Chapter 11
EX-HUSBANDS
1
Barrett had this tendency to think of himself as small. In fact, his mom and dad used to tell him that when he was born, he looked no bigger than a kitten you put in a shoebox. Now he was five-ten and might weigh 145, but he never had the habit of thinking of himself as other than small-sized and self-sufficient. Like a kitten. During the stretch when he had his first romance with Nicole, he remembered spending one week all by himself in a yellow cell in the nuthouse. Painted pale yellow like a kid’s nursery, only it was a cell. He remembered taking his socks, rolling them up, and throwing them at the wall, throwing them and catching them. It was the only thing he had to do. He got along.
On the other hand, he wasn’t built for the heaviest punishment. Not with his long pointed nose and his fine pale brown hair, soft as a girl’s. His hair could pick up bad vibrations from a stranger he passed on the highway. So Barrett had some idea usually what to expect. That was just as well considering the horror right now on his hands of helping Nicole hide out from that old scroungy madman, Gary Gilmore. Here was one love affair caught Barrett by surprise. He was horrified by Nicole’s bad taste. Only once before had he seen her exhibit such real lack of judgment.
Barrett had been through everything with Nicole. Seen a lot of dudes come and go, studs, jocks, freaks, animals, characters you could almost call cripples, but they always had something. If they weren’t good looking, strong, well hung, then they had something you could relate to, some good trick. Barrett knew Nicole was a beautiful person and really independent, and if you had the misery to be stuck in love with her like Barrett, then you had to live with who she would come up with next. Had to be there when she was ready to quit the guy.
Barrett wasn’t built for heavy encounters. That was part of his understanding of himself. Yet the bravest, heaviest things he’d done in his life happened because of Nicole. For example: helping her move out of Joe Bob’s house was scary. All those hours with a borrowed truck outside—why, Joe Bob could have come back from work to check on her. Barrett had a gun that day, but Joe Bob was heavy enough to walk through a gun.
Yes, all those hours moving her furniture (which was Barrett’s furniture when they had lived together) was some of the tightest time Barrett ever put in, but he got her away, every last lamp shade, and Sunny and Jeremy up in the front seat with them, yes, saved Nicole’s buns one more time, and she even went back to living with him when he found the house in Spanish Fork.
He had been working then. Concrete pumping. Had been looking for an occupation to get him out of dealing. Thought concrete pumping might be it, but found it a hard attitude to keep loyal to. Straight people only had to take one look at him and his flowing hippie threads, suede buckskin-style jacket with fringe, long hair, little mustache, and they would categorize him right at the bottom. It was hard to drive somebody else’s truck, and get paid a couple of pennies while making the other fellow a couple of hundred bucks. That always got Barrett down. Dealing, you were your own businessman at least.
Still, he had been trying to make a straight living and prove a point to Nicole. Driving from Spanish Fork and working at concrete pumping in American Fork, he was thereby damn well commuting from one end of Utah County to the other, close to 60 miles a day. Commuting in morning traffic was as straight as you could get. That was the point he wished to make. But Nicole and him started hassling about all the things in the past. Her sexual relations with other men bothered him. Couldn’t get them out of his head.
Right from the beginning in Spanish Fork their sex life wasn’t like it used to be. Not that feeling of love anymore. Times he’d say to her, “You don’t even want me.” He might just as well have had an open hole in him. To be without Nicole was living in the pits. She didn’t realize how he felt—if she could just now and again feel his pain. She didn’t know how beautiful it could be with her, if she was in the mood to have it beautiful. Nobody could give you a feeling you were wanted, like Nicole could give it. Like she was the seducer, and it was heavenly places when you got that goodness from her. When she cut it off, Barrett knew the pits.
So even with the house in Spanish Fork—$75 a month—he couldn’t help it, he split. Went up to Wyoming for a few weeks, and did what he always did on a split, which is, try to enjoy his free, make the most of life without daily hassles. But he couldn’t get on the good side of his free where you could feel kind of dapper. Instead he carried Nicole around like a load. So, first opportunity, he hit her up with a surprise visit from Wyoming, and pulled in front of the house in Spanish Fork about eleven o’clock on a cold February night.
