Volt: Stories

by Alan Heathcock

  “Roy surely got beat to hell and back in that one,” Hep said, slumped in his seat.

  “And not a scratch on him,” Walt joked.

  Hep looked perturbed. “Where’d you get that dumb hat?”

  “It’s a gift,” Walt said, embarrassed. “Haley wants me to wear it on the berry wagon. Says folks’ll buy better if I look more sophisticated.”

  Hep sneered. “Haley want doilies in the shit house, too?”

  Lonnie called down, “Bowling alley’s got burned up.”

  Hep snapped upright, turned to Lonnie. “Fire get anyone?”

  “Nah.” Lonnie sounded disappointed.

  Hep slid down again and propped his boots on the seat in front of him. “Well,” he said, “life ain’t a goddamn movie.”

  In the booth behind them, the projectionist loaded a reel. Calvin rolled himself along the red velvet covering the walls. Frances looked grave whispering in Lonnie’s ear. Georgette came and sat beside Walt, smiling with soda-wet lips, a dab of licorice stuck in her teeth.

  “Having a fun birthday?” she asked.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I can help you have fun is what.”

  Hep elbowed Walt, loudly sniffing.

  Walt didn’t know what Hep meant by this, though he knew it was vulgar. To avoid Georgette’s gaze, he leaned out over his knees. The balcony was five rows, and beyond was the open expanse of the theater. Directly below the screen, town kids congregated around a marble wishing well. Marilyn Garfield, the girl Walt wanted to love, was down there. She wore a green skirt and stood with one leg straight, like a ballerina. That spring, she’d told him he looked like Montgomery Clift and he decided she was the one.

  But Walt had never spoken to Marilyn beyond selling her berries. He was seventeen, slight for his age. By his whiskerless cheeks, one might think him younger. Moreover, the same childish fear he once had of going into their dark stables, or being alone in his bed at night, had taken hold of Walt. He glanced back at Lonnie, who’d been in the war, and who now sat listening to Frances prattle on, and wondered if his brother had for even a single moment been as afraid as he was at all times.

  The lights dimmed and everyone took their seats. The projector beam flowed above Walt’s fedora. Up on screen, an aging soldier rode in a stagecoach beside a teenage Shirley Temple. Her eyes were those of the little girl Walt had seen in so many films. But now she was a woman named Philadelphia, and she strolled a desert fort in a petticoated dress. She asked another woman if she’d help fix up her father’s place.

  Without a conscious moment of sliding, Walt was inside the screen, there on that dusty road behind the battlements, the sun sweltering above and everything of this world gone—the red fabric walls, the stuttering projector, Hep and Georgette, and the whole shitty town.

  “How’s she keep that frilly dress clean?” Georgette breathed into Walt’s ear. “The hem’ll be black as mud.”

  “Please be quiet,” he begged.

  He closed his eyes, opened them, breathed and breathed. Soon Philadelphia and a young soldier had fallen in love. When the soldier declared his intentions to marry her, the colonel would not look him in the eye. Philadelphia’s face was full of anguish, and a screw in Walt’s heart tightened.

  “Went riding once and now they’s getting married?” Georgette whispered. “This show’s just silly.”

  Two rows behind Walt, Lonnie and Frances were kissing. Walt reached past Georgette and smacked his brother’s elbow.

  “I need money for peanuts,” he said.

  Frances sucked her lip, smoothed her skirt. Lonnie dug a half dollar from his pocket and slapped the coin into Walt’s palm. “Take Calvin with you.”

  John Wayne cantered his horse through a pass lined with Apaches, their fierce faces painted for war. Walt stood and the screen went dark. The crowd catcalled up. Hep punched his thigh. The projector’s beam lay warm on Walt’s neck, and he knew they’d all been plucked from danger and love, from another time, another place, and set back into this dark, sticky-floored theater, in the heart of nothing much that mattered.

  A blue-haired woman named Eloise read a paperback behind a long counter. Calvin pressed his nose to the glass, and Eloise held up a crooked finger. She read half a minute more, then marked her place in the book with a ticket stub. Her eyes were teared over, and she raised them to Walt.

  “Never marry an Arabian,” she said. “They’s hot for the evening, but cold come morning.”

