The Wayward Bus

  Breed walked farther out on the bridge. The water was only three feet below the timbers now and Breed could feel the plunging water plaguing the caissons to protest under his feet. He rubbed his unshaven chin with his fingers and walked back to the store. He didn't tell his wife about McElroy's black Angus. It would only make her sad.

  When Juan Chicoy called up about the bridge Breed told him the truth. The bridge was still in, but God knew for how long. The water was still rising. The bare, stony hills were still emptying their freshets into the river, and it was clouding up again.

  At nine o'clock the lower timbers cleared the flood only by eighteen inches. Once the pressure came on those struts and braces and a few uprooted trees banged into the bridge, it was only a question of time. Breed stood inside his screen door and drummed his fingers on the wire.

  "Let me fix you some breakfast," his wife said. "You'd think you owned the bridge."

  "I guess I do in a way," said Breed. "If it went out they'd say it was my fault. I've called the supervisor's office and I've called the county engineer. They're both closed. If that channel gets back of the pier, there goes your ball game."

  "You'd better eat some breakfast. I'll make you some wheat cakes."

  "All right," Breed said. "Don't make them too thick."

  "I never make them thick," said Mrs. Breed. "Want an egg on top?"

  "Sure," said Breed. "I don't know whether Juan is going to make it or not. He's not due for more than an hour yet and, Jesus! how the water is coming up!"

  "No reason to swear," said Mrs. Breed.

  Her husband looked around at her. "I'd say this was one of the times when there's every reason to swear. I'm going to take a drink."

  "Before breakfast?"

  "Before anything."

  She didn't know about the black bull, of course. He went to the wall phone and rang McElroy's, a three-two ring, and he kept it up until Pinedale, two miles this side of McElroy's, answered.

  "I've been trying to get him too," Pinedale said. "His line's dead. I'm going to ride up and see if he's all right."

  "I wish you would," said Breed. "His new bull went under the bridge this morning."

  Mrs. Breed raised frightened eyes. "Walter!" she cried.

  "Well, it's true. I didn't want you to fret."

  "Walter! Oh, my God!" said Mrs. Breed.

  CHAPTER 11

  Alice Chicoy stood inside the screen door and watched the bus pull away. She let the tears dry on her cheeks.

  When the bus passed beyond her view from the door she went to the side window from which she could see the county road. The bus ran into a patch of sunlight and gleamed for a moment, and then she couldn't see it any more. Alice drew a great breath and released it in a luxurious sigh. It was her day! She was alone. She felt happy and secret, and she felt sinful too. Slowly she smoothed her dress down over her hips and caressed her thighs. She looked at her nails. No, later for that.

  She looked slowly around the lunchroom. She could still smell cigarette smoke. There were things to be done, yet it was her day and she went about them slowly. First she got from the cupboard a cardboard sign that said "Closed" in large letters. She went outside and hung the sign on a nail on the edge of the screen door. Then she went inside and closed and latched the screen door. And she pulled the inner door and turned the key in it. Next she went from window to window and let down the Venetian blinds and pulled the slats downward so no one could see in.

  The lunchroom was dusky and very quiet. Alice worked deliberately. She washed and put away the dirty coffee cups and she washed the lunch counter and the tabletops. The pies she put out of sight under the counter. Then she brought a broom from the bedroom and swept the floor and put the dust and the mud and the cigarette butts in the garbage can. The counter gleamed a little in the dusky light and the tabletops looked white and clean.

  Alice came around the counter and sat on one of the stools. It was her day! She felt silly and giddy. "Well, why not?" she said aloud. "I don't have much fun. Bring me," she said, "bring me a double whisky and hurry it up."

  She put her hands on the counter and looked at them carefully. "Poor work-ruined hands," she whispered, "dear hands." Then in a shout, "Where the hell is that whisky?" And she answered herself, "Yes, ma'am, it's coming right up, ma'am."

  "Well, that's better," said Alice. "I just want you to know who you're talking to. Don't put on any lip because you can't get away with it. I've got my eye on you."

