The Late Child
Page 40
The fantasy was evidence that she had broken down. No man in Oklahoma even knew she was there, unless you counted Peewee, and Peewee was very unlikely just to show up in the middle of the morning, expecting her to be sitting naked on the bed, with her hair combed, expecting to make love.
Harmony stood up and paced around the room; then she stopped and rubbed some lotion onto her hands. She was trying hard to think of normal activities, such as rubbing the lotion on her hands; anything that might slow her thoughts down long enough to allow her to slip back into the mode of sanity. If she could just get past the crazy whirling feeling maybe she could get enough of a grip to be a little bit helpful to her loved ones again.
Then she heard what sounded like a big lawn mower, which seemed odd. The parking lot was paved, why would they be mowing it? When she peeked out the window she saw that she had been right, it was a lawn mower, only it was the area behind the parking lot, a sort of weedy field, that was being mowed.
In the field the weeds and Johnson grass grew so tall in places that they hid the mower, which was on the backside of the field. When the mower came in sight—it was a big riding mower—she saw that the guy riding it was young, maybe about twenty. He had long hair and was mowing with his shirt off; the mower threw up a lot of grass and chaff that would have got inside his shirt and made him itch, if he’d kept his shirt on. As he mowed around the edge of the parking lot the mower spewed up the remains of several Styrofoam coffee cups that people drinking coffee in the parking lot had been careless with. Little pieces of white Styrofoam and stems of weeds spumed into the parking lot, in the wake of the big mower. The young man was sweaty—mowing was hot work. Still, Harmony thought he looked good. She had not thought about a guy, young or otherwise, in that way in a while; certainly Jimmy Bangor, the last man she had been with, had never on his best day looked half as good as the young man on the mower. Jimmy had some pretty unattractive tattoos—also he had not bothered to watch his weight.
Harmony peeked out the window and watched the young man mow for a while; she liked the confident way he steered the mower, clipping just the patches of weeds he wanted to clip. It was nice to see a young man with smooth muscles doing his work. But, after a while, she closed the curtain and got in bed. In the old days she might have thrown something on and gone out and chatted with the young guy for a bit. She could at least have given him a smile—something might have happened, or maybe not. In those days, with her perfect figure, sex appeal was just something that was always there, available; if it didn’t work with one guy it would soon work with another.
In bed, Harmony slowly began to feel a little better—no reason, but the feeling that she had gone haywire was easing a little. She looked at her motel room. Clothes were strewn everywhere, as if she were in the midst of torrid love or something. She felt she had better try to get ahold of someone from her old life—maybe they would assure her that she wasn’t crazy. Who would that be but Gary?
“Who is it? I’m asleep,” Gary said, picking up after only about six rings. Probably he had had a late night and was not in the best of moods.
“Gary, it’s me, I’m in a motel,” Harmony said. “I went crazy a minute ago. I think I cracked up.”
“Harmony, I was up very very late,” Gary said, reproachfully.
“Gary, what else is new?” Harmony said. This was a man who had been up late every night of his life and would undoubtedly be up late the day he died unless he happened to die around nine o’clock in the evening or something.
“All I meant is, don’t rush me,” Gary said, backing off from the reproachful tone a little. “I’ll get in synch with you as soon as I get my eyes open—I tried tanning yesterday and my eyelids are sticky from all the goo.”
Harmony held the receiver and waited. Probably Gary had several drugs coursing through his body; she knew she should try to be a little patient.
“Now then, I’m getting awake, how are you?” Gary asked. “Life out here just isn’t the same without you.”
“Gary, I miss you—I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Harmony said.
“I’m naked,” she added, just to kind of fill him in on the scene. Gary liked details. She looked at the clothes strewn all over the room—she had taken off every last stitch—and tried to remember why she had started taking clothes off in the first place. She had sort of torn them off in the minute or two when she had felt the craziest.
“My God, naked?” Gary said. “I don’t think you’ve been naked since you left the show. I wonder what your boobs look like now.”
“Gary, they’re bigger,” Harmony said—the sound of his voice was really reassuring; it was deeply comforting in fact. The sound of Gary’s voice drew her back into his world, which had been her world too, most of her life.
“I wish I could see you,” Gary said. “Naked, I mean. I haven’t seen you naked since you left the show.”
“I don’t think you’d want to look at me now,” Harmony said. “I let myself go.”
“You had the best figure ever seen in Las Vegas,” Gary reminded her—probably he was just trying to cheer her up. “It was glory. But nobody gets to keep glory forever, though, sweetie. Why do you have all your clothes off, anyway? I hope you’re inside, at least. I read that the ozone layer is very thin in Oklahoma.”
“I’m inside a motel, calm down,” Harmony said. “I lost it today, Gary. Dick took off work to barbecue chicken for me and I lost it on the way to Neddie’s house and didn’t go. I came here to be alone and I took off all my clothes.”
“Does that mean you’re thinking about being a nudist, or are you in love, or what?” Gary asked. “I don’t get it about the naked part. You were usually pretty modest for a showgirl.”
“I felt like my clothes were strangling me,” Harmony said. It was the only explanation she could offer.
