Midnight Haul

by Max Allan Collins

  “Hey. Make you a deal.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t give me a bad time about not being a virgin, and I won’t give you a bad time about being one.”

  “Well fuck you!”

  She smiled again. “That’s the general idea, yes.”

  And the fight was over.

  When he woke the next morning she was playing with his hair.

  “I like playing with your hair,” she said.

  “You like my freckles, too.”

  “I suppose Fran told you that.”

  Fran was one of the mutual friends.

  “Yeah, she did.”

  She smiled, crinkling her chin. “I’d like to get my hands on the little bitch…”

  “Me, too.”

  She hit him with a pillow. Not hard.

  “Don’t,” she said. Kidding on the square.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t be with anybody else. Not Fran or anybody.”

  “I wasn’t serious…”

  “I know. But I am. I won’t be with anybody else from now on, and you just be with me. Understand?”

  He’d understood. They’d been together since then. Lived together, starting last school year. They’d had the normal squabbles any couple has, but nothing serious; Mary Beth had been loving and sarcastically cheerful throughout. Though they’d never met, Mary Beth’s mother (her father died a few years before) seemed to approve of him and of the relationship—which had become an engagement; his parents loved Mary Beth and even seemed resigned to the wedding being held in New Jersey.

  But the need for both Crane and Mary Beth to work had separated them this summer. He’d been working construction, and she’d gone home, to Greenwood, NJ, where she had a summer job lined up. They’d spoken on the phone at least once a week, usually more often…

  “Here’s that aspirin,” the bearded guy was saying. He was handing a paper cup of water and two packaged tablets to Crane, who said, “Thank you very much,” and meant it.

  “Listen,” the guy said. “If I’m out of line, say so: but I can tell something’s bothering you, and it’s an hour and a half yet to New Jersey, so if you want to talk, it’s fine with me. And if not, that’s fine too…”

  “Thanks, no,” Crane said. Then felt compelled—perhaps out of guilt for calling somebody this considerate a jerk, even to himself—to add, “I’m not on a vacation. Someone close to me died recently. I’m going East for the funeral.”

  “Hey, man. I’m very sorry. Really.”

  “It’s okay. I just need to sit here quietly—if you don’t mind.”

  “You got it. Why not put on the ’phones and just relax?” The guy was referring to the headsets they’d been given that could be plugged into the armrest for a dozen channels of music and such.

  “Maybe I will,” Crane said, taking the headset out of its plastic wrapper.

  “There ya go,” the guy said, smiling, nodding.

  It had been a week since he’d talked to her last, when she killed herself; razor blades… Jesus, razor blades.

  She was still wearing his engagement ring; she’d be buried with it, tomorrow. No note. Nothing. No reason.

  But there had to be. A reason. He had to know what it was. He wouldn’t leave that goddamn town till he knew what it was.

  He put the headphones on and heard “You Light Up My Life,” as arranged for elevators. He switched channels, thinking, just my luck, I’ll get Phoebe Snow. He hit the comedy station and heard Rodney Dangerfield.

  He began to weep.

  Chapter Three

  At the funeral, he didn’t weep.

  Crane just sat there, feeling out of place. The people in the pews around him were strangers, and almost all of them old. He’d never met Mary Beth’s mother before, and she was as much a stranger as any of them; the fact that Mary Beth’s eyes were in the face of this plump, fiftyish woman seemed somehow nothing more than an odd coincidence. He was alone in a church full of people, none of whom he knew, except for Mary Beth. And she was dead.

  Yesterday, he’d walked two miles into town from the truck stop where the bus from the airport had deposited him. He’d come to New Jersey expecting a landscape cluttered with fast-food restaurants, gas stations, billboards, one big sprawling city with no houses, just industries belching smoke, highways intersecting at crazy angles, traffic endless in all directions.

  What he found was green, rolling farmland that could’ve been Iowa.

