The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(93)

They walked him out to the parkinglot and the orderlies helped him into the car and shut the door. She sat looking at him. Do you want to come home with us?

I want to go to Eastern State.

John, you dont want to go to Eastern State. What time does your mother get up?

I want to go to Eastern State.

Why do you want to go to Eastern State?

He told her why he wanted to go to Eastern State. She sat quietly and listened. When he was done she turned and started the engine.

Where are we going? he said.

To Eastern State.

When they pulled up in front of the gatehouse it was graying light. The guard nodded and touched the bill of his cap. Morning, Mam. Can I help you?

He wants to commit himself.

The guard bent to look across to where John sat staring out over the hood of the car. He studied him for a minute, then he nodded. You all go right ahead, Mam.

She checked him in and filled out the forms and kissed him on the cheek and they led him away down the hall. He was fitted out in State pajamas and put to bed in an iron cot in one of the cubicles. When he woke again one of the orderlies was shaking him by the shoulder.

What is it?

John, your father is on the phone.

By now the long one had lit the cigar and he sat holding it between his thumb and forefinger studying it. He looked at Western. As you know, my father died when I was in high school. But I thought, well, he could be on the phone. They helped me down the hallway and handed me the phone. Which I took somewhat tentatively—as you might imagine—and I said: Hello? And it’s that fucking Bill Seals calling me from California. Hi, he says. How are you?

Hi? How am I? I got a good grip on the phone and I said: Listen to me you fat, evil, depraved son of a bitch. What are you doing calling me here? What the fuck is wrong with you? And the orderly grabs the phone out of my hand and he says: Here, you cant talk to your father like that. I mean really, Squire. If I married an heiress and moved to the South of France I’d never hear from that bastard. But put me in the looney bin and he’s on the phone before the ink can dry on the admission forms.

How long were you in there?

Six weeks. Their standard detox program. On Sundays the visitors would arrive and I’d be out on the grounds waiting for them as they came up the walkway with their lunch hampers. I’d come galumphing across the greensward and fling myself against the palings of the fence howling and slobbering like a rabid gibbon. Holding out a twisted claw. God wouldnt they shriek and flee. One woman ran into the street and almost got hit by a bus. It was pretty jolly. But it was something of a revelation. The families of the inmates. You’ve no idea what lurks in the hinterlands, Squire. Entire families of inbreds come to see the prize exhibit of their lineage. Some exotic species of microcephalic. A taperheaded dwarf. Something out of a Lewis Hine photograph. I dont think they should necessarily be gassed but is neutering so out of the question?

You’re asking me.

Never mind. God. I’d probably be dragged before the board myself.

Western sipped his beer. John, he said. You are a bloody wonder.

Yes well. What puzzles me is the apparent need to fabricate evil gossip about one whose actual history is already so appalling.

What else?

Actually I do have a couple of pieces of news. One good, one bad, of course.

What’s the good one?

Tulsa’s back.

Okay. What’s the bad news?

The bad news is that that’s the good news. I dont really know what to do with her. I feel that I might be emplaned upon a new vector in my life, Squire. A turning in the road. I smell good fortune afoot. A little luck and I could see myself ensconced in a modest country retreat. A velvet smokingjacket for the evenings and a pair of mastiffs at the hearth. A good library of course. Wellstocked winecellar. Perhaps even a vintage black enameled Minerva in the porte cochere. I dont see her there. She’s fun and sexy but she is distinctly not low maintenance and I am growing weary, Squire, and unlikely to become less so as we lurch forward. I just dont know. I told Brat here that I wanted to do the right thing and he almost choked laughing. But I’m serious.

Where is she?

She’s still asleep.

Does she know about your feelings? Or the lack thereof?

I dont know. She’s a pretty astute girl. Who knows? You’re always on thin ice. Of course anytime a woman shows up after a long absence there is one thing you know for certain and that is that things have not gone well. This makes them subdued. For a while. I puzzle my own self, Squire, to fall back upon a Mossy Creek locution. I dont want to become a misogynist. You’re smiling. What?

Nothing. Continue.

They’re just a piece of work. I should have taken a page from your book. Die young for love and be done with it.

I’m not dead.

We wont quibble. She’s a strange girl. She likes it here because they have good restaurants. But they also have a couple of good costume shops.

Costume shops.

Yes. She brings back these costumes and you have to wear them. Most recently we were dressed as rabbits. The odd thing is that she would really get into it. We’d have sex in these rabbit suits and she would squeal and stamp her feet.

Jesus, John.

I know. The things a man will do for love. Still, almost anything is welcome. It takes forever to get her off. It’s like laboring over a drowning victim. For all my ragging there are times when I see with a cold clarity the wisdom of the path you’ve chosen. Hovering as you do out there at the edge of the intactile dark. A thing wholly beyond my talents. Broken upon the wheel of devotion. Sniffing tentatively at the cool air of the evening lands. No more questions. Who am I what am I where am I. Of what stuff is the moon stamped. What’s the plural of woodwose. Where can I find good barbeque. I look for flaws in your stance. Aside from the obvious ones of the nonparticipant. As Jimmy Anderson says, the only thing worse than losing is not playing. I have to say that most horrors are at least instructive, but with women you learn nothing. Why is that? I know I’m not alone in this. Isnt the purpose of pain to instruct? Well piss upon it. I’m just in a funk. In the end you can escape everything but yourself. We two are different creatures, Squire. Which I’ve said to exhaustion. But what we share—aside from intelligence and a low grade generalized contempt for the world and all in it—is an airy and mindless egotism. If I told you that I was concerned for your soul you would fall out of your chair laughing. But salvation like many another prize may be simply a matter of daring. You would give up your dreams in order to escape your nightmares and I would not. I think it’s a bad bargain.