Читать книгу In the Course of Human Events - Mike Harvkey - Страница 11

When Clyde got to Liberty Ridge he saw what Tina meant. Starting at a rock and metal sign by the roadside, which today had a handmade Amway Sales Event banner draped over it, the Liberty Ridge development spread out across an enormous slab of flat, barren land. There was a grid of new roads, hundreds of telephone poles and streetlamps, empty foundations as far as the eye could see, but only one house. It was a big house, more than twice the size of Clyde’s, split-level, painted yellow and white, and built on a square of springy green sod that ended at road on one side and dirt on the other three; it was the only real grass in the whole place.

A few vehicles were parked in the road. Tina waved from a picnic table in the yard where a small group had gathered. She said something to a woman and the woman walked over to Clyde. “Clyde Twitty?” she said, moving her cigarette to her other hand so they could shake. “I’m Tina’s mom. Jan.” Jan Smalls, Clyde thought, must have had Tina very young because she didn’t look much over thirty. She looked more like an older sister than a mother: the same pretty green eyes and summery skin, but darker hair, bigger teeth, and no makeup. Her fingernails were plain and saw-edged. She was thinner than Tina, with the hips of a boy and a flat ass, but her top half was all breast. A stained white T-shirt pulled so tightly around her front that Clyde had to curse himself not to look. His eyes flicked behind Jan to Jay, coming out of the house, and he thought he saw in the man’s crooked grin something like, I see you looking at my wife’s big tits, boy, I see you.

Clyde said, “I just . . . came to get my wallet.”

Jan nodded and led him through the yard. Jay, wearing a white karate outfit, crossed toward Clyde with an exaggerated stiff-legged wobble, thumbs hooked in a black belt so worn it was gray. He elbowed Tina out of the way and said, “Hai,” then somersaulted over his arm and came to standing right in front of Clyde with both hands out. Clyde took Jay’s right hand and Jay gripped, covering their clasped hands with his other. “Osu-oo, Cryde-san,” he said slowly, his eyes crossed. “Belly belly pleased-uh to see-oo you.”

“Good to see you again, sir.” Clyde laughed. It was impossible not to.

“Bullshit,” Jay said, letting go and slapping Clyde on his arm. It hurt. “Call me Jay.”

“Nice car you sold us,” Jan said. The Firebird was in the driveway. Clyde hoped she wasn’t kidding.

“Well, I was just the driver.”

Tina hurried over and grabbed Clyde’s arm. “I’m glad you came. We’re just about to get started.” She led him over.

“I could just take my wallet and get out of your hair,” he said.

“Silly,” Tina said. She stood behind Clyde and pointed at people. “That’s my Aunt Missy, Jimmy-Don,” she said, pointing to an enormous mass of a man, “and his brother Dale, they’re my cousins. And those are some dudes my dad knows, I don’t really know them.”

Jimmy-Don was the size and the shape of a deep freezer. Dale, half as big, was tanned the color of Skoal spit and draped with a ratty poncho, white sport socks up to his knees. Both of Tina’s cousins were covered in tattoos, lightning bolts, Celtic crosses, eagles, handguns, the number 88, almost all of them dull-edged and green. But Jimmy-Don had Frankenstein bolts on both sides of his neck done by a pro. Dale had a widow’s peak of deep green ink creeping from his hairline. And both were wearing a weapon. Dale’s couldn’t be missed: a bolt-action rifle around his shoulder. J.D.’s was a bulge beneath his shirt. Before Clyde knew it, J.D. was standing in front of him, and Tina giggled. “Jimmy-Don,” she said, “this is Clyde.”

“Clyde,” J.D. said, wrapping an arm around Clyde’s shoulders and walking him across the yard. Clyde had no choice but to let him. “I feel like I’ve known you my whole heavy life, my friend.” The rest of the family stayed where they were, watching. Clyde didn’t even try to alter his course, the man was like a destroyer, not easily or quickly turned. “Remember when we used to ride our bikes out to the lake and skinny-dip with the Sprull twins? You used to say, ‘I’d drag my cock through a mile of broken glass just to get a look at one of her fat titties.’ Remember that?”

“Jimmy,” Jan said.

“Hey, I’m just repeating information here, Aunt Jan. It’s all coming back to me now, Clyde. The times we used to have. Some of the best times of my life. Real Kodak moments is what I’m saying. Oh, Clyde. Clyde Clyde Clyde. Or should I call you mister . . . ?”

