Читать книгу Flood Moon - Chuck Radda - Страница 8

Unlike my approach to Walter's "Lunch," this time I rang the bell. Before I could step back and allow a reasonable space to develop between anyone inside and me, the door swung open, revealing a woman in a green flannel floor-length housecoat, zippered to the chin.

"Thought I heard someone," she said, "but I couldn't imagine who'd be out on a night like this."

"I guess I would, ma'am." I said, and immediately felt stupid. Ma'am is what the polite folks in Dodge City called women in the reruns my father used to watch and maybe still does. This was not Dodge City; I wasn't that polite; she was not a ma'am.

"I'm looking for a Mrs. O'Leary."

She nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'm Mrs. O'Leary."

A Miss maybe, or a Ms., but she sure as hell didn't look like some crotchety hermit or frustrated schoolmarm who had chosen to hole up in a town that time had, if not forgotten, certainly misplaced. Nor was she some misshapen matron with the corpse of a former lover decomposing in her bed. No, the closest she would ever come to a Faulkner story is maybe reading one. And forget that Chicago woman with the malevolent cow. Walter Trucks's trailing words came back to me: she's not an old woman. He was right. My hastily carved mental image had crumbled and left the residue somewhere in the puddles behind me.

Even in the half-light between her doorway and the street, I thought I saw her eyes quaver, partially hidden as they were behind small lenses in thin red frames—a style that would have been right at home on any high school sophomore who had suddenly become incurably cute, or thought she was. And her complexion looked, well, it looked young. I understand how makeup can work its magic in the hands of an experienced user, but her youthfulness seemed natural. Had I passed her on the street, I'd have guessed she was thirty, but her situation—isolated in a place like Sage, and that tinge of gray, and that "bad time" in her past—she had to be closer to my age. Either way, my goofily contrived plan to play on the sympathies of an old woman, to pass myself off as the lost and lonely "kid" on his own, turned out to be farcical. Let me review here: so far I had chosen the wrong night, the wrong weather, the wrong clothing, the wrong shoes, and the wrong plan. And I wasn't even counting the wrong bus that almost ran off the road because the wrong mountain goat wandered into its path.

So far so good.

She removed the glasses and twirled them in her right hand for a second or two, then said, "Well, since you're out there, may I ask why you're out there?"

"I've just come from Walter Trucks's," I said, pointing meaninglessly behind me and realizing that dropping his name was no different from having him accompany me. "He said there might be a room for me in your…in the motel."

She put her glasses on again, as if to study me more closely—to find the lie I had just tried to sneak by. "Did he say that? That sounds more like something Brenda would say. She has a somewhat cheerier temperament. Seems to me Walter would say the opposite."

"Must be tough to keep a secret in this town," I said.

"It's not a secret."

"You're right," I said. "Let me start over: Mr. Trucks said there probably would not be a room."

"He's right: there would not be. But since you came here anyway, who are you?"

"I'm Calvin Hopper, ma'am."

Jesus, again with the ma'am'?

"It's nice to meet you, Calvin," she said. "So you need a room?"

"Yes. How did you know Brenda recommended you?"

"I'm not psychic, Calvin. That bus comes through here only to make a drop. It came through here this evening. Brenda drives the bus. Brenda knows me. I've never seen you before. You knew enough to come here looking for a room. Like I said, I'm not psychic."

She allowed me enough room to stand just inside the doorway half out of the weather, but she did not seem willing to grant me any more access.

"Calvin Hopper, huh?

"Yes."

"Calvin—not a very common name when you were born, I'd say mid-sixties. Do people call you Calvin?"

"Cal, usually."

"I'll call you Calvin," she said, then added without altering her expression or taking much of a breath, "I'm not going to rent you a room."

"Well, at least you've saved me a lot of needless haggling."

She showed a faint but pretty smile.

"I just don't rent," she said, "but you knew that, right?"

I nodded, then did the only reasonable thing I could without violating Walter Trucks's constraint against bothering Mrs. O'Leary. I took out my wallet. "I can pay."

"Well Lord almighty I would hope so. I don't give rooms away, when I'm renting that is. I'm just not renting tonight."

"Will you be renting tomorrow night?"

