Truants (27 page)

Rowena had been right about the rust. A fine fuzz of rust had begun to rise like moss on the surface of the car, and it came off my hands as I brushed the car with my wild gestures.

I waved my fingers in the air and listed alternatives for Louisa to see (as well as hear). Nothing, however, was satisfactory. Obviously Louisa had come to some silent decision during her conversation with Will.

We rejected going on to California; we rejected going back to George’s house in Salt Lake. (Louisa said, “What for?”) I vetoed Robbie’s place in Las Vegas. We had not even considered calling The Noble Canyon Home for Wayward Girls or The Arizona State Fair, Daredevil Bureau. We had to take Will back to Blue Mesa; it was all we had. Unfortunately, we could not agree on the
we
part. Louisa did not want to go. At all. I didn’t want to go either;
at last
, I thought:
you’ve got someplace to go and it’s a terrible place
.

I pleaded with Louisa in the name of Ardean and Leonard, but she would not give in. Her face was set, her eyes set, her lips set. She looked at Will, shook her set head: No.

“I’m staying. You go. You do it. I can’t go back.”

“What about Will?”

She didn’t answer.

“What about Will?” I pressed.

“That’s not Will!”

“Come on,” I said. “What are you going to do? What will you do?”

“
Not go back
.”

“Grow up!”

“Why don’t you!”

“Oh, teach me all about it.”

“I tried,” she said.

Well, maybe she had tried. I wondered whether she was arguing for or against herself; perhaps seeing Will this way just hurt her too much.

“Really,” I began, “what will you do? You think you can find Rowena? Think you can hitchhike, you crazy bitch? What?”

“I think I can do everything but go back.” She folded her arms and held the line. So, logically, I commenced yelling.
If I make enough noise, she’ll have to see it my way
. After the noise, I grabbed her auburn hair in my auburn hands and told her to her face that I loved her and wanted her to help me do this thing. I ransacked every nook of my limp arsenal; I wanted her to unfold her arms and say
okay
. Finally, I pleaded with her to at least give it one more try, to go back with us across the salt flats to where they’d spelled the stones.

“Maybe it will bring him back.”

This appealed to her. “Okay, right,” she said. “The stones.”

We motored back out across the salt bed of a prehistoric lake, headed backwards, passing through the corridor of rocky names, occasionally passing an overturned Mercedes imbedded in the salt surrounded by men with metal detectors. Earth, sky, names, and disasters. Louisa not talking. Will not talking.

It was a devil’s time finding the place. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Freeway runs hundreds of miles through western Utah marked by nothing but daylight and the miraged horizon. For me, more than the other places we’d been, this was no man’s land. We made two false stops before locating a section of highway that looked right.

We parked and slogged through the salt sludge dividing the eastbound and westbound highways. Louisa had Will’s hand, and she explained why we had come. He seemed all right. Just all right.

The three of us, strolling through the words on the far side of that road, must have looked ridiculous. I mean, certain things in this world conspire to make you feel small. From an airplane with any real altitude, we would have been invisible. I trailed along behind my two pals. It had been another world when we were here before.

They stopped at last, and Louisa backed Will up before a series of stones, our series.

“That’s your name,” Louisa said. “Remember? We put these rocks out here. Will. See it, Will? You made the ‘W.’”

I read the words: there was a broad
WILL
over two smaller names,
Louisa + Collin
. The stones had sunk half an inch or so and looked as though they’d been there most of an eon.

Louisa lifted a stone the size of a cantaloupe out of the L in Louisa and put it in Will’s hands. His posture did not indicate in any way that he had anything to do with the stone. Louisa fired a glance at me and then grabbed the stone from Will and threw it—bowled it is more like it—out onto the sand. She didn’t cry, then; she just began kicking the stones from their places. I ran to her and pulled her back: I wanted those words. I also wanted to keep her from breaking her toe. Looking back, I should have let her break her whole foot. She would have had to stay with us.

She butted me with her head, which is actually a great thing for girls to do, but it did not work.

“Two weeks,” I said. “His memory might come back in a couple of weeks.”

“Two weeks,” she said right back.

The embrace in which I held the accident-prone Louisa was the last one in my memory. As we struggled, she to exhibit a rage I already understood, and me to preserve her and my history, a Volkswagen bus pulled onto the shoulder and a woman asked us if we needed help. I don’t know what her interpretation of the scene was: Louisa and I doing our little dance; and Will sitting down right in the salt. We might have appeared to be the lost half of an acting troupe.

“Yes!” Louisa called, and she flashed out of my grip. She ran over to Will and kneeled and kissed him. I caught her on the bank that rose to the highway.

“What?”

“I need a ride,” she said to the woman. I could see a man in the driver’s seat and two children in the rear of the bus. “To Wendover.”

“Wait,” I said. I had no time to plan now.

“No. You go, Collin. Take care of it. I can’t go back.”

“Louisa!” And I could not help saying these words: “What about me?”

“You’re fine. You’ll be okay. People take care of simple shits.”

She started to go toward the Volkswagen.

“Wait,” I said. “Okay. Okay. But you take the car. Will and I will hitchhike to Salt Lake. You can have the car. I’ll meet you somewhere.”

She laughed and kissed me. “Oh! Take the car? Me take the car! And you get the house and the kids! Oh, no! You take the car. And then you can meet
me
somewhere! Shoot a shotgun, I’ll be there!” She kissed me again, and ran away and climbed into the vehicle. “You are such a simple shit!” she cried, and they pulled away.

I took it as a compliment. I had to.

I sat down. Below me I read

I tried to memorize that little plus sign. Nine stones in a cross. Will sat just under my name suffering like you and me, like everyone else, from organic brain disease. It’s the gift.
This is no place to be sitting around
, I thought.
I better do something
.

I would like to express my gratitude to The Hotchkiss School for the sabbatical year 1978–1979.

Portions of this novel were completed with the support of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts through the Connecticut Foundation for the Arts.

First published as a Norton paperback 1987

Copyright © 1981 by Ron Carlson. Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4.
All Rights Reserved.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Carlson, Ron.
Truants.

I. Title.

PS3553.A733T7 813’.54 80–23781

ISBN 978-0-393-24538-7 (e-book)

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT