Machine Dreams

by Jayne Anne Phillips

  “This isn’t a real veterans’ club,” Jean said. “It’s someone’s house they nailed a sign to.”

  “You shouldn’t drink in your condition,” Gladys said quietly, “and you certainly shouldn’t drink so quickly.”

  “What?” Jean steadied herself, one hand on the countertop, and raised her eyes. In the glass cupboard door she saw her reflection hover over a single yellow plate.

  “You do know what’s the matter, don’t you?” Gladys’ round, powdered face was earnest.

  “No, I don’t know anything.” Jean smiled. You had to smile, didn’t you? The bourbon was warm in her stomach now, like a core of heat.

  “You’re about to know,” Gladys said. “I’ve known for a week, but I didn’t suppose it was my business to tell you.”

  Oh, what was she talking about? Well, it didn’t matter; they could talk about anything, just so long as Jean could stay here in this small, private place with its neatly painted, abandoned cupboards. Aloud, she said, “It’s just that I’ve been so tired lately.”

  “Of course you have. You’re pregnant.”

  The wind of the storm outside continued to rise and fall. Jean saw snow through the square pantry window, and the round bulb of the street light. “It’s true,” Jean said quietly. “I must be. I am.”

  Gladys nodded. She took off her sweater and put it across Jean’s shoulders. “There,” she said.

  Tomorrow she would tell him. Tonight it was too late, they’d been at the party so long. When he lay down beside her, she was nearly asleep, dreaming vacantly of telling him. Unformed shapes and sounds surrounded the words as storm winds rattled the windows of Gladys’ guest room. Boards creaked as he walked across the cold floor to the bed. She knew without looking that he was naked and had put his wool robe over their quilt like a blanket. His skin was moist and warm from the shower; as she turned to him he smelled like someone just come from a pool of heat, and the whiskey on his breath was a faint, sweet residue tinged with bitterness. He touched her forehead with his mouth and his warm shoulder pressed the side of her face. Nothing mattered for one moment but this: she took his weight and held him. He moved on top of her slowly and kept one hand under her; the heat of his hand ran in her spine like current. She looked at the ceiling and imagined on its surface the imprint of a dark, delicate body, a body that vanished by degrees. She strained to keep the image in sight, but her eyes closed involuntarily as she moved against him, blind, moving with her own breath until the shadow was closer, nearer, deep inside her, its lines and boundaries blurred. The body disappeared like a shadow or a wish and that was how she gave herself up, all her words gone like sparks burned up in a darkness. She felt his body tense then and brought his mouth to hers; he cried out and the vibration of his voice trembled in her throat, a rush of air dark and full. The sound passed through her, vanishing rapidly.

  CORAL SEA

  Mitch

  1950

  This was the Gulf of Papua, the Coral Sea: he knew by the feel of the air and the emptiness of the horizon. Two years he’d heard New Guinea tides, until he didn’t hear them at all but lived with the sound like a heartbeat; how had he arrived here again? The sea was flat as a transparent plate, the water still, glowing with a metallic sheen like it was dead and had a clear light under it. The sea had gone strange; Katie was in his arms and he told her to try it again, this time he would take smaller steps. Her face was robust and healthy like before the war; he understood then that the war hadn’t happened yet; he was here before the war or it was going on somewhere else. Least he could do before he left was teach her to dance; Clayton was too old to teach a girl to dance right, though he stood watching them at a short distance, beach sand blowing about him like a grainy smoke. That wind was goddamn fierce, a wonder the sea was so calm. He could barely hear Katie’s piping voice above the loudness of wind and clattering leaves—sound of leaves crazy since the beach was barren, nothing anywhere. Sand swirled around them, obscuring their feet as they turned: a waltz was always the simplest way to learn. She was eager, excited, her body so light she had trouble keeping her feet on the ground. He had to hold her down as he led and circled, careful not to tread on her shoes. Misstepping once as she drifted upward, he listened for the beat and realized there was only the wind they danced to; that’s why Clayton was nodding and looking out to sea. Weather was coming up fast, wind blowing so loud and hard he couldn’t look and he turned, alone, shielding his eyes. He looked seaward then and saw Clayton wading in, holding Katie like they were honeymooners, Katie being a kid and kicking her feet, dragging her hand in the water starlet-style. Far out Mitch saw the sea lifting, the whole edge curling and sucking in, piling up and rumbling. He yelled at them, wind crushing the words back. But Clayton turned and Katie was Jean, her black hair blowing. They looked at Mitch, trying to hear, and past them the wave kept building. Jesus, the weight of that hard water: he heard it rattling savagely onto glass, a drenching rain he could smell. Hard rain, sharp and cold, and when he opened his eyes he saw water lashing the windows. He sat up in bed and listened for the baby, but the house was quiet and the lights in the hall were out. Why was she up if she wasn’t feeding the baby? The room was drafty; she’d left a window open in the cold March night, and rain had wet the sill and the floor. He got up and closed the window, his skin prickling at the cold, and walked through the L-shaped hallway to the kitchen.

