Lewis stood up from his seat, “A gala event, sorry I must go now.” Cam gripped his shoulder and pressed it down, leaned his weight against his father, but the old man struggled to stay on his feet.
“I’m not through,” Cam said.
Lewis said, “Yes, but I’m finished. I’ve had enough. We meet once in a lifetime, and this is what you come up with.”
Cam looked at Lewis and shook his head. “No, you don’t. The shoe’s on the
other
foot, not the foot you’re talking about. I’m the one who gives the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down.”
What shoe was on which foot, thumbs up or thumbs down? Margaret tried to follow. Margaret heard Laurence scraping the dark magnets across the surface of the refrigerator. She listened to some Spanish coming from the kitchen window where a fire escape ascended. There must be people sitting out, she thought. Infants were crying across the alley; their wails intensified before
breaking off. Laurence had slipped out of the kitchen to show the magnets to his father. He was standing in front of his father, his palm flat. Cam saw his son. “What happened to his head?”
“Nothing,” Margaret said. Why should she explain it to a madman? She had waited as long as she could, until the scene was too warped and razory, as if the events she watched were painted on sheet metal and circulated like a mechanical mural. Again, Cam poked the air with his gun or scratched his shave with its muzzle. Margaret watched Lewis. She saw a look of surrender surface upon his refined features. Then, a moment of warmth drifted across his lips, registered in his eyes, made his horror uneven. It was this complexity, this turn of mind, which made her frightened. If the old man was just going to sit there smiling at this craziness, she was helpless to do anything.
She pulled Laurence by his shirt collar. She was leaving, but the dead bolt was sticking. She forced it, cranking its thick tongue, and the door fell open. She took the child’s wrist and tugged him down the landings. It rained when they walked to the bus station. A dusty vapor that never touched the street, but she could see it collecting in her nephew’s hair as she shoved him across the intersections. Then it rained hard.
She heard a siren increasing in the next lane, one blaring note. It wasn’t a siren after all; it was the flat, monaural pitch of a car horn. She looked out the bus window and saw a vehicle ripping past. She thought she saw the Duster—its compact blue form, the sweptback roof. She recognized her flip-flops where she had left them on the rear deck. The car moved off ahead, then it drifted back and rode alongside the bus. She saw Tracy leaning out the window, signaling to her. No, he was rotating his wrist in circles to catch the attention of the bus driver.
Laurence saw the Duster and squealed, three arcing bursts. He ran back to the end of the bus and wriggled between two riders to look out the back. The people allowed him to stay there so he could wave at his father. She thought of Cam driving behind the bus, and a smile needled her lips. She thought of the phrase, “I’m your back door.” It was truck-driving lingo Cam had explained to her. Then the Duster plowed past her window once more, braking to ride level with her. The bus slowed or accelerated, trying to shake loose the other vehicle, but whatever the bus driver decided, Cam mimicked in the Duster. Some passengers were laughing and shouting. The bus resumed its normal speed, braked suddenly, then pulled out into the fast lane. She saw the Duster falling behind on the right as they went past.
The bus accelerated, exceeding the normal speed. Margaret smelled the strong diesel fumes increasing.
The Duster was in tandem again. Cam leaned on the horn, swerved in tight zags shoulder to shoulder with the bus. Margaret stood up to look at the man holding the wheel. He kept his head perfectly straight, ignoring the ruckus outside his window. Cam weaved in front of the bus and slowed the Duster abruptly. The bus pulled around him, Margaret felt the gears shifting; the grit on the rubber tread over the aisle bounced with the strain of the transmission. Cam repeated the maneuver. People on the bus were getting more uncomfortable; some men called out suggestions. Finally, Margaret walked up to the driver. She had to grab the backs of the seats to keep her balance and everyone looked at her with suspicion.
“Can you stop this and let me off?” she said to the driver.
“Do you know the driver of that car?” the man asked her.
“Will you pull this thing over? There’s going to be an accident.”
“Is that a hunch or are you making threats?”
“I’m telling you, I know that man out there. I’m his sister. He’s kind of upset. I guess you noticed? Just let me and the boy off.”
“You’re his sister, you say?”
“I thought that’s what I said,” she told him.
