Someone To Crawl Back To

by Phillip Gardner

  I leave the truck running and the blower on high. We, the EMS guys and me, we take turns aiming the lights mounted on the cab and warming our hands. Sometimes we see it, the way people go out of this world. The cold doesn't make it any easier. Sometimes it is so bad that we have to look for bodies thrown from cars. People don't drive as fast in ice and snow, you'd say. But the ice means they don't slow down either.

  Sometimes they aren't all there. Parts of them, I mean, are lost.

  I don't get paid for helping the guys look. My job is to haul away what's left of the plastic and steel. That's what I get paid for. But I just can't drive away while the others are out there looking. I couldn't do that. I'm not like that. You would think that it didn't matter, not to the dead person. But those EMS guys, they just won't give up looking.

  It's what we have in common.

  Even when a thing is dead it has its parts, and you owe it to make a broken thing whole, even if you can't give it life again. You and I, we have obligations. We take oaths and say vows. Or at least that's what I think.

  I take my turn looking for the parts. Nobody talks. We all know what we have to do, and we know that we have to look close, and we hope that it is somebody else who finally says the search is over.

  You would think the parts would be found near the point of impact. You'd be surprised. So you look and you think. Even with the bright lights it is hard to see.

  You are always walking in your own shadow.

  Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and get down on my hands and knees. Feel for what it is I hope I don't find. I wish I could just come out and tell you. If I had words, I'd tell you.

  You can either take people at their word or not. It is a choice. It is a real hard choice. Believing somebody's word takes trust on both sides. It means that one person knows what she is saying and is willing to say it. It means the other person can hear through to the meaning and can take it. Both sides are hard. It comes down to this. When somebody tells you something, they either mean what they say, or they mean something else, or they mean nothing at all. The problem is when they say it straight out. The straighter it is, the harder it is to take sometimes. You would think that the hardest thing would be when someone says, “I don't love you.” Worse is when she says, “I love you, but…” It can make you say and do things you'll regret the rest of your life. It'll make you want to get down on your knees.

  If the job isn't done when the sun really starts to get up, the EMS guys will go back to the van to warm. Nobody says anything. They just know that in the time it takes them to get warm they'll have the light of the sun to see by.

  It's true that it's coldest just before the sun comes up.

  They are doing the right thing. If there is anything to be found, waiting a half hour won't make any difference now. Still, after I've been looking I can't go back with the others. They always feel a need to talk. I can't blame them. I feel it too. People feel uneasy when they are together like that and there is nothing but silence. They feel like there is something they ought to be saying. I understand that. But I can't do it. So I search alone, looking down at the snow, moving slowly, worried I'll bury under my boot the thing I'm looking for. Worried that somehow I already have.

  Sometimes after staring down at the snow for a long time in the night, my eyes will play tricks on me. I'll be looking down, and suddenly I'm seeing into nothing at all. I'm not saying this right. I'm seeing the very place where the snow and the night come together, see. I'm looking down from high up and everything just goes down and down, forever. I feel dizzy. I stand very still, and the cold seeps into my bones. I get that numb feeling everywhere. I know I have to bring myself out of it.

  So when I feel this way, I sometimes think about the warm place I've left and wish with all my heart I could go back to it, and that it would somehow be there when I get home.

  Vibes

  Warren and Louise Oxendine

  My wife bought a vibrator at a yard sale. It wasn't one of those miniature made-for-Cape-Canaveral shaped ones either. It looked like a power drill. It came with attachments and speed control. She laid it out on the white tablecloth like it was nothing, flanked on one side by a red Fiesta Ware pitcher, and on the other by a length of pale blue satin. Without so much as a blink, Louise pulled her hair behind her ear, one gray strand falling into a crescent over her eye, and reached inside the brown paper grocery bag again.

  “Holy Moley,” I said. “Do you know what that thing is?” Sometimes Louise would buy yard sale stuff for no other reason than its shape and color. She wouldn't know its name or use. Knickknacks she called them.

