Published Spring 2006
 
Kitty and Hal
The second the slide popped into view, Kitty gave a little squeal.
"Eeep!" she went, like a squeaky toy.
Hal glanced over as the truck jostled them along— she was pressed
into the passenger side, snapping gum, mouthing things. "What?"
he said, shouting over the engine's baritone drone, the wind flapping
in the windows like a sheet.
"I love the Giant Slide!"
"I don't think it's open!"
"Let's ride it!"
"Let's just make the delivery and go! We're on a schedule!"
"Come on!" She jawed her gum in sweet circles and leaned toward
him. "I wore long pants and everything." Her smile rattled in place.
Funtown USA, Route One's own little Coney Island, first stop of
the day. All they took was ice cream mix—wax paper gallons of chocolate
and vanilla gook, dense greasy froth that poured like lava into
Sof-Serve machines and churned out into cones.
The place rose like a refinery from the tar: French fry and funnel
cake sheds, a tattered miniature golf course, a stable of outdated
arcade games, bust-a-balloon booth, go-carts and bumper cars, every
surface coated in a sheen of cotton candy. And towering over all
of it was the Giant Slide. For some reason they never came up with
a catchier name—not Hell-Rush, not Demon-Drop, not even the Screamer.
Just plain old Giant Slide, two stories high with a hump in the
middle. Kids made the trip down on burlap sacks, sunlight glancing
off the surface, fannies buffing the broiling sheet of aluminum,
got their ice creams at the bottom. All summer long it was thrills
and chills and bellyaches.
Hal's route had forty seven stops in all. It was Kitty's idea
to do it together ("just this once!"), and she'd taken the day off
to be his helper. He rumbled out of the dairy at 6AM, picked her
up in her driveway, and they shot south to the beaches. She wore
her usual work outfit from Cap's Clam Shanty: tight white pants,
red Izod, red visor. The Shanty was the last stop of the day (8
oz milks, pints of tea and lemonade) and Hal looked forward to pulling
in there later, Kitty up in his cab instead of taking orders at
the window, instead of leaning into the swan-neck microphone saying
"Number 119 please, number 119 thank you." Today she'd be his princess
hostage, his cherry pop lips.
He looked her up and down as she sat there vibrating, all knees
and elbows in a crazy frame around her breasts. She lifted her shirt
and flashed him. "I'm a milk-woman!"
While setting the mix down on the stoop he heard a light-footed
giggle— Kitty climbing up the back of the slide, handling the rungs
like a monkey. "It's not open yet!" he shouted. But she reached
the top quickly and stood on the platform, hands on hips, a cheerleader
between cheers, she swung her arms in huge reverse circles, rotated
her hips, did some deep knee bends.
"We have to go!" he yelled.
"Yessir!" Down she plopped, wiggled her feet and pushed off.
She sang in the cool morning air, she went "whoooee-whooooooee!"
all the way down, lowering her tone an octave at the hump and landing
lightly in a worn patch of dirt. Her sneakers were as white as her
pants. She brushed her tanned hands over her thighs and took a peek
at her ass—now streaked a silvery black. "Oh shit!" she rasped.
"They must've just greased it." She slapped at the stain with her
visor.
"I told you not to."
Tears clung in the curve of her eye like a fresh litter of roe.
The day was already marred.
"Let's just lock up and go," he said
After double-latching the gate he pulled himself into the driver's
seat. "Let's shuck this shrimp-shack!" Kitty said, puffing on a
Kool, down to her underwear, fiddling with the truck's broken radio.
* * *
The hold of a milk truck should stand at a constant 49.6 degrees.
That's the ideal. Adhere to it and cottage cheese will stay bound
in a spongy paste, yogurt won't water, milk will keep cold as cobalt.
Nothing spoils dairy product more than fluctuating temperatures.
In the hold of a milk truck, steam wafts from the skin, the flesh
simmers, the refrigeration unit blares all else away, mounted up
there, a great ugly uncle on a respirator.
"Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr." Blowing
in your ear, constantly exhaling.
