East of Denver (13 page)

Nobody spoke for a while. We listened to the sounds of the night.

Then D.J. said, “So you wanna buy a brownie or not?”

Sensing that this would be the only way to bring an end to our visit, I said, “How much?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

“No, thanks.”

“Ten?”

Pa got curious. “What's that you're buying?”

D.J. said, “Brownies.”

Pa said, “I like brownies. Buy a brownie.”

I said, “I'm almost broke, Mr. Altruist.”

D.J. sighed. “Five.”

We exchanged goods for cash. D.J. drove away, his taillights barely visible for all the dust his car kicked up.

Pa didn't want to take a bath.

“I'm not a baby.”

“You been sprayed by a skunk. You gotta take a bath.”

“If I'd of been sprayed by a skunk, I would smell it.”

“You don't have a sense of smell.”

“How would you know?”

“Get in.” It was after four
A.M.
Way too late for us to be up. We were standing in the bathroom. I had failed to get Pa to take off his clothes before he pushed his way into the house. I could almost see the stink particles floating in the air.

The tub was filled with steaming water. I had poured in a bottle of peroxide and half a box of the baking soda that had been sitting in the fridge since 1991. Just to be on the safe side, I also dumped in a can of tomato soup. It looked like a witches' brew.

“I'm not getting in that.”

“You're gonna stink up the whole house.”

“I'm not going to stink up a damn thing 'cause I don't damn stink.”

I said, “Don't move. I'll be right back.” I went to the kitchen and retrieved D.J.'s brownie from the fridge. When I got back to the bathroom, Pa was standing like a mannequin right where I left him.

“Eat this.” I broke the brownie in two and handed him half.

He put it in his mouth and chewed brattily. Stuck out his tongue.

“Good, huh?”

“So-so.”

I fed him the other half. He gobbled it up.

I said, “Let's watch some TV.”

He followed me out of the bathroom. I laid a ratty blanket over his chair and sat him down on it. We watched an infomercial for twenty minutes before he started giggling. He didn't even know I was there. He laughed and laughed. Holding his tummy. “Wheeeee!” I snuck out of the room and ran some more warm water into the tub.

When I came back, he was staring at the TV, face stuck in a blissful smile.

“Pa?”

“Yes, son?”

“I got an idea.”

“Yes?” Giggle.

“I was thinking you might enjoy a bath right now.”

“That so?”

“Wanna try?”

“Sure.”

I helped him stand up. His hands floated around his head like they were hanging on strings. I removed the blanket from the chair and led him to the bathroom.

“That bathtub looks real good, don't it?”

“Sure does.”

I put the blanket on the floor. “Take off your clothes and set 'em right there.”

He pointed to the blanket. “On that deal?”

“On that deal.”

I exited, shutting the door behind me. After a few moments, I said, “You got your clothes off?”

“Sure do!”

“Okay, now get in the tub.”

Splashing sounds.

“You in there?”

“Yep.”

I went back into the bathroom. He was sitting upright in the tub. I handed him a washcloth. “Scrub yourself real good. I'll be right back.”

“Okay.”

I looked at him sternly. “What are you going to do while I'm gone?”

“Scrub myself.” He laughed. “Real good. Fried potatoes.”

I bundled his clothes in the blanket and started them in the washing machine along with a handful of baking powder.

Then I sat outside the bathroom and listened to make sure he was making bathing sounds. There was splashing and scrubbing. He said, “Oh, wow,” several times.

I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, the sun was shining and Dad was gone.

CHAPTER 16

PA TAKES A RIDE

It was almost noon. The bathtub was empty. The TV was still on. The pickup wasn't in the garage.

Emmett Williams won the state 4-H tractor-driving competition in 1960. He used to be able to reverse a pickup into a crowded shed with two anhydrous tanks linked on back. You could set him blindfolded on the surface of Mars and he'd know which way was north. Now he couldn't tell left from right.

I wasn't scared of him killing anyone. Everybody knew what his truck looked like; if someone saw Pa driving in their direction, they would pull over and let him pass. I wasn't scared of him killing himself in an accident. He drove thirty miles an hour.

