At the Jim Bridger: Stories (17 page)

Trevor was a little stiff, but it was clear he liked Alison’s humor. He didn’t exactly stand close to her for the photos, but she took his arm and pulled him over. Justin had snaked an arm around Deanie; this wasn’t their first date.

When the kids finally boarded the car, all four slid into the backseat and Alison’s father closed one door while Cooper closed the other.

“How skinny can they be?” Alison’s mother laughed.

Cooper saluted and started the old Chevrolet.

They had dinner at Leonardo’s Submarines, a tacky sandwich shop in a small strip mall by the hospital. Cooper opened the car doors, and though he told Libby he was going to disappear, not talk, be the driver, he had to ask, “Why here?”

Alison smiled and she and Deanie leaned their heads together to sing, “For your birthday or your prom, for your sister
or your mom, for your every party plan, it’s Leonardo’s.” It was a radio jingle, and it was vaguely familiar.

The girls laughed. “It’s our prom,” Deanie said. “We promised we’d come here for the junior prom.”

Trevor smiled at Cooper and shrugged. “It’s a cheap date.” The two couples turned and strode like royalty into the little shop. Cooper could see the red-checked tablecloths through the window, and a number of people turned to see who was coming in the door. How would he know a cheap date, Cooper thought, he’s never been on a date.

He closed the car doors again and felt the sickening pull of the abyss. Everything was normal here, he needed not to look over.

The prom was at the Tamarisk Country Club, way north in the desert. When Cooper had picked the foursome up at Leonardo’s, they were all talking, spirited, and he found himself invisible. It was the last minute of twilight in the high desert. In the backseat the kids talked over one another about Jackson Pollock, Kelvin temperatures, and the phrase “No Fear.” Justin was evidently an expert on things and started his sentences with, “In reality…” and “The fact is…” Alison had a funny bit, which she’d pull out every few minutes when it would get quiet: “If you don’t understand,” she’d say, “then raise your hand.” In the rearview, Cooper could see them all raise their hand every time and then laugh.

The sprawling pink-roofed developments dropped behind, and Cooper drove up through the undulating desert shelf. Set alone at the foot of the darkening McDowell Mountains, the Tamarisk Country Club looked like a madman’s fortress surrounded by a golf course. The huge circular drive was flagstone lined with the magnificent desert trees, and when Cooper pulled up to the red carpet entry, the valets, eight kids in white satin jackets glowing in the new dark, ran to his door.
“It’s just a dropoff,” he told them as he opened the door and the four beautiful young people slid out.

“Is this a ‘fifty-five?” one of the valets asked.

"’Fifty-six,” he told him.

“What a sweet car,” another said. Trevor was already marching off a step ahead of Alison along the lighted walk toward the stone-and-glass edifice of the Tamarisk. He saw her catch him and take his arm. Just before they entered the massive wooden doors, he saw them all raise their hands.

Now the dark came up for him, and turning down the broad alluvial slope, he could see the city below, beds of dotted lights layered to the world’s edge. There was still one band of dark blue along the horizon like the edge of a serrated knife. He turned on the old radio, AM only, with the two civil defense triangles on the lighted dial. It took a moment and then another to warm up and then it was Ricky Nelson singing “Traveling Man” on KOY, the vintage station he always kept the radio tuned to as a joke, as if the music were coming across the decades. The tune, touring the women of the world, prefigured “California Girls.” Cooper liked the line “my sweet fraulein in Berlin Town.” The wind in the windows helped, but he could taste the vertigo again, the pull.

At home, Libby had the table set. She was going to put out a midnight buffet for the kids. She put her hands on Cooper’s chest and saw his face. “Come on,” she told him. “Open this.” She handed him a cold bottle of champagne. “You can have one drink. You’ve got three hours before duty.”

She poured the wine into two of her big white coffee cups from school and led Cooper out into the backyard. As always, there was a lawn chair on the bottom of their swimming pool. It was where Trevor sat when he was out here. He had a set of rubber-coated hand weights, and he used them to walk around the bottom and sit in the chair. Cooper and his wife
sat in the old cushion swing and looked down into the grassy common, which gave onto the rocky wash that ran diagonally through the district.

