John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

At last the father turned, one hand nervous up and down his tie.

“You can call me all the nasty names you want,” he said. “I’m not running scared any more.”

Nellie couldn’t trust herself. She lowered the flowers and tried to get the whole picture clear.

“I haven’t seen the boy in five years, Nellie. And I was still a jerk back then.”

But his smile was rickety. He didn’t know how to play it except as the Gangster of Love, his old never-fails. Meantime Ernie had made himself unreadable, his eyes on Rusty’s back and his hands steepled at his mouth. Wade however was nothing so predictable, a herky-jerk cut from a silent movie. No color in the boy’s face at all. Lips and tongue and erratic fragments of teeth. Nellie didn’t realize she’d begun to move towards him till the father flinched.

“Let me just talk to the boy, please Nel—“ But the man had let her get too close. She had the knot of that tie up in his gullet, growling get out of here get out of here . No question she could push him around. The man’s face had gone red and childish, all she felt of his chest was shirt and tie. She could turn him and drive him right back out into the rain. Except then Ernie was up, coming round the table playing peacemaker.

“Nellie, come on. Lighten up. The man is trying, here.”

“You shut up too.”

But she’d been distracted, the father’d had a moment to regroup. “Nellie, please.” She felt his upper body against her forearm now, his fingers at her wrist. “There’s the Scrooge movie over in Corval—“

“Shut up!” She saw Wade had begun to splutter. “Shut up and let him speak!”

So the dog erupted through the open door, the woman who fed him was in trouble. Nellie and Rusty weren’t fast enough letting go of each other. They fell together against the table. The father’s gift-wrapped presents, Ernie’s Brunch Deluxe — Nellie went into a clench against the crash. She shouted, cracked her hip, and groaned. But the rest of the noise didn’t seem like much, only plastic and the dying noise of flatware, buh -dingle , buh-dingle. Cardboard walls. Then she found herself wet, coffee grounds somewhere under the robe. But by now her muscles had relaxed and the only worry she had room for was that Wade hadn’t used the wheelchair this morning. By the time she’d heaved herself over Lurid and the father (the animal was too much for a man with coat and tie in the way), the boy had already gone into a fit.

The nearest thing to hand was a newspaper. Wade sprawled across the kitchen, he’d kicked off the grill at the foot of the fridge and his head was almost in the opposite corner, bucking so raggedly that he’d flattened one of the paper roses. The hands trembled like a puppy doing Beg. Nellie fitted her knees against his shoulders, bracing his head between her folded legs. As she rolled the paper tight enough to gag him she noticed that it was scores and photos, the sports, and her thinking skipped to Ernie a moment. She realized he’d be doing something helpful like getting the dog out of the way. With that she was furious again. She put it into the effort of prying Wade’s chin down, who gives a fuck about Ernie , till at last she jammed the scrolled newsprint between his teeth. As usual she couldn’t bear to watch the boy’s eyes. They became something different during a seizure, black somehow. Impossible color, it meant she made no difference, she fluttered useless and dithery over the surface of his need. Nellie tried concentrating instead on the gag. No better: spatters of blood off the lips were seeping already across the letters and numbers. Blood, another bottom line. It set off spasms of fright, actual shakes, even while she told herself to stop being paranoid. The ink had gotten into a cut. The scores from a damn ball game had poisoned him. And how could she have done this to him, what a shit she was; the blood was as hard on her as the dark in his eyes. Never mind that she actually helped the boy. Sweating so much her breasts itched, groaning with the effort of holding the gag — never mind. Nellie knew a fake when she saw one. She could spot a liar coming a mile down the road.

But now as she tried to find someplace else to focus, she saw that Wade’s hands had settled onto his chest. The trembles were draining down his wrists, his neck, and she risked a look at his eyes. Flat and unconscious. His legs lay limp enough for Ernie to fold them away from one of the fallen chairs.

“Get away from him!” she screamed. “Don’t you touch him!”

The rage surprised her as well. She dropped her chin, eased out the paper and saw that the boy’s tongue was unhurt. But there was Rusty, arms spread against the stove front; just catching sight of him was all it took to set her off again.

“What’re you staring at? What’re you so scared of?”

He couldn’t hide it. All those years of working indoors had left him so pasty that when he blushed it was like neon.

“This is what you’re after, right?” She cradled Wade’s head, still glaring at the father. “This is what you want to buy with your fucking roses.”

“Nellie, it’s over now.” Ernie said. “It’s over, okay? You just relax, lighten up now. I’ll call the hospital.”

“Yeah it’s over. Yeah that’s exactly it, that it’s over.” Revving like she hadn’t felt since she’d given up amphetamines. She found Ernie tucked in the corner by the phone, but she hardly saw the breakfast wreckage, all she noticed was the stench. Wade’s stench: of course a seizure meant you lost control of everything.

“If it’s over , why are you calling the hospital? Hey Ernie? What the hell difference does it make, being such a nice guy? Oh you useless fucking phony. We know all about each other’s games, don’t we? I mean you’re such a good committee member, you’re filling in all the forms. Nice nice nice, pick pick pick! Except one day finally even your wife had to realize, it’s a goddamn act!”

Forget the phone. Ernie was whipping his hand round, trying to wring his watch back into place.

“I mean, of course you wouldn’t want to burden yourself with something like this.” She was worried she would hurt Wade’s head, she knotted her fists in her t-shirt. “Such a nice guy, you wouldn’t have the guts to slow down for a minute and take on something like this.” She nodded towards the space between her legs, but she was tearing up so fast that she couldn’t be sure where she was pointing.

“Oh, you think we don’t both know all about it? I know exactly how scared you are, you’re scared shitless. I know every fucking one of your empty fucking games.”

Then it was shirt to face, she didn’t want her bawling to wake Wade. And who cared what the men saw? She was stained with coffee and egg anyway. It only bothered her to hear them talking, making decisions. The men in charge. But something had really given way now; it took all Nellie’s strength just to back away from Wade, just to find a place against the nearest wall. When she heard the father leaving, the click and rustle of his London Fog, she couldn’t lift her face. After that it was nothing but the radio for a while, some grindstone vocal, Well well well well wahwl. Tears spattered Nellie’s lap and her aches made her think of her mother’s arthritis.

Nobody touched her till the outburst was pretty much past. Nonetheless when she felt a hand at her shoulder, she scrunched up tighter still.

“Ernie,” she gasped, “I chose to live this way. I wanted to live this way.”

“It’s me, Mom,” Wade said. “And heh heh, I guess I got you all that time, hey? Hey? Ernie my man — whoo! Well I guess now you know the way it can happen.”