Carson Valley

by Bill Barich

TUESDAY, FEB. 7TH. Morning showers, tapering off. 7.2 inches since Monday. Finished the hillside Zin in the afternoon, just Antonio and me.

  WEDNESDAY, FEB. 8TH. Fog all day. Whole crew pruning riverside Chardonnay. Good day, no mistakes. River muddy and high. Saw a mallard riding down it on a log, looked like a damn admiral.

  THURSDAY, FEB. 9TH. Fog all day. Pruned more Chardonnay. Morales went to town at lunchtime and didn’t come back. Fingers real sore tonight from the damp.

  FRIDAY, FEB. 10TH. Drizzly a.m., then sunny by 2 p.m. Pruned more Chardonnay. Morales all apologies. Claims he had a toothache. What a pain in the butt he is!

  That evening, a miracle occurred. Atwater allowed himself to break with his routine. He did not build a fire, turn on the TV news, or even look at his mail. Instead, with Lopez’s prodding still fresh in his mind, he showered, shaved, and put on his dress Levi’s, a clean shirt, and some shiny cowboy boots, preparing for the fund-raiser. His mood was unusually upbeat. What did he have to lose? “I ain’t a gonna hesitate no more,” he sang to himself as he drove off in his old Jeep. “No more, no more, no more.” Carson Valley Grange Hall was midway to town, at the end of a gravel road not far from Roy’s Market. The building, clapboard and painted the amber color of stoplights, dated from 1927. A sign placed by the local historical society listed the five benefactors who had been instrumental in getting it built. Their purpose, said the sign, was “to provide a congenial space for the social, educational, and recreational welfare of all those who inhabit our beautiful valley.”

  Atwater paid ten dollars for a ticket at the door and ran smack into a wall of throbbing energy. The dancers inside were generating it, lively couples in all shapes and sizes done up in denim and lace, each improvising a version of the Texas two-step while a country and western band, fiddler to the fore, performed a rousing rendition of a Bob Wills tune. Sweat dribbled down the fiddler’s nose, it gathered in soppy half-moons beneath his arms and fell in droplets on his fevered bow. The floor was old and plank, and the pounding feet of the dancers richocheted off it and echoed through the hall. The men and women who weren’t dancing shouted encouragement, helped themselves to pie and cake in heaping slabs, or took part in a rousing bingo game that was improbably underway in a far corner. Atwater was amused to see some little boys doing their duty by chasing after some little girls and trying to pull their hair. Hearts cut from cardboard and construction paper served as decoration, stapled to the walls and even dangling by strings from the ceiling, all aflutter.

  He spied several men grouped around a stand-up bar, Victor Torelli among them, bantering and fulminating and rattling dice cups for drinks. He hoped to slip by his boss without being noticed so that he could circulate and cruise for women, but Torelli was too quick for him, lofty in his whims and not to be resisted.

  “What’ll you have, Arthur?” the old man said genially, seizing his prey by the arm and dragging him over. “Name your poison.”

  “Club soda, please,” Atwater told the bartender, a pimply teen sporting a 4-H pin.

  “Do you want a cherry in that?” the bartender asked him.

  “No, of course not, he doesn’t want a goddam cherry,” ranted Charlie Grimes, who was red-faced and tottering a bit. “You know what rhymes with cherry, son? Fairy.”

  “Charlie’s all upset,” said another man, a fellow Atwater recognized but could not immediately place. “Reality has caught up with him at last.”

  “You’ve met Wade Saunders before, haven’t you; Arthur?” Torelli offered a courtly introduction. “He’s with Consolidated Vintners. They’re trying to buy my grapes again.”

  Saunders had wooly sideburns and a balding head. He was thin and rangy and worked a toothpick around in his mouth. “If this old coot wasn’t so stubborn,” he said, nodding at Torelli, “he’d have signed up with us years ago. It would have saved him a lot of trouble, and he’d have a lot more security, too.”

  “Security!” Grimes yelled, although he hadn’t really been included in the conversation. “I’ll tell you a few things about security, my friend.”

  “We’re all ears, Charlie,” said Pepper Harris, who had twenty acres planted to Merlot up on Pine Ridge.