Then she actually did smile, not a smile with which anyone would associate any mirth, but maybe some mental pleasure.

"I might be, would that help?"

"Not really," I said, "Do you know of anyone else with a room, maybe an abandoned chicken coop or a root cellar? Maybe a mushroom farm?"

"I didn't know you were that choosy. There might be a crawl space or two around, unheated, but I wouldn't know where."

"Then it's the bus kiosk for me. Thanks for your time."

I turned to leave but she stopped me. "Now wait, Calvin, there's a boarding house not far from Walter's place."

"Really? He never mentioned it."

"That's because it's probably full."

"How do you know that?"

"It's always full," she said. "There's a resort outside of town and many of the workers stay at the boarding house. It's cheap. It's clean."

"But it's full."

"Always, every room but one, and a dog uses that one."

"And I suppose he gets some sort of animal discount?"

"It's the owner's Rottweiler," she said. "Pretty gentle, but I wouldn't want to fight him for space. Now Mike Alderman down the end of the street would let you bunk with him, but you would literally have to bunk with him."

I didn't her for a clarification; I was reasonably certain what she meant.

"He might give you the top," she said, "but I wouldn't count on it. Plus they say he farts like a cannon."

I laughed, but I was more frustrated than amused. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You're new in town. How could you know that Mike Alderman has a flatulence problem? It's not out there on the Internet, not yet anyway. And if you found out tomorrow that there's a boarding house in town and I didn't tell you, you'd be angry. Why don't you sit for a minute. I hate to have you go back out into the rain like that."

"Then rent me a room—we'll both feel better."

"I'm sorry, Calvin," she said, but didn't close the door.

I found the combination of concern for my welfare and refusal to advance it unsettling, but I came in. Baby steps, maybe, temporary shelter from the elements. Some hope for the following night—if I survived this one. I really couldn't envision sleeping in that kiosk, but I thought maybe I could wheedle some space out of Walter Trucks, maybe push some chairs together. Of course I had to get back there before he too turned off the lights.

"I think I'm wasting your time," I said, mustering all the politeness I could, "and I need to find a place. You mentioned some resort outside of town?"

I think some of my frustration showed through when I spit out the last part of that sentence, because she seemed a little taken aback. "Just wait a while," she said, and her tone was more amicable. "Let's figure this out."

She pointed to a wooden rocker near the front window, then left the room. I sat.

"Where do you come from?" she yelled from, apparently, the kitchen. I heard pans rattling, but her voice rose over them, raspy but strong.

"Massachusetts."

"Long way to come…"

"…to end up here," I said.

"That's kind of what I meant."

She came back in with two cups and saucers.

"I'm making tea."

"Can I get that to go?"

"Just hold on, Cal. I can drive you where you need to be, but…just hold on."

"If Walter turns in for the night…."

"Then I'll wake him up. Odd hours don't bother him, if he sleeps at all."

I nodded, rocking slowly like the old woman in that famous painting. I kept trying to find some sympathy in her voice, sympathy that might translate into a change of rental policy. I was grasping at flimsy straws, but I had only the flimsiest: she hadn't thrown me out yet.

She sat opposite me on the couch: a red crushed velvet monstrosity like one that my mother had thrown away when I was still young enough to trampoline on it—had thrown away because I had trampolined on it, a little too wildly I guess. Everything else, including a threadbare recliner and a few lamps could have come from a lawn sale—with one notable exception. In the corner near the kitchen door stood a jumble of stereo components flanked by speakers that must have been five feet tall. I had downsized over the years and settled for my phone and a Bluetooth device; even so, I knew state-of-the-art audiophile products when I saw them. While others had reduced their music collection to a flash drive and some earbuds, Mrs. O'Leary had retained that twentieth century attitude that music should be seen as well as heard.

She had apparently lowered the volume when I arrived, but I recognized the piece, all those near silences swelling into huge fanfares.

"That's Bruckner," I said. "His third symphony, right?

"Yes, it is. How do you know that?" It was the first time I sensed any emotion in her voice.

"I just know," I said.

"Did you see the label or something?"

"A label. I remember labels, vaguely. But no, I didn't see it. I have all of them on CD."

