Love Always (13 page)

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“Hildon wanted me to see the mail. There was a letter to you in the pile. It was from Les.”

“What did the letter say?” Lucy said.

“It was about your affair with Hildon. He said he wanted to see you again.”

“Les Whitehall wrote to inform me that I was having an affair with Hildon?” Lucy said.

“He just mentioned it. He was talking about seeing you again.”

“Where is he?” Lucy said.

Myra shrugged. “I don’t know him,” she said.

“There wasn’t a postmark?”

“I didn’t notice the postmark. Lucy: I
don’t care
. I just wanted you to know.”

Lucy sat on the stairs. “Les doesn’t care either,” she said. “It’s just completely out of character for him to do anything instinctively. I couldn’t be more surprised.”

P
OLICE
Sergeant Brown was always unhappy. His partner, Sergeant Pasani, was equally unhappy, but for a different reason. He was unhappy because Brown was unhappy, and there was no reasoning with him. Many things made Brown unhappy. Pasani had told him for years that he was his own worst enemy. You just can’t go around thinking that McDonald’s food is going to be steaming hot. It’s like expecting the hamburger to be served on a French roll. It isn’t going to happen. The bun is going to be mush, and the food is going to be tepid. It’s just going to be what it is, and having a debate with the cheery high-school girl at the drive-in window, even if you’re a cop, and as big as a barrel, is going to do you no good. Day after day, Brown decided they should have lunch at the drive-thru McDonald’s, and day after day, Brown could hardly chew for finding fault with the food. Brown also hated the car they drove around in. In particular, he hated the suspension system. “You want to be suspended, go home and get in a hammock,” Pasani said to him. Brown didn’t like Reagan or Mondale, and you couldn’t even say Jesse Jackson’s name in his presence. He liked one of his three children and so far the fourth had a fighting chance; his wife might be pregnant with a girl, and the one child Brown liked was his girl. He had mixed feelings about his wife. He had recently learned the word ambivalent. Every day, he mentioned to Pasani his ambivalent feelings about Essie. Pasani wasn’t married—he had been married for less than a year, long ago; his wife had run off with the house painter—and Brown had created quite a fantasy life about Pasani, and all the women he had, and what a good time he had, and how few
responsibilities he had. Pasani usually took the bait and spent long periods, every day, trying to dispel Brown’s illusions, but it did no good. These fantasies were a necessary part of Brown’s existence. It depressed him to have to tell Brown how unadventurous and how unmeaningful his life was, so unless Brown was really out of control, he rarely even broke into Brown’s monologues anymore. He automatically pulled back the bun on top of his cheeseburger and gave Brown his pickle. This kept Brown’s raving about the need for “some taste, some flavor” down to a minimum. After two years of riding in the car with Brown, he was at least used to him. He was able to guess pretty well when he should speak and when he shouldn’t, and just because he was tired of hitting his head up against a wall, he had learned to be quick to make concessions. Brown was even in his dreams; the night before, he dreamed that Brown drove them over a cliff. He often dreamed that Brown shot him. In the dreams, they were always at McDonald’s. Then Pasani realized that the drive-thru line ended on a steep precipice. Brown became so angry that he gunned the car, and they fell what seemed like a million miles before Pasani woke up, clutching the sheets. In the dream in which he was shot, they were again in the line, approaching the window, but when they got there Brown wasn’t handed the food, but a gun. He simply grinned and turned and shot Pasani.

