Wait For Me Jack

by Addison Jones

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘The driver’s unconscious. Went through the windscreen. Don’t think anyone else was in the car.’

  He frowned and started the car, not looking at her.

  ‘Unconscious? But will he be all right, do you think?’

  ‘Uh, maybe. Tell you the truth, Billie, probably not.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Got to find a phone.’

  His voice sounded odd. Billie saw the driver of the sports car, flung on the tarmac like a rag doll. He was a young man, thin, maybe a teenager, his features invisible, too bloody. He was on his back, arms flopped out, motionless. Jacko had to slow down here, to get around the upside-down car, and she noted that the boy was wearing a suit. A nice suit. The white shirt was a mess, but the jacket seemed fine. A nice blazer, probably wool. There were three or four people, the drivers of other stopped cars, leaning towards him, talking to each other. One looked up and gave Jacko some kind of signal with his hand, and Jacko nodded. A woman, middle-aged, was crouching down next to the boy, her head bowed, crossing herself. Jacko shifted up a gear.

  ‘Maybe he was on his way somewhere fancy. His suit.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  The first lit-up house they came to, Jacko slammed on the brakes, ran up to the door, and without knocking, pushed it open and shouted:

  ‘Need to use your phone. Been an accident down the road. A bad one.’ Billie had followed, but stayed behind him, silent. She felt her old respect for him ebb back. Men really were wonderful at times like this. Jacko was wonderful. The old couple in the house acted unfriendly at first, wary, then suddenly changed. They switched off their television and offered coffee, whisky, anything at all. But Jacko and Billie got back in the car and headed north again, and outwardly it was as if nothing had changed.

  ‘Don’t we need to be witnesses or something?’

  ‘They have our number and address. The others are witnesses too. An ambulance is on the way now.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Time passed.

  ‘How much longer, Jacko?’

  ‘Don’t know. Half an hour?’

  Pause. Billie fiddled with the radio dial and tuned into half a dozen stations, static-ridden snatches of song, news, weather, a talk show about crop diseases, and then an interview with Elizabeth Taylor. She clicked the radio off and sighed.

  ‘Hey, remember that time I had Elisabeth, and you brought Sam to the hospital to visit us?’

  ‘What? Oh yeah. It was Thanksgiving. We had a terrible meal in the cafeteria, after we saw you. Turkey like leather.’

  ‘Did you? You never said.’

  ‘Well. Guess you had enough on your mind.’

  ‘Don’t know why, but I often remember that time. I was so sore, so tired. All those stitches, I was afraid to even look down there, much less touch it. Elisabeth wouldn’t suck, remember? All I wanted to do was sleep, anyway. I felt sore and ugly and strange. Then you and Sam walked in.’

  ‘Sam threw up later, after the terrible dinner.’

  ‘He did?’ she said after a second, very softly and slowly. As if his voice was like one of the radio stations, briefly cutting into the air. ‘Did he get food poisoning from the turkey?’

  ‘Think it was just the excitement.’

  ‘Yeah, he was so thrilled about the baby, wasn’t he?’

  ‘No, I mean the other kind of excitement. You know. I mean, there he was, going along in his own little world, two whole adults at his beck and call, when suddenly you disappear, and when he next sees you, you’re all gloopy over some squally baby. He was upset. He wasn’t happy-excited, Billie. He was jealous. Sick-to-his-stomach jealous.’

  ‘Funny. That isn’t how I remember it at all.’

  ‘No. Well.’

  Billie yawned. ‘I just remember how awful I felt before you walked in. The anaesthetic was wearing off, I guess. I felt….brittle. My head had broken off from my body. But the minute I saw you.’ She stopped here. Looked away from him, out the window. ‘The minute you came in, it was like all the bits joined up, and I was me again. I remember I felt…’

  ‘Great?’

  ‘Normal. I felt normal again.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Jacko, quickly glancing at his wife. ‘All I remember is cleaning the puke out of the car later. Stunk for months.’

