Myrtle Beach
by Parker Young
I spent some time in Myrtle Beach with EJ the Fire Breather (as she was known professionally), making a sad, see-through effort to keep up. I was in love with her, and she was in love with a different person, a pastor, and the pastor was married to yet another individual, a woman who seemed unbearably powerful to both of us, EJ and I, because we knew nothing about her. A few days prior, the pastor, who was loitering in the tent after one of EJ’s shows, gave her a glossy beige tract of pages illustrating life and death and eternity. Later, when she pulled the tract out and fingered through it, trying to make the mechanisms of salvation comprehensible for me as the pastor had tried to do for her, I half-expected, based on the tone of her voice, to see my name printed on every page. But it wasn’t.
Do you think I became a Christian? she asked me.
No, I said. Although to be honest, I was worried she had.
She kept bringing me back to her motel room, the ultimate insult because we both knew nothing would happen unless the pastor stopped by, in which case perhaps I could step into the bathroom and watch through a small opening in the door. It was the kind of thing I’d grown accustomed to: my desire at ten paces or more, through a window or a screen, oblivious to me. I wonder, do police dogs spend their whole lives wanting the drugs or fearing them?
I began to sense that EJ was afraid of the motel we’d chosen. And yet she never wanted to go anywhere else. She locked the door. Our air conditioner shuddered, then it sounded like a million wasps hitting a grain silo.
Hear that? she said.
The air conditioner?
Lower.
No, I said.
Good. Me neither.
Something’s wrong with the bathroom mirror, she said later. It’s like a movie playing at the wrong frame rate.
I can’t sit in this room any longer, I said.
You’re mumbling, she said.
I want seafood, I said.
Alright, she said, without looking up from her novel. We put on our jackets and left, except EJ missed the door to her room. She actually hit her head on the door frame, hard.
I’m alright, she said.
Come here, I said, because I wanted to comfort her. I felt it would be my last chance.
We walked past a budget surf shop, beach towels pulled taut behind glass saying things like I LOVE HATERS and ASK ME ABOUT MY MONKEY. The sky was dark already, and the halogen streetlight in the parking lot shone blue like a glad disease. I had an urge to walk into its focal point and scream something profane, something to shock and amaze EJ, but specific words escaped me.
How much farther to the restaurant? EJ asked.
It’s just ahead, I said.
It’s what? she said. It’s somebody’s head?
Ahead, I said.
A head that doesn’t belong to anyone.
No, I said. We’re almost there.
You still want to be a writer? she said.
I shrugged.
What is literature to you? she said.
I don’t know, I said. I can’t remember.
For me, it’s one long dream about trying to open a door.
The restaurant, when we arrived, turned out to be a bar with nothing but peanuts for food.
No seafood? I said.
They didn’t have seafood. I sat at the bar and applied my forehead directly to the countertop.
Should we go somewhere else? said EJ. Can you hear me? Hey. How bad do you need food? Scale of 1 to 10.
I couldn’t respond. I was ready for the pastor to show up, for everything to work itself out so I could finally be alone.
Here we go, she said, pushing peanuts across the countertop in the direction of my face, eat these, eat these. She ordered two whiskeys. Then she took the seat to my right and for some reason began flipping through all the photos in her wallet, photos of people I’d never heard of before.
This here—my friend Marcus—he repairs bicycles, he said. Once, he repaired the bicycle of a famous rapper.
Who?
Andre 3000? Does that sound right?
I shook my head.
Well, somebody like that, she said. Some famous guy.
I ordered another drink. Instead of getting down to my heart, the first drink had got stuck in my mouth like a local anesthetic. Maybe I had forgotten how to do it. The more I drank, the more sober I got. Except for my mouth.
Here’s my cousin, Hannah. Do you remember her?
I declined to look at the picture at all. I knew she would be beautiful.
The table behind us seemed to be full of children with fake IDs. They filled the room with hormonal yelps and growls. I hated them with an astonishing and comprehensive hatred. Meanwhile, EJ had begun trying to convince the bartender of the tenets of her new Christian faith. The bartender, one of those stationary people who never seem to move their arms, legs, torso, anything corporal at all, she was in turn trying to convince EJ, whom she recognized from the circus, to entertain us all with one of her famous juggling tricks.
EJ said, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe—
I know, I know, said the bartender.
Well, do you believe? Have you confessed it?
If you give us a show, she said, I’ll confess from right here behind this bar.
No, said EJ. You have to mean it.
Maybe I will.
I panicked. I knew that if EJ performed a circus trick for us inside this bar, and if the bartender followed suit by accepting Jesus as her personal savior, something horrible would happen to me.
Alright, said EJ as she stood. Give me something to juggle.
The bartender presented three unopened bottles of vodka.
Here goes, she said.
Suddenly I couldn’t remember who killed Jesus.
Wait, said EJ, running her hand frantically over her denim pockets, where’s my lighter?
The room went quiet.
Was it the state or the church or some combination? Pontius Pilate?
Fuck, said EJ, shaking now. I can’t do the trick without a lighter.
Parker Young's work has appeared in, or is forthcoming in, Juked, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. His debut short story collection will be published by Future Tense Books in 2022.
