Mohawk (31 page)

She wasn’t much of a talker anyway, or even a listener. Maybe that was why Randall enjoyed talking to her. She seldom responded to anything he said; and if she had any reaction at all, it was frequently puzzlement, as if she hadn’t any idea where such odd notions came from. After college professors, Randall found her refreshing, and the more she frowned at him, the more critical he became of what he heard himself saying. He had attempted, just once, to explain to her the nature of ethical dilemmas, but gave up once he realized her own daily life had little to do with choice and probably never would. Had he been able to offer her as evidence in his recent honors seminar in free will, the course would’ve been struck from the curriculum. Or his father, for that matter, who had spent his whole life trying to figure the odds, never perceiving the random nature of things that made horse races horse races and his own life an endless series of completely novel experiences. New teeth every other month, post time every thirty-five minutes. Place your bets.

Randall sat up in bed and swung his feet onto the floor. The trailer shifted but the girl didn’t stir. He pulled on his Levis and buttoned them from the bottom up. It was a warm night and there was no need to put on a shirt. In the next room, the baby was asleep in her crib, the tiny room smelling of baby and baby powder. Small children always overwhelmed Randall with the sense of life’s possibilities. Amazing, how quickly
those possibilities vanished. Five-year-olds often had personalities as fixed and rigid as their parents, and if you couldn’t tell who’d get killed in the street by a drunk driver, you’d be pretty safe in predicting who wouldn’t grow up to be a surgeon. And anyone clever enough to predict Vietnam surely could’ve foreseen that the boy who’d sat cheerfully on Randall Younger’s chest and punched him in the face would end up in a reddening paddy. Randall’s ending up at the university was part of the same prediction, but what about his dropping out and returning to Mohawk? Maybe that too. Were there clues somewhere in his past, or his mother’s, or grandfather’s, if he looked hard enough? Maybe he’d quit because of something that had happened in the alley behind Harry’s, or in the old Littler Hospital, or in the infield where Price hit grounders at him, or in the park where he discovered his grandfather slumped over on the park bench, staring up at the black, high branches of the lifeless trees as the other man, this girl’s grandfather, retreated. And what did he want with this girl? Not love, surely, though he cared for her. Not lust, though he enjoyed her. Not admiration, though he found her grasp of reality appealing.

Outside, the night was black, a gentle breeze that hadn’t found its way into the trailer. Randall sat down on the cinder block that served as a step. He carefully rolled a joint and smoked it, the orange inching toward his lips. For some reason he wasn’t startled by the voice, though it was very near; as if he’d been expecting it for a long time.

“Mather Grouse,” it said.

“Has it occurred to you,” Anne Grouse asked her mother, “how much of our daily conversation is on the subject of worms?”

“If you’re having a mood, dear, we needn’t talk about anything.”

“It’s just that we’ve been through it all. You can’t kill the worms without killing the grass. You have to poison the soil.”

“What I don’t understand is why they came here in the first place,” Mrs. Grouse said. “They’ve come for something.”

“God.”

“Well?”

“We’re still talking about worms, aren’t we. They’re just here, Mother. Can’t we leave it at that? They aren’t causing any harm—in fact they’re
good
for the lawn—and they’ve probably been here all along. You just never noticed. Besides, it’s been a rainy summer. There
are
more serious problems, if you care to talk about them.”

“Randall said he’d paint the house,” Mrs. Grouse offered. She was dipping her tea bag in and out of the steaming water like a yo-yo. Finally, when the liquid was perfectly brown, she deposited the bag on the
saucer. After adding two heaping teaspoons of sugar, she pushed the bowl toward her daughter, who was drinking coffee, black. “For your disposition,” she said.

This was as close to humor as her mother ever got. The old woman’s wit always surfaced when Anne was most serious. “I’m not talking about painting, Mother. Painting is the least of our worries.”

Unfortunately, the subject of house repairs was proscribed. Mrs. Grouse, having completed the canonization of her husband, was seldom in the mood to entertain the blasphemous suggestion that anything at all was wrong with his house. “He left it in
ideal
condition,” she was fond of telling her sister.

