by Tim Sandlin
“Roll up your sleeve,” Maurey said to Pete.
As Pete rolled his sleeve up over his mop-handle-thin arm, he turned on the stool to face me. “Maurey says you’re paying my doctor bills.”
I shrugged and drank juice straight from the bottle. It embarrasses me when people act like I’m being generous for giving away bits of the Callahan family fortune. I never did anything to deserve it, except being born.
“Thank you,” Pete said.
“We’re family,” I said. “Family sticks together.”
Pete continued staring at me, like he used to when he was ten and wanted to drive me crazy. I tried to look back at him, but it was difficult. He breathed with his mouth open and his gums were swollen to the point of cracking. His skin was a translucent yellow green, like zucchini pulp, and he’d lost so much weight the bones around his temples stood out from his face.
Chet slapped the deck on the table. “Cut.”
Pete said, “Sam, you and I have never liked each other.” It was a quiet statement of fact, not an accusation.
I said, “You were God’s own brat as a child, but since you turned fifteen or so, I’ve liked you.”
Maurey swabbed Pete’s upper arm with rubbing alcohol. The smell filled the room.
“But I haven’t liked you,” Pete said.
“That’s too bad. Why not?”
“To start with, you’re homophobic.”
“I like gay guys as much as the other kind.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Maurey said.
“What else?” I asked.
“Your mother was a snob to my mother.”
“My mother is a snob to everyone—even me. Especially me. It’s not fair to turn on a person because they have snotty parents. What else?”
He blinked twice, thinking. “You knocked up my sister when she was thirteen.”
I held up one hand like a cop stopping traffic. “She made me do it. Have you ever tried saying no to Maurey?”
Maurey pinched loose skin on Pete’s upper arm. “He’s right, Pete. I seduced him. Poor little Sam didn’t know the first thing about sex.”
“That’s not exactly true,” I said.
“You thought you could make a girl pregnant with a French kiss.”
No one ever got anywhere correcting Maurey’s view of history, so I went back to Pete. “There’s enough people in the world with good reason to dislike me, Pete, but you’re not one of them. I’d be real happy if I could call myself your friend.”
He smiled, showing much more of his swollen, bleeding gums. “Okay,” he said, “let’s kiss and make up.”
My face must have shown terror because Chet and Maurey went into hoots of glee. Even Pete laughed. I don’t mind being the butt of a joke if it relieves tension.
“Instead of kissing, how about if I deal you in,” Chet said.
“Great.”
But it never happened. As Chet dealt, Maurey sank the needle into what was left of Pete’s muscle. He picked up his cards and studied them a moment, then his eyes turned dull, his chin dropped to his chest, and the cards in his hand fluttered to the floor. Gently Chet helped Pete walk into the bedroom.
***
Over the weeks, I got to know Chet fairly well. While Pete rested in the afternoons, Chet would come into the kitchen, sit at the block table, and smoke cigarettes while I cooked. Chet was tall with reddish blond hair. You could tell from how he smiled sometimes that he was basically a pretty happy person, or would have been if his partner hadn’t got sick. He and Pete had met working lights at some theater in New York, Off Broadway, and Chet liked to talk about plays and who was hot and who was gliding on their past glory. He gave me the scoop on which actors were gay. A couple amazed me.
The only visible difference between Chet and the hetero males on the ranch was Chet tucked in his shirttail.
Hank and Maurey both hassled me for refusing to see Lydia.
“She’s your mother,” Maurey said.
“I’ve heard her deny that, many a time.”
“She was young then. Now, she’ll admit she has a child to almost anyone.”
“She ruined my life.”
“Everybody’s mother ruins their life. That doesn’t mean you can blow her off.”
“Watch me.”
Hank said Lydia wanted to apologize and reconcile our differences.
“Did she say that?”
“Not in words, but I know your mother. She never says what she feels in words.”
“You mean she lies.”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Lydia doesn’t lie, exactly. She expects you to see behind what she says.”