Milk crates rest in each other's grooves. Anyone who has ever
had any kind of music collection knows the importance of this, that
milk crates have an infinite number of storage uses—DVDs, books,
Barbies, any old junk—that though vinyl records were too tall
for the grooves, with CDs the coupling was consummated.
You can't do better than a milk crate for handling and durability.
They come in standard colors. Dirty yellow, dull maroon, faded
blue, pine (or fatigue) green. They mix and match effortlessly.
Flip one over, cover with a cloth, and you have an excellent coffee
table.
* * *
The cab—all curved glass around a cracked leather seat—the
cab was the size of a breakfast nook.
Menthol smoke filled it in feathery arteries. Kitty breathed Kools
and peppermint stick from Friendly's drive-thru. "Can't go inside
in just my undies." Her foot rested on the dash, if something that
massive can be called a dash, it was more like the flank of an inert
rhino. Humming, turned sideways on the ankle, she pressed the window
with her toe.
Route 1 flew by on either side, a humid wipe of gas pumps, dads
patting their pockets for wallets, ramshackle family restaurants
with unpaved lots big enough to accommodate fairs.
She looped her tongue around the ice cream and rolled her foot
forward, she squirmed and rearranged. Hal couldn't stop from peeking
down; the soft silk beak trapped between her thighs. "Pull them
down," he said, and with a thumb, she did.
Bouncing her eyes around the speeding glass, she snapped her fingers
to the static on the radio, the song wandering in and out as she
swung her shins left and right, joined at the knees in a little
Rockettes number. Her cigarette rested in the ashtray, smoldering,
embroidering the air. She sank her mouth into the mound of peppermint
stick and giggled, the sweet snot fluttering in her nose. The crates
banged around in back, begging release, jackhammering in stacks
six-high, but Hal had secured them tight. In a brief drum roll they
crossed some railroad tracks.
"You drive," he said, taking her cone. She slid over and he fell,
led by his tongue, two ice creams in one hand. His was maple walnut.
"I can't reach the pedals," she said. "Maybe we should pull over."
"Just tell me when to clutch," he said, taking a lick.
"Clutch," she said, and he eased his left foot down and his right
up as she slid the shift against his neck. "Good," he said.
Her heat ran over his maple walnut like ground fog, punctuated
by her short pulses of peppermint breath.
Hal had certain beliefs. Pistachio and root beer swirl was a good
combo, as was lemon sherbet and vanilla fudge. Opposing tastes mixed
well, as long as the cones stayed separate, faced-off while their
essences twined, the mouth going from one to the other with a pause
in between, an intake of air. Once past the lips, ice cream got
reacquainted with itself.
Hal liked standing over the tubs at Friendly's, peering in, he
liked how they were lined up under the glass, all those circular
openings, individual mines waiting to be excavated. It was a cold,
deep palate and the only dilemma of summer: choose a flavor already
well clawed, or be the first to mar one unbroken.
Soft nubs of peppermint stick rattled his teeth.
"I like your route," she said.
"Tell me if we're about to hit anything."
"There's a red light coming."
There were twenty more stops to go.
* * *
Ollie was Hal's uncle and the Hood Dairy plant manager—he'd wrangled
him the job in the first place. But now he was yelling into the
phone. "Christ Hal! Why'd you skip the Oysterbake?"
"I didn't Ollie. I swear! I just dropped a case of creamers there."
"I bet you dropped some creamers. I hear you've got some honey
in tow today."
"Yeah sure, but I did the delivery, I swear Ollie."
"Well, Christ Hal. Turn around and go back there now, Carl's still
expecting his quarts of homo."
Being a milkman was maybe the best job he ever had.
* * *
Carl was reading the Press Herald at one of his indoor picnic
tables, splay-kneed in a pebbly robe and dirty, unlaced Chucks.
He watched the business flow, listened to the screen door slap,
waited for his coffee to cool. Tourists waited in line for his famous
fried clams, they stared slack-jawed at the wall menu while their
kids, crazy with anticipation, collected ketchup packets and stuffed
their pockets with straws.
