I nod back, serious, not wanting to naysay my way out the car.
“Then, when two minutes are up, get off the floor, wipe yourself off like you’re kinda still in a daze, smile sweet and say something like, ‘Oh my goodness, what a scare, but I’m okay now, I’ll be all right.’ That kinda thing. And then you just put yourself together, walk right out, take a right and I’ll be round the corner. Just get in real normal-like, and we’ll drive off. Simple. Got it?”
“So, um, when’re we gonna be doing this?”
“In about ten minutes.”
“What?”
“What yourself. Is there a problem?”
“Um, just seems a little soon is all.”
“Lookit, are you in or what?”
“Yeah, but . . . um, wull, where do you want me to do it?”
“Right in front of the counter. Just go up. Smile real sweet. Maybe ask for some bubble gum. And then, when he turns to get it, drop and shake. If you can drool from your mouth that’d be good, but I know it’s hard to drool on command, maybe think of a lemon. Just remember, two minutes. Don’t forget.”
“Okay.”
I’m starting to get nervous. If I blow it, she’ll hate me, or worse, leave me behind. I bite my lip. The last thing I want is to get dumped by the side of the road.
“All right, so you got about five minutes to turn into little Miss Muffett. I got a comb and some barrettes back there somewhere, maybe in that yellow bag. So get to work.”
I take out the yellow bag and start combing while I pick out two little pink barrettes with circus animals on top. Perfect. I put those in, pinch my cheeks till they’re rosy, primp and preen some more. I’m starting to get terrified I won’t live up. All my nervousness is turning into fussiness about my hair and my cheeks and my practice smile. My heart is pounding. Glenda just keeps smoking, cigarette after cigarette. She hunches into the steering wheel, bearing down into the road.
“You nervous, Glenda?”
She looks at me, in the mirror, caught.
“Hell no.”
“Me neither.”
“Course not.”
But if you asked the air, it would tell you different. The back of the car swishes to a halt as we pull up onto the gravel next to a little yellow store with a wooden sign across the top saying, “Custer’s Last Stand.”
ELEVEN
I see myself in the store window as I walk across the gravel. You might as well put lipstick on a duck. Looks like I’m trying just a little too hard in my circus animal barrettes and Fruit Loop smile, just pink and goofy. You could dip me in plastic and sell me at the Toys-R-Us.
But I have a self-protection clause that says when I’m feeling down on my luck or sorry for myself or goofy or ugly or hopeless, I better just think about those bubble-bellied kids in Africa with nothing to eat but dirt for breakfast and flies buzzing around their faces, so used to it that they’re just landing swat-free, cause what’s the point in swatting, anyways, let alone living? If you start thinking about that, then you might as well be a superstar by comparison.
And now I remember to pretend that this is all just a movie and I am the number one star. There’s nothing to be afraid of. it’s not real. it’s an act. it’s a story. it’s a dream of a life of some precocious teenage passion bomb, played by yours truly. Just watch how I giggle and wiggle and smile and nod.
The glass door crashes behind me and rattles me back to my next thought, which is, How the hell am I gonna pull this off? But I will not naysay myself into inaction. I will proceed as planned, by hook or by crook, more like crook, in my own private movie.
I clench my jaw and walk up to the counter, where an elbow-faced man of about one hundred and sixty years stands squinting at me. I flash my piggy smile and tilt my head like I’m an idiot.
“Hey there.”
He smiles back. He is missing not one but two of his front teeth. There’s a twinkle in his eye, though, like he’s been standing there for fifty years without a customer, like he’s used to being invisible and maybe doesn’t exist at all.
“Do you have Hubba-Bubba?”
I hear myself talking like Minnie Mouse, like a cartoon version of myself. This is the way girls talk in movies, like they need help tying their shoelaces.
“Sure thing, pumpkin.”
