InvasiveThoughts.com

BOOK FIFTEEN: MONEY MATTERS

119. If I had a reason. . . .

            If I had a reason to get out of bed in the morning on the Friday after my trip to Palemon with Selva, I couldn’t think what it was. “Bed,” however, was a prickly, buttsprung couch that smelled of dust and ancient horsehair; sheer discomfort finally got me moving. That, and a protesting bladder. On the kitchen table I found a note: “Had to go to Omaha, back Sunday. Do not leave your friend, she is in danger,” along with a phone number. These last words were heavily underlined. I felt so blue that I didn’t want breakfast, but I decided to make coffee and see if Grace wanted something. I had my head in the refrigerator when I heard a light step behind me; I turned in time to see the bathroom door being firmly closed.

            “Grace?”

            I heard the usual noises; someone was alive in there. At length, a sad little voice responded. “Jonaff? Ivv that you?” She sounded as though she were pressing a towel to her face.

            “Of course it’s me, sweets. Do you want any breakfast?”

            “Jonaff, I don’t want you to fee me. Clove your eyve, OK?”

            “Shit,” I said, my heart breaking. For the second time in two days, a woman had invited me not to look at her. “OK.” I turned my back, closed my eyes, and put my hands over my face for good measure. When Grace had passed safely behind me and I took them away again, they were wet with tears. The coffee had boiled over.

            I ran cold water in the pot to settle the grounds and went to the door of the bedroom. “Do you want anything?” I asked.

            “No.”

            “Can I come in? I’m lonely.”

            There was a pause. “Not for fex, if that’f what you mean.”

            “No,” I said. “No, that’s not what I mean.” I waited a couple of seconds and opened the door. I found Grace curled up with her back toward me and the sheet pulled over her head. “Are you sure you don’t want coffee?” I asked foolishly.

            “No,” she said. “Don’t afk queftionf. It hurtff me to talk, Jonaff.”

            “OK,” I said. Now that I was in the room, I couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. I was reminded of the day I’d first driven out to visit her in her trailer. “I’m going to go get my cup,” I said finally. “I’ll bring a glass of water and some aspirin, in case you’re interested.”

            “Do you have anything ftronger than afpirin?” she asked.

            “In fact, I do,” I said. I went into the bathroom and got two APC’s; I put them on the nightstand along with a glass of water, and then went into the kitchen to pour my coffee. When I came back to the bedroom I saw that she’d taken the pills, and that the water that remained in the glass was clouded with blood. “Grace,” I said, “are your teeth broken? Do you need to see a dentist?”

            There was no response, except that she seemed to be crying. I brought a chair from the kitchen and sat down. The thin figure under the sheet stopped shuddering after a time; I supposed that the APC’s had taken effect. The room was warm enough—it was always too warm in there—and when I went to refill my coffee cup I brought a book to read. It was the first volume of Mort D’Arthur; it fell open at the passage where Sir Launcelot meets King Arthur disguised as the Black Knight and knocks him off his horse.

            Grace moved a little in her sleep. I looked up to see that she’d pushed the sheet away from herself and would, with the next toss, probably turn onto her back. I had the option of leaving the room so that, as she wished, I would not see her injuries, but curiosity won out over courtesy and I returned to my reading and waiting. In a few more minutes she sighed and turned again, and I glanced up and saw that her head was exposed on the pillow. I closed my book and placed the cup of coffee quietly on the floor, and stood to have a look.

            Her face was entirely green and black with bruises. Both eyes had been blackened and a cut opened along one eyebrow; her nose was so swollen that its fine contours were obliterated, the nostrils crusted with dried blood. Her naturally thin lips were pouty as the lips of a lush Playboy model, and her upper front teeth were broken off raggedly at the gumline. A rolled-up towel, wet with blood and saliva, had fallen between the pillows. I saw that her jaw was straight and her cheekbones were intact, and went back to my chair. The tale of my adventure with Selva, which I’d been eager to complain of to Grace or to anyone who’d listen, seemed childish by comparison, especially if, as Julia’s note suggested, Grace’s ordeal wasn’t over. I wondered what she could have done in Vegas to get Don Stinns so upset that he’d destroy his meal ticket. Maybe, I thought with a stab of cowardice, she’d told him about her relationship with me.

            I went back to my knights and damsels, but their slow-motion difficulties seemed unreal. If Don Stinns was after my ass, I’d better walk carefully around Lincoln. He didn’t know where I lived, apparently, but my cousin Dale did; maybe Stinns would recall that Dale and I were related. On the other hand, Dale might not be the brightest bulb on the McFerrin family Christmas tree, but I didn’t think he’d give my address away to a convicted felon. I knew Toni wouldn’t. Of course I was not on the best of terms with that family.

            After an hour or so, I heard the bedsprings squeak and looked up. Grace had turned her back to me and covered herself with the sheet again. “Jonaff,” her voice said piteously. “You faw me.”

            “Yeah, well,” I said. “I had to, sooner or later. How do you feel?”

            “Terrible,” she said. “Could I have more of thove pillve?”

            “Don’t see why not,” I said. “Do your teeth hurt?”

            “Headache,” she said. I got up and brought her two more APC’s and a fresh glass of water. “Go out while I fwallow,” she said. “I’m too ugly.”

            “We need to take you to a doctor,” I said. “We’ll get some pictures. We’ll have that asshole put in jail.”

            “He’ll kill me,” she said confidently. “Go out, now. I’m affamed.”

            I went into the kitchen and heated up the coffee. While I was waiting I poured myself a bowl of cereal and peeled a banana. I ate the cereal and carried the banana into the bedroom. “Can you eat a bite of banana?” I asked Grace. “It’s a ripe one. It won’t be hard to chew.”

            “I’m not hungry,” she said. I finished the banana myself and sat down with my coffee cup. “You can talk,” she said. “You were going to tell me fomething, and then I fell afleep.”

            “It was nothing,” I said. “Suppose I read to you instead? Do you like stories about Camelot? Knights in shining armor and all that?”

            “Unh hunh.”

            I went and got the second volume of the Mort and read her the story of Tristan and Iseult, beginning with Tristan’s fight for King Mark against Iseult’s brother. Grace soon fell asleep again; I put the book down and stared at the blank wall, while my mind went over my trip to Palemon with Selva. Too bad there were no such things as love potions. I tried to imagine what it would be like if Selva loved me the way Iseult loved Tristan, but I couldn’t lift myself so far from reality. Maybe she desired me in some dark way, half in disgust at herself for doing so. If that was what it was, I’d have to be content with it. Perhaps she’d be charmed by my sterling qualities as time went on.

            As time went on? Selva was clearly readying hersef to marry Adrian. Would I move to Boston and be the bete noir of their marriage? Would Adrian tolerate a threesome? What shit I was thinking! I went into the living room and lay down on the couch, where I fell into a stupor of regret that lasted till evening.

120. The next day, Saturday, I went out. . . .

            The next day, Saturday, I went out and bought Grace a television, a little black-and-white Sylvania from the Irishman’s pawnshop. It gave her an incentive to sit up in bed. Grace watched the set with one eye closed to prevent herself from seeing double. Her injuries, I gradually learned, were not by any means confined to her head. Stinns had been especially interested in kicking her in the crotch; in twisting to shield herself, Grace had exposed her hips and legs, and these were deeply bruised, with boot-sized abrasions. She had bruises on her ribs and on her arms, and evil-looking gorilla handprints on her sensitive breasts. While negotiating for the TV, I’d confronted the Irishman across a glass case full of pistols, and the thought had occurred to me that I ought to buy a gun. I held off because I felt angry enough to use it.

            Instead of waiting until Sunday, Julia drove back to Lincoln Saturday night, arriving in time to visit Jerome Weld in the hospital. Weld was still in a coma, however, and there was nothing she could do. She bought a pizza at Domino’s on South Street, and she and I held a conference at the kitchen table while Grace slept in the other room.

            “I’m going to take her up to Omaha on Monday,” Julia said. “I’ve already made an emergency appointment with our dentist, and one for myself with the family doctor. I plan to take her along on that one, too.”

            “Still feeling nauseous?” I asked, pulling free another slice of pizza. Julia had eaten one piece to my three, and was watching jealously as I opened my mouth to catch a string of cheese.

