Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail

by Bobbie Ann Mason

  They reached his truck, and he slammed his hands on the hot hood. Then he realized that Tiffany was holding up her thumb like a hitchhiker, waiting for him to open the door for her. She said, “Charger, you’re not depressed. I don’t believe that. It’s just something you’ve heard on TV.”

  “When do I hear TV? I don’t even watch it.” They were talking across the hood.

  “I don’t get depressed,” said Tiffany. Her hair seemed to lift like wings, along with her spirit. “I always say, if I’ve got my lipstick on, nothing else matters.”

  “I know, Miss Sunshine.”

  “Why would you get depressed anyway? You’ve got a decent job at the bomb plant. You’ve got a truck with floating blue lights. You’ve got a fiancée—me. You’ve got nothing to complain about.”

  Charger didn’t answer. Stepping around to her side, he opened her door and boosted her in. The fun of having a high-rider was helping girls in, cupping their rear pears in his eager paws. Yet he had not tried out this automotive technique on many girls, because he started going with Tiffany soon after he bought the truck. She always squealed with pleasure when he heaved her in. Charger had fallen for Tiffany when she stole the YARD OF THE MONTH sign from someone’s yard and ran naked with it down the street at midnight. He had dared her to do it, while he waited in his truck at the end of the street. It was a street where big dudes lived, people who spent piles of money on yard decorators and had swimming pools behind fences. Now he loved her, probably, and he wanted to have sex with her every day, but he had trouble telling her his deepest thoughts. He didn’t want her to laugh at him. He wasn’t sure he was depressed, but he was curious about Prozac. It was all the rage. He had heard it was supposed to rewire the brain. That idea intrigued him. He liked the sound of it too—Prozac, like some professional athlete named Zack. “Hi, I’m Zack. And I’m a pro. I’m a pro at everything I do. Just call me Pro Zack.”

  Tiffany had told him that her aunt Paula took Prozac because she was worried about her eyelids bagging. Her insurance wouldn’t cover a facelift or an eye tuck, but it would pay for anti-depressants if she was depressed about her face—or about her health coverage. Prozac seemed to give her a charge of self-esteem, so that she could live with her baggy eyes. “I feel good about myself,” Paula was fond of announcing now.

  That was what Charger was interested in, a shift of attitude. Bad moods scared him. He didn’t know where they came from. Sometimes he just spit at the world and roared around like a demon in his truck, full of meanness. He had actually kicked at his father’s dog, and the other day he deliberately dropped his mother’s Christmas cactus, still wrapped in its florist’s foil. His father had disappeared in December, and now it was May. Months passed before they heard from him. His mother pretended indifference. She didn’t even call the police or report him missing. “He’ll come back with his tail between his legs,” she said. Charger believed that she knew where his father was and just didn’t want him to know.

  Charger answered the telephone when his father finally called, in April, from Texas. He had left the day before Christmas and just kept driving; once he got out of Kentucky, he couldn’t turn back, he said. Might as well see what there is to see, he said. He hadn’t had a chance to call, and he knew Charger’s mother wouldn’t worry about him.

  “Are you coming back?” Charger wanted to know.

  “Depends on what the future holds,” his father said vaguely.

  “What do you mean by that?” Charger said, thinking that his father wouldn’t be happy even if he did come back. He realized how sad-faced and thin his dad had been. He was probably having a better time where he was, out looking at skies. “I never knew about skies before,” his dad had said in a mysteriously melancholy voice. He started singing a song, as if the telephone were a microphone and he had grabbed a stage opportunity. “Ole buttermilk sky, can’t you see my little donkey and me, we’re as happy as a Christmas tree.” In a hundred years, Charger would not have imagined his dad bursting into song.

  Charger sometimes looked at his life as if he were a spy peering through a telescope. The next afternoon he could see himself and Tiffany as though he were watching from the other side of town. He saw a carefree young couple frolicking at Wal-Mart together. At least, that was how he tried to picture himself with Tiffany—as beautiful people in a commercial, scooting around having fun. They played hide-and-go-seek in the maze of tall aisles, piled to the ceiling with goods. He whistled “Buttermilk Sky,” and she followed the sound from aisle to aisle. She caught him in lingerie, where the canyons of housewares gave way to prairies of delicate flowers.

