Sleet: Selected Stories

But Doughboy, he just can’t be consoled. So I forget the old man for now and start to talk about Elinda instead.

“Don’t think you’re the only one with wife troubles,” I say. And right away Doughboy’s face lightens up when I mention Elinda like that. Not right away, but soon enough. I figure this means everybody must have heard something about that by now. Doughboy, he wipes his eyes with his hand, and then he pulls the cork out of the whiskey bottle. I tell him to hold off. And right away his face gets dark. So I let him pour me another glass. But pouring and drinking, I think to myself — now that’s two different things.

But Christ, I’ve got to dig deep to get at that whole sorry business with Elinda. It’s worn on me something terrible, but that don’t make it easy to talk about. So when Doughboy raises his glass to me I go right along with him. It ain’t no fun to trip over your own words as you try to get them to come out right. Makes you sound like you’re making it all up. After a good slug the whole thing comes a little more natural. And Doughboy, he’s pretty good at helping ease some of the details out of me, so I figure he knows a thing or two about the whole sorry business already. I’m sure it’s Lydia and Nisse I can thank for that. So if they jump all over my ass when I get home, I’ll have a few things to say to them. That’s for goddamn sure!

The whole thing was a mess from the start. If Elinda had to go and get herself another fella while I was doing my conscript service, how come she couldn’t do better than some fat, pasty turd from a little market town? Turns out this lout went to school with Nisse. After I gave him the treatment he went back to this little burg they come from and spread rumors about me. I’d love to get my hands on that son of a bitch again. God forbid he ever shows his face in my neck of the woods. And Nisse could do with a lesson too. Would serve him right for driving around in his starched white shirts, talking shit for the next six months. So I drain my glass and tell Doughboy what really happened. In case he ain’t heard it right.

“At the time I’d been in the service for eight months,” I told him. “And the whole platoon was getting transferred from Jämtland down to Linköping. So on the layover in Stockholm, I get the idea to slip away and go home for the night. I figure a night with the wife, that’d be just the thing. So I rent a car and hire a driver. Sixteen crowns it cost me! Well, if you count the ride out there plus the cost of cleaning up afterwards. Still, I figure it’s worth it just to get to sleep on a real couch again. But then finally when I get home and I’m standing there in my kitchen, what do you think I come face to face with? Here sits this bastard in his bare feet, right there on the cushioned bench, and in his lap is my wife! Darning the son of a bitch’s socks! So I don’t exactly need the whole evening to figure out the shape of things. ‘Get your goddamn socks on!’ I say, yanking them out of the wife’s hands. ‘And get the hell out of here! And you know what, buster? I got a feeling one of them eyes of yours is gonna be black before you hit the door. In fact, you can bet your sorry ass on it!’ And I’ll be goddamned if that miserable clown don’t get his socks on in record time. Then he starts scrambling to get his shoes on — only I can see then that they’re my shoes! So out he goes, into the night in his stocking feet!”

Doughboy, he just grins and pulls back on the cork again. But enough is enough, ’cause the bottle is starting to wobble a bit and the sweat is pouring right down off me. Just put your hand up and show him you mean to stop here. But him, he just keeps grinning and pours another. But pouring is one thing, of course, and drinking is another. I’ve got character. And that pack of pious pricks shaking their heads back in the kitchen at home — well, what the hell would they know about that?

“Now that’s interesting,” Doughboy says. “’Cause what I heard is it was you that got the licking. Someone said they heard that from Nisse.”

A licking! Me! Well, that’s pretty much what I’d expect from that slimy ass-kissing Nisse. No, if someone deserves a thrashing it’s that prick. I’ll just have to remember to have a good talk with Nisse when I get home — as long as I’m in good shape. Get a couple warm belts in me and I can do my talking just fine. What a bunch of goddamn hypocrites, all of them back there. So I drain my glass in one go and tell Doughboy how things really went.