            “It comes and goes,” she said. “Brenda cooked her usual Friday night fiasco, and of course I wasn’t able to eat any of it. She assumed that meant I was angry at her, and, guess what? Pretty soon I was. What happened with you and Selva? Did you get it on?”

            I blushed at her frankness; I’d liked her better when it was all bravado. “We drove to Palemon and drove back,” I said. “We talked. She doesn’t like me.”

            “You don’t like her, either,” Julia said. “Too bad the two of you have such an attraction for one another.”

            “Selva has no intention of ever feeling an attraction for scum like me,” I replied heatedly. “Far from it.”

            “Selva is emotionally distant from herself,” Julia said. “She’s not a good candidate for a relationship, Jonas. As you may discover.”

            “When did you get to be this Cassandra of relationships?”

            “I’m no prophet,” Julia said, “I’m obviously a fool. But compared to you I’m a genius of the heart. What are you doing with this pathetic little middle-aged waitress, you damned ballocky swine, you?”

            “You mean, what am I doing besides fucking her?” I hid my mouth behind another slice of pizza.

            “That’s exactly what I mean,” Julia said, “and I hope you have an answer. Because if you don’t, you’re no better than the man who beat her up.”

            That stung. I put down my slice of pizza. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “This guy Stinns—I call him The Goon—is one of the major shits of the universe. I don’t think I’m quite in his league yet, Julia.”

            “I don’t care about him. It’s you I’m concerned about,” Julia said. “You’d better shape up. You’re going to end up with a lousy life if you’re not careful.”

            “You know what that kind of talk does?” I asked her. “It makes me want to go out and have a beer.”

            “Have one, then,” Julia said. “Have two dozen. I’ll find myself something to read. Talking to you makes my stomach hurt anyway.” I left the two women in my apartment and went downtown. When I came home after closing, I found that Julia had taken over the couch. She’d made me up a bed in the furnace room; I slept on boxes and amplifiers, with my face two feet from a cymbal. During the night I knocked it over and woke up everyone in the building.

121. On Monday Julia put Grace. . . .

            On Monday Julia put Grace in the car and drove her to Omaha. Because I did not feel ready to confront Selva, I skipped going to Larry Whyffe’s class, even though I was awake and dressed. I sat at the kitchen table, smoking Julia’s cigarettes and drinking cup after cup of flavorless coffee. When I did finally walk downtown, passing the burned-out X-Cell Bookstore roped off with a fresh batch of yellow tape, I found that the campus looked strange to me. The long-haired colorful boys, the fresh-faced girls in their postage-stamp skirts, nipples pressing militantly against their blouses, looked like sex-laden children. Andrews Hall with its broad and bricky corridors, its clicking of chalk behind classroom doors and scent of pipe tobacco in the upper offices, could have fallen onto the Nebraska prairie from the moon. I felt a longing for the false-fronted main street and one-story houses of Palemon, for the worn booths of the Milestone and the old men’s baffled political talk left over from 1952.

            I put myself through the motions; I attended my pre-lunch classes and, during noon hour, jostled my way into the crowded mail room. A package in grocery-sack paper blocked my mailbox; it contained a round, flat object heavier than a book. It took me a few seconds to understand what it was: the tape I’d made for Leonard’s Modern Poetry class of the fall semester, female blues singers of the 20’s. Victoria Spivey, Sippie Wallace, Trixie Smith. I smiled for the time when I’d cared about the interpretation of poetry, good or bad, enough that Leonard’s opacity could unsettle me; I discarded the paper and carried the tape upstairs. In the third-floor hallway, whom should I meet but Leonard himself, walking rapidly toward me with his arm in a sling. When he first saw me, he scowled as if he would eat me alive, but when he caught sight of the tape, he blanched, hesitated, and made an abrupt veer into the men’s room.

            My office door was ajar. As I came in, I made a show of pawing at Shemansky’s pipe smoke; coughing, I opened the window. By now Shemansky was onto me and kept his things weighted down, so the papers that blew away were mostly mine. “Hey,” I said to him. “Look what somebody left in my mailbox. The infamous stolen blues tape.”

            “Amazing,” he said unenthusiastically. “That old bum we gave it to must be back on campus.”

            “Now I can finish ‘T. S. Eliot, Father of the Blues’ in time for Leonard’s conference.” I laid the tape on my desk. “Where’s your partner in crime?” I asked. “Did he score with Mrs. Chairman after the party?”

            “Why don’t you ask me if I scored?”

            I gazed down at this Jewish leprechaun puffing his bluish column of stinking creosote. “Sure,” I said, “why not? Did you score?”

            “None of your business,” he said. “Leonard Strange broke his collarbone. He wants to talk to you about it.”

            “I just saw him in the hall,” I said. “He acted strangely, no pun necessary. He made a quick right turn when he saw this tape.”

            “I’d take that tape home with me if I were you,” Shemansky said cryptically. “Don’t leave it lying on your desk, anyway.”

            “What else is new around here?” I asked. “I’ve been out of town.”

            Shemansky creaked his chair closer and took his pipe out of his mouth. “Lewis Rey’s car was wrecked in Nevada,” he said quietly. “Totaled. No identification on the driver. Not everyone knows this.”

            “Is he dead? The driver?”

            “I suppose so,” Shemansky said. “He must be.”

            “How’d you come to know about it?”

            “The cops came to the house on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning.”

            “Rey’s house? You were there?” I looked at him; he reddened and turned away. “You and McKinley both?”

            “We weren’t doing anything,” he said. “We were having a drink.”

            “I’ll ask my cousin Dale,” I said. “I’ll find out if you were having a goddam drink. This is quite the little Peyton Place around here. Have you talked with Julia?” He shook his head. “We have a story for you, too,” I said, thinking of the Rey/Strange/Justman trio. “I’ll let her tell you.”

            “How’s Jerome Weld doing?” Shemansky asked.

            “No miracles,” I said. “The last I heard, he’s breathing.” Jerome and the bookstore fire had been much in the news; there’d been vicious letters in the Lincoln papers expressing the hope that the Lord would let him die. I doubted that Jerome would accommodate his critics so easily.

            I rearranged some items on my desk; student papers, unread, stared back at me. The tape with its hard-won white tabs looked like something from prehistory. “Do you know the tale of Oisin?” I asked Shemansky.

            “You mean Ossian,” he corrected me. “I know Yeats’s poem. Then there’s that long thing by MacPherson that helped start the Romantic movement.”

            “The hell with Yeats and MacPherson,” I said. “This guy Oisin was the son of Finn Mac Cumhal, known as Finn McCool. Oisin fell in love with Niamh, the king of the sea’s daughter, and went to live with her for a while. Well, the food was good there under the sea, with plenty of garlic and fish sauce on everything, but he got homesick. Niamh wouldn’t let him go at first, but then she gave him a horse to ride that she said would get him there safely if he didn’t touch the ground. The land and the sea are enemies, see, and Oisin works for her daddy Manannan now. Well, he rides home all right, but he can’t find anybody. No Finn, no Fenians, no King Cormac, no castle—nothing. He decides to blow the great horn that’ll call his comrades, but there’s a problem. The horn is hidden under a slab of rock, and he has orders not to get off his horse.

            “Well, he sees some poor, shabby, underfed people around, so he asks an old man to help him out. This old geezer says, ‘Not I, nor ten more like me, could lift that stone.’ Oisin says, look, I need that trumpet, fella. Give it a try. The man says, ‘Nope. Not I, nor ten more like me.’ Well, his lack of spirit pisses this handsome young giant Oisin off, see? He bends down from his horse to lift the slab—he almost lifts it. Then his foot touches the ground. Poof! He falls down from his horse, older than Rip Van Winkle; three hundred years old, in fact. Well, they help him stagger to the local king, or what passes for one in those poorer times, and he croaks out the saga of Finn before he croaks. That’s the only way people know about Finn Mac Cumhal in the first place.”

            “So?” Shemansky replied.

            “I just wish you’d come over here and lift this desk,” I said. “There’s a trumpet under here, and I want to blow on it.”

            “I have work to do,” Shemansky said. “Go eat lunch. Stop bothering me.”