That wasn't exactly true. Everything I claim to "have" actually sits in that second-story rented storage shed back east, a cold and odious twelve by twelve cell with overhead door access, no heat, and no electricity. Pearson, conscientious attorney that he is, assured me he would check on my things once a month; but aside from paying my bills, I don't think he's concerning himself with my paperbacks, a few cartons of mementos, several boxes of clothes and shoes, my dictionary of synonyms, and my CD and record collection.

So I kind of have them, and so did she.

"Bet you don't have Zero," I said.

"Of course," she said. How could you not collect a Symphony Number Zero? So you actually know Bruckner, huh? How did that happen?"

"Just kind of got into it," I said, and condensed my story of losing interest in rock during the MTV-eighties—of how I felt more and more removed from the musical mainstream every time I turned on the television. I reverted to the classics: my parents' Beethoven and Brahms mingled with my Styx and REO Speedwagon. (My folks liked all kinds of music too. I once heard my father humming "Mr. Roboto," though when he realized I was within earshot, he stopped.) When I returned to those serious musical roots, I went away from the classics, and gravitated towards Mahler, Wagner, Bruckner.

"The romantics," she said when I'd finished.

"Some of the music is a little schmaltzy," I admitted, "but it doesn't make me like it any less. How about you?"

"My husband liked it; I figured I should too, and eventually I did. He left but by then I was hooked."

He left. I liked the cryptic quality of that little sentence. He left. For Hawaii? Leavenworth? Tierra del Fuego? Heaven? Whatever the answer, she was able to reduce the end of her relationship to two words. I wondered if I would ever reach that point, when a question about Natalie would induce a similarly casual and impassive response like, we split. I was a little bit unnerved by her nonchalance and I fumbled through some incomprehensible reply until she stopped me.

"Calvin, my husband has been gone a good long while. I can talk about it without weeping or feeling hurt...unless I struck a nerve or something."

"A little. My girlfriend and I split up."

"Girlfriend?"

"I don't much care for the term either. How about lady-friend?"

She laughed. "Better. How long had you been together?"

"Sixteen years."

"Sixteen, really?"

"She was married before and afraid to try it again, at least until her nut case of a husband decided to give it another try."

"No wonder you've escaped to Sage."

"Just getting away for a while."

"Then this is the spot. Calvin, I'm sorry for what happened to you, but sometimes it's better than the alternative—spending the rest of your life with someone who doesn't love you, or you don't love, or both."

She rubbed her palms on her housecoat as if her hands had suddenly become wet, then stood up and walked quickly to the kitchen. That little snippet of dialogue—her little confession or analysis or whatever it was—seemed to have taken her by surprise. I had a feeling that we would not be revisiting the topic any time soon.

"Cream? sugar?" she hollered.

"Just cream," I said. "Actually I almost had a cup of coffee at Walter's."

"Chez Walter," she said, handing me a smallish cup. "He served you eggs, right?"

"He did."

"That's all he really knows how to make. Does a decent job, though he's terrified of overcooking them."

"Mine were a little runny."

"He played it safe. He hasn't really mastered the side dishes though—toast, coffee, salt, pepper. He's a good man."

"And a tall one."

"About six-five," she said.

"Does he live alone over there?"

"He used to take in some boarders on occasion, but he stopped that. He's been here a long time. Found a home."

"And a restaurant, sort of."

"You'd be surprised," she said, "in the summer he does okay. There are a few antique shops around; people come down from Red Lodge and stop on their way to Yellowstone. Walter winds up feeding some of them. Like I said, he's a good man. Come on, Calvin," she said, and without warning stood up, "I want to show you something."

I picked up my cup and we passed through the kitchen and into a hall that led to another connected building. She took out a key, unlocked a door with the decaled numeral 1 on it, and showed me into a dank room with a single bed, a dresser, a chair—and cartons stacked nearly to the ceiling covering every unfurnished square foot of floor space. "This, Calvin, is why I can't rent you a place. By the time we cleared an area for you to sleep, it'd be morning. And if I didn't clear it, I'd violate every fire code in Montana."

"I don't suppose there'd be an inspection tonight...if that's the only reason," I said.

