Tenderness

by Robert Cormier

  As I open the door and slip in, the driver squints at me, worry lines creasing his forehead. I figure he’s in his middle thirties. He is nice looking, neat. He is wearing a blue sport shirt open at the neck. His eyes, too, are blue.

  I settle into the seat, shifting my backpack to the floor at my feet, and turn to see him looking doubtful about my presence. I want to ask him what’s the matter but I know what’s the matter.

  “Going to Providence?” I ask. I never tell them my real destination and I know this man with his lawn mower is not going all the way to Providence.

  “Monument,” he says. “Is that far enough?” Then: “I never did this before. I mean, this is something I never do, pick up a hitchhiker.”

  Especially a young girl.

  “I’m glad you did,” I tell him. I smile at him. I am aware of my short shorts and move my legs.

  He looks at me for a long moment. He is trying not to look at my legs, but he looks anyway. Quickly, then away. As the car begins to move, he asks, “Why are you going to Providence?” Then immediately: “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  I am not lonesome anymore. He seems gentle, someone who would be tender. I spread my legs a little more and sigh, my shoulders at attention, knowing what this does to my top.

  A breeze drifts through the open window in the rear of the car. Perspiration dampens his forehead. He smiles at me, an uncertain smile.

  We are in the country, long fields on either side of the highway, trees shimmering in the heat, bushes heavy at the side of the road. His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel. His Adam’s apple jiggles as he swallows.

  “Would you like to kiss me?” I ask, the words popping out unexpectedly. Although I think it would be nice to be kissed and held by him.

  I am surprised to see a grownup person blush. His hands, trembling, leave the steering wheel for a wild moment and the car swerves. He grabs the wheel again.

  He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out.

  “You seem very nice,” I say. Much nicer than the CD guy. “And the way you look at me, I think you’d like to kiss me. Make out a little.”

  I know this about him: he has maybe dreamed about something like this—otherwise, why did he stop to pick me up?—and I am his dream come true. I also know that I can handle him: that gentleness about him.

  “Why don’t you pull over?” I say. “Seems like a lot of places we can stop.” The CD guy only gave me CDs and videos. Maybe this man can give me more. I need all the money I can get if I’m going to stay away.

  “Why?” he asks desperately, his voice a whisper, his eyes agonizing.

  “Because I like you,” I say. Then: “And maybe you could help me out a little. Like, say, twenty dollars …”

  He keeps his eyes on the road. A vein leaps in his temple, seems about to burst. This is the moment when he will decide what to do. I don’t move. I don’t do anything with my legs or my top. I realize I am holding my breath.

  “I never did anything like this before,” he says.

  “I know, I know.” Like he’s the young person and I’m the old one.

  He pulls into a spot by the side of the road, eases into a place that’s hidden from passing cars. The handle of the lawn mower bumps against the window glass as we stop.

  He reaches for me, eyes closed, and I go toward him, letting him have me, and he kisses my cheeks and throat and his hands move over my body. He makes a funny moaning sound when he touches my top and his hand remains there, caressing. I begin to drift with it all, letting him squeeze and caress, and he’s not rough at all, his fingers trembling sometimes. I open my mouth to him and he moans again as he kisses me and he is all over me now, and I let him continue because he is tender with his touch. He is breathing fast, too, gasping as he takes his lips away, his heart throbbing against me, and suddenly he shudders like an earthquake throughout his body and I know he is finished. He curls up on the seat beside me, his head turned away.

  And he’s, like, crying.

  I have never seen a man cry before.

  I touch his shoulder and he looks at me and his face makes me angry at myself because it’s the saddest face in the world and I made him sad.

  He looks down and sees my wrists.

  “What’s that?” he says, sniffling, the way little kids do when the tears stop but the hurt goes on.

  “A dog bit me there. A wild bull terrier.”