  "Yes, ma'am," she answered herself. And she got up and went in back of the counter.

  At the far end and low to the floor there was a small cabinet. Alice bent over, opened the door, and reached blindly in and brought out a fifth of Old Grandad bourbon. She picked a water glass from the rack and carried the bottle and the glass to the counter in front of the stool where she had been sitting.

  "Here you are, ma'am."

  "Take it over to that table. Do you think I look like someone that stands up at bars?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "And bring another glass. And a bottle of cold beer."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She carried all these things to the table beside the door and laid them out. "You can go now," she said, and answered, "Yes, ma'am."

  "But don't go far, I might want something."

  As she poured out the beer she giggled to herself. If anybody heard me they'd think I was crazy. Well, maybe I am. She poured out a fine shot in the other glass. "Alice," she said, "ready, set, go!" She waved the glass and drank slowly. She did not toss it. She let the hot, straight whisky ease and burn and flow over her tongue and in back of her tongue, and she swallowed slowly and felt the bite on her palate, and the warmth of the whisky went into her chest and into her stomach. Even after she had emptied the glass she still held it to her lips. She put down the glass and she said, "Ah!" and breathed outward harshly.

  She could taste the sweet whisky again on her returning breath. Now she reached for the tumbler of beer. She crossed her legs and drank very slowly until the glass was empty.

  "God!" she said.

  It seemed to Alice she had never realized how utterly comfortable and charming the lunchroom was, the light glimmering down between the slanting blinds. She heard a truck go by on the highway and it disturbed her. Suppose something happened to interfere with her day? Well, they'd have to break the door down. She wouldn't let anyone in. She poured two fingers of whisky in one glass and four fingers of beer in the other glass.

  "There's more than one way to skin a drink," she said, and she tossed the whisky in and tossed the beer right in after it. Now, there's an idea. It doesn't taste the same. The way you drink changes the taste. Why had no one else ever found that out, only Alice. Somebody should write that down--"The way you drink makes the taste." There was a little tension in her right eyelid, and a curious but pleasant pain ran down the veins of her arms.

  "Nobody has time to find out things," she said solemnly. "No time." She poured half a glass of beer and filled the glass with whisky. "I wonder if anybody ever tried this before?"

  The metal paper-napkin holder was in front of her and she could see her face in it. "Hello, kid," she said. She waved the glass, and it was as distorted in the shining metal as her face. "Here's a go, kid. Your health, kid." And she drank the beer and the whisky the way a thirsty man drinks milk. "Ah," she said, "that's not so god-damned bad. No sir. I think I've got something there. That's good."

  She adjusted the paper-napkin holder so that she could see herself better. But a bend in the metal surface made her nose look broken at the top and fat and bulbous at the bottom. She got up and went around the counter and into the bedroom, and she brought a round hand mirror back to the table and propped it against the sugar dispenser. She settled herself and crossed her legs. "Now there! I'd like to invite you for a drink." She poured whisky in each glass. "No beer," she said. "All out of beer. Well, we'll fix that."

  She went to the icebox and brought another bottle of beer. "Now, you
see," she said to the mirror, "we first put a little whisky--not too much--not too little--and we add just the right amount of beer. And there you are." She pushed one glass toward the mirror and drained the other one. "Some people are afraid to take a drink," she said. "They can't handle it."

  "Oh, you don't want it? Well, that's your privilege. I'm not going to make you take it. I'm not going to let it go to waste, either." And she drank off the other glass. Her cheeks were tingling now as though a frost were stinging the surface. She brought the mirror close and inspected herself. Her eyes were damp and shiny. She whipped back a strand of loose hair.

  "No reason to let yourself run down just because you're having a good time." And without warning a vision flipped into place in her head and she turned the mirror face down. The vision struck so hard and so quickly that it was like a blow. Perhaps it was the darkened room. Alice cried, "I don't want to think about that. I hate to think about that."

