Lucky Strikes

by Louis Bayard

  Slow as he could, he raised his head. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “’Cause the only other person who needed Emmett Tolliver’s medicine as bad as you? She was in the business of dying. So whatever pain you’re in, I’m guessing it’s rough.”

  He closed his eyes, dragged the skin back from his face.

  “Listen,” I said. “If this is any way my doing—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Then what?”

  “I guess”—he opened his eyes halfway—“I guess it’s what comes of thinking on things.”

  “What kinda things?”

  “Mortal things.”

  “Like death, you mean?”

  “Like love,” he said.

  “Love?” I said.

  He curled his arms round his chest.

  “That first flutter, Amelia. It’s like nothing else in the world. Never even knew how much I missed it.”

  “That what you felt with Ida?”

  “Mm.” One shoulder shrugged up. “No more than an echo, probably. What it is, you see, it’s looking in someone’s eyes and having them look back. Oh, I know, you’re thinking a fellow as ugly as me, he won’t ever know that.”

  “Don’t go putting—”

  “Well, I’m here to tell you I do know, and it beats any liquor I’ve ever tasted. Only it goes away.”

  Couldn’t help but think of Dudley. Me watching him watch me.

  “I was wrong,” I said. “Going and poking my nose in your life. You can see Ida all you want, I don’t care. Hell, you can marry her tomorrow. I’ll throw Rice Krispies.”

  Half smiling, he lowered his head. “I believe that would be a waste of store inventory.”

  “And if you’re feared of townsfolk wagging their fool tongues, well, you oughtn’t be. They’s been wagging since we got here, and we don’t pay ’em no never mind.”

  “Well, now. If I were to concern myself with local gossip, I’d be an even poorer excuse for a man than I already am.”

  I picked up the flashlight, turned it off.

  “You ain’t the worst excuse I seen,” I said.

  He give that some study.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll get us some coffee going.”

  “Would you?”

  “Hiram.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if I went and proposed something? Like in the way of a business arrangement?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thing is, here it is getting on high summer, and I reckon that room of yours will get to roasting before long.”

  “Already has.”

  “So it occurred to me you might, you know, think about coming on down and sleeping in the house. In Mama’s bed, I mean. Like, from now on.”

  My two eyes met his one good one, then sidled off.

  “’Cause think about it,” I said. “Nobody’s using her bed, it’s just going to waste. And it’s gotta be a hell of a lot easier on the body than that nasty ol’ tick mattress. God knows what’s crawling inside it. I mean, it’s just plain common sense.”

  He was quiet. “You make a good case, Amelia.”

  “’Course I do.”

  “Consider me sold.”

  “Well, okay, then.”

  I bent down, give the bruise on my shin a light rub, then stood up again. To the east of us, red was piling on top of the purple. I could hear goldfinches.

  “Coffee in ten,” I said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  I was nearly out of his sight when he called after me. “Amelia…”

  He was standing now, but just barely.

  “Did you empty the whole jug?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll carry it back. And we’ll save what’s left for the next poor sap who needs it.”

  Chapter

  SEVENTEEN

  All things considered, I was ready to give Hiram the day off. But a few hours later, he come trudging down the steps from his room—his breath clean, his face and hair washed—carrying what few belongings he had. The comb and the razor, the shaving cream, and I’d clear forgot about the root table, which was just small enough to fit over his right shoulder. He carried them all into the house, arranged them round Mama’s bed. Then he come out again and set himself behind the store counter. Other than taking a longer nap than was customary, he didn’t treat that day as different to any other, and neither did I. Even that crazy old redbird was back at work, hammering on the store window.

  But that night, Hiram did something that hadn’t been done in our house in a very long time. He cooked dinner.

  I didn’t even know what he was up to. First he lit the stove. Then, from the pie safe, he pulled out a big old cast-iron skillet, scabby with old food. He scraped it down and then rubbed it with some shortening. Then he opened up some old pork-and-beans cans, scooped out the pork pieces, threw them into the pan, and set the flame to high.

