The Crossroads Read online

  She worked hard all day. He had not come to the shop. She had not seen him pass. When the long day ended she would probably go home and scrub the apartment, wash and iron and mend, hoping for the sleep that would come through exhaustion. She was ashamed of herself. Speaking to him with a foul mouth, like a dirty little girl chalking words on the sidewalk. Trying to soil the only meaningful thing in the world.

  He was a man. He could pop Clara into a sanitarium and get her dried out sufficiently to divorce her. Fix her up with an income. Turn her loose. And she would be dead in a year. The blurred but placid routine of her days gave her her only stability. Divorce would be another word for murder. And they could not build their life upon that. It would diminish Chip, diminish both of them and what they had. She was harsh enough with herself to understand that the concealed, unconscious motive of her bitchiness had been to force Chip to do precisely that, to cast off Clara so they could build their cheap castle on soiled sand and live unhappily ever after. Yet, even if they agreed they could not do that, would it make the present relationship any more noble or virtuous? The sane thing to do was to stop. End the relationship. Wait out the years calmly and, should it become possible for them to have an aboveboard relationship at some future time, see if they were both willing at that time.

  But she knew she could not be that sane. That reasonable. That cold. Not when, from finger tips to toes, she had this endless ache for him. But maybe it had, in fact, ended.

  Even in despair her sense of humor could function. There should be, she thought, an institution to cure this addiction. Lock me up, Doc, I’m hooked. What would be the therapy? Cold showers of course. Traditional. Regular exercise. Anti-aphrodisiacs. Lecture courses on the sins of the flesh. Austere music. Algebra problems. Basket weaving. Gray denim and no makeup. But they couldn’t cure me. I’d be hopeless. They’d have to lock me in the cellar. A hopeless addict of love, rattling the bars, screaming of my need. And she seemed like such a nice girl, even a little repressed—check with Arthur on that—and to think she could turn into a veritable nymph! You just never know, do you?

  She had to explain to Chip. Apologize. If he didn’t come near her, she would have to go to him.

  The rain began to come down more heavily at dusk that Monday. In front of the supermarket a heavy woman, trying to run to her car, fell and splintered her ankle on the curb and was still screaming when the ambulance came. At Wonderland, the top shop in the Shopping Center, the thickset proprietor locked the front door, adjusted the night lights, took his bosomy, pimply young clerk into the storeroom, violated her with the deftness of long habit upon a Little Guy Junior Trampoline, dropped her at her bus stop and drove home, looking forward to the usual Monday evening of poker with his wife and the neighbors. Four Japanese diplomats in a Cadillac stopped at the northernmost gas station across from the Bowladrome and each one took a sample of every road map out of the rack. Thirty miles north of Walterburg a tractor-trailer combo skidded, jackknifed, and toppled onto an ancient Packard which had contained three generations of the Shaplow family of Mexia, Texas. After the truck was jacked off the mess it was found that a small dog had survived unharmed. With the aid of some hamburg and an accomplice, a free-lance photographer got a flash picture of the dog apparently howling by the squashed ruin and sold it to a press service. Nancy Drovek sat in her room at home, reading the latest Pogo book and soaking her feet in a basin of hot water. A small bored boy in the Motor Hotel Restaurant hooked the ankle of a passing waitress with a toy cane, a souvenir of Rock City. She fell onto her tray, scalding her throat with soup and cutting her right hand badly on a broken glass. She sprang up immediately, belted the small boy out of his chair with a full left hook, and dissolved into tears of pain, anger and the frustration often experienced by all waitresses. At the Crossroads Pantry three dowdy women left, in lieu of tips, cards of thanks imprinted with a passage from the scriptures for the edification of the infuriated waitress. In Unit 23 of the Midland Motel, a burly homosexual barber named Mulligan decided finally to kill himself. He had been considering it for some months. With the decision made, he was able to go to sleep almost immediately. Down the road at the Highway Diner, Mark Brodey smothered a slab of questionable beef in brown spicy gravy and thought about stacks of money. At the Bowladrome, Sally Addlaggar, bowling anchor for the Kindly Drycleaners in the Guys and Gals League, stuck her first ball right in the pocket. Despite all that extravagant body English which had won her a permanent gallery among the more susceptible males, she wound up with a six ten split and shrieked a very naughty word, and waited beside the rack, flaming with indignation. At the Crossroads Drive-in Theater, just beyond the Bowladrome, in a pink-and-blue DeSoto in the fifth rank of cars, while a monstrous suffering face of Gregory Peck filled the wide-angle screen, the high-school sophomore daughter of Joe Varadi lost the ultimate long-precarious fragment of her innocence, whined with pain, wept, and could not be comforted at all until the cartoon feature began. Pete Drovek stood naked beside the oversized bed and frowned down at Sylvia. Her face was stuffed into a pillow. He shrugged and walked into the bathroom and showered, wondering what had made her act so wooden and odd all of a sudden. If she got difficult she was going to be more trouble than she was worth. On the hill, a mile from the highway, Papa Drovek sat in his parlor reading The Old Man and the Sea. His lips moved as he read. It would only last two or at the most three more evenings and he knew he would be sorry when it ended. Gloria Quinn arrived home earlier than usual, wondering what had been eating the boss man all day. Clara Drovek had fallen asleep in her chair. A pair of newlyweds sat in a dim corner of the Starlight Club and suddenly decided they could eat a lot later.

