Milk Blood Heat Page 5

  Gloria set down her cutlery and rubbed the place between her eyes, and when she spoke again, she looked tired and patient, like some kind of martyr; he remembered feeling irked by it. “Fred, you’re not hearing me. I said I’m done. If it’s my time, it’s my time.”

  He hadn’t believed her then, but shortly after that night, he began to smell smoke on Gloria’s clothes. At first she spun the usual line, it was others smoking near her, but then he’d found a half-full pack on the floorboard of her backseat. She’d been in the living room reading when he confronted her, glasses sliding down her nose. He flung the pack at her and it hit her in the chest.

  “I guess you’ve made up your mind,” he growled.

  “To live the way I want to live?”

  “You mean die the way you want to die!” and she’d said, “What’s the difference?”

  She was punishing him, he knew, and Fred’s stomach seized at the thought of all the things Gloria didn’t say, that she kept at bay with such inconsequentialities as “fine” in answer to his nearly every question. Fred was certain that she somehow saw everything about him. That this cancer, as it ate at her body, had imparted in her a kind of godly knowing in exchange for what it took. When Gloria looked at him, Fred could feel his wrongdoings bathed in light: his dalliances with other women, that he had denied Gloria children because he hadn’t wanted to be encumbered by their need. She knew, too, about the mad money tucked away in a secret compartment in his wallet; about the disgust he’d felt upon first finding out about the tumor, at the weakness of her body; his resentment at swapping roles, when she was nine years younger and supposed to take care of him. And the worst possibility—that Gloria could taste his absolute terror at being left alone, the bitter tinge of his shame dissolving on her tongue. She knew he would be a coward without her, and he believed a part of her enjoyed the thought.

  Fred went inside alone, trailing through the three-­bedroom, split-model house that they owned outright and which she often said was too large for just the two of them. She thought he’d bought it because he’d wanted a family, but he liked the acre of land it sat on and the idea that he could own it. Over the years, he’d let Gloria fill the rooms with art and plants and rare books, since she couldn’t fill them with children. In their bedroom, he removed his boots and leather jacket. He left his oxford and undershirt on a growing pile of clothes Gloria had yet to wash, then stepped out of his pants and double-checked that the ten crisp bills in the hidden pocket of his wallet—all hundreds—were still there. He took the bills out and ran his fingers along their creased edges, measured their weight on his palm. When he was younger and his older sisters in dating range, he’d listen to their mother caution her daughters any time they went out with a new boy, giving them money to hide in their socks. He’d never seen either of his parents so free with cash, but when it was his turn to court, his father merely said, “Don’t get them pregnant.” Fred never got the lecture or the mad money, and felt left out. What if he needed to escape?

  Holding the money gave Fred a sort of chill, a pulse of irrational pleasure at the thought of getting into his Buick and driving away. Maybe he’d leave the swampy stench of Florida and go back home to the Tennessee foothills to live in the house his father had built. Maybe Hilda would be with him, riding shotgun, her luxurious, heavy hair whipping in the breeze. He pictured her red-lipped smile, her hand on his arm—and wasn’t that the most coveted thing? A pretty woman content to be near you?

  Standing in only his underwear and socks, he put the bills away and searched through Gloria’s side table, as he did whenever his own fantasies made him paranoid. He found nothing—no secret money, no getaway plan, just an unopened pack of Virginia Slims. Her little sticks of spite. He would’ve liked to trash them, but it wouldn’t matter. There was always another pack. Fred closed the drawer, then walked to the bathroom to remove the rest of his clothes. Naked, he stood upon his scale and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found he still weighed the same, even with all of his transgressions nestled snugly inside him.

