Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [77]
Luce probably should have known it was a mistake from the start, but she was scared, and wanted to believe that something as simple as distance might protect the children. Also, Stubblefield’s argument for normal was pretty compelling. When you’re up against it, family is who most people turn to.
STUBBLEFIELD CARRIED a musty kapok daybed mattress from the sleeping porch to the Hawk and pressed it to fill the entire backseat area. Luce cooked popcorn on the woodstove, enough to fill a brown paper grocery bag and leave dark butter stains on the bottom third. They set out driving south in the late afternoon, the children alert and eating corn by the fistfuls, studying the passing landscape with their eyes pinpointed by the low sun. And then, soon after dark, the children burrowed under a quilt and slept as deep and innocent as the dead.
Luce spent a great deal of time twisting the knob on the radio, which drew strange new stations, such as one from a town with a bus station big enough to advertise both its own newsstand and its restaurant, said to be known far and wide for T-bones and chili dogs and banana splits.
—Living in this car wouldn’t be all that bad, Luce said. Hard to hit a moving target.
They were way far from home, driving down into the flatlands of Georgia, a waxing half-moon in the sky. Supper had been a while back. Cheeseburgers and fries and vanilla shakes ordered over a speaker at a drive-in and arriving on an aluminum tray that stood levered from Stubblefield’s half-open window. Luce had never had food served in such a novel manner. The children didn’t even wake up, but there was a box of Cheerios and a few cans of corned beef hash if they got hungry. They were happy to eat cereal without milk, and their favorite way to eat the hash was cold. Open both ends of the can and push one lid against the grey cylinder until it plopped out, with its impress of ridges intact, and then chop it into two exact portions with the other of the sharp-edged lids. To make up for the bad nutrition, Luce figured she’d cook a big stew of kale and white beans and tomatoes and smoked sausage the next chance she got.
They drove through the middle of Milledgeville as the second showing of the evening movie was letting out. The Defiant Ones.
—I saw that, Stubblefield said.
—How was it? Luce said.
—About what you’d think. He nodded toward the one-sheets in their lighted glass frames on either side of the box office. Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier chained together and getting ready to fistfight each other.
—Sort of a county-fair three-legged-race kind of story? Luce said.
—Yeah. Pretty much.
Then, for lack of anything else to say, Stubblefield announced, State crazy house is in this town. Also, the man that wrote Brer Rabbit lived near here. Some time ago.
Luce failed to say anything at all in admiration of his knowledge, and in a minute Stubblefield said, There was a historical marker back there.
—Saw it.
They went out the bottom end of town, into dark country. Luce twiddled the radio to mostly hissing static with intermittent fading snatches of music. Far into the dark flatwoods, out of nowhere Luce said, You fetch up to our age, still single, people start wondering what’s wrong with you. Like you owe them an accounting of your love life. Most people are married by now. Why aren’t you?
—I almost got married one time.
—Almost, like engaged?
—Briefly, Stubblefield said. It’s a boring story.
—Yeah, but tell it anyway.
Stubblefield pitched it as a comedy, youthful idiocy way back a couple of years ago. Though it hurt a good bit at the time. His almost wife was the daughter of the owner of the Cadillac dealership, which in a small town made you nearly royalty. Her name was Alice, and she got intense about Stubblefield shortly