I broke some gla.s.s, and something I did or said made Brad cry.
Then I was alone, lost in Armand"s hair. I was clutching at him, trying to tear the hair out or get back through it or something. I wanted Auburn. I thought if I found my way through the hair into skin, I could breathe, I could be with my baby. The last thing I remember is holding Armand"s chest and screaming, "Daddy!"
41.
I shifted my weight forward onto Frostbite"s shoulders as he waded through deep snow up Red Rock Peak. It was a warm day in early April, and the snow was softening into a pudding texture that made rough going for a horse-no going for a person on foot, snowshoes, or probably even skis. Frostbite progressed up the hill in thrusts, gathering his back legs and springing into the snow. I wore a penstemon in my hair, which was long again, the length it had been when Shannon was born. A pair of bluebirds hop-scotched from fence post to fence post ahead of us. The posts didn"t look connected because snow covered the top line of barbwire. I was watching a mouse skim across the snow when I heard a quiet Thock and the snow started to move. Frostbite screamed and went over. I clutched the reins with both hands as the avalanche swept us down the mountain. Frostbite hit a tree and screamed again, then he was lost. I cupped my hands over my nose to give myself an inch of breathing s.p.a.ce as the snow rolled over me deeper and deeper, then everything was still, dark, and heavy. To find which direction was up, I spit in my hand, although, buried alive, up doesn"t matter from down and snow doesn"t matter from earth.
I gasped awake, struggling for air. There was pain in my head, a very specific pain in a very specific spot, as if a bolt had been screwed into my forehead, right over the bridge of my nose. I squeezed my eyes shut and listened to the rain and fought both for and against remembering. Nothing came at first, then Memphis, then a police car chasing an ambulance. Armand shifted an arm across my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and several more pieces fell into place.
Jesus-another social blunder. Where was Lloyd? I"d woken up bare-a.s.sed and dry-mouthed before, but not in a long, long time. Had we f.u.c.ked? Did it matter? Armand lay on his stomach, facing away, with one arm over my body. The hair on his back was a furry shawl across his shoulders with two thinning lines running down either side of his spine. He seemed clinched and asleep at the same time.
In the bathroom, I held my hand under the tap and drank, then I splashed water on my face. When I peed I lowered my head between my knees and stared at the floor tile. Spotless. Nothing snotty dribbled down my thighs, but that didn"t prove anything. He could have nailed me and not come. Or, for all I knew, he nailed me and I got up afterward and danced on the tables. G.o.d, I hate blackouts. What had I done to Brad? I can"t stand questions everyone but me knows the answers to.
Hangovers are best handled by three aspirin, a gallon of water, and twelve extra hours" sleep, but this didn"t feel like your everyday puking-shivering hangover. This hangover was unique in my experience. I fought to remember-Injun Joe, moonshine, the little green pill. I"d mixed whiskey with pills. The woman who"d lost her baby had sunk to an all-new low.
Still avoiding the mirror, I fumbled open the medicine cabinet in search of aspirin. The bottles were lined up in alphabetized categories with each category marked on a piece of plastic embossing tape-Amphetamines, Amyl-nitrate, Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, Barbiturates. My green pills from the night before were down at the bottom under Quaaludes. I pride myself on self-abuse sophistication, but I"d never heard of half Armand"s pharmaceuticals.
"Don"t touch my property." He was behind me, angry.
"I was looking for aspirin."
"If you need aspirin, ask for it. Don"t snoop."
"This is an amazing collection, Armand. My mother would marry you to get at this drugstore."
Armand stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at me. He"d pa.s.sed out wearing a rubber-a third explanation for the lack of dribble. I hate being glared at by a man in a rubber.
"I"m sorry, Armand. May I please have three aspirin?"
Careful not to touch his body, I moved aside while he yanked open a drawer next to the sink. The drawer was full of stuff regular people stock in bathrooms-toothpaste, deodorant, aspirin. Down south they"re big on ground-up aspirin. Armand gave me three packets of Goody"s Headache Powder.
As Dad used to say, his breath could have knocked a coyote off a flyblown calf. "Your friends are outside behaving strangely."
"What"s that mean?"
"I think they"re leaving."
Back in the bedroom, I looked out the third-floor window at Moby d.i.c.k and Dad"s trailer. Lloyd and Brad stood in the rain with their hands in their pockets. Through the open loading doors I could see Shane in his chair, playing his harmonica.
"What makes you think they"re leaving?" I asked.
Armand appeared at the bathroom door with a gla.s.s of water in one hand and three different-colored capsules in the other. Condoms look silly on limp d.i.c.ks. "They turned the rig around."
