John's Wife: A Novel (53 page)

It was Pioneers Day and the Ford-Mercury garage that was Cornell’s destination was officially closed, but by chance—or perhaps not by chance, more by quizzical design, the sort of design, for example, that governs the formal structure of a joke—its venerable owner and his young mechanic, the latter chauf-feuring at his own insistence, were also headed out there in the old tow truck, though by the main road which Cornell was no longer free to travel. The ostensible purpose, being duly acted out by both as if it were the real one, was the theft of the very truck which Cornell, though they didn’t know this nor would much have cared if they had known, was now returning. Along the route, which was a sunny well-used thoroughfare, Stu spied several people, some clients, mostly fellow duffers and elbow-benders—whom he might have hollered out to, but they’d have only smiled and hollered back and gone their way, even if he’d have shouted something like “Help, police!” or “I’m being murdered!” which everybody would have supposed was just a punchline to another of his dumb jokes. Which, truth to tell, it would have been, dumbest of the lot. He and Daphne had just been staggering blindly toward the door with John’s annual barbecue vaguely in mind when Rex appeared there as if out of nowhere. Stu was momentarily startled but he was not surprised. He’d been expecting this moment ever since Winnie started turning up at the foot of the bed at night, and today his little darlin’, uncommonly sober of late, had been uncommonly drunk since breakfast. Which, in shared apprehension, had sent Stu to the pump, and so both their engines were pretty well flooded by the time Rex made his sudden appearance at the door, dressed in his sweatsuit, to tell Stu they had to go out to the lot because a truck had been stolen, Daphne would have to go on to the party alone. It don’t matter, Stu declared magnanimously, waving his hand about, plenty more where that one came from. Rex protested that it did matter and they’d have to get going right now. They played out this no-it-don’t, yes-it-does routine for a turn or two, and it reminded Stu of a famous old wedding-night joke, but Rex didn’t want to hear it and Daphne complained she already had. Stu said, all right, go ahead on out, son, I’ll drop Daph off at the barbecue and meet you out there. Why are you always patronizing me, I can get there by myself, said his little peach among the lemons, hitting the doorjamb with the side of her face as she tried to lurch out past Rex. The blow seemed to have turned her around because she marched away straight into the dining room and hit something else, then came hack into the hallway, yowling and cussing like the old girl who got her tit caught in a wringer and wanting to know why the hell he was being such an irresponsible asshole, my god, this young fellow, who was only trying to be of help, was more interested in his business than
he
was, and of course that was genuinely true, as Stu had to admit, and did. Stu asked Rex then if he’d heard the one about the old boy who goes to the doctor because his dingus has gone soft and he can’t get it up anymore and he wants the doc to do something about it. The doc takes one look and tells him—goddamn you, you old fart, turn it off and get outa here! Daphne screamed, you’re driving me crazy!—tells him that his job is to cure the sick, not—
oh stop it! stop it!
—raise the dead. Rex grinned at that and said that’s a good one all right, come on now, let’s haul ass, and meanwhile, as though by accident, flashed a handgun from his sweatshirt pocket which he’d probably stolen from the garage. It seemed to Stu like there could be other things he might be doing on behalf of his own well-being, but he wasn’t doing them, he was walking a docile path toward the tow truck, Rex just behind him, pointing him aright when, like a leashed hounddog sniffing the flower patches, he tended to stray. He aimed for the driver’s seat, but Rex pushed him roughly away and said he was too fucking drunk, he’d drive. Stu couldn’t get up on the high seat by himself, Rex had to help, pitching him up there like he was made of straw. That boy had a bit of gristle on him. Also he had a rifle. Stu had glimpsed it in the back while getting tossed in. Plan on doin’ some shootin’, do you? Stu asked when they started up. His young mechanic grinned a wicked grin and said he thought maybe together they’d go after that guy who stole the truck. That got a hollow cackle out of old Winnie, ever the backseat driver, who was now hovering, Stu felt, just behind his shoulder, her fiery eyes all lit up with diabolical delight, even though this wrecker didn’t have a backseat. Stu told her to can it and Rex said can what? and Stu, running on automatic, crooned: Can it be true / that you / have someone new / left me alone / and feelin’ blue, and Rex growled: Jesus, nothing I hate worse than somebody wrecking a good song, Winnie’s hot laughter all the time singeing Stu’s ear. Stu kept thinking, all the way out to the car lot, about jumping out of the car or twisting the wheel out of Rex’s hands or grabbing the handgun or in some other way escaping his fate, but like that old boy who wanted his sex drive lowered, thinking about it was about all he could do about it.