  It was the sound drew us as much as the smell. The sound of food cooking. Had a far-off note to it, like a train crossing a trestle. Silently we stood round him as he cut up an onion and a stalk of celery and threw them in the pan, too, and then tossed some salt and pepper after.

  “Janey,” he said, “hand me that wooden bowl, would you?”

  He mixed up some water and a little cornstarch and sugar, then he threw that in the skillet, and he stirred and stirred. No more than five minutes later, it was done.

  Janey frowned. “What is it?”

  “Chop suey,” said Hiram. “Or as close as I can get.”

  He set a trivet in the middle of the table and put the skillet on top, and then he ladled the stuff onto each of our plates. Earle took one forkful and closed his eyes.

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  “Where’d you learn this?” Janey said.

  “When I was not much older than Earle over there, I met a man named Yan Sing in Hong Kong. Best cook I ever knew.”

  “What the hell were you doing in Hong Kong?” I asked.

  “Machinist’s mate,” he said. “With the navy.”

  “U.S. Navy?” said Earle.

  “Some other kind.”

  Well, that’s how Hiram worked—throwing you off the moment you’d picked up his scent. When I look back on that summer, I remember him moving as little as a human can move, but in his accounts of himself, he was always on the go. Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York.

  It gave me some disquiet, honestly, to see how built for speed he was. Everything he owned was in arm’s reach. He could go hours without moving, then slip away the next minute like a cat. Many’s the time he’d push a yawn back with his fist and wish us a good night and close Mama’s curtain after him, and you’d roll right off to sleep and wake up next morning and find him long gone—the clothes never shed, the bed never slept in. Ten minutes later, he’d come strolling back down the south shoulder of Route 55, calm and easy, like the iceman pulling his wagon.

  He’d never tell me where he’d been, but there was no denying the smell on him. Talcum and dried apricots and orrisroot. If you could’ve peeled the paper lining out of some lady’s chifforobe, it’d have smelled like that.

  Ida.

  Only Hiram never looked like he’d been hugging and rubbing on some gal. More like he’d spent the whole night pushing something through his brain—till at last he’d be rolling a cig or shining his shoes or brushing his teeth in front of the washstand mirror, and the idea would come dropping out of him, quiet as a mitten.

  “Hot dogs,” he’d say.

  Which meant, what better way to lure back the kiddies of Warren County for another Saturday outing than with hot dogs?

  “Popcorn…”

  Which meant next Saturday, let’s offer free popcorn.

  “Compasses…” And the following Saturday, it was compasses. And after that board games and cutout kites stamped with BRENDA’S OASIS, and why stop there? Free matchbooks and spinning tops. Harmonicas and dice and bingo cards and Swedish yo-yos and B
lue Eagle decals from the National Recovery Administration. Whatever could be got cheap and snapped up quick, Hiram would turn it into a premium and advertise it every Sunday in the Warren County Register, where, for seventy-five cents more, we could put our ad right on top of Harley Blevins’s.

  “I want him to feel us,” Hiram said. “Squatting on top.”

  So if you’re asking why I never squawked when Hiram went sneaking out of a night, it’s ’cause I knew he’d be back the next morning with some new idea for the place. Maybe ten. Let’s get us a bigger Coca-Cola sign … rearrange the hunting-knife display … offer free iced tea for first-time customers … use a squeegee to clean the car windows.…

  “Oh, and let me tell you where we’re losing money, Amelia. That air pump. From now on, unless you’re a customer, it’s going to cost you a nickel. The Lord’s air is free, ours isn’t.”

  Some of his dreams was easy to make true—taking down written orders, say, for every repair. Some, like the row of ten billboards he visioned between Walnut Ridge and Strasburg, well, they’d never come to pass in a million Julys. But whenever one notion fell away, another rose to take its place.

  “Janey,” he said one evening, “how many wildflowers can you pick and bring home in one trip?”

