Rock Springs

by Richard Ford

  “I don’t know what you are,” Arlene said.

  “Well, I’m not. I’m not jealous of you two. I don’t want a kid. I don’t want a house. I don’t want anything you got. I’d rather go to Deer Lodge.” His eyes flashed out at us.

  “That’s lucky, then,” Arlene said. She stubbed out her cigarette on her plate, blew smoke, then stood up to go help Cherry. “Here I am now, hon,” she said and closed the bedroom door.

  Bobby sat at the kitchen table for a while and did not say anything. I knew he was mad but that he was not mad at me. Probably, in fact, he couldn’t even think why I was the one here with him now—some manlie hardly knew, who slept with a woman he had loved all his life and, at that moment, thought he still loved, but who—among his other troubles—didn’t love him anymore. I knew he wanted to say that and a hundred things more then. But words can seem weak. And I felt sorry for him, and wanted to be as sympathetic as I could be.

  “I don’t like to tell people I’m divorced, Russell,” Bobby said very clearly and blinked his eyes. “Does that make any sense to you?” He looked at me as if he thought I was going to lie to him, which I wasn’t.

  “That makes plenty of sense,” I said.

  “You’ve been married, haven’t you? You have your daughter.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You’re divorced, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Bobby looked up at the security camera above the kitchen door, and with his finger and thumb made a gun that he pointed at the camera, and made a soft popping with his lips, then he looked at me and smiled. It seemed to make him calmer. It was a strange thing.

  “Before my mother died, okay?” Bobby said, “I used to call her on the phone. And it took her a long time to get out of bed. And I used to wait and wait and wait while it rang. And sometimes I knew she just wouldn’t answer it, because she couldn’t get up. Right? And it would ring forever because it was me, and I was willing to wait. Sometimes I’d just let it ring, and so would she, and I wouldn’t know what the fuck was going on. Maybe she was dead, right?” He shook his head.

  “I’ll bet she knew it was you,” I said. “I bet it made her feel better.”

  “You think?” Bobby said.

  “It’s possible. It seems possible.”

  “What would you do, though?” Bobby said. He bit his lower lip and thought about the subject. “When would you let it stop ringing? Would you let it go twenty-five or fifty? I wanted her to have time to decide. But I didn’t want to drive her crazy. Okay?”

  “Twenty-five seems right,” I said.

  Bobby nodded. “That’s interesting. I guess we all do things different. I always did fifty.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Fifty’s way too many, I think.”

  “It’s what you think now? I said. “But then was different.”

  “There’s a familiar story,” Bobby said.

  “It’s everybody’s story,” I said. “The then-and-now story.”

  “We’re just short of paradise, aren’t we, Russell?”

  “Yes we are,” I said.

  Bobby smiled at me then in a sweet way, a way to let anyone know he wasn’t a bad man, no matter what he’d robbed.

  “What would you do if you were me,” Bobby said, “if you were on your way to Deer Lodge for a year?”

  I said, “I’d think about when I was going to get out, and what kind of day that was going to be, and that it wasn’t very far in the future.”

  “I’m just afraid it’ll be too noisy to sleep in there,” he said and looked concerned about that.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said. “A year can go by quick.”

  “Not if you never sleep,” he said. “That worries me.”

  “You’ll sleep,” I said. “You’ll sleep fine.”

  And Bobby looked at me then, across the kitchen table, like a man who knows half of something and who is supposed to know everything, who sees exactly what trouble he’s in and is scared to death by it.

  “I feel like a dead man, you know?” And tears suddenly came into his pale eyes. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry.” He put his head in his hands then and cried. And I thought: What else could he do? He couldn’t avoid this now. It was all right.

  “It’s okay, bud,” I said.

  “I’m happy for you and Arlene, Russ,” Bobby said, his face still in tears. “You have my word on that. I just wish she and I had stayed together, and I wasn’t such an asshole. You know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly,” I said. I did not move to touch him, though maybe I should have. But Bobby was not my brother, and for a moment I wished I wasn’t tied to all this. I was sorry I had to see any of it, sorry that each of us would have to remember it.

