Western Swing (34 page)

Maria lowered the gate so I could sit down to dry off and pull on Janey's lumberjack suit. My feet were a mess.

“I'm sorry I lost your boyfriend's jersey.”

“I'll get it back from Darlene.”

“Could you get back my nine hundred dollars?”

“E. T.'s money was in your pocket?”

“All except the hundred you and I snorted.”

“I doubt if you will see it again. Darlene's not too good with money.”

“Couldn't be worse than me.”

• • •

Nine or ten cowboys lounged around the front of the barn when Maria and I pulled up to the house. They pretended not to look at me while I pretended not to look at them. I don't know what they were hoping to see—tits or blood, I suppose. Nothing they hadn't seen before. Cowboys used to be one of the last groups of American males with breast obsessions, but now that every ranch in the West has a satellite dish, I imagine the era of going apeshit over an exposed nipple has vanished into history.

Maria led me, limping, up the stairs and into a guest room. The room was cheerful. A vase of lupines and Indian paintbrush sat on a nightstand next to a queen-size bed.

“You will be wanting another bath?” Maria asked.

“Maria, you're a godsend.”

“This one has no temperature control or whirlpool. Would you prefer using the tub in the master bedroom?”

“I prefer to hide here.”

Maria disappeared into the bathroom, so I sat on the edge of the bed and waited. The coverlet was an off-white fiberfill comforter with a ruffled thing around the sides. I couldn't help wonder who had chosen it. No one in the family was into ruffled sides. My mom would have loved it.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Maria reappeared in the doorway. “There's aspirin in the medicine cabinet and Grand Marnier under the sink. Do you think you'll be needing anything else?”

“Who decorated this room, Maria?”

She looked around at the pictures and paintings on the walls. “Darlene threw almost everything she owned out of her room three years ago. I saved the dresser, that chest, some of the pictures. Janey sticks old stuff in here sometimes. I guess no one decorated it.”

“Whose coverlet was this?”

Maria studied the bedspread. “Darlene's when she was young, I think.”

I felt the ruffles with my hand. “Was Darlene ever normal?”

“Not the five years since I've been here.”

As the tub filled, I wandered around, touching little empty jewelry boxes and poking into closets. A nice cedar chest sat at the end of the bed, but it was locked. I lifted one end for a weight check; the box was too light to hold much. I still wished I could find the key. On the left side of the dressing table mirror there was a Remington print of an Indian lying in the snow, spying on a covered wagon train. The frame was nice, teak or something.

On the right side there was a photograph of the Axel family in front of a large boat. E.T. and Darlene stood in front, holding a giant fish between them. E.T. had its head, Darlene its tail. I figured it was an ocean fish because of the wide fin. Thorne was behind Darlene with a hand on her shoulder, and Janey—I suppose it was Janey—hovered over the fish.

I lifted the photo off the wall. Judging from E.T. and Darlene, it looked like a scene from maybe ten years ago. E.T. was just as skinny as now, and had the same “What, me worry?” look in his eyes. His sweatshirt was aqua blue with a Miami Dolphins logo on it in white.

Darlene was the one I stared at the most. In the picture, she looked two or three years younger than E.T., although she doesn't anymore. She wasn't smiling—that would be asking too much—but she didn't seem terribly angry either. Like any twelve- or thirteen-year-old on vacation with her parents, Darlene appeared embarrassed and bored. Her facial color was pale, but nothing abnormal. It was considerably darker than the fish's belly. You couldn't say that nowadays.

Thorne stood smiling and patient, possibly even proud, although whether it was pride in family or pride in being able to supply the fishing trip, I couldn't tell. I wondered who took the picture. I imagined a guide.

Janey was almost as tall as Thorne, only huskier. I wouldn't call it fat—husky. Imagine Telly Savalas in a dark wig. That's unkind. Janey just looked like a ranchwoman who'd been expected to do a man's work all her life. Wyoming prides itself on being the first state of sexual equality. They have a saying: “Wyoming—where men are men and women are too.” Janey seemed to have gotten herself caught in the saying.