  She held up six blue, chrome-rimmed coasters in one hand and a roll of red Christmas wrapping paper in the other. “Fifty cents,” she said, laying the wrapping paper beside a nutcracker set and the coasters beside the vibrator. I picked it up. It was lighter than it looked.

  “Where on earth did you get this thing?”

  “On mornings like this,” she said thoughtfully, “when it looks like rain, that's when you get the best deals.” She sifted through the bag. “After people go to the trouble to put everything out, they don't want to pack it up again.” She paused, then looked at me for the first time. “The sound of thunder can be a happy sound,” she said. Louise spread several small pieces of glass, spacing them just so.

  “What are you going to do with this?”

  She held up a small prism to the light. “Warren, didn't you say you had a nine o'clock tee time?” she said. The whole spectrum of color crossed her face.

  I remember very clearly standing, or leaning rather, in the garage that afternoon with one eye shut counting the remaining woods and irons in my golf bag. I burped fourteen beers worth and began counting. Then I stopped counting. Louise's car wasn't parked there where it was supposed to be. I lost count of my clubs and started again. I regretted throwing my sand wedge in the water beside the fourth green, and creating the lightning rod my two wood made in the top of the cypress beside the eighth fairway.

  I was sorry I'd told Billy Mims to kiss my ass, and that I'd threatened John Truett with my putter after he'd told a joke that I couldn't even remember now. This is a small town, a very small town, and in towns this small, at least in the South, when people behave badly in public, word gets out. People are always watching. And talking. I gave up counting and went inside.

  There was a note on the kitchen table. “Decided to get my hair done.” I opened another Miller Lite and sat on the sofa. I didn't even turn on the TV. Just stared into the black screen, thinking—listening to the soft sounds of cars passing on the street, waiting for Louise. I can’t remember if I finished the beer or not.

  I woke when Louise turned on the end table light. I looked up at her, then rubbed my palms into my eyes. I was still a little drunk. She looked different. Her hair had been cut in what she called a wedge. It was dark brown now with a reddish tint in the light. She brought over a sandwich on a tray.

  “For what it's worth,” she said softly, “just remember, the ball doesn't carry as well in this humidity.”

  I couldn't get over her hair. The graying had come gradually, never seeming to age her really. But now the cut and the brownish red tint seemed to alter her face altogether, bringing out the angle of her cheeks and the line of her jaw, gifts of her grandmother’s Cherokee blood. Her skin seemed darker, richer, the way makeup can never imitate. I just looked at her.

  “You'll feel better after you've eaten,” she said. She kissed me on the forehead, then turned and walked toward our bedroom. Maybe it was because I lying on the sofa, or maybe it was the light reflecting off the hardwood floors onto her legs as she walked away, but every curve of her calves was defined by line and shadow, and the skirt gave up an extra inch or two of leg. She was wearing heels. She never wears heels. She closed the door behind her. All the way.

  The next morning Louise pulled the covers from my head and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Don't worry, baby, I'll make excuses,” she whispered.
I didn't open my eyes. “Earl can sing tenor this morning—if he can stay awake during the sermon.”

  Call it adolescent perversity if you want, but I peeked out the window and watched her back out of the drive. I went straight to her underwear drawer. I lifted neat stacks of panties and felt around under folded bras, hoping and not hoping that I would feel the cool plastic.

  I held up a white nightie that felt like silk, with straps like soft ribbon. I couldn't remember if I had maybe bought it for her years ago and she had never worn it. You know, maybe one Christmas Eve, or one of the days driving home when I remembered all at once it was our anniversary. Bought it without much thought. Then it struck me that maybe I'd never bought it at all, that I'd just seen ones like it in catalogs that came in the mail, that she had maybe bought it for herself and never worn it. The idea of that made me sad. I held it up to my face, brushing over it like a kitten.

