Since she left me without enough money to get back to Ohio, I was obliged to stay in the room making frantic calls to anyone I thought could arrange transportation. In the end, good Dr. Eldon Olsson, way out in Montana, extended his credit card, and I was free to go. I had a lot of explaining to do, but Olsson said he’d seen through Shirley in the seventh grade when he had a crush on her, and if this was what it took to liberate his old friend Hanson, it was certainly cheap at the price. This did not incline me to help Shirley with a made-up story about Audra, but I was never asked and all my imaginary rehearsals for undermining her cause came to nothing. She didn’t need my help; she made off with half of Karl’s estate anyway, and five years later Audra got the rest.
I’ve lost track of Shirley, who lived in Florida for many years. I saw her later at Dr. Olsson’s funeral, but by that time she was back in her hometown, residing in an assisted-living facility. Before addressing the issues having to do with finding new lodging and staying out of the witness box, I felt I had to absorb the full impact of this unsavory life episode, one that left me unnecessarily cautious in matters of ardor. This was too bad because I was an affectionate person who fell in love easily and might have brought greater enrichment to my life if I hadn’t always smelled a rat at the pleasantest times. Karl seems to have made the most of things in his own buttoned-down, impervious way. The following I learned from Eldon Olsson: after Karl lost the fine old family house and was living in a downtown condominium, he befriended the representative of Ton Yik Tailors who came through annually measuring businessmen for suits. On successive visits, the friendship deepened and Karl went to Hong Kong, where he met the consortium of clothiers, which took him on as legal counsel for their growing U.S. activities. Karl married a Chinese girl and only came to the States on business. “He finally found happiness,” said Dr. Olsson, adding, “I hope the same for you, Doctor.”
6
I HAD BEEN BACK FOR ALMOST A YEAR, a practicing physician in my hometown, without making it clear to the community that I had entirely escaped my formerly anarchic ways. I don’t think anyone doubted my skills or my commitment as a doctor, but I continued to demonstrate social deficiency and poor judgment. I guess I wasn’t quite ready for rules-and-regulations just yet. Twice one week, I had gone out to the reserved parking lot to see an almost familiar figure standing there irresolutely, not looking my way, not occupied with anything, but somehow giving the impression that I was why she was there. I was startled by a voice at my window. “I wonder if I could trouble you for a ride. My sister left without me.” I turned to face a young woman, attractive but for the anomaly of penciled-in eyebrows, unusual on someone this age. There was a familiarity about the way she grasped the window of my car. I would have known her if she’d worked at the clinic. Her pleasant smile playfully suggested that she saw right through me, promising preliminary banter, something I noticed once she was in the car and I could see her tanned, shapely arms. She wore bib-front overalls and a T-shirt that said, DO NOT RESUSCITATE. Her dark hair was cut short. She said, “Clarice.”
“Hi, Clarice. Where can I drop you?”
“How ’bout taking me before you drop me?” she said with a wheezy laugh. “You allow ciggies in your world?”
“Sorry.” I was too old for Clarice, but I fretted that disallowing the cigarette emphasized that fact. I wanted to start smoking again.
She pushed the cigarette back in its pack and the pack in the purse that seemed too small to be hung from shoulder straps: it was hardly bigger than a wallet. I looked away as I always did when women’s purses were opened. I always felt they contained things it would be improper to see. The contents were so baffling as to be sometimes downright scary, as was the witchlike way their owners found things in the chaos.
“Head straight for the wrong side of the tracks.”
I took her to mean the underpass to the north. It used to be the wrong side of the tracks, but that had changed. It had elevated its tone, though the cars at the curb that would never run again, the plastic toys of children who’d grown up and left ten years before, were still there. I noted a tiny ruby on Clarice’s finger. At least I thought it was a ruby; there was some sort of stone they once put in mood rings, and on the chance this was the same mineral I wondered what dark red could mean. Whatever it was or meant, I no longer saw the things passing my windshield, not even the woman out in her yard, waving bemusedly and looking more at Clarice than at me. I guess I must have noticed her, though. Enough to feel uncomfortable.
A kind of stillness settled in the car; whatever passed beyond its windows had lost its sound track. The first indication I had that Clarice was aware of the change was when she ran the end of her finger around the top edge of her pants where it met her belly. She said, “It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s on your mind.”
I prided myself on the big sincere sigh I heaved. “Probably not.”
She flashed a brilliant smile, full of heedless youth, followed quite abruptly by an indifferent gaze out the window on her side. She said, “Cross your fingers.”
“I certainly will!”
What a fool.
She evidently took a rain check on putting me away for keeps and said, “But first you need to give me a hand. Turn here.” We wound off toward a grade school, a railroad repair shop, a transmission rebuilder, and an electricians’ warehouse. Two more turns and we parked next to a hot dog stand. We got out and walked over to it; a man and his daughter were being served by a girl Clarice’s age, and when they had paid and gone, the girl, hands plunged into thick, silvery hair, began arguing with Clarice about Clarice showing up late. She shoved the cash box at Clarice, grabbed her purse, and said she was never coming back. Clarice flashed me a smile and said you couldn’t get good help anymore. I saw the girl trying to overhear the remark, still spoiling for a fight. Clarice noticed and said, “I got it: never coming back. Bye.”
Clarice had missed an appointment with her parole officer and was going to see him now. “He’ll let me in. It’s a formality.” If I could just man the stand for an hour and a half, she assured me, one of my dreams would come true. To a person of my age, a physician, this should have been little more than a charming anomaly. At least common sense should have overruled my quite natural instinct, but it didn’t. Clarice, tall and well shaped, was only too happy to let this sink in. I took in several ghostly images from my erotic future while running down my afternoon appointments: psoriasis, I could blow that off; the tenth visit about the same heart murmur as against Clarice splayed beneath me — the eagle has landed! — and so when I got to Jerome Bugue’s tennis elbow, I knew it had no chance against Clarice’s cervix, the gorgeously flushed perineum stretched taut by elevated thighs. God knows, I could sell a few hot dogs for that! I’m not a saint!
Next thing I knew she had my car and I had a customer. I forked up a glistening wiener from the steamer and placing it firmly in the bun I had wedged open in my left hand. I reached it to my customer, a mechanic in blue coveralls, name over the pocket, with no unease at taking his snack into an oil-blackened hand. I pointed to the condiments while he counted out exact change. As he walked off, I said, “I hope you enjoy that hot dog!” He stopped walking, back to me, and slowly turned.