The Jew's Wife & Other Stories (5 page)

   “Go on, take some. You must be
half-dead of thirst.”

   He could see no alternative to
insulting her, so he accepted the container and drank. It wasn’t
juice, but it was sweet and cold. It slid easily down his
throat.

   “
Keep it,” she
said when he paused after two swallows. “I got another right
here.”

   
Sure
enough, she produced a second plastic bottle from the floor space
next to the driver’s seat.

   “
How far you
headed?” she asked.

   “
The shore. I
started out for Maryland, but my car broke down on the
Turnpike.”

   
He gave
a summary of the last two days, including how the mechanic and his
wife had put him up for the night. As he spoke, at first
hesitantly, he realized how good it felt to be talking
again—speaking more than two or three words at a time.

   “
Why,
that’s Sonny Sharp. He and Martha put you up? Shoot, I should have
figured you straight off for one of Martha’s strays.”

   “
Strays?”

   “
I suppose you
heard all about Sonny Junior.”

   “
Their
son?”

   
She nodded at
the blacktop ahead. She was driving with both arms resting on the
steering wheel, like the youth who had towed him off the Turnpike.
The motion of the pickup, combined with the heat and the sweet
drink he had gulped down, seemed to be making him
lightheaded.

   “
If they
gave you Junior’s bed, then you got the deluxe treatment. Usually
they put folks up on the cot in the sun parlor. They tell you how
he died?”

   “
She did. Martha
told me.”

   
He was not
comfortable with this woman’s tone. He considered the mechanic and
his wife not just Good Samaritans, but friends.

   “
Football
accident?”

   
He nodded. She
grinned and shook her head at a passing service station.

   “
Football, my ass. That boy died of an overdose, mister. They
just tell that story about his being hurt in a football scrimmage
to save face. By now they might believe it themselves.”

   
He
recalled Martha’s puffy eyes and steely expression as she insisted
that God’s claim on her boy was no greater than her own. Could she
have felt her grief so deeply and yet lied?

   “
They kept him
going for a while on machines—like that girl you probably read
about in the papers. But he was just a vegetable. Thank God
somebody had the sense to pull the plug on him. Otherwise those
two’d still be sitting in that hospital. They had a wild kid there,
mister.

   “
They
still can’t believe it happened. That’s how come they haven’t
touched his room. They started taking in people like yourself,
accidents and breakdowns from the Turnpike, a little after Junior
died. I guess they get lonely in that big house all by themselves.
But I never heard of nobody getting to sleep in the boy’s own bed
before. They must have taken a real shine to you,” she concluded
with a sidelong grin.

   
He found
himself grinning as well. He was still lightheaded, but he was no
longer ill-at-ease.

   “
Say,
you don’t mind we take a little detour?” she said, already slowing
down to turn. She took his silence and his smile, which seemed to
have become a permanent part of his face, for an answer and pulled
off the highway onto what looked like a dirt track, kicking up a
small thundercloud of dust. She bounced down the deeply rutted path
at what seemed the same clip as her highway speed. Tree branches
slapped angrily at the pickup, driving the priest away from the
open window. The woman seemed amused. She took one hand off the
steering wheel and laid it on his knee. “Not much of a country
boy,” she said. “My name’s Anne-Marie. What’s yours?”

   
Her
breath reeked of cheap wine. But despite the liberty she was taking
and his terror of the branches lashing at him through the window,
he couldn’t seem to rid himself of his imbecilic grin.

   
The
pickup skidded to a stop as the road seemed to just give out. There
was nothing ahead but forest, a low scrub that seemed to cover the
entire southern half of the state.

   “
Where
are we?” he said, reaching out the window to push a large pine
branch off the windshield.

   
She put her hand
on his crotch. “What’s the matter, honey? Don’t you like
Anne-Marie?”

   
Her
touch paralyzed him. Encouraged, she shimmied closer and began
fumbling with his fly.

   “
Don’t tell me
you wouldn’t like a free blow job?”

   
His hand
suddenly snapped onto her wrist. Undaunted, she began to struggle
as if they were playing a game.

   “
You
like me a little,” she said, holding her own in what amounted to a
two-handed arm wrestle. “Let’s see the birdie you got in there.
Anne-Marie wants to see the birdie.”

   
They
wrestled some more, then she abruptly gave up the contest and began
unbuttoning the man’s shirt she was wearing. “Want to feel me up
first?”

   
Finally
finding his voice, he said, “My God, woman, don’t you realize I’m a
priest?”

   “
Priest?” She laughed and pulled the shirt open, exposing a
large brassiere decorated with tiny pink flowers. He instinctively
turned away—a mistake, because this gave her a chance to go on the
offensive again.

   “
Say,”
she said after they had again wrestled to a draw, “you ain’t one of
them faggots, are you?”

   
He tried
to present her with the look of moral outrage he summoned up
whenever he was called in to upbraid the eighth-grade boys for
circulating a pornographic magazine. His righteousness was
particularly effective in that situation because he had a
reputation for being an easy-going fellow who liked to toss a
football with them in the schoolyard.

   “
Miss—whatever your name is—I happen to be a Roman Catholic
priest.”

   
She
regarded him as if he had just said he was Joan of Arc. But then
she looked down at his black trousers and the dark valise on the
floor.

   “
Holy Jumping
Jesus!”

   
He took a
hitching breath and tried not to let her see how badly he was
trembling.

   “
But you
drank wine with me! Priests ain’t supposed to get skunked on cheap
booze, either.”

   
Now he
realized what had seemed so familiar about his lightheadedness: it
was the same giddy feeling he got when he drank consecrated wine on
an empty stomach.

   “
I guess you’re
one of them alkie priests I heard about.”

   
He asked her to
turn the pickup around and drive him back to the main road. She
started up the engine, but didn’t bother to close her
shirt.

