The Cadence of Grass

by Mcguane, Thomas

  She took note of her new partner with the detachment of an anthropologist, his nice quality of having no more than smoothed his blond hair back after his shower; she absolutely loved that he seemed afraid to speak to her. He was a handsome and perhaps uncomplicated unit. When humans are raised for meat, Kansas feedlots will give this guy all the grain he can eat. He had plunged his hands into his pockets in a particularly hopeless gesture when he asked her to dance, and yet he was very becoming. All Evelyn’s green lights were on as she hung round his strong young neck. “What is your name?” she asked.

  “I’m Evan.”

  She was mad for this shy politeness, incongruously coupled with his newly palpable arousal. This was getting good, though whether it would cure the dolor of the morning’s shipping remained to be seen. The waves of alcoholic euphoria were sure helping. Evelyn was determined, no matter how many drinks she had, not to tell him how attractive he was. That always blew up in your face. That made scumbags out of Boy Scouts!

  “My name is quite close to yours, Evan. Mine is Evelyn.”

  As she said this, she felt the room grow distant and time awkwardly slow. She couldn’t for the moment understand why saying her own name aloud made her loneliness so evident that it nearly choked her. Now all funny thoughts had fled. She looked at her young dance partner and wondered if he yet understood that all the cures for loneliness failed, that it was a chronic state and that anything used to anesthetize it turned into its own problem. Yes, she thought, we’ll spare Evan that.

  The lead singer came rushing across the stage, bent back from the waist, madly waving a handkerchief, his mouth a distorted trumpet. A sort of codpiece slid halfway down one thigh as angry quarter notes from the guitarist drove him back to the microphone screeching, “Don’t need no, Don’t got no—!” while he raped the stand that held it up. This provided an awkward background that Evelyn suddenly thought was funny. At that same moment, when the front door opened and snow flew in, the singer took time out from his throes to actually frown at the weather.

  That did it. Evelyn doubled in laughter. Indeed, Evan had to hold her up, even as she recognized this as hysteria and a ghastly form of release. But it was contagious: the dancing stopped. Right after the fraught singer had concluded several pacts with the devil, the air went out of the room. The lead guitarist peered through the lights furtively. The drummer’s blurred arms no longer seemed part of him as he stole furtive glances at the audience. Evelyn’s hysteria was a conquering force. The singer seemed strangely platitudinous when, so soon after his arrangements with Satan, he demanded of the crowd, “You want to try this? Anybody like to get up here and show us how good they are?” An unshaven brute in the audience, beer bottle brandished by its neck, his hat on backward, informed the singer that he was “crazier than a shithouse rat.”

  Evelyn had to get out of here right then. “I need some fresh air,” she said to Evan.

  His mouth dropped open an instant before he caught himself and tried to look wise and in control. It was adorable. This had every chance of being several hours of true love, an inoculation that could last the entire winter.

  “I got a car,” he said.

  “I’ll bet you do, Evan.”

  It was a perfect old Cadillac Coupe de Ville, astonishingly spacious. The foot of snow on the windshield seemed to cast its own pale light on the interior. She unexpectedly began asking herself what she was doing here, with things rather going around and love somewhat less easy to reference. Evan no longer seemed afraid of her, and she was not sure she liked that. The idea of a sudden new Evan was not in the cards. The stillness of his gaze struck her as predatory. “Like the car?”

  She watched him to see if anything in his expression might help her answer his question. “I do like it, Evan. It feels big, almost like a boat.”

  Evan weighed his words, his face barely moving as he spoke. “I like it because it don’t have an electronic ignition.”

  Evelyn felt challenged to understand Evan’s remark.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about those electric things.”

  “Well, you ought to know about that one.” Evan seemed riveted.

  “It’s too late now,” she said, thinking to add, “to learn auto mechanics,” but she was unwilling to chance anything clever. She had to see where this was going since the unblinking face of the newly confident Evan now made her want to get out of the car. She thought she’d better humor him. “Perhaps you could fill me in on this ignition business, in your own words, of course.”

