Day Moon Howl E-Book

B.H. Newton

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Marvin Spangler is a self-centered, ill-equipped teacher of high school history, tasked by his principal to form an auctioneering team that has a chance in hell of winning a Tennessee state championship.

It comes as a welcome diversion from his tepid life as an unfulfilled husband to his icy pediatrician wife Lydia, and barely-there father to a unique set of children.

He assembles a team comprising three very different souls: Larry Jr., the damaged prodigy, is led by fate, Eric, the obsessed jock, by unrequited love, and Helen, the usually disinterested beauty, by an inexplicable fascination.

Together they surrender to a journey that carries them to the cusp of the summit of their dreams... and the nightmares awaiting far down below.

Leseprobe

DAY MOON HOWL

B.H. NEWTON

CONTENTS

Day

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Moon

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Howl

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2022 B.H. Newton

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Fading Street Services

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For V.

DAY

1

“He never did let me see his hand.”

She encountered him on one of the more recently launched online dating sites, during a hot summer on the tail end of the early 2000s that would encompass the first decade with no identity to call its own. The http:// address led one to a clunky list filled with the recently divorced looking to jump back on the bucking bronco, the rare recently widowed drowning in loneliness or the hopeful yet tragically unlovable. Small talk was insulated in primitive chat form. Attempting to be clever and yet appealing was a tightrope six inches off the ground. He seemed able to hang with her witty banter, gave as good as he got. His pictures didn’t paint an image of some Adonis but what low-res images scanned in could do one justice? Ideally, she didn’t see herself as caught up on appearances anyway. The liberated woman cared more about what was inside and she prescribed to that bitter pill. A mixture of curiosity and recklessness led her to at least meet him for dinner. It was a small blind bet. She was a modern woman with a good job and wasn’t looking for a white knight. Just to spend time with someone entertaining, break up the monotony of carbon copy days. He may have wound up a complete douche canoe with bad dandruff, or maybe a serial killer trolling the dusty corners of the World Wide Web for the next dismembered conquest, but a girl had to take some chances. It was called “putting yourself out there.”

He had offered her tidbits of his history and present circumstances, a dim flashlight in a dank, strange house. It was a glossed over tale of bad luck and woe with entire chapters torn out and thrown in a trash barrel fire. Still a part of her felt a thrill in seeing him face to face and connecting the dots, an amateur detective stringing yarn across the wall. She was to meet him at his present albeit “temporary” place of employment, one of those supersized truck stop slash convenience stores that pull truckers and minivan families off the interstate like a big cartoon magnet. She found the right exit but for whatever reason when she pulled into the lot there were no lights or vehicles as if the place had sent all its friends home and bedded down after a busy day in the fields of beef jerky and overheated hot dog wieners. Alarms sounded in that large part of her brain that handled self-preservation. She felt for the pepper spray in her purse. It was all quickly feeling like a horror movie when the smart girl realizes that she is IN a horror movie. A ratty sports car pulled up beside her in the opposite direction, so their driver sides faced each other. She made sure the doors were locked. The window was manually rolled down, it was him. Paler, sicklier than she had expected but maybe it was just a parlor trick of the blue moonlight? He smiled, giving off a friendly, harmless vibe. So did Ted Bundy, that hyperactive slice of her brain offered to the group. She rolled down her window but put her right hand on the gear shifter ready to lay rubber at the slightest hint of nopes.

“Hi,” he offered to break the ice with a toothpick. She sensed that he expected her to just drive away. She could almost smell a damaged soul in the fetal position under the steel-toed boots of life.

“So, you…work here?” She felt she deserved an explanation. Was this place even in business? She wished she could cup hands and look through the glass, see if there was milk in the fridge.

He opened the flue, talking fast, and sounding rehearsed, “Yeah, been a helluva day. Our card readers went down this afternoon, lordy what a mess. Nobody carries cash anymore. Try telling a giant truck driver that he can’t have his No Doze and can of chewing tobacco because we can’t take credit. Anyway, they was trying to fix all that and then Dottie, the manager, was back there where all the wires and breakers are, and she flipped or pulled something wrong and killed the power. Didn’t sound like it was gonna be an easy fix and electricians don’t grow on trees, so they just pulled the plug, literally, on the whole enchilada. Speaking of, I’m a starvin’ Marvin. You?”

“Sure, I could eat.” Internally she was looking to poke holes in the story. She would have slapped a toddler for a pair of night vision binoculars to check out the guts of that convenience store. Instead, she followed his smoker’s cough Mustang lurch back out to the interstate and some semblance of life in the distant streetlights. His name was Marvin. Was he just taking advantage of a trite rhyme, or did he speak in the third person? That was a sign you were dealing with a maniac she seemed to remember from one of the CSI shows. Her subconscious took over the wheel as she continued to drive on, half of her straining to read his crooked bumper sticker, the other half screaming “You dumb bitch!” pleading with the hands at ten and two to careen over the median and crack off double the speed limit back to the safety of the city.

