She looked at the telephone. She picked up the receiver.
Michael? she said.
She dialed his number. The receiver clicked and snapped.
What number are you calling please?
He’s gone, thought Jancy.
Hello? What number—
Jancy repeated the numerals.
That number has been disconnected. There’s a new number. Shall I ring it for you?
The plastic dial of the princess phone was transparent and yellowed with light.
Ma’am? Shall I ring it?
Yes, Jancy said.
No one home.
Jancy took a bottle of whiskey off the shelf. She would drink enough to make her sleep. The rain had stopped and the house was still. Light from streetlamps fell through the windows. Jancy watched the deserted town. Heavy elms loomed over the sidewalks. Limbs of trees rose and fell on a night breeze. Their shadows moved on the lit-up surface of the street.
A black car glided by.
Jancy stepped back from the window. Taillights blinked red as the car turned corners and passed away soundlessly.
She picked up the phone and dialed. She lay in the cramped hallway while the purr of a connection stopped and started. How did it sound there, ringing in the dark? Loud and empty.
Hello?
His voice, soft. When they lived together, he used to stand looking out the window at the alley late at night. He was naked and perfect. He watched the Midwestern alleys roll across eight city blocks paved in old brick. Telephone poles stood weathered and alone. Their drooping wires glistened, humming one note. He gripped the wooden frame of the window and stood looking, centaur, quiet, his flanks whitened in moonlight.
Jancy, he said now. It’s you, isn’t it.
Jancy wore a skirt and sat in the living room. Her father would pull up outside. She would see him lean to watch the door of the house, his head inclined toward her. His car shining and just washed. His hat. His cigar. His baggy pants bought at the same store downtown for thirty years.
Jancy walked outside to watch for him. She didn’t want to jump when the horn sounded. And it suddenly hurt her that her father was always waiting.
Did he know their old house was being sold again? He had contracted the labor and built it himself. He had designed the heating system, radiant heat piped under the floors so the wooden parquet was always warm. He had raised the ceiling of the living room fifteen inches so that the crown of her mother’s inherited antique bookcase would fit into it. He was a road builder, but those last few years, when Jancy was a teen-ager, he’d had a series of bad jobs—selling bulldozers, cars, insurance—After they’d moved he stopped working altogether …
The horn sounded suddenly close and shocked her.
Jancy?
Now why did you do that? I’m standing right here, aren’t I?
Are you asleep?
No, I just didn’t hear you pull up. But you didn’t have to blare that horn at me. It’s loud enough to wake the dead.
Well, he said, I thought you needed waking, standing there staring into space like a knothead.
Right, said Jancy. She got into the car and he was still smiling. She laughed in spite of herself.
I’m a little early, he said. They don’t open at the church till noon. Do you want to go for a drive?
Where to?
We could drive out the falls road, he said.
That would take them past the old house. The hedges and trees would be larger than Jancy could believe, lush with new leaves, and rippling. Her father had planted them all.
I don’t think so, said Jancy.
The house is for sale.
I know.
Dumbest thing I ever did was to let your mother talk me into selling that house.
I don’t want to hear about my mother.
I’ll hate her for the rest of my life for breaking up our family, he said, his breathing grown heavy. He scowled and touched the ridges in the steering wheel.
Jancy leaned back in the seat and watched clouds through the tinted windshield. Remember when you built roads? she asked.
He waited a moment, then looked over at her and pushed his hat back. I built a lot of them around here, he said, but the state don’t keep them up anymore. They closed the graveyard road.
He’d taught her how to drive on that road, a narrow unpainted blacktop that wound under train trestles and through the cemetery. He said if she could drive on that road she could drive anywhere. He made her go that way, cutting across a blind curve up the sudden hill of the entrance, past the carved pillars with their lopsided lamps. This way, he’d said, and she’d pulled off onto a gravel path that turned sharply along the crest of a hill. Tombstones were scattered in the lumpy grass. Far below Jancy saw the graveyard road looping west by the river, on through woods to the country towns of Volga and Coalton and Mud Lick.
Stop here, her father directed. He nodded at a patch of ground. There we are, he said, this is where we’ll be.
Jancy was sixteen; she’d stared at him and gripped the steering wheel.
All right, he’d said. Back up. Let’s see how you do going backward.
Now her father started his black Ford and they passed the clipped lawns of houses. He drove slowly, his cigar in his mouth.
What will they have to eat at the church? Jancy asked.
Oh, he said. They publish a menu in the paper. Meat loaf today. Fifty cents a person over sixty. Not bad food. Cooks used to work up at the junior high. But we don’t have to go there. We can go to a restaurant if you want.
No, I’d rather go where you usually go. But are you sure I’m allowed?
Certainly. You’re my guest. A dollar for guests.
They pulled into the church parking lot. The doors of the rec center were closed. They sat in the car and waited. Jancy remembered dances held in this building, how she was thirteen and came here to dance with the high school boys. They had danced until they were wet with sweat, then stepped outside into the winter air. Girls stood by the lighted door and shivered while the boys smoked cigarettes, squinting into vaporous trails of smoke rings.