  One small light was burning, and she stood there in her robe, pouring milk into a saucepan.

  He leaned against the doorjamb, hearing the rain surround the house. “Baby wake up?” he asked her.

  “No.” She stirred the milk with a spoon. The burner under the pan was bright red and threw a glow against the enamel surface of the stove.

  “It’s three in the morning,” he said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Her voice was weak. “I’m pregnant again.” She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and looked into the pan.

  He walked nearer and touched her shoulder. The side of her face was wet, and her throat. “What’s wrong with that, now?” he said more gently. “We’re married, aren’t we?”

  “But Danner’s only six months old, and you were just saying tonight how slow it is at the plant, and with all the bills from this house—”

  “Things will pick up at the plant. Things always pick up in the spring, and it’s March already.” Mentally, he calculated; he would probably have to fire one man and go out on jobs himself. Damn, he should never have told her the state of things. “You’re not to worry. We can afford another baby.”

  The milk was steaming and she pulled the pan from the stove, one hand at the small of her back. “We have to insulate the attic before another winter, and we just bought the new furniture, and you’ve picked out a car. We’re almost falling behind now.”

  “The car will wait. If we tune up the Nash, it’ll go a while. And I’ll do the insulation myself, hire a man from the plant to help. Maybe even Clayton—get the old guy up there to do an honest day’s work.”

  She sighed, moving to get a glass from the cupboard. “Don’t talk silly,” she said, as though he were serious. “Clayton’s not in shape to—”

  “Clayton will be all right,” Mitch said, his voice sharper than he’d intended. He lowered his tone. “I told you, he went down to this same place once a long time ago, in the thirties, and didn’t touch a drop for nearly fifteen years after. When he comes back, he’ll be fine.” Mitch sat down in a kitchen chair, the chair creaking as he leaned forward. He touched the table and followed the wavery grain of the wood with his fingertips as the rain intensified, pounding the concrete porch in back. Had he pulled those damn porch chairs into the breezeway last night? He’d thought to enlarge the porch in summer and put a roof over it. Well, later, and better for two kids than one. Now only the concrete—if business improved enough—and a fence around it for a good large play space, keep them out of the road and the fields. Those fields got so tall in summer and autumn; if kids
wandered in you wouldn’t find them at all. Aloud, he said, “Clayton will be back at work in two weeks, then you’ll see I’m right.”

  She stood holding the warm glass in both hands. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Except for Katie’s getting sick during the war, he might never have started again. Just came on slow after that.”

  “They sure kept it quiet he was going away.”

  “Bess keeps everything quiet. Have to in this town. People always looking for something to gabble about.”

  They were silent, looking out the kitchen windows. The rain was so thick the narrow road and the fields opposite weren’t visible. Even through the walls of the house, Mitch could feel the cold of the water. He heard the rapid-fire pelting of hailstones. So it would turn colder; hail was a sure sign of spring snows. That would keep jobs spare for weeks more. Maybe he should do the insulation now, borrow a little money and go ahead while things were slow.

  Jean unlocked the thick breezeway door. “I’m cold and then I’m hot, like before with Danner. I should have known sooner, just from these sweats. Mind if I open the door? I have to have some air.” The door swung open and the sound of the sleet rain swept in.

