Cujo (31 page)

Rob nodded. “I'll drink to that.” He raised his glass. “A toast, gentlemen.”

Vic and Roger raised their own glasses.

Rob thought for a moment and then said: “May things turn out all right, even against the odds.”

“Amen,” Roger said.

They clinked their glasses together and drank. As he downed the rest of his beer, Vic found himself thinking about Donna and Tad again.

•  •  •

George Meara, the mailman, lifted one leg clad in blue-gray Post Office issue and farted. Just lately he farted a great deal. He was mildly worried about it. It didn't seem to matter what he had been eating. Last night he and his wife had had creamed cod on toast and he had farted. This morning, Kellogg's Product 19 with a banana cut up in it—and he had farted. This noon, down at the Mellow Tiger in town, two cheeseburgers with mayonnaise . . . ditto farts.

He had looked up the symptom in
The Home Medical Encyclopedia,
an invaluable tome in twelve volumes which his wife had gotten a volume at a time by saving her checkout slips from the Shop 'n Save in South Paris. What George Meara had discovered under the
EXCESSIVE FLATULENCE
heading had not been particularly encouraging. It could be a symptom of gastric upset. It could mean he had a nice little ulcer incubating in there. It could be a bowel problem. It could even mean the big C. If it kept up he supposed he would go see old Dr. Quentin. Dr. Quentin would tell him he was farting a lot because he was getting older and that was it.

Aunt Evvie Chalmers's death that last spring had hit George hard—harder than he ever would have believed—and just lately he didn't like to think about getting older. He preferred to think about the Golden Years of Retirement, years that he and Cathy would spend together. No more getting up at six thirty. No more heaving around sacks of mail and listening to that asshole Michael Fournier, who was the Castle Rock postmaster. No more freezing his balls off in the winter
and going crazy with all the summer people who wanted delivery to their camps and cottages when the warm weather came. Instead, there would be a Winnebago for “Scenic Trips Through New England.” There would be “Puttering in the Garden.” There would be “All Sorts of New Hobbies.” Most of all, there would be “Rest and Relaxation.” And somehow, the thought of farting his way through his late sixties and early seventies like a defective rocket just didn't jibe with his fond picture of the Golden Years of Retirement.

He turned the small blue-and-white mail truck onto Town Road No. 3, wincing as the glare of sunlight shifted briefly across the windshield. The summer had turned out every bit as hot as Aunt Evvie had prophesied—all of that, and then some. He could hear crickets singing sleepily in the high summer grass and had a brief vision out of the Golden Years of Retirement, a scene entitled “George Relaxes in the Back Yard Hammock.”

He stopped at the Millikens' and pushed a Zayre's advertising circular and a CMP power bill into the box. This was the day all the power bills went out, but he hoped the CMP folks wouldn't hold their breath until the Millikens' check came in. The Millikens were poor white trash, like that Gary Pervier just up the road. It was nothing but a scandal to see what was happening to Pervier, a man who had once won a DSC. And old Joe Camber wasn't a hell of a lot better. They were going to the dogs, the both of them.

John Milliken was out in the side yard, repairing what looked like a harrow. George gave him a wave, and Milliken flicked one finger curtly in return before going back to his work.

Here's one for you, you welfare chiseler,
George Meara thought. He lifted his leg and blew his trombone. It was a hell of a thing, this farting. You had to be pretty damn careful when you were out in company.

He drove on up the road to Gary Pervier's, produced another Zayre's circular, another power bill, and added a VFW newsletter. He tucked them into the box and then turned around in Gary's driveway, because he didn't have to drive all the way up to Camber's place today. Joe had called the post office yesterday morning around ten and had asked them to hold his mail for a few days. Mike Fournier, the big talker who was in charge of things at the Castle Rock P.O., had
routinely filled out a
HOLD MAIL UNTIL NOTIFIED
card and flipped it over to George's station.

Fournier told Joe Camber he had called just about fifteen minutes too late to stop the Monday delivery of mail, if that had been his intention.

“Don't matter,” Joe had said. “I guess I'll be around to get today's.”

