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Before Stan Beckett of Rocky Top got his new brain his wife Marly was ready to kill him. Can you blame her? They ran a restaurant on the mountain together—least they used to—and Stan was a piece of freaking work. The man could cook like nobody’s business: Stan with a frying pan was an artist plain and simple. People came from all over to Rocky Top for his blintzes, and everybody said breakfast at Cherchez La Femme was the best in the valley hands-down. Back in college, Marly was a goner when Stan made bacon and eggs for the first time on a hot plate in his dorm room, and she loved the way Stan, strong as he was, flip-flopped her in bed like a sack of potatoes. He had a superhero jaw like the drawer of a cash register, and ice-blue eyes to go with blond-on-blond hair, as if Stan were a card-carrying member of the master race. Even so it was Stan’s brain that Marly loved the most, more than Stan’s cooking and much more than his baby blues. Stan was the first and only man Marly ever met who could talk a blue streak about almost anything regardless of what he knew about the subject. She could see right away Stan was not book-smart because they took Intro to Phil together and Stan barely passed despite all his opinions about Spinoza and John Locke. Nope: what Marly loved to death was the way Stan could rattle on about wood carvings, poetry, pottery, missile shields, cracks in the ozone, America as a meritocracy, the price of oil, the boiling temperature of butter, the best places to put your money in a downturn—you name it. As an example Stan knew squat about plumbing, the pipes and pumps that bring water to your toilet, but he sat on the linoleum floor of the bathroom for hours on end while the butt-crack plumber picked his brain.
That was Stan for you: Marly used to love that about him—used to love him to death.
***
Now you know how it goes. You’ve been there. Familiarity breeds. That same little laugh you used to love gets to be nails on a chalkboard faster than you can say “Albert Einstein.”
Now it was later. Marly was sick to death of Stan being a mile wide and an inch deep way before they had put Lottie and Sooie through Boulder. Time was passing for them—Stan and Marly were already three years into Chiquita, their third hound dog together—by then Marly knew how to keep Stan at bay. At home she made a point of having her own TV to watch reality shows just to keep Stan from gum-flapping her to death. Her latest ruse was Marly pretending to watch the Survivor war council on TV to keep Stan from bleating about volcanoes and tsunamis and eruptions—and the way animals know they’re coming before humans have a clue.
The plain truth?
Marly did not want to hear word one from Stan ever again about any subject large or small. All that talking that Stan used to do in college, all that cooing and cooking had turned into doggy-doo for Marly. As with Chiquita and the newspaper on the kitchen floor, Marly had trained Stan to do his business in certain places—in the car before she put her radio talk shows on like a condom—so she never had to actually listen when Stan was cooking up another one of his half-baked ideas. On the way to Cherchez Le Femme for his drop-off Stan could not stop talking about the show he just saw on the Discovery Channel about nuclear waste. A half-life of ten thousand years! Twenty thousand years and it will still be here! No way I want that radioactive garbage in my backyard, Marly. They want to stick it in Yucca Mountain but I say no way, Jose, they should stick it up their… and from there Stan was off to the races, with Marly happy to let him have it, nodding away before she dumped him like a hot potato at the base of Rocky Top Mountain with his tongue still wagging.
Amazing, isn’t it?
The same thing you loved the most about a man becomes the thing you can’t stand years later, with Marly never knowing a minute of rest until Stan conked out in bed just as she was about to say something for the first time all day. If only Stan would shut it down for five minutes here and there Marly could die a happy woman—or so she thinks. As it is she goes to sleep with the TV on just so Stan won’t start in on tectonic plates, his latest next subject.
All of this part of the equation before Stan slipped on the concrete steps.