  “I win!” she cried, taunting him with a pair of pink panties on a hanger.

  A country-western star was at the store that day, signing pictures to promote his new album. He was a young heart-throb named Andy or Randy something. He was sitting at a table next to a shopping cart full of his CDs. Charger didn’t trust the guy. His shirt was too fancy.

  “Bet he didn’t buy them duds here,” Charger said to Tiffany.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Tiffany said, her breath trailing like gauze. “Oh, I’ve got to get his autograph.”

  Charger stood waiting in line with Tiffany, feeling ridiculous. Tiffany had on snake pants. Her legs looked like two sensational boa constrictors. They were attracting comments. A woman and a little girl were standing in line behind Charger and Tiffany. The woman—overdressed in beads and floral fabric—was eyeing Tiffany.

  “She’s going on his tour,” Charger told the woman impulsively. “She’s a singer.”

  “Oh,” the woman gasped. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Charger told the woman. He felt his orneriness kicking in. He couldn’t help himself when opportunities like this arose. “We’re in his entourage. What do you need to know about country’s newest sensation, Randy what’s-his-name?”

  “Andy,” Tiffany said, elbowing him.

  The woman said, “I’m a lounge pianist and former gospel artist? I’ve been trying for months to get my tapes to Andy.” She had the tapes in her hand. “I know he’d love them. Our hearts are on the same wavelength. His songs tell my life story.” She jerked her head to the left. “Get back here, Reba,” she yelled to the little girl, who had spun off down the cosmetics aisle. She reeled the child in and continued at some length. She said her life was a Barbara Mandrell kind of story, involving a car wreck and a comeback. The woman wore a country-music hairdo—a mountain of frizz and fluff that looked to Charger as though it had sprung out of a jack-in-the-box.

  A number of young girls in the line—pre-babe material, Charger thought—had long frizzed and fluffed hair too.

  “Your story is an inspiration,” Charger said to the woman.

  Tiffany whispered to Charger, “You’re embarrassing me.”

  The gospel-lounge singer heard and frowned at Tiffany. Charger imagined the woman sticking out her tongue.

  Charger said, “If you give me your name and number, I’ll have you on television inside a month.”

  “Here’s my card,” the woman said. “You’ll put in a word to him about my tapes, won’t you?” She took her child’s hand. “Come on, Reba. Stay in this line or I’m going to skin your butt.”

  The little girl clutched one of Andy’s CDs and a box of hamster food.

  “I like hamsters. I had hamster for supper last night,” Charger said, making a face at the child.

  Tiffany made the same face at Charger. “Why do you do things like that?” she said. “It irks me.”

  “Irk? I irk? Well, pardon me all over the place.” He flapped his arms like a bird. “Irk. Irk.” Teasingly, he nudged Tiffany with his knee, and then he pinched her on the rear end. “I’m a hawk. Irk.”

  “Cool.”

  Afterward, as they drove out of the crowded parking lot, Tiffany was engrossed in her autographed picture of the cowboy warbler. As she traced her finger along the signature, her bandaged thumb seemed to erase his face. S
he had grown quiet when it was her turn to meet the star. She had said to him, “All I can say is, ‘Wow.’ ”

  “He probably never heard anything so stupid,” she said now, as Charger turned onto the main drag. “I was so excited I couldn’t think of what to say!”

  “I’m sure what you said is exactly what he wanted to hear,” Charger said. “He eats it up. Isn’t he from Atlanta? He probably thinks we’re just dumb hicks here.”

  Tiffany said excitedly, “Oh, let’s go to Atlanta this weekend.”

  “And blow my paycheck?”

  “We can manage.”

  Charger braked at the red light. He stared at Tiffany as if he had just picked up a hitchhiker. Sometimes he felt he didn’t know her at all. Her snake legs squirmed—impatient to shed their skins, he thought.

