Interstate (32 page)

helpful
—to do anything I can to help Lee and them now, but I'm unable to, I'm crazy with grief because of the whole thing, out of my gourd, my head, but in control enough to take care of Margo through all this, who as they can imagine is as distraught as anyone but sort of okay, holding it in, I don't know when it's going to come out in a kid's way and if it does if I'll be able to handle it, but so far she and I are okay, and maybe I can get the doctor closest to this to talk to him (or her) if he's still around, but before I get off to get him I'd want to give the doctor's name and name and phone number of the hospital so they don't lose contact with me, for if I do lose contact with them—I could, I'm holding it in too but am underlyingly that overcome—they won't be able to reach me since they won't know where I am. I could be at any hospital from there to where I live, right? “Oh, if we were only home, all three of us, girls and me, dinner done, dishes washed and traveling things put away, place tidied the way I like it, neat piles, rug under the dinner table swept, getting ready for bed, maybe in bed—the kids; if I were that tired from the trip and cleaning up and things, me—for I don't know what time it is, maybe long past their normal bedtime when tomorrow's a school day,” I'd probably say if I'd said all the rest of what came before it. So I'd say “Hold on, the doctor's and hospital's name have to be here someplace,” and I'd look on the desk for personal stationery or an envelope addressed to the doctor—you do that now, look, nothing there with the doctor's or hospital's name on it, open the top drawer—wait a minute, the diplomas on the walls would have his name on them—but in it there's a manila envelope with the doctor's name and hospital address—and I'd give this information to whichever parent I was speaking to and say the phone number they can get by calling Information in this state, for it's not on the phone—and then I'd say “Okay, stay on”—say it if I was able to—“I'm going to look for the doctor, he might be outside the door here or down the hall but in hearing distance—I'm in his cubicle in the hospital, his private room, office, calling from it, I wanted privacy for this call, and if you're not on when I get back, don't worry, I'll call back soon as I can, so if you do get off, keep the line clear, or if you want to get me, ask for this doctor's private number when you call the hospital, say ‘His cubicle,' they'll know…so I'm going,” though I'd probably say before I go—I'd definitely say if Lee was home and they told her or I somehow had before but she wasn't the one I was speaking to now, “How is Lee now, what's she doing, what are you doing to help her, how much help does she need? Maybe you should call your own doctor right after this to see what he can do for her and for you too, for advice, who can give you a psychiatrist to call and possibly come now if you don't know of one, she might need medicine, something for sleep, I don't see how she couldn't, someone professional there like that with those things to help you with her and also to help the two of you,” and then after they told me I'd say “So I'm going, I'll try to be quick,” and put the receiver down and look outside the door and if the doctor was there or down the hall I'd ask him to speak to my mother- or father-in-law and tell them what he thinks they should know about Julie and answer any questions they may have, or by now even Lee if she was there, maybe she'd want to talk to him, and if he wasn't there and he probably wouldn't be and there was no one from the hospital around I could ask to get him, for I now have his name down, I'd race back to the phone—before I left the room I'd have done something to make sure the door wouldn't close and lock—and if one of my in-laws was still on the line—I don't know what I'd say if I said hello on the phone, “anybody there?” and Lee was the one now on, though maybe by now I could say something clear and sound and also maybe she'd by now be somewhat calm—“The doctor's not around, what more can I say, or maybe I should look for him more, how's Lee now?” and if it was Lee there, “Lee…Lee…what more can I do for you from here, what can either of us do? We're devastated, but we got to control ourselves somehow, for our sakes for Margo's sake, meaning that we don't want to destroy her by destroying ourselves, there's no point in cracking up—not that, it isn't a question of a point or not, but if one does, you do, I'll take care of Margo and you, crack up if you have to and nothing can stop it, I'll be there forever for you, I swear, though try if it's possible to wait till I get there or you're here or we're together somewhere soon, please.” Anyway, that's some of what I'd do on the phone. Not the best, no great plan, but the aim's good. It probably is the best you can muster under the circumstances and considering your limitations and if you're alone on the phone doing it. What's that mean—the last? It means maybe you should, after all, have the doctor beside you while you call or have him be the one calling Lee