Machine Dreams (10 page)

He ate his toast and jam. “It’s thanks to you I was able to buy that car so soon,” he said. “You and Clayton should have sold the old Ford, not kept it out there in the garage. You could have used that money.”

“Don’t talk silliness. I knew you could sell it to help buy a new one when you got back. And what good is money in wartime? We were glad to keep it for you, and I don’t want to hear another word.”

“I told you, Bess, I’ll take you and Clayton to dinner in Winfield. A night on the town, anytime you’ll let me.” He waited as she smiled, pleased, then shook her head in the familiar denial. “Or maybe I should take those office girls for a ride, all four of them.”

She smiled more broadly, her shoulders relaxed. “I think one girl at a time is enough.”

“I guess I should be thinking along those lines myself,” he answered.

“Now, you know there’s no hurry. Plenty of time. You haven’t been back but a few months.” She nodded once, conclusively.

He ate the eggs, relishing the heat of the food and feeling in the kitchen an old privacy. Where did it come from, coming back as though never broken? Birds outside, tick of a clock. Light on the big sink, dense weight of the pocked, scoured porcelain.

“Don’t you want some breakfast?” he asked her, willing to say only conversational things, not change the feeling.

“I’ll have some later, with Katie.” Gravity of the child’s name in the room. “She’s asleep?”

“Sure. Tuckered out, fell off while I was talking to her. She keep you up all night?”

“On and off. I should have waited until this morning to tell her about laying out of school, when you were home. She’s a little soldier when she thinks you’re watching.”

“She cried about school?”

“Yes, I suppose, but really she only cried about the movies. She said you’d promised to take her and her heart was set.”

“Well, can’t she still go?” He sopped up the last of the eggs with the bread, drank the coffee down. “Wrap her in a blanket in the car, movie house is warm, keep her right in the side aisle by the registers.” He thought then of her face in the bed, how wan she’d looked, little girl like an old lady, and felt a stab of fear. “But if you think it would make her worse—” He lay his fork down.

She took the empty plate and moved to the sink. “I don’t suppose, if she sleeps all morning …” And then almost to herself, “We can’t let her think she’s so different from other children or that she’ll always be sickly.”

He wondered how much of her life was made of such strategies, tending to appearances, careful shelter of one influence and not another. “Will Katie be sickly?” he asked quietly.

Bess didn’t turn or alter her movements. “Of course not. Her heart is weakened. It takes time. One of the main things is that she stay cheerful.”

“Then I’ll take her to the show. The matinee.” He stood and gave Bess his empty cup.

“It’s a Disney movie. Three cartoons and she’s told me about every one of them—the little Carpenter girl went a few nights ago. You must only stay for the first one. Take the blanket inside and keep her very warm.” Bess began washing the plate and the frying pan—that meant she didn’t expect Clayton up anytime soon. He’d really tied one on.

“She’ll be fine,” Mitch said.

“She’ll be so happy you’re taking her,” Bess said. “Katie’s your darling, I’m afraid.”

He went upstreet to get the wax for the car and was back by ten. Automatic, this work, rubbing onto the long car a substance
like cold butter, filming the hard shine of the metal. Methodically, he did the car in sections, beginning with the long front hood, the broad snout of the machine. The deep blue they’d called “royal” was really almost navy, and as he rubbed, leaning into the circular motion of his effort, the color seemed to darken more under the whitish film. His own reflection distorted on the cloudy surface and he thought of unconnected things, no stories, remembered jumbled associations from last night. How in the dark barn, in the sudden sealed quiet before Mary Chidester laughed, pleased with herself and her trick, he’d been momentarily frightened.

That anonymous black, dark like Australian dark, Sydney streets during the blackouts. A leave he’d taken alone soon after he and Warrenholtz had trapped that Nip pilot in the field west of the base camp. Above Coco Mission beach it was, but he wouldn’t think of that and remembered instead coming back from the cinema in Sydney where he’d seen
Gone With The Wind
for the second time during the war. Theater full of soldiers with girls from a USO escort service, and he’d gone alone, walked back ignoring the clipped voices of the drab prostitutes. Just as he got to his hotel the air-raid sirens had wailed, drawling their panicky scales. Interior of the hotel lit only with dim green-shaded lights, seemed nearly empty. Eight flights to his room; he counted the landings. The sirens would cut off before long; as he assured himself of this, he came to the eighth floor and the sirens stopped.