He winks and I turn my wince into a smile. I feel guilty. He seems like a nice man, pure kinda. Not like the sort of bad egg you want to pull a fast one on. I am starting to have second thoughts. The music to my movie is getting warbled and now the record is just about to scratch.
I steel myself. No naysaying. I can’t hold out much longer so I make up my mind to just get it over with. I feel like rotten cotton candy.
“What flavor, Missy?”
“Watermelon,” I say, too quick.
He fumbles around with his hands, using the counter for support, trying to rouse his ancient bones to turn and inspect the Hubba Bubba display. He looks like a man who’s forgotten something. Puzzled. I wait for what seems like an eternity. With every millimeter he moves, my heart beats louder. By the time his back is to me it’s not that hard to hit the deck and start shaking. I’m skittish on the inside so I just turn myself inside out and Bob’s your uncle. My epileptic starring role comes perfectly natural. My heart feels like it’s gonna pop right out of my chest smack-dab into the middle of the white tile floor.
The square tiles are cold under my back and I’m hitting them hard with my shoulder blades and elbows, getting carried away. I got to remember not to crack my own skull. You should see it, I am dedicated tooth and nail to this here show. I try to make spit come out the corner of my mouth. Think of a lemon. Think of a lemon, switching from a lemon to a sour-tart to a rhubarb pie and then back again. Finally my mouth starts to spill over with drool and I almost burst out giddy with my latest talent. This is really something. Boy, I am drooling now and I could not be more proud. I wish Glenda could see this. she’d be proud as punch. Tammy, too, she’d say, “Look at her go, I taught her everything she knows.”
In the corner of my spastic eye, I see the old man waddling towards me, just as fast as a waddler can waddle. I see him in flashes through my strobe-light vision. He struggles down to his knees beside me, a Herculean effort, whispering something I can’t understand. I see the fear in his eyes in bits and pieces. His shock is weird and contagious and makes my eyes pop open a second and then spaz around even more. He tries to grab me, but his toothpick arms are just too weak for a young epileptic like me. My cheeks and chin are covered in drool. I wiggle harder.
And then something strange happens. The whispering stops. The grabbing stops. The earth stops.
I sneak open my eyes to see what’s the problem and nearly faint as I witness the last breath exhaled by this ancient creature, born before time and raised before television, as he covers his heart with his hand and keels over smack-bang on top of me.
TWELVE
Not exactly what I had in mind, kid.”
She towers over me, staring at the picture I made for her. The old man slumps on top of me like a white rag doll.
“Get him off me.” I grunt out, trying to lift off his flailing limbs but failing.
Glenda sighs and shoves him over, grabbing my hand and pulling me up towards the door.
“Nice work, kid. Now we’re murderers.”
“Is he dead?”
“I dunno. Fuck. This is not good.”
She grabs me by the wrists and throws me out the door.
“Wull, maybe we better call someone or something . . .”
She’s pulling me along the gravel, about as fast as heels can race-walk, dust flying up around our feet, like an angry steam engine churning. My arm feels like it’s four feet in front of its socket and I look back to see if there happen to be any witnesses to our little travesty.
“Don’t look back, kid. Just keep moving.”
We turn the corner into the brush where the car’s hidden between two side-by-side weeping willow
s, the rabbit waiting for us, impatient. Glenda hurls me into the back and jumps in the driver’s seat. She fumbles around for the car keys, hands shaking, swearing little half words to herself, like she doesn’t have time enough to finish them.
“We can’t just leave him there.” I say it.
“Oh yes we can.”
“No we can’t, Glenda.”
“Amateur.”
“Listen. Listen to me. You took money from that place, didn’t you?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Wull, think about it. What looks weirder . . . two girls call an ambulance for some old guy who just dropped dead and oh they’re so upset they called the cops right away, and then maybe two months later someone figures out some money happens to be missing . . . or . . . or . . . some old guy is dead behind the counter with no one in sight and there’s some fucking money missing.”
She stops fumbling.
