During the long afternoon the thoughts that flickered through Duane’s mind as he lay in the hammocklike bed and dozed were inconsistent and disconnected. Several times it occurred to him that he could probably find the Thoreau book at the local bookstore, which was probably about two miles away, but he made no move to walk to the bookstore or even to call and ask if they had the book and would hold it for him. He made no move to do anything until late afternoon, when he began to feel unshaven and dirty. He needed a razor and various toiletries and had begun to feel guilty about Shorty, who had had no food since they had arrived in town.
Finally, as the afternoon was waning, Duane got up. He had decided to ask Marcie Meeks if there might be a better room he could rent—one, at least, where cold water came out of the shower.
When he opened the door to go out he almost walked right into the substantial bosom of a large black woman, who had been about to knock on his door. She had a thin towel and an even thinner wash rag in her hand, plus a tiny bar of soap.
“You all need fresh towels?” she asked, as Shorty sprinted out of the room and went running out into the weed patch.
“I’m Sis,” she added. “I’d change your sheets but we’re low on sheets this weekend.”
“That’s okay, I haven’t dirtied my sheets much,” Duane said.
“That little dog don’t bite black people, do he?” Sis asked, eyeing Shorty with some suspicion.
“No, he doesn’t bite grown-ups at all, he just likes to bite babies,” Duane assured her. “If you’re the maid could you tell me if there’s a better room to be had in this motel?”
At that the large woman looked wary.
“Better how?” she asked.
“There’s no cold water and the TV in this room won’t get but one channel,” he said. “I’m Duane, by the way. I guess I might be living here for a while.”
“You ain’t the police, is you?” Sis asked, still more wary.
“No, I’m in the oil business,” Duane said.
He knew there were motels in Wichita Falls that offered a great deal more in the way of creature comforts than the Stingaree Courts, but he was at the Stingaree Courts and didn’t feel like moving.
“Well, there’s the honeymoon suite,” Sis said. “Got a water bed. It’s high money, though. You talking about luxury when you talking about water beds.”
“I think I’ll check it out, even though I’m not on my honeymoon,” Duane said.
Marcie Meeks was behind the registration desk, watching an old Tab Hunter movie on a little TV when Duane walked in. Natalie Wood was in the movie too.
“It looks like I might be staying several days,” Duane said. “I wonder if I could move to a better room. The cold water in my shower won’t turn on, and the TV won’t get but one channel.”
“You can’t have everything for thirty-two dollars a night,” Marcie said—but she said it sadly rather than angrily. No doubt the state of things at the Stingaree Courts depressed her too.
“The maid said there was a honeymoon suite,” Duane said. “I think I might like to switch to that one if it’s unoccupied.”
Marcie Meeks emitted a dry sound that might have been a laugh.
“The last time we had honeymooners here was the night Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston,” she said. “Are you old enough to remember that?”
“Just barely,” Duane said. “But I’ll take the suite anyway, if that’s agreeable.”
“I doubt Daddy would object,” she said. “It’s forty-eight dollars a night. We’re still paying off that water bed.”
Duane paid for two nights.
“I’ll just ask you to sign another card, since you’re moving,” Marcie said. “We need to keep close track of you in case the police come looking.”
“Get many visits from the police?” he asked.
“Too many,” Marcie said. “I despise police. I was in jail once myself, for a crime I never committed.”
Duane waited, expecting Marcie Meeks to describe the crime she hadn’t committed, but she said no more about it.
“You look like a married man,” she said, looking him over. “What do I tell your wife when she shows up?”
“I doubt she’ll show up, but if she does she can probably find me by smell,” Duane said. “You don’t have to get involved.”
“She’ll show up, I expect,” Marcie said. “Wives usually show up.”
Sis, the large maid, was just coming out of his old room when he walked by.
“It’s the honeymoon suite for me,” he said. “I hope the shower works.”
