BOOK TWENTY-THREE: LOOSE ENDS
217. I fled northeast. . . .
I fled northeast toward Omaha on Highway 6, a route that passed the soybean mill on the edge of Lincoln. The stolid tanks bulked skyward in their cloud of steam, deep gray against indigo wisps of far-off cirrus. Already the sky was lightening at the horizon. I could look forward to another day with very little sleep.
Highway 6 bisects the towns that the Interstate misses: Waverly, Greenwood, Ashland. I was grateful not to see a cop in any of them. My thinking in heading for Iowa was roughly as follows. An Iowan takes the same attitude toward Nebraska that Nebraskans adopt toward South Dakota, that unlike his state, it’s an illiterate boondocks where nothing newsworthy happens. If an Iowan should hear of a grisly murder taking place in Nebraska, he or she will likely mutter “What do you expect, it’s where they cast Deliverance” and go about his or her business involving pigs. Further, most western Iowans get their news from the Des Moines Register, whereas Nebraskans get theirs from the Omaha World-Herald. I thought I’d be less likely to be featured in the Des Moines Register. It was true that my Nebraska license plate would arouse suspicion in the xenophobic towns. I could offset that by keeping near the border, or I could steal a set of Iowa plates. I decided not to worry about it until I was actually in Iowa.
I stopped at the Sapp Brothers Truck Stop outside Omaha, where I found a pay phone and, with reluctance, dialed the number of my own apartment back in Lincoln. If the cops hadn’t already gotten Julia out of bed, they would soon be doing so. I might as well be the first to tell her I was on the lam.
“Hello?” Her voice was groggy; apparently they hadn’t disturbed her yet.
“Julia, you know who this is,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Jonas!” She took a second to collect her wits. “Are you calling from the hospital?” she asked cautiously.
“No.”
“Oh, God damn you,” she moaned. “The minute the phone rang, I knew it would be something like that.” She paused for reflection. “Jonas, you have to turn yourself in,” she said. “You’re considered dangerous. Honey, they will shoot you.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I don’t like them.”
“Then keep out of sight, for God’s sake. You can hide at my parents’ house. They’ve taken Sarah to Denver for the weekend because they don’t want her to breathe the same air as a pregnant blues singer.”
“You might turn me in,” I said. “For my own good, I mean.”
“Jonas, I couldn’t do that,” Julia said. “I have too much respect for your independence. Please believe me.”
“You can tell me where their key is,” I said. “I don’t promise to use it.”
“It’s under a picnic table behind the house; there’s a little plastic box nailed to the wood. You’ll find it. Where are you?”
“Not in Lincoln. Is your gig still on tonight?”
“Yes it is. Funny thing, we need a drummer. Greg exposed himself to a vice-squad officer Thursday night.”
“I wish I could help.”
“Jonas, don’t even think of it,” she said. “Go up to Palindrome or whatever it is. Maybe you’ll feel safe to turn yourself in up there.”
“Did the cops call on you last night?” I asked.
“Your cousin was here,” Julia said. “They were nice enough, considering. They’re afraid of you because they think you’re a cannibal.”
“I’m afraid too.” I could hear her continuing to cry.
“Jonas, I love you,” she said. “Think of that and stay alive for me.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “I’ll try to stay in touch. If my father calls, tell him I’m OK for the time being.”
“Jonas, you are not OK,” Julia wailed. “Go to the police!” I hung up the receiver and got myself out of there. If Selva’s line was tapped, mine could be, too. I’d talked too long already.
(blank line)
218. I gave the Steins’. . . .
I gave the Steins’ in Omaha a wide berth. In fact I skirted the whole city to the west and north, intending to go to Blair and cross over into Iowa on the Highway 30 bridge. But as I came around the north side of Omaha, I saw the lights of the airport, which made me remember all the cars in long-term parking there. I thought I might find a pickup truck with Iowa plates. Then I remembered the hulk that had been sitting in the parking lot at the Three-Legged Dog; I turned south past the airport and drove into Carter Lake, to see whether Wide Load Wilson had had it towed.
The car, a Pontiac from the 50s, was still sitting there, two of its tires gone flat. I glanced toward the front of the Dog—all was dark—and found a screwdriver and stripped the Iowa license plates, which were expired. They were no good to me anyway, since my pickup truck needed truck plates, but I took them along to the airport to use as dummies. Next I drove back north and let myself into the long-term lot, and cruised until I found what I wanted, a truck from Iowa. I checked the stickers on the plates to be sure they were valid, and parked nearby and quickly switched, hiding the new plates under my seat and installing the Iowa car plates in their place. I then moved my pickup to a distant part of the lot, and got out and walked to the terminal, where I hoped to find breakfast.
The early light and the smell of jet fuel stirred something in me, and I felt a sudden longing to be back in Nam, where life was simple—where you flew your brains out, drank lots of awful booze, and had sex with tiny women you needn’t care a damn about, and who likewise didn’t care a damn about you. In America, life was crazy; you floundered around until you whacked some wino out of plain frustration. Then you had to spend the last remnant of your freedom wearing out the highway.
“Good morning,” I said to the cop who guarded the entrance. By now it was approaching six o’clock; the place was waking up, with a line already forming at the Frontier Airlines ticket counter. I watched two Braniff stewardesses high-heel by, and followed their legs in the direction of the airport restaurant, my mouth watering for coffee. Before entering the restaurant proper, I noticed a man stocking newspapers in a dispenser; I peeked over his shoulder to scan the headlines. Mine was not the top story, but I’d made the front page: VIETNAM PILOT SOUGHT IN BIZARRE KILLING. Anyway I supposed it was me. I performed a U-turn, forgot about the coffee, and left the terminal by the same door I’d come in. “Fuck,” I said. “I can’t even stop at a restaurant.” I began to wonder where I would buy gas, how I would eat.
I crossed the Missouri River east of Blair, Nebraska, and immediately pulled off into the willows to change license plates. Since I lacked proper registration, I had to think what I’d do if the Iowa patrol stopped me. I decided I’d take it as a signal to give up peacefully. No sense playing out Memphis Billy’s idiot death by ending my life in a senseless skirmish in Iowa. The change of tags accomplished, I headed farther east, looking for a town where the Omaha World-Herald hadn’t been distributed. I realized I’d have to check the Des Moines paper; I thought it might be wise to shave off my whiskers, but I’d left Lincoln without so much as a clean pair of socks.
I turned north at the little hamlet of California, Iowa, and drove for a few miles alongside the DeSoto Bend Wildlife Refuge. Across the road, the corn stood eight feet tall, its reddish tassels glorious, backlit like women’s hair by the morning sun. I saw rooster pheasants crossing over into the cornfields. I knew that if I kept heading northward, sooner or later I’d come out on I-29, which would take me to Sioux City; I also knew that, on a typical day of my father’s, he might be heading east toward the Sioux City stockyards. I knew where he’d stop for coffee when he arrived. I decided to go there, just to try to catch a glimpse of him through the cafe window. I wouldn’t dare say hello—he’d turn me in in a second—but I thought that seeing the old buzzard might ease my heart.
Soon the ka-thump, ka-thump of four-lane paving was in my ears. At seventy-five, the trip from north Omaha to the stockyards in Sioux City takes an hour and fifteen minutes; I took it slower because I had no reason to hurry. Drowsy, my mind wandering, I began to notice the smell of smoke that clung about me, the taste of burnt plastic on the back of my tongue. I reached up to touch my beard and hair; my fingers told me I’d received a shampoo while in the hospital. Still, an oily residue came up whenever I cleared my throat. I smelled partly like a smoldering rural dump, and partly like Tarkington.
Ka-thump, ka-thump. The expansion joints spoke to me: You’re fucked, you’re fucked. Sadness descended, a vast and fleshy butt, a wino-smelling ass as broad as the planet. Like a gnat on a toilet seat, I would have to suffer it. If only I hadn’t done one thing or the other, or the thing before— But I had done those things, and all my hopes lay buried under the weight of them.
