Driving Blind (7 page)

“
Ask
me.”

“You wear that Hood even when you
sleep?
”

“All night long every night.”

“For most of your life?”

“Almost most.”

“Last night you said it’s more than a trick, showing off. What
else?
”

“If I didn’t tell the roomers and your grandpa, why should I tell you, Quint?” said the Hood with no features resting there in the night.

“ ‘Cause I want to know.”

“That’s about the best reason in the world. Sit down, Quint. Aren’t the fireflies nice?”

I sat on the wet grass. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” said Mr. Mysterious, and turned his head under his Hood as if he were staring at me. “Here goes. Ever wonder what’s under this Hood, Quint? Ever have the itch to yank it off and see?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“That lady in
The Phantom of the Opera
did. Look where it got
her
.”

“Then shall I
tell
you what’s hidden, son?”

“Only if you want to, sir.”

“Funny thing is, I do. This Hood goes back a long way.”

“From when you were a kid?”

“Almost. I can’t recall if I was born this way or something happened. Car accident. Fire. Or some woman laughing at me which burned just as bad, scarred just as terrible. One way or another we fall off buildings or fall out of bed. When we hit the floor it might as well have been off the roof. It takes a long time healing. Maybe never.”

“You mean you don’t remember when you put that thing on?”

“Things fade, Quint. I have lived in confusion a long while. This dark stuff has been such a part of me it might just be my living flesh.”

“Do—”

“Do what, Quint?”

“Do you sometimes
shave?
”

“No, it’s all smooth. You can imagine me two ways, I suppose. It’s all nightmare under here, all graveyards, terrible teeth, skulls and wounds that won’t heal. Or—”

“Or?”

“Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. No beard for shaving. No eyebrows. Mostly no nose. Hardly any eyelids, just eyes. Hardly any mouth; a scar. The rest a vacancy, a snowfield, a blank, as if someone had erased
me to start over. There. Two ways of guessing. Which do you pick?”

“I can’t.”

“No.”

Mr. Mysterious arose now and stood barefooted on the grass, his Hood pointed at some star constellation.

“You,” I said, at last. “You still haven’t told what you started tonight to tell Grandpa. You came here not just to sell brand-new Studebakers—but for something else?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Well. I been alone a lot of years. It’s no fun over in Gurney, just selling cars and hiding under this velvet sack. So I decided to come out in the open at last and mix with honest-to-goodness people, make friends, maybe get someone to like me or at least put up with me. You understand, Quint?”

“I’m trying.”

“What good will all this do, living in Green Town and thriving at your supper table and viewing the treetops in my cupola tower room?
Ask
.”

“What good?” I asked.

“What I’m hoping for, Quint, what I’m praying for, son, is that if I delve in the river again, wade in the stream, become part of the flow of folks, people, strangers even, some sort of kind attention, friendship, some sort of half-love will begin to melt and change my face. Over six or eight months or a year, to let life shift my mask without lifting it, so that the wax beneath moves and becomes something more than a nightmare at three
a.m. or just nothing at dawn. Any of this make sense, Quint?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“For people
do
change us, don’t they? I mean you run in and out of this house and your grandpa changes you and your grandpa shapes you with words or a hug or your hair tousled or maybe once a year, a slap where it hurts.”

“
Twice
.”

“Twice, then. And the boarders and roomers talk and you listen and that goes in your ears and out your fingers and that’s change, too. We’re all in the wash, all in the creeks, all in the streams, taking in every morsel of gab, every push from a teacher, every shove from a bully, every look and touch from those strange creatures, for
you
called women. Sustenance. It’s all breakfast tea and midnight snacks and you grow on it or you don’t grow, laugh or scowl or don’t have any features one way or the other, but
you’re
out there, melting and freezing, running or holding still. I haven’t done that in years. So just this week I got up my courage—knew how to sell cars but didn’t know how to put
me
on sale. I’m taking a chance, Quint, that by next year, this face under the Hood will make itself over, shift at noon or twilight, and I’ll feel it changing because I’m out wading in the stream again and breathing the fresh air and letting people get at me, taking a chance, not hiding behind the windshield of this or that Studebaker. And at the end of that next year, Quint, I’ll take off my Hood forever.”

