A Slipping-Down Life

16

“It’s been weeks since I’ve been out in the country,” said Mrs. Harrison. “Wouldn’t you think winter would be over by now? Look at that sky. Look at those trees, not a sign of green. If you like, I can turn on the heater, Evie.”

“I am a little cold,” Evie said.

Mrs. Harrison reached for a lever somewhere beneath the dashboard. She drove with a look of suspense on her face, as if she constantly wondered how she was doing. Her back was very straight; six inches separated her from the back of the car seat.

Mr. Harrison couldn’t come, of course. It was a school day. Evie understood that but Mrs. Harrison seemed afraid she hadn’t. She said, “Oh, if only Bill could have made it. He wanted to, you know that. And naturally he will be coming to the funeral. He feels just terrible about all this. Your father was the first teacher we met when Bill came here to be principal. ‘I’m Sam Decker,’ he said — Oh, I remember it just as clear! Had on that baggy suit of his. There was some confusion in his mind about whether or not I meant to shake hands. And now look. But if Bill was to turn his back for a second, even, that school would just shatter into pieces. ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘Evie will understand. You are coming to the funeral, aren’t you?’ and he said, ‘Martha, you know I am.’ I felt sure you wouldn’t be insulted.”

“No, of course not,” Evie said. “He did more than enough last night.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” said Mrs. Harrison.

“Well, I did appreciate it.”

They seemed to have reached the end of a dance set, both of them curtsying and murmuring a pattern of words. But Evie had trouble remembering what to say. Her voice wandered, searching for the proper tone. Had she shown the right amount of gratitude? Was anything else expected of her? A row of grownups lined the back of her mind, shaking their heads at the clumsiness of Evie Decker.

“You’ll have to tell me where to turn, dear. I’ve never been out this far before.”

“Oh. Right up there at the tobacco barn,” Evie said.

“Don’t you have trouble with undesirable neighbors around here?”

“I don’t know any of them.”

Mrs. Harrison swung to the right, onto deep clay ruts hardened by frost. It sounded as if the bottom of the car were dropping out. Her gloved hands were tight on the wheel, strained shiny across the knuckles, and she looked anxiously around her while the car seemed to bound on its own accord through the dry fields. Around a curve there were two thin children, ropy-haired, lost in clothes too big for them, holding a dead rabbit by the heels and offering it forth. “My stars,” said Mrs. Harrison. She sailed on past them while a narrow line suddenly pinched her eyebrows tighter.

“One thing I told Bill,” she said. “I told him, ‘Thank heaven she’s married, Bill.’ We hadn’t thought it at the time, of course, but now look. You won’t be all alone in the world. You have yourself a hand-picked guardian. Are you certain this is the road?”

“Yes. Our house is just over there.”

“Where?”

“There,” said Evie, and she nodded at the tarpaper shack. Yet for a minute, she hadn’t been sure herself. It looked different. The sky today was a stark gray-white, arching over treeless billows of parched land and dwarfing the house and the single bush that grew by the door. Blank squares of gray were reflected off the windowpanes. A dribble of smoke rose from the rusted chimney pipe. Mrs. Harrison drove into the dirt yard and parked between a wheel-less bicycle and a claw-footed bathtub, but before she had turned the motor off Evie said, “Oh, don’t come in. Really. I’ll be all right.”

“Well, are you sure?” Mrs. Harrison asked.

“I’m positive. Thank you very much.”

“Well. We’ll see you at the funeral, then. Or before, if you think of anything you need. You let us know.”

She waited while Evie collected her coat around her and fumbled for the door handle. Then she raised one gloved hand and shot off into the road, still stiff-backed. A spurt of dust hovered behind her.

Evie climbed the two wooden steps, avoiding the corner that was rotting off its nails. When she opened the door she was met by a damp smell, as if the wintry sky had seeped in through the cracks around the windows. It took her a minute to understand why things were in such a jumble; the kidnapping had slipped her mind. A chair lay on its side, poking splintery legs into her path. The shaggy rug, worn down to bare fabric in spots, was twisted beneath it. At the other end of the room there was a half-finished game of idiot’s delight on a footstool, a heap of paper airplanes made by Drum on an idle day, five empty beer cans and an ash tray full of cigarette butts and chewing-gum wrappers and the metal tabs from the beer cans. A grape-juice stain on the wall had seeped through the white poster paint she had covered it with. The room might have been left weeks ago, hardening beneath its stale film of dust.

