Boonville (16 page)

“Everything was fine until we left the motel,” Sarah explained. “We turned onto a street that had three names. We couldn't figure it out, every time we crossed this certain intersection, the road had another name. If we followed it for awhile, it changed names again. But I noticed there wasn't a break in the address numbers, they kept increasing, so I told Mom to drive further and see if the office wasn't where the address would be if the street had one name.”

Sarah said her mother would follow her advice for a few blocks, then turn around before the numbers were large enough to be in the area of the office. Mom started screaming, “I'm late! Where the fuck is 2036 State Street?” Sarah could only reassert they shouldn't worry about the name of the street but follow the numbers. Swerving through traffic, her mother asked Sarah one more time, “Where the fuck is it?” When Sarah repeated that she didn't know, her mother wheeled the car to the curb, reached
across Sarah's lap, and unhitched her door. “Get the fuck out!” she demanded. “You're no help at all!” Sarah protested as her mother kicked her out of the vehicle with her feet, yelling, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“And there I was on the sidewalk, watching my mom pull away,” Sarah recalled. “I didn't think she was ever coming back. I had thirty bucks in my pocket because I carried my life savings with me whenever we took a trip, and I went into a store and bought a sandwich, a carton of milk, and a map, and asked the cashier for directions to the Greyhound station. For the first time in my life everything seemed clear, I was going to buy a ticket to Tahoe and live with my father. I was free.”

John could tell Sarah remembered what kind of sandwich she had ordered, whether she had taken a left or right after leaving the market, and what time the bus had been scheduled for departure. She was there again on the streets of Eugene, formulating a conclusion about the universe: what she could depend on, what she couldn't. Her mother had dropped the pretense of taking care of her. Sarah could move forward now without constraints. A street with three names wasn't that complicated.

“I smelled the Ghia before it screeched to a halt in front of me,” Sarah said. “She honked the horn and I didn't move. The passenger door flew open. I would have never come back, I swear to God, not in a million years. I heard her say, ‘Hurry up, get in.'”

John had run away from home when he was fourteen, after being grounded for a C on his report card, even though he had received A's in the rest of his classes. His father told him he had to come straight home after school until the next semester, no extracurricular activities or hanging out like a punk. If he didn't like it, he could leave. John did leave, and a squad car picked him up six hours later, depositing him on the front steps of his house. His mother cried. The neighbors peeked through their windows. His father grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, promising the officers he would take care of things. It was the first time John had felt he could escape the pull of his procreators. But the parental magnet had clicked on and he slid back, helpless as a bobby pin.

“It feels like my mom's pushing me out of the car again,” Sarah said. “This time I want to hit the ground running.”

That had been John's mistake. He had walked to a friend's
house, misjudging the field of influence. John was proud that this time he had put enough distance between himself and home base. But he remembered another saying, “If you get far enough away, you'll be on your way back home.”

“What's your plan?” he asked, feeling he was about to be involved in something he could never have conceived of a week ago.

“I started fasting,” Sarah said. “I haven't been feeling right lately. I know I'm full of toxins, so I'll go a week or so without food and do a few café bootés.”

“Café booté?” John asked.

“Coffee enemas,” she clarified. “You never heard of a crappuchino? The caffeine stimulates peristalsis of the intestine, flushing you out. The only problem is if someone asks you how you take your coffee, you have to say, ‘Black, and up my ass.'”

John didn't know if she was kidding; the last bit may have been the only part intended to be funny. Medical trends were reverting to primitive states, acupuncture, herbs, homeopathics. Everybody had a remedy for lower back pain and the common cold. Some of it made sense, in theory, but it sounded as if sick people had an overactive sense of adventure.

“What are you going to do after you cleanse?” he said, the thought of pushing Folgers up the down poop-chute giving him a new slant on the coffee jitters.

“I need money,” Sarah said. “I can't leave here if I don't have cash.”

