But the Stauffers, who bought the house from Ruth, had a growing family. When their last girl was born they decided they needed extra rooms worse than they needed a carport. They built two small rooms in the area where the carport had once been.
It was one of those rooms that Sonny had driven into. Fortunately both little girls had been outside when Sonny’s car hit the house.
“Sonny won’t look at me,” Jacy said. “I noticed that the first time I went into that depressing little store to buy magazines. He doesn’t really look at me.”
“He’s shy with me, too,” Karla said.
“It’s not shyness,” Jacy said. “I like shyness. In fact, as I get older, I like it more and more. With Sonny it’s something else. He wants me in the golden past, and if I hang around reading magazines too long and he has to contemplate the present me, it fucks up his fantasy or something.”
“He don’t take very good magazines, either,” Bobby Lee complained. He was riding in the back seat with Jacy; her proximity made him so nervous that he was scrunched over against one door.
“Lock that door or you’ll fall out, the way you’re scrunched up against it,” Karla said.
“Don’t pick on him,” Duane said. Bobby Lee looked fragile. One testy word from Karla might send him plummeting into depression.
“Why’s he scrunched up against the door like that?” Karla asked.
“Because he’s a rabbit,” Jacy said.
Bobby Lee accepted that description without protest.
“Jacy says worse things to him than I do,” Karla said.
“I think the town should raise taxes,” Bobby Lee said.
“Why?” Duane asked.
“They need to build a couple more quiet rooms onto the hospital,” Bobby Lee said. “Lester hogs that one they got. Now Sonny needs one and I might need one any day.”
“You’re a working man,” Duane reminded him. “You can’t afford to sit around in a quiet room having nervous breakdowns.”
Jacy and Karla laughed.
“What’s funny about me having a nervous breakdown?” Bobby Lee asked.
“It’s just a funny thought,” Karla said.
“This is a democracy, I can have one if I want to,” Bobby Lee said. “If I do it’ll be because mean women drove me to it.”
Duane felt his spirits lift a little. It was pleasant to be riding around in the morning with Karla and Jacy, idly picking on Bobby Lee. The women seemed to be in a good mood too, and Bobby Lee had not yet plummeted into depression, although he continued to scrunch against the door.
The only threat to rising spirits was having to actually go see Sonny. In no time they were in town. Duane exchanged glances with the women. He wondered if they were thinking what he was thinking, which was that it would be nice to postpone actually seeing Sonny. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask them, but he didn’t.
“Let’s don’t go to the hospital yet,” Karla said.
“Why not?” Duane asked.
“Duane, you don’t want to either,” Karla said. “Let’s just go see how much damage he did to the house.”
The house proved to be a sobering sight. A crowd of onlookers, most of them dressed in pioneer garb, stood in the street, evidently sobered by it too. No one was saying much.
Sonny’s car was firmly embedded in one of the new rooms that had been built where the carport once stood. The two little girls who ordinarily lived in the rooms were cheerfully giving lemonade to the hung-over celebrants in pioneer clothes who had come to see the damage.
The parents, Ed and Josie Stauffer, who ran the hardware store, were far less cheerful. They were too uncheerful even to stand on their feet. Both sat glumly in lawn chairs.
“How’s it look from the inside?” Duane asked.
“It looks like something you don’t even want to think about,” Josie Stauffer said. “Go see for yourself.”
Just as Duane went inside, Shiny Miller roared up in his huge tow truck. Shiny specialized in towing trucks, buses or other large vehicles. He rarely bothered with cars, but had apparently decided to make an exception for one embedded in a house.
Bobby Lee gingerly followed Duane inside.
Sonny’s car almost filled the little girl’s bedroom. The bed was crushed under its front wheels. A shelf of stuffed animals had fallen through the car window into the front seat. The car was slightly longer than the room. Its front bumper had gone through the north wall.
“It takes a lot of luck to survive around here,” Bobby Lee said.
“A lot of luck,” Duane said.
“Do you think he thought he was just driving up to see Ruth, back when there was a carport here?” Bobby Lee asked.
“I have no idea what he thought,” Duane said.
Suddenly there was the roar of a heavy engine, and the whole house began to shake.
“Uh-oh,” Duane said. “Go stop Shiny. He’s pulling the house off the foundation.”
Before Bobby Lee could move, the refrigerator in the kitchen crashed over, right in front of him.
“Oh, shit!” he said.
As he was crawling over the refrigerator the cabinet doors swung open and all the glasses and plates slid out of the cabinets and began to break.
“Why doesn’t somebody tell him to stop?” Duane said.
Bobby Lee scrambled over the fallen refrigerator, Duane right behind him. Several drawers shot out of the kitchen cabinet, scattering knives and forks amid the broken crockery. A tide of canned goods shook off the pantry shelves and flowed into the kitchen. Duane turned his ankle on a rolling can of butter beans.
Fortunately it was a small house, and they were able to struggle outside. Most of the crowd, having witnessed a tumble-weed stampede and a dazzling centennial pageant in less than twenty-four hours, were too jaded to react strongly to the sight of a small house being pulled off its foundations by a large tow truck. The Stauffers still sat in their lawn chairs, watching it all dully. Karla and Jacy were jumping up and down on the sidewalk, yelling at Shiny, but Shiny smiled down at them from his high cab as if he thought they were encouraging them to keep on trucking. The roar of his huge engine drowned out their words.
