Interstate (18 page)

In-laws were waving to them as the car drove off. Tooted the horn twice; if he didn't, well, they might think he was snubbing them, didn't appreciate all they did for him the last two days; probably not. Happy to have their daughter and grandkids and that he brought them, did all the driving and bringing up the luggage and stuff and now leaving Lee there and taking care of the kids the next two days, so would tolerate a number of slights, if they thought the no-tooting or non-waving one was one, though doubted they even understood what the horn signal meant. Kids waved lollipops back. “Where'd you get those—the lollies?” he said at the corner. “Grandpa,” Margo said. “I don't know why he gives them without my permission. He knows how I feel about sweets and teeth and they'll just stick up the car and I hate the fake-flavor smell. What are they, purple, for grape?” “Mine's orange, Julie's is lemon. Mommy said it was all right to have them and you always give them to us for long trips.” “Three and a half to four hours isn't long.” “Four hours is so,” Julie said. “Oh, standing up for your lollipop, hey? And four hours for a kid, okay, maybe, but we'll be stopping for snacks and pee-pee breaks, at least one. But all right, open them and suck and lick to your heart's content but don't bite—not with your teeth sealant on. Your dentist said—I can never get his name straight from the other, your eye doctor, both in the same complex, one's Lanker, other's Larkin…” “Dr. Larkin,” Margo said. “Larkin said for things like gummy bears and sour balls, not to bite, and a lollipop is as close to a sour ball as you can get. They crack the sealant and cost plenty to replace.” “You're always concerned about money,” Julie said. “You never think about people or your children.” “Children aren't people? Anyway, not true. You heard that someplace on TV or from one of your friends. But it cost mucho, kid…or maybe in a book your whole class read. This Good Citizenship Week or Be Tolerant and Generous to the Homeless Month or something?” “That isn't funny, Daddy,” Margo said. “The homeless are as good as you.” “I know; I'm not saying. You're both right; it was a bad joke.” “It was a remark, not a joke.” “Well, I wanted it to be a joke but it didn't make anyone laugh so turned out to be a remark. But you're so smart. Look how you took me up on that and you were right, and won.” “He's just saying that,” Julie said, “to get on your good.” “I'm not. But it does cost a lot, the teeth thing, and is supposed to serve a purpose—no pain with your teeth because you won't have cavities, or far fewer—so why go in for another application? You'd like that, strapped to the dentist's chair having that cement or plastic swabbed on?” “What?” “I like it,” Margo said. “You get to see videos in the ceiling and switch it with these chair controls if you don't like what they've on. They have three: cartoons, nature and old TV comedies.” “Fine. What argument I got against that? But I'm still maintaining control over your sweets intake. And also the garbage in the car. For instance, where are the lollipop wrappers? I bet on the floor.” “They're in our hands. What do you want we should do with them?” “What do you think? Don't play dumb. Roll them up, but sticky side in, and then keep them on the seat, or just hand them to me, because they'll end up on the floor with everything else. I can't stand the mess here sometimes,” and stuck his hand back and soon got two wrappers, which he crumpled up and put on the seat next to him. First rest stop, he thought, he'll take them and whatever other pieces of crap he can find in the car and dump in the nearest trash can. Newspapers too, he saw on the floor in front of the passenger seat, from when they drove to New York and Lee just left them there, maybe two or three days' worth. “Peace Talks Proposed,” upper right headline read; fitting, he supposed; he should talk peacefully, peaceably.
