The Land of Laughs (7 page)

“You know, Thomas, when I was little about the only exciting thing my family ever did was to go to Peach Lake on the weekends in the summer. I used to get sunburned.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, the only exciting thing that ever happened to me was reading
The Land of Laughs
and drinking Hires root beer out of a big glass bottle. Whatever happened to Hires root beer in a big glass bottle?”

“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me that your life out there with all of those famous people wasn’t neat. You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”

“Better? That has nothing to do with it. At least you had a normal father! Look, being his son was like living in this birdcage. You couldn’t open your mouth without everyone being fake-nice to you or telling you how much they liked your ‘Papa’s‘ movies! What the hell did I care about his movies? I was a little kid, for Christ’s sake! All I wanted to do was ride my bike.”

“Don’t shout.”

“I don’t have to …” I wanted to say something more, but I saw the turnoff for a roadside rest stop so I took it instead. It was dark as night outside as I crept down the exit ramp. The parking lot was filled with camper trucks and cars with overflowing luggage racks. Many of them were open to the rain, so the exposed suitcases, baby strollers, and bicycles were totally soaked and shiny. I found a parking space when a white Fiat with Oklahoma plates almost hit me while backing out of it. I switched off the motor and we both sat there while the rain hammered on the roof. Her hands were folded in her lap, but mine still gripped the steering wheel. I felt like ripping it off and handing it to her.

“All right, do you want something to eat or what?”

“Eat? Why? We’ve only been on the road for an hour.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry,
dear
— I’m not supposed to be hungry, huh? I’m not allowed to eat or anything unless you do, is that it?” I sounded like a kid who’s just discovered sarcasm but doesn’t know how to use it yet.

“Just shut up, Thomas. Go outside and have a fishburger or something. I don’t care what you do. I don’t deserve your anger.”

There wasn’t much else I could do but go. We both knew that I was making more and more of an ass of myself, but by then I didn’t know how to stop. If I’d been her, I would have been royally bored by me.

“Do you want any … ? Oh, shit, I’ll be back in a little while.”

I opened the door and stepped right into this monstrous puddle, drenching both my sneaker and sock in one plunge. I looked to see if she’d been watching, but her eyes were closed, hands still folded in her lap. I put my other, dry foot carefully into the puddle and left it there until I felt the cold seeping in. Then I paddled both feet up and down in my new little footbath. Splish splat.

“What … are … you … doing?”

Splish splat.

“Thomas, don’t do that.” She started to laugh. It sounded so much better than the rain. “Don’t be crazy! Close the door.”

My back was to her, and I felt her grab a handful of my sweatshirt. She laughed harder and gave a strong tug.

“Will you please get back in here? What are you doing?”

I looked up into the rain, and it was coming down so hard and sharp that it forced my eyes closed. “Penance! Penance! All of my fucking life people have been asking me what it was like to be Stephen Abbey’s son. Every time I try to answer that question, I sound dumber and dumber.”

I stopped flapping my feet. I felt so sad, like such an idiot. I wanted to turn around and look at her, but I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Sax. If I had anything to say, God knows, I’d tell you.”

The wind was blowing the rain right into my face. A family walked by and gaped at me.

“I don’t care, Thomas.” The wind gusted and closed my eyes again. I didn’t know if I’d heard her right.

“What?”

“I said that I don’t care about your father.” She touched my back with the flat of her hand, and now her voice was strong and insistent and loving.

I turned around and put my wet arms around her. I kissed her warm neck and could feel her kissing mine.

“Hold me tight, you old sponge. You’ve already got me soaked.” She squeezed tighter and gave my neck a bite.

I couldn’t think of anything to say except for a line from France’s book
The Green Dog’s Sorrow
: “The Voice of Salt loved Krang too. When it was with her, it always whispered.”

We had planned to make the trip in two days, but suddenly we were stopping at Stuckey’s for pralines, Frontier Town or Santa Claus Village or Reptile City whenever we saw them advertised, and anywhere in general if we were in the mood.

“Wait a minute. Do you want to see … hold it … the site of the Battle of Green River?”

“I don’t know. Sure. What war was it in?”

“What’s the difference? Five miles to go. Sax, what’s your favorite France book?”

“It’s a toss-up between
Pool of Stars
and
Land of Laughs
.”

