Richard Ford - Rock Springs

Across the road and across a dry wash a hundred yards was what looked like a huge mobile-home town, with a factory or a refinery of some kind lit up behind it and in full swing. There were lights on in a lot of the mobile homes, and there were cars moving along an access road that ended near the freeway overpass a mile the other way. The lights in the mobile homes seemed friendly to me, and I knew right then what I should do.

“Get out,” I said, opening my door.

“Are we walking?” Edna said.

“We’re pushing.”

“I’m not pushing.” Edna reached up and locked her door.

“All right,” I said. “Then you just steer.”

“You’re pushing us to Rock Springs, are you, Earl? It doesn’t look like it’s more than about three miles.”

“I’ll push,” Cheryl said from the back.

“No, hon. Daddy’ll push. You just get out with Little Duke and move out of the way.”

Edna gave me a threatening look, just as if I’d tried to hit her. But when I got out she slid into my seat and took the wheel, staring angrily ahead straight into the cottonwood scrub.

“Edna can’t drive that car,” Cheryl said from out in the dark. “She’ll run it in the ditch.”

“Yes, she can, hon. Edna can drive it as good as I can. Probably better.”

“No she can’t,” Cheryl said. “No she can’t either.” And I thought she was about to cry, but she didn’t.

I told Edna to keep the ignition on so it wouldn’t lock up and to steer into the cottonwoods with the parking lights on so she could see. And when I started, she steered it straight off into the trees, and I kept pushing until we were twenty yards into the cover and the tires sank in the soft sand and nothing at all could be seen from the road.

“Now where are we?” she said, sitting at the wheel. Her voice was tired and hard, and I knew she could have put a good meal to use. She had a sweet nature, and I recognized that this wasn’t her fault but mine. Only I wished she could be more hopeful.

“You stay right here, and I’ll go over to that trailer park and call us a cab,” I said.

“What cab?” Edna said, her mouth wrinkled as if she’d never heard anything like that in her life.

“There’ll be cabs,” I said, and tried to smile at her. “There’s cabs everywhere.”

“What’re you going to tell him when he gets here? Our stolen car broke down and we need a ride to where we can steal another one? That’ll be a big hit, Earl.”

“I’ll talk,” I said. “You just listen to the radio for ten minutes and then walk on out to the shoulder like nothing was suspicious. And you and Cheryl act nice. She doesn’t need to know about this car.”

“Like we’re not suspicious enough already, right?” Edna looked up at me out of the lighted car. “You don’t think right, did you know that, Earl? You think the world’s stupid and you’re smart. But that’s not how it is. I feel sorry for you. You might’ve been something, but things just went crazy someplace.”

I had a thought about poor Danny. He was a vet and crazy as a shit-house mouse, and I was glad he wasn’t in for all this. “Just get the baby in the car,” I said, trying to be patient. “I’m hungry like you are.”

“I’m tired of this,” Edna said. “I wish I’d stayed in Montana.”

“Then you can go back in the morning,” I said. “I’ll buy the ticket and put you on the bus. But not till then.”

“Just get on with it, Earl.” She slumped down in the seat, turning off the parking lights with one foot and the radio on with the other.

The mobile-home community was as big as any I’d ever seen. It was attached in some way to the plant that was lighted up behind it, because I could see a car once in a while leave one of the trailer streets, turn in the direction of the plant, then go slowly into it. Everything in the plant was white, and you could see that all the trailers were painted white and looked exactly alike. A deep hum came out of the plant, and I thought as I got closer that it wouldn’t be a location I’d ever want to work in.

I went right to the first trailer where there was a light, and knocked on the metal door. Kids’ toys were lying in the gravel around the little wood steps, and I could hear talking on TV that suddenly went off. I heard a woman’s voice talking, and then the door opened wide.

A large Negro woman with a wide, friendly face stood in the doorway. She smiled at me and moved forward as if she was going to come out, but she stopped at the top step. There was a little Negro boy behind her peeping out from behind her legs, watching me with his eyes half closed. The trailer had that feeling that no one else was inside, which was a feeling I knew something about.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” I said. “But I’ve run up on a little bad luck tonight. My name’s Earl Middleton.”

The woman looked at me, then out into the night toward the freeway as if what I had said was something she was going to be able to see. “What kind of bad luck?” she said, looking down at me again.

“My car broke down out on the highway,” I said. “I can’t fix it myself, and I wondered if I could use your phone to call for help.”

The woman smiled down at me knowingly. “We can’t live without cars, can we?”

“That’s the honest truth,” I said.

“They’re like our hearts,” she said, her face shining in the little bulb light that burned beside the door. “Where’s your car situated?”

I turned and looked over into the dark, but I couldn’t see anything because of where we’d put it. “It’s over there,” I said. “You can’t see it in the dark.”

“Who all’s with you now?” the woman said. “Have you got your wife with you?”

“She’s with my little girl and our dog in the car,” I said. “My daughter’s asleep or I would have brought them.”

“They shouldn’t be left in the dark by themselves,” the woman said and frowned. “There’s too much unsavoriness out there.”

“The best I can do is hurry back.” I tried to look sincere, since everything except Cheryl being asleep and Edna being my wife was the truth. The truth is meant to serve you if you’ll let it, and I wanted it to serve me. “I’ll pay for the phone call,” I said. “If you’ll bring the phone to the door I’ll call from right here.”

The woman looked at me again as if she was searching for a truth of her own, then back out into the night. She was maybe in her sixties, but I couldn’t say for sure. “You’re not going to rob me, are you, Mr. Middleton?” She smiled like it was a joke between us.

“Not tonight,” I said, and smiled a genuine smile. “I’m not up to it tonight. Maybe another time.”

“Then I guess Terrel and I can let you use our phone with Daddy not here, can’t we, Terrel? This is my grandson, Terrel Junior, Mr. Middleton.” She put her hand on the boy’s head and looked down at him. “Terrel won’t talk. Though if he did he’d tell you to use our phone. He’s a sweet boy.” She opened the screen for me to come in.

The trailer was a big one with a new rug and a new couch and a living room that expanded to give the space of a real house. Something good and sweet was cooking in the kitchen, and the trailer felt like it was somebody’s comfortable new home instead of just temporary. I’ve lived in trailers, but they were just snailbacks with one room and no toilet, and they always felt cramped and unhappy — though I’ve thought maybe it might’ve been me that was unhappy in them.

There was a big Sony TV and a lot of kids’ toys scattered on the floor. I recognized a Greyhound bus I’d gotten for Cheryl. The phone was beside a new leather recliner, and the Negro woman pointed for me to sit down and call and gave me the phone book. Terrel began fingering his toys and the woman sat on the couch while I called, watching me and smiling.