The Waiting Room (22 page)

Then we were past the line of trees, and the glaze of sunlight hid them.

T
hat's when the Malibu started acting up, when I was past that line of trees, five miles south of Ashley Falls. I heard a ticking noise from the engine first, and though I know precious little about how cars work, the word "tapits" came to mind. I didn't know what "tapits" were; maybe there was no such thing; maybe it was simply a word that men used when they wanted to sound knowledgeable about cars.

The ticking noise soon became a knocking noise and the Malibu started bucking and coughing. Then the knocking noise became a thumping noise, and the engine powered down all by itself, so the Malibu slowed to thirty, then twenty, then fifteen. It stuck there, and no matter what I did with the accelerator, that's where it stayed. I cursed, glanced in the rearview mirror at the LTD, and saw that it was still a precise five car lengths behind me.

I pulled over to the shoulder and shut the car off. What else could I do?

The LTD shot past, engine roaring, as if the driver were happy to have such a slowpoke as me off the road.

I couldn't help it. When the LTD was a hundred yards or so down the road, I flipped the bird at it: "Assholes!" I yelled, and I got a quick mental picture of the LTD and the silver Chevette Scooter colliding head-on. "Shit for brains!" I yelled. It made me feel good, even if the effort started up that tickle in my throat again, which made me cough repeatedly, which brought back the taste of Florence's clam chowder, which quickly got me grimacing and spitting, over and over again in an effort to get that taste out of my mouth.

"It'll stick with ya," Florence had said, pushing the bowl of clam chowder at me across the counter. "You'll be back for more, gar-un-teed."

~ * ~

I opened the Malibu's hood, and in the failing, early evening light I mentally cataloged the items beneath—fan belt, generator, carburetor, radiator, little black tubular doodad sticking out of the engine block that I assumed was the PCV valve (and I prided myself on knowing what PCV stood for; I used to think it meant "pollution control valve." It doesn't. It means "positive crankcase ventilation"). I had shut the engine off; now I decided that it would be smarter to have the engine running while I tried to figure out what was wrong, so I got back into the car, started it, and went back to listen under the hood. A hard thumping sound came from the front of the engine block, and I said to myself, "Hell, it's a rod. I've thrown a rod," although I didn't know precisely what a rod was, either.

And from behind me I heard, "Ain't a rod. It's your torque converter." I whirled, heart thumping. A tall, thin, middle-aged man was standing behind me. He was wearing oil-stained bib overalls and a cream-colored long-sleeved shirt. He grinned, his blue eyes twinkled; he nodded at the engine. "Torque converter," he said again.

"Torque converter," I said. "What's that?"

"Helps your car go," he answered. "If you got a busted torque converter your car won't go."

"Oh," I said, and noticed an old Dodge Power Wagon behind him, on the shoulder. "Is it hard to fix?"

"Ain't hard to fix, no." He rubbed his bewhiskered chin as if in thought. "But it's expensive."

"Oh? How expensive?"

"Well, I guess that's gawna depend on how bad you want your car to go, ain't it?" He stuck his hand out. "Name's Anton Kenney," he said, pronouncing it
"
An
-twawn,"
and I thought it a very unlikely name for him.

"Sam Feary," I said, and shook his hand. "I don't have much money, Mr. Kenney."

"Anton," he said. "You just let me take care of it, Sam, and I gar-un-tee you'll have a happy car come mawnin'."

I believed him. What choice did I have? "Thanks," I said, and he went back to his Dodge Power Wagon, which I noticed then had a tow bar on it, hooked the Malibu to it, and ten minutes later—during which he greeted my attempts at conversation with either a grunt or a disinterested "Uh-huh' '—we were in Ashley Falls.

~ * ~

It was much like South Canaan. There was a hardware store—the Ashley Falls Hardware Store—an IGA near it, a beauty parlor, a hotel—the Ashley Falls Hotel, housed in a huge white Victorian house—and a small, quaint-looking restaurant called the Coffee Cup.

