I walked down a street that had the sadness of all roads leading out of town, a blues-song street, oil spilled by huge trucks, a traffic light swinging high over an empty intersection. I crossed to a building with a neon beer-sign out front. I found the telephone, called the McDowd Communication Arts Complex and asked for Carol Deming. I was using a wall phone at the back of the room. Three auto mechanics were at the bar. I noticed a pinball machine, a bowling machine, a jukebox and a shuffleboard with three steel discs sitting in rosin. Then I heard Carol's voice.
"North Atlantic Treaty Organization."
"Hi, I didn't know if I'd find you there. It's David Bell- from the park."
"I'm sorry, you've reached the answering service for NATO Brussels. They're all out. Would you care to leave a message?"
"I'm in a bar on Howley Road."
"Buster's," she said. "It used to be a firehouse."
"Do you have a car?"
"I can take Austin's."
"He won't mind?"
"Of course he'll mind."
I sat at the bar and had a scotch. The ashtray in front of me was full of pared fingernails. I was on the third drink when she arrived. The way she walked made her skirt sway lightly across her legs and I felt lucky and full of improvisation, a nice loose music in my head, and I knew the auto mechanics were watching her but not with sludge and crankcase lust; rather with a small joy, I thought, a tiny leap of flesh, the light lucky feeling of seeing a pretty girl with bare legs walking across a room behind a smile that says she likes being a woman being watched. I tried not to look so pleased. She glanced at my drink and asked for the same.
"I wasn't sure you were living at McCompex too. I thought it might be just him. You didn't say anything about it yesterday. Was it yesterday we met?"
"There isn't much to say, David. It's just something to do while I wait for my husband to divorce me. I had some money saved and I've always wanted to study acting. So I came on down."
"From where?"
"Detroit," she said.
"That your hometown?"
"I was an army brat. I've lived in nine states."
"What did you do in Detroit?"
"We used to have a drink every Friday evening at the Zebra Lounge. That's what we did."
"You mean people from the office."
"You know how it is on Friday. Everybody wants to unwind with a drink or two. They used to have canapes for the regular crowd. We were the regular crowd."
We talked and drank for a while. I was feeling good and loose, on the verge of inspired dialogue, drink number four, a pale flame rising. Carol took a pack of Gauloises out of her handbag. I lit one for her and a sweet evil smell lay flat on the hanging smoke.
"Did the regular crowd at the Zebra include one extrovert who was always joking with the waiter and who liked to order exotic drinks?"
"Fred Blasingame," she said.
"What were some of the drinks he ordered? This is important."
"I remember once he ordered an Americano. I remember another time he ordered a Black Russian."
"I think we're really getting somewhere. When you take a bath, Carol, do you like to lift one leg out of the water and wash it sort of slowly and sensually?"
"You're going too far."
"Carol, how do you feel about the war?"
"I can't seem to get involved, maybe because the whole thing is so halfhearted."
"People are dying."
"I know. Isn't it terrible?"
"Can you identify Otto Durer Obenwahr?" I said.
"Didn't he play lead guitar with Grand Funk Railroad?"
"Let me ask you this if I may. What is the most pressing need in America today?"
"Patriotism," she said. "Our sons must return to their mother. She is waiting with open legs. Killing the pig-eyed and the slope-headed must once again become a matter of national priority."
"Did the Zebra have piped-in music? Please answer at once."
"Yes," she said.
"Did the regular crowd ever have friendly arguments about the name of a certain tune?"
"That used to happen all the time. Carl Stoner, who was in premiums, was always having arguments with Martha Leggett. Martha Leggett was the funniest little girl you ever saw. She was less than five feet tall and Freddy B. used to let her take puffs on his cigar. We surrounded ourselves with smoke and loud noise. That's the way we chose to live. I'm prepared to defend it."
"Did the rumors about Carl Stoner and Fred Blasingame's wife have any basis in fact?"
"Come on now. There weren't any rumors like that. And anyway you haven't even asked me about the summerhouse."
I ordered two more scotches. I didn't know where we were headed and I was in no hurry to find out. It was obvious that the feints and jugglery of the moment did not confuse her one bit. Her answers were almost too easy in coming. Her voice changed, even the structure of her sentences, and as we went along I realized she was no mere student of theatercraft. She seemed perfectly relaxed, almost bored, content to let me find a pace and theme, breaking inflection from sentence to sentence and yet never relinquishing the bedrock irony, the closed fist of the Midwest. Her eyes emitted quick blue light. She was far from being the worst thing you could expect to find in an old firehouse in Iowa or Missouri or Illinois.
"Have you ever been to New York?" I said.
"We used to go over to the pier on Gansevoort Street and watch the sun go down. We used to eat soul food on Tenth Avenue."
"After several or more drinks, did any of the men in the regular crowd at the Zebra ever slip their hands under the table and try to caress either of your thighs?"
"I guess that sort of thing is unavoidable if you're going to have a few drinks in mixed company. But there was never any trouble about it. I mean all I did was sort of shift in my chair a little and they would get the idea and that would be the end of it."
"Did tiny Martha Leggett shift in her chair?"
"I have no way of knowing."
"I applaud your loyalty."
"She was a plucky little skylarking girl. She and Fred Blasingame were like a comedy team. George and Gracie. That's what we used to call them. My father's name was George."
"That brings us to the summerhouse," I said.
"Tall grass and lemonade. Those lazy afternoons at auntie Nell's. I was such a silly thing at fifteen. This is difficult."
"Please try."
"He came from the base to visit me, taller than the grass, so bright and shining in the sun. He was in uniform. Nell made lemonade. We sat out front beneath the big elm, just the three of us and John Morning. Daddy had brought me a book of poems, sonnets written by a southern lady whose lover was killed at Vicksburg. Nell went inside to start dinner. John Morning sang a spiritual and then went off to the stables. Daddy read the sonnets to me and I cried and called myself a silly thing and he laughed softly in that gentle way of his. We drank the lemonade and watched the sun go down over the big elm."
"Where was the Jamison boy?" I said.
"The Jamison boy had drowned in Loon Lake just three weeks before. Daddy knew about it, of course, but was gentle enough and wise enough to make no mention of the tragedy. After dinner we walked through the tall grass beneath the moon. We listened to the crickets and daddy held my hand. Then we went back to the house. Nell made some lemonade and John Morning told us the yearling was coming along just fine. Daddy went out to the stables to look at the yearling. I went to my room and he came up later and spoke softly in the darkness of war and death, touching me softly in soft places. He made no mention of the tragedy of the Jamison boy and he said nothing about the summerhouse."
"At what hour were you awakened by the strange sound?"
"It was almost dawn when I was awakened by a strange sound. I got out of bed and put on my riding pants and the green sweater with the button missing. I still have that sweater. It was the sweater I was wearing the last time I saw the Jamison boy, two nights before he drowned. We were on the back porch drinking lemonade. John Morning was singing a spiritual. The Jamison boy asked me whether I'd be spending the whole summer this time or just a few weeks as in the past. I said it was up to mother. He said he was tired of all the mystery about mother. He wanted to know the truth."