Patricia Callamber (34:22)
They're not supposed to smoke, right? I could see him weighing the noxious alternative. He gave in. And that night, in the blessed and stale odored quiet, his nerves soothed by the white noise of a blank station on the radio, Ricky fell asleep in my arms. It was such a rare thing, sleep overcoming him with his neck crooked at an uncomfortable angle that I didn't dare move, although his head on my chest was a weight I had to lift with every breath, that night at the Garden Court was a high point. I should have known we were heading for a low. The only nature I got to see in those days of marriage was landscaping. It comes back to me so clear sometimes. Moments. Places. There we were at the Nights Inn, Detroit. I was looking at the boulevard, at the plantings around the parking lot and pool, at the way the flat yew bushes grew between the clumps of candy striped petunias and yellow snapdragons. I was looking at the soft shapes of pines when suddenly wanted so badly to just lie down. It was midday, the parking lot quiet, but Ricky was in our room, in the bed underneath the cross spears on the wall. He was catching up on sleep. I needed sleep too, but I didn't dare go back in the room for fear of waking him. The pines were 6ft tall, maybe more. Their lowest branches touched, forming caves. The cedar bark and shredded wood spread across the ground beneath looked springy and cool. It looked so inviting that I thought, why not? I could choose a lawn chair beside the pool and fall asleep in it. No one would bother me. Why not? The little shadow, the cave underneath the tree. I stepped carefully around the bright flowers and I stretched out right there and it was comfortable. Outside the greenery. It didn't seem there was a breeze at all under the tree, though I felt the sigh of needles, heard the singing of some tiny unfamiliar insects native to Detroit. I guess there could have been a bird, a sparrow or something. There was the smell of earth, the thick white odor of petunias. I closed my eyes in my bones as I lay there. I felt the traffic beyond the boulevard, the shutter of life. Voices passed, but I felt safe. All around me leaves ticked and flowers hummed and took in light. The world was drunk with light. I was sliding deep into the dark underneath the chipped bark below the plastic set down so the weeds could not poke through. Under the layer of broken glass and topsoil and clay gumbo, I pictured a darkness so total it was a fabric of air. I fell heavily asleep and did not wake up until the sprinklers came on and soaked the ground. Then, as I stumbled out back into normal life, I realized that Ricky would have been absolutely furious if he had seen me, and I was glad he had not. It didn't occur to me how strange it was that I was sleeping outdoors while inside the motel. My husband had two queen size beds to himself with royal blue velveteen spreads on them. No, the situation did not strike me as odd at all. It had become normal for me to guard Ricky from the world. The facts only begin to Clarify in Minneapolis St. Paul at the Thunderbird. I do believe that that motel is cursed by Indians. There's a 30 foot chief. Constructed out of fiberglass in the front, that's for starters. Inside, there's. The place is littered with designs. The rubber mats to wipe your feet on, the carpets, the cocktail napkins all full of squares and diamonds, Indian looking strange. There were a bunch of tired plaster Indians dressed up, enclosed in glass. The animals these people lived off were stuffed and hiding in the rafters, poised to leap down and attack foxes, wolves, raccoons, squirrels and wild goats. The night we played at the Thunderbird, the lounge was full of families bumped off a canceled northwest flight. You can imagine the mood they were in already. Our show did nothing but give them a target, a focus for their irritations. It was wild, though, the things Ricky tried. He had always told me that patter with the audience was his strong suit. He started out with a few remarks, talking about his family. My uncle was a deep sea diver, but he was too polite to last met a mermaid and tipped his hat to her. I had an aunt, too, an old maid. She let the dust accumulate beneath the bed. How come? She heard, a man is made of dust. He got to me, his wife. She wouldn't kiss me last night, said, honey, my lips are chapped. Well, I said, one more chap won't hurt him. You people come here in an airplane. I hate them. I stay on terra firma, the firmer the grounda, the lesser the terra. Now, seriously, folks. Soon after, we swung into Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, let's fall in Love and I fall to pieces. Then Ricky asked the crowd if there were any requests. Harmonize, a voice called from the back booth. There was laughter. Ricky shot me a foul look and retorted, you want to hum a few bars? Then it was like we had started some kind of trend, or maybe our airline passengers had got a fright that day. And you know the way you wake up in the