I discerned what might have been head movement—reluctant and unconvincing—but not exactly dismissive. I remembered Walter's admonition that no is no.

"I'll gladly move some stuff now," I said, "or not, It's entirely your call. I can clear a place, then move the rest tomorrow, or, you know."

"Walter must really have read you the riot act. He can be a little over-protective."

I chose not to comment. If she was having second thoughts, I didn't want to interrupt them."

"It's pretty late," she said.

I wondered if my promise to Walter prevented my being abject and slavish. I gave it a shot. "I promise if you let me tough it out tonight, I won't light any candles or burn rubbish in here. I won't even touch anything flammable or think about matches. And if there's a fire marshal in town, I won't mention it to him. Tomorrow I'll move those cartons or look for another place—your call."

She frowned, checked her watch, looked at the boxes.

"Wait here," she said, and left the room. I sat on the edge of the bed, intrigued by all the neatly packed, carefully taped, sporadically unlabeled boxes. When she returned a few minutes later the housecoat was gone in favor of brown cords and a cinnamon colored crew neck sweater. Beneath that shapeless housecoat she had hidden a well-proportioned and athletic body. She looked like a runner, a cyclist, maybe a mountain climber given the surroundings. And on her feet, it almost goes without saying, were the same slippers I'd been wearing at Walter's a short time before. Did anyone in Sage not own a pair? Or a dozen?

For the next forty-five minutes, we hauled boxes from one room to another—actually to three other rooms—all containing similar cartons, odd pieces of furniture, a few small appliances, and even a rack of coats. Although some of the cartons we carried were weighed down with books and magazines, most seemed fairly light—more clothing I figured, possibly her husband's that she couldn't part with, though it was amateurish transference on my part: squirreling away memoirs and agonizing over them—that was me.

With the room finally legally empty I discovered that, besides a door that led into the house, there was one that opened to the outside, windowless and drab with a double lock and a transom. Any natural light that entered that room would have to worm its way through that small pane of frosted glass or either of the two undersized windows on the same wall, each covered with heavy, beige curtains. Between them was a painting of a severe looking, weather-beaten man sitting astride a scruffy, light gray horse. A cigarette dangled languidly from the left corner of his mouth, the smoke trailing this way and that in the evening-calm air. Behind him the moon rose over a dramatic mountain range, snowcapped and forbidding, bathed in purple light. The tarnished brass plate on the frame read "Evening by the Tetons" by someone named Stewart Koss. It was the kind of painting one usually finds propped up against a chainless bicycle at a weekend garage sale back east.

"It's from a motel supply outlet," she said. "Those aren't the Tetons. They don't look like that—you'll see. I guess Mr. Koss was counting on most people never seeing them in person."

"Truth is supposed to be beauty."

"He probably forgot. Are you a poet?"

"The opposite. I'm an English teacher."

"That's the opposite?"

"Poets write the stuff; we suck the life out of it by interpreting it to death."

"You did that?"

"I tried not to. Want to hear my ‘Grecian Urn' lecture on art and artists? I can condense it to three hours."

"Maybe you need a good night's sleep a little more."

"But if I start now, I'd be almost finished by tomorrow."

She smiled and leaned against the door jamb. "I thought poets wrote about love and death? What happened to all that?"

"Not enough love, too much death."

"Poor excuse to just give up."

I laughed. "I had an inkling when I heard Bruckner, but now I know for sure: you're a romantic."

She ignored the accusation.

"And you, Calvin, which do you like better?"

"What do you mean?"

"Of the two," she said, "do you like poems about love better than poems about death?"

"Death," I said, "and dying."

"That must be why they fired you. Too morbid for the kids."

"They didn't fire me. I retired."

"You don't look decrepit enough to retire."

"I just wanted to move on, try something else. Before when you mentioned the Tetons you said ‘you'll see.' Are they nearby?"

"I wouldn't want to walk there. Come on."

We left my room. A few minutes later, with cups of fresh tea, we sat on opposite sides of a well-polished writing table in her living room. We had both worked hard, and though neither of us was exhausted, she looked the way I felt—worn out. She had tied her hair back and removed the bulky wool sweater to reveal a faded gray t-shirt that hung in shapeless bunches from her unsubstantial shoulders.