At which point, turned away from me, he made a gesture. I saw the dark velvet in his hand as he dropped it in the grass.

“Do you want to see what’s here, Quint?” he asked, quietly.

“No, sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Why not?”

“I’m scared,” I said, and shivered.

“That figures,” he said, at last. “I’ll just stand here a moment and then hide again.”

He took three deep breaths, his back to me, head high, face toward the fireflies and a few constellations. Then the Hood was back in place.

I’m glad, I thought, there’s no moon tonight.

Five days and five Studebakers later (one blue, one black, two tans, and one sunset-red) Mr. Mysterious was sitting out in what he said was his final car, a sun-yellow open roadster, so bright it was a canary with its own cage, when I came strolling out, hands in overall pockets, watching the sidewalk for ants or old unused firecrackers. When Mr. M. saw me he moved over and said, “Try the driver’s seat.”

“Boy!
Can
I?”

I did, and twirled the wheel and honked the horn, just once, so as not to wake any late-sleepers.

“ ‘Fess up, Quint,” said Mr. Mysterious, his Hood pointed out through the windshield.

“Do I look like I need ‘fessing’?”

“You’re ripe-plumful. Begin.”

“I been thinking,” I said.

“I could tell by the wrinkles in your face,” said Mr. M., gently.

“I been thinking about a year from now, and you.”

“That’s mighty nice, son. Continue.”

“I thought, well, maybe next year if you felt you were cured, under that Hood, that your nose was okay and your eyebrows neat, and your mouth good and your complexion—”

I hesitated. The Hood nodded me on.

“Well, I was thinking if you got up one morning and without even putting your hands up to feel underneath you knew the long waiting was over and you were changed, people and things had changed you, the town, everything, and you were great, just great, no way of
ever
going back to nothing.”

“Go on, Quint.”

“Well, if that happened, Mr. Mysterious, and you just
knew
you were really great to see forever, why then, Mr. M., you wouldn’t
have
to take off your Hood,
would
you?”

“What’d you
say
, son?”

“I said, you wouldn’t have to ta—”

“I heard you, Quint, I heard,” gasped Mr. M.

There was a long silence. He made some strange sounds, almost like choking, and then he whispered hoarsely, “No, I wouldn’t need to take off my Hood.”

“ ‘Cause it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you really knew that underneath, everything was okay. Sure?”

“Oh, Lord yes, sure.”

“And you could wear the Hood for the next hundred years and only you and me would know what’s underneath. And we wouldn’t tell or care.”

“Just you and me. And what would I look like under the Hood, Quint? Sockdolager?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a long silence and Mr. Mysterious’ shoulders shook a few times and he made a quiet choking sound and all of a sudden some water dripped off the bottom of his Hood.

I stared at it. “Oh,” I said.

“It’s all right, Quint,” he said, quietly. “It’s just tears.”

“Gosh.”

“It’s all right. Happy tears.”

Mr. Mysterious got out of the last Studebaker then and touched at his invisible nose and dabbed at the cloth in front of his unseen eyes.

“Quintessential Quint,” he said. “No one else like you in the whole world.”

“Heck, that goes for
everyone
, don’t it?”

“If you say so, Quint.”

Then he added:

“Got any last things to upchuck or confess, son?”

“Some silly stuff. What if—?”

I paused and swallowed and could only look ahead through the steering wheel spokes at the naked silver lady on the hood.

“What if, a long time ago, you never
needed
the Hood?”

“You mean never? Never
ever?
”

“Yes, sir. What if a long time ago you only
thought
you needed to hide and put on that stuff with no eyeholes even. What if there was never any accident, or fire, or you weren’t born that way, or no lady ever laughed at you, what
then?
”

“You mean I only imagined I had to put on this sackcloth and ashes? And all these years I been walking around thinking there
was
something awful or just nothing, a blank underneath?”