Meanwhile, Stu’s little darlin’ was staggering out onto John’s back deck, one of the last to arrive, telling everyone she saw, whether they asked or not, what Rex had told her to say: that Stu had something he had to do out at the car lot before coming, one of his trucks had been stolen or something, he’d follow soon. Sounded rehearsed because it was rehearsed, people didn’t seem convinced, she was getting nervous or else was already nervous, hard as she was trying not to be, trying not to appear plastered, too, with even less success, though a courtesy call paid to the host’s gin bottle helped. Hair of the dug, as old Stu called it. “Why in God’s name doesn’t somebody stop it?” she asked out loud, but no one paid her the least attention, nor did she really want them to, her cold feet outvoted by her hot—what? One of that old rube’s worst and truest jokes. She could use a friend, though, dammit, but when she asked, John said he didn’t know, she was probably inside somewhere. Someone said: “She was beautiful in the parade today.” “Parade?” John was duded out like a cowtown sheriff which made Daphne feel uneasy, so, as appealing as his naked armpits were, she moved away. Her face hurt, must have hit something with it, though when people asked if she’d fallen off a barstool again, Daphne said she didn’t fall, she was pushed. That was funny enough but it might not have been the right thing to say, so she added that Stu had something he had to do out at the car lot, one of his trucks was stolen or something, he’d follow soon. No shit, some guy with big ears said flatly, staring right through her, though it was hard to tell whether he saw too much or nothing at all, wasted as she was. Daphne had driven here in a fog, mostly down the middle of the street, pinching herself to keep from passing out altogether. She’d wanted to call the whole thing off somehow, but she no longer knew exactly what the whole thing was, it was all very weird—like she was in a bubble and the rest of the world wasn’t happening anymore. She’d creased a few car doors and crunched a fender or two trying to park in the crowded street out front, but never mind, insurance would pay for it. More business for the lot. Which was where Stu was, she said. One of his trucks. What? Stolen, he’d follow soon. Or something. Really? a woman asked. Daphne tried to focus on her, couldn’t. It might have been the banker’s wife: the lady was worried about the rising crime rate. What was happening? she wanted to know, but Daphne couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t tell her her own goddamned name, if she’d been asked, luckily wasn’t. The preacher’s wife, who was rolling by just then, holding her stupendous belly up with both hands, said what she was worried about was the depletion of the ozone level and also that she might have her baby any minute now. Her husband smiled vaguely and said things aren’t always what they seem. He was gazing at Ronnie who, eyes popping, was crowbarred into a dress that fit her about as well as her old cheerleading costume used to, the bony cunt. She was even jitterier than Daphne was, and when John’s little boy came out of the house wearing one of his father’s white shirts like a jacket, its tails trailing in the grass, and with a homemade stethoscope around his neck, she screamed out:
“That nasty little twerp, what does he know about human suffering
—
?!”
Normally, her husband, Daphne’s ex, would have popped her one at that point, but the Mange, wearing dirty suit pants belted high over a golf shirt, seemed somewhat out of touch, one hand in his pocket, playing with himself, his eyes focused on his feet. Mikey came over and stuck a felt heart on Daphne’s ribs, just below her breast, and stabbed it with his stethoscope. Yipes! Everyone was watching and laughing, so Daphne, sweating, told him her heart was full, honey, but her bladder was even fuller, she’d go get him a sample, and she wobbled away, feeling her backside severely scrutinized, but confident she was giving nothing away. Inside, however, she nearly lost it: there was Winnie’s ghost! Oh my god! No, two of them!
“Get out of here, you crabby old bitch!”
she’d screamed. But it wasn’t her, neither of them were, it was just Lollie’s brats tangled up in sheets. She wanted to strangle the little jerks, but they were already crying and Daphne was determined to remain cool and unruffled, a sober friend of the family whose husband would be along soon, something he had to do before coming. A truck had been stolen. She told the two boys that and it seemed to settle them down. Didn’t do much for her, she was still feeling haunted and oppressed by a nameless dread, but she had a long relaxing pee and felt better. But when, after peeling off the felt heart (it was black), she stepped out of the toilet, there was the preacher’s kid staring at her in horror as though he’d been watching her through the door, the expression on his bloodless face exactly the same as when Rex grabbed him by the scruff and carried him out of her bedroom. Big booted John came striding in from the kitchen, handsome and hairy, read a note that the boy, never taking his eyes off Daphne, handed him, then gave the poor kid a sudden sock in the snoot that sent him crashing into the next room if not into the next world, and charged up the stairs, taking them three at a time. Oddly, this bit of action cheered Daphne up. She felt less exposed somehow, this boy had taken the punch that might have been thrown at her, so, pumped up with motherly gratitude or whatever, she reeled in there with a damp washrag to console the little sweetie and wipe up the blood and snot.