  On the drive to town Bobby was in better spirits. He and Cherry sat in the back, and Arlene in the front. I drove. Cherry held Bobby’s hand and giggled, and Bobby let her put on his black silk Cam Ranh Bay jacket he had won playing cards, and Cherry said that she had been a soldier in some war.

  The morning had started out sunny, but now it had begun to be foggy, though there was sun high up, and you could see the Bitterroots to the south. The river was cool and in a mist, and from the bridge you could not see the pulp yard or the motels a half mile away.

  “Let’s just drive, Russ,” Bobby said from the backseat. “Head to Idaho. We’ll all become Mormons and act right.”

  “Thafd be good, wouldn’t it?” Arlene turned and smiled at him. She wasn’t mad now. It was her nicest trait, not to stay mad at anybody for long.

  “Good day,” Cherry said.

  “Who’s that talking,” Bobby asked.

  “I’m Paul Harvey,” Cherry said.

  “He always says that, doesn’t he?” Arlene said.

  “Good day,” Cherry said again.

  “That’s all Cherry’s going to say all day now, Daddy,” Arlene said to me.

  “You’ve got a honeybunch back here,” Bobby said and tickled Cherry’s ribs. “She’s her daddy’s girl all the way.”

  “Good day,” Cherry said again and giggled.

  “Children pick up your life, don’t they, Russ?” Bobby said. “I can tell that.”

  “Yes, they do,” I said. “They can.”

  “I’m not so sure about that one back there, though,” Arlene said. She was dressed in a red cowboy shirt and jeans, and she looked tired to me. But I knew she didn’t want Bobby to go to jail by himself.

  “I am. I’m sure of it,” Bobby said, and then didn’t say anything else.

  We were on a wide avenue where it was foggy, and there were shopping centers and drive-ins and car lots. A few cars had their headlights on, and Arlene stared out the window at the fog. “You know what I used to want to be?” she said.

  “What?” I said when no one else said anything.

  Arlene stared a moment out the window and touched the corner of her mouth with her fingernail and smoothed something away. “A Tri-Delt,” she said and smiled. “I didn’t really know what they were, but I wanted to be one. I was already married to him, then, of course. And they wouldn’t take married girls in.”

  “That’s a joke,” Bobby said, and Cherry laughed.

  “No. It’s not a joke,” Arlene said. “It’s just something you don’t understand and that I missed out on in life.” She took my hand on the seat and kept looking out the window. And it was as if Bobby wasn’t there then, as if he had already gone to jail.

  “What I miss is seafood,” Bobby said in an ironic way. “Maybe they’ll have it in prison. You think they will?”

  “I hope so, if you miss it,” Arlene said.

  “I bet they will,” I said. “I bet they have fish of some kind in there.”

  “Fish and seafood aren’t the same,” Bobby said.

  We turned onto the street where the jail was. It was an older part of town and there were some old white two-story residences that had been turned into l
awyers’ offices and bail bondsmen’s rooms. Some bars were farther on, and the bus station. At the end of the street was the courthouse. I slowed so we wouldn’t get there too fast.

  “You’re going to jail right now,” Cherry said to Bobby.

  “Isn’t that something?” Bobby said. I watched him up in the rearview; he looked down at Cherry and shook his head as if it amazed him.

  “I’m going to school soon as that’s over,” Cherry said.

  “Why don’t I just go to school with you?” Bobby said. “I think I’d rather do that.”

  “No sir,” Cherry said.

  “Oh Cherry, please don’t make me go to jail. I’m innocent,” Bobby said. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Too bad,” Cherry said and crossed her arms.

  “Be nice,” Arlene said. Though I know Cherry thought she was being nice. She liked Bobby.

  “She’s teasing, Mama. Aren’t we, Cherry baby? We understand each other.”

  “I’m not her mama,” Arlene said.