“I think you should come right back today and get started with your shrink,” Gary said. “You and Eddie can stay with me until you get on your feet.”
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Harmony asked.
“No, the little prick left me for a Salvadoran drug dealer,” Gary said. “All those greasy creeps do is corrupt American boys. Got a pencil?”
“No, why?” Harmony said; then she spotted one on the bedside table.
“Because I have Ross’s phone number for you,” Gary said. “We should just bomb El Salvador and be done with it.”
“Gary, I don’t think we have to bomb a whole country just because you lost your boyfriend—what’s the number?” she asked.
Gary gave it to her, and she scrawled it down. Her handwriting was a little shaky, probably from the period of craziness.
“Ross is right here in Las Vegas—he’s working the lights for a burlesque show,” Gary said.
Harmony didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t a big surprise that Ross had sunk to the level of burlesque. There was a lot of technology involved in doing the lights for the big shows now—probably Ross just hadn’t kept up.
Gary could never stand it when there was silence on the line; he immediately rushed in with a question.
“What about your love life?” he asked. “Any swinging surprises on your trip? I’ve had a few lovers from Oklahoma myself.”
“Gary, I’m in mourning, I haven’t been thinking about sex,” Harmony said, though the truth was, when she had seen the young guy with his shirt off, mowing the lawn, she had thought about it briefly—maybe if sex could have happened it would have distracted her from the tearing inside. It was a bad thought, though—he was just a young guy mowing a field. He probably had a little girlfriend or a little wife somewhere. Fortunately the worst of her pain had begun to ebb; she was in a state so awful that she would just have offered herself to a stranger—it had only been a moment when she wanted to get her hands on the young guy.
While she was talking she managed to hook her toe under her underpants; she pulled them to her and quickly slipped them on. Her time of being naked was over.
“Who said you had to? Leave him for a few days,” Gary said. “You could stay with me and look for an apartment, and then bring all your stuff out.”
“Gary, I don’t have any stuff, it all fell into a canyon,” Harmony said, remembering the accident.
“Then we’ll just go to Kmart and buy you some more,” Gary said. “I’ll borrow some money or something. It would be fun to help you select furniture. That stuff you had deserved to fall into a canyon, if you ask me.”
The thought of being without Eddie, even for a few days, caused a panic feeling to set in; she would have to be a lot more stable than she was to be able to be without Eddie.
While she was talking to Gary somebody knocked on the door. Her first thought was that it was the young guy on the mower—maybe he had caught a glimpse of her through the window and had come over to investigate; after all, he was of an age to be adventurous. Maybe he had caught sight of a tit or something.
She got into her clothes real quick; whoever was at the door knocked again. When she opened it there stood her sister Neddie and her brother-in-law Dick. Both had plates in their hands. One plate had barbecued chicken on it; the other had corn on the cob, green beans, and a sliced tomato.
“The tea’s in a thermos,” Dick said—the first words he had spoken to her in a few years. Dick had a real slow manner of speaking. He sounded sort of gruff even when he was trying to be friendly.
“We wasn’t about to let you miss out on all that good grub,” he added, handling her the plate of vegetables.
“Dick, I’m so sorry, I know you took off work to make me lunch,” Harmony said. “I just got too upset to come. I really am touched that you took off work.”
“It’s happened twice, since we married,” Neddie said, in her dry way. “When it does happen we all have to buck up and take advantage of it, even if we feel like hanging ourselves at the time.”
Dick didn’t react to Neddie’s comment at all—Harmony thought it sounded a little sarcastic. He just walked back to the car and got the thermos of iced tea.
“We brought extra corn on the cob,” Dick said. “Neddie said you used to like it.”
Harmony felt she should hug Dick—after all, she hadn’t seen him in nearly fifteen years. But she still had a few buttons to button; she had dressed hastily. Dick set the thermos down and stood there, with his hands in the pockets of his big overalls. Harmony had forgotten how large he was; his hair was white around the edges of his dozer cap. He still had the large wart on one side of his nose that he had had since he married Neddie. His big arms were brown, from working in the sun; the thick hairs on his arms were silver against his brown skin. He was just standing there, looking at her, planted, like a large tree. Harmony decided the moment for hugging had passed—maybe she would get a good opportunity later.
“Dick’s so proud of his barbecuing that we just thought we’d bring you some,” Neddie said. “I don’t know if you have much appetite, though. I don’t, when I’m upset.”
“I know how that grief is,” Dick said, looking at Harmony sympathetically. His eyes were as big as the eyes of a cow. “My oldest brother drowned in a creek when he was about Pepper’s age.”
“Oh, Dick, I’m sorry,” Harmony said. “How did it happen?”
“I wish you hadn’t asked him,” Neddie said. “We try not to get Dick started on that, if we can help it.”
“Sorry, forget I asked,” Harmony said quickly—Neddie had given her a look that indicated she should backtrack if at all possible. But it was too late. Dick’s big face darkened and darkened some more—Harmony had the terrible feeling that he might cry. She felt pretty guilty, just looking at him—no doubt the story of Dick’s drowned brother was a family story she should have known already. Dick’s face was contorted—he took his hands out of his pockets and clutched them together, as if some terrible memory was buried in his body like a root; now, because of her question, the root was about to tear out through his chest or his back. It was too late to stop the root; it seemed to be boring through Dick like a drill.
