any money it generated, was not happy with Charley letting things slip; she was threatening to can the ex-con and sell the joint. So I bought it from the girl (who used the dough to stake herself to a move out to California, where she planned to break into the movies-right) and kept Charley on.
When I was a kid back in Ohio, I tinkered around with cars and had worked in a garage when I was in high school and junior college; so I was able to get the gas station on its feet easily enough. I’m also fairly handy with a hammer and nails and paint brushes and such and was able to do some remodeling, make the Welcome Inn less ramshackle, though rambling it would always be. At first I hired a woman away from a place in Lake Geneva to handle the hotel and restaurant, but she was a smart-ass, and eventually Linda took over.
Linda was no rocket scientist (I handled the books) but people liked her, staff and customers both, and she was damn near as good a cook as Wilma had been.
So my life had settled into something not unlike normalcy. The vacation center we were a part of lent itself to water sports in the summer and skiing in the winter and there was plenty to do, including make a little dough at Wilma’s Welcome Inn.
Both Linda and me got pudgy. Mine came from too much of her cooking, both at home and at the Welcome Inn, and from a general laziness-I ran the Inn like any good executive, delegating responsibility and filling my own life with relaxation. I listened to my stereo (Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme) and read paperback westerns (they engaged my brain without taxing it) and watched old movies on TV (we had a satellite dish) and generally lived a life of leisure, acquiring the spare tire that went with it.
Linda’s extra weight came from another source: my dick.
“You’re pregnant?” I said.
“You sound… disappointed… or mad or something.”
“Well, hell-how should I sound?”
We were discussing this at the A-frame, sitting out on the porch in deck chairs, looking out at a lake bathed in moonlight. Her eyes were a similar color-washed-out blue. I really liked the color of her eyes.
“You should sound happy,” she said. Her eyes were tensing.
We hardly ever argued. In fact, I can’t remember arguing with her. Sometimes I got mad at her when she was a little thick about some business aspect at the Inn, but when all was said and done, I cared more about her than any of that other shit, so I tended to cut her some slack. I mean, fuck, I didn’t need the money. The Inn was just something to do.
“Happy isn’t my style,” I said.
“Sure it is,” she said, and she got up and sat in my lap and smiled at me, dimples and all, though I could tell she was still sad.
“You want to break this damn chair?” I said.
She just smiled some more and hugged me around the neck and said, “I’m not that heavy yet. I’m only a month or so gone.”
And she was a little thing, after all. I bet she didn’t weigh a hundred pounds.
“I thought you were using something,” I said.
“I was. I stopped.”
“We should have talked about it.”
“I thought you’d want a child with me. You said so once.”
“I was drunk. And you know I don’t drink, and when I do, I can’t be held responsible.”
“Well, you’re responsible for this,” she said, and patted her tummy, and her smile shifted to one side of her face, crinkling it.
Goddamnit, there’s no way around it: I did love her, or as close to it as I’m capable.
I said, “If I was going to have a child, I’d want it with you.”
“Well, I should hope to shout. I’m your wife, aren’t I?”
“Only one I ever had,” I said, which was a lie. I was married one other time, but that was in another life, the life she didn’t know about.
“We’ll be a family,” she said sweetly. “Won’t that be wonderful?”
This girl thought life was a fucking Christmas card.
“Linda, I don’t know about bringing anybody else into this goddamn place.”
She looked confused. “What goddamn place?”
“This world. This planet. It’s no prize.”
“Our life isn’t so bad, is it?”
“We have a great life.”
“So, why not let a third person in on it? A person who’s part of us, Jack…”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand, kid. This is a very protected life we got going here. We’re the couple in the plastic bubble-nothing touches us. But a kid-he’s going to have to go out in that world and face all the bullshit.”
“How do you know it’s going to be a he? And what’s wrong with going out in the world?”
“For one thing, it’s crawling with people.”
“I like people!”
“I don’t. I’m not so sure pulling another passenger onto this sinking ship is such a hot idea. What’s he got waiting for him? Or, her?”
She gave me a sideways look, trying to kid me out of it. “Don’t be such a Gloomy Gus.”
“Read the papers. They’re full of famine and AIDS and nuclear bombs.”
“Jack, you don’t read the papers.”
“Well, hell, I watch TV. And I’ve been out in that world, baby. It sucks.”
“I don’t know why you feel that way.”
“Well I do.”
“Why? Have you had it so bad?”
“Not lately.”
She cocked her head, gave me a smirky, pixie look. “When did you ever have it bad?”
I tasted my tongue.
“I never mentioned it before…”
Her eyes narrowed. “What, Jack?”
“I… I saw some combat.”
“Combat? Where?”
“Where do you think? In the war.”
“What war?”
I sighed. “Vietnam, dear. A distant event in history that happened during your childhood. Let’s just say… I’m not wild about bringing somebody into this life when Vietnams are still a part of it-and they are.”
She looked very troubled. She was sweet but she wasn’t deep. “I never heard you talk like this.”
“Sure you have.”
“Not so serious, at such length. I… always thought it was a joke, the things you say, the way you see things. You always made me laugh. It was just, you know… sick humor.”
“Defense mechanism.”
“What… what makes life worth living then?”
She was really getting upset; I decided to smile at her. Said, “Life’s worth living as long as somebody like you’s in it.”
She beamed and hugged me.
I held her for a while. Listened to the crickets.
Then she drew away and said, “Jack, you don’t really… you wouldn’t have me get… rid of it, would you?”
Her lip was trembling and her china-blue eyes were wetter than the goddamn lake.
What else was there to say?
“Of course not,” I said. “What do you think I am? A murderer?”