Supposedly Carl never left the Oysterbake—his living quarters
were rumored to be on the premises, though it was hard to imagine
where. A room off the kitchen, a cot near the fry vat. The only
toilets were in a detached building across the lot, a spruced-up
outhouse arrangement. Like most places around the beach, the restaurant
was seasonal and resembled an overly large front porch. Six windows,
intermittently flung up with twangs and hellos, framed the tanned
and clear-eyed college girls who worked for him. Another voice,
rich in static and saliva, announced which numbers were up. Dads
creaked open their wallets, surprised at how fast it was all adding
up. They acted like men who'd been coerced into making bets at the
track. Bills, fives and tens, were plucked out one at a time.
"Why didn't you drop off my quarts this morning Hal?" Carl was
smoking one of Kitty's Kools.
"Your order was for a case of creamers Carl, look, I've got it
right here."
Carl drew deeply on his smoke. Kitty was chatting with one of
his girls, someone she'd been a cheerleader with in high school.
They bobbed together and burst apart laughing, a little moment Hal
didn't quite comprehend but felt attached to.
"You know I always take my quarts of 2% on Thursday," Carl said.
His robe fell open, revealing Bates basketball shorts.
"You went to Bates?"
"Nah. My brother went there." Carl twitched his eyes and smoked.
"My father went there. My mother went there. I got their shorts.
Their sweatshirts. Their coffee cups. Their pens."
"I'm sorry but I don't have your quarts anymore. It's not in the
order. How about pints?"
"Hal, Hal, Hal. Milk, milk, milk."
"I can go back to the plant."
"Bates, Bates, Bates. That's been my whole family's life and I've
never set foot on the shitty campus."
"Listen I'll drop you a whole case tomorrow. I'll mark it as spillage.
No charge. And I'll get hold of some doughnuts. You like doughnuts,
right?"
Carl stubbed out the Kool. "I don't need a case. Just the five
quarts."
"Is tomorrow okay?"
"Bates man, milkman. Ask yourself Hal. Would you rather pay a
fortune for four years in fucking Lewiston studying all kinds of
useless crap, or have this?" He spread his arms to indicate the
windows full of smiling young women, then locked his hands behind
his head.
"I hear you. Believe me Carl, I hear you."
"Kitty's a good one. Good figure. I could use someone like her."
"Yep. I'm sure you could."
Carl stood up with his newspaper and touched Hal on the shoulder.
"Don't forget my milk anymore."
* * *
In the hold of a milk truck, two metal bars are wedged behind
the crates to keep them from tipping. The bars slide up and down
the length of the hold and the stacks go six high. Grooves keep
them bonded, bars hold them back. It's a simple operation. As the
day passes, the product rolls out on dollies, and empties slide
in to replace them. In the morning the stacks are dense as skyscrapers,
in the afternoon they're skeletal as scaffolding. The truck gets
lighter and lighter, always the same configuration, but losing flesh
by the gallon, losing the weight of organs. The truck gets lighter
until the crates rattle at every bump, trying their best to separate.
Hal flies through the gears. The cab feels like a giant gumball
machine with a fat kid outside whacking it, knocking them around.
If not a gumball machine, then a washing machine, an industrial
model, one with a window to monitor the progress. The steering wheel
is big as a cheese. They're spinning and tumbled and thrust, they're
forward and back, up and down, they're in every position at once.
It's set on sputter, it's lurching and ready to blow. He's the
skipper and she's the mate. They're taking orders on the run. Sub
goes up, sub goes down. Suds splash and wipers remove the rain.
As the clothes fluff dry, the menthol is the peppermint in his eye.
The road runs under all the way, empty cases rattle and insist on
the end of the day.
Before he drops her off, they shinny the short foothold into the
hold, fling the door open and slam it shut, the latch bangs heavy
as a bell. The cooling system blares all else away. Squared off
and low-ceilinged, it's a dull, metal cell with scattered remnants—a
carton of cottage cheese spilling its guts, a sour cream container
crushed sideways, a pierced tub drooling yogurt. The rest is vanished
as Christmas presents, nothing left but the boxes, nothing but slick
empty crates, sticky, six-high and forever deep, a dank Lego-land
of spoilage.
