"This ought to make you feel more human," I said, carrying a load of horse blankets with the girlie magazine on top.
When Shane saw the floozy his eyes sparked with the old flame.
"Nothing in all nature compares to the woman"s breast," he said. "The combination of beauty and nutrition is unrivaled."
"Only a pervert would call those things beautiful. They"re nothing but hanging pumpkins."
Shane examined me, then the magazine cover, then me again. "Do I detect a note of jealousy, little missy?"
"You better dry fast, you"re getting delirious."
The horse blankets were fairly high quality to have been abandoned to mice-mostly plaid Baker blankets and coolers with a couple of Australian rugs. I spread the Australians on the floor.
Shane asked, "Have you ever considered implants?"
"I gave birth to two children with this pair and they work fine. Now, take off those wet clothes, Lloyd"ll kill me if you die on us."
He stared at my blood-encrusted b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Up to then I"d been too busy for self-consciousness about the hanging t.i.ts thing, but now I crossed my arms. "Off with the clothes."
Shane started unb.u.t.toning his shirt. "You just want to see my phallus."
I covered his shoulders with a blanket and rubbed his hair. "I"ve seen your phallus, you should consider an implant."
Shane started to laugh and went into a gag. His whole body was shivering. He tried to work out of his pants but couldn"t manage it. I straightened his legs to help with the process, and together we got him naked. Touching his legs was like handling firewood.
"Is there any chance of you answering a question honestly?" I asked.
"I am always honest."
I"d turned out the overhead lights and moved Shane back from the open doors, out of the wind and rifle range, but I could still see the front door and the light up in Armand"s room. "When you stopped drinking, did your social life suffer?"
I had Shane"s middle wrapped like a mummy, but he still shook. "You mean did I get laid less?"
"I"m thinking seriously about quitting alcohol, but I"m afraid interesting men won"t like me anymore."
"To be strictly frank, women have always found me irresistible. However, after I stopped drinking, the quality of woman who did so rose several meaningful notches."
"I wonder if I could find higher-quality men."
"My child, you could search the world over and never find lower-quality men than the ones you"ve chosen recently."
The bedroom light went off. Armand was probably up there at the window, with his rifle, waiting for us to leave the barn. Let him wait-we had nowhere to go, and he was losing blood too fast to stay.
"Armand was nice at first. How was I to know he was a paranoid, s.a.d.i.s.tic psychopath?" I asked.
"If you"d been sober, you would have known."
As I knelt on the concrete to dry Shane"s feet, the adrenaline high suddenly crashed and everything that had happened the last few weeks came down on me at once. Dothan, Auburn, Lloyd, Shane, Yukon Jack-the weight was unbearable.
I started to whimper. "Shane, life isn"t turning out right."
He touched the top of my head. "It never does."
"I try to keep going and act happy, but nothing I do works. I"m helpless."
"You are only helpless if you refuse to ask for help."
"Jesus"-I rested my head on his knees-"another b.u.mper snicker to live by."
I cried while Shane ran his fingers through my hair. Shane"s touch brought back a feeling of Dad when I was real little. Had Dad ever brushed hair out of my face while I cried in his lap, or is that one of those memories you want so much you make it real?
"Why did you come back?" I asked.
"You are worth saving."
"Oh." I felt the horse blanket on my face. It reminded me of Frostbite and the ranch.
"I don"t think I"ll listen to Paul Harvey anymore," I said.
Shane did his chuckle sound where all three chins seem to contract at once. "The postcards to Papa have to go, too," he said.
"They do?"
"Let him die, Maurey."
We were both quiet a long time, until Shane exhaled one of his freight-train snores. He slid down on his back, and I was afraid he would fall out of the chair, so I eased him onto the Australian rug pallet. His face seemed waxy and melting, like a red candle in an oven.
I thought about what he"d said about asking for help. Life must be pretty desperate for me to be listening to Shane Rinesfoos"s advice, but, let"s face it, my life had been pretty desperate lately. At the moment, I had more faith in other people"s judgment than my own. Which is a frightening moment to find yourself in. The time had come to stop d.i.c.king around and admit the way I"d done things so far didn"t work.
I seized on the idea of changing every element of my life. I would start over at the last point where I"d liked myself, which was before I lost my virginity and before I took my first drink. Then I would do every single detail differently; I"d get up on the other side of the bed, brush my teeth sideways instead of up and down, only sleep with nice guys who liked me-that would be a switch-stay sober, and stay on the ranch.
Armand"s truck sputtered and kicked on. In my new-life rapture I"d forgotten to watch the front door. It was just dumb luck he didn"t crawl in the barn doors and shoot us both dead. When he shifted into first, the truck jerked forward and died. The engine rumbled again, and, delicately, Armand turned it around and headed up the hill.
Shane came awake with a wheeze. "Tell him to clutch with his heel, not his toes."
"He"ll learn," I said.
"Holy Hannah, I"m freezing." He was in bad shape, shivering and coughing. His face felt clammy cold and hot at the same time.
I talked as I wrapped blankets around his arms. "Shane, I"ve decided to start all over at the beginning."
"I wish I could do that."
"I"ll stop drinking by pretending I never started. I"ll stay home on the ranch and won"t go to college. I"ll wear too much makeup instead of none, I"ll die my hair blond. If I"m blond, I won"t have to drink to attract men."
Shane made a weak smile. "Do you know why gentlemen prefer blondes?" he asked.
"All I know is they do."
"Because they"re tired of squeezing blackheads."
