Starcarbon

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “It’s hard to believe in them.” Bobby had been sitting opposite Georgia. He watched her as she spoke. She was so nervous. Trying so hard to please, to be liked.

  “My boyfriend teaches physics. I’ll let you meet him when he comes over. He’s a great teacher. The students voted him their favorite teacher last year. If you get in trouble he might help you. And use the department tutors. They have to stay there all afternoon. They may as well be helping someone.”

  Bobby drank his coffee. He propped his feet up on the porch railing. He finished the math and began to read the physics book. “Nature and heaven’s laws lay hid in night: God said, ‘Let Newton be! and all was light.’”

  The difficulty arises because a physical phenomenon has associated with it a vast number of facts . . . if the task of physics is to find some order in natural phenomena . . . then clearly some observations will be more significant than others . . . the problem is that in the early stages of a scientific inquiry one does not yet know what the theoretical framework will be . . .

  Bobby settled down into the chair. He could hear Sharrene sigh in the bedroom behind the porch but he didn’t care. He looked toward the trailer, thinking of Olivia. I want us to get married, he was thinking. I don’t want any of this living together shit. I love her, that’s for sure. She fills me out. She makes me believe it’s all worthwhile. Two people make a channel for life to run through. That’s what Sherrill said. It’s true. Together we’re bigger than when we’re apart. I’ll be good enough for her. Hell, she’s Cherokee too. All the rich relatives in the world don’t change that. So the Cherokee are dead. So we don’t even have a brave for a chief. Well, hell, Wilma’s a good woman, don’t go knocking Wilma. Study the goddamn book. You got to learn this stuff before you go to class.

  He sank deeper into the chair. The sun was climbing the wooden stairs, beginning to heat up the bottom of his legs. He stretched his feet out to meet it and began to think.

  At ten that morning the editor of the Tahlequah Reporter received a phone call. “Yeah, I know him,” the editor said. “He’s a good man. His kid’s the best barrel racer in the state. Why, what’s happened now?”

  When he hung up the phone he walked over to the copy editor’s desk. “Bud Tree’s been arrested for running dope in a stolen plane. Will it ever stop?”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I used to worship that man. I’ve seen him ride a horse, you thought he was part of it. It’d make you believe in centaurs. I’ve seen him lift a horse from the earth and fly.”

  “Bobby’s better than his dad. He’s back in town. I saw him the other morning at The Shak. He’s with that little Hand girl that used to do back flips at the games.”

  “Well, his dad’s in deep shit. You don’t know where I could find Bobby, do you? I’d hate to have him read about it in the paper.”

  “I’ll go look. You want me to go look for him?”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  The copy editor got up and put on his seersucker jacket and wiped his hand across his jaw and squinted up his eyes and shook his head. “Okay, I’m going. I think he’s out at Northeastern. He told me he was going to get him a degree.”

  “I hope to God he isn’t mixed up in this.”

  “Bud wouldn’t mix his kid up in something like this. He worships that kid.”

  “I hope you’re right. Shit.” The editor buttoned his jacket, squared his shoulders, ran his fingers through his hair, checked his reflection in the glass of a framed photograph on the copy editor’s desk. “I hate this kind of shit. We’ve got to get some industry in this part of the world, Warren. We’ve got to save our kids. We got kids running off to make a living following powwows. What kind of life is that? Dancing for tourists. I know how you feel about industry, but you’re wrong, Warren. People have to have something to do. There’s nothing to do around here but steal. Goddamn, Bud Tree. I’ve seen him lift horses from the ground. We’ve got to save the kids. We’ve got to get some industry in here.”

  “You can’t save people, Bob. Nobody ever got saved yet. Life just hands out its stuff and you roll with the punches or you die. That’s it.” He pulled a cigarette out of a pack and lit it, looking guilty. “He was better at football than he was at rodeoing. He could have played in college if he’d kept up with it.”

  An hour later the copy editor gave up looking for Bobby and left a note on the door of the trailer. “Call me at the newspaper office when you get home. Your dad’s in trouble. Bob and I want to help if we can. We’ll be there all afternoon. Yours sincerely, Warren Brown.”

