The Road Out of Hell (27 page)

Jessie looked at Sanford a few times and rolled her eyes while they handed the bread and butter around or passed the peas. He was so happy that she had some reservoir of wisdom that kept her from getting contentious. He found it impossible not to smile, even knowing that smiling was dangerous because you could be guaranteed that within two or three seconds Uncle Stewart would notice. Then he would ask what you were smiling about. There was something about evil, Sanford had observed, that hated the company of anything light-hearted. Evil had to slap it down, sneer it down, talk it down, do whatever it took to destroy it or drive it away or convert it into sourness. Uncle Stewart’s mission was always to provoke and insult to the point that his victim was no longer smiling, no longer giving off any signal of lightness of heart—beating you to the floor without using his fists.

He wondered if he would have to kill Uncle Stewart. If his uncle started in on Jessie with any of the evil stuff, he would surely have the urge. But he also knew that Uncle Stewart would more than likely get the best of him, leaving him dead and Jessie there alone. By that point, Uncle Stewart would be in his killing frenzy: waxy-faced, sweaty-haired, stinking like the corpse of a goat. Sanford felt the option of a suicide mission disappear—he could never voluntarily leave her alone with that murderous beast.

He had told her very little of the cover story yet. Thankfully, she had not shown much interest in hearing it. She kept all of her conversation easy, on topics of distant things. They were the sort of things that allow you to feel how much you wish that you could go back home. So her words soothed him and reminded him of somewhere else that he might have belonged. At the same time, her words were cruel—because they reminded him of somewhere else that he might have belonged. The cold fact was that it no longer mattered where that might be, or who he might have loved, or who might have loved him. He knew where he belonged. They would all agree, if they knew.
When they know,
he corrected himself. And it would apparently not be long, because if Uncle Stewart wanted to keep Jessie from becoming curious, he was making a pretty strange effort.

“You have to realize,” Uncle Stewart instructed them, “when he wrote
The Sun Also Rises,
Ernest Hemingway was not actually talking about
castration,
per se. He was talking about
impotence.
Big difference between not having it and having it without being able to use it, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”

Sanford could not resist the urge to draw Uncle Stewart out a little bit, get him to display his craziness for Jessie. He knew better than to do it, but could not stop himself. “I thought castration and impotence meant the same thing,” Sanford lied.

“What? Are you joking? The same thing? Jessie, cover your ears. Not really. But Sanford, any man can suffer castration. You can have your manhood removed by a war injury. An accident. Perhaps the knife blade of a jealous husband, eh? These things may be awful for the poor sap who goes through it, but there’s no real
shame,
you understand? These are things that happen. But
impotence,
my friend, will cause a man to duck his head in shame more than any other thing. You doubt it? Jessie, cover your ears again! Not really. But if the pump don’t work, you can’t irrigate the crops. Am I wrong? Hell, no!

“Impotence means helplessness. That’s why men fear it the way that they do. A man has no real control over what’s going to happen. He drifts with the tides. The world will not abide an impotent man. Oh, people say that they have compassion and they tell all sorts of lies about feeling sorry for you and all. Horseshit. The world knows that when a man is impotent, it means that his troubles go way beyond whatever he does in the bedroom. Make no mistake.”

Sanford felt a stab a worry. Uncle Stewart’s face was starting to get a little waxy-looking. The sweat was breaking out. His fears about Jessie’s curiosity seemed to have him on edge. That was just great; all they needed was for him to slip into one of his frenzies in front of her. That was far more of him than Sanford wanted her to see. He wondered if Uncle Stewart could keep himself under control long enough to get through dinner. His lecture was growing more intense.

“Hemingway’s character Jake Barnes loses himself in the love of the South American bullfight. Killing things. He has risen above the materialistic concerns of Western society. He is a man to admire. A man to envy. And do not think that I identify with his little problem, make no mistake. Hemingway latched on to a much larger problem. Because if a man is impotent, not in bed but impotent
in the world,
this means that nothing he does will make a shit pile of difference. Have you ever thought about how that must feel? I mean for the men who are bothered by it? Because we are all powerless enough, do you understand? We are powerless enough. The only control you get in this life is in the destruction of life. That’s it.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sanford asked the question from the part of himself that could not resist the urge to demonstrate that he was not totally under Uncle Stewart’s control. He glanced at Jessie and suppressed a mischievous grin.

“What do I mean. All right, Sanford, if you want me to draw you a picture, I mean that the older you get, the more you realize how shit does not matter. What you do. Things you attempt. You know, your best efforts, et cetera. What for? You see? Whatever the hell
for?
So you can get old and die and rot? Hell, maybe it’s better to die and rot while you’re still young. I think I’d rather do that.

“Maybe we should all die on the lam!” he continued, brightly. “You know where that phrase comes from? It’s for when a guy is on the run. Women won’t have anything to do with him. If he wants any sex, it’ll have to be with the local farm animals,
on the lamb.
Ha-ha-ha! It’s a pun, moron! You call running from cops being ‘on the L-A-M,’ and the animal is spelled—forget it.”

He stopped talking and stared into space. Sanford decided to avoid encouraging him any more and kept his eyes on his plate. Jessie picked up the cue and did the same thing. They finished the dinner in silence, until Uncle Stewart seemed to come to a decision about something. He put his fork down and pushed back from the table. “Jessie, help Sanford clean up, would you? Earn your keep. I have some errands to run in town.”

Jessie smiled. “All right, Uncle Stewart. Why not? I ask all my guests to clean up.” Her sarcasm was lost on him in this state of distraction. Sanford noticed that the waxy look was taking over his features. He caught a whiff of his body odor.

