Page 11

WRATH * X * WRATH

Animator

She should have known better. So much better than that. Hadn't her father told
her? Hadn't he warned her about exactly such an occurrence?

Her father. The Judge. Alphonse Magnuson.

He'd said, "If the propaganda is to be believed, honey-darlin' (and being a Texan it
was perfectly all right for him to use such a corny term of endearment), 75 percent of
the men in this country are potential wife-beaters. And God in His wisdom and glory
above knows I've seen my share of that in my own court-room, but, even though that
seems a little high to me, it still serves to help me support my point, which is this: men
are assholes. Now I know, you're young, you're romantic, you're a dreamer -- you
have fantasies about finding your soul mate and living in eternal nuptial bliss on some
island in the Caribbean, but, honey-darlin' listen. Most of the guys out there, that you
will meet, and who are dying to meet you, are animals. The only reason they put on the
guise of civility is for the purpose of gettin' into your pants. And I know it reeks of
conventional, conservative wisdom, which youth must see as contemptible and old-
fashioned, but it is true, and so it needs sayin': if a man truly loves you -- the way your
handsome prince, dreamlover, soul mate, undoubtedly would -- ya hear me? I'm
sayin' if it's the real thing. If he's the honorable sort, and the kind of man you'd be
proud to call your husband, sex ain't gonna matter that big to him, you understand?
He'll wait. He'll be decent to you. You don't have to go to the store and sample the
bread before you buy the whole loaf. You understand? No free slices. No sample
sandwiches."

It seemed ages since he'd spoken those words, yet here it was only five years later.
Still, time, being a relative dimension, has a way of being distorted. Though it may have
been only five years, those same five years constituted 25 percent of her life so far, and
many things had happened to her during that time.

Even so, just as plainly as she remembered his words to her, she remembered
herself as she had sat there listening to them. Young adolescent; it was awkward, an
embarrassment to her, an experience she was only capable of suffering through and
tolerating because she knew it was inevitable. There had been many hints to her about
the "talk" -- the nature of the talk and the simple inescapable cause of it. Mother had
died when she was very young, so young she had no recollection of the woman who
had given birth to her, and so she was the last female left in her father's life; and as such,
the protection and attention he bestowed on her was necessarily intensified. Indeed,
until the death of her father, last month, she had been very nearly consumed with worry
about the extent of his protection. He might well, just through the exercising of his
severe and powerful will, save her from ever knowing heartbreak and disappointment,
but in doing so she feared he would also, though not purposely, keep her from knowing
all that could potentially lead to her fulfillment and discovery of happiness.

As a consequence of such thinking, a certain amount of rebellion became
necessary. More and more she thought consciously of shunning the guidance her father
sought to impart on her; relying instead on her own experience, sense and reasonability.

And, sadly, now she suffered. She suffered all the more exquisite a torment
knowing she had been forewarned; had ignored good advice, and had come to disaster
by the working of her own choices. It was, indeed, a profound regret that she felt.

David had actually said once: "Of course I really love you. I have every intention of
this leading to marriage. Of course I do. Now get naked." He'd actually said that:
"Get naked." And, because she had so wanted to believe him, she had consented to
his desperate seduction, even overlooking that last bit of glaring insensitivity. David had
her -- he was the first one to whom she granted her chastity and honor. And he turned
out to be just as much an animal as her father's advice had suggested he would be.

At some point, during that night of their tussle of fleshly passions, her father, at
home, alone, sat bolt-upright in bed with a hand clutching, like a claw at his chest. He
fumbled repeatedly with the number pad on his phone, the world gray and darkening
before his eyes. At last he did finally manage to press those three life-preserving
numbers -- 9-1-1 -- in sequence, but even as fast as ambulance service in his
neighborhood was, by the time the paramedics got there it was too late. All that was
left to do was perform token resuscitations and then thumb down the lids of his staring
eyes.

The guilt of it.

The guilt.

Surely, somehow he had known what was happening; what she was doing. What
other reason was there for his heart, until that moment so healthy and strong, collapsing,
suddenly feeble and withered? It had to have been from the shock. From the
realization. A vision of her, bared naked before a horned devil in a man's clothing.