I catch her eyes and say quiet, “Get it? it’s better to just call the cops and play dumb.”
She starts to work it over in her head. You might think this is me being good, but really this is me not wanting that old geezer knocking down the door to my peaceful slumbers trying to turn all my late-night dreaming into nightmares.
“You’re right.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I do not want to take that old man with me to bed every night.
“You’re right.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“I dunno. I dunno. Just shush. I gotta get organized here.”
She hops out the car and hustles back into the store, searching behind the counter for the phone. I keep one step behind her, trying to pick up a few pointers. She finds the phone, stops herself, lets out a breath like she’s communing with the gods and dials 911.
“Hello, hello . . . yes, um . . . we have an emergency here . . . we’ve got a, well, a dead or sick gentleman, here. I mean, he just sorta fell over mid-sentence down here at Custer’s Last Stand . . . yep, down on Highway 92 . . . I swear to God you better hurry, maybe there’s still hope. My name? My name is Cheryl. Cheryl Tarkington. Please do hurry. I just don’t know what to do . . . I’ve got my daughter here and all, probably traumatized for life.” She hangs up the phone and looks at me. “This better fucking work.”
I look up at her, starting to question my decision. Maybe I’m wrong and am gonna spend the rest of my life in the slammer with girls named Lakeisha and Irma and Jean. I resign myself to live a life of study behind bars, like Malcolm X, emerging a prophet with the wisdom of my redemption.
Glenda clasps her hands. “Let’s pray.”
She and I stand side-by-side, heads down, and here’s her prayer:
“Dear God, don’t let that man die. Amen.”
We wait a thousand years before two officers of the law come swaggering through the door, one white bread, one Mexican. The white bread one has hair the color of dishwater and blue eyes and a gait like he’s about to fight off a bull. He looks Glenda over, up and down, and I can tell he likes what he sees. The Mexican cop stands by the front door, waiting for the ambulance, posing like there’s a photographer in the bushes taking pictures for some hero calendar.
“Ma’am, you here when it happened?”
He’s got a voice like a bass drum, like his throat got cut in two and now all that’s coming out is pure man.
“Why, yes I was, and so was my daughter here, Isabel, and I am just so worried she’ll be traumatized for life because of this, oh, you should have seen it, poor girl.”
He looks down at me, some TV cop sent from Hollywood to play the role of gallant hunk.
“it’s okay, darlin, these things happen, it’s all part of the natural ebb and flow of life.”
I nod, pretending to hide my lost innocence. Really I’m thinking he’s damn good-looking for a cop. Glenda interrupts, laying on the honey.
“Are you sure you’re old enough to be a cop? You look awful young to me.”
He flushes a bit and takes off his hat, cowboy-style with a little police thrown in.
“I most assuredly am. And if I dare say, you don’t look old enough to be her mother.”
“Oh now.” She fake-swats him and tilts her head to the side, blushing like a schoolgirl.
The Mexican cop gives a look over to his partner and turns back, shaking his head. I am taken aback at seeing Glenda in action. she’s a pro, all right, and he is buying it wholesale. The ambulance pulls up to the front and a man and a woman come tumbling out, rushing to the old man, taking his pulse and stretching back his eyelids.
“Looks like there’s life in him yet.”
“No shit.” White Bread scratches his head.
Glenda and I crane in, looking for some hope, any hope, that’ll slow our too-quick drop to hell. Please God, don’t kill him. Not on our watch. Please, not today.
They start buzzing around him, flashing a light in his eyes, taking his pulse. Boy oh boy, he sure knows how to be old, this one. it’s like you could snap him in two just by looking at him. Right now they’re trying to blow life into him but he sure is taking his time.
White Bread doesn’t care, though, his eyes stay glued on Glenda and she keeps batting hers back at him. You’d think they were at the homecoming bonfire instead of standing in front of the counter with a half-dead old gummer square on the tiles between.
