Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips Page B

Warrenholtz nodded, called it news from the front, Papua tango, excuse me while I go to Paris, Texas and hoe a row for Mom.
    Warrenholtz, back in Texas. Mitch belted the robe Bess had given him, Glen plaid from Rossings on Main Street, just the kind of quality thing she’d buy to last for fifteen years. Where would he be in fifteen years? The time stretched out, and whirling in the center of the time was a small group of men around a bamboo bar table while the fans turned and the potted palms moved in the heavy air, the men olive shades in their fatigues and the green island air dampening finally with evening. Katie was crying, he could hear her, had it gone on all this time? Now he would go in and tell Katie, tell the kid he’d get her some comic books today, anything, strawberry ice cream right now for breakfast, if she would keep a stiff upper lip for Old Man and stop that crying.
    “Hey, Snickelfritz, what’s all this, a man can’t sleep with such a ruckus.” He advanced into the darkened room, his voice soft. “Can’t drive a brand-new car with no shut-eye. Don’t be mean, what about it?”
    The little girl in the bed half-sat, long sleeves of her winter nightgown twisted. “I, I’m not mean,” she said, gasping, her breath broken by the crying.
    “Pretty mean.” He sat down on the edge of her bed. “Your old dad Clayton is in there watching the ceiling, wide awake, hears every sniffle. Ears like a cat.”
    “Like a cat,” she repeated, trying to stop, her eyes full. She looked at Mitch, her face almost stunned with the tension of sobbing.
    “Like a big tiger cat, hears every sound his girl makes. Old Mitch with that new Pontiac to wax this morning, too, and not a lick of sleep. After a hard week selling trucks.” He opened his own eyes wide, had to make sure she knew he was joking, kids took things so serious.
    She breathed calmer, sniffling. “Over at Winfield,” she said. Occasional involuntary gasps. No talk about the matinee this afternoon: then Bess had said nix to the movies. Take a different tack.
    “That’s right, Hon, and after I get me some breakfast I’m going upstreet to buy some wax for the car, and some ice cream and comics for you. Whaddya say? Four comics enough? Keep you busy?”
    She nodded hopefully, twisting her hands under the covers like a schoolmarm. She’d always seemed old for her age, a little prim, damn cute kid. Smart, too, a shame she’d had it so rough. Her wide, tear-brimmed eyes looked too big for her face, and she held her mouth tense.
    “Know where old Mitch was last night?”
    Shook her head no.
    “Lean back there on the pillow while I tell you, that’s right.”
    She leaned back, so tired her eyelids fluttered, and sighed.
    For a minute he was taken aback but talked on smoothly. “Your old Mitch took Mary Chidester over to the big dance at Winfield, and a fella was playing the fiddle to beat the band.” A good time, that Chidester girl, no doubt about it, she’d drunk more than Mitch and there was no fight getting her out to the car before the dance was even over. “Everybody danced up a storm and the whole ceiling was full of colored balloons,” he told Katie. He could feel her concentrating on the sound of his voice and he talked on, automatically, his thoughts elsewhere. Surprised at Mary Chidester though, she was damned experienced. College for two years over at Lynchburg, that was it. Snap of her sweater as she’d pulled it up over her brassiere, smoke of her cigarette in his eyes, and her brassy laugh like the laughter of the boozy Aussie girls. Warrenholtz weaving in a doorway and Strauss leaning solidly against a wall. First leave in Sydney before they’d shipped out to New Guinea, and they’d roughed up that hotel room a little, Strauss with a bruised face where the girl he’d laid socked him just as he’d rolled off her and she discovered he’d had no bag on, did he want to spread Yank brats all over New South Wales? Mitch looked at