***
A letter came from Gilia.
Sam Callahan,
You did a rotten thing. It hurt. I don’t know which is worse, screwing Mrs. Prescott or running away. You could have at least given me the satisfaction of telling you to go to hell.
Dad gave me a set of the photographs of you and Katrina. I told him he is as despicable as you are, which is a lot. I haven’t had much luck with men in my life.
Speaking of Katrina, she and Skip are now the lovey-dovey couple of the South. They neck in public. She compares their love to that of Prince Charles and Lady Di. Yesterday, I heard Katrina telling a table full of trust fund widows at the club that you date-raped her. It made me so mad, I walked over and threw the photo of you and her on the table—you know the one where you have a pom-pom on your penis and she has you tied to the wall. I said, “Does that look like date rape?”
Sam, you’re the only person who ever let me act like myself. I wish you hadn’t turned out to be such a dip-shit.
Sincerely,
Gilia
Paper-clipped to the letter was the Greensboro Record “Births and Deaths” column from November 1, 1983. Midway down the births, Gilia had highlighted in yellow Magic Marker:
Sam Lynn Paseneaux, a boy, 8 lbs., 1 oz., born to Babs
Paseneaux and Sam Callahan.
Sammi Babs Norloff, a girl, 6 lbs., 5 oz., born to Lynette
Norloff and Sam Callahan.
In the margin, she had drawn a yellow exclamation point followed by a question mark—!?
***
I had no contact with Callahan Magic Golf Carts. They didn’t need me. I called my lawyer to set up rent payments for Babs and Lynette and to get started hurling counter injunctions at Wanda.
“I’ll pay ten thousand dollars to make certain she doesn’t get a penny.”
“We can do that,” my lawyer said.
Maurey overheard the conversation. Her comment was “Getting vindictive in our old age, aren’t we?”
“I’m a man of principles.”
“That’s the nice word for it.”
My only other conversation with anyone in North Carolina came after Thanksgiving dinner, when Shannon telephoned.
She asked, “Are you well yet?”
“No.”
“Are you better?”
“I don’t think in qualitative terms.”
“Wanda tried to move in the other day.”
“Good Lord.”
“She brought two guys with tattoos and a pickup truck full of stuff. Gus blocked the door and wouldn’t let them in.”
“How’d Wanda handle it?”
“She cussed worse than I ever heard anyone cuss. She waved a tire iron in Gus’s face and screamed, ‘Nigger!’ Then she ordered the two guys to beat her up.”
“Two guys with tattoos are no match for Gus.”
“I sure am glad I never called Wanda Mama.”
I looked over at Maurey, who was making cowboy cappuccino. She would enjoy this story. “What’d you and Eugene do?”
“I ran around and locked the other doors and windows. Eugene took notes. He wants to write his thesis on my family.”
We chitchatted a few minutes, or Shannon chitchatted while I counted the number of holes in Maurey’s phone mouthpiece—eighteen.
Shannon said, “Gi
lia and her parents aren’t speaking to each other, so she spends the night here sometimes. We have a lot in common.”
There was a long silence while I searched for a detail to study.
“Gilia Saunders,” she said.
I guess she wanted a comment. I couldn’t even breathe, much less comment.
“She and I are going to New York City over Spring Break. She wants to take me shopping and to art galleries and all that stuff you never would do with me.”
I stared at the turkey remains on the table. Hank had gone to town to be with Lydia, and Pete only ate some dressing and gravy before lying down, but the six of us who remained had pretty much left the carcass in tatters.
I said, “That’s nice of Gilia.”
“We drove down to see Clark Gaines. He’s back home now. He said to say ‘hello.’”
“I have to hang up now.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Thank you.”
***
Dear Babs and Lynette,
Enclosed you will find two envelopes addressed to Gilia Saunders of 16 Corner Creek Drive in Greensboro. Would each of you mind dropping her a note explaining my relationship to Sam and Sammi and why my name is on the birth certificates instead of the real fathers?
