A mosquito rises up around the reverend’s face, dangling its thin legs, and lands delicately, its pronged feet on his cheek. She says, “Reverend,” and points to the spot. He must have felt it, because he smacks it squarely. There is a spot of blood, too much to be the mosquito’s alone. Alma hands him the handkerchief that she’s been breathing through.
The reverend seems surprised by her full face, as if he’d grown quickly accustomed to seeing only her narrowed eyes. He looks away, into the yard, and dabs the bite with the handkerchief, red-splotched, until it no longer bleeds. He says, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She isn’t sure if he’s sorry about having bloodied her handkerchief, having killed the mosquito, or having let her daughter run off.
“I wanted to do a good deed,” he says, “to save her. I’ve failed.”
Suddenly, he reminds Alma of the elephant. She hasn’t thought of it for years. Once she saw a cow in the fields, pregnant with twin calves, and she told the children about the elephant working on the Miami dock. It was the cows’ widened ribs that had recalled it, and the memory had caused a sharp pang. The children could sense it. Irving was especially wide-eyed, and she knew what it was like, the hushed silence that fell on her as a child whenever her mother told a story about her father. They asked no questions. But it isn’t anything physical this time. It’s that the reverend seems so out of place, as wondrous as the elephant, as grand a thing as that, but not made use of. Put to work like an ordinary mill horse.
Alma takes a step closer to him. She wants to see him more clearly, and its dark, the sun a dusky spot in the sky. She puts her hand on his cheek, the small swell of the bite. The thought is gone. She won’t kiss him. She’s touching his cheek, a gentle benediction. It’s soft, shaven, warm. He puts his hand on hers. He leans forward and kisses her on the mouth. It is momentary. Fleeting, but her eyes close. Her body remembers this gentleness. Then he withdraws. Her eyes flit open. He backs away, fumbling in his pocket for keys.
She calls out, “Reverend.” But he is already down the steps. She worries now that he thinks she’s a whore, like the others. She runs out toward the car. She’s angry at herself for having given in to memory, having for a moment forgotten her place—she was going to peel potatoes: the bucket, the peeling knife—and then the reverend came to discuss her daughter. She returns to this simplicity. He has already shut the door, but she puts her hand on the open window. “You came here to tell me about my daughter. Where did she go?”
“She left in the night. A car came. And she snuck out to it.”
She wants to tell him that she’s not a whore. And that if she were, it would have been different with him there on the porch. The reverend looks at her hand, lets his eyes wander up her arm, her neck, to her eyes. It is a gentle gesture. She touches her mouth where his lips had been. He looks down. He says, “I’m weak. I am a weak man. If I weren’t a minister, if I weren’t married to my wife, the father of my two daughters, and devoted to Jesus, I would be different. But I’m not. And I tell you, I know about loss. I know how it takes up company and doesn’t ever leave you. Do what it calls of you to save your daughter.”
She lifts her hand from the window, lets it fall to her side, and he drives away. Alma stands in the yard, and she feels like a stranger, new to the darkened yard, the hedgerow, the field, her lilting house. When did her lot become a field of bluets, their white petals cupping pinches of coal? It seems small to her. Everything, not just the flowers, dulled by layers of coal dust. She senses a familiar tension, a tightening of expectation. She remembers the loud, riotous machines in the hosiery mill, and how she likened them to her own restless heart. She would eat the yard if she could. She is wanting. She would open her mouth and swallow it whole.
6
Irving has finished eating his lunch, meats from a warm tin, in his room. His white laundry truck is parked out front, and he jogs down the stairs to get back to work. It’s afternoon, but lit like dusk. It’s been dark and ashy all day. In fact, the globed row of lights on High Street are lit like it’s night, and Irving has driven with his headlights cutting the thick air. All morning the women in the houses on his route talked to him about the darkening sky, and how they will all perish, suffocate under a blanket of soot if it doesn’t break. Irving buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his arm and kept to work. “I’m sure it’ll break,” he consoled them. “Just keep the babies inside today, and tomorrow the sun will come through.” They smiled at him weakly, as if they thought his optimism were a sign of stupidity. One woman even said, “If this doesn’t kill us, sure enough something else will come along. The end is nigh. Don’t be a fool.”
