The Cost of Lunch, Etc. (10 page)

I had a lot to learn about cats. If I didn’t scoop out their leavings from the litter boxes every morning, they deposited little complaints on the bathroom rug. Each of them had different food habits, and Merlin had to be fed up on the kitchen counter away from the girls, or he would raid their dishes. If I didn’t play with them, they’d make games of knocking things over and chasing each other around the house at night. I took a book out of the library on cat behavior. It said cats could be trained, but I found that I could be trained far more easily.

A year has passed since Sandra died. I flew back for her funeral. Carlie fed the cats. I have no reason to go to Buffalo again. The money from the house and the jewelry I keep in the bank for emergencies. Me and my five cats live happily together. Friends pity me silently, but I know better. I got one more from the MSPCA, an orange three-year old male I call Pumpkin. Then somebody dumped a skinny female on my porch in a box from a liquor store. She turned out to be pregnant, but the vet said she was too starved to carry the kittens to term. No problem with an abortion for a cat. My new vet is a 70-year-old guy who loves animals. When I commented on the abortion, he laughed and said that when he started to practice, abortions were illegal for women but perfectly fine for cats. I named her Lucky. I don’t think she stopped eating for two months.

When I come home from work, they greet me at the door. We dine together. We watch TV. Each cat has a specific place in my bed. They purr me to sleep and they wake me in the morning. Each one is a strong personality; each is affectionate with me and they get along pretty well with each other. They are better company than my husband ever was. I’m cutting back on my gardening to spend time with them. They’re more entertaining. I am letting the loosestrife take over that bed and letting the locust babies grow (except
in the driveway). I miss my sister and probably always will. I still work two jobs, I am often exhausted, I am still shabby and somewhat overweight and without male companionship, but I am no longer lonely. I have a family of five—and perhaps I will adopt more. I lost my sister and I still miss her desperately, but she left me a destiny: the cat lady of my neighborhood in Roslindale. It’s something that works for me. I think she knew what she was doing when she bequeathed me her cats. We had always taken care of each other and now I have a little family to fuss over.

Circa 1967

She drove, not too fast, never over the speed limit but not too slowly either—the important thing was not to attract attention. She had the car radio on to the new album the Beatles had just put out,
Revolver.
The DJ was playing it all the way through with interruptions for acne medication, shampoo and beer commercials. She would have liked to turn it up to help her stay awake, but if she did, he might wake up. In the backseat, the man was still sleeping, occasionally moaning or cursing or grunting. It was better when he was asleep. Awake, he made her nervous.

She admired the vets against the war, admired those like her charge who refused to go back. The feds would call him a deserter but she saw him as someone driven by guilt and courage into an unknown life, where he could only hope for shelter—once she got him across the border. But he was a little scary, she admitted to herself. She knew that almost all of them, the deserters she helped, not the ones who were avoiding the draft, had serious drug problems and sometimes seemed crazed. Her job was just to get him to Canada tonight. She had done this five times before: three times for men fleeing the draft—whose number had been
called up—and twice before tonight for guys who simply could not bear to go back to Vietnam.

She was a good choice because she was a woman, her comrades in the anti-war movement said, and because she had an old Volvo. Activists who lived in Manhattan were unlikely to own cars—it was like having an elephant for a pet. Where could you keep it that didn’t cost more than your rent? But she had an apartment in the basement of a brownstone in Park Slope and she could park on the street. The car had belonged to her husband, but when she got too involved in the Movement and he left, he gave her the old car. Bought himself a newer one. Got himself a newer squeeze who didn’t drive to Canada in the middle of the night risking arrest. She had two lovers, but neither of them lived with her. One was better in bed and the other was better out of bed; together they made one good boyfriend. After all, nobody could satisfy all of another person’s needs and desires. Better to patch things together and blunder on. Her ex hadn’t been good either way the last couple of years.

