I Want to Show You More (9780802193742) Page 2

  You find a Christian therapist named Bobbie in the yellow pages. You choose her not because she’s Christian, but because her office is in Hixson, as far from Lookout Mountain as you can get without leaving the city limits. Bobbie asks you to list ten positive and ten negative memories from your childhood. You tell her that’s not why you came.

  You tell her there’s a watermelon in your stomach.

  You tell her that every sentence you were in the habit of crafting for the other man—every thought and feeling you were accustomed to sharing—is now taking up residence inside your body.

  You tell her you might just need to unload.

  I thought you were here because you wanted to save your marriage, Bobbie says.

  That too, you say.

  What we find, in most cases, she says, is that the woman lacked affirmation in her childhood. We’ll identify the lies from your childhood and, using various techniques such as eye movement therapies, replace them with truths.

  What if the truth is I’m in love with him? you say. What if the truth is he was the one I was supposed to marry?

  I assume that biblical truth is what you’re most concerned with, Bobbie says.

  We talked about having a baby together, you say before you walk out.

  III. Active Decay: in which the greatest loss of mass occurs. Purged fluids accumulate around the body, creating a cadaver decomposition island (CDI).

  Christmas comes and goes. The children seem happy with their gifts, but you’re not sure. It’s hard to listen when they speak. They are loud and clamorous with need. Your husband requires constant reassurance. The body is still on your bed, though you’ve covered it with a sheet, which sags over the midsection of the body, rising to a peak at the toes. You spray Febreze and keep the bedroom door locked.

  On drives up and down the mountain you use the Slow Traffic Pull Over spaces to park the van and crawl your hands around the steering wheel, around and around, listening to yourself repeat the other man’s name to hear what he used to hear, your name to remember what it was like to listen. In the shower you trail handfuls of your own hair along the wet tiles, pull clusters of it from the drain. You remember what the man on your mattress said about yanking your hair; how he knew, without your telling him, that you’d like to be handled that way.

  Look in the mirror. Note the acceleration of time on your face. Smile lines have deepened; there are wrinkles beneath your eyes shaped like sideways letter “F”s.

  Go into the bedroom; peek beneath the sheet. The lower jaw has fallen open. When you push the chin up to close it, a viscous black fluid oozes from the corner of the mouth. From across the room, if you squint your eyes, it looks like barbecue sauce.

  You take your husband by the hand, lead him into the bedroom, show him the black fluid. You want him to feel pity for the dead man; you want him to know the man was real. Your husband punches the mirrored closet door, then holds up his fist, bloody at the knuckles. Here’s what’s real, he says.

  When your husband goes back to work and the children are in school again, you rent a small office space. You furnish it with a futon couch and round table you find at Goodwill. In the office you reread the books you read and discussed with the other man. You watch movies on your laptop, the ones you’d talked about watching together. You make playlists. On one of them you include the MP3 of his voice reading a chapter in a Duras novel. It’s the only MP3 you’ve kept, buried deep in a file on your laptop labeled “Vacation Pix.” You spend entire mornings lying on the futon, listening to the man read the Duras chapter, a hand beneath the zipper on your jeans.

  Only once do you dial his cell phone—a thrill to watch the numbers light up in this particular sequence—being careful not to press send.

  You get up in the middle of the night to write letters to the dead man. You carry your laptop to the upstairs guest room and lock the door behind you. The letters are long, intimate, sexually detailed. The pressure inside you eases in exponential relation to the number of pages you write.

  Your children knock on the guest room door.

  I heard a noise, the nine-year-old daughter says, chin trembling.

  I just wanted to say hi, the eight-year-old son says, shining his flashlight into your eyes.

  You step out into the hallway, close the door behind you, walk them to their rooms. Lie beside them on their beds. Sing to them, tickle their backs.

  You smell funny, they say.

  IV. Butyric Fermentation: In this stage the body is no longer referred to as a corpse, but a carcass.

  We have to bring it out into the open, you say to your husband. The kids can smell it on me.

  There is no smell, your husband says.

  Please, you say.

  Let me do the talking, he says, removing his glasses, which have lately begun fogging up. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen his eyes.

  Make me the villain, you say.

  You and your husband roll the body up in first a sheet, then a plaid quilt. You tie the ends closed with ribbon left over from Christmas. Together, you carry the quilt into the living room and lay it out on the coffee table.

  The children surround the quilt. The four-year-old son yanks at the ribbon; the eight-year-old son pokes the quilt with his light saber.

  No touching, you say. Only looking with your eyes.

  What’s in there, the nine-year-old daughter says.

  It smells like when the maids come, the six-year-old daughter says.

  That’s Mommy’s special friend, your husband says.

  Why’s she wrapped like candy, the oldest son asks.

  Mommy’s friend was a boy, your husband says.

  He looks at you.

  Fuck this, he says. Tell them whatever the hell you want.

  You tell your children—surprise!—there are toys inside the blanket.

  You tell them you forgot to let them open it on Christmas.

  You tell them they’ll have to wait till next Christmas.

