The Heavenly Table

by Donald Ray Pollock

  Chimney got out of the chair and studied himself in the mirror for a moment, then paid the man. Picking up his bundle of new clothes, he walked back to the hotel and took a hot bath. As he soaped himself up, he thought about the barber and his wife, wondered if she was really as bad as he’d let on. She must be, otherwise why would the bald-headed father-in-law put up with such insults? Christ, the slut was probably bent over a chair getting fucked by someone right now. His hand went down between his legs as he tried to imagine what she felt like. By the time he finished, he had water splashed all over the floor around the tub. He hurriedly dried off, then put on his new clothes and went down the stairs and out the door onto the street. The weather was fine, the sky a soft, cloudless blue. Walking past the hotel where Cane and Cob were staying, he entered a joint called the McAdams. It was the first time he’d ever been in a bar, but he sat down on a stool and nonchalantly ordered a beer and a steak sandwich like he’d hung out in them all his life. He made small talk with the keep while he ate, then went on down the street looking for the car lot.

  Chimney knew absolutely nothing when it came to automobiles, but there were at least a dozen parked on the gravel of various years and models. He was walking around looking them over when a man in a pair of greasy coveralls came out of a garage and introduced himself as Tom Triplett. “You looking for a car?”

  “Could be,” Chimney said. “Ain’t decided yet.”

  “Well, take your time,” the man said. “It’s probably the most important purchase you’ll make in your lifetime. You from around here?”

  “No,” Chimney said.

  “What brings you to Meade?” Triplett asked, wondering, as he looked at the customer’s clothes, if he might be a carny, or another one of those entertainers the fruitcake over at the Majestic was always bringing in. Most of the acts he’d seen there over the years weren’t worth the quarter admission fee, though he would admit that goddamn bunch called the Lewis Family did put on a hell of a show once they got wound up.

  “Oh, nothing much. Thought maybe I’d buy me a whore.”

  Triplett didn’t bat an eye. Ever since the pimp and his women appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago, half the men in Meade had whores on their mind, one way or another. He didn’t approve of them for the most part, but that most part was because Blackie kept sending his bodyguard over with IOUs for services they had provided to his son, Jeffrey. “Buy ye one of these and you won’t have to pay for it,” he told Chimney.

  “What do ye mean?”

  “Hell, son, ain’t nothing gets a woman hotter than ridin’ around in a nice car.”

  “That right?” Chimney said.

  “As God is my witness,” Triplett said. “Why, my boy, Jeffrey, he…” The salesman felt his stomach begin to fizz, and he clapped his mouth shut. Talking about his son would just set his ulcer on fire again. The lazy sonofabitch had slithered home again this morning past dawn, all scratched to hell and stinking drunk, looking like an animal that should be shot and put out of its misery. He’d fuck anything with two legs. “Take this car, for example,” Triplett said to Chimney, pointing at a shiny red Packard. “Why, I guarantee you, you drive this car uptown tonight, you’ll have to fight the women off. Let me ask ye something. How is it ye get around now?”

  “Horse,” Chimney said.

  “Horse!” Triplett laughed. “No wonder you have to pay for it. Ain’t no young modern woman wants to be seen on a horse these days.”

  “I don’t know how to drive,” Chimney said.

  “Shoot, there’s nothing to it. I can show ye everything you need to know in a couple hours.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, depends on what you want.”

  “Which one’s the fastest?”

  “That’d be the Packard. It’ll go sixty miles an hour on good road. I could let you have it for two thousand, including the tax. She’s the same as brand-new.”

  “No,” Chimney said, shaking his head, “I can’t afford nothin’ like that.”

  “Well, how much can ye afford?”

  The boy looked around, then pointed at a black Ford touring car. “How much for that one?”

  Triplett rubbed his chin. A man from Clarksburg had traded it in two weeks ago, complaining that it was cold-natured, but he hadn’t had time to check out the problem yet. “That one I could let go for two-fifty. She’s got a few miles on her, but she’s been taken good care of.”