He was beginning to stir in the back seat and she was getting low on gas. They were just across the border into Vermont, still on 91. She’d watch for a station open twenty-four hours, probably a truck stop. She had to pee anyhow. All that coffee was on its way through her. When she did one of these runs to Canada, she tanked up, since she wanted to arrive around dawn near the border. Few people awake and stirring, little traffic but visibility okay.

Her usual Movement job was draft counseling. That was more comfortable. She’d sit across a table in the Peace and Freedom office or if the client—she called them clients—was not comfortable going there, she’d meet them in a coffee shop. She’d ask, “How much do you want to stay out of Vietnam? Because if you really want to, I can tell you how to fail your physical and be let go. But if you don’t want it desperately enough, you won’t do what you have to.” She
explained how to act gay; how to act crazy; how to shock enough to get out. Often she could tell by the man or boy’s reaction to her suggestions if the guy had the courage or the willingness to act against all convention and acceptable behavior. If a guy wanted to avoid the draft enough, she could help. By the time they left, she had a pretty good idea if they were going into the meat grinder. She could not force them to act on her scenarios. She did not try to talk them into it. It had to be their own choice. But sometimes she wanted to weep. Come on, she pleaded silently, an hour of shameless behavior or walking into the jungle to kill or be killed in somebody else’s country where you don’t speak the language, don’t know the customs, don’t belong. Come back with trauma and drug habits you can’t deal with. Destroy your family. Be haunted the rest of your life. Please cross the line of acceptable behavior and save your life.

His voice broke her out of her reverie. “No,” she answered. “We have many miles to go, all the way north through Vermont to the border. I’m watching for an open station for gas.” She glanced at him, his knees drawn up toward his belly as if to protect it. He was lanky and thin and, of course, nervous.

When she saw the lights for an open truck stop, she took the ramp. After getting gas, she pulled into a spot. She had to use the bathroom and so did he. She hoped he looked normal. He had been wearing fatigues when they met, but she had provided him with civilian clothing that almost fit. They collected clothes at rummage sales kept in a box in the office.

He returned smoking and got into the front seat. “Do they have American cigarettes in Canada?”

“I don’t know … I’d imagine so, but I don’t smoke.” She had stopped when her husband left. It saved money and a cough she had developed scared her. Now his smoke bothered her, but she suspected it would be even tenser if she
asked him not to. Instead she cracked her window about an inch.

“If you’re going to keep that fucking window open, turn on the heat.”

“The cold helps keep me awake. Alert. The heater doesn’t work well. I actually have it on.”

He grunted. “You should get it fixed. Damn cold tonight.”

“The guy in the garage said it had to be replaced, but this is an old car and parts are hard to come by.” And she didn’t have the money. In the Movement, many things came free: her dentist, her doctor didn’t charge her. But the mechanic did.

He nodded and was silent for maybe fifteen minutes. Then he put his hand on her knee. “I’m beat. Want to stop at a motel? We could drive on after we take it easy, what do you say? Have a little fun.”

“I have to work tomorrow. Have to be back before nine.”

His hand began to work its way upward. She grabbed it and the car swerved. “I’m married, if you didn’t notice.” With men she didn’t know, she put on her old wedding ring. It felt clumsy and bothered her in a minor way, its unaccustomed pressure on her finger reminding her of what she preferred to forget.

“Okay, okay. Don’t drive into a ditch.” He took his hand away and lit another cigarette from the stub in his mouth. Then he turned the radio louder. She was glad of that. It avoided having to talk. That passed an hour. Then the DJ changed and it was ’50s songs she hated. Obviously so did he, because he shut the radio off. She had to make conversation. She noticed he had a nervous tic of scratching the back of his hands. They looked raw.

“Where are you from, originally?”

“Marquette. That’s in the Upper Peninsula.”

Michigan. She knew that much, even though she’d grown up in Rochester, New York. “They say you’re born on skis.”

He gave a brief snort of a laugh. “Yeah. You’d think I’d be used to the cold. I guess I was. But not anymore.”

“Do you wish you could go back home?”

He was silent for a bit. “Yeah. My folks are there. Three brothers, two sisters and my ma.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Dead. Mining accident.” He turned to stare out the side window into the darkness.