Bars slide up and down. Truck loses weight. That's how the day
is measured.
Kitty grips the bar behind her. A crate makes a nice seat. An
impression of plastic presses into her calf, it digs deep and checkerboards
her. Heat escapes from her chest, slow as steam from a shingle.
Quicker toots from her mouth. Steam rises from her gratefully and
mixes in the ceiling, it lifts from her collarbone curled like a
leaf.
It must've been 90 degrees out there today.
It's a grateful end, the ghosts breaking free from her skin, vanishing
into the walls and ceiling, clinging to the metal panels like dew.
In a wedge of sunlight from the door, they are silhouetted and smoldering,
and the truck collects them.
* * *
"Here's what we should do," Kitty says. They're sprawled everywhere,
white and damp. They're like two squid thrown into the back of the
truck, cold and barely picked-at.
"Run away," she says.
"Run away?"
"Tomorrow."
"We have to work tomorrow."
"I have ideas about that."
"Run away to where?"
"Not sure. Does it matter?"
"I'm pretty sure it does."
"Think about it."
"We... "
"Think about it."
Dusk settles at the beach and the lights of the Ferris wheel flicker
on.
"And we're going to need the truck," she says, a knee tucked under
her. "Make sure they load it up good tonight."
He stares into the ceiling and blinks. Tries to smile. "Need the
truck?"
"Order quadruple of everything."
* * *
Eggs have a shelf life of six weeks. From there on it's touch
and go.
* * *
It's not hard to find a garage sale, not in July, not in Maine.
They cruised the shady streets for half an hour before spotting
a sign, and followed its magic marker arrows through a new development.
The houses looked made of painted shale. A sky blue next door to
a scabby maroon, a stab at stark Colonial across from an impressive
two-tone. The house having the sale was a chiffon yellow ranch.
"We need pots, plates, utensils," Kitty said as they strolled
across the cluttered lawn. "Think kitchen." She was hugging her
ribs, looking serious. She'd found a kid's red wagon and was pulling
it behind. Before long they had it piled with old tin and plastic.
Cookie pans, ladles, a carving knife, a colander, a measuring cup.
A stack of cafeteria china was buried underneath.
"So how much money do you have?" Hal asked.
"Money? What's money?" she answered, crossing her eyes.
She was delirious. Hal felt like an attendant waiting for the
right moment to subdue her.
"I don't have squat until next paycheck," he said. "That's if
they ever give it to me. If I don't get fired. Or arrested."
"Ollie's not going to arrest you. He's family."
"We're going to have to take that paint off the truck you know."
The green spray paint had been her idea too.
"It'll cover up the logo for one thing," she'd said, can at the
ready, indicating the oval of Hood. "No one will expect a green
truck of anything."
"It's a crime. It's destruction of property. It's graffiti."
"I think it's very military transport. We look official. No one's
gonna fuck with us!"
"But we still have to get it off. We have to bring it back tonight
at latest. After we finish the route we'll stop and get paint thinner."
"Okay dare-devil. Okay Steve McQueen."
"What about your job? Did you take today off too?"
"I quit that fucking place. Fucking sweat-shop."
The entire contents of the house were vomited onto the lawn. A
stunned-looking woman in a folding chair was hunched forward wringing
a Vogue magazine. She summed up their haul in a glance. "Twenty
bucks."
"The wagon's not for sale," said a little boy appearing at her
side.
A bunch of kids quickly gathered, each stepping up doubtfully
with their favorite plaything, something they were trying to save
from mommy's purge. Kitty and Ken were her only customers.
"Yes it is Tommy," she said. "And three bucks for the wagon."
"I love garage sales," Kitty said, opening her palms under the
full elms "How many kids do you have?"
"Oh. Just the five."
"Do they drink milk?"
"Like calves."
One of the boys rapped his sister across the head with a Tonka
tractor. Jam covered their cheeks in finger-smears. There was a
curt smell in the air, a cherry-flavored drool.
"Do you like yogurt?" Kitty asked the girl, leaning forward with
her hands on her knees. Her white pants were spotless again.
"I like vanilla."
"I like blueberry," her brother said.