  He’d come down over a hill, walking along a blacktop road, and there, in the midst of a Grant Wood landscape, was Greenwood. Or so the water tower said. He saw one gas station (Fred’s Mobil) and one fast-food restaurant (Frigid Queen) and a John Deere dealership, before reaching a single, modest billboard that welcomed him to “New Jersey’s Cleanest Little City,” courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce, three churches and two fraternal lodges. Just past the billboard was a power and water facility and a sign that gave the population: 6000.

  Still on the outskirts, he passed twenty or so modern homes, off to the left; the land was very flat here, the only trees looking small and recently planted and underfed. The lack of foliage was emphasized by the homes being spread further apart than they’d be in a similar development in a larger city. Crane’s parents lived in a house like that, on the outskirts of Wilton Junction.

  None of this made him feel at home; rather, he felt an uneasiness, and had retreated to a motel, barely within the Greenwood city limits, without even phoning Mary Beth’s mother to let her know he was in town. There he watched television till his eyes burned, none of it registering, but helping keep his mind empty of what had brought him here.

  He even managed to sleep. Eventually.

  The next morning, this morning, he woke at eleven and called Mary Beth’s house. He knew the funeral was at one, but he didn’t know how to get there. An aunt answered the phone and gave him directions. He showered, shaved, got dressed for the occasion, and sat in a chair and stared at a motel wall for nearly two hours. The wall was yellow—painted, not papered—and there was a window with an air conditioner and green drapes in the middle of the wall. There was also a crooked picture, a print, of a small girl sitting beside a lake under a tree in summer. It was a pleasant enough picture, but it bothered him it was crooked. He straightened it before he left to walk into town to the church for the funeral.

  The casket was open, and he’d overheard several people saying how pretty Mary Beth looked, and, inevitably, that she looked like she was sleeping. But Crane had seen dead people before and none of them had looked asleep to him. The father of a close friend of his in high school had died in a terrible fiery car crash, and his casket had been open at the funeral, displayed up by the door as you exited, so you couldn’t avoid looking at the admirable but futile attempt the mortician had made at making his friend’s father look like his friend’s father.

  He and his friend and his friend’s father had spent two weeks three summers in a row at a lodge in the Ozarks; the lodge was more an elaborate hotel posing as a lodge than a lodge, and his friend’s father, who had money from a construction business, the same construction business Crane worked for this and other summers, was generous and fun to be with. Crane had spent many hours with the man. But now, whenever he thought of his friend’s father, he saw the face of the car crash victim in the open casket.

  So he did not go up to the front of the church to see Mary Beth one last time. In the future, when he thought of Mary Beth, he wanted to think of Mary Beth.

  The wood in the long narrow Presbyterian church was dark; the stained-glass windows, with their stilted scenes, let in little light. Even the minister, a thin, middle-aged man, was making his innocuous comments about this young woman, with whom he’d barely been acquainted, in a deep, resonant voice, its tones as dark as the woodwork.

  Right now he was saying something—“a gentle person, thoughtful, kind”—that might have pertained to anyone, outside of Adolf Hitler or Mike Wallace. And Cra
ne’s mind began wandering, and he glanced down toward the left, three rows up from him, at the back of the head of the blonde girl. Or woman. Crane had a hunch she was the type who’d consider “girl” a sexist word. That was okay. He didn’t consider “sexist” a word.

  She seemed so out of place here. Even more so than him. At least he was wearing a suit, wrinkled as it was from being stuffed in his one small suitcase. But among all these people in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, wearing their Sunday best, this blonde girl, woman, whatever, with jeans and an old plaid shirt…

  He’d watched when she came in, a little late, and he was watching her now, the back of her head, side of her face. Good-looking girl. Woman. Cute face, no makeup. Nice body, no bra.

  Jesus: he was getting a hard-on.

