Ruth Galm - Into the Valley

The tears were not for the university man, she knew. They came from an alien, frightening place. When she finished, she dragged herself to her room, exhausted and cotton-mouthed as if coming through a desert. She lay on the bed and tried to think what she could do without the banks. What could she do without the banks? She clutched the bed, hearing the Johnny Mercer song until she fell asleep.

She did not call him from the motel. She waited, stalling, until she was back on the road. She forced herself off at a truck-weighing station. The sun was burning on the glass of the phone booth, the glare reminding her how much time there was to kill before lunch.

“Hello,” she said.

“Well,” Daughtry said. “Didn’t expect a call from you.”

The concrete sidewalk radiated more heat into the glass. Sweat gathered at the base of B.’s back, between her legs.

She tried again to remember his first name. It would not come to her.

“How are you?”

“You sound like shit,” Daughtry said.

She nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her.

“How’s your granny?” he asked.

“Better. Thank you.”

“Bullshit.”

She looked down and noted the faintest film of semen still on her dress. She began scratching it off.

“It doesn’t matter,” Daughtry said. “I didn’t mean it. Truth is I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” she lied. “Look, I need your help. I need more checks.” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.

She heard him light a cigarette, the paper crumpling as he sucked. “And here I thought you just missed me.”

The cigarette paper crinkling and exhales went on for several seconds before he spoke again.

“What happened to the other checks?”

“I lost them.”

He laughed. “Now I know you’re full of shit. What is it, drugs? You got an uncle in gambling trouble?”

She didn’t answer.

“Because it can’t be for the kicks. That would be too stupid: you don’t need the money but you wanna get dirty. You wanna be bad. Right?”

“It’s not for kicks,” she said.

“You’re a good girl. Period. Can’t change that. You should be glad to be good.” He exhaled. “I’d give anything to be good with you.”

“I’ll cut you in,” she blurted out. She ignored in her mind his pained face. She visualized only the checks.

“What happened to them?” he finally said. “You kill the account?”

“I think so.”

“See, now this is where I wonder what the fuck I’m doing. Giving them to you in the first place. Why I’m even thinking of continuing in this line with you, like a goddamn whipped twelve-year-old. Ditch the checks if you haven’t already,” he said. “Get rid of the ID.”

In his tone of warning she heard only, regretfully, that she would have to abandon the false surname. She’d liked her picture beside the meaningless name.

“I’ve missed you,” she tried.

His voice came out low and quiet. “The first time I saw you, I thought, it don’t matter what you say to her because she’ll never go out with you. I could have recited the goddamn Latin mass. You were like a painting behind glass, not the ones now but the old ones with queens and ladies in dresses, soft. . It’s ruined now, but I keep wanting to touch the glass.”

“Daughtry.”

“When are you coming back to the city?”

“I might not. I don’t know.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You wanna stay in the sticks?”

She was silent.

“You got no right to fuck with me,” he said in the low voice again. “I believed you, about us not being so different. So I’m asking you, please, don’t fuck with me.”

“I get this feeling,” she said finally. “I can’t breathe, I’m going to be sick. Just walking around the city makes me sick.”

“You should go to a doctor.”

“No,” she said, raising her palm to the hot glass. “You see, I’m not really sick. It’s just a feeling. There’s nowhere it’s better. Only the banks make it better.”

“You shoulda got married by now,” Daughtry said. “Had some kids. That would make it better. You shouldn’t be hanging out with guys like me.”

She knew he was fishing for reassurance but she was too caught up in her own thoughts. “I don’t know the reason,” she said faintly. Her palm hurt on the hot glass, but she did not remove it. “I’m not trying to trick you. You’re helping me. The checks help me.”

“You’re conning me. I’m gonna get conned in this deal, is all I see. Put out with the trash. Call me when you have a straight story,” he said and hung up the phone.

The grocery store was off an exit. A pink rectangular building with a revolving plaster pig on top. The lot was almost empty. She sat in the Mustang, waiting to feel ready. It might not be so different from the banks, she told herself. Maybe more fun, more transporting. She could buy pints of ice cream, apples. She watched a feeble-looking man totter out with a bag in the crook of his arm. She took the checkbook from her purse and wrote “Cash” on the top one and ripped it out. Then she did not move. She wanted another bank. But the image of the thin-haired scar-lipped teller broke through this thought. She forced herself out of the Mustang.

Inside the air felt warm, even in the frozen section. She walked aimlessly up and down aisles. The walls were dirty green, the floor dishwater-colored linoleum. The aisles were crowded with boxes and cans, all of which looked the same to her. She felt as if they were pressing in on her. She decided she did not need to look like she was shopping. At the front two cashiers chatted back and forth; only one seemed to be working. B. waited behind an elderly woman with a basket of tuna cans and celery. The working cashier looked no older than twenty, ratted hair swirled on top of her head and dyed a harsh yellow that made her skin too pink. The other looked possibly B.’s age, her jawline beginning to slide into her neck a bit. She had short hair and thick black eyeliner that came out to triangles at the corners of her eyes.

“I don’t care what he said,” the short-haired one was saying, her arms crossed on the divider next to the register. “He’s got no job, he’s gonna get snagged by the army and probably killed. How’s he providing when you’re laid up?”

“He’s working the harvest at Michaelson’s. And I know what you’re thinking.” The bowl of harsh yellow hair quivered on the younger one as she rang up items. “But he’s done with all that. He’s not into that anymore.”

The older cashier shook her head, clucking her tongue.

“We went swimming in the river last week,” the younger one said. “You know what’s funny? I haven’t been in the river since I was a kid.”

“But what’s he like out of the river is the thing,” the black-triangle-eyeliner woman said. “Still no job, still no future. Which means no future for you, get it?”

When B.’s turn came at the register, she asked about cashing the check.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Please, I need to cash this.” She held up the paper.

“Charlie!” the yellow-haired girl yelled.

A fat man emerged from an aisle, clipboard in his right hand, looking preoccupied.

“ID?” he asked B.

“Oh.” B. remembered to widen her eyes, bite her lip. “It’s in my other purse. I’m sorry about that.” She brought her hand to the diamond brooch, stroked her shoulder with her finger. The manager scanned her with his irritated face, nodded his head and then turned the check over on the clipboard and wrote on the back. “Don’t forget it next time,” he said tiredly. B. nodded.