Soul's Road: A Fiction Collection

by Cody Luff

  He’d covered too much ground for Gordon to reach back to the Cameno River land grant.

  “Like what happens to a person’s kindness?” Rigney asked. A boy from the high school swerved near on his skateboard, keeping his eyes on Mr. Nim as he passed. “It’s there in the beginning, but it’s a fragile thing. It’s like, you know… Maybe you can help me with what it’s like. The kindness in us is an emerging plant, you see? And the plant…”

  “Sometimes its sunlight is taken.”

  Rigney’s eyes bulged. “You see it don’t you! It’s pride and defensiveness and those kinds of things, they grow too fast alongside it and kindness shrivels up.” He poked Gordon with a finger. “That’s it! You’re on the look-out for being taken advantage of. You’re cynical. You’ve seen everybody’s bullshit and you’ve had enough. Am I right?” He laughed and Gordon noticed the gold crowns of his teeth. “Or maybe it’s this: maybe you’re just as kind as you ever were, but nobody expects your kindness, so you’re treated like you lack kindness, and then maybe you start to fulfill everybody’s expectation. Maybe it’s that, see?”

  Gordon shifted on his heels.

  Rigney wound down. He produced an event ticket from his pocket. “Any Warrior game you want, give me a call, 2 tickets are yours.” Gordon just listened. “As many games as you want, really.” He winked. “I’m in tickets.” He scribbled his name and number on one and passed them to Gordon.

  “I appreciate you hearing me, friend.”

  Gordon shrugged his shoulders. “No problem.”

  They shook hands again. “Here’s to next season!” Rigney clenched hard for an instant, then released, and Gordon walked to his car, listening for what real motive might leap up behind him.

  But it never did. The stranger was gone and Gordon drove away. It had almost seemed a set up. How could the guy have known about Gordon’s books? He hadn’t told him anything. Gordon examined the expired game ticket: Portland Trailblazers vs. Golden State Warriors, Oracle Arena, April 13, 2011.

  As Gordon arrived home, he saw Rita punching the keys of her phone. She looked up. “Finally,” she said. “I was just calling you. Did you forget about the Markson’s?”

  “Nope,” Gordon said.

  Their ritual was to kiss when they greeted one another, but as he leaned in she continued talking. “Can we go?” She turned so his kiss landed on her cheek. He set Martinez’ book on the counter.

  He’d enjoyed the short drive across town, thinking about how he’d become who he was, half wondering, half marveling at how disconnected people were from one another to produce such a desperate response as Rigney’s. Nearly anybody capable of listening to somebody else had vanished from Santa Lorena. He was on a planet of know-it-alls, where opinions were already formed, so what Gordon said didn’t matter. Conversations seemed to have become more like alternating monologues than dialogues. They were assaults, desperate, pent up rambles.

  He wanted to talk about those things with Rita. It was a subject she could appreciate, but she too had caught the contagion and speed-rapped as they rushed off to the party at the end of their block. As she buzzed about all the details of a co-worker’s wedding, she left no seams in her words by which Gordon might begin. Ideas germinated in Gordon’s brain, but shriveled and died there from lack of exposure.

  Social gatherings quickly became more hers than his. Laurie and Steve Markson weren’t old friends of the Nim’s, nor close friends either. They were new acquaintances, and Gordon understood that Rita and Laurie liked the idea of making friends. Both showed the bright thrill of possibility that rises when meeting someone new. When the women passed one another on the street they extended invitations to things- could she make it for spinning? Maybe Gordon wanted to use Steve’s putting green? Laurie said they always had a little happy hour on Fridays and you have to come by. Steve loves having people over and Gordon seems sooo nice!

  It was the second time he’d gone to the Markson’s. He didn’t care for it much the first time, but Rita didn’t seem to agree. He’d have preferred the company of Laurie Markson, whose cheerleader enthusiasm he enjoyed, but the girls had gone off on their own, leaving him with Steve, an insincere man with a massive head, the build of a baseball slugger, a puncher. He did some kind of brokering that Gordon didn’t understand. Gordon would admit it was one of his failings as a man that he wasn’t on top of the money thing.

