“Want me to drive now?”
“I’m holding up. Don’t worry about me.”
“Any time you want me to drive just say so,” Noreen murmured, her eyes closed.
“Just stay awake, that’s all.”
“If we get sleepy we can pull over for a while,” said Noreen.
Ernie moved his head closer to hers. A few vagrant hairs tickling his face, he asked, almost whispering: “Do you camp out by the road?”
“We’ve been camping two weeks in Yellowstone.”
“Weren’t you afraid of bears?”
“Bears you don’t have to worry about.”
Wondering if everything had somehow been already decided, Ernie turned his face toward her and waited. She gave him no sign. Finally his eyes closed, and he felt the plastic ribbing of the seat cover sliding slowly under his cheek until his nose came into contact with a soft neck smelling faintly of unwashed skin — like clean, scorched laundry — and of tobacco. He nuzzled it automatically and there was no response, not the slightest movement or tension. She appeared to be asleep, but then she was speaking beside his ear.
“Gail?”
“Huh?”
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t fall asleep at the wheel.”
“I won’t.”
“Do you feel like you might? Do you want me to talk to you to keep you awake? I don’t want you to get in a wreck. That’s all we need. So what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“So let’s talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You don’t want to run us into a tree, do you?”
“There aren’t any trees.”
“Aren’t there? That’s right. When are there going to be some?”
“Not for a long time.”
“Are we still out here?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? I can’t open my eyes.” She spoke toward the ceiling, Ernie’s lips still against her neck.
“We really run into some lulus, don’t we?” the driver said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just talking to keep awake. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“What were you getting at, though?”
“I’m not getting at anything. I just meant there’s really some dillies around if you know where to look. I mean where do they get this stuff? My kid brother delivers laundry. You think he’s proud of that? But he puts in an honest day’s work and doesn’t ask for any favors. Nobody gives him any handouts. And you can be damn sure I never got any either.”
“Me neither,” murmured Noreen.
“Oh, come off it. You’ve had your little fanny pampered since the day you were born.”
“When was I ever pampered?”
“Don’t make me sick. This wasn’t my idea. You’re the one wanted to pick him up. It’s just that kind of attitude I don’t like. I mean my brother works for a laundry, that’s all I mean.”
Ernie sensed that things were taking a wrong turn.
“Well, don’t be mad at me,” said Noreen.
“Oh, no, of course not.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“That’s just what I mean. It’s just that manipulative attitude.”
“What attitude?”
“You’re a couple of real winners. I mean we don’t hoard what we have. Room in the car — fine. But then to sit right back and give us this crap while my brother has to deliver laundry, well, it just makes you wonder. When people want to get somewhere they take the bus. They don’t ask somebody for a handout.”
“I didn’t ask you to stop,” Ernie said, moving his head away from Noreen’s. “You could of gone on by easy enough.”
“No, I don’t like it. My brother drives a laundry truck, but he pays his way.”
“So?”
“So? So you think that’s much of a job? Think he likes that? You think that’s the kind of work he wants?” She was leaning forward, shouting now, and Noreen, her eyes still closed, screamed upward: “Stop it!”
“That’s it. That does it,” said the driver, applying the brakes, the car wobbling, veering, then bumping over the shoulder. “Now you’ve upset her. This is where we part company, buster. You’re going to have to get along by yourself from here on. This just isn’t going to work.”
Ernie did not speak for a moment of bewildered humiliation, feeling as if he had done something terribly wrong, then as if he were being persecuted without reason, then wondering if perhaps the driver were joking. “Are you kidding me? You’re crazy if you think I’m getting out here in the middle of the goddamn desert. Nobody’d every pick me up out here.”
“You’ll make out. I don’t have any worries about you.”
“What’s the matter, aren’t I your type or something?”
“Oh, boy, that’s a good one. That’s really smart. You’re just no end of laughs. So what are you waiting for?”
“I’m not getting out of this car.” He looked to Noreen, but her eyes were closed and her face indicated nothing.
“Come on, don’t get funny,” said the driver.
“I’m not moving.”
“I said I want you out of here.”
“I don’t care what you want. I’d be out here all night. What’d you pick me up for? Just to throw me out?”
“Get out!” screamed Noreen, her eyes still closed.
In the shock of betrayal, Ernie threw open the door. Outside in the cool air he wrenched open the back door and took his canvas bag from among the packs and sleeping bags.
“No hard feelings,” said the driver, her face sallow in the dim overhead light. “We’re glad to help a guy out, but this was just getting too crowded.”
Noreen had not moved. Ernie cursed and slammed the door, returning the women to darkness. The rear wheels spun on the gravel, he kicked the fender, ran and kicked it again, and was left behind. The taillights diminished until finally there was not a light anywhere in sight, except the stars, and they were numberless and incredibly remote. An uneasy realization of his solitude came over Ernie. There was not a sound anywhere; several times he looked behind him to dispel a sense of abysmal blackness at his back. At last a pair of headlights appeared. As they drew closer, the sense of isolation decreased and he imagined himself riding on again. Moving farther onto the highway, he put out his arm. The car came up in a blaze of light, swerved out and sped on. Ernie wandered short distances and stood with his weight on one leg and then the other. At intervals a car raced by.
Convinced it was hopeless, he crossed the highway to where the ground was higher. For a considerable distance he tramped through sparse brush, until he felt he could not be seen by passing motorists. In that enormous silence he felt unsafe. The only sound was a breeze rustling sporadically over the ground. He lay down, and with his head resting on his bag, the earth yawing under him as he looked at the immense sweep of the stars, he waited for dawn.
He was wakened by a terrific thundering he knew instantly was a train, and he leaped up in terror, certain he had fallen asleep on a railroad track. The train passed him at twenty yards, hissing and clattering, its great light rolling like an eye, the first cars rushing by before he realized he had never been in their path. With a pounding heart he watched the curtained Pullmans hurtling by. The dining car passed with Negroes in white garments working in the lighted kitchen. No one appeared to notice him. Then the train was gone, a rumble and a single red light fading rapidly away in the nebulous distance. The sky was the color of slate. Far away the beams of a car wavered in the lightening air.
Ernie walked back through the brush to the road, anxious to get home to Faye and filled again with resentment at being left here. In the increasing light his abandonment took on the unreality of something distant and inexplicable, though it could not have been longer than two or three hours ago that he had been put out of the car. Maybe, he thought, it had been the driver who had been attracted to him all along. But he still despised her, and he remembered Noreen with a pang of disappointment. All he was sure of was that he had been dealt a colossal insult. Lonely by the side of the road, he reviewed his bout, and it too had lost some of its vividness, though its import seemed as great as before: he was on his way.