  “You know about the New World Order?” He was unzipping his fly.

  She frowned at this behavior, and he stopped. “Is it like the United Nations?” she asked hopefully. Oh boy, she thought, here come the black helicopters.

  “It’s way worse.”

  “Uh, in what way, Evan?”

  “They want to turn us into slaves.” He was matter-of-fact about this.

  “You don’t say. But Evan, what about the auto mechanics you promised to explain?” Everything seemed to have gone to his eyes. She had a fleeting thought that if she were suicidal, this would be her man. “Didn’t you promise?”

  Evan watched and waited her out.

  “The New World Order is gonna use satellites to turn off all the electronic ignitions. They’re gonna enslave all the white males who own recent-model cars.” Evelyn widened her eyes to suggest that she hadn’t realized this automotive feature was available. “Then they plan to use Gurkhas to round us up and put us in concentration camps located in Kansas. It’s common knowledge.”

  Kansas? Evelyn remembered that was where her calves were going.

  “But Evan, why do they want to do this to . . . white males?” She was thinking about what great instincts she had, heading for the parking lot with this turkey.

  Finally Evan’s face moved: he smiled. He had something to share with Evelyn. He told her very evenly, “They want to subject us to maritime law.”

  Evelyn had to admit that even she didn’t even see that one coming. Still, she was reluctant to ask picky questions like, Isn’t that the law of the sea? Instead, she said, “Evan, I’m going back inside to dance. This is my reward for a long day. When I dance, I don’t think about these larger issues.”

  His hand encircled her wrist, gently at first. “You don’t even like the band.”

  “That’s true. But it’s still more or less music.”

  “You pretended you wanted to spend the night with me.” She saw two couples angling through the parked cars toward the entrance, hunched up against the latest dusting of snow. One of the men gazed lovingly at his companion, a rosy cheeked brunette. As Evelyn pulled her arm back, Evan tightened his grip and looked as if he was about to accuse her of treason. “Admit you like it nasty.”

  “No, Evan, I do not admit I ‘like it nasty.’ But Evan, one thing I do great is scream. Know what I mean? I can get you into the clink even without maritime law. So let go of my arm or you’re going to be one of those white males headed for slavery in Kansas. I know Gurkhas in high places.”

  The grip did loosen. Evelyn was surprised by his compliance. She opened her door, snow falling into her lap. The interior light flashed over Evan. His role as spotter of megatrends bent on the elimination of his kind was evaporating fast, leaving a disoriented hayseed. Evelyn was now in control of the situation but didn’t feel the time for compassion had quite arrived. “Evan, you need a new car.” Evan flinched at these words.

  “Have a look around,” she said. “Take a chance. Buy one with that funny ignition. You’ll be in the same boat with the rest of us. And now this old single gal is going to vote with her feet.” The snow blowing into the Cadillac seemed to emphasize his forlorn state, and nearly obliterated the view of the bar, which no longer seemed a haven. She stopped instead and turned to her car.

  The engine started, but the wipers seemed overwhelmed by the snow. And now, she thought, for some drunk driving. She pulled onto the highway, heading northwest—
toward what? The Missouri River? Maybe a cozy bar a thousand feet lower? Asylum? Maybe no snow, and a chance to reconfirm the existence of sky behind this ominous cover of white. Sometimes these squalls came in so low you could push toward White Sulphur Springs and be under the stars inside twenty minutes. Though it was rarely necessary more than once a year, you could drink all night with strangers.

  She found herself driving on a dirt road through frozen wheat stubble at about the time the dashboard clock showed two a.m. Now every bar was closed. She mused upon the dreadful events that seemed to pile up after closing time on winter nights: schnapps in to-go cups, jumper cables, brutal groping and slurred affections, horrible radio music that was suddenly “great.” Every new season bore something macabre on the wind, with people clubbed, pushed out of cars, people murdered. Not everyone could handle last call when they were already facing winter. Nor lonely escapes on empty roads and lost highways.