Cooper knew he should say something. He knew she was worried about him, but he couldn’t move a single word forward. He was stilled and growing brittle. He could feel his mother’s forehead now, and he turned fully to the lip of Hoover Dam and he leaned into the waiting white emptiness as it rose to meet him. His breath was gone and he was falling. There was nothing. Libby took his hand, wove her fingers through his and squeezed. “Hold on,” she whispered, and gravity returned as her arm went around his shoulder and he felt the first tear hit his shirt. “Look,” she said. Cooper opened his eyes and saw the narrow shape of a coyote on the far side of the pool, drinking silently. Another snout appeared from the dark and dipped to the water. Both animals were focused on the two people on the swinging bench, and then the coyotes vanished. Cooper blinked his eyes and checked. Gone.

“I loved her, too,” Libby said.

Cooper nodded. He could nod.

Libby put Cooper’s cup on the little redwood table. “Come on, mister. Let’s go in. What are we doing out here? Our son is at the prom. We could save some space.”

What was it like in the bed? Physical therapy? Something. Libby helped him with his clothes and moved upon him, placing his leg so, his arms, turning him, talking softly all the while, and then he kindled, claiming himself as he came to life, clashing with her body and her intent, working against her, with her, until the man made of stone was human again in these efforts. At one point, she smiled up at him and said, “Well, there you are.”

A moment later, he said to her, “Here I am. I was busy for a minute.”

“We can sleep for a while now,” Libby said. “I’ll wake you at eleven.” She kissed him and wouldn’t let him roll away, rolling with him, and she was there on his back as he crossed the line into sleep.

His dream was a variation of the old dream: he was floating up without any support and the view was special, the houses, businesses, and streets, but he couldn’t control his speed or direction and he wanted down. He was always a little higher than it was safe to be. Then he saw his mother. Without transition, he was in a dark hallway of an old school, and passing a classroom window he saw her in the class, which must have been a typing class, because each student sat before an old typewriter. There was an expression on her face, a quiet smile, that let him know she knew he was at the window, but she would not turn to him. He was late for something and passed by, stunned by the last thing: she’d had a suntan. She looked about forty and healthy; she’d been working in the garden?

Cooper drove behind the Tamarisk Country Club and parked in one of the three ranks of limousines. The parking lot lay against the dark mountain. There was an archway of balloons coming out of the club, lined with tables where volunteers were giving keepsakes to the departing promgoers. Cooper couldn’t shake the classroom scene from his dream. It made him smile. He got out into the warm night and opened his trunk. The music pulsed through the trees, something Cooper almost recognized. He thought these things were all thrash, crash, and hip hop. The musical measures he could grasp now evaporated before he could name them, but some part of it was old, some rock melody. He could see two couples on the terrace, two hundred yards off, leaning in tight, passionate twists, making out. Saving space early.

The old Chevrolet was sparkling, but he polished the corner of the bumpers, under the brow of the headlights, the door handles. The limo driver ahead of him sauntered back smoking a cigarette. He held up his cell phone and said, “It was ten-thirty, then eleven-thirty, now twelve. It must be a good dance.”

“They call you from inside?” Cooper asked the man.

“It goes up to the satellite and then straight down to me, so the kid can do the tango right over there.” The driver waved his hand at Cooper’s car. “We had a ‘fifty-six, two-door. It was that black and white, remember that one?”

“I do. They had a red and white, a blue and white, and the two-tone green.”

“That was a weird one. Avocado and tan? I wish I still had ours. It could go. Has this got the 283?”

“Right,” Cooper said. “It wants to go.” He opened the hood and the limo driver marveled at how simple the setup was.

“You could work on a car like this.” The driver had taken his cap off and leaned over the red engine block, the shiny hoses. “My old man wasn’t happy unless he was under the hood every weekend. What was he doing?”

“Getting it right,” Cooper said.

Couples had begun to emerge from the country club, some of the girls carrying their shoes. “Here we go,” the driver said.

“Where you taking them now?” Cooper asked him.

“These six young people are going to the Hyatt for the night, after they pay me an hour and a half extra. You take care.” He snugged on his cap and went down to his vehicle and opened all the doors.

A minute later, Trevor appeared under the balloons, strolling as if on tour alone, and then Cooper saw a hand take his arm and Alison pulled herself into view. She was still smiling; that was a good sign. They accepted a gift from the table and stepped down into the parking lot. Behind them two
or three couples came the duet of Deanie and Justin, wrapped together like fate itself.