“Oh, it’ll work,” Sis said. “Maybe that water bed bring you luck. Maybe you’ll find a bride.”
7
THE ROOM WITH THE WATER BED WAS LARGER, the shower worked, and the TV got several channels. The water bed was comfortable, though it did emit a faint, unpleasant smell that Duane could not at first identify. He thought it smelled a little bit like fish, but how could there be fish in a water bed?
The overall improvement in his living quarters energized him enough that he could walk to the nearest convenience store and buy some toiletries and a large sack of dog food. He used his plastic ice bucket as a dog dish, and Shorty was soon wolfing down the dog food.
Duane lay on the water bed for the rest of the afternoon and all through the night, watching basketball in a hazy, not very involved way. There was no traffic in the parking lot at all—out his window he could see a long stretch of West Texas prairie. He could see almost back to where his cabin was—the contemplation of such a distance made him tired.
Duane lay on the water bed, drowsing and waking, then drowsing some more, for another fifteen hours. Now and then he sipped a little whiskey. There was a telephone by his bed but he didn’t touch it. He thought of the Thoreau book, but didn’t pick up the phone to call the bookshop.
Several times it occurred to him that he ought to call his family. Dickie or Nellie or even Karla might have gone to the cabin to check on him, found him missing, and drawn dark conclusions. They might conclude that he had left the country, or been the victim of foul play. If Karla knew he was missing she might conclude that he was living elsewhere, with a mystery woman her spies had failed to detect.
Though he had no desire to cause his family distress, Duane did not pick up the phone to inform them of his whereabouts. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he felt completely motiveless. He had no desire to do anything. He didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to gamble, didn’t want to read, didn’t want to talk. He seemed to have lost the ability to follow through on even the simplest plan. It wouldn’t take twenty seconds to call home and let his family know that he was okay, but even twenty seconds of direct effort seemed more than he was capable of. Calling his family would be a normal thing to do, and it shouldn’t be hard—but for some reason it had come to seem irrelevant.
The only thing that was relevant, really, was his appointment on Monday afternoon with Dr. Carmichael. He could go back to the pleasant office and continue talking to the doctor. An undertaking that he had once been extremely dubious of—psychiatry—had somehow become the only thing he had to live for.
On Monday morning he woke up worrying that the hour would again be too brief—that he would scarcely start talking before he would have to leave. He tried to order his thoughts in such a way that he could ask about or speak about things he really needed to discuss with the doctor, but his attempt to form a mental list of priorities was a total failure. He didn’t really know what he needed to talk about most: in a way he needed to talk about everything, but how could you squeeze everything into an hour’s conversation?
He had scarcely moved all weekend—he didn’t even know whether he could walk to the doctor’s office. Fortunately there was a phone book in his room—he took down the number of a local taxi, in case he became so weak he had to call for assistance.
Around noon he showered and cleaned up as best he could, but the fact was he had been wearing the same clothes since ea
rly Friday morning; the laundry problem, which had seemed minor enough when he was living in the cabin, had begun to seem major now that he had taken up residence at the Stingaree Courts. Somehow or other he was soon going to have to provide himself with some clean clothes. There was a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart not far from the motel. He could have walked there anytime during the weekend and bought clean clothes, but he had failed to do so, and now it was Monday noon and too late. His shirt was not exactly filthy, but neither was it exactly clean.
Duane was halfway to town before he concluded that one reason he felt so weak and tired was because he hadn’t eaten anything since Friday. He had remembered to feed the dog, but had forgotten to feed himself. Fortunately there was a pancake house only a few blocks from the doctor’s office. As he was walking to it Duane remembered that he had a small packet of peanuts in his shirt pocket—he had purchased them at the liquor store when he went to get whiskey and ice, but had forgotten about them during his weekend of fasting.
