John's Wife: A Novel (56 page)

She didn’t mean to. It was a dark moonless night and she was hungry and that boy with the automatic zinger had not come back and she could not remember where he had hid their food. She saw lights and heard music and crept over there. Well, crept. It felt to her like creeping but she did break a few trees and accidentally tipped a car into the ditch. She could smell cooked meat and beer and so she went poking around in the garbage cans at the back and that was where she stepped on something. Just made a little squeak. She figured it was better not to look. There wasn’t much to eat but what there was she quickly put away, eating straight from the tipped-up cans. Everything tasted pretty good, even the plastic bags, though she cut her mouth when she bit into the bottles. There was something else sniffing around back there so she ate that, too. Then some people came out and started making a fuss and she remembered that she was supposed to keep out of sight so nobody would know where they were. It was probably too late, but it was dark so she thought she might be able to slip away unnoticed, and she might have, too, if they hadn’t had all those cars and trucks in her way. They made quite a racket so it was obvious to everyone which way she was going. Still, no one seemed to want to follow her, and in fact most of them were running to their cars and going home, if their cars still worked, so while they were busy at that she burrowed deeper into the woods and found a dark place that was scratchy but warm where she could snuggle down and wait for her friend to return. But no sooner had she got settled than she realized she had to go to the bathroom again, that was the trouble with all this eating, so she crawled over to the big ditch she’d used before and did her business there, then found her way back into her secret place, keeping her head down all the while, scuffing up the brush behind her so they couldn’t follow her tracks. She didn’t know why she had to do this, but she knew it was important. Her friend, whose name she could not quite remember, had said so. Why had he not come back? She did not know that either, but she never doubted that he would. Unless he’d had an accident or had got caught himself by whoever it was that was chasing them. It was mostly her fault they were being chased, because of how big she was. There were many things she did not remember now, but she knew she had not always been this big. Exactly why it bothered everybody so much, she couldn’t be sure, but she guessed it was just something they weren’t used to and that got on their nerves. She could appreciate how they felt because she wasn’t used to it either, and didn’t know if she ever would be. She missed things like beds and those white things—bathtubs—too much. But maybe, after she’d forgotten them, like everything else, she’d stop missing them and things would be all right. She curled up in a nest of wrinkled sheets she’d earlier worn like someone in her old life used to call, as he tore them off her, her “seventh veil,” and there half dozed with one eye open, her ears and nose alert, listening for footfalls or men talking, her empty stomach gnawing at her again, and wishing her friend would come back soon and show her where their hidden food was. It was awfully late. Where was he anyway?

At the door. And through it. Found at last, when least expected, nor where he’d have thought to look. All the way out here, slipping through back streets and unmarked roads in the borrowed truck, Cornell had been thinking about his escape from Yale’s girlfriend’s apartment after, well, after what had happened to her, and how his whole life since then seemed like a single thread: through those scary streets, down into the ground below, then through that dark stinking maze of tunnels and sewers, up the metal stairs, out the door at the top, into a life with that clubfooted lady that was, somehow, already underway, then out again to find the one true friend he had in the world, and now once more on the run, but aboveground and with something important to do and no longer all alone. That thread of his life, he sensed (he remembered Marie-Claire’s horrible final message: maybe what she’d meant to say was THINK!), was now being knotted, he didn’t know how, but it was all coming round full circle, and he was suddenly sure he would find at last the door that he’d been looking for, solving the mystery of his life and freeing himself from the sensation of there being not just one of him but two. That second Corny, the mixed-up married one, shaken off for awhile, was back with him now, not so much riding in the seat beside him or in the truckbed behind as actually sharing the driver’s seat and interfering with his moves, even if he was trying to help, as he sometimes did on hairy turns or in heavy traffic with his video games reflexes, but more often determined, it seemed, to lead him astray in some random rerouting of his intentions: he had to be single-minded about this business and simply could not. What he had to do now, if the other Corny would only let him, was return