Now Is the Hour (54 page)

I was up the stairs two at a time. Mom was at the broom closet making the sign of the cross. When she looked up at me, she looked like she'd seen Satan himself.

You're going to hell! she screamed. You're going to hell!

Mom was like a big cat on my back, scratching and screaming. Her teeth against my scalp, in my hair, trying to get a bite.

It's easy to tell about something after it's over, but while it's happening, it's all just one thing after another flipping past your eyes.

Mom was doing some serious damage to the sides of my head. I didn't know what to do, so I ducked my head and ran into her bedroom and toward the bed. At the bed, I stopped fast, bent down at the waist, and Mom went flying off my back, ass over teakettle onto the bed — the smooth, perfectly made bed. Mom bounced once, then went flying off the bed, down the other side, and smack onto the floor.

Mom was back on her feet in no time.

By the look on Mom's face, there was no doubt about it. This was a battle to the death.

Then I was running. I ran through the kitchen, my feet over the blue squares and the white squares, past the kitchen table, the chrome chairs with the yellow plastic seats, past the sink, the oven, the five oatmeal cookies. I thought, What the hell, if I'm going to hell I might as well be eating oatmeal cookies. I scooped up the five oatmeal cookies, opened the kitchen door, ran down the four steps, ran into the garage, opened the garage door from the inside, got in the pickup, dumped the oatmeal cookies on the seat, started the pickup, and put the gearshift into reverse. I'd just turned my head and was ready to back out of the garage when all of a sudden, there was Mom, the scream of her, outside, pulling down the garage door.

The slam of the garage door was a slam deep down in my heart. Where there was light, now there was darkness.

What's the use. I was trapped. I'd never get away from her.

The sharp pain next to my heart. I know it sounds weird, but my mind went totally blank. I shut off the pickup, got out of the pickup, walked back up the stairs into the kitchen, then down to my bedroom. I sat down on the olive green bedspread, leaned over, and looked at my polished black shoes on the brown flowered carpet.

In no time at all, Mom was standing in the doorway.

Mom was screaming. The world was screaming. My ears were ringing. Thousands of screaming magpies gathered on my bedroom ceiling and dived at my head.

You're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell.

Screaming and screaming and screaming.

You do as you're told! You're not leaving this house! You get that suit off you! You should be ashamed of yourself! Just wait till your father gets home! You're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell!

There was no way out.

Then something out of nowhere.

A gust of wind, a hawk, some large bird flying low, in a moment, something collapsed. I looked at my hands, I lifted my hands up and looked at my hands.

How did this happen? How did I get there back in my bedroom, my mother in the doorway, the human barricade, a crazy maniac between me and the rest of the world?

The feeling in my arms that means I'm helpless. I cupped my hands over my ears.

Jesus loved Mary Magdalene. Jesus would have gone to the Senior Summer All Night Party with Mary Magdalene.

With that, I was up. I walked to my mother. I didn't know what I was going to do.

Those steps, four or five steps to her, my black shoes on the brown flowered carpet, closer, closer. The closer I got, the more my mother did not move. She was a block of cheese, she was concrete, she was lead. I was still only inches from her, and still I didn't know.

My hands went around her waist and lifted. Just like that, as if my mother was a bale of straw, I set her aside. She was claws and screams and scratching, trying to get at me, but I held her away with my hand. Then I ran again.

Up the stairs, out the kitchen door, down the four kitchen steps and into the garage, I opened the garage door from the inside, got in the pickup, started the pickup, put it into reverse.

I turned my head to back out of the garage, and there she was again, something dark out the corner of my eye, from out of nowhere all of a sudden, there was Mom again, outside, closing the garage door.

The slam of the garage door. The darkness where there was light. My impulse was fuck it, to gun the engine anyway, bust through the garage door.

My mother would always be lurking there when I least expected her.

I shut off the pickup, got out of the pickup, made noise running up the four kitchen steps, then jumped back down the steps, landed soft, quick ran back into the garage and hid behind the garage door.

