East of Denver (3 page)

I asked D.J. who she was.

“Clarissa McPhail.”

Another classmate. I said, “Wow. Last time I saw her, she was a skinny little thing.”

He winked. “Believe it or not, she's still single.”

“She's not much of a pitcher.”

“Oh, she's a hell of a pitcher.”

She threw another pitch. It flew over the catcher's head. The batter took a base on balls.

I said, “No, she's not.”

“You're watching wrong. Keep your eye off the ball.”

Next pitch, I watched Clarissa McPhail. Her boobs heaved.

D.J. gee-geed like Roscoe P. Coltrane. “If you wait long enough, a nipple will hop out.”

I said, “She know you're leering at her?”

D.J. stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, McFailure! Shakespeare wants to know if you know we're leering at you!”

Clarissa stuck her tongue out and tossed another shitty pitch.

Pa and I got hamburgers at the concession stand and climbed back to our seats next to D.J. Dad ate his hamburger wrong. Took off the top half of the bun and ate it. Then he ate the burger. Then the bottom half. I wiped his face with a handkerchief. It shouldn't have been embarrassing. Everyone knows Dad is sick.

D.J. pulled a flask out of his back pocket, took a sip, handed it to me.

I drank, gagged, spit between my legs. Some of it splashed on the kids who were playing in the sand under the bleachers.

D.J. said, “It's a work in progress. I'm mixing corn, rye, and wheat. I'm gonna call it Nitro Whiskey. Whaddya think?”

I wiped my finger over my teeth. “Kitty Dukakis wouldn't drink that shit.”

Dad said, “Watch your language.”

“Who's Kitty Dukakis?” said D.J.

Who the fuck is Kitty Dukakis? Good question. I said, “I gotta take a leak.” I wanted to be somewhere else. Being in public with Dad always made me want to be somewhere else. But, things being how they were, if I went somewhere else, I had to take him with me. We walked to the outhouse, which was in the shadows beyond the outfield lights.

It takes Dad forever to piss. I stood outside and waited. When Dad finally finished, we took the long way back to the bleachers. Past a row of parked cars. We were approached by the preacher from the church Mom used to go to.

“See you on Sunday?”

“Prolly not.”

We continued toward the bleachers. Interrupted again.

“Beer?” Vaughn Atkins's mom was selling longneck bottles from a cooler in the back of her pickup. I said no, thanks.

She said, “Shame about Unabelle.” She was wearing her judgmental face.

“Sure is.”

“Something happen to Unabelle?” said Dad.

“How's Vaughn?” I said.

“He's in the basement.”

We continued toward the bleachers.

D.J. Beckman saw us as we approached and held his hands out like a pair of giant tits. He yelled, “Hey, McFailure! Shakespeare said he wants to have your babies!”

My name isn't Shakespeare. My name is Stacey, but nobody ever calls me that. No one has ever called me Stacey. I am thankful for this. From the time I was a baby, Mom and Dad called me Shakes, which is almost as stupid as Stacey. Whenever I asked them why they called me Shakes, they'd say it's because I shook a lot. Then they'd smirk at each other. Growing up, I was Shakes, Shakesy, Milkshake, whatever. In seventh grade, D.J. Beckman made the connection between Shakes Williams and William Shakespeare. Yippee verily shit. A new nickname.

I veered us away from the bleachers and toward the pickup.

“You had enough softball, Pa?”

“Somewhat.”

I said, “Let's go see Vaughn Atkins.”

CHAPTER 3

PARAPLEGIC

We rolled down the driveway to Vaughn's mom's house. The place was dark, with cats creeping in the shadows. We stepped out of the car. I pounded on the front door. No answer.

“You trying to wake somebody up?” said Pa.

“Vaughn Atkins. We went to school together.”

“Vaughn Atkins.”

“He flipped a car when we were juniors. Busted his back. Rides a wheelchair now. You know him. Before the accident, he used to help us harvest wheat.”

Dad snapped his fingers. “He spent more time backing over fences than hauling grain.”

“Never was much of a driver.”

I opened the front door and we walked in. The house was a museum of liquor propaganda. Buzzing neon signs, a team of plastic Clydesdales, clocks with beer bottle hands. Posters. A stuffed dog. It hadn't changed in twenty years. The same spider plant was hanging from the ceiling. The same rotary phone sat on the same table.

