October 2nd
It is just past midnight. Greg waits outside the kitchen delivery entrance as directed, and scans the parking lot. It's cool, a little breezy; clouds play tag with the crescent moon overhead. The heat wave has finally broken, but the drought continues. He doesn't care about that, though. He's being busted out of stir, and he can hardly wait to see where they're headed. The plan had been presented to him in a pain management session a few days ago.
("We need to convene a war council," Gene says. In his white shirt and olive Dockers he looks responsible enough, but his dark eyes gleam with something akin to mischief. "Not here, though. You up for a long weekend out?")
And so here he stands, and wonders what will happen next. Maybe Goldman'll get my bike out of storage. We could ride down to AC. Total road trip. He can think of nothing but the pleasure of flight away from this place, as the bike and the highway and the wind all make a music that numbs and releases him at the same time.
There is movement at the far edge of the parking lot. It looks like . . . a minivan: a champagne-colored, boxy Honda Odyssey, the most boring vehicle made outside of a Volvo station wagon. It's the same van he saw Sarah Goldman climb into some weeks back. He watches as it comes closer. When it passes under a light he sees someone in the front passenger seat. Auburn curls are visible, garish in the orange light of the sodium vapor lamp. Aw, man. Disappointment chokes him for a moment. No guy weekend, no fun, no nothing. He'll be stuck in a therapy session for the entire three days. It'll be like watching paint dry while ducks nibble at him, and any other metaphor of supreme ennui he can think of.
The van pulls up beside him. Now he can see Gene is behind the wheel. Sarah opens the door and hops out. She's in jeans, a sweater and battered Doc Martens, her curls pulled back in a loose, untidy braid. "You coming with?" she asks, and smiles a little. "Front or back seat?" He gives her his best glare.
"I'm not going anywhere in that breeder-mobile," he says. "Especially if you're along for the ride."
"If you don't come with us, you stay here," she says. Her tone is casual, as if it doesn't matter to her whether he goes or not. He tries to gauge her sincerity; unfortunately it's too dark to read her eyes. Her body language is relaxed, but she's smart enough to keep it that way.
"Where are we going?" It's the one thing Gene wouldn't tell him.
Sarah sings under her breath. He can just catch the words: "Should I stay or should I go . . ."
"Haha, that's absolutely hilarious," he says sourly. To refuse is unbearable; even a weekend spent in someone's unfinished basement in Parsippany would be preferable to the alternative. "Since you took shotgun I'm stuck in the back, nice way to treat a cripple. Thanks a lot," he says at last, and steps forward as Sarah opens the sliding door.
Actually the bench seat is fairly comfortable. There are pillows and cushions and a blanket stacked on one side for him to use, and the wayback holds a cooler filled with bottles of soda and tea, assorted hoagies, fruit, Tastykakes, and a dozen Dove chocolate bars, all within easy reach. As he rummages for something to eat, he notices a couple of guitar cases stacked side by side next to the overnight bags. Didn't know either one of them could play. That intrigues him, but he sets the speculation aside for the time being, snags a Coke and half a hoagie, unwraps the sandwich and takes a huge bite. The rich taste of Cajun roast beef, horseradish, onions and fresh Amoroso roll fills his mouth. It is all he can do not to groan out loud in ecstasy. It's real food, the first he's tasted in months, and almost better than sex.
"Hand me up a ginger beer please," Sarah says. She looks at him and chuckles, a soft, sweet sound with no malice in it. "Nice change from cafeteria stodge, huh?"
"Mmm," he mumbles around the food, and finds her some Reed's Premium. A few minutes of amiable confusion pass as food is parceled out, then everyone settles into the serious business of an illicit midnight snack. After a moment music plays, some shoutin' blues, the real thing—Bessie Smith, he knows that voice well. It's perfect. He relaxes against the seat, munches the hoagie and watches the streetlights go by. Something deep inside him slowly unclenches just a little. He ignores the sensation, but feels it all the same, knows where it comes from: a childhood filled with long drives or flights between military bases, cooped up with two adults who expected him to be unseen and unheard. Those journeys were not pleasant experiences, and that's the understatement of the century.
"You okay back there?" Gene says after a time. Greg finishes off the heel of the hoagie and washes it down with Coke, grabs a package of butterscotch krimpets.
"Peachy keen," he says, a little surprised to find he really means it. "Please tell me you don't own this beater." He tears open the wrapper and eats one krimpet whole, just for the sugar rush.
"Yeah, we bought it used," Gene says. "Tried for a Navigator, but this was all they had. Anyway, it's a lot more comfortable than Sarah's pickup."
"Don't make fun of Minnie Lou," Sarah says. "She's a good old truck."
"Yeah, if you don't mind having your fillings rattled right out of your teeth," Gene says, and laughs when Sarah makes a face at him.
"Shut up! I know she needs new shocks!"
