Norwood

by Charles Portis

  They drove out to a slough and shot at snakes and cypress knees for an hour or so. After lunch they looked through some stuff in the garage and found a long narrow cage suitable for Joann to travel in. It had once served as a humane catch-’em-alive mink trap, and in fact no mink had ever entered it, such was its humanity. Kay came by in her powerful Thunderbird which nobody in town really wanted to insure and they loaded up and drove downtown and parked under the bus stop sign in front of Junior’s EAT Café. Kay gave Rita Lee a little gift-wrapped box with a ribbon on it.

  She opened it. “Hey, a cigarette lighter. This is really nice. Thanks.”

  “That’s just what they needed, Kay, an onyx table lighter.”

  “How do you know what they need? Besides, it’s a good one. It’s butane.”

  They sat in the car with the doors open and ate ice cream sandwiches. A young carpenter in striped overalls and with nails in his mouth was fixing Junior’s sagging front porch with some new yellow two-by-fours. He had brought his kids to work with him and they were in the cab of a pickup. A little girl with sandy hair was hanging out the window backward and shaking her head from side to side. “Boy, it looks like the world is blowing up,” she said. Kay said, “Don’t do that, sugar, it’ll make you sick.” Two stores down, at Kroger’s, a teenage meat cutter came outside and looked around and then rolled his apron up and leaned back against the building with one foot up and smoked a cigarette.

  The little sandy-haired girl said, “Hey Daddy, come here.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Come here now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Randolph wants to peepee.”

  “Well, you can help him.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to, Daddy.”

  “Aw hell.”

  The bus came and Norwood and Rita Lee got on with their plunder and Norwood came back up front and stood on the step. Joe William said, “Let me know how you make out down there with Roy Acuff and Hank Williams and all those guys.”

  “Roy Acuff is in Nashville, Tennessee, and Hank Williams is dead. He’s been dead.”

  “Well, whoever it is. Look, champ, I’m sorry I took so long on the dough.”

  “That’s all right. Yall will have to come see us when we get us a place.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to. We’ll see what happens. I don’t know. You can see how it is here, touch and go. Come back when you can stay longer.”

  “I’ll see you sometime, tush hog. You take it easy.”

  “Okay.”

  THE AIR CONDITIONING felt good. Rita Lee got the window seat. She read stories in her love magazines about a lot of whiny girls who couldn’t tell the difference between novelties salesmen and Norwoods. What dopes! They could expect no more sympathy from Rita Lee, she who had wept bitter tears with them. Along in the back pages of one magazine she ran across an interesting ad. It offered, by mail and on easy terms, a $79.95 wedding set, complete with solitaire diamond engagement ring of unspecified caratage, and two gold bands. Rush me free booklet of bargains, said the coupon, and tell me how high volume sales can mean BIG SAVINGS for meinstead of BIG PROFITS for the jeweler! The ad showed a man in a Stetson with a jeweler’s glass in his eye. He was holding two six-guns and blasting away over his head at some exploding balloons labeled High Diamond Prices. Under the man were the words Yes, Grady Fring is bringing them DOWN! Rita Lee tore the ad out and put it away. She would discuss it with Norwood later, at a good time. It was not the kind of thing to interrupt him with.

  She also saw an interesting sight. On a curve not far from Little Rock a busload of Elks had turned over. The bus was on its right side in the ditch, the front wheels still slowly turning, and the Elks were surfacing one at a time through the escape hatch on the left side, now topside. One Elk was lying on the grass, maybe dead, no ball game for him, and others were limping and hopping about and holding their heads. Another one, in torn shirt-sleeves, was sitting on a suitcase on top of the bus. He was not lifting a finger to help but as each surviving brother Elk stuck his head up through the hatchway, he gave a long salute from his compressed-air horn. The big Trailways cruiser began to slow down. When the man saw this he turned with his noise device and hooted it—there could be no mistake—at the driver. Norwood was talking to a man with bulging eyes across the aisle who had gone broke in Mississippi selling premium beer for $3.95 a case on credit, and they both missed it, that hooting part. They did help load the injured into ambulances. The former tavern keeper found a silver dollar in the grass and kept it.

