Pages of Promise (29 page)
Stephen sat straight in the chair. He had learned to read people before he went to the penitentiary, and inside it had become second nature to him. Survival meant understanding your enemies and discovering those who could be your friends. Looking across at the well-groomed man in the Brooks Brothers suit, he saw no friend. Melton was the fifth man that he had looked up in Oklahoma City, all of whom he had helped, to some degree, when he was in business. A sense of despair settled over Stuart as he listened to Melton’s voice falter each time he looked him in the eye.
Melton glanced at the clock and drummed his fingers on the desk and said, “Maybe we can talk about this later, Stephen. I’ve got an appointment in ten minutes. Where are you staying?”
“So long, R. D. Thanks for the help.” Melton had been one of his last hopes. Stephen wanted to leap across the desk, grab the expensive tie, and smash Melton’s face in, but he had acquired more control over himself than that. Instead, he got up and walked out of the room, ignoring the weak voice saying, “Hey now, Steve! Wait a minute—”
As he left the office building, he thought, with a paralyzing sense of urgency,
I’ve only got eighty-seven dollars left. How can
I expect to get started in business on eighty-seven dollars?
He walked along keeping his head down, his mind exploring possibilities and rejecting them. He had done this many times before his release, but he had thought that though they might have seemed weak inside, when he was out he would be able to manage.
All afternoon Stephen wandered the city, some of the sights bringing a sense of poignancy and some bitterness. He found a park, sat down, and drew his coat up, coughing in the sharp November wind. He thought of his family—some of them had the means to help him. His parents might have the means, but he was too ashamed of what he had put them through to ask. He thought Aunt Lylah, for example, might help. Uncle Amos was gone. Uncle Owen, of course, had no money, nor had Aunt Lenora. Aunt Christie was married to a successful lawyer—he might be interested in a deal. As he sat slumped on the bench he discarded all those possibilities and got up, saying, “I’ll make it on my own, or I won’t make it at all.” His jaw set, he walked off purposefully—although he had little confidence.
His money had shrunk to almost nothing, and with a sense of self-disgust Stephen stepped into a tiny liquor store on Jefferson Street and mumbled, “Pint of vodka. The cheapest you got.” He took the bottle, handed over his last five dollar bill, and took the change. Stuffing the bottle in his pocket, he moved outside. He had been drinking every day for the past week. It was almost the end of November, and he had found nothing. He longed for the oblivion of drunkenness, but it was early and he knew he would need the vodka to get to sleep that night. He left Jefferson Street not knowing what to do. The thought came to him with a bitter tang,
I was better
off back in the pen than I am now. At least I had a place to
sleep—which I won’t after tonight, and plenty to eat, which I haven’t
had lately.
He wandered the streets, and late that afternoon he decided to swallow his pride and shame and go to his parents’ house. He had thought of them often, and he began to walk to a bus stop to catch a bus to their home. He had not eaten anything but a hamburger for the past two days, and his stomach growled, he was coughing, and he longed for a drink. The sun was edging downward, and late afternoon shadows formed as the trees cast their dark images on the ground.
He was startled when a voice said, “Hey! What are you doin’ here, fella?”
Stephen turned and saw that an Oklahoma City police car had stopped and two men were getting out. They studied him, and one came up to stand before him, holding his stick with his right hand and tapping it gently into his palm. “I asked you a question, fella. What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. Just walking.”
“Just walking, eh? Hey, Al. He says he’s just walking.”
“I heard him, Fred.”
The police officer named Fred said, “This is a residential area. Where do you live?”
“The Baron Hotel.”
A brash grin went across the officer’s face. “Not a very fancy place. How long you been there? Where you from?”
The big one said, “He’s a vagrant. Let’s haul him in, Fred.”
Fear shot through Stephen. He knew what would happen if he got into trouble again, and he said quickly, “Look, I’m broke all right. Been looking for work and haven’t found any, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The officer clearly had the inclination to arrest the shoddily dressed man before him. “Didn’t anybody tell you there’s a recession on, fella?” he asked. Then he shrugged, saying, “Jail’s full already. Get out of this neighborhood. Go on back to where you belong. If we see you around here again, you’ll be in the lockup.”
