by Billie Letts
She convinced him that getting out of the trailer for a few hours would be good for her and he couldn’t argue with that. Being with Brenda twenty-four hours a day would be an endurance test he feared MollyO couldn’t pass right now.
He tried to talk to Brenda once, but MollyO couldn’t get her to come to the phone, so he didn’t try again.
By the time MollyO returned to the Honk, the regulars already knew Brenda was home because someone had spotted MollyO shepherding her into Doc Warner’s office. But they didn’t know what was going on, and Caney wouldn’t tell them. He figured MollyO would find her own way of breaking the news, and he was right.
When they asked her about Brenda, she said she’d lost the baby, but she offered no details. And because they remembered that MollyO herself had suffered several miscarriages, they accepted her explanation and quietly offered their condolences.
The only strange reaction came from Bui. When he heard what happened, he went out to his car where he sat slumped behind the wheel and wept for nearly an hour.
During the lull between breakfast and lunch, Caney fixed her a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but she didn’t do much more than push the food around with her fork.
When Vena sat down beside her, MollyO included her in a conversation which, until that moment, she’d been having inside her head.
“She needs some time alone, you know, time to think, to pull herself together.”
Vena nodded, a good listener.
“She’s not herself right now. Sleeps most of the time, but even when she’s awake, it’s like she’s not there. She doesn’t talk. Never turns on the TV or picks up a magazine or newspaper. I went to the library and checked out some books I thought she’d like, but she hasn’t even touched them.
“Doc Warner’s got her on an antibiotic for the infection. And he gave her some pills for depression, but he says it’ll take a few days for them to kick in.
“I can’t get her to eat much of anything. I’ve tried all her favorites. But she just doesn’t have any interest in food. None at all.”
MollyO pushed her mashed potatoes into the shape of a hill, then made an indentation in the top, transforming it into a volcano.
“I try not to think about what she did, destroying her baby. How can anyone do that?” Lifting her eyes from her plate, she looked surprised, as if she’d only just noticed Vena. “How could she do that?”
“I don’t know, MollyO. Maybe she couldn’t see any other way out. It’s hard when you’re scared and alone. It’s real hard.”
“No,” MollyO said, speaking to her food again. “I just can’t understand it.
“That reminds me of a song my mother used to sing. ‘We’ll understand it, all by and by.’ But I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t understand about what’s happened. Guess I still haven’t reached the ‘by and by.’
“Brenda got her voice from my mother, you know. She sure didn’t get it from me, ’cause I can’t sing a lick. But you ought to hear Brenda. The sweetest voice you ever heard.
“She started singing before she could talk, humming tunes she made up. By the time she started school, she knew every country song on the radio. Won a talent contest when she was only ten. Got to sing on a TV show in Tulsa.
“She’s loved music her whole life. ’Course, at her age, it’s pretty hard to think about a whole life, ’cause seventeen’s just a little tiny piece of life, isn’t it?
“But you know what worries me most?”
Vena shook her head.
“She’s just so… so angry. Now I don’t blame her for being mad at that Travis. I’d like to kill him myself. But Brenda’s mad at the whole world, including me. Lord knows I haven’t been a perfect mother, but I’ve loved her to death since the day she was born.
“But maybe something more happened to her out there in Las Vegas, something I don’t even know about. Maybe even meaner than I can imagine. Oh, I wish I could stop thinking like that, but my mind just won’t leave me alone. Seems like—”
“Miss Ho?”
MollyO turned to Bui who was offering her a cup of tea, but his hands were trembling so badly that most of it had sloshed into the saucer.
“Miss Ho,” he said, his voice as shaky as his hands. “Very sorry for baby. Very sorry… and I…” With his eyes tearing up, he placed the cup and saucer on the counter, then hurried away.
“Poor Bui. He’s a sensitive soul, isn’t he?”
“He’s been pretty strange the last couple of days,” Vena said. “Don’t know what’s going on.”
“I suppose it’s hard for him here without his wife, his family. No one who speaks his language. And he doesn’t understand us most of the time.” MollyO shook her head. “I guess he hasn’t got to the ‘by and by’ yet, either.”
The dining room had emptied quickly after lunch and MollyO, true to her word, had left as soon as her last customer walked out. Caney was fixing himself a sandwich while Bui loaded the dishwasher, so Vena figured it was a good time for her to disappear for a while.
She was sorting through her tips to make sure she had enough quarters for the phone at the Texaco when a shiny new van pulled in and parked. She waited for the driver to open his door. When he didn’t, she headed outside to take his order. As she approached, he rolled down his window.
“How you doing today?” she asked.
“Well, my prostate’s enlarged and I’m legally blind,” he said as he removed a pair of sunglasses. “But my urologist is out of town and my seeing-eye dog died.”
Vena grinned. “Can I get you something?”
“I’m coming inside if your door is wide enough for my creepy-crawler.”
He winked when he saw Vena’s confusion, but it didn’t take her long to catch on as he swiveled the driver’s seat around, then hoisted himself out of it and into a wheelchair beside him. Almost immediately, the van door swung open and a hydraulic lift began lowering him to the ground.