"That doesn"t mean they"re leaving."
"Last night the skinny one said y"all would clear out as soon as you could travel."
Only two days ago I"d been proud of myself for never having stooped so low as to wear dirty underwear, and now I was faced with a choice between dirty and none. I put the question in Mom"s terms: If I got hit by a truck and rushed to the hospital on the verge of death, which would be least mortifying? Dirty. There goes another standard.
Downstairs as I crossed to the front door I noticed a large burn hole in one of the black couches and broken gla.s.s on the marble floor under a topless table. Must have been a h.e.l.l of a party. Too bad I couldn"t remember it.
Lloyd stood in the slow rain looking up the hill away from the river. I followed his line of sight up to Hugo Sr."s Oldsmobile. Hugo got out and waved, so I waved back. He was proving to be a tough little sucker, a lot tougher than he"d come off in Amarillo.
Marcella"s and Andrew"s faces peeked from the ambulance, behind Shane. I smiled at the gang. "What"s going on, guys?"
Brad turned away. Andrew and Lloyd were the only ones who would look at me. "It"s time to go," Lloyd said. "Get in the ambulance."
Behind me, Armand said, "She"s staying here."
Shane snapped. "Don"t be a fool, Maurey. Get in the ambulance."
"Whoa," I said. If everyone was in the mood for ugliness, hung over or not, I"d take them on. "I will do whatever I want."
Lloyd"s eyes weren"t Jesus now-they were black ice. "No, you won"t. You"ll come with us."
"You"re not my father."
Shane spit a laugh. "Neither is he."
"What"s that supposed to mean?"
"Come off it," Shane said. "You"ve wanted to f.u.c.k your father all your life, and now you have."
"To h.e.l.l with you, Shane." I"d expected ugly, but this was terminal. Marcella looked frightened. Brad glanced at me, then down at the mud by his feet.
Shane kept coming. "What else could you see in this pretentious drip? He"s your father."
"Be careful, old-timer," Armand said. In his gray slacks and no shirt or shoes, he did look a tiny bit like Dad, at least in hairiness and size, but that wasn"t why I"d slept with him.
No one likes being accused of having the hots for a parent. I advanced on Shane until I was about six inches off his face. "What a sick, perverted, slime-ball thing to say." I almost had my one chin against his three. "I wouldn"t leave here now if you paid me."
"Paid you for what, father-f.u.c.ker?"
Marcella grabbed the wheelchair and pulled him away from the edge. "Shane doesn"t mean it," she said. "We"re just all tired and tense."
I stared into his purple eyes and saw no trace of humor. "He did too mean it, he"s a pig."
Andrew burst into tears and kicked the h.e.l.l out of Shane"s ankle. "Ouch," Shane yelped. He tried to backhand Andrew, but Marcella caught his wrist. If he"d hit Andrew, I think I"d have plastered the son of a b.i.t.c.h, wheelchair or no wheelchair.
Lloyd touched my arm and I jumped like I"d been cattle-prodded. "Will you get in the ambulance?" he asked.
The ice was gone from Lloyd"s eyes, and he was back to vulnerable-which is a stronger weapon. The cracks on his face were like a relief map demarking grief. Lloyd had been my friend, he deserved a better explanation than "f.u.c.k you," but I didn"t know how to explain to him something I couldn"t explain to myself.
"What"s the point?" I said. "Granma is two-hundred-something miles away. What then? You dump me and rush off to Florida in search of your precious Sharon, who almost surely isn"t even in Florida. I"m sick of getting dumped. What"s the difference if we break up the gang here or tomorrow?"
Brad walked up behind me. "Please come with us, Miss Pierce."
I turned to him. Even without hair, he had the face of an angel. He reminded me of the Little Prince from the Saint-Exupery book. I touched his jawline. "I can"t."
Rain ran down his forehead into his eyes. "You"re the first person I ever trusted. Don"t leave me."
Jesus, this was too much. "I can"t."
Lloyd walked past me to the back of Moby d.i.c.k, where he bent down and disconnected the wiring and safety chains from the trailer.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"It"s your trailer."
"If you guys need it, take it. How will you haul the beer?"
He flipped the doobie that released the trailer from the ball. "There"s only fifteen cases and a six-pack left. We"ll leave five cases and two bottles with you. The rest will fit in back."
"Lloyd, there"s no reason to be a d.i.c.k about it. Take the beer and the trailer. What am I going to do with a horse trailer and no way to pull it?"
He turned a crank that made the trailer tongue rise off the hitch. "What were you planning to do with the trailer once we reached North Carolina?"
"I hadn"t thought about that. I"ve been afraid to think past Shane"s grandmother"s house."
