by Homer Hickam
“They’re back!” Elsie said as sirens wailed behind them again.
Denver took a look in the rearview mirror. “Hang on!”
Elsie hung on as they flew toward a covered bridge. A large sign at its entrance said: DANGER. DO NOT CROSS. The thrill of the chase died and was replaced by fear.
Denver plunged the car inside the bridge, which shook beneath the earthquake of the coupe’s big engine. They passed through the bridge and bumped up on the highway. Elsie looked over her shoulder and saw the police car had stopped before crossing the bridge. “We got away!” she crowed.
Elsie’s joy was curtailed when a bullet crashed into the rear window, filling her hair with glass. She screamed. Another car was behind them, its siren wailing.
“Watch this!” Denver shouted. He pulled a lever, then looked into his rearview mirror. “Aw, hell, it didn’t work. Oil was supposed to come out of the back, make the road slippery.”
“That would take a lot of oil,” Elsie said. When she looked back, the chasing car was falling behind. This calmed her down enough that she could brush the glass out of her hair. “And oil doesn’t flow very well. It’s kind of thick.”
Denver gave that some thought. “You know a lot for a West Virginia girl.”
“And you don’t much for any kind of man,” she snapped. “You got a box of thumbtacks or something? I could throw them out the window and give them a flat tire.”
Denver laughed. “I got something better. Climb into the back seat and pull it down. There’s a box behind it. Bring it to me.”
Elsie dutifully crawled into the back, pulled down the seat, and retrieved the cardboard box. Back in the front seat, she opened the box and beheld a half-dozen cylinders, each about the size of a big banana. “What is this? Dynamite?”
“Naw. Homemade firecrackers. There are matches in the glove compartment. Start tossin’ them.”
“Won’t that make them mad?”
“They’ve already shot out our window,” Denver pointed out. “If you don’t, they’re liable to catch us. You don’t want that, do you? Now be careful. Toss ’em as soon as they’re lit.”
Elsie looked askance at such obvious advice, but when Denver deliberately slowed down to let the police car close in on them, she started lighting and tossing. The first two firecrackers bounced off the road but then she got the hang of it and put one on the hood of the chasing car. In response, it swerved into the roadside ditch, flipped, rolled over, and burst into flames.
“Oh, my stars!” Elsie cried. “We’ve got to go back!”
Denver chewed on his lip, then allowed a big sigh. He slowed the car and turned around and drove back to the upside-down police car. The flames had died down and it was only billowing smoke from the engine compartment. The driver, a uniformed state policeman and the only passenger, had dragged himself outside and was lying on his back in the grass.
Elsie saw the policeman was a young man. “Wake up, Officer,” she pleaded. “Oh my gosh, Denver. Is he dead?”
Denver knelt beside him and slapped the policeman on the cheeks a couple of times. “Wake up, old son.”
The policeman woke up, blearily regarded Denver, then sat up, although slowly. He rubbed his head. “You’ll pay for this, Denver,” he groaned.
Another police car stopped and a big man got out and walked over. He had an old-fashioned handlebar mustache and was wearing a different uniform than the youth. “You couldn’t just outrun him, Denver?”
“Thought to have a little fun,” Denver said. “Elsie, meet Sheriff Sanders. That was one of his boys who rolled over last night. He okay, Sheriff?”
“He’s fine but that’s the second car from my department you caused to wreck this year. I’ve asked you to stop messing with them. My boys know to not catch you.”
Elsie was confused but made a guess. “You two are in this together?”
“The sheriff is my first cousin,” Denver said.
The sheriff smiled a crooked smile at Elsie. “What joint do you work at, sweet girl?”
“I’m no hootchy-kootchy girl. I was kidnapped.”
“That’s more or less true,” Denver allowed.
Sanders shrugged. “Hidy, Bobby Hank,” he said to the state policeman, who had climbed to his booted feet. He creaked with leather and rectitude.