“It was my fault,” Dick said—his voice came from so deep within him it was almost as if it was the voice of the root.
“We were scuffling in the water,” he said. “It was just scuffling, Jim and me—we were always scuffling. Hell, we were brothers. Only I was huskier, I could always get the best of Jim—he was skinny. I threw him in the water and ran like hell, thinking he’d chase me. What happened was, he got his foot caught in a root and drowned. His lungs just happened to fill up, and he drowned before we could get him loose.”
“Do you feel like eating, Harmony?” Neddie asked. It was clear she was trying to do her best to ignore Dick’s story.
Harmony did feel a little hungry. The corn on the cob looked tempting. But Dick was still standing there—he didn’t look as if he would be capable of eating.
“Eating’s a safe thing to do,” Neddie commented—she was looking at Harmony, not her husband.
Dick took his hands out of his pockets and then put them back in his pockets. He sighed a heavy sigh, at the memory of his drowned brother Jim. Harmony decided she couldn’t resist the corn on the cob or the green beans either. Once she had eaten the corn and the beans she consumed half of the chicken, in order to be polite to Dick. He was standing in the door of the motel, looking out at the fields. Neddie shrugged, as if to say she had no idea what to do about her husband. Harmony sure didn’t know what to do about him; but she was touched that Neddie and Dick had been so concerned about her that they had brought her food, all the way to the Best Western. The food was good, too. The peach cobbler made the perfect dessert. Now that there were people around, and now that she wasn’t naked anymore, she felt that she had indeed been briefly crazy. She asked about Laurie and Eddie and discovered they had gone to swim in a pond, with all the cousins—it was good they had gone off to have some fun. It made her feel a lot less guilty; at least her period of insanity had not caused Eddie to miss a swim.
Pretty soon all the food was gone. Neddie sat in a chair smoking while Harmony ate. Harmony thought Neddie must be in a depression as deep as her own, if not deeper. At least hers had a clear source—but what was the source of Neddie’s?
Harmony decided it was no good holing up in the Best Western; she might as well go out into the world and be a member of her family. The sun was shining on Oklahoma, why not try to be normal for a little while? She still had her father’s pickup, a source of guilt. What if he needed to go somewhere? Not having his vehicle meant that he was trapped with her mother all day. But when she asked about her parents Neddie said they were both over at her farm—of course they hadn’t wanted to miss Eddie.
When they started to go to Neddie’s, Dick decided he had to hurry back to his plowing—his little vacation to visit his long-lost sister-in-law was over.
“I’ll just ride with you, I ain’t in a hurry,” Neddie said. “How’s Gary?”
Harmony had forgotten that she had had to cut Gary off. They hadn’t really finished their conversation—the only thing Harmony could remember about it was that Gary had wanted the government to bomb El Salvador, on account of a stolen boyfriend.
“Gary is just the same,” Harmony said. “He’s always just the same unless he’s in love, and then he’s crazy.”
“You remember asking me about being in love with Dick and I told you I wasn’t?” Neddie asked. She was looking out the window of the pickup, while Harmony drove. Obviously being in love was a subject Neddie had some difficulty talking about. She wasn’t making eye contact with her sister at all.
“I remember,” Harmony said. “Pat thought you were in love with Dick’s brother or something—I forget his name.”
“His name is Rusty,” Neddie said. “He’s the brother who didn’t get drowned.”
; Then she lit another cigarette and looked out the window again. Harmony was wondering if Rusty would be as large as Dick—the thought of two men that large was interesting.
“Is he plowing, too?” she asked, wondering if she was going to meet Rusty in a field, or what.
“Oh no, he ain’t plowing—he’s not a workaholic like Dick,” Neddie said. “Rusty likes to spend his afternoons drinking in a beer joint. The beer joint where he’s at is right down the road here. Since I have you for cover, maybe we could stay and have a beer or two. You could visit with Rusty and see what you think.”
“Neddie, sure,” Harmony said. She wanted to try and help Neddie be a little less nervous.
“That’s the beer joint,” Neddie said, pointing to a little shack they were just about to zoom by. Two battered white pickups sat in front of it. One of them had a large black dog pacing around in the back end.
“Don’t even look at that dog, he ain’t friendly,” Neddie said. “That is, he ain’t friendly except to Rusty.”
There was a heap of old tires piled by the door of the beer joint. It was a pretty ramshackly building, too—Harmony had to remind herself not to be picky; she wasn’t in the big city now.
“I wouldn’t never have the nerve to see him here, if you wasn’t along,” Neddie said. She was nervously watching the cars that passed on the interstate, seeing if they contained familiar faces who might spot her and figure it out.
“I ain’t the type to go drinking with my boyfriend in the middle of the afternoon,” she added, unnecessarily. Harmony knew her sister wasn’t that type, but, even so, anyone could feel the need to break the mold, once in a while.