CRUDDY (9 page)

O,” SAID Vicky Talluso. “You ready to meet him?” We were cutting through different back ways, different alleyways, heading to her house. I said, “Who?”

“
Him.
The future love of your life.”

“Oh.” I shrugged. I was feeling tired. Still floaty from the Creeper but it was a downward float. What I really wanted to do was sit down somewhere and just stare. I didn’t care at what. My legs were feeling rubbery and Vicky Talluso was starting to get on my nerves. I hadn’t known her very long but I already noticed she never asked a question without expecting a specific answer. She never asked, for example, a free-form question, like what was your opinion on something, or for more details about something you mentioned about yourself, like how you killed someone. And then I realized I hadn’t asked her any questions either. I tried to think of one but nothing came.

We turned onto another alley. I had no idea where I was, the alley was dirt and the tire ruts were deep. A smell of garbage circled us. Vicky said, “You better not screw this up, Roberta.”

“Screw up what?”

And the story came out that the guy who was so perfect for me was the brother of Dane, the guy she was wanting for her boyfriend. Dane said for her to bring someone for his brother.

“What’s his name?” I asked. Vicky didn’t know. It turns out she had never actually seen him. But she figured he would be amazing because Dane was so amazing. I got a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of an amazing guy meeting me.

“I don’t know, Vicky.”

“You don’t know what?” She shoved my shoulder. “You don’t know now that I’ve gotten you high and I’m taking you to my house to get you some decent clothes so you don’t look like such a skag and I’m taking you to meet an amazing guy who lives on the View in an amazing house with a heated swimming pool, and no parents home for two weeks, you don’t know about THAT?”

She was shouting at me and it made a huge dog start barking behind a tall wooden fence and the dog started leaping and saliva wads were flying off its lips and then Vicky ran over to the fence and started kicking it with her yellow boots and the dog went insane and a window flew open on the second story of the ratty house behind the fence and a bald man stuck his head out and said, “Get the HELL away from my dog!”

“GO FUCK YOURSELF!” Vicky shouted so hard the veins on her neck were out.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” The man’s face started contorting. Vicky shouted it again and he left the window.

I said, “We should go, Vicky.”

She screamed, “I’LL
KILL
YOUR FUCKING DOG IF I WANT TO!”

I will admit that it was me that tripped her. The father taught me how to do it. A simple flip with your foot, you catch them right under the heel when they are walking. The father said, “If you do it right, they don’t even feel it. They’re on their butts before they know what happened. All you have to do is look concerned and help them up and you have made a friend.”

I reached my hand to Vicky and she slapped it away. She took her purse and threw it into the sticker bushes. The gate flew open and the dog lunged. Vicky jumped and rolled and was on her feet running. You never run from a dog. Ever. What you do with a dog is step toward them and then keep your hands by your sides and stay very still. You can glance at their eyes but don’t hold a stare. They may jump up and tear your face off anyway but at least you will have a chance. If you run you are dead. Especially with a big dog like Brother. And if you run you won’t see that Brother is on a choke chain held by the bald man.

Brother was a beautiful dog. Even while he was making vicious leaps at me I noticed it. Have you ever seen a chocolate Doberman with his real tail and ears? Beautiful is the word and I guess I kept saying it because the bald man finally stopped shouting and Brother stopped barking. That was what I wanted to stare at. A dog like Brother with golden eyes and the dog smell that has always calmed me.

I said, “Sir? I’m really sorry about my friend acting like that. Her father just died, sir.” I don’t know why I said the thing about Vicky’s dad. It just followed the first sentence right out of my mouth.

The man turned very understanding. Brother let me pet and fuss over him. The man got a rake and held the sticker bushes away so I could get Vicky’s purse, and then told me to keep an eye on my friend. If she kept acting like that she could end up in the hospital.

On his arm I saw a faded USN tattoo.

I said, “You Navy?”

He smiled at me big.

But where was Vicky? Where was Vicky Talluso? I had her purse, I found her hat, her red velvet tam laying in the next alley but where was she? The light was fading fast and I realized I had nowhere to go.

The father said when you are lost you can follow the telephone wires. If you are stuck in the middle of nowhere having fits because you have no cigs and no booze and your car ran out of gas on you so you lit it on fire and it’s flaming behind you in the dark and you have that lonely craving for the opportunities other people can provide you with, by all means, follow the wires.

“This damn thing is heavy as shit,” said the father. He had the suitcase in one hand and his USN duffel over his shoulder. My bag was also USN, less wide but longer with a drawstring top. In it were a few of my clothes and the rifle, broken down and carefully wrapped along with some boxes of shells. “Why do you keep turning back to look at the damn car, Clyde?”