Irving opens the heavy door. The bells jangle, alarming Mrs. Trimski. She pipes up from her spot at the sink. “I have a letter for you.” He has never been invited into the parlor that stands between the doorway and the kitchen where the hefty old woman bends to her cigarette tip pinched between her thumb and fingertip. It seems clear that Mrs. Trimski isn’t budging, so Irving lopes carefully, nearly on tiptoe, through the dim parlor filled with glass-front desks that tinkle with trinkets. One of Mrs. Trimski’s cats sits curled in the corner of a stiff love seat, its head tucked away out of view.
The kitchen is also dark but for a dim, watery light seeping in from the window. Mrs. Trimski hands him the butter-stained envelope without taking her eyes from the greasy panes. “She come in here in a hurry, all bustle and flurry, said to give this to you. It’s from your mother.”
Irving wonders if Lettie delivered the note. “Was she young?”
“No, plumpish with a wiry man in the car who hollered that she should hurry. Snappish man.”
“Oh.” Irving imagines it was Pearly, then, and her ungrateful, laggardly husband with the stained teeth. “Why didn’t you call me down?”
“I don’t know who’s in and out.” She waves the smoke around with her plump hand dismissively. But Irving knows that she is always aware of her tenants’ comings and goings. In fact, his white laundry truck partially blocks her view. Often if Mrs. Trimski meets him in the hall peeking around a stack of folded towels, she’ll say, “Mr. Weathers is going for a stint in the country. And the redhead is sickly.” She updates Irving randomly. He’s certain that she purposely didn’t call him down because she wanted to have a chance to read the letter first, alone, with her buttery toast. The crescents of crusts, dented by a crushed cigarette butt, sit on a small plate on the counter. She looks at him blankly. “Are you going to open it?”
“Later,” he tells her. “I’m late.” He isn’t late, and she knows it. He hasn’t been late since Lucy left him and he made a decision to live a stable life that relies on things like punctuality. But he doesn’t want to give Mrs. Trimski the satisfaction of seeing his reaction. His mother rarely writes. It’s usually only a rebuke, in the guise of a reminder, for having missed a Sunday dinner, but sometimes she drops in bits of news, which could include someone getting knocked up or a drunken client who needed to be tossed out. His mother doesn’t want Irving to miss out on her lessons on the risks of passion, what it could lead to. She doesn’t want him to become romantic while away from the homestead. And these little extra tidbits would vindicate Mrs. Trimski, who, from her perch, has a hunch that she’s better than everyone else, and likes to have those hunches confirmed.
The old woman stubs out a second cigarette into the plate. She says, “Well, go on, then. It’s like night out there. Be careful. The new boarder in room two twisted her ankle on a curb.”
She turns to her window, and Irving creeps back through the parlor. He spots the cat again, but it isn’t a cat. It’s a fur hat. The curved back is really the hat’s domed top. He pauses, wondering if he should tell Mrs. Trimski that someone has left their hat behind, but who would wear a fur hat this time of year? Perhaps it’s a decoration, a relic from the days of old Mr. Trimski, although he can’t imagine a Mr. Trimski, a bookend male version of the sour landlady. Really, he just wants to touch it, and
so he reaches out, two fingers brushing the hat’s soft fur, but then the cat’s head appears. A great yawning hiss. Ears flat. A quick paw swipes at Irving’s hand. He stumbles backward, grasping his hand, but he realizes that the cat has no claws, only stubbly padding. He lifts his hand and there isn’t even a scratch. The trinkets rattle, and he lurches out of the parlor. Mrs. Trimski peers into the dark room, but Irving is already in the hall now, opening the door.
Two blocks down, he pulls the truck into an empty spot under a streetlight, a dusty glowing bowl. He unfolds the letter, see-through where it was stained.
Dear Irving,
Lettie has run off with Smitty. Do you recall him? Certinly you do. I would like you to keep an eye out for them, as we would preffer Lettie to be at home with us than out in the world with Smitty. I find him trubled. Please, if you see ether of them, tell them that Lettie is too young a girl and must come home—her mother has said so.
