The Crossroads

by John D. MacDonald

  He drove out, turned right and drove on down to the junction of 118 and the River Road, turned right again and came out onto 71 five miles south of the Crossroads and turned north. No point in going back to town. Eat at the Haven. Check in early on the job. Big deal for Marty.

  EIGHT

  During the first twenty-two days of July the Crossroads Corporation experienced the normal seasonal change in the character of the business. Summer vacationers clogged the roads. The young families stopped at the restaurants and gas stations and motels. The young husbands, with fourteen days, or twenty-one days of freedom, spent it abrading their souls against the shimmer and stink of fast traffic, counting each night the thinning stack of traveler’s checks. The young wives put on pretty summer skirts and blouses in the morning, and by ten o’clock were stained, wilted, wrinkled and rump-sprung, the victims of the attrition of summer heat, sticky hands and road fumes. They called their husbands darling with iron emphasis. Small, weary, windburned children whined and threw up. The young families visited dear friends they had not seen in three years, and found nothing to say to them. They visited the showplaces of the nation, made the proper dutiful sounds of appreciation and found them a litter of gum wrappers, bored guides and the ill-mannered children of the other young families. They careened down the endless stone rivers between the bright thickets of billboards. Virginia Beach was where Junie thumped Russell on the head with a rock. Three stitches. The Suwanee River was where the trunk compartment lock jammed. The Grand Canyon was where Baby broke Mummie’s glasses. Franconia Notch was where Tiffin got into the poison ivy.

  Tires burst. Speedometer cables squeaked and died. Pebbles chipped windshields. Pets escaped (You were the one hadda bring that goddam dog in the first place.) Fan belts snapped. Ten billion pieces of Kleenex tumbled along the dusty shoulders.

  Of all the young families a remarkably small percentage, statistically speaking, were crunched into bloody ruin.

  At the Motor Hotel Restaurant the proportion of Kiddie Dinners served increased greatly. At both the Motor Hotel and the Midland Motel, loss and breakage increased in a predictable percentage. Marty Simmons had to arrange to have the gas station washrooms cleaned at more frequent intervals and the concrete aprons hosed off more regularly. Each day the Motor Hotel was generally full by four-thirty, the Midland loaded by five. And still the vacationers flooded through, a certain flavor of desperation visible in the eyes of the young parents. It was easy to fall behind schedule. And everything cost more than you had planned. And if it doesn’t stop overheating, Melvin is going to go out of his mind. Please stop wiping your hands on Mummie’s skirt, darling. They’ll have a table for us very soon now.

  In addition to the normal seasonal change, Chip Drovek was aware of a continuing and potentially more significant change. New small houses were going up on the hills east of 71 at the rate of about thirty a month. Shopping Center traffic was increasing. An intricate boulevard traffic control light system was proposed for the big corner at the north end of the Drovek land, just beyond the shopping center and the drive-in movie. And, without warning, the state cut the speed limit for the whole area, from a spot a mile south of Truck Haven all the way to the Walterburg city limits, to forty miles an hour. That, he knew, would inevitably mean a certain reduction in the number of long-haul trucks stopping at the Haven. They would find faster alternate routes. And it slowed the tempo of the familiar sound. There was a new laziness about it. He judged that the average speed of through traffic had dropped from about fifty-five to about forty-five. The Crossroads was still basically a highway operation, a tourist business. But the focus was changing. Eventually it would become merely a suburban marketplace, attracting local money. He hoped his planning could keep up with this change, that they would give him an ample number of transitional years before a new bypass route was constructed.

