Dearest Dorothy, Slow Down, You're Wearing Us Out!

by Charlene Ann Baumbich

  Dorothy patted the dashboard and said, “Come on, honey! You can do it!” She cranked and pumped a time or two more, the smell of gasoline wafting up her nose. Just as she was ready to give up, The Tank sputtered to life, kicking a bit, but nevertheless working her way into running roughly.

  “I’ll tell you, Arthur, The Tank’s acting just like I’ve been acting lately!” She could see the top of Arthur’s hat through the gap between the dashboard and the lifted hood. He was, as he had been during the entire procedure, fast at work, touching, lifting, listening, swiping and wiping, moving his burly hands from here to there…considering…gently pouring liquids down her throat as a mother administers medicine…

  “Shut her down, Dorothy. Wait a second, then fire her up again, but don’t stomp on the gas unless ya just have a hankerin’ to drown her like a cinder block throwed to the bottom of the creek!” His tone of voice sounded like he might snap Dorothy’s head off, but Dorothy understood that when The Tank was ailing, so was Arthur. In fact, it was the same with her. The three of them seemed to have made an unspoken vow long ago that they would each of them last as long as the other. Again, Dorothy turned the key and lightly tapped on the gas pedal, holding her breath as The Tank kicked into rumbling a bit more quickly and smoothly than she did on the last go around.

  “Sounds better,” Dorothy said.

  “Don’t tell me how she sounds! I got my head stuck right in her mouth. I guess I can hear her stomach growl from here, wouldn’t ya say?”

  “I reckon,” Dorothy said to the top of Arthur’s hat, squishing herself down a tad, trying to get a peek at his eyes so she could tell what he was thinking. The tone of his voice didn’t sound good. A chill ran up the back of her neck, even though the temperature was nearly balmy.

  “What do you think, Arthur?” Dorothy said as chipper as she could. “Think she’ll live?” A forced chuckle escaped her throat.

  “Turn her off and don’t fire her up again ’til I tell ya,” Arthur said flatly. Dorothy turned off the engine and began squeezing the steering wheel, then letting go, then squeezing, as though she were trying to pump lifeblood through the steering column. “Come on, honey,” she whispered. “Come on.”

  “Quit your mumbling in there and start the engine!” Arthur hollered. “Ya act like you’re deaf or something!” Again Dorothy cranked, this time holding her breath. Without protest, The Tank began to run somewhat more smoothly.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Dorothy said as she patted the steering wheel. “Thank you, Lord!” she said as she looked up toward the heavens and instead spotted the faded blue fabric over her head that was starting to sag a bit. “We get more alike every day, don’t we, dearie?”

  “Back ’er out!” Arthur yelped. “Back ’er out and run ’er up and down the lane a few times to see if she’s gonna have herself another hissy fit.” Dorothy never needed encouragement to see how quickly The Tank would move across the countryside. Since with every passing day Dorothy’s neck was harder to turn more than forty-five degrees, she looked in the rearview mirror, slowly backed out of the shed and into the ninety-degree gravel turnaround. She put her into drive and tromped on the gas so quickly that it caused gravel to spew out from under the tires. As The Tank roared toward the end of Arthur’s driveway, Sheba followed in fast pursuit, her short legs nothing more than a blur. Dorothy grinned as she got a peek of Arthur in her rearview mirror, waving his fist in the air. With barely a rolling stop at the end of the drive, she pulled out onto the gravel road toward her house, where she planned to turn around in her driveway before heading back.

  “MOM! LOOK OUT!” Josh screamed from the backseat. He and Alex had been gazing across the fields, talking about how far you could see. Josh had looked up just in time to see The Tank barreling down the Landerses’ driveway. If things stayed on their immediate course, The Tank would plow right into his door. Since he was sitting behind his mom, he quickly noticed she, too, was staring off to the horizon rather than looking in front of her. That’s when he screamed.

  Katie looked up and slammed on her brakes, skidding on the gravel as the anti-lock mechanism tried to pump into controlling a situation it wasn’t used to. Out of citified instinct, she raised her hand to lay on the horn before realizing it would take both hands to try to hold the Lexus steady. They fishtailed back and forth a few times before finally coming to a stop, right front tire in the shallow ditch. Thankfully they’d slowed down enough that the SUV didn’t roll, nor were they too badly jolted when they stopped. But they were definitely on a physical tilt and emotionally shaken.

