Highway Trade and Other Stories Page 13

  Anthony Marcella was pouring himself another. Stanley, chuckling, admitted he didn’t know anything about Hollywood. “Down there, man, I wouldn’t know how to get anything done.”

  “You eat people alive,” the father said. “You just wait for them to get stuck, all it takes is a minute. And then you eat them alive.”

  More laughter. Nonie became aware of her goosebumps. They snagged her leotard, the talk shredded what was left of her sanctuary. Stanley was saying exactly, man, exactly: he didn’t know about Hollywood, but he knew the feeling.

  “Take myself, I moved out here because this is supposed to be just the opposite kind of place. And okay, it is. The Willamette Valley, man, it’s the nicest, most laid-back place you could want. And I’ve got my gig, I mean, I’m a professional photographer. I’ve got my love of my life here, Princess Summerfallwinterspring.”

  “Stuntzie—“ Nonie said.

  “But then, man, then…suddenly I’m stuck.” He was a shadow back there, a ghost. He needed to get out of here even worse than she did. “I mean it, I’m stuck. You know before this girl graduated, last June, I had to carry her whole tuition? Yeah. And then she wanted to take some workshops this summer, I had to pay for that too.”

  “Stanley!”

  But there was a tug at her arm. Posey. Turned towards the projector, the little girl’s face was garish. The stamps wove insanely across her nose and smile, Nonie thought she saw blood. Meantime Anthony Marcella was giving Stanley more rope: I hear you, man. “Ancient history, man. You start out the strong man and you end up the clown.”

  “Exactly, man, exactly. And I mean, I’m not somebody’s father. I’m not somebody’s bankroll. I’m a rebel, man. Or at least I was a rebel when I came out here. But then somehow I wound up holding the bankroll. Somehow in this wonderful laid-back place I wound up with like a bankroll in my teeth and, and claws instead of hands. I don’t even know who I am.”

  “You know who I wish was here?” Nonie said. “I wish Alden was here.”

  She’d had to shout. Tonto’s motor was going again. The boy rumbled into the projector beam, the leather was seared with yellow and brown; the mother ordered him out. But they weren’t going to stop Nonie this time. If Stanley didn’t realize how much he was losing here—talking mean was the next thing to going crazy—well she’d get him out herself. She’d get them all out herself.

  “I wish Alden were here.” Who cared that she’d always been careful to use the nickname with Stanley? The way she’d felt when the drug first hit, the giddy surge to freedom, she had to get back to that. “Alden wouldn’t just sit around, he wouldn’t just sit around and glide around. He’d burn through the surfaces and he’d pull us all through with him.”

  “Nonie, baby…”

  “He would.” Waves of isolation spiraled from the faceless shapes on the couch. But she’d had it with their bullying, she faced the screen.

  “Look at this slide here now, is this still Pompeii? Alden could, he could really take you out of this world once he started on a slide like that. I mean with all those naked dancers on the wall, my God, the men even have erections, God!” She had to get the kids out of here at least. These people were corrupt. “And those, those two things down in the front, in the cages. What are they, some kind of ancient Roman monster?”

  “A husband and wife,” Anthony Marcella said.

  “What? Those two like, mummy-things, in the cages?”

  “A husband and wife,” the father barked. “What’s the matter, don’t they look like a husband and wife?”

  Nonie flexed her feet. The draft along the floor sustained her energy.

  “This was their bedroom, kid.”

  “Tony, honey—“

  “No Luce, no. We can all learn something here. Lots of Romans had porno murals in their bedrooms, kid. And these two, that’s where they went to hide when the lava came.”

  The children had started squabbling too. Tonto rumbled into his sister, Posey hugged her stamp box to her knees. It was a tank going after a fortified bunker. Unquestionably this family needed what Nonie could give them. They needed her to convert their energy. Even the naked grotesques on the screen shouldn’t hold them up once she got them to feel the power of the drug’s remaining unused space, the vacuum rush to both freedom and safety at once.

