Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [182]
I closed my notebook. My heart was beating in the tips of my fingers. The inner door opened again and two more stood there looking at the schoolgirls blocking their way. Some of them were awake now and lifted their heads from their pillows, blinking at the light.
These two were tall and scrawny, pierced and tattooed, one of them with a blue Mohawk, the sides of his head newly shaved. His dull eyes were lit with the surprise of the happy drunk who has just stumbled through the wrong door into somebody’s living room, not a drink in sight, but instead of turning around he and the other started forward in their hobnail boots. One of the teachers stood and said, “Please, gentlemen, there are girls sleeping. Can you go to another car?”
The one with the blue Mohawk raised his hand in a gesture that was both placating and threatening, his fingers long and white, the nail of the middle finger bruised or painted black. “We’re just seeing a friend, luv.” And they lurched forward down the aisle, their hands grabbing the seat backs. Most of the girls were awake now, and one or two were crying softly. It was the sound of children waking from a bad dream, the solitary misery of it, but it was what they had woken to that scared them, and the rear door rattled open as these two left and the first three made their drunken way back over the students. “Hush, girls. Hush now. Be good. Be good.” A laugh, then the dirty fingernails of a hand on Fontaine’s headrest inches from her hair, then they were at the door, sliding it open, a chest-deep whoop as it closed behind them. In it was the joy of the addict about to get just what he craves, the drunk who’s been promised a brand-new tab; there was only one more car behind this one, and it was clear that in it someone was dealing dope, for now the other two were already stepping over the girls, most of them awake, a few of them sitting up and leaning away from the boots and legs of these men who did not speak this time, just seemed intent to get out of this grandmother’s kiddie car to where the party was farther down the train.
Both teachers stood and spoke in German to the girls. Their tone was consoling and instructional. As the last two men reached the doors, one turned and winked flirtatiously down at the schoolgirls, then they were gone, and something was pressing against my ribs. There were whispered words in my ear.
“Honey, do something.”
Ahead of us the outer door was already opening again. Through two sets of glass, I could see it was one man this time. Blond hair and black leather, the dull flash of silver. I glanced past Fontaine to the nearest teacher. Her eyes were on mine, and the old carpenter’s were too, alert beneath white eyebrows. The inner door was jerking open. I was already up and squeezing past my wife, but it was like stepping into a cold, black cave, a final place that had been foretold in my youth. I stepped over a brown-haired girl lying on her side. Her eyes were as alert as the old man’s, and I was struck with a razored dread and a cosmic wonder too; of all the cars in this train, how was it possible that I had chosen one where I was the only young man, the one in front of the dealer’s car, the one filled with old people and frightened children? The preacher knew my fate and had given me time to pack my bags: why hadn’t I? Instead of working on my mediocre novel, why hadn’t I written letters home? To my mother in Miami, to my father in his wheelchair in Haverhill, to my sisters and brother? I would have told them I loved them, that I wished I’d been a better son and brother. I could have written to my friends and to former lovers. I could have written to anyone I’d ever hurt, and I could have apologized. I could have begun to atone for all the harm I’d learned to do. My dream had delivered me the bill, and