Savage Season Page 6

  “Shut up,” Trudy said. “You’re drunk.”

  “Only had a beer,” he said.

  “The smell of rubbing alcohol makes you silly,” she said.

  “Look, Howard,” I said, “I’m not trying to cause any trouble here. You think maybe I’m trying to take Trudy—”

  “She’s her own person,” Howard said.

  “Yeah, but you don’t like the fact that I’ve been fucking her again, do you?”

  “Hap,” Trudy said. “Don’t.”

  “You know I have,” I said. “You think she came over to my place and merely talked some business? We banged each other till our eyes bugged out.”

  “Like Howard said, Hap, he doesn’t own me. And neither do you.”

  “And I’m damn proud of it,” I said.

  What Howard thought he knew, he was now certain he knew. In theory it was okay, but in actuality it got under his skin like a chigger.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Howard said, but his voice lacked conviction. “She’s a grown woman. I’ve got no strings on her.”

  “But she’s got them on you,” I said. “And I should know. They used to go all the way through me and fasten to the bones. I got maybe a few still tied in me. Enough that I’m acting horsey here when I shouldn’t, and it’s making you do the same.”

  “I’m saying you’re not coming in here and changing what we believe, what we’re going to do. That’s all. I’m not saying anything about me and Trudy or you and Trudy.”

  “I think you’re saying plenty about just that. You open your mouth and your heart and dick talk over you. Like I said, I’m one to know.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Howard said. “You and that other guy, you think you know all there is to know, but you don’t know a thing.”

  “Let’s leave it,” I said. “I don’t want to hear any more. So it isn’t the whales. Do what you got to do for people and animals and nuclear disarmament, and give my regards to the boys in Leavenworth.”

  “To hell with you, pilgrim,” Howard said. He moved around the coffee table, staggered slightly. That bit of alcohol really had got to him. Or maybe it was the capper to some he drank earlier. Had I been in his place, knowing Trudy was supposed to be with me but was off with one of her ex-husbands for a few days, I’d have been drinking too. At one point I had.

  He came around the coffee table and put his hand out and pushed me hard in the chest, but made the mistake of not pulling back fast enough, and I put my hand over the back of his, trapped it to my chest and bent forward. It sent Howard to his knees. It was a playground trick, but heck, he started it.

  “Stop it, Hap,” Trudy said. “Let him go.”

  I let him go. Trudy bent down and put an arm around him and tried to hoist him up. He shrugged her off, got up on his own.

  He pointed a finger at me, but he wasn’t standing as close as before. “Try that when I haven’t been drinking.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Hell, listen to me,” he said. “I’m playing your macho game now. I’m not getting pulled into this. I’m gonna lie down. I’ve had all this foolishness I want.”

  Without wobbling too much, he went through the hallway door and out of sight. Maybe he and Chub had their own special place to sulk back there. Some old sixties records to play.

  “Happy?” Trudy said.

  “Semi.”

  10

  I awoke to the sound of a bird and the embrace of the cold. The voice of the bird was pathetic, and the cold was criminal.

  I was on the back porch of the little house, and it had once been screened in, and in a sense still was, but to make it a kind of room, cardboard had been tacked all around on the screen in a couple of layers. It might have worked okay summers, but winters, especially this winter, it wasn’t much.

  I wondered whose idea it was to fix the porch this way. The landlord or the renters? I voted on the renters. A landlord who’d let people live in this shit box didn’t strike me as the type to bother with even cardboard siding.

  Originally Leonard and I had been in the kitchen, sleeping on the floor. The cookstove, with the oven door open, heated up the small room perfectly. But I awoke in the middle of the night bathed in sweat, finding it hard to breathe. I opened the door that lead out to the back porch, and that helped some, but the air in the kitchen was still poisonous with butane. I toed Leonard awake and told him I was going out on the porch, and if he didn’t want to spend tomorrow in Marvel Creek Funeral Home, he might want to do the same.

