Earthly Possessions (6 page)

“But then he would know right away,” I said. “He could be after you so fast.”

“Now, there you got it,” Jake said. He snapped his fingers. “You caught it straight off. I wouldn’t never choose that method if I had other ways open to me.”

“Right,” I said, and then remembered. “Yes, but what I mean is, how can you say you’re not lucky when it all went off so well?”

He turned. I could feel him staring at me. He said, “Lucky? Is that what you call it? When some fool turns up armed and a camera flips on and you get this lady on your hands you never bargained for, it’s
lucky?”

“Well …”

“It’s circumstances, working against me,” said Jake. “Like I told Oliver: I surely don’t plan it like this. Events get out of my control. But Oliver, oh, he could be such a smart-ass. ‘Your whole life is out of your control,’ that’s what Oliver said. ‘Your whole life.’ Smart-ass.”

I don’t know what time it was when we stopped. Around ten, maybe. We had been traveling through that deep, country dark that makes you feel too thin. The road was so raspy and patched, with so many curves, crossroads, stop signs—I kept nodding off to sleep, but every bump jarred my mind up to the surface again and I never really forgot where I was. So when we stopped I was awake in an instant, on guard. “What’s wrong?” I said.

“Durn motor quit.”

He flicked on the inside light, which made my eyes squinch up. “I knew from the start something like this was bound to happen,” he told me.

“Maybe it’s out of gas.”

He peered at the gas meter. He tapped it.

“Is that what it is?”

I could tell it was; he wouldn’t look at me. He got out of
the car and said, “You steer, I’m going to push her to the side of the road.”

“But I don’t drive,” I told him.

“What’s that got to do with it? Just steer, is all I ask. Move over and steer.”

He slammed the door shut. I moved over. A second later I felt his weight against the back of the car, inching it forward, and I steered as best I could though it was hard to see much with the inside light on. I guided it a few feet down the road, wondering what I would do if the engine roared up and took off. Freedom! I would leave him far behind, head for the nearest highway. Except that I really couldn’t drive at all and had just the vaguest notion where the brake pedal was. So I steered to the right, finally, onto a strip of dirt so narrow that some kind of scratchy bushes tore at the side of the car. I heard Jake give a yell. The car stopped. When he came around and opened the door he said, “Now there was no call whatsoever to run her on into the woods.”

“Well, I told you I couldn’t drive.”

He sighed. He reached in to turn off the lights; then he said, “Okay, come on.”

“What are we doing now?”

“Going to head for that service station we passed a ways back.”

“Maybe I could just sit here and wait for you,” I said.

“Ha.”

I climbed out of the car. My legs felt stiff, and it seemed my shoes had hardened into some shape that didn’t fit me. “Is it far?” I asked.

“Not too.”

We started walking—smack down the middle of the road, for there was no car in either direction. He had hold of my arm again in the same sore place as before. His hand felt small and wiry. “Listen,” I said, “can’t you let me walk on my own? Where would I run to, anyway?”

He didn’t answer. Nor did he let go of me.

The air had a damp smell, as if it might rain, and seemed warmer than what I was used to. At least, I wasn’t shivering any more. From the little I could see, I guessed we were traveling through farm country. Once we passed a barn, and then a shed with the sleepy clucking of hens inside it. “Where on earth
are
we?” I asked.

“How would I know? Virginia, somewheres.”

“My feet hurt.”

“It don’t make sense that you can’t drive a car,” he said, as if that were to blame for all our troubles. “That’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard of.”

“What’s dumb about it?” I asked him. “Some people drive, some people don’t. It just so happens I’m one of them that don’t.”

“Only a whiffle-head would not know how to drive,” said Jake. “That’s how I look at it.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. We walked on. We rounded a curve that I had some hopes for, but on the other side there was only more darkness.

“I thought you said it wasn’t far,” I said.

“It ain’t.”

“I feel like my feet are dropping off.”

“Just hold the phone, we’ll get there by and by.”

“My toes ache clear to my kneecaps.”

“Will you quit that? Geeze, you’d think that guy could’ve filled his gas tank once in a while.”

“Maybe he didn’t know how long you’d be stealing it for,” I said.

He said, “Watch yourself, lady.”

I decided to watch myself.