“Elevator going down,” he said. “First floor—shoes, blues and bad news. Mezzanine—bloomers and rumors. Ground floor—everybody out.”
A few seconds later, he was rolling toward the front door of the Honk with Vena walking beside him.
Like Caney, his upper body was powerfully built, but both legs ended at his thighs where his khaki pants were doubled beneath his stumps.
“Don’t suppose you have a cup of coffee so strong it’ll make me howl?” he asked.
“That’s the only kind we serve.”
She held the door open as he came inside. Caney, just coming out of the kitchen, slowed when he saw them.
“Hey, looks like you and me drive the same kind of jalopy,” the man said. “They get poor gas mileage, but they handle well. Name’s Austin Tyler. You must be Caney Paxton.”
“Yeah,” Caney said as he shook the hand that was offered.
“I’m from Farmington, Missouri. On my way to San Diego. Got a date out there with a little chick named Lily Rene Tyler, four days old. My new granddaughter.”
Vena set a cup of coffee on the counter.
“Thanks.”
“You’ve got a long drive in front of you,” she said.
“Well, I’ve got plenty of time. Just so I get there before she graduates from college.” He blew on his coffee, took a cautious sip. “Anyway, I’m not traveling fast. Thought since I was going to make the trip, I’d get off the interstates, see a little of the country, meet some new people.”
Austin Tyler offered a Marlboro to Vena, who shook her head, and to Caney, who pulled out his Camels.
“I stopped at the edge of town to fill up with gas and an old boy at the station, we got to talking about Nam and he said I ought to come by here and meet you, Caney.”
He took a more aggressive sip of coffee as he waited for some response from Caney, but he didn’t get one.
“Said he thought you were at Cam Ranh Bay.”
“I don’t know where he heard that.”
“I was there from ’69 t
o ’71. 21st Infantry.”
“That right?”
“You ever at Long Binh, Caney?”
“No.”
“What outfit were you with?”
“I wasn’t.”
Austin Tyler was thrown off for a moment, then he grinned. “Special Forces, right? You guys.” He shook his head. “Still doing that covert thing, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t in Vietnam,” Caney said, his features immobile, showing nothing. “Never been in the military.”
He shot a quick glance at Vena, but stunned by the lie, she turned away and busied herself at the coffeemaker.
“But that fella at the Fina station told me you were. Said that’s how you…”
“This?” Caney patted the arms of his chair. “No, I did this water-skiing.”
“Then why’d he say you were in Nam? Why the hell would he do that?”
“Maybe he was pulling your leg.”
Tyler thought about that, then he laughed.
“Sorry you came out of your way,” Caney said. “But since you did, coffee’s on the house. I’ll throw in a piece of pie, too, if you like cherry or apple. And I won’t even lie and tell you it’s homemade.”
“I thank you, Caney,” Tyler said, crushing out his cigarette. “But I guess I’ll get back on the road.”
“I’ll talk to that guy at the Fina. Tell him to get his facts straight.”
“Aw, I needed a break anyway. And besides, it was good to meet you. Good to meet both of you. Here.” He pulled out his billfold. “Let me give you my card. If you’re ever in my part of the country and you need your TV fixed, you give me a call.”
“Sure.”
“And thanks for the coffee.”
Vena and Caney watched as he returned to his van, rolled onto the lift and disappeared inside. Neither of them spoke until he was at the wheel and pulling away.
“Caney, why did you tell him you weren’t in Vietnam?”
“He was there. He didn’t need me to tell him what it was like.”
“But you—”
“Vena, that guy served two tours over there. You know how long I lasted?”
“No.”
“Forty-two days.”
“Are you ashamed of that? That you got hurt after forty-two days? Caney, a lot of boys didn’t make it that long.”
“You’re right. And you know why? Because they stepped on mines, walked into ambushes, got their heads blown apart. But I never heard about a damned one of them fell out of a helicopter.”
Vena went back to take her shower while Caney was shutting down the kitchen and locking up for the night. But when she came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, he was still in the cafe.
She pulled his bathrobe on over the T-shirt she slept in and went out to find him feeding quarters into the juke-box. The only light in the dining room came from the neon beer sign in the window and the colors reflecting from the old Wurlitzer.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m just winding down.”
“Want a beer?”
“Sure.” He began punching numbers on the jukebox. “What do you want to hear?”
“Play B seven.”
She opened two beers, took one to Caney, then sat down at a table beside him to drink hers.
“Hand me the salt, will you?”
“Oh, I forgot,” she said, passing the shaker to him, then watching as he sprinkled salt into the neck of the bottle.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever seen do that.”
“I never drank beer before I went to Vietnam. Hated the taste. But over there… Well, I learned that if I salted it, it didn’t taste so bad.”
“Caney, can I ask you something about what happened to you in Vietnam?”
“Okay,” he said, smiling to cover his reluctance.
“When we went riding, you told me about the other guy who fell out of your helicopter. You said he was only a kid.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I was wondering. How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Then he was no more a kid than you were.”
