Nothing but Blue Skies (28 page)

“Ha ha ha,” said Lane.

“I’m not kidding.”

“Okay, so another tack. Frank. You’re a businessman. You share my climate.”

“I’ve become a worse and worse businessman.”

“I’ll lay you three to one it’s because of the negative climate that we operate in — workmen’s comp, et cetera.”

“No, it’s not. It’s something else. It’s closer to chronic fatigue syndrome.” He didn’t tell Lane about his flat-earth theory or the exhilaration he sometimes felt when he thought of the big, brusque, variegated planet going on without him, like a Spanish galleon leaving a swimmer who had just walked the plank. This vision always ended like an old comedy going into reverse, with him rising from a big splash to run through the air back up to the end of the plank, run back down it into the crowd of sailors on deck. He wouldn’t leave earth voluntarily, given the paltry stats on the other shit-planets with their faded canals, daffy moon rings.

“I’m very motivated toward having a pleasant relationship with you,” said Lane. “I’m very drawn to your daughter.” Frank got the awful feeling again. “I’m not getting much encouragement from her.” He laughed. “It’s a credit to you and your wife that she has grown into such an intricately developed personality. I wish she would give me stronger indications of our future together.”

“That’s good,” said Frank. “It’s an inappropriate relationship.”

“I think the principals, and the principals only, are entitled to that view.”

“Couldn’t you find a conservative American your own age?”

“I could.”

“You could?”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Ah.”

“And Frank, your daughter is getting more conservative by the minute. And that’s not bad. We’re the ones who look around our nation and want the same thing: swift, retributive justice.”

Frank thought about this alarming and obviously premeditated phrase, without picturing where it could lead. “Anyway, do you know when they’ll be back?” he asked.

“They won’t. Mrs. Copenhaver has gone down to Deadrock, I think, and Holly’s at class.”

The streetlamps streamed slowly past as he headed to a downtown Deadrock bar on foot, the lovely curves of automobiles with intricate paint jobs and personalized license plates displaying the state’s pride in the Big Sky. An elderly cripple made his way along the sidewalk with gritty determination and shouted at Frank, “Watch where you’re going, you crazy jerk!” This filled Frank with a reassurance of the indomitability of man. He stopped to look up and down a cross street, noting a conspicuous whistle from his nose and shadowy rings around his vision. He gave a loud laugh and a car slowed down to look at him. Wave to those people! They didn’t wave back. We don’t care! Another big laugh. Ha, ha! More waving …

Frank found himself in the bar. He didn’t know how long he’d been in here, or how many drinks he’d had, but he decided to make a request by tracking the bar to the dance floor, pushing through all those dancers to the bandstand and asking the singer, who was usually the leader of the band, to play something special. There was Lucy Dyer! Hey, talk about special!

Lucy sat at the bar turned around on her stool so that she could watch people dancing. There were men on either side of her when Frank approached to take her request. No matter how he pressed her, he couldn’t get her to name that tune. Finally, the man on her
left, a tall and unsmiling cowboy in a black shirt, said, “She doesn’t have a song to request. Hadn’t you been listening?”

“Frank,” said Lucy, “I’d like you to meet my honey, Darryl Pullman.”

Frank was right in his face with a warm greeting and a handshake. “What do you do, Darryl?”

“I’m a spray pilot.”

“That’s all right.”

“And a big-game guide.”

“Well, what about you, Darryl, anything you’d like to hear?”

“If they knowed any Dwight Yoakam, be okay.”

“Dwight Yoakam it is.”

Frank hated the way he seemed so sprightly in the presence of these salt-of-the-earth types, but he succeeded in getting in the request and the band played “Guitars and Cadillacs.” Up till then, he thought Darryl was kidding him, requesting some relation of Mammy Yoakam. He went back to Lucy and Darryl and said, “Would I be pushing my luck if I asked Lucy to dance?”

“Whatever blows your dress up,” said Darryl.

“Thank you, Darryl. Thank you very much.”

It was crowded on the dance floor and seemed to be no more than a large disorganized group of people. Frank couldn’t detect any relationship between the music and the movements of the dancers. The large number of cowboy hats seemed to cut down on the available space. But Frank was enjoying the familiar weight and heat of Lucy in his arms. He knew it as common lust, a profound simplicity. The prominent bulge in his trousers spoke reams.

“You’ve got your nerve shoving that thing at me,” said Lucy.