  Katie’s face was as red as a beet as she unbuckled her seat belt and spun around 180 degrees to look at her son. Even though she was rattled to her bones, a look of relief spread across her face after the boys assured her they were fine.

  Josh looked down the road at the trail of dust flying behind The Tank as she headed toward Dorothy’s driveway. “Well, I have just two things to say: Mom, nice piece of Evel Knievel driving! And Alex, my man, you’ve just received your unofficial introduction to Miss Outtamyway!” Simultaneously, Josh and Alex broke out in peals of laughter while Katie slipped the SUV into four-wheel drive and put it in reverse.

  “Joshua Matthew Kinney!” she said into the rearview mirror, her teeth clenched and her volume at full pitch. “There is nothing funny about nearly being killed!” Slowly and with the sound of power, they backed out of the ditch and onto the road while Katie mumbled something under her breath about having been thankfully seasoned by years of dealing with Chicago’s crazy drivers. When Katie had straightened the wheel, she looked up to see The Tank barreling back toward them.

  “They’re HERE!” Dorothy said aloud when she recognized the Lexus, for certainly there wasn’t another vehicle like that hanging around in Partonville! “Thank you, Lord, for their safe arrival!” Dorothy stuck her arm out the window, waving them to pull over, unaware they were already at a complete stop—her depth perception not being quite what it used to be. She pulled up next to them across from Katie’s open window and hollered, “Howdy doody! Howdy doody! I see you made it here in one piece!”

  “You could have killed us!” Katie yelled back. Her face was flushed and her voice cracked.

  “Mom, lighten up. We’re fine,” Josh said, tapping her on the shoulder and waving at Dorothy through his open window.

  “You pulled right out in front of us!” Katie screamed, totally out of control. “You could have killed us ALL!” The enthusiasm on Dorothy’s face melted as her mind groped to understand what in the world Katie was talking about. Just then Arthur loped up between the cars to find out if everyone was all right. He’d chugged his stiff body all the way down the driveway when he saw the Lexus careen into the ditch.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked, looking into Katie’s vehicle.

  “Sure. We’re fine,” Josh answered.

  “Luckily, we’re okay,” Katie spat. The redness had nearly left her face, but her neck was still crimson, and her heart was hammering away.

  “Would someone please tell me what on earth happened?” Dorothy said.

  “Woman,” Arthur responded, “you mean to tell me you don’t even know you ran these folks plumb off the road?”

  “What in the world…” Dorothy tried to think how on earth she could have done such a thing. Surely she’d looked down the road before she turned…she remembered seeing Arthur in her rearview mirror and…

  “Oh, MY!” she shouted. “Don’t tell me I pulled right out in front of you!” she exclaimed.

  “Yes, you did,” Katie said flatly.

  “Lord, THANK YOU for Your grace!” Dorothy boisterously proclaimed.

  “I’d say you can thank ME,” Katie barked, “for veering us into the ditch rather than broadsiding you, or vice versa!”

  “The DITCH! You mean to tell me you had to run yourself off the road to keep from hitting me?”

  “Yes, Dorothy. I am telling you exactly that.”

  “Please forgive me, Kat
ie. Is everyone really okay? Oh, please forgive me!”

  “Thankfully we were all wearing our seat belts, and thankfully I didn’t lose control, and thankfully my four-wheel drive got us back on the road, and yes, we are all right, aren’t we, boys?” She asked once again, more to reassure herself than to impart any information.

  “Mom wasn’t exactly looking where she was going either,” Josh said out the window. He’d held his tongue long enough. He drew in his breath, waiting for his mom’s fiery retort.

