As Good As Gone

by Larry Watson

  He’s made no effort to find work. Instead, he worked out a deal with Beverly. If she’d support him for six months, thereby freeing him to write the novel he’s been plotting for years, come January 1, 1964, he’ll take the first job that comes along, even if that’s bagging groceries at Red Owl.

  Adam has never been much of a worker, so he must have high hopes for that novel. Beverly hasn’t read any of it; she only knows it’s supposed to be a western. She can’t feature her son carrying bags of groceries out to people’s cars, but neither can she imagine him completing a project the size of a book. Well, she supposes she’s raised him to be who and what he is. Hard work killed her husband, so as long as she’s able, she’ll make life easier for Adam. If the result of that philosophy is a son returning home when he’s almost thirty years old, she’ll have to live with it.

  “What am I looking at?” Adam asks as he peers out in the direction of the alley.

  “Our neighbors are resolving a dispute,” she says. “Watch.”

  Without that explanation, Adam might not be able to tell much about what’s going on, but he can certainly see what Beverly sees. Calvin Sidey standing tall and still with his arms crossed while Mr. and Mrs. Neaves shuffle around in the dust, pointing both north and south to deflect the blame, mouthing their denials and counter­arguments. Dalton Neaves is the first to walk away, but his wife lingers a moment, and her expression leads Beverly to believe that June Neaves might be issuing a qualified apology.

  Adam says, “I guess it just doesn’t hold the fascination for me that it holds for you.” Her son turns to walk away.

  Mildly disappointed herself, Beverly is about to leave as well when she sees something that makes her stay. While Mrs. Neaves is trying—futilely, it appears—to engage stone-­faced Calvin Sidey in conversation, her husband returns to the alley. He carries two paper bags, and he shakes one out and hands it to his wife. She immediately begins to fill it with the garbage scattered at her feet. Dalton Neaves watches his wife for a moment. He seems, along with Calvin, to be supervising her work, but finally Mr. Neaves opens his bag also and begins to pick up garbage, albeit much more gingerly than his wife. Only when both Mr. and Mrs. Neaves are engaged in the cleanup does Calvin Sidey walk back to his son’s house.

  Beverly can’t help herself. She claps her hands at what has occurred in the alley. The sound of applause brings Adam back, but he only sees Mr. and Mrs. Neaves cleaning up the alley, not an uncommon sight in a neighborhood dedicated to neatness.

  “I guess I missed the best part,” Adam says.

  “These dramas are best viewed in their entirety,” Beverly says. “If you come late or leave early, they don’t make much sense.”

  “Just give me a capsule review. What was it about?”

  “Power,” she says.

  TEN

  The doctor scheduled to perform Marjorie’s hysterectomy has been called away for his own family emergency, and he isn’t sure when he’ll return to Missoula. Because Marjorie has already checked into Good Samaritan Hospital and been assigned a room, and because the doctor might still return on short notice, she has to remain in the hospital. But there’s no reason for Bill to stay, and Marjorie shoos him out.

  “Go out and see the sights,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be back for evening visiting hours,” he assures her.

  Then he’s not sure if he should go. Is it only his imagination, or when he kisses her good-­bye does that little tug on his shirtsleeve have an urgency that’s usually not there? He looks down at her with a questioning look.

  “Go,” Marjorie says. “I’ll be fine.”

  When Bill exits the hospital, he feels, as he’s sure many people must when they walk through those doors, lighter, liberated, as though he’s been given a gift greater than a few hours of freedom. Marjorie didn’t specify what sights he might take in, but Bill knows exactly where he’ll go.

  Bill Sidey loves neighborhoods, especially those with architecturally interesting houses and carefully landscaped lawns, and though his business is buying and selling houses, this interest is more than professional. For him, houses and their grounds offer aesthetic pleasures; what the sight of a mountain range or a woodland meadow is for many people, a stretch of well-­kept homes is for Bill Sidey, yet he’s never seen a picture of a block of Craftsman bungalows hanging over anyone’s sofa. He climbs into his car and heads for his favorite section of Missoula.