He munched the peanuts as he made for the pancake house. He took a booth and ordered a big breakfast; it was two in the afternoon but any time was breakfast time at the pancake house. Once the food came he found that he wasn’t particularly hungry—the idea of food appealed to him more than the reality. His farm fresh eggs and crisp bacon went mostly untouched, though he did eat a few slices of toast as he drank his coffee. The desire for food had left him, along with the desire for almost everything else. Guilty about not cleaning his plate, he left a big tip for the waitress and then went out and walked around and around the block until it became time to present himself at Dr. Carmichael’s door.
8
THE MINUTE DUANE TURNED INTO DR. CARMICHAEL’S STREET he began to feel better. Just the sight of her simple, well-designed house, with its nicely kept lawn and orderly flower beds, made him feel more at rest inside. The house and the yard suggested order and peace of a sort that could be achieved if one paid close attention to the harmonies of life.
There was no one in the waiting room when he arrived—he had come twenty minutes early, hoping he could finish the article about bats. He had almost finished it when the young receptionist, Natalie, appeared, smiled, and ushered him into Dr. Carmichael’s office.
This time the doctor didn’t shake hands when he came in, though she did smile.
“Hello,” she said, indicating that he was to take a seat in the same comfortable chair.
Duane was determined to make a quick start this time, and to keep in mind the fact that the clock was ticking.
“I guess I’ve been needing this more than I realized,” he said. “I spent the whole weekend doing nothing—just waiting for it to be time to come for my appointment.”
He stopped and looked at the doctor.
“Do you think that means I’m real depressed?” he asked.
Dr. Carmichael regarded him solemnly, with her quiet, grave expression, before she answered.
“It’s often a relief to have someone who really listens to what you have to say,” she said finally. “That’s one reason why there are psychiatrists. I don’t know yet how depressed you are, or whether you’re depressed at all, but if you feel the need to see me strongly enough to put your life on hold, then I imagine we need to meet more than once a week, if you can manage it.”
“Oh, I can manage it,” Duane said. “Right now I don’t have anything else to manage.”
“Then probably we should try four times a week, until we learn a little bit more about how you’re feeling,” the doctor said.
“Fine with me—or five times a week, if that’s not too many,” Duane said, immediately.
“It is too many,” the doctor said firmly. “This process can be tiring at first. Let’s stick to four.”
Duane nodded. He felt acutely conscious that his shirt wasn’t really clean—he wondered if the doctor noticed that he was wearing the same clothes he had worn on the first visit.
“I take it you didn’t walk in the eighteen miles this morning?” Dr. Carmichael said.
“Nope, I stayed in a motel,” Duane said.
“Round trip to my office four times a week is about one hundred and forty-four miles, if I’m figuring right,” the doctor said. “I like to walk myself but I doubt I could manage that.”
“I don’t need to go home much,” Duane said.
Dr. Carmichael looked at him silently for what seemed a long time. She wasn’t tense or threatening—in fact seemed quite relaxed. She kept a notepad in her lap but so far he had not seen her write on it.
“Tell me about the walking,” she said. “I’d like to know how it started and any thoughts you might have about it.”
Duane told her everything he could remember about the day he had started walking. He had had coffee at a café in Wichita Falls, driven up into southern Oklahoma to talk to one of his crews, driven back home, parked the pickup in the carport, went in his house, hid the keys in the old cracked cup, and walked away. There was nothing very unusual about any of it. His own narration seemed boring to him.
“There was no big reason for me to walk off like that,” he said. “I don’t blame my wife for being upset. I’ve never done anything like that, and we’ve been married forty years.
“There was no big reason,” he repeated. “I just decided to do it, and when I did it, it felt right.”
“That may mean that there was a big reason for you to start walking,” the doctor said. “It just may be that the reason didn’t involve your wife. Marital conflict isn’t the only reason why people take sudden turns in their lives.”
Duane had not thought of that—at least hadn’t thought of it in such simple terms.
“It doesn’t seem to have presented any big practical problems, at least not until you started having to keep these appointments,” the doctor said.
