Black Maps by David Jauss Read Free Book Online Page B

because he said, “I’m sorry. I’ve got to learn to shut up. I’ve got a big mouth, and I don’t think before I open it.” Then he grinned and pointed at his head. “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,” he said, rolling his eyes. The way he said it made me laugh, but only for a second, and then I was embarrassed. I felt like I had to say something, so I said, “Have you been coming to Dr. Phelan long?” And he said, “You know, you’re really pretty. But you shouldn’t wear green. I think you’d look better in blue. A light blue, powder blue I think they call it. It’d show off that frosting in your hair.”
    It wasn’t long before we started going out, and when he lost his job at Accurate Plastics and couldn’t pay his rent, I took him in. I felt sorry for him, I guess, and maybe I even thought I was in love with him. I can’t remember now. At any rate, he was only going to stay until he found a new job. But when he started working at the Remington plant, he asked if he could stay—just until he got back on his feet again—and I said yes. Then he lost that job too. For weeks, he looked for work, but then he started staying home, sitting in the La-Z-Boy and watching reruns of The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy . All he did was sit there and smoke cigarettes and drink beer. When I came home, he’d tell me he’d been out looking for work, but I knew better. Once I picked up his ashtray and counted thirty-seven cigarette butts, then asked him if he expected me to believe he’d been out looking for jobs all day. That was when he first asked me to marry him. “I love you, Gloria,” he said. “I won’t ever be any good without you. If you just say yes, I’ll be a new man. You’ll see.” He’d caught me off guard, and I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there a moment, looking at him, trying to think of something I could tell him. Then he turned and walked over to the picture window and looked out at the rain. “To hell with Roy,” he said. “When are you gonna forget about him? Do you think he lays awake nights thinking about you ?” Then I said we shouldn’t discuss such an important thing when we were tense and angry. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” I said. And the next morning, at breakfast, I told him I needed more time to think about it. After that, he asked me every day for a couple of weeks, and I always said I didn’t know yet. After a while, he stopped asking, at least in words. But every time I came home I could see the question in his eyes.
    I was crying as I drove home that night, thinking one minute how sad Lenny would be when I told him my answer and then the next how that man leaned over the table and kissed that girl, like no one else was in the restaurant or the world. When I pulled into the driveway, I just sat there a minute, wiping mascara off my cheeks and trying to prepare myself. I didn’t want to have to hurt Lenny, but even more I wanted everything settled; I wanted things simple, clear.
    As soon as I opened the car door, I could hear that music again, and I knew Lenny was drunk. Whenever he drinks too much, he puts on Big Band music. It was the first thing he heard when he came home from Vietnam. As soon as he got his discharge at Fort Ord, he hitched a ride back to Little Rock with a buddy, and when he walked in the house, his mother was baking bread and listening to “Moonlight Serenade” on the hi-fi. She hadn’t been expecting him for another week. After they hugged and kissed and cried, she gave him a slice of bread fresh from the oven and they sat in the kitchen and listened to Glenn Miller together. He’d never liked that kind of music before, but now he did, because sitting there, listening to those songs and eating that bread, he couldn’t believe in the war anymore. It was just gone, a bad dream. He felt