“The worst hanging judge in the world doesn’t penalize folks for that which is involuntary.”

Frank danced her around the room, feeling loose enough to fall on her. It was swell. When the song finished, Lucy pushed off and Frank went back to the bandstand. The singer leaned over his guitar and moved the microphone away from his face to listen to Frank.

“Do you do ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Sure do. Who’s it for?”

“Darryl Pullman. He is one hundred years old tonight and he came just to hear y’all play.” He had filched Gracie’s accent.

“Be tickled to death,” said the singer, reverberating the familiar six notes that punctuate the annual walk off the flat earth: “Happy bir-thday tew yew!” He leaned toward the microphone to talk out of the side of his mouth as Frank made his way back to Lucy. “Don’t often in our business get to celebrate somebody’s turning
one hundred years old
like we’re fixing to do right now. This one’s for Darryl Pullman, who’s with us tonight. Darryl, here’s to a hundred more!”

Frank looked Darryl right in the eye and said, “I didn’t think they’d even invented the name Darryl a hundred years ago.”

“They hadn’t,” said Darryl, who began to sing along with his own birthday song. “But this is a great opportunity for me to look forward to what it’ll be like, you sorry little shit.”

When the song came to an end and the applause died down, along with the back-pounding that forced Darryl to act happy about it all, Frank said, “Darryl, let me lay it on the table. This may be too much for you, and if it is, I don’t blame you. Can you reach me my drink?” He gulped it down. “But I have absolutely got to have a word with Lucy and it will not take but a minute. I’ve absolutely got to.” Darryl didn’t say anything. “Darryl, I gotta. I’ve absolutely got to. We’re right down the hall from each other. It’s not that whatever. Please.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yes! That’s exactly the word I was looking for. Emergency.”

“How long?”

“Six minutes, twenty-one seconds. There will be no time-outs or delays for commercials.”

“I ain’t too worried about it,” said Darryl, “if you want to know the truth.”

As soon as they stepped outside, Frank began to struggle with himself. He looked up at the theater marquee across the street and saw its perennial sign, “Closed for the Season.” He discovered the
unsteadiness of his limbs. “Is there anywhere we can sit down for a moment?”

“Yes,” said Lucy in a firm and businesslike voice, “we can sit in Darryl’s truck. I know he wouldn’t mind because he is not petty. He is not petty and he is not inconsiderate.”

She directed Frank to the Dexter Hotel’s parking lot, where they found the three-quarter-ton Ford with a stock rack. Frank got in behind the wheel and Lucy went around to the other side. Frank smiled at her and pretended to steer down the road, mashing the brake at the same time. Lucy said, “What’s on your mind?” Frank saw the keys and started the truck. Lucy gave him a look, but he just turned on the heater to cut the chill.

“I just hadn’t seen you. I haven’t been to the office.”

“So we’ve noticed.” “We” was Lucy and Eileen. He knew the subtext here was that Gracie was back in town.

“Oh, Lucy.”

“And don’t ‘oh, Lucy’ me, either.”

“At least don’t treat me mean. I’ve built an empire.”

“And you’re letting it fall apart.”

“That’s what they do. Read your history. None escape.”

“And what about Gracie? A wonderful girl. How did you spoil that, Frank? She was a big reason I was attracted to you. I had to find out. Ever since that Halloween we dressed up as a
ménage à trois
. But Gracie was my friend. There’s something about you but it may not be such a nice thing and no wonder she hit the road. No wonder! Yes, Frank, no wonder. And I want to tell you this: in your case, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Once a person gets away from you, for however short a time, that person asks themself, How, how did I do that?”

“Soiled yourself with my love wand?”

“Frank, please.”

“I was only trying to make things lighter. Besides, I’ve bent over backwards. You sent me to the Arctic Circle, I went. Wasn’t that a living testimonial?”

“You were just trying, you … it was awful. What an utterly artificial attempt to cast a romantic glow over things. All you ever
did with any sincerity was fuck me, take me to the show and fuck me, take me to dinner, fuck me — in other words,
fuck me fuck me fuck me!
”

Looking into the truck window in time to hear the end of this speech was Darryl Pullman. Lucy saw Frank’s glance, looked back at the window and moaned in loud despair. Frank slipped the truck in gear and moved out onto the street. “You can’t talk like that around a cowboy,” Frank said. “Not if you want to stay in one piece.” Darryl called to another cowboy standing in the doorway of the bar. The cowboy pointed to his own truck, a big green Dodge, and he and Darryl ran toward it. Frank turned sharply into an alley, came out its far end, went through a closed bank’s drive-up lane the wrong way, down another alley — all alleys he had played in as a child — and emerged in the middle of a Chevrolet used car lot. “Let me out here, Frank.”