and her parents about it with you beside him, and you think about this and you think and think and think and you think no, best it comes only from you when you're alone. You can't say why. You could if you really thought about it perhaps. The doctor might inhibit you somewhat to a lot. It just wouldn't seem right in a way, saying the deepest most grievous thing possible to the person closest to you and who'd be most affected by it, with a medical professional you didn't know till an hour ago standing next to you and in so small a room, or having someone like that say it for you to her or one of the two persons closest to her and who'd almost be as affected by it. And such a small room, barely a cubicle. Or rightly named one: desk, chair, but narrower than usual desk and chair, even the bookshelves seem narrower than usual or is that some sort of illusion because the room's so small, and so many things hanging from hooks and pegs on the walls and door, probably because there's so little space in the room. There was a comedian, when you were a boy, who used to say either on TV when you still watched or the Paramount Theater stage, so you would have been high school age, “Our apartment's so small the furniture's painted on the—” no, zero in on the phone. You ready? Yes, and you lift the receiver. “To get around we had to walk sideways once past the door.” You start to dial. Stomach nervous pains like when dialing girls thirty years ago, forty, or with your hand on the receiver ready to pick it up to dial. Girls you wanted to date but didn't think they'd be interested even a first time. Or girls you'd dated once and wanted to again but didn't think they would. What would you say to them on the phone? You're stalling again and you know it but what would you say? And what digit were you on when you stopped dialing? and you put the receiver down. “Hi, my name's Nathan Frey, you wouldn't remember me,” this for the first date but they'll find out you're not that smart or sharp or with it in a way they like or you don't come from a family with dough or go to a private high school or one of the elite public ones, or something else or they already found that out the first time you met or that you're just not their type. You'd thought a lot about what approach to take and what might be the best weekday time to call: around nine, after they might have their homework and house chores done, maybe had a shower or bath, were feeling clean and relieved and relaxed, sort of the start of the quiet time of night and when your mind seemed a bit sharper and line cleverer and voice lower, so you felt more confident, but not much later than nine for they could use the excuse that their parents thought it a little late for someone to call them, even a good friend, especially when the conversations tended to go on for a while, and not earlier because their folks might want to use the phone or were expecting a call. Nine-fifteen to -thirty and if you could swing it, for you didn't want anyone interrupting you and stopping your concentration, when no one was home or wanted to use the phone. For a second date: “Hi, it's Nathan Frey, or Nat, okay, but never Nathaniel, how you doing, what's been happening, have a good week?” Or the first time: “We met at the Dalton dance last week…at the Jew ish Center party…coming out of RKO last Saturday, you were with a friend, I was with a pal who knew her…curly brown hair kind of unkempt, about five feet eight without shoes,” later “five feet nine…ten…almost six feet…let's say six feet flat though not with flat feet but with shoes that were recently heeled…slim,” always slim but actually skinny, “in a blue V-neck sweater…blue windbreaker…blue button-down-collar Oxford-cloth shirt,” and if it was a dance, “three-button brown tweed jacket” for about four years, sleeves let out till the lining showed, “dark” or “light gray flannel pants,” for a while “scuffed white bucks…you mentioned Frankie Laine…Johnnie Ray…some English singer Vera Lynn and this moving wartime song she sung that's now a big hit…Menotti's new opera on Broadway we both said we wanted to go to, about Little Italy, lovers' quarrel that ends with the girl getting stabbed or shot to death but sung in a language you can understand and where there are words in it like, you know, ‘bitch' and ‘shit,' we both heard about it and agreed better at a regular theater than the Met, well, if you still want to see it…” Sweating now as you used to do then before and during the call. Hands, face. Stomach, as if you're going to have the runs. Dizzy too but little did you know. What a jump. One kind of call to an entirely different kind but some of the same physical feelings or symptoms or manifestations you think or whatever the word for it is and push-button now or whatever they call it instead of rotary dial then or whatever it's called. Stop. Dial. Doctor might be knocking on the door soon and you want to get it over with before. Not “get it over with” but—Then to use as an incentive then. Not that either. But ready? Never, of course. There is no right—Just stop all that crap and dial. You dial.

