by Packer, Vin
Weeping aloud now, the lights of his and Maggie’s house in the distance, Joseph Meaker picked up Ishmael and held him in his arms, stumbling to his feet, grabbing the car’s fender for support, holding on, waiting for the control that would come. But forgiveness would not come with it, nor would resignation. Because when Joseph Meaker had control again, he would think of some way to use it on the man in the Mercedes Benz.
Chapter Four
Every time Lou Hart looked at another car, he was not sorry he had bought his Mercedes Benz.
“It’s the sweetest piece around these parts,” a mechanic had told him the night before last. “I had to fight with one of the other guys to be the one to drive it back to you, Doc, and that don’t happen once a blue moon. A pick-up-and-delivery’s usually pain the ass.”
Lou Hart had only owned the Benz four months. Monday was a hospital day, so the New Hope Repair Garage had serviced it Sunday. The mechanic who returned the car that evening also presented Lou Hart with a “sweet” bill. One of the hazards of Benz ownership, Hart supposed — the impression that you were rich enough to afford a Benz was taken for granted. The car was a wild extravagance, but there was no way to explain that to a garage man who had come nine miles out of his way at day’s end. Particularly when the garage man’s car, waiting for him in Lou Hart’s driveway, was a ‘51 Chevy.
That afternoon at the Doylestown Shopping Centre, Lou noticed a Ford Consul, one of the little British numbers. He had passed it driving into Doylestown, and noticed it when suddenly he saw it turn around through his rearview mirror. The driver had quite suddenly reversed his direction; all the way into Doylestown, Lou had seen the car directly behind him. At the parking lot in front of the Acme Supermarket, the car pulled in beside him. Lou Hart was more interested in the car than the owner, but he did get a brief glimpse of the driver. A thin fellow wearing sunglasses and a red-and-black checkered cap.
Hart went first to the drug store, where he left several prescriptions to be filled. The new clerk waited on him, instead of Mr. Blanding, and Lou was glad for that. For business’ sake, Blanding always tried to act cordial, but his opinion of Lou invariably registered in the tight lines around his narrow mouth, and in the coldness of his grey eyes. The new clerk seemed to go out of his way to be nice, and Lou wondered if that was just his way, or if perhaps the young man was reacting nervously to gossip he had heard about Lou. Trying to cover it with a steady flow of banal conversation: yes, Doctor, and no, Doctor, and will that be all, Doctor? Yesterday at the Hospital, Dr. Ingram had passed Lou in the hallway near Receiving; he had waved at Lou and then he had said, “Nice to see you, Louis. How are you getting along?” Not, how are you! — but how are you getting along. Little things like that, always. The Fratnik kids who lived across the road from Lou — ten, or eleven now — the other morning when Lou was out painting the mailbox he heard them singing, “Little Brown Jug,” hiding behind the yew tree at the edge of Lou’s property; “… ha, ha, ha, you and me, little brown jug how I love thee!”
After Lou left the drug store, he took a look around the parking lot. His next appointment was at two-fifteen (a sodium psylliate injection for internal haemorrhoids); it was ten-after-one now. There were not many cars, and Hart decided to chance completing the shopping, saving Janice a trip that afternoon. The Ford Consul was still parked next to his car, he noticed, and the fellow in the cap and sunglasses was standing by Lou’s Benz. Lou smiled. Everywhere he went people admired the car, even if they did not admire its owner.
In the Acme he bought some Gravy Boat for Janice’s dog. He could never think of Stilt as his dog, nor their dog — it was all hers, as far as Lou was concerned. Stilt was a huge, spoiled French sheep dog, with no toilet training at age three, and an overwhelming urge to knock down most people he greeted. Lou always had to turn his back when Janice mixed hot water with Gravy Boat and presented it to the dog. With his back turned, he did not have to watch the spectacle of the dog eating, but he heard it. He knew the number of slurps — exactly seven — and he knew their rhythm. It was slurp-slurp — slurpslurp-slurp — slurp-slurp. In his office last week three such slurps and one crunch sounded the demise of a garter belt with a Gelhorn pessary, made for Mrs. Knappenburger, a farm woman suffering from prolapse. Since then, Lou had often sat around wondering exactly how many slurps could finish him off; put him out of practice altogether. It was a dreary practice anyway, what was left of it. He might well have specialized in proctology, anticipating the ailments he treated these days: hernias, polyps, fistulas, colitis — and he knew the farmers who came to him for treatment, came out of respect for old Lou Hart, Sr., dead six years now, the best general practitioner Bucks County had ever had.
