Benediction (14 page)

What? Why?

School’s starting next month.

I know. But we can go on after classes start.

No. I’m going to have to work more than I ever have before, to get into a good college.

She wouldn’t look at him. The headlights shone very brightly out ahead of the car
on the gravel.

I don’t understand what you mean, he said.

There’s nothing to understand. Just accept it. We had a good time and now we’re done.
This is the last night.

You can’t just do this, he said.

Of course I can.

No you can’t. What about me, what I want?

I’m the one who started it, she said. Not you. So I’m the one who ends it.

It’s two of us here now. Not just you.

You’re such a child. She looked at him for a moment. Just a little boy.

I’m only two years younger than you.

Two years make all the difference at this age.

They were right, then, he said. They said you’d do this.

Who did?

The ones I fought you for. They told me.

You didn’t fight for me.

I fought that one. I hit him.

You hit him once by surprise and then he knocked you down and pinned you down.

I protected your name. I spilled my blood for you.

What?

I saved your name with my blood.

Oh Christ. That’s just bullshit. I don’t need anybody to save me.

You don’t believe me. I love you. And you don’t even care.

Well, I’m sorry. She took hold of the steering wheel. That’s how it is. This is the
last night.

Why can’t we still see each other once in a while? Can’t we at least do that?

No. That never works.

You do this with all of them, don’t you. You fuck them all. Then you quit them.

You stupid little shit, you’re starting to make me sick. She jerked
the car into reverse and roared backward, turning sharply to go back to Holt, and
she ended up jamming them into the barrow ditch, the car suddenly stopped, stuck,
high-centered. She raced the engine and the back wheels spun, throwing gravel up behind
them, and the car sank lower.

Goddamn it! she screamed, racing the engine.

Quit doing that! he said. You’re making it worse.

Shut up. Just shut your goddamn mouth.

She shoved her door open and they both got out. The back wheels were buried to the
hubcaps and the rear end had settled into the broken ditch weeds. They went back up
to the road and stood in front of the car. The lights of Holt were twenty miles away
to the south and the lights of a farmhouse a half mile in the other direction. She
shut off the engine and the headlights. It was all dark around them.

Are you coming with me or staying here?

Where are you going?

Over to that house.

I’m coming.

Let’s go then.

What about dogs?

What about them?

She began walking toward the farmhouse and he followed a little behind her. The wind
was blowing and whistling in the barbed wire fence and the only other sound was their
shoes scraping in the gravel. They didn’t talk. When they approached the farmstead
they could see a machine shed and garage and a metal building and near the road the
white house itself with a stand of locust behind it. A dog had started barking.

I told you there would be a dog, he said.

So there’s a dog.

When they walked into the driveway the dog came out from the house barking at them.
They could see him in the yard light, some kind of Australian blue heeler.

Here, she said. Here, boy.

The dog backed up and growled.

Now what? he said.

Wait, she said.

The porch light came on above the back door. A man stepped out and peered at them.

Who’s out there? he called.

We’re stuck, she called back. Up the road here.

What?

The dog kept growling.

We’re stuck in the road up here.

Buddy. Hush up! Come here. The dog barked at them and trotted back to the house. I’ll
be out in a minute, the man said. Wait there.

I’ll do the talking, she said, after he was gone. You don’t have to say a word.

I don’t intend to say anything.

That’s good. Keep it that way.

The man came out of the house with the dog following close at his heels. They went
out to the garage and when they came backing out, the dog was up in the rear of the
pickup, riding on the toolbox. The pickup pulled up beside them in the driveway. The
dog sniffed at them and the girl opened the passenger door and looked inside. Can
we get in?

I think you better. Unless you plan to ride in back.

She got up in the cab and slid over to the middle and John Wesley got in next to her.
The man was wearing his pajama top and he’d put on jeans and boots. Where’s your car
at?

Down here a ways.

To the south here?

Yes.

He looked at her. What’s your name?

Genevieve.

You got a last name?

Larsen.

And you?

John Wesley Lyle.

The man looked at him. Your father’s the preacher that just come to town.

Yes.

I see. Well, I don’t guess I have to ask what you was doing out here in the country
at night. I noticed the car stopped down here before. Your folks know about this?

John Wesley didn’t say anything.

No, the man said. I don’t guess so. Well, it’s a nice night. A nice cool summer night
and all these stars out.

That’s the car, Genevieve said.

He looked at her. I figured it would be.

He pulled up to where it was pointed out crossways in the road.

What were you doing, trying to turn around?

I was trying to back up.

You don’t ever want to get off the road. That ground’s pretty soft off in the ditch.

Can you get us out?

Oh, I imagine so. Don’t you think?

She didn’t answer.

What if I can’t? What then?

I’d have to call somebody to tow it.

Maybe you wouldn’t care to do that.

No, I wouldn’t.

No, ma’am. I wouldn’t if I was you.

They all got out of the pickup. The dog leaped from the toolbox onto the road and
ran off into the dark field. The man walked over to the car and stood looking at the
rear wheels.

Well, you tried, he said. You give her what for, didn’t you.

It just dug in deeper.

It does that, he said. You get in now and start it up and turn your front wheels this
way. I’m going to tow you out on the road and you want to be turned in the direction
we’re going. But not yet. Wait till I tell you.

He got back in the pickup and the dog came up running, panting.

I’m not going nowhere, the man said. Stay down. I’ll let you know when I’m leaving.
I ain’t going nowhere without you.

The dog stared at him. It’s all right, go on. The dog trotted out in the field again.
The man backed the pickup in the road and came forward and backed again and came forward
and backed up once more, until the rear almost touched the front bumper. He got out
and brought the tow chain from the toolbox and crawled down in the gravel and hooked
the chain underneath the car and stood up and brushed off his hands and knees and
hooked the other end of the chain to the pickup hitch.