Peacefully
. Later he will, he will. He's ruining their lives and way they'll look at and respond to various future things by talking hard and rough with them. In fact, setting the example or groundwork, laying it, whatever, of how they'll talk to men and maybe also what to expect from them, by acting grouchy, unnegotiable, overcritical, sometimes deranged, just saying the first hot things off his head. Years from now, what? They won't be so small and eager to please and quick to forgive and resilient after one of his harsher remarks or lousy moods or tirades and they also won't sit on his lap because they'd be too big to or hold his hand because you just don't do that with your dad when you reach a certain age and they'll mostly be with friends or their own interests and more schoolwork and they'll have their own problems much deeper and longer-lasting than the ones now and his will seem like what to them? like the same they do now, nothing compared to theirs and he won't be able to do much with or for them but produce money for lessons and schools and things like that, clothes, camps, drop them here, there, pick them up and pray they have good friends and don't do wrong things, and he'll regret the way he acted now just as he's regretted the way he's acted before and that he didn't take advantage of these years. So, he's got to change in the way he is to them. He's not that bad, but be better. Said it to himself a lot but this time he means it or at least means he'll give it an even bigger shot. Little while later when he heard them sucking their lollipops: “Hey, will ya don't make so much noise with those things?” “What things?” Margo said. “The lollipops, what else?” Snapped it out; jeez, already forgot. “You have your radio music on, so our sounds shouldn't sound so loud.” “Just each of you, please deal with it more quietly, that's all I'm asking. No reason for any disagreement about it. In fact there is none. It's just a lollipop, and I'm glad you're enjoying them, but please, you know, eat it by licking and sucking more quietly. If you can't, but you've tried, so be it.” “Okay.” “Fine, thanks, good. I thank you for your cooperation. My mud-duh thanks you, my foddah thanks you, my brudduh—” “Are you being insulting?” “Me? To my two dollcakes? No. I'm being serious though maybe throwing in that other stuff just for laughs, which again didn't work, right? But I won't if you don't like.” “We don't mind.” “Great.” Julie slept part of the way. Good, he thought after he looked back and saw her; she can use it. Got to sleep way too late last night, Lee said. He knew she'd make it up in the car and now he can tell Lee that on the phone tonight. New York classical music station till it began to fade. Stayed with it another ten minutes of increasing distortion and fading because he liked the piece and wasn't listening before when the announcer said what it was and who wrote it—modern, for voice and chamber symphony he thought and the words sounded Russian or Polish but the music in parts Brazilian like that Bachianos whatever number it is, so maybe the language was Portuguese, and unbearably sad but uplifting in a way, he can't explain it, and then it was gone. Tried the other two New York classical stations, both commercial; wouldn't it be something if one of them had that same piece on, a musical miracle or just a one-in-a-million situation, but couldn't find them or they were gone too. Dialed to the Philadelphia station, had the number for it in his head and the one in Delaware further on the way, but couldn't bring it in yet. Tried the Delaware one; just maybe some fluke and it got through because there was no interference from there to here and its transmission was that strong; country-and-western music or something. “I like it, keep it on,” Margo said and he said “Oh really, sweetie, and it might wake Julie, so do you mind very much if we don't?” and she said “It's okay, you're right.” Good, this is the attitude. Patience patience patience. Respect thy youngsters, and so on. “Daddy, could you help me with my numbers, then, if we do it softly? I'm good at them but I want to be better and we did miss a school day.” “That sounds like something, well, it's amazing, but something what I was thinking just before, but I won't go into it.” “What was it?” “No, I'm sorry—okay, why not, and you're older so you won't misinterpret it. That I should behave much better to you kids. That's it. And that I suppose I'm okay sometimes but I definitely could be better, more patience, less stridence and anger—you know, hotheadedness, mad, sharp, knocking you down with words, even insulting you like you said, which I don't think I did then—I didn't—but every time I do do it I can kill myself for.” “You're all right.” “As Julie said, and let's speak just a teeny weeny lower, you're just saying that, aren't ya?—ever notice how many times I use the word ‘just'?” “No. And you do yell too much but when you don't you're mostly nice.” “And not just because I give you things, bribe you, because I don't do that too much, do I? Mommy thinks I do.” “No, you're nice, like now, except when you get too rough with us.” “When the heck do I do that may I ask?” and she said “Like today when you punched me.” “I punched you? You mean when I asked you to get dressed so you can have lunch and we could get going? I just grabbed your arms—didn't grab but simply held them—I didn't even clutch or hold hard—and I said we got to get moving and eat and our things together or we'll never get out of here and if you do it, Julie will too, that's all I did and said, don't you remember?” and she said “You held me hard, you pressed my arms above till they hurt and left marks,” and he said “What marks?” and she said “They were there when I undressed but are gone now and I started crying and you let me go when you saw it, I'm sure, my eyes,” and he said “I didn't see your eyes, sweetheart, were they crying?” and she said “Almost, because you don't think one or two tears is crying,” and he said “I'm sorry, I swear I only held you—you know, that kind of holding to give the other person time to get some sense into his head, or hers, meaning just to think about things when she's a little out of control—but I didn't grab or clutch or squeeze. Or maybe I squeezed a little without knowing it, and your skin's very fair and sensitive so I might've left some red marks, while on a darker skin I probably wouldn't have, but I'm sorry. I'll try not to be even as rough as that again, if that's what I was, rough, okay?” “Okay.” “We've ironed it out—you know, worked it—” and she said “I know what that kind of ironing is. Yes, it's worked out. It's