John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

“Dora, listen. The man told me he even took over some of his wife’s people, at the Breakthrough House. He took over some of his dead wife’s old patients.”

She ate stiff-backed, carrying the taco tenderly to her mouth. Her smock remained clean. Dora declared that how a person handles major trauma — a death or something on that scale — that was one thing. The day-to-day that followed was the real test. Corrillo left his beer alone, thinking: almost twenty-six. His wife was nearly two years older. He’d fallen for that as much as for the eyes. Dora’s grasp of how things worked had been a challenge, a crackle in his nerves as lively as whatever drove him to run up and down I-5 on assignments for the News . At first he couldn’t get enough of all her buzzwords for hard times; she’d told him about “doing a geographic” before. But tonight it sounded like a lecture. Stiff-backed, telling him what to do. She waved her tumbler around like she was Knotts showing him the office.

He faced away, towards the rain-spotted deck doors. These rentals were laid out in a straight line: dining space, living space, deck space, lawn. Everyone shared the lawn, and everyone observed dinner hour.

“Look, Dora.” Never mind if he were interrupting her. “I still can’t see how the man can go back to Breakthrough House.”

She raised her chin. “I’m working with people at A.A.”

“Yeah but, alone in a room with some mush-for-brains? When you know that they know about your wife?”

“A person can’t just glide along on the surface, Carlito. That’s the big thing you learn in A.A.”

“Look, do you miss drinking or something?”

He worked his bottle, deliberately. Out of one eye he spotted the angelfish, still and gaping.

“Really, D. A.A., A.A., A.A., A.A.! It’s like I’m at a goddamn football game. Plus, how many times do you have to call me Carlito? You said it yourself, I’m the one with the income, I’m carrying the load. Do you realize who you’re talking to? Do you realize who you’re talking to?”

One more swallow. He faced her. After the first moment there was nothing but those swollen eyes, swollen and yet with the darkness in them expanding as well.

“You brought this up…”

His hard words went right up his spine. And he’d eaten too fast, drunk too fast, something was stuck above his heart. Corrillo managed. He hitched his chair next to hers, he did what he had to. He put enough into their kisses to draw a smile out of the last. When the baby pressed into his ribs he bent and whispered wisecracks. Listen, poquito , I must be crazy about her — that salsa wasn’t made for kissing. Her hair smelled of fruit, the conditioner she used for curl. Corrillo came up with apologies.

“I know this is what I wanted,” he said. “The suburbs, the life. I know I have to be a big grown-up boy.”

Boy? What were these empty phrases? His hands remained cold, the rain, the beer. The lines he spoke had nothing to do with tonight, this spice ball in the gullet. She ran too deep for him. She’d had the extra aging, the worse tragedy; now she contained an additional heartbeat. He found Dora’s hand and fit his fingers between hers. In moments the linked fleshy cluster was sopping with tears. But all he could do was fall back on the cosiest role: her sweet little confused Carlito. Really, they were running through role after role here, from folk songs to psychobabble, and he couldn’t go deep enough for any of them. This was his chosen partner? Corrillo clasped her dripping hand. They rocked, rocked, between the aquarium and the deck doors.

Corning into the News always picked him up. The place was a cutting from a Rubik’s cube, made of glass. Round the central courtyard Corrillo could see the whole circuit of the day’s production. News, Advertising, Composing, Printing. And the distributors pulled up their vans at the corner farthest from the editor’s cubicle. He couldn’t wait to bring his kid here, to show the place off. The desks themselves had a new-wave tilt, each one made lopsided by a video terminal on a folding swivel arm. There were mornings when it seemed like one or two turned their calm fly’s faces to welcome him.

Corrillo would have preferred a paper that came out Sundays. He’d like to see some think pieces, some deeper probing. He was tired of the promotional copy clamping a limit on everything; even the syndicate stuff got hacked. But the publishers knew where their money came from — the tech firms and the malls. And he’d chosen not to try for the big papers, the Oregonian especially. Dora agreed, it would be degrading to start as a gofer. She agreed: before they moved up I-5, he had to make a name for himself.

This morning, the article on Bennett’s new appointment hadn’t appeared. Of course Corrillo hadn’t thought much of the writing. His concentration just hadn’t been there. First thing, he called up the file.

No major changes. Yet the piece came up highlighted, glowing electronic blocks against which the letters were rivets. That had to mean Knotts had done a final edit.

After a minute a reflection loomed, a goldfish in the net of copy. Corrillo turned and almost put his nose in the gut of the man who’d come up behind. It was Vic, one of the full-time staff. An absolutely militant jogger. Corrillo had glimpsed the belt buckle, no belly overhang in the way.

Vic wasn’t the kind to back off. “Knotts liked how you handled that.”

“He did?” Corrillo said. “He didn’t run it.” “We needed the space. You remember, we had the promo copy on the new Gallería.”

Corrillo turned back to the screen. Promo copy.

“He liked how you handled it, Carlos. You know, since it was Bennett.”

Corillo turned again, staring, chin cocked. The older man flexed his fists in his pockets. Corillo couldn’t think what to say, and Vic’s look gave no clue. Like Dora with an A.A. pledge who’d fallen off the wagon: refusing to make it easy.

“The piece should run tomorrow, Carlos.”

Corrillo turned away, trying to clear his head of the man’s morning powder, trying to put words to his question. Was Bennett some kind of…? Does this mean I…? All of a sudden the terminals and cubicles around him lost their tekky thrill; instead they made him think of high school. In school he’d sat in rooms like this, him and a thousand others, filling in SATs. Even then he’d wanted to work in such a place, fluorescents overhead and the noises of paper. White-collar like a Norteamericano .

Now all of a sudden the setup was no big deal. His keyboard looked like a kitchen utensil, something his wife might use. Corrillo said nothing.

“You know, Carlos, that Gallería copy is important copy.” Vic remained at his elbow. “If that place fills up we might get Sunday circulation.”

“Mm-hmm.” He set his fingers in typing-class position.

“You’ll get a lot more shots at a Pulitzer, you know, if we get Sunday circulation.”

“Cut me some slack, Vic.” It helped that the guy was aggravated. “I figure we’re all going for the same brass ring.”

Once more the jogger flexed his pockets; the belt buckle nodded. Then at last Corrillo found out why Vic had stopped by. The man had today’s assignment. Mr. Knotts wanted another interview — and this one was in , positively. They’d already set aside the inches. Corrillo tried not to grin, he looked too Beaver Cleaver when he grinned. But even Vic seemed to realize he’d passed the test. The man propped his butt on Corrillo’s desk.

“You should like this one today,” he said. “A real weirdo.”

They laughed together. The subject was one of those, what did you call them? An environmental terrorist. The lumber company people caught him red-handed, spiking trees. The judge had ordered psychological testing over at that place, what was its name? Breakthrough House.