The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims (153 page)

“Maybe I’ll invite you over. You might like it.”

Alice turned to Roy and said, “My next-to-oldest brother is Judd, and he’s no genius, either. He took off, and for three years we never heard from him at all. Thought he was dead. Then one afternoon my mother gets a phone call—”

“She telling you her life story
already?
” Artie asked Roy, but Alice went on.

“She gets a phone call and it’s from Judd. ‘Hi, Mom,’ he says, like he’s been gone for just the afternoon. ‘Hi, Mom. I’m in New Jersey at the recruitment center and the nice lady here says I can
have three meals a day and new clothes if I sign up for the army. So, Mom,’ Judd says, ‘what’s my Social Security number?’”

“What was it?” Artie asked.

“So Judd enlisted,” Alice continued, ignoring him. “My mom says the army’s the only refuge for dumb people like my brothers. If Pete wasn’t going to Florida with me, he’d probably end up in the army, too.”

“I been to Florida,” Artie said. “I worked on a fishing boat there. I lived in a pink house. Right on the ocean.”

“Really,” Alice said.

Carl brought her a sandwich and she ate half of it before she spoke again. “My wisdom teeth are coming in. You ever get those?” she asked Roy.

“Yeah,” Artie said. “Hurts like a bitch, but there can be no wisdom without pain.” He laughed, one harsh burst, like an engine turning over in the cold, and then he asked Alice, “Why do you wear your hair short?”

“I like it this way,” she said.

“Girls should have long hair.”

“Boys should have short hair.” She gestured at his ponytail.

“You got salt on your tongue, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You can be a wise-ass, is what it means,” Artie said, and Pete was at the bar so fast that Roy realized he must have been standing behind them the whole time, waiting.

“Don’t talk like that to my sister,” Pete said.

Artie laughed again, that single, mechanical emission. “Billy the Kid here,” he muttered. “Tough guy.”

“Fuck you, pal,” Pete said. “I said not to talk to my sister.”

Roy heard Alice say, “Jesus Christ.” She slid off her bar stool and edged out of the way, somehow anticipating what was coming. Roy’s reflexes were not as swift. When Pete threw his punch and connected, he pushed Artie into Roy’s shoulder,
hard. Then Pete stood quiet and undefended while Artie got up, shook his head once, and squared his hat. With experienced precision, he swung and hit Pete in the center of his face and watched as he fell backward at a perfect diagonal, catching his head on the corner of the bar. The crack was louder than any noise heard in that room all afternoon, and then it was over.

To Roy’s surprise, Alice approached him first, actually stepping over her brother to touch the sore spot on his shoulder where Artie had fallen.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Roy nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she told him.

“Your brother should keep his mouth shut,” Artie said.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me.” Alice’s voice was low, and she wasn’t even looking at Artie. “I really wish you would just leave me alone.”

At this, Carl said, with no malice or heat, “You’ll want to get home now, Art.” He said it the way Roy’s doctor a year before had said, “You’ll want to stop eating salt soon.” He said it the way Roy’s wife used to tell Emma, “You’ll want to have a warm coat with you this morning.” A quiet command.

And Artie did leave, as if admonished by his own father, swearing under his breath but obedient.

Carl knelt by Pete and said, “He’ll be okay. Just a bad bump is all.”

“I’m really sorry,” Alice repeated, and then she asked, “Could we take him somewhere, do you think?”

“We’ll go to my house,” Roy said. When he got up, he was surprised to find that his legs were shaking so much that he had to lean against the bar for a few moments before he could walk. The three of them lifted Pete and half-carried him out the door, down the steps, to Roy’s car.

“Put him in the back seat,” Roy instructed, and Alice said, “His nose, though. He’ll get blood everywhere.”

“That’s okay.”

As they slid Pete into the car, he opened his eyes for a moment, focused with difficulty on Alice’s face, and said, “Mom told me—”

“Shut up, Pete. Will you please just shut your mouth?” Alice interrupted, and Roy thought that she might start crying, but she didn’t.

