The End of Vandalism (16 page)

“How’d it go, buddy?” he said. “Don’t worry. This is a limited-edition replica.”

“I feel like if I got through to one person it was worth it,” said Tiny.

“I know damned well you did,” said Johnny. “But don’t worry about that. We’re putting you on the payroll next week.”

“That’s good,” said Tiny.

“You’re going to do some grown-ups,” said Johnny.

“Jesus, John, wonder if I’m ready,” said Tiny.

“You’ve got what people are hungry for,” said Johnny. “Straight talk.” He pretended to draw and fire the gun, and then laid it on the desk. He brought out a camera.

“We need your picture for an identification card,” said Johnny. “It’s really kind of nice. I put mine in a leather holder so it looks like a badge.”

“I was just thinking of something,” said Tiny. “How about if I go over to Kleeborg’s Portraits in Stone City?”

“We don’t have the money,” said Johnny. “We’re saving up for an overhead projector.”

“I’ll pay,” said Tiny.

“This wouldn’t be because Louise works there,” said Johnny.

“Partly,” said Tiny.

“I’m not going to tell you how to live,” said Johnny. “But let’s say you go over there and, who knows, an argument of some kind should occur. I would hate to see you throw away your good work. Because the Room would fire your ass, and I know it, because that’s how I got this job. So my advice would be to let me take your picture.”

“All right,” said Tiny.

Johnny turned the focusing ring of the camera. “Hold that face,” he said.

Joan Gower climbed the attic stairs with a flashlight at the Little Church of the Redeemer. It was cold and she rubbed her arms, making the light dance in the rafters. She bumped the worn plywood figures of the Nativity scene and continued to the back wall, where, under a dim and diamond-shaped window, there were three trunks, each bearing her name. She had labeled the trunks years ago, when she was spelling her name Joän. These were her things from Chicago. She had to open all the trunks before she found the canvas pillow that she had worn in order to perform the role of the pregnant woman in the French farce. It had two straps, one for her hips and one for her back, and utilized a crude and early form of Velcro. She belted the rig over her jeans and sweater. Then she put on a long, gray houndstooth coat that she had worn all the time back then.

Joan went down the steps carefully. The hard part in the play had been to accept the weight as part of herself, and in turn to project that acceptance beyond the edge of the stage. The cast had been much nicer to her when she appeared to be pregnant, even though they knew it was an illusion. She walked through the drab church and out the side door. She got a rake from the shed and began combing the algae from the duck pond. The clouds were like the pieces of a broken blackboard. Sometimes Joan wished she had stuck with her acting a little longer. Of course, there was nothing that said she couldn’t get back into it. Even now, anyone driving by would have thought for all the world that she was a pregnant woman walking in the hills. No one did drive by, however. The ducks followed her around the edge of the water. “I am big as a house,” she said.

Meanwhile, Tiny was standing in the reception area of Kleeborg’s Portraits. He felt as though he had completed a
long journey to reunite with Louise, although he might not have a lot to show for it. Tiny rang a bell and waited quite a while. Eventually Kleeborg came out. He had thin white hair and large wraparound sunglasses. Gesturing with the squeegee, Tiny offered to wash the windows.

“I got a guy named Pete who comes around in the spring,” said Kleeborg.

“With windows like these, I wouldn’t wait until spring,” said Tiny. “I mean, it’s up to you. But come over here. This is not good.”

“I don’t see very well since my car accident,” said Kleeborg.

“Maybe there’s someone else who can take a look,” said Tiny. “I’m not saying this because of the money. I’m saying this as a friend.”

“We’ve come this far with Pete,” said Kleeborg. “Goodbye.”

Tiny left the office and stood on the sidewalk. Kleeborg’s was on the ground floor of a three-story building with an awning. The door opened and Louise stepped onto the sidewalk. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She held a little paintbrush in her hand.

“Hi, Lou,” said Tiny.

“What happened to your hair?” she said.

“I had it dyed,” said Tiny. “What do you think?”

“It’s dark all right.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you want?”

“To see you.”

“Here I am,” said Louise. “Happy now?”

