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  JOY, PA

  YELLOW SHOE FICTION

  Michael Griffith, Series Editor

  JOY, PA A Novel

  STEVEN SHERRILL

  LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS BATON ROUGE

  Published by Louisiana State University Press

  Copyright © 2015 by Steven Sherrill

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  LSU Press Paperback Original

  First printing

  Designer: Barbara Neely Bourgoyne

  Typeface: Sina Nova

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sherrill, Steven, 1961–

  Joy, PA : a novel / Steven Sherrill.

  pages ; cm. — (Yellow shoe fiction)

  “LSU Press paperback original.”

  ISBN 978-0-8071-5956-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5957-6 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5958-3 (epub) — ISBN 978-0-8071-5959-0 (mobi) 1. Dysfunctional families—Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.H4349J69 2015

  813’.54—dc23

  2014026204

  The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

  Dedicated to Harold Camping

  Born: July 19, 1921

  Died: December 15, 2013

  Contents

  Day 1

  Day 2

  Day 3

  Acknowedgements

  JOY, PA

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

  This is how many times we stab her.

  DAY 1

  ∀

  “Willie. Get up. Kneel down. Put your hands like this.”

  Abigail Augenbaugh pulls the covers back, takes the boy’s thighs, turns his reluctant body. He’s almost too big.

  “No, Mama.” He curls tight. Tries to cover himself.

  “Get up, Willie. There’s not much time. The man says we have to pray. We have to beseech the Lord.”

  Abigail Augenbaugh wants nothing more than to beseech the Lord. But she doesn’t know how to beseech. Abigail Augenbaugh tries anyway.

  She positions the boy by the Spiderman bed, kneels there with him. Puts her hand on the back of his neck and lets a lifetime, generations even, of living in Joy, PA, living in the unrelenting shadow of Scald Mountain, press down upon him.

  “Pray like this,” she says.

  ≠

  “OK, Mama. I’ll do it, Mama.”

  She’s behind me. Pressing down. I’ll do it. I will. I’ll pray, like she says. Like the man says. I want to go to Heaven too. Mama is going to Heaven. The man is taking Mama. I don’t want to stay behind.

  “Tell me what to do, Mama. Show me how.”

  I talk and talk, but she can’t hear me.

  “Mama?

  “Mama?

  “I want to go with you. To Heaven, Mama. Please! Can you hear me?”

  ∀

  There are words in Abigail’s mouth. Words in her ears. But the bells take over. Three churches stand within sight of the house, and at the end of the block the courthouse clock tower rises into a tepid May night. Its moonish, glowing face looms over the street. Could be beautiful. The bells take over. There is a minute hand hanging limp, for years, and a dagger-ish hour hand that drags like the tongue of a stroke victim. There are three churches, and their denominational bell clappers argue over the exactitude of the hours. It’s hard to know what time it is.

  But the man says, Soon. The man on the radio says three days.

  Abigail Augenbaugh prays. There are words in her mouth and ears. The boy prays too. Or maybe he doesn’t. The bells take over. They stop. They ring forever.

  “Did you pray, Willie? The man says we have to beseech the Lord. Did you beseech?”

  “I did, Mama. I beseeched.”

  Abigail Augenbaugh tucks the boy in. It’s an awkward, unfamiliar gesture. She’s done all that she can do now. It’s too late for the other things, the unfulfilled dreams. No scrapbooking courses at the community college, where she might meet new friends, maybe even begin hosting Pampered Chef and Ooh-La-La Lingerie parties at the house. No birthday parties for all the kids at Slinky Action Zone. Too late. Too late.

  Abigail crosses the cramped hallway, closes her bedroom door, looks out the window, across the street, through a high wrought-iron fence, to where the town’s oldest cemetery climbs the town’s steepest hill. She tries to imagine the dead rising up from their graves. They will. The man says so. She tries to imagine Joy destroyed by the wave of earthquakes and fire that will sweep across the planet soon. She tries to imagine the absence. Abigail’s mind is not up to the task. She takes the calendar from the top of her dresser—the calendar she got free from the Humane Society—steadies her hand, and makes a jagged .

