In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs (9 page)

Glen said there wasn't much to tell.

“What's your wife's name?”

“I'm not married.”

“Oh yeah? Somebody like you, I thought for sure you'd be married.”

“I'm engaged,” Glen said. He often told strangers that. If he met them again he could always say it hadn't worked out. He'd once known a girl who probably would have married him but like Martin said, it didn't make sense to take on freight when you were traveling for speed.

Bonnie said that she had been married for the last two years to a man in Santa Barbara. “I don't mean married in the legal sense,” she said. Bonnie said that when you knew someone else's head and they knew yours, that was being married. She had ceased to know his head when he left her for someone else. “He wanted to have kids,” Bonnie said, “but he was afraid to with me, because I had dropped acid. He was afraid we would have a werewolf or something because of my chromosomes. I shouldn't have told him.”

Glen knew that the man's reason for leaving her had nothing to do with chromosomes. He had left her because she was too old.

“I never should have told him,” Bonnie said again. “I only dropped acid one time and it wasn't even fun.” She made a rattling sound in her throat and put her hands up to her face. First her shoulders and then her whole body began jerking from side to side.

“All right,” Glen said, “all right.” He dropped the tennis ball and began patting her on the back as if she had hiccups.

Sunshine uncoiled from the back seat and came scrambling over Glen's shoulder. He knocked Glen's hand off the steering wheel as he jumped onto his lap, rooting for the ball. The car went into a broadside skid. The road was slick and the tires did not scream. Bonnie stopped jerking and stared out the window.
So did Glen. They watched the fog whipping along the windshield as if they were at a movie. Then the car began to spin. When they came out of it Glen watched the yellow lines shoot away from the hood and realized that they were sliding backwards in the wrong lane of traffic. The car went on this way for a time, then it went into another spin and when it came out it was pointing in the right direction though still in the wrong lane. Not far off Glen could see weak yellow lights approaching, bobbing gently like the running lights of a ship. He took the wheel again and eased the car off the road. Moments later a convoy of logging trucks roared out of the fog, airhorns bawling; the car rocked in the turbulence of their wake.

Sunshine jumped into the back seat and lay there, whimpering. Glen and Bonnie moved into each other's arms. They just held on, saying nothing. Holding Bonnie, and being held by her, was necessary to Glen.

“I thought we were goners,” Bonnie said.

“They wouldn't even have found us,” Glen said. “Not even our shoes.”

“I'm going to change my ways,” Bonnie said.

“Me too,” Glen said, and though he wasn't sure just what was wrong with his ways, he meant it.

“I feel like I've been given another chance,” Bonnie said. “I'm going to pay back the money I owe, and write my mother a letter, even if she is a complete bitch. I'll be nicer to Sunshine. No more shoplifting. No more—” Just then another convoy of trucks went by and though Bonnie kept on talking Glen could not hear a word. He was thinking they should get started again.

Later, when they were back on the road, Bonnie said that she had a special feeling about Glen because of what they had just gone through. “I don't mean boy-girl feelings,” she said. “I mean—do you know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” Glen said.

“Like there's a bond,” she said.

“I know,” Glen said. And as a kind of celebration he got out his Peter Paul and Mary and stuck it in the tape deck.

“I don't believe it,” Bonnie said. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Peter Paul and Mary,” Glen said.

“That's who I thought it was,” Bonnie said. “You like that stuff?”

Glen nodded. “Do you?”

“I guess they're all right. When I'm in the mood. What else have you got?”

Glen named the rest of the tapes.

“Jesus,” Bonnie said. She decided that what she was really in the mood for was some peace and quiet.

 

By the time Glen found the address where Bonnie's girl friend lived, a transients' hotel near Pioneer Square, it had begun to rain. He waited in the car while Bonnie rang the bell. Through the window of the door behind her he saw a narrow ladder of stairs; the rain sliding down the windshield made them appear to be moving upward. A woman stuck her head out the door; she nodded constantly as she talked. When Bonnie came back her hair had separated into ropes. Her ears, large and pink, poked out between strands. She said that her girl friend was out, that she came and went at all hours.

“Where does she work?” Glen asked. “I could take you there.”

“Around,” Bonnie said. “You know, here and there.” She looked at Glen and then out the window. “I don't want to stay with her,” she said, “not really. I don't want to get caught up in all this again.”

Bonnie went on talking like that, personal stuff, and Glen listened to the raindrops plunking off the roof of the car. He thought he should help Bonnie, and he wanted to. Then he imagined bringing Bonnie home to Martin and introducing them; Sunshine having accidents all over the new carpets; the three of them eating dinner while Bonnie talked, interrupting
Martin, saying the kinds of things she said. Martin would die. Glen savored the thought, but he couldn't, he just couldn't.

