Tears of Laughter

Tears of Laughter

I’d been counting down the days until summer break. Joanie and I had a cabin waiting for us at Lake of the Ozarks and I was so ready to put the boat in the water. Friday afternoon came at last. I gassed up the truck, iced the cooler, and headed out to pick up my girl. It was a beautiful day and a wonderful time of year.

Joanie’s family lived on Gordon Road, across from the Eight Points Winery. I considered going to my father’s first, hooking up the boat trailer and coming back for her. But Dad’s house was closer to the interstate and backtracking would add time to an already tight schedule. I’d have to take my chances. 

Joanie came bouncing down from the porch with her duffel bag on her shoulder, wearing a thousand-watt smile and looking like a dream. I couldn’t wait to put my arms around her. She kissed me and we headed south, sending up a plume of white dust behind us. 

Dad’s house used to sit on a farm, but the land was sold years ago and now the suburbs were growing up around it. I pulled into the gravel driveway and backed up to the boat trailer in its carport. We had it hitched in no time, and Joanie petted an orange cat while I tested the fuel and battery. 

'The skis are inside,' I told her. 'Wait here and I’ll go get them.' 

Joanie stopped me with her hand on my arm. 'Can I come in, Chuck? I’d like to meet your dad’s new wife.' 

A chill ran down my back. 'You heard about that, did you?' 

'Well, yeah. It’s a small town.'

'We’re kind of pressed for time…' 

'It won’t take long, I promise.' Her hand slid down to mine. 

'I really don’t think it’s a good idea.' 

'You’re not embarrassed of me, are you?' 

I knew I was beat so I decided to get it over with. We walked up to the house and I rapped on the door before cautiously pushing it open and letting Joanie in. 

We found my dad in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table. A deck of cards was fanned out in front of him and a Camel smoldered in the ashtray. His eyes narrowed when he saw me. He didn’t get up. 

'Hey, Dad,' I said cheerfully. 'You remember Joan?' 

'Hello, Joan,' he said, with a nod to her. Then to me, 'Are you going to say “hello” to Marion?'

He gestured to his companion across the table. It must have been fetching once, years ago, when it was modeling hats and house frocks at Kress, or Woolworths, or TG&Y. Now it was a startling wreck, propped up in a chair with its arms sticking out at odd angles in front of it. Gray wood showed through its skin of peeling white paint. It wore a Life is Good t-shirt and a faded smile on its molded lips. A tangle of black hairs covered its head while its glassy eyes stared blindly toward the hallway.

All my life I remembered my mother sitting in that chair. We ate most of our meals on that table. She helped me with my homework there. We drank cups of herbal tea in the evenings, sweetened with spoonfuls of honey. Even when the cancer was eating her up inside… even when the surgery left her in constant pain… she was always there, always smiling, always loving. Then the old man brought home this thing to replace her, this discarded mannequin, this grotesque replica of life.

'Hello, Marion,' I said, with mock formality, bowing low and looking at the wall next to its head while I did so. I couldn’t bear to look at the thing. Dad glared at me. Even Joanie was looking at me weirdly.

I left the room and bounded down the basement stairs. After quickly gathering my gear, I stealthily climbed back up. At the top step I waited and listened, and what I heard sickened me. Joanie stood there in my father’s kitchen, talking to that sad imitation of a woman. Not just talking, talking animatedly. She was joking and laughing with the thing. My father was laughing along with her. Was that her game, to gain his confidence by pretending to share his delusion?

With an exaggerated gesture I stepped out of the basement doorway and called Joanie to go. She gave me an odd look, then shook the mannequin’s wooden hand. She bent down and hugged my father, straining to hear their parting words.

'Bye, Dad,' I called as we walked together to the door. He didn’t respond.

We got in the truck. I fired it up, turned to the driveway entrance with the trailer following behind us.

'That was not cool, Chuck.'

'What are you talking about?' I replied. I knew what she was talking about, of course, but I didn’t understand why.

Joanie spoke to me as if I was an upset child, slowly and pausing after every phrase to let the words sink in. 'I know you loved your mother very much. She was a good woman and she was taken far too soon. But your father is a good man, too. He’s still young and deserves companionship.'

'Companionship?' I choked. 'With that thing?'

'She’s not a thing, Charles!' she said. Then, 'Wait. You went the wrong way.'

I had turned toward the town rather than the interstate. There was a buzzing in my ears and I took a moment to settle myself before answering her.

'Suddenly,' I said, my voice sounding high and tinny, 'I no longer feel like going to the lake.'

'Are you kidding me?' She asked. When I didn’t reply, she repeated the question, this time with a curse word.

I still didn’t reply, my throat feeling dry and tight. I drove around the quarry and past the pond, over the railroad tracks and through the small downtown toward Gordon Road at the other end.

As we rolled through the town I scrutinised Joanie out of the corner of my eye. Now that I knew how things really were, I could see her in a new light. I used to think of her as quite the beauty, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was funny to see how the golden hair I admired stuck out like straw from the sides of her messy bun.

Quietly I laughed as we passed the elementary school, thinking back to third grade when she was the new kid in class. Could her treachery reach back that far? I couldn’t help but notice how her smooth complexion depended so much on makeup, like whitewash on burlap.

She sat there staring dead ahead as I drove. Her dull, button-like eyes I once thought were so bright and lively, turned on me as we reached the park where we had shared our first kiss. My skin crawled at the memory of that contact even while I chuckled at how gullible I was back then.

'Even if, Charles…' she said, her voice calm now, attempting to be persuasive. 'Even if you’re upset with your father… Marion is a person and you can’t just treat people that way. You know that, right?'

I let out a thunderous laugh as I turned onto Gordon. 'Not a person.' I stopped on the road in front of her house and she got out of the truck, flipped the seat forward to retrieve her bag, emphasising every move with a jarring thump. She was thankfully almost out of my life, but still she kept talking.

'She’s a person, Charles, with feelings the same as you and me. You know that, right?'

'A person?' I snorted. 'A stupid, ugly mannequin.'

Joanie stood there, her crooked mouth agape, with her duffle bag on her shoulder, still offending me with her sight. Her clothes looked old and hung on her like rags. She looked ridiculous. How could she have left the house dressed like that?

'Charles,' she pleaded, 'Please tell me you know she’s a human being.'

I laughed and laughed so hard that tears welled up in my eyes.

'Dear God, Chuck! She’s a human being!' Joanie sprang back as I pressed the gas and the door swung shut. Through the open window, her last words to me were, 'Get help, Chuck! You need to get help!’

I laughed as I drove away, a plume of white dust rising behind me. I laughed and laughed when I thought how close I had come to being tricked. I’d need a new place to keep the boat now. Not going back to Dad’s house, that’s for sure. My jaws ached from laughing and my cheeks felt flushed.

As I looked back, I could no longer see Joan; all I could see was an old scarecrow in her family’s yard that I had never noticed before. That made me laugh. Just by chance I caught a glimpse of my face in the rear-view mirror. Wild eyes, like the eyes of a maddened animal, looking back at me, red-rimmed and streaming with tears. And still I laughed.