by Peter Hedges
“What a nice thing to say.”
“Well…”
“I love my boys. I work hard. As hard as I can. For my boys.”
Suddenly I remember the image of Melanie lying back on her desk, her skirt hiked up, her wig dangling down, and Mr. Carver thrusting into her, the crowded veins on his forehead, his eyes bulging out. I wonder if that’s what Mr. Carver means by working hard.
“I sacrifice. I had all this planned to coincide with our nation’s birthday on the Fourth, but wouldn’t you know that the warehouse in Des Moines made a mistake and sent it to Mason City and that these last two days have been hell. We had to put a tracer on it.”
“On what?”
“Come on! Don’t you remember? Gilbert, I’m disappointed.” I can only conclude that Mr. Carver is a man easily let down. “Surely you remember my invitation to be one of the first to try out our new trampoline.”
“Oh sure. Yes. What was I thinking?”
He starts up the station wagon and we’re back on our way. When we pull into the Carver driveway, he says. “This whole situation has left me virtually paralyzed.”
We walk around the side of the house. Mr. Carver holds open the white picket gate and I walk through. In the backyard, sitting dead center behind the house, is a brand-new trampoline. The frame is a dark blue, the springs silver and shiny, and the tramp part is impressive and black.
“What do you think?”
“Uhm. Wow,” I say.
“BETTY! SEND OUT THE BOYS!”
I look back to the house, all the curtains and shades are drawn. The back door cracks open and I see Mrs. Carver’s hand hold the door for Todd and Doug. They march out, their faces staring down at their feet. They wear their swimsuits.
“Todd, Doug—come over here.”
The boys scuffle over and as they get close, Mr. Carver says, “Watch Gilbert.”
“Watch Gilbert what?” I say.
Mr. Carver holds up a finger, the same finger that I saw diddling Melanie, and shushes me. He crouches down to the boys’ eye level, in an effort I suppose to be intimate, but he looks stupid, uncomfortable. “Watch how much fun Gilbert has. Watch him.” Mr. Carver pats the trampoline, signaling me to climb up. I start to when he says, “Gilbert, your shoes.” I slip them off. “Watch him go up and down. Up and down. And study his face, too. You’ll see how much fun this can be.”
I begin my bounce but the boys don’t look up.
“Jump higher.”
I go as high as I can. The boys are still staring at their feet. “LOOK AT GILBERT. LOOK AT HOW MUCH FUN HE’S HAVING! LOOK AT HIM! HE’S HAVING A BALL! AREN’T YOU, GILBERT?”
“Yes.”
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
“Yes! YES, I’m having A BALL!”
“So there, boys—so there!”
They still won’t look, so I start hooting and hollering and not because I’m enjoying myself. I do this because I want to get it over with and get home. Part of me feels I owe him—that this is partial repayment for his wife.
I’m exuding the most positive outlook ever, making the big bounces, but the boys still won’t look up. Suddenly Mr. Carver pulls Todd by the hair and grabs Doug by the arm. “Look, goddammit. LOOK!” Todd sends kicks and punches toward his dad. Doug breaks free and runs howling inside to his mother. Mr. Carver proceeds to lift Todd and toss him through the air. He hits the ground with a thud.
“Stop it. Stop it!” I shout.
Todd runs inside, apparently not hurt and looking more in shock than anything.
I’m off the trampoline.
Mr. Carver is silent, on his knees. He slowly stands, brushes off his pants, turns to me and bares his teeth. “It’s good to see you, Gilbert. Really, it’s been a treat.”
He walks back to his house, his chest in the air, a look of pride on his face, as if this all went as planned.
I put on my shoes and leave out the back gate. I see Mrs. Carver looking at me out the kitchen window. Our eyes meet for a moment—then I turn away.
As I leave the Carver property, I mutter to myself, “You don’t hit people. A guy just shouldn’t hit people.”
I begin the two-mile walk home.
