by Maria Flook
“Can you stop this and let me off?” she said to the driver.
“Do you know the driver of that car?” the man asked her.
“Will you pull this thing over? There’s going to be an accident.”
“Is that a hunch or are you making threats?”
“I’m telling you, I know that man out there. I’m his sister. He’s kind of upset. I guess you noticed? Just let me and the boy off.”
“You’re his sister, you say?”
“I thought that’s what I said,” she told him.
He studied her. “It’s against regulations to stop at an unauthorized spot unless there’s a breakdown or something unavoidable such as that,” the bus driver said.
“Look, stop jerking me around. Are you going to stop this bus?” she said.
“Is this a police matter? Pittsburgh is next, are you saying you need to get off before Pittsburgh?”
“Look out!” Margaret told him. The driver wasn’t watching the road. The Duster was directly out in front, hardly crawling. The driver jerked the huge steering wheel, throwing his weight into it as he paddled it counterclockwise. The bus scraped the left rear fender of the Duster; Margaret heard the metal squawk and snap free. Then, as the driver jerked the wheel to regain control, she was thrown down the little stairwell. Her weight triggered the hydraulic lever and the door brushed open. She might have fallen to the blacktop, she saw it slipping past, its strokes of white paint threading together. She grabbed the railing and climbed the steps slowly. “Pull over, you fucking asshole! I almost fell out!”
The driver steered off the highway and glided to a stop. She took Laurence by his wrist and they jumped to the asphalt shoulder. The driver came after them to look at the front of the bus. A flow of sky-blue paint marred the thick chrome body, but it wasn’t serious. Cam was a half mile up ahead when he noticed the bus on the side of the highway. He had to drive the Duster in reverse down the shoulder to get to where she was standing. She pinched Laurence’s shoulders, keeping him centered before her as they watched the rear of the car approaching. Then she saw something crazy—that pale, exquisite face. It was Lewis staring out the back window.
The three men got out of the Duster. The bus driver walked over and told them he didn’t want any trouble. He had to make sure it was Margaret’s choice to leave the bus; it wasn’t an authorized spot. Margaret told the driver she was exercising her free will. The bus driver started to say something to Cam, but he decided against any involvement and he started back to his bus.
“Wait, sir!” Lewis called after the driver. “I’m coming with you. I’m taking the girl’s place.”
“Your dad’s making his move,” Tracy said.
Cam grabbed Lewis by his hand. Lewis jerked his hand away, shaking his fingers, kissing the backs of his knuckles, as if Cam’s touch had scalded. He pleaded with Cam. He held his face in his hands, clutched his cheeks. It was a theatrical gesture, it reminded Margaret of the actor, Robert Merrill, in Man of La Mancha. “I won’t go any farther,” Lewis said.
“You’re this far already.”
“I have no interest in seeing her!”
“That was the bargain,” Cam told him.
“I don’t make bargains with hoodlums,” Lewis said, and he trotted after the bus driver. Tracy followed him to the bus, but Cam called after Tracy, “Let him go, he’s a worthless shit.”
Margaret looked over at the bus; Lewis had one foot on the first step. He was showing something to the bus driver, an ID or some proof of his finances. The wind was lifting the lapels of his silk jacket and he kept smoothing them. He looked ridiculous, harmless.
“You tried to kidnap your old man?” Margaret had to raise her voice above the lanes of traffic.
“What about you? You took Laurence without my permission.”
“I’m his aunt. I’ve been his goddamn nanny through all of this.” She saw how the world shifted. She smiled, it wasn’t the world exactly, it was them. People’s claims to other people. Her loyalty was put to the test, it was altered or reworked, she didn’t know. Her own daughter was waiting for her, knocking around without benefit of her own mother. Margaret had Laurence. She tried to align herself with these innocents rather than take her place beside Tracy and Cam.
Cam stared at her face, but she looked down at the blue gravel on the side of the highway. She kicked a frayed strip of rubber to the left and rolled it back with her toe. There were several of these black ribbons, sections of a truck’s exploded re-tread. She avoided looking at Cam and she eyed the highway debris—little twists of chrome, colored glass, a greyed bandana.
