“I guess you just can’t tell,” Norma said.
“No, I guess not,” said Camille. “Anyway, you asked me about how to handle men.”
Mrs. Pritchard was beating herself with words. Her reaction had frightened her. She said to herself, even whispering the words, “What a horrible, vulgar story. What animals those young girls are. So this is what Elliott means by ‘getting down to the people.’ Oh, that’s horrible. We just forget how people are, how nasty they can be. Dear Ellen,” she wrote frantically, and the excitement was still tingling on the insides of her legs. “Dear Ellen, the trip was terrible between San Ysidro and San Juan de la Cruz. The bus went into a ditch and we just sat and waited for hours. My Elliott was very sweet and made me a bed in a funny cave. You said I would have adventures. Remember? You said I always would have adventures. Well, I did. There were two vulgar, illiterate girls on the bus, one of them a waitress and the other was rather pretty. She was a you-know-what. I was resting and I guess they thought I was asleep and they went right on talking. I couldn’t put in a letter what they said. I’m still blushing. Gentle people just don’t know how these little things live. It’s incredible. I always think it’s ignorance. If we only had better schools and if—well, if you want the truth—if we who should be examples were just better examples, I’m sure the whole picture might change, gradually, but certainly.”
Ellen would read the letter over and over to people. “I just had a letter from Bernice. She’s having the most exciting adventures. You know, she always does. Why, I want you to hear what she says. I’ve never known anyone who could see the good sides of people the way Bernice can.”
Norma was saying, “If I liked a fella I wouldn’t think of doing a thing like that to him. If he wanted to give me a present he’d have to think of it himself.”
“Well, that’s the way I feel about it too,” said Camille. “But I haven’t got a fur coat, not even a chubby. And Loraine’s got three.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” said Norma. “I don’t think I’d like Loraine.”
“God Almighty!” Camille cried in her mind. “You don’t know if you’d like Loraine. I wonder if you’ve got any idea what Loraine would think of you?” No, she thought, that isn’t true. Loraine would probably take this girl and fix her up and help her. Whatever you could say about Loraine, nobody could say she wasn’t a good scout.
CHAPTER 16
Mildred put her head down to keep the rain from misting her glasses. The gravelly road felt good under her feet and the exercise made her draw her breath deeply. It seemed to her that the day was getting darker. It couldn’t be very late, and still an evening light was creeping in, making light things, such as pieces of quartz and limestone, seem lighter, and dark things, such as the fence posts, seem black.
Mildred walked quickly, her feet stabbing at the ground and her heels striking into the gravel. She was trying to push the quarrel out of her mind. She did not remember having seen her mother and father fight before. But this had been a practiced thing with a routine-like quality that indicated it was a far from uncommon process. Her mother must maneuver the quarrels into the bedroom where no one could hear them. She had built up and maintained a story of the perfect marriage. This time the tension had got to a breaking point and there was no bedroom to retire to. There had been mean little drops of yellow venom in the quarrel that disturbed Mildred. It was a poison that seeped subtly in, not an open, honest rage but rather a secret, creeping anger that struck with a thin, keen blade and then concealed the weapon quickly.
And there was this endless trip to Mexico ahead. Suppose Mildred didn’t come back? Suppose she walked on and caught a ride and disappeared—rented a room someplace, perhaps on the coast by the sea, and spent the time on the rocks or on the beach? The idea was very pleasant to her. She could cook for herself and get to know other people on the beach. The idea was ridiculous. She hadn’t any money. Her father was very generous—but not with cash. She could charge her clothes and sign checks in restaurants, but her actual money was always very short. Her father was generous but very curious. He wanted to know what she bought and where she ate, and he could find these things out on the monthly bills.
Of course, she could go to work. She would pretty soon anyway, but not right yet. No, she had to weather it out. She had to stumble through this horrible Mexican trip, which could be so wonderful if she were alone, and then go back to college. It wouldn’t be long until she would go to work, and her father would approve of that. He would say to Charlie Johnson, “I’d give her anything she wants, but no, sir, she’s got too much get-up-and-go. She’s making her own living.” And he would say it with pride, as though some virtue of his own was involved, and he would never know that she was working for the sake of privacy, so she could have her own apartment and some spending money, for things he didn’t know about.
At home, for instance, she was free to go to the liquor cabinet any time she wanted, but she knew that her father had in his memory the exact level of liquid in every bottle, that if she took three drinks he would know it immediately. He was a very curious man.
She took off her glasses and wiped them on the lining of her coat and put them on again. In the road she could see Juan’s tracks, long strides. There were places where his foot had slipped on a rock, and there were muddy stretches where the whole prints of his feet were visible, with the line broken by the drives of his toes. Mildred tried to walk in his tracks, but his step was too long for her, and she felt the pull on her thighs after she had kept it up for a while.
He was a strange, compelling man, she thought. She was glad she had got out of that crazy experience of the morning. No sense in it, she knew. Irritation and functioning glands interplaying—she knew all that. And she also knew herself to be a girl of strong sexual potential. There would come a time in the not far future when she would either have to get married or make some kind of permanent arrangement. Her times of restlessness and need were growing more frequent. She thought of Juan’s dark face and shining eyes and she was not affected. But there was warmth in him and honesty. She liked him.