  Grimes ignored the comment. “What security is, is having a shitload of high-paid lawyers like this here Walt Disney.” He yanked an official-looking document from a shirt pocket and fumblingly unfolded it. It was smudged with dirty fingerprints, but Atwater could still make out the Disney Corporation letterhead at the top. “Cease and desist, my ass. They’re ordering me to paint over my mural. They think they own the rights to Dumbo forever and ever.”

  “I wonder where they got that idea,” said Dick Rhodes, a dry and witty man who ran the Grange Association.

  “Screw you, Dick, and screw the horse you rode in on. I won’t stand for this.” Grimes hitched up his trousers for effect. “I’m going to Hollywood and talk to Walt Disney man-to-man.”

  “He’s dead, Charlie,” Rhodes apprised him.

  “Well, I’ll talk to his son, then!” Grimes snatched back the letter, blew his nose in it, threw it on the floor, and ground it under a heel. “This isn’t over yet,” he added, as he stomped off.

  Saunders grinned indulgently. “Poor old Charlie Grimes.”

  “For your information,” Torelli said, “poor old Charlie is worth a couple of million dollars on his land alone.” He pushed a dice cup across the bar. “Shake ’em up, Wade, and we’ll see who buys the next round.”

  While the dice were tumbling, Atwater listened to Saunders pick up the thread of his sales pitch, breezy with enthusiasm. Consolidated Vintners was a giant in California, Saunders said, second only to the vast empire of Ernest and Julio Gallo in the size and scope of its operations. Its corporate headquarters were in Sacramento, but the company purchased grapes from every viticultural region of the state, crushed them at many different wineries, and marketed the wines it produced under a number of labels—primarily jug wines, fortified wines, and brandies, although the grapes from Carson Valley, being of the highest quality, ordinarily went into the finest varietals that Consolidated bottled.

  “To be honest with you, Victor,” Saunders went on, leaning against the bar, “it doesn’t make any sense to me why you bother with the pissant wineries around here. Those boutiques, they’re so goddam small, they’re always short of cash. Tell me the truth now. Have they ever paid you on time?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “That’s what I figured,” said Saunders. “Pair of aces.”

  “But I’ve been doing business with some of those people for thirty years,” Torelli told him, tilting back his leather cup to look at his dice. “Three aces.”

  “Well, loyalty can be damaging, can’t it? Those boys might produce some classy wines, and they sure can create a fancy-assed label or two. The only problem is, you’re never certain if they’ll still be there in the morning.” Saunders shifted his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Our industry has an awful rate of attrition, and you know it, Victor. Consolidated’s been around since 1954. Our checks don’t bounce.”

  “I’ll vouch for that,” said Dick Rhodes. “They’ve always paid me right on time.”

  “A contract with us is as good as gold.” Saunders pressed his advantage. “I mean that for real. Take a Consolidated contract to your banker, and he’ll let you borrow against it if you’re in a tight spot. You can use it for collateral on a loan.”

  “That’s so,” Atwater agreed. “A grower I worked for up in Lake County did that once.”

  Saunders studied his dice. “Four of a kind,” he said. “I’ll put it to you once more, Victor. Consolidated stands for security. It stands for integrity. The minute you sign your name on the dotted line, a field agent from our farm advisory department will visit your vineyard and share with you the latest scientific research to improve your quality and yield. Come harvest time, you just haul your grapes over to our winery on Black Oak Road. If you meet the standards we’ve specif
ied by contract, you’ll get the best price in Carson Valley, bar none. And we’ll pay you in under thirty days.”

  “Four aces,” Torelli lit a cigar. He eyed Saunders narrowly. “How come all this sounds too good to be true, Wade?”

  “Because you’ve been living in the past! Maybe you’ll finally get it through your thick head that it might be worthwhile to join the Consolidated team. Five aces.”

  “What if our grapes don’t meet your standards?” Atwater asked. “I’ve heard that happens sometimes.”

  Saunders lowered his voice, as if to impart a sad bit of news. “Well, I’m not going to bullshit you fellows, Arthur. Ninety-five times out of a hundred our contract growers leave Black Oak Road satisfied. More than satisfied—they’re goddam ecstatic! But life isn’t perfect. You know that, and I know that.”

