Big Bend Page 9

  They horse it to the door of the truck and carefully, grunting with the effort, get it across the unevenly married tailgates and into the back of Bergenstaedtler’s truck and rest a minute, making exclamations.

  George says, “Let’s uncover it so I can get a look.”

  “It’s fine,” Carl says testily.

  “I want to see,” Tracy says.

  “It’s perfect,” Carl says. He puts his hands on it, ready to move it back into the darkness, but George isn’t with him, and so the college kids aren’t. Amazing how immediately, instinctively, they bank away from Carl’s authority, side with George.

  “Let’s just have a look,” George says. He’s fighting a feeling of pointlessness. He knows from Carl’s irritation that the piece has some major flaw, knows that the bill of lading is going to say perfect, knows that he and Carl will argue, knows that Bergenstaedtler will admire the piece despite its horrible flaws, knows the old man won’t listen or care. George pulls the first mat off the monster anyway.

  The kid helps out, and soon the huge hutch-like thing is exposed. Immediately Eric starts spouting about its probable age, admiring it, but George isn’t listening, focusses instead on the huge, fresh gash in its side, likely some kind of forklift wound, Carl being lazy: not the first time.

  George looks at him hard and says, “How did you list this?”

  “It’s a Turner breakfront,” Carl says. “A delicious piece.”

  “Magnificent,” Eric says, ready to adopt whatever personality is strongest around him.

  “How do you list it?” George repeats.

  Carl doesn’t answer. The game has started.

  “Let’s see the list.”

  “I’ve got it down as good,” Carl answers, “and that’s conservative as hell. It’s a real piece.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Tracy says. “But what’s this mega gouge? And all this here?” She points to where the finish is scraped and stripped in the most obvious place, right across the top. “I would call it a mess.”

  George is pleased to have an ally. Amazing how these kids can speak their minds. “I’d say fair,” George says, though maybe good wouldn’t be such an exaggeration. He knows that saying anything is going to get Carl going.

  “What a shame,” Tracy says. “Did you drop it or something?” She seems already to know the things George took so long to learn about Carl.

  “It’s fine,” Carl says. “Bergenstaedtler’s going to love it. So let’s get it loaded so I can get out of here.”

  “Just a little refinishing,” Eric says, sounding like a cocky, college-kid version of Carl.

  Tracy picks up the printout, finds the breakfront: Turner, c. 1820. “It’s listed as perfect,” she says.

  “No way,” George says.

  “Oh, Christ,” Carl says, pulling his beret down off his shining head, “just load the goddamn thing, will you, George?”

  George hesitates, scratches his cheek. “I don’t think so, Carl.” Something about the presence of the young woman has made George bold: “In fact, I think I’m going to refuse it.”

  “You can’t refuse it.”

  “Consider it refused. If you can’t write an honest report, then just consider it refused.”

  Carl slumps a little, smiles for probably the first time today, tries a good-guy approach: “You can’t refuse this stuff, George.”

  “It’s refused. Kids, let’s put the breakfront back in Carl’s truck.”

  Tracy is ready, seems excited by the argument, but Eric seems to have taken Carl’s side now.

  Carl climbs down off the mated tailgates, clomps away. George and Tracy are all grins, either out of fear or because Carl is so comical in his anger. Eric isn’t sure what side to be on, rocks foot to foot. Suddenly, Carl’s truck roars starting and lurches, pulls away, rumbles clear to the other end of the parking lot, hundreds of bleak yards of asphalt, where Carl parks it and leaps out, trots back over like someone about to throw punches. He stands below George, says, “Should I call Bergie?”

  “The piece is refused.”

  “It’s in your truck, moron.”

  “It’s going to get out of my truck.” George leans into the piece, and with Tracy’s help slides it till it’s hanging over the tailgate at the balance point, dangerously close to falling.

  “You fucking moron,” Carl says.

