Highway Trade and Other Stories Read online

  The woman didn’t move after she cut the engine. Bro realized he’d been quiet, checking the place out.

  “Your father ten years ago, and now your brother.” She exhaled hard and found his eyes.

  “Well what it makes me think of, these last couple days anyway, I think of like East Coast, West Coast. I think of the difference between the two, I mean.”

  She frowned. “What’s that got to do with you?”

  “Well like, my family would have had it different out here.” He raised his eyes to the pink ripples overhead. “We wouldn’t have wound up living such a bad life, out here. Because it just isn’t bad around here the way it is back East. This is a safe place.”

  She was silent again, but there seemed an edge on it. He lowered his head in time to see how her frown enriched her eyes, deepened the blue. Then she put in some word just to mark the beat. Bro was left unfolding himself from the car while she headed for the stables.

  And inside the building, the brown shadows warmed by the long day’s sun, she became that much stranger. Despite a churchlike ceiling and a center aisle wide as Bro’s arm-span, Robin made the place. Her outfit had a new effect, the boots especially. She knew it too. The woman strutted along crooning. Of course her actual words couldn’t be what Bro thought he was hearing, “Yo mama, yo mama.” But in fact the whole scene had started to feel impossibly familiar. The hay damp from the loft opposite, getting into the eyes as soon as you came in the door; the snortle and hoof-tread within the deep stalls. Some kind of locker-room flashback? Certainly his head was warming again. Random pink and white craziness fluttered alongside Robin’s croon, as it rose and fell through the harsh smoker’s cough of the animals. A butterfly in the locker room?

  At the next-to-last stall she opened the bolt. “There’s the boy,” she cooed. “There’s my sweet boy.”

  Her explanations went by in a rush. A gelding on lease, “the fulfillment of an adolescent dream.” Bro had never liked being lectured at, and Robin’s slick work with the reins and bridle made the breathless rap seem like an act. But he could see what all the excitement was about. Robin led the horse out between them—and of course Bro fell back as soon as the first awkward foreleg emerged, it’d been a long time since anything had tightened his nuts like that—but he couldn’t stop staring. The face was sharp yet chocolate. Bird-like planes of bone ended in square formal teeth. The shoulders and ribs went by in skinfull ripples, first brown then red, and Bro couldn’t tell where the light came from.

  Robin was saying, “Yes Mothra, ye-es Mothra.” At least he recognized the movie. The New York stations had played those Jap monster things all the time. “You didn’t think I’d keep you cooped up all day, did you?”

  Actually, getting some fresh air seemed like a great idea. He wouldn’t feel so scared out in the fresh air. After all they were under the loft now, in the worst of the settling hay-dirt. Bro set his face. He was past the high, sculpted butt before Robin had finished rolling back the door.

  But when she turned and saw him, she stopped him with a stiffarm to the chest. “Watch it! You don’t ever come up on a horse from behind like that.”

  Out in the corral, she was apologetic. “Bro, I’ve wanted to own one of these so long—well I guess I’m overdoing things a little.” But Bro, keeping maybe a yard’s head start just in case, was still into hyper-awareness. Making a mental note that his head and Mothra’s were the same height, doing a Laser Eyes number about the distance to the nearest shelter. On-deck awareness. Whenever he tuned in Robin, it was like she was talking in an echo chamber.

  “It’s the same animal,” she said, “think of it that way.” They’d reached the fence now. She was pulling off the bridle.

  “Front or back, he’s the same big old Mothra. Just, from one direction he’ll be your best friend and from the other, he might kick your head in.”

  Bro tried to relax, cowboy-posing at the rail.

  “But listen to me.” She smiled, still apologizing. “Your turn, Bro. Tell me, what do you think of my baby?”

  Freed, the horse had moved off, nosing into bulky mounds of grass. When Bro spoke, he discovered the echo was gone.

  “Mighty nice,” he said. “Someone like you, not that old, and already you got something you always dreamed of. Mighty nice life.”

  “Oh God. Don’t start that again.”

  Bro cocked his head differently.

  “Don’t start in again about the peaceable kingdom out here in the Northwest. I swear, people have got their heads in the sand about that.” She shook her head, her eyes darkened.

