The House on Coliseum Street Page 8

It was a low house, with a porch on all four sides, a wire fence all around and chickens running loose inside the yard.

  “I’ll wait,” she said.

  He was gone a long time. The sun got unbearably hot. She left the car and walked over to the shade. She made herself comfortable, leaning against the rough bark of a big oak. Little lizards rustled up and down around her shoulders, but she did not move. She glanced at her watch, wondering what she would be doing if she were back in school.

  After a few minutes a couple of rice birds began to fight in the top of the tree and she leaned her head back to watch them. All around was the close, heavy smell of mud baking brick-hard in the sun.

  Michael came back, finally, carrying two stuffed owls. An elderly man followed, carrying one more. They put them in the trunk, after first wrapping them carefully in newspaper. Joan wandered over, scuffing her sandals in the loose dust of the road.

  “Only got three,” Michael said to her without turning around, “but Aunt Lucy will have to be content with a lopsided library.”

  They finished putting the owls away and slammed down the lid. “Thank you, sir,” Michael said to the old man.

  “Good evening,” Joan said.

  The old man blinked his pale blue eyes rapidly.

  “You don’t remember me,” she said, “but I remember you.”

  “You was smaller,” he said accusingly, “last time I seen you.”

  “I was younger.”

  “Anthony Mitchell’s girl.”

  She grinned. “Remember how we used to live just a way over there?”

  He rubbed the corner of his nose. “Place belongs to some people named Voorhies these days. Been sold twice.”

  “I heard about that,” she said.

  “Changed hands lots of times,” he said, “not many people want that kind of place nowadays.”

  Michael was standing listening, looking puzzled. Joan turned to him. “It was a real big place,” she said, “with a boathouse on the bayou and an artificial waterfall in the front lawn.”

  The old man laughed softly. “Cutting grass all the time, two boys, never did seem to get caught up.”

  “It was fun in the summers,” she said.

  “They never did catch him,” the old man chuckled and turned back into the house. “Never did.”

  “No,” Joan said to the bent crooked old back, “he just died.”

  “Let’s go,” Michael said. And when they started off, he asked: “Who didn’t get him?”

  “The federal tax people.”

  “I had heard about that,” he said, “but I forgot.”

  “From Doris?”

  “To hell with Doris.”

  “I don’t want lunch,” she said, “but I would like another beer.”

  “Soon as I can find my way out of these damn roads.”

  They found a bar (a new one this time; she did not remember ever seeing it before, and she liked it better because she did not). This time she waited. He came back with a dozen cold cans dripping in two paper cartons. “I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said, “but I thought we’d drive up a little farther. That old guy back there told me about another owl that I could buy.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You drive and give me the opener… Where is this place?”

  “Leesville road, but a little off it.”

  “Sure thing,” she said. “I don’t have to be back any special time. Even Aurelie isn’t home.”

  She settled down against the cracked leather seat and watched the bright sky and thought a little more about an idea that had occurred to her. It had appeared quietly, about half an hour before, while she had been leaning on the big oak tree. She felt the car turn off the hard-surfaced road, but she didn’t bother looking around.

  “Open me another can, old girl,” he said.

  She did, scarcely noticing. The dust was heavy in the air now, and she sneezed.

  “These fucking roads,” he said softly under his breath.

  She kept perfectly still, letting the idea drift in and out of her mind, playing with it, turning it around and about with a touch of her mental fingers, imagining it a wind harp.

  She lost track of time. It must have been quite awhile, because her throat was dry and nasty tasting from the dust. (She had forgotten about the beer. Michael had not. There were five empty cans lined up on the top of the dash.) The car had braked to a stop. She saw Michael hunched over the wheel, too furious to curse. She sat up. They were at the end of a rutted weed-filled road that looked as if it hadn’t been traveled in months. Directly ahead of them was a house, a small peaked-roof house, its windows boarded with broken planks, its door yanked off so that a small black hole showed on the front. It was abandoned, that was for sure, and it had been that way for some time, because the fast impatient creepers had already inched up the side of the house and pushed through the boards of the porch.

  “Things go to pieces so quick around here,” she said, as if that would explain.

  “For God’s sake … the old bastard had it all wrong.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe he thought it was funny.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Have the rest of the beer,” she said, “and stop fretting. We just go back the way we came.”

  He managed a grin. “Might as well.”

  “Bring the can and we’ll go see what’s inside.”

  There was nothing inside, except a great many lizards that fled as they approached, and gigantic sleepy roaches shiny black in the light.

  The empty house and the soft gloom was solemn, and a little frightening too. It was all the childhood tales of haunted houses. Vague horrors looked out from the bare, paint-streaked walls. They stood a little closer together, even when they stood in the sun of the weed-grown yard.

  “What do we do now?”

  It wasn’t so much a question as an invitation. And her own idea that had been hovering about her eyes…

  She laughed aloud, a delighted tinkle, which surprised even herself. She had never heard that sound before.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “If you’re the sort of guy I think you are, you’ve got a blanket rolled up nice and neat in that trunk.”

