Machine Dreams

by Jayne Anne Phillips

  “Aren’t you a little old to wear your hair in pigtails?” she asked flatly.

  For a moment Danner didn’t answer. Her face was burning, but she wouldn’t let herself walk away. “These are French braids,” she said.

  The older girls exchanged glances, and Bonnie Martin smiled. “I think your braids are rather pretty.”

  Dawn Marie looked off coolly. “Prettier than pedal pushers and a rhinestone tiara, certainly.”

  “She’s talking about our queen,” Bonnie Martin said to Danner, raising her eyebrows and nodding toward the lawn.

  It was just twilight and growing darker quickly. The queen this year was a co-ed at the local college who’d graduated from Bellington High two years before, and she was walking with Steve Rafferty past the pool. She was a tall girl who’d been head majorette; her white pedal pushers were tight, and the tiara sat securely in her bouffant hairdo. Farther on, lights strung in the tree above the dance floor looked bright against dark leaves. Light bulbs strung on wire across the floor itself looked pale and wishful, glowing in midair.

  “Is the dance floor nice?” Danner asked.

  The girls had already turned away, but Bonnie Martin looked back quickly. “Yes, dear, it’s nice,” she said.

  “Though the drain in the middle is a bit tacky,” Dawn Marie added.

  “Dawn Marie is a little tacky herself tonight,” Bonnie Martin said, and put her arm around Dawn affectionately. “Steve Rafferty has the bad taste to like pedal pushers.”

  Dawn Marie laughed, and winked at Danner.

  Danner smiled, hoping it was the right response, and walked out the sidewalk toward the pool and the lawn. She looked for Billy and saw him standing at the edge of the dance crowd with two boys his age. He wouldn’t want her to give him the money in front of them; she’d have to wait. Why had Dawn Marie winked at her? She was meant to know something she didn’t know. The band was tuning up and Danner walked toward the sound. The whines of the guitars were plaintive, punctuated with show-off riffs from the drummer. All around, leaves in the trees were lifting gently. The breeze didn’t smell of rain though; and the expanse of grass looked so unbroken, beautifully green. Danner walked twice around the pool, curious and pleased because she’d never seen it so empty of swimmers.

  The dance had become a spot of brighter light on the big lawn. Danner moved toward it and realized she didn’t see anyone she knew, so she sat down on a bench near the dance floor. When she heard voices and looked up, Steve Rafferty stood close beside her, with Dawn Marie.

  “I remember you,” he said, looking down. “What a nice white dress; you just get cuter all the time. Now, where was it I used to see you?” He crossed his arms and regarded her.

  Dawn Marie stepped closer to him, glaring at the side of his face. “Maybe in a French convent, or in that eighth-grade gym class you impregnated. That’s what she is you know, an eighth grader.”

  He turned to her with a measured movement and put his hands hard on either side of her face. “Poor Dawn,” he said, sarcastic, “always jealous of the unspoiled and the innocent.” Holding her, he put his lips on hers and kissed her for a long time, turning his face a little to the side and pressing against her as though he were drinking from her mouth, slowly and deeply. Danner sat motionless, scared, afraid to move. When Steve pulled away from Dawn, he still held her and looked at her levelly, daring her to try to resist.

  She stared back at him, her eyes wet, and didn’t try to move. “Big man,” she said, her voice shaking, “you’ll end up running a gas station in this hick town.”

  “Just as long as you’re running it with me, sweetheart.” His tone was practiced but his fingers slid down her throat almost helplessly, and he touched the ribbed neck of her thin sweater.

  Danner stood then and brushed past them, heading across the lawn toward the trees and the tracks. Behind her the dance had actually started. Music rang out loudly but Danner wasn’t conscious of which song, which words. She walked quickly toward the cover of the brush, and the music grew less noticeable. Far away, she heard the faintly shuddering rumble of a train approaching. She didn’t care anymore about changing her clothes; she just wanted to stay away from the dance until it was time to go home. Now, away from the lights, it was really almost dark; she could sit near the tracks by the river and the train shack. She liked the shack, a dilapidated second-story room on stilts. The dangerously wobbly foundation was nothing but boards nailed around the outer supports to make a high-ceilinged space over the earthern floor. No one went there because it might be full of snakes, but the upper room had a door and windows, and rickety metal stairs with a railing. When the train thundered by, the little room shook; the tops of boxcars flashed by just beneath the windows.