KLEEBORG WAS STANDING at the window when Louise came in. “That window washer didn’t want to take no for an answer,” he said.

They watched him get into the rusted Parisienne. “He had no intention of washing the windows,” said Louise. “Well, I mean, he may have. Who knows? But that’s Tiny Darling.”

“You’re kidding,” said Kleeborg.

“Would that I were.”

“I thought he joined the Seabees.”

“No, he sure didn’t.”

The car pulled from the curb.

“He’s right about the windows,” said Louise.

“I don’t see where clean windows is going to get us any business that we wouldn’t get otherwise,” said Kleeborg.

“I tend to agree,” said Louise.

“Well, I’m going up,” said Kleeborg. He lived in an apartment above the studio. “Take care of yourself.”

“Good night, Perry.”

She turned out the lights, locked the doors, and headed for home. But she had only gone a few blocks when Tiny’s headlights swung into her rear-view mirror. She cut across the
train yard, but he was not falling for anything. He didn’t try to run her off the road but just maintained a certain distance. Finally, out in the country, she pulled over and rolled down her window. Tiny got out of his car, walked up beside her.

“What a messy car,” he said.

She picked up a bottle cap, as if considering the evidence. “Twist off,” she said.

“Do you remember when we were in high school?” said Tiny.

“We weren’t in high school at the same time.”

“You weren’t a freshman when I was a senior?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, anyway. In my senior interview, they asked, ‘What is your pet peeve?’ And do you know what I said? Do you remember?”

“No,” said Louise. “And please get your arm off the door.”

“People who think they’re better than others.”

“Oh, everybody said that. And better isn’t the issue. You want me to say I was wrong. Fine. I was wrong. I wrote the book of wrong. Now stop following me. You know, we never should have got married. Our marriage was… misguided.”

“You liked my owl tattoo.”

“Yeah, there’s a solid foundation.”

“You forget the good times,” said Tiny. “You have dismissed them from your mind.”

“It’s hard to conduct a life and not have a few good times, if only by chance,” said Louise.

“I cooked for you when you were sick,” said Tiny.

“Never once did you cook for me in six years.”

“I most certainly did make Kraft Dinner that time you were sick.”

“Why? Because you were hungry,” said Louise.

She went home to an empty farmhouse. Dan was seeing a therapist at that hour for his insomnia. Louise ran a steaming bath and undressed. She balanced a
Redbook
magazine and a package of Twizzlers on the rim of the tub.

For a half hour she soaked. Then the candy was gone and
Redbook
fell into the water. She retrieved the magazine and hung it over the towel rack to dry. She washed and conditioned her hair, rinsing with a red Hills Brothers coffee can.

Dan came home. She lay on the bed in a white robe, watching square dancing on television. The men had their hands on the women’s waists as they danced among hay bales. This aroused her vaguely. Dan took his badge off and put it on the dresser.

“Check out the petticoats,” said Louise.

“Ooh la la,” said Dan.

“So how was the therapist? Did she fork over the sleeping tablets?”

“She said I should try sleeping outside the house.”

“It’s cold out there,” said Louise.

“Well, she didn’t mean outdoors,” said Dan. “She meant a motel, I guess.”

“Who’s going to pay for that?” said Louise.

“I told her it was impossible,” said Dan.

“We’re not even fighting, not really.”

“I told her that.”

Louise turned on her side in her robe. “I seriously hope you did.”

Dan’s eyes changed as she said this. They got deeper somehow, seemed to focus on something inside her. His hand brushed her throat; he kissed her.

“I mean, Jesus, go for a simple sedative,” she whispered.

She woke in the dark of night and reached for Dan, finding no one. She got out of bed and went downstairs. Dan was reading
Arizona Highways
on the davenport. Mary always gave them her copy when she had finished with it.

“Look at this house,” he said. He folded the magazine and showed her. “It’s supposed to be haunted.”

“By what?” said Louise. “The lonely ghost of a restless sheriff?”

“You don’t see a figure in the window?” he asked.

“No, darling,” said Louise. “It’s a reflection.”

Late fall was a busy time at Kleeborg’s. One Saturday morning Louise drove down to Morrisville to take some publicity pictures for Russell Ford’s RV dealership.