She took that guilt. She embraced it. She took that overwhelming, heavy load;
shouldered the weight of it even though she knew it would crush her -- squeeze her
desire for life right out of her, like juice from a ripe, plucked grape. And she knew she
was deserving of it too, that sharp pang of remorse, so she kept going back to it, like it
was an intoxicating glass of wine-liquor, and her piteous wallowing became ever more
intense.

Her despair was already acting as a force of distance between herself and David.
It was a barrier she held him back with. A strain on their emotions; their dedication to
each other. But it was hard for her to imagine ever being back with him. Still, there
was a semblance of a relationship between them until she found out she was pregnant;
that was the breaking blow.

David wanted her to have an abortion. His primary concern seemed to be one of
convenience. A baby meant responsibility and sacrifice; changes in lifestyle that he was
in no way willing to accept. She argued with him. She told him it was wrong. He said,
"The final decision is yours, I guess. But know this: if you make up your mind to have
this baby, you'll get no help from me whatsoever."

And she cried, with her face in her hands, "I thought you said you loved me. I
thought we were supposed to get married. Now look!"

And him, "Shut up!" waving a hard, stern finger at her. Admonishing her for having
emotions.

"I didn't want to get involved like that at all! I wanted to wait and make sure of us,
but I let you talk me into it! I was afraid something like this would happen!" Choking,
sobbing, wailing.

"Shut up! I don't want to talk about it!" Shouldering his coat on and turning his
back on her. She expected him to then stick his fingers in his ears and recite, 'la la la, I
can't hear you!' But he didn't; he was at least mature enough to be past that.

"We have to talk about it! This is important. If you leave me now, you're leaving
me for good. Giving up on us."

And he said, "Maybe I am."

"What're you saying?"

"I'm saying good-bye, Melani."

"Wait!"

"There's nothing else to talk about."

A door slammed.

Father was gone. David was gone. She was all alone in the house that she had
grown up in, the darkness of the night pressing down around her, the planted seed of a
new life within her. She fancied she could even feel it, like a knot in her belly, the
developing baby, even though she knew it was only the size of a pin-head.

Life was suddenly complicated beyond anything she'd ever expected; beyond even
the worst she'd ever feared. No nightmare could be nearly as terrifying as the reality
she woke to face each and every day. And she was totally unequipped for the handling
of it. She had once thought of herself as mature and capable and strong, but now she
knew herself to be young and unprepared and weak. The stress of the ownership of
her father's estate, the paying of all the many bills of his funeral and burial, and the
settling of all his other affairs. Her, trying to balance the continuation of a college career
with the necessity of her having a full-time job. To this, she was about to add the
burden of raising a child. And she was alone. Alone. That was the worst of it.
Sometimes it seemed like each day was a weight, poised over her as she lay in bed,
holding her down and smothering her; a weight she would have to fight her way out
from under, or lift off, before she could even summon the courage to dress or shower,
never mind face the rest of the day. And oppressive gloom made her often think just
that -- that getting out of bed -- was a task greater than she was up to the meeting of.
Better it would be to just lie there, and let the difficulties and intricacies of life and the
world pass her by. She thought often of suicide.

But she could no more seriously contemplate the taking of her own life than she
could the dreadful solution that David had proffered (abortion). She couldn't do it
because she was her father's daughter. She was Melani Magnuson: virtuous,
conservative, religious, thoughtful, honest, innocent. Even though it seemed that all of
which was truly remaining of her character was the words, and that they had been
stripped of their definitions and power. Still, certain solutions were not solutions for
her: they were immoral and cowardly. Something in her demanded her clinging to what
reputation for virtue there was remaining in her -- just like her desire for life itself; her
need to go on living -- and it was a hard thing to ignore or dismiss.

So what she found herself thinking, more and more, was of a miraculous,
unprecedented salvation: like the end of a Disney fairy tale. Sometimes she went so far
as to entertain the thought that everything had been a bad dream, and then she would
wake up the next day infused with a new hope. But those unfounded feelings of
optimism were quickly dissipated by all the evidence of reality around her. This, which
was her life, was no dream. There was no waking from it.

