Anne Tyler: Earthly Possessions

Nobody, of course, knew anything about this trip of mine, but often when I was thinking of it my mother complained that my eyes had turned flat. "I don't understand yea," she used to say. "What makes you get that expression? It seems you've… folded up your looks, Charlotte. What's happened? You weren't always like this. Why, ever since, I don't know…" Ever since my kidnapping, was what she meant. Except she didn't call it a kidnapping. She confused me.

Sometimes she said I'd wandered to the midway out of contrariness; sometimes she said the fair people had maliciously lost me. I'lll I didn't really know any more: what had happened? What did it mean?

I had been kidnapped, I was almost certain, but when I tried to remember I was not so sure who had done it. I'd been kidnapped and placed on a dining room table, imprisoned in an eyelet dress; set on a splintery gold-painted throne; rushed through a field by a man in a leather jacket; hurried into a pickup truck by a fat lady who talked on and on: "I never had such a fright in my life. I thought we had lost you. Our only, single child, our little girl. I thought, "How will we ever…' I thought you were dead, smothered maybe or strangled.

You're so thin, it wouldn't take much to… you were thin even as a baby and I worried night and day over you. Thin as a stick. Thin as a wire. When they brought you to me I said, 'She's so thin!' You had this very straight dark hair, I had never seen so much hair on a baby. You had a forceps mark on your temple that stayed there till you were two years old. Remember, Murray? I said, "What is that mark? My baby didn't have forceps, she slipped right out. The doctor told me so himself.' Oh, why don't they answer your questions?" She let her hands fall into her lap. My father sighed. The two of them stared out at the night while the pickup rattled on, stealing me away.

We came to one of those city-type service stations, all fluorescent lights, scroungy blue-jeaned boy pumping gas, German shepherd in the plate glass window.

Jake Simms walked slowly and kept looking it over, I didn't know what for. Then he said, "This'll do." He cut in across the concrete, pushing me ahead of him.

"I got to go to the John," he said. "Got some other things to do besides. Ask the boy for the keys."

"What?"

"The keys, keys. Ask him for the keys to the John." I asked. The boy was washing a windshield now and he stopped and listened, as if he couldn't do more than one thing at a time. His ruffled yellow head tilted toward me; his knuckles were soiled and leathery. "I want the key,"

I told him.

"Keys!" Jake hissed behind me.

"Both keys. One for him too." The boy set his cloth aside and dug down in his jeans, which were so tight he had to suck in his breath before he could get a hand in his pocket. One key was attached to a huge metal washer, the other to a wooden disc. "Don't forget to give them back," the boy said.

"Sure thing," Jake told him.

We went around to the restrooms, where the doors were chained and padlocked, and he opened up the Ladies' and shoved me in. I was uncertain what was going on. Was this the end of the road? Was he planning to leave for good now? All he said, "Don't go away," and shut the door on me. I heard the key turning, then his footsteps growing fainter. For a long time after he was gone the chain went on swinging against the door like a handful of marbles being thrown down, over' and over again.

Well, of course I was glad to see the inside of a bathroom. I peed ten gallons, washed my hands, looked at my face in the speckled mirror. My hair was a little stringy but other than that I seemed the same as usual. Evidently these things don't show on a person the way you'd think they would.

But then I glanced up and saw how dim and tiny the ceiling was, hung with cobwebs-oh, this was a closed-in space, all right. One little window high up the cinderblock wall, chicken wire and milky glass, slanted partway open. I climbed onto the toilet seat. Standing on tiptoe, I could press my face to the window and see what little there was to see: a strip of blackness and the gleaming roofs of a few cars left overnight for repairs. Not a single human being, no one to get me out of there. Anybody would have been welcome, even Jake Simms. I was ready to rattle the windowpane like a prison grate and call his name. But then I saw him. He turned out to be a bent shape by one of the parked cars; he straightened and started toward me. I hopped down and slung my purse over my shoulder. When he opened the door I was just standing there, calm as you please.

I didn't give a sign how nervous I had been.

"Over this way," he said.

He led me into the dark, toward the clump of cars I'd seen from the window.

One car was long, humped-I didn't get a good look at it. On the passenger side the front door handle and the back door handle were looped through with a chain and padlocked. We edged between cars to get to the driver's side. Jake opened the door and pushed me onto the seat. "Slide over," he said, I looked at him.

"Don't try no funny stuff, I got it locked with the men's room chain." I slid over. Cars are closed-in spaces too, even without locked doors, and this one could smother a person, I thought, with its fuzzy, dusty-smelling seat covers and slit-eyed windows. There were no headrests. A pair of giant fur dominoes hung from the rear-view mirror. "What kind of car is this?" I asked.

"Beggars can't be choosers," said Jake. "None of them others had their keys left in." He settled into the driver's seat and inched the door shut, so it barely clicked when it latched. Then he let his breath out and sat still a minute. "Question is, does it work," he told me.

I heard the rustle of nylon, a key turning. The engine came on with a grudging sound. Jake slipped into reverse, and I saw the car ahead of us sliding away. Since I'm not a driver myself, I went on facing forward. So it came as a shock when wham! — we hit something. I spun around but I couldn't see what it was.

A mailbox, it sounded like. Something clattery. "Oh, hell," Jake said, and shifted gears and roared into the street. But even that didn't bring anybody out after us. At least, I was still looking backward and I didn't notice anyone.

"See, I didn't want to brake," Jake said. "Didn't want the brake lights lit." But now that we were out of there and into the ordinary, evening-time traffic, he switched on the headlights and settled back. I couldn't believe it.

Was that it? Simple as that? "Well. My goodness," I said. "I never knew a life of crime could be so easy." He looked at me sideways. He said, "A what? Life of what?" I didn't answer (not wanting to get hi any trouble). We rode along a ways. Turned right. Passed a line of people in front of a restaurant. Then, "Ha," he said. "Bet you think I'm some kind of a criminal, don't you."

"Um…"

Think I'm a crook or something." I decided it was best not to mention the bank robbery. I smoothed my skirt down and settled my purse on my lap. We turned left. Buildings grew sparser.

"That what you think?" he asked me.

"I don't know what you are and I don't care," I said.

He stopped for a traffic light. He was chewing on his lower Up; no wonder it got so chapped. When the light turned green the car started off with a jerk, as if suddenly reminded of something. The tires screamed, the dominoes bounced.

"Fact is, I ride demolition derbies," said Jake.

I thought he was making a joke about his driving, but his face stayed serious. "I do a lot of them out roundabout," he said. "Hagerstown, Potomac… Maryland's just full of them."

"Full of… demolition derbies?"

"Last year, I won three. But generally I do a whole lot better."

"Well, I thought that was just a weekend thing, demolition derbies. You make your living doing that?"