Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail (20 page)

“Your Nellie-babe dropped a scarf on the floor down here,” the night clerk said.

“You dropped your scarf,” Charger said to Tiffany, who was tugging at her zipper. “I'll be right down,” he told the clerk. He hung up the phone. Nellie-babe?

“Wait. I have to pee and I need a little help with these pants,” Tiffany said, reaching for him. “I feel ham-handed.”

“You can do it. How did you manage at that gas station?”

“Why I dropped my scarf is, I couldn't tie it around my neck with this clumsy thumb.”

“I'll go get it.” Charger slipped out of the room and bounded down to the desk, leaving Tiffany to work herself out of her snake pants. She whined when she was tired.

“Some britches your Nellie's got on,” the night clerk said in a friendly voice.

“How am I supposed to take that?” Charger demanded. “And what do you mean—Nellie? Is that something I'm supposed to know from television?”

The skinny guy retreated an inch or two, and his lip quavered. Charger felt gratified. The clerk said, “Hey, man. I didn't mean nothing. I mean you're a lucky guy. No offense. I was just commenting on them snakes.” He grinned. He had big teeth, chinked with food. “I mean, I wouldn't want to get tangled up with a lady wearing snakes. I looked at those, and they threw me for a minute. Man, I hate snakes. Did a snake bite her on the finger?”

Charger snatched Tiffany's scarf from the counter. It was a long banner, shimmering blue like a lava lamp. He went to the door and stood gazing at the parking lot. The winking motel sign had a faulty bulb.
DUNN
'
S MOTEL. DUNN
'
S MOTE. DUNN
'
S MOTEL. DUNN
'
S MOTE.
The interstate traffic was sparse, just lights moving like liquid. Charger saw the faint glow of Memphis in the west. He saw a gray car cruise by the motel slowly and then head down the service road. He turned and surveyed the lobby. The TV was blank. The coffeepot was clean and ready for morning. The clerk opened a hot-rodding magazine.

“Can't face them snakes, can you, buddy?” The guy smirked.

“That's none of your business,” Charger said, coming back to the counter.

“What's private anymore?” the clerk said, with a burst of bitterness like chewing gum cracking. He set down his magazine and smoothed the cover with his palm, as if he were ironing. “Nothing's a secret. All them numbers we've got nowadays? Why, I could take your credit-card number and use it if I was of a mind to. It's all in the computers anyway. The government knows everything about everybody. It's not enough to take your taxes. They want to keep up with the news on you too. And
we
pay for their meddling. They can peep into them computers and find out anything they want to.”

Charger decided to humor the guy. Somehow, he didn't want to go back upstairs just yet. “If they're that good, they could find my daddy,” he said.

“Is he on the FBI list?” The clerk seemed impressed.

Charger shrugged. “No, he took a wrong turn and he just kept going.”

“If they want to find him, they'll get him. They've got their ways. They come in here on stakeouts all the time. Them black helicopters that come over? They have computers right on board that plug into a global network.”

“Bullshit,” Charger said.
“Irk, irk,”
he muttered to himself.

The clerk looked angry, ready to pounce at him. He had a belligerent gleam in his eye. Then he seemed to steady himself. “Matter of fact, right before you came in, I checked in an escaped convict,” he said in a superior tone. “He's in the room right next to you.”

Charger felt his stomach flip. But he was on to the guy, he thought. He was a fruitcake. More bullshit, Charger decided. He stared the guy in the eye—magnified by the bottle-bottom glasses—until the clerk looked away. “If he's in his room, he won't hurt nobody,” Charger said. “He's probably tired. He probably couldn't get a wink of sleep in jail.”

The clerk opened a newspaper. “Look at this picture. That's him.”

The photograph showed a dark-haired guy with a receding hairline who wore a prison work shirt and had a serial number on his chest. The headline read
PRISON ESCAPEE SOUGHT IN THREE STATES
.

“He signed his name ‘Harry Martin' when he checked in,” the clerk said. “But the guy in the newspaper is named Arthur Shemell. Look.” He punched the newspaper with his finger. “Didn't fool me!”

Charger felt his confidence ebb a little. “Well, call the police, then.”

“Oh, I don't want to bother them tonight. I've had them out here on so many cases—drug busts and kidnappings. Sometimes they don't appreciate my efforts. I don't owe them any favors.” The clerk shook the newspaper.

“I know what you mean,” Charger said. “Been there, done that.”

“Dittos.”

“Been there, done that,” repeated Charger, testing the sound.

The clerk folded the newspaper to display the escapee's picture. “I don't believe he's Harry Martin
or
Arthur Shemell. He's the spittin' image of Clarence Smith, this guy back in high school I used to know. He used to sneak into the girls' locker room and steal their basketball bloomers. He had one eyebrow that went all the way across. Them's the guys to watch out for. And their ears stick out too far. His whole family was like that, and they were
all
bad; one time the big-daddy busted out of the house with a hatchet and swung it at his uncle's wife's daddy—for no good reason. He split his head right open like a watermelon. That happened half a mile from my house—in 1938.”

The clerk rattled the newspaper in Charger's face so quickly that Charger jumped. The guy's own ears were airplane wings, he thought.

“I hear you, buddy,” Charger said, trying to calm him. He wasn't afraid of any escaped convict, but the nut behind the counter was a different story. Charger drummed his fingers loudly on the counter. I can do this, he thought.

“Well, if we've got an escaped convict here, we better get the cops on him,” Charger said. “Or do you think that would be government interference? Maybe everybody should just go free. Is he a serial killer or what?”

