Joleen
A Novel
by
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Leaning down, I give the chair a shot with my knee. I do it again. Nothing. I give his shoulder a nudge. Nothing. I then lean into his ear and make a kissing sound, the way you summon a horse or a dog. Again nothing. Confused, agitated, disgusted, I stand back and collect myself. The rag, the filthy blanket tied around his neck to keep him warm, the belt around his waist to keep him from collapsing to the floor. Dora should be reported for the way she abuses him. Who knew? Then, from somewhere deep in my subconscious mind, a thought comes to me, one I have refused to acknowledge until this very moment, the idea that no matter what state the old man is in, whether he is dead or alive, there is no leaving until he I am certain he is dead. No matter what, if he is still alive he must be dead before I leave this place, even if that means killing him. But could I? Of course not. But I must. I brought the gun, didn’t I? Wasn’t that my intention from the start? But I never really believed I’d have to use it, it was only to defend myself, not to kill somebody. I have to though. No way I leave this place without… Hey, the mask. What if I were to remove the mask? Without it he’d be gone in minutes. He’d be swimming in his own juice in seconds. Or the valve. The valve is still there. I can turn it off and beat it out the door. But no, she’d notice somebody had tampered with it. Scare him. Right, I can scare him. That might tax his heart to the point of collapse. Or some other way, some other method… I mean… he is so pathetic. An act of murder. Of course, it’s an act of murder. But isn’t that the point? I can’t murder somebody. I’m not here to murder somebody. Jesus, I could never live with myself if I... Still, there’s the mask. If the mask were to slip to the side, slip just long enough to see what happens then…. Time has me sweating. What time is it anyway? My watch. Why didn’t I wear my watch? Been here, what, twenty minutes? I take the handkerchief from my pocket and grab the slippery mask between two fingers and thumb and slip it onto the bridge of his nose. I can put it back but, for the moment, I’ll see what he does. I kneel close to the old guy’s face, my ear almost touching his lips. But the only sound I hear is the oxygen hissing through the tube. Bracing myself against the wheelchair, I place a hand on the old man’s shoulder and lean close. And that is when I feel it, something taking hold of my elbow. Panicked, I jump to my feet expecting to see someone next to me. A second only, maybe less and I realize the old man has taken hold of my arm. The son-of-a-bitch has me, he’s alive. Connie isn’t dead; he is very much alive. Stunned, I stand staring at the skeleton slumped in the wheelchair. I want to run but can’t. If I did the old man would tell I was there. I can deny it, of course, but what if I leave something behind, anything, a particle of clothing, a fingerprint, a footprint, someone spotting the truck? A whole body of evidence begins to materialize in my head. How would I explain my being here? What would happen to our deal? It would kill it. Oh God. Then it comes to me. Yank off the mask. He’s alive, yank it off. Got to. Got to. Hastily, my hands trembling, I reach toward the old man’s face but my sudden movement triggers something in him and the feeble body begins to resist, struggling hard, his body swaying from side to side, his arms fighting with stubborn ferocity. Panicked, I try to subdue him. With one hand still tangled with the mask, I grab his arms and hold them firmly in my hands, ashamed at their weakness and afraid of snapping them in two. But the fray lasts only a second because it is then that the old man does something completely unexpected, something that changes everything. He squeals. A sickening, shrieking squeal. It comes from somewhere deep inside his body, a guttural, unnatural sound, like a rabbit being skinned. Terrified, I realize I must do something quick. Dora is sure to hear. In a state approaching delirium, I tear the mask away and place my hand over his face, doing it with such force that the squealing abruptly stops. But the fight is not over. It seems to inspire a new surge of resistance in him. The old man is struggling with such intensity that for an instant I almost give up and run for the door. But the resistance lasts for only another second when it slows, turning childlike and weak and then nothing at all. His body collapses in his chair like a deflated balloon. The old man had no chance. Taking my hand away I realize that I have been holding the old man’s nose as well as his mouth. And that is when the light comes on and Dora stands the in the doorway. “Cousin,” she says. “My-my-my."
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About the Book
After a ten-year absence, Ed Bach, author of the controversial collection of short stories, So Long, Charlie, delivers his latest and most complex novel to date, Joleen. Bach’s latest work is an unsentimental look at two people struggling to make sense of the world, the beautiful but mentally unbalanced, Joleen Simmons and her clinging, colorless husband, Hush Simmons. Entering high school, Joleen becomes an immediate sensation. She is sweet, charming and very beautiful. But that sweet high school introduction abruptly ends when a lurid side of Joleen reveals itself and she is abruptly snubbed by her many friends. In college, Joleen joins a well-respected theatrical group where her natural gifts bring immediate success. She quickly maneuvers to the top only to blow it when she is given the lead in the school’s featured play and is laughed from the stage. Rejected, she takes a job she hates. She becomes restless and marries a man she will soon regret. She torments her daughter yet confides in a sister who continually betrays her. She bullies her mother yet adores a womanizing, drunken father. She performs whorishly in bed with a husband she refuses to kiss. Reminiscent of April Wheeler in Richard Yates’, Revolutionary Road, Joleen Simmons is a woman thrust into a life she neither wants nor accepts. No one can say for certain if Joleen is a complete nut case, mentally unbalanced, crazy, or simply someone so broken by the events of her past that she unashamedly torments and manipulates her way through life. And what of Hush Simmons, the fawning high school friend Joleen marries, divorces, then quickly lures back into bed? Is it her natural beauty that drives him to the limits of his own sanity? Her superior upbringing? Her family’s wealth? Or is it Joleen’s raunchy behavior that steals his personal identity and turns him into a man he no longer recognizes, someone so corrupted by his wife’s physical aggression that he loses sight of who he is and what he has become, a murderer? From the author of So Long, Charlie, Bach delivers an existential examination into the lives of two people at war with each other and themselves, a couple so riddled with childhood memories that their present actions only serve to drive them further and further apart. Bach offers no answers to life’s greater mysteries. Instead he brings to mind questions the reader may wonder about for years. While the story and its many characters are fictionalized, the story’s central plot, is real.
About the Author
In his seminal work, Joleen, Ed Bach pulls heavily from his own life experiences to create a sobering but honest look at life as it is truly lived. To Bach, nothing is more offensive than wading through the first hundred pages of a novel and realizing the book has been contrived through the author’s imagination. Readers know the real thing when they see it, according to Bach. Fiction is either genuine or it is fantasy. Writing in this vain, Joleen becomes Mr. Bach’s imaginary tale of good intensions gone bad, a story of two poorly matched people colliding with the freedom of choice. It is simply an existential look at living with ‘what is’ rather than ‘what if’. After creating his own company, Bach spent his professional life developing, managing and owning shopping centers in and around Southern California. Retiring at the age of 43, Bach served on the staff of Cal State University Fullerton where he taught courses in economics and international trade. At the age of 60, Bach retired, and in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway, pursued his love of writing and a passion for marlin-fishing off the California coast. This adventurous spirt in Bach has given authenticity to his life and to his work, especially those harrowing moments at sea toward the end of his latest work, Joleen.