122. Grace was thin to begin with. . . .

            Grace was thin to begin with, and she’d had nothing but water in three days. As I slid my tray down the cafeteria line, the gelatin desserts caught my eye. Grace could eat Jello if she had no teeth at all; I supposed I could manage to fix her some without uttering stupid jokes that would make her cry. Consequently, after I’d hiked home from campus, I drove my truck to Russ’s IGA to stock up on groceries. I did my shopping, not forgetting a case of Falstaff for myself, and was loading stuff into the back of my truck when I noticed a familiar Volkswagen van parked beside the dumpster.

            I wheeled the empty cart to the nearest rack and approached the Volkswagen warily on foot. At first I didn’t see anyone. “Mattie?” I called out. “Mattie Halliday?”

            “What do you want?” came the reply.

            Her voice came from the far side of the dumpster. I walked around the filthy thing and found Mattie squatting in the sun, eating peaches from a dented can with the blade of a combat knife. “Mattie, what in hell are you doing?” I asked her.

            “What does it look like?” she responded. She paused in her eating to demonstrate her grip on the knife handle. “Keep your distance, Mister.”

            “Mattie, it’s Jonas,” I said. “Don’t you know me?”

            “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” she growled. “What was it you wanted? You never said.” The scent of metabolized alcohol rose from her, mingling with the smell of rotting vegetables. Her hair looked as though it had gone half gray in a week.

            “I noticed your van,” I said. “I came over to see if you were all right. Why aren’t you in jail?”

            “I haven’t done anything,” she said. “Why should I be in jail?”

            “What about Jerome’s bookstore? Didn’t you set that fire?”

            She shifted uneasily. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. She speared the last peach slice, chewed and swallowed it, and then drank off the liquid straight from the can.

            “Mattie, look up at me.” She set the can aside, straightened her back against the dumpster, and, still holding the knife, returned my gaze. The light in her eyes had gone blank and smoky, like blue sky reflected off the windows of a burned-out storefront. “Listen,” I said, “you need to—”

            “Don’t tell me what I need to do,” she interrupted. “I’m resting, OK?”

            “But you’re not clean. Don’t you think you should go home and take a shower?”

            “Who’re you to tell a lady she’s not clean, you hairy son of a bitch?” she flared. “If I had a home, don’t you think I’d go there? You better beat it before I cut your— nose off.”

            I backed up a step. “You are Mattie Halliday, aren’t you? I’m not making a mistake here?”

            “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not,” she said. “Buzz off. This is my dumpster.”

            “Fine,” I said, “it’s all yours. When you learn the ropes of this dumpster business, you can give me some pointers. I think I might be joining you in a few weeks.”

            “Not me, you won’t,” she said. “I already have a husband. His name is Ted.”

            “Does Ted know you’re here?” I asked.

            “Of course he does. He thinks about me constantly.”

            “Right,” I said. “Mattie, my place is full just now, but if you want to wash up, I guess you can come over. You know where I live.” She made no reply. “See you,” I said.

            “Maybe you will and maybe you won’t,” she said. As I walked away, she stood with the empty peach tin in her hand and opened the lid of the bin. When I started my truck and left the parking lot, I waved like a moron.

123. I drove to the VA. . . .

            I drove to the VA Hospital to see if I could do something about Mattie. It took two hours to get to see a psychiatrist; finally I was let in to the office of a jovial fellow who kept his cowboy boots firmly planted on his desk. “What’s the problem?” he asked bluntly. He had what looked like a round Copenhagen tin in the pocket of his shirt.

            “A friend of mine set fire to a building the other night,” I said. “Today I saw this person drunk and eating peaches out of a dumpster. I wondered if there’s anything you can do about someone like that.”

            “Well,” he said. He made a tent with his fingers. “Is this friend of yours a veteran?”

            “Not exactly,” I said.

            “Then why come to me?”

            “I’m a veteran,” I said. “I need some advice.”

            “I think the best thing to do,” he said, “is set up a series of appointments. Two times a week is generally best at first. Are you busy in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

            “Hold it,” I said. “I’m not talking about myself. This friend of mine—”

            “Do you think your friend is a danger to himself or to the community?” he asked.

            “Herself,” I said. “Hell, yes, she’s a danger! She’s got a hunting knife and a big chrome .38; she’s already set fire to one building and has threatened to kill this professor she’s got a crush on—”

            “She?” The psychiatrist dropped his feet from the desk and pushed himself back a few inches. “You said, ‘she’?”

            “That’s right,” I said. “I sort of like this person, so I don’t want to go to the police.”

            “We don’t deal with sexual disorders here,” he said. “That’s not the type of counseling the VA provides. I can give you the name of a psychiatrist in downtown Lincoln—”

            “This friend doesn’t have any sexual disorder,” I said. “She’s just wacko. Over the edge. She scares me. I feel like I ought to do something, but I don’t know where to go.”

            The psychiatrist stood. “Now that I think of it, I saw your friend’s picture in the paper the other day. What was the name?”

            “Smith.” I stood up also, disgusted to have wasted my time.

            “Right. Smith.” He offered his hand and then quickly withdrew it. “Sure you don’t want the name of my downtown colleague?”

            “I’m sure,” I said. “So there’s nothing that can be done in a case like this?”

            “If it’s a matter of arson, I’m sure the police would be interested.”

            “No cops,” I said. “Their uniforms are too tacky. All that leather; so uncool. Don’t you agree?”

            “I wouldn’t know.” He glanced at the door, hands behind his back. “I’m a very busy man, Smith.”

            “Me, too,” I said. “Sorry to trouble you, doctor. Goodbye.”

            “Byeee.”

124. I got home to find. . . .

            I got home to find Grace and Julia watching a quiz show on TV. I put away the groceries, opened a beer, and went in to see how their day had gone. When Grace turned her head to acknowledge me, I saw that her jaw had been wired shut. “Hey,” I said. “Look who’s not talking.”

            “Very funny, Jonas,” Julia said. “The doctor was ready to come after you. I had to do some pretty fast explaining to keep her from calling the police.”

            “Me? Why?”

            “She thinks you did this,” Julia said, glancing at Grace. “She thinks that story about Las Vegas is a hoax.”

            “What story?” I said. “What happened in Vegas, anyway?”

            “We’re not very clear on that,” Julia said. “That’s partly the trouble.”

            “What about her teeth?” I looked quizzically at Grace, who lifted her upper lip to show me two rounded bumps at her gum line.

            “She’s got temporary caps,” Julia said. “The crowns can’t go in until the wire comes off. Alex is paying for it, although he doesn’t know it yet.”

            “Nn nn,” Grace said. She pointed to her chest. “Nee.”

            “You don’t have any money, dear,” Julia said. “Alex has tons. You can pay him back later. You need your teeth.”

            “She looks better, don’t you think?” I said.

            “Oh, lots,” Julia said. “She wants to have her hair done.”

            “Is her jaw broken?”

            “It’s cracked; it showed up on the X-ray. She can get that wire taken off in about two weeks.”

            Grace did not in fact look better; she looked older. Now that the swelling had gone down, the lines in her face had begun to reappear, and without makeup of any kind she looked tired, beaten up, overworked and uneducated, a working-class woman nearing the end of her attractiveness. Her eyes, though, had some of their hot sparkle back; she even smiled a little as she watched me studying her. “Grace, I lied,” I said to her. “You look like hell. If it’s any comfort to you, Julia and I are going to castrate your boy friend.”

            “Hzz nnt mz bzz frnn,” Grace said.

            That evening set the pattern for the rest of the week. I cooked supper and we all watched television until Grace fell asleep; then I went out on the town, while Julia read and got ready for her morning classes. Julia went to Lincoln General twice each day, to see whether Jerome had regained consciousness. They’d gotten his pneumonia stabilized and taken him off oxygen, but other than that there was nothing new to report.

            Toward midweek, Grace made a request; she wanted to know if I could get her the Las Vegas newspaper from the library. I said that the library didn’t loan out newspapers, but that I could look up something for her if she wished. She declined with a nervousness that made me want to do some research for myself, so on Thursday, I went to the periodical room at Love Library. I had not seen Selva and didn’t know if I could look Barbara Justman in the eye, but the library was big enough that I hoped I wouldn’t run into either of them.