  He crossed his legs. Tried to cross his legs. Folded his hands in his lap, feeling uncomfortable and ashamed. But he could hear an amused Mary Beth saying, “A hard-on at my funeral? Very classy behavior, asshole.” At least that’s how his Mary Beth would’ve reacted; he didn’t know how the Mary Beth who killed herself would react. He didn’t know that Mary Beth at all.

  The moment passed, and so did the casket, brought up the aisle by the pallbearers, men in their forties and fifties, nameless relatives all, and now the only thing Crane felt was empty.

  It was good to get outside, in the sunshine. Cool, crisp, early fall day. Football weather soon. Iowa City. It would be nice to get back to Iowa City… if Mary Beth were there…

  They were putting Mary Beth into the hearse. That is, the pallbearers were, with the guiding hand of someone from the funeral home, putting the casket in the back of the black Cadillac.

  This isn’t happening, he thought.

  “I suppose you don’t have a car.”

  He turned. The blonde girl—woman—in the plaid shirt and jeans was standing there. He felt a rush of embarrassment.

  “Do you always blush at funerals?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t particularly friendly. It was, in fact, coldly sarcastic.

  “I… don’t know you…” Crane stammered.

  “You’re Crane. You’d have to be. I’m Boone.”

  “Boone?”

  “It’s my last name. My first name is Anne, but let’s just keep it Crane and Boone, okay? I got a car.”

  “Huh?”

  “A car. I got a car. You want to be in the funeral procession or what?”

  “I’d like to be at the graveside, yes, when they…”

  “Then come on.”

  She had a little yellow Datsun, a couple years old, and she opened the door on the rider’s side for him and he got in.

  “You were a friend of Mary Beth’s?” he asked her.

  “I still am.”

  “Nobody else her age was there.”

  “I wasn’t her age. I’m older than she was. And I’m older than you, too.”

  “Oh.”

  They found a place in the line of cars. Boone switched her lights on. A five-minute drive brought them to Greenwood Cemetery in the country, amidst more Grant Wood scenery.

  Crane stood near the grave as a few more words were spoken and the casket was lowered into the ground. Boone stayed back by her car.

  Mary Beth’s mother approached Crane and said, “Please stop by the house before you leave town,” and turned away, a male relative in his forties or fifties guiding her by the arm toward a waiting car.

  When everyone had gone, Crane was still there. Standing. Staring. At the arrangements of flowers near the hole in the ground where Mary Beth was. And would be.

  Boone was still back by the car. She called out to him.

  “Are you about done?” she said. Cold as stone.

  “Hey—fuck you. I can walk back to town.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  A few minutes later he realized she was standing beside him, now, and she said, “Look. You better come with me. Come on.”

  Crane rubbed some wetness away from his eyes and he and Boone walked to the Datsun.

  “You got a place to crash?” she asked him.

  “Motel.”

  “Leaving tonight?”

  “I guess.”

  They got in the car and drove out of the cemetery.

  “You’ll be starting back to school, then,” Boone said, suddenly, after several minutes of silence.

  “Uh. Yeah. Sure. I guess.”

  “Fine. That’s just dandy.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem?”

  “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. But the hostility in here’s so thick I’m choking.”

  “Yeah. Well. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

  “Take what out?”

  “I liked Mary Beth. That’s all.”

  “I loved her.” His eyes were getting wet again.

  “I’m sorry. Sorry, Crane. She never said a bad word about you. She loved you. She did.”

  They were at the motel now.

  Crane got out.

  “If she loved me,” he said, “why’d she kill herself?”

  “Who says she did?” Boone said.

  And drove away.

  Chapter Four

  Mary Beth’s mother lived in one of the new houses in the development on the edge of town, a split-level that differed from the pale yellow house on its left and the pale pink house on its right by being pale green. There were a lot of cars parked in front of the place and in its driveway. Crane walked across the lawn, with its couple of sad-looking scrawny trees, and past a trio of men with their coats off and beers in hand, talking loud. He didn’t hear Mary Beth’s name mentioned in their conversation.