G
uy in the car to the left of ours looking at me. I didn't see the car till just before this second, nod to him, eyes back on the road, car he's in stays beside ours maybe four-five feet away; maybe six. “Yes,” I think, “what?” looking at him. “You're awfully close, any reason to be? No answer. Wouldn't think so. Just the look, the straight stare, oh you're a toughie, bet your kids are scared shit of ya,” and look front and steer the car closer to the right lane line. Few seconds later I feel—sense—he's doing something with his hand, motioning, or waving something and maybe even from outside and I look over and car he's in has moved over to almost cross the lane into mine and his window's down and he's pointing out of it at me and has this smirk or sneer or I don't know what, not the noncommittal plain know-nothing to even dopey look from before trying to be hard but some smart-ass scorning sarcastic smile if I want to say it in a mouthful, and I think “Why, what's with him, did I do something with my driving he didn't like and for all I know might have, or he thought so, endangered their car for a moment or maybe the driver thought this and told him to let me know for he's closer?” and say through my window “Yes?” and Margo in back says “What's the man pointing at you for, Daddy?” and I say “Beats me—Yes sir, what, something wrong?” I mouth to him now, raising my eyebrows to show, or by doing that making lots of folds in my forehead, but that I'm asking a serious question and am no wiseguy and maybe something's wrong with my car that he's seen and he wants to tell me but doesn't know how to look at people or really deal with them in any way, or just strangers, but how he's doing, or possibly just normal rather conventional looking guys with kids in tow who he thinks might be some threat to him for some reason, that they do seem so normal and content and polite while he's such a roughneck who can't keep anything, job, woman, family, but I'm no doubt going too far into it, and he starts laughing riotously while pointing at me, to even shutting his eyes and opening his mouth wide and probably making haw-haw noises it's all so funny and then says something to the driver who starts laughing normally—I'm looking back and forth at the road and them—but almost as if he doesn't really want to laugh, his face I mean, but feels he has to for the other guy's sake—honor, whatever—or so the other guy doesn't think he hasn't a sense of humor or something. In other words, his heart's not in it, and out of friendship or fellowship, I mean. They beat up people the same way, I bet: even if you think the guy who's arguing with your friend is absolutely right and your friend's dead wrong you still stomp the guy with your friend because he is your friend. And I look front and I don't know why, out of nowhere perhaps but maybe more so from some nervousness with these guys keeping up this thing with me like they are and their car being closer than I like and still almost in my lane, maybe straddling the in-between line now and staying even with us so long, but I say “So what do you think they find so funny, girls?”—asking them this to distract myself from those guys, is what I'm saying—“and don't look, no staring, don't give them any more cause for continuing whatever it is they're continuing,” and Julie says “What is it that they're doing, Daddy, and the driver's doing it too?” and I say “That's just it, I don't know what it is, playing goofy loony games with me is all I can see. There are all sorts of stupid people in this world I'm afraid to tell you, but when they get on the road they're even worse. The car seems to bring something out in people that nothing else does, and it isn't just the speed and enclosure of the thing either—you know, being contained in it, inside, windows shut, cut off from other people. For even the bumper cars at the amusement park do it to people—excite them, make them reckless. But that's a bad example since they're made for craziness and you pay to get in them and drive wildly, but I guess I was saying that those things are wide open and aren't fast at all while most real cars are the opposite. Meaning, fast or slow, open or enclosed, just being in a car, even a kiddy car when you're a kid—I remember how reckless and adult I felt in them—does it. And in a way, though you can't get in them but they can make kids wild and strange a little, those miniature toy cars kids have—Matchboxes, because they come in them or that's the size they are—that they roll against the wall or smash into other tiny cars like it, or off a table and that sort of stuff. So it's cars of all kinds we can say—kiddy and bumper ones, toy cars and real convertibles and Jeeps. Two-seaters, six-seaters, racing and stock cars of course, probably not blood- and bookmobiles and golf carts, but panel trucks, minivans, though not as much, I'd think, possibly because families are usually in them. They're made for parents with their kids, you can say, and families can be kind of inhibiting on the road. Restraining. You know, they keep control of the driver's most reckless and wild emotions when he's outside, while inside, meaning in the house and not the car, it could be another story where all sorts of violent terrible stuff can go on. But anyway, you don't want to drive too fast and carelessly and take chances—that's it—take chances with your wife and kids in the car, so almost any car or minitruck when they're in it and also your cats and dogs and so on. Oh, do I know what I'm talking about? Nobody answer but I'm afraid not. Though what was I talking about way before I started all that about cars and pets?” and Julie says “I don't know, you lost me long ago,” and I say “Thank ye, thank ye—oh yeah, about what do you girls think those men found so funny before from their car, anyone have an idea now?” “Not me,” Julie says and I say “My face, right? Maybe my face. Got to be that, for we all know it's funny, and can't be your faces for yours are gorgeous and who laughs at that? So, fine, my funny-looking spongy face and maybe my balding scalp—they both had big hairy clumps on theirs—and we'll leave it at that,” and Julie says “I don't think your face is so funny, and you have hair,” and I say “Not in the right head places, but thanks. And Margo, you've been noticeably quiet, anything wrong?” and she says “I've lost interest in the subject,” and I say “Oh, well, that's—uh,” for I see without looking right at it that a car's alongside us again when one hasn't been there for a couple of minutes, not that I saw the guys' car go, I was too caught up in my talking, and I say “Listen, and I'm serious, I've a funny feeling those same two palookas are beside us again on my side, anyone want to sneak a peek for me and report back?