Highway Trade and Other Stories

by John Domini

  “Sometimes,” she says, “I think that to be healthy in this country, you have to take drugs.”

  Outside there’s a shout, my Angelo. It rings in the tall glasses, the dishware; I can’t tell if he and Andrea are staying away from the garage.

  Nine o’clock this morning, the Don called these people. Now he’s taken Sonny off to “see the workshop.” Plus before he went he had the nerve to remind me that I should get him if there’s “a call.” He didn’t say the call, the one from Mort, but I know all his codes by now. I mean, he wants me to make brunch-talk and then he reminds me we’re waiting on Mort. When the kids asked to be excused, I warned them not to bother Papa. But I can’t be sure, not without standing in Magda’s face and hollering across the back yard. This when she believes that what we’re doing here is making friends. Sharing a few private combinations, the last of the booze and the first close moments: she knows the ritual.

  Mist gathers inside the screen door. Magda keeps her elbows together.

  “In my country,” she says, “in Germany…if we see a person like you at the labs, we know they are straight.”

  Her fascination with getting stoned, I should say, is pretty standard around the labs. Magda and I work in a research park. Over there, when the subject is drugs even our boss, Giptill, can sound like a little boy: In Iran you get penalty of death! This is a scientist who’s worked with Nobel Prize winners. And Magda’s smile today is borderline, she’s full of stares. Twenty-three years old.

  I take up the last popover. “Oh God, the labs. You know I’ve still got to get over there today. I’ve got to check those cultures.”

  “You see that’s what I mean, you are so so good hardworking.” Full of stares, and softnecked even in this cold. “And yet you have a husband like Don.”

  My smile can’t be much better than hers.

  “I tell you, in my country we would never suspect a woman like you to have him. Or to find such a workshop like his.”

  “Oh God, the workshop.” Shrug. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but the Don hasn’t made a sale since Christmas.”

  “But the material things aren’t important. We know why the men are really in there.”

  At least her Sonny is our age, another ’Nam vet. He might be the same kind of pal as Mort, and he wouldn’t be so scary. But Don, Don—over at the labs they’ve got to trust me. It’s the only paycheck we have.

  The popover tastes like yesterday’s gum. I’m at the point of suggesting we clear the table when there’s a sudden thump and scuffle, boots on the back stoop. Andrea comes in first, she’s better with the latch. The March wet streams from the children’s gear. Their coats wrinkle and the Transformers across the plastic start to go through changes. After that of course a couple one-liners occur to me, we mothers must have our one-liners. Got to fortify our better judgment against such rockety blooming. Though I also know enough to wait for the right opportunity.

  Andrea brings the news. Wasps are “hatching” from the flowers behind the garage.

  “Wasps, baby?” I say. “In this weather?”

  But Angelo won’t let me fortify. While his sister starts to explain, the boy begins a flailing exercise, squat and jump, squat and jump. At the peak of each leap his arms pop wide, condensation flies. Magda coils on her chair, specks fizz in my champagne. At least he doesn’t seem in danger of losing motor control. His neck’s firm, and I can see the color of his eyes.

  Andrea’s spatterproof. “Yeah Mom, just like that.” She points at her brother. “Angelo’s got it, they hatch and then they fly.”

  The spray reaches the display case where the Don keeps his Purple Hearts.

  “Behind the garage?” Louder, I come out of my chair enough to stop Angelo with a flat hand. “Did you notice if your father was still in there?”

  “Oh yeah.” The girl composes her face, unsure where my disapproval comes from. “We could hear him’n Uncle Sonny laughing in there.”

  “Laughing?” Magda catches my eye.

  Laughing. And “Uncle Sonny” already. Dropping back in my seat, I haul Angelo into me; with my hand at his hot neck I try to check his pulse. Andrea turns away. The Transformer on her back is brick and iron, swollen with color.

  The doctors back East told us to find a less stressful environment. They said it would be good for both of them, Angelo as well as Don. And so we found the environment: out here Don can spend all day with his lathe and sandpaper, and I work with people who hardly recognize the world unless it’s under a microscope. Still I’m barely hanging on. My knuckles go white and I ask questions like, is Mort actually our friend? Back in Boston Mort would have been one of these leftovers from flaming youth. Don and I would have had a certain closemouthed pride about keeping him somewhere in our lives—a last dinosaur from the Ho Bo Woods, a cocaine dealer. The way in the old country our grandparents took pride in calling on an invalid priest. But the man would never have been a friend. Sunday morning back East was time for children, for Angelo especially. We’d never have arranged things just so we could be in the house whenever Mort decided to call.