   “
Can’t
turn around, mister,” she said, backing out at almost the same
speed she had driven in. “Even a drunk priest could see
that.”

    CHAPTER FOUR

   
Anne-Marie wanted to drive him as far as 537, but he insisted
she let him out as soon as they reached the end of the dirt
road.

   “
Sorry
you feel this way,” she said. “We could’ve had a good time.” He
pulled his bag out of the pickup and slammed the door. He couldn’t
have felt more relieved if he had just escaped a burning building.
“If you’re ever in these parts again and feel like copping some
pussy, look me up. No offense, Reverend, but I’d say it’d do you a
world of good.”

   
Despite
an approaching vehicle in the southbound lane, she made a wide
U-turn and leaned on her horn. He didn’t turn to watch her drive
off. As it was, his legs felt barely able to support him, and the
rest of his body was still quaking.

   
He
resumed walking north along the shoulder of the road. Although only
half full, his valise now seemed filled with stones. He had no idea
how far it was to 537. He wondered if he shouldn’t just hitch back
to the general store, where he might still make a connection to
Philadelphia. But the prospect of confronting that mendacious old
man made his blood race angrily (despite Anne-Marie’s advances, he
did not doubt anything she had told him.) He had been made enough
of a fool for one day.

   
He heard
a vehicle approaching. He stuck out his thumb, unable for the glare
to make out whether it was truck or car until it was almost upon
him. When he recognized the same gray pickup he had just escaped
from, the contents of his stomach vulcanized.

   
She flew
by like a phantom, a big grin on her face, her horn sounding a
brash tattoo.

   
When she
was out of sight he sat down on the road’s shoulder. He had not
felt this ill since his childhood. Only, now there was no one to
lay cool cloths on his brow and give him cola to sip. Feeling so
sick in a strange part of the world, alone, with no one to care if
he lived or died, was like a bad dream come true.

   
He heard
the distant whine of another engine, this time from the south. He
strained to see through the highway heat and the fog of his nausea.
It was a pickup alright, a gray one. He searched for a break in the
dense undergrowth behind him, but was met with a solid wall of
green. With the road all to itself, the pickup was moving slowly
this time, no doubt to better ridicule him. Its deliberately
sluggish approach seemed crueler than any abuse she was planning to
direct at him. Anger replaced his shame. He stood up and raised a
clenched fist at the loathsome vehicle.

   “
Damn
you!” he yelled as the pickup puttered by, a thin old man at the
wheel. He regarded the angry priest as if he were the Angel of
Death, and urged his wheezing machine to a greater
effort.

   
After
his nausea passed, his head began to throb. He estimated he had
walked a mile from where Anne-Marie had let him off. It seemed he
should have reached the intersection of 537, but there was only
more of the same underused two-lane ahead. Had that man in the
general store given him false directions?

   
The few
cars and trucks on the road showed an obvious reluctance to take
him aboard—the result, he supposed, of his appearance. Finally a
car stopped. It was an antique, a ‘48 or ‘49 Mercury, driven by a
youth whose long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. He looked
sober enough, but the priest had begun to doubt his own ability to
judge character. The radio was playing loud rock music.

   “
Where
you headed?” the youngster shouted. Father Walther started to shout
back an answer, then realized he didn’t have the strength. The boy
lowered the radio.

   “
My car
broke down on the Turnpike. I’m a Catholic priest. I’m also not
feeling well. I’m not looking for alcohol, drugs, or sex. I
appreciate your stopping and I realize this is your car, not mine,
but I just can’t tolerate any loud noise at the moment.”

   
The
youth stared at him for several seconds. Then he turned off the
radio altogether.

   
He tried
to doze, but the aches in his head and stomach kept him awake. His
lip was trembling like an old man’s. When he closed his eyes the
lids refused to stay shut. He felt he should throw in the towel and
go home. But he didn’t have the energy to make even that decision.
He told himself his condition was just the result of a series of
unfortunate incidents, starting with his breakdown on the Turnpike.
But he didn’t feel any better for these thoughts.

   
When he
opened his eyes again he seemed to be in a pine forest. By the
light, he judged it was late afternoon. The radio was still turned
off.

   “
Where are
we?”

   “
Lebanon State
Forest.” The name meant nothing. “Halfway to your
destination.”

   
He
pulled himself up straight on the seat. Unlike contemporary car
seats, it was of a piece from one door to the other, covered by a
worn plastic weave. The car was a good forty years older than his
Ford, yet it was still on the road, while the Ford was pushing up
daisies in a junkyard.

   “
You
must know how to take care of automobiles,” he offered to make up
for his earlier rudeness.

   “
Some.
It’s kind of a hobby. Keeps me out of trouble,” the youngster added
with a first-prize grin. “Where exactly are you headed, Father? I
mean, the shore’s a pretty long stretch of real estate.”

   
He
hadn’t given any thought to his precise destination. He had
presumed he would make that decision when he reached a bus
depot.

   “
I could let you
off in Toms River.”

   “
I don’t want to
put you to any trouble.”

   “
No trouble,
Father. Just say the word.”

   “
Toms River
would be fine. Thank you very much.”

   “
Like I said,
Father, no trouble.”

   
It seemed
strange being addressed as a priest again. It made the last two
days seem like an illusion. He had not realized how much his idea
of himself was conditioned by the way other people saw him. All he
had noticed was how much of ordinary life he was denied because of
his roman collar. But now that same clerical identity seemed like a
warm coat on a cold day, a haven from a troubled, confusing world.
Yet even as he welcomed its comfort he sensed that something was
wrong. The coat didn’t fit the way it used to. The haven was no
longer invulnerable. And the smell of vomit that clung to his shirt
insisted that the past two days had not been an
hallucination.