Desert Discord

by Henry D. Terrell

  “I’m sorry I let him into our house,” Ramona said at last. “You’d think I’d be smarter than that. I never suspected.”

  “Yep,” said Apollo. He took another gulp. “But … I can’t point fingers, I suppose. I’m not famous for my judgment either.”

  Again, they sat quietly.

  “Apollo, I have to ask you,” said Ramona. “You’re … you’re not planning to kill yourself, are you?”

  Apollo gave a little snort that was almost a laugh.

  “No. I’m not going to kill myself. Where did that come from?”

  “A friend of Saskia’s—one of your students—called and said she’d seen a painting you had done that upset her. Something about you with a rope around your neck.” Apollo chuckled. “Oh, yes. I thought that one might disturb some people. I’ve tried to keep it out of sight. It’s my … last painting. Or at least the last one I plan on doing for the foreseeable future. It ended up a little grimmer than I intended. It’s not about my death. It’s about the death of me as an artist.”

  “You don’t want to be an artist anymore?”

  “I haven’t been an artist in a long time. It’s not just that I’ve lost interest. It’s that I can’t make myself believe that it matters—that it makes the slightest difference. The only time I find myself getting interested—excited, even—is when I see something powerful that a student has made, something that shows great promise. That’s something I can sink my teeth into, and then I feel like maybe being an art teacher is worthwhile. But then … I just feel guilty, because I think that maybe I’m just the worst kind of liar. I’m the guy telling them to master skills, develop disciplined habits, and work harder … knowing full well that when they get to the top of the hill, there will be a sign stuck in the ground that just says ‘Ha-ha! You’re a fool. Now go get a job.’ The joke will be on them. Once I found myself telling a classroom full of freshmen that if they really wanted to be artists, they should learn to be dope peddlers. I was kidding, but you should have seen the looks on their faces.”

  Ramona put her hand over his. “I do know what you mean,” she said. “I feel that way more often than you might think. It happens every time a play is over and I’m overseeing the strike. I think, ‘Okay, what was that about?’”

  Apollo looked at her earnestly. “All right, then. What is it about?”

  “You and I are a lot alike,” said Ramona. “In the end, we’re not doctors, scientists, or philosophers, or even short-order cooks. We don’t build anything.”

  “But then … what are we?”

  “We’re entertainers. We have the gift of taking people outside themselves and making their lives a little less dreary. Everybody’s contribution is temporary. Even when Michelangelo carved his David, he was still just being an entertainer. Someday it will just be marble dust. Even the most beautiful sand castle is still just a sand castle. What we do is the most temporary of all. A lot of the time, it’s frustrating and difficult. But sometimes, that’s what makes it fun.”

  Apollo smiled softly. “I never expected my painting to matter, and I didn’t expect it to endure. Honestly, all I wanted was to be badly misunderstood in a future art textbook.”

  Ramona laughed out loud. She got up and drew another cup of coffee. When she returned, she kissed Apollo on the bald spot in the middle of his chaos of white hair. “What are you going to do, my prince? I don’t make enough to support this mess by myself.”

  “I don’t know, dearest,” said Apollo. “But for some reason, whatever it is, I am really looking forward to doing it.”

  Andy’s personal music, which had saved him when his mind was alone and lost, had served its purpose and was fading away. The more he played his Dodge violin, rediscovering and remastering the skills he had known, and the more he composed his own music, the quieter and less frequent were the unbidden musical episodes. It might be a long time until he became what he was before the brain injury—perhaps he would never be that person again, entirely. But for the most part, he was back to being Andy Zamara, orchestra nerd.

  But the face still came to him every night. It had come so often and so vividly that he knew every hair and flaw. The scene repeated over and over. It no longer terrified him, but it still left him disturbed and exhausted.

