Further Joy (7 page)

Just like at the old lady's farm, they walked around the outside of the house instead of knocking on the front door. The house was a pale blue split-level with peeling paint, and there was a low chain-link fence enclosing the backyard. Franklin pulled the gate open and stood aside, beckoning Kim to enter. He said the guy who lived here was on the road, but he didn't mind people stopping by to look. Kim went into the yard and Franklin followed, reclosing the gate.

This man's art, Kim saw, was a dozen or so enormous padlocks spread over his property. The bodies of the locks were tin sheds, and the steel loops on top were some kind of light, flexible pipe. Kim and Franklin strolled toward the center of the yard, but the effect was mostly lost once they were in the middle of the locks; you had to see them all at once. The sheds had no doors on them. Franklin said the next step was the guy putting big combination wheels on the front of each one. They walked all the way to the rear of the lot. Kim could still hear that same dog barking in the distance.

Franklin was facing away from the locks, out past the fence, where the land fell into a hollow and grew marshy. “It's not a museum, but it's better,” he said. “We're seeing this before it's institutionalized.”

Kim could feel the sun on her face, the mild warmth of spring. She closed her eyes for a moment. “It's pretty great,” she admitted.

“You really think so?” Franklin said. He turned to face her, taking a step closer. “I thought you would like it. It's one of the coolest things I know of, so I thought you should see it.” He was close enough to Kim that he seemed taller than before, almost towering over her, wielding his enthusiasm.

“You'll dream about these things,” he said. “Once you get them in your mind, they never leave. I find myself drawing them in school, doodling them, like a compulsion.”

The sun was focusing on them now, coming into its full strength, bringing a rich odor forth from the ground they were standing on.

“This is the reason to envy artists,” Kim said. “Because they get to have these nutty consuming projects going, instead of being consumed with, you know… whatever.”

“When I saw these the first time I thought how I'd like to be locked away for a while. Not like in prison, but
totally
alone. Not in trouble, just away from everything for a long time. I don't know how long, but it would be a long time. Have nothing to look at and nothing to listen to. I think that would be really good for me. I could figure out what my business is and mind it.”

“You could probably do something like this,” Kim said. Franklin had been gesturing a little wildly, and she was still looking at his hands, at his long tan fingers and the swirls of blond hairs on his wrists. “You could be an artist like this guy. I could see that.”

“But I'm not mechanical. You have to be a craftsman to do this stuff.”

“I don't think you have any idea if you're mechanical or not. Anyway, being mechanical isn't the rare talent. The rare talent is having a weird soul and also not being lazy and also being able to concentrate. That's the combination.”

“It's not polite to call people weird. It's not polite to talk about people's souls like that.”

“These days it's not polite to call people normal, either. They get just as offended.”

Franklin looked at her appreciatively, ticking his head to the side like a dog. “I like you. I guess you already know that. I don't like many people and I like you a lot. Not that everyone's wishing I would like them or anything. And it's not just because you're pretty. I saw a study that said that good-looking people are 30 percent more liked by others, or 30 percent more people like them. But that's not why. That's not what made me want to plan this day.”

He kept looking at her, pleased, like someone surprised not to be disappointed. The wind gathered steam, bringing a dull roar up from the trees in the hollow. Kim wanted to say she liked Franklin too, because it was true, but she stayed quiet. She felt the sun, soft but heavy, tightening the nape of her neck, but deep inside her there was another warmth, unwelcome: the sneaking perk of desire. She didn't want it, but there it was, tiny and unmistakable, shameless in its way, sure of itself. Kim's hands were clasped behind her back, her fingers all squeezing each other. She felt ridiculous. Franklin hadn't even been flirting with her—not really—he'd just made an honest declaration of affection. He hadn't made a move to touch her. This nonsense was all on her side. It was
her
problem. It really was ridiculous. Was she this unhappy? Was this all it took? He was a teenager. He was a gawky kid. She could hear the correct and responsible words in her head. They had to go back home now. That's what she needed to say. She wouldn't even have to give an explanation. She could just say they needed to start heading back and Franklin would have to do what she wanted. But she knew she wasn't going to say it.

He kept gazing at her, his arms crossed, his honey-colored stubble shimmering in the light, until he saw that she wasn't going to say anything. He gave one inscrutable nod and started walking back toward the dumpy split-level, weaving without hurry through the glinting sheds, reaching out as he passed each one to graze the baking tin with his fingertips.

*
    
*
    
*

This time they got onto a straight two-lane country road and worked up some speed, the townships petering into homely grain country, pockets of darkly shaded woods here and there. Kim watched Franklin guide the car, navigating through the minutes of his life. His existence was luxurious and vexing, and he was probably doing fine with it. The clock on the radio of the Audi was broken, reading
9:13
. More clouds had piled up, ragged and low like rocky hills, the sky like something you could march up into if you had the energy.

Franklin took his foot off the gas and let the car coast. There wasn't a park or even a kept glade in sight; the land had grown less tended. There were no cross streets, no signs. At a wide spot in the road, Franklin veered over and stopped the car. He seemed relieved.

“Thought I forgot where it was for a minute,” he said. “My memory is terrible these days. My teachers say it's early-onset senioritis.”

“I've always wished my memory could be spottier,” Kim answered.

Franklin waited a moment, but Kim didn't elaborate. He opened his door and stepped out. Kim turned in her seat and watched him pull a blanket out of the trunk, the bin of fruit from the back seat. He stepped around and opened her door, proffering his hand.

