Sorrow Floats Page 13

  “What makes you think I’m a women’s libber?” I asked.

  “You don’t wear a bra. Probably burned it in a protest march.”

  “Hippy girls don’t wear bras,” Lloyd said. “Maybe she’s a hippy girl.”

  “A hippy girl would have helped with my catheter. She’s a libber with no respect for the crippled.”

  Lloyd looked at me. “Why don’t you respect crippled people?”

  “It’s him I don’t respect, he’s a warthog.”

  We all stopped talking for a moment. Outside the ambulance, locusts or cicadas or something Texan made an insect buzz-saw noise. Inside, the only sound was a tiny, irritating whistle whenever Shane exhaled.

  “Turn Moby Dick around and go back to that road,” he said.

  Lloyd was patient. “We’ll be happy to if you give us a reason, Shane, but this is a long trip. We can’t make detours based on whims.”

  They stared at each other. I said, “I’m not a hippy or a libber. I just don’t like bras.”

  Shane’s head bobbed and jerked. “I came on this drive for you two. You’re searching for your precious wife, and she has to see the other baby she threw away. There’s nothing in it for me; you should honor my sacrifice by turning right when I say turn right.”

  I pointed at Shane. “He has bigger breasts than mine, make him wear a bra.”

  Lloyd ignored me. He was always ignoring me. “What about rebuilding Granma’s barn that was burned by the cur Ashley Montagu?”

  “Ah-ha. That’s what I mean. We can’t save Granma unless you make her turn down that road.”

  “Who is Ashley Montagu?” I asked.

  “The cur who stole his granma’s photo albums and set fire to her barn,” Lloyd said.

  Shane had almost no control over his head. I didn’t know if that was a neurological deal connected to his lack of legs or over-excitement. He spit when he talked. “I hate it when people jabber when they should be taking action. Do you have any notion the frustration a cripple suffers in a world of fools?”

  He was trying to hack me off. “Who are you calling fools?”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  Lloyd and I glanced at each other and did a mutual shrug. Time was meaningless in the belly of Moby Dick. May as well go down one road as another.

  “Can you back a trailer?” Lloyd asked.

  “Can I back a trailer? I’ve been backing this very trailer since I was twelve.” Which was true, only I was a rotten backer at twelve and I hadn’t improved with age. Hadn’t even tried the maneuver since Dad died. I got her bent across the yellow line, and a semi just about splattered Coors and us all over U.S. 287. Finally, I pulled forward into Dumas, where I did a U-turn through the A&W and drove back to Shane’s road.

  “This better be good,” I said.

  “I hope it’s not the hideout of Ashley Montagu,” Lloyd said.

  Shane pulled himself up high enough to peer across us and out the front window. He said, “My breasts are perfectly normal for a stout man.”

  ***

  Shane’s road was made of black tar and had all these craters that back home we call frost heaves, though they must have been something else because I don’t think Texas gets cold enough for frost heaves. It was one of those roads that ten years ago was in the country and ten years from now will be in town, but at the present nobody knows where it is.

  We passed a muffler shop, an irrigation systems warehouse, a mini-garage rental building, and a salvage yard that seemed to deal exclusively in pickup trucks. I slowed down at the junkyard so Lloyd could do a head swivel. He grunted like an expert inspecting inferior goods, but he didn’t say anything.

  Shane had opened his chair facing forward and humped into it. Every street sign he would demand I slow down, but I wouldn’t and he’d hit the back of my seat with his open hand.

  After a couple miles of this his arm shot into a point. “There, make a left there at those mailboxes.”

  I glanced at Lloyd, who nodded. The new road led into a semi-rural neighborhood of old houses in red brick and new houses in blond brick. Most of the new houses didn’t even have yards, just dirt so black it looked fake.

  “This is a suburb,” I said. “We don’t have any suburbs in Wyoming, except maybe over by Casper. The boom towns have trailer parks, but those people never plan on staying longer than it takes to buy an in-state hunting license.”

  “Must you chatter incessantly?” Shane said. “This entire journey you’ve done nothing but talk, talk, talk.”

  “That might be an exaggeration,” Lloyd said.

