Different Seasons(120)

“Just the goddam rain, I guess.” He backs out onto the road, flicking on the windshield wipers and pausing for a moment to look at the house. It is a completely unappetizing aqua color. The shed sticks off from it at a ragtag, double-jointed angle, tarpaper and peeled-looking shingles.

The radio comes on with a blare and Chico shuts it off at once. There is the beginning of a Sunday afternoon headache behind his forehead. They ride past the Grange hall and the Volunteer Fire Department and Brownie’s Store. Sally Morrison’s T-Bird is parked by Brownie’s hi-test pump, and Chico raises a hand to her as he turns off onto the old Lewiston road.

“Who’s that?”

“Sally Morrison.”

“Pretty lady.” Very neutral.

He feels for his cigarettes. “She’s been married twice and divorced twice. Now she’s the town pump, if you believe half the talk that goes on in this shitass little town.”

“She looks young.”

“She is.”

“Have you ever—”

He slides his hand up her leg and smiles. “No,” he says. “My brother, maybe, but not me. I like Sally, though. She’s got her alimony and her big white Bird, she doesn’t care what people say about her.”

It starts to seem like a long drive. The Androscoggin, off to the right, is slaty and sullen. The ice is all out of it now. Jane has grown quiet and thoughtful. The only sound is the steady snap of the windshield wipers. When the car rolls through the dips in the road there is groundfog, waiting for evening when it will creep out of these pockets and take over the whole River Road.

They cross into Auburn and Chico drives the cutoff and swings onto Minot Avenue. The four lanes are nearly deserted, and all the suburban homes look packaged. They see one little boy in a yellow plastic raincoat walking up the sidewalk, carefully stepping in all the puddles.

“Go, man,” Chico says softly.

“What?” Jane asks.

“Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep.”

She laughs a little doubtfully.

Chico turns up Keston Street and into the driveway of one of the packaged houses. He doesn’t turn off the ignition.

“Come in and I’ll give you cookies,” she says.

He shakes his head. “I have to get back.”

“I know.” She puts her arms around him and kisses him. “Thank you for the most wonderful time of my life.”

He smiles suddenly. His face shines. It is nearly magical. “I’ll see you Monday, Janey-Jane. Still friends, right?”

“You know we are,” she says, and kisses him again ... but when he cups a breast through her jumper, she pulls away. “Don’t. My father might see.”

He lets her go, only a little of the smile left. She gets out of the car quickly and runs through the rain to the back door. A second later she’s gone. Chico pauses for a moment to light a cigarette and then he backs out of the driveway. The Buick stalls and the starter seems to grind forever before the engine manages to catch. It is a long ride home.

When he gets there, Dad’s station wagon is parked in the driveway. He pulls in beside it and lets the engine die. For a moment he sits inside silently, listening to the rain. It is like being inside a steel drum.

Inside, Billy is watching Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos on the TV set. When Chico comes in, Billy jumps up, excited. “Eddie, hey Eddie, you know what Uncle Pete said? He said him and a whole mess of other guys sank a kraut sub in the war! Will you take me to the show next Saturday?”

“I don’t know,” Chico says, grinning. “Maybe if you kiss my shoes every night before supper all week.” He pulls Billy’s hair. Billy hollers and laughs and kicks him in the shins.

“Cut it out, now,” Sam May says, coming into the room. “Cut it out, you two. You know how your mother feels about the rough-housing.” He has pulled his tie down and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He’s got a couple-three red hotdogs on a plate. The hotdogs are wrapped in white bread, and Sam May has put the old mustard right to them. “Where you been, Eddie?”

“At Jane’s.”

The toilet flushes in the bathroom. Virginia. Chico wonders briefly if Jane has left any hairs in the sink, or a lipstick, or a bobby pin.

“You should have come with us to see your Uncle Pete and Aunt Ann,” his father says. He eats a frank in three quick bites. “You’re getting to be like a stranger around here, Eddie. I don’t like that. Not while we provide the bed and board.”

“Some bed,” Chico says. “Some board.”

Sam looks up quickly, hurt at first, then angry. When he speaks, Chico sees that his teeth are yellow with French’s mustard. He feels vaguely nauseated. “Your lip. Your goddam lip. You aren’t too big yet, snotnose.”

Chico shrugs, peels a slice of Wonder Bread off the loaf standing on the TV tray by his father’s chair, and spreads it with ketchup. “In three months I’m going to be gone anyway.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m gonna fix up Johnny’s car and go out to Califor- . nia. Look for work.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” He is a big man, big in a shambling way, but Chico thinks now that he got smaller after he married Virginia, and smaller again after Johnny died. And in his mind he hears himself saying to Jane: My brother, maybe, but not me. And on the heels of that: Play your digeree, do, Blue. “You ain’t never going to get that car as far as Castle Rock, let alone California.”