What about your car? asked her father.
What about it?
I’m going to take it up to Smitty’s and have him go over it.
No. Doesn’t need it. The car is fine. I had it checked—
I’ve made arrangements with Smitty for today. He’s got room and we better—
But the last time he fixed it, one of the sparkplugs flew out while I was driving on the interstate—
Don’t you be taking off on Smitty, her father said. He’s done us a lot of good work on that car. I’m trying to help you. You don’t want my help, why just let me know and I’ll bow out anytime.
Jancy sighed. Her father held his hat in his lap and traced the faint lines of the wool plaid with his fingers.
I appreciate your help, she said. But I don’t know if Smitty—
He might have made a mistake that one time, her father said. But he usually does real good by us.
Volkswagen buses of old people began to pull up. Drivers opened the double doors of the vans and rolled up a set of mobile steps. Old ladies appeared with their blond canes and black-netted pillbox hats. They stepped out one after another, smiling and peeking about.
Where are the old men? Jancy asked.
I think they die off quicker, her father said. These same old dames have been coming here ever since I have. They just keep moving.
Inside were long rows of Formica tables. Eight or nine elderly people sat at each. There were rows of empty chairs. Women with a cashbox between them sat beside the door. Jancy’s father put his arm around Jancy’s waist and patted her.
This is my daughter, he said.
Well, isn’t she pretty? said one of the cashiers. The other women nodded and smiled.
Jancy signed the guest book. Under ‘address’ she wrote ‘at large.’ Her father was waiting at one of the tables. He had pulled a chair out for he
r and was standing behind it, waiting to seat her. The women were watching them, like the circling nurses that day at the hospital. Her father lay in bed, his arms so thin that his elbows seemed too large.
This is my daughter, he’d said to the nurses. She came all the way from California to see me.
Isn’t that nice, they’d said. Is she married?
Hell no, her father had laughed. She’s married to me.
Now Jancy felt the chair press up behind her legs and she sat down. Her father took his hat off and nodded at people across the table. She saw that his eyes were alight.
Aren’t you going to have to get yourself a summer hat? she asked.
I reckon so, he said. I just can’t find one I like.
Behind the waist-high counter, Jancy saw the fat cooks spooning peaches onto plates from metal cans. They were big women, their hair netted in silver nets, faces round and flushed from the ovens. They passed out cafeteria trays pre-molded for portions.
I used to eat out of those trays in grade school, Jancy said. Are they going to make us sing ‘God Is Great?’
No, her father said. But go ahead if it makes you feel better.
He chuckled. The last time they’d eaten together was last December. Michael had come home with Jancy and they’d gone out to lunch with her father at the Elks Club. Afterward he had held Michael’s coat for him and eased it onto his shoulders. He’d never done that for anyone but his sons. Later he’d asked her, Are you going to marry this man?
Jancy? Aren’t you going to eat? Her father was leaning close to her, pointing at her plate.
What? Oh. I ate a big breakfast. Here, you eat the rest of mine.
You should eat, said her father. Your face looks thin. Have you lost weight?
Maybe a little.
You run around too much. If you’d stay in one place for a while you’d gain a little weight and look better.
Jancy picked up her fork and put it down. Her father had always made her uneasy. He went into rages, especially in the car. If he couldn’t pass or the car in front slowed suddenly for a turn, he’d turn red and curse—Goddammit, you son of a bitch, he’d say. That’s right, you chucklehead—That word ‘chuckle-head’ was his utmost brand of contempt. He said it stressing the first syllable, fuming like a mad bull.
Jancy? You finished? Ready to go?
Her father pushed his plate away and sat watching her, touching the rim of his empty glass with a finger. She couldn’t answer him. She knew that she would leave to see Michael. When she told her father, he would shake his head and stammer as he tried to talk. She got up and started for the door.
Jancy’s father burned a coal fire past mid-May. He picked up a poker and stabbed at white embers clinging to the grate. Flakes of ash drifted into the room.
How long will you be up there? he asked.
I don’t know, she said.
Christ Almighty. What are you doing? If this thing between you and him is over, just forget it. Why go chasing up there after him? Let him come here, he knows where you are.
I don’t have a place for him to stay.
Why couldn’t he stay up at the house with you and your mother?
Because we don’t want to stay with my mother.
He clenched his fists and glowered into the fire. He shook his head.
I know you’re an adult, he said. But goddammit, Jancy, it’s not right. I don’t care what you say. It’s not right and it won’t come to no good.
It already has come to good, Jancy said. She looked at him until he broke their gaze.
Why don’t you give it up? he said. Give it up and marry him.
Give what up?
All this running around you’re doing. Jesus, Honey, you can’t do this all your life. Aren’t you twenty-five this summer? I won’t be here forever. What’s going to happen to you?
I don’t know, Jancy said. How can I know?
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and clasped his hands. You need a family, he said. No one will ever help you but your family.
Maybe not, said Jancy.