State Trooper Bobby Hank hooked his thumbs in his belt. “If you think I’m gonna play along with your nefarious schemes, you’ve got another think coming. You’re all under arrest.”
“After you rolled over and caught on fire, we came back to see if you were all right,” Elsie pointed out.
“I wouldn’t have rolled over and caught fire if you hadn’t thrown those firecrackers at me.”
“It’s still a lot your fault,” Elsie insisted. “So you can’t arrest us.”
Trooper Bobby Hank considered Elsie’s illogical logic, then said, “You know what? I’m gonna catch hell for wrecking my car, even if it wasn’t my fault. My pay’s probably gonna be docked, so you fellows owe me something.”
“How much?” Denver asked.
“Quarter the profit on your load. No, make that half.”
“Pay it, Denver,” Sheriff Sanders said. “Ol’ Bobby Hank’s got us fair and square.”
Denver shook his head, then held his hands palm up, a gesture of surrender. “You want to ride with us?” he asked Bobby Hank.
“No. I called in my location before the wreck. Troopers will be along soon. You’d better hurry. You know where to send my money?”
“I’ll find you,” Denver promised.
Denver and Elsie climbed back inside the coupe and drove on without incident to Charlotte and the Sunshine Motel. Denver escorted Elsie to the motel office. Elsie inquired about Homer but the clerk knew nothing of him. “You want a room, ma’am?”
Denver said, “She can stay in my room, Clyde.”
“What about you?” the clerk asked.
“I’ll be back a little later.”
After squiring Elsie to the room, Denver stood at the door. “How about that kiss you promised?”
“You promised me my husband would be here.”
“He will be. You want to pucker up?”
“Not until I lay eyes on my husband. You also owe me two hundred dollars.”
“Damn, woman!” Denver declared. “You’re tough as rawhide.”
“That’s the way they grow us in West Virginia.”
“Then I’m glad I live in North Carolina.”
“Give me my money and bring me my husband, Denver.”
Clearly embarrassed, Denver rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll have to mail you the money. I don’t keep that much on me and this load of ’shine got messed up. What’s your address?”
“In the unlikely event you decide to be honest, you can mail my money to my mama, Minnie Lavender, Thorpe, West Virginia. That’s all it needs to say. She’ll get it.”
Denver plucked a pen from a bedside table in the room, wrote the address down on a scrap of newspaper, and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “I swear you’ll get your money.”
“How about my husband?”
“Him, too. Trust me.”
“I’d sooner trust a snake.”
Denver grinned. “So a kiss really is out of the question?”
“See you around, Denver,” Elsie said and pushed him outside.
Elsie watched Denver go down the steps and get behind the wheel of his car and drive off. The motel clerk came by, his arms laden with fresh sheets. “It ain’t usual for Denver to leave behind one of his hootchy-kootchy girls,” he advised Elsie. “How about a kiss?”
Elsie took the snub-nose, which she had filched from Denver, from her dress pocket. “I know how to use this.”
The clerk handed over the sheets. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“You’ll be even sorrier if you come back,” Elsie said, then took the sheets and closed the door behind her, contemplating a hot shower, a soft bed, and, she fervently hoped, a short wait until H
omer showed up to carry her—oh, please let it be so!—and Albert home to Florida.
As Elsie showered, she realized she had learned something. She was attracted to the kind of man Denver was. He drove fast and was dangerous and handsome but, she reflected, he was also, in his own way, needy. If he wasn’t showing off to a pretty girl, it was Elsie’s guess he was fairly miserable. Elsie was happy she didn’t have to put up with such a man all the way to Florida. Homer, despite all his many flaws—mostly, she had to concede, having to do with his good character—well, he would do just fine for that chore.