I knew I could relieve the weight of my deeds by abbreviating the future. Under the stress of day-to-day risk, many pilots developed suicidal urges, though few caved in to them. I myself had only heard of this phenomenon; I had not been troubled by it. I had a lust for variety and a combative approach to life, which stood me well in troubled times. Whether I possessed the courage to survive a prison routine, where time revolved like a wheel on a featureless track—that I did not know. I imagined it to be a treadmill of empty days, like the weeks of rainy season when we were weathered-in in our hooches and couldn’t fly. I foresaw that I might have even less congenial roommates than the odd-duck fallen-rich-boy Braithwaite.
An air-horn blatted in my ear, and I shook my head to clear it; I had weaved half into the passing lane. Sleepy. I wished for a joint of marijuana to clear my brain, some smoke to take the smoke-taste out of my mouth. Anything at all to make the bright world seem to belong to me again.
(blank line)
219. The stockyards at Sioux City. . . .
The stockyards at Sioux City have an architecture unique to themselves. The cattle are penned in round concrete structures that spiral upward like the parking ramps of Hell. Day or night, at any time of year, you’ll see a line of semi-trailer trucks waiting to unload. The bawling of desperate cattle fills the air, along with the odors of diesel smoke and shit and commerce. Across the street is a cafe frequented by truckers and livestock buyers, with plenty of extra parking for the idling semis; I combed the vast parking lot looking for my father’s rig. The only truck I saw with a Dune County license was a fancy Peterbilt pulling a beat-up trailer with no company markings. I knew the tractor didn’t belong to my dad—too new—and the trailer was not familiar. Since he hadn’t been waiting in the unloading line, I concluded that he must’ve driven elsewhere that day. Nevertheless, I decided to risk a glance inside.
A man my age, a little shorter than me, displaying a beard and wearing a leather hat, sat by himself in a corner booth, putting away a plateful of scrambled eggs. I passed quietly among the tables and approached him. “Hello, Marion,” I said. “Mind if I sit down?”
Marion Saunders glanced up quickly, then back at his plate. “Sure,” he said. “I mean, go ahead. Sit.”
“A free country, eh?” I said, sliding into the booth. “For most people, anyway.”
“I didn’t say that,” Marion Saunders said. “I’m glad to see you, only— Well. I guess you won’t cut me up and eat me or anything.” He put down his fork. “Can’t say I expected to run into you,” he said.
“Me you either,” I said. “Bad news travels fast. Have you seen a newspaper?”
“No, but your name’s been on the radio. Pretty big story.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”
The waitress came and poured me coffee without asking. Then she took out her pad. “I’ll have what he’s having,” I said.
“Three scrambled with diced ham? White or wheat toast?”
“Wheat,” I said. “Bring me hash browns, too. I don’t know when I’ll eat again.” The waitress departed. “That’s the truth,” I added softly. “This life of a fugitive sucks already, and I’ve only been indulging in it a couple of hours.”
He gave me an unsympathetic look. “I suppose it does. I guess if it was me, I’d— You know. Walk in somewhere. Give myself up.”
“I still need time to think about it.”
“You won’t get the benefit of the doubt, is the thing,” he said. “Somebody’ll shoot you, and I don’t mean only cops.”
“The stuff on the radio is that bad?”
“They don’t make you out to be Mother Teresa.”
I buried my face in my hands. “Got a shaving kit?”
“In my truck,” Marion said. “I’ll give it to you. It won’t help much, though. Maybe you could make yourself shorter.”
“I don’t want to be shorter. I want to disappear completely for a hundred years. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“Since Nam,” he said, “I believe what I see in front of me. Except when I’m tired or late at night; then I can’t trust that.”
“I wonder what I’d come back as,” I said. “Probably a jackass.” The waitress brought my scrambled eggs, and I ate them greedily, even though I had begun to weep. “Sorry,” I said to Marion, snuffling. “I must be a sight.”
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “You’ve got your back to most people in the room.”
“Have you seen Dad this morning?”
“I expect he’s staying close to home,” Marion Saunders said. “He’s probably hoping to get a call from you.”
I thought about my father, staying home. A trucker’s reputation depends on his being where he’s supposed to be, and my father drove sick, drove when he had the flu, took antibiotics and drove when he had pneumonia. The only other time I knew him to cancel a run was when he had to go to St. Louis for Uncle Bertie’s funeral. “I wouldn’t know what to say to him,” I said finally. “He thought he’d be having a college professor for a son, not a fugitive.”
“You might give it some thought,” Marion Saunders said. “I can carry a message, though it’d be better if you’d call.”
I ate everything down to the last crumb of toast, spooned each bit of sweet jelly out of the little flat containers. “A person can’t go backwards,” I said. “I sure as hell would if I could. Tell my father I love him, and I’m sorry with all my heart. I can’t say what I’ll do.” I pushed aside my plate and rose with my check; I made my shamefaced way past all the truckers, hoping none would know me. Marion followed. When the waitress, a plain-faced woman about Grace’s age, came to the register, I fumbled out my wallet like a man too shy to talk.
“How was everything?” she asked me as she rang it up.
I forced a smile and gave her a dollar tip. “Food was good,” I said. “Service was lousy.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“You were supposed to kiss me.”
I walked with Marion Saunders to the idling Peterbilt. “Nice rig,” I said.
“I should’ve bought a cheaper one,” he said. “It’s rough making those payments. I see now why your old man drives junk.” He pulled himself up into the cab, where he rummaged around a few seconds before handing me down a shaving kit. “I’m giving you my stash,” he said. “You look in need of something.”
“Let me pay you.” I got out my billfold and held forty dollars up toward him.
“Keep your money,” he said. “Pay me back some other time.”
“Thanks,” I said guiltily, knowing he needed the cash. “You can tell my father I didn’t do all they say I did. What I did was bad enough, and I’m ashamed of it. Tell him not to bother to leave a light on for me.”
“I’ll tell him I saw you,” Marion Saunders said. “I hope you can find a place to sleep, like a nice county jail.”
“You haven’t been in one,” I said. “Drive safely.”
“Always do.” He arranged himself like a hen settling onto her nest, and tugged the brim of his leather hat. “Nice hat,” he called down to me. “Looks like mine.” He gave the big engine a couple of bumps, ground the transmission into first, and pulled away, looking back at me in the rear-view. I held the shaving kit up gratefully and waved. He tooted the air horn and pulled out onto the highway, his trailer dripping cowshit, rattling empty.
(blank line)
220. Good citizen or fugitive. . . .
Good citizen or fugitive, I did not like Iowa. I crossed back over to the Nebraska side and drove south to Macy. Macy’s a tiny town on the way between two nowheres, an hour’s drive north of Omaha on Highway 75. Pretty much like Palemon but with a few more Indians, it sits just off the edge of the Omaha Reservation, and I thought that once I got onto the res I’d be unlikely to be seen by the Nebraska State Patrol, since reservations are patrolled by tribal police. (Major crimes are investigated by the FBI, but I didn’t expect to run into an FBI agent at Macy.)
I bought gas at a little mom-and-pop station and turned west off the highway onto a gravel road. The road quickly dwindled to a one-lane track that bumped along into a shallow canyon and ended in a grove of cottonwoods, where an oily little creek meandered among ancient car bodies. I shut off my pickup and got out gratefully. I seemed to be alone. I carried Marion Saunders’ dopp kit to where a dead log overhung the filthy creek; I straddled the log in the warm sun, killed a couple of deer flies, and unzipped the kit to see what I would find.
