Sherylynne looked at him, her expression softening.
“You working then? You got a job?” Mrs. Riley asked him, eyes narrowed.
“Yes, ma’am. I work for Dallas Power & Light, but I’m thinking of going to work in the oilfields out around Midland. I can make a lot more money and Sherylynne wouldn’t have to work.”
Her mother narrowed her gaze further. “You’re not a job-hopper, are you?”
“I don’t think so. This is the only job I’ve had since leaving home.” He took a deep breath. “Mrs. Riley, if you’re willing, I’ll get a room, then pick you both up in the morning. We’ll go back to Orange, get that form signed, then Sherylynne and I’ll bring you back and head for home.”
Sherylynne’s gaze shifted between them, one to the other.
“Actually,” her mother said after a moment, “there’s a little motel just up the road a piece.”
“You agree then?” Harley said.
Sherylynne got up; she stood over her mother and kissed the top of her head.
Her mother tilted her face up. “I just pray I’m doing the right thing.”
“I don’t think he’ll want to stay in that little motel,” Sherylynne said.
They both looked at her. “Why not?” her mother said.
“Well…I don’t know…” She shrugged. “It looks so dumpy. There’s nicer places just across the river in Orange.”
“I’ll stay here,” Harley said. “I’m sure it’s cheaper.”
“Well, then, it’s settled,” her mother said, appearing to relax a little. “In the meantime, we can visit, get to know each other.” She looked at Harley, a grim hint of a smile. “You do seem like a nice young man.”
“Thank you.” A long silence settled over the room. Harley glanced about. “Well, here we are. You got anything you need done around here? We’ve got the afternoon. I’m pretty handy.”
“Handy?” her mother said, her gaze drifting in thought, “I do have a hinge coming loose on that back door.”
The screw holes were wallowed out. He packed them with steel wool and the screws held, good as new.
Sherylynne appeared to relax as Harley and Mrs. Riley became more comfortable with one another. They told stories of their growing up days, his in dry West Texas with farmers and ranchers, Mrs. Riley’s on a bayou near Alexandra, Louisiana. Her mother seemed to enjoy telling about growing up in a family of hunters, fishermen, and sawmill workers.
Harley offered to take them to dinner that night, but her mother insisted on frying the catfish.
“Mrs. Riley, that’s the best meal I ever had,” he said. Her mother smiled. Sherylynne glowed.
Afterward, Harley said goodnight to Mrs. Riley. Sherylynne walked him to the car. “You are coming back?” she said.
Harley gave her a look. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She laughed uneasily and kissed him goodnight. He got in the old Ford and left for the Cypress Motel over on the highway.
THE HOUSE WAS shrouded in a light fog when he returned the next morning, the sun a thin copper disk in the pale vapor above the treetops. Mrs. Riley let him in. She gave him coffee and offered to make oatmeal. He accepted coffee, but passed on breakfast. “We’ll grab a bite in Orange,” he said. Sherylynne appeared after a moment, looking radiant, though her eyes were red, as if she hadn’t slept.
It was damp out, a little chilly, the fog evaporating. Mrs. Riley was oddly cheerful, considering the mission, the fact that Sherylynne was pregnant.
They had breakfast at a coffee shop in Orange. Afterward, they found the county clerk’s office. They each presented their birth certificates, and Mrs. Riley signed the underage form.
“Can we get our marriage license now?” Harley asked.
“Yessir, but there’s a seventy-two hour waiting period before you can get married.”
“Is the license good anywhere? Can we get married in Dallas?”
“Anywhere in the state of Texas. Yessir.”
They drove Sherylynne’s mother back to Vinton. She gave Sherylynne twenty dollars and two old crock platters that had belonged to her grandmother.
Sherylynne hugged her mother. “Mama,” she said softly, “I’m not gonna let you down. You’ll see.”
Her mother dabbed at her eyes. “I just pray I’m doing the right thing.”
The swamps and humidity gave way to high prairie and thinner air as they drove out of East Texas toward Dallas.
