Lit Riffs (7 page)

Well, I’ve failed. This whole letter is about A, I see that now. You wonder whether you can stand never to know the touch of a fresh hand, the trembling flavor of a new kiss, and I’m desperately trying to keep from telling you the little I know: it’s sweeter than anything, for a moment. For just a moment, there’s nothing else. As to all you’re weighing it against, your wife and child, I know less than nothing. The wisdom of your ambivalence, the whimsical, faux-jaded wit you share in your letter, as you contemplate the beauties around you, all that poise will be shattered if you act—I can promise you that much. You’re more innocent than you know. I speak to you from the dark end of the street, but it’s a less informed place than you’d think. All I can do for you is frame the question I’ve framed for myself: Where to steer the speeding motorcycle of one’s own innocence? How to make it a gift instead of a curse?

I think we need a new national anthem.

I’m ending this letter without saying anything about your incredible tale of the salaryman masturbating on the subway. Well, there, I’ve mentioned it. I’m also grateful to know that Godzilla’s not what he’s cracked up to be, that he’s just another mediocre slugger with a good agent and a memorable nickname. What a joy it would be to see the Yankees take a pratfall on that move. Bad enough when they pillage the other American teams, but that the world is their oyster, too, has become unbearable. Of course, the Mets go on signing haggard veterans and I think there’s no hope at all, but you can be certain Giuseppe and I will be out at Shea having our hearts broken this May, as always. In our hearts it’s always spring, or 1969, or something like that. I only wish we had some outfielders who could catch the ball.

Yours,
E.

author inspiration

Yo La Tengo has been one of my favorite groups for ten years, not least because in their curiosity and generosity they remained fans and critics even as they became artists themselves. Their covers of other musicians—in this case, the prodigal songwriter Daniel Johnston—convey a quality of curatorial pleasure not so different from the premise of this anthology. Aside from that, anyone whose heart isn’t broken by that song hasn’t ever been in love.

amanda davis

M
eg dreams that someone is coming for her. It is a clear and urgent dream and she wakes full of hope, but twisted in the sheets, as though a struggle has ensued. She dresses slowly, pulling on her cleanest pair of worn blue pants, a tight white T-shirt that she believes hints at her figure under the blue-and-white smocks Raylene makes all the Clover waitresses wear. She rouses her little brothers and pours them bowls of cereal, makes herself coffee, and herds the boys to catch their bus, all the while consumed by an unshakable feeling that the day ahead contains an electric promise: something is going to change.

Meg checks on her mother, still asleep in her darkened bedroom, then goes down the hall to the bathroom and appraises herself. She pulls her dark hair back in a clip, and then, studying herself in the mirror, takes the clip out and shakes her hair loose, so that it hangs in waves that frame her pointy face. Her pale cheeks are flushed and her eyes shine. She applies mascara, eye shadow, lipstick. She looks pretty, doesn’t she? Pretty enough for whatever is coming?

When Meg arrives, the restaurant is already busy. Her shift proceeds normally enough. People come in, she takes their order, smiles, brings them food, all the while waiting.

You are so jumpy, Raylene says. Why the bee in your bonnet? Settle down.

Meg only smiles. Raylene is not the type to be confided in. But she is bursting with it, with expectation for the future in every pore. At lunch she needs to say something. I had a dream, she tells Leah, the other waitress, who widens her eyes appropriately. I think something’s going to happen today.

I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, Raylene calls from halfway across the restaurant. You’re going to get your butt in the back room and bring out more napkins, before I throw something at you, that’s what.

Leah gives Meg a sympathetic smile, but then it gets busy and that is the last Meg speaks of it. The day ticks by with frustrating predictability and the feeling fades, the dream fades, and all that is left is the Clover Restaurant.

It rains and then stops. People complain about the weather and then talk about the forecast for tomorrow, the next day, next week. The dinner rush is in full swing, and the end of the shift creeps toward her. Meg is mopping the counter when, coming from the entrance, she feels a dry heat that causes her to look up, to see him there in jeans and boots and a worn canvas jacket. He is pleasant looking, but nothing special—brown hair and the beginning of a dark beard. He is shorter than Meg had hoped, and when he hangs his jacket on the rack by the door, she sees he is a little heavy, too. Still, she feels that heat coming off him and her pulse quickens. That has to count for something.

