Machine Dreams (35 page)

“Well hello, Mister,” she said. “You’re up early.”

Mitch motioned for Billy to come inside. “Get on in here, let’s not let Bess get cold.” He shut the door behind them all and clapped a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Got some spuds cooking. You want some eggs?”

“No thanks.” Billy put his snowy gloves in his pocket and unzipped his jacket.

“Big mistake,” Mitch said, “I make good eggs.” He nodded at Bess. “Even Bess eats them, and she’s hard to please.”

“Your father is a wonderful cook,” Bess told Billy. “Now, there’s no question about it, we all know I can’t cook.” She went to the stove to pour hot water into two cups of instant coffee.

Mitch gave Billy an amused look, then sat down again.

Billy stood awkwardly in the small room as Bess brought the coffee to the table. He took a breath. He would just have to go ahead and tell them. “Mitch, Danner called last night from Florida. She got into some trouble. She got arrested for possession.”

“Possession of what? What are you talking about?”

“Possession of marijuana. Danner got busted.”

His father looked at him, incredulous. Behind him Aunt Bess touched the back of his chair.

“You mean drugs,” Mitch said. “Is Danner in jail?”

“Yes. Mom went down to the bank this morning to borrow the money for bail. She had to borrow two thousand dollars.”

“Jesus Christ.” His father bowed his head and leaned his elbows on the table. He turned his head to one side and touched his forehead, then covered his eyes with his hand. For a strange moment Billy thought he was praying.

Aunt Bess still stood, gripping the back of Mitch’s chair as though holding it in place. “But Danner is all right, she’s not hurt.”

“No, no, she’s okay. She should be out of the jail by tonight.”
Billy stepped closer to the table but kept his hands in his pockets. His father sat silently, with no movement in his body. He moved his hand now to support his forehead and tears fell on the checked tablecloth. Billy felt very warm, as though he were going to be dizzy. Snow was falling past the kitchen windows in big wet flakes; the yard and bushes on the other side of the glass were a smooth, unbroken white. The kitchen was lit with snow light, indirect and off-white. The warmth of the room was inconsistent with the light and the consciousness of snow; Bess was baking bread, that was it—Billy hadn’t smelled it till now.

He looked at his great aunt and she faced him from behind his father, unblinkingly. She seemed to be looking straight through Billy, through the walls of the house as well, sadly and evenly. She was very thin and held her rounded shoulders high, of some long habit; her stance lent the front of her body a concave aspect from chest to knees. Now she moved to give Mitch her white handkerchief, taking the small square from the pocket of her sweater, unfolding it, placing it near him. Her gesture was deliberate and unobtrusive. She sat down, very straight, on the tall stool beside the hoosier.

Mitch refolded the handkerchief, his eyes wet. “I hope your mother is satisfied now,” he said.

“It’s not her fault,” Billy said.

Mitch continued as though Billy hadn’t spoken. “This would never have happened.”

They were all quiet. Snow was falling and a car moved through the alley, its motor muffled and sputtering. There was the sound of chains on ice as tires spun for traction. New snow would be flying up all around the wheels.

“You never know what can happen,” Bess said.

Her words were so heavy in the room that Billy found himself saying more than he’d intended. “Dad, they only had a couple of grams between the four of them.”

“Grams? What the hell do you mean? What do you know about grams?”

“I mean they only had a small amount.”

His father made no response.

“I think she has to stay in the state about a week,” Billy said,
“until the arraignment. The father of one of the boys flew down last night. I guess he’s arranging things. They already have a lawyer, and rooms in a motel.”

“What motel?”

“A place called the Sea View. In Naples.” Billy dropped his voice, uncertain how much Danner would want Mitch to know. “They were camping out on a beach in Naples.”

Mitch stood, scowling. “You get me the phone number of that motel. I want to talk to Danner.”

Billy nodded. “Mom has it. I’d better get back, she’s pretty upset.”

His father didn’t answer. Billy gestured at Bess apologetically. “I’ll call or come down as soon as I hear anything.”

“Yes,” Bess said, “of course you will.”

He turned and let himself quietly out the house, pulling the door tight behind him and closing the screen door so it latched. The look of the old woman’s face stayed with him as he walked through deep snow to his car. He tried to imagine Danner in jail and couldn’t. Bail would be arranged by afternoon. They wouldn’t send four kids up for three grams of marijuana, especially when the nearly empty box of dope was found at the campsite and none of them admitted to possession anyway. Even though it was a felony charge, getting them off would probably be a technicality. And the lawyers’ making some money. But his parents wouldn’t see it that way. They thought Billy was going into the army and Danner was going wrong, all in the same week.

When he touched her there, through her clothes, he felt a small hardness throbbing like a pulse point. Her whole body, spread-eagled on the seat of the car, turned on that hardness. Kato draped one leg over the back of the seat and the other over the column of the steering wheel so that Billy was just at the vee of her crotch, leaning back against the door on his side and watching her. She threw her arms out as though floating on water and kept her eyes closed, and Billy watched her with no self-consciousness. She worked up to her own feeling a little shyly, in private; when she couldn’t keep her eyes closed any longer that was a signal. If he kept touching her then, it was an unspoken promise
he wouldn’t stop, and when she came her whole body rippled lengthwise with a delicate vibration that reminded Billy of horses shivering their flanks. Often he didn’t let her go that far; he liked to feel the trembling tight around him, from inside her. Her muscles seemed to imitate a spastic lapping of water. It was so gentle and felt so foreign, so mysterious, something fluttering against the inner walls of a cage. To Billy it didn’t seem part of either one of them; if he was lost in his own sensation, he missed hers altogether and couldn’t tell if she’d felt it. So he tried to wait and while they were touching each other, taking turns and trading off, he was priming himself to wait; they were intent and usually stopped talking except for involuntary sounds. This was a drug between them; there was the weightless high of dope but they were excruciatingly alert and wound tight. They could go on for hours.

