Standing on the porch Cathy called down, “Don’t come back here.”
“Okay,” Milt said.
She threw down the key to the Mercedes; it landed in the dirt of the driveway. “Let your Boise friends take care of you,” she said. She opened the front door of the house, entered, and slammed it after her.
“Let’s go,” Milt repeated.
Behind the wheel, Bruce started up the Merc. They drove away, both of them silent.
“Well see what she says when I get back,” Milt said, sometime later. By now he had taken the wheel himself.
“She really takes an interest in your welfare,” he said, with a deep sense of having been responsible, that if they wanted to get the typewriters this was probably the only way.
Milt said merely. “Susan probably feels the same about you. She probably minks I’m a bad influence on you.”
“She doesn’t know where I am,” he said.
“If she knew she’d warn you away from me. Women always feel like that about their husbands’ friends. It’s instinctive. Fear that their husband is really a queer.”
“I don’t mink that’s why she’s sore,” Bruce said. “Do you?”
“No,” Milt admitted.
“I don’t see that there’s any inference in this that either or both of us is queer.” That did not set well with him, even the idea of it.
Milt, smiling a trifle, said, “It’s just a manner of speech.”
After a time Bruce said, “How does it feel to drive an American car, after your Mercedes?”
“Like driving a tub of blubber.”
“Why do you say mat?” he said with resentment.
“It slides around like a loose goose,” Milt said, waggling the power-assisted wheel so that the car steered from side to side, across the white line and then onto the shoulder. “Are you sure this wheel is attached to anything down underneath? It has no road-sense. Like driving a bag of chicken feathers. Lots of nice window, though.” He poked Bruce in the ribs. “Like that vista-dome train.”
“You try opening it up,” he said. “Then you’ll see the difference. This car’ll cruise at ninety all day long.”
THEY CONTINUED UP HIGHWAY 30, into northern Oregon, not stopping in Boise. Sometime early in the morning, before dawn, Milt suggested that they pull off and eat. They found a roadside cafe, ate, and once again returned to the road. But now Milt seemed sluggish and uncomfortable. He let Bruce take the wheel; settling against the door on his side he wrapped his arms around his body but did not sleep. At the wheel, Bruce listened to the man’s breathing.
“You okay?” he inquired.
“Sure,” Milt said. “Taking a nap.”
“Your kidneys bothering you?”
“I don’t have any kidneys,” Milt said.
“Maybe we ought to find a place to stay,” he said, but his own urge was to keep driving. They might possibly reach Seattle without stopping, make the entire trip in a single dash. The excitement of the drive itself began to take precedence, in his mind, over their purpose in going to Seattle in the first place. Most of his long trips on the road had been lonely ordeals, with no one to share the job or talk to. He could understand why Milt had wanted company. It made a difference. Here they were together, the way he and his former boss Ed von Scharf had been originally, before he had learned enough to go out and buy on his own. How much this reminded him of those days … except that in a sense the situation had been turned around. Now he did most of the driving and made the choices as they showed up. Beside him, his companion became more and more inert. Eventually it would all be up to him.
But in a certain respect he enjoyed this, having the wheel to himself with Milt taking it easy in the seat next to him. It made him aware that without him they could not possibly get to Seattle; at least, not in this fashion, driving on and on without stopping. Partly it had to do with age. And with general all-around physical health. But also, this was his dish. Growing up in Montario he had been born to the road; in his high school days he had made the drive down to Reno, seventeen years old and already yearning to -
Milt interrupted him. “What’s wrong with you?” He glared at him, and, drawing himself upright, croaked, “How do you get the way you are? Is it some kind of pose?”
Taken by surprise, he said, “Explain what you mean.”
Thrashing about, Milt indicated the road and the land beyond it. “You thrive on this. I’ve been watching you - you eat it up. The more the better. How does a person get like that? I’ve been asking myself that over and over again. Don’t you need anything outside yourself? Human beings mean nothing at all to you.”