He studied her. “It’s against regulations to stop at an unauthorized spot unless there’s a breakdown or something unavoidable such as that,” the bus driver said.
“Look, stop jerking me around. Are you going to stop this bus?” she said.
“Is this a police matter? Pittsburgh is next, are you saying you need to get off before Pittsburgh?”
“Look out!” Margaret told him. The driver wasn’t watching the road. The Duster was directly out in front, hardly crawling. The driver jerked the huge steering wheel, throwing his weight into it as he paddled it counterclockwise. The bus scraped the left rear fender of the Duster; Margaret heard the metal squawk and snap free. Then, as the driver jerked the wheel to regain control, she was thrown down the little stairwell. Her weight triggered the hydraulic lever and the door brushed open. She might have fallen to the blacktop, she saw it slipping past, its strokes of white paint threading together. She grabbed the railing and climbed the steps slowly. “Pull over, you fucking asshole! I almost fell out!”
The driver steered off the highway and glided to a stop. She took Laurence by his wrist and they jumped to the asphalt shoulder. The driver came after them to look at the front of the bus. A flow of sky-blue paint marred the thick chrome body, but it wasn’t serious. Cam was a half mile up ahead when he noticed the bus on the side of the highway. He had to drive the Duster in reverse down the shoulder to get to where she was standing. She pinched Laurence’s shoulders, keeping him centered before her as they watched the rear of the car approaching. Then she saw something crazy—that pale, exquisite face. It was Lewis staring out the back window.
The three men got out of the Duster. The bus driver walked over and told them he didn’t want any trouble. He had to make sure it was Margaret’s choice to leave the bus; it wasn’t an authorized spot. Margaret told the driver she was exercising her free will. The bus driver started to say something to Cam, but he decided against any involvement and he started back to his bus.
“Wait, sir!” Lewis called after the driver. “I’m coming with you. I’m taking the girl’s place.”
“Your dad’s making his move,” Tracy said.
Cam grabbed Lewis by his hand. Lewis jerked his hand away, shaking his fingers, kissing the backs of his knuckles, as if Cam’s touch had scalded. He pleaded with Cam. He held his face in his hands, clutched his cheeks. It was a theatrical gesture, it reminded Margaret of the actor, Robert Merrill, in
Man of La Mancha
. “I won’t go any farther,” Lewis said.
“You’re this far already.”
“I have no interest in seeing her!”
“That was the bargain,” Cam told him.
“I don’t make bargains with hoodlums,” Lewis said, and he trotted after the bus driver. Tracy followed him to the bus, but Cam called after Tracy, “Let him go, he’s a worthless shit.”
Margaret looked over at the bus; Lewis had one foot on the first step. He was showing something to the bus driver, an ID or some proof of his finances. The wind was lifting the lapels of his silk jacket and he kept smoothing them. He looked ridiculous, harmless.
“You tried to kidnap your old man?” Margaret had to raise her voice above the lanes of traffic.
“What about you? You took Laurence without my permission.”
“I’m his aunt. I’ve been his goddamn nanny through all of this.” She saw how the world shifted. She smiled, it wasn’t the world exactly, it was them. People’s claims to other people. Her loyalty was put to the test, it was altered or reworked, she didn’t know. Her own daughter was waiting for her, knocking around without benefit of her own mother. Margaret had Laurence. She tried to align herself with these innocents rather than take her place beside Tracy and Cam.
Cam stared at her face, but she looked down at the blue gravel on the side of the highway. She kicked a frayed strip of rubber to the left and rolled it back with her toe. There were several of these black ribbons, sections of a truck’s exploded re-tread. She avoided looking at Cam and she eyed the highway debris—little twists of chrome, colored glass, a greyed bandana.
Cam said that the Duster was pretty conspicuous out there on the side of the interstate. They drove all this way, front and back, without a tangle with police, they should get moving. They looked over at the bus. The driver was behind the wheel looking down at his side mirror, the turn signal pulsing. The bus was pulling away.
“My God,” Margaret said. “Tracy—”
“He can’t be serious,” Cam told her.
“That fuck!” Margaret said. Then she saw Tracy. He ran forward from the rear seats. He jumped from the bus steps, falling to his hands, his palms digging two skids through the gravel.