Lou loaded the Acme’s wagon up with Gravy Boat and can after can of dog meat, and at the butcher’s counter, he picked out a huge bone. With Tony off in Paris, Janice was damn lonely, and if Stilt could fill even a crack of the gap left by their son’s absence, Lou Hart could afford to replace a garter belt with a Gelhorn pessary now and then. As nutty as Janice was, she was not a difficult woman and she never had been. She had produced a son for Lou, and certainly the way Tony had turned out could not really be blamed on Janice. A mother may be attached to her boy, may be over-attached, but a mother does not set out to deliberately make him peculiar. Lou Hart realized he had a share in the blame. He supposed he had left the bringing-up of Tony too much in Janice’s hands. During the days Tony was growing up, Lou had still envisioned every call, working fourteen and sixteen-hour days, accepting a load of firewood for payment (a mule once, too), and satisfying some naive idealism in himself with the knowledge that he was bringing the most modem Johns Hopkins methods to the backwoods. He and his father had the big Cruller house near Doylestown in those days, and sometimes the only look Lou got at Tony was a glimpse of him through his office window, a small figure wearing a wool stocking cap, playing out back in the sand lot. Tony seemed to grow up overnight; and grown, he seemed awkward around Lou, relieved to have Janice join their conversations. At times Lou felt Janice and Tony left him out of their little inner circle, but, of course, it must have been the other way around. Now, at forty, Lou thought very little about the matters anymore. Perhaps it was he who was relieved now, glad Tony had gone abroad to study. It was less embarrassing that way for both Tony and Lou; neither one had to apologize for the other. Both were what they were.
Now, at forty, Lou Hart was resigned. There were compensations in life, never mind the conditions: Janice and Lou got along well, there was a good deal of love between them, and this year things had seemed to take a turn for the better. Lou no longer kidded himself the way he used to, by telling himself he was going on any permanent wagon — but there were long intervals between the really bad bouts now — and last spring they had bought the house they had always wanted to own — the Clymer place on Old Ferry Road. It had taken every single penny Janice had left from her grandfather’s estate; and all of Lou’s inheritance. Yet when Lou had mentioned wanting to buy the car, Janice had done nothing to discourage him.
Life was quieting down, Lou felt; it was unsurprising and unheroic, but there were always the compensations. Bucks County was one of them — everything about Bucks, Lou Hart loved. Whether he was driving along the back roads like Burnt House Hill Road, on his way to the hospital in New Hope, or whether he was just driving along plain old Route 611 to do errands in Doylestown, he loved the countryside. Born in Doylestown, he had a country look about him, more indigenous to someone born in the backlands. His face had a certain rustic rawbonedness and a hue to it that gave the impression he had an outdoor job; his hair was straight and blonde, and his features were sharp — a long nose and a pointed chin, with high cheekbones and light brown eyes, a long mouth with narrow lips. His body was not thin, but filled-out and strong, and he had long legs, though he was not really tall, five-foot-eight. He might be mistaken for a farmer, or a truckdriver, or a man who practised a trade of some sort: plumber, roofer. His years at the
University of Pennsylvania, then at Johns Hopkins, had never improved his apple-knocking flat “a” tones, and he had that slow, lazy-sounding way of expressing himself that folks from Bucks often have.
