Prologue

March, 2012

A gospel radio station in Eastern Kentucky is interrupted each Monday night by a man who smokes a pack a day, drives an Astro Van and has superstitions about white lighters. He never can decide what his DJ name should be. So he goes by his Christian name, the name his mother gave him: Hunter.

Now this is a gospel radio station, mind you. If Hunter is going to play songs no one wants to hear, then he must play them when everyone has gone to bed which means Hunter is tasked with lulling his home town to sleep with the best of the profane. 

If Jesus said love your neighbor, then Hunter says, love your neighbor’s music. So Hunter leaves no genre left behind. He finds notable connections between songs using guitarists, guitars, political history, artwork, cowbells, studio locations, films, dogs, myths, rumors and women. Especially women. “Everything leads back to a woman,” he says, at least three times a night. 

A college radio station in San Francisco invites him to guest-DJ for three days. His friend Frankie moved to San Francisco with a woman several years prior. California stuck but the woman didn’t, so Hunter has a place to stay. Despite his mother’s protests, Hunter drives for four days in his 1993 Astro Van, sleeping at rest stops on a mattress in the back. A cashier at a Flying J tells him he’s driving the 37th parallel across the country. Tells him to be careful: it’s some sort of paranormal highway.

Hunter is a bit disappointed when nothing happens, not even a late season snow storm. When he misses a turn and manages to drive into the city from the north, San Francisco greets him with stopped traffic on the Golden Gate bridge.

The traffic crawls forward to reveal two people pulled off on the side of the road. There is no fender bender, or emergency vehicles. Just two people embracing each other as their car sits, blocking two lanes, doors wide open. Ding Ding Ding.

“Hide and Seek” plays over Hunter’s radio. He has witnessed a movie scene in real life, no dialogue, just a vision with a soundtrack. It’s not paranormal by any means, but it is something. 

As he continues his drive, he tries to prepare for his guest spot. He really does. He makes audio notes of lyrics and guitar riffs on his phone. He plays a couple of songs over his car radio. But he loses focus every time a man sings about a woman. He wonders, are songs about women, written by men, the metaphorical rib plucked from their chest? Is it the man’s curse to take the best thing from them, and pluck it out? Over and over, for eternity?

He doesn’t prepare a playlist for his show. He decides to wing it. For him, working on the fly is a religious experience, a leap of faith and a public act of worship. Or maybe it is a taste of the forbidden fruit.

When he settles into the studio, his routine begins like a liturgy; adjusting first the headphones, then his seat and microphone. A tattoo on his hand says damn right, they’ll rise again. Is it a blatant prophecy? Or is it more like a wish made as a coin is tossed into a fountain, or a whispered prayer as his pointer finger hovers over the ON AIR button.

Regardless, the beginning of a story sneaks into the room with him.  It’s as if the theatre lights dim right in the middle of his young adult life. The curtains are drawn as he presses the button that sends his voice through the radio towers to the greater San Francisco area. A once-upon-a-time is stirred by the nervous bounce of his knee. An infant wind grows as the first song reverberates. West coast air becomes unstable, riding the coattails of a cold front. This eastward wind develops into a herd of tornadoes in the Ohio Valley region, where I am—where my soul is at stake.

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Track 1: She Don’t Use Jelly

New Year’s Eve, 2012

There is a receiving line through my apartment, like after a wedding ceremony, but instead of a newly married couple, it is only me and my unhappy ending. Which is funny because my name is Story.

“Free at last!” My roommate’s sister winks at me.

“Sweet freedom!” My roommate’s date tonight fist pumps the air.

The good intentioned cheers echo through our apartment which, thanks to my roommate, Jodie, has been converted into a chapel honoring the desecration of marriage—a ceremony of untying the knot. Everything unholy is lifted with praise and blessed with wine. The party hats celebrate how much fun it is to have forsaken my vows. The penis-shaped wine-glass charms symbolize both the shameful lack of vagina-shaped wine-glass charms and all the fornication I will commit guilt-free now that I am no longer “tied down.” Then, there is my wedding cake sitting on the Formica countertop, waiting for its fate. The plan is to light it on fire or blow it up: whatever a group of drunk adults can manage to do in the parking lot before the cops are called. It hasn’t done anything to deserve this: I am the hell-bound sinner.

