Distortions

Hale Hardy and the Amazing Animal Woman

Hale Hardy went to college because he couldn’t think of anything better to do, and he quit because he couldn’t see any reason to stay. He lasted one and a half years. He did not exactly quit; he was thrown out. When that happened he went to visit his sister Mary, who was living with another girl, Paula, who was being supported by some dude. Hale didn’t know the dude’s name, or why he was supporting her, or why his sister was living there. He just went.

The sunsets he saw from the dining-room window knocked him out. It got so he’d pull a chair up to the window and wait for them, starting about one in the afternoon. He had a long wait, so he read. Sometime during the winter his former English teacher sent him Lolita in care of his parents, and they sent it on. That book put women in his mind. He thought it might be a good idea to pick up some woman and drive across the country with her — take some woman to the Grand Canyon. Eat ice cream with some woman, peering into the Grand Canyon. If they sold ice cream there. They probably did. They sold ice cream at the Alamo.

He couldn’t keep one thought straight in his mind: first he’d be thinking about scoring some woman, then he’d be thinking about how good ice cream tasted, especially his favorite, French vanilla. Then he’d get up and eat — there was never ice cream in the place his sister was living, but there was a lot of other stuff — and then he’d sit down and wait for the sunset, trying to get through that long book, bogging down every few pages. He thought about writing his teacher. She couldn’t have been much older than he was. He always thought she liked him. She called everybody by their last name, but she called him Hale. She had big blue eyes. Nothing else about her was big. Would his skinny teacher be pleased to get a note from him? If he didn’t write, would he ever hear from her again? Yes; a postcard during the summer, from Seattle, Washington, saying that she was sailing around in a boat, which sure beat teaching. His mother forwarded that postcard with a comment: “If these are the people who are supposed to guide you, no wonder!!!” His mother put three exclamation points after everything; how much they were paying for heat, who was getting married, how many stray cats there were in New York City. Mary had nothing to do with their mother. Mary did not even refer to her by name; it was always “that wasted life.” He agreed that his mother’s life had been wasted, but he didn’t hate her for that the way Mary did. He just didn’t know what to do about it. He couldn’t understand why such a sensible woman would name him Hale Hardy, though. And that was his mother’s idea, not his father’s, because he had checked. Why didn’t she go through with the joke and give him N for a middle initial? What was she thinking of? His mother said that she had no way of knowing that Harold would get turned into Hale. That was partly Mary’s fault, because when she was little she had trouble pronouncing Harold; it came out “Hal,” got changed to Hale.

He was not very hale and hearty, probably his body’s rebellion against such a nickname. He spent a lot of time reading Adelle Davis, trying to get together. Adelle never said what everybody was supposed to get together for, though. Let’s Stay Healthy for Our Trip to the Grand Canyon.

There was a woman who came to clean whose name was Gloria Moratto. She was a woman in her thirties, hired by Paula’s husband (turned out he was letting Paula use the house willed to him by an uncle). He told Paula that Gloria was pitiful. He felt sorry for her. Paula said that when her husband didn’t know what to make of women he just gave in to them. Hale couldn’t understand why she needed the job. She always had so much money. Money was stuffed in her purse, which she carried unfastened, and money fell out of her big apron as she cleaned, and she stuffed it back in the pockets the way people stuff used tissues away, hoping no one will notice. But it was easy to see why Paula’s husband took pity on her: Gloria Moratto was indeed a sorrowful creature. Her large body was carried by small, narrow feet, and it rose up precariously, like a funnel. Her shoulders were very wide; on a man they would have been comforting. The most amazing thing about her was her head. It was big, accentuated by curly black hair bushing around it. Her eyes were big. Her mouth. But you could hardly see either because of the curly black hair. One time when Gloria came she had streaked her hair; the white and black was astonishing, like a skunk. He thought of her, then, as an animal, and watched with fascination as she did her work. He imagined that this huge, strangely shaped woman would be capable of building a beaver dam. She vacuumed, polished, scrubbed, dusted, carried away trash, put things in their proper places, washed dishes, did the laundry. This amazing animal woman came every Friday and worked all day.