  Shane’s arm came by my ear, on point again. “Banzai, motherfucker!”

  Up ahead, a woman holding a baby sat on an upright suitcase. Next to her a redheaded kid in paisley shorts and a Baylor sweatshirt threw rocks at a German shepherd chained in the next yard. The kid held a leash that wound around another suitcase and a bowling bag and ended at what appeared to be a wet rat.

  Shane’s voice was a bark. “Pull over.”

  I rolled Moby Dick to a halt like this was a bus stop and they’d been expecting us. Which, evidently, they had been. When Shane popped open the side doors the woman started handing in suitcases.

  She said, “You’re late. He’ll be home soon.”

  Shane blamed me. “It’s that woman up there, she can’t drive. Maurey, Lloyd, this is Marcella.”

  Marcella put out a weak smile. “And this here is Hugo Jr., that one over there is Andrew. We think Andrew has emotional obstacles to overcome. Hugo says it’s because I ate tainted shellfish when I was pregnant, but I think it’s caused by fumes from the refinery. A number of children in this area have emotional obstacles to overcome.”

  Andrew ran up and leaped into Moby Dick, dragging what turned out to be the ugliest cat in America. The kid shouted, “I’m hungry. You’re so greedy you never let us eat. Pee-U, it stinks in here.” He looked suspiciously at Shane. “Somebody cut cheese.”

  “I gave you tacos, but you were too good for them,” Marcella said. She wore a Dacron print dress with white pumps, and the hair in her bun was the same color as the dirt in her yard.

  “Tacos make me puke. People who eat tacos turn into Mex’cans.”

  “You said you didn’t want a cucumber sandwich.”

  “Cucumber sandwiches are shit.”

  At the word shit, Shane faked like he might backhand Andrew upside the head. Shane didn’t touch the kid, but Andrew collapsed on two spare tires and some loose crescent wrenches and proceeded to burst into tears. This scared the baby, who started howling on its own.

  Marcella raised her voice over the chaos. “I’m not coming to North Carolina if you’re going to abuse Andrew.”

  Shane looked down at the writhing boy. “The little lad used the B.M. word. I really will whomp him if he uses the B.M. word again.”

  Andrew screamed, “Shit.”

  I looked over at Lloyd. “Coming to North Carolina?”

  His eyes had gone glass. “Interesting experiences happen when you’re on the road.”

  I really don’t like loud noise or family violence. They make me nervous, and the general melee in the back end was making me way nervous. My first thoughts ran to the escape of Yukon Jack. I could handle colorful crud like this with a bit of whiskey.

  Marcella piled the suitcases into a kind of chair and sat down. She dug into the bowling bag to pull out a baby bottle, which the baby rejected with authority. “Hugo will be along soon,” Marcella said. “He might shoot us all.”

  Shane turned on me with some fierceness. “Drive.”

  ***

  Dumas to Amarillo was forty miles of flat during which the rock in my belly went from warm to hot and the nail in my lower spine dug in another inch. The process was awful—one minute I’m fairly fine, a little uncomfortable and nervous. I’m t
hinking, I don’t need the stuff, who’s boss here, anyway? Then the next instant God calls my bluff and nothing matters, not love, not my children, not my own health or death, nothing matters but drinking whiskey. Now. Lots of whiskey. Life is disappointing when your mind hates your body.

  And added to a high-intensity case of Jack withdrawal, the moment I saw him I wanted to strangle that kid. He cried, he demanded, he browbeat his mother. He called everyone in the ambulance “stupid.” We’d gone two blocks when Marcella yelled, “Duck,” and tackled Andrew. She stayed on the floor until an oncoming Oldsmobile passed and moved out of sight.

  “You think he saw us?” Marcella asked.

  Imagine Jesus stepping serenely through a race riot. That was Lloyd. “Who saw us?” he asked.

  “Hugo. He’ll get home and we’ll be gone. As soon as he gets hungry he’ll come after us. Hugo has a double standard.”