***
The way it worked, Marly left Cherchez Le Femme for Stan years ago to become a Visiting Nurse helping people who needed it most. That was the way she thought about it at night school, like a woman on a mission. As a Visiting Nurse with some seniority she was starting to get her pick of the litter: for Marly that meant patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia who lived within reach of Rocky Top. It was of course the saddest thing when they could not remember her day to day, but not quite so bad for Marly compared to the loss of a loved one because she had no idea who they had been in the first place—with Mr. Lawrence Mullady being Exhibit A. Mr. Mullady, who lives on Rocky Top Highlands to this day, did something in a previous life that made him richer than sin: there are pictures all over his house of Mr. Mullady playing golf with different Presidents of the United States or on the slopes at Beaver Creek with the late President Jerry Ford. There are also what they call tombstones everywhere saying Mullady & Partners did this and did that, all that paper framed to perfection in the office he never uses any more. Marly can see Mr. Mullady has this big family with many children of all shapes and sizes though not one of them ever shows his or her face, not even summers when you would not want to be anywhere else in the world. From what Marly can tell, Mr. Mullady had a wife or two at least but they don’t darken his door, either. When Mr. Mullady nods off watching his soaps she can catch up on the phone with her friends by always talking more than she listens.
For all his riches, the only people Mr. Mullady ever sees are actual Visiting Nurses: Josie on the night shift, Annie on the overnight, Marly days. Not that it’s so bad. Marly can tell Mr. Mullady used to be a nice man when he could remember things like a normal person would—and he still looks young for being like this, young for his age, and one of the nicest looking rich men Marly has ever seen: lean with almost no lines on his face and the gray just now getting into his temples through the blond.
After years of taking care of Mr. Mullady on Rocky Top, Marly let something happen that she had not gone looking for in any way, shape, or form. She had Mr. Mullady naked in the tub for his afternoon bath and there it was: his rod as hard and thick as a redwood. In a situation like that, with no one looking and no way for Mr. Mullady to remember a thing beyond what just happened, Marly faced certain choices as a woman and as a professional. She and Stan let things go by the wayside a long time ago, with Stan climbing on top of her once every blue moon and then slipping off way before she could kick it into gear. She never thought much about sex any more—except in passing, and the thought always passed. Given the circumstances, it should come as no surprise Marly cleaned Mr. Mullady head to toe like she always did, but when she came back to center Marly started to squeeze Mr. Mullady’s rod up and down from the bottom, up and then down and then up. Something came to pass Marly could never have imagined: Mr. Mullady, who never smiled or laughed or anything like that, was smiling like Marly had never seen a man smile before, and making noises Marly had never heard before from neither man nor beast. Being a caregiver, Marly knew enough to bring him along slow, slowing down so that the moment might last as long as possible for Mr. Mullady before he had to move on to the next moment as if this one had never happened. When she hit the jackpot Mr. Mullady kept spraying like a hose—and then he laughed and he laughed. Who could blame him? There was no way his life was going to get any better than this.
And that was how it all began for Marly on that one day just like any other with Mr. Mullady on Rocky Top. Like it or not, life had a few things left to say to her before she was done.
***
For a man like Stan, being a mile wide and an inch deep meant that neither good nor bad made much of a difference. Stan’s DNA was just manufactured that way, like the pan he liked so much because nothing could ever stick to it. Once in a blue moon was enough for him: Stan could still catch himself thinking about Marly naked, with all the curves right there where he wanted them to be. Oh sure: at her age Marly had rounded things off, but none of that mattered to Stan because he still loved her and he still loved to make bacon and eggs for her whenever Cherchez Le Femme was closed for the offseason. Between Marly and his regulars at Cherchez Le Femme Stan had the perfect life, chock full of people who would listen to him without interruption. Enough new tourists came by every day to appreciate a man who could start right in with them like they were old friends. Stan saw his share of locals and second-homers, too, people who loved his blintzes to death and didn’t mind listening to our hero go on about whatever while he cooked them up behind the counter. With the girls done with Boulder at times Stan felt he didn’t have a care in the world: he loved the way his work day was over so early—put a fork in it—once breakfast and lunch were done at Cherchez Le Femme.
It was winter by this time and business was worse than usual because of the downturn, and the blizzard did not help one bit. Stan could not have cared less. When he wasn’t talking he was usually whistling and Stan was always whistling when it came time to lock up, as if his mouth had to keep his lips going just to stay in tune. Stan was whistling through the blizzard when he came down the concrete steps like he always did, when his left heel hit the ice under the snow and his left foot came out from under him, followed by the right foot that never had a chance to find terra firma. Stan went flying through air like there was no hurry before the back of his head smashed on the concrete steps and the blood came out in a puddle that would only get bigger.
