Читать книгу The Last Studebaker - Robin Hemley - Страница 12

If Henry Martin were a pirate as his landlord claimed, then he held his position in life reluctantly, if not unconsciously. He didn't mean to take things that belonged to others. He didn't mean to break things all the time. He didn't mean to be so forgetful. But if he'd learned one thing over the last two years, it was this: accidents happen. Mysteries abound. Civilizations collapse and disappear. Great dynasties wither away. Fortunes turn to dust. People vanish, explode, self-immolate, are run through, drowned, crushed, minced, diced, or swallowed whole.

A lot of accidents could kill you, and then your only luck was that, generally, only one accident killed you at a time. If you died in a heap of metal and glass on some back road, for instance, that exempted you from being bitten by the deadly coral snake.

Sid Junkins, on the other hand, was a determinist, a logical, decent man with a plan, master of his destiny, who fervently believed a fellow could rise buoyantly from the seventh ring of hell if he found a hobby or girlfriend or, in Sid's case, ran a vitamin franchise.

Henry listened to the Sid Junkins Doctrine respectfully, with the same patient smile he used on Jehovah's Witnesses and Electrolux salesmen.

Sid, silver-haired and bearded, sat cross-legged on the scratchy indoor/outdoor carpet he'd installed in Henry's attic room about 5,000 years ago. Sid's house, a sprawling turn-of-the-century thing on Notre Dame Avenue, had seven bedrooms, four chimneys, and massive limestone pillars. How Junkins afforded the place, Henry could never figure out. One thing was sure: he hadn't made the money with vitamin sales.

As he talked, Sid rolled a joint. “What are you doing here, Henry?” he said. “What are your plans? For the future, I mean.”

“For the future?” Henry said, considering. “I think I'm going to Macri's to get some coffee.”

“For a hundred dollars I could set you up with your own distributorship,” Sid said. “You could be a vitamin mogul like me. Think about it.”

“I don't want to sell vitamins,” Henry said.

Henry looked like a starving POW with his scraggly beard and hollow face. Carla had once told him he had the eyes of a fanatic. Now he seemed more like a frostbite victim whose extremities had chilled pound by pound, leaving only his eyes still glowing.

The rest of him seemed to be shrinking to nothing. In six months, he had lost twenty-five pounds, his hair had thinned, his build had turned wispy, and his ribs had begun to show.

“Here, you want some?” Sid said, handing the joint up to Henry, who sat nearly nude on his bed. He wore only a pair of B. V. D.'s with a striped elastic band that had lost most of its spring over the years. The underwear had a couple of holes in the rear and a faint pee stain in front.

At least he could walk and talk. Eighteen months ago, he'd been comatose, and when he awoke, delirious. For two weeks he'd believed a guy nicknamed Hollywood lived beneath his pillow. He'd known someone named Hollywood ten years earlier, as a freshman in college. Hollywood hadn't even been important to him. The guy had stayed up most nights playing five-card stud and smoking grass until he flunked out. So why, when Henry awoke from a coma in the hospital, did he imagine Hollywood skulking beneath his pillow, yelling out, “Read ’em and weep,” and “I cut my baby teeth on this game”? Why didn't he fixate on his mother or, more appropriately, Carla and Matthew? Delirium has its own rules. It had perhaps sent him Hollywood, the most shallow individual Henry had ever known, as punishment, to while away the creeping hospital hours.

Now, more than a year later, he'd been almost completely physically rehabilitated. Tiny scars from broken glass made a patchwork on his forehead and his right hand hung limp, without feeling. Not bad though. Considering.

“What am I doing?” Sid said, snatching the joint away. “You don't need any of that. Your mind's altered enough as is.” Sid took a drag and held his breath. His eyes grew small and he smiled faintly. Henry had always thought it strange that a man who sold vitamins for a living also sold pot on the side. Sid claimed this as his only indulgence, besides reggae music. Sid claimed indulgences the way most people take deductions on tax forms.

“I'd give you the boot if I had any sense,” said Sid. “But I don't. I'm too understanding. I can't even turn away Bible salesmen. If someone comes to me hungry, I feed them. That's the way I was raised, but there's a limit, even with me. You've got to stop filching other people's food.”

Henry understood. He didn't mean to take advantage of his housemates. He'd just forget to eat for a couple of days, then would go downstairs to raid the refrigerator. He thought the food he was taking was his own. He wouldn't have taken it otherwise.

Taking food wasn't the only problem between him and the others. One day, returning home on his bike around dusk he'd pedaled lazily through his neighborhood. The humidity of the day still clung in the air, but Henry enjoyed himself anyway, pedaling forward and backward, just trying to keep his balance and not making headway in any direction.

