“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks. I stare into her green eyes searching for something to recognize, but the same tinge of melancholy is all I find. “Nineteen sixty-five,” she says with a little sigh. “Tenth Street and Second Avenue? St. Mark’s Church.”
“I’m drawing a blank,” I confess. “I’ve been driving for days. What seems like days, anyway.”
She laughs nervously, half embarrassed, then stares at the carpet. “We lived together for a while. Don’t you remember? We’d get up every morning and sit on the edge of my mattress eating bowls of wheat germ with brown honey all over it.”
“Oh,” I say, and keep staring into her with mounting desperation, wondering if maybe I’ve snapped some fragile synapse in my brain from too much driving. The final breakdown of road madness. Right here in Indianapolis. Then she does an amazing thing. She whips off the blue bandana and shakes out a mane of red hair that topples almost to her waist. Now it all comes back. “Oh—it’s you,” I say, still unable to attach a name.
“Who?” She giggles. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No—”
“Then what’s my name? Come on, it wasn’t that long ago.”
“Nineteen sixty-five,” I say.
“Or six—”
“No, it couldn’t have been.”
“Maybe sixty-eight. That was it.”
“That’s still forty years ago!”
“No!” She laughs.
“Add it up.”
“Yeah, I guess it was, wasn’t it?”
“Beth, right?” I blurt out.
“No, see? You don’t remember.”
“Betty?”
“Close.”
“What then? This is wearing me out.”
“Becky!” she announces with a beaming smile and her arms wide open as if I’m going to jump up and embrace her.
“Sure—Becky. That’s right. Becky—Of course.”
“What’s my last name?”
“Oh, please—I can’t keep up with this. I’m really wiped out—”
“Thane,” she continues.
“Thane?”
“Thane. Becky Marie Thane.”
“Right,” I say.
“You really don’t have any recollection at all, do you?” she says in almost a whisper, then stifles a little chuckle. She crosses her long arms and holds her shoulders softly as though filling the blank of affection she wishes were coming from me. “I was so in love with you, Stuart,” she sighs, and her eyes drift back down to the pink wall-to-wall carpeting with pizza stains and splashed Pepsi. The violent sounds of the surveillance loop keep mercilessly repeating. I notice the girl behind the desk giving us a sideways glance, then return to the bright green glow of the computer screen. There is no escape. Becky Marie Thane lets her long arms fall to her sides in surrender, the blue bandana dangling from her right hand. I return the National Geographic to the glass table and then I do suddenly get a picture of that time, some fleeting memory of a morning facing a New York window with a bowl clenched between my naked knees, and I say, just to be saying something, “Your hair is even redder than I remember,” which make her burst out laughing, suddenly happy that I haven’t abandoned the game.
“It’s not real,” she says.
“What?” I say, thinking she’s referring to something metaphysical.
“The color. Lady Clairol. Out of a bottle.”
“Oh—Well, it looks great.”
“Thanks.”
“Very … festive.”
“Festive?” She giggles and fluffs the back of her head like a movie star. Then she gets embarrassed again and twists herself from side to side.
“So, how old were we then?” I stumble on without really wanting to.
“We were kids,” she says.
“Were we?”
“I was anyway. I know that much.”
“Kids—yeah, I guess.”
“How many do you have?” she asks and her green eyes come to meet mine and the little twinge of sadness I’d been feeling turns to an undertow.
“You mean children?” She nods and her eyes stay hooked to me.
“I’ve got a whole bunch,” I say.
“How many?” she insists.
“Five. But not all with the same woman.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” She smiles.
“How about you?” I ask.
“Two. I have two girls.”
“Two. That’s great. Where are they?” I say.
“Here. Well, I mean—”
“That’s right, you’re from Indianapolis, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. You remember that!” She smiles.
“I remember your dad calling, back then. When we were sitting on the bed eating that stuff.”
“Wheat germ.”
“Right. He called to tell you there was a riot going on in your front yard. So it must have been sixty-eight, wasn’t it? That was when there was a riot every other day.”
“Must’ve been.”
“Martin Luther King and—”
“Right.”
“Everything exploding. Detroit. L.A.”
“The whole world on fire.”
“Seemed like.”
“Well.” She pauses, fishing for something more. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I was so shocked when I walked through the door and saw you sitting here. I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was you as soon as I saw you, but … I thought, I can’t just walk on by and not say anything. You know—just go on up to my room and pretend it wasn’t you. I had to come back down and say something. I mean—all this time.”
“No, I’m glad you did. It’s great to see you.”
“What in the world are you doing here? In Indianapolis.”
“Just passing through.”
“Oh—”
“How about you? I mean, if you live here how come you’re in a Holiday Inn?” Everything stops. She goes suddenly numb and her lips start to tremble. For some reason, the background sounds seem to have gone silent, unless it’s a pause between the reels. The girl at the desk stares at us now, as though she suspects something illegal is going on.
