Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [94]
“By the time the cops got there I was kinda incoherent. I had point twelve percent of alcohol in my blood, and I tried to fight them when they wanted me to get into the patrol car; I had some idea I had to stay with the kid. So naturally they took me in. Resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer, and driving while intoxicated, and exceeding the speed limit, and failure to exercise proper caution . . . And then the kid’s parents decided to sue me for manslaughter. I wanted to plead guilty; the way I felt, I didn’t care too much what happened to me any more. Myrna thought I was nuts. If I didn’t have any self-respect, she said, at least I might have the decency to think of her and the children, of their standing in the community.”
“And did you?”
“Yeh. In the end. I let her get me an expensive lawyer, and he won the case for us. I had the right of way, see, and the kid was on drugs, that’s a lot worse than booze in Tulsa. Except if I hadn’t been so damn bombed I would have seen him in time, easy.”
“I’m sorry,” Vinnie says. “What an awful thing to happen.”
“I can’t fucking get it out of my mind. At least I couldn’t. It’s been better lately. For a long time I felt like I oughta die too, to make it up to the kid and his parents. That’s what it was mostly. Not so much losing my job like I told you. Whenever I get in a car, even sometimes just crossing the street, I think about it. I keep taking chances, to see if I’ll cash in; and if I make it, maybe I’m forgiven. I know that’s sort of crazy.”
“Of course it’s crazy,” Vinnie says decidedly. “It wouldn’t do that boy or his parents the least bit of good for you to be killed in an accident.”
“‘An eye for an eye—’”
“‘Makes the whole world blind,’” she finishes.
“Yeh—I see what you mean.” Chuck grins suddenly. “That’s a smart proverb. I never heard it before.”
“Gandhi.”
“What? Oh, yeh, that Indian.” Chuck ceases to smile. “Anyways.” He shifts uncomfortably on the sofa, causing it to creak in protest. “I thought you oughta know. I mean, in case you might not want to have anything more to do with me.”
An excuse to draw back has been handed to Vinnie on a platter, but she hesitates. It would be hateful and hurtful to reject Chuck because of what had happened to him on the Muskogee Turnpike. Indeed, now she looks at the platter again, what is on it seems more like a watertight excuse for going ahead.
“Don’t be silly,” she says nervously. “It was a terrible accident, that’s all.”
“Aw, Vinnie.” Chuck lunges toward her, so precipitately that he leaves most of the bedspread behind, and folds her in a warm half-naked hug. “I shoulda known you’d say that. You’re a good woman.”
Vinnie does not smile. No one has ever said this to her before, and she knows it to be false: she is not, in Chuck’s presumed sense of the word, or any sense of it, a good woman. She is not particularly generous, brave, or affectionate; she steals roses from other people’s gardens and enjoys imagining nasty deaths for her enemies. Of course, in her own opinion, she is quite justified in being like this, considering how the world and its inhabitants have treated her; and she has positive qualities as well: intelligence, tact, taste . . .
“You’ve been so great to me all along,” Chuck continues. “Hell, you saved my life, just about.” He begins kissing her face, breaking off at intervals to speak. “Y’know, if I hadn’t met you, I probably never woulda thought of looking for my ancestors . . . Or found South Leigh. That time we had tea, I was about ready to give up. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have found Old Mumpson, or met Mike or anything. I woulda managed to get myself killed by now, probably. Or else, a damn sight worse, I’d be back in Tulsa.”
“Wait,” Vinnie tries to say between kisses, in which somehow she has begun to join. “I’m not sure I want . . .” But her voice now entirely refuses to function; and her body—rebellious, greedy—presses itself against Chuck’s. Now, now it cries; more, more. Very well, she says to it. Very well, if you insist. Just this once. After all, no one will ever have to know.