Leaving the Acme with his wagon filled with groceries, as he pushed it through the automatic doors, heading for the parking lot, Hart caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the glass. Did he look forty? He liked to think he looked far from it, but he remembered that when Tony was in high school, he had always thought that Tony and his classmates appeared much more baby-faced than he and his friends had been at the same age. He supposed one always imagined they looked older when they were younger, and younger when they were older. He wonderd why he cared anymore; after all, surprise was a thing of the past. Wasn’t that what made the present bearable now? Life around him was very nearly predictable. The surprises, the unpredictability, was all in the newspapers, was all happening to someone else; why did he care if he looked his age? He had no inclination towards vanity; God knows, not even towards a healthy ego.
When Lou Hart reached his car, he found the same man there — the driver of the Ford Consul. The man was leaning against Lou’s Mercedes, the dark glasses hiding his eyes, his arms folded across his chest. Lou pushed his wagon up to the door which the man was leaning on. The man did not move away.
Lou said, “How are you?”
“Fine thanks. This is your car, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a very handsome car, isn’t it?”
“I think so.” Still the man stayed there, with Lou facing him, the wagon between them.
“Tell me,” the man said, “do you live around here?”
“About nine miles from here,” said Lou. “New Hope R.D. No. 1, but it’s closer to Point Pleasant.”
It was a cold day for October, and though there was a bright sun, Hart had worn only a wool shirt, and he felt the wind chill his bones. He shifted from one foot to the other, during a pause, while the fellow leaning against his car said nothing. Through the dark glasses, as close as they were to each other now, Hart could see the fellow’s eyes. They were watching him, almost as though the fellow were calculating something. Did he want to buy the Mercedes?
Then he spoke, “You don’t live on Old Ferry Road by any chance?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. How did you know?” Lou asked. “I do too.”
“Oh? Well. That’s quite a coincidence. Where do you live?”
“In the big white house,” the fellow said, “just as you come around the bend from the steep hill. You know the place?” Still he did not move away from the car door.
“Yes, sure. It used to be the Burgess farm.”
“That’s the place.”
“Yes. Well, we have the Clymer place — look, I have a lot of groceries here, and I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“The Clymer place?” the fellow said.
“About a mile down from you, other side.”
“I don’t go in that direction much.”
“Then you probably don’t know it.” Lou was growing impatient.
“No.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but I have an appointment — ”
“You live off the road to Danboro at that end of Old Ferry, hmm?”
“That’s right. Yes. Now — ”
“You probably drive by my place a lot.”
“Maybe every day or two — why? Is there something — ?”
The man interrupted him in mid-sentence. “I think I saw your car go by the night before last.” “Possible — why?”
“Is it?” said the fellow. He was watching Hart with those same calculating eyes.
“Yes, sure. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to load up.”
The fellow stepped aside, but he did not go away. Lou Hart opened the door of the Benz, then began lifting the packages from the wagon and putting them on the front seat. The fellow watched him silently. When Hart had finished, he wheeled the wagon back across the parking lot. Hart gave him a perfunctory wave and went around to get into the driver’s seat. Settled behind the wheel, he found the man standing by the door of the car, leaning on the window sill, looking in at him.
The fellow said, “My name is Joseph Meaker.”
“How do you do? Uh — mine’s Lou Hart.”
“Doctor Hart?”
“Yes.”
The fellow stuck his hand through the window. “How do you do?” he said. He had a firm handshake, one which was somehow intimate, it seemed for he held Lou’s hand for some slow seconds before he let it go, and the while he watched him.
Lou said, “Is there something you want?”
“Yes. There is.”
“Well, what is it?” By now, Lou Hart’s impatience was pronounced in his tone.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“What do you want, Meaker?” Lou Hart said. It was strange, or was it, that the moment he got the words out, Lou Hart saw a sudden scene in his mind’s screen. An afternoon in a shop in New Hope, some years back. Lou had gone there to buy Janice a birthday gift. Tony coming along a bit reluctantly. Tony knew the owners of the shop, he had suggested they buy Janice’s present there. Lou had been busy looking through their stock when he became aware of Tony’s voice, in the rear of the shop. It was the high pitch of anger in Tony’s tone that had alerted Lou; and Lou had looked back and seen his son’s face red with anger, seen him at that moment give a sudden little stamp with his foot as he addressed the shop’s owner.
Joseph Meaker was saying something then, bringing Hart back to the present moment. “… to come to dinner,” was the end of it.
