Yellowcake (37 page)

He doesn't blame her. Single woman. Raising a kid. His mother did what she had to do. Just like Alice. She didn't want him around the kid. She had her reasons. She did what she had to do, and he does what he has to do, and what he's got to do now? He pinches the hook. Got to get to work.

Got to get a permit. Ryland told him to be sure and get a permit if he's going to fish, because fines are sky high for what used to be free and was their goddamned legacy, fishing the Uncompahgre, the Animas, the Dolores ... Fished pretty near every damn river in Colorado before they were eighteen. This is the land of plenty. Used to be, they'd just put a string in the water and the fish would bite. Now you got to bait them, tailor-made bait for fish full of mercury or lead or what have you.

He needs to work. There will be elk hair. Crow feathers. Marmot. Screaming marmot. A lonely, eerie sound. Winter nights at Red Mountain he'd hear the marmot scream. Worst sound he ever heard. He pinches a hook. It pierces his thumb.

At Bear Creek Falls, above Ouray, he pulls over and gets out. He walks to the bridge overlooking the falls. Far below, white water froths, the racket of it as noisy as the mill when it got cooking. A frigid mist rises and feels good on his skin. He reads a sign that says it's a 250-foot drop. Not so far. For a fish. A long haul upstream, but what a ride down.

Due west, a shimmering halo, the sun's afterthought, caps the mountain. Nice. If she were here, she'd think so, too. But she's not. The problem with that woman—he sees this now—is that she spoiled solitude for him. Should've stayed with Lily. Being with Lily was like being alone, which was good. But then Alice came along. Made him feel human for a couple of months out of the year at least.

Never asked anything of her. Not really. Which now, it turns out, was too much, and that's a paradox, how too little can be too much. Just over the mountain due west there's a town called Paradox, right in the heart of uranium country. Ry and he used to poke around there.

Poor old Ry. "It's only going to get worse, pal."

"Pardon me?" A young man is standing nearby. Sam didn't notice him in the dark, but now he sees there are lots of people clustered around the overlook.

"Nothing," Sam says.

"Have a good night, then."

The road is crowded. A pickup pulls off behind his truck, the cab light coming on. Two men look at a map. A rifle hangs from a rack on the back window. It's October, elk season. Laughter wafts from the bushes below. It sets his teeth on edge. Tourists in this wild place.

He gets back in his truck and continues north, but now that he has felt the spray of water, he yearns for it. He starts looking for a place to pull off and camp. He passes the organized campgrounds, looking for someplace away from people. He finds a dirt road that threads through dense pine toward the river, then disintegrates. His headlights shine on a circle of stone, an abandoned campsite. He drives beyond it, into and over bushes—raspberry? huckleberry? A fruity smell. The bushes screech against his truck, clawing the underbelly. The truck finally refuses to go any farther.

He gets out on the passenger's side, which opens to a little clearing. He can hear cars passing on the road behind him, but he can't see headlights, so they can't see him, and this is good. The louder noise is in front of him, the clamoring river. He's been thinking of going for a swim. Used to be, when he was a younger man, he never passed a river without going in. At home he swims around the island, but ocean water is different, warm, the tidal pull both deeper and gentler.

He follows an animal trail down to the water's edge. Even in the dark, he can see rocks puncturing the foamy pools, dozens of rough hatchets in the water—a dry year, a very dry year, yes, he's surely seen this river higher. But the gorge is narrow, the water deep enough.

He begins to take his clothes off, the expensive boots, the stiff jeans, the dirty t-shirt, all of it stinking of days on the road. He balls the clothes up, tucking them under a bush and, naked, takes a step into water that burns, it is that cold. Jolts through him, sending electric shocks into his skull. But he numbs quickly and ignores the jagged stones piercing his feet. He wades toward the river's center. Water doesn't feel wet when it's this cold. It feels solid, painful, brutal, and it wakes him up, it creaturizes him.

If he were a younger man and had the energy he used to have, he'd swim upstream and let the current bring him back. He doesn't have that kind of energy anymore.