  “You know,” Bro tried, “maybe if we just stuck to the interview—“

  “No no no,” she said, “this is part of the interview. Honestly. I think this is why I went into journalism in the first place. I was just so sick of everyone always saying that where I grew up, everything was beautiful. Hasn’t anybody heard of the kind of monsters we get in these woods? The runaways up in the hills? Listen, I did a piece on one of them, those guys live like savages.”

  Bro had his tongue between his teeth. All he could think of was another bad-boy putdown—I thought I was the one supposed to be upset.

  “Now someone like you, Bro. You’ve got a real story to tell, real trouble.” Though she’d lifted her eyes, she was staring past him. “That’s what I’m in it for.”

  He turned away, but the view didn’t make things any easier. These last naked hours before sundown. Out here in the farmland, it was as if the mountains east and west were themselves only arbitrary cutoffs, something to give a person a break from the endless air. Bro was in a worse zone than after one of his mother’s calls. Someone else was pouring out their soul to him: a white girl. Just to keep himself located, he had to concentrate on the splinters prickling his palms. He frowned at the rattle of a tractor nearby.

  “Oh Bro, oh boy,” Robin was saying. “Wow what a shot.”

  He turned back, wondering if he’d missed something. She was framing him with squared thumbs and forefingers, a loop of bridle hanging from one fist.

  “You glaring across the fields, and Mothra there sort of looming behind you. And when you were like clenching your arms, great. I’ve got to get my camera.”

  “Camera?” His smile held up decently. “You’re radio, ain’t you?”

  “Give me a break, Bro. You know how it is when you’re just starting out.”

  She was turning on the sweetness again, and her hair and smile were stung nicely by the low sun. But it was the reins and bridle that made him agree to wait. In fact after Robin handed him the tangle of leather and hooks, lighter than he’d expected, Bro was glad to hear her explain that she’d need a few minutes. She’d have to load and choose a lens. Bro smiled more honestly, nodding. He’d decided by then that what he needed was some time with the horse. A few minutes on his own, put an end to this rabbitting around. Horses after all were part of the life. Dick Allen, the original in-your-face badass lumber man, the only player Bro had ever let on was a hero—Dick Allen raised thoroughbreds.

  Robin’s boot-steps died away through the stables. Mothra stood with head and neck over a far corner of the corral.

  The bridle fitted comfortably over one shoulder. Then with that arm Bro clung to the fence top, so stiff as he walked along that he noticed the tractor again. The racket meant business as usual, part of the life. But now the animal faced him, coldly blinking. Bro raised the hand on the fence slowly.

  Slo-owly, and with the other hand he held the reins tight across his body so there’d be nothing dangling, nothing clinking. He picked up horse-smell or hay-smell, some rootless lively thickness in the air.

  “Hey boy!” This was another voice, not Robin’s. “What d’ y’ think you’re doing?”

  Bro hadn’t quite touched the animal yet. He turned awkwardly. Coming through the corral’s barn-side gate was a heavyset man with a crowbar over one shoulder.

  “What d’ y’ think you’re doing? Hey?”

  The farmer. He
reminded Bro of the Angels’ owner, even across the exercise yard you could see him chewing his cud. Overalls tucked into boots. Big enough to throw shut the gate without shifting the crowbar from his shoulder. Plus there was the tractor, the antlike nose of the machine just visible around one corner of the stables.

  “Hey, you with me? Hey boy?”

  He’d focussed past the man. His eyes burned from the fat lick of sun that kept the hills and cropland skeletal. What was this numb-fuzz all the time? Bro didn’t even lower his hand till he noticed it hanging there, and as he backed off along the fence he was trying consciously to think. He was making himself recall when this kind of thing had happened before. That time in the elevator after one of the high school playoffs, and waiting for the subway once in Philadelphia. Plus the street types in Newark were always saying they were going to kill you. But then those street types were brothers, what’d they have to do with this?

  Bro caught his foot on a hoofprint and lost his balance. He sat a moment on the bottom rail.