She was finally able to make out the bumper sticker as they pulled into the parking lot of ‘El Corneo Coyote’, home of the foot long flauta. The sticker was from a high school, the very high school that her fifteen-year-old daughter attended. Another bank of alarm lights went off on the board. There was a connection to her, her family, which she previously had no idea about. Was he a parent? A former janitor fired for stealing the paper-thin toilet paper from the custodial closet? Maybe he just bought the car used and he was too lazy to scrape. She would broach the subject stealthily over dinner, pull a second color of yarn out of the conspiracy theory basket.

The place was moderately busy, not enough to have to wait but enough to where you could feel safe in a crowd if things were to go sideways. Although there were tall red leather booths available, the square-shaped young effeminate Latino host with a face like a sweet potato pie sat them at a table about damn square in the middle of the place. While not affording an ounce of privacy, she welcomed the exposure. Let other diners look up from their chorizo queso and bear witness if there happened to be a court proceeding in the future. An obese snack cake factory HR rep would testify, “He looked normal, frail, weak. I’m surprised he could even lift an ax, much less come down with enough force to crack a skull in half.” Marvin kept his company jacket on as he sat down but removed his nametag deftly with one hand. The other he kept in his pocket as if tightly squeezing a handgun while building up the nerve to rob the joint.

“They have good chips here. Always come out warm.” He grabbed one with that same free hand, scooped up some salsa and crunched away. Someone must have told little Marvin that chewing with an open mouth conveyed comfort, being at ease with your meal mate. A few crumbs landed on his jacket. Maybe the chips were warm, but the room was hot. Too many fajita orders coming out she assumed. How he could sit in that jacket befuddled her. He had to be sitting in a pool of sweat under that thick canvas.

“No chips for me. I’m watching the carbs. Pretty much eating plates of meat at this point.” She studied the menu while stealing glances. He gave the chip basket the cold shoulder and flopped his menu down on the table, went down the lists with an index finger like a mentally challenged inbred aristocrat. A waitress appeared with a fake smile one reserves for orphans. She ordered carne asada, no rice, no beans. He did the same. A beta move she did not find appealing. The waitress took the menus and got the hell out of there. Online dates were so tragic.

“You didn’t have to order that for my sake. I actually get a thrill out of watching people eat what I try to stay away from. It’s a vicarious experience.”

“No. It’s fine. Carbs are bad, right?”

“Do you know what carbs are?”

“I don’t think I could actually explain to you what a carb is, no. But I know that people say they are bad.”

“Have you had to watch your weight in the past? Men can get away with a lot more.”

“No, not really. My parents owned a restaurant growing up. Italian. Good stuff even though they were about as Italian as bangers and mash. I guess if I was gonna be a chubby boy it would have happened by now.”

“Well then, carbs are not your enemy. For me, they are.”

“You have gorgeous eyes.” She did.

“Thank you.”

“I used to be a teacher. I want you to know that because I have contributed a lot more to the world than stacking twelve packs of soda into symmetrical colors and shapes by the cash register.”

“OK. I am guessing at Pawford High?”

“How did you know that?”

“Bumper sticker. On your car.”

‘Right. Go Hounds.”

“So…do you want to tell me why you are not currently a teacher? You don’t have to.” Oh, yes he did. Give up the deets little man.

“Well…” And, of course, the food showed. While the bombshell momentarily eluded her, she was ready to see how he would cut and eat his steak with just the one hand he had so far offered for view. He was a lefty or at least had learned along the way. The cutlery gods had awarded him a sharp enough fork, as he was able to cut off ragged bites and chew on the same side of his mouth as if anything on the other side of his body was out of order. She ordered a shot of tequila. He did not match her there, stuck to a sweet tea, which to her always tasted god awful as if it was syrup that no one bothered to carbonate. He smiled meekly at her with his mouth continually full, a smile hinting he was physically unable to continue the story at least until they pushed the plates away. She filled the chasm of awkward silence with small talk about herself, nothing too revealing, standard first date stuff: her job as a law professor at a small college, and her multi-branched family of black sheep and dedicated American dreamers. A table full of kids next to them stole giggling glances at Marvin, his concealed appendage was a natural pull for inquisitive minds. She thought of giving them evil eye, but she felt too much kinship and even went so far as to sneak them a wink. He ignored them all, stared down at his disappearing steak as if it held the answers to the cosmos. She picked at hers, holding true to the ladylike rule of being a conservative eater in front of a strange man. She thought of dropping her napkin over on that foreign shore of his, see if he would slip up and reveal the goods. By then it was too late, the waitress had wheeled back to retrieve the plates, the most unsavory part of the job.