  On Friday after work Charger decided to go straight to the source. He thought that Tiffany’s aunt might give him some of her Prozac if he caught her in the right mood. Paula was O.K. She covered for them when Tiffany spent the night with him. Paula said that her sister, Tiffany’s mother, would die if she knew about the little overnight trips in Charger’s truck.

  Paula hadn’t expected him, but she seemed pleased to see him at the door. She brought him through the living room into the kitchen. “Don’t look at this garbage,” she said.

  She had school projects—flags and Uncle Sam dolls and Paul Revere hats—scattered around. She taught fourth grade.

  Charger noticed that her eyelids drooped down onto her eyelashes, but her face had few wrinkles. He wondered how long Tiffany’s eyelids would hold up. She resembled her aunt—the same smidgen nose and whirlpool curls.

  Paula handed him a glass of ice and a two-liter Coke. He poured, and the Coke foamed over onto the kitchen counter. He sat numbly on a stool, embarrassed. While she wiped up the spill, she said, “This morning I dressed in the dark and put on one blue sock and one green sock?” She laughed. “At school I got a citation for a fashion violation. At school we get citations for bad hair, static cling, leopard-skin underwear beneath white pants, color clash, sock displacement. The fashion police sentenced me to work in the beehive section of the fashion salon.”

  “You’ve still got on a blue sock and a green sock,” Charger said. He wondered how her fourth-graders dealt with her high-pitched babbling.

  “Do you want a mayonnaise sandwich?” she asked.

  “No. Do you eat kid food, being’s you’re a teacher?”

  “I have to have at least a teaspoon of Miracle Whip a day or I’ll blow my brains out,” she said. “Bill won’t eat anything at lunch but crackers. I get mad at him because he won’t eat the food I leave for him. He won’t eat fruits and vegetables. I said, ‘There are some grapes on the counter.’ He said, ‘Are they washed?’ I said no. He said, ‘I don’t have to wash crackers.’ But he’s sure slim and trim on the cracker diet. I’ll give him that.”

  “Give that man a Twinkie!” Charger said, jumping off the stool in what he thought was a dramatic gesture. “You don’t have to wash Twinkies.”

  “I don’t know if he ought to eat Twinkies.”

  “Well, if that don’t work, give him a Ding Dong.” He grinned.

  “He’s already got a ding-dong.”

  “Then give him a Little Debbie.”

  “But I don’t want him to have a little Debbie.”

  Charger laughed. “Little Debbies are my favorite.”

  “Charger, you’re such a great kidder.” She laughed with him, shaking her head. “And you’re such a baby.”

  When Charger finally got around to mentioning Paula’s Prozac, she didn’t seem surprised that he wanted to try the drug.

  “I need to reprogram my head,” he said.

  “Why not go to church? Or take piano lessons?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Paula opened a cabinet above the toaster and chose a vial of pills. “You don’t really need these pills, Charger. You just need to believe in yourself more.”

  “My self doesn’t have that much to do with it.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t found it yet. You’ve got a deep soul, Charger. Tiffany doesn’t see it yet, but she will, in time.”

  She shook the pill bottle in his face like a baby rattle. She said, “One of the side effects of these little numbers is that they can make you nonorgasmic. But I’ve tested that thoroughly, and it’s not true for me. I don’t have that side effect!” She laughed loudly. “I don’t think you want one of these, Charger.”

  “It might be just what I need to relax my sex machine. It’s running away with me.” He winked.

  She turned serious. She put the pills back in the cabinet and said, “Charger, I believe you’re scared. You don’t act like you’re ready to settle down and have a family. Have you given any thought to what you would do if you and Tiffany had a baby?”

  “She’s not pregnant, is she?” he asked, alarmed.

  “Not that I know of. But it’s something you have to be ready for.”

  He had thought about it. He wasn’t ready for it. The idea was all wrong. Some guys he knew were working hard to feed their kids. They were not much older than he was, but they seemed years older. He couldn’t imagine being a father yet. He knew he didn’t have much chance of rising above the loading dock, at minimum wage. How could he feed a kid? He tried to shake off the thought. That was the distant future.

