Coyote Blue (12 page)

"Fuck giving notice. You only give notice if you're planning to come back. You're not planning on moving backwards, are you, Sam?"

"I guess not," Samson said.

At twenty-five, Aaron Aaron had already accumulated fifteen years of experience in the art of deception. From the time he skimped on the sugar at his first lemonade stand to the time he doubled the profits on his paper route by canceling his customers' subscriptions, then stealing the papers out of a vending machine to continue the deliveries, Aaron showed a near-genius ability for working in the gray areas between business and crime. And by balancing dark desires with white lies he was able to sidestep the plague of Catholic conscience that kept him from pursuing an honest career as a pirate, which would have been his first choice. Aaron Aaron was a salesman.

At first, Aaron's only interest in Samson was to use the boy as an instrument of embarrassment to the other salesmen, but once he dressed the boy in a suit and had him trailing along on sales calls like a dutiful native gun bearer, Aaron found that he actually enjoyed the boy's company. The boy's curiosity seemed boundless, and answering his questions as they drove between calls allowed Aaron to bask in the sound of his own voice while extolling the brilliance of his last successful presentation. And too, the rejection of a slammed door or a pointed "no" seemed softened in the sharing. Teaching the boy made him feel good, and with this improvement in attitude he worked more, sold more, and allowed the boy to share in the prosperity, buying him clothes and food, finding him an apartment, and cosigning for a loan on a used Volvo.

For Samson, working under the tutelage of Aaron was perfect. Aaron's assumption that no one beside himself had the foggiest idea of how the universe worked allowed Samson the opportunity to hear lectures on even the most minuscule details of society, information he used to build himself into the image that Aaron wanted to see. Samson delighted in Aaron's self-obsession, for while the older man waxed eloquent on the virtues of being Aaron, it never occurred to him to ask Samson about his past, and the boy was able to surround himself in a chrysalis of questions and cheap suits until he was ready to emerge as a full-grown salesman.

As the years passed and his memories of home were stowed and forgotten, learning to sell became Samson's paramount interest. And Aaron, fascinated with seeing his own image mirrored and his own words repeated, failed to notice that Samson had become a better salesman than himself until other companies began approaching the boy with offers. Only then did Aaron realize that most of his income was coming from the override commission on Sam's sales, and that for five years Sam had trained all the new salesmen. To avoid losing his golden goose, Aaron offered Sam a fifty-fifty partnership in the agency, and with this added security, the business became Sam's shelter.

~* * *~

Now, after twenty years with the business as his only security, Sam was going to Aaron to sell his shares. As he entered Aaron's office he felt a deep soul-sickness that he had not felt since he had left the reservation.

"Aaron, I'll take forty cents on the dollar for my shares. And I keep my office."

Aaron turned slowly in the big executive chair and faced Sam. "You know I couldn't come up with that kind of cash, Sam. It's a good move, though. I'd have to keep paying you out of override, and with interest you wouldn't even take a cut in pay. I don't think you're in a position to negotiate, though. In fact, after the call I got this morning, I think twenty cents on the dollar would be more than fair."

Sam resisted the urge to dive over the desk and slap his partner's bare scalp until it bled. He had to take his fallback position sooner than he wanted to. "You're thinking that because Spagnola can put me with the Indian I have to sell, right?"

Aaron nodded.

"But just imagine that I ride this through, Aaron. Imagine that I don't sign off, that the insurance commission suspends my license, that criminal charges are filed and my name is in the paper every day. Guess whose name is going to be right next to mine? And what happens if I maintain my association with the agency and the insurance commission starts looking into your files? How many signatures have you traced over the years, Aaron? How many people thought they were buying one policy, only to find out that their signature showed up on a different one – one that paid you a higher commission?"

A sheen of sweat was appearing on Aaron's forehead. "You've done that as often as I have. You'd be hanging yourself."

"That's the point, Aaron. When I walked in here you were convinced that I was hung anyway. I'm just making room for you on the gallows."

"You ungrateful prick. I took you in when you -"

"I know, Aaron. That's why I'm giving you a chance to stay clean. Actually, you've got more to lose than I do. Once your files are open, then your income is going to become public knowledge."

"Oh!" Aaron stood and paced around to the front of the desk.

