I couldn’t stand the noise, and then turning it on because I couldn’t stand the silence.
I went out in the hall and looked at the telephone. I could call him, I thought. Call Buford. Just tell him I might not be in tomorrow. I wouldn’t have to go up the lake. I could still show up for work even though I’d said I might not be there. It wouldn’t mean I was going, would it? No. It didn’t make any sense. I wouldn’t call him. Then I had the telephone in my hand.
“Elks Club,” a voice said. I couldn’t even remember asking for the number.
“Is Buford there?” Maybe he wouldn’t be. That would be fine. Then I would have that on my side. If I didn’t locate him I couldn’t go.
“Just a minute.” There was a long silence. She was crying when she said he was drunk, I thought, crying with the dry sound of tearing something inside her throat. She didn’t want to tell me. “Hello. No, he’s not here.”
That settled it. That settled it once and for all. I couldn’t go because I couldn’t find Buford.
I called Barone’s,
I called the Eagles.
I was sweating, and cursing under my breath. I shook the telephone like a woman with a sick baby trying to get a doctor late at night. I put it down and sat there looking at it, feeling my nerves jumping. I wanted to tear it loose from its wires and throw it down the hall.
Lorraine! I thought. Maybe I could get her.
I could hear it ringing. She’s not at home either, I thought, and began to have the crazy idea that all the rest of the human race had disappeared and I was left here alone to go mad beside a telephone that didn’t go anywhere or connect with anything.
“Hello,” a girl’s voice said.
“Is this Lorraine?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes. Oh, is that you, Jack? What is it?”
“This is Jack Marshall,” I said, and then realized she already knew who it was.
“Yes. What is it?”
“I-ah—” What the hell did I want with Lorraine? Then, suddenly, I had the crazy idea she must think I was calling her up to ask her for a date because Louise was out of town. Why would she think a crazy thing like that? I thought angrily. Had I ever done—
I began to function again. “Oh. I just wondered if you’d tell Buford in the morning that I might not be in. I can’t locate him.”
“Why, yes. I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks.”
It wasn’t until I had hung up that I realized I hadn’t given any reason at all. Well, what of it? I thought. What difference does it make? If you’re going twenty miles back in a swamp because you can’t stay away from another man’s wife, why worry about a little thing like not making up a lie for your employer?
I stood there for a minute in the hall and then, without even thinking about it, as if I had planned it for a week, I took a flashlight and went out in the yard, along the wall of the house where the vines were growing. There were some morning-glories, and when I found a young, small one I dug it up with a butcher knife, taking a lot of dirt with it, and packed it in a small cardboard box. I went back inside the kitchen with it and poured some water on the soil, then stood there looking at it with a sort of stupid and unaccountable happiness like a kid who suddenly feels good for no reason at all.
What the hell am I doing this for? I thought. Am I losing my mind?
* * *
The sun was coming up now. I could see shafts of yellow light filtering through the dense canopy of timber like those in the pictures of the interiors of dim cathedrals. I sat very quietly in the boat, drawn far back under the overhanging trees where the slough came out and joined the main body of the lake. From where I was hidden I could not see up the lake at all, only a short section across and down, toward the south, but there was no reason for looking—I would hear the motor long before he came into sight.
I looked at my watch. He must have left up there over an hour ago, at least, which meant he should be down here in less than an hour. With his motor he could make it in that much