Henry aimed his bike for the path of a lawn sprinkler making a wide bell of water over the sidewalk. As he launched himself down the street, he heard a distant scream. He stopped and waited. Nothing. The air rasped with insects and the whirring of sprinklers. Still, he waited and heard it again, but this time closer.

A women dressed in a T-shirt and running shorts came sprinting around the corner of a large gray house, through the lawn and the path of the sprinkler. She looked like an evening jogger, only she shrieked as she ran. The woman looked familiar. She wore her hair in a poodle perm and had a wide face and squat body. She barreled right past him with a determined look, as though trying to run a personal best.

“Rhonda?” Henry said.

She stopped, jogging in place, turned around, and shrieked at him. Then she set off again.

Henry dropped his bike and took off after her, yelling, “Wait, what's wrong?”

Rhonda looked over her shoulder and kept screaming. She veered into the street and crossed to the other side. Henry followed.

She changed direction again, ran past Henry and up the front steps of the boarding house. Henry took the steps two at a time, but arrived too late. She slammed the door in his face and locked it. She continued to scream from behind the door, but then her screams turned into wails like an ambulance. The wails retreated down the hall and he heard another door slam. The basement. That's where her apartment was.

He went around the side of the house and'knelt by the window of the apartment he thought was hers. He put his face close to the glass and hooded his eyes with his hands while he peered in. Rhonda's face popped up like a balloon in front of him, their two faces separated only by a thin windowpane. Her mouth hung open and her hands shredded the air.

Someone tackled him. He felt he had tumbled into hell, that Rhonda had transformed herself into a demon whose screams would always echo in his head. His arms were pinned to the ground and he heard a voice say, “Hold him. Don't let him go.”

Two frat boys, who introduced themselves as Tod and Jimmy, held Henry until the police arrived. One of them sat on his chest, while the other paced the lawn yelling, “It's all right everyone, we got him. Everything's under control.” Of course, that made people curious, and they came out of their homes in droves, making a circle around Henry, who remained calm, though he could barely breathe.

While they waited, Tod, the guy who sat on Henry, picked handfuls of grass and talked softly to him. Under different conditions, Henry might have enjoyed their talk. Tod chatted as though sitting on a porch swing rather than Henry, and discussed things that people around there spoke about on calm nights: the dry weather, Notre Dame's prospects for the fall, the race for the pennant in the National League East.

When the police arrived they handcuffed Henry and left him in their patrol car while they went inside to talk to Rhonda. The neighbors hung around and Tod and Jimmy continued to chat with Henry through the patrol car window. When the police returned, they gave him his first clue of what had happened. Someone had tried to force Rhonda into a car while she was out jogging. Henry didn't fit the description of the man and didn't have a car, but the police still refused to let him go. The two of them, a middle-aged man and a young woman, kept asking him variations on the same question. “Why did you chase her?” the man said.

“I didn't know what was wrong.”

“Why didn't you stop when she screamed at you?” the woman said.

“I didn't know she was screaming at me. I just thought she was screaming.”

“In general?” the man said. “You thought she was screaming just to scream?”

The interrogation lasted half an hour. They didn't arrest him, but they didn't congratulate him either. Henry felt terrible, and tried to apologize: to the police, to Rhonda, to Tod and Jimmy, even to the milling neighbors, but the police could only deal with concrete guilt, not guilt in the abstract. They wanted someone to claim responsibility, not guilt, which was all Henry could offer. Tod just said, “Don't sweat it,” and he and Jimmy left with the neighbors. Pam, another of Sid's tenants, looked down from her window. Rhonda stood beside her in the nearly dark room, the flash of the patrol car's blue light streaking across her face and Pam's. Henry wanted to tell Rhonda he was glad she was all right. He hadn't meant to harm her. Other people he hadn't meant to harm weren't so lucky.

Sid waved his hand in front of his face, breaking up a cloud of smoke. “What do you think?” he said. “Do you think I should give you the boot? No, don't answer that. You're the accused. You only have one right in this court, and that's to listen.”

Sid seemed to get a charge out of reprimanding Henry, giving him fatherly advice and warnings. Sometimes Henry almost thought Sid was his father, but his real father lived in Pasadena, California, not South Bend, Indiana. The only similarity between the two men was that Henry's real father would have made him pay rent for staying at his house, too.

“Wild World” played on Henry's stereo, one of the few possessions he still owned. He traveled light these days. He'd tossed almost all his personal belongings in the Dumpster. A lot of things he hadn't been sure he could part with: Carla's guitar, Matthew's toys, all the things that had defined their life together. For a while, he thought about them, wondered if he'd made a mistake. He missed Carla's guitar most of all. His room in Sid Junkins's boarding house was completely bare except for his bed, his stereo, and his ten-speed. Besides that, he had a hot plate, a mug, and an electric coil to heat water. He only ate food he could stab with his Swiss Army knife.