  Of course Don tells me it is for Angelo. He’s picked up almost three grand riding shotgun with Mort around the Valley. Nerve disorders cost, Don tells me. Whatever made him think I’m so uptight about money?

  A sudden noise, a whine that quickly peaks. The jigsaw out in the garage.

  Angelo, freed, staggers into Magda. Andrea turns. She’s got Don’s features, the long jaw and careful eyes; I shoot up from my chair. How dare he? How dare he use that machine stoned?

  Now things are back the way they should be: Magda’s following my lead. She’s getting a tour of the upstairs, or that’s what she thinks. Actually I’ve got a plan for when we reach the bedroom. A little trick to show the Don I can get into the spirit of brunch with the best of them. Magda should be no problem, now that we’ve been to the workshop and shared a bone. On the way upstairs she missed two steps. In the long bathroom, the echo makes her giggle.

  Though I’m not much of a tour guide myself. Don and I were glad to find a rental with such character. We even agreed to have people visit as part of a Historic Homes thing next fall—about the farthest ahead we’ve managed to plan. But my descriptions keep falling back on words like “swirly” and “crisscross.” By the time we reach the bedroom I’m making things up.

  “What nice…closets,” Magda says. There’s nothing at all interesting about the shut closet doors.

  “Judas closets,” I say, and lose my footing just getting one open.

  God I’m wasted. Where does the Don get his capacity? Standing again, blinking against the closet dark, I suddenly picture him at his worktable these days. His eyes are hidden by the goggles and most of the rest is lost in his chin beard. All resinous and flecked with warm wood, he chatters Vietnamese, he stiffarms the sweat from the side of his head. Seeing him like that I can understand why he’s not frightened of Mort. It’s got nothing to do with their history together, the bad black and white days before I Corps defoliated the Ho Bo Woods. It’s been almost twenty years. Rather the connection goes deeper: Don too prefers living with a fever. When the doctors told him to find a less stressful environment, they cut him loose from how he’s made. When I come up on him over his workbench these days, it’s like I haven’t seen his face in months.

  My sweater catches on an exposed nail. I never expected my first walk-in closet would be so funky. But Magda’s patient, she followed without a peep.

  We have to sidle along, my clothes hang against the more intact wall. But at the end of the closet there’s a delicate touch, a window in its own steep Italianate gable. Magda and I cram in close enough to catch our reflections in the glass. She’s such a sweet viny thing, always shooting out one hip or the other. You wonder what Sonny needs with a trip to the workshop. Behind her reflection I can read, reversed, the Beacon Street address on the nearest drycleaningbag. I doubt that dress will ever fit again.

  “Okay,” I tell her. “We’re g
oing to rock their socks.”

  Magda frowns, murmurs.

  “It’s a plan,” I say. “A surprise.”

  The window hardly squeaks, going up. The cold is nothing new. Below us, in the drive, the men and kids are playing limply. Angelo’s in the Big Wheel, spread-elbowed. He kicks the pedals every once in a while, but mostly Andrea drags him. They move in a rough oval around Don and Sonny, who squat over cigarettes. And there’s music, just audible over the thunder of the Big Wheels. Angelo’s singing: “Lit-tle ones to Him be-long, we are weak but He is strong.”

  Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind the errands for Mort if the money didn’t have to go to the Sisters of the Word. Of all the things not to have changed in twenty-five years…But the Sisters are the best in town with s.d. kids. Besides, just relax your guard for a minute and the entire Oregon scene can take on a ’50s sweetness. Suddenly it’s like Sunday with Mister Rogers. Even the misting is sweetness. We share the drive with a retired couple, the Daleys, and in this weather their groomed stands of spring flowers are Magic Marker hilarity. The house lots out here still look like Toy Town to me anyway, nothing larger than a quarter-acre. And what is it about kids’ faces under hoods?

  “Do we have something to bomb them?” Magda is blinking, dopey in the gray light.

  “No no no. Just, give me a minute here.”