  “That’s right, I forgot,” Bobby said. And he widened his eyes at her. “What’s your hurry, Russ?” Bobby said, and I saw I had almost come to a stop in the street. The jail was a half block ahead of us. It was a tall modern building built on the back of the old stone courthouse. Two people were standing in the little front yard looking up at a window. A station wagon was parked on the street in front. The fog had begun to burn away now.

  “I didn’t want to rush you,” I said.

  “Cherry’s already dying for me to go in there, aren’t you, baby?”

  “No, she’s not. She doesn’t know anything about that,” Arlene said.

  “You go to hell,” Bobby said. And he grabbed Arlene’s shoulder with his hand and squeezed it back hard against the seat. “This is not your business, it’s not your business at all. Look, Russ,” Bobby said, and he reached in the black plastic bag he was taking with him and pulled a pistol out of it and threw it over onto the front seat between Arlene and me. “I thought I might kill Arlene, but I changed my mind.” He grinned at me, and I could tell he was crazy and afraid and at the end of all he could do to help himself anymore.

  “Jesus Christ,” Arlene said. “Jesus, Jesus Christ.”

  “Take it, goddamn it. It’s for you,” Bobby said with a crazy look. “It’s what you wanted. Boom,” Bobby said. “Boom-boom-boom.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said and pulled the gun under my leg. I wanted to get it out of sight.

  “What is it?” Cherry said. “Lemme see.” She pushed up to see.

  “It’s nothing, honey,” I said. “Just something of Bobby’s.”

  “Is it a gun?” Cherry said.

  “No, sweetheart,” I said, “it’s not.” I pushed the gun down on the floor under my foot. I did not know if it was loaded, and I hoped it wasn’t. I wanted Bobby out of the car then. I have had my troubles, but I am not a person who likes violence or guns. I pulled over to the curb in front of the jail, behind the brown station wagon. “You better make a move now,” I said to Bobby. I looked at Arlene, but she was staring straight ahead. I know she wanted Bobby gone, too.

  “I didn’t plan this. This just happened,” Bobby said. “Okay? You understand that? Nothing’s planned”

  “Get out,” Arlene said and did not turn to look at him.

  “Give Bobby back his jacket,” I said to Cherry.

  “Forget it, it’s yours,” Bobby said. And he grabbed his plastic string bag.

  “She doesn’t want it,” Arlene said.

  “Yes I do,” Cherry said. “I want it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s nice, sweetheart.”

  Bobby sat in the seat and did not move then. None of us moved in the car. I could see out the window into the little jailyard. Two Indians were sitting in plastic chairs outside the double doors. A man in a gray uniform stepped out the door and said something to them, and one got up and went inside. There was a large, red-faced woman standing on the grass, staring at our car.

  I got out and walked around the car to Bobby’s door and opened it. It was cool out, and I could smell the sour pulp-mill smell being held in the fog, and I could hear a car laying rubber on another street.

  “Bye-bye, Bobby,” Cherry said in the car. She reached over and kissed him.

  “Bye-bye,” Bobby said. “Bye-bye.”

  The man in the gray uniform had come down off the steps and stopped halfway to the car, watching us. He was waiting for Bobby, I was sure of that.

  Bobby got out and stood up on the curb. He looked around and shivered. He looked cold and I felt bad for him. But I would be glad when he was gone and I could live a normal life again.

  “What do we do now?” Bobby said. He saw the man in the gray uniform, but would not look at him. Cherry was saying something to Arlene in the car, but Arlene didn’t say anything. “Maybe I oughta run for it,” Bobby said, and I could see his pale eyes were jumping as if he was eager for something now, eager for things to happen to him. Suddenly he grabbed both my arms and pushed me back against the door and pushed his face right up to my face. “Fight me,” he whispered and smiled a wild smile. “Knock the shit out of me. See what they do.” I pushed against him, and for a moment he held me there, and I held him, and it was as if we were dancing without moving. And I smelled his breath and felt his cold, thin arms and his body struggling against me, and I knew what he wanted was for me not to let him go, and for all this to be a dream he could forget about.

  “Whafre you doing?” Arlene said, and she turned around and glared at us. She was mad, and she wanted Bobby to be in jail now. “Are you kissing each other?” she said. “Is that what you’re doing? Kissing good-bye?”