  Three days remaining before the Rapture. Judgment Day. Or is it the Apocalypse? Abigail feels unprepared. The man on the radio says, from the mouth of God Himself comes the knowledge, that as the dinner hour marches in longitudinal increments around the globe the earth will shake and crack open. The True Believers will be caught up with the Lord. As for the rest, she can’t bear to think of what will happen to those billions of people not fortunate enough to have been chosen by God.

  Abigail Augenbaugh wants to be among those, the chosen. She’ll do whatever it takes.

  The boy prayed. Abigail made sure of it. Is there more to be done? The man on the radio says all come, wrecked and wicked, from the womb. There are no guarantees. The boy prayed. Abby was there.

  There is a husband, in the basement. He never prays. Abigail is certain. Her husband lives in the basement. Abigail knows he’s there, knows he’s alive, because he curses and talks. There was a time when she would go down to him. There was a time when she wanted to. No more. There is no more time. The boy prayed. That’s what is important.

  Abigail wants to go back to the boy. To her son. Across the hall. She doesn’t.

  Three days.

  Pray. Pray without ceasing.

  Abigail Augenbaugh, overcome, retches. Vomits into a small trash can, wipes her mouth, lies back on the bed, waits for the dizziness to pass. Waits for a message. A sign. Waits for it all to be over.

  ≠

  “I did, Mama. I beseeched.”

  I take my lie to bed. I hold it tight. The lie throbs against my chest. Bores into my skin. Mama’s in her bedroom. She’s listening to the radio. She’s crying. I’m hungry. I’m sick. My lie makes me sick. I didn’t pray. I didn’t beseech the Lord. Mama is going to Heaven without us. Mama will look down, from way up there, in Heaven. She’ll see us, me and Daddy, down here. We’ll look up, look for her face. Mama. She’ll be in Heaven.

  I’m hungry. Sick. I want to try again. I want to pray with Mama and beseech the Lord.

  I go to her door. I go quietly. No one can hear me move. I am Ghost Boy. I am Stealth. I go to the door. Her door is closed. I squat there, against it. I hear everything.

  ∀

  I tremble, and I’m sure that many other people are trembling when we think that we’re only a few days from that tremendous Day of Judgment that the world has been waiting for thirteen thousand years, knowing that someday, someday, there would be an end. All mankind knows that deep in their heart because everyone is created in the image of God and has the Law of God written on their heart, that they’re sinners intuitively; they know they have to answer to God for their sins; they know there’s finally going to come a time of reckoning, and it’s all pointing to near the end of time. In your rebellion you have not become a child of God … you are left behind … you are sentenced to the rest of the J
udgment … you will die, and millions of people will probably die that very first day because of the stupendous earthquakes that will be all over the world in that twenty-four-hour period.

  The man talks of the graves opening up, and his voice is sonorous and wet. The man talks of untold suffering, of cataclysmic destruction, of unprecedented death, and his phlegmy, grandfatherly confidence comforts Abigail. But she is confused. How will the bodies of all the unsaved dead fit on the surface of the earth? What will all those bodies and bones look like? Will they wander around, befuddled? Baffled by their awakening? Will they speak? Moan? Stink?

  Abigail sobs quietly. She hears the boy, Willie, outside the bedroom door. She hears his breath. He breathes his whole ten years of living in and out with every lungful. The boy would’ve been eleven years old next month. Abigail tries to come to terms with all the life he’s going to miss. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. She knows she ought to go to the door, to let the boy, her son, in, to take him in bed, put her arms around him, tell him all about Heaven. Pretend, for his sake. Or believe, even. Abby doesn’t know the difference. She knows only what she is told. What the man on the radio tells.

  We’ll worship and serve the Lord, all day, all night, forever.

  She ought to stroke his head, to kiss his cheek, to calm his fears. But that is not the kind of mother Abigail Augenbaugh knows how to be. They prayed together. She made sure of that much. They’ll pray together tomorrow, and pray again the next day, as the Rapture draws nigh. That’s the best she can do. She’ll do as the man on the radio instructs. To come broken and contrite, to beseech the merciful and compassionate God. Abigail turns away from the sounds of Willie at the door, turns up the volume.