“Uh, Twitty,” Clyde said.

“Uhtwitty,” J.D. said. “That’s a peculiar name, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Just Twitty.”

“Justwitty? That’s even worse, Clyde, even worse.”

“Twitty,” Clyde said. “It’s Clyde Twitty.”

“Twitty then. I think I got it. Now it’s coming back to me. Twitty’s an interesting name, you know. A long, distinguished pedigree. Derived from the Latin twitus, meaning dim-witted or dull. Slow, if you will, though not, I’m told by my sources in the Academy, to the point of retardation. On the road to retarded? Mayhaps. Halfway up retard hill? I dare say so, dare I do. But not, for instance, not at the high high peak of gork mountain. Not where the flag flies, if you get what I’m saying, and I think you do.”

J.D. turned him and they began heading back.

“Good,” Jimmy-Don said. “Bueno. Am I right? Clyde gets what it is that Jimmy-Don says. He understands. Mucho intiendo, maybe even todo intiendo, who’s to say? Me? Doubtful. You? Don’t be ridiculous. Clyde gets the intiendo combo platter, eats it up, and orders one more.” Jimmy-Don let Clyde free and Clyde’s eyes skipped to the bulge under his arm. “I see you took note of my sidearm,” Jimmy-Don said.

“Oh,” Clyde said, wanting to step back but forcing himself not to. J.D. was practically standing on top of him. “I, uh . . . I was just curious. I’ve got a Colt .45.”

Jimmy-Don reached inside his jacket and pulled it out. It was a Smith & Wesson like Clyde’s, but a .357 Magnum, and in J.D.’s hand it looked like grandma’s pop gun. He flipped it around and held the barrel. “Care to try it on for size?” Clyde took the gun. It was heavier than two of Clyde’s pistols. He’d never fired a bigger handgun than his .45 and wondered about the explosive kick. “Never accept the offer of another man’s gun, Clyde Twitty, silly wabbit.”

Clyde handed it back.

J.D. slipped it into his holster. “Now you’ll be the one riding the lightning for Jimmy-Don’s three-state killing spree. I sure do appreciate it.” J.D. went to his chair, waving his fingertips.

Dale lit a rolled cigarette and blew tan smoke that Jan waved away with a sour expression. Missy said, “You smoking a goddamn monkey turd, Dale?”

He grinned, smacked his lips, attempted a smoke ring. “Drying my own tobacco now,” he said.

Tina hurried around to the other side of the picnic table behind a bunch of bottles, labels all facing out, and said, “Wow, thanks for coming, everybody.” Clyde found a chair. “First off, I’d like to tell you about Amway’s Artistry line of facial care products.” For the next ten minutes, Tina talked about how her Time Defiance line stopped aging where it started. The whole time she barely took her eyes off her Aunt Missy. From what Clyde could see, Missy was no stranger to hard living, so he guessed it made sense, though he could see the woman squirming. Later, Tina would tell Clyde that she’d used techniques during the presentation that she’d been taught at an Amway conference in Joplin: engage the customer, make eye contact, create a connection, build a bond. When Tina finished the first part of her pitch, Missy actually clapped, her cigarette standing at attention.

Jimmy-Don stood up and his chair seemed to explode from his hips, tumbling in the grass. “Forget Marx and Engels and Ché and all those other faggots in their fancy hats,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution will be brought to you by the People for the American Way. It’s actually brilliant, cousin. I want in on the ground floor.” Jan said something to try to get him to stop, but Jimmy-Don was unstoppable. “I’ll clean,” he said, “sweep, if the Mexicans haven’t taken all the available spots. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” Jay said, two chairs down.

“Anything, Uncle Jay.”

“How about you shut up then?”

Jimmy-Don ran two fingers across his paper-thin lips and crossed his arms. After a moment of quiet, Tina said, “I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about my skin-care products.”

Missy said, “You’re a professional fucker, ain’t ya?” and went to Tina, pulling money from her pockets. Clyde could see that this wasn’t the way the presentation was supposed to go; he could see Tina trying to hide her frustration. Missy went back to her chair cradling three bottles. “Shit’s so expensive I better look like goddamn Madonna!”

“Remember,” Jay said, “it was like a virgin.” Missy flipped him off and Jay jumped up laughing and ran around knocking down chairs.