  Evelyn drove at a steady pace as the wind changed the shapes of snow in her headlights. A deer stepped onto the road from the barrow pit, its eyes bright as platinum. She hit the brakes and the car simply shifted its angle and traveled in a frictionless drift toward the deer that stepped out of the way, its amazed face showing briefly in her window as she slid past and off the road into the ditch. The engine quit. Everything she’d been watching was swallowed by darkness. The engine ticked and cooled in the quiet.

  She had no trouble restarting the engine, but the headlights wavered as though losing electricity. When she put the car in gear, the drive wheel spun so freely it failed to disturb the stillness of the vehicle. And when she opened the door to get out, it collided with the side of the ditch bank. She opened the opposite door and the wind ripped it out of her hands, snow whirling inside wildly until she pulled it shut. In her fear she tried the radio, finding only a station on which someone was ranting. She turned it off.

  But the motor ran, the heater ran, and there was a reassuring vibration in the car, a feeling, like life, that seemed to hold the piling snow at bay. She held her hand up to the rearview mirror and felt that hope was confirmed by its reflection. There was no food in the glovebox, just the owner’s manual and, somehow, an old issue of The Watch Tower. There was enough gas to run till sunup. Things could be worse. She felt an odd need to seem to be occupied. The radio, again, was no help, no more than a steady hiss, and when she shut it off, the knob came loose in her hand: she put it in the glovebox with the Jehovah’s Witness tract, quite formally promising herself not to let this get to her. Instead, she elected to concern herself with whether Bill had fed Cree, Jailbait, Scram, Lady Luck and Crackerjack. Of course he had. He’d made a small pile of alfalfa away from the other horses, because Crackerjack was timid, and then had piled the cob and rolled oats in the middle. After tiptoeing up to dine, Crackerjack would watch all around himself between mouthfuls and, once the food was finished, would paw at the ground with his speckled right foot to make certain he hadn’t missed a single flake. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze the creek, so there was as yet no need to spud a hole in the ice for the horses to drink. But the cows, that was another story. She knew they were searching everywhere in the storm for their calves; they would search for days and never find them. Each cow believed that just one small further effort, one more step, and her calf would appear. Evelyn looked down at herself, half curled up on the seat in her little black dress and the black coat in which she’d wound herself: she looked like a calf herself. She tried to smile at this thought. Perhaps she could sleep.

  The chugging of an old vehicle could be made out over the sound of her car. She twisted around and in the distance could discern two uneven cones of headlights bouncing up the dirt road in her direction. The vehicle was moving slowly and the good light penetrated in a straight line toward her like an arrow while the weaker one wobbled its light across the ground. As it came closer, she could make out the dark mass of an old sedan behind it and, buttoning her coat, decided to take a chance. She got out of the car on the low side and clambered up the bank onto the roadway. She held her arms straight out from her sides, raising and lowering them in what she thought was a universal request for assistance. Then the car slowed down and stopped, the animated, snow-filled beam of good light shining off into the distance.

  The driver’s door opened and a huge man got out, a dark beard against a torn military coat, a billed cap pulled low. For some reason he didn’t speak, didn’t ask what her problem was. She listened to her own overly detailed description of the deer coming onto the road and grew acutely aware of ice she now felt under her feet and the odd patience with which the man let her speak. The three other doors of the car slowly began opening, and she could see men getting out. “I don’t think this will be necessary,” she said, without quite understanding what she meant. “Not required,” she added with a dismissive wave of her hand, then turned and hurried through the drifts into the night. She didn’t look back until she was out of breath, when she could see the interior lights of her car and the shapes of men going through it. In another few yards, the snow obscured them.

