more!

  Hank looked down at the coffee table between them. “You mind if I have one of your cigarettes?” he asked. Steve smoked Virginia Slims, but Hank didn’t care. He’d smoke a donkey dick right then, if he could suck some nicotine out of it.

  “No, go ahead. I have plenty.”

  The ashtray was already full. Hank and Steve had been talking for hours.

  Hank took a cigarette from his brother-in-law’s pack, his hands only trembling a little. He remembered how hard it was to quit smoking. He’d made a half dozen abortive attempts before he finally managed to shake the monkey off his back, and now here he was, running back to oral fixation, his arms open wide. His father used to say, “Smokers never quit. They just go longer between cigarettes.”

  He lit up with a sigh, took a drag, coughed, then immediately sucked in another lungful.

  “It’s good,” he said with a laugh, a cloud of smoke floating around his face. “I had myself convinced these things were awful.”

  Steve regarded him sympathetically, said, “I read in a magazine that seventy-five percent of smokers relapse. I guess that puts you in the majority.”

  Behind a raft of smoke, Hank said, “When I used to go outside to have a smoke, Mary would always say I was taking the scenic route.”

  Steve smiled mirthlessly. “My sister was known for her grim sense of humor.”

  Mary’s brother had arrived a quarter ‘til 11:00. Hank was in the upstairs bathroom, scrubbing out the tub with comet and an abrasive pad when Steve pulled up in his little green Kia.

  The police had emptied the blood before they left but had done little else to clean up the scene apart from swirling some clean water around the sides a few times. There was black powder on the edge of the tub, dirty footprints on the carpet and some kind of plastic film crumpled on the floor. Looked like the back of a Polaroid photo blank.

  Hank had taken one look at the pink scum around the rim of the tub and walked downstairs to grab some cleaning supplies and a pair of yellow Playtex gloves.

  Travis was gone by then. Brandon had left. It was just Hank and the scum of blood in the tub, the last mark his wife would ever leave in his house.

  He puked immediately after he got on his knees and started cleaning his wife’s residue, puked right in the tub in a violent fit of revulsion. He hadn’t eaten since lunch so all he sicked up was Brandon’s coffee and some bubbly mucous, but he puked convulsively, then hung over the side of the tub and dry heaved for a good minute or two after that. Nose running, eyes red, he wiped his face on a towel, swirled his puke down the drain with the sprayer, then went back to scrubbing.

  Travis had tried very hard to talk him out of staying home tonight, but Hank had refused to leave.

  Maybe it was penance. He was certainly guilty enough. Out, out, damned spot! and all that claptrap.

  He didn’t hear the Kia pull up or Steve knocking on the door downstairs. He didn’t know Steve had even arrived until the young man peeked into the master bathroom and said, “Oh, God, Hank! Here, let me help you.”

  So they’d cleaned up the last of his wife, probably the only two men who knew the real Mary Louise Stanford—knew her and loved her—and then they cried, sitting on the floor next to the place where she had died, cried without reservation and then, when there were no more tears and snot left in them, they’d helped one another to their feet like a couple drunk sailors and stumbled down the stairs to wash up.

  “I don’t know what Mary told you about our childhood,” Steve went on, lighting another cigarette. “I know she told you some of it. She told me she did when we talked on the phone. About Dean, I mean. All the stuff he did to us. Me and Mary. But she didn’t tell you everything. I don’t know if I could either. Not… everything. You probably wouldn’t believe it, even if she had.”

  Steve looked away, a strange expression on his face.

  “Do you think what Dean did to you made you gay?” Hank asked.

  Steve smiled bitterly. “It probably didn’t help, Hank.”

  Hank nodded, looking down at the remnant of his cigarette. It was fast burning down.

  There’s no such thing as a borrowed smoke, Hank thought. It’s kinda like saying someone was barely dead.

  He shuddered at his own ghastly thoughts, then stubbed out the cigarette and helped himself to another Virginia Slim.

  He was exhausted. His eyes were red and swollen. He said: “I knew more than I ever wanted to know, to be honest. When we first got engaged, Mary told me someone had abused her when she was a child, but she would never say who it was or what exactly happened.”

  He went on: “I knew it was bad, though. That was pretty obvious, because… you know, because of how she was in bed. She was loving and she seemed to enjoy it… but if I got really passionate, she’d freeze up and that would be the end of that. It was really frustrating for me. I never could, you know, just let myself go. It was like I always had to walk a tight rope. I had to be passionate enough to make her feel good about herself, but at the same time, I had to be careful not to go too far. Eventually, I just got tired of the balancing act.”

  Hank never imagined he could talk about such a private thing with anyone—not even Penny, not really, not specifics-- but there was something about Mary’s brother that loosened his tongue. Steve was so calm and non-judgmental.

  “Then after Mary’s blow-up… well, it just kind of ruined it for me.”

  Mary’s blow-up. It had happened several years prior, shortly after Steve came out of the closet about his homosexuality.

  Mary had invited everyone to their home for Thanksgiving dinner that year. Mary’s mother and older brother had refused to come. Mary, furious, had called Dean to confront him about it. Dean told Mary on the phone that he wasn’t going to sit down to a meal with a sodomite, and that they were no longer brothers until Steve renounced his homosexual lifestyle and got right with the Lord.

