Good-bye, Audrey

By Jonah Rye

-- She'd break out the jug, her homemade gin – 'thimble-full won't hurt' – set two shot glasses on the counter and fill them to the brim, 'neat.' He'd raise his glass to her, 'Prost.' 'Prost,' she'd say and they'd knock them back and slam the glasses down on the counter. God's fire wrapped him up and burned all the way down. 'You don't need a wash with that, do ya?' He was speechless at the counter, burning. 'Nah. That's a good boy.' --

The short fiction of Jonah Rye. Tales contemporary and historical, of harmony and tragedy, discord and comedy, purgatory and hell. Love and murder.

-- Skinny girl with fine flyaway hair cut close, tiny topknot tied with blue ribbon, sits cross-legged in the yard, holds up pop-eyed mop-haired yellow pup in front of her. Pup's head is cocked, ears pricked up, tiny topknot of fur tied with blue ribbon. Sunny summer day, smell of fresh-cut grass. Skinny girl and pop-eyed pup look up, smile. --

Includes: What I Mean -- Rightly -- Cock and Bull -- Teacher -- Romantic -- So Damn Fat -- Lonnie's Divorce -- Tradition -- Waiting -- Kid at Play -- Poop Jewelry -- Year of Misfortune -- Promise -- Prevention -- Exhibition -- Beach -- Debt

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonah Rye
• Release date: Jun 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463634103

Jonah Rye

Jonah Rye is the author of Dhamma, the novel, and Good-Bye, Audrey. He writes from Southeast Asia and the US west coast.

Book preview

What I Mean?

She was astonished. ‘That girl, I swear. Another job. Another boyfriend.’ Her eyes sparkled, she beamed, talking to a spot out in the middle of the hall, a spot a little above the sea of empty blue seat-pods. She tilted her head and chuckled.

Beside her in his pod, the man leaned elbows on knees. Through drooping eyelids he stared.

She looked out, directed her words out at the spot, tipped her head, flashed and blinked her glittering eyes. She could hardly believe her own words.

The man shifted, sat back in his pod, slid to slouched.

Bright and cheerful, eyes round with wonder, she talked on, tilted her head, blinked and glittered and nodded at the spot, ‘What I mean?’

He withered.

She laughed at the folly of her foolish girlfriend, enrapt at her own telling of it.

He slumped, his legs thrown out before him, head back to the wall, forearm flung over his face.

Enthralled, she talked on.

He sank.

Under a load of packages and luggage, a lady stumbled in. She tumbled her burden into a couple pods and dropped herself into one. With a long sigh, she deflated. She glanced at her travel documents, looked around, collected herself.

Wonder-struck, girl-woman turned, took her in, looked her over, checked her out. The man sank, head and shoulders up, the rest of his parts spilled out before him, at bay.

The lady reached into a paper bag. ‘You know,’ she turned to them, ‘my husband bought this. I don’t drink and he’s in Singapore.’

The man slid up in his pod, pushed himself to upright. Girl-woman watched the lady.

‘I don’t need to carry it. I think it’s very good. He paid quite a lot for it. Sipping whisky, he said. He just opened it yesterday.’ She turned the label to the man sitting tall, feet planted. ‘Would you like it?’ She extended it to him.

It was an object of distinction, ornate, sculpted of heavy glass deep red. Embossed leaden seal proclaimed its good name. He held it up. ‘Never heard of it.’ Turned it. ‘Yeah, OK. I’ll take it.’

The lady handed him the paper bag. He wrapped the bottle in it, laid the package in his backpack. He rose, got up out of his pod and strode out. Girl-woman sat in awe, struck dumb.

He came back with Coke and mashed ice in a tall red plastic cup from McDonald’s, poured half the Coke into the trash, and sat down. He tumbled three-four-five ounces of whisky out of the paper bag into the cup. The cup glistened with sweat. He held it up, took a drink.

The lady sat in the midst of her things, arranging. The man leaned back and sighed, looked at his woman. ‘Yeah,’ he smiled, ‘that girl. I sure thought her and Tony would get it together.’

She beamed, eyes wide, glittering with love for this man, her man, who she beheld. Well pleased, she turned to the spot out in the middle of the hall. ‘She is a piece of work,’ she beamed. ‘I love her like my sister, but sometimes–’

He took a big drink and settled back in his pod.

Romantic

Two tumblers of Yellow Label steamed on the table.