He owned a house, too, but that wouldn't fit in the Dumpster and he couldn't sell it. He was proud he hadn't sold any of his belongings. He'd left them in plain view for the taking. May be he'd do the same with his house.

“If I were you, you know what I'd do?” Sid said. “I'd get out, have some fun, listen to Jah music. I'd buy some clothes. That would set you on your feet again. Then you'd be happy and you wouldn't take things that don't belong to you. As they say, clothes make the man. Look at you, sitting there in your underwear. What do you own—two shirts and a pair of jeans?”

Sid, the sharpest dresser Henry knew, looked so confident and easygoing in his present costume, what an Argentine rancher might wear: huaraches, brown shorts, and a military-green knit shirt. Henry wished he could look like that, wished he could even dress himself. Out on a walk the other day, he'd noticed something wrong with his legs. One of them suddenly seemed shorter than the other. By about two inches. He worried until he looked down and saw he had on two different shoes.

Sid also wore a multicolored African belt he'd picked up at a Wailers concert the weekend before, a concert to which he'd tried to drag Henry. He always attempted friendly gestures like that, trying to get Henry interested in life. Henry just wasn't interested.

“I am happy,” Henry said. “Honestly,” and he smiled, but he had morning mouth. His chapped upper lip stuck on one of his eyeteeth and he snarled rather than smiled.

Sid shook his head and said, “Don't kid a kidder. What about your old job? Maybe you could get it back.”

Henry had quit only a year and a half before. He'd worked for his uncle Dan, his mother's brother, who owned an advertising agency in South Bend.

Sid took another hit and said, “You know, we had a meeting last night.”

“We?”

“Me and the rest of the house: Tony, Rhonda, Pam, Charlie, and Pete.”

“You met without me?” Henry said.

“The meeting was about you.”

Sid's other tenants were Notre Dame students. He took an interest in all their lives, keeping track of their grades, their romances, their personal problems. Sid, who was unmarried, even fixed them lavish holiday feasts when they couldn't make it home. Of course, the flip side was that Sid never left anyone alone. He constantly snooped and inquired.

“Do you think ‘Wild World’ is a true song?” Henry said.

“What do you mean, ‘true’?” Sid said.

“I mean, do you think Cat Stevens wrote it about anyone in particular, or about people in general?”

Sid looked blankly at Henry.

“I think you caught the A-train,” Sid said, wetting his index finger with his tongue and snubbing out the joint. He dropped the roach in the plastic bag, rolled it up, and stuck it in the pocket of his shorts.

“I bet it's true,” Henry said.

He stood and went over to the stereo.

“I'm not through talking to you, Henry, so don't try to divert my attention, you rapscallion.”

“The record's stuck,” Henry said. “Sorry Cat,” he said and took the record from the turntable, but didn't bother to put it back into its dustcover.

He sat down again and said, “You're going to kick me out, aren't you?”

“You've got to start paying attention more,” Sid said. “You need to get on with your life.”

“Okay,” said Henry. “How?”

That kind of advice was easy when you were Sid Junkins. When you had control of your life, out-of-control people frustrated you. Henry could even sympathize with his decent, well-meaning landlord, and he would have accommodated him if he could have. He could see Sid Junkins squeezing his eyes shut in well-meaning frustration, could even hear his well-meaning thoughts: You see, to get hold of yourself, you just grab yourself right here, then you pick yourself up, slap yourself a couple of times, hold steady and don't flinch.

Henry remembered a man at the advertising firm named Malcolm Mooney, who'd been a steady and trusted employee for fifteen years. One day he'd started baby-talking in the office for no apparent reason. Not only to this colleagues, but to clients as well. The clients began complaining. No one in the office could figure out why gray-haired and straight-backed Malcolm Mooney had all of a sudden started speaking with a lisp in a tiny doll-like register: “Whath the mather? You dough likee my propothal?” he'd ask in the middle of a strategy session. The man mortified everyone, including Henry. Henry's uncle finally took Malcolm aside and told him to quit talking that way or quit the company. Malcolm acted baffled. “Talking what way, you meanie?” he said.

Henry was relieved when his uncle fired Mooney, but now he thought he understood. He wished he could find the man and apologize.

Sid brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. “I think it's going to rain,” he said. “My sinuses are killing me.”

“South Bend's not a very good climate if you have sinus trouble,” Henry said. “The humid summers, the lake-effect snow.”

Sid took his hand away and stared at Henry. Then he let out a sharp laugh like a karate yell. He stood and wandered around Henry's bare room, ending up by the open closet. He stretched his arms and touched either side of the door frame, then lifted his head. To Henry, he looked like Samson about to make the temple come crashing down.

“Henry,” he said softly, “Come here.” Sid stepped aside from the doorway and pointed. “I want to show you something.”

“Sure thing,” Henry said, and joined his landlord at the closet door.