“My husband—” she says, and halts on the words. “My husband disappeared a month and a half ago. He—just took off.”
“Oh, no,” I say.
“He took the girls.”
“No—”
“He may have left the country.” I find myself standing and making a feeble gesture toward comforting her but I’d rather be running out the door.
“Have you—I mean, do you have help?” My mouth has gone dry. “Police? Lawyers?”
“Yes, I’ve gone through all that.”
“That’s a pretty serious—I mean, that’s considered kidnapping, isn’t it?”
“It is kidnapping.”
“Have you got any clues? I mean—”
“We’ve followed some credit card debits, you know, gas stations, restaurants, but it’s all led to dead ends. Everything winds up in Florida and just stops.”
“Florida?”
“He has some family down there.”
“What about the girls? How old are they?”
“Twelve and sixteen. There’s still some investigation going on at the house so that’s why I can’t stay there.”
“Oh.”
“I just took a room here for the time being. I’m kind of in limbo, I guess.” She casts her arm out limply and the blue bandana flutters up like a distant flag of truce. Her eyes scan the two plasma screens as the screaming and the gunfire start up again. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to lay all this on you. I just saw you sitting here when I came in and thought—”
“No, that’s okay. I’m glad you—It’s just great to see you again.”
She laughs, then breaks down, but quickly recovers herself and turns her shoulder to me. I move to console her, but she turns h
er back completely and crosses her arms on her chest again. The desk clerk girl is heading straight for me across the lobby with her laminated name tag pinned to her breast and an apologetic face. “I’m sorry, sir,” she says, “but they’ve just confirmed that room I was telling you about. That ‘smoking’ room with two beds.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, they just phoned in to confirm it. They’re on their way. I’m sorry about that.”
“That’s okay.”
“There’s a Motel Six just down off Twenty-five. They usually might have a vacancy. If you want, I can call down there, see if they’ve got something.”
“Would you mind doing that? I’d appreciate it very much.”
“No problem. I’ll let you know.” She turns and heads back to her post. Becky seems to have pulled herself together now. Her arms drop, and she starts brushing off the front of her coat as though she’s just discovered lint. She turns back to me with a smile and rubs her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Well, I’m so glad I ran into you, Stuart. You look the same as always.” She steps toward me with her hand extended, which I find slightly ineffectual under the circumstances, but I go along with it. Her hand feels icy and slim and she slides it back out of my grip almost immediately. Then she gives me a little peck on the cheek, like a sister might. It all comes back to me now, the smell of her soft breath. “Bye,” she says abruptly and walks away, disappearing down the hallway again.
If I had a gun right now, I’d shoot both the plasma TV screens and maybe the overstuffed sofa and then maybe I’d start in on the glass coffee table and the Caribbean vacation brochure and all the Time and Newsweek magazines with Men of the Year on the covers. Instead, I wander back over to the desk, where the girl with the laminated name is being surprisingly helpful. I get close enough to read the tag as she squashes the phone between her chin and her collarbone while scratching down a note. Lashandra, the tag says, and it has a little yellow happy face to go with it. “Lashandra,” I say to her, not knowing exactly which syllable to emphasize. She squints at me and holds a blue-lacquered fingernail to her lips, as though she’s about to land a luxury suite down at the Motel 6. I signal to her that I no longer want the room by drawing my index finger across my throat, then head for the revolving doors. Lashandra calls out to me in dismay, “Sir! Excuse me, sir!” I turn back to her. “Don’t you want the room? I think I might have found you something.”
“No, thanks, but I do appreciate your efforts. You’re very kind.”
“Oh, no problem at all, sir. Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Lashandra, could I ask you a quick question?”
“Sure, sir. Anything at all.”
“Don’t you ever go crazy listening to that TV all night long? That—murder?”
“Oh, I don’t even hear it anymore. You know—it’s just always on.” She smiles and I pass through the revolving doors. The pistol shots fade behind the glass.
Outside it’s dark and snowing lightly, flakes floating through orange light. I completely forgot that I left the car running, and my yellow dog is clawing frantically at the windows, seeing me approach. I let her out the back. She slides across a patch of ice as she hits the asphalt. Her tail is wagging wildly in circles as though she’s picked up the scent of quail in the dead of winter. She dashes off toward a little square of brown grass to take a leak. I follow her under the glow of the No Vacancy sign, which I guess I entirely missed when I stopped here. The temperature feels like it’s dropped down into the low twenties by now and the flying snow is making my eyes tear up. The dog must be taking the longest piss on earth. She just squats there with one hind leg weirdly raised, staring straight at me as though I might run off without her. Steam rises behind her. The hollow moan of the highway makes me wonder if I’ve finally broken all connections without even really wanting to.