Philip, however (he was Philip now, and a man, after the convulsive revelations in the manse), was not consoled nor was to be consoled, nor could he, in spite of his newly achieved maturity and all his manly will, turn off the blubbering while that murderous old bag swabbed at his face, which seemed to have a big aching hole right in the middle where his nose should be, and asked him what was in the note that made John so mad. “I don’t know!” he sobbed (he couldn’t stop sobbing, it was humiliating). “It was only about my sister!” She wanted to know what about his sister and who had sent the note, but he wouldn’t tell her, he’d never tell anybody. But then Clarissa came storming in and kicked him in the ribs and demanded to know what awful thing he’d done that made her dad hit him and where was his damned sister anyway? “She’s gone. With your uncle Bruce.” That made her kick him and hit him all the harder—“I don’t believe you, asshole!” she screamed—she even landed blows between his legs and on his face where her dad had punched him, even though people were trying to hold her back. “I didn’t do it!” he whined, curled up on the floor, too stunned to stand. “Nevada did!” That at least brought a momentary end to her frenzy, though he felt he’d betrayed a sacred and intimate trust. “Nevada—? How do you know Nevada?” “She gave me the note,” he said, leaving out the details. Which were the best part. “She wanted me to lie to you about it!” “Hey, isn’t that the kid who mooned the world off old Stu’s roof?” someone laughed. “Aha! Is that why Daphne beat it outa here?” “She the one who popped him?” “No, John’s daughter done it.” Clarissa said again that she didn’t believe him, but he could tell, looking up at her through his tears past the throbbing mass between them (“Whew, he’s got him a honker now like our new mayor,” someone said, and someone else suggested they’d better get the doctor), that she did. Her face looked as punched in as his own. She was straddling him like a warrior, and Philip saw that she was naked under her shorts and she was beautiful inside there, and he knew that, though he’d thought he’d outgrown her with all that had happened to him today, he was mistaken, he still had the hots for her something awesome. “I didn’t want to come here. I only did it for you,” he confessed. “Shut up, Creep! You make me sick,” she snarled bitterly, and she might have started kicking him again, she was really steamed, but then her dad came in with his flight jacket pulled on over his leather vest and said: “I don’t see Mom right now, Clarissa. Take over here until she turns up.” “Is it Jen, Dad? Is she—?” He nodded briefly, looked down at Philip and said to stay away from that sleazy little shit, and was gone. She looked suddenly soft and vulnerable, terribly hurt, trying not to cry, and Philip wanted desperately to reach up and pat her neat little butt, just in sympathy, as a loving friend, but he knew she’d probably break his arm if he tried. Especially after what her dad said. Anyway, it hurt too much to move. The baggy-eyed old doctor shuffled in with a drink in his hand and squatted down creakily beside him, poking about in a perfunctory way. “Hey, maybe you oughta let John’s boy fix him up, Alf! He looks more like you than you do!” “Lemme tell ya, the kid’s got the same touchy-feely ways, too!” “He’s hilarious!” “Yeah, I loved it when he pulled his rectal thermometer gag on Old Hoot! That dumb cracker jumped a mile!” “Careful! Floyd’s a big man now!” “Looks like it’s broken, son,” the doctor declared wearily, and hauled himself to his feet. “I’ll go get my bag.” Clarissa’s dad was in the room again, very riled up, something about all his missing cars. “Where the hell’s the Porsch?” “Grampa Mitch must have taken it,” Clarissa said. “He went to pick up Granny Opal.” “But the Lincoln’s gone, too!” “I don’t know, Dad.” “Damn it, I’ve got to get out to the airport!” The doctor dragged some keys out of a pocket which seemed to reach to his knee and tossed them to him. “It’s the old—” “I know it. Thanks, Alf. I’ll have someone run it back in.” So, what was in that note? Philip could tell by the way Clarissa’s dad was acting that it must have been important, but why did he hit him like that? His mind blown by all the things Nevada was doing, dazzlingly naked there in his father’s dusty library, Philip hadn’t been paying enough attention to what she was saying. She’d given him a hickey on his neck to remember her by, thanks a lot, but now he had this broken nose as well. Grown-ups were really weird. And also a little scary. Zoe came in wearing a white shirt that reached to her shoes and a folded paper hat with a red cross felt-tipped on it, and he told her to go get Mom or Dad, he had something to tell them about Jenny. “Mommy’s not feeling good right now, she’s got a bad tummy and she’s lying down on a picnic table, and Daddy’s writing his sermon, and I’m not Zoe anyway, I’m a midwipe.”