It Is an Ancient Mariner

Now it might interest you to know, stranger, that that barstool you are sitting on is the very one Radio Ronnie Harper was occupying when his wife bust through those doors and marched up to him and stabbed him in the neck, and both their little daughters watching. She had a Buck knife, Ronnie's own hunting knife, in fact, and stuck it in wrongways. I don't mean handle first, how the hell you gonna do that, I mean cutting edge toward her, kind of sidearm, like she was boxing his ear. Except it was his neck. And that knife slides in like a good Buck knife will and she pulls toward her, which you're never supposed to do. You could get hurt. She was OK in this instance, though Ronnie of course died of it.

No, I don't mind your sitting there. I'm just saying.

I myself was sitting right here, right next to him. This is my stool. No, thank you for asking, I was not injured. It was a domestic dispute, not a rampage. Ronnie's stool and mine, right next to each other. Here I sat and do sit now. Most folks still reference that as Ronnie Harper's stool. Only a year ago he died. No, nobody minds you sitting there. We don't do it as a rule, but not out of principle. Just prefer not to. So anybody sits there we know is a stranger. Well, not just because they sit there, but because we can see they're a stranger. If they weren't a stranger, they wouldn't sit there. Plus, we would know [continued on page 166] Ancient Mariner [continued from page 140] who they were.

Thank you. Very kind of you. Seven-and-Seven.

What Ronnie did, worked for a manufacturing concern in town. Patterson Roofing Solutions. They make a, well, a kind of a goopus, has industrial applications. They spray it on a roof, it reflects back 80 percent of the sun's radiant energy. Beaumont Texas, you wanna get rid of that radiant energy. I don't know where you're from, but around here radiant energy is something we'd just as soon reflect right on back where it come from. Thank you anyway. Two kinds of places, one where they say, Well, it's a dry heat, the other where they say, Damn, it's hot. That's what Beaumont Texas is, just Damn, it's hot. . . . Well, OK, yes. I guess that would be a third kind of place, where it ain't hot in the first place. You're not from around here, are you? But that doesn't alter the point I'm making, which is that Beaumont Texas is a damn-it's-hot kind of place.

So the way this stuff works is this goopus is got ceramic in it. It looks liquidy, but it's got microscopic ceramic particles in it, reflect the radiant energy. Plus it's white. Actually you can get different colors. If you don't want the white they can do you another color. Be a little less efficient than the white. But still.

Yeah, I did say industrial applications. Nobody puts it on their homes.

No, I don't know why they don't put it on their homes. I suppose they could. But you know, it's funny, most people sit where you're sitting, they're more interested in how Radio Ronnie come to get stabbed in the neck and his two little daughters watching than in this goopy shit Patterson puts on factory roofs. I don't know why people don't use it on their goddamn house.

So Ronnie was a salesman for Patterson Roofing Solutions. Covered Beaumont, large part of east Texas, Port Arthur, even into Louisiana. Not a bad salesman. Liked. Respected, far as that goes. Drank here. Not to excess. Did drink, though. And that was his stool.

So he starts fornicating. How do I know? Well this is my barstool, and that you sit upon his. And he was dragging his sorry ass in here, getting sorrier by the day so I know something's wrong. And it's like he's just waiting for me to ask him, so one day when his chin is down on the bartop I say Ronnie, and he says Uh-huh, and I say What is it?

And he says, I am one son of a bitch.

I say Yeah? He says Yeah, I been cheatin' on my wife. I am one lousy son of a bitch. Cheatin' on Alice, acting like a heel, fornicating with Marcia Ziegler.

Oh, says I. Marcia Ziegler also works for Patterson. Reception. Dark-haired woman. Scrawny. Surprised me, actually, that Ronnie was moved to fornicate with such a scrawny-assed woman. His wife Alice is very well proportioned. Two kids or not, she's a more attractive woman than Marcia Ziegler any day.

He says, Can you believe that shit, officer candidate? Which is what we called each other sometimes from when we were in OCS, though we both bagassed out.

I say Yeah, well, Jesus, Ronnie, cut it out.

And he shakes his head and says, I can't, man. I just can't.

Ronnie was an honest man. You'd look at him and you might think the opposite, just from how he dressed and being in sales and being easy with people like he was. See, he was pretty trim, my age---40, both 40---and wore Tony Lama boots, lizard, pressed jeans, thin leather jacket nice and buttery. And of course his beard. Going a little to gray but always neatly trimmed. Like he took a little too much care with it. So you figure, well he's a smoothy, but my point is no, he wasn't. Not at all. You sit on a barstool next to a man who's full of shit and pretty soon you'll know it. And Ronnie was foursquare, even with that beard.

