Джойс Оутс - Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars

The call was from a Hammond police lieutenant who’d seemed to be acquainted with Whitey McClaren, or at least to know who Whitey was, and may have known Thom McClaren, also. (Had they gone to high school together? Middle school? The lieutenant’s name had a vague teasing familiar sound.) In a conciliatory voice the lieutenant informed Thom that his father’s 2010 Toyota Highlander had been towed from the Expressway to the police auto pound and that Thom could pick it up the next day. In his distracted state Thom had not thought to demand What the hell did you do to my father but only rather to stammer a question or two about the procedure of picking up the vehicle for he knew that Whitey would be anxious about the Highlander, where it had been taken and who had been driving it.

Thom would need to come to police headquarters first, to pick up authorization papers. He would need his ID.

Confused, Thom had thanked the lieutenant who expressed the hope that his father was “doing OK” at the hospital.

“Yes, thanks. I guess—he is.”

But after the connection was broken Thom stood in the hospital corridor as others passed around him, white-clad medical workers, attendants pushing gurneys, or laundry carts, visitors like himself in ordinary street clothes, looking pained, lost. Trying to hear again those words whose significance had eluded him— Mistaken identity, charges dropped.

“DAD’S CAR. WHERE IS IT?”

“At the police auto impound. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

“They towed it away?”

Lorene was urgent, anxious. Her interrogatory manner was grating to Thom.

“Of course. They wouldn’t leave it at the side of the Expressway.”

“How badly is it damaged? Did they say?”

“My impression is, just minor damage. I think I’ll be able to drive it home.”

“If you want me to drive you there, or drive with you and bring your car back…”

But no, Thom would take a taxi. He insisted. He didn’t want to involve anyone else. The impound lot was in a derelict neighborhood south of the Expressway and he could go there directly from the hospital, next morning.

Thinking how it was like Lorene to posit her offer in a subjunctive mode— If you want me… So that the onus was on Thom, to say yes, or to decline.

Not that Lorene wasn’t generous, in the time of a family emergency. Not that Lorene did not care. But there was the (subtly reproachful) assumption on her part that Thom, as the eldest, was responsible for their father’s vehicle, as the others were not.

Since you’re Dad’s favorite . Dad’s “heir.” These accusatory words were not uttered aloud.

How differently Beverly reacted when she learned about the Toyota—immediately she’d offered to drive with Thom, in his car or in hers, so that he could drive their father’s car back home. “You can’t go alone, Tommy. What if, in that neighborhood…”

Laying her hand on his arm, pleading.

Tommy was a kind of claim. Their old, easy intimacy, eldest sister and elder brother.

But Thom preferred to go alone. He did not want to take this brief trip with either of his (older) sisters. In this family crisis he’d have enough of them.

Nor would Thom tell the others what he’d been told on the phone. Certainly, he would not tell Jessalyn. Mistaken identity. Charges dropped.

Collapsed.

“WHO? WHAT NAME? ‘MCCLAREN’—THAT’S YOU?”

Finally, the authorization papers were found. Payment of sixty-five dollars required.

Leaving the scene of an accident. Abandoning vehicle in no parking zone. Keys in ignition.

These had been checked. But the checks had been crossed out and initialed. What was this? At the bottom of the form, an unintelligible scrawl of a signature.

Ordinarily Thom would have demanded to know before he paid a fee or a fine but now, a taxi waiting outside, and Whitey in critical condition in the hospital, he hadn’t the heart to protest.

He did ask to speak with the lieutenant who’d called him. But he didn’t remember the lieutenant’s name— Calder, Coulter . Impassive and unhelpful as a (leaden) toad in a garden, the desk sergeant could offer no assistance.

At the hospital that morning Whitey was showing signs of coming into consciousness. His eyelids fluttered, his left eye appeared to be in focus. His bruised lips moved, soundlessly.

The fingers of his left hand. But not his right.

Toes of his left feet. But not his right.

“Whitey? Oh, Whitey! We’re right here…”

Jessalyn, tireless. Caressing Whitey’s hands which were cold, stiff.

She’d slept a few hours, she’d said. She’d had time to dress carefully, brushing her hair. Makeup, lipstick. For Whitey.

Wearing a strand of pearls Whitey had given her for one of their anniversaries, his favorite of his many gifts to her. On her ears, matching pearls.

Happiness in her eyes. Seeing that Whitey seemed to be reviving.

Thom wanted to caution his mother— Don’t expect too much.

Their parents’ love for each other had been so strong, you felt it as excluding you. Even Thom, the eldest, had not escaped this curious sort of jealousy.

The prognosis for Whitey was good. You did not want to inquire too closely what good might mean, post-stroke.

He’d paid the fee. The fine. Whatever the hell it was. And at the impound a heavyset individual who appeared to be in charge wasn’t very friendly, frowning suspiciously at the authorization paper, and at Thom McClaren’s driver’s license.

“You’re thinking that I’m here to steal a car? My father’s car? And why’d I do that? How’d I even know the car was here, if my father had not told me?” Thom was furious, suddenly.

The strain of the vigil. How many hours. He hadn’t slept well the night before. He was one who required hours of sleep, steady, consoling. He could not bear his life, if he could not sleep. His father’s stroke was a devastation. He saw that the heavyset man was staring at him and he realized—he was like an animal that has been weakened, injured. Other animals sense its infirmity and will turn against it.

“OK, sorry. I guess—you have to be careful. I’ll find it.”

Surprising, a large number of the impounded vehicles were new models and in good condition. You had to wonder what had happened, that these vehicles had ended up impounded. Some of them looked as if they’d been in the lot a long time.

Automobile graveyard. Had to figure, some of the owners of these were no longer living.

Trouble was, Whitey’s Toyota Highlander was that obscure earthy-brown-gray, a neutral hue that fitted in with its surroundings like camouflage. Mid-sized SUVs common as sedans, or nearly. Expensive vehicles, hundreds of thousands of dollars here in the Hammond police impound lot.

Finally, Thom located his father’s vehicle in a farther corner of the lot. License plates matched.

Examined it outside and in. Not so clean and shining as Whitey’s vehicles usually were but no evident dents or scrapes in the chassis. No cracks in the windshield.

“That’s strange…”

He’d been told—at least, he thought he’d been told—that the vehicle had been in an accident on the Expressway. The air bags had detonated and injured his father and yet—it didn’t look as if the air bags had detonated.

He asked if any “repairs” had been made to the Highlander and was told no.

Hardly likely, that Hammond police had “repaired” his father’s car.

Later, at home, at the house on Old Farm Road where he would be staying another night at least, he called Hammond police headquarters another time and asked to speak to Lieutenant—was it Calder, Coulter?—Coleman? —(could’ve kicked himself, he had not heard the name clearly, and had been too distracted at the time to ask).