  Meanwhile, Andrew is howling from being knocked onto crescent wrenches for the second time in five minutes, the baby is howling, the cat is mewing like it’s lost its mother, and Shane decides the excitement is over, time for a tune on the harmonica. If I don’t get whiskey in the next three minutes I’m going to yank Moby Dick across the center line and shut them all up by plowing head-on into a cattle truck.

  Lloyd must have sensed a problem. “You want me to drive?”

  “I can drive, goddammit. Just keep your mouth closed and leave me alone.”

  Longest damn forty miles of my life. A lot of information flew around the Dick in that forty miles, practically all of which I missed. What I did catch was Hugo Somebody took mug shots of grade school kids for a living and he’d nailed Annette Gilliam, who may or may not have traveled with him to all these Texas schools taking orders for two portrait, four large-, eight mid-,and sixteen billfold-size picture packets. I got the idea Marcella’s main complaint wasn’t so much that Hugo nailed another woman as he nailed a woman who wore cotton flowers in her hair.

  Marcella’s voice reeked of defeat. “She gets the flowers from her sister, who works in the Odessa Woolworth’s.”

  “You don’t have any alcohol, do you?” I asked her.

  She stared like I was talking French and Shane said, “Drive,” again. Lloyd asked me if I was okay.

  “No, I’m not okay. Who are these people? Am I expected to feed the brat from hell back there? Why is that woman dressed like my grandmother? I suppose she’s one of Shane’s floozies he butt-fucks with a pistol while she knits baby booties and begs for more of the barrel.”

  “Butt-fuck, butt-fuck,” Andrew shouted. “Floozie, woozie, Mama wants a butt-fuck.” He ducked out of Shane’s reach. The kid was a fast learner.

  Shane sounded like he was gargling. “I’ll thank you to watch your filthy mouth in front of my sister and her brood. Simply because you live in the gutter is no reason to oink like a pig.”

  “Sister?”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Lloyd asked.

  “I have to potty,” Andrew yelled.

  An armadillo appeared on the road ahead. I slammed brakes and everybody and everything in the rear end slid forward until they piled into something. The trailer full of Coors kind of buckled into a jackknife, although it didn’t roll. Thank God it didn’t roll.

  I killed that armadillo dead. My lower lip was bleeding on the steering wheel. Andrew and Hugo Jr. were howling yet a third time, and the whimper sound turned out to be coming from me.

  I twisted in my seat to check the mess in the back. “Is the baby all right?”

  Marcella was on the floor on her back, holding Hugo Jr. to her chest. “He’s better off than me. What’d I do to make you stop so fast?”

  “Where’d you get your license?” Andrew yelled. “From a Cracker Jacks box!”

  Lloyd touched my arm and said, “I better drive from here.”

  16

  I don’t remember my first drink in Amarillo. It went down in a two-handed chug. The second Yukon Jack straight up disappeared just as quickly, only by then I was partially aware of the surroundings—bar, black floor, a row of stools, scattering of tables, and a dance floor. Dust. I noticed the dust.

  By the first sip of number three I knew I was in Pepi’s Lounge next to Pepi’s Motor Court and the Golden Sandstorm Cafe, which I later discovered was also owned by Pepi. Maybe he got tired of naming buildings after himself.

  After the initial sip, I set number three on the bar to think about what had happened. I’d needed a lot of drinks since Dad died, but they’d been based on nerves and knots, mental stuff, nothing like the last few minutes after Lloyd took over driving. Out-of-control panic. And pain. Lots of pain. I had a problem here.

  The drag part about admitting you are an alcoholic is that once you say it out loud, each drink becomes a moral battlefield. You find yourself glued to binge-or-starve consumption.

  I knew a boy named Mike in college who rode motorcycles. Mike admitted he was an alcoholic. He would fight it and fight it and make himself a pissed-off mess, then he’d surrender and drink that first drink, just to relieve the pain. But one drink made him feel like such a failure that he’d say, “Hell, I’ve lost my self-respect, I might as well get drunk, comes out the same either way.” So he’d get blasted and stay that way for days, afraid to sober up for fear he’d have to rejoin the battle and relive the pain.

  I considered my philosophy of daily maintenance doses more practical. At least I finished the semester. Mike left for Denver, and I heard later he died from something—an accident, I think.