  Over the next few days, Fred had restless dreams: Gloria hanging blood-spattered sheets to dry in the yard; Gloria standing before him against an empty sky; Gloria, gone, and the gone­ness blotting out the world. One night he woke suddenly, startled and lost, and flung out a hand to feel her beside him, her slight frame set sideways, precise as a blade. He tugged her closer and pressed himself against her, wishing he could push her inside of his body and make them one again. Gloria responded, pressing back, and they fumbled from their nightclothes. Bare, her bones bumping at him, the reality of her smacked into the room; she seemed proud of this ugliness, of what she was becoming. She latched her lips to his and Fred felt he could taste the sickness in her mouth. Repulsion shuddered through him, somehow spurring him on, and he entered her, overcome by the expanse of his love and disgust. He bucked beneath her, filling his fingers with the memory of her prior flesh. He moaned, “Glory, Glory, Glory,” but the past didn’t come. There was only this new wife, skeletal and knowing, grinning down at him in the dark with what seemed like contempt.

  Gloria’s panting turned to wheezing and she slid off him, coughing viciously, her body crumpled on the sheets. When she finally stopped and sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Fred asked, “Any blood?” She didn’t answer, but riffled through her side table for her cigarettes. His lip curled without his consent. “You’re really begging for that grave.”

  Gloria made a sound, though whether a laugh or a cough, he couldn’t tell. She dressed slowly, with her back to him, her spine pronounced in even that sparse light, but when she walked to his side of the bed, her expression was muzzy. Fred wanted to turn on the lamp and recognize her, his Glory, but her eyes kept him fixed.

  “You know, the closer I get to it, the clearer I see,” she said, and left to blow blue smoke at the moon. Fred lay there, awake through the night, wondering why she didn’t seem afraid and if she still loved him, but he was too afraid himself to ask.

  He started closing the Albatross down on Tuesdays, staying later to spend time in Hilda’s validating company, to bask in the beer-and-vanilla scent radiating from her skin. He liked to consider that he was personally responsible for keeping her lights on, for putting food on her table. That he, in some ways, was responsible for the girl herself—Hilda’s dependable goodness a reflection of his own.

  Returning home from the barber on a Friday in mid-April, Fred heard the telephone ringing on the other side of the door while he dug for his keys. Two times. Three. He scowled as he stuck his key into the lock and hurried inside, tripping over his feet, cursing as he scuffed his recently polished shoe. He could sense Gloria moving at the back of the house and wondered why she didn’t pick it up. He answered, breathless, on the fifth ring.

  “Mr. Moore.” The usually clipped voice of Gloria’s oncologist sighed through the line. He sounded relieved. “I was hoping to reach you.” A band of muscle in Fred’s chest tightened.

  “How can I help you, doctor?”

  “Your wife was in today for a checkup, and I’m afraid she threatened to find another physician. As you know, I was highly against the decision to forgo radiation.” He went on about his professional concerns, his responsibilities to the Hippocratic oath, his reputation. He told Fred that Gloria’s treatment was a matter of limited time. Maybe only months. “I know I don’t get a say, but I was hoping you might still convince her. Mr. Moore?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Fred said, eyes sliding again down the hallway to their bedroom. “I’m sorry, doctor, I—can I call you back?”

  He hung up and stood for a moment with his hand on the receiver, hoping, if he waited long enough, it would ring again and the verdict would be different. When it didn’t, he trudged back to their bedroom. Gloria was folding clothes neatly into her overnight bag, a cheerful pink suede thing that didn’t match the energy in the room.

  “That
was Dr. Howard, wasn’t it? Shithead. You know he has me listed as ‘noncompliant’ in my files?” She tucked a couple of dresses into the bag. They were so small, like doll’s clothes, and he wondered at how she could even be real. “I’m getting rid of him. I need a doctor who’s on my side.”

  “How can anyone be on the side of something so crazy?” Fred said. She didn’t need to punish him. Didn’t the sinner always punish himself? He felt a stinging warmth gather at the corner of his eyes, and he hated her for it.

  “Fred, you don’t know how it was for me the first time.”

  “I was there! I was right beside—”

  “You. Don’t. Know.” Gloria came around to him and put her hands in his, but his fingers remained limp. “Do you want me like that? Dead alive?”

  He just wanted her, full stop, but he wouldn’t say it, couldn’t give her the pleasure of seeing him break. He gestured to the bag.

  “You’re leaving.” He felt cheated. There had been no sign; he’d looked for it. He wanted to ask her where her money was hidden.

  “Just going to visit my ma and sister for a few days,” she said. “While I still can. While they can recognize me.” She had a flight tomorrow afternoon.

