Day Out of Days (6 page)

Dennis now comes up with this sudden revelation that this has to be the town where Alfred Hitchcock shot
Vertigo
. He remembers
the tower. We’re looking directly at it out the plate-glass window. He remembers Jimmy Stewart’s climb up the winding stairs and the woman falling—or was it the man? Maybe that’s why I’m having these falling dreams, he says. Not me falling but someone else—like, you know, that guy hanging from the courthouse ceiling—deliberately crashing to the floor like that. I’ll bet that’s what it is, he says.

What’s what it is, I ask him as I unscrew the Texas Pete.

Vertigo!
The movie. You remember that movie, don’t you? Jimmy Stewart and Eva Marie Saint.

No, it was Grace Kelly, John pipes up.

No, it wasn’t Grace Kelly, Grace Kelly was in
The Birds
, Dennis says.

That was Tippi Hedren, I interject over the eggs.

Oh, right, Dennis says. She was the mother of Farrah Fawcett, right?

Farrah Fawcett?

Farrah Fawcett is not the daughter of Tippi Hedren, John says. I’ve been away from the cinema for some time, I admit, but I’m almost positive that Farrah Fawcett is not the daughter of Tippi Hedren. She’s the mother of somebody else very famous but it escapes me right now.

I thought it was Farrah Fawcett, says Dennis.

No, you’re mistaken.

Well, who is it then? says Dennis. Who’s she the mother of?

I’m not sure. It’ll come to me, says John.

Why don’t you guys go take a walk around the plaza while I finish my breakfast, I suggest.

All right, good idea, says John and off they go out the door, the two of them. Just like that. It’s like they’re totally suggestible. All you have to do is suggest something and they go along with it. Like if you said to them, why don’t you both go climb that Alfred Hitchcock tower out there and push each other off, they’d probably go along with that too. They’ve got to be stoned out of their minds.

Both of them. I think maybe Dennis is on some of that Purple Owsley acid or maybe just mushrooms. I saw him plucking something colorful out of the cow shit by the side of the road when we stopped to take a leak. I can tell by the way he’s walking—all slow and disoriented, carefully observing the smallest dumb thing. Like stopping dead in his tracks to watch a paper cup go blowing across the bandstand. I can see them both now out the plate-glass window as I chew on my tortilla. How did I get to be the observer in this bunch? The outsider of the outsiders. Now they’re both squinting against the sun, shading their eyes with their hands and walking slightly hunched over with their collars up, like they’ve just been released from a very dark place into the light of day. Like two ex-convicts actually; two guys who have just recently spent some very serious time in stow and don’t have a clue how to behave in society anymore. My arrogance is beginning to take its toll on my stomach but I’m having a hard time switching to tolerance with these two. I don’t know why I end up judging them all the time. I thought we were just going to roll on down the road and let everything happen. Like the days of old.

There was definitely some inbreeding going on way back there between the Bateses and the Fiskes; the Dodges and the Smiths. You can see it clearly in the 1400s then trailing back deep into the Dark Ages; the Ferrers and the Lyons, Norman horsemen; the Walkers too (“those white barbarians,” as Benjamin Franklin was wont to call them). They were fucking each other’s cousins. It’s plain to see in the family tree. They were all mixing it up. In Thoroughbred parlance the polite term for it is “linebreeding.” You’d be hard-pressed to find a racehorse these days without at least one ancestor repeated in the first four generations. The popular superstition about this in human practice is that it leads to domestic violence, bad teeth, and insanity. Now, the polite term for “insanity,” back in the day, was “brain fever.” It shows up again and again in the annals of my ancestry: “succumbed to brain fever, 1636, in transit to America aboard the schooner
Peregrine
. Fell into a feverish spell and wandered off into the woodlands, believed captured by the Narragansett. Burned at the stake for furies of the mind, conversing with devils in most unintelligible tongues.” It’s enough to make you wonder.

Things like these—lost fragments, almost: At sixteen, working for Tops Chemicals, loading buckets of chlorine in green flatbed trucks; did I, for instance, connect the raging sting in my eyes at night and the jaundiced tone my hands had turned with swimming pool hygiene and bikini moms? I doubt it. I had no idea either, for instance, that the acres of exotic flowers next door carried a name like
bird of paradise
. Who dreamed that one up? And how these cut flowers brought top dollar in L.A. after running all that way by train at night through Santana wind in pitch-black boxcars to be opened up to the morning dew by Mexican vendors then sold for the shady patios of the super-rich Wrigleys and Rich-fields. I was an innocent kid, as they say; skinny as a whip. Dogs came out to meet me. Grown women smiled and waved from porches. I had no clue they kept right on watching through their kitchen windows as I cut down across the orange groves and hopped the tracks of the Union Pacific.