  During the first twenty-two days of July there were the expected number of incidents. John Clear fired a bus boy who bored a peephole through one wall of the female employees’ washroom. A motorcade containing the governor of the state, escorted by sirens, stopped at the Motor Hotel Restaurant and the politicos had lunch in the private dining room. A semi-alcoholic editor of a large housewife magazine stopped at the Motor Hotel with her most recent young male editorial protegé, and, after posing several operational problems for the staff of the Starlight Club, managed to back her Chrysler convertible into the Motor Hotel swimming pool, after first churning through a flower bed. It landed upright in the shallow end. The first people to run to the side of the pool found the lady sitting behind the wheel, hip deep in water, vainly trying to start the car while she used language that could well have wilted those flowers she neglected to squash. While seeing a double feature at the Crossroads Drive-In Theater, a local man got out of his car, told his wife he was going to buy cigarettes, and was never seen again. The wind flipped a long board off a southbound lumber truck. The board struck, butt first, against the windshield post of an old Pontiac, driven by a Georgia carpenter named Rumsey, which had just swung out to pass the truck. One long splinter pierced the windshield and the center of the carpenter’s throat. He drove over onto the shoulder, stopped his car, turned off the motor and finished bleeding to death, wearing an expression of utter indignation. A thief broke into three cars parked outside the Midland Motel. There was a small fire in the laundromat which destroyed two dryers before it was extinguished.

  Of the first twenty-two nights in July, Chip managed to spend one half of four of them with Jeana. Since the quarrel their relationship had reached a new plane. They were more comfortable with each other, more content to be grateful for what they could have.

  Once during the twenty-two days, Chip had Dr. Jimmy Kloss come to the house and examine Clara. Though the liquor consumption had dwindled slightly, she seemed more out of reach than ever. And she seldom turned the television on. Kloss said there did seem to be a change, though not one of any particular significance. He said he suspected that she might be hallucinating, but he could not get her to confide in him. Her general physical condition seemed adequate. He changed her vitamins.

  Nancy had adjusted to the tempo of the work. She had learned that if she took a nap as soon as she got home from the Haven, she could stay out until midnight without folding up the next day. She had begun to know some of the regular truckers by name. She worked hard and she was liked. She was beginning to wonder how it would be to go away to school in the fall, what it would be like. The boys who had seemed to be elderly and wonderful before she had taken the job had begun to seem terribly young and rather silly.

  Leo Drovek had discovered a new and significant way to break down their operational figures. It involved a great deal of work. It seemed to take the staff forever to type up the tabulations he had to have. His three children all had what Betty called “their summer colds.”

  During that twenty-two days, Jack Paris spent approximately thirty hours in the office. He was runner-up for the Walterburg Golf and Country Club championship on the weekend of the fourteenth and fifteenth, coming up to the seventeenth all even, and then pushing his long iron to the green into a deep trap on the right, exploding it just a hair too thin so that it trickled off the far edge, chipping back well only to baby a putt that stopped on the rim for a bogey five. He explained what had happened at least twenty times, telling Joan how stupid he’d been. The runner-up cup went on the mantel, and the clipping into his book, and he spent long dogged hours on the practice range.

  Papa Drovek walked down his hill every day, except when it was raining, and spent an hour or two watching the construction of the car agency building.

  Glenn Lawrenz bought a cheap wrist watch to time his stays in the booth at the bank. He went over just how he would do it. He could not really believe he would do it. And sometimes he knew he would. Now that Sylvia wouldn’t let him come near her, he thought of her more than ever. He called her a couple of times. She told him not to call her. He made a date with one of the
new waitresses at the Crossroads Pantry when they both had the same afternoon and evening off, took her to a downtown joint and then to Nick’s and then back to the room. But by then she was too drunk to be any good. Her skin had a red coarse texture and she smelled doughy, and even drunk as she was, she wouldn’t let him do a damn thing unless he kept telling her he loved her. It was a mistake. When he drove her home she fell asleep in the car, and when he finally found her house, he couldn’t wake her up. He was struggling up the porch steps with her, intending to prop her against the door, ring the bell and get out of there, when a big surly bastard turned on the porch light and came out in his pajama pants, took one look at his daughter’s condition and took a big fat swing. Glenn stepped inside it, chopped him high and hard and dropped her daddy on the seat of his pants hard enough to shake the whole crummy neighborhood. He drove away, sucking his sore knuckles, vowing that never again would he try to be a nice guy and take them home. When they passed out, find a parked car in a dark place and put them in the car. He’d done it before.

