Songs of the Humpback Whale Page 7

Afterwards, I send Hadley back with the truck. Me and Joellen, a math teacher at the school and my first girlfriend, go out on the town. There�s a Chinese place we like; I don�t get to eat too much of that in Stow. I order her a Mai Tai, which comes in a porcelain coconut with two pink umbrellas, and I get a Suffering Bastard myself. When Joellen gets a little drunk, she forgets that she hates me for some reason or another, and like last year we will probably wind up in the back seat of her Ford Escort, on top of textbooks and abacuses, clawing at each other and bringing back the past.

  I do not love Joellen. I never have, I think, which may be the reason she thinks she hates me.

  �So what you been up to, Sam?� she says, leaning across the Peking fried chicken wings. She is a year younger than me but she�s looked thirty for as long as I can remember.

  �Pruning, pretty much. Getting ready for the troops in the fall.� In late September we open the orchard up to the public. Sometimes I can gross over a thousand dollars in one Sunday, between bushels of apples and fresh-pressed cider and retail-pricing wholesale Vermont cheddar cheese.

  Joellen grew up in Concord, one of three or four fairly poor families living in a trailer park, and she came to Minuteman Tech to be a beauty stylist. She has a reputation for doing nails. �Find your own variety yet?�

  For years I have been working in a greenhouse, grafting and splitting buds in hopes of coming up with something really incredible, some apple that will set the world on edge. My own form of genetic engineering, I�m trying to bring back a Spitzenburg, or something like it that is easier to grow and more adaptable to our climate, so that this time it won�t die out quite so fast. I can�t tell if Joellen is interested, or mocking me. I have always been a lousy judge of character.

  Joellen dips her finger into the duck sauce and deliberately sucks it clean between her lips. She holds her hands out to me. �Notice anything?�

  Her nails, which are what I have been trained to look at first, are covered-with tiny caricatures of Sesame Street characters. Big Bird, Ernie, Snuffelupagus, Oscar the Grouch. �That�s good. Where�d you learn that?�

  �Kids� Band-Aids,� she sighs, exasperated. �I can copy pretty good. But that�s not it. Look again.� She wiggles her fingers, so I start to look for new creases in her skin, cuticle damage, anything. �The ring,� she says finally. �For God�s sake.�

  Christ, she�s engaged. �Well, that�s great, Joellen. I�m happy for you.� I don�t know if I really am, but I know it is what I am supposed to say. �Who is it?�

  �You don�t know him. He�s a Marine. Doesn�t look a thing like you, either. We�re getting married in September, and of course you�ll be invited to the wedding.�

  �Oh,� I say, making a mental note not to come. I resist the urge to check if she is pregnant. �What�s his name?�

  While Joellen tells me the life history of Edwin Cubbles, hailing from Chevy Chase, Maryland, I finish the food on the table, my drink and Joellen�s drink. I order two more drinks and finish those too. While she is telling me the story of how they met at a costume party on the fourth of July (he was a walrus, and she was Scarlett O�Hara) I try to make the umbrellas stand upright in the thick and seeded duck sauce.

  Last year when I came to speak at the high school we drove to the place where we both lost our virginity-a field in some conservation land that turns purple with fireweed at the end of the summer. We sat on the hood of her little car and drank Yoo-Hoo from a convenience store and then I lay down in the grass to watch the night come. Joellen sat between my legs, using my bent knees as a kind of armchair, and she leaned back against me so that I could feel the hooks of her bra through her shirt and mine. She told me again how sorry she was that she had broken up with me, and I reminded her that it was me who did it-one day I had just realized I didn�t feel the way I used to. Like barbecue coals, I said, you know the way they�re orange one minute and then you turn around they�ve just become grey dust? As I told her this I cupped my hands around her breasts; she didn�t stop me. Then she flipped herself over and began to kiss me, and rub her hands up and down the legs of my good khaki pants, and as I got hard she said to me, �Now Sam, I thought you didn�t feel the same way.�

  Joellen is still going on about Edwin. I interrupt her. �You�re the only girlfriend I�ve ever had who�s gotten married.�

  Joellen looks at me and she is truly surprised. �You�ve had other girlfriends?�

  Although we haven�t had our main course yet I signal for the check. I�ll pick it up as an engagement present; we usually go dutch. She doesn�t seem to notice that the lo mein and the beef with pea pods haven�t come, but then again she hasn�t really eaten much of anything. �Don�t worry about driving me home,� I tell her, feeling my face turn red. �I can get Joley or Hadley to take a run out here.�

  The waiter, I notice, is a hunchback, and because I feel bad I take a couple of dollars extra out of my wallet. He has brought pineapple spears and fortune cookies with the check. Joellen looks at me and I realize she is waiting for me to pick a cookie. �After you,� I say.