  The horse swung its face away. The farmer grinned, or half-grinned. Really it was hardly more than a tic, something extra in the grimace as the man shrugged the crowbar into his hands. But that was enough to set off fantasies so rough and adrenalized that Bro stumbled again as soon as he got to his feet. “Aww, don’t worry,” the farmer said. “Nobody’s going to do anything too nasty here.” But the guy didn’t know: Bro had a headful of it. The most intense flashes concerned the man’s tool. The crowbar would be terrifically warm from the tractor and the sun, almost scorching. It’d have such perfect heft, the peak of the swing would just click in.

  Bro counted off a couple seconds in his squat, and when he pulled himself back upright against the fence he went hand over hand. In his head he panned backwards, deliberately, getting some distance from the head-cracking and murder. For the first time, Bro discovered that he himself wasn’t any part of the picture. Bro himself was just a blur in his mind’s eye. He was triumph: the soundtrack was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But he was smoke, colorless smoke, nowhere near as vivid as the iron.

  “You all set now? You with me now?”

  The man had spread his stance, just beyond arm’s reach. Bro wasn’t going anywhere, the bridle pinched his collarbone. And then Robin was trotting back through the barn. The farmer made out like it didn’t faze him—“What say we start with just, you tell me who you are?” But he was getting in slant glances towards the door, and when Robin appeared he lowered the crowbar a notch. She came out head-down, over a vertically-arranged camera such as Bro had never seen. She must have first spotted them through the viewfinder.

  “Oh! Mr. Rutgrove!” She snatched the camera up in front of her neck. “What are you doing?”

  “Caught this boy trying to make off with your beauty there.”

  “This what? Who are you talking about?”

  Mothra had sensed something. The animal moved off slow haunched, away from them all, more or less into the center of the yard. Meantime Robin yanked Rutgrove back towards the barn. As soon as she started whispering at him the man pulled up straight, tucking the bar behind his back as if it were a cane. Bro found himself following the horse. Never mind which end he might be coming at this time. Never mind the head games about Philly or his high school playoffs, either. All he could ever think of when he recalled those mean places were comebacks he wished he’d made at the time: more superstar fever, long since worn out and rutted. Bro just tracked the horse—no. Actually now he was veering towards the far side of the horse, the side away from the stables. He had some idea that he needed Mothra between him and the other two.

  “Look,” Robin suddenly shouted, “that’s Marvell Gunne, the designated hitter for the Angels.”

  With that he was lifted into grief, choking and weeping as he tried to get away. For a moment the echo was back, way too loud, though he hid his face in his elbows and tried to swallow, swallow. But a step or two farther, stumbling blind, and what difference did it make if anyone noticed? No one could reach him anyway. No one could be there. Things happened: he almost went flying when he hit the fence again. At some point he ripped the bridle off his arm. And he had thoughts: useless explanatory tags like outsider, man of the house, bad nigger. Finally however the time careened along unmarked, just the opposite of any workspace with plans or breaks good and bad. Bro was nothing but the heat in his face, the occasional mercury sound when he whispered Sly. Even then he flubbed the name.

  When Robin took his arm, Bro hadn’t quite gotten under control. Nonetheless his first swollen glance at her was all he needed to know that not only had she seen everything, but also she’d told the farmer why. His head cleared and he turned to face the man. But Rutgrove was gone. The crowbar stood by the stable door. And though Mothra was in the way—the fan-like shoulder muscles were lovely through his last tears—Bro could see that the tractor hadn’t moved. Robin meantime was making her explanations.

  “I mean when he saw you were crying—“ she slid her hand down his arm, squeezed his hand. “Well he started grinning like he’d just robbed you of your manhood or something. So I just went, think fast, sucker! When I told him about your brother, let me tell you, it scored.”

  With his free hand, Bro swabbed his face. All right, this woman now. Her conversational swagger was a reporter’s thing, sure. Nonetheless he enjoyed it. Plus with her elbows on the fence top and her camera hanging, Robin’s sweater hugged her breasts nicely.

  “We can talk about it more at dinner,” she said.

  “Dinner? Oh yeah. Yeah, listen, Rob. I don’t think I can make it.”

  “What?” She let go of his hand. “What do you mean you can’t? What about our interview?”

  “Got to get home, Rob. Got to do some serious talking with the folks at home. Sunday’s the only day I can call without a damn game hanging over my head.”