*

Hale wanted very much to see the Grand Canyon. When he was a child he had begged ceaselessly to see the Alamo until his mother told his father that either Hale would go to the Alamo or she was leaving forever. His father went with him to Texas, bought him an Alamo comb and two ice-cream cones. They stayed overnight, ate breakfast in a restaurant that looked like the inside of a barn, then went home. He treasured his Alamo comb. They bought an Alamo pin for Mary, which Hale could tell she didn’t like. His father said that was to be expected; it was just nice to bring his sister a remembrance. Hale learned: you can give people things they don’t like, and that’s still nice. Hale was nuts about his comb. When his hair didn’t need to be combed he’d stick it in his cowlick and just leave it there. What happened to that comb? Were there Grand Canyon combs?

Hale wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but not alone. He would need someone to go along to verify that it was really happening, to take pictures of him standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. His sister was not about to budge; it seemed that she loved Paula’s ex-husband, who made regular visits, ostensibly to check up on Gloria’s housekeeping. During his visits Paula left the house and so did Hale. Actually, he was kicked out. They didn’t want Paula’s ex-husband to know there was a man living there, so he and Paula would go into town and wait it out. One night Hale asked if she would like to go to the Grand Canyon. She had already seen it, when she was thirteen, and again when she was sixteen. He asked if there were a lot of stands that sold tourist crap. Yes; all along the road. She sighed. The landscape was being ruined. He sighed. She did not want to go with him.

That left Gloria, who was the only other person he knew in Connecticut. And what were the chances that the amazing animal woman, that woman of perseverance and strength, was going to pick up and go to the Grand Canyon with him? They were slim. Especially since she avoided talking to him. At least they were slim until he found out about her weakness. Her weakness was cats, and she loved to talk about how independent and smart and cute they were. She owned five cats. Hale found out about it from Paula, who found it out from Mary, who got the word from Paula’s ex-husband. Why any of them bothered to talk about it was something else. He went to the Humane Society and got another one for her, a cat that came with a blue collar that matched its blue eyes. “La la la,” Gloria sang, and the cat responded by turning his head to listen instead of jumping out of her arms. She gave it a dollar bill to play with, money wrinkled and twisted from being carried a long time in that deep apron pocket. The cat pounced on it, stuck his nose under it. Gloria had a new cat. His friendship with Gloria was beginning. From the living-room window a red-and-violet sunset flashed upon the sky.

*

Hale daydreams of Gloria, her paw-feet, her cat-eyes, only big, b-i-i-i-i-i-g. She is so competent; she will share the driving; her hand will be steady around the camera. Later, they would have lots of little kittens. It would be their house she took care of. No more exploitation of Gloria; let Paula and Mary keep house for themselves. On her birthday a little Siamese kitten; for Christmas an Angora. The pitter-patter of little paws. Cats, too: regal, willful, splendid cats. To broach the subject …

*

She might be willing to go to the Grand Canyon, but she would never marry him. She harbors a secret love? She says not. She says all her sisters are married and unhappy. One sister goes to a clinic for unhappiness. One brother-in-law, not married to that sister, also goes to unhappiness meeting.

“Group therapy, Gloria?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

“The Grand Canyon is in the opposite direction from Niagara Falls.”

She is not convinced.

“Paula and Mary and their dirty, dirty house. They exploit you.”

“What’s that?”

“They don’t keep their own house clean.”

“That’s right. I have to clean for them.”

“They exploit you. There’s no reason they can’t do it themselves. Paula and Mary are strong, aren’t they?”

“Paula is divorced. Not strong.”

“Paula is not too weak to take care of herself. We’re talking about dust, Gloria. Getting rid of dust. Isn’t it easy to clean up dust?”

Gloria dusts and listens.