—maybe it's a different car,” and Julie says “The same, they're there for lots more seconds than just now, something the matter, Daddy?” and I say “Are they—do this from memory, neither of you look—were they staring or laughing again?” and Margo says “Staring, at you, the man not the driver was. And now kind of trying to talk to you through your window. And now making these hand movements as if rolling down a car window while also pointing to you as if you should do it with yours,” and I say “I told you not to look, goddamnit,” and she says “I'm sorry, Daddy, I didn't mean to; I'm now looking straight ahead at only nothing, but are you worried by him?” and I say “The truth is, without trying to scare you kids, the good thing is they're not so danger ously close as they were the first time—And continue not to look at them, just as I'm not and won't, for sooner we completely ignore them I'm sure quicker they'll go away. But I just didn't like the looks of those guys. Not the looks so much as what they did and are still doing, distracting my attention, or trying to, really, and just being dumb, but real dumb dumb dumb, as if they want to spook me off the road, for who the fuck they think they are?—excuse me, but I'm mad at them and with good reason—I got my kids with me,” and I speed up and Margo says “I hope I didn't make you feel bad before by what I said about losing interest,” and I yell “Please, not now,” for their car stays beside ours, “I've got too much to do driving, and sit back tight, make sure you're buckled in good in case they try to do something crazy with their car—they could,” and Margo yells “Oh no,” and I say “What's wrong?” and Julie says “My gosh, Daddy, what?” and I shout “It's okay, nothing will happen, but do what I say, and let me drive,” and slow down and their car continues as fast and the guy sticks his head out and turns it around to me and gives this sinister big grin and then sticks his hand out the window and points it at me into sort of a pistol shape and takes aim, one eye cocked, and I think says “Bang bang,” his mouth moves like that, or maybe “Pop pop,” and then puts the pistol hand up to his mouth and blows gunsmoke off his fingertip and brings his head back into the car and faces front and they're now about a hundred feet in front of us, his pistol hand open and dangling down the door, and now a hundred-fifty, two hundred, and their car cuts into my lane without signaling and slows down a little and I think “What're they up to now?” and slows down some more and then shoots across the next center lane into the slow one and really speeds up till it must be doing eighty-five, ninety, no car's in front of it, even a hundred, it seems to be going so fast. I look around for a patrol car same time I'm keeping my eyes on the men, or an unmarked car with a trooper in it in trooper's clothes and maybe the hat. I'd love to see those bastards caught. If one went after them with the roof light or siren going I'd follow at a reasonable clip just to stay near and pull up behind on the shoulder once the trooper stopped them and explain to him why I was speeding like that myself: what these guys tried doing to me and my kids, the scare tactics and driving close and so on. By now their car's way off, half a mile or so, quarter-mile, third of one, anyway, pretty far in front and still speeding it seems and now no threat to us, for I can't think of them slowing down so much where they'd come back and resume what they were doing, and soon they're out of sight or just mixed in with lots of tiny dots that are cars and buses and trucks. “It's okay, girls, you can relax, the idiots are gone,” slowing down even more and moving into the slow lane to be out of the way of any cars that might want to get around me, for my body has that feeling of having gone through something very scary, heart pumping where I can feel it, the stuff in the larynx or neck, and of course the sweat, and Margo says “It wasn't really ever that bad, was it, Daddy?” and I say “Nah, though for a moment I thought so, but I'll tell you, if I ever saw those guys stopped off the road by some cop for speeding, which they should be, but you know, as they say, ‘try and find a cop when you truly need one,' well I'd pull over and tell the policeman what they did. But okay, good riddance and may we never see them or anything like them again,” and Julie says “What's ‘good riddance'?” and Margo tells her and though her definition's all wrong—something like riders no longer riding—I don't correct her. What would I say to the policeman though? That they drove alongside us awhile, sort of were following us, tried to screw up my driving by trying to frighten me with those sinister grins and getting too close and also that thing with the hand shaped like a gun when they tore off? It would be nothing; they could give all sorts of innocent and plausible reasons why they did it: they like kids, at least the passenger does, but in a good way and he was trying to make my sourpusses laugh by making faces. Or he thought my door wasn't closed all the way and was pointing it out to me, that's why their car got so close, because I didn't seem to hear him and they thought it too im portant to let pass, and that's also what his so-called shooting finger meant: it was pointing to my door, and they never crossed the lane line into mine either, and so forth. The trooper might just laugh at me or tell me to be a good guy and forget it, even if he half believed me, and move on, for he has more important business to take care of, like writing out a speeding ticket—that he has clocked on his radar—and calling in on them to see if their car's stolen or they owe for past traffic violations in this state.