Shiloh and Other Stories (22 page)

Now Imogene’s face was fat and lined, but he could still see her young face clearly. Her hair was gray and cut in short, curly layers. Each curl was distinctly separate, like the coils of a new pad of steel wool.

Bill bent down close to her and bellowed, “Rise and shine!” Then he sang, “You’re an angel, lighting up the morning.” Imogene woke up and glared at him.

“I can’t wait to show you the ocean,” said Bill. He pulled on his clothes and slapped his cap on his head. He looked out the window to see if KOOL-II had left. He had.

“KOOL-II’s done gone,” Bill said.

“She was a nice girl,” said Imogene, getting up. “But taking up with that boy like that, I just don’t know. There’s so much meanness going on.”

She put water and bacon strips on the stove and started dressing. Bill turned on the portable television. The
Today
show was in Minnesota. Jane Pauley was having breakfast with a farmer, who said that in fact it
was
possible to make a living as a dairy farmer these days.

“You have to like cows first,” he said. He said he didn’t name his cows anymore. He gave them numbers, “like social security numbers,” the man said, laughing.

“How could you keep a cow without a name?” asked Bill. “How would you talk to it?”

“He’s a big-dude farmer,” said Imogene. “He couldn’t remember all their names, he’s got so many.”

The farmer’s wife claimed she was not a working wife, but
Jane Pauley pointed out that the woman worked all the time making butter and cheese, dressing chickens, raising children, and so forth.

“That’s fun work,” she replied.

“If it don’t kill you,” said Imogene.

One of the farmer’s seven children said he would be going to college. This day and age you had to be a businessman to be in agriculture. There was a lot his father couldn’t teach him about the farm.

“Can you see us on TV, having breakfast and talking?” asked Imogene.

“Shoot,” said Bill. “I’d be embarrassed to death. I’d go crawl in a hole.”

The show switched to the original
Little House on the Prairie
, also in Minnesota. Tom Brokaw was interviewing Mike Landon. Mike Landon was telling how back then everybody lived mainly in one small room and they were forced to live together, to cooperate, to work together. You couldn’t hide. Nowadays a kid could be off in his room and have a drug problem for six months and nobody would know. That couldn’t have happened in the nineteenth century, Mike Landon said.

“Bet he lives in a mansion,” said Bill, who was pacing the floor. “How does he explain that?”

Mike Landon said it didn’t depend on the number of rooms, as long as you can communicate. His kids don’t watch TV during the week, he said, except for
Little House on the Prairie
. “Or I give them a beating!” He laughed.

Bill grew more and more restless as they drove down into Florida. He kept an eye on the left side of the horizon so that he could catch that first glimpse of the ocean. He was afraid it might appear any second and he might miss it. He hardly noticed the changing terrain and the tourist signs.

“I thought I saw orange trees,” Imogene said.

Imogene had stopped flinching every time a car passed, and she seemed to be in a better mood, Bill thought.

“I can’t wait to show you the ocean,” he said for the tenth time.

“Some folks is happy just to stay home,” she said. “But that farmer on television—he had money. He could retire to Florida and still have something to show for all his years.”

After bypassing Jacksonville, Bill headed for a campground. He still could not see the ocean.

“Whoa!” cried Imogene suddenly. “What’s the matter with you? You scared the wadding out of me. You nearly run into that truck.”

“That truck was half a mile down the road! Keep your britches on. We’re almost there.”

As they drove into the campground, which had a swimming pool but no trees, Imogene said, “You can tell this is Florida. Old folks everywhere.”

Bill liked it better at the other places, with the dogs and the younger people. He didn’t see any dogs here. They passed a man struggling along on a metal walker.

“I hope we don’t get like that,” said Imogene.

After selecting and paying for their parking place, they drove to the ocean, a couple of miles away. Bill’s first sight of it was like something seen through a keyhole. Then it grew larger and larger.

“Is this what you brought me here to see?” said Imogene, as they examined the Atlantic from their high perches in the camper. “It all looks the same.”

Bill was silent as they got out and locked the van. He dropped his keys in the sand, he was so nervous. They walked down a narrow pathway to the beach, and Bill kept wanting to break into a run, but Imogene was too slow. They walked down the beach together, now and then stopping while Bill faced the ocean. He kept his arm around Imogene’s waist, in case she stumbled in the sand. She had on her straw wedgies.

