Cruisers Page 5

  He had lived with his uncle after that, going to school, walking back and forth across that bridge every morning and every evening of the academic year. His uncle had a job driving a street sweeper in the summer and a snowplow in the winter. They lived close to the garage where the plows were parked, and on a snowy night Frank heard the engines of the plows start. They made a noise like something grinding in the depths of the earth, and then the trucks groaned as they emerged from the garage, where the blue smoke hung.

  It was late when he got back to Vermont, and he parked in front of his house and listened to the coyotes as they wailed on the ridge about a mile away. Frank leaned forward, against the wheel of his car, and realized that he was no longer waiting for some unknown event to take place. That was over. Something definite was coming his way now. And as he sat in the car, hearing the howling of those coyotes on the ridge, the night seemed more opaque than ever. There wasn’t a star out. When he glanced up, in absolute darkness, there was nothing to see. So he sat there trembling, hearing his heart beat and listening to the sound of those wild dogs.

  RUSSELL BOYD

  NO ONE HUNTED FOXES ANYMORE, AT LEAST WHERE Russell and Zofia lived, and instead they had what was called a drag hunt. This was done by having someone, who was known as a “fox,” lay down scent ahead of the hounds and riders. When Russell was transferred from the north to the town where he now lived, he took a job as the fox for a local hunt club. He did this in the fall when the ground froze and the leaves turned red and yellow and when the riverbottom was filled with mist in the morning. Now, in October, which was just after he and Zofia had decided he should move in with her, the ground froze at night, and in the morning there was ice on the windshield.

  As he worked on the windshield of the car, he thought of the difference between himself and the people who organized the hunt. After he had put down the scent and been chased by the horses and riders, he would be invited to a picnic. This was usually held in a field where people had parked their horse trailers and cars. At the picnic, the women glanced at him with a kind of elegant hunger. He would smile and be polite, and then Virginia Lowary, whose husband was president of the hunt, would put forty dollars into the pocket of his warm-up jacket. Not quite tipping him, but the gesture reminded him of the distance between them. She was a slender woman of forty, with red hair and freckles, and when she did this, her fingers lingered in his pocket as she pushed the crisp bills into it. Russell liked being a fox, and he decided that he was going to leave it at that.

  “Until next week,” she said.

  Russell had brought his scents to Zofia’s house, the small bottles filled with a yellowish fluid that reminded him of lacquer that you would put on a violin. He had his roll of Geological Survey maps, too, for the different sections of land where the hounds were run. He showed Zofia the contour lines and those little watery drawings that were supposed to represent a swamp. The hunt Russell liked best was in the riverbottom, alongside the Connecticut: it had open places and fields, and there were game trails in the wild cranberry and brush, as well as stagnant pools left by rain and the times when the river was high. The brush, the deadfalls, the treelines at the sides of the fields were places a fox would love.

  Russell told Zofia he had seen a fox at the side of the road, just at dusk. It had stood with its head back, tense, trying to smell what was on the wind. The fox was alert to the smallest details of the landscape, since even the most insignificant thing might reveal danger, if you just knew how to see it. With an air of wariness and dignity, the fox turned his head toward Russell, who looked back, the two of them seeming attached by this gaze, which, when the fox disappeared into a field, broke as delicately as a filament of spiderweb.

  “Can I come along?” Zofia asked. “You know, just to see.”

  “It’s a long run,” said Russell.

  “I like to run,” she said.

  So, they went together on the morning of the first hunt. The hounds were put into a harvested cornfield in which only lines of stubble remained. The field was in a riverbottom, and on three sides of it were acres of brush that were slowly growing up into woods. The river ran along the fourth side in a wide, undulant channel, which at this time of the year, in a light fog, was as silver as a mirror.

  Russell dragged a piece of fox-scented fur along the walls, at the edge of the fields, over deadwood and along the edges of swamps, and he did so in a large, S-shaped pattern that would allow the riders and hounds the greatest amount of chase in the acreage they had to hunt. Sometimes when he came to the end of a loop and turned back, he could get very close to the horses and hounds. Often there was just a screen of sumac and maple saplings between Russell and the riders.

  The fog was just lifting. Zofia appeared in a nimbus of light when the sun was just behind her, and when she came close to him, he could smell the perfume of her hair. Her forehead was silver with moisture, and as they ran, she said, “Let’s go. I don’t want them to catch us. You didn’t tell me it was so exciting.” Then they ran along the swamp maples, which were as bright as lipstick.

  Beyond the wall of brush, the hounds began to howl. Russell stopped. At these moments the cross-hatching of poplar, the stagnant ponds at the edge of a swamp, marked here and there with the birth of a mosquito, were bathed in silvery light, and then the vista throbbed with luminescence, with an intensity bound up with the warmth of the run and the pleasure of feeling right at the center of the smoky landscape.