I told him I was waiting for it to blow up. In the movies when cars started on fire they always blew up.

“Not when they don’t got no gas in them they don’t,” said the father. “That’s just common wisdom.” And he was about to lay more common wisdom on me when the explosion happened.

“What the hell,” said the father. “I’m still right.”

He said he burned the car because they might be looking for us. The authorities might. And we needed to start covering our tracks. And then he said where I bit him was throbbing like a son-of-a-bitch and he reminded me that he almost twisted my neck, he could have snapped it easy, he knew how to do it. He was a hand-to-hand man. The Navy was sad to lose him. He said he could snap my neck and who would ever know? There wasn’t anybody looking for me. He asked me if I could think of a single person who would report me missing.

I couldn’t.

We slept that night in the weeds alongside the road. We were both so tired it didn’t matter. When I heard the father’s sleep breathing, I pulled my duffel farther away.

In the morning we were walking again. The father was wearing fresh slacks and a fresh short-sleeve shirt. I could see his sleeveless undershirt through it. He told me to change my clothes too, and at first I wouldn’t because there was no place to change. Not a thing to stand behind.

The father said, “What are you worried about? Hell, I’ve only seen you bare-assed all your life. I won’t look. There ain’t nothing to look at.”

But of course he did. He waited a few moments before he turned around and watched everything.

We were saved by a man in a truck who jerked his dirty thumb back toward the direction we’d been walking and said, “Your car blowed up,” and then shot a jet of tobacco spit through the air. “Hop in.” The father got in first.

“Bub-bub-brother?” The father had his shoulders slumped and he was stuttering. Dazzle camouflage. “H-have you g-got a ci-ci-cigarette on you?”

“Naw,” said the man. “Take dip?”

“If yyy-you can sp-sp-are it.”

The man passed the Copenhagen to the father who took out a huge wad, stuck it in his lower lip and held the can out to me.

The man’s name was Syd. He was very tan and his clothes were very faded but he looked like a very together sort of person. His hair was oiled and combed in the Robert Mitchum style. I was admiring the comb-tooth pattern when the father nudged me with the can. I took a pinch.

Syd said, “Your boy chew? He don’t even look eight years old.” Syd’s eyes looked friendly. Bloodshot but sincere. He didn’t look old but his face had a million creases. Later the father said you could have poured a gallon of water into that face and not a drop would spill out. The sun did it. It dried the strongest men out like jerky.

“Hhh-he don’t ttt-talk. Eh-eh-eh-pilepsy.”

Syd said, “Epilepsy? I got a sister has epilepsy and she talks fine.”

The father started tapping his hand on the dash. Watch the hands. He taught me that. Watch the hands. They will tell you everything you need to know.

“Bbb-brain damage fff-from fff-falling.”

In the wing mirror I caught a glimpse of my face. It was swollen bad and the color around my left eye was deep and purple-red.

“That what happened to you, son?” Syd leaned forward to adjust his straw seat cushion and took a longer look at me. The father caught it. After that, whenever Syd leaned, the father blocked his view.

“Muh-muh-muh-mongoloid.”

“No shit,” said Syd. “Epileptic mongoloid with brain damage to boot. Somebody dealt you a real bad hand, son. I’d fold if I were you.” Syd leaned forward fast and winked at me and I got a sudden bolt of fear in my stomach. I’d never met someone who could see through the father before. I didn’t know it was possible. And I had no idea how the father would handle it if Syd pushed him. But Syd didn’t. He reached under the seat and pulled up an old pop bottle for the father to spit in and that was about all that happened until Syd dropped us at the Trailways.

The father told Syd to come see us anytime. He peeled off the Copenhagen label, wrote a fake name and address on the back of it and said, “My www-wife’s real p-p-pretty and she’d g-get a kuh-kick out of you.” He told Syd he could look forward to a free haircut because the father had his own barbershop.

Syd gave me a wave from his window. He said, “Keep your old man out of trouble.” A piece of paper fluttered into the air behind him as he drove off.

“Look there,” said the father. “Stupid shit already lost my address.”

N THE bus station the father handed me five dollars and pointed me to the lunch counter. “Get yourself something to eat.” He went into the men’s room and when he came out his hair was combed and aftershave clouds were drifting off of him. He shoved our bags into a metal locker and put the key in his pocket. At the ticket counter he asked for two tickets to Dentsville. The ticket lady was looking at him in an interested sort of way and he was looking back at her like a mirror. “Two?” she said.