Since another fellow’s car was out front, Barrett came in by the back. Nicole and the dude were in the bathroom together naked. The fellow was sitting on the laundry hamper, a weird-looking dirty guy, Clyde Dozier. Barrett knew him in passing. A disgusting nonentity. Barrett didn’t get violent, you know, he just went in the kitchen adjacent, and Clyde came and put his clothes on, and started to apologize and say it wasn’t Nicole’s fault. Barrett said, “Save yourself some problems, Clyde. Get out of here before I get mad.” Barrett might not be that tough, but he had a few connections after all. Clyde left, and Nicole started saying, like, “I’m not your old lady. You went to Wyoming and left me, you know. I can do whatever I want to do.”
Well, she had a bed made up on the kitchen floor and Barrett got it on. Didn’t know why he wanted to have sex at that point, but he figured she gave it to him because he’d get violent if she resisted. Next morning, he wasn’t mad. It was just funny more than anything else, you know, there on the kitchen floor with his old lady, saying, “God, couldn’t you pick somebody a little better than Clyde?” He really wanted to get together with her. So he gave up Wyoming and took a place in Lindon. Dropped over two or three times a week until she told him to stay away. One time he went over and another low scroungy dude was there, Freson (what a name!) Phelps. Barrett stayed away a long time before he went over to Spanish Fork again.
On this occasion, different things were around. Different furniture. Somebody new had moved in. He sat and had a cup of coffee with her. Before he could even start talking, Gilmore came in. The first time he heard about the fellow was when she introduced them.
Barrett’s impression was that here was one more old scroungy dude. He didn’t look right. More bad taste! He was wearing cutoffs and his legs were too white. Gilmore looked a lot older than her. Barrett didn’t feel hurt or anything, just kind of disgust, you know, like I don’t believe this.
He went on talking with Nicole. Gilmore never said a word, just sat at the kitchen table. He seemed bothered. In a little while he got up and went to the front room. At that point, Barrett nodded at Nicole, and they went outside. Sunny and Jeremy were playing, and they sat near them, and Nicole said Gilmore was an ex-con. Then she went back to the house. Barrett was left outside playing with the kids. Pretty soon, the kids started saying the same things over and over. It was like they had a crowbar in your collarbone and were prying you open. “Pop, poop, pop, poop,” they’d say, and giggle.
He went down to his truck, and took off. He could really feel his skinny butt bouncing in the cab.
Then he met Gilmore the second time. Dropped over to visit and Gary was out to the store. While Barrett was talking to Nicole by the apple tree, Gilmore came back. Didn’t say, Get the hell out, but he sure acted like his return was the good cue to leave. So Barrett stood up, and Nicole went right into the house. That left Barrett to walk out to the street alone. Just then Gilmore came through the front door to confront him on the sidewalk.
He said, “I want to tell you something. I accept the fact that you’re Sunny’s father, but Nicole is mine.” Barrett said, “Look, buddy, you can have her. I don’t want her.” These words gave Gilmore a bad look, a real bad-dog look. Gilmore said, “You don’t have to insult her.”
At that point Barrett got a scared feeling. He was used to seeing Nicole with other men. He’d watched her with other men. What else was there to say? You can have her. He certainly couldn’t keep them from having her.
Besides, it would do no good for Gilmore to know his true feelings. That would wake Gilmore up. Barrett said, “I wasn’t trying to insult her. Nicole don’t want me, and I don’t want her. I just wanted you to know.” He got in his truck, and right there on the road, cruising along, he felt hope. It was the sound of Gilmore saying, “Nicole is mine.” They got to talking like that, and they lost her. She didn’t want to be owned for long.
After that, riding around, wheeling high off a Thai stick, Barrett might drive by her house. If Gary’s car was out in front, he would not stop. If the scene was right, he would visit a little with Nicole, feel her out.