21
AFTER HOMER PLUCKED THE STRAW FROM HIS MOUTH AND sorted himself out from the numbing wine, he woke up Soufflé, who was dozing beside him, then hopped on the tractor and drove it out of the barn. Even though there was but one seat, Soufflé insisted on riding along to retrieve the Buick. She sat behind him, her arms around his waist, her hands holding a nearly empty bottle of wine, and hugged him close all the way there and then all the way back. “You have the best-smelling back in the world,” she said above the clatter of the tractor.
Homer didn’t know what to say. How backs smelled one way or the other was something he’d never thought about. He hoped he could get the Buick fixed in a hurry so he could go find Elsie.
At the Buick, Soufflé finished the wine and tossed the empty bottle into the back seat while Homer hooked up a cable to the car for retrieval. When they got back, Carlos was waiting for them at the entrance to the barn. The Buick was brought inside and the noisy tractor turned off and Carlos said to Soufflé, “I could not help but notice you and our esteemed guest had a lunch of nuts, dates, and wine while resting on a bed of hay.” His eyes shifted to Homer. “I trust you enjoyed Soufflé’s lunch, sir?”
Homer couldn’t hide his blush. “It was very good,” he said. “Then I took a nap.”
“Did you?” Carlos removed a pitchfork from the wall. Its tines gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the open barn doors. Homer thought it best to stay in the tractor seat while Carlos came closer, holding the pitchfork in a stabbing position. “When I noticed your depressions in the hay and the remnants of your lunch,” he said, “I was inspired. When I saw this pitchfork, I was also inspired. Would you like to hear what I wrote under these inspirations?”
“Very much, my darling,” Soufflé said. “You know I am devoted to your work.”
“How about you, Homer?” Carlos asked. “Are you devoted to my work?” When Homer didn’t answer, mainly because he didn’t know how to answer, Carlos said, “Of course you aren’t. You haven’t heard enough. But what poetry I’m certain you found with my Soufflé!”
“Alas, he found none, my love,” she said. “The wine was too heavy for him, I fear.”
“Is that true, Homer?”
“As far as I know,” Homer said, cautiously.
Carlos turned and jammed the pitchfork into a sack of wheat, the grain pouring out like golden tears. Then he quoted himself:
Your body has the sharp tines of a pitchfork
Plunging into my heart the release of my potent blood
And my tempted zeal beyond the horizon of mirth
There, my sweet soul, upon the litter of heat and oil and straw
You showed me once more in my frenzied mind your nectar lips
upon another and the joy of the other from which you
know I must depend.
There was more to the poem, none of which Homer comprehended. When Carlos finished his recitation he was breathing heavily as if he’d run for miles.
“You have done it again, my strength!” Soufflé applauded.
Carlos looked up at Homer. “Will you write with me now, Homer?”
“I need to fix my car,” Homer said.
“A mundane requirement of life,” Carlos said, sighing. “But I shall not detain you from that which you must do on your vehicle, although I insist that we write together before you go.” He extended his hand to Soufflé. “We have an assignation, my dear, wouldn’t you say?”
She smiled, her expression eager and salacious. “I would say so, my all.”
The pair departed hand in hand, leaving Homer alone, relieved that they’d left him and also relieved that he hadn’t been stuck with the pitchfork. He got to work, hoping to get the car going before Carlos and Soufflé returned. The carburetor was the focus of his attention because he suspected the gasoline in southern states was less than clean.
To his disappointment, Soufflé soon returned but all she did was sit in the straw and watch him with her big, soft, dark eyes, which made him feel uncomfortable. Still, he persevered, cleaning the carburetor and also affixing some tape on the convertible top to patch the hole put there by a fragment of the sock mill. When he was ready, he put everything back together and tested the Buick, which started up with an effective rumble that soon settled into a purr. That was when Soufflé rose and put out her hand. “Due to my tractor and tools, your vehicle is fixed. As my reward, you will walk with me.”
“I need to look after Albert,” Homer said because he didn’t want to go anywhere with her. For all he knew, Carlos was waiting to stick him with that pitchfork if he did.
“I insist,” she said. “You have nothing to fear from Carlos. Walk with me. It will be to your benefit.”
