Michael’s Wife (25 page)

Jimmy stood patiently at her side, one hand in hers, the other providing the thumb for his mouth, the plastic dump truck tucked under his arm.

He did remove the thumb long enough to eat the cheese sandwich she made for his lunch. But he refused to sit in his highchair and crawled up on a big kitchen chair. Laurel wondered when this advance had taken place. She regretted missing it. The sandwich and milk gone, Jimmy returned to his thumb. He hadn't spoken, smiled, or shown any enthusiasm at her return. He submitted to being undressed but crawled into his crib unaided and then turned his back on her to nap.

She'd done her best to hide her hurt and disappointment, to keep up bright chatter and a smile. But this final rejection was too much, and she went into the bathroom and wept into a towel so that he wouldn't hear, telling herself she must give him time. To his young mind her absence had amounted to desertion. He'd trusted and needed her and she'd let him down.

Michael came home with Pat that evening, and Laurel watched them through the living room window as they inspected the Jaguar. Still wearing their flight suits, they looked strange standing next to a mere automobile. Pat crawled in behind the wheel, shaking his head, his lips pursed in a whistle.

She'd made tacos, a favorite of Michael's, and predinner Margaritas. He and Jimmy watched her suspiciously during dinner as though waiting for her to do something strange and unexpected. Later, while Michael settled on the couch with a newspaper, she bathed Jimmy and read him a story.

His body was rigid as she carried him into the bedroom. But just as she bent over the crib to put him down, she felt warm little arms encircle her neck, cling so tightly she almost lost her balance. So she sat with him instead on her own bed, clinging back, kissing his cheeks, breathing in the sweet freshness of his breath and skin that she'd dreamed of, longed for every day in the hospital, afraid to speak for fear her voice would send him back to that distant, confused child's world and away from her. They remained for what must have been more than an hour in the dark warm silence, even after he relaxed his hold and slept against her.

Despite the insistent ache between her shoulder blades she would have been content to stay there holding her son while he slept the night, but Michael's tall shape darkened the doorway.

“I think he's asleep now,” he whispered and gently disengaged Jimmy from her grasp, laying him in the crib next to the Teddy bear. And then he took her by the elbow, led her from the room, and closed the door.

“He
does
still love me,” Laurel whispered, only smearing the tears across her cheeks with her hands instead of wiping them away.

“He just didn't understand that you had to be gone. Jimmy's too young to hold a grudge, Laurel.”

But the tears kept coming, and she gave up trying to save her mascara. “Those damn pills are supposed to be happy pills.”

She moved into the kitchen to make some coffee and to get away from him, but he followed her. Together they watched the water rise up into the glass dome—an excuse not to speak and then both started talking at once.

“You know, I even missed the sound of this old percolator.”

“Laurel, I put in for base housing. We can live better than this.…”

“Oh, don't … I mean you don't have to on my acount. I like it here … really.”

When they sat in the living room with their coffee cups, it was with the same uncomfortable restraint that had plagued them on Michael's visits to the hospital. She thanked him for the car, but he shrugged it off.

“I got ahold of your parents last night. They'd taken a trip to Canada. Your father said your mother
might
come out Christmas. Do you want her to?”

“It might help me remember if I see her, talk to her.…” But Laurel couldn't really care about that now.

Michael leaned forward to wipe imaginary dust from his shoe, giving him an excuse to look at the floor. “It's been rough on you living here, not knowing me from before.…”

“Even worse not knowing me … what I am.” Then the tears came again, and he put his arm around her, letting her huddle against him until it was over.

The next day Michael carried a cardboard box when he came home, and Jimmy, who was himself again but with a little more mischief in him, danced around his father trying to peer over the top of the box.

Michael lowered the box slowly to drag out the suspense and finally set it on the floor. Laurel and Jimmy knelt beside it. There in the middle of an old gray doll blanket sat a fluffy white pup with black splotches indiscriminately strewn across his fur. One spot ringing an eye gave his face a ridiculous unbalanced appearance.

