Jernigan, page 22
She shook her head.
“This younger generation,” he said. “Danny? You’ll partake, I know.”
“Can I have a Diet Coke?”
“Nothing in it?” he said.
Danny shook his head.
“I get it,” he said. “These are your designated drivers. You sly doggies.” He wagged a finger and trotted off to the kitchen. What an asshole.
We all just sat.
Finally I spoke up. “We’re not being difficile, I hope.”
“Peter,” said Martha. “Don’t push drinks on them. Jesus.”
“It’s the tone,” I said. Out in the kitchen, a refrigerator door opened and shut. Then some electric thing went on for a few seconds. Martha jabbed a thumb over her shoulder and mouthed He can bear us.
“I could give a fuck,” I said out loud.
We all sat there some more.
Then old Timber Wolf Tim came back out with a tray. He set it down on the glass tabletop and handed drinks around. He raised his glass (eggnog) and we raised our glasses back, Danny too. Poor Clarissa just had to sit there.
“So,” he said.
Stuff of his was some smooth, boy.
“So how have you been,” said Martha.
“Good,” he said. “Things are good. Except for the fact that we may get our asses sued by the Grant Wood estate.”
“You said,” said Martha. (And when might that have been?)
“You seen January yet?” he said.
Martha shook her head. “It’s good?” she said.
“Give you one before you go,” he said. “Yeah. I think so. Very good piece on dealing with zoning boards. Thing on new ways to cook the stuff you canned. I figured it’s the time of year people are starting to get bored. And, let’s see. More stuff on keeping warm.”
“God,” said Martha. “Part five thousand.”
“Hey,” he said, “burning issue number one, no pun intended. Premise is that what you thought would work back in October may not be cutting it now that the real cold weather’s here.”
“Wow, is that ever true,” she said. “So what kind of ideas?”
Out came the wolf teeth. “Read the piece,” he said. “Then we’ve got one called ‘Cutting the Cord,’ which is about rethinking electricity. The idea being that you really can go all the way with this thing. It’s like they say the power’s cut off, right? We don’t have any power. Which doesn’t have to be true. It’s like, you can cut them off. And then of course what the implications are in terms of stuff like food preservation, running water, et cetera, et cetera. Places you can still buy hand pumps. Smart research in that piece.”
“By anyone we know?” said Martha.
“Ah,” he said, “you know me too well.”
“And people are really interested in this stuff anymore?” I said. “I mean, not to knock what you do.” I looked over and the kids were whispering again. “I just sort of think, you know, 1970s.”
“They buy the magazine, what can I tell you,” he said. “Off the record, I have my doubts that very many of them actually do much of this stuff, but they sure as hell read about it. If you’re really doing the whole program, you don’t lay out three-fifty a month on some magazine: you go to the library. Though of course all the library ladies think we’re Soldier of Fortune or something. I suppose we’re dangerous in our own way, but still.”
Danny set his glass on the tabletop. “Clarissa said to ask you,” he said to this Tim, “if we can go in and watch videos. Do you mind, Mrs. Peretsky?”
I minded, but there didn’t seem to be any way to get that into the record.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said, baring the old canines at Clarissa. “We were being boring, and it’s probably not going to get any better. You know how to work the thing, right? I forget what-all is in there that you might like. Just rewind it after, okay?”
Clarissa got up and just about pulled Danny through the door where the coats had gone.
“You know I counted them up the other day?” said this Tim. “In that room, I have got: seventy-three movies. It is unbelievable. Samuel Goldwyn didn’t have seventy-three movies in his bedroom. Or maybe he did, but Jesus. The changes.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re in any hurry to rethink electricity,” I said.
Martha gave me a look.
“Hell no,” he said. “Total pleasure pig. I just try and be efficient about it. You know, don’t pay for stuff with your life.”
“But you don’t mind telling other people to give up electricity.”
“Read the piece,” he said. “I’m not telling people to do anything. All I’m saying is: here’s what you can do if you want to do it. If it’s worth it to you. To you. Obviously if watching videos is a priority to you, you don’t cut off your electricity. Or making eggnog in a blender. Or cooking in a microwave—speaking of which, let me know if you’re getting hungry. Dinner’s not for a while, but there’s cheese and all sorts of stuff. So anyhow, where was I, gadgets. If you’re into gadgets, which I definitely am, then maybe you cut out something else, right? Not that electricity’s all that expensive now, but hang on to your hats when they start decommissioning the nukes and having to shut down the coal burners at the same time. So maybe that’s the point at which you want to think about getting a generator that’ll run on methanol. Or some kind of solar setup. Windmill, maybe, provided you’ve got the proper location. And that way you’ll have a little juice on hand when you want it and still be able to say fuck the power company. Or don’t, you know? Keep your job, keep your retirement package—if you believe it’s still going to be around. But I guess I do assume that anybody who picks up the magazine at all is probably a little discontented.”
“Hey,” I said. “If that’s your target market, you’re going to be a wealthy man.”
“I’m keeping my head above water,” he said. “Course I do have to cook the books some.”
“Hey Tim?” said Martha, holding up her glass. “This is so yummy. Could you get me a little, little more?”