The little house had already been turned at right angles to its former position. Instead of facing the street, it now faced its neighbor’s dog kennels. It was being watched closely by two mournful bird dogs.
Sonny’s car, which was what the tow truck was actually attached to, had not budged from its position.
Duane hobbled across the lawn and managed to climb up to the level of the truck cab. Between his broken ribs and his newly turned ankle, it was all he could do.
“Stop, Shiny!” he yelled. “It’s not working!”
“I ain’t got her in grandma yet, either,” Shiny said.
“No, you’re towing the house!” Duane yelled.
Shiny stuck his head out the window and looked back down his tow cable.
“Oh, my lord!” he said, instantly slackening the cable.
The house, partially off its foundation, tipped slightly. One corner rested on the ground.
“What do you reckon I ought to do now, Duane?” Shiny asked.
Duane looked at the tipped house with Sonny’s car still firmly embedded in it. Canned goods from the pantry were rolling out the front door.
“I don’t know, Shiny,” he said. “I think if I were you I might just move to Mexico.”
CHAPTER 77
“I WANT TO LIVE IN THE JAIL,” SONNY SAID. “IT’S just a block from my room, and it’s cleaner than my room. On days when I feel in control I can ask Toots to let me out.”
They were in the Dairy Queen, talking the situation over. Certain amends had already been made. Sonny owned four smallish rent houses in Thalia. He had offered to give the Stauffers one of them in settlement for the damages done to their home.
The Stauffers had quickly accepted. They were beginning to adapt to their own celebrity. Lots of people, already grown bored with the more hi
storical aspects of the centennial, had straggled over to see the house that had been nailed by a Plymouth and then pulled off its foundation by a tow truck. Some took snapshots of it. Josie Stauffer, more resilient than her husband, had already begun to look on it as a lucky day. Both her daughters were alive, and she had just been given a new and larger house.
Ed Stauffer, more pessimistic, continued to sit in his lawn chair, wondering what would happen next.
“I expect a bolt of lightning will come down from the sky before the day’s over,” he said, several times.
Jacy had had an attack of revulsion at the thought of seeing Sonny and had gone back to Los Dolores.
“I just don’t want to see him,” she said. “Something about him makes my skin crawl. It happened the day I married him, too. My skin started crawling. That’s why we never fucked.”
“Was it because he just had one eye?” Duane asked.
“Naw, that didn’t bother me,” Jacy said. “It’s his willingness to be unhappy, or something. It gave me the creeps then, and it gives me the creeps now.”
Sonny knew that his car wreck had deeply depressed Duane and Karla. He thought his decision to live in the jail might please them, but as soon as he said it he saw that it didn’t.
“It would actually improve the quality of life in the jail if I stayed there,” he said. “I’m a pretty good cook. Besides, the deputies get lonesome sitting there night after night by themselves. I could play cards with them. I might cheer them up.”
“What did you see in your head, when you ran into the house?” Karla asked.
“I didn’t see the house,” Sonny explained patiently. “There used to be a carport there. Ruth and I parked in it hundreds of times when I took her home. I just turned into it exactly like I used to.”
“It’s just lucky those little girls were outside,” Duane said, remembering the crushed bed.
“Maybe you better come and live at our house,” Karla said. “Sitting in the hot tub’s real good therapy. At least it works for me.”
Duane didn’t say anything, but he felt uneasy at the thought of Sonny living with them. They had two grandchildren at home, after all. It was not likely that he would do anything to harm them, but then it had not seemed likely that he would try to drive through a house, either.
“Oh, no,” Sonny said. “I don’t think I could live in a house where there’s lots of people.”
“I think you better see another doctor,” Duane said. “Whatever that first one gave you isn’t getting the job done.”
“There’s really nothing wrong with living in a jail,” Sonny said. “I’d pay a reasonable rent. It would save the county money.”
“It’s not a hospital, though,” Duane said. “We’d like to see you cured, and you won’t get cured sitting in that old jail.”
“What if I’m never cured?” Sonny said, in a different tone. He sounded almost belligerent, for a moment.
“You’ve just been to one doctor,” Karla pointed out. “There’s lots of doctors. The next one might cure you in no time.”
Sonny shook his head. His brief anger, if it had been anger, had passed, and a flat, sad look came on his face.
“The jail’s the best solution,” he said. “I’ll keep it clean and help with the cooking. I’ll even give up my driver’s license, if that would help. That way I couldn’t possibly hurt anybody. I don’t need to drive. All my businesses are here. If I did need to go to Wichita Falls I could just hitchhike.”
“We’ve got a lot of room in that big house,” Karla said. “Junior Nolan lived with us and we never even noticed him.”
But she said it hopelessly. She seemed about to cry.
Various survivors of the first night of the centennial sat in the Dairy Queen, several of them so hung over that it seemed a second night might kill them.
Sonny got up, scattered some change on the table and went out. Through the window they could see him walk slowly up the hot street.
