by Joe Meno
So there was the waitress of all my hope, Charlene, serving a nice piece of blueberry pie to a bald man with silvery white teeth. She set the plate down and smiled, then turned and caught sight of me and gave a little start.
“Luce …” she whispered. “Oh my God, Luce …”
Her sweet brown eyes began to swell up with tears right away and she started to run into the back to cry, but I caught hold of her hand and walked with her to the shiny silver counter, mumbling her name the whole time.
“Oh, Luce, what did they do to you?”
Charlene looked up at the white bandage that ran over the left side of my face. I tried to give a little smile to let her know I was OK, but I wasn’t, and all I could offer was a wee little grin that showed all the deep-blue-and-black bruises gathered right under my chin.
“My god … I’m so sorry, Luce … I’m so sorry …”
She began to cry again, so I squeezed her hand tight and tried turning my face away a little so she wouldn’t have to stare at all that unpleasantness straight on.
“I came here to tell you something, Charlene, not to make you cry.”
“Tell me something? Jesus Luce, how can you even talk to me?”
“This isn’t your fault and you and I know it.”
Charlene shook her head, still crying. “Are you leaving on the bus tonight?”
I gritted my teeth together and shook my head. “That’s what I came to tell you.” I took a deep breath and let it all out. “I’m staying,” I said in a short mumbled breath.
“What?” Charlene whispered. “What did you just say?!” She let go of my hand and stared hard at my face.
“I said I’m staying all right.”
Charlene just shook her head and began to walk away, straight into the back.
“Wait!” I shouted.
“Why are you going to stay, Luce? What’s so goddamn important here?”
I took a deep breath and stared hard into her shiny brown eyes. “Well, you, for starts.” I frowned. “You’re worth staying for, for sure.”
Charlene sighed and looked down at her precious little feet. “Luce, I love you with all my heart. But you need to leave. You need to leave right now. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for me.”
Then she moved right beside me and kissed my cheek and turned away, starting to cry all over again.
“Goodbye,” she mumbled, and ran away, disappearing behind the double silver doors to the back.
I shook my head and walked on out of the diner, starting to cry myself. I walked on back toward the hotel, and just as I got to the porch I felt a hunk of dirt smack the back of my head. It crumbled apart and fell down the back of my blue shirt mingling with the sweat on my back. I turned around and swore and tried to catch sight of who had thrown it, but there was no one around. Then, as I turned around again, another mound of dirt hit the back of my head, this time loaded down with a rock, and it made me lose my footing and I nearly slipped off the porch, but I grabbed the wooden railing and spun around and ran right for the dirty green bushes out front just as three or four lousy little kids shouted and took off, dropping hunks of dirt. I ran right after them and grabbed the slowest one and shook him so hard his lousy little red baseball cap flew off, and then I froze, I froze right where I stood.
Monte Slates.
“Monte …” I mumbled, feeling like crying right there. “Why, fella, why?”
“Eye for an eye, that’s what the Bible says.”
I held his arm tight, shaking my head.
“What did I do to you, pal? How did I wrong you?”
“Burned my dad’s hand.” He frowned. “Ran that little baby down, too.”
“Do you believe that’s all right? Throwing dirt at your own friends like that?”
“I figure if you’re a killer, you ain’t my friend. I figure if you’re a killer and done take a life, you ought to be killed yourself.”
“What about being forgiven and all that? What’s the Good Book say about that?”
“Not much I can remember. They hung up Jesus and nailed his hands to the cross and he didn’t do a thing. You kill somebody yourself, you deserve worse, I figure.”
There was nothing for me to say. I couldn’t argue with him.
I turned him loose and watched him run away, still scared as hell, holding his hand where I had grabbed him.
I walked on over to see Junior at work, but the Gas-N-Go was closed. That’s what the sign in the door said anyway. The big movable letter sign out front was empty. Clean and empty. Everything seemed wrong. I knocked on the gray glass once and saw Junior moving around inside. He came to the door and unlocked it and let me in. Junior’s big round face was covered in sweat. He was scared as hell. I could nearly see his big red heart beating right out of his big-barreled chest. His eyes were tiny and sharp. He looked ready to cry.