“A mine explosion?”

“You’re thinking of coal mines. This is an open mine. A truck backed over him.”

“I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

“I think he was too hung over to hear it coming.” He shrugged. “I was seven. I barely remember him. Just bits and pieces.” He was silent for a bit and she tried to think of something less painful to ask. Then he shook his head. “That’s when we moved to Marquette from near the mine. Mom got a job cleaning. She held the family together.”

A police car was sitting on the side of the highway. She slowed down a little more, watching in the rear view mirror until it was out of sight.

She didn’t really like to learn much about the guys she ferried. If she got to know them, she would worry what they were going to do in Canada, how it would work out for them, how they would manage never seeing their families again, how they would make a living. The more real she let them become, the more they would nibble at her brain, worrying, wondering. Once she drove off, she would never hear of them again, unless something went terribly wrong and they appeared in the newspaper or on the evening news. An occasional one couldn’t take the isolation, the strangeness of it all and tried to come back. Usually they were caught. But his suggestion of a motel had unnerved her and she thought it safest to keep him talking. She thought of it as grounding him, giving him context, keeping him calm and distracted.

“What made you join the Army? Were you drafted?”

“My number came up. My brother Nolan already went, but he’s a mechanic so he just works on trucks and jeeps and stuff. Sandy, my oldest bro, he’s married with two kids and he’s safe. Neil has a funny heart, like it skips beats, so they didn’t take him. I wished I had that, I guess.”

Atrial fibrillation? “Which one are you closest to?”

“Neil. Cause he’s just a year and a half younger. Always looked out for him at school. So he wouldn’t get beat up, you know. He was never no good at sports.”

“What did you play?”

“Basketball and track. I was good at sprinting. Came in second in a hundred-yard dash in all state.”

She was beginning to taste her fatigue, bile in the mouth. Her eyelids felt swollen and heavy. She had eaten a hasty supper at six and her stomach was growling, but she did not want to risk stopping in a well-lighted place. Best to keep going. His head lolling on his shoulder, he slumped in his seat, dozing, waking, dozing again.

“How much farther?”

“Another hour will do it.”

In the east, the sky was streaked with grey. The dark was thinner, more watery-looking. About the only traffic were trucks also bound for Canada. “Do you speak French?” she asked him, already sure of the answer.

“French? No. Why?” He shook his head rapidly to wake himself.

“They speak French in Quebec. So head west to Toronto. Get into Ontario, anyhow.”

“I was thinking about Windsor. It’s right across the river from Detroit. Always looked neat and clean when I saw it.”

“That’s a long way. And too near the border. That’s a major crossing. Toronto is better. There’s guys like you there. They’ll help you.”

He was silent, staring out the side window. Perhaps the
realization was hitting him how alone he would be in a strange country. She tried not to think about it. Her job was just to get him across the border safely.

“We get off the interstate here.” She used Derby Line, where the border ran down the main street. They got stuck behind a slow logging truck but then he turned off and she could hurry again. Her hands had begun to turn clammy on the wheel. She always had visions in her head of the old Volvo breaking down on one of these roads and she and her charge ending up in police custody. It had begun lightly snowing, just a few dry desultory flakes as if the sky had dandruff. A police car with lights flashing had somebody just before Derby Line. She checked her speedometer. Just under the speed limit. Still she couldn’t bring herself to speak until she stopped watching for that cop in her rear view mirror.

“Now, what’s your name?”

He started to say his real name and she interrupted, “Your traveling name.”

“James Royce … Makes me feel like I’m in a spy movie.”

“Why are you in Canada?”

“I’m going to Manitoba to see my aunt who married a Canadian.”

“Where in Manitoba?”

“Winna something or other.”

“Winnipeg.”

“Are you a teacher or something?”

She grimaced. “I’m the person who’s trying to get you into safety.”

“Safety …” He thought about that, looking out the window again. The darkness was grainier. She hoped the snow would hold off. Footprints in new snow worried her. “I don’t believe in that anymore.”