When Bonnie finished talking, Glen explained to her that he really wanted to help out but that it wasn't possible.

“Sure,” Bonnie said, and leaned back against the seat with her eyes closed.

It seemed to Glen that she did not believe him. That was ungrateful of her and he became angry. “It's true,” he said.

“Hey,” Bonnie said, and touched his arm.

“My roommate is allergic to dogs.”

“Hey,” Bonnie said again. “No problem.” She got her bags out of the trunk and tied Sunshine's leash to the guitar case, then came around the car to the driver's window. “Well,” she said, “I guess this is it.”

“Here,” Glen said, “in case you want to stay somewhere else.” He put a twenty-dollar bill in her hand.

She shook her head and tried to give it back.

“Keep it,” he said. “Please.”

She stared at him. “Jesus,” she said. “Okay, why not? The price is right.” She looked up and down the street, then put the bill in her pocket. “I owe you one,” she said. “You know where to find me.”

“I didn't mean—” Glen said.

“Wait,” Bonnie said. “Sunshine! Sunshine!”

Glen looked behind him. Sunshine was running up the street after another dog, pulling Bonnie's guitar case behind him. “Nuts,” Bonnie said, and began sprinting up the sidewalk in the rain, cursing loudly. People stopped to watch, and a police car slowed down. Glen hoped that the officers hadn't noticed them together. He turned the corner and looked back. No one was following him.

A few blocks from home Glen stopped at a gas station and tried without success to clean the stain off the seat cover. On the floor of the car he found a lipstick and a clear plastic bag with two
marijuana cigarettes inside, which he decided had fallen out of Bonnie's purse during the accident.

Glen knew that the cigarettes were marijuana because the ends were crimped. The two engineers he'd roomed with before moving in with Martin had smoked it every Friday night. They would pass cigarettes back and forth and comment on the quality, then turn the stereo on full blast and listen with their eyes closed, nodding in time to the music and now and then smiling and saying “Get down!” and “Go for it!” Later on they would strip the refrigerator, giggling as if the food belonged to someone else, then watch TV with the sound off and make up stupid dialogue. Glen suspected they were putting it on; he had taken puffs a couple of times and it didn't do anything for him. He almost threw the marijuana away but finally decided to hang on to it. He thought it might be valuable.

 

Glen could barely eat his dinner that night; he was nervous about the confession he had planned, and almost overcome by the smell of Martin's after-shave. Glen had sniffed the bottle once and the lotion was fine by itself, but for some reason it smelled like rotten eggs when Martin put it on. He didn't just use a drop or two, either; he drenched himself, slapping it all over his face and neck with the sound of applause. Finally Glen got his courage up and confessed to Martin over coffee. He had hoped that the offense of giving Bonnie a ride would be canceled out by his honesty in telling about it, but when he was finished Martin hit the roof.

For several minutes Martin spoke very abusively to Glen. It had happened before and Glen knew how to listen without hearing. When Martin ran out of abuse he began to lecture.

“Why didn't she have her own car?” he asked. “Because she's used to going places free. Some day she's going to find out that nothing's free. You could have done anything to her.
Anything
. And it would have been her fault, because she put herself in your
power. When you put yourself in someone else's power you're nothing, nobody. You just have to accept what happens.”

 

After he did the dishes Glen unpacked and sat at the window in his room. Horns were blowing across the sound. The fog was all around the house, thickening the air; the breath in his lungs made him feel slow and heavy.

He wondered what it really felt like, being high. Once Glen had gone hunting with his stepfather outside Wenatchee and while they were watching the sun come up a flight of geese skimmed the orchard behind them and passed overhead in a rush. As the geese wheeled south and crossed in front of the sunrise they called back and forth to each other with a sound like laughter, and their wings were outlined in gold. Glen had felt so good that he had forgotten his gun. Maybe it would be like that, like starting all over again.

He decided to try it; this time, instead of just a few puffs, he had two whole marijuana cigarettes all to himself. But not in his room—Martin came in all the time to get things out of the closet, plant food and stationery and so on, and he might smell it. Glen didn't want to go outside, either. There was always the chance of running into the police.

In the basement, just off the laundry room, was another smaller room where Martin kept wood for the fireplace. He wouldn't be going in there for another two or three months, when the weather turned cold. Probably the smell would wear off by that time; then again, maybe it wouldn't. What the hell, thought Glen.

