Night Shift

'Burt, why do you have to be so stubborn? You know something's wrong here. Can't you just admit it?'

'I'm not being stubborn. I just want to get shut of what's in that trunk.'

They stepped out on to the sidewalk, and Burt was struck afresh with the town's silence, and with the smell of fertilizer. Somehow you never thought of that smell when you buttered an ear and salted it and bit in. Compliments of sun, rain, all sorts of man-made phosphates, and a good healthy dose of cow shit. But somehow this smell was different from the one he had grown up with in rural upstate New York. You could say whatever you wanted to about organic fertilizer, but there was something almost fragrant about it when the spreader was laying it down in the fields. Not one of your great perfumes, God no, but when the late-afternoon spring breeze would pick up and waft it over the freshly turned fields, it was a smell with good associations. It meant winter was over for good. It meant that school doors were going to bang closed in six weeks or so and spill everyone out into summer. It was a smell tied irrevocably in his mind with other aromas that were perfume: timothy grass, clover, fresh earth, hollyhocks, dogwood.

But they must do something different out here, he thought. The smell was close but not the same. There was a sickish-sweet undertone. Almost a death smell. As a medical orderly in Vietnam, he had become well versed in that smell.

Vicky was sitting quietly in the car, holding the corn crucifix in her lap and staring at it in a rapt way Burt didn't like.

'Put that thing down,' he said.

'No,' she said without looking up. 'You play your games and I'll play mine.'

He put the car in gear and drove up to the corner. A dead stoplight hung overhead, swinging in a faint breeze. To the left was a neat white church. The grass was cut. Neatly kept flowers grew beside the flagged path up to the door. Burt pulled over.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to go in and take a look' Burt said. 'It's the only place in town that looks as if there isn't ten years' dust On it. And look at the sermon board.'

She looked. Neatly pegged white letters under glass read: THE POWER AND GRACE OF HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS. The date was 27 July 1976 - the Sunday before.

'He Who Walks Behind the Rows,' Burt said, turning off the ignition. 'One of the nine thousand names of God only used in Nebraska, I guess. Coming?'

She didn't smile. 'I'm not going in with you.'

'Fine. Whatever you want.'

'I haven't been in a church since I left home and I don't want to be in this church and I don't want to be in this town, Burt. I'm scared Out of my mind, can't we just go?'

'I'll only be a minute.'

'I've got my keys, Burt. If you're not back in five minutes, I'll just drive away and leave you here.'

'Now just wait a minute, lady.'

'That's what I'm going to do. Unless you want to assault me like a common mugger and take my keys. I suppose you could do that.'

'But you don't think I will.'

'No.'

Her purse Was on the seat between them. He snatched it up. She screamed and grabbed for the shoulder strap. He pulled it out of her reach. Not bothering to dig, he simply turned the bag upside down and let everything fall out. Her key-ring glittered amid tissues, cosmetics, change, old shopping lists. She lunged for it but he beat her again and put the keys in his own pocket.

'You didn't have to do that,' she said, crying. 'Give them tome.'

'No,' he said, and gave her a hard, meaningless grin. 'No way.'

'Please, Burt! I'm scared!'

She held her hand out, pleading now.

'You'd wait two minutes and decide that was long enough.'

'I wouldn't -'

'And then you'd drive off laughing and saying to yourself, "That'll teach Burt to cross me when I want something." Hasn't that pretty much been your motto during our married life? That'll teach Burt to cross me?'

He got out of the car.

'Please, Burt?' she screamed, sliding across the seat. 'Listen. . .I know. . . we'll drive out of town and call from a phone booth, okay? I've got all kinds of change. I just. we can . . . don't leave me alone, Burt, don't leave me out here alone!'

He slammed the door on her cry and then leaned against the side of the T-Bird for a moment, thumbs against his closed eyes. She was pounding on the driver's side window and calling his name. She was going to make a wonderful impression when he finally found someone in authority to take charge of the kid's body. Oh yes.

He turned and walked up the flagstone path to the church doors. Two or three minutes, just a look around, and he would be back out. Probably the door wasn't even unlocked.

But it pushed in easily on silent, well-oiled hinges (reverently oiled, he thought, and that seemed funny for no really good reason) and he stepped into a vestibule so cool it was almost chilly. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness.