what time he was leaving. Check to see if Mom was okay and maybe wait for him. Mom could be all better now, knowing her little girl was coming home. Wayne could have already left by the time she called. But if he was there, she’d tell him not to be surprised if Ferris drops in, and if he does, be nice, okay? Just say good-bye. And Wayne would say, yeah, uh-huh, what else you want me to do? How about if I give him a hug? ...Or not mention Ferris at all. He was three hundred and fifty miles behind her, back in southeast Missouri with his muscles and wavy hair, Carmen thinking of him now as a clown who used to walk into her house, an annoying jerk rather than a serious threat. She should have spoken up to him more. Got mad and told him to get the hell out, goddamn it. And got mad thinking about it, cleaning up her plate of bacon and eggs, cottage fries, rye-bread toast and coffee, Kountry Kitchen No. 3.
She should’ve thrown something at him. Something heavy. She threw beer cans at Wayne, but beer cans were for show. Or she should’ve hit him with something. Keep a sleever bar handy for creeps who walk in the house uninvited.
Carmen finished, got the check and went to the counter to pay. A guy in a John Deere cap reached it at the same time. He touched the bill of the cap funneled over his eyes and said, “After you.” Carmen nodded, glanced at the guy, saw his eyes and the sly grin and thought, Oh shit, another one. He said, “I imagine there’s all kinds of boys after you,” and Carmen got out of there.
The pickup stood close, angle-parked in the lights of the Kountry Kitchen. She unlocked it, climbed in, reached for the door to swing it closed and the guy in the John Deere cap caught it, held it open.
“Excuse me. I just want to ask, if you got time . . .”
Carmen started the engine, revved it.
“Wait a sec now, I thought we might have a drink. There’s a spot up here before you get to the Michigan line, the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? You ever been there?”
Carmen took time to look at him, his face raised, hopeful now. She said, “Do you really think I want to go to a place called the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? For a drink or any reason at all? Are you serious?”
Carmen put the pickup in reverse and backed away from the Kountry Kitchen, the open door bringing the guy along against his will, the guy yelling now, “Hey, for Christ sake!” Scrambling to stay on his feet. Carmen braked, shifted, took off in low gear and left him. The door swung closed as she drove away.
Hit them with a truck if you don’t have a sleever bar.
Twenty years married to Wayne.
She followed her headlights along the nighttime freeway, not as tired as before, thinking about Wayne now, seeing them together. They’re in the kitchen having a beer and she’s describing the guy in the John Deere cap, oh, about thirty-five, not bad-looking. She tells what the guy said, word for word, memorized, beginning with “After you,” and then what she said, very calmly, after he invites her to have a drink. “You really think I want to go to a place called the
They told Wayne at Waterfront Services there were northbound tows leaving but none that had to stop at Cape. A guy who worked for the Corps of Engineers, a civilian employee, was in the office. He said Wayne could ride with him as far as Thebes, where he lived, and it was only another nine miles to the Cape bridge, but he first needed to see a man over at the Skipper Lounge. Wayne thought he meant ride in a boat, but it was a Ford pickup they drove to the pizza-smelling saloon and the man the guy from the Corps of Engineers had to see was the bartender. He had to see him keep pouring Jim Beam into a glass until the fifth was used up. By this time it was eleven-thirty at night.
Carmen, Wayne believed, would be somewhere around Chicago, while he was stuck down at the ass end of the state. The bartender kept watching him to see he didn’t lift the guy from the Corps of Engineers off the floor and threaten or shake him.
The guy kept telling Wayne to take her easy, have another, he’d still get home quicker than by towboat. Wayne, who only had every other drink with the guy, said, “Okay, if you let me drive.” Sure, hell, they’d both go to Cape and have one and the guy, smashed out of his mind by now, would drive himself home from there. Which was okay with Wayne, as long as he wasn’t riding with him.
