Page 2 of The End of the World As We Know It

Abel was disappointed. She was the type who played tough instead of facing her fear. But he was also relieved. It was nice, talking with her like this, same way everyone was talking about this nasty flu going around. Abel did love big, bad, flashy news. It leveled the playing field, made it easier to have a chat. Bad things were good and unifying, like the way his mom used to talk about the day JFK was shot, how everyone would never forget where they were when they found out, how JFK’s death made you feel like the world was a terrible place, but a soft one, too, with strangers hugging.

Mrs. Blanchard was staring at him, with good reason. The hell did JFK have to do with things? He needed to get out more, he did.

“Sorry,” he said. “So, you’re okay?”

“Honestly… No.”

Abel leaned in. “Is he here?”

“I mean about Rona.”

“Oh.”

Women do this. They tell you the truth and lie at the same time. “Look,” she said. “She’s the nuisance, okay? If she’s not claiming that Kip is parking on her lawn, she’s yammering about how our dog is eating her carrots.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“No. And she doesn’t grow anycarrots.”

They both laughed, and Abel wanted to stay here, live here.

She tilted her head. “Are you married?”

He wanted to have things in common with Mrs. Blanchard. He wished he, too, had bruises, a spouse, a baby. “No, ma’am.”

She pulled back, just enough where he knew that he got that stink on, that loneliness. He was doing it again, building bridges to places that didn’t exist, wanting it all too much, too openly. His father always called him a pussy. That might be the reason he became a cop.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s none of my business. But maybe you could talk to her, you know? Ask her to lay off.”

On she went, patting her baby on the head, painting Rona as the perp, as if the old woman was the one who belted her. She stuffed the pacifier into the baby’s mouth and Abel could see her prick husband stuffing his pecker into her with the same kind of impatient force. The baby was gonna suffer if Abel didn’t do something.

He forced a smile. “You got a cute one there.”

She laughed, like there was something funny about Abel, and then she was talking again. It was hard to listen, hard to follow. This happened to Abel. His ears filled with cotton and the words couldn’t get into his head. And then he’d start thinking about his father, all the things he used to say about women, how the good Lord put them on this planet to challenge the men, how they’re all snakes.God gave them titties and holes to tempt us, Abel.

Listen good, he’d say.You can’t trust anyone whose hot parts are on the inside hiding. That’s why you treat them like they’re just as good as us. And then he’d adjust his tie and sidle up to that pulpit and preach like everything he said in private was a lie. Abel never knew which one was real.

“So, you know what I mean, right?” she asked.

Abel was clueless, but he nodded, which seemed to please her. “Good,” she said. “What Rona doesn’t understand is that the best part about fighting is making up.”

He looked at her arms, at her bruises. He was not the best cop, but he was not the worst. “Okay,” she said. “Kip… my husband. Well, he just lost his brother.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And Kip, he decides his brother died of this ‘superflu’ going around…”

“Okay.”

“He gets all worked up and he takes my keys. He wants me and Randy here at home because he’s one of those people… He thinks it’s, you know, ‘dangerous’ out there.”

Abel didn’t like this feeling, the sense that Kip had his upsides. Smart and protective. But then look at her arms. Look at the ring on her finger, the little nipper on her lap. Abel didn’t know that he had that in him, the violence, and sometimes it felt like women only wanted men who did, like they couldn’t help it.

“Anyway,” she said. “I’m not the ‘victim.’ Kip and I run hot. And when you run hot… I only mentioned the thing about my brother-in-law because, to be frank, the making up this time around was loud, even for us.”

She toyed with her baby’s pacifier in a way that cut off Abel’s circulation. Why was she being like that? So graphic, blunt? He felt his downsides spread. He was a jealous man. An inexperienced man. Rendered cynical by one-too-many domestic calls. A candy-ass once again thinking about his dead preacher father, that motel off I-90 where they went on Abel’s fifteenth birthday. The hooker with big yellow hair and long tits. The smell in Room 24. The way she spit in her hands and touched his pecker and laughed with his dad about how he couldn’t get it up. The way the sun beat on the back of Abel’s head as he stood outside while his dad did what Abel couldn’t do, what he didn’t want to do, not with that mean, yellow-haired hooker.

Mrs. Blanchard offered him a slice of hard cake on a chipped plate. “Is this enough?”