He put on his windbreaker and went into the living room where Martin was building a model airplane. “I'm going out for a while,” he said. “See you later.” He walked down the hall and opened the front door. “So long!” he yelled, then slammed the door shut so Martin would hear, and went down the stairs into the basement.

Glen couldn't turn on the lights because then the fan would go on in the laundry room; the fan had a loud squeak and Martin might hear it. Glen felt his way along the wall and stumbled into something. He lit a match and saw an enormous pile of Martin's shirts, all of them white, waiting to be ironed. Martin only wore cotton because wash 'n wear gave him hives. Glen stepped over them into the wood room and closed the door. He sat on a log and smoked both of the marijuana cigarettes all the way down, holding in the smoke the way he'd been told. Then he waited for it to do something for him but it didn't. He was not happy. Glen stood up to leave, but at that moment the fan went on in the room outside so he sat down again.

He heard Martin set up the ironing board. Then the radio came on. Whenever the announcer said something Martin would talk back. “First the good news,” the announcer said. “We're going to get a break tomorrow, fair all day with highs in the seventies.” “Who cares?” Martin said. The announcer said that peace-seeking efforts had failed somewhere and Martin said, “Big deal.” A planeload of athletes had been lost in a storm over the Rockies. “Tough tittie,” said Martin. When the announcer said that a drug used in the treatment of cancer had been shown to cause demented behavior in laboratory rats, Martin laughed.

There was music. The first piece was a show tune, the second a blues number sung by a woman. Martin turned it off after a couple of verses. “I can sing better than that,” he said. Substituting da-da-dum for the words, he brought his voice to a controlled scream, not singing the melody but cutting across the line of it, making fun of the blues.

Glen had never heard a worse noise. It became part of the absolute darkness in which he sat, along with the bubbling sigh of the iron and the sulfurous odor of Martin's after-shave and the pall of smoke that filled his little room. He tried to reckon how many shirts might be in that pile. Twenty, thirty. Maybe more. It would take forever.

T
wice the horn had sounded, and twice Howard had waved and shouted dumb things at the people below; now he was tired and they still hadn't left the dock. But he waved again anyway, doing his best, when the horn went off a third time.

The boat began to glide out of its slip. Nora leaned against Howard, fanning the air with a long silk scarf. On the dock below their daughter held up a printed cardboard sign she had brought along for the occasion: HAPPY GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD. As the boat picked up speed she dropped the sign and kept pace beside the hull, running and yelling up at them with her hands cupped in front of her mouth. Howard worried. She had been a stupid girl and now she was a stupid woman, perfectly capable of running off the end of the pier. But she stopped finally, and grew smaller and smaller until Howard could barely make her out from the rest of the crowd. He stopped waving and turned to Nora. “I'm cold. Look at that sky. You said it was going to be warm.”

Nora glanced up at the clouds. They were steely gray like the
water below. “The brochure said this was an ideal time of year in these waters. Those were the exact words.”

“These waters my foot.” Howard gave her the look. The look was enough now, he didn't have to say anything else. Howard walked toward the steps leading to their cabin. Nora followed, quoting from the brochure.

Paper banners hung from wall to wall: “Welcome Aboard the William S. Friedman,” “Happy Sailing—To Those in the Throes of Love from Those in the Business of Love.” The cabin was bright with fruit and flowers; on the door hung two interlocking life preservers in the shape of hearts.

“Help me to the bathroom, Howard. I'm afraid to walk the way the floor keeps tilting.”

“You don't have your sea legs yet.” Howard took Nora's arm and led her to the door in the corner. “This is the head. And the floor is called the deck. If we have to be on this boat for a week you might just as well get it right.” He closed the door behind her and stared around the cabin.

There was a big brass latch on the wall. Howard jiggled it and finally slipped it free and the bed fell out on top of him. It took him by surprise and almost knocked him down but he kept his footing and managed to push the bed back into the wall. Then he read the barometer and opened and closed the drawers. The upper drawers contained several bars of soap in miniature packets. Howard slipped a few in his pocket and opened the porthole and stuck his head out. Other people had their heads stuck out too. He battened the porthole and read the barometer again, then picked up the intercom.

“Testing,” he said. “One two three four testing. Night Raider this is Black Hawk. Testing.”

A voice crackled from the speaker. “Steward here.”

“It's me. Howard. Just testing. Over and out.”

Nora came back into the cabin and made her way to the couch. “It's too small in there. I couldn't breathe.”

“I could have told you this wouldn't be any palace.”

“I feel awful. I bet I look awful too.”

Nora's face had gone white. The burst veins in her cheeks and along her upper lip stood out like notations on a map. Her eyes glittered feverishly behind her spectacles. Sick, she looked more than ever like Harry Truman, for whom Howard had not voted.

