Paul Kavanagh - Not Comin' Home to You

She spent a long time over the Coke and read most of the magazine, carefully tucking it into her schoolbag before continuing on home. Her father didn’t approve of the movie magazines, though whether his objection was based on their moral content or the expense they entailed she couldn’t determine. They were a waste of money. She had to admit that. The stories never told you as much as the titles promised, and she’d heard on Johnny Carson that most of them were all made up anyway by the writers. Something made her buy them just the same. It was something to do, something to take your mind off things.

It was almost five when she reached her house. The sun was at her back, and the windows of the house threw its rays back in her eyes. Usually she looked at the house without seeing it. Today it seemed to sum up her whole family, her whole miserable life. It needed paint all over, and on the weather side the clapboards were almost completely exposed. There was a gap of several feet in the porch rail where her father had fallen against it almost two years ago. The lawn was more mud than grass; in the spring it would sprout up in weeds, and once or twice during the summer her father would attack them with the mower but the rest of the time they’d grow without interference. You couldn’t expect much grass to grow there anyway, not with broken-down cars parked all over the place. Five cars they had, and only one of them ran, and you couldn’t depend on it. The others just sat there and rusted.

The cars were her father’s main interest. He would spend long summer afternoons working on them, crawling underneath them, tinkering with this and that, sometimes managing to get an engine started, sometimes actually rendering one of them briefly mobile. They would never really run properly. They would never be worth anything. They just occupied time that Frank Deinhardt had no better use for, and helped him work up a thirst.

One of these days. One of these days she would get out, out, out. Judy would call — she had to. Or, if that never happened, then she would get out on her own. To a place where boys would like her, and girls would be her friends, and she would be alive and real. There was sure to be a place like that somewhere in the world. The whole world was not Grand Island, Nebraska.

Her mother said, “Well, look who’s here. Where were you so long?”

“At Carolyn’s house. We were studying.”

“Carolyn’s house. You certainly spend a lot of time over there.”

“It helps when you study with someone. The teachers recommend it.”

“Do they now. I wonder why it is that you’re always over at Carolyn’s and she’s never over here.”

“It would be out of her way. She lives right on my way home from school, but it would be out of her way to come here and then go home.”

“I don’t suppose it’s that you’re ashamed of where you live. You and your sister both, too good for the people you came from. What’s this Carolyn’s last name? You told me but I forget.”

“Fischer. Carolyn Fischer.”

“And she lives where?”

“Newgate Avenue. Near the viaduct.”

“I don’t know any Fischer.”

“They just moved here a year and a half ago. Her father works for the B & C.”

“Does he now.” Florence Deinhardt seemed to be gathering herself for another attack. Then she gave it up and her shoulders dropped. She looked old now, and defeated. Betty looked at her mother’s face and saw nothing but disappointment.

Now she was saying, “Well, you missed supper. We ate early on account of your father having to see a man. Or saying he had to see a man, don’t ask me which. There’s some cold meatloaf if you want to fix something for yourself.”

“I had a sandwich over at Carolyn’s.”

“You know better than to eat in the afternoon. Spoils your appetite for supper.”

But there is no supper, she thought.

She walked on into the living room. Her grandmother was in her rocker in front of the television set. She was watching a toothpaste commercial. The boy and girl in the commercial had greenish faces.

She said, “Hello, Granny.”

The old woman looked her way and smiled, her eyes not quite focusing on Betty’s face. She had her teeth out again, Betty noticed. She had a perfectly good set of teeth but simply would not wear them. It was more disgusting than the farting. That was something she couldn’t help, but she could certainly take the trouble to put her teeth in in the morning.

She went upstairs to her room, read a couple of stories in the movie magazine, then put it away. According to Ann-Margret, you didn’t have to pet to be popular, and the most important thing was to be a good listener.

There was a Spanish test scheduled for the morning. She spent awhile studying for it and listening to her radio. She didn’t bother with the algebra homework. She didn’t understand any of it and it made her head ache to think about it.

She turned off her light and her radio when she heard her father’s car in the driveway. She got undressed and under the covers and pretended to be asleep.

She lay awake for what seemed like a long time. She was hungry, and the cold meatloaf, unappealing when her mother had mentioned it, now struck her as the ultimate taste sensation. Cold meatloaf and ketchup and bread and butter and a glass of milk—

But it wasn’t worth getting out of bed. And it wouldn’t hurt her to miss a meal. Maybe if she took off a few pounds, and if she saved up some money and sent away for the Mark Eden Bust Developer, which she was sure they couldn’t advertise all over the place if it didn’t do some good—

Maybe if she did those things and others, maybe someday someone would notice her. Someone. Someday.

Maybe.

I CANNOT say I knew Elizabeth very well. It’s unfortunately true that one has very little contact with a large number of one’s students. I get to know the very good students and the very bad students, the discipline problems. Elizabeth was an average student, perhaps slightly below average, and certainly not a discipline problem.

You hardly knew she was there. In a sense I don’t suppose she was. She was not responsive. I don’t suppose she learned very much American history in my class. She attended classes, she did her homework, and that was all.

I always thought she was nice. I sat behind her in one class and she seemed like a nice kid. Sometimes I would borrow a pencil from her or something like that.

She was just, you know, one of the kids I knew in class. I never had a real conversation with her or anything.

When all this happened I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, she wasn’t the kind of person something like this would happen to.

It really makes you think.

I found her an excellent language student, responsive and interested. She was quiet in class but turned in her assignments faithfully and had an intuitive feel for Spanish .

I feel certain there’s more to this than we understand at the present time .

He stayed with Route 281. At Fort Sill, a few miles north of Lawton, most of the traffic swung northeast on the Bailey Turnpike. He almost turned with them but changed his mind at the last minute. It was a better idea to avoid toll roads and major highways, at least for the next couple of hundred miles.

Just past a town called Geary he drank a cold Coke while a kid with copper skin and straight black hair filled the gas tank. The kid wasn’t as awed by the car as the one who had filled the tank earlier. When he went to put the Coke bottle back in the rack he noticed a few other boys and men, all with the same color skin and the same straight black hair, and he realized that they were all Indians. That explained it, he decided. Either Indians weren’t that impressed by cars or they weren’t the sort to let their emotions show. He thought it over and decided he preferred the second explanation. He liked the idea of Indians all over the whole damn country just sitting around on their blankets and being real cool about things.