  For a moment he thought she was going to walk out into the covered breezeway to the edge of the dark. “Don’t get chilled,” he said, almost rising from his chair, feeling damned stupid at the flash of fear in his body—not for her exactly, but because the rain was so wild and suddenly present.

  She seemed unaware of him. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had such rain,” she said, staring into the storm.

  He sat back down, settling himself. “You’ve been to Reb already? When are you—”

  “He’s not sure, October or November.”

  “That’s just fine,” Mitch said. “Some time to put money back. And jobs are always thick in the fall, until November anyway.” He kept his tone certain and reached for the pack of cigarettes he’d left on the table after supper. She stood nearly motionless, listening to the storm. Under the pounding of the rain, he heard, faintly, the baby crying: an insistant wailing muted to a shadow of its strength. He waited for Jean to hear, watching her. Her hair and eyes were so dark; she looked pretty in the red robe, and young, without the bright lipstick she wore.

  Peering into the dark, she started, pulled back from the cold, and drew the neck of the robe close. “There, Danner is awake.” Jean pushed the door shut. “It’s raining so hard—flash flood rain.”

  “The creek will have swollen, but it doesn’t matter. That’s why I built on a rise.”

  “She sounds scared,” Jean answered, walking quickly back through the house.

  “Just hungry,” Mitch said, but Jean was too far away to hear over the rain. He got up, lighting his cigarette, to lock the door. Standing, he pulled it open and smelled the full, cold smell of the storm. He hesitated, then walked into the breezeway, trying to see past the rain. The fabric of his pajama pants was thin and he felt almost naked, hugging his arms to his chest. If he squinted, changed how he was looking, he could make out the periphery of the first field and the fence posts. The bulk of the big hill was there but invisible; still, at its foot, he saw a whiteness that glimmered gently in the dense gray shadows of the rain. Puzzled, he walked farther and felt rainy vapor as he leaned almost into darkness. Yes, the stream had already left its banks, and the spreading water was deep enough to dapple like a lake.