  Katie started to respond, but like Dorothy, when challenged to think about it, the last thing she recalled before hitting her brakes was Josh screaming, and then…she’d been looking at the fields, and…She stared blankly at Dorothy, eyebrows scrunched together, while the incident played like a filmstrip in her mind. There was no denying it: she had been watching the fields rather than the road. But she certainly had the right of way, and Dorothy was going too fast, and—

  Katie focused her stare. “Oh, please forgive me!” Katie heard ringing in her ears once again. Dorothy’s sorry and apologetic face stopped the harsh words right in Katie’s throat. What was it about this woman that always seemed to burrow into her? Until this moment, she had nearly forgotten how Dorothy seemed capable of looking clear into her being.

  “Josh is right, Dorothy,” Katie said quietly. Josh’s eyebrows flew up and he turned his head to look at Alex. Alex, too, seemed surprised at Katie’s response. “Joshua is exactly right. I was looking at the fields rather than watching the road and…”

  “Never you mind, child,” Dorothy said. “You certainly had the right of way…and who wouldn’t be looking at this beautiful land?” she asked, her eyes panning the horizon through her windshield.

  “While you two hens are a-sittin’ here decidin’ whose fault things is and how beautiful things is, you’ll both like to cause an accident if you don’t git yourselves out of the road,” Arthur grumbled.

  “Yes. Yes, we better all be getting back to my place, have us a big glass of iced water with lemon and calm ourselves down.”

  “Well, I don’t need to calm down. I need to get back to my nap,” Arthur said.

  “Have you two already checked in?” Dorothy asked. “I mean you three?” She bobbed her head to look past Josh and get a peek at Alex.

  “No, Dorothy,” Josh said. “I talked Mom into coming straight to the farm so we could surprise you. I guess we surprised each other, huh? And by the way, Dorothy, this is Alex.”

  “Well, howdy do, Alex,” Dorothy said, waving her hand at the boy, who was waving back.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  “And this here is…” Dorothy turned to introduce Alex to Sheba, who was usually riding either shotgun or in the backseat. She was nowhere to be found.

  “Sheba!” Dorothy recalled last seeing her chasing The Tank down the Landerses’ driveway. She cranked her body around, looking every which way. “Oh, MY! You didn’t hit Sheba, did you?”

  Alex unbuckled his seat belt and hopped out of the Lexus. Katie followed suit, as did Alex. Just then Jessie appeared at the parking lot in the middle of the road, announcing she was happy finally to figure out where everybody had gone.

  “We’re looking for Sheba,” Dorothy said in a flurry of words as Alex, Josh, Katie and Arthur all began running toward the ditch.

  “Well, you don’t have to look far,” Jessie said. She held her hand over her eyebrows and looked down the road toward Dorothy’s place. Here came Sheba, legs flying, tongue wagging, galloping as fast as she could go. Apparently, she was still trying to catch up with The Tank after it had made the turn in Dorothy’s driveway.

  4

  Harry’s had just opened, and as usual Arthur was among the first to seat himself at the U-shaped counter. Of course, he sat on “his” swivel stool, just as the rest of the regulars were seated on theirs. Lester K. Biggs, sole proprietor, cook and waiter of Harry’s, thunked Arthur’s coffee mug in front of him, sending spews of coffee from the filled-to-nearly-overflowing mug onto the counter. Arthur stared at the splashes of coffee, then reached toward the chrome napkin holder in front of him. Deliberately, he pulled out a wad of napkins and with a dramatic flair swiped at the counter, then set his coffee mug on top of the soiled napkins.

  Although Lester had seen Arthur’s performance, he didn’t acknowledge it until he was facing the grill flipping bacon, his back toward Arthur. “Think I’m made of money that I got napkins to waste like that?” he said. “You act like a princess or something. Like you might melt if you had a drip of coffee get on you.”

  “Well, it sounds like somebody got up on the wrong side of bed,” Harold Crabb, editor of the Partonville Press, said to Lester. “Did that howling wind keep you awake last night?”

  “The only thing that keeps me awake at night,” Lester answered, swiping his hands on his apron and turning his head ninety degrees to stare at Harold, who sat at one of the ends of the U that, like bookends, surrounded the grill area, “is worrying I might go broke buying paper supplies—as if the cost of bacon isn’t enough to make me cinch my belt buckle a notch.”

  “Is that why I only got three strips instead of four last week?”Arthur asked Lester while winking at Harold. Arthur relished stirring up the pot a bit, getting Lester—or just about anyone, for that matter—going.