This favor will save me from much groveling.
Yours,
Sam Callahan
***
Dear Gilia,
I’m surprised to hear that you don’t know which is worse—what I did with Katrina Prescott or running away afterward. I ran because I had hurt you, I had confirmed all your worst opinions of men, and I didn’t think you wanted to hear my excuses. Not that there are any. I told myself someday I would make a commitment to you and after that I would be true from now on, but in the meantime, it didn’t matter what I did. That, of course, is a lie. Wanting to love someone means loving them now. Or not at all.
I went cross-country skiing today. The snow was beautiful and cold. As I skied, I thought about why I was a dipshit to you, and here, near as I can see, is it:
Before we met I had two wives and an uncountable number of relationships, ranging from twenty minutes to four months, and every woman had this in common—she was desperate. I thought a woman had to be a drunk, crazy, extraordinarily young, unhappily married, or in big trouble before she would want me. She had to need what I have to give—sex and money. I thought no one desirable could love me. I married women I knew it wouldn’t hurt to lose.
Then I met you, and you are desirable. You don’t need me. We simply have fun being together and that scared me so much I had trouble breathing. When you have something that matters, you have something to lose.
Katrina couldn’t touch me, so I slept with her. You could touch me, so I drove you away. And I regret it. And I am sorry.
Sam
Pete relapsed in early December. One evening he was tireder than usual and the next morning he didn’t get out of bed. Maurey, Chet, and a doctor floated in and out of Maurey and Pud’s old bedroom with exaggerated quietness and muffled tones. No one said it aloud, but the general feeling was this time was for keeps.
2
It was Tuesday, six days before Christmas. Maurey’s son, Auburn, and Roger, who can’t or won’t speak, sat perched on a board, solemnly watching me flake hay off bales. Behind the boys, I could see Hank Elkrunner’s ponytail and part of his right wrist, which snapped up and down as he turned the team toward the Gros Ventre River Road.
“Too fast,” Auburn shouted. “Gristle will hog it all.”
Gristle had two white feet and massive dingleberries hanging off her butt, and she’d appointed herself herd bully. Whenever I came near the equine bitch she would pull her lips off her teeth and lean toward my face. Hank said she smelled my fear, but I think she just enjoyed biting people.
“Let’s shoot her for bear bait,” I said. Auburn’s face turned scared. He can’t tell when I’m kidding yet, so he tends to take me literally, which sure as hell isn’t how I care to be taken.
“Maybe I could read the others Winning Through Intimidation,” I said. I looked at Roger and winked, but his expression didn’t change. The boy’s expression never changed. Always the impassive observer. We weren’t sure how old Roger was, but he looked younger than Auburn, who was soon to turn twelve. Roger had the eyes of a person considerably older and more world-weary than any of us, and that’s saying a lot.
I slid the X-Acto knife under the bale twine and cut up, toward my face. The loose string went into a potato sack at my feet, then, as forty or so horses led by the selfish nag Gristle shuffled in our path, I shoved layers of lime-green-and-yellow grass onto the tracked-over snow. Way off to the south, the sun shone weakly through a smattering of high clouds. Up by the ranch buildings, aspens stood against the hill like gangly white skeletons with oozing joints, while in creases along the foothills spruce and lodgepole pine made a kelly green mosaic on the snow, and way off alone an occasional limber pine declared its independence from everyone—animal or plant.
The propriety of the whole scene kind of got to me, like I was an important piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle or a character in an Amish movie. Working outdoors in weather will do that sometimes—give you the feeling of being minutely small yet still consequential.
I looked at the fenceline and saw 1966. Wyoming women. Broad shoulders, flat bellies, unafraid to look men in the eye. My Dodgers won the pennant, lost the World Series. That summer I’d gotten downwind of a grass fire in Curtis Canyon and the smoke stayed in my nose for weeks, so wherever I went I swore the immediate vicinity was smoldering. I slept with a shovel under the bed. I asked a girl named Tracy Goodman on a date and she said “Okay,” but when I went to pick her up she’d gone shopping in Idaho Falls. I often dreamed of winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and when I stood at the podium to give my speech I would start out, “Eat shit, Tracy Goodman.”