            The Las Vegas paper was among the library’s subscriptions. I looked for the results of the chess tournament and saw that a man from Yugoslavia had won first prize. I could find little in that coverage to interest me and began scanning the smaller headlines: “Deseret Daughters’ Luncheon Held at Governor’s Mansion.” I’d descended to reading the week-old comic section when a paragraph on the facing page caught my eye: “Nude Motorist Takes Plunge.” The copy read something like this:

                        Sheriff’s deputies were called in the early hours Thursday to investigate a late-night accident near Hoover Dam. A ‘68 Cadillac Seville driven by a man whose identity remains the subject of investigation apparently left the roadway, fell several hundred feet, and became stranded on a shoal of the Colorado River. A rescue party arriving by powerboat found the driver completely naked. The man was taken by helicopter to St. Martin’s Hospital, where he was pronounced in critical condition. According to the Sheriff’s office, the demolished automobile will be dynamited once the investigation is complete, since salvage is not feasible given its location. Due to highway construction at the approach to the dam, sightseeing is discouraged. Motorists who block traffic lanes will be ticketed.

I dropped a nickel in the nearest machine, made myself a Xerox, and folded it away inside my shirt pocket.

            Thursday night was my night to teach Freshman Comp. If I’d felt like an immature delinquent in the English Department mail room, when I walked into my first-floor classroom at two minutes past seven I could’ve been a hardened convict put in charge of a kindergarten. The faces that met me were so unformed, so nervously hopeful, so caught between anxiety and disrespect that I wanted to fall down on my knees, tears in my crusted eyes, and beg these fair-skinned infants to think well of me. Instead, I taught the class as usual, which is to say stiffly and awkwardly, with a lot of bad jokes and faked pleasantries. It was exactly the way I danced. I got through it by watching the clock, counting the minutes until I could go have a beer.

            After I’d stumbled to an early dismissal, I went down the hall to see if Lewis Rey’s seminar was in session. Julia would be there, along with L. D. and McKinley, but it was Rey himself I wanted. I waited outside, watching blue cigar smoke seep from the crack around the door; Rey was showing slides again. Finally a light came on and the door opened, releasing a torrent of gasping inseminees. “Julia? Casey’s?” I said as she passed. She turned and nodded. “Hello, Mark,” I said. “Hi, L. D. How’s the second honeymoon?”

            “Sweeter than the first, Ace,” she said. “I heard about your trip to Palemon. Too bad you couldn’t have stayed there.”

            “Seriously, I’m beginning to agree with you,” I said. “Are you still working?”

            “I’d better be,” she said cheerfully. “Got another mouth to feed.”

            Rey came out last, preceded by two of his admirers; he gave me one of his leonine stares and turned without speaking to move off down the hall. I trotted to catch up. “I think I found out something about your car,” I said.

            He turned. “We know about your nasty joke on Leonard. That’s foul play, Smith. I think you’re finished in this department.” He replaced his cigar in his mouth and resumed his stride away from me.

            “Look at this,” I said, taking the folded Xerox from my pocket and thrusting it ahead of him. “It’s from the Las Vegas newspaper.”

            Rey paused, glanced at the paper, and struck it with the back of his hand. “What is this, a blackmail attempt?” he asked me. “I don’t care shit who knows my business, Smith. You think I care who knows about this?”

            “Someone beat up a friend of mine, and I’m trying to learn more about it. Do you remember a blond guy about eight feet tall? Handsome in a mean way, could be the killer in a James Bond movie? You may have seen him around the bars.”

            Rey gave me a suspicious look. “Why don’t you ask your friend?”

            “Her jaw’s wired shut,” I said. “Also, she’s not being entirely forthright.”

            “A woman,” he said. “Lead a double life, do you, Smith?”

            “Not really,” I said. “In fact, I only lead two-thirds of a life since I’ve been in Lincoln.”

            Rey took the Xerox from me and read it through. “That’s my car, all right,” he said. “My wife gave me that car. It was an anniversary gift.” He looked up at me. “Think you know who took it?”

            “Yeah. Can you help convict him if I go to the cops? I want to see him in prison.”

            “Afraid not, old boy.” Rey patted me on the shoulder. “I don’t owe you any favors, but I’ll offer some advice. Quit wasting your time here. Look for an honest line of work.” He moved off down the hall.

            “But he stole your goddam car!”

            Rey waved his hand without turning. “Always get another car,” he said. “Wives are harder to come by.” When he reached the stairs, he glanced back a final time. “Don’t do anything to embarrass me, Smith.”

            “I want that s. o. b. put in jail, sir,” I said.

            “As to that,” he said, “as far as I’m concerned, you’re on your own.”

125. “So what’s this. . . ?”

            “So what’s this nasty trick I’m supposed to have pulled on Leonard?” I asked Julia once I’d poured myself a glass. “Is it the books we stole?”

            “No, Jonas,” she said. “Haven’t you heard? He tripped on that rug you dismantled and broke his collarbone.”

            “So that’s it,” I said. “Good God. We underestimated him.”

            Mark McKinley laughed. “It’s been good to know you, Jonas. Most of the time.” He raised his glass.

            “Has it?” I clinked glasses with him. “Where’d you get the tape?”

            “That,” he said, “remains a secret. Do you own a tape player?”

            “No,” I said.

            “Too bad. Loan it back to us; I’d like to listen to it.”

            “Speaking of the blues,” I said, “do we play tomorrow?”

            “Yes,” Julia said.

            “We haven’t rehearsed.”

            “Robert and I don’t need to rehearse,” Mark McKinley said. “The blues is in our blood.”

            “Shit,” I said.

            “We’ll meet in the furnace room for an hour,” Julia said. “Is that OK, Jonas?”

            “Fuck,” I said. “How’s Grace’s headache?”

            “She still has it,” Julia said. “The doctor thinks she had a concussion.”

            “Who’s Grace?” Mark McKinley asked.

            “Jonas’s mistress is staying with us. You’ve seen her as a waitress at Lederer’s. You’ll meet her again tomorrow.”

            “Did you see Jerome this afternoon?” I asked Julia.

            “Yes,” she said. “His brain waves are better. They think he’s going to wake up.”

            The following morning, I went out to the little cafe under the grain elevators, cutting Whyffe’s class for the third time that week. After breakfast, I returned to my apartment in time to pass Julia on her way to Lincoln General. Julia had left a little coffee, so I poured myself the last cup and went into the bedroom. Grace was sitting up in bed, looking at the fashion ads in a copy of Vogue. She glanced up when I came in, smiled, and reached out for the cup of coffee. I let her take it. “Thinking of changing your looks?” I asked her.

            “Don took care of that.” Grace had gotten used to talking with her jaw wired, and her battered lips had mostly healed.

            “It won’t be permanent,” I said. “You’ll be fine once you get your teeth.” I watched her sip my coffee. “How do you feel?”

            “Better,” she said. “The headache’s going away.”

            “I’ve got something to show you,” I said. I removed the folded Xerox from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “That’s from the Review-Journal,” I said. “The Las Vegas newspaper.”

            Grace read the paragraph greedily and then clutched the sheet of paper to her chest in a gesture that was unmistakable. I watched her eyes fill up and begin to spill over. “Looks like I’ve got competition,” I said.

            “Oh, Jonas,” she said, and put her hand on my arm. “Oh, Jonas. Don’t be jealous. Please?”

            “What did you do,” I asked, “fall in love out there? Is that why Don hit you?” Grace nodded; her tears dripped on the sheet. “You know what, kiddo,” I said, “I’m glad for you. Provided the guy lives, that is. I looked in the next couple of issues, but there wasn’t any follow-up. Did you think he was dead?” She nodded again. I shrugged. “Well, maybe he is; we can’t be sure. But maybe he isn’t. Do you want me to find out?”

            Grace stared at me; her hand went to her broken teeth. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

            I reached out and pulled her hand away from her face. “You know I care for you,” I said, “but it isn’t like— I won’t be jealous. Honest. Anyway, not so I won’t get over it in a little while. I’m— I—” I wanted to tell her about Selva, but I couldn’t do it. The whole thing was too hopeless. “You’re going to be pretty again,” I said. “You’ll see. Alex Stein has the kind of money that can work wonders.”

            “Oh, Jonas,” Grace said. She put the folded paper carefully on the nightstand and scooted lower in the bed, turning her face away from me. Then she lifted the sheet, exposing her nude buttocks in a gesture as unmistakable as the folded-paper-to-the-heart. I quickly shucked my jeans and climbed in behind her; I thereby missed my ten- and eleven-o’clock classes, making it a clean sweep for the day.