Lloyd straightened up. "Well, now you don"t have to."
I walked back over to Armand and stood watching Lloyd and Brad unload the trailer. After stacking my cases and two bottles by the barn, they opened Moby d.i.c.k"s rear doors and crammed in the spare tires, Marcella"s suitcase, and the beer. They left my stuff and Sam Callahan"s tent on the dry porch. Neither one looked my direction. They just sloshed back and forth, being efficient and non-emotional.
I could hear Andrew crying inside Moby d.i.c.k. For a six-year-old he sure did cry a lot. Seemed like that"s all he"d done since the moment I saw him. Marcella was next to Shane, holding Hugo Jr. and staring across the yard at me. She was wearing a green print dress my grandmother would have bought at J.C. Penney"s. Her hair was in a perfect bun.
Armand put his hand on my arm. "Come inside, Maurey. You"re getting wet."
I shrugged off his hand. I felt manipulated, but I didn"t know who"d manipulated me. I didn"t want to stay in this rain forest with a hairy pill popper. I wanted to hold Hugo Jr. I wanted to sit in the front seat beside Lloyd. The two-bottles thing seemed especially petty-a c.r.a.ppy note to end on. From somewhere in Moby d.i.c.k I heard Merle mewing. How had I managed to fence myself into this stupid situation?
I was all set to swallow my pride and say "Forget it, guys, I was only joking," when Shane spoke.
"Maurey, you"ve been nothing but a b.i.t.c.h and a drunk since we allowed you to join us. I am glad to abandon you with this psychotic thug."
Slam-last door shut. Last bridge burned. I stood in the rain and watched Moby d.i.c.k climb the hill and roll out of sight. Hugo Sr. drove across the road, then backed, then turned and followed. I stared at the spot where they"d disappeared, wishing my headache would go away. It felt like Dad"s funeral.
Armand draped his arm around my shoulders. "How on Earth did you ever get mixed up with that bunch of losers?"
42.
I stayed in the shower until the water turned cold, which must have been over an hour. I imagined a huge, two-hundred-gallon water heater hidden somewhere in the house, heating water as fast as house inhabitants could use it. The shower stall itself was the opposite end of the scale from the Calhoun Arms. Two spigots gave the option of rinsing your front and back at the same time or separately without having to turn around. The walls and floor were covered by heavy, dark tile with no gunk in the grout. I sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall, holding Armand"s soap-on-a-rope with both hands and letting the twin streams of water rain down on my body.
My G.o.d, I was tired. And hollow. I didn"t care if I ever saw alcohol again. At that moment I didn"t care if I ever saw anything again. Once I left Armand"s shower, life would resume itself. People would come at me and people would go away. I would drink and pee, eat and s.h.i.t. Getting by would take every drop of energy I would ever have, then someday I would stop getting by and be dead.
Big deal.
Armand came in the bathroom and opened and closed the medicine cabinet. "You alive in there?" he asked.
"Compared to what?"
"I"ll be working in the barn. Find whatever you can to eat."
Guess he didn"t mind my touching his property in the refrigerator. "I"ll probably take a nap."
The bathroom door closed and he was gone.
I slept most of the day, dreaming variations on the smother motif-snakes wound around my neck; my tongue swelled up and closed my throat; Dothan Talbot tied a plastic dry-cleaning bag over my head; I drowned a dozen deaths. Some dreams take all the rest out of sleep.
Every few hours I awoke to find Armand in the bathroom mix-and-matching his pills. I"m not sure if he was inbibing primarily in ups or downs, but whatever they were made him sweat.
Once he saw me awake and asked, "You want medication? I can make you feel any way you want to feel."
"No, thanks, I feel like sleeping."
"How about a drink? After last night you must need a drink."
"No, thanks."
Late in the afternoon I stood at the window and watched him work. He had the double barn doors thrown open and he stood before a misshapen ma.s.s of metal in the full welding mask and no shirt. With his hair, muscles, and sweat, and his torch spitting a white-blue flame, Armand took on an unsavory Greek G.o.d look-Vulcan, maybe, or Hades.
The kitchen downstairs had ivory-colored walls and pastel green appliances. I found an unopened jar of peanut b.u.t.ter and a spoon and poked around while I ate. The upright freezer contained about fifty steaks and a gallon of Scotch. I"d seen two or three microwave ovens before and heard pros and cons about them, mostly cons, but I"d never been in a spot where I could try one out. I put the spoon globbed with peanut b.u.t.ter in and turned the dial. The microwave made a popping sound and tiny lightning bolts flashed inside; I didn"t eat the peanut b.u.t.ter.