“My sisters all got married and they are all unhappy.”

“Not getting married. Just taking a trip.”

“Immoral.”

“A trip is immoral?”

“Sex.”

“You don’t have to sleep with me on the trip.”

“I would sleep with you if you loved me. I don’t think you’re in love with me.”

“I am, Gloria. I am.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She pouts with her big lips.

“At least sleep with me here, Gloria.”

She says she is willing to do that. Hale and Gloria go upstairs and lie down on the bed she has made earlier in the day. He gets on top of her big body. Over her head there is a window. The sky has begun to pale, a romantic pink. Gloria’s body is pink. The sky gets pinker and pinker. How beautiful the sunsets must be over the Grand Canyon. Hale is looking at George Washington. A dollar fell out of some of Gloria’s clothing. Gloria brushes her hair out of her eyes and says she wants to take Hale home with her. Why? “To think about going to the Grand Canyon with you.” “I want to come home with you, Gloria, but how will my being there help you think?” “I will see you and think of you.” “You’re going to go to the Grand Canyon with me, aren’t you?” Hale clutches Gloria’s thigh. “Come home and let me think about it.”

Paula and Mary do not speak to Gloria and Hale when they come downstairs. Hale senses that he is no longer welcome in the house — good he has somewhere to go. He wonders if there will be sunsets out Gloria’s window. Gloria sings a happy tune, swinging her arms at her side, stubbornly refusing to hold hands: “La la la dum dum la la la.”

*

There are cats all over Gloria’s house. She loves them all, calls them to her, spoon-feeds her kitten. The cats walk across the table, superior, aggressive. He knows a few of the names: Mister Tom, Lucky, Antonio, Prince. Some are the offspring of others. She explains the lineages and he forgets as fast as she speaks. Her newest, the cat he gave her, has been named Blue Boy. It is the Superman of cats, that jumps suddenly into action, leaping from chair to table to floor. Hale watches the cats and they watch him. At night one of them mews; Prince, they think. He has never really felt a fondness for cats, and he does not like them better now that he lives with them. He thinks about getting rid of one of them; Prince, he thinks.

He asks Gloria when they can leave. She wants to know if there is a best time to go West. He tells her now, now is the best time, and she says she is thinking hard. She sits and looks puzzled. Her sisters call all the time, whining with unhappiness. Gloria strokes a passing cat, shakes her head, picks cat hair out of her slacks when things get tense.

“What do your sisters have to do with your taking a trip? I’ve already said it doesn’t mean marriage. Can’t we take a trip?”

One of her sisters took a trip, then married the man. Gloria sulks. A cat rubs against Hale’s legs. He has to feed the cats. From a dark corner, small green eyes stare.

*

“You don’t really love me. Why do you want to take this trip?”

“I love you. I really love you. I can’t go on a trip and leave you.”

“What would I do with my cats?”

“We can take them. We’ll just put them in the car.”

“Some of them won’t ride.”

“What do you mean they won’t ride?”

“They’re scared. They meow and walk all around the car.”

“We’ll put them in a box.”

“Cruel.”

“Gloria, it’s cats. Just cats.”

“I want to tell you something, then. I wasn’t going to tell. Once I was a cat. You have to know that I am reincarnated.”

That’s the biggest word he’s ever heard her use. He questions her to find out if she knows what she just said.

“I went to a fortune teller, and she said what I thought was right. Once I was a cat, and I think I lived somewhere very, very cold. I don’t remember too much.”

“You really think you were a cat?”

“I know I was a cat”

“Well, what does that have to do with our going across country?”

“I can’t put a cat in a box. What if somebody put me in a box? How would I like it?”

“We’ll leave it out of the box.”

“Two would have to be in boxes.”

“You conducted experiments with these cats or something?”

“I’ve tried to ride with them. Two won’t ride.”

“When they get to the Grand Canyon they’ll love it. How many cats get taken to see the wonders of the world?”