“What kind of dog is that?” Laurel asked.

“I'd say about every kind. A civilian carpenter smuggled three of them onto the base and was trying to give them away. What do you think, Jim?”

“Puppy!” And Jimmy grabbed the struggling dog by the throat with both hands to lift him out of the box.

“Hey, not like that. Michael, he's too little to have a dog. He'll strangle it.”

“I
not
too little.”

The puppy was off across the floor, with Jimmy after him, and just made it under the stereo where he set up a furious shrill yapping. From there he headed into the kitchen, around the partition, through the living room and into Michael's bedroom, yapping all the way, his toenails scratching and sliding on the tiles at every turn, with Jimmy screeching his excitement not far behind. Laurel brought up the rear in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the puppy before her son caught him.

As she passed Michael, she heard his deep chuckle and turned on him. “Just you wait, Michael Devereaux.” And then she stopped, startled at the instant change in his expression. “What's the matter? I was only kidding.”

“You used to say that, that very way. But you'd shake your fist at me and then giggle.” And they stood just looking at each other while pandemonium reigned under Michael's bed.

About midnight Laurel sat yawning on the kitchen floor in front of the box which she'd turned on its side for a doggy bed, but the puppy snuggled on her lap.

“Why not put him in his box and turn out the light?” Michael came in silently on bare feet.

“Because he keeps sneaking into my room and crawling into bed with me. And he snores.”

“Want me to stand the next watch?”

“He isn't even cute. All dogs are cute when they're puppies—but not him. He's a mess.” And he was, his fur all different lengths, his body already too long for his legs.

“I could take him away early before Jimmy gets up.”

“What are we going to call him? We can't just call him puppy.”

“You never did listen to me,” Michael said with a half-smile that reminded her of Paul. He sat beside her and looked down his nose at the puppy with mock seriousness. “Let's name him Clyde.”

“Clyde? That's not a puppy name.”

“Well, as you pointed out, this is not an ordinary puppy. And when you go to the door and yell ‘Clyde' you can be sure you won't get someone else's dog.”

And so Clyde was added to the family and Laurel had another potty training job.

Michael brought home a gold leaf to replace his captain's bar on Friday. He was now Major Devereaux. They celebrated with the Patricks at a restaurant where a man in a full suit of armor astride a white horse escorted them from the parking lot to the door.

It was a gay evening and Laurel got a little high. They barhopped around the city after dinner, and she found herself snuggling closer to Michael each time they returned to the car. He would gaze down his long nose at her and make some sarcastic remark, but there was less coldness in his eyes that night, more of a questioning, calculating look.

Pat kept the party going with his jokes and insisted upon calling Michael “Sir.” They were on their way to one more stop before starting home when their headlights fell across a barricade blocking the road. Uniformed men with nightsticks and dark helmets stood guard, ugly gas masks hanging loosely around their necks.

And the party was over. Everyone was quiet as Michael made a U-turn and headed the car toward home. Laurel shivered beside him. Why, just when a little happiness came along.…

19

Promotion or no, Michael had to work that weekend. Jimmy and Clyde seemed complete without her, so Saturday morning Laurel put on some floppy jeans and an old shirt of Michael's and brought out the yellow paint she'd bought on a shopping trip with Myra.

A fine spray of yellow dots coated the white metal cabinets, the refrigerator, and her face when she'd finished giving the ceiling the second coat. She was kneeling astride the sink and on top of the counter scrubbing the dots off the cabinets when she heard a furious yapping in the front.

Jimmy slid the door back. “Hippies, Mommy.”

Clyde slipped through ahead of his young master, his tail whipping about excitedly. He slid across the floor on a newspaper and his tail landed in the tray of yellow paint. She grabbed him by the scuff of the neck and shoved him out onto the patio.

“Laurel, did you see what's going on out there?” Myra and Sherrie bustled into the kitchen before she could close the door. “You'd better go out and lock that Jaguar. Our yards are full of hippies and there're more pulling up every minute.”