  “Queen Anne’s lace or lily of the valley?”

  “Either. Both.”

  She stretched out her arms like a cross.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “That’s how many I want you to bring home tomorrow morning. And then I want you to strew them all around. Alongside the road, in front of the store. Whatever looks gray and beaten down, lay some flowers on it.”

  “What happens when they die off?”

  “Get new ones. Now, Earle, you know a thing or two about planting, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gonna grow your own crops someday?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I want a dozen flowerpots. Petunias, geraniums, marigolds—whatever the car exhaust won’t kill. I know the heat’s getting fierce, but do you think you could manage it?”

  “Easy.”

  “We’re going to put them all around the store, maybe a couple by the pumps. And when fall comes, I want some pansies along the walkway to the house. They’ll pop up next spring, just when we’ll be wanting them. Oh, and let’s dig up that nasty forsythia bush. It only blooms three days of the year.…”

  “Hiram,” I said, “we’re a filling station, not a flower shop.”

  “We’re a business for gentlemen and ladies. Unless we start making this place more becoming, every woman with an ounce of delicacy is going to pass us right by. And that’s another thing. We need a separate ladies’ room.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Listen now, no lady worth her silk stockings will go anywhere near that little outhouse with the door half hanging off. We need a nice little retreat. Set back from the store.”

  I pointed out that nine out of every ten drivers was a feller.

  “And who do you think is sitting alongside that fella? Some woman, that’s who, leading him by the nose and telling him where to get off. If she doesn’t feel at home, he won’t stop.”

  Well, it took Hiram a weekend to lay the water and sewage lines, another three weekends to build. But he got his restroom. Painted all in white, with a trellis in front and half-moon carvings on every side. He put in a liquid-soap dispenser, and Janey made a sachet of dried flowers, and Earle kept it scrubbed, and it didn’t take too long for the ladies to find it. They was posh, too, some of them, gloves and pince-nez and pearls down to the waist. They ducked in there with tiny smiles and come out with bigger ones.

  Word must’ve got out ’cause before long there was two dozen ladies stopping in each weekday, more on weekends. I reckon, if you been driving over the Blue Ridge for that many hours, that white trellis of Hiram’s must’ve looked like a pillar of cloud.

  Well, he was mighty pleased with himself, but he wasn’t the type to quit when he was ahead. Sometime in July, he got it in his mind in the worst way that we needed uniforms. Now, me, I’d never worn nothing but a denim shirt and black overalls and didn’t see no point in changing. But night after night, Hiram kept at it.

  “Amelia,” he said, “what’s the first thing you see at one of Harley Blevins’s stations?”

  “Hell opening up.”

  “Uniforms, that’s what you see. The sign of trained, professional mechanics. And that’s the moment you relax because you know, whatever happens, you’re in good hands.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.”

  “Doesn’t matter. In that moment, you believe. That’s all the uniform is for, creating the impression of trustworthiness.”

  Night after night, he went at it, and hard as I dug in, he came back that much harder. Till, finally, all I wanted to do was shut him up.

  “Jesus,” I said. “I will wear it for one day. And if you make me look like Dudley, I will kill you.”

  Wouldn’t you know those uniforms came the very next week by parcel post? Four jumpsuits, the color of goldenrod. I give the fabric a good hard pinch.

  “Cotton?”

  “Reeves Army Twill,” said Hiram. “Sturdy, but it breathes.”

  “I don’t know about this.…”

  “And you won’t know until you try it.”

  Well, I’m a woman of my word, nobody can tell me otherwise, but I’m telling you I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror when I was putting that thing on. Even harder to look my truckers in the eye. But as the day wore on, I found I wasn’t so hot as usual, and I didn’t have to roll up my sleeves, ’cause the uniform stayed nicely bunched round my wrists and never snagged on nothing.

  But here’s the best part. I clear forgot I was wearing it. Till Hiram come wandering over at the end of the day with a sly old grin.

  “Let me think on it,” I told him.