  And the restless endless rivers swept by, whispering in the rain, little warm tin worlds, whirring through the night at one mile every minute, carrying the loved and unloved, the broken and the undefeated, carrying hate, guile, boredom, exhaustion, pain, joy, laughter, bitterness, frenzy, greed, pride and desire. Neon blinked. The rain came down. The world was moving. All the minutes had been counted.

  SIX

  At quarter after ten on Tuesday night while Jeana Portoni was sitting under the lamplight installing a new zipper in a favorite and ancient skirt of burgundy corduroy, the small room flooded with the electric clarity of the piano of Van Cliburn on an LP record, she heard, over the sound of the music, a hesitant tap on her door. Her heart seemed to stop. She sat very still, then flung the sewing aside, flicked the record player off on her way to the door.

  He came in, and as always he seemed to dwarf the room, make it look fussy and fragile. As she closed the door behind him he said, “Jeana, I …”

  “Chip, let me …”

  “It’s the damnedest thing,” he said, “churning around like a high-school kid. Went by three times. Had to get up the courage, I guess.” He sat on the small couch, square heavy wrists on his knees.

  “Courage? To come to me?”

  “Yes. With such a lousy offer. No offer at all. The same as before. And I know that isn’t enough.” He avoided her eyes. “I went into town last night and had a long talk with Jimmy Kloss. Let my hair all the way down. Of the people who have treated her, he seems to understand … both of us the best. I asked him what would happen if I divorced her and married you. He wouldn’t say anything too definite. But I got the message. She’s not a great rarity. The hopeless female alcoholic. The way she lives right now, it’s partially under control. I mean she doesn’t go over the line into the D.T.s or have to be pumped out. Or even fall down very much. Jimmy said that, unreal as it is, it’s her only contact with reality, and it’s damn fragile. It could change any time. It’s even remotely possible that she might taper off, but not likely. More likely for her to go in the other direction. A case of fifths lasts her almost exactly twelve days. Because she starts as soon as she gets up that isn’t too bad. She’s up about twelve hours every day. That’s only two or three ounces an hour. Enough to fog her world, keep her out of touch.”

  �
��Chip, darling, I want …”

  “Let me say all of it. It would be like pushing her off a cliff. And I can’t do that. She’s sick. It’s a sickness. With her it’s an incurable sickness and it will eventually kill her. But she could last ten years. I can’t … offer you a damn thing. Not what I want to offer. And this means too much to me to stay the hell away from you, as I should. If you have any sense you’ll ask me to get out. You’ve got your own life, Jeana.” He put his right hand over his eyes, elbow on his knee. “What a hell of a mess,” he said softly.

