“I couldn’t say,” Arlene said. And then no one spoke.
I looked out the window at Bobby’s dog. It was still staring across the river at town as if it knew about something there.
The door to the back bedroom opened then, and my daughter Cherry came out wearing her little white nightgown with red valentines on it. be mine was on all the valentines. She was still asleep, though she was up. Bobby’s voice had waked her up.
“Did you feed my fish?” she said and stared at me. She was barefoot and holding a doll, and looked pretty as a doll herself.
“You were asleep already,” I said.
She shook her head and looked at the open living-room door. “Who’s that?” she said.
“Bobby’s here,” I said. “He’s talking to Arlene.”
Cherry came over to the window where I was and looked out at Bobby’s dog. She liked Bobby, but she liked his dog better. “There’s Buck,” she said. Buck was the dog’s name. A tube of sausage was lying on the sink top and I wanted to cook it, for Bobby to eat, and then have him get out. I wanted Cherry to go to school, and for the day to flatten out and hold fewer people in it. Just Arlene and me would be enough.
“You know, Bobby, sweetheart,” Arlene said now in the other room, “in our own lifetime we’ll see the last of the people who were born in the nineteenth century. They’ll all be gone soon. Every one of them.”
“We should’ve stayed together, I think,” Bobby whispered. I was not supposed to hear that, I knew. “I wouldn’t be going to prison if we’d loved each other.”
“I wanted to get divorced, though,” Arlene said.
“That was a stupid idea.”
“Not for me it wasn’t,” Arlene said. I heard her stand up.
“It’s water over the bridge now, I guess, isn’t it?” I heard Bobby’s hands hit his knees three times in a row.
“Let’s watch TV,” Cherry said to me, and went and turned on the little set on the kitchen table. There was a man talking on a news show.
“Not loud,” I said. “Keep it soft.”
“Let’s let Buck in,” she said. “Buck’s lonely.”
“Leave Buck outside,” I said.
Cherry looked at me without any interest. She left her doll on top of the TV. “Poor Buck,” she said. “Buck’s crying. Do you hear him?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t hear him.”
Bobby ate his eggs and stared out the window as if he was having a hard time concentrating on what he was doing. Bobby is a handsome small man with thick black hair and pale eyes. He is likable, and it is easy to see why women would like him. This morning he was dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt and boots. He looked like somebody on his way to jail.
He stared out the back window for a long time and then he sniffed and nodded. “You have to face that empty moment, Russ.” He cut his eyes at me. “How often have you done that?”
“Russ’s done that, Bob,” Arlene said. “We’ve all done that now. We’re adults.”
“Well, that’s where I am right now,” Bobby said. “I’m at the empty moment here. I’ve lost everything.”
“You’re among friends, though, sweetheart.” Arlene smiled. She was smoking a cigarette.
“I’m calling you up. Guess who I am,” Cherry said to Bobby. She had her eyes squeezed tight and her nose and mouth pinched up together. She was moving her head back and forth.
“Who are you?” Bobby said and smiled.
“I’m the bumblebee.”
“Can’t you fly?” Arlene said.
“No. My wings are much too short and I’m too fat.” Cherry opened her eyes at us suddenly.
“Well, you’re in big trouble then,” Arlene said.
“A turkey can go forty-five miles an hour,” Cherry said and looked shocked.
“Go change your clothes,” I said.
“Go ahead now, sweetheart.” Arlene smiled at her. “I’ll come help you.”
Cherry squinted at Bobby, then went back to her room. When she opened her door I could see her aquarium in the dark against the wall, a pale green light with pink rocks and tiny dots of fish.
Bobby ran his hands back through his hair and stared up at the ceiling. “Okay,” he said, “here’s the awful criminal now, ready for jail.” He looked at us then, and he looked wild, as wild and desperate as I have ever seen a man look. And it was not for no reason.
“That’s off the wall,” Arlene said. “That’s just completely boring. I’d never be married to a man who was a fucking criminal.” She looked at me, but Bobby looked at me too.
“Somebody ought to come take her away,” Bobby said. “You know that, Russell? Just put her in a truck and take her away. She always has such a wonderful fucking outlook. You wonder how she got in this fix here.” He looked around the little kitchen, which was shabby and white. At one time Arlene’s house had been a jewelry store, and there was a black security camera above the kitchen door, though it wasn’t connected now.
“Just try to be nice, Bobby,” Arlene said.
“I just oughta slap you,” Bobby said, and I could see his jaw muscles tighten, and I thought he might slap her then. In the bedroom I saw Cherry standing naked in the dark, sprinkling food in her aquarium. The light made her skin look the color of water.
“Try to calm down, Bob,” I said and stayed put in my chair. “We’re all your friends.”
“I don’t know why people came out here,” Bobby said. “The West is fucked up. It’s ruined. I wish somebody would take me away from here.”
“Somebody’s going to, I guess,” Arlene said, and I knew she was mad at him and I didn’t blame her, though I wished she hadn’t said that.
Bobby’s blue eyes got small, and he smiled at her in a hateful way. I could see Cherry looking in at us. She had not heard this kind of talk yet. Jail talk. Mean talk. The kind you don’t forget. “Do you think I’m jealous of you two?” Bobby said. “Is that it?”
“I don’t know what you are,” Arlene said.
“Well, I’m not. I’m not jealous of you two. I don’t want a kid. I don’t want a house. I don’t want anything you got. I’d rather go to Deer Lodge.” His eyes flashed out at us.
“That’s lucky, then,” Arlene said. She stubbed out her cigarette on her plate, blew smoke, then stood up to go help Cherry. “Here I am now, hon,” she said and closed the bedroom door.
Bobby sat at the kitchen table for a while and did not say anything. I knew he was mad but that he was not mad at me. Probably, in fact, he couldn’t even think why I was the one here with him now — some manlie hardly knew, who slept with a woman he had loved all his life and, at that moment, thought he still loved, but who — among his other troubles — didn’t love him anymore. I knew he wanted to say that and a hundred things more then. But words can seem weak. And I felt sorry for him, and wanted to be as sympathetic as I could be.
“I don’t like to tell people I’m divorced, Russell,” Bobby said very clearly and blinked his eyes. “Does that make any sense to you?” He looked at me as if he thought I was going to lie to him, which I wasn’t.
“That makes plenty of sense,” I said.
“You’ve been married, haven’t you? You have your daughter.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“You’re divorced, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Bobby looked up at the security camera above the kitchen door, and with his finger and thumb made a gun that he pointed at the camera, and made a soft popping with his lips, then he looked at me and smiled. It seemed to make him calmer. It was a strange thing.
“Before my mother died, okay?” Bobby said, “I used to call her on the phone. And it took her a long time to get out of bed. And I used to wait and wait and wait while it rang. And sometimes I knew she just wouldn’t answer it, because she couldn’t get up. Right? And it would ring forever because it was me, and I was willing to wait. Sometimes I’d just let it ring, and so would she, and I wouldn’t know what the fuck was going on. Maybe she was dead, right?” He shook his head.