“I’m just going down to Fort Campbell, Ma. I won’t even be one state away. When my car gets here, I’ll be able to drive home on weekends for the first time since I’ve been in the army. Campbell is the closest to home I’ve ever been stationed. You know that.”
His mother handed him a glass of iced tea and took his arm. She had that look on her face as if she were going to tell him not to worry, that everything would be fine. But when she turned to him, she said:
“Please don’t sell the car, Sam. Please. Every once in awhile, I’ll walk out there and open the door and just stand there and look at it, remembering all the work you did building it, remembering how happy it made you, remembering all those Friday and Saturday nights at the race tracks around here. I never really understood all that racing you did, but your father and I, well, we thought anything that made you that happy had to be just wonderful, and we were so proud of you, every time you won… .”
Sam put a finger to his mother’s lips.
“Okay, Ma. I’ll call George and tell him the deal’s off. Hell, now that I’m going to be so close, maybe I can enter a couple of races just for old times’ sake. Who knows?”
His mother rested her head on his shoulder, and together they stared out the kitchen window.
“You know, you may not remember this, but I became obsessed with racing right after Tommy died, remember?”
His mother nodded.
“It was what I did to keep my mind off Tommy. I missed him so, Ma, you know, having the little guy following me around, getting in my way, standing outside the door of my room when I was talking to girls on the phone … all of that little brother stuff… . God, how I missed him.”
“I know that, Sam. I know. We all did.”
“And the modified … working on it, driving it around the dirt roads every day, having it sitting out there in the shed waiting for me when I got home from school … that car became my substitute for Tommy. When I was day-dreaming at school, instead of thinking about missing Tommy, I could think about what I was going to do to the car that day, you know? And every race I entered, I entered it for Tommy. And every race I won, I won for Tommy. I always figured, if he was still around, I’d give him the car when I left for the army. But …”
“I know exactly what you mean, Sam. There were things I did to forget, too. You remember when I started that huge flower garden, and how I started selling cut flowers down at the corner at that little stand? I worked that garden practically day and night, and when I wasn’t working it, I was selling at the stand, or delivering flowers to my regular customers. And your father, well, politics was it for him. He was political before Tommy’s death, but afterwards, politics took up every waking moment for that man.”
“Yeah, I remember. It was the summer after Tommy died that I had to take all those messages to Dad on the tractor, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Well, okay, Ma. The modified stays. I’ll call George right now.”
As he walked into the living room, heading for the phone, his mother called after him:
“I’m going to cry when I put you on that bus today, Sam. I cried the last time, when you went to Germany. I tried not to let you see me, but the tears were there.”
He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. She was busying herself at the sink, stacking the lunch dishes.
When he returned he said: “I couldn’t get George on the phone. We’ll have to stop off at his place on our way downtown.”
They took the pickup over to Biderman’s, about four miles down the blacktop toward town. Biderman raced street stock, and the modified would have been a big step up for him. He loved the car, and was disappointed when Sam told him he had decided to hang onto it.
At the depot, Sam loaded the duffel under the bus, put his overnight bag on one of the seats, and went back outside to say goodbye.
His mother hugged him and held him for a long moment. When she let go, Sam stepped back and looked at her. She was tiny, standing alone next to the big truck. He kissed her again and climbed back on the bus.
The pickup was still sitting there when the bus pulled out. He could see his mother’s hands on the steering wheel. He couldn’t see her face in the shadow of the cab, but he didn’t have to.
It was like she said it would be. He knew the tears were there, and she knew, too. But neither mother nor son could see them.
BY THE TIME Johnny Gee arrived at the diner on Route 49, it was dusk and cars were starting to turn their headlights on. But in the sky above the roof the sun still shone from beyond the horizon, bathing the stainless steel front of the diner in a light as old and tired as the day itself.
The Camaro pulled up right in front. Johnny Gee could see his friend sitting in a booth by the window. He tossed a dollar bill on the front seat for gas, took the steps of the diner two at a time, pushed through the glass doors, waved hello to the cashier, and sat down across from his friend.
Howie Radian and Johnny Gee had known each other since Johnny started hanging out in the pool hall in junior high. When Johnny Gee was in junior high, Howie had seemed so old and so wise that he couldn’t possibly get any older or wiser. Johnny Gee became a sidekick to the man about town. Now Johnny Gee looked at him across the booth, and it seemed more than the years separated them. They’d lived completely different lives, and it showed. Howie had been a state Democratic Party district committee-man, spent two terms as county chairman, and was still in charge of a dozen voting precincts on the south side of town every election day. Johnny Gee had never quite figured out how Howie actually had time to make a living with all the political activity he engaged in. He knew the older man’s wife had held a steady job until she’d passed away the year before. Howie lived in modest circumstances in an old farmhouse on the edge of a new subdivision not far down the highway from the diner. He drove a five-year-old Cadillac Eldorado. Johnny Gee remembered going over to Howie’s for dinner the night he’d finished paying off the car. The old man had bought two bottles of Asti Spumante sparkling wine, and his wife made a cake. The Cadillac, then almost four years old, still looked brand new. God, Howie was proud of that car. He even built a carport next to the house to keep it out of the weather.