* * *

One night it came to her that her father was not really dead. She realized with an
utmost surety that he was still living, but through a cruel twisting of destiny he had
suffered a fate worse than death. He had been buried alive.

That thought, on the heels of a terrifying dream about her own premature burial,
brought her, chilled and shivering, up from the depths of sleep, gasping, as one who is
drowning, for air.

So vivid! The textures and sensations of that thought! How could it have been a
mere hallucinatory vision? She could see him there, in her mind's eye: his lips and
fingernails, blue from oxygen deprivation, wood shavings and splinters jutting from the
ends of his raw, shredded fingers. She could even hear his panicked breathing.

It had to be a sign then, that dream and the accompanying thought of her father; an
omen. Moving with the strength and speed of a more youthful, hopeful Melani, she
jumped out of bed and hurriedly dressed herself in a robe and jacket. At the door, she
slipped on a pair of loafers, then she was outside, under the stars, breathing the cool
night air.

It was insanity! But so obviously it was not.

Her car was parked in the driveway, a tan colored 93 Honda Civic. The house
had a garage, but she had not opened it since her father's death. His black 85 Monte
Carlo was still inside.

She climbed into her car and drove.

She expected her vision to become faded and less confident as she went, but
instead it seemed to grow more sure; solid. Ideas about her father grew in her mind
until they overwhelmed her worries about how crazy she was acting. Then there were
no second thoughts.

She was going. She was driving to the graveyard -- the cemetery where her father
was, in eternal repose -- because Alphonse Magnuson had left some business
unfinished. Funny thing: the closer she actually got to the graveyard, the more she
became convinced that her father was dead after all, but in no way did that seem to
make her journey any less imperative. There would be someone waiting for her when
she got there. Someone... something.

She was not disappointed.

The moon was bright on that scene: Melani running, through dew-slick grass, losing
one shoe, tripping over a half-sunk headstone.

Then she was there, before the marker of her father's grave. On her hands and
knees in front of the stone angel with the sword and the sharp, flame-shaped wings.
The stone pedestal was engraved with the words:

Alphonse Magnuson

1939-1995

"One of God's Posse"

Wisdom - Fairness - Justice

What did she expect? A hand, suddenly breaking from the ground and groping for
the air? To hear earth-muffled screams from somewhere below the sod? Neither of
those things would have shocked or amazed her.

But it seemed she had come for nothing after all. There was nothing unusual or
miraculous in the making here. This was no instance of the super-natural. It was just a
quiet graveyard.

Melani's confidence -- her certainty that there was some message that her father
had needed to convey -- shriveled, and dried and cracked; fell to dust. And she was
there on the grass, with wet hands and knees, thinking over and over, What am I
doing here? What am I doing here?

The last thing she expected was an answer.

"I know you need me honey-darlin'. I wouldn't think of leaving you until your life
was taken care of. You know that."

It was her father's voice. It was!

Her eyes were on the pedestal, focused on the word 'justice,' and the voice seemed
to be coming from some little distance above that. She turned her eyes, slowly, up, up.

It was the angel.

The angel was wearing her father's face, and moving its lips, and speaking to her in
her father's voice.

"Oh God," whispered Melani.

"Exactly right," said the Angel Judge Magnuson. "I got up before God and said to
Him, 'I've been taken to soon.' I told Him there was still some business left for me to
take care of. I told Him I had family left that I had to make sure was provided for.
And He said, 'Alphonse, if what you say is true, then sure enough, you got to go. Go
and ride in My Posse one last time.'"

So then God is a Texan, thought Melani. A smile flickered for a second at the
corner of her lips.

"I got to right the wrong that's been done to my little girl. I got to make David
know he can't just run off and pretend his responsibilities don't exist. I got to teach him
how to be a man. Either that, or fix him up some other way."

Melani wanted to talk to him. She wanted to say something. But just like every
other situation she'd ever been in with her father, he did all the talking, and there was
nothing for her to do but listen. He was so forceful, so commanding.