Jimmy-Don took a shampoo bottle off the table. It rested in his palm like the travel size. “I’m sorry, cousin, I wish you that big big success, know what I mean?” he said. “But I’m afraid I won’t be a cog in your capitalist machinery today, not this day, not Jimmy-Don. I make my own shampoo from tree bark and lard.” He ran a hand through his long blonde mess and shook his head like a model on TV. “I ever tell you about the time in Russia where they felt the need to shoot all the poets?” As Jimmy-Don talked, Tina started throwing her bottles in a box and Clyde felt bad for her.

A little while later, standing in the yard with a beer somebody handed him, he was thinking about just asking for his wallet back when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He turned into a smack in the face that put him on the ground.

From across the yard Jan said, “Goddamn it, Jay.” She hurried over and knelt beside Clyde. “Let me see.”

“He ain’t hurt,” Jay said. He didn’t look embarrassed or anything. “You hurt?”

Clyde didn’t know whether he was hurt or wasn’t hurt. What hit him, he now realized, had been Jay’s foot. But it had barely touched his cheek. “He looks pretty damn stunned to me,” Jan said.

Tina came over. “What’d you do to poor Clyde Twitty, Dad?”

“Stunned he is,” Jay said. “You can stun a guy with a well-chosen word, mama. But hurt? I don’t think so. Get up, boy, come on now.”

Clyde allowed Jan and Tina to help him up. Jan growled at Jay, “You have to go around kicking everybody you meet?”

“Careful, mama,” he said.

Now that he was standing, and knew what had happened, Clyde calmed down. “He’s right. I ain’t hurt. Just surprised.” He didn’t like to have everybody’s eyes on him so he said, “Hope I didn’t wet myself,” and they all laughed.

Jay threw some kicks and punches in the air, his sleeves and pant legs making snapping sounds. “I just wanted to see what he was made of.”

“Flesh and blood,” Jan said. “Like everybody.”

“Not everbody,” Jay said, throwing combinations with more speed now. “Wanted to see if he’d trained maybe.”

“Uh, yeah, I think you got your answer,” Tina said.

“Trained,” Clyde said.

“Karate.” Jay pronounced it kara-tay. “I looked at you and I thought to myself, He looks like somebody who knows how to handle his self.” Jay stopped and stood in front of Clyde, held his hands out to shake like before. “So solly, Cryde-san.” They shook and Jay bowed.

“That’s okay,” Clyde said. “I, uh, I used to play baseball.”

“I know.” Jay put a fingertip on Clyde’s chest. “Never trained karate, though?”

“Uh, no sir.”

“Want to?”

Tina and Jan stood watching. They wore the same expression, an uneasy mix of wonder and dread.

Jay put an arm around Clyde’s shoulders and turned him away from the women, like J.D. had, leading him into the flat even grid of Liberty Ridge, the sun shifting overhead. Jay talked about training, hard training, training his way, the Jay Smalls way. “This ain’t sport karate,” he said. “Ain’t a workout. Ain’t exercise. Ain’t about vanity, looking good, having lots of muscles to impress the ladies. This about life an death.” He raised a fist and squeezed, the muscles on his thick forearm rippled. They walked on and Jay asked Clyde if he knew the history of the martial arts. Clyde didn’t know much. The Japanese, Jay told him, had invented karate, which, by the way, meant both “open hand” and “China hand,” out of necessity, centuries ago, to fight the invading Chinese bastards. Them Chinese, Jay said, all of ’em knew kung fu. But the problem was, kung fu takes years to master. Years. “You can’t generate no power whatsoever in the first, oh, four years of training kung fu. It’s all,” Jay let go of Clyde and jabbed him with his fingertips a few times in various spots. Clyde laughed. “Gotta study anatomy and train ten, twenty years ’fore you can put somebody through a wall with a finger.” He wrapped the arm back around Clyde’s neck, talking close to his ear, making fists, making eye contact, throwing punches. “So finally the Japs, after getting whooped too many goddamn times, after watchin too many wives and daughters get raped in rice paddies, finally realized they had to learn how to fight, uh, today. Not next week. They didn’t have no twenty years to perfect their technique. In twenty years the whole country’d be gone, the babies all half-breeds. That’s when they came up with karate. The practical application of the martial art. China hand. The hand that will kick China’s ass. Forget sticking a finger in a lymph node. We gonna put a fist through your goddamn sternum.” Jay drove a slow punch into Clyde’s chest, just enough to shove him. Clyde felt Jay’s swollen knuckle there. “Gonna dislocate your knee with a kick. Collapse your throat, gouge your eyes, knee your balls, drive my fingers into your guts, snap your neck.” In front of Clyde, Jay executed these techniques at half speed with hands and feet, his whole body rotating, the black belt slapping side to side. “They figured out where the power is,” Jay said. “It’s in the hips. Everything, Clyde, everything everything everything in karate comes from the hips. Just like fuckin.” They walked on, Clyde’s chest warm, his head buzzing. He could have listened to Jay talk all day.