  Evelyn was walking away from the river. She knew that by walking away from a river you could be walking into nowhere. But at the moment, walking of any kind seemed entirely positive and the snow was at her back, the only way she could see through it at all though it didn’t prevent her from colliding with a fence. The wire was too tight to crawl through, so she felt along until she reached a brace post and climbed over. To be inside the fence was a relief. Pioneers coming through Indian country often wept when they saw fences. But she was beginning to get cold and would have to find something to break the wind. The first prospect of shelter was a slight ridge, but the snow had piled up just beyond it and the lee was insufficient; this was a possible place to die and therefore would not do just now. She felt quite level-headed in acknowledging that she was unprepared for death. Even if her mind was in ribbons, she wanted to go on.

  The strap broke on one of her shoes. They offered little protection, but she now had to shuffle on one foot to keep from losing it and, from time to time, lost it anyway. The snow was melting in her hair and running down her neck, and she wondered if she hadn’t been better off following the fence, or if perhaps she should have trusted those men. Nothing in her route suggested a destination unless it was sunrise still three hours off, if she could last. It was heartening to plan to meet some point in time when meeting some point on earth seemed unattainable. She realized how cold she had gotten when the thought crossed her mind, What difference does it make? She was traveling toward sunrise and sunrise was traveling toward her. Either they met or they didn’t. Nothing else mattered. She and sunrise were old friends, no?

  Evelyn sat at the base of a juniper tree acknowledging that it was poor shelter and that while she was certainly not giving up, it was time to await an idea. That was all that was missing. Noting that the broken shoe was gone, she was vaguely surprised that she hadn’t noticed any pain or coldness in that foot. Perhaps, she thought, it was simply more courageous than the other foot. Maybe it was tired of sharing. Lately, people were always offering to “share” with you, usually something entirely unwelcome, occasionally a nasty surprise. Her heart went out to the warmer foot for keeping its own counsel. Overhead, the slumped contours of the juniper were sagging with snow. The shredded bark against her back seemed protective. Then something strange happened: the wind stopped, leaving an apprehensive quiet.

  Her head was down on her chest and the snow piled upon herself when she heard a tentative lowing which gathered into a broad, inquiring volume. Evelyn stared hard toward the rumble of deep voices, the spinning whiteness of the snow. At length, the first black faces began to appear, massing in front of her, crowding for room, then around her, each different from the next. In her black dress and loose coat, she curled on the ground before them. The circle tightened until she felt their heat.

  Was this the warm outer room of death? Evelyn was wrapped in several army blankets, her head tu
rned against a gray-and-white-striped ticking pillow. The shade of the bedside lamp had pine trees appliquéd to panels of imitation buckskin, the seams laced not with rawhide but shoelaces. The room smelled of cold wood, and beyond the uncurtained window the flat winter light contained no detail. Evelyn ran her hands over herself and discovered that she was in the same black dress, then noticed pants and an old blue sweater folded over a chair, it seemed, for her use. Some of the tension went out of her body, and she was aware of a sound outside.

  Evelyn looked down into a yard enclosed by a shelter belt of caragana and evergreens, grown tangled together and unkempt, banked by graying snow, fastened here and there by debris that seemed to have blown from the general refuse of the house into the nearest thing that stopped the wind: newspapers, binder twine, plastic grocery store bags. Wrapped in one of the blankets, she started as a figure appeared below her dragging a length of wood and adding it to a rick of logs and branches. An empty flagpole stood to one side, its ropes slapping in a steady wind. The figure was a man, encumbered by heavy clothing and a navy blue hat whose earflaps were drawn alongside his face, and for as long as she watched, he continued to drag wood from out of her sight into the square steadily formed by the logs. What is he building? A shelter? Nothing about this procedure changed, and in its repetition was something grim that Evelyn wished to see no more of. She turned from the window and looked at the clothes on the chair, reluctant to put them on. When she dropped the blanket from her shoulders, she regarded the previously fashionable black dress as some annoying slut suit and unhesitatingly rid herself of it and replaced it with the baggy, warm and clean clothing on the chair. She balled up the dress tightly and put it on the chair, where it began to expand; she compressed it again and pressed it between the rungs. She was ready to be seen, should there be anyone to see her.