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“If there is she ain’t a-go
“Full of gumption,” said Ji
“Otherwise she’d never have broken out,” he said. “She needed all the gumption she could get.”
Ji
Neal said, “Sorry. There doesn’t seem to be any shade to park in. She’ll be out of there fast.”
“Do I look too startling?” Ji
“You’re fine. There’s nobody around here anyway.”
“The man I saw today wasn’t the same one I’d seen before. I think this one was more important. The fu
She meant to go on and tell him what the doctor had said, but he said, “That sister of hers isn’t as bright as she is. Helen sort of looks after her and bosses her around. This business with the shoes-that’s typical. Isn’t she capable of buying her own shoes? She hasn’t even got her own place-she still lives with the people who fostered them, out in the country somewhere.”
Ji
“I hope to Christ they didn’t haul her up for getting in the wrong way,” he said. “Breaking the rules. She is just not a gal for whom the rules was made.”
After several minutes he let out a whistle.
“Here she comes now. Here-she-comes. Headin’ down the homestretch. Will-she-will-she-will-she have enough sense to stop before she jumps? Look before she leaps? Will-she-will-she-nope. Nope. Unh-unh.”
Helen had no shoes in her hands. She jumped into the van and banged the door shut and said, “Stupid idiots. First I get up there and this asshole gets in my way. Where’s your tag? You gotta have a tag. You can’t come in here without a tag. I seen you come in off the fire escape, you can’t do that. Okay, okay, I gotta see my sister. You can’t see her now she’s not on her break. I know that, that’s why I come in off the fire escape I just need to pick something up. I don’t want to talk to her I’m not goin’ to take up her time I just gotta pick something up. Well you can’t. Well I can. Well you can’t. And then I start to holler Lois. Lois. All their machines goin’ it’s two hundred degrees in there sweat ru
Neal was laughing and laughing and shaking his head.
“So that’s what she did? Left your shoes behind?”
“Out at June’s and Mart’s.”
“What a tragedy.”
Ji
“Fine,” said Neal. He backed and turned around, and once more they were passing the familiar front of the hospital, with the same or different smokers parading by in their dreary hospital clothes with their IV’s. “Helen will just have to tell us where to go.”
He called into the back seat, “Helen?”
“What?”
“Which way do we turn now to get to those people’s place? “
“What people’s?”
“Where your sister lives. Where your shoes are. Tell us how to get to their place.”
“We’re not goin’ to their place so I’m not telling you.”
Neal turned back the way they had come.
“I’m just driving this way till you can get your directions straight. Would it work better if I went out to the highway? Or in to the middle of town? Where should I start from?”
“Not starting anywhere. Not going.”
“It’s not so far, is it? Why aren’t we going?”
“You done me one favor and that’s enough.” Helen sat as far forward as she could, pushing her head between Neal’s seat and Ji
They slowed down, turned into a side street.
“That’s silly,” Neal said. “You’re going twenty miles away and you might not get back here for a while. You might need those shoes.”
No answer. He tried again.
“Or don’t you know the way? Don’t you know the way from here?”
“I know it, but I’m not telling.”
“So we’re just going to have to drive around. Drive around and around till you get ready to tell us.”
“Well I’m not goin’ to get ready. So I’m not.”
“We could go back and see your sister. I bet she’d tell us. Must be about quitting time for her now, we could drive her home.”
“She’s on the late shift, so haw haw.”
They were driving through a part of this town that Ji
In front of a corner store some children were sucking on Popsicles. A boy who was on the edge of the group-he was probably no more than four or five years old-threw his Popsicle at the van. A surprisingly strong throw. It hit Ji
Helen thrust her head out the back window.
“You want your arm in a sling?”
The child began to howl. He hadn’t bargained on Helen, and he might not have bargained on the Popsicle’s being gone for good.
Back in the van, Helen spoke to Neal.
“You’re just wasting your gas.”
“North of town?” Neal said. “South of town? North south east west, Helen tell us which is best.”
“I already told you. You done all for me you are goin’ to do today.”
“And I told you. We ‘re going to get those shoes for you before we head home.”
No matter how strictly he spoke, Neal was smiling. On his face there was an expression of conscious, but helpless, silliness. Signs of an invasion of bliss. Neal’s whole being was invaded, he was brimming with silly bliss.
“You’re just stubborn,” Helen said.
“You’ll see how stubborn.”
“I am too. I’m just as stubborn as what you are.”
It seemed to Ji
The sun had burned through the clouds again. It was still high and brassy in the sky.
Neal swung the car onto a street lined with heavy old trees, and somewhat more respectable houses.
“Better here?” he said to Ji
“Taking the scenic route,” he said, pitching his voice again towards the back seat. “Taking the scenic route today, courtesy of Miss Helen Rosie-face.”
“Maybe we ought to just go on,” Ji
Helen broke in, almost shouting. “I don’t want to stop nobody from getting home.”