Chapter 12
Canned
ON TUESDAY HARLEY showed up for work at the DP&L truck barn, his mind reeling with the significance of what he and Sherylynne were about to do.
Marriage.
Every aspect of his life would be changed. His decisions would no longer be just his. He loved Sherylynne, but he wondered if he would have married her if he’d had any other choice. He would, of course, but maybe not at this time. As Sidney pointed out, what about New York and art school?
In silence, he rode under the tarp in back of the sand truck with Berry and Moon to the Hampton pole yard. As always, Pellerd drove.
“Missed you yesterday,” Berry said, watching him, expectant.
“Thanks,” Harley said, volunteering nothing.
“Boss said you got married,” Moon ventured.
Harley, somewhat taken aback, grinned a little. “Not yet. Just taking care of the paperwork.”
The “boss” was Nick, the job foreman who rode in the A-frame with Chet. Chet drove the truck that maneuvered the A-frame under Nick’s orders. Harley had gotten permission from Nick to take the day off. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Nick blabbed.
Soon they were shoveling sand up into the pickup bed. Pellerd took a paper cup and filled it with water from the keg mounted on the side. He fixed Harley with a malicious grin. “We carried you yesterday while you was out knocking off a little poontang.”
Harley paused.
“Cajun girls,” Pellerd said, a lascivious grin, “they got the tightest pussy. It’s from eating all those snapping turtles. They get a lock on that thing, and they won’t let go.”
“Let me tell you something, Pellerd. First, you didn’t carry me and you never will. If anybody gets carried around here, it’s you. Second, your scum-bag mouth is getting you close to serious trouble.”
Pellerd took a half-step forward, teeth clenched. Berry and Moon stood back. Harley lifted his shovel like a baseball bat.
“You come on,” he said. “You can whip me, but you’re going to know it first.”
Pellerd hesitated, his grin drying up. “What, you on the rag?”
Harley said nothing.
Pellerd squinted. “The only thing saving your sorry ass is I don’t wanna get fired.”
“You stay off my case and we’ll be fine.”
After a moment, Pellerd dropped the paper cup and picked up his shovel. Berry and Moon looked at each other, then went back to work.
At noon, they ate bagged lunches in the shade of a tree behind a 7-Eleven just off Loop 12. They ate mostly in silence. Berry confided in an aside to Harley that Buddy Denton had filled in for him the day before.
Harley was aware of Pellerd studying him, as if he wanted to say something, searching his brain for just what.
They finished lunch. Berry and Moon lit cigarettes. Pellerd crunched a Coke can in his fist, stood up and tossed it aside. “Okay, girls, off of your ass and on your feet, outta the shade and in the heat.” Acting like he was the boss. They climbed into the back of the truck and Pellerd drove them back to the Hampton pole yard to reload.
Harley got out with Berry and Moon and began shoveling sand up between the side bins with their tampers and bill-dookies. It was hot and within minutes they were again wet with sweat. Harley went around, opened the door to the cab and thumbed a salt pill from the dispenser on the dash. Pellerd pitched his shovel aside, pulled off his work gloves and followed.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “You ain’t getting any yet?” He grinned at Berry and Moon. “I
ain’t surprised. I stopped by his place this morning, and the line was so long, I didn’t even get any myself.” Pellerd swaggered around the truck to the water keg mounted on the other side.
Harley set his shovel against the pickup’s rear fender. Berry and Moon paused as he tucked his gloves inside his hard hat and placed it on the ground alongside. He picked up his shovel again, firmed a grip on it and stood at the back of the pickup, the shovel lifted like a baseball bat.
“I’m driving this truck today,” he said. “Any fat-ass sonofabitchin’ wrestler don’t like it, he can go to hell.”