In the photographs Russell’s nephew was to embrace a young woman in front of a mobile home. When Louise arrived, the girl was sitting on a spackle bucket in a strapless dress of black and gold.

“Hey, Maren,” said Louise, for it was Maren Staley, the young woman who had come into Kleeborg’s a year and a half before to have her high school picture taken but had been too hung over to pose. Next to Maren’s name in the yearbook was a drawing of a person in a barrel with shoulder straps. The caption said, “Nothing to Wear.” Now she was sober and pretty, grown up, leaning forward, shielding her sternum from the icy breeze.

Louise got a flannel shirt from her car and gave it to Maren. Russell’s nephew Steven drove up. He was a handsome kid wearing a tuxedo. He had very little resemblance to his Uncle Russell.

The session was dogged by problems. Maren’s shoulders
got goosebumps. The lights flickered because of a bad connection that could not be isolated. Maren was supposed to hug Steven’s neck, but with her arms raised that way, the edge of her bra could be seen above the side of her dress.

“Fix her undershirt,” said Russell Ford. He stood beside Louise, speaking into a megaphone.

“I’m right here,” said Louise. She went over and pinned the bra to the dress.

“And another thing. The trim is bent,” said Russell.

“What trim?” said Louise.

“On the motor home,” said Russell. So then there was another delay while Russell went to find an unmarred example of this particular model he wanted in the advertisement.

Maren put Louise’s flannel shirt on and bummed a cigarette. Louise looked in her pack. “There are six,” she said. “Take them.” The two women climbed into a silver trailer like the ones in which the astronauts used to recuperate after coming back from the moon.

“What are you up to?” Louise asked.

“I’m in community college now,” said Maren. “I’ve changed a lot, Louise. College has changed me, and this is causing problems for me and Loren. Do you remember Loren?”

“He was your boyfriend, right?”

“That’s what the problem is about,” said Maren. “I say that I’ve changed. An example would be that now I love the music of Van Morrison. I listen to
Veedon Fleece
and sometimes I could just cry. So the other day Loren and I were driving around and he goes, ‘Put on some of that Don Morrison.’ I mean, it breaks your heart.”

“People drift apart,” said Louise.

“I’m in a two-year program, and then I can take my credits
and go anywhere,” said Maren. “I may go out to the West Coast. In
Cannery Row
by John Steinbeck the author talks about a marine biologist named Doc. And reading this, it suddenly dawned on me that I have never put my feet in salt water. And I think that’s something I would enjoy doing, given the type of personality I have. Evidently you can float motionless in the water and there is no way you can sink. Being a poor swimmer, I like the sound of that. So I’m considering California schools, which are all free. What college did you go to?”

“I didn’t,” said Louise. “I graduated from Grafton High School in the class of seventy-four. We had this guidance counselor who was really more like a fortune teller. Instead of giving advice, he would make these mysterious predictions. He said, ‘Louise, you will work in a small shop.’ So I guess he got that right.”

“Photography is so intense,” said Maren.

Russell opened the door and looked in. “Let’s go,” he said. “Mercury’s falling.”

Steven and Maren resumed their embrace. Russell threw his megaphone to the ground. “Now the dress looks bunchy,” he said.

“Oh, you look bunchy,” said Louise. “Steven! Put your hand on the side of the dress! Where the pins are! Perfect. Let’s take some pictures.”

A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk during the photo session. There had been a rumor for years that Sally Field was going to direct and act in a farm movie that would be filmed in Grouse County, and whenever anything resembling acting occurred in public, people would come together and look around hopefully for Sally Field.

This movie had been rumored for so long that the plot had changed from a young farm woman with cancer to a middle-aged farm woman with cancer. But through it all Sally Field never came to Grouse County, and she never would, and the whole thing was one of those grass-roots misunderstandings that refuse to go away.

Rumors can last a long time in Grouse County, or they can come back seasonally, like perennials. Take the one about Mary’s trees, which, being on the edge of Grafton, tend to collect a lot of ice during winter storms. About once a winter, word spreads that a photographer is coming down from the Stone City newspaper to take pictures of Mary’s ice formations. And soon all the parents have dragged their kids over to Mary’s place with instructions to get their ass out there and build a snowman. But the afternoon unfolds, and the word proves false, and the sun sets on a poignant landscape of half-finished snow creatures.