  Then I thought something else. Maybe she hadn't been the one to buy it either. Maybe somebody else had bought it for her. I lost control for a minute.

  It took me a while to remember what went back into what drawer. I sat huffing for breath, surrounded by the debris of strewn pantyhose, sweaters and underwear. I'd flung empty dresser drawers into every corner of the room. And still, it wasn't there. It occurred to me for the first time, sitting there panting, that I had entered the age when men begin having heart attacks.

  I never did get things folded right.

  The next Saturday, I begged off the golf game. Billy had been nice about calling again from the course, saying the guys would wait for me if I'd change my mind. In the background I heard John say I could play out of his bag. I felt bad about saying no. They are nice guys and I like playing golf with them, but golf is a mental game. I couldn’t afford to give up any more clubs to the water hazards.

  I was raising the wheels on the lawn mower when I saw Louise in new sunglasses walking toward me smiling. She was holding two picture frames and her trusty grocery bag of yard sale goodies.

  “You won't believe what I bought today,” she called. I took a deep breath.

  She was wearing lipstick. The wind blew her hair back and pressed her thin blouse around her breasts. I could see them rise and gently fall with each step, see the shadow of skin above her bra line rising and falling. The sun was that bright.

  “Can't get the wheels back on?” she said, standing over me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That look on your face,” she said. I couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses. She smiled again, extending her hand. “Come on, muscles. I need a man.” For a second I couldn't find my feet. She led me to the car.

  “Call me Bargain Woman,” she said.

  I helped her get the rowing machine out of the station wagon. It looked brand new. “Fifteen dollars,” she said. “We'll put it in Tracy's room.” Tracy is our sixteen-year-old. She was spending her summer with a church singing group in Europe.

  “I'll enjoy this,” she said after we'd set the machine down. “It gives a full body workout.”

  “You have to be careful not to overdo it,” I said.

  “You underestimate me, Warren,” she said.

  “Let's go out for dinner,” I blurted out. “We'll go out for a good steak.”

  “Really?”

  “We'll go to The Steak Barn, maybe have a drink before we eat. You know, make an evening of it.”

  “I wish you'd told me, baby. I thawed out some chops. They won't be good tomorrow.” We set the rower in the bedroom, near the door.

  “Okay, how about a movie after dinner.”

  “Warren? That you?” She put one hand on my forehead, then reached for my wrist. “You hate movies,” she said, taking my pulse.

  “It's a comedy, though. Josh said he and Rene laughed so hard they cried,” I lied. “I really, really want to see it. Really.”

  “Well, okay. I think you should. I think it would be good for you. Why don't you go to the seven o'clock.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I can't go, of course.”

  I pushed aside one of the oars.

  “I promised Marie I’d write half the invitations for your niece’s shower, you know.”

  “That won't take all night, will it?”

  “Noooo,” she said, letting the O ring. Neither of us said anything. “You go to the movie, baby. I can amuse myself if I try hard.” She patted my hand. “You are sweet to ask though.”

  All through dinner I told Louise I wasn't going to the movie. I told her my stomach hurt, which was true. I have an ulcer. That's all the more reason why I should go, why a good laugh would be good for me, she said. I was still refusing when she handed me my keys and closed the door behind me. I heard the door lock. I rang the doorbell.

  “You locked the door,” I said when she opened it. “Why did you lock the door?”

  She just looked at me for a second. Like I was crazy.

  “Would you rather I didn't, big boy,” she said in a real sexy voice, suddenly caressing the door frame, for god's sake, smiling. I really didn't like the way she smiled. It seemed to say about ten things at once. “Well, would you?”

  What could I say? I felt like a fool.

  She became herself again. “You have a good time,” she said, giving me a full body hug. She smiled with a kind of universal understanding. I felt ashamed.

  “We have to take care of ourselves,” she said, a slight lilt in her voice. I was out of the drive before it occurred to me she was wearing a perfume I didn't remember smelling before.