“I have to see some men about something. A business deal. No need to wait up for me.”

Moments later he was out the door, in the car, and down the road. They could hear the big car’s engine receding in the darkness. Sanford and Jessie sat quietly for a moment. Just as she was about to say something, he blurted out, “Well, you can make up a bed on the sofa while I clean this up. I’m pretty well beat. We can get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.”

“Start what?”

“Well, you know, your visit.”

“Too late, I’m already here. Sanford, I am worried about you. I’m worried about those strange letters that you send. I can tell it’s your handwriting, but you don’t talk like that. So is it Uncle Stewart doing that? Does he tell you what you have to say?”

“No. No, Jessie. It isn’t like that. I mean, tell me what to
say?
Come on.”

“But you don’t sound like yourself in those letters. You don’t sound the way you do right now.”

“Well, sure! Why would I? I mean, writing. You know how it’s more formal and everything. You don’t exactly sound the same yourself, you know. I mean, not that I mind it, but it’s just that you don’t.”

She gave him a small smile and nodded. “All right, then. If you’re all that tired, I guess we could call it a day. Maybe tomorrow we can go into town. It doesn’t look like there’s much there, but you could show me around.”

“Okay. That’s good. Tomorrow, then.”

“And you can go ahead and take your room. I’m fine out here.”

She cut off his protests and made up the sofa into a bed while Sanford tidied up the cooking area. They managed to spend the last few minutes of the evening in relative silence and meaningless small talk. Sanford went off to bed feeling satisfied that as awkward as things had been, Jessie was not on the trail of anything that she should not know. He was so exhausted from worry over her arrival that he climbed into his small twin bed and fell asleep right away.

Three hours later, Jessie lay on the sofa wide awake while Sanford slumbered nearby in the other room. She had not closed her eyes since they blew out the lantern, and she began waiting for Sanford’s breathing to gradually slow and deepen. She heard the sounds of Uncle Stewart’s car pulling past the front door on the way to the garage, and she continued to pretend to be asleep when he walked into the house. The stink of him was so strong that all he had to do was pass through the living room on his way to the bedroom; the smell lingered in the air.

Fortunately, he grabbed up a towel and headed back outside to bathe at the wellhead. She lay still while he went through his bath routine and then again when he returned to his room. At least the second time he didn’t leave that smell in the air. She lay still and kept herself awake by imagining the things she would have loved to scream into Uncle Stewart’s face. She planned how she would tell everyone else in the family and what she would say to them. She rehearsed what she would say to the police. At last, he began to snore so loudly that she was surprised that Sanford could sleep through it.

Then it seemed safe enough to slip out from under the covers and tip-toe over to Sanford. She sat on the thin mattress and lay down, pulling the largest blanket up over their heads. She gently shook him until he began to stir. “Sang!” she whispered into his ear. “Wake up!” He reacted by convulsing into a protective ball, arms tucked in. His eyes remained closed and he did not make a sound. “It’s Jess, Sang! Wake up! I have to talk to you!”

“Jessie?” he murmured, confused.

“Shhh! Yes. Listen to me. Are you awake?”

“What are you doing?”

“Turn over here to face me.”

He turned over to her, face to face. “Well, this is strange,” he mumbled.

She kept her voice to a whisper, but she jabbed him with the words. “Oh, I don’t think that it’s strange at all, compared to whatever has been going on around here. Sanford, if it was autumn out here, would I see you in school? Would I be able to go and meet your teacher?”

“Well, they probably don’t want to talk to a guy’s sister.”

“I think you know exactly what I mean. Now listen to me. I am worried about you. Dad is worried about you as well. He knows I’m down here.”

“But how about Winnie? Is she worried?”

“I don’t know if she is or not. She’s on her own now. Dad moved into town, and he’s talking about coming to the States for good.”

“What? On his own? Dad did?”

“That’s right. He finally had enough of that nastiness of hers. Her whole family has it, and this trip has shown me that.”

“It’s hard to picture Dad leaving. It’s a marvel that he would.”

“I think it’s a marvel that he lasted so many years with her.”

Sanford was still too groggy to trust himself in a conversation on this topic. It would be easy to let something slip that could increase any suspicions that she might already be harboring. He tried a little Catholic guilt. “She’s your mother too, Jessie.”

“Right. And that means that I know who she is.”

Stone wall. He stayed quiet for a moment before he replied, “I guess I know too.”

“She’s the one who put you here, and it’s her brother who’s keeping you here, I’ll bet my life on that. Damn it, Sang, I came all this way to tell you that it’s not your fault that she’s your mother. Just like it’s not my fault she’s related to me. Everything else that we get in this life comes from how we handle things ourselves.” She had no idea why Sanford whimpered at that, so she just continued. “If I was just a little older, I would have gotten down here a lot sooner than this.”

“I wish you had.”

“All right, that’s bygones for now. But I know something’s wrong here. Why do you walk like that? Do your legs hurt you?”

“No, Jessie. It’s my butt. I fell into some tools and let me tell you, it was no fun. Uncle Stewart laughed at me for being clumsy, but I know that I was. It’s getting better, finally.”

“Did you see a doctor?”

“No. It wasn’t… it didn’t….”

“I’ll speak to him and find out why you got hurt badly enough to be walking that way but he failed to get you any medical help.”

“Jessie, you can’t give him orders. It’s not gonna work. Just don’t do it. You don’t need the trouble.”

“I think you mean
we
don’t need the trouble?”

“Well. Sure. We.”

“Did he take you to a doctor when your back got burned?”

“What? How’d you know about that?”

“When you were sweating outside, I could see the scar right through your T-shirt. Turn over.”