  He knew that Rita wanted this to work, so Gordon told himself that Markson was a friendly enough guy, not hard to have a laugh with, though there were subjects with Markson that Gordon preferred to steer clear of such as automobiles, golf and investment. Most subjects.

  Last time, he’d taken Gordon into the garage and crowed about the racecar parked there. It was some kind of big deal because it could go from zero to ninety in five seconds. Gordon wondered how useful it was. Where was Markson going to bolt from zero to ninety in five seconds? Markson talked big and loud, firing off all the technical lingo about subjects Gordon obviously didn’t care about, continuing on despite the tepid response of his audience. He made Gordon feel like guys were supposed to know all the ins and outs of how to finagle quick profits. He’d dropped his thick arm on Gordon’s neck and breathed over him, “buddy, you gotta get when the gettin’s good.”

  The culture of golf irritated Gordon, the permanent pressed leisure of it. He’d always been drawn to the scrappy ballet of street basketball and had been a regular at Seaview Park for years, a guy who looked ordinary on the court, even improbable. He was ordinary and improbable, except for one thing- the way he could drop the ball through the net. He’d always done it since he and his mother made up competitions in the driveway when he was ten, holding a broom up overhead, the yellow straw of it like Bill Russell’s paw. The drill would force him to arc the ball over any defender. By the time he was sixteen he was “Mr. Consistency,” and his ability to shoot kept him on the court against bigger and faster players.

  Gordon and Rita came to the drive and stepped up the brick pathway to the open door. Laurie Markson saw them before they could knock.

  She was a blonde with dark eyes and skin the color of honey. “Oh my God!” she said, “I’m sooo glad you came! TGIF! TGIF!”

  Rita stepped in first and then, as Gordon followed, a German Shepherd darted at him from behind the door. It delivered a menacing snarl as it nipped his thigh.

  “Did he just…? Darwin! Shame on you! I am so sorry Gordon; he usually doesn’t do that! Did he…oh my God! Did he bite you?”

  “No,” Gordon said. “I’m all right.”

  The dog swirled in a circle, passing close by Gordon’s leg a second time, the lip curling back.

  “Let me just put him away where he won’t do that again. Steve’s in the kitchen; go on in. Babe…the Nims are here!” She seized Darwin by the collar and hauled him off. “No, no ,no!” she flirted, “you shouldn’t do that!”

  Rita matched her hostess’ enthusiasm as she penetrated the house. Gordon trailed a few steps behind. Steve Markson stood at the kitchen counter, a knife in hand and an apron tied around his trunk. He presided over a chopping block to entertain a blonde woman who sat at a stool beside him. Seeing the Nims he greeted them like long lost friends. He got them drinks - the Nims went for gin and tonics - then resumed the abalone demonstration, telling how his buddy could get them without a license because he worked for so and so and he could ring this guy and get abalone just about any time he wanted. “It’s not whatcha know, it’s who ya’ know!” He winked. Gordon watched the company all laugh.

  Laurie Markson waved for the ladies to follow, leaving Gordon alone with Steve. Heading off an awkward silence, Markson said, “So whadya know Gordon my man?”

  “Well,” Gordon began, in the ponderous way of talking that caused people impatience. “Sometimes a situation can seem like more than a coincidence, you know?” Markson spied him quizzically. “I stop off at this little corner market on my way home from work. Just the usual, you know, nothing out of the ordinar
y, and next thing I know I’ve got this stranger who starts talking to me and won’t let me go.”

  “Hold on a second,” Markson said. “Look at this,” he winked as he depressed a button on the wall. “It’s an intercom,” he said to Gordon. “Honey, when’re you ready for the chef’s special?” He watched Gordon’s face as he waited. “Pretty sweet, huh?”

  Gordon nodded.

  “They were running a promotional deal on this thing. I got it practically free.” He laughed loud and long in the way the people who loved him, if there were such people, must have admired.