  But though his mind was made up, Bro was glad to hear Rutgrove returning. The ride back to town would be hard enough. The farmer’s boots were heavier than Robin’s of course; even Mothra looked toward the door. At that Bro moved away from the fence and, with a final clearing of his throat that turned into a murmur, he slipped a hand up the neck to scratch the back of the horse’s ears. It surprised the animal. The tiny muscles under Bro’s hand were agitated, the dark eye hawk-like. But Bro kept smiling till the farmer emerged. Rutgrove carried a bat over his shoulder this time, and a ball in the other hand. Bro could see right away that the bat was wrong for him, a whip-handled Aaron model. Way too light.

  Then the man was in his face. “I wanted to show you these, Mr. Gunne.” A real cracker; coming from him, the name sounded like “gone.” And of course—his son used to play for the Angels. “These were his, his bat and his ball. I wanted you to see them.”

  “That’s okay, Mr. Rutgrove. You worked hard, you got yourself a nice farm here. I understand.”

  “I’m not a bad man. I’m a good man.”

  Bro nodded soberly. “Something happen to your boy?”

  “Happen?” The guy must have ransacked the house to find the stuff, his lower lip was soaked. “Well, he’s in concrete products now…”

  Enough. Bro took the tools from Rutgrove and asked if he’d like an autograph. Too rough about it, yeah, and he sounded too high and mighty. Couldn’t help himself. The farmer was left with dumb open hands, and Mothra shied away. Plus the horse rumbling past triggered yet another of Bro’s flashes. He saw himself swinging up onto the animal’s bare back and jumping the fence like in a Western, tearing off against a landscape of poster board mountains and prefab sets, this one wild isolated blur dark with speed bringing all the rest to life.

  He let it go. Nothing to pay serious attention to, but no call to stomp it flat either. Especially now, when all of a sudden Robin and the farmer had started playing hardball. Rutgrove was ticked, his face was heavy again. He said he didn’t want a damn autograph. And Robin came round from where Mothra had stood. She shoved her camera at Bro, a flash of color
off the lens making him notice that sundown had come at last. Did Bro object, she asked, if she got her picture now?

  Bro smiled. He said no problem, he’d give her a beaut of a shot in fact. But she had to be quick. Then he stepped back and went into his stance. Adjusting for the bat, he found enough of his sweet groove to take the ball deep.

  Field Burning

  I COULD STAND the Video World if we didn’t get the professionals. It’s my first time working behind a counter since high school, so I notice. Ordinarily shopping is blue-collar. Even the cotton candy the teenagers are wearing this summer, those drapey tops and the pants that show a lot of ankle. Pastel, but blue-collar. The stuff’s in the outlet stores by the time it reaches the valley. Still, here at the Video World, somehow we’re the class of the Miracle Mile. We get women wearing career clothes. I mean women, my own age. My first impulse when I see them is to hide in the back. And tonight it’s Lilah and Valerie, the worst, since the two of them worked with my husband Josh before he was fired.

  A coupon night to boot. It’s hardly like Oregon at all in here, a couple people have actually gotten surly.

  A break’s out of the question. Makes no difference that I’m the weekend manager. I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes tying up the store’s phone with a call to the babysitter. Love you, Denise; Daddy soon, Denise. For fifteen minutes—Josh stays out so late on Fridays. Worst of all, we’re the corner slot in this turnoff. Clear lines of sight from exit to register. If I’d prefer something else, I’d have to burn down the entire lot and remodel.

  Professionals. When I’m a worker; I might as well be wearing coveralls. All I can hope is that Lilah and Valerie get lost in here.

  It happens all the time. When a person’s out front, you’re talking Welcome to Fantasyland. The widest selection this side of Portland. Six double-sided racks and the long walls jammed. A person might not even see the security mirrors, because below the mirrors, in both front corners, we’ve got a TV dinning the promo trailers simultaneously with the widescreen. The voiceover lying a blue streak, insisting it’s life and death. I swear it makes the display boxes buzz. Plus the things are all lathery colors, lightning titles, cardboard neon. They’re almost weightless too. We’ve had to replace the actual cassettes with wood blocks; some mighty toney citizens turn out to be shoplifters. Senssurround, Panavision, rooty-toot-toot. The one time I brought Denise in here, I figured that was the way I must have looked back when she had the colic, when the lack of sleep started me hallucinating.