  I lay out the plan. Down on the drive Andrea hauls Angelo round behind the Don. The two men are still squatting, conferring over what appears to be one of those humongous G.I. Zippo lighters.

  “Right,” I say. “One, two, three—“

  Magda’s scream isn’t at all what I expect. She howls like something out of a Nazi rally. I hold my own the best I can, hey you or other words just as empty. Certainly not the words that flare in the back of my mind as the noise goes on, how could you or what are we doing here, none of that ferocity; only the noise, the mist coiling round my overheated head and shoulders, while the group on the drive turn to red shapes against my shut eyelids. When Magda collapses, she catches my hip. The shapes go white with the thought that I’m going to fall.

  I brace against the frame, the metal sash-fittings.

  Then Magda’s giggling at my feet, I’m an adult again. One good look below and I feel like a monster. Don’s sprawled back over Angelo’s Big Wheel; Angelo’s face down and spreadeagle across the driveway concrete.

  Sonny stands back, a hand on the Daleys’ drainpipe. Andrea’s headed for the Daleys’ flowers, she can’t stand to watch when there’s a chance her brother might go into a fit. I’m a monster. I put my own family under the microscope. The boy’s neck has a hump and his fingertips poke from his slicker, helpless. His tongue is a germ touched with dye so we can see it under the microscope. I can’t move, I can’t even look at Don again till he rolls onto his knees.

  Magda’s underfoot, still fighting the giggles. A coat hanger falls, a racket in this space.

  Those shapes against my shut eyes were precisely the collapsed figure-eights we study in the labs. It’s as if the very thing that makes me marketable out West has turned me into a freak for pain. I hit the stairs at a run. My ears burn as if I never stopped screaming, and I can see how my little game must have been for Don. The flame from Sonny’s Zippo erupting in his face, while machine wheels thundered nearby and all hell broke loose overhead. Of course he and Sonny were reminiscing in the garage. He was the Don again, brimful of himself, the only way to be when you drew perimeter duty in the dying Ho Bo Woods.

  When I reach the back stoop he’s bent over Angelo. He cradles the boy and stands, too quick and in too tight a bear hug for me to check either of their faces.

  Sonny’s a big man. He shrugs his fatigues together and the zipper-pull rattles. When he closes in on Don and Angelo, the movement feels like a threat. It’s got to be the mist, the run; I can taste sensamilla again. But my husband keeps his back to me, he shows the boy to his new friend. When Magda comes up behind, I fumble off the stoop.

  Sideways down the steps, backwards down the drive. Andrea hustles past with a flower for Angelo. She doesn’t want to look at me either. In her case it’s guilt: when her brother went bad, she couldn’t face him. God, maybe she’ll grow up associating flowers with guilt. Certainly she’s picked a pretty one, a stem willowy as the bone in her arm, a bloom pale as a Petri dish. How should a person in cell biology know their names? But Magda takes the flower, she smiles. The picture’s complete. It’s children and fathers and a pretty young Mom, their faces that many more flowers in the fog, everyone clumsy with the loving sickness of brunch. My boot steps—moving backwards, heavy on the heels—echo between the two close homes.

  It isn’t long before I’m yelling again. We’re back inside, I’m over the dishwater and yelling. Magda and Sonny haven’t been gone ten minutes. The mess in the sink is like my noise made tangible: fingered with grease and vomitous. Isn’t it nice to make friends, isn’t it nice. Now maybe our new friends can meet our sweet old pal Mort!

  Really, I don’t know why Don stays in the kitchen. The few times I turn his way he’s working the long cupboards so stiffly it’s as if he wants to fold himself inside. Andrea at least knew enough to get out of the way. Angelo announced that the hearth bricks were warm and she let him lure her off. But the Don just tucks his chin. He works the dishtowel so hard the wine-stained corners fly.

  Yelling: You act like defoliating those woods was the last thing you did in your life!

  It doesn’t end, it goes beyond words. Fumbling in the dishwater, I catch a knife the wrong way. I stamp off for my rain gear dripping blood. Never mind a bandaid, I want it to hurt all the way to the labs. Of course he’s right behind me, the Don’s on the job. He touches my shoulder, my elbow. But at the front closet I have to see the kids on the hearth. Another battlefield scene. Andrea cowers over Angelo, her ear to his chest and her eyes swollen; behind them it’s napalm.