  Sometimes I get calls asking about after Judgment Day begins, what about these buildings here and what about that, and what about that? They’re not listening. When Judgment Day comes, there’s not going to be buildings. Everything’s going to be flattened; there’s going to be a huge, huge earthquake; it’s not going to be business as usual at all, not at all. It is the end of the world. Even the mountains will be cast down and the land removed out of its place. It’s going to be super, super horror. The true believers will see it all. We don’t know just how it’s going to work out. God doesn’t give us all the details. Then everything’s going to be annihilated and never be remembered again. And the whole business of what happened on earth will be gone. It will never, never come to anybody’s memory again. It will be totally gone.

  ≠

  I lied. God knows it. God knows everything. Beginning and end. God will take Mama, will leave me and Daddy here. Mama is crying. The man on the radio talks about the Bible coming straight from the lips of holy God. It must’ve been like comic-book talk. Big white bubbles full of words, falling out of Heaven. Crushing everything. How big are God’s lips? Does God have teeth? Does he have old-man breath? The man on the radio talks about the graves opening up. There is a graveyard across the street. I see it from my bedroom window. The man talks about dead people coming up out of the ground. About live people flying up to Heaven. I lied. I did not beseech, and now Mama will fly up to Heaven, and I’ll stay behind and the dead people will come after me.

  Mama is in the bed crying. We prayed. I lied to her. I have to be strong. I have to pray again. By myself. I’ll beseech the Lord. I wish I knew how. I open my mouth to try, but my words are not like prayers. They spill off my tongue like ball bearings. They clatter across the floor. They roll under the radiators. I don’t want Mama to hear. I have to be strong. I have to be brave. I go to the laundry hamper. I dump it out. I dig through the dirty clothes, find my Spiderman pajamas. I don’t care how they smell. I don’t care how old they are. I change. I push my legs and arms through the tight holes. I have to be strong. Brave.

  I go downstairs. By myself. I open the basement door. Daddy’s there. I’m not allowed in. He’s down there on the couch, swimming in the blue-green TV light. Words and sounds gurgle up into my ears, but I don’t understand them. I want to go down into his blue-green light. I want to curl up against Daddy and tell him about my lie. I am not allowed in. My lie burns in my belly. I shut the door. I open the refrigerator. I swim in the yellow light. I swim in the emptiness. In the cabinet I find a handful of cereal in the bottom of a box. I choke it down. I have to be brave. Strong.

  I hear something. I hear everything. It’s outside. I go outside. Through the front door. I pass right through the wood and glass. I hear the neighbors. The stupid little girl laughs from the second floor. I go between the houses. They stand close. I am a knife blade between them. I am not scared. It’s dark outside. I am outside. I see the light in their kitchen. I stand on the trash can and look in the window. I see their supper table. I can almost reach in and take the salt shaker. It’s shaped like a donkey. I hear bathwater running. I hear the girl laugh overhead. Like she’s in Heaven. Stupid girl. My foot slips. I fall. The trash can tips; its aluminum lid rattles on the sidewalk. I am brave. I am strong. I hear the quiet in the house. I hear the back door slam open. I press my body against the foundation of the house. Feel the cool cinderblocks thorough my Spiderman shirt. I become darkness. I become night. I will not be captured. Any second, I can blaze, become the mighty Fist of Destruction. I will not be taken alive. I will pound them all into a bloody mess. I wait. My lie pulses deep inside me.

  I hear the man shout as he goes back into the house.

  “Goddamn raccoons!”

  I am strong. I am brave. I see the Happy Meal bags spilling from the trash can. Like answers to a prayer. Inside, I find some French fries, slick with ketchup, and a piece of cheeseburger wadded up in a napkin. I find a juice box. Like answers to a prayer. I take it. I take it all, sit on the front steps of my own dark house. I look up and down the sidewalk, the street, at all the old houses. Over the roofs, the dark hump of the mountain blocks most of the moon. I can smell the paper mill, like rotten eggs. I can hear the wheels of train cars screaming. Screaming. Just like every other night. The man on the radio says it’ll all be gone in two days. I eat and drink slowly, taking the tiniest bites possible, the tiniest sips possible. I can make the meal last forever if I try.