“Why don’t we go see my sister and then she wouldn’t be so unhappy? It would only take eight hours of driving to see my sister.”

“Your sister isn’t one of the wonders of the world.”

The plans for driving to the Grand Canyon are going badly.

*

He gives her a new kitten, hoping that now she will love him enough to take the trip. Instead, she loves the cat. She tries out names, strokes it, shields it from the other cats’ curiosity.

She tells Hale that once she was a cat who sat on a velvet cushion in some cold room, maybe in Russia the fortune teller said, and was tended by some beautiful woman, maybe a princess, who wished she would become human. And now that she has, she imagines that the beautiful woman is dead, or that this all happened in some far country that she will never find again. The story puts her to sleep as she tells it, night after night, her own personal fairy tale. He shudders to think that before he came to live with her she probably told the story to the cats. He knows it. But there is something about Gloria that reminds him of an animal. When he thought of her as a skunk maybe he was close to seeing her as a cat. He doesn’t believe or disbelieve the idea of reincarnation. He just wants to go to the Grand Canyon.

In the afternoon, while Gloria is out looking for a job, he drives to Paula’s house to see if there is any mail for him. There is a letter from his mother and an advertisement from a record club. He fills out the record-club form with Paula’s name, checks the “Country Favorites” category, checks “please bill me,” does not check that he wants the free calendar he is entitled to. Wait until Paula opens that box and sees Country Charlie Pride grinning at her. He puts the blank in Paula’s mailbox to be picked up. He opens the letter from his mother. It contains many exclamation points regarding his unwillingness to write, his unwillingness to take advantage of the educational opportunities his father etc. etc., and the news that a girl he went to high school with just got married to a man with leukemia and she knew it!!! He pockets the twenty dollars that is in the letter. He buys a postcard on the way to Gloria’s and writes: “What a surprise to get your treat. Thank you!!!” and drops it in a mailbox. With the money he buys a cage. He drives home. Gloria is still out looking for a job. He rounds up as many cats as he can and tries to lure them into the cage. They will not walk into it, so he puts them in, closes the door, and peers in. They don’t like it. He wants to go to the Grand Canyon.

Gloria comes home. She has found a job working in a department store. He tells her she must get away from such jobs, stop being taken advantage of, go West with him. She asks how people looking for thread and buttons exploit her. She sees the cage. She hates it. She does not want to go to the Grand Canyon. Go alone! He doesn’t even love her. She is going to sell buttons to people. He can leave her anytime he wants. Her eyes are larger, imagining her abandonment. Wasn’t that what her sisters’ husbands were always doing?

He tells her that the cats will get used to the cage, and at night they can be free in the car. He thinks the trip could be accomplished in two weeks, allowing them time to really see the Grand Canyon. She puts her hands over her ears, complaining that she can’t stand any more talk about the Grand Canyon. In bed, she huddles on her side. It is strange that anything that big can huddle. She weighs the mattress down on her side, pulls the covers over her head to get away from him. Hale thinks that she may put him out. He doesn’t want that. He wants them both out together, on their way West. He thinks about what he could do that would be nice for her, reaches over to stroke her arm. She squirms. All right, then. He will get her another cat.

*

He goes to a house where kittens are being given away. The house is near the university, and several hippies look at him long and hard before they even show him the kittens. The kittens are in a box of rags. The girl lifts them out gently. He says he would like all of them. “Wow,” she says, “there’s only one more we want to get rid of.” She gives him a funny look. She also gives him a kitten. He buys a ribbon for its neck and takes it to Gloria’s house and drops it on the sofa. Hale is depressed; soon summer will be over, the best time to see the Grand Canyon will have passed, the kitten will have grown into a cat, and here he will be, still waiting.

