Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  At first it seemed as if she’d failed and the threshold of her jealousy was being tried. But it was tried with the wrong key and held fast. She watched him pick up the dog, put it on his lap and hold its shortened foot—“Getting a little hungry no doubt”—and she could see that she’d made the right choice. She had the safety of the onlooker. She knew he would be safe from her jealousy, and she could also hear herself in the tone of his voice as he talked. Usually the beloved, now she held the power of the lover. And more than that. In several minutes, when he did look up at her, he knew right away what’d been dared by the gift, stood up and rushed over to her.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know,” she answered, and realized only then that the art book had been the same kind of decision for him and she hadn’t known it, and felt a great admiration and love for his understanding.

  Her next present—the small one—enclosed a little card on which he’d written To Mal from the selfish fool and contained the old photographs from inside the fat Bible.

  Such a symbolic gift was hard to respond to properly, as are all symbolic things, which seem to demand a particular kind of emotional response for which no physical expression is possible. To embrace him would deny the seriousness of the feeling, and to embrace him “seriously” or to try to explain that she understood the importance of it would be both melodramatic and pedestrian. Also, everything she might want to express was already assumed in the very act of giving the gift. It was unnecessary. But still a response seemed to be demanded and she was left hoping only that he would know exactly what she was feeling.

  Despite the importance of the situation, she felt her skin beneath her pajamas flush in expectation of being touched.

  The last was the large, weightless package for July, and with the help of the puppy July tore into it, only to find it empty but for a small piece of paper on which she’d written in crayon with large, clumsy letters, making it look as though a second-grader had made it at school, Will you marry me?

  Whatever might have been Mal’s confusion over the proper response to the pictures was magnified and confounded a thousand times now for July. He’d wished for nothing more ever since the museum in Philadelphia, but had resigned himself to living with the possibility of her eventual departure; and because they’d grown closer, that possibility had become small, and he’d found it easier to live with and almost never thought about it at all. But now he realized how real those old desires still were, and the sensation of seeing them come true—to possess her forever and never fear living even a single day without her—was something he would’ve traded a lifetime for, if that choice could have been clearly stated so that he understood it.

  Surprisingly, he was also a little afraid, and curled back from such a total bond, as it seemed to imply more than he could fully grasp. Maybe I’m not ready for this, he thought. Really. It was always a kind of fantasy before. But as he looked up at her, he knew that the same fear was in her eyes, perhaps more so, and that in reality it was only the containing, protective shell of an experience so much more vital than either of them had any comprehension of that to attempt to explain it was foolish.

  “Soon?” he asked.

  “As soon as you want.”

  These few spoken words seemed to clear the air of all the inhibitions of seriousness that had thrived in the silence. All July could think was of Mal’s body. Mal filled with the frantic realization that her skin was about to be ravaged, and felt him coming toward her before he ever moved.

  Mal wrote to her parents explaining that they had decided to be married, implored them to forgive her for all she might have done which they believed compromised them (and her) and, if they couldn’t come out to the wedding, at least to participate in her happiness. A week passed, during which time her job expired, and each day she was sure a letter from them would be delivered. Another week went by. Then came a short, cryptic note from her father, typed on his office typewriter on college stationery, explaining his moral outrage and belief that everything she’d done in the last ten months was misguided, strongly urging her to abandon her infatuation and return to the East, ending with a firm though grandiose pledge to pay for any emergencies which might come up involving her health. Two days later a letter came from her mother in which she wished her happiness, as though a kind of degenerate, pale happiness was all that would be possible for her now—well-being, comfort, respectability, self-esteem and spiritual harmony being forever out of her reach.

  When July saw the letters he became very upset. He knew how much Mal had hoped for a reconciliation.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, so am I,” she said with a brave smile and stuffed the letter into the crowded living-room wastebasket. “But I guess it’s just tradition—the girl leaves her family for the family of her husband. It can’t be helped.”

  Their marriage ceremony was short and uncomplicated. Two people were asked in off the streets of Iowa City to be witnesses. In the brief private talk before the words were read, the pastor’s only concern was that Mal and July hadn’t been married before and that they shouldn’t ever be married again, because in his mind that was the most damnable of all sins. Then the little ritual was acted out, their vows were spoken aloud and rings exchanged, and at this moment you are man and wife tied them together legally, morally and with the full blessing of society. Mr. and Mrs. July Montgomery shook hands with their witnesses and departed in their green Chrysler, now half belonging to Mal, through the snow back to the country.

  Through one of the girls she met at “Things and Things,” Mal found another job, this one as a waitress in a restaurant. It was mostly evening work and, though basically very unpleasant, left the morning and early afternoon free for painting, which is the only time in the middle of winter.