  Charger and Tiffany didn’t get away until after eight o’clock that night, after he had changed his oil and worked on his carburetor. They were going to Nashville instead of Atlanta. Tiffany’s mother was having a family dinner on Sunday for Tiffany’s cousin’s birthday, and Tiffany had decided that Atlanta was too far away for them to get back in time. She said she wanted to go to a store in Nashville called Dangerous Threads.

  On the drive Charger drank a can of beer. He glanced at Tiffany. She had on her snake pants again. They sort of gave him the creeps. He slid his hand down her thigh. The pants had a slinky, snaky feel that startled him every time he touched them. He moved his hand in little circles over her inner thigh. His hand moved like a computer mouse, tracing the snaky terrain beneath it.

  “Do you think I’ve been acting funny?” Charger asked.

  “No. Why?” She was picking at the closure on her bandage. It made a scratchy sound, like a mouse in a wall.

  “You don’t think I’m moody, or liable to jump up and say the wrong thing or throw a flowerpot on the floor? You’re not scared to cross the state line with me? You don’t think I’m weird?”

  “No, I think you’re just super-sexy. And you’re fun-loving. I rate that real high.” Twisting in her seat to reach him, she touched his cheek with her bandaged thumb. It was splinted for protection.

  “What do you want to do in Nashville besides shop?” he asked.

  “Go to that new mall, and maybe get into a good show at Opryland, and stay in a big hotel.”

  With her quick enthusiasm, she was like a child in Santa’s lap. “Motel Six is more like it,” he said.

  “Well, that’s all right. I just think we ought to have our fling before we get married and can’t run around so much.”

  Charger was passing a long-haul truck. He returned to the right-hand lane. The truck was far behind, like an image in slow motion. “Let’s go to Texas instead of Nashville,” he said.

  “It’s too far. And we’re headed in the wrong direction.”

  “We could drive straight through.”

  She didn’t answer. In a moment she said, “If you’re thinking about your daddy, you know you can’t find him just by driving to Texas for the weekend.”

  “I know, but I wish I could.” He glanced at the rear-view for cops and chugged some beer. “When Daddy called from Texas this spring, I was about two french fries short of happy,” he said. “And then the feeling just wound down, and I thought I could sort of see why he did what he did, and I could see me doing it too.” He shuddered. “It gives me the bummers.”

  He was afraid Tiff
any wasn’t listening. She was pulling at a strand of her hair, twirling it around her finger. But then she said, “I was just thinking about your dad. I was wondering what he was doing out there. And why your mother didn’t make more of a fuss about him going off.”

  “She was probably glad he was gone,” Charger said. He belched loudly. “Irk!” he said, to be funny. He made her laugh.

  They stopped for gas, then kept driving and driving. They sped past the Cracker Barrel. Usually they stopped there and ate about eight pounds of rosin-roasted potatoes and big slabs of ham. He so often overdid things, he thought sorrowfully. He had gotten his nickname years earlier from his childhood habit of charging into things without thinking. Recently he had dared himself to drive up the bank side of the clay pit; he was trying out his new used truck. The road wound around the clay pit, ascending steeply on one side. The dirt was loose. He wasn’t scared. He thought, I can do this. He steered very carefully and inched up the winding trail.

  “I can do this,” he said now, in a barely audible voice.

  Tiffany patted his arm affectionately. She said, “Charger, I know you don’t know what you want to do with your life. And you don’t make a whole lot. But we have plenty of time. I know we’re going to be real happy.” She spoke as though she had worked that up in her mind for the past two hours. Then she switched gears again, back to her usual self. She said, “See the moon? I am just thrilled out of my mind to see that moon. I love seeing the moon. I love going to church. I love work. I love driving at night. I love getting sleepy and snuggling up to you.”

  The moon was rising, a pale disk like a contact lens. The bright lights in the other lane obscured the path in front of him. He hit his brights and could see again. The stretch of highway just ahead looked clean and clear. Tiffany made everything seem so simple—like his father bursting into song about sky-watching. Was love that easy?

  He ran his hand along her leg, up the inseam. Then he turned on the radio. A song ended, followed by some unidentifiable yapping. He hit the SEEK button. Tiffany screeched. “That’s Andy! Turn it up. I just love that voice of his.”