The Evening Road

by Laird Hunt

  Something, he mouthed.

  What? I mouthed back.

  Pops was on “Amazing Grace” now and working it hard with his eyes closed when we went up and over a rise and Dale said, “Jesus Christ!” I thought sure he was sore about all the mouthing going on but he was looking straight past us out the windshield at a pair of dogs trotting dainty-legged down the middle of the goddamn road. It was bloodhounds—big floppy-ear things—and I swear to heaven they each one of them had a necktie on. We were about thirty feet from running them down when Bud got his head swiveled around from looking at me and at Dale and hit the brakes and swerved and sent us sliding half sideways on some gravel patch, then back straight onto the blacktop. We kept skidding and there was a loud popping sound and Bud said, “There goes the tire,” and Dale said, “Hold on now, Ottie Lee,” and I held on and the whole car started juddering and there was a wet-branch sound of metal getting snapped and a smell of scorched rubber. I felt Dale’s hand press hard on my shoulder like he aimed to shove me straight down through the car seat, and Pops kept singing loud like he was the radio, and up ahead and farther and farther away those dogs went trotting with their ears and neckties flopping back and forth like they hadn’t seen or heard us either one.

  You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” said Dale. He said this to me after the dogs had disappeared and Pops had quit singing and opened his eyes and looked around and put his ear horn back in and said, “What in hell just happened?” We told him, then told him again because he said he couldn’t believe it and Bud said, “It’s a day of marvels is what it is,” and no one laughed at his little joke so he set to cursing the dogs and whoever their owners were and the rest of the world while he was at it. We all took slugs of whiskey to settle ourselves and laughed at how it still felt like every part of us was shaking, then climbed out of the car.

  “No, in point of fact, that’s one thing I don’t think about you,” I said.

  “You think I don’t know what’s going on?”

  “Well, what is it you think is going on?”

  “You must think I’m as dumb as a donkey doing its business in the rain.”

  “What’s the rain got to do with it?”

  “It’s a figure of speech, Ottie Lee.”

  “Like in a poem. Why don’t you say a poem to me?”

  “Recite, Ottie Lee. Recite is what you do with a poem.”

  “Thank you, my beloved. Why don’t you recite me a poem.”

  “The hell I will.”

  He had his hands in his pockets, and one of them had just been on my shoulder in the car, but I reckoned just about any second it or the other would come out and hit me. That’s the way it got done in those days. Dale had hit me with a salad bowl just the past autumn. That was after I had told him at the supper table that he and his ideas about us having children were going to have to stop. Right there and right then. He asked me if I truly meant it, and I told him he knew when I said something with the bark on it I meant it, and he asked me if I had lost my marbles and I told him maybe that was exactly right, maybe that was just it, maybe I had. He said a child was what we had always wanted and what we had always aimed for and now we had a little money set aside and it was time to get to it and we had waited plenty long and so on and so forth. I said having children wasn’t everything and maybe it wasn’t much of anything. I said he ought to look at Bud, who’d lost wife and baby both to the Spanish flu and hadn’t ever looked back. “You think that’s true, that he never looked back?” said Dale. “She left him with that business, set him up good,” I said. “The daughter did?” said Dale. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Maybe I don’t,” he said. “Maybe you’re an idiot,” I said. “Hush on this now, Ottie Lee Henshaw,” he said. “I don’t want your last name when we’re in the middle of a argument,” I said. “Hush now.” “Sure I’ll hush. I’ll hush and get down on the floor and hunt for my lost marbles.” I spit a little—or maybe it wasn’t such a little—when I said this, right there at our kitchen table, and a glob of my spit got on his hand and he picked up the salad bowl and gave me a good crack on the side of the head that knocked me off my chair. That hadn’t stopped me from getting up and giving it to him with a skillet and a china plate and a salad fork. I didn’t back down.

  There we stood on the roadside. Bud was under the front of the car and still cursing the dogs. Pops was humming. Dale looked at me and I looked at the ground and spotted a rock. I’d have picked it up and used it on him too if he hadn’t said, his voice thick, “Let’s have that staring contest now.”

