The Strangers of Kindness (4 page)

Theo’s heart went still. “You’re leaving me here?”

“Yeah. I told you, it won’t even take half an hour. It’s only ten miles away. I’ll push the unit’s reset button as soon as I get into the driveway.”

“What if something happens? A wreck or something? Or you get held up for some reason?”

“Nothing on earth could hold me up when I know your ticker’s ticking. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. You’ll see. Do you want my watch so you’ll know what time it is?”

“No.” He rinsed off his plate and went back out into the field. A few minutes later she left for town. He watched her truck disappear over the brow of the hill, kicking up dust, then bent back to his labor. He knew that somewhere before the truck had gone over the hill, the implant’s countdown had begun.

He kept his mind off it by attacking the corn stalks savagely. When he looked up again the sun’s position made him gasp. He looked toward the road. Not a sign of her.
Christ, it has to be almost two hours by now!
He dropped the machete from cold fingers, staring at the road. Still no faded red truck, no remote engine burr, no approaching cloud of dust.

He took a deep, shaky breath and focused his gaze on the yard around the farm house. He briefly considered going to stand down by the end of the driveway; if she saw him when she came over the hill she’d push the reset sooner. But that idea grated against his last shred of dignity.

Instead, he walked up into the yard, looked around for the prettiest apple tree, and sat down under it. A goldfinch cheeped authoritatively in the field next to the house. The hundred shades of gold and russet in the grass stroked his eyes. The wine-like perfume of the deadfall apples tingled in his nose. Grass blades like silk ribbons slid through his fingers. His mind was blank. The blue shadows of the trees crept stretching across the grass toward the road.

Suddenly she was there, breaking his blankness with near-hysterical cries. He sat up straight and saw her throw herself out of the truck and run to the pumpkin field’s edge, calling for him.

“Here!” he called back. He didn’t trust his legs to hold him so he stayed put. She ran up to him.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Theo! I had a flat tire halfway home! And those damn lugnuts were rusted! And nobody came down the road, else I’d have hitched a ride to get here faster. Oh, God, you must have thought you were dead! I’m so sorry!” Her hands clutching his wrist were filthy with rust and the knuckles were scraped bloody. He saw wonderingly that she was crying. “I’ll never do anything like that to you again, I promise.”

He put his face in his hands. He held the relief at bay, afraid it’d make him cry, or strike out at her, or lose his mind.
 

Then he inhaled a double portion of autumn air, and said, “You’re going to end up wishing you’d married Glen. This’ll be worse than being married. You’re as much a slave to that thing as I am, aren’t you?”

She put a fist to her mouth, frightened by the insight. “Next time, if there is one, I’ll leave the control unit with you.”

“Are you crazy? What makes you think I wouldn’t take off with it?”

“They can track it, you know.”

“Even so, you know they can spot-check to make sure you’re following the rules. You could lose everything if they came here and found me with it.”

“You’d hide it.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded by her naivete. “All they’d have to do would be wait until you came back. Then they’d find out you didn’t have it.”

“Then I just won’t ever leave you again.”

His eyes regarded her bleakly. “Quite a bargain you got, huh, girl.”

“Oh! Speaking of bargains, I got you something.” She leaped up and ran back to the truck. While she was there she turned the ignition off. She came back with a small sack.
 

“Here. I don’t know if you’ve read them or not, but they looked like the best ones the little general store had.”

She dropped three books out of the sack onto his lap. His jaw sagged and he looked up at her, overwhelmed. The books were
The Red Badge of Courage, Silas Marner,
and the play
, The Taming of the Shrew
. “High school English,” he said softly.

“The general store has a little stand and they sell them real cheap. Hoping the kids will pick them up, I guess. Have you read them?”

“Yes, but not since high school. It’s—” he looked up at her again. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” He stopped, because now he knew he was going to cry if he went on.

“No reading when you’re supposed to be working, though,” she said lightly, sensing that her gift had had a much deeper effect than she’d anticipated, and not wanting to embarrass him. “So, how far did you get?”

“Um,” he grunted, “I don’t remember!”

“Well, back at it. There’s lots of light left yet. Give me your books, I’ll put them in your room. I’m going in to put a chicken on for dinner and do some laundry. I should have bought you more clothes.”

“I could wear them more than one day,” he said as they walked toward the driveway.

“Naw, you shouldn’t have to do that. Even if I won’t have to be around you smelling like a goat, you do. Next time we go to Omaha I’ll get you some more. Off you go. Work hard!”

* * *

The next day was the Come’N’Pick. The last task, bringing scores of pumpkins up to arrange around the stand, got done after ten p.m. the night before. Loading the biggest pumpkin, a two-hundred pound monster, into the back of the truck, Theo lost his grip on it, and it rolled back off the tailgate and knocked him on his butt. Fortunately it bounced off his legs and away to the side instead of crushing his chest. But the rest of the globes dislodged and avalanched out over him, too. He rolled on the ground, battling pumpkins.

Jennifer leaped out of the cab and ran back. “Theo!” she cried, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. It got away from me.”

 
Watching him floundering in the pile of pumpkins, she snorted, tried to cover it, then her laughter broke out. He grinned up at her. “What a way to go. Pummeled to death by pumpkins.” She helped him to his feet and together they grappled the things into the truck.

 
“Enough,” she said when they’d finally got them in place around the stand. “Time to clean up and hit the hay.”

He was so tired, the next morning he couldn’t remember getting into bed.

Jennifer counted a total of sixty cars. Theo ran back and forth from the driveway to the pumpkin patch, fetching proto-jack’o’lanterns for the customers. Some families wandered out there themselves, letting the kids pick the ones they wanted.
 

Some of them wanted help deciding, but when they saw the scarred lump on his throat they’d ask Jennifer to go with them instead.
 