Gloria sees that he is sad when she comes home from work. Good. She begins to feel guilty because she won’t go along with his plans. Good. She says that she has been thinking it over and that soon she will have reached a decision about the trip. As she talks, she sees the new addition. “Pretty little baby,” she exclaims, and mothers the kitten, who has been sleeping on the sofa. She thanks Hale, says that she loves the little thing. He decides to turn the tables on her. She loves the kitten, but she doesn’t love him. This makes her mad. She does love him. She sits on his lap — she is incredibly heavy — swaying her feet like a petulant little daddy’s sweetheart, getting her way. She just needs a little more time to think, because her sisters all did things that were crazy and they were so unhappy, and she does not want to have to go to unhappiness meetings at night and let everyone know how unhappy she is. She kisses his neck, promising that tomorrow night she will tell him. Right now she is going to fix him a nice dinner, to show him that she loves him. She goes into the kitchen. One of the cats follows her, and as it passes his chair he gives it a shove with his foot. The cat runs after her. That’s it! He’s been doing this all wrong. He should be getting rid of the cats instead of bringing them home. He should round up all the damn animals and get rid of them, and then in her grief she would agree to do things his way. Hale decides to give Gloria one last chance to come through, and then he is going to start doing in her cats.

*

Gloria sits on his lap again. She says that she thought all day long while she was selling buttons, and as she looked at the customers she thought that those women were all loved and that she wasn’t. She just couldn’t agree to a trip with a man she felt didn’t love her. Desperate, he assures her that her feelings are wrong. And when she leaves the room he grabs a cat to strangle, but realizes that she’ll know he killed it — it has to be more subtle.

The next day he puts several cats in the car and drives to a farm far from the highway, and lets them out. He drives away, smirking. One of the cats has the last laugh, though. Several days later it finds its way back to Gloria’s house. She has mourned for the cats, and now God is answering her prayers and has sent back a messenger. This messenger is going to tell her something about the other cats, but of course her cooing brings no response; the usual rubbing against her leg, a little more milk lapping than usual because of its long journey. So the piece of shit found its way home. He decides he will poison it.

*

They die like flies. The veterinarian doesn’t know what happened to the first cat. Would she like an autopsy done? Sacrilege! No. No autopsy. And when she goes back with a dead kitten he says, at first, that sometimes this just happens with little kittens, gives her a tissue to dry her eyes, sends them away. He is afraid to let her see this veterinarian again, though, because eventually the man will suspect poisoning. So when the next cat is found dead, by a neighbor, in the neighbor’s yard, Hale tells Gloria that their former veterinarian was no good — he didn’t even know why her poor cats died. They have to find another veterinarian. In fact, this is too traumatic for her. He will take the corpse to the veterinarian and report to her. She thanks him, weeping, and pulls money out of her pocket. And he gets in the car with the cat wrapped in a towel on the seat beside him and heads for the imaginary veterinarian, parking the car off the highway and running up a slope to put the bundle beside a big tree. Two to go, and then it will be just the two of them.

Driving home, he stops at the Golden Arches, eats a victory cheeseburger, french fries and a Coke. The Golden Arches are a rainbow, and at the end of it lies the Grand Canyon.

*

He puts the kitten in the cage. He puts the cage in his car. He drives to the Humane Society. They want a donation. He says that he doesn’t have the three dollars. The truth; but what a look the woman gives him. She accepts the animal wordlessly. Three dollars would make her say “Thank you” to exonerate him from guilt; for nothing, she just looks away.

Hale bides his time. In another week he can take the last kitten to the Humane Society, but he can’t take it away from Gloria yet. She has been clinging to it, at night, sitting up in the dark house, certain that there is a curse on it that she must try to ward off. The kitten has a sleek coat, bright eyes, it plays with a ball of yarn. But she is right in knowing that its health is no protection. She pities the dead cats because she thinks God is punishing her through them, and that’s not fair. He tells her that a vindictive God is nonsense. Maybe it was some virus that went through them … Gloria hangs on his words. She is so upset that he thinks about sparing Lucky, but he must have Gloria to himself, she must turn all her attention toward him so that their trip West will be wonderful. She must want to take pictures of him standing mighty on the edge of the Grand Canyon, instead of snapping cute little kitten pictures for her photograph album, already filled with pictures of the dead.