  He parks his car on a residential street near the University of Montana. Oaks, elms, and maples, all taller and older than the tallest and oldest trees in Gladstone, arch over the street. The houses are a mix of styles—Queen Anne, Greek Revival, Dutch Colonial, Tudor, and Victorian. Most of them sit back comfortably on hedged, evenly trimmed lawns. On and around the houses are weather vanes, cupolas, gingerbread trim, paneled doors, leaded windows, wrought-­iron fences—decoration found on very few houses in Bill’s own town or, for that matter, in the part of the city where Marjorie’s sister and husband live in a single story ranch house on a treeless cul-­de-­sac. July has been hot here—as in Gladstone—and this day is no exception, but because this neighborhood has not only the shade of its mature trees but also the cooling shadow of nearby Mount Jumbo, the heat doesn’t feel as punishing.

  The first time Bill visited this neighborhood—that time in flight from his sister-­in-­law’s incessant chatter—he thought, looking at these many grand houses, life has to go well in there. How could any unhappiness find its way inside walls that were so plumb, true, and well tended on the outside? He recognized immediately the foolishness of that thinking, yet some of its prettiness remained, as stubborn in its place as rows of brickwork.

  He sets out walking on a sun-­dappled sidewalk. When she was younger, really, not that many years ago, his daughter, Ann, liked to walk with him through Gladstone’s neighborhoods. She’d hold his hand and listen attentively when he told her about who lived in this house or that house back when he was her age. If these recitations bored her, she didn’t show it. Ann doesn’t walk very often now; one friend or another is always cruising up to the house to pick her up and take her somewhere, often to a destination close enough for anyone to walk, and certainly for young people with their strong, healthy legs. But Bill is guilty of the same. He drives distances he could easily walk. And both he and Marjorie have wondered why Ann hasn’t shown any interest in driving herself, though she passed legal driving age a few years ago.

  Up ahead a barrel-­chested bald man is watering his flower garden. He’s an older man and wearing wingtips, dress slacks, a white shirt and tie, and most of the tie’s length is tucked inside his shirt. Perhaps he’s left his office just to come home and give his garden a drink. Bill slows in hopes of eliciting a greeting. It doesn’t come, and Bill walks past, but then decides he gave up too easily. He turns around, and this time he stops on the sidewalk near the man with the hose.

  When the man finally looks Bill’s way, Bill says, “It’s hard to keep up, isn’t it?”

  The man cocks his head quizzically.

  “When it’s so dry, I mean.” Bill points to the flower bed. “It seems like they’re always thirsty.”

  The man nods and adjusts the nozzle so the spray of water changes from a stream to a diffuse mist to shower gently on his nasturtiums.

  Had the man turned the hose on Bill, he could not have made it plainer that he has no interest in conversation, but Bill won’t be deterred. “Or maybe you’ve had rain here?” Bill asks, looking up and down the block. “It sure looks green.”

  “No, we’re waiting on a good rain. It’s been a while. And we’re coming off a dry winter and a dry spring.”

  A good rain. Now Bill knows they can converse. They’re two Montanans who draw distinctions between good and bad rains.

  “I’m from the eastern part of the state. Gladstone? We’re not officially in a drought, but we’re not far off.”

  “Then I guess you don’t want to trade water bills, do
you?”

  “On my block,” says Bill, “we’ve got folks running their sprinklers all night.”

  The man shakes his head, but whether in pity or disgust it’s unclear.

  “How are prices for houses running around here?”

  The man stiffens, and Bill knows immediately that he’s erred, bringing up a subject so closely related to money and how much this man might earn. Bill tries quickly to make up for his mistake.

  “I’ve got a couple reasons for asking. One’s professional. I’m in real estate, and I know what a place like this”—he deliberately points to the house next door—“would go for in Gladstone, but I’m always curious about housing costs in other communities.”

  Perhaps the man moves away from Bill because he simply wants to keep his watering pattern even, but move away he does, though only a few paces. Bill follows and keeps talking. “The other reason I ask is that my wife and I are thinking of relocating to Missoula. And a street like this, houses like these—well, this is just the kind of neighborhood we’ve always wanted to live in. Anything for sale around here?”