  “You’ll lose.”

  “Oh, you think you can beat me? It’d be a first and you know it.”

  “First, hell,” I said, my own voice thick.

  We had our heads about six inches apart; his two little eyes had turned into one normal-size one. He had taken his hands out of his pockets and rolled up his drooping shirtsleeves. I could smell the flecks of wintergreen chaw he had on his lips. His skinny eyebrows were all beaded up with sweat and I thought of how he had said, “Hold on now, Ottie Lee,” when it had looked like we were in trouble, and I got this feeling come creeping over me something powerful that I wanted to kiss him. Kiss him maybe just on the cheek like I had used to. Before. Before I told him he needed to keep his pecker to himself or that he could share it with his pig if he wanted to. He had given me a crack across the face for that too. I had a mouth on me in those days. I’ll never deny it. Just a little kiss. Right where his stubble stopped. Maybe then he would have given me one in return. Only that would have meant getting chaw flecks on my cheek. I bit a corner of my lip. Flared my nostrils. Focused back on the task at hand.

  “Come on over here and take a gander at this sorry state of affairs, Dale,” said Bud.

  “Attending to business,” said Dale, his eyes not blinking, not leaving mine.

  “Is this what the two of you get up to? Should we turn away? We witnessing what you do during your private time?”

  “Mind your business, Bud Lancer,” I said. And I almost told Dale right then and there what it was he was already suspecting but had only half right. Told him so Bud could hear me telling it. And Pops as a witness. Who could tell Candy Perkins and all the other rumormongers that it was all just farce and shadow play. Only then there would have been a fight, because what else could there have been. Some of it was true. The driving and pawing part was true. And it wasn’t the kind of fight Dale could win. I’d tell him later. I would figure out a way to tell him where it was we were getting our extra few dollars from each month and why he didn’t need to let it worry him. Or not worry him too much. It was a mess. But not my biggest one. Not even close. Then I said, “Shit in a bucket!” because I’d let my eyes drift away from Dale’s.

  “I want a rematch,” I said. “I demand it.”

  Dale smirked. He reached out his finger and gave my forehead a tap. Just a light one. He said, “We’ll talk later, wife of mine.” Then he put his hands back in his pockets, winked, and went around to the front of the car.

  While Dale helped Bud, Pops kind of lolled against the side of the car with his pint. It was shady where he was so I went over and leaned up next to him. He offered me a taste and I didn’t say no. What he had in his pint wasn’t as good as what Bud had in his, which figured, but you couldn’t complain about it not getting the job done.

  “Fine evening,” said Pops.

  “Sure is,” I said.

  “Too bad about Bud’s vehicle but it’s nice we didn’t hit those dogs. I like a good dog. I don’t care what Bud says. Who do you think dressed them up in neckties?”

  “You tell me and we’ll both be wiser.”

  “Well, I sure wish I’d seen them. Running straight toward Marvel. Goddamn.”

  “Probably there by now.”

  “What color were the neckties?”

  “Red and gold.”

  Pops smiled and sighed. “Colors of the sun. Lord, I bet that sun will be streaming ’cross the courthouse square. They’ll c
heer when those dogs get there.”

  We’d picked a pretty spot to be stuck. There were crows fussing out over the corn waving its early August ways in front of us and there was a little rise looked like a pillow the evening sun was resting its head on. There were delicate bugs flying in the soft light and flowers looking less wilty now that the day was letting down. The sky had a color to it that you didn’t see too often. There was some purple in it but also some pink. There was yellow but there was also orange and brown. Count the colors those bloodhounds had been wearing and it was like a springtime field full of flowers. There’s no place in the world for a sunset like the Indiana countryside. I had always loved Indiana. Loved it for better and poorer. There wasn’t anything changed about that. There still isn’t.

  “Too goddamn hot, though,” said Pops.

  “Hotter than a brick bastard,” I said.

  Dale and Bud were talking about the spare tire that wasn’t in the trunk and about the repair kit Bud didn’t have and the axle that was almost surely broken anyway.

  “Long and short of it is we’re fucked,” said Bud, coming around the car to put his foot on the running board next to us.