126. We forgot to tell. . . .

            We forgot to tell Grace that the band was coming over Friday afternoon. She was sitting with me at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea, when Mark McKinley knocked on the plywood door; Julia was out somewhere so that she could still be late to rehearsal, even though she lived ten feet away. At the sound of the knock, Grace stood, upsetting her teacup, and backed against the wall, her hands covering her face. “Relax, hon,” I said to her, “easy does it. It’s two friends of mine.”

            “How do you know?” she asked, trembling.

            I got up and squeezed her elbow before going to the door. “If it was Don,” I said, “he’d just kick it down.”

            McKinley and Shemansky came into the kitchen and stood uneasily, trying not to look at Grace. I reintroduced them and told them a little about what had happened to her; I told them more than half of what I knew, really. “What will you do while we’re all at the Green Frog?” Mark McKinley asked her. “You should come with us. Can you sing?”

            “No,” Grace said.

            “Her jaw is wired, idiot,” I said. “Gosh, I didn’t think about leaving her alone.”

            “Sunglasses,” Robert Shemansky said. “She can sit at the band table and wear sunglasses.”

            “It’ll take more than sunglasses,” I said. “If they thought I beat her up like that, some of those women would drag me out in the alley and dismember me.”

            “I can’t go out,” Grace said. “Forget it. I’ll stay here.”

            “No, you won’t,” I said. “Not unless we can think of someone to stay with you.”

            “What about that friend of yours?” Mark McKinley asked me. “The one you were with at Dr. Strange’s party?”

            “Mattie Halliday? Well, she has a gun,” I said. “On the minus side, she’s crazy as a bedbug and she hates Julia’s guts. I don’t think I’d know where to find her anyway.”

            “Who hates my guts?” said a voice from the stairway. “Hi, guys. Sorry I’m late.”

            “Mattie hates them,” I said. “Julia, help. We’re trying to figure out what to do with Grace.”

            “I don’t want to be a problem to you. Maybe I’d better leave,” Grace said.

            “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I clutched my head. “Don’t anybody panic. We’ll think of something.”

            “How’s Jerome?” Mark McKinley asked Julia.

            “I was going to tell you,” Julia said. “It’s bad.” We all stopped jittering and fell silent. “He’s awake,” she said melodramatically. “He came out of his coma. But—” She held up her hands to forestall celebration. “He appears not to be normal. His doctor says there may be permanent brain damage.”

            “You mean the carnival’s running but nobody’s in the ticket booth?” I asked.

            Julia stamped her foot; the dishes rattled. “Jonas! This is a man I’ve been sleeping with, for God’s sake!”

            “Sorry,” I said insincerely. Then I caught sight of Grace’s stricken face. I dropped to one knee before her. “Oh, shit, honey. I am sorry. I’m nothing but a blabbering fool.”

            “What’s the matter?” Julia asked suspiciously. “Don’t tell me she was sleeping with him, too?”

            “Grace fell in love in Las Vegas,” I said. “Near as I can figure, a guy named Don Stinns caught the two of them together, beat them nearly to death and then put her man in a stolen car and sent him off Hoover Dam. Am I getting close, Gracie?” She nodded. “So this man she’s in love with is lying in a hospital in Vegas, or else maybe dead. We haven’t found out yet.”

            “Lewis Rey’s car,” Robert Shemansky said. “That’s why the police came to his house. They wanted Cheryl to help identify the body.”

            Grace gasped. “Body?”

            “Driver. Not the body, I meant the driver. The driver.”

            “Cheryl, a.k.a. Mrs. Lewis Rey? Since when are you on a first-name basis with the Chairman’s wife?” Julia wanted to know. Shemansky reddened.

            “So Grace is potentially an eyewitness to a murder?” Mark McKinley asked me. “Just to make it clear why we should all leave town immediately.”

            “Still just potentially,” I said. “I think if the man had died, we’d have heard about it somehow. What’s his name, Gracie? The fellow who had all this luck?”

            “Charlie Olson,” she said. “He’s a tractor salesman from Green Bay, Wisconsin.”

            “Is he any good?” I asked. “I mean, can he play chess?”

            “Oh, no,” she said. “I can beat him four out of five games easily.” She smiled. “Some things he’s better at, though. No offense, Jonas.”

            “None taken,” I said. “Tomorrow we find out if he’s alive. Tonight you’re coming with us to the Green Frog. Julia, do you happen to have a blonde wig among the relics of your former life?” Julia nodded. “What about makeup? Anything to make her skin look darker?”

            “We can get some,” Julia said. “What do you have in mind?”

            “There’s no way we can lighten those bruises,” I said, “so we’ll darken the rest of her to match. She’ll look like the world’s tallest Filipino hooker.”

            “I don’t want to look like a hooker,” Grace said.

            “No one will bother you,” I promised. “It’s not much of a pickup bar. People mostly come to the Green Frog just to dance and buy drugs.”

            “If anyone gives you static,” Mark McKinley said, “Robert here will jump down and rip their kneecaps off.”

            “I’ll give them a blast with my harmonica,” Robert Shemansky said ominously. “Nobody at the Green Frog messes with me.”

            “Are we going to practice now?” Julia asked.

            “Sure,” Mark McKinley said. “Grace here can get a taste of what she’s in for.”

            “Do you do the Beach Boys?” Grace asked. “I love those California songs.”

            We looked at one another. “No, honey,” Julia said. She shook her head. “We don’t do Beach Boys.”

127. While Julia got busy. . . .

            While Julia got busy fixing Grace’s costume, I went out with a couple of sandwiches and a hairbrush to try to find Mattie. I spotted her van at Antelope Park, near the pavilion where we’d held the concert for Jerome. She was sitting atop a picnic table, glumly watching a group of Linoln High School students smoke reefer. She took the sandwiches without comment. “How are you doing, Mattie?” I asked her.

            “Not good,” she said. “I should go into detox.”

            “Your hair looks better today,” I said. “Are you going to church tomorrow?”

            “You must be joking,” she said. “They’d evict me.”

            “Probably not,” I said. “Even the Unitarians are always looking to find somebody they can save.”

            “I don’t want to be saved,” she said. “I don’t want to be brushed, either. That’s over.”

            “As you wish.” I sat with her while she ate. “Jerome’s brain-damaged,” I said. “You won’t have to worry about the bookstore reopening.”

            “Good,” she said. “I only wish I’d had something more to do with it.”

            “I still can’t figure out why they haven’t arrested you,” I said. “Did they question you at all?”

            “Yeah,” she said. “Then they let me go. I can’t figure it either.”

            “There’s some kind of women’s march next week,” I said. “Will you be going to that?”

            “If I’m sober,” she said. “I don’t want to make a fool of myself. It’s hard to tell. Have you seen Ted?”

            “No.”

            Mattie finished the second sandwich and handed me the wrappers. “Go back to your whores,” she said. “You can tell the fat bitch I’m planning to kill her.”

            “She’s aware of your sentiments,” I said. “Do you need blankets or anything?”

            “I don’t need anything from you,” she said. “I don’t trust you any more. In fact, once I’m finished with Ted I’ll be through with men entirely.”

            “What about your friends at the Emerson Center? Maybe they can help you.”

            “No one can help me,” she said. “I suppose I should thank you for trying, but since I don’t feel like it, why don’t you go?”

            “I’m going,” I said. “Will I see you on Wednesday at the march?”

            “Maybe,” she said.

            “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t?”

            “Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “I wasn’t myself the other day. What I’m having to endure is not a joke.”

            Back at my apartment, I was met by an elegant-looking black girl in a blonde wig; she wore a leather mini, black tights, and a white jersey blouse buttoned tightly at the wrists. “Grace, is that you?” I asked. “Those clothes look familiar.”

            Julia poked her head around the corner; she was in the bedroom getting into Captain Julia drag. “I borrowed some from Selva, since nothing I have would fit. How do you like her?”

            I swallowed hard. “Kind of turns me on, actually,” I said.

            “Wait till you see her in the sunglasses,” Julia said. “She looks like Diana Ross.”

            Wearing Selva’s clothes, Grace smelled of Selva; I wanted to throw her down right there and fuck her in the middle of the kitchen. Simultaneously, my body was aware of a deception, and the beast in me wanted to punch her ridiculous head off. Grace watched me narrowly as I smothered my impulses. I bowed formally from the waist. “And whom have I the honor of addressing?” I asked.

