The Late Child (14 page)

“Should I say goodbye to Myrtle, or would it upset her too much?” Harmony asked.

“I don't know about Myrtle, but it might upset
you
too much,” Neddie said. “Let's keep rolling while we're rolling.”

“Good advice,” Pat said.

“Do we even know where we're headed?” Neddie asked, when they were about fifteen miles out of Las Vegas. To the east the sky was lightening, but in the west it was still night. Harmony looked out the back window of the car, watching the lights of Las Vegas, bright against the dark western sky.

It had always been her magic place, Las Vegas. Now life had abruptly jerked her out of it, she had no idea why. In a way it seemed like years since the news of Pepper's death came, but in another way it only seemed like minutes. She was in a car with her son, her sisters, and all her possessions. What the future held she did not even want to try and guess. All she hoped was that she could live long enough to be an adequate mom to her son, who slept beside her, his curly head resting on his cow, Teresa.

“I guess where we go next should be Harmony's choice,” Pat said, in a tone that was more subdued than her usual tone.

“Well, we ain't bound for L.A., are we?” Neddie asked. “If we ain't bound for L.A. we might as well go east and see where the road takes us.”

“I vote for New York City, if Harmony feels up to it,” Pat said. “I'm in no rush to get back to Oklahoma. I'd just have to deal with my broken engagement.”

“Not to mention your fucked-up kids,” Neddie added.

“Yours are no better,” Pat said.

“I didn't say they were,” Neddie said. “Do you think we ought to call and see if any of them are in jail?”

“No, let's forget Oklahoma for a while, do you mind?” Pat said.

Harmony was getting the sense that her sisters' lives weren't too perfect, either. She also got the sense that neither of them was in a great hurry to get home. That was a little bit of a shock. She had always assumed that her sisters loved their homes.

“What about your families, don't you miss them?” she asked.

Neither sister answered.

“Neddie, what about Dick?” Harmony asked.

“Well, what about him?” Neddie said.

“He's your husband,” Harmony said. “Won't he get lonely without you?”

“Dick don't have enough imagination to get lonely,” Neddie said.

“I second that,” Pat remarked.

“Nobody asked you, it's my husband we're talking about,” Neddie said.

“It wasn't so much him as his lack of imagination we were talking about,” Pat said.

“Pat, his lack of imagination
is
him,” Neddie said. “That's our whole problem, in a nutshell. Maybe if I run off to New York for a while he'll show a little initiative and rustle himself up a girlfriend or something.”

“Neddie, why would you want your husband to find a girlfriend?” Harmony asked.

“So he'll let me alone,” Neddie said.

The thought struck Harmony suddenly that maybe her sisters' lives were even
more
depressing than her own. If so, it was a bad comment on life. It seemed to her that all three of them were nice women. Even if Pat was troubled by sex addiction, she was still a nice woman. Why were they all driving around in a car in the desert, all of them middle-aged and totally uncertain about what might happen next?

“What do
you
think is supposed to happen next, Pat?” Harmony asked. One minute Neddie seemed more stable than Pat, but the next minute Pat seemed more stable than Neddie.

“Nothing's
supposed
to happen next, Harmony,” Pat said. “Do you know what the word ‘arbitrary' means?”

“I think so,” Harmony said.

“Well, that's how life is,” Pat said. “Arbitrary.”

“Christians don't believe that,” Neddie said. “At least Baptists don't.”

“I'm not a Baptist,” Pat said. “I don't even know if I'm a Christian. Does Eddie go to Sunday school?”

“No, but he went in a synagogue once,” Harmony said. “His friend Eli took him.”

“Mom will be glad to hear that,” Neddie said. “If I were you I'd skip that chapter when you get into how Eddie's been brought up.”

“Mom's just confused on the subject, Neddie,” Pat said. “She can't tell Jews from Arabs.”

Harmony decided that it was going to be a little taxing, listening to her sisters bicker for as long as the trip turned out to be. It was just their way of being sisters, she knew; but that didn't mean it couldn't get on the nerves of other family members. Already it was getting on her nerves, and they weren't even out of sight of the lights of Las Vegas.

“I hope you two aren't going to fight all the way home,” she said.

Both sisters looked surprised.

“Honey, we ain't fighting, we're just chatting,” Neddie said.

“To me it sounds harsh,” Harmony said. “Eddie's very sensitive to harshness. He likes gentle words.”

“Good Lord, Harmony, do you want to raise him in a bubble?” Pat said. “There has to be a little give-and-take in this world.”

“Why?” Harmony asked.

“Because if you just agree all the time, it gets boring,” Pat pointed out.

“I guess that's why I've never been bored,” Harmony said. “Nobody ever agreed with me about anything. It's why I never married but once.”

“Now she's getting maudlin,” Pat said. “Let's stop at the next bar and get a drink.”

“I bet Gary wishes he'd come,” Neddie said. “It would be a change from the same old routine.”

“I don't want to stop until Eddie wakes up,” Harmony said. “He might want a waffle—it might cheer him up.”

“Kids adapt,” Pat said. “Eddie won't be hard to cheer up.”

“It'll help if it's a good waffle,” Harmony said. “He's very particular.”

“Good Lord, a waffle's a waffle,” Neddie said.

“That's not how Eddie sees it,” Harmony said.

Eddie woke up as they were passing through Boulder City, where they found a big truck stop with a cafe attached. The cafe was called the Belt Buster.

“I used to run with truckers, they're fun when you're young,” Pat said. “Let's try it.”

Most of the parked trucks still had their motors running, a fact which annoyed Eddie. He insisted on taking Teresa into the restaurant.

“Stop those motors!” he said loudly, the minute he got inside the cafe. “They're making exhaust and exhaust is bad for the Earth.”