  Gordon didn’t say anything.

  He pointed at Gordon and squinted his eyes, as though straining to remember. “You were saying...”

  “Right, so here I am, I’m at this little market, Mel’s, and I’m thinking I’ll just stop and get a few things. Guy in line starts conversation about whatever, sports or something, and then I’m on my way out to the car. Turn around, guy’s following me. Next thing he holds out cash, and goes…”

  “Mike!” Markson blurted, turning to the entryway to greet the man who appeared there. Gordon winced and nodded at the newcomer. He was a neighbor too, Mike DeBoor, a guy who seemed to have been manufactured in the same thick and smug swigger factory as Markson.

  Gordon waited as the two men talked back and forth. He finished his drink and moved off to find where Laurie was holding court with Rita and the blonde woman named Jan.

  Her son, Dirk, was about to enter the ninth grade. They were talking about the good teachers and the bad teachers that Dirk might run into at Santa Lorena High School. The Markson’s weren’t convinced that the public school was the right place for their son and they were still considering a local private school instead. Rita had told her that Gordon was a counselor at Santa Lorena High and Rita was a secretary in the school district office. Laurie Markson had heard such terrible things: drug use in the bathrooms, teachers that didn’t read assignments. It was typical to hear this kind of criticism of the place, instead of the good things that were going on. As Laurie ran through her list of incriminations, Rita tried to correct the exaggerations and the false rumors as best she could. Finally, she pointed at her husband. “Gordon knows; he’s worked there for years.”

  “What would be nice is if you could make sure that Dirk gets the best teachers; you know, just make a little switch here and a switch there.” She leaned against Gordon. “Can you do that for me?”

  “Hey buddy,” Markson’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Do me a favor. How about gettin’ us a bag of ice from the garage. There’s a freezer in there and it’s all ready to go, you’ll see it.”

  “Sure thing,” Gordon said. He excused himself.

  Inside the garage, he spotted the refrigerator, collected the ice and closed the door. There was a low rumble behind him. The German Shepherd had crept up from behind the racecar in the moment it had taken Gordon to get the ice. Ten feet away, it had stopped advancing, but stood poised to spring at him, the ears raised, a paw set forward. Gordon stood still, but reached in the bag for a handful of ice, then sent it skidding along the floor toward the dog. The distraction worked. The dog investigated the ice, mouthing it, and Gordon took three quick steps to get out the door. He brought the ice to the kitchen, where the other man, DeBoor, was watching Markson fry the abalone. Markson gave Gordon a thumbs up and continued their conversation about using a 2-iron versus a 3-iron.

  Markson didn’t ask to hear the conclusion of Gordon’s story, but what was there, really, to tell? That he’d met a man so desperate to be heard that he’d bribed him to listen? That there’d been an odd coincidence in the way the stranger’s life was connected to the subjects of Gordon’s books? A kind of serendipity even?

  Rita met Gordon’s cynical smile by lowering her voice. “They’re busy and excited Gor, but they’ve been real nice to us, so don’t.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “Try to make this work, okay? Even if it’s not perfect for you, maybe you can do that for me.”

  “Did you get another drink?”

  She nodded. “Did you tell Steve about your book?”

  Gordon raised both eyebrows.

  “Well, nobody’s going to know what you’re doing unless you tell them.”

  He took another hit of his drink.

  “Well I want them to know; I’m proud of you,” she said. She called across the room to Laurie Markson. “Gordon’s writing a book, did he tell you?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Most nights, right after dinner. He’s a very good writer you know.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “It’s a book about the history of the Cameno River. He’s done all kinds of research for it. Sometimes I’m his research assistant; it’s fun!”

  “That does sound fun, working on something together like that.” Laurie Markson was washing her hands at the sink now. “Steve and I are designing what we’re going to do with the back yard. You know, together, a fun little project.”

  Rita winked at her husband, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was thinking about the flood of 1963, when the river took out the west end of town, and how he might personify it as a living thing. He envisioned a wave of eighteenth century insurgents storming the palace, berserk, hurrying forth, blasting through doors, racing upstairs to seize the nobles and cut off their heads. Belligerent and bullying hordes sweeping through the narrow streets of a French city.