  The man looks warily at Bill. “Here in Missoula?”

  “I was hoping to see something for sale on this street.”

  The man sniffs. “We’ve got nothing for sale around here,” he says curtly. “And I doubt anything will be available in the near future. People on this block tend to stay put.”

  Ah, there it is! Bill has bumped right up against it! If Bill already had a home on this block, this man might be the most neighborly of neighbors, ready to help Bill shovel out his driveway, to bring in the mail when the Sideys leave town, to jump start Bill’s car if it doesn’t turn over on a frigid winter morning, to rake the oak and elm leaves that fall on both lawns. But for an outsider, the man and his block have no room. This behavior toward strangers is probably basic human nature, something Bill could encounter anywhere on the planet. But he’s sure to find it in Montana.

  “Well,” says Bill. “Thank you for your time.”

  The man twists his nozzle again, now shutting off the flow of water entirely, and without another word he walks off toward his house.

  Bill contrasts this neighborhood and its stately houses with his father’s sunbaked, wind-­buffeted dwelling out on the prairie. Yet the house where Bill lives now—and its size, construction, and style—would fit in nicely on this block. He wonders if he’ll ever think of it as anything but his father’s house, whether Calvin Sidey is sleeping in the basement or roaming free on every floor. When Bill was a child and adolescent, he used to wonder why the house itself wasn’t enough to bring his father back. As children do, Bill was willing to blame himself—he simply wasn’t good enough to make his father stay in the first place or later to return—but even then Bill had sufficient appreciation of the house, its bricks, mortar, boards, and nails, to wonder, Why wouldn’t he want to live here?

  Bill looks at his watch, and the position of the hands tells him nothing of what he needs to do or where he should go, but he’s walked far enough. There’s no point in returning to the hospital; evening visiting hours are hours away.

  He returns to his car and heads to downtown Missoula, and there he parks on Higgins Avenue and walks a block to the Wagon­master Cafe, a diner that’s been in business for decades. Bill sits on a stool at the counter. It’s early for supper and there’s only one other customer, an old man sitting at a table by the window, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. From the waitress, a heavyset woman wearing a red apron and a hairnet, Bill orders liver, bacon, and onions with mashed potatoes on the side, a meal he’d never eat at home—Marjorie not only dislikes liver, she can’t stand the smell of it frying. For dessert he has apple pie à la mode.

  Bill eats his meal slowly, savoring every bite. When he’s finished, and enjoying his after dinner coffee and a cigarette, a few more customers filter into the Wagonmaster. All of them are men and all of them are alone. At a table, at a booth, at the counter, they seat themselves, and though they appear to be regulars in the Wagonmaster, they don’t offer anything more than a silent greeting to the other diners. The satisfaction that Bill Sidey felt eating his solitary, forbidden meal suddenly vanishes. He stubs out his cigarette and signals for the check.

  While paying his bill, he says to the waitress, “I’m on the way to Good Samaritan. My wife’s a patient there.”

  It’s not exactly what Bill wants to say, but he wants to explain that he’s not like these other men in the diner. He has a wife, a family, somewhere he has to be, and someone there waiting for him. He has obligations.

  “Do tell,” the waitress says, but she doesn’t look up as she counts out Bill’s change.

  WHEN BILL RETURNS TO Marjorie’s room, he finds her sitting on the edge of the bed nervously smoking a cigarette. Her gown is up around her knees, and her bare legs look pale, as if two days in the hospital have already been enough to fade her summer tan. Carole and her husband, Milo, are there too, hovering near the bed and wearing expressions of concern.

  “Where have you been?” Marjorie asks, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Just wandering. Why—what’s going on?”

  “The surgery’s back on. For seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Bill can’t say so, but he’s relieved; from their expressions he feared that something was wrong back in Gladstone. “What happened? The doctor—”

  “He doesn’t want to make me wait. He’ll perform the operation, then he’ll leave town.”

  Although Bill doesn’t like the idea of the doctor not being available for postsurgical care, he doesn’t give voice to his concern. He says, “That’s great . . . having the surgery right on schedule. So why am I seeing these glum faces?”

