Benediction

  You want some help over there, ladies? Richard said.

  Come on over here, cowboy.

  If you’re not afraid to, the other woman said.

  That was funny too, they sat down on the floor laughing.

  Don’t damage yourselves, he said.

  Lorraine walked over and slid into the seat across from him.

  You decided to join me after all, he said.

  I was always going to be here, she said. What do you mean?

  I couldn’t be sure after the way your father was. What’s he got against me?

  He doesn’t like you.

  What’s there not to like? He doesn’t know me.

  He thinks he does. Enough to form an opinion.

  Of what? The kind of person I am? I don’t need him to judge me. What does he know anyway?

  He’s been around for seventy-seven years. He knows a few things.

  Because he’s old and dying doesn’t mean he knows anything.

  In this case it might.

  He looked around the bar. The two women were playing shuffleboard again.

  You want a drink? he said.

  Yes. I do.

  He waved at the barmaid and she saw him at once and came over.

  She looked closely at Lorraine. Why, I haven’t seen you in years. You’re Lorraine Lewis, aren’t you.

  Yes.

  Marlene Stevens, the woman said.

  I remember you, Lorraine said.

  I was two years behind you in high school. I used to be Marlene Vosburg.

  How are you doing?

  I’m here, so I guess I’m all right. I got two kids in high school now myself. What about you?

  I had a daughter.

  The woman’s thin face flushed bright red. I’m sorry, she said. I knew that. She laid her hand on Lorraine’s. I’m sorry for saying anything. Can I get you a drink?

  I’ll have another Scotch, Richard said.

  You, hon?

  A margarita. No salt.

  I’ll be right back.

  They watched her walk away through the wide doorway into the front room. Little towns, he said. They all think they know you.

  She does know me. Something about me anyway.

  They know too much. I don’t like it.

  You don’t have to.

  He looked at her across the wood tabletop. Are you going to be like this all night?

  Like what?

  Like you got something up your ass.

  That’s a nice expression, Lorraine said. You didn’t have to come here.

  I wanted to see you.

  You don’t think so now?

  He looked at the two women and looked back. Do we have to do this? Just tell me that.

  Not if you can be nice, she said.

  The waitress returned and set the tray on the table and set the glasses in front of them. Richard handed her a twenty-dollar bill on the tray and she started to make change. That’s yours, he said. Keep the rest.

  Well thank you. I’ll be right in here if you need something. She went back out to the bar.

  Was that nice enough? he said.

  It’s a start, Lorraine said. It was nice to her. That’s all. It’s not that much.

  No?

  You’re no saint yet.

  At midnight they left the bar and she followed him in her car over to his motel at the west side of Holt on the highway. He was still trying to be nice when they were in bed, and he slid down in the sheets and helped her to have her desire first.

  When she woke in the morning she looked at his face and bare shoulders and arms and felt a little better toward him. They walked down past the row of parked cars to the motel café for breakfast. After they ordered he said, Come back to Denver, will you at least do that much?

  I can’t now. You understand that.

  I don’t mean now.

  We’ll see.

  Are you thinking of staying here?

  I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t tell yet.

  After breakfast she kissed him and went home and he started back to Denver. When she got out of the car she saw that her mother had set the sprinkler going on the north side of the house and her father was sitting in his chair at the window.

  Daddy, you’re up already.

  You’re late, he said. It’s the middle of the morning.

  It’s only eight o’clock.

  You’ve been out all night with him.

  What’s wrong, Daddy?

  He looked at the tree shade outside and she came across the room and sat on the arm of his chair.

  I was worrying about you, he said. That’s what it is.

  What are you worried about? If I’ll manage the store?

  No. Hell. You will or you won’t. That’s not worth worrying about anymore. It’ll happen or it won’t.

  What is it then?

  He looked up at her face. I just was wanting you to tell me if you was happy or not. I’d like to know that before I’m gone out of here.

  She rose and drew a chair close to him, facing him, and took one of his hands. No, she said. I’m not happy. If you want to know. Can I tell you that even now?

  If that’s what the truth is.

  It is. Since Lanie died. I never have been what you’d call truly happy.

  You don’t get over it, do you. When a child goes. You never do.

  I think about how we would be now. I want to talk to her. I want there to be long talks between my daughter and me. I have things I want to tell her. That boy that drove the car and killed her, I could do something terrible to him right now today. I swear I could.

  Her eyes were shiny. Dad squeezed her hand and they sat quietly, both of them looking at the tree outside the window.

  After a while he said, So what about this Richard?

  I don’t know, Daddy. He’s okay. He’s just wants to have a good time, go out drinking and take me to bed afterward.

  I don’t have to hear that part of it.

  You asked.

  Well, are you in love?

