The Crossroads (15 page)

“Okay, Mrs. Paris. You want it in a hurry?”

“No. Any time this evening, thanks.”

She went into the station. Marty Simmons was checking the register tape. He straightened up and smiled at her with genuine pleasure. “Hi, Joan! Sometimes I don’t see you for weeks any more. Not like the old days.”

Marty was a bald, stocky man in his fifties, with hound dog wrinkles and dewlaps. He had come with them thirty years ago. He was honest and sincere and energetic. As manager of the two stations north of the interchange, and the more extensive service facilities at Truck Haven, there was no need for him to wear the service station uniform. But, like an old coach, he felt more comfortable suited up. When there was a rush at any station and he
happened to be there, he would step in and pump gas, scrub windshields.

“How are you, Marty? How’s that talented daughter of yours?”

“Mary Lee’s got a scholarship to study in Rome next year.”

“I heard about that. I think it’s wonderful.”

“We wondered about letting her go so far. But she’s not a crazy kid any more. It’ll be a tremendous experience. I don’t know where she gets it. Sally and me, we can’t even carry a tune. Bucky’s working on the road this summer. Big muscles for football. That’s all he wants. Tommy’s going in the Navy. They grow up too damn fast, Joan. They really do.”

“It hardly seems possible. How’s Pete doing?”

Marty said, with telltale heartiness, “He’s working out just fine. He comes up with some real good ideas. He’s quite a kid. He’ll keep you laughing
all
the time.”

Just then the one she had been waiting for came into the station. She saw the name embroidered over his pocket. Glenn. She looked at the heavy-featured, superficially handsome face, the long sideburns, the careful cut and comb of the thick glossy hair. He said, very politely and pleasantly, “Good evening, Mrs. Paris.”

“Good evening, Glenn,” she said, and felt herself undressed by one quick sweep of his mockingly respectful eyes. She knew that he had waited on her a few times, but she had not been particularly aware of him. He fixed the credit slip quickly and hurried out for the customer’s signature. A stud animal, she thought, vain, ignorant, arrogant, potentially a troublemaker. Marty’s weakest point as manager was selection of personnel.

“How long has he been with us?” she asked casually.

“A little over six months. Glenn is one of the best I got. He’s got a lot of hustle. And when it’s slow, he doesn’t lounge around. He keeps the place hosed off and shined up.”

“Get along well with the other boys?”

“Not too good. I guess it’s just because he makes them look bad. I just changed him from the day shift.”

“Why?”

“He wanted to change. Said he had to have a lot of work done on his teeth and it was easier to set up dentist appointments for early afternoon.”

“Couldn’t you give him time off for that?”

“I told him I could, but he said he didn’t like to ask for favors like that, and besides he said he wanted to get the experience of working the late shift for a while. He’s anxious to get ahead, that boy is.”

“Maybe you ought to try to find out how much hustle he’s got when you’re not around, Marty.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, I guess. Nothing at all. What’s his full name?”

“Glenn Lawrenz. Lives in Walterburg. Drives back and forth in a red Ford convertible he souped up himself.”

“With echo cans, I suppose,” she said acidly.

“Yeah. I guess it’s got those.”

On that same Wednesday evening at six-thirty, Nancy Drovek was stretched out on her bed, talking over the phone. “I honestly couldn’t face it, Billy, really. You have no idea. I’ve spent three days at an utter dead run after getting up with birds, yet. My feet feel like hot sponges with needles in them. The very idea of dancing makes me go
gaah
. I don’t get a day off until Saturday, and then right back into the track meet on Sunday. I promised my male parent I’d last out the summer. I’m even too poohed to go eat, actually. The other gals keep telling me I’ll get used to it, but right now I’m just one big solid ache. You have no idea.”

She suddenly heard a crash of glass in the kitchen.

“I’ve got to hang up now,” she said hastily. “You keep calling me, Billy. Maybe I’ll get my second wind or something. ’Bye.”

She shoved her feet into her slippers, and hurried to the kitchen, buttoning her blouse. The kitchen stank of raw bourbon. Clara was making ineffectual dabs at the shards of glass with a broom.