  In Texarkana that night Norwood called the Nipper station in Ralph and asked Clyde Rainey to go down to the house and tell Vernell he was over here at the bus station and to come pick him up in the Fleetline. Clyde expressed fears about the Fleetline. He said he could send a boy over in the service truck to get him. He would be glad to do it. Norwood said no, that was all right, just tell Vernell to take it easy.

  Rita Lee said, “How long will it take?”

  “A good hour,” said Norwood. He gave Joann some water and then assembled all their gear in a pile against the wall. They sat down to wait. Norwood didn’t see Tilmon Fring over by the pinball machines. Tilmon was watching the games with his hands in his pocket. He was wearing the same suit coat and he still had the orange pack of cigarette papers in his hat like a jaunty press card.

  Rita Lee said, “What kind of present have you got for your sister?”

  Norwood said, “Nothing.”

  “You ought to get her something, hon. Even a little something. Girls love to get presents.”

  “I guess I ought to.”

  Norwood didn’t want to leave their baggage unattended but Rita Lee said she didn’t think anyone would bother it since there was a chicken with it. Norwood couldn’t figure that one out. They left it there unwatched anyway and walked a few blocks and found a drugstore open. He bought a box of chocolate-covered cherries that was on sale. It didn’t look like much when he got it in a sack, away from the display, so he bought a small pillow to put with it, a blue shiny one with fringe on it and a picture of the post office standing astride two states, and the words “Greetings From Texarkana, U.S.A., Home of the Red River Arsenal.” It too was on sale. He didn’t get Bill Bird anything.

  Rita Lee said, “What does your sister look like? Does she look anything like you?”

  Norwood said, “Some.” He showed her a snapshot from his billfold.

  Rita Lee studied it. “People with fat faces have to be careful how they fix their hair,” she said. “What’s she doing in this junkyard?”

  “That’s where we live.”

  “Where’s the house? I don’t see air a house.”

  “It’s off out there to the side. You can just see the corner of the back porch there the other side of where that dog is standing. The yard don’t look like that now. I cleaned it up a whole lot.”

  “He looks like he’d be a good little watchdog. What is his name?”

  “It was Buster. I don’t know what it is now. He just showed up at the station one day and I kept him. I got him vaccinated and put a collar on him and he stayed about a year and then left again. I never could find that scamp.”

  “Some nigger probably got him. They’ll pick up a little house dog.”

  “Might of. Or got run over.”

  “Norwood, listen, how long does it take to get married in Texas?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think very long.”

  “I mean getting the papers and all that. Everything.”

  “I know what you mean but I don’t know how long it takes. Two or three days, I guess. Vernell got married in Arkansas. She’s got her license up over her bed.”

  “I wisht we’d hurry up and get where we’re going. My eyes hurt.”

  “We’ll be there pretty soon.”

  They were not far from the bus station when Norwood heard someone calling his name. He knew who it was and he foolishly tried to pretend that he didn’t hear. Rita Lee
stopped and said, “Hey, that’s somebody wants you over there.” Grady Fring’s Invicta was parked across the street on the apron of a darkened service station. The engine was idling but making no more noise than a rat peeing on a sack of cotton. Grady was looking across the top of the car at them. “It’s me,” he said. “I’d like to have a word with you if I may.” Rita Lee said, “Who is that?” Norwood said, “It’s a man I know. You go on down to the staton and keep an eye on our stuff. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Norwood crossed the street. Grady stood there grinning and waiting outside his car with one arm resting on top of the opened door. Norwood had forgotten how tall he was. “Well, you’re back,” said Grady. He stuck his hand out and Norwood took it and gave it one shake. “I had a momentary impression there that you were trying to dodge me.”

  “I figured I’d have to see you sometime.”

  “Yes, indeed. Who’s the chippy?”

  “The what?”

  “The girl, who’s the girl?”

  “What was that you called her?”

  “A chippy. It doesn’t mean anything. It just means a sweet little girl.”

  “I don’t think that’s what it means.”

  “You’re in a surly mood, Norwood. Defensive. It’s the voice of fear. I’ve heard it before.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “Let’s start with what happened to my cars.”