The angel went on: "I seen your suffering, honey-darlin'. I know what you been
going through. But I want you to just go home and sleep easy now, because Daddy's
going to take care of everything for you."

"Daddy --" she began.

But, "Now, now. You just hush, hush, honey-darlin'. You go on home and rest
now." And just like always, there was no point in arguing with her father. He was
going to do what he was going to do. The end. It was not open for debate.

She tried though. "But --" she said.

"No, Melani. Go home. I'll handle this. When have I ever let you down?"

* * *

Back home, with the electric light above her head and the carpet between her toes,
all the previous events of the evening began to seem a little less real. In fact, if not for
the wet patches in her robe and nightgown, from the dew of the grass in the graveyard,
the whole thing would've taken on the aspect of a dream. But perhaps that was still the
answer: perhaps she was dreaming within a dream.

She took off her jacket, hung it on the coat tree adjacent to the garage door;
slipped off her one remaining shoe.

And then came the sound.

The big engine, rolling over. Idling. The regular, throbbing hum of it; explosions
contained. Growling. The Monte Carlo was awake; a big, black beast, done with its
hibernation.

Melani heard the spring of the garage-door latch. She heard the chain mechanism
of the automatic opener.

The engine revved once, twice. It sounded mad. It sounded furious.

She opened the inner garage door. She had to see it. Her father's car had just
started. It was getting ready to leave; go somewhere. She had to see it. She had to
know who was driving it.

But looking, she saw the car was empty. There was no-one driving it. Somehow
that did not come as much of a surprise.

The car's lights blinked on. She was momentarily blind from the glare.

Then the Monte Carlo was backing out, turning around.

She noted the three stickers affixed to its bumper. At least they had remained. At
least there was something solid and real and unchanged. Something to focus on in the
midst of all the impossible and insane that was going on.

They said:

"Mag's Wheels"

"More Capital Punishment"

"Vehicle of Justice"

Tires shrieked. The car was gone. There were twin paths of smoking black rubber
left behind, to show where it had been.

* * *

And how sophisticated was David? The man she had given of herself to?

He was an attendant at a convenience store: the night shift manager at SuperTexas.
And the title manager was a bit of a misnomer as it was only himself he had to manage;
there were no other night shift employees. And what was there to do at a SuperTexas,
two blocks off the main interstate, 20, in the middle of the night? Hardly anyone came
by, so switching on the pumps and selling candy bars were activities rarely performed.
In fact, the only reason David was employed there at all was for the sake of being able
to hang an "Open 24 Hours!" sign in the window. All he really did was page through
the pornography on the newsstand, and swig "suicide" mixed fountain drinks (the type
with a little of each flavor combined in the same glass).

As such, it was nearly a surprise to him when the double bells, signaling someone
having driven over the hose between the gas pumps went off. He looked up with a
start from an advertisement for adult XXX movies.

There was a car pulling up to the far side of the furthest island of pumps. It looked
like a classic gas'n'go scenario. God, he hated that. It was on his list of pet peeves:
people gassing up and then driving off without paying. He determined that whoever this
guy in the black Monte Carlo was, he was not going let him get away with it this time.
He thumbed the joystick that controlled the camera hanging from the corner of the
carport outside and zoomed in on the car at the far island, making sure to get close
enough to read its license plate number. Then he leaned over, flicked on the
microphone by the cash register and said, "All ready on pump eighteen. Go ahead."

No one had gotten out of the car yet. The engine was still idling. Even from the
distance the car was separated from him by, David could hear the engine: throaty, loud.

Near where David's right arm was resting on the counter-top, the credit machine
beeped. David looked over at it. A Visa number, name and "CARD DECLINED"
were flashing on the screen. That's odd, he thought. I didn't see anyone get out to
use the Fastpay machine. Then he did a double take at the name, there in glowing
green letters on the monitor: Alphonse Magnuson.