“Motherrr!” Nancy said and hurried to her. “I’ll take
care of it, doll. You’re in your bare feet! Where are your slippers? You’ll cut your feet to ribbons!”

“Slipped … out of my hand,” Clara mumbled.

Nancy tugged at her arm, got her turned around, led her into the living room and got her seated on the couch. She squatted, lifted Clara’s feet by the ankles, carefully inspected the soles of her feet and found she had not cut herself. The slippers were there, and she put them on.

“Getting a drink,” Clara said and started to get up again.

Nancy pushed her back. “Rest easy, doll. I’ll get it.”

“No … no ice,” Clara said.

“I know, Mother.” She went back to the kitchen. Clara’s glass was on the drainboard. She took a fresh bottle from the cupboard, peeled the seal off, poured an inch in the bottom of the tumbler, filled the glass two-thirds full with tap water. She took it back in, made certain Clara’s hand was firm on the glass before she let go. “There you are.”

“Thank you. Is it … too hard work for you down there?”

Nancy was astonished. She had told Clara about the job, but had felt that Clara hadn’t comprehended.

“It’s not too hard, Mother.”

“That’s good.”

Nancy suddenly realized what was so unusual. The television set was off. “Don’t you want the television on?”

“No!” she said with unexpected quickness and force.

“All right, doll.”

Nancy went out to the kitchen, cleaned up all the glass, sponged up the spilled liquor. She kept thinking of her mother sitting in there, absolutely alone, slow thoughts moving in her head. It was kind of creepy.

She rinsed out the plastic sponge. Suddenly, as she stood by the sink, there was a knotting in her throat and a stinging in her eyes. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes. I will never be drunk, she told herself. I will never never never be drunk my whole life. Not one time. Never. Tears came through her closed lids, heavy on her lashes. Her vow had the strength of a revelation.
She had made it many times before. There was no anger left, or disgust. The only thing left was a sort of protective tolerance. Daddy said it was a sickness. If you thought of it as sickness, it was not so bad. This was a house of sickness. Quiet, shadowy and still.

Clara sat in the dim evening light of the living room, listening to the choir. It was a choir of a thousand male and female voices, singing religious music, not hymns, but those strong choral things of Bach. She could never hear the choir with complete distinctness. It was as though there was some unknown wind that dimmed the sounds, making it so clear at times she could hear the splendid soaring of the sopranos, the chanting of the basses. Then it would fade. She had been hearing it for a long time, over the sound of the television. If the television was loud enough, music would blank out the thousand voices. But she knew they sang even when she could not hear them, because as soon as the music stopped they were there again, soaring over and around and through the voice of the announcer.

It had seemed to her odd that no one else could hear them. But she was canny enough not to mention them, and risk a return to That Place. Sometimes she enjoyed the voices, but most of the time they frightened her. They never began until the afternoon, and they were very faint at first, just a wisp, a torn fragment. But then the wind changed and they became more clear. In the evening they were strong, shouting of the glory of God.

She sat and listened to them, and sipped the tepid drink. Yesterday afternoon somebody had brought mail for Charles. It was on the kitchen counter. She had gone to make a drink. She had looked at it, idly. The letter on top was not stamped. It was to Charles. It said
Personal
.

Back in the living room she thought of the reasons why it should say
Personal
. And she became convinced it had something to do with the choir and going back to That Place again, back to vomiting and sharp needles and all that trembling.

So she had opened it. It was hard to read it. She could
not seem to pay attention to it. She knew what every word was, but the words did not seem to fit together. She read it many, many times. When she could understand part of what it meant, she hid it, and said nothing to Charles about it. Now all she could remember of it was one part. And she could remember that clearly.

She got up from the couch and walked over to the bookshelf and took down the ornate and handsome Bible she had been given on her sixteenth birthday. She took it back to the couch. If Charles should come in, she could be reading her Bible. It opened to the letter. She took it out of the envelope. By turning it toward the window she could make out the words. It seemed to be about people she had never heard of, things she did not understand. But they were important things.

