Teko says, “You had this bunch of rules impounded into you. They told you what to do and when to do it. And of course you didn’t notice, but they even told you how to speak. You”—Teko here indicates Tania—“so that you could take your place among the ruling elite. And you”—Teko thrusts a forefinger in Joan’s direction—“because you were at their mercy. A member of a defeated people, you had to learn the language of the imperial oppressor.”
There are plenty of rules here too. According to Teko and Yolanda, the People’s vernacular is the same as Amos ‘n’ Andy’s. Nonrhotic. Dropping of the final g in the present participle and gerundial forms. Lack of definition of final sound in word-ending consonantal clusters. Multiple negation. Omission of word final s and ed. Substitution of word final f for th. Substitution of word initial d for th. Substitution of auxiliary be for first-, second-, and third-person singular and plural present and past indicatives of that verb. Not in so many words.
It is much too uncomfortable to call it a lazy day. Tania moves constantly, freeing herself of her clothes where they adhere to her. She crosses one leg over the other, sits for a moment, and then switches. Though the creamery’s huge door has been left open to allow air to circulate, it does no good. The sounds from outside are muzzy, without definition, except for the thunder, which rolls, enveloping them but bringing no rain.
As usual, Joan is giving Teko and Yolanda shit. Tania wishes that just this once she would go along with these two maniacs. It is so hot. They sit side by side on the upturned crates. If they touch accidentally, the impulse to move is both simultaneous and immediate, and as they peel apart, Tania feels their two skins, every centimeter of the way.
“You’re laughing, Joan, but take the accent, for example. They trained you to retain it, to mark you as an outsider.”
Joan giggles.
“Well, they did!” Yolanda is adamant.
“A lack of consciousness of the purpose of these differences is built into their design,” confirms Teko, somewhat obscurely.
Tania watches Teko prepare for his afternoon jog. Every afternoon the same thing: the same purposeful stretching, the eyeglasses left at the same spot on the porch rail, the same huffing breaths as he strides to the point at which he begins, every day, to run at the same leisurely pace. She checks the kitchen clock: 5:03 today. Teko and Yolanda are creatures of habit, rapidly falling into a pattern anywhere they find themselves, any situation. Naturally, Tania is obliged to share these shifts in behavior.
Ordinarily Tania is a person who takes comfort in the familiarity of habits and routines. Forms them quickly, adapts to those of others. Those of her parents. Those of the church. Those of her schools. Even those, God knows, of Eric Stump. She’d felt, with him, in that apartment on Bienvenue, as if the steadiness of their lives together would either stave off the death of love or slow its approach. Their habits hardened them into their apartness from each other, though the change was barely perceptible, evolutionary and profound, so that eventually they became two different creatures, divergent but both superbly adapted to the conditions of their common environment, who might chance to look up and gaze at each other with passing interest. All she’d wanted to do was to sit opposite the man: two laps, two books open in them, two glasses of wine on the coffee table. She might have made a life out of that. She could have. Even in its most difficult aspects it would have been the easiest thing to do.
But then came the habit of the closet. A routine that was irresistible, a cocooning, and when her chance to exit first arrived, on the day when she had sat in the VW van, sweating just like this and waiting for Teko and Yolanda to return from Mel’s, she realized that she couldn’t because for the first time in her life she had achieved the habit of novelty, every day, with Cujo — with all of them, really. So she’d picked up the machine gun and fired, pow! to maintain unobstructed the steady flow of the untried. Of course, if the theft of the socks/bandolier hadn’t been enough in itself, that act had sealed Cujo’s fate. But even the grief was new, as transfiguring as anything she’d ever endured. And was it her fault? She’d spent a lot of time working on that one, idly, picking the problem apart and studying it.
It was Teko who’d left the van illegally parked so that it was ticketed,
Teko who’d gotten caught stealing,
Who’d dropped the gun Yolanda had registered in her real name,
Yea, and it was Teko who’d left the parking ticket in the van when they ditched it.
She’d decided finally that wherever the blame lay, she didn’t regret firing that gun. Pow! into the new; pow! into the forefront of things; pow! into the unknown.
They huddle, is the only word for it, around the radio, draw close to one another from opposite ends of the big room and then stand gaping at the device. Twelve days after the House Judiciary Committee votes to adopt the First Article of Impeachment, three days after the president (another self-incriminating packrat) releases the transcripts of what will become known as the smoking gun tape, inducing eleven Republican members of the committee who voted against impeachment to announce that they will change their votes, the [expletive deleted] himself is on the air to offer up a farewell to the nation.
“To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home,” he says, “Therefore.”
There is a lengthy pause, and each of them leans forward, straining to hear. When the voice resumes, falteringly, it doesn’t even attempt to conceal its bitterness and unfocused loathing: “I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will—”
They whoop, leap into the air.
Teko hugs Yolanda.
Yolanda hugs Tania.
Tania hugs Joan.
“Ding dong,” cries Teko, “the witch is dead!”
Now what?
The group has taken to traveling to the nearby town of Youngsville for occasional recreation, usually ending up at the One-Step, a tavern where they drink cheap pitchers of draft beer and play shuffleboard and pool at coin-op tables. On one outing Teko is standing at the bar waiting for the bartender to pull his beer when he eavesdrops on a nearby conversation.
“I find it completely unacceptable,” says the man.
“So you’ll call the agency when we get back to the city.” The woman tends to her two small children, who sit dangle-legged on barstools, drinking Shirley Temples. “You want your cherry? Mommy wants your cherry if you don’t.”
“I could make an issue of this. Damages are involved.”
“What, damages? The car broke down. It happens. Don’t blow bubbles, Richard.”
“We didn’t put down a deposit?”
“So we’ll get there a little later.”
“What if we lose the room?”
“He says the Grossinger’s bus leaves in a half an hour.”
“I still can’t believe there isn’t a taxi in this town. What else do they have? Party lines? Outhouses?”
“Shhh.”
“I expect any minute now to hear the theme from Deliverance.”
“Shhhhh!”
“This is why, you ask me why I never want to leave the city. This is why I never want to leave the city.”