  Just think, you say—it’ll be something to look forward to all year long.

  V. Dry decay: Only skin, cartilage, and bones remain. If bone is exposed, the carcass will be referred to as partially skeletonized.

  While your family sleeps, you cut the ribbon and unroll the plaid quilt. You will wash it and fill it with toys. You will let the children open it as soon as you’re finished.

  You go into the basement and find the two-person sleeping bag your husband bought for your first camping trip together. You bring the sleeping bag upstairs, pull it around the man like a pillowcase, zip it closed. You drag the man into the basement and fit the body—which you can tell has shrunk—into a broken playpen. You push the playpen into the corner with no windows, then cover the body with folding camp chairs, extension cords, leftover buckets of paint.

  You arrange things in front of the playpen: a bicycle, an old armchair.

  When you finish, you notice that part of the sleeping bag is still bulging through the playpen’s mesh side. You kneel and run your hand lightly over the bulge, which is sharp and angular—knee, elbow.

  You kiss the bulge. Lean your forehead against it. Close your eyes and imagine it’s a cheekbone. You remember how the man wanted you to call him by his childhood nickname; how he said making love—real sex, if the two of you could have it—would feel like coming home.

  You remember a recorded sigh, the sound of saliva on his tongue.

  Your running shorts begin to sag around your hips. You pluck single gray eyebrows. You don’t have the money for the microderma­brasion, dark circle treatment cream, $150 foil highlights. You buy them anyhow. You bring home wispy dresses from local boutiques; they hang in your closet, price tags dangling from sleeves.

  You tell your husband you took the body to the dump and he holds you, says
he’s ready to make love again, undresses you slowly. He is patient with you and generous with himself. You’re blessed to be with a man like this. Want him, you think. Want him.

  You are terrified and certain that the ability to lubricate is connected to the man in the basement.

  You grow desperate, watch Asian breast massage how-to videos on YouTube with links to girl-on-girl porn. You watch the porn, then call your husband and beg him to come home right now, telling yourself the sin of fantasy is less destructive than the sin of depriving him.

  One day you click on the pop-up ads for the Jackrabbit, Silver Bullet, Astroglide for Beginners, Butterfly Kiss.

  The next day you order the Classix G Natural, which arrives overnight in an unmarked box. You carry the box into your bedroom, take off the bubble wrap, and set the Classix in the center of your mattress. It arches away from you, veined and purple, suction cup at its base—a wicked, unlovely, purely useful thing.

  You sit on the bed beside the Classix and whisper the dead man’s name. Then you shove it back into the box and bury it deep in the communal dumpster at the end of your alley.

  Come with me, you say to your husband that night. I have to show you something.

  Your husband follows you down to the basement. You move the bike and armchair in the corner, then kneel, wrap your arms around the playpen, and shake it.

  Listen, you say to the man. I need you to say something. Anything.

  From inside the sleeping bag you hear a crackling noise, like pine straw thrown onto a fire.

  Something stinks, your husband says.

  Just one word, you say to the man. One of our words. So my husband can hear.

  Whore, the man says, his voice muffled.

  You sit back on your heels.

  What the hell? your husband says.

  Adulteress, the man says. Bathsheba, Rahab.

  Your fault your fault your fault, he says.

  What the hell, your husband says again.

  Addict. Abuser.

  He’s not remembering things right, you say to your husband.

  My God, your husband says, staring at the playpen. Is that him?

  It’s not his fault, you say. I think I just killed him too quickly.

  Femme fatale.

  He didn’t know you, your husband says.

  He puts his arm around you.

  I’ll take care of him tomorrow, he says.

  The two of you head back upstairs.

  Before you turn out the light, you turn and face the man in the playpen.

  Don’t worry, you say. I won’t remember you like this.

  Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pavement

  I’m in Start Corral Three, two corrals behind the elite runners. We’re packed in tight. My bare legs are pressing into those of the men and women around me. The old man beside me, known as the Whistler, has skin the color of weathered pine. He keeps licking his lips and jumping in place.

  I recognized this man as soon as I entered the corral. I read about him in Runner’s World. His name is Jim but he’s called the Whistler because of his exhale. They say you can hear him coming a quarter-mile away. The Whistler is eighty-three, and claims that before he lies down to die he’s going to finish a marathon in every one of the contiguous United States, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Today’s race—the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon—is in Georgia, state number fifty.

  The Whistler’s got a pacer, a lanky teenaged boy who’ll run the whole race carrying a tall stick with a sign at the top: 5-FOOT CLEARANCE, PLEASE. Also with him is a photographer from Sports Illustrated. She’s wearing a pink singlet, her pits already sweating out. It’s warm for late September. People are tossing the trash-bag jackets they gave out at registration over the corral fences. I didn’t take a jacket. Who needs the friction, given our statues?