  “I just want some peanuts and licorice.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Peanuts and licorice.”

  Eloise shook a paper sack and stirred peanuts under the roasting lamps. Walt moved along the counter to where photos of movie stars were displayed beneath the glass: Roy Rogers in a white hat tilted to match his grin; Robert Mitchum hunched over a campfire; Betty Grable dressed as a saloon singer, showing a long, slender leg and pointing six-shooters in the air.

  “Anything else?” Eloise said. A sack of peanuts sat on the counter. Calvin leaned against the glass twirling a licorice whip.

  “You got photos of Shirley Temple?”

  “Well”—Eloise shuffled down and slid open the back of the counter—“we ought to, I think.”

  She set a photo album before her, then licked her thumb and turned the stiff pages, stopped on a picture and spun the album to face Walt. The photo was of a little girl singing. She wore a ruffled dress, her hands framing her face as if they were the petals of a flower. He’d meant to see a picture of her as Philadelphia. But there was something in this child’s face that recalled the innocence of youth and drew from him a nostalgic pulse of joy.

  “How much?” Walt asked.

  “Half a dollar.”

  Walt glanced about the lobby to be sure no one was watching. “Keep the other stuff,” he said. “I’ll take the picture.”

  Eloise’s nose wrinkled. “That boy’s woffed on that candy.”

  Calvin hugged Walt’s leg, licorice swinging from his mouth.

  “It’s my birthday,” Walt said, placing the half dollar on the counter. “I’m seventeen today.”

  “Well,” Eloise said, pondering. She turned to the ticket booth by the entrance and hollered, “Earl!”

  The booth opened and out leaned Earl. “What you need?”

  “This gentleman wants to purchase a star photograph,” she said. “He’s short a nickel. He tells me it’s his birthday and I’m wondering if that means anything to you.”

  Earl looked Walt up and down. “How’d you get in here?”

  Walt glanced back at the theater doors, heard Indians whooping, rifles popping. “Don’t know.”

  “Didn’t buy a ticket from me.” Earl approached Walt. “Lester let you in the back?” he said, grabbing Walt by the strap of his overalls. “I’ll pluck that sneaky goose.” He dragged Walt to the front, crashing him through the glass doors and out to the sidewalk.

  Earl stalked back into the lobby, wagging a fist at Eloise, and then Calvin was there at the door. The boy flattened his lips against the glass, giggled, ran off. Earl trailed the boy into the dark theater, then Eloise hurried around the counter and across the lobby. She inched open the door, slid out the photo of Shirley Temple.

  “Take it,” she said, “and don’t say nothing about it.”

  Walt took it.

  “You all right, boy?”

  Walt stiffened his lip, trying not to cry. He nodded.

  Eloise’s eyes were full of doubt. “Well,” she said, “have you a fine birthday, child.” She turned away and the door clicked closed.

  Walt sat on the curb in the marquee’s light. Smoke draped a fog over the valley. Lester emerged from the alley and crossed the road toward a maroon Studebaker. Walt tucked the photo of Shirley Temple into his bib and trotted over.

  “Hey, Lester,” Walt called. “I get a lift?”

  Lester spun startled. His eyes were wet, the pocket of his shirt torn dog-eared. He no longer wore his usher’s jacket. “Fu
ck you.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Lester spat at Walt’s boots.

  “Hey now,” Walt said. “I got kicked out myself—”

  “Fuck you.” Lester’s chin trembled.

  “I didn’t do nothing to you.”

  Lester turned to his car. “Fuck you, queer.”

  Walt watched him open the door, felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten. “Take it back.”

  Lester climbed into the car.

  Walt blocked the door. “Take it back.” He clutched Lester’s shirtfront.

  Lester was crying. “Fuck you,” he mumbled. “Just fuck you.”

  Walt punched Lester’s mouth, felt a tooth give. Lester flopped across the seat. Then slowly sat upright, pulled his feet in over the pedals, started the motor. He gripped the door handle, looked up at Walt. His eyes were glazed. Blood trickled from his lip.

  Walt had never hit anybody that way and immediately felt ashamed. “I just wanted a ride.” He offered Lester his handkerchief, but Lester wouldn’t have it.

