Now Chuck walks to Link and takes him by the elbow to lead him to the platform. He helps him step up onto it. The crowd hushes. Even the sounds of the surrounding woods seem diminished in volume.
I believe in God, Link whispers.
Louder, Lena cries. We can’t hear you, Link.
Link’s second attempt is only a shade louder.
Still not enough, Link. We got to hear you, pal.
Two more tries do not satisfy Lena. The crowd is getting restless. With an easy loping step, Chuck gets onto the platform.
I'll say it with you, Link, he says.
That’s an old ploy, Chuck, Link mutters.
It sure is, but it works. Come on now, fill your lungs with it, then let it out.
Link nods at Chuck and takes a deep breath.
I believe in God! the two shout out together and Link receives a tumultuous Wheeler cheer. As it subsides, Lena climbs to the platform and hugs Link tightly. I resent that. She didn’t hug me when I shouted out my testimony and I did it in one shot. These goddamned religious folk always have a soft spot in their hearts for the reluctant convert.
A few days ago, when I asked Link how he came to know Chuck so well, he just shrugged off the question, said they’d been buddies for a time a while back. But it’s more than buddies, I can tell. You don’t shift your belief a hundred-eighty degrees for a mere buddy, not when you’re as stubborn as Link. Ah, well, no matter. At least Chuck got Link to come around, and that’s what counts. We’re already assigned to Chuck’s team.
Victor, however, is another matter. As usual. He scored so high on the soul-recruitment matrix of final exam questions that the Wheelers insist he go out on rest-stop duty. I suppose his new clean-cut appearance, whose construction was supervised by Wheeler personnel, influenced the manpower people in their decision. Looks to me like they’re grooming him to be their poster-boy.
Come with us, I said to Victor, without really caring if he did or not. I just had the odd notion that our team shouldn’t be split up. When I considered what we’d gone through together, I didn’t really know why I felt that way.
I don’t like trains, he said, and I’m damn sick of cars. I like what I’m going to do. It may even be my vocation.
You’re turned into one of them, I said. You buy their shit.
I guess so. They said I can dress any way I want off-duty. They understand me.
Which is more than we ever did.
Any more than you ever did anyway.
I allowed his remark to stand. I could not protest too much. I was too relieved. A little regretful, too, oddly enough, but I could hack it.
* * * * *
After a few joyless celebration speeches, the meeting breaks up. Some Wheelers go to a central pavilion area to dance (no close-dancing permitted). Others go to the nightly meditation session or to fulfill duty-roster jobs. Link and Chuck drift off to resume their nightly chess game. I can’t decide what to do. Giving my testimony has made me feel fraudulent. I wonder how God feels about it. Lena sees me standing alone and walks languidly toward me, smiling rather enchantingly.
You look restless, she says.
Suppose I am, I say.
Nervous about your assignment?
In a way. I can’t figure it.
Oh? Why not?
Well, it’s—I mean, I just can’t fit Chuck and his gang of, well, outlaws into your whole operation. You seem to disapprove of violence.
We do.
Yet you allow him to conduct these raids.
It’s what he wanted to do for us. We didn’t argue. Anything that will eliminate cars from the road is, after all, a blow for the Lord, one of many jobs we do.
See, you even talk of it violently.
I don’t know what you mean.
You said it was a blow.
Everybody serves in his own way.
But why get rid of cars?
You find them useful?
I like them, yeah.
You should talk to Chuck about it.
He doesn’t talk to anybody about much of anything.
That’s his way. I’m afraid I can’t explain him, or what he does. The council approves of it, so J go along. At least Chuck gets wrecks off the road. You should get some rest. You’ve a long day ahead.
I suppose you’re right.
Good night.
Night.
And don’t worry, pal. Whatever you do, it’s for the Wheelers now. You don’t have to justify it to yourself.
I resist telling her that that is not a comforting thought. She walks away slowly. I can’t help noting, as I always do when she’s walking away from me, the appealingly rhythmic swing of her ass. I want her, and I wish she could forget her vows to the Wheelers for just one night.
