Starcarbon

by Ellen Gilchrist

“Well, not very rich. It sure has made my uncles happy though. My uncle Creek’s making a sand painting for a celebration. He’s been getting the materials together. Every color has to come from a sacred source. Like the charcoal has to come from a tree that has been struck by lightning. It isn’t a Cherokee art. It’s an idea he got from a book. Isn’t that great? This grown man that used to be a mechanic suddenly decides he’s an artist.”

  “What a fine idea. What a great idea. So, you think I feel guilty about leaving Zach?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You implied it.”

  “Well, it might be true. Is it?”

  “He’s caught up in such messy stuff with those twins. They beat him up and he keeps coming back for more. He bribes them for attention. It’s a reenactment of his developmental trauma. He had an indulgent mother and he’s trying to re-create her. So he indulges the boys to get their approval and no one ever grows up. I can’t live with that. I’d be in quicksand. Or I’d end up being his mother and then I’d never get laid. Good boys don’t fuck their mothers. When he starts thinking he’s my baby boy he starts making me come with his fingers instead of his dick. I can’t live with that. Talk about getting in the quicksand. Well, eat your toast.”

  “Will I end up being Bobby’s mother if I live with him?”

  “It’s the danger. And it’s a pain in the ass to stay on guard all the time. There’s no solution, Olivia. Just do the best you can and enjoy your life.”

  “Doctor Coder doesn’t want me to live with Bobby. He says we should each have our own place and that way we can stay in love.”

  “Did you read that essay on Stone Age communities I passed out to the class?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Read it. See if you can find the sources of the nuclear family. Of course, they were trying all the time to get food. It cuts down on the neuroses, when you have the problem of being hungry.” Georgia drank her orange juice, ate part of her French toast. Blessed the earth and its bounty. Looked up into the bright young face beside her. Bless the young, she added. Bless their hope and beauty.

  Chapter 51

  DANIEL was depressed. He had promised to go to the treatment center on the first of September and he knew he had to keep the promise. Also, he had cut down to a jigger of Chivas before dinner and a brandy after dinner and, as a result, his dick was getting softer every day. The very thought of never having a toddy again made his dick softer than Jell-O. Margaret had been understanding. She believed him when he said it was caused by thinking about going to be locked up in Atlanta in the place where Sudie Macalester had climbed over a wall on bedsheets and tried to walk to the airport. Duck Macalester told him that story about a week after it got all over Charlotte that he had agreed to dry out.

  So his dick was rebelling and he was having to live on blowjobs. His secretary had given him notice. Business was not picking up. They were barely bailing water, living off repair work and a few faithful customers from the good old days when Daniel could fly people to the Open in Augusta and pick up all the checks.

  To top it off, Margaret had handed him an ultimatum. He had to marry her before he went to Atlanta or she was leaving and going to live in Washington, D.C.

  “You couldn’t have picked a worse time to start that,” he had answered. “I quit drinking for you. Goddamn, Margaret Ann. What’s wrong with you? You don’t even act like yourself anymore.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s how I feel. I’ll be forty-one years old in October. I have to straighten out my life. I have to have something to depend upon.”

  “I can’t get married right now. I have to go to Oklahoma and drive Olivia home. I promised her I’d come there. As soon as I get back from that I have to check into Atlanta. You want me to back out on that? Is that what you’re driving at?”

  “You don’t need to drive her home. She’s a grown girl.”

  “I want to drive her home. I want to meet her folks and see this boy that made the citizen’s arrest at Jessie’s. King says he’s a man.”

  “So now you take King Mallison’s advice on who to get for a son-in-law? Last month you wanted to kill him.”

  “Goddamn, Margaret, you’re getting as bad as Helen. Have you been talking to my sister, is that what this is about?”

  “What it’s about is living by myself. It’s about being married and living like normal people. If you don’t want to, it’s all right, but if you don’t, I’m leaving. There’s nothing in Charlotte for me but you. I could make twice as much money in Washington and see some opera occasionally.” She moved back into the sofa. She began to look as though she might be about to cry. She had lost ten pounds this summer, she was getting thinner every day, and Daniel didn’t like it. It wasn’t the old Margaret. It was a new and scary Margaret and he didn’t want her crying and he sure didn’t want her moving to Washington, D.C.

  “What are you thinking about? Say it out loud.”

  “I don’t want you moving to Washington.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know, Margaret. You just sprung this on me. I haven’t had time to think.”

  “You’ve had five years. That’s long enough.”

  “You might not like living here. I’m grouchy and I snore and I get up in the middle of the night.”

  “There are plenty of bedrooms. I could sleep in one of them.”

  “I might have to sell the house.”

  “Then I’ll buy it from you and you can live with me.” She began to gather up her clothes and put them on. They had been in bed having a nice afternoon, even if his dick wouldn’t cooperate. She had made him come and he had made her come, and you can’t beat that even under the worst of circumstances. She had moaned and groaned and hugged him and kissed him on the ear and seemed completely happy with the deal. Now this. She put on her slacks and her shirt. She put on her shoes. She picked up her jewelry from the table and dropped it in her pocketbook. “I’m going now,” she said. “Call me when you make up your mind.” Daniel got up from the bed and pulled on his pants and walked her downstairs to the door. “I wish you’d stay,” he kept saying. “You don’t need to go off like this.”