  At twelve Olivia met Bobby in the student cafeteria and they bought sandwiches and went to sit on the concrete tables that overlooked the quadrangle. “I don’t feel very good,” she said. “It’s like something was hovering over me all day. I woke up on the wrong side of bed, I guess.”

  “You want to go over to the trailer and turn on the fan and study together?”

  “Sure. I don’t have to do anything else here.” She covered his hand with her hand. Ran her hand up and down the soft smooth surface of his arm. “Who is at my window? Who? Who? It is the old cuckoo, mulling the same song over. The old song is about fear. About tomorrow and next year.”

  “I’m getting lost in this physics. I was thinking this morning it reminds me of this Jewish guy, this poet, that Tom had out at the ranch last fall. He wanted to learn cutting and he couldn’t get the horse to do anything. He’d get up every morning and want to try it again. I was getting sick of it because we had other things to do. It was right when it started getting cold and we had to get things squared away for the winter, but every morning we had to waste half the day with this guy in the ring. One morning he forgot how to use the reins. He panicked and let go and we had a hell of a time catching him. Anyway, after a long time, one morning he got it. He just got it and after that he stayed a week and helped us out to make up for wasting all our time. We ought to go up to Lake Tenkiller this weekend and camp out. You want to go? Dad’s got a good tent.”

  “Sure. Okay, finish that sandwich. Let’s go lie on your mattress and turn on the fan. When I get through fucking you I might even study.” She gave him a fake seductive look she had learned from Madonna. It was a look that said, It’s nineteen ninety-one and I’ll pretend to be a whore, but we know better. I’m in charge of this operation now. I might even run for president. Don’t fuck with me, Bobby. I am a new woman in a new world.

  Chapter 28

  OLIVIA and Bobby drove to the trailer without talking. Bobby was thinking about jobs he could apply for and Olivia was thinking about going to get some birth control pills. Then Bobby was thinking about the Futurity in Fort Worth and how much money he’d get if they won or placed and Olivia was thinking about Chapel Hill and her sorority sisters and what they’d think if they could see her in this truck with a cowboy. Then Bobby was thinking about how much he liked to make her come and Olivia was thinking about her father and his beautiful house and her grandmother Anna Elizabeth Hand and her aunt Helen and her uncle Niall and how they would never be able to meet Bobby and like him. Nothing would make them understand or like Bobby. He was white trash to them. And I am white trash too, she decided, if I fuck him all the time in a dirty old trailer like a whore, but what choice do I have? I couldn’t get anyone to like me at Chapel Hill. That guy never even called me back after he fucked me. I bet he told everyone I was a whore. Well, to hell with Chapel Hill. I don’t need a lot of snotty rich people telling me what to do. Doctor Carlyn said for me to find out what I want and she’d help me learn how to get it. Well, what I want right now is to get laid and then I want a chocolate milkshake or at least a frozen yogurt. I’ve been starving all day. All day I’ve felt like the sky was about to fall. Chicken Little to the max-i-mum security. That’s what my big sister in Zeta used to say. Chicken Little supreme with some anxiety on the side. Anxiety. I wonder what it means. Why do all these shrinks keep telling me that? You’re anxious about it. They all say that to me. Of course I�
�m anxious about it. What do they think I’m in there talking to them for?

  Bobby stopped the truck near the trailer door. He could see the note. He thought it was a notice of an unpaid bill. His dad had been worrying about money. Ever since he got home from Montana, all his dad did was talk about being worried about money and lecture him to have a bank account. Hell, if it was a bill collector that would embarrass Olivia. She liked to act all the time like she was rich. Well, she said her old man was going broke. So they had that in common too, didn’t they?

  He walked to the door and took down the note and read it and wadded it up and stuck it in his pocket.

  “What is it?” Olivia said.

  “It’s nothing. Just a note from Dad. I’ve got to go and pick him up. Shit, there goes our afternoon. I’m sorry, baby.” He turned to her and she knew he was lying.