  Zofia ran up to him and he felt the heat of her skin. Then she leaned forward, her hands on her knees, her head down. He glanced at the whorls of her hair along her neck and her shirt where it was stuck to her back. Zofia stood up, too winded to speak, but she made a gesture, an imploring movement, as though to say that she thought they should keep going. But even so she reached up and kissed him, using her tongue, still breathing hard and pushing her pelvis against him. In the heat between them, with the sweat of their running, she looked up and stared right at him with just enough of a smile to make an invitation. He thought, She isn’t serious. Not really. Not here. But then she hung against him, taking pleasure in the frank, daring seduction. She put her lips against his ear and said, “It’s so exciting. Can you feel it?”

  All around them was the rank odor of fall, which came from the frozen ground thawing, the harsh rotting smell coming up from the soil with all the promise of a distant spring. Then they looked through the screen of brush, where the horses were coming closer, pursuing them, and this added an intensity to the way Russell saw the brush and wild cranberry, the edges of the swamp, the sumac that was turning as red as a candy apple.

  “Come on,” said Zofia. She pulled him into the brush, which was like disordered rolls of barbed wire, seemingly impregnable until you got into it and saw those places where you could get down low so as to avoid the worst of it. Then she stopped him again, the two of them next to each other, looking back. She was breathing hard, looking from the landscape back to his eyes, where she lingered for a moment. Then she put her hand on his shoulder, tugging him, pulling him toward her. “What do you think?” she said. “Would you dare? I mean right here.”

  They stood on one side of a screen of brush, and a horse went by on the other side. Its shape wasn’t clear, although it was still a definite presence, a combination of sleek black neck and flank that was defined by an onward rush and the sound of its hooves. There was a white horse, too. Zofia looked at them and then turned, bumping into him, her lips touching his neck as she tried to turn, her sweat and his mixing together in the sound of the baying dogs and the distant shouts of the hunters.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “Come on.”

  They went along the windbreak, through the clutter of the wild cranberry, and toward the flat surface of the river. She pulled him toward it, being careful about the brush so that it wouldn’t swing back at him, and then they came out on the bank, where they stood in the black soil. Zofia reached down into the water and made a cup of her hand, scooping t
he water over her face. Their reflections disappeared in the neatly undulant water, the waves as precise as an illustration of a mathematical principle. Zofia stood up and took his hand, then kissed him again. She was wearing Spandex running shorts, which she pushed down and stepped out of, her skin white against the silver water, on which the crimson leaves were reflected. Then she tugged at his shorts, still hearing the jingling tack and the horses, the shouts of the riders, the baying of the hounds, and as he knelt there, seeing the water over her back as she looked over her shoulder, smiling at him, still making this into a variety of fun, shoving back against him with a sudden impulse, he thought that the certainty of the moment, the alertness of it and the sudden warmth of her, the sense of heat and friendly sweat overcame everything else. It was this sense of alertness, without any other consideration, that was overwhelming. It was a contradiction: getting away from the heat and the buzzing insects, the colors of the leaves and yet never having been closer to them. They both breathed hard from the running, and from this too. The warm press of it, the heat of it, the frank impulse, right here, in the smile and shove, in the pink flesh, in the glistening of light on wet skin, in every attribute, in the odor there by the river, they both felt the pleasurable sense of existing outside everything else and yet they seemed to float in it. It was naughty and it was fun: but it was flirting with a kind of gravity, too, which they understood through a specific thrill and a slippery itch. “Oh, fuck,” she said, “don’t you ever lie to me. Ever. Oh, fuck.”

  He found that they were just kneeling there on the gray soil at the side of the river. They pulled their shorts on and stood there, looking at each other, hearing the hounds. Zofia reached down and down and splashed water on her face, and then made a cup of her hands and dribbled water over his hands and arms, and said, “Doesn’t that feel cool and nice?” She ran the water over his sweaty forehead and face, and then she whispered, “I’ve never done anything like that. Ever. I didn’t know that people ...” Then she put her head back and laughed, making a frank, keenly pleasurable sound.

  “Do you think they saw?” she said, putting a hand to her face and blushing.

  “Let’s hope not,” he said.

  “Oh, god,” she said. “How are we going to face them if they did?”

  Then they turned and ran back, stumbling around the deadfalls, the long black trunks hidden in the brush.

  Finally they came out where the hunt had started, the horse trailers arranged haphazardly, and where there was a table set up with sandwiches and drinks and beer. Zofia came up to the table, still trembling a little with the chase, and when the woman who was behind the table offered her a bottle of beer, she took it and drank with her head back, the long bubbles rising in the neck.

  “Oh,” said Zofia to Russell, the beer on her breath. “I’m so itchy. Let’s go home. Did you get bitten by something back in there?”

  They had to wait awhile, though. The riders came back, some in clumps, some alone, some looking exasperated and a little ashamed. They all wanted a drink. The entire group existed in the odor of wool clothing, bourbon, and perfume. Virginia Lowary stood in front of Russell in her jodhpurs and black boots and jacket and said to him, “Here’s your money.” The landscape was made up of the smoke-colored bark, the bright red of swamp maples and the streaks of yellow from the poplar.

  FRANK KOHLER

  KOHLER SAW A WOMAN IN TOWN WEARING BLACK lipstick, and at night he lay awake considering the shades of black, from absolute midnight to charcoal, and how in certain contexts these hues had the effect of revealing a previously hidden power. He considered women’s shiny black underwear, or the effect of black fishnet stockings, the mesh masking yet revealing the promise of the skin underneath. What was it in this blackness? At night he closed his eyes to see it better.