He sat beside Nora and took her hand. “You look all right.”

“Do I really?”

“What'd I just say?” He let go of her hand. “Why do you always think about what you look like?”

“That's not true. I don't.”

Howard paced the cabin. “Goddam boat.”

“I thought it would be nice, just the two of us.”

A knock came at the door and a man stuck his head in, a large square head divided by a pencil-line moustache. “Our Golden Couple,” he said, smiling. “I'm Bill Tweed, your social director.” His body followed his head into the cabin. “I want to extend a real warm welcome aboard from all of us here on the
Friedman
. I guess you know this is our maiden voyage. Ever been to sea?”

Howard nodded. “World War I. Before your time, I guess.” He gestured toward the porthole. “You could have walked all the way from New York to Paris on top of German submarines. They got three of our ships. Saw it myself.” Howard had been sure they would get him too. He had been sure of it all the way across and never slept at night for knowing it. When the war ended and he got on another ship to come back home he knew that somewhere out there was a German who hadn't gotten the word. His German. Howard had a sense of things catching up with him.

Tweed handed Howard a pamphlet. “We here on the
Friedman
feel that our business is your pleasure. Just read this over and let us know what you're interested in. We have a number of special programs for our senior sailors. Can you both walk?”

Howard just stared. “Yes,” Nora said.

“Wonderful. That's a real help.” He ran his forefinger across
his moustache and made a notation against his clipboard. “A few more questions. Your age, Mr. Lewis?”

“I was seventy-five years old on April first. April Fool's Day.”

“‘Young,' Dad—seventy-five years young. We here on board the
Friedman
don't know the word ‘old.' We don't believe in it. Just think of yourself as three twenty-five-year-olds. And you, Mrs. Lewis?”

“I'm seventy-eight.”

“Ah. December-May. Any children?”

“Two. Sharon and Clifford.”

“The poor man's riches. Happy the man who has his quiver full of them. Their occupations?”

Howard handed Nora the pamphlet. “Sharon's retarded and Clifford is in jail.”

Tweed, still scribbling, looked up from the clipboard. “I'm so sorry. Of course this is all confidential.”

Nora scowled at Howard. “Are you married, Mr. Tweed?”

“Indeed I am. Married to the single life. My mother keeps telling me I should take a wife but I haven't decided yet whose wife I'm going to take.” He winked at Howard and pocketed his pen. “Well, then, until dinner. You'll be interested to know who your tablemates will be.” He smiled secretively. “Ron and Stella Speroni. Newlyweds from Delaware. Ever been to Delaware?”

“On the train once,” said Howard. “Didn't get off.”

“A real nice state. Intimate. Anyway, I'm sure that Ron and Stella can learn a lot about love from you, seeing you've piled up a hundred years of it between you.” Smiling at his arithmetic he closed the door.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” said Nora. “Telling him Clifford was in jail.”

 

Howard spent most of the dinner talking to Ron. Ron reminded him of a horse. He had a long face and muddy brown eyes and
when he laughed his upper lip curled up over his teeth. He worked in his father's jewelry store in Wilmington. They specialized in synthetic diamonds and Ron was willing to bet that Howard couldn't tell the difference between their product and the real McCoy. He had Stella take off the tiara she wore, an intricate silver band dense with stones, and handed it to Howard.

“Go on,” he said. “If you can tell the difference you can have it.” He waited, smiling at Nora and Stella.

Howard turned the tiara over a couple of times, then scraped it along the side of a water glass.

“No fair,” Ron said, snatching it away. “I already told you it was synthetic.” He stared at his wife constantly as he talked. Stella had platinum hair going brown at the roots and long black fingernails. She didn't say much; most of the time she sat with her chin cupped in her hand, gazing around at the other tables and scraping her fingernails back and forth over the linen tablecloth. Ron had met her in the shop. She came in to have some earrings converted and one thing led to another. “She's an incredible person,” Ron whispered. “You ought to see her with kids.”

After dinner the waiters moved all the tables out of the center of the room and the band started to warm up. Tweed walked out to the middle of the dance floor holding a microphone attached to a long wire. The room fell silent.

“Tonight,” Tweed said, “we have with us what you might call the summer and winter, the Alpha and Omega of human love. Let's hear it for Ron and Stella Speroni, married three days this very afternoon, and for Mom and Dad Lewis, who celebrated their Golden Anniversary last Wednesday.” Everyone clapped.