  Fred had a strong desire to knock the bag from the bed. To scatter the clothes, to burn them, to chain her to the bedposts, and Gloria saw.

  “You want me to stay, just say it.”

  Fred saw himself sinking to his knees, as he’d done all those years ago when he proposed. He could wrap his arms around her, rest his face against her hip. He could give her what she wanted, whisper Don’t go into that stark, hollow place. But his pride, his fear, kept him from it. He cleared his throat. Stepped back from her. He asked if she needed a ride.

  Without her hair, Gloria’s feelings sat plainly on her face. She stared into Fred’s eyes until he had to turn away. She brushed a few spare hairs from his forehead that the barber had missed and thanked him for his offer. She continued to pack. Fred smiled to stay standing. “When you get back, let’s drive to St. Pete. Spend a weekend on the Gulf. How’d that be?”

  “I’d like that,” Gloria said, but there was no pleasure in the words.

  It was busy at the Albatross the next evening, a noise and bustle Fred wasn’t used to and wasn’t sure he liked. After he’d dropped Gloria at JAX for her 2 pm flight, he’d driven around the city, aimless and sorry, until he ended up in the parking lot of the bar, blinking at the squat little building nestled against the sun as if he didn’t understand how he’d come to be there, and then understanding all too perfectly that he had nowhere else to go. Shamefaced, he sat in the car with the windows down until, at 4 pm, he’d seen Hilda stroll in; then he waited half an hour more. Fred entered the bar nervously, his fingers beating at his thighs through his pockets. Paused in the doorway, he thought he might leave but then Hilda saw him. “Look at you! Gracing us with your presence on a Saturday!” she’d called, and he’d felt immediately reassured. He was wanted here; she wanted him, and Fred regained his swagger. He withdrew his hands and grinned, feeling like the man he knew he was. “Jim and Coke?”

  “You got it, kid.” The jacket came off and Hilda brought him his drink, and for the first hour or so, everything felt the same. But now he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with a group of rowdy, younger-looking patrons, all swarming the bar for attention, and every other sip, someone jostled him, making him spill his drink. The Top 40 blasted from the jukebox—unfamiliar simpering over synthetic beats—and he watched people gyrating throughout the bar, as if any open space were a dance floor.

  “It’s like a dirty club in here,” he’d scowled when Hilda finally appeared in front of him. His ice was a pile of chips in his near-empty glass. He didn’t like this Hilda, skin glowing with sweat, hopped up from the rush and all the young bodies, and too busy to see after him.

  “Saturdays,” she said by way of explanation and—­sloppily, Fred thought—fixed him another drink.

  The big man sitting to Fred’s right paid his tab and left, but before he could be grateful for the extra space, another body took his place. Fred, irritated and more lonesome than when he’d arrived, told himself he’d finish this drink quickly and then be out the door. He’d make sure to keep to Tuesdays from this point on, and he smiled to himself, already imagining how he’d jokingly berate Hilda for the poor quality of her service tonight, get her feeling just a little bad and eager to make up.

  The new man tapped Fred’s shoulder and Fred saw he wasn’t a man at all, probably just old enough to be in the bar. He wore a white cap over a tapered cut, a green sweatshirt with a couple of holes in the collar, and a pair of black Dickies slung low on his hips like every other youngblood in the place. “Got the time?” the boy asked.

  First, Fred pulled his comb from his shirt pocket and raked it back through his hair. Then he hitched up his sleeve to glance at his watch. It was gold-faced with large numbers, on an imitation leather strap. Most people thought it was a Rolex, but he’d never spend that kind of money to tell the time.

  “Quarter to nine.”

  “Thanks,” the boy said, then offered his hand. “Antonio. Well, friends call me Tony.”

  “Fred. Pleasure.” He made sure to squeeze Tony’s hand good and hard, and a look crossed the boy’s face.

  “My pops always said you could measure a man’s integrity by his grip.”

  Fred puffed himself up. “Your pops wasn’t lying.”