  “I know that!” shouted Charlie Grimes, who’d returned. “Of course, I know that! What a stupid thing to say!”

  Saunders gave Grimes an evil look. “Sometimes it does happen that a grower brings in a substandard load,” he continued smoothly. “Maybe the grapes are a little too sweet, or maybe the color’s a little off. Maybe there’s a touch of bunch rot. What we do in a case like that is to downgrade him. He goes from A grade to B grade, and we drop our price. It’s only fair because those grapes are going into our fortified wines and our cheapest brandies. Now if the grower doesn’t like the price, if he can do better somewhere else”—Saunders smiled and threw his arms wide—“we release him from his contract.”

  “You’re lying, Wade,” Torelli said.

  Saunders appeared to be flabbergasted. He sputtered, and blood rushed to his ears and turned them crimson. “Why, you have no cause to—”

  “I’m calling you, goddam it. You’re not holding any five aces.”

  The salesman’s relief was enormous. He showed his dice, and they all bent their heads and counted. There were only four aces. “Well, as the chicken put it to the butcher,” Saunders said, his raw color receding, “I guess you got me by the neck!”

  Torelli was enjoying his victory. “Let’s see some of your money on the bar, then.”

  “It’s my round, sure enough.” Saunders pushed a twenty toward the bartender. “But honestly, Victor, what about it? Do we have a deal here?”

  “I don’t make deals over drinks.” The old man sounded irritated. “Big corporations, I don’t much trust them. Don’t take it personally, Wade, but they’ll stick it to you faster than a two-bit whore.”

  “If we were out to fuck over our farmers—pardon the expression—they wouldn’t have let me in the door tonight,” Saunders reminded him. “Think about that for a minute.”

  Torelli glanced at Atwater. “What’s your opinion, Arthur?” he asked.

  Atwater considered the situation. “You’d lose some freedom, for sure, but the security might be nice. It would certainly be nice for you to get paid on time. No offense, Victor, but you’re not all that attached to the vineyard anymore.”

  “There you go!” Saunders exclaimed. He patted Atwater on the back as he might have a favorite student. “You got it there in a nutshell!”

  The old man seemed not to have heard. Instead, he raised his glass to salute one of the circling dancers. “My daughter,” he bragged proudly to the assembled company. “Isn’t she pretty?”

  Atwater had not spoken to Anna Torelli since he’d fixed her furnace, except to say a quick hello when they passed each other on the dirt road. She was in town almost all day and did not come back to the farm until late at night, often after he was asleep. He had never seen her in a dress, had never seen her legs or how she carried herself in public, with a stunning confidence. She simply sparkled.

  “Go on and dance with her,” Torelli whispered to him, giving him a little shove.

  “She’s already dancing with Jack Farrell,” Atwater protested. He looked enviously at Farrell, a paunchy Casanova with curly brown hair and a gold neckchain, who worked for Carson Valley Chamber of Commerce and had earned a reputation as a ladies’ man by bedding most of the available women around and some of the unavailable ones, too.

  “I don’t want that lardass anywhere near her!” The old man was hissing, practically beside himself. “You know where he goes for a haircut? To the beauty parlor! They give him a goddam permanent. Cut in on him right now!”

  “No way,” Atwater said, rebelling against the injunction. “It’s silly.”

  “Goddam it, Arthur! You owe me. Just do it!”

  With a woeful resignation, Atwater crossed awkwardly onto the dance floor. He squeezed past the McClaren sisters, who always danced together, and past a couple who were ignoring the fiddle music entirely to do an interpretative tango that involved some manic and disorderly movements, locating Farrell in the crowd and tapping him on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me, Jack,” he said in a mumble, wishing he could be anywhere else. “May I cut in on you?”

  Farrell glared at him, as if he’d told a particularly inane joke. “Be serious, Arthur.”

  “I am serious. I’d like to cut in.”

  “How gallant, Mr. Atwater.” Anna took leave of her partner and glided into his arms. He quivered when her breasts brushed against his chest, and felt an immediate and agonizing hunger for her that he did his best to conceal. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Farrell, but rules are rules.”

  Atwater followed her lead. He was clumsy and constricted. His jeans hugged his legs, and his cowboy boots slipped and slid over the waxed planks. Anna’s cheeks were rosy from the heat, and he could smell some wine on her breath and deduced from it and from her frisky manner that she was probably a little smashed.

