Going to Bend (6 page)

At the end of the evening some of the girls usually stayed to take him out. There’d be a few hours of hanging out in some church parking lot that stood in for a cruise strip, or at some tired A&W drive-in where they didn’t serve the cars anymore but people brought their stuff out and ate in them, anyway, local habit. And by the end, when everyone else was giving up and heading for home, there was usually one girl who had fallen for him hard enough to think she understood him, or that he understood her, who’d take him at last in a backseat or on the couch of a borrowed living room at a brother’s girlfriend’s place. Some of them were good girls, not as tough as they wanted him to think, scared that they were actually doing what they’d only meant to think about doing. These girls he took great care with: whispered to, held hands with before and after, protected with a condom even if they said they were already on something (and this was before AIDS, so it was sheer courtesy).

And then, inevitably, there were the other girls, the hard girls who were using him to get back at a boyfriend, a husband, a mother or stepfather. As long as he kept on his toes, these girls made simple good-time lays, more like sporting events; these girls tended to be the biters, the
hair-tossers, the athletic types who expected him to step lively even after fourteen hours of carnival labor and heat and dust.

Once they’d been in a small town in central Oregon, someplace Schiff couldn’t remember the name of anymore. It had been June or July, just another hot day cooling into a high-desert night, except that a strange girl had come and stood on the outer fringes of his area, watching him work the girls cruising his booth. She had had a farm tan and thick, deep red hair—the red of heat, of temper—pulled back loosely with the twist tie from a bread bag. Her face was thin and cagey like a fox, and she was smiling. She looked poor and smart and a little bit dangerous.

“Hey, cowboy,” she said. She crossed her arms over her chest, crossed her thin legs at the ankles.

“Hey.”

“You’re pretty good at that,” she said.

“At what?”

She looked a passing girl up and down, and then turned back to him. For a second he panicked, wondering if she might be the kid sister of some girl he’d laid in another nearby small town, out to avenge her. But he’d have remembered anyone with family coloring like that, plus this girl looked too amused. Family members did not find him amusing. He winked.

“Move on, cowboy.”

Stung, he said, “What makes you think I’d make you an offer?”

“It’s almost closing time, isn’t it?”

Shrewd girl.

“So what’s your name?” he said. “I bet it’s Joan. Or maybe Molly. Are you a nice girl, Molly? I wonder. Why have you been watching me?”

“This is a carnival, isn’t it? People come for the show.”

“And am I a show?”

“Best I’ve seen,” she said.

Schiff took care of a kid and his fat girlfriend, shook down his bag of tickets, glanced at his watch. The girl was still there when he looked over. “So do people around here like you, or what?” he called to her.

The girl grinned. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether I like them. Now, I like you.”

“Jesus. How do you act when you don’t like someone?”

“Nicer.”

Schiff saw the carnival boss head down the midway. You weren’t supposed to just let people talk to you, you were supposed to badger them into playing a game. Schiff thrust three plastic rings at the girl. “Play,” he said.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She threw the rings expertly. Poor farm kids often did; you could make ring toss games out of rope ends and a stick. The girl hooked three ringers. Schiff handed her an inflatable panda and three more rings. “You don’t really like me,” he said.

“Sure I do. You remind me of a dog I used to have. Always looking for something to eat, something to chase. His name was Skippy.”

Three more ringers. Schiff took back the inflatable panda, handed the girl a stuffed duck. The lights flashed all over the midway: fifteen minutes until closing. He was starving. He quickly dug in his pocket and dredged up a five-dollar bill. “Hey, how about buying me a Coke and a hot dog and coming back in fifteen minutes.”

“You’ve got class, Skip. I like that in a man.” She held the folded bill up between her fingers, turned and walked off. Fifteen minutes later there was no sign of her. Half an hour later he was picking up little pieces of garbage with a nail on a stick when Little George, one of the roustabouts, showed up looking mad. “Some girl,” he said, “says she’s your cousin, needs to see you right away. Give me a break, hotshot.”

“Freckles?” Schiff said. “Ornery-looking?”

“That’s the one. No shit, she your cousin?”