“Box?’ The waitress asked her as Marvin’s plate was a quick rinse away from being right back in circulation.

“Yes please,” he answered, too quickly for her. The waitress raised her eyebrows and took her leave.

‘Sorry,” he hurriedly added, “Hate seeing things go to waste.” If three quarters of a carne asada would bring him a sense of duty to a wasteful society, who was she to begrudge?

“So, you were telling me why you aren’t at the school anymore?”

The waitress returned with the box. He grabbed it and then her plate, sliding it in as he talked. “Yeah, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, like a seventies bad sitcom kind of misunderstanding. I just decided to pick up work at the truck stop until I decide on next steps.” He didn’t stop with the meat. He dumped the basket of chips in, the salsa along with the porcelain cup it was in, a napkin, the saltshaker, and his fork and knife that he had somehow sandbagged from the waitress. She was afraid he might try and stuff the table accent candle in when the check arrived.

“I forgot to ask y’all. Together or separate?” Marvin froze. Whether it was to deflect from his restaurant supply theft or a reluctance to offer to pay she couldn’t discern but it was most likely both. She reached in her purse and pulled out a card that she knew had the lowest interest rate.

“I got it,” she announced cheerfully. He breathed a subtle sigh of relief. The bum could have at least offered. Chances were, he got a disability check to supplement that gravy truck stop gig.

“Thanks. I’ll get the next one.” He smiled, a fat piece of cilantro caught snugly between the bicuspids. He dabbed some sweat from his brow with her napkin, which was in itself a whole another level of repulsiveness and gathered up his heavy Grinch box of goodies. Just like that, dinner was over as they made their way out into the still-humid night.

He hovered by the car door. “I had a great time. Did you?”

She most definitely did not but if she went in for a hug maybe he would have to use both arms? Was it worth it? No. The cons had stacked up, towering over the pros, choking out the light. She emitted a pity laugh and got into her car. Marvin didn’t quite get the hint and leaned down to the window. She heard the casual thump of his Styrofoam steamer trunk on the roof of the car. Bastard better not have left a dent up there. She lowered the window an inch, maybe an inch and a half, not quite enough to get his good hand inside.

“Let me know where you want to go! Remember, my treat. Do you like Indian?” He laid his fingers on the rim of the glass, hoping for some semblance of affection, an affirmation that this wasn’t a one and done deal. She nodded and rolled up the window. He pulled his fingers back in the nick of time.

“Good night, Antonia!” he yelled out into a cloud of invisible evening dust. He grinned a grin of obliviousness. That went pretty well, he thought.

The forgotten crate o’ spoils made it a quarter mile, fighting the wind and g-force turns before it surrendered its life and contents to the unforgiving pavement of the interstate.

2

“The hottest girl in school. Made zero sense.”

Law class could get dull, and she knew from experience that when things get dull, brains direct their focus to other things like butterflies outside the window or who the hell gave you crabs last Saturday. So, when estate law started to bog them down, she would reel the kids back in, regale them with horror stories from her dating life where the duds far outnumbered the studs. The late-teen college libidos drank from the saucy well, boys and girls alike hung on her every word. One side already resided in a healthy hot for teacher fantasy world and the other bled sympathy for her older woman plight to just find one normal dude in a sea of creeps.

“So, he said he worked at a truck stop but he used to be a teacher. He had me meet him at what probably used to be a truck stop in the middle of absolute nowhere. We were the only two in the parking lot. No way the place was open for business. His name was Marvin. Marvin ate everything on his plate but still stole everything left on the table and never even mentioned his right hand, which I never saw once. On top of that, the next morning there was salsa all over the back of my car which is yet another mystery.” The class laughed and offered answers to the riddle all at once. Maybe he was Captain Hook, a former shop teacher recovering from a horrific band saw accident, a CIA hand model that was sworn to secrecy. Cecily, a plain straw-brown-haired girl who Antonia vaguely remembered had graduated from Pawford High raised her hand with aplomb to cut through the clutter.