  And Eric makes his decision. He and Tracy get on the ground, tip the Turner breakfront toward them, and within seconds it’s standing on the pavement of the parking lot.

  “Refused,” George says.

  Glowering, Carl hisses, “You can’t refuse it.”

  George picks up the bill of lading, writes REFUSED over the breakfront, shows it to Carl.

  “I’m going to make a call,” Carl says. “I’m going in the hotel to give Helmut Bergenstaedtler a call.”

  George shrugs, and Tracy shrugs with him.

  Carl is red right up to the edge of his beret, making an effort not to lose his temper completely. “Moron” Plain statement. He turns and marches to the grand entrance of the Sheraton, hundreds of yards the other way across the parking lot, disappears inside.

  “Let’s load the rest of this stuff,” George says. And with the kids he pushes the biggest desk into place, then loads the bureaus, then the bookcases and tables, then all the chairs. Carl is gone a long time, and when he’s back the Bergenstaedtler truck is nearly full, the rear of the load carefully tied so things won’t fall. The breakfront looms alone on the pavement, just standing there. George and Tracy and Eric lean in the back of the truck in a space just about big enough for a Turner breakfront, c. 1820. They watch Carl’s progress toward them. He doesn’t look as if he’s calmed down any.

  “You can’t refuse it,” Carl shouts before he’s fifty feet away.

  “I take it Mr. B. wasn’t there,” George says.

  “You can’t refuse it, you moron” Carl says.

  “Don’t call him that,” Tracy says. She’s so game that George has to laugh.

  Carl ignores her, stomps the pavement once in a childish gesture. “Put the fucking thing in your fucking truck, George!”

  “Here you go.” George hands Carl the bill of lading with the big REFUSED written on it, stuffs his own copy in his shirt pocket. Tracy jumps down from the tailgate, puts her hands about a mile deep in her pockets, the perfect gesture. Eric follows, then George jumps down, too, pulling the overhead door closed behind him. The breakfront stands naked on the pavement, forlorn.

  “You can’t refuse it,” Carl says, trying to be nice again.

  “I already have. Get your truck over here and we’ll throw it in for you.”

  Carl says, “Mor-on,” just that, two syllables powered with steam, then trots off across the parking lot and to his truck. He clambers in, starts it up, roars the engine a couple of times, backs up, jerks forward, but instead of coming over for the breakfront, he drives slowly to the parking lot entrance, waits for traffic, pulls out trundling, and drives away with an angry wave.

  “Whoa,” Eric laughs, impressed.

  “He’ll be back,” Tracy says.

  “What about the Turner breakfront?” Eric says.

  There’s a long silence, really long, ten minutes, the three of them just standing there in the clear air staring off the direction Carl drove. They’re tired from the work. The sunlight is slanting. A flock of dusty-looking sparrows swoop into the thin branches of the moribund landscaping trees, chittering and peeping.

  Finally George says, “Let’s go have a drink. If he doesn’t come back in an hour, I guess we’ll just load it up.”

  All night George is sick with remorse. He knows he’s overstepped his authority by about seven light years, knows that he has to meet up with Carl again, work with him, work with Bergenstaedtler.

  Over drinks he tried to explain this to the young woman, Tracy (who as it turned out was working toward a Ph.D. in psychology, of all things), but all she could say was that he should quit if they expecte
d him to act against his morals. He called her an idealist, and next thing he knew she was working on him, trying to ferret out the reasons for his life. She seemed surprised that he had a bachelor’s degree from Columbia, which struck her as an awesome school, worked this small discovery into her annoying analysis. Eric just kept announcing how amazed he was about Columbia, how you never knew, how it showed you shouldn’t judge people or books by their covers, callow revelations he seemed to find profound and infinitely repeatable.

  After a couple of drinks and an hour of the two university kids trying to allay their excitement over the tussle by deconstructing George, they all went out in the parking lot and stared at the breakfront. The thing looked like some aggrieved British nobleman, just alone in the expanse of asphalt, the white Bergenstaedtler rig standing safely away. George shrugged, defeated, and unlatched the tall rear doors of the truck. The three of them loaded the breakfront in with much straining and groaning, much kidding around, much bold swearing.