“Yeah. One adult and one pain-in-the-ass nephew.”

She looked over at me and laughed. I lifted my upper lip a little and showed my teeth. Sometimes I did this. I picked it up from dogs.

There were some hours to kill before our bus left. I watched the ticket lady’s eyes follow the father as he walked out the glass door to find the liquor store she gave him directions to. She liked that he had turned to look at her. She put a sign out that said P
UR
CHASE
T
ICKETS
A
T
N
EWSSTAND
A
ND
S
UNDRIES
, grabbed her purse and told the waitress she was taking lunch.

The waitress shook her head and wiped the counter in front of me. She was old but not ancient and she had a hair net on. I saw her flick her eyes at the round-headed man sitting behind the sundries counter and I saw him flick his back. He was smoking a cigarette that had gotten very wet around the lips. He picked up a bent fly swatter and went back to staring out the window. I asked for pan

I asked for pancakes but it was too late for pancakes. The waitress seemed very insulted that I would even mention the word “pancakes.” She pointed to a big clock with a yellowed face and a wig of greasy dust. She pointed to the menu. She said, “Read? Tell time?”

I ordered french fries and a large milk. It was a down time between buses. There weren’t any other customers. The station was small but with very high ceilings that made sounds echo. The hanging lights had the longest pull strings I’d ever seen and there were flies hanging on them, swaying in the weak little breeze made by a dying fan.

The milk was ice-cold and I drank it so fast I got a stabbing headache. I was pushing on my forehead hard with both hands and the waitress’s face got a little bit softer. “Thirsty, huh?” I nodded. “Where you headed?” I shrugged.

“Your uncle said Dentsville. Did I hear him say he was your uncle? You have people out that way?”

I said, “Can I have another milk?”

She put it in front of me and I went for it. I couldn’t put it down. She started laughing when I asked for a third one. She said, “Good lord. I hope you don’t drink your liquor like that!”

I said, “No.”

The man at the sundries counter laughed and then started coughing.

The waitress put the third glass down. She said, “Dentsville. Dentsville. Your uncle military?”

“Navy,” I said.

“Fort Madley then, maybe.” She called over to the fly-swatter man. “Fort Madley, isn’t it? Outside of Dentsville?”

He said, “I believe so.”

The waitress said, “Is it Navy, Fort Madley?”

He said, “Army, I think.”

She looked at me. “You said your uncle’s Navy?”

I nodded. “Down to the last inch of his pecker.”

She covered her mouth and said “Lord!” with the word drawn out. The fly-swatter man was laughing. He said, “Sounds like a Navy man to me.”

“Well,” said the waitress. “My.”

In a lower voice she said, “What happened to your face?” I looked down at my hands. She said, “Where’s your folks at? Where’s your mother?”

I looked up at her, just barely. I said, “Passed away.”

She leaned into the little window to the kitchen and convinced the purple-nosed cook that it wasn’t too late for pancakes.

I had noticed in many stories that it was usually an advantage to have a dead mother. Opportunities came your way that wouldn’t have otherwise. I was starting to think of what it would be like to stick around the bus station. I liked what I saw of the little town. The sun was bright on everything and there was a little park across from the Trailways station where a couple of old guys stared at things from benches. I started thinking about Syd. What life would be like if I were his kid. What it would be like to sit up on the bus station’s silver and red spinning counter chairs and eat a plate of pancakes he bought me because I did so good on my report card. Eat a banana split. Listen to him brag on me to the waitress.

The fly-swatter man let out a snort and popped a fly in mid-flight. It went sailing through the air and skidded on the floor. He said, “You see the size of that bastard!”

“Language,” said the waitress. “Children here.”

“Oh the hell,” said the man.

The fly lay there for a while, and when no one was watching, it left. Where it went to I do not know. It outsmarted all of us.

The waitress was setting paper cones for water into a row of metal holders. She was moving fast. There was a bus due. She tore off my check and told me I had to leave the counter and to pay the fly-swatter man. She didn’t charge me for the pancakes or the extra milks. I had a lot of money left over. I stood looking over the candy and picked out some sour-grape gum, some fireballs, a bag of barbecue potato chips. The fly-swatter man said, “Quite a shiner. How’d you manage that?” And then the people started pouring in. “Fifteen minutes!” shouted the driver. “Fifteen and fifteen only!” He had his own coffee cup and he pushed past the people and slid it onto the counter.

I watched the people shovel food down and listened to their voices bouncing off the ceiling. And then the bus driver shouted the time and they were gone.