  The thrill of knowing throughout the whole day that he was married made the rest of February fly by with unbelievable ease. Even when the water pipes froze, and the wind ripped all the storm windows from the north side of the house and dashed them to the ground, and the cars wouldn’t start, he still kept on the right side of things. But by the middle of March he knew he’d have to give up on the house for a while, let the upstairs go without paint and the front porch last as it somehow had for many years, and find a job.

  Cabin fever, he told himself. Not good to stay in the house so much.

  The usual terrors of job hunting were considerably lessened by being able to identify himself as a married man and circle that place in the questionnaires. It seemed he was now entitled to all the respect due a real citizen. He felt he’d joined the status quo. The American tradition was for once behind him and he was encouraged not to go begging for a job, but merely search one out as had all the great majority before him. And with this added sense of personal courage he ventured forth and a week later began working as a taxi-cab driver in Iowa City.

  He bought another old car.

  By dint of their different work schedules there remained no more than two or three days a week when they had any real time to be together, and these would drift by so quickly in comparison to the other days that it seemed more as if they never had any time together. The winter continued to wear away at them and one night when July’d fallen asleep waiting for Mal to come home on a Friday night he woke up and had a terrifying moment in which he completely lost touch with what he was doing. Now, what was I trying to accomplish? he asked himself. Exactly why did I come out here? What precisely is the reason for living here as opposed to any other place? He reached for answers which had been so close to him before and which his every movement and thought had seemed to embody—but found only the gloomy, cold, hostile walls of their bedroom. Outside, the snow lay at cat’s-eye level twenty degrees below zero.

  The kitchen clock said it was after one, and the house itself knew it was late. Turning on a light in an empty room seemed to be an intrusion. The radio had a faraway, demonic sound as though coming from the deep recesses of a cave, heavy and thick, with
dark, meaningless voices. The silences were alive: the dog, Holmes, was sleeping somewhere in the barn, and July decided to walk out and find her. It was a pretense to listen for Mal turning off the highway onto the gravel two miles away, but on a still winter night with the roads cleared it was as unmistakable as something could be. He dressed warmly.

  Leaving the light on in the living room and carrying a weak flashlight, he went out. Around his eyes he could feel the searing cold. The path to the barn was easy enough to see by the starlight. He stopped and listened. The refrigerator turned off in the house. He strained to hear better. She’s been late before, he told himself. They have a lot of business on Friday night. People stay till all hours. The place simply gets jammed. Then stick around afterward and clean up. A wonder she gets home as quickly as she usually does . . . usually before midnight . . . an hour and a half late so far.

  He heard a distant, jumbled sound and his senses quickened. It might be an echo of the tires’ noise, still on the highway. Then he heard it again, and again, but no closer. Only wind in the trees, he thought. When you really hear her turn the corner, there won’t be any doubt, you’ll know it can’t be anything else. Only the false sounds make vague promises.

  He felt as though he had been standing there a long time. His face was beginning to numb. He was also letting his anxiety get out of control and had begun playing the subconscious game of If I can hear her, then in three minutes she’ll be home, putting aside all attempts to rationalize how she might have come to be so late. He conferred with his better reasoning.

  Now look, if something’s happened, somehow they’d’ve gotten in touch. Because I don’t have a phone doesn’t warrant this kind of worry. And be it as it may, until she drives in the driveway she won’t be here, listening or no listening. So go find Holmes.

  He flipped on the flashlight and went into the barn. The faint ball of orange light hardly illuminated the loose hay covering the floor, and it was distinguishable only by shade from the rough wooden walls. He walked ahead very slowly, feeling along the wall for the opening. Holmes usually slept back against a manger, underneath the ladder to the mow. July turned and went down the aisle between the stanchions, hearing his muted footsteps and breaking the peaceful spell of the barn. A mouse rustled out of his way. He shined the light ahead, stretching it out as far as it would reach, playing it along the sides of the mangers, not allowing himself to speak until he caught the glint of Holmes’ eyes.

  “Hi, Holmes,” he whispered, as though the big barn were a cathedral and the darkness were the cloud. The dog came toward him. “No, don’t get up. I just thought I’d come out and see what you were doing.”

  He sat down in the hay and took the dog’s head in his lap, turning off the flashlight. “So how’s it going, old Holmes?” and he felt along her back, sinking his fingers deeply into it. The dog’s spirit seemed to leap out to him. “Don’t worry, Holmes, there’s no sense for you being upset. It’s probably not even two o’clock yet. It’s a half-hour, maybe forty-five-minute drive from here. Having a coke or sandwich before she left would make it about 12:45; then figuring on cleaning up after a busy night, washing the tables off, sweeping the floor, especially if one of the girls was sick, makes it after midnight when the last customers left. Why, I’ve left plenty of restaurants myself at midnight. So there’s nothing for you to be worried about. Just go back to sleep.” He put her head back down in the hay and carefully stood up. “Go back to sleep,” he urged again and began making his way outside where he could hear better. It was becoming harder and harder to keep his imagination from running over what it might be like to get into his car and drive into town looking for her, see some flashing red lights ahead, see the tangled fender of a brown station wagon, then the—

  He reached the door. Every fiber of his being was wired to his eardrums, ready to devour the first little tremble. It was of comfort to be listening again, involved in some way in the activity of her coming, as though listening would bring her closer. He stood with the barn to his back, thinking that because of its huge size it would reflect any noise that might escape him directly from the source.