“Drum?” she called.

She heard something from the bedroom, not quite a sound.

“Is that you, Drum?”

By the time she reached the bedroom door, Drum was already sitting up. One side of his face was creased from the pillow. Beyond him was Fay-Jean Lindsay, wearing an orange lace slip which seemed to have drained all the color from the rest of her. Her face and her pointy shoulders were dead white; her tow hair streamed down her back as pale as ice. “Oh-oh,” she said, and reached for the black dress crumpled at the end of the bed. Drum only looked stunned. He and Evie stared at each other without expression, neither one seeming to breathe.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her finally.

“This is where I live.”

“Well, where you been? You think you can just stay away all night and then pop back in again?”

“I’ve been home. My father died.”

“Oh. Oh, Lord.” He looked for help to Fay-Jean, but Fay-Jean sat among the blankets groping her way upward through her black dress. Nothing showed but two limp arms raised toward the ceiling. When her face had poked through she said, “Well, excuse me for being here but you were away, after all. Will you zip me up?”

“Certainly,” Evie said. Now, too late, she hit upon the polite tone of voice she had needed for the grown-ups. She zipped the dress while Fay-Jean held her hair off her neck; she waited patiently while Fay-Jean trailed long toes beneath the bed feeling for her spike-heeled shoes. Meanwhile Drum had risen and was shaking out his dungarees. He wore yellowed underpants and an undershirt with a hole in the chest, its neckband frayed. He hopped one-footed into the dungarees, clenching his muscles against the cold. “Look,” he kept saying. “Wait. Listen.” But nothing more. Evie handed Fay-Jean her coat and saw her to the door. “How do I get out of here?” Fay-Jean asked.

“Walk to the highway and catch a bus.”

“Walk? In these shoes? Couldn’t you just drive me?”

“I don’t have the time,” Evie said, and shut the door.

She went to the kitchen and began making coffee, still in her coat. The coat gave her a brisk, competent feeling. While she was waiting for butter to melt in the frying pan Drum came out, dressed in his dungarees and a khaki shirt, and stood behind her. “Well, I don’t know what to say,” he said.

Evie tilted the frying pan, evening the butter.

“And then about your father. Well. He was a right nice guy.”

She rapped an egg and broke it, neatly.

“I don’t know what got into me,” Drum said. “It was that kidnapping. How could you do me that way? And then it looked like you had decided not to come back again. Either that or forgot all about it. We waited and waited, those three girls just tapping around the tool shed. Violet trying to start up campfire songs. Evie, say something. What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking that we have to get organized,” Evie said. “Have you ever looked at this place? It’s a mess. And I’m freezing to death, it’s much too cold.”

“Well, is that what you want to talk about? Housekeeping?”

“Not housekeeping, just things in general. You’ve got to pull yourself together, Drum. I keep meaning to tell you this: I’m expecting a baby. It’s coming in six months or so.”

She scrambled the eggs around rapidly, not looking at him. Drum said nothing. Finally she let out her breath and said, “Did you hear me?”

“I heard.”

“Well, you don’t act like it.”

“It just took me by surprise, like,” Drum said. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“Is this the right time?”

Then she did look at him, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He leaned against the wall with his boots crossed, his eyes fixed on the swirling eggs, so that all she could see were the straight dark lines of his lashes. “Right time or not,” she said after a minute, “we are going to have to make some arrangements. Now, my father has left me his house. We can move in this afternoon — just pack up and leave this place. Start a new life. Give some shape to things.”

“You mean live there? Live in his house?”

“It’s our house now.”

“It’s your house.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“I like it where we are,” Drum said.

“We can’t stay here, Drum.”

“I don’t know why not.”

“We just can’t.”

“Well, I can’t go there,” said Drum.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. I can’t do it.”

He sat down at the kitchen table, bracing himself with his hands as if he had a headache. Evie stared at him, but he wouldn’t say any more. He folded his arms on the table and waited. She poured his coffee, dished out his eggs, and found him a fork. Then she said, “All right. I’ll go there alone.”

“You mean leave me?”

“If I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” said Drum. “Evie, I don’t know why you are talking this way. Is it Fay-Jean? Fay-Jean don’t mean nothing. I swear it. Oh, how am I going to convince you?”