“Ms. S. I know that guy!” Everyone hushed. The usually shy Cecily had the floor. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “He was a teacher when I was at Pawford. Marvin Spangler. We all called him Mr. Spanker. I was in his history class. He wasn’t that great. Most kids slept or played paper football. He did not make history come alive, that’s for sure. He also ran a club. It was weird, like an auctioneer’s club. You know those guys that talk super fast that you can’t understand? 50, 50, 50 do I hear 75? They entered competitions, I think. Somehow, he got caught having an affair with this girl in the club. It was all very hush-hush in school but there was like a trial and everything. Helen McDermott was her name. The whole thing didn’t make any sense. She was sixteen but looked twenty-five. Gorgeous. Like one of those runway models that sneer at everyone because they just don’t have time for life. No one could figure out why she even bothered with the club. I mean it was like for farm boys, not popular girls like Helen. Even the football team followed her around like a pack of puppies. I heard they were going to some stabbin’ cabin Mr. Spangler had up in the Smokies and a couple of other kids in the club followed them and saw everything. Had the whole school confused. It didn’t add up at all. Then one day he was just gone. At least history class got more interesting. I think it was like right around the civil war. If he had stuck around, I don’t think anyone in the class would have even known who won.”

“Did you ever see his hand?’ Antonia was enthralled. It was if she was coming in at the tail end of an interesting movie and wanted to change the channel so she could start later from the beginning and not spoil anything.

“I never noticed anything in class. Not that anyone paid much attention to him. He could have had three hands and people would have still zoned out. Like I said, he was not a good teacher. Helen just disappeared too. Probably transferred or moved. She would have so been prom queen her senior year too. Sad.” Cecily paused as if to respect the tragic waste of beauty. “Actually, I heard he got sent to prison. She was sixteen. Marvin Spangler is a total sick-o.”

“I bet they auctioned off his ass in there! Two, two cartons of menthols! Do I hear three?” another student chimed in. Even Antonia smiled at that in spite of herself. That was terrible. She realized she was in even deeper now. She had to know the finer details. It would need to be without ever seeing him again though. One-handed ex-con pedophiles were not her jam no matter how fascinating they tended to be. Ole Marvin. Talk about flying too close to the sun.

“OK, as enthralling as all this is, let’s get back to it.” She fired up the PowerPoint. She had to show some discipline even if they could chew on this T-bone of juicy gossip for hours.

“I don’t blame the dude,” a string bean young buck piped in from the back row just as Antonia was about to dive back into the debt of the deceased. He had that smarmy weasel face that was destined to be on a bus bench advertising his services to those “hurt” on the job. The class turned a 180, some in disgust, some secretly happy it was said. Antonia had no choice but to let him offer his dissenting opinion. “Think about it. Bored ass white guy teaching badly at best in a high school with no life and no chance of one. A young hottie all the guys want to break a piece off of shows him attention. Suddenly he is the chosen one, even over the coolest mo-fos in school. Beating them at their game. There was no way he was gonna resist that ass. It was his last chance to bite the forbidden fruit.”

“Why would she do that? Helen would never.” Cecily was not going to let this rando make Helen out to be some old-man-chasing slut.

“She did that shit simply because she could. Maybe she was bored too, just playing baby games. Probably went too far but he clung to that fresh-fresh though, gave him a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. I mean if he got caught, it didn’t really matter. What was the dude really losing?”

Cecily got fired up for maybe the first time in her life. “He was married! He has kids!”

A collective “oooohhhhh” sounded out. That bag of flour thickened the plot considerably.

3

“The man had it all. Wanted none of it.”

Dinner dishes were piled into the dishwasher, the TV still warm from some reality show that held zero emotional attachment. It was the calm after the storm, a nice cup of hot tea, some Chet Baker playing it low, the girls were in their bedrooms gabbing on a party line or whatever they did late at night, hopefully not deciding which former friend was a total slut. Antonia was on the twin-sized bed on top of the covers, lying on her stomach, crossed legs bobbing in the air throwing shadows from the illuminated laptop screen. Now that she had a full name, some real detective work could commence. Marvin’s sordid story was all over the interwebs. Illicit teacher student relationships were way up there on the morbid fascination ladder. News articles from multiple regional cities all shared the relevant details: Marvin Spangler, history teacher at Pawford High School and coach of the auctioneering team; husband of Dr. Lydia Spangler and father of three: a wheelchair bound son and young twins. Arrested and convicted of statutory rape and various other offenses in relation to his dalliance with an unnamed minor. Sentenced to ten years in the state pen but apparently had gotten probation in two if her math was right because he was out and about going on dates. She thought she should read up on this particular section of criminal law, see if there was a plea down to something that wouldn’t put him on a permanent marker map of sex offenders. Did he still see his kids, was the family dynamic beyond reconstruction? Wouldn’t one be more concerned with pulling their shattered life back together instead of trying to get laid online?