His sister calls, saying that she and Paula want his junk out of their house. He drives over that afternoon, taking a big laundry basket with him. He loads his clothing into it, and his book.

“I don’t know why you decided that of all the women in the world you had to take that poor broken-down maid,” Paula says.

“We love each other,” he says.

“You don’t. You never used to speak. Paula and I were afraid she was going to quit because there were bad feelings,” Mary says.

“Then you should be happy now.”

“I’m not happy. Are you doing this as a joke?”

“I’m in love with her.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“She doesn’t want to get married. Her family is all fucked up. She has a lot of sisters who are getting divorced or just sitting around suffering. I don’t know.”

“She’s piggy,” Paula tells him.

“I know. But I love her.”

“That’s nice,” Paula says.

“It’s not nice. It’s a sick joke,” Mary says.

“We’re going to take a trip to the Grand Canyon,” Hale tells them.

That afternoon he decides that Lucky’s time is up. He puts Lucky in the car. Trapped, Lucky raises his paws to the window and looks out. The cat looks out the window until it gets where it’s going: the same farm where its friends disappeared, only Lucky has the extra good luck to be discharged in front of two children, who stare at Hale’s car as if they expect something. You should, little ones, he thinks, for I have brought you another kitty. Lucky is dropped out the window. The children stare. They will no doubt tell the story to their parents, exactly as it happened, and if their parents do not let them keep Lucky they will think their parents are cruel and they will hate them. The parents know that! Lucky Lucky.

*

Because of all the horrible things that have been happening, Gloria hasn’t spoken about the trip yet. That night, as he rocks her in his arms, he says that she must rest from this ordeal. They will go West, forget. Just the two of them. He puts his head on her big shoulder, lets it sink to her breast. A crackling noise; money in her brassiere. Yes, she says. She supposes.

*

On the second day of the trip, Gloria is in good spirits. They stop for lunch, and after lunch they sing. They were taught a lot of the same songs when they were children. He can’t talk to her about politics because she knows so little and he gets bored trying to fill her in, and she doesn’t like the music he likes on the radio, so usually they just hold hands or sing. He doesn’t even let go of her hand to shift gears. He smiles at her often, marveling at those tiny feet, crossed so demurely, and at her large body. It’s good she has money and a car in good condition, because they have to stop often for food — she’s always hungry — and he couldn’t afford the highway prices, and his car never would have made it.

They stop at a motel with a pool, and she is as excited as a child. She hurries to get undressed and races out of the room while he’s still putting on his bathing trunks, and when he walks across the parking lot to the pool he sees Gloria at the top of the blue ladder, her hips spread over the sides; he is in time to see her splash into the pool. He takes a picture of her with his Instamatic as she surfaces, her thick hair untamed by the water.

They sit on chairs by the pool, sipping Coke from a can. The water dries on the tops of her huge breasts and is replaced by sweat. She drinks two Cokes and he drinks one. It is her idea to ask the owner of the motel the name of a good restaurant, and she goes to the desk while he’s showering. He sings in the shower. A delicious dinner! The Grand Canyon! Tum-de-dum, he sings, a little tune he learned from her. He steps out of the shower, wraps a towel around himself, and hears faintly, above the air conditioning, crying.

Gloria is crying. She has her arms crossed in front of her, protecting herself, sitting in front of the air conditioner and crying. Hale rushes to her, and she puts her head on his shoulder — he is freezing in front of the damn air conditioner — and speaks a single word: “Cat.” She has decided that the man she just talked to was one of her cats, reincarnated. She says this because he looked so much like Mister Tom. Really he did; he had Mister Tom’s eyes. The way Mister Tom had one weak eye that went out of focus … and the man said, after he told her about restaurants, that she looked familiar. Hale said that people who ran places like motels were always thinking they saw familiar faces just because they saw so many people, that of course it was not Mister Tom. She told him to go talk to the man, to watch his eyes grow weak, drift away. But that’s not uncommon! She won’t accept it; the motel owner is Mister Tom, her own Mister Tom, and fate has guided them to this particular motel. She weeps.