Kitty made a clucking sound at Hal and turned back to the kids.
"Do you know what bartering is?" she said.
* * *
"I learned it from you," she said.
"What? When?"
"Yesterday at Jebby's. You traded that Dale guy a quart for two
cinnamon rolls."
Kitty had been privy to the usual arrangement. They'd pulled into
the plaza outside Pier Fries just before noon. Dale was there waiting
for them—his route and Hal's overlapped. Dale was the Nissen Bread
guy—bread, rolls, muffins, Table Talk pies, the whole gamut. But
what Dale was mostly was doughnuts. Dale was doughnuts and Hal was
milk and Jebby was ice cream. That's how it worked-they'd shuffle
the product around, report the missing items as spillage and motor
their separate ways, no one the wiser.
Every Monday and Wednesday, it was the same—Dale took the milk
home to his wife, Jebby stored a loaf of rye in his ice chest, and
Hal woofed down a Rocket cone or a doughnut sitting in the striped
off area (official vehicles only) at the foot of the pier.
"So don't complain—you taught me," Kitty said, inspecting a
face cloth.
That's what had closed the deal—when Mrs. Thibeau threw in a set
of bath towels.
So they were up that, plus the red-wagon of kitchen essentials.
They were down 3 cases of 1/2 gallon 1% (27 count) and 3 sheaths
of mixed yogurts (36 count).
Kitty put her eye to the fabric. It was honey-colored. "Christ,
it's got a bleach stain." Toothpaste drool. "Bitch!" she murmured.
"You can't trust anyone anymore."
"Look who's talking."
She tugged aggressively at the towel. "Nice weave though."
They drove without talking for a while.
"Anything the matter darling?" she asked
"The matter? The matter? You drag me out here and want to run
some kind of hunter-gatherer life, and you ask 'what's the fucking
matter?'"
"Oh. So now you don't want to?"
"I never wanted to do…all this! This is crazy! We're going to
get in huge trouble."
"You don't love me."
"Don't be stupid. That's got nothing to do with it."
She beamed at him. "Then let's go play life!"
* * *
They picked a dirt road off Spurwink, a pecked-over stretch of
fern-brush and cattails connecting two old tract neighborhoods.
After removing a yellow chain hung across the entrance, they crept
their way in the failing light. Half a mile in they reached the
town dump and entered its burnt, smothered bubble. The breeze carried
a mixture of toxins and failure. Seagulls banked and boomeranged.
After the last petering heap, the road narrowed to a two-tire run-off
with grass growing between the ruts and they paused.
"Why not?" Kitty said. Inching forward, snapping the most brittle
shoots, the truck ducked through a birch shelter. They came to the
edge of an algae and mosquito-plagued pond—beyond was an open
field of excavations.
"I remember this. They were going to build houses here." Kitty
rested a finger on her chin like a buyer. "Houses for the field
workers."
They skirted the pond and pulled up next to one of the holes with
its inverted image, a mound of dirt, sitting dumbly beside it. Hal
got out and leaned against the truck, still sticky from spray-paint
and coated in a burr of dead insects. Kitty climbed to the top of
a dirt-hill.
"I'd live in this one," she said, pointing into the hole. "How
about you?"
Hal felt sickened and drugged. With a slow lurch he looked up
and down the row of heaps. "The one on the end. I suppose."
"Why that one?"
"More privacy."
"Privacy sure. But less security. In mine you'd have a neighbor
on either side to watch your back."
"Watch your back from what? Garbage thieves?"
"I'm just saying. Down there at the end is a burglar's paradise."
"You're lecturing me about safety?"
They leaned against the sticky green and sucked on Kools.
"I wish you'd stop worrying so much," she said.
"Why shouldn't I worry?"
"There's all kinds of time for that. Our whole life is ahead of
us. Right now, this should be fun."
"But there's good fun. And there's bad fun."
"Stop worrying and fuck me in that muddy pit."
"We should stop now."
"Fuck me in our new house."
* * *
On a milk truck, eggs keep longer than anything.
* * *
It lasted eleven days. He gave her credit—she made it last eleven
whole days.