“We here on the
Friedman
have a special place for our senior sailors. To those who are afraid of time I say: what tastes better than old wine or old cheese? And where the art of love is concerned (Tweed paused) we all know that old wood gives off the most heat.” Everyone laughed. Nora sent a smile around the room. Howard cracked his knuckles under the table. Stella
grinned at him and he looked away. Then Ron and Nora and Stella all stood together and he stood too and found himself dancing with Stella. He held her awkwardly as the music began, not knowing what to say and not wanting to look down at all the faces looking up at him.

Stella spoke first. “You've got strong hands.”

“I used to do a lot of lifting.”

Stella raised his hand and opened it and ran a black fingernail across his palm. “You're very passionate. Look.” She traced a crease running from his wrist to the base of his forefinger.

“Probably comes from my grandfather. He had fourteen kids. He was still grinding them out in his sixties.”

“I have the same thing.” Stella showed him her own palm. Her scent was overwhelming. “When were you born?”

“April first. April Fool's Day.”

“Aries.” Stella grinned. “The Ram.” Howard could see the dank glimmer of gold in her back teeth.

“I don't know about any rams. I guess I do all right.”

“People like us shouldn't get married. We have too much passion for just one person.”

“Marrying Nora was the smartest thing I ever did.”

“Ron and I have an open marriage.”

Howard turned this over for a moment. He felt adventurous. “So do me and Nora.”

“Wow, think of that.” Stella stepped backwards. “You were ahead of your time. You really were.”

“Well, like the man says—you only live once.”

“Me and Ron figure that's the best way of dealing with the problem. You know, instead of sneaking around and all that stuff. Ron is very understanding.”

The music stopped and everyone applauded and Howard led Stella back to the table. He and Nora watched people dance for a while but she wouldn't talk to him and he could tell she was mad about something. Finally she got up and walked outside.
He followed and stood silently beside her, leaning against the rail. The rolling swells had flattened out but a mist had fallen over the ship like a screen. Howard reached out and touched Nora's arm. She stiffened.

“Don't touch me.”

Howard drew his arm back.

“I know who you're thinking about,” Nora said.

“All right. Who am I thinking about?”

“Miriam Selby.”

Howard stared over the side of the ship. “She does look like Miriam, I'll grant you. Can't see where that's any fault of mine.”

“You don't love me. You never have.”

“There you are,” said a voice behind them. “Sneaking off already, eh? And unchaperoned. We'll have to see about this.” Tweed stepped closer. “How did you get on with the Speronis?”

“Nice couple,” Nora said. “Attractive.”

“Youth.” Tweed shook his head. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience. I just wanted to remind you about the costume party tomorrow night.”

“But we don't have any costumes.”

“Don't worry, Mom. We provide everything. Well then. You two behave yourselves.”

Howard leaned against the rail, watching Tweed move along the deck until he disappeared into the mist.

“Howard, I'm sorry.”

He took Nora's hand.

“Do you love me?” she said.

“Sure. Sure I do.”

“You never say so.” Nora waited but Howard didn't answer. “It's all right,” she said, leaning against him; “it doesn't matter.” Howard put his arm around her and stared down over the railing, watching the water, black as oil, slide along the hull of the boat.

 

When the horn gave the alarm—HAHOOGA HAHOOGA HAHOOGA—Howard came awake knowing that his German
had found him. He accepted it without bitterness, even with some self-satisfaction. He had, after all, been right.

Nora sat up, the covers pulled around her throat. “Howard, what is it?”

“Submarine.” Howard got out of bed and put on his robe and went out into the companionway. The passage was choked with people asking each other what the horn meant. Just then one of the ship's attendants came through and told everyone not to worry and to go back to bed. Someone had brought a hot plate aboard and left it plugged in and it had started a small fire. Howard was about to go back in the cabin when Ron Speroni came up to him. He wore pajama tops over striped tuxedo trousers.

“Excuse me, Mr. Lewis. Have you seen Stella?”

“No. Why?”

“I just thought maybe you had.”

“You share the same cabin, don't you?”

Speroni nodded. “She went up on deck for some fresh air. When I woke up after that whistle went off she still wasn't back.”

“When did she go out?”

“About eleven.”

“That was three hours ago.”

“I know.” Speroni looked down at his bare feet. His toes were long and hairy and curled like a monkey's. Howard decided to help him.

“Let's take a look around. Maybe she fell asleep up on deck.”

They went topside and walked along the rail, peering at the rows of empty deck chairs by the misty glow of the running lights. Then, as they approached the stern, a man's voice came to them, fruity, disembodied, chuckling portentously. They looked around. They saw nothing. Then came the woman's voice, murmuring and low, suddenly breaking into laughter unmistakably Stella's.