Antarctica (8 page)

Roslin pulls into the Gator Lodge parking lot and lifts the handbrake. The signs are good: nobody around. Just a couple of cars parked out back, an old blue Buick standing next to a chipped pick-up with an ugly brown mutt panting in the cab. She hopes it isn’t his. They say a man picks out a dog that’s just like him on the inside, and this dog’s so ugly, he knows it.

She steps out into the heat, smells something nasty in the garbage. Lunch is well over. She brushes the creases from her skirt and takes a deep breath. This better be good, she thinks, walking over the gravel in her high heels. As she strides up to the porch, a fat lizard zig-zags across the stucco. She swings the door open, feels the cold blast off the air-conditioner.

‘I’ll be the guy in the blue shirt,’
he’d said.

‘Every second guy in the world has a blue shirt: wear a hat.’

‘That won’t make no difference: every second guy in Mississippi wears a hat anyhow.’

‘
Just wear it
,’ she’d said.

A waitress is smoothing out a bundle of dollar bills at the bar. She stubs out her cigarette when she sees Roslin and gives her a four o’clock smile. A guy wearing a blue shirt is sitting by the windows with his back to her.
There’s a cowboy hat on his table. The only customer in the place. Roslin walks right up to him.

‘You Guthrie?’

‘That’s me. You Roslin?’

She nods.

‘’Fraid I got tired wearing the hat.’ He gestures to his head, stupid, like she wouldn’t know where a hat went. He’d planned to stand up and pull out her chair, show some manners, but Roslin’s sitting down already,
hooking
the plastic strap of her purse over the back of her seat. She’s a lot prettier than he expected. He thought she’d be a fat girl with that telephone laugh.

She thinks this mustn’t be his first time. He’s too
cool-headed
, his face is smooth as chrome, dented below the cheek-bones. Nothing to say this isn’t just a casual meeting between two friends, that she isn’t just some lady who’s strolled in and sat down beside him ’cos there’s nobody else in the joint and she needs a little company. But they aren’t too concerned. Chances are, if somebody they know does walk in, they won’t be honeymooners neither, lunching on this blue shift. All that thinking and talking for too long over the phone and now they’re here, taking this chance, sitting opposite one another in a Mississippi watering hole with nothing to hold on to. Damn.

‘I was thinking maybe you’d changed your mind,’ he says, placing his palm down flat on the oilcloth. His nails are long. A band of pale skin stands out on his third finger. ‘You wanna drink or something?’

‘Hell, yeah. You eaten?’ She pulls the red napkin out of her glass and spreads it out on her lap.

‘Naw. I was holding out for you.’

He holds his menu up between them like a shield and chooses his words.

‘You like seafood?’

‘Sure I like seafood. What you think I am? Jewish?’

He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

‘Jesus, you ain’t Jewish, is you?’ she says.

He laughs. ‘You the prettiest thing I seen in a long time,’ he says, thinking it sounds like a bad line when he hears it out loud. He’d rehearsed his lines all the way over, damn near rear-ended a Corvette, and here he is saying the oldest words in the book too soon. This lady smells good. She’s blonde and tanned and smart, a real windfall. She pouts her lips and looks down at the menu. There’s black mascara on her eyelashes, blue shadow on the lids; he can see how dark her hair is at the roots.

They read the courses on the menu, their eyes roving over the dishes, all the hors d’oeuvres, the entrées, the dessert menu on the back, and the different beers from all over the world from the drinks page. Roslin could go for a big fat slice of that Devil’s Food cake, but the hook on her brassiere is pinching her back as it is. She hasn’t worn it since they had Nelson’s youngster christened up in Mobile. Guthrie thinks he better order something with no garlic, no onions neither.

The waitress comes over and takes a pencil from behind her ear.

‘You folks ready?’

She keeps her eyes on his cowboy hat while she takes their orders. It’s a great big hat with a feather stuck in the band. Oysters Rockefeller and dirty rice with another Bud for the cowboy. Boiled crawfish for the lady, and Scotch, straight up.

‘You ain’t driving?’ he says.

‘No. I got here on a white mule.’

‘The lady’s got a sense of humour. I like that.’

‘Glad you approve.’

