by Larry Brown
The person behind her wasn’t turning off and what if the person lived all the way at the end of the road? That was what, seven or eight miles. It looked like an old woman. Probably wouldn’t make a shit if she drank in front of her. It would be better if they had a little distance between them, though. She sped up some, by about ten miles an hour, and thought maybe she could pull away from her, but the old woman sped up and stayed right with her. And then in the next straightaway, a clear half mile of road ahead and nothing coming, she wouldn’t pass. Not even when Amy slowed down some more and kept looking through the rearview mirror at her. It was hard to see her plainly. Her hair was dark and seemed to shadow her face, but she could see an old woman’s dress, fake pearls, medium big hair. A plastic bracelet on her wrist.
She got another drink of the vodka but the car behind her was taking all the fun out of it. And then like magic it slowed and turned into a driveway. Shit yeah. She turned up the beer and then set it back between her legs. Of course he was fucking somebody. She’d smelled it on him since she’d quit smoking, and now she was drinking worse.
Uh oh, now. She was weaving a little bit. Weaved over the center line right back there. And this road was narrow. She needed to watch it and be careful. Think about something good instead. Something like Fay. She’d head on home in just a few more minutes or just a few more miles. She wanted to look at the silo because it was a new one somebody had built a few months ago. She’d get right on home and go down to the beach with Fay and stretch out on those towels. What a wonderful girl to come into their lives. A wayfaring stranger. Cooked and cleaned the house and was always cheerful. How could it be so? Had God said, Well, sorry I had to mess over you like that, but now I’m giving you this? Not likely. God didn’t do stuff like that. He didn’t reach down and move people around. People did what they wanted to on their own.
The sky was bright overhead and the road was dotted with pretty houses, well-tended pastures. Here and there horses stood head to tail and snapped their tails at flies. Some man was baling his hay. She saw kids fishing on the bank of a pond. And there was the silo, dark blue with a silver top. She met a big truck and had to get over suddenly, her wheels almost at the ditch. It scared her for a second but she was okay. Her wheels threw up a little gravel from the side of the road but she jerked them back to the center of the road the moment the truck was past. Her heart was hammering just a bit. Might be best to get on up here somewhere and find a good place to turn around and head on back.
Lord God Fay could have him if she wanted him. If she wanted him. Limb scratched him? Bullshit. She hadn’t made Fay back him up, because they both knew something she didn’t, and she didn’t really want to know what that something was. He could do whatever he wanted to just as long as she didn’t have to hear about it. But how could they all live together like that? Could they live together like that? She knew it wouldn’t bother her. She didn’t even want to think about a dick.
She seemed to remember that there was a place up here somewhere to turn around. Seemed like it was on top of a hill where you could see off a long way in several different directions. And oh yeah, she could remember it now. She’d been through here in the winter before when the cows were wet and looked depressed huddled in their sodden pens. Skies gray and the crossroads lonely and windswept and the ragged sagegrass swaying at the edge of the road.
It was getting cooler. It was time to turn around. Fay’d be wondering where she was and she’d be ready and have her swimsuit on and hell she guessed she could just tell her Honey if you want to fuck my husband you just go right ahead cause I’m not gonna use him and I’d at least rather have him with somebody I like stead of somebody I don’t even know. What was the need in getting divorced over it? Everything was pretty comfy, they had plenty of money, could do whatever they wanted to. She was pretty young was the only thing. She was pretty healthy too, though.
And his hands had just turned cold. It was that as much as anything. That’s why she didn’t want them on her now. Not on her legs, not on her titties, not on her face or her mouth.
She took another hit of the vodka and put it away and sped up a little. It was time to get on back. Hurrying now, she went weaving into the last curve before the intersection and barely squeezed by the first hurtling log truck and was trying to recover when the second one came barreling through so fast that she only had time for one last thought inside the screaming screech of air brakes: Fay.
SAM WASN’T OFF duty yet so naturally they called him to it. It was a state road and he had to run it and he knew right where it was. He started shaking when he first saw it, the crumpled little Mustang with its bright red paint up under the log truck, and when he lost it another trooper who’d come in behind him led him away from it and made him stand there until he could get some more help. Sam headed over a couple of times and each time the other trooper convinced him to go back, that there wasn’t going to be anything he could do.
Dark fell and lights were brought in, traffic stopped on the road and cops with flashlights keeping them still so that the emergency vehicles could get in and out. It went on and on and it took them a long time to get her out. He dropped his head and thought about Alesandra and the things he had done with her and wept openly, standing there on the side of the road in plain sight of anybody who cared to look, holding on to a whip antenna for strength, his hat off his head and lying in a ditch beside weeds and papers.
TWO DAYS LATER they buried her next to Karen. Sam was ill at ease in a new suit and Fay wore the first black stuff she’d ever owned. They’d made a quick trip to Batesville for clothes and she’d helped him pick out the casket.