Please come to Sunday dinner. Bring Lucy, if she would like to come.
Love,
Your mother
Irving lets the letter sag in his lap. His sister has run off with Smitty. It seems unlikely, pieces from two different puzzles linking. Smitty belongs to him. He was the one who’d run off with Smitty. It was his story, not Lettie’s. Not that anything good had come of it, but nonetheless Irving felt suddenly protective of the memory, the boxed chicken, the winding drive in Sir Lee’s grunting car, the closet where Smitty banged his head against the plastered walls, dusty, paint-chipped. He’d always felt guilty about leaving Smitty behind. Undoubtedly, Sir Lee came home and beat him, but also Irving had felt manly about it, too. He’d been drunk, after all, and each man needs to fend for himself. He’d saved Delphine’s life, possibly. In some way, he owed this heroism to Smitty, who’d taken him in. Were they in love? Irving wondered. Was it possible for Smitty to fall in love? He was doubtful. He would have to tell his mother that Lucy had left him, trying not to give any information about her professional calling in Wheeling. He would have to endure his mother’s smug I-told-you-so and little speeches on how he will be better off without her.
He folded the letter and stuffed it into the envelope. His route was only half done, the laundry behind him divided evenly between clean and soiled sacks. His life was newly devoted to the simplicity of returning to the lot with his job done, and yet his mother never asked for his help. He couldn’t remember her once asking him to come to her rescue. Roxy was the one who threw out the unruly men, not Irving. Roxy was the one to do the heavy work of hauling trash and burning bundles, and if not Roxy, then his mother would do it. She was burly now with the weight she’d taken on over the years. Irving ground the truck into gear. He would do a little looking around—Cheva’s, for example, wasn’t too far off his route. He’d go down High Street to get there, because Lettie liked the ladies’ shops. And so he headed out.
The streets were nearly empty. Most people were staying indoors, windows shut to the sooty air. But Irving looked over each shadowy figure. Their bodies would begin as a distant smudge that emerged into shape, gender, hat, cane. He walked through Cheva’s, even glancing for shoes under the men’s bathroom stall. It was on High Street that he began to feel frantic. He popped his head into each dress shop, each hat shop. At first, he pretended to be shopping for ladies’ gloves, my wife’s birthday, but then he gave up on that. It took too much time. He soon barged in, lorded around, and then skulked out. He was needed. His mother needed him. He was looking for his lost family, Lettie, Smitty. He could protect his sister, her virginity. He had a second chance to save Smitty, from what? Not Sir Lee; that was long ago. He was looking with such urgency, he wondered if he might actually dig up his father. It was the first time he’d searched people’s faces. Perhaps his father had been walking these streets for years, waiting only to be acknowledged. But the search dwindled. He didn’t know where else to look. Even after he’d decided it was a lost cause, he was still looking, up and down side streets and alleyways. He saw a few couples, walking arm in arm, hurriedly to get out of the coal-thick air. Once he called out, “Lettie! Lettie!” But when the girl turned, she was piggish with a lazy eye.
So when he actually sees Smitty walking out of a drugstore with two bottles of pop, he doesn’t register it immediately. He stays in his truck and watches Smitty cross the street, his eyes skittishly glancing around for traffic. He opens a police-car door and through the dim overhead street lamp, Irving sees their two silhouettes lean together. A long kiss. His sister’s hair turned toward him, hanging like a veil. Irving reaches for the handle but doesn’t move. The police car starts up. Headlights shine. They pull out and drive off, and Irving lets them. They are doomed. Although no one who met them would suspect it, they are both as fragile as blown glass. He knows this much, and yet he can’t stop them. They have a force. They are being propelled, and Irving is a stalled man. He feels weak. Smitty is an accumulation of other people’s bad decisions and selfishness, but so is Irving, and if he thought he himself had found some ounce of joy, if he thought he had the ability to fall in love, he would want to be free to go. Cursed, yes. He’s been his mother’s best student in the destructive powers of love. And his father is not a stranger strolling down High Street. He’s gone, for good. Irving will never find him.