  “Comes a car,” Dale said. Sure enough, there was a big black car made Bud’s look small coming down the road. It slowed and who sat behind the wheel but Charley Goodwin with the orange ink under his nails.

  “Well, now, looky here,” he said.

  “We got into a skid,” Bud said. He didn’t say anything about the dogs and none of the rest of us did either.

  “Sorry state of a situation,” said Charley.

  There was about five more-or-less jackasses in the car with him and more than one of them had bottles of something too good-looking to have come out of a brown paper bag.

  “Uncle’s car on a loan,” said Charley. “Bud’s not the only one got family around here.”

  “She’s a fine one,” said Bud.

  “You got any extra room in there?” said Pops.

  “Full up, Pops,” said Charley. “Though I expect if we squeezed, old Ottie could climb in.”

  “Squeezed what?” one of the men in the car said. This was cause for considerable laughter and bottle clinking in the vehicle. I couldn’t tell if it was Dale or Bud who told them to shut their mouths first.

  “Now, now,” said Charley, “no one’s looking for an altercation. Even if we got the numbers on you.”

  “You think you got the numbers, why don’t you all come out of the car and let’s count.”

  “Naw, Bud,” said Charley. “We’ll cede you the field. But it’s probably you pretty soon going to need to be doing some counting. The green-paper kind. That’s what I heard.”

  “Anybody’s going to be doing any counting on our side ought to be me,” said Dale.

  “Shut up, Dale,” said Bud.

  “Shut up yourself,” said Dale.

  Bud ignored this and turned back to Charley. “You back on that?” he said.

  “Just talking, like I said earlier,” said Charley, giving out a laugh didn’t sound so nervous now that his back wasn’t against a wall. “You know how word flits around. It floats and it flits.”

  Charley laughed again and made his hand and fingers flap through the air.

  “Anyways, let’s get this crate rolling or we’ll miss all the show,” said one of the screw-tops in the backseat.

  “Wouldn’t want to miss the show, now,” said Charley, pulling his hand back into the car. “We’ve already been having adventures along the road. Haven’t we, boys? Dark’s coming on. You sure you don’t want to climb in here, Ottie? Got a spot next to me,” he said.

  “In your fanciest dreams,” I said.

  “Happy hoofing, then,” he said and drove off.

  Bud had turned thoughtful—no doubt meditating on whatever business troubles he was about to have—so when Pops and Dale set in to swearing at Charley’s taillights disappearing down the road, he didn’t join in.

  “Fact is, we had better get to walking,” he said.

  “Back to walking, I’ll be damned,” said Pops.

  “I’m not walking an inch,” I said.

  “Anyone wants to see the show had better dust off their boots,” said Bud.

  “I got on heels,” I said.

  “We’ll catch a ride here before long.”

  “Catch a ride, my red ass,” said Dale.

  “What are you getting contrary about anyway?” said Bud.

  Dale had clearly forgotten about the idea of us talking it over later and was looking long daggers from Bud to me and back to Bud.

  “There’s all kinds of ways to catch a ride, ain’t there?” he said.

  “What in hell are you talking about?” said Bud.

  Dale gave him one last look, then spit.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Bud.

  “Come on now, boys, put the pistols back in your pockets, this ain’t getting us any closer to the big show,” said Pops.

  “You done?” said Bud.

  “What was Charley talking about?” said Dale.

  “’Bout things that weren’t any of his business. Or yours. Things he’s wrong as rain about. Now, are we going or aren’t we?”

  “Let’s all take a drink,” said Pops.

  “I’ll drink,” said Dale.

  It took some coaxing but Bud got a grin going on his face and the three of them fetched up their pints and drank. When they were done, Pops and Bud pointed their bottles in my direction, but I walked over to Dale and grabbed my drink out of his. This made Bud and Pops laugh and after a while Dale let his scowl drop and joined in. Joining in for him meant raising his eyebrow, clucking his head up and down, and spitting extra out through his front teeth. He wasn’t dumb or stupid or even an idiot neither, and he’d stood up more than a little to Bud and Charley both. Plus he had put his hand on my shoulder, then beat me again at staring. Funny what you fall into in this world. Love and its ways. I leaned over, puckered up, and gave him that peck on his cheek.