In addition to his razor, nail clippers, and hair brush, Marion had given me a half dozen neatly-rolled joints, along with a little packet of something that looked like hashish. There were also some tablets of benzedrine, marked with white crosses. I threw the bennies into the creek—due to a prejudice of my father’s, I never used speed—lit one of the joints, and took out a little pair of scissors. I began to whack off my beard, a little at a time, letting the clumps of whiskers fall in the water and be slowly spun away downstream. I was still engaged with this twenty minutes later when a twenty-two caliber rifle discharged nearby, scaring me so badly that I nearly fell off the log.
I tossed the last spark of the joint into the creek and turned cautiously to look behind me. An Indian man maybe fifty years of age stood holding the rifle, while two little children, a boy and a girl, ran rapidly toward a disturbance in the reeds. In a second they emerged again, the boy carrying a cottontail rabbit by the legs, dead but still twitching. They brought it to the man, who examined it gravely, then turned to glance in my direction. “A lucky shot,” he said apologetically. “I almost missed.”
“I thought you were shooting at me,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled a little. “Not today,” he said. “Do you live around here?”
“Nah,” I said. “Just passing through. I stopped to look at your creek.”
“I wouldn’t drink out of it,” he said. “You might get sick.” He glanced toward the scissors in my hand. “Do you want to shave?”
“Yeah.”
“Come to my house and use the bathroom,” he said. “You better not put that creek water on your skin.”
I put away the shaving tools and the joints and followed him, Marion’s kit under my arm. He passed my pickup without comment and took a little path that led among the trees, and I saw with a start that I’d parked almost in his yard. His house, a battered 35-foot trailer, sat on concrete blocks in a clump of willows, hidden from the road by an unpainted board windbreak. No power or telephone line led to it; I doubted he’d be a subscriber to the World-Herald. I entered the trailer cheerfully, glad of a respite from the well-informed world outside the res.
“Do you want coffee?” the man asked. The children were gutting the rabbit just outside the door. In the darkness of the kitchen, I saw a propane refrigerator; he turned a single tap at the sink, and clear water came trickling out to fill an aluminum coffeepot. “This water comes from a spring,” he explained. “I piped it in from the canyon farther up. It’s better than creek water.”
“Sure, I’ll take coffee,” I said. “Where’s that bathroom you offered me?”
I used the sink and the bathroom mirror to finish clipping my beard down to a quarter-inch, then removed the clippings from the bowl and shaved with cold spring water. My face emerged pale and unhealthy-looking; the contrast between my clean-shaved jaw and my shaggy locks was noticeable. I didn’t look less conspicuous, just different. I returned from the bathroom to find my coffee already poured. “Do you want frybread?” the man asked.
“You’re very kind,” I said. “I had breakfast a couple of hours ago. Coffee is good, though.”
The man sat with me at a little table. The two children brought in the rabbit, now skinned and dressed, and went back outdoors to play. “A boy came down that road a few years back,” the Indian man said. “He sat on the very same log and tried to clean himself up. He was wanted for armed robbery.”
“Is that right,” I said.
“He was my nephew.” The man sipped his coffee, his face devoid of expression. “I don’t know why I tell you this,” he said. “Indians are not supposed to be talkative.”
“I grew up in Palemon,” I said. “We have Indians there, too.”
“Who are your relatives?”
I understood his question. “My grandfather was Lakota,” I said. “Or half Lakota and half Irish. I was raised white.”
“You’re an enemy warrior, then,” the man said. “We Omahas suffered much at the hands of the Lakota. They killed Logan Fontanelle. We haven’t had a leader like him.”
“I know very little about the Lakota side of my family,” I said.
After a while the man got up and carried the little rifle into a back room. He rummaged a while back there, then returned and presented me with a brown grocery sack, soft with handling. “Look,” he said. “Take them out. They won’t get broken.”
I unrolled the sack and took out a pair of moccasins wrapped in tissue. When I removed the tissue, I found that they were blackened and dried-up, with the soles worn through. They were beaded with a simple cross at the toes.
“These are beautiful,” I said. “Are they old?”
His eyebrows subtly rose and fell. “Many years,” he said. “They came from a Lakota warrior. My great-grandfather danced in them, back when they still had such dancing.”
“They’re small,” I said. “They’d be far too small for me.”
“I wasn’t offering them to you.” He reclaimed the moccasins; as he was wrapping them, a loose bead smaller than a BB fell from the tissue. “Here,” he said, handing me the tiny bead. “A present.”
“Thanks,” I said. I held it toward the window. “Blue-green,” I said. “Like the ocean. I know a woman who has eyes this color.”
“Maybe you should go to her,” he said.
We drank two more cups together. The skin of the trailer began to tick with heat. Outside, in the cottonwoods, cicadas were making a racket. “Well,” I said finally. “This has been nice. What’s it like here in the winter?”
“Cold,” he said.
I drained the last drops of coffee and stood up. “Don’t forget your bead,” he said.
“I wouldn’t.” I got out my billfold and removed a condom—I always carried one but never used it—took it from its foil packet and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I folded up the bead inside the foil and tucked away the package. “No offense,” I said. “I don’t think the Lakota man it came from would mind.” I turned to look around the room. “Thanks for the shave—I mean, for letting me use your sink.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. He followed me to the door. “My nephew did not survive prison,” he said. “Prison life was hard for him. He was too impatient.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It would be hard for anybody.”
“You might try braiding your hair,” he said. “It would look more Indian.”
“Looking Indian never kept anyone from getting arrested,” I said. “Not where I come from. Thanks, Omaha. I’m obliged to you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Be careful when you turn your pickup. There’s a wet spot there. You could get stuck.”
“Thanks again.” I returned to my truck, started it, and maneuvered to head back toward the highway. The two children were nowhere in sight. The squalling of cicadas packed the air; from the temperature, from the way the light filtered through the leaves, I figured that it must be close to noon.
(blank line)
221. I wasted a lazy. . . .
I wasted a lazy and paranoid afternoon at the dog track in Council Bluffs, Iowa. To make the time go faster, I bet on the greyhounds, and, for the first and only time in my life, I had good luck gambling. I played something called a “quinella”—God knows how it works—and won three hundred dollars on a single bet. I didn’t know whether I’d live long enough to spend the money.
While at the track I kept an eye out for Julia’s Uncle Max. I knew that it was Saturday, and that he wasn’t supposed to gamble on the Sabbath, but I doubted if Max paid a lot of attention to the rules. For whatever reason, Max wasn’t in attendance; I spoke to no one, and no one accosted me. I didn’t even get picked up by a hooker when I cashed my quinella winnings. I ate hot dogs at the track—the vendor called them “slow dogs” and, to judge from the taste, he may have been telling the truth—and drank beer from paper cups. The crowd in the grandstand boiled with public emotion; they yelled for their dogs, screamed when they won and cursed the losers. There wasn’t a dry armpit in the place.
I watched a woman who weighed 250 pounds run, puffing and scarlet-faced, to get a two-dollar bet down before the window closed. Later I saw her jumping up and down; she vibrated her body in an unconscious rhythm that made her flesh bounce as if she were being vigorously screwed. When she lost, she tore her tickets and threw them to the ground. A small man with a moustache, who seemed impossibly drunk, kept winning and winning. Each time a race ended, he peered at his tickets in dismay, then staggered off to collect. When he dropped a whole handful of twenty-dollar bills, a crowd gathered to help him retrieve them. I later saw him in the care of a young black prostitute who towered above him by half a foot.
I bought dark-green sunglasses with part of my winnings. The lenses made the crowd look foreign, as if I’d been transported to Afghanistan. Their evident, essential misery—a hungry slavishness appeared on many faces each time the odds board lit up—did not inspire me to love them. I felt irrelevant and temporary, like a starling that had dropped in on a pen of ducks. I left the grandstand while the last race was in progress and went to sit in my truck, remaining there while the seething crowd dispersed. I eventually started the engine and left so as not to be noticed.