  I can’t face any of them. The man folds his arms in front of me, there are words. “…that out of your system?” I put my mouth to the open skin above my thumb, sucking so noisily that it flushes bits of popover from between my teeth.

  All the way to the research park I keep after the gears and pedals. That and the oncoming drizzle fill my hood, the seashell hiss of arguments going on ten years now. I mean, out of my system? I need to get something out of my system? Look who’s talking. We met at a Veterans’ rehab clinic. He’d worked his way up from patient to counselor—though at the time I liked it that he’d been a patient. Usually when I heard the counselors talk, I was glad my talent was in the hard sciences. Their hipness was secondhand; they’d just heard a lot of stories. Health to them was nothing more than keeping the surfaces orderly. The Don was never so smug. We didn’t date so much as start reading Thomas Merton together. Then one Friday, instead of the usual Happy Hour, he took me over to the Fenway Motor Inn. I thought, I’m not ready for this. But it turned out that somebody in his old platoon worked as a roadie for Muddy Waters.

  The effect would have been impossible any other time, with any other man. Don still can’t say “funky” without laying an awful gravity on the word. Granted. Yet as sundown came on I had to keep turning to the motel windows, taking the measure of my ecstasy against the Fenway maples rag-patched with fall. The old musician’s obscenities were thick and genial as bread. His boozing was gold in his eyes, but you had to watch every glance to see it.

  And from there somehow I wound up here. Working Sundays, the handlebar hell against my wound. More than likely Mort’s call has come by now and the kids are with Mrs. Daley.

  As I walk the empty corridors to Giptill’s labs the doors behind me echo, da-Don, da-Don.

  It would help if my reason for coming in on a weekend weren’t so routine. All I do is test the cultures in a medium. The medium itself is just blood serum, your basic human soup. And today even the door to the containment room has that echo. Last thing I need: lately, around here, I’ve been trying to keep away any thought of Don. I mean, he won’t
let me say a word about the work at home. Right from the first, the shoptalk got to him. Me: “Well want to keep the cancer cells growing.” Don: “Oh sure. On Vulcan we respect all forms of life.” The man I married was never so quick with the one-liners.

  He doesn’t even want to hear about it. And there’s no problem keeping him out of the conversation around the lab, I’m the only native-born citizen in the place. Giptill knows the grants. He knows the odder the group, the bigger the funding. Over coffee or lunch, the talk is usually like Magda earlier: in my country, in your country. There’s an assistant named Mx’bellah, just incredible, I bet he sees wasps in this weather. But today he’s home. Everybody’s home, and the work takes half a brain. I’m like the first white man at the Grand Canyon. I reach into the freezer for a vial of serum, and there’s another echo. “Don’t talk to me about the war, we’ve all got our…” Ducking into my rain gear is no help. The smell is another reminder, all that food and angry pedaling.

  Even in the containment room. Actually I should have towelled off before coming in here—the place is a million dollars worth of sterilizer. On the counters along either wall, every board foot has some designated function. Freezer and centrifuge, hypos and dishes, even the water bath where the serum now sits melting. The largest workspace is taken up by the hood, a stainless steel cube of still more sterilizer. When we bring cultures in here, we handle them under the sliding glass that fronts the hood. Our hands are gloved, cleansed with noiseless gas. When we finish we hit the switch for the ultraviolet and kill off everything.

  The stool sits so there’s no place to rest your back, but I can jimmy it. Rainwater slips from my Gore-Tex and pings the cold baseboard. I watch the serum melt. It’s the cheapest kind of plasma, they get it from donors off the street. Yet the melting is almost a miracle: it begins as an Antarctic bristle and ends up winey slow blood. I must have had too much parochial school. Or I must be thinking too much lately about the ones who might pass for Christ in this country, the homeless who line up to donate blood. Lately I have to make an effort not to stare. They stand trembling with God knows what diseases or chemicals, but they’re desperate to buy into more. Of course I help, there are drops for food and clothing if you can’t give money. I wrote Congress last month when that bill came up. Still, I catch myself staring. Here in the Valley you don’t see so many fatigue jackets and paratroop boots as back East. The weather allows skimpier gear, sometimes the very sheets and scrap they slept in.