All the Roads That Lead From Home (18 page)

“I don’t
need his charity.”

“It’s not
charity if he’s paying you.”

Her eyes
were different, he thought. They had a quiet, private look to them that wasn’t
there before.

Beau
kissed her neck. “You worry too much. Everything will be fine.”

The old
man came walking down the road. He had on khaki pants and a pressed shirt. He
saw Eldeen and Beau and made his way over to them. Eldeen smiled. The old man
held out his hand to Beau.

“Clifford
Benderhoff,” he said. Beau shook his hand.

“Beau,” he
said.

“Lovely
night.”

“Yeah.”

“Just out
taking my constitutional.”

“Right.”

Mr.
Benderhoff shifted his focus from Beau to Eldeen. “Well, good night,” he said.

“Good
night,” said Eldeen.

Mr.
Benderhoff went briskly across to his own trailer.

“He talks
like a professor, doesn’t he?” asked Eldeen.

“If you
say so.”

“He used
to teach college, you know. He told me so that first day.”

Beau
snorted. Someone was pulling Eldeen’s good leg. No one who used to teach
college would end up living in a trailer. Beau didn’t know why the old man
would say such a thing to her, and figured he might be a little loopy, after
all.

After that
Eldeen looked out for Mr. Benderhoff. She brought him bland casseroles and
cheese bakes, stuff Beau couldn’t imagine a guy with no teeth would manage,
given how hard and chewy everything Eldeen made was.

“What
makes you think he has no teeth?” Eldeen asked. She was at the sink in a
sleeveless top with a little lace collar that made her look cute.

“So, he’s
got teeth. How come you gotta feed him all the time?”

“Hon. It
was last Tuesday, Thursday, and today.”

Beau
scratched his chin. He was growing a beard. Eldeen said once that she liked
beards.

“Where’s
his family to feed him?” he asked.

“Widower.
Daughter all the way out in California.”

“He should
move out there. Old people need lots of sunshine.”

“He’s not
that old. Just seventy-two.”

“That’s
pretty old, if you ask me.”

Her
expression said she wasn’t asking him, and wouldn’t.

***

The first time Eldeen
visited Mr. Benderhoff, he said she should call him Cliff, short for Clifford.
He invited her to sit in a chair by the living room window. Nearby two other
chairs were wrapped in old blankets. Boxes were stacked against the far wall,
and a robust ivy plant sat on the kitchen table and trailed down to the floor.
Cliff saw where she was looking and explained that he’d had the plant for many
years and had taken it with him every time he moved. She asked why he moved so
often, and the slow wandering of his clear blue eyes, as if he were struggling
to make sense of his new home, said he was lonely. Eldeen understood about
loneliness. It had been hard having Beau overseas. He was gone a total of four
years, with one visit home in between. Then she found that in some ways she was
lonelier after he returned than before. She thought it was a matter of getting used
to one way of life, then having to get used to another one all over again.
Cliff offered a cup of coffee, which she declined. The next visit she accepted,
and on the third he asked if it were too early in the day for a small whiskey.
She didn’t think it was. By then Cliff had arranged his things in a very homey
way. The kitchen table had deep red placemats. The trailing ivy now sat atop
the entertainment center, and reached its way towards the light from the
nearest window. The two wrapped chairs were gone and replaced with a new sofa.
A round coffee table stood in front covered with neatly laid out magazines
whose titles Eldeen had never seen,
The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The
Economist
, and one she did know,
Arizona Highways
. Eldeen asked if
Cliff had been to Arizona and he said, yes indeed, several times. He was
looking at a little place out there where he’d go for good, as soon as some of
his investments came due in the fall. Though Eldeen had only known him for a
week or two, she was sad to think he’d be gone that soon.