  “And you can show me how to drive it?”

  “Sure, I’ll take ye out today if you want.”

  They went into the office and Chimney counted out the money. The man started scribbling in a receipt book. “What’s your name?”

  “Hollis Stubbs.”

  “How do ye spell that?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody ever showed me.”

  Triplett made a guess at it, then handed over the receipt. “Always keep this with you so you got proof you own it.” Then he shucked off the coveralls and put on a pair of goggles and a long duster. “I’ll show you how to start it first,” he told Chimney. He proceeded to explain pulling out the choke lever and priming the engine with the crank, then setting the throttle and the spark advance before giving it one more crank to fire it up. He went through the whole procedure twice, the first time slowly, the second time quickly. The car started up fine both times, and he wondered, first, if the man from Clarksburg knew what the fuck he was talking about, and second, if he should have charged the boy a little more for it. “Think ye got it?” he said.

  “I think so,” Chimney said.

  “Good,” Triplett said, hopping in on the driver’s side. “Once we get out of town, I’ll put you behind the wheel.”

  —

  BACK AT THE McCarthy, Cane was sitting in the room trying to make sense out of the first act of Richard III when he glanced out the window and saw two men drive by in a black automobile. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, as he was telling Cob again to take it easy on the doughnuts, that he realized the dandy sitting in the passenger’s seat wearing the purplish shirt had been their little brother.

  51

  AS SOON AS he finished helping Malone run the men through a drill on gas defense that afternoon, Lieutenant Bovard headed for the infirmary. A nurse in white showed him to the curtained-off area where an anesthetized Wesley was recuperating from his surgery. Other than a white bandage taped over the left side of his face, a cut on his chin and a small bruise on his forehead seemed to be his only other injuries. Pulling up a metal chair, the lieutenant sat down beside the bed. He heard, coming from down the hall, the evangelizing voice of the clap doctor warning another group of new recruits about the connections between syphilis germs and prostitutes and contaminated toilet seats. “Blindness, insanity, and death!” Eisner yelled as he finished the sermon. “Abstinence, gentlemen, that’s the only way you’ll survive!”

  Eventually, Wesley opened his right eye and looked over, saw his lieutenant. In a voice a bit slurry with painkillers, he said slowly, “First darn time I was ever drunk in my life and look what happened.”

  “Just so you know,” Bovard said, “I heard they arrested the man who attacked you.”

  “Aw, I should have left him alone, him being a preacher and all, but he just kept on about…Heck, I can’t remember now. Something to do with the war, I think.”

  “Has anyone been around to talk to you yet?”

  “No, sir, I ain’t heard nothing other than I lost my eye.”

  Bovard felt he should say something encouraging, but what could that possibly be? Disappointment filled the room. No chance for a glorious death now, the poor kid. He imagined Wesley going back to whatever dismal farm or hamlet he had come from once he was released from the brig. “I’ll ask ol’ Lloyd Beavers about hiring you on at the granary,” his father would tell him; and a few months later he’d marry some wide-hipped local girl, sealing his fate forever, though, of course, the boy wouldn’t think of it like that, at least not for the first couple of
weeks. Bovard, however, could see it all: a month or two of wedded bliss wiped out in seconds by the first serious spat over something as trivial as a burned meatloaf; and then the years passing by one after another, the struggle to make ends meet, the burden of a passel of brats to feed and clothe, the inevitable decline. A lifetime after the war has ended, Wesley sitting on his stoop, his black hair turned gray, worn out with niggling worries and constant back pain and the same old same old. He clutches a brown bottle of home brew in his knotty, arthritic hand. He looks toward the horizon, the quiet evening surrounding him in a lonesome, regretful sadness. His children now gone, his wife suffering from yet another ailment. He hears her inside the house, moving about slowly, muttering to herself. His hand reaches up and touches the black eye patch. Back when it happened, everyone had said he was lucky that he didn’t have to go fight. But now, looking around his tiny square of yard at the clumps of dead grass and the old, weather-cracked tire swing hanging in the tree, he…

  “Am I gonna go to prison?” Wesley suddenly said.

