Y’know?”
There was no point debating him.
There was no point talking at all. Wayne exhausted her.
She watched the cars pull up to the window. Kids dating. Families. Friends. Mac and a Coke and a large fries, please. All so terribly normal. Outside the car the whole wide world was normal. Or—who knew?—maybe this was normal, maybe cars were filled with lunatics all across America.
What rough beast…
All of them having conversations just like this one.
She thought of Howard’s fists. Howard had exhausted her too.
She knew you could get used to anything.
When you did, it became normal.
It was dark. The amber overhead lights in the parking lot blazed through a light fog. The lot looked like sundown on the day after World War III. A nuclear sky. Beyond the lot she could see headlights shooting by over a black, unilluminated highway.
She needed to get to a phone. To call Rule. Somebody.
Confession would be fine. Normal.
She heard him crinkling up the McDonald’s wrapper and stuffing it into the bag.
“Please. Let us go,” she said. “Let us leave.”
Even exhausted, it was worth a try.
He was quiet. He even seemed to give it thought.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to do that. You’ve got to look at it from my point of view, Carole. I’m sorry. One more. It’s very important to me. And then, maybe.”
“You can’t do this, Wayne. You killed an innocent woman.”
He laughed. “Of course I can. Hey, just look at us. See, that’s what they never tell you. Anybody can. Everybody can.
“It’s a free country.”
They were back on 89 South. Wayne wanted them to cross the New Hampshire border into Hanover.
What’s in Hanover? Lee asked.
“Dartmouth.” Wayne shrugged, as though that explained something. And Lee thought, yes—Dartmouth. A college town, with plenty of cops around.
It might not be such a bad idea.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Wayne said. He could actually feel him grinning in back of him. He was getting to be able to sense the guy. “You’re thinking that once we get there you can ram us into a tree or something, call attention to us somehow. Am I right?”
The guy was crazy but he was no fool. Though sideswiping a parked car somewhere in the center of town was more what Lee had in mind.
“But think, Lee. Think. Remember what I said? About you two guys being the last two people in the world I’d want to hurt?” He laughed. “Well, it’s true. You’re the last two people. See?”
Mood swings were running second by second inside the guy. The voice went intent and serious now.
“I’d consider that a betrayal. Wouldn’t you? I’d shoot,Lee. And I wouldn’t stop shooting. I’d empty this fucking gun into both of you and I wouldn’t give it another thought.”
Then he laughed. “Hey, what have I got to lose, you know?”
What indeed.
Lee thought he’d known a little something about losing until he met Wayne. But Wayne was working a different strata entirely.
He’d been born a war baby, almost a year to the day after Hiroshima. His mother had died of bone cancer when he was six. He remembered a gray-faced woman barely able to turn and relieve her bedsores for fear of breaking yet another bone. His father had done his best afterward.
He came of age, as they say, in the late sixties. He was going to school in Boston when Flower Power hit the streets of Beacon Hill and for three months that summer, the summer of ‘67, the Summer of Love, the same wild optimism seemed to waft like a blessing over everybody who lived there, like a kind of permanent LSD high of the soul, getting into your blood whether or not you were actually dropping the stuff.
They were kids. By sheer force of style they were going to change the world. Brand-new tie-dyed apostles carrying the Word to their pagan, world-weary elders. And of course the word was Love.
When the summer was over Lee began a two-year fling with teaching, driving home to his high school kids whenever the
There was no point debating him.
There was no point talking at all. Wayne exhausted her.
She watched the cars pull up to the window. Kids dating. Families. Friends. Mac and a Coke and a large fries, please. All so terribly normal. Outside the car the whole wide world was normal. Or—who knew?—maybe this was normal, maybe cars were filled with lunatics all across America.
What rough beast…
All of them having conversations just like this one.
She thought of Howard’s fists. Howard had exhausted her too.
She knew you could get used to anything.
When you did, it became normal.
It was dark. The amber overhead lights in the parking lot blazed through a light fog. The lot looked like sundown on the day after World War III. A nuclear sky. Beyond the lot she could see headlights shooting by over a black, unilluminated highway.
She needed to get to a phone. To call Rule. Somebody.
Confession would be fine. Normal.
She heard him crinkling up the McDonald’s wrapper and stuffing it into the bag.
“Please. Let us go,” she said. “Let us leave.”
Even exhausted, it was worth a try.
He was quiet. He even seemed to give it thought.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to do that. You’ve got to look at it from my point of view, Carole. I’m sorry. One more. It’s very important to me. And then, maybe.”
“You can’t do this, Wayne. You killed an innocent woman.”
He laughed. “Of course I can. Hey, just look at us. See, that’s what they never tell you. Anybody can. Everybody can.
“It’s a free country.”
They were back on 89 South. Wayne wanted them to cross the New Hampshire border into Hanover.
What’s in Hanover? Lee asked.
“Dartmouth.” Wayne shrugged, as though that explained something. And Lee thought, yes—Dartmouth. A college town, with plenty of cops around.
It might not be such a bad idea.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Wayne said. He could actually feel him grinning in back of him. He was getting to be able to sense the guy. “You’re thinking that once we get there you can ram us into a tree or something, call attention to us somehow. Am I right?”
The guy was crazy but he was no fool. Though sideswiping a parked car somewhere in the center of town was more what Lee had in mind.
“But think, Lee. Think. Remember what I said? About you two guys being the last two people in the world I’d want to hurt?” He laughed. “Well, it’s true. You’re the last two people. See?”
Mood swings were running second by second inside the guy. The voice went intent and serious now.
“I’d consider that a betrayal. Wouldn’t you? I’d shoot,Lee. And I wouldn’t stop shooting. I’d empty this fucking gun into both of you and I wouldn’t give it another thought.”
Then he laughed. “Hey, what have I got to lose, you know?”
What indeed.
Lee thought he’d known a little something about losing until he met Wayne. But Wayne was working a different strata entirely.
He’d been born a war baby, almost a year to the day after Hiroshima. His mother had died of bone cancer when he was six. He remembered a gray-faced woman barely able to turn and relieve her bedsores for fear of breaking yet another bone. His father had done his best afterward.
He came of age, as they say, in the late sixties. He was going to school in Boston when Flower Power hit the streets of Beacon Hill and for three months that summer, the summer of ‘67, the Summer of Love, the same wild optimism seemed to waft like a blessing over everybody who lived there, like a kind of permanent LSD high of the soul, getting into your blood whether or not you were actually dropping the stuff.
They were kids. By sheer force of style they were going to change the world. Brand-new tie-dyed apostles carrying the Word to their pagan, world-weary elders. And of course the word was Love.
When the summer was over Lee began a two-year fling with teaching, driving home to his high school kids whenever the
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