The trip that had seemed a long one on the way out was all too short getting home. She saw immediately that she was not in luck. The studio-cum-garage door was open and Bert was perched on his so-called workbench drumming his heels against the paint cans on the shelf below. Neither they nor the dusty canvases against the end wall had been moved in years, but the beer cans scattered around him were new.
“Where the hell you been?” he demanded, leaning in the open car window, the smell of him filling her breathing space with a rank, sweaty, beeriness.
She tried not to breathe and kept her voice steady. “I felt like some exercise and fresh air, so I drove up to the mountains to hunt mushrooms and have a picnic lunch.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he sneered.
She opened the pack and displayed the contents of the mushroom sack. “Mushroom hunting, Bert. You used to go with me and the kids sometimes. I left you a note.”
“Your note said you were going shopping.”
“I plan to. I thought I’d do it on my way home, but I got rained on in the hills, so I decided to come home and change before I did the shopping.”
“It’ll have to wait. Give me the keys.”
She became very still inside. Something clicked, like a relay switch. She said softly, “Bert, you know what the judge said. Now’s not the time to get him down on you . . .”
He jerked the car door open. “Give me the goddamn keys. The judge won’t do a damned thing, and you know it. I’m not drunk, I’m not going to drink, it’s Saturday, and nobody’s gonna be watching the goddam monitor on Saturday! I’m going over to Larry’s place to watch the game with him and Bill. Now come on!”
He wore an expression she had learned to heed, one that was a half-step from violence, one that begged her to cross him and give him an excuse to go over the edge. Normally at this point she dissolved into sludge, tears and whines, attempts to dissuade him. Today, amid this new clarity, she did a much simpler thing. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she edged away from him, across the passenger side and out, taking the pack with her.
“They impounded your car, Bert. If you get picked up in my car, they’ll impound my car too.” Without difficulty, she kept her voice perfectly level, normally an achievement in itself. “I won’t have any way to get to work.”
He jeered, “Moo, moo. Bossie-Benita the human cow! You worried your hubby’ll let you starve?” He climbed in behind the wheel and backed out into the street, wheels screaming.
She stood where she was, not moving. The car was stopped, half into the street, while he waited for her to do something. Come after him, maybe. Make a face. Stamp her foot. It wouldn’t take much. Any little thing. She turned to the trash barrel and took the empty cans from the pack, one at a time throwing them away, paying no attention to the beer cans, which ordinarily she would have gathered up immediately. Today she realized he would consider her throwing them away a comment on his morning’s activities, so she let them lie. Bert was always able to establish that she had done something wrong, no matter what she did, and ordinarily she kept a wary eye on him. Today she ignored him as she fiddled with the trash until the car went away too fast, squealing before it got to the stop sign, only half stopping before screeching around the corner and away.
Six months ago there had been two injured, one dead. A trial date months in the future. And a judge with no more sense than to accept that “don’t lock him up, he’s a working man” argument. She had explained the situation to his lawyer. Benita’s father paid Bert when and if he showed up at the salvage yard. Since he didn’t often show up, he wasn’t really a working man. The public defender said his first duty was to his client, and it would go easier on him if he were a man with a job and a family to support.