Cam said that the Duster was pretty conspicuous out there on the side of the interstate. They drove all this way, front and back, without a tangle with police, they should get moving. They looked over at the bus. The driver was behind the wheel looking down at his side mirror, the turn signal pulsing. The bus was pulling away.
“My God,” Margaret said. “Tracy—”
“He can’t be serious,” Cam told her.
“That fuck!” Margaret said. Then she saw Tracy. He ran forward from the rear seats. He jumped from the bus steps, falling to his hands, his palms digging two skids through the gravel.
The bus turned into the traffic, rolled passed them. Lewis looked through the window, he was laughing. She saw his head thrown back, his hands clasped beneath his chin. It was a display of utter pleasure, relief. A devil exhausted, freed.
III
Margaret watched Tracy pick the pebbles off his raw hands. Some black grit was embedded and would have to work its way out. They sat in the car and Cam edged back into the traffic. Cam wiped his hand down his face, brushing his lips with the back of his fist like someone coming through cobwebs, a constellation of spidery tethers. Margaret watched him scratch his hair, smooth the back of his neck until he squared his shoulders; he was clear of it.
Tracy discussed Lewis’s plan to turn around in Pittsburgh and catch the next bus back to Chicago. Tracy was saying they should try the bus station and corner the old man again. Lewis might change his mind. Cam said Lewis could tour the world, drop off the end, he didn’t care. Cam said, “If you want more action, join another circus. There’s Ringling Brothers.”
Margaret pulled open the glove box and found the gun Cam had been waving around at the apartment. She laughed. “Did you really force him to come in the Duster with this starter’s pistol?”
“Careful,” Cam said, “give it to me.”
“What?” Margaret said.
“I said, right here.” He held out his hand.
“Isn’t this an imitation? Tracy said it was for track and field. This is real?”
“It’s got a full chamber. Loaded,” Cam said.
“Real confetti. It’s heavy, isn’t it?” Tracy was grinning.
“My goodness,” she said. She didn’t believe them. She turned the gun over in her hands and pulled it up to her face. She saw a tiny insignia, a crown, and the word Webley. “Webley. What’s this mean, Webley? A gun?” she asked.
“Jesus,” Tracy said, “will you get her to put that down.”
“I’m telling you Margaret—” Cam was saying, but it was too late. Margaret hurled the gun out the car window and watched it sail over the guardrail and sink into the brush. It looked like a rise of corn behind that.
Cam braked and pulled hard onto the shoulder. He slammed into reverse, ripping over the gravel. “You can’t leave a gun in that field, you stupid shit.”
“Is it registered?” Tracy asked Cam.
“That’s not the point,” Cam said. “I don’t want to leave it out here.”
They got out of the car beside the cornfield, but the gun could have landed anywhere. Laurence got out of the car and was pushing his tiny sports car along the silver guardrail.
“Well. Don’t stand there. Start looking,” Margaret said. She had no desire to hunt for the gun, but she didn’t want to wait there in the middle of nowhere.They crossed the fence and started
into the matted brush by the highway. Laurence came along, tugging Margaret’s skirt. Gluey squares, undefinable seeds collected on their clothes; a golden burr like a tiny buzz saw cut into her skin. Cam turned into the corn rows and disappeared. Margaret walked in the other direction until she saw something in the brush, a platinum crescent, the gun in its cradle of nettles. She decided not to announce her discovery. Why not leave the gun where it was? But Tracy was watching her. She reached down for the pistol. “Finders, keepers,” she said. Tracy gripped her wrist until she felt her blood knocking in her fingertips, and she released the pistol. He shifted the gun from one hand to the other, then he pointed the gun at Margaret.
She stumbled backward into the dense briar, which snagged her legs. Tracy put the nose of the gun to her forehead. Lifted it off once, and centered it again. “Listen to me, I want you to suck me.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Margaret.”
“You’re kidding.”