  Marjorie crushes out her cigarette and lies back on the elevated head of the bed. “I don’t know. I thought I was ready, but now . . .”

  “It’s major surgery,” Carole says. The fact that she’s already undergone the operation obviously makes Carole feel as though she’s entitled to that observation, but the remark irritates Bill. As so much about his sister-­in-­law does. She likes to flaunt her knowledge of doctors, drugs, and medical procedures, and Bill wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she’s been frightening Marjorie with tales of all that can go wrong during the operation or in its aftermath. And she’d do it all under the guise of merely wanting Marjorie to be well informed about what to expect.

  Bill has never been sure whether Marjorie is aware of the extent to which her older sister is jealous of her, and that jealousy probably goes back to a time when it first became apparent that slender, dark-­haired, vivacious Marjorie would not resemble the other members of the Randolph family—father, mother, and daughter Carole all snub-­featured, dull-­eyed, and with hair the color of cardboard. Marjorie’s easy popularity in school doubtless only exacerbated Carole’s envy. Nevertheless, the sisters have always gotten along and in fact, since their parents died, have become even closer. For that reason alone, Bill is careful never to speak against Carole.

  Milo is another matter. If he had all day to think about it, Bill could not come up with an unkind word to say about his brother-­in-­law. Shy, silent Milo, tall and crew-­cut and sun-­tanned from all the hours he spends on his lawn and garden. Milo is a junior high school math teacher and one of the gentlest men Bill has ever met.

  And, true to his character, Milo now sees something going on in the room to which his wife is blind. “I think,” Milo says, holding out his hand for his wife, “we better leave these two alone.”

  Before she leaves, Carole kisses her sister on the cheek and hugs her tightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Carole says. “If I’m not here before you go in, I’ll for sure be here when you come out.”

  Once they’re alone, Bill walks from the foot of the bed to Marjorie’s side. “If you sit up,” he says, “I’ll rub your back.”

  By way of assent, she pushes herself to a sitting position and hangs her head. Her hospital gown ties in back,
but only the top strings are knotted. She leans forward, and in the process allows Bill to look all the way down the ridge of her spine to her underpants. He begins his massage near her shoulder blades, slowly ranging outward until he reaches the softer flesh near her armpits, then he moves back toward her spine. He repeats this pattern, each time moving closer to her sides and closer also to her breasts, free inside the loose gown. He can feel her relax under his touch.

  In recent years, Marjorie has shrunk from his embraces and caresses more and more often, but she’ll allow him to knead the knotted muscles of her back until his own fingers cramp from the effort. In fact, the first time they made love the experience grew from a back rub. He can still remember how his touch altered—or was the alteration only in his mind?—until its purpose was not relaxation but arousal, hers and his.

  And his touch is changing now in just that way. Soon he’s brushing the sides of her breasts, and in a few moments he’ll work all the way around to the front and gently tease her nipples. Unless she stops him, and Bill doesn’t believe she will. She knows what he’s doing, and she shifts her body slightly to accommodate his touch. She even leans forward to press her breast into his hand, and Bill gives up the pretense of massage and lets his fingers slide slowly down her abdomen.

  He has to stop, he knows this, he has to, but against that inevitable moment, he goes on. He has two fingers inside the elastic of her underpants when she leans away from him. But she doesn’t seem to have stopped him because he has angered her or offended her sense of decorum. Through her gown, she puts both hands on Bill’s and for a moment simply holds his in place. Then, in a voice that hints of frustration and sadness equal to his, she says, “We can’t.”

  With a sigh that sounds like a prelude to tears, Marjorie lies back on the bed. She turns her face away from Bill. “I’m scared,” she says.

  What Bill wants to answer is, Then let’s get the hell out of here. Right now. And let’s not go back to your sister’s or head for home. Let’s find a motel right here in Missoula and finish what we started. This operation isn’t something you have to do, goddamn it; it’s something you want to do. Instead, he remains silent. He strokes the back of Marjorie’s hand, careful to convey that his touch now is intended to comfort rather than excite.