Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail (19 page)

On Friday after work Charger decided to go straight to the source. He thought that Tiffany's aunt might give him some of her Prozac if he caught her in the right mood. Paula was O.K. She covered for them when Tiffany spent the night with him. Paula said that her sister, Tiffany's mother, would die if she knew about the little overnight trips in Charger's truck.

Paula hadn't expected him, but she seemed pleased to see him at the door. She brought him through the living room into the kitchen. “Don't look at this garbage,” she said.

She had school projects—flags and Uncle Sam dolls and Paul Revere hats—scattered around. She taught fourth grade.

Charger noticed that her eyelids drooped down onto her eyelashes, but her face had few wrinkles. He wondered how long Tiffany's eyelids would hold up. She resembled her aunt—the same smidgen nose and whirlpool curls.

Paula handed him a glass of ice and a two-liter Coke. He poured, and the Coke foamed over onto the kitchen counter. He sat numbly on a stool, embarrassed. While she wiped up the spill, she said, “This morning I dressed in the dark and put on one blue sock and one green sock?” She laughed. “At school I got a citation for a fashion violation. At school we get citations for bad hair, static cling, leopard-skin underwear beneath white pants, color clash, sock displacement. The fashion police sentenced me to work in the beehive section of the fashion salon.”

“You've still got on a blue sock and a green sock,” Charger said. He wondered how her fourth-graders dealt with her high-pitched babbling.

“Do you want a mayonnaise sandwich?” she asked.

“No. Do you eat kid food, being's you're a teacher?”

“I have to have at least a teaspoon of Miracle Whip a day or I'll blow my brains out,” she said. “Bill won't eat anything at lunch but crackers. I get mad at him because he won't eat the food I leave for him. He won't eat fruits and vegetables. I said, ‘There are some grapes on the counter.' He said, ‘Are they washed?' I said no. He said, ‘I don't have to wash crackers.' But he's sure slim and trim on the cracker diet. I'll give him that.”

“Give that man a Twinkie!” Charger said, jumping off the stool in what he thought was a dramatic gesture. “You don't have to wash Twinkies.”

“I don't know if he ought to eat Twinkies.”

“Well, if that don't work, give him a Ding Dong.” He grinned.

“He's already got a ding-dong.”

“Then give him a Little Debbie.”

“But I don't want him to have a little Debbie.”

Charger laughed. “Little Debbies are my favorite.”

“Charger, you're such a great kidder.” She laughed with him, shaking her head. “And you're such a baby.”

When Charger finally got around to mentioning Paula's Prozac, she didn't seem surprised that he wanted to try the drug.

“I need to reprogram my head,” he said.

“Why not go to church? Or take piano lessons?”

“Why don't
you
?”

Paula opened a cabinet above the toaster and chose a vial of pills. “You don't really need these pills, Charger. You just need to believe in yourself more.”

“My
self
doesn't have that much to do with it.”

“Maybe you just haven't found it yet. You've got a deep soul, Charger. Tiffany doesn't see it yet, but she will, in time.”

She shook the pill bottle in his face like a baby rattle. She said, “One of the side effects of these little numbers is that they can make you nonorgasmic. But I've tested that thoroughly, and it's not true for me. I don't have that side effect!” She laughed loudly. “I don't think you want one of these, Charger.”

“It might be just what I need to relax my sex machine. It's running away with me.” He winked.

She turned serious. She put the pills back in the cabinet and said, “Charger, I believe you're scared. You don't act like you're ready to settle down and have a family. Have you given any thought to what you would do if you and Tiffany had a baby?”

“She's not pregnant, is she?” he asked, alarmed.

“Not that I know of. But it's something you have to be ready for.”

He
had
thought about it. He wasn't ready for it. The idea was all wrong. Some guys he knew were working hard to feed their kids. They were not much older than he was, but they seemed years older. He couldn't imagine being a father yet. He knew he didn't have much chance of rising above the loading dock, at minimum wage. How could he feed a kid? He tried to shake off the thought. That was the distant future.