The ambulance paragons lift the man onto the gurney, shaking their heads and conferring.
“Looks like you best be headed straight to Campbell ER,” the Mexican cop chimes in, not sounding Mexican at all.
“That’s your best bet. Best ER in the state,” he adds, matter-of-fact.
But White Bread ain’t listening. He’s just leaning into Glenda, eyes swirling. He turns his back to the Mexican cop and whispers in, “Hey, listen, you got a phone number or something? Maybe I could call you and we could go have a drink somewhere, when I’m off duty, just talk.”
“Just talk, eh?”
Glenda gives him a sideways smile and you can feel his temperature rise inside his body.
The ambulance doors slam and the Mexican cop waves back, giving them a thumbs-up sign, TV-ready. They drive off into the distance, siren singing them off into greener pastures. The Mexican cop turns to his partner, looking none too pleased.
“Well, Mike, we better shut this place down and get a move on. Your wife might be mighty angry with you if you’re late for dinner two nights in a row.”
White Bread looks down at the floor, sure annoyed, but keeping his cool. Glenda picks all this up, mulls it around and runs with it.
“Your wife? Well, maybe I won’t be giving you my number after all, you naughty boy, leading me on like that.”
She gives White Bread a little pout. He gives his partner a look like he’s gonna take him straight out back and kick his ass right there in the brambles. Then he turns back to Glenda, giving a little shrug.
“Well, ma’am, maybe next lifetime.”
Glenda smiles back, coy and twinkling. “Maybe so.”
She grabs my hand and marches out the door. Before we round the bend she looks back and blows a kiss, can you believe it, blows a kiss, and sways her way back into the car.
I climb into the back seat, behind the bunny rabbit. Glenda shuts the door gently, picks up the keys, starts the car and drives off real slow and smooth, like some shark swimming casual away from its kill. Two miles down the blacktop she looks straight ahead and decides to speak.
“I’d say that went well.”
THIRTEEN
Somewhere between Oshkosh and Lisco the old man starts knocking. I try not to let him in, but his skinny little fingers keep wrapping themselves round the door. Glenda seems to be coming down from her drugstore triumph. Something in her starts sinking fast and her knuckles stay white on the wheel. I wonder if he’s knocking on her door, too.
“Glenda, do you think that—”
“No talking till we get to Wyoming.”
She shoots me a look like she me
ans it and catches the doubt written all over my forehead in little lines. She softens up a bit and pats the front of my seat.
“You did good, kid. All except the stroke part.”
“Do you think he’s gonna make it?”
“Sure he is.”
“I mean, it wasn’t my fault. He just had like a temporary stroke or something and went into a coma and he’ll be fine in an hour maybe, right, don’t you think—”
“Look, there’s no use dwelling on it. Okay? He’ll be fine. Just fine.”
Silence.
“You heard the man. Campbell’s got the best ER in the state. Hell, I even heard of Campbell. it’s a famous establishment. Very famous.”
Yup. He’s been knocking on her door, too.
“But, what about—”
“Drop it.”
“I mean, what if—”
“I said drop it.”
I get the picture and slump down into my seat.
“Look, make me a cigarette, kid, and quit dwelling”
She nods towards the row of cigarettes on the dash. I lean up and reach across the seat. I pick one out, light it and slip it between her fingers. She nods her acceptance, takes it and keeps looking forward, furrowing her brow, somewhere between determination and fear.
I fumble with the radio.
“No music.”
She checks the rearview and checks again, her hands glued to the wheel. Her dread is starting to seep over into the back seat. I look back at the blacktop. The sun is starting to go down and the sky is turning orange behind us, as if we set that world on fire and can barely make it down the road before getting burned ourselves. We drive through the stillness like there’s a spell cast on everything except us, some frozen thing, waiting and watching from the fields. I stare silent into the turning light, trying to slam the door on that old man’s fingers, creeping up, slamming and creeping up again.
Hick Page 7