  Part of the mystery was the way black took light, as on the surface of a black silk skirt over which the light flowed like a silver liquid. And another element was black hair against white skin, or a woman’s lips as she wore black lipstick: What was it they promised? At first he thought it was just a sensual tug, but then it occurred to him that black silk over a woman’s hips was made more intense by other qualities, such as life disguising itself as attractiveness to hide its real power. He guessed this mixture of fun and power could be seen in a black latex skirt, tight and shiny, or sheer black nylons, the skin beneath them glowing with life. Black nail polish. Black eyes.

  Still, he wanted to know what the nature of this opaque shade was, this color that suggested the most private of connections, which took place in a realm that people couldn’t see but by which they were so controlled. Kohler thought that the depths of the earth, where the black oil waits, was where the powerful aspect of this color was most perfectly distilled, most obvious, under pressure, sleek and wet and compelling. Or maybe it was in the shadows under those dark skirts, in the hint of black lipstick, in the wink of a black eye.

  Kohler decided he needed a new car. A black one. Something sleek and powerful.

  He had avoided Northampton for years, even looking away from the signs on the highway for its exits when he had to drive by, but now he decided that this was where he should go to buy the car. It was about an hour from where he lived, and he drove his sedate Chevrolet, so much like what a computer repairman would own, down I-91. As he got closer, he saw the exit and beyond it the modern clutter that surrounded most towns, although from a distance it was indistinct, signs, traffic lights, the claustrophobically familiar logos that suggested he was at home, although he knew he wasn’t. He stopped at the first signal and thought, Why have I come here? This is stupid.

  He went through the intersection toward the car lots, and then pulled into a gas station. He sat there, away from the islands, and imagined that he looked teary and stupid. These moments had become constant now, and he was mystified by their sudden arrival. They were like hearing a piece of music that was associated with an exquisite tenderness. At these moments, in which everything was imbued with a sad intensity, Kohler was desperate to forgive everyone, and the warmth of this forgiveness, the joy of it, perfectly covered up his deep and nameless turmoil, like a blanket laid over a child having a nightmare. Everything was turned upside down, and where he should have been scared and angry, he was filled with love. Or this was one half of the equation. The second half was what he had felt in Boston, in the Combat Zone.

  In his car, he put out his hand, as though he could touch the Russian woman in the videotape. Then, as the sensation faded, he was left with a desire for an unknown and yet still beguiling presence, large and golden, like the edge of a cloud from which beaconlike rays of roseate light cut right into him. Soon, though, he found himself just sitting in this deserted gas station, on the edge of these fucking tears, as he called them. And on the verge of panic, too, because he didn’t know where they were coming from. In his fearful trembling he found himself asking if he could be smart enough now to see what was happening.

  Well, one thing is for sure, he thought. I need a car.

  The clutter of dealerships looked like chance itself. A new Toyota franchise was built in an empty space next to an old Nissan lot, which was next to one for Chevrolet, each new showroom adding to a general sense of disorder.

  The first place he stopped was the GM lot, where he walked among the cars that were all pointed the same way, the prices painted on their windshields with a big brush dipped in white stuff, starch, he guessed, and overhead, like military flags of a low-rent country, the triangular plastic pennants made a fatigued and anxious flutter.

  The car he liked was a sleek model with no chrome that looked as if it were made out of the same material as a stealth bomber. He slowly walked around the car, looking at the magnesium wheels, the double exhaust ports, the black leather seats. Stick shift with a chrome lever and a black ball. He felt the underlying, mysterious power of the color.

  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” the salesman said.

  He came up behind Kohler and stoo
d in the sun, smiling a little. He was blond, overweight, tall, balding, so that his scalp was shiny under his hair. He put out his hand. Kohler shook it and introduced himself. The salesman said his name was Billy.

  “Oh, yeah,” Billy said, “it’s a beauty. “Are you interested just for pleasure, or are you a collector?”

  “Pleasure,” Kohler said, already feeling the pleasure, too, like a bug squirming in a chrysalis.

  “Would you like to take it for a little ride?” Billy said.

  “Yes,” Kohler said.

  “Well, Frank, you wait here a moment and I’ll fix you up. I’ll get the keys and a license plate. Can I have your driver’s license? I’ll just make a Xerox of it.”

  Billy took the license and walked along those orderly rows of shiny cars. On the sidewalk, about ten feet away, pigeons were picking at crumbs, a bit of something thrown out of a window, a hot dog or hamburger bun. Their heads went up and down mechanically. Kohler looked at the clouds and the low hills in the distance and felt it begin again. He could apprehend the presence of an extraordinary gentleness, so maddeningly remote, so hard to get a grip on. At these moments he felt himself so close to the beautiful and omnipresent that ... he didn’t know what, really. Then it ended, just like that, and he found himself in front of that black car while those pigeons walked back and forth in the remains of junk food.

  “Here you go,” said the salesman.