“Got more than you bargained for, Roy.” Carl laughed.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this,” Alice said again, but Roy only walked her to the passenger side and helped her into the car, as he had helped Pete.

They drove. West, out of Verona, the sun had just finished setting without ceremony, without color or effort. It was dusk, and still hot. Alice apologized again, and Roy told her that it wasn’t her fault.

“All my brothers are idiots, all of them. My mom said I’m the only one in the family who could think my way out of a used tissue.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Roy asked. The question sounded inane to him, considering the circumstances, but she answered immediately.

“Five,” she said. “Steven, Lenny, Judd, Pete, Eddie.”

“And you.”

“And me. All of them are in the army but Pete and Eddie, who are too young. Eddie’s only six. My brothers can’t do a thing right.”

They drove in silence through the sunflower fields. Roy thought to tell Alice that sunflowers always face east in the morning, west at dusk. He thought it might interest her, or even help her out, should she ever happen to get lost in North Dakota. She didn’t seem to want to talk, though, so he kept it to himself. They passed the white truck, parked in a ditch, without commenting, and Alice spoke again.

“My littlest brother, Eddie, almost died last year,” she said.
“He almost died. He was staying at our neighbor’s house and it caught on fire. Everyone got out of the house but him, and when the fireman came into his room, Eddie hid under the bed. He got a glimpse of that oxygen mask and figured a monster was coming after him.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It turned out fine. They found him and everything, and he was okay. But when they told me what happened, the first thing I thought was what a stupid kid my brother was, already. He’s only six, I know, but to hide from a fireman in the middle of a fire . . . The thing is, if he’d died, I wouldn’t’ve thought that he was stupid. I just would’ve missed him. There’s a big difference, I guess, between almost dying and really dying.”

Roy nearly said,
At your age you would think that
, but it sounded bitter even to him, so he didn’t answer.

As he drove the familiar road, Roy thought about the empty, ruined homes of people he’d grown up with, people who were now gone: dead, or almost dead. Which Roy thought might very well be the same thing. Verona itself was almost dead, as well as countless other towns he’d known just like it. He thought about his wife, who had almost died twice before the final heart attack killed her. “I’m cold,” his wife had said, having walked without shoes or a coat through the January snow to the garage, where Roy was refinishing their dining room table. “I’m cold,” she said, and then she died, not almost, but really. Now Roy, with the bruised shoulder, with an unconscious boy in the back seat of the car he’d purchased for his wife, with a girl beside him half the age of his daughter, Roy felt as if he, too, were very close to death, almost dead.

As if she had been following his thoughts all along, Alice slid across the front seat and placed her hand over his. Her touch was at once that of a mother, a lover, a daughter, and it was so long since he’d known any of these things that Roy sighed, allowed his head to fall forward. He shut his eyes. Alice reached
for the steering wheel, and he let her take it, knowing that the road was straight and safe, and that, for now, it would be better to let her steer.

“It’s okay,” she said, and reached under the wheel and turned on the headlights. It was not yet dark, but the lights would help them be seen by anyone driving east, or by anyone who might be watching their progress as they crossed the empty plains of North Dakota.

G
ASHOUSE JOHNSON
came for Tanner Rogers just before noon. He knocked on the Rogerses’ door and then waited, pacing the porch and examining the carpentry. His dog, Snipe, followed, limping like a man with a bullet in his spine. Tanner’s mother, Diane, came to the door. She had all her pretty blond hair pulled back away from her face.

“Diane,” he said.

“Gashouse.”

“I want to take Tanner with me to the pigeon shoot today.”

Diane raised her eyebrows. Gashouse waited for an answer, but she didn’t give one.

“I think he’d like that,” Gashouse said. “I think he’d like to see a pigeon shoot.”

“He doesn’t go,” Diane said.

