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Authors: Jonathan Woods
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thongs of his deck shoes and strides across the lawn to the abandoned mower. It sits on the embankment above the drainage ditch that fronts the road. As he bends over to grip the starter rope, the screen door slams again. He turns his head to look. Everything is upside down.
Gillian descends the steps from the porch and walks to the Camry, parked at an angle parallel to where Ray crouches, futzing with the mower. Without the apron, the décolletage of the sundress is revealed in all its wantonness. The hem comes barely halfway to her knees. As she lowers herself into the driver’s seat, the bleached-flour whiteness of her thighs momentarily flashes into view.
His groin tightening with desire, Ray looks away. He knows she’s meeting someone in town.
In his mind he sees a dingy room, a shadow-cloaked divan. On it, caught in the glow of a cigarette tip, an unknown pair of lips nibble the crook of her neck, while a predatory hand plays with virtuosic aplomb up the keyboard of her thighs.
It’s not clear to Ray how he and Gillian end up in the drainage ditch. She’s beneath him. His knees dig inexorably into her bare arms, crushing them into the water and muck at the bottom of the ditch. Her head splashes from side to side trying to escape the pressure of his hands over her mouth and nose. Fear has turned her eyes into iridescent saucers. Mud and deep-green plants stain the paleness of her skin and the jaunty yellow design of the sundress.
Ray shifts his position, abruptly easing the pressure on Gillian’s 112 pounds. She starts to sit up. But it’s a trick from his high school wrestling team days. In the next instant he flips her over onto her stomach. His hands press downward again, mashing her face into two inches of runoff. She makes gurgling sounds, her body heaving and quivering. After a while she becomes as still as stagnant water. A sprig of watercress is entwined in her scum-streaked hair.
Ray’s hands absorb the vibration of the mower, as it trundles moronically across the lawn. He squeezes his eyes shut to relieve the sting of oozing sweat. Opening them, he squints at the sun. 2 p.m. When he glances down, he makes the disturbing discovery that his pants and shoes are neither wet nor mud-stained. Instead, he finds himself thinking that Gillian should be getting home soon. He kills the mower and walks over to the tool shed for some additional distilled refreshment.
Ray’s Ford F-150 is parked in front of the Paul Revere statue at the lower end of the Southbury commons. The red brick buildings of the college clutter the hillside. A summer school student in a lime green see-through camisole meanders by. Ray smokes a cigarette and watches her with psychosexual interest. He has no recollection of how he or the truck got into town.
Twombley’s Tap Room is located in the Millard Fillmore Hotel—parking in rear. Ray turns down the alley. Behind and below the Fillmore East, as it’s called by a few diehard hippies, is an open parking area covered in crushed stone. Wooden stairs of dubious pedigree wobble up to the ground floor of the hotel.
Ray sees the Camry in the third slot from the end. He wants to pretend it belongs to someone else. There’s an open space right next to it, so he pulls in.
Rex, the afternoon bartender at the Tap Room, nods. Ray nods back, walks to the bar and shakes loose a cigarette. Rex lights it. This is not a pickup move. Anything between them happened when they were on the wrestling team together back in high school. As Rex pours a jigger of Old Crow, his eyes travel in an arc toward the back of the room. Ray squints in that direction. He’s forgotten to put in his contacts.
But there’s no mistaking Gillian’s cascading tresses and shapely arms. A guy flaunting a straw Stetson sits on the reverse side of the same booth. Ray edges his drink down the bar until he can make out the cowboy’s walrus mustache. When the cowpoke gets up to go to the john, he appears tall and lanky and
Gillian descends the steps from the porch and walks to the Camry, parked at an angle parallel to where Ray crouches, futzing with the mower. Without the apron, the décolletage of the sundress is revealed in all its wantonness. The hem comes barely halfway to her knees. As she lowers herself into the driver’s seat, the bleached-flour whiteness of her thighs momentarily flashes into view.
His groin tightening with desire, Ray looks away. He knows she’s meeting someone in town.
In his mind he sees a dingy room, a shadow-cloaked divan. On it, caught in the glow of a cigarette tip, an unknown pair of lips nibble the crook of her neck, while a predatory hand plays with virtuosic aplomb up the keyboard of her thighs.
It’s not clear to Ray how he and Gillian end up in the drainage ditch. She’s beneath him. His knees dig inexorably into her bare arms, crushing them into the water and muck at the bottom of the ditch. Her head splashes from side to side trying to escape the pressure of his hands over her mouth and nose. Fear has turned her eyes into iridescent saucers. Mud and deep-green plants stain the paleness of her skin and the jaunty yellow design of the sundress.
Ray shifts his position, abruptly easing the pressure on Gillian’s 112 pounds. She starts to sit up. But it’s a trick from his high school wrestling team days. In the next instant he flips her over onto her stomach. His hands press downward again, mashing her face into two inches of runoff. She makes gurgling sounds, her body heaving and quivering. After a while she becomes as still as stagnant water. A sprig of watercress is entwined in her scum-streaked hair.
Ray’s hands absorb the vibration of the mower, as it trundles moronically across the lawn. He squeezes his eyes shut to relieve the sting of oozing sweat. Opening them, he squints at the sun. 2 p.m. When he glances down, he makes the disturbing discovery that his pants and shoes are neither wet nor mud-stained. Instead, he finds himself thinking that Gillian should be getting home soon. He kills the mower and walks over to the tool shed for some additional distilled refreshment.
Ray’s Ford F-150 is parked in front of the Paul Revere statue at the lower end of the Southbury commons. The red brick buildings of the college clutter the hillside. A summer school student in a lime green see-through camisole meanders by. Ray smokes a cigarette and watches her with psychosexual interest. He has no recollection of how he or the truck got into town.
Twombley’s Tap Room is located in the Millard Fillmore Hotel—parking in rear. Ray turns down the alley. Behind and below the Fillmore East, as it’s called by a few diehard hippies, is an open parking area covered in crushed stone. Wooden stairs of dubious pedigree wobble up to the ground floor of the hotel.
Ray sees the Camry in the third slot from the end. He wants to pretend it belongs to someone else. There’s an open space right next to it, so he pulls in.
Rex, the afternoon bartender at the Tap Room, nods. Ray nods back, walks to the bar and shakes loose a cigarette. Rex lights it. This is not a pickup move. Anything between them happened when they were on the wrestling team together back in high school. As Rex pours a jigger of Old Crow, his eyes travel in an arc toward the back of the room. Ray squints in that direction. He’s forgotten to put in his contacts.
But there’s no mistaking Gillian’s cascading tresses and shapely arms. A guy flaunting a straw Stetson sits on the reverse side of the same booth. Ray edges his drink down the bar until he can make out the cowboy’s walrus mustache. When the cowpoke gets up to go to the john, he appears tall and lanky and
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