Charger and Tiffany didn't get away until after eight o'clock that night, after he had changed his oil and worked on his carburetor. They were going to Nashville instead of Atlanta. Tiffany's mother was having a family dinner on Sunday for Tiffany's cousin's birthday, and Tiffany had decided that Atlanta was too far away for them to get back in time. She said she wanted to go to a store in Nashville called Dangerous Threads.

On the drive Charger drank a can of beer. He glanced at Tiffany. She had on her snake pants again. They sort of gave him the creeps. He slid his hand down her thigh. The pants had a slinky, snaky feel that startled him every time he touched them. He moved his hand in little circles over her inner thigh. His hand moved like a computer mouse, tracing the snaky terrain beneath it.

“Do you think I've been acting funny?” Charger asked.

“No. Why?” She was picking at the closure on her bandage. It made a scratchy sound, like a mouse in a wall.

“You don't think I'm moody, or liable to jump up and say the wrong thing or throw a flowerpot on the floor? You're not scared to cross the state line with me? You don't think I'm weird?”

“No, I think you're just super-sexy. And you're fun-loving. I rate that real high.” Twisting in her seat to reach him, she touched his cheek with her bandaged thumb. It was splinted for protection.

“What do you want to do in Nashville besides shop?” he asked.

“Go to that new mall, and maybe get into a good show at Opryland, and stay in a big hotel.”

With her quick enthusiasm, she was like a child in Santa's lap. “Motel Six is more like it,” he said.

“Well, that's all right. I just think we ought to have our fling before we get married and can't run around so much.”

Charger was passing a long-haul truck. He returned to the right-hand lane. The truck was far behind, like an image in slow motion. “Let's go to Texas instead of Nashville,” he said.

“It's too far. And we're headed in the wrong direction.”

“We could drive straight through.”

She didn't answer. In a moment she said, “If you're thinking about your daddy, you know you can't find him just by driving to Texas for the weekend.”

“I know, but I wish I could.” He glanced at the rear-view for cops and chugged some beer. “When Daddy called from Texas this spring, I was about two french fries short of happy,” he said. “And then the feeling just wound down, and I thought I could sort of see why he did what he did, and I could see me doing it too.” He shuddered. “It gives me the bummers.”

He was afraid Tiffany wasn't listening. She was pulling at a strand of her hair, twirling it around her finger. But then she said, “I was just thinking about your dad. I was wondering what he was doing out there. And why your mother didn't make more of a fuss about him going off.”

“She was probably glad he was gone,” Charger said. He belched loudly.
“Irk!”
he said, to be funny. He made her laugh.

They stopped for gas, then kept driving and driving. They sped past the Cracker Barrel. Usually they stopped there and ate about eight pounds of rosin-roasted potatoes and big slabs of ham. He so often overdid things, he thought sorrowfully. He had gotten his nickname years earlier from his childhood habit of charging into things without thinking. Recently he had dared himself to drive up the bank side of the clay pit; he was trying out his new used truck. The road wound around the clay pit, ascending steeply on one side. The dirt was loose. He wasn't scared. He thought, I can do this. He steered very carefully and inched up the winding trail.

“I can do this,” he said now, in a barely audible voice.

Tiffany patted his arm affectionately. She said, “Charger, I know you don't know what you want to do with your life. And you don't make a whole lot. But we have plenty of time. I know we're going to be real happy.” She spoke as though she had worked that up in her mind for the past two hours. Then she switched gears again, back to her usual self. She said, “See the moon? I am just thrilled out of my mind to see that moon. I love seeing the moon. I love going to church. I love work. I love driving at night. I love getting sleepy and snuggling up to you.”

The moon was rising, a pale disk like a contact lens. The bright lights in the other lane obscured the path in front of him. He hit his brights and could see again. The stretch of highway just ahead looked clean and clear. Tiffany made everything seem so simple—like his father bursting into song about sky-watching. Was love that easy?

He ran his hand along her leg, up the inseam. Then he turned on the radio. A song ended, followed by some unidentifiable yapping. He hit the
SEEK
button. Tiffany screeched. “That's Andy! Turn it up. I just love that voice of his.”