The waitress cleared the counter. She looked mad again. She kept looking over at the empty ticket window and pushing her lips together. She flipped a rag over her shoulder and clattered a stack of dirty plates and kicked the swinging door open with her shoe, calling to the fly-swatter man, “Must be nice not to give a damn about anybody but yourself.” The door swung shut behind her. The fly-swatter man grunted.

I went back to looking at the things he had for sale. There was a row of push-button pens hanging on a display string. I kept staring at them.

The fly-swatter man peeled some tobacco crumbs off his lip. He was a sad-looking man. His lower eyelids hung so you could see the insides. There are certain dogs this happens to. They are not born that way but somehow it happens. I noticed too that he had large earlobes with creases in them and strange dentures that looked like wax.

I said, “Can I buy a pen, please?”

He said, “What color?”

He took down the blue pen I asked for. “Also,” I said, “do you got paper?”

“Stationery?”

“Is that your paper?”

He nodded and looked on a shelf behind him. “All I have left is airmail. You want airmail?”

He pushed a flat pale blue box across the glass counter. It was dusty and it had a red loop of ribbon taped around it. On the front of the box was an indented silver drawing of a plane and the trail it left spelled out “Airmail” in the most beautiful longhand.

“Oh,” I said. “It’s so nice.”

He said, “Stamps?”

I nodded.

“How many?”

I said, “I just turned eleven. It was just my birthday.”

“How many stamps?”

“Eleven,” I said. “Because I just turned eleven.” I don’t know why this information made him so gruff. I was thinking maybe he would give me the comment of “Happy Birthday” or, “Congratulations,” or whatever it is people say to kids who just turned eleven.

He laid down my stamps and pushed my change at me and picked up his wet cig and his fly swatter and started staring out the window again.

I said, “Know that fly you hit before?”

He made a short little noise.

I said, “Well, it got away.”

His sad eyes looked me over.

When the father came back through the glass door our bus was just ready to start boarding. He was walking fast and his hair was wet-combed back and he had his usual tall liquor store sacks and he smelled very strong of cigarettes and perfume and a kind of booze I didn’t know. “C’mon, Clyde.” He got our bags and hurried me along, jerking his head toward the bus door and saying, “Go, Clyde.”

The ticket lady came in a few minutes later. She didn’t look at anyone but the father, who never looked back at her once.

The father hunched and stammered and asked the people in line if it would be all right with everyone if I got on first, being as I was an epileptic.

There was a whoosh of the silver door and the high steps were revealed. It was my first time on a bus and it seemed incredibly royal. I paused at the top of the steps and felt the father’s instant shove. “All the way to the back. Move it. Go.”

He let me have the window seat and he slouched low, hit the recliner button, and shut his eyes. I watched the ticket lady searching the passenger windows as the bus pulled out of the station.

Dentsville. On the front of the bus it said D
ENTSVILLE.

The father poked his head up when we were out of the bus station. I said, “Are we going to Fort Madley?”

He said, “What the hell’s Fort Madley?”

I took out my stationery box and slipped the ribbon off. Inside was pale blue paper, thin enough to see through. The envelopes had the same airplane on them with the same perfect writing behind it. Airmail.

When the father spoke, I jumped.

He said, “What’s that there?”

“Airmail.”

“Airmail? You spent the money I gave you on that? Damn it, Clyde, who in the hell are you planning on writing? Santa Claus?”

I put it away and waited for him to fall asleep.

It was coming toward evening and we were in the open land again and it was good to see it. The colors had done their last flares and were draining away. I was having a hard time looking out the window because the wires and poles were making me dizzy. The constant up and down. When I tried to ignore them they seemed to get even more obvious. Even when I stared straight ahead they were getting into the corner of my eye.

Who was I planning on writing? Who was I planning on writing? The father’s question was bothering me. I looked over at him. He was snoring so slack-jawed and his breath was squidding out horror fumes in my direction. I saw his Navy bridgework that always gave him trouble. His head was tilted away from me. And I will admit I looked at his neck to find it. The light pulsing of the carotid. The involuntary pulsing. As involuntary as my eyes studying it.

There are two kinds of dying for every single person. There is the moment when your personality dies, when the you of you drains away into the air, and then there is the part where your body dies, organ by organ. And then three days later there are the flies.

Dear Jesus,

Hi, how are you? Please excuse my bumpy handwriting but right
now I am on a bus.

I kept trying to find a way to turn myself so that I couldn’t see the telephone poles or be in the path of the father’s breath. I was feeling dizzy and then very sick and the father was shouting, “WHAT THE—GO TO THE HEAD, DO IT IN THE HEAD! DON’T PUKE ON ME, CLYDE! CLYDE!”