They spent their days on the road, figuring they'd confuse "the
authorities" that way. Authorities included anyone from cops to
7-11 workers. Their vehicle ran by sunlight. Uncle Ollie was livid
—Hal's father later told him he'd call the house at all hours,
accusing him of collusion.
"No fucking half-ass kid steals a fucking milk truck without some
fucking help!"
Kitty scrawled up some windshield flyers and word spread: 'Milk
and Juice for Trade.' Every night people eased their way down the
dirt road to fling open their trunks and display their junk: old
baby clothes, books, sleeping bags, board games, surplus dry goods.
The visitors sat and smoked on the hard, smoky ground.
Kitty quickly named the place: The Dunes at the Dump.
"It's upscale," she said. "Upscale but gritty. Steve McQueen would
live here."
One night a flabby, wild-haired Mexican named Cat Stevens made
them small barbecue ribs over an open pit. "My house is over there,"
he said, indicating the barren land beyond the dirt heaps. Hal squinted
in the last of the light. Jackrabbits squatted in the shrubs.
"What's in the sauce?" Kitty asked, eyes blank, gnawing at the
bone, eyeteeth flaring in the firelight. They passed a tub of flavored
cottage cheese around, ate it straight from the container. "Pineapple,"
Cat Stevens said, curds clinging to his moustache. "It reminds me
of the beach."
A young vagabond couple showed up with a box of Trix cereal and
torn, water-stained sleeping bags. They plopped down and spent the
night. The girl, overly tanned and enthusiastic, smoked joint after
joint and circuitously asked Kitty if she was interested in swinging
for milk. No deal was struck, but in the morning the four of them
munched the fruity cereal happily before parting ways.
Many of the visitors were locals lured by curiosity. They'd come
down during the day and leave at sunset, conversation centering
around the chances for next year's high school teams (the Riots,
the Blue Blazes), whether the cannery should stay open, and the
recent governor's scandal (he'd been caught buck naked in his car
with his college age niece). Kitty taught herself to play the ukulele.
They drank from dull tin cups.
"It's so Civil War," she said.
She cuddled up to Hal in the sleeping bag as the embers snapped.
"We'll save the china for a special occasion," she whispered.
"Such as?"
"Such as having something to celebrate."
People liked Kitty; they felt at home with her as their host.
Sitting hunched and uncomfortable on the packed earth, the vapors
of the dump tethered and thin, people stayed longer than they'd
planned. Laughter mingled with the gulls that scavenged by night.
They ran the refrigeration unit all day, then shut it down and
locked up with the moon, the blast of white noise petering out,
crickets taking up a chorus.
* * *
"Ollie knows where you are," Dale said. "He's on his way out here."
His bakery van was pulled up next to the green milk truck. The van
was toaster-shaped and looked as though it would tip over in a strong
wind.
"Is he bringing cops?"
"No. But I'm betting you're fired."
Hal scratched behind his ear and puffed his cheeks. Kitty was
walking back from the pond with an apron-full of dishes. "Just as
well. We're out of milk anyway," he said, loud enough for her to
hear. "The gallon that guy took last night was from our next-to-last
crate."
"You've got to be kidding," Kitty said, jaw twisted. Tin dishes
clattered to the ground and the side door was flung open. She peered
inside, kerchief drawn tight above her eyebrows, a rag knotted at
her throat.
She bounced and clapped her hands. "Let's scram!" It was as though
the carnival was closing up and she was raring to hit the next town.
She fluttered in a little circle.
"No," Hal said. "We hand the truck over. Voluntarily. It's only
been a little over a week. Ollie knows where we are, so we wait
here. We apologize. We beg for my job back. We buy some thinner
at the hardware store and get this green off. Just like we should've
from day one. We repay Hood for the lost product."
"Jesus…" she said, wiping her hands on her apron.
"That's what we do. Period."
"That's really standing up to the man," she said.
"The man?"
"You're giving in to the man without a fight."
"Ollie's not the man. He's my fucking uncle. He manages a dairy."
"If you don't stand up to the man, what kind of man does that
make you?" She whipped the rag from her throat and dabbed at her
underarms.