  This night was strangely different, however. He was so tired and wound up, he managed only an hour of scattered sleep, rolling and tossing in his double bed. The face came again, but this time the roles were strangely reversed. He was standing over the young man, who lay helpless on the ground. The face was not one of hate, but of fear and panic. Andy looked down at his own feet, and he wore unfamiliar pointy-toed boots. And he suddenly realized this was his chance to even the score, to kick and stomp his assailant who lay there, futilely trying to protect his own head with one broken arm. Would he do it? It was his decision, but it had to be made.

  Loud knocking woke him. He looked at his alarm clock—7:40 a.m. Geez. The knocking came again, louder. The dog started barking furiously. Andy rose and peeked out the window. Four black-and-white police cars and one unmarked Ford sedan.

  Well, they’re here. They didn’t waste any time.

  Andy pulled on his trousers and headed for the front door as another loud knock shook the house. Leary howled and bounded back and forth.

  “POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!”

  Andy shouted, “Give me a second to tie up the dog!” The last thing he needed was Leary attacking a cop. He took the ten-foot rope that sat by the door for that purpose and tied it around Leary’s collar, then led him into the dining room, where he secured the other end to one leg of the large table. That would have to do for the moment. He hoped they wouldn’t shoot Leary.

  The knock came again. “OPEN UP!”

  Andy unlocked the front door and swung it open. There were five cops, including Sergeant Pence.

  “Yes?” said Andy.

  “We have a warrant to search the house and all adjoining buildings,” Pence said. The police swarmed in.

  In the kitchen, Leary was going berserk. Douglas, in his boxer shorts, came out of his room rubbing his eyes. He’d had very little sleep too.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “You sit down,” Pence ordered Douglas, then he addressed Andy. “Take the dog and tie him outside.”

  Andy struggled with the uncooperative Leary, but managed to get him outside and pull him to the back of the backyard, where he tied the rope to the post of a derelict clothesline. Leary would still bark, but at least he wouldn’t drive everyone crazy and maybe get himself killed.

  Andy went back inside the house and sat with Douglas on the couch.

  “Is Reed Polk still in the hospital?” asked the sergeant.

  “Yes,” said Douglas. “He’s supposed to get out today.”

  The tossing of the house went quickly and messily. Drawers were opened and contents dumped. Chairs were upended and couch cushions prodded. A cop came in and spoke quietly to Pence.

  “Unlock the greenhouse,” said the sergeant, “or they’ll crowbar the door.”

  Both Andy and Douglas stood up.

  “Just one of you will do.”

  Andy got the key where it hung by a shoelace behind the kitchen door. The gravel on the ground around the greenhouse hurt his bare feet. He stepped gingerly over to the door, inserted the key into the heavy padlock, and opened it.

  “Please be careful and don’t hurt these plants,” he said. “They’re valuable, and we’ve worked really hard getting them to bloom correctly.”

  Sergeant Pence and three uniformed cops walked into the greenhouse and looked around. Inside were thirty full, leafy plants with green tops and red leaves starting to sprout at the bottom.

  “What are these?” a cop asked.

  “Poinsettias, obviously,” said Andy. “Euphorbia pulcherrima. They’re native to southern Mexico, so they need a lot of TLC in this climate to keep them from drying out.”

  “You’re telling me you guys have been growing
Christmas plants,” said Pence.

  “Well, more Douglas than me,” said Andy. “I’ve helped when I could.”

  Andy walked back in the house and plopped on the couch beside Douglas, who said quietly, under his breath, “I sure hope we got it swept up. If they find just a couple of leaves on the floor, we’re screwed.”

  “I think it’s okay,” whispered Andy. He yawned. He couldn’t help it. It had been a very long night.

  They had picked up Pug’s ’67 Ford two-ton dry cargo truck after midnight, driven out to the Zamara house, woken Peggy, and hastily explained their predicament. Andy’s mom had not been pleased about giving up thirty of her plants, which were just starting to respond to the periods of artificial darkness, but she understood. They got the plants out to Jupiter Lane at two thirty in the morning, unloaded the poinsettias, and then packed the truck with the lush female Cannabis indica. They wouldn’t all fit in the back, so they had put two of them in the cab on the front seat, turning the space into a crowded rain forest. That was the worst time, driving across west Duro at three in the morning with conspicuous foliage visible through the windshield. But they made it undetected.