“How you doing, pal?” I asked.
“I’ve been better,” he mumbled.
I patted his shoulder and tried to smile. Clutch was standing behind the counter. I smiled and stared at his gray, wrinkly face. It was a face that belonged in a church. It was the face of some old and benevolent saint or king.
“I guess you come here to tell me you’re both quitting.”
“What if we intend to stay?” I asked.
Clutch stared at me and smiled. “I’d say I was awful proud of you.”
Junior stared at the windows, mumbling to himself. I stood beside him and frowned.
“Listen, Junior, if you aren’t sure … if you think we should leave …”
“No, it’s not that.” He frowned, shaking his big round head. “It’s just, I don’t know how wrong those folks are for wanting us to leave.”
“Christ Jesus, I know what you mean,” I whispered. “That’s the thing I can’t make right. I mean, I know it ain’t right for them to come after us like that, but … all the things they said, we did. I can’t change any of them now, but I wish … I wish I could take it all back.”
Clutch patted me on the shoulder, shaking his head.
“If it’s meant to be, it’s a thing you can’t change, Luce.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Maybe all these things happened for a reason. Maybe none of these things were a mistake at all.”
“You’re telling me you believe it wasn’t no mistake I ran that poor baby down?”
“No. I didn’t say that. But the Lord works in the strangest of ways. Maybe you’re not supposed to see it all as a mistake. Maybe you need to take something from it, something to save yourself. The way I see it, anyway, one life lost is better than two.”
I became still and silent and felt everything moving right through me. Then that hollow blue telephone rang. Clutch picked it up and after a few seconds handed it to me.
It was Charlene.
“I’m at the bus depot. I’m leaving town. I want you to come with me.”
“But—”
“If you ever want to see me again, my bus leaves at four o’clock. I’ll be waiting here until then.”
“But—”
That sweet woman hung up and I felt all the emptiness of the world fall upon my tongue.
“Who was that?” Junior asked.
“Charlene,” I mumbled.
“What is it?”
“She’s leaving town. She wants me to go.”
I made it the half-mile to the bus depot in a few minutes and found her sitting there in those lousy blue plastic chairs, holding a single brown suitcase upon her lap, crying there all alone to herself. Oh, my Charlene. Her curly brown hair was hanging in her face. She still had on her lousy Starlite Diner waitress uniform. Her legs were folded underneath her. She looked so delicate and small. I felt my heart breaking right in my chest. She looked up at me and tried to wipe the tears out of her eyes, but then she stopped trying to fight it and began crying some more, lowering her head.
“Jesus, Charlene, what are you doing to me?”
“To you?”
she shouted. “To you? Luce, what are you doing to me?”
“Well, hell, you just can’t pick up and leave like this.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not gonna stay in town and watch you get yourself hurt on account of me. So either you come with me now or never see me again.”
“Christ, Charlene, what about your folks?”
“I left them a note and told them I’d call them from L.A.”
“L.A.? You can’t go out there alone.”
“I was hoping you would come with me.”
“But … I … I can’t.”
“Why not? There’s nothing else here for you. You don’t have any family in town anymore. You don’t care about your parole. I’m sure you can convince Junior to leave. Why would you stay by yourself?”
“I gotta stay. Or else I’ll be running away from this the rest of my life.”
“If I tell you I’ll love you forever, will you come with me?” she asked, kissing my neck so gently, so sweetly. “If I tell you everything you want to hear right now, will you just get on this bus with me?”
All the words I had ever wanted to say slipped right away.
There was nothing I could think to tell her that would make her understand it all in a different way.
“Charlene …” I tried to mumble.
That sweet girl nodded and shook her head. “I know. You already said it. You can’t.”