morning and a song is going in your head and you realize it's a comment on your life. They asked for falling rain. I fall to pieces again when autumn leaves start to fall. We kept singing for them, taking requests for falling numbers. I think the emphasis on getting dashed to the ground set some kind of tone. Morbid. And when we sat down to take our break, a weird thing happened. Of course, Ricky hadn't slept well and I was walking on pins anyway. But he looked at me all critical. Your lipstick's off center, he said. Oh, I had my purse. I took out a little lipstick tube with a mirror attached, and I looked at my lips. Applied a touch up. Okay now? I asked. But he didn't say yes. He looked over my head, studying a stuffed hawk, and spoke in a dreamy voice. It's your mouth. To be honest, your mouth is set crooked on your face. I was astonished, then hollow with hurt. Oh, I said. Oh, really, is it? Ricky tipped the strong line of his jaw away from me. Goes with the rest of it. He grabbed my arm, hauled me up. I had no time to react, or maybe I was numb. Before I even took his remark properly, I was in front of the crowd, drawing out the opening to Snowbird. And then that night, after we had played until the lounge closed and we went upstairs to bed, after I hung up our clothes, turned the covers down, and loosened the tight, clean sheets, Ricky slid in and closed his eyes to block out my face. I turned the lights off. The night. The air all was still and very black around us. The room's drapes shut out the lights from the parking lot. From time to time we heard other people in the outside hallway. Doors closed with hollow, watery booms. Voices dropped like stones into the bush. Please, I said. I held my breath as he turned in his slumber. The silence deepened. I didn't dare speak or make any noise at all. Even the sound of my breathing, the ragged need of it, even the rustle of the bed sheets seemed much too loud. Since the day I turned 13 and my mother let me put on makeup, I had never begun my morning without the ritual of eyeliner, mascara, blush, and lipstick. The next morning was a first. I forgot about it, didn't even check my face and hair in the mirror. Ricky was downstairs eating breakfast. He must have slept real good. That meant after long sleeps he always ordered the specials that included minute steaks, hash browns, three eggs instead of two. After a good night's sleep, after making love, I'd usually go downstairs fresh and put together, perfect as I could make myself. Ricky and I would sit across the table from each other. Everything around us would seem interesting and intense. We'd read our placemats out loud, flip through the packets of sugar. Even the words on the menu would make us laugh. But that morning, as I stood in the doorway by the Please Wait to be seated sign, I caught sight of Ricky from behind. He sat alone at the counter. Clearly he did not want company. His back was hunched over his food and his elbows were moving up and down, up and down, pumping at his work. He ate like a mechanical horse, everything about him given over to the one task. I turned and walked out. Drumbeats, a wailing kind of faraway sound. Indian themed music came from the loudspeakers. It was a music so foreign to me that I could not tell whether it was meant to be sad, happy, or something more complicated. I sat down in the lobby next to a shallow pool laid with blue tiles. Under the ripple of the spotlighted water, coins glinted, a hundred of them, 200, each one representing a person's wish. It was just me and $100 worth of small desires. I couldn't stand my thoughts. I took out a quarter. I wanted to get my wish. All right. I hope lightning strikes and burns this place down, I said. When I threw in my coin, the ripple from the little splash spread and continued moving outward, widening all day. I'd seen Ricky mad in his anger once he'd loomed toward me and I was afraid that he was going to hit me, but his hands stayed at his sides. I never thought he would hurt me, not really. But I was wrong. We stopped on the way to Billings, in one of those wayside parks. I made Ricky a sandwich of meat, cheese, and bread. I was cutting it in half with a little paring knife I'd bought when Ricky came up behind me and grabbed my arm and twisted it so the knife went spinning, springing across the table, cartwheeled off unto its point. I heard myself yell, scream, really, and I watched the knife as it fell. I watched very closely because the pain in my arm, the wrench, electrified me. The wooden board stood out in focus, the texture of the bread. Surprise, said Ricky, letting go. I read your mind just now. I turned, cradling my elbow. What do you mean? What do you mean? He mimicked a high pitched whine. I had never been struck, hurt, or touched wrong before. I was like a baby. I could not connect Ricky with the wrench of pain I felt. At the next table over, a woman watched us. She looked shocked, her mouth open to say something, so I shrugged at her and shook my head. I was first