“It just came to me.”

There was a long silence.

“And all these years I been walking around not knowing or pretending I had something to hide, for no reason, because my face was there all the time, mouth, cheeks, eyebrows, nose, and didn’t need melting down to be fixed?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You
did
.” A final tear fell off the bottom rim of his Hood. “How old are you, Quint?”

“Going on thirteen.”

“No. Methuselah.”

“He was
real
old. But did he have any jellybeans in his
head?
”

“Like you, Quincy. A marvel of jellybeans.”

There was a long silence, then he said:

“Walk around town? Need to flex my legs. Walk?”

We turned right at Central, left at Grand, right again
at Genesee, and stopped in front of the Karcher Hotel, twelve stories, the highest building in Green County or beyond.

“Quint?”

His Hood pointed up along the building while his voice under observed. “Thomas Quincy Riley, you got that
one last thing
look. Spit it out.”

I hesitated and said, “Well. Up inside that Hood, is it
really
dark? I mean, there’s no radio gadgets or see-back-oscopes or secret holes?”

“Thomas Quincy Riley, you been reading the Johnson Smith & Co. Tricks, Toys, Games and Halloween Catalogue from Racine, Wisconsin.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Well, when I die you’ll inherit this sack, wear it, and know darkness.”

The head turned and I could almost feel his eyes burn the dark material.

“Right now, I can look through your ribs and see your heart like a flower or a fist, opening, closing, open, shut. You believe that?”

I put my fist on my chest.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Now.”

He turned to point his Hood up along the hotel for twelve stories.

“Know what I been thinking?”

“Sir?”

“Stop calling myself Mr. Mysterious.”

“Oh,
no!
”

“Hold on! I’ve done what I came for. Car sales are runaway. Hallelujah. But look, Quint. Look up and touch. What if I became the Human Fly?”

I gasped. “You mean—”

“Yessireebob. Can’t you just see me up six stories and eight and twelve at the top, with my Hood still on, waving down at the crowd?”

“Gee!”

“Glad for your approval.” Mr. M. stepped forward and started to climb, reaching for holds, finding, and climbing more. When he was three feet up he said, “What’s a good
tall
name for a Human Fly?”

I shut my eyes, then said:

“
Hightower
!”

“Hightower, by God! Do we go home to breakfast?”

“Yes,
sir
.”

“Mashed bananas, mashed cornflakes, mashed oatmeal—”

“Ice cream!” I added.

“Melted,” said the Human Fly and climbed back down.

S
omebody started playing the yellow-keyed piano, somebody started singing, and somebody, myself, started thinking. The words of the song were slow, sweet, and sad:

I hummed it. I remembered some more words:

“I knew a Sally once,” I said.

“You did?” said the bartender, not looking at me.

“Sure,” I said. “Very first girlfriend. Like the words
of that song, makes you wonder, whatever happened to her? Where’s she tonight? About all you can do is hope she’s happy, married, got five kids, and a husband who isn’t late more than once a week, and remembers, or doesn’t remember, her birthdays, whichever way she likes it most.”

“Why don’t you look her up?” said the bartender, still not looking at me, shining a glass.

I drank my drink slowly.

The people around the piano were finishing the song. I listened, eyes shut.

The piano stopped. There was a lot of quiet laughter and talk.

I put the empty glass down on the bar and opened my eyes and looked at it for a minute.

“You know,” I said to the bartender, “you just gave me an idea …”

Where do I start? I thought, outside on the rainy street in a cold wind, night coming on, buses and cars
moving by, the world suddenly alive with sound. Or do you start at all, which is it?