Berry and Moon began withdrawing. Pellerd came around behind the pickup, crunching a paper cup in his fist. “The fuck you say—”
Harley’s first impulse was to turn the blade sideways—cut the son of a bitch’s head off. He swung hard—whump! The flat of the blade caught Pellerd in the stomach. Pellerd doubled over and Harley brought the shovel down on his hardhat—clang!—with all his strength. The hardhat went spinning over the ground. Pellerd’s knees buckled. He folded face-first into the sand.
Berry and Moon stood back, slack-jawed, staring at Pellerd. Pellerd, moaning on the ground, trying to get his breath.
Harley pitched the shovel aside. He took his work gloves out of the hardhat, stuffed them in his back pocket, and tossed the hardhat into the back of the truck. He took out his wallet and handed Berry two dollars. “This should more than catch me up for rides. Thanks.”
Berry looked at Pellerd struggling to get to his knees. With a hint of a grin, Berry held the flat of his hand up at Harley in a gesture of refusal. “Forget it. On me.”
Harley struck off across the sandlot toward the bus stop.
HE CARRIED HIS old cardboard suitcase across the backyard in the midday heat to the Ford, parked now in one of the spaces under the garage apartments.
He pitched the suitcase in the backseat and softly closed the door. He checked the oil and water, then lowered the hood as quietly as he could. Nevertheless, he heard feet on the floor above, then running down the enclosed outside staircase. Sherylynne appeared from around the corner in floppy house shoes, hair curlers bouncing, pulling a robe on over her flannel gown. He liked the disheveled homey look of her.
“Oh, shoot,” she said, blinking awake. “I overslept.”
He gestured up at the ceiling, one finger to his lips, whispering. “No, I’m early.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Everyone’s gone.”
“Oh. Good. I got fired.”
Her eyes widened. “What…?”
“I left you a note in the mail cupboard.”
“Fired?”
“I’m going out to Midland. Get that job, then I’ll come back for you and we’ll get married.”
She stared. “Fired? For what?”
He studied his feet. “I hit Tommy Pellerd over the head with a shovel.”
“You—”
“He had on a hard hat.”
“He—”
“Made a lot of noise, though.”
“But—”
“I’ll be back for you in a few days.”
“I… You…” She stopped.
“The cost of living’s prob’ly cheaper out there, too.”
“With a shovel?”
“He’s bigger’n me, or I’d’ve hit him with my fist.”
Sherylynne stared as though maybe she didn’t know him after all. “You said that job was over a year ago. What makes you think he’s still got it now?”
“He’s an oil man. They always got jobs.” He took out his wallet. “Look here,” he said, picking out the limp business card. “He told me to call him if I ever wanted a job.”
Sherylynne studied him, something working behind her eyes. “You’ve been carrying that all this time?”
“Listen,” he said, “I’ll be back for you in a couple of days. Okay?”
“I can’t even think straight.”
“Come here.”
“Harley…what’re you doing?”
“Come here.” He pressed her against the car, nuzzling around the plastic curlers, behind her ear. She smelled warmly of sleep and hospital.
“You sure this is what you want to do?”
“This?” He pressed her against the Ford’s rear fender. “Pretty sure.”
She leaned around him to see past the car and through the open garage to Aunt Grace’s back door. “Harley Jay, stop that.”
“That what?”
“That.” She leaned back to look at him. “But what if he don’t have any jobs out there by now?”
“Then I’ll get one with somebody else. Those oilfield jobs pay pretty good. We can make enough to live on and save up to go to New York in a year, maybe even sooner.”
“I know you’re gonna be a good artist, Harley Jay. You already are.” She pressed against him, her breathing becoming heavy.
“Sherylynne!” someone screamed from behind—a nail on galvanized tin.
Sherylynne jerked suddenly back, staring pop-eyed over his shoulder. His head swiveled, eyes locked on Aunt Grace standing at the foot of her back steps, one hand to her forehead, mouth open.
“Young lady,” she shouted, “you get back upstairs right this instant!”
“Aunt G-Grace,” Harley stuttered.
Aunt Grace stomped the ground once. Harley stumbled out of the garage—“Aunt Grace, we’re getting married”—but she was already lumbering up the steps, fighting her way in through the screen door.