John changed his position on the couch. He didn't have much money. He was in marketing. Sarah couldn't possibly believe he had excess funds to lend a woman he had met in a bar because she had divulged some secrets and had a violent ex-husband. He needed his nest egg for future hospital bills. Grandma's inheritance wouldn't last long. He was worried about his own finances. But he wanted to help out. If Sarah needed it, he would see what he could do.

“If I asked you something and you said ‘No,' would you promise to forget about it and not tell anyone?” Sarah asked.

“Sure,” John answered, thinking, how much do you need and who would I tell?

“Would you help me harvest my crop?” Sarah said. “I wouldn't ask, but you seem like a nice guy and I've got to get it out of the ground. I'm not supposed to have it.”

“Nobody is,” John responded, somewhat shocked. “It's illegal.”

“Yeah, but I'm really not supposed to have it,” Sarah explained. “We got rules where I live on private patches, even though everybody's got one. The weather's been weird too, and people are getting CAMPed. I need the cash.”

John put down his cup and reached for a biscuit. He didn't know a thing about marijuana and now he had been propositioned twice to get involved in the industry. Maybe he was being set up? Blindman or somebody needed a fall guy and had selected him. Maybe a sheriff's election was nearing and the incumbent wanted to boost support by busting an outsider. Or was he being paranoid? It was grass, not crack. Boonville, not Miami. What was the danger in helping a friend pull a few weeds?

“You're not a Republican, are you?” Sarah inquired.

“No,” John replied, uncertain if his liberalism was being goaded to the point where he would have to respond with action. Man or mouse? Mule or elephant? Did he believe in personal freedom, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights? Who was the government to tell adults they couldn't smoke marijuana when alcoholism was rampant, when they did nothing to stop the influx of cocaine, when the tobacco trade was legal and killed tens of thousands every year? When little Johnny can't read?

“Look, if you help me out, I'll give you two hundred bucks,” Sarah said. “That's not bad for a night's work. And I'll check into something that might mean big money for you. Something you ought to know about anyway.”

“What would that be?” John said.

“Don't worry,” Sarah told him. “I feel bad about the way Daryl treated you, so I'll look into it anyway. But I have to know, John, can you help me? Otherwise, I have to find somebody else.”

John looked at one of the squirrels on the coffee table. He was getting used to their scowls. Sarah's blue eyes were another matter. Half the town had probably fallen in love with them. Even amidst the rubble of his relationship with Christina, he could feel himself giving something to Sarah based on faith and the distant promise of a kiss. He knew it was irrational, a reaction to being alone for the first time in his adult life, but it was happening, however untimely and inappropriate it seemed. Maybe if he ran around the block and jerked off a couple of times, it would go away.

“Do I have to fast?” he asked. “Hunger isn't a prerequisite for
a life in crime, is it?”

“No,” Sarah said. “In fact, I'll buy you dinner.”

“That's all right, I've got a few things to do,” John said, thinking, like run around the block and jerk off a couple times, and I don't want to push the envelope by showing up in town with you just yet. “When do we have to do it?”

“Tonight,” Sarah said, excited with conspiracy. “I'll bring everything we need, just wear black. I'll pick you up at midnight, like grave diggers.”

Tonight didn't give John much of a chance to think about consequences. How many plants were they talking about? What were the personal consumption laws in California? What was the sentencing for possession of marijuana with the intent to simply help out a friend? How good was his lawyer?

“Who's grave are we digging?” John said to himself, but Sarah heard him.

“My mother's daughter's,” Sarah replied, putting her cup on the table and gathering her jacket. “Are you sure you want to do this? I wouldn't blame you if you backed out.”

Of course you would, John thought, everybody else did. He had been backing out of things for so long, he had finally cornered himself into a place where no more backward steps were possible. He had to take the consequences of his actions, however impulsive and idiotic. Maybe he would have better luck writing prison fiction than haikus.

“I better get things ready,” Sarah said. “I don't know why, but I knew I could count on you.”

John walked her to the door, standing on the porch as she got into her truck. The bird that had been circling had repositioned itself closer to the cabin, joined by a couple of cohorts who seemed to think it was a good day for something below them to die. The squirrels in the driveway looked as if they smelled the carcass. Sarah waved goodbye. John realized he had forgotten to ask her what they had done after he had blacked out during his first night in town. Apparently reading his mind, Sarah applied the brakes and stuck her head out the window.