  Stanley kept trying. He said Nonie was right about one thing: old Ollie could really do a riff on a slide like that. “Stanley, no, no what I’m saying is—“

  “Old Ollie could probably do a dance on a slide like that. One look and he’d see all the things he was into. He’d see LSD in there. He’d, he’d see self-destruction.”

  “No no, Stanley. The slide’s beside the point.”

  “Christ, the guy had an idea for every weird thing he ever did in his life.”

  “The slide is nothing. Listen to me, everybody, a picture like that doesn’t shock me. Not at all, not after the kind of things Alden taught me.”

  Stanley made some small sound, a drink going down the wrong way, an obscenity.

  “Listen. Earlier this summer I worked with a real dance company, I mean a big famous one from New York. And compared to what Alden found out about that company from New York, a picture like that is nothing.” She had the truth on her side. If she kept talking it wouldn’t be long: they’d all get to say anything they wanted. “I mean, Stanley, you were off doing all those weekend assignments, you never knew the half of it. Alden—I couldn’t believe the things he found out.”

  “You guys,” Stanley said, “you should know something. Nonie here didn’t start dancing till it was almost too late.”

  “Alden just went out with those people a few times, they hung out at the Hilton and had a few drinks. But I couldn’t believe it. He found out everything.”

  “Coming from a hick town like Brownsville, see. Nonie didn’t start till college. She’s kind of bitter.”

  “Alden found out everything about these people, Stanley, you never even knew. There were, there were eleven women in the company and Alden found out five of them were gay.”

  “Christ,” Anthony Marcella said, “the guy sounds like a genius.”

  “But listen, listen!” The laughter wasn’t the only distraction. Beside her, Tonto had backed his sister into the heater’s grating, and their squabble was getting nasty. You’re the dummy here. No, you are.

  “Listen. Here I’d been slaving along, dreaming that this workshop might finally get me free of all the dumb bad luck of my life. I mean a company from New York, they should be in control, right? Like what you were saying earlier Stanley, about those old Leary Ginsberg people—dancers from New York should be in control all the time too, just like Leary Ginsberg. Right? So I was dreaming of this workshop. And then the people show up, the real thing, and Alden finds out they’re even worse off than me. I mean Alden tells me they’re crazy. They’re nasty, and they’re crazy.”

  Lucy had started something with her husband. First whispering, now louder: C’mon, big boy, lighten up. At least change the slide.

  “But listen, listen. When I really learned something was when Alden told me about the suicide. I was shocked. Everyone in the company was whispering about this poor man back in New York who’d jumped off a roof.”

  “Nones,” Stanley said, “could we talk a minute?”

  “The suicide guy, he was one of the gay ones, of course. Gay and anorexic. I mean, I’ve had some problems but not like that, not like an IV right through the chest.”

  “Nonie, hey, please. Let’s like, get away for a minute and talk.”

  On the screen, the wall paintings appeared to tremble. Behind her the wife’s talk took on an edge, c’mon honey, the slide. Nonie got hold of her skirt, pinching the Inca trim.

  “This poor man. When Alden told me about him, all I could think was, the whole thing’s corrupt. It’s like some unstoppable force in history, every time you think you’ve got a nice setup, that’s exactly what kills you. Alden told me that first, the man�
�s marriage fell apart. And then he tried to lose himself in his work, like your work is supposed to be a nice setup, right? Your work is supposedly something you can fall back on. But everybody at work was whispering—“

  The screen burst white, then black. Something crashed, someone shouted. “Stop! Just please stop!”

  Nonie took a poke, one of the kids. She humped round the space heater, the grate scratched her goosebumps. And when she caught her breath her nose was full of dust. In the sudden dark the floor draft seemed colder. Still Nonie was happy, she was delirious, she choked but had to laugh. There were shoots of fresh nerve up through her temples, too alive to be kept down any longer. This time Stanley wouldn’t be the only one to tumble. Also she’d take down this troop who’d forced her to play the handmaiden. Sick family, sick house. First they had to fall, then they would fly. Already the scene appeared all flakes and trails, coated with smoke—she was blinking, fighting for air while her eyes adjusted. The kids tussled, the little girl crying and flailing away with her open stamp box. The projector had been knocked off the coffee table and the table itself had gone over. Lucy was on hands and knees, going after the white blots of spilled slides. The father stumbled past the fallen furniture. He came for Nonie.