  Now I was lying under some ice-crusted blankets, inside an old sleeping bag. The bag was on top of some broken down cardboard boxes (probably the remains of the interior decorating scheme) and the seams on the cardboard had worked through the bag and into my back. I was still in my clothes. My socks felt damp from yesterday’s sweat. My body felt stiff as wire.

  I rolled over, and sitting in the kitchen doorway with a blanket over his shoulders, shivering, looking at me in what can only be called an unpleasant manner, was Leonard. His breath was snorting out of his mouth and nostrils in white puffs and his eyes were narrow.

  He said, “I’ve let you talk me into some shit before, Hap, but this one is the king of all the dumb things. These fuckers are seriously balled up. Ought to have my ass kicked, and be proud of it.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Chub is really in orbit, and Howard is so full of what Trudy’s filled him with, he doesn’t know if he needs to shit or throw up.”

  “Don’t you have something unpleasant to say about Paco? You wouldn’t want to leave anybody out.”

  “He confuses me. He doesn’t seem like part of this. He’s got his feet on the ground.”

  “You’re just sweet on him because he went out on the porch and had a smoke with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “They’re kind of silly, Leonard, but they’ve got good intentions. Without people like these sillies, blacks would still be drinking at water fountains that said colored and they’d be going around back of a restaurant to get their food through a little slot.”

  “Now you’re talking like the fat guy.”

  “He’s a clown, but his heart’s in the right place.”

  “Tell me about women’s rights now. Toss in something about how the gays used to be more oppressed before people like these, people like you, came along. Tell me how you people ended the war.”

  “All true.”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you go for what they wanted you to go for yesterday? They were fishing with every kind of bait they had.”

  “I guess it’s their posture. That holier than thou attitude that smacks more of a performance than anything else.”

  “I thought you said it was heartfelt.”

  I hate being caught in a contradiction. “Have you ever thought about fucking yourself, Leonard?”

  “Constantly. Want to have a relationship with a good man, figure I’d be prime pick. But my dick’s about a half-inch too short to get the job done. I like to feel it all the way up in my liver.”

  “You through jacking with me now?”

  “Almost. All I got to say is you can’t be a professional bleeding heart. Yeah, things are better for blacks and women and gays, but it was the blacks and women and gays that did it, not fuck-ups like this bunch. Whites and straights came along to give help, all right, after the blacks said ‘enough’ and got their heads busted, and it’s the same for the gays and the women. The whites and straights, they control things, and they could have changed it anytime.”

  “Not all us whites and straights are in a position of power, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “Let’s save this for next time we’re on Meet The Nation or something.”

  “Gladly. I’m too cold to argue, and if I got up from here to kick your ass my foot would break off.”

  “Or I’d break it off for you. Now that’s settled, let’s get out of here before the World Savers get up.”

  Leonard looked a
t his watch. “It’s six o’clock and I’m hungry. Paco said there’s a pretty good place for breakfast in town.”

  “Maybe they got something here we could fix.”

  “Nothing in the fridge but a bag of uncooked spaghetti and three beers. Cabinets are mostly empty, except for some roaches.”

  We left without disturbing anyone, went out to Leonard’s car, and it cranked after a scary moment of the starter Bendix clicking. As we drove away, I thought of Trudy and Howard in bed together and felt like Howard must have felt when she was with me.

  Depressed.

  I thought of them lying there, her waking up, giving herself to him before she got cleaned up and went off to work (wherever she worked) and he went to his job (if he had one). Then I imagined them coming home from a hard day, planning to steal money that was already stolen to use for some noble cause. Ozzie and Harriet of the sixties set.

  I liked it. It was sweet. They were a great couple with high ideals.

  I hoped it was so cold back there her vagina was frozen shut. Sue me. I’ve got a juvenile streak.

  11

  We drove in and found a little café called Bill’s Kettle, the place Paco recommended. It hadn’t been there when I was growing up. Back then that spot had been a magazine and cigar store. The lady who ran it used to let me read comics off the rack and not buy them. I was the only one she let do that.