“Second cousin,” Schiff said. “Mean as a snake. It’s okay, you can let her come on back.”

“You better not let the old man see.”

The girl came down the midway towards him casually, chewing. In her hands she held a final bite of hot dog, an inch of warm Coke at the bottom of a paper cup.

“Here’s your Coke,” she said when she reached him. She toasted him and drained it, then popped the hot dog into her mouth and licked her fingers, one by one. “My, that was tasty.”

Schiff grabbed her by the arm and marched her roughly down the side of the midway, through the fairgrounds and into the street.

“Take it easy, Skippy,” she said. “Or I might just take my toys and go home.”

“I’m hungry,” he hissed, keeping a hard grip on her arm. “And more than anything in the world I hate being hungry. Find me something to eat.”

“Okay, okay. Next block,” she said. “The
A.M
.
-P.M
. MiniMart. You could probably get a corn dog there, or some jo-jos or something.”

Schiff didn’t speak again until he’d bought himself a box of Hostess Ding Dongs, a fruit pie, a corn dog and a Coke. He was still ticked, but in the light of the store she looked younger and prettier than he’d thought, and even poorer. Her dress had been someone’s housedress a long time ago, with the sleeves taken off and a plastic belt added around the waist. She fingered the merchandise while he shopped. “Did you want anything?” he said, holding the door for her when he was through.

She smiled and shook her head. She had not returned any of his change.

Schiff ate while they walked back to the high school where the fair was being held. The girl walked a little ahead. When they reached the dark school building they sat on the concrete steps. It was one-thirty in the morning and cool. The girl shivered beside him in her light ugly dress, then stopped herself by crossing her thin arms tightly over her chest.

“You go here?” he asked, nodding at the building with his head.

“Yeah.”

“You like it?”

“More than anything.”

“Do you ever say anything you mean?”

“Sometimes.”

When he’d finished the pie, the Ding Dongs, the Coke, he felt better.
Maybe he could salvage some of the evening. “So tell me about myself,” he said, belching. It was one of his standard lines and it almost always worked, threw the girls off-balance.

“Why should I do that?”

“You’re a smart girl. I might learn something.”

“Okay, Skippy.” She thought for a minute. “You like pretty women when you can get them, but if you had a choice between a pretty face and a bad body or a great body and a dog face, you’d take the body. You try to be nice, especially when it might get you somewhere, but only when you can afford it.”

“What else?”

“You’re going to remember me.”

A pickup pulled up, a real beater, a 1954 Chevy pocked with primer and metal fatigue. It was too dark to see who was driving. The door swung out, and the girl stood up.

“Who’s that?” said Schiff, standing, too.

“Time to go, Skip,” said the girl.

“Who is that, someone you know? Your brother, father, what?”

She tripped lightly down the stairs.

“Hey!” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Do you think you’ll always wonder?”

Now, sitting in his recliner, Schiff at last figured out what it was that had always gotten him about Petie Coolbaugh. It was the dark hair that had thrown him off.

J
IM CHRISTIE
was home.

When Rose had walked into the house last night he had been sitting at her kitchen table. He had let himself in with his key, but tentatively; he was sitting at the kitchen table with his coat still on, and when she leaned over and kissed his forehead his skin was damp with sweat, as though he’d been there awhile.

“Have you eaten yet?” she said softly.

“Not yet.”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” he said.

Rose moved around the kitchen, putting a beer in front of him at the table, then putting down a bowl of soup. Nothing for herself; she felt strangely light-headed and serene. Eventually Jim took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of what was probably his only clean shirt, a threadbare flannel one with both its cuff buttons missing. His large duffel was set in the hall; a cap was balanced carefully on top, filthy and bled of all its color by the sun and the wind.

Rose drank a beer from the bottle and watched him spoon up his soup, wipe his mouth carefully with the paper napkin she’d set at his place. He looked older and as though he’d been sick recently or maybe still was, a little. His skin seemed slacker than it had, the wrinkles
deeper. His forehead was high and white without the cap; his hair, nearly as colorless as his eyes, was stiff and unkempt, as though he’d been running his fingers through it.