  “Yes, I do,” she answered. “Call me when you make up your mind.”

  After she was gone, he wandered into the kitchen and ate some cold roast beef and drank a Coke and stood a long time staring into the whiskey cabinet. Giving up toddies to marry Margaret and spending all the money he had left building fences on a farm nobody gave a damn about anymore. What a deal.

  Daniel walked out into the yard and sat down upon a rise of land and looked up at the stars. The constellations rode the moonless night. It was hard to believe the earth was a planet. Hard to believe a man could die. Hard to believe little girls would grow up and leave you and never even come home to visit. He sat for a long time thinking about all the women who had left him. Then he walked back into the house and called Olivia on the phone.

  “I’ll fly up there day after tomorrow and drive you home,” he said. “Can you meet me in Tulsa?”

  “The last day of classes is the nineteenth. I could come that afternoon.”

  “Okay. I’ll make a reservation. How are things going, honey? You still got that boyfriend?”

  “You can meet him when you come. I’ll get him to drive me to Tulsa. He wants to meet you. He’s dying to.”

  “Good, I want to meet him. I want to meet this young man.” Daniel hung up the phone and walked back out into the yard and conferred again with the stars. “I got about twenty more good years and then maybe ten more,” he told the heavens. “Hell, it’s going to be a different life. Well, the one I had wasn’t all that great. My dad looks pretty happy and old Mr. Faucette sure looks like a happy man. I’ll model myself on him. Every day I see him jogging by here in the morning, putting in his miles. Maybe I’ll take up jogging. Get myself a pair of those fancy running shoes and start running with Mr. Faucette. I guess I got to marry her. Once they get t
hat idea in their heads, there’s no living with them unless you do it. It will make Momma happy. Momma’ll be right on top of that.” He shook his head and stared deep and hard up into the night sky, trying to put his life into some kind of larger perspective, since it had grown unbearable on these two acres.

  “All right,” he said, when he called Margaret at eleven o’clock that night. “If you want to get married before I go to Atlanta, it’s all right with me. I think we ought to wait till Christmas but if you want to get married now I’ll do it. I haven’t got a thing to offer you but a couple of rings that used to belong to my grandmother. We can go down to the bank tomorrow and take them out of the safe deposit box. You can see if you want them or not.”

  “Yes, Daniel, I will marry you.”

  “Which time? Now or Christmas?”

  “I guess I’ll wait until Christmas.”

  “I’d wait if I was you. I wouldn’t go marrying someone that was on their way to Atlanta until I saw how it turned out. What time are you getting up tomorrow?”

  “You’re proposing to me?”

  “I sure am.”

  “But you aren’t going to come over here and sleep with me?”

  “I don’t sleep well at your house. I’ll come get you and you can sleep over here with me.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “If you don’t mind. Were you in bed already?”

  “Come get me, Daniel. I’ll be waiting for you.” She turned from the phone and looked around the room where she had spent so many unhappy nights thinking about Daniel Hand. This doesn’t feel like victory, she decided. I don’t know what it feels like.

  “Where you going, boss?” Spook had heard Daniel come out onto the patio and push open the doors to the garage. “Where you going this time of night?”

  “Going to collect my bride-to-be. I asked her to marry me, Lucas. I popped the question. What do you think of that?”

  “When did you do it?”

  “Just now. I just called her. So I’m going to pick her up.”

  “On the phone? You asked her on the phone?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s good news, boss. I didn’t mean to cavil.” Spook stood in the doorway watching Daniel push open the garage door. “I mean it, boss. That’s the best news I’ve heard all summer. She’s a fine woman. She’ll make you a mighty fine wife.”

  “What’s that look on your face, Lucas? And don’t call me boss.”

  “Yes, sir, boss. I mean Daniel. Well, I’ll see you in the morning then.”

  He waited until Daniel had driven off down the street, then he went into the house and began to turn on lights and pick up newspapers. No sense in having Margaret coming in the middle of the night into a dark house. She might change her mind and then he’d never get back out to the farm where he could get some sleep.

  Chapter 52

  AUGUST 19, 1991. On the plains west of Tahlequah a tornado was forming. To be more exact, several tornados, gathering their winds, their stones, their sand, their insects and leaves and water, getting ready to head down Tornado Alley and clear some ground.

  There was already enough excitement in the world. At six-forty that morning Georgia’s radio alarm had turned itself on and the voice of Bob Edwards filled the air. “There is stunning news today from the Soviet Union. After six years in office . . . Mikhail Gorbachev has been removed from power in a coup . . . citizens of Moscow awoke to find the Soviet military mobilized on the streets. . . .”

  Georgia sat up in bed, shook her dyed blond hair. That’s great, she decided. The world is falling apart and I’m all alone in a rented house in this tacky little town. Where have I been? Where on earth have I been?

  The phone was ringing. It was Zach. “Are you awake? Do you know what happened? Did you hear the news?”

  “I just did. What does it mean, Zach? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to know who’s in charge of the arsenal.”

