Highway Trade and Other Stories

by John Domini

  Wade was laughing, Ernie grinning. He’d worked a hand up under his turtleneck, scratching for effect.

  “Very next class I brought in Wade. Oh yeah, I hauled Wade in there front and center and I said, ‘This is my son.’”

  “It was beautiful,” Wade crowed. “Really Ernie, I wish you could have seen it. Every time the guy tried to write on the blackboard he misspelled another word.”

  Now Ernie had begun laughing, Wade had got him into it. And she’d talked enough to blow off a little anger, so at last Nellie caught on to what the boy had been doing. Talking slick—“the guy.” Setting up the rules for this part of the conversation and then following them through. Wade was even playing along with Ernie’s touch-game, his better hand under his robe. Grinning smart and happy, father and son. And so here it came, a classic mybaby flash. Nellie never got used to them. Start with mybaby, mybaby and somehow in the same moment see him in the computer lab or behind the biggest desk at a government agency; start with picturing his disease as if the muscles drained from his arms and legs had to be dragged behind him in a sack, rotting and bleeding forever, but at the same time imagine a day when the c.p. might be nothing more than an offhand chuckle, a one-liner like “It was harder on my mother than it was on me.” Grinning smart and happy.

  Her eggs had gone cold, that helped. But after her second rubbery forkful Nellie realized that the two men were still at it: get Mom back to school. She needed another cigarette.

  “No way Jose.” But she hadn’t meant to hit Ernie with the match, she’d been aiming for the sink.

  Wade adjusted his lapel, his stalky fingers hooking the terrycloth expertly. “This isn’t just you, Ernie. You should know that. The last couple Christmases, Mom was saying she was going to join the Communist Party.”

  “Ganging up on me only makes it worse. Look Wade, this guy is a loser.”

  “M-m-mom!” She felt his look in her spine. “All we’re saying is, you did g-g-good that year you were in school. When you got that A in P-poly Sci, you p-put the exam up on the f-f-fridge.”

  She’d dropped her forehead onto her fists, but now the tabletop itself seemed to aggravate her. Jesus what clutter, a pepper mill and ajar of British jam. Wade had actually fallen for this?

  “Tired of the same old grind?” Ernie said. “Of dead-end jobs that get you nowhere?” The rap was so-so at best, but Wade was laughing already. “Well have you ever considered a future in—“

  The knock at the door saved him. Saved him, positively: she’d hooked her fingers under the coffeepot trivet. But the aggro was so zingy in her by then that when it turned out to be Wade’s father on the stoop, thrusting roses in her hand and brassing his way through hello-may-I-come-in, Nellie could only stand and stare while the man kept going on whatever had brought him this far and brushed past her into the house. Wade’s father, Rusty. His guitar-player’s body still too rangy for a place this size. Plus he’d handed her these impossible cherry-red roses (fakes of course: paper was the best you could get on a Sunday), plus he carried three stacked, hefty presents for Wade. Somehow he made room for these on the kitchen table. Nellie couldn’t really see, and she couldn’t pick up what kind of excuses he was giving Wade and Ernie either. The back of the man’s good London Fog or whatever blocked her view, and with the door open behind her the rain was too loud. Jesus God, had she asked for such a Sunday morning? The weather on her back was cold, as well; she had nothing but panties and a t-shirt under her robe.

  At last the father turned, one hand nervous up and down his tie.

  “You can call me all the nasty names you want,” he said. “I’m not running scared any more.”

  Nellie couldn’t trust herself. She lowered the flowers and tried to get the whole picture clear.

  “I haven’t seen the boy in five years, Nellie. And I was still a jerk back then.”

  But his smile was rickety. He didn’t know how to play it except as the Gangster of Love, his old never-fails. Meantime Ernie had made himself unreadable, his eyes on Rusty’s back and his hands steepled at his mouth. Wade however was nothing so predictable, a herky-jerk cut from a silent movie. No color in the boy’s face at all. Lips and tongue and erratic fragments of teeth. Nellie didn’t realize she’d begun to move towards him till the father flinched.