That was all he remembered. That was all she wrote.
***
As you can probably tell, Marly was a woman with a compass who knows when somebody, including herself, is doing a thing bad enough to send her straight to hell—but what happened with Mr. Mullady never felt like that, not even close. There were one or two close calls (three actually) before Marly figured out when the meters got read and the driveway got plowed, but then she was in the clear. Every day it was the same drill, with Marly re-introducing herself to Mr. Mullady as if he had never seen her before, and Mr. Mullady climbing into the bath where the warm water and the soap so Marly could take care of the day’s business.
You can imagine how this pattern continued to develop over time despite Marly’s best intentions as a professional caregiver. First her hand, then her mouth, and then the rest. Mr. Mullady smiled and laughed through it every day, and then—you guessed it—the next day it was as if nothing had ever happened. Almost. From a mental standpoint, Mr. Mullady, youthful and handsome as he was, was as far gone as a man could go—even so Marly was sure he remembered something day to day by the way he lay in the tub just before things got started, like he had a kind of muscle memory despite his well-documented mental incapacitation. Within the first week of this Marly was toweling him off and moving the proceedings to Mr. Mullady’s king-sized bed with the view of the town below, the reason people lived on Rocky Top Highlands in the first place. With Mr. Mullady naked under the covers it was not long before Marly climbed in naked herself, kissing him like he was a young boy then bringing matters to a head as if he had never done this before. Mr. Mullady, handsome as he was, loved having her every which way, and the change in life meant Marly herself did not have to worry about any immediate consequences—her days of raising kids being done. Every day the slate was wiped clean for both of them: that meant Marly, as you can imagine, could do the things she liked best. Mr. Mullady lived in the moment as if nothing had come before and nothing came after: Marly learned from him how to live there too, coming home to Stan with only a trickle of guilt once every blue moon. She had her pangs of course but pangs pass. For the life of her she could not find anything wrong with doing it with Mr. Mullady. She was giving aid and comfort—no question about that—and because he forgot everything lickety-split she was not hurting him by any stretch. There was Stan to think of, of course, but this was not like cheating or having a lover the way other people do. Mr. Mullady was just a blank slate Marly could write on every afternoon with eraser in hand, not a man who could take up occupancy of her everlasting soul.
***
The social worker at St. Mary’s in Junction got to Josie two hours after Stan had taken his fall, and Josie went flying upvalley and up to Rocky Top Highlands without even stopping for lipstick. She knew Marly well enough to know this was going to kill her, and so Josie raced up the mountain on her mission of mercy, hitting the autodial on her cell like there was no tomorrow.
When the phone rang at Mr. Mullady’s house, which it never did, Marly was riding Mr. Mullady with her back to him, feet on the floor the way she liked it. She had started to look forward to seeing Mr. Mullady naked: she thought about him all the time now, like an addiction, and her thinking got that much more elaborate with the passing months. Mr. Mullady, in his way, made Marly a happy woman because she could have him any way she wanted five days a week. What other woman her age could say that about a man with a straight face?
Maybe there was no actual harm in it—who are we to say?—but it’s also a no-brainer to see Marly’s life took a turn the day some months back when Mr. Mullady could no longer get hard as a rock. Even Marly knew she had crossed a line when she started giving him the blue pill with the other pills every day before his bath. The blue pill worked within sixty minutes but it seemed to change things for Mr. Mullady as well, and not just because his face got so flushed in the bath his eyes actually got red. There was more to it: Marly could tell the difference from the get-go, like she was suddenly using Mr. Mullady for her own selfish purposes, rather than letting nature take its course.
Worse: it was as if they both knew it, though Mr. Mullady forgot about it minutes later.
When she was done with her business Marly just stayed there with him hard inside of her, watching the last of the snow come down on the town below. The plow man had done the plowing. The meters were keeping count. The phone had stopped ringing. She was in no hurry and he never was. Most days Marly would clean him up and leave him under the covers snoozing away like he had died and gone to heaven. They could have been there forever when Josie came into the bedroom panting like a dog, her eyes as big as all-day suckers.
