by Harry Mazer
Mary was like those weeds. She had the strength of weeds. Was it that strength that had drawn him to her from the beginning? Was that what he’d seen in her face, in those large eyes? He’d felt inspired when he saw her, made alive, just as, now, he felt dead.
Where was she right now? What was she doing? He wondered about that when he was walking, or eating, or when he woke up in the morning.
She was coming back – maybe. He kept expecting her. It was the reason he got up in the morning.
He waited and waited. He told himself he was through with her – she was out of his life – but he was obsessed. The more he told himself to stop thinking about her, the more he thought about her. Every morning he thought, Today. Every night it was, Tomorrow.
Suddenly Danny and Tracy announced they were getting married. ‘And you’re going to be my best man,’ Danny said, over the phone. ‘Where’ve you been? You don’t come around, you don’t answer the phone. Some friend.’
‘Married? I didn’t know you two were talking.’
‘Oh, that. She still doesn’t talk to me half the time.’
‘What happened to change her mind?’
‘Her father got on her case. I always knew we’d get married.’
The wedding was at All Saints. There were a lot of Belcos, but from Tracy’s family, the Stauffers, there were only her father, her cousin Dawn, and an older brother who flew in from Atlanta. Dawn was the maid of honour.
He ran into Dawn the night before the wedding at the rehearsal. She was wearing tight jeans and a sweater that left her middle bare. She gave him a dazzling smile. ‘I haven’t seen you around. How have you been?’
‘Good. And you?’ As he talked, he looked her over. ‘What do you think of this show we’re in?’
‘I can’t believe this is happening. Did you know about it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Did he tell you everything?’
‘Sure did.’
‘Not everyone knows. It’s not so bad. She can have a couple babies fast and then go to modelling school. Did you know they already have a little apartment?’
He shook his head.
‘Yes, right over the Oxford Grill. It’s really cute. And convenient. Where’s your friend with the baby?’
‘She moved.’
‘Oh, yeah, I heard that. I heard she went to live with the hippies. Do you miss her?’
‘I do sometimes, yes. How about you?’
‘I’ve been having a lot of fun this summer. I’ve been to the beach almost every day and I worked a little. Keeping the old bod in shape.’
‘Looks like you’ve done a good job. Maybe we can get together sometime.’ He didn’t know why he said it.
‘I’d like that. Do you have any important plans?’
‘Uh-huh. I’m going to take a trip – maybe. See the country, get out to California, maybe.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘That sounds fabulous. Want some company?’
‘Sure, I’ll let you know.’
The morning of the wedding, he sat down in front of the TV, put his feet up, and watched old Flintstone cartoons.
‘Aren’t you getting dressed?’ his mother said.
She got on him, which maybe was what he was looking for. Give him a reason to feel sorry for himself. In his heart he was jealous of Danny, jealous of the way he’d put his life together. No problems for Danny, no fuss, no muss, no questions, no doubts. He got his girl pregnant and he married her. He had two businesses going, restoring old VWs and cutting firewood. And Tracy was working at a market. And she was a hell of a good girl. And they had an apartment over the Oxford Grill. And tonight they’d be at the Bide-A-While Country Motel in New Hampshire, and from now on they could go at it, legally, day and night.
His mother was back with the same question ten minutes later. ‘What time do you have to be there? You better get going.’
‘Lay off, Mom. It’s not going to happen without me.’
She knocked his feet off the couch. ‘Stand up. I’m going to cut your hair so you don’t look like a wild man.’
He let his hair be cut. Enjoyed it, in fact. Then he got dressed and came downstairs barefoot.
‘You’re not going to the wedding in your bare feet?’
‘Who’s going to notice?’
‘And that hat?’
‘Okay, I’ll wear shoes, but the hat stays.’ When he left the house, he was wearing the black bowler hat, a red cummerbund, had his Nikon around his neck and was carrying a bamboo cane.