  If you are going to lie, you have to be specific, not vague. Words are very important. Like with bull terrier. Which sounds authentic even though I haven’t the slightest notion what a bull terrier looks like. In the fifth grade, old Mr. Stuyvesant told me about lying. He was the handyman at the project and would put me on his lap and tell me lots of good stuff. His touch was always gentle.

  “Twenty dollars,” I say, holding out my hand, trying to ignore his wet cheeks and trying also to ignore this surge of guilt within me.

  He wipes his cheeks with a frayed Kleenex he pulls out of his pocket. He takes out his wallet and removes a twenty-dollar bill and a ten-dollar bill and places them in my hand.

  A tip. A ten-dollar tip, for crying out loud.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I …”

  “I know,” I say. “You never did this before.” But I say it sincerely and not sarcastically, because I believe him. I almost ask him about his wife and children. I am sure he has a nice wife and maybe three children, two boys and a girl, the oldest one about my age. Maybe that’s why he cried afterward.

  He gets prepared to drive away again and puts his wallet in his pocket, but it slips out and wedges in the small space between the front seats. As he pulls out into the highway, I slowly reach out my hand and pick up the wallet, moving my body all around and opening my legs again just in case he looks my way. I slip the wallet into my pocket.

  We drive in silence, his eyes fastened on the road ahead, and I don’t say anything, nothing I can say to make him feel better.

  He lets me off on the outskirts of Monument.

  As I open the door to leave, he touches my shoulder, then draws his hand back quickly. I look at him, and the sorrow is gone from his eyes now and I see in them what I saw before. He wants me to get back in.

  I shake my head.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “It’s been nice meeting you,” I tell him, thinking of his wallet in my pocket.

  Sometimes I am a real bitch.

  His wallet contains two twenty-dollar bills and three ones. Forty-three dollars. He must have just drawn money from an ATM: the bills are clean and crisp. Combined with my own thirty-three dollars gives me a grand total of, what? seventy-six. Plus change.

  From one compartment I remove his driver’s license. His name is Walter R. Clayton. His date of birth is 7–16–58. His height is 5–9. His sex, of course is M. He lives at 38 Humberton Road, Monument. His picture is not very flattering.

  This compartment also holds his Blue Cross/Blue Shield card with his identification number, an ATM card from Wachusett Savings, a tucked-away ten-dollar bill (for emergencies?) folded between two credit cards, VISA and MasterCard.

  The other compartment contains two photographs. One picture shows a blond girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, squinting at the camera as if the sun is hurting her eyes. She’s not very pretty. On the back of the photo is her name, Karen, no date. She is in the other picture, too, posing with a boy who is two or three years younger. He’s identified on the back as Kevin. The girl is nice looking in this picture, blond hair shining and a big smile on her face. Kevin looks solemn, as if he’d rather be out somewhere playing baseball.

  I am sitting on a log by the side of the highway, protected from view by some bushes. I hear the traffic going by as I study the stuff in the wallet. I put it all back and sit still, not looking at anything in particular.

  This is not the first time I have stolen something, but it’s the first time I have stolen from a person, someone with a name. Walter R. Clayton, a man with
a family. I wonder why he didn’t carry a picture of his wife. Maybe he is divorced. Maybe she is dead. Or maybe she held the camera, which is why she isn’t in the picture—I’d like to think that. Anyway, stealing from Walter Clayton is different from stealing from an impersonal place like a store. Stealing from a store doesn’t make you feel too bad afterward, not like how I feel knowing that Walter Clayton has lost not only his money but his credit cards and driver’s license, and all the trouble he faces getting new ones. Plus explaining to his wife how he lost his wallet and having to lie about it. Or maybe this will teach him a lesson, not to pick up young girls in his car and pay them to let him touch and hold them. I remember how he cried afterward. I decide that when I get to Wickburg I will get an envelope and stamps and mail his credit cards and his license and the pictures, too, back to him.

  I finally reached Wickburg by late afternoon. I walked most of the way, trudging along 190, not sticking out my thumb, tired of judging what kind of car or driver was approaching. I was not in the mood for more adventures on the road.

