I gave her a kiss on the cheek n told her I thought she wouldn’t have nothing to worry about as long as she didn’t drop any more plates. Then I set out for home.
I remember everythin that happened, Andy—everythin—but from the time I stepped off Vera’s driveway and onto Center Drive, it’s like rememberin things that’ve happened in the brightest, most real-seemin dream you’ve ever had in your life. I kep thinkin “I’m goin home to kill my husband, I’m goin home to kill my husband,” like I could pound it into my head the way you’d pound a nail into some thick wood like teak or mahogany, if I only kept at it long enough. But lookin back on it, I guess it was in my head all the time. It was my heart that couldn’t understand.
Although it was only one-fifteen or so when I got to the village and the start of the eclipse still over three hours away, the streets were so empty it was spooky. It made me think of that little town down in the southern part of the state where they say no one lives. Then I looked up at the roof of The Harborside, and that was spookier still. There must’ve been a hundred people or more up there already, strollin around n checkin the sky like farmers at plantin time. I looked downhill to the dock and seen the Princess there, her gangplank down and the auto deck full of people instead of cars. They was walkin around with drinks in their hands, havin themselves a big open-air cocktail-party. The dock itself was crammed with people, and there musta been five hundred small boats—more’n I’d ever seen out there at one time anyway—on the reach already, anchored and waitin. And it seemed like everyone you saw, whether they was on the hotel roof or the town dock or the Princess, was wearin dark glasses and holdin either a smoked-glass eclipse-viewer or a reflector-box. There’s never been a day like it on the island before or since, and even if I hadn’t had in mind what I did have in mind, I think it woulda felt like a dream to me.
The greenfront was open, eclipse or no eclipse —I expect that booger’ll be doin business as usual even on Apocalypse Morn. I stopped in, bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, then walked on out East Lane to the house. I gave the bottle to Joe first thing—didn’t make any bones about it, just plopped it into his lap. Then I walked into the house n got the bag Vera had given me, the one with the eclipse-viewers and reflector-boxes in it. When I came out on the back porch again, he was holdin that bottle of Scotch up so he could see the color.
“Are you gonna drink it or just admire it?” I ast him.
He give me a look, kinda suspicious, and says, “Just what the hell is this, Dolores?”
“It’s a present to celebrate the eclipse,” I said. “If you don’t want it, I c’n always pour it down the sink.”
I made as if to reach for it n he yanked it back real quick.
“You been givin me one helluva lot of presents just lately,” he says. “We can’t afford stuff like this, eclipse or no eclipse.” That didn’t stop him from gettin out his pocket-knife and slittin the seal, though; didn’t even seem to slow him down.
“Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not just the eclipse,” I says. “I’ve just been feelin so good and so relieved that I wanted to share some of my happiness. And since I’ve noticed that most of what seems to make you happy comes out of a bottle…”
I watched him take the cap off n pour himself a knock. His hand was shakin a little bit, and I wasn’t sorry to see it. The raggeder he was, the better my chances would be.
“What have you got to feel good about?” he asks. “Did somebody invent a pill to cure ugly?”
“That’s a pretty mean thing to say to someone who just bought you a bottle of premium Scotch,” I said. “Maybe I really should take it back.” I reached for it again and he pulled it back again.
“Fat chance,” he says.
“Then be nice,” I told him. “What happened to all that gratitude you were s’posed to be learnin in your A.A.?”
He never minded that, just went on lookin at me like a store-clerk tryin to decide if someone’d passed him a phony ten. “What’s got you feelin so goddam good?” he asks again. “It’s the brats, isn’t it? Havin em outta the house.”
“Nope, I miss em already,” I said, and it was the truth, too.
“Yeah, you would,” he says, n drinks his drink. “So what is it?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I says, n starts gettin up.
He grabbed my arm and said, “Tell me now, Dolores. You know I don’t like it when you’re fresh.”
I looked down at him and says, “You better take your hand off me, or that expensive bottle of hooch might end up gettin broke over your head. I don’t want to fight with you, Joe, especially not today. I’ve got some nice salami, some Swiss cheese, and some water-biscuits.”
“Water-biscuits!” he says. “Jesus wept, woman!”
“Never mind,” I says. “I’m gonna make us a tray of hors d’oeuvres every bit as nice as the ones Vera’s guests are gonna have out on the ferry.”
“Fancy food like that gives me the shits,” he says. “Never mind any hosses’ ovaries; just make me a sandwich. ”
“All right,” I agreed. “I will.”
He was lookin toward the reach by then—probably me mentionin the ferry’d put him in mind of it—with his lower lip poochin out in that ugly way it had. There were more boats out there than ever, and it looked to me like the sky over em had lightened up a little bit. “Lookit em!” he says in that sneerin way of his—the one his youngest son was tryin so goddam hard to copy. “Ain’t nothin gonna happen that’s any more’n a thunderhead goin across the sun, and they’re all just about shootin off in their pants. I hope it rains! I hope it comes down s’hard it drowns that snooty cunt you work for, and the rest of em, too!”
“That’s my Joe,” I says. “Always cheery, always charitable. ”
He looked around at me, still holdin that bottle of Scotch curled against his chest like a bear with a chunk of honeycomb. “What in the name of Christ are you runnin on about, woman?”
“Nothin,” I says. “I’m going inside to fix the food—a sandwich for you and some hors d’oeuvres for me. Then we’ll sit n have a couple of drinks n watch the eclipse—Vera sent down a viewer and a reflector-box thingamajig for each of us—and when it’s over, I’ll tell you what’s got me feeling so happy. It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like fucking surprises,” he says.
“I know you don’t,” I told him. “But you’ll get a kick out of this one, Joe. You’d never guess it in a thousand years.” Then I went into the kitchen so he could really get started on that bottle I’d bought him at the greenfront. I wanted him to enjoy it—I really did. After all, it was the last liquor he was ever gonna drink. He wouldn’t need A.A. to keep him off the sauce, either. Not where he was goin.
That was the longest afternoon of my life, and the strangest, too. There he was, sittin on the porch in his rocker, holdin the paper in one hand and a drink in the other, bitchin in the open kitchen window at me about somethin the Democrats were tryin to do down in Augusta. He’d forgot all about tryin to find out what I was happy about, and all about the eclipse, as well. I was in the kitchen, makin him a sandwich, hummin a tune, and thinkin, “Make it good, Dolores—put on some of that red onion he likes and just enough mustard to make it tangy. Make it good, cause it’s the last thing he’s ever gonna eat.”
From where I was standin, I could look out along the line of the woodshed and see the white rock and the edge of the blackberry tangle. The handkerchief I’d tied to the top of one of the bushes was still there; I could see that, too. It went noddin back n forth in the breeze. Every time it did, I thought of that spongy wellcap right under it.