Onward Toward What We're Going Toward Read online

  “Do you want a back rub?” Lijy asked.

  Chic wide-eyed her.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Was she serious? He scanned the reception. On the dance floor, Diane was doing some sort of high knee thing while a guy played an accordion. Family members had made a circle around her and were clapping along. Lijy grabbed his forearm and led him to an empty table and told him to take off his tuxedo coat and sit down in the chair. Then she laid her hands on him. They were cold, but she did this trick where she rubbed them together, then shoved them back up his shirt and squeezed his shoulders, and it felt good—better than good.

  Chic didn’t know this because he was too busy nearly drooling, but while Lijy rubbed and kneaded and massaged his back, she kept a sharp eye on Buddy, who hadn’t even noticed that she had dragged his brother, the groom of the gosh dang wedding, to an empty table and was giving him a back massage. She watched Buddy stumble up to the punch table, where some woman ladled him a glass of punch. In one swift motion, he downed the punch and held out his glass for another.

  “This is your ansa phalak,” she whispered into Chic’s ear. She moved her hands to the middle of his back. “The vrihati. Your parshva sandhi. Your katika tarunam.” She hoped Buddy would turn around. She willed him to turn around.

  Chic thought about Diane looking over, but then that thought floated out of his mind because the back rub felt so good; it just felt so good. “Keep doing that,” he whispered. “Right there.”

  But then Lijy stopped and brushed past him, leaving him sitting in the chair with his shirt untucked and his tuxedo jacket tossed on the table. He saw Buddy going out the side door to the parking lot; Lijy followed after him.

  Chic was exhausted in the motel room after the bus ride to Pensacola. Plus, Diane still wasn’t talking to him. After they brushed their teeth and tucked themselves into bed, he lay in the dark thinking. The entire wedding day he had fended off the jokes from Diane’s uncles and cousins about the honeymoon. And now here they were, and she was mad, and he was nervous. Her back was to him. He nudged up behind her and threw his arm around her. This would do it. This was it. Only a matter of time now. He waited. Her hair didn’t smell like Lijy’s; it smelled like bus and cigarette smoke. He nuzzled closer, spooning her. He counted to ten. Then he counted to twenty. The motel room’s window was open and the drapes billowed in the ocean breeze.

  Diane opened her eyes and looked at his hand on the mattress. He still had his watch on. She rolled out from under his arm and went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door.

  This was it. She had gone into the bathroom to freshen up, to get ready, to maybe put on something more appropriate, to turn into the real Sheba that Randy had told him about. Chic slid off his boxers and lay there in the dark with a steaming erection. Then he felt weird lying naked on a motel bed and put his boxers back on. He listened to Diane in the bathroom. He couldn’t hear much. Maybe she was putting on some perfume and was going to—any minute—throw open the door and strut into the room and hop on him and get this honeymoon rolling.

  The Seashell Inn, a pink stucco motor lodge, sat behind Jack’s Hamburger Shack. Jack’s was a drive-through with a bevy of waitresses hustling hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries to tourists’ cars. Below their motel window was Jack’s back screen door, which led to the kitchen. Two cooks were standing outside the screen door smoking cigarettes and talking about going to a place called Mo’s Cantina after they cleaned up the kitchen.

  After twenty minutes, Diane hadn’t come out of the bathroom, and there was no sign that she was going to.

  “Diane?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Honey.”

  She still didn’t answer.

  Chic stared at the ceiling, thinking about Lijy. He imagined her in the bathroom pulling a brush through her long black hair.

  “Honey, did you see something at the reception?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I can explain that.”

  The sink was turned on, then it went off.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  When Chic woke up the next morning, Diane still hadn’t come out. Chic got up and knocked on the bathroom door, but Diane didn’t answer him. He imagined her sitting on the toilet. He knocked again. “Honey.”

  Nothing.

  Fine. Be that way. Be mad. It was just a back rub, a lousy back rub, and besides, he had apologized. Besides that: it only lasted like two minutes. He threw open the drapes and let the Florida sunshine flood the room. He wasn’t going to let this ruin his honeymoon.