When George put Gary Pervier's mail into his box, he noticed that Gary's Monday delivery—a
Popular Mechanix
and a charity begging letter from the Rural Scholarship Fund—had not been removed. Now, turning around, he noticed that Gary's big old Chrysler was in the dooryard and Joe Camber's rusting-around-the-edges station wagon was parked right behind it.

“Gone off together,” he muttered aloud. “Two fools off hooting somewhere.”

He lifted his leg and farted again.

George's conclusion was that the two of them were probably off drinking and whoring, wheeling around in Joe Camber's pickup truck. It didn't occur to him to wonder why they would have taken Joe's truck when there were two much more comfortable vehicles near at hand, and he didn't notice the blood on the porch steps or the fact that there was a large hole in the lower panel of Gary's screen door.

“Two fools off hooting,” he repeated. “At least Joe Camber remembered to cancel his mail.”

He drove off the way he had come, back toward Castle Rock, lifting his leg every now and then to blow his trombone.

•  •  •

Steve Kemp drove out to the Dairy Queen by the Westbrook Shopping Mall for a couple of cheeseburgers and a Dilly Bar. He sat in his van, eating and looking out at Brighton Avenue, not really seeing the road or tasting the food.

He had called Handsome Hubby's office. He gave his name as Adam Swallow when the secretary asked. Said he was the marketing director for House of Lights, Inc., and would like to talk to Mr. Trenton. He had been dry-mouthed with excitement. And when Trenton got on the old hooter, they could find more interesting things than marketing to talk about. Like the little woman's birthmark, and what it might
look like. Like how she had bitten him once when she came, hard enough to draw blood. Like how things were going for the Bitch Goddess since Handsome Hubby discovered she had a little taste for what was on the other side of the sheets.

But things hadn't turned out that way. The secretary had said, “I'm sorry, but both Mr. Trenton and Mr. Breakstone are out of the office this week. They'll probably be out most of next week, as well. If I could help you—?” Her voice had a rising, hopeful inflection. She really did want to help. It was her big chance to land an account while the bosses were taking care of business in Boston or maybe New York—surely no place as exotic as LA, not a little dipshit agency like Ad Worx. So get out there and tapdance until your shoes smoke, kid.

He thanked her and told her he would ring back toward the end of the month. He hung up before she could ask for his number, since the office of the House of Lights, Inc., was in a Congress Street phone booth across from Joe's Smoke Shop.

Now here he was, eating cheeseburgers and wondering what to do next.
As if you didn't know,
an interior voice whispered.

He started the van up and headed for Castle Rock. By the time he finished his lunch (the Dilly Bar was practically running down the stick in the heat), he was in North Windham. He threw his trash on the floor of the van, where it joined a drift of like stuff—plastic drink containers, Big Mac boxes, returnable beer and soda bottles, empty cigarette packs. Littering was an antisocial, antienvironmentalist act, and he didn't do it.

•  •  •

Steve got to the Trenton house at just half past three on that hot, glaring afternoon. Acting with almost subliminal caution, he drove past the house without slowing and parked around the corner on a side street about a quarter of a mile away. He walked back.

The driveway was empty, and he felt a pang of frustrated disappointment. He would not admit to himself—especially now that it looked like she was out—that he had intended to give her a taste of what she had been so eager to have during the spring. Nevertheless, he had driven all the way from Westbrook to Castle Rock with a semi-erection that only now collapsed completely.

She was gone.

No; the
car
was gone. One thing didn't necessarily prove the other, did it?

Steve looked around himself.

What we have here, ladies and gents, is a peaceful suburban street on a summer's day, most of the kiddies in for naps, most of the little wifies either doing likewise or glued to their TVs, checking out
Love of Life
or
Search for Tomorrow.
All the Handsome Hubbies are busy earning their way into higher tax brackets and very possibly a bed in the Intensive Care ward at the Eastern Maine Medical Center.
Two little kids were playing hopscotch on a blurred chalk grid; they were wearing bathing suits and sweating heavily. An old balding lady was trundling a wire shopping caddy back from town as if both she and it were made of the finest bone china. She gave the kids playing hopscotch a wide berth.

In short, not much happening. The street was dozing in the heat.