He’s wasted his day on this chase. He should have stuck to his route, ignoring his mother. He should have been more loyal to his new life. He drives out into the country to get as much of his route done as possible before night. The gas gauge is low. He stops at a service station. The dirt is dry, cracked. A man dozes with his back resting against a small, green shuttered house. A lantern sits at his boots. His hat, which may have been used for fanning or covering his nose and mouth from the dust, now lays flat on his chest. He is waspish, a large tube of a body, with spindly legs hanging down by the stool’s legs. Irving has been here before, although he doesn’t know the man’s name. Irving steps out and starts cranking to fill the glass tank above the pump with gasoline. The metal gears squeak, and he remembers the wheels of the prams, the headless ham, and he wonders if Lettie will try to make a life with Smitty. Will they get married and have children? Will their offspring come out deformed like a wrapped ham with a protruding bone?
“You gonna pay? You gonna pay for that?” It’s a voice like a parrot. The sky is truly darkening to dusk, but he can make out a woman sitting in a chair, her hair plastered back, a glossy sheen to it. He steps closer. Her eyes are puffed, sealed, only a small flitting slit to each and short eyelashes that look almost purposefully trimmed. She’s older than Irving, but not by much.
“Well, of course I’m going to pay.”
“Come here,” the woman purrs. “Come here to me.”
Irving walks over. She has a large shiny leather Bible on her lap and, on top of it, something that looks like a typewriter, with paper in it. “I don’t like mister,” she says. “I don’t like him. Take me with you.”
“I can’t take you with me,” Irving says.
“I can’t see. I’m a blind woman, but he is ugly, isn’t he? Tell me. He’s an ugly man, mister is.”
Irving looks over at him, and he is pasty with a flushed redness to his cheeks. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, and Irving can tell he’s a hairy man, nearly furred. “He isn’t so bad,” he tells her.
“He bought me this machine, brand-new, with all the right parts. It writes Braille. I’m educated. You should take me with you.”
“I wouldn’t steal you from your husband there.” Irving tries to laugh.
“He isn’t my husband. He just keeps me, and how do you think I got here?” she asks. “All men are thieves.”
He wonders if that is true. If men don’t fall in love, they only claim property, and then sometimes relinquish it, as his father did. Perhaps Lettie hasn’t run off with Smitty as much as he has stolen her. Irving looks at the blind woman’s face. It’s pretty, actually, without the nervous eyes, that sometimes flash a pale, watery whitish blue. “I am try
ing to be a good man,” he says. “I wouldn’t steal you even if I fell in love with you.” And now he feels like he could fall in love with the blind woman at the service station in the country. He wonders if this is how it happened for his father. Some odd moment barely lit, this time the sun’s low yellow eye weakened, blurred by ash, and you make a decision. Your life takes a dogleg turn. “No,” Irving says again. “I’m a good man.”
“I like good men. Sweet men. Kind and gentle. A blind woman relies on it.”
She reminds him of his mother, somehow, the way she just comes out with things. He wonders if it wouldn’t take a good man to say yes, come with me. Maybe this is how one acquires responsibility—a momentary hesitation, and the right person is there to take advantage. “I can’t take you with me.” He wants to go on to say something else about the way he will live his life, in defiance of his father, because he isn’t like his father, or the parade of worthless men who wander into his mother’s house looking for whores, or the men at Cheva’s who eyed Lucy each time she rose up from her seat. He will have patience for the everyday, the on and on of things. He’ll go back to the delivery service. He’ll work hard. He’ll keep this job for the rest of his life. He’ll be bullheaded. Why not a blind woman? he asks himself. Why not start now? Why not save someone who needs saving? Not Lucy, not Lettie and Smitty, or Delphine and his mother, or his father, the lost bastard, for that matter, but someone who can be saved, who wants to be saved.
He walks back to his car, puts the nozzle in its tank, and lets it wash down the hose and fill. He fishes in his pocket for enough money. He places glinting coins on the table next to the furry, wasplike man, who is now snoring.