Anton drove through the village, made a left onto what appeared to be Ashley Falls' only side street—the street sign appeared to read "Haywire Street," and I told myself that I hadn't read it correctly—to a white cement block building a couple of hundred yards up the street that had the words "Anton's Garage" painted in black over the entrance. He parked the Power Wagon in front of the garage, got out, opened the garage door, got back in, pulled back onto the street, and turned around. Then he backed the Malibu into the garage, all the while softly whistling "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

"Sounds nice, Anton," I told him.

"An-
twawn
," he corrected. "Just like you were gawna say 'Antoinette,' you know, but you stop halfway."

"An-
twawn
," I said.

"Good," he said, smiling, and we both got out of the truck.

He unhooked the Malibu, closed the garage door, and led me to his boxy two-story house next to the garage. The house's white clapboard exterior was much in need of paint.

We went in a side door through a tiny mudroom, where he took off his mud-encased boots, then into the kitchen, where a woman was peeling potatoes under running water at the chipped, white enamel sink. "This is Mrs. Kenney, my wife," Anton said. The woman could have been his twin, I thought. She, too, was tall, thin, blue-eyed, dark-haired.

"Hello, Mrs. Kenney," I said.

She nodded and said "Hello" in a tiny, apologetic voice, as if to tell me her presence in the kitchen, as irksome as it was, was required, so please pay her no mind.

"Sam here has got trouble with his Malibu," Anton said.

"Trouble with his Malibu," Mrs. Kenney said.

Anton nodded at a square white wooden table with three chairs at it in the middle of the kitchen. "Have a seat there, Sam; take the load off."

I sat. Anton sat. Mrs. Kenney continued peeling potatoes under running water at the sink. I began, "I saw a hotel in town—"

Anton, waving the observation away, cut in, "You're gawna stay right here tonight, Sam. Wouldn't have it no other way."

Mrs. Kenney echoed him, "No other way."

"Thanks,
An
-twawn,"
I began. "Like I said, I don't have much money, but if it's all the same to you—"

"Who has money, Sam? Who?" He spoke with a hearty chuckle in his voice. "Besides, money don't mean much to us. Can't say, Sam, that money's ever done us much
good
."

"Oh?" I said.

"Money bought me a wedding dress once," Mrs. Kenney chimed in. "I know that, An
twawn
."

Besides the wooden table and the not very sturdy wooden chairs around it, the kitchen was empty. To either side of and above the sink where Mrs. Kenney peeled potatoes, there was a row of three white wooden cupboards with black iron latches. Like the house, these cupboards needed painting badly; there were areas the size of dollar bills where the light green primer beneath was visible, and a hundred other spots where it looked like someone had been throwing darts. Beneath the countertop—which looked disconcertingly as if it had the same kind of oak-print Contact paper on it that I'd found on the doors at Abner's beach house—there was another row of equally rough cabinet doors, also with black iron latches.

The floor was covered with a beige linoleum that had specks of green, blue, and red splattered through it.

"Distressed," said Anton.

I looked confusedly at him; "Distressed?" I asked.

"The cupboards," he explained, and seemed to swell with pride suddenly. "They's distressed."

I misinterpreted what he was telling me. I began,

"Well, yes, but—"

He cut in, "I did it myself. Used nails and paint thinner."

I looked around at the cupboards again. "Nails and paint thinner," I said while I looked. "Yes. I see." I paused. "It looks very nice,
An
twawn."

Mrs. Kenney offered, "Makes 'em look antique, Sam. This ain't an old house, you know." She looked questioningly at her husband, her hands still working skillfully at the potatoes, the water still running. "Isn't that so,
An
twawn?"

I looked at him. He nodded once. "That's so."

And I said again, "I see."