and foremost terribly embarrassed for Ricky Zaks. But he just bit into his sandwich, chewed, and then that big clean football captain smiled, spread across his face, all white keys. I held my arm and looked into his eyes and I don't know. I smiled back at him. I didn't know what else to do. I kept smiling as we got into the car, as we drove. What had I been thinking, I wondered. What had he seen? My smile was easy to hold now. I felt cheerful. The grin was painted there. Then, just before Billings, in one of those big gas station stores that sell everything, words began to stick to my feelings. I'd gone into the ladies room When I came out of the stall, I stood before a padlock dispenser of condoms. Placed in this establishment for your convenience, said the lettering on its front. Savage love. $0.50, two quarters only. Too much, I thought. I went out the door and stood beside Ricky. He was putting some money in the slot of a plastic box full of small soft animals, plush rhinos and pink elephants and candy striped bears. Over them a little tin crane's arm swung loose. Ricky worked it from a lever. Which one do you want? He said. None of them. Tough, said Ricky. The tin claw hovered, touching down. He was going for a small blue bear with shoe button eyes. The back of the box was mirrored, reflecting the scene somehow from another mirror, one of the infinite dimension tricks from movies. The pointed tip of the pincers touched the little animal's fur. Ricky had good small motor coordination. Well, that's what he said. He always won prizes at the carnival stands, pitching softballs in wooden milk bottles, shooting lead ducks. Part of me admired his delicate touch with a loaded controls, and part of me watched this all happen. In the mirror. I grabbed his arm as if in excitement. The crane swung and clinked against the side of the box. The claw bounced and Ricky went dark with anger. Get in the car, he ordered. I walked past him. I was glad I couldn't stand that fur toy's little stone stitched on mouth, its shocked black eyes. That night I took a long time getting my hair perfect, setting it to ripple down my shoulders in a golden mane. I chose my red V neck chiffon and a piece of jewelry with real drama, a large filigree arrow head hanging from a wire neck band. I stayed in the little tile bathroom at the vanity sink, surrounded by my beauty equipment, blow dryer, electric rollers, sprays, a pronged curling iron. These things were like defensive weaponry. They bristled, hot and female. Ricky did not come near me. He sat right outside the door on the balcony in a webbed vinyl chair. He sipped from a plastic cup and contemplated what was happening below him in the courtyard around the pool. It was after dinner and the sun's rays were long and cool, the water spread out like a gleaming sheet. People sat around on the deck in white plastic chairs, also drinking out of cups. I heard one of them shout, you want to party? No thanks, I heard Ricky answer. I knew that as he watched them, he worried that later this evening, maybe as late as after the show, the party would still be going on underneath our room. I knew it too. I could hear it, their voices rising their laughter loud and drunken. He would be stuck listening. Rain fills Ricky's tracks. Luck runs out the holes. He leaves his wallet with our money on the bed, and I stuff almost all our cash into my bra. And then, when I do not return from fetching ice for his drink, he finds himself stranded at the Billings best Western with $10, a suitcase, and no ice bucket. I can see it. He does not believe the truth at first. He continues sitting in the same spot. He never meant to stay here. That was never his intent. This was a stopping place, a way station on the road to somewhere else, a temporary shelter where he could wait while his luck changed and the damage collected behind him in the sheet of chlorinated water below, reflecting nothing. The sky goes darker and voices bounce off the tiny ripples. Courtyard beach umbrellas topple as folks dance to a portable tape deck. A woman passes, bringing ice, but it isn't me. The night deepens all around Ricky's ax. He watches the closing of many numbered doors and finally goes inside our room, crams the pillow to his head. He is thinking of the time in second grade when girls held him down and filled his mouth with bark. He is thinking of the time the teacher wouldn't let him use the bathroom. He is thinking of me, how I'm supposed to take care of him, and he is planning how he'll throw me down when I come back. He thinks I will come back. But then he sees a cracked bell made of frosting white and glittering. He sees blond hair, a bunch of tin cans tied to a fender, bouncing, rattling behind a hot red car that speeds away and disappears. He tosses and turns, but he is unable to sleep. As more people and more people join the party below, he grows furious. Their voices are sodden and raucous, while his is beautiful, or was, for as the night wears on, he feels the rich sound Rust.