  THE HOUSE AT NIGHT

  Danner

  1956

  In the humid nights her mother let her sleep under one thin sheet, an old one worn soft from many washings, and in the dark of her child’s bedroom she turned and sweated until the sheet wrapped her small body like a sour cocoon. Night sounds in the house were shot with lambent silence: rotary blades of the stilled electric fans gathered a fine dust behind the ribs of their metal cages. Once you’re asleep you won’t know how hot it is, go to sleep, fans cost money to run; crickets sounded in the close dark, their throbbing continuous as the running of a high-pitched musical engine. No breeze stirred to break their sounds; Danner drifted, almost sleeping; each shrill vanished faster than the last. She heard faintly her brother breathe and whimper; in these summer days the artificial disruption of school was forgotten and the fifteen months of age separating them disappeared; they existed between their parents as one shadow, the kids, and they fought and conspired with no recognition of separation. Doors opened now onto the same unlit hallway; near Billy’s room the hallway turned, lengthened past the bathroom and emptied into their parents’ bedroom. There the high Grandmother Danner bed floated like an island above its starched white skirt; the row of closet doors slid on their runners, a confusing line of illusions; and the two big bureaus shone. The bank of windows was so high no one could see anything but the branches of the lilacs, branches that now in the August night looked furred with black and didn’t stir. By day the leaves were a deep and waxen green. Jean, come and get these kids, don’t either one of you ever stand near the driveway when you see I’m backing the car out, goddamn it, I’ll shake the living daylights out of you: what it meant was the State Road construction and the jackhammer, shaking a grown man’s body as he held the handle and white fire flew from the teeth of the machine. Endless repair of the dusty two-lanes progressed every summer, but the roads were never finished; they kept men working who had no other work and Danner liked to watch; at night she saw those men in the dark corners of her room, tall shadows with no faces. Even if there aren’t prisoners anymore the workmen are nearly the same thing, and they did look different, dangerous, though they wore the same familiar khaki work clothes her father wore to work at the plant. Your father and Clayton own the concrete company—they don’t work for a wage, do you understand what I’m saying? The workmen were from Skully or Dogtown and their families got assistance, a shameful thing; in those shabby rows of houses on mud roads they kept their babies in cardboard boxes. But that was just a story, Mitch said; they were trying to get along like anyone. You’d say that about any man who worked on a road, wouldn’t matter if he was a lunatic, and Jean turned back to the stove, always; she stood by the stove, the kitchen cabinets, the sink, the whole house moored to earth by her solid stance, just as the world outside went with Mitch in the car. He carried the world in and out in the deep khaki pockets of his workman’s pants. When Danner and Billy were with him and the road crews were out, Mitch waited with no complaint for the flagman’s signal and kept the windows rolled down. Yellow dust filled the car and caked everything with a chalky powder. Big machines, earth-movers and cranes, turned on their pedestals with a thunderous grinding as two or three shirtless men pulled thick pipes across the asphalt with chains. Mitch held both children on his lap behind the steering wheel, the three of them crushed together in a paradise of noise. Jackhammers and drills were louder than the heat, louder than sweat and the shattered ground and the overwhelmed voices of the men. Mitch smoked and talked to the foreman, yelling each sentence twice while the children coughed from the dust and excitement. Jean made them stay in the back seat if they had to stop near the construction; she nodded politely to the flagman, kept the car windows rolled up in the stifling closeness just another minute, and locked all the doors. At home they weren’t allowed to lock doors: children are safe at home, you should never be doing anything you don’t want Mama to see, but Danner and Billy closed themselves secretly into adjacent closets and stayed there until the dark scared them, tapping messages with their fists on the plyboard between them. Pressed back against clothes and stacked shoe boxes, Billy wore a billed khaki cap like his father’s and Danner kept a navy blue clutch purse her mother no longer used; it smelled of a pressed powder pure as corn, and the satin lining was discolored. Danner unzipped it and put her face in the folds; she held her breath just another minute and that made everything lighten: the fields surrounding the house were full of light, scrub grass grew tall, and the milkweed stalks were thick as wrists. Wild wheat was in the fields and the crows fed,
wheeling in circular formations. Milk syrup in the weeds was sticky and white; the pods were tight and wouldn’t burst for weeks. Where did the crows go at night? They were dirty birds waiting for things to die, Danner was not to go near them; when the black night came she was in her bed to wake in the dark and pretend she saw the birds, rising at night as they did at noon, their wingspan larger, terrifying, a faint black arching of lines against the darker black; even the grasses, the tangled brushy weeds, were black. Danner heard the house settle, a nearly inaudible creaking, ghostly clicking of the empty furnace pipes; her mother, her father, walking the hall in slippers. They walked differently and turned on no lights if it was late. Danner lay listening, waiting, fighting her own heavy consciousness to hear and see them as they really were. Who were they? The sound of her father was a wary lumbering sound, nearly fragile, his heaviness changed by the slippers, the dark, his legs naked and white in his short robe, the sound of his walking