The sun seared them until they were under the tent with the preacher saying his last words. Amy’s parents were over from Verona and they were numb and they treated Fay with coldness and simple rudeness. Sam’s daddy was sick and his mother had to stay with him. She’d kept calling him and crying, and he knew he’d have to talk to her some more when he got home.
It was over quickly, the people going back to their cars, all the cruisers waiting until the last as the men who drove them spoke quiet words to Sam and then turned away. Tony McCollum watched from a little hill, his hat in his hand.
His district chief was the last one, Grayton, a man nearly sixty with two silver stars on his uniform jacket. He limply shook Sam’s hand and looked at Fay and then told him he wanted him to take a month off.
“Are you sure, sir?” he said. “Who’ll cover my district all that time?”
“I’ve already got somebody on it. I don’t want to see you in that cruiser for thirty days, Harris.”
“Yes sir,” he said, and nodded. He didn’t know Grayton too well. Most people said he was a prick. Thirty days to do what? Grieve? But he had to do what Grayton said.
In a few minutes most everybody was gone. He could see a yellow backhoe parked up on the hill and he knew it was time for them to go. Fay had hung back by herself, watching him, and now he put his hand out for her and she came up to him and shook and shook when he put his arms around her. No sounds came out of her and then some did. He held her. Patted her back. A slow rocking waltz there without steps. He pulled back from her and raised her chin in his hand and looked at her eyes, at her shining cheek.
“You want to go on back home?”
“I’ll fix you some supper,” she said. “You need to eat. You ain’t eat anything in two days.”
It was true. He was very hungry now.
“Okay,” he said, and they turned together and walked across the grass as the people from the funeral home began packing up the chairs and pulling the velvet drapes from them, as another truck rolled slowly onto the green grass and stopped some distance back, waiting, letting them go on over to his pickup and get in and pull out. A black jet of smoke shot from the exhaust pipe on the backhoe and it rattled loudly in the silence and the cars passed as always on the highway.
It wasn’t even close to dark when they got home. He said he was ready for
a drink and went back to his room to change clothes. She went into hers and took off the black suit and hung it up carefully in the closet and then took it back down and wrapped it in the plastic bag it had come in and then hung it up again. Put the black flats neatly beneath it. What Sam had paid for with a piece of plastic. She listened to see if she could hear him, standing there in her slip and stockings, and he was on the phone. Probably his mother again. She found some shorts and a top and changed into them, brushed her hair in the mirror and put down the brush gently. Her mascara had smeared from her tears and she went into the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. She looked at her freckles. The only time she’d ever felt worse than this was when her daddy traded her little brother for that new car. It had taken her a long time to get to where she could kind of live with that. And she guessed this would take a long time, too, Amy. Where did you go when you died? Did you go anywhere? Or did you just lie in a hole in the ground forever? She turned away from the mirror and switched off the light and went up the hall. Sam’s bedroom door was open and she didn’t see him. And she needed a drink, too. She stopped by the icebox and got a frigid beer out of it and opened it and took a sip like ice. There was a rolled-up bag of potato chips on top and she pulled it down and got her cigarettes and lighter and stepped to the glass door where she could see him leaning on the rail and looking out over the water. She went out and pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. He didn’t turn around. A glass of whiskey and ice sat at his elbow and she’d never seen him drink that. She’d seen it in the cabinet, but she’d never seen him take it down. He lifted the glass and took a long drink from it and then set it back down. She opened the potato chips and ate a few of them but they were soft and almost tasteless. She pushed them away. Who’d buy the groceries now?
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “The Mustang was paid for and she had full coverage on it. They’ll have to pay whatever it was worth. Whenever we get that, we might could take some of that money and buy you a used car you could learn to drive on.”
He turned around and leaned back against the rail.
“I’ve got so much to do,” he said. “I don’t know where to start. I’ve got to sell her shop. Start going through her clothes. Maybe you could do some of that. Keep what you want and throw the rest of it out.”
“Throw it out?”
“Why keep it?” He picked up the whiskey again and drank from it. “That closet was always too small for both of us anyway. You might could wear some of her clothes.”
She tipped the beer to her lips. She’d have to cook more now. Wash the clothes. But that would be okay. She’d have to stay by herself more. That might not be so okay. It was dark out here at night. And he worked so much at night. She’d have to find out about the doors, the locks.
“What you want for supper?” she said.
“Let’s don’t cook, let’s go out and eat somewhere.”
“All right.”
“It might not look right to some folks, to go out and eat on the day you bury your wife. But we’d been meaning to take you to this good steak house up at Como. They got some about this thick.” He held his thumb two inches away from his finger to show her. “We used to go there some. Long time ago. She’d still want you to go.”
There was not much of a breeze out there just then. Most days it was cool and steady, coming off the water with nothing to impede it. But the water was flat and calm, too, and nothing much seemed to be stirring out there. She didn’t even know what day it was. She thought it was Thursday.
“We’ll need to go over to the shop one day and get some of her stuff,” he said. “I don’t know what’s in there much. A bunch of hair dryers and combs and stuff. I don’t know what’s hers and what’s not. I guess I’ll get one of those girls to help me. You met some of them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I met Suzy and Amber. They’re real nice. They were tore up about Amy.”