  “Them was stolen cars, Mr. Fring, and you know it.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I left ’em in Indiana.”

  “Where in Indiana?”

  “I don’t know. Someplace. I don’t remember.”

  “Were the police in any way involved?”

  “Naw.”

  “You just abandoned them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Yvonne? I see her hand in this. The coarse Miss Phillips.”

  “What about her?”

  “Where is she? Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know where she went.”

  “And where have you been all this time?”

  “I went to see somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Look, son, don’t try to match wits with me. I’d appreciate it if you’d change your tone. All I’m interested in right now is finding out a few facts. You’ve cost me a great deal of money and considerable worry. You may be in very serious trouble. I want to know the extent of the damage. Don’t you think I’m entitled to know that? What’s more, I don’t like it. I don’t like the way you’ve abused my good faith in this matter.”

  “I don’t see where I’m in any trouble.”

  “That’s only because you’re stupid. What did you do with the car papers? The pink slips and the credit card and all that?”

  “I left ’em in the car. Cars.”

  “You’re a real dandy.”

  “Look, starting right now I don’t have any more to do with you or them cars. I don’t have to talk to you any more. Here, here’s your watch, crook.”

  “Yessir, you are a dandy,” said Grady. He took the watch and dropped it on the concrete without looking at it and stepped on it with the heel of his shoe. “I could have you locked up right here tonight if I wanted to, did you know that?”

  “Yeah, what for?”

  “Just anything that came to mind. Vagrancy, mopery.”

  “I don’t think you could do that.”

  “No? Do you believe your house could burn some cold wintry night? What a tragedy that would be. I advise you to curb your tongue, Norwood, and think this thing through and then give me some straight answers. Now. We got off on the wrong foot. Let’s try it again. We’re not communicating and I think I know why. You think the situation is much more desperate than it actually is. True, you owe me the money for the cars but that can be worked out. I can put you on temporarily as night man at the worm ranch. Perhaps later we can—”

  “Burn my house? Was that what you said?”

  “I didn’t say I, the Kredit King, would burn it, no. You misunderstood me. These things do happen though, you can’t deny it. They strike the rich and poor alike. Well, come to that, I believe they strike the poor more often than the rich because of their necessarily inferior heating systems. The coal oil stove is a treacherous device. Of course the rich stand to lose more in a fire. There’s a certain rough justice in the world. Many of your great philosophers have remarked on it.”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “Watch it now. You’re taking liberties. Don’t make things any worse than they are. Don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash, son.”

  Norwood was trembling. “I’m through talking,” he said, and he made a move to go.

  Grady slammed the car door and held up one hand like a traffic policeman. “Whoa, I’m not,” he said.

  “Get out of my way, you big skinny sapsucker!”

  Grady didn’t move fast enough and Norwood swung and hit him on the temple with a looping right. Grady ran or danced a couple of steps sideways and dropped to one hand and one knee. Norwood was on him like a bobcat. They fell together and the back of Grady’s head bounced on the oily concrete and Norwood hit him five or six times full in the face and mouth, then pressed his forearm down on Grady’s neck as hard as he could. “What you gonna do now! Come on, tell me what you gonna do now! Come on, you a big talker!”

  Norwood heard someone shouting and when he realized it wasn’t himself he looked up and saw a woman out there on the sidewalk in the light. “It’s a fight!” she was saying. “It’s a fight over here at this Amoco station! Lord, they’re killing each other!” Norwood jumped up and she squealed and ran. He licked his knuckles and blew on them and shook his hand. Grady sat up and groaned. Then he got up on his feet very slowly, coughing and spitting. He stood there bent over and holding his throat. His lower lip was fat and split like a hot sausage and blood dripped on his wingtip shoes and his hard-creased trousers. He leaned against the car with one hand and made loud raspy noises breathing in and out.

  Two drifter-looking young men, one of them in a Japan jacket, were standing on the sidewalk looking on. Norwood said, “Yall go on about your business. It’s all over.” They lingered. Norwood raised his voice. “I said shove off.” They sauntered away, taking their time about it. Norwood watched Grady drip for a minute. “Them cars don’t mean anything to me,” he said. “You just leave me alone, you hear? Just stay away from me. Don’t come messing around me or my house or anybody over there. Next time I’ll bust your head open with a tar tool. I’ll kill you. That’s all I got to say.”

