Alien Contact (53 page)

hen Louanne opened her light bill, she about had a fit. She hadn’t had a bill that high since the time the Sims family hooked into her outlet for a week, when their daddy lost his job and right before they got kicked out of the trailer park for him being drunk and disorderly and the kids stealing stuff out of trash cans and their old speckled hound dog being loose and making a mess on Mrs. Thackridge’s porch. Drunk and disorderly was pretty common, actually, and stealing from trash cans was a problem only because the Sims kids dumped everything before picking through it, and never bothered to put it back. The Sanchez kids had the good sense to pick up what mess they made, and no one cared what they took out of the trash (though some of it was good, like a boom box that Carter Willis stole from down at Haley’s, and hid in the trash can until Tuesday, only the Sanchez kids found it first). But when Grace (which is what they called that hound, and a stupid name that is for a coonhound, anyway) made that mess on Mrs. Thackridge’s front porch, and she stepped in it on the way to a meeting of the Extension Homemaker’s Club and had to go back inside and change her shoes, with her friends right there in the car waiting for her, that was
it
for the Sims family.

Anyhow, when Louanne saw that $82.67, she just threw it down on the table and said, “Oh my God,” in that tone of voice her grandma never could stand, and then she said a bunch of other things like you’d expect, and then she tried to figure out who she knew at the power company, because there was no way in the world she’d used that much electricity, and also no way in the world she could pay that bill. She didn’t leave the air conditioner on all day like some people did, and she was careful to turn off lights in the kitchen when she moved to the bedroom, and all that. All those things to keep the bill low, because she’d just bought herself a car—almost new, a real good buy—and some fancy clothes to wear to the dance hall on weekends, now that she was through with Jack forever and looking for someone else. The car payment alone was $175 a month, and then there was the trailer park fee, and the mobile home payments, and the furniture rental…and the light bill was supposed to stay
low,
like under thirty dollars.

It occurred to Louanne that even though the Simses had left, someone else might have bled her for power. But who? She looked out each window of her trailer, looking for telltale cords. The Loomis family, to her right, seemed as stable and prosperous as any: Pete worked for the county, and Jane cooked in the school cafeteria. No cord there. The Blaylocks, on the left, were a very young couple from out of state. He worked construction; she had a small baby, and stayed home. Almost every day, Louanne had seen her sitting on the narrow step of their trailer, cuddling a plump, placid infant. Directly behind was an empty slot, and to either side behind.… Louanne could not tell if that ripple in the rough grass was a cord or not. She’d have to go outside to see for sure.

Now, if there’s one sure way to make an enemy at a trailer park, it’s to go snooping around like you thought your neighbors were cheating on you somehow, and before Louanne got into that kind of mess, she thought she’d try something safer. Back when Jack was living there, she wouldn’t have minded a little trouble, being as he was six foot three and did rock work for Mullens Stone; but on her own, she’d had to learn quieter ways of doing things. Like checking up close to her own power outlets, to see if she could spot anything funny coming off the plugs.

She was still in the heels and city clothes she wore to work (secretary over at the courthouse: she made more money than either of her parents here in Behrnville), which was not exactly the right outfit for crawling around under things. She took off the purple polyester blouse, the black suit skirt (the jacket hung in her closet, awaiting winter), the dressy earrings and necklace, the lacy underwear that her mother, even
now,
even after all these years, thought unsuitable. And into the cutoffs, the striped tank top, and her thongs.

Outside, it was still blistering, and loud with the throbbing of her air conditioner, which she’d hung in the living room window. She opened the door of her storage shed that Jack had built her, a neat six-by-six space, and took down her water hose from its bracket. The outside hydrant wasn’t but six feet from her power outlet, and with a new car—new for her, anyway—nobody’d wonder about her giving it a wash. Especially not on such a hot day.

She dragged the hose end around behind her trailer, and screwed it onto the faucet, letting her eye drift sideways toward the power outlet. Sure enough, besides her own attachment, another plump black cord ran down the pipe and off into the grass. But where? Louanne turned the water on as if a car wash were the only thing on her mind, and sprayed water on her tires. They did look grungy. She flipped the cutoff on the sprayer and went to get a brush out of her storage shed. About then, Curtis Blaylock drove in and grinned at her as he got out of his car.

“Little hot for that, ain’t it?” he asked, eyeing her long, tanned legs.

“Well, you know…new car.…” Louanne didn’t meet his eye, exactly, and went back around the end of the trailer without stopping to chat. Becoming a father didn’t stop most men from looking at everyone else. She scrubbed at the tires, then sprayed the car itself, working around it so she could look everywhere without seeming to. That ripple in the grass, now…it seemed to go back at an angle, and then…lot 17. That was the one. A plain, old-fashioned metal trailer with rounded ends, not more than a twenty-seven- or thirty-footer. She thought she could see a black cord lifting up out of the grass and into its underside.