  All through supper, he kept trying to catch my eye. It was only when we was getting ready for bed that I broke down and said, “Okay, this ain’t the worst idea you ever had. But if you ever sew my name over the shirt pocket, I will set the whole thing on fire.”

  Funny thing about Hiram. Any little failure he could sweep right out of his head, but success took root like a dandelion, wanted more of itself. He took to reading. Rooted through Earle’s Great Heap o’ Treasure for back copies of Time and Fortune, Advertising Age. Ordered books through the mail like Automobile Service Shop Management and Grouches Lose Business!

  One morning, he dragged us out of bed an hour early. “Today, we’re going to work on our greetings.”

  “For the love of—”

  “Now, according to that sign up there, we all work in an oasis. So our job is to make it feel like one. Earle, when a car pulls in, what’s the first thing you do?”

  “Uh … I ask if they want me to fill ’em up.”

  “No. First, you tip your hat. And then you say?”

  “Uh … hey.”

  “Hay is for horses. You say morning if it’s morning. Afternoon if it’s afternoon. Then you say, How can we help you?”

  “How can we … help you?”

  “The we part, that’s important. They’ve got to know you’re part of a whole family of folks wishing to serve.”

  Earle’s mouth folded down. “Melia, too?”

  “We’ll work on her later. Just remember you are the first face customers see when they pull in here. The success of our business rests in your hands, do you follow me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So I don’t want you strolling out to customers like you just woke up from a nap. I want you running, you hear? Go on. Show me how you run.”

  Well, Earle got tolerable good at running. So good, in fact, that more than one driver took fright at the sight of him. There was a trucker named Wendell who figured Earle for a robber and whipped out his shotgun. Mostly, though, folks was charmed. And with him doing such a good job at the pumps, I could spend most of my day in the service bay—refaci
ng valves, aligning wheels, charging batteries. Truth be told, it was the way I liked to work—nobody I had to smile at or bend an ear to—and if I ever get a notion I was needed elsewhere, Hiram set me straight.

  “The less I see of you,” he once said, “the happier I get.”

  I told him he weren’t the first to say that.

  “Melia, pumping gas gets us barely three cents on the dollar. Accessory sales and repairs are where the profits are. Now, sales I can handle, but the repair is all on you. Think about it this way. Earle gives them the gas, you give them peace of mind.”

  Nobody’d ever put it quite like that before. It was a queer sort of comfort. More than once during those dog days of thirty-four, with the hot wet air pushing down on me like a fist, oil and grease dripping down my neck, carbon crawling through every crevice of skin, I’d close my eyes and say just the three words. Peace of mind.

  Sometimes, when I had a free moment, I’d stand in the garage doorway and see Earle jogging over to greet a car … Janey coming right after with Dixie cups and a pitcher of lemonade … Hiram calling from the doorway, “Morning, folks! Come on inside where it’s cool.” And I’d think, This is the place Mama would’ve made. Only she couldn’t see it yet.

  ’Cause that’s the whole trick. Imagine, say, you’re flying in an airplane. (I have to imagine ’cause I ain’t never done it.) You start out on the ground, where you always been, the world nagging at you like it always does. But then you lift off, and before you know it, that old world drops away like it was never there, and this new world comes rising up at you. All these shapes and patterns and colors that was there the whole time, only you never knew it.

  Well, that’s what happens when you get a fresh pair of eyes on your life. You see things. Possibilities. Even if the eyes in question belong to a crazy old coot and one of ’em is on the lazy side.

  Chapter

  EIGHTEEN

  Well, all the while this was going on, Hiram was getting new takers for his elocution lessons. You wouldn’t have thunk it, but Warren County was crawling with folks who wanted to talk better. Druggists. Funeral directors. Beer distributors. Schoolteachers. The daughter of a Nineveh horse farmer. The father of a Riverton Lime plant manager. Grown men and women shelling out a buck an hour in the middle of a depression to have Hiram chip away at their vowels.