John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

“Hey, you! Hey. What’re you doing?”

He didn’t hear the voice clearly. He came round expecting the woman again. But these were stocky male legs, old jeans patched at the knee with paisley. The shock emptied Corrillo’s face. He dropped onto his butt. The orderly only squared his stance, fists to hips.

“What are you doing? Who are you talking to?”

His editor had a soft face, a touch fisheyed. His looks didn’t fit in at the News , really. Andy Knotts wasn’t much for staying in shape. But that face of his fit in better at the office than it had where he and Corrillo had first met. The man had coached JV soccer. In the locker room they’d called him Candy Nuts; none of the other coaches came to practice in a jacket and tie. Still, Knotts had put Corrillo in at center forward. He’d said many times that he admired Corrillo’s father, up by his bootstraps. He’d found a place on the News . Today, after Breakthrough House called, Knotts said they should go get a drink.

Corrillo tried the alibi: Bennett’s worth a story…The editor’s look only softened that much more.

Worse, the man rejected every watering hole they stopped at. On this side of the interstate you got the new places, windows for walls and high-key decor. “Christ,” Knotts said after the second one. “Might as well be drinking in a goddamn fishbowl.”

Tough talk. Today’s case must really be eating him.

“Tell me something, son,” the editor said. “Is it just the Valley? Or can’t you find a decent bar anywhere, these days?”

Corrillo smiled lamely, head down. This was his own silly fault, him and his imaginary test. And Knotts went on complaining, he didn’t have much time. They wound up buying singles at the new Circle-K, across from the new Gallería. “These places are counting on spillover business, right? So why should we be different from anybody else?” They pulled into the Gallería lot. The engine quit, such silence. Corrillo had hoped to get a car like this one day, a gliding Swedish or German job, an instrument panel.

But when the old man spoke, he began with the Bennetts.

“What?” Corrillo asked. “The wife was a what?”

“She was a free spirit. See, she was his patient first, back East.”

“Andy, can I just ask — what does that mean, a free spirit?”

“Settle down, Carlos.”

“Well am I supposed to know what all these things mean?”

“Settle down. If I’ve heard this story, there’s been enough broadcasting it around already.”

The doctor had inspired the wife, Knotts explained. She’d gone for her Masters in Counseling, and the only place they’d applied for work was the Valley. “Having the kid was part of it. They were the kind of people, everything’s part of a plan.” Corrillo wondered what the plan was now, letting him in on this. A last treat before execution? But why would the old man worry about Corrillo spreading the story around, if he wasn’t going to be in the office any more?

“Anyway,” Knotts said, “it worked out. The Bennetts took their act to Oregon.” Then before the wife had been three months on the job — the editor’s voice was matter-of-fact, but his hand was busy with the knot of his tie — two of her patients filed harassment charges. Two of the women.

Corrillo recalled his own half-naked visitor, her sweat and madness. A memory like a kick in the spine.

“You’re alone with them,” the editor was saying. “All alone in that office. And you’re hearing about their ghosts and monsters, it must be hard not to come out with your own.” The wife locked herself in the garage the night she got the news.

Corrillo couldn’t catch the man’s eyes. “That’s why she killed herself?”

The editor shrugged. “She was his patient, back East.”

“That’s pretty flimsy. Just two people complained?”

“Flimsy, listen to him. Flimsy. Do you still believe that if somebody’s got a degree, they must be hard as nails?”

Corrillo felt a blush rising. He shook his head.

“I didn’t have to tell you this story, you know.”

His cheeks were hot, his baby fat showed. But who worried about baby fat?

“Andy, I just think, she must have had some motive—“

“Forget the motive, Carlos. Look, there’s probably some, some wormy little cluster of secrets at the center of every story. It’s always the same old shit, isn’t it? Guilt, or whatever? There’s always some little fistful of worms the person finds it hard to talk about.”

“I know that, Andy.” He had to grin. “After today, I swear, that’s like the only thing I know for sure.”

“Yeah, but you can’t be charging around looking for that. You can’t be a goddamn bull in a china shop.”

“Well I’m trying to find out what I can be.”

Still the grin, and never mind Beaver Cleaver. A lecture like this must mean he was still alive at the News . The old man kept on, he talked about why he’d moved out to the suburbs. He even used the expression “learning experience.” Corrillo swigged his beer. He took in the work vans in the parking lot, bright with company logos, and the darker alphabet of the men at work behind the tinted shop windows. He would get another crack at these places after all, he’d find out what they were made of. This was his chosen work.

Rain-spatter clung to the wide Galleria, a glimmering fishnet. Knotts paused, drank. Then he asked, did Corrillo appreciate what had happened here? Did he really, fully appreciate it?

“Hey,” Corrillo said, “Andy. You better believe I appreciate it. You could have eliminated my position.”

“Well I figured that wouldn’t be right. After all, I never expected my little plan would turn out like this.”

Plan? Plan? Corrillo needed no more than a glance at the man. Those hurting, out-of-kilter eyes. He turned back to the Galleria furious.

“Son — you do realize, I’ve been testing you?”

Dora, where was Dora?

All Corrillo had to go on was the lounge chair unfolded on the deck. The rubber cross-strips were wormy under the drizzle, and an empty tumbler stood beside the chair. Empty. He stood out on the soaked planks, turning the heavy cup between his hands. Glazed clay, slick and glinting.

His wife had left no note, no word. Her purse hung from the bedroom knob, the wallet inside. Maybe she figured she had enough to lug around these days. The weather was gentle, the development quiet; a person could practically go naked if they didn’t use the car. Out on the deck, Corrillo quickly lost the metal-plated ferocity he’d come home with. Five minutes ago he’d come screeching into the driveway, raging into the house. D., we’re out of here! We’re moving! He’d gone straight for the phone — Babe, don’t we have the Oregonian’s number? And of course he went on talking to Knotts, every word another brittle satisfaction. Well what was I supposed to do at Breakthrough House? Just see the doctor’s name and like, shine on? Just like, play along, play the game…

Then, these bits and pieces in the rain. Dora’s overcoat dangled, dry, on the rack beside the phone.

Corrillo could read nothing off the cup. And there was no one on the lawn, no one in the nearby windows. All the children were at school.

She couldn’t have gone far. Even Safeway was only a mile. Any minute now she’d trot in, her brown face bound in a sensible scarf, and he could get back to the table-pounding conviction he’d brought home. The angelfish were still caught up in it. His hard words had them reeling, he could see it from out on the deck. Corrillo cradled the cup at his chest and stepped back inside. He shut the reinforced glass. The heaviness behind his ribs was only beer, a thick wet sack. This tumbler was only an empty container, scrawled with glaze. No way she’d left it out to lose its smell. Here in the living space the smells were reliable, the In-sink-erator and the vacuuming. The tumbler felt like more of the same, squarish, glossy: like all the new-minted American surfaces Corrillo admired. Nonetheless, abruptly, he put his nose to the thing and inhaled — a test.