I approach the freezer-burnt clump of buttercream icing, like it might shudder a breath of protest. The cake topper is M.I.A. but I remember what it looked like: two stock figures, one female, one male; one in white, one in black; not unlike Adam and Eve, formed from a mold that has been cast and cast and cast until the seam is visible and off by 2 millimeters. The two figures are skewed, their front sides not quite meeting up with their backsides. A flaw that is imperceptible to anyone who hasn’t photographed a hundred couples and their cake toppers like I have.

Where the topper was ripped off, the icing is missing. The cavity reveals a dry and crumbly cake interior. How has it not collapsed already? This thing will burn very quickly or not at all and I fear both outcomes.

There is something about the cake though, like a ghost of hope. It bubbles up in my gut like champagne, and with it, comes heat in my cheeks and thoughts of Hunter.

Hunter.

I laugh to myself as I recall two nights prior, only the second time we’d met. I was so surprised and nervous, I lied to him and said I was having a New Year’s Eve party. That he should come.

How ridiculous, to think he would either come to my New Year’s Eve party, or that he wouldn’t realize it was a divorce party the moment he walked in. I am still laughing at myself when a hand touches my shoulder.

“Story, are you okay?” Jodie asks, and only then do I realize my nose is inches from the cake on the counter.

I straighten my spine and lie. “Splendid.”

“You’re thinking about Hunter, aren’t you?” Jodie’s lips curve, all knowing. “Do you think he’ll show up?”

My smile dissolves, and I shake my head no.

“Why not?” Jodie pouts.

“Because only couples celebrate New Year’s Eve. Only couples kiss at midnight.” I count my fingers. “I had a one-night stand with him ten months ago. He’s not going to spend New Year’s Eve with me.”

“You are sooo superstitious,” she laughs. “You act like a kiss at midnight is some commitment to intertwined fates.”

“Or a curse,” I say, barely audible.

“Story.” Jodie clutches my shoulder and leans in. “I invited Paul. The beautiful but dumb vending machine stock-boy at my hotel. I am going to kiss him at midnight and then let him fuck me with my underwear still on, like high schoolers behind the bleachers. Will it be worth having to find a new vending stock-boy?” Jodie shrugs, her shoulders framing her coy smile.

I can imagine the sequence of events with ease. Paul, the sweetest, farm-raised gentleman, believing all night he is the luckiest man to be with the exotic woman that runs the nicest hotel in a small town. The woman with all the best beds. Jodie will tell him to pull on her rainbow tipped afro like bridle reins. She will say things like, harder, faster, and he will come too quickly because she is a lot to please—a quick burn.

I know this because the walls of our apartment are very thin.

“Maybe I don’t want another one-night stand,” I say.

“Ahhh,” Jodie clenches her fists as if she has finally unlocked my secret desires, “So, you want him to kiss you at midnight with meaning.”

“Slow down,” I say. “He is not going to come. Even if he were to, you’ve forgotten a little detail. This is my divorce party. Wouldn’t it be a bit of a turnoff if he shows up and finds out that I cheated on my husband with him, and I am celebrating that fact by blowing up my wedding cake?”

Jodie thinks very hard. “We’ll just say it’s my divorce party.”

I would entertain the idea, but her hat says Ding, Dong, the Dick is Gone. A laugh escapes me as a snort, and I confess, “He will think we hate men.” 

“Fine,” she says. “We will rip it all down and pretend that we like men. And marriage. We will be God-fearin’ women that make our daddies proud.”

We laugh because our fathers are alcoholics, ruined by patriarchy in the media and confused by the matriarchy of our rural heritage. The mothers form and shape this region. It is my mother who stays with my helpless father. It is she who ultimately helped me end my marriage—handed me the proverbial fruit.

I wonder what Hunter’s mother is like. She must be kind because Hunter is kind. Goodness like that must be passed on like recessive genes, like rewards for past lives. Such rewards are out of my reach. I am glad he’s not coming. I want my sacrilegious party. I want to have my cake and blow it up too. I have worked too hard to be distracted by some shiny man-toy with soft hands and kind eyes and a soul that radiates a heat that melts the glaciers from the grooves in my clavicles.

“Hey.” Paul approaches, gesturing with his hand. “Want me to get it?”

“What?” Jodie asks. Suddenly the music and the hum of conversation is loud and it is hard to hear Paul.