David didn't know what Melani's father's name was, except for the Magnuson part,
but he did know some other things about her old man. Like: he knew the guy was a
judge. And he knew the guy was reputed as being the strictest disciplinarian in the
district. And he knew the guy liked his car a lot. He didn't know what kind of car it
was, but just going on the other things that he did know, he figured it quite likely that it
might have been a bad-ass black car like the one at those back pumps. It would make
perfect sense for Judge Magnuson's car to have bumper stickers that read, "More
Capital Punishment," and "Vehicle of Justice."

Suddenly, David was sweating. He leaned over to the microphone again, thumbed
down the 'talk' switch. "Is that you Melani?" He couldn't see into the car with the
camera, there was too much glare on the front windshield.

There was no response. No movement or signal of any kind.

Yeah, David thought, it has to be her. You can tell. Arriving at that conclusion
made him feel better: stronger, confident. He could deal with Melani all right.

"You're going to have to come in and pay, ma'am. The card you're using has been
declined." He was positive she'd just drive away now. She wasn't going to come in
here, pushing for a confrontation. She'd been plenty mad the last time he'd seen her,
but fighting just wasn't her style. She'd be cowed by his seeing through her little
disguise.

ALPHONSE MAGNUSON, the credit computer flashed, CARD DECLINED.
Then it flashed again, only there was something different on it then. David wouldn't
have noticed just by sight, but the machine beeped again too. He glanced at it, just out
of the corner of his eye, and then did another double take.

There was no number on the screen this time, just a name and the message:
REJECT. CREDIT EXPIRED. The name was David Matter. His name. Something
strange was going on.

"Melani, come on. I know it's you. What do you want?"

Still no sign from the car.

But the credit machine beeped again, and this time it had an even more sinister
message:

David Matter, DEBTS OUTSTANDING. PAY IN FULL. OR EXPIRE.

How the hell is she doing that? He was still trying to come up with reasonable
answers, but he was starting to get down-right scared.

"Come in here, Melani. We can talk."

Beep. New message.

David Matter, PAY NOW.

"Pay what?" he yelled. "You have to have the kid before you're entitled to child
support! What do you want from me?"

Beep: PAY NOW.

He stared at the screen. He looked back to the monitor showing the Monte Carlo.
There was still no sign of the driver, getting out, or otherwise.

He let his thumb slide off the microphone switch. "Crap," he said. Outside, he
could hear the engine revving; rpm's into the red zone. Revving.

He flipped up his middle finger and put it to the glass of the front wall of the station-
house, held it that way for a count of five. Then he went back to his magazine, intent on
ignoring the car so long as it remained.

PAY NOW, beeped the machine. PAY NOW.

David pretended not to hear it. He reopened his magazine. Oh, look, here's an
ad for a new Marilyn Chambers movie. Have to see that. But his heart was no
longer in it -- those glossy images of domination and submission and leather; naked
bodies, posing in various stages of rut and lust. The credit machine would not quit its
incessant beeping, and neither would the car go away: it kept revving.

Perhaps as much as an hour went by. The beeping had stopped, but the car was
still there. David's nerves were nearly rent. He flipped the microphone to 'on' and
yelled, "Go away, goddammit!"

Nothing.

"I'm going to call the cops!"

Nothing.

"They'll take you away for trespassing! They'll issue a restraining order!" His voice
was beginning to shake.

Nothing. But the engine. Idling. Revving. Idling.

He couldn't take it anymore. If a face to face confrontation was what Melani really
wanted, well, that was what she was going to get. And he had no qualms about hitting
a woman if circumstances necessitated.

He stalked out from behind the cash register; through the store door; across the
tarmac.

"All right, Melani! Let's get this over with! Get out here, right now!" He was
rolling up the sleeve of his right arm as he went.

Still there was no response of any sort.

He swore under his breath. "Women. Fuck."

He was close enough then. Close enough to finally see through the windshield
without the glare of the carport lights reflecting back. Close enough to see the Monte
Carlo was empty.

"Oh, what the hell?!" David yelled. He was totally exasperated. This had gone
way too far. "Where are you?" he screamed. He still headed towards the car; maybe
she was ducked down under the level of the dashboard. "Come on! Let's have it out!
Right now!"

The car roared. It sounded like a dragon.

No Melani though.