She scoured the sensational details but what about the hand? There was no mention anywhere and no images showing anything other than his face, which by now really gave her the willies. There was a sorta lazy eye that seemed to just not want to look forward anymore. An unshaven face from the denial of anything sharp. She went and deleted her dating app account, at least until she tied all the loose ends up on this. Life had given her enough bowling pins to juggle. What was he doing right now? Sitting in a lukewarm bath in an extended stay motel plotting a mass shooting made sense. Or watching an old Married with Children rerun eating cheese balls and laughing at Al Bundy, a kinship forged in misery. Did he still see his kids every other week at a supervised visit at a burger joint that had a ramp from the parking lot? How did he even wind up marrying a doctor? High school sweethearts or a chance meeting at the DMV? Ole Doc Lydia was obviously the breadwinner, as long as the student loans were paid off. Did that emasculation help drive him into the seducing Lolita Helen’s arms? Was it the burden of kids? She couldn’t imagine handling a child with special needs and then adding twins to the mix. Was he wheeling his son around in between changing diapers and warming up double bottles of milk while his wife worked her sixty-hour weeks? Maybe her class bad boy was right. Helen McDermott offered quite a diversion from those heavy burdens. A forbidden fruit that tasted almost too sweet. She wanted so badly to peel the onion that was Marvin Spangler but couldn’t really explain to herself why. She should just let it go, learn from it, and move on. A bullet dodged. He had just been a sad ship in a malevolent storm, making mistakes in navigation that led to the rocks. Now he was soaked and cold in a one-oared dingy clinging to the sides hoping to stay afloat until the sun broke through the black. Eventually the blue screen pulled her under into a restless sleep where she was bidding at an auction for children. She couldn’t understand Marvin the auctioneer but raised her paddle involuntarily. He directed the bidding with a gavel for a hand. She didn’t want the children but kept winning. They were being led off stage through those restaurant porthole window double doors into a loud steam-emitting kitchen. She heard screams but couldn’t get out of her car. She was in a drive-in theater, and everything was being projected on the big screen. Kids dressed as bloody carhop waiters were coming out of the kitchen on roller skates as other children were filing in. Plates full of meat were being served to the cars. One of her daughters, the youngest wearing the garish make-up of a prostitute, placed a plate in her hands. She knew it was a human steak but picked it up with her fork-shaped hands and started devouring it anyway. Grease rolled down her chin, but she didn’t care. The idea that it was forbidden was what made it taste oh so good.

4

“We were different kinds of smart.”

He didn’t even remember who approached who. They exchanged names and pointless small talk about majors at Danny’s cheesy surfer party, which amounted to playing the sorry ass Beach Boys and having a bathtub full of wine coolers. When she bullied the point across she was pre-med, he felt the urge to just excuse himself and hunt for easier game. Back then though she still had that dirty leg appeal under the smarts. He could almost smell it under a lemongrass body mist. She was an outlier, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks out to prove her holier -than -thou dirt poor Brussels sprout farming daddy wrong and become that pinnacle of female success, a doctor. She was attractive and curious enough to have done her time in the backseats of junky cars with different colored side panels. One of those empowered, tall, pixie-haired girls that equated feminism with screwing around with whoever she wanted whenever she wanted on her way to the top tax bracket. If he played his cards right, he would at least get to third base before she found her recently budding virtue gleaned from university workshops and gasped that bummer of a four-letter word ‘stop.’

“You want a drink? The purple passion punch is pretty good.”

‘What?” she shouted an inch from his ear. Old ass Brian Wilson was crooning through the crowd, and they were six feet from a wall of speakers. He grabbed her arm and she thought he wanted to dance. She started shaking her butt and he was not too disappointed to see a thong creeping up over low hung jeans with strategic holes scattered about. He shook his head and pulled her into the kitchen where a drinking game was hanging by a thread over a chasm of total chaos. There were dice, a ping-pong ball, and playing cards on foreheads. The rules were dissolving as the debauchery boiled over. Danny sat at the head of the table and whistled a drunken catcall at the sight of a fresh female but that was that dumb ass’ thing. It never worked. He found a cup that wasn’t too used and dipped it in the punch bowl, evading a cigarette butt that was seeking a rescue from the concoction.

“Here ya go.” He offered the cup, but she had eyed the source. Her cute nose crinkled up and it made something stir in his cold soul.

“No thanks. Not much of a drinker. I got a mid-term tomorrow anyway.”

“He dropped the cup and all back in the bowl, realizing he would have to crest this mountain without his trusty Sherpa, alcohol.

“Why come to a party when you have a mid-term?” He felt he was owed an explanation for this bait and switch. He felt that sinking feeling when you bet big on a poker hand, and it is too late to fold.