“I’d sure like to take him, though. On account of his father.”

“He never went. Not with his father, either.”

“What is that, Diane? A rule of your house or something?”

“It might be.”

“Come on, Diane.”

“I think it’s a sick thing. I really do. I think pigeon shoots are sicker than hell.”

“You used to love it.”

“I never loved it. I never once loved it.”

“You used to go.”

“I did used to go. But I never loved it.”

“Ed loved it.”

“Tanner doesn’t go,” Diane said again. “He’s not even interested in it.”

“There are people up there who love Ed. A boy should meet the people who love his father. It’s healthy for a boy to meet people like that.”

Diane said nothing.

“I’m shooting for Ed today,” Gashouse said. “Until they find someone else who can replace him permanently. Or until he gets better, I mean.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

“I’m a good shot, Diane. I used to be a hell of a good shot when we were kids.”

“Good.”

“Of course, I’m no Ed.”

“How many pigeons you plan on killing today?”

“Many.” Gashouse smiled. “I’m going to kill so many goddamn pigeons. I’ll see to it that Tanner kills a ton of pigeons, too.”

Diane nodded, tired.

“Hell, I’ll kill enough pigeons to make you a coat,” he said, and then Diane did smile. Gashouse Johnson’s smile widened. “How about it, Diane? Let me take your son up there and we’ll bring you back a hell of a nice pigeon-fur coat.”

Diane looked past Gashouse Johnson to Snipe, who was trying to lie down. “What happened to your dog?” she asked.

“He got old.”

“He looks like hell. He looks like he got run over.”

“He just got old.”

“It’s no place for dogs up there,” Diane said. “Not for dogs or kids, either. Dogs get shot up there.”

“No. Pigeons get shot up there. Nobody never shot a dog or a kid yet.”

“Ed shot a dog up there once for chasing dropped birds.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Gashouse took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

“Gashouse,” she said, “do you want to come inside?”

“No, I won’t bother you.”

Snipe was lying down by a pair of boots near the porch steps, chewing on his tail. His head was thick and brown as a boot itself, and while he chewed, he watched Diane. His dog face was void.

“How old is he?” Diane asked.

“Eleven.”

“Just the same age as my Tanner.”

“I hope your boy is holding up a little better than my dog.”

Diane smiled again. They looked at each other. After a moment, she asked, “Did you go see Ed in the hospital?”

“This morning.”

“Did he tell you to come here and check on me? Is that it?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you to spend some time with Tanner?”

“No.”

“What’d he say?”

“Ed? He said, ‘You think the first cigarette of the day tastes good? Wait ’til you try the first cigarette after a triple bypass.’”

This time Diane did not smile. “He told me that joke, too,” she said. “Except that I don’t smoke.”

“Me neither. I chew.”

“Well,” Diane said, “I drink.”

Gashouse looked down at his hands. Took a long look at his
thumbnail. Diane said, “You’ve got something on your beard. A crumb or something.”

He wiped it off. He said, “Could’ve been toast.”

“It looked like a piece of fluff.”

“What’s Tanner doing right now, Diane? Come on, Diane. Why don’t you go ask your son if he wants to come along on a real live pigeon shoot?”

“You are an optimistic man, Gashouse. That’s what you are.”

“Come on, Diane. What’s he doing right now?”

“Hiding from you.”

“He’ll love it,” Gashouse said. “Unless he gets shot . . .”

“He might not even want to go, ” Diane said, and Gashouse replied, “Ask him. Just go ask him.”

Later, Tanner Rogers and Gashouse Johnson drove through town in Gashouse’s truck. The boy was dressed in a heavy winter coat, a red hunting cap, lace-up boots. He was shy, and it took him some time to ask Gashouse the question he had been privately nursing.

“Isn’t it against the law? To shoot pigeons?”

“Nah,” Gashouse said. “Shooting pigeons is not against the law.
Betting
on people who shoot pigeons is against the law.”