“Personally, I think he's full of himself,” Charger said.

“Oh, you just wish
you
could carry a tune.” With her left hand she slapped her leg along with the song.

The singer sounded like a cranky old crow, Charger thought. It was an odd voice for such a young guy. Charger had no special talents. He had never had any encouragement from anybody in his life other than Tiffany. She wanted him to take a computer course, because everything was computers now. But he knew he couldn't sit still that long. That was the trouble with high school. He liked his present job at the bomb plant O.K., because he got to joke around with a bunch of people he enjoyed. He called it “the bomb plant” because it produced fertilizer. He felt lucky to have such an attractive girlfriend. But he was aware that his mother, too, had been cute when she was young. Now she was overweight and had a hacking cough. His father had worked at the tire plant for twenty-five years, and his mother was a nurse's aide at the hospital. She emptied bedpans. They lived in a tacky, cramped house that she took little pride in. They did not go on vacations. His father watched television every evening. He used to watch a regular lineup. But when they got cable and a remote, he couldn't stick to his old favorites. He cruised the airwaves, lighting here and there. Five afternoons a week Charger's mother cooked supper for the family, left it on the table, and went off to work. She grew heavy and tired from being on her feet long hours. She was forty-four years old. Her eyelids drooped, but she didn't even seem to know it. Maybe when Tiffany was that age, she would accept baggy eyes as gracefully as she regarded her injured thumb. He shuddered.

Driving down the interstate, Charger contemplated his life. He was nineteen years old and still lived with his mother, but already he was thinking ahead to the middle of his life. Since his father disappeared, Charger had been catapulted forward. Something about his mind wouldn't let him be young, he thought. He saw too far ahead. He wanted to rewire his brain. He wanted to plunge into the darkness and not be afraid. Being in love ought to seem more reckless, he thought. Tiffany was napping, her head nestled in a yellow pillow in the form of a giant Tweety Pie. It did not look like a comfortable position, but she seemed relaxed. Her snake legs were beautiful. They seemed almost to glow in the dark.

When they reached Nashville, Charger impulsively turned down I-40 toward Memphis. He thought Tiffany wouldn't mind if they headed west. He felt like driving all night. He thought he could reach the Texas border sometime tomorrow. Then he could get his bearings. Tiffany kept sleeping, tired from school and work. He played the radio low, a background for his thoughts. He finished a Coke he had bought at the gas station. He had to keep his head open for the road. In the dark the road seemed connected to his head, like a tongue.

Just before two he pulled off the interstate at a cheap-looking motel. Tiffany woke up but didn't seem to notice where she was. He guided her into the lobby. Clumsily she struggled with her purse and the heavy satchel she had brought with her. Charger pressed a buzzer on the wall to awaken the night clerk. He could hear noises from the back room, like someone swatting flies. Tiffany studied her bandage as they waited at a pine-paneled counter. She squirmed restlessly. “I have to pee so bad,” she said. Charger wondered how she wriggled out of those tight snake pants.

A thin middle-aged man in sweatpants and an oversized Charlotte Hornets jersey appeared. He wore thick glasses. Silently he took Charger's credit card and ground it through a little press. The man grunted as he presented the paper slip. The room was thirty-two dollars—less than Charger had feared. Pleased, he signed the slip with a grand flourish, as if he were endorsing an important document. The clerk ripped out the yellow copy, wrapped it around the key, and handed the little package to Charger.

“I'm going to get muscles in my left arm,” Tiffany said as she hoisted her satchel. She held her bandaged thumb ahead of her, like a flashlight.

From the truck Charger retrieved the other bag she had brought and his own bag, a weathered Army duffel of his father's. The room was 234, up an exterior flight of concrete stairs. A light rain had started. Below, a car pulled in, and a woman got out with a screaming child clutching a pink-plush pig. Charger heard a door slam.

The room smelled stale. The bedspread looked heavy and dark with dirt and smoke and spills. Charger set the bags down and clicked on a light. Then the telephone rang. Tiffany gasped, but Charger thought it seemed normal to get a phone call here. He picked up the phone.