“Thanks, Officer.”
Relief washed over Stephen as the car door slammed, and the two officers watched as he quickly turned and walked back the way that he had come. Bitterness flooded through him, and he thought,
If I get in trouble again it would kill my
parents.
He drank half of the bottle of vodka before he got back to the hotel. He waited outside until the clerk went to the washroom, then he sneaked in, going up to his second-floor room. He knew he would be asked to leave, and he had nowhere to go.
He reclined on the bed taking sips of the vodka, wishing that it were a quart instead of a pint. The liquor dazed him, but still he was aware of his misery. He sat up on the bed and stared at the floor helplessly, not knowing what to do. He rose and walked to the window and looked out. He finished off the bottle and slumped in the chair. Thoughts came to him, almost dreams. He thought of Mona. Right after he was released, he had gone to see the movie
Bride of Quietness,
which had won numerous awards. He had received letters from both Mona and Tom, and they had come to see him in prison twice.
In the drunken dream that came to him, he could see Henderson’s face and hear his voice, “When you hit bottom, come to the Vine, Stephen.”
He lurched to the bed and went soundly to sleep then, and when he woke up in the morning coughing, his tongue thick and his head pounding, he knew that he had no choice. He had thought of killing himself several times, but such a thing was not in him. He rose slowly, went over to the dresser, pulled out his clothes, put them in the suitcase, and tried to consider what he could sell to get bus fare to Mountain View. He had but one thing left—he looked down at his wristwatch, a Baume & Mercier gold watch given to him for his graduation by his parents. It had been returned to him when he was released. The inscription on the back said, “To Stephen, our pride and joy, with love from Mom and Dad.”
He went downstairs and, getting a hard look from the clerk, said, “I’m clearing out.”
He walked across the street to the small dingy building with the three balls hung outside. When he came out, he had a few bills in his hand and a pawn ticket for the watch.
“Maybe I’m crazy, but at least I won’t have to look at Oklahoma City.”
He made his way to the Greyhound station, found he didn’t have enough to get to Mountain View, so he bought a ticket to Fort Smith, and when the bus pulled out, leaving diesel fumes heaving in the air, he slumped in his seat and closed his eyes, with despair so hard in him that he could hardly think.
The bus ride was tiring. He had been coughing for several days but had killed the symptoms with alcohol. Now without it he began coughing so hard that the old woman who sat beside him looked at him with disgust. “You ought to take something for that cough!” she snapped.
“Yes, ma’am, I think you’re right.”
By the time he had gone a hundred miles he knew that it was more than a cold. His chest was hollow, he coughed constantly, and his head pounded as if someone were driving spikes through it. But he rode on, dozing when he could, and again the thought came to him,
I must be crazy going to that
place, but I don’t know what else to do.
D
ecember came to the Ozarks in one of its more virulent forms. During the last days of November, ice storms tore down power lines, and the roofs of several chicken houses had collapsed. The storms tied up the roads, for there were no snowplows in Arkansas. Snowplows were called for, however, on the first day of December, for heavy snows fell and blanketed the mountains and the valleys with a pristine, sparkling blanket, beautiful, but paralyzing the land.
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, about forty miles north of the Stuart farm, called off classes for the first time in its history. The students were ecstatic over this, and there was a frenzy of snowball fights, ice sculptures, and sledding down the steep hills on the campus.
Those at the Vine survived the ice storm and the heavy fall of snow very well, although it was necessary to bring the cattle into the barns to feed them since even the dried brown grass of the pastures was under two feet of snow. Some of the pipes were frozen, which kept the men busy. The older children had gone tobogganing. The women continued the usual cooking, cleaning house, and caring for the children, who were all home from school, and Carmen Rio found it even enjoyable. She was ironing clothes, a big bushel basket at her feet, and looking out the window enjoying the sight of the trees, which had become giant crystal mushrooms. The sun was out, and the snow crystals glittered, hurting her eyes. She squinted but admired the way that the snow made even the fading old barn beautiful, its rounded crown lending it an air of grace. A neighbor had come by with a blade to plow out the driveway, and his big half shepherd, half who-knew-what was running through the snow biting at it and barking a rapid staccato that carried over the otherwise silent landscape.