This day had been a normal enough day. Brown was incensed because the Montrealer was back on the tracks so soon. He was also furious at the fools who rode the train. He had seen some of them on the evening news the night before, and they just said that they were sure Amtrak would be very careful this time, so there was nothing to worry about. People who didn’t look at the evidence were as stupid as people who couldn’t see the nose on their own face. Amtrak would kill them all, over and over. “What starts that stops?” Brown said. “Go ahead and tell me, Pasani.” “A cheap watch,” Pasani said. That pleased Brown; he thought that everything that was manufactured now was junk. He changed the subject from the derailed Montrealer to the fact that the war had ruined the way the Japanese thought. The Japanese didn’t care about anything
anymore. “You ever see them say goodbye?” Brown said. “They stand there bobbin’ like birds. Everybody’s got to be more gracious than the other guy. If they put more of that energy into making their products, maybe the shutter wouldn’t fall off the camera and the watch would tick. Tickee tickee,” Brown said. He started bobbing his head at the steering wheel. “No clickee, no tickee,” Brown said. “The world’s going to hell. You know what I mean?” Brown dropped his jaw open and bobbed his head at the steering wheel again. Pasani braced himself. Brown stopped just inches short of the bumper of the car in front of him. “I ought to audition for a job drivin’ the Montrealer, huh?” Brown said. Once something caught his attention, Brown usually talked about it for six months. Around Christmas, Pasani would stop hearing about the Montrealer.

“Where do you feel like eating lunch?” Brown said.

“Pull by the grill. I’ll run in and get us a couple of ham sandwiches.”

“Nah,” Brown said. “I don’t want ham sandwiches.”

“What’ll I get you?” Pasani said.

“That greasy spoon?” Brown said. “You’re putting me on.”

“I think I feel like one of those fried-ham sandwiches,” Pasani said.

“They take forever,” Brown said. “They go out and catch the pig first.”

“You’re right,” Pasani said. “I’m gonna get a turkey sandwich.”

“That turkey’s so tough it’s like mozzarella cheese,” Brown said.

“That’s okay. They stuff those sandwiches pretty good. What’ll I get you?”

“Don’t get me anything,” Brown said. “I’m not going to poison myself.”

Brown was speeding along. He gunned it at a yellow light and swerved into the other lane to avoid a car nosing out from a steep driveway.

“You’re kidding,” Brown said. “You really want to go all the way over to the grill?”

“Sure,” Pasani said.

“We never go there anymore,” Brown said.

“Today’s the day,” Pasani said, smacking his hands together.

Brown pulled off the road. There was a half-circle that went into the woods just at the bottom of the hill. Brown liked to hide in there and catch speeders. The shopping center with the McDonald’s was two miles straight ahead. They had given a woman with a car full of kids a ticket one day, and when they pulled into the McDonald’s later, she was in the parking lot, with her head on the wheel, sobbing. The doors were thrown open, and a lot of children stood on the grass. Some of them were crying, too. Others were trying to get them to stop. A few were trying to coax the woman out of the car, and one of them climbed up on the trunk and curved his arms, jutting out his jaw, hunching his shoulders, and walking toward the back window like a gorilla. There was still complete pandemonium when Brown and Pasani drove through the line and looked over their shoulders, driving out.

No one was speeding. Car after car came down the hill with the brakes on. Brown was getting mad. Another car passed by, at a snail’s crawl. Brown raised his eyebrows at Pasani. “What?” Pasani said. “You think I’m sending them telepathic messages or something?”

Three cars came down the hill. None were speeding. Brown pulled out abruptly and rode the tail of the last car for about a mile.

“We’re almost to the McDonald’s,” Brown said. “What do you say we grab a burger and fries?”

“That’s an idea,” Pasani said.

“You like that blonde that looks like Farrah Fawcett, don’t you?” Brown said.

“I don’t like young girls.”

“You don’t like young girls,” Brown said. “Sure you don’t like young girls.”

“I can’t stand them. They’re all idiots,” Pasani said.

“What?” Brown said. “You interested in spending an evening chatting?”

“Yes,” Pasani said.

“That’s a good one,” Brown said. “You hang out the flag first?”

Pasani said nothing.

“Aah,” Brown said. “You had a flag, you’d use it for a sheet.”

“I’d never do that to the flag,” Pasani said.

“Not if you were sober, you wouldn’t.”

“I stay sober. Otherwise I can’t get it up.”

Brown turned and looked at him. “What’s with this wacko mood today, Pasani?”

“Brown—you know me. I’m the same every day.”

“Better save your sweetness for Farrah Fawcett,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t mind sucking those fingers she runs around in the french fries.”

“They don’t put their hands in the food,” Pasani said.