Bill stopped her then and they stood still for a long while. Bill’s eyes roved over the rolling sea. It was the same water, carried around by time, that he had sailed, but it was bluer than he remembered. He remembered the feeling of looking out over that expanse, fearing the sound of the Japanese planes, taking comfort at the sight of the big battleship and its family of destroyers.
He had seen a kamikaze dive into a destroyer. The explosion was like a silent movie that played in his head endlessly, like reruns of
McHale’s Navy
.

“How long will you be?” asked Imogene. “I need to find me some shade.”

“I’ll be along directly,” said Bill, gazing out at battleships and destroyers riding on the horizon. He could not tell if they were coming or going, or whose they were.

Waldeen’s daughter Holly, swinging her legs from the kitchen stool, lectures her mother on natural foods. Holly is ten and too skinny.

Waldeen says, “I’ll have to give your teacher a talking-to. She’s put notions in your head. You’ve got to have meat to grow.”

Waldeen is tenderizing liver, beating it with the edge of a saucer. Her daughter insists that she is a vegetarian. If Holly had said Rosicrucian, it would have sounded just as strange to Waldeen. Holly wants to eat peanuts, soyburgers, and yogurt. Waldeen is sure this new fixation has something to do with Holly’s father, Joe Murdock, although Holly rarely mentions him. After Waldeen and Joe were divorced last September, Joe moved to Arizona and got a construction job. Joe sends Holly letters occasionally, but Holly won’t let Waldeen see them. At Christmas he sent her a copper Indian bracelet with unusual marks on it. It is Indian language, Holly tells her. Waldeen sees Holly polishing the bracelet while she is watching TV.

Waldeen shudders when she thinks of Joe Murdock. If he weren’t Holly’s father, she might be able to forget him. Waldeen was too young when she married him, and he had a reputation
for being wild. Now she could marry Joe McClain, who comes over for supper almost every night, always bringing something special, such as a roast or dessert. He seems to be oblivious to what things cost, and he frequently brings Holly presents. If Waldeen married Joe, then Holly would have a stepfather—something like a sugar substitute, Waldeen imagines. Shifting relationships confuse her. She tells Joe they must wait. Her ex-husband is still on her mind, like the lingering aftereffects of an illness.

Joe McClain is punctual, considerate. Tonight he brings fudge ripple ice cream and a half gallon of Coke in a plastic jug. He kisses Waldeen and hugs Holly.

Waldeen says, “We’re having liver and onions, but Holly’s mad ’cause I won’t make Soybean Supreme.”

“Soybean
Delight,
” says Holly.

“Oh, excuse me!”

“Liver is full of poison. The poisons in the feed settle in the liver.”

“Do you want to stunt your growth?” Joe asks, patting Holly on the head. He winks at Waldeen and waves his walking stick at her playfully, like a conductor. Joe collects walking sticks, and he has an antique one that belonged to Jefferson Davis. On a gold band, in italics, it says
Jefferson Davis
. Joe doesn’t go anywhere without a walking stick, although he is only thirty. It embarrasses Waldeen to be seen with him.

“Sometimes a cow’s liver just explodes from the poison,” says Holly. “Poisons are
oozing
out.”

“Oh, Holly, hush, that’s disgusting.” Waldeen plops the pieces of liver onto a plate of flour.

“There’s this restaurant at the lake that has Liver Lovers’ Night,” Joe says to Holly. “Every Tuesday is Liver Lovers’ Night.”

“Really?” Holly is wide-eyed, as if Joe is about to tell a long story, but Waldeen suspects Joe is bringing up the restaurant—Bob’s Cove at Kentucky Lake—to remind her that it was the scene of his proposal. Waldeen, not accustomed to eating out, studied the menu carefully, wavering between pork chops and T-bone steak, and then suddenly, without thinking, ordering
catfish. She was disappointed to learn that the catfish was not even local, but frozen ocean cat. “Why would they do that,” she kept saying, interrupting Joe, “when they’ve got all the fresh channel cat in the world right here at Kentucky Lake?”