Tracy said, “Don’t argue. Just do it.” He kept the gun steady. Without its pressure, its icy nozzle against her forehead, she might have become weightless, she might have ascended past fear and lofted into a stupor. She didn’t faint after all. She entered several levels of awareness, but in each different phase she still could not act. He was pushing his jeans down with his free hand. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
Margaret was breathing in short, convulsive sips, but her lungs could not expel any air. Her tears lowered a glycerin curtain, and she couldn’t see Tracy’s face.
“I’m not going to kill you, Margaret—just pretend. Make believe,” Tracy whispered to her. His voice caught, deepened, as his erotic pulse congested his lungs. He swayed, lifting his weight off one leg, then the other. He couldn’t keep from shuddering, and she knew it was a serious matter. He leaned his elbow hard against the top of her shoulder until she sank down to her knees. He turned the muzzle back and forth in gentle swipes across her face. Then he tucked it behind her ear.
“Yes. That’s right. You know, Margaret. You know.” She did what he wanted. She smelled the strange odor of the gun, its bitter graphite and cold shell. She struggled to stand up. Tracy told her, “Don’t fool around, Margaret. It’s got your U.S. Daily Requirement of Iron. Ready to twirl.” He laughed, pleased with his talk, but she started again and he tugged her hair in one hand, nudged the gun with the other.
Cam had already started into the cornfield, and who knows what happened to Laurence. The cornstalks were dense, like bamboo thicket, rising in a wall eight feet high. A child could become lost in these acres. She wanted to find him, but Tracy took his time. She rolled her tongue, fluttered it, she let him sink deep into her throat to hurry him along. He was close; she tasted the first surge, salty and ferrous. She heard his shaky stuttering, and when he shivered against her, his knees dipping, she pushed him off-balance, stood up and ran.
She plunged into the cornstalks and moved down a row. The papery tassels closed over her head until she couldn’t see in the dark. The dried stalks rustled behind her, rattled in metallic clusters as she burst in one direction, then another. Then it was Cam. He had Laurence in his arms. Together, they made a wide circle around Tracy, who was whistling for Margaret in long, piercing notes. Cam placed Margaret in the car and she held on to the boy. “He has the gun,” Margaret told him.
“He could have killed you. He was shooting a wad and could’ve brushed the trigger.”
“You saw us?”
“You’re lucky. That gun could have fired.”
“Shit. You saw what happened?” If Cam had watched them, it was proof. She didn’t want to have any proof. Cam went to get his gun from Tracy. The gun didn’t matter anymore. Cam didn’t want the gun now, it was repelling. Cam looked interested in something final. An ending. He couldn’t drive away without cutting it off with Tracy. Men have ways of making things official, Margaret was thinking. She couldn’t see from where she was sitting and she got out of the car and climbed onto the roof of the Duster. Tracy was standing where Margaret had left him, his jeans pulled up but still unbuttoned. Cam moved up to Tracy until they were face-to-face. She couldn’t hear what they said.
Tracy handed the gun to Cam. Cam aimed the pistol and the gun went off. A tight snap reverberating high in the air. Then its echo, immediate, but softer, waffling over the field. They all wanted to hear it. Again, Cam shot into the dirt. The sedge exploded in tight clods, mottled scruffs fanned in a loose broadcast, a red chevron. Field birds lifted and funneled together. Cam walked back to the car.
Tracy came after him, but he wouldn’t let Tracy near her.
“You’re hitching, pal.”
“Give me a chance,” Tracy was talking beside Margaret’s window. “Tell Cam it’s all part of the picture. Tell him the whole story. Our story, Margaret. We’re doomed. Maybe all three of us, and tiny Laurence. The whole tribe. You can’t single one person out, Margaret—” He was shouting as Cam drove the car away. Margaret fought the glare in the side mirror and watched a mile, two miles, until Tracy condensed into a burning speck. Her breath came and went in severe notches. Minutes later she thought she saw Tracy on the shoulder, thumbing, but it was nothing. Tracy had disappeared. The hot western light sliced into the Duster. She moved over on the seat, into the shade with Cam. The sun turned its serrated wheel.
