The News of the World

FOR

C
AROL
H
OUCK
S
MITH

I

II

III

THE
author wishes to thank the National Endowment for the Arts for its generous support.

I

I DIDN'T
know until I had the ten-ton wet carpet on top of the hideous load of junk and I was soaked with the dank rust water that the Governor's Ball was that night. It was late afternoon and I had wrestled the carpet out of our basement, with all my strength and half my anger, to use it as a cover so none of the other wet wreckage that our burst pipes had ruined would blow out of the truck onto Twenty-first South as I drove to the dump. The wind had come up and my shirt front was stiffening as Cody pulled up the driveway in her Saab.

“You're a mess,” she said. “Is the plumber through?”

“Done and gone. We can move back in tomorrow afternoon.”

“We've got the ball in two hours.”

“Okay.”

“Could we not be late for once,” Cody said. It was the first time I had stood still all day, and I felt how wet my feet were; I wanted to fight, but I couldn't come up with anything great. “I've got your clothes and everything. Come along.”

“No problem,” I said, grabbing the old rope off the cab floor.

“You're not going to take that to the dump now, are you?”

“Cody,” I said, going over to her window, “I just loaded this. If I leave it on the truck tonight, one of the tires will go flat, and you'll have to help me unload this noxious residue tomorrow so I can change it. I've got to go. I'll hurry. You just be ready.”

Her window was up by the time I finished and I watched her haul the sharp black car around and wheel into traffic. Since the pipes had frozen, we were staying with Dirk and Evan.

The old Ford was listing hard to the right rear, so I skipped back into the house for a last tour. Except for the sour water everywhere, it looked like I had everything. Then I saw the mattress. I had thrown the rancid king-size mattress behind the door when I had first started and now as I closed the front of the house, there it was. It was so large I had overlooked it. Our original wedding mattress. It took all the rest of my anger and some of tomorrow's strength to hoist it up the stairs and dance it out the back, where I levered it onto the hood of the truck by forcing my face, head, and shoulders into the ocher stain the shape of South America on one side. Then I dragged it back over the load, stepping awkwardly in the freezing carpet.

The rear tire was even lower now, so I hustled, my wet feet sloshing, and tied the whole mess down with the rope, lacing it through the little wire hoops I'd fashioned at each corner of the truck bed.

There was always lots of play in the steering of the Ford, but now, each time it rocked backward, I had no control at all. My fingers were numb and the truck was so back-heavy that I careened down Fifth South like a runaway wheelbarrow. The wind had really come up now, and I could feel it lifting at me as I crossed the intersections. It was cold in the cab, the frigid air crashing through the hole where the radio had been, but I wasn't stopping. I'd worried my way to the dump in this great truck a dozen times.

The Governor's Ball is two hundred dollars per couple, but we went every year as Dirk's guests. The event itself is held at the Hotel Utah, and the asparagus and salmon are never bad, but holding a dress ball in January is a sort of mistake, all that gray cleavage, everyone sick of the weather.

I was thinking about how Dirk always seated himself by Cody, how he made sure she was taken care of, how they danced the first dance, when the light at Third West turned green and I mounted the freeway. As soon as I could, I squeezed way right to get out of everybody's way, and because the wind here was fierce, sheering across at forty miles per hour, at least. The old truck was rocking like a dinghy; I was horsing the steering wheel hard, trying to stay in my lane, when I felt something go. There was a sharp snap and in the rearview mirror I saw the rope whip across the back. The mattress rose like a playing card and jumped up, into the wind. It sailed left off the truck, waving over the rail, and was gone. I checked the rear, slowing. The mattress had flown out and over and off the ramp, five stories to the ground. I couldn't see a thing, except that rope, snapping, and the frozen carpet which wasn't going anywhere.

The traffic around me all slowed, cautioned by this vision. I tried to wave at them as if I knew what was going on and everything was going to be all right. At the Twenty-first South exit, I headed west, letting the rope snap freely, as if whipping the truck for more speed.

The dump, lying in the lea of the Kennecott tailings mound, was strangely warm. Throwing the debris onto the mountain of trash, I could smell certain sweet things rotting, and my feet warmed up a bit. By the time I swept out the truck, it was full dark. I still had half an hour to make the Governor's Ball.