There is nowhere free but the counter. He strolls there slowly, not looking straight at her, but Meg can feel him watching just the same.

Later Meg imagines ways it might have turned out differently. She could have put her notepad down, untied her apron, and taken a break, though the restaurant was too crowded for Raylene to let her off without a scene. Still, she could have slipped out to go to the bathroom at least—who could argue with that? Meg could have excused herself to Mr. Wilson and Tom, her regulars, and wiped the counter clean with one sweep like she always did before walking into the back, because a clean counter made her feel calm, returning to it was okay, while the dirty ones made her feet ache with the hours to come. She could have walked back through the swinging door and continued out to the Dumpster. Could have leaned against the brick wall and smoked a cigarette, slowly, until her hands stopped shaking.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she watches this man saunter forward and holds her breath until he sits down. She tries to smile, but Leah brushes by, and for a moment it seems as though he will order from Leah, but he doesn’t. Meg watches Leah open a box of straws, and the man clears his throat. He waits until he has Meg’s attention before he speaks.

You got good coffee? he says. I need a good cup of coffee.

Meg licks her lips. She tries to swallow. For no sound reason there is something about him that makes her feel the future rush at her with enormous speed. It’s okay, she says. Not the best in the world, but it’ll probably do.

She clenches her fingers to keep from rocking and he turns his attention to the menu, greasy and pie-stained. I’ll take some, he says. And some of that there.

Meg follows his finger to the peach pie under glass. Right, she says. Okay. And it is like having a fever: she fades in and out of consciousness, all the time aware of becoming a planet orbiting around a sun.

Her shift disappears in a blur of motion. Sometimes time behaves strangely in the restaurant—days lurch forward or hang still, minutes taking hours to tick by. But this is different. This is like being on fire.

He is leaning against a battered blue pickup when Meg gets off. He flashes a wide smile and she swallows again, but doesn’t let herself smile back this time. She doesn’t have to. It was decided, it had all been decided before by her bones and her blood, by some other being, some other Meg back in that room full of dishes. It was already settled when he paid the check and put his hand over hers: she hoped it would feel like this.

You want one? he says and thrusts a pack of reds at her.

I got my own. Meg holds her purse close and feels them in her pocket, the pack smooth and loose. She can’t quite look at him, not directly. He hands her a lit cigarette, as though she hadn’t answered. She didn’t seen him with two in his mouth, lighting one for her, but it is damp, and Meg knows she is touching a place his lips have been.

You’re not from around here, she blurts, so loudly that they both laugh in surprise.

No, he says, but now she can look at that dangerous grin, at his big teeth, his small, dark eyes. I’m from Texas. Small town. You wouldn’t have heard of it.

Try me.

He runs a hand through his hair so it pokes up on top and looks at something over her head. It’s called Shuville, he said.
S-H-U
, not like footwear. It’s about four hours from anywhere you’d want to be.

You still live there?

No.

A car passes, and then another. Each leaving the restaurant for the highway that twists out toward the horizon. She watches them go, waits for them to disappear from sight, one after the other. Any other night she might be out here alone, staring at that line that divides land from sky, wondering when she’ll ever get a chance to head there herself. She drags deep so he won’t see her hand tremble.

It’s nice out, he says. She turns to him. It is about to rain again. He leans back on the hood of his truck, one arm propping him up, the other holding his cigarette. His blue jeans end in cowboy boots, and that makes her smile.

You want to go for a ride? he says, and pats the side of his truck.

Where to?

Don’t know. Maybe we’ll just find someplace.

Meg takes another drag and looks over her shoulder, back into the restaurant where she can see Leah watching, Raylene shaking her head. There is no good reason to go, she knows, but there is no way she won’t.

You got something better to do? he says.

No, Meg says. I guess not.

They drive fast with the windows rolled up and don’t speak. His truck is old and dented, the seats patched with duct tape. It rattles and runs loudly and it smells like tobacco and sweat. And something else. She sees an orange pierced with a thousand cloves wedged in the slant where his dashboard and windshield meet.

You do that? Meg says, and points, but he seems not to hear her. He stares ahead looking calm, sure of where he is taking her.