  Walt stepped back, and Lester closed the door. The car pulled away with its headlights off.

  Walt sucked a cut on his knuckle, worried some others felt for him the same disgust and pity he’d felt for Lester. He crossed back over to the theater. Earl sat in the ticket booth eating peanuts. Walt leaned against the Fort Apache movie poster. He tugged his fedora low, trying to look tough, glaring at Earl through a circle cut in the glass.

  “Suppose you’re gonna hire another pansy like Lester to stand at that door?”

  Earl cracked a shell. “You ain’t so big yourself.”

  “They’s bigger boys, but I’m tough as a cob.”

  Earl tossed the nuts into his mouth, his mustache shifting as he chewed. “I threw you out pretty easy.”

  “Let me in and see if you get it done twice.”

  Earl raised his brows, chuckled. “All right.” He nodded. “Job’s yours if in five minutes’ time you get out whoever else snuck in with you.”

  “Start the clock, mister.”

  Earl grinned, showing gold-capped teeth. He stepped from the booth and held the door for Walt, who hastened past him and then Eloise, lost again in her paperback.

  Once in the theater, Walt paused to steady himself. He slowed his breathing, watching the screen, where soldiers and ladies paraded in a formal dance, the fort’s hall bright and clean and full of music. All Walt had wanted to do tonight was see this movie and forget himself for a while. He hated his brother, always causing trouble, was afraid of him. Walt climbed the stairs and crouched in the aisle.

  “This movie ain’t for shit,” he said into Lonnie’s ear.

  Lonnie yawned. “Ain’t been following it.”

  “Hep got his truck?”

  “Think Hep walked somewhere?”

  “Them firemen ought to be gone from that lounge,” Walt said. “Think we might find something in them cinders?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I don’t know. Stuff? A radio or something?”

  Philadelphia and the soldier kissed on a dark boardwalk, the din of the party behind them. Light from the screen flecked Lonnie’s eyes. He tipped the brim of Walt’s hat.

  “Hep,” he called down the aisle. “We gots to go.”

  The lounge’s sign was lightless. The girls and Calvin kept watch from the truck. Walt wore his new usher’s jacket, strolling the burnt and dripping shadows. Everything reeked of smoke, everything wet and black. In the middle of the rubble were a table and chairs, bright orange like poppies in a cave. Walt sat at the table expecting to feel a change, a secret breeze. But it was just a chair, damp in its seat, and he couldn’t figure why some things burned while others were spared.

  In one corner, Hep and Lonnie were inspecting a heap that was once a jukebox. Hep raised a record, trying to read its label by the moonlight. Smoke grimed the night, the moon low and muzzy.

  Walt clambered over bricks, joists, the remnants of an old mahogany bar. An icebox had fallen sideways. He tugged open its door to an acrid spill of alcohol. Picking through the refuse, he found an intact bottle of vodka, a bomb-shaped jug of berry liqueur.

  Then Lonnie was calling from down by the lanes, where he and Hep struggled lifting a shelf fallen facedown. Walt hurried over, set aside the booze, and grabbed and pulled until the shelf stood upright. Hidden beneath were the wet shining spheres of bowling balls.

  Hep lifted a ball. “What we gonna do with ’em?”

  Lonnie held a ball swirled blue and white and melted flat on one side. He squinted, peering into its finger holes. “You hear about that girl from Selma?”

  “The one that boy Elmer keeps talking up?” Hep asked. “The one what’s gonna be in the movies?”

  “She singing up in the city?”

  “At that pageant?”

  “That’s tonight, ain’t it?”

  “We ain’t goin’ to no goddamn pageant.”

  “Hell no,” said Lonnie, sliding his fingers into the ball. “We goin’ to Selma.”

  Lonnie and Walt rode in the truck bed with the bowling balls. The back roads were pocked, and the balls caromed against the sidewalls. Walt and Lonnie laughed, warding them off with their boot heels. Then Hep turned onto Old Saints Highway, and the balls settled into a languid clatter.

  “Lonnie?” Walt said.

  Lonnie sat beside him, the vodka in his lap, his eyes shut to the night. “Yep?”

  “When we goin’ out west?”