Before my bath, I washed down three aspirins with a Dixie cupful of Grand Marnier. Afterwards, I turned off the light and lay down on Darlene's old coverlet and fell asleep in Janey's clothes and E.T.'s sneakers.

• • •

People might wonder why I came out of the bath and completely redressed down to the skull-and-crossbones sneakers before I slid onto the coverlet for some rest. The truth is, all this losing clothes stuff was making me paranoid. I know it had only happened twice, and the day before I hadn't actually lost my clothes—I only destroyed an old shirt and stained a pair of Wranglers—but the whole thing had me spooked. It was not outside the realm of possibility that Darlene might smash through the door with a double-headed ax and come after me, and that's not the kind of scene I care to handle nude.

Several times in my life, I've had periods of not knowing the realm of possibility. I used to like it. With Mickey I never knew what the hell might happen. That first couple of weeks in Nashville I thought my potential for stardom had no limits. Fat chance.

However, the last few years I have observed in the world that your general ratio is eight bad surprises for each good one. Eight people get run over by trucks for every one who finds true love from an unexpected source. Therefore, I've decided uncontrollable news is bad and should be avoided. And if you sense the unavoidable coming, meet it with your shoes on.

This is a pretty lengthy justification for dressing after a bath, but one of Loren's prime symptoms of a man fucking up is that he wakes up with his shoes on, and I wanted to explain that this wasn't a case of fucking up. It was a case of being careful.

Turns out I was right, too, because about the time I dropped off, someone scratched at the door.

Another one of Loren's sayings is: Beware of people who scratch your door. God knows where he comes up with this stuff, but he's always right. A book of Loren's pithy axioms could get a person through most situations in life.

The scratch brought me wide awake. I lay there, wondering if it was someone at the door or rats in the walls. It came again, then the door cracked open an inch, E.T. slipped through, and the door shut again.

“Hsst.”

“Turn on the light, E.T.”

By the time my eyes adjusted, he was sitting next to me on the side of the bed. “Hi, Mama. You like my sneakers?”

I pulled myself up and sat with my back against the headboard. “They're fine. Thanks for the loan.”

“I heard you had another adventure.” He was dressed the same as that morning, only with a sleeveless, very faded jeans jacket over his T-shirt. When he leaned forward, I could see an embroidered Grateful Dead album cover on his back. Behind his horn-rims, his blinking had taken on a gentle up-and-down sagging motion, like waves washing onto a Gulf Coast beach.

“Have you seen Darlene? I need to talk to her about nine hundred dollars.”

“Darlene has your money?”

“I want it back.”

“Then you can't pay for any more toot with money?”

“I came down, E.T. I don't want more toot.”

He pulled the coke from his jacket pocket and snorted right in front of me. The bag was considerably lighter than it had been at seven-thirty that morning, which meant E.T. either sold a lot or did a lot or both. He plugged one nostril with an index finger and sniffed. A speck of white powder perched on the end of his nose.

“Once Darlene gets hold of money, it's gone. I never have figured out what she does with it since she never leaves the house. Until today. I think it's a good sign that she went outside in the daylight, don't you?”

“She went outside to break my neck.”

“She's got to start somewhere.” He held out a heaping coke spoon of the powder. “Want some fun?”

“What's it cost?”

He grinned, showing teeth. “We'll work something out.”

The only reason I even wavered is because it's hard to turn down something that a lot people are desperate to have. I didn't want the crap. Effects from this morning's buzz were all gone except a vague pain in my spine, and that was nothing compared to the real pain in my hip. Had E.T. been offering some kind of prescription painkiller, I might have gone with temptation, but the sight of cocaine crystals just made me nauseous.

“I can turn your brain to happy gas.” E.T. said.

“I don't want gas for a brain. What I'd really like is to rest awhile.”

E.T. was shocked. “No toot?”

“Sleep.”

He grinned. “How about my shoes?”

I looked down at the yellow sneakers. “They're awfully wide. You must be quite a swimmer.”

“You want to buy my Dead tennies?”

“No, I don't want to buy your Dead tennies.”

He reached for my feet. “Then give them back.”

