The Stand, Page 4

  "Banana Boat Supreme with Blood Sauce," she said, looking at him with red eyes. "I guess I can't eat any more. I'm sorry, Jess. Would you throw it away?"

  "Sure," he said stiffly.

  He took it from her, got out, and tossed it in the waste can. He was walking funny, Fran thought, as if he had been hit hard down low where it hurts boys. In a way she supposed that was just where he had been hit. But if you wanted to look at it another way, well, that was just about the way she had walked after he had taken her virginity on the beach. She had felt like she had a bad case of diaper rash. Only diaper rash didn't make you preggers.

  He came back and got in.

  "Are you really, Fran?" he asked abruptly.

  "I am really."

  "How did it happen? I thought you were on the pill."

  "Well, what I figure is one, somebody in the quality control department of the jolly old Ovril factory was asleep at the switch when my batch of pills went by on the conveyor belt, or two, they are feeding you boys something in the UNH messhall that builds up sperm, or three, I forgot to take a pill and have since forgotten that I forgot."

  She offered him a hard, thin, sunny smile that he recoiled from just a bit.

  "What are you mad about, Fran? I just asked."

  "Well, to answer your question in a different way, on a warm night in April, it must have been the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth, you put your penis into my vagina and had an orgasm, thus ejaculating sperm by the millions--"

  "Stop it," he said sharply. "You don't have to--"

  "To what?" Outwardly stony, she was dismayed inside. In all her imaginings of how the scene might play, she had never seen it quite like this.

  "To be so mad," he said lamely. "I'm not going to run out on you."

  "No," she said more softly. At this point she could have plucked one of his hands off the wheel, held it, and healed the breach entirely. But she couldn't make herself do it. He had no business wanting to be comforted, no matter how tacit or unconscious his wanting was. She suddenly realized that one way or another, the laughs and the good times were over for a while. That made her want to cry again and she staved the tears off grimly. She was Frannie Goldsmith, Peter Goldsmith's daughter, and she wasn't going to sit in the parking lot of the Ogunquit Dairy Queen crying her damn stupid eyes out.

  "What do you want to do?" Jess asked, getting out his cigarettes.

  "What do you want to do?"

  He struck a light and for just a moment as cigarette smoke raftered up she clearly saw a man and a boy fighting for control of the same face.

  "Oh hell," he said.

  "The choices as I see them," she said. "We can get married and keep the baby. We can get married and give the baby up. Or we don't get married and I keep the baby. Or--"

  "Frannie--"

  "Or we don't get married and I don't keep the baby. Or I could get an abortion. Does that cover everything? Have I left anything out?"

  "Frannie, can't we just talk--"

  "We are talking!" she flashed at him. "You had your chance and you said 'Oh hell.' Your exact words. I have just outlined all of the possible choices. Of course I've had a little more time to work up an agenda."

  "You want a cigarette?"

  "No. They're bad for the baby."

  "Frannie, goddammit!"

  "Why are you shouting?" she asked softly.

  "Because you seem determined to aggravate me as much as you can," Jess said hotly. He controlled himself. "I'm sorry. I just can't think of this as my fault."

  "You can't?" She looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. "And behold, a virgin shall conceive."

  "Do you have to be so goddam flip? You had the pill, you said. I took you at your word. Was I so wrong?"

  "No. You weren't so wrong. But that doesn't change the fact."

  "I guess not," he said gloomily, and pitched his cigarette out half-smoked. "So what do we do?"

  "You keep asking me, Jesse. I just outlined the choices as I see them. I thought you might have some ideas. There's suicide, but I'm not considering it at this point. So pick the other choice you like and we'll talk about it."

  "Let's get married," he said in a sudden strong voice. He had the air of a man who has decided that the best way to solve the Gordian knot problem would be to hack right down through the middle of it. Full speed ahead and get the whiners belowdecks.

  "No," she said. "I don't want to marry you."

  It was as if his face was held together by a number of unseen bolts and each of them had suddenly been loosened a turn and a half. Everything sagged at once. The image was so cruelly comical that she had to rub her wounded tongue against the rough top of her mouth to keep from getting the giggles again. She didn't want to laugh at Jess.

