by Lorrie Moore
He had no cause for relief. Not long after returning stateside, he was called to battalion headquarters for an interview with two smooth, friendly men in civilian clothes who claimed to be congressional aides from the lieutenant’s home district. They said that there was a sensitive matter before their congressman that required closer knowledge of the lieutenant’s service in Iraq—his performance in the field, his dealings with other officers and with the troops who served under him. Their questions looped around conversationally, almost lazily, but returned again and again to the lieutenant’s relations with Morse. Morse gave nothing away, even as he labored to appear open, unguarded. He figured these men for army narcs, whatever else they said. They let several weeks go by before calling him to another meeting, which they canceled at the last minute. Morse was still waiting for the next summons.
He had often wished that his desires served him better, but in this he supposed he was not unusual—that it was a lucky man indeed whose desires served him well. Yet he had hopes. Over the last few months Morse had become involved with a master sergeant in division intelligence—a calm, scholarly man five years older than he. Though Morse could not yet think of himself as anyone’s “partner,” he had gradually forsaken his room in the N.C.O. quarters to spend nights and weekends at Dixon’s town house off post. The place was stuffed with ancient weapons and masks and chess sets that Dixon had collected during his tours overseas, and at first Morse had felt a sort of nervous awe, as if he were in a museum, but that had passed. Now he liked having these things around him. He was at home there.
But Dixon was due to rotate overseas before long, and Morse would soon receive new orders himself, and he knew it would get complicated then. They would have to make certain judgments about each other and about themselves. They would have to decide how much to promise. Where this would leave them, Morse didn’t know. But all that was still to come.
Billy Hart’s sister called again at midnight, just as Morse was turning over the orderly room to another sergeant. When he picked up and heard her voice, he pointed at the door and the other man smiled and stepped outside.
“Would you like the address, then?” Morse asked.
“I guess. For all the good it’ll do.”
Morse had already looked it up. He read it to her.
“Thanks,” she said. “I don’t have a computer, but Sal does.”
“Sal?”
“Sally Cronin! My cousin.”
“You could just go to an Internet café.”
“Well, I suppose,” she said skeptically. “Say—what’d you mean, maybe you could help?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Morse said.
“You said it, though.”
“Yes. And you laughed.”
“That wasn’t an actual laugh.”
“Ah. Not a laugh.”
“More like . . . I don’t know.”
Morse waited.
“Sorry,” she said. “Look, I’m not asking for help, O.K.? But how come you said it? Just out of curiosity.”
“No reason. I didn’t think it out.”
“Are you a friend of Billy’s?”
“I like Billy.”
“Well, it was nice. You know? A real nice thing to say.”
After Morse signed out, he drove to the pancake house she’d been calling from. As agreed, she was waiting by the cash register, and when he came through the door in his fatigues he saw her take him in with a sharp measuring glance. She straightened up—a tall woman, nearly as tall as Morse himself, with close-cut black hair and a long, tired-looking face, darkly freckled under the eyes. Her eyes were black, but otherwise she looked nothing like Hart, nothing at all, and Morse was thrown by the sudden disappointment he felt and the impulse to escape.
She stepped toward him, head cocked to one side, as if making a guess about him. Her eyebrows were dark and heavy. She wore a sleeveless red blouse and hugged her freckled arms against the chill of the air conditioning. “So should I call you Sergeant?” she said.
“Owen.”
“Sergeant Owen.”
“Just Owen.”
“Just Owen,” she repeated. She offered him her hand. It was dry and rough. “Julianne. We’re over in the corner.”
She led him to a booth by the big window looking out on the parking lot. A fat-faced boy, maybe seven or eight, sat drawing a picture on the back of a place mat among the congealed remains of eggs and waffles and sausages. Holding the crayon like a spike, he raised his head as Morse slid onto the bench across from him. He had the same fierce brows as the woman. He gave Morse a long, unblinking look, then he sucked in his lower lip and returned to his work.
“Say hello, Charlie.”
He went on coloring for a time. Then he said, “Howdy.”