Dad whispered, “Are we supposed to be here?”

“We're fine.”

A pounding shook the floor beneath our feet.

“Mom!” A voice from below. “The toilet's clogged!”

We climbed down the stairs into a paneled basement. The carpet was shiny brown, like the wings of a miller moth. The place looked like it was smelly. There were cups and cola cans scattered about. At the far end of the basement was a bed. On that bed was a fat, naked paraplegic pounding a broom against the ceiling.

When Vaughn saw us, he threw the broom. It bounced to the carpet at our feet. “You sons of bitches can start by finding the remote control.”

While Vaughn flopped himself into a pair of pajama bottoms, Dad and I looked for the remote. It was hard to concentrate for all the crap. Shelves of books and record albums. Broncos' pennants from 1977, 1987, 1989. A liquor cabinet, chained and padlocked. A stereo with a phonograph, cassette, and eight-track. A console TV attached to an Atari 2600. Magazines:
Life
,
Sports Illustrated
,
High Plains Journal
. A twenty-inch-tall plastic Godzilla. Stacks of Lego boxes. A basement den from twenty years ago, preserved like a museum dedicated to failure.

I found myself squatting in the corner next to the stairs, flipping thru the 1989
SI
Swimsuit Edition. All that sand stuck to all those thighs.

Dad tapped me on the shoulder and said, “What are we looking for?”

“The remote.”

He was holding it in his hand.

I shouted to Vaughn, “We got it!”

Vaughn turned on the TV. Snow across all six channels. “She cut the coax, the shit-toothed devil.” He clicked the TV off and threw the remote control at a beanbag.

I sat on the edge of the bed. Dad stood next to me. I said, “How're things?”

Vaughn wrinkled his nose. “I'm awesome, dude. I'm a jellyfish. I eat whatever boiled horse meat my mom gives me, lube my catheter, drag myself to the bathroom for a shit every two days, play Atari, and watch TV. Not so much TV now that Mom's cut the wire. You still in Denver?”

“I'm back.” I gave Dad an easy shoulder punch. “Hanging out with Pa here.”

Dad growled at me. “Watch it, tiger.”

Vaughn squinted. “That's right. I heard you're taking care of him now that Unabelle's dead.”

“Helping around the house for a month or two.”

“'Cause he's senile.”

What an ass. I gave him a silent glowering.

He said, “What? I can't state the obvious? You wanna go for a jog with me? Oh, I forgot. I'm paralyzed.”

“You're a peckerhead. How's that for obvious?”

He said, “So?”

“So have a nice night.”

Between Vaughn, D.J., and Clarissa, I'd seen enough high school chums for one evening. I put my hand on Dad's back. We walked up the stairs and out the door, and then we drove home.

Back at the house, I helped Pa brush his teeth. I waited outside his room while he got undressed and then I tucked him in. “Good night, Pa.”

“Good night, son.”

While Dad snored in his bed, I sat at the card table and tried again to read some of the financial stuff. It still didn't make any sense. We had more land than the three hundred acres we lived on. There was the pasture where we buried the dead animals. Pa used to rent that out for cattle. There was another quarter section to the south. It was in the CRP program. Maybe another parcel up near Dorsey. I couldn't find any property tax statements. I didn't have any idea what I was doing. I gave up.

I went upstairs to my room. Like Vaughn Atkins's basement, my room was a time capsule. Except, unlike Vaughn Atkins's basement, this room had been unoccupied for the past eighteen years. I went thru my bookshelf, found a novelization of
The Empire Strikes Back
, and brought it to bed. The closest movie theater was in Strattford, the county seat, which was forty miles north. In Dorsey, we read our movies.

I woke up the next morning with Dad sprinkling water on my face. When I sat up,
The Empire
slid off my chest.

I reached for the plastic cup in his hand, but he snatched it away, spilling water on the floor. It was still dark. I looked at the clock. It was in blink time. The power goes off at least once a month on the farm. There was always wind or lightning or something messing things up. Almost no point in even setting a clock.

He said, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Starshine.”

“Moonglow.”

I said, “Did you eat breakfast?”

“I dunno.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I guess so.”

After eggs and bacon, I went thru the drawers in the kitchen until I found Mom's seed bag. Garden seeds. Corn and cucumbers and so forth. Even though they were old, I figured they'd grow.

