Durable Goods (13 page)

And now we have passed through Beeville on our way to Corpus Christi. The ocean is there, I know. Diane wants to live near the ocean, but in Mexico, and so naturally that is just exactly where Dickie is taking her. I knock on the rear window. It’s hot; I want back in the truck. Dickie slows, pulls over to the side of the road, and I climb in the middle.

“Did you get burned?” Diane asks.

I shrug. She must have been struck blind: I believe I look like Crayola violet-red.

“We’ll stop for lunch soon,” Diane says.

“Okay.”

She turns to look out the window. Silence. This happens when you travel. First everyone talks a lot, then a little, then only the road talks. We haven’t stopped to look at anything. We are just getting away.

“Armadillo,” Dickie says, pointing to the side of the road. It is dead, lying on its side, a sick cloud of flies above it. At their dirt home, I think of Mrs. Armadillo saying to her children, “Where could he be?”

By now my father has called the MPs, probably the civilian cops, too. “Find my daughters,” he has
told them, and they have said, “Yes, sir.” When they leave, he walks around the house. I know the walk. I know the eyes. I look behind us. Off in the far distance, one other truck. Black. Nothing else.

Dickie slows the truck, starts pulling over to the side. There is a man hitchhiking there. He comes up to the window and Dickie nods at him. “Need a lift?” The man nods back, grateful.

“Back of the truck okay?”

“Fine with me,” the man says, and climbs in. He is old, and I wonder what he is doing hitching. Anyone can end up any way.

“I’ll go in back, too,” I say. Dickie looks at Diane. She leans over to look at the old man, shrugs all right.

I climb out, get into the back of the truck. “Hi,” I say, and the truck pulls out onto the highway.

The man extends his hand. “Theodore Bender.”

“I’m Katie,” I say. No last names. He could turn us in.

“Where y’all headed?” he asks.

“Oh, just out for a ride,” I say.

The man nods.

“Don’t you have a car?” I say.

“Nope. Nor a house neither.”

“Oh.” I look out at the flatness we’re passing through. The sky is deep blue, empty of the variety of clouds. The man stretches out, puts his head on his backpack.

“I never have liked to be in one place only,” he says. “I like to keep moving. I do a few odd jobs, move along. You should stay out of the sun, little lady.” He closes his eyes. We are done talking. I had hoped for more. This trip is not turning out right one bit. All I have gotten everywhere are bad signs.

When Dickie pulls into a restaurant parking lot, the man wakes up. “Guess this is my stop,” he says, and winks at me. Then he goes to the road and sticks his thumb out again. When will he decide to stop? I wonder. What will say to him, this is the place. When I come into our kitchen, it’s the dish rack I always look at first. The pots and pans always lie slanted on top of the plates and bowls; the silverware always stands up in neat rows; the dish towel always hangs folded on its circular hanger. But sometimes you don’t know what it is that tells you
you are in the right place; there is just a kind of lying down of your insides, a message from yourself to relax, you are home.

I am suddenly very tired.

The restaurant tables are all lined up against the window. There are red-and-white tablecloths, and groupings of salt, pepper, and sugar all huddled together like family. The menus are old and good looking. I ask for a burger and fries and I can’t wait to get them. Dickie gets chicken-fried steak and Diane gets a BLT. Cokes all around.

When the waitress leaves, I can see we are all in a good mood, the way ordering food makes you get. Well now, you think, your hands folded on the table. I am taken care of. All I do is wait now.

Dickie looks out the window at the old man, who is still asking at the side of the road for a ride. “Wonder who he is,” he says.

“He does odd jobs, and then he moves on,” I say.

Dickie smiles. “What a life.”

“I think I’d like it,” Diane says. “I do! Never stay anywhere.”

“You don’t like to move all the time,” I say.

“I don’t like somebody else telling me where to move,” she says. “But if I could decide when and where, I’d like to move around.”

“Not me,” I say. I shift in my seat. Sometimes I forget how different we are. Diane never liked dolls. She doesn’t like to read. She can watch a sad movie like
Imitation of Life
, where I saw even GIs crying, and only say, “That was stupid!” at the end.