“Won’t say hello, this one. Says howdy now. Don’t know where he got it.”
“That’s all right. Howdy back at you, Charlie.”
“You look like a frog,” the boy said. He dropped the crayon and picked up another from the clutter on the table.
“Charlie!” she said. “Use your manners,” she added mildly, beckoning to a waitress pouring coffee at the neighboring table.
“It’s O.K.,” Morse said. He figured he had it coming. Not because he looked like a frog—though he was all at once conscious of his wide mouth—but because he’d sucked up to the boy. Howdy back at you!
“What is wrong with that woman?” Julianne said as the waitress gazed dully around the room. Then Julianne caught her eye, and she came slowly over to their table and refilled Julianne’s cup. “That’s some picture you’re making,” the waitress said. “What is it?” The boy ignored her. “You’ve got yourself quite the little artist there,” she said to Morse, then moved dreamily away.
Julianne poured a long stream of sugar into her coffee.
“Charlie your son?”
She turned and looked speculatively at the boy. “No.”
“You’re not my mom,” the boy murmured.
“Didn’t I just say that?” She stroked his round cheek with the back of her hand. “Draw your picture, nosy. Kids?” she said to Morse.
“Not yet.” Morse watched the boy smear blue lines across the place mat, wielding the crayon as if out of grim duty.
“You aren’t missing anything.”
“Oh, I think I probably am.”
“Nothing but back talk and mess,” she said. “Charlie’s Billy’s. Billy and Dina’s.”
Morse would never have guessed it, to look at the boy. “I didn’t know Hart had a son,” he said, and hoped she hadn’t heard the note of complaint that was all too clear and strange to him.
“Neither does he, the way he acts. Him and Dina both.” Dina, she said, was off doing another round of rehab in Raleigh—her second. Julianne and Bella (Julianne’s mother, Morse gathered) had been looking after Charlie, but they didn’t get along, and after the last blowup Bella had taken off for Florida with a boyfriend, putting Julianne in a bind. She drove a school bus during the year and worked summers cooking at a Girl Scout camp, but with Charlie on her hands and no money for child care she’d had to give up the camp job. So she’d driven down here to try and shake some help out of Billy, enough to get her through until school started, or Bella decided to come home and do her share, fat chance.
Morse nodded toward the boy. He didn’t like his hearing all this, if anything could penetrate that concentration, but Julianne went on as if she hadn’t noticed. Her voice was low, growly, but with a nasal catch in it, like the whine of a saw blade binding. She didn’t have the lazy music that Hart could play so well, but she seemed more truly of the hollows and farms of their home; she spoke of the people there as if Morse must know them, too—as if she had no working conception of the reach of the world beyond.
At first, Morse was expecting her to put the bite on him, but she never did. He did not understand what she wanted from him, or why, unprompted, he had offered to come here tonight.
“So he’s gone,” she said finally
. “You’re sure.”
“Afraid so.”
“Well. Good to know my luck’s holding. Wouldn’t want it to get worse.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Why didn’t you call first?”
“What, and let on I was coming? You don’t know our Billy.”
Julianne seemed to fall into a trance then, and Morse soon followed, lulled by the clink of crockery and the voices all around, the soft scratching of the crayon. He didn’t know how long they sat like this. He was roused by the tapping of raindrops against the window, a few fat drops that left oily lines as they slid down the glass. The rain stopped. Then it came again in a rush, sizzling on the asphalt, glazing the cars in the parking lot, pleasant to watch after the long, heavy day.
“Rain,” Morse said.
Julianne didn’t bother to look. She might have been asleep but for the slight nod she gave him.
Morse recognized two men from his company at a table across the room. He watched them until they glanced his way, then he nodded and they nodded back. Money in the bank—confirmed sighting of Sergeant Morse with woman and child. Family. He hated thinking so bitter and cheap a thought, and resented whatever led him to think it. Still, how else could they be seen, the three of them, in a pancake house at this hour? And it wasn’t just their resemblance to a family. No, there was the atmosphere of family here, in the very silence of the table: Julianne with her eyes closed, the boy working away on his picture, Morse himself looking on like any husband and father.