  "Why not?" he asked. "Fran--"

  "I have to think of my reasons why not. I'm not going to let you draw me into a discussion of my reasons why not, because right now I don't know."

  "You don't love me," he said sulkily.

  "In most cases, love and marriage are mutually exclusive states. Pick another choice."

  He was silent for a long time. He fiddled with a fresh cigarette but didn't light it. At last he said: "I can't pick another choice, Frannie, because you don't want to discuss this. You want to score points off me."

  That touched her a little bit. She nodded. "Maybe you're right. I've had a few scored off me in the last couple of weeks. Now you, Jess, you're Joe College all the way. If a mugger came at you with a knife, you'd want to convene a seminar on the spot."

  "Oh for God's sake."

  "Pick another choice."

  "No. You've got your reasons all figured out. Maybe I need a little time to think, too."

  "Okay. Would you take us back to the parking lot? I'll drop you off and do some errands."

  He gazed at her, startled. "Frannie, I rode my bike all the way down from Portland. I've got a room at a motel outside of town. I thought we were going to spend the weekend together."

  "In your motel room. No, Jess. The situation has changed. You just get back on your ten-speed and bike back to Portland and you get in touch when you've thought about it a little more. No great hurry."

  "Stop riding me, Frannie."

  "No, Jess, you were the one who rode me," she jeered in sudden, furious anger, and that was when he slapped her lightly backhand on the cheek.

  He stared at her, stunned.

  "I'm sorry, Fran."

  "Accepted," she said colorlessly. "Drive on."

  They didn't talk on the ride back to the public beach parking lot. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching the slices of ocean layered between the cottages just west of the seawall. They looked like slum apartments, she thought. Who owned these houses, most of them still shuttered blindly against the summer that would begin officially in less than a week? Professors from MIT. Boston doctors. New York lawyers. These houses weren't the real biggies, the coast estates owned by men who counted their fortunes in seven and eight figures. But when the families who owned them moved in here, the lowest IQ on Shore Road would be Gus the parking attendant. The kids would have ten-speeds like Jess's. They would have bored expressions and they would go with their parents to have lobster dinners and to attend the Ogunquit Playhouse. They would idle up and down the main street, masquerading after soft summer twilight as street people. She kept looking out at the lovely flashes of cobalt between the crammed-together houses, aware that the vision was blurring with a new film of tears. The little white cloud that cried.

  They reached the parking lot, and Gus waved. They waved back.

  "I'm sorry I hit you, Frannie," Jess said in a subdued voice. "I never meant to do that."

  "I know. Are you going back to Portland?"

  "I'll stay here tonight and call you in the morning. But it's your decision, Fran. If you decide, you know, that an abortion is the thing, I'll scrape up the cash."

  "Pun intended?"

  "No," he said. "Not at all." He slid across the seat and k
issed her chastely. "I love you, Fran."

  I don't believe you do, she thought. Suddenly I don't believe it at all ... but I'll accept in good grace. I can do that much.

  "All right," she said quietly.

  "It's the Lighthouse Motel. Call if you want."

  "Okay." She slid behind the wheel, suddenly feeling very tired. Her tongue ached miserably where she had bitten it.

  He walked to where his bike was locked to the iron railing and coasted it back to her. "Wish you'd call, Fran."

  She smiled artificially. "We'll see. So long, Jess."

  She put the Volvo in gear, turned around, and drove across the lot to the Shore Road. She could see Jess standing by his bike yet, the ocean at his back, and for the second time that day she mentally accused him of knowing exactly what kind of picture he was making. This time, instead of being irritated, she felt a little bit sad. She drove on, wondering if the ocean would ever look the way it had looked to her before all of this had happened. Her tongue hurt miserably. She opened her window wider and spat. All white and all right this time. She could smell the salt of the ocean strongly, like bitter tears.

  CHAPTER 3

  Norm Bruett woke up at quarter past ten in the morning to the sound of kids fighting outside the bedroom window and country music from the radio in the kitchen.

