The Train of Small Mercies (20 page)

“Jamie told me about that,” Roy said. “He said you tried to go through the physical anyway.”

“Well, they didn't let me get very far. Fuckers.” Sutton let out a laugh. “What about you—you have a deferment, I guess.”

Roy nodded.

“Shit,” Sutton said. “I wanted to go. Fight for my country.”

“Why?” Roy said. “Would you tell me on the record? That doesn't have anything to do with Jamie, but it's kind of an interesting point for the article, maybe. Jamie's lost his leg and he's home from the war. You have an injury to your leg and can't go, but you've tried anyway. Just tell me why you wanted to go to Vietnam. I'd only print what you tell me. You don't have anything to worry about.”

“It's funny that it's you writing about Jamie,” Sutton said.

“How so?” Roy asked.

“Well, Jamie dated Claire, but then you and she spent a lot of time together, it seemed like. I could never quite figure out that whole situation. You know: Were you in love with Claire? Were you guys really just friends? Why was it that you seemed to spend more time with her than Jamie did? It was just kind of funny. I bet Jamie was shocked to find out you were the reporter.”

“What are you saying, that Jamie hated my guts in high school?” Roy laughed to show that he was making a joke, but to Sutton it seemed a reasonable question.

“I don't know that he
hated
you,” he said, and then he combed further through his memories of those days. “I mean, he was just kind of jealous, I guess. He wasn't going to kick your ass, though.” Sutton watched Jamie adjust his crutches as he talked to Emma. Then Roy watched an idea flicker across Sutton's face. “So what was the whole story there, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Claire were just friends that whole time?” Sutton asked.

Roy watched a bee land on one of the daffodils that bordered the yard. He was surprised by how tempted he was to confide in Sutton. He was so fully back in that place now, that longing. He was aware, too, that he could say something to turn the delicate situation with Jamie into something more volatile, and that would jeopardize his story. If Jamie became upset, he could withdraw all his quotes from use. Roy needed the internship, and he couldn't afford to create any problems for himself.

What he couldn't tell Sutton was that when he and Claire played Monopoly at her house, Claire liked to put on her grandfather's old top hat, and that they made each other laugh with their crude Chinese accents every time they passed Oriental Avenue. He couldn't tell Sutton that his and Claire's favorite place to talk had been on top of a large fiberglass whale in Rowan Park, which went mostly forgotten because of the newer parks in town, and that one afternoon, while lying back on top of its head, they imagined a summer working together in Washington as guides at the Museum of Natural History, and lunching together on the lawn of the Mall and spending their evenings poking around in the bookstores of Georgetown and Dupont Circle. And he couldn't tell him that on the afternoon of the senior prom, which Claire attended with Jamie, she was trying on three different dresses as Roy sat back on her bed, and after slipping into the first gown, she stopped turning her back to him, but let him watch her dress and undress—unhurried and without any self-consciousness. By that time, he knew, she had stopped pretending that his devotion to her was strictly out of friendship, and she was going to let him look at her the way he wanted to. He understood that he was not to move, that this was not Claire's invitation to seduce her, but a consolation prize, of sorts. What she didn't realize was how pathetic he would feel around her from that day on.

Instead, Roy looked at Sutton and said, “That was all. Just friends.”

Sutton nodded, but in that gesture he was acknowledging the truth that Roy couldn't confess. They understood each other. Sutton, Roy realized, was like him in some essential way. He was the confidant, the supporting role wherever he went. Sutton's injury had all but cemented that, and even Jamie's loss of a leg wouldn't change the dynamic between them. Jamie's swagger would be mostly gone, and his fortune with women didn't hold much promise, but Sutton would still be the sidekick. Their friendship centered around everything from Jamie's past—his football heroics, Claire the beauty queen, and now his Vietnam stories—and whatever future they had as friends would hold to that pattern. The leg was an irrevocable setback for Jamie—his first—but he wasn't going to let someone like Sutton move ahead of him.