At the church, everyone but the bride and groom was out front. ‘Leave it to Jeff,’ Mrs. Belco said, pulling up her gloves. ‘Leave it to Jeff Orloff to show up at my son’s wedding looking like a clown in a circus. Give me that hat. You’re not going in there with that.’
Danny’s uncle Val put on the bowler hat. It made him look like one of his own pigs.
‘Take that off, Val,’ Mrs. Belco said.
He pulled it down. ‘I like it. It makes me think of FDR’s inauguration. Take my picture, Jeff.’
Jeff shot a roll of film of the family, then went looking for Danny, twirling his cane and scanning the crowd as he went.
The ceremony was about to begin, and Danny beckoned him. Standing in front of the priest with Danny, while the bridal march was being played, Jeff let his eyes move across the assembly. Tracy came down the aisle on her father’s arm, and he stood there trying to pretend it was Mary coming and he was waiting for her.
30
One day he picked up the phone and called information and got the Oak Street phone number, then dialled before he lost his nerve.
‘Jeff! Where are you calling from? Are you in California?’
‘Not yet. How are you doing? I thought I’d come up and see you – that is, if you’re not too busy.’
‘That would be great, Jeff.’ And then she hesitated and he knew it was going to be bad. ‘When were you planning to come? It wouldn’t be convenient right now.’
‘Mmm.’
‘I’d love to see you,’ she said, ‘but we’re starting a new programme in the schools and I’m away a lot. You could see Hannah, of course. She’s home all the time. I’m sure she’d like to see you, but I’m doing schools just about every day.’
‘It sounds like things are going right for you.’
‘They are, Jeff. Better than I could have hoped. I’m acting, I’m doing plays, I’m learning every single day. And when I’m not around to take care of Hannah, someone else always is. It works out, it really does.’
‘So you don’t want me to come?’
‘I didn’t say that. You can come but I don’t guarantee I’ll be there. I know I won’t have a lot of time to spend with you. I thought you’d be setting Hollywood on its ear by now.’
‘Any day now.’
‘You’re not going to do it sitting home, Jeff.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’ He hung up. The hell with her.
She’d rejected him. Again. Ever since she came back from the workshop she’d been rejecting him, and he’d been too obsessed to get the message. Well, he got it now, and he rejected her right back. He was finally through with Mary Silver, washed clean, emptied out. What remained. Nothing but the need to tell her. He’d cared for her, he’d cared a lot for her. Yes, loved her. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. But that was all gone now. She’d taken care of that. He was crowding her, she’d said, choking her. Well, then choke. He didn’t give a damn.
That’s what he would tell her, but not on the telephone. Face to face, so there’d be no mistakes. So she’d know exactly what he thought of her. He owed that to himself.
He didn’t sleep well that week. He was up late developing Danny’s wedding pictures. He caught catnaps during the day.
On Monday, he borrowed Danny’s truck. ‘Mary again? I thought you were through with her.’ Danny had put on some pounds in the few weeks he’d been married. ‘Tracy says there’s plenty of girls she knows would love to go out with you. I thought you were getting
together with Dawn.’ He gave Jeff a pitying look. ‘Why don’t the four of us go out?’
‘The keys.’ Jeff put out his hand.
‘Drive her easy. You look wasted. What’ve you been doing? No speeding. And if she starts overheating, pull over.’
On the Thruway, he opened the truck up full throttle. After he saw Mary, he’d only go home long enough to pack. Maybe he’d join the service or go out to California, keep going, travel. He was sick of people feeling sorry for him and talking behind his back. Knowing his business. Who didn’t know about Mary and him? Damn! He hit his head against the partition, then stepped on the accelerator. Even if he got there in the middle of the night, he’d wake her, and if she was in bed with some guy, he’d throw him out, dump him on his ass.
He drove right into a radar trap. Didn’t even know it till he saw the blinking trooper’s car ahead of him and the trooper waving him to the side. He shut his eyes and drove by him. What trooper? I don’t know what you mean, sir, I wasn’t speeding. He fought the urge to look back through the side mirror. If he didn’t see the trooper, then he wasn’t guilty, was he?