His face was boy-smooth, bushy hair steel wool grey, eyeglasses thick, his expression wonder, wide-eyed wonder. In a cafe beside dusty dirt road, downtown, city wrought from the jungle, city of patchwork rooftops – red and bronze ceramic tile, blue and green and striped plastic, rusty corrugated metal – and, rising above, gold-tiled pagoda rooftops dusky with smoke and time, long curved wooden tendrils at their peaks, long curved fingertips of angels curling in an arc to Heaven. Bitter smoke from a million cook fires mingled with the exhaust of a million motorbikes and cars and trucks and factories, cast a haze over the kingdom. Hot day in a cafe half the world around from the steel and haze and concrete jungle of metro LA.

He had a habit, a tic, putting his hand to his mouth, cupping his hand, to share a secret – just between you and me. It was chronic, how he punctuated his sentences. But he cupped at the center of his mouth, dividing his words – half of what he said was privileged, for you alone, and half not directed at all, but spilling out into the atmosphere to mingle with the haze.

My lesson of love, he cupped, unrequited love. Love refused. Long lost. Didn’t have much money, he cupped. I decided to get on Trailways, take a tour of the country. You know, not a truth exactly, but certainly a setting. The great American road trip – on the bus, he cupped, grinned, beamed a boy's joy. The bus!

This would give me time to let it all sink in. He cupped. Of course I’d had time already, already savored that loss sweet sublime and mingled still with hope, hope that rose as I headed west. Got to thinking we might yet have a chance. Resolved, he cupped and smiled, I'd look her up. He looked down. She already dumped me once to go back to the boyfriend two thousand miles away, he cupped, the abusive boyfriend. Now I'm going to walk into her apartment a year later, that she shares with the abusive boyfriend, and I’m still smarting, still smitten, and I’m going to take her away with me. And she’s going to come.

But not in tight hip-hugging jeans and loose blouse that she wore in our summer of love in Milwaukee. First I saw her in California, Glendale, she was in brown and beige, he cupped. Walking home from work, trudging through the heat. From Big Boy.

Home of – the Big Boy.

And, he cupped, Dolly.

Fish and chips with real cod, man. And vinegar. Milkshakes and malts, thick, and real ice cream. That burger was a killer, but pretty darn good fish and chips. They go out of business?

Restructured, he sighed. It was over. They met me in their living room. He frowned and cupped, they. Both of them. Very civil. Lemonade, cookies. Then I left . . . never touched . . .

In a cafe at the side of dirt road, downtown, city in the jungle. Two more tumblers of Yellow Label.

Get back on the bus. Away from California. Give me time to let it sink in. He cupped, Love lost, stewing on the bus. You know this is why Joyce left Dublin. Because of love. Never went back. And taught, eyes big, finger raised, English! He grinned wide, having driven and won his point.

Others took to alcohol. Drugs. Madness.

I got on the bus, he cupped, with two books. Slaughterhouse Five and Gideon's Bible.

Classic. Road trip with totems. Kurt, King James and the Silver Eagle.

Traveling cross-country. Way across country. Late autumn, he cupped, Wyoming, snow is flying, sky grey and close, you could touch it. He cupped, earnest, Visibility was two car lengths, snow blowing and swirling over black highway, piling up and drifting. They closed the interstate, police turned everybody back. He scowled, We spent all day, cupping, in the bus station in Sheridan, Wyoming.

They routed us south, through Texas. San Antonio. My grampa lived there, he cupped. I could stop and see him. He lived with us when I was a kid, and we were very close. I was his favorite of all the grandchildren, he grinned, cupping. Told me not to tell the others, make them jealous. Said I’d be well provided for, write my own ticket, he cupped. I believed him.

Grampa moved south, he cupped, to get away from the winters.

I cashed in my ticket and called him. Getting dark, and cold, didn’t know anybody in San Antonio, cupping, in Texas.

Not really a state, Texas.

Not really in the US.

Never took to the idea of Union. Just going along with it, for now.

It's a republic, he grinned. Texas, he beamed, and cupped, is Texas!

So I called him. Let it ring a long time.

Hello!

Hi. Grampa!

Silence.

Hello! He's yelling, and the TV is roaring, he cupped, like it had to be in on the conversation.

Hi, Grampa! It’s Homer! he grinned, anticipated.

Homer! He was mad, he cupped, dismayed. Now who in the hell–!

Eyes down, thoughtful, he cupped, It's Homer.