I looked at her. She was grinning at me over her shoulder while the water ran onto her hands peeling potatoes. She said, "You're stayin' for supper, right. We're gawna have real New England style potatoes." I found that as she talked it was hard to concentrate on anything but her mouth. It was wide, full-lipped, and her bright reddish-orange lipstick reflected the light of the fluorescent lamp overhead.

"Thanks," I began uncertainly, "I'd like to."

"We make you nervous?" Anton said, chuckling.

"No," I lied. "You don't make me nervous."

He chuckled again. "Well, that's strange, Sam, 'cuz we make ever-buddy else nervous. Heck, we even make ourselves nervous—can you imagine that?" He glanced at his wife. "Don't we make ourselves nervous, Mother?"

"Cabbage, too," said Mrs. Kenney, and plopped a peeled potato into the colander beside the sink. "Ham, too," she added, and looked questioningly at her husband. "We got us some ham, ain't that right, An
twawn
?"

He nodded heavily. "Slaughtered it myself, I did. Just last week." He grinned hugely. I noticed then that he, like the Haislip brothers, was all but toothless. "Slaughtered it myself," he repeated. "Name-a Lucille. That was her name. Lucille. Lucille the pig. Had her . . ." He looked questioningly over at his wife. "Mother, how long'd we have Lucille? Musta been twenty years, isn't that so?"

She grinned almost as toothlessly as her husband had. Her white gums looked pathetic beneath that reddish-orange lipstick. "Heaven's sake, An
twawn
, she were
your
pig. How'm I s'pose to keep tracka
your
pig?" She turned back to her potato peeling. "Land-a-goshen," she whispered.

"Lucille," I said, smiling nervously. "Nice name for a pig."

"Nice pig," he said.

"And she'll make some real good eatin'," Mrs. Kenney said.

"Can't thinka nothin' I'd rather eat," Anton said, staring wistfully at the ceiling. "'Ceptin', of course—"

"Enougha that, An
twawn
," his wife broke in with mock severity.

I thought that Anton had been making a little sex joke. But I was wrong.

Anton stood suddenly. "Well, c'mon, then, Sam, and help me with this pig."

"Help you with the pig?" I said.

"Sure," he said, "you wanta eat, you gotta help with the pig, that's my motto."

"That's so," Mrs. Kenney said. "That's been his motto a long time, Sam." She looked questioningly at her husband. "How long's that been your motto,
An
twawn?"

"Long time," he said.

"Long time," she said.

"What are you going to do with the pig?" I asked. Anton grinned in expectation, "Well, we gotta slaughter it, you know."

I heard one of Mrs. Kenney's potatoes
go
plop!
into the colander. I said hopefully, "But I thought you'd already slaughtered it."

He looked confused. His big right hand rubbed his bewhiskered chin as if in thought. At last he said, "Well, I did say that, didn't I? You are right, Sam."

I smiled uneasily, "Then that means you don't have to slaughter it?"

He shook his head slowly, a little forgiving smile playing on his lips, as if I had committed
a
faux pas
and he was about to give me the benefit of some country wisdom. "Well, now," he said, "these pigs are a lot like chickens sometimes. You know, you cut a chicken's head off and nine times out of ten it'll keep on runnin' 'round. Pig's the same way, Sam. You cut the damned thing's head off and before ya know it she's up on her feet and rooting around like nothin' happened, 'cept she ain't got no head, of course."

"Awful
thing to see," Mrs. Kenney chimed in, and another potato plopped into the colander.

I said, "You're joking, right?"

Anton shook his head slowly. "I never joke, Sam. I used to, but I don't no more."

I heard, distantly, a low, continuous snorting sound from outside. It quickly grew louder, and closer, and suddenly Anton jumped to his feet, ran stiffly to a closet door, and threw it open to reveal a long-handled axe standing inside. He said, his smile an orgy of expectation, "There's old Lucille now, Sam. By God, I think we're gonna have us some real fun!"

I looked at him with an asinine quivering smile on my mouth and I said again, "You're joking, right?"