"Money's money."
"Well, I reckon we could give her a try. Come on, Cade." He and Cade walked off across the field. Jake got back in the car, bringing cool air with "him, and I shivered and folded my arms across my chest. I felt dislocated; I had somehow lost a whole night. "Where are we, anyway?" I asked.
"If you would take a look out the window, you'd see we're in a wheat field."
"I mean, how'd we get here?"
"Guess I fell asleep at the wheel," Jake said. He started rubbing his chin, which was bristly by now. "Fact is, I must have," he said, "but it don't make sense. I am known for not sleeping, see. I just don't need sleep like most people do. At a party or something I can stay up all night and be on about my business in the morning same as usual, stay up the next night too if I've a mind to. Gets lonesome, sometimes. Everyone sacked out and me awake. But there you are: I was just driving along not thinking a thing and next I know I'm in a wheat field. Middle of the night, no one about; and you were just dead to the world. All there was to do was go on back to sleep. Had me some wait this morning too till I seen these fellows come stomping through the oats."
"Wheat," I said, though to be honest I couldn't tell one from the other. I squinted out the window at the yellow weeds. I saw the man in the cap driving toward us on a little green tractor, while Cade walked beside him swinging a few loops of rope. "Watch, now," Jake said. That baby'll get us out quick as a cricket, wait and see. I been in lots worse spots than this." He rolled down his window and shouted, "Hitch her up, guys, then take her nice and easy. Don't pull too sudden." The men ignored him and went about their work. Jake didn't know how to deal with them, I thought. I was ashamed to be found in his company and I scrunched down lower in my seat, so I didn't see them hitching us. I felt it, though. I had been in this car so long it was like a second skin to me. I felt, or thought I felt, their knotty hands fumbling at the bumper, running a raspy rope through and tying it. Then Cade came up to Jake's window. "You going to let the lady out?" he asked.
Jake thought a minute. "Naw," he said.
"Give you a mite less weight."
"Her door is busted," said Jake. "Never mind all that." He turned the key in the ignition. Cade stepped back, and the tractor increased the sound of its motor to a high, complaining hum. I felt the rope go tight. Our tires whizzed. We moved ahead a foot or two. Then we jerked and I heard a ping/ and the car came to a halt. I sat up straighter and looked out the window, just in time to see our front bumper go trundling across the field.
"Jesus," Jake said.
The tractor stopped and the driver slid off. The two men returned, scratching their heads. Jake got out of the car and went to join them. Now all three were scratching their heads, and frowning at where the bumper used to be.
"This here is a genuine, nineteen fifty-three Woolworth's," said Jake. The men nodded, as if making notes. "And look at these tires, slick as a garden hose."
He kicked one. I felt the jarring. There was a long, solemn silence.
Then: "Well, I tell you," the tractor driver said. "I feel real bad about your bumper."
"Wasn't your fault," said Jake, "But I'm wondering could we push her now. See, she's out of that slant some, you notice? Nose ain't pointed to the ground so. Maybe the lady could take the wheel and then us three could push." Jake came back and stuck his head in the window. "I don't drive," I said before he could ask.
"You know where the gas pedal is."
"No, I don't, and what's worse I have no notion where the brake is."
"Sure you do," Jake said. He got in and started the engine again. He pointed to the floor: gas, brake. "But lay off of the brake," he told me, "till you get to that there road up ahead. See it? You can't see it.
Little farm road. Gravel. We're going to push her over there instead of the highway. There's no way she can climb that bank to the highway. Okay, slide over." He got out. I slid over. "She ain't too much of a driver," Jake said, and the men grunted. I saw now that they got along fine; the three of them stood shoulder to shoulder, resigned, watching my white-knuckled hands on the wheel.
Cade said, "Don't be scared, lady, just give it to her slow."
"All right," I said.
"Won't do to have her spin herself a rut."
"Of course not." — They walked off to the rear, out of sight. I felt them settling behind the car. "Okay," Jake called, "got your foot on the brake?" I nodded.
"What?"
"Yes."
"Shift to Drive. D." I shifted. The motor changed its tone.
"Now the gas." I pressed the gas pedal. The men threw their weight against the fender. The wheels whined and spun. Then slowly, bumpily, the car inched ahead. It picked up speed. It got free of the men, it bounded over ruts and boulders, scratching its way through the weeds, leaving a flattened yellow ribbon behind. I looked in the mirror and saw the ribbon and the men running down it, waving and shouting. But I had forgotten to look in front of me and found, too late, the little gravel road springing up and fading away again. I panicked and pressed the gas pedal harder. Then I pulled back on the steering wheel. Then I shifted through the gears till I hit on one that screeched the tires, stopped the car dead, and flung me into the windshield. When Jake came up, I saw him through a veil of colored ovals swimming around in black air. I had some sort of extra surface on the center of my forehead. "See?" Jake told me. "Who says you can't drive?" He climbed into the car, while I floated over to the passenger side. Then he restarted the engine and backed onto the gravel road. He waved to his friends, who were ambling toward us across the field. They waved back. We set off toward the highway.
"I could eat a horse," said Jake. "Couldn't you?" But I was shaking too much to answer.
We had breakfast at a Sunoco station: & bag of bacon rinds and two Yoo-Hoos from a vending machine. I used the restroom, and stood a while staring into the mirror on the paper towel dispenser. I felt I had to gather myself together again. My own eyes stared back at me, surprisingly dark. (I had half expected to find them bleached as gray as Jake's.) My face appeared pinched and confused. It was a relief to grab up my purse and go back to the car.
This was piney country we were passing through, dotted with farms and new, raw-looking cinderblock supermarkets. Periodically we would land behind some truck or tractor, with no possible way of passing, and then Jake would start muttering. "Pokey old fool! Hayseed. Dimwit. Good mind to ram him in the tail."
"Well, I don't understand," I said. "Now surely Maryland is not the only state with divided highways. Is this all the road they have here?"
"All the road I'm taking," said Jake. "You know durn well no cop is going to bother with it." I thought he had too much faith, but ifs true we weren't seeing any patrol cars.
Just crumpled Chevies, Fords, and those everlasting trucks. When Jake's temper gave out, every fifteen minutes or so, he would pull up at one of the supermarkets and get us something to eat. Fritos. Oreos. I chewed in time to a whole chorus of TV commercials singing inside my head. Meanwhile Jake would gun his motor and push on, arriving finally behind the selfsame truck that had held him back in the first place. And always on a hill or curve, or with oncoming cars in the other lane. He cursed. I went on chewing. I am gifted with the ability of giving up, and all I had to do was pretend we were on some great, smooth, slow conveyor belt, coasting through the billboarded countryside two and a half feet behind a truckful of lawnmowers.
For lunch we stopped at a diner on the outskirts of a city. "But we've eaten all morning," I said. "I'm not hungry."
"That don't make no difference. Point is, I rest." There were factories and auto graveyards everywhere we looked, and the diner sat on the tiniest con- crete apron as if something had been nibbling away at it. Inside, it was full of brushed aluminum and gold-flecked, aging vinyl. The only other customer was a teenager eating a hot dog. The waitress was a stern-faced, churchy woman in tin-rimmed glasses. She curled her mouth downward while taking Jake's order: everything grilled, greased, salted. (I was beginning to know his eating tastes, by now.) "Just coffee for me," I said. The waitress sniffed and stalked off.