  “Let me just talk to the boy, please Nel—“ But the man had let her get too close. She had the knot of that tie up in his gullet, growling get out of here get out of here. No question she could push him around. The man’s face had gone red and childish, all she felt of his chest was shirt and tie. She could turn him and drive him right back out into the rain. Except then Ernie was up, coming round the table playing peacemaker.

  “Nellie, come on. Lighten up. The man is trying, here.”

  “You shut up too.”

  But she’d been distracted, the father’d had a moment to regroup. “Nellie, please.” She felt his upper body against her forearm now, his fingers at her wrist. “There’s the Scrooge movie over in Corval—“

  “Shut up!” She saw Wade had begun to splutter. “Shut up and let him speak!”

  So the dog erupted through the open door, the woman who fed him was in trouble. Nellie and Rusty weren’t fast enough letting go of each other. They fell together against the table. The father’s gift-wrapped presents, Ernie’s Brunch Deluxe—Nellie went into a clench against the crash. She shouted, cracked her hip, and groaned. But the rest of the noise didn’t seem like much, only plastic and the dying noise of flatware, buh-dingle, buh-dingle. Cardboard walls. Then she found herself wet, coffee grounds somewhere under the robe. But by now her muscles had relaxed and the only worry she had room for was that Wade hadn’t used the wheelchair this morning. By the time she’d heaved herself over Lurid and the father (the animal was too much for a man with coat and tie in the way), the boy had already gone into a fit.

  The nearest thing to hand was a newspaper. Wade sprawled across the kitchen, he’d kicked off the grill at the foot of the fridge and his head was almost in the opposite corner, bucking so raggedly that he’d flattened one of the paper roses. The hands trembled like a puppy doing Beg. Nellie fitted her knees against his shoulders, bracing his head between her folded legs. As she rolled the paper tight enough to gag him she noticed that it was scores and photos, the sports, and her thinking skipped to Ernie a moment. She realized he’d be doing something helpful like getting the dog out of the way. With that she was furious again. She put it into the effort of prying Wade’s chin down, who gives a fuck about Ernie, till at last she jammed the scrolled newsprint between his teeth. As usual she couldn’t bear to watch the boy’s eyes. They became something different during a seizure, black somehow. Impossible color, it meant she made no difference, she fluttered useless and dithery over the surface of his need. Nellie tried concentrating instead on the gag. No better: spatters of blood off the lips were seeping already across the letters and numbers. Blood, another bottom line. It set off spasms of fright, actual shakes, even while she told herself to stop being paranoid. The ink had gotten into a cut. The scores from a damn ball game had poisoned him. And how could she have done this to him, what a shit she was; the blood was as hard on her as the dark in his eyes. Never mind that she actually helped the boy. Sweating so much her breasts itched, groaning with the effort of holding the gag—never mind. Nellie knew a fake when she saw one. She could spot a liar coming a mile down the road.

  But now as she tried to find someplace else to focus, she saw that Wade’s hands had settled onto his chest. The trembles were draining down his wrists, his neck, and she risked a look at his eyes. Flat and unconscious. His legs lay limp enough for Ernie to fold them away from one of the fallen chairs.

  “Get away from him!” she screamed. “Don’t you touch him!”

  The rage surprised her as well. She dropped her chin, eased out the paper and saw that the boy’s tongue was unhurt. But there was Rusty, arms spread against the stove front; just catching sight of him was all it took to set her
off again.

  “What’re you staring at? What’re you so scared of?”

  He couldn’t hide it. All those years of working indoors had left him so pasty that when he blushed it was like neon.

  “This is what you’re after, right?” She cradled Wade’s head, still glaring at the father. “This is what you want to buy with your fucking roses.”

  “Nellie, it’s over now.” Ernie said. “It’s over, okay? You just relax, lighten up now. I’ll call the hospital.”

  “Yeah it’s over. Yeah that’s exactly it, that it’s over.” Revving like she hadn’t felt since she’d given up amphetamines. She found Ernie tucked in the corner by the phone, but she hardly saw the breakfast wreckage, all she noticed was the stench. Wade’s stench: of course a seizure meant you lost control of everything.

