Part 27 (1/2)

”Sam Callahan wrote that a stiff d.i.c.k hath no conscience.”

Lloyd spit again and I handed him the water I'd been hauling around ever since I woke up. He swished his mouth, gargled a moment, and spit.

”We all made mistakes, Maurey. You more than anyone should understand forgiveness. You'll never get your baby back without it.”

I couldn't settle on a rational comeback. After tequila, though, rational isn't necessary for speech. ”My mistakes have excuses. Hugo's don't.”

”How do you know his story?”

”There can be no excuse for adultery by males.”

”As opposed to females?”

”I can think of several reasons a woman might have to commit adultery.”

Lloyd smiled, pretending I was kidding. Maybe I was, maybe not, I don't know. In certain situations women do deserve more slack than men. That's because men made the rules. They're the house and women are the gamblers, and everyone knows the only way a gambler can beat the house is to cheat.

”If Hugo lasts another day or two, I'll vote that she takes him back,” Lloyd said.

”That's because you want Sharon to take you back and you know she probably won't.”

His head came up. ”Why not?”

Words came in a rush. ”Sharon was a little girl when she married you, Lloyd. She's grown up by now. You can't expect to find the same girl who loved you years ago.”

”Yes, I can,” he said.

”This search is stupid.”

The web of lines around his eyes went hurt child. I swear, I should be quarantined from sensitive men. The government could create a pain zone one hundred yards away from me in all directions. Put up Keep Out signs like they do on the trails when a grizzly gets mean.

”I'm sorry,” I said. ”If anyone deserves forgiveness, you do.”

Lloyd reached out to make a minuscule hose adjustment. ”We had a nice sunset this afternoon. Too bad you were asleep and missed it.”

”I had that coming.” He didn't disagree, so I said, ”I'm going for a walk while this deal fills up. No use both of us loitering at the scene of the crime.”

Lloyd had simplified life to Ivanhoesque terms: one single obstacle stands between me and happiness, and if I can overcome that obstacle, all problems will cease to exist. Lloyd's peace of mind through the hard times was based on the lie that if he found his precious Sharon, they would automatically come together in rapture and love and all would be right with the world. So to speak. As it were.

My ethical question, wandering aimlessly through the damp parking lot, was, did I do the right thing? Is peace of mind based on a he better than no peace of mind at all?

I'd known other people who blamed all misfortune on one fixable fact. Fat people, for instance. There's no one more depressed than a fat person who loses one hundred pounds and discovers the thin can be lonely, too. Or those southern women who are trained that by being pretty, sweet, and available, a man will swoop down and make everything nice. Ivanhoe swoops down and nothing changes except the women stop being pretty, sweet, and available.

I suspected sobriety of the same trick. Every chatterbox in America took for granted that if I quit drinking I'd win my baby Auburn back. If I quit drinking I would fall in love with a prince rather than a s.h.i.+thead. And the prince would fall in love with me. They said if I quit drinking my life would find direction and everything in the vicinity of it would no longer be ugly, turgid, and meaningless.

How the h.e.l.l did they know? Sober women marry creeps. Sober women lose children. What if the deal was a colossal hoax, I abandoned the only dependable lover I've ever had-Yukon Jack-and afterward woke up to zippo? Emptiness? I could get screwed here.

I did the moth thing and drew toward the light. Five or six cars of the decade-old variety were parked close to a double-loading door, which I avoided. My tack was to stay on the dark edge of the parking area, then drift around the side of the Alka-Seltzer away from the highway. I found some gla.s.s doors, but they only looked in on a lobby-like room with two trophy cases flanking a large mosaic of a Trojan soldier's helmet.

The trophy cases were lit by those tube lights they mount above paintings in art museums. The trophies were mainly for football with a smattering of fake-gold statuettes wearing shorts to indicate basketball and track. Not a skiing or rodeo trophy in the bunch.

Off left of the doors I discovered a ledge forty feet or so up that circled the building and pa.s.sed in front of a bank of way-high windows. The fire escape was a piece of cake. I could have climbed it smashed.

The ledge itself was somewhat narrow for my tastes-I'm no mountain goat-and it was wet and sloped like five degrees the wrong way, but the windows were framed in concrete that made an okay handhold. Once past the side of the frame, I planted my elbows on the lower lip and cupped my hands around my eyes to peer in at the Land of Oz.

It was neat. Ten feet high, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion stood on one side of an immense throne, facing Toto and Judy Garland. Toto had a Pomeranian look about the nose and ears. Judy Garland's hair was in pigtails.

Just guessing, I'd say tomorrow was prom night and the junior cla.s.s or whoever does these things in Arkansas was transforming the gym into a theme park. Mainly the transformation required a heck of a lot of emerald green crepe paper.

A dozen teenagers moved around the room, drinking c.o.kes and laughing and putting on finis.h.i.+ng touches. They must have had a glitter fight earlier because the kids sparkled, especially their hair. The girls wore shorts, the boys jeans; everyone was barefoot.

A boy who looked so much like Park my breath caught was painting a yellow brick road on an entire wall of butcher paper. The road receded up the wall through a forest filled with Munchkins and flying monkeys. At the bottom edge where the road came off the paper it met a yellow carpet strip that ran across the floor to the throne.

A girl straddling the top of a ladder called something to the Park-boy. He set down his brush and walked over to the ladder, where he picked a crown off the floor and, taking two steps up the ladder, lifted it to the girl. She had blond, bouncy hair and was wearing white shorts and an off-white pullover jersey. As she reached down to take the crown their fingers touched and they smiled in each other's eyes. Bing. I wanted to cry.

”You finished?” Lloyd's quiet voice came from below.

I looked down. ”Are you?”

”Gas is in. All we need now is to prime the carburetor and hit the road.”

I looked back in to where the girl was balancing the crown at an angle on the Scarecrow's two-dimensional head. Park was frozen, gazing up at her like a dancer in a musical who's been told not to move a muscle till the starlet finishes her solo.

”I'll be right down.”

Back on ground level, Lloyd asked, ”See anything interesting?”

”The Land of Oz.”

”Was it nice?”

”At my prom we did Camelot better.”

32.

At dawn I drove Moby d.i.c.k across the Mississippi River into Memphis. That's one big river, especially for a woman raised on water you can throw a rock across. A couple of tugboats were pa.s.sing under the bridge, pus.h.i.+ng what looked like floating city blocks. The air was thick as Cool Whip.

”My dad had two rules when it came to choosing a place to live,” I said.

”Listen to those plug wires arc,” Lloyd said.

I didn't hear anything. ”First, he had to have a house where he could p.i.s.s off the front porch without affronting the neighbors.”