  Jerked out of his reverie, Bovard cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not sure, but what you did, it’s considered a serious offense.”

  “What if you talked to them for me? I swear the only reason I took off was my girlfriend sent me a letter saying she was gettin’ married.”

  “I’m sorry, Wesley, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “What about your family?” Bovard said. “Would you like for me to contact them, let them know what’s happened?” The nurse, a crabby, thin-lipped woman, came back and looked in at them, then went away.

  “Oh, no, sir, I’d rather you didn’t. Truth is, the day I signed up was the proudest my old man’s ever been of me, and I don’t want to ruin that quite yet.”

  “I understand,” Bovard said, standing up to leave. “Well, good luck.”

  “I still can’t believe she’s gettin’ hitched to ol’ Froggy Conway,” Wesley said bitterly, a trace of anger starting to surface through the dope haze. “I swear to God, sir, he’s damn near as old as my granddaddy.”

  “Look, I know it might be hard to imagine now, but I’d wager one of these days you’ll see it was the best thing that could have happened.”

  “Well, you might be right about that. Truth is, I ain’t had much feeling for her ever since I got in her knickers last spring. For some reason, I thought it would be more fun than it was. But Froggy Conway? I’ll be the joke of the town when I go back home. Jesus. The sonofabitch looks like a hoptoad.” He bit his lip to keep from crying and looked toward the window. Just then, he almost wished the old preacher had killed him last night. There weren’t but four hundred people in Veto, which meant that he’d see her and Froggy every time he turned around. And that wasn’t the worst of it; even if people forgot Mary Ann had cheated on him, they would never forget that he’d deserted his post. Maybe he could move away, he thought, find a job in Pomeroy or Gallipolis, some town where people didn’t know him. He was getting ready to ask Bovard what he thought he should do when he realized the man was gone. Might as well get used to it, Wesley thought sadly. Nobody wanted anything to do with him now, not even his lieutenant.

  52

  AROUND FIVE O’CLOCK that evening, Chimney completed his driving lesson and took Triplett back to his office. The salesman climbed out of the car, his stomach in worse shape than ever. The boy was probably the most reckless driver he had ever met, but at the same time he did have a knack for it. At least a dozen times Triplett had thought they were goners, but somehow the little sonofabitch always managed to pull off another miracle. Triplett tore off his goggles and duster and sucked some air down into his lungs. He’d been so tense for the last hour he’d barely been able to breathe. “Where would I find me an outfit like the one you’re wearing?” Chimney asked him.

  “Go to Wissler’s down on Second Street,” Triplett said, still a little dizzy. “That’s where I buy all my gear.”

  Chimney made it to the hardware store just before they closed. He bought a pair of tinted goggles and tight leather gloves and a tan-colored duster, then drove back to the hotel and spent ten minutes trying to park along the curb between a roadster with a flat tire and a wagon filled with crates of apples. He rushed upstairs and washed the dust off his face and hands and combed his hair, then put on his new driving ensemble and admired himself in the mirror. Locking the door to his room, he walked past the ink-stained desk clerk and headed for the park.

  Cane was seated on a wooden bench by the pond watching Cob throw bits of bread out onto the water for the ducks. He was mulling over the last scene he had read in Richard III, in which the cripple has two nephews drowned in a wine cask. Because this Shakespeare fellow used so many words he’d never heard before, it was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at times; but he was thinking Chimney would probably love a story filled with such meanness when he looked up and saw him striding toward them in his new clothes: the striped pants and purple shirt bright against the tan duster, the goggles covering half his face, the derby sitting atop his head like a black egg.

  “So you got it?” Cane said. “The automobile?”

  “I did. A Ford. ‘Coop,’ the man called it. The sonofabitch will go thirty-five miles an hour!”

  “Where is it?” Cane asked, as Cob slung the rest of the bread into the pond, then walked over and stood silently looking at his younger brother.