  Finally, a car pulled up. I looked at it suspiciously but saw the handicapped license plate. A woman with gray hair opened the passenger door and asked me if I wanted a lift. That’s what she called it: a lift. I glanced into the car and saw the driver, who also had gray hair. There were all kinds of gadgets attached to the steering wheel. Their voices were kindly. They both had mild gray eyes. The driver looked cheerful, despite all the gadgets on the steering wheel. I couldn’t see his legs. “You look bushed,” the woman said. “Like you need to sit back and rest awhile …” That’s what she said: bushed.

  I guess she meant I looked tired. Which I was, tired and hot, my underarms moist.

  The man turned on the radio as we pulled away. Country music filled the air, a sad song about somebody’s lost love dancing in a bar. I tried to blot out the music and call to mind the bang and boom of Throb and those words of his:

  Eat my heart

  Chew it hard

  Swallow my soul, too.

  I fell asleep like falling into a deep well with quiet waters lapping at my bones as they melted.

  They let me off at Main and Madison in downtown Wickburg, three blocks from the ConCenter. I felt bad because I had slept most of the way and barely talked to them.

  “Thank you,” I called after them as they drove away.

  I don’t think they heard me. And I instantly forgot all about them as I looked up at a billboard on the roof of a bank building showing a huge picture of Throb in his crazy costume and that black hole in his mouth.

  I am standing in the alley between the Marriott and the Brice office building, and I’m looking at the doorway in the wall of the Marriott that does not look like a doorway. It’s a secret doorway used by the superstars to escape from the crowds at the front and rear entrances of the hotel so that they can make their way unobserved to the ConCenter a block away.

  The area around the Marriott is jammed with fans along with police and security people, and I find a quiet spot near the Dumpster in the alley. I have taken a long skirt from my backpack and am wearing it over my shorts. A breeze stirs the debris in the alley but brings no relief from the evening heat. In fact, the breeze stirs up the smell of garbage from the Dumpster and something decaying inside. I fix my eyes on the secret doorway.

  Suddenly, out he comes: Throb. Four or five people, like bodyguards, emerging with him. He’s dressed in his crazy costume, Sunkist hair and baggy pants, no shirt, Day-Glo green suspenders, plus something new: earrings dangling from his nipples. He yawns, actually yawns, and I see the hole in his mouth and this sends me into action.

  I lunge across the alley, covering the few feet between us like a bowling ball, knocking aside the bodyguards, and I am directly in front of him. His eyes widen in disbelief and his eyes are mean, green, and red streaked. They eat into me, those eyes.

  His bodyguards are still recovering from my surprise attack, not quite sure what to do, but I know what I must do. I must kiss him. More than that, I must put my tongue in that hole in his mouth and end this fixation. I reach out and cup his face in my hands and plant this monstrous kiss on his mouth, my lips devouring his mouth, my tongue slipping between his lips, tasting whiskey and something else on his breath. My tongue is between his teeth in that hole and now the bodyguards are pulling at me and yelling, but Throb is transfixed as if hypnotized. I tear myself away from the groping hands and run, half-tripping over my skirt, my backpack bouncing, spitting out the taste of him as I go. I streak into the crowd at the mouth of the alley as the crowd surges forward, spotting Throb finally. I am still spitting out the taste of him as I lose myself in the jostling, bustling crowd, knowing that my fixation is over and I can go on with life, whatever that life will be.

  I have to think about my options now, what I will do tonight and where to stay, and I slip into the Wickburg Diner, all stainless steel and glass, which looks like a railroad dining car, a place I used to go when my mother and I lived in Wickburg.

  I order coffee and a hamburger and sit in the booth, the plastic covering cool on my back and air-conditioning a nice cold stream on my shoulders.

  A television set hangs from the ceiling, and I try to blot out the voices and pictures as I wait for the food. I am not really hungry but my stomach is empty and I feel the need to nourish myself. The smell of fried food sizzles in the air, always a lonesome smell to me, not homey like pies being baked or a roast in the oven, which my mother always cooks when we first settle into a new place but never later.