  She knelt close in front of him, sat back on her heels, took his left hand in both of hers, held the back of it against her cheek. “What mess, darling? I was a mess the other night. That’s all. I was a bitchy, dirty-mouthed, neurotic mess. Completely unlovable.” The tears that stood in her eyes blurred the image of him. “I accept your offer, sir. I truly, truly love you. I promise not to nag you again like that, ever. But if I ever do, it’s only because I’m being silly, and it won’t mean anything. Please don’t say anything about my having my own life. You’re my life, darling. Honestly. If I could only see you once a year from a mile away, I could make that be enough, too. But we don’t have to do that. Do we? We can keep on having all that we’ve had. And more. It keeps getting to be more all the time, doesn’t it, darling?”

  “Jeana …” he said. He tugged at her hand. She raised up onto her knees and walked on her knees into the strong circle of his arms, kneeling there between his knees as he held her strongly, content just to hold her and feel her closeness.

  “Chip?”

  “Yes, my darling.”

  “I didn’t get that routine about courage. It shouldn’t take any courage to come here after that letter I wrote you.”

  He held her a little away from him and said, “Letter?”

  “Oh, didn’t you get it yet, darling?” She smiled. “Maybe you’d better destroy it unread when you do. It’s a very abject thing. Sort of a begging letter. Promising to be good. Telling you that I really do understand about Clara, and how you can’t leave her. I said I could be deliciously happy with the few hours we can steal. And I pledged undying love. Capital L.”

  “You mail it to me?”

  “No, dear. But I was very discreet. I typed it all this morning in the store and put it in a perfectly anonymous envelope, sealed it very carefully. On the front of the envelope was typed Mr. Charles Drovek—Personal. Then, for fifty cents, I bribed a dreary little child to take it to the office.”

  “Funny,” he said. “I phoned Gloria late this afternoon and told her I wouldn’t be back in the office. She said she’d send my mail over to the house. It was there when I got home. Just a few business letters she thought I might want to see. No letter from you. What time did you send it over to the office?”

  “About noon.”

  He shrugged. “She probably left it on my desk. Or your messenger filed it in a trash barrel. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Not a bit, darling. You’re here again.”

  He lifted her chin with his knuckles and kissed her on the lips. “I love you,” he said. “Capital L. Now … to get back to that crack you came up with Saturday night, about how eleven seconds after I came in the door we were …”

  “Hush!” she said. “We will not reconstruct Saturday night, please.” She colored slightly and looked at him in a very solemn way. “But, sir, purely in the interests of scientific research and development, I’ll bet that if we really, really tried, we could make it in nine seconds. From now.” And staring at him with an almost excessive roguishness, she lifted her hands to the top button of her blouse.

  Glenn Lawrenz was in a bar where he was well known. It was a block and a half from his rooming house in Walterburg. It was closing time. The inside of his mind was clear and bright and quick. But the girl seemed to think he was drunk all the way through. It made him mad. She was a sort of a pig. Never seen her before. Called herself Pru. Just another beefy blonde in tight blue slacks and a white sweater. Could be a housewife or a waitress or a hustler. Hardly tell them apart in this damn town. She had a lot of wiseapple remarks to make, but it seemed important to convince her that he could look drunk, act drunk, talk drunk, walk drunk, and still keep the old brain ticking over every minute.

  “Just one more, Nick, ole Nick,” he said. “For your old buddy. One more for me and this blonde, boy.”

  Nick looked at him sadly. “For you, old buddy, nothing. Even if I wasn’t already closed, it would be nothing. You got all you need.”

  “You too, Nick. You too. Nobody truss me any more.”

  “Look. I’m closed. Honest. See? No hands. Everybody’s gone. I’m locking up. Please. Lady, can you get him moving?”

  She took his arm, crooning, “Come on, lover boy. Lean on Mama.”

  He wrenched his arm away, got off the bar stool and stood glowering and weaving gently from side to side. “I can walk! I can walk!”

  Nick said, “Glenn, old buddy, in the morning you are going to feel like a buzzard’s lunch.”

  “I can sleep all day, Nick buddy. I changed shifts. Thass why I’ve been celebrating. It starts tomorrow.”

  “Which,” said Nick, “is information you have been imparting to me at periodic intervals all evening.”

  “Dig him!” the blonde said. “Like a quiz show already.”

  “Will you please go home!”