  “Parked up in front of the hotel. I been driving it around all afternoon with the salesman. Startin’ it up’s a little tricky, but I almost got the hang of it.”

  “Good,” Cane said. “What’d ye pay for it?”

  “Two-fifty.”

  “You look funny,” Cob spoke up.

  “Fuck you,” Chimney said. “This is what you wear when you’re operatin’ an automobile. Course, you wouldn’t know nothin’ about that. Shit, you can barely stay on a horse.”

  “Well, that might be,” Cob said, “but me and Tom’s got the biggest dern ham you ever seen up in our room.”

  “You watch out he don’t try to molest it while you’re sleeping.”

  “Huh?” Cob said.

  “Never mind,” Chimney said. He took the goggles off and stuck them in the pocket of the duster, then sat down on the bench. “Found out about some whores, too. All ye do is get in a taxi and he’ll take you right to ’em.”

  “Boy, you have been busy, haven’t ye?” Cane said.

  “So I’m thinkin’ we go out tonight and get us some.”

  “Me, too?” Cob said.

  “Ah, I don’t think you’d care for it, Junior,” Cane said. “Besides, we can’t all be seen together.”

  “But what am I gonna do then?”

  “How about I buy you some ice cream at that place we passed and then walk you back to the hotel? You got that ham to eat on and there’s still some doughnuts left.”

  “I reckon,” Cob said.

  “I’ll wait for ye at the corner right down from where I’m staying,” Chimney said, as he stood up. “You’ll see the taxis settin’ there. And don’t take too long, either.”

  Forty minutes later, Cane finally showed up at the cab stand. “Jesus Christ,” Chimney said, “I was about ready to take off by myself.”

  “Ah, you know how Cob is. He got started on that ice cream and didn’t want to stop.”

  Just then a taxi pulled up and two soldiers hopped out of the backseat. They were in a heated argument about something. They paid the driver and walked around the corner still going at it.

  “What was that about?” Chimney asked the cabbie as they climbed in the car.

  “Ah, they been out to the Whore Barn,” the cabbie said. “The one with the glasses, he had trouble getting it up, and the other kept ridin’ him about it. I expect they’ll be a fight before they get back to camp. You can tell the red-faced fucker’s one of those guys that likes to start shit.” He turned in the seat and looked back at them. “Is that where you
wanting to go, to the Whore Barn?”

  “Yeah,” Chimney said.

  “This your first time?”

  “Hell, no,” Chimney said, “I’ve had plenty of women.” He pulled a pint of whiskey from his duster pocket, twisted the cap off, and took a sip.

  “No, I mean your first time to the Whore Barn.”

  “We just got into town,” Cane said.

  “Well, my advice is if Blackie tries to stick the fat one off on you, tell him you’ll just wait for one of the others. Just between us, she’s full of gonorrhea.” Ever since the cabbie had paid Esther to take a leak on his chest and she’d accidently drenched his new toupee instead, he had been informing everyone that she was wracked with various loathsome and incurable diseases. Not only had she ruined the hairpiece, but she’d made a wisecrack about it, as well, saying it looked so much like a muskrat, it should have been waterproof; and if there was anything he hated worse than a woman with poor bladder control, it was one with a smart mouth. Chimney passed him the pint, and he took a pull and handed it back.

  “Who’s Blackie?”

  “He’s their pimp.”

  “What’s that?” Chimney asked.

  “Why, he’s the one you pay.”

  “Oh, like their madam,” Chimney said, recalling Miss Ashley, the red-haired, ivory-skinned woman who ran Bloody Bill’s favorite whorehouse back in Denver, Colorado.

  “Madam? Uh, yeah. Only he’s a man.”

  “How much they charge for a piece?” Chimney said as the cabbie pulled out and headed the car south down Paint Street.

  “Oh, it’s cheap enough,” the cabbie said. “You can get a shot of pussy and two drinks for less than five bucks. Course it depends on what you want, too. Some things cost a little more.”

  “What do ye mean?” Chimney said.

  “Well, say you want to get pissed on or have your balls blistered with a candle. That’d be extra.”