I write this note to Mr. Carver in my mind which concludes with a thought that goes something like this: At least some fathers have the courage to not live this life.
38
I’m walking down the side of Highway 13, when Chip Miles pulls over in his jeep. He gives me a ride home.
“Thanks, Chip.”
“Anytime.”
I almost say, “Too bad about your silver tooth,” but I don’t. With a polite “So long,” I shut the door and we continue to fake being friends.
Standing on the porch is Arnie with the newest in dirt and food stains on his face. He holds a small box wrapped in brown paper and twine. The package is addressed to me.
“Can I open it? Can I open it?”
I tell him, “Dig in.” He pulls at it, tearing at the paper on the edges. He gets frustrated, lifts the box over his head and is about to throw it to the ground.
“Arnie, no!”
He stops, scrunches his mouth to his eyes like he wants to erase his face. Amy appears with scissors. The retard and I cut the twine, he pulls away the paper fast and lifts the lid on the box. Amy watches. Our family loves a present.
Inside are hundreds of Styrofoam peanuts. Under them Arnie finds and lifts out a big black-and-white photo in a shiny gold frame. The face in the picture is fake, the teeth plastic, the hair sprayed stiff. Written in red marker is “Gilbert, thanks for lunch.”
“Llllaaaaaaannnncccccceeeeeee!” goes Arnie, taking the photo and running out of the house, presumably to show everyone in town the picture of his new best friend.
“That was for you,” Amy says. “Nice of you to let Arnie have it.”
“Good thing he can’t read,” I say.
“Yeah. Good thing.”
***
Later I’m in my room, on my bed, my underwear down around my knees, looking at myself. I remember back before pubic hair, back when life was to be anticipated. Now, with a world full of Lance Dodge fans, I find it difficult to decipher the purpose of things. He is as phoney as you can be and everyone wants him, everyone wants to be him, or to know him, touch him. What about touching me?
I drop a wad of spit into my hand, preparing to treat myself. Suddenly my door pushes open, Ellen—all in a tizzy—shouts, “I have urgent news!”
I pull over a sheet, quickly covering myself. “The word is KNOCK!”
Ignoring me she asks, “You know Mr. Carver?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Okay, what about him? What about him, what about him?”
“Something happened.”
“What?”
“Maybe he won a prize or something. Maybe it’s a coma or that he died. But something big has happened.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what happened, but something did and I don’t know!” Ellen has grown frustrated. “Am I a news bureau or something?”
***
Amy calls the Carvers’, but the phone is busy. I drive past. There are many cars out front, and people are pouring into their house. Someone in town will know, so I drive back to the square. I find Arnie trying to stick Lance’s picture down the barrel of Endora’s own replica of a Civil War cannon. I honk and he runs over.
“Hey, Gilbert. Hey.”
“You want a ride?”
“Yep.” Arnie goes to climb in the back of the truck.
“No, sit up here with me, okay?”
“But I don’t wanna.”
“I know you don’t wanna, but you have to because something happened to Mr. Carver and we’ve got to find out what it was.”
“I know what happened.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not driving till you sit with me.”
Arnie climbs up front, clutching the picture.
“Yeah, I know.” H
e keeps saying this over and over. “I know. Oh boy, I know.”
“Okay, buddy, tell me what happened.”
He bites his lip.
“Tell me what happened.”
Arnie falls silent. He slips a hand down his pants and starts scratching his butt, his groin. He scrapes at an arm.
“If you’d just take a bath, you wouldn’t itch anymore.”
“No!”
“Okay, I’m just saying…”
“NO! NO NO NO!”
I pull up to a stop at Endora’s middle stoplight. I see Tim and Tommy Byers driving their wheelchairs. They are racing and pigskin Tim is winning.
“You can’t make me clean!” Arnie shouts, opening the door and climbing out of my truck. I watch as my filthy brother runs off between two houses.