  Lester, who also enjoyed their ongoing sparring—even though forty years ago it hadn’t started out so friendly when Arthur stole Jessie away from him—whirled around on his heels, put his hands on the counter on either side of Arthur and got right in his face. “You know for a fact I’ve never served you less than four strips of bacon in all the decades I’ve been having to put up with you first thing in the morning. In fact, I do believe there have been several instances when you’ve had an extra strip or two, and I never once heard you complain about that! Come to think about it, I also never heard you thank me, either.”

  Arthur broke out in a wide grin, and, performing a very bad imitation of Marilyn Monroe, slowly sang, “Well, thank you, Mr. Bi-iggs and Happy Birth-day to you.” It was such a hysterical scene that Lester couldn’t help but break out in laughter, just like everyone else in the place—all twelve of them. Even the ever-appropriate Acting Mayor Gladys McKern nearly snorted coffee right out her nose. Cora Davis, Partonville’s unofficial town crier, who was sitting at her usual table by the door so as not to miss anything, said, “Well, Arthur Landers! I do declare that I didn’t think you had that in you. Does your wife know you can sing like a sick cow?”

  “I feel a news bulletin coming on,” Harold said. He grabbed his reporter’s steno from his inside jacket pocket—Harold always wore a suit on working days—and pretended to take notes. “Headline: Arthur Landers Finally Cracks,” he said aloud as his hand went through the writing motions, although ink never touched the page.

  “I’ll tell you what you ought to be writing about instead of an old geezer like me,” Arthur said. “That city slicker is back in town again.” He knew just how to get Cora going, too.

  “She surely is,” Cora said. “I saw her big fancy vehicle go around the square a couple times lately, and I’ve noticed it parked at the Lamp Post. Sure enough, it was parked at Tess Walker’s place, too. Of course, I understand they’re not even done clearing that mess out yet.”

  “She and her boy was out visitin’ Dorothy the other day.” Arthur halted himself, deciding not to go into the near accident, what with Cora’s ears wide open. Next thing he’d know, everyone in town would be talking about the calamity that took three people to the hospital, she had such a way of bending and exaggerating things.

  “Is she figuring on finishing things up this trip?” Cora asked, actually leaving her chair and walking over to Arthur, just smelling that he knew more than he was telling. “I mean, have we even learned yet if she’s going to move into that farm, or is she just going to have it torn down and turned into a shopping center? You know, I heard she was a big shot in real estate up there in Chicago.”
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  “I have no idea, Cora,” Arthur said, staring into his mug. “Why don’t you ask her yourself, since you seem to know where she is at any given moment?” Cora snorted at Arthur’s usual rudeness and went back to her seat.

  “I just hope Dorothy isn’t getting too caught up with her,” Gladys said. “I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. There’s just something fishy about a woman like her buying a place like Dorothy’s. What ever possessed Dorothy to sell to an outsider is beyond me. In fact, what ever possessed Dorothy to sell in the first place is still something I can’t get over.”

  “I reckon Dorothy knows what she’s a-doin’, Gladys,” Arthur said flatly. Arthur was one of the few people, aside from May Belle, who had actually gone so far as to be happy for Dorothy when she made her announcement. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot over something that ain’t none of yer business, Miss Mayor.”

  “Arthur Landers, as the mayor of this town, I reckon just about everything anybody does that might affect our lives is my business. And that’s all there is to THAT!” She wadded up her paper napkin, tossed it down on top of the smear of egg left on her plate and asked Lester for her bill.

  “Same as every day, Gladys. Two poached eggs, rye toast and coffee. Two dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  “Well, at least some things never change,” she said in a huff as she threw down three singles and stormed out.

  “Yeah,” Lester said under his breath, “like my quarter tip from you.”

  “You think that woman ever just walks out of anywhere like a normal person?” Arthur asked Harold, already knowing the answer to the question.

  The Tank roared up and parked on the street behind the Lexus. This was the first time Dorothy would be back inside Tess’s since Katie and Josh were here six weeks ago. This will be my house, after the late-summer closing, she kept telling herself.