this cumbrous truck and pick up his old van, make a quick grocery run, then meet his friend in the woods, which was where he now imagined he might discover that elusive door (something about the smell of the place had stirred a faded memory and excited that imagining) through which they could make their escape before the crazy people in this town caught up with them. The last place they’d tried to hide was an unused hangar out at the airport and that had worked for a little while, poor Pauline could even stand up and walk around a little, but they’d hardly settled in when they’d been surprised by four or five very mean guys, including one of Corny’s former high school teachers, who’d actually shot at them with a gun. Holy cow! Corny had had to floorboard it out of there, right through the lot of them and crashing out the half-opened door, and, with all the roads out of town cut off by police cars, there was nowhere big enough left to go but Settler’s Woods. Not perfect. Once inside there was no easy exit, and it was risky to be so near the highway and strip, though the motel was useful for food and clean sheets, which Pauline wore like diapers now that her red cloak hardly came below her armpits. The Country Tavern was close by as well, and there was a mall Corny could reach by foot. So, after finding a safe place to hide Pauline and the truckload of food (it didn’t look like a place where a door might be, but that was where the sensation struck him, gazing up at his friend as she squatted to offer him her finger between his legs—zowie!—that he was at least getting warm), he left a few false garbage clues to send the police chasing and then took the back roads to the Ford garage, skirting danger as best he could whenever the second Corny wasn’t making him take wrong turns—as he did too often, turning the trip out into a maze. Corny was worried, hopping down out of the truck at the car lot, about all the time he’d lost: he’d left Pauline in the woods in blazing midday sunshine, and already it was pitch-dark! He found the old van, but locked up: the keys must be in the office. Which, fortunately, though everything appeared closed down for the night, was unlocked. He turned the handle and crossed the threshold and that was when it came to him that the door he’d been looking for all this time was the one he’d just stepped through.

Across town in the retirement home built by John, Barnaby stepped through his bathroom door, dragging his leaden leg behind him, staggered over to the laundry basket, and tipped it over. “God, Barnaby!” Audrey snapped, from her seat on the toilet, “can’t you give a woman a little privacy?” “Too old for that, Aud. I just thought of something.” “Well, that’s a novelty,” she said sarcastically, but she seemed uneasy, watching him as he struggled to tip the hamper upside down. Not a simple trick for a crippled puddinghead. But he managed it and, sure enough, the old handgun he’d been looking for all this time clattered out onto the tiled floor. She leapt up off the pot, but she was hobbled by her lacy drawers (Audrey always was one for fancy underthings), so for once he was able to beat her to it simply by falling on top of it. Not sure how he was going to get up again, but he had the gun and it was pointed, however unsteadily, from under his chin, up at her. “Now sit back down there,” he said. “We’re gonna have a little talk about that rewrote will.” She plopped back in place looking a bit deflated as he pushed up onto his elbows and knees, waving the gun more or less in her direction and reminding her that he was a mite shaky so she shouldn’t get adventurous. “I thought I’d moved it from there,” she sighed, staring at all the dirty laundry scattered across the floor. “I must have forgotten.” Using the tub and lavatory, he was able to haul himself to his feet, but not without the gun going off, sending a bullet ricocheting out of the washbasin, off the medicine cabinet mirror, and into the ceiling, and provoking a squawk from Audrey, who jumped a foot off the stool, then snapped: “You damned fool! You want to kill somebody? You can’t undo what’s already been done!” In some remote subdivision of his devastated brain he knew that was true, but in the front war-room lobes behind his eyes, from which heavily fortified enclosure he was organizing this do-or-die operation, there remained a stubborn hope for victory. “We can try,” he said heroically, and accidentally fired off a shot through the window. Audrey winced and ducked but stoically kept her seat. “You’re a crazy old buzzard who ought to be locked up,” she said. She was really boiling. “It’s a good thing John’s running the company, or we’d all be ruined. I’m
glad