Several of the truckers looked startled; they had not expected to be yelled at by a five-year-old boy while eating their ham and eggs.

“You better shut up or you'll get us stomped, Eddie,” Pat said. “Some of these old boys probably don't take kindly to environmentalists anyway.”

Harmony smiled at the men, to let them know she wasn't quite as strict about the planet as her son was.

When Harmony asked Eddie if he wanted a waffle he shook his head. He was smiling, but it was his defiant smile, not his cooperative smile.

“I'm sorry, but I'm on a hunger strike,” he informed them all.

“A hunger strike—to protest what?” Pat asked. “You're only five, remember?”

“A hunger strike to protest everything,” Eddie said.

“To protest anthrax and everything, even AIDS,” he said.

“What kind of school teaches preschoolers to go on hunger strikes?” Neddie wanted to know.

“I don't know, do I look like I'm a member of the PTA?” Harmony said, feeling very defensive. She looked at Eddie, to gauge
her chances of coaxing him to eat at least something; she decided her chances were small.

“Eddie, is it because we moved away from your friends?” Harmony asked.

“No, but it wasn't very nice that we did that,” Eddie said. “My friends will be sad now, and I'll be sad.”

“At least you'll get a chance to see your grandma and grandpa,” Neddie said. “They've never even got to meet you.”

“What are they like?” Eddie asked, in a slightly less defiant tone.

“Well, they're very old, for starters,” Neddie said.

“Two thousand years old?” Eddie asked.

“Not quite, but nearly,” Pat said.

“What TV shows do they watch?” Eddie asked.

“They don't see too clearly,” Pat said. “I think they mainly listen to the news.”

“Which news?” Eddie wanted to know. “ABC or CBS or NBC or CNN?”

“Good Lord,” Neddie said. “I give up.”

Harmony knew how stubborn Eddie could be when he chose to go into a hunger strike or some other form of protest.

“Couldn't you at least have juice so you won't get dehydrated?” she asked.

“Is that like being abducted?” Eddie inquired.

“Please don't mention abduction, it's my worst nightmare,” Harmony said.

While his Aunt Pat was explaining dehydration to Eddie three cowboys walked in and sat down at the next booth. They all had spurs on and the spurs jingled as they walked. Eddie forgot his protest in order to study the cowboys, two of whom were young and friendly.

“Howdy, pardner,” one of the young ones said to Eddie.

Pat was also looking at the cowboys, but not at the young ones. She had her eye on a middle-aged cowboy with huge freckles on his face. He had watery blue eyes and was missing a finger on his right hand. Harmony got a little nervous—maybe Pat's sex
addiction was going to flare up before they could even finish breakfast.

“How'd you lose that finger, cowboy?” Pat asked.

“Pat, it might be personal,” Harmony said.

“Were you on a hunger strike?” Eddie asked the cowboy. “Did you starve until your finger fell off?”

“Whoa, that's a new one, little buddy,” one of the younger cowboys said.

“I doubt Jethro even knows what a hunger strike is,” the other young cowboy said.

Jethro ducked his head and looked embarrassed.

“Leave him alone, Pat—he's shy,” Neddie said.

“If he's shy he might welcome a little encouragement,” Pat said. She had not taken her eyes off the freckled cowboy.

“Uh,” Jethro said, trying to remember what the original question had been. He was not used to being addressed by ladies; the few he knew rarely said a word to him.

“She wants to know how you lost your finger, Jeth,” one of the young cowboys reminded him.

“Roping accident,” Jethro said. “What I get for trying to dally.”

“I'm going to do my hunger strike for a
long
time,” Eddie said. “I'm going to do it until both my arms fall off.”

“Oh, Eddie, please don't,” Harmony said. “How could you give me hugs if your arms fall off?”

Sometimes when Eddie was annoyed with the way life was going he made up terrible fates for himself. Harmony tried not to take Eddie's made-up fates too seriously, but the problem was that Eddie was very convincing when he made up terrible fates.

“I'll give you many kisses but I won't be able to give you hugs,” Eddie said.

Pat was still staring at the freckled cowboy.

“Is your name really Jethro?” she asked.

“Dallying means roping with a loose rope,” one of the young cowboys explained. “Jethro got his finger caught in the rope and it popped right off.”

“I'm from Oklahoma, I know what dallying means,” Pat said. “I was dallying myself, before you were even born. There's more than one way to dally, you know.”

She addressed her last remark to Jethro, who looked at Pat briefly, and then directed his gaze back to his coffee cup.

Harmony thought it might be a good idea to send Laurie a postcard, to let her know they were coming. Most of the postcards in the rack by the cash register were of the Las Vegas Strip, which they had just left behind; or of the Grand Canyon, which was just up ahead. Harmony bought one of each, plus a postcard of a jackalope, a jackrabbit with deer horns on its head. Jackalope postcards seemed to be very popular. She had the feeling that she might go crazy at any moment—or, at the very least, within the next few days—if she didn't do something normal, such as buy postcards, and send them to people. She meant to send one to Gary, to let him know they had at least made it as far as Boulder City.

When she asked for change for a dollar, in order to buy stamps from the stamp machine, the old lady at the cash register began to glare at her.

“The place to buy stamps is at a post office,” she said. “I can't be sitting here doling out change all day.”

The old lady had pink hair.

“I just asked for one dollar's worth,” Harmony said.

“It adds up, though, and the next thing you know, I'm out of quarters,” the old lady said.

A fact Harmony had noticed before was that people in other parts of Nevada weren't as friendly as people were on the Strip. She bought some orange juice, and a package of Oreo cookies, in case Eddie relented on the hunger strike, later in the day.