  The truck was swept clean and returned to Pug by four o’clock a.m. By five thirty the greenhouse was swept out and restocked with legal commercial plant life.

  Now Andy and Douglas sat on the couch, waiting out the raid.

  “I hope I never have to do that again,” whispered Andy.

  “I don’t think I was meant to be a farmer,” muttered Douglas. “Too much work.”

  They waited. After a while, the police suspended the search and milled about, awaiting further instructions. The place was a hopeless wreck.

  Andy turned to say something to Douglas, but his old Little League pal was sound asleep on the couch, head back, mouth open, making burbling noises as he breathed.

  – 53 –

  Two Encores

  The spectacular high-speed chase and shoot-out on Duro’s west side made the pages of regional newspapers for a couple of weeks as the story of a drug ring, double kidnapping, and the murder of a local businessman came to light. Lawrence “Tank” Taggart was the only surviving suspect, and the prosecutors had a wealth of choices, but in the end, they went with aggravated kidnapping for his role in the abduction of Pinky Kaufman’s grandson and girlfriend. Taggart’s involvement in the other deeds was more difficult to prove. He was looking at twenty years, but his lawyer was pursuing a plea deal.

  The district attorney’s office elected not to bring assault and robbery charges against Chris Rhodes and Joe Gittelman. An alias warrant was issued for Del Ray Dustin, but since it was low priority, the warrant was not likely to be seen outside Ferris County. A private settlement was made between Simon Frost and the Rhodes and Gittelman families to cover the cost of his oboe, plus an undisclosed sum. Everyone assumed that the Zamaras would bring a lawsuit at some point, but they never did.

  Simon Frost was promoted to associate accounts manager at Golden Bank & Trust of Duro, an unglamorous position that he quickly discovered involved twice the work for a ten percent raise. His wife Anita thought she was pregnant in mid-September, but it was another false alarm.

  Timothy Kaufman attended exactly one board meeting at Daisy Kay Workover & Drilling Co., then decided he’d rather spend his time mastering the art of recreational boating. He called Pinky regularly and made time for Sunday dinner with his grandpops a couple of times a month. Timothy also developed a fondness for golf. He had stared into the face of death and was determined not to let life pass him by. He called his old girlfriend Erycca just once, ostensibly to ask how she was doing, but really to let her know, gently, that it was over between them. She was cool with that. A little too cool, maybe, which annoyed him.

  At the end of September, the Cactus Flower Theater hosted a one-week run of Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama starring Shelley Winters as the sex-obsessed outlaw Ma Barker (and an unknown young actor named Robert De Niro as her drug-addicted son). The film ratings board recommended an R rating, but somebody at the city attorney’s office called Arnold Ziegler and strongly suggested he rate the film X. Arnold flatly refused, and the stage was set for a showdown. The film opened, but there were no consequences for the theater owner’s defiance. The film had everything Arnold was looking for—crime, violence, drugs, unpunished bisexuality. Unfortunately, Bloody Mama was no Midnight Cowboy, and the Cactus lost money. However, assistant manager Saskia Piedman’s passionate defense of the First Amendment and artistic freedom was so articulate and quotable that her words appeared prominently in the only story the American-Post ran about the controversy.

  Douglas Fairchild put the Jupiter property up for sale. There were only a few nibbles from prospective buyers, but Douglas was willing to be patient. He faced the future with optimism and a precious 4-F draft classification. The military doctor had noted in his report that “Mr. Fairchild suffers from severe dermatitis of the buttocks and natal cleft that would probably render him unsuitable for military service.”

  In October, Oscar’s Wallpaper premiered at the Playhouse. Some local reviews were generous, but others noted that the play was pedantic, wordy, and confusing. However, an out-of-town actor named Howard Plessy was so convincing in the role of Oscar Wilde that the play’s other flaws were overlooked. Sterling Ross, as Wilde’s unsupportive father, was generally well-regarded.