“It isn’t you darling. I need to do this for me. Don’t you how it ate up Junior running away his whole life? Don’t you see what’s been done to his life because of some crime he’s been serving every day? I can’t run away or it’ll just follow me.”
I unclasped her hand and kissed her pearly fingertips.
“There’s no doubt in my mind we’ll be together again,” I said. “It’s a thing I know in my heart.”
“That’s a real nice thing to say while I’ll be worrying like a fool over you.”
“I’m just asking you to give me some time,” I said.
“But I can’t stay here,” she said.
“OK. Then send me the sweetest kiss over the lines as soon as you get to L.A.” I tried to smile.
“I love you.” She blushed. “I really do. I ought to have made you leave with me sooner. I was just afraid you hadn’t forgiven me for letting you down with the baby and all.” She kissed my hands and then held me tight. “But this thing between us is true. I can feel it beating there right in your heart. That’s why I love you. I love you because you weren’t afraid to fall in love with me. I don’t want to hear you say anything back because then it’ll sound like a lie and I know how you feel now anyway.”
I kissed her as hard as I dared and turned away without one other word. Then I was a full block away and I could hear the bus doors close and the brakes become undone and the wheels begin to pull away. I opened my lips and said a few single words that took on the weight of the whole cruel world.
“Goodbye, Charlene Dulaire.”
Then I turned and began walking back into town.
It was just beginning to get dark.
I walked out down La Harpie Road, way down off the side of the road. I skittered across any intersections and back toward the Gas-N-Go.
Junior was out front with a tiny brown bag full of plastic letters. He was carrying the ladder toward the big sign out front, then stopped when he saw me coming.
“I’m shaky as hell, Luce. You hold the ladder.”
I nodded and took it, watching him climb up awkwardly.
“What are you gonna write?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
He opened up the bag and took out two rounded black letters T and an O.
“Hey, let me ask you something,” I said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to know for a while anyways.
“OK,” he mumbled, still trying to eat.
“What the hell is your first name anyway?”
“My name?” He smiled.
“Sure, sure, it ain’t Junior, is it?”
“No.” He smiled. “It ain’t. It’s Ervis. Ervis Breen.”
“Ervis!” I smiled. “What kind of name is that?”
“Family name, I guess. I guess I’m named after someone or another. Never did like it much myself. My dad was the one who took to calling me Junior instead. Serves me better, I think.”
“Makes you sound like you’re a gas station attendant all right. Could have been a rocket scientist or lawyer with a name like Ervis, I bet.”
“It might have all been a little different then.”
The dull white moon came up and hung right over our heads. It made me wonder where my Charlene was. Riding on some bus, all alone, somewhere along some highway right now, somewhere close, somewhere far away. Nestled between some elderly lady and an overweight traveling salesman, she was safe at least. I looked up and watched Junior sorting through the letters, mumbling little words to himself. He began the next word, starting with an F, as a light flashed upon us.
A car passed down the road, shining its headlights through the dark. Then it stopped. It stopped and slowly began to back up. Junior dropped the bag of silent words and hurried down the ladder, panicked.
“I’m scared, Luce. I’m scared as hell.”
“I’m scared, too, pal.”
“Whatever happens, Luce, I want you to know you’re the best friend I ever had.”
The car, a Chevy, turned around in the middle of the road and began to slowly head our way. I looked at Junior, then whispered, “OK, pal, start running.” I held my breath and started off, my feet hitting the dirt as fast as they could. I heard Junior behind me crying, but I never stopped to turn around and look.
tonight
We hurried down the side of the road, sneaking along the culvert to the woods, where we waited by the river, doing our best to catch our breath.
Everything was still and all the stars in the heavens above began to spin around, pinning us right down in place. Some mockingbirds chirped some quiet regretful tunes, flickering their wings in the dark. Tiny white insects darted on by, shimmering like felled constellations. We could hear strange voices and saw the flash of headlights just beyond the edge of the heavy green trees. We crept to the small gray boathouse, the same one I had first been to with Charlene, and there I found the rowboat.