  Hank was sitting in the living room reading while Mary argued with her brother. Hank had nothing against gays—his assistant Brandon was gay-- but he wasn’t getting in the middle of one of Mary’s infamous family squabbles. That would be about as stupid as shoving his arm into the garbage disposal and flicking the power switch on.

  He was listening with only half an ear when Mary suddenly lost her cool and started screaming over the phone at her brother Dean. All her family’s dirty laundry came out that afternoon. Hank sat paralyzed as he listened to Mary’s screaming match with her older brother.

  “Oh, and it’s okay for you to come in your little sister’s bedroom at night and fuck her in the mouth, right? That’s okay with the Lord, right? What do you mean you don’t remember that? Don’t you dare call me crazy! I remember what happened! I was there sucking your filthy cock, wasn’t I? You want me to describe it to you?”

  Hank was so shocked and horrified, he could do nothing but retreat. Maybe it was cowardice, but he couldn’t bear to listen to any more of it. She was describing acts so vile he felt faint with revulsion. He walked quickly to his office, closed the door, put on some music and wept with his face in his hands.

  “Do you want to know what I’m most ashamed of?” Hank asked Steve now, puffing on his second smoke. “I felt like I’d been cheated on. Isn’t that pathetic? When it all came out, I felt like I’d been cuckolded. She kept that secret for sixteen years, and then she threw it in my face. I don’t blame her for getting it out of her system. She needed to, but I also couldn’t help the way I felt. I felt like I’d been tricked. I’d hugged that fucker. Slept in his house. Had him sleep in my home. The whole time, Mary knew and that bastard knew… I was the only one who didn’t know. I felt like such a fool. It might have been the past to her, but it was new to me, and it just… soiled everything we had. Every time I touched her after that, I felt like I was this awful, horrible pervert, and that she was just hiding her disgu
st from me.”

  Steve wiped his eyes, shook his head sadly. “I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t come out, none of that would have happened.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Hank said roughly. He wasn’t crying, but his face was flushed. His heart was racing in his chest like he was being dragged to the guillotine. “She should have told me sooner. She shouldn’t have waited sixteen years. We were supposed to be in love. You’re supposed to share everything when you’re in love.”

  “We all have our secrets, Hank,” Steve said gently. “Lord knows I did. I kept mine for thirty years, and I’m sure you have your secrets, too. You shouldn’t crucify yourself, and you shouldn’t blame Mary either. Mary was always very self-absorbed. She got that from our mother. I’m sure it never occurred to her how much our family secrets might hurt you, because all she could think about was how it affected her. See, the thing is, a secret like that, it’s like being swallowed by a whale. You know there’s a whole world outside, but all you can see is the whale because you’re stuck there in its belly. Besides, Dean trained us both very well not to tell anyone what he was doing to us. I still have panic attacks when I talk about it sometimes. All you can do now is let it go.” Steve stared solemnly at Hank, his eyes still glittering. “For your sake-- and for Mary’s sake, too-- you have to let it go.”

  But good advice is always the hardest advice to take, Hank thought with a bitter smile.

  He couldn’t let it go.

  They talked for a while longer, sitting in the living room smoking, but eventually they had to go to bed. Hank had to arrange Mary’s funeral in the morning, call the insurance company. There were a million things to do.

  He put his brother-in-law to bed in the guest room downstairs, then slumped up the stairs to the master bedroom.

  He stood there in the doorway, staring for several long minutes at the bed he’d shared with his wife. They’d owned this bed for going on fifteen years. The frame, anyway. The mattress they’d replaced about five years ago.

  Mary had made the bed before killing herself today. Had turned the sheets down neatly.

  He thought of all the years stretched out ahead of him, winter years he’d be sleeping in this bed without her.

  A husband shouldn’t feel such bitterness toward the family of his wife, he thought. A husband shouldn’t feel such shame over his failings as a spouse.

  He changed into shorts and lay down in his cold, queen-size bed, his mind turning and turning. Recriminations. Regrets. Revenge. They tumbled inside his skull like dirty laundry in a washer window.

  No, he wouldn’t let anything go.

  Not one God damn thing.

  Mary deserved a hell of a lot better than that.

  He lay sleepless for a long time, staring at the ceiling. The toilet in the adjoining bathroom began to gurgle as the water in the tank kicked on. It ran for a few minutes, then kicked off. A pipe thudded in the wall. After a while, he imagined he could smell blood, and he swung his feet out of bed and walked to the door of the master bath.

  He sniffed with a frown.

  Just his imagination.

  But he shut the door anyway and returned to his bed.

  Sometime later, with dawn’s light glowing through the slats of his blinds, Henry Stanford fell asleep.

  And the pipes thudded in the wall, a slow heartbeat.

  10.

  Hank woke in the morning, determined to think only good thoughts.

  He’d slept less than three hours and his eyes felt like someone had scoured them with sandpaper, but he was strangely positive and energetic. It seemed an affront that he should feel this way, but that was how he felt. He wanted to honor his wife today, every minute of the day.

