Our Lady of the Forest (12 page)

Every cabin was taken tonight. The lights were on in most of them. It was raining with a genuine fury, as though the sky had been torn open by a God bent on angry floods. It was raining as if to beat the earth into a wet submission. You couldn't hear a truck on the highway.

When Tom drove past the motel office he peered beyond the sweep of his wipers and through the picture window there, hoping to glimpse Jabari. He wanted merely to see a female, for whatever that might be worth. But behind the desk, the television was on and Pin was watching with his head on the counter, his fingers limp above his greasy head—small, caramel-colored fingers. It was the fingers that bothered Tom the most—something like that could get to him. He was weak and tender underneath. It's all too sad, he thought, and drove off. Even just ordinary sadness.

         

The Big Bottom was crowded but not lively. Despite the impoverished tenor of the times, drinking establishments still flourished in North Fork as though it were a frontier boom town. The Vagabond, the Big Bottom, HK's, and TJ's were filled with dipsomaniacs. Almost every patron's life was complicated by debt, by decisions devoid of the most basic logic, and by a generalized confusion. Somebody would lose half their teeth, a couple of fingers, a spouse and a truck in seven days' time. Somebody else would shoot a horse in a field, drive a borrowed car into a ditch, stumble drunkenly into ferns and sleep, bleeding, until 2 p.m. It was inexplicable by the more reasonable standards of the American upper middle class—people who folded their underwear at night and watched their mutual funds in on-line portfolios—but there it was, another slant on things without roots in better judgment. How to explain two unemployed loggers who smashed in the door of HK's one dawn, then sat at the bar drinking shot glasses of Jack Daniel's until the sheriff finally loomed over them? We needed a place to sleep was not a viable explanation. Or the logger who heard at the Vagabond one night that laughing gas was an aphrodisiac and so broke into North Fork Dental, sprawled in the chair with his pants at his ankles, twisted a valve, pulled on a mask, groped himself, and died? Or that already on probation and in disobedience of a restraining order by virtue of being in the tavern at all, an ex-con left TJ's at 2 a.m., crept into a van, hot-wired it—melting a nest of wires beneath the dash—then put the van in first gear, not reverse, and drove through TJ's rear wall? There was no explaining these things. It was all one tale, like low-rent soap opera. The town was an extended family teeming with dark associations. Stories of loss were loved in North Fork: episodes of inexplicable behavior exhibiting a feckless and reckless bravado; head-shaking morality tales from a twisted universe. They mostly corroborated what North Fork knew: that an orderly life was unnatural, lived against the odds. Things happened because of the Sierra Club, the ACLU, and Jane Fonda.
CHARLTON HESTON IS MY PRESIDENT
a ubiquitous bumper sticker read. There was another that said
KILL DOLPHINS
. No one knew why all this was so and you couldn't really blame the rain for it because rain is as much a cathartic precipitation as a purveyor of ridiculous sorrows. Monstrous, dark and claustrophobic woods could not be imputed either. A dark rathole, wrote one explorer. A weight upon my sensibilities, added a nineteenth-century reporter. They brought their unhappiness with them to the woods. A billion places are ripe for discontent. You can't blame trees for your soul's condition. Was it perhaps the absence of light, then, a condition medically named?

At the Big Bottom Tom Cross sat by himself and stared at a football game. It was Saturday night and raining so hard that the Big Bottom's windows were translucently smeared and beyond them in the parking lot the rain was like an electric field illuminating the windshields of trucks and sparking off the ground. Rain rumbled outside, a dissonant, percussive chant. The out-of-work loggers sat at lone tables or in small clutches with pitchers in front of them, blandly cursing at the television. There was little enthusiasm or animation. No music played. Serious drunks in this atmosphere simply became more sullen. Someone shouted a football comment—These guys better get a nigger running back like all the good teams got these days—and this initiated a sporadic dialogue, more random gridiron commentary. Third and long's starting to make me sick. Whatever happened to the forward pass? That guy's worse than the Boz ever was. Maybe the Seahawks should bring back the Boz. Where's the Boz when you need him anyway? He's smeared to the bottom of Bo Jackson's shoe. He's Hollywood. He tried to be Arnold. If the Boz had been a big fast nigger maybe the Hawks coulda been in the Super Bowl. Niggers can't throw, someone said.