She followed him down an overgrown trail that seemed to materialize in front of him as he went. The Audi disappeared behind them. There was only the dry leaning grass, hip-high to Kim, and the faded, half-cloudy sky. Franklin kept sweeping swaths of grass back out of the way with his free arm, holding them bent as Kim kept up with him in her flip-flops. They were heading toward a giant tree with very dark leaves, and when they reached its shade there was a break of clear ground. It was cool under the boughs. Franklin spread the blanket and set the bin down. He took off his shoes and socks and reclined flat on his back. Kim joined him, also on her back, on the other edge of the blanket but still in arm's reach. She kicked her flip-flops off and stretched her legs out, aware of the flattering arch of her torso.

Franklin was the first to speak. He asked Kim if she'd ever been engaged, his voice sounding a little grave. Kim brushed her hair out of her eyes. She
told him she'd been engaged for a while, and that now she wasn't. She was looking straight up, but could sense Franklin nodding, contemplating what she'd said.

“I got proposed to last summer,” he told her.

“Proposed to for marriage?” Kim said. She had no idea whether to take him seriously. It didn't seem like he was being cute, looking for a laugh.

“What happened was we went to a cornbread festival in Tennessee and we drove down in her Volkswagen Bug. At the festival, she entered a raffle and the prize was a scooter. She was the type that enters any raffle she comes across. And this time she wins. They call her name while we're standing there eating free samples of honey. We get back over to the raffle place and they're like, ‘Here's your scooter, miss.' Just like that. She signed some paper and they're like, ‘Y'all enjoy the parade.' One problem, though. We get out to the parking lot and the scooter wouldn't fit in the car, in the Volkswagen, so I offered to drive it back to Chicago. I said we could take the back roads. I'd just follow behind the car.”

“That was a sweet offer to make,” said Kim.

“She was of the same opinion. She thought that was a pretty touching gesture. Right on the spot she bought me a ring from a booth at the festival, with a big orange stone, and asked me to marry her. I couldn't believe it. We ran around the whole night kissing each other's hands, and then we managed to get some wine and we watched movies all night right in her car and slept in there. We were still holding hands while we were sleeping. We just drove down off the road by a little stream. Well, as you could probably guess, the next day we thought better of the whole thing. We were both embarrassed. It felt like a stunt or something. It made us feel like silly young people who wish they were older. It was her fault, really. She's the one who asked. We fizzled out after that trip. We saw each other maybe one more time.”

Kim rested her hands on her stomach. She had an image of the orange engagement ring in her mind. “So you didn't end up driving the scooter back or you did?”

“No, I did. I meant the offer when I made it. It was fun, too. The weather was gorgeous, pretty much like today.”

Franklin turned toward her, propping himself on his elbow. He pulled the bin of fruit in between them. Kim stayed on her back but she found the bin with her hand and ate one strawberry and then another. She tossed the stems behind her, into the weeds, and it was like throwing something overboard. The juice was staining her fingertips. She had a feeling like she didn't want to be let back into the fold. She didn't know where she wanted to be, but the fold had nothing to offer her. She could feel conviction in herself, or perhaps the complete lack of it.

Kim rose up on her hip and looked at Franklin, and he made a slow appraisal of the length of her. She could feel the blood moving in her feet. All the buttons of his polo shirt were undone now—she hadn't seen him do that—and she could glimpse the top portion of his lean, soft-lined chest as it rose and fell. Kim could smell Franklin's sweat and she could smell pollen and she could smell the air itself, the oxygen and ozone.

“What do you want?” she said. “Tell me right now.”

Franklin cleared his throat, sitting up a little and unclasping his hands.

“With this day. What are you after?”

At long last, he seemed nervous. “I think I just wanted to be around you while I have the chance. I didn't want us to miss our window and never connect.” He rubbed his eyes and looked off, as if into a vast and varied landscape. There was nothing around but Illinois. “My mom always used to say to be nice to you. Before you'd visit, she'd sit me down and say how important it was to be nice to you. Which of course I never paid much attention to. I don't know what she was talking about—I guess that you're not married or rich or whatever, and you live in Galesburg. I don't know. But now I
want
to be nice to you, for my own reasons. I just think it would've been a travesty if we never knew each other.” He frowned then, in a tranquil way, contenting himself with his answer. His eyes were gazing out wisely from under those brushy lashes.

Kim could feel a wind in her mind, blowing things away that she didn't need. She closed in on Franklin and took hold of the scruff of his neck. She wasn't going to say another word and wasn't going to allow him to either. She'd talked herself into wanting so many things, and here was this pure,
unbidden craving. The juice on her fingertips was leaving dark smudges on Franklin's collar. She was reaching for his hair now, limp-looking but coarse, and he was moving toward her, meeting her. She felt the sensation of falling, but she was down on the ground already.

THE MIDNIGHT GALES

T
here's a guy from New Mexico who arrived recently. He stays at a one-story motel over next to the power substation, and he makes no secret that he's obsessed with aliens and that's why he's here. One of his T-shirts proclaims as much:
OBSESSED
. He's got another shirt that says
SITTING DUCK
, and another that says
MIDDLE SISTER
. He spends a lot of time sitting next to the weed-cracked motel pool with his feet in the sun, a jug of iced tea underneath his chair. He wears colorful hats and a beard and his jug of tea has halved lemons floating in it. My father says that if this guy were any kind of respectable crazy he'd read library books all day, books that smelled like piss and hadn't been checked out in ages, not glossy magazines full of cologne samples.

We have no downtown, no police station or city hall of our own. There's a concentration of dwellings near the highway, but it's hard to say why. The highway is convenient to nothing. If you want to drive eight or nine miles down country roads, you have your pick of towns—franchise restaurants and car dealerships and jails. My parents rent a post office box in one of
those towns, and hope not to get much mail. Occasionally my mom drives over for an out-of-the-way recipe ingredient or to see a movie in a theater.