  “I’m having fun tonight,” she told him as they danced to a slow number that made conversation possible. “I didn’t expect to, but Betty Chambers said I would if I came along with her and Lloyd, and Betty Chambers was right. So from now on I plan to do whatever Betty Chambers tells me to do. Isn’t that a progressive attitude?”

  “Very progressive.”

  “It may sound strange to you, but this is the first fun I’ve had in the longest time. And I like having fun. I even miss having fun. Were you having fun over there, Mr. Atwater?”

  “Not much. We were discussing business.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Anna said, her eyes engaging his in a flirtatious way. “Have you ever had any fun?”

  “Yes, I have. I used to specialize in it.”

  “Care to describe how?” She pulled away from him for a second, took in the hurt look on his face, and quickly altered her tone. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I have no right to be teasing you. The wine’s gone to my head.”

  “It’s okay. You’re not the first person who’s ever teased me.”

  “Let’s change the subject, shall we? How’re your grapes doing?”

  He smiled at her. “There aren’t any grapes yet, Anna. They’re busy being born.”

  “I never thought of it like that,” she said, musing. “That’s very clever! There must be a poet in you somewhere.”

  “If there is,” said Atwater, “he’s been hiding.”

  “What about the vines, then. How is the pruning going?”

  “We’re pretty much on schedule. One fellow on the crew slows us down a bit. I might have to get rid him.”

  “Can his ass, you mean?”

  “You could put it that way.”

  Anna floated close to him again as they swung by the bandstand, where an accordion player now occupied the fiddler’s spot up front. “Much better,” she congratulated him. “You’re loosening up. Am I talking too much?”

  “No, I like it, actually.”

  “That’s good. Because I haven’t talked to anybody in the longest time. Can you believe I’ve been here almost three weeks already? I’ve been so busy there hasn’t been any time for you to educate me about wine grapes.”

  “I don’t know that I’m much of an educator. How has your mother been feeling, anyway?”

  “Tonight she’s fine. A neig
hbor is with her. But she’s not getting any better.” Anna’s sparkly mood was going flat. “It’s hideous, this disease, and nobody can do a thing about it. I was so arrogant, Arthur! I thought I could come out here and make a difference, but I’m as helpless as everybody else.”

  “You’ve been a big help, really,” Atwater said, trying to revive her playfulness. “I’ve heard Victor say as much.”

  “I did feel that way at the beginning,” she agreed. “Running errands, doing chores, putting their house back in order. You throw yourself into action so that you don’t have to think. Then one day you look up, and nothing has changed. We’re all just treading water.”

  “You sound ready for a break.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m angry at the world, and when I get angry I get reckless.”

  Reckless? Atwater liked the ring of it. “Well, it’s best not to burn out. Why don’t you head down to San Francisco and check out some of those bookstores, like you said you were going to do. Treat yourself to dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, ride a boat to Alcatraz, and have yourself a wild old time.”

  “A wild old time?” Anna asked, flirtatious again. Had she read his mind? Why couldn’t she be a little dumber?

  “A vacation, then.”

  “Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself,” she sighed. “It makes me guilty to think about leaving even for a day. I’m just so confused!”

  “You have every right to be,” Atwater told her in a heartfelt rush, remembering the death of his own parents. “It’s terrible to watch somebody you love suffer like that.”

  “Thank you, Arthur.” Anna was looking at him differently now, more soberly. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

  He danced another dance with her, looser still, and even spun her under the bridge of his arm once or twice before Jack Farrell stepped up and bellowed, “Rules are rules!” to cut back in. He retreated to the pie-and-cake table after that and ate two orders of cherry cobbler. It was almost eleven o’clock, way past his bedtime, but he stayed around for the grand finale anyhow, a raffle drawing for an all-expenses-paid trip to Puerto Vallarta, courtesy of Carson Valley Travel. The winner was Dr. Irwin Poplinger, and that sent Charlie Grimes into another stomping tirade about how all the tax-shelter farmers ought to be rounded up and beaten to a pulp. Atwater left right after the drawing, off into the night, his weary body truly relaxed for once and warmth of an unexpected kind flowing through him.