He blushes and looks out the window. The restaurant stands on stilts over the water, the muddy backwash breaking against the poles that hold them up. The sun’s so bright he can hardly see, as if it’s having a big orgy in the sky and blinds every eye so nobody can know what’s really going on up there. That’s what he’s
thinking
when the waitress brings the drinks and crackers.

They light cigarettes because there’s nothing else to say. Just a few words and it’s all opened up. It’s as if she’s slid the zip of his pants down. She can’t believe she’s driven all the way out here to meet up with a guy she’s never laid eyes on. One little ad placed in the
Times Picayune
, a woman wanted in bold, a few phone calls, and this. The fact that they’re here says everything, and now that they’ve seen each other, it’s done.

She takes out a Marlboro. He flicks the lid off the lighter and holds out the flame. She lowers her head and exhales through her nose, looking at him. He thinks she’s like one of them movie stars, like Lauren Bacall or
Madonna or somebody, with those fancy clothes and those long fingernails. She downs her Scotch before the food arrives, leaving a thick smear of lipstick on the glass. He wishes he could tell the guys down at the mill about this. Big Andy could put that in his lunch box, but Big Andy can’t hold his own water after two beers. He starts on the crackers, snatches off the plastic wrappers and gulps his beer.

‘When’s the last time you ate?’ Roslin asks.

‘Yesterday.’

When the food arrives, Roslin handles her crawfish like china and sucks the heads, throws the shells on the side and drinks her second Scotch. Guthrie piles
forkfuls
of dirty rice on his crackers and pushes them into the corners of his mouth, washes them down with mouthfuls of beer. He squeezes lemon juice and Tabasco on the oysters, slurps them down.

‘You want me to make you one?’ he says.

‘Uh-uh. I’ll pass. You want one of these?’ she says, holding a crawfish by the claw. ‘They’re real good. Spicy.’

‘Nah, if I start eating those things, I’ll never stop. Like cookies.’

‘And affairs.’

He straightens up.

‘Ain’t true,’ he says. ‘I ain’t never done this before.’

‘First time for everything, I guess. You placed that ad outta desperation, then, huh? Of course, if that’s the case, I’m responding to desperation; don’t say much for me now, do it?’

‘Guess we’ve got something in common.’

‘I never said I’m desperate; I said you was.’

‘You just doing a survey then, huh?’

She laughs.

The cook pushes through the swing doors from the kitchen. He’s damp around the armpits. When he goes out on to the porch, a blast of hot air swings into the room. They can feel the temperature rising.

Guthrie starts talking, tells Roslin about working down at the mill, the way Lardhead got his hand caught in the saw ’cos it was where it shouldn’t have been, how he collected all that insurance money, but it was his right hand and he was right-handed. Roslin tells about how she painted the whole shotgun apartment, every room eggshell-blue, couldn’t get the paint out of her hair for weeks; about that time she broke down on the highway and made a fan-belt out of her pantyhose. They skirt the conversation around their home lives, each trying to peer into the other’s kitchen window without making it obvious, wondering if there’s a
high-chair
in there.

They order another one after the dishes are taken away, and one more before he pays the bill. Roslin watches him peeling the bills off the roll.

‘You didn’t get nothing caught in a saw, did ya?’

‘No, ma’am. All my bodily parts function just fine.’

He pulls out her chair. The waitress yawns as she collects the glasses and the five-dollar tip. When they bang the screen door, they disturb the cook having his snooze
on the porch before dinner. He hears them talking about whose car they’ll take, but he doesn’t bother opening his eyes to see which direction they drive off in.

They take Roslin’s truck, drive down through rodeo territory, past Picayune, and on towards Jackson. They don’t have any idea where they’re going or when they’ll stop. Roslin weaves in and out between the lanes, as if driving away from home will push that feeling further away too. But the further she drives, the bigger that
feeling
grows. Roslin’s no dumb-ass. She knows she’s driving ’cos she has something to drive away from.

They talk for a bit, but it turns quiet ’cos they can’t think of anything more to say. He wants to put his feet up on the dashboard while she drives, but he keeps them on the floor and smokes his cigarettes, rolls the window right down, hoping the breeze will blow his nerves away. Then the silence changes the way it
sometimes
does, and they’re happy not talking. They just watch the signs and the high corn swaying on both sides of the highway, the gleam of the white sun on the hood.