She finished the car, put her hose and brush back into the storage unit, and went back inside. Through the blinds in her bedroom, she could see a little more of lot 17. A middle-aged pickup with slightly faded blue paint sat beside the trailer. Lot 17’s utility hookups were hidden from this angle. Louanne watched. A man came out…a big man, moving heavily. Sweat marks darkened his blue shirt; his face looked red and swollen. He climbed into the pickup, yelled something back at the trailer, then slammed the door and backed carefully into the lane between the rows. The trailer door opened briefly, and someone inside threw out a panful of water. Louanne wrinkled her nose in disgust. White trash. Typical. Anyone that’d steal power would throw water out in the yard like that instead of using the drain. It was probably stopped up anyway.

Louanne got herself a sandwich and a beer from her spotless refrigerator, and settled down on the bed to watch some more. A light came on as the evening darkened; against a flowered curtain, she could see a vague shape moving now and then. About nine or so the pickup returned. She heard its uneven engine diesel awhile before stopping. It was too dark to see the man walk to the door, but she did see the flash of light when the door opened.

Her
light, she thought angrily. She’d paid for it. She wondered how long they left it on. Eighty-two dollars minus the maybe twenty-seven her bill should be, meant they were wasting over fifty dollars a month of her money. Probably kept the lights on half the night. Ran the air conditioner on high. Left the refrigerator door open, or made extra ice…stuff like that. She flounced off the bed and into the living room, getting herself another beer on the way. She didn’t usually have two beers unless she was out with someone, but getting stung for someone else’s electricity was bad enough to change her ways.

Thing was, she couldn’t figure out how to handle it. She sure wasn’t going over there in the dark, past nine at night, to confront that big, heavy man and whoever else was in there. That would be plain stupid. But on the other hand, there was that bill.… She couldn’t afford to have her credit rating ruined, not as hard as she’d worked to get a decent one. She thought of just pulling the plug out, maybe at two in the morning or so, whenever their light went out, and cutting off the plug end. That would sort of let them know they’d been found, but it wasn’t the same as starting a fight about it. On the other hand, that didn’t get the bill paid.

Louanne put the can of beer down on a coaster—even if the tabletop
was
laminated, there was no sense in getting bad habits. Someday she’d own a real wood dining room table, and pretty end tables for her living room, and she didn’t intend to have them marked up with rings from beer cans, either—and eased back into her darkened bedroom to look between the blinds. The light was still on behind the flowered curtain. It wasn’t late enough yet. She went into her bathroom and used the john, then checked her face in the mirror. Her eyebrows needed plucking, and she really ought to do something about her hair. She fluffed it out one way, then another. The district judge’s secretary had said she should streak it. Louanne tried to imagine how that might look.… Some people just looked older, grayer, but Holly Jordan, in the tax office, looked terrific with hers streaked. Louanne took out her tweezers and did her eyebrows, then tried her new plum-colored shadow. That might do for the dance hall on Friday.

But thinking of the dance hall on Friday (not Ladies Night, so it would cost her to get in) made her think of that electric bill, and she slammed her makeup drawer shut so hard the contents rattled. She was not going to put up with it; she’d do something right after work tomorrow. She’d make them pay. And she wouldn’t cut the cord tonight, because if she did that, she’d have no proof. When they got up and didn’t have lights, all they’d have to do would be pull the cord in, slowly, and no one could prove it had been there. On that resolve, she went to bed.

The blue pickup wasn’t there, which she hoped meant the big man wasn’t there, either. She had chosen her clothes carefully—not the city clothes she wore to work, in case things got rough, but not cutoffs and a tank, either. She wanted to look respectable, and tough, and like someone who had friends in the county sheriff’s office.… And so, sweating under the late-afternoon sun, she made her way across the rough, sunburnt grass in a denim wraparound skirt, plaid short-sleeve blouse, and what she privately called her “little old lady” shoes, which she wore to visit family: crepe-soled and sort of loafer-looking. There was an oily patch where the pickup was usually parked. That figured. So also the lumps of old dried mud on their trailer steps, when it hadn’t rained in weeks. Anyone who’d throw water outside like that, and steal power, wouldn’t bother to clean off a step. Louanne squared her shoulders and put her foot on the bottom step.

That’s when she saw the notice, printed in thick black letters on what looked like a three-by-five card. “If nudity offends You,” it said, “Please do not ring this Bell.” Right beside the grimy-looking doorbell button. Just right out there in public, talking about nudity. Louanne felt her neck getting even hotter than the afternoon sun should make it. Probably kept the kids away, and probably fooled the few door-to-door salesmen, but it wasn’t going to fool her. Nobody went around without clothes in a trailer park, not and lived to tell about it. She put her thumb firmly on the button and pushed hard.

She heard it ring, a nasty buzz, and then footsteps coming toward the door. Despite herself, her palms were sweaty. Just remember, she told herself, that you don’t
have
$82.67, and they owe it to you. Then the door opened.