“Sorry about your car,” she yelled. “It won't happen again.”

There was something about Sarah's earnestness that elicited hope. John believed she wasn't talking about the car, but telling him their future wasn't going to be nearly as destructive. The
squirrels disagreed. The birds continued to circle.

Of course it won't happen again, John thought. How could it?

I
t was time to run. John grabbed his jogging shoes, threw on a pair of sweatpants, a Speed Racer T-shirt, his University of Miami baseball cap, and began to hum the opening bars to the Beatles' “Revolution.” He had a plan, and if it held firm, he would be back in the cabin in forty minutes with the codeine and alcohol purged from his system, leaving him plenty of time to take a sulfur shower, make dinner, eat, masturbate, and prepare himself to harvest Sarah's dope.

Laced up and stretching against one of the squirrels in his front yard, John realized what a contradiction the lyrics to “Revolution” were in comparison to the music. What seemed to be a call to arms had the underlying message that everything was going to be all right. He remembered what Hunter S. Thompson wrote in regard to another of Lennon's political odes: “When punks like that try to be serious, they just get in the way.”

John hit the driveway repeating the refrain anyway, understanding that most things in life didn't hold up under analysis, functioning strictly on an emotional level. He had always been vulnerable to pop music's seductive hooks. Once Neil Diamond's “Forever in Blue Jeans” had lodged in his head for a week like elevator music caught between floors. At least “Revolution” had a good beat and a cathartic scream, he could go the length of a jog with that tune, but Neil Diamond was torture, one song segueing into a medley, “Sweet Caroline,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Coming to America.” All songs he knew word for word, but couldn't specifically ever remember having heard.

John's favorite workout music was Phil Spector girl group stuff, Ronettes, Crystals, Marvelettes; “Da Do Run Run,” “Be My
Baby.” The rhythm punctuated his breathing, kept him pounding the pavement. Sometimes he would make up his own Motown doo wap ditty. “Well, she walked up to me and she asked me if I wanted to dance…” Gasp, gasp. “…Something, something, something else that rhymes with dance…” Wheeze, wheeze. “…When we danced she held me tight…” Pant, pant. “…All the stars were shining bright…” Puff, puff, okie-blow, cough, snort, hack. “…And then she kissed me.”

But it was “Revolution” as he hit Manchester Road, centering each step heel-to-toe so he wouldn't twist an ankle running down the incline. Getting back up the hill was going to be a bitch. But he had resigned himself to health, at least for the next half hour. If Sarah could go a week without food, he could jog four miles. He steadied his pace. Surrounded by foliage, he could almost see the greenery giving off oxygen in return for his sickly breath. A gang of deer, one with antlers, bounded from the shoulder of the road into the trees. John quickened his stride, unsure if they attacked. A flock of wild turkeys gobbled at him from a turn near a culvert. A chill shuddered through him as he stepped past a dead raccoon. This wasn't the track at University of Miami where you could run round and round, only worrying about the number of women who lapped you. This was nature's obstacle course, shoddily paved.

The unfamiliar terrain gave him a shot of adrenaline. He passed more obliterated animals; frogs, birds, lizards. Squirrels. Flattened and overcooked, sun-dried guts spilled out their sides. A flash in the weeds caught his eye, one of the Datsun's headlights was resting alongside a piece of the front end. Neither appeared to be in good enough shape to warrant further investigation, the headlight broken, metal framing crumpled. John wasn't mechanically inclined anyway. Christina had been in charge of the tool box. John could barely pump gas, and that had come after years of practice. Besides, a blue-bellied lizard had claimed the salvage. They might bite. He jogged on, passing more crushed critters. Despite the lizard's victory, nature was losing about 30–1.

