Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom (3 page)

Duncan looked at Benjamin. “He heard you,” he said, “but he doesn’t seem to care.”

“Well, he ought to. That’ll be twenty-nine thirty-five.”

Duncan paid and took his change. Benjamin left and got in the truck. Leroy Kern looked miserable.

“Every time he comes in here he stares like that. It bugs the hell out of me. One day I’m going to put a stop to it. You tell him that.”

Duncan picked up the beer and groceries. He stopped at the door. “That wouldn’t be smart.”

“You think I’m scared of him?” Leroy Kern’s breath came in ragged bursts. His eyes were wide and his face cherry red. The artist in Duncan appreciated the color.
“You tell that shit-ass punk the next time he comes in here I’ll blow his head off!”

“Ok,” Duncan said as he left, “your funeral.”

Two

“Sure it has a lot of miles,” Smiling Jack Sweeney said, “but that just means the engine’s wore in proper.”

Duncan and Benjamin stood beside a white sixty-nine Volkswagen mini-bus beneath a cool morning sun. A diverse multitude of used cars in various states of repair were parked about them. A flaking billboard manifesting Smiling Jack’s face soared over them. The Smiling Jack keeping vigil from above had manhole sized nostrils, most of his original teeth and hair, and looked thirty years younger than the worn and wrinkled gnome in the cowboy hat beside them.

“How much?” Duncan asked.

They had spent the previous night celebrating his first real sale, and he had a hangover twice the size of his Stetson. Smiling Jack kicked a wheel with the steel tip of a shiny white snake skin boot.

“Brand-new radials,” he said.

Benjamin examined the tires. “Retreads.”

“How much?” Duncan repeated.

His brain hurt and a foul taste resided beneath his tongue. He was in no mood for haggling. Smiling Jack pushed his white cowboy hat back. The act deviated his toupee an inch.

“Look here.” He opened the engine hatch. “Rebuilt engine.”

Benjamin contemplated the oil dripping onto the asphalt. “Needs a head gasket.”

“Damn it,” Duncan said, “would you please tell me how much?”

Smiling Jack grasped the lapels of his white coat and looked thoughtful. “I see your friend knows cars, boy. Tell you what.” Smiling Jack hawked up something green and spat. “Seven hundred and it’s yours.”

“Seven hundred!” Duncan exclaimed.

“And that’s one hell of a deal.”

Duncan despaired. The night before, somewhere between the last ding dong and the third six-pack, he had extracted the shoe box from beneath his bed. When he finished counting, he had clutched less than half the three thousand he had expected to find. He had forgotten about a ski trip to Jackson Hole he treated Tiffy to the previous winter.

“We’ll give you five.” Benjamin said.

“I like your people.” Smiling Jack smelled a deal. He took a half-smoked cigar from his pocket and proceeded to re-ignite it. “So I’ll let it go for six.”

Benjamin smiled back. “Four.”

Smiling Jack frowned. He normally did not do that, and he did not want to set precedent, but he felt he must impart to these young men the seriousness of their error.

“You got the concept wrong, boy. I set a price, you make an offer, we meet in the middle.” Smiling Jack smiled again.
“Understandee?”

Benjamin took out his Bowie knife and commenced cleaning his fingernails. Smiling Jack stopped smiling. Smiling Jack went pale.

Here we go,
Duncan thought.

“Three,” Benjamin said.

Smiling Jack swallowed hard. Conroy, his other salesman, was on the far end of the lot showing a forty-seven year old middle school teacher a seventy-two Volvo. Conroy carried a single-action Beretta semi-auto, but even if he were standing there Smiling Jack would have a hard time defining the threat, and you could not just launch bullets at an Indian for nothing anymore anyhow. A shimmer of sweat grew on his upper lip. He considered the fact that he paid one hundred and fifty for the van three weeks ago and that it had sat on his lot oozing oil since.

“Fine,” Smiling Jack said. “Three. And I’ll throw in a case of thirty weight.”

“And a tank of gas,” Duncan said. It was to be his car. He wanted to participate.

“Sure,” Smiling Jack said. “Why not?”

A mechanic loaded the oil and filled the tank. Duncan traded cash for pink slip and key and started the bus in a smoky blue cloud. Benjamin got in the Purgatory Truck and followed him off the lot. Smiling Jack fanned his face with his hat as he watched them drive away. Conroy came over and took a pewter flask from his jacket. He removed the cap and held the flask to his lips, then proffered it to Smiling Jack. Smiling Jack took a long pull and screwed the cap back on.