IV
It was late afternoon when they came into Wilmington. Margaret saw the stacks at the chemical plants, still pumping, a lattice of artificial cloud ascending over the Delaware. When they came down the street and turned into the driveway, they saw an ambulance parked behind the garage, its interior lighted, showing the movement of people.
“What’s this?” Cam said, “somebody’s in trouble—”
“Is it Celeste?” Margaret said, but Celeste was standing on the blacktop, bouncing a superball. Margaret pushed out of the Duster. Celeste ran to Margaret and tucked her face against Margaret’s waist. The girl climbed onto the insteps of Margaret’s feet and they waltzed a few steps right and left, tugging themselves off balance. The ambulance doors opened out, and Margaret saw Elizabeth sitting on the edge of a gurney, her back to them. Cam asked the paramedic what was happening. The paramedic said, “Oh, she’s getting her blood pressure done.”
“Her blood pressure?” Margaret said. “Is she all right?”
“She gets it taken every week. If we’re in the neighborhood, we stop by to do her,” the man said.
“Community service,” the other paramedic said. “We keep a list of the heart patients. She can come right down to the fire department, say, if she’s out shopping at the Merchandise Mart. We can do her out at the station anytime.” He tore loose the Velcro patch and unwrapped Elizabeth’s arm. He told Elizabeth it was good, 120 over 80, she’d outlive everyone.
Cam was resting against the hood of the Duster. Then he pushed himself up and rubbed the sting away from his elbows; the hood was shimmering. The ambulance had frightened Cam. He studied his mother, who had not yet turned around to greet them. She wasn’t in any kind of hurry. Nothing could pull her away from her health check. Then the fellow was taking her pulse. He extended her arm and propped her elbow. When the man was finished, he patted Elizabeth’s knee, looked at her, and patted her knee again. The paramedic was speaking to Elizabeth in a low voice no one could follow. Again, the man patted the back of her hand. When Elizabeth turned to face her son, she was shivering. Her tears glazed her face powder in narrow lines, like glass shatters. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, keeping back a spill of words. She stepped down from the ambulance and caught Cam by his shirt. She jerked his shirt tail loose from his jeans and tried to reel him closer. “Do you feel better now? Are you happy?” she said.
Cam looked over his mother’s shoulder at a stand of trees, Norway maples, burning red in the sunlight. He followed the power lines sagging through the upper limbs. He blinked at his mother’s face, then returned to the trees in the distance. Elizabeth inhaled, held her chest expande
d, her sobs extinguished. She told him she was sorry, she was sorry he went out to Chicago. “For nothing.” She was kneading his shirt in her hands; she wedged herself into the narrow straddle of his legs. She wanted to hear the conclusion, Cam’s verdict, but she couldn’t bring herself to beg for it.
Cam freed himself, regained his posture, took his mother’s elbows and steered her backward a few steps. He shoved her gently, the way someone releases a model sailboat on the water. He turned and walked into the house.
Celeste found the little velvet boxes strewn around the Duster. These she collected, placing one inside the other, the lids snapping shut. Margaret told her, yes, she could keep the mysterious gradation of boxes, but she hoped the girl would forget to take them back to Providence.
Richard was working in the yard and Margaret walked over to him. “I have to get the next train,” she told him. He smeared potting mix on his trousers, patting his left pocket, then his right, until he heard his car keys jangle. He had been digging an even shelf along the terrace. Small mounds of grass clippings steamed along the flagstone sidewalk; a basket of weeds stirred, as if still searching. The black earth was neatly etched with fresh seed. He said he was planting autumn flowers, specimens that can hold on late, far into November.
“I wish I could dig up that yucca and take it back to Providence.”
“Impossible,” he said. “It’s naturalized; it’s got some big roots. It would have to be sectioned.”
“Oh, is that right?” she told him. She didn’t really want to know the procedure for something that she had mentioned for its larger meaning. “Besides, I live in an apartment, you know.”