  He went to the back door in his saggy shorts and undershirt, threw it open, and yelled: "You kids shutcha heads!"

  A moment's pause. Luke and Bobby looked around from the old and rusty dump truck they had been arguing over. As always when he saw his kids, Norm felt dragged two ways at once. His heart ached to see them wearing hand-me-downs and Salvation Army giveouts like the ones you saw the nigger children in east Arnette wearing; and at the same time a horrible, shaking anger would sweep through him, making him want to stride out there and beat the living shit out of them.

  "Yes, Daddy," Luke said in a subdued way. He was nine.

  "Yes, Daddy," Bobby echoed. He was seven going on eight.

  Norm stood for a moment, glaring at them, and slammed the door shut. He stood for a moment, looking indecisively at the pile of clothes he had worn yesterday. They were lying at the foot of the sagging double bed where he had dropped them.

  That slutty bitch, he thought. She didn't even hang up my duds.

  "Lila!" he bawled.

  There was no answer. He considered ripping the door open again and asking Luke where the hell she had gone. It wasn't donated commodities day until next week and if she was down at the employment office in Braintree again she was an even bigger fool than he thought.

  He didn't bother to ask the kids. He felt tired and he had a queasy, thumping headache. Felt like a hangover, but he'd only had three beers down at Hap's the night before. That accident had been a hell of a thing. The woman and the baby dead in the car, the man, Campion, dying on the way to the hospital. By the time Hap had gotten back, the State Patrol had come and gone, and the wrecker, and the Braintree undertaker's hack. Vic Palfrey had given the Laws a statement for all five of them. The undertaker, who was also the county coroner, refused to speculate on what might have hit them.

  "But it ain't cholera. And don't you go scarin people sayin it is. There'll be an autopsy and you can read about it in the paper."

  Miserable little pissant, Norm thought, slowly dressing himself in yesterday's clothes. His headache was turning into a real blinder. Those kids had better be quiet or they were going to have a pair of broken arms to mouth off about. Why the hell couldn't they have school the whole year round?

  He considered tucking his shirt into his pants, decided the President probably wouldn't be stopping by that day, and shuffled out into the kitchen in his sock feet. The bright sunlight coming in the east windows made him squint.

  The cracked Philco radio over the stove sang:

  "But bay-yay-yaby you can tell me if anyone can,

  Baby, can you dig your man?

  He's a righteous man,

  Tell me baby, can you dig your man?"

  Things had come to a pretty pass when they had to play nigger rock and roll music like that on the local country music station. Norm turned it off before it could split his head. There was a note by the radio and he picked it up, narrowing his eyes to read it.

  Dear Norm,

  Sally Hodges says she needs somebody to sit her kids this morning and says shell give me a dolar. Ill be back for luntch. Theres sassage if you want it. I love you honey.

  Lila.

  Norm put the note back and just stood there for a moment, thinking it over and trying to get the sense of it in his mind. It was goddam hard to think past the headache. Babysitting ... a dollar. For Ralph Hodges's wife.

  The three elements slowly came together in his mind. Lila had gone off to sit Sally Hodges's three kids to earn a lousy dollar and had stuck him with Luke and Bobby. By God it was hard times when a man had to sit home and wipe his kids' noses so his wife could go and scratch out a lousy buck that wouldn't even buy them a gallon of gas. That was hard fucking times.

  Dull anger came to him, making his head ache even worse. He shuffled slowly to the Frigidaire, bought when he had been making good overtime, and opened it. Most of the shelves were empty, except for leftovers Lila had put up in refrigerator dishes. He hated those little plastic Tupperware dishes. Old beans, old corn, a leftover dab of chili ... nothing a man liked to eat. Nothing in there but little Tupperware dishes and three little old sausages done up in Handi-Wrap. He bent, looking at them, the familiar helpless anger now compounded by the dull throb in his head. Those sausages looked like somebody had cut the cocks off'n three of those pygmies they had down in Africa or South America or wherever the fuck it was they had them. He didn't feel like eating anyway. He felt damn sick, when you got right down to it.