I changed that will!” “Why do you favor that coldhearted boy, Aud?” he asked, trading anger for anger. “On account of he reminds you of your old beau?” “Oh brother! Why don’t you stick that peashooter up your backside, lamebrain, and leave us all in peace?” “Hey, tell me, love of my life, I’ve always wondered, did you ever have a tumble with that ruthless whoremonger?” “Well, what can I say, Barn? Mitch was once a handsome man, and he had a charming way with the ladies. Which is more than can be said for present company!” The doorbell rang. “That’s likely the police,” Audrey said, reaching for the toilet paper. “They probably want to know why you’ve been shooting at the neighbors.” The bell rang again and someone banged on the door with his fist. “All right! All right! I’m coming!” he shouted, though he knew that was not what it sounded like to others. Audrey was the only one who understood him now, so it was just as well he hadn’t knocked her off, he might need her to get him out of trouble. He limped out, trying unsuccessfully to holster his weapon in the sock sewn into the armpit of his robe, and as he opened the door, shot the carpet. There was Mitch with a dead wet cigar in his mouth. “Don’t shoot, Sheriff, I’ll marry your daughter!” Mitch said, and took the gun away from him, looked it over skeptically. He glanced past Barnaby’s shoulder and added: “You all right, hon?” She came running over and fell into Mitch’s arms, and he gave her a big hug. “I’ve been so frightened, Mitch!” Mitch backed out with that two-timing woman under his arm, the little silver gun pointed at Barnaby’s kneecaps. The sonuvabitch was stealing his damned wife, right from under his nose, but Barnaby wasn’t surprised, they’d taken everything else. Wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d shot him either. Wished he had. He was really all alone now. Couldn’t even do himself in. He shut down the war room and his daughter came in and closed the door. “Where have you been?” he croaked. “I’ve
needed
you!” He was crying, he couldn’t help it. She put her finger to her lips and shushed him and led him over to his bed to tuck him in. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m here now.”

Wife theft of course was an old joke, as old as wives, but as Stu would say if he had any spit left to say with, it’s not the theft but how you steal it. Rex, now tucking his old boss and rival in for the long night out at the Ford-Mercury car lot, using methods more direct, less consoling than those Barnaby presently enjoyed, had figured all the angles and knew nothing could go wrong now from here to the tagline. Rex had had a lot of jobs in his life—stockboy, fridge and TV repairman, taxi driver, deliveryman, mechanic, gigolo—but for this gig he’d cut his chops killing pigs for bacon-makers. Probably the spot in his life, short though the run was, that had given him the most satisfaction. Not all that easy on the old olfactories, but at least at the end of the day you felt you’d accomplished something. Which was how he felt now, cooled out at last after an edgy time. Rex had been noodling along without direction for too long, trying to think his way through every move, every bar, like a goddamned greenhorn, but now that he was onstage at last he found himself relaxing into his own sense of time, on top of the beat and ready for his break when it came, knowing that it would all happen as it had to happen so long as he kept to the score. At the same time, he was able to let in a lot more space, to stretch it out just for the pleasure of it, to enjoy, in a word, the telling, and for openers, there was Stu’s record collection which the old jughead beamed out over the lot most days and which sorely offended Rex, twangy whining country and western shit for the most part. He ordered Stu to take them out of their jackets and hold them for him while, one by one, he dug deep raw X’s into them with a screwdriver. The old shitkicker, sneezing explosively, gave it his best attention, probably hoping that was the worst that was going to happen to him, and when Rex spared a couple of classic rockabilly discs Stu’s eyes lit up there in the dimness and a grin twitched on his loose lips. “Reminds me of the one about the old boy,” he wheezed, “who was chawin’ tobacca in church one day when the preacher’s missus come in and—” Rex poked the barrel of the rifle into his flapping jaws, chipping a couple of crooked teeth, told the dumbfuck to chaw on that awhile, and then laid out for him his plans for a long creamy set with his own fat missus, now waiting for him back at Stu’s crib. Not too long a set: he loathed the boozy bitch and her big spongy ass, but he didn’t say so. One lick at a time. He emptied the chamber of the garage handgun and gave it to Stu to hold while he still sweated fingerprints, planning to reload it afterwards and fire off a couple of rounds, turn the old yuck into a heroic defender of the fort, if a dead one. Okay, time for the main theme: stay inside, follow the chart, and take it out. At the last second, the old used-car shark tried to pull the cornball someone-behind-you dodge—“Winnie—?” he gasped—but Rex only grinned and, straightahead, no frills, completed his closing rip. But when he turned around, there in the shadows: there
was
someone! He panicked for a moment, thinking: setup! But wait: wasn’t that the thin streak of piss who stole the truck? Perfect! He eased up, feeling the beat again. Not the tag expected, but he could play it. You’re all right, my man, if you just keep listening.