            Grace smiled mischievously. “May-vis,” she said, pronouncing the word in two musical tones like a backwards doorbell. “I’m an executive for a record company. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose which company it is.”

            “Hot damn,” I said to Julia. “We’re being scouted!”

            “Better find a new drummer fast,” Julia said from the other room. She was getting into character.

            “Better be nice to the old one,” I said. “Finish up in there, damn you. I need to change.”

            “Come ahead,” Julia said. “You think I’ll faint if I see your hairy ass?”

            There it was: The Slip. Grace took it like a trouper. I met her gaze and shrugged. “Never have yet,” I said.

128. Following our gig. . . .

            Following our gig at the Green Frog, Grace insisted that we drive out to have breakfast at Lederer’s. We were tidying up our equipment, moving it to the back of the stage, and she’d come onstage to evade a cluster of drunks who’d been attracted. Julia snorted her response. “That place,” she said. “I swore I’d never go there again.”

            “But I want to see if Sheila recognizes me,” Grace said.

            “Someone else may be there who’ll recognize you,” I reminded her. “Do you want to get us killed?”

            “Don doesn’t go there on weekends,” Grace said. “He’s either out selling or stealing something.”

            “I could use an adventure,” Mark McKinley said. “After all, I’m facing an academic career. Are you hungry, Robert?”

            “Hungry?” Robert Shemansky said. “Hungry.” He nodded as if answering himself. “Yes,” he announced to the rest of us. “I’m hungry.”

            “We can go to the Village Inn,” I said. “We can go to Don and Millie’s. They don’t like us at Lederer’s.”

            “Oh, let’s go,” Julia said. “Grace wants to see her friend. I just won’t eat anything.”

            “Don’t forget: May-vis,” Grace said.

            “Mavis,” Julia corrected herself. “I hope her friend waits on colored people.”

            We crammed ourselves into Julia’s wagon—the five of us, Dexter Coffey, and McKinley’s bass—and headed west on O Street. Soon the lights of the truck stop came in sight, and I got the feeling in the pit of my stomach that I used to get on the flight line. Grace, too, was quiet, though she held her wired chin high. The others kept chattering, bravely, I thought; of course, they hadn’t met The Goon. “One thing,” I said as we rolled to a stop. “Why is this necessary?”

            “It’s necessary,” Grace said. Julia nodded. “I’m not spending the rest of my life in your apartment, Jonas,” Grace said. “Here’s where I work. I need to start earning money again.”

            “You wouldn’t come here!” I gaped at her.

            “Looks like she is,” Dexter Coffey said wryly. “Let’s eat.”

            I made sure Stinns’s pickup was not in the lot before I followed them inside. I paused again near the cash register and spun a rack of greeting cards; a tasteless drawing caught my eye of a man in a hospital bed, bandaged from head to toe. I took the card from its cage and went over to the booth, where Dex, as usual, had slipped in next to Julia. Robert Shemansky had taken the seat beside Grace, leaving me and McKinley to pull up chairs at the corners. I passed the card across to Grace. “What do you think of this?” I asked.

            “It’s awful!” Julia said. “Jonas, don’t show her that! What’s the matter with you?”

            Grace passed it back without comment. “What I’m thinking,” I said, “is that we need to get in touch with Charlie Olson, if he’s able to be touched. Got a better idea?”

            “You could call the hospital,” Julia said.

            “Someone might trace the call.”

            “Who’s Charlie Olson?” Dexter asked. “He doesn’t write poems, by any chance?”

            “He sells tractors,” I said. “He’s currently enjoying an unexpected hospital stay in Las Vegas, we hope. Though there is a second possibility.”

            “What would you put for a return address?” Grace asked.

            “Not mine,” I said. “Sheila’s?” Grace glanced toward the counter and shook her head. “What about that hairdresser of yours?”

            “It has to be somebody Don won’t come after,” she said. “He has ways of finding out things.”

            “You could have him write in care of Jonas at the English Department,” Mark McKinley suggested.

            “Not me,” I said. “That’s a straight lead to Mavis, here. What about you?”

            “I don’t think so,” Mark McKinley said. “Robert and I would prefer to remain marginal in this matter.”

            “I’ve got it,” Julia said. “The cops already know Lewis Rey’s involved. He could write her in care of Professor Lewis Rey, Chair, Department of English. We’ll tell Rey on Monday that there’s a letter coming.”

            “We’ll tell him there might be one,” I said. “That sounds OK. You’ll have to be the one to talk to him, though; he’s all p.o.’d at me on account of Leonard.”

            Sheila, Grace’s friend, came up to take our orders. She was efficient, professional, and cold as ice. When it came Grace’s turn, Grace ordered an omelet, waited until Sheila had written it all down, and then changed her order to a milkshake. The little waitress didn’t bat an eye; only the scribbling of her pencil on the pad got louder. She left with no sign of having recognized any of us. “Bravo!” Mark McKinley said softly.

            “I used my regular voice,” Grace said. “Except for this darned wire, that is.”

            “We see what we expect to see,” Dexter Coffey said. “Maybe that goes for hearing, too.”

            Julia had ordered dry toast. “Julia,” I said, “what happened when you went to the doctor on Monday? Did you find out anything about your stomach?”

            “My stomach’s getting bigger,” Julia said. “The doctor thinks I’ll feel better in three to six weeks.”

            “Did he— Did she say what the trouble is?”

            Julia lowered her eyes and seemed to blush a little. “I’d rather not discuss it now,” she said. “If that’s all right with you.”

            As we ate, it was obvious that Robert Shemansky enjoyed sitting next to Grace. That was fine with me; Grace in blackface, wearing Selva’s clothes, was a little too much. Her makeup had been completely convincing in the dim light of the Frog, but in Lederer’s it looked oily and blotchy. Sheila disliked blacks enough that she hadn’t wanted to look at her too closely, but while we were eating, the cook came out of the kitchen and walked among the tables, a large, doughy-looking fellow in quiet shoes. He hovered above us for a moment. “How’s everything here, folks?” he asked.

            “Fine,” Julia answered. “It’s hard to ruin toast.”

            “You, miss,” the cook addressed Grace. “How’s your milkshake?”

            She looked up at him and smiled, showing her temporary caps. “It’s good,” she said. “I’d rather be having a rib-eye, though.”

            “You must have been in an accident,” the cook said. “I hope no one was seriously hurt.”

            “Not yet,” Grace said, “but they might be.”

            I was livid. After he left, I wrote on a napkin and passed her the note: You shouldn’t have talked to him. She read it and shrugged. “He’s a friend, Jonas,” she said softly. “He kind of watches out for me. Anyway, somebody has to know.”

            “You think he recognized you?”

            “Sure. Didn’t you think so?”

            “Damn!” I pushed my plate away. “Eat up, everyone. We’re getting out of here.”

            “What’s the rush?” Dexter Coffey asked. “Julia hasn’t finished her toast.”

            “Mortality, mortality,” I replied anxiously. “Things occur; people get dead. Do all of you think you’re going to live forever?”

            “No,” Robert Shemansky replied calmly. “But we have time for breakfast.”

            “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Grace said, “but I’m going to enjoy my milkshake. If Jonas is too nervous to eat, he can wait outside.”

            I was so terrified and angry that I did just what she said, left money on the table and went out. Julia’s wagon was locked up tight, so I had to walk around muttering while they took their time. Finally, I remembered I had a joint under my hat, and I went off into the dark and lit that. It gave me enough perspective to see how afraid I was. Lincoln, Nebraska was not that big a town. If The Goon knew I’d been hiding Grace, he’d find me, kick me to shreds, and piss on the pieces.

            While I was smoldering in the parking lot, Grace told the rest of them how she’d ditched him. I got the story later.

            After Stinns put Olson in Rey’s Cadillac and vanished, Grace sat in the motel room, trying to hold her broken face together with a towel. Though she never lost consciousness, she was in too much pain to use the telephone and unable to summon the will to walk to the office. Stinns came back after a time, alone and without the car, took her by the arm, and force-marched her to the hotel and casino where the chess tournament was being held, a distance of a mile or so. There he’d gotten a cab, put her in it, given the driver fifty dollars, and ordered him to circle the hotel. In spite of Grace’s pleading, the driver had obeyed Stinns. Within thirty minutes, Stinns had stolen another car and cleared the hotel room of their belongings; he left without checking out, as they probably would have done in any case. They drove without stopping, except for gas, from Las Vegas to Omaha. Once there, Stinns stowed their suitcases in a bus-station locker and bought tickets to Lincoln. He either kept his hand on Grace’s arm or kept her in sight at all times. By this time Grace felt she was in danger for her own life, but the thought of being held indefinitely, terrorized by Stinns within the confines of her trailer, was more unbearable than death, and she concocted a plan.