“Well, laundry,” he said. “I need to arrange to get some clean clothes, and I have to be sure to keep food for my dog.”
The doctor looked at him with interest when he mentioned the dog.
“You have a dog with you, at your motel?” she asked.
“Yes, Shorty,” he said. “He’s a blue heeler.”
“Bring him tomorrow, would you?” she said. “We have nothing against dogs here. You can bring him right into the session.”
Her statement took Duane by surprise. Why would he want to bring Shorty with him to the psychiatrist? The thought of having Shorty there while he tried to talk to the doctor was disquieting, somehow. One thing he liked about the sessions so far was a sense of the privacy of the occasion. With Shorty there it wouldn’t be quite as private, although Shorty, of course, would not understand what was being said. It wouldn’t be like bringing another person into the session, but it wouldn’t be as private, either.
“He’s not a good inside dog,” he said. “He might get nervous and pee on something.”
“I expect we could survive that, if it happened,” the doctor said. “But if you feel awkward about bringing him, then we won’t keep him inside. We’ll put him in the back yard. He can bark at my ducks.”
“You have ducks?” he asked.
“Yep, I have a nice little duck pond and four ducks,” she said.
Duane said no more, but he had decided already just to forget Shorty when it came time for his next appointment. Ducks or no ducks, he didn’t want to have to worry about any potential misbehavior.
“You were talking to me about your father and mother the other day,” the doctor said. “I had to cut you off because the hour was up. I have a feeling you might have more to say about your parents.”
“No, not really,” Duane said—but then he slid right back into an account of the last fishing trip he had taken with his father just before the fatal accident. He described how patient his father had been, in instructing him how to remove a fishhook from a fish, or even from a turtle, if they happened to hook a turtle by accident.
Again, it seemed that he had barely begun before the doctor stood up and indicated
to him that the hour was over.
“Don’t forget to bring Shorty, when you come tomorrow,” the doctor said, as she was showing him out. “I very much want to meet your dog.”
9
ONCE AGAIN Duane found himself outside the doctor’s pleasant house, on the rock path that led through her flower beds to the street. Once again, he was dazed, confused by the fact that time seemed to pass so much more quickly when he was talking to the doctor than it did when he wasn’t. Not only did he not remember much that he had said, he remembered almost nothing of what the doctor said, because she had said almost nothing. She asked about his parents and suggested that he bring his dog to the next meeting. Otherwise she had been silent.
What he mainly took away from his two hours with Dr. Carmichael was how comforting her presence was. If she had formed any opinions about his condition or the turn his life had taken she hadn’t revealed them to him. Probably he was foolish to hope that she would reveal them so soon but he still wished for at least a comment or two—something that would help him understand whether he was crazy or not. The only indication he had that she thought he needed help was that she wanted to see him four times a week. Surely she didn’t see all her patients four times a week. She had been silent while he babbled, and yet all he had talked about was his father, long dead, and what he remembered of his mother’s sadness—both things he assumed he had made his peace with years before.
Duane wandered back in the direction of the Stingaree Courts, but slowly. He didn’t cover the miles at a steady clip, as he had become used to doing. When he began to feel tired he sat down on a curb and rested. He would never have supposed that chatting for an hour with his doctor would have such an immediate effect on his energies. The effect was so tiring that he began to wonder if he was going to be able to keep to his policy of walking everywhere. There was very little that he needed to do, yet that little—clean clothes, for example—were chores that seemed to take more energy than he had. He had either to buy new clothes or to go to Thalia and get some, and there was no way he could make it to Thalia and back on foot, as shaky as he was. Even diverting himself over to the Wal-Mart, a diversion that would only have taken an hour when he was feeling fit, seemed suddenly to be beyond his powers. He didn’t know how to account for such a large, sudden change. On Friday he had easily walked eighteen miles; this was Monday and he was having trouble making it the two miles back to the Stingaree Courts.