  “If it’s over, why are you calling the hospital? Hey Ernie? What the hell difference does it make, being such a nice guy? Oh you useless fucking phony. We know all about each other’s games, don’t we? I mean you’re such a good committee member, you’re filling in all the forms. Nice nice nice, pick pick pick! Except one day finally even your wife had to realize, it’s a goddamn act!”

  Forget the phone. Ernie was whipping his hand round, trying to wring his watch back into place.

  “I mean, of course you wouldn’t want to burden yourself with something like this.” She was worried she would hurt Wade’s head, she knotted her fists in her t-shirt. “Such a nice guy, you wouldn’t have the guts to slow down for a minute and take on something like this.” She nodded towards the space between her legs, but she was tearing up so fast that she couldn’t be sure where she was pointing.

  “Oh, you think we don’t both know all about it? I know exactly how scared you are, you’re scared shitless. I know every fucking one of your empty fucking games.”

  Then it was shirt to face, she didn’t want her bawling to wake Wade. And who cared what the men saw? She was stained with coffee and egg anyway. It only bothered her to hear them talking, making decisions. The men in charge. But something had really given way now; it took all Nellie’s strength just to back away from Wade, just to find a place against the nearest wall. When she heard the father leaving, the click and rustle of his London Fog, she couldn’t lift her face. After that it was nothing but the radio for a while, some grindstone vocal, Well well well well wahwl. Tears spattered Nellie’s lap and her aches made her think of her mother’s arthritis.

  Nobody touched her till the outburst was pretty much past. Nonetheless when she felt a hand at her shoulder, she scrunched up tighter still.

  “Ernie,” she gasped, “I chose to live this way. I wanted to live this way.”

  “It’s me, Mom,” Wade said. “And heh heh, I guess I got you all that time, hey? Hey? Ernie my man—whoo! Well I guess now you know the way it can happen.”

  Nellie sat up too fast, spots in her eyes. But she knew already what the boy was doing.

  “I mean I’m sorry you had to see it, Ernie. My man. But hey, you know about those hormonal changes. Heh-heh-heh-heh. The doctor told me, he said the early teens are the worst.”

  Trying to breeze along, talking like it never touched him. Her head cleared, she saw the newsprint had left some bad stains and the front of his shirt was filthy with grape juice. But the boy’s grin was strictly Elvis.

  “Hey really, it’s lightweight. It’ll probably just, dry up and blow away by the time I get out of high school.”

  Nellie didn’t have the strength. Yes this was the last straw, this was what it felt like. She got her first good look at the morning’s ruin. The table’s cast-iron base was upended, the frayed rubber mouth of the juice pitcher still dripping purple. The works at the bottom of the fridge were spattered with grounds, and the dog had left jam-prints everywhere. Now how dear God was she supposed to start with Wade? Someone like her, useless and dithery and fake, a fake—where was she going to get the energy? It must have been simple relief, then, that had Nellie smiling like such a Mongoloid a minute later.

  Smiling so widely she tasted the morning’s freshness: the door had stood open long enough to air the place out. Plus she was having the craziest thoughts. Nellie thought that now she’d like to have some breakfast, or how about if they let Wade open one of his presents early? Herky-jerky-crazy, it had to be relief. But though she believed she had a handle on it, Nellie couldn’t stop, not even when it became obvious that a grin like hers was no help to Ernie. The man was doing his best to hang in there, after all. He’d crossed the room and cut off the radio. He’d found some paper towel and squatted down to start the cleanup, bending under one of Wade’s arms, looking rather burly and heavyweight in contrast to the boy’s spidery pale reach. And Ernie’s talk was quiet, serious. But there she sat grooving away, fingering her robe together over her own outstretched legs and settling more comfortably against the wall. Not at all the kind of support he needed.

  At the Drop By Cafe Christmas was another loss. Come New Year’s, Richter decided that the only way out was to have all the girls wear something more revealing. His timing wasn’t any good either. The owner called everybody in late on a Monday, when Wade needed a ride home from basketball and Nellie had already agreed to run a special errand with Ernie. She worked it out. The boy was taken care of and Ernie was with her in the bus. But then she walked into the Drop By and found her boss tacking up a poster of some cheerleaders.