“You don’t want to get out. You want to see this thing through, Luce.”

Frank watched the darkened street over the tops of the cars. It felt dangerous. Feeling the heat and smelling the perfume, he sensed that the feeling of danger was very close to the feeling of lewdness. Overpowering presences, riveted attention, a kind of desire. And no purpose, a wonderful freedom from purpose. He threaded his way among the vehicles of the car lot.

There was Darryl and his friend in the Dodge, coming around the front of the railroad station. Frank cut his lights out and slumped in his seat. Lucy did the same, thrilling him with her complicity. He watched closely as the Dodge rolled by just beyond a row of used cars, its headlights splintering around their shapes. The two cowboys never looked his way, and when they had gone a block and a half east, Frank eased out and headed west. He reached down for the headlights as he was moving through the dark. He pulled the switch and heard a screech behind him. Looking into the rearview mirror, he saw the Dodge wheel in a semicircle, its lights jutting upward as the truck squatted with acceleration.

“Oh shit, oh dear,” said Frank while Lucy covered her face.

Out on the highway, they were able to maintain an even lead over the other vehicle, but they were going a hundred and Frank didn’t want to do that for long. “I don’t know if you remember Sterling Moss,” he said over the noise. “Great driver, but tore up every car he drove. Juan Fangio was even faster, but his cars never seemed to have even been driven. Something simpatico between Juan and machinery …”

“Frank, please.”

“I can’t stop now. Can you imagine what kind of mood those cowboys are in? I have no choice but to put it on them before they put it on me.” Suddenly, he didn’t seem to be moving at all. He watched the stars through the windshield and thought he simply liked Lucy. But the piercing beams behind him brought him back. Bold is best, he thought, then hit the brakes and managed to turn onto a gravel fork in the road. He turned off the lights again. “Frank!” Lucy cried. He could make out the road well enough, and he was sure that he was nearly impossible to see.

He slid onto another fork that went into dense trees but he could still see lights behind him. In another mile, the road wound around to the north while climbing a washboard hill. They were now in a forest but had to go much slower. There was a logging road going deeper into the woods but he knew that Darryl would just assume he went up it, so he went on, passing another logging road, then another. He turned up this last one. It was muddy and he had to get out and lock the hubs so he could travel in four-wheel drive. When he got out of the truck, he could hear the Dodge laboring on the grade without being able to tell if they had found them. It sounded like they were about a half mile behind.

Frank and Lucy’s truck was all over the road. The mud was getting deeper and the engine was over-revving as the wheels lost traction. The road was sufficiently crowned that it was all important that Frank keep from sliding off the top of it. The truck was swimming upward from side to side like a tired old salmon going up a river. Then it just wallowed off the crown and buried the hood in muck. Frank and Lucy found all their weight on their legs, as though they were standing under the dashboard. Frank tried
the accelerator and the rear wheels became whirligigs of spraying mud. When he turned the engine off, he realized the radio was still on faintly and Merle Haggard was singing: “Not so long ago you held our baby’s bottle. Now the one you hold is of another kind.” He turned it off and sighed.

Lucy said, “I can’t live like this.”

“I know how you feel.”

“No you don’t, you aimless bastard.”

“You’re just trying to hurt me, Lucy.”

The windshield was steamed over. She slapped at him while crying out in despair. Then she quit.

“We can’t just wait here like sitting ducks,” he said. “The moon is shining. Let’s walk out of here.” He pushed open his door against the weight of gravity and looked down. “It’s a bit of a jump,” he said.

“Don’t start talking like an Englishman!” Lucy cried. She seemed completely out of control. Frank took her arm and guided her to his side of the truck. When he jumped out and turned to help her, the seat was at the level of his chest. He held her hand. She looked all over for a place to land and then just made a wild jump that took Frank off his feet. He sank in the mud under her weight. He tried to make as little of it as possible because he sensed she was about to go mad. But his nostrils were plugged and the necessity of breathing made it impossible to put a completely good face on things.