Most vehicles returned to the Nebraska side. I followed the flow across the bridge and came out on Dodge Street. Cops were everywhere, busily handling the rush-hour traffic. The heat of late afternoon was on the city, and I felt sleep overtaking me. If I dozed in the parking lot of the Three-Legged Dog in Carter Lake, even in daylight I’d take a chance of being beaten up and robbed. I decided to drive to the Steins’ house after all.
Julia’s station wagon was not in the circle driveway. I sighed with guilty relief, then got out to go find the picnic table and key. A lane branched from the circle drive and led back along the side to a developer’s rendition of a “carriage house,” a two-car garage with a sort of mother-in-law apartment. Once I’d taken the keys from their box beneath the table, I went to peer inside the garage, where Brenda’s Chrysler sat alongside the empty space belonging to the family Mercedes. If I could find the garage key, I had a way to put my pickup out of sight.
I let myself in the back door and began a search of the house that turned up Brenda’s car keys but no garage key. I learned that Brenda wore red to bed, that Alex kept a little pistola in the night stand—I eyed it thoughtfully—and that Sarah slept with about forty stuffed animals; I learned that somebody in the house used Preparation H. I didn’t learn the secret of the garage door until I flipped a switch in the laundry room by mistake, and happened to glance outside to see the garage door opening.
I parked my smoke-stained pickup in the garage, backed Brenda’s Chrysler into the lane, and returned inside to the laundry room and flipped the switch again. After the door slid down, I took off all my clothes and put them in the washer; I added detergent, got the thing going, and went to shower off the dog-track experience. Then I walked naked to the front of the house in search of a place to nap; I found a soft leather sofa with cushions a foot thick, and sank down into it as if I had not killed anyone.
(blank line)
222. I awoke to the sound. . . .
I awoke to the sound of the phone ringing. After the eighth ring, I sat up; after the twelfth, I stumbled to my feet and went to look for the receiver. I found it in the living room and picked it up. “Alexander Stein residence,” I said cautiously.
“Oh, God! Jonas!” It was Julia’s voice. “I’ve been at my wit’s end! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said. “But if our phone is bugged, you’ve just given me away.”
“Our phone’s not bugged. What are you talking about?” I could have mentioned Selva and Adrian’s phone, but I thought better of it. “Listen, Jonas,” she went on. “I can’t find a drummer. What am I going to do?”
“Get your outfit on and get up here. You guys have got to show, whether you bring a drummer with you or not.”
“Could you—?”
“Play for you?” I chewed my lip. “I tell you what,” I said. “Either the cops will catch me pretty soon, or I’ll go crazy from worry and lack of sleep and do myself in anyway. So it’s not like I have a hell of a lot to lose. Sure, I’ll meet you there. I’ll be driving your mother’s Chrysler; I was planning to steal it anyway.”
“Jonas, I’ve just been sick; I haven’t eaten a bite all day. Have you heard what they’ve been saying about you?”
“What who’s been saying?”
“The newspapers. The TV. The radio. You’re big news, honey. I even had a call from the National Enquirer. You’re supposed to be this crazed flesh eater, or something. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t quite so real.”
“Oy. As your mother would say.”
“That’s one reason I haven’t left the apartment. Some television people are parked outside in a van. When I do go out, I’ll have to make a run for it.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “I washed some clothes; I’ll put them in the dryer and look around here for something to eat. Then I’ll meet you at the Dog in time for your gig. Do you want me to fix you a sandwich?”
“Jonas, I would puke. I really would. Don’t even bring me a piece of toast. I only wish this all wasn’t happening at once. Do you know what this gig means to me? It’s my chance to make a move. I’m just positive it’s some kind of audition. Why else would she ask us back? As a band, we’re not all that great, you know.”
“Maybe she wants your crummy band to make hers look good. You’re building too much into all this, Julia.”
“Don’t tell me to relax when you’re running away from a murder charge! Otherwise I’ll think you really are insane.”
“I’m not running away,” I said. “Just come, OK? I’ll be there if the cops don’t get me. If I don’t show up, you’ll make do without me. It couldn’t be worse than last time.”
“Last time I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know how rare it is to get a break like this.”
“You still don’t know what it means,” I said. “You’re guessing. Come up here and play. The worst that can happen is you’ll see me get arrested and you and the boys’ll make your rent payment.” I hung up the phone to stop her from wasting time, and looked out the window to make sure no TV trucks were waiting.
I wanted—my very bones wanted—to contact Selva Andersen, but I couldn’t think how to do it safely. Instead, I dialed a different Lincoln number, that of my cousin Dale McFerrin. A little kid picked up the phone. “Get me your mom or dad,” I said. “Tell them it’s Uncle Jonas the vampire.”
In a second or two, Dale’s voice came on the line. “Hello? Hello!”
“Dale, Jonas,” I said. “I won’t stay on long. Can you let me know anything at all about my case?”
“Jonas,” he said. “Listen, buddy, I’ll make you a deal. You let me say what I think of you, and I’ll promise not to try to trace this call.”
“First, tell me what’s going on. Did Tarkington survive the fire?”
“He survived.”
“Good. Has anyone been out to the pig farm?”
“Pig farm? You mean the one out by Mead?”
“Yeah, Frankie Vinhalek’s. It’s where I’ve been sending the meat. The last two packages had wax paper on them, so if you go and sort through the pig poop, you might find a few green shreds. I hope you can do that for me, because this cannibal bullshit is not as amusing as you’d think.”
I could hear him writing so hard he broke the pencil lead. “Pig poop,” he said. “Got it. Anything else?”
“I haven’t left the country,” I said. “I’m only staying out of sight as best I can. If I’m still free and alive by Monday afternoon, I’ll call and meet you somewhere to turn myself in.”
“Call somebody else,” he said. “I might shoot you.”
“Sorry,” I said, “but you’re elected. My apologies to the McFerrins. You can’t imagine how I feel about this.”
“Since you feel so bad, why not kill yourself? It’d save the rest of us the embarrassment of a trial.” I heard a thud, a slap, and a struggle for the phone. “Jonas?” Toni’s voice. “Jonas, don’t listen to him!”
There was a louder scuffle, someone fell, and somewhere in the house a child began to wail. “You still there, asshole?” Dale’s voice was choked with anger. “I don’t want you talking to my fucking wife, OK?”
“Calm down, Dale,” I said. “Listen, here’s my last point. Take notes when you interview Tarkington. It’s not for sure that I killed that old bum. After I hit him, someone else might’ve finished him off. Whether I’m alive on Monday or not, I want you to see that I get a fair inquiry.”
“I don’t owe you my job,” Dale said. “And there’s nobody in the department who can influence Davis. Did you know, by the way, that the part of an arm you handed him has a tattoo on it?”
“No.”
“It says, W. Stark. U. S. S. Wasp, 1944. That’s some pretty conclusive evidence, wouldn’t you say? Hello? Hello?”
I placed the receiver quietly in its cradle. Captain Davis had the one piece he needed to identify Memphis Billy. There was nothing left for him to solve; any confession I might make had lost bargaining value. Like blocks the color of old limestone, the years of my future—if I chose to pass Monday—were falling, had fallen, crunchingly into place.
(blank line)
223. I put my washed clothes. . . .
I put my washed clothes into the dryer as if I had all the time in the world, and raided the refrigerator for sustenance. Alex Stein, I discovered, was a connoisseur of cheeses. I found a shelf dedicated to little packages with names like Gouda, Fontina, Asiago, Bel Paese, Taleggio, Gruyere; I found good rye bread from the Lithuanian bakery in South Omaha, I found mayonnaise and lettuce and Dijon mustard. I prepared shameless sandwiches with a different flavor in every bite, and drank raspberry juice mixed with soda water. For dessert I ate flaky halvah, delicious and cold, and wondered if I hadn’t made a mistake in my indifference to Julia.