  In the motel lobby, he ate a complimentary orange, then he walked down the Pensacola Beach pier. He had all this fenced-in sexual energy—his honeymoon, the back rub—all of it bouncing around inside him like a pinball. He felt like a rocket on the launchpad smoking and fuming. He had a headache. The entire morning his left testicle throbbed, or actually, throbbed wasn’t the right description. It felt heavy, a boulder testicle swaying back and forth while he walked down the boardwalk. He knew what he needed to do. He ducked into the penny arcade and found the bathroom back by the Skeeball. He stepped into a stall and locked the door behind him. He unzipped himself and, standing over the toilet, masturbated quickly, thinking about Lijy, thinking about her hands on his back and her grapefruit-size breasts, thinking about Diane, too, and what Randy Rugaard had said about her.

  That afternoon, Chic went tourist. He walked up and down the boardwalk with purpose. He was pretty much strutting, although he felt a little shy and found it difficult to look anyone in the eye. After all, he’d masturbated in a public bathroom. But, physically, he felt great. Better than great. The best. Wonderful. Relieved. He checked out the casino and the souvenir stands. He ate a stick of cotton candy. He bought a guayabera shirt and rolled up his khakis and walked along the water so that his feet got wet. He didn’t like wet sand squishing between his toes, so he went back to the boardwalk. He ate lunch at a place called the Katy Hooper and drank a Spearman’s Straight Eight Beer. There were posters on the wall advertising an upcoming Friday night boxing match between Bruno Schneider and Jimmy Dixon. In a rack of tourist brochures, Chic spotted a brochure for Gatorland and grabbed it and stuck it in his back pocket.

  When he returned to the Seashell Inn, Diane was still in the bathroom. Chic flopped on the bed and unfolded the Gatorland brochure. There was an albino alligator. He heard Diane wring out a washcloth. He suddenly felt guilty for what he’d done in the penny arcade’s bathroom. He told himself any other guy would have done just what he did. What if someone saw him? That would be embarrassing. No one saw him. He’d checked for feet under the other stalls. He was fine. It was over. He had to do it. He unbuttoned his new guayabera shirt and let air from the open window breeze over his bare chest. He heard the dull, incomprehensible muttering voices of the drive-through patrons outside Jack’s Hamburger Shack. He wondered what was going on back in Middleville. He thought about his job at the pumpkin cannery. Mr. Meyers, his boss, hadn’t wanted him to take such a long time off.

  Chic looked at the closed bathroom door. “People only go on honeymoons once, you know.”

  He waited for an answer.

  “I said, people only go on honeymoons once.”

  Secretly he hoped she’d unlock the bathroom door and burst into the room and get into an argument with him. He’d tell her about the penny arcade bathroom. He’d tell her he thought about Lijy while he was doing it.

  In the end, she didn’t burst into the room, and he folded up the brochure and set it on the nightstand.

  “I’m not going to wait around for you all day,” he said. “I’m going to the pool.”

