Driving Blind (6 page)

She swept the house with a brisk straw broom. She felt she was sweeping out all the numerical bits and pieces of Thomas Barton, cleaning him away. All the tobacco fragments and neat newspapers he had flourished with his morning Brazilian coffee, clean threads from his scrupulous tweed suit, clips from his office supplies, out the door! It was like setting a stage. She ran about raising green shades to allow the summer in, flooding the rooms with bright color. The house was terribly lonely without a dog making noise like a typewriter on the kitchen floor or a cat blowing through it like silk tumbleweed over rose-patterned carpets, or the golden bird throbbing in its golden jail. The only sound now was the soft whisper that Grandma heard as her feverish body burned into old age.

In the center of the kitchen floor she dropped a pan of grease. “Well, look what I did!” she laughed. “Careful. Someone might slip and fall on that!” She did not mop it up, but sat on the far side of the kitchen.

“I’m ready,” she announced to the silence.

The sunlight lay on her lap where she cradled a pot of peas. In her hand a paring knife moved to open them. Her fingers tumbled the green pods. Time passed. The kitchen was so quiet you heard the refrigerator humming behind its pressed-tight rubber seals around the door. Grandma smiled a pressed and similar smile and unhinged the pods.

The kitchen door opened and shut quietly.

“Oh!” Grandma dropped her pan.

“Hello, Grandma,” said Tom.

On the floor, near the grease spot, the peas were strewn like a broken necklace.

“You’re back,” said Grandma.

“I’m back,” Tom said. “Liddy’s in Glendale. I left her to shop. Said I forgot something. Said I’d pick her up in an hour.”

They looked at each other.

“I hear you’re going East, Grandma,” he said.

“That’s funny, I heard
you
were,” she said.

“All of a sudden you left without a word,” he said.

“All of a sudden you packed up and went,” she said.

“No,
you
,” he said.

“You,” she said.

He took a step toward the grease spot.

Water which had gathered in the sink was jarred by his moves. It trickled down the Garburator’s throat, which gave off a gentle chuckling wet sound.

Tom did not look down as his shoe slipped on the grease.

“Tom.” Sunlight flickered on Grandma’s paring knife. “What can I
do
for you?”

The postman dropped six letters in the Barton mailbox and listened.

“There’s that lion again,” he said. “Here comes someone,” said the postman. “Singing.”

Footsteps neared the door. A voice sang:

“
Fee fie foe fum
,

I smell the blood of an Englishmun
,

Be he alive or be he dead
,

I’ll
grr-innnd
his bones to make my bread!
”

The door flew wide.

“Morning!” cried Grandma, smiling.

The lion roared.

“D
id you see that?”

“See what?”

“Why, hell, look
there!
”

But the big six-passenger 1929 Studebaker was already gone.

One of the men standing in front of Fremley’s Hardware had stepped down off the curb to stare after the vehicle.

“That guy was driving with a hood over his head. Like a hangman’s hood, black, over his head, driving blind!”

“I saw it, I saw it!” said a boy standing, similarly riven, nearby. The boy was me, Thomas Quincy Riley, better known as Tom or Quint and mighty curious. I ran. “Hey, wait up! Gosh! Driving
blind!
”

I almost caught up with the blind driver at Main and Elm where the Studebaker turned off down Elm followed by a siren. A town policeman on his motorcycle,
stunned with the traveling vision, was giving pursuit.

When I reached the car it was double-parked with the officer’s boot up on the running board and Willy Crenshaw, the officer, scowling in at the black Hood and someone under the Hood.

“Would you mind taking that thing off?” he said.

“No, but here’s my driver’s license,” said a muffled voice. A hand with the license sailed out the window.

“I want to see your face,” said Willy Crenshaw.

“It’s right there on the license.”

“I want to check and see if the two compare,” said Willy Crenshaw.