I’d had ideas like this before; I got them all the time. On Sunday afternoons if I overslept I woke up thinking I had heard someone crying and found tears on my face and wondered what year it was and sometimes had to go off and find a calendar just to be sure. On those Sundays I felt there was fog outside the house, and had to go open the door to be sure the sun was still slanting across the lawn. It wasn’t anything I could control. It just happened while I was half asleep and the old years gathered around and the light changed. Once, on a Sunday like that, I telephoned clear across the United States to an old school chum, Bob Hartmann. He was glad to hear my voice, or said he was, and we talked for half an hour and it was a nice talk, full of promises. But we never got together, as we had planned; next year, when he came to town, I was in a different mood. But that’s how those things go, isn’t it? Warm and mellow one second, and the next I looked around and I was gone.

But right now, standing on the street outside of Mike’s Bar, I held out my hand and added up my fingers: first, my wife was out of town visiting her mother downstate. Second, tonight was Friday, and a whole free weekend ahead. Third, I remembered Sally very well, if no one else did. Fourth, I just wanted somehow to say, Hello, Sally, how are things? Fifth, why didn’t I start?

I did.

I got the phone book and went down the lists. Sally Ames. Ames, Ames. I looked at them all. Of course. She was married. That was the bad thing about women: once married they took aliases, vanishing into the earth, and you were lost.

Well then, her parents, I thought.

They were unlisted. Moved or dead.

What about some of her old friends who were once friends of mine? Joan something-or-other. Bob whatsis-name. I drew blanks, and then remembered someone named Tom Welles.

I found Tom in the book and telephoned him.

“Good God, is that you, Charlie?” he cried. “Good grief, come on over. What’s new? Lord, it’s been years! Why are you—”

I told him what I was calling about.

“Sally? Haven’t seen her in years. Hey, I hear you’re doing okay, Charlie. Salary in five figures, right? Pretty good for a guy from across the tracks.”

There hadn’t been any tracks, really; just an invisible line nobody could see but everyone felt.

“Hey, when can we see you, Charlie?”

“Give you a call soon.”

“She was a sweet girl, Sally. I’ve told my wife about her. Those eyes. And hair color that didn’t come out of a bottle. And—”

As Tom talked on, a lot of things came back. The way she listened, or pretended to listen, to all my grand talk about the future. It suddenly seemed she had never
talked at all. I wouldn’t let her. With the sublime dumb ego of a young man I filled up the nights and days with building tomorrows and tearing them down and building them again, just for her. Looking back, I was embarrassed for myself. And then I remembered how her eyes used to take fire and her cheeks flush with my talking, as if everything I said was worth her time and life and blood. But in all the talk, I couldn’t remember ever saying I loved her. I should have. I never touched her, save to hold her hand, and never kissed her. That was a sadness now. But I had been afraid that if I ever made one mistake, like kissing, she would dissolve like snow on a summer night, and be gone forever. We went together and talked together, or I talked, rather, for a year. I couldn’t remember why we broke up. Suddenly, for no reason, she was gone, around the same time we both left school forever. I shook my head, eyes shut.

“Do you remember, she wanted to be a singer once, she had a swell voice,” said Tom. “She—”

“Sure,” I said. “It all comes back. So long.”

“Wait a minute—” said his voice, being hung back on the receiver hook.

I went back to the old neighborhood and walked around. I went in the grocery stores and asked. I saw a few people who I knew but who didn’t remember me. And finally I got a line on her. Yes, she was married. No, they weren’t sure of the address. Yes,
his
name was Maretti. Somewhere on that street down that way and over a few blocks, or maybe it was the other way.

I checked the name I the phone book. That should have warned me. No phone.

Then by asking questions at some grocery stores down the line, I finally got the Maretti address. Third apartment, fourth floor, rear, number 407.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked myself, going up the stairs, climbing in the dim light in the smell of old food and dust. “Want to show her how well you’ve done, is
that
it?

“No,” I told myself. “I just want to see Sally, someone from the old days. I want to get around to telling her what I should have told her years ago, that, in my own way, at one time, I loved her. I never told her that. But I was afraid. I’m not afraid now that it doesn’t make any difference.

“You’re a fool,” I said.

“Yes,” I said, “but aren’t we all.”

