The Chosen

“Funny. Put a potato in your pants and keep dreaming.”

“On the way back, how about letting me drive?”

Dan B. laughed. “You? This? Shit, you probably don’t even know how to drive.”

“I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve driven a car, but I drive your sister crazy every night.”

“Yeah, crazy with laughter. Besides, you couldn’t squeeze between the seat and wheel.”

“Yeah, you may be right. So I guess I better just settle for squeezing between the ceiling and your mom.”

“You’re on a roll tonight. I was beginning to think you’d lost your terrible sense of humor.”

But it was all a fake; joking around didn’t help. Lee could only wonder the darkest things. The housemaid continued to come to him, every night, in her silent gratitude, in her passion—perhaps even in her love. Yet Lee wondered repeatedly: What did they do to her? Who did all those awful things? It could be a cold world sometimes, and an ugly one. What made it all worse was that Lee was beginning to really like her…

The sleek car glided gracefully along the old, weaving roads. The cold sky beyond the ridge looked like black murk. The winter, and its bitter cold, its stillness and lifelessness, made Lee feel more isolated than ever.

Only a few other cars were parked in the drab little lot before the bar. A neon open sign blinked in the window, advertising Bud. “Class joint,” Dan B. whispered when they entered. Lee expected as much. He was a bit of a beer snob, and he groaned when he spotted the sign on the bar wall: don’t ask for imports, ’cos we ain’t got ’em! Great. I’ll have to drink Carling. Several old-timers sat up at the bar, drinking Kessler’s straight and complaining about “the goddamn recession.” Some other patrons occupied several cheaply upholstered booths in back, too dark to be seen. Two women in their fifties sat closer up, smoking Salems and yakking away. One laughed drunkenly, showing bad teeth.

“Is that your mom?” Lee asked.

“No,” Dan B. said, “but your dad’s here.” He pointed to the end of the bar, where one of the old-timers passed out and went face down into a bowl of peanuts.

Dan B. ordered two Buds, draft. “All right, no more fooling around,” he asserted. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“You can’t bullshit Dan B.,” Dan B. said. “You haven’t been yourself all week. What’s bugging you?”

I can’t tell him, Lee reminded himself. No way. He’d sound absurd, he’d sound like an idiot. First off, Dan B. would go apeshit if he knew Lee was sexually involved with an employee, especially one of Kyle’s employees. And what could he say that wouldn’t sound absolutely demented? Well, you see, Dan B., I’ve sort of become, uh, involved with that pudgy housemaid, you know, the one who never talks to anyone. She comes into my room and gives me head every night, see? And there’s this slight problem, like, uh, she’s got all these scars and burn-marks all over her body. Oh, and one other thing. She’s got stitches in her vagina…

“I guess I just haven’t been feeling too hot.” But there was one thing he could mention, wasn’t there? “You been hearing weird things at night? Like real late?”