During supper, Waldeen snaps at Holly for sneaking liver to the cat, but with Joe gently persuading her, Holly manages to eat three bites of liver without gagging. Holly is trying to please him, as though he were some TV game-show host who happened to live in the neighborhood. In Waldeen’s opinion, families shouldn’t shift membership, like clubs. But here they are, trying to be a family. Holly, Waldeen, Joe McClain. Sometimes Joe spends the weekends, but Holly prefers weekends at Joe’s house because of his shiny wood floors and his parrot that tries to sing “Inka-Dinka-Doo.” Holly likes the idea of packing an overnight bag.

Waldeen dishes out the ice cream. Suddenly inspired, she suggests a picnic Saturday. “The weather’s fairing up,” she says.

“I can’t,” says Joe. “Saturday’s graveyard day.”

“Graveyard day?” Holly and Waldeen say together.

“It’s my turn to clean off the graveyard. Every spring and fall somebody has to rake it off.” Joe explains that he is responsible for taking geraniums to his grandparents’ graves. His grandmother always kept them in her basement during the winter, and in the spring she took them to her husband’s grave, but she had died in November.

“Couldn’t we have a picnic at the graveyard?” asks Waldeen.

“That’s gruesome.”

“We never get to go on picnics,” says Holly. “Or anywhere.” She gives Waldeen a look.

“Well, O.K.,” Joe says. “But remember, it’s serious. No fooling around.”

“We’ll be real quiet,” says Holly.

“Far be it from me to disturb the dead,” Waldeen says, wondering why she is speaking in a mocking tone.

After supper, Joe plays rummy with Holly while Waldeen cracks pecans for a cake. Pecan shells fly across the floor, and the cat pounces on them. Holly and Joe are laughing together,
whooping loudly over the cards. They sound like contestants on
Let’s Make a Deal
. Joe Murdock had wanted desperately to be on a game show and strike it rich. He wanted to go to California so he would have a chance to be on TV and so he could travel the freeways. He drove in the stock car races, and he had been drag racing since he learned to drive. Evel Knievel was his hero. Waldeen couldn’t look when the TV showed Evel Knievel leaping over canyons. She told Joe many times, “He’s nothing but a show-off. But if you want to break your fool neck, then go right ahead. Nobody’s stopping you.” She is better off without Joe Murdock. If he were still in town, he would do something to make her look foolish, such as paint her name on his car door. He once had
WALDEEN
painted in large red letters on the door of his LTD. It was like a tattoo. It is probably a good thing he is in Arizona. Still, she cannot really understand why he had to move so far away from home.

After Holly goes upstairs, carrying the cat, whose name is Mr. Spock, Waldeen says to Joe, “In China they have a law that the men have to help keep house.” She is washing the dishes.

Joe grins. “That’s in China. This is
here.
”

Waldeen slaps at him with the dish towel, and Joe jumps up and grabs her. “I’ll do all the housework if you marry me,” he says. “You can get the Chinese to arrest me if I don’t.”

“You sound just like my ex-husband. Full of promises.”

“Guys named Joe are good at making promises.” Joe laughs and hugs her.

“All the important men in my life were named Joe,” says Waldeen, with pretended seriousness. “My first real boyfriend was named Joe. I was fourteen.”

“You always bring that up,” says Joe. “I wish you’d forget about them. You love
me
, don’t you?”

“Of course, you idiot.”

“Then why don’t you marry me?”

“I just said I was going to think twice is all.”

“But if you love me, what are you waiting for?”

“That’s the easy part. Love is easy.”

—

In the middle of
The Waltons
, C. W. Redmon and Betty Mathis drop by. Betty, Waldeen’s best friend, lives with C. W., who works with Joe on a construction crew. Waldeen turns off the TV and clears magazines from the couch. C. W. and Betty have just returned from Florida and they are full of news about Sea World. Betty shows Waldeen her new tote bag with a killer whale pictured on it.

“Guess who we saw at the Louisville airport,” Betty says.

“I give up,” says Waldeen.

“Colonel Sanders!”

“He’s eighty-four if he’s a day,” C. W. adds.

“You couldn’t miss him in that white suit,” Betty says. “I’m sure it was him. Oh, Joe! He had a walking stick. He went strutting along—”

“No kidding!”

“He probably beats chickens to death with it,” says Holly, who is standing around.

“That would be something to have,” says Joe. “Wow, one of the Colonel’s walking sticks.”

“Do you know what I read in a magazine?” says Betty. “That the Colonel Sanders outfit is trying to grow a three-legged chicken.”

“No, a four-legged chicken,” says C. W.

“Well, whatever.”