“
T
he air conditioner's broken. Sorry,” Ted said. “The old van's kind of falling apart on me.” Over his shoulder he could see Lolly trying to figure out what to do with a pair of speakers in the backseat, their wires protruding like whiskers. “Just put those anywhere, Lol. They're busted up pretty good.”

“That means he's going to keep them in his apartment,” Georgia said. “Ted can't throw out a broken speaker. He has to use them as stools or shelves.”

“Hey, a speaker is a beautiful thing,” Ted said.

“Oh, so romantic,” Georgia said and laughed. She reached over and fingered a thick curl falling over his headrest.

“Okay, so here we go,” Ted said. “Hey, babe, hand me that Cream tape, will you? Some ‘Disraeli Gears' would be good about now.”

“Ted, do you mind if we don't play music right now?” Lolly asked. “I wouldn't mind just a little quiet on the way. Just to, you know . . .”

“Lolly's right,” Georgia said. “I know it doesn't feel like it, but it is kind of like we're going to a funeral, in a way.”

“Sure, sure,” Ted said. “That's cool.”

“Thank you,” Lolly said. Her hand was resting on Edwin's knee as Ted pulled out into the street.

“You know,” Ted said to Georgia, “Lolly worked for John Kennedy's presidential campaign.”

“You did?” Georgia said. “Wow. What was it like?”

“I was just a volunteer,” Lolly said. She described the cramped state office she reported to, how she called registered voters and sometimes walked door-to-door, handing out fliers that emphasized the distinctions between Kennedy's policies and Richard Nixon's. As she talked, the wind from Ted's window picked up and blew Edwin's hair back. He looked out at his neighbors as the van rumbled past. There was Major Drew, mowing his yard with the same stony expression he wore whether his children were playing in the sprinkler or he was washing his red Corvette; and there was the woman whose son got attacked by a dog last summer and had to get all the stitches; she was planting bulbs in front of the house. There was that teenager who had tried to sell Edwin some grass that time by the park, but all Edwin had on him was change. And here was Mrs. Lamaza, or Lavaza. One of the neighbors had told Lolly that ten years before she had won the title of Miss Venezuela. Now she was talking to the postal carrier, Hal, in a yellow halter top and swatting at the heat, as if a perfectly timed strike would correct the temperature.

They all lived on his block, and as Edwin thought about it, they were, when it came right down to it, probably all pretty decent people. Word would eventually get out about the Galaxy. Neighbors might start hinting around for an invitation on hot Saturdays like this one. And that was understandable. He couldn't fit them all in, of course, but maybe there were other ways to look at it. He could possibly have a party in shifts, or invite a few houses each weekend. It wasn't unthinkable. And he'd get the chemicals balanced out, no problem. He just needed to make the right adjustments.

A
t first Delores thought she had hit a squirrel and that somehow the squirrel's body had become wrapped around the tire. When that stopped making sense, she wondered if something had become loose or broken off in the trunk. When it finally occurred to her that the sound was a flat tire, she imagined how disappointed Arch would be that she didn't have more appreciation for that sensation.

She pulled into the parking lot of Winn-Dixie and traced her fingers around the hot edges of the rear right hubcap, searching for the hole as away to redeem herself. But she could find nothing. She then went to the passenger's side; Rebecca was drowsy, her eyes flickering little recognition that the car had even stopped at all.

“We have a flat tire, pumpkin,” Delores said. Rebecca scanned her mother's face for something more. “This is just not our day, is it? Not at all.”

“Daddy can fix it,” Rebecca said. Her voice was so small and quavering that it took Delores a moment to realize she had even spoken.