"Don't we all," Greg says, and is surprised when they both laugh. He feels a dangerous sense of comraderie and pushes it away. "Minnie Lou-no doubt there's a story behind that one."
"It's from a song by John Flynn," Sarah says. "I'll play it for you when we get to—where we're going."
He hears the hasty amendment in her sentence and jumps on it. "Hope we're on the way to AC or New York."
Sarah turns to him. He can see her expression is not one of amusement; she looks . . . intent, for lack of a better word. "You tell me," she says. It's another surprise; most people can't bear his continual deductions. They don't understand it's not something he can turn on and off; it's just always there, a part of who he is. No one has ever invited him to do this outside of work, because no one ever wants all that rational thought aimed at them. He searches her features, looks for some sign of condescension or trickery, but she simply sits there and waits for him to start. He settles back and licks the sweet icing off his fingers first.
"Tank's topped off," he begins. "Haven't seen any signs leading to I-95, so no big cities in either direction on the Corridor. And there's no shore gear in the back. That means we're not having Mack and Manco on the boardwalk." He stops to give a loud belch, but receives no reprimand, no prissy sigh of exasperation. He peers at Sarah to get her reaction.
"Good so far," she says, apparently unfazed. Right—she has older brothers, he thinks. Bet she's seen every Three Stooges short ever made, too.
"We're not going north, east or south. That leaves west," he says. "We're above the southern tier, so . . . Finger Lakes?" He shakes his head. "Too far away for a three-day weekend." He considers the available evidence. "You've got a place in the country," he says. "Probably an old house you bought when real estate was still reasonably priced."
"Can I just say that if either one of us ever gets sick, we want you as our diagnostician?" Gene says after a moment's silence. He gives Greg a grin via the rear view mirror. It softens his angular features, makes him look less like a mercenary and more like a young guy on a night out.
"If your diagnosis is as easy as this was, you won't have to worry," Greg says. He looks at Sarah. "You're taking me to some moldering heap in the middle of nowhere?"
"'Moldering heap' might be going a little far," Sarah says. "Definitely a fixer-upper, though. We bought it five years ago."
"Don't tell me it was something as sickening as a belated honeymoon present."
"Not exactly. More like an escape hatch. We see a lot of misery on a daily basis," Gene says in his quiet way. "You probably understand that better than most. When you deal with so much pain, you need somewhere to decompress. We're both farm kids, so it seemed natural to find a place in the country to make our own."
"It's come a long way since we got it," Sarah says. There is a sense of satisfaction in her words. "That first winter, hauling all the manure out of the bottom floor—"
"Wait a minute—what?" Greg sits up, transfixed by what she's just said. "There was cow shit inside the house?"
"Yeah, because there were cows inside the house," Sarah says. "When the farmstead was built the animals were stabled on the first floor, and everyone who lived there after the original owners did the same. It's very practical technology, actually. The heat from their bodies and the manure rises and becomes a secondary source of warmth for the upper floors."
He's seen animals stabled inside houses in other countries, it's not really as off-putting as he pretends it is, but he has to give his erstwhile keepers a hard time. "Oh my god," he groans. "You're gonna make me sleep with cows to keep warm!"
Both of them laugh—real laughter, but still without that tinge of malice he's come to associate with other people's amusement. "You make that sound like a bad thing," Sarah says, and glances at Gene. "You get used to it."
"Thanks," Gene says, his voice dry. He takes Sarah's ginger beer and downs a swig.
"Ewww," Greg says, and pretends to shudder. "Cattle and now backwash. You two really are rednecks."
"Born and bred," Sarah says, unperturbed. "We've had a lot of fun renovating. The house, not each other." Gene laughs and she flashes a smile at him.
"You didn't call someone in to do it for you." Greg is intrigued by this attitude. "Why not? You've got the money, you're both DINKs."
"That's true," Gene says. "But a home you make yourself. Eventually we'll live there year-round, so we want it to suit our tastes."
"Besides, there are so many places in the area where you can get recycled timber and just about anything else you need," Sarah says. She sounds enthusiastic, her soft voice bright with what Greg perceives as happiness. "We found the perfect front door last month at an auction. And a friend of ours is doing the interior doors for us from old barn timbers. It's the coolest design, wait till you see it."
The conversation continues in this way for some time, an easy give and take that baffles him until he comprehends the tactic. They behave like he's a friend. It's an unsettling revelation. He's not sure what to do about it, because this doesn't fit any standard response he gets from people once they've been around him longer than thirty seconds. They actually seem to like him. It's unfathomable. It's just an act, he decides. They can't keep it up forever. Sooner or later they'll show me what they really want, and it'll be business as usual. Still, it's pleasant to sit in the darkness, warm, full and relaxed, engaged in desultory talk with two intelligent, well-reasoned people who give as good as they get. Greg closes his eyes, rests his head on the cushion wedged against the window, and drifts into a light doze.
'Gimme A Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer,' Bessie Smith
'Minnie Lou,' John Flynn
