Free Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

wind this afternoon in preparation for that morning; it is sacred; it is like a darkness you must push yourself through to get to; grimly, with vomit at the back of his mouth, Jesse thinks of that morning and how it must be reached, it must be reached.… Now his father is doing something strange: he is parking in front of Montgomery Ward.
    “Are we going in here? To get some presents?” Jesse says, brightening.
    “You stay in the car.”
    “Why?”
    “Stay here.”
    Jesse waits until his father is inside the store, then he gets out. He goes to look in the crowded display window. A galaxy of gifts, with ribbons around them, radios, bicycles, sets of china, hairbrushes, lamps, rifles, shotguns, boxes of ribbon candy opened to show the sharp red and green twists of candy, small plastic Santa Clauses and reindeer on a field of tinselly white. There is a village you can buy, tiny cardboard houses on a white board, with a church at its center. Jesse’s mother wanted one of these but they were too expensive. Everything is too expensive this year. Last year. The year before that: everything too expensive. They have no money.… Jesse’s eye fastens upon the hunting equipment at the rear of the display. He wants a shotgun but there is no chance of getting it. No, no chance. There is no money. His brain boggles at the display of things—shotguns, rifles, a red hunting cap, a fishing rod, a tackle box open like the candy box to show the bright-featheredlures inside. Who can afford such things? Where are the people who can afford such things?
    Jesse’s father comes out in a few minutes; Jesse is already safe in the car, waiting. His father is carrying a single paper bag. Jesse wonders eagerly what is in the bag …? But his father says only, “Now for Walter Hill.” He checks his wristwatch again. He sounds buoyant, eager. Something sly and flushed about his face, as if he has a surprise for Jesse. Is it in the bag? Now he is talking rapidly: “I’ll stop and you run in and tell Walter you’re going home with me. Tell him you’re taking Christmas vacation early. What the hell, he should walk out himself. He’s crazy to work there. Tell him I said so. Working in the machine shop! He can have it, he’s crazy.… Tell him you don’t need a ride home with him tonight or any other night. Tell him you’re quitting. Tell him he should quit himself, I said so,
I
said so, only a stupid son of a bitch would keep working in that place.…”
    Jesse isn’t allowed in the factory, so he leaves word with the plant guard to give Walter Hill the message.
    And now the ride home.
    Always he is riding home, beside his father, in that car. A 1930 Ford. Mud-splattered, rusty, rattling. A good old car. Sometimes it is real, sometimes it is a phantom car, a car of lurches and squeaks and the pocket of very damp, freezing air that is carried inside it, unwarmed, in which he and his father seem to sit permanently, forever. They are a few feet apart, permanently. Riding home. Gliding home. Jesse sees himself outside in the snowy fields, gliding, his feet skimming the grass, going home, running desperately home, gasping for breath, his face pale and slack and stupid with the need to get home, to get home.… They are driving into dusk, passing apple and cherry and pear orchards, the many acres of fruit trees, passing farms, ruined old barns and newer barns, with that Mail Pouch sign in black and yellow everywhere, and silos thick and fuzzy in the gathering mist, and fields filling up with snow and time. There are animals in the fields, stray horses that lift their heads at the sound of the car, but stupidly, massively, without sight. They pass the canning factory where Jesse’s mother once worked years ago. It is closed now for winter. They pass more orchards, fruit orchards, farms. On this highway a few cars pass them; it is dark enough now for headlights because of the storm that ison its way, and lights from oncoming traffic shine into