Road to Paradise (16 page)

“I know something about that, yes.” Candy raised herself up, leaned forward. “Did they teach you that all craving was bad? All wishing needed to be stamped out?”

“Not at all! They taught us not to care about earthly things.”

“Exactly. The earthly self is bad. Material things are bad. Beauty is meaningless. The outer world is meaningless. The inner world, your inner Chakra, needs to be purged until all want, all desire are gone from it. Only when your soul is empty can you achieve the perfect void. Total emptiness is the goal. No?”

“That’s not true!”

“Nirvana is not the goal?” Candy asked, all innocence.

“And what does your god of hitchhikers and the homeless teach you?” Gina said with sharp irritation.

“Rejoice always,” replied Candy. “That’s one. Pick up hitchhikers off the road. Give them drink. Give them food. Give freely, because you have been given freely. Don’t worry about what you
eat and what you wear. Pray without ceasing. Be good. Have love. Value your earthly life. Be. And be not afraid.”

That last thing got inside me—I had spent my life being afraid. “Who says this?” I asked.

“Jesus,” Candy said simply.

Gina laughed. “What the hell do
you
freakin’ know about Jesus? You haven’t read a book in your entire life!”

“Clearly I might’ve read one book,” said Candy, twinkling. “At least about Buddhism.”

Unpleasant silence fell in our little car.

“You don’t know anything about Buddha,” Gina said eventually. “Nothing. You dropped out of school.”

“Oh, I didn’t know public schools taught about Buddha. Maybe I should’ve stayed.”

“You should’ve, yes!”

Candy fell back on the seat and rubbed a Chihuahua’s nose. He promptly bit her, but she didn’t take her finger away, still cooing to the two of them through the cage. “Hello, little Cheewahwah. Do you want to open a little hospital for lions and tigers and mice to prove you’re not a canine but a superior being, oh, yes? Or are you reconciled with your canine Mokshu?”

Were we near St. Louis? God, I fervently hoped so. After passing Chatham, I asked Gina to look it up, but she was too riled and didn’t. “I want potato chips,” Candy whined. “I want an ice cream. I want some milk. I want potato chips most of all. Can we stop for French fries? Any potato will do.”

When we stopped, Gina said to me, as we were walking the dogs and giving Candy a few bucks for potato chips and Coke, “
When
are you going to let her off? Because I don’t like her one little bit.”

“Come on,” I said dryly. “I thought she was so sweet and ignorant.”

“That’s right. She knows nothing.”

“Then why’s she getting under your skin?” Candy was thoroughly amusing
me
. This is what I knew—I couldn’t take my eyes off her,
hitched up on a picnic table, looking around, smiling, her skirt inappropriately short, her pink and ebony tresses glimmering, her red mouth shimmering, eating from a bag of potato chips clutched in her little fist.

We passed the hours on the road to St. Louis this way. This is the thing: sometimes you want to confess, share intimacies, divulge confidences. Sometimes you want to talk about real things, with meaning. But the time to do that is around a fire, or late at night in bed. I wanted to ask Candy many questions about her life, and how she knew so much about Buddha, but darkness is usually a prerequisite for midnight confessions. Yet the miles are stretched long, even in daylight. You have to talk about something. So you talk about words, because
words
have meaning. You use
words
to talk about words. You listen to
words
on the radio, you look at
words
on the signs. Litchfield. Staunton. Hamel.

“Did you know that the longest word in the English language is forty-five letters?” Gina said, having long ago abandoned her quest for Paradise, and her defense of Buddha with whom, in any case, she had parted ways after her aunt died, though she didn’t tell Candy that.

“Really?” This was said utterly devoid of interest. “Is it antidisestablishmentarianism?” Accompanied by a chuckle and a gulp of Coke.

“No. That’s a measly twenty-eight letters. Are you ready?”

“Candy, you have to humor her.”

“I’m ready,” said Candy.

“It’s pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.”

“I lied. I wasn’t ready. What?” Candy was laughing.

Gina said, “It’s a lung disease that affects miners.”

“Is your father a miner?” asked Candy.

“No, he makes metal fixtures.”

We turned up the music, and Captain and Tennille assured us that love, love would keep them together.

A little later Gina asked: “Why don’t you tell us your story, Candy?”

