	RodMer Short Story Package OO The Goodnews Lady
by Merike Lugus	for on-line reading now in your browser

Location (grandparent | parent | this page):
RodMer Arts Home Page | RodMer Short Story Room | RodMer Short Story Package OO

Here is Short Story Package OO, a short story by Merike Lugus.

You can also download this package in rtf format.

THE GOODNEWS LADY

Approximately 1,600 words

She's flirting with a sort of split reality: there's the good stuff and then there's the bad. Take the boat, for example. She tries pretending it isn't there. But the boat is almost as big as the house itself and the green tarp tied loosely around it crackles like gunshot with every gust of wind. Such a boat and they have no money. Johnny says so. That's why she can't go back to the city to visit friends. Or rarely. Muriel stands outside, thick sweater over a thin summer dress, and sips coffee. She envisions a woman in blue standing on a hill sipping coffee. Autumn sunrise.

Mistress of the hill.

Well, almost. As soon as they get married. There is land. But the house, oh, the house is not like home. Tiny and bare, it works on her spirit like a tourniquet. Feels even tighter when Johnny 's away, which is often. She holds this bad part like it was nuclear waste stuff. Far away from her. As if all she needs is a place to dump it.

She looks over at Killer, restless at the edge of the road. Few cars at this hour. But Killer's not a chaser, paces like he's conserving strength for something important. She hates Rottweilers. Squints to see Killer in a special light. For one thing, he's Johnny's gift to her, therefore the only thing that belongs to her outright. She sometimes calls him Fluffy because it amuses her. And it seems to suit him fine. But he's still a meat-eater.

She could like Killer. Almost does. She could master split reality. She'll read up on schizophrenia. Her friend used to say we all have to live like schizophrenics anyway, what with the times being what they are. She would look into it. If she could master that, she could be happy. She'd keep all the good parts. The garbage she'd worry about later, because happiness didn't last forever, anyway, did it? Let's be real, Mur, she reasons. Not intense happiness. Not intensity.

Killer sees her first, or smells her. Ears prick, then flatten against his head as his thick neck stretches out in her direction. The first of the many sweaty Sunday joggers. They make Muriel's heart pound.

Sometimes she weeps long after they've passed by, their bodies getting smaller, eventually swallowed up by the second hill. They always had someplace else to go to.

Growl deep in Killer's chest. He'd lunge for sure, unless. Well, and what if he did? Then something would happen next, wouldn't it?

Killer! Muriel shouts, changing her mind. The jogger, a woman not much older than herself, twenty-six maybe, moves to the other side of the road, slows her pace. Her body curls, tenses for attack. Entertainment for Muriel who allows for a sip from her mug before her command. Stay!

The jogger smiles at her uncertainly, says Hi. Asks does he bite?

Could be, says Muriel, not meeting her eyes or her cheery attitude.

She sees it's the Goodnews Lady, who visits her from time to time. Always brings a friend along. The both of them smiling and talking about catastrophes around the bend as if they're a godsend. The answer being in the hands of the Lord and in the two thin magazines they hand her. Fools, thinks Muriel. As if there are answers. She takes their magazines anyway.

Lovely morning, says the lady, and see ya 'round, she says running off.

This was a morning Muriel wept. Much later, inside. And Killer caught between whining and working on the hollow of a big bone, struggling to get at the marrow.

Anyway, Killer was for rapists and murderers. If she were raped, Johnny would be angry that's for sure. Rape disgusted him. But it's a rough world out there, he liked to say. And she knew that and took Killer, if not with gratitude, to let Johnny feel he was doing the best he could.

So if it's disgusting, why did he take her away from all her friends and plunk her on the top of a hill, in a cracker-box house without a single tree to hide behind? Answer me that, Johnny! Her anger feels good, always works its way out of her before her Johnny comes home.

As for murder, well, it depends. If without violence, she almost doesn't mind. The being dead part. Secretly she admires this romantic trait in herself. Has tried it as a gambit at parties, has tried it on Johnny, for instance: I don't mind being dead, do you?