“I can get you more,” he said. “Don’t know about a little.”
“Speaking of more,” I said. I was beginning to like this Tim. I drank off the last of mine and held up my glass too. He took them out to the kitchen. “Weird place,” I said to Martha.
“It used to be a drive-in theater,” she said.
I didn’t get it. “How so?” I said.
“See, he bought the whole land,” she said, “and sold off the part where they had all the posts sticking up. You know, with the speakers? And the screen and everything. This right here was like the refreshment stand and the bathrooms and the office. And I guess where they had the projector and everything. Rusty said he used to remember coming here on dates.”
“Hey Marty?” this Tim called. (Marty?) He came out of the kitchen. “This is sort of embarrassing. I just remembered there’s a couple of, like, adult things in there along with everything else. I don’t know if you worry about that stuff, but I thought I’d better tell you.”
“Oh,” she said, looking around at the closed bedroom door. “Gee.” She got to her feet.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” I said. “Sit the fuck down.” I patted the sofa cushion as if I’d meant it to sound comradely.
She sat. “I guess it is kind of like closing the barn door,” she said. “I mean, they aren’t like S-and-M ones or anything, are they?”
“Please,” Tim said, and went back to the kitchen.
“God, listen to me,” she said, shaking her head. “Hey Tim?” she called. “How much are you putting in those things anyway?”
“No comment,” he called back. I heard the blender go on.
“Christmas,” I said.
“You’re having an okay time, aren’t you?” she said. “Anyhow, we’ll go home after and open our presents, okay? Or we could wait till tomorrow morning if you rather. The only reason I like doing it Christmas Eve is ’cause that’s when we always used to open stuff.”
“Who, you and your sainted husband?” I said.
“My mom and dad,” she said. “Rusty was like you. He liked Christmas morning.”
“I just think it hangs together better,” I said. “I mean, Santa’s supposed to come while everybody’s asleep, no? How did your folks finesse that one?”
She smiled, closed her eyes and put her head back against the cushion, her face turned up as if she were sunbathing. “What my dad used to do,” she said, “at some point on Christmas Eve he’d go out to the kitchen for a drink, he said, and all of a sudden we’d hear—”
Tim clanked glasses down on the glass tabletop and her eyes flew open.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No prob,” she said. “I was just running off at the mouth, as per usual.”
“No no, go on with what you’re saying,” said Tim.
“I was just telling about Christmas. See, my dad used to have this leather, like, belt, with sleigh bells on it? And Christmas Eve he’d fool us kids. It was like part of an old harness or something.” She closed her eyes and smiled again.
“And?” said Tim.
“We’d hear these sleigh bells outside and we’d get all excited and then he’d come running in and tell he thought he heard Santa Claus, and of course we’d heard him too. I guess he snuck out the back door and went around front and shook the sleigh bells and then ran back around to the kitchen again. And then he’d come into the living room and ask if we’d heard Santa out there. Well, you can imagine: pandemonium. So then he’d make us go upstairs and hide, and when he gave the all clear we would come back down and there would be all the presents under the tree.”
“Now don’t tell me,” said Tim, “that you of all people never sneaked down to check what was going on.” (He was alluding to something about Martha that I was damned if I recognized. He was saying she was what?)
“Come on, he was too smart for that,” she said. “He’d always send my mother up with us, to stand guard like. I remember he used to say, ‘It’s fo’ yo’ own protection, dollin’.”
“Jesus,” I said. “That’s sinister enough. What the hell did he mean by that?”
“All he meant was if Santa saw you, you might not get any presents. It wasn’t sinister, Peter.”
“I withdraw the remark,” I said. “So what was his excuse for being downstairs in this highly, what shall we say, fraught situation, while the rest of you were upstairs hiding from Santa Claus?”
She laughed. “It was so funny,” she said. “He used to say he had to fix Santa a drink.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough,” I said. “Obviously he was down there at the same time as Santa, no? I thought no man could see Santa’s face and live.”
“Sue me,” she said. “We were little kids, Peter. I’m sure if we’d had you there you could’ve gotten to the bottom of it in nothing flat.” She took a slug of eggnog.
“You know, speaking of presents,” said Tim, “I just happen to have a couple of little things here with you guys’ names on ’em. Should we open them now or wait for Cindy?”
Martha sat up straight. “Is somebody coming?” she said. She put her glass down on the tabletop too hard.
“I didn’t tell you?” he said. “Jesus. Good thing my head is screwed on. The woman I’ve been seeing. She’s the one, in fact, who gave me that rug.” He looked at the Navajo rug on the wall. Martha kept looking at him. “Her sister couldn’t come until eight-thirty. What’d I say? Her sitter. Sister, Jesus. She doesn’t even have a sister. I think you’re right, Marty. I am putting too much rocket fuel in these babies.”
“I didn’t know you’d been seeing somebody,” said Martha.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Three four months now. She’s divorced, four-year-old son, uh, what else? We’re pretty happy.”
“She’s leaving her child with a sitter on Christmas?” said Martha.