  He went over to the stove, scratched a match on the piece of sandpaper nailed to the wall beside it, lit the front gas ring, and put on the coffee. Then he sat down and waited dully for it to boil. Just before it did, he had to scramble his snotrag out of his back pocket to catch a big wet sneeze. Coming down with a cold, he thought. Isn't that something nice on top of everything else? But it never occurred to him to think of the phlegm that had been running out of that fellow Campion's pump the night before.

  Hap was in the garage bay putting a new tailpipe on Tony Leominster's Scout and Vic Palfrey was rocking back on a folding camp chair, watching him and drinking a Dr. Pepper when the bell dinged out front.

  Vic squinted. "It's the State Patrol," he said. "Looks like your cousin, there. Joe Bob."

  "Okay."

  Hap came out from beneath the Scout, wiping his hands on a ball of waste. On his way through the office he sneezed heavily. He hated summer colds. They were the worst.

  Joe Bob Brentwood, who was almost six and a half feet tall, was standing by the back of his cruiser, filling up. Beyond him, the three pumps Campion had driven over the night before were neatly lined up like dead soldiers.

  "Hey Joe Bob!" Hap said, coming out.

  "Hap, you sumbitch," Joe Bob said, putting the pump handle on automatic and stepping over the hose. "You lucky this place still standin this morning."

  "Shit, Stu Redman saw the guy coming and switched off the pumps. There was a load of sparks, though."

  "Still damn lucky. Listen, Hap, I come over for somethin besides a fill-up."

  "Yeah?"

  Joe Bob's eyes went to Vic, who was standing in the station door. "Was that old geezer here last night?"

  "Who? Vic? Yeah, he comes over most every night."

  "Can he keep his mouth shut?"

  "Sure, I reckon. He's a good enough old boy."

  The automatic feed kicked off. Hap squeezed off another twenty cents' worth, then put the nozzle back on the pump and switched it off. He walked back to Joe Bob.

  "So? What's the story?"

  "Well, let's go inside. I guess the old fella ought to hear, too. And if you get a chance, you can phone the rest of them that was here."
>
  They walked across the tarmac and into the office.

  "A good mornin to you, Officer," Vic said.

  Joe Bob nodded.

  "Coffee, Joe Bob?" Hap asked.

  "I guess not." He looked at them heavily. "Thing is, I don't know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. I don't think they would. So when those guys come here, you don't let them know I tipped you, right?"

  "What guys, Officer?" Vic asked.

  "Health Department guys," Joe Bob said.

  Vic said, "Oh Jesus, it was cholera. I knowed it was."

  Hap looked from one to the other. "Joe Bob?"

  "I don't know nothing," Joe Bob said, sitting down in one of the plastic Woolco chairs. His bony knees came nearly up to his neck. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his blouse pocket and lit up. "Finnegan, there, the coroner--"

  "That was a smartass," Hap said fiercely. "You should have seen him struttin around in here, Joe Bob. Just like a pea turkey that got its first hardon. Shushin people and all that."

  "He's a big turd in a little bowl, all right," Joe Bob agreed. "Well, he got Dr. James to look at this Campion, and the two of them called in another doctor that I don't know. Then they got on the phone to Houston. And around three this mornin they come into that little airport outside of Braintree."

  "Who did?"

  "Pathologists. Three of them. They were in there with the bodies until about eight o'clock. Cuttin on em is my guess, although I dunno for sure. Then they got on the phone to the Plague Center in Atlanta, and those guys are going to be here this afternoon. But they said in the meantime that the State Health Department was to send some fellas out here and see all the guys that were in the station last night, and the guys that drove the rescue unit to Braintree. I dunno, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined."

  "Moses in the bullrushes," Hap said, frightened.

  "The Atlanta Plague Center's federal," Vic said. "Would they send out a planeload of federal men just for cholera?"

  "Search me," Joe Bob said. "But I thought you guys had a right to know. From all I heard, you just tried to lend a hand."

  "It's appreciated, Joe Bob," Hap said slowly. "What did James and this other doctor say?"

  "Not much. But they looked scared. I never seen doctors look scared like that. I didn't much care for it."