"Oh!" He waved a finger under Sam's nose, then turned and walked to the water cooler.

"Oh!" He kicked the cooler, then returned to his chair, sat down, then stood up again.

"Oh!" he said. It was as if the single syllable had stuck in his mouth. He looked as if he were going to launch into a tirade; blood rose in his face and veins bulged on his forehead.

"Oh!" he said. He fell back in the chair and stared at the ceiling as if his brain had pushed the hold button on reality.

"That's right, Aaron," Sam said after a moment. "The IRS." With that Sam moved to the office door. "Take your time, Aaron. Think about it. Talk it over with your buddy Spagnola; he can probably give you the current exchange rate of cigarettes for sodomy in prison."

Aaron slowly broke his stare on the ceiling and turned to watch Sam walk out.

In the outer office Julia looked up from applying lacquer to her nails to see Sam grinning, his hand still on the doorknob.

"What's with all the 'ohs,' Sam?" Julia asked. "It sounded like you guys were having sex or something."

"Something like that," Sam said, his grin widening. "Hey, watch this." He opened the door quickly and stuck his head back in Aaron's office. "Hey, Aaron! IRS!" he said. Then he pulled the door shut, muffling Aaron's scream of pain.

"What was that?" Julia asked.

"That," Sam said, "was my teacher giving me the grade on my final exam."

"I don't get it."

"You will, honey. I don't have time to explain right now. I've got a date."

Sam left the office walking light and smiling, feeling strangely as if the pieces of his life, rather than fitting back together, were jingling in his pocket like sleigh bells warning Christmas.

Chapter 15 – Like God's Own

Chocolate I'd Lick Her Shadow Off

A Hot Sidewalk Santa Barbara

In spite of the fact that he was losing his home and his business, and was precariously close to having his greatest secret discovered by the police because of an Indian god, Sam was not the least bit worried. Not with the prospect of an evening with Calliope to occupy his thoughts. No, for once Sam Hunter was voting the eager ticket over the anxious, taking anticipation over dread.

Calliope lived upstairs in a cheese-mold-green cinder-block duplex that stood in a row of a dozen identical structures where the last of Santa Barbara's working middle class were making their descent into poverty. Calliope's Datsun was parked in the driveway next to a rusy VW station wagon and an ominous-looking Harley-Davidson chopper with a naked blond woman airbrushed on the gas tank. Sam paused by the Harley before mounting the stairs. The airbrushed woman looked familiar, but before he could get a closer look Calliope appeared on the deck above him.

"Hi," she said. She was barefoot, wearing a white muslin dress loosely laced in the front. A wreath of gardenia was woven into her hair. "You're just in time, we need your help. Come on up."

Sam took the stairs two at a time and stopped on the landing, where Calliope was wrestling with the latch on a rickety screen-door frame that was devoid of screening but had redwood lattice nailed across its lower half, presumably to keep out the really large insects. "I'm having trouble with the dinner," she said. "I hope you can fix it."

The screen door finally let loose with the jattering noise one associates with the impact of Elmer Fudd's face on a rake handle. Calliope led Sam into a kitchen done in the Fabulous Fifties motif of mint enamel over pink linoleum. A haze of foul-smelling smoke hung about the ceiling, and through it Sam could make out the figure of a half-naked man sitting in the lotus position on the counter, drinking from a quart bottle of beer.

"That's Yiffer," Calliope said over her shoulder as she headed to the stove. "He's with Nina."

Yiffer vaulted off the counter, on one arm, fully eight feet across the kitchen to land lightly on his feet in front of Sam, where he engaged a complex handshake that left Sam feeling as if his fingers had been braided together. "Dude," Yiffer said, shaking out his wild tangle of straw-colored hair as if the word had been stuck there.

Feeling like a chameleon that has been dropped into a coffee can and is risking hemorrhage by trying to turn silver, Sam searched for the appropriate greeting and ended up echoing, "Dude."

In jeans, a sport shirt, and boating moccasins with no socks, Sam felt grossly overdressed next to Yiffer, who wore only a pair of orange surf shorts and layer upon layer of tan muscle.

"Calliope biffed the grub, dude," Yiffer said.