He’d leaned against the wall, listening. No sound. It was late. He had the key in his hand but couldn’t see a damn thing. Had only checked in before he went out for dinner and they’d taken his bag, said they’d put it in his room and show him up later. He took his lighter out of his pocket and shook it; wet the wick, there, it caught and he held the small flame high. Numbers came up in the dark and he found his room, 808; he turned the key and went in, hit his shin on the metal bed frame. Fumbled on the nightstand with his hand, felt for the lamp and turned the switch, stupid, of course it didn’t work, and he touched the bed. Good, a double, the mattress lumpy but not as bad as it could be. The all-clear sounded as he’d known it would, and he lay down, pulled the pillows behind his head, and crossed his feet. Then the strange thing had happened. The power came on, trembling faintly in the walls, and the
room turned bright, startling him. He looked at the room uncomprehendingly. It was plain, clean and ordinary, with a water closet to the left behind a narrow door—but he felt his skin prickle with an odd, interior fear and sat up on the bed. He put his feet carefully to the floor and gripped the edge of the metal bed frame.

The room was entirely taken up with a plain pine bureau, luggage table, nightstand and lamp, the bed—his eyes came back to the lamp. In its angled light he saw the flowered paper of the walls. The walls were plastered unevenly so that the fanlike pink flowers of the old paper seemed to ripple. He looked more closely then and understood. The paper was the same print as the pattern on his walls at home, at Bess’s house in Bellington. He sat, a stupid Yank son of a bitch. Then he stood abruptly, switched off the light. Laughed once, out loud. Felt for his suitcase and walked out. Fifteen minutes later, he had a room in a hotel two blocks away.

That’s why he’d been spooked last night, afraid of what he’d see when the lights came on. Not scared of the dark, scared of the light. And what was Katie afraid of? Afraid of that room, he guessed, being made to stay in it instead of going to school.

He touched the solid roof of the car: that silver gray shined up real nice with a good waxing but the chrome grill would take some work. Moving to the front of the sedan, he was conscious of the office girls in the hospital across the alley. Didn’t want to get to his knees to wax the ample grill, so he bent from the waist. Hold the can of wax in one hand, rub briskly with the other. Could leave it to sit and dry while he went inside. Check on Clayton, that’s what. He could take Clayton with him to meet Reb for lunch at the Elks’, make sure the old guy stuck to an innocent beer. Reb seemed to control his drinking; a beer at noon was his limit, though he likely drank more at night than people thought proper for a doctor. Reb could hold the liquor but Bess had said Clayton was “sick” Thursday, and sleeping in weekend mornings wasn’t like him. Bess pretended not to notice; did she complain in private? Probably not, those old girls knew their place and were smart: if a woman told a man not to drink, he’d drink till he fell down.

Mitch looked toward the small white house. Trellis roof of the little cement porch seemed fragile, overspread by gnarled, naked
branches of the big buckeye. He could bring the porch swing out of the garage and hang it any day now. Though the weather was still cool, the snows were surely over.

Ease the screen door shut—there, the smallest thing could wake Katie. Standing in the kitchen, Mitch heard Clayton getting up—so, finally. A relief not to have to wake him. Could light the gas under the coffee now. Get the bread out of the drawer, put the loaf on the cutting board beside the knife: a setup, make it clear Clayton ought to eat something.

“Well, Cowboy.” Clayton stood in the hallway, rubbing the top of his bald head. “Near slept my life away. Surprised you’d let me have such peace.”

“Just about to haul you out. Want some coffee?”

Clayton shook his head. “Not yet. Think I’ll have a red-eye. Hair of the dog that bit me.”

Mitch opened the Frigidaire, surveyed its contents as though he didn’t already know Bess had gotten rid of that six-pack. “You’re stuck with caffeine, Clayton. Or straight tomato juice.”

“Who the hell drank all the beer?”

“Looks like Bess drank it, after she put you to bed last night.”

Clayton sat at the table, his arms folded, and chuckled. “I bet you that coffee she left me is black as sin.”

“See for yourself.” Mitch poured a cup and set it in front of Clayton; they both observed the steaming liquid. It smelled strong, like burnt grounds. “Want some milk, lighten it up?”

“No use trying to dilute it.” Clayton held the cup to his lips and took a swallow. “Best drink it when it’s so hot I can’t taste it.”

“Better get some toast in your belly to sop it up.”