Jimmy and Sherrie were jumping and screeching their excitement by the time she and Myra joined them at the front door. Two battered Volkswagen buses plastered with flower decals and four other assorted vehicles filled her yard and Myra's. They watched an old school bus, painted lavender, with curtains at the windows, park across the dirt road and disgorge an unbelievable number of hairy youths to add to the swelling crowds that filled all three yards and much of the road.

“Mommy, what's hippie?”

“They're just people, honey,” Laurel answered.

Four more groups came one after the other, parking in front of Colleen's house. Her car was gone. Soon a string of honking vehicles lined the paved road alongside the base in both directions.

“This must be the protest demonstration for Luke.”

“But why clear down here? Why not at the main gate?” Myra asked, flattening her nose against the screen above the children.

“Probably just gathering here, and they'll march to the main gate together.”

The young people stood or sat in small groups, seemingly relaxed, the growing din owing to numbers rather than needless activity or raised voices. A short gal, too bulky for her low-cut jeans but with a magnificent bobbing chest, walked alone and unhurried between the Jaguar and a bus. She bobbed up the steps in front of them and stared.

Laurel's gasp brought an absent smile to the girl's face. It
was
real, alive—the snake that wound around her shoulders pinning her long hair to her back and bosom. She rubbed the back of its head with a languid finger and it lay still. Under the snake she wore a leather vest without buttons and nothing under the vest but curving breast and pinkish-brown nipple that peeked out when she breathed in and hid again when she exhaled.

“Hi, hippie. Hi, snake.” Jimmy waved.

“Hi, kid.” The snake girl turned her back to them and sat on the step.

“At least the snake keeps her hair from blowing in the wind,” Myra whispered.

“And her vest from getting too far out of line.”

Handmade signs and posters began to appear, many of them from the little bus beside the Jaguar. Many slogans and many duplicates, including the familiar, almost hackneyed MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. But the sign most often repeated was a professionally printed poster with a flyer's helmet identical with Michael's. And wearing the helmet, a grisly, leering human skull. No caption was necessary.

“Oh, Laurel, your car.” Myra put her hands to her face and peered between her fingers as one of the youths jumped up on the hood and revolved slowly, his arms raised to command silence. His hair was shorter than most but growing theatrically down the nape of his neck and parted on top so it hung equally on both sides and in his eyes, leaving it free to sway in dramatic emphasis with any forceful gesture. Laurel was thankful for his bare feet as the nose of the Jag bowed under his weight.

Someone handed him a megaphone. “Cool it!”

They gradually gathered around him and just as gradually quieted. Even the snake girl ambled off the steps.

“Now, we form a single line. It'll look longer that way and we keep together to block all traffic.…”

“Where's Sid?”

“You mean John. John will meet us at the main gate with students from Tempe and the Chicanos.”

A blaring of horns and confused shouting and a pickup truck slowly but persistently forced its way into the crowd from the main road, about ten or fifteen boys packed into the back of it. When it stopped, all but two jumped out and began taking signs from the two who stayed to distribute among the crowd.

“This is our movie—we don't need you,” the boy with the megaphone shouted at them.

“You'll just have a fuck-up on your hands without us, man,” answered one of the boys in the truck in a rich bassoon of a voice that didn't need a megaphone, a grinning black with one earring and a bush of tiny curls all puffed and rounded on his head. Laurel thought he bore some resemblance to a porcupine attacking a high-voltage wire.

The white youth with him was serious, intense, almost savage in heaving the signs into the waiting hands of his helpers, ignoring the protester on the Jaguar. The new signs weren't going over too well and had to be literally forced on the crowd by the boys from the truck.

BASE OF PIGS; IMPERIALIST—FASCIST PIGS; PIG-AMERICAN MONSTER; WARGASM. One read “F T A” on one side and FUCK THE ARMY on the other with “Army” crossed out and “Air Force” written under it.

A sign carrier pursued the snake girl up the steps, but she refused the sign and called after him, “Go suck your thumb.”