  The pool was behind the Seashell Inn, adjacent to the parking lot. It was a tiny, egg-shaped thing with a shallow and deep end and a slide. Three kids, who all looked to be siblings, slid down the slide and made a whole lot of unnecessary noise. Chic just wanted some peace and quiet, wanted to soak in the pool and figure out how he could che
er Diane up. It was only a stupid back rub. Sure, Lijy was an attractive woman, and he was attracted to her—who wouldn’t be—but she was his brother’s wife, his brother’s wife. Not that his brother deserved a woman like that. He didn’t. His brother was a strange guy. He had pretty much abandoned Chic as soon as he had graduated from high school, leaving Chic to fend for himself, to watch his mother and Tom McNeeley seal their relationship with pot roast dinners and long talks, with giggling on the porch. Not to mention that Buddy was always leaving Lijy in that big house they lived in on the “new side” of Middleville to go off and do whatever the heck he did with those gold coins he collected. If Lijy were his wife, Chic would sit next to her on the couch and put his arm around her and never let go. But he and Buddy were different. For one, there were the gold coins. Buddy had suitcases full of them. The gold coin thing had begun when their grandfather, Bascom Jr., the same guy who made up the story about their family founding Middleville, gave them each an 1899 Double Eagle. Buddy carried that coin with him everywhere he went. He took it out at random times, like at recess while all the other kids were playing tetherball. Chic bought a stick of gum with his, chewed that stick for about twenty minutes, then spit the wad on the sidewalk and forgot all about the stupid gold coin. On Sunday afternoons when they were kids, their grandfather lugged over his personal collection, which he kept in steel military ammunition boxes. While he and Buddy held the coins under the magnifying glass, their grandfather told Buddy (and Chic but Chic wasn’t picking through the coins with them) his elaborate story about his father’s father, their great-grandfather, Bascom, being responsible for founding Middleville. According to the story, Junior’s Pumpkins—the pride of Middleville—were named Junior’s Pumpkins because of him, Bascom Jr., their grandfather. He was the Junior. Chic remembered his brother staring at his grandfather as he told him this, his mouth a little agape, a look of amazement on his face. They both believed him, of course. Buddy was eight, Chic was five. Because of the story, Buddy always talked about their grandfather—Grandpa this and Grandpa that. Not to mention, whenever they went to Stafford’s, the grocery store, with their mother, Buddy would run off to the canned food aisle and stand there admiring the rows and rows of Junior’s Pumpkins. Buddy was the older brother. He should know better. But, apparently, he believed it, or at least, he wanted to believe it. Buddy had always been the kinda guy that wanted something. But he had something. Didn’t he know that he had something? If he didn’t look out, he was going to lose what he had. And he, Chic Waldbeeser, had something, too, and he wasn’t about to lose what he had.

  Later that afternoon, Diane waltzed into the pool area wearing a massive sun hat with a brim so large it cast a dark shadow over her entire face. Chic was soaking in the shallow end and watched her position a recliner sun chair. Her back was to him, and when she slipped off her robe, her shoulders were white as Elmer’s glue, and she wore one of those swimsuits like the girls on the beach, with a skirt that covered her upper legs. She futzed around with the chair, and finally, when she got it where she wanted it, she sat down and started to read a book.

  Chic climbed out of the water and slopped over to her, blocking her sun and dripping on her legs. She put her book down and squinted up at him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I saw you, Chic. You and that . . . your brother’s wife, the Indian woman.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  It hadn’t registered until now, but she was hurt. He could see it in the way her lip quivered. This was a different Diane, not the woman who knew what she wanted and didn’t stop until she got it. Chic had fallen hard for that woman and her confidence, but this woman wasn’t confident. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. He sat down and touched her leg.

  “What she was doing was an Indian custom. They give back rubs to the groom. That’s what they do. That’s what she told me they do.”

  Diane picked up her book. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Do you think I’d get a back rub from another woman at my own wedding?” He nuzzled up close to her. “I’m married to you, pumpkin pie.”

  “Is it really their custom?”

  “She was saying these weird words in my ear. I think she was blessing us.”

  “You telling the truth?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  Diane let him kiss her on the cheek and snuggle with her on the sun chair. The remainder of the day they lounged by the pool, and when the sun sunk below the motel, they covered their legs with a towel. After showers, they ate dinner at a place called the Crab Shack. The waiter had on a black bowtie, and all the men at the other tables wore seersucker suits. Underneath the table, Diane kept pawing Chic’s leg and hand. During one moment, when Diane had some difficulty cracking into a crab leg, grimacing as she applied more force, he recalled her laboring over a difficult test question in science class, pencil eraser in her mouth, her eyes tightly closed. He was going to make a life with this woman. He loved her, or he thought he did. He liked that she wasn’t mad at him anymore. But, then again, there was Lijy. But he was going to push her way, way, way back in his mind, back there with the cobwebs and the dripping faucet, back there where he set things on a shelf to forget about.

