Durable Goods_ A Novel - Elizabeth Berg [41]
“Did you get burned?” Diane asks.
I shrug. She must have been struck blind: I believe I look like Crayola violet-red.
“We’ll stop for lunch soon,” Diane says.
“Okay.”
She turns to look out the window. Silence. This happens when you travel. First everyone talks a lot, then a little, then only the road talks. We haven’t stopped to look at anything. We are just getting away.
“Armadillo,” Dickie says, pointing to the side of the road. It is dead, lying on its side, a sick cloud of flies above it. At their dirt home, I think of Mrs. Armadillo saying to her children, “Where could he be?”
By now my father has called the MPs, probably the civilian cops, too. “Find my daughters,” he has told them, and they have said, “Yes, sir.” When they leave, he walks around the house. I know the walk. I know the eyes. I look behind us. Off in the far distance, one other truck. Black. Nothing else.
Dickie slows the truck, starts pulling over to the side. There is a man hitchhiking there. He comes up to the window and Dickie nods at him. “Need a lift?” The man nods back, grateful.
“Back of the truck okay?”
“Fine with me,” the man says, and climbs in. He is old, and I wonder what he is doing hitching. Anyone can end up any way.
“I’ll go in back, too,” I say. Dickie looks at Diane. She leans over to look at the old man, shrugs all right.
I climb out, get into the back of the truck. “Hi,” I say, and the truck pulls out onto the highway.
The man extends his hand. “Theodore Bender.”
“I’m Katie,” I say. No last names. He could turn us in.
“Where y’all headed?” he asks.
“Oh, just out for a ride,” I say.
The man nods.
“Don’t you have a car?” I say.
“Nope. Nor a house neither.”
“Oh.” I look out at the flatness we’re passing through. The sky is deep blue, empty of the variety of clouds. The man stretches out, puts his head on his backpack.
“I never have liked to be in one place only,” he says. “I like to keep moving. I do a few odd jobs, move along. You should stay out of the sun, little lady.” He closes his eyes. We are done talking. I had hoped for more. This trip is not turning out right one bit. All I have gotten everywhere are bad signs.
When Dickie pulls into a restaurant parking lot, the man wakes up. “Guess this is my stop,” he says, and winks at me. Then he goes to the road and sticks his thumb out again. When will he decide to stop? I wonder. What will say to him, this is the place. When I come into our kitchen, it’s the dish rack I always look at first. The pots and pans always lie slanted on top of the plates and bowls; the silverware always stands up in neat rows; the dish towel always hangs folded on its circular hanger. But sometimes you don’t know what it is that tells you you are in the right place; there is just a kind of lying down of your insides, a message from yourself to relax, you are home.
I am suddenly very tired.
The restaurant tables are all lined up against the window. There are red-and-white tablecloths, and groupings of salt, pepper, and sugar all huddled together like family. The menus are old and good looking. I ask for a burger and fries and I can’t wait to get them. Dickie gets chicken-fried steak and Diane gets a BLT. Cokes all around.
When the waitress leaves, I can see we are all in a good mood, the way ordering food makes you get. Well now, you think, your hands folded on the table. I am taken care of. All I do is wait now.
Dickie looks out the window at the old man, who is still asking at the side of the road for a ride. “Wonder who he is,” he says.
“He does odd jobs, and then he moves on,” I say.
Dickie smiles. “What a life.”
“I think I’d like it,” Diane says. “I do! Never stay anywhere.”
“You don’t like to move all the time,” I say.
“I don’t like somebody else telling me where to move,” she says. “But if I could decide when and where, I’d like