  On November 7, the Duro Symphony Orchestra opened its 1970–71 season with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, featuring a special surprise guest soloist. Despite the attempts at secrecy, word got out, and when Andrew Zamara walked out onto the stage, the audience roared with applause and gave him a standing ovation.

  The conductor invited him to the podium to say a few words, so he did. Very few.

  “Thank you, everyone. Thanks especially to Dr. Dietz and Mrs. Kellogg. Luckily for everyone … speeches are not my forte.” Andy looked around. He knew his mother and father and brothers and sister were down there, somewhere in the first two rows, but he couldn’t see them. He had heard that Punchy was wearing a tie for the first time since Confirmation. Andy started to speak again, then stopped. He truly had nothing to say that wouldn’t sound much better on a violin.

  “Let us begin,” he said.

  Andy stood at the front of the stage, tossed his hair back, and played the Dodge violin, surprising everyone with his power and volume, as well as his deeply expressive control and dynamics. His bowing was perfect, despite a nontraditional way of holding it. When he had finished his solo in the first movement and resumed his place at second chair, second violin, the applause continued unabated, until Dorothy Kellogg took him by the hand and led him back to center stage for further bows.

  At the end of the performance that night, Peter Mathern teased Mrs. Kellogg playfully.

  “I couldn’t take my eyes off the way he held his bow!” he said. “My heavens! He held it like a baby holds a spoon. Dorothy, is that what you’re teaching your students these days? Is this the new Kellogg method?” He chuckled at his own cleverness.

  “Oh, Peter,” she said. “You should try listening more. The way that young man plays, I wouldn’t care if he held it between his toes.”

  That night, Andy gave Simon Frost a ride home. Simon’s yellow beetle had started popping out of gear and was laid up at Northside Foreign Car Repair for a brutally expensive transmission job. The amazing deal he’d gotten at SellRite was starting to make more sense.

  Andy was quiet, as usual. Simon missed the verbose and erudite Andy, but he accepted that his friend was changed. It was not all bad, especially since Andy had come back as a better performer, able to find the heart of the piece and understand a composer’s deepest intentions. It was a mysterious ability that few musicians had, and Simon envied.

  They passed Murchison Park. Andy slowed way down, then turned into the small parking lot beside the front entrance.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” said Simon. “What are you doing, Andy? Are you a glutt
on for punishment? Why are you stopping here, of all places?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Andy said. He got out of the car without another word and walked deliberately through the vine-covered sally port that marked the park entrance, and into the dark. Simon hesitated, then followed.

  He found Andy standing in the dim light, turning his head this way and that, as if he were listening.

  “This is not a good place to be,” said Simon. “I think we’ve established that. Can we go?”

  “Do you get nightmares?” asked Andy.

  “About the attack? I dreamed about it a couple of times,” said Simon. “That bullshit that happened later was worse. But I’m over that, too.”

  “I have nightmares,” said Andy. “Every night. I see that boy’s face. He comes to me every single night, and I never knew why.”

  “Because it was just so awful,” said Simon. “That’s why you can’t forget it. But I think the nightmares will go away with time.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Andy. “I’m not sure that would even be a good thing. There’s something that needs to be settled. I thought if I came here, I might see it. Now I think I do.”

  Andy shut his eyes as if he were listening to music. Simon waited.

  “So,” said Simon. “What is it? What are you going to do?”

  “I wish I could see that young man again, talk to him.”

  “Jesus, Andy! Let him go! He has no further place in your life or mine. Wherever he is, he can just live out his small, stupid, shitkicker life until he dies. He’s not your problem anymore.”

  “Wherever he is,” said Andy, “I think he’s just as miserable as I am … as we all are. If I could talk to him …”

  “What good would that do?”

  “I could forgive him. I could tell him it’s okay.”

  “Yeah? And what would that accomplish?”

  “Nothing, probably. Or maybe it would let us both off the hook.”