When John came out of the last curve, the slope of the hill leveled and he could see the high school in the distance. The sun had finished its daily arc. He was covered in sweat. He would chug back when he reached the intersection of 128. He wondered if he would make it without stopping. John was accustomed to finishing what he started, bad meals, boring novels, stabs at fitness. Not
finishing something felt worse than never having broken ground. It wasn't that difficult to take one more bite, turn another page, take another step. Closure. Replay the song in his head one more time: You say you want a revolution?

John spied a pickup turning off 128, coming toward him in the opposite lane. For all the animal carcasses, this was the first vehicle he had seen. It passed, blowing debris into his face. Forty yards beyond him, the driver hit the brakes and the truck spun out of control, fishtailing, smashing into a fence separating a field of horses from the road. It skidded into the pasture, trailing a path of churned-up dirt. Ponies bucked and bolted. John wiped grit from his eyes. He couldn't see who was inside the vehicle. The truck's motor fired up again and it peeled out back toward the road, bouncing over the crumpled fence and up the slope, onto the asphalt and into John's lane. John started to jog again. Gears shifted. The driver leaned on the horn. John began to run, really run. The truck gained ground fast. John couldn't bring himself to stop or face the headlights. He smelled gas. Somebody whooped a cattle call. Just when he thought he was going to take a tour of the tail pipe, the truck zipped past with a squeal of brakes and slid into a half-donut in front of him. John tried to stop, but inertia vaulted him onto the hood, rolling him to the windshield.

With his face pressed to tempered glass, John saw two men smiling as if they were at a drive-in, watching a movie in which cars routinely spun out of control with the hero on the hood.

“That's the biggest bug I ever seen!” the driver said.

Kurts.

John forgot which one was which, but remembered Billy Chuck had told him it didn't matter, they were all called Kurts, whether one or the whole family was standing in front of you, every half-brother and kissing cousin. These were John's drinking buddies, two of the surviving triplet brothers Wayne, Dwayne, and Blaine. Billy Chuck had also told John that one of the triplets had died in a logging accident while setting chokers. The triplets had made a pact to drink a case of Coors in hell together and the surviving Kurtses were looking forward to the reunion the way most people anticipated their twenty-first birthday. Heaven was for pussies. Hell was an amusement park full of everything they enjoyed, family, friends, loose women, consistent work. Place like that, what did it matter if the beer was warm?

“When you're done with the windshield,” Wayne, Dwayne, or Blaine said, “You wanna check the oil?”

The wipers flipped on and cleaning fluid streamed into John's face. He climbed off the truck unable to identify new bruises from old ones. A career as a stuntman had to be considered. His wrist was jammed, but he shook it to life as he retrieved his hat. It was a relief Kurts and not Daryl had been behind the wheel, otherwise the truck would have hit him, not the other way around.

“Squirrel Boy, we need one at Cal's Palace,” Kurts said. “You play softball as good as you do speed bump?”

“I haven't played in a while,” John said, disoriented by the overload of adrenaline, but not enough to think any interaction with the Kurtses wouldn't be dangerous.

“Get in,” said the Kurts in the passenger seat.

“I don't have a glove or cleats,” John protested. “And I have things to do.”

“I bet it would be tough to do them,” the driving Kurts observed, “if you were run over.”

John saw that he was directly in front of the truck. Open space surrounded him. Even if he hopped a couple of fences, he wouldn't be safe. The truck engine revved, helping him make his decision. Passenger-seat Kurts stepped out of the cab to let John in, claiming he rode shotgun, not bitch. On the bench seat, John noticed the driver was wearing a baseball uniform. Not exactly a uniform, because it didn't match the other Kurts's outfit, but baseball gear: pants, stirrups, cleats, a cap with the brim shaved to a nub that read “Mustache rides 5
.” The other Kurts wore pinstriped pants, no stirrups, metal cleats, and a hat advertising Loomix. They both wore green T-shirts with the words “Spotted Owl Eaters” across the chest.

“Shouldn't you fix that fence before we go?” John asked.

“Why?” driving Kurts answered, gunning the pickup. “It ain't mine.”