As she cleared the hill she saw the deserted farm below and was fascinated. She could feel the despondency of the place. She knew she couldn’t pass the house without looking through it. Her steps quickened. All her interest was aroused.
“Bank foreclosed,” Van Brunt had said, “and the family had to move, and the bank wouldn’t be interested in an old house. It was the land they were taking.”
Her strides were almost as long as Juan’s now. She came swinging down to the foot of the hill to the muddy entrance of the farm and suddenly she stopped. Juan’s tracks turned in. She walked along the road a little to find whether they emerged and continued, but she could find no other footsteps ahead.
“He must still be in there,” she said to herself. “But why? He was going out to the county road. There couldn’t be a telephone here.” She grew cautious as she realized she didn’t know what was going on, and she didn’t know much about this man. She walked slowly into the entrance and moved out on the grass so that her feet would not make a rasping sound on the gravel.
There was something dangerous about the deserted house. She recalled old newspaper stories of murders in places like this. Her throat tightened with fear. “Well,” she consoled herself, “I can turn right around and go out. Nobody’s stopping me. Nobody’s pushing me in, but I know I must. I know I won’t leave. Maybe those murdered girls could have got away too. Maybe they were asking for it.”
She saw a vision of herself lying on the floor of one of the rooms, strangled or stabbed, and there was something in the vision that made her laugh—her glasses were still on. And what did she know about Juan? He had a wife and a business. Then there was a headline she remembered. “Father of three in sadist murder. Parson murders choir singer.” Why are so many choir singers and organists murdered, she wondered. There seems to be a high occupational hazard about choir singing. Choristers are alw
ays being found choked behind the organ. She laughed. She knew she was going into this house. Should she just clump on in or should she steal in and catch Juan Chicoy at whatever he was doing? Maybe he was just going to the toilet.
She put a careful foot on the step and paused when the floorboard creaked under her weight. She went through the house opening cupboards. There was an overturned pepper can in the kitchen and a coat hanger in the closet of the bedroom. She turned her head sideways to look at the old comic pages under the peeled wallpaper. She read a strip of “Happy Hooligan.” The mule, Maud, drew back her legs and kicked and Cy sailed through the air, and on the seat of Cy’s pants were the imprints of the mule’s hoofs.
She straightened her head. Why hadn’t she thought of the barn before? Mildred crept back to the front porch and looked closely at the boards. She could see the wet track of Juan’s shoes. She followed the track to the living room and lost it. Then she went to the open back door and looked out. What a fool she had been, creeping about! There were the footprints going out, headed, in fact, for the barn.
She went down the broken steps and followed the trail across the lot and passed the old windmill. She entered the barn and stood listening. There was no sound. She thought of calling out and gave it up. Slowly she moved down the line of stalls and around the end stall. It had taken a little while for her eyes to adjust to the light. She stood in the entrance to the central part. All the little mice flicked out of sight. Then she saw Juan lying on his back, his hands cupped behind his head. His eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly.
“I can go away,” Mildred said. “Nobody’s keeping me. It will be my fault. I just want to remember that. He’s minding his own business. Oh, what’s this nonsense?”
She took off her glasses and put them in her pocket. The outline of the man was fuzzy to her now, to her unfocused eyes, but she could still see him. She walked slowly, carefully, across the straw-covered floor and when she was beside him she crossed her ankles and let herself down and sat on her crossed feet. The scar on his lip was white and he breathed shallowly and evenly. “He was just tired,” she said to herself. “He lay down to rest a moment and he fell asleep. I shouldn’t wake him up.”
She thought of the people back in the bus—suppose neither she nor Juan ever came back. What would they do? Her mother would collapse. Her father would wire the governor—two or three governors. He would call the FBI.1 There would be hell to pay. Yet what could they do? She was twenty-one. When they caught up with her she could say, “I’m twenty-one and doing what I want to do. Whose business is it?” And suppose she went to Mexico with Juan? That would be quite a different story, quite a different thing.
And now little irrelevancies invaded her mind. If he’s an Indian or has Indian blood, how is it someone can creep up on him? She held her eye corners back to bring his face into focus. It was a scarred, leathery face, but it was a good face, she thought. The lips were full and humorous, but they were kind. He would be gentle while he was with a woman. He might not stay with her for very long, but he would be nice to her. But he had that wife, that horrid wife, and he stayed with her. God knows how long. She must have been pretty when he married her, but she was ugly now. What had happened there? How did that horrid woman hold him? Maybe he was just like everyone else, like her father. Maybe he was just held in line by fears and by habit. Mildred didn’t see how it could happen to anyone, but she knew it did. When people got old they grew frightened of smaller and smaller things. Her father was frightened of a strange bed or a foreign language or a political party he didn’t belong to. Her father truly believed that the Democratic party was a subversive organization whose design would destroy the United States and put it in the hands of bearded communists.2 He was afraid of his friends and his friends were afraid of him. A rat race, she thought.