  “We’re kissing each other, that’s right,” Bobby said. “That’s what we’re doing. I always wanted to kiss Russell. We’re queers.” He looked at her then, and I know he wanted to say something more to her, to tell her that he hated her or that he loved her or wanted to kill her or that he was sorry. But he couldn’t come to the words for that. And I felt him go rigid and shiver, and I didn’t know what he would do. Though I knew that in the end he would give in to things and go along without a struggle. He was not a man to struggle against odds. That was his character, and it is the character of many people.

  “Isn’t this the height of something, Russell?” Bobby said, and I knew he was going to be calm now. He let go my arms and shook his head. “You and me out here like trash, fighting over a woman.”

  And there was nothing I could say then that would save him or make life better for him at that moment or change the way he saw things. And I went and got back in the car while Bobby turned himself in to the uniformed man who was waiting.

  I drove Cherry to school then, and when I came back outside Arlene had risen to a better mood and suggested that we take a drive. She didn’t start work until noon, and I had the whole day to wait until Cherry came home. “We should open up some emotional distance,” she said. And that seemed right to me.

  We drove up onto the interstate and went toward Spokane, where I had lived once and Arlene had, too, though we didn’t know each other then—the old days, before marriage and children and divorce, before we met the lives we would eventually lead, and that we would be happy with or not.

  We drove along the Clark Fork for a while, above the fog that stayed with die river, until the river turned north and there seemed less reason to be driving anywhere. For a time I thought we should just drive to Spokane and put up in a motel. But that, even I knew, was not a good idea. And when we had driven on far enough for each of us to think about things besides Bobby, Arlene said, “Let’s throw that gun away, Russ.” I had forgotten all about it, and I moved it on the floor with my foot to where I could see it—the gun Bobby had used, I guessed, to commit crimes and steal people’s money for some crazy reason. “Let’s throw it in the river,” Arlene said. And I turned the car around.

  We drove back to where the river turned down even with the highway again, and went off
on a dirt-and-gravel road for a mile. I stopped under some pine trees and picked up the gun and looked at it to see if it was loaded and found it wasn’t. Then Arlene took it by the barrel and flung it out the window without even leaving the car, spun it not very far from the bank, but into deep water where it hit with no splash and was gone in an instant. “Maybe that’ll change his luck,” I said. And I felt better about Bobby for having the gun out of the car, as if he was safer now, in less danger of ruining his life and other people’s, too.

  When we had sat there for a minute or two, Arlene said, “Did he ever cry? When you two were sitting in the kitchen? I wondered about that.”

  “No,” I said. “He was scared. But I don’t blame him for that.”

  “What did he say?” And she looked as if the subject interested her now, whereas before it hadn’t.

  “He didn’t say too much. He said he loved you, which I knew anyway.”

  Arlene looked out the side window at the river. There were still traces of fog that had not burned off in the sun. Maybe it was nine o’clock in the morning. You could hear the interstate back behind us, trucks going east at high speed.

  “I’m not real unhappy that Bobby’s out of the picture now. I have to say that,” Arlene said. “I should be more—I guess—sympathetic. It’s hard to love pain if you’re me, though.”

  “It’s not really my business,” I said. And I truly did not think it was or ever would be. It was not where my life was leading me, I hoped.

  “Maybe if I’m drunk enough someday I’ll tell you about how we got apart,” Arlene said. She opened the glove box and got out a package of cigarettes and closed the latch with her foot. “Nothing should surprise anyone, though, when the sun goes down. I’ll just say that. It’s all just melodrama.” She thumped the pack against the heel of her hand and put her feet up on the dash. And I thought about poor Bobby, being frisked and handcuffed out in the yard of the jail and being led away to become a prisoner, like a piece of useless machinery. I didn’t think anyone could blame him for anything he ever thought or said or became after that. He could die in jail and we would still be outside and free. “Would you tell me something if I asked you?” Arlene said, opening her package of cigarettes. “Your word’s worth something, isn’t it?”