So I’m a shade surprised when she comes to my bed that evening. With Link playing chess, I’m alone in the mobile home we share, feeling just on the verge of sleep. She slips into my quarters without my hearing her. All Wheeler doors are open to all Wheelers. I look up to see her standing over me beside the bed. Instead of her usual Wheeler uniform, the checker shirt and jeans, she’s wearing a dark blue slip under a checkered flannel robe. From this angle she is an even more formidable figure than ever, looking taller, bustier, fuller-hipped. For a moment I’m sure this is one of my recurring dreams.
Lee, she says, move over.
Why?
I need to get in there beside you.
Whatever you say.
I shift to the opposite side of the narrow bed, pressing my bare back against the frigid Formica wall. She slips off the robe and lies beside me, quickly pulling a blanket over her body.
Lena, I thought—
Shut up. See, I can’t sleep. Happens to me sometimes. I get this, this lump inside my chest, and it begins to hurt, and I can’t breathe right. I need to get sleep. You can help.
What do you—
I need to be massaged. It calms me down, lets me sleep. But I can’t do it myself. Guy who used to do it, disappeared last month. I couldn’t think of anybody to come to, then I thought of you after we talked. You have, you have a bizarrely gentle side to you. Please.
Okay, but—
Give me your hand.
When I offer my left hand, she grabs my wrist with a vengeance.
Right here, she says.
She guides my hand to her chest, places it palm-down just below her neck.
Stroke slowly, in a line, she says. Like this.
She guides my hand down her breastbone, in between her two formidable tits. Her skin is a bit oily with sweat. There are beads of perspiration in the hollows of her shoulders.
Then down here, she says, guiding my hand in a perpendicular line across the area just beneath her left breast. The stroke ends with my hand lightly cupping the underside of the breast.
Keep doing it like that, she says. In a pattern. Your hands are soft. For a road type, soft, anyway.
My hand slowly retraces the path she’s shown me, in the pattern she demands. Her sighing tells me I’m doing it satisfactorily. She loosens her grip on my wrist, lets one hand clutch the upper level of the blanket, which she pushes away from her upper torso.
Feels better already, she says as my hand comes to a brief rest at its starting point below her neck.
More. Again.
When I finish the route this time, I let my hand rest more firmly on her breast. My thumb flicks briefly upward, makes contact with an erect nipple. She doesn’t say anything about this liberty.
I massage her for a long time. She starts out breathing heavily, but does calm down. Sometimes when I touch her breast she gasps faintly, but never comments on it.
I lean the lower part of my body against her thigh, sure that she’ll feel the firmness of my erection there. She does. She almost jumps out of bed.
No! she says.
But it’s clear you need—
You don’t know my needs. You don’t know shit about my needs. I need to sleep is what I need. Massage me but
don’t touch me anywhere else, pal.
But—
Please. I need to sleep. Please.
I continue the massage, a little less enthusiastically than before. I don’t even let my hand rest on her breast any more. Gradually her breathing becomes even. Sleepily, she takes my hand away from her chest and leans in toward me, her head on my shoulder. Her breathing becomes heavy. She is asleep. My body is twisted out of shape and I have to slowly ease it into a more comfortable position. I am almost asleep myself when she puts her right leg over my thighs. Lena is a big woman and the first thing I think of is that she’s going to cut off the circulation in my legs, my feet are going to go to sleep, become numb and require amputation. I try to move my legs out from under her leg. Her response to my movement is to slowly, gradually, achingly start working her leg upward, leaning her body into mine. I whisper her name to see if she’s aware of what she’s doing. Clearly she’s still asleep. I feel trapped in a vise. When her leg crosses my crotch, she stops, begins pressing me there gently with her thigh. My erection begins to return but, trapped by the pressure of her leg and helped by my own intense concentration on it, it becomes more painful than pleasurable and, for my own survival as a sexual being, it quickly goes limp. Good fellow. She presses against me for a long time, while the erection keeps threatening to come back. I try to keep my mind on atrocities. Eventually her leg movement is joined by a rhythmic pressing of her crotch against the side of my right leg. Oh God, I can’t stand it. God, I’ll validate my testimony, I’ll believe in you for real, I really will, just save me from this. Her body begins to tremble spasmodically. I think she is coming.
