“Try to find a place with real maple syrup,” Harmony advised. “He’s kind of picky about things like that.”
“I don’t guess I’d know real maple syrup if I was eating it,” Don said.
“Mom says he’s a match for Granny,” Debbie said. “I’m glad somebody’s a match for her, none of us are.”
“I’m a match for her,” Donna said. “I’m not letting some cranky old lady push me around.”
Harmony was looking at the little town, empty even of cars; not one single thing open at ten at night except the jail. The sight of it was making her want to go to the airport. She had never before had such a strong feeling of needing to go to the airport; she wanted to be someplace where at least a few things other than the jail stayed open past ten at night. It was touching that her nieces and nephews had wanted to meet her so badly that they would come to the jail in the middle of the night; it was touching, but also complicated. She had missed their lives—what could she and they do with one another now? She knew she ought to get a good night’s sleep and start right in the next day meeting their children and learning their husbands’ and wives’ names and finding out what jobs they worked at; but the thought of doing that made her feel hopeless, it was too late. She had missed being an aunt—it wasn’t her calling, as Gary would say.
“I have to go now, Auntie,” Don said. “My girlfriend works at a Circle K in a bad part of Tulsa—I have to be there in twenty minutes to pick her up. If she has to stand around, guys try to pick her up.”
“They don’t have to try very hard, either,” Donna said, with a kind of flatness in her voice that reminded Harmony of Neddie.
“Donna thinks Jeanie’s a slut,” Debbie said.
“She’s not a slut, she just likes to be picked up on time,” Don said. “It’s hard for an outsider to make much headway with this family.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Donna said. “Anybody who’s not a slut can get along fine with this family.”
Something about the look on Don’s face touched Harmony—it was a hopeless look. Perhaps he knew in his heart that Donna was right and that his girlfriend really was a slut. Probably she wouldn’t wait two minutes at the Circle K before going off with some guy, if Don wasn’t right there to meet her. The look made Harmony want to hug him, really hug him. Maybe he had just taken the only girl he could get because he was too lonely to do anything else. Harmony could see, from looking around the empty streets, that it would be easy to get lonely enough that it would keep you from being picky. She had been that lonely even in Las Vegas, and certainly there were plenty of guys to choose from in Las Vegas.
When Don left they all began to leave, too—they just kind of drifted across the street, with a wave or two—they all had cars parked on the other side of the square. Harmony waved too; she felt ambivalent about seeing them leave. When they were standing around her, close, they all looked old, but now that they were wandering across the street they all looked young again—very young, just a bunch of skinny kids who had grown up in the same family in the same small town. They all seemed too skinny, but in ways that had nothing to do with their bodies. It was their experience that was skinny: they had too much experience of a flat place and not enough experience of the big world and the interesting things it held. She wished that at some point she could have scraped up the money to fly them all to Disneyland—then they could tell all their friends that their famous aunt had flown them there. It occurred to her that maybe she could still do it, someday; it might be even better because now some of them could even take their kids. It would be killing two birds with one stone. Even so, Harmony couldn’t help feeling how much more advantaged Eddie was. He had been to Disneyland when he was four, and meant to go to Disney World in Florida pretty soon, too.
“I need to go there before I’m eight, at the latest,” he said, often.
Then her nephews and nieces came convoying around the square in their cars. The only one who didn’t have a car was Don, who had a motorcycle. He rode it without a helmet, too. Except for Don the boys drove large rattly cars whose mufflers weren’t the best, and the girls drove small economical cars that all looked a little bent, as if they might have been involved in a few fender benders.
All the nephews and nieces waved at her before they disappeared up the road, to wherever they lived their lives. She knew Eddie would be thrilled to have breakfast with them, if they remembered—sometimes people’s memories just weren’t as good as their intentions.
Harmony decided to walk around the courthouse before she went in to see Billy. She was definitely the only person walking around the courthouse at that hour; it should have been a peaceful stroll, but in fact she felt a little unsettled. Being among her family, so suddenly, was sort of like arriving unexpectedly in a country she had visited once previously, long ago. She was vaguely familiar with the customs and the language, but only vaguely. Since she had been to the country long before, she had expected that things would soon fall into place. She would learn what to do and what not to do, what to say and what not to say. Still, she felt a little rattled: the country was more different than she had expected it to be. The fact that she had come back after a long absence gave her a power she wasn’t comfortable with; mainly, it was the power to wound: to make people feel their manners were bad, just because their manners were different. She didn’t want to make her nephew Don feel like he was a hick just because he couldn’t tell real maple syrup from fake maple syrup, even though her five-year-old son could make that distinction from one lick of the spoon. She knew she had to be real careful not to give her nephews and nieces the impression that she thought their lives were skinny, although she did think that. Lots of young people worked with her at the recycling plant in Las Vegas, but with those young people she had a sense that just about anything could happen—they could move to New York, they could go to college; one she knew was even writing a book; another was a ranked tennis player. His rank was around seven hundred but in her book that wasn’t bad, considering how many people there were who played tennis.