I excuse myself to go to the rest room. I pass by a phone booth and it is empty, the door open. I go in and close the door, lean my head against the cool glass. A little fan is whirring and an overhead light has come on. We are open for business. I know how to do it. You dial
O
, say, “Make this collect.”

I close my eyes, think of my old life. And when I see my things in my room, they lean forward to call me back. I think of Cherylanne, how when she sits on the low back porch her knees go together while mine go apart, and I wonder is she lying on her bed reading magazines, with hurt feelings.

I put a dime in, dial O. I tell the operator I want to make a collect call, and I give her Cherylanne’s number. Cherylanne answers and I hear her asking Belle, “Can we accept a collect call?” Then
there is Belle on the line saying yes, she will accept, and then, “Katie, for God’s sake, where are you, honey?”

“Oh, I’m with Diane,” I say.

“Where?”

“Well, we’re on our way somewhere.”

Belle’s voice gets low and serious. “Katie, your father is very upset.”

I want to hang up. I have made a big mistake.

“Just one minute!” I hear Belle telling Cherylanne. And then, back to me, “Katie, honey, you need to come home. Can you tell me where you are?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Can you just tell me where you are?”

I swallow.

“Katie?”

“Can I talk to Cherylanne?”

She sighs. I hear her muffled voice tell Cherylanne to give her back the phone when we are through.

“Where are you?” Cherylanne asks. “Did you run away?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God.”

“So. What are you doing?”

“Katie, you can’t do this. This is not right. Your father is really mad.”

“What did he do?”

“He came looking for you, of course. And I didn’t know where you went. When did you leave?”

“It was late. I don’t know.”

“You’d better come back. This is not right.”

Well, I am getting annoyed. How does she know what is right? “I told you I was leaving,” I said. “You never did believe me. But here I am.”

“Where are you?”

I look out at Dickie and Diane. Our food has come. They can’t see me in here. “I am pretty far away,” I say.

“Where?”

I wait, then say it. “Bayside. At a restaurant called Jenny’s. It’s on Highway 80. I don’t think you should tell.”

“Should we come and get you?”

And there it is.

“Should we come and get you, Katie?”

I hang up.

I go to the bathroom, wash my face. I am
burned a sorry red, all right. My skin will fall off later, like dandruff. I dry off carefully with a paper towel that feels like steel wool. I go back to the table, sit down. I’m not hungry anymore. You would think someone would notice my burn.

“There’s your burger,” Diane says.

I nod, pick up a french fry, put it back down. Diane stops chewing. “What?” she says.

“I think I’ll go home,” I say.

Her eyes widen. “Did you call him?”

“No. But I think I’ll go home.”

“Jesus!” She is angry-hurt. “Jesus!”

“Take it easy, Diane,” Dickie says. “Lower your voice.”

“I’ll bet she called him!” Diane says.

“Did you?” Dickie asks.

“No,” I say. And then, “Cherylanne. I called her.”

Diane stands up, grabs her purse. “Well, that’s it. He’s on his way. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Dickie sighs. “Look, Diane. He won’t be here for hours. Eat your food.”

She sits back down, stares at me. “Why’d you
do that? I’m trying to help you. What do you want, to go back and live with him?”

Oh, the answer is sorrowful to me, too.

We make the arrangements: they will leave. I will wait on the bench just outside the restaurant. Before they pull away, Diane hugs me. She’s hardly ever done that. I don’t know her smell. “When we get to Mexico, I’ll write you,” she says. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t you leave here, no matter how long it takes, okay? This place is open twenty-four hours; someone will be here all the time.”

“Okay.”

She is desperate looking, suddenly, and I feel sorry for her. “What will you do?” she asks.

“I’ll just wait,” I tell her. “I have a good imagination.”

She hugs me again, and there is a kiss on my hair. And then the truck pulls away and she is gone.

I sit in the shade and chart the progress of the clouds. Later, I will eat again. I have a twenty-dollar
bill in my pocket from Dickie. Diane is right: he is a good man. Picks up hitchhikers. Gives out money. Takes a woman wherever she wants to go.

H
e
brings the puppy. When he gets out of the car, he is holding her. She is wearing a little red leash and a collar. She stops to pee when he puts her down, and he is standing there holding onto the leash, and I walk up to him slow.

