Escape Velocity

by Charles Portis

  MR. NIBLIS. Only when I’m reflecting on things. Naturally I don’t like being disturbed when I’m reviewing my life.

  MR. PALFREY. I thought he was deaf and dumb.

  MR. MINGO. Oh, he can hear well enough. That’s a dummy hearing-aid. There’s no battery in it. He only wears it to discourage conversation.

  MRS. VETCH. They’re hauling us off in a dump truck today. They’re going to dump us at the Grim Hotel in Texarkana.

  Duvall re-enters with tray of refreshments.

  DUVALL. I don’t know why you keep saying that, Mrs. Vetch. You know very well it’s Avalon you’re going to, over in the beautiful Chinkypin Forest.

  MRS. VETCH. Same thing.

  DUVALL. Not at all. No comparison. Night and day. And you’re not going away in a truck. Ruth Buttress is coming to pick you up in a nice air-conditioned van with captains’ chairs.

  MRS. VETCH. But I’m just so worried, Duvall. They came over and signed us up so fast. I’m just so afraid of what we’re getting into.

  DUVALL. Listen to me. You’re going to make a lot of new friends at Avalon and have loads of fun. You won’t have time to mope, with all your leathercraft classes and your essay writing contests and your field trips to paper mills and bakeries. (Takes brochure from hip pocket) And look here, when the weather is nice there’ll be folk dancing on the lawn and some of the great old games you played as a child. Pop the Whip, Piggy Wants a Motion, Red Rover. Yes, you’ll join hands and roar out your challenge to the opposing team—“Red Rover, Red Rover, let—” (He looks about) “—let Mr. Niblis come over!” And he’ll hurl himself at your line, trying to crash through. Then a good supper, and a nice visit with your new friends, and then maybe a thrilling love story on television, and before you know it—it’s bedtime.

  MRS. VETCH. But what about my privacy?

  DUVALL. Oh…you’ll have a certain amount.

  MRS. VETCH. Can I take my small traveling iron? Some of my things I just don’t trust anybody else to press. I asked Delray about it and he didn’t know.

  DUVALL. Iron. That is a puzzler. Let me make a note of that. (Takes pen and notebook from shirt pocket and writes slowly, speaking aloud the words) Memo…Mrs. Vetch…For Ruth Buttress…a request…to keep… one…small…personal…portable…traveling…heating…and pressing…appliance. (Claps notebook shut and puts it away with a smile) There. Leave it to me. It’s in my hands now. (Goes to bar, begins unpacking cocktail glasses from box)

  MR. MINGO. (To Mr. Palfrey) Don’t you live in Texarkana?

  MR. PALFREY. Well, I do and I don’t, Mr. Mingo. I stay there part of the time with my daughter Fern—she’s out there fooling around in the car—and then I stay for a while with my baby daughter Lenore in Little Rock. They trade me off, you see. I meet myself coming and going. It used to be a year at each place. Then it was six months. Now it’s down to three. Right here is where they trade me off, at the halfway point. Here or down there at the barbecue joint.

  MR. MINGO. And you are—

  MR. PALFREY. Mr. Palfrey.

  MR. MINGO. Palfrey, yes. Now I have it. I’ve heard Mr. Ramp speak of you.

  MR. PALFREY. (Looking about) Where is Ramp?

  MR. MINGO. Oh, he’s been gone for several months now. When was it?

  MRS. VETCH. About the same time Miss Eula left.

  MR. NIBLIS. Ramp is on the run. He’s traveling incognito.

  MR. MINGO. He signed up for Avalon with us and then he just disappeared. We don’t know where he is. Somebody said they carried him off to a ranch in Oklahoma.

  MR. PALFREY. An old man like that? I’ve heard of boys’ ranches where they take in these bad boys. I’ve heard of dude ranches. I never heard of an old timer ranch.

  MR. MINGO. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it was a camp or a farm.

  MR. PALFREY. Well, tell me this, Mr. Mingo. What happened to the old Sunnyside? It used to be a nice clean family place to eat. Now it’s what, some kind of honky tonk?

  MR. MINGO. The county went wet, that’s what happened. They voted in liquor by the drink and Miss Eula sold out to this dancing fellow, Delray.

  MR. NIBLIS. Delray has thousands of dollars.

  MR. PALFREY. Everybody wants to dine and dance.

  MR. NIBLIS. And if you leave ’em alone for more than ten minutes they’ll be dancing around the golden calf.