“Okay. Here. Here’s my story. After Judas died and went to hell, he was sad, and remorseful and filled with shame. He was in a deep hole, and he was cold. He spent a long time like that with his thoughts and his regret, then looked up and saw very high above him, a small patch of light. He contemplated this light, thought about it for maybe a thousand years. Then he grabbed on to the sides and began to climb, but he kept slipping and falling back to the bottom. It was a very difficult task. Finally, when he was almost at the very top, he slipped and fell back to the bottom again and spent many more years with his shame and regret. After many attempts and many failures, he eventually managed to claw his way out. He crawled into a small, dimly-lit room, in which stood a table. Around this table sat twelve men. Jesus looked at Judas, and said, ‘Well, Judas, at last you’re here. We couldn’t begin until you came.’”

Candy leaned back against the seat.

I wasn’t laughing anymore, troubled by the bleakness of what she had just told us. There was something in it that frightened me. It was a terrible story, for sure, but I didn’t quite know why. Gina was more direct. “What the hell does it mean? We wanted something personal.”

“How do you know it wasn’t personal?”

“I didn’t understand a word of it,” Gina declared. “What’s the point?”

Candy smiled. “You didn’t ask for a point. You asked for a story. Someday it might have meaning for you. Then again, it might not.”

The road became more congested, less open. The fields had gone, there was rush-hour traffic, factories near the river, industrial blight. Candy remained permanently down on the seat. She looked squeezed up, with her legs one way, her torso another, trying to fit around the dog cage and the Chihuahuas that she, as best she could, was trying to ignore. “Gina, we’re going to have to figure
out where we’re going,” I said. “Look at the map and tell me where to go.”

Reluctantly, Gina opened the atlas.

From the back Candy said, “Gina, did you know that cockroaches can navigate perfectly when they’re deaf and blind?”

“And how exactly does that apply here?” snapped Gina, pretending to search the map of Missouri.

Slyly, Candy smiled. “Navigate. Perfectly. When deaf and blind.”

I knew that Gina fervently wished she were more adept at map reading just to prove her superiority to the creature in the back who never finished junior high. The only problem was, Gina’s intense desire to appear smarter than Candy was in no way related to her actual geographical competence. She could not find De Soto on the map. We had to pull into a gas station, and I was the one who had to struggle to find the little town fifty miles south of St. Louis, near a road that led to a road that could be the road we were looking for. The trucks kept honking at my car. It was blisteringly hot, we were sweaty and tired, and Gina kept whispering as I struggled with the pump, “Are you going to let her off or not?”

“Here? In a gas station?”

“She’s
really
starting to get on my nerves.”

We got to the Kirkebys’ after eight. As if on the Oregon Trail, we moved our wagon west across the Missouri River and past the Gateway Arch, all man-made 630 sunlit feet of it, at which we barely glanced, down the floral, verdant, watery winding river trail of Lewis and Clark (“Who?” said Candy), south into the sloping, overhanging, sun-infused hills, expansive, rolling fields to the horizon, trees the brightest green, the lowering sun gilding all. I had imagined it to be flat, burnt-out, but it was neither. Everything was surprising me these days. Nothing was as I had expected or imagined it to be.

Nancy Kirkeby was strong and tall, a blonde, good-looking friendly woman, who came out to the drive and shook our hands, even Candy’s, though she did say, “
Candy
? What kind of a mother would name you that, child?”

Nancy oohed and aahed over the dogs, ushered us in, carrying the cage, said her boys were having a nap, but would soon wake up and be happy.

“What kind of a mother lets her children nap at nine in the evening?” whispered Candy, but I shushed her.

The two boys were on the floor of their parents’ bedroom, a sunlit western room, on top of casually thrown-down blankets, fully clothed and snoring. Their mother stood over them, smiled and said, “Pumpkins, wake up, look what I got.”

There was much grateful excitement. We were asked to stay. Nancy’s husband came in from the shed, introduced himself briefly as Ken Kirkeby, then disappeared until supper. They fed us Sloppy Joes, rolls, cheese, macaroni, some leftover stew. Candy ate like she hadn’t been fed in months, complimented the food, and talked non-stop to the boys about dogs, the farm and cats, even school (!). It was ten-thirty by the time Nancy served hot chocolate and ice cream, then invited us to sleep over and start out in the morning. Exhausted, I readily agreed, welcoming the chance not to pay another thirty-seven bucks for a room it would take us an hour to find, since the Kirkebys lived in the middle of nowhere.

The open lands were vast and had smelled so good in the setting sun. The family sure looked like there was nowhere else they would rather be. Even I, for five minutes, became enamored of their life, imagining myself getting a house like this, raising chickens, taking care of things, having food late when unexpected and uninvited guests came to my door bearing not one but two Chihuahuas, and seeing the sun set from up high. Nancy gave us linens and blankets, extra pillows and a double bed with space on the floor for the third person. Candy took the floor. No one protested. “Well, I’m turning in,” Nancy said. “You girls, not too much noise. Ken and I have to be up at sunrise tomorrow.”