The bus turned into the traffic, rolled passed them. Lewis looked through the window, he was laughing. She saw his head thrown back, his hands clasped beneath his chin. It was a display of utter pleasure, relief. A devil exhausted, freed.
Margaret watched Tracy pick the pebbles off his raw hands. Some black grit was embedded and would have to work its way out. They sat in the car and Cam edged back into the traffic. Cam wiped his hand down his face, brushing his lips with the back of his fist like someone coming through cobwebs, a constellation of spidery tethers. Margaret watched him scratch his hair, smooth the back of his neck until he squared his shoulders; he was clear of it.
Tracy discussed Lewis’s plan to turn around in Pittsburgh and catch the next bus back to Chicago. Tracy was saying they should try the bus station and corner the old man again. Lewis might change his mind. Cam said Lewis could tour the world, drop off the end, he didn’t care. Cam said, “If you want more action, join another circus. There’s Ringling Brothers.”
Margaret pulled open the glove box and found the gun Cam had been waving around at the apartment. She laughed. “Did you really force him to come in the Duster with this starter’s pistol?”
“Careful,” Cam said, “give it to me.”
“What?” Margaret said.
“I said, right here.” He held out his hand.
“Isn’t this an imitation? Tracy said it was for track and field. This is real?”
“It’s got a full chamber. Loaded,” Cam said.
“Real confetti. It’s heavy, isn’t it?” Tracy was grinning.
“My goodness,” she said. She didn’t believe them. She turned the gun over in her hands and pulled it up to her face. She saw a tiny insignia, a crown, and the word
Webley
. “Webley. What’s this mean, Webley? A gun?” she asked.
“Jesus,” Tracy said, “will you get her to put that down.”
“I’m telling you Margaret—” Cam was saying, but it was too late. Margaret hurled the gun out the car window and watched it sail over the guardrail and sink into the brush. It looked like a rise of corn behind that.
Cam braked and pulled hard onto the shoulder. He slammed into reverse, ripping over the gravel. “You can’t leave a gun in that field, you stupid shit.”
“Is it registered?” Tracy asked Cam.
“That’s not the point,” Cam said. “I don’t want to leave it out here.”
They got out of the car beside the cornfield, but the gun could have landed anywhere. Laurence got out of the car and was pushing his tiny sports car along the silver guardrail.
“Well. Don’t stand there. Start looking,” Margaret said. She had no desire to hunt for the gun, but she didn’t want to wait there in the middle of nowhere.
They crossed the fence and started into the matted brush by the highway. Laurence came along, tugging Margaret’s skirt. Gluey squares, undefinable seeds collected on their clothes; a golden burr like a tiny buzz saw cut into her skin. Cam turned into the corn rows and disappeared. Margaret walked in the other direction until she saw something in the brush, a platinum crescent, the gun in its cradle of nettles. She decided not to announce her discovery. Why not leave the gun where it was? But Tracy was watching her. She reached down for the pistol. “Finders, keepers,” she said. Tracy gripped her wrist until she felt her blood knocking in her fingertips, and she released the pistol. He shifted the gun from one hand to the other, then he pointed the gun at Margaret.
She stumbled backward into the dense briar, which snagged her legs. Tracy put the nose of the gun to her forehead. Lifted it off once, and centered it again. “Listen to me, I want you to suck me.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Margaret.”
“You’re kidding.”
Tracy said, “Don’t argue. Just do it.” He kept the gun steady. Without its pressure, its icy nozzle against her forehead, she might have become weightless, she might have ascended past fear and lofted into a stupor. She didn’t faint after all. She entered several levels of awareness, but in each different phase she still could not act. He was pushing his jeans down with his free hand. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
Margaret was breathing in short, convulsive sips, but
her lungs could not expel any air. Her tears lowered a glycerin curtain, and she couldn’t see Tracy’s face.
“I’m not going to kill you, Margaret—just pretend. Make believe,” Tracy whispered to her. His voice caught, deepened, as his erotic pulse congested his lungs. He swayed, lifting his weight off one leg, then the other. He couldn’t keep from shuddering, and she knew it was a serious matter. He leaned his elbow hard against the top of her shoulder until she sank down to her knees. He turned the muzzle back and forth in gentle swipes across her face. Then he tucked it behind her ear.