  “Come on, lambie pie,” the blonde said. She took Glenn’s arm, turned him slowly around and aimed him at the door. Once through the door he began to pick up speed. She hauled him back before he plunged out into the street. “Whoa, hossie,” she said. They stood on the empty sidewalk. The lights were going out in the bar. “If you got a car, I got news for you, honey. Don’t drive.”

  “Whacha mean, if I got a car. A course I got a car! Whacha mean …”

  “Don’t yell, lambie pie. The nasty man will come along in a prowl and thump on your crazy little head. You’ve got a booful car. Where is it? I’ll drive, please, baby. If you don’t let me drive, I won’t go with you. And you wouldn’t want Pru not to come with you.” She clasped him around the waist and rubbed significantly against him.

  “I di’nt bring my car. It’s juss up there round the corner. Where I live.”

  “Want to take Pru home with you, booful baby?”

  He scowled at her. “You gotta promise to be very very quiet, unnerstan?”

  “Like a mice.”

  “Juss like a mice. I doan wanna get thrown out, you unnerstan?”

  They locked arms. By anticipating his random lunges, she managed to keep them on a reasonably straight line. He stopped in front of a drab gray house with a shallow front porch. He whispered, “Whassis gonna coss me?”

  “I oughta bust you one right in your dirty mouth!”

  “Not so loud!”

  “This is for love, lambie pie. I think you got booful shoulders.”

  “Member,” he said. “Like a mice.”

  It took him a long time to get the front door unlocked. He took her hand and led her clumsily but in relative silence up creaking, carpeted stairs. About every third step he would turn around and go “Sssssssh!”

  They went down a dark hall. His room door squeaked as he opened it. She went in with him. He closed the door and turned on a bright overhead light. He teetered around and grabbed her, trying to find her mouth with his.

  She untangled herself firmly and said, “Gosh, lambie, I’d sure like a drink first. You got a drink?”

  “Sure. Always got a drink.”

  She pushed him toward the bed. “Where is it? Mama will fix. You be comfortable, booful baby.”

  The bottle was in a back corner of the closet. There were two glasses on the bureau. She poured herself a small knock and poured him about six ounces. She sat beside him on the bed. “Bottoms up, pretty guy.” He slugged the drink down. When he started to paw her she pushed him back, got up and swung his legs up onto the bed, untied his shoes and took them off, saying, �
��Mama wants you all cozy.”

  “Stuff going round and round. Maybe gonna be sick.”

  “Shut your pretty eyes, baby, and it will go away.”

  He shut his eyes. She loosened his belt. She watched him narrowly for five minutes, saw his breath deepen, his mouth sag open. She bent over him, shook him, called his name with her mouth close to his ear. There was no response. She pinched the flesh of his arm, twisting it cruelly. With no expression on her face, she opened her purse, took out a cigarette and lit it. She held it a fractional part of an inch from the back of his right hand. He did not stir. After she took it away the blister formed quickly.

  “Booful baby,” she said dryly, heaved him over onto his stomach and pried his wallet out of his pocket. Seventeen bucks. And, folded tightly and tucked in the bottom of the identification pocket, a twenty-dollar bill. She put the money in her purse, stood for a moment in the middle of the room, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, fists on her pulpy hips, wondering where to look first. She started with the bureau. Booful baby liked booful clothes.

  She hit the jackpot when she stood on a chair in front of the closet and looked under the newspapers on the closet shelf. Her hand trembled a little as she counted it. Two hundred and forty bucks.

  “Him is a weel booful baby, him is,” she murmured.

  There was just the one big suitcase, but by folding the slacks and sports jackets and suits and shirts, and fitting them in neatly and tightly, she managed to pack everything of any value. She hummed to herself as she packed, a tuneless, happy little song. She debated over one suit but left it behind. A sort of dull brown thing. Very conservative. And she could think of no safe, unsuspicious way of transporting the brand-new felt hat she found on the closet shelf.

  When she was ready to go she poured herself a small drink. She stood by the bed. Glenn was snoring. “Whassis gonna coss me?” she muttered. “Hah!” On impulse she rolled him onto his back again, opened his shirt wide, and, with her lipstick, carefully printed THANKS on his broad, muscular, hairless chest.