  The photo had been extensively retouched; the first thing she thought of was the sheeny hard-rubber cars she used to buy for Wade. These girls wore black skirts crotch-high. Plus, of course, the same damn red leotards.

  Yet with all the other shakeups going on that Monday, it was Fitzie who got to her most. While Nellie stood gaping at the poster, the other waitress was already redoing the buttons on her jacket—pretty flashy stuff itself, since Jack had joined the Elks’ over the holidays.

  “People,” Fitzie said, “before I wear black and red like that, somebody’s going to be black and blue.”

  And she gave Nellie a look, and she walked. For a moment there Nellie couldn’t see past the word “Auxiliary” stitched across the jacket’s back: of course the Elks’ was men-only.

  It was all she could talk about when she got back out to the bus. She didn’t even make sure the other woman’s car was gone. That Fitzie was hard as nails, Ernie; she didn’t care who she hurt. The man pursed his lips. He waited till she’d stopped kicking the floorboards and pounding the steering wheel. He went on waiting, tapping his fingertips against the window. But she couldn’t pull out either. A VW this old needed a minute to idle during the rainy season.

  Finally he asked if this was about the errand they’d planned for this afternoon. Was she really that anxious?

  He whisked his spread hand side to side across the glass, clearing a sloppy crescent in the condensation. “I mean if the trip’s such a problem for you, babe—if it’s going to make you throw a fit—well hey.” They could skip it. They could go pick up Wade instead. Or maybe she had a better idea: he showed her the old gym-class smile. When Nellie was slow responding, Ernie reminded her that the boy’s father had left a message at the Social Security office. Rusty was only too glad to have some more time with Wade. He and the boy were cruising the music stores, looking for sheets Wade could use with the new synthesizer.

  She geared up. “Fitzie’s got nothing to do with today’s deal,” Nellie said. “And besides, when you’ve told a guy you’re going to buy some of his sensamilla, you can’t just not show up. The guy might be an outlaw, but he’s an outlaw for keeps. For real, Ernie. If we wimp out on a deal like this, he’s liable to sic the Dobermans on us.”

  Ernie wouldn’t back off. On the first straightaway he lit a cigarette for her and took advantage of the eye contact. This woman shook you up pretty bad, babe? Nellie allowed her spine to sag. Okay, okay. Ernie Hernia. She explained that at one time it had looked as if she and Fitzie were really going to get close.

  “I realize now that she’s not
like me. I mean, whatever I do with men, it’ll always be a joke to her. ‘The Lady in Red’ or some such bullshit. She’ll always think of me as the lady in red. When what I need is a person who can see the games for what they are.”

  “But you two nearly got close?”

  Nellie’s eyebrows came up slowly. “Ernie, I almost told her about the drugs I took when I was pregnant. Honestly, almost. I mean of course you’re right about that, we can never know for certain. Even the amphetamines, we can never know. But Wade’s sick, Ernie. Wade is very sick. I only got around to telling you about those drugs just last week.”

  Ernie nodded, spoke again. She didn’t catch it because she was turning off the highway, fighting the transmission. The windshield quivered and the suspension was all chirps and squeaks. But Nellie got the message. She smiled when he patted her thigh. Nonetheless she wasn’t prepared for how fast Ernie changed the subject. A minute later, not even a minute later, he seemed to be talking as if any feelings about Fitzie were way behind them. He was asking about her thing next week, up in Salem. Nellie wished she didn’t have to keep her eyes on the road. She frowned and smiled, shook her head.

  “Testifying for the Senate task force?” He was so loud that, for the first time in weeks, she noticed how much he still sounded like he came from New York.

  “The disabled-children task force, next week Nellie? Up at the State House? You know if you actually go through with that, someone like Fitzie might not understand.”

  “Oh, I’m going to go through with it.” Okay. He wasn’t telling her to shrug anything off. “They think they can just go on the way they have, they think they can just drop by and tell me how to run my life? No way. I’m going to testify. From now on I’m going after them.”