Sam joined Calliope at the stove, where she was frantically biffing the grub. "I can't get the spaghetti to cook," she said, plunging a wooden spoon into a large saucepan from which the smoke was emanating. "The instructions said to boil for eight minutes, but as soon as it starts to boil the smoke comes out."

Sam waved the smoke from the pan. "Aren't you supposed to cook the noodles separately?"

"Not in the sauce?"

Sam shook his head.

"Whoops," Calliope said. "I'm not a very good cook. Sorry."

"Well, maybe we can salvage something." Sam removed the pan from the heat and peered in at the bubbling black magma. "Then again, maybe starting over would be a good idea."

He put the pan in the sink, where a trail of ants was invading a used bowl of cereal. Sam turned on the water and started to swivel the faucet to wash the intruders away when Calliope grabbed his hand.

"No," she said. "They're okay."

"They'll get into your food," Sam said.

"I know. They've always been here. I call them my kitchen pals."

"Kitchen pals?" Sam tried to adjust his thinking. She was right – you couldn't just wash your kitchen pals down the drain like they were ants. He felt like he'd been saved from committing genocide. "So, I guess we should start some more spaghetti?"

"She only bought one box, dude," Yiffer said.

"I guess we can eat salad and bread," Calliope said. "Excuse me." She kissed Sam on the cheek and walked out of the kitchen while he stared at the ghost of her bottom through the thin dress.

"So, what do you do?" Yiffer asked with a toss of his head.

"I'm an insurance broker. And you?"

"I surf."

"And?"

"And what?" Yiffer said.

Sam thought he could hear the sound of the ocean whistling through Yiffer's ears as if through a seashell. "Never mind," he said. He was distracted by the sound of a baby screaming in the next room.

"That's Grubb," Yiffer said. "Sounds like he's pissed off."

Unable to see the second
b
, Sam was confused. "I thought grub was biffed?"

"No,
Grubb
is Calliope's rug-rat. Go on in and meet him. Nina's in there with J. Nigel Yiffworth, Esquire." Yiffer beamed with pride. "He's mine."

"Your attorney?"

"My son," Yiffer said indignantly.

"Oh," Sam said. He resisted the urge to sit down on the floor and wait for his confusion to clear. Instead he walked into the living room, where he found Calliope sitting on an ancient sofa next to an attractive brunette who was breastfeeding an infant. The sofa was lumpy enough to have had a body sewed into it; stuffing spilled out of the arms where the victim had tried to escape. On the floor nearby, a somewhat older child was slung inside of a blue plastic donut on wheels, which he was gaily ramming into everything in the room. Sam gasped as the child ran a wheel up over his bare ankle on a kamikaze rush to destroy the coffee table.

Calliope said, "Sam, this is Nina." Nina looked up and smiled. "And J. Nigel Yiffworth, Esquire." Nina pulled the baby from her breast long enough to puppet-master a nod of greeting from it, which Sam missed for some reason. "And that," Calliope continued, pointing to the drunk driver in the blue donut, "that's Grubb."

"Your son?" Sam asked.

She nodded. "He's just learning to walk."

"Interesting name."

"I named him after Jane Goodall's son. She let him grow up with baboons – very natural. I was going to name him Buddha, but I was afraid that when he got older if someone met him on the road they might kill him."

"Right. Good thinking," Sam said, pretending that he had the slightest idea of what she was talking about and that he wasn't wondering in the least who or where Grubb's father was.

"Nina moved in when we were both pregnant," Calliope said. "We were each other's Lamaze coaches. I was farther along, though."

"What about Yiffer?"

"Scum," Nina said.

"He seems like a nice guy," Sam said, and Nina shot him an acid look. "As scum goes," he quickly added.

"He only lives here sometimes," Calliope said. "Mostly when he doesn't have gas money for his van."

Nina said, "We're having a yard sale day after tomorrow to raise some money to get him out of here. You might want to look at the stuff down in storage before the sale, pick up a bargain before it gets picked over."

Yiffer entered the living room munching on a loaf of French bread. He stood next to Sam and thrust the bread under Sam's chin. "Bite?"

"No, thanks," Sam said.

"Yiffer!" Calliope said. "That bread was for all of us."

"Truth," Yiffer said. He held the loaf out to Calliope. "Bite?"