  “Are you crazy?” he said. “Stop! Just stop!”

  Her skirt in her fist, she braced herself for what she had to say next. She’d scream if she had to. It was the word that would set off the permanent upsuck, the truth that would liberate them all at last: her and Alden in the Model Motel on 99W. They called Sunset to make sure they had a free hour. They fed quarters to the TV so they could find a soundtrack.

  But—“Easy babe, easy.” Stanley was the first one to her. The cold had gotten to his hands, but his breath was still sour with coffee.

  “Nonie, baby, please. We really have to talk. It isn’t like you think.”

  What was he doing here? Stanley should be fading from her life by now. He should be cringing before the truth, pulling together a raft of tough-guy dressup and getting set to ride off on the shock waves. Nonie felt something under her haunch, one of Posey’s stamps, and she pinched it against the floor deliberately. The pain would help her concentrate. Plus Anthony Marcella stood over her. His liquor glass was iron in this light, and he was still trying to push them around: Tell her I didn’t come out to the damn woods to hear this shit.

  “I want my Mommy! I want my Mommy!”

  Posey. The screams were so loud they echoed up the heater’s chimney-pipe. The girl had broken free of her brother and sat bawling in the middle of the floor. Lucy was coming for her, crawling, murmuring. But Posey shot to her feet and backed into the entryway.

  “Not you, not you. I want my real Mommy.”

  “Now, darling—“

  “Don’t you call me darling! Only my real, true Mommy can call me darling!”

  The loudest yet. The girl swayed in the entryway with arms bent up for a hug, her lips huge and strange again. Over her empty hands the street lights fluttered in the door’s ornamental window, twisted brown butterflies. Her hoarse outcry was too much for a body so small.

  “Only my real true Mommy! My real true Mommy!”

  The father went down on his knees. He left his glass behind, it rolled weightless into Nonie’s toes. Poor little lost princess baby…Nonie didn’t catch the rest. She dropped her chin, her face was burning.

  “Your Papa hasn’t seen his babies in three months, Posey princess girl. Your Papa was just so nervous about seeing his babies again.”

  “Now darling,” Lucy said. “Don’t make yourself crazy.”

  The father didn’t respond. The good father: in his arms the girl was shrinking already. Alcohol, what a freakish mix. It roughed up the man’s talk but warmed his embrace. Lucy kept trying: it was good for the kids to see the whole story, they should know about the rough stuff. Anthony wasn’t even looking. He waved for the boy to join him and Posey, big elbow-and-shoulder gestures across the entryway. Tonto had gone for cover behind the screen. Nonie’s face was burning, it was singing.

  “Nonie, Stanley.” Lucy got a light beside the couch. “Guys, I mean—you two have seen worse, right? Like Nonie said, you’ve seen a lot worse. It’s just you didn’t know how that gossip can get to Anthony.”

  Stanley let go of Nonie’s hand. She hid it in her lap.

  “I mean, that gossip.” Lucy shook her head. “You guys picked up on how nervous we were, right? Every time I laughed, I about made myself crazy.”

  Stanley. The way he hooked his elbows round his knees left his shoulders perfectly level. Whatever Lucy and Anthony were doing here, he said, it was cool with him. Nonie frowned and kept blinking, she was red-faced. She squirmed against the toy under her butt. But the table that faced her—it wasn’t going anywhere. The same false oak she’d known since childhood, same dull crisscross of notches and scars. The projector’s tinker-toy engine still whirred. Somebody had saved the guacamole and set it in the corner of the sofa. Only the slides had gone far.

  She had a toy under her brains, that was the problem. She’d actually believed in the game.

  Lucy was still smiling, though her tone had changed. “Well hold on, we’re not just having some fling in the woods. Anthony left his wife for me.”

  Nonie stood. In the blood-rush the people at her feet turned to sketches and dust, the fallen slides multiplied like infection. Nothing she couldn’t handle: she’d been high for centuries. She focussed on the doorway. The huddle there was too big to get around, the father had both kids now. She tried to muster some excuse: I’m sorry…

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on yourself,” Lucy said.