“I beg your pardon?” Hart said.
“I said, would you like to come to dinner at my place? Friday night.”
“Thanks anyway.” Hart put his key in the ignition, starting the Mercedes.
“Drinks then? How about drinks?”
With a little self-indulgent irony, Lou Hart said, “I don’t drink. Sorry.” He released the emergency brake and pulled away. In his rearview mirror he saw the man standing there, watching after the Mercedes, his hands on his hips, the yellow scarf he wore around his neck blowing in the breeze. Lou chuckled to himself, but it was not a very enthusiastic chuckle. That sort of thing, for Hart, was always striped with a certain sadness. Too much of the past came back, too many pictures of Tony crying, of Janice crying with him, “You can’t help it, Tonio! It’s not your fault, baby.” Still, Joseph Meaker had not looked at all strange. Midway home, Lou realized the whole thing had been so unnerving that he had forgotten to pick up the prescription at Blanding’s.
Chapter Five
At quarter-to-six Wednesday morning the storm began suddenly; water splashed over the earth like another whole world had landed smack in the middle of the watery heavens above; now it was spilling over. Lou was running around the large upstairs bedroom naked, closing windows, long hairy legs and huge toes Janice always made fun of. Or use to. “Dese ain’t toes, Lou-zee, dese is fingers. Ummm, kiss zem!” Long time ago.
“God! Coming down!” Lou muttered.
Janice turned over in the bed and blew her nose hard into a Kleenex she pulled from a wad under her pillow. The sound of Stilt’s paws on the bare parts of the floor as he crossed the room made her turn back, greet him. “You afraid, baby?”
The big dog wagged his tail and crept over to the bedside.
“Don’t like the bad old mean old naughty old storm?”
Lou was scratching a match, a cigarette hanging from his lips, facing the window, staring out.
“Poor Stilt-zun, baby!” She reached down and hugged the dog. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said. “All the thirsty ground is getting a drink. You know how you drink out of the toilet sometimes when you’re thirsty? Well, the ground is thirsty now and God’s giving it a drink.”
“That’s right, Stilt,” said Lou. “God is up in heaven flushing His almighty toilet.”
Janice said, “Are the floors wet?�
��
“I’ll get a sponge from the bathroom. They’re not bad.”
“Lou?”
“What?” Naked he always looked so vulnerable to her. All she had to do to forgive him times when it was rough, was remember him naked. Poor, skinny.
“Bring some fresh water, hmm?”
He picked up the glass from the bed table and walked towards the bathroom. It had been good last night; it was always very good when Janice rewarded him, and last night she had rewarded him for being nice, finally, about those people the Meakers. At first he had been very angry with her for accepting the invitation; then he had come around and agreed, what would it hurt? Janice had kissed him like she was nineteen again, nipping his cheeks and neck, surprising him.
It had been that way too often to count since she was nineteen, but it had never been as natural after nineteen, and she had always thought of her younger self there in bed with him, as though her older self were sitting in a chair across the room, tiredly waiting for the high-strung girl in bed with Lou to relax, so she could take her place once Lou dropped off to sleep, send the girl back where she came from, the Past.
“Stilt is a booboly-boo,” Janice said, hugging the dog. “Stilt is a little butterfly, not a great big old baggy booboly-boo!”
The dog whined at her silly tones and became himself silly, making coy gestures with his paw on the side of the bed, his enormous tongue flagging the air, trying for her hand.
Lou came back into the bedroom wearing his light-blue towel-cloth robe, slippers, the cigarette dangling from his lips, the glass of water in his hands. She knew it irritated him to have Stilt in the bedroom, and almost as if to aggravate him, she continued talking to the dog. “Booby, booby, boo-boo!” — that way, the way Tony loved and Lou hated. Why aggravate good old Lou? No reason. He brought the water dutifully. He said nothing about Stilt, even gave him a pat on the head as he passed him. Still, “Loopty, doopty, boopty, Stoopty-Stilt!” said Janice. Stilt barked, three sharp crashing barks, and jumped full on the bed.