Suddenly she’s awake. Drawing her leg away and lying on her back, she cries:
Where am I?
I won’t tell you, Lena.
For a moment I thought I was—what am I doing here? Wait, wait, I remember.
Lena, I’ll take you to the prom if that’s what you want.
What? What are you talking about?
Never mind. Just a thought.
You’re really peculiar, Lee. I feel better now, though. Thanks for the massage.
Any time.
Are you sure you don’t want to stay in the settlement instead of going out with Chuck and his bunch?
Could we go steady?
Well, sort of. I mean, I get this pain often and I can’t get rid of it easily. It’s not a real illness, I know, some sort of anxiety maybe—
I’ll tell you just what kind of anxiety, Lena.
She stares at me angrily. Her eyes have the same kind of zeal in them that they have when she talks about God.
I know what’s on your mind, pal. Just forget it. All I’m asking—and normally I ask nobody for nothin’—is that you stay behind, help me in my work, help me when I got the pain. Nothing else. Never anything else.
I think I’ll go.
You atheistic bastard!
Why, Lena, I took the oath, said I believed in God, did what you told me. How could you ever—
Shut up, pal. I got your number and you know it. Anyway, thanks for the massage. And for the tenderness. You really are tender. Tenderness is in short supply, even among the Wheelers. Whyn’t you come with me? The anger leaves her. She smiles.
I’d like to, pal. I’d really like to. But I found my vocation. I like it here. And I’m good at teaching, at recruiting. Believe it or not, for every questionable type like you we get, we get two or three genuine converts. The Wheelers are going places soon, I want to be there for it. In the heart of it. I like it here. Maybe I'll see you again, pal, if you don’t fall off the train during the trip.
She’s out of bed and out of the mobile home before I even know for sure she’s going. I only hear the gentle padding of her feet, and that doesn’t last for long.
— 4 —
Victor comes to see us off in a form-fitting checker shirt, red and black, and crisp new blue jeans. He’s had a fresh haircut and his face is so spotlessly clean it looks like he’s scrubbed it down with sandstone. He’s handsomer than ever and looks quite happy. I realize that in all the time we’ve traveled together he never looked really happy before. His laughter has always been sneering, his exuberance unexhilarating. Maybe there’s something in all this Wheeler crap after all. I mean, I’ll never believe it but, hell, these people are happy in their ridiculous shells. Their illusions. Dad used to talk about protective illusions. This may be what he meant. Ah, what did he know? He probably read about protective illusions off the back label of a bottle of cheap wine.
Share the word, Victor says to Link. Share the word, he says to me. And that’s about all he says. No nostalgia, no sentimental parting, no good to’ve traveled with you guys. Just, share the word. I’m already hating the Wheeler slogans, and I haven’t really been a Wheeler yet.
Lena comes around, too, just as we’re forming the caravan of cars going to the train. She stops by the Mustang and peers in at me, without emotion. I think she’s already forgotten last night. No matter. I leave her to heaven, as the saying goes. Let her cheerlead her way to the education of recruits, let her tremble without love through long nights. I don’t care. Why should I care? Why do I care?
I wave at her. She nods, then walks away with her usual languid stride.
That lady is programmed, Link mutters.
No, I say, she isn’t.
How would you know, can I ask?
She’s very disturbed, Link.
I never noticed. She seems very much in control.
Well, she isn’t.
You been reading some old psychology magazine or something?
Nope. I just feel some of her pain, that’s all.
What a crock of bullshit.
Yeah, I guess so. When’s this show gonna get on the road?
Be patient.