“Karate is just the ability to do,” Jay said. They passed open foundations that stank of standing water and filth, basements poured to be topped with houses that never arrived. Clyde squinted at the bright day and let Jay lead him. He wasn’t sure if he really got what Jay meant by “the ability to do.” Maybe you had to train to understand something so basic. As if Jay could read Clyde’s mind, he said, “Modern man don’t git it. The ability to do? All I need ‘to do’ is the money I got in the bank. A nice-looking wife, no buck teeth or lazy eyes, a couple kids who, uh,” Jay slipped into a funny voice, “play by the rules. A good job at a respectable company, fine neighbors, a supportive community.” With each phrase Jay’s voice grew more ridiculous until he finally made a retching sound and snickered, his moustache curling. “Save that bullshit for the suckers. I’m building an army,” he snickered, “to fight against the stupidity of the modern age. Karate men, Clyde, we’re super-human.” Clyde huffed and Jay nodded. “Superhuman don’t mean we can dodge bullets, leap tall buildings, although, if I trained hard enough,” Jay laughed. “You wanna jump a house, you figure out how, then you train, then you do it.” Jay wrapped his arms around Clyde again and led him on. “Just means what it means. Super. Greater than. The way we train, it’s true. With karate, Clyde, like nothing else on earth, man can perfect his character—if he wants to bad enough. You ever hear how we only use about ten percent of our brains, Clyde?”

“Yeah.”

“Most men these days only using about ten percent of their character. It’s the same. Modern man is stuck in a rut. We been castrated. By society, by our wives, our mommies, our job. And we don’t even know it!” Jay laughed. “Well, I know it. But I is in the minority.” He snickered and looked around quickly, as if someone was coming. “In more ways than one.” Clyde grinned. “Let me tell you something you may not know, Clyde Twitty. There’s no better mirror than training. People say mirrors don’t lie. The hell they don’t! Half the goddamn mirrors out there are made to lie. That’s their purpose. Make you look thinner, make you look fatter, make you look dumber, depending on what the mirror maker wants from you. But the mirror of hard training does not lie. You train hard, you train with conviction and an open heart, you learn things about yourself you never knew. You never would know, your whole life.” Jay shrugged at this simple fact. “Dojo koan says it all: we will train our hearts and bodies, for a firm unshaking spirit. We will pursue the true meaning of the martial way, so that in time our senses may be alert.” Jay nodded and they walked on.

After not speaking for so long, Clyde’s voice broke when he tried. He cleared his throat and said, “Can you break boards and stuff?”

Jay ran ahead, looking around an abandoned lot until he found a brick. He laid it between two upturned cinderblocks, drew a long breath through his nose, raised his right hand so far over his head his thumb touched his back between shoulder blades, and brought it down with a loud “Yah!” The brick snapped in two and fell in the dirt and Jay stood up.

“Damn,” Clyde said. His grin was huge. He’d never seen anything that impressive.

“Train with me,” Jay said, “you be able to do that.” He stepped into the street and Clyde followed. “Hell, Clyde, my daughter can break a board. Breaking boards is nothing.” Jay held up a finger. Clyde saw that it was bleeding. “Know why karatekans break boards?”

“No sir.”

“Back when the Chinese were overrunning Japan, their armor was made of wood. Swords slide off. But you put a fist through the wood,” Jay threw a punch then straightened his fingers and jabbed, “easier to poke ’em. That’s why.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody does, Clyde-san,” Jay said. “Stick with me I teach you all sorts of shit you never knew. And, I give you an outlet for that rage that’s aching to get out.” Jay tapped the center of Clyde’s chest.

Clyde didn’t know what Jay was talking about. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re fine.”

“I mean . . . ” Clyde didn’t know what to say.

“You’re, uh, fine.”

Clyde shrugged. He was fine, nothing to worry about.

“What you’re telling me is you are not at all, uh, pissed off?”