Karla was tearing her napkin into little pieces. It was a habit Duane hated. Partly he hated it because he just hated it, and partly he hated it because she only did it when she was very angry or very sad.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
Karla continued to tear the napkin into minute squares.
“I hate this place,” she said. “Why won’t he live in our house?”
“You’re going to Italy,” he reminded her. “What would I do with him while you’re gone?”
“He could just watch TV with Minerva,” Karla said. “He could if he wasn’t so stubborn. I don’t want him to go away to some hospital. He’s lived here all his life. It wouldn’t be the same town without him.”
Duane watched her tear the napkin into small bits. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I know you don’t want him living with us,” Karla said. “You didn’t back me up one bit.”
“It would just be one more person to watch,” Duane said. “You might decide you like Europe and stay for months. I can’t watch everybody.”
“I don’t want him to go away,” Karla said. “I’ll build him a house out by us. That way he won’t get on your nerves.”
“He’s already gone away, honey,” Duane said. “He’s just gone away to the past.”
Karla finished tearing up the napkin.
“I don’t care,” she said. “It’s not as bad as thinking about him living in a hospital among strangers.”
She got up and hurried outside to cry in the car. Duane decided to give her five minutes. He sipped his cold coffee. Buster Lickle came clipping down the road in a buggy, ready to give people buggy rides from the Dairy Queen to Old Texasville, on the courthouse lawn.
Several customers stared at the buggy malevolently, as if it were responsible for their headaches. No one went out to take a ride, although Buster, dressed as a riverboat gambler, sat waiting hopefully.
CHAPTER 78
“OKAY, LET HIM LIVE HERE,” DUANE SAID, FINALLY. “I’ll be bankrupt and won’t have anything to do anyway. I can sit around all day and watch him and Barbette and Little Mike.”
After her cry, Karla descended into a cold silence. They drove home in silence. At home they tried to take a nap but neither could sleep. Karla hadn’t uttered a sound for twenty minutes. They both lay on their backs on the waterbed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling.
Duane wished she would say something, even something bitter and horrible. She didn’t. Eventually he decided that having Sonny live with them would be less nerve-wracking than trying to endure even two more minutes of Karla’s silence.
On the way home they had stopped to get the mail. The only interesting thing in it was a short letter from C. L. Sime, of Odessa, Texas.
Duane read the letter while stopped at the red light:
DEAR DUANE,
As we have done business several times I hope you will not mind if I address you by your first name.
I have read your well-typed proposition. It is a fair proposition but I am going to say no. The reason is, I try not to encumber myself with rigs or other hardware.
There’s good production in Norway. It’s a chilly place, tho not as bad as Amarillo.
Politely yours,
C. L. SIME
“The light’s green,” Karla said, her last words for twenty minutes.
Duane tucked the letter in his pocket. He could not remember why he had ever supposed his proposition would really interest C. L. Sime.
“At least I had a little vacation from thinking about bankruptcy,” he said.
Karla said nothing.
“I think our sex life’s over,” she said, resuming the conversation only after he had broken down and offered to let Sonny come and live with them.
“You’ve said that before and been wrong,” he reminded her.
“Sonny’s your oldest friend,” Karla said.
“What’s that got to do with our sex life?” Duane asked.
“Plenty,” Karla said, although she di
dn’t expand on the comment.
“I said he could stay,” Duane said.
“Yeah, an hour late,” Karla said. “If you’d backed me up at the Dairy Queen we could have already had him moved in.”
“It still doesn’t have anything to do with our sex life,” Duane said.
“Yeah, it does,” Karla said. “You weren’t loyal to your oldest friend, so we aren’t going to have one anymore. Not that we were having one anyway. It was just within the realm of possibility then, and now it’s not.”
“Oldest friend doesn’t mean best friend,” Duane pointed out. “You can wear a friendship out.”
“That’s right,” Karla said. “Just like a sex life.”
Duane gave up and went to town. Karla’s colder angers could last for days. He felt that he had tried his best—his efforts had just failed.
As he passed the square he noticed that the baseball throw had drawn a huge crowd. Lester Marlow sat on a plank above a tank of water. At least twenty people were lined up waiting their chance to throw balls at the bull’s-eye and duck Lester. Someone had evidently already hit the bull’s-eye, because Lester was soaking wet.
Duane started to stop at his office. He wanted to talk to Ruth. But after a moment’s hesitation, he decided that he wanted, even more, to see Suzie Nolan. Probably Dickie would be there, but there was always the chance that he wouldn’t.
To his relief, no Porsche was in the driveway. Suzie was in her den, watching a soap opera.
“Did you really buy Dickie that Porsche?” Duane asked.
“Oh, I just put my name on the note,” Suzie said. She wrinkled her nose at him good-humoredly, as if to indicate that it wasn’t any of his business.
“Why?” Duane asked.
Suzie laughed.
“You’d know why if you’d ever been to bed with him,” Suzie said. “That little rat’s just a prize.”
Duane decided he should have settled for a talk with Ruth. Suzie’s preference for Dickie was so obvious that it made him feel out of place. His spirits, low already, slipped a little lower.
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