He pressed his foot to the floor, would have pushed it through the floor. There was a sick, soupy feeling in his gut. No strength in his arms. His foot, pressed down on the pedal, shook. The truck did, too. It couldn’t take the pounding. It was complaining. It was howling and crying for relief.
Come on, you old junker, move. He leaned forward, urging it on. He cursed the truck and pleaded with it.
A long way back, he saw the flashing red lights. He searched for a turnoff, a place where he could duck behind some trees and hide. The two lanes stretched out ahead, straight as geometry. The shortest line between two points was getting shorter.
He was lost … lost without Mary. What was he going to do now? Life, the future, nothing mattered. He felt suicidal – he wanted to shut his eyes and go to sleep and not wake up … He pressed the accelerator to the floor.
The trooper came up in the other lane. Jeff swerved in front of him, forced him to fall back. It wasn’t him. It was the truck, this old beat-up truck, banging and wheezing, going all over the road. The muffler dropped off. The truck roared like a crazy bull. Go, you old dog. Beat him. Don’t let him get me.
He was so tired. His arms … his eyes … he could hardly keep them open. He closed them, then opened them … His father was driving and he was little and sitting in his lap and his father was going full out and laughing his head off …
When the trooper finally forced Jeff off the road, he was sitting in the cab laughing, too weak to move.
31
The police gave Jeff the drunk test and searched him for drugs. They booked him for speeding, avoiding arrest, endangering others, driving an unsafe vehicle. They fingerprinted him, then locked him in the basement in a windowless cell. They would have allowed him one call – a lawyer or his family – but he said no. He wasn’t calling anyone. Tomorrow he’d face the judge.
He pushed the door. No handle on the inside. Bare, dirty walls. A mesh-covered peephole on the door. A single bulb on the ceiling surrounded by metal mesh and a clogged ventilator. Three steps and he crossed the room from end to end. There was no place to go. No room to turn. Nothing to do but wait for morning and think.
Think? That’ll be a change for the better.
He looked up at the ceiling, a net of cracks, a spiderweb. His own life was like that, a tangle of emotion. When was he going to get clear? He’d been running all summer, running away from himself, running after Mary. Mary – the girl of his dreams. Talent and beauty and intelligence – smart, too, and fun to be with. He’d seen her clearly, but he could only hear himself mouthing off. Admiration and sex, desperation and lust all mixed together. All summer he had been in a fever of indecision, afraid to make a move for himself, focusing everything on Mary. Wanting her had been easier than figuring out what to do with his own life.
Mary had been running, too, running her own race. He’d been there on the sidelines, cheering her on, passing her the towels and the paper cups of water. Go, Mary! You can do it! Well, she’d done it, found what she needed, left him behind. Sunshine Mary with Hannah in her arms, disappearing over the horizon. Good-bye, Mary.
He took shallow, tentative breaths. He wanted out of here. What was he doing in jail? This is Honest Jeff Orloff. A good kid. Cleancut type. He hit the wall, kicked it with his heel. He was like a horse in a stall. Crowded. Jammed in. Every way he turned, a wall.
How had he ended up here? Easy. He’d been running again. Mary again! Running to see her. Running to tell her off. No, that was just an excuse. He’d wanted to see her again. Still fooling himself. Mary had asked why he wasn’t in California. Well, why wasn’t he? Scared, that’s why. Talk was easy. Doing was hard. ‘What do you think, Mary? Not too smart. They’re probably going to open up Alcatraz and give me twenty years. What a way to get to California.’
He tossed around on the bed, bored, tired, worried. Afraid of his own thoughts. He concentrated on the sound of his breath rising in his throat. His chest rising … falling … his stomach sinking … his chest rising, swelling, filling out. The air in the cell was thick, damp, heavy with mould. It felt like breathing underwater.
He looked up at the ceiling and saw Mary, a wavery figure appearing and disappearing through the stains and cracks on the ceiling. ‘I hope you brought me a cake with a file in it so I can bust out of here.’ If he held his head to one side he could just make her out, but if he moved the least little bit she disappeared.