  “Let me see it. Let me see the note.”

  “I can’t. You don’t need to see it.”

  “Then it’s from a girl.”

  “It’s not from a girl, Olivia. That’s not what it’s about.”

  “Then why won’t you let me see it?”

  “It’s about Dad’s business. It hasn’t got anything to do with you. Everything in the world isn’t about you.”

  “Take me back to the campus, please. I want to get my car.” She was climbing back into the truck, getting madder every second. He took a deep breath, bowed his head, tried to think. You had to be so careful with Olivia. But he had studied her, hadn’t he? God, he had studied her. Had watched her like a colt he was fixing to break, had watched her skittishness and quick, unannounced moves, had seen her eyes narrow, had seen her grow still and then bolt, the quick terrible rage she was capable of, the quick terrible joy. I know you, he said to himself, I know who you are, baby, and now I have to make a choice. If I tell you, then you won’t love me anymore. You can’t stand white trash stuff. It drives you crazy.

  And if I don’t tell you, then I lose that way too. Because you know I’m lying and that is crossing you and you can’t stand to be crossed or lied to or told you’re wrong or called on anything.

  The thing to do is hold her, he decided. If I can just get hold of her I can decide what to do.

  “Please come inside awhile,” he said. “Come lie down with me. Something bad has happened. I want to talk to you about it.”

  “What happened? Go on and tell me.”

  “Come inside and sit by me and I will.”

  “Okay, go on in.” He went into the trailer and sat down on the bed and she followed him.

  “Dad’s in trouble,” he said. “I got a note from the editor of the paper. But I already know what it is. I’ve been expecting this to happen.”

  “What did he do?” She was edging away from him, already scared of the contagion.

  “You know he was flying for J. B. Hunt last winter but he quit because they kept making him get up in the middle of the night and he’s too old to fly like that. He can’t rodeo anymore and it’s hard to get a job flying up here. There isn’t any work here. You know that. Anyway, I think he’s been running dope. The guys he’s had around here are into that. I think Sharrene did it to him. She’s a gold digger if I ever saw one. She’s got two rooms full of new clothes in there. She just shops all the time. Anyway, he quit J. B. because he couldn’t stay up all night and keep her happy too. She’s a party animal. She likes the bars. Anyway, he’s up to his ears in debt from all the stuff Sharrene charged to him and I think he’s been running dope. I’ve been thinking so.” He took the note out of his pocket and showed it to her. “So I got to go on over there and see what they say. You can go with me if you want to.”

  “No, you go on.” Olivia was getting up, smoothing her skirt down across her stomach. She was backing out of the room. “Call me later. Tell me what they said. Come on, take me to my car. I want to get some studying done if we’re not going to stay here.”

  She was out of the trailer, out into the fresh air. Get me out of here, she was thinking. Get me away from this goddamn trailer park.

  Chapter 29

  OLIVIA’S appointment with the doctor in Tulsa was at three o’clock in the afternoon. She walked into the waiting room and sat down on the sofa and began to get nervous. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. She looked disapprovingly down at her blue jeans and shoes. She stood up and tucked in her blouse and frowned at a fireplace filled with half-dead plants. On the mantel was an odd assortment of vases, most of them with figures carved on them. Greek, Roman, Indian. The wall above the fireplace held a copy of a painting of a small fat man flying above a town. He had a lovely smile on his face. Olivia seemed to settle down as she looked at the painting. I used to dream I was flying all over Tahlequah, she thought. And Bobby dreams he’s flying all the time. Well, now his dad’s going to jail and if Dad finds out about all this, I’ll never see any of them again. They aren’t going to have anything to do with criminals. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why I came to this place.

  A stereo system was playing New Age guitar music. Then the music changed. A piano began to play long deliberate notes like a keen lullaby. Olivia got up and went to stand by the CD player, trying to get closer to the music.

  “Hello,” a voice said, and a short, good-looking man in a brown coat opened a door and came into the room. He held out his hand and she shook it. “I’m Doctor Coder,” he said. “You are Olivia?”