We finally get started. The Mustang’s been positioned in the middle of the caravan, probably so we can’t sneak off, and I feel confined. The car ahead gradually opens the distance between us, the car behind seems intent on crawling into our exhaust pipe. Although it’s a sunny day, the air is still. All the gas fumes from the immense number of vehicles in the slow-moving caravan make me cough, and I have to roll up the window. Link rolls up his, too. The inside of the Mustang gets too hot. Link rolls his window down a crack. I roll mine down a crack. We get whiffs of the fumes, but we get used to them.
Chuck’s not too fond of this car, Link says abruptly. He says it’s gonna fall apart at the first bump. He wanted for us to take a different car. I told him I didn’t think you’d go for that.
You’re right.
I told him I didn’t go for it either.
Thought you hated this car.
I do. But, hell, we gave up our fuckin’ freedom for these bastards, we gave up our self-respect, we lied in front of a fuckin’ god who I don’t believe in but if he’s there he knows it and I’m gonna hate being on his turf when it’s my time—so, anyway, I didn’t see any sense in giving up the fuckin’ car.
Link is staring straight ahead. His eyes are shut.
I appreciate that, Link.
Keep it in your head. I don’t want to-hear it.
The Mustang makes one of its odd choking engine sounds. No matter how many mechs work on it, the car seems to retain its various little noises. Maybe it has to keep up a running commentary. In a way, its noises are comforting.
One thing, Lee, Link says. You’re gonna have to be ready to lose this car. The kind of drill Chuck’s gonna run, a car’s gotta be in good shape, and the best shape this car can maintain doesn’t amount to a hill of carbon. If you don’t find a way to cut out, you’re gonna have to be driving new wheels in a month.
I don’t want to hear that.
I know you don’t.
I can almost hear Cora saying, see, Lee, I always told you you’d fuck up, you’d lose. Every time I hear Cora in my mind, every time I think of her at all, I’m angry that we couldn’t stay together. I wish she’d turn up now, drive up now, say she’s been look
ing for me all over the west, and wants to clear up all our differences so the two of us can settle down in a little shack and work on our own version of the good life. She’d never show up. She’d never look for me. But it’s a pleasant fantasy.
To get my mind off the subject, I ask Link:
What kind of drill’s Chuck gonna run anyway?
You’ll see. Mainly we’re gonna destroy cars any way we can. Burn ’em mainly, push ’em off cliffs when we can’t burn ’em, smash ’em with mallets and axes when we can’t do anything else. All sorts of good clean fun, Lee.
How about creating sculptures? That sounds less destructive, more useful.
You want to make sculptures, you talk to the man about it. The way Chuck runs things, he’s probably got a set of welding tools stashed away somewhere.
Yeah, probably. Chuck’s like that.
Where’d you know him from?
Back east. He was always around, getting things done.
Yeah, same here. Except I knew him down south somewhere. But he was getting things done there. Last spring he—
Last spring? You knew him last spring?
Among other times, yeah.
But he was with us last spring.
Couldn’t’ve been. He was turning an abandoned state police station into a home for kids whose folks liked joyriding better than parenting. Took up a lot of his time.
But he was—never mind. Chuck seems good at getting around.
Seems so, don’t it?
* * * * *
Two thickly foliaged trees bending toward each other form a natural archway to the Wheelers’ train station. Or, rather, an eyestraining blast of bright colors that gradually assemble themselves into the station. Looks like the Wheelers, bright young folks that they are, have painted everything in sight. Particularly the damn stationhouse. Bright orange, windows in green. Maybe what they really want to do is transform the world into one vast fast-food franchise. The fence around the adjacent parking lot is painted in a single color located somewhere between yellow and green on the spectrum. Each track along the railroad bed is a different garish color. It all looks so happy I want to slit my throat. Just like these people, paint and bright colors. Saying you believe, pretending you’re not sexual, arranging mobile homes as spokes, painting the railroad tracks. Surfaces.
A Set Of Wheels Page 21