Through the garage door window, I saw Mom's gray hair go past and up the kitchen stairs. On her fourth step, I came out from behind the garage door. Mom was just starting down my bedroom stairs when I tiptoed up the four steps, reached in, turned the lock in the kitchen door, and pulled the kitchen door closed quiet.

The garage door opening was thunder-and-lightning loud. I ran to the pickup, started the pickup, put it in reverse, turned my head to back out of the garage. No crazy maniac mother. I gunned the engine, leaving rubber on the cement floor of the garage. I half expected the crash of the garage door coming down, but there was no crash. No darkness, only light.

When I hit the driveway, gravel was flying. I backed out into a three-point turn. I put on the brakes, put the gearshift into first, hit the gas.

Mom came bursting out the screen door wielding a broom in her hands.

You're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell.

Gravel was flying, and the pickup was fishtailing. Mom was running down the sidewalk at me. Tramp was running behind her, barking. Just where the sidewalk ends and the driveway begins, Mom and me in the pickup met.

It was scary how Mom looked. Mom didn't even look like Mom. The skeleton of her face was poking through.

I started rolling up the window.

Mom smacked the kitchen broom hard down onto the hood. So hard her big gray plastic glasses went flying off. I pushed the pedal all the way to the floor. Another smack of the kitchen broom hit the top of the cab. I looked over just as the broken broomstick came down and poked in through the top crack in the window. I cranked hard on the window handle.

Just in time. The sharp end of the green broom handle poked into the cab. The jagged piece of splintered wood was pointed straight at my head.

When I looked back in front of me, it was time to turn right onto Tyhee Road. There was no way in hell I was going to stop and look
for drunk Indians or hay trucks or Mormon families in their Ford cars. So I just started turning the wheel. The pickup leaned a dangerous lean. The tires were spitting gravel. Dust was flying. For a moment there, I thought for sure I was going to end up rolled over in the neighbor's front yard.

But we made it. Me and the Chevy Apache made it around the corner. Then there we were on the tarmac heading down Tyhee Road. In no time at all, the speedometer was hitting fifty-five. As fate would have it, it's the damn truth, on the radio it was “Purple Haze.” I was jumping up and down in the seat. I was yelling and laughing and screaming like the cowboys on TV — Yee-ha! Ha! Ha. Yee-ha-ho!

I grabbed the sharp edge of the broom handle, rolled the window down. Took the broom handle in my hands.

Better than a poke in your eye with a sharp stick.

The broom handle, with its jagged point at the end, was just big enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Something nice the way it fit. I slipped the broom handle end into the inside pocket of my suit jacket.

My cigarette was lit, “Purple Haze” on the radio. If this was going to hell, then bring it on. I was escaping, showing off. I was eating her oatmeal cookies. I was making a spectacle of myself. I was Rigby John Klusener, and
I
was
hauling ass.

The sky was big, dark, gray rolling clouds. Thunderheads. A couple of raindrops hit the windshield. When I turned on the wipers, the wipers screeched and the windshield became one big smear.

In the Snatch Out, Karen's root-beer brown '57 Pontiac sat off by itself. When I pulled up alongside, the driver's window rolled down. It was Billie behind the steering wheel. She was wearing new rose-colored John Lennon glasses.

My heart was still pounding. I couldn't wait to tell Billie about Mom. But when I got a good look at Billie, I didn't say a word. Something was up.

Did anybody follow you? Billie said.

I looked around for crazy maniacs. The Snatch Out was pretty empty.

My mother hadn't followed me.

No, I said.

Then: Let's not talk here, Billie said. Follow me.

Billie took off, and I followed the root-beer brown '57 Pontiac
through the parking lot to Ashby, then left on Ashby. People I passed by in their cars looked at me weird. I felt like Illya Kuryakin in
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
About five blocks away, on West Herzog Street, under a big silver maple, Billie pulled the Pontiac over and parked. I pulled in behind her and got in the Pontiac.

Billie was wearing her mother's wedding dress. Weird, seeing that dress again. The splooge of red wax at the crotch. But I didn't say anything. I pulled out George's pack of Camels. A Camel for me, a Camel for Billie. But Billie shook her head.

