Anne Tyler: Earthly Possessions

"What I make is my affair," he said.

"I mean-"

"If I have to IT! hire on a few days in a body shop or something, but I don't really like doing nothing but them derbies. I am a demolition fool, I tell you. I like that better than eating. I never could go for that soft life, sitting around in some house, no way out, wife, kids, goldfish… I like to get my hands on, say, a good solid Ford, sixty-two or three or long about there, and just mow all them others flat. Run that thing into the ground. Finest feeling I know of." He swerved for an animal carcass, not braking at all.

"Bet you thought I was some type of criminal," he told me.

"Well…"

"Want to know the truth?" I waited. He shot his eyes over at me, shot them back. In the dark his face was hard to read. "Whole trouble is this: I'm a victim of impulse," he said.

"Of-?"

"Impulse"

"Oh."

"Buddy of mine told me that," he said. "Guy name of Oliver. Oliver Jamison. This real smart character I hooked up with in the training school when him and me was teenagers. See, he didn't care. If they was to lock him up, why, he'd fust pull out a book and commence to reading, that was the type of a guy he was. Me, I like to go crazy if I am locked up. I mean it. I like to go crazy. Ill do anything I must to get away. You take that training school, I busted an ankle jumping out the chaplain's bathroom window there. I ran clear to the woods on a busted ankle. Only had a month left to go, too.

That's when this Oliver says what he says. When they brung me back he says, 'Jake,' he says, 'you're a victim of impulse.' Thing stuck in my mind. "You're a victim of impulse,' he says to me." He turned onto a highway, some little two-lane thing leaving the city. The engine made a snarling sound. "People who hold the power are the ones that don't mind locks," Jake said. "Now, Oliver, he was pretty cool. I liked that Oliver. I would call him O. J. He had this interest in blowing things up. I mean kid stuff-bombs in mailboxes. He would make the bombs by hand. He sure was smart. After they taken a look at the damage this chemical company offered him a scholarship, but he turned it down. Well, I get his point. See, mailboxes, there's a real satisfaction to a mailbox. But you don't want to go to work for no chemical company." A driver heading toward us flashed his lights, ho doubt so Jake would lower his beams, but Jake didn't seem to notice.

"What I told him was, It's circumstances somewhat too. It ain't entirely impulse,' I'd say. I mean you take this afternoon, for instance. Take a while back. Accidents, bad timing, dumb guy pulling a piece… you get what I mean?

I lack good luck. I am not a lucky man."

"Well, I don't understand how you can say that," I told him.

"Huh?"

"What if this car hadn't started, for instance? Back at the service station. It was in for repairs, remember. What if it hadn't started after you'd gone and chained the… and what if there'd been no key? Lots of places take better care than that, they keep the keys in the cash register or something. Or if the boy had been standing outside, what then?"

"Why, I would get a car from somewheres else," Jake said.

"But-"

"Like, you could go to a snorkel box. Ever hear of that? Snorkel mailbox. Jam the slot so a letter don't properly fall inside it. Guy drives up in his car, tries to stuff a letter through, gets out to see what went wrong.

Leaving his key in of course and engine running, door wide open. All you got to do is hop in. Simple. See?"

"But then he would know right away," I said. "He could be after you so fast."

"Now, there you got it," Jake said. He snapped his fingers. "You caught it straight off. I wouldn't never choose that method if I had other ways open to me."

"Right," I said, and then remembered. "Yes, but what I mean is, how can you say you're not lucky when it all went off so well?" He turned. I could feel him staring at me. He said, "Lucky? Is that what you call it? When some fool turns up armed and a camera flips on and you get this lady on your hands you never bargained for, it's lucky?"

"Well…"

"It's circumstances, working against me," said Jake. "Like I told Oliver: I surely don't plan it like this. Events get out of my control. But Oliver, oh, he could be such a smart-ass. Tour whole life is out of your control,' that's what Oliver said.

"Your whole life.' Smart-ass." I don't know what time it was when we stopped.

Around ten, maybe. We had been traveling through that deep, country dark that makes you feel too thin. The road was so raspy and patched, with so many curves, crossroads, stop signs-I kept nodding off to sleep, but every bump jarred my mind up to the surface again and I never really forgot where I was. So when we stopped I was awake in an instant, on guard. "What's wrong?" I said.

"Durn motor quit." He flicked on the inside light, which-made my eyes squinch up. "I knew from the start something like this was bound to happen," he told me.

"Maybe it's out of gas." He peered at the gas meter. He tapped it.

"Is that what it is?" I could tell it was; he wouldn't look at me. He got out of the car and said, "You steer, I'm going to push her to the side of the road."

"But I don't drive," I told him.

"What's that got to do with it? Just steer, is all I ask. Move over and steer." He slammed the door shut. I moved over. A second later I felt his weight against the back of the car, inching it forward, and I steered as best I could though it was hard to see much with the inside light on. I guided it a few feet down the road, wondering what I would do if the engine roared up and took off.

Freedom! I would leave him far behind, head for the nearest highway. Except that I really couldn't drive at all and had just the vaguest notion where the brake pedal was. So I steered to the right, finally, onto a strip of dirt so narrow that some kind of scratchy bushes tore at the side of the car. I heard Jake give a yell. The car stopped. When he came around and opened the door he said, "Now there was no call whatsoever to run her on into the woods."

"Well, I told you I couldn't drive." He sighed. He reached in to turn off the lights; then he said, "Okay, come on."

"What are we doing now?"

"Going to head for that service station we passed a. ways back."

"Maybe I could just sit here and wait for you,"

I said. "Ha." I climbed out of the car. My legs felt stiff, and it seemed my shoes had hardened into some shape that didn't fit me. Is it far?" I asked.

"Not too." We started walking-smack down the middle of the road, for there was no car in either direction. He had hold of my arm again in the same sore place as before. His hand felt small and wiry. "Listen," I said, "can't you let me walk on my own? Where would I run to, anyway?" He didn't answer. Nor did he let go of me.

The air had a damp smell, as if it might rain, and seemed warmer than what I was used to. At least, I wasn't shivering any more. From the little I could see, I guessed we were traveling through farm country. Once we passed a barn, and then a shed with the sleepy plucking of hens inside it. "Where on earth are we?"

I asked.

"How would I know? Virginia, somewheres."

"My feet hurt."

"It don't make sense that you can't drive a car," he said, as if that were to blame for all our troubles. "That's about the dumbest thing I ever heard of."

"What's dumb about it?" I asked him. "Some people drive, some people don't. It just so happens I'm one of them that don't."

"Only a whiffle-head would not know how to drive," said Jake. "That's how I look at it." He wiped his face on his sleeve. We walked on.

We rounded a curve that I had some hopes for, but on the other side there was only more darkness.

"I thought you said it wasn't far," I said.