John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

He charmed their pants off at the Drop By. Some nights it might be just her and Fitzie and a couple of the lodge types, the kind of men who didn’t even bother to unbutton their jackets, and still as soon as Ernie hit the scene he’d make it seem like a party. The game everyone liked best was New York vs. Out West.

“Black bars , Ernie? You sayin’ you actually walked right into bars that had nothin’ but black people in ’em?”

“It’s all right. I had my welfare checks to protect me.”

“Ernie…are you tellin’ me people actually talk when they eat a meal, back there? They actually sit around the dinner table and talk?”

“That’s right, guys. Sometimes when I’m in a restaurant out here I start looking around for the sign. You know, the sign. ’Quiet Please. People Eating.’”

Yes, it appeared to be happening just the way she’d set it up. A thing of one-liners, breezing along on the culture shock. The word Nellie used was assimilation . “When he realizes he’s not the only smart mouth to make it across the Great Divide,” she told Fitzie, “then he’ll move on.” In this way too she could justify him buddying up to Wade. Now and again Ernie picked up the boy at school, and after dinner they sat talking basketball. The two of them had even established a running argument. Ernie claimed that pro ball was the only kind that mattered, and of course the only organizations that really knew what they were doing were Boston and Philadelphia (though she was over the sink pretending not to listen, Nellie had to grin; God she could see his lines coming so clearly sometimes). Wade meantime pumped for the college game. And if Ernie insisted on talking the pros, hey, how about those Lakers? Assimilation. Ernie bought himself a decent pair of hiking boots and replaced his over-the-shoulder bag with a Beaver orange backpack. “The man’s sure getting with the program,” Fitzie said. “Zip, zip.”

Nonetheless all of this left Nellie once more with trouble she didn’t know how to talk about. Zip, zip was the problem . She’d been sleeping with the man how long now, three weeks? And already he was out buying a new outfit. He was playing Papa, he was asking to meet her friends. In fact when it became clear that Nellie didn’t have the kind of friends he was after — no one so close; no one who’d drop over and stay late — the result was something like a fight. Something like. What else should she call it when, after a couple nights of it, she was left combing all these quips and turns of phrase out of her overworked nerves? But when you were actually talking to the guy, it seemed he’d hardly laid a hand on you. Just, suddenly she would realize that he’d worked her job into every conversation. Her “so-called job.” But this had gotten started at the Drop By after all; if he was so upset about her working he could have reported it the first time her name came across his desk. Instead, he came hinting and fluttering around. “If someone back at the office wanted to kick up a fuss, about your so-called job.…” Eyebrows up, significant pout. The first time Nellie fully understood what he was saying, she went straight for the heavy artillery.

“What if this got out?” she shouted.

She’d been bent over, lighting the incense candle; now she gestured round the bedroom with it, agitated enough to put out the flame. “What about that, hey Ernie? Think they’d like to know you’ve been popping one of your cases?”

She should have known. Ernie laughed. He took the matches from her and stood unnecessarily close, getting one of his own hands around the squat red candle as he relit it.

“Popping?” he said. “Last woman I did this with, we were consummating our marriage. Now it’s just, popping?”

Admit it: she hadn’t known too many like him. Most guys she’d been with, the first time they argued, that was the death knell. In fact most guys she’d been with couldn’t argue. Their emotional baggage was too much, kick over just one piece and next thing you know the guy would be stamping off to his truck. Nellie would watch them from her stoop, still mouthing their sawed-off insults after the ignition had roared on. But Ernie now, watching him argue was like watching him eat. Only the good leaf lettuce, see Nellie, and God not that mustard; try some Nance’s. Or: see taste the beef , Nellie, you don’t have to have money to eat decent Chinese. You’ve just got to start the marinade the night before. She’d told him that Wade was the reason they could never meet at his place, when in fact what stopped her was this, his absolute killer instinct for quibbling. Sifting the facts through his active fingers and turning up yes partly this, but also partly that. Yes just a so-called job, but also maybe some serious trouble over in the Albany office. Quips and turns of phrase. On his turf, Nellie figured she’d be overwhelmed.

Even the way he’d wriggled out of the shouting match over the candle, the wisecrack comparing his ex to Nellie — that too started pitching around uncomfortably. Not till afterwards of course, when she stood by the sink trying to keep it quiet, using a washcloth rather than taking a shower. Then she started to think: on the one hand consummating a marriage, on the other hand merely popping. Who was this guy? Since when was that their only choice? Even her lawyer hadn’t gotten in such subtle digs and irks.

Not that Nellie was completely in the dark about him. She’d seen some things like this before. “I mean,” she told Fitzie, “it is so obvious that he’s just gotten a divorce. It’s like a goddamn billboard. He has to keep punching your buttons because otherwise he feels helpless.”

After hours again, Johnny Walker Red, Fitzie nodded but kept on setting up tomorrow’s menu, slipping letters into the new board.

“He just feels — totally helpless,” Nellie said. “That’s what makes divorced guys such a drag.”

Fitzie only snorted. She’d moved on to the numbers, and Nellie found the red digits aggravating somehow, a reminder of the night before. Ernie had inadvertently put a foot through one of the sliding cupboard doors at the head of the bed. The trailer panelling was nothing but pressed cardboard, cheap and lightweight as the Drop By menu, and the bedroom walls were warped to boot. Though last night, none of that had bothered her any. On the contrary, Nellie had gone ahead and kicked in the other door. Howling with laughter, forgetting even Wade for a moment.

“You know, I think about his ex sometimes,” she said. “That poor woman.” Her sneer felt natural, Fitzie’s snort was more satisfying.

“Because I mean, he hasn’t really sprung her on me yet. Oh I’ve got the basics, everybody feels guilty. Sure. But I’d like to really — I’d like to get my hands on where the real breakdown was. Then I’d know something.”

“I don’t see how it’ll ever get that far.”

Fitzie had gone back to the other box. Fingering up black letters, it took her a while to realize Nellie was staring. “Well I just don’t see it, Nellie. You already got what you wanted.”

Nellie got both arms up on the bar. “Did I ask him to put the papers through on me?”

“Nellie, come on. Everybody knows—“

“Did I ask him to? Did I?”

“What are you getting so upset about? I’m just saying you already got what you were in it for.”

“Fitzie, the last time I asked a man for money was when Wade was born. And that’s the last time I’m going to.”

“So? So that’s just what I’m saying. This whole thing started because you needed some way to get through Christmas. And now that you got it, if you’re not going to ask for anything else I don’t see how you’re ever going to find out about his ex-wife. Not Nellie Nails.”