It was typical of their relationship that Anne and her Mother never worried about the same things. With the roof beginning to leak, wetting the attic insulation and discoloring the wallpaper in the corners of Anne’s ceiling, Mrs. Grouse could think only of the worms. Each morning she went into the cellar, as far as the landing, half expecting to find a rupture in the concrete floor, a sea of night-crawlers spilling out of the walls. Water, on the other hand, was pure—it came from heaven—and she didn’t for an instant believe that anything was wrong with the roof.

“Not our worries,” Mrs. Grouse said. “Mine. If repairs are ever needed, they will be my responsibility as the homeowner. I am
not
in the habit of shirking responsibilities.”

Anne massaged her temples. “It isn’t a question of shirking, Mother. A new roof costs thousands of dollars. I don’t have it, and I don’t think you do either. But unless we do something soon, the house will be worthless. You won’t be able to give it away.”

“I have no intention of giving it away. What makes you think I did?”

“Fine,” Anne concluded, as always. Arguing with her mother was like trying to put a cat into a bag; there was always one limb left over. “Do what you want.”

“Your father put on the best new roof money could buy,” Mrs. Grouse said. “The very best.”

“Yes. Over ten years ago, he did. Before the ice storm this winter. Before the tree fell on it.”

“Well, then.”

“I’m going for a drive, Mother.”

Dan was sitting in front of the Lincoln, its hood up, when she pulled in. He had a wrench in one hand and a sweating cocktail in the other. “They make these goddamn things so cripples can drive them, but not work on them.”

“Don’t change the subject,” she said.

He looked guilty, but didn’t give in easily. “Don’t even start. I’ve very nearly brained two women in the last twenty-four hours, and the regret for lost opportunities is almost more than I can bear.”

“You might’ve called.”

“I thought about it. Did Di?”

“This morning. She said Milly was, what?
out of danger
.”

“Second time this week. They’ll release her tomorrow, same as always.”

“I wish you’d called.”

“So do I, but you can’t count on me. You should know that.”

Anne smiled. “I can, though. In ways you don’t know.” She nodded at the car. “Anything I can do?”

He studied her, frowning. “Not dressed like that.
Don’t you own anything ratty?” He motioned toward a TV tray on which sat an ice bucket, a bottle of whiskey, two-thirds full, a capped bottle of club soda. “Help yourself.”

“You’re always so well prepared.”

“Good scotch draws a crowd. Or it used to, anyhow. I guess marijuana’s the party-saver these days.”

“Feeling out of things?”

“Not particularly,” he said. But his attempt to be cheerful cost him too much to be convincing. “My next wife is going to be a mechanic,” he said, flipping the wrench over his shoulder. It richocheted off the motor and disappeared, rattling loudly until it fell free onto the concrete beneath the Lincoln. “How’s your mother?”

“Still worrying about worms.”

“Kill the soil and they’ll go away.”

“I hate to give in.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I always enjoy your advice.”

He raised his scotch and they clinked glasses. “Thank you very much.”

Anne unfolded a lawn chair and they sat together without saying anything. Suddenly Dan was crying. Noiselessly, the tears streamed down his face, though his expression had not changed. When she started to speak, he held up a hand and, in a few minutes, managed to stop. He didn’t bother to wipe the tracks.

“You want to hear something good,” he said. “I’ve started dreaming again. First time in years. I’m always twenty-three or so, a real specimen. I live on the beach and all the neighbor girls have big chests and sunbathe in the nude. I’m married to Diana. Not Diana at twenty-three, but Diana at forty-four. In the dream everybody’s always asking how come I married the old lady.
I never know what to tell them. I play with the neighbor girls for a while, and then, just when things are getting interesting, I feel the paralysis coming, and suddenly I can’t move. I wake up sweating, trying like a bastard.”

When Anne said nothing, he drained the rest of his scotch and looked at her. “Now don’t you start.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Anyhow,” he said. “My next wife is going to be my own age. Twenty-three. With big tits.”

“And here I’d hoped—”

“Not on your life. You’re too old for me.”

Before she left, Anne fished the wrench out from under the car with a broom handle, and he began to curse the car again with his customary good humor. He was drunk, and when Diana came home from the hospital she’d have to pour him into bed, where he could dream of youth and beauty.

The game broke up when Dallas and Benny D. were good and cleaned. “Jesus, I can’t stand that fuckin’ John,” Benny D. said when they were out in the fresh air on Main Street. It was still pretty early, only a little after one
A.M.
Both men were loaded, but not over the top. “Let’s go someplace.”