Anyway it's time to head south. Where he has friends. And a wife. Ha!

He stands in the middle of the river. It's no little effort staying upright here. The water spars with the middle of his back. For balance, he stretches his arms out to the sides, letting them float.

What amazing little creatures they are, the river fish that battle this strong current, tough little buggers, rainbows, browns.

He brings his hands down to his sides and, as he's done a million times before, he lets the river take him, torpedoing headfirst into white water, sluicing in and out of rock-lined channels, tucking himself in, hands gripping his thighs, legs straight, toes pointed, the back end of him a streamlined tail staying the course, following the current. Eyes open in the watery dark, mouth closed. It could never get any better than this.

Heading south. Through the Uncompahgre Gorge toward Bear Falls. In the middle of the San Juan Mountains, which long ago took his father and now are all mined out.

N
OVEMBER
1. This is the month of Fridays. Usually there are only four, but this month has five. It seems to Delmar that he should get one off, since there's an extra one, but no. There are no free Fridays until February.

The morning was good. He spent the early hours collecting the garbage. Mr. and Mrs. VD either got up very early, which is not like them at all, or they were up all night, because all the lights in the house were on, and Mr. VD came to the door, opened it, and shouted something at him when he backed the flatbed up to their cans. Delmar doesn't know what he shouted, though, because he was listening to his morning music, oldies today, the Stones.

He thought it was going to be a hungry day because he's completely out of supplies, but just as he was driving his load of garbage out to the dumpsters, he saw Angie walking in, her husband driving away. Angie brought her lunch today, green chili that she made herself, and when Delmar stopped to say hello, she pulled a little Tupperware dish out of the paper bag and gave it to him, saying she brought extra—for him.

He thinks he might have a chance with Angie. She's starting to get that look in her eye.

So he had the chili for lunch, the best he ever ate. At one-thirty he starts getting ready for his trip down to the flatlands. He's got to do his shopping before meeting with Officer Happy because the days are short, and he doesn't like riding his bike home in the dark. He's just putting on his empty backpack when his mom drives through the clearing.

"Hey," he says, walking over to her. She rolls the truck window down. "You back?"

"I'm back." He hugs her through the open window.

"How long you been back?"

"A few days. So this is where you work. Fancy."

"Yeah."

"Well, I guess it keeps you out of trouble."

He grins. There's a big paper bag on the seat next to her. "Did you bring me something?"

She smiles and hands him the bag through the window. In the bag: a boom box.

"Cool."

"I didn't know what you were listening to these days, but I thought we might go down to Hastings and get you some CDs."

"Great. But I've got my appointment today."

"I know. I thought I'd give you a ride. We can go shopping afterward, and then maybe a movie?"

"Cool. What's playing?"

"
Silence of the Lambs.
"

"That's been there a while."

"I guess it's popular."

"Seen it."

"Oh."

"It's good. I'll see it again."

"No, we can see something else." She hands him a newspaper section with movie listings. He scans it.

"How about
Beauty and the Beast?
"

"Isn't that a kids' movie?"

"I hear it's good."

"Let's go to the cheap one, then shopping, then Mexican food." She smiles at him. "We'll make a night of it."

"Well, we can't go to the cheap one because I won't be done until five."

"Oh? Did they change your appointment time?"

"No. I have to be there at three."

"Two hours at the parole office?" She pushes her sunglasses down on her nose, looking over the rims at him. "Why?"

"Because I turned into a pumpkin."

On the way down the mesa, he tells her about showing up almost an hour late for his appointment the day Uncle Woody died, and the only reason he's not in jail is that Becky went in with him and told Officer Happy what had happened. But as punishment, Officer Happy keeps him waiting for two hours now. He doesn't tell his mom everything, though, because she seems sad.

"I shouldn't have gone away. I didn't know Woody was that bad off. I thought he'd still be around when I came back. Grandma tells me he's at Desert View Cemetery. That's not what he wanted."

"
'Aoo'.
It's not a bad place, though."

"How do you know? Have you been there?"