I was scared of him not coming back. He could drive and drive and get more and more lost. Eventually, he'd end up in Nebraska on a cattle trail, out of sight from the road. The pickup would run out of gas, he'd get out. Take a piss. Start walking. Get bit on the ankle by a rattlesnake. Scratch the bite every once in a while. Leg swells up to the point that he has to lie down next to a patch of soapweed. Wheeze. Confused. Sun burns his face. The snakebite turns his skin black. He doesn't know anything. He talks to Mom. Then he dies. At dark, the coyotes come.

It's best to approach these things pragmatically. Either he'd come home on his own, or someone would find him and lead him home, or he was dead in a Nebraska pasture. In any case, there was nothing I could do about it.

While I waited, I hoed the garden. The tomatoes were growing real good; they already had yellow flowers. Everything else was barely growing at all. Apparently, I hadn't been watering enough. The onions, carrots, and corn were all floppy, but they were alive, at least. The cabbages had leaned their little leaves over and dried up. I hoed the remains into the ground. Who likes cabbage, anyway? I turned on the soaker hose.

I ate lunch at three o'clock and went back outside. In the shed, I found a five-gallon bucket of red paint. I decided to paint the granary. I had to do something.

I popped the top off the paint bucket. The paint had separated. Thicker than mucus. I couldn't stir it with a stick so I bent a metal rod and stuck it in the end of the electric drill. A few minutes and it was mixed good.

Fill the brush, wipe the wood. The granary was old and dry. People pay good money for old wood. They chop it into foot-long chunks, paint the pieces with flower scenes, and sell them at flea markets.

No flea markets for this granary. I took lots of breaks. It was a hot one. Flies bit my neck. I drank water out of the hydrant. I couldn't find the ladder. I'm almost six feet tall. Standing on my tiptoes with arms stretched high, I was able to paint an eight-foot-tall band all around the bottom of the granary. I got a lot of paint on my shoes and my britches. My arms were wet with it. I could feel it in my hair. When the bucket was empty, I left it where it set. The paintbrush was solid with red.

I walked to the pasture east of the house and threw the brush as hard as I could. It spun thru the air, leaving a red spiral. We didn't have any damned paint—what did we need with a brush?

I went back to the garden and shut off the soaker hose. The plants looked happier, at least.

He came back at dusk. I was sitting on the front step, using a twig to scrape paint off my fingernails. He coasted the pickup into the driveway. The whole truck was covered in mud. Where do you find mud in this world? Driving up a sprinkler road, maybe. He got out of the truck. He was muddy. His shoes, his britches. He might as well have been a dog that had run away and come back home for all the answers he could give me. I didn't even ask.

We stood next to one another, me covered with red paint, him crusted with mud, and watched the sun sink. The edges of the clouds glowed orange. An owl hooted in the patch of trees north of the house.

I said, “That's a good sunset.”

Pa said, “
Potential
sunset, son.”

CHAPTER 17

CEMETERY

“I don't want you driving anymore.”

Pa was quiet. We were eating breakfast. Canned peaches with syrup.

Pa said, “I'll drive where I want.”

“I reckon you will.”

“I'm going to go for a drive right now.” He put down his fork and went to the garage.

I'd hidden the key. He wasn't gonna go for shit.

He came back. “Where's the?” He twisted his hand like he was turning a key.

“I ain't seen it.”

“Bullshit.” He was mad.

“Maybe you lost it.”

His eyes went into slits. He wouldn't lose that key. He placed it on the dashboard every time he shut off the engine. Every single time. You could see him thinking, Do not lose the key. He had trained himself. He did not lose that key and he knew it.

“I don't need a babysitter.”

“I suppose not.”

“Get out.”

“Get out?”

“Leave this place.”

I said, “Who's gonna cook your dinners?”

“I know how to work the microwave.”

“You gotta get food into your belly.”

“I can make belly.”

“You can't find your key.”

“What key?”

“Touché.”

“Get out.”

He made a fist. I got out.

I took my car. First, I drove by Vaughn's place. His mom's car was in the driveway, so I went to Clarissa's. She wasn't home. I went inside anyway. I was hungry. Her fridge was empty. I sat down on her couch and started reading
Furious Desire
.

