Welcome to Grayville

Chapter 1: Jay Unfolds Jay Mantra likes it rough in bed, but he never gets it rough. He’s lucky to get Becky to suck his c**k, if anyone really wants to know the f*****g truth. And for this to happen, he has to: Let her go shopping without bitching at her. Watch the kids for an entire weekend while she goes to the spa with her best friend, Winnie. Cook for a week. Clean the house from top to bottom. Leave her alone while she’s watching The Bachelor. Never interrupt her while she’s telling one of her f*****g boring stories. Grocery shop. Do laundry. And complete the Honey Do-List hanging on the refrigerator, which doesn’t include her tight cunt that he likes so much. He has no interest in Rebecca Lynn Mantra, though, not for six months now. It’s almost hate he has for his wife. Real hate. Dark hate. The twelve-year-old marriage is failing both of them rather unexpectedly, and easily. * * * * Becky thinks: If Jay doesn’t pick up his socks, I’m going to choke him with them. Think Desperate Housewives. Think CSI. Think Criminal Minds. When they first were married did he pick up after himself? She knew he didn’t. And now he doesn’t. Why would she think he would? Empty bottles of Bud Lite in the living room. Tom Perrotta novel sitting in the bathroom. Unmade bed, again. DVDs scattered all over the floor in the media room. Dirt in the toilet that he never cleans. Laundry in the basket that needs folding. Dishes in the sink that need to be rinsed and placed in the Whirlpool. Eight million other things that he doesn’t accomplish. She thinks about the dirty socks on the bedroom floor. A left one. A right one. Are all husbands this way? * * * * It’s Grayville, he thinks. Miserable Grayville. The cycle goes on and on and on and on— Driving Matty to school in the morning. Going to work and dealing with a bunch of f****d up losers who need punched in their ridiculous faces. Endless amounts of papers pushed from one side of his desk to the other. Insurance s**t. Nothingness. One match can take care of it all. Poof. Picking up Matty from school. Driving Matty to hockey practice. Waiting for Matty. Driving Matty home. Eating the same shitty meals day after day after day after— Listening to The b***h go on and on and on and on about her day; suffering in her own little Grayville, no doubt. TV time. Beer time. Bedtime. The cycle is damning. And all he wants (cross his fingers and hope to die, stick a needle in his eye) is for a waitress, stripper, bank teller, or cupcake maker to suck his c**k, at least once this year. Probably isn’t going to happen, though. Is it? Afraid not. Get over it, pal. Join every other husband on the f*****g recycling planet. * * * * Becky finds all of his porn: a hundred or more filthy DVDs in a box in the basement. Titles she can’t even dream of reading. Movies she wouldn’t be caught dead watching. Horrendous movies about nurses, baristas, actresses, flight attendants, women in the military, female cops, and disgusting teachers. Women who look cheap and easy, w***e-like, slutty, and are always naked. Whores, unchristian woman, and sinners. She finds a hefty bag and fills it full of his movies, totes the bag out to the curb because tomorrow is garbage day once again. Tossing a few of Jay’s things out. Or maybe tossing Jay out. This causes Becky to smile. In fact, her world lights up a bit like evening stars around the sun; something that makes life a pinch tasteful. * * * * On Saturdays Jay doesn’t sleep in. He gets out of bed by eight o’clock, drinks two cups of coffee in the kitchen, reads the morning paper, and— She gets up, finds him in the kitchen, and starts to talk, even when he doesn’t want to hear her talk. The b***h talks about a honey-do list: cut the grass, Jay; clean the garage out, Jay; wash the cars, Jay; fix the front door so it doesn’t fall off its hinges, Jay; give the dog a bath, Jay… What he’d like to really do: slam his fist down the back of her f*****g cunt throat so she shuts the f**k up, so he won’t have to listen to her another second, minute, hour, day in his life. But no, he’s calm, collected, and perfectly sane in Grayville (population one), and he simply says, “Yes, dear. Figure all of those things done.” * * * * Becky thinks about having an affair on her husband. Some twenty-year-old college student and mechanic flirts with her when she takes her Honda to get new brakes and an oil change. Tuckie Brice is the kid’s name. Half her age. A girl who