—
Not long after Randy won the Mr. Ohio contest, Del stopped by to ask a favor. “No way,” Randy said. “You never pay back.” He was leaned back in a chair behind a gray metal desk in the garage he ran with his brother, Albert. The big trophy sat behind him on a shelf.
“You’re famous now,” Del said, figuring he’d try a new angle. “What’s that feel like?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Randy said. “It don’t make me no money if that’s what you mean. I didn’t even get the Bob Evans commercial.” He kept squeezing a little rubber ball with his hand. His ears flexed every time he mashed it. Del couldn’t imagine him selling sausage patties on TV.
“Look, man, I ain’t never said anything about what happened in Florida, you know that.”
“Ha! Delbert, that’s all you ever talk about,” Randy said. “Shit, you even told Sheriff Matthews.”
“How about two hundred?” Del asked. “They won’t let me back in my room.”
“I ain’t got it. You realize how much the drugs cost to win a big contest? I got more tied up in these arms than you’ll steal in your lifetime,” Randy said. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do, but you better get out of here before Albert comes back. He ain’t liked you since you fucked up his stereo that time.”
—
Eventually Randy’s heart grew too big for his body. He was one of those pincushions who never take a break, the kind that get hooked on size regardless of the consequences. “They won’t let me smoke,” he wheezed when Del stopped by the rest home to see him. Del looked over at the oxygen tank standing beside the hospital bed. The nurse had told Del that Randy was strapped down because the medication made him hallucinate. He hoped maybe his cousin had some pills stashed away.
“Shit, you don’t smoke,” Del said. “What would Mr. Charles Atlas say about that?”
“I’m way beyond old Chuck now,” Randy said. “Give me a weed.”
“Maybe they just want you to get better,” Del said weakly.
“Fuck that, I’m a dead man. They say my ticker’s big as a football. C’mon, Delbert, gimme a fuckin’ cigarette.” Del loosened the top restraints, and handed Randy his pack. “Watch that door,” Randy said. “That one aide is a real bitch.”
Del watched Randy gag on the cigarette in between hits off the oxygen mask. “Hey,” Del finally said, “remember that book I used to read all the time? Dorcie and Cole and…shit, I can’t remember the other one.”
“Holly,” Randy said. “Her name was Holly. She was practically a virgin.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Jesus, I can’t believe you remember her name.”
“Now, that Dorcie was something else,” Randy said. “God, I wish I’d met her when I was benching six hundred. I’d have tore that up.”
“Christ, Randy, it was just a book. I mean, those people weren’t real or anything.”
“Oh, no, you’re wrong, man,” Randy said. “They was real. More real than most shit anyway. I still think about her. What’s that tell you?”
“What about the old man then?” Del whispered, leaning in close to the bed. “Do you still think about him?”
“Jesus, Delbert, you act like that’s the only thing in your life that ever really happened. Fuck that old bastard. He got what he deserved, the way I see it.” Del stood up and began pacing around the room. “Hey, while you’re up, hand me that magazine there,” Randy said. Del glanced around, saw an old copy of Ohio Bodybuilder on the windowsill. There was a picture of Randy on the cover. Del looked at his cousin in the faded photo, the victory smile, veins popping out everywhere. He handed over the magazine just as Randy took another hit off the cigarette and started coughing. It sounded as if someone was busting his chest apart with a jackhammer. He dropped the cigarette on the bed next to the oxygen mask. A small fire erupted in the sheets. When Del grabbed the water pitcher, Randy waved him away. “Get the fuck out of here,” he gasped. As Del hurried out the door, he turned back to see Randy ripping up the magazine and feeding photos of his glory days to the flames.
—
Del had the feeling that he’d go on forever, which is a great feeling really, especially after you’ve watched your cousin commit suicide with a Marlboro. When the Fish Stick Girl finished her acrobatics and slid down the pole out of breath, he pushed her down on her knees behind the restroom door. “Act like you’re doing this for money,” he said urgently, unzipping his pants.
“Here?”
“Why not?” Del said. “This place is dead tonight.”
“How much money?” she asked, settling back on her heels.
“I don’t know. Enough to buy a hot dog.”
“A hot dog?”
“Not much, just some change,” Del answered, placing his hands on her wet hair. He closed his eyes and began to hear the ocean off the Florida coast in the dryer’s muffled rumblings. Inhaling the dank laundry smells, he thought of Leo’s mildewed carpet. He pictured the lamp in his sweaty hands, felt the weight of it, saw the seagulls make another pass around the shade. The Fish Stick Girl kept banging her face into his groin, and for a moment Del was fifteen again. He was on a Greyhound going south and reading that section in Reds where Dorcie fires up barbiturates for the first time. Randy was sitting beside him squeezing his pecs together and urging him to jump ahead to the chapter about the black guy named King Coon who knocked the white girls up with his thumb. Then they were laughing, pointing their own thumbs at some blond woman seated across the aisle. When Del realized it was over, he looked down and saw the Fish Stick Girl smiling up at him. He’d forgotten all about her.
After he folded his clean black jeans, Del and the Fish Stick Girl left the Suds and headed up the street. It was one o’clock in the morning and the air was cool and damp with dew. “Boy, you sure get into it,” the Fish Stick Girl said. “What was so funny?”
“I think I saw my cousin.”
“Nobody ever told me that before,” she said. “Have you been taking my meds again?”
“Well, I appreciate it anyway,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Now you do something for me,” she said, opening up her purse.
“What’s that?”
“Here,” she said, shoving a fish stick in Del’s face.
Del hesitated, then grabbed the fish stick and bit a cold chunk off one end. It didn’t taste like fish at all, but he imagined it was something else anyway, the way the devout do with the little wafer and the grape juice. “Okay, now close your eyes,” she said. Del shut his eyes. “Don’t peek,” she ordered. As she pulled him down the street, he pretended not to know where they were going. She liked that. Cracking his eyes open, Del saw thick black clouds move across the sky and cover the moon like a grave blanket. He closed his eyes again and crammed the rest of the fish stick into his mouth. Suddenly, he was very tired. He felt like the ragged ghoul staggering across the screen in an old movie, the peace he sought always out of reach. They walked on, the Fish Stick Girl leading him by the hand.
VALLEY OF THE GIRLS by Kelly Link
Once, for about a month or two, I decided I was going to be a different kind of guy. Muscley. Not always thinking so much. My body was going to be a temple, not a dive bar. The kitchen made me smoothies, raw eggs blended with kale and wheat germ and bee pollen. That sort of thing. I stopped drinking, flushed all of Darius’s goodies down the toilet. I was civil to my Face. I went running. I read the books, did the homework my tutor assigned. I was a model son, a good brother. The Olds didn’t know what to think.