‘I bet you think this is bad, right? Wrong. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I needed to be slowed down. The troopers did me a favour throwing me in the slammer. This is a terrific place. You think it’s a cell, but it’s really a think tank. No distractions. No TV. No girls. Nothing to take my mind off important things.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘This is the quietest you’ve been since I’ve known you. Since I’m doing all the talking, I’ll tell you some other stuff. You know I wanted you a lot. I still want you a lot. That’s my trouble. I’m a dreamer. Do I ever see things the way they really are? In my imagination, everything’s possible. I have this bad habit of forgetting what’s really true. Forgetting there are some things I can never change.’
He jumped up and looked through the peephole. Was someone out there listening to him talk to himself? Next stop, the funny farm. What if they never let him out? What if they came in the middle of the night to beat him?
He flopped down on the bed again. ‘You still there, Mary? Don’t go away. Where was I? Oh, yes. You and me. And my feelings about you, and who cares? Me. Not you. Oh, you liked me all right. Friends, right? What you said right from the beginning. You told me. Friendship – that was what you offered.
‘But I wanted the way Hannah wants. Fact: I wanted you, but you didn’t want me. There. I said it. That wasn’t so bad. I’ll say it again. I want you and you don’t want me. At least not now.’
Still hoping, Orloff.
‘Okay, maybe not ever. Okay, okay. Not ever. Never.’ He sat up. ‘Never,’ he yelled. The word stuck in his throat. ‘I know I created our romance – our love affair. Well, that’s upgrading it a bit. Whatever you call it, I did it. On the other hand, you did give me encouragement now and then. Remember those kisses, Mary?’
You’re repeating yourself, Orloff.
‘Forget the kisses. Forget everything. We’re through. Finished. This is the end. The end of the line. And I feel okay, Mary. Not great. But better than when I started this trip. My head is clearer. It’s been good talking to you. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Not that you ever did. I have a lot of good stuff to remember – the times we spent together, the things we did. Hannah – I think I’m going to miss her more than I miss you. So whatever it is I’m feeling, it’s not an empty feeling. There’s something left, something good. And this is my last word. I really did love you, Mary Silver, in my own crazy way. And Orloff says, if you lo
ve somebody, you’re never the loser.’
He shut his eyes, then opened them. Mary was gone. All he heard was the hum of motors deep in the building. He needed to sleep, but he couldn’t turn his mind off. He was directing again, his mind moving soundlessly up through the walls to a great height. Long shot: A laser of light focused in on a solitary figure in a grey cell. Stone on four sides. It was like looking down into an archaeological dig, the tomb opened, and the figure lying there as it had for thousands of years waiting for this moment to arrive … An unknown man wrapped in bandages, slowly getting up, standing … stretching … dusting himself off …
The next day Jeff faced the Honourable Judge William Colby in traffic court. Behind him they brought in a kid in handcuffs. The judge had white hair and a ruddy face and a thin mouth like John Wayne. He read the charge in a low droning voice, not looking up. ‘How do you plead?’
‘Guilty, Your Honour.’ He stood up straight and looked right at the judge. No excuses. He had been driving too fast and he hadn’t stopped when the trooper flagged him down. As for swerving in front of the trooper, he didn’t know what to say about that.
Judge Colby glanced through the papers. ‘Were you drinking?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Using a controlled substance?’
‘What, sir?’
‘Drugs. You know what I’m talking about.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then what the hell was the matter with you?’
‘I wasn’t thinking. I mean, my mind was somewhere else.’
‘Well, where was it?’
Jeff looked around. There were a lot of people sitting in the court. ‘It’s personal.’
The judge grunted. ‘Personal.’ He looked up, really looked at Jeff. ‘Do personal reasons give you the right to break the law? You’re giving me a lot of excuses here. You felt like going like hell so you went like hell. And when the trooper flagged you down you said the hell with that and you kept going. Personal. I’m not impressed. You young people think you can do anything you damn please and then say you’re sorry.’