“I have so many tests that if I followed that credo, I would never leave the library. Anyway, I don’t need to get shitty to have fun. Shitty girls get into trouble. You looking to get me into trouble?” She folded her shapely, down-covered arms. It was so damn sexy he could spit.

“Not me. I’m trying to steer you away from all the predators. It’s like the Serengeti in here. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.”

“You don’t have to protect me, white knight.”

“I don’t? Have you been to Danny’s parties?”

“No. You know why?” She grabbed his hand and led him toward the back door on the opposite side of the room. He could do nothing but follow her elegant long stride. They stopped for a beat as she threw the door open and the night air curled gentle around their senses.

“Why” he said as they hit the wet grass and all the clutter and ugliness of humanity fell away behind them.

“I’m a lion.”

And that was it for Marvin and Lydia.

For better or for worse.

5

“At least something got to suck on them.”

There was never a chance to relax, to stop swimming upstream and grab a rock, an overhanging branch and just catch your breath. In the beginning they were both neck deep into school and it was fun to sit across from each other in the library and after making eyes at each other maybe get frisky and sneak a quickie back where they kept the microfiche that no one ever used. As Lydia’s course load became heavier, Marvin’s lightened up, and he breezed through with a Masters in American History. It was a degree built on the whitewashing of most if not all of the significant events of the last 300 years. If Marvin could be backed into a corner to acknowledge what the textbooks taught was subjective and largely fabricated, he would never offer any tangible rebellion to them. He had decided on the slack water fork of the river midway through his college career and regurgitating the company line to bored teenagers was to be his accepted lot in life. He was an anti-conspiracy theorist. He did not make learning more interesting by entertaining any alternate realities. If the approved text said that Lee Harvey took out JFK with a magic bullet, then dude must have been a crack shot. Essentially, he was a give-up artist. He saw Lydia stressed out, challenged by medical school. His intellectual laziness spoke loudest inside his tuna on white toast brain. One of them needed to get out and start bringing in the cheese. Even if his starting teaching salary barely made a dent in their student loans, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Hell, getting a masters was an accomplishment very few could brag about. Even if his thesis investigated “The Evolution of Snacks from Lewis and Clark to Frito and Lay.” He was Jell-O-molding the young minds of a suburban high school just outside of Knoxville, TN before Lydia had taken her licensing exam.

Somehow, while Marvin was cruising by nice and slow on easy street biding his time until his hot wife M.D. started bringing in mid-six figures, Lydia got pregnant. Marvin would find himself doing the math while the students would be taking quizzes about Indian aggression, but he finally just accepted the fact that he must have not pulled out quick enough some late night or early morning when Lydia was too exhausted to resist his pokes. Lydia was less than enthusiastic about being with child when 80-hour weeks were expected of her. Marvin had no qualms about broaching the subject of abortion as the care of a baby would likely fall mostly on him and that would severely cramp his day-to-day Birkenstock and crumbs-ridden knit sweater style.

Lydia cried. Marvin tried.

But in the end, they had the baby. A month premature but seemingly healthy, they named him George after General Custer who Marvin considered one of America’s greatest martyrs. Lydia fell behind in the doctoral races, but her granite-hard resolve made up the ground with such closing speed that others in her class doubted she had even given birth. What had once been chaos at the Spangler one bedroom apartment devolved into something even entropy would avoid. Luckily, George had the sense to arrive a week into summer break, so Marvin was around to learn about diapers and vomit and what lay between. Lydia pumped breast milk as she sat up in bed after a grueling shift and often fell asleep as she was being drained. One time Marvin’s curiosity got the best of him, and he replaced one of the pumps with his mouth. The nipple was so swollen and erect that his libido overrode any sense of decency. ‘What she didn’t know’ he thought as he sucked, even copping a feel to massage the udder and get the flow going good. By the time he realized that it didn’t taste at all like the 2% that he poured over his sugar crisps in the morning and the eroticism faded quickly, as if from fluorescent lights after last call at the bar, Lydia awoke and elbowed him in the temple. The blow left him with a slight concussion, but it was a substantial checkmark off his bucket list.