  “I woke up hearing it. I thought, What am I doing in this little town? But I know why. It was to escape your pathology.” Georgia was waking up now. “That setup you’ve got going with the twins is pathological, Zach. You bribe them for attention because you feel guilty for not wanting them when they were born, for being sorry they messed up your life. All this concern with the universe is just your way of escaping your real problems.”

  “I just called to see how you were. I didn’t want to hear a lecture.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not awake enough to prevaricate this morning.”

  “Am I going to see you before you go to Memphis?”

  “Of course. I have to come close up the house there.”

  “I want to make love to you, Georgia. That’s the main thing.”

  “I want to, too, but I can’t live with you. Come over here and spend the night if you want to fuck me.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I will. I’ll be there. There are storm warnings for tonight.”

  “Then hurry up. I’ll be back from class by two. It’s my last day.”

  “I love you. That much is true.”

  “I love you too. Come on over.”

  Georgia got out of bed and went into the bathroom and started brushing her teeth. The anxiety arises from the intimacy, she chanted to herself. Fear of dissolution. Disruptive bonding issues. If I go to bed with him, I rev up all the old bonding issues. Bond, bond, bond, the child is saying. Have a mother, be a mother, wah, wah, wah, feed me, love me, hold me, never let me go. Maria Louise Van Franz escaped. Why can’t I?

  “Dad’s coming this afternoon.” Olivia and Georgia were eating waffles at The Shak. They were seated at a table by the window.

  “That’s good. He’s coming to meet Bobby?”

  “To meet everyone. We’re going to visit Mother’s grave. He’s been promising me he’d go with me. I guess you think that’s morbid, don’t you?”

  “No. Just don’t stay too long. Take him to that waterfall we found. That’s better than a grave. I hope he and Bobby like each other.”

  “It doesn’t matter if they do or not. I want Bobby to go with me to Tulsa to meet Dad’s plane, but I’m not sure he can. He might not be able to get off from work.”

  “This has been a very special summer, Olivia. Because of you. More because of knowing you than any other thing. I’m going back to Memphis, I told you that. You can always find me there. I expect you to write and call me and keep up with me and come and visit me when you come back this way from wherever you end up.”

  “I just want to get settled and have a normal life.”

  “There isn’t any normal life, Olivia. Not for people with brains like ours. The modern world’s a mess. Find your work to do. That’s the most important thing. Grow up. Get really grown up if you can. There aren’t many grown people in the world in any age. Most of them are babies, sucking teat from the cradle to the grave. Go find the big boys and girls and play with them. Leave the babies to their drugged sleep.” Georgia finished off her waffle. “God, I didn’t know I knew all that. You’ve done that for me all summer, Olivia. Made me articulate things I didn’t know I knew. It’s been myself I was talking to.”

  “I want to see you again before you leave. Will you be going tomorrow? Maybe you can meet Dad.”

  “Good. I’ll talk to you later today then. Call me when you get back from Tulsa.”

  They stood up, gathered their things, went off to the last day of classes.

  Chapter 53

  IN Charlotte, North Carolina, Daniel was packing a suitcase while Spook lounged in the doorway giving him advice. Spook had been spending the summer rereading the collected works of Louis L’Amour. He was on the last one now and wanted to get rid of Daniel so he could finish it and start on a set of mysteries he’d picked up at the secondhand bookstore the week before. He’d decided he needed to broaden his outlook and stop reading books with horses in them. With all the young black pe
ople getting into politics and law and being on television, Spook was ashamed to be so behind the times.

  Daniel folded up a shirt and lay it on top of a pair of slacks in the suitcase. “I’m going up there to meet her folks and see this boy she’s got herself involved with. Then I’m going to drive her home. It’s as simple as that. Put her in the car and drive her home.”

  “Don’t go trying to force her into anything, boss. She’s like you. If you try to push her, she won’t budge. Maybe you ought to take her a present. Call Margaret and tell her to go pick something out. Your plane doesn’t leave till noon.”

  “Eleven. And Margaret’s at work. Well, hell, I’ll pick up something in the Atlanta airport. What do you think she wants?”

  “Get her a bracelet or a necklace. They like that.”

  “You think so?”

  “When you tell her you’re going to Atlanta to dry out and getting married to Margaret, that’s going to be a shock. You ought to have a present handy, just in case. Why you so nervous about this trip, anyway? I heard you up at dawn. You haven’t been getting much sleep lately, have you?”

  “I just want to make sure she comes on home. Hell, she’s probably pregnant by now.”

  “Boss, they don’t get pregnant now. If they do, they get rid of it.”

  “Like Jessie, yeah? Like Jessie a year ago? That was only a year ago, that’s hard to believe.”

  “Well, that turned out all right. I thought you was so crazy about that little boy.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Losing all the girls, whole damn family falling apart. You know what Crystal told me recently. You remember how I came home and I wasn’t there when the baby was born. Well, he blew a hole in his lung when he was born. The first scream he let out blew a hole in his lung. They had him in an incubator for three days. Did anyone tell me about that? Hell, no. They decided not to tell me. Then months later Crystal tells it to me like it was some kind of a joke.”