  “That’s me. I couldn’t have come on a better day. Boy, do I have some problems.”

  “Come on in,” he answered and held the door. “Sit down and talk to me.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Olivia was still talking. “So if I tell Dad I’m involved with Bobby then that’s the end of that. Even if he isn’t rich anymore, still it’s my only chance to ever get any money, and I like all of them, well, not the people at Chapel Hill. I bet I hardly had a friend there, well, except for Cornelia Bosworth, this girl from Charlotte I knew in high school. I like her, she’s really great but she went off to London with her folks for the summer and Jessie’s in New Orleans with this baby sucking on her tit. You know what she told me the other day on the phone? She said every two hours he sucks out all the milk in both of her breasts. She’s so tired she can hardly make up the bed. Well, Crystal will get her about ten more maids. I wouldn’t have a baby for all the tea in China. That’s what this woman, my teacher, Doctor Jones, says about everything. She says I wouldn’t do that for all the tea in China. Well, I have to go over to Planned Parenthood and get some pills. I keep meaning to do it every day. Well, if Bobby’s dad stays in jail I sure don’t have to worry about that. He wouldn’t even fuck me yesterday. He just sat around all night worrying and being so cold to me. I mean, he couldn’t even get interested. He thinks it’s going to make everyone hate him. He’s worked all his life to make people think he isn’t white trash and what good does it do? His father was the first person in their family to even know how to drive a car. They were really country people. They didn’t even live in town. They lived out on the Illinois by Clear Creek and trapped and fished for a living, raising chickens and pigs. He took me out there once and showed me where he came from. Oh, that was so long ago.

  “So what do you think I ought to do? I can’t give him back this ring when he’s already so worried he can’t even fuck me. Can I? I came down here to learn Navajo. Well, all I want to do now is go home and see if Dad will still speak to me. I tried to call him four times last night but I didn’t even get an answering machine. I guess he’s gone on to Switzerland with Margaret. He wanted to go eat asparagus and drink hot chocolate. He told me they brought the hot chocolate out in two pots—one with melted chocolate and one with hot milk—and then they bring you three kinds of sugar and you mix it yourself. I was a fool not to go. I should have gone with him. What am I doing back in Green Country with a bunch of jailbirds? Bad blood. It’s just bad blood. I’m like my mother. She was just a whore. She was hitchhiking across the country like a homeless person while she was pregnan
t with me. That’s why she died. If she had stayed in Charlotte with them she’d be okay. Why are you looking at your watch? Is it time for me to leave?”

  “In a few minutes. I’d like to see you again tomorrow afternoon. Could you come at three?”

  “I don’t know. It’s an hour’s drive. I get out at twelve. Well, okay, I told Georgia I’d come and have tea at her house but I can do it later, I guess. She goes to shrinks. She was all for me doing this. I have to call Dad and make sure he can pay for it. He thinks he’s rich but he isn’t anymore. Grandmother told us not to make him spend money on us.”

  “I talked to Doctor Carlyn in Chapel Hill. She said your father was very eager for you to see someone.”

  “It’s because I changed my grades on a computer at the school when I was a sophomore. He thinks I’m a criminal. He thinks he’s just lucky every day I don’t steal something. That’s what Doctor Carlyn said. She said it would make me sick if all I did was work that scam. So I try not to spend any of his money if I can help it.”

  “Would you like to call and talk to him about it? Or have me call?”

  “Would you do it? I’ve been trying to get him but he doesn’t answer.”

  “If you like.”

  “What are we going to do in here anyway? I mean, what are you trying to do with me?”

  “I’m not trying to do anything with you. I want you to find out what it is you want.”

  “I want to get out of college and get a job and be on my own. Well, I want someone to sleep with at night. I can’t stand sleeping by myself. I could sleep with Aunt Mary Lily but she’s so big and she snores and she worries about sleeping with me. She’s afraid of lesbians. She thinks people will think we’re queer if we sleep together. Well, to tell the truth I want to sleep with Bobby. I like to touch his skin. I like to lie around and be next to him. Is that so terrible?”