***

Beau’s friend, Ty, lifted
his beer and took a long swig. The backs of his hands were spotted with orange,
red, blue, and black. His head, which was shaved, had dots of green. Beau tried
to think how paint had ended up there and didn’t ask. Ty was working on another
canvas, a deep swirling thing that had no beginning and no end. Beau thought it
wasn’t so hard to do, throwing paint around like that.

“Old lady
with the geezer again?” Ty asked.

“Yup.”

Ty burped,
leaned back on the sofa, stared at the ceiling and said, “You should give her a
kid.”

Beau had
had the same thought. A kid would keep Eldeen at home, where she belonged. This
attachment to the old man was just her needing to take care of someone. Beau
could take of himself, so he wasn’t a good substitute. Women needed to nurture
and tend. If he couldn’t talk her into a kid, then he’d suggest a puppy. If she
didn’t want a puppy, then she could plant a garden.

“Guy got
any money?” asked Ty.

“Who?”

“The
geezer.”

“Doubt
it.”

“That’s
his Cadillac over there, right?”

“So?”

“Looks
pretty late-model to me.”

Beau
finished his beer. He had an urge to throw the bottle at their old television
set. “Why the interest in his assets?” he asked.

“Well, if
he’s as cultured as the old lady says, maybe he’d like to buy one of my
paintings.”

Having
those crazy, loud swirls of color in such a small space would be a lot to take.
Beau said he didn’t really think so, and got them both another beer.

***

Finally Beau had to tell
Eldeen to stop talking so much about the old man. She was always going on about
how interesting he was, and how many places he’d been. Beau said if that were
so, then why didn’t he take himself off for a long visit somewhere? Eldeen
resented that Beau treated Cliff as if he were a nuisance when he was anything
but. And it wasn’t as if she were neglecting anything there at home. Wasn’t his
dinner always made and his clothes always washed? Weren’t the rugs vacuumed and
the dishes always done? And wasn’t she bringing in a paycheck, when he wasn’t
even looking for work? It was the way she was leaning so defiantly on her
crutch that made Beau see he had to do something, so he invited her to dinner
at Madeleine’s.

“Oh, my
god, did you get a job?” she asked. She
ka-thumped
her way across their
tiny living room and put her arms around him in a three-way hug—her, him, the
crutch, which fell to the floor. He accepted her embrace. Her face was shiny
and full of light.

“No,” he
said.

“So, why .
. . ”

“Can’t I
do something nice for my own wife once in a while?” He hadn’t meant to sound
defensive. She picked up her crutch.

“That’s a
pricey place. Are you sure it’s a good idea?” she asked.

“It’s a
great
idea. Now, do you want to go or not?”

“Of course
I do, Pumpkin. It’ll be awesome.”

And it
was, until Beau had too much to drink. He was a beer man, unused to hard
liquor, and while Eldeen sipped her Bordeaux, Beau downed the whiskey sours. He
got giggly, romantic, and surly, all in a row. Then he apologized at length in
the truck as Eldeen piloted them through the country darkness. Part of the
restaurant’s charm was that it was out of the way, in a restored farm house
that had once been owned by one of county’s wealthiest families. Beau reminded
her of this as they drove, then leaned against the window and fell asleep.

Back at
the trailer, he snored in his seat. Eldeen couldn’t wake him. It was late, she
was tired and put out by his behavior that evening, though the food had been
awfully good. She’d ordered a beef dish she couldn’t pronounce, and found it
one of the tastiest things she’d ever eaten. She nudged Beau again with no
luck. She thought of poking him hard with the rubber tip of her crutch. She
didn’t want to leave him there all night in case it got chilly, which it
probably wouldn’t, but still, it didn’t seem right.

The lights
were on in Cliff’s trailer. Eldeen made her way over, knocked, waited, and then
knocked again. Cliff came to the door and said he’d been reading on his chair
and must have dropped off. She explained the problem.

“Oh, my
dear, what a bother for you! Of course, I’ll be right over,” Cliff said.

