Interstate (23 page)

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. I don't like hairy or harried or married heavy Harrys or anything like them and never did. Always with their oh-poo-poo-poo polite warnings and words to the wise and bigshot goodbyes and put-downs, and this is what I do about these I'm-better-than-you attitudes and noses in the air, plain as simple, simple as plain peach pie,” driver behind him laughing like mad and walloping the steering wheel with his hand. Later—years later—couple of years at least, he thought what could Julie have been thinking of at that particular time and a short time before? Margo he could always find out, and did ask her about a year after he thought this and she said “I think I was thinking—no, I don't want to talk about it, the whole subject is too sad.” “Please, just a little, if it gets too terrible for you or even starts to, stop. But I really think it'll help me get over everything somewhat. For maybe with the complete picture of what everybody was thinking and saying in the car that time or as close to it as I can get, it'll just be too much for my head, filling it way beyond where it can hold that much till it all just blows up and then blows away, or at least what's left I can live with. No, that doesn't make any sense, does it? or just some.” “Not that I can see,” she said. “But I think I was thinking, and naturally I'm unclear about it since everything then seemed to fly out of me because of the screaming and shots and our car quickly stopping and my being thrown against the front seat and then the shock of after. But that the man was all of a sudden acting strange after he'd been kind of nice and funny, and his smiling face changing with it, which I liked up till then and I think Julie did too—” and he said “Why, how could you tell?” and she said “She gave me a look that she thought him funny because of the things he was saying, like ‘hairy Harry' and ‘homely hippie'—” and he said “I didn't hear any ‘homely hippie,'” and she said “I did, almost all
H
's, but for those things I thought she gave me a look for and also his funny face, which like me I bet she thought he was making just for us. But when the sudden change came I got scared, for his face also went from funny to ugly.” “So you immediately knew something horrible was about to happen, that it, and you think Julie did too?” and she said “For me, not till he took out the gun. And even then for a few seconds, till I saw how scared you suddenly got, I thought the gun was fake and he might still only be having some fun with us but now with a scary mean face.” “And Julie, our dear little Julie…you know, it's still difficult, after three years is it?—did I mention this to you before?” and she said “What?” and he said “Talking or even thinking of her without crying—yes, I'm sure I did, or might have, and I think I even remember asking you another time about a year back if I'd mentioned this before—but what do you think she was thinking right before the guy showed the gun and after he stopped acting kind of funny and started acting very strange?” and she said “Probably the same as me if she was looking and catching everything I was,” and he said “Do you think she was?” and she said “I can't remember—for a while, like I said, she did have the look that she was; but then my eyes got drawn only to the man, so it's not possible to say for sure for her and that's the way it'll always be.” “Try a little harder to remember, sweetie,” and she said “Oh, all right,” and shut her eyes and seemed to try and then said “I can't, that's all, I can't see anything after that but the man and the gun and your being scared of it and lots of shouting and shrieking and the car swerving and then us pulling over to the side and you yelling for us to duck, or maybe that was before or both before and after we stopped, and the shots.” Julie might have been thinking, he thought, “The man was funny, but now Daddy doesn't seem all right. He seems worried and the man doesn't seem funny anymore either. He seems crazy and angry, shouting like he did so loud and now some more. And he cursed. Bad words too. The
f
one; I think I also heard the
p
one. Daddy hates when people curse in front of Margo and me, even if he does it sometimes when we're around and he's mad at something or us, which he gets a lot, and even curses at us sometimes too, and once the
f
word.” She had a little memo book in which she jotted things down: pictures, thoughts, math problems she made up, poems. Once: “What day is it, Daddy?” “You mean today's date? April twelfth.” “Well, I wrote down here ‘Daddy used the s word, twice, April twelfth.'” Other times when he thought about what she might have been thinking at a particular time, incidents or moments that for some reason stand out. Like when he went into her room to say goodnight, lights in it were out, and got on his knees by her bed, thought she might be sleeping, a little light was on her face from the hallway and eyes closed and expression quiescent, and then her eyes flipped open and he said “Oh hi, I came in to say goodnight, thought you were asleep,” and she sat up and slowly moved her face to his and then just stared deadpan at him a few seconds, so close he was looking at her cross-eyed, and