Shiloh and Other Stories (33 page)

“That pretty boy that bought you that bracelet?”

“I was looking for him.”

“Well, you better look hard, darling, if you want to find him. He got picked up over in Missouri for peddling a hot TV. They caught him on the spot. They’d been watching him. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. Oh, honey, I’m sorry, but he’ll be back! He’ll be back!”

—

In the waiting room at the clinic, the buzz of a tall floor fan sounds like a June bug on a screen door. The fan waves its head wildly from side to side. Ruby has an appointment for her checkup at three o’clock. She is afraid they will give her radiation treatments, or maybe even chemotherapy. No one is saying exactly what will happen next. But she expects to be baptized in a vat of chemicals, burning her skin and sizzling her hair. Ruby recalls an old comedy sketch, in which one of the Smothers Brothers fell into a vat of chocolate. Buddy Landon used to dunk his dogs in a tub of flea dip. She never saw him do it, but she pictures it in her mind—the stifling smell of Happy Jack mange medicine, the surprised dogs shaking themselves afterward, the rippling black water. It’s not hard to imagine Buddy in a jail cell either—thrashing around sleeplessly in a hard bunk, reaching over to squash a cigarette butt on the concrete floor—but the image is so inappropriate it is like something from a bad dream. Ruby keeps imagining different scenes in which he comes back to town and they take off for the Rocky Mountains together. Everyone has always said she had imagination—imagination and a sense of humor.

A pudgy man with fat fists and thick lips sits next to her on the bench at the clinic, humming. With him is a woman in a peach-colored pants suit and with tight white curls. The man grins and points to a child across the room. “That’s my baby,” he says to Ruby. The little girl, squealing with joy, is riding up and down on her mother’s knee. The pudgy man says something unintelligible.

“He loves children,” says the white-haired woman.

“My baby,” he says, making a cradle with his arms and rocking them.

“He has to have those brain tests once a year,” says the woman to Ruby in a confidential whisper.

The man picks up a magazine and says, “This is my baby.” He hugs the magazine and rocks it in his arms. His broad smile curves like the crescent phase of the moon.

P
ERMISSIONS
C
REDITS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

G
EAR
P
UBLISHING:
Excerpt from “The Horizontal Bop,” words and music by Bob Seger. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Gear Publishing. Used by permission of Gear Publishing.

P
EER
I
NTERNATIONAL
C
ORPORATION:
Excerpt from “Mellow Yellow” by Donovan Leitch. Copyright © 1966 by Donovan (Music) Limited. Administered by Peer International Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Peer International Corporation.

S
TERLING
S
TORM:
Excerpt from “Get You Tonight” by Sterling Storm from The Humans LP
Happy Hour
. Copyright © 1981 by Sterling Storm. Used by permission.

W
ARNER
B
ROS
. P
UBLICATIONS
I
NC.:
Excerpt from “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart. Copyright © 1958 (Renewed) by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Warner Bros. Publications Inc., Miami, FL 33014.

W
ARNER
B
ROS
. P
UBLICATIONS
I
NC. AND
C
HED
M
USIC
C
ORPORATION:
Excerpt from “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” by Charlie Tobias, Lew Brown and Sam H. Stept. Copyright © 1942 by EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. Copyright © renewed, assigned to Ched Music Corporation and EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. in the USA. All rights for the World outside of the USA controlled by EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Warner Bros. Publications Inc., Miami. FL 33014

W
ILLIAMSON
M
USIC
, C
HERRY
L
ANE
M
USIC AND
U
NIVERSAL-MCA
M
USIC
P
UBLISHERS, A DIVISION OF
U
NIVERSAL
S
TUDIOS
, I
NC.:
Excerpt from “Hound Dog” by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Copyright © 1956 by Elvis Presley Music, Inc., and Lion Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright renewed and assigned to Gladys Music (Administered by Williamson Music) and Cherry Lane Music o/b/o Gladys Music (ASCAP). Rights in the US are controlled by Williamson Music and Cherry Lane Music. Rights outside of the United States are controlled by Universal-MCA Music Publishers, a division of Universal Studios, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Williamson Music, Cherry Lane Music and Universal-MCA Music Publishers, a division of Universal Studios, Inc.

T
HE
M
ODERN
L
IBRARY
E
DITORIAL
B
OARD

Maya Angelou
•
Daniel J. Boorstin
•
A. S. Byatt
•
Caleb Carr
•
Christopher Cerf
•
Ron Chernow
•
Shelby Foote
•
Stephen Jay Gould
•
Vartan Gregorian
•
Richard Howard
•
Charles Johnson
•
Jon Krakauer
•
Edmund Morris
•
Elaine Pagels
•
John Richardson
•
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
•
Carolyn See
•
William Styron
•
Gore Vidal

F
ICTION
In Country
Spence + Lila
Love Life
Feather Crowns
Midnight Magic
Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail
An Atomic Romance
Nancy Culpepper

N
ONFICTION
Nabokov’s Garden
The Girl Sleuth
Clear Springs
Elvis Presley