  No. There’s no one that way. I don’t know if I’ll ever find that kind. I’m too torn up inside.

  I was hoping this morning you’d tell me you was happy.

  I’m sorry, Daddy.

  I’m sorry too. For you, I mean.

  What about you?

  Well, yeah, I been happy. Sure. Except for the one thing.

  Frank.

  Yes.

  I know more about that than you think.

  I figure you know a lot, Dad said.

  I know what happened here with you. And other things that happened in town.

  He told you.

  Yes. A long time ago.

  21

  THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRL drove up to the house after dark. He was watching for her as always from the front room of the parsonage, his father and mother were back in the kitchen and didn’t say anything to him anymore when he left the house. He went out across the porch to the car and got in beside her. She looked no different than she had the other nights, still dressed in black with the red lipstick dark on her mouth. He wouldn’t have been able to tell that something was going to happen.

  They drove for an hour up and down Main Street and along the residential streets of town and then turned out north on the highway. The farm lights were lit up in the night, the headlights of her car bright on the narrow highway ahead of them. Then she headed the car off on a gravel road and he sat looking at her with the air coming in through the open window, her music playing, she wasn’t talking very much but sometimes she didn’t, then before they got to the place where they had parked once or twice before under a cottonwood tree she stopped the car and reached and turned off the music and they sat in the road with the engine running.

  What are we doing? he said. Somebody could hit us here.

  She was staring ahead over the steering wheel. I’ve decided it’s time to stop this.

  What? Why?

  School’s starting next month.

&
nbsp; I know. But we can go on after classes start.

  No. I’m going to have to work more than I ever have before, to get into a good college.

  She wouldn’t look at him. The headlights shone very brightly out ahead of the car on the gravel.

  I don’t understand what you mean, he said.

  There’s nothing to understand. Just accept it. We had a good time and now we’re done. This is the last night.

  You can’t just do this, he said.

  Of course I can.

  No you can’t. What about me, what I want?

  I’m the one who started it, she said. Not you. So I’m the one who ends it.

  It’s two of us here now. Not just you.

  You’re such a child. She looked at him for a moment. Just a little boy.

  I’m only two years younger than you.

  Two years make all the difference at this age.

  They were right, then, he said. They said you’d do this.

  Who did?

  The ones I fought you for. They told me.

  You didn’t fight for me.

  I fought that one. I hit him.

  You hit him once by surprise and then he knocked you down and pinned you down.

  I protected your name. I spilled my blood for you.

  What?

  I saved your name with my blood.

  Oh Christ. That’s just bullshit. I don’t need anybody to save me.

  You don’t believe me. I love you. And you don’t even care.

  Well, I’m sorry. She took hold of the steering wheel. That’s how it is. This is the last night.

  Why can’t we still see each other once in a while? Can’t we at least do that?

  No. That never works.

  You do this with all of them, don’t you. You fuck them all. Then you quit them.

  You stupid little shit, you’re starting to make me sick. She jerked the car into reverse and roared backward, turning sharply to go back to Holt, and she ended up jamming them into the barrow ditch, the car suddenly stopped, stuck, high-centered. She raced the engine and the back wheels spun, throwing gravel up behind them, and the car sank lower.

  Goddamn it! she screamed, racing the engine.

  Quit doing that! he said. You’re making it worse.

  Shut up. Just shut your goddamn mouth.

  She shoved her door open and they both got out. The back wheels were buried to the hubcaps and the rear end had settled into the broken ditch weeds. They went back up to the road and stood in front of the car. The lights of Holt were twenty miles away to the south and the lights of a farmhouse a half mile in the other direction. She shut off the engine and the headlights. It was all dark around them.

  Are you coming with me or staying here?

  Where are you going?

  Over to that house.

  I’m coming.

  Let’s go then.

  What about dogs?

  What about them?

  She began walking toward the farmhouse and he followed a little behind her. The wind was blowing and whistling in the barbed wire fence and the only other sound was their shoes scraping in the gravel. They didn’t talk. When they approached the farmstead they could see a machine shed and garage and a metal building and near the road the white house itself with a stand of locust behind it. A dog had started barking.

  I told you there would be a dog, he said.

  So there’s a dog.

  When they walked into the driveway the dog came out from the house barking at them. They could see him in the yard light, some kind of Australian blue heeler.

  Here, she said. Here, boy.

  The dog backed up and growled.

  Now what? he said.

  Wait, she said.

  The porch light came on above the back door. A man stepped out and peered at them.

  Who’s out there? he called.

  We’re stuck, she called back. Up the road here.

  What?

  The dog kept growling.

  We’re stuck in the road up here.

  Buddy. Hush up! Come here. The dog barked at them and trotted back to the house. I’ll be out in a minute, the man said. Wait there.