Clyde considered the question. He knew there was something in him, but he couldn’t place it. “At what?” he said.

Jay spat and closed the distance between them, keeping his eyes on Clyde. Normally Clyde was uncomfortable with this much eyeballing, being this close to another man, but for some reason it felt fine with Jay.

“Everybody thinks anger’s a bad thing,” Jay said. “Some kind of problem. This what I’m talking about. Modern man been castrated like a goddamn dog. Fuckin neutered. You don’t have to pretend around me, Clyde. Never forget that. You pretend, I see right though it anyway, so don’t bother. You got a right to be pissed off, Clyde. I were you, I’d be furious.”

“Furious,” Clyde said. The way Jay said it made it attractive. “At what?”

Jay spread his arms. “Look around, Clyde. Take your fuckin pick!”

Jay grabbed him by the back of the neck and brought their faces close. Jay’s breath was smoky and sharp. “Fury, properly directed, is a good thing, Clyde, a powerful force. What makes the world go round.” Jay let go and walked on. “Sosei—that just means “founder,” by the way—Sosei wasn’t a Jap, he was Korean, an orphan. Ended up in Japan. Before he was twenty he was a second-degree black belt in Judo. He’d trained Shotokan, tae kwon do, boxing, wrestling. He took the best elements of each style and made something new.” Jay rolled his fingers into a tight fist in front of Clyde’s face. “With a focus on power. Nothing flashy, it’s not poetry,” Jay whined. “Sosei decided he needed to go into the mountains alone to perfect his craft. He trained all day, every day, year and a half. Punching and kicking trees to condition his knuckles and shins. Shins is sensitive, boy,” Jay said, throwing a soft kick into Clyde’s right leg. He was right, it hurt like hell. “That bone’s one of your best weapons. But if you scared to use it ’cause it gonna ache like a bitch, you already lost. When Sosei came down off that mountain, he fought by himself, no school or nothing, in the All Japan Tournament. Nobody’d ever heard of him.” Jay leaned in and grinned. “Guess who won.”

Clyde smiled.

“Month later, Sosei had the most popular karate school in Japan.”

Clyde’s head was full to bursting with everything Jay had said. They stepped into the yard. “Door’s always open,” Jay said, and gave Clyde a printout of the class schedule. Then he went in and the screen banged twice behind him.

Clyde got in his truck. By the dashboard clock, he’d been with Jay ninety minutes. Fury, Clyde thought, rage. Anger. After Longarm closed, the truth was the slightest thing had set Clyde off. He hadn’t realized until his mom had asked what he was so mad at, a question that had stumped him. Longarm? They’d done only what they’d had to. The bank? They’d loaned the money, it wasn’t a gift, there was no ribbon on top. During the period after Longarm Clyde had almost gone around looking for a fight, a fight that he probably wouldn’t win, which meant what he’d really been looking for was a beating. He didn’t know what that said about him—or his character, as Jay might put it—but it couldn’t be good. But that had been years ago. He hadn’t felt angry—furious as Jay might say—for a long time, hadn’t felt much of anything, really, beyond numb and tired. Sitting outside Jay’s house he felt something, an emotion so distant that Clyde had no memory of ever having felt it before. To have power over others, to dominate, to radiate confidence. Jesus, how cool would that be? Clyde wanted to feel powerful. It was the first thing he’d wanted in years.

Jay was a far, far better salesman than his daughter.

Clyde had started his truck and put it in gear before he realized he still hadn’t got his damn wallet back. That’s why you came in the first place, dipshit. Halfway across the yard she came out waving it. “Time to pull your head out of your butt hole?” she said, laughing. They met by one of the two tiny saplings surrounded by small white wire fences in the middle of the front lawn. Clyde saw that there was still some money in his wallet, and resisted the urge to count it.

Tina handed him a bottle of Amway shampoo. “I might be wrong but it seemed to me like you were interested.”

Clyde had shampoo at home, but thanked her all the same.

“It’s ten dollars.”

“Oh. Ten bucks?”

“Healthy hair requires daily treatment with a quality shampoo that’s got more essential vitamins and minerals than any other brand,” Tina said, touching a fingertip to the bottle. “You can’t get this in stores. It’s too good. They’re afraid to stock it.” She grinned with all her teeth and cocked her head. Her eyes sparkled.

Clyde opened his wallet.

Tina put a hand on his arm. “I already took the money.”

Turns out Tina was a pretty good salesman herself.