Antarctica by Claire Keegan Page B

about whose car they’ll take, but he doesn’t bother opening his eyes to see which direction they drive off in.
    They take Roslin’s truck, drive down through rodeo territory, past Picayune, and on towards Jackson. They don’t have any idea where they’re going or when they’ll stop. Roslin weaves in and out between the lanes, as if driving away from home will push that feeling further away too. But the further she drives, the bigger that feeling grows. Roslin’s no dumb-ass. She knows she’s driving ’cos she has something to drive away from.
    They talk for a bit, but it turns quiet ’cos they can’t think of anything more to say. He wants to put his feet up on the dashboard while she drives, but he keeps them on the floor and smokes his cigarettes, rolls the window right down, hoping the breeze will blow his nerves away. Then the silence changes the way it sometimes does, and they’re happy not talking. They just watch the signs and the high corn swaying on both sides of the highway, the gleam of the white sun on the hood.
    Roslin gets to thinking about her husband. She used to call him her man. ‘My man,’ she’d say, even when he wasn’t around. All looks and cold as a can of beer right outta the ice-box, but he has brains about the little things. Can get the whiff of Scotch on her breath even when she’s brushed her teeth, knows when she buys the étoufeé from the store and spices it up when she can’t be bothered cooking, even though she ditches the can. The kind of man you don’t touch easy. She used to think hewas like Robert DeNiro or Sean Penn or somebody. Hidden and deep. She spent ten years with him, trying to get into that place where he lived, ’cos she figured if he went to all that trouble, there must be something real precious inside, like the pearl trapped inside the oyster shell. But then she just gave up and realised there was nothing in there. Nothing. Just a hard, empty shell. He’d sunk all his energy building that thing, then he got into that groove and forgot all about what it was that he started out protecting. The day she realised that she got drunk in the living room, started right after breakfast on Scotch with ice all the way up to the top, the way she liked it. As soon as he came home and saw her lounging in her underwear, panties stuck to her in the heat, sitting in his armchair, air all sluggish, room hot as hell, fans on full-blast, trying to kick that hot air’s ass, he took one look and knew she’d walk. He could tell. And she knew he could. The day you find out you’ve just wasted ten years ain’t no picnic.
    ‘What you thinking?’
    She looks at this guy. She likes the way his shirt fits him.
    ‘How come they call you Guthrie? I never knowed anybody by that name.’
    ‘Oh, Mama was a big Woody Guthrie fan, so she called me after him. I’m lucky I didn’t grow up on a train.’ She might as well know he was white trash.
    ‘So Woody Guthrie ain’t your daddy then, huh?’
    ‘Damn close.’
    ‘Well, Guthrie, you wanna tune a song in on that radio?’
    ‘Yeah. What you wanna hear?’
    ‘Anything. So long as the damn thing ain’t glum.’
    He tunes in the Oldies’ station. Buddy Holly, Ruby Turner, the Beatles all the way over the bypass and out the other side. They drown out Aretha Franklin, bawl along with Chuck Berry singing ‘You Never Can Tell’, walk the line with Johnnie Cash. Neither one can carry a tune. Guthrie whistles. She never did know anybody to whistle out of tune before. She clicks her fingers in time and her bangles shake for miles. He says it’s like driving with Mister Bojangles. She almost says Mrs Bojangles but shuts her mouth up just in time. She thinks about reaching over and holding his hand and shifting the gears with it the way they did in high school. They stop for gas at the other side of Jackson and hop back in right after they pay the guy and get the six-pack, because stopping might mean turning back. They drink the