If the River Was Whiskey by T.C. Boyle

and waltzed in the front door with the morning paper as if he was delivering flowers or something…. They thought it was a joke at first.” Giselle’s voice became hushed now, confidential, as she described how he’d brutalized the children, humiliated the wife—“Sexually, if you know what I mean”—and bound them all to the kitchen chair with twists of sheer pantyhose. Worse, she said, he dug a scratchy old copy of Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man” out of the record collection and made them listen to it over and over as he looted the house. They knew he was finished when Sam and Dave choked off, the stereo rudely torn from the socket and thrown in with the rest of their things—she paused here to draw a calculated breath—“And at seven-thirty  A.M ., no less.”
    She had them, she could see it in the way the pretty little wife’s eyes went dark with hate and the balding husband clutched fitfully at his pockets—she had them, but she poured it on anyway, flexing her verbal muscles, not yet noon and a sale, a big sale, already in the bag. So she gave them an abbreviated version of the story of the elderly lady and the overworked Mexican from the knife-sharpening service and wrung some hideous newtruths from the tale of the housewife who came home to find a strange car in her garage. “A strange car?” the husband prompted, after she’d paused to level a doleful, frightened look on the wife. Giselle sighed. “Two white men met her at the door. They were in their early forties, nicely dressed, polite—she thought they were real-estate people or something. They escorted her into the house, bundled up the rugs, the paintings, the Camcorder and VCR and then took turns desecrating”—that was the term she used, it got them every time—“desecrating her naked body with the cigarette lighter from her very own car.”
    The husband and wife exchanged a glance, then signed on for the whole shmeer—five thousand and some-odd dollars for the alarm system—every window, door, keyhole, and crevice wired—and sixty bucks a month for a pair of “Armed Response” signs to stick in the lawn. Giselle slid into the front seat of the Mercedes and cranked up the salsa music that made her feel as if every day was a fiesta, and then let out a long slow breath. She checked her watch and drew a circle around the next name on her list. It was a few minutes past twelve, crime was rampant, and she was feeling lucky. She tapped her foot and whistled along with the sour, jostling trumpets—no doubt about it, she’d have another sale before lunch.
    The balding husband stood at the window and watched the Mercedes back out of the driveway, drift into gear, and glide soundlessly up the street. It took him a moment to realize he was still clutching his checkbook. “God, Hil,” he said (or, rather, croaked—something seemed to be wrong with his throat), “it’s a lot of money.”
    The pretty little wife, Hilary, crouched frozen on the couch, legs drawn up to her chest, feet bare, toenails glistening. “They stuff your underwear in your mouth,” she whispered, “that’s the worst thing. Can you imagine that, I mean the taste of it—your own underwear?”
    Ellis didn’t answer. He was thinking of the masked intruder—that maniac disguised as the President—and of his own children, whose heedless squeals of joy came to him like hosannas from the swingset out back. He’d been a fool, he saw that now. How could he have thought, even for a minute, that they’d be safe out here in the suburbs? The world was violent, rotten, corrupt, seething with hatred and perversion, and there was no escaping it. Everything you worked for, everything you loved, had to be locked up as if you were in a castle under siege.
    “I wonder what they did to her,” Hilary said.
    “Who?”
    “That woman—the one with the cigarette lighter. I heard they burn their initials into you.”
    Yes, of course they did, he thought—why wouldn’t they? They