“We can head down river awhile, then cut back to town,” I said. Junior hauled the small boat in his arms, placing it in the trembling water. We climbed inside, holding our breath as the river immediately pulled us along.
There was a warm-eyed fawn resting its little brown eyes over the river’s edge. It disappeared right back into the dark as soon as the rowboat approached. Beneath us in the murky depths, a twelve-point buck lay still and lit up by a thousand stars stuck in its antlers. Everything turned dark and strange. A spooky old hoot owl crooned and muffled up its breast as we swung on past, crashing into thick green branches and cattails, drifting farther and farther away, deeper and deeper downstream. We were trapped. Trapped beneath all of creation, beneath all the things that had judged us and our sins and all the strange and horrible things we’d already seen and done.
We spun on down that river, plummeting along, crashing into reeds and upturned rocks, Junior silent, his head rolling heavily on his big shoulders.
“Perdition,” Junior whispered. “We’re heading straight down.”
I shook my head.
“We’re heading straight down to darkness,” Junior whimpered. “Straight to the Devil hisself.”
I could hear things chattering and whispering out in the dark as the rowboat caught hold of a current and began to spin straight into a gruesome patch of gray-silver rocks. The boat pounded hard against the slate, loosening its boards along the bow. Then it all broke loose. The boat began to fall apart right under our weight.
“We’re doomed,” Junior cried. “Doomed to an eternity in hopeless hell.” Water began to fill up the boat around Junior’s feet. His hefty weight was pulling us rig
ht on down.
“Hush up now,” I mumbled. “Just be still.” The boat was sinking. The cold gray water began to rise up to my chest as I kicked free. I dug one arm under Junior’s neck and pulled us both out of the boat, just its nose rising out of the wake, still drifting, floating off and away down the river and straight into the dark of the night. Junior was as heavy as a tombstone. He felt like he was made of stiff and solid rocks. I pulled and breathed hard with all my guts and finally towed him up into the high mass of thin yellow grass.
I lay there in that cold water for a long time. I lay there on the bank the rest of the night until I felt the first rays of sunlight beam down upon my face.
Then I opened my eyes.
Then I pulled myself up on the grass all the way. I looked down to see if Junior was awake. He stared back at me with his big eyes and flopped beside me on the bank. He dropped his face in the dirt and began crying, digging his big fingers in the mud.
“Get up,” I whispered, wiping my mouth. “Come on now, get up.”
“I can’t,” he muttered, keeping his face against the ground. “I can’t go on no more.”
“Listen to me, Junior. You’re gonna get the hell up and we’re gonna tread back into town and down to the bus depot and get out of here all right. Now get up, man. Get up right now so we can leave once and for all.”
“No,” he mumbled. “You go on. Just leave me. Leave me here so they can finish me off.”
I grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and shook him hard.
“Get up!!” I shouted. “Right now!! Get up and move!!” I kept tugging on his shirt and his big head, pulling him up. He struggled to his feet and wiped some of the dirt off his chin and leaned against me, still crying, still muttering to himself.
“Now we’re gonna walk, you hear? We’re gonna walk right to the bus depot and get the hell out, OK?”
He nodded once and we started walking, edging along the woods down a thin brown path. We were both silent. Junior’s eyes were all gray. He looked strangely peaceful, peaceful and quiet and accepting as all hell. My own face was a twisted-up portrait of rage. My bad eye had swelled up again. We tracked back toward La Harpie through the woods, cutting across some farms to avoid being seen. The sun was up and reaching its height, and right from town I could hear church bells beginning to ring. Everything under my feet was dull and brown and dirty. Junior’s face was still calm. He walked beside me, staring straight ahead, silent as ever, watching the horizon as it grew from behind rows and rows of stiff yellow corn. We made it out to La Harpie Road, about a half-mile from town, a half-mile from the bus, and then in the middle of someone’s cornfield, still as could be in that morning light, Junior stopped and stared down at his hands like he had just taken the last step he might ever take.