  MR. MINGO. I can’t really blame Miss Eula. She’s no spring chicken, you know, and good help is hard to get. So yes, now it’s a roadhouse.

  MRS. VETCH. And Delray has kicked us out. They’re coming today to haul us off in a dump truck.

  MR. PALFREY. Don’t you have any chirren [children] to look after you?

  MR. MINGO. I’ve got a son who has retired from the post office but his wife won’t have me in the house. His small birdlike wife. She says I make her nervous.

  MRS. VETCH. My son was killed years ago in Korea. He was a brave and handsome captain in the paratroopers. He died on the field of honor. His daughter Jeannie is married to a clown in Shreveport. She’s a sweet girl, too, and she keeps after me to stay with her but I couldn’t possibly live under the same roof with that fat clown she’s married to.

  MR. PALFREY. What about—

  MRS. VETCH. You don’t know what it is to outlive your only child.

  MR. PALFREY. (Nodding at Mr. Niblis) What about him?

  MR. MINGO. Mr. Niblis? Oh no, he’s an old bachelor. He has no family.

  MR. NIBLIS. No, I’ve never been blessed with a wife. My mother was one of eleven children and my father was the youngest of seven brothers, and here I am a barren old man with neither chick nor child. One day I’ll have to answer for that. One day real soon now.

  MR. MINGO. Not that he didn’t make the effort. He tells me he proposed marriage to three or four women along the way.

  MR. NIBLIS. More than that.

  MR. MINGO. He just couldn’t get very far with them.

  MR. NIBLIS. I couldn’t get anywhere with them. One summer in Nashville I was rebuffed by five women in a row. Some of those women were wearing hats and carrying purses—like Mrs. Vetch here—and some were not. Every one of them found me unpleasant and rejected me out of hand.

  MRS. VETCH. Can you wonder?

  MR. NIBLIS. Still, it left me more time for my work. Women will take up a lot of your time. And then there’s the money. I’ve heard it takes a good deal of money to keep them fed and amused.

  MR. MINGO. He claims to be a prophet. That was his work.

  MRS. VETCH. He tried to kiss some of those ladies.

  MR. NIBLIS. Not after I saw how much it alarmed them.

  MR. MINGO. “Things are not what they seem.” That was his prophetic message.

  MR. NIBLIS. Things are not at all what they seem.

  MR. MINGO. You may be right at that.

  MR. PALFREY. What did Ramp say when they came and got him?

  MR. MINGO. I don’t know that he had any parting words. There was no formal leave-taking. Nothing in the way of a valedictory address. No one saw him go. He was just here one day and gone the next.

  MRS. VETCH. Good riddance, in any case. That very disturbing smile! And his old baggy clothes, my goodness! It was like somebody else had dressed him.

  MR. MINGO. Yes, as though he had been dressed hastily by employees of the state. He sneaked around a lot, too. You never knew what door he might pop out of next.

  MR. NIBLIS. Look who’s talking about sneaks.

  MR. MINGO. He would come out of his room every morning with that knowing smile on his face. I think he had something hidden away in there, perhaps some rare animal that would surprise us all if we knew what it was. Some small animal with a pounding heart. I had a good look around his room after he left, hoping to find some droppings. I intended to send them off for analysis and identification. But I found nothing.

  MR. NIBLIS. We’ll never know now. What he was up to.

  MRS. VETCH. And yet Miss Eula thought he was so clever and so handsome.

  MR. PALFR
EY. I wonder if we’re talking about the same Ramp. The Ramp I know is a retired barber, a hard little pine-knot of a man. He has sharp features. He looks exactly like a fox.

  MR. MINGO. Yes, that’s our Mr. Ramp.

  MR. PALFREY. He smells something like a fox too. Gives off a strong musky fox odor.

  MRS. VETCH. That’s the very same man.

  Fern returns with a big flashlight and an umbrella.

  FERN. Well, I looked everywhere. That scanner is just not in the car.

  MR. PALFREY. (Stunned) You didn’t load my scanner?

  FERN. You had it last. It was there on the kitchen table with the cord wrapped around it.

  MR. PALFREY. What am I going to do in Little Rock at night without my police scanner?

  FERN. I’ll send it up to you on the bus tomorrow.

  MR. PALFREY. That won’t do me any good tonight.

  FERN. You can watch TV with Boyce and them tonight. I just called up there. No answer.

  MR. PALFREY. She’s on the way, that’s why. How could Lenore answer the phone if she’s on the road?

  FERN. If she is on the road. Look, it’s already after eleven.