  The train moaned again now, still a ways off. As Danner emerged from the bushes near the tracks, she saw the round light of the engine, the small glow approaching through the trees. She heard brush rustle behind her and turned; it was Billy.

  “What are you doing following me?” She held the beach bag tighter as though he might intuit its contents.

  “I want my money, to get a coke. I yelled at you as you walked off, but you didn’t turn around.”

  “How could I hear you over the band?” She relaxed her grip on the bag and said more softly, “I wish you wouldn’t yell out my name in front of everyone.”

  “No one heard,” Billy said. He looked down the track past the train shack to the bend in the rails where the trees were thick. Big limbs hung lushly over the track. “Anyway,” he said, pleased, “the train is coming.”

  “I hate this dance,” Danner said. “Don’t you hate it?”

  Billy shrugged. Unconsciously, they’d kept their voices low. Now he whispered and nodded up at the train shack. “Who’s that at the shack?”

  In the moonlit dark, they saw the block shape of the old building and the silhouette of the stairs. A line of boys stood on the steps, four of them; then the door of the shack half-opened and a boy came out, wordlessly taking his place at the end of the line. The first boy went inside. Again, four of them stood waiting.

  “Stay right here so they won’t see us,” Billy said. “We can watch the train up close.”

  Danner barely heard his words as the sound of the train grew louder; once the engine was in sight at the bend, the train came so fast it seemed to fall toward them. Danner and Billy stood perhaps ten feet back, and the boxcars made a clattering wind, blurred words stenciled on their sides, their individual boundaries gone. Danner didn’t look directly at the cars but felt the air of the train at the side of her face—smokey, racing air that pulled at her. She saw Billy squinting straight ahead, arms crossed, feet spread as though to hold his ground. Danner looked past him, down the length of the rails. The roar was deafening and the train shack vibrated, the metal steps shaking. The whistle blew again, hooting a long bellow; one boy leaned over the wobbly railing and a ribbon of vomit snaked noiselessly through the air. Danner looked away, watching the building; the two windows glowed faintly as though the interior were lit by flashlights or a dim lantern. Danner had been inside before, sneaking in with girlfriends to look at the forbidden place. But the train shack was just empty and dirty, barnlike but small, with random straw and disintegrating rope on the floor. Burlap bags piled in one corner were stiff, stuck together, and there was a rank, tantalizing smell the summer daylight hadn’t quite dispelled. Danner pressed her arms to her sides; the memory of how the room had looked, the memory of the smell, came back to her powerfully. She turned her back on the old building and faced the receding train, past them so fast.

  “Oh, that was great,” Billy said.

  She saw the other boy then, standing farther down the tracks, where he must have been all along. At first she thought he was an adult—he was tall and stood so silently—but he walked closer and she saw his rumpled shirt, the shirttail out, and his jeans. He wore his sleeves rolled up above his biceps but he didn’t look country; maybe he was from Winfield or one of
the other large towns near Bellington. He smoked his cigarette attentively, holding it with his thumb and forefinger like someone in the movies. The burning ash of the cigarette moved in the dark, a small red ember near his lips, at his side. A shock of thick, dark hair fell over one eyebrow; he shook it back.

  “You two lost?” He spoke to Danner, his voice deep but not menacing. “Don’t you mean to be at the dance?”

  “No. It’s a crummy dance.”

  “Yeah.” The older boy leaned slightly forward, looking past Danner at Billy. “Who’s he?”

  “He’s my brother.” Danner felt Billy near her, cautious and watchful.

  The boy said nothing, then averted his gaze, looking out across the tracks to the brushy riverbank opposite. The water was sluggish, so low and brown, and across the river was the old river road, hardly traveled anymore. There were lights in some of the houses but the lights were scattered; most of those ramshackle places were abandoned now.

  “What are they doing in the train shack?” Danner asked.