"You ruined their dinner," Nina said, letting J. Nigel's head drop and wobble.

Yiffer grinned around a mouthful of bread and gestured toward Nina's exposed breast with his beer hand. "Looking good, babe."

Nina reattached J. Nigel and said to Sam, "I'm sorry, he's only like this when he's awake." To Yiffer she said, "Take some money out of my purse and go down to the corner and get a pizza."

Sam reached for his wallet. "Let me."

"No," Calliope and Nina said in unison.

"Cool!" Yiffer exclaimed, sandblasting Sam with a spray of bread crumbs.

"Go!" Nina commanded, and Yiffer turned and bounded out of the room. In a moment Sam heard the screen door open and footfalls on the steps.

"Sit down," Calliope said. "Relax."

Sam took a seat on the couch next to the two women and for the next forty minutes they exchanged pleasantries between the screaming demands of the babies until Nina handed a damp J. Nigel to Sam and left the room. Like most bachelors, Sam held a baby as if it were radioactive.

"That fucking asshole!" Nina shrieked from the other room, frightening Grubb, who screamed like an air-raid siren. J. Nigel was following suit when Nina returned to the living room, her purse in hand. "He took my rent money. The asshole took all my rent money. Can you guys watch J. Nigel for a minute? I've got to go find him and kill him."

"Sure," Calliope said. Sam nodded, adjusting J. Nigel for long-term holding.

Nina left. Calliope turned to Sam and over the din of screaming infants said, "Alone at last."

"I think J. Nigel needs changing," Sam said.

"So does Grubb. Let's take them into Nina's room."

Sam had slipped into the personality he referred to as "tough and adaptable," one he reserved for the more chaotic and bizarre situations he had encountered in his career. "I can do this," he said with a grin.

He hadn't changed a baby since the days on the reservation when he used to help with his cousins, but when he opened J. Nigel's diaper the memory came back on him like a fetid whirlwind, and he had to fight to keep from gagging. The adhesive strips on disposable diapers were a completely new adventure and he found after a few minutes that he had diapered his left hand perfectly while a squirming J. Nigel remained naked to the world. After changing Grubb and returning him to his plastic donut, Calliope liberated Sam from the diaper and started on J. Nigel, who giggled and peed like an excited puppy at her touch. Sam sympathized.

"Don't feel bad," she said. "The last time we let Yiffer baby-sit he duct-taped J. Nigel's diaper on and we had to use nail-polish remover to get the adhesive off."

"I haven't had much practice," Sam said.

"You don't have any kids?"

"No, I've never met anyone I wanted to have kids with." Sam wanted to smack himself for saying it.
Remember, tough and adaptable.

"Me either," Calliope said. "But Grubb is the best thing that ever happened to me. I used to drink and do a lot of drugs, but as soon as I found out I was pregnant I stopped."

Sam looked for an opening to ask about Grubb's father, but none came and the silence was becoming awkward. "That's great," he said. "I had my own battle with the bottle." Actually it hadn't been much of a battle. Aaron had insisted that social drinking was part of the job, but each time Sam had gotten drunk he was haunted by the stereotype of the drunken Indian that he thought he had left behind. It had been ten years since he'd had a drink.

"I'm going to put these guys down," Calliope said. "Why don't you go in the living room and put some music on."

In the living room Sam found a briefcase full of loose cassette tapes. Most of the tapes were New Age releases with enigmatic titles like
Tree Frog Whale Song Selections
by artists with names like Yanni Volvofinder. With further digging he found one called
The Language of Love
by a female jazz singer he liked, but when he opened the box he found that the tape had been replaced with one called
Catbox Nightmare
by a band called Satan's Smegma, obviously a Yifferesque selection. Finally he found
The Language of Love
languishing boxless in the bottom of the case and popped it into a portable stereo on a bricks-and-boards bookshelf.

Calliope returned to the living room just as the first song was rising in the speakers. "Oh, I love this tape," she said. "I've always wanted to make love to this tape. I'll be right back." She left the room again and returned in a moment with an armload of pillows and blankets, which she dropped in the middle of the floor. "Grubb sleeps in my room and he won't be asleep for a while." She began to spread the blankets out over the floor.