  “I always carry a blanket,” he said.

  “And back up on the side there,” she pointed, “there’s a stand of lovely pines. And nothing grows under pines, no brambles, no bushes. Just needles, all soft. We could take a rest up there before we go on back.”

  He stared at her for a minute. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Unless you’d rather go right back.”

  “No,” he said, “I just wanted to be sure that I had it all straight.”

  He got the blanket. In the pines it was soft and clear. And fragrant smelling under the quiet hot day. The light was gentler too—not the purple light of the old closed house, but the soft filtered light of a bedroom with shades drawn.

  They must have slept because when they next noticed, the locusts had started to signal from the tallest trees. And there was a raging hunger in their stomachs that told them plainly that they had not had lunch.

  Joan brushed back her dress and ran a quick comb through her hair. Michael folded the blanket and they walked back to the car, silently. The shadow of the house stretched across the weed-choked yard now and reached right to the parked convertible, flowing over it like water. And when they got in, Joan noticed that the leather was almost cool to her hand.

  THE NEXT MORNING she changed her route to school. Almost without thinking, she shifted her path. It meant an extra-block walk in the summer sun, but it also meant that she need not pass that one particular building. It seemed to her the only polite thing to do.

  She did not see him on the campus. And he did not call. She did not expect that he would. It hadn’t been that important.

  And that was June.

  II. END OF THE SUMMER

  WITH THE FIRST SIGN she told herself severely, Don’t be silly.

  So she forg
ot it for another four weeks. And then, still unbelieving, for another three.

  One morning, one still clear morning in early September, she woke up. Suddenly. It was quite early. Her clock had stopped but she could tell by the light that it couldn’t be much more than five o’clock. She lay looking at the papered ceiling, crisscrossed with little cracks and stained with faint beige mold. And the truth that she had forgotten passed slowly in front of her mind.

  Fred’s been careful, and I’ve been careful. Except for once. Just once. How silly.

  She did not feel alarmed. She was merely curious.

  This is how you tell, she thought. It’s a feeling after all. Heavy and lazy and smug and full. And how big was the child, she wondered. It would look something like a shrimp, or a piece of seaweed.

  She didn’t feel tired, or sick. Just content.

  God, she thought, I must be the motherly type after all.

  She twisted her mouth up wryly. Turned over, and went back to sleep.

  When she woke again, the feeling of well-being was gone. She felt very busy. She was not alarmed. There were certain things to be done and she was all impatient to get to them.

  She had a quick shower and dressed with more speed and decision than usual. She made up carefully and put on lipstick with a brush, the way she almost never did. When she was finished, she looked up Michael Kern in the phone book. He was listed. She was vaguely surprised. But of course there was no reason why he shouldn’t be.

  She took a straight chair from its position against the wall and brought it over, so that she wouldn’t muss the fresh starch of her cotton skirt. Sitting primly and straight, she dialed the number.

  He answered almost at once. She recognized his voice, muffled and angry.

  “I woke you up,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Joan,” she said, “Joan Mitchell.”

  A pause and a yawn. “Hi, honey bunch.”

  “Can you get dressed? I’ve got to see you.”

  “Oh God,” he groaned softly, “not now.”

  “Yes, now,” she said gently, “I think it had better be right now.”

  “I’ve got to shave and I was up late.”

  “I won’t come up,” she said, formally, “if you’re worrying about that.”

  “Nine o’clock on Saturday morning—God!”

  “Do you know the drugstore right on the corner of Carrollton? It can’t be more than three or four blocks away from you.”

  “Sure,” he said flatly, “I know it.”

  “It’ll take me half an hour to get there,” she said, “on the streetcar.”

  “I’ve got to shave.”

  “That’s plenty of time.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important.” She hung up then, before he should say more.

  She recombed her hair, shook a quick dash of cologne on her skin. And left.

  WHEN SHE GOT OFF the streetcar she opened her umbrella: she had a block to walk in the sun. The silk protection felt safe and tight. The heat filtered through the pale beige and turned to a soft glow around her shoulders. I should wear more beige, she thought, it’s a good color for me. A beige silk would be nice. And what was the name of that… Tussah silk, that would be it. It would be expensive, but it would be so flattering with a soft skirt and just a hint of petticoat underneath.

  In the drugstore the usual clutter of shelves and counters and paper pennants overhead. And an odor that was a mixture of camphor and disinfectant and toasting bread. The usual kids, aimless, school-less, perched on the stools at the fountain. Pimply kids, heads close together, giggling.

  She glanced down the line of tables. Michael was not there. So she selected one in the middle and sat down carefully. “Coke,” she ordered; then, “No, iced tea.”

  The shiny black table top was almost hidden by doodles: JBF 1 SWR and a phone number UP6784 and vague geometrical designs. She sugared her tea carefully and asked for extra pieces of lemon and ignored the waitress’s grimace. She was sipping away with methodical slowness when Michael Kern arrived.