  DUVALL. (Overhearing the remark) Eleven! (Drops his work with glasses and goes to small television set at other end of bar. Turns it on. The screen faces away from the audience, and only the murmuring sound of a football broadcast is heard)

  MR. PALFREY. Folks, I’d like you to meet Fern, my oldest daughter and the biggest worry wart in southwest Arkansas. Fern, this is Mrs. Vetch and this is Mr. Mingo. That’s Mr. Niblis over there.

  Exchange of greetings.

  MR. PALFREY. Listen to this, Fern. Mrs. Vetch’s daughter married a circus clown down in Shreveport.

  MRS. VETCH. No, it’s my grand-daughter, and her husband is not a circus clown, he’s just a big coarse—buffoon.

  MR. PALFREY. They’ve been living here at the Sunnyside and now they’re being kicked out so these new people can have their honky tonk here.

  FERN. Well, I declare. That’s awful. Where will you go?

  MRS. VETCH. They’re hauling us off today in a dump truck. To the city dump.

  MR. MINGO. It’s actually Avalon we’re going to.

  FERN. Avalon? That’s the place they advertise on TV so much.

  MR. MINGO. Yes, Dr. Lloyd Mole’s new place.

  FERN. (Quoting from ad) “The days are full at Avalon and before you know it, it’s bedtime!”

  MR. MINGO. That’s it, yes. Delray put the Avalon people on to us and they came over and signed us all up for the Special Value Package. One flat fee up front and no more worries.

  MRS. VETCH. We signed up in a weak moment. It just sounded so good. One big payment and then no more worries. That’s the Special Value Package.

  MR. NIBLIS. They didn’t sign me up for the Special Value Package.

  MR. MINGO. No, somebody else paid Mr. Niblis’s fee. Some secret admirer.

  MR. NIBLIS. Without asking me.

  MRS. VETCH. You didn’t have any place else to go. You ought to be grateful. Nobody but Miss Eula would put you up for that little bitty Social Security check you get.

  FERN. But why can’t you stay on here?

  MRS. VETCH. I don’t know. Delray wants us out. And it’s just so hard to bear at my age. I kept my little room here so neat and clean. The food was so good. I had my pots of begonias on the window sill. I had all my mother’s beautiful things around me.

  MR. PALFREY. (Calling out to Duvall across the room) Hey! You! Booger Red! Shut that thing off! Nobody wants to hear that TV racket at this time of day! Your paying customers are over here trying to visit!

  DUVALL. You’ll want to hear this. It’s the Arkansas-Texas game. It’s the early game today.

  MR. PALFREY. Naw, we don’t want to hear that either. It’s way too early in the day for that. Just keep it down over there. (Then to others) They won’t let you have the kind of juice you want and then they try to run you off with all their TV racket.

  MR. MINGO. I hope the Razorbacks can win, but you know, I prefer a good high school game. The boys seem to show more spirit.

  MR. PALFREY. Don’t get me wrong. I like football myself and I want our boys to stomp the devil out of Texas any time they can, but there’s a time and a place for things. A time and a place, Mr. Mingo.

  MR. MINGO. I love the fall of the year.

  MR. PALFREY. That’s me too. I’ve always said that. Give me the fall of the year, when the crops are laid by, with nice cold mornings, and football and hunting coming in.

  MR. MINGO. Don’t they hunt turkeys in the spring?

  MR. PALFREY. Yes, but I don’t hunt gobblers. Never cared for it. Sitting real still on wet dirt under a bush all day. I stand up like a man when I hunt. I do all my hunting in the fall and winter when the trees are bare. With nothing green but the pines and cedars.

  MRS. VETCH. The magnolia stays green around the year.

  MR. MINGO. The holly, the cypress.

  MR. NIBLIS. The live oak.

  FERN. Mistletoe. The privet hedge. Various ornamental shrubs.

  MR. PALFREY. Yes, I could have named all those and more, too, but pines and cedars are what you mostly see. And the truth is, I don’t hunt any more at all. The government won’t let you kill but one or two ducks now and my loving daughters made me sell off all my dogs.

  FERN. Now don’t start in on that again. You could have kept your dogs at Texarkana and you know it. It was Lenore who put her foot down on the dogs.

  MR. PALFREY. But that wasn’t none of her doing. It’s the city of Little Rock that won’t let you keep dogs. Oh, two or three maybe, but they won’t let you keep a pack of dogs. I’ll tell you another thing. They’ll steal your dog in Little Rock. You have to watch him ever minute. They made off with Blanche one night. That was my last dog, Mrs. Vetch. Poor old Blanche.