  Lonnie’s eyes didn’t open, but he uncapped the bottle. “Hell if I know.”

  “You said we would when I got old enough. Said one of these times we’d hop a freight and get on out of here.”

  Lonnie drank, saying nothing.

  Walt glanced through the cab’s back window. Calvin lay sucking his fingers, asleep in his mama’s lap. “I ain’t a kid no more.”

  Lonnie’s eyes opened. He wiped the bottle on his sleeve, handed it to Walt. “Won’t be no different out there, kid. Out west you ain’t got no people to look after you. I’ll fight to the bone for you. But not out there. Ain’t nobody to fight for you out there.”

  Vodka burned down Walt’s throat. His eyes watered. “All I ever think about is hopping that freight.”

  Lonnie took back the bottle. “Ever hear of an animal what chews off its leg to get free from a trap?” He set the bottle against his lips. “That’s what it’s like to try and leave this place. Just ask Hep if my word don’t rate.”

  The road did not buckle or sway, the highway lines unfurling like ropes tethered to town. “I ain’t gonna live in no trap,” Walt said. “I’m gonna be gone.”

  “Can’t run with but one leg, kid.”

  Lonnie hooked his arm around Walt’s neck and pulled him to lie against his chest. Walt’s head rested over his brother’s heart, and he watched the dark fields pass, the bowling balls buzzing, tires humming over the pavement.

  They trolled between rows of lightless homes, then the road opened onto the square. Three sides were shops with common walls and blond brick facades. Storefront windows gathered moonlight. In the center was a circle of flowers surrounding a copper statue of a soldier, weathered green and glowing like a spirit. They drove past it all and turned up a hill, parking at the crest, the Macy Funeral Home with its white stone belfry shining to the east.

  Walt’s mind was clear but his legs were drunk. Lonnie unlatched the tailgate. He wiped a ball clean and walked to the middle of the road. They left Calvin sleeping in the cab, the girls and Hep stinking of berry liqueur.

  The asphalt gleamed into the square. Lonnie rushed forward and heaved. The ball hopped, bounding higher, accruing velocity, and at the base of the hill slammed square into the passenger door of a long black Chevy.

  The others laughed and howled. Walt worried, waiting for a light to turn on in the town.

  “It’s yours, kid,” Lonnie said to Walt. “For your birthday. What you gonna call it?”

  “Call what?”
<
br />   “Your town. Ain’t no one here but us.”

  “Where they at?”

  “Up in the city.”

  “The whole town?”

  “Don’t take much for these yokels.”

  Walt surveyed in all directions. “That girl must sing like an angel.”

  “I heard she sang so pretty it made a man mess his pants,” Frances said. “Didn’t want to miss a note of her singing and just let loose right there in the hall.”

  “Hep sings better than that girl,” Lonnie said. “Hep’s singing’ll make you weep.”

  “Bet that man who shit his pants did some weeping.” Frances laughed.

  Lonnie scowled. “What the hell you know about anything?”

  “I know that girl’s goin’ off to California to be in the movies, and you and Hep ain’t never gonna leave that freight yard and ain’t never gonna be nothing.”

  “Ain’t no girl,” Lonnie said. “Ain’t no freight yard. No Selma. No California. It’s all gone. No pageant, no city, no nothing. Ain’t nobody but us. We’s the only ones left in the whole goddamn world.” He glanced over at Walt. “It’s your world, brother,” he said. “Now what you gonna call it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Call it how you feel.”

  Walt peered out over the hot empty land. “Fort Apache,” he finally said. “Let’s call it Fort Apache.”

  Walt’s ball knocked a puff of brick grain from the First National Bank. Frances shoved her ball from between her legs, and it veered off into the ditch weeds. Hep threw with a hop and a high arm finish and broke the glass of a barber pole, and Georgette’s ball launched from a gutter to clang against the statue of the soldier.

  In a lull between crashes, Walt sat in the truck beside Calvin, the boy asleep with a ball clutched to his chest, his eyes flitting beneath their lids. Walt couldn’t remember what he’d dreamt as a child. But he knew he could never go back to sleeping. Could never be a child again. His whole life now he’d be awake to feelings a child couldn’t know.