“The door. Someone is at the door.” Paul shakes his finger toward the entrance to our apartment. “Want me to get it for you?”

The shadow of a figure stands outside the frosted glass of our front door.

Jodie’s eyes widen as they look at me. I am not surprised when she dips into her country accent. “Well, hell-fire!”

My wide eyes on Jodie tell her I don’t believe what is happening. 

Jodie is practically dancing on her toes.

“We have to—” I manage to say, but I am all nerves, the good and the bad—the raw and the numb.

“I know.” Jodie claps her hands as she walks backwards away from me.

“Jodie—” but my thoughts race and when they aren’t forced through my vocal cords they choke me.

“I know, destroy all evidence,” she says as she shoots double finger-guns at me.

Jodie whispers instructions to our guests. I witness banners ripped from the walls. The wedding cake is wrapped in aluminum foil and crammed into the freezer. Jodie runs hot water over penis shaped ice cubes. There is a moment in the mad rush that Jodie laughs and waves me over to watch with her as the testicles shrivel in the sink.

Our doorbell rings again. Our apartment goes silent. Everyone looks at me. My pulse is in my ears and it is slow, like I am fading. My heart is not keeping up. I am light headed, and I feel a turbulence in my stomach going the wrong way up my esophagus. I barely make it to the bathroom and lift the toilet seat. When I throw up, it is fast and effortless like an exorcism. Carlo Rossi sangria wine mixes with a handful of crackers. It looks back at me like a tea-leaf reading. Burgundy shapes morph, float, and sink into the toilet bowl. I have a vision of falling into darkness, beneath the surface of the earth. I know with out knowing, Hell is coming for me. I am tangled up with blue….Wait. Blue? What in Hell is blue?

The vision disappears, leaving only the pungent remains of my stomach.

When there is a knock on the bathroom door, it is Jodie. I sense Hunter is somewhere on the other side of the door, in our apartment, looking at our secondhand couch, our cardboard coffee table, our stained carpet, peeking into my bedroom at my unmade bed. I flush the toilet as Jodie slips into the bathroom with me.

She is quiet as I stare forward at a tray of nick-nacks on the back of the toilet. I pick up a seashell. When I rub my thumb across it, I still find sand. When I hold it to my ears, I hear the sound that I have always confused for the ocean. Now I know it is the sound of the wind at the top of a fifty-foot cliff, carrying the echo of traffic crossing a bridge in the distance. I close my eyes and remember Hunter faintly lit by a cell phone, his previously combed over hair falling into his face, like an off duty altar boy, naked, smelling of sex—sex with me—and he is playing me love songs through his car radio.

“You know what I think your problem is?” 

Jodie’s question brings me back to our dingy bathroom, and I return the shell to its tray.

“I think you’re afraid of something good happening to you. You’re afraid he wants to kiss you at midnight and he wants it to mean something too.”

“Well, if he kisses me now, I’m afraid I’m going to taste like vomit.” I push myself up to my feet and turn to the sink. I do not recognize myself in the mirror. My hair, once bright tangerine, is now faded like a reheated fish stick. My skin glistens in post-vomit sweat and my lips are chapped.

Jodie hands me a jar of Vaseline. I apply it to my lips and the glossy sheen only adds to my feverish look, like death is around the corner, like my soul is at stake. I can’t shake the feeling that bad things are gonna happen. My doctor’s advice is to focus on my breathing, eat better, drink more water, and stretch a little. I don’t know how a healthy diet can make me a good person. Obviously, my doctor can’t save my soul.

“Is he inside?” I ask Jodie.

Her smile tells me yes.

“How much of the divorce party did he see?”

“None,” she says, her smile widening as she looks at me.

“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“You’re stalling,” Jodie says.

I am stalling. I am not quite ready to leave the bathroom and face the only mistake I don’t regret this year.

“He cleans up nice,” Jodie says. “When we saw him on stage, I thought, yeah he looks like he lives in a van. But now? Now I’m not so sure he couldn’t run for mayor. That boy has come dressed to impress.”

I ask her, “What does that mean?”

She nods to the door. I crack it open and scan the apartment. When I find Hunter, my breath catches. He is in a suit and tie with his hair combed over. He holds a bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. He looks like he has been cast from a goddamn wedding cake topper.

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