On my first try I almost decapitated Bob-he watched me do it from the other side, standing there with a little smile. The controls were supersensitive and it took me a good ten minutes of practice before I could work them well enough. The hardest part was avoiding the sides of the truck bed.
Don’t ask me how, but I loaded the piano. I was covered with sweat. We tied it down like madmen, then took off.
I might as well have been transporting nitroglycerin, I was so nervous. The storm was hanging over our heads. I could not morally allow it to rain on a Bosendorfer-l just couldn’t. Unfortunately the heavens slowly started descending, and the truck dragged along at thirty-five.
“Bob, I’m a hair away from sinking the ship,” I said.
“I know. Why didn’t we put a tarp over it?”
“What tarp? Did you see something that looked like a tarp?
Fuck, light me a cigarette, will you…?”
He leaned forward and pushed in the cigarette lighter. I glanced at the dashboard.
“What are all these buttons for, I wonder?”
“Beats me. I don’t recognize half of them…”
I had my foot to the floor, a cold sweat running down my back. Just another fifteen minutes, I told myself-a wink of the eye, and we’re home free. The suspense was killing me. I was biting the inside of my mouth when the first drop fell on the windshield. It hurt so bad I wanted to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth.
“Hey, I found the window-washer button,” said Bob.
When we got there I drove around the house and parked next to the window, doing a slalom between the flower beds. The lady was ecstatic, walking around the truck, wringing her handkerchief.
“I decided to handle this myself,” I explained. “All my men split on me at the last minute.”
“Yes, I certainly know how it is,” she complained. “So hard to find good help nowadays…”
“You said it,” I added. “Someday they’ll come murder us in our sleep!”
“Hahaha,” she said.
I jumped out of the truck.
“And we’re off!” I shouted.
“I’ll show you how to get the window open,” she said.
There were occasional light gusts of wind, cool and wet. I knew that every second counted. The piano shone like a lake. Inside, I jittered. The atmosphere was a little like in a disaster film-the part where all you hear is the ticking of the bomb.
I untied the piano with abandon. It rocked back and forth heavily. The sky was about to crack-I was holding it at bay with sheer brain power. As soon as the window was open, I aimed carefully, then sent it through. There was a sound of breaking glass. The first drop fell on my hand. I lifted a triumphant face to the heavens. I found each little drop prettier than the one before, now that the piano was safe and dry. It was with a happy heart that I turned off the controls and went to see what in the world I could have broken.
I asked the customer to simply have the bill for the window pane forwarded to me, then gestured to Bob that it was time to undo the straps. Bob had tied the knots. I took one in my hand and discreetly showed it to him.
“You see, Bob…” I said. “A knot like this is not even worth trying to undo. It is impossibly tangled. I suppose you tied all the other ones the same way…?”
I saw in his eyes that the answer was yes. I pulled my Western S.522 out of my pocket and cut the straps, sighing.
“The devil sent you,” I told him.
Still, the piano had found a home-had come through without a scratch. I didn’t have much reason to complain. Outside it was coming down in buckets. I took an almost animal-like pleasure in watching the raging storm drown out the countryside. I myself had managed to escape it. I waited for the lady to get it together to pay me, then considered the job done.
I dropped Bob off on the way back and returned the truck to the rental office. I took a bus home. The rain had stopped, and there were a few patches of blue. The tension from the morning had exhausted me, but I was coming home with pockets full of money, and one thing compensated for the other. Even better, I managed to get the window seat right behind the driver, and nobody bothered me. I sat there watching the streets go by.
There was no one home at the apartment. I couldn’t remember if Betty had told me that she was going somewhere-yesterday seemed centuries away. I went straight to the fridge and got some things out on the table. The beer and the hard-boiled eggs were all frozen. I went to take a shower, and wait for the world to rise to human temperature.
Back in the kitchen, I gave a kick to a piece of crumpled-up paper that was lying on the floor. I find myself in this position more often than is my share, but that’s how it goes. Something’s always lying around on the floor. I picked it up. I unfolded it. I sat down and read it. It was the laboratory results. They were negative… NEGATIVE!
I cut my finger opening my beer bottle, but I didn’t notice right away. I drank it in one gulp. It must have been written somewhere that all my disappointments come by mail. It was vulgar-atrociously trite-it was a glimpse of Hell. It took me a while to react, then Betty’s absence began to weigh heavily on my shoulders. If I don’t move, I thought, I’ll burn. I grabbed the back of the chair to get up. My finger started pissing blood. I decided to run some water over it. Maybe this was why I hurt all over. I went up to the kitchen sink. Then I spotted something red in the garbage can. I already knew what it was. I fished it out with my hand. There was a black one, too. It was the Oshkosh jammies. Maybe it’s true that they wash well-we’d never really know- but one thing was sure: they didn’t stand up well to a pair of scissors. This little touch made me plunge to the murky depths. It gave me an idea of how Betty had taken the news. To all appearances, the blood was coagulating at the end of my finger, but in truth my skin was crawling-in truth, the Earth had fallen off its axis.
I controlled myself. I had to think. I ran the water over it, then wrapped it in gauze. The problem was that I was suffering for two. I had a keen intuition of what Betty must have felt. My brain was half paralyzed and my intestines were gurgling. I knew I ought to go looking for her, but for the moment I didn’t have the strength. I almost just slid into bed to wait for a blizzard to come numb me, to sweep my thoughts away. I stood there in the middle of the room, pockets full of money and finger cut. Then I hit the streets.
I searched in vain for her all afternoon. I must have covered every street in town two or three times, my eyes riveted to the sidewalks. I chased after girls who looked like her, slowed down next to porches, combed the places we frequented. I rolled through deserted streets, until very slowly the night came on. I went and filled the gas tank. When it came time to pay, I pulled out my wad of bills. The dude was wearing an Esso cap with grease smudges on it. He gave me a suspicious look.
“I just pillaged a church,” I said.
By that time, I knew, she could have been two hundred miles away. All I’d gotten for my efforts was a throbbing headache. There was only one place left to look-the cabin-but I couldn’t quite decide to go. I thought that if I didn’t find her there, then I’d never find her. I hesitated before firing my last shell. There was one chance in a million that she’d be there. Still, there was no other choice. I drove around a while longer under the neon lights, then stopped by the house to get a flashlight and throw on a jacket.
The lights were on upstairs. This didn’t surprise me. I was fully capable of leaving something on the stove, or the faucets running. In the shape I was in, I could have found the house in flames and taken it with a grain of salt. I went up.
She was sitting at the kitchen table. She was outrageously made up. Her hair was cut going in all directions. We looked at each other. In one way, I breathed deep relief. In another way, I felt myself suffocating. No words came to mind. She had set the table. She stood up without a word and got the main dish. It was meatballs in tomato sauce. We sat across from each other. She had simply demolished her face-I couldn’t stand looking at it for very long. Had I opened my mouth just then, I would have started whimpering. All that was left were her bangs. Eye shadow and lipstick were smeared all over her face. She stared at me. Her stare was the worst of all. I felt that something was going to rip apart inside me.
Without taking my eyes off her, I bent forward and shoved both my hands into the bowl of meatballs. It was hot. I picked up a handful of it. The tomato sauce ran out between my fingers. I smeared it all over my face-in my eyes, up my nose, in my hair. It burned. I stuck it everywhere, blobs of it sliding down the sides of my head and