With her nephews and nieces, though, she didn’t have a sense that anything could happen; mostly she had a sense that anything couldn’t happen; only a few things could happen. Mostly the young people who had just driven away were going to live lives their parents had lived, only with different hairstyles, in different clothes, driving different cars. Mainly, it would be external things that would be different; the internal things probably weren’t going to be different at all.
It didn’t take very long to walk around the courthouse. Before Harmony could even halfway sort out her feelings she was back at the jail. At least the walk had helped to wake her up. Often in Las Vegas she would kind of get buzzy in the middle of the night, get a second wind or something—usually, when it happened there, she would just wander over to a casino. Maybe she would bump into somebody she had worked with and they would chat for a while. She could always find someone to talk to, in the casinos, even if it was three o’clock in the morning.
Things weren’t that way in Tarwater; in Tarwater there was only the jail. If there had been a convenience store in sight, Harmony would have walked to it to buy some gum, she felt she would be a little less nervous if she had some gum to chew. But there was no convenience store in sight, and no one in sight, either, when she went in the jail, although, on the counter, there was a little bell you could ring. Beside the counter was a whole wall of wanted posters; she had not realized there were so many people out there who were wanted by the law, although she probably should have realized it; two or three of them had been her boyfriends. Back in her earlier days she had been reckless; she had liked to hook up with the wild guys, once in a while.
She did a quick scan of the posters to see if any of her boyfriends were still wanted; mainly the scan was a way of putting off ringing the bell. It was a little like checking into a small hotel in the middle of the night; probably the person who would have to check her in was already asleep. But, finally, she rang
the bell.
The minute the bell jingled Peewee appeared—he got there so quick Harmony felt like he must have been standing on the other side of the door. Peewee had only been a grade behind her in school, but now he was almost bald. He had just a little bit of hair around the edges of his head.
“Harmony, my gosh, we thought you’d never come,” Peewee said. “Billy’s been waiting. All them nephews and nieces of yours kept coming in to use the bathroom.”
Peewee smiled a little smile—it reminded her of Ross, whom she still hadn’t called. The way Peewee smiled touched Harmony, though. It was a smile that told her he didn’t expect much. So many men smiled that smile: maybe they had expected to be sports heroes or make a lot of money or marry a movie star; or maybe they didn’t even aim that high. Maybe they just thought they could run a nice little business, or have a happy family life or something; but, then, before they knew it, a lot of life slipped by, with none of the above happening. Then it seemed they began to expect less and less, until the day came when they didn’t expect anything at all—maybe they still expected to breathe, or to watch television, maybe see a ball game now and then, but that was about where such men’s expectations seemed to stop.
Peewee swung open the little door and showed her into the jail proper. At that moment Harmony remembered that she wasn’t wearing any makeup, although it was her first visit to her brother in years; she should have fixed herself up a little, for such an important occasion, but it was too late, she was already in the jail, and, anyway, she had driven into Tarwater without so much as a comb.
There was Billy, though, in the back room of the jail, sitting on an old couch watching TV. He was bigger than when she had seen him last—a lot bigger; obviously the bacon had had some effect, over the years. It was horrible to think of all that greasy bacon going into her brother, year after year; no wonder he looked so sad.
“Hi, Sis,” Billy said. Even though he was big, he was still graceful and athletic. He got off the couch and gave her a nice hug and a kiss.
“Oh, Billy, I’ve missed you,” she said. It was true, too—in some ways she had always missed her brother, and relied on his counsel, even if she had to get it over the telephone.
“I hope I haven’t come too late at night,” she added—actually she had no idea what time it had gotten to be.
“Oh, no, the later the better in this jail,” Billy said. “Me and Peewee, we’re the town’s two night owls.
“Otherwise this whole town nods off about nine o’clock,” he added.
“Once in a while the juvenile delinquents will go on a tear and make a little noise,” Peewee said. “But mostly the nightlife consists of me and Billy and Dick Van Dyke.”
A Dick Van Dyke rerun was on the TV at that moment; Harmony had forgotten that Mary Tyler Moore had ever looked that young.
“Billy’s up later than me,” Peewee said. He seemed nervous. Harmony remembered that he had had a big crush on her when they were in high school, maybe still had a little bit of the crush or something, which might explain the nervousness.
“I usually like to be asleep by three a.m.,” he added. “I usually am, too, unless Bonzo acts up or something.”
When Billy hugged her, Harmony noticed that his clothes smelled like they weren’t being laundered too well—they smelled a little musty; she wondered if there was a way she could do his laundry for him, while she was home; it would be nice if her brother could at least have clean-smelling clothes while he was in jail.
“Who’s Bonzo?” she asked—it was an odd nickname.
Billy looked at her strangely, as if she had said something unusual.
“He’s your nephew,” he said. “Little Davie.”
“Davie—I just met him,” Harmony said. “He was kind of solemn.”
“He’s solemn when he’s sober, but that ain’t when he becomes Bonzo,” Peewee said. “It’s when little Davie turns into Bonzo that the wilding starts. Sometimes it takes all the police in two or three counties to get him under control.”