“And they say we stole from the Indian,” he muttered.

Tiffy was sitting on her porch swing next to Danny Carpenter when Duncan pulled into the Bradshaw’s yard. Danny had loved Tiffy ever since that incident in kindergarten when she kissed him in the coat closet during nap time. After that, Danny made sure Tiffy never lacked graham crackers or milk, but to his abiding frustration, nothing else ever came of it. Or so Tiffy maintained. Duncan trusted her. Duncan trusted everyone, though some, like Danny, he liked to keep one eye on.

Tiffy’s blond hair was lightened, but her enormous brown eyes were real, and her teeth were responsible for three of her orthodontist’s most recent nocturnal emissions. Her face and smile were all Wyoming but her body was pure Hollywood mud wrestler. Duncan held that opinion because once, when he was sixteen and a run away from the reservation, Benjamin had mailed Duncan a postcard from the Hollywood Tropicana. Duncan had studied the card intently before Fiona confiscated it with a long, sad commentary on Benjamin’s abundant lack of character. The card depicted numerous tanned and oiled women whose synthetic breasts strained the limits of string bikinis. Tiffy resembled that, but without the oil and silicon.

“Hey, Duncan,” Danny said.

Danny was five ten in boots and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds. He had bad skin and a round, not quite ugly face, but his daddy liberally shared his thick wallet with his son, and that went a long way to equalize his social standing. As usual, he looked nervous.

“Take a hike,” Duncan said.

“Sure.” Danny got up and left.

“That was rude,” Tiffy said.

“I get tired of him sniffing around you all the time.”

She turned her head when he bent to kiss her. His lips brushed a surprisingly cold cheek. He took Danny’s place on the swing.

“Sorry about Saturday,” he said. “I got wrapped up painting.”

Tiffy aimed a neon pink nail at the van. “Whose is that?”

“Mine. What do you think?”

“Well, I think you better move it. It’s leaking oil. Daddy will be mad if you stain the driveway. He’s proud of his concrete.”

Duncan moved the van to the street. He returned to the porch and took off his hat. A picture of a cowboy holding a hat full of water for his thirsty horse was screened onto the Stetson’s white satin lining. He had not noticed that before. The portrayal’s humanity made him smile.

“What the hell did you buy that thing for anyway?”

“Fiona gave it to me.”

“Why on earth would Fiona give you a wreck like that?”

“What?” Duncan spotted the misunderstanding and moved swiftly to rectify it. “No. Fiona gave me the hat. I bought the bus.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m moving to Los Angeles. To paint.”

Tiffy laughed. “And fish have testicles.”

That threw Duncan. He was not sure if fish were so equipped.

“I’m serious, Tiffy,” he finally said.

“Let’s see if I have this right,” Tiffy said. “You’re moving to California, despite the fact that if you do your mother will cut you off but good.”

Duncan put his hat back on. “That about sums it up.”

“Duncan Delaney, you’re not going anywhere least of all California. So just get that idea out of your head. I suspect you’ll die in Cheyenne like the rest of us.”

“Which would be fine if that was what I wanted. I love you, Tiffy, but I’m going. I want you to come with me.”

Tiffy initiated a laugh, but something in Duncan’s eyes stopped her cold.

“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Duncan said. “Yes, I am.”

Tiffy punched him with such authority that his hat flew off and he fell backwards over the swing into a bed of posies. He had not been sucker punched in a long time and, coming from the girl he loved, it was a revelation. He shook his head and looked up. Tiffy stood over him, a terrible Valkyrie with retribution flashing like strobe lights in her eyes.

“You pitiful bastard!” She grabbed his shirt and shook. “If you think I’m moving to L.A. to be some nobody waiting on tables in a Bob’s Big Boy to support a no talent painter like you well you’ve got another thought coming! To think I wasted seven years on you!”

She released him and he fell back into the posies. She grabbed his feet and tugged off his new Italian boots. Duncan lay back in pain and amazement. He slowly sat up. Tiffy kicked his hat across the porch.

“Hey!” Duncan said, overcome with
deja vu,
“that’s my hat!”

“Screw your hat!” Tiffy screamed. “Screw your painting!” She flung the boots at his face. Duncan caught them.
“And screw you!”