  Rita Lee was waiting at the bus station door. “What in the world?” she said.

  “It wasn’t anything,” he said.

  “Yes it was too. Who was that?” She looked at the grease marks on his trousers and saw his puffy red hand. “Hey, you been in a fight, Norwood!”

  “I used to work for him. He was messing around with me and I told him not to and he just kept on.”

  “Did you whup him?”

  “I guess so. Wasn’t much to whup.”

  “I’ll bet you really socked him. I wisht I could of seen it. Did he cuss much?”

  “Naw, not much. How about breaking out that Noxzema?”

  Tilmon, a quivering crystal strand hanging from one nostril, came over with his hands in his pockets and watched with a demented grin while Rita Lee applied the cream to Norwood’s knuckles. “What do you want?” said Norwood. “Wipe your nose.”

  Rita Lee whispered, “Hon, don’t start anything with him, he looks like a molester to me. He may be dangerous. There’s one calls my sister on the phone all the time. They can’t catch him. They say he has a twisted mind.”

  Norwood said, “They won’t be none of ’em calling you at my house.”

  At the very last, critical moment Tilmon swooped up and wiped his nose with his sleeve and then wiped his sleeve on his coat. “I saw you when you came in,” he sai
d. “I called Grady and told him. Hee-hee. I remembered your hat.”

  “Your brother is over at that Amoco station,” said Norwood. “He wants to see you.”

  “I saw you with that girl. Grady thought it was that othern and I told him it wasn’t. He’s a cutter, ain’t he?”

  “Yeah, he’s a cutter and you’re a dandy. You go on over there now and see about him.”

  BILL BIRD said the place for livestock was in the trunk but Norwood said it was too dusty back there. Bill Bird rode in the back seat with his feet up on Joann’s mink cage. Rita Lee fell asleep almost as soon as she got in the car and she slept all the way to Ralph, rod noise and all. Vernell ate her sticky cherry cordials and asked any number of questions about the girl and the chicken. Norwood answered them impatiently. He drove and took it very easy because of the bad rod. Rita Lee was curled up on the front seat with her head in his lap. Everything on the highway passed them, even ratty old pickups with one light. Bill Bird, speaking loudly against the clatter and into a 35 m.p.h. breeze that was pouring through a broken window, said, “I notice he hasn’t said anything about the money.”

  “What about it, bubba?” said Vernell. “Did you get your money?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Well, I hope he’s happy now,” said Bill Bird. “All that big to-do.”

  “What about it, bubba, are you happy that you got your money?”

  “You’re just like a parrot, Vernell,” said Norwood. “Yeah, I’m happy about it. Don’t ask silly questions.”

  “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

  “Well, I’m tard of answering questions tonight. Don’t ask me any more until tomorrow.”

  “When I was in the Canal Zone the Signal Corps boys had a famous parrot,” said Bill Bird. “It was their mascot. It was a parrot mascot. They had trained it to speak into a telephone . . .”

  Norwood wasn’t in the mood for a Panama story and he turned on the radio. It took a while to warm up, what with the dirt dobber nests on the tubes, and Bill Bird was through with his story by the time the volume came up. They listened to XEG, Monterey, Mexico, the rest of the way in, which was the loudest station Norwood could get. “Listen to that, would you,” exclaimed Bill Bird. “Now who in the world would want a Lord’s Last Supper Vinyl Tablecloth?” Vernell said, “Not me. I think they’re tacky.” Norwood pulled into the pea gravel driveway with the white rock borders and stopped the car up close to the porch and turned the key off. Home. He stretched. Rita Lee whimpered and complained like a child when he tried to wake her. He carried her inside and put her down on the couch. “She’s a cute thing,” said Vernell. “I’m surprised you could pick up a girl that cute on the bus.” Bill Bird said, “Yes, I wondered about that. I hope there’s not anything wrong with her.” Norwood said, “Mine your own business, Bill Bird,” and he went back out to the car to get the rest of the stuff.