“You’re tired,” he said.
The tenderness of his own voice surprised him, and her eyes blinked open as if she, too, were surprised. She looked at him with gratitude; and it came to Morse that she had called him back that night just for the reason she gave, because he had spoken kindly to her.
“I am tired,” she said. “I am that.”
“Look. Julianne. What do you need to tide you over?”
“Nothing. Forget all that stuff. I was just blowing off steam.”
“I’m not talking about charity, O.K.? Just a loan, that’s all.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“It’s not like there’s anyone waiting in line for it,” he said, and this was true. Morse’s father and older brother, finally catching on, had gone cold on him years ago. He’d remained close to his mother, but she died just after his return from Iraq. In his new will, Morse named as sole beneficiary the hospice where she’d spent her last weeks. To name Dixon seemed too sudden and meaningful and might draw unwelcome attention, and anyway Dixon had made some sharp investments and was well fixed.
“I just can’t,” Julianne said. “But that is so sweet.”
“My dad’s a soldier,” the boy said, head still bent over the place mat.
“I know,” Morse said. “He’s a good soldier. You should be proud.”
Julianne smiled at him, really smiled, for the first time that night. She had been squinting and holding her mouth in a tight line. Then she smiled and looked like someone else. Morse saw that she had beauty, and that her pleasure in him had allowed this beauty to show itself. He was embarrassed. He felt a sense of duplicity that he immediately, even indignantly, suppressed. “I can’t force it on you,” he said. “Suit yourself.”
The smile vanished. “I will,” she said, in the same tone he had used, harder than he’d intended. “But I thank you anyhow. Charlie,” she said, “time to go. Get your stuff together.”
“I’m not done.”
“Finish it tomorrow.”
Morse waited while she rolled up the place mat and helped the boy collect his crayons. He noticed the check pinned under the saltshaker and picked it up.
“I’ll take that,” she said, and held out her hand in a way that did not permit refusal.
Morse stood by awkwardly as Julianne paid at the register, then he walked outside with her and the boy. They stood together under the awning and watched the storm lash the parking lot. Glittering lines of rain fell aslant through the glare of the lights overhead. The surrounding trees tossed wildly, and the wind sent gleaming ripples across the asphalt. Julianne brushed a lock of hair back from the boy’s forehead. “I’m ready. How about you?”
“No.”
“Well, it ain’t about to quit raining for Charles Drew Hart.” She yawned widely and gave her head a shake. “Nice talking to you,” she said to Morse.
“Where will you stay?”
“Pickup.”
“A pickup? You’re going to sleep in a truck?”
“Can’t drive like this.” And in the look she gave him, expectant and mocking, he could see that she knew he would offer her a motel room, and that she was already tasting the satisfaction of turning it down. But that didn’t stop him from trying.
“Country-proud,” Dixon said when Morse told him the story later that morning. “You should have invited them to stay here. People like that, mountain people, will accept hospitality when they won’t take money. They’re like Arabs. Hospitality has a sacred claim. You don’t refuse to give it, and you don’t refuse to take it.”
“Never occurred to me,” Morse said, but in truth he’d had the same intuition, standing outside the restaurant with the two of them, wallet in hand. Even as he tried to talk Julianne into taking the money for a room, invoking the seriousness of the storm and the need to get the boy into a safe dry place, he had the sense that if he simply invited her home with him she might indeed say yes. And then what? Dixon waking up and playing host, bearing fresh towels to the guest room, making coffee, teasing the boy—and looking at Morse in that way of his. Its meaning would be clear enough to Julianne. What might she do with such knowledge? Out of shock and disgust, perhaps even feeling herself betrayed, she could ruin them.
Morse thought of that but didn’t really fear it. He liked her; he did not think she would act meanly. What he feared, what he could not allow, was for her to see how Dixon looked at him, and then to see that he could not give back what he received. That things between them were unequal, and himself unloving.