She wrenched the boots from his hands, ran into the house, and slammed the door after her. Duncan stood and slapped a dirty cloud from his jeans. He dusted off his hat and straightened the brim. He walked down the drive to the sidewalk. Tiffy’s words bit into his heart like the gravel bit into his bootless feet. He looked back. The front door remained shut and cold. He got in his van and drove to the corner where Danny skulked. He rolled down his window.

“Go on back, Danny,” he said. “We took care of business.”

“You don’t care?”

“Any reason I should?”

“None comes to mind.”

“Go on, then.”

“Well,” Danny said, “see you.”

As Duncan drove away he saw Danny in his rear view mirror, sprinting as best he could back to the Bradshaw house. Duncan stopped at the corner and closed his eyes, afraid to feel anything lest the feelings overwhelm him, until a restless motorist honked behind him. He opened his eyes, took his foot off the brake, and drove slowly back to the Circle D.

Benjamin was waiting on the porch with his toolbox handy beside him when Duncan arrived home. He looked at Duncan’s feet, but said nothing. Duncan fished his old boots from the garbage can by the back porch and put them on. He got two beers from the kitchen and returned to the van. Benjamin had changed into greasy overalls and was already swapping spark plugs. Duncan gave him a beer.

“I take it she’s not going with you,” Benjamin said.

The enormity of Duncan’s loss commenced to demand notice. He took a deep breath and a profound pull off his beer. A lone tear, a clear dew drop condensed on a cold window to his heart, spilled from his eye and ran down his cheek. He brushed the tear away with the back of his hand.

“Doesn’t look like it,” he finally said.

Duncan packed while Benjamin labored on the van. He crammed a suitcase full with jeans, sweaters, and t-shirts. He loaded another with socks, underwear and tennis shoes. He put his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a cake of soap into an overnight bag along with a razor, deodorant, and a bottle of shampoo. He dismantled his easel and put his paints in a case with his pallet and brushes. He packed his stereo and took his sleeping bag down from a shelf in his closet. He packed like a sleepwalker, and when the Volkswagen was full and he stood dazed beside it, he could not remember having loaded it. Benjamin slid out from beneath the van and wiped the grease from his hands with a rag.

“It runs better,” he said. “It still leaks oil, but if you check it every hundred miles or so you’ll be okay.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Duncan felt overpowering afraid and lonesome. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“I still have six days to serve.”

“Right. I forgot.” Duncan kicked dirt. “I’ll write when I get settled.”

Benjamin faltered, then clumsily hugged Duncan. He let go and got in his truck.

“See you, buddy,” he said. Then he was gone.

Duncan walked through his room one last time. He picked up the photograph of himself and Tiffy at the rodeo. For the first time, he saw that she did not really smile. Her lips were turned up, and you could see white teeth and pink gums, but her eyes were distant and cold. Duncan’s smile should have been wide enough for them both. But that was not how it worked. He set the picture face down on the dresser and picked up the earring beside it. He found a pen and a slip of paper and wrote. He left the note on the kitchen table and the earring on top of the note.

Gone to California,
the note said,
love Duncan.

Half a mile down the road he saw his mother’s Lincoln coming towards him. Woody was piloting, his arm around Fiona and her head against his shoulder. Fiona smiled as she slept and Woody smelled her hair. Neither spied him. Duncan watched the Lincoln in his rear view mirror until it sank behind a hill. Then he fixed his gaze on the road before him and drove on toward California.

Benjamin parked in front of the Lazy Rancher Market right about the time Duncan passed Fiona and Woody. He sat in the Purgatory Truck and listened to a country station on the radio. He rolled a cigarette and let it hang unlit from his mouth. He had not smoked in years, but he found it easier to forsake the actual act than to give up the associated rituals. Through the window he watched Leroy Kern serve a woman. He waited until she left and Leroy Kern was alone. He got out and spit the cigarette onto the asphalt. He adjusted his hat and walked slowly inside.

Leroy Kern, one hand beneath the counter, warily watched Benjamin lift a six-pack of beer out of the cooler. Benjamin selected a turkey with potatoes and gravy frozen dinner from the freezer.
Microwavable,
the package said. He resolved to one day get himself a microwave. He dropped the beer and the frozen dinner on the counter. Leroy Kern was pale and sweating and his hand remained beneath the counter.