My clothes had tumbled dry by the time I finished eating. The day outside had plenty of light left in it, so before I left I re-shaved myself using Alex’s extra razor. I dressed in my still-warm shirt and jeans, and went out the door feeling, if not guilt-free, at least human. I got into Brenda’s Chrysler, moved the seat back, and started the engine. It took a second or two to figure out the push-button drive—in particular, “park” was a four-inch lever off to one side—but I was soon backing up the driveway. I guided the tailfins carefully alongside the house, impaling nothing more vulnerable than the soft summer air, and pulled away with enough rude horsepower to operate a towboat.
How good that vibrating engine felt! If only I’d been able to believe in running, I had the car for it. I could take “if onlies” farther back: if only I’d loved old Julia, even a little bit, I could’ve eased myself into a son-in-law’s life and had a Chrysler of my own to tool around in. If only I hadn’t tire-ironed a certain hobo, I’d be free to stop in any bar, have a drink or two or three and dial Selva Andersen. If only Mattie hadn’t put her nose in it, I’d be jailed already, with a definite term in view and some prospect of early release.
I tried to tally up the crimes I had committed. In addition to murder and arson—Grace’s trailer—there was cutting up Billy’s corpse and getting rid of it; anyway, I judged that it couldn’t possibly be legal to saw up a dead person. I’d gone over into Iowa and come back—“interstate flight to avoid prosecution”—and had made entry into the Steins’ house, where I’d stolen two cheese sandwiches, a shower, a nap, and a car. It could even be argued, by an extreme fanatic, that I’d been involved in an attempt to kidnap and murder Tarkington. I’d destroyed evidence and lied (was lying to Davis illegal? Shouldn’t be, but probably) and had left the hospital when I was supposed to be in custody. Add a few misdemeanors like stealing license plates, and crimes currently under way, such as driving through ritzy suburbs with Marion Saunders’s marijuana in my shirt, and I could wind up serving as much time as I’d lived till then.
I followed the Interstate north and east around the city, the same route that I’d traveled in the early morning. Over my left shoulder, to the northwest, the egg-yolk sun had plumped onto the horizon. The enormous car purred under me, at home on concrete the way a shark is at home in water. The gas gauge read full. I had eaten and rested; I had three hundred dollars. Overnight I could be as far away as Canada.
I shuddered. “That’s enough of that.” I turned south at the last Nebraska exit, passed by the airport, and headed into Carter Lake.
Besides the derelict Pontiac to which I owed a set of plates, there were three cars in the lot: Wilson’s Olds, Julia’s station wagon, and a rust-bucket Studebaker, belonging I supposed to the earliest customer. I backed the big Chrysler into a space near the door and got out; as I did so, Julia and the Jivesters emerged from the Three-Legged Dog. Julia ran up and threw her arms around my ribs, shaking me like a bear shaking down persimmons. “Oh!” she said. “My big crazy man!” She glanced around fearfully. “The police didn’t follow you?”
I returned her hug with a fierceness that surprised me, and kissed her under the ear. “Honey,” I said, “the only cop in Carter Lake goes to bed at eight. Do you like my car?”
“Looks familiar,” she said. “Jonas, for once you actually seem glad to see me.”
“It’s lonely being a criminal. Hi, Mark. Hello, Robert.”
McKinley and Shemansky eyed me coldly. “Hello, Jonas,” Mark McKinley said at last. “You look different without the facial hair. Your fans won’t recognize you.”
“Didn’t know I had fans.”
“Oh, you do,” Mark McKinley said enviously. “At least, one of us is famous.”
I helped them lift three garment bags from the back of the wagon. “Looks like you’re appearing in costume tonight,” I said.
“Just wait till you see, Jonas,” Julia said. “I look amazing.”
As we trooped inside, someone familiar held the door: Dexter Coffey. “Dex,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced at Julia, who appeared to be blushing. “I guess I came along to be the sound man.”
“I’m glad somebody’s sound,” Mark McKinley said irritably. “The rest of us are definitely unreliable.”
The three of them hurried toward the back room, Julia leading the way. I turned and looked behind me toward the Studebaker in the lot, a lopsided Lark with a hole cut out of the grille. “That your Lark?” I asked Dexter. “It looks like one of Al Foonts’s.”
“I bought it from Al,” Dex replied defensively. “I’ll need a car for job interviews.”
“I hate to think what kind of job you’ll get if they catch sight of that,” I said. Dexter didn’t smile. “What’s going on tonight?” I asked. “Feels like kind of an odd dynamic here.”
Dexter Coffey bit his lip. “We’re not used to working with a pre-felon,” he said at last. “All over Nebraska, people are buying padlocks because of you.”
“Has it gotten that ugly?” I glanced toward Wide Load Wilson at the bar. “People should relax. I’m no Charlie Starkweather.”
Dexter looked around too. “Charles Starkweather began modestly. Then he added on. You’d better hope that bartender doesn’t watch TV.”
“Calling the cops would be bad for business,” I said. “He owns the place.” Dexter had nothing more to say to me, so I wandered over to Wilson. “Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “The one-arm drummer man. Mister Free Drink.”
“Jonas Smith,” I said. “That name mean anything to you?”
“Nebraska name dont mean nothin over here in Iowa,” he said ambiguously. “You playin?”
“I am,” I said. “I’d thank you for a club soda.”
“Ooh wee,” he said. “Good behavior time.” Wilson ran me a glass of bubbly water and added lime. He leaned toward me. “This place got a back door,” he said softly. “Two step past the lady room. Check it out.”
“I won’t be needing it,” I said. “I hit the quinella at the dog track today. Must mean I’m lucky.”
“You hit the quinella?” He raised his eyebrows mockingly. “You ought to pay me for that soda water.”
I grinned and saluted him with the glass. “Them that has, gets,” I said. I looked back down the bar toward Dexter, who was setting up the collection table near the entrance. “He doesn’t like me,” I said, thinking out loud.
“I dont like you either,” Wide Load Wilson said. “Dont seem to keep you from talkin to me, though.”
“I can’t be too sensitive,” I replied. “Otherwise I’d hardly talk to anybody.”
“Them po-lice like to talk to you,” Wilson muttered before walking away.
Wilson’s daughter Agnes had come in, escorted by a young black man as fine-featured as she, a tall, fit-looking fellow with quick eyes and an expressive face. He smiled at Wilson, who set him up a drink; they exchanged a few words, and I saw him glance down the bar in my direction. Agnes’s ballerina legs were in full view, still as improbably long as a week-old filly’s, but I detected a subtle thickening in her figure. I suppose living with Julia had made me alert to signs of pregnancy; anyway when Wilson came near I congratulated him. “I see Agnes married her ophthalmologist,” I said.
He tossed a glass in the air and caught it. “They happy,” he growled. “Dont know nothin about nothin, but they happy.”
“Life won’t wait,” I said as if I knew something.
Wilson shot me a tawny look from under his eyebrows. “Mista Death,” he said, “he wait. He waitin for ever’ body.” Agnes’s eye doctor started toward the door just as Preston the good-natured bouncer came strolling in; Preston flashed his silver tooth and they exchanged high-fives. The departing husband glanced back over his shoulder, and I thought it might be hard for him to leave his bride in the company of Wilson’s customers.
I finished my soda and headed back to the dressing room, both to check on Julia’s progress and to get out of sight. I found McKinley and Shemansky changing clothes in the hall. They were putting on double-breasted suits with padded shoulders, striped 1940s relics from the Goodwill store. “You’re going to be hot in those,” I advised. They frowned in unison.
“Julia’s changed our name again,” Mark McKinley explained. “We’re now called ‘Zoot’. I hope nobody from the Civil War era objects.”
Beyond them, I heard movement behind a closed door. I rapped and entered. Julia, wearing a slip and a mesh bra, was bent over painting lacquer on a pair of patent-leather shoes. “These scuffs,” she said crossly, “I can’t get rid of them.”