  You hear the boy stomping around upstairs. Always stomping around upstairs. Where the hell is the wife? Somewhere in the house, but you can’t say for sure where. She’s been disappearing for years. By now the woman is nearly transparent. She ought to keep the boy quiet. She knows better.

  You turn the TV volume all the way up because you like to hear the solid thwack of the tee shots and the little pop when the putter strikes the ball. You can only watch so much porn. You can only play so much video golf. But you can’t stop either.

  Where the hell is the wife? The boy? You can’t remember when you last saw them. But you know they’re up there, stomping around in the night. You ought to go up there. You ought to get your fat ass off the couch, take it upstairs and straighten things out. But you don’t. Man up!

  What the fuck. You don’t.

  You sit on the couch. You lie on the couch. You jab at the remote, switching back and forth between the Masters Historic Edition and Ass Parade. Heaven lies somewhere between the twelfth hole at Augusta and those white panties. You do this all night. Every night.

  Outside, a tractor-trailer Jake-brakes its way down Scald Mountain; the diesel scream rips open the quiet. The quiet is what gets to you. You’re grateful for the truck, but then it’s gone. Inside, every goddamn lunatic notion that squeaks into existence takes hold of your mind and lights it up like a pinball machine. Tilt. Tilt. Tilt. They tell you to take the pills, so you take the pills. Half a dozen pills, three times a day, every day. They tell you the pills will stop the thoughts from ricocheting around your brain. They tell you the pills will help you sleep. They tell you the pills will make you happier. Or, at least, not so mad. They lie. They don’t tell you the pills will make you fat, will stop you up so that you only shit once a week if you’re lucky, will shrivel your dick and pinch the head off the ti
ck that is your sex drive. They don’t tell you that the sleep you get isn’t quite sleep. It’s like trying to swim in a big vat of molasses. You don’t sleep at night. Too risky. Too quiet. So you lie on the old couch you dragged to the basement, you lie there fat, constipated, exhausted, impotent, barely able to move.

  You got the three-year-old Xbox from the boy. He cried. You took it anyway. Man up! Don’t be such a pussy. You might have stolen the PGA Tour game, the Masters Historic Edition. You can’t remember. You watch porn, the same tired DVDs again and again. You mute the movies so you don’t have to listen to them talk. Moan. The moans embarrass you. Sometimes the wife comes to the basement to do laundry. You turn up the volume when she comes down. Deeper, big boy. Stick it in! You haven’t seen her in a long time. You haven’t seen anybody in a long time. You don’t care. Not enough, anyway. You lie on the couch and watch porn. Hopefully. You can’t sleep. You don’t sleep on an old couch in the basement of a rented house. You don’t own anything real. Anything except your club. Big Bertha. You keep Big Bertha under the couch where you can reach her. You’ve had her for years. Long before you enlisted. Long before you got married. You keep Big Bertha polished—with her graphite shaft and titanium head—and within reach. You can’t concentrate. Polishing the club helps you concentrate.

  There is a boy upstairs. The boy is your son. The word swells in your mouth. Clots on your tongue. You don’t remember how or when you brought the couch down. There are no windows in the basement. The cement floor and cinderblock walls hold in the damp cool air, and keep out the desert.

  ≠

  I want my birthday. I don’t want the world to end.

  From the lips of God. From the belly of the earth.

  I heard him say it. I heard him say it. I lied to Mama. I lied to the man on the radio. I lied to God. I don’t want a Rapture. I want my birthday. I’ll be eleven. I’ll ask for a new Game Boy.

  ∀

  Abigail Augenbaugh prays herself to sleep. The woman is exhausted. There are no dreams, for better or worse. Neither memory nor prophesy can conquer her fatigue. She doesn’t dream of the pale wash of light on her bedroom wall, from the streetlamps around the graveyard, light that gets sliced into thinner and thinner strips as she closes the blinds. She doesn’t dream of what’s beyond those blinds: row after cramped row, street after narrow street, of two-story plank houses—some over a century old; the courthouse at one end of the block and at the other the Presbyterian steeple and its derelict manse. She doesn’t dream of the weedy yards or sagging front porches, or the faded plethora of tattered American flags hanging from rusty brackets or roped to banisters, left over from the fervently marketed War on Terror. Not tonight.