The tirade, coming without warning, and being in such a jumbled fashion, made him wonder what could have gotten into Milt. “What’s this all about?” he asked.
Subsiding somewhat, Milt said, “You’re so damn self-sufficient. No, it’s worse than that. You don’t care anything about anybody else; maybe you don’t even care about yourself. What are you alive for?” Accusingly, he said. “You’re like one of these millionaire tycoons that rides rough-shod over mankind.” He spoke with such fervor and righteous sincerity that Bruce had to laugh. At that, Milt became even more incoherent. “Yes, it really is funny,” he managed to say. “Do you even care about your wife? Or did you just marry her to inherit the business? Hell, you’re a madman.” He stared at him.
“I’m not a madman,” Bruce said, and he had to fight down fits of laughter; there, beside him, dumpy, cross Milton Lumky had turned red-faced and his eyes prepared to pop from his head. And what about? Impossible to tell. “Listen,” he said, “if I made you sore by -“
“You didn’t make me sore,” Milt interrupted. “I pity you.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because you don’t love anybody in the world.”
“You have no way to know that.”
“You have no bonds of affection with anybody. I’ve got you figured out. You have no heart.” Abruptly, with passion, he smacked himself on the chest and shouted, “You have no fucking heart, do you? Admit it.”
Incredible, Bruce thought, that anybody could really talk like that. Believe in such empty phrases. Trash he had read emerging from him, using his mouth and voice. But beyond any doubt, to Milt it was a critical matter. That sobered him and he said, “I have a good deal of feeling toward Susan.”
“What about me?” Milt said.
“What do you mean, ‘what about me’?”
Milt said, “Forget it.”
In his life he had never heard anybody talk like that before. “I know what’s bothering you,” he said. “This scenery depresses you and it doesn’t depress me. That makes you mad and it worries you.”
“Do you ever feel depressed? About anything?”
“Not about scenery,” he said. But then he remembered how he had felt going through the Sierras. The littered, abandoned quality of the mountains. The sparse vegetation. The silence. “Sure,” he said. “Sometimes it gets me down. I don’t like it so much out between towns. I think anybody who’s on the road feels like that, especailly out here where we have to get on the Great Western Desert.”
“I can’t drive that desert,” Milt said. “Down into Nevada.” Now he had grown ill-looking and weak once more; he settled against the door. The flush had faded from his face, allowing it to collapse. For a long time neither of them said anything. At last Milt stirred about and said, “Let’s pull off and get some sleep.” He shut his eyes.
“Okay,” Bruce said, with reluctance.
At dawn they reached a small motel set back from the road, with its vacancy sign still lit and blinking. The owner, a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe, led them to a cabin, and soon they had locked up the car, carried their suitcases indoors, and were crawling into the two single beds.
As he fell asleep he thought triumphantly, Only about two hundred more miles left to go. We’re almost there.
No, he thought. More like three hundred. But it made no real difference.
We can make it with no trouble at all.
AT ELEVEN the next morning he awoke. Getting out of bed he padded into the bathroom, struggled out of his wrinkled, unpleasant-feeling clothes, and enjoyed a shower. Then he shaved, combed his hair, and put on clean clothes, a fresh starched white cotton shirt in particular. That made him feel better than ever. And yet something dangled in the back of his mind that depressed his spirits. Something dragged him down. What was it? An only partly-remembered unpleasantness. In the bathroom he stood at the mirror fussing with his talc, trying to detect the nature of the weight on him. Outside the motel, the warm sun sparkled off cars moving along the highway, and he became ready to leave; he at once wanted to get started. With impatience, he left the bathroom and returned to the front room.
In his bed Milt Lumky lay on his side, his legs drawn up, his face obscured by the covers. He did not stir but he was awake. Bruce could see his eyes. Without blinking, Lumky stared off into the corner.
“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked.