  The twenty-second day of July was a thunderous Sunday, a day of storms that came whanging and banging down the valley leaving behind them steaming pavement and yellow metallic sunshine. One of the storms brought a roar of hail the size of garden peas and such a blackness that car lights went on. This one came about five in the afternoon. Early lovers lay clasped in the motels and listened to the sound of the hail. On westbound 82 the hail caused a chain collision involving six cars—a few minor injuries but over four thousand dollars in property damage. Hail pebbled the surface of the swimming pool, bounced high off the pastel roofs of parked cars, battered at the soggy Kleenex caught in roadside grasses, cracked a few dozen feet of neon tubing so that later, when the signs came on, they would spell out agreeable nonsense.

  Clara Drovek sat with the letter from Jeana to Chip in her lap when the hail came. She had handled the letter so carefully each time that it was unsmudged, the foldings crisp and sharp. When the hail came she turned her head slowly and looked out the windows. Above the roar and clatter of the hail she could hear the sweet harmonies of the great choir.

  The storm moved down the valley. Small children shrieked and pounced, collecting soiled handfuls of melting ice. Adults had a thousand memories of their own childhood. The car lights went off. Traffic picked up speed. From his porch Papa Drovek watched a mighty rainbow.

  Papa Drovek awoke as always at dawn. And, as on every morning of his life, his first conscious impression was the dull feeling of pain and loss when he realized how empty the bed was. You were meant to grow old together. Not this way.

  When he sat up he remembered that this was the day to go once again to the bank. It gave him a pleased, alert, holiday feeling. It was good to get dressed up. He laid out the clothes he would wear to the city. Put them on the last minute. Brush the suit. Took the bath last night.

  He put on old clothes and went down the narrow staircase that opened into the kitchen. He made a big breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, and coffee in the old granite pot. He sat with his back to the stove. As he ate he looked at his full cup of black coffee and played an old familiar game. Martha was behind him, at the stove. She had filled his cup. Sometimes she felt so close to him that he was certain he had but to turn and see her there, see her smile down at him. A big woman. As Joan is big.

  After he cleaned up his breakfast things, he filled the bird feeders and then pulled some small weeds in the garden, working slowly so as not to get sweaty. Charlie said be ready at ten. Papa was ready at quarter to ten, his hat on, deposit box key in his pocket, rubber bands in the other pocket. He waited with a stolid, implacable patience, watching the hill up which his eldest son would come in the big car to take him to the bank.

  The car came up the hill at five after ten. As it turned around beside the house, Papa was locking the door. He walked out and got in beside his son, old hat—neatly brushed—squarely on his head.

  “Is a pooty good day, Charlie,” he said.

  … Pete’s eight-power binoculars brought the small white house close. It was visible just over a roof angle of the north wing of the Motor Hotel. It was a sparkling morning. Sylvia watched with the edge of the binoculars braced against the window frame. From time to time she would lower them and rest her eyes. The strong lenses seemed to pull at her eyes, making them water. After forty minutes of vigil she saw the car appear suddenly, glinting as it turned around. It was still too far away to distinguish features. She saw a small figure, dark in the sunlight, walk to the car and get in.

  She moved back from the window and stood for a moment, trembling. Everything she had to do had been carefully planned, but in this moment of panic she could not remember any part of it. She shuddered, then went quickly to the phone. She had written the number Glenn had given her on the front of the phone book, lightly, in pencil, before destroying the slip.

  The line was free. She dialed the number. It was answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “I wanta talk to Glenn.”

  “This is me.”

  “They just left.”

  She heard his quick intake of breath. “Okay,” he said and hung up. His voice had sounded husky.

  She put the binoculars away, hurried to the closet, pulled her suitcase out, laid it flat on the floor, knelt beside it and opened it. It was all packed. Her scrapbook was on top. She opened the cover of the scrapbook and took out the note she had written for Pete. She had written it in Mark’s cabin, with Mark telling her just what to say.