Marvin spent that summer longingly peering out of the living room window blinds at the complex’s pool and the young college girls that frequented the sundeck. He was still a young man and knew deep down he could score with any multitude of them if he didn’t have this babbling infant around to care for. He had even resorted to taking pictures when something particularly delectable presented itself. He could see the purchase of a telephoto lens in his future, really get into those folds and curves. It would have to be used though as George the milk money sucker had really put a strain on the finances. If Lydia weren’t lactating like a chocolate fountain at a buffet restaurant the kid would be left with sucking down off-brand Mountain Dew like his West Virginia third cousins. One particular day a Latina junior pursuing a degree in social work had materialized by the too blue water wearing a ‘swimsuit’ that composed of three postage stamps tied together by two-pound test fishing line around one delicious bubble gum full bubble blown ass. She had been a frequent visitor to the tile shoreline that summer and Marvin had found a handful of happy endings watching both equal sides of her sun worship. He just happened to walk by the viewing booth window when she was bending all the way over, reaching to scoop up a pair of dropped sunglasses out of the shallow end. The almost bikini was giving up its most precious secrets as she strained. He involuntarily lurched forward with the velocity of a cartoon wolf, forehead smacking the glass hard trying to take a mental photo burst. An eruptive cry yanked him out of his lust haze. He had totally forgotten he had been holding George in his arm, whose soft premature noggin had also been waylaid like a disoriented bird into the window. Marvin looked down and nausea gripped him. George had a dent in his head as if a minivan had backed into a light pole. He panicked and almost dropped the damaged goods as if absolving himself of fault. He considered probing around the injury, maybe like clay he could sculpt it back together? Or find the plunger as if that might do the trick. If only his wife wasn’t on the verge of being a damn physician. Lydia would crucify him. Like drive in rusty nails herself with a ball-peen hammer crucify. He would never live it down. She would insist on couples therapy and they would gang up on him. It would be her forever action movie gun that never needed reloading, always full of ammo. George had gone quiet. Marvin licked his thumb and put it under the tiny button nose. Still breathing. The kid would have to wear a helmet his whole life, or at least a hat. They would have to fabricate some story, so the kid didn’t grow up resenting the monster he had to refer to as ‘dad.’ He was born that way. God had patted his head too hard in heaven. Probably just made a retard he thought. Had Marvin just destroyed this baby’s life before it ever began? The more extreme thoughts of desperation began to appear like popcorn in a hot skillet. He should just kill him, bury him in the woods, and tell Lydia a barren-womb psycho bitch kidnapped the little fella in the park, or Croatian slave traders broke into the apartment while Marvin was taking a much-deserved crap and nap. A white male baby could fetch upwards of a hundred grand he had seen on 60 Minutes a couple weeks back. One with a dented in cranium though, you would be lucky to get a roll of dimes.

A dedicated use of Grandma Patricia’s hand-knitted beanies kept the injury a secret from the over-extended Lydia for the better part of a week but eventually George’s suddenly quiet manner and lackluster eyes gave up the ruse. A nuclear bomb went off and yet Marvin feigned ignorance. Lydia felt the anger of a thousand suns but also a motherly regret that she had let this self-obsessed sloth of a man care for her precious child. After an exhaustive series of tests and pulling whatever doctor strings she could pull to no avail, she accepted the new normal. Lydia struggled to rekindle even a faint glow from the cold coals of their early passionate love. Eventually she stopped even trying and they became resentful business partners under a shared roof. Each day Lydia walked out the door she hoped guilt would drive Marvin to care for George with some semblance of responsibility rather than shove the child in a closet as if he was a broken toy. The incident and its fallout did serve to feed her focus professionally. She would become one of the top pediatricians in the state and display an unyielding dedication to serving children, all in an attempt to make up for her parental neglect.

6

“You always wonder if you can perform under the lights.”

The months melted into some obscene golem of concession, lies, submission and indifference. Marvin taught his high school U.S. history in a monotone textbook style with the insight of an illiterate zombie while Lydia fulfilled her destiny as a pediatric prodigy. George grew, but not much in significant ways. Marvin, who was far from being a doctor, was spot on with his prediction. George would be mentally disabled his entire life and need constant care. Walking was a possibility but was far from a given. The impact of his injury had unluckily centered at the juncture of both cognitive thought and control of motor skills. Lydia had tired of asking what happened and every strategy she had employed had yielded no fruit. Marvin had many faults, but he could be resolute when he really put his mind to it, burying horrible truths in deep holes and burning the map to their location. She had seriously considered hypnosis at one point and even checked a how-to book out of the library, but she didn’t own a pocket watch, which it seemed was a necessity. She came to the conclusion that he had just dropped poor George one day, probably reaching for the remote or a cheese ball that had rolled under the couch. The fact he would never admit to the crime built an invisible force field down the middle of the bed they shared, reinforced with a head-to-toe line of thick unyielding pillows. After a while it wouldn’t have mattered if he came crying into her arms asking for forgiveness, detailing his dire mistake. Oh, he tried to mend the bridge but only to tame his carnal yearnings. He would complain they never had sex; that she was punishing him for something he didn’t do. Walking out of the shower that way…flaunting her body in various stages of undress. It was cruel! It was astonishing to her the lengths he would go to paint her as the villain, as if he truly believed it himself.