2
One time, Rosebeth answered the door and said Gary was at work, and Nicole was away with the kids. It was the first time Barrett ever saw Rosebeth, but he walked in like it was his house. After all, everything he owned was in there. Gary and Nicole, said Rosebeth, would be gone the whole day for sure. There was nice warm weather in the room.
Jim was sitting in the chair, and the girl was lying on the living-room bed that served for a couch. He thought she was pleasantly plump, had a real sweet baby-fat, but too young and virgin to fool around with. When she got up, however, to lift a blanket off the bed, he decided to get beside her, and they started to kiss. Didn’t take a minute for her to say, “Now, let’s get undressed.” “Okay,” he said, “I’ll go for that.” They took off their clothes and lay on the bed, and she said, “Let me suck it.” Barrett said, “Don’t let me stop you.”
All her doing, you know. Barrett laid back and she spun herself around and popped it right on his face—he had no choice. She didn’t really know how, actually hurt him with her teeth. All the same she got pretty warm. But her clit wasn’t sensitive, you know, he couldn’t make her flinch.
Still, she got pretty warm. He turned her around and she had an expectant look. Only he couldn’t get in. She was a virgin, he found out, and he was hurting her.
“Gary only wants me to do things with him, you know,” she was saying. “Gary wouldn’t like this, you know.” Told him how the three of them fooled around. Barrett just kept flicking her clit.
It seemed to open her. He turned around and slipped it in, and it went right in, really good, nice and warm, no movement at all, that’s all he needed. That was it, you know.
He put his clothes on and she got up and put her clothes on. Hadn’t been in her more than ten seconds. She hadn’t really done anything, but she had really nice breasts. He got a phone number from her. A tremendous deal. All free. Did it with his back open to Gilmore.
By the next time he happened to stop, Nicolé said she wanted to go for a ride. He took her up to the Canyon and Sunny and Jeremy went out and played. Barrett got seduced right in the truck. That’s what happened that day.
He thought it was ’cause she loved him again, because she had special feelings. She told him afterward she still loved him, all that stuff. Then they came down from the canyon, and he took her home.
It sure flared up his love for her. It made him miss her more. Sex was like a sacred thing to him, a way to express a feeling.
The next day, she called him up. “I’m pretty upset,” she said, “pretty down.” Gary had become very dominating.
When Barrett went over, she was sad and really depressed and he just loved her. He stood naked with her, gave her the attention she needed and told her that he’d get her out of this mess.
Once she was in his dinky little fleabag motel room, it didn’t take but one night to know they needed more space. He went to see a friend who owned a couple of apartment houses in Springville and said, Hey, let me work on your swimming pool for the rent. The fellow went for that and moved them into an apartment on Third West in Springville. That same day, while Gilmore was on his job, they got the furniture from Spanish Fork and brought it over.
It was worrisome doing it. Nicole let him hold a .22 Magnum Derringer over-and-under that Gary had given her. This scene was even heavier than Joe Bob. Barrett noticed a piece of paper tacked up against the wall, saying, “Where are you, girl?”
He had the gun in his back pocket, loaded. But he kept thinking of Gilmore’s other guns. If the man came home, they would have a shootout right there. Even after they were moved to the apartment, nothing let up. Nicole kept saying, You don’t know Gary, he’s dangerous. Barrett carried that gun.
This trip, Nicole was giving him sex like a professional. Not taking money, but like she thought he’d done a favor, so he deserved it back. It certainly wasn’t one of their good periods. She wasn’t into orgasms very regularly. With all he knew about her, it all the same took a few days for Barrett to figure out that Nicole was seeing somebody else.
3
On the Tuesday night that Gary broke up with Nicole, he came back to Craig’s house and spent a quiet evening. “She’s out of my life,” he said. Next morning, soon as he woke up, he talked of getting back with her. Took a Browning .22 Automatic out of his car, and asked Craig to hold it. Craig did. Wanted to mollify him. Keep him off the deep end.