  The building the café was in, though it had to be considerably younger than the one the magazine store had occupied, looked much older. It appeared to be held up with nothing more than the smoke and grease from the kitchen. The huge plate glass was so grimy you could hardly see movement behind it. Someone had made an attempt to wipe it clean on the outside but hadn’t bothered rinsing the soap; it looked like the end result of a Halloween prank.

  The inside looked no better. The floors were scuffed and dirty and tables had been poorly wiped. There were two men at one table eating. They eyed us and nodded as we came in. In the back a young man sat staring into space, sipping coffee. There was a fat blond woman in thinning green stretch pants at the counter. She gave us a quick glance and went back to her coffee and cigarette, said something to the thin, oily-headed man behind the counter. He managed a laugh, like a leukemia patient trying to be cheery.

  We sat and kept our arms off the table. The fat blond woman got down off the stool and came over with menus. Pretty sneaky, the help blending in with the clientele that way.

  We ordered, and about the time our meal arrived, Paco came in. He had on faded khakis and a blue baseball cap today. The cap hid some of the ugliness of his head. No one stared; they all worked at not doing that, and you could tell.

  He saw us, smiled, and the smile was nice; the only part of him that wasn’t ruined.

  He came over and Leonard made room and Paco sat down beside him. We went through the casual greeting bullshit you go through, and the waitress shrugged off the stool and came over with her cigarette in her mouth and asked around it for Paco’s order, then went away.

  “She didn’t even bother with a menu,” Leonard said.

  “I always get the same thing,” Paco said. “Pancakes. Her asking me is simply a ritual.”

  Surprise. The food was great. I was wiping up the last of my eggs with a piece of toast when Paco smiled at me and said, “Place looks like a toilet, but what comes out of the kitchen could pass for ambrosia. They got someone back there knows what cooking is all about.”

  When Paco’s order came and he finished eating, I said, “How do you live, you and the guys? Trudy the only one working?”

  “I don’t get too many indoor jobs with this face,” Paco said. “Nobody in a store wants to look at me all day. I do some jobs here and there. Move across country doing different things, farm and yard work mostly. Sometimes things that aren’t legal or aren’t quite legal. Right now, you could say I’m between jobs.

  “Trudy works at the Dairy Palace east of town. She doles out hamburgers. I’ll tell you now. Don’t eat there. The food’s for shit.

  “Howard’s got a job at a gas station. Pumps gas, changes tires, fixes flats, runs the wrecker service. He’s getting in good with the owner so he can get use of the wrecker. Told the guy that way his wife—Trudy’s going as his wife—won’t have to pick him up. He thinks they’re gonna let him have the wrecker soon and we can use it to pull the boat out some afternoon.”

  “If there is a boat,” Leonard said.

  “I don’t let myself think any other way,” Paco said. “There’s a boat.”

  “You got Trudy’s kind of dedication,” I said.

  “I don’t know she’s so dedicated,” Paco said. “She wants to be, but I don’t know she is. I don’t know her like Howard knows her, or maybe you know her, but I know her type. I’ve heard her talk about you two, and I’ve heard Howard talk, and I see how burned out you are, Hap, and I got to draw some conclusions. I think she’s a quitter. She likes to get all the sticks and tinder for the fire, likes to light it, but doesn’t want to be there when it starts to smoke too much and get too hot. By then, she’s out of there, gathering new sticks, starting new fires, then she’s away from that one before it gets going good. Leaves someone else to mind the blaze, lets them take the heat and smoke and get all burned up. She’s got a knack for picking guys who’ll martyr for her, ones who think she’s gonna come back and burn up with them.”

  “I been trying to tell this clown that for years,” Leonard said. “I know a goddamn succubus when I see one.”

  “What about you, Paco?” I asked. “What’s your story? You just dedicated to their cause, or what?”