A row of women hunched over the bar, talking in furtive undertones. They'd arranged themselves in an elaborate betting pool that involved guessing the score of the game not only at the end of each quarter but also at the two-minute warnings. The bartender had strictly attached herself to them—a comforting klatch of old crones, she thought—and made only obligatory forays to serve the men at their tables. She stood posted by the cash register, smoking with obvious craving. What about this girl seen the Virgin Mary? one of the crones ventured. Or suppose to seen the Virgin Mary I don't know which it is.

I heard she seen that little girl's ghost. That one was lost—you know.

That one who works at the school cleaning up.

Jim Briggs. His daughter.

I heard she seen the Virgin too. It's Jim
Bridges.
Bridges.

I heard she seen them both is what I heard. From somebody who went up there, went with her up into the woods.

Who went?

Pat Mendencamp.

Going into the woods like that? No thanks they can have it.

A group of people went up there.

Well they can all have it, far as I'm concerned. I'm not going out into the woods like that to be abducted by a UFO.

Is that what you think?

Who knows? It maybe could be. That's how these things get started, don't they? Someone thinks it's one thing or another and it turns out to be something else. There's a lot of stupid people'll fall into anything and they're the ones end up in spaceships.

Maybe it's the devil, the bartender said. Doing his dirty work.

For the ten millionth time in her professional life, she scanned the tables of men. What did they want? What did they need? Where were they in their drinking? She went to pick up their empty glasses and to find out what came next. The devil she meant was just a notion—still there was clearly bad shit in the world, and it had to come from somewhere. Hey, she said to two pool players. You heard about this girl at the campground seen the Virgin Mary?

Bloody Mary, one of them said. She seen the Bloody Mary.

She didn't see jack.

Maybe they should make her coach of the Hawks.

You guys need another pitcher?

What I need is a Bloody Mary.

We don't have those. Who else needs what?

Bring another pitcher, Tammy.

What about you guys over here?

Two more pitchers. And watch the foam.

Make her coach of the Hawks, I say. Or give her some more magic mushrooms, maybe. Or hey—burn her at the stake.

Tammy went back to the sanctuary of the crones and began to fill orders at the tap. She was halfway to being a crone herself but nevertheless stuffed her thighs every evening into a pair of wide jeans. There were two guys in the place tonight she'd slept with out of drunken stupidity, but neither had been good to know, fun or interesting. One of them was Vaughn Maynard, who since then had lost an eyeball to a two-by-four launched out of a table saw, and the other was Tom Cross. As long as they don't get violent, she said, to nobody in particular. Just keep them in suds and they're all right.

What did you mean by saying it's the devil?

I mean people seeing things in the woods it could maybe be Satan just as easy as anything. I mean it could be a bad thing.

Tammy carried three pitchers in one hand, a full glass in the other. The satellite dish on the roof was acting up. Sometimes in the rain the signal broke apart, something the satellite company called rain shadow. The whole idea of a TV signal was mind-boggling in the first place. How did it happen? Did anyone know? If the image of a football game could travel through the air from Texas, couldn't there be a Satan? Anyway, the game looked odd. She hoped the picture would improve.

Tom Cross was drinking in a self-possessed way, but finally his glass was empty. You doing all right here? Tammy asked.

Another.

Why is it you always give me just a little old one-word answer?

Could you please bring me another beer, Tammy?

A whole sentence.

Yes.

She moved out of his range. Tom gave her a case of ill nerves. Partly she wanted to sleep with him again, now that he was beaten by tragedy. Maybe he would be more tender from it. Not so aloof and cold, not so terse and uncaring. After they did it, when that part was done, maybe they could talk about things that mattered, something she felt she needed to do, talk to a man about her life. She imagined them in bed with cigarettes, speaking of what was inside them both, his private world and hers as well—she had her own sore subjects, after all, though nothing close to Tom's. His were enough to ruin somebody and that made her want to pursue him again, to find out if Tom was someone she could talk to, a person she could peel open, reveal, because of all his wounds.