  However, staring out the window at the motel where my ever-expanding crew was cleaning up after the long drive, the person in me who observes my screw-ups when I drink had to face the truth.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Huh?” asked the bartender.

  “Never mind.” Truth isn’t all it’s built up to be. If everyone who is certain they are honest with themselves suddenly became honest with themselves, the streets would flow with the blood of suicides. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to commit suicide.

  Pepi’s Motor Court was made of fake adobe almost the same white as Moby Dick. Why would anyone create fake adobe? It’s like a teenager going to Montgomery Ward and buying a fake pimple. What’s the point?

  Marcella came out of room five and walked toward the cafe. Andrew had one of Shane’s harmonicas, which, thank the Lord, I couldn’t hear from the bar. He appeared to have his little heart set on bursting the baby’s eardrums while simultaneously riding on his mother’s insteps. Now there was a woman with a self-image problem. Marcella was so used to shouldering guilt that she’d thought I stomped the brakes because of something she said. The perfect mom for a kid who blamed her for every discomfort. Sort of a mother-son S&M combo, only in most families the mother takes it on herself to make the children guilty instead of the other way around.

  I still didn’t believe she was Shane’s sister. People born in hell don’t have relatives.

  ***

  Dad would have loved Pepi’s Motor Court. When Petey and I were kids the family used to drive to horse shows and rodeos, or sometimes we’d vacation at Grand Canyon’, and at night when it came time to stop Dad would circle whatever town we chose for like forty-five minutes, searching for a motel with the exact tacky shade of rosy-purply neon he preferred.

  Mom would be tired from riding herd on two kids in a pickup truck all day, so she’d say, “Buddy, you just passed a perfectly good Holiday Inn.” Back then Holiday Inns were twelve dollars for two grown-ups and kids stayed free. But Dad had an instinctive distaste for chains—motels, restaurants, even gas stations. Right from its start he didn’t trust the franchise system.

  Actually, Dad didn’t trust a lot of things in motels. If the sign out front said Clean Rooms, he reasoned anybody who had to tell you so was suspect. He avoided motels that accepted credit cards. Even though we didn’t travel with a dog, we n
ever pulled in if Dad spotted a No Pets warning. He’d once been burned by a cafe with a “Recommended by Duncan Hines” notice out front, so he wouldn’t stay anywhere that was recommended by anybody.

  My favorite was a motel in the middle of the Arizona desert where the rooms were shaped like concrete tipis. Nothing grew within miles of the place. Petey and I would run round and round the tipi, whooping and shooting invisible arrows at the other guests. The heat in the tipis was always broken, which Dad liked, but one night the desert was cold as the dickens and all four of us had to sleep in the same bed. Mom let us eat marshmallows under the sheets. Mom could see humor in situations back then. In 1961 we moved off the ranch and into the house in town, and Mom lost her sense of irony. Nowdays, she might literally die if someone ate a marshmallow in her bed.

  ***

  Shane wheeled through the room five door and sat in the parking lot staring off west at the sunset. His hair was slicked down à la TV evangelist, and he had on a clean shirt buttoned right up to the Adam’s apple. His head bobbed and weaved, making him look mechanical—an extension of the chair instead of the chair being an extension of him.

  Assuming he wasn’t lying like a dog and Marcella really was his sister, I wondered if they’d ever whooped and shot invisible arrows. If a person is handicapped when you first meet them, it’s hard to conceive of them the other way. At what age had Shane turned pompous? Ten? Six? You wouldn’t think a six-year-old had the capacity for pompous, unless you’d met Andrew. Which led to another question: Wouldn’t most people with the ego to name a boy Blah-blah Jr. use it for the first son?

  “Shit,” I said again.

  “Huh?” asked the bartender.

  “I’m avoiding my truth-facing session.”

  “You want another shot?”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  The three-piece band played “Jambalaya,” “Stand By Your Man,” and “Big Balls in Cow Town.” Some oil field roughneck types shot pool while some cowboy types tromped a circle around the dance floor. The few girls present seemed to prefer cowboys to oil—who can blame them? The farmers nursed beer and looked sullen. Who can blame them, either?