  “What do you think?” He paused. “They got a girl in there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Never mind how I know.” He turned and looked at her then, full face. “You get on out of here now, and take your kid brother.”

  “Come on,” Billy said.

  “Are they hurting her?” Danner looked up at the boy. In the light of the moon she saw a stubble of beard on his cheeks. He squinted in the smoke of his cigarette, and past his shoulders the railroad tracks curved out of sight in trees.

  “Nah. You can’t hurt girls like her.” He shook his head and gave a sad half-laugh. “You don’t know nothing, do you? Younger than you look, I guess.” He threw the cigarette down and ground it under his heel, the pocked gravels of the tracks crunching. “Go on now,” he said then, not looking at them, “get going.”

  Billy took Danner’s wrist and moved off, pulling her; then they were walking fast through the leafy brush and Danner saw him dimly ahead. He was several paces in front by the time they broke through the cover of the bushes to cross the lawn; beyond him the swimming pool was an illusory rectangle that glistened, framed in a concrete rim. They passed the still water and Danner ran to catch up. As though by agreement, they neared the lights and noise of the dance floor together, joining the crowd slowly.

  They stood safely camouflaged at last, comforted by the rustle of voices, when the band began a slow song.

  Too late, Danner caught her breath and tried to back off the floor toward the darkness of the grass. All around her, the crowd dissolved into slowly moving couples, all anonymous, their faces hidden in each other’s throats. The girls held the boys around the neck with both bare arms, spellbound, as though suddenly possessed of a sensual fatigue. Danner turned, looking for a way through the dancers. Billy was near her and she thought he was following; then she felt the pressure of his arm around her waist. He pressed close and his heart beat against her. Carefully, they danced, taking small steps, and it was not so difficult. Lights strung on wire above them glimmered, and Billy held one of her hands correctly to the side, as though they kept a breakable object in their clasped hands. His brow came just to her chin and she felt his smooth forehead against her mouth.

  * “I don’t like you but I love you … you do me wrong now … my love is strong now” from “You Really Got A Hold On Me.” Words and music by William “Smokey” Robinson. Copyright © 1962 by Jobete Music Co., Inc. Used by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

  THE AIR SHOW

  Billy

  1963

  He saw the planes at slanted angles, looming up snub-nosed with the line of the horizon tilting behind them. The Piper Cub looked gargantuan as it began bumping slowly over ground, the spinner conical and stationary, with the moving propeller a striped blur. Above it the windscreen was clear and reflective like a blank, unfaceted eye. Billy could see the motion of the ailerons in the wings, a machine movement supple as the ripple of a gill in something live. The noise of the engine increased and the nose trembled as the plane moved so close it was nothing but silver. Engine roar faded to the low buzz of an electric razor: his father, shaving in the bathroom. Billy lay still, listening. It was very early and the razor stopped. Light slaps as Mitch applied after-shave, snap and latch of cabinet doors. All the sounds were distinctly male and private, assured of an ownership that was unchallenged. Billy kept his eyes shut, trying to make the time last. Just outside the bedroom windows, scratch of birds on the concrete breezeway. He heard his father coughing, then the sound of his tread in the hall past the bedroom, his soft-soled shoes quiet. He would be going into town to have pancakes with Bess and Katie at seven, as on every Sunday morning, but this was the day of the air show.

  Billy looked: on the other side of the room, where his father slept, the twin bed was made, the red bedspread perfectly turned down under the pillow. You learn in the Army, private: make your bed as soon as you stand up; then it’s done, see, for the day. The engine of the Chevrolet revved, then purred as he backed out the driveway. The house was silent, but if Billy listened hard he could hear the others sleeping: Danner in the small room next to his, and his mother in the bigger room at the end of the hallway.