“Oh. What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She laughed. “We’re up at that time every tomorrow,” she said, waving a cheery goodnight.

I had long been asleep, or thought I had, but in the middle of the night I had to use the bathroom. I didn’t know where it was, so I stumbled down the hall, bleary-eyed, looking for a half-open door or a dim light. I found both. When I pushed open the door I saw it was not a bathroom but a guestroom with a bed and a chair. In this brown leather chair sat Ken Kirkeby, and on the floor, between his legs, was Candy, her head lowered into his pulled-down sleeping shorts.

“Oh, excuse me,” I muttered apologetically, backing out and hitting my foot on the doorjamb, stumbling, possibly even yelping. “Excuse me …” My eyes to the carpet, I fumbled for the door handle. Oh God. Yet the bladder was desperately full. Still, I couldn’t risk any more discoveries in this farmhouse. Rushing back to the bedroom, holding on to the walls, I leapt into bed onto a sleeping Gina. “Wake up!” I hissed. She didn’t stir. “Gina!”

Grumbling, she pushed me off and turned away. I climbed back on top of her, straddling her and shaking her urgently. “Gina! Wake up! Mayday, I tell you.”

Her eyes still closed, feebly she tried to detach me. “Sloane, are you crazy? Get off!” she muttered.

“No. Gina, I’m telling you for the last time—”

I broke off, hearing shuffling footsteps outside, doors opening, a sleepy female voice making a loud gasp, a man’s voice making a loud gasp, followed by apologetic muffles. I swirled off Gina, plopped next to her and pulled the covers over our heads. “Gina! For God’s sake! Will you wake up?”

My whispering appeal wasn’t what finally woke Gina. It was the sudden yelling coming from the hall, the guttural fury of a woman’s voice. Under the blanket, Gina was finally awake. “Sloane, why are you suffocating me?”

“Oh, we are so f—”

Unholy screaming coming from the corridor stopped me, earsplitting banging, footsteps running, the sound of something wooden being hurled against a wall, followed by a man’s contrite voice. Pulling the blanket off our heads, Gina lay breathing in deeply, staring at me, as we listened. I could make out only every other word. “SWINE! Gibberish, gibberish, gibberish—BASTARD! Gibberish, gibberish, gibberish, BITCH!” Oh, and then a whole phrase: “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

“Who is she yelling at?” whispered Gina, and then she had her answer when our door burst open and a panting mad blonde woman in a house robe stood in the hall light. “Get the FUCK out of my house!”

Gina and I jumped out of bed. Nancy disappeared. “God,” I said, “I
really
have to go to the bathroom.”

“Better not ask, Sloane. What’s wrong with her?”

“Better not ask, Gina.”

We stuffed our clothes and toothbrushes into our duffel bags, hearing Nancy somewhere in the house screaming at her husband, his quiet baritone in reply. The dogs were barking as if the house were getting robbed. I hoped we had everything but didn’t think this was the time for a thorough inspection; the wife was so angry, yelling so loudly, I was afraid the shotgun in the living room was going to come off the wall before we had a chance to get into the car.

Throwing on our Dr. Scholls, Gina and I grabbed our bags, Candy’s bag and, hurrying, saying nothing, clop-clopped like mares down the hardwood-floor hall. Here was the bathroom! Right at the end of the corridor. I just hadn’t walked far enough. Damn. My body twitched from my urinary discomfort. “Gina, I’m going to pee my pants,” I whispered. “You think I have a sec to run in?”

“No! Let’s go. Where’s Candy?”

“Don’t know.”

“Hurry. Where’s the door?”

I gave the bathroom a longing last glance, and in the kitchen, Nancy was waiting for us, out of breath, red in the face.

“Thank you,” I mewled. “Everything was delicious—”

The woman flung open the back door and shoved me roughly into Gina and outside, slamming the door so hard behind us that one of the glass panes shattered and fell. The dogs continued to bark.

We ran across the pebbled yard to our car, me fumbling for the keys.

Candy was standing by the passenger door. “Did you get my bag?”

I threw her hobo bag at her.

“What’s going on?” cried Gina. “What the fuck happened?”

“Just get in the car,” I said. “We have to get the hell out of here, that’s what happened.”

Candy was already in. But Gina was still reluctant, standing for a moment, looking at the house, so peaceful in the dark rural fields, just the windows bright with light, shadows walking back and forth, throwing up fretful hands, following one another.