  When they got back to the room, Diane hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob. Chic climbed on the bed. Diane pulled her dinner dress over her head. She was near nude in her underwear and bra.

  “Have you ever done this before?” she asked.

  Chic shook his head no.

  “Nervous?”

  “Little bit.”

  She told him to get out of his clothes, and Chic quickly kicked off his shoes and took off his chinos and shirt. He watched her unthread his belt from his pants. “You’ve been a bad boy, Chic Waldbeeser.” She held his belt like a whip. “Turn around.”

  “You’re not going to whip me with that belt are you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “This isn’t what I—”

  “Go along with me, will ya, Chic? Please.”

  “Sorry.” He turned around and noticed the curtain opposite the bed fluttering in the breeze. Outside, he heard the screen door at Jack’s Hamburger Shack open and slam shut, the rustle of someone putting something in the trash can.

  She smacked his butt with her hand. “You like that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Chic. Please. Tell me you like it.”

  “I like it.”

  She whipped him with the belt.

  “OUCH! Jesus Christ.”

  “No, more back rubs.”

  She whipped him again.

  “Ouch!”

  “You hear me?”

  “Yes. I hear you.”

  She cracked the belt and gave him a sultry smile. “Isn’t this fun?”

  He reluctantly nodded, but thought about crawling underneath the bed or cowering in the corner. He swallowed hard.

  She flipped off the light, and it was pitch black. He couldn’t see her, could only hear the sizzle of grease in the kitchen of Jack’s Hamburger Shack.

  She was coming toward the bed. “Say something.”

  “Here,” he whispered.

  “Keep saying it.”

  “Here. Here. Here.”

  He felt a depression in the mattress, then she was straddling him. She pinned him down. Her wet mouth found his and she pressed into him so hard her teeth clinked against his. “Oh, I want you, Chic. Do you want me?”

  He was trying to wiggle into a more comfortable position, but she had a hold of his wrists, his arms pinned above his head.

  “Do you want me, Chic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what’s the matter?”

  “I can’t move.”

  She let go, and he repositioned himself and propped himself up on his elbows. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see the outline of her sitting on the bed.

  “Something’s the matter,” she said.

  “I just . . . you know . .
. I thought it would be a little different. Slower maybe.”

  She tossed the belt and the buckle thudded on the floor. “You take the lead.”

  He kissed her cheek, but she grabbed his hand and guided it to where it was warm and moist. “Get on top of me.”

  He did what she said, and she grabbed his behind, squeezing it and digging her fingernails into the skin. “That kinda hurts,” he said.

  “Come on, Chic. Get aggressive.”

  “I’m not really—”

  “Pretend. Come on. Do me. Fill me with your sperm.”

  “What?”

  “Fill me up with your sperm.”

  He didn’t really like hearing his wife say that. It sounded dirty. He moved his hips this way and that way and up and down. He had no idea what he was doing or where he was shoving.

  “That’s not it. Here.” She took his penis and guided him into her.

  Chic froze. Oh my gosh. The top of his head tingled. He was inside of her. How did this feel? It felt . . . well, it felt . . . he couldn’t really explain how it felt.

  She bucked her hips. “Come on. Go.”

  He was afraid to go. She seemed . . . experienced. He thought of earlier that day in the bathroom of the penny arcade and immediately felt guilty.

  “Go. Do it. Fill me up. Fill me with your sperm.” She grabbed his hips and pulled and pushed and pulled and pushed. It was only two or three more thrusts, and Chic closed his eyes and his muscles tensed, and he saw a rocket on a launchpad, fire and smoke mushrooming from its bottom. He pushed into her as far as he could. The rocket lifted off the launchpad. His body went limp, and he collapsed on top of her. “Ohhhhh,” he sighed.

  She squirmed out from under him.

  He rolled over on his back. “You like it?”

  “Not really, but hopefully it did the job.” She picked up her underwear and went to the bathroom and shut the door.