Frank made the light at the corner and turned right and they went up Tenth Avenue, north. He was still nervous about highways, after his experience when coming into this city, so he was going to avoid them. Drive city streets, and after that country roads. Just keep heading north, with no place special in mind. Stop where the country looks nice; with a motel.
The eyes that watched him all the time, judged him all the time, liked it that he was hanging out with these people.
29
Pami just couldn’t figure out this guy Frank. He didn’t want to fuck her, he didn’t want to pimp her, he didn’t seem to want to make use of her at all. Takes her to a doctor, gives her food and clothes, drives around with her, and doesn’t want anything back.
Maybe I died, Pami thought sometimes. Maybe I died in that fire with the cop, and this is what it’s like after you die, you have a nice dream to make up for all the bad things that went on before. She didn’t really believe that, though. No dream would have that disgusting Jap in it. And if Pami couldn’t figure out what Frank wanted with her, there wasn’t a hope in hell to figure out what he wanted with the Jap.
But what difference did it make? Being with Frank was a lot better than being with Rush, that’s all that mattered. What did she care if things made sense or not? When had anything ever made any sense?
They drove and drove, up through the middle of Manhattan, spending most of their time stopped at traffic lights, and at one of them the Jap came to and struggled up into a seated position. He looked like hell, unwashed, caked with dried blood, a little scraggly Oriental beard starting to grow. He smiled and bowed, head bobbing in the backseat, thanking them for rescuing him, and Frank told him it was okay, looking in the mirror at him, saying they liked the company, and they were going to drive out of the city for a while. The Jap liked that idea.
Somebody behind them honked that the light was green. Frank jolted them forward and said, “Talk to him, Pami, for Chrissake. Find out if he’s hungry.”
What did she care if the Jap was hungry? But she twisted around and looked at him and said, “You hungry?”
The Jap gave a mournful nod.
Pami nodded back. She said to Frank, “He says yes. He’s hungry.”
“Maybe we’ll stop and get a pizza,” he said. “So we can eat on the way.”
But the Jap was doing all kinds of gestures, pointing at his throat and shaking his head and making disgusted eating faces. Pami watched this for a few seconds and then said, “You got a hurt throat?”
Big nod.
“Can’t eat?”
Sorrowing headshake.
Pami faced front again. “Says he can’t eat,” she said, and went back to looking at the people on the sidewalks. There’s a hooker; that one right there.
“Liquids,” Frank said.
They were way up at the top of Manhattan by then, where it’s all Puerto Rican and Central American, so Frank stopped in front of a bodega and went inside, leaving Pami and the Jap in the car. The bums hanging out in front of the bodega, beer in their bandit moustaches, leered at her but didn’t approach. “Like to give it to you all,” she muttered under her breath.
Frank came back out and got into the car with a plastic bag full of small cans of apple juice, plus rolls and cheese and beer for himself and Pami. “Give him some juice,” he said, “and make us a couple sandwiches.”
So she did, and at the next red light the Jap cautiously took a sip of apple juice and made a horrible face as though it really hurt. But then he managed to swallow some — the rest dribbled down out of the corners of his mouth — and looked grateful.
Pami glanced back at him from time to time, interested to see how he was making out, and as they drove up through the Bronx and into Westchester County the Jap very slowly put away two of the little cans of juice, one agonizing sip at a time. Then he settled back against the seat, eyes glazing over, breathing with a raspy sound, his mouth hanging open.
Driving along behind a very slow pickup truck, waiting for a chance to pass, Frank said, “How is he?”
Pami twisted around to look back. “Better,” she said. “He looks better.” And she faced front again. Greenery up here, big houses. Like some of the hills north of Nairobi, the rich people’s places, only greener.
Frank got around the pickup truck, then looked in the rearview mirror at the Jap. “Better, huh?” he said. “He looks like a dog that fell out of an airplane.” He shook his head. “One halfway decent score in my life,” he commented at the windshield, “and I turn into the welfare department.”
Pami watched the fat men on the little tractors, mowing their lawns.
30
The reason the doctors had said it was all right for Grigor to have an overnight away from the hospital — his first since he’d arrived in the United States — was that nothing mattered any more, and everybody knew it, including Grigor, and including Maria Elena. But even though everything was now hopeless, there was still a great deal of awkward preparation to be made, medicines to carry, the foldaway wheelchair to be put into the trunk of the car, instructions for Maria Elena to write down and carry with her.
Grigor was in favor of the expedition simply because he wanted to go on seeing and experiencing the world for as long as possible, and he knew his time was growing very short. And Maria Elena wanted it because, in some angry uncomplicated way she herself didn’t understand, she wanted Grigor to see her life, to see it, before his own life came to an end. To see what she’d done wrong.
They would drive to Stockbridge, to the house Jack had now vacated — sadly forgiving Maria Elena first for her heartless treatment of poor Kate Monroe, with whom he would not be moving in — and she would cook a dinner, tiptoeing as best she could through the mine field of Grigor’s dietary restrictions. Tonight he would sleep on the living room sofa — the stairs would be impossible for him — and tomorrow they would drive back. Exhausting, futile, and more sorrowful than cheerful, but at least simple.
Until the blowout.
“Now what?” Frank said, seeing the woman wave at him. Just beyond her, a car was pulled off the road, with somebody inside. The right rear of the car sagged down almost to the weedy ground. A few miles back they’d been delayed by some kind of demonstration in front of a nuclear power plant — with everybody in the car shielding their faces from the state troopers standing around — and now this.
“Stupid people,” Pami said.
“By God, I’m gonna get to change another tire,” Frank said, pulling into a stop behind the woman and the car.
Pami said, “Another?”
“It’s just the way my life runs,” Frank told her. Switching off the ignition, opening his door, he said, “Well, maybe this one will have good advice, too.”
Maria Elena was too distraught to notice how odd the trio was in the car that had come to her rescue. She only knew this was a seldom-traveled road, far from the interstates and the Taconic Parkway, where all the traffic sped. She had Grigor as her responsibility, and she had no idea how to change the blown tire.
“I’m sorry to have to ask you,” she said, when the rough-looking man approached her from the Toyota.
“That’s okay,” Frank said. He was feeling surly, because what was he going to get out of this? The hearty thanks of some broad he didn’t know or give a damn about. Good-looking, in a kind of exotic too-strong way, but so what? Already loaded down with Pami and the Jap, he wasn’t going to score on the roadside with some damsel in distress. He was just going to mess up his hands again and get all dirty, that’s all. And Ms. Exotic here didn’t look the practical type; she wasn’t going to have any of those nice wet towelettes. “You wanna open the trunk?” he said.