He took a
moment to get out of his frayed blue bathrobe and into a pair of jeans and a
flannel shirt. The jeans were a surprise. He looked good, she thought, strong
and capable. Just the other day he’d mentioned that he still went to the gym
three days a week and worked with weights. Eldeen admired him for wanting to
stay in shape.

Cliff
wrestled Beau out of the truck, leaned him on his shoulder, and walked him to
the front door.

“Oops,”
Beau said. “Oopsie-doopsie.”

Cliff
guided Beau down the hall to their bedroom, and shoved him onto the bed. Then
he lifted his legs off the floor, and got him in the middle, away from the
edge.

“Hey,
Baby, what say you get naked, get in here, and give your old man a blowjob?”
Beau mumbled.

Eldeen’s
face burned. Cliff pretended he hadn’t heard a thing. Back in the living room
he said, “Don’t be hard on him in the morning. He’ll feel rotten enough.”
Eldeen noticed that she’d stained her dress at the restaurant. It wasn’t a new
dress, but it was one of her favorites, a little yellow jersey with embroidered
roses around the neck. She stepped out of her white sandals, wriggled free of
her crutch and sat down. Cliff sat down, too, on the sofa opposite her. The
propped up crutch fell loudly to the floor. Cliff reached for it.

“It’s
okay. Just leave it there,” said Eldeen.

“I’ve been
meaning to ask you—”

“Happened
when I was six. Fell off a horse I had no business trying to ride. Broke the
damn thing so badly, there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Not out
where we lived, anyway, in the boondocks.”

“Oh, I
see. I’m sorry. I was going to ask how long you’ve been married.”

Eldeen
smiled, and put her hand on her forehead. “Oh, right. Seven years. Why?”

Cliff took
a minute to answer. Beau’s snores were deep and strong. “Marriage isn’t always
easy, or intended to always make us happy. It’s companionship that counts. As
long as you’re good companions most of the time.”

Eldeen
said nothing.

“My wife
was a good companion, even when she didn’t understand me,” said Cliff.

“What
didn’t she understand?”

“My
wanting to feel young again, and explore the world.”

“Oh.”

“She
thought I was—avoiding reality.” The shadow of past conversations passed over
his face. “So, I practiced. Reality, I mean. That’s why I told you right away
that I was seventy-two. To get used to how it sounds.”

“Are you?
Used to it?”

“No.”

“Well, you
know what they say. ‘You’re as young as you feel.’” Down the hall Beau turned
in bed and mumbled something.

“Can I
offer you a nightcap?” Cliff asked.

“Well—”
Oh, who cares? she thought. Beau wouldn’t wake up until mid-morning, at the
earliest.

“That
would be lovely,” she said. They walked across the road in the silver light of
the August moon, and as they climbed the stairs, he patted her shoulder.

***

Ty watched the barmaid’s
ass as she wove around the crowded tables. For once his hands were clean. He
was in a good mood. He’d actually sold a painting, to a friend of his mother’s,
which wasn’t quite as exciting as selling in a gallery to a stranger, but it
was a start. Now he and Beau were celebrating. After the hangover from
Madeleine’s, Beau had stopped drinking for four days. Today was Friday, and he
was ready to pick up where he’d left off.

One of
Beau’s neighbors, the retired cop, came in with a woman a lot younger than he
was. Ty looked up.

“Hey, you
know who that chick is? She’s a stripper,” said Ty.

“No
fucking way.”

“Way. I
saw her at Tattler’s once.”

“Since
when you hang around strip clubs?”

“Always
looking for inspiration, you know?”

The
retired cop looked at Beau, then leaned over and whispered something in the
stripper’s ear that made her giggle and bring her hand to her mouth. Maybe he’d
seen him the night he came home from Madeleine’s, flopped against the old man
like a sack of flour, as Eldeen put it. So what if he had? What if Beau had
gotten blotto? Mr. Law and Order looked like a guy who did that a lot.