  FERN. Lenore said she was stolen anyway.

  MR. PALFREY. (Notices Mr. Mingo flexing his fingers) What’s wrong, Mr. Mingo? That old “arthuritis” acting up on you?

  MR. MINGO. I don’t know what it is. My hands don’t hurt anymore, they’re just cold and numb. My feet too. Ice cold extremities. It seems all my blood vessels are silted up. When I walk my hip joints crackle like green sticks in a fire, and when I sit down my legs go to sleep. I couldn’t stand up right now if the house was on fire. And when I lie down I get throat spasms and my throat wants to close.

  MR. PALFREY. It sounds to me like you’re about two-thirds dead, Mr. Mingo.

  MR. MINGO. About half dead, Mr. Palfrey, but you weren’t far off. I also have gravel in my kidneys.

  MR. PALFREY. (Flexing his own fingers) Look at that. Look how limber they are. I still tie my own necktie ever Sunday morning.

  Marguerite comes flying back in. She has a small color photograph.

  MR. PALFREY. Well, look here. It’s little Miss Prissy again.

  MARGUERITE. Here! This will give you a good laugh! (She looks at photo, laughs, then gives it to Mr. Palfrey) It’s worth ten dollars, easy. See. That’s my fat bulldog, Norris, and my fluffy black cat, Doris. They’re wearing cute party hats with rubber bands under their little chins, and look how they’re sitting at the table with the teacups. It’s a tea party. Norris and Doris, you see.

  MR. PALFREY. Yes, I see that, but I don’t like the look out of this dog’s eye. I know dogs. I have a sure hand with dogs. One of these days this dog will tear that cat’s head off.

  MARGUERITE. Oh no! Norris just loves Doris! They play together and they lap up their milk out of the same bowl. Sometimes we all dance together in the back of the new truck. I twirl my long red scarf around and around. They try to catch at it and we all get dizzy. And Daddy comes out on the front porch and says, “Hey, no dancing in the back of the new truck!” But we act like we don’t hear him and just keep dancing away like nobody’s business. (She whirls about, flinging her arms) WE’VE GONE CRAZY AND WE CAN’T STOP DANCING!

  MR. PALFREY. Here now. That’s enough. (Grabs her arm)
r />   MARGUERITE. You said you would give me ten dollars.

  MR. PALFREY. (Holds out photo) Not for this.

  FERN. What did he tell you, hon?

  MARGUERITE. He said he would give me a ten-dollar bill if I could make him laugh.

  FERN. (To Mr. Palfrey) Well. Pay her. She showed you a funny picture.

  MR. PALFREY. It’s not funny enough.

  FERN. Give her the money, Daddy.

  MR. PALFREY. (Takes bill from snap-top coin purse and pays her. Taps finger on photo) Better not take this Norris to Little Rock. They’ll steal him up there before you can turn around good. Pen him up is my advice. Put a muzzle on him. He’s a bad boy, I’m telling you.

  MARGUERITE. (Skips off with money, photo and shopping bag. Pauses in doorway) Norris is not a bad boy! Norris just loves Doris! (Sticks out her tongue at Mr. Palfrey and exits)

  FERN. (To Mrs. Vetch) But I don’t see why you can’t keep your rooms upstairs and let them have their dance hall down here. What will they use the hotel rooms for?

  MRS. VETCH. I don’t know. Mr. Delray Scantling doesn’t confide in me. I have my own dark suspicions. Which I will keep to myself.

  A pause, as they all think this over.

  MR. PALFREY. I take it you are a Christian lady, Mrs. Vetch.

  MRS. VETCH. Yes, and one of the most severe kind if you were thinking of taking some liberty.

  MR. PALFREY. I was only going to say—

  MRS. VETCH. (Raising hand) No, Mr. Palfrey, not another word on that, if you please. Shame on me for putting thoughts in your head.

  FERN. (Rising, with purse) Is the ladies’ room still back there?

  MRS. VETCH. Yes, it’s in the same place off the hall, but it doesn’t say “Ladies” anymore. Delray has painted a lady’s slipper on the door. With high heel and a big silver buckle.

  Fern exits through rear hallway.

  MR. MINGO. And he’s painted a top hat on the door of the men’s room. A black top hat, with stick and white gloves.

  MR. NIBLIS. (Low grunts, murmuring)

  MR. PALFREY. What was that?