"Sure." During his warrior days. It got to be a test of courage for Indians to go into the white cemetery, especially after they noticed a pattern; things started happening to the brothers who went there. Like Harry died right after he visited the cemetery. Delmar went to test his courage, and it was spooky. He could feel the dead crowding in. But he just talked to them, the way he talks to the ones on the mesa, and so far they've let him be. Maybe it's because he's a half-breed, he doesn't know. The dead pass through him.

"I heard your dad's in the area."

"He was. I don't know if he still is."

"Boy, I leave town and everything happens." She downshifts, slowing for the stop sign on Thirtieth Street. "How'd he seem?"

"I don't know. Not too good."

"That's what
Shimá
said." She turns right onto Thirtieth. She smiles, shaking her head. "Sam. I should've gone there this year. To Florida. But you were in jail, and
Shimá
needed help, and..."

"How come you stayed with him so long, Mom?"

She shrugs. "We have fun. He was always fun. Mostly. He's a free spirit. I always felt like we were kindred spirits. And he's your dad."

They pass the college, gleaming white buildings in the desert, and she turns onto Butler. Delmar has begun looking into night classes for the spring. It will be hard, though, riding his bike, especially if it snows. By February he should have his uncle's car running. Becky told him Uncle Woody wanted him to have the car. He's been hitching to his aunt's house on weekends and working on it.

"You're a little like him, Del. Your dad."

"I know. You told me."

"The best of him. There's a lot of good in him." Delmar shrugs. "Maybe we should go see him when your parole's up. You'd like his boat. You want to?"

"No."

She pulls to a stop at Twentieth and looks at him across the seat, and he looks at her. She nods and says she understands.

 

She drops him off at 2:55, saying she'll be back at 5:00. At exactly 3:00, he walks into Officer Happy's office and picks up the plastic cup on the edge of his desk. It has occurred to him that he could wait until, say, 4:30 to do his business, and then he wouldn't have to sit in the hall holding his piss for two hours, but he's pretty sure that would backfire. There's a small round mirror in the corner of the hall. Officer Happy's office window looks out onto the hall, and Delmar can see a miniature Xavier Happe in the mirror, and he knows Mr. Happy can see him. He's pretty sure the public display of his piss is part of his punishment.

It was embarrassing at first. It started the week after he turned into a pumpkin. He got the cup and pissed in it, but when he went back for his appointment, somebody else was in there, so he sat down to wait. But then the 3:30 appointment showed up, then the 4:00, and he finally figured out that he now has two appointments, the one at 3:00 when he picks up the cup and the one at 4:45 when he delivers it.

He doesn't mind so much now. It's amazing the things you can get used to.

There's a chunky secretary, Yolanda, who goes out for a smoke about every half hour. She says things to him coming and going, like how they'll probably fire her but she's got to have her smokes, and she's tried nicotine gum, nasty stuff. She has never said one word about the cup, which he appreciates. He likes politeness in people.

At exactly 4:45 Officer Happy calls his name. He puts the cup on the edge of the man's desk and wipes his fingers on his jeans. The cup is wet on the outside because it's filled to the brim and the paper lid doesn't fit so good. Some has leaked over the side.

"Just three months to go," Officer Happy says.

"Thirteen Fridays," Delmar says. "Twelve after today."

"Think you'll make it?"

"Hope so."

The officer nods at him. He's looking at the cup, which has made a little wet spot on his wooden desk.

"So what'd you do this week?"

"I got my application from the college. I've got to take an entrance exam. I'll ace it. I'm good at tests. They've got lots of forms. It'll probably take a month just to fill those out." He started on them last night, just answering the easy questions, like name, sex, age, ethnicity—they never have a category for his ethnicity so he always marks Other, which makes him feel like an alien from
Planet of Whispers,
which makes him feel good.

"If you need any help with them, Delmar, bring them in."

"Okay."

"Anything else?"

"Nope."

"All right, then. This time next week." Delmar gets up to go. "And Delmar?" the man says. "You don't have to fill that cup so full. A little sample will do."

"Oh, that's okay," Delmar says. He grins. "I am an excellent pisser."