On the way to work, Gary asked if Craig knew anybody who would buy the Automatic. When Craig said he didn’t, Gary said, “You can have it.” Craig wasn’t certain whether Gary was giving it, or letting him hold it handy.
Spencer asked how the windshield got broke, and when Gary said he kicked it, Spencer asked, “What for?” Gary said he was mad at Nicole. “Well, why didn’t you kick her?” Spencer said. “You know you got to have a windshield to pass a safety inspection. That kick cost you $50.” Gary said he didn’t really care.
This got Spence mad. Gary owed him money after all. So Spence asked again if he had the driver’s license. When Gary said no, Spence said he must have been lying all along, and they would have to alter their program a little. But Gary’s head seemed to be somewhere else. He asked what Spence thought of his buying a pickup truck. He had, Spencer decided, an awfully large ego.
During the day, Gary got the keys to the white truck from Val Conlin and drove it to the shop for Spence to approve.
It was a ’68 or ’69 Ford. McGrath thought it was seriously over-priced. Gary said he really didn’t care, he wanted it. Spencer said, “I do care. You’re asking me to lay out $1,700 for a vehicle that is only worth $1,000. It’s unfair. You don’t have a driver’s license. If you wreck that thing, or somebody steals it, if you get into a fight and they arrest you and put you in jail, or if you can’t in any way make the payments on it, then I have to pay off. You should think real serious about what you’re asking me to do.” That didn’t bother Gary. There was no doubt in his mind, he told Spence, that he was going to pay for that pickup. He did not think Spence should ever be concerned about losing a cent.
That night Gary went looking in the bars for Nicole and then went home. When he could not sleep, he got in his car and drove all the way to Sterling Baker’s new place.
Sterling had moved from Provo to a town called Lark near Salt Lake City. It was late when Gary pulled in. It had spooked him, he explained, to stay in Spanish Fork without Nicole. He had talked to her at Kathryne’s today, he told them, and she wanted to stay apart. He couldn’t shake off the idea he had lost her. Gary looked so sad that no matter the hour, both Sterling and Ruth Ann had to feel sorry.
Gary began to talk about reincarnation. After death, he said, he was going to start all over again. Have the kind of life he always wished he had. He talked about it as if it was so certain, so real, that Sterling got confused and thought Gary was talking about an actual place like moving bag and baggage up to Winnipeg, Canada.
In the morning, Gary phoned in sick to work, and spent the morning driving around with Ruth Ann looking for Nicole.
They searched a lot of streets in Springville. Somehow, Gary felt she was there. They dropped in on Sue Baker, but she didn’t know, she said, where Nicole might be. There was a smell of diapers in Sue’s house and she looked miserable. Didn’t know where Rikki was; didn’t know where Nicole was; didn’t know anything. Ruth Ann began to get sorry for Gary. She had never seen a man suffer so much over a woman. He must have checked the laundromat five times.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, Ruth Ann went back to Lark, and Gary showed up at work. He had hardly picked up a tool before there was a call from Nicole.
“Are you drunk?” she asked.
She was telephoning to tell him that she had just moved her furniture out of the house in Spanish Fork, but he could stay there the next few days until the rent was up. She didn’t think they’d rent to him after that.
Could they get together? he asked. She said she did not think so. One of them might kill the other.
4
To her surprise, Kathryne felt like she wanted to cry. Gary came in so pathetic. Just kind of sat. He put a carton of cigarettes and a box of Pampers on the table, and said, “She’ll probably be needing these.” There was a silence, then he said, “Would you do something for me?” Kathryne said, “Well, yes, if I can.” “Will you give her this picture of me? That’s the best one I could find. It’s not very good, but it’s the best I could find.” Kathryne looked. Gary was standing in the snow wearing a blue windbreaker. She thought it had probably been taken in prison. He was looking young and tough, and he’d written on the back “I love you.” After she lay the photograph down, Gary said, “I’ve got to be going.”