  She didn’t reply, but that seemed okay. After a while she started singing softly: ‘All of me, why not take all of me. Can’t you see, I’m no good without you.’ She couldn’t hold a note, but she told herself it didn’t matter. Jacko probably thought it was a sweet lopsided way of singing.

  ‘Damn right,’ said Jacko, who liked her singing some days, but not today. ‘Let’s see what’s on the radio. Might be something about that accident.’

  There wasn’t, and he turned it off. Ten minutes passed. The mountains had given way to a valley, and it was dark now. Winter dark.

  ‘I keep thinking of how someone’s waiting for him right now to turn up and wondering why he’s so late. Someone who loves him. His mother maybe.’ Pause. ‘His dinner’s in the oven, getting all dry.’ Pause. ‘I was talking about that poor boy,’ she said.

  ‘I know you meant the boy.’

  The house was dark when they got home and they tiptoed into their bedroom. The room was freezing, the sheets almost damp.

  ‘Doesn’t your mother ever put the heating on?’

  ‘Shush. She’ll hear you.’

  They spooned closely for warmth, Jacko around Billie, then he rolled over, so they were back to back. Billie thought that nothing had changed. The extravagant and inconvenient rekindle experiment had not changed a darn thing. Her eyes were open, and she looked at the Gauguin print on the wall. Two women, baring three breasts. She remembered the day they bought it. Before the kids, because she’d been wearing that blue skirt she’d not been able to fit in since. A summer day, and a shopping list with items like wine glasses and pineapples, limes and gin, a wicker laundry basket. Still nest-building. They’d been holding hands all day, and had gone to an art gallery. Billie had never been before. She’d liked it very much, it made her feel calm and reverent, as if she was in church. But she didn’t really know what to say about anything, aside from I like that. In the gift shop, Jacko had spotted Two Tahitian Women by Gauguin, and had been so enthusiastic, she’d cried: ‘Well, let’s buy it then!’

  Putting it on their bedroom wall had made her feel very much not like her mother. Jacko and her, well, they were very cultured. So what if they didn’t have much in common, she suddenly thought now. She wanted to make him happy – wasn’t that bigger than compatibility? They’d lived through two house moves, had two children and endured countless sleepless nights with infant colic, not to mention changing hairstyles, changing presidents and changing states. They’d fought, made up, fought, made up. Gone away alone for a weekend to a hotel! They really had done that. Already, she was remembering it with nostalgia, though last night she’d felt disappointed. Was there something perversely romantic about it being unromantic? It seemed now that she’d been happy in that mildew-smelling room. Why hadn’t she known it at the time?

  She closed her eyes, pictured the bedroom they were lying in right now, inside their own apartment, in their neighbourhood, their town, their state, their country, and the whole indifferent world orbiting through cold space. Really, there was just their bedroom and the rest of the world. Us and them.

  Five minutes passed.

  ‘Jacko.

  ‘Jacko.

  ‘Jacko, are you asleep?’ An accusing tone.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I love you. I love you, darn it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I know you know.’

  ‘Well, shut up then.’

  ‘You shut up.’

  ‘I said it first.’

  Then he turned round, so he was facing her. Eyes closed. She noticed the scar on his chin from the champagne disaster. Not a good start to the honeymoon, but hadn’t it been
wonderful later? She traced the scar tenderly with one finger.

  ‘I was just kidding. I hate you, really.’ She whispered this.

  ‘I know, honey,’ he whispered back. ‘I hate you too. Like crazy. Did I ever thank you for that Valentine in my lunch bag?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’ Then he began kissing her with his eyes still closed, and his lips tasted good to her. She’d forgotten how good he could taste. Imagine if he should suddenly disappear. It was always like this, after a spell of hating him. Like they were new people, like she was in love all over again. But even so, she couldn’t shake the person who was waiting for the boy to arrive. This time, it was the lover. A girl who for months had not been able to concentrate on anything, because she loved this boy so much. She was all dressed up, but because it was very late now, her dress was a little wrinkled and her lipstick had worn off. He was never this late, where was he? She happened to be looking out the window again when a police car pulled up. Two policemen got out and walked up the porch steps. Billie tightened her arms around Jacko. She kept thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to a person.