She moved her eyes down over Juan’s body, a tough, stringy body that would get tougher and stringier as he got older. His trousers were a little wet from the rain and they hugged close to his legs. There was a neatness about him—a neatness of a mechanic who has just washed up. She looked at his flat stomach and at his broad chest. She saw no change in his breathing, no muscular change, but his eyes were open and he was looking at her. And his eyes were not sleep-heavy, but bright.
Mildred started. Perhaps he hadn’t been asleep at all. He might have watched her come into the barn. She found herself explaining, “I needed exercise. You know, I’ve been sitting a long time. I thought I’d walk to the county road and pick up the car there. And then I saw this old place. I like old places.”
Her feet were going to sleep. She leaned sideways and, supporting herself with one hand, moved her legs and feet to one side and covered her knee carefully with her skirt. Her feet buzzed and burned with returning blood.
Juan did not answer. His eyes were on her face. Slowly he rolled on his side and supported his head with a hand under his ear. A dark gleam came into his eyes, and his mouth curled up a little at the corners. His face was hard, she thought. No way of getting past the eyes into the head. It was either all on the surface or else it was too completely protected ever to get at.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
His lips parted a little. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you, I needed exercise. I told you.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“But what are you doing here?”
He didn’t seem really awake. “Me? Oh, I sat down to rest. I went to sleep. No sleep last night.”
“Yes, I remember,” she said. She had to go on talking. She was wound up. “I wondered about you. You don’t belong here. I mean, driving a bus. You belong someplace else.”
“Like where?” he asked playfully. His eyes dropped to where the lapels of her coat crossed.
“Well,” she said uneasily, “I had a funny kind of a thought while I was walking. I thought maybe you wouldn’t come back. You might just keep going and maybe go back to Mexico. I could see how I might do that if I were you.”
His eyes squinted and he peered into her face. “Are you nuts? What made you think that?”
“Well, it was just something that came to me. Your life, driving the bus, I mean, must be pretty dull after—well, after Mexico.”
“You haven’t been in Mexico?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know how dull it is there.”
“No.”
He raised his head and straightened his arm and put his head down on his arm. “What do you think would happen to those people back there?”
“Oh, they’d get back somehow,” she said. “It isn’t far. They wouldn’t starve.”
“And what do you think would happen to my wife?”
“Well—” She was confused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yes, you did,” said Juan. “You don’t like her. I’ll tell you something. Nobody likes her except me. One of the reasons I like her is because nobody likes her.” He grinned. “What a liar,” he said to himself.
“It was just a crazy thought I had,” she said. “I even thought I might run away too. I thought I would disappear and live by myself and—well, never see anyone again that I knew.” She rose up on her knees and sat down again on the other side.
Juan looked at her knee. He put out his hand and pulled her skirt down over it. She flinched when his hand came toward her and then relaxed uneasily.
“I don’t want you to think I followed you in here,” she said.
“You don’t want me to think it, but you did,” said Juan.
“Well, what if I did?”
His hand came out again and rested on her covered knee and fire raced through her.
“It’s not you,” she said. Her throat was dry. “I don’t want you to think it’s you. It’s me. I know what I want. I don’t even like you. You smell like a goat.” Her voice staggered along. “You don’t know the kind of life I lead. I’m all alone. I can’t tell anyone anything.”
His e
yes were hot and shiny and they seemed to bathe her in heat.
“Maybe I’m not like anyone else,” she went on. “How do I know? But it’s not you. I don’t even like you.”
“You give yourself a hell of an argument, don’t you?” said Juan.
“Look, what are you going to do about the bus?” she demanded. “Are you going to the road?”
The weight of his hand on her knee increased and then he took his hand away. “I’m going back and pull the bus out, pull those people through,” he said.
“Then why did you come here?”
“Something went haywire,” he said. “Something I figured out went haywire.”
“When are you going back?”
“Pretty soon.”
She looked at his hand, relaxed on the straw in front of her, its skin dark and shiny and a little wrinkled. “Aren’t you going to make a pass at me?”
Juan smiled and it was a good, open smile. “Yes, I guess so. After you get through arguing with yourself. You’re on both sides now. Maybe pretty soon you’ll decide whether you’re for or against and I’ll have something to work on.”
“Don’t you—don’t you want me?”
“Sure,” said Juan. “Sure.”
“Is it that you know I’ll fall into your lap anyway, so you won’t have to take any trouble?”
“Don’t get me into your argument,” said Juan. “I’m older than you are. I like this thing very much. I like it so much that I can wait. I can even go without for a while.”
“I could dislike you very much,” she said. “You don’t give me any pride. You don’t give me any violence to fall back on later.”
“I thought you’d have more pride to be left to make up your own mind.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“I guess not,” he said. “The women in my country are like that too. They have to be begged or forced. Then they feel good about it.”
“Well, are you always this way?”
“No,” said Juan, “only with you. You came here for something. You said yourself it didn’t have anything to do with me.”
The Wayward Bus Page 24