  “Busy in here, right?” Tony said, turning to frown at Hilda, who still hadn’t come for his order. Fred looked at her, too; she was down at the other end of the bar, laughing with one of the fry cooks as he handed her a basket of greasy onion rings. Her hand lingered on his arm.

  “Downright shameful service,” he said nastily, then to the boy, “What do you drink?”

  “I don’t know. Beer, I guess. A Bud?” and when Fred laughed, Tony asked, “What, that’s too green?”

  “Might be. What do you do, youngblood?”

  Tony was enrolled in trade school to be a mechanic, which he knew was fruitful work. He said barely any of the kids his age even knew how to change a tire. Fred agreed that this was true and Tony asked, “What about you, sir?”

  “Commercial car-hauler, thirty-five years.” He didn’t bother to mention he was retired.

  Tony’s eyebrows disappeared into the rim of his cap. “Wow, I can’t believe it.”

  “What?” Fred said, ready to be affronted.

  “My pops used to do that work. Those double-decker rigs?” When Fred nodded, he added, “That’s real honest work. Skilled work.”

  The boy’s respect warmed Fred like the bourbon. He could tell this one had been raised right; if he’d been a father, his son would have come out just the same. He decided he’d stay a little while longer. Fred signaled to Hilda with a piercing whistle that cut through the din of the room. She looked over her shoulder at him, her mouth parted prettily. The fry cook slunk back into the kitchen, where he belonged. “A drink for my friend. Two of these, on me,” Fred said, raising his glass.

  Hilda brought them both Jim and Cokes, her nose scrunched up like she had something to be mad about. “Get you anything else?”

  Fred didn’t look at her. He thumbed condensation from the side of his glass and wiped the finger along the edge of the bar. Then he threw a twenty down, letting his money speak for him.

  They both ordered the burger special—fried onions, Muenster, garlic mayo—and as they ate and kept drinking, Tony asked a lot of questions. Whereabouts are you from? How much did it cost for a car like that? A watch like that? A house like that? The drunker Fred got, the looser his tongue. He told Tony he came from nothing. Not a dime to his family name. “And now I got that nice car. These nice clothes. I own land!” He slammed his glass down on the bar, the drink sloshing up the sides. “Most people don’t understand upward mobility. Always got their ha
nds out, asking for something. Not me! I take care of mine!” Several people glanced over, concerned or annoyed or amused.

  Tony watched him, too, his eyes careful and bright. “Bet your missus is a knockout,” he said and Fred’s stomach lurched, thinking of Gloria, gone. He put his head in his hands and agreed that she was. Hilda came by with her dishrag, cutting her eyes, wiping around Fred’s mess, and Tony angled closer to his ear. “Prettier than her, right?”

  Fred snapped up to consider Hilda. If he put them together at the same age, Gloria would take the girl two to one. But Hilda had been good to him, barring tonight; they were friends! He wanted to show Tony that he still had a way. That he was still the man. He grabbed Hilda’s wrist, pulling her toward him just as she was walking away.

  “Don’t run off,” he slurred, trying to hold her eye. “Stay and meet my new friend.”

  Hilda laughed and tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but Fred gripped it tight. Her second laugh came out mechanical and strained. “Fred, you’re hurting me.”

  “Just stay still a minute,” he barked. Why didn’t anyone ever stay?

  “Fred. Let me go.” The words plunked down, heavy between them. Fred studied her face and considered that she wasn’t so pretty; it was just youth that made her special. He’d had a million just like her. Feeling superior in this conviction, he opened his hand and let her go, his expression snarled. The boy next to him looked on and heat flooded Fred’s ears.

  Fred watched Hilda scurry back to the end of the bar where the slinky fry cook again waited, posted up against the counter. She said something to him, rubbing her wrist, and the guy’s dumb face swiveled in Fred’s direction, his jaw tight. Fred downed the rest of his watery drink. “Yeah,” he muttered to himself, “come try it, buddy.” He stood abruptly and wrenched his jacket on.

  “You won’t stay for one more?” Tony knocked his own empty glass against the counter and Fred sneered. He’d played right into the boy’s trap; he was just another nobody with his hand held out, and Fred had nothing to prove, not to him or anybody. He said to the boy, “Haven’t I done enough for you?”