Oklahoma City!
Clyde
There couldn't have been any other way to dismember the automobile,
only a sledgehammer would do. It,
the car, the mean bad car, had given Henrietta problems ever since...
well, ever since Clyde left her. It
was his "going away" present.
He walked to the bus depot rather than drive it across the state
line. Heck, he wouldn't drive
it across the street.
It had been a relic when they obtained it.
New rings, plugs, a shot of pure alcohol smack dab in the middle of
the carburetor and it sputtered and coughed and finally--with a shooshing
sound for some reason--came to life.
A new coat of paint; it got 'em around.
They kinda became proud of it.
Their "little bomb," they called it.
A compact: they tried
to call it a Corvair, but with so many Pinto features--the interior,
engine, hubcaps even--all saying "Pinto," they ended up calling
it a compact.
And it turned out their marriage was of the "compact"
variety, too, reduced to a half year of bliss... well, except for the 911
calls, and the broken flatware, and the holes in the walls.
One didn't think, one just grabbed an appliance, the other a
bookend or a Denny's ashtray, whatever was handy.
"It wasn't always like that, though," Henrietta confided
to a friend one day. "Only the last five months."
"Why did you stay together so long?" her friend
asked.
"He made me."
"Oh."
"Well, he didn't make me, really... but he did. A subtle
tightening of a person's normal freedoms. Taking in a little slack
at a time. It's not right, I
tell you! I had to
leave."
"Tell it to me."
"He was always there, manipulating, controlling.
I couldn't step outta the house without him losing it.
I swear I didn't do anything wrong and he would jump me."
"Wow... What you must have gone through. Hmm."
"Yeah, well, I had to leave."
She paused for a sip of Coke.
"So we had this car, see?
And it was kind of a junker, a heap, you know?"
"Yeah, I know the kind. Keep
going, I'm almost done with your hair."
"We were gonna take a trip, like a second honeymoon, only
without any bedroom stuff, knowing Clyde, if it went like the first one.
You hear what I'm saying?"
"I hear you," her friend replied, rinsing.
"So I didn't wanna go, but I wanted him to go, or maybe I'd go
somewhere alone. Anything,
anywhere, but without him. You
gettin' all this?"
"Sure. Sure I am."
"So I said, 'I'll go, or you go,' to him, for him to go, or
I'd go. And he said, 'You're
going or I'm going.' And I
said, 'Fine, go.' So he went.
But our compact broke down along the way.
So he rented a Ryder truck and drove to Oklahoma City, and called
me, collect. I wouldn't
accept the charges, so he called right back, talking to me with quarters.
I let him talk on and on, knowing how much he hated to use
quarters. And, oh, he was on
his knees that day: crying,
whimpering, talking about saying our vows again, this time in a regular church, everything.
Do you hear me, Angel? He
was even crying. Can you
imagine?"
"There." She
patted her new hairdo. "There
we go. Now you'll pop their eyes out."
"Weren't you listening to me?"
"I--I was just finishing your hair.
I'm sorry, Henrietta, I didn't catch that last part."
"Oh, nevermind." She
looked at herself in the mirror. "Nice
job, Angel. I always like the
way you do my hair."