The Tie That Binds(30)

All the time, though, my dad and I listened to the radio. Between news bulletins we got out the world atlas and discovered the dots in the Pacific Ocean that meant Hawaii and with a ruler tried to figure the miles between Honolulu and Tokyo and between Tokyo and California. The news kept coming in on the radio, and it seemed to me that it was all happening right then, since I was only just hearing about it. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to bomb such a small speck on the ocean in our atlas— before that Sunday Pearl Harbor and naval installations hadn’t existed for me: there weren’t a lot of sailors in Holt County—but I could tell from my dad’s face that something important was happening and what was happening was bad. My dad’s face, more than the pitch of the broadcaster’s voice, made it seem so. His face was hard set all day. It looked even worse than it did those times when he looked up and watched the Goodnoughs’ car pass our house, passing on down the road into dust. He said that what we were hearing on the radio was the start of a war, a world war that now we in this country were going to have to be a part of. He hated it all. He only hoped that it would be over before I was old enough to be called to it.

Of course people in town were talking about it, too. All along Main Street in the poolhalls and the grocery stores they were talking about it, and much of the talk was crazy, wild, frantic nonsense, and it wasn’t long before anything seemed possible to believe. The men in the bank and the beer drinkers in the tavern were even speculating that Hirohito would somehow drop down into Los Angeles and start marching up Sunset Boulevard to conquer Betty Grable: there was that kind of fear and excitement loose everywhere. So, with all that going on, I don’t remember that we were very much surprised a couple nights later when long after we had gone up to bed and were sound asleep Lyman came and started knocking the holy bejesus out of our front door. My dad just got up and put his pants on and went downstairs to let Lyman in before he broke the door down.

I got up too and stood in the dim light at the top of the stairs to watch. I could see Lyman below in the front hallway; he had his heavy overcoat on and he was wearing his winter cap with the corduroy earflaps. Beside him on the floor was a metal suitcase with a belt strapped around it. My dad and he were talking, and though I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I could tell that Lyman was more than a little excited. He began to tie and untie the strings on the earflaps of his cap, and he was shifting from one foot to the other like he had to use the toilet. In my goofy sleepiness I wondered whether that was the reason why he had come over—to piss in our pot—except that wouldn’t have explained why he had brought a suitcase. Then my mother was there, too, beside me at the top of the stairs.

“Sanders,” she said. “Go back to bed.”

“It’s Lyman Goodnough.”

“I don’t care who it is. I want you to get dressed or to go back to bed.”

My mother had a maroon robe on with matching open-toed slippers. Her blond hair, treated so that it stayed blond, looked freshly combed.

“Lyman’s seen striped pajamas before,” I said.

“That is not the point.”

“Here comes dad.”

My dad came up the stairs and met us at the top landing. His face and neck and hands were dark tanned to the shirt line; against the rest of him they looked purple in the dim light. He had black hair on his bare chest and he was smiling.

“So the vigilantes are up too,” he said.

“This is not the time for your jokes,” my mother said. “What does that man want?”

“You mean Lyman Goodnough.”

“I know who it is. What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing particular. He’s just discovered he has something like a backbone.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“He wants a lift into town.”

My mother looked at my dad as if he was talking utter nonsense, as if she still thought he was trying to be funny. “Now?” she said. “At this hour? Whatever for?”

“He wants to catch the train. He’s leaving.”

“But that’s ridiculous. He can’t do anything. Where can he go?”

“He can go west, I suppose,” my dad said. “That’s the direction the train is headed in.”

“West,” she said. It sounded foolish and obscene in her mouth. “Well, I hope you had the sense to tell him no.”

“No, I told him I would. I come upstairs to get my shirt and boots on.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably,” my dad said. “And I’m getting cold standing here talking about it.” He turned to go back to their bedroom.

“Dad,” I said. “I want to go.”

“Get dressed then.”

“He’s not going. You’re not going,” my mother said.

But she wasn’t even looking at me. She followed my dad into the bedroom, and I followed her down the hallway and stood in the door. My dad went over to the closet and took a flannel shirt off a hanger. She watched him as if it was a conspiracy against her, as if he and Lyman Goodnough had decided to get up a plot. With one hand fisted at the neck of her maroon robe, she watched him unbutton his pants and begin to tuck his shirt in.

“Will you tell me,” she said, “why that man can’t at least drive himself to town?”