Machine Dreams

toast in your belly to sop it up.”
    “No, thanks.” Clayton frowned. “Katie wake up yet?”
    “Awake most of the night, Bess told me. Sleeping now. I’ll take her to the movies this afternoon. Some Disney movie she’s nuts about.”
    “Damn, suppose I kept her awake.”
    “You weren’t loud, Clayton.” Mitch said it off-handedly but felt Clayton’s relief.
    “Right.” Clayton smiled, drank the coffee with a grimace. “This potion will set me up.”
    Mitch watched him, lit a cigarette, and sat back in his chair. Clayton’s hands were steady but he was bleary in the eyes, tired, flushed-looking. Didn’t seem like himself. Drinking more since Mitch had come home, these last six months—like now there was another man around to help hold things together. Wasn’t true though. If Clayton didn’t straighten up, the whole situation would go to hell.
    Clayton widened his eyes, yawned, then shook his head to clear it. “You seeing Reb for lunch at the Elks’?”
    Mitch nodded, then assumed a mock-serious expression. “I don’t know Clayton, seems to me you’re leading that Reb in bad ways. Doctor needs to be strait-laced. He’ll be sewing his clamps up in some poor bastard’s stomach.”
    “Hell, Reb didn’t drink much. Keeping me company mostly.” Clayton leaned forward, touching the cup with both hands. “How’s the new Pontiac running? Get her waxed yet?”
    “Nearly. Some of us been up for hours.”
    Clayton half-stood from his chair, leaning to see out the kitchen window. Mitch didn’t look; having already memorized the image of the car, he watched Clayton’s face instead. Crazy how men loved cars. Clayton did his characteristic wink and click of the tongue, a gesture Mitch remembered from the first summer in Bellington: fourteen years old and looking up, seeing this big balding man, a stranger who had the power to say whether Mitch stayed or went. Went where?
    “She looks like heaven,” Clayton said now. “Katie’s head will turn—she don’t have any other escorts with new Pontiac Eights.” The chair creaked as he sat back down. He was still a big man, healthy-looking except for the bad color in his face.
    “You be here for lunch with Bess and Katie, or you want to come up to the Elks’ with me?”
    “Can’t do either. Told Twister I’d come watch his basketball practice. That kid is growing like a weed, getting so he looks five years older than Katie instead of two—”
    “She’ll catch up, Clayton.” Mitch put his cigarette out, stubbing it into the ash tray harder than he needed to.
    Clayton nodded. “Sure, maybe she will.” He was silent a moment, turning the coffee cup a meditative half-circle. “I don’t mind how tall she is or how big, or even whether she goes through school—that kind of thing don’t matter so much for a girl. But she’s got no strength. Doesn’t seem to gain an ounce. Smallest thing sets her heart to beating like a drum.”
    Mitch stood and turned to the sideboard, busied himself cutting the bread. If someone made it for him, Clayton would have to eat it. “You talk to Reb about Katie lately?”
    “Some. Reb seems damn optimistic. Can’t trust him.”
    Mitch put the knife down. “Reb would tell you if Katie was in a dangerous way.”
    “Don’t mean that,” Clayton said. “I know he’s done everything he can.” Scraping of the cup across the saucer. “Look at you, cutting that bread when I told you not to. Working for old man Costello over at Winfield must be adding to your cussedness.”
    “That’s for damn sure.”
    “You still like that rooming house where you’re staying?”
    “It’s all right.” Mitch put the thick slice of bread in the oven, feeling the wave of heat on his face as he bent to latch the oven door.
    “All right, eh?” Clayton smiled. “I know what rooming houses are. You give Mary Chidester the address last night?”
    “Figured I’d give it to her tonight, if she beat it out of me.”
    “Better not. She’ll show up at your door next thing you know, move in.” He laughed. “These young ones are really something. She must have heard you’re selling a lot of trucks over there.”
    “Could be.” Mitch got the butter from the Frigidaire.
    “Costello raise your commission yet?” Clayton drank the coffee and spoke softly to make the question less loaded.
    “Not yet. The salary is passable but there’s nowhere to go with Costello.” Mitch took the toasted bread from the rack. Christ, it was