Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler [18]
Something jabbed me in the small of the back: the gun. Oh, Lord, the gun, which I had thought we were through with, and in fact had let slip my mind as if it never existed. That prodding black nubbin in the hand of a victim of impulse. I crossed the road and climbed the cinderblock steps, with Jake close behind me. I opened the warped wooden door. For a moment all I saw was a pyramid of PennZoil tins, a faded calendar girl in a one-piece latex swimsuit, and stacks of looseleaf auto-parts catalogues. Then I found an old man in a wicker chair. He was watching TV with the sound turned off. “Evening,” he said, not looking around.
“Good evening.”
“Something I can do for you folks?”
“Well, our car ran out of gas and I … we need a can of …”
“Fine, just fine,” said the old man, and he went on watching TV. There was a commercial on, someone holding up a bottle and silently rejoicing. Then a news announcer appeared at a bare, artificial-looking desk, and the old man sighed and stood up. “A tin,” he said. “Tin.” He went rummaging behind a stack of tires in one corner, but came up with nothing. “Wait a minute,” he said, and went outside. As soon as he was gone, Jake pushed me further into the room and leaned over to turn up the sound on the TV. “… with no end in sight,” the announcer said, “though experts predict that by mid-summer there may well be a …”
Jake switched channels. He traveled through a lady shampooing her hair, a man making a speech, a man playing golf. He arrived at another news announcer, pale and snowy. “Traffic on the Bay Bridge this summer is expected to reach an all-time high,” this announcer said from a distance. Jake turned up the sound. The man grew louder but no clearer, and sadly shuffled his papers as if he realized it. A picture appeared of Jake and me, backing away from the camera. In spite of the snow, our faces seemed more distinct now. By next week you would be able to count our eyelashes, maybe even read our thoughts. But our stay was much briefer this time, cut off in midstep. We were replaced by my husband, a towering hatrack of a man, gaunt and cavernous and haunted-looking as always, sitting on our flowered sofa. I felt something tearing inside me. “That bank robbery in Clarion,” the announcer said, “is not yet solved, and police are concerned about a woman hostage who has been identified as Mrs. Charlotte Emory.”
My husband vanished. A picture teetered up of me alone, photographed by my father for my high school graduation: my fifties self with lacquered hairdo, cowgirl scarf, and cheeky black smile. Then Saul returned. The announcer said, “Our own Gary Schneider talked with her husband this evening for ‘Views on News’ cameras.”
Gary Schneider, who wasn’t pictured, asked something I didn’t catch. Saul stopped cracking his knuckles. He said, “Yes, naturally I’m worried, but I have faith she’ll be returned to us. The police believe that the bandit is still in this area.”
His voice was hollow. He didn’t seem to be thinking of what he was saying.
“Would you care to comment, sir,” said Gary Schneider, “on that sidewalk witness who said they appeared to be running away together? Do you have any feeling that this may have been a voluntary action on her part?”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Saul, and he straightened slowly and took on a looming, ominous appearance that caused Gary Schneider to say, “Uh, well, I just—”
“Charlotte wouldn’t do such a thing. She’s a good woman, really, it’s just that … and I know she would never leave me.”
Something clanked. Jake spun around. The old man stood there with a gasoline can, shaking his head at the TV. “How long you been watching?” Jake asked—so mean you couldn’t miss it, but the old man only smiled.
“Why, I was one of the first in this valley to purchase a set,” he said. “This here is my third; run clear through the other two. Matter of fact I been thinking of color but I’m scared of the cancer rays.”
“Yeah, well,” said Jake.
He paid him for the gas and the can. The old man said he would trust us for the can, but Jake