  “Me, I’m not dedicated at all. Except to myself. I’m just looking to score as big as I can.”

  “I hear that,” Leonard said. “But what are you doing with these bozos?”

  “I’m a bozo too. Or have been. I’m just not dedicated anymore. I’m like a big truck with momentum and no brakes, the gearshift knob off in my hand, going downhill on a narrow grade. I want to stop but can’t. I got to ride things out. Either I go over the side or make it to the bottom of the grade and coast out smooth and easy, hope I don’t wreck.”

  “Chub?” I asked.

  “He was born with money. He hung around with ill-contents. It gave him a club. He’s still eighteen or twenty in his head. Never really gets up against the hub, just likes to think he does. Always been a weekend rebel, but he’s gone and got married to getting this money. He wants to use it to fight some injustice. Anyway, folks back home in Houston disowned him, but not before they gave him a bundle they thought he’d use on becoming a doctor. Over the years, he’s spent most of it on good causes, got some in the bank here to live on. He’s got degrees aplenty. Knows medicine, even though he never became a doctor. Wouldn’t go the final business because he thought that was becoming part of the establishment. He’s got idealism like nerds got religion or Star Trek.”

  “I still don’t have you figured in all this,” I said.

  “Maybe when I see that money I won’t do what they think. But I don’t see any cause to rock the boat until we got the boat. We work together, we might can bring that money up. They think I got other plans, they might fade on me. It’s not like I can go to the police and complain I been welched on. Besides, if I could, I wouldn’t. I got some problems there already.”

  “Suppose you’re going to tell us about it?” Leonard said.

  “We’re gonna break the law together, so why not?” Paco got out a cigarette and lighter and lit up. He looked around. The fat blond waitress was gone from the counter—somewhere in the back, most likely. The fella behind the cash register was leaning on it, looking out that grimy glass. We were the only customers left in the place.

  Paco said, “I got a record. It’s the sixties’ fault. Well, my fault and the sixties with it, but it’s no fun blaming yourself even if you think you’re guilty. So I’m gonna say it’s the sixties fault and you can know better if you want.

  “But when it was ’68 I g
raduated and went off to the University of Texas, and things were heated up good, what with the war and all. Back then I had a face. I wasn’t a Greek god or nothing, but I wasn’t so bad. Now I scare crows at a hundred yards. But the face was all right, and I guess I was all right too. Full of lies about life and all, like we all are then. But I started figuring out some things. Come to the conclusion what we been told about things, about life, is just talk. You act a certain way to gain a certain thing, and that’s all there is to it. I know that now, but then, I was full of love and peace and end the war, civil rights and women’s rights. Thought I could make everyone look at these things and see that’s the way it ought to be, that it would hit them like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

  “I got a feeling you know what I’m saying, Hap, I know a disfranchised sixties guy when I see one.”

  “You pegged him right,” Leonard said.

  “Silence in the gallery,” I said.

  “So, anyway, I’m off to college, and I’m Mr. Big Shot. I’m gonna do some things. I know how the world works and I’m gonna rip off the lid and let everyone look inside and see the gears, and once they do, it’s all gonna go smooth. We’ll put a little oil in there, but once the machinery of a thing is understood, there goes the mystery. Everyone can live together and love one another, no sweat.

  “But when I finally got the lid off, looked down there, I saw the machinery was a lot more complex than I originally thought. You couldn’t glance at it and see how it worked. I had to go down in the machine and study it, become a mechanic. Change some things around so it was simple. I figured I could do that. Figured when I came up out of the machine, it would be smooth and well oiled and would run the way it was supposed to. Without prejudice and wars and sexism. People would be kind to animals, loan their tools, and locks would come off doors.”

  I nodded. “Peace, brother.”

  “You got it. So I decided to team up with these other mechanics. People who had the right ideas, you know, wanted to get down in that machinery with me, do some work. This machinery analogy was theirs, and they started calling themselves the Mechanics. You don’t hear much about them some reason or another, but they were active as ants.”