“
Pool of Stars?
Really?”

“Yes, I think my favorite scene of all is in there. The one where the girl goes down to the beach at night. When she sees the old man and the white bird scooping those blue holes out of the ocean.”

“Jeez, I couldn’t say what my favorite scene is. Something out of
Land of Laughs
, though. Definitely. But I’d have trouble choosing between a funny scene and a magical one. In many ways I like the funny scenes more now, but when I was little those battles between the Words and the Silence … phew!”

“Thomas, don’t drive off the road.”

Sometimes we pulled off the highway into a parking area and perched on the hot hood of the car, watching everyone fly by. Neither of us would say a word, and there wasn’t any urge to keep moving, to get there.

The first night out, we stayed in a little town just west of Pittsburgh. The people who ran our motel raised black-and-tan coonhounds, and after dinner we took a few puppies out onto the front lawn and let them bite us for a while.

“Thomas?”

“Uh-huh? Hey, catch him before he gets away.”

“Listen to me, Thomas, this is serious.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever been to a motel with anyone?”

“Is that right?”

“Uh-huh. And you know what else? I’m very pleased.” She handed me a puppy and stood up. “When I was younger and used to think about my burns all the time, I never thought any man would ever want to go to a motel with me, the way I looked.”

The next morning when we were about to leave, the woman came out of the office and gave us these beautiful lunches she had packed, complete with beer and Milky Way candy bars. She whispered something to Saxony and then went back into the office.

“What’d she say?”

“She said that you were too skinny and that I should give you my Milky Way.”

“You should.”

“Nothing doing.”

The whole trip went like that — one nice thing after another — so by the time we got to St. Louis and saw the Saarinen Arch, we were both a little rueful that we’d already come this far. We stopped in the middle of the day in Pacific, Missouri, and wandered around the Six Flags amusement park there. That night we went back to our air-conditioned motel room and made love. She kept saying my name over and over again. I’d never been with anyone who’d done that. Things were so nice now. I looked in all the dark corners of my life and wondered which one of them had something up its sleeve… . No answer. Not that I was expecting one.

I pulled into a Sunoco station and a pretty blond girl with a bright red St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap came out of the garage.

“Fill it up, please. Also, how far is it to Galen?”

She bent down and put her hands on her knees. I noticed that her fingernails were short and that two of them were completely blackened. As if something heavy had fallen on them, the blood came up from the finger underneath and stayed.

“Galen? Oh, ‘bout four miles. You go straight down this road to the junction and turn right, and you’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She went back to filling the tank, and I looked at Saxony. She was smiling, but she was obviously as nervous as I was.

“Well …” I flipped my hand in the air.

“Well …” She dipped her head in agreement.

“Well, kid, we’re almost there.”

“Yes.”

“
The
Land of Laughs …”

“Marshall France Land.”

The road had long gradual dips and rises, and the ups and downs felt good after the straight monotony of the turnpike. We passed a true-to-life railroad dining car, a lumberyard where the fresh smell of cut wood was in and out of the car in a second, and a veterinarian’s office with the harsh sound of scared and sick dogs barking crazily from within. At the junction there was a stop sign that had been riddled with bullet holes and BB dents that had rusted orange. A kid was standing next to it, hitchhiking. He looked harmless enough, although I admit that a couple of scenes from
In Cold Blood
flashed through my mind.

“Galen.”

We told him that we were going there too and to get in. He had a kind of limp Afro of red hair, and every time I looked in the rearview mirror I saw him either looking me straight in the eye or his burning bush of hair blocking my view.

“You guys are going to Galen? I saw that you’ve got Connecticut plates.” He pronounced it “Con_nect_-ticut.” “You didn’t come all the way out here to go to Galen, didya?”

I nodded pleasantly and looked him over in the mirror. A little positive eye contact. The old stare-him-down game. “Yes, we did, as a matter of fact.”

“Wowie, Connecticut to Galen,” he said sarcastically. “Some trip.”

I had had so many twerps like him in class that his rudeness didn’t bother me. Boondocks hippie. All he needed was a “KISS” T-shirt and his underpants showing above his blue jeans to make him complete.

Saxony turned around in her seat. “Do you live there?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know Anna France?”

“Miss France? Sure.”