  Markson approached with a plate of the sliced abalone, crackers and sauce.

  “Mike lives just around the corner there… big rig parked out front.”

  “Home on wheels,” DeBoor said. “Hog heaven.” He lifted his glass of bourbon and chuckled.

  “Mike’s an excellent golfer. You want touch? This man’s got touch. He’s gonna to be my new partner for the Harvest Tournament.” Gordon saw that everybody smiled and waited for the next person to talk.

  It was Steve again. “I met Mike over the River Park development deal. I’m helping him make that thing a go.” It was the development deal that had precipitated Gordon’s research and his book. The two men stood next to one another in the circle and their talk was directed at Gordon and the wives.

  DeBoor said, “Some people think its land that should be protected forever because it’s so close to the water and all. Well, you’re always gonna have those people saying their thing, okay? You’re always gonna have the naïve idea that things can stay the way they’ve always been. Now I don’t know, maybe you folks think save the wetlands and all that. But the bottom line is people are gonna enjoy it down there if you make it nice for ‘em. It’ll still be a river after the golf course takes its water. Hey, people need places to be. That’s called progress. Give everybody access, use the resources instead of just waste ‘em, and look the bottom line is everybody can have a good time.” Markson raised his drink to that and Gordon watched Rita buy in too.

  Cynicism contorted the lower half of Gordon’s face. “Whatever you do to it, the river’ll one day come back.” He shook his glass, making the ice cubes clank against the sides. He sighed and suddenly everybody was listening to him. “Thanks. Rita and I have to get back.”

  The Marksons looked at one another. “Big series next week,” Markson offered as the Nims were leaving. “Come on down and watch a ball game?”

  Gordon appeared puzzled.

  “He watches Warriors basketball,” Rita said.

  “Who?” DeBoor said.

  Markson pulled his jowls back into his neck. “E-gads! That’s gotta be painful.”

  “It is,” Gordon smiled.

  Everyone hesitated, then waved goodbye.

  “That was abrupt” Rita said.

  “Did you really want to stay?”

  “I just wish you’d find a way to get along with them; it’s not that they’re bad people.”

  “Look, maybe you and Laurie have things to talk about, but …”

  She sighed. “They’re not really our people are they?”

&
nbsp; Gordon scoffed. They saw him as sad and peculiar for following a team that never made the playoffs. As if winning was all that mattered.

  “Laurie and I are gonna meet on Thursdays to walk.”

  “That’s good,” Gordon said.

  “Something strange happened on my way home from work today,” she said. “I stopped at this little market; Mel’s I think it’s called.”

  “I stopped there too…”

  “I’m about to enter the store when this woman comes up to me, I don’t recognize her, she goes I love your earrings. Where’d you get them? This and that. I go inside, she keeps following me.”

  Gordon stopped walking. “That’s too bizarre.”

  “No, I haven’t told you yet. This woman starts talking and she doesn’t stop. It’s like she…”

  “That’s almost the same thing that happened to me…”

  “Can I talk?” She paused to let her indignation strike. “Thank you. So this woman wants to go have a cup of coffee, and she says…”

  Gordon produced the Warriors tickets from his pocket and waved them.

  “Can I FINISH? Oh my GOD, you’re so RUDE! I was talking and you just CUT ME OFF!”

  Gordon’s sigh hissed out of him like steam from a blown pipe; he looked away into the distance the way he always did once things began to turn.

  “It’s unbelievable! You can’t even be nice to those people, and you can’t even listen to the little bit I wanted to tell you about my day! Just my little story! You always have to interrupt!”

  “Wow!” he said, his face contorted into a bitter smile.

  She was finished talking to him now. A third drink was too many for Rita; it made her rise and ramble and then turn on him when she’d had that many. She closed the door to the bedroom, but he could hear her in there, muttering to herself about communication and listening and not being heard.