After the kids had grazed Libby’s buffet, Cooper made himself a big sandwich on the fresh sourdough bread, putting a slice of everything in it. The girls were filling Libby in on what everyone wore. The gifts had turned out to be small silver frames with the prom picture already in there—a Polaroid, Cooper guessed: his son in a tuxedo under an arbor beside a beautiful young woman. This year Trevor’s eyebrows had grown together and Cooper had asked his wife if he (meaning she) should mention it. She had said, “No, as soon as they pluck that eyebrow, it’s all over.”
lie
looked carefully at the little picture. His son had two eyebrows.

Fie hauled his sandwich out into the backyard and washed it down with sips of warm champagne as he watched the two couples talk to his wife in the lighted kitchen. Evidently Justin could eat, talk, and still keep his eyes on Deanie’s cleavage, such as it was. Suddenly they all stood up and filled the room, such tall people, and they filed into the laundry room for the garage.

Cooper found them admiring the potato gun. Libby was offering the party line about Cooper finding out the legalities, when Cooper spoke. “Let s test it right now, Mrs. Cooper. Have you any potatoes?”

“Yes I do.”

“Well, Ire vor, get your gear and let’s go.”

They drove in the Chevrolet, Libby now with him in the front seat, out through the narrow piece of the reservation and across the canal at the Surplus Bridge. Cooper directed Justin to open the state land gate, and suddenly they were in the raw desert and the smell of creosote and juniper flooded the car. At twenty miles an hour, Cooper turned off his lights
and drove another ten minutes on the dirt track, the young people quieted by the looming paloverdes and ocotillos reaching for the car.

“Looks good to me,” Cooper said.

There was no moon, but the desert floor glowed as they all stepped out of the car. “Are you sure, Dad?” Trevor said.

“Absolutely,” Cooper answered. “Justin, where do you shoot yours?”

“My dad won’t let me finish it,” Justin said. He had his arm around Deanie again. “We’re never going to shoot it.”

Cooper looked at the boy.

There was a noise down the road and Cooper reached in and pulled on the headlights. They all saw a pig step onto the road, unhurried, and then five more javelinas came out, picking at the sweetgrass along the rutted dirt path. “Wow,” whispered Alison, “look.” Libby came against Cooper and took his arm. More of the animals emerged, a dozen, then more, big and small, some babies trotting comically behind the pack. They were all starting and stopping, rooting and bumping, as they crossed the road. A midsize pig trotted up and mounted one of the females who had stopped to eat, and he humped on her casually amid the grouping. “Uh-oh,” Deanie said, and all four of the young people raised their hands and laughed. The laughter didn’t hurry the javelina troop at all, but Cooper pushed the lights off, saying, “They don’t need this,” and soon the pigs were gone.

“Are you all set?” he asked Trevor.

“When you are.”

Cooper had everyone stand behind Trevor, and the boy in his tuxedo trimmed a potato and rammed it into the barrel. He charged the chamber with a touch of butane and, holding it aloft, touched the end with the automatic match. The noise was a two-part
wa-whump!
and they all strained their eyes at
the night sky. Trevor, careful to keep the barrel pointed away, turned to them and said, “Sweet.”

“Victory is ours,” Cooper said.

“How far did it go?” Justin asked.

Trevor fired it four more times and then Cooper drew a line in the sand with a stick. “I’ll go straight out the road,” Cooper said. “When I wave my arms, I’ll be at a hundred yards. Fire straight so I can measure.” He was ready to step it off when there was a hand at his sleeve: Alison.

“Trevor told me about his grandmother. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I appreciate that,” he told the girl. Then Cooper marched down the white-sand road in the desert night counting his steps. At one hundred he dragged a line across the road with his heel. He turned and could see Trevor’s tuxedo shirt glowing near the shiny top of the car. Everything else was dark forms. Around him, Cooper could hear rustling in the ditches.

He heard the two-part concussion and saw the potato tumbling over his head at the same time. It hit the road and exploded. He stepped it off: seventeen more yards. He waved the rag again. This time the potato veered left and crashed into the trees. Cooper waved again. For a while that was what they did late in the night and into the early hours after the junior prom. Cooper was laughing as his son shot potatoes into the desert. The longest straight measure was 123 yards. When he finally put his rag in his pocket, Cooper could hear the pigs working hard through the brush for these succulent wonders.