after he pulled back, for his eyes were hurting, and said goodnight, she did and turned around, patted her pillow and rested her doll on it and covered it up to its neck and lay down and put her arm around it and he said “No kiss?” and she said “Not tonight,” and he said “How come?” and she said nothing. So what was on her mind when she stuck her face next to his, he'd thought at first to kiss his lips, and those few seconds she stared at him and also when she hugged the doll while facing the wall and he said a couple of times “You're not going to say anything?” Time they were sitting in a movie theater, just the two of them and her only time in one, picture kind of loud and fast like a toy commercial, and she nudged him, he looked at her and she just stared up at him and he whispered “What? What is it?” and she stared for what must have been a minute and then turned back to the screen. He never asked her again what it was; should have, later. Time he was serving the kids dinner and she said “Can I have something to drink?” and he said “This isn't a restaurant. You know where the juice is and how to pour it and your pouring arm isn't lame, so go in and get it yourself,” and she said “I only wish it was,” and he said “Wish what was?” and she said “This was a restaurant. Then we could get another waiter.” “Oh ho ho ho, so sophisticated untongue-in-cheek siss-boom-bah ridiculing humor,” and she put her fork down, elbow on the table and palm holding up her chin and she seemed to be studying him and he said “So what's so interesting, tell me—my stupid rejoinder, saying words and phrases way over your head?” and Margo said “Yeah, tell Daddy,” and she shook her head and continued to stare. That he was crazy to make these requests, use those words, that he's always getting excited or irritated over nothing, that he can ask nicely for once if he wants her to do something—“Please isn't a dirty word, you know,” as she once said and he said then “I know, I'm sorry, I'm setting a bad example, adults should be, well, role models when it comes to behavior in front of children, and for other things, so please, please, and I mean it, triple and quadruplicate please—no, that doesn't seem as if I mean it, so just
please
,” followed by whatever he was asking her to do, or was she just looking his way but lost in some thought that had nothing to do with him? She got that way lots and he always loved looking at her when she did. Time she was sitting on the couch, book she'd been reading on her lap, legs under her, fingers pulling at her bottom lip and letting it spring back, eyes off somewhere contemplatively. Must have been the book she was thinking of, or—she did this—she'd heard a bird or some other sound from outside and was wondering about it, listening for it again, something, but picture of her sitting there stayed with him, including the light—it was night—this time from the floor lamp, slit across her face. Time she was on the merry-go-round at her school fair and he called out “Julie, Julie, Daddy here, give me a look” every time she came around where he was behind the railing separating him from the ride, for he wanted to wave and take a picture, but she kept looking straight ahead, big smile, perfect for a picture but not at him though he should have snapped it but he was waiting for her to look his way for a full-face shot till it was too late and the ride had stopped—imagining she was on a real horse? Exhilaration of the whole thing—tinny calliope music, breeze on her face and through her loose hair, other kids' squeals, different sounds from the fair melding and changing around her as she rode? As he lifted her off the horse he said “What were you thinking of when you were riding round and round?” and she said “Something,” and he said “But what?” and she said “I'm not sure, maybe nothing, why's it important?” and he said “It isn't, just thought I'd ask, but your face—staring out and looking so happy and smiling into space,” and she said “What's the matter with that?” and he said “Nothing, it was beautiful, let's forget it.” Time she snuck quietly up to him at home with fluorescent pink-framed sunglasses and headphones on, attached cassette player in her hands, tapped his back, after he jumped and turned to her and said “Oh my goodness, look at you,” she did a quick dance to the music he faintly heard from the phones, and smiled—knowing the joke? Knowing he knew? What? Pleased he liked it and that she'd also startled him but where he didn't get mad over it and it in fact made him laugh? But how'd she know he'd appreciate it or did she only guess or was trying it out if he would? He knew she'd like him doing this so he said “Hey, yeah, cool, babe,” and held his hand open for her to give him five, which she did and he said “Looks great; Elvis, right?” and she said “Who else could it be?” and he said “But Elvis Barry Schwartz, no?” and she said “Oh really, Daddy,” and he said “But how'd you know who he was?” and she said “On TV, and Margo told me about him and has this tape,” and he said “You know, and don't tell anybody because I can be shot for saying this, but I always thought he was way overrated, in fact that he was practically talentless and gruesome, and I grew up when he was thriving and alive, but who am I, right?