Now, Marcia Ziegler I happen to know. To say hello to, anyway. Scrawnyassed, as I had occasion to mention. With a way of talking that's a little snide. Like she can't say anything straight out, it's always got some dig or angle to it, always comes out the side of her mouth. Straight hair, bottom bob, hangs down like a little curtain her face peeks through. Ears stick out like a chipmunky animal. Don't know what Ronnie saw in her. Scrawny-assed.

I know that some of the other men she'd seen, eligible men, she'd pretty quick either dump or get dumped, either way saying snide things out of the corner of her mouth. Always talked like that. When she talks snide, if you take offense she'll laugh and say Just kidding out of the side of her mouth. Slip away at an angle, you can't talk to her head-on. Laughs a lot, Marcia, but just kind of heh-heh-heh; I never once heard her laugh like something actually struck her funny. Thin woman. Don't care for her.

Don't know that Ronnie did either, far as that goes. Not in the palsy-walsy sense. More just like bam he had to nail that thing. I mean not just once, but keep bangin' on it. Missed days at the bar 'cause he was out nailing Marcia Ziegler. Went on a company trip once, this was some time after he confessed to me. Patterson organized a trip on the Nueces, canoeing, camping. Alice agrees Ronnie should go, have a little vacation from the girls---they had two little girls, Fonda and Annabelle, witnessed his death in the end, though at this point they haven't yet, now he's just out canoeing---and Marcia Ziegler is on the trip as well. First night they beach the boats, make a camp, have a fish fry. Relaxing afterwards at the campfire and people say Ronnie gets all shifty-eyed and excuses himself. And they realize Marcia's gone too. Pretty soon from up in the woods they hear this caterwauling like a puma in heat, and Marcia's screaming, out and out screaming, "Fuck me Ronnie Harper! Fuck me Ronnie Harper!" Everyone at the fire sits there, they don't know where to look. Then the nervous laughs. And it keeps going, and they say it just got positively creepy, that screaming from out in the woods, like a wildcat over fresh kill. Creepy. Then, after a quiet spell, Ronnie saunters back to the fire, not with his chest thrown out like a high school kid bagged his first piece of ass, just shiftyeyed. Everybody tries not to look at him. And then Marcia waits what I guess she thinks is a decent interval, which only makes it worse what with the suspense, and then she wanders back. Humming.

Well starting from then, of course behind Ronnie's back, everybody calls him Fuck Me Ronnie Harper. Gets shortened to FM Ronnie Harper, then just Radio Ronnie. Folks figure that's obscure enough they start calling him Radio Ronnie to his face. I don't approve of that kind of thing, elbows and guffaws, but tell you the truth I don't think Ronnie even noticed.

See, he wasn't noticing much of anything around then. I mean, before that, you'd see Ronnie and he'd chat and be easy and free, but now Ronnie is always rushing away, kind of squirrelly, saying I'm late to meet a client, but you always knew damn well who that client was. There was no joy in it, though, you could see that. It was this desperate look in his eyes like Ronnie was inside banging on the windows saying, Sorry, my dick is calling the [continued on page 202] Ancient Mariner [continued from page 166] shots now, but I'll get back with you as soon as my dick allows it.

See, it was like Ronnie Harper was an appendage of his dick instead of the other way around. Like Marcia Ziegler had the world's most powerful damn electromagnet, like one of those junkyard babies can pick up a tractor-trailer and haul it across the lot, like she had one of those megawatt electromagnets right yango between her legs. And Ronnie Harper's dick just bypassed his higher function, drug him around after, Ronnie bouncing along behind going Whoa shit Marie, waving his arms for balance, like he's just hanging on to a towline and his dick the towline and Marcia Ziegler's privates a speedboat with an Evinrude 120 on it and Ronnie not so good a skier. It was like his penis-----

Do you mind if I use the word penis?

It was like his penis---well hell, you might even know what it's like yourself, you're about that age. Lots of guys when they get up toward 40, it's like their penis turns around and looks up and says, Hang on, hoss, you and me're taking one last ride before I pack it in for good. And it's off to the races. This was not about liking Marcia Ziegler. Are you kidding me? When you got a wife like Alice at home? This was a penis job, boy. Nothing but a damn penis job.

Now I---thank you. Sure will. Thank you.