I pop my dog back in the car and slide into the driver’s seat, which is now red hot since I also left the seat warmer on. I’m about to drop the gearshift down into drive when I look up through the snow and there she is—Becky Marie Thane—standing directly between the headlights, staring straight at me with a look not unlike my dog’s. She’s standing there shivering, without her coat, and the snow catches hold of her red hair and glows in the backlight, like a halo. Am I now having a religious experience?
She comes running up to the window as I roll it down, amazed. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I just thought maybe you’d want to stay in my room since you can’t—I mean, I have a couch and everything. A separate couch. It’s a fold-out, you know—an alcove with a sink. Not a whole room exactly but I just thought it would save you a trip in this weather. I’m not trying to—you know—”
“Oh, thanks, Becky,” I cut her off. “I really appreciate it but I ought to be getting on down the road.”
“All right, that’s fine. That’s fine.” She smiles. “I just thought I’d offer. I wasn’t trying to—”
“No, thanks so much though. It was really great to see you again.”
“Bye,” she says sweetly, and gives me a little fluttering wave, then blows me a kiss as I drive off. I watch her in the rearview mirror as she darts back into the lobby, stomping the snow off her shoes at the entrance. I’m trying to think what movie this reminds me of. One of those corny black-and-white forties Air Force films with tearful good-byes as Jimmy Stewart flies off into the wild blue yonder. Why is everything I’m conjuring up in black-and-white?
The snow is really assaulting the windshield now, as I head for the Louisville junction, the dog turning tight circles in the back, then dropping down into a ball and tucking her nose into her tail; resigning herself to yet another hundred miles of black highway. I start drifting off into the past as the visibility gets dimmer and whiter. Maybe there’s a correlation between external blindness and internal picturing. I can see the edge of the mattress now and our gray bowls side by side; our knees touching. These are some of the other things that go sailing through my head as I strain forward to keep the car between the lines: Leaving the desert on a clear day. Boarding the Greyhound. Getting off in Times Square. Huge poster of a pop group from England with Three Stooges haircuts. Blood bank with a sign in the window offering five dollars a pint. Black whores with red hair. Chet Baker standing in a doorway on Avenue C. Tompkins Square Park, with its giant dripping American elms. Cabbage and barley soup. Hearing Polish for the first time. Old World women in bandanas and overcoats. Cubans playing chess. Rumors of acid and TCP. Crowds gathered around a black limo, listening to a radio report of Kennedy’s killing. Jungles burning with napalm. Caskets covered in American flags. Mules hauling Martin Luther King’s coffin. Stanley Turrentine carrying his ax in a paper sack.
I’m turning around. I’m in the middle of a blizzard and I’m turning around. I come up on a giant tractor-trailer rig jackknifed in the ditch. No sign of a driver. I’m up over the median now with the hazard lights flashing, hoping nothing is roaring down on top of me from the opposite lanes. I’m driving blind. I’d get off to the shoulder but I can’t tell where it is. Something is happening to my eyesight from the constant oncoming flow and swirl of snow. I feel as if I were suddenly falling through space and the wheels have somehow lost all contact with earth. I really am coming completely apart now, shaking, terrible shivers, gripping the wheel as if any second I could just go plunging off into the abyss and never be found.
Somehow I instinctively poke my way back through the gray to the looping exit, and limp back into the Holiday Inn parking lot. The family from Tupelo are unloading their huge crew-cab diesel in the whirling storm, sliding their coolers and luggage across the icy blacktop. I just sit there for a while, watching them through the wipers, my hazard lights still flashing, and my dog getting very nervous about what may lie ahead. Maybe I’ll just spend the night in the car, I think. Wait it out. That would mean leaving the engine running so I wouldn’t freeze to death. That would mean that the dog would be whining and turning in circles. I turn o
n my satellite radio for some possible clue. The angelic voice of Sam Cooke comes on. I can’t take it. I turn it off, not wanting to provoke a total emotional breakdown. Can I just sit here all night like this? Engine running. Dog turning. Lights blinking. Snow falling. Am I going to park this car or just sit here forever? What will happen when the sun finally comes out and the snow stops and the ice melts and the whole landscape is transformed into spring and stuff is blooming and farmers are running their gigantic combines up and down the long rows? What will happen then? Will I still be sitting here like this with the car running? What will happen when they discover that someone is trying to live in his car in the Holiday Inn parking lot? I’ve got to get this car parked!
So I do and then one thing leads to another, and I’m heading back into the lobby, not really looking forward to encountering Lashandra again, not really looking forward to waiting in line behind the Tupelo hot-rod family, but there I am. Thank God the TV channel has changed. Now it’s news with some distinguished-looking dude in a suit, parading back and forth in front of a huge electronic map of the whole United States, magically touching it and brushing it in different areas, causing it to light up red in the South, blue in the North, giving the impression that the whole damn country is some cartoon show, divided up like apple pie, and that no one actually lives here, trying to score a simple room at the Holiday Inn in the middle of a blizzard somewhere on the outskirts of Indianapolis.
Sam Shepard Page 3