We both laughed way out of proportion to the worth of the joke. I lay on my back, next to him on the pallet, and laughed, looking up at the corrugated metal ceiling. Shane turned his radish color and went into a coughing fit that ended in a choking sound and loads of b.l.o.o.d.y drool.
"Don"t tell any more jokes," I said. I tried to play it blase, but coughing up blood was scary. Shane looked real sick, and I was helpless to make him better. Helpless seemed to be today"s theme word. Maybe I"d been helpless all my life but too stupid to know it.
"In Alaska, while I was serving on the Antarctic Rescue Squad, we used to find victims of hypothermia, and the only way to warm them was to wrap them in blankets with a naked person. The body heat transferred to the victim and often saved them," Shane said.
I didn"t for a minute believe that Antarctic Rescue Squad jive-for one thing, it"s Arctic in Alaska, not Antarctic-but the naked-body-in-the-blankets trick works. You read about it in a Wyoming newspaper once or twice a winter.
"Only a suggestion," Shane said.
I stood up. "The panties stay on. And one lewd move from you and I throw you out in the rain."
"When have I been lewd on this trip?"
"About as often as I"ve been drunk."
"I have one other problem. In the ditch, while I was risking my precious health to save your pretty skin, my catheter sprung a leak. There"s tape in my pants, the pocket with the harmonica."
Shane looked like a plaid caterpillar with a fat, human head. He wouldn"t meet my eyes. "This entire escapade is a trick," I said. "You"ve been scheming to get my hands on your p.e.n.i.s since the moment we met."
Shane"s chest made a rattle sound. "Would I go so far as to die for a hand job from you?"
I dropped my jeans. "Yes."
45.
The next afternoon I drove Moby d.i.c.k between a double set of railroad tracks and endless green fields of something southern-tobacco or cotton, maybe. The day was a beautiful blue, and room temperature, a warm room, anyway, and the trees hovering over the farmhouses were covered with pink and white flowers. Brad sat next to me in the front seat, although we hadn"t made up yet. He answered my statements or questions with moody monosyllables-yep, nope, uh.
Lloyd was in back helping Marcella take care of Shane. There wasn"t much taking care they could do besides wiping his forehead with a wet rag and turning him sideways when he coughed blood. Andrew made a Popular Mechanics into a fan and stood at Shane"s feet stirring the air around until he got bored. Then he read Spider-Man out loud.
Shane had been delirious for several hours. At least I think he was delirious. He seemed to be reliving amorous escapades from his youth. "Try some b.u.t.ter, Jeanie."" "That"s not my finger." "Let me on top, I never get to be on top."
Knowing Shane, he may have been faking delirium as an excuse to show off.
"I think that"s it." Brad pointed up ahead at a two-story yellow house with white trim. The house fit what Granma had told us when we called from Brevard-full-length porch, twin magnolias out front, field out back. That description matched every farmhouse we"d pa.s.sed for miles, but this was the only one next to a burned barn.
"Uncle Shane keeps talking dirty," Andrew whined. "Make him stop."
"Uncle Shane doesn"t know what he"s saying. He"s having a dream," Marcella said. She"d been trying to coax Shane into drinking water. Loved ones are always trying to strong-arm food, drink, or medicine into sick people. When I"m sick all I want is stuff out.
"We"ll get you a Coca-Cola at Granma"s," Lloyd said to Shane. "Coca-Cola made you feel better that time in Mexico City."
Brad turned to look back at the others. "I hope his granma has Coca-Cola, I"m thirsty."
Shane raised up on his elbows. "Miss Hepburn wants me on a horse!"
I hit a big pothole in the road that bounced first Moby d.i.c.k, then the trailer. Yes, it"s true. We"d rescued my trailer from the evil rat Armand. Got back what was left of my beer, too.
Lloyd snapped, "Take it easy, you"re shaking him."
Normally when I"m criticized like that I snap right back, but today I eased up on the accelerator. "I hope Granma has an extra bed. I could sleep for a week," I said.
I pulled Moby d.i.c.k and the trailer into Granma"s red dirt driveway. She had a pink stone birdbath next to one of the magnolias and flagstone steps from the driveway to the front door.
"Don"t stomp the brakes," Lloyd said.
"Yeah, right."
A tall woman in a baseball cap, long-sleeved plaid shirt, and green pants came around the house, pulling off her cotton gloves. Her complexion matched the off-red dirt on the driveway, and she had eyes could drill holes in sheet metal.
"You get lost?" she demanded.
When you"ve been trying to get somewhere a long time, and suddenly you"re there, it"s like a tension collapse. The pressure you didn"t know was so heavy is released, but it leaves a vague emptiness. High school graduation gave me the same depression as switching off Moby d.i.c.k in that yard.
"We took it slow for Shane," I said. "Will you tell Granma we"re here?"
She drew up ever taller. "I am Granma."
That was a surprise. I figured Shane in his mid-fifties, which put Granma at late eighties, at least. Gravity is supposed to wear a body down after eighty years or so, but this woman had the posture of a dancer.
"Is Lloyd Carbonneau in this vehicle?" she demanded.
"Yes, ma"am." I"d never called anyone "ma"am" in my life.
"Andrew always said I could trust Lloyd Carbonneau."
"Andrew said that?"
Lloyd opened the side doors and asked, "Where should I put him?"
"The downstairs bedroom is made up. You and Marcella help me bring Andrew inside."
"h.e.l.lo, Granma," Marcella said.
I figured it out. Shane was Andrew. He"d lied through his teeth about Shane being his real name. That explained why Hugo Jr. was the second kid.