A Piece of My Heart by Richard Ford Page B

and I guess he was going to pass, I don’t know. He was a traveling salesman and never drove over sixty, never got close behind cars. But he was behind this truck for some reason, and all of a sudden a load of corrugated steel pipe came loose and slid off down in the front seat with him. Cut his head off. Left him sitting in the front seat. He could’ve kept on driving if he’d had a head. It didn’t even bump the compass on the dash.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Newel. Do you have to dress it up?”
    â€œI have a son’s right to embellish it.”
    â€œSo how old were you?”
    â€œYou know goddamned well how old I was,” he said, irritated.“What difference does it make how old I was?”
    â€œI’m simply trying to understand what’s got you so exercised. Today you started walking with a limp in front of the A & P and turned pale as a paper, for no apparent reason. I was just wondering.” She picked her blouse up off the floor.
    â€œWhat do you think of Mississippi
now
? New York is someplace different. This place is certainly different from most places I’ve been in.” She glanced at the walls and continued buttoning her blouse, pausing after each shiny pearl to reestimate the room’s disposition.
    â€œWhat is it you want to know?”
    â€œIf it’s scared you,” she said matter-of-factly. “Because your father died in that outlandish way.”
    â€œI see,” he said, and stationed his head on the pane and pulled the sheet all the way up over his chest, exposing himself below the waist. “It’s not any more threatening than it is out there.” He pushed his finger at the door. “There’s goddamn whores right in this building, right below us. When they’re around things can get real
special
, you might say, especially if they’re coons, which these ladies certainly are. There’s plenty of everything right there, if you want to be scared. Some poor Pakistani managed to get his throat cut standing in the middle of Kenwood Avenue. That’s fairly outrageous.” He sank back onto the bed.
    â€œThen what about the other?” she said.
    â€œWhat other?”
    â€œYour father getting killed.”
    â€œSo? Does he need some sort of coda?”
    â€œHow do I know?” she said. “I’m just trying to get you out of this dismal place, through law school, and stop your walking circles around this room like sheep. Though you seem dedicated to rotting in pure filth.”
    She sat on the edge of the bed, waiting.
    â€œDo you want me to say that happened to
him
, and I couldn’t cope with my past because it was so awful?”
    â€œYes.”
    He fidgeted his brows. “Jesus. There’s more important thingsthan that. How he died was practically slapstick, for Christ sake, compared to how he lived.”
    â€œSo tell me. I have to go.”
    â€œDoes it occur to you ever that you fly to Belgium like other people go down the street for a goddamn knockwurst?”
    â€œI like it that way,” she said, and smiled. “It’s the Netherlands. Amsterdam is not in Belgium. Someday I’ll sit down and pay attention to all your theories, but I don’t have time right now.”
    He reached his hand in under her shirttail and touched her arm and the curve of her shoulder.
    â€œWe don’t have time for this, either,” she said. “If you don’t tell me, I’m leaving. I have to catch a bus at the Windermere, and catch a cab to catch the bus. It’s complicated.” She stood and walked to where her overnight case sat.
    â€œIt’s not important,” he said.
    â€œYou said it was more important than his dying,” she said, pushing bottles down below the rim. She got on her knees and tried to see inside.
    â€œOnly to me,” he said.
    â€œFine,” she said, picking her jacket off the floor and buttoning it. “Then