  But the thought and vision were in. A darkened room and a white bed and her mother paralyzed, rigid, unmoving, the eyes staring straight up, and then the white hand rising from the counterpane in a gesture of despair, a gesture for help. Alice could creep in, no matter how stealthily, and that hand would rise in frightful helplessness, and Alice would hold it for a moment and then put it gently down and go out. Every time she came into that room she would beg the hand not to rise, to lie still, to be dead, like the rest of the body.

  "I don't want to think about that," she cried. "How did that get in?" Her hand shook and the bottle rattled against the glass. She poured an enormous drink and drained it, and it caught in her throat so that she coughed, and she just saved herself from being sick. "That'll fix you," she said. "I want to think about something else."

  She imagined herself in bed with Juan, but her mind slipped on past that. "I could have had any man I wanted," she boasted. "Enough made passes at me, God knows, and I didn't give in much." Her lips writhed away from her teeth a little salaciously. "Maybe I should of while I could. I'm getting along--That's a god-damned lie," she shouted, "I'm as good as I ever was. I'm better! Who the hell wants a skinny bitch that don't know what to do? No real man wants stuff like that. I could go right out now and pick them off like flies."

  The bottle was a little less than half full now. She spilled some in pouring and giggled at herself. "I do believe I'm getting a little drunk," she said.

  There came a great knocking at the screen door and Alice froze and sat silent. The knocking came again. A man's voice called, "Nobody here. I thought I heard talking."

  "Well, try it again. They might be in back," a woman's voice answered.

  Alice picked up the hand mirror gently and looked at herself. She nodded her head and closed one eye in a large wink. The knocking came again.

  "I tell you there's nobody here."

  "Well, try the door."

  Alice heard the rattling of the screen door.

  "It's locked up," the man said, and the woman replied, "It's locked on the inside. They must be in there."

  The man laughed and his feet scraped on gravel. "Well, if they're in there they want to be alone. Don't you ever want to be alone, baby? With me, I mean."

  "Oh, shut up," said the woman. "I want a sandwich."

  "For that you'll have to wait."

  Alice wondered why she hadn't heard the car or the footsteps on the gravel before the knock. "I'll bet I'm plastered," she thought. She could hear the car drive away all right.

  "Can't take 'no' for an answer," Alice said aloud. "Just because a person wants to take a day to rest and get pulled together, why, they've got to have a god-damned sandwich."

  She held up the bottle and squinted judiciously through the glass. "Not a lot left." She became frightened. Suppose she should run out before she was ready? And then she nodded and smiled to herself. There were two bottles of port wine right in the back of that cabinet. They gave her a sense of security and she poured herself a big drink and sipped at it. Juan didn't like to be around women when they were drinking. He said their faces got crooked and he hated that. Well, Alice would just show him. She drank half the whisky in her glass and stood up heavily.

  "Now, you just stay here and wait for me," she said politely to the glass. Turning the edge of the counter she swayed a little, and the corner bit into her side just above the hip. "That's going to be black and blue," she said. She crossed the bedroom and went into the bathroom.

  She dampened the washcloth and rubbed soap into it till she had a thick paste and then she scrubbed her face. She scrubbed hard beside her nose and in the little crease that crossed her chin. She put the cloth over her little finger and twisted it into her nostrils and she washed her ears. Then, with her eyes squinted shut, she rinsed the soap off and looked at herself in the mirror over the basin. Her face seemed very red and her eyes were a little bloodshot. For a long time she worked on her face. Cream, and then that rubbed off on a towel. She inspected the towel for dirt and found it. She worked at her eyebrows with a brown eyebrow pencil. The lipstick gave her some trouble. She got a blob of carmine red too low on her under lip and had to wipe it all off on the towel and start again. She made her lips very full and then put them together and rolled one against the other, and she looked at her teeth and rubbed some lipstick off with her towel. She should have washed her teeth before she put on the lipstick. Now powder. That would take the redness out of her face. Then she brushed her hair. She had never liked her hair. Holding it this way and that for effect, she began to lose interest.

  In the bedroom she dug out a close-fitting black felt hat with a kind of a visor. She pushed her hair up inside the hat and angled the brim rakishly.

  "Now," she said, "now we'll see how a woman's face gets crooked. I wish Juan would come home right now. He'd change his tune."