  Three Years Earlier

  To Begin at the Beginning

  Jan 28th, 1954, Smithton, Oregon

  2:32am

  Sam cried. He cried a lot. Also, his poops were green sometimes, and this made Billie worry that something was wrong. When she thought of something being wrong with Sam, her stomach hurt and she felt like crying. She tried to take him out for a walk every day, but it was the middle of winter. The good news was she could fit into most of her old clothes already. She got her haircut in a bob, chin length, and it curled up perfectly in front of her ears. It was still very blond – she’d worried when they moved to the dark north. It was her belief the sun kept it fair.

  Tonight Sam woke her at 2:30. He was almost one; this should be unusual, but sadly was not. His crib was in their bedroom, so she didn’t have far to go. She lifted his damp hot body, carried him to the bed and guided his mouth to her nipple. It was engorged – had been hardening since his cries had woken her. It was a second before he properly latched, and a relief when he did. They both entered a trance as he sucked.

  ‘You need to wean Sam,’ Jacko had said earlier. ‘He’s getting too old for that. Try that bottle we bought.’

  ‘I know, I will,’ she’d said. And she did plan to, as soon as she got the energy to not breastfeed. Bottle-fed babies must have more energetic mothers. She was bucking the trend, breastfeeding. When Sam cried to be fed and she was in a store or park or coffee shop, it was a problem. Mostly she ended up in a toilet cubicle, nursing him. She didn’t go out much these days.

  She noticed the apartment was extra quiet, a muffled quiet, and looked to the window. The blinds had not been closed because they lived on the fifth floor and privacy was not a problem. It was snowing. Large fluffy flakes. Some of them sticking to the window, as if they were not frozen water but a gluey substance.

  ‘Jacko.

  ‘Jacko!’

  ‘What.’

  ‘It’s snowing.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Then he turned over and began snoring. This was their second winter in Oregon, but Billie was still not used to snow. It felt magical. She tried to put Sam down in his crib, but he woke again. She carried him to the living room and stood looking out at the snow, rocking him and singing very softly and slowly. I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live-long day. I’ve been working on the railroad, just to pass the time of day. Can’t you hear the whistle blowing? Dinah, won’t you blow, Dinah, won’t you blow, Dinah, won’t you blow your horn, horn, horn? Outside, the world turned white and rounded. Car became humps and trees branches bowed down. She stared and stared, and could not imagine ever getting used to it. But it was cold in the living room, and after a while she went back to bed and put the sleeping Sam in his crib. The bedroom felt cosy, especially now she knew the world outside was coated in snow. She fell asleep within seconds.

  Jacko woke up. His wife was snoring gently, her hair across her face. She was on her side, with her face tilted up and one arm above her head as if she was reaching for something. He told himself he loved her very much; it caught at his throat. She seemed so young. The room smelled of Sam. Jacko tried for a minute to describe it. He smelled like a cotton sheet, just taken in from the line on a breezy warm day, with something else added – what was it? Something food-like. Toast? He gave up. He got out of bed, noting the snow and wondering if it would be possible to drive today. He was not sure how often the road was ploughed. It would be a nuisance if he couldn’t get out. Today was Saturday, and they usually went shopping on Saturdays. Especially, they needed coffee. He tiptoed around, careful not to wake Billie or Sam. It was great to have the place to himself for a bit. He was wearing a tartan robe over his boxers and T-shirt, with hiking socks to keep his feet warm. He put the kettle on the stove and lit a cigarette on the burner. Since Billie gave up smoking, he was always having to do this. She’d been the one to always keep the Zippo filled, and a book of matches on the table. That was marriage for you. You get used to one new way of doing things, then bam! You had to get unused to it.