John was thrown back against the seat. Shotgun Kurts twisted the knob of the radio, and both brothers joined in a song about guitars, Cadillacs, and hillbilly music. They took the intersection of 128, ignoring the stop sign and swerving into a dirt path near a chain-link fence, cutting onto the highway in front of a sports car. Kurts leaned into John with more pressure than the g-forces made necessary, squishing him into the other Kurts, who squished back.
They slowed to a crawl. Kurts flipped off the sports car behind them and waved to the girls outside the drive-in. They drove the rest of the strip at erratic speeds, honking to familiar faces, raising fists to enemies, slapping the sides of the vehicle to the music, until they turned into a stadium parking lot with a grandstand that had a painting of an apple riding a bucking horse and the words “Mendocino County Apple Fair.” Driving beyond the grandstand, they came to a Little League field with floodlights and a sign that read “Cal's Palace,” in the same lettering that usually warned, “Beware of Dog!”

This must be the place, John told himself. Boonville's cultural center.

Kurts tossed John a glove that hung off his hand like a jai alai cesta. The fingers were a foot long with Day-Glo green splashed on their tips and a palm the size of a salad bowl. There was writing embossed on the interior to explain the construction, and an explanation seemed necessary: “double-lock webbing,” “grab-tite pocket,” “snap action.” The only thing it lacked was rack and pinion steering. Wearing it, John felt like a third-rate superhero who had a weak gimmick instead of an actual power.

Faces in the stands turned as the three men approached the field; most of the faces belonged to overweight women consuming snacks, gossiping, and trying to gain the attention of the men strutting on the miniature diamond. Periodically, they nursed babies and wiped the snot-clogged noses of children. They didn't seem interested in John or his prosthetic.

“Ain't gonna be no forfeit!” someone shouted.

“The Squirrel Boy ain't on your roster!” a player from the other team objected.

“The hell he ain't,” Kurts said. “We recruited him.”

John followed the Kurtses to a dugout with a partially caved-in roof. The players sat spitting sunflower seeds and gobs of tobacco juice, drinking beer, and using the collapsed end to store equipment. There was a hole in the far wall where men leered at the women in the bleachers. The first teammate to greet John was Hap, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals hat and what might have been Dizzy Dean's glove, a museum piece that gave balance to John's futuristic fly-catcher.

“Glad to have you aboard, Squirrel Boy,” Hap said. “Didn't know you pleeble.”

“I didn't either,” John said, figuring Hap meant “play ball.”

Hap introduced him to the rest of the Spotted Owl Eaters. Each player wore a different outfit depending on their enthusiasm for the game: batting gloves, sliding pants, half-shirts, tube-socks, jeans. The other side had matching uniforms and enough men to fill two teams. John's squad looked ready to drink beer and watch them go at it. In fact, the manager, Big Jack, after telling John he would be playing right field and batting ninth, pointed to a cooler at the end of the bench, saying, “There's the beer.” Game plan revealed. When they took the field, most of the Spotted Owl Eaters had a cold one by their side, which they pulled from between pitches.

“Hey batter, batter, swig, batter,” John heard their second baseman chatter.

Hap explained they were playing “moon-ball,” so named because each pitch had to reach the height of six feet, not to exceed twelve, and then land on home plate, or the rug stretching a foot behind it, to be called a strike. Flat pitches were balls. Fouls were strikes. Ten players per team, but you could play with nine, which was what the Spotted Owl Eaters were doing. An umpire stood behind the catcher to keep score, deciding balls, strikes, and close plays at the bases. There were seven innings, but if either team got ahead by ten runs after five innings, it was declared the winner.

It seemed to John more of a social event than a sport. Then he got a better look at his opponents: Cal, Billy Chuck, and Daryl were pointing fingers at him with a group that had to be the local all-stars, men who had been high-school heroes, played college ball, maybe a cup of coffee in the minors. After attending an athletic factory like University of Miami, John could tell real jocks from weekend warriors, and the athletes on the cusp who had the talent but would never refine it. That's who they were playing today, the boys who might have been. In contrast, John was suiting up for the alkies who couldn't have cared less.