“The name is Phil Dunlop,” said the Hooded voice. “121 Desplaines Street, Gurney. Own the Studebaker Sales at 16 Gurney Avenue. It’s all there if you can read.”

Willy Crenshaw creased his forehead and inched his eyesight along the words.

“Hey, mister,” I said. “This is real neat!”

“Shut up, son.” The policeman ground his boot on the running board. “What you
up
to?”

I stood arching my feet, peering over the officer’s shoulder as he hesitated to write up a ticket or jail a crook.

“What you
up
to?” Willy Crenshaw repeated.

“Right now,” said the Hooded voice, “I’d like a place to stay overnight so I can prowl your town a few days.”

Willy Crenshaw leaned forward. “What
kind
of prowling?”

“In this car, as you see, making people sit up and notice.”

“They done that,” the policeman admitted, looking at the crowd that had accumulated behind Thomas Quincy Riley, me.

“Is it a big crowd, boy?” said the man under the Hood.

I didn’t realize he was addressing me, then I quickened up. “Sockdolager!” I said.

“You think if I drove around town twenty-four hours dressed like this, people might listen for one minute and hear what I
say?
”

“All ears,” I said.

“There you have it, Officer,” said the Hood, staring straight ahead, or what seemed like. “I’ll stay on, ‘cause the boy says. Boy,” said the voice, “you know a good place for me to shave my unseen face and rest my feet?”

“My grandma, she—”

“Sounds good. Boy—”

“Name’s Thomas Quincy Riley.”

“Call you Quint?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Quint, jump in, show the way. But don’t try to peek under my cover-up.”

“No,
sir!
”

And I was around the car and in the front seat, my heart pure jackrabbit.

“Excuse us, Officer. Any questions, I’ll be sequestered at this child’s place.”

“Six one nine Washington Street—” I began.

“I know, I know!” cried the officer. “Damnation.”

“You’ll let me go in this boy’s custody?”

“Hell!” The policeman jerked his boot off the running board which let the car bang away.

“Quint?” said the voice under the dark Hood, steering. “What’s
my
name?”

“You said—”

“No, no. What do
you
want to call me?”

“Hmm. Mr. Mysterious?”

“Bull’s-eye. Where do I turn left, right, right, left, and right again?”

“Well,” I said.

And we motored off, me terrified of collisions and Mr. Mysterious, real nice and calm, made a perfect left.

Some people knit because their fingers need preoccupations for their nerves.

Grandma didn’t knit, but plucked peas from the pod. We had peas just about most nights in my life. Other nights she plucked lima beans. String beans? She harped on those, too, but they didn’t pluck as easy or as neat as peas. Peas were it. As we came up the porch steps, Grandma eyed our arrival and shelled the little greens.

“Grandma,” I said. “This is Mr. Mysterious.”

“I could
see
that.” Grandma nodded and smiled at she knew not what.

“He’s wearing a Hood,” I said.

“I noticed.” Grandma was still unaffected and amiable.

“He needs a room.”

“To need, the Bible says, is to have. Can he find his way up? Excuse the question.”

“And
board
,” I added.

“Beg pardon, how’s he going to eat through that
thing?
”

“Hood,” I said.

“
Hood?
”

“I can manage,” Mr. Mysterious murmured.

“He can manage,” I translated.

“That’ll be worth watching.” Grandma stitched out more green peas. “Sir, do you have a name?”

“I just
told
you,” I said.

“So you did.” Grandma nodded. “Dinner’s at six,” she said, “sharp.”

The supper table, promptly at six, was loud with roomers and boarders. Grandpa having come home from Goldfield and Silver Creek, Nevada, with neither gold nor silver, and hiding out in the library parlor behind his books, allowed Grandma to room three bachelors and two bachelor ladies upstairs, while three boarders came in from various neighborhoods a few blocks away. It made for a lively breakfast, lunch, and dinner and Grandma made enough from this to keep our ark from sinking. Tonight there was five minutes of uproar concerning politics, three minutes on religion,
and then the best talk about the food set before them, just as Mr. Mysterious arrived and everyone shut up. He glided among them, nodding his Hood right and left, and as he sat I yelled:

“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mr.—”

“Just call me Phil,” murmured Mr. Mysterious.

