'They only forgot one thing,' Vicky said, still giggling helplessly.
'What?' Burt asked, frowning.
'Burma Shave.' She held a knuckled fist against her open mouth to keep in the laughter, but her semi-hysterical giggles flowed around it like effervescent ginger-ale bubbles.
'Vicky, are you all right?'
'I will be. Just as soon as we're a thousand miles away from here, in sunny sinful California with the Rockies between us and Nebraska.'
Another group of signs came up and they read them silently.
TAKE. . . THIS. . . AND. . . EAT. . . SAITH. . . THE. LORD... GOD
Now why, Burt thought, should I immediately associate that indefinite pronoun with corn? Isn't that what they say when they give you communion? It had been so long since he had been to church that he really couldn't remember. He wouldn't be surprised if they used cornbread for holy wafer around these parts. He opened his mouth to tell Vicky that, and then thought better of it.
They breasted a gentle rise and there was Gatlin below them, all three blocks of it, looking like a set from a movie about the Depression.
'There'll be a constable,' Burt said, and wondered why
the sight of that hick one-timetable town dozing in the sun should have brought a lump of dread into his throat.
They passed a speed sign proclaiming that no more than thirty was now in order, and another sign, rust- flecked, which said: YOU ARE NOW ENTERNG GATLIN, NICEST LITTLE TOWN IN NEBRASKA - OR ANYWHERE ELSE! POP. 4531.
Dusty elms stood on both sides of the road, most of them diseased. They passed the Gatlin Lumberyard and a 76 gas station, where the price signs swung slowly in a hot noon breeze: REG 35.9 HI-TEST 38.9, and another which said: HI TRUCKERS DIESEL FUEL AROUND BACK.
They crossed Elm Street, then Birch Street, and came up on the town square. The houses lining the streets were plain wood with screened porches. Angular and functional. The lawns were yellow and dispirited. Up ahead a mongrel dog walked slowly out into the middle of Maple Street, stood looking at them for a moment, then lay down in the road with its nose on its paws.
'Stop,' Vicky said. 'Stop right here.
Burt pulled obediently to the curb.
'Turn around. Let's take the body to Grand Island. That's not too far, is it? Let's do that.'
'Vicky, what's wrong?'
'What do you mean, what's wrong?' she asked, her voice rising thinly. 'This town is empty, Burt. There's nobody here but us. Can't you feel that?'
He had felt something, and still felt it. But -'It just seems that way,' he said. 'But it sure is a one-hydrant town. Probably all up in the square, having a bake sale or a bingo game.'
She said the words with a queer, strained emphasis. 'Didn't you see that 76 station back there?'
'Sure, by the lumberyard, so what?' His mind was elsewhere, listening to the dull buzz of a cicada burrowing into one of the nearby elms. He could smell corn, dusty roses, and fertilizer - of course. For the first time they were off the turnpike and in a town. A town in a state he had never been in before (although he had flown over it from time to time in United Airlines 747s) and somehow it felt all wrong but all right. Somewhere up ahead there would be a drugstore with a soda fountain, a movie house named the Bijou, a school named after JFK.
'Burt, the prices said thirty-five-nine for regular and thirty-eight-nine for high octane. Now how long has it been since anyone in this country paid those prices?'
'At least four years,' he admitted. 'But, Vicky -'
'We're right in town, Burt, and there's not a car!
'Grand Island is seventy miles away. It would look funny if we took him there.'
'I don't care.'
'Look, let's just drive up to the courthouse and -,
There, damn it, there. Why our marriage is falling apart, in a nutshell. No I won't. No sir. And furthermore, I'll hold my breath till I turn blue if you don't let me have my way.
'Vicky,' he said.
'I want to get out of here, Burt.'
'Vicky, listen to me.'
'Turn around. Let's go.'
'Vicky, will you stop a minute?'
'I'll stop when we're driving the other way. Now let's go.'