“Bank robber, gas-station holdup, attacked his brother with a jigsaw, stole a thousand dollars from his sister—her trousseau money. Bad, bad, bad.”

Charger breathed once and talked fast. He said, “Hey man, I'm busy. I've got a girl upstairs about to pee in her pants if I don't get up there. But it looks like we need to call the law on this old pal of yours, whatever his name is.” Charger grabbed the portable telephone and dialed 911. Tiffany's scarf fell to the floor.

“You don't need to do that,” the clerk said, reaching across the counter.

“Hey,” Charger said. “No problem.” He trotted a few steps out of reach.

Nine-one-one answered. Charger said, “This is the night clerk at Dunn's Motel off of exit forty-eight.” He made his voice low and conspiratorial. “We've just checked in that escaped convict that was in the paper. He's your guy, folks. Come on out to our crummy little motel next to the BP off exit forty-eight. I'll hold him for you.” He punched the
OFF
button and returned the phone to the counter with a bang. “It's all yours, buddy. Now I'm going to go get some sleep. Thanks for the opportunity to serve.” He picked up the scarf.

The clerk was trembling. “Stay here with me till the cops get here,” he said. “Please.”

Charger rolled his eyes. “Sorry, buddy. Gotta get back to my Nellie-babe.” At the door he said, “So long. If he's really a convict, they'll get him. Be sure to tell about them basketball bloomers.”

The clerk stared, bug-eyed.

The blue scarf flying from his fist, Charger ran up the concrete steps like a fugitive. He imagined blue lights flashing in the distance. He heard rain spatters on the asphalt. But he felt a spurt of elation. He plunged into the room and bolted the door.

“What's going on?” Tiffany asked. She was standing in the bathroom doorway, holding a towel around her. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”

“It's O.K. I got your scarf.”

Tiffany retreated into the bathroom. Charger turned out the lamp by the chair and then the lamp by the bed. He heard water running in the shower. The bathroom door was ajar, and the crack of light was like a beam from a projection booth. He watched out the window from behind the edge of the drapes. Several minutes passed. Then a cruiser floated in quietly, its roof light making blue patterns on the concrete-block wall in front. Only one cop was in the car. The cop got out slowly, adjusting his heavy belt. Charger could see him and the night clerk in the doorway of the lobby. Their arm gestures seemed to suggest that the two were acquaintances. The cop shook his head knowingly, as though listening to a speeder's excuses. Finally, he waved and returned to his cruiser. The night clerk rolled up the newspaper and beat his leg. Charger kept looking, as if something more were supposed to happen.

“Is there some kind of trouble down there?” Tiffany said, moving toward him. She was wrapped in towels. By now the cruiser was gone, and the clerk had retreated into his back room.

“I'll be ready in a minute,” Charger said, his voice muffled by the drape.

All he wanted was to get to Texas, Charger thought, to see those skies. He glanced up into the light-shimmering drizzle. If he got an early start on what his father had gone to see, maybe he would not mind what was to come later. It would be a way to fool destiny. “My little donkey and me,” he murmured, turning and reaching for her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B
OBBIE
A
NN
M
ASON
is the author of
Shiloh and Other Stories,
which won the PEN/Hemingway Award,
Feather Crowns,
which won the Southern Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the bestselling novel
In Country.
Her memoir,
Clear Springs,
was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in
The New Yorker, The Atlantic, DoubleTake, Harper's, The Paris Review,
and elsewhere, and has received two O. Henry Awards and two Pushcart Prizes.

A
LSO BY
B
OBBIE
A
NN
M
ASON

FICTION

Shiloh and Other Stories

In Country

Spence + Lila

Love Life

Feather Crowns

Midnight Magic

NONFICTION

The Girl Sleuth

Nabokov's Garden

Clear Springs

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2001 by Bobbie Ann Mason

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York,.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The following stories have been previously published: “With Jazz” appeared in the February 26, 1990, issue of
The New Yorker;
“Thunder Snow” appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of
DoubleTake;
“Rolling into Atlanta” appeared in the Winter 1992 issue of
Ploughshares;
“The Funeral Side” appeared in the Summer 1999 issue of
The Southern Review;
“Tobrah” appeared in the Summer 1990 issue of
Story;
“Proper Gypsies” appeared in
The Southern Review,
1995; “Charger” appeared in the January 1998 issue of
The Atlantic;
“Three-Wheeler” appeared in the June 2001 issue of
The Atlantic;
and “Window Lights” appeared in the Autumn 1997 issue of
Story.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

HAL LEONARD CORPORATION:
Excerpt from “Ole Buttermilk Sky” from the motion picture
Canyon Passage,
words and music by Hoagy Carmichael and Jack Brooks. Copyright © 1946 by Morley Music Co. Copyright renewed by Morley Music Co. and Frank Music Corp. Excerpt from “England Swings”, words and music by Roger Miller. Copyright © 1963 by Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Copyright renewed. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN, 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

J
ON
L
ANDAU
M
ANAGEMENT:
Excerpt from “Hungry Heart” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1980 by Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission of Jon Landau Management. The author extends special thanks to Bruce Springsteen for the use of his lyric “I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.”

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mason, Bobbie Ann.

Zigzagging down a wild trail: stories/Bobbie Ann Mason.

p.    cm.

1. United States—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3563.A7877 Z35 2001

813'.54—dc21    00-066480

Random House website address:
www.atrandom.com

eISBN: 978-1-58836-023-6

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