After she had replaced the letter and Bible on the shelf she found that she could remember only that one part.
It might be easier for me, my darling, if I could manage to hate her because of the way she has you so completely trapped. But I cannot hate her, even though she stands squarely in the way of the fullness of our love. I pity all three of us, but perhaps I pity her the most. Of the three of us, she is the one without love, you know. With love, you and I can never be completely defeated. Poor Clara
.

I, she thought, am Poor Clara. And that is what the choir sings about. That is what I must understand. So I must listen. Understand what the music means. That’s what they called me long ago when I went to live in their big house. Poor Clara.

The choir sang. She suddenly realized the room was entirely dark and her glass had been empty for a long time. She got up and turned the lamp on, shuffled out to the kitchen and fixed a drink, careful to hold the bottle tightly.

Glory!
the voices sang.
Glor-reee!
GLOR-REEEEE! The sopranos were tinglingly high and clear and sweet, their throbbing throats opened wide.

In the High-eye-est
, chanted the male voices.
All-my-eye-teeeee
, sang the contraltos and altos and tenors.

CLARA they all sang together, a mighty diapason, a full rich chord that lasted her all the way back to the living room before it faded completely away.

SEVEN

On Thursday, the twenty-eighth day of June, in the Ace Cabin farthest from the highway, Sylvia Drovek, in pale-blue panties and bra, her dark hair tangled, small beads of moisture on her low forehead and her dusky upper lip, sat on Mark Brodey’s cot at four-thirty and watched him as he paced nervously and exuberantly back and forth in the small area, stripped to the waist, his corded back muscles rippling whenever he thumped his hard fist into his palm.

“I keep telling you and telling you over and over,” she said.

He stopped and looked at her. “And you’ll keep telling me as long as I keep asking. Right?”

“Sure, Mark. I don’t mind. Honest.”

He began pacing again. “I didn’t think he’d bite so damn fast. And so complete. You sure he’s not kidding you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You make damn sure tomorrow night when you’re with him.”

“Okay, Mark.”

“Like I told you, he may try to get ideas of his own. Don’t let him push you around. Make him do it my way. Your way. The old man gets his check around the twentieth every month. Right? And he’s in a sweat to get down to the bank. So we can almost figure on Chip driving him in on Monday, the twenty-third. In the middle of the morning. Set it up so you’ll have a number to call where the punk will be. He tears off to the bank. He’s
got a lot of time to get them used to him between now and then.”

He stopped pacing and faced her. “Between now and then I’ll find the place where he’s to pick you up, after he’s got the cash. He might get some funny idea about running with it, by himself. Let him know that if he doesn’t show, the cops will get a tip by phone who to look for. I’ll find a good quiet place. You and me, we’ll be there waiting for him.”

“You aren’t going to … do anything to him?”

He looked at her with disgust. “Yes, I’m going to do something to him, baby. You are going to give me a chance to get close enough to him to rap him on the head. I’m going to tie him up and leave him in his car. You and I are going to drive back into Walterburg in your car, and we are going to the airport and get on an airplane with the money and take off. We’ll be packed and ready, baby. And by then I’ll have tickets lined up. And you’ll leave a note for your hubby telling how you’re taking off with the punk. By the time they locate him, we’ll be south of the border, living it up. So tomorrow night you tell him you’ll decide later where he’s to pick you up. He’s to think you two are taking off in that convertible of his, and leaving your car where it won’t be found in a hurry.”

“All right, Mark,” she said hesitantly.

He sat beside her and noticed the way she shrank away from him involuntarily. It pleased him. He picked up her hand quite gently. He said in a soft voice, “You don’t seem happy enough, cutie. I want you should be real hopped up about this. All smiles. And I certainly wouldn’t want you to get any funny ideas. You know what I’d do to you?”

“I’ll do just what you say, Mark.”

“Here’s what I’d do, cutie.” He tapped her very lightly on the nose with his fist. “No matter how far or fast you’d run, I’d find you. And I’d flatten that cute little nose.” He tapped her on the chin, grinning. “And fix you up for a set of store teeth.” He gave a tug at her hair. “Shave you bald as an egg.” He thumped her solidly
on the bare thigh. “Break up both those cute legs, and leave you in a dirty ditch for the birds.”