“What's this?” Sid said.

“Clothes.”

“I mean under the clothes.”

“A frying pan.”

“What's in the frying pan?” Sid said. “That's what I want to know.”

Henry extracted the frying pan from the closet. Inside, some gray lumps sat on a bed of hardened noodles. A fine green fuzz made a canopy over the top. Henry sniffed and drew back. “Beef Stroganoff, I think.”

Sid took the frying pan from Henry and lifted his index finger. “This is exactly what our meeting was about,” he said. “Buy your own refrigerator, tape your mouth shut, feed yourself intravenously. I don't care what it takes.”

Henry had never seen Sid so angry. He wondered if he was the cause. Henry thought Sid might have a heart seizure. “Don't worry,” Henry said.

“I will.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You sure are,” said Sid.

“I won't do it again,” Henry promised.

“Yes you will. I'm afraid you will.” Sid shook his finger at Henry and left the room. Henry knew what that shaking finger meant. He had one more chance. He could feel that shaking finger lingering in the air, chasing him wrathfully around the room like some disembodied cartoon finger. One more chance. Henry Martin, you pirate, you scoundrel, you rogue. One more chance to prove you're a normal human being.

Henry ran his bike down three flights of stairs, tires bouncing. Getting the bike out the front door could be a cumbersome process with only one working hand, but Henry had perfected it over the past few months. First, he balanced the bike against his body, let go of the handlebars, then flung the front door open. He whipped out the door and around the front of the bike, grabbing the handlebar at the same time. He braced the door open with his shoulders, flung it back again, and dragged the bike through the door. Outside, he bolted across the porch and scrambled down the front steps.

All this for a cup of coffee. He just wanted a chance to wake up before getting hold of himself, before changing his life, taking responsibility. He didn't want to keep disappointing Sid.

Instead of going directly to Macri's, he went in the opposite direction. He wasn't sure why. He just felt like it. Chance events, disconnected synapses, random neurons firing. These things ruled him.

Henry rode his ten-speed up Notre Dame Avenue to Howard Street. A Mustang passed and honked three times. He turned in its wake and rode in a straight shot down Howard, his bike in tenth gear. He felt his muscles burning as he pumped the pedals. He stood in his seat and took his left hand off the handle. He thrust his chin forward, as if he was bracing against a stiff wind, but the day was muggy and dead calm. The only motion in the air came from the cottonwood spores drifting like snow past him.

He rode past Niles Avenue and down the hill to the bottom, where Leeper Bridge crossed the St. Joseph River. He turned around and started climbing the hill, weaving slowly back and forth so he could make it up without stopping. Hard enough with two hands, the climb seemed nearly impossible with only his left. His veins bulged, but he didn't give up. Another car honked as it passed and someone whistled. They probably thought of him as a hazard, weaving that way. At least if he crashed or hit someone he'd only hurt himself.

He wished he could go faster. He enjoyed going fast on his bike. Of course, braking could be a problem. The left-hand brake stopped only the front wheel, so he had to pump the brake slowly to stop or else he'd tumble over the handlebars. That had happened several times, but he just couldn't stop himself from going fast. When he went slowly, he started remembering too much. He saw himself in the car, arguing with Carla. He remembered the interminable trip, the incredible heat. He remembered following some kind of antique car for miles, and what someone had written in dust on the back of its hood: Clean Me!

By the time he'd reached Niles Avenue, he was weaving from one side of the road to the other to maintain his balance. If a car had been coming over the hill, he wouldn't have been able to see it. He glistened in the heat and his hand kept slipping on the handle. He sang to himself like soldiers do when they're marching, loud bursts to match the rhythm of his bicycling. “Carla and Matthew,” he sang, a tuneless song. “Carla and Matthew.”

He turned down Niles Avenue and coasted down the hill. Now he could forget again. Life seemed easier and clearer, and he had that old feeling of limitless space in front of him. Every direction he traveled seemed West, every mile a new frontier. He knew he could go faster in a car, but right now, coasting down the hill felt fast enough. He didn't trust himself to go any faster.

As soon as Henry entered Macri's Bakery, he knew something was terribly wrong. The two gray-haired women behind the counter, usually so friendly, just stared at him. He looked down and saw he wore only his stretched-out B. V. D.'s with the pee stain in front and the rips in the rear. Henry and the women faced each other off without saying a word. The women looked like they were about to start dueling, one holding a loaf of Italian bread, the other a sausage.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I left something at home.” He walked sideways out the door so they wouldn't see the pee stain or the rips in his underwear.

On the bike ride back, he avoided the curious gazes of drivers as they passed, the hoots and whistles. He kept his eyes straight ahead and his jaw set, but he didn't feel too upset. This incident didn't concern him. He'd simply slipped up, made another minor error. Another oversight. Not a big deal. An accident.