  Some way or other involving their pint bottles, they got me to agree to walk, so we posse’d up and set off down the dusky road. Now and again a car would roll by but never a one of them stopped. Pops said he thought it was probably because they didn’t have any space like Charley hadn’t had, but Bud, who was back to being mad at the dogs, and Dale, who was still grumpy despite my attentions, both said it was because they were bitches and bastards, plain and simple, every one. There was a good amount of glum talk about how long it was going to take us to walk to Marvel, where the bright torch was burning for others’ eyes and who could have said how much fun they were all already having getting ready to climb up their ladders and dangle their ropes. Bud said Marvel had always been the town to have fun in—knew it for a fact since he had a sister living over on the outskirts—and Pops said he couldn’t agree more. They knew how to laugh in Marvel and always had the freshest jokes. Bud asked Pops to tell one of the ones he had heard as long as it didn’t involve dogs, but Pops said he couldn’t call any to mind. Bud said he couldn’t either. They asked me if I knew any but I was too hot to try and hustle something up.

  “Still, that’s the place to go for fun,” said Pops. He said he had heard that the very day before there had been a human-fly display in Marvel and that five thousand people had turned up to see him climb a five-story wall.

  “They have the space for it in that fine downtown. My sister says they’re planning to expand, says maybe I ought to open another office there when they do, and never mind the rough times the papers say we’re living in,” said Bud.

  “I reckon people can do their dying there without you,” said Dale.

  “Oh, they’ll die easier with a fair policy in their pockets! Gives them peace of mind.”

  “Maybe you ought to slip a policy into the pocket of those boys they’re planning to pull up to heaven.”

  “Wouldn’t make me any money to do that. Tell you what, though—and fuck Charley Goodwin—after people get their good
look at old Daddy Death tonight, I bet the phone will be ringing tomorrow, ringing right off its hook.”

  “Daddy Death?” said Pops.

  “The big daddy,” said Bud.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dale said.

  Every fifty feet or so Pops would take off his hat, twist it up until the sweat dripped out, then pull it back down on his head. His ear contraption made it look like he was a half robot out of one of the magazine stories Dale sometimes read. This past early autumn he had been setting in the front room by the stove reading one and chuckling his ugly chuckle when we’d had a knock on our front door. Found a lady standing there with a heavy coat on even though it was warm out and there wasn’t any chill. “May I come in, please?” the lady had said. I said it too now, out there in the blast heat, but nobody noticed. So I said it again, like I was in a trance. I had my hat off and was using it for a fan. Bud left off bragging on his business prospects, since not even Pops was pretending to listen, and started into some story I’d already heard too many times about how he had used to box on the undercard at the Cadle Tabernacle, but I interrupted him.

  “I need a drink of water or I’m going to die,” I said.

  Bud said there was a store not more than half a mile up the road and we could get all the water we wanted and probably some fresh pints too.

  But the place where that store was supposed to have been came and went, and they all one by one threw their empty pint bottles away into the high grass. We walked past sleepy pigs, sleepy cows, and sleepy horses. We walked past dying houses and dead barns. The mosquitoes came out thick every time we passed a stand of trees but Pops had some anti-mosquito salve and we all got greased up pretty good. With that situation more or less under control, there was a festivity to the evening that couldn’t be denied. The birds were singing their last songs, the late clouds were bunching up nice and fat, squirrels chirped and chattered in the trees. As we inched closer to Marvel we got passed by more lynching-goers who hollered and cheered when they saw us, even if nary a one of them stopped when we hollered back. One truck had cans tied to its tail that clattered and bounced as it rolled along. Another was stuck all over with yellow roses so thick you couldn’t see what color it was. I thought I saw Candy Perkins, or some other of her species, trollop on by in the passenger seat of a roadster, but I couldn’t get a good look. Then along come a hay wagon filled to its scratchy brim with couples all snuggled up together under blankets. It looked like they’d took a wrong turn out of Halloween and ended up in August.