—and his movies, phooey,” and she said “Well I like him and so does Margo and all her friends,” and took the phones, cassette player and sunglasses off and set them aside—he'd later have to say “Could you bring these Elvis relics back to their rightful places?” but she ignored him so he did it which she proba bly thought he would, for they all knew how compulsive he was at trying to keep the house neat and clean. Time she was reclining on the couch in her pajamas and he'd come back from a run that had ended up at a couple of stores—had to be a Sunday or national holiday for them all to be home, since it was within a half-year of when she died and there was no lazing around early Saturdays then, the kids had to be at swimming lessons by 8:50 and it was a twenty-minute drive there—and tapped her knee, she was up, he saw before, looking dreamily at the ceiling or again maybe through it, and said “I got you a chocolate croissant and Margo a plain one, freshly baked from Natural Pastry,” and she stared at him, said nothing, he'd expected a big grateful smile and thanks, for a chocolate croissant was maybe the best thing she liked for breakfast, but got a mysterious little enigmatic one. What's she thinking of? he thought. And years later: Do I know any more than before what she might have been thinking of that morning or what her face was trying to say? Waved his hand in front of her eyes to make sure she was looking at him and she continued to stare and smile that way and he said “Everything okay, you have a good night?” and she nodded when he thought she'd say what she usually did, “Sure, why?” “And your dreams,” he might have said, for this was how he usually pursued things when she was very quiet or irritable after she awoke, “no bad ones or anything in them you want to tell me?” and if he said that and she didn't want to answer, she probably just shook her head. So? So most of those times when he thought of what she might be thinking, she was smiling one way or another. So? So there were other times not smiling. Time she said in the car when he was driving them to school “Would you be very sad if I died?” That was months before she did. “Why, you expecting to kick the bucket soon?” quickly looking around and seeing she was serious about it, so “No, that's the wrong thing to say. ‘No jokes now, Daddy,' right? and you'd be right, because this is serious subject matter you're talking now, very serious. So of course I'd be sad, deeply sad. So deeply sad that it's probably beyond the deep. It's into something I don't know what it is. Total feeling-death, like. Meaning where I don't feel anything. I'm a zombie, walking around like one or not even walking but comatose. Paralyzed, on my back, can't get up, can't eat or drink, can only think about my zombiehood, or not even do that. Can only feel what I don't know I can, or not even that. No, I can't feel anything, as I said, and all that's not a definition of being comatose, but something like it. A person who's nothing anymore, who can't react or respond to anything. Who doesn't know he's alive so might as well be dead himself, though shouldn't be because they often come out of it. Listen, do you know what a coma is, either of you?” and they both said yes and he said “Well that's what it is, comatose—a coma, but in this case in sadness or what that beyond-the-deep sadness brings you to. I don't know, I really can't think straight today. But don't think such terrible thoughts as would I be sad or not of what you said, because it's never going to come to anything like that. Though why'd you ask, if I can ask—I'm curious?” and she said “I had a dream last night you died and I didn't show any sadness to it. No, it was Margo who died and you didn't show it,” and Margo said “Oh thanks a lot, that's special. It must mean you want me to be dead so you can have Daddy all to yourself,” and she said “No it doesn't, does it, Daddy?” and he said “It doesn't have to, Margo, really. Who knows what she was thinking of in the dream, but we'll forget it, okay? I shouldn't have continued the discussion. I don't mind talking about most subjects with you if they're appropriate for your age—on your level, you know. Where they can be dealt with and aren't disturbing, but not that subject even if you think you can handle it. You aren't going to die—she isn't—neither of you. Who was I talking to?—I was talking to Margo, but I mean this to you both. It's in fact so far away it's going to seem like forever. And maybe it will be forever, for by the time you're my age, they—scientists—may have discovered something to keep people alive for as long as anyone wants to stay alive that way,” and Julie said “But that means you'd die if it's so far away, and I'd hate that. It's too sad, you or Mommy,” and he said “Well, we're healthy, aren't we? Exercise, we eat the right foods, keep a slim stomach, don't drink much, at least Mommy doesn't if at all—beer here, beer a week later—and I've come down a lot the last couple of years too, maybe one shot every other night's the extent of my heavier booze, and only to relax me. Vitamins, and we don't smoke and I never have, sufficient sleep, things like that. Have a good attitude or good enough, I think, especially Mommy, who never lets