  Like a kid, she dives into the puddle of pineapple juice and uses her nail as a chisel to crack it. �Great beauty and fortune dwell in your smile,� she reads, pleased with the outcome. �What�s yours?�

  I break my cookie in half. �You will find success at every turn,� I read, lying through my teeth. Really, it says something dumb about visitors from afar.

  As we walk out the restaurant Joellen takes my arm.

  �Edwin is lucky,� I say.

  �I call him Eddie.� And then, �You really think so?�

  She insists on driving me back to Stow; she says it could be the last time she sees me as a single woman, and I can�t argue with her there. About halfway, in Maynard, she pulls into the parking lot of a church, an old New England white clapboard church with pillars and a steeple, you name it. Joellen reclines her seat all the way and rolls back the moonroof in the car.

  I get the feeling I have to leave. Fidgeting, I open the glove compartment and riffle through the contents. A map of Maine, lipstick, two rulers, a tire gauge and three Trojans. �Why are you stopping?�

  �Jeez, Sam. I�m doing all the driving. Can�t I take a little rest?�

  �Why don�t I drive? You get out and sit over here and I�ll drive. You�ve got the whole way back to drive, anyhow.�

  Joellen�s hand wanders across the console, like a crab, and comes to rest on my thigh. �Oh, I�m not in a hurry.� She stretches, deliberately, so that her ribs rise and her breasts get flat under her blouse.

  �Look, I can�t do this.�

  �Do what,� Joellen says. �I don�t know what we�re doing.� She reaches across to loosen my tie and unbutton my shirt. Pulling the tie through the buttoned collar, she wraps it like cord around her hands, and slips it over my head to rest on the back of my neck. Then, drawing me in, she kisses me.

  God can she kiss. �You�re engaged,� I say, and when my lips move hers move with me, pressed on mine, like an echo.

  �But I�m not married.� With amazing skill she swings her leg over the center console, pivoting, coming to sit spread-eagled on my lap.

  I am losing control, I think, and I try not to touch her. I wrap my fingers-around the plastic fixtures of the seat belt until she takes my hands and holds them up to her chest. �What�s stopping you, Sam? It�s the same old me.�

  What�s stopping you? Her words stay, frosted on the window. Morals, maybe. Idiocy? There is a buzzing in my ears, fueled by the way she is rubbing against me. She slides her hand down my shorts and I can feel her nails.

  There is this buzzing and what is stopping you? My head keeps ringing and at some point I realize that I cannot be held accountable for what is happening, for my hands ripping at her and the taste of the skin on her nipples, and she closes on me, closes and holds from the inside. Remember when it was you and me, baby, in this field, at fifteen, with life laid out in front of us like a treasure chest; and love was something to breathe in your girl�s ear. Do you remember how easy it was to say forever?

  When it is over her ha
ir is free and our clothes are puddled around us on the front seat. She hands me her underwear to wipe myself clean and smiles with her eyes slitted shut as she climbs back into the driver�s seat. �It was nice seeing you again, Sam,� she says, although we are still seven miles from my place. Joellen puts on her blouse but leaves her bra in the back seat with her teaching tools, and insists on driving naked from the waist down. She says no one will see but me, and then she asks for my undershirt, on the floor, to sit on so she won�t drip onto the red velveteen seats.

  I do not kiss her goodbye when she pulls into the driveway. In fact I don�t say a word, I just get out of her car. �I can keep the shirt?� she asks, and I don�t bother to answer. I�m not about to wish her a nice wedding, either, I�d expect lightning to come out of the sky and strike me. Chrissake, we were in the parking lot of a church.

  When I walk into the Big House, Hadley and Joley are still at the kitchen table playing Hearts. Neither of them looks up when I come in and throw my tie on the floor. I strip off my shirt too and toss it so it slides across the linoleum. �So,� Hadley says, grinning. �You get any?�

  �Shut the fuck up,� I tell him, and walk upstairs. In the shower I use up an entire bar of soap and all the hot water, but I imagine it will take some days before I feel truly clean.

