Moth

The young man’s name was Robert. He dressed neatly, chinos and oxford cloth shirts mostly, and when he spoke, it was with a demure, softly southern accent; he had the deferential look of men raised by women. His French was extraordinarily good. He easily followed everything that was said, evidenced fine vocabulary and grammar on all written work, but had trouble whenever things shifted over to speech, as though words and phrases caught in his throat like some kind of phlegm and only with great effort could he expel them.

During conversation one afternoon-we were discussing Montaigne, as I recall-Robert passed twice, and when it came around to him again, simply sat there watching me blankly until I directed a question elsewhere. When I glanced back at him moments later, he leapt from his desk and stood in a crouch beside it.

“Ca va?” I asked him.

Whereupon he straightened, announcing in a loud voice, and in perfect French: “There is a conspiracy against me, Mr. Griffin. Surely you know that.”

“No, I wasn’t aware of that, Robert. But can you tell me just who is involved in this conspiracy?”

He looked around him wildly, but said no more. The room was absolutely quiet. No one moved.

I said: “I’d like for everyone who is not directly involved in this conspiracy to leave the room, please.”

The others quickly gathered their things and slipped from the room. I walked over to Robert, who remained standing stock still by the desk.

“So it’s down to just us now,” he said.

And looking into his eyes, I realized that he wasn’t talking to me. I don’t think he even knew I was there any longer.

Security came, and Robert let them lead him away without protest. A few weeks later, at a department meeting, Dean Vidale told us that Robert had got up one night at the state hospital, gone into the shower stall, and hung himself with a strip of ticking torn from his mattress.

I was thinking about it again that morning as I climbed back into the car with a huge cup of coffee and a bag of doughnuts and pulled out onto Highway 61. I’m not at all sure why this came to mind. I hadn’t thought about it in years. But now that I had, I couldn’t seem to shake it.

There was only one place for Alouette to go. And only two reasons for going there, the first of these, and far the least likely, her grandmother.

I’d driven less than an hour, coffee long gone, half a doughnut left in the bag, when, ahead, I saw a semi pull onto the opposite shoulder to let someone off, then pull back into traffic without looking, sending a panicked Camry into the oncoming lane. A panel truck in front of me hit its brakes and swerved onto the shoulder. It fishtailed and came to a stop nose-down in a shallow ditch at roadside, one wheel hanging free. I worked my own brakes, slowing by increments, and at the end of the curve, after the Camry had retaken its lane and shot by me, fell into an easy U.

I watched her face change as I approached and pulled off beside her.

“Thought you might need a ride.”

“Guess so. Last one’s price was one I didn’t want to pay. Man, you get straight and people start smelling bad, you know what I mean?”

She got in, crossing her legs beneath her on the car seat.

“He wasn’t even going the right direction. I hitched him at a truck stop down the highway and he told me he was bound for Vicksburg. But then we get to the highway and he turns north. And when I say something, he just says, ‘What difference does it make, little girl? Places is all alike.’ ”

“So how’d you persuade him to let you out?”

“I told him I just couldn’t go back toward Memphis, cause my daddy the sheriff had all-point bulletins out on me up there.”

I sat with motor idling. The panel truck backed out, wheels spinning, throwing up dust and stray gravel. A piece flew across the road and banged into the Mazda with a strangely nonmetallic thunk.

“Anytime now,” she said. “I’m in. We can go.”

“Okay. Which way?”

“You mean you didn’t come out here to haul me back?”

“Why? You don’t want to be there, you’d just leave again. Not much I can do about that. Not much anyone can do about it.”

“But me, you mean.”

I shrugged.

After a moment I said, “Something I used to do a lot was, I’d line everything up against myself so I had to get slapped back down. Work myself half to death sometimes, just getting it set up that way.”

“When you were drinking, you mean?”

“I still drink.”

“When you were a drunk, then.”

I nodded.

“And you’re saying that’s what I’m doing.”

“No. I’m only saying that I try not to do that anymore. If you want to go back to Clarksville and whatever’s there, I’m not going to try to stop you.”

“But you came after me.”

“Only to talk. You don’t want that, we’ll shut up, both of us. You don’t want to come back up to Memphis, you just open the door and get out. Or you can ask me and I’ll drive you to Clarksville myself.”

“That’s it, that’s where I want to go,” she said.

“Okay.” I waited for a couple of cars to pass, pulled the Mazda back onto the highway and started gaining speed.

“Lewis?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You don’t preach to me, tell me what’s right, what I need to do, like all the rest.”

“No.”

“Why is that?”

“I figure you know what’s right, as much as any of us do. You’ll either listen to that, or you won’t listen to anything-me, least of all. And you’re the only one who can say what you need. Whatever it is, you have to go after that. Everybody does. But needs change, and you don’t always notice. Besides,” I added, “who’d be fool enough to take advice from me?”

“Let he who is without sin …”

I smiled, remembering the last time that came up: when I was hospitalized for DT’s, back when I first met Vicky.

“Something like that. But look who’s preaching now.”

We rode on in silence.

After a while she said, “Lewis, I think you took a wrong turn back there.”

There weren’t any turns, only farm roads stretching out like dry tongues to the horizon.

I looked at her.

“Memphis is back that way.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Memphis it is, then.” I pulled off to the shoulder. “And on the way, maybe some lunch?”

“Why thank you, sir,” she said in a broad Hollywood-southern accent, “I’d mightily admire to have lunch with a fine, strong man like yourself. One that’s paying.” She sighed dramatically. “A lady carries no money, you know.”

As we rode back, I told her about Bob, how he’d suddenly caved in during class that day.

She sat quietly for a while when I was finished, then said: “Why’d you tell me that?”

“I don’t know.”

A tractor pulled over to let us pass, rocked back onto the road behind us.

“I think I do.”

“I’m listening.”