I can't, Billie said. Cigarettes are making me sick.

Weird not smoking with Billie. I rolled down my window, lit my cigarette, blew the smoke out the window. So much I was bursting to tell Billie, but what did I say?

It looks like it's going to rain, I said.

Idaho, man, you can't get away from it.

From out of the ignition, something caught my eye. Connected to the ignition key was a large key ring with a bunch of keys. And something else hanging down. Attached to the key chain was a piece of lava rock.

Billie's tiny fingernails were painted red. She was rubbing her hands around and around. I thought it was because she needed a cigarette.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Billie said.

What? I said.

Billie's hands, her little red fingernails, around and around.

My father is really drunk, Billie said. He wouldn't let me leave the house. He locked me in my room, Billie said. I managed to call Karen and then I crawled out my window.

Billie's voice was a deep Simone Signoret, and it sounded far away.

What a sight, Billie said. Can you imagine? A pregnant woman in this dress trying to make it out her bedroom window.

Billie's mother's wedding dress.

White shiny silk. Billie's boobs about to bust over the top. The red glob of red wax in the crotch. Red wax drips all the way down the front of the dress. The dress was big and took up that whole side of the car. I reached over and touched the folds of skirt, a long drip of red wax. When Billie moved, the slick sound of silk. Something once so shiny and clean, now shockingly dark and bloody.

It's a good metaphor, Billie said. Don't you think?

Can you really wear that dress to the dance?

It's all I could find to wear, Billie said. Before I jumped out the window.

Billie looked down at the dress, the red wax splooge. She pulled her belly in, then put her hands up on the bodice. Billie moved one breast around and then the other.

I swear, Billie said, I feel like any minute my nipples are going to boing out for the whole world to see.

Billie's red-lipped smile wasn't much of a smile. The gray evening light, the way it hit the John Lennon glasses, mirrors of rose-colored clouds.

Just then, above us, the silver maple went crazy. Wind, big gusts, blowing hard. A blast of hail, hail so loud you couldn't think. Billie and I looked at each other, hail pinging off the Pontiac, and for a moment, all there was in the world was hail and the roar of hail. In no time at all the ground was covered. That quick, the hail stopped.

Through the windows, the breeze was cool and smelled weird like burnt flowers. A magpie was making a fuss.

Rig, I'm afraid, Billie said. I haven't told Dad who the father is. Mom tried to tell Dad it isn't you, but he won't listen.

Shit, Billie said. He's so drunk.

Billie wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Her nose was as red as her eyes.

Dad thinks the father is you, Billie said. And he knows your pickup.

He'll be out tonight looking for us, Billie said. I just know it.

Billie slumped down and a big sob burst out. I scooted across the seat, put my arm across her shoulders. Billie's French smell mixed in with silk and the smell of wax.

For a long time, we sat like that, Billie and me, raindrops spitting on the windshield. I thought about the time in the Shanghai when Billie'd cried, and because she cried she'd turned into something ugly and needy and it freaked me out.

Billie was crying now. I didn't feel freaked out, and crying didn't make her ugly.

Boyfriend and girlfriend hasn't got much to do with friends at all.

Billie snuffed up, blew hard into her torn-up Kleenex.

I'm so sorry, Rig, Billie said. I didn't mean for this to happen.

Billie hadn't really looked at me since I'd sat in the car. Her eyes were swollen and red, and she thought she looked ugly so she hadn't looked.

Just then, though, Billie looked up, and her eyes blinked, and the blue in them flashed out bright from inside all that red.

What on earth happened to you? Billie said.

What? I said.

Billie reached up, pulled the rearview mirror around.

Look at yourself, Billie said.

In the mirror, blood under my nose, three big scratches on my cheek, a big bruise growing on my cheekbone, my hair sticking up like some guy crazy.

What a sight.

Into the mirror: Hello, Mother, I sang, hello, Father.

Billie's smile was smack all across her face. I loved it that Billie was smiling.