So that even while offering Julianne the gift of shelter he felt false, mealy-mouthed, as if he were trying to buy her off; and the unfairness of suffering guilt while pushing his money at her and having his money refused proved too much for Morse. Finally, he told her to sleep in the damned truck then if that was what she wanted.
“I don’t want to sleep in the truck,” the boy said.
“You’d be a sight happier if you did want to,” Julianne said. “Now come on—ready or not.”
“Just don’t try to drive home,” Morse said.
She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and led him out into the parking lot.
“You’re too tired!” Morse called after her, but if she answered he couldn’t hear it for the drumming of the rain on the metal awning. They walked on across the asphalt. The wind gusted, driving the rain so hard that Morse had to jump back a step. Julianne took it full in the face and never so much as turned her head. Nor did the boy. Charlie. He was getting something from her, ready or not, walking into the rain as if it weren’t raining at all.
2010–2015
Economic pressures and the digital revolution continue to affect the publishing of short fiction. Borders Books closed in 2011. In 2013 e-books accounted for nearly 20 percent of larger publishers’ revenue. New questions about the foundations of publishing have arisen: What should e-books cost? What value does a publisher bring to a book, and is it preferable for authors to self-publish?
Both publishers and literary magazines have become creative in seeking new readers. The paperback original can make a first short story collection more affordable. Online publication can provide substantial savings in production costs. In 2013 Ploughshares, one of the country’s finest magazines, launched its Solos program, publishing individual long stories digitally on Kindle and Nook. DailyLit offers readers a program where they receive short stories—as well as installments of novels—via e-mail and soon on mobile devices.
I
’ve been pleased to see writers begin to take more risks in their stories, whether by blending genres or paying direct homage to other writers or experimenting with the structure of the stories themselves. I’ve read stories in the form of e-mail exchanges, stories published on Twitter, stories written as online personal ads. The computer, and the Internet by extension, has become a real part of our landscape, and our authors are reckoning with this fact.
I continue to read stories about the Iraq war. I read stories about the mentally ill, the homeless and/or unemployed. I read stories about genetics, our manipulation of the environment, the undeniable presence of global warming. Thankfully, I’ve begun reading more stories that directly address homosexuality and transgender characters, too long all but absent from the series.
In my relatively short tenure, I have noticed an easing of tone in many American short stories, a more conversational vernacular that can be traced to the stories of Sherwood Anderson but also, more recently, to the blogosphere and Internet, where even many news headlines seem to have shed a certain level of formality. Of course, some things never change. For the past hundred years people have wondered about the relevance of fiction, the state of publishing, and the death of print. People have grappled with the definition of a short story: How long should it be? What parameters dictate its format?
For the past several years I’ve read every volume of The Best American Short Stories in order to cull stories for this book while reading for the annual volumes. Sometimes it’s been difficult not to compare the present and the past, to view certain stories objectively from the vantage of their own very different time. Worming my way through the history of a country via its short stories has been a strange, wonderful, and utterly singular experience. I’ve developed and discarded theory after theory of influence. One of my earliest was that transportation must have been the basis for decades of fictional trends. At the start of the series, so many stories were set on ships or in pubs peopled by sailors and captains. Bravery at sea was the thing—man against nature, as well as the trustworthiness of told tales themselves. With the rise of the railroad came a sense of the vastness of our own country—an opening of communication between family members previously kept apart, lovers previously out of contact. Characters desired freedom and were held back not by geographical distance but by family and historical norms. The most influential mode of transportation had to be the automobile and the building of interstates—and with them came a dramatic increase in time spent alone. Not until the 1940s did interiority of character really catch on in American short stories. As people grew more isolated but free, writers delved into the human consciousness for a new sort of conflict. Happy endings grew even less common. Of course I could not ignore the impact of war, the economy, and civil rights on short fiction. But I was surprisingly aware the entire time that I read of the fact that how we move—how we are able to come together—defines how we think and therefore express ourselves.