Roslin gets to thinking about her husband. She used to call him her man. ‘My man,’ she’d say, even when he wasn’t around. All looks and cold as a can of beer right outta the ice-box, but he has brains about the little things. Can get the whiff of Scotch on her breath even when she’s brushed her teeth, knows when she buys the étoufeé from the store and spices it up when she can’t be bothered cooking, even though she ditches the can. The kind of man you don’t touch easy. She used to think he
was like Robert DeNiro or Sean Penn or somebody.
Hidden
and deep. She spent ten years with him, trying to get into that place where he lived, ’cos she figured if he went to all that trouble, there must be something real precious inside, like the pearl trapped inside the oyster shell. But then she just gave up and realised there was nothing in there. Nothing. Just a hard, empty shell. He’d sunk all his energy building that thing, then he got into that groove and forgot all about what it was that he started out protecting. The day she realised that she got drunk in the living room, started right after breakfast on Scotch with ice all the way up to the top, the way she liked it. As soon as he came home and saw her lounging in her underwear, panties stuck to her in the heat, sitting in his armchair, air all sluggish, room hot as hell, fans on full-blast, trying to kick that hot air’s ass, he took one look and knew she’d walk. He could tell. And she knew he could. The day you find out you’ve just wasted ten years ain’t no picnic.

‘What you thinking?’

She looks at this guy. She likes the way his shirt fits him.

‘How come they call you Guthrie? I never knowed anybody by that name.’

‘Oh, Mama was a big Woody Guthrie fan, so she called me after him. I’m lucky I didn’t grow up on a train.’ She might as well know he was white trash.

‘So Woody Guthrie ain’t your daddy then, huh?’

‘Damn close.’

‘Well, Guthrie, you wanna tune a song in on that radio?’

‘Yeah. What you wanna hear?’

‘Anything. So long as the damn thing ain’t glum.’

He tunes in the Oldies’ station. Buddy Holly, Ruby Turner, the Beatles all the way over the bypass and out the other side. They drown out Aretha Franklin, bawl along with Chuck Berry singing ‘You Never Can Tell’, walk the line with Johnnie Cash. Neither one can carry a tune. Guthrie whistles. She never did know anybody to whistle out of tune before. She clicks her fingers in time and her bangles shake for miles. He says it’s like driving with Mister Bojangles. She almost says Mrs Bojangles but shuts her mouth up just in time. She thinks about reaching over and holding his hand and shifting the gears with it the way they did in high school. They stop for gas at the other side of Jackson and hop back in right after they pay the guy and get the six-pack, because stopping might mean turning back. They drink the
Budweiser
and buckle up the cans, let them clunk around the floor on the bends.

The traffic slows down and they turn down the radio to see what’s going on. Men in yellow jackets are
directing
traffic; cars are parked up on the side of the road, far as they can see. Then they see the lights of a Ferris wheel turning on a patch of yellow sunset.

‘Carnival! Jesus H! Let’s go on one of those things!’ Guthrie yells, leaning out the passenger window. ‘Get up on that damn wheel and go way the hell up.’ He figures
they have to stop some time and a wet county is better than the desert.

‘You wanna?’

‘Yeah, I wanna do that. Get on that thing and scare the shit out of myself good.’ He hasn’t ridden one of those things in years.

‘You crazy,’ she says, but she makes the U-turn and drives into the field. They park the truck and slam the doors shut, lock the keys in the ignition but don’t even notice.

‘It’s like Jazz Fest!’ Guthrie says. ‘Let’s get us some more beer!’

Kids are walking around holding too many things, balloons in one hand, cotton candy in the other. Soft toys under Mama’s elbow ’cos Daddy can shoot straight. Guthrie thinks it’d be a good thing if somebody tied a big helium balloon on to every one of those little
waistbands
, sent them all shooting right up into the sky, when the clown comes over. He’s wearing one of them red noses and his white, painted face is flaking off. He takes an egg from behind Roslin’s ear, and a quarter from Guthrie’s.

‘Now, ain’t that clever?’ Guthrie says. ‘How’d you do that?’

‘Magic,’ the clown says.

‘Magic, my grandma. If you could make money outta nowhere, you wouldn’t be hanging out here.’

But ‘magic’ is all the clown will say, so Roslin gives him a dollar bill and he shoves off to the next couple.