He was almost to the car then. Now close enough to verify that indeed, there was
no-one in the car. He spit on it. Hocked up a huge ball of snot and saliva and put it
right square in the middle of the windshield. It was a petty gesture, but he couldn't think
of anything else to do.

He nearly fell over when the wipers came on.

"What?"

And the washer fluid squirted too.

"How the hell?"

Then the radio came on. The station was tuned to some kind of talk station by the
sound of it. There was an angry, female-sounding voice coming through. The talker
seemed to be getting pretty worked up about something; rapists and sex-offenders by
the sound of it. "-- I say we castrate the bastards, and make 'em eat their own balls
Rocky Mountain Oyster style!" was how she finished.

David was confused. Still, he figured Melani had to be behind it somehow. Maybe
she'd had the car outfitted for some kind of remote control mechanisms.

The radio inside began to flip channels -- fast -- letting only a single, fraction-of-a-
second sound blurb escape from each new tuning. At first David thought the result was
just a random noise. Then, he heard the pattern.

It wasn't just random noise. It was a message. Pasted together out of those
seeming random selections of syllables cut from the throats of the radio's many different
singers, talkers and dee-jays. It was a message to David.

"Re -- mem -- ber -- my -- melon -- ee -- day -- vid --"

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

"Re -- member -- how -- she -- t -- rusted -- you -- said you -- loved -- her --"

There was a lump rising in his throat: a tumor of fear.

"How -- could -- you do that -- to -- my -- little -- girl -- Dave -- I'd --"

It was the judge. It was the judge's car, after all. Melani had never driven it. It
wasn't her that was driving it now. It was the judge.

The tuner jumped one last time, to settle on a station playing an odd sounding
rhythm, with an odd sounding female singer, singing:

"One way, or another. I'm gonna find ya. I'm gonna getcha. I'm gonna
getcha-getcha-getcha --"

David turned and ran.

The tires of the Monte Carlo squealed; they spun and smoked and then finally bit
into the pavement. The car seemed to jump forward. It made a tight turn around the
pump David had dodged through, like rounding a hairpin.

David heard the engine screaming; heard the radio, "Gonna getcha--"; heard his
feet slapping against the tar-asphalt; smelled the burnt rubber. Then he was flying, free,
through the air, the oil-stained ground floating by below him in a blur. He connected
with that ground with a bone-jarring crunch that knocked the air from him and brought
stinging tears immediately into his eyes. There was the taste of blood in his mouth;
thick, causing him to gag. He coughed out a peice of his own tongue, bit through, and a
large quantity of blood and saliva.

The car swung around to face him again. It lined him up in the center of its grill,
using its hood ornament like a cross-hair, as a bead to aim by. The engine revved. It
was doing a power stand.

When the gears were thrown, it started moving again, and it was moving fast. Like
a bullet. Like a hammer. Like...

A judge's gavel, striking down: pronouncing a final sentence.

David was actually dragged quite a distance along with the car, his face imbedded
in the grill. His head smashed like a melon. When the car stopped, it took another
considerable length of time before the dragging weight of his body peeled him away
from his lethal kiss. His flattened, oozing face pulled loose from the grill like a piece of
adhesive tape.

* * *

David Matter was declared to have been the victim of a hit and run accident,
suspected to have occurred while he was trying to run down someone who had driven
off without paying. It was two days before that particular SuperTexas found another
night shift manager.

Melani Magnuson collected a staggering amount for her father's stolen Monte Carlo
(which was never seen again): twenty thousand dollars. It seemed he had had it insured
as a future collector's item. It more than covered the cost of the remainder of her
schooling and the cost of her hospitalization during labor. Further, when David
Matter's father, Douglas, found out it was his son who had knocked Melani up, he
insisted on helping her out financially -- as he was sure his son would have. Melani did
nothing to contradict his belief.

It was all rather miraculous. Almost like the ending of a Disney movie. Perhaps a
little bit morbid in execution, but of the same over-all flavor.

Melani named her daughter Anni Matter Magnuson. The name just came to her
one night, like a dream. It seemed like the kind of name her father would approve of.

* * *

And the Animator, having made its mark, went on to other things.