I sat back, somewhat aggrieved.

“Phil,” said everyone.

They all stared at him and couldn’t tell if he saw their stares through the black velvet. How’s he going to eat, hid like that, they thought. Mr. Mysterious picked up a big soup spoon.

“Pass the gravy, please,” he whispered.

“Pass the mashed potatoes,” he added quietly.

“Pass the peas,” he finished.

“Also, Mrs. Grandma …” he said. Grandma, in the doorway, smiled. It seemed a nice touch: “Mrs.” He said, “… please bring me my blue-plate special.”

Grandma placed what was indeed a Chinese garden done in blue ceramics but containing what looked to be a dog’s dinner. Mr. Mysterious ladled the gravy, the mashed potatoes, and the peas on and mashed and crushed it shapeless as we watched, trying not to bug our eyes.

There was a moment of silence as the voice under the dark Hood said, “Anyone mind if I say grace?”

Nobody would mind.

“O Lord,” said the hidden voice, “let us receive those gifts of love that shape and change and move our lives to perfection. May others see in us only what we
see in them, perfection and beauty beyond telling. Amen.”

“Amen,” said all as Mr. M. snuck from his coat a thing to astonish the boarders and amaze the rest.

“That,” someone said (me), “is the biggest darn soda fountain straw I ever seen!”

“Quint!” said Grandma.

“Well, it
is!
”

And it was. A soda fountain straw two or three times larger than ordinary which vanished up under the Hood and probed down through the mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy dog’s dinner which silently ascended the straw to vanish in an unseen mouth, silent and soundless as cats at mealtime.

Which made the rest of us fall to, self-consciously cutting, chewing, and swallowing so loud we all blushed.

While Mr. Mysterious sucked his liquid victuals up out of sight with not even so much as a purr. From the corners of our eyes we watched the victuals slide silently and invisibly under the Hood until the plate was hound’s-tooth clean. And all this done with Mr. M.’s fingers and hands fixed to his knees.

“I—” said Grandma, her gaze on that straw, “hope you liked your dinner, sir.”

“Sockdolager,” said Mr. Mysterious.

“Ice cream’s for dessert,” said Grandma. “Mostly melted.”

“Melted!” Mr. M. laughed.

It was a fine summer night with three cigars, one cigarette, and assorted knitting on the front porch and enough rocking chairs going somewhere-in-place to make dogs nervous and cats leave.

In the clouds of cigar smoke and a pause in the knitting, Grandpa, who always came out after dark, said:

“If you don’t mind my infernal nerve, now that you’re settled in, what’s
next?
”

Mr. Mysterious, leaning on the front porch rail, looking, we supposed, out at his shiny Studebaker, put a cigarette to his Hood and drew some smoke in, then out without coughing. I stood watching, proudly.

“Well,” said Mr. M., “I got several roads to take. See that car out there?”

“It’s large and obvious,” said Grandpa.

“That is a brand-new class-A Studebaker Eight, got thirty miles on it, which is as far from Gurney to here and a few runaround blocks. My car salesroom is just about big enough to hold three Studebakers and four customers at once. Mostly dairy farmers pass my windows but don’t come in. I figured it was time to come to a live-wire place, where if I shouted ‘Leap’ you might at least hop.”

“We’re waiting,” said Grandpa.

“Would you like a small demonstration of what I pray for and
will
realize?” said the cigarette smoke wafting out through the fabric in syllables. “Someone say ‘Go.’ ”

Lots of cigar smoke came out in an explosion.

“Go!”

“Jump, Quint!”

I reached the Studebaker before him and Mr. Mysterious was no sooner in the front seat than we took off.