Finally, one day, wearing a loose oversized T-shirt while applying a sultry red polish to her toes as he watched like a kid outside a candy store with not a penny to his name, she had an epiphany.

“Let’s have another child.” Her words felt heavy as if spoken down to Moses on the Mount. Marvin was thrilled. At this point he would trade about anything for sex, even more burden. A do-over didn’t sound that bad actually. Lydia was a real doctor making real money now, they could get a bigger place and maybe splurge for a nanny. A young hot one with daddy issues.

“OK. Deal. Bring those goods over here, let’s get started.” He tugged down his stale sweatpants, working to get them over his house shoes.

She made no effort to disguise a look of disgust. “No. Not like that.” She short-circuited Marvin’s brain, an attractive semi-nude woman who happened to be his wife telling him she wants a kid but refusing to procreate with him.

“Like what then? You name it. I can dress up like a doctor. A cop. A fireman. A sandwich artist. You name it.” Pride had been kicked to the curb as he struggled to push through this crack in the door she seemed to afford him. It had been way too long. He was in his prime, damn it! She took some semblance of pity on him and slipped ever so slowly into a kimono, which did little to abate his urges.

“Artificial insemination.” She looked into the mirror to apply face cream as if they were discussing a TV episode one of them had slept through.

“What? You want me to shoot my baby batter into a cup of noodles and have a turkey baster up in your hoo-ha when we can just do it the old-fashioned and far more enjoyable way?” He sat there pouting with his pants around his ankles. The door had shut back with extreme prejudice.

“One of my colleagues is a fertility specialist. It is quite simple and effective.” She took to flossing her teeth, further lowering the hammer down on any sort of monkey business. “You have an appointment Friday, so try not to diddle yourself for a few days if you can manage.”

“Kinda takes all the incentive out of it for me, don’t you think?”

“Listen, Marvin. You do this. We have another child. You grow up. Become a real father, a husband I can respect. It’s another chance for both of us. It might just save us and maybe, eventually one day, we can be intimate again.” She glanced down at Marvin’s sheepish nakedness. He involuntarily covered himself with his hands. It was an emasculating exclamation on what the rules were to be moving forward. He did not like this game one bit.

Alas, that Friday found Marvin Spangler in the lobby at the clinic, absent-mindedly picked up an old Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. He guessed it was there to prime the engine. The drive over he wondered what and who would be sharing his fate. Men eating oysters for days, putting Icy Hot on their hands so as not to touch their junk until it was go time. Men far from their testosterone fueled youth having to take care of business as if they were on the clock and the world gathered around their TVs to watch a successful launch. He took a seat, which felt assigned, by a few other internally broken males sporadically seated to afford the greatest distance allowed from each other. Whether it was a subconscious shame or need to be alone with the thought of what they were about to have to do, eye contact was being avoided. Marvin stole glances at the other sad sacks, measuring their despair and postulating on how they too had succumbed to this dreadful fate. He doubted any were there because their frigid wives had denied them sex and yet still wanted a child. He almost laughed to himself at the predicament he found himself in. One little mistake dooming him to a life of having a Magnum P.I. red Ferrari in the garage he could never drive. The metaphor instantly led to that line he loved from Born to Run, rushing over him as if on the breeze:

Just wrap your legs ‘round these velvet rims

and strap your hands across my engines

It always excited him a little no matter when or where he heard it. Did Lydia even get excited anymore? What did she want to wrap her legs ‘round? She portrayed herself as some asexual being without fault since his transgression. Holy Sister Lydia would trip up one of these days, she had to. Whether it was an affair with a chief resident or sneaking a cig while pregnant, she wasn’t perfect. No one could go through life vice free. She had to get horny. She needed an outlet to be the naughty girl she used to be when she howled at the country moon. He would be there for it, yes sir-ee Bob. Then he could fight guilt with guilt, and they could get back to square one. Love would bloom again in an eternal springtime. A level playing field where the normal tug of war of marriage could assert itself. Fighting and making up, silent treatments and rough risky love making in a Target changing room. He was so ready. Putting a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream as he took her hair in his hand…

“Mr. Spangler.” A hairy-lipped nurse called out for him, plastic cup in hand. She could not detract from his end game. He realized then as he walked back to the assigned milking room that Lydia had become his fantasy and he would not need any smut provided. Was that love? It was a question to answer at a later date. By the time the door was shut, he pictured her lithe form approaching on the wings of his imagination, lacy unmentionables under a tall lab coat, black-rimmed glasses, and a taut strawberry blonde braid. The doctor was in.