"No sleeves," she said. "I haven't changed seasons yet."

I pointed to the windbreaker draped over a chair. "Neither have I."

She mentioned some previous rental experiences, many of them routine, then talked about the town for a while in general terms—a casual travelogue to fill the time until...I don't know...the music ended?

It was midnight.

"So tell me the truth Calvin," she said, "what would you have done had I not rented you a room?"

"I was prepared to sleep in the bus shed."

"Oh my God, you're that bent on freeing yourself that you'd risk pneumonia? And I'd have been responsible?"

"No, I would have."

"Mountain weather," she said. "You need to have greater respect for it."

"I know," I said, and I did. I'd had an experience years ago that underscored the dangers most effectively, but instead of recounting the whole sorry affair, I sloughed off the comment and blamed some unnamed web site that mentioned Sage as having available lodging.

"Maybe it should be amended to potential or possible lodging," she said, "but you can have this room as long as you need it."

"And I'll help you move the stuff back when I don't anymore."

"And how long will that be, Calvin?"

"A week, maybe longer."

Even now I don't know why I said that. I had no intention of staying any longer than it took to leave, and yet the words were out before I could restrain them. She looked surprised.

"Oh. I thought you were…I don't know what I thought. A week?"

"I'm on my way to San Francisco," I said hurriedly, as if my plan needed defending. "But I'm in no hurry."

"People waiting for you there?"

"Just on my own," I said. "No real schedule."

"Don't you want to know how much the room is?"

"Name your price."

"Seriously."

"I'm serious."

"Well, legally I have to publish rates. It's $75.00 a night, but that's just paperwork. You can stay here for a hundred a week. It's the slow season."

"A hundred a week? That won't even pay for the heat."

"You didn't mention heat, Calvin. Will you be wanting that too?"

"As much as I can afford."

"Then it's a hundred a week. Like I said, slow season."

"You have a fast season?"

"Not really."

I took out my wallet; she stopped me.

"Why don't you see if you like it first?"

"I like to pay as I go." I peeled off five twenties and handed them to her.

"You're good for a week," she said. "You're still responsible for getting meals and such. We don't provide lunch."

"We?"

"The motel corporation and I. More red tape and rigmarole," she said, handing me a key. "This will open the outside door, but you're always free to come through the house if you see a light on…and even if you don't. It'll make it easier for me too. That way when it snows I won't have to clear another path."

"You get a lot of snow?"

She smiled. "Are you sure you checked this place out?"

"I guess that's a yes."

"I'd be surprised if you don't see some by morning. Your tea's cold. Shall I heat it up for you?"

I declined. I really wanted no more food or drink or music or conversation. The previous night I had dozed off for a short time in a bouncing van and then once again in a bus terminal. The simple prospect of getting out of my clothes and shutting my eyes in motionless and private surroundings seemed too appealing to delay any further.

I volunteered to help her with the dishes but, thank God, she declined.

"I'll call Walter for you," she said, picking up a wall phone. "He's probably expecting you back. No sense him waiting up for you."

"Thanks," I said. "I have to return his shoes too."

For the first time she laughed out loud. "No, you don't," she said, and put the phone back down. "That's one thing you most assuredly don't have to do tonight. He could provide a pair for everyone who comes to town for the next fifty years and still not run out. Did you ever see his stockpile?"

"I know where it is."

"Oh, I doubt that very much, Calvin. So now there are two things you need to see—the Tetons and Walter Trucks's shoe warehouse."

"He says he bought them off a guy in a truck, is that true?"

"I don't know why he'd lie to you, Calvin, do you?"

"Of course not," I said, a little too enthusiastically. I was afraid that a misstep was going to cost me that room. "He was telling me about his friend before—the one who died."

"That was a few years back," she said, then without adding anything else, reminding me again that the hour and the labor had exhausted her. Again I offered to help her clean up; again she turned me down. I don't know if she ever called Walter, but she did not go right to bed. Moments later, through the thin door of my room, I could hear muffled television voices—a newscast, I thought, though when I peeked out, the TV was not in my sightline. I've never been a newshound, but I felt out of touch and wondered what was going on in the world...but not as much as I wondered what it would be like to sleep in an actual bed.