  Then he heard something, so faint that he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t his own desire. The sound disappeared too quickly to be tested. No, that was her, he thought—still on the highway, just before the hill. Then a faint wind came through the oaks in back, the brown, clinging leaves rattling against each other like giant, flat insects. Damn that wind, thought July, and despite it he tried to pick out Mal turning the corner, knowing the sound would last only a little longer than five seconds before the first hill tucked it away and she’d be hidden from his hearing until she reached the top, where he’d get another chance to hear her before she reached the next hill, and at this one—if he was standing out front in the road—he could see the headlights! He ran through the snow, making a fresh trail in the crusted surface. Holmes followed behind him. The sound of their running made the second chance to hear her null and void. They got into the tire tracks and reached the gravel.

  He looked off into the distance and watched with wild, flashing eyes for the halo of approaching car lights to climb the crest of the faraway hill. First that, then as the halo grew brighter and bigger, at the same time the sound would come reaching toward him, the two lights would pop into view, suspended like handheld beacons in the darkness, and come bobbing and roaring toward him. What time must it be? he thought. It’s too clear for the light to reflect off the atmosphere. I won’t see it until just that moment. His eyes were trying to leave his body. The dog sat silently beside him, her breathing not even stirring the air, locked in animal concentration.

  All of a sudden he believed he could see the line between the dark surface of the road and the sky, at just the top edge of the distant hill, a little clearer. It seemed at that point he could tell just exactly where one left off and the other began, more so than anywhere else on the horizon. He looked a little to the side, sharpening his vision, his heart collapsed upon itself. Then it became unmistakable—a thin white halo crowned the top of the hill, growing in a slow, nearly transparent explosion. Then the headlights popped above the horizon, accompanied by the caressing, hard sound of the tires on the gravel, and the line between earth and sky was obliterated; all that now existed was total darkness and the two parallel white lights.

  July shivered. Joy mixed with relief. He berated himself for worrying and forgave himself immediately. It seemed the life-and-death game had been played, with his destiny coming up all sixes. He felt as though he were not only spared but blessed. I’ll never worry again, he told himself. As the sound came closer he recognized the exhaust system of the Chrysler, removing that last tiny doubt that with everything else it might be another car. He was truly saved. Holmes was running excitedly back and forth on her three legs, knowing the sound as well.

  Then he filled with a different emotion, quickly and with no warning. This one almost like fear. Holmes sensed it and looked at him curiously. He was ashamed. He didn’t want her to know what he’d gone through. It seemed it would be unfair for her to know—after all, there was nothing to worry about really. It wasn’t proof of his caring for her so much as a betrayal of his weaknesses, a burden she didn’t need. He turned and dashed toward the house. Holmes followed, picking up in sense July’s desire to be hidden, and was let into the house.

  Mal came in, finding him in the rocking chair reading. “Phew, what a night!”

  “You’re pretty late,” said July calmly. “I was beginning to get worried.”

  “That’s silly. But look at this!” She sat on the sofa and one at a time took dollar bills out of her purse—tip money. July counted them off: “. . . three, four, five, six! . . . Fifteen! That’s really good!”

  “Phew.” Mal took off her shoes and stretched out. July looked at her and thought wordlessly, If you ever could know how much I love you, you’d be frightened.

  The never ending winter was a trial for both of them. Their house seemed not a
ble to withstand it, and in the middle of the living room they could feel cold, moving air on their faces. The water pipes froze again and again, cracking and bursting the lines. Mal was in a painting slump. It was too cold in her studio upstairs, and even if she could take it bundled up in a heavy coat, the paints didn’t act properly. A few days of melting weather turned the barnyard into a mud hole and twice July had to walk down to the neighbor’s to get him to come with his tractor and pull their car out. So they learned to park on the road. (July hated this. A person’s car should be next to his house.) In April they were able to get their diamond back and that helped to revive their sense of accomplishment and purpose. They made a couple of friends they could, on occasion, go visit. July rediscovered his love of reading novels by the Russians Dostoevski and Tolstoy. They were true winter-breakers. He was even able to persuade Mal to read The Brothers, and for many nights they worried over Alyosha’s character. July feared he might loose Mal to Dimitri and reminded her of their contract.

  “You’re the only one I’ll ever love,” said Mal. “But wouldn’t it be something to run into somebody like that!”

  “It’s just the criminal element you crave.”

  “No! And he isn’t a criminal. He’s possessed with life!”