Harley paused, heart hammering in the after-silence. Sherylynne buried her face in her hands.
“I’ll go talk to her,” he managed.
“No, wait. Let’s think.”
“It’s not like I had your britches off. What’s wrong with her, anyhow?”
“You know how she is…”
“Well, we’re gonna have to face her sooner or later.”
“No, you go on. I’ll talk to her.”
“Go on? Leave you here like this?”
“That’s the best thing for now.”
“I can’t do that…”
“Please.”
He looked toward the boardinghouse. “I feel bad, letting you talk to her by yourself…”
“I’ll give her a while to calm down. You go on.”
Reluctantly, he got in and started the car. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss through the window. He forced a small grin. “Don’t go anywhere now; I’ll be right back.”
“You’d better.”
He backed out into the sunlight. Sherylynne followed, her angular body swaying, one hand floating out at him in a good-bye wave as he eased down the driveway.
He cut his eyes toward the boardinghouse but saw no sign of Aunt Grace. There was only the morning glare, the crunch of the tires on the gravel, a light pinging in the engine.
THE CAR THREW a rod around four that afternoon. It began to hammer a few miles out of Ranger on a stretch of the new Interstate 20. He managed to limp off the exit and into the edge of the bypassed town, doing about ten miles an hour with everybody looking, the engine hammering so loud you could hear it in the next county.
He pulled up alongside a gas station that had seen better days. A number of junked cars were visible out back behind a chain-link fence. Inside the station, two men in oily coveralls sprawled on an old car seat serving as a sofa, watching Dragnet on a TV. Another man sat on a stool behind the counter, where he could keep an eye on the gas pumps.
Harley said, “You all do mechanic work?”
“Sometimes,” said the man behind the counter.
“I just threw a rod in that Ford out there.”
“Yep. Heard you coming. That’s one of them old flat-head Fords for you.”
“You got a used ’forty-two Ford engine by any chance?”
“No, sir. Sure don’t.”
“Can you get one?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“Uh-huh. Any chance of turning the crankshaft down and putting a new rod in this one?”
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“Can’t do ’er.”
Harley looked at the two men sprawled on the car seat. A two-year-old Vargas calendar hung on the wall behind.
“You did say you do mechanic work?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Just how busy things are,” the man said, one eye on the TV.
Harley grinned a little “Yeah, I can see you’re pretty backed up here.”
“Waitin’ on parts.”
“How much you think that car’s worth?”
“Not much.”
“Make me an offer?”
The man shrugged, tilted his head to one side. “Five, maybe ten dollars.”
“How about forty.”
The man shook his head, studied the TV. “I might go fifteen.”
“Listen, that car’s got good tires all around and a good radio. And look at that body, no rust, not a scratch on it.”
“Engine’s blowed.”
“Shoot. Engines are a dime a dozen. You know that. You can’t hardly find a good clean car like that anymore.”
“Eighteen years old.”
“That’s what’s good about it. Where you gonna find a clean body like that, that old?”
“Fifteen dollars. Take it or leave it.”
“I can take it to the junkyard and get more’n that.”
“Take it then.”
“I’ll drive the damn thing up a tree before I sell it for fifteen dollars.” He started for the door.
“What’s the least you take fer it?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Um. Too much. You got a title?”
“Sure do.”
“Hershel, go take a look at that car. If it’s as clean as the man says, write him a check for twenty-five dollars.”
“I don’t have time for checks. Twenty-five dollars cash.”
“Hershel, get twenty-five dollars outta your billfold there, will you?”
“There a bus station around here?”
“Downtown, ’bout a block north from the Piggly Wiggly.”
Chapter 13
Unannounced
IT WAS NEAR midnight when the bus pulled up at the curb in front of the Greyhound bus station in Midland. Wind blew red grit down the empty streets. A few glimmers of light flickered behind paper-shaded windows. Two Mexican men and a tough looking blonde with narrow hips and broad shoulders got off the bus with him.
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