Brady Udall - The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel

Our end drifts nearer,

the moon lifts,

radiant with terror.

The state

is a diver under a glass bell.

A fathers no shield

for his child.

ROBERT LOWELL , FALL 1961

T O PUT IT AS SIMPLY AS POSSIBLE: THIS IS THE STORY OF A POLYGAMIST who has an affair. But there is much more to it than that, of course; the life of any polygamist, even when not complicated by lies and secrets and infidelity, is anything but simple. Take, for example, the Friday night in early spring when Golden Richards returned to Big Houseone of three houses he called homeafter a week away on the job. It should have been the sweetest, most wholesome of domestic scenes: a father arrives home to the loving attentions of his wives and children. But what was about to happen inside that house, Golden realized as he pulled up into the long gravel drive, would not be wholesome or sweet, or anything close to it.

The place was lit up like a carnival tentyellow light burned in every one of the houses two dozen windowsand the sound coming from inside was as loud as hed ever heard it: a whooping clamor that occasionally broke up into individual shouts and wails and thumps before gathering into a rising howl that rattled the front door on its hinges and made the windows buzz. Golden hadnt heard it like this in years, but he knew exactly what it was. It was the sound of recrimination and chaos. It was the sound of trouble.

Oh crud, Golden said.

Even though hed just driven over two hundred miles without so much as a pit stop, it was not easy to convince himself to turn off the ignition, to let go of the steering wheel. A need to pee that bordered on spiritual torment was what finally made him pry his long body out of the cab of the GMC. He stood bewildered in the dead hollyhocks, his hair full of sawdust, squinting and rubbing his aching behind with both hands. He was a large, wide-shouldered man with knobby hands and a slight overbite that he tried to hide by pursing his lips in the manner of somebody preparing to whistle. He pursed his lips now, and surveyed the front yard, which, in the watery moonlight, had taken on the look of a recently abandoned battlefield: mittens and scarves and jump ropes hanging in the bushes, parkas and broken toys and heaven knows what scattered all the way up to the road as if left there by a receding tide. On the propane tank, in blue crayon, was scrawled the word BOOGER.

Nice, Golden said. Would you take a look at this.

Not only was his bladder set to give out at any moment, but his bad leg had fallen asleep on the drive home. When he tried to cut across the lawn and mount the front steps it was as if he had been afflicted with a sudden palsy. His leg buckled and bowed as he hopped across the grass and up the steps, grimacing and pivoting on his good leg in an effort to stay upright, tripping on toys as he went, until he had to make a blind grab at the rail to keep from going sideways off the porch. He limped up to the front door, a feeling of doom settling on the back of his neck. His leg tingled painfully and he could feel the noise of the house in the vibration of the boards beneath his feet.

A hand-lettered sign next to the front door commanded:

WIPE YOUR FEET

and Golden obediently scuffed the soles of his boots on the rubber welcome mat. He took a few deep motivational nose-breaths, put his hand on the doorknob, but couldnt find the will to give it a turn.

There was no getting around it: he was afraid. Afraid that, finally, the truth had been discovered, that he had been exposed as a sneak, a cheat, a liar. Look at him: a man afraid to walk into his own house.

Once hed thumbed his shirttail into his pants, knocked some of the sawdust out of his hair, dug a breath mint from his shirt pocket, and taken a couple toots of Afrin nasal spray, he felt a bit more sure of himself. He put his hand back on the doorknob and closed his eyes.

Come on, he whispered, come on, you sissy.

Like a man gathering to jump into an icy pond, he pushed open the door. A wave of heat hit himthe house was as hot as a bakery. The tiled entry was dim and empty, and the rich, sugary smell of something in the ovenhopefully Beverlys pineapple upside-down cakemade his mouth water. He took one stealthy heel-to-toe step, another, stopped to listen. Over the sounds of hollering and pounding feet he could hear the radio and the sound of water chuckling through overhead pipes. Normally there would have been a crush of children waiting at the door, all of them shouting at once, pulling at his clothes and asking him what hed brought them, the little ones standing on their heads or displaying some new bruise or scab Look at me! Look at me! and the wives hanging back, waiting for their chance to lay their claims on him, each one of them a burning spotlight of attention and need.

But for the first time in his memory there was no one there to greet him. He was all alone and it unnerved him.

He listened, trying to get a sense of what he might be facing. A door slammed. Muffled voices echoed down the stairway. He willed himself to step forward, out of the dark hallway and into the light of the family room, but Golden kept imagining slipping back out the door, skulking away like a burglar, maybe heading out to the highway and getting a room at the Apache Acres Motor Inn, where he could take a long serious leak, call home to claim engine trouble, and then order some of that good country-fried steak from the all-night diner and watch Starsky and Hutch on a color televisionbut his little fantasy didnt last long because at that moment the children attacked.

Somebody yelled, Kill the zombie! and he was grabbed from behind by his belt, from both sides around the calves. They came from behind the couches and the top of the stairs, ten, twelve of them, ramming him with their small heads, clawing at his legs, hooking their fingers in the pockets of his jeans, trying to drag him down. Herschel, Fig Newton, Ferris, Darling, Jame-o, Louise, Teague. There were the second twins: Sybil and Deeanne. And the Three Stooges, yipping like mariachis. They were all sweaty and wild and for a moment it felt like the sheer weight of them might tear him apart.