Stephen Dixon: Interstate

Calls the next morning, they’re out, “Damn,” he thinks, “waited too long,” leaves a message for her to call, no phone call back, calls again and they’ve checked out, “What the hell does that mean?” he thinks, calls her in Oregon a few days later and says seeing her and her family was one of the best things that ever happened to him and he’s been thinking about it and would love to come out to see them all for a week or so some summer, even less, not this one though since it’d be so soon after he’s just seen her and he knows they have other plans with Alaska and he’d like to give them plenty of leeway to prepare, emotionally you can even say, for his visit, not that he’s saying he’d be a hardship on them or burden he means or anything like that — he’s independent—“Fiercely so, as they say, though not fierce”—those days are long over if they ever began — and he’s the last person in the world to get in the way or upset things or busy- or nosybody around and no problem as to who’ll cook him breakfast or cook him anything if she wants and in fact she might even have to fight him as to who’ll cook for all of them during his stay, only kidding, and also only kidding about assuming there’ll even be a stay and she says what does he mean? she’d love having him but they don’t have that much room in their house, comfortable as the place is — each boy has his own bedroom and there’s no family room and now no playroom to convert, that room has become Glen’s home office and the basement his woodshop and the only other places are an unventilated attic and an airless crawl space, but maybe the two youngest boys can double up and he can stay in one of their bedrooms for a few days. “I don’t want to put anyone out — I can sleep on the porch if you have one and the weather’s not too damp or cold”—he doesn’t know Portland or really any part of the States west of the Shenandoah Ridge he thinks it was and it’s called which he visited with a friend and his friend’s folks more than fifty years ago, “We slept in pup tents, made bacon over a log fire,” but maybe it gets like that there summers — cold — unlike here, and she says they do have a porch in front but it’s not screened in and if it’s bug season, which all depends, at least on how bad the bugs are, on how much precipitation they had that spring and how chilly the summer’s been, they’ll feast on him, so porch-sleeping’s out because it’s either bugs or cold so you just can’t win, besides that their house is on a relatively heavily traveled street. Anyway, he says, they have something going here — started, in plans — and he’s looking forward to it already, if it works out that is, and if it doesn’t work out, no sweat, sweetheart, he’ll more than understand, and hangs up and thinks she doesn’t want to see him out there or Glen doesn’t or them both or it’s the kids and they’ve discussed it with their folks and don’t want any old something or another staying there for even a week and the parents or one of them went along with the kids, but it’s never going to happen, whatever the reasons he just knows he’s never going out there, that’s all. Hey, worse comes to worst and he wants to see her that bad, which he knows he will, he can fly out there without telling them, stay at a nearby hotel and call from there and say he’s here, always wanted to see the West Coast and for sure shouldn’t die without doing it sometime in his life and if they want to see him — no, he won’t be that tough — and he wants to see them too and had planned to but if they have something better to do — not “better”; “something more important”—not even that — just something already planned that can’t be put off like another Alaskan trip tomorrow or this time the South Pacific or Japan — he’ll understand and see Portland himself and then continue his trip south by bus for the rest of his two weeks to San Francisco and places like Mexico and L.A.

Late that fall — he calls his daughter about once a week and they talk a few minutes and then he usually asks to speak to one of the boys — a young man comes into the luncheonette, no more than eighteen — but things with Margo like “How are you?” “We’re all fine,” “How’s the weather?” “Could be worse,” “Hear from your mom?” “She’s always the same: couldn’t be better,” “How’s work? how’s school? what’s doing in Portland these days? I’ve been reading the weather map in the paper lately and it’s been saying you’re getting tons of rain,” sometimes sports talk with the boys which he has to read the paper or talk to some of his customers to know about, for a week a lot about their trip to Alaska: lot of driving around, didn’t seem too interesting to him for all those miles, bunch of seals, loose bear or two, some kind of antelope or moose, could have been a modern zoo like even one that’s in his city but didn’t say that — up to the counter looking around—“You know, I went to Julie’s grave a few days ago, try to do it every other week but then sometimes find myself going two or three straight days, lay some flowers, just stand there, listening to the wind whistling and things, everything looks great, same with your grandparents’: shipshape,” “That’s good; I’m so sorry I didn’t visit it while I was there, I used to with Mom pretty much before we moved away, it was all very sad, especially because it was so soon after she died”—something’s wrong, he almost knows what’s coming, he was robbed a few years ago on the street going home from work: “Give me your money,” “You got it, baby,” for there were two of them with sawed-off shotguns it seemed, little bit of overkill he later liked to joke, “What would you have done if there was just one?” he was asked, “Just what I did: handed it over with a smile, what do you think?”