  I didn't laugh once. Not through the whole first half of the movie. I had got to thinking. I left my seat and started the climb toward the exit of the dark theater. Just as I reached the door, the whole damned room exploded in laughter. I took a deep breath and left the theater.

  I stopped at The Paradise Lounge for a couple of bourbons, which I watched turn to water on the bar, but still I was home by 9:30. I saw the invitations on the kitchen table, and the pen. But I didn't see any written invitations anywhere. The house was silent.

  “Louise?” I said softly. There was no answer. I listened, walking cautiously back toward our bedroom. Her breathing was slow but hard, as if she were holding her breath in between, like a swimmer or something. I stopped in the hall, listening.

  I thought I'd go back to the kitchen and drop a glass or something. I slipped out of my shoes.

  Then I thought maybe I'd go outside and ring the doorbell. I tiptoed toward the bedroom door. Her breathing was really hard, a real throaty breathing like I'd never heard.

  I've always believed in people's privacy. I crept nearer the door.

  I won't call it a moan, but it was a voicey sound. Followed by the sound of movement in the bed. I took a deep breath and held it. Then I peeked around the door. She was on her back, eyes closed, her mouth slightly open—snoring.

  Never in seventeen years of marriage had she ever snored. She had complained for as long as I could remember that she was a light sleeper. I couldn't tell you what time she usually went to sleep, but sometimes after midnight when I woke to go to the bathroom she would still be reading. I can tell you that much. She didn't even budge when I crawled in beside her. She was that deeply asleep.

  I looked at the clock. It said quarter to ten.

  She said, “I'm going shopping, honey.” And I said, “Okay, dear.”

  This time I started searching in the guest bedroom.

  Nothing.

  A week later, I came home early from work. I'm in the insurance business. Risk analysis. I wanted to have a talk with Louise. On the way in that morning, I'd begun thinking about where I might search next, where I hadn't already looked. I couldn't keep my mind on my work. Couldn't concentrate at all. Then I said to myself, well Warren, what are you gonna do when you do find the damned thing?

  On the way home, I thought about a lot of things and none of them were good. For starters, I pictured Louise talking sweetly to her vibrator while packing my bags
. Then I thought of something even worse, that maybe there was another man who had introduced her to things I'd never dreamed of. And that she liked it. I drove through a stop sign I've known for thirty years.

  When I looked at myself in the rearview mirror, my face was so red I thought a vein might burst somewhere.

  But by the time I parked in the drive, I felt like a creep for thinking what I had. I didn't want to get out of the car and face Louise, who had never been anything but kind and faithful. I unconsciously reached up to my shirt pocket for a cigarette. I'd quit six years before when the doctor had given the warning about my heart. He'd said I'd better take it easy. I'd taken it easy all right. My wife had bought a vibrator at a yard sale. I made myself get out of the car and go inside.

  This time it wasn't snoring. Not this time. The sounds were unmistakable to my mind, sounds I’d never heard but unmistakable nevertheless. There were these—it sounds ugly but it's true—these grunting sounds, these little cries, followed by long “uhhhhhhhh” sounds that broke off abruptly. Then the series began again, building to a gasp, a final thrusting “uh!” Even before I got to the bedroom door I could feel even the floor moving. It was moving, no doubt. I laid my ear to the door. It was undeniable. There was a low humming. The little cries, “Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh,” were louder, faster. I felt my face getting red again. I shoved the door open.

  My first thoughts were that I was dying. It was the eruption of bells, I suppose, that occurred the second I pushed the door open. Then I realized the ringing came from the timer in Louise's hand. She sat on the rower in silver and black tights that looked like spray paint. She was wearing a red headband.

  “My, that was a good workout,” she said, catching her breath, looking down at the timer. After a second or two she looked up. “What are you doing home early? Warren, do you feel all right?”