“Nah.”

“Come on,” Benny D. insisted.

“Nah,” Dallas said, and the two men ambled up Main Street together toward Harry’s. The grill was closed, like every other place downtown. The afternoon had been hot, but the night air was cool.

“I can’t stand that fucker,” Benny D. said. “I don’t see how you can work—”

“I don’t see him any more than you do. We settle up once a week. That’s it.”

“I don’t see how you can work for him, that’s all.”

“He’ll have a bad day tomorrow,” Dallas said. Whenever he got in trouble, Dallas left a space or two in the book and filled them in later. The only way he had much luck with horses was to wait until after the race was over and then make the entry, usually in Benny D.’s name, or somebody who’d cover for him if push
came to shove. But even this system wasn’t foolproof. A couple weeks before, Dallas had no sooner entered the unofficial winner on the books than an inquiry was posted and they ended up taking the bastard down. Anyhow, he didn’t do it very often. He’d saved John’s ass plenty in the last few months, and besides, John was loaded like a Greek.

“I hope he has a rotten fuckin’ day,” Benny D. said. “What say you come back and work for me?”

“Because you can’t keep your nose out of things. Like I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“It’s my place, you knothead. I’m not supposed to come around my own place?”

“No. You just screw things up.”

“My mechanics answer to me,” Benny D. said testily.

“And that’s how come I’m not your mechanic.”

“You’d rather work for a prick like John—”

“John’s all right.”

“—than a buddy like me.”

“I’m going home.”

“Come have a drink,” Benny D. said.

“I’m tapped.”

“Me too. So what?”

“All right, one drink. Let’s hit The Velvet Pussycat.”

Benny D. frowned. “That fuckin’ place. I don’t know anybody there.”

“We better get some money then,” Dallas said. They turned down the alley behind Harry’s. The Saunderses’ bedroom was on the second floor toward the back, and Harry’s sleepy face appeared at the curtained window a few seconds after Dallas began to bounce pebbles off the glass. “Harry,” Dallas shouted softly.

“What?” Harry spit down at them.

“Let me take fifty ’til tomorrow.”

“Go to hell.” His face disappeared and the curtain fell back in place.

“He’s pissed,” Benny D. said. “He went back to bed.”

“Nah,” Dallas said, leaning against the dumpster. “He’s gone to get the fifty.”

“Bullshit. He went back to bed.”

“I’ll bet you the fifty.”

Benny D. frowned and looked up at the black window. The alley was quiet. “You’re on. He’s dead asleep.”

The window creaked open and, when the men looked up, bills were fluttering down out of the darkness—five tens, three of which they caught in the air. Benny D. climbed into the dumpster for a stray. He handed Dallas three tens. “I’ll give you the other twenty tomorrow. You buy the drinks. I hate that Velvet Pussycat anyhow.”

Just then Wild Bill turned into the alley, walking toward them, and watching his own feet fall in front of him as if the surprise of seeing them perform so effortlessly was enough to absorb all his attention. At forty, he was a year younger than Dallas, though he looked like a man in his mid-fifties. He was bald, except for a ring of longish hair that began only a few inches above his ears, covering them and hanging over his shirt collar as well. His cheeks were sunken, as were his eyes. Wild Bill loped right by without looking up and inserted the key Harry had chained to his belt into the lock. The door opened and Dallas and Benny D. were alone again in the alley.

“I wonder what the hell he’s doing out this time of night,” Dallas said.

“If I was a farmer, I’d keep my calves indoors. I hear he don’t talk no more at all.”

“Hasn’t said a word in three months, according to Harry.”

“Better than that shit he used to come up with. That
‘oughta’
shit. Remember that?”

By the time they got to The Velvet Pussycat, the place was hopping pretty good. At closing time the bartender stopped serving alcohol to those who didn’t want any more and kept on pouring for those who did. The owner had been to court half-a-dozen times for serving after-hours, and even paid several two-hundred-dollar fines. But for the fact he took in an easy five hundred between two and five, he probably would’ve stopped. A local band was rattling the windows. The lead singer had shoulder-length hair, and Benny D. glowered at him. “Some fuckin’ place this is.”