makes her feel like a cougar. She can eat Tuckie up whole. Everything about her. All her blond hair and blue eyes and thin build and cocky walk and monkey grease on Tuckie’s chin. She wants the girl to press herself against her the way a married woman is not supposed to press against young women. This is what she thinks of lately. All because of an appointment for new brakes and an oil change on her Honda. Becky’s engine is revved now. She’s the one that needs the oil change. Married or not, she’s thinking about having the affair. Honest to God, she is. * * * * Between five and six in the evening—every evening—he’s stuck in traffic. Bumper to bumper. Too many red lights. Pissed off people with uber-road rage. Jay tries to relax by listening to some country music. Right now, he’s on the corner of Stubbina and Rachel. Vintage country plays on the radio: Kenny Rogers, The Judds, Randy Travis, The Oakridge Boys. Stuff he likes. Stuff that soothes his soul and calms his nerves. Stuff The b***h wouldn’t be caught dead listening to. Jay looks to his left and right. Eight cars are at a stop around him. A clusterfuck of cars. It’s one giant tic-tac-toe board of vehicles. A Lexus. Two trucks. His Elantra. A BMW. A Mercedes. An old Volvo. A VW Beetle the color of sunflower yellow. Again, this is Grayville. This traffic. This catch between cars. This insanity of time stopping when the vintage country music doesn’t help. Grayville, USA. Tip your cowboy hat to that. * * * * She’s thinking about the affair with the mechanic because a part of her doesn’t like Jay anymore. You can fall out of love just as quickly as you can fall into love; this is what Becky believes. The romance in their marriage is at a complete standstill. Jay keeps talking about living in a place called Grayville, which she really doesn’t understand. Half of her wants to ask him about it. The other half really doesn’t give a flying s**t. She’d rather just meet the female mechanic in Eton, a suburb of the city, and have her with Tuckie. Young flesh. A grease monkey for her taking. Something different. The life and times of a reckless wife. This is what she desires. This is what she craves. This is what she’ll most likely accomplish without her husband’s knowledge. * * * * He wants to tuck Matty in every night when the boy goes to bed, but the boy is eleven now, and this will be considered uncool. He wants to say a prayer together on their knees. He wants to tell the boy that he loves him before they both go to bed. He wants to kiss his son the way a boy and his father should kiss. He wants to tug sheets up to Matty’s chin. He wants to place a stuffed snake named Herbert the Great next to Matty on the bed. He wants to make sure the boy’s night light is on. He wants to tell his son, “See you in the morning, pal,” before leaving his room. He wants to say, “Goodnight,” over his right shoulder. He wants to walk down the hallway, leaving his son to sleep; a smile on both their faces. The boy wants nothing to do with him. Distance is relevant. Both are singular. Neither connect. They don’t even look at each other these days. The boy doesn’t have a father. The father doesn’t have a son. This is the substance of their relationship. What really glides through his mind at this very moment: I might not see you again. Someday I’m not going to come home from the office. I need to be somewhere else, Matty. I can feel it. Grayville is a little too much for me to handle. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Honestly. I will always love you. No matter where I am. * * * * Becky watches CSI with Jay. No, this isn’t true. The drama is on the television in the living room, but she’s elsewhere, behind the latest Eve Dallas mystery by J. D. Robb. Page 132. Chapter eight. They don’t sit next to each other within this room. They haven’t for the last three years. Jay eats ice cream from a Fiesta bowl and she usually reads. Neither talk about their days. Neither look at each other. Neither embark on endearments for the other. And Jay’s right, she admits to herself, flipping to page 133. Jay’s absolutely right. This is Grayville where they live. Population two. Husband and wife who don’t love each other. “Jay,” she pulls her face out of the Robb novel. He looks up: older, quiet, still, dead. He doesn’t say a word. Simply looks at his wife. Nothing is here. Emptiness. Space. An abyss. “Nothing,” Becky replies, drops her head back into her mystery and continues to read.