But more likely, she guessed, he was worse now. It seemed that way to her, watching. Getting tangled up with Tom in the hope of finding a moment's tenderness was plainly asking for trouble. That was one thing Tammy knew about—thinking that sleeping with a man was one thing, finding out it was another. No, she told herself, I don't need Tom. Curiosity killed the cat and I've already used nine lives.

When she brought him his fresh beer and took away the old one she said, That ought to hold you for a while and Tom answered, Maybe. Then she lost her will about him and put her hand on his table. Your son, she said. How is he?

Paralyzed.

I know that. But how is he?

How would you be if you were paralyzed?

Not too good. Terrible. But maybe he'll get back on his feet.

Tom drank, wiped his lips on his coat sleeve, and looked at the football game. Okay, said Tammy, fair enough. I can see you don't want to talk about it.

Tammy?

What is it?

That guy over there is calling for a beer.

Tell him he can get it himself.

It doesn't do me any good to jabber. I'm not game for beating it to death, talking it over all the time.

If you say so, Tom.

This girl that's seen the Virgin Mary. What's that about?

She's a mushroomer. That's all I know.

He's pissed because you won't look at him.

Tell him I'm busy looking at you.

Go on, Tammy. See to business.

I'm not going to speak for you, but me, I had a lot of fun. That's all, Tom. Otherwise, it's raining. Just a little fun.

It never works that way. You know that. There's no such thing as a roll in the hay and everyone goes away fine.

You turning me down?

Probably. I guess.

That's a mistake, said Tammy.

         

By closing time, she'd gotten to him; he'd also been drinking a little. But as it turned out Tom was still bad to sleep with. He did it quickly with his pants at his ankles, his boots still laced, his shirt still buttoned, and his big moment arrived without fanfare. Oh God, she heard him say, and when he opened his eyes, they were misty. He pulled out with no inkling of affection and zipped himself up right away. Then he sat in a chair and smoked, looking out the window. Immediately it was as if the sex hadn't happened; it barely had, in her case. Yet she held out hope for an emotional exchange, some kind of intimate dialogue. Tammy remembered her disappointment from the last time, how Tom had been so quick about it then; now he was even more of a mistake, didn't kiss her, didn't look, just did what he had to, took care of his business in the perfunctory manner somebody might piss in the woods. But where before he'd mainly been cold and impersonal, now there was mostly this layer of sadness slowing his every move. Now he was empty and a cause for distress, his unhappiness a transferable stain, so that as much as she'd wanted to probe into him she found herself wanting a quick exit. At least there hadn't been any trouble; he'd been in and out in no time. There hadn't been logistical fumbling or the awkwardness of coaxing an erection. What had possessed her to give Tom a whirl? What new low had she sunk to? Tammy sat up and started gathering her clothes. How'd you get here? she asked.

I'm motel maintenance. Plus cash every week. It's what I'm able to afford.

You get kicked out?

I walked out, Tammy.

Over what exactly?

Over everything.

She knew the story. Everyone did. The Cross family tragedy was a public meal, all-you-can-eat night at the Elks Club. Still, there were multiple versions of it—a kind of smorgasbord. Some said Eleanor gave him the boot, some said Tom left breaking things, some said they parted amicably, some said the two of them still slept together but were nevertheless full of hatred. Everyone knew, obviously, that their differences were over the boy and his troubles, but what sort of differences were they? Everything, said Tammy. That's a lot.

Tom got up and tossed her jeans on the bed. A car went by on the highway, wet tires, and she watched while its headlights swept through the curtains and swam across his face. A fleeting underwater glow, like glimpsing Tom's face through a porthole. His lone rider's profile pockmarked by shadows. A momentary illumination; from one shade to another. Let's not go there, Tom said. I just couldn't take it, that's all.

Take what?

Get dressed.

If you had any tenderness in you at all you'd snap this bra for me.