“What if it is your cat? Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know. I want to know if Mister Tom is happy.”

“He’s happy. He’s got a nice business, this is a good location. He’s doing fine.”

“You don’t believe in reincarnation,” she wails. “You talk to me like I’m a child, instead of the woman you love. You don’t love me. Why did you bring me on this trip?”

He does love her, he reassures her, and sings, “It Had To Be You.”

“But now I’m so sad,” she tells him. “I saw Mister Tom again, and I want him to be with me.”

Gloria makes no sense. He tells her that the motel owner is blissfully happy. He points out that the motel owner is making a lot of money and that he can sit in the sunshine by his pool in the day if he wants. She dries her eyes, wanting to believe him.

*

Gloria has a nightmare and wakes up Hale with her screaming. She saw Blue Boy, and he told her something evil was happening in the world. Under the covers, she shudders. Hale tells her that the air conditioning is blowing right on them and gets out of bed to adjust the flow of air. His legs are shaking.

*

In North Platte, Nebraska, Hale gets a little drunk with Gloria in a bar. She can drink more than he can, because she’s fatter, probably. He tells her about the people who made fun of his name in school, about all the boys who wanted to fight him because of his name, and how he always lost. He is morose. He becomes more morose when she tells him that she agrees with Blue Boy that the world is an evil place. He asks her what she means, exactly, and she can’t say. She just senses something.

*

A panhandler comes up to them at a diner in Fort Defiance, New Mexico. Hale says he has no money. Gloria gives him a dollar. “It was Prince,” she tells Hale, “but I must be brave.”

“It wasn’t Prince,” he says angrily. “It was a Goddamn old bum.”

“I know it was Prince,” she shrieks.

“Okay, okay.” He thinks she might really flip out.

*

Hale thinks about getting away from her, so he won’t have to be responsible for committing her when she flips out. He thinks about ditching her somewhere, but it’s her car, and she might get the police on him. He thinks about calling his parents collect and having them send him enough money to get a plane home. But what is he supposed to do — wait around Fort Defiance, New Mexico? Arizona is only a day away. If she would just be quiet and not fantasize all the time, he could even feel exalted about seeing the Grand Canyon. She has a faraway look on her face that she isn’t willing to talk about When she’s not crying for no reason she’s talking about all the cats and kittens she had not long ago, as though important people were dead. She’s having trouble holding herself together. There are no more songs. She listens to the radio — he guesses she’s listening — and to the songs he likes, because he doesn’t care if he pleases her or not any more.

Riding into Arizona, she says, “Do you think that maybe the reason you want to see the Grand Canyon is because you had something to do with it in your former life?”

“I didn’t have a former life.”

“You don’t remember it,” she says.

“That reincarnation crap is all silly. There’s nothing after death. Nothing happens to change you. You get put in the ground and you rot.”

“I knew you didn’t believe,” she says.

“It’s all a lot of crap.”

“Then how come I can remember being on a big cushion in a cold house somewhere? A castle, maybe.”

“You made it up. It’s all in your head. A story you tell yourself.”

“I remember it,” she says, and looks out the window with that funny expression again.

*

A cat runs in front of the car and Hale hits the brakes. It looked like one of Gloria’s cats, the fat orange one, and Hale knows what he’s in for. Gloria sucks in her breath. “Antonio,” she whispers. “What is he doing on a road out here in the wilderness?”

“Somebody’s pet,” Hale says.

“You almost killed him.”

“It’s okay. I saw it in the rearview mirror.”

“Poor Antonio. He was trying to tell me something.”

“What are you crying about now, for Christ’s sake?”

“He risked his life. There was something he wanted me to know.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. Somebody’s damn pet.”