She thought of the drive. Moving up the East Coast to Michael. She would arrive and sit in the car, waiting to stop trembling, waiting for twelve hours of hot road and radio talk to go away. She would want Michael so much and she would be afraid to go into the house.
She looked up at her father.
I have to do this, she said.
What time are you leaving?
Five A.M.
Does your mother know you’re going?
I told her I might.
Well. Come down by and we’ll hose off the car.
No, you don’t need to get up that early.
I’m always awake by then, he said.
Her father was sitting outside on the porch swing as she drove up. He motioned her to pull into the yard under the buckeye tree. The sky had begun to lighten. The stars were gone. The air was chill, misted. He wore a woolen shirt and the hat with the feather nearly hidden in the brim. Before Jancy could get out of the car he picked up the garden hose and twisted the brass nozzle. Water streamed over the windshield. Jancy watched his wavering form as the water broke and runneled. He held the cigar between his teeth and sprayed the bumpers, the headlights, the long sides of the car. He sprayed each tire, walking, revolving, his hand on his hip, the hat pulled low. His face was gentle and gaunt. He would get sicker. Jancy touched her eyes, her mouth. A resignation welled up like tears. He was there and then he was made of moving lines as water flew into the glass. The water stopped slowly.
Jancy got out of the car and they stood looking up at a sky toned the coral of flesh.
It’s a long way, he said. You’ll get there while it’s light?
Yes, Jancy said. Don’t worry.
The car sat dripping and poised.
It looks good, Jancy said. I’m taking off in style.
She got in and rolled the window down. Her father came close.
Turn the motor on, he said, then nodded, satisfied at the growl of the engine. Above them the buckeye spread out green and heavy.
When are the buckeyes ripe? Jancy asked.
Not till August.
Can you eat them?
Nope, her father laughed. Buckeyes don’t do a thing, don’t have a use in the world.
He bent down and kissed her.
Take your time, he said. Go easy.
She drove fast the first few hours. The sun looked like the moon, dim, layered over. Morning fog burned off slowly. Maryland mountains were thick and dipped in pockets of fog. Woods stretched on both sides of the road. Sometimes from an overpass Jancy saw straggled neon lights still burning in a small town. No cars on the highway; she was alone, she ate up the empty ribbon of the road.
She drove up over a rise and suddenly, looming out of the mist, the deer was there. She saw the sexual lines of its head and long neck. It moved into her, lifted like a flying horse. She swerved. The arching body hit the fender with a final thud and bounced again, hard, into the side of the car. Jancy looked through the rearview mirror and saw the splayed form skidding back along the berm of the road, bouncing twice in slow motion, twirling and stopping.
The road seemed to close like a tunnel. The look of the deer’s head, the beginning arch of the body, was all around Jancy. She seemed to see through the image into the tunneling road. She heard, close to her ear, the soft whuff of the large head bent over grass, tearing the long grass with its teeth.
She pulled off the road. I should go back and see what I’ve done, she thought. She turned the motor off. She felt she was still moving, and the road shifted into three levels. Wet grass of the road banks was lush. The road shimmered; one plane of it tilted and moved sideways into the other. Jancy gripped the vinyl seat of the car. She was sinking. The door wouldn’t open and she slid across to get out the other side. She stood up in the cool air and there was total silence. Jancy tried to walk. The earth and the asphalt were spongy. She moved around the car and saw first the moonish curve of
the dented fender. The door was crumpled where the deer had bounced back and slammed into her. Jancy imagined its flanks, the hard mounds of its rump. The sheen of it. She staggered and stepped back. The sudden cushion of the grass surprised her and she fell. She saw then the sweep of short hairs glistening along the length of the car. The door handle was packed and smeared with golden feces.
There was really nowhere to go.
Once it was Christmas Day. They were driving from home, from the house her father had built in the country. A deer jumped the road in front of them, clearing the snow, the pavement, the fences of the fields, in two bounds. Beyond its arc the hills rumpled in snow. The narrow road wound through white meadows, across the creek, and on. Her father was driving. Her brothers had shining play pistols with leather holsters. Her mother wore clip-on earrings of tiny wreaths. They were all dressed in new clothes, and they moved down the road through the trees.
Happy
SHE KNEW if she loved him she could make him happy, but she didn’t. Or she did, but it sank into itself like a hole and curled up content. Surrounded by the blur of her own movements, the thought of making him happy was very dear to her. She moved it from place to place, a surprise she never opened. She slept alone at night, soul of a naked priest in her sweet body. Small soft hands, a bread of desire rising in her stomach. When she lay down with the man she loved and didn’t, the man opened and opened. Inside him an acrobat tumbled over death. And walked thin wires with nothing above or below. She cried, he was so beautiful in his scarlet tights and white face the size of a dime.
Stars
ALL WINTER in Florida he poked his cane at calcified dog turds and swore. In summers he sat on the porch in West Virginia, yelling for the fly swatter and shooting at groundhogs in his fields across the road; so proud of the girl he fathered at sixty. Jit! he yelled, Jitterbugger! Bring the swatter out here!
Black Tickets Page 10