I hit it hard driving away from the dump, just like everybody does, hoping to blow the microscopic cooties from their vehicles, but when I got back to Ninth West, I turned off. I didn't want to go retrieve the mattress; it was nine years old and had been in the basement three. But I had lost it. I had to call Cody.

The first neon I ran across was a place called The Oasis, a bar among all the small industries in that district. Inside, it was smotheringly warm and beery. I hadn't realized how cold my hands were until I tried for the dime in the pay phone. The jukebox was at full volume on Michael Jackson singing “Beat It!” so that when Cody answered, the first thing she said was: “Where are you?”

“I lost the mattress; I'm going to be late.”

“What?”

“Go along with Dirk; I'll join you. Don't let anybody eat my salmon.”

“Where are you?”

“The mattress blew out of the truck; I've got to go get it. And Cody.”

“What?”

“Behave.”

It was not until I had hung up that I saw the dancer. They had built a little stage in the corner of the bar and a young girl wearing pasties and a pair of Dale Evans fringed panties was dancing to the jukebox. Her breasts were round and high and didn't bounce very much, though they threw nice shadows when the girl turned under the light. I sat in my own sour steam at the end of the bar and ordered a beer. My fingernails ached as my hands warmed. All the men along the row sat with their backs to the bar to see the girl. I sat forward, feeling the grime melt in my clothes, and watched her in the mirror.

When the song ended, there was some applause, but only from two tables, and the lights on the stage went off. The barmaid was in front of me and I said
no, thanks,
and then she turned a little and said, “What would you like, Terry?”

I realized that the dancer was standing at my elbow. Now she was wearing a lacy fringed pajama top too, and I could see that she was young, there was a serious pimple above one of her eyebrows. I didn't know I was staring at her until she said: “Don't even
try
to buy me a drink.” I started to put up my hands, meaning I was no harm, when she added: “I've seen your kind before. Why don't you go out and do some good?”

The barmaid looked at me as if I had started the whole thing, and before I could speak, she moved down to serve the other end.

It was a long walk to the truck, but I made it. January. The whole city had cabin fever. She'd seen my kind before. Not
me
: my
kind.
The old truck was handling better now, and I conducted it back along Ninth West to Ninth South and started hunting. I'd never been under that on-ramp before, except for one night when Cody took me to the Barb Wire, a western bar where we watched all her young lawyer friends dance with the cowboys. In the dark, the warehouses made their own blank city. It was eight o'clock. Cody and Dirk were having cocktails in the Lafayette Suite. She'd be drinking vodka tonics with two limes. Dirk would be drinking scotch without any ice. He would have the Governor's elbow in his left palm right now, steering him around to Cody, “You remember Cody Westerman. Her husband is at the dump.”

I crossed under the ramp at Fourth West and weaved under it to the corner of Fifth, where I did a broad, slow U-turn across the railroad tracks to scan the area. Nothing. Two derelicts leaned against the back of a blue post office van, drinking out of a paper sack. I cruised slowly up beside them.

“Hi, you guys,” I said. It was the first time all day I felt fine about being so dirty. They looked at me frankly, easily, as if this meeting had been arranged. One, his shirt buttoned up under his skinny chin, seemed to be chewing on something. The other had the full face of an Indian, and I was surprised to see she was a woman. They both wore short blue cloth Air Force jackets with the insignias missing.

“Have you seen a mattress?”

The woman said something and turned to the man.

“What did she say? Have you seen one?”

The man took a short pull on the bottle and continued chewing. “She said,
what kind of mattress is it
?” He passed the bottle to the woman and she smiled at me.

I thought: Okay. What kind of mattress is it. Okay, I can do this. “It was a king-size Sealy Posturepedic.”

“King-size?”

“Yes: King-size. Have you seen it?”

He took the bottle back from the woman and nodded at me.

“You have? Where?”

“Would this king-size postropeeda fly out of the sky?” the man said. His eyes were bright; this was the best time he'd had all day.

“It would.”

“What's it worth to you?” he said.

“Nothing, folks. I was throwing it away.”

“You threw it all right!” the woman said, and they both laughed.

I waited, one arm on the steering wheel, but then I saw the truth: these two were champion waiters; that's what they did for a living.

“Where's the mattress? Come on. Please.”