Things like these just come floating in these days. Uninvited.

What was that all about last time, anyway?

What last time?

In the Cracker Barrel. Denton. When you broke down for no apparent reason.

I can’t remember.

You don’t remember suddenly bursting into tears after you ordered those blueberry pancakes? You don’t remember that?

No—No, I
do
remember but I can’t remember why.

Totally embarrassing. Everyone staring. The whole place went silent.

I remember. I remember now.

Well, you should remember. It was only three days ago.

Is that all?

That’s all.

Seems longer.

That’s all it was.

How long have we been on the road, anyway?

Too long. I can’t stand this. I really can’t.

It’s not all that bad.

It’s bad.

Do you think we should go our separate ways?

Ha. What would you do without me?

I’d be all right.

What would you do?

I’d be fine.

You’d be fine. You can’t even order pancakes without blubbering into your napkin. What’s become of you, anyway? You’ve fallen completely apart.

I’ll be fine.

Stop saying that! What has happened to you? Has somebody died or something? Somebody you’re not telling me about? Some dog, maybe?

Nobody’s died. Nobody recently, anyway.

Then what is it? What in the world could be so tragic?

I don’t know. It just comes over me.

What does?

A black cloud.

Oh, stop. I’m not falling for your poetics. Just try to control yourself while we’re having lunch. I want to eat in peace.

•   •   •   •   •

Do you want to sit by the window?

Yes. I like to look out on all the parked cars.

How’s this?

Good.

Which side of the table do you want?

I want to be able to see all the parked cars.

Fine. I’ll sit over here, then.

Don’t you want to sit next to me? Side by side, like we used to?

No. I want to sit over here. Across from you. So I can keep an eye on you.

In case I break down again, you mean?

Exactly.

You don’t trust me.

It’s not a question of trust.

We always used to sit side by side.

That’s not entirely true.

Back in Roswell, we used to.

That was a long, long time ago.

Seems like yesterday.

Your sense of time is out of whack.

We always sat side by side in Roswell so we could hold hands and touch each other’s thighs.

Will you please stop with this! Now, what do you want to order?

What do they have?

The same thing they always have.

Do they have those pancakes? Those blueberry pancakes?

You’re not ordering those again.

Why not?

Because they make you break down and weep for some mysterious reason you don’t understand.

It wasn’t the pancakes.

What was it then?

I told you, I don’t know.

There’s got to be a reason.

There is. I just don’t know what it is.

How can that be? How can that possibly be?

•   •   •   •   •

Is today Thursday? Yes. I think it is.

Then they must have chicken and rice. That’s what it says: “Thursday Special—Chicken and Rice.”

Is that what you’re having?

I don’t know.

Well, make up your mind. The waitress is heading over here.

Do you know where “Thursday” comes from?

What?

“Thursday.” The word, the day. Do you know where it comes from?

I have no idea.

Druids.

Is that a fact?

Yes. “Thor’s Day;” the day of thunder. The Thunder God.

Thor? I thought he was Norwegian or something. Viking. He wasn’t a Druid, was he?

No. He was a god.

And they worshipped him? The Druids?

They worshipped everything.

That can’t be right.

They worshipped the oak.

The oak?

Yes.

The tree? The oak.

Yes.

And why was that?

It was the tree most struck by lightning.

Fine. Are you having the chicken and rice or what?

It was the tree Thor chose to strike and set on fire.

Where in the world is the waitress?

It was the tree the Druids climbed in white robes and cut the mistletoe from with golden daggers.

I can’t believe they leave people just sitting here like this.

They thought the mistletoe was a message from Thor.

I’m going to find the waitress.

No! Don’t go!

I’ll be right back.

Please, don’t go!

Oh, stop it. I’m coming right back.

Please!

Oh, my God! What’d I just tell you about this? This is exactly what I was talking about. Now you’re trembling.

Just don’t go.

Let go of my wrist!

Please!

Let go! You’re hurting me!

I’m sorry.

You’ve punctured the skin. Look at that!

I’m sorry.

I’m going out to the car.

What? Why?

I’ll wait for you in the car.

I thought you wanted to have lunch.

Not anymore. I’m not hungry.

Please. Come on. I want to have lunch.