  There was something complicated in the woman’s shrug, something like pulling rank. But Nonie couldn’t get caught up in the geisha thing again. Stanley clambered to his feet beside her. Saying yeah, Nonie. Yeah, I think I need a breather too. And he tottered once he was up. It shook the floor, he was still in his biker boots. Judging from his eyes, he couldn’t even make it to Main Street. But then what had the man ever had to give away except lies? He served up such stories you didn’t notice the meal had grown cold; he designed holding patterns for two. She’d mistaken that skill for strength; he was fifteen years older.

  God, God—what was Nonie doing feeling sorry? Feeling sympathy for the man, feeling warmth. It couldn’t be real. All the worst of today’s tricks had come from within.

  “Nones, a little talk. Please.” He was whispering now. “It’s not like you think.”

  “Oh you don’t have to go,” Lucy said. “Honestly, we’ll all be fine if you just stay away from the gossip.”

  Nonie was backing off, nudging round the space heater. She spread her other hand against Stanley’s ribs. A little talk would only be more of the same. She’d been bouncing off the walls of his talk for centuries. Stanley bent his head closer, his pretty furred head. The spider again.

  “I know about Alden,” Stanley said.

  She broke for the back door. What he’d said set off a terrible head-chatter. A garble lurching into fast forward, the words like surf and the surf the renewed heat in her face. Yet there was a doomy rightness to him knowing, the perfect final ruin of any hope for secrets and sanctuary. It was what you expected of the drug. At its peak you were past any fall-back. The hallway had no rug, her knees hurt from the first long step. But there didn’t seem to be anyone coming after her, another minute and she’d be out in the soft grass. Except at the end of the hall was the downstairs can—its door open, its mirror exposed.

  All Nonie could see were the eyes. They had such mania in them still. Such black desire: an absolute hunger for more and higher. There were tears, her tears, and yet they didn’t seem like hers. Nonie skidded, stopped. Positively not her own tears. Her sadness was distant, the breakup with Stanley would be sorted into parts and extensively rehashed. But the thing in the mirror was bug-eyed, ferocious. It was more than she should have had room for, neverending surges after God knows what. And the Indian in h
er made it worse. She had no eyelids to speak of; the want, want, want in the mirror came flame-shaped and unshaded. She thought of fire arrows, of the tracer phosphorus in Stanley’s books on Vietnam.

  She was at the stairwell. She turned and headed up, she took three at a time. The eyes were out of sight, but she still had to get free of the voices. Lucy was calling after her. Hey Nonie, really, it’s just the gossip. Every day at the studio Anthony has to go in and face the same mean talk.

  She remembered when Alden had told her he loved her. Nonie was in her old bedroom now, huddled under the gable. Her breathing was heavy, very loud in this space. Coming in, she’d fluttered the silky remembrances pinned to the walls; a girlish thread or two still floated. But she could hear him. Alden, he’d told her he loved her. He said he’d fallen hard. The memory was the only thing real enough to matter, after the glimpse at the foot of the stairs.

  Winona…it’s either love, or we’re both nothing but mean, mean, mean.

  But she was starting to pick up her reflection in the gable window. The curtains’ ribbon tie was too difficult, she put her back to the glass. Then she realized someone was actually saying the words out loud. Stanley was the one talking about love or meanness, not Alden. Stanley was coming up the stairs.

  Nonie turned again and fought the window open. She wriggled out onto the roof.

  Not nearly so easy as it used to be. With her heels in the gutter, her head didn’t fit under the gable’s peak. The brick porch steps below circled swoozily. Plus the rain had started, a tattered cloth coldly sponging her down. When Stanley found her, she couldn’t catch every word. The confusion with Alden persisted: Nonie, please…Too many voices, the place was haunted. Her father too had left a piece of himself in these woods. She could feel his hands on her now, stony and dry with millwork…

  Stanley. He was trying to get Nonie by the waist.

  “Nonie, I know this looks like a mean trick. Like I wanted the acid to do it for me.…But I love you, baby. I took it too.”