Anyway, the crowd at Russell Ford’s photo shoot had now been joined by Louise’s friend Pansy Gansevoort, who airbrushed for Big Chief Printing and had an impressive mane of ginger-colored hair that would have made her a colorful extra in the Sally Field movie that was not to be.

Pansy waited for Louise to finish her work. “Hi, hon,” she said. “I just came from Eight Dollars.” This was a sprawling store on the edge of town where every item had that price.

“What did you get?” said Louise.

“Two blouses, a case of Cheetos, and a bowling ball,” said Pansy.

“What kind of bowling ball costs eight dollars?” said Louise.

“This is what we’re going to find out,” said Pansy. “Want to go to the Rose Bowl?”

“I’m not a good bowler,” said Louise, “and you bowl league. I mean, come on.”

“I’ll give you pointers,” said Pansy.

So they went bowling, but Pansy’s tips did not help. Louise was one of those uncanny bowlers who seem to throw directly into the gutter. That afternoon she even managed to make the classic error of rolling a ball after the pin-sweeping gate had descended. The ball cracked into the gate, and everyone stared, and a guy from the alley had to catwalk down the lane divider.

Still, the beers were tasty. Pansy and Louise sat at the scoring table and discussed their partners but did not seem to be speaking the same language. The sadism of Pansy’s boyfriend had given way to something more common—just a lot of threats. And Pansy threatened him back, so this amounted to progress in Pansy’s view.

Her stories involved either herself or the boyfriend cowering in a corner while the other one broke things by throwing them on the floor. Once Pansy’s boyfriend had even entered the kitchen with a pistol, which turned out to be a starter’s pistol but could have been real for all Pansy knew.

In comparison, Dan’s not being able to sleep or Louise’s feeling that something was not right sounded minor.

“I would leave the man,” said Louise.

“We have a history,” said Pansy.

“What’s the point if you end up with a broken nose?” said Louise.

“It’s not like that,” said Pansy.

“It sounds just like that.”

“I love him so much.”

“Maybe it isn’t love,” said Louise. “Maybe it’s more of a sadness that you get used to.”

Louise was speaking very freely with Pansy. This is sometimes known as “the beer talking,” although beer usually speaks in rougher tones. Amid the clatter of falling pins Louise was getting plastered in that loving and rose-colored way you can on afternoons in October.

At one point she swung her legs from beneath the table and, admiring the cuffs of her clean blue jeans and her rented shoes with their red suede and olive suede, she said huskily, “I love these fucking shoes.”

Eventually Pansy and Louise emerged from the Rose Bowl into the slanting light. Pansy produced from her bowling bag the shoes that Louise had rented.

“What a nice thing,” said Louise. She sat down on the curb and put the shoes on.

“You’re right about not being able to bowl,” Pansy said, “but I still like you.”

Louise drove home slowly on narrow and little-used roads, reminded of the mechanical way she used to walk when as a teenager she would try to get across the living room and upstairs without her mother knowing she was drunk.

She and Dan had a fight when she got home. He was grilling peanut butter sandwiches for supper.

“I wish you wouldn’t reach into the bread and tear out pieces of slices,” he said.

“I lost my head,” she said. She sat in one chair, her feet in the bowling shoes on another.

“That therapist I went to called,” said Dan. “She thought maybe you should come in for an appointment.”

“She’s so perfect,” said Louise.

“It’s up to you,” said Dan.

“Marriage counseling after six months,” said Louise. “Not too very promising.”

“It isn’t marriage counseling,” said Dan.

“Especially with divorce so easy to get,” said Louise. “I did it not that long ago. They probably still remember me.”

“Oh, cut it out,” said Dan. “Where were you this afternoon?”

Louise was crying. “Look at my shoes and guess,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“You married me because I chased you,” said Louise. “My mother said, ‘Don’t chase him, Louise.’ But I did, I chased you.”

“You didn’t chase anyone,” said Dan.