“You’re late,” said the old man, taking a sip of coffee. His face was deeply lined and tanned. Beneath the tan, you could make out burst blood vessels on his cheeks and nose. Johnny Gee knew he’d been drinking more than usual since his wife died, and he looked it. His bulbous nose glowed in the diner’s fluorescent light, and his hands shook as he lifted the coffee cup to his lips.
“Fifteen minutes, what’s fifteen minutes?” asked Johnny Gee, signaling the waitress. “I had a hard time getting a ride. You could have come down to Third Street and got me.”
The old man put the coffee cup down, and rubbed his face with both hands. Johnny Gee noticed that his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“Couldn’t. Had to drive over from Hardesty County this afternoon. Bad traffic on the interstate. They’re still fixing that fucking road out there past Route 30.”
A waitress in a red wig and electric blue minidress cocked her head and cracked her gum twice to get their attention.
“Grilled cheese, pickles and onions, fries, coffee,” said Johnny Gee. “You want anything else?”
“Nope,” said the old man, tapping the rim of his cup with his wedding ring.
“That’ll be it.” The waitress sashayed off in the direction of the kitchen. Two pencils stuck out of the side of her wig like exotic hair ornaments.
“What you got on tonight?” asked Johnny Gee in a low voice. His friend stared at him across the booth for a moment before he spoke.
“Like I said, I want you to watch my back. You can do it from right here where you’re sitting. Just take your time with supper. It ain’t happening for another hour.”
The waitress brought the fries and the coffee.
“All you got to do is watch the front seat of my car. Se
e where I’m parked, over by the hedge?” The old man pointed out the window. The bright red Eldorado was nosed up against the hedge at an angle. The car still looked almost new under the lights that illuminated the parking lot of the diner.
“Who are these guys? They been giving you a problem? Johnny Gee popped a french fry into his mouth and studied his friend.
“I told you. Just some fellas from over to Hamilton County. You wouldn’t know ’em. I got to know ’em when I was county chairman. They offered me an opportunity, and I took it. Didn’t turn out the way I thought. I ended up owing a bundle. This is supposed to be my last payment.”
Johnny Gee stirred cream into his coffee and lit a cigarette.
“You got the money, Howie?”
“Not all of it.”
“What happens if you don’t come across?”
“I got insurance, Johnny. Don’t worry. They know I got it. They won’t try nothing.”
It was dark outside now, and the diner was beginning to fill up. Two long tables against the far wall were reserved for truckers. A cluster of Kenworth and Peterbilt caps along the wall said that business hadn’t dropped off among the highway cowboys. A half dozen dusty pickups were parked next to the Eldorado, and their overall-clad drivers sat along the counter, equally dusty from planting winter wheat in nearby fields.
“I got to make a call,” said the old man, getting up from the booth. “Back in a minute. Gimme a wave if you see a blue Buick drive up.”
“Sure thing.” Johnny Gee watched his friend walk slowly toward the phones on the wall at the other end of the diner. He moved in a kind of lopsided shuffle, and he’d put on a pound or two since the last time they’d seen each other. Johnny wondered how he looked to Howie. It was getting so that every time they got together, something had changed with each of them. Johnny Gee put his cigarette out and watched the parking lot.
***
It had to be one of the nicest sounds in the whole world, a big interstate bus at speed down the road. The low rumble of the diesel engine … all those wheels singing the highway song … it came right up through your backbone and filled you with the most comfortable sensation of peace and power. You didn’t have to worry about a thing. Somebody else was moving that box of aluminum and steel at sixty-plus. All you had to do was tilt the seat back and enjoy.
Sam Butterfield was still hours from Fort Campbell, and already it was getting dark outside. He turned his head and looked out the window. The bus had left the interstate highway, and was headed down a two-lane state road somewhere deep in southern Illinois. Stopping in every little one-red-light town along the way… . For some people that was a waste of valuable time, but to him, it was part of the experience. Every time he traveled by bus he saw parts of the country he’d never seen before. He squinted into the gathering darkness. Rolling hills, corn ready for harvest, a stand of oak and ash here and there, roadside farm stands selling broccoli and cabbages and fresh apple cider … Daylight would show the burnished reds and oranges of autumn, but just before dark the passing countryside was suffused with hues of the deepest darkest blue. In just a minute it would be dark, and he wouldn’t be able to make out a thing unless the bus passed through a town, so it was a challenge, catching the last glimpse of the disappearing landscape, guessing where you were, when you’d get where you were going.
That was part of the magic of buses. They were old-fashioned and romantic and … slow. Riding the bus down to Fort Campbell, he was glad in a way that his car was still on the way from Germany. It gave him an excuse to hop a bus and remember why the big rolling boxes had always captivated him.
And to remember how he’d met Betsy.