  Two girls sit in the next booth, giggling and laughing and then whispering to each other. They are not really girls, and I know who they are. Not their names, of course, but what they are. They’re like the girls I have seen cruising the streets, carrying cheap plastic handbags, something sad about them despite the laughing and the makeup. The one facing me has deep, dark eyes, and the other is a blonde.

  I look up at the television set but see only images and hear only sound. I blot out the rest. I am good at this, blotting out things I don’t want to acknowledge, like lying awake in my room at night while Gary and my mother are in the next room and I remove my thoughts, my ears from what’s going on.

  But the television intrudes now, a face flashing on the screen that brings me back to here and now. I know that face. An offscreen voice reaches my ears:

  “… being set free Friday. The state cannot hold him any longer and thus a murderer will be loose among us.…”

  Now a scene outside a prison, a crowd, and a guy emerging from a police cruiser, being rushed into a courthouse. The guy turns and faces the camera. I see his eyes, eyes that I remember, and the way his lips curl into a smile but a smile like no other smile in the world. The announcer’s voice continues:

  “… shown arriving at the Polk County Courthouse for his final appearance … has remained silent throughout his incarceration after having been found guilty by the juvenile court judge of two counts of murder …”

  “I wouldn’t mind being incarcerated with him,” the blonde in the next booth says.

  “But he’s a murderer,” the dark-eyed girl says.

  “What a way to die,” the first one responds.

  Now his face is on the screen again, close up, those eyes staring at the camera as if staring at nobody and nothing and then breaking into a sudden, startling smile. That smile does it, and I remember that smile from a faraway day when my mother and I were living here in Wickburg and how those eyes looked at me and I remember, too, the sound of his voice: “Happy birthday.” That’s what he said to me, the words echoing now in my mind. I hear a small moan and know immediately that it is me who has moaned because I am fixated again, on him, so soon, too soon, after Throb.

  But nothing I can do about it.

  The TV voice again:

  “Eric Poole has remained silent about his future plans but rumors indicate he will be staying with his aunt in Wickburg, Massachusetts, and already neighbors are protesting a murderer in t
heir neighborhood.…”

  Now a shot of a street, regular houses, cottages, with picket fences and trees along the sidewalk and people gathering, some of them with signs, although the camera moves too fast to catch what the signs say.

  I blot it all out, close my eyes and my ears to the voices and images on the television.

  But his face emerges from the darkness behind my eyes.

  I am fixated again, all right, and I can’t help myself and know that I must find Eric Poole and kiss him, press my lips against his lips, my tongue against his tongue, the only way I will end this new fixation of mine.

  Eric Poole began with cats. Or, to be more exact, kittens. Liked to hold them, and stroke them, feel the brittle bones beneath the fur. Fragile bones, as if they’d snap and break if you pressed too hard, caressed too hard. Which he did, of course, impossible to resist. Later, he didn’t just caress them but found that it was easier to fold them into his arms and place his hands over their faces and feel them go beautifully limp. He liked this way best, because it was so tender. Inevitably, kittens grew into cats and it wasn’t the same. Cats were not so trusting, had resistance. Needed more drastic measures, which he hated. Hated drastic measures. Hated violence but sometimes couldn’t help it. Had to follow the demands and the dictates of the situation. As a result, he used more strenuous methods. And got used to it. Enjoyed it, in fact. Just cleaning up the neighborhood, he told himself. Crooned the words, as he did his job. The real problem was disposal. Cleaning up the neighborhood of the feline population, he pondered the problem. And found the obvious solution: burial. Which meant getting a shovel. And digging. And sweating. He didn’t like to sweat. Didn’t like his body’s aromas wafting on the air for other people to absorb. Yet the exercise was good. He didn’t get enough exercise. That’s what his mother always said. His mother wanted him to be more active. Do things. Help around the house. Go places, if only to the mall. She wanted to get rid of him, of course, so she could have Harvey to herself.