Finally they took their clothes off and the heated interior of the car was like a capsule with steamed windows, drifting in space. They lay down in this isolated nowhere and cried out with relief at his first thrust inside her. They made love every way possible in the cramped room of the front seat, one of them changing position when they felt him almost coming. At last they let go and rode their own movement, not thinking, racing: he opened his eyes for an instant and a small shape in the steamy window had teared clear. The snowy hill below the plant lot was a luminous slant in the winter dark. Far below, cars moved on the Winfield road. Billy saw the lit points of headlights in the midnight blue of the cold air, but knowledge of what he was looking at was nowhere inside him.

First he was conscious again of sounds; he heard the hum of the car heater, he heard Kato breathing. “You there?” he whispered.

“I’m here.”

He sat up, pulling out of her as she touched him. She’d used their clothes as a pillow; now she gave him his pants and shirt and pulled her coat on over her nakedness. “I’d feel better if we parked behind the drive-in,” she said. “It’s spooky here, all these old trucks.”

Billy zipped his Levi’s. “You scared?” He circled her throat
with his hands, pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “I used to come here when I was a kid, same trucks. Doesn’t seem spooky to me. Besides, there are always two or three cars parked behind the drive-in—the police swing by. And who knows which police.”

“He wouldn’t,” Kato said. “I’d never speak to him again.” She pulled her jeans on under the coat.

“What have you told him, anyway, all this time?”

“I haven’t told him anything lately. About a month ago, I just said I couldn’t see him for awhile.” She reached into her purse for a cigarette.

“Kato, suppose I wasn’t getting drafted?”

“We were seeing each other again before you knew you were getting drafted.”

“But not as much.” He raised his brows, smiling. “Maybe you have a thing for uniforms.”

She lit the cigarette. Now he saw her clearly in the glow of the match; her eyes glistened with moisture. What was she feeling? Her eyes always looked wet after they made love, but the wetness seemed an automatic response, like the tears of someone choking or sneezing.

Kato held the cigarette and looked at Billy, her hand shaking a little. “Maybe I do, Billy,” she said, and her voice broke.

He touched the steering wheel. It was cold and suddenly he was cold; he felt the cold dark seeping into the car. He leaned forward, switched the heat on higher. The blower hummed.

“I’ll write to you, Billy.” She pursed her lips when she exhaled smoke.

“Maybe you will at first,” he said carefully. “But it’s okay. You’ve already written to me.”

She flung her blond hair back from her face and moved over near him. “Anytime you come home, call me. You’ll be back on a leave before they send you anywhere, won’t you? No matter what people tell you, get in touch with me.”

They both sat looking at the patch of night framed in the windshield of the Camaro. It was snowing again. Kato rested one hand on Billy’s thigh. There was no sense being jealous, or mad at her. She would always be herself, pretty and tarnished, but
honest like a guy was honest. She didn’t try to work things around.

“I don’t know what will happen,” she said. Her hand on his leg moved now, stroking him. “You can always reach me through my father.”

Billy gazed into the snow, imagining himself a grunt with a shaved head, buying Shinner Black cups of coffee at the Tap Room or the Rainbow.
Where’s Kato, Shinner? Give me a phone number.
Shiner would smell of Rebel Yell and he’d answer with a bleary, good-natured silence. Billy shook his head.

Kato glanced at him. “I know, but eventually he’d tell you.”

“I suppose so.”

“You heard anything else about Danner?”

“She’s staying in a motel. Her arraignment isn’t until the day after I leave. I bet she’s having a great New Year’s Eve.”

“I guess.” Kato leaned forward and put her cigarette out. “Do you want to go by that party?”

“No, this is my party. 1969 can end right here.”

Kato laughed. “I think it already did.”

Billy pulled her close and put his face against her hair, smelling a sweetish odor of cream rinse and tobacco smoke. Her hair wasn’t usually so light in winter; she must be bleaching it again. She had a kind of sexiness that wouldn’t diminish as she grew older. Middle-aged, she would look knowing and tired, he thought, her blondness brassier.

She rubbed her eyes with her hands, like a kid, then looped both arms in his and settled against him. “I wish we could just go to sleep,” she said.

The snow blew now in minute flakes that swirled like sand. There must be a long narrow beach behind the Sea View Motel in Naples, Florida; Billy couldn’t quite see it but he imagined the sound of surf. Here the wind was a constant murmur with snow inside it. His mother would be lying awake in the dark, listening.

FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY

Dear Mom. How’s life in Bellington? Things here are not too bad. I am fine and have put on some weight even tho the food is terrible. Weight must be all muscle since Basic is one 24 hr. workout. Quarters are okay, I think from WW II, two-story wood barracks with double metal bunks. Weather here a lot better than at home, not near as much snow. You’ll be glad to know I’m getting good grades as a draftee, tho no PX privileges for anyone for three more weeks. Training classes are pretty interesting, things like map reading, CPR, marksmanship that are generally useful. Danner will be fine, don’t make a big deal of it all, she
wouldn’t be on the dean’s list etc if she were “on drugs,” as you say. Not much time to write but like getting your letters. Keep them coming! Will be here until at least end of Feb. when I get reassigned for AIT (adv. indiv. training), I hope somewhere in the south. I did get south after all, so goes to show you, someone is on my side. Take care and write soon.