At some point he turns on the radio and for a while they listen to a guitar and a lonesome voice sing to each other. Meg thinks of her twin brothers. She hasn’t until this moment, but she thinks of them now, fixing their own dinners and eating in front of the television with the sound turned low. They will have the lights off, she knows. And they will sit too close with no one to tell them not to. Maybe one of them will be called on to bring Mama something. Maybe they will spend the night in silence.

Meg shakes her head to empty it and tells herself to focus on now, on this very moment, not what she is missing. She watches the headlights spear the dusk, then turns a little to watch him, too.

What do they call you? she says. What’s your name?

Jackson, he says, and she isn’t sure if it’s his first or his last, but she doesn’t ask.

Aren’t you going to ask me mine?

It’s Meg, he says. I can read.

Meg reaches over, unpins the nametag, and tucks it in her pocket. She had forgotten it was there.

It begins to rain lightly at first, then heavier. They drive into the night, and Meg sleeps and wakes, forgetting where she is or why she is there, forgetting how it seemed right to climb in the truck in the first place. But she isn’t afraid. She is thankful for the motion, happy to think of her life growing small behind her.

Where are we? Meg says, raising her head from the glass when she sees a white church loom in the glare of their lights. Are we still in South Carolina?

Jackson doesn’t look at her, but she sees him smile. You ever had catfish? he says.

She sits up now and peers into the dark. Sure I have.

Well, I thought of this place to take you to a while back and that’s where we’re going.

And they make catfish?

Like nothing you ever had before.

You know I have to work tomorrow? Meg says. You know that?

I figured as much.

Well, how far is this place?

Let’s just go, he says. We’re having an adventure, sweetheart, let’s just have it.

Meg nestles back down, the road underneath them singing her back to the dream: She is at home, sitting on the front porch of their once-white house. Only it is white again, peeling paint grown smooth, and she understands somehow that it is Before. That her father is still alive, that her mother is well. That the boys are healthy and round-faced and that they all wait for her through that screen door, if only she will stand up off the steps and turn around and walk inside.

But Meg cannot do it. Her limbs are heavy and she cannot make herself rise to meet them. The sun fades from the clear sky until it is purple and then dark, and it grows cold. Then light spills beside her from the windows of the house, but still she cannot stand, because even in the midst of it, she can tell it is a dream and can’t bear to take it one step further.

Something lurches her out of that place. She wakes with wet cheeks and wipes them hard, hiding her face from Jackson.

They have stopped. She raises her head and looks around. It is dark and she doesn’t know where they are. He leans his chin on the palm of his hand, elbow propped on the truck window, still as granite.

What is it? she says.

Scrapyard.

It emerges from the darkness then, the elements of metal piled in high towers as far back as she can see. There is a crane, too, empty and orange, with a bucket that looks like it could swing out as far as where they sit.

Where are we?

Nowhere, he says, and throws the truck into gear.

My granddaddy owned that yard, he says a while later. It’s other people’s now, but that was where my daddy was born.

I thought you were from Texas?

Yeah. He turns the radio back on and spins the dial, looking for something he doesn’t find. He turns it off and the silence feels sudden to her, large.

You born in Texas?

Yeah.

When did your people leave South Carolina?

We’re in Georgia, he says. He looks over at her then and seems to be adding something up, something that she can’t see. My daddy wrote songs, he says finally. He wrote these songs and he got known for them and that would have never happened if he’d a stayed here.

His words are fierce, his voice low. She isn’t sure what he expects of her. The windshield wipers slap back and forth. You out here visiting some folks?

He cracks the window and lights a cigarette, flicking it with his thumb. My daddy left here when he was seventeen. Hitched his way to Nashville. Knew he’d never go back. His real name was Jackson, too. He never did come back here after that, but he talked about it. He told my mom and he told me. Didn’t tell me directly, I guess, but I know he meant to.

There are things hiding in the darkness all around them. Probably was hard for him, leaving everyone behind like that, Meg says.

He was a good person. Jackson hits the steering wheel with an open palm. He tried all along to be a good person. My daddy died, Meg says, startling herself enough to sit up straighter.

He didn’t mean for what happened to happen, Jackson continues as though she hadn’t spoken. He was a good man, everybody says so.

I’m sure he was.

You have to make choices, Jackson says. You have to look at your life and what it holds and then you have to ask yourself what’s missing. That’s what he always said, and he was right. So sometimes you have to give up what matters most in the world to you because it gets in the way of something else.