She took Homer’s hand and held it with a tight grip. Her hand was surprisingly strong and a bit calloused, the hand of a farmer. She led him from the barn to a small pond filled with reeds and cattail rushes and there he saw Albert, or more exactly, Albert’s eyes protruding above the muddy water.
Soufflé took both of his hands and it seemed to Homer that there was a kind of electricity flowing through them. “You think you don’t need anything,” she said. “You think you know yourself completely. Yet, the paradox is that you are on this journey to discover who you really are.”
“But I’m just carrying Albert home,” Homer said.
“Dear one, we have only known one another a few hours, yet I know you are doing far more than that. What have you already learned on your journey?”
“That it takes a lot longer to get through Virginia and North Carolina than I expected.”
She smiled. “That is a good thing to discover. Most things take more time than we believe they will. But, now, what about love? Will love take more time than you think?”
“I don’t know anything about love.”
“That is true,” she agreed. “Yet, every mile you travel on this journey is for this thing you don’t know anything about.”
Homer blinked, the truth of his purpose flashing into his mind. “I need to find Elsie.”
“Where is she?”
“Charlotte. The Sunshine Motel.”
“How will you find her?”
“Get in my car and drive there and ask for directions.”
“Yes, but how will you find her?”
Homer thought, then said, “I don’t know.”
“By carrying Albert home,” Soufflé said, “but you already know that. You just don’t know you know. Now, listen to me. We are going back now and you will sit with Carlos and you will write poetry together and you will fill the pages with all the things that are in your heart and have always been there.”
“But that doesn’t find Elsie.”
“It is the only thing that will.”
Which was the last thing Homer recalled of that moment on that endless green pasture with the pond he hadn’t noticed before and Albert’s eyes floating like scarlet fireflies in the darkness. In what seemed to be a very white room where even the air was white, he filled pages with all that he knew and hoped he knew and wanted to know. He kept writing until the sun came up and then he wrote some more until, at last, he wrote what he had to say. After that, the room turned back into the kitchen and he found himself sitting across the table from Carlos and Soufflé, who were reading what he had written. Soufflé looked up and smiled. “You’re back,” she said. She held up a sheet of paper on which he recognized his
handwriting. “And look at what you’ve written. You have revealed a truth as important as the earth revolving about the sun.”
“Quite astonishing,” Carlos agreed.
Homer read his words and then felt like he couldn’t breathe. He excused himself and went outside and walked around the barn until he came to a plot of patchy green grass that contained what appeared to be a rather fresh grave and several older ones. He stared at the graves, wondering whom they contained.
“They were not poets,” Carlos said, walking up beside him. “They revealed no truths.”
“What . . . who were they?” Homer asked.
“Though their souls were artless, Soufflé gave them a moment of poetic joy and then I made their deaths perfect.”
Homer waited to see if Carlos was going to say something else, perhaps laugh and tell him he was only joking, but after an interval during which it became apparent that Carlos was going to do no such thing, Homer said, “I think I had better be going.”
Carlos nodded. “Yes, I think you should.”
When Homer turned to leave, Carlos called after him, “You were lucky wine does not suit you.”
With Albert and the rooster snuggled down in the back seat, Homer drove away while looking in the mirror to see the poet and his mistress on their porch. Soufflé held up a single sheet of paper and pointed at it. He thought he knew which one it was, the one she had told him revealed a true truth. On it, he had written:
Let me find you.
If you don’t,
I will still look.
If you won’t,
I will still look.
If you can’t,
I will still look.
It is the looking that finds the love,
Not the finding.
Homer kept driving away, trying to sort out reality and dreams from other reality and dreams, and then, unable to do it, began to focus on finding Elsie. “The Sunshine Motel,” he kept saying to himself as if the very words were a map, and, finally asking for directions from various people on the streets, eventually found himself there. When Elsie opened the door, he made to hold her but she pushed him away. “You abandoned me.”