Home from the Vinyl Cafe (21 page)

When they got back from Florida, Morley took Roy to see Dr. Freeberg, who said, “I want you to go and see a blood specialist.” The blood specialist asked Roy to walk across the room, and he diagnosed the problem before Roy got to the other side. It was his thyroid. The specialist wrote out a prescription and said, “Take these and you’ll feel better in three days.” Roy took his first pill at the drugstore and started feeling better on the way home.

But Roy was never the same. He was like a balloon with the air slowly seeping out of it. Sometimes when he and Helen came for dinner, he would sit in the living room as if he were the only one there. Other times he was bright and chatty, telling them what was in the paper, what he had seen on the news. He still did the crossword every day.

He kept driving, but he was nervous about it. He got a speeding ticketforty-five in a thirty-five zone. He was incensed. It was his first violation. Ever.

One day he and Helen were in the garage, on their way to
the supermarket, and he was revving the engine. Helen said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m backing out. Why?” She said, “Why don’t you put it in reverse first?” It was just a lapse. He was thinking about something else. But it worried him. “I want to keep driving,” he told Dave. “I couldn’t stand it if I couldn’t drive.”

Another time he was pulling into the parking lot at the back of the apartment, and he hit one of the huge plastic garbage cans lined up in the alley.

Dave said, “I could have done that, Roy. Don’t worry about it.”

But he worried.

Then one day he phoned Dave at work and said, “I’m at the liquor store. You better come and get me.”

Roy had gone to the store to pick up a case of pop and a dozen eggs and some orange juice. When he was pulling out of his parking spot, he put the Buick into reverse instead of forward.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just did it.”

When he pressed the accelerator, the car lurched backward instead of going the way he expected it to go. Roy said it felt like the car had been possessed by a demon, and the only thing he could think of was to press harder on the accelerator. He didn’t figure out what had happened until he hit the car behind him. It was a little red Honda.

Instead of getting out of his car and checking the damage, Roy took off.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I was thinking they might take away my license or something. All I could think about was that I had to get out of there. If I had stopped …”

“I know,” said Dave.

When he pulled up to the stop sign at the parking-lot exit,
Roy checked his rearview mirror and, to his horror, saw that the Honda was right behind him. And the guy in the Honda was shaking his fist.

“He wasn’t thinking straight,” said Dave to Morley. “He was scared of losing his license. He was scared of being old.”

“I know,” said Morley.

As soon as there was a break in the traffic, Roy had roared onto Dupont Avenue.

“I never drove that fast in the city in my life,” he said.

“Even when you were a cop?” said Dave.

“I don’t know,” said Roy.

When he checked his mirror and saw that the guy in the Honda was still behind him—and not just following him but right up against him—Roy thought, The bugger thinks he can tailgate me. I’ll show him. He took the corner at Howland Avenue almost on two wheels. The Honda came screaming around the corner right on his bumper. Roy thought, This is crazy. He sped up.

He kept checking the mirror as he went down Howland, and that was when he noticed the guy in the Honda was still waving at him. In fact, he wasn’t only waving, he was pounding on his windshield. With both hands. Roy thought, How’s he doing that? Driving so fast and so close to me without using his hands. Which was when he realized the guy in the Honda
wasn’t
driving.
Roy
was doing the driving. The Honda was hooked onto his bumper. Roy was dragging the Honda through the city like a fish on a line.

Instead of stopping, Roy decided to try and shake him loose.

“I turned around and waved at him,” Roy told Dave. “Then I gave him the thumbs-up and started weaving from side to side. Jerking the wheel, like. Slowing down and speeding up.”

“You waved at him?” said Dave.

“And smiled, like,” said Roy.

“He must have thought you were crazy. He must have thought he was going to die.”

“I think that’s when he started honking the horn,” said Roy.

The two cars finally separated when Roy took the corner at Barton. He saw the Honda fly off across the sidewalk and stop against a tree.

“He didn’t hit too hard,” said Roy.

“Was he hurt?” asked Dave.

“I don’t think so,” Roy said.

He hadn’t stopped to check.

Instead of hanging around, Roy drove to the liquor store and bought himself a pint of Jack Daniel’s and phoned Dave and said, “You better come and get me.” When Dave arrived, Roy was sitting in the passenger seat. Dave watched him for a moment—saw him take a swig of the Jack Daniel’s—watched him fingering the dashboard as if he were saying goodbye.

When he saw Dave, Roy handed over his keys and said, “You drive it home.”

Morley said, “You know what I thought today? I thought I should get a tape recorder and leave it by the phone so I could record all her messages before I erase them. Then I wouldn’t have to worry.”

Dave said, “About what? What messages?”

Morley said, “My Mother’s messages. I could record them all on a tape. Then I wouldn’t feel bad erasing them. I could keep them all on a tape. It would be like a diary.”

Roy died in 1987. And still, all the time, Helen caught herself thinking, I have to tell Roy that. She would see something, or
read something, and think, Roy would like that. And then she would remember, Roy is dead. It was such a black, empty feeling.

On Friday when she came for supper, she said, “I saw a program about the invasion. On TV. When you hear that the invasion was fifty years ago, you just don’t believe it. It feels so strange.”

Stephanie said, “What invasion?”

Sam said, “Can I be excused?”

After supper Helen wanted to help with the dishes, and Morley let her, even though Morley knew they’d fight about it. Knew she would hand something back and say it was still dirty and her mother would get huffy. Morley promised herself not to do it, but when Helen handed her a plate that was so greasy Morley couldn’t bear the idea of wiping it with the towel, she said, “Mother, could you rinse that a little more, please?” She tried to be offhand about it, but Helen said, “I know how to wash dishes. You don’t have to tell me how to wash dishes.”

When she was young, Morley could be as mean to her mother as she wanted. It was part of her job description. Now Helen was more fragile. Delicate. The repercussions of anger were much greater than they used to be.

“I washed more dishes in my life than you’ll ever wash,” said Helen, rubbing the plate harder than necessary.

She’s scared, thought Morley. She feels like she’s losing control. That’s why she gets so angry. She doesn’t even know how she’s behaving. If I get mad back, it will feel to her like my anger has come out of nowhere.

Their roles were changing, and both of them resented it.

The first time she noticed it, two or three years ago, Morley
had gone to Helen’s apartment to pick her up. They were going to meet Dave for dinner and then to a show. Standing in the hallway holding her mother’s coat, Morley saw a stain on Helen’s green dress. Helen couldn’t see it, but she would have been horrified to know it was there. Morley didn’t say anything.