I had to stop to rest on the third landing. I had a feeling, suddenly, in the thick smell of ancient cooking, in the close, whispering darkness of TVs playing too loud and distant children crying, that I should walk down out of the house before it was too late.

“But you’ve come this far. Come on,” I said. “One more flight.”

I went up the last stairs slowly and stood before an unpainted door. Behind it, people moved and children talked. I hesitated. What would I say? Hello, Sally, remember the old days when we went boating in the park and the trees were green and you were as slender as a blade of grass? Remember the time that—well.

I raised my hand.

I knocked on the door.

It opened and a woman answered. I’d say she was about ten years older, maybe fifteen, than me. She was wearing a two-dollar basement dress which didn’t fit, and her hair was turning gray. There was a lot of fat in the wrong places, and lines around her tired mouth. I almost said, “I’ve got the wrong apartment, I’m looking for Sally Maretti.” But I didn’t say anything. Sally was a good five years younger than me. But this was she, looking out of the door into the dim light. Behind her was a room with a battered lampshade, a linoleum floor, one table, and some old brown overstuffed furniture.

We stood looking at each other across twenty-five years. What could I say? Hello, Sally, I’m back, here I am, prosperous, on the other side of town now, here I am, a good car, home, married, children through school, here I am president of a company, why didn’t you marry me and you wouldn’t be here? I saw her eyes move to my Masonic ring, to the boutonniere in my lapel, to the clean rim of the new hat in my hand, to my gloves, to my shined shoes, to my Florida-tanned face, to my Bronzini tie. Then her eyes came back to my face. She was waiting for me to do one thing or the other. I did the right thing.

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “I’m selling insurance.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t need any.”

She held the door open for just a moment as if at any moment she might burst open.

“Sorry to have bothered you,” I said.

“That’s all right,” she said.

I looked beyond her shoulder. I had been wrong. There were not five children, but six at the dinner table with the husband, a dark man with a scowl stamped on his brow.

“Close the door!” he said. “There’s a draft.”

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night,” she said.

I stepped back and she closed the door, her eyes still on my face.

I turned and went down the street.

I had just stepped off the bottom of the brownstone steps when I heard a voice call out behind me. It was a woman’s voice. I kept walking. The voice called again and I slowed, but did not turn. A moment later someone put a hand on my elbow. Only then did I stop and look around.

It was the woman from apartment 407 above, her eyes almost wild, her mouth gasping, on the point of tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and almost pulled back but then gathered herself to say, “This is crazy. You don’t happen to be, I know you’re not, you aren’t Charlie McGraw,
are
you?”

I hesitated while her eyes searched my face, looking for some halfway familiar feature among all the oldness.

My silence made her uneasy. “No, I didn’t really think you were,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who was he?”

“Oh, God,” she said, eyes down, stifling something like a laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe a boyfriend, a long time ago.”

I took her hand and held it for a moment. “I wish I were,” I said. “We should have had a lot to talk about.”

“Too much, maybe.” A single tear fell from her cheek. She backed off. “Well, you can’t have everything.”

“No,” I said, and gave her back her hand, gently.

My gentleness provoked her to a last question.

“You’re
sure
you’re not Charlie?”

“Charlie must’ve been a nice fellow.”

“The best,” she said.

“Well,” I said, at last. “So long.”

“No,” she said. “Good-bye.” She spun about and ran to the steps and ran up the steps so quickly that she almost tripped. At the top she whirled suddenly, her eyes brimmed, and lifted her hand to wave. I tried not to wave back but my hand went up.

I stood rooted to the sidewalk for a full half minute before I could make myself move. Jesus, I thought, every love affair I ever had I ruined.

I got back to the bar near closing time. The pianist, for some obscure reason, hating to go home was probably it, was still there.

Taking a double shot of brandy and working on a beer, I said,

“Whatever you do, don’t play that piece about
wherever she may go, wherever she may be, if no one wants her now, please send her back to me …”

“What song is that?” said the pianist, hands on the keys.

“Something,” I said. “Something about … what was her name? Oh, yeah. Sally.”