“No, thanks.” Clayton frowned. “Katie wake up yet?”

“Awake most of the night, Bess told me. Sleeping now. I’ll take her to the movies this afternoon. Some Disney movie she’s nuts about.”

“Damn, suppose I kept her awake.”

“You weren’t loud, Clayton.” Mitch said it off-handedly but felt Clayton’s relief.

“Right.” Clayton smiled, drank the coffee with a grimace. “This potion will set me up.”

Mitch watched him, lit a cigarette, and sat back in his chair. Clayton’s hands were steady but he was bleary in the eyes, tired, flushed-looking. Didn’t seem like himself. Drinking more since Mitch had come home, these last six months—like now there was another man around to help hold things together. Wasn’t true though. If Clayton didn’t straighten up, the whole situation would go to hell.

Clayton widened his eyes, yawned, then shook his head to clear it. “You seeing Reb for lunch at the Elks’?”

Mitch nodded, then assumed a mock-serious expression. “I don’t know Clayton, seems to me you’re leading that Reb in bad ways. Doctor needs to be strait-laced. He’ll be sewing his clamps up in some poor bastard’s stomach.”

“Hell, Reb didn’t drink much. Keeping me company mostly.” Clayton leaned forward, touching the cup with both hands. “How’s the new Pontiac running? Get her waxed yet?”

“Nearly. Some of us been up for hours.”

Clayton half-stood from his chair, leaning to see out the kitchen window. Mitch didn’t look; having already memorized the image of the car, he watched Clayton’s face instead. Crazy how men loved cars. Clayton did his characteristic wink and click of the tongue, a gesture Mitch remembered from the first summer in Bellington: fourteen years old and looking up, seeing this big balding man, a stranger who had the power to say whether Mitch stayed or went. Went where?

“She looks like heaven,” Clayton said now. “Katie’s head will turn—she don’t have any other escorts with new Pontiac Eights.” The chair creaked as he sat back down. He was still a big man, healthy-looking except for the bad color in his face.

“You be here for lunch with Bess and Katie, or you want to come up to the Elks’ with me?”

“Can’t do either. Told Twister I’d come watch his basketball practice. That kid is growing like a weed, getting so he looks five years older than Katie instead of two—”

“She’ll catch up, Clayton.” Mitch put his cigarette out, stubbing it into the ash tray harder than he needed to.

Clayton nodded. “Sure, maybe she will.” He was silent a moment, turning the coffee cup a meditative half-circle. “I don’t mind how tall she is or how big, or even whether she goes through school—that kind of thing don’t matter so much for a girl. But she’s got no strength. Doesn’t seem to gain an ounce. Smallest thing sets her heart to beating like a drum.”

Mitch stood and turned to the sideboard, busied himself cutting the bread. If someone made it for him, Clayton would have to eat it. “You talk to Reb about Katie lately?”

“Some. Reb seems damn optimistic. Can’t trust him.”

Mitch put the knife down. “Reb would tell you if Katie was in a dangerous way.”

“Don’t mean that,” Clayton said. “I know he’s done everything he can.” Scraping of the cup across the saucer. “Look at you, cutting that bread when I told you not to. Working for old man Costello over at Winfield must be adding to your cussedness.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

“You still like that rooming house where you’re staying?”

“It’s all right.” Mitch put the thick slice of bread in the oven, feeling the wave of heat on his face as he bent to latch the oven door.

“All right, eh?” Clayton smiled. “I know what rooming houses are. You give Mary Chidester the address last night?”

“Figured I’d give it to her tonight, if she beat it out of me.”

“Better not. She’ll show up at your door next thing you know, move in.” He laughed. “These young ones are really something. She must have heard you’re selling a lot of trucks over there.”

“Could be.” Mitch got the butter from the Frigidaire.

“Costello raise your commission yet?” Clayton drank the coffee and spoke softly to make the question less loaded.

“Not yet. The salary is passable but there’s nowhere to go with Costello.” Mitch took the toasted bread from the rack. Christ, it was hot. He’d burn himself being a goddamn waitress.

Clayton nodded. “Costello is a damn tight Talie, and crooked besides. But goes to Mass every whipstitch. Here, give me that toast. I reckon I can butter my own bread.” He took the plate and heated the knife on the toast before slicing the butter. It was
something he did Mitch liked to watch. “Dagos are close-knit. I was surprised he let you have that job.”