  I’ve got mine in a backpack I bought just for this race, a moisture-wicking number with zippers and bungee cords that allow me to shift the statue around when it gets uncomfortable. I’m lucky it’s so small. Some people have to wear those framed packs you see on Himalayan hikes, their statues jutting up above their heads. These runners have to be careful not to make any sudden movements. The people around them give them wide berth. It’s not uncommon to see paramedics carrying away, on stretchers, runners who’ve been knocked unconscious by someone’s oversized piece of rock.

  Runners with smaller ones get assigned to the front corrals. The smaller the statue, the faster you can run.

  The elite athletes’ sculptures are so small they have them soldered onto rings.

  You take up running. You enjoy it. You get faster. Maybe you try a few shorter races: 5K, 10K, half-marathon. Eventually, you want to run the full 26.2. And the minute you sign up, bang, you get a statue in the mail. You have no idea what your statue will look like, though the majority are sexual: half-human, half-animal sculptures doing lewd things with their bodies. Creatures with hideously sized phalluses. These types of statues used to shock spectators, startle other runners into a slower pace. Now they’re so commonplace you feel nothing when you see them.

  It’s the Authentic Art that can make you lose it. A heartbreaking bend in the finger of a human hand, a ringlet of hair carved in venous gray marble. These statues are rare. I’ve never seen one myself, though I once saw a man lying on the pavement in front of a water stop, crying that he was devastated—devastated—by the white curve of a woman’s breast bobbing in the pack in front of him. I watched this athlete—handsome, broad of chest, not scrawny like most runners—take off his backpack and fling it into the field beside the road. You could see why he did it: a small stone teddy bear with a crooked penis rolled out into the grass.

  Such a shame, though, an athlete like that. Taking off your statue during a race disqualifies you for life. You can never get your statue back. You can never sign up for another marathon. You can quit the race, try again another time—as long as you don’t take off your statue. Best to leave it on till you get to your car.

  Every so often, someone claims the U.S. Postal Service lost his statue. If this happens, you sign a release and you’re allowed to run with a sandbag. But you get booed by the spectators. They throw crumpled water cups at you. The volunteers handing out petroleum gel packs will toss you the reject flavors—chocolate mint, cranberry almond.

  You can’t choose your statue, but you do get to decide how you’ll carry it. Some runners, usually beginners, prefer those front-load Snugglies left over from when they had babies. The Snuggly runners end up holding their statues against their stomachs, because of the bounce. They lose their arm-pump and look like they’re going to be sick the whole race.

  Besides—who wants to see her statue while she runs? Not me. They say your statue has nothing to do with who you are as a person, but everyone knows it has everything to do with who you are and what you think about. Why else would so many of them be sexual? The ones who get the real art are the granolas who sit around and pluck out their sadnesses on guitars; who drive everyone else outside while they lie on frayed couches and narrate the stories of their bleeding spleens.

  Sometimes your average citizens lift from bubble wrap amazing chunks of glory, hallelujah. And then they don’t even run the race. They’re just so honored to have received such a thing. They set their statues on windowsills and mantels and keep changing diapers or writing op-ed pieces about the manifold evils of the for-profit health care industry.

  My statue used to embarrass me, but I’m okay talking about it now. I especially enjoy describing it to nonrunners, who only wish they had one. With nonrunners I can play up my statue, make it sound better than it is.

  It came three years ago when I signed up for the Myrtle Beach Marathon. I’d been racing shorter distances, mostly halfs and 10-milers. You don’t need a statue to run in those. But there’s no re
spect in them. They’re just practice. You can’t call yourself a runner until you’ve finished a marathon with a piece of something strapped to your back.

  When I lifted my statue from the box, I thought it was just a plain metal cylinder—brass, a foot long, the width of a coffee mug. Three-quarters of the way down its length, I noticed a tiny erect penis.

  “What a dud,” I said to my cat, who was sitting in the downstairs window of my apartment. I was standing in the parking lot beside the mailboxes, the opened carton at my feet. The breeze was lifting Styrofoam pellets from the box and blowing them around my ankles.

  “Look here, cat-of-mine,” I said, holding up the statue. “Is this a joke?”

  The cat was fixated on the pellets. I went inside to call my parents.

  “Did it come?” my mother asked.

  “It did,” I said.

  “Congratulations!” she said. “Is it—artistic?”

  “The folds in the gown,” I said. “The curve of the ankle.”

  “Roger!” she yelled to my Dad. “Pick up the other line!”

  They’re late on the start. Everyone has to pee. The men are whipping out their units and firing-at-will over the waist-high chain-link fence surrounding our corral. With distance runners there’s a unique economy surrounding bodily functions. With a finger we close one nostril and blow snot from the other—without breaking pace—to avoid carrying tissues. I have evacuated from the back end in a number of roadside ditches, with passing traffic and not a square of toilet paper.

  The corral scenario is awkward for women, though. The line gets drawn at splatter.

  I end up hopping the fence and when I come back I’ve lost my place next to the Whistler.

  At two hundred runners per corral, the total number of people running this race is around eighteen thousand. Those who cross the finish line with their statues on will have their names put into a database. Once a year, on Thanksgiving, they have a lottery: ten thousand people randomly selected to run a statue-free race in Washington, D.C.