Her big breasts hung like inverted bells. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Stand up and let me see your tits.”
She faced me, holding the lacquer bottle and applicator. “Jonas, not now, honey; can’t you see I’m—” She looked up as I stepped closer. “Oh, what the hell,” she said. She replaced the cap and brush back on the bottle and set it aside; her eyes darkened. “Don’t mess my lipstick,” she commanded.
I pressed a hand upward under her bulging abdomen and parted her lips with my tongue, leaving her great breasts untouched. Julia swooned backward against my waiting arm, her tongue coming out to make-love-not-war with mine; I kissed her more deeply, lipstick be damned, and looked frantically around the little room for a place to fuck. A chair and a dressing-table were covered with laid-out clothes, but the concrete floor offered a clear space. “Kneel,” I whispered. “I’ll get under you.”
“I’m too heavy,” she whispered back. “I’ll grind you into the cement.”
“Grind me.” I was already tearing open my fly; without bothering to remove my boots, I shoved my jeans down around my ankles and lowered myself to the floor, stony cold to my tailbone. Julia stepped across me and squatted, lifting her slip—she wore no underpants—and my stiff cock slid in easily as always. I gave myself up to the soft delicious warmth of her, and as she reached over to lock the door of the tiny room, I shuddered and shot a wad up into her as if I’d been without pussy for twenty years. She finished with the lock and adjusted her weight, her great cunt holding me, cock and balls together.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I panted feebly. “Let’s do it.”
There’s something about sex that is best when you’ve come already; maybe it’s the slime. Julia settled over me, incubating my glowing nuts, while I reached to fondle her breasts, soft and heavy as geese. She closed her eyes, her tongue in the corner of her mouth, and began to rock a little. “You seem, uh, flexible,” she commented.
“That means you can get really wild without hurting me.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Jonas.” I felt my tingling cock being toasted like a marshmallow as she rested her belly on my own, with a look on her face like a trucker searching for a missed gear. I licked my fingertips and reached under her, probing for that enormous clit; her eyebrows kinked in concentration. “Ah,” she said. “You do remember me.” She blew me a kiss and went back to her slow rocking while I fumbled with her knob, using my expended juice as lubricant.
Julia’s lips parted and her breathing became more labored. I was rapidly losing my erection—the feeling was wonderful, but it didn’t make me hard—but with my vigorous strumming she failed to notice, or else was too preoccupied to bring up the subject. Her breasts in their mesh suspension cables waved and bobbled over me, but what was new in all this—how long since I’d had sex with Julia?—was the tangible weight in her lower belly, rolling between us like a third party. I’d always thought of the fetus as a sort of tapeworm, a forceful alien with a ravenous and determined head. Now it seemed inert and helpless but warm, and larger, the size of a newborn kitten. I imagined Jerome Weld’s narrow and worried face, superposed on the pink sausage-body of a baby rat.
I looked up at Julia’s nipples, swollen to stupendous size, and reached to take hold of one of them; I twisted it carefully, as if I were tuning my father’s ancient console radio. Milk came out of it. Julia “humphed” and doubled her speed; my penis flopped out of her completely, but she continued grinding. “Whoa,” she said. “Ooh, my.” She bounced up and down; I fiddled her with one hand and sqeezed her nipple with the other. She tossed back her hair, bit her lip, and whinnied as I doubled my fist to give her something harder than my useless prick to rub against. Julia violently shook her head, then shuddered all over and collapsed on top of me. Someone pounded at the door.
Julia propped herself up and cleared her throat. “Just a minute,” she said in a husky voice. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Are you all right in there?” It was Dexter Coffey talking through the plywood.
“I’m fine.” She looked at me guiltily. “Everything is fine. Give me five more minutes, OK?”
Dexter’s footsteps retreated; we helped one another to our feet. “I’m sorry you didn’t come, Jonas,” Julia whispered.
“But I did,” I said. “Long time ago. I finished early.” I scanned the room, looking for something to wipe my dick, and found a box of Kleenex; I gave her a handful and took another for myself. “That was different,” I said, stretching my penis and dabbing at it. “How long has it been?”
“About two days too long, I guess,” Julia said cryptically. “Jonas, I have something to tell you, but not tonight. Maybe in the morning before you disappear to wherever it is you plan to go.”
“Is it about the abortion? Did you finally make an appointment?”
“No,” she said.
Julia handed me my vest—she’d brought it from Lincoln—and thrust me from the room the minute I had my pants buttoned. I could hear chords and arpeggios, the balancing of microphones; I put on my new dark glasses and pulled my hat down low, then fumbled my way toward the open part of the building. Wilson’s territory behind the bar was a dim oasis in a sea of darkness, and the stage was only a little brighter. A mutter of voices told me we had an audience. I stumbled my way to Wilson’s drum set and familiarized myself with the layout, adjusting the height of the stool, moving the bass and high-hat pedals, and testing the snares. Though I hadn’t practiced in weeks, the sticks felt light and lively in my hands. I would make some noise. I reminded myself that the people hadn’t come to hear us anyway. They were filling up time, having drinks and getting ready to enjoy Alys Culhane.
When the downbeat came, I drummed like I never drummed before in my life.
(blank line)
224. Julia’s new costume. . . .
Julia’s new costume was a success. Using the shiny tent fabric, she’d stitched together an exaggerated suit jacket with huge lapels and shoulders four feet wide; she swaggered on after we’d played a couple of numbers, and took a bow to laughter and applause. After that, the night went by in a blur. Because of the sunglasses, I couldn’t see beyond the stage; Marion Saunders’s marijuana got used up, and I suppose I may have suffered from smoke inhalation. We gave a performance beyond ourselves. The best compliment came from Wide Load Wilson during our break: “Son, you dont sound that bad,” he said to me, leaning across the bar, “for a rock-an-roll drummer.”
By the time Alys Culhane showed up, we had the crowd more than warm. They were steaming. They applauded Julia off the stage and applauded Alys on; then they clapped until Julia came back out. McKinley, Shemansky and I yielded the stage to Culhane’s band, and after they took a few minutes to tune up, they played “Little Red Rooster.” Julia and Alys Culhane sang it together, alternating verses in a mock catfight. “My little red rooster,” Julia sang, turning sidewise and showing her belly to advantage. The audience roared.
Hours later, Shemansky went up with them and played the final set, wailing frail and pale amid that convoy of large black bluesmen. Julia sat wearily in the shadows between Dexter and me; Mark McKinley stood alone and apart from us, gazing up at his buddy. Robert blew like a wounded spirit, pure and strange as always, solitary in his trance as a lone seagull gliding along the face of a cliff. Then the band picked him up and they went off together in a storm of sorrow, flying just above the waves. By the time they all circled back to the refrain, we knew he had gone where the rest of us could not follow.
Julia rose to join them for the final number. They did “Handy Man,” mugging it up, clowning in the loving warmth of the stage lights. Alys Culhane played it wise and funny and motherly; Julia seemed nervous and a little hoarse. “All I could think, Jonas,” she told me later, “was how much I had to pee.”
There was an encore, then another, the inevitable reluctance to close down. The music stopped; the band packed up their instruments. One of their musicians came over with the royal summons: we were once again asked to meet them at the Village Inn. Robert Shemansky, as before, was invited to ride in the limo, but instead of Alys Culhane, their drummer rode with Julia and me, silent all the way. I drove Brenda’s Chrysler across town, and Mark McKinley and Dexter Coffey followed, Mark in Julia’s station wagon and Dex in his beat-up Studebaker. We formed a decorous procession, the limousine in front as was natural and Dex’s collection of nuts and bolts bringing up the rear. Once inside the restaurant, the sight of two Omaha policemen having coffee and donuts brought me down to facts: I was still a murder-and-arson suspect, still on the run.