“He likes to take off all his clothes and race around naked with two or three whores in the car, honking and carrying on,” Billy said. “If they can’t get him off that nose candy I expect Neddie and Dick will end up losing their farm.”
“You mean cocaine?” Harmony asked.
She could hardly believe they were talking about the same quiet boy who had just given her such a nice hug; though, of course, she knew from experience that quiet boys weren’t necessarily quiet all the time. Maybe the whores were understandable; there had always been whores in Tulsa. But the part about Neddie and Dick losing their farm because of Davie’s habit seemed hard to believe, though of course she had only met Dave for a few minutes.
“He’s ruint their credit,” Peewee explained.
“Yep, put it right up his nose,” Billy said. “David ain’t a bad kid, either—that drug’s just got ahold of him.”
Harmony was wondering why her sisters hadn’t said a word about Davie having a drug problem—why wouldn’t Neddie have at least mentioned it?
“Why wouldn’t Neddie tell me?” she asked Billy.
“It’s hard to come out with news like that,” Billy said. “Neddie and Dick are honest people. Dick’s a little dull, but then lots of people are a little dull. Neither of them deserve to have a son who would take their whole life’s work and stuff it up his nose.”
“What about the rest of those kids?” she asked.
“They’re fuckups,” Billy said. “Don’s already got two out-of-wedlock children he has no way to support.”
“What about the girls?” Harmony asked. “They seem like sweet girls.”
“Oh, they are, far as sweet goes,” Billy said.
“They sing in the choir, too,” Peewee said.
“On the other hand, not a one of them’s ever slept with anyone who doesn’t have a criminal record,” Billy said. “They just naturally gravitate to criminals. I can’t trust ’em in my house because if I do they’ll come by when I ain’t there and steal my stuff, so they can sell it to buy dope for their creepy boyfriends.”
“What little they ain’t already stole,” Peewee said. “It’s a good thing you’re still in jail, if you ask me. At least we got a couch you can stretch out on. At home you don’t even have a couch.”
“Or a TV to watch, if I did have a couch,” Billy said. “Those kids have about picked me clean.”
“Deenie’s the one who worries me,” Peewee said. “If she don’t get the shoplifting under control they’ll send her to the pen, one of these days.”
“Deenie?” Harmony asked.
“Yep, she steals so she can buy dope for her boyfriends,” Billy said.
Harmony felt confused. She had only been with her brother maybe five minutes and already she was learning all sorts of unhappy stuff about her sisters’ children—the very ones who were eager to meet Eddie and take him to breakfast. Already she was feeling that it was sad that her nice brother had to be in jail, and that his clothes smelled musty, and that he was overweight, and that his only companion was Peewee, a man who had lost his expectations. Now it was beginning to sound as if her whole family had lost their expectations, which was not good.
“Then there’s little Debbie, she’s got the same problem her mother has,” Billy said. “She’s dick-struck—if she was selling it instead of giving it away she’d be a millionairess by now.”
“What about Donna?” Harmony asked. “She seemed pretty stable—but of course I just met her for a few minutes.”
“Donna’s the one you don’t want to cross,” Billy said. “When I think how mean little Donna is I don’t feel so bad about being in jail.”
“Safest place in Tarwater,” Peewee agreed. “So far Donna ain’t attacked the jail, but I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty peaceful in here, Sis,” Billy said. “I don’t have to worry about getting mugged by one of my sisters’ kids. About the worst it gets is when they bring Bonzo a
nd stick him in a cell. Then we have to listen to him snore.”
“I’ve had old worn-out tractors that don’t make as much noise as Bonzo makes when he snores,” Peewee said. “Most of the time we don’t try to bring him in. We just mace him and leave him in his car.”
“Mace Davie?” Harmony asked. She was getting the sense that her hometown was a pretty strange place. “Why would you mace him? Is he violent?”
“No, but he just sulks when they get him pulled over,” Peewee said. “He won’t roll down the window or cooperate at all.”
“Some cop in Tulsa invented a little squirt hose they can slip through the crack of the door so they can mace Davie,” Billy said. “I guess it’s a pretty clever little device. They use it all over the country now, but it was invented right here in Oklahoma, for use on your own nephew.”
“I think Davie should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, myself,” Peewee said. “I mean for speeding tickets. Not too many people can rack up a hundred and eighty-six speeding tickets in one year’s time.”
“I don’t know, they got some pretty wild drivers up in Kansas,” Billy said. He got up, went to a little refrigerator toward the rear of the jail, and took out three beers, one for Peewee, one for himself, and one he offered to Harmony, who took it.
“Billy, when do they plan to let you out?” Harmony asked. “I think your clothes need to be laundered better.”
Peewee chuckled. He may not have had expectations, but he did have a sweet smile.
“The whole town needs to be laundered better,” he said.
“Can’t the woman you’ve been calling just get her phone number changed?” Harmony asked.
“Well, it ain’t quite that simple, Sis,” Billy said. One thing he hadn’t lost was the twinkle in his eye. Billy had always found life amusing, and evidently still did.
“Ain’t simple at all,” Peewee commented. “Billy’s got connections—he can get unlisted phone numbers in less time than it takes you or me to call information.”