  I’ll do the talking, she said, after he was gone. You don’t have to say a word.

  I don’t intend to say anything.

  That’s good. Keep it that way.

  The man came out of the house with the dog following close at his heels. They went out to the garage and when they came backing out, the dog was up in the rear of the pickup, riding on the toolbox. The pickup pulled up beside them in the driveway. The dog sniffed at them and the girl opened the passenger door and looked inside. Can we get in?

  I think you better. Unless you plan to ride in back.

  She got up in the cab and slid over to the middle and John Wesley got in next to her. The man was wearing his pajama top and he’d put on jeans and boots. Where’s your car at?

  Down here a ways.

  To the south here?

  Yes.

  He looked at her. What’s your name?

  Genevieve.

  You got a last name?

  Larsen.

  And you?

  John Wesley Lyle.

  The man looked at him. Your father’s the preacher that just come to town.

  Yes.

  I see. Well, I don’t guess I have to ask what you was doing out here in the country at night. I noticed the car stopped down here before. Your folks know about this?

  John Wesley didn’t say anything.

  No, the man said. I don’t guess so. Well, it’s a nice night. A nice cool summer night and all these stars out.

  That’s the car, Genevieve said.

  He looked at her. I figured it would be.

  He pulled up to where it was pointed out crossways in the road.

  What were you doing, trying to turn around?

  I was trying to back up.

  You don’t ever want to get off the road. That ground’s pretty soft off in the ditch.

  Can you get us out?

  Oh, I imagine so. Don’t you think?

  She didn’t answer.

  What if I can’t? What then?

  I’d have to call somebody to tow it.

  Maybe you wouldn’t care to do that.

  No, I wouldn’t.

  No, ma’am. I wouldn’t if I was you.

  They all got out of the pickup. The dog leaped from the toolbox onto the road and ran off into the dark field. The man walked over to the car and stood looking at the rear wheels.

  Well, you tried, he said. You give her what for, didn’t you.

  It just dug in deeper.

  It does that, he said. You get in now and start it up and turn your front wheels this way. I’m going to tow you out on the road and you want to be turned in the direction we’re going. But not yet. Wait till I tell you.

  He got back in the pickup and the dog came up running, panting.

  I’m not going nowhere, the man said. Stay down. I’ll let you know when I’m leaving. I ain’t going nowhere without you.

  The dog stared at him. It’s all right, go on. The dog trotted out in the field again. The man backed the pickup in the road and came forward and backed again and came forward and backed up once more, until the rear almost touched the front bumper. He got out and brought the tow chain from the toolbox and crawled down in the gravel and hooked the chain underneath the car and stood up and brushed off his hands and knees and hooked the other end of the chain to the pickup hitch.

  Now you tell me when that chain gets tight, he said.

  Do you mean me? John Wesley said.

  That’s right. I’m talking to you. He turned to the girl. And you go ahead and get in and start your car now and put it in gear. When I start pulling, you ease it forward. Don’t come racing out of there, you’ll run into the back of me. He looked at the two of them. We all set?

  She got in the car and the man stepped up into the pickup and eased forward very slowly, watching John Wesl
ey in the side mirror. The boy gave him the sign that the chain was tight. It tugged against the pickup. Then the man drove forward gradually, steadily and the car came right up out of the ditch. When they were lined up on the road, he backed up to put slack in the chain, and got out and unhooked and dropped the chain back in the box.

  Well. I imagine that’s going to do it.

  Thank you, the girl said. Thank you very much.

  You probably don’t want to do that again. He looked around at the fields and looked up at the sky. Well, like I say, it’s a pretty night. He gave the boy and girl a long look. Then he whistled. Here! Buddy! Come here. The dog raced up out of the dark. Get up, the man said. The dog leaped into the back of the pickup onto the toolbox and they drove away, the man’s arm out the side window, casually, as if it were the middle of the day. They watched the red taillights disappearing. Dust rose up from the road and hung in the night air.

  This doesn’t change what we talked about, she said. Don’t think it does.

  They drove back toward town on the county roads. He could see the lights of town ahead, the streetlights and the red warning lights on the grain elevators and the light at the water tower, and all around them the farm lights dotting the countryside.

  What are you stopping for now? he said.

  I’m going to do this last thing for you. She slid out from behind the steering wheel and began to unbutton his pants.

  Don’t.

  Yes, she said. You know you want me to.

  No. Leave me alone.

  She brushed his hands away and finished with the buttons and pushed his underwear down.

  Put your head back, she said.

  No.

  Do what I say. Lay your head back. You want to remember this, don’t you? He shut his eyes and leaned back against the seat and she bent over and put her head in his lap. He began to cry. She went on anyway and after a little while it was finished. She sat up and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her black shirt. There, she said. Remember I did that.