When Sissy dropped by later that evening, she just glanced at the photo, made an umph sound, and threw it on the cupboard shelf. Later Kathryne put it at the back of the dish closet where it would be safe from the kids and the jam and the peanut butter.
Toward evening, Gary went to sit with Brenda and Johnny. Their patio wasn’t much of a garden spot, more like a shed with pale green corrugated plastic roofing that let light through, and a couple of wrought-iron chairs and dirty old canvas camp chairs. Brenda never tried to fix her yard too much, but it was nice to have a drink there in the dark.
Not only was Gary having his emotional pains but Johnny would soon be hurting. He had to go into the hospital for a hernia operation. It might not take long, but it wasn’t going to be fun. Brenda would have liked a joke about the doctor not clipping any extra meat down there, but that, unfortunately, was not Gary’s mood.
The white and yellow socks he was wearing looked in better taste than usual, so Brenda remarked, “I like those socks, coz.” He stared at her and said, “They’re Nicole’s.” Looked like he was going to cry.
It was awful. Brenda could feel that empty house in Spanish Fork. “I can still smell her perfume,” Gary said. It was obvious he was in that advanced kind of suffering where he could hardly keep a thought to himself.
“I’ve got to find her,” he said.
“Honey, this kind of thing takes time,” said Brenda. “Maybe Nicole needs a couple of days.” “I can’t wait,” he said. “Will you help me find her?” “It don’t work that way,” Brenda said. “If a woman don’t want to talk to you, she’ll kill you first.”
Usually no matter what Gary might be feeling, he liked to seem the picture of relaxation. Today he was on the edge of his chair. It was like the air was being eaten by the nervousness he felt. She didn’t want to think of his stomach. Shreds. She thought his goatee looked awful.
“This is the first time I’ve experienced a pain I can’t take,” he said. “I used to be able to handle anything that came up, didn’t matter how bad, but it’s tougher out here. Everybody’s going about their business. Where is Nicole?”
A dread went into the air with the evening. Brenda could almost hear Gary listening to Nicole with other men. They kept drinking. After a couple of hours he passed out on them. In the morning, he went to work.
“Why look so hard,” Spencer asked, “for a woman who doesn’t want to get back with you? Leave her alone. She knows where you are.”
“I’m going to paint my car,” said Gary.
He started to drive the Mustang into the shop, but didn’t raise the sliding door high enough. So he banged it going in. Bent it. Spencer didn’t even groan. Gary could have had the car painted for fifty bucks, and now it would cost three hundred or more to get the door working right once more. For the present Spence just tied a rope to the stove-in part and winched the dent back to usable condition. The shop door looked like hell.
During lunch, Gary drove to Spanish Fork and walked through the empty rooms. Next, he came back to Springville and visited the laundromat. Stopped to visit Sue Baker. She hadn’t heard from Nicole.
“Sissy,” said Kathryne, “just doesn’t like drinking. She won’t put up with it no matter how much she cares about you. She could really love you,” Kathryne said, “and I think maybe she does, but you have to make up your mind. What means the most, drinking or Nicole?”
“I’ll give up the drinking,” he said, “if she’ll come back to me. I’ll give it up.”
They sat there and Kathryne felt close. “Yes, I’ll give up the drinking,” he said.
He went on to tell Kathryne how brilliant Nicole was, what guts she had. He had never met a girl with such guts. Told Kathryne about the time Nicole went over to Pete Galovan and warned him that Gary meant more to her than life. “She’d have done it too,” Gary said.
“Yes,” Kathryne said, “she just might.”
They sat there and Gary looked at Kathryne in a way to touch her right to the center of her heart. He said, “You know, here I am, thirty-five years old, and I’ve only known three women in my life. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Kathryne just laughed. She said, “You’re two up on me, Gary. I’m almost forty and I’ve known only one man.”
They just seemed to get along. She felt so sorry for him. He said, “I feel left out. Sometimes I don’t even understand what people are talking about.” Drank a couple of beers and said, “When Nicole gets back, tell her I love her. Will you do that for me?”