“He fixes all kinds of flat tires, that's true,” Delores said. But the flat tire was one more incident that required some puzzling through. She and Rebecca were supposed to meet the others in a half-hour. Arch would drop whatever he was doing and drive over to fix the tire himself, but she wasn't ready for him to see Rebecca like this. Too, there would be the question of where they were headed now. And why wasn't she on her way to pick up the boys and relieve his mother? Next to the line of grocery carts and a slew of yellow and green plastic wading pools, Delores spotted a phone booth. There was, she supposed, the slimmest of chances that Arch would send someone else over—Rudy Barre, the assistant manager, who had been Arch's number two since he opened the business and idolized Arch like a younger, less capable brother; Danny Adalpho, who was in his early twenties and knew more about cars than anyone in the shop, but whose constant sullenness meant they had to keep him away from customers; and Carlos Furero, an older man who had immigrated from Cuba and infused the shop with a gentle wisdom when it came to cars and people. He had been kind to Delores and had taken an interest in little Rebecca in particular, and Delores had the feeling that he alone was the one she could turn to for help.

Delores called the shop, ready to hang up if Arch picked up, but it was Rudy's voice that came on the line. Delores lowered her voice. “Yes, may I speak to Carlos,” she said. Rudy paused for a moment, and Delores imagined him craning his head toward the garage. “Hang on,” he said, and called out Carlos's name. In the background the high scream of a drill whirled.

“Hello?” By the uncertain tone of Carlos's voice, she could tell that it was unusual for someone to call him at work.

Delores kept the same low rumble in her voice. “Carlos, this is Mrs. King, but I don't want Arch to know I'm calling, so don't say my name out loud. Do you understand?” The telephone was in the small office, which held little more than the counter, the cash register, and a tall vinyl chair badly torn and duct-taped across the center.

“Yes.”

“Carlos, I have a flat tire, and Mr. King just put new tires on the car a month ago. He tells me I'm always driving straight over potholes, and he's going to be so upset when he hears I've driven over something again. And what I'm wondering is, could you possibly drive over and put a new Firestone on, and I'll pay you in cash, and he'll never have to know. It will be our little secret. Is there any way you could do that, Carlos?”

She could hear Arch talking to a customer, most likely, and Carlos said, “I bring tire to you,” taking measure of just how he might explain that. “Yes, I understand.”

“Oh, that is such a relief. And you can get away? You can tell Mr. King someone you know called and needs a new tire? I'm not far. I'm just in front of the Winn-Dixie, on the boulevard.”

“Yes, I tell him that,” Carlos said. “Is no problem. The truck is here. I help you.”

“Oh, thank you, Carlos,” she said. “I knew if I could get you on the phone, everything would be all right. We'll be waiting for you, then. I have Rebecca with me.”

“I see you soon,” he said.

Walking back to the car, the glut of lies she had told in a single day made her feel like she had drunk something spoiled. Arch had put new tires on her car because he always liked to give her new tires every twelve months, but she never drove over potholes, and the subject of her getting flat tires had never come up, since she almost never did. If Arch were to find out that she had called Carlos instead, she could probably convince him that she was simply embarrassed. But she knew Arch would fire Carlos for lying to him. He valued Carlos's experience, but he had his complaints about him: Carlos worked too slowly; Carlos talked too much while he worked—about his beloved Havana and the beautiful women there and the music of Arsenio Rodriguez and how Cuba produced the greatest baseball pitchers in the world; his hatred of Fidel Castro. Carlos could be prickly when told what to do. He liked to do things his own way, Arch said. The old man had run his own garage for fifteen years in Havana, and he had never fully gotten used to having to answer to someone else.

“One of Daddy's trucks is going to come and fix our tire,” Delores told Rebecca, who nodded and said that she was fixing her doll, that her doll had had a bad fall, but that she was all better now.

“She's lucky she has you,” Delores said.

As they waited, Delores wondered how Ethel was holding up. The day had surely exhausted her. And what about all the poor children! There was still so much ahead for all of them: the arrival in Washington, the burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Where were Ethel and the children going to spend the night? she wondered. Was President Johnson putting them all up in the White House? How many rooms did Ethel need for a family that big? How, Delores wondered, could she face going back into their house, their swimming pool, their bedroom, without Bobby?

 

 

 

“You knew what tires you had,” Carlos said in approval. “You are wife of tire man. You know.” He was rolling the new tire from the truck to Delores's car.