There’s a tapping on my door, so I roll down my window and stick my head out—pigskin Tim is looking up at me while Tommy is on the other side of the road, snapping his fingers for pigskin Tim to come along. Tim says, “Did you hear?” He says it in such a way that I can’t tell if it’s good news or bad. “Carver, the insurance guy?”
“Yes?”
“The jerk that totally botched up our benefits? Fortunately for us, you know, our mom knew someone in Des Moines.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
The laugh that shoots out of me is not because I find this funny. My laugh is the “holy shit” kind. Tim says that he laughed when he found out, too.
“I don’t feel so bad, then,” I say.
“He drowned. Something about a heart attack, too, but I don’t know about that. Best part is? It happened in one of those plastic pools that are only ten, twelve inches deep.” Tim hits the black stick on his wheelchair to reverse, smiles as much as the pigskin allows, says, “See you later,” and the twins motor off together.
***
At home, I tell Amy who wakes up Momma, who says, “You know you’ve been around too long when the young people start dying.” Ellen pipes up, a spoonful of yogurt having lathered her tongue, “He was forty something,” and Momma says, “Yes, exactly.”
Tucker calls to say that Bobby McBurney said they sent Mr. Carver for an autopsy. Foul play is suspected. “They think maybe it was murder.”
“Really?”
“That’s what this town needs. A good murder, you know?”
“Tucker, you’re sick.” I have these sudden pangs of fear. Suddenly I picture a trial. Testimony about Mr. Carver and Melanie, Mrs. Carver and me. “I gotta go,” I say.
“One last thing. Do you realize who you’re talking to?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you do, Gilbert. I don’t think you have a clue.”
“Bye…”
“Wait! You, my friend, are talking to the new assistant manager of Endora’s finest new restaurant establishment.”
I utter the obligatory, “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He goes on to explain how he’s been going to Motley to the “other” Burger Barn for orientation. He says that he secretly hopes Mrs. Carver murdered Mr. Carver, because that would bring tourists and curiosity seekers to Endora. It would mean lots of business. “I expect to see you at the grand opening, Gilbert. July 14. Mark that day on your calendar.”
What calendar?
“The fourteenth, you say?”
“Yes. Gilbert, you’re the best friend ever.”
“I’m making a note of it right now,” I say, stretching out my fingers, not writing a thing.
39
Not since Arnie lost his eye or the Byers twins’ accident has this town talked so much about any one thing. The funeral was delayed two days pending the autopsy report. The most popular theory is that Mrs. Carver killed him to collect the insurance. Apparently, most people knew about Mr. Carver’s affair with Melanie. I keep waiting for an investigator or detective to come ask me questions—but no one has showed up yet. No one seems to know about Betty Carver and me.
Bobby McBurney dropped by the Dairy Dream and while ordering a milk shake, he told Ellen that the county coroner sent Mr. Carver back in pretty bad shape from the autopsy. Apparently Bobby and his dad were up the whole night piecing the body back together. Ellen was so shaken by this she threw up next to the sugar cone box.
***
It isn’t until today, Monday, July 10, four days after Mr. Carver died, that the county coroner has given the okay for his burial. Apparently, while the death was suspicious, no evidence could support that he was murdered. Tucker’s dream of a sensational trial has quickly disappeared and Mrs. Betty Carver will be free to walk this great land.
In the past, Mr. Lamson would close down for the whole day when someone so important died, but in an effort to remain competitive, we’re open today from 7:00 A.M. to noon. This will give us two hours to clean up and get to the church. Food Land never closes down for holidays let alone the funeral of the town’s last remaining insurance man. After all, business is business, and besides, people are usually pretty hungry after a funeral. I guess it’s because we all realize that time is running out and we better eat all we can. Please don’t mention that to my mother. Everyone must be over at Food Land because our store is empty. It’s about eleven-fifteen. I’m unpacking the half-gallon containers of whole milk when someone enters the store. Mr. Lamson is busy in the stockroom so I zip down Aisle One only to find these little hands, four of them, grabbing multiple candy bars and packs of gum and Tootsie Rolls. This soft voice says, “You can have whatever you want.”