Then he’d take people’s money and load their cars and minivans until she returned. Some wouldn’t even let him take their money, but waited for her to get back. That hurt, but he kept busy with others who weren’t so reluctant to be waited on by an outcast.

The treat of the day was Glen stopping by to see how the sale was going. Theo knew him immediately by the proprietary smile he beamed upon Jennifer, at the cash register.

“‘Lo, Jenn,” he said. He was a big man running to fat, with receding sandy hair and a weak chin. Cunning little eyes; just smart enough to dress like a junior executive instead of the used car salesman Jennifer said he was. His gray slacks with their knife-edge creases, his shiny wing-tips, and the Polo sweater he wore over the starched white shirt looked to Theo like he was trying too hard. “Looks like a pig in a tux,” Theo thought.
 

Seeing Jennifer’s obvious distaste, his stomach tensed.

Glen looked at him suspiciously. “Who’s this?” he demanded. Then he saw the scar. “Jenn? What is this? You got yourself a slave now?” His voice was not pleased.

“You got it, Glen. Puts me up over a million now, so you might as well move on.”

Glen’s stare turned hateful. “Does it bite? You be careful he don’t get funny on you, you out here all alone. ‘Course,” he added maliciously, “you’ve got the button, don’t you? Naw, he won’t last. Well, see you later, Jenn.” He stomped down the steps and back to his car, and roared away with haste imprudent for the cramped and busy driveway.

Jennifer hissed, “Oily bastard.” Then she smiled. “Maybe after the mad goes away I’ll be able to enjoy replaying the look on his face.”

Theo didn’t answer. He couldn’t imagine her being married to that guy, either, but it wasn’t his place to say. He glanced at the road. “More customers.”

When the last car drove away full of kids and pumpkins, Jennifer and Theo sat on the porch step and she counted the day’s take.

“Three hundred ninety-five, forty-six ,” she concluded. “Lousy!”

“How much do you usually make?”

“Oh, it’s been going down the past several years. Last year it was over five hundred, I think. Year before, eight. When I was in high school I can remember Dad brought in well over a thousand every time. And look at all those pumpkins we’ve got left! I’d better start calling around early in the morning, try to find a bakery or grocery store that wants them. Last resort, the feedlots.”

“Why aren’t as many people buying? Don’t you advertise?”

“Oh, sure, on the radio stations and newspapers in Omaha and Lincoln. Don’t you know? Halloween is falling out of favor. Most school districts in the country won’t even let the kids dress up for it anymore.”

“No. Why not?”

 
Jennifer made her voice go neutral. “Because it’s a celebration of Satanism. It teaches the kids about witches. It encourages things like ghost stories, that frighten children and we mustn’t frighten children. Even if they love it. Every year I say I’m skipping the pumpkins and going for gourds. Next time, I’m going to do it. My mom had a bunch of wonderful recipes for squash of all kinds; I’ll use them in the ads next year.

 
“That still doesn’t solve my problem this year. This isn’t near enough for the taxes. If I can’t sell the rest at a decent price I’ll have to get an extension. And that scares me. They tend to pile up until you lose the farm.”

 
“Something will happen,” he tried to reassure her.

 
The next day, Sunday, wasn’t any better. They exhausted themselves waiting on people and still only netted a little over four hundred.

 
Even worse, Fred Slitter appeared with Susie and insisted that Theo take them into the field to select a pumpkin. Fred dragged it out for over half an hour. Jennifer kept looking anxiously at them. When they returned Theo’s face was dull red, and Fred wore a huge, repellent grin. But after they’d gone, Theo said nothing about it.

Jennifer called it a day as soon as the six o’clock closing time arrived. “By golly, we deserve a night of rest. I’m going to eat, and listen to music, and take a long bubble bath. What’re you going to do?”

“Eat,” he chuckled back at her. “And read.” The books she’d given him stood in the night stand bookshelf unopened. He hadn’t had time to read anything, and besides, he had just wanted to enjoy the sight of them for a few days.

They went to the little town the next morning to pick up her mail. There was a letter from the Omaha District Court in it.
 

She didn’t look at it all the way home. He kept sneaking glances at her, knowing it was the only thing on her mind.
Please, God, don’t let it be bad news.

But it was. In the kitchen she opened that one first, her fingers trembling. “Oh no.”

“What? What is it?”

She lifted horror-paled eyes to him. “The Court’s been investigating your bookstore.”

“Investigating? Why?”

“It doesn’t say. I suppose because they’re just suspicious of bookstores in general, and your troubles gave them an excuse to. But it says they found prohibited books on the premises.”

“Yeah? I could have told them that, if they wanted to know. I had a drawer in the back room where I kept any that came my way. There were quite a few customers who liked that sort of thing.”

“‘That sort of thing?’” she echoed blankly. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, pornography. It’s mighty hard to come by these days.”

“No, Theo. They’re not talking about pornography. They’re talking about books on the official List.”

“Yeah?” he repeated. “Same thing. What about it?”

“The fines are much heavier for those. Didn’t you know?”

“Sure. But what else can they take away from me? I’ve got nothing, I’m a naked body.”

“They still consider you to owe the fines. Don’t you see? The fines will be subtracted from your projected value.”

“Oh shit.”

She nodded slowly. “They hadn’t finished adding them up when they sent this letter. We have to go to Court at four tomorrow and get the final tally.” She looked dazed. “If it’s enough, it could knock me down below a million again. It means I’d be right back where I started. I could end up marrying Glen. I’d lose the farm. I’d lose . . . you.”

He sat down, too, stunned and sick. “Ah, Jennifer, what have I done? I knew I could get in trouble, but to wipe out someone else? I’m so sorry. Look, maybe it won’t amount to that much. Hang onto that idea until we find out, okay?”