Now I haven't told you about Alice. This is where the story gets tragic. You might wanna think about having another drink here yourself.

Now Alice, she is a good woman. More than a good woman, a special woman. If Marcia is all sidelong angles and a bony little ass, then Alice is direct and straight and, you know, more womanly in her physique. You should've seen her in the little sundress she was in when she stabbed Ronnie. Very sweet. Blonde girl. Freckles on her chest. And the tops of her arms there. Oh, you can see her in the little girls. Two blonde little moptops. And how she doted on them. Positively doted. Man, you have not seen doting till you've seen Alice with her kids. Well, Ronnie too, far as that goes. You could not fault him there.

But Alice is like that with everyone. Loves people. Puts 'em at ease, right away, 'cause the minute you meet her you know you don't gotta watch your back. You're with friends. You're not with a salesman---though I ain't saying it wasn't genuine with Ronnie, the friendliness. Hell, Ronnie liked people plenty, until his dick up and threw a shadow over it. But with Alice there was never any of that ambition shit mixed in. Just good feeling.

So what's a woman like that gonna do? Say, OK, hell with my marriage, it didn't work out, I'll just start dating again? Yes, Joe Bob, this is a lovely chard' nay? Alice Harper? I don't think so, good buddy. This woman is too good for dates. Your Marcia Ziegler, your Marcia Ziegler, she dates. You take a Marcia Ziegler-----

But this might be the time, here---maybe I should introduce a personal note. A little confession. Because, stranger, what'd I say before? Talking about Marcia Ziegler? Said I knew her to say hello? Well that's a half-truth there. Let me tell you something. I did not go all over town blabbing how I was a fornicator with Marcia Ziegler myself. Some of us just don't do that. We set back in the shadows a little bit, we're a little recessed. Laying back, there, in a covert fashion. Don't gotta tell the damn world, but yes, I had known the lady myself. More than to say hello to. And let me tell you something. You want to know what it's like having sex with Marcia Ziegler you should do this: Go to the paint store-----

Any paint store. It doesn't even matter which damn paint store. There's a Sherwin-Williams over on Bowie.

Go to the paint store. Go in there, pull your pecker out, strap it into one of those paint shakers they got there and dial that baby up to ten, or whatever the highest is. Jackhammer, whatever. San Francisco, 1906. And while you're at it have one of the paint salesmen put his mouth right next to your ear and shriek, "Fuck me Whatever-the-Fuck-Your-Name-Is! Fuck me Whatever-the-Fuck-Your-Name-Is!"

Nussbaum, huh? Hmm. We don't got a lot of Nussbaums around here.

Well, anyway. Now you don't gotta sleep with Marcia Ziegler.

Very intense lady.

And did I mention, Nussbaum, that regardless of when you have your orgasm, you gotta leave your dick in that paint shaker for a good quarter hour?

OK. Where was I?

So this is going on and it's common knowledge. So they're having fights at home, Ronnie and Alice, and finally Alice insists that the two of them go to The Healing Center.

The Healing Center, that's this ranch facility on the Guadalupe, over in the hill country, they have seminars and also one-on-one things, for personal growth. Also have wine tastings in the evening. So they're at The Healing Center for about a week. And Ronnie gets back, comes right into the bar, sits on his stool---that one you're sitting on---and orders a beer. And he has a black eye the size of a plum.

So I just go ahead and play stupid. I say, How was it, Ronnie? How was The Healing Center?

And he looks down at his beer kind of shifty-eyed, and his arm stretching forward makes his leather jacket ride up past his chin, he nods down at his beer and says, Not bad. Nice place. Spectacular setting.

And everyone comes into the bar looks at him and asks him how was it and he nods and says, Spectacular setting.

And he looks like a man under sentence of death, the strain still there in his eyes. Because he was a prisoner. The man was a prisoner of sex.

Thank you. No, maybe I'll switch to a Bombay martini here. Red Dog back. Thank you.

But I was telling you about Alice. This is a good woman. This is a woman---how do I describe it. When you go to the store to buy a cantaloupe and you want to see if it's ripe, you heft it and give it a little thump, and if it sounds nice and plunky then you know it's a good goddamn cantaloupe. Well that's Alice's ass. Not that Alice had a fat ass---not at all. No, it was just right, made you want to thunk a knuckle against it to hear that perfect sound. Not like Marcia Ziegler's scrawny little ass.