            Once inside the Trailways depot in Lincoln, Grace headed for the restroom before Stinns could stop her. Rather than going into the women’s room, however, she went into the men’s and locked herself in a stall, climbing up on the stool so her feet would not be visible. Stinns, as she hoped, had lost sight of her momentarily; without knowing, he followed her into the men’s, relieved himself quickly, and then waited outside the women’s room, getting worked up into more and more of a sweat. Finally he began an argument with the station manager; when she heard the two of them go into the women’s room across the hall, Grace fled and somehow managed to get to my apartment, where she fell into the arms of Julia and collapsed in terror.

            Somebody at the table asked if no one in the bus station had tried to help her; to which Grace replied that everyone there behaved as if limping women with obliterated faces were an everyday occurrence.

129. Saturday, April 11th, 1970. . . .

            Saturday, April 11th, 1970, will be annotated in the calendar of American history as the day of the launching of the Apollo 13 space mission that, due to an explosion two days out, turned into the ultimate busted camping trip. It was the day that Julia and I put our heads together and mailed Charles Olson, in care of the hospital, a coded message in the form of a tacky get-well card, using Lewis Rey’s campus mailbox as the return address. The coded part was the picture of a chess pawn that we cut from a magazine and pasted at the bottom of the card.

            The other problem we discussed on Saturday was what to do with Julia’s marijuana, still sitting in its DOPE-labeled suitcase in the furnace room. It represented an investment of a hundred and twenty dollars; the safe and obvious solution, to wholesale it off to a professional dealer, seemed unattractive because Julia’s arrangements with her family no longer included an allowance. On the other hand, a suitcase full of dope is not so easy to get rid of an ounce at a time. Getting caught with more than one ounce would net us jail sentences, not to mention all the coarse things Brenda would say.

            Unexpectedly, Grace came to our rescue. She said (this was a shock to me) that she’d already been dealing amphetamines for Stinns across the truck-stop counter. Grace had more practical knowledge of the illegal drug business than all our brainy graduate-school friends put together; she suggested that we clean the stuff, weigh it and bag it, and said she’d dress as Mavis again and see what she could do. She proposed to sell what she could in a single night and flush the rest. If caught, she said she’d feel safer in jail than she did in my apartment, since jail was one place where Stinns couldn’t get at her.

            Once Julia and I got over our amazement, we bought ourselves some baggies and went to work; we spent the afternoon squatted in front of the TV, stripping the leaves, bracts, flowers and seeds from a single, sprawling eight-foot plant of cannabis that had been crumpled and compressed for shipment into the form of a brick. The work was messy and tedious, and resulted in more loose bulk in the form of twigs than we’d had to begin with. After we’d stuffed the twigs back into the suitcase and admired our stack of 5/8-ounce “ounces,” Grace cooked us all a meal of weenies and sauerkraut, with boiled potatoes and peas; Julia ate the sauerkraut, went in the bathroom and threw it up, and then came back and finished her meal as if nothing was unusual. All of a sudden it was time to dress for our gig.

            Of course I had to roll a number just to make sure what we were selling was smokable. Since my band clothes were my everyday clothes with the addition of a vest and hat, I had no problem getting ready on time. Julia, who’d sampled a puff or two, took forever; Grace didn’t touch any, but she applied her Mavis makeup with great care. The result was that McKinley and Shemansky had begun to warm up by the time we arrived at the Frog. Grace carried the ounces in a purse that belonged to Julia, and when they saw that enormous purse come in the door, pupil-dilated eyes all across the room lit up in comprehension.

            That night, while the four of us thumped and honked and moaned, Grace, cool as a little black cucumber, calmly sold four hundred and sixty dollars’ worth of weed. It was the performance of a lifetime and our most profitable night ever at the Green Frog. The take went fifty-fifty, half the profit to Grace and half to Julia; we left the suitcase full of twigs and the three remaining baggies in the dumpster behind Russ’s IGA. Then we bought ourselves some frozen pizza and went home, where Dexter, Mark, and Robert had unloaded the band equipment. While we waited for the pizza to bake, I picked enough flakes out of the carpet to get us stoned.

130. On Sunday I lay. . . .

            On Sunday I lay awake in the furnace room until I heard the alarm go off in my apartment. Then I put on my pants and went to see who’d gotten up. I met Julia looking very much out of sorts. “I’m not exactly ready for company,” she said grumpily.

            “I’m not exactly company,” I said. “Are you going to see Jerome?”

            “Yeah. Want to come with?”

            “Shall I make us coffee first?”

            “For yourself only. I can’t drink it.”

            Julia asked me to drive her car. As we pulled into the parking lot of Lincoln General, she said, “Selva gave me a message for you the other day. I forgot to relay it.”

            My heart did a barrel roll. “What was it?”

            “The books you stole from Leonard are back on the shelf. If you still want them.”

            “What kind of message is that?” I asked angrily. “What does that have to do with anything?”

            “Well, don’t take it out on me.”

            Lincoln General was among a majority of buildings put up in the last half of the 20th Century in the clear and apparent faith that the nuclear end was near. The basement had been dug for the apocalypse, while the superstructure looked as if it was made of Styrofoam. Jerome was with the stroke patients on the seventh floor; a locked door blocked off the corridor, and we had to press a button and wait to be let in. “Good morning!” said the enthusiastic nurse, a rosy woman with naturally white-blonde hair. I felt Julia stiffen at the sight of her.

            We followed the nurse down a long hallway decorated with works of art created by the brain-damaged. She stopped at one of the doors and held it open for us. “Ta-daa!” she sang. “Jerome! Someone wants to see you!”

            “He’s not deaf,” Julia said; the nurse stared back at her as if she’d spoken Chinese. As the woman departed, Julia said, not too softly, “Hell is full of such people.”

            “She’s only stupid,” I objected.

            “Fine,” Julia said. “Ask her for a date.”

            The object of our visit sat waiting for us on the edge of the bed, a slight man with a bald, pink, narrow head. Jerome seemed to have aged twenty years; at the same time, there was something childish in the way his stockinged feet massaged and caressed each other like little animals. “Hi, guys,” he said colorlessly. “It’s a lovely day for a picnic.”

            “I didn’t know you liked picnics, Jerome,” I said. He looked up at me blankly.

            “Jerome, this is Jonas Smith,” Julia said. “He used to come into the bookstore sometimes. Remember?”

            “The bookstore,” Jerome said. “Sure, I remember. Jonas Smith.” We shook hands; he kept pumping my hand up and down, as if unsure how the ritual should end. “OK,” he said finally, releasing me. “Nice day for a picnic, Jonas Smith.”

            “What’s this picnic shit?” I asked Julia. “Did you ever hear him say that before?”

            “Not until yesterday,” she said. “Jerome, has the doctor been in to see you?”

            “I don’t think so,” he said cheerfully. “I don’t remember any doctor.”

            “You can see how he is,” Julia said. “I don’t know what to do, Jonas.”

            I put my arm around her hefty shoulders. “Count to ten, Jerome,” I said. “Can you count to ten?”

            “Sure,” he said. “I can count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I can count to fifteen; eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. How’s that?”

            “Great,” I said. “You should have no problem keeping track of the books.”

            “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. That’s enough counting, don’t you think?”

            “That’s a lot of counting,” I agreed.

            “Plenty of numbers,” he said. “There should be enough for everybody.”

            “Everybody who?”

            “Everybody at the picnic.”

            I was saved from having to cuddle Julia by the white-haired nurse, who came in breezily as before. “It’s a pretty day, Jerome,” she shouted, evidently without irony. “Are you ready to go for a walk with me?”

            “Sure, I’ll walk,” he said. “Where do we go?”

            “Down the hall to the nurses’ station. I’m supposed to weigh you. OK?”

