She opened the truck door, the dome light dim, and ran her eyes over the interior. What had she expected? A torn and bloodied bench seat? Red handprints on the steering wheel? Nothing seemed unusual, nothing that demanded the truck be destroyed as Dan had adamantly suggested. Maybe, Arlene thought, it was simply that the police would be searching for the vehicle, that someone had spotted it making a getaway from whatever horrible scene still waited to be discovered. She needed the truck now, Dan having taken her car.
But then she spotted something. The dome light was too dim for her to see clearly, so Arlene leaned in. Along the curve of the steering wheel, along the ridges made for the fingers to grip, she could see a vague discoloration, a darkness. Her stomach gripped in panic, the fear coming again, and she stepped back as if shocked by an electric wire.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Arlene muttered, anger overtaking her fear, wishing Dan had driven away in the truck instead of her sedan. Now what was she to do? She looked at the steering wheel more closely, her eyes following the curve and spotting the rest of the marks, streaky, as if he’d already tried to wipe them away. Fearless now, Arlene put her finger on the wheel, expecting to feel something slick or dried, but nothing was discernible, just the cold, smooth surface chilled by the December night, and the keys still in the ignition.
“Stupid, stupid …,” she muttered again. She eased onto the bench seat, the door still open so the weak dome light could give a measure of guidance. She spit on the steering wheel and, with the inside hem of her housecoat, began to wipe away. She spit into her hand and ran it along another spot, working the hem along the steering wheel as if she were fastidiously wiping down the café counters, the task of cleaning always something she could put muscle into. Arlene turned the hem of the housecoat and inspected it, the fabric now tinted with a deep color. She wriggled out of it, impervious to the chill of the vinyl seat, and spit a few more times on the steering wheel, on the dashboard, swiping her housecoat along the surface with a confused vigor. Why was she doing this? What, exactly, was she trying to hide? It wasn’t her story to manipulate, not her words that she needed to consider carefully when the police came looking. She stopped wiping for a moment, considering. She looked at the inside hem of her coat, the newly dark smears on the cloth, but then turned the hem down, the coat back to how it looked every day, and decided then and there that Dan was on his own.
You know where he went that night, right? Frederick had asked her when she told him years later about her brother, about wondering where he’d gone that first night after getting home. They’d been lying in bed, very young, when being in bed was still thrilling and exhausting, and Arlene had her hand on Frederick’s chest. She could feel in her palm the deep, guttural cackle he let out when he asked the question, a pulse so disconcerting she had to take her hand away.
He was out getting pussy, Frederick had said, laughing, both of them in the dark, and she was grateful now, sitting in the truck, that she had not seen the look on his face when he had said that. If your brother was in prison for three years, believe me, that was the first thing he went out to get. Her brother, who had shown up at her wedding at City Hall all cleaned up, a poorly fitting suit picked out from the secondhand shop on Union Avenue, but cleaned up nonetheless. Sober, clean shaven, his hair combed, freshly cut in the kitchen the day before. Hardworking, too, stacking fruit crates on the farms up north by Exeter and Porterville, picking strawberries and almonds, driving trucks. All the love shown to him by their mother, only to find that he’d left all the hard work and gone off to Los Angeles, never to return.
That was one unlucky woman, Frederick had said. Whoever she was.
Dan, she thought, her own son, was ripped through with that same ugliness, the same disregard, as her own brother, whatever was contained in the pulse rooted in her palm, holding her hand against Frederick’s chest as if she could keep his ugliness at bay.
The parking lot sat silent, greeting her revelation. The night sat silent. Nothing moved. Not even a cold breeze to disturb the trees. Nothing from the highway. Not the truck still settling with metallic pings. Not even her own breathing. The windows of the house beckoned to her, but not warmly, not the yellow picture windows of her childhood storybook. They stared back at her with a cold, white gleam, and inside, Arlene knew, were years of empty rooms.
From the road came the sound of a distant motor. A truck: she could tell by its downshifting gears, the way the engine sounded as it approached and slowed. Arlene looked in the rearview mirror, but then came the distinct sound of brakes that needed a tending to, and the soft arc of headlights sweeping left as if preparing to make a turn into the parking lot. Hadn’t she turned off the lights to the motel’s road sign? She quickly closed the door to the truck to shut off the dome light, one eye on the rearview mirror.
Sure enough, a diesel truck turned a slow roll into the parking lot. Its headlights swept over the cab and glistened on the chrome and glass, refracting, and Arlene edged herself against the door. She held her breath as if doing so would send the truck away, but it eased over to the edge of the parking lot, near one of the motel wings. The truck sat chugging for a moment, and Arlene listened, not able to hear anything over the noise of the truck’s idling engine, and unable to see much in the rearview mirror. Maybe the driver was studying the darkened motel office or looking at the still-lit windows of the house, judging whether it was worth it to disturb anyone at this time of night.
The engine idled interminably and then suddenly stopped. The parking lot was plunged back into silence — she could even make out the diesel truck’s engine ticking away as it cooled. It was too late, she realized, to step out of the truck, even if the driver might make nothing of it. But later, when the police came and maybe questioned him, it would seem suspicious, her getting out of a truck, housecoat over a nightgown. She craned her neck to get a better look in the rearview mirror but could see nothing in the darkness, and then the door to the diesel truck opened.
The sounds carried. The weight of his body as he jumped down to the ground. A gob of spit as he hacked to clear his throat. His boots stepping across the gravel. Another door opening and then the rough whisper of his voice saying something in the dark — were there two of them? She listened for an exchange, but it was only the driver’s voice. He was talking to himself as she heard him step onto the wooden porch in front of the motel office, then rap on the door. Arlene heard him knock again before he let out a whistle and an admonishment that she couldn’t make out: that was when she made out the soft footfalls alarmingly near the truck and realized the driver had let out a dog. She could spot its dark form in the side-view mirror, lifting its leg to whiz on the truck’s rear tire. She stayed absolutely still, even as the dog sniffed its way along the side of the truck, as if it sensed her inside. The dog paused for a moment, its attention held stone-tight at her window, and it let out a short, anticipatory growl.
“Buddy!” she heard the truck driver call out in a hoarse whisper, then a quick, sharp whistle of a command. The dog obeyed, but she could see the dark form of its head still fixed on her as it trotted back toward its owner. One more time, the driver let out a short whistle of admonishment, as if the dog had stopped to rethink its retreat, and then the parking lot went silent again.