She closes her eyes leaning back into the rocking chair, the tip of her toe pushing her back, losing contact with the floor, coming back, rhythmically. She imagines the Goodnews Lady in pink sweat pants and pink top crossing the next hill. Her pulled-back hair swishing back and forth.

What a naive colour, pink, she thinks. And anyway, I'm free too. Am too.

With Johnny gone till Thursday. But now her body remembering the gesture that did her in. Johnny dead still, beckoning, pulling her nearer, his palms upturned, fingers curled like sea grass. There were no strings she could see. It was of her own free will she went, god, yes. Or she was liquid and he tilted the ground towards him. His look, quick and hot, like fire. No, she was not free.

She is not.

She could be, could she stop his face, could she see what it is pulls her. Johnny, she whispers, and the jogger is swallowed up by hills. And the air rustles softly, like he's just arrived. Like in the fairy tale she could not see his face, not on the pain of losing him, losing forever. Johnny receding into a canyon from which nothing ever escapes except echoes and she is afraid of echoes, having had some experience there.

When her sister calls: I've been thinking about the boat, Mur-Mur, she says. Checking prices. What exactly is it that Johnny does?

I don't know.

You never asked?

Muriel strokes the green bruise on the soft part of her crossed leg, recalls the price of curiosity. Not my business, she says.

Long pause. Well, I've made it mine. Silence. There's good news and bad news, Sarah says more gently.

Silence.

You want to know?

Muriel is trembling, rage pressing on her. This isn't exactly a castle I'm living in, she says, controlling her voice.

No, no, that's the good part, says Sarah. I mean, he's legit. He's got a lot of money. A lot, Mur.

He's a liar and that's the good part? Just fuck off Sarah. Just fuck off.

Listen to me Muriel! Sarah is shouting.

Muriel puts down the receiver, cuts off Sarah with a silken gesture, moves like silk.

Later she puts on an old Abba record and swirls around the small living room between sips of Southern Comfort. She stumbles in the direction of Killer, who gets up, begrudgingly moves his bone a few feet and drops with a huff. She falls asleep watching The Young and the Restless.

Later still, a day-old chicken leg and boiled potato and broccoli on a plastic platter moves in front of her like it was Johnny's head, and she cries and sings and snakes it towards the microwave, kisses it farewell for the two minutes of separation.

He's got a lot of money. O.K. So which part of reality is that? The good stuff or to be dumped later? Stupid bitch, she thinks, her mouth full of potato, the chicken leg between thumb and forefinger tracing the path of revelation. You stupid bitch.

The phone rings: it's Johnny. Honey, he says hoarsely. Honey I miss you. Life without you is so empty.

And Muriel falls to her knees with guilt and aching. Oh Johnny, she says and cries.

What's the matter, Honey, he says and she says it's just that she misses him too much.

Tell me what you're wearing tell me slowly tell me everything.

This is the good part thinks Muriel closing her eyes. And the world splits in two and Johnny beckons her and the rest would have to wait. Oh, just one more time while she tastes this good part.

Where are you my love, my darling? she says.

Is it your blue dress?

Yesss...

Your hair....

Yesss...

Let it down. Let it loose. Stroke it for me.

Yesss... Slow as molasses, her tongue pulls back, she slithers, the telephone line like an umbilical cord between her legs. Her dress bunched around her waist. Johnny's voice like a breeze touching her. Here. And here.

The brights of a car light up the road outside, cut across the edge of the green tarp. Door slam, crunch of gravel, Killer growling, getting to his feet.

Johnny, she cries, I love you so. And she concentrates on this. Killer sniffing by the door, whining, back to Muriel, licking her cheek. And Muriel shaking her head.

Fluffy, she whimpers, hand over receiver. And Killer goes to the door again, presses his nose to a crack of air. Returns to Muriel, nudges her ear, her chin.

Love me hard says Johnny and she does and the air rustles softly and she cries silently clutching on to the receiver and to the good parts. Thinking this must be real because it makes her cry.

And the Goodnews Lady keeps knocking.

.........................................................Copyright © 2005 Merike Lugus

Merike Lugus
'SwallowHill', 1940 Hill 60 Rd., R.R.5
Cobourg, ON, K9A 4J8
Canada
merike@rodmer.com