And having sex with Alice was like swimming on the sweet rolling sea. Like the tide pulling you in. Bringing you safely home. Not like Marcia Ziegler, yanking you home like a bad dog. Where you run a danger of whiplash. I swear, sex with Marcia Ziegler, it feels like she's got wires crossed in her ass. And her orgasm is like a pinball machine ringing up your 800,000 bonus points. Chinka-chinka-chinka-Thwock-chinka-Thwock---you know what I'm saying. And then she'll just lie there a moment to catch her breath and then go "Huh!" Just "Huh!"---like the bonus ball burping up.

But Alice---with Alice, it's smooth and sweet and free. Because she's a woman, Nussbaum, y'understand. Wrapping you up and holding you with her love, but giving herself, sharing, sharing cries of joy, Nussbaum, that are almost unbelievable, like in a church pew, a goddamn pew, Nussbaum, or when you gaze upon some scenic beauty so goddamn fresh and high it is almost beyond your power to take in. Your heart can't take any more, it must give forth, it must share its joy with her, so that her heart will pound with the same joy, the joy she draws from your pounding heart. It is that kind of deep, deep giving and loving and sucking and fucking and fucking and sucking and sucking and fucking. And afterward, not that damn businesslike "Huh!" Afterward---weeping.

And sweetness. Bittersweetness, Nussbaum. Dripping, weeping, sighs. I am not a weeping man, Nussbaum. But the world weeps. You lie there and the world is a great weeping bayou, and Alice and you are on this bed, which is now a pirogue floating off into the twilight as a distant bird cries-----

A boat, Nussbaum. A pirogue is a kind of boat.

No, it's not clammy. I'm not talking about the goddamn sheets being wet. The dripping is not a literal thing. It's a feeling. Jesus Christ, you got a goddamn narrow little mind there, Nussbaum, I don't care how many drinks you buy. I'm talking about people's souls, and you're talking about jizz dripping on the sheets. Grow up, man. Show a little maturity. Jesus Christ.

Yeah, OK. That's OK. Yeah, forget it. Thanks, man. The same. Yeah. Beer back.

Now this is why it was sad. This is how come it's so goddamn sad, Nussbaum. I mean, you look at pictures of them when they were kids, Ronnie and Alice. They were high school sweethearts; I don't believe she had ever had another man. And there's the two of them, Ronnie beaming at the camera, Alice with her arm hooked around his, beaming up at him. Beaming at him. Like he has the only penis in the world. So goddamn it amighty, ain't it lucky she found him. And the future, there ain't no future on their minds---hell, ain't gonna be no problems there, ain't even worth thinking about. What the hell, he's got the penis. Grinning, and if he's grinning, well then why wouldn't Alice grin too. Kids. What do kids know. What do kids know, Nussbaum.

Yeah, no, I meant she'd never had another man then. When they got together. Or afterward either, for that matter, up until Ronnie started in with the hanky-panky. And even then it wasn't spite. Wasn't tit for tat, Alice wasn't sleeping with me to get even. She's not that kind of woman, Numbus, she didn't even think of it as having sex. Nussbaum. Sorry. She just had to unburden herself. She had to share, share with someone; it was reaching out. She reached out. This is a sweet woman. And her husband says, he's saying, "Our sex life is blah." That's what Ronnie said. At The Healing Center. In front of a counselor. And then he suggested they use sex toys? A woman like Alice---sex toys? Alice Harper will not use dildos, Nussbaum. Not for you, not for me. Not for this man's army. Dildos are out of the question. "Our sex life is blah," he is saying, in front of a guy with a ponytail. A nodding guy with a pony-tail. And dildos. This incredible, incredible woman. So she reaches out-----

It is not the same thing. That is just ignorant, and just shows that you haven't understood what I been telling you about each of these people. He did it 'cause he was a damn sex fiend. He couldn't control himself. It's not that she couldn't control herself.

Yeah, she stabbed him. But she---she---OK, in that sense she couldn't control herself. But that's not---that doesn't make her, uh.... Her and Ronnie, it was love. Sometimes it comes from a place of love. A place of love, Nussbaum. Don't you goddamn understand that?

Well that's because you don't understand love.

No. No you don't. Not if you say, She was fucking someone too. You don't understand shit. And you're goddamn right I was his best friend. So get the fuck off that stool. Right the fuck now. Asshole.

No, I will not answer one question. Just get the fffff-----

Huh?

Marcia? No.

No, I don't know whether she's currently dating.

Don't know that Ronnie did either, far as that goes. More just like---bam---he had to nail that thing.