They got to Thebes and Wayne said, “Which way now?” The guy said turn here, turn there, okay stop. They were at the guy’s house. Wayne said, “I thought we were going to Cape.” The guy from the fucking Corps of Engineers said, “You’re going to Cape, I’m going to bed.” Wayne almost stole his truck. It took him three hours and forty minutes to hike it half in the bag, from Thebes to the bridge, not seeing one goddamn car on the road. He picked up the Olds at Cape Barge Line, got home feeling like shit and there weren’t any aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Carmen had taken them with her. Thanks a lot. There was a note on the refrigerator and his new work gloves he’d forgotten lying on the breakfast table. Wayne set the alarm and went to bed.
He woke up at seven wearing his Jockey shorts and the yellow cowhide work gloves, hung over, feeling mean and craving ice cream. For about fifteen minutes he lay there thinking about a chocolate milk shake. He had downed many of them in a hung-over state while other guys drank cold beer or hard stuff as a pick-me-up. Wayne believed drinking before noon could get you in trouble and ice cream was better than sweating out the clock. Carmen had bought some, he was pretty sure, the other day, a half-gallon of butterscotch ripple. He jumped out of bed to check and there it was, Thank you, Jesus, in the freezer part of the fridge. But hard as a rock. He took it out to soften while he showered and got dressed.
But then in the shower with water streaming over him, hair lathered with shampoo, he thought, Hell, bring the ice cream in here and it would soften enough to drink, just like a thick milk shake.
Wayne left the shower on and closed the curtain so the floor wouldn’t get wet. He walked out of the steamy bathroom naked and wet, tiptoed along the hall to the kitchen, on the right, and stopped, catching a glimpse of something to his left. Through the living room and out the window. A cream-colored Plymouth pulling into the drive to park behind the Olds. Deputy Marshal Ferris Britton getting out of the car, coming to the side door.
What would he want this early in the morning?
If the doorbell rings, Wayne was thinking, yell at him to go away. But the doorbell didn’t ring. He heard a key turn the lock and knew what Ferris wanted.
Wayne slipped back along the hall to the bedroom, closed the door partway and stood listening. He heard the side door close.
Ferris was in the house.
Wayne got a clean pair of Jockeys from the dresser and put them on. He was still wet, hair creamed and swirled with shampoo. He looked at his new work gloves, never used, lying on the bed.
Ferris was in the hall, looking in the kitchen. He came to the bathroom and for a moment stood in the doorway. He stepped inside.
Wayne came only a few moments later, into the steam and sound of the shower going behind the flowered plastic curtain. He stood looking at Ferris’s back, close enough to reach out and touch the big grip of the revolver on his belt, the shirt stretched across those solid shoulders, short sleeves rolled up, the muscles in his arms tightening as he raised his hands to his hips. Wayne was going to tap him on the shoulder and say ... whatever you said to a guy who thinks he’s about to surprise your wife in the shower. He hesitated, watching Ferris’s right hand reach up to take hold of the curtain. Maybe you don’t say anything.
Ferris did. He said, “Surprise!” Yelled it out as he tore the shower curtain aside, ripping part of it off the rod ...and stood looking at wet tile, the shower streaming into an empty tub. He stood like that for several moments, as though thinking, well, she must be in there somewhere. Wayne got ready.
He waited for Ferris to turn, saw his face, all eyes, and hit him. Hit him with his right hand in that yellow cowhide work glove, hit him as hard as he had ever swung a ten-pound beater, hit him one time with everything he had and Ferris went into the shower, bounced against the tile and slid down to lie cramped in there, legs sticking up over the edge of the tub. His eyes opened to stare dazed through the stream of water.
Wayne bent over, hands on his bare knees, to look at him. He said, “Oh, it’s you. Shit, I thought it was somebody broke in the house.”
The phone rang in the kitchen.
It rang five times before Wayne got to it, taking off his gloves, and answered.
Carmen’s voice said, “Wayne? I’m home.”