  He stood and pulled the covers up, then walked to the bathroom. His father’s leather toilet kit was zipped shut; the razor was put away. Out the window Billy saw crows circling over the field, over the tall seed corn that was choked with wild grass. He peed, thinking. He was twelve, almost thirteen. Three years until his learner’s permit, then his license—he’d have a car. He’d have to buy it himself but Mitch would help him. Billy looked again into the fields; near the fence the mown grass was glinting with dew that caught the sun. The sky was already blue. When he was a man, he’d have an airplane of his own—a Cessna, he figured, with floats so he could land on a lake. He tried to imagine a lake appearing far below him, a flat blue shape neat as the lakes on maps. But the blue would spread as he got closer, and the water would look rougher; there would be pine trees all around like there were in Canada. And snow on mountains in summer. He’d seen pictures of fishing trips in his father’s Sports Illustrated magazines. Could they ever go to Canada in an airplane and catch trout? Takes money, Mitch had replied shortly.

  How would Billy get money? He’d begun to consider working for an airline. Students filled out information sheets on the first day of seventh grade; in September Billy planned to write commercial pilot under “possible career interests.” But you had to be a certain height to pilot a passenger jet, and maybe he wouldn’t make it. Mom said it was silly to worry; anyway, seventh graders had no business filling out forms about careers, and the school system should concentrate on algebra. All last winter, they’d sat at the kitchen table over his math homework. Long division. Billy did one problem after another while Jean checked them laboriously. He had the numbers in his mind, but all the while he was aware of her face over his shoulder, her attention completely focused. His father watching television, Danner playing 45s on her record player, were only background noise. Daytimes and evenings, the house belonged to Jean; the kitchen was hers, the sink, the stove, the table; the garage, where she kept the washer and dryer, the overflowing baskets of shirts and clean underwear; the living room, where she sat at night to grade papers from her first-grade class, endless mimeographed sheets of clowns and numbers. She taught at the same grade school he and Danner had attended; he was accustomed to seeing her in the lunchroom, drinking coffee with the other women at the teachers’ table, or on the playground with her class. He wouldn’t be seeing her at the junior high next year. The big old building was so crowded he’d seldom see Danner; she was two grades ahead of him. Classes changed according to bells; he liked the idea of being anonymous in the wide hallways while the bells rang like alarms. Still, some evenings when he built models in his room, the look of his mother’s face as she’d counted numbers came back to him. He sat wrapped in a familiar calm, handling plastic
pieces that, unassembled, seemed a series of small, meaningless fragments. His collection of model airplanes ranged from Japanese Zeros to Spitfires to F-14s, and they were all to scale; Billy built them slowly and carefully, applying clear viscous glue with the tip of a toothpick. The tiny pilots were frozen in the act of fastening caps or tightening straps; they were already seated on nothingness, knees bent to fit into a cockpit. Billy looked closely at the details of their molded uniforms and remembered the short, black lashes of his mother’s unadorned eyes.

  Standing now outside the bathroom door, he saw Jean sleeping. She lay on her side in the high antique bed, her hand at her mouth. Her dark hair had loosened and fell back from her face. Her lips were still reddened; there was a faint rose smear on her pillow. She slept so soundly she barely moved with her breath. He could wake Danner up; they could ride out to the airfield on their bikes and be back before their mother woke. By nine-thirty she’d want them dressed for church. Billy grimaced; if he said he was staying home she’d never let him spend the whole afternoon at the air show. There’d be planes from all over the state, taking off in succession and circling, flying banners, or performing simple stunts.

  He walked back up the hallway, watching wooden strips of the parquet floor under his bare feet. He knew approximately what Jean did every day. While he and Danner were riding back from the airfield, she’d be waking up; she’d pour herself two cups of coffee, one right after the other. On summer Saturdays she worked in the flower beds before cleaning the house and doing laundry, but on Sundays she slept in until nine and went to church at ten. Weekdays during school semesters, he guessed she did exactly what the other teachers did, only for little kids: reading and social studies before noon, science and math after. What Mitch did was almost a mystery. His work was a vinyl-covered notebook filled with order forms and diagrams of the metal buildings he sold to construction sites. He’d shown Billy the notebook, just as he’d once shown him the engines of concrete mixers. He’d owned the concrete company with Uncle Clayton then. The trucks were no mystery, their hoods thrown up to reveal hard interiors of throbbing blocks and hoses. The parts were crusted with age and smelled of cooked dirt. The notebook his father carried now smelled clean, barely disturbed, like a new text. Danner had probably never even looked inside.