Hanging a pressed white shirt on a hanger, Carmen picked up another as Enrique came in. One quick look at his face told her that he was unhappy, and she said sharply, “Why don’t you go out and play in the snow with the other kids?”
“I don’t want to.”
Slapping the shirt down on the ironing board, Carmen expertly pressed it, but her mind was on the boy. He was in trouble at school, had not done his homework, had been involved in a fight. She had gone to see the principal, who said, “He’s a bright boy, and he was doing so well. I don’t know what’s come over him.” The school was a small one and Enrique and Consuela had not encountered the level of prejudice they might have in a city school. People at the Vine had become accepted in the community as eccentrics, and they were expected to be “different.”
Carmen knew very well what was troubling Enrique. “You miss Mr. Henderson, don’t you?”
“I guess so. Do you think he’ll ever come back and live here?”
“No, I don’t think so. Just for visits maybe, like he’s been doing. But he always takes you hunting or fishing when he comes.”
“But he’s hardly ever here.” Enrique’s voice was unhappy, as was his countenance. He stood on one foot, pulled a knife out of his pocket, and started to carve his initials in the painted door facing.
“Don’t do that! You know better!”
“I don’t know what to do!”
“Well, do
something!
You’re driving me crazy. Go play Monopoly with Consuela.”
Giving her a sullen glance, Enrique slouched out of the room. Shaking her head, Carmen felt the pressures build up in her. She had adjusted, after a fashion, to Tom and Mona’s marriage. Realistically she had always known that he had never cared for her—not in the way a man cares for a woman—and with that hope gone she was more focused than ever on the children.
She had just finished the last of the ironing when she saw a car come down the road. Moving to the window, she stiffened as she saw that it was the sheriff’s car. She knew the sheriff, a rather gruff man named Steele, and wondered what he could want.
She opened the door, and the big red-faced man pulled his hat off. “Lookin’ for Mr. Pilcher, ma’am.”
Richard and Laurel had gone to Bible school. Morgan Pilcher was in charge. “He’s gone to cut wood, Sheriff Steele. My name’s Carmen Rio.”
“Well, I got a problem here. Any of the menfolk around?”
“No, sir. They’re not. Can I be of any help?”
Sheriff Steele was wearing a pair of green corduroy pants and a red and green wool mackinaw. His ears were red from the cold, and his nose was a crimson dot. He stared at her uncertainly, then shook his head. “Well, I don’t know as anybody here can help me.” He shifted his feet, stomped them to get some of the snow off, then nodded toward the car. “Got a fellow out here who claims to be kin to Mona Stuart. He’s either been drinkin’ or he’s sick. I can’t tell which.”
“What’s his name?”
“He says his name’s Stephen Stuart. That’s about all I can get out of him. I don’t know what to do, miss. He looks like to me he oughta be in the hospital. He ain’t got no money—I checked on that—and he’s in pretty bad shape.”
Carmen thought rapidly, then nodded. “If he’s kin to the Stuarts it’ll be all right. Bring him in.”
“All right. Better put him in a bed, though. He can’t sit up.”
“We’ve got a room that’s not being used. It’s already got bedcovers. Just bring him in.” She watched as the sheriff waded back through the snow and heard him say, “Come on, Carl. We’ll have to tote him in.”
Carmen opened the door for them, then she moved quickly ahead to open a bedroom door. She stripped the covers back and said, “Just put him on the bed.”
“You want us to undress him?” the sheriff inquired.
“Just get his coat off, and put him down there.” She watched as the men stripped the coat from the unconscious man, whose head lolled back. He had tawny hair, she saw, and a lean face that was very pale except for the twin spots of crimson on his cheeks, which to her spelled fever. The two men, she saw, were accustomed to handling drunks, for they simply stripped the coat off, tossed the man on the bed, then jerked his shoes off without unlacing them.
Turning to her, Steele said, “I’ll check back later to talk to Morgan about this. We gotta be sure it’s all right. I don’t know a thing about this fella. He may be dangerous for all I know.”