They had met on a bus when he was a junior in college. Well, they didn’t exactly meet on the bus. He arranged their meeting, more or less, after he had seen her in the crowd at an “away” basketball game at Indiana, but he knew she hadn’t seen him. She was an eye-catching blonde, slender and giggly, like most freshman girls. She was wearing a heavy turtleneck sweater and jeans and brown leather boots and a long wool overcoat, but even buried beneath that pile of winter cover, she was as shapely as she was cute. She was talking to a girlfriend at half-time; they were comparing sorority rush stories, complaining about their roommates, griping about dormitory food. The usual freshman topics. He could hear every other word or so. He remembered thinking at the time that such freshman silliness would have turned him right off if he were in his right mind, but staring at her at the game that night he was as far from his right mind as he had ever been in his life.
By judicious inquiry around campus, he found out that her name was Betsy Kane and she was from Vandalia, Illinois, about three hours north of Carbondale, where Southern Illinois University was located. He could have easily arranged it, but he didn’t want a campus introduction, which would lead to a series of dull movie-and-a-burger-and-a-beer dates, and if executed properly would land him in bed with her in some dingy motel on the outskirts of town. Every guy on campus had been down that road, and Sam was tired of the campus life. He wanted excitement, juice. Something weird and unpredictable had to happen, because he knew if it did, he’d fall in love, and if it didn’t? Hey, what the hell. At least he’d given it a shot.
He got a frat brother to check out where she was going for spring break. He was hoping she was on one of the tours to Florida, so he was more than mildly disappointed when the news came back that she was headed home to Vandalia. He thought quickly. How was she going? By bus, came the news from his spy. When was she leaving? Next Friday night, right after class. The six o’clock northbound Greyhound. Sam worked on his plans for a week. When Friday came, he was ready with his ticket for Grable, one town north of Vandalia. He got on the bus right behind her, followed her down the aisle, and plopped down next to her in a rear seat. She took out a book and started reading before the bus even pulled out of the depot. Sam waited until the bus was at speed out on the interstate, then made his move.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
She turned and looked at him, and Sam held his breath. There was no glimmer of recognition. His discreet spying over the past two weeks had worked. She had no idea he had arranged their seeming chance encounter.
“Vandalia,” she said, turning once again to her book.
“You go to S.I.U.?”
“Yes.” She was still reading her book.
“Good school,” he said. He pulled out a car magazine and flipped through it, then closed the magazine and turned to her.
“Can I say something to you?” he asked.
She looked up, startled.
“I—I guess so.”
“I have a confession to make,” said Sam. “I set this up. I arranged it.”
“What?”
“I arranged to meet you on this bus. I found out where you were going on spring break and that you were taking this bus, and I got a ticket so I could sit next to you and meet you. I had this whole plan …”
“I don’t believe this,” she said. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not. I go to S.I.U., too. I saw you at the Indiana game. I sat two rows behind you. I had this plan, that we’d meet on the bus, I’d tell you this tale, like I’m not a college kid, I’m a stockbroker on my way to St. Louis by bus because my BMW broke down in Carbondale and I don’t like to fly. That’s why I’m wearing this stupid suit.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I know. That’s why I’m confessing to you. It is ridiculous. I feel ridiculous. I should have gotten that girl, what’s her name? Kathy Connor, the vice president of your sorority, to introduce us at a party. But I thought: that is so trite, and she’ll just think I’m another college schmuck on the make. I’m so sick of those stupid parties. If I see another plastic cup of beer I’ll lose it.”
She threw back her head and laughed.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “That’s why I’m going home. The thought of seven days of baking my body and soaking my brain really turned me off.” S
he turned to face him. “You’re not kidding me, are you? You really set this up?”
“Honest to god,” he said. He held out his hand. “I’m Sam Butterfield.”
“I’m Betsy Kane,” she said, taking his hand. “But you already know that.” She laughed again. So did he.
“So where are you going?” she asked.
“Grable. Next town past Vandalia.”
“What in the world do you plan to do in Grable?”
“Get on the next bus and go back home,” he said sheepishly.
“You went to all this trouble, and what exactly did you expect when you met me? Did your plan have a point?”
“Well, I thought I’d sweep you off your feet, and a few weeks from now I’d admit the scam I pulled on you, and it would turn out to be a big joke between us, because by then we’d be in love.”
“In love? You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I guess the whole thing sounds stupid, but yeah, I’m serious.”
Betsy smiled.
“What are you studying?” she asked.
They talked all the way to Vandalia.
Sam spent the night at Betsy’s parents’ house, introduced as a friend from school. When she took him to the depot on Monday afternoon, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him full on the lips just before he got on the bus.
“See you on Sunday,” she said.
He was in love … they were in love, he hoped. And it had happened on a bus.
Now he felt the bus slowing, the road rumble quieting to a hum. He pressed his face to the window. Up ahead he could see a sign: ROUTE 49 DINER and underneath WELCOME TRAVELERS. He checked his watch. Nearly seven. Must be the supper stop. He stood up and grabbed his overnight bag. May as well check over his orders while he ate. He hated to read on the bus. Made him sick. What he liked to do was watch the passing scene and sleep. Best sleep in the world, almost.
The bus pulled off the road and stopped with a great hiss from its air brakes. He looked out the window. It was a classic diner, long and narrow, rounded corners, stainless steel on blue enamel. They’d have a good hot roast beef sandwich for sure. The door opened, and he followed the other passengers out.
Rules of the Road Page 4