  “I didn’t really expect you to be on time,” she said. He looked fresh and starched; his hair was very wet and showed the marks of the comb.

  “Mysterious phone call, mysterious lady. What else could I do?”

  He was in better humor, she thought; but then nobody felt good when they had been yanked out of bed, not for the first minute. His face looked pink and freshly shaved.

  “You use a straight razor,” she said almost accusingly.

  “I use a Gillette,” he corrected.

  “I meant not an electric.”

  He shook his head, looking puzzled.

  “You see,” she plunged along, “I could tell. You’ve cut yourself.”

  He lifted a hand to his chin.

  “No,” she said, “way back on your cheek. By your ear.”

  He touched gently. The blood had dried.

  “It’s nothing,” she said hastily.

  His coffee came and he winked at her over the cup rim. “Now what’s going on, mysterious lady?”

  She looked down the straws into the lemon-cloudy tea. She felt that this wasn’t the way to go about it.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  She did not look up for a couple of seconds. His face when she saw it was completely expressionless. She went back to her tea, sipping slowly. I’ve told him, she thought, now he has to say something.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how are you sure it’s me?”

  “Because it’s the only time nobody was careful.”

  Now he was staring at the milky coffee in the purplish-blue plastic cup. “Good God,” he said slowly, “just once.”

  “We forgot to be careful.”

  “I thought you would be.”

  She smiled with one corner of her mouth. “I didn’t expect anything that day, you remember, and it isn’t the sort of stuff you carry in your purse to school.”

  Now that they had started talking about it, she felt better. There was no longer the problem of beginning. For better or worse, they had started. There was nothing to do but follow along.

  “It’s not anybody else, with me for the fall guy?”

  “I keep telling you,” she said patiently. “And the timing is right.”

  “God, why didn’t you think about that then?”

  “I didn’t, though,” she said. “Nobody ever does. Then. Only after.”

  Seaweed child, she thought, floating about, having iced tea at a Walgreen Drug Store with yellow and red paper advertisements waving overhead… She looked up and read them off silently: Milk of Magnesia, Bayer Aspirin, Creo Mulsin for Colds.

  “You were smiling,” he said. “For God’s sake why?”

  “It’s such a strange place to be talking about this sort of thing.”

  “Worse than under some pines?”

  “No,” she said quietly, “I guess every place is strange.”

  The waitress was looking and he ordered another cup of coffee. “What do we do?”

  She looked over the store, out at the lazy half-empty midmorning store. “I was asking you that.”

  He started to run his hand through his hair, then remembered it had been freshly combed, and lit a cigarette instead. “Well,” he said, “if you say I’m the guy for this, I guess I am.” And he added bitterly, “Even if I’m not, nobody would ever believe it.”

  “You are,” she insisted quietly.

  “You want to get married? Girls always want to get married.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  Her answer seemed to confuse him. He was quiet for a moment. But she couldn’t tell from his face what he was thinking.

  “Or,” he said, “you could go away and have it. Somewhere.”

  Floating child, she thought, do you feel the pull of the moon, do you feel tides? Do yo
u feel the sway of a walk down the hard pavements?

  “Or,” he said, slowly, “you could get rid of it.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know I could.”

  Some little kids were standing at the ice-cream counter. They were arguing over the flavor of the cone they were going to share. Joan watched them in silence. One yelled for chocolate, her sister for coffee. They finally settled for strawberry.

  Michael seemed to feel that he should say something. Joan felt him shifting in his hard seat.

  “Look,” he said finally, “don’t get me wrong, or anything like that.”

  “Oh no,” she said hastily and politely.

  “Let me finish… I’m not running out on you, or anything like that. If you want to get married, God, we’ll get married.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, “we could do that.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it seems to me like you’re awfully calm. For this. I thought gals got upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” she said, “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Damn’dest thing…”

  “It never happened to me before.”

  “Me neither,” he said with a sour smile.

  She just nodded.

  “We can get married, you know. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.”

  “Do you know how big it is now?” she asked abruptly.

  “What?”

  “The child.”

  “No,” he said, “it can’t be very big.”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear what I told you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “let’s get out of here.”

  As he paid the bill, she said: “I’ll go now. I’ll let you know in a couple of days.”

  “Okay.”

  She touched his shoulder, gently, casually. Just the way you would tell a small boy good bye. And on her way out she stopped and bought a pack of chewing gum.

  AURELIE WAS GARDENING. Not that she knew one plant from the other. But her yearly trip to the mountains of Tennessee gave her a vaguely guilty feeling. Her cousins gardened. And it was lovely. They wore wide hats and puttered around the shady part of the gardens, by the rhododendrons. And every hour or so a white-coated butler brought them glasses of iced tea, sweetened with rum or bourbon, and they rested on the little benches and looked out across the valley to the nearest ridges of the Smokies.