Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“Hey!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. But just let me get this over with. Finally one of these strangers took my mother’s hand and said, ‘Edna, I’m terribly sorry,’ or whatever the hell he said, and then he turned his head toward me — I was sitting next to her between her and Gordon — and said, ‘I don’t think you know me, my name is Leo Youngdahl,’ and I cracked up completely.”

“You cried? Yes, I can see that, hearing the name and all—”

“No, no, no! You’re missing the whole point. I cracked up, I laughed !”

“Oh.”

“It was such incredible comic relief. The only thing on earth the name Leo Youngdahl meant to me was Jeremy phoning to find out if he was alive or dead, and now meeting him for the first time and at my father’s funeral. I have never laughed so uncontrollably in my life.”

“What did he do?”

“That’s just it. He never knew I was laughing. Nobody ever knew, because my mother did the most positively brilliant thing anybody ever did in their lives. She knew I was laughing, and she knew why, but without the slightest hesitation she put her arm around me and drew me down and said, ‘Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry, it’s all right,’ and I finally got hold of myself enough to turn off the laughter and turn it into the falsest tears I’ve ever shed, and by the time I picked my face up Leo Youngdahl was gone and I was able to handle myself. I went downstairs and washed my face and settled myself down, and after that I was all right.”

I lit a cigarette, and Evans said something or other, but I wasn’t done yet. That might have been the end of the story. But I sometimes have difficulty determining where to end a story.

“Later that night the parade ended and we went home. Mother and Gordon and I had coffee, and neither of us mentioned the incident in front of Gordon. I don’t know why. I told him the next day and he couldn’t get over how it had happened right next to him and he had missed it, and we both went on and on about how incredibly poised she had been. I don’t know how you develop that kind of social grace under pressure.

“After Gordon went to bed, I thanked her for covering for me and we talked about the whole thing and laughed about it. Then she said, ‘You know, that’s just the kind of thing your dad would have loved. He would have loved it.’ And then her face changed, and she said, ‘And I can never tell him about it, oh God, I can never tell him anything again,’ and she cried. We both cried, and just remembering it—”

“Come here, baby.”

“No. The last time I talked to him was three days before he died. Over the phone, and we quarreled. I don’t remember what about. Oh, I do remember. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course not.”

“We quarreled, and then they tried to reach me to tell me he was dying, and they couldn’t and then he was dead and there were all those things I couldn’t tell him. And now Leo Youngdahl is dead. I can’t even remember what he looked like.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here. Let’s go over to Sully’s and I’ll buy you a drink.”

“No, you go.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

“No, you go. I want a little time alone. I’m a mess. I’ll meet you over there in a little while. You said Sully’s?”

“Sure.”

And so that’sthe story, if indeed it is a story. I thought about sending a contribution to the American Cancer Society in Leo Youngdahl’s memory. I never did. I often conceive gestures of that sort but rarely carry them out.

There’s nothing more to it, except to say that within two weeks of that conversation Evans Wheeler packed his things and moved out. There is no earthly way to attribute his departure to that particular conversation. Nor is there any earthly way I can be convinced that the two events are unrelated.

I still have Leo Youngdahl’s obituary notice around somewhere. At least I think I do. I certainly don’t remember ever throwing it away.

As always,

Jill

There are twoRodeway Inns in Indianapolis, but Waldron only knew the one on West Southern Avenue, near the airport. He made it a point to break trips there if he could do so without going out of his way or messing up his schedule. There were eight or ten motels around the country that were favorites of his, some of them chain affiliates, a couple of them independents. A Days Inn south of Tulsa, for example, was right across the street from a particularly good restaurant. A Quality Court outside of Jacksonville had friendly staff and big cakes of soap in the bathroom. Sometimes he didn’t know exactly why a motel was on his list, and he thought that it might be habit, like the brand of cigarettes he smoked, and that habit in turn might be largely a matter of convenience. Easier to buy Camels every time than to stand around deciding what you felt like smoking. Easier to listen to WJJD out of Chicago until the signal faded, then dial on down to KOMA in Omaha, than to hunt around and try to guess what kind of music you wanted to hear and where you were likely to find it.

It was more than habit, though, that made him stop at the Indianapolis Rodeway when he was in the neighborhood. They made it nice for a trucker without running a place that felt like a truck stop. There was a separate lot for the big rigs, of course, but there was also a twenty-four-hour check-in area around back just for truckers, with a couple of old boys sitting around in chairs and country music playing on the radio. The coffee was always hot and always free, and it was real coffee out of a Silex, not the brown dishwater the machines dispensed.

Inside, the rooms were large and clean and the beds comfortable. There was a huge indoor pool with Jacuzzi and sauna. A good bar, an okay restaurant — and, before you hit the road again, there was more free coffee at the truckers’ room in back.

Sometimes a guy could get lucky at the bar or around the pool. If not, well, there was free HBO on the color television and direct-dial phones to call home on. You wouldn’t drive five hundred miles out of your way, but it was worth planning your trip to stop there.

He walked intothe Rodeway truckers’ room around nine on a hot July night. The room was air-conditioned but the door was always open, so the air-conditioning didn’t make much difference. Lundy rocked back in his chair and looked up at him. “Hey, boy,” Lundy said. “Where you been ?”

“Drivin’,” he said, giving the ritual response to the ritual question.

“Yeah, I guess. You look about as gray as this desk. Get yourself a cup of coffee, I think you need it.”

“What I need is about four ounces of bourbon and half an hour in the Jacuzzi.”

“And two hours with the very best TWA has to offer,” Lundy said. “What we all need, but meantime grab some coffee.”

“I guess,” Waldron said, and poured himself a cup. He blew on the surface to cool it and glanced around the room. Besides Lundy, a chirpy little man with wire-rimmed glasses and a built-up shoe, there were three truckers in the room. Two, like Waldron, were drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. The third man was drinking Hudepohl beer out of the can.

Waldron filled out the registration card, paid with his Visa card, pocketed his room key and receipt. Then he sat down and took another sip of his coffee.

“The way some people drive,” he said.

There were murmurs of agreement.

“About forty miles out of here,” he said, “I’m on the Interstate — what’s the matter with me, I can’t even think of the goddamned number—”

“Easy, boy.”

“Yeah, easy.” He took a breath, sipped at his coffee, blew at the surface. It was cool enough to drink, but blowing on it was reflexive, habitual. “Two kids in a Toyota. I thought at first it was two guys, but it was a guy and a girl. I’m going about five miles over the limit, not pushing it, and they pass me on a slight uphill and then they cut in tight. I gotta step on my brake or I’m gonna walk right up their back bumper.”