It was early afternoon when she came home. Before she came thru the front door, I closed the book and hid it behind my back.

When Clarissa saw me, she said, “Your dad kick you out of the house?”

“You hear that at the bank?”

“You just looked kicked out.”

“He's in a bad mood.”

“That's because you don't trust him.”

“He's never trusted
me
.”

“The hell he doesn't. He adores you. He follows you everywhere. Does anything you say. Thinks you're the bee's knees. He's like a puppy when he's around you.”

“He ain't my dad anymore.”

“No kidding. He's your son. You ain't figured that out?”

“I suppose not.”

“Figure it out.”

I said, “You been losing some weight.”

She stood sideways. “I know.”

“You're gonna need to get some new clothes.”

“I'm hungry all the time.”

“How is that?”

“It's something.”

“I think I'm gonna go home.”

Clarissa said, “You still wanna rob the bank?”

“Yeah.”

“Any new ideas on how we should go about it?”

“Nope. I think our plan's good.”

“Really?”

“Good enough.”

“Me and Vaughn are ready when you are.”

I said, “Don't tell Vaughn about Dad kicking me out.”

“I'll try.”

“Good enough.”

Clarissa approached me, put her hand on my shoulder, and made me lean forward. She lifted up
Furious Desire
from where I had hidden it behind me. She said, “What do you think?”

“It's not as furious as I expected.”

When I got home, Pa was poking a jack handle into the juniper bush.

“You sure like to do that.”

Pa said, “What are you doing here?”

“You still mad?”

“I ain't mad.”

I said, “You sound mad.”

“Who gives a shit?” Pa poked the bush some more.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Cause God's in there.”

“You wanna tell me what you're mad about, Pa?”

“I don't have to tell you things.”

“You're just mad, then.”

“That's right.”

He cocked his ear. He put down the jack handle. Looked at the sky.

I said, “Something up there?”

He didn't reply. He kept looking up. His frown stretched into longing. I figured he was looking at his airplane and Mom and death and freedom. I listened. Faint, way away up there, was honking. Geese. Tiny specks spelling out a V. We watched them cross the sky. From all the years he spent hammering iron, he should have been deaf. But he heard those geese.

I said, “You want to go for a drive?”

“I reckon.”

We looked for the pickup key all over the place. In the kitchen, in the junk drawer, in the truck, under the floor mat, next to the gas cap. All over the place. It was in my pocket. When Pa wasn't looking, I wedged it on the concrete floor under the left front wheel.

I said, “Let's look under the truck.”

He tapped the dashboard. “It should be here. On this thing.”

“Come on. Under.”

I wanted him to find it.

He squatted and looked and he found it. “There she is!”

He held the key high.

Everything was okay. I said, “Let's go for a drive.”

“Where should we go?” It was crazy how happy he was.

“How about a cemetery?”

Dad drove, of course. I figured we'd go to the old Mennonite church and poke around my great-grandparents' tombstones, maybe stir up some shred of nostalgia in Dad's head. Instead he drove north and west and north and west, following the right angles of the roads. The land grew hilly. Draws and gullies. Places where rustlers once hid. It was a bright, cloudless afternoon. Neither of us wore sunglasses. Dust devils swirled across the prairie. Instead of an intersection every mile, the road became a crooked, meandering thing. Houses, with their Quonset huts and patches of trees, became rare.

As Pa steered us farther and farther from civilization, we neither one spoke. A pheasant rooster scared up from the ditch and we both pointed at it. A jack rabbit raced alongside us. Dad turned the truck down a cattle trail. We called it a cattle trail, but it wasn't a cattle trail. It was a road that hardly ever got drove on. Two ruts with grass down the center. The ride got bumpy. The wildlife grew older. Tiny basking lizards scattered at our approach. Dad swerved to avoid a box turtle.

Finally, the road ended. We continued driving thru the grass. Sagebrush scratched underneath the truck. Dad had that half-smile he got when he was building something. I had that sense of dread I used to get when I rode copilot in his plane. He drove slowly, maybe twenty miles an hour. There were no fences, no power lines, no windmills. I looked behind us. I couldn't see any kind of road.