Yeah, I heard! Homer who?! I'm gonna hang up!!

Homer. Your grandson.

Homer!? He has to shout over the TV. Yeah! What do you want?!

I’m in San Antonio. At the Trailways–

Yeah!?

I’m here, in San Antonio. At the bus–

Yeah! I heard! he cupped. What do you want?!

I was thinking I’d – it’s Homer, your grandson, you know–

I know! I know!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?!

Can I come see you?

Silence. Dead silence. Except for the TV raging.

Come here?! He's raging, over the TV. Aw, dammit! Goddammit!!

Lips tight together, he cupped, Right over the phone.

Aw, Christ. I don’t know. Later, maybe, next week. In the afternoon. You call me! Gimme a little goddam warning! Couple-three weeks would be better. Fuck! Fuck!!

And he hung up, he beseeched, cupped, he just hung up on me.

He frowned, blinked.

I spent the night in the Trailways bus station. San Antonio. In Texas.

Rightly

They ate breakfast together, like every day. End of the dry season, they had their meals under the house, among the wooden stilts that, in the wet season, held their home above the cold grey lapping water. Sitting together on warm packed dirt, sheltered from the searing sun by the wooden floor of their grey wooden home, they ate rice soup with a few vegetables and small pieces of fish stirred in. Finished with dirty tea. Then he got up to go. Like every day.

But this day was different.

The children, too young for school, were old enough to help grandfather with his work. They toiled and played all day under the sun, their skin burned dark as the tough hard buffalo they rode and trod upon. Their black hair gleamed like their mother’s. Mother worked with them, tending the buffalo, feeding a few pigs, stooping and kneeling in the rice, bowing in the rice.

Mother finished school when she was thirteen, old enough to read and write and entice boys, and continued to work keeping her parents’ house, scrubbing the floors, cooking and serving and cleaning up, washing clothes, ironing sewing patching, stooping and bowing in the rice, preparing for her life with a husband. The choice of Ananda worked out for both sets of parents, who had arranged the marriage, and he was a perfect choice for her, too. They loved each other and laughed together often. He respected her, treated her as his partner in the marriage, heeded her counsel and her cautions. She was devoted to him, took him to her heart, loved and trusted him. He was a good man, devoted husband and father who took good care of his family. Ananda wanted different for his children, both of them, but especially for his daughter, their first. Not the traditional path: leave school early, marry early, whelp a brood early and many, go to work every day stooping in the rice.

So, after their daughter came, he went to live and study in the capital fifteen, twenty, twenty-five hours by bus away. He stayed in the pagoda and attended the government university. He worked in the pagoda and at hotel and restaurant jobs and, with good English skills, led occasional walking tours for tourists – occasional because guides at the tourist sites formed cartels and freelancers like Ananda had to hire the guides or pay them off, or suffer the consequences.

Ananda stayed five years, living on little and with little to send home, able to get back to his family only two times a year, at the Harvest Festival and the New Year. They missed him, mother and daughter, and wept, soft, every time he left. He missed them fiercely and could not sleep for weeks every time he returned to the capital.

He found a mentor, a countryman who had become an American and a professor and dean at an American university. The professor had come back to his homeland to give back, to help his country grow healthy. He had begun to despair, all but given up hope, when he met Ananda. They worked hard together, teacher and protégé.

Ananda was a good student, enthusiastic, always prepared. He never missed a class. The professor found ways to bypass, or pay, the fees and bribes for Ananda to secure his degree. He offered to help Ananda get to America for graduate work, but, facing the vast distance of time and space without his wife and child, and a baby on the way, Ananda turned him down. His family needed him and he longed to be home with them. Ananda resolved to go back to his province, back home, to work to save his country and help his children get a good start, help especially his daughter to complete her education and go on to university. Maybe she would attend the American university in the capital, the university that His Excellency Dr Dhamma, the Minister of Justice, had founded and now presided over. If she worked hard and did well, and they paid the fees for tutoring and grades, she could get a scholarship. She should have meaningful fruitful work, work that would help to save and raise their country, work she could undertake with dignity. In a marriage of honor and love.

He’d been back home, back with the family, since the birth of their son. He took his work very seriously.

He got up to go, smiled back at them, smiled at her, loving patient wife, at his daughter grown to girlhood without him, so much growing up already gone, at his son, just an infant with so much growing before him. They needed him. He protected them and kept them safe. His love and