I chanced another look in the mirror, and his eyes were still on me, but now he was contentedly chewing a thumbnail.

“You guys are here to see her?”

“Yes, we’ve got to talk to her.”

“Yeah? Well, she’s okay.” He sniffed and moved around in his seat. “She’s a hip lady. Very laid-back, you know?”

All of a sudden we were there. Coming over a small rise, we passed a white house with two thin pillars and a dentist’s shingle hanging from a lamppost on the front lawn. Then there was the Dagenais Lawnmower Repair Service in a blue-silver tin shack, a Montgomery Ward outlet store, a firehouse with its big doors swung open but no fire trucks inside, and a grain store that was advertising a special this week on the fifty-pound bag of Purina Dog Chow.

This was it. This was where he had written all of the books. This was where he had eaten and slept and walked and known people and bought things like potatoes and newspapers and gas for his car. Most of the people here had known him. Had
known
Marshall France.

The main part of the town was on the other side of some railroad tracks. As we approached the crossing, the safety bars started to descend and a bell began its warning. I was delighted by the reprieve. Anything that would postpone our seeing Anna France was welcome. I’ve always liked to stop and watch trains go by. I remember the cross-country trips that my mother and I frequently made on the Twentieth Century and Super Chief when my parents were still married.

When we got to the lowered bars I switched off the engine and rested my arm on the back of Saxony’s seat. It felt hot and clammy. It had turned out to be one of those summer days when the air feels like soft lead and the clouds can’t decide on whether they want to downpour or just move on.

“You can let me off here.”

“Can you tell us where Miss France lives?”

He stuck his skinny arm between our two seats and jabbed his index finger forward while he talked. “Go to the end of this street, It’s about three blocks. Then you take your right onto Connolly Street. Her house is number eight. If you miss it, just ask anyone around there. They’ll tell you. Thanks for the ride.”

He got out of the car, and when he walked away I saw that he had colorful patches sewn onto both of his back pockets. One of them was a hand giving you the finger, the other was of a hand giving you the V-for-peace sign. Both patches were red, white, and blue, and the fingers had stars all up and down them.

The train turned out to be a slow-moving two-hundred-car-long freight. A passing parade of Erie Lackawanna, Chesapeake & Ohio, Seatrain … Loud, even clickety-clicks, the different sounds each car made when it passed. Then the coziness of the little brick-red caboose when it passed and a guy in its high square window was reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe, oblivious of the world. I liked the whole thing.

When the train was gone, the red-and-white-striped bars began rising slowly, almost as if they were tired and weren’t in the mood to go up. I started the engine and bumped the car up and over the tracks. I looked in the mirror and saw that there was no one behind us.

“You see? That’s the difference between here and in the East.”

“What is?”

“We were just at that crossing for what, five or eight minutes, right? Well, in the East if you were there half that long there would be a line of cars ten miles long waiting to go. Here … well, just look behind us.” She did, but she didn’t say anything. “You see? Not a car. Not one. That’s your difference.”

“Uh-huh. Thomas, do you realize where we are on this earth? Do you realize that we are actually here?”

“I’m trying not to think about it yet. It makes my stomach ache.” An understatement. I was quickly on my way to being terrified of talking to Anna France, but I didn’t want Saxony to know that. I kept thinking of every word David Louis had said about her. Witch. Neurotic. To avoid any more conversation, I rolled my window down all the way and took a deep breath. The air smelled of hot dust and something else.

“Hey, look, Sax, a barbecue! Let’s have some lunch.”

A big green canopy had been set up in an open lot between Phend’s Sporting Goods and the Glass Insurance Company. Underneath the canopy about twenty people were sitting at redwood picnic tables, eating and talking. A hand-painted sign in front announced that it was the annual Lions Club barbecue. I parked the car next to a dirty pickup truck and got out. The air was still and redolent with the smell of woodsmoke and grilled meat. A slight breeze pushed by. I started to stretch, but when I happened to look toward the eaters I stopped in mid-flight. Almost all of them had stopped eating and were looking at us. Except for one nice-looking woman with short black hair who was hurrying by with a couple of boxes of hamburger rolls in her hands, they were all frozen in position — a fat man in a straw hat with a sparerib held near his open mouth, a woman pouring an empty Coke can into a full cup, a child holding a stuffed pink-and-white rabbit over his head with two hands.