Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds

But for a while that first winter there was talk of buying another car, of replacing his Pontiac. They certainly had more than enough money to do that. Hell, they could have paid cash for three Cadillacs if they had wanted to; it had been that kind of year for wheat and they had no debts of any kind. So twice I drove them into town to shop for cars, looking in the show windows at Happenheimer’s Pontiac Dealership on the highway and sitting in that smell of new cars on display, trying out the comfort of fresh leather seats and playing the radio, while Hap himself hovered over us and talked heavy-duty shocks and horsepower but avoided mention of any trade-in. Like everybody else in Holt, Hap was aware of the wreck; he knew why the Goodnoughs were in the market for a new car and had the good sense not to say so. On the second trip to town Lyman decided to try one out.

It was kind of a silver-gray, two-door Bonneville, a nice car. One of the mechanics backed it quick out of the showroom and left it running. We got in, Lyman behind the wheel, and I thought at first it was going to be all right. I thought he could manage driving again. He seemed competent enough, able. But it was the hour for kids to be walking home in the afternoon from grade school, bundled up in the dry cold in stocking caps and mackinaws, throwing snowballs and kicking ice clods in the gutters, and at an intersection Lyman damn near ran over two girls and a boy who were crossing in front of us. I don’t know— maybe the low winter sun slanting from the west blinded him.

“Lyman,” Edith said. “For goodness sake, stop!”

He hit the power brakes too hard and threw us forward against the dash. In front of the car the kids’ faces looked shocked, white, big eyed. They stood there staring at us, then the boy — he must have been a fourth- or fifth-grader— gave Lyman the finger, and they scooted up onto the curb, where they regrouped, yelled at him and then ran off laughing like big stuff along the sidewalk. Lyman was sweating.

“Here,” he said. “You take it.”

“Nobody’s hurt,” I said.

“Goddamn it, I can’t drive anymore. I don’t even want to.”

“We’d better go home,” Edith said.

Lyman and I changed places. I drove back to Happenheimer’s and there was no more talk of buying a car. Edith, I think, was relieved. It was one thing less to contend with, to be responsible for, to manage and determine that it came out right — or at least to prevent its causing harm to anybody else regardless of what it caused her. Never mind me, she would have said if you had asked, and I didn’t ask; it was not the sort of thing you asked of a woman like Edith Goodnough, that small trim lady who went on surviving, who continued to endure by plain courage and a clear eye to duty, and no matter how much you might have wished to God that she would just relax that white-knuckled hold of hers for a while, for a week, say, or a day or even an hour, she wouldn’t. She would not. I don’t believe she would even have known how. It was like she held the reins of the world in her two hands and she had seen enough of old men’s fingers, mangled and chaff coated in the stubble behind a wheat header, and enough of dead babies, miscarried in the hospital because of car wrecks, to fear ever letting go, even for a minute. So I believe at the very least that she was relieved when Lyman said he wouldn’t drive anymore. It was that much less to worry about. But she herself would not drive either. She had decided not to. I suppose she understood too well how it would be an affront to Lyman for him to have to sit there in his banker’s outfit while she drove. It would have been like twisting some kind of bad knife in his guts every time she did it, and you have to remember she loved him — she wasn’t going to do that. So Happenheimer lost the sale of a new car that winter. Neither Goodnough ever drove again.

It meant they were dependent on us. For the next ten years if they — except that later it was just Edith — if they needed to get out or had to go somewhere, had to see Doc Schmidt or buy bread and navy beans at the store, Mavis and I took them. Hell, we didn’t mind. It was never anything like a chore to either one of us; we were glad to do it, and for a while we tried hard to take them both along whenever it was anything we thought they might like or be able to manage. I recall once — this must have been sometime during the next three years, since Lyman was still willing to leave the house — once, the four of us went out on a Saturday night to dance at the Legion.

Shorty Stovall was being touted to be there again with his band. The whole town was full of it; there were posters in the store windows and an entire half-page ad in the Holt Mercury . Christ, you would have believed it was the Second Coming. Well, it was something to do on a Saturday night. We asked Edith and Lyman to go with us.

Spruced up for the occasion, we drove to town and arrived early enough at the Legion to hold the corner booth, which the Goodnoughs favored. We sat down in the darkened room, which was already layered with smoke, beside the bandstand, where sure as hell — the ads hadn’t lied — Shorty and his boys were making warm-up noises. They each had Stetsons stuck down over their bushy heads, Shorty in a red hat, the boys in black, and the whole band had the kind of doodad beads hanging from knots on the leather strings of their vests that little kids will play with. They were drunk or doped to the gills. While they hit their warm-up licks they kept saying stuff to one another and then laughing, like whatever it was the other guy had said flat proved he was witty. It was better not to watch them, to just listen to them play once they got started, because in fact they could play music. It only made you sick if you watched them.

After we had been there for a few minutes Marvella Packwood came over to take our order. When she wasn’t canning pickles or populating the town with another baby, Marvella waited bar at the Holt Legion. I suppose that was where she discovered the fathers for her kids, only she seemed lately to have slacked a little in her efforts, because there hadn’t been a new kid sired in a couple of years. I wasn’t up-to-date on her pickles. Anyway, she stood in front of us now in a purple low-necked shirt and pink jeans so tight the stitches showed; she was carrying a cocktail tray while she popped gum. “What am I going to get you folks?” she said.

“Marvella,” I said. “You’re looking good.”

“You think so? I just bought this blouse this morning. Like it?”

“Why sure. Don’t you, Lyman?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Marvella leaned over the table, showing a good deal of what she had under the blouse to Lyman as she patted his cheek. “What’s the matter, darlin’?” she said. “Don’t you feel any good tonight?”

“I feel all right,” Lyman said.

“He needs a drink.”

“That’s what I’m here for. I try to do all I can with what I have.” She tossed her head back, the muscles of her neck bulging as she laughed.

We gave her our orders. When she was gone back to the bar to bring the drinks, Mavis poked me sharp in the ribs. “What’s that for?” I said.

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“You mean her? Why hell, I was just trying to buy some insurance.”

“You don’t need any insurance. I paid it last month.”

“I’m talking about Marvella.”

“So am I.”

“No, I mean if you pay her a little attention she’ll bring us our drinks without having to call her.”

“You’re paying too much attention.”

Marvella came back with our drinks on her tray and bent over to set the glasses on napkins on the table.

“Miss Packwood, you do look fine tonight,” I said.