I swatted his hands away. “When you get my sandals from Darlene, I'll return your tennis shoes.”

“I want them now.”

“You can't have them now.”

E.T. sat back and did another snort. At this rate he was sure to have a heart attack by midnight and it would be my fault. I could just see Thorne's face when I told him I killed his kid.

E.T. seemed to be hyperventilating. He wheezed, “You're stealing my sneakers.”

“How can I buy them? You know Darlene took my money. You don't accept Visa, do you? There's a Visa card in the Toyota.”

E.T. pouted. “That's my only pair of yellow sneakers.”

“I'd like to help, but you're not touching these shoes.”

I knew damn well what was coming. The boy was unrealistic. He gave me that dumb grin again. “Maybe we could work something out.”

“You want to trade dirty old tennis shoes for sexual favors?”

He shrugged. “They aren't so dirty.”

“Leave or I break your glasses.”

“Mama—”

“I'll dump your coke out the window.”

“That's going too far.”

I stared into his dull, blinking eyes. “You know I can do it, E.T. I am no longer putting up with colorful behavior.”

“We could do a toot and laugh about the day. I'll give you a free snort.”

“Out.”

After he left, I got up to turn off the light and look at the Red Desert stretching away in the moonlight. Shadows moved behind the curtains in the bunkhouse windows. A couple of horses trotted around the perimeter of a corral. A soundless jet crossed the sky like an east-moving star. I've never had the temperament for standing in dark rooms, staring moodily out at the view, but this time it was kind of nice.

I remembered when I was nine or ten years old and Daddy made us turn off Jack Benny to go stand in the backyard and look at the first Sputnik. We craned our necks while he pointed and pointed and Mom kept saying, “They all look the same to me,” until I finally figured out which star was moving through the others. There must have been thousands of satellites cross the night sky since then, but I haven't seen any except the first.

My peaceful time-out lasted maybe eight seconds before the doorknob rattled and the hinges squeaked. I blew up. “
No toot, no sex for sneakers. No nothing. Now leave me alone.”

“Sneakers for sex?” It was Thorne's voice.

“I thought you were someone else.”

“If it's one of my children, I don't want to hear about it.”

That was fine by me because I didn't want to talk about it. We stood in the soft darkness for a few moments, watching each other. I wondered what the repercussions of saying, “I love you,” would be. Would he run away or latch on? Or neither. Maybe he wouldn't expect anything or be afraid of anything. That was doubtful—men who can accept love are rarer than hare-lipped cover girls.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Thorne said. He held out a white pizza box.

“What time is it?”

“Nine, maybe nine-thirty. Why?”

“Don't turn on the light. I've had all the glare I can handle for one day.”

His dark form moved across the room and set the box on the bed. “I was driving around and got hungry. Thought you might like some pizza.”

I crossed to the bathroom and reached in to flip on the light-switch. With the door open a few inches, it gave the bedroom a relaxed, easy glow.

“You bought a pizza?”

“Hamburger and onion.”

“How'd you find a pizza parlor in the desert?”

Thorne kind of chuckled. “There's a Shakey's in town—Rock Springs. After I left you I drove around all afternoon and ended up there.”

“That's forty miles.”

“More like two hundred the way I went.” He took a bite. “It's still warm. I came the direct way back.”

Pizza smelled good. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't cold yet either. “You've taken off your bandages,” I said.

“Got in the way of driving.”

“Let me see.” The cut ran sideways, drawn together by long, black stitches. “Does it hurt anymore?”

“Some.”

We ate the pizza in silence, both of us staring at the closed window. Afterwards, Thorne set the box with some crusts on the floor and we held hands awhile. I started to talk about Jackson Hole and my cabin, but that kind of petered out when it led to Loren.

Thorne told me about a pet pig he'd raised as a boy. He'd named it Teddy after Teddy Roosevelt. It was one of those “only thing I ever really loved” stories, the kind that ends with the pet winning a blue ribbon at the county fair and finding itself auctioned off to the slaughterhouse. The moral being: You only kill the ones you love. It was a sad story to hear coming from a sixty-something-year-old man. Thorne still grieved.