Hob Broun - Odditorium

“That’s a cold shot, baby. What do we do for money?”

“Not now, Karl.”

He lowered his eyes. In spite of the bad vibes, he felt happy. She was back. She’d take care of him. “What’s that thing?” He pointed to the tube she rolled between her palms.

“My father. You’ve never met, have you?” Tildy extended the thing as if Karl was supposed to shake hands with it.

He ran his fingers over the cool curve of metal. “Kinda small, ain’t he?”

“He died day before yesterday, Karl. These are his ashes.”

Karl blinked and his head seemed to fill like a balloon. He had been but vaguely aware that Tildy had a living parent. He removed his hat, nibbled momentarily on the brim. “Must be some kind of blue for you, baby. I’m real sorry.” He started toward her, arms out.

“Freeze right there. Don’t you comfort me, damn it. That’s not what I want.”

“Can I sit next to you on the arm? Would that be okay?”

“If you want. Just don’t touch me. I’m booby-trapped.”

Utterly dazed, Karl perched next to his wife, hands held in to keep from stroking her. Hairs were erect at the rims of her small ears.

“You’re lookin’ awful good, considerin’.”

“Please don’t.”

“Forget I’m here then.” Karl slid off the chair arm and went to retrieve his jug.

“Poor Karl. Don’t try to understand me, it’s a waste…. I don’t mean to be mean, it’s just that I’m so tired. And a reunion is not what I’d planned on. I wasn’t ready for you, not at all. What I wanted was a decent interval, you know? Deserted house, blank days, some long-distance-sleeping. Last few weeks, I’ve been bounced all around like a basketball. I need to find out where the bruises are.”

Karl shrugged, turned up the teevee. “Forget it. Have some wine.”

Tildy was mighty tired of tailoring her behavior to outside specifications, wanted merely to burrow like a mole through the black earth, but she left her seat, moved to Karl’s side, touched him.

“What’s on?” she said.

“You’re lookin’ at it.”

Reclining on a blanket stained with motor oil, Tildy and Karl were silent. Hot dogs crackled on a grill behind them and the portable radio discharged clear channel mood music. Airport rhumba. A crow sailed from the rubbish heap to its mess of a nest high in an overhanging tree. Turning onto his belly, Karl felt the ground with an open hand. He dug through the mat of pine needles and mulch and the smell of earth on his fingers was rich, good enough to eat.

“Another dog?” Tildy said, poking at the coals.

“At least.”

There were no buns so they held the hot dogs by their split and blackened skins, dipping them in the mustard jar before biting. Karl poured wine into a common cup.

“How’s your season been? Steal a lotta bases?”

“I was playing a little flat actually. Been in a slump, just wasn’t seeing the ball real good.”

“And Flora? She still mowin’ ’em down?”

“More or less.”

“I cannot believe you’re really finished with those Cougarettes. You’re a star, don’t you know it?”

“No future there. Don’t expect they’ll last through the month.” Then, anxious to change the subject—“Sun feels awful nice.”

“Sure. Sunshine State, it’s even on the license plates.”

“Looks like you could use some of it, too. Your skin tone is lousy. Been living like an invalid, have you?”

“You know how I get.”

“Do I?”

“We talked about it. You never remember.” Karl plucked blades of grass for chewing. Cheeks unshaven and slightly puffy, his elongated, loaf-pan face flushed with effort; an effort first to locate Tildy’s good graces, then worm his way in. “It’s only sometimes. When you’re away and I have to go it alone around here. I’m trapped in that house. Little things get to spookin’ me. I spring a leak somewhere, start to feel sick every time I set foot outdoors.”

“Is that it? Some people might want to call that a little bit crazy.”

“So maybe I am. Nothin’ I can do about it.”

“Except open another bottle.”

“Nag, nag, nag.” Karl spat green. “I got reasons to drink, sweets, and you’re one of ’em. Bet we ain’t spent more than two weeks under the same roof so far this year. And when you are around, ain’t long before you’ll be remindin’ me, even when it’s not in words, about who’s supporting who.”

“Oh, shut up.” She stood, knocking the radio over; a muffled crescendo of yoyo violins. “For days I watch my team disintegrate into a summer camp revue. I cut loose from there in a rental car for Ville Platte where I watch my father die. Clean up what I can down there, motor nonstop to Jacksonville to retrieve my own wheels, then on in here with an urgent need for peace and quiet only to find my hopeless Karl fired again, moping around like a granny. And within three hours here we are back again on the same old shit as the day I left. Me, I’m going to take a nap.”

Karl would have liked to join her, but was afraid to ask.

Tildy dreamed of moonlit jungle alleys, the hushed stalking of pygmy commandos, their faces smeared with ash. They hunted her with devotion, wishing only to dance in her honor. The stillness was broken all at once by the flounderings of a wounded beast …

She pushed the pillows away. “Be still.”

Thumps and scrapes of Karl battling furniture outside the door, then a splintering of glass and the last coils of sleep came loose from around her.

“Sellerass them auto workers, ain’t on my shoulders.”

“Shit.” Tildy wrapped herself in the sheet, opened the door and looked out.

Karl was halfway bent, gasping like a beaten fighter. His hair was matted and his eyes looked like bottle caps. “Tildy best watch her feet.” He chuckled. “Them little white toe’s like candy.” He pointed to the broken mustard jar on the floor.

Tildy linked her arms around his middle and wrestled him down into a chair though he outweighed her by some sixty pounds. She closed his eyelids with her fingers. “Play dead for a few minutes.” Kneeling, she picked out the larger chunks of glass and took up the rest with a spatula and paper towels. “One thing at least, I won’t ever need to have children as long as I have you.”

“Nobody’s daddy, uh-uh.” Karl rolled his head from side to side. “Been ten years or more, still get them cards from Shelly. Every Christmas, every Father’s Day. What a joke. Three months gone when Jerry married her … ‘Little Jerry livin’ with his grandma while I walk the streets of Detroit. A widow’s nights are long ones. Hope you think of us often.’ See why I can never get away?”

“You could stop opening the envelopes.” She handed him a glass of water and told him to drink, her body taut and hard under the sheet like a statue on somebody’s lawn.

In the living room, Tildy surveyed the overturned lamps and strewn cushions fanned out in a totemic design of cowardice and reproach; and she wondered how long he could toss the salad of his brain before it flew over the sides of the bowl.

Karl didn’t know how cars worked, but he could drive hell out of them. Won a demolition derby while he was still in high school; tore up the dirt track circuit with his hardass tactics. A housewife with multiple sclerosis started a fan club for him and middle-aged speed nuts with kids his own age squired him for steak at the Elks Club and slipped him “beer money” on the way home.

Then it turned out that the rubbery blonde he’d been innocently shagging was the adopted daughter of the biggest General Motors dealer in the state, a man who could sponsor him for an assault on serious stock car competition. Karl wrecked that first car in time trials, but loyal Margie convinced her dad to ante up again. He made it on his second try at Darlington when the leader blew a piston on the next to last lap. Margie embraced him in the winner’s circle, but instead of congratulations, whispered in his ear that she was pregnant. Karl headed straight for the depot and caught the first available long-distance bus.