Steve walked up the sloping driveway as if he had every right to be there. First he looked in the tiny one-car garage. He had never known Donna to use it, and she had told him once she was afraid to drive her car into it, because the doorway was so narrow. If she put a dent in the car, Handsome Hubby would give her hell—no, excuse me; he would give her
heck.

The garage was empty. No Pinto, no elderly Jag—Donna's Handsome Hubby was into what was known as sports car menopause. She hadn't liked him saying that, but Steve had never seen a more obvious case.

Steve left the garage and went up the three steps to the back stoop. Tried the door. Found it unlocked. He went inside without knocking after another casual glance around to make sure no one was in sight.

He closed the door on the silence of the house. Once more his heart was knocking heavily in his chest, seeming to shake his whole ribcage. And once again he was not admitting things. He didn't
have
to admit them. They were there just the same.

“Hi? Anybody home?” His voice was loud, honest, pleasant, inquiring.

“Hi?” He was halfway down the hall now.

Obviously no one home. The house had a silent, hot,
waiting feel. An empty house full of furniture was somehow creepy when it wasn't your house. You felt watched.

“Hello? Anybody home?”
One last time.

Give her something to remember you by, then. And split.

He went into the living room and stood looking around. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, his forearms lightly slicked with sweat. Now things could be admitted. How he had wanted to kill her when she called him a son of a bitch, her spittle spraying on his face. How he had wanted to kill her for making him feel old and scared and not able to keep on top of the situation any more. The letter had been something, but the letter hadn't been enough.

To his right, knickknacks stood on a series of glass shelves. He turned and gave the bottom shelf a sudden hard kick. It disintegrated. The frame tottered and then fell over, spraying glass, spraying little china figurines of cats and shepherds and all that happy bourgeois horseshit. A pulse throbbed in the center of his forehead. He was grimacing, unaware of the fact. He walked carefully over the unbroken figurines, crushing them into powder. He pulled a family portrait from the wall, looked curiously at the smiling face of Vic Trenton for a moment (Tad was sitting on his lap, and his arm was around Donna's waist), and then he dropped the picture to the floor and stamped down hard on the glass.

He looked around, breathing hard, as if he had just run a race. And suddenly he went after the room as if it were something alive, something that had hurt him badly and needed to be punished, as if it were the room that had caused his pain. He pushed over Vic's La-Z-Boy recliner. He upended the couch. It stood on end for a moment, rocking uneasily, and then went down with a crash, breaking the back of the coffee table which had stood in front of it. He pulled all the books out of the bookcases, cursing the shitty taste of the people who had bought them under his breath as he did it. He picked up the magazine stand and threw it overhand at the mirror over the mantelpiece, shattering it. Big pieces of black-backed mirror fell onto the floor like chunks of a jigsaw puzzle. He was snorting now, like a bull in heat. His thin cheeks were almost purple with color.

He went into the kitchen by way of the small dining room. As he walked past the dining-room table Donna's parents had bought them as a housewarming present, he extended his arm
straight out and swept everything off onto the floor—the lazy Susan with its complements of spices, the cut-glass vase Donna had gotten for a dollar and a quarter at the Emporium Galorium in Bridgton the summer previous, Vic's graduation beer stein. The ceramic salt and pepper shakers shattered like bombs. His erection was back now, raging. Thoughts of caution, of possible discovery, had departed his mind. He was somewhere inside. He was down a dark hole.

In the kitchen he yanked the bottom drawer of the stove out to its stop and threw pots and pans everywhere. They made a dreadful clatter, but there was no satisfaction in mere clatter. A rank of cupboards ran around three of the room's four sides. He pulled them open one after the other. He grabbed plates by the double handful and threw them on the floor. Crockery jingled musically. He swept the glasses out and grunted as they broke. Among them was a set of eight delicate long-stemmed wine glasses that Donna had had since she was twelve years old. She had read about “hope chests” in some magazine or other and had determined to have such a chest of her own. As it turned out, the wine glasses were the only thing she had actually put in hers before losing interest (her original grand intention had been to lay by enough to completely furnish her bridal house or flat), but she had had them for more than half her life, and they were treasured.