“Okay,” Lumky said. He continued to stare and then he said, “I hate to have to tell you this, but I’m sick.”
Picking up his suitcase, Bruce began the job of returning his things to it. “How sick?” he said.
“Darn sick,” Milt said.
Hearing that he felt fright. His legs shook under him. This was the awful thing in the back of his mind, and now it had come forward. He went on packing, however. In the bed Milt watched him. “That’s too bad,” Bruce said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Of course it isn’t exactly a surprise to either of us. We sort of expected it from yesterday.”
Milt said, “I’ll have to stay in bed for a while.” He spoke slowly, but without any sign of doubt. As if he knew his own situation so well that there could not be any argument.
“Then maybe she was right,” Bruce said. “Is that so?”
“She was right,” Milt said.
“God damn it,” he said. “This is a hell of a thing.” He ceased packing and stood aimlessly.
“This is a hell of a thing to wish onto you,” Milt said, “but there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Evidently he felt no need of apology; his voice was gruff.
“You want your medicine?” he said.
“Maybe later,” Milt said. “I’ll just take it easy for now.” He made no move to get up. He seemed calm about it, not in any pain or even alarmed. Only resigned, and somewhat subdued. Not trying to make any jokes about it.
Did he know this was going to happen? Bruce wondered. I’ll bet he did. Maybe this is his getting back at us. Getting even because we got married. Jealous of me, he thought. Thoughts of that sort entered his mind as he gazed down at Milt Lumky in the bed. After all Milt said himself that he was interested in her.
“I guess we don’t get into Seattle,” he said.
“Later on,” Milt said.
“I mean, maybe we don’t get in at all.”
Milt said nothing, Then he grimaced, either feeling pain or thinking of something. He stirred about in the bed; his short, stubby fingers appeared and he grabbed at the pillow to tug it under his head. The covers fell across his face. His back was to Bruce.
After some time had passed, Bruce opened the cabin door and walked outside, onto the parking area by the car. They had rolled up the car windows and he could see that the interior of the car was dank and oppresive. So he opened the car door and rolled down the windows. The upholstery burned his hand as he leaned against it. The car smelled of fabric and dust, as it always did in the mornings. He sat behind the wheel and lit a cigarette and smoked.
I can’t leave him, he realized. I can’t drive off leaving him here by himself. Undoubtedly he actually is sick. And anyhow, I can’t arrange for the typewriters without him.
Without Lumky he could do nothing; his hands were tied. All he could do was stand around and wait and hope that Lumky would recover.
Lumky had him stuck here. He couldn’t go back to Susan at Boise, or up to Seattle for the typewriters, or back to Reno or anywhere. Stuck in a second-rate motel off the highway, somewhere in Northern Oregon or possibly in Washington; he did not even know if they had crossed into Washington or not. He did not even know the name of the motel.
12
HE WALKED DOWN THE PATH to the motel office. Inside, the middle-aged bright-eyed woman who owned the motel was busy scrubbing the white enamel Seven-Up machine; she smiled at him as he entered.
“Morning,” she called, resuming her scrubbing.
In one corner of the office a child sat reading a comic book. Next to the door was a revolving rack of picture postcards of Washington and Oregon scenery. To the left he saw the counter and to the right was the pay phone. The office was clean, pleasant with sunlight.
“Do you know a doctor around here?” he asked. “Who you’d recommend?”
“Is your companion sick?” She stopped scrubbing and straightened up. “I noticed you didn’t stir around much this morning. Last night when you came in I thought to myself that he looked extra tired.” She put away her rag and the can of Dutch Cleanser. “Are you related?” she asked, facing him across the counter.
“No,” he said, irked.
“I thought possibly he was a relative, possibly your older brother.” Laughing nervously she reached under the counter and produced a notebook. “There’s several good doctors around here … just a minute.” She turned pages.