Around the next curve was the filling station, such as it was: one dimly lit sign, two pumps, and a lopsided shack. As soon as we saw it, Jake let go of my arm. “Now, pay attention,” he said. “You’re going to ask the guy for a can of gas. You got that?”

“Well, how come I always have to ask for things?” I said.

Something jabbed me in the small of the back: the gun. Oh, Lord, the gun, which I had thought we were through with, and in fact had let slip my mind as if it never existed. That prodding black nubbin in the hand of a victim of impulse. I crossed the road and climbed the cinderblock steps, with Jake close behind me. I opened the warped wooden door. For a moment all I saw was a pyramid of PennZoil tins, a faded calendar girl in a one-piece latex swimsuit, and stacks of looseleaf auto-parts catalogues. Then I found an old man in a wicker chair. He was watching TV with the sound turned off. “Evening,” he said, not looking around.

“Good evening.”

“Something I can do for you folks?”

“Well, our car ran out of gas and I … we need a can of …”

“Fine, just fine,” said the old man, and he went on watching TV. There was a commercial on, someone holding up a bottle and silently rejoicing. Then a news announcer appeared at a bare, artificial-looking desk, and the old man sighed and stood up. “A tin,” he said. “Tin.” He went rummaging behind a stack of tires in one corner, but came up with nothing. “Wait a minute,” he said, and went outside. As soon as he was gone, Jake pushed me further into the room and leaned over to turn up the sound on the TV. “…  with no end in sight,” the announcer said, “though experts predict that by mid-summer there may well be a …”

Jake switched channels. He traveled through a lady shampooing her hair, a man making a speech, a man playing golf. He arrived at another news announcer, pale and snowy. “Traffic on the Bay Bridge this summer is expected to reach an all-time high,” this announcer said from a distance. Jake turned up the sound. The man grew louder but no clearer, and sadly shuffled his papers as if he realized it. A picture appeared
of Jake and me, backing away from the camera. In spite of the snow, our faces seemed more distinct now. By next week you would be able to count our eyelashes, maybe even read our thoughts. But our stay was much briefer this time, cut off in midstep. We were replaced by my husband, a towering hatrack of a man, gaunt and cavernous and haunted-looking as always, sitting on our flowered sofa. I felt something tearing inside me. “That bank robbery in Clarion,” the announcer said, “is not yet solved, and police are concerned about a woman hostage who has been identified as Mrs. Charlotte Emory.”

My husband vanished. A picture teetered up of me alone, photographed by my father for my high school graduation: my fifties self with lacquered hairdo, cowgirl scarf, and cheeky black smile. Then Saul returned. The announcer said, “Our own Gary Schneider talked with her husband this evening for ‘Views on News’ cameras.”

Gary Schneider, who wasn’t pictured, asked something I didn’t catch. Saul stopped cracking his knuckles. He said, “Yes, naturally I’m worried, but I have faith she’ll be returned to us. The police believe that the bandit is still in this area.”

His voice was hollow. He didn’t seem to be thinking of what he was saying.

“Would you care to comment, sir,” said Gary Schneider, “on that sidewalk witness who said they appeared to be running away
together?
Do you have any feeling that this may have been a voluntary action on her part?”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Saul, and he straightened slowly and took on a looming, ominous appearance that caused Gary Schneider to say, “Uh, well, I just—”

“Charlotte wouldn’t do such a thing. She’s a good woman, really, it’s just that … and I know she would never leave me.”

Something clanked. Jake spun around. The old man stood there with a gasoline can, shaking his head at the TV. “How
long
you
been watching?” Jake asked—so mean you couldn’t miss it, but the old man only smiled.

“Why, I was one of the first in this valley to purchase a set,” he said. “This here is my third; run clear through the other two. Matter of fact I been thinking of color but I’m scared of the cancer rays.”

“Yeah, well,” said Jake.

He paid him for the gas and the can. The old man said he would trust us for the can, but Jake said, “Might as well do like I’m used to,” and handed over the money and took the can and nudged me out the door. When we left, the old man was already stooped before the TV trying to get his favorite channel back.

As soon as we were outside again, Jake said, “You told me you were leaving your husband.”

“I was,” I said.

“How come he said what he did, then? You lied.”