  14 J ANE

  It spreads out in front of us like a pit of fire, flamed red, gold and orange in layers of rock. It is so big that you can look from left to right and wonder if the land will ever come together again. I have seen this from a plane, but so far away it was like a thumbprint on the window. I keep expecting someone to take down the painted backdrop: that�s all folks, you can go home now-but nobody does.

  There are plenty of other cars parked at this �PICTURE SPOT� along the highway that borders the Grand Canyon. People popping flash cubes in the afternoon light, mothers pulling toddlers away from the protective railing. Rebecca is sitting on the railing. She has her hands on either side of her hips, a brace. �It�s huge,� she says, when she can sense me behind her. �I wish we could go into it.�

  So we try to find out about burro rides, the ones where they take pictures of you on the donkey to put on your living room table when you get home. The last tour, however, has left for the day- which doesn�t really upset me since I have little desire to ride on a burro. I agree with Rebecca, though. It is hard to grasp like this. You feel inclined to take it apart, to see it pieced like a jigsaw puzzle before you consider its entirety.

  I find myself thinking about the river that carved this art, the sun that painted its colors. I wonder how many millions of years this whole thing took, and who got to wake up one morning and say, �Oh, so there is a canyon.�

  �Mom,� Rebecca says, missing the beauty, �I�m getting hungry.� At her feet is a gaggle of tiny Japanese children all wearing the same blue school uniform. They carry little one-step cameras, and half take pictures of the canyon, while the other half take pictures of my daughter.

  Reaching over the children, I pull Rebecca off the railing; she is making me nervous anyway. �All right. We�ll find a diner.� I walk toward the car but on second thought step back to the railing for a final look. Enormous. Anonymous. I could hurtle myself down the walls of this chasm, and never be found.

  Rebecca is waiting for me in the car, arms folded tight across her chest. �All we had for breakfast was that beef jerky from Hilda.�

  �It was free,� I point out. Rebecca rolls her eyes. When she gets hungry, she gets irritable. �Did you see signs for anything on the way?�

  �I didn�t see anything. Miles and miles of sand.�

  I sigh and start the car. �You�d better get used to it. I hear drivingin the Midwest is lousy.�

  �Can we just go,� Rebecca says. �Please.�

  After a few miles we pass a blue metal sign that says JAKE�S, with an arrow. Rebecca shrugs, which means Yes, let�s turn. �Jake�s is the name of a diner if I�ve ever heard one,� I say.

  The interesting thing about the environs surrounding the Grand Canyon is that they�re ugly. Dusty, plain, as if all their splendor has been sucked out by the area�s main attraction. You can drive, even on a highway, for miles without spotting desert vegetation or the hint of color.

  �Jake�s!� Rebecca screams, and I slam my brakes. We do a 180-degree turn in the dust, which points us toward the little shack I�ve passed. There are no other cars, in fact there isn�t even a diner. What is there is an airfield, and a tiny plane in the distance, puttering.

  A man with very short yellow hair and spectacles approaches the car. �Hello. Interested in a ride?�

  �No,� Rebecca says quickly.

  He holds his hand out to her across my chest. �Name�s Jake Feathers. Honest to God.�

  �Let�s go,� Rebecca says. �This isn�t a diner.�

  �I fly over the canyon,� Jake says, as if we are listening. �Cheapest-deal you�ll find. Unlike anything you�ll ever see.� He winks at Rebecca. �Fifty dollars apiece.�

  �How long?� I ask.

  �Mom,� Rebecca says. �Please.�

  �As long as it takes,� Jake tells me. I get out of the car and stand up. I hear Rebecca swear and recline her seat. The plane, in the distance, seems as if it is rolling forward.

  �You ain�t seen the Canyon unless you�ve seen it from the inside. You won�t believe it till you do it.�

  I have been thinking this very thing. �We don�t have the money,� Rebecca whines.

  I stick my head in the window. �You don�t have to go.�

  �I�m not getting on that plane.�

  �I understand. But do you mind if I do?� I lean in closer for privacy. �I mean, we can�t ride the burros, and I think one of us ought to see it. We came all the way here, and you know, you can�t say you�ve seen it-�

  �-if you don�t see it from the inside,� Jake says, finishing my sentence. He tips an imaginary hat.