at once shy and violent. Danner heard him ask one word and the word was full of darkness: Jean? At night her mother was larger, long robe dragging the floor, slide of fabric over wooden parquet a secretive hush. Danner heard her mother up at night. Doors shut in the dark. The bathroom door, click of a lock. Hem of the long robe gliding, a rummaging in cabinets too high for the kids to reach. Jean finds the hidden equipment and pulls out the white enamel pitcher; the metal is deathly cold, the thin red hose coiled inside is the same one she uses, sterilized before and after, to give the children enemas. “Younger than Springtime” is the song she sings when she rocks Danner to sleep, the child at seven nearly too big to be held like a baby, earaches and sore throats Billy will catch next, and the two of them awake till midnight. She rocks them both at once and reads a thick college text for the classes she takes one at a time. She memorizes everything as though she were a blank slate; next year when Billy’s in school she’ll do practice teaching and get the certificate, there’s never enough money and they meet the bills because she plots and plans, and the smell of her throat and neck as the cane-bottomed rocker creaks is a crushed fragrance like shredded flowers. Danner is the one who won’t sleep; she smells her mother and the scent is like windblown seeding weeds, the way the side of the road smells when the State Road mowing machines have finished and the narrow secondary route is littered with a damp verdant hay that dries and yellows. Cars and trucks grind the hay to a powder that makes more dust, swirling dust softer than starlight; Danner hears Jean’s voice as one continuous sound weaving through days and nights. Pretty is as pretty does, seen and not heard, my only darling, don’t ever talk back to your mother, come and read Black Beauty, a little girl with a crooked part looks like no one loves her, and she cuts Danner’s flyaway brown hair to hang straight from the center with bangs, a pageboy instead of braids; that way it takes less time. The chair creaks and Danner is awake until Jean lies in bed with her and pretends she’ll stay all night. She calls Danner Princess, Mitch calls her Miss, Billy is called My Man; who’s my best man? Danner watches Jean pick him up; he’s still the smaller one, hair so blond it’s white. He stiffens laughing when his mother burrows her big face in his stomach, and he drinks so much water in the summer that he sloshes when he jumps up and down. Runs in and out of the house all day to ask for more and drinks from the big jug. How can he have such a thirst? Lifting that heavy jug by himself looks like a little starving Asian with that round belly; at five he shimmies to the top of the swing-set poles, a special concrete swing-set their father has brought from the plant and built in the acre of backyard down by the fence and the fields. The poles are steel pipes twenty feet high, sunk into the earth and cemented in place; the swings are broad black rubber hanging by thick tire chains. Billy climbs the tall center pole and the angled triad of pipe that supports the set at either end, but Danner prefers the swings, a long high ride if she pumps hard enough, chains so long the swings fly far out; she throws her head back, mesmerized, holding still as the swing traces a pendulum trajectory. Locusts in the field wheedle their red clamor under her; locusts are everywhere in summer, in daylight; she and Billy find their discarded shells in the garden, a big square of overgrown weeds in a corner of the lot. In the tumbledown plot they dig out roads for Billy’s trucks, and the locust shells turn up in the earth: they are hard, delicate, empty. Transparent as fingernails, imprinted with the shape of the insect, they are slit up the middle where something has changed and crawled free. Danner throws the shells over the fence. Billy smells of mud and milk, kneels in dirt and sings motor sounds as he inches the dump trucks along. They make more roads by filling the beds of the bigger plastic trucks, pushing them on their moving wheels to the pile of dirt in the center; when they’ve tunneled out a crisscross pattern of roads, they simply move the dirt from place to place, crawling in heat that seems cooler when they’re close the soil, making sounds, slapping the sweat bees that crawl under their clothes and between their fingers. The stings, burning pinpricks, swell, stay hot, burn in bed at night. Danner sucks her hands in her sleep, and the lights are out, the calls of the night birds are faint, and the dream hovers, waiting at the border of the fields; the dark in the house is black. The bathroom light makes a triangular glow on the hallway floor; the glow hangs in space, a senseless, luminous shape, and disappears. The bedroom door is shut, a lock clicks. Danner lies drifting, hears the furtive sound of the moving bed, the brief mechanical squeak of springs, and no other sound at all but her father’s breath, harsh, held back. All sounds stop then in the black funnel of sleep; Danner hears her mother, her father, lie silent in an emptiness so endless they could all hurtle through it like stones. Jean sighs and then she speaks: Oh, it’s hot, she says to no one. Danner sinks deep, completely, finally, into a dream she will know all her life; the loneliness of her mother’s voice, Oh, it’s hot, rises in the dream like vapor. In the cloudy air, winged animals struggle and stand up; they are limbed and long-necked, their flanks and backs powerful; their equine eyes are lucent and their hooves cut the air, slicing the mist to pieces. The horses are dark like blood and gleam with a black sheen; the animals swim hard in the air to get higher and Danner aches to stay with them. She touches herself because that is where the pain is; she holds on, rigid, not breathing, and in the dream it is the horse pressed against her, the rhythmic pumping of the forelegs as the animal climbs, the lather and the smell; the smell that comes in waves and pounds inside her like a pulse.