“Fay-Jean. Don’t make me laugh,” said Evie. “All I’m asking is for you to pick yourself up and move to a decent house with me. If you don’t do it, then it’s you leaving me. I did give you the choice.”

“That’s no choice,” Drum said. “Evie, I would do almost anything for you but not this. Not get organized and follow after you this way. You used to like it here. Can’t you just stay and wait till my luck is changed?”

He laid one hand on her arm. His wrist was marked with a chafed red line. Evie felt something pulled out of her that he had drawn, like a hard deep string, but she squared her corners as if she were a stack of library cards.

“I have the baby now,” she said.

“I don’t see how that changes anything.”

“No, I know you don’t. That’s why I’m leaving.”

“Can’t we talk about this?”

But he had to say that to her back. She was already leaving the room. She went to the bedroom and pulled out a suitcase, which she opened on the bed. Then she began folding the blouses that hung in her closet. Hundreds of times, in movies and on television, she had watched this scene being rehearsed for her. Wives had laid blouses neatly in overnight bags and had given them a brisk little pat, then crossed on clicking heels to collect an armload of dresses still on their hangers. There was no way she could make a mistake. Her motions were prescribed for her, right down to the tucking of rolled stockings into empty corners and the thoughtful look she gave the empty closet.

Drum came to be her audience, leaning awkwardly in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. “You are moving in too much of a rush,” he told her.

“What?” said Evie, and she stared down at her hands, overflowing with scarves and headbands.

“People don’t just take off like this. They think things through. They talk a lot. Like: How will you support that baby, all alone?”

“I’ll get along.”

“Yes, well,” Drum said. “That’s for sure.” He picked up a barrette from the floor and studied it, turning it over and over in his hands. Then he said, “How will you explain to strangers, having ‘Casey’ wrote across your face?”

“I’ll tell them it’s my name,” Evie said. Then she paused, in the middle of rolling up a belt. “It is my name.”

Drum frowned at the barrette. “Now that you have done all that cutting,” he said, “and endured through bleeding and police cars and stitches, are you going to say it was just for purposes of identification?”

He tossed the barrette into the open suitcase. Evie dragged an airline bag from under the bed, and filled it with underwear and stray bottles from the medicine cabinet. In the bathroom, holding a tube of toothpaste and watching her smudged face in the mirror, she said, “I didn’t do it.”

“What?”

“I didn’t cut my forehead. Someone else did.”

“You don’t make sense,” Drum told her.

“Well, you were there. You remember how it was. The singing was good and there were fans shouting back at you and lots of people dancing. When I went into the restroom an argument started up. I forget just how. Me and a redhead and some friend of hers. She got mad. She told her friend to hold me down and she slashed your name on my face. ‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ she said. That was how it happened.”

“Life is getting too cluttered,” Drum said.

“Didn’t I tell you so?”

She zipped the airline bag. There were other things of hers all over the house, books and records and pieces of clothing, but all she wanted now was to finish up. In movies the packing did not go on so interminably. She picked up the suitcase, but Drum moved forward to take it away from her. “Evie, don’t go,” he said.

That was said in movies too. Then the whole scene would end with his changing his mind, saying he would come with her anywhere, but what did Drum know about things like that? “Come with me, then,” she said, and all Drum said was, “No. I can’t.”

He had never once done what she had expected of him.

He carried the suitcase, she carried the airline bag. They crossed the cold dirt yard to the car. “Keys,” said Drum, and when she handed them to him he opened the trunk and slid the bags in. He was going to let her go, then. She climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for him to slam the trunk lid down. “Maybe—” he said, when he had come around to her side of the car.

She rolled the window down. “What?”

“I said, maybe later you will change your mind. Do you reckon?”

“I never back down on things,” Evie said.

He reached in with the keys. He didn’t even say goodbye; just laid the keys in the palm of her hand, leaving her with a trace of his cool, slick surface and a smell of marigolds and a brief tearing sensation that lasted long after she had rolled out of the yard toward town.

On Saturday night at the Unicorn, Joseph Ballew and Drumstrings Casey played rock music on a wooden dance platform, the same as always. Joseph Ballew sang two new songs and Drumstrings Casey sang old ones, stopping his strumming occasionally to speak out between verses.

“Where is the circular stairs?” he asked.

And then, “But the letters was cut backwards.

“Would you explain?”

His audience just nodded, accepting what he said. The only person who could have answered him was not present.