“He
lied,” I said. “I don’t know why he said that. Not only was I planning to leave him but I’ve left before, and he knows it. Back in nineteen sixty. And I told him I would in sixty-eight also as well as a lot of other times, I couldn’t say just when, exactly …”

“Oh, hell, I might have known,” said Jake.

“Now, what is that supposed to mean?”

But he wouldn’t answer. We walked on, our feet luffing softly on the scabby highway. The air felt chillier and a fine cold spray had started up.

Oh, I certainly would have liked to give that Saul a piece of my mind. He was always doing things like that. Always saying, “I’m certain you won’t leave me, Charlotte.” I just wished he could see me now. I wished I could mail him a postcard: “Having wonderful time, moving on at last, love to all.” From Florida, or the Bahamas, or the Riviera.

But then I stepped in some sort of pothole and cold water
splashed to my knees, and my shoes started leaking as if they were no more than paper, and we rounded a curve and came upon the car: hulking in the dark, tilting off the side of the road like a lame man. When we reached it, Jake opened the door and snaked an arm inside to turn the lights on. The headlights flared up, but the ceiling light wavered and died. “Why!” I said (for up till now I hadn’t taken a really good look). “Why, what
is
this?”

“Huh?” said Jake. He set the can down and unscrewed the cap of the gas tank.

“Why, it’s a—some kind of
antique,” I
said.

“Sure. Fifty-three, would be my guess.”

“But—” I said. I stepped back, peering at the toothy grille, the separate bumper like a child’s orthodontic appliance. The long, bulbous body was streaked with chrome in unexpected places. Over the headlights there were visors as coy as eyelashes, and the lights themselves had a peculiar color, I thought—dull orange, and cloudy. “It’ll stick out a mile!” I said. “Everyone will notice. It will catch people’s eyes like … for goodness sake,” I said.

Gas burbled into the tank, on and on.

“This is just plain stupid,” I said.

The can landed far away, in bushes or branches or something crackly. “Get in,” Jake told me.

I got in. He climbed in after me and slammed the door. The motor started up with a cough, and when we pulled onto the road we bounced and swayed on our squeaky springs. I let my head loll back against the seat and closed my eyes.

“Well, there’s one thing,” I heard Jake say. “You’re shed of that Frankenstein husband at least and that cruddy flowered sofa. Shed of that spooky little old lamp with the beads hanging off it. Oh, you couldn’t keep
me
shut in no boring house. Ought to be glad you’re out of it. Any day now, you’re going to be thanking me. Is how I look at it.”

But that’s the only lamp we have, I wanted to say. I’ve given the others away. I’ve given the rugs away too and the curtains and most of the furniture. How much more can I get rid of? My head was growing heavy, though, and my eyes wouldn’t open. I fell asleep.

I dreamed about my husband, but he was younger and lacked those two vertical hollows in his cheeks. He had on a crewneck sweater I’d forgotten he ever owned. His trousers were khaki, like the Army pants he wore while we were dating. The sight of him made me sad.

My husband was the boy next door, but to tell the truth we didn’t grow up together. He was several years older than I was—old enough to make a difference, back in school. When I was in eighth grade he was a senior, one of the Emory boys, long-boned and lazy, up to no good. Anyone could tell you who Saul Emory was. While I was just getting my bearings, in those days. I still looked like a child. I’d been systematically starving myself ever since I’d discovered my breasts (two little pillows of fat, like my mother’s chins), and you could see the blue veins in my temples and the finest details of articulation in
my wrists and knees and elbows. I had a posture problem and no one could figure out what to do with my hair.

Saul Emory graduated and went away, and I moved on through the years until I was a senior myself, and secretary of the student body and first runner-up for Homecoming Queen. I had come into my own, by then. I deserved to; I worked so hard at it. The one thing I wanted most of all was for people to think that I was normal.

Through an enormous effort of will, I became known as the most vivacious girl in the senior class. Also best-groomed, with my Desert Flower cologne and my noose of Poppit pearls, and my Paint the Town Pink lipstick refreshed in the restroom hourly with a feathery little brush like the ones the models used. I had a few boyfriends, though nobody serious. And girlfriends too; we rolled each other’s hair up at I don’t know how many slumber parties. I never gave a slumber party myself, of course. No one ever asked me why not.