“I will, Gary,” Kathryne said.
“I promise you, I’ll quit,” Gary said. “I’ll leave the booze alone. I’m a mean rotten bastard when I drink.”
A few hours later he called to find out if Nicole had been by. “No,” said Kathryne, “I haven’t seen her.” In fact, she hadn’t.
That evening, Gary went by Spencer McGrath’s house with the guns. “I want to leave them as security so you can co-sign that truck.”
“Number one,” said Spencer, “I don’t need the guns. Two, I’m not going to co-sign. Take them with you.”
“I’m going to leave them,” Gary said. “I want you to know I’m real serious.”
Spencer decided to ask how he got them. Gary said a friend of his in Portland owed him money, so had given over the guns. He mentioned the guy’s name. Soon as Gary was gone, Spence copied the serial numbers, and made a few calls to see if any sporting goods store had been broken into. Couldn’t find one. Never called as far south as Spanish Fork, however.
Gary stayed with Sterling and Ruth Ann again, and spent all day Saturday driving between Lark and Spanish Fork. He dropped by to see Kathryne, but the Elders from the Church were visiting, so through the open door he called, “Where is she?” “I don’t have any idea where she is,” Kathryne said sharply, and knew Gary didn’t believe her. You could tell by the way he took off mad.
At midnight, Gary drove out to Spanish Fork one more time to see if Nicole might be there in the house without furniture, and he walked through the empty rooms, and took out a little more of his clothing and put it in the trunk of the Mustang. He was living out of the Mustang by now. Then he drove to the Silver Dollar and had a couple of drinks.
Behind the bar, tacked to the mirror, were some cartoons. One said: HAPPINESS IS A TIGHT PUSSY. It showed a fat woman with breasts hanging out of her halter. She had a big wrinkled belly button and was sitting on top of a mountain of empty beer cans.
Another drawing showed a man with a face of pure misery sitting at a desk. Underneath was printed:
I’M SO HAPPY HERE
I COULD JUST SHIT.
GERMAN SAUSAGES STEAMED IN BEER 50 CENTS
HAPPINESS IS A COLD BEER
NO CHECKS CASHED
NO CREDIT
When he finished his glass, he went out and got into his truck and stopped off at Vern’s. They were all asleep so he went down to the basement and found a cot.
Sunday morning he went to the hospital to visit John who was recovering from the hernia operation. John’s dad, who was a Mormon Bishop, was there, and he was a little on the straitlaced side. Gary came up wearing a dirty white T-shirt, old slacks, tennis shoes, and, by God, a joke tie that came down to his knees—it had very wide alternating stripes of maroon, gold, and white. On top of his head he had a little hat. He sat around and tried to make conversation with the Bishop. Nothing much got said.
5
The apartment in Springville was not as nice as the house in Spanish Fork. It was just a two-room cinder-block apartment in a two-tier development of cheap apartments on a little old side street. There were kids around, and dogshit on the stairs and in the parking lot. The day she moved in, three rotting mattresses were leaning against the side of the building, and an overturned tricycle was lying in a mud puddle. The doors to the apartments were plywood, and her bathtub had been painted blood red by the last tenant. Still, she had a view from her balcony. Just two blocks away, the town came to an end, and the land went up into the mountains. She was free of Gary. Free to feel a lot of fear. Her breath was heavy.
Without her vacuum cleaner, Nicole couldn’t keep the new apartment clean, so on Sunday, she had to go back to Spanish Fork to pick it up. As she came to the house his car wasn’t there at all.
Still she had a feeling that Gary was inside, and the Mustang was stashed around the corner, and, in fact, when she walked up, the door was open, and she could hear water running in the tub. Gary’s clothes were on the living-room floor right next to her vacuum cleaner which was also placed in the middle of the room as if he had set it out for her. So she picked it up, and carried it to the trunk of her car. Then she came back for the accessories.
