Prayers For Rain Part 34

"Why you being so nice?" I asked.

Warren shrugged. "'Cause Karen Wetterau? n.o.body was ever nice to her."

14.

There was a barn out back, about three hundred yards from the rear of the motel, past a blighted grove of bent or broken trees and a small clearing dyed black with motor oil. Warren Martens propelled his wheelchair through decayed branches and the mulch of a few seasons' worth of unraked leaves, the litter of nip bottles and abandoned car parts, and the crumbled foundation of a building that had probably died somewhere around the time Lincoln did, as if he were riding atop a lane of fresh blacktop.

Holly had stayed back in the office in case anyone showed up here because the Ritz was full, and Warren led me out the back and down a wooden ramp toward the sagging barn where he stored the contents of abandoned units. He got ahead of me in the grove, pumping those wheels until the spokes hummed through crackling leaves. The leather back of his chair had a Harley-Davidson eagle sewn into the center and b.u.mper stickers affixed on either side of the bird: RIDERS ARE EVERYWHERE; ONE DAY AT A TIME; BIKE WEEK, LACONIA, NH; LOVE HAPPENS RIDERS ARE EVERYWHERE; ONE DAY AT A TIME; BIKE WEEK, LACONIA, NH; LOVE HAPPENS.

"Who's your favorite actor?" he called back over his shoulder as his thick arms pumped the wheels over crackling leaves.

"Current or old-time?"

"Current."

"Denzel," I said. "You?"

"I'd have to say Kevin s.p.a.cey."

"He is good."

"Fan of his since Wiseguy Wiseguy. 'Member that show?"

"Mel Profitt," I said, "and his incestuous sister, Susan."

"Well, all right." He tipped a hand back and I slapped it. "Okay," he said, getting excited now that he'd found a fellow cine-geek out here in the dead trees. "Favorite current actress, and you can't say Mich.e.l.le Pfeiffer."

"Why not?"

"The babe factor's too prevalent. Could skew the objectivity of the poll."

"Oh," I said. "Joan Allen, then. You?"

"Sigourney. With or without automatic weapons." He glanced over at me as I caught up, walked alongside him. "Old-time actor?"

"Lancaster," I said. "No contest."

"Mitchum," he said. "No contest. Actress?"

"Ava Gardner."

"Gene Tierney," he said.

"We might not agree on specifics, Warren, but I'd say we both got impeccable taste."

"Ain't that the truth?" He chuckled, leaned his head back, and watched the black branches roll overhead. "It's true what they say about good movies, though."

"What do they say?"

He kept his head tilted back, kept thrusting the wheelchair forward as if he knew every inch of this wasteland. "They transport you. I mean, I see a good movie? I don't forget forget I don't have legs. I I don't have legs. I have have legs. They're Mitchum's because I'm Mitchum and those are my hands running down Jane Greer's bare arms. Good movies, man, they give you another life. A whole other future for a while." legs. They're Mitchum's because I'm Mitchum and those are my hands running down Jane Greer's bare arms. Good movies, man, they give you another life. A whole other future for a while."

"For two hours," I said.

"Yeah." He chuckled again, but it was more wistful. "Yeah," he repeated, even more softly, and I felt the sharp tonnage of his life roll over us for a moment-the broken motel, the blighted trees, the phantom limbs at thirty, and those hamsters climbing their hamster wheels back in the office, squeaking like mad.

"It wasn't a motorcycle accident," he said, as if answering a question he knew I wanted to ask. "Most people see me, they think I dumped my hog on a turn." He looked back over his shoulder at me and shook his head. "I was shacking up here one night when it was still Molly Martenson's Lie Down. Shacking up with a woman wasn't my wife. Holly shows up-all p.i.s.s and vinegar and f.u.c.k you, motherf.u.c.ker-and she throws her wedding ring at me in the room and bolts. I go chasing her. There wasn't no fence around the pool then, but it was still empty, and I slipped. I fell in the deep end." He shrugged. "Cracked myself in half." He waved his arm at our surroundings. "Got all this in the lawsuit."

He wheeled to a stop by the barn and unlocked the padlock over the door. The barn had been red once, but the sun and neglect had turned it a sallow salmon, and it sagged hard to its left, leaning into the dark earth as if any moment it would roll onto its side and go to sleep.

I wondered how a cracked spine had led to the removal of both of Warren's lower legs, but I decided he'd tell me if he felt like it, leave me wondering if he didn't.

"Funny thing is," he said, "Holly loves me twice as much now. Maybe it's 'cause I can't go out catting around no more. Right?"

"Maybe," I said.

He smiled. "Used to think that myself. But you know what it is? What it really is?"

"No."

"Holly, she's just one of those people truly comes alive only when someone needs her. Like those midget pigs of hers. Simple b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would die if left to their own devices." He looked up at me, then nodded to himself and opened the barn door, and I followed him inside.

Most of the barn was a flea market of three-legged coffee tables, ripped lamp shades, cracked mirrors, and TVs with picture tubes shattered by fists or feet. Rusted hot plates hung from their cords against the rear wall alongside third-rate paintings of empty fields, clowns, and flowers in vases, all the surfaces soiled by orange juice or grime or coffee.

The front third of the barn, though, was a collection of discarded suitcases and clothes, books and shoes, costume jewelry spilling from a cardboard box. To my left, Holly or Warren had used yellow rope to cordon off a section neatly stacked with a never-used blender; cups, gla.s.ses, and china still in the boxes from the store; and a pewter serving plate that bore the engraving LOU LOU & & DINA, ALWAYS-N-FOREVER, APRIL DINA, ALWAYS-N-FOREVER, APRIL 4, 1997. 4, 1997.

Warren saw me staring at it.

"Yeah. Newlyweds. Come here on their wedding night, unwrapped their gifts, then had this big blowout around three A.M A.M. She takes off in the car, cans still tied to the rear b.u.mper. He runs down the road after her, half naked. Last I ever saw of them. Holly won't let me sell the stuff. Says they'll be back. I say, 'Honey, it's been two years.' Holly says, 'They'll come back.' And that's that."

"That's that," I said, still a bit in awe of those gifts and that serving plate, the half-naked groom chasing his bride into oblivion at 3 A.M A.M., all those cans rattling up the road.

Warren wheeled to my right. "Here's her stuff. Karen Wetterau's. Ain't much."

I walked over to a cardboard Chiquita Banana produce carton, lifted the cover off. "How long since you last saw her?"

"A week. Next I heard, she dove off the Custom House."

I looked at him. "You knew."

"Sure, I did."

"Holly?"

He shook his head. "She wasn't lying to you. She's the kind of woman puts a positive spin on everything everything. If she can't, then it didn't happen. Something in her don't allow herself to make the necessary connections. But I saw the picture in the paper, and it took a couple minutes, but I put it together. She looked real different, but it was still her."

"What was she like?"