            “Okey, dokey,” he said. He got to his feet. “Okey, dokey, hokey, pokey. Jokey, soaky, boaky. That’s all I can think of.” The nurse led him away, babbling cooperatively. Julia threw her arms around me and cracked a couple of my ribs.

            “Weird,” I said.

            “He’s gone,” she sobbed. “He’s worse than dead. Someone should pay for this.”

            “Someone will have to pay for it,” I said pragmatically. “Probably for years and years and years.”

            “Jonas, what if they release him? What will I do then?”

            “Call Bob Warner,” I said. “In fact, you should call him now. Does he know this is happening?”

            “I can’t call him. He’s probably still in bed.”

            “He’ll wake up fast,” I said. “We’re looking at maybe two hundred thousand dollars’ damages here.”

            “Jonas!” She pulled back and looked at me sharply. “I don’t want money. How could you think that of me?”

            “Don’t worry,” I said, “you won’t get any. They’ll put it in a trust for Jerome. Warner will take his cut, though. You’d better call him. The hospital will dump Jerome as soon as he can walk. They might do it today.”

            “Where’d you learn to think like a bureaucracy?” she asked.

            “I was in the Air Force. Make that call now.”

            My hunch about the hospital’s intentions was confirmed when the doctor came in on his Sunday morning rounds. He examined Jerome rapidly. “We’ve got his pneumonia under control,” he said briskly, as if pneumonia were the problem. “He would probably do just as well at home.”

            “He has no home,” Julia said. “Our attorney is en route.”

            That took the chitchat right out of Jerome’s doctor; he left to finish his tour of the floor, then returned in half an hour to confront Bob Warner. A man from the hospital administration arrived, and the three of them went into a huddle in the nearest unused room, a makeshift “meditation room” off the corridor. After a time Julia was sent for, and I went along as well. They wanted to know if she was Jerome’s next-of-kin, yes or no. She said that she was not; when they wanted to know whom to contact, Julia gave an odd little glance at her lap. “Jerome’s parents both died at Treblinka,” she said. “The only relative I know of is an elderly aunt who lives in Israel. She does not speak English and has never met Jerome. I’m not sure whether she herself is mentally competent. He was raised in a Jewish orphanage in Chicago. Aside from the aunt, I know of no one you can contact.”

            “You were his business partner, then?” the hospital administrator suggested.

            “I was his tenant,” Julia said. “I was also a part-time employee in the business.”

            “Surely there was some, uh, personal relationship,” the administrator pressed.

            “No,” Julia said. “Absolutely not.” Warner looked pleased; the administrator and the doctor pursed their lips. “I might suggest,” Julia went on, “that you contact the city attorney or the chief of police, since Jerome was in their custody when he became ill.”

            “They’ve already informed us that they’re dismissing all charges,” the administrator said.

            “That’s irrelevant,” Julia said firmly. Warner smiled and nodded. “You can’t just set him out on the curb,” Julia said. “We’re determined to see that doesn’t happen. I’m determined, and Mr. Warner is determined. Are you acquainted with Mr. Warner?”

            The administrator smiled uneasily. “We’ve met,” he said.

            Bob Warner placed his manicured hands on his knees. “I’m sure no one here wants to see a lawsuit,” he said blandly. “Obviously the hospital and the City of Lincoln will find it in their interests to provide care for Jerome until neurological and psychiatric studies can be made. Then, with the information in hand, we will see what must be done.”

            “But who will pay?” the administrator asked in an aggrieved tone. “Who will pay? No, no. The patient must be discharged.”

            “Permit me to make clear to you what Mr. Warner just said.” Julia leaned forward to face him. “If Jerome gets put on the street, we’ll make boot tracks on your neck. The boots we wear will have hobnails in them, and a defecating dog will be involved.”

            The hospital administrator was the first to look away. “We heard what he said.” He sighed and glanced wearily at the doctor. “Mr. Weld has a home with us for as long as he cares to stay. That is, until more suitable housing can be found.”

            “That’s better,” Julia said. “If you really wanted to be nice to him, you could take him on a picnic.”

            “We’ll take him on a picnic,” the administrator said. “I’ll make the sandwiches. I could use some natural vitamin D myself.”

            A little later, on the short drive home, Julia began to cry. “You were tough,” I said approvingly. “You were tougher than Brenda. What’s happening with you lately? You’ve really changed a lot from last semester.”

            “I’ll have to get tougher yet,” she said. “Jonas, I’m pregnant. I’m amazed you haven’t figured it out; you can be as dense as a post when you want to be.”

            “Pregnant?” I heard the screeching of brakes; some cars honked insistently. I took a shaky breath. “I’ve got four thousand dollars in a CD,” I said. “You have to get rid of it.”

            “You just ran a red light,” Julia said. “Jonas, I’m not sure it’s yours. I don’t think you have the right to tell me.”

            “But Jerome—! Jerome can’t—!” I swerved to miss an oncoming car—I was on a one-way street—turned at the nearest intersection and, completely flustered, turned right at the next block, sending us the wrong way down a one-way for the second time. I pulled over at a gas station and stopped the car. “You have to get rid of it,” I repeated. “Jerome is no more ready to be a father than I am.”

            “Jerome has nothing,” Julia said. “He doesn’t even have himself. You’re not telling me what to do, Jonas. I have to decide.”

            “How long have you known?”

            “I’ve had an inkling,” she said. “I’ve only known for certain since last Monday.”

            “You’ve known since Monday and you didn’t tell me!” I laid my forehead on the steering wheel and closed my eyes; I saw Selva Andersen waving from a train that was pulling away from the station, while I stood on the platform beside a bloated Julia, with clamoring dark-haired children surrounding us. Each of them had an unrepaired cleft palate.

            “I wanted time to think,” she said. “I wanted to get it clear in my own mind, but it seems I can’t.” She tugged at a strand of hair and put it in her mouth. “I think if I knew which of you it was, I’d know what to do.”

            “You have to get rid of it,” I said fervently; I beat the steering wheel with my fists. “You have to.”

            “Take me home,” Julia said. “If you’re waiting for me to make up my mind, we’ll be here till Hanukkah.” She laughed. “Of course, it’ll be too late by then.”

            “It’s never too late,” I snarled. “I can always drown the bastard.”

            “Don’t use that word,” Julia said coldly. “If Brenda hears you say that word, you will be dead.”

131. On Monday, Julia and Grace. . . .

             On Monday, Julia and Grace took their marijuana money to Omaha to buy clothes. Grace had nothing but what she’d been wearing when she’d arrived at the door; Julia accepted this challenge with pleasure, and they mapped out a day of shopping. That evening the two of them invaded the apartment with their packages, and while Grace tried on her new outfits, I went out to walk off a little jealousy. I could see that, as she pondered each effect, it was Charlie Olson Grace was thinking of and not of me. Monday was also the day an oxygen tank exploded, putting the Apollo 13 astronaut-pilots in jeopardy, and as I strode down F Street toward Selva and Adrian’s, I looked up at the emerging stars and wished the three men well. It was not at all clear how they might survive.

            Lights were on in the upper floor of the old judge’s house, but no figures were visible against the blinds. I deduced that they were in the bedroom. I imagined Selva’s legs raised receptively—pale, of course they would be pale—and Adrian’s buttocks humping busily away. How many hours out of the twenty-four available did they spend in that position? It must be a considerable number. Above all, I envied Adrian the pleasure of seeing his lover naked in an aroused state. She surely did not punish him with darkness as she’d done me.

            I realized that I could have gone a different way, up 12^th Street to Casey’s for instance. I turned north at the end of the block and walked in the direction of the Capitol. Its square and furrowed tower was starkly lit, with the floodlights picking up mist in the cooling air. I stood on the sidewalk and looked up toward the dome, toward the musclebound Sower with his scrotum full of oats. This building, more than any other, stood for America to me; I had visited its steps in protest, had viewed its legislators in their biennial bicker, had read the names of counties inscribed in its cornices. America the Good, America the Well-Intentioned, America the Mistaken. It did not seem like a country that would bomb illiterate rice farmers just to show its own boneheaded corn farmers that it didn’t like Communism.

            America the Baffling. As with Selva, you were asked to fuck her with your eyes closed.

            I remembered that there was to be a demonstration the following day; some sort of Women’s March. Abortion rights, probably. Since I definitely needed Julia to have an abortion, I decided I would go.