  He knocked on the screen door (the front door stood open) and a middle-aged woman with a floral print dress and a haggard look greeted him with a suitably sad smile, saying, “We’re so glad you stopped by.” He had never seen her before.

  He said, “Thank you,” and was inside the living room with a dozen other people, who stood in small groups, talking in hushed voices, plates of food and cups of coffee in hand. All the chairs were taken. On the couch, flanked by elderly female relatives, was Mary Beth’s mother. He went over to her.

  It took her a moment to recognize him.

  “This is Mary Beth’s fiancé,” she said, with a weak smile, nodding to the woman on her left and to her right.

  They were all pleased to meet him and he took each offered hand and returned it.

  He looked down at Mary Beth’s mother and again saw Mary Beth’s eyes in the plump face, and impulsively, leaned over and kissed her cheek. It surprised her. She touched her face where he’d kissed her and said, “There’s food in the kitchen.”

  There was food in the kitchen. A table of it: hors d’oeuvre plates, plates of cold cuts, white bread, rye bread, nut bread, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, angel food cake. Food. People were eating it.

  There were more men than women in the kitchen. Though it was serve-yourself, a woman in an apron stood behind the table of food, offering help that was never needed. Another woman in an apron was doing dishes: apparently some of the mourners had eaten and run, or perhaps some people were onto a second plate. The men stood with beers in hand, talking softer than the men out on the lawn but louder than the people in the living room.

  Crane took some coffee, sipped at it occasionally, leaned against a wall in the kitchen. No one spoke to him. The bits and pieces of conversation that drifted his way didn’t include Mary Beth’s name.

  He wandered off, unnoticed, into the other part of the house, the upper level of the split-level.

  He looked in at Mary Beth’s room. It was a small room, four cold pale pink swirled plaster walls, a dresser with mirror, a chest of drawers, a double bed with a dark pink spread. There was a stuffed toy, a tiger, on the bed, a childhood keepsake she’d had with her in their apartment. Little else in the room suggested Mary Beth’s personality. This summer was the only time in her life she’
d lived in this room. Her mother and father had moved into this house after she’d left home for college. So this was not a room she’d lived in, really.

  But there were some books on the chest of drawers: Kurt Vonnegut, some science fiction, a couple of non-fiction paperbacks on ecology and such.

  And his picture, that stupid U of I senior picture, was framed on her dresser. And a couple snaps of them together were stuck in the mirror frame. He removed them. Put them in his billfold.

  “That’s stealing,” a voice said.

  He turned and saw a plump woman in her late twenties in jeans and sweater. Her hair was dark and long and she looked very much like Mary Beth, but with a wider face, which made her not quite as pretty.

  “Hi Laurie,” he said. He’d never met Mary Beth’s sister before, but he felt he knew her.

  “Hi there, Crane,” she said, and smiled and came across the room and hugged him hard.

  They looked at each other with wet eyes and then sat down on Mary Beth’s bed. She took his hand in both of hers.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.

  “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

  “I wasn’t there, I had to stay with Brucie.” She gestured toward the doorway.

  “Brucie? Your husband?”

  “No. You’re thinking of Bruce. He was my husband. Emphasis on was. We split up.”

  “Mary Beth never mentioned…”

  “It wasn’t too long ago. Two months.”

  “Brucie is Bruce, Jr., then.”

  “Right. Ten months old yesterday.”

  “I’d love to see him.”

  “He’s next door, in my room. I live here, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Since the divorce, I live here. I’m not surprised Mary Beth didn’t tell you about it, because it’s all a little bit of a downer. And talking with you on the phone once a week, well, it was something she looked forward to. She didn’t want to talk about depressing stuff, I’m sure.”

  “Depressing stuff. Just how depressed was she, Laurie? She never gave me any indication…”

  “Like I said, your phone calls were a bright spot in her week. She didn’t want to spoil ’em, I guess.”