the nuisance things annoy her as they sometimes do me. And I've never really been sick yet with anything worse than a bad flu a few hundred times—exaggerating; Mommy once had her appendix out but that's all, other than for a mole or beauty mark she tore on her back and which had to be removed. Ooh, I'm sorry. So, I might live, and Mommy for certain, and also because she's eight years younger than I, long enough to take advantage of this live-forever-if-you-want drug or discovery too.” “Good, we'll all live forever together,” Julie said and he said “No, you and Margo will have to get out of the house after a while—we'd want you to, you would too, to do things, have homes of your own. But there'll always be room for you with us, always, I promise. But you gotta give me some peace sometime, sweethearts, you gotta. Only kidding,” when he looked in the rearview and then quickly around and did see her face, “stay with us forever. We'd love for you to, me no more than Mommy, I mean ‘no less,' meaning a whole lot, I mean it,” and he drove. Time when she was seated beside him in the car and the street they were on was blocked by a tree that had fallen across it, firemen in helmets cutting it apart with power saws, crowds in this normally quiet neighborhood where maybe the most you see when you drive is another car and occasionally someone jogging or walking a dog or two women together pushing strollers, local TV remote team, policemen, one pointing angrily at him to turn around as if, like his father used to say, “What're you, a dumbbell, it's right in front of your face,” and she asked what happened and he said “What you see—did you see it? This huge tree must have lost its roots or gotten hollow inside by termites or some other thing, a tree disease, without anyone knowing it till this happened, and fallen,” and after about a minute, when he was looking for another side street to get to the avenue he wanted, she said “What if someone put me in front of that tree and I ran away?” and he said “You mean what would I do with the guy who put you there, for of course I'd be deliriously happy you ran away,” and she said yes and he said “And put you there before the tree fell, right? for you got to know when to use ‘had' in a sentence or to put in helpful phrases like ‘before the tree fell,' and when not to,” and she said “What would you do though?” and he said “I'd try to catch him and then hold him for the police,” and she said “That's what I thought you'd say,” and looked front and continued to be serious awhile, he was glancing back and forth at her, trying to figure out why she'd asked that and did she mean he should have said something else? and what was on her mind now, when she said “What if a tree fell on a house—it would make the rain come in but would it kill somebody inside?” and he said “It would make a big hole in the roof and if it was a direct hit, meaning right through the center and someone was directly underneath, and the house was only one story, yes, it could kill someone inside,” and she said “What if it's a brick house?” and he said “But the roof wouldn't be brick; at best it'd be made of slate which is probably just a little stronger than the shingles we have on our roof, so again, direct hit and only one story?—maybe somebody would get killed, but the brick walls might stop the tree from going all the way to the floor where the person is,” and she said “If the person is lying under a table would it help any if it wasn't a brick house?” and he said “Maybe by a tiny amount. But a tree falling down would be gaining speed fast, even if it was slightly stopped by the roof, so I think a direct hit on the table in a one-story house would still kill him,” and she said “We have two stories, right?” and he said “Two and a crawl space, so we're much safer from a tree falling than a one-story person is if we're on the first floor,” and she said “And if we were in the basement?” and he said “If we're in our basement and a tree falls, nothing would happen to us except maybe a little soundproof ceiling tile breaking on our heads and making our hair dusty,” and she said “Would we be dead if the tree fell on our car?” and he said “A tree that size? Did you see how big and round it was? Six of my arms couldn't have got around it, and it stretched across the entire street into the house-across-the-street's front yard. And it looked like an oak, a very heavy tree—I got a quick look at its leaves, tree must have been at least a hundred years old—so yes, I think we would, even with a steel or whatever metal's used for the car roof instead of a house's shingle or slate, much as I hate the thought of anything like that for you. I also think I'm wrong about a slate roof being even a bit stronger than our shingle,” and she said “What if we're in the front seat and the tree falls in the back?” and he was about to say “This isn't a city bus, know what I mean?” but looked at her, she didn't seem scared, was serious, just wanted to know his answer and he said “Then I think we'd be saved, though maybe bounced out of our seats but probably onto someone's cushioned front lawn,” and she said “No, we'd still be in our seats buckled in, but I think we'd be out of the way of the tree, so saved too,” and he said “So we agree,