She could have rushed but somehow she didn’t want to sneak out with the last parts while he was still in the tub. Maybe she would have been more afraid if she didn’t have the gun, but she waited. She wanted to see into his eyes. It almost felt good waiting. Like the end of a lot of tension might be near.
He didn’t look vengeful when he came out of the tub, just all worn out. Right off, he told her he loved her, and asked if she loved him. She said no. He began to hug her. She tried to push him away. Nicole wasn’t really scared, but something nauseating got into her like she was going to pass out if there wasn’t some fresh air soon. She said, “I have to sit down.”
They rested on the outside steps. She told him she couldn’t live with him anymore. They sat. She had to get away. After a few minutes, she took the kids and got into the car. But now he wouldn’t let her go. He put his hands through the open window and held her. She opened her purse, took out the gun and pointed it at him.
It was a .22 Magnum and he had told her it was capable of putting a hole in you like a .45. Gary stood there for one minute after another. Just looked at her. He didn’t move. She knew if he reached for the gun, she would pull the trigger.
Then he said, “Go ahead and shoot.” She said, “Get away from my car.” He wasn’t about to get away, he told her. Finally she put the gun in her purse. “You left the accessories for the Electrolux,” he said. “Come back and get them.” That was one thing he had not ripped off—the Electrolux. A long time ago he had missed the first payment on his Mustang to buy her the Electrolux. Now, if she left the accessories, somebody would steal them for sure. Too bad. She started the motor, put the car in gear, and drove off.
6
Roger Eaton wasn’t too backward about telling Nicole how he was well liked, and had practically been a movie star at his senior prom in high school. He’d had a nice time dating his wife, who was a sweet smart hometown girl from a good Mormon family. Which was all right with Roger. He didn’t practice anything, but he didn’t mind having a little religion in the family. What with the salaries he and his wife were making, they could buy a Dodge for her and for himself a nice little Malibu hardtop. It would have been swell, he assured Nicole, but here they’d only been married six months and his wife had developed colitis.
Being a high-school basketball star, Roger had wanted to play college ball, but didn’t like to wait all those years to make real money. Wanted it right away, he guessed. So he had gotten this administrative position in the Utah Valley Mall, and there he met his wife who was in administration for the supermarket. He had been at the Mall for a couple of years now, and was into management training. He earned $11,800 a year, he told Nicole. Felt right about life except for the wife’s ailment. It certainly had her out of action.
Roger had a friend who lived down the street from Nicole in Spanish Fork, and he got along pretty well with this fellow’s folks, and visited them all the time. So he’d heard plenty about Nicole before he ever saw her. Nicole had to stand out in a place like that. His friend’s parents were as Mormon as you come, but they were also some of the biggest bullshitters Roger had ever known. One story they told about Nicole was that a fellow drove up to her door one day last winter with a big bag of groceries, got out, handed her the bag, and then, right there on the street, started feeling her breast. Roger didn’t really believe the story because, one, it was winter, and, two, concerning sexual things, these people couldn’t see straight. But he was fascinated all the same with stories about the girl, and after he got his first look at her, he felt real drawn. There she was, attractive, divorced, and living with a man. Roger found himself traveling up to Spanish Fork just on the chance he’d get another look. He thought it was stupid to get involved with such people, but he wanted to get to know her. The guy she was living with didn’t even faze him at first.
Roger wrote a letter. He said if she needed help, in any way, she should turn on her front door light come Wednesday evening. He would get in touch. He didn’t identify himself in the letter, but on Wednesday night he went by to visit the bullshitters and there was no light. He tried to forget about it.
A few weeks after he wrote the thing, he was getting gas in Provo, and saw her Mustang pull in. Roger was afraid. If his wife found out, it’d be a catastrophe. He simply didn’t understand what was drawing him. Never done anything like this in his life, but he said to her, “Aren’t you Nicole Barrett?” When she answered that she was, he said, “I’m the one who wrote that letter.” She kind of laughed. “Let me buy you a Coke,” he said. She just walked past him into the office to pay for her gasoline.