  Since Carl hadn’t, George had to pay the kids, which he managed from his day money, Bergenstaedtler’s anyway. Then Eric left. But here was the thing: Tracy lingered, standing there in the parking lot, and the two of them talked another hour, hands in their pockets, losing the buzz from the drinks. And at the end of this parlay Tracy announced she was going to New York next week for spring break anyway, and asked if she could have a ride. Easy as that: just blow off her classes and whatever graduate study she was up to and leave a week early.

  Three in the morning and George is still lying awake, thinking of the girl. He should have said no.

  Tracy is there exactly at nine, exactly as planned, fed and ready, with a single small duffel bag that wouldn’t hold enough socks for George. George is exhausted already, hungover. He gets behind the wheel and Tracy sits way down the long seat from him, and he’s sorry he likes her so well. They smile at one another and off they go, down the highway, slowly in front of the full load, a few laughs about the breakfront and Carl, some silence as the trip begins. Then Tracy picks up on something George must have said in the bar, something he wishes he hadn’t.

  “Will we get to your sister’s by tonight?”

  George thinks a while, says, “I guess we shouldn’t stop.”

  They are quiet a good half hour then, listening to some pop political talk on the radio, the kind of stuff George always listens to alone. Luckily, the subject is corporate greed, and George kind of agrees—the blood stays out of his face. Tracy, she’s thinking about something else.

  By lunch they haven’t said ten words, but the ride is companionable enough. George has the idea that Tracy likes him, too, and he’s trying to decide what to do about it. In the bar she’d talked the way kids will about what age people said she looked, had said she thought George didn’t look any older than she, if you thought about it. She was wrong, George thinks. I look exactly forty, and she looks exactly twenty-six, and that’s exactly fourteen reasons why the two of us are not going to get mixed up. Immediately he pictures his sister, realizes it’s her voice saying all this, throwing all this doubt into the air. Why should a small age gap matter? Then again, who said this person wanted anything to do with him anyway at all?

  George and Tracy eat lunch at a truck stop off the highway, and George notices how the waitress assumes without the least judgment that he and the girl are some kind of item.

  Back in the truck, Tracy seems to get off on the three cups of coffee she’s drunk, clicks the radio silent, starts in: “Why don’t we stop at your sister’s? You haven’t seen her in how long?”

  George remembers all he’s told this voluble young woman, this strong, lovely woman who is suddenly his partner on the trip.

  “Not that long, really.”

  “Do you guys talk on the phone?”

  “Not that much. Some.”

  “Were you close when you were kids?”

  “I think so.”

  “What kind of close?”

  And George finds himself talking, talking at length, his childhood, his little sister, his struggles with girlfriends, his sister’s brainy boyfriend, the death of his dad, his mother’s way of being, which he’d never quite seen how curious it was—the kind of conversation you have with someone you want to see again, someone you want to date, someone you want to love and wake up with and cook for and brag about and have small jokes with and tell your day to.

  “You were injured. That’s what’s wrong. That’s exactly it. Your mother wounded you.” Too earnestly.

  “Oh, crap. Who said anything was wrong?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. You hate women, and you’ve set your sister up to take all the blame and you’re lonely and guilty and the question is why?”

  “I’m not sure I buy all this.”

  “You might not buy it, but you’re leading a lonely life! Why?”

  “I had a father, too, you know, not just a mother.”

  They were silent a long time, bouncing rhythmically on the joints in the pavement.

  “But he’s not the issue, is he … ?”

  “No one’s the issue. Why would I hate women?”

  “It’s just an otherness thing.”

  “Oh, come on,” George says. “That’s just gibberish. You’ve accused me of hating women—now you have to explain why.”

  “You tell me.”

  “I like women.”

  “All women?”

  “No.”

