The same name William Wolfe of the SLA had taken, although Donna found it impossible to believe that Joe Camber had named his Saint Bernard after a radical robber of banks and kidnapper of rich young heiresses. She doubted if Joe Camber had ever heard of the Symbionese Liberation, Army. The dog had seemed friendly enough, but it had made her nervous to see Tad patting that monster—the way it made her nervous to stand by and watch him close the car door himself. Cujo looked big enough to swallow the likes of Tad in two bites.
She ordered Tad a hot pastrami sandwich because he didn’t care much for pizza—kid sure didn’t get that from my side of the family, she thought—and a pepperoni and onion pizza with double cheese for herself. They ate at one of the tables overlooking the road. My breath will be fit to knock over a horse, she thought, and then realized it didn’t matter. She had managed to alienate both her husband and the guy who came to visit in the course of the last six weeks or so.
That brought depression cruising her way again, and once again she forced it back . . . but her arms were getting a little tired.
They were almost home and Springsteen was on the radio when the Pinto started doing it again.
At first there was a small jerk. That was followed by a bigger one. She began to pump the accelerator gently; sometimes that helped.
“Mommy?” Tad asked, alarmed.
“It’s all right. Tad.” she said, but it wasn’t. The Pinto began to jerk hard, throwing them both against their seatbelts with enough force to lock the harness clasps. The engine chopped and roared. A bag fell over in the hatchback compartment, spilling cans and bottles. She heard something break.
“You goddamned shitting thing!” she cried in an exasperated fury. She could see their house just below the brow of the hill, mockingly close, but she didn’t think the Pinto was going to get them there.
Frightened as much by her shout as by the car’s spasms, Tad began to cry, adding to her confusion and upset and anger.
“Shut up!” she yelled at him. “Oh Christ, just shut up, Tad!”
He began to cry harder, and his hand went to the bulge in his back pocket, where the Monster Words, folded up to packet size, were stowed away. Touching them made him feel a little bit better. Not much, but a little.
Donna decided she was going to have to pull over and stop; there was nothing else for it. She began to steer toward the shoulder, using the last of her forward motion to get there. They could use Tad’s wagon to pull the groceries up to the house and then decide what to do about the Pinto. Maybe—
Just as the Pinto’s offside wheels crunched over the sandy gravel at the edge of the road, the engine backfired twice and then the jerks smoothed out as they had done on previous occasions. A moment later she was scooting up to the driveway of the house and turning in. She drove uphill, shifted to park, pulled the emergency brake, turned off the motor, leaned over the wheel, and cried.
“Mommy?” Tad said miserably. Don’t cry no more, he tried to add, but he had no voice and he could only mouth the words soundlessly, as if struck dumb by laryngitis. He looked at her only, wanting to comfort, not knowing just how it was done. Comforting her was daddy’s job, not his, and suddenly he hated his father for being somewhere else. The depth of this emotion both shocked and frightened him, and for no reason at all he suddenly saw his closet door coming open and spilling out a darkness that stank of something low and bitter.
At last she looked up, her face puffy. She found a handkerchief in her purse and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. I wasn’t really shouting at you. I was shouting at this . . . this thing.” She struck the steering wheel with her hand, hard. “Ow!” She put the edge of her hand in her mouth and then laughed a little. It wasn’t a happy laugh.
“Guess it’s still kerflooey,” Tad said glumly.
“I guess it is,” she agreed, almost unbearably lonesome for Vie. “Well, let’s get the things in. We got the supplies anyway, Cisco.”
“Right, Pancho,” he said. “I’ll get my wagon.”
He brought his Redball Flyer down and Donna loaded the three bags into it, after repacking