“Where is Diane?” he asks.

“She went on. She’s with Dickie.”

He nods. “Do you know where she went?”

“Mexico. She doesn’t want to come back.”

No words. The space between us nearly solid. “Would you please get in the car now?”

“Okay.” I come closer, take the leash from his hand. “You brought Bridgette,” I say.

He nods. “Nobody to watch her.”

H
e can drive for hours and hours, it doesn’t bother him. All he would ever ask is for my mother to rub his neck, get after the stiffness. He could go sixteen hours easy. I sit in the front for a while, then go to lie down on the backseat. When I wake up, dark is coming. I sit up, rub my face. The puppy is awake in her box, her two paws lined up neat in front of her like she is ready for inspection. “I think we should stop and let this puppy run around a little,” I say.

He says nothing.

“Dad?”

“Maybe later.”

“I think she needs out now, though. Could we just pull over?”

He puts on the turn signal, pulls over. We take the puppy out, let her sniff. He stretches, rubs his neck. I let the puppy run, give her a stick to carry. “Where are we?” I ask.

“Not so far,” he says. “Couple more hours.”

He sits down on the ground and I sit beside him. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He sighs.

I pick up the puppy, put her in my lap, but she wants down, so I let her. I let the silence be, too. Occasionally a car passes. There are grasshoppers here, leaping up all crazy about something every now and then. I am wondering what they eat, when I hear my father speak softly.

“Pardon?” I ask.

He turns to me. “I was talking about your mother.”

“Oh.”

“I know how much you miss her.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yes. She was … There’s nobody like her.”

“I know.”

“Her disease started out in one place, but then it just went everywhere. Nothing in her body could work right anymore. What killed her …” He stops, and I am careful not to move. Finally, he says, “What killed her is that she couldn’t breathe anymore.” He is saying this like the teacher called on him and he is giving the answer anyone would know. Silence. A car goes by, kicks up a piece of gravel that flies toward us, lands at my father’s feet.
I would say I saw it and didn’t. “I want you to know she died peacefully, Katie.”

There.

“She talked about you and Diane before she died.”

And there.

He looks away from me, shakes his head. Then he turns back and sighs. “Okay?”

I nod quick.

“I don’t … I don’t think I’d ever like to talk about it again, Katie, okay? But you deserved to know. I should have told you when you asked.”

I stand up, lead the puppy along on her leash. I guess she believes she is in a New York City parade: her step is high, her ears are swinging flirty. Not many people know about dogs’ moods, but I do. “She walks good,” I say.

“Yes. She’ll be a fine dog, I guess.”

“We should go home, Dad.”

He is quiet for the rest of the way. All he says is “Here we are” when we get home. Then he goes into his bedroom and closes the door, and so do I. All my things, eager. I lie on my bed, then slide under it. I think, what happened? Well, I learned that the
rest of the world is closer than I thought. There’s that. I cry a little, but mostly I only get peaceful. She would rub my back when I cried. She would say, “Oh, now. Look at this. Oh, my. Oh, dear. Yes, I know.” She knew the short little words to grief.

C
herylanne and I go swimming the next day. I have everything back for a little while and I am so grateful. I memorize the light that bounces off the water. I study the bones in Cherylanne’s wrist. The towels that we lie on touch.

Paul Arnold comes up to us as we are drying off after the first swim. He has hair above his belly button in curly rows. “I heard you ran away,” he says. I can see Cherylanne’s lips tighten. Happy as she is to see me again, she can’t stand that I am so interesting now.

“Yes, I did.”

“With your sister?”

“Yes, and her boyfriend, Dickie. He has that truck?”

Paul nods.

“Well,” I say, “it was pretty exhausting and dangerous. I’m actually glad to be home.”

He nods. Say he was my husband: I would have told him about running away while we were in bed. He would have pulled me over, the crook of his arm a house for me. He would have had me say the good parts twice. I would feel low down how much he loved me. Low down and all around.

“We’re having a water war,” he says, interrupting my fantasy. “Want to be my partner?”

Ride on his shoulders while he walks around tough. The idea is to knock another girl off another boy’s shoulders. I have never been asked.