“You don’t even like cats, do you?” Gloria asks. She is squinting hard, much harder than the setting sun requires.

“Why should I care about cats?” he says.

“They all died,” she says, as though he’s unbelievably stupid.

“That’s right. They died. They’re gone. They aren’t coming back as motel owners or as messengers in the night, and they aren’t running in front of your car to attract your attention, Gloria.”

“Let me out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to get out of the car.”

She has her hand on the door handle. As she turns to lift the lock, Hale reaches around her.

“For Christ’s sake. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Just let me out.”

“I’m not putting you out on some highway in Arizona.”

“Let me out and pick up some pretty hitchhiker. Why don’t you pick up some hitchhiker? You can have my car. Just let me out.”

Hale notices that her body is not as large as it was when they began the trip. But she still seems larger than life, with her wide, big eyes and her big mouth, her lips more prominent because they’re chapped. She’s been biting her lips. If he did let her out, no one would ever pick her up.

“Come on, Gloria. Calm down. In a few minutes we’ll be at the Grand Canyon.”

“You think it’s silly for me to think about my cats, but you don’t think you’re silly to always talk about the Grand Canyon. My sisters’ husbands are all like that. Anything my sisters want is silly. But they’re never silly. At least I’m not married to you.”

Gloria hates him now. But Hale doesn’t hate Gloria. He is so used to her, to this big woman who sits complaining and crying day after day. He almost wishes she could be happy again.

“Just sit still and relax,” Hale says. He is still covering the lock with his hand.

*

Gloria refuses to get out of the car when she has her chance, when it is parked at the Grand Canyon. Like a big, sulking child she sits inside with the doors locked, looking at Hale looking into the Grand Canyon. She has figured out the message the cats meant to give her. She weeps for her cats, her soft little kittens. She also cries a little because for the first two days of the trip she thought she might really be starting to love Hale, that it wouldn’t be just another romance that ended sadly, like all her sisters’ marriages.

Hale knows that he is locked out of the car. He stares into the Grand Canyon knowing that, and stands for a long time thinking before he goes to a refreshment stand. It is a little cooler under the red, white and blue striped awning. He buys two vanilla ice-cream cones and goes back to the car. He taps on the window. She puts down the map she is fanning herself with and rolls it down a crack. “More,” he says. “This is for you.” She rolls down the window enough to take the ice-cream cone from him. The first lick is so cold that she shivers. She wipes her forehead on her arm, shifts in the seat to unstick her legs. He puts his hand through the window and strokes her hair.

“We could rent horses and ride down into the Canyon,” Hale says. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“No,” she says. She has started to cry again.

“Maybe your cats would all be there waiting for you.”

“Do you think I’m a fool? That I think my cats are in the Grand Canyon?”

“There’s a mysterious elephant burial ground in Africa, isn’t there?”

“So what? What does that have to do with me?”

“Come on, Gloria. Get out of the car.”

“No,” she says, but Hale can tell that she’s wavering. It must be very hot in the car. Gloria looks terrible, sweating and crying. Her ice-cream cone is melting and running down her wrist.

“When you get out we can freshen up over there, by the refreshment stand. And you can buy us a couple of hot dogs for dinner.”

“You think I’m going to get out now and buy you dinner?”

“Come on, Gloria,” he says, trying to pull the door open as if it’s unlocked. She moves away from the door.

“Then leave,” Hale says. “You’ve got the keys. Go home.”

“And then what would happen to you? I’d drive away and leave you here, and some pretty girl would give you a ride, and soon I’d see you again. You’d come after me.”

“Of course I would, Gloria. I love you.”

“No!” she cries. “I don’t think you love me at all.”

He tries the door again, but of course it does not open. Gloria has moved into the driver’s seat now, but she makes no attempt to start the car. She is crying too hard to drive, anyway. Figuring that the car won’t be going anywhere, he climbs on the hood and mournfully, chewing the last of his ice-cream cone, gazes into the vast pit of the canyon.