We went outside to the garden. It was overgrown with weeds. Dad said, “You gonna do something with this mess?”

“I'm gonna plant a garden.”

He said, “You can't plant a garden.”

“Of course I can. It's only May.”

I found a hoe and started attacking the weeds. The dirt was dust.

Dad sat under the shade of the locust tree and watched. He was smiling.

I said, “Do you know something I don't?”

“You're working like a Mexican.”

I handed him the hoe. “Show me how a white man works.”

He handed the hoe back. “Not this way. There's a dealiebobber.”

“The rake?”

“No. It's like.” He finished the sentence by moving his hands in circles.

“Is it something in the house or the shed?”

“In the shed.”

“Is it powered by gas or electricity or humans?”

“Gas. It has handles.”

I followed him to the shed. Inside, he asked, “What are we looking for again?”

“A gas-powered device with handles.”

“State its purpose.”

“Something that only white people know how to do.”

He hurried to a dark corner, pushed a sheet of warped plywood off a mound of stuff, and there it was. An engine with handles attached to it. Where there should have been wheels, there was a set of blades. “That what you're looking for?”

Right. The rototiller. You stay away from home too long, you forget things.

I filled the tank with gas and pulled the starter cord. Putt putt zilch. I opened the choke and pulled again. And again and again until my arm hurt. Dad wandered off. He returned up with a can of starter fluid and a screwdriver. “You having trouble?”

“Do your thing.”

He removed the air filter and squirted the starter fluid. He pulled the cord, and the machine came alive.

In the garden, behind the tiller, he knew what to do. Churn the dirt. I left him there. The man who used to steer gazillion-horsepower tractors was walking stiffly behind a rototiller.

While Pa tilled, I went in the house to give the money business another go. I dug thru the piles and files and couldn't figure out why we didn't have any money. I fetched Dad from the garden for lunch.

When he went down for his afternoon nap I headed to the bank for some advice.

CHAPTER 4

SOWING

The Keaton State Bank was a short, flat building made of beige bricks and covered with asphalt shingles. Inside, the paneled walls were covered with goofy signs of the sort you'd expect to see in a diner. “Flying lessons: $1 to fly, $50 to land!” “Lost Dog: Three legs, blind in one eye, missing right ear, tail broken, recently castrated, and answers to the name Lucky.” And the timeless classic, “Complaint Department: Take a number,” where the plastic number tab is attached to pin of a dummy hand grenade.

Mingled among the signs were several framed photos of a big-chinned skinny man in a brown suit smiling widely and shaking hands with various jolly farmer-types. I'd seen those photos a million times on a million trips to the bank with Mom and Dad. I didn't recognize any of the farmers or the man in the brown suit. But they conveyed the message that this was a good bank full of good people who liked shaking hands.

The bank had two teller windows. One of them had a “See Other Window” sign. The other window had Clarissa McPhail, starting pitcher for the Keaton State Bank softball team.

“Why dintcha stick around after the game last night?”

I said, “Is Neal in today?”

“You took off because D.J. was hollering those things.”

“I'm hoping that Neal can help me figure out why my dad doesn't have any money.”

Clarissa leaned forward until her boobs pressed on the counter. I saw veins, looked away.

“I hear you're back for the long haul.”

“It's important.”

She said, “We should get together.”

“Bank manager, please.”

“Maybe this week.”

I said, “Give me fifty thousand dollars.”

“I'll come by your place when I have a chance.”

“I have a gun.”

She said, “You're silly.” Then she winked. She opened the gate and led me to the back, down the hall, past the safe and the computers, to Neal Koenig's office. She opened the door without knocking. More paneling. Another funny sign: “Will work for money.”

Neal was sitting at his desk, eating an apple. Neal graduated in the same class as my dad. Never missed a free throw. Owned a mint condition '62 Oldsmobile Delta 88. He took it to car shows and won lots of trophies, which were displayed in a case behind him. There was a die-cast model of the car on his desk. He was going bald but, because he was a bank manager, business protocol prevented him from wearing a farm cap to hide it.

He set his apple on his desk and said, “Mr. Williams. Have a seat.” He looked happy to see me.

Clarissa said, “Have fun,” and shut the door.