He waited for her to come out and repeated his offer. Finally she said, Okay, and told him she’d follow his car. So they met at the High Spot, and he told her where he worked, stuff like that. Found out the fellow in her home was an ex-convict. At which point, Roger said, Okay, let’s just forget it. He was frankly scared to be dealing with an ex-con.
She said, “Well, you know, I might need your help.” Nothing to do then but tell her how to find his office.
Sure enough, she came the very next day, and without the kids. They talked a lot. Before she left, he gave her ten dollars she hadn’t even asked for, but was not embarrassed to receive. Just pocketed it.
After that, she’d visit him every other day or so, and they would talk. They were each pretty interested. The other’s life was so different. He could really sympathize with her troubles. That ex-convict was someone to be afraid of, apparently. One morning she came to see him, and was a little beaten up. There were a couple of bruises on those juicy thighs.
After a couple of weeks, she got in the habit of meeting him almost every day. Sometimes she would come to the Mall, but usually they met in a park over in Springville after work. Talk maybe an hour. A couple of times they went off in the Malibu and made love. It was interesting, maybe even a little beautiful, although Roger could never tell how special because frankly they didn’t have time to do it right, just a half hour or less, and he was in a state somebody would spot him and bring his marriage down around him. So they were always driving on back roads. It was dangerous, to say the least. Then of course her kids were with her, and apart from frustrating any ideas of sex, they didn’t always put Roger in the best mood. At times, they weren’t too clean. Roger remembered the first time he met her over at the High Spot. The little boy was wearing no pants, and went out in the parking lot and took a shit right there on the asphalt. Of course, he was only two years old, but Roger was awfully embarrassed, Jeez. Nicole didn’t care. She just said to Jeremy, Get back in the car where you belong. Put him in with no pants. He started bawling and screaming and went to sleep after five minutes.
One day she came over and laid it on him. She wasn’t living in Spanish Fork anymore. Had fled this fellow Gary, and was living in a little apartment her ex-husband had found in Springville. All the while she was talking, it got to him how much she needed new clothes. So he told her to come by after six and he would take her shopping for an outfit. After he bought it, she stayed with him and they really had a night. She was living with this ex-husband now, she told him, but was not afraid of him. They could do this again real soon. The weekend was hopeless, and even Monday was out, Roger said, because his wife’s family was coming over, but they agreed Nicole should call him Tuesday morning, July 20. All through Sunday night Roger was thinking of getting through Monday.
7
“Nobody,” offered Brenda, “said it was going to be easy out here.”
Gary said, “I can’t handle it.”
“I know,” she said, “At the time, it always feels like you can’t.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t know. You and Johnny have always been happy.”
“John and I,” said Brenda, “have come very close to divorce. Gary, I’ve been through separation and divorce. It can be awful frightening.”
Gary looked like he was mulling over his pains. “Hey,” he said, “I’m beginning to find that out.”
She said, “Nobody is ever really free, Gary. As long as you live with another human being, you’re not free.”
Gary sat there like he was grinding bones in his mind. When he spoke, it was to say, “I think I’m going to kill Nicole.”
“My God, Gary, are you that selfish of a lover?” Brenda’s pep talk was bombing out in her face.
“I can’t take it.” Gary said. “I told you I can’t take it.”
“Some things in life we can’t handle. Okay. Maybe this is yours. But, God, it’ll pass! If you kill her, that won’t pass. She’ll be dead forever. You’re damned stupid, do you know that, Gary?” He didn’t like to be called stupid.
“When she pulled the gun on me today,” he said, “I thought about taking it. But I didn’t want Nicole to start screaming.” He shook his head. “She was frantic to get away from me.”
Brenda was not unhappy when he left. What with Johnny at the hospital, this was too much emotion to be nursing on a hot summer night.
Craig told him that if he couldn’t find a place, to come on back. After visiting Brenda, Gary did, in fact, go over on Sunday night and sleep on Craig’s couch. He told Craig that he was close to an ulcer now from misery and beer. As of tomorrow, he was going to give up drinking.