“Was it a bad season?” she asked.

He shrugged, one arm hooked around his soup bowl protectively on the table as though it might move away: sea habits. “We did all right. There were some big catches, but you had to be able to stay out there till you’d made quota; you needed big holds. The small boats got hurt.”

“Who’d you crew for?”

“The
Betty Oh
.” Rose was familiar with her; she worked out of Dutch Harbor but she was an Oregon boat, built down in Reedsport ten or fifteen years ago, a big, solid vessel that wouldn’t go down easily in rough weather.

“Is Chucky Dillon still skipper?”

Jim nodded, coaxed the last drop of soup from his bowl.

“More?” Rose asked.

He shook his head, reached for a slice of almond torte Rose put in front of him—a Souperior’s leftover. He ate it all without speaking, looking at his plate. Nadine was an excellent baker.

“Was it a good crew?” Rose asked when he’d finished and stacked his bowl and plate together.

“It was okay. Dillon’s tough on kids, you know, he looks for drugs, throws them off if he even thinks they’re holding. So people stay away. Pay’s good, though, if you got nothing to hide.”

The days and nights were long on the boats, and drugs were one way of getting through them, but these days the Coast Guard could board a boat anytime for inspection. If drugs were found the boat was impounded, on the spot and indefinitely, with all her gear and any catch in the holds. More than one Young Turk had come home with his head hanging, and some old ones, too. And if these men had been the ones holding they were finished; no one would forgive them for costing them the season, not the owner, not the skipper, not the crew. Men like Christie, good hands, chose their boats with care. Good skippers chose their crews the same way. Christie was one of the most sought-after hands in the business.

“Carissa will be so glad you’re here,” Rose said quietly, smiling. “She’s next door. She and Angela are friends again.”

“She still so pretty?”

“Prettier. She’s growing up awful fast, though.”

“What grade’s she in now?”

“Eighth.”

“Eighth,” he said, shaking his head as though he’d been gone years, not months. He drained the last of a second beer. “She still being good to her mama?”

“Oh, yes. And you won’t believe the treatment you’re going to get. She’s been trying out recipes for a month, waiting for you to come.”

“I had some business to take care of in Dutch Harbor, took me a week or so longer than I’d expected.”

“It’s okay.”

Christie wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Soup was sure good, Rose. Thank you.”

“We’re cooking for a living now, me and Petie. I’ll tell you about it later, when you’re not so tired.”

He nodded, stood up. “I thought I’d go down to the Wayside for a little, see a few people.” He shrugged his jacket on and Rose smiled mildly. It was like that between them. He’d be home again in a couple of hours, and he’d be sober. He just couldn’t be with her too long at first, couldn’t be in the house. He wasn’t tame, that way. The first season he’d lived with them, Rose had sometimes awakened alone in bed and found him outside in his little one-man tent, the bottom of his old ratty sleeping bag just visible through the flap. It had been winter then, and rainy. And he’d always come in rested.

From the living room window, she had watched him climb into his rattletrap truck, start the engine with a rasp and ease it around her Ford. She’d stayed where she was until she could see his taillights recede and then disappear. Then she’d gone inside, cleaned up the dishes and started his laundry.

·   ·   ·

I
N HIS
whole life Eddie Coolbaugh had had exactly one job he’d really liked: working at Ches Stevens’ NAPA Auto Parts store during high school. He’d liked all the packages of parts lined up on the pegboard displays, and the smell of the oil and metal that hung over everything like a slick. Since then, he hadn’t given two damns about any job he’d had, especially not the ones that took him out on the water. He had called old Ches a couple of weeks ago to see if he needed someone, but his son had mostly taken over the operation and computerized the inventory and purchasing system and done away with all but one assistant and a freelance mechanic. Something might come open at the True Value Hardware but Eddie wasn’t getting his hopes up, especially because the money was no good. He hadn’t ever gotten the knack of making money. Petie was still pushing the pest control thing even though Eddie knew he’d be poisoned inside a year if he took that job, plus he hated like hell crawling into rat-turdy crawl spaces and under spidery eaves.