“Right and then left and then right, correct, Quint?”

And right, left, right it was to Main Street and us banging away fast.

“Don’t laugh so loud, Quint.”

“Can’t help it! This is
peacherino!
”

“Stop swearing. Anyone following?”

“Three young guys on the sidewalk here. Three old gents off the curb there!”

He slowed. The six following us soon became eight.

“Are we almost at the cigar-store corner where the loudmouths hang out, Quint?”

“You
know
we are.”

“Watch this!”

As we passed the cigar store he slowed and choked the gas. The most terrific Fourth of July BANG fired out the exhaust. The cigar-store loudmouths jumped a foot and grabbed their straw hats. Mr. M. gave them another BANG, accelerated, and the eight following soon was a dozen.

“Hot diggity!” cried Mr. Mysterious. “Feel their love, Quint? Feel their
need?
Nothing like a brand-new eight-cylinder super prime A-1 Studebaker to make a man feel like Helen just passed through Troy! I’ll stop now that there’s folks enough for arguments to possess and fights to keep. So!”

We stopped dead-center on Main and Arbogast as the moths collected to our flame.

“Is that a brand-new just-out-of-the-showroom Studebaker?” said our town barber. The fuzz behind my ears knew him well.

“Absolutely spanking brand-new,” said Mr. M.

“
I
was here first,
I
get to ask!” cried the mayor’s assistant, Mr. Bagadosian.

“Yeah, but
I
got the money!” A third man stepped into the dashboard light. Mr. Bengstrom, the man who owned the graveyard and everyone
in
it.

“Got only
one
Studebaker now,” said the sheepish voice under the Hood. “Wish I had more.”

That set off a frenzy of remorse and tumult.

“The entire price,” said Mr. M. in the midst of the turmoil, “is eight hundred and fifty dollars. The first among you who slaps a fifty-dollar bill or its equivalent in singles, fives, and tens in my hand gets to pink-slip this mythological warship home.”

No sooner was Mr. Mysterious’ palm out the window than it was plastered with fives, tens, and twenties.

“Quint?”

“Sir?”

“Reach in that cubby and drag out my order forms.”

“Yes,
sir!
”

“Bengstrom! Cyril A. Bengstrom!” the undertaker cried so he could be heard.

“Be calm, Mr. Bengstrom. The car is yours. Sign
here
.”

Moments later, Mr. Bengstrom, laughing hysterically, drove off from a sullen mob at Main and Arbogast. He circled us twice to make the abandoned crowd even more depressed then roared off to find a highway and test his craze.

“Don’t fret,” said the voice under the dark Hood. “I got one last Studebaker prime A-1 vehicle, or maybe two, waiting back in Gurney. Someone drop me there?”

“
Me!
” said everyone.

“So
that’s
the way you function,” said Grandpa. “
That’s
why you’re here.”

It was later in the evening with more mosquitoes and fewer knitters and smokers. Another Studebaker, bright red, stood out at the curb. “Wait till they see the sun shine on
this
one,” said Mr. Mysterious, laughing gently.

“I have a feeling you’ll sell your entire line this week,” said Grandpa, “and leave us wanting.”

“I’d rather not talk futures and sound uppity, but so it seems.”

“Sly fox.” Grandpa tamped philosophy in his pipe and puffed it out. “Wearing that sack over your head to focus need and provoke talk.”

“It’s more than that.” Mr. M. sucked, tucking a cigarette through the dark material over his mouth. “More than a trick. More than a come-on. More than a passing fancy.”

“What?” said Grandpa.

“What?” I said.

It was midnight and I couldn’t sleep.

Neither could Mr. Mysterious. I crept downstairs and found him in the backyard in a wooden summer recliner perhaps studying the fireflies and beyond them the stars, some holding still, others not.

“Hello, Quint!” he said.

“Mr. Mysterious?” I said.