“Yeah. I don’t know em that well. I think Amber’s been working for her about five years and Suzy about two.”
“Maybe one of them would want to buy it,” she said.
He nodded and looked at the tabletop, thinking, thinking some more.
“May be,” he said. “I need to get it appraised I guess.”
“What’s that?”
“Find out what it’s worth. I know it’s worth a lot more than we paid for it. Real estate’s high in Batesville.”
She didn’t know what any of that meant so she just let it go. She wondered how he was fixed for money. He seemed to have plenty: the house, his boats, the new pickup.
“Feels funny, her not being here,” he said.
“Yeah,” Fay said. “I may not lay out on the beach for a while.”
He picked up the drink and turned his head out toward the lake for a moment and took another sip from it and then came over to the table and sat down. She could see his fingers shaking where they held the glass, and how they trembled when he put his cigarette up to his mouth. A fine vibration going on there in his veins and small bones. She wanted to touch his hand, put her hand on his, but he was holding tight to the drink. He seemed afraid to look at her. Suddenly he did.
“You don’t have to stay here with me. You know. All by yourself.”
That scared her. She’d been knowing this would have to be talked about, and she’d figured out all by herself what Amy’s parents thought about her. They thought there was something between her and Sam. She could see it in their eyes. They thought she and Sam were fucking. And she guessed it could look like that.
“What you want me to do?” she said.
“Well.” He cleared his throat and kind of shook his shoulders. “I just don’t want you to think you have to stay here if you don’t want to. I mean … I’m not even any kin to you. But if your own people can’t take care of you …” He let the words trail off and said he was going back inside to mix another drink. He left the table and she heard the gentle thud of his feet on the boards and felt the slight trembling of the timbers beneath the deck and heard the door open and close. If she didn’t want to stay? Did he think she wanted to get back out on that road and go to walking again? Go back to her daddy and the way he was? Not after all this. And maybe Gary had left by now, too. And what if he’d taken Dorothy with him? How would she ever know anything? Sam said he’d take her back someday. But they might all be gone by then. And he was trying to deal with all this, trying to decide what to do with her. She wanted to stay. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t any kin to her. He was a good man, a strong man, and that was what she needed. He could take care of her. And would he want her to take Amy’s place like a wife? Would he? He’d said four years since he’d slept with Amy. But not that Alesandra. She was beautiful. He might go back to her now. No matter what he’d said. Things were different now.
The door opened again and it stayed open. He came back and sat down and the glass was full again with ice and whiskey, right up to the top. Somehow she was afraid to see him drinking it.
As if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted he said, “I mean it might look wrong to some people, but I’m not worried about what anybody thinks. I guess I’m just worried you might be scared of this.”
“Of what?”
“Just being out here at night with me. By yourself and Amy not here. Just me and you.”
She looked at his face until he turned it up to her and she saw the hurt and regret in his eyes. She put her hand on his wrist and said, “That’s all there is now, just me and you.”
He mixed another drink after they changed clothes and put it in a tall yellow cup and sipped on it while they were going down the road. He turned toward the dam and drove across the top of it just as the sun was going down so that below them the lower lake sat behind the clumps of oak trees deep and green with the orange ball on its surface slowly fading and dying. Campers and pickups and tents were clustered under the trees, the slight forms of people moving about, white gas lanterns already hanging and
throwing their white light. People moving about, smoke rising from grills and hamburgers, night coming over the land.
He said that he used to like to camp and Fay said she’d done it so much she didn’t care anything about it.
“Camp out in a pickup for three months,” she told him. “Try that for fun. It ain’t none.”
They drove on into the gathering dusk and people had their headlights on. At Sardis he turned right and got up on the interstate and pushed the truck up to seventy and left it there.
By the time they got to Como it was full dark and cars were slanted at an angle in to a curb and they pulled in there beside the others and got out. They walked down a cracked sidewalk under a canopy of bent tin and past an antique shop and a dilapidated grocery store, down a concrete ramp to a glass-fronted place with hitching rails for horses still embedded in the concrete. Inside to a wide room filled with tables and people seated at them eating, a big grill at the back sending up smoke, a smiling waitress coming with plastic folders in her hands, noise and the smell of the sizzling meat, girls carrying drinks and silverware and coffee cups. Their girl led them to a table in an almost empty room with a dead fireplace and he ordered iced tea and helped her decide what she wanted. He told her the T-bone was good and she got that, Thousand Island for her salad, and the food when it came was the best she’d ever had. She could tell he was sobering up and he even laughed a few times and told her she looked nice in what she was wearing.
Going home down the black highway with the lights streaming toward them and glaring in her eyes she got sleepy and moved over in the seat closer to him and put her head up against his shoulder, told him she was tired. He said he knew she was and to go ahead and rest. For a long time she could feel the highway rolling by beneath the tires and she could hear the faint sound of a song on the radio and the wind whistling past the cab of the truck.