  The wind was picking up; the snow made thwacking sounds against the window. There was also a shrilling sound. Jacko looked outside and decided it must be the wind and the telephone wires. It was spooky, but in an exciting way. Suddenly, a gust hit the window and rattled the panes. A draft crept through, metallically cold. This made him very glad to be right here, inside his apartment with the door locked and bread and milk and cans of soup and a nice bottle of Pinot Noir in the cupboard. Not to mention his wife and his baby. The gust became a gale, and the whole wooden building seemed to shudder and even sway. He made his coffee, leaving enough for one more cup, and smoked his cigarette. They probably wouldn’t get out today. But his family was safe; they were all under the same roof and this struck him as wonderful. His family. The phrase was still a novelty.

  To begin at the beginning. He remembered the radio program a few days ago, and Richard Burton in that strange and powerful play Under Milkweed. Or was it Over Milkwood? To begin at the beginning. Apparently poor Dylan Thomas died just recently. Pity. He made a mental note to buy the book, if such a thing existed. At first he’d just half listened while sanding the oak table, then found himself pausing before finally sitting down and giving his full attention to the Bakelite radio sitting on the counter. The little dark Welsh village slowly emerging, and all the queer and quirky inhabitants populating his living room. He remembered the line that went something like: as we tumble into bed, little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead, because it was repeated a few times. A story and a poem and a song. I want to be a writer too, thought Jacko suddenly. That’s what I want to do in my life. He imagined this for a while, then decided he also wanted to be Welsh, or at least some kind of British. Well, it was something to aspire to anyway. Maybe he’d buy a tweed jacket. And next car – a Hillman. And an MG? No more Fords, anyway.

  Eventually Sam woke again, and Billie stumbled through to the living room with him. ‘It’s like White Christmas,’ she said sleepily. ‘Say, wasn’t that a swell movie?’

  ‘I preferred It’s a Wonderful Life.’

  ‘Me too, actually.’

  They took turns with Sam. Feeding him, bathing him, changing his diaper, dressing him, trying to give him a bottle, changing his diaper again. ‘You know what I was thinking earlier?’ He wanted to tell her he’d decided to be a great writer. It filled him up, this new yearning. But he couldn’t say it out loud. ‘I was thinking we might have another baby one day.’

  ‘Oh, sure, Jacko! I was thinking exactly the same thing. Someone to keep Sam company.’

  Christmas was a month ago. A nutcracker ornament that somehow never made it back into the ornament box was hanging from the window above the sink. It was their second Christmas as a couple, and the nutcracker was new. Billie had made some ornaments. Clowns, constructed of cotton s
pools with yarn for hair and sequins for eyes. Small fairies made of felt and pipe cleaners, with small wooden balls for heads. She’d made these while Jacko was at work and Sam was napping. She had also baked gingerbread men.

  ‘I miss Christmas,’ she now said. ‘I loved it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Jacko, though he clearly recalled inedible turkey and glutinous gravy. He’d given her a Timex watch and a bottle of Hypnotique perfume which she thought smelled like cheap candy, and she’d given him a subscription to National Geographic and a tie he thought made him look like a used car salesman. Neither admitted disappointment.

  When Sam fell asleep again, Billie yawned and said she might go back to bed too. Jacko joined her, but didn’t fall asleep. While his son slept close by and the world outside became mysterious, he reached for his wife, gently pulled off her clothes and they made love silently and tenderly. As if they’d died and become ghosts, still in love with each other. Afterwards, when she had rolled away from him, he stroked her back. Softly; hardly touching her skin. He thought of the time she’d asked him about the war, and whether it had been scary for him. He’d wanted to say yes, because then it would make him seem brave. He couldn’t remember what he answered, but he remembered wanting to say he’d been in danger, and been scared shitless. She’d looked at him with such admiration.

  ‘Jacko?’ she said, turning back to him after a while. She smelled of coffee and breast milk and sex.

  ‘Sorry. Did you want to sleep?’

  ‘Not really. Or maybe yes. Do you mind? I’m so tired.’ They lay, spooned into each other. Just before Jacko drifted off, he whispered:

  ‘Shush now,’ though she hadn’t said anything at all.

  Two Years Earlier

  Honeymoon

  July 24th, 1952, Highway One