I said, “I never been out this far.”

“Something, isn't it?”

“You know where you're going?”

“Where's that?”

“You know where you are?”

“In my pickup. In a pasture. Wearing clothes.”

I saw a critter on the horizon ahead. On the crest of a short hill. Even though it was a long ways off, I could tell it was big, like a bull. There shouldn't be any cattle here. There weren't any fences. I blinked and it was gone.

“You see that?” I pointed to where the thing had been.

“Up there?”

“It looked like a cow or a bull or something.”

“Maybe a heifer.”

“Coulda been.”

“Up there?”

I didn't speak. We continued to roll thru the grass. The truck bounced over a badger mound. On the horizon, the bull thing appeared again, this time with another next to it.

“Pa?”

“Son.” He stomped on the throttle. “Let's get a look.”

The animals skitted down the hill, away from us. The truck crested the hill. Dad stopped it there on the crest of that little gut valley. Staring up at us were a dozen buffalo, scared and dirty.

People sometimes raise buffalo in Strattford County. A man named McDonagh used to have a herd on Highway 59. But these buffalo didn't look like they were being raised. They looked like they hadn't ever seen a person. I asked Pa if he thought they were wild.

He said, “They're buffalo.”

“But they're not the property of anyone.”

“It's hard to say who belongs to what.” He turned off the engine. The animals watched us with flared nostrils. A bull, some cows, a couple of calves. They were big. If you've seen them in Yellowstone or on the other side of a fence, that's one thing. But sitting in a truck in Strattford County with the window down, looking at a family of wild buffalo, it was like seeing Bigfoot. As far as I knew, outside of national parks, there simply weren't any wild buffalo, anywhere.

Satisfied that we weren't dangerous, a couple of the beasts resumed chewing on the grama grass. Dad opened the door, made like he was going to get out of the truck.

I said, “Hold on. Those things'll put a hole in your liver.”

“Yep,” he said, “and I hear they smell bad.” He stepped out. The buffalo raised their heads again. Pa said, “Lean forward.”

I obliged. He unlatched the seat back and tilted it forward. He pulled out a shotgun. “Open that deal there.” He was pointing at the glove box. I opened the glove box. A couple of shotgun shells rolled out and landed at my feet.

Pa said, “Hand me them things.”

I'm a good son, but I'm not a complete idiot. I didn't hand him the shells.

With an irritated grunt, he leaned into the cab and plucked them off the floor.

I said, “You mind enlightening me as to your ambitions?”

He ignored me as he loaded the shotgun.

“You are not going to shoot a wild buffalo.”

The animals formed a nervous line. The big one scratched the dirt with its toe.

With a jerk, Pa pointed the gun toward the sky and pulled the trigger. The air around us popped with a twelve-gauge explosion. The buffalo scattered up the other side of the gut valley and over the hill. The calves sprinted to catch up. Dad laughed. My ears rang.

In the wake of their dust, we were looking at tombstones.

“Look,” said Pa. “A cemetery.”

The ground was dented with human-sized dimples, presumably from where the earth had sunk into caved-in coffins. There were maybe twenty of these dimples. At the north end of each one was a chunk of sandstone. Wore down, broke over. Only a couple of stones were still standing. No higher than my knees. We walked thru the graveyard in the footprints of the buffalo, looking for a legible word on one of the stones, a belt buckle, anything. Pa turned over a stone with the toe of his shoe.

“That one says something.”

I squatted and cleaned the rock with my fingers. Carved indentations, stained the color of tobacco. There wasn't much to read:
SHA–ES–EAR– –ILL–AMS.
Looking at my own damned grave in a pasture haunted by wild buffalo. Time traveled in both directions at once.

Pa said, “Did you know you had a great-great? I don't know how much, but you had an uncle. We were going to name you after him. We decided not to because it'd be troublesome. But we called you it anyway, sort of. We named you one thing but called you something else. They said they called
him
that because he wanted an English name. The people at the place where his boat landed. Don't know when he died.”

I said, “Thank you very much, Ellis Island.”