  In the bedroom she got the bottle of Bellodgia from her dresser drawer and put perfume on her bosom and on the lobes of her ears and at her hair line. And she patted a little on her upper lip. "I like to smell it too," she said.

  She walked back to the lunchroom, carefully avoiding the corner that had struck her before. It was even darker than it had been, for the clouds were getting thick and very little light was coming through. Alice sat down at her table and adjusted her hand mirror. "Pretty," she said, "you're kind of pretty. What are you doing this evening? Would you like to go dancing?"

  She poured off the drink in her glass. Suppose that driver for the Red Arrow Line1 should come by and knock on the door. She'd let him in. He was a great kidder. She'd give him a drink or two and then she'd show him a thing or two.

  "Red," she'd say, "you set yourself up as a great kidder but I'm going to show you something. There's some kidding on the level." She let her mind dwell on his narrow waist and heavy muscled forearms. He wore a broad belt around his blue jeans, and the jeans--well, the guy was O.K. Something about thinking of those jeans. There was a copper rivet at the bottom where the fly started. And something about that rivet brought sorrow to Alice. Bud had had one. A copper rivet just there. She tried to evade this vision too, and failing, gathered it--gathered it to her mind. He had begged her over and over again. And finally they walked four miles out to the picnic grounds. Bud carried the lunch--hard-boiled eggs and ham sandwiches and an apple pie. Alice bought the pie but she told Bud she made it. And he didn't even wait for the lunch.

  He hurt her. And after, she said, "Where are you going?"

  "I've got work to do," Bud said.

  "You said you love me."

  "Did I?"

  "You aren't going to leave me, Bud?"

  "Listen, sister, you got laid, that's all. I didn't sign no long-term contract."

  "But it's the first time, Bud."

  "There's got to be a first time for everybody," he said.

  Alice was crying over herself now. "It's no damn good!" she shouted at herself in the mirror. "None of it's any damn good." She blubbered while she drank off another whisky and poured the last of the bottle into her glass.
>
  All the others were no damn good, either, and what had she now? A stinking job with bed privileges and no pay. That's what. And married to a stinking greaser, that's what. Married to him! Too far out in the country to go to the movies. Got to sit in a stinking lunchroom.

  She put her head down on her arms and cried brokenheart edly. And a second Alice could hear her crying. A second Alice stood at her shoulder and watched her. Got to walk on eggs all the time to keep him happy. She raised her head and looked in the mirror. The lipstick was smeared all over her upper lip. Her eyes were red and her nose was running. She reached for the napkin container, pulled out two paper napkins, and blew her nose. She balled up the paper and threw it on the floor.

  What did she want to keep this joint clean for? Who cared? Who gave a damn about her? Nobody! But she could take care of herself. Nobody was going to kick Alice around and get away with it. She emptied the last of the whisky.

  Getting out the port wine was a job. She staggered and fell against the sink. There was hot pressure against the inside of her nose and her breath whistled in her nostrils. She stood the bottle of port wine on the counter and got a corkscrew. The bottle fell over when she tried to get the corkscrew into it, and the second time the cork broke into small pieces. She pushed the rest of it into the bottle with her thumb and lunged back to the table.

  "Soda pop," she said. She filled her glass full of the dark red wine. "Wish there was some more whisky." Her mouth was dry. She drank half the tumbler of wine thirstily. "Why, that's good," she giggled. Maybe she'd always have whisky first to give flavor to the wine.

  She drew the mirror close to her. "You're an old bag," she said bitterly. "You're a dirty drunken old bag. No wonder nobody wants you. I wouldn't have you myself."

  The image in the mirror was not double but it had double outlines, and at the outside of her range of vision Alice could feel the room begin to rock and sway. She drank the rest of the glass and choked and sputtered and the red wine ran out of the corners of her mouth. She missed the glass and poured wine over the tabletop before she got her glass filled. Her heart was pounding. She could hear it, and she could feel it beat in her arms and shoulders and in the veins on her breasts. She drank solemnly.