  Rebecca sighs and closes her eyes. �Ask if he has any food.�

  Minutes later, with my daughter waving from the hood of the car, Jake takes me up in his Cessna. I do not believe this contraption is going to fly, with its rusted studs and notched propellers. The control panel-something I�ve always conceived of with flashing lights and radar gadgets-is no more complex than the dashboard of the station wagon. Even the throttle Jake uses for takeoff resembles the knobs for the air conditioning.

  As we lift off the ground my head whacks against the metal of the airplane�s frame. I am surprised at the roughness of the flight, the way the plane chugs as if there could be bumps in the air. Next time, I think, a Dramamine. Jake says something to me, but I can�t hear him over the engine.

  Inside this plastic bubble I can see panoramically-the trees, the highway, Rebecca, getting smaller, disappearing. I watch the ground run behind us and then suddenly there is nothing there at all.

  We�ve fallen of a cliff, I think, panicking, but there�s no drop. We turn to the right and I see the perimeter of this beautiful gully in a way I haven�t seen-ridges and textures so close they become real. We pass lakes in the valley of the canyon, emeralds that grow larger as we inch farther down. We fly over peaks and past furrows; we hum across carved rocks. Under us at one point is a green village, a trembling ledge dotted with the red roofs of homes and minute fenced-in farms. I find myself wanting to go to this village; I want to know what it is like to live in the shadow of natural walls.

  Too quickly we turn around, letting the sun wash us full-force, so powerful I have to shade my eyes. I breathe deeply, trying to internalize this amazing open space where there is no firm footing, where there once was water. When we fly back over the edge of ordinary ground, I see Rebecca sitting on the hood of our station wagon. As Jake lands I wonder what cities and sculptures lie millions of miles beneath the sea.

  15 J OLEY

  Dear Jane,

  I was cleaning out my closet in anticipation of your arrival, and do you know what I found? The wave machine, which incidentally still works. Remember? Plug it into the wall and the sound of the ocean fills your room, pounding a
gainst the walls. Mama got it for me when I started to lose sleep. It was new in its day-a machine that simulated the way nature should be, that drowned the sounds of a house falling apart at its foundations.

  When I was nine and you were thirteen the arguments began to get louder-so loud the attic rattled and the moon sank. You bitch, Daddy screamed, you whore-you had to spell that word for me, and learn about the meaning from the bad girls at school. On Mondays and Thursdays, Daddy came home drunk, his breath smelling like silage. He�d slam the door open and he�d walk so heavily the ceiling (our bedroom floors) shook. And when you�re nine and you�re in a room with tall ships stenciled on the walls that begin to move out of fear or shock or both-the last thing you want is to be alone. I�d wait until the coast was clear-when Mama�s crying carpeted my footsteps-and I�d run into your room, which was soft and pink and full of you.

  You waited for me, awake. You pulled back the covers and let me crawl in, hugging me when I needed it. Sometimes we turned on the lights and played Old Maid. Sometimes we made up ghost stories, or sang TV commercials, and sometimes we couldn�t help but listen. And then when we heard Mama creep up the stairs and close her bedroom door behind her, followed by Daddy, thunderous, minutes later, we covered our ears. We snuck out of your bedroom and tiptoed downstairs, looking for traces-a broken vase, a bloody tissue-that might keep our attention a little longer. Most of the time we found nothing at all, just our living room, where we were allowed to buy into the fantasy that we were your average happy American kids.

  When Mama found me in your room some months later- on a morning we had happened to sleep later than her-she didn�t tell Daddy. She half-carried me, asleep, into my own room and told me I must never never go in there again at night. But when it all happened again and I was forced to cry just to keep myself from listening, Daddy ran upstairs and threw open my door. Before I had time to consider the consequences you squeezed under his arm and ran to my side. Get away, Daddy, you said. You don�t know what you�re doing.

  Mama bought me the wave machine the next day. To some extent it worked, I didn�t hear a lot of the fighting. But I couldn�t curl into the small of your neck-baby shampoo and talcum powder-and I couldn�t hear your voice singing me kangaroo lullabies. All that I had was the solace of a wall that connected our rooms, where I could scratch a pattern you�d know how to answer. That was all I had, that and the sound of water where there was none, insisting I push from my mind the hollow sounds of Daddy hitting Mama, and then hitting you, again. Take Route 89 to Salt Lake City. There�s water there you can�t see. Give my love to Rebecca. As always,

  Joley