Julia, looking worn-out, stuck to me anxiously, and Dexter stuck to her; except for Shemansky, we sat at the edge of Alys Culhane’s group. I consumed my usual breakfast of oatmeal and toast, while Julia pushed scrambled eggs around her plate with the back of her fork. Finally I saw Alys Culhane give the waiter a note. He brought it around and handed the folded slip to me instead of Julia; I held it below the edge of the table and we read it together. “Little Robert needs to stay and talk business,” it read. “You folks can go on home. I’ll get your breakfast.”
“Shemansky!” Julia threw down her napkin and rose; her chair flew back with a clatter. “Thanks,” she announced in an over-hearty voice. She displayed her well-kept teeth in a brilliant smile. “It’s been fun, don’t you think? I know I’ve had a good time.” Dex and I looked at one another in alarm and stood up to follow; she was already charging at the waiter to demand the check. Alys Culhane started to say something, but Julia, talking loudly across the room, cut her off. “No, no!” she said. “No, no! Give it to me! Jonas, Jonas—” From the way she looked at me I could see she would cry— “Give me some money.” I had the remains of my factory pay; I had my quinella winnings. I handed her some twenties, more than she needed, and she gave one to the waiter and the rest to the cashier. Then she staggered toward the entrance, listing slightly, and Dex and I ran after her without waiting for our change.
Once outside the door, Julia threw her head back and screamed: “AAAAAARGHHH!” I glanced nervously around the empty parking lot. “To think that I fought my parents over this!” She buried her face in her hands, while Dexter Coffey hesitantly embraced her shoulders. “Oh!” she gasped. “Why’d you let me be such a fucking idiot?”
As I stood aside and watched Dexter try to comfort her, I noted that the eastern sky showed a blush of light, signaling that the forty-eight-hour parole I’d arranged with Mattie was half over. I despised Dexter for the lameness of his attempts to make Julia stop howling. Though the doughnut-eating cops had long departed, others in the restaurant were staring at us, and I felt exposed.
(blank line)
225. Julia sent Dexter. . . .
Julia sent Dexter back to Lincoln, promising to follow, and stayed to walk and to have a talk with me. The way she kissed him confirmed that something new had happened between them; my reliable number-two pump was inventing a life of her own. The stab of jealous rage I felt took me by surprise.
The Village Inn where we’d gone for breakfast sat on the north side of Dodge Street, past where Dodge and Douglas joined together to make six lanes. We walked east toward the Missouri on a sidewalk bordering the curb, facing into the headlights of the oncoming cars. I held Julia’s large hot hand, scowling out into the street as she cursed and sobbed. We made an outlandish pair, she in her silver zoot jacket and I in full band bravado. Eventually we came to a bus shelter, where Julia sat down. “I’ve been on my feet all night, Jonas,” she said. “I don’t want to walk any farther.”
“Fine,” I said, taking a seat beside her. “I don’t like it anyway. Too close to the traffic. Some psychotic bozo could jump the curb and nail us.”
Julia gave an odd little snort. When I glanced at her, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry. It struck me funny that you were worried about such a thing when—” She looked at me and stopped. “Well,” she said. “We seem already to have arrived at our subject. Jonas,” she said. “If you’re honest, you’ll admit that it does look as if you won’t be around much longer. Does it seem that way to you also?”
“Yes, it does,” I said. “One way or the other.”
“We won’t talk about the other,” she said. “Bob Warner will defend you; you won’t get the death penalty, or even life in prison, but you’ll be gone for a long time. I won’t forget you, of course, but I— But I—” She broke down sobbing again, her face crinkling unattractively in a caricature of shame.
“You want to go with Dex,” I said matter-of-factly. “He’s made you an offer of marriage. Something like that.”
“Exactly that,” Julia said. “Jonas, I love you, but I— But you don’t—”
“Oh, stop it, Julia.” An Omaha police car went by. “Of course you’ll marry Dex,” I said. “He’s a good man and he adores you. That’s two things more than I can truthfully say about myself.” She continued crying like a child; her great hands clutched one another miserably. The high color of her face all drained into her nose. “So when did this marriage proposal take place?” I asked.
“It was Friday,” she said. “You thought I was at work, but I took the afternoon off and we— We went to his apartment—”
I laughed bitterly, remembering what I myself had been doing Friday. “You mean while I was blissfully balling Selva, you were getting it on with Dex?”
“Oh, no, Jonas, we only talked, he—” Julia’s eyes opened wide. “What do you mean, balling Selva? You weren’t!”
“I was,” I said. “All day long on Friday. I love her; I think she’s beginning to love me. If it weren’t for all this legal shit I’ve fallen into—”
“You fucked Selva Andersen in our apartment?” Julia yelled. “Oh! That’s it! Haven’t I had enough?” She jerked to her feet, winding her fists in the silver fabric of the zoot jacket. “Let’s go. I’ve been a fool, that’s all. I’m going to get even with you for this.”
I stood up to accompany her. “It’s my apartment,” I said. “I don’t remember asking you to move in with me.”
She didn’t appear to have heard me. “To think I would’ve lied for you,” she muttered. “I would’ve said anything, while all this time, you’ve been treating me like shit.”
“I thought you’d move out eventually,” I said. “I kept waiting for you to decide about the abortion.”
“You won’t have to wait any longer,” Julia said. “Watch this.”
“Julia!”
A city bus came roaring west on Dodge Street. Julia stepped to the curb; the driver hit the brake, slowing to a stop, but before he could bring the bus to a complete halt, she spread her arms and threw herself in its path, holding her belly foremost. I heard a thud that chilled me to the marrow; as the driver locked the wheels, her body flew thirty feet ahead of the bus and rolled in the lane like a bale of rags. As I ran to her, I saw peripherally a car from the opposite side make a U-turn in the street. When I bent to turn her over, McKinley ran up. “Don’t touch her,” he said. “You’re not supposed to move a person with a back injury.”
Julia lay unconscious, her eyes open, blood streaming from her mouth. “The hell with that,” I said. “Toss out some of your band crap and get her in the car.”
“I don’t think we should,” he said. “It’s not recommended.”
For a second I remembered my command training. “Put her in the car!” I roared, drawing myself erect. “I want this done instantly!”
“All right,” he said. By this time the bus driver had come up; working carefully but quickly, the three of us slid Julia onto the silver tent fabric and, gently as possible, carried her to the station wagon and put her in the back. Methodist Hospital was just across Dodge Street; I pointed out the driveway to Shemansky, who waited at the wheel, and quickly got into the back with McKinley. Together we braced Julia to keep her from rolling like a sack of meat, and soon we were jolting up the ramp to the emergency entrance. I ran inside to get help, while McKinley stayed beside her. It was not clear whether she was breathing.
The emergency-room personnel took it all with excruciating calmness, but they did get a gurney to the curb within thirty seconds, and in another minute Juila had vanished feet first into the bowels of succor. I was left standing on the ramp with Mark McKinley and Robert Shemansky. “What happened to the bus driver?” I asked anxiously. “I need him to witness that I didn’t push her.”
“Push her?” Robert Shemansky echoed. “You didn’t push her. Why would you push her?”
“She’s pregnant,” I said. “We were having a fight. Everyone thinks ill of me.”
“You didn’t p-push her,” he insisted. Shemansky’s teeth rattled together but his cheeks were flushed. “I saw everything. You didn’t. What happens next?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but you’d better move her car.”
McKinley and I went back inside to wash; both of us had Julia’s blood on our clothes. “Listen,” I said as we stood together in the rest room. “The cops’ll be here in a minute to file an accident report. I know I’ll be arrested sooner or later, but this doesn’t feel like the time. If I get a chance, I think I’d better disappear. Can you stay with her?”
“Sure,” McKinley said. “I can do that. Make yourself scarce.”