Let me just tell you something—and the only reason I haven’t come out with this before is that I didn’t think you could handle it. I was afraid you’d break down again, but now I see that it’s just impossible to keep this going—this—especially after what you’ve just done to my wrist. I want you to know that I think we’ve … come to the end of our days together. And that’s the short truth of it. We’ve come to the end. What else is there to say?

What am I supposed to do now?

You said you’d be fine. That’s what you said: “I’ll be fine.”

I was just saying that.

I can’t go on with this anymore. I really can’t. Look what you’ve done to my skin.

I’m sorry.

It’s like an animal’s been chewing on it. Look at that! Look at this blood! It’s all over the place.

I’ll get some ice.

No! You’ve done enough damage already.

Here, take this napkin. Wrap it around your wrist.

No!

Oh, here comes the waitress. Finally. Here she comes. Over here!

I’ll meet you in the car.

Over here, miss! We’d like to order!

I’m going out to the car.

No, the waitress is coming. Look! Here she comes.

I’m going out to the car.

No!

•   •   •   •   •

I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t see you sitting over here in the corner. All tucked away.

That’s all right.

Would you like to hear about our specials today?

No.

So, you know what you want then?

Is it too late to order the blueberry pancakes?

I understand there was a man who got trapped inside a Cracker Barrel men’s room, once. (I’ve heard the story three or four times now in various convenience stores and gas stations just outside of Butte, so there must be some germ of truth to it.) He was trying to take a dump in peace in one of those oversize stalls for the handicapped (even though he wasn’t). He liked the extra space around him, the aluminum handrail, the hooks to hang his hat and coat. It must have been after closing hours, I guess, because the night manager had mistakenly locked him up in there and had also left the sound system on and, evidently, Shania Twain songs played all night long in an endless loop. Over and over, that’s all he heard was Shania Twain. She sang songs of vengeance and good riddance, infidelity of all stripes, callous treatment at the hands of drunken cowboys, maudlin ballads of deprived youth, the general inability of men to see into her hidden charms; songs where she refused to
be a slave anymore to the whims of men, like for instance making toast, doing the dishes, washing clothes, frying an egg, shopping for groceries. She wasn’t buying into any of that stuff. Then she had songs full of praise for her mother; prayers to her baby sister, her great-aunt, her sister-in-law, her sister’s sister-in-law. She praised God for making her a woman. She praised Jesus for her spectacular body and her luscious red mane falling down to her luscious ass. The man became desperate to escape the Cracker Barrel men’s room. He tried to dismantle the door hinges with his trusty Swiss Army Knife. He tried pounding the walls. He tried screaming his head off but there was nobody there. No dishwasher, no waiter, no cashier, no janitor, no night manager, no one but Shania Twain, over and over and over and over again. There was no escape from the onslaught. The man collapsed to the tile floor in a heap of resignation and tried to fall asleep but sleep wouldn’t come. Shania’s voice taunted and tortured him. She clawed at his ears with her long silver talons. He hauled himself up off the floor and turned all the water faucets on full blast. He punched all the hand-dry blowers. He flushed every toilet but nothing would drown out the piercing voice. He could still hear it pealing through the background somewhere; whining away in mawkish misery. He tried climbing up on top of the toilet stall and unscrewing the speaker but he stripped all the screwheads with his trusty Swiss Army Knife and fell backwards to the floor, impaling himself with the open blade. He writhed in pain and managed to extract the knife from his left thigh but blood gushed freely into the overflowing water of the sinks and steam was rising like out of some primordial stew. He dragged himself through the darkening red mess of it, back toward the door, moaning like some butchered stockyard animal. He kicked with his one good leg and flailed his hands and screamed one last time but nobody answered; nobody but Shania Twain in her endless refrain. Then he surrendered completely and did something he’d never done in his entire life. He prayed. He prayed to Jesus to stop the bleeding. He prayed to God
for a little peace and quiet. He prayed someone might find him before he drowned in his own fluids. Then a miraculous thing happened (and this has been verified by at least two eyewitness accounts—window washers at the very scene); the men’s room door swung slowly open and there she was—Shania herself, towering before him in her spectacular body, her spectacular red hair, her spectacular lips, her spectacular tits. She was singing her head off. She was singing like there was no tomorrow. She didn’t seem to notice the man on the floor, bleeding to death. In fact she stood right on his chest in her green satin stiletto high heels and kept right on singing. She seemed to be focused on something in the far, far distance but it was hard to tell through the steam.