“Oh, he’ll be asleep,” he said. “She holds the line pretty well on bedtime. She’s got a whole thing planned for tomorrow morning. But it’s sad for her, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Like she was a bad mother or anything.” Though she didn’t specify how she had meant it.
“You’ll like her,” said Tim.
“Oh I’m sure,” she said.
Silence. You could hear the tv going behind the bedroom door.
“Anybody getting peckish?” said Tim.
“No, I’m okay,” I said. “I’ll hold out until we’ve got a quorum.”
Martha said nothing.
“Sure?” he said. “I’ve got some primo local goat cheese. I mean, not local local. Place they make it in Hunterdon County. Plus some real cheese. For real people. And I’ve got this huge mother-humping can of almonds my Aunt Jeannie sends me every year.”
“No, I’ll wait,” I said.
Martha said nothing.
Silence.
“Jesus,” he said, “you’re practically running on empty there. How about another one of those bad boys?”
I lifted up my glass and took a sighting. “Nah, I’m fine for a while.”
“Martha?” he said. “Hair more for you?”
She shook her head.
“Oh well,” I said. “What the hell, right?”
“Good man,” he said. “Why don’t I just bring the jar in here and let you, ah, access it directly. No sense standing on ceremony.”
When he went out to the kitchen, Martha turned to me. “I’d sort of like to get out of here,” she said. “I don’t feel very well.”
“What’s the trouble?” I said, putting as much kind concern into it as I could. But it was fucking typical.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, “too much to drink. Something. I just want to get home if you don’t mind.”
Back came Tim with a Mason jar. One more affectation. But forgivable. He set it down in front of me and said, “Go for it.”
“Listen, Tim?” I said. “I don’t think Martha’s feeling terrifically well all of a sudden, and I think maybe I’d better get her home. I mean, I feel like a real shit, you made dinner and everything, but.”
“I’m really sorry,” said Martha, her voice small. “I’m ruining everybody’s good time.”
“Listen, don’t worry about that,” he said. “What’s the trouble?”
“Just sort of sick,” she said. “Might’ve drunk too much. I was just getting over something.”
“You want to go in lie down?” he said.
“I think I probably better just go,” she said. “I’m really really sorry. Honey, would you be a doll and collect the kids?” She never called me honey. I mean, thank God.
I knocked on the bedroom door, called “Hey Danny” to give fair warning, and counted five before opening it. They were propped side by side on a platform bed covered with what looked to be quite a good quilt. Baskets I think that design was supposed to be, though you had to know quilts to know they were baskets. Judith could’ve told you. They were watching what must have been one of the Star Trek movies, because the costumes were weird and everybody was old. They weren’t even touching, the two of them. I mean touching each other.
“Sorry, guys,” I said. “I’m afraid we gotta roll. Martha’s not feeling too well.”
“What happened?” said Danny, sitting up. “She okay?”
Clarissa looked at me as if I were something mildly interesting on tv.
“Probably just a stomach thing,” I said. “I don’t think it’s any big deal, but I think we ought to get her home to bed, okay?”
Danny zapped the picture with the remote control and got to his feet. “Can I do anything?” he said.
Clarissa sat there. “Is my mother all right?” she said, talking slow.
“It’s not anything to worry about,” I said. “We’ll just get her home.”
“Daniel?” she said. “Don’t forget to rewind it like he said.”
“I’ve got it under control, Clarissa,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me fifty times.”
When we got outside, snow was coming down. “Hey, a white Christmas,” I said. I’d like to say I was being ironic; in fact, with all that moonshine in me, I could have been honestly trying to get some valedictory heartiness going. At any rate, nobody said anything back.
The ground wasn’t absolutely white yet, but white enough that our passing left dark footprints.
We bundled into the car like a family. Kids in back, parents up front, Dad driving. Family friend waving from an open door.
4
Out on the main drag, tires had made black ribbons on the white pavement and snowflakes boiled in the headlight beams. When we’d left to come over here, I’d given Martha an argument about taking her Reliant: a vote of no confidence, I thought, in my ability to drive home, whereas in fact I was a better driver when drunk, my concentration more nearly absolute. But now I was glad she’d insisted; her tires were a little less bald.
“How are you doing?” I said.
“Let’s just get home,” she said.
“I’m still not clear,” I said. “Is it stomach or what?”
“I just want to get home,” she said. “Is that a big crime?”
I checked the rearview mirror. Danny was whispering to Clarissa, who was staring at her fingernails.
“Maybe somebody,” I said, lowering my voice, “will kindly tell me what the hell is going on. Stud there announces he’s got a girlfriend, and you suddenly have to go home. Maybe you’d like to tell me what it is, exactly, with the two of you?”
“Not what I’m sure you think.”
“How do you know what I think?” I said. Shifting ground on her.
“Oh, don’t worry, Peter,” she said. “I don’t really know what you think. You’re still as inscrutable as you want to be. You’re not in any danger of anybody getting close.”
She clearly thought this was a home thrust.
“Hey, can we have the radio on?” said Danny. The other thing about the Reliant was that it had an actual radio.
“Not going to be much on but Christmas music, I don’t think,” I said.
“Right,” he said, “that’s what we want.”