all better. Really, Daddy, thank you, now that we've talked. And I love it when we talk like this, personally. Want to do it some more?” and he said “Now? It's difficult without seeing you, or constantly turning around to see you because, you know, some things ought to be said right to the face, and straining my neck, so maybe later. We'll talk some more personally later.” “Without Julie.” “Sure. Though I'll also talk personally alone with her, but sometime later. You want me to do your numbers now, something I can do with the back of my head. But quietly so she can sleep.” “She looks like a doll, doesn't she, Daddy? She can be so sweet when she sleeps,” and he said “You're the same.” “But look the way her arm's around the top of her head and hand under her chin. I never do that,” and he said “How do you know? And I'm driving, so can't look.” “Use the mirror. She might never be scrunched up like that again and you should see it.” “She probably formed that position in the womb sometime, like one does thumb-sucking, I think, and sleeping with your knees and whole body squashed into itself because eventually you get so jammed in there, and things. So I picture it; I've in fact seen it. And both of you dolls, believe me. F.A.O. Schwarz would say ‘priceless, out of sight, just for display.' Really.” “No, I'm ugly, she's pretty,” and he said “What a thing to say about yourself, and so untrue. Self-abuse. We'll have to call the cops in on this to arrest you. You have your toothbrush and a complete change of clothes packed?” “Mommy put them in—” “No, I meant—ah, what about what you want with your numbers?” “I am ugly, and really tough multiplications that I can do in my head. The teacher's quizzing us on this, minute each and no paper or pen, and I want to get a hundred on it.” “Two hundred sixty-two times sixteen.” “Okay. You take the zero from the ten in sixteen, add it to two hundred sixty-two, get two thousand six hundred twenty, and now six times two hundred sixty-two. Well, there you make it easy for yourself—Why'd you think up those times' numbers?” “First in my head, I guess, though they could mean something more. Social Security for women, for instance—the sixty-two—when they can first collect it, I think, the full amount, which I wouldn't mind after working straight almost thirty-five years. And two hundred—nice and even and not the hundred percent you mentioned wanting to get on the test, though maybe influenced by it. Sixteen? How old are you two altogether? Fifteen, so doesn't count, but maybe deep in my subconscious I added up your ages to that. Bad in math down there, still doing it like an average five-year-old. Or good, better than up here,” knocking on his head without turning around. “Because with your added months, yours almost three, hers more than seven, it's almost another year, which could be considered a year, since you don't say when you're nine years and ten months, let's say, that you're nine, do you, or even nine and three quarters? You'd say ‘almost ten.'” “That's right. Or ‘about ten.' That's what I'd say.” “So there.” “Six times two hundred fifty, or six times two hundred and then six times fifty, and you get with either…fifteen hundred. This problem's too easy. Now six times ten and six times two—what was the first number I had, two thousand six hundred twenty?” “I believe so.” “Three one nine two.” “What's that?” “The answer to everything. Three thousand one hundred—” “Good, you got it, great,” he said, “you're a whiz.” “Fooled you. It's four one nine two. How can it be three one nine two if the first part of the answer was two thousand six hundred and twenty? Six is more than half of ten, and one thousand and three hundred is at least half of two thousand six—” “I don't get you. But maybe we should check the first part of your answer.” “Why? Zero added to two six two is two six twenty.” “So? I still don't get your point. Anyway, let's say you're right and I'm slow today. When I was a kid though—” “Give me some even tougher ones. A hundreds number times one in the thousands.” Did. “Another.” Did and several others. She got them all right or some she got before he did and he just assumed they were right, for while he was still doing one she'd ask for another and he'd give it. “Now some minuses in the thousands,” and he said “Those you need paper for. And even if you of all quiz-whizzers don't, no no no, I just want to be quiet and think.” She started talking and he said “Pleez, sweetie.” Her lips poufed and he said “All right, but whisperingly, and last gab from you for a while, what?” and she said “I wanted to ask what you were thinking of or planning to,” and he said “I haven't given a thought to it yet, okay? Now finished, and don't tell me you're bored. You've books, paper, pencils, markers, imagination, introspection, fanciful inventiveness, memories and so on and you're also musical and can hum a sweet soft tune, besides those ole standbys, passing scenery, dreams and do-nothing sleep.” He drove and thought she's not talking and what should he think about? Work, but hell with that, wants to be rapt or entertained. Turned the radio on, woman on the Philadelphia public station was gushing about a group called The Jazz Messengers and he thought he doesn't know these guys but he hates jazz or most of what he's heard for forty years, same thing and shallowness and no talk's going to make it more interesting, and turned it off. If not deep music or just about anything by Vivaldi, Poulenc or Bach then why couldn't it be, and in a car preferably, something to think about and maybe even stir him up, a good talk, debate or discussion about ideas and stimulating people and things, not crime, drugs, health, business, politics, finance or another international or cultural report—alligator hunting in the Everglades, icebound Aleuts going potty or getting juiced—but art, philosophy, ethics and if art not opera, films, musicals, crafts or dance and where it'd go on for an hour and had only now begun. Maybe once every three years he catches something like that on the road, and really almost any poet or playwright who talks about his life and work on the radio's okay, novelists are always pushing their books or beating their chests or he can hardly understand. Should he get up to seventy? No other cars around, it's legal on the Interstates in Maine and New Hampshire and places, so why not here? It'd be fifteen over the limit and if he's stopped it wouldn't so much be the cost, though that'd hurt, but getting delayed. What's, he crazy?—it'd be about a day's wage. Hadn't seen, and then he saw one, between some trees in the median strip, car facing his way