—the guy’s eyes: shifty, suspicious, jittery movements, sweaty-faced — never any mention anymore about his trip to Portland some summer so he supposes it’s off — he says “Yes sir,” no other customers, from where he’s standing nobody looking in at the place from the street, boss and his wife out buying meat and deli for the week, Jesus he sometimes wishes he had a handgun under the counter for when his life’s at stake, at least some mace—“Anything I can do for you? — you come in for chow or what?” and the man pulls out a gun he doesn’t know where from it’s out so fast, maybe from inside his coat sleeve — that’s what he should have told the detectives for a laugh: “Check all the theatrical agents in town, the thief was a magician, the gun was followed by rabbits and doves”—and says “This is a holdup, keep your fat mouth shut, no stupid moves, hands where I can see them and quick let’s have everything you got in your register and pockets and if you got a safe in back then open that or you’re going to be one big dead prick,” and he says “A holdup? a holdup? in this joint? get out of here,” and looks around for something to scare the guy with, something’s pumping in him where he swears he can tear off the whole twelve-stool counter with his hands and throw it at the kid, iron skillet’s way over there, hammer he uses to nail things up sometimes is at the end of the counter in a shoebox, knives are around but they’re short and he doesn’t know how to throw them and the big carving ones are in the sink, grabs a long spatula by the grill he’s beside and waves it and says “I told you to beat it or I’ll brain your fucking brains in, you fucking imbecile, for who the fuck you think you’re dealing with?” and when the man doesn’t move he swings it at him and the gun goes off, that’s all he remembers that happens: he hears, gun, sees, fire out of it, and maybe he doesn’t even remember that but just imagined it, and is treated on the floor by the emergency med people and taken to the hospital, no memory of anything in the restaurant or ambulance after he’s shot, just went black, no pain, none after that except for a few days later when a nurse is told by mistake by the floor resident who meant another patient that he’s to be taken off painkillers and boy for a while did he scream before they put him back on, someone came in he was told, guy with a stack of flyers for a new neighborhood runner’s shop, which he probably would have tossed out right after the guy left, no place for them — counter ends and top of cigarette machine crowded as they are — and nobody takes those things except to stick their chewed gum in and anyway who wants them flying to the floor every time the door opens with a little wind behind it or just customers walking past them fast? called out “Anyone here? I’d like to drop off something if you don’t mind,” put the flyers on the counter to leave there, saw him lying behind it on the floor, ran out to the street screaming “Someone’s been hurt, robbery must’ve been, help, people, someone’s been butchered or shot, man behind the wall, man behind the wall,” is what he kept saying, instead of “behind the counter” probably, and pointed to the restaurant but wouldn’t go in when some people from the street did, register emptied, pockets untouched, cheap watch gone, thief had to be kidding about the safe or else had no idea what a simple place it was, police said it could have been one of the persons who ran in to help or see him who took the money and watch or a few of them because usually when a robber shoots you that bad he gets out fast and doesn’t waste even a few extra seconds looking for dough and why would he take a cheap watch? “though could be it was a combo of both: thief and passersby,” his boss calls her and says what happened and that he wants her to know he’s not one who likes giving bad news but Nat told him to if anything like this happened to him, “for you know he was once robbed with some guns a few years ago and was concerned he might be again and not get off so lucky,” and she says “No, he never told me, though of course you must know what happened years ago with his youngest daughter, my sister, Julie,” and the boss says “Nat once mentioned, that’s about it, but not her name, though someone else told me he served time for something connected to it, like getting the guys who killed her but where he was completely in the right and like who wouldn’t have done the same thing if he could? so it never stopped me from keeping him on,” and she says “I’m sure he appreciated you for that, but really, he only spoke about my sister once in that regard in all the time he’s worked for you? — that’s surprising, since it seemed the thing uppermost and forever in his mind,” and the boss says “Twice, then, even three times, let’s call it four, but quickly, like where he’s reading a newspaper at work with a similar article in it where an innocent kid got killed between street drug dealers — crossfire, what’s in the papers so much today — and it comes back to him and he says something ‘You know, something like this happened to my kid,’ and he just touches on it but I can see by his face and so quickly into another subject or news story that he doesn’t want to go deeper so I don’t…but you know, he also told me to call you if other things ever happened to him which he seemed a little worried about, like getting a heart attack, not that he wasn’t strong as an old bull before he got shot, or just not answering his phone when he didn’t show up for work and it turned out, as he said it’s turned out for a couple of old bulls he knew, that he was dead in bed from a stroke the night before in one second flat — anyway, missus, he seems to be doing okay, as I told you from everything that’s been told me, probably be in the hospital a few weeks but no complications expected the nurse said who answered the phone in his Intensive Care where I called, so rest easy for now and first chance I’m allowed to see him — Intensive Care won’t let me because I’m not family, but he should be out of there soon — I’ll tell him I did what he asked me to and that’s spoken to you,” and she says “Please call me collect any hour of the day if you learn that his condition’s deteriorated or just phone me collect after you’ve seen him, when you have a free moment, and of course give him our love,” and she takes his home phone number and number of the I.C. unit her father’s in.