  DEAR PETE: I am leaving you. I am running away with one of the boys who work for Marty. I love him. I’m sorry to do this to you. Don’t try to find us. Thanks for everything. SYLVIA.

  Mark had said, “You got to find the right place for the note, baby. Suppose it doesn’t work out and we got to wait a month. You don’t want Pete coming home and finding it. You got to think of a place where he won’t find it right away, but he’ll be sure to find it a little later on. So you can get back in the house and get hold of it again.”

  When she finally thought of a place, Mark had been satisfied. She shut the suitcase, took the note to the bathroom, opened Pete’s medicine cabinet, propped the folded note against his toothpaste. She had printed his name large on the outside of the note.

  She carried the suitcase out through the kitchen and into the carport. She opened the trunk of the Chevy and put the suitcase in. She stood for a moment, thinking with despair of all the lovely things she was leaving behind. Just one little suitcase. Mark said he would buy her pretty things with the money. She got behind the wheel. She had her big leather purse with her. She wore her white blouse with the gold threads worked into the fabric, her green wraparound skirt, gold sandals. She felt as if she could not take a breath quite deep enough to fill her lungs.

  Sylvia drove away from the house and turned south in the heavy midmorning traffic. Betsy Merris saw her from the Motel office and wondered idly where she was going. Marty caught a glimpse of her when she went by the station. John Clear, walking out of the Pantry, noticed her go by, heading south.

  Sylvia drove eight miles south on 71, made her turn and came back to the Ace Cabins. She stopped at the side of the road and waited, the motor running. A few minutes later, when there was no traffic coming in either direction, Mark Brodey joined her. He got in beside her. She had never seen him in an ordinary business suit and tie before. It somehow made him look timid and insignificant.

  He squatted on the floor, his head below the window level, and said, “Get going!” She headed north. “What time did they leave?”

  “Five after ten, Mark.”

  “You get hold of the punk right away?”

  “Maybe two minutes later.”

  He looked at his watch. “Good.” He peered at the speedometer. “Push it a little more. We got to get there first.”

  She turned right on the River Road, left on 118. Mark stayed down while she drove along the rough curving road that ran to the flooded gravel pit.
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  “He here yet?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Just a minute. I can’t see yet. No. There’s nobody here.”

  Mark got up onto the seat. “Stop right here. Get out. I’ll turn it around.”

  She got out. He spun the car around hastily, the tires kicking gravel, and parked it heading out, quite close to the brush. He got out. The sun was hot. His pale, narrow face was sweaty.

  “Tell me what you do, quick!” he said.

  “When he drives in, I stand right here beside the car. I ask him if he got it. If he says yes, I tell him to hurry and put his stuff in my car.”

  “That’s right, baby. I’ll be hiding on the other side of the car. You tell him to put his stuff in the trunk. When he comes back to the trunk, I take him.”

  “He’s big and strong, Mark.”

  “He won’t give me no trouble, baby. No trouble at all.”

  “What did you do with your car? I looked when I went by the cabins and it wasn’t there.”

  “What’s that to you? I got rid of it. I sold it. I quit the job. They think I’m going up to Philly. Hold it!”

  They stood, listening tensely. A car came along 118, moving at high speed. It went on by.

  “You won’t hurt him real bad, Mark?”

  “Just a little knot on his head, honey. And away we go.” He walked around the car. “I want to check this out. I’ll get in position. You walk up there a way and look back and see if you can see me at all.”

  He went around and crouched close against the right side of the car, just forward of the rear fender. He touched the fender with his finger tips. It felt funny to touch things. He’d spread the transparent coating of liquid cement over the tip of each finger. It had a hard crackly feeling between the flesh on his fingers and the hot metal of the car.

  “See anything?” he called.

  “No,” she answered, a hundred feet away.

  He stood up. “Okay. Come on back here.” He looked at his watch. It shouldn’t be long now. If everything worked out all right.