I come around the aisle. “Hi, Todd. Hi, Doug.”
“Say hello to Gilbert Grape, boys.”
They make no attempt at words.
The boys are dressed in these identical blue suits and Mrs. Betty Carver wears the sexiest black dress I’ve ever seen. Were it not a sad day and were her boys not in the store, I would take her by the hand, walk back to our small produce section, hike up her dress, and mount her from the rear.
“I told the boys they could have whatever they wanted. Please don’t think of me as a bad mother.”
“I never would think that,” I say.
The boys look like they’ve been crying for days. Their arms are full of candy and chocolate bars and bubble gum cards. Mrs. Carver asks for a pack of cigarettes and wonders if menthol is what women should smoke.
“I don’t know,” I say.
She says she’d like a pack of Salem because it’s the girls in those ads that she’d most like to resemble. She says this as if she truly believes smoking will make her more beautiful. “Ken would never let me smoke. It was a health risk. But we know what happened with Ken, don’t we?”
I look at her, forgetting for a moment that this is the only woman I’ve ever seen naked.
“Gilbert, will you ring all this up? We need to get over to the church.”
“It’ll be no charge.”
“Oh, please. I insist.”
“No, ma’am.”
She had started to open her purse but stopped after hearing me say “ma’am.” “You seem to be forgetting something,” she says.
I want to say, No way can I forget, no way will I ever forget the way we kissed that first time, the way you taught me how to hold you, the way your hands moved all over me. No way could I forget the gas-station bathroom, our spot at Skunk River, all those times on your kitchen floor. But I don’t say anything. I look at her like we’ve never met. She is the customer and I am the worker. She smiles. She knows that I can’t forget. Forgetting, in fact, will be much easier for her.
I begin ringing up the candy bars, the gum—every now and then letting a bar or two go by without registering it. Mrs. Carver pulls out two twenties.
“But your total is only twelve seventy-five.”
“Keep the change.”
If she wants me to feel like a prostitute, she’s succeeding. “I can’t accept this.”
“Yes, you can. You must. For me.”
I press myself up agai
nst the checkout counter in an effort to hide my erection. She sends the boys out to a black funeral limousine which I just realized has been waiting all this time. Bobby McBurney sits in the driver’s seat. He would wave but he’s working.
“They’ve taken this hard,” she says, referring to the boys.
“Huh?”
“My boys have taken this hard.”
“I bet.”
“Yes, you know about such things, don’t you?” She puts her left hand, the one with the wedding ring, on top of mine. “You were how old when your father…”
“I was seven.”
“Oh, the same age as Todd.”
“Yes.”
“So you understand what my boys must be feeling.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Of course you do,” she says, cutting me off. She starts to tap the pack of cigarettes out on the back of her other hand. “Have you missed me?”
“I haven’t seen you much lately.”
“I know, but have you missed me?”
I say, “Yes.”
Mrs. Betty Carver smiles. She knows when I lie, and starts to smack the pack harder. “I’ve seen people do this before they open the pack. Is this what people do?”
“Some people,” I say.
“Are you one of those some people?”
I want to say that I don’t know what I am but that I wish she would leave and I’m sorry that we ever got involved and another part of me wishes we had never stopped but I am twenty-four and you are significantly older, Mrs. Carver, and we probably learned all that we could, so let’s get on with it and please take your change.
I’ve slowly gathered up the dimes, a nickel, two ones, a five, and the extra twenty. I reach out to give it to her but she refuses.
“A little thinking and you might realize that Mr. Carver was in insurance and one of the few fringe benefits, in fact, the only fringe benefit is that they give loads and loads of life insurance to the survivors.” Mrs. Carver smiles in a way that suggests she expects me to be impressed. I don’t blink even. “Guess what Ken was insured for?”
I don’t know and I say nothing.
“Let me say that it’s more than enough. A couple of commas, many zeros.”
My face doesn’t even move.