“But there was a difference,” Caney said. “I knew he was going to die. No way he could survive a fall like that.”
“But you believed you could?”
“I knew I would! Knew I was never going to hit the ground because someone… or something was going to save me.”
“You mean…”
“Like maybe there’d be a net to catch me. I’d been to a circus, saw a woman fall off a high wire into a net. It saved her… why couldn’t it save me?
“And if there wasn’t a net, there’d be something else. A plane would fly over and drop me a parachute… or I’d land on a cloud.
“The first time I was ever in a plane, I was six, going with my aunt to her brother’s funeral. As the plane started to climb, I got scared. Scared it would crash. But my aunt told me not to worry. She said planes didn’t crash, they landed on clouds. And I believed her.”
Caney paused as if he were listening for the voice of his aunt to confirm the story, to justify the lie.
“Or maybe, I thought, I’d be rescued by one of those superheroes I believed in. Comic book stuff.
“Once I was wading Sticker Creek, fishing for perch. Got my foot tangled in an old trotline that had floated downstream. Now I wasn’t about to drown. Hell, the water wasn’t more’n a foot deep and I was probably nine, ten years old. But in my imagination, I was tangled in the cables of a ship buried on the bottom of the ocean. I wasn’t scared though, because I knew that just when I couldn’t hold my breath another second, Aquaman would save me. Aquaman or Daredevil… Captain America.”
Caney’s breath quickened as he leaned forward to stare at something only he could see.
“As soon as I felt myself slide out the door of that helicopter, nothing between me and the ground but air, all those things went through my mind. And everything seemed to slow down, like I was falling in slow motion. Plenty of time for a rescue.
“I could feel myself starting to spin, to tumble.” With one hand, Caney made a circular motion above his head. “Dizzy. Afraid I was going to pass out. I spread my arms, cupped my hands as if I could hold the air. Trying to ride the currents.
“I could see the ground getting closer, but I didn’t see any net that would catch me. There was no damned parachute to grab hold of. No Superman coming to save me.”
Caney wiped away a rivulet of sweat threatening his eye.
“So I started looking for the best spot to land… something to aim for. A grove of trees, great leafy trees, soft enough to cushion my fall.
“A river. I’d go in feet first, go all the way to the bottom, then push off. Come up, swim to the bank. Stretch out in the mud, lay in the sun.”
When the bottle slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor, Caney didn’t hear it, didn’t feel the spray of beer across his arm.
“But I don’t have time. I’m too far from the river, too far from the trees.
“Then I see the rice paddy, sun reflecting off it like arrows pointing ‘Here! Here!’
“Water not deep, but maybe…”
Words tumbling out now, Caney’s face twisting with the telling.
“Then I see a woman down there in the water. A tiny woman wearing one of those pointed bamboo hats. She’s in water up to her knees.
“And she’s looking at me. Her head’s tilted back, her hand shading her eyes as she watches me coming.
“I call out to her, tell her to wait for me…”
Vena watched Caney watching himself fall, his eyes wild as the ground rises to meet him. Suddenly, she jumped up, reaching him in two strides.
“Caney?”
“I can’t be sure she hears me, but…”
Vena put her hands on the arms of his chair and leaned into his face as her song, B7, began to play on the juke-box.
“I’m so close I can see a scar just below her eye, a scar
that curves toward her temple—”
“Caney!”
“But I’m scared she’ll leave before I get there.”
Vena straddled him, wedged her knees between his thighs and the sides of the chair, leaned into him until his heart was pounding against hers.
“Dance with me, Caney!”
She put her arms around him, pressed her cheek to his and began to move her body to the music as she hummed the tune.
“Dance with me,” she whispered.
He was saved then, just before he hit the water. Caught by the faint warmth of breath on his ear.
“Come on, Caney. Dance.”
Moving stiffly, mechanically, he put his hands on the wheels of the chair but could not turn them.
“Vena,” he said, his voice choked.
“Don’t talk. Just dance.”
“Can’t…”
“Sure you can.”
He tried again, turned the wheels tentatively.
“You’re doing fine,” Vena said. “Just fine.”
As he slowly rolled the chair forward, then back, she could feel his breath easing, the tension beginning to drain from his shoulders as he let her sway him to the rhythm of the music.
He gave himself to her then, filled with the wheat smell of her hair as she slipped her cheek into the curve of his neck.
When he began to whisper along with the music, she lifted her head and looked into his face. Wiping tears from his cheeks, she kissed his eyes, then put her lips to his.
When he took his hands from the wheels to encircle her waist, pressing her closer to him, she felt his heat and hardness against her.
And while they kissed again, he waltzed her off the dance floor, the music fading behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
VENA WASN’T THE FIRST woman Caney had been with since Vietnam, but she was the first in more than three years.
The last had been Naomi Watts, an English teacher at the middle school. Caney didn’t know it then, but their brief and clinical couplings were part of her research for a romance novel she was writing about a beautiful young socialite involved in a passionate love affair with a dispirited paraplegic.