“When nobody’s lookin’? You think teenage kids shovel fries in a bag with that dipper?”

“What do you think they do?”

“Use their hands.”

The car in front of them pulled away. “The usual?” Brown said.

“Yeah,” Pasani said.

“Hey, let me have a quarter pounder and two cheeseburgers, one large and one small fries, two milks and a large Coke,” Brown said.

His words echoed above the roar of the kitchen—it was probably canned noise, Pasani thought; at the window, you could see into the kitchen, and it was relatively quiet. The woman repeated their order. She asked if they wanted hot apple pie.

“Gotta keep my trim figure,” Brown said.

He zoomed to the window. If he got there fast, the order wouldn’t be ready, and he could watch the girls. The girls were always energetic and cheerful. Pasani recognized all the faces now. The girls jumped around instead of walking. “There you go, thank you, sir,” one said, hopping to the window. She
handed the two containers of milk in separately. Brown turned on the siren, and she jumped. “Accident,” Brown said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t do that,” Pasani said. “I hate that.” As they pulled back onto the highway, he removed one cheeseburger and a small french fries. He put them in the space between the seats and took Brown’s food out of the bag and folded the bag the way Brown liked, and handed it to him. Brown put it in his lap. Pasani handed him a napkin. Brown tucked it under his collar. Pasani opened one of the milks. Brown took it and drained it. Pasani put the container, and the wad of napkins, on the floor. A car streaked past, going ninety. Brown shook his head. The car slammed on its brakes, barely avoiding a car that was in the left turn lane. “Jesus,” Brown said. Pasani handed him the other carton of milk. He drank half of it and put it on the dash. Pasani steadied it with his hand and unwrapped his cheeseburger one-handed, removed the pickle, and handed it to Brown. “Thanks,” Brown said. He unwrapped his own cheeseburger and peeled back the bun. He put the pickle in. He ate the cheeseburger, occasionally putting it on the paper so he could eat some french fries. “Good fries today,” Brown said.

Pasani looked out the window. There was a beach ball in the weeds beside the highway. A little farther on, there was a dead skunk in the gravel. This part of highway had been repaved; bright black tar glistened in the sun. None of this road existed two years ago. It used to be forest.

“Shit,” Brown said. “I was gonna duck into the K Mart. My kid dropped his frog in the toilet. I told him I’d bring another frog home.”

Pasani finished his cheeseburger and had a sip of Coke. “You hear that Kermit and Miss Piggy got married?” he said.

“I didn’t know that,” Pasani said.

“Well, that’s the kind of stuff I hear all night,” Brown said.

“All the six-year-olds think it’s great that she tricked him.”

“How did she trick him?”

“She pretended they were acting or something, and then she switched a real minister.”

“Why couldn’t you get the frog out of the toilet?” Pasani said.

“I got the frog out of the toilet. My kids are into going to the bathroom double-decker, so the frog was down there in a mess. That’s really what I want to do at night—fish out a frog that’s drowning in a bowlful of shit.”

“Where are we going?” Pasani said.

“We’ve got to check the politician’s place, and then I think we ought to try to catch some speeders.”

The house they were checking faced the lake. It had been robbed earlier in the summer. They got out of the car and walked around it, trying the doors. Brown backed up and looked at it. It made him angry just to see it, because he thought that modern houses were a blight on the landscape and that only fools would buy them, when there were so many houses to fix up. The house was tight. Pasani walked up the flagstone walkway, back to the car. Pasani hated the McDonald’s smell after he had eaten the food.

Brown started the car. At the bottom of the hill, he hung a right. He was going to another one of his favorite hiding places. This one was actually a dirt road that cut through a patch of woods. Brown liked to take the half-circle at top speed and screech to a halt. The trees were so lush this time of year, because of all the rain, that when they parked they had to peer through branches to see the road. When they got there, Brown slowed to turn, then held the wheel hard and accelerated. When he saw the big car parked on the dirt road, there was no way he could stop in time. He cut the wheels and, scraping branches, bumped off the dirt into mud. Miraculously, he had avoided hitting the car, but what the hell
was
it? It looked like something out of a Zap comic.