Now you tell me when that chain gets tight, he said.

Do you mean me? John Wesley said.

That’s right. I’m talking to you. He turned to the girl. And you go ahead and get
in and start your car now and put it in gear. When I start pulling, you ease it forward.
Don’t come racing out of there, you’ll run into the back of me. He looked at the two
of them. We all set?

She got in the car and the man stepped up into the pickup and eased forward very slowly,
watching John Wesley in the side mirror. The boy gave him the sign that the chain
was tight. It tugged against the pickup. Then the man drove forward gradually, steadily
and the car came right up out of the ditch. When they were lined up on the road, he
backed up to put slack in the chain, and got out and unhooked and dropped the chain
back in the box.

Well. I imagine that’s going to do it.

Thank you, the girl said. Thank you very much.

You probably don’t want to do that again. He looked around at the fields and looked
up at the sky. Well, like I say, it’s a pretty night. He gave the boy and girl a long
look. Then he whistled. Here! Buddy! Come here. The dog raced up out of the dark.
Get up, the man said. The dog leaped into the back of the pickup onto the toolbox
and they drove away, the man’s arm out the side window, casually, as if it were the
middle of the day. They watched the red taillights disappearing. Dust rose up from
the road and hung in the night air.

This doesn’t change what we talked about, she said. Don’t think it does.

They drove back toward town on the county roads. He could see the lights of town ahead,
the streetlights and the red warning lights on the grain elevators and the light at
the water tower, and all around them the farm lights dotting the countryside.

What are you stopping for now? he said.

I’m going to do this last thing for you. She slid out from behind the steering wheel
and began to unbutton his pants.

Don’t.

Yes, she said. You know you want me to.

No. Leave me alone.

She brushed his hands away and finished with the buttons and pushed his underwear
down.

Put your head back, she said.

No.

Do what I say. Lay your head back. You want to remember this, don’t you? He shut his
eyes and leaned back against the seat and she bent over and put her head in his lap.
He began to cry. She went on anyway and after a little while it was finished. She
sat up and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her black shirt. There, she said. Remember
I did that.

Then she drove them into town and stopped at the parsonage.

There’s nothing more to say, she said. Go on. Get out.

I don’t care. I still love you, even if that doesn’t mean anything to you. I want
to kill myself.

No, you’re not going to do anything like that at all. You’re going to get out. That’s
what you’re going to do.

He opened the door and stood at the curb, watching her drive away, then went up the
steps to the house. It wasn’t late. His mother was still sitting in the living room,
reading a book. He started past to go upstairs.

You’re home early, she said. What’s the matter? Did something happen? Stop there a
minute.

She rose from the chair and came to look at him. She raised her hand and turned his
face to the light.

Why, you’ve been crying. Did she make you cry? Are you all right?

After he went up to his room she went upstairs and woke Lyle.

Are you awake?

What’s wrong? he said. What is it?

Go talk to him. He’s been crying. He won’t talk to me.

What happened?

That girl doesn’t want to go out with him anymore.

Then he won’t want to talk to me either.

He hates it here, she said. This will only make it worse.

It would help if you tried to like it here yourself.

I am trying. You have no idea.

He got out of bed in his pajamas and T-shirt and went down the hall to the bedroom
and stood listening and then knocked on the door. Son. Can I come in?

No.

I’d like to talk to you.

Let me alone.

I’m coming in. He opened the door and found John Wesley slumped over his computer,
writing. Your mother says you had some trouble tonight.

I don’t want to talk about it.

Did the girl do something? Is that what happened?

She broke up with me. She breaks up with everyone.

Is that what she says?

She goes out with them all and screws them all and then she leaves them.

She told you this?

They told me.

Who’s they?

Some of the assholes she went out with.

Now she’s broken up with you?

Yes. But leave me alone. I don’t want to talk anymore.

You loved her, I guess, didn’t you.

I still do.

It feels like hell, doesn’t it.

You don’t know anything about it.

I’ve had some bad nights. Some bad times.

Don’t tell me about them. I don’t want to hear about it. I know about you and Mom.

I know you think you do. But you don’t know all of it. Only your mother and I know
all of it, and we each know parts the other doesn’t know.

Let me alone, Dad. Please, I want to be alone. I hate it here. Why did we have to
come here?

You know why. This is where the church sent us.

I want to go back to Denver.

I know that. I’m sorry you feel so bad.

Well, just don’t tell me I’ll get over her.

No. That doesn’t help, even if it’s true. I could help you. I wish you’d let me.

Just let me be. Please.

He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Try to get some sleep. Then he went out and
shut the door and went back to the other bedroom.

Would he talk?

No. Not much. Just what you already know.

Did you find out anything more?

She’s evidently done the same thing with other boys. He said that much. It’s her pattern
apparently.

What else did he say?

He wants to leave. Go back to Denver as we’ve heard before. He wants us to let him
alone.

A
LENE AND HER PRINCIPAL
came out of the beautiful old redbrick hotel with carved stonework onto the street
a block east of Union Station in downtown Denver. This was in the following winter
now. They had seen each other for a year whenever they could. It was late in the afternoon,
almost evening, the light beginning to change along the street, darkening, a soft
winter twilight. People were walking along the sidewalk, going home or heading to
the taverns for a drink. She walked with her arm in his arm, a tall thin young woman
still, pretty, still dark haired. Snow was piled up at the curbs but it didn’t feel
cold out. They crossed the street and walked down to the middle of the next block
and stopped in front of the restaurant. It was all brightly lit inside.