  “Whom do you hate?”

  “Don’t you mean who?”

  “It’s whom,” Tracy says. “It’s a whole direct-object thing.”

  “I hate …”

  “How do you get along with your mother now?”

  “My mother is sick. She’s eighty.”

  “So she was a pretty old mom, if you’re forty.”

  “Well, yeah. She would have been my age now when I was born.”

  “Did she pay attention to you?”

  “I don’t want to be psychoanalyzed, really.” He really doesn’t. He looks at the radio longingly, tries a joke: “Just give me the Thorazine! Lay on the Prozac!”

  But Tracy isn’t going to let up—not even a smile: “This isn’t analysis. And drugs are for addicts. I just want to figure out why you’re so afraid of your sister.”

  “All this ‘How do you feel about that?’ crap really bugs me. I do not hate my sister. Whatever happened to the triumph of cognitive-behavioral psychology I read about in college?”

  “I’m pissing you off,” she says. “That’s a good sign.”

  “I’m not pissed. You’re the one that’s pissed.”

  More silence, more bouncing down the road. A farmhouse, a bigger truck passing, grand clouds ahead and to all sides.

  Tracy says, “So let’s stop and see her.”

  More serious than he wants to sound, George says, “Maybe we should.”

  “Be fun!”

  “How am I going to explain you?”

  “We’ll say I’m your therapist.” Tracy holds a straight face for a second, but laughs, a surprising burble.

  “Crap,” George says. He likes her laugh, laughs, too.

  “We’ll say I’m your helper, all right?”

  George just shakes his head mildly, drives.

  “Which is what I am.”

  A long silence, twenty minutes, just the road coming, the truck bouncing.

  “You are a very beautiful girl,” George says, finally. “I don’t mean in the physical sense.” He tries again: “I mean, you are a good soul. But I think you’re beautiful, too. In the way of looking at you. A very beautiful girl.”

  “That’s a pretty aggressive thing to say,” Tracy says, looking at him. She seems to be kidding.

  “Crap.” This comes out lightly, humorously, just as George intends.

  “Anyway, if I’m beautiful I’m a beautiful woman, George.”

  “Oh double crap.”

  “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

  “No, just women friends.”<
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  “Any of them romantic?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “No, I hate women too much, loathe them. Ick.”

  “Ever had a gay lover?”

  “Dozens.”

  Tracy burbles, says, “Come on. Truth or dare.”

  “If I say no—which is the truth—you’re going to say I hate men.”

  “It’s yourself you don’t like.”

  “Let’s talk about your problems for a change. Did you ever have a boyfriend? Or do you talk too much?”

  “You are so aggressive.”

  “Sorry. No, really. Did you ever have a boyfriend?”

  “Of course,” she says.

  “See how silly the question is?”

  “I’ve gone out with three guys, long-term, and all three were assholes. Blunderbusses. Numchucks.”

  “I get it. You go out with blunderbusses, so now I have to hate women.”

  Silence. Then: “Geez. That was pretty right-on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you’re still a pretty pissed-off guy under that laid-back surface thing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Aggressive response.”

  “Aggressive question.”

  “So how come you avoid your sister?”

  George smiles wearily, face hot, gazes out the window at nothing, says, “Can we just listen to the radio?”

  “Take all the time you wish. But at some point you’ll have to just forget about her. Say, ‘So be it.’ Send her a Christmas card and don’t feel guilty.”

  “Let’s put the radio on.”

  Tracy turns the big cheap knobs and searches interminably for a song she likes on the crowded FM bands near Cleveland. Finally she settles on some woman singing about how she’s not aware of too many things, and calls it an oldie, though George has never heard it at all. They listen to the music, but the tension in the truck is pretty high. George wishes he hadn’t called her beautiful, though it’s true, he thinks, looking quickly at her, she’s started to seem the most beautiful person he’s ever talked to or imagined, and this revelation makes him self-conscious in a way he hasn’t been for years.