  His short night was shot through with dreams of his wife. None of the Big Events that couples were supposed to venerate, just little moments that had been engraved on his soul because of their sweetness.

  Mary lying beside him on the bank of the Ohio River, watching Fourth of July fireworks bloom and crackle above their heads. They were surrounded by throngs of celebrants, but the two of them remained apart, isolated from the crowd inside their own little bubble of mutual fascination. It was their second date, and Hank had blurted out that he was going to marry her someday. She’d laughed at him, but looking at her reclining on the blanket they’d brought with them to the riverfront, he knew what he said would undoubtedly come to pass. Her eyes held his with the inevitability of fate.

  He dreamed of the day he first saw his wife. Travis and Hank were sitting in the university library, cramming for an exam. Travis had promised to introduce Hank to his girlfriend’s roommate (a real hottie, he said) and then he’d looked up from his textbook and grinned-- a young Richard Dreyfuss even back then, sans beard, of course-- and said, “There they are! Yo! Janice! Over here!” And Hank had turned in his seat and saw Mary walking along the aisle between the tables next to Travis’s girlfriend, books clutched to her breasts, dressed in tight blue jeans and a Bob Marley tee-shirt, her long brown hair pulled back from her face with a banana clip, and those dark almond-shaped eyes--! Those eyes turned toward him, and he felt something melt inside his chest.

  Hank dreamed about their first fight in their home on Birch Drive, and how Mary had lost her temper and thrown a toaster at him. She’d really whipped it at him, shocking him with her sudden violent outburst. The toaster came apart when it hit the counter beside him, the casing popping open and little metal bits flying out of it, and Hank had asked if she felt better now, a smirk on his lips, not angry, just amused-- and strangely turned on, too. He wanted to lay her down on the kitchen floor right that very moment and make love to her. Mary yelled, “No!” and started crying, and she looked so miserable he could only laugh at her, not cruelly but out of affection. He’d taken her shoulders in his hands and apologized for being such a prick, then he’d kissed her passionately, grinding his hips into hers against the kitchen counter.

  He swung his feet to the floor and sat on the edge of his bed, his pumpkin orange hair standing up in spikes, and he thought, Mary would be in the kitchen right now, making me a pot of coffee and maybe some egg and toast. She’d always taken good care of him. Even when their marriage began to list. The coffee was always fresh. Breakfast was always nourishing and tasty. She was too good for the likes of him, certainly.

  Hank’s eyes got moist and he wiped the tears away angrily.

  No! Nope! Don’t even think about it! he told himself. He was not going to cry. He was only going to think good thoughts today!

  There were a million things to do. First, he needed to call the insurance company. Dig their policy from whatever box she’d filed it in—probably the one in the utility room, sitting on the counter next to the washer and dryer. That was the one with the most current contracts and bills and all the assorted detritus of the joint enterprise that was their marriage. Thank goodness, they’d had the life insurance policy for… well, longer than he could recall. American Life wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of their obligations due to the suicide clause, which was only in effect the first two years they’d held the policy. He planned to send Mary off in style. It would be expensive, but nothing was too good for her. It never was. Even when the weight of time and all their unspoken pain threatened to break their backs, he never once thought she didn’t deserve everything she ever wanted.

  After the insurance company, he needed to call the police department and find out when the coroner planned to release Mary’s body to the funeral home. Those things normally went pretty quick, but due to the circumstances… well, he didn’t know what kind of rigmarole would ensue, especially if the insurance company tried to raise a stink about it.

  It was strange to think of his wife’s body in the custody of other men. He worried they would not show her the respect she deserved, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he could have prepared her body himself, he would have done it, but there were so many laws and restrictions now. Death had become a bureaucracy. The days of sitting u
p with the dead in the parlor were long since past, but he couldn’t help thinking the old ways were better—more fulfilling—than the sanitized and impersonal business it had evolved into.

  The detective in charge yesterday had already taken his statement, but Rames might want to talk to him again. There might be more forms to fill out. He wasn’t sure.

  And then he would have to make arrangements. Go to the funeral home. Pick out her casket.

  And flowers, he reminded himself. He needed to get flowers.

  The tasks that lay ahead of him were suddenly so numerous and daunting he was tempted to lie back down and roll up in the sheets.

  No! He wasn’t going to do that either! He wasn’t going to shirk his responsibilities. Not today.

  Remember, only good thoughts today! Loving thoughts! Happy thoughts!

  So why was he crying?

  Hank wiped his cheeks and looked at the gleam of moisture on his fingertips. How can a person cry without realizing they were doing it? He sniffed and dried his eyes, then swung his ass off of the bed before the sheer inertia of sitting there doing nothing could overwhelm him.

  He started to walk to his bathroom to piss, but faltered halfway there, his face crumpling.

  He couldn’t go in there.

  He could hear the water in the toilet tank running again. Their toilet had suffered a slow leak for years, dribbling water into the bowl unless you jiggled the handle just so. Mary had always had trouble jiggling it just the right way and complained about the constant hiss of the tank refilling, but he was so busy he never had time to fix it. Just like he never had time to fix the things in their marriage that were broken.