It was three in the morning, the pitch black, rural road unlit, and I drove in a hurry, taking the turns too fast. Where were we headed? Toward a crash, that’s where. The downhill lane was winding, and I was having trouble navigating with my shaking hands. There was depthless silence in the car. Candy sat in the back, pressed tightly against the window. Maybe she was hoping I’d forget she was there. Gina didn’t forget, though.

“Would someone
please
tell me what happened?”

“Candy?” I said. “You want to take that one?”

“No, not really.”

What was I going to do? It was the middle of the night, and I had to either drive or fight; I couldn’t do both on De Soto’s hilly roads, I’d go right into a ditch. Slowing down, I steadied my foot on the gas. I meandered, my brights on. “I want to find the highway,” I said. “I just want to find somewhere we can stop. I can’t keep doing this.”

We found a small shopping area, all locked up, and I pulled into the parking lot, idling the car. I couldn’t wait another second. I ran to the bushes with the driver door still open, and Gina calling out.

“Sloane, what are you doing, for God’s sake? Come back! We can’t stop here. We’ll get mugged. Or worse.”

“Everyone’s sleeping,” I snapped when I returned, turning on the overhead and opening the atlas. “Where are we?” Wasn’t that the eternal question? I couldn’t see the map, couldn’t fix my eyes on it. I whirled around to Candy. “What’s wrong with you? Tell me, do you want to get us all killed?”

She said nothing, just pursed her lips—contritely?

“Would someone please,
please
tell me what’s going on?” Gina was almost beside herself.

I rolled down my window. “Don’t shout,” I said. The night was
warm and still. What if someone heard, came into the lot? I did not feel safe, and longed for the sun to come up.

At last Candy put Gina out of her misery and related the whole sorry tale. Stunned Gina laughed, then kept repeating Oh my God until I told her to shut up. Candy said nothing, Gina and I stared hard at each other in the dark.

“Girls, why are you hyperventilating? He gave me money.” She produced a fifty-dollar bill and waved it around. “Next breakfast and motel on me.”

We turned to her aghast. “He gave you
money
?”

“Yes. He knew I didn’t have any.”

“Help me out with this,” said Gina, “because I’m having trouble here. Did he give it to you before or after?”

“Before. There was no after. His wife walked in. Shelby’s little stumbling woke her up.”

“Oh, now it’s
my
fault!”

“No, I’m just saying.”

“Candy, the wife could’ve killed us!”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. Why would she kill us? For giving her husband a little head? Someone had to. She wasn’t.”

“He
told
you?”

“Nope. Man passes by his wife in a narrow corridor without touching her, don’t take much to figure he ain’t getting
any
.”

“Oh, okay, Dr. Dropout Psychologist,” Gina snapped. “Few things more I love than hearing your theories on marriage at four in the morning.”

My neck was aching and I rested my disgusted head on the wheel. “Gina, stop speaking to her. She’s not getting it.”

“
I
get it,” Candy said. “
You
don’t get it. I didn’t approach him. He approached me. I’m not the guardian of his marriage; he is. For a moment we had a free exchange between two consenting adults. I gave him something he desperately wanted. And now
I
have fifty bucks. You girls have been making me feel bad about being broke and all. Now I can make a contribution. So quit griping.”

“And this is how you contribute? By nearly getting us killed?” Gina’s voice boomed through the open windows into the quiet parking lot.

“And there I was,” I said, “worried about letting you off on the big, mean Interstate, when obviously you know quite well how to take care of yourself.”

Her saying nothing, her
not
promising not to do it again, was noted by me, even at this late hour.

It was still so long till sunrise. We sat in the car, I put my head back, closed my eyes. Sleep was impossible. What was Gina thinking about? What was Candy thinking about? Come to that, what was I thinking about?

“I’m not meant to be perfect, girls,” Candy said at last. Was that a semblance of an apology? And why did I need an apology? She didn’t go down on me. I wasn’t the one married to Ken. Who was I to be so righteous?

“Not perfect is about right, isn’t it?” Gina said, holier-than-thou.

I found this to be ironic, considering what she and I had been doing not forty-eight hours earlier with men as unknown to us as Ken Kirkeby was to Candy. We did more with them for free than she did for fifty bucks, and all we got for our trouble was them passing us by on the street. I bet this man would remember Candy.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt unprepared, out of control. I thought I had been meant to stop for this girl, to help her. But what if … what if I was meant to keep going, and didn’t? What if this was a life lesson of an entirely different kind?