"This is ridiculous," Hal said. Kitty shook her hands over her
head like a Tent-Revivalist. She spun away and stormed back.
"What do you think Dale?" she said, jutting her hip. "Is Hal here
a man?"
But Dale was walking off. "Listen I just wanted to warn you guys,
that's all," he said, spinning his keys on a finger. "I heard Ollie
found out through Carl at the Oysterbake. What the hell were you
doing driving around in broad daylight?"
"I'm not waiting here...for anybody," Kitty said, breathless, patting
at her chest with a fluttery hand. "Can you give me a lift Dale?"
The tears welled.
Dale looked at Hal, who shrugged. "Go on," he said. "Go with Dale."
Kitty in her white overalls.
She stood in the bread-man's cab, an unimpressive, low riding
affair closer to a postal jeep than a truck, and leaned out the
door. "You say we're out of milk?" She gulped. The tears were free.
"Kitty..."
"Not anymore. From now on, you're out of milk."
* * *
She was framed in one of the Oysterbake's screen windows and acted
like she didn't know him. "Number 47, number 47 your order is up,"
she said, spinning away for a pint of clams.
"You should've taken better care of her." It was Carl, sipping
hot cocoa from a Styrofoam cup, wearing paisley swim trunks, his
torso smeared with Hawaiian Tropic.
"Number 48 please. Number 48... " Her voice vibrated in the porch
rafters.
Hal handed over the five quarts of homo and sped away. The Hood
Milk logo was newly repainted and it gleamed in wholesome relief.
* * *
He was the last milkman back to the dairy; the other trucks had
been sleeping for hours, lording over the next day's haul, refrigeration
units humming away in comatose mockery. He was bone-weary, but still
needed to focus, refuel with diesel, calculate inventory, back his
truck cleanly to the dock.
The warehouse guys were waiting, impatient to pluck the order
from his book—how many cases of OJ and choc (a summertime favorite),
how many slats of sour, what assortment of miscellany (five quarts
heavy cream, two cans whip, one box butter pats) to swing from the
plant floor onto the truck. Toe that stack back, spin that chimney,
up on the dolly now, give that gal a twirl, slide her on, leave
her be. Once night fell, the plant became a square dance hall.
The hold was slippery with the load he'd spilled earlier and had
since thickened in the clotted way of sperm. A junior loader was
charged to hose it out, blast it into plumes with a riotous jet
of water followed by an antiseptic chloride, a peppery compound
that broke down the lactose in subterfuge, turned cream to 1%, to
skim, to gray soapy water, sloshed the whole mess away—the rose
petals last to leave the drain.
The accident had happened early—he'd restacked what he could,
delivered what was undamaged, returned to the dairy, refilled the
truck, finished the route, and it was well after 9 PM when he left
his last stop, the husk of the Cap's Clam Shanty, now empty of Kitty.
The truck would never be any lighter than that—every crack and
seam on Route 1 resounded—he rattled along like an empty red wagon.
It had been a tricky moment, a test of his trucking skills: first
thing that morning, his load full, stopped at the top of an incline,
everything at a serious angle, over a ton held in place by two iron
bars. One high, one low—if the stacks were people, one would press
across the nipples, the other at mid-thigh. All in all, good support,
but precarious as an elephant on a skateboard. Hal sat there and
thought. He should've taken the hill on the run, should've coasted
right through, but he'd stopped and now he'd pay. When the light
popped to green, he didn't clutch to gas smoothly, didn't catch
it on a dime—and the green shrank quickly as a pupil—he was
a rocket in reverse. It was mere physics then, and it sounded quick
as murder, announcing itself with a single dull boom, a cannon shot
from right behind him. And as the stacks imploded like a demolished
building, taking the red roses with them (he was going to leave
them with Kitty, offer them to her window at the Oysterbake) he
took a peek in the side-view mirror, hoping for the best. But no
—two white and red tails of milk and rose petals, one from either
gutter, waved from his behind. His heart fisted up and he swore
—this kind of spill was sure to screw up his day and get him irretrievably
behind schedule.
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