***
If the helicopter had not taken Stan to Junction straight away there’s no telling what might have happened. There was a good neurosurgeon at St. Mary’s and she did what she could for nine hours on the operating table. The surgeon came out snapping her gloves off just like they do on the television shows and told Marly there was no telling what the future held for her Stan or whether he would ever wake up. She said there was no way to know if Stan were going to remember anything or even know who Marly was.
Prepare for the worst, the surgeon said to Marly on the blue plastic chair, and then she asked Marly if she had any questions.
Marly began to weep so hard the surgeon had to put her hand on Marly’s knee. She cried so hard into the surgeon’s shoulder because she finally understood the untold consequences of her unspeakable actions with Mr. Mullady. She was supposed to know that if you do something that bad—then do it over and over, day after day—that some day there will be hell to pay. But Marly was not bawling because she felt she had done Stan wrong. A woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do, and none of what she did with Mr. Mullady had ever hurt Stan or anyone else. Mr. Mullady, laughing and smiling and making those sounds, liked every minute of it—who wouldn’t?—and Marly’s escapades had given her a reason for living, for being, for getting up in the morning and fixing her hair just so.
I know, I know, the surgeon said to Marly.
But he did not know anything—the surgeon had no fucking idea. The night before he took the fall, for example, Stan was gassing away about black holes and the origins of the universe as if he knew a goddamn thing about either one. Marly had Survivor going, the after show, but Stan was so charged up he could not stop blabbing about this collider or that probe, let alone deep space and the speed of light. Marly had no idea what he was talking about—she never did—and she would not have cared even if she were listening.
Was Stan to blame for Marly and Mr. Mullady?
Marly would have said no way Jose—no one did what she did except her. Why punish Stan for what she had done? It made no sense to Marly. If they wanted to punish her, then she could have taken a spill and not Stan. Then maybe there would be something to the whole thing. Otherwise enough said.
Why did this happen? their daughter Lottie said when she finally made it to Junction.
Who can say? Marly said.
***
That was the end of the Visiting Nurses for Marly. With Stan still in the coma in the hospital she put Cherchez Le Femme on the market but things at Rocky Top Mountain had never been worse and nobody even bothered to kick the tires. With no choice she took over even though she had no clue about cooking blintzes or omelets or anything else. Marly spent most of her time at the cash register staring out into space, thinking about Stan and Mr. Mullady both. Josie told Marly Mr. Mullady knew he was missing something without knowing what, and that had made all the difference in his demeanor. Josie said it was like the lights had gone out for Mr. Mullady again, if you can imagine, like he was giving up.
Marly still liked thinking about Mr. Mullady—she ached for him at a certain time of day, or when it was snowing hard, or when she ran a tub—but Stan was a different story. The idea that one day Stan would be Stan again was just too much to bear with her driving back down to Junction to see him in the hospital. Since the surgery Stan had not even opened his eyes and he had certainly not made a peep, but everyone at the hospital said loved ones should talk to those in Stan’s condition because you never know. One nurse, the one on nights, said people in this kind of predicament can hear every word you say.
Marly came in with her takeout from Sonic and started to talk first about Lottie and Sooie, but as the night wore on Marly came to the first time she saw Stan, and bacon and eggs in the dorm room, and tasting one of his blintzes for the first time at Cherchez Le Femme, and the birth of their two beautiful daughters, and the first house they had bought, and the way he had encouraged her to become a Visiting Nurse. Not once did Marly complain to Stan about Stan—but there was some explaining to do about Mr. Mullady. Marly spilled it out that night, spilled her guts: she told Stan why sometimes a woman had to do what a woman has to do, and that she would never have done such thing with a man if he could remember what just happened.
Maybe Stan listened—maybe not. Maybe he knew Marly’s voice from somewhere else deep in his head but we will never know for sure. We do know at some point in the middle of the night at St. Mary’s that Stan, still in his coma, got a monster erection, and that his wife of many years climbed up on him like it was the most normal thing in the world. Talking to him all the while, with her face pressed against his, Marly rode that sucker as if she might never again make love to a man she loved.
Oh! Marly said. OH! OH! OH!
Marly, Stan said. Where have you been?