Instead, I was caught by one of the nurses and led to the admissions desk, where I sat filling out forms. When the police arrived, I saw them behind me, reflected in the glass. But instead of coming to me, they went to look for Robert Shemansky as the driver of the car that brought Julia in. I put my own name down as next of kin, along with Alex’s and Brenda’s as father and mother. When the clerk behind the desk scrutinized the form, she left the cubicle for a moment and came back with a file. “Is it this Julia Stein?” she asked. “We may already have her insurance number.”
I glanced at the folder. “That’s her,” I said.
I signed some papers and looked around. The police had returned without Shemansky; the clerk left her station to talk to them. I remembered that the last time I’d brought Julia, I’d ended up getting smacked against a wall.
The clerk returned. “They’re taking her to surgery,” she said in a clipped voice. “You have to go, too. They might need you to make a decision.”
“A decision?” I stood up, flustered. “What decision?”
“Third floor,” was the only reply. “Wait in room 306.”
I crossed the lobby in a daze and pressed the elevator button. A door slid open; I pressed another and ascended. A bell dinged brightly. When the door opened again, a nurse in green scrubs met me. “Jonas?” she asked. I nodded. “We need to put Mrs. Smith on the ventilator right away. Also, her blood pressure is dropping. May we give her a transfusion?”
I envisioned a row of beds in an institution, with comatose bodies hooked to tubes; I saw the walking remnant of Jerome Weld, no longer an argumentative pain in the ass but a helpful thirty-five-year-old toddler. I swallowed. “Go ahead.” The nurse turned. “Wait,” I said. “Did anyone tell you she’s pregnant?”
The nurse paused and gave me a harsh look. “How many months?” she asked.
“It’s five going on six.”
“We’ll do what we can,” the nurse snarled back as she rushed away. I was left to find Room 306 on my own.
(blank line)
226. It wasn’t a room. . . .
It wasn’t a room but an “area,” a collection of irregular spaces intended to provide a semblance of privacy for those waiting. The only natural light came from a window at the end of a hallway; someone I didn’t know was standing there, gazing out over the visitors’ parking lot toward Dodge Street. I wished I could read the previous day’s World-Herald, the one with my own face on the front page
McKinley and Shemansky arrived to share my vigil. They shuttled between me and the nurses’ station, bringing bits of news. Julia was stable; she wasn’t stable. The bleeding had stopped; the bleeding hadn’t stopped. She’d lost much blood. I sent them to inquire about her blood type, and learned it was B Negative. “That’s rare,” I said. “Ask them if they have plenty.”
The nurse I’d met earlier returned with them, looking wan. “We’re letting her rest,” she said. “A fragment of a rib has caused her lung to collapse; it pierced the outer covering of her heart as well. You’re right in thinking there’s a shortage of Type B blood. Can you help?”
“I’m Type O,” I said. “I can transfuse anybody. Go get the needle.”
“You’ll come with me,” the nurse replied. “What about you others? Do you know your blood type?”
“You, Shemansky,” I said. “If anybody has weird blood, it should be you.”
“I don’t know,” Robert Shemansky said. “Is there a Type D?”
The nurse led the way down the hall. “How come there’s a shortage?” Mark McKinley wanted to know. “This is an important hospital in the biggest town in Nebraska.”
“There’s a war on,” I reminded him. “A lot of blood goes overseas.”
I was placed in a recliner and a technician was brought in. As she swabbed my arm prior to putting in the needle, the technician noticed my punctured wrist, where the I. V. had been hooked up to me after the firemen had fished me out of the locker plant. “Have you given blood recently?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “That was something else. Glucose, probably. I was in a fire.”
I dozed in the chair. Mark Shemansky went and got Dexter on the phone. “He’s coming back up to Omaha,” he reported. “Dex says he has Type B Negative too.”
“That’s a lucky coincidence,” I said sleepily. “Maybe things will go better for her from now on.”
The angry nurse came in. “Sit up,” she said, holding out a glass. “Drink some orange juice.” She removed the needle from my arm. “There’s another matter,” she said brusquely. “The fetus.”
“What about the fetus?” I asked.
“Here’s what you need to know,” she said. “When the body loses blood, it begins to shut down. First to go are the outer organs, the limbs. Don’t need those; the blood goes deep inside, to the brain and heart and kidneys. Second to go are the less peripheral things. Digestion stops. The liver stops working. All blood to the brain and heart and kidneys. Third to go are the kidneys. After that, you’re dead.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” I said. “The uterus is at the second level, is that it?”
“That’s it,” the nurse said. “There’s a risk to the fetus. It may have been damaged.”
“How would you know?”
“We wouldn’t,” she said. “Her body may think it’s damaged. She could go into contractions.”
“This hasn’t happened yet?”
“We’re monitoring her,” she said. “Until now, we haven’t had time to think about it.” She paused as if awaiting a reply.
“I don’t see what you’re asking me,” I said finally.
She glanced toward my left hand. “You’re not legally married,” she said. “Your wife— Maybe she was trying to cause a miscarriage? Sometimes we see that type of trauma.”
“Get out of here,” I said. “Take my blood with you. She didn’t want an abortion.”
“I was just checking,” the nurse said.
“Get. I don’t want to see you.”
The nurse left and the technician came back in. She and Mark McKinley helped me up from the chair. “You’d better lie down somewhere,” she said. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes,” I said. “Two or three hours ago.”
“Better have a sweet roll or something,” she said. “You look wobbly.”
More waiting. After a while Dex came in. He looked haggard; we didn’t speak. They took him away and hooked him up to a blood bag. I snoozed again. I dreamed Jerome was pregnant with my baby; Dexter Coffey was the judge who was going to marry us. It was a shotgun wedding. I awoke to find that Mark McKinley had brought me a tray of food. Steam-table cooking, better than the military. I ate everything on the tray except the meat.
The nurse approached. “Mrs. Smith is having contractions.”
“You mean she’s in labor?”
“Her cervix hasn’t dilated,” the nurse replied. An odor of stale tobacco clung about her; I noted her prominent, nicotine-stained teeth. “Technically, she hasn’t gone into labor yet.”
“Can you stop it?”
“We can give her a drug, yes. If the fetus is damaged, it will be expelled. Given her condition, sooner might be better than later.”
“What is her condition?” The nurse’s eyes were gray as mud; there was a spark in them of some former hope, something a degree warmer than pure loathing.
“Do you pray?”
“Not lately, but I’m willing to try it. Give her the drug.”
She took her anger off somewhere, and I got up to take my turn at the window. Dodge Street was busy, with seventy per cent of the traffic going west; I couldn’t tell by looking whether it was lunchtime or the five o’clock rush. Then I remembered which day of the week it was, Sunday, the Sunday leading to my appointment with Mattie. The sparse traffic I was seeing would be well-dressed Christians going home from church. I tried to compose my mind for prayer, but all I could think of was drum rhythms. I stared out blindly and drummed the backs of my fingers against the glass.
A blue Mercedes in the eastbound lane rounded the corner, accompanied by two Omaha police cars. Mercedes-Benz automobiles were rare in Omaha in 1970. I left the window and went to the waiting room to look for Shemansky. “Here are the keys to Brenda’s Chrysler,” I said when I found him. “I’ll trade these for Julia’s. Did some of you call Selva Andersen, by chance?”
“Mark called,” he said. “She wasn’t home. Are you leaving?”
“I just saw Alex’s car. If they’re here, I can go now. Thanks for your help this morning.”
Shemansky produced the station wagon’s keys and offered them to me. “You didn’t push her,” he said. “I saw it. She jumped from one end of the bus shelter, and you were standing at the other end.”
“I didn’t push her physically,” I said. “But I had a hand in it.” We exchanged keys and I headed for the nearest Exit sign. I heard the elevator humming as I passed; I thought I caught Brenda’s voice floating up the shaft. Already she was yelling at someone. “Mama Bear is on the way,” I said as I entered the stairwell. “I hope they’re ready for her.” I reached the first-floor exit without looking like I was running and got away without the cops noticing me.
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