My Life in Heavy Metal by Steve Almond Read Free Book Online

can enact demonstrations of our love. And in some cases, some people choose … they choose to love themselves, or to love each other, rather than their children.”
    Mary Martin sat at the back of the classroom, her jaw clamped. Rodgers fumbled on, but the rest of the lecture was a loss. He felt overruled, condemned by the dull contempt of her gaze.
    Ken cleared his throat. He was staring steadily at Rodgers. “Are you okay?”
    â€œYes. Certainly.”
    â€œDid you want to finish your story?”

    â€œMy story?”
    â€œYeah. Did you ever ID the body?”
    â€œOh yes. Yes. Where was I? In the car? Okay. In the car with the president and the troopers, right?” Rodgers motioned toward the wine and tapped his brow. “We drove for a while, I know that. Then the car pulled up behind this building. It was low brick, with a concrete ramp and a doorway. I thought for a minute it must be some kind of errand one of the troopers had to run, because it was clearly the back entrance. The lot was unpaved. The president said, ‘Let’s get this over with,’ and got out. The cops got out, too. I looked through the window and saw these bright circles of light pouring through the doorway, and at the center of these circles at the top of the ramp was a gurney and on top of that was the body, this white body lying there looking very small. The president crouched down and stuck his big face in the window and said, ‘Are you ready, son?’ and I got out. The troopers fell in around me, as if I were a suspect, or some personage worthy of protection, and they marched me up the ramp and to the doorway and I looked down.”
    â€œJesus,” Ken said.
    â€œJesus is right.” It was infuriating, what he’d been asked to do. He could see that now. What right had anyone, even puffy old President Van Buskirk, to drag him into this? He was a young adjunct, with a pretty fiancée, not so many years older than his students. It was Saturday night, late. He had been sitting at home, innocently, waiting for her to call, to hear her voice. He had nothing to do with any of this. He remembered, particularly, how bright it all was, how he had been forced up the ramp, like a suspect.
    â€œI looked down. She was in awful shape. A real mess job, as the trooper put it. They had her naked there and you could see one of her ribs, the end of it, poking through. Her eyes were closed andI remember that one of the orderlies reached down and opened them and in the same motion he pulled her jaw up. Because, you see, her jaw was broken, hanging loose there; he did this so I’d be able to recognize her. The other orderly said: ‘Is this the woman you know to be Mary Martin?’ I couldn’t speak. I nodded and turned away. But then this same orderly said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, we need you to be quite certain. Could you please look again?’ I started to feel sick. It wasn’t the blood. They’d cleaned the blood off. But there were these places where you could see the fat, these yellowish gashes, and her face … I mean, it had to be held together. They hadn’t given me any chance to adjust, was the thing. It was just: out of the car and up the ramp and yes or no.”
    â€œJesus,” Ken said again.
    â€œI kept looking at her, this young girl, and thinking: That’s her. She’s dead. She isn’t coming back. But I couldn’t really believe it, not emotionally. It didn’t register.”
    â€œYou must have been protecting yourself.”
    â€œRight. Sure.” Rodgers nodded. He was trying to remember why he had started this story. Perhaps he had meant to convey a mood of boyish exhilaration, that sense of possibility that belongs to the young. But this was not how he felt. Rather the opposite. He ran a finger under the collar of his new turtleneck, a gift from the girls. A drop of sweat traced his ribs. How had his home become so ungodly