From the rear door her husband, a thin, dour-looking, Oklahoma type of man, appeared. “What’s it for?” he asked Bruce. “What variety of illness?”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with him,” he said. “Some chronic thing.” Since the two of them were regarding him intently he said, “I don’t know him too well; he’s a business acquaintance.”
“You better find out what it is,” the man said. His wife nodded.
“I guess so,” Bruce said.
“Go ask him what it is,” the woman said. They exchanged glances and she said, “Find out from him if it’s contagious, will you?” She and her husband followed him to the door of the office.
“I know it’s not contagious,” he said. “It’s a kidney ailment.”
“There’s contagious kidney ailments,” the man called after him, from the doorway of the office.
As Bruce walked back up to the cabin he could hear the two of them behind him in the office, talking in low tones.
They’ll probably tell us it’s against the law to have him stay here, he thought to himself. They’ll probably make us leave.
Of course, there were other motels. If Milt was well enough to be moved.
He did not feel like going back inside the cabin, so he stood outside on the porch. Along the highway one vehicle after another passed. From where he stood he could not see their wheels; they appeared to be sliding. Like metal toys pulled along on a string, over the pavement, faster and faster. The sight filled him with uneasiness and he opened the cabin door.
“Hi,” Milt murmured from the bed.
“Do you know how I can get hold of Cathy?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I want to get her advice.”
“There’s nothing she can tell you. Don’t you think I know what’s wrong with me?”
After arguing with him he managed to get the name of Cathy’s office at the Pocatello City Hall, the city tax assessment office.
“I don’t want you to call her,” Milt said, sitting up in bed. His face showed that he had begun suffering a great deal of pain; the flesh below his eyes had sagged downward and become twisted and creased. “I’ll be okay after I get some rest. I just have to be off my feet and lying down. Probably by tonight “I’ll be back in shape.”
“Tell me exactly what’s wrong with you.”
Milt said, “Nephritis. I got it because of an attack of scarlet fever when I was a kid. Bright’s disease, they usually call it.”
“How bad do you have it?”
“It comes and goes. It’s the son of a bitch pains in my
back that get me. There’s nothing you can do. So don’t call Cathy. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be in Seattle by tomorrow night.” He lay back in the bed, his arms at his sides.
“You’re positive I can’t get you anything?”
“Go on out and get yourself some breakfast.”
He left the cabin and roamed around, across a field, past a fenced-in pasture in which a pair of horses cropped grass. The air smelled of dung and hay. Under his shoes the ground crumbled away as he stepped onto a rodent burrow. Bending down, he watched big red ants at work. Far off, on the highway, the cars moved along.
One day, in July, he had broken down outside of Wendover, Nevada. Pulled over on the shoulder of the highway he had fussed with a broken oil line from ten in the morning until one-thirty in the afternoon, knowing even as he fussed that he had no chance of repairing it. What he had been trying to do was show the cars going by that he was okay, that he would be back on the road soon. During that whole time he had kept his back to the road and his head down under the hood where the motor was, ashamed and filled with rage, but hoping that none of the cars would stop. Finally a tow truck had appeared from Wendover; a motorist who had noticed him had gotten hold of it. Why had he felt so guilty to be stuck on the shoulder? I don’t know, he thought now. He had not known then. But here once more he was stuck, and for a much longer time. The thing he most dreaded.
Do I think they’re laughing at me? he wondered.
He thought, Like Old Man Hagopian when I was buying the box of Trojans. Everybody getting a kick out of it.
Remembering that, he found himself blushing.
Christ, he thought. What was so funny about that? Anyhow everybody has to buy them sooner or later. Until they get married, and then the woman buys something instead that comes in a tube. More like a medicine.
One day he had seen a little colored boy who had found a discarded rubber, probably in the gutter. The colored boy, as he strolled along, was blowing the rubber up like a balloon.
God, and it undoubtedly had been used. He hadn’t known whether to laugh or be disgusted. Or knock it out of the kid’s hands. Anyhow he had gone on straight-faced, pretending not to notice.