I sat in a wooden chair in front of Neal's desk.

“How's your dad?”

“He's taking a nap.”

“Some weather.”

I said, “Boy, is it.”

“Hotter than a two-dollar pistol.”

“I hope I'm not interrupting.”

“Just a snack.” He took another bite of his apple.

“Can you help me make sense of this stuff?” I placed a stack of papers on his desk. “Dad's finances are murked up. I don't know if it's because he lost some things or if it's because I'm stupid.”

“I'd have to question the intelligence of anyone who'd come to me for financial advice,” said Neal. Big grin.

I slid the papers toward him. “Take this, for instance.” I pointed to a recent bank statement. “He doesn't hardly have any money.”

“That's never a good thing.”

“Plus, I know for a fact that he put most of his land into CRP, but I can't find any proof that he's getting paid for it. I was hoping you could go thru some things. Dad always liked you.”

“I'll go thru it. Can't promise anything. I do know that he was working with the bank owner a while back. Some kind of a deal or arrangement-type thing. I'll see what I can come up with.”

I said, “I appreciate that.”

Neal said, “He comes down every Saturday. He'll be here tomorrow.”

“Who's that?”

“The owner. Mike Crutchfield. Flies down from Greeley every Saturday. He has a Cessna.”

“Really? Dad used to have a Cessna. Maybe we can talk planes.”

“You can definitely talk planes. That Cessna he flies used to belong to your daddy.”

“No kidding.”

“Yep. He got it as part of the deal they had.”

“That so?”

“Yep. Give a call tomorrow. You can talk to him all about it.”

Neal stood up and gave me a fatherly look, like all the kidding was aside. “Don't worry, Shakes. Everything's fine.”

He shook my hand.

When I got home, Dad was standing in the driveway looking at the sky.

I got out of the car. “Gonna rain?”

“Oh. I don't know.”

“Let's plant the garden in case it does.”

“Then for sure it won't.” He made a pretend jab at my chin.

The ground was soft and it was churned up real good from the rototiller. I hoed rows. I tried to get Dad to sprinkle seeds. He couldn't figure out whether to eat them or plant them so I took over. He sat under the locust tree and watched me work. I was putting cucumber seeds in a mound when he said, “There's a frog!”

He stood and, following his index finger, took a few steps, bent down, and picked up a toad. A hibernating toad that must have been woken up by the tiller. It wasn't happy. First sunlight in months.

“Must have overslept,” said Dad.

He played with the toad. I planted the garden.

Dad was looking to the southern sky. It was late afternoon. He said, “They're gonna kiss.” A cloud shaped like a fist bumped a cloud shaped like a dog head. It didn't rain.

I cooked hamburgers on the grill. We sat on the dirt under the locust tree, dripping ketchup on our jeans. Dad ate his bun, burger, bun.

I said, “Pa, did you sell your airplane to the guy who owns the bank?”

“Well.” He scratched his heel in the dirt. “I think I remember something about that.”

“I need you to dig deep. Tell me anything you can recall about that transaction.”

“About the airplane?”

“And the bank owner.”

“The airplane and the bank owner.” Dad poured a handful of sand on his knee. He closed his eyes. He opened his eyes. “The airplane. I sold it to the bank owner. Crutchfield.”

I felt like a hypnotist. “What else? Take yourself back.”

“Airplane. Bank owner. Airplane. Yep. He showed up one day in his cowboy hat. He made me an offer. It was a good offer.”

“How much?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“You mean twenty thousand.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty thousand?”

“What's it matter?”

“It matters.” I was pushing him. “Any idea where you'd put a receipt for something like that?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but he was a
banker
. Surely he gave you a receipt.”

“I'm sure he did.”

“So tell me, where would you put a receipt?”

“I don't know. You're the one who's interested in everything. You tell me.”

Don't let it get ugly. He's not trying to be a dick. He's just frustrated. “Maybe it's in your wallet. Let's see your wallet.”

Dad reached for his back pocket. No wallet.

The receipt, if there was one, probably wasn't in the wallet. But a man needs a wallet so finding it became our new priority. We swallowed our burgers and started looking. And we continued looking. We poked around the house and all his pants pockets and the shed and everywhere else, and after the sun went down, I found it sitting on the dashboard of Dad's pickup.

There was no receipt.