Auburn’s voice cut through my vision. “Earth to Sam. Earth to Sam.”
Maurey taught him to say that and he thinks it’s hilarious. He turned to rap Hank on the shoulder. “Sam’s left his body again.”
Hank glanced back at me. “Tell Sam to close his mouth so his spirit can’t escape while he’s gone.”
“Close your mouth so your spirit can’t escape—”
“I heard him, Auburn.”
Maurey doesn’t mind, but Lydia throws a fit when Hank talks about turning into a bird and flying around the universe in front of Auburn. She’s afraid Auburn will take him seriously, which Hank says is the point.
“I was daydreaming,” I said.
Hank gave his Blackfeet chuckle. “Bad practice to daydream with a knife in your hand. It may bite you.”
Auburn laughed and I pretended to. What I actually did was block thoughts of Lydia by studying a lone raven flying toward the red hills across the river.
Hank said, “Pud’s coming.”
Pud’s white van with the Talbot Satellite Dish Systems Repair magnetic sign on the passenger door picked its way through the ruts and slush. We’re always the last county road plowed, so the ice base forms thickest, and when a rare December warm spell comes along it’s like driving through Dairy Queen soft ice cream. Takes four-wheel drive and the faith to keep moving no matter what. Those who stop may not start again.
Hank angled the team—Luci and Desi—toward a semi-solid meeting place along the fence, where Pud wrestled the wheel until the van came to rest against the far snowbank. He opened the door and sat with his legs out of the van, waiting for us to skid up to the fence, then he hefted himself to the ground and crossed over the ruts.
Pud Talbot wears cowboy boots year-round and a yellow cap that reads Dash Roustabout Service. He’s no taller than me and has the famous chin that marks all the Talbots except Auburn. Pud’s brother Dothan is Auburn’s father, and I’m afraid I’ve allowed the deep animosity—read that as hatred—that runs between Dothan and me to color my feelings for Pud. Also Pud sleeps with Maurey, and whether
Maurey and I have a brother-sister deal or first-lover nostalgia or we’re simply best friends for life, my chosen role is to quietly resent anyone who sticks himself into her body.
Luci and Desi shuffled to the fence and stopped, and us five males waited there a moment in the winter silence, which is so much more silent than summer silence there ought to be a different word for it.
Pud put one boot up on the snowbank and said, “Pete died.”
I looked away from Pud to the horses with their necks down, eating hay.
Hank said, “The doctors told us he had another month.”
“The doctors missed the call,” Pud said.
More silence. A white mare raised her head and stared directly at me. I couldn’t meet her eyes.
“How’re Maurey and Chet taking it?” Hank asked.
“About how you’d expect. They’ll be along in a couple hours.”
For some reason, I turned to look at Roger. His eyes were huge and terrified, like a panicked deer. His mouth opened and he screamed.
***
The secret to cornbread is in the oil. I would have used lard if I thought I could get away with it, but like everybody else in the drugs-and-alcohol generation, Maurey’s gone health crazy. As it was, I spooned a couple glops of Crisco into the ten-inch Dutch oven and stuck the Dutch oven in the real oven set at 350 degrees. Oil started, I pried the lid off the ceramic crock of sourdough starter that according to legend was brought across the Missouri River in 1881 by Maurey’s great-grandmother on her father’s side. I’d be willing to bet the crock hadn’t been washed since 1881. A thumb’s-width of dry dough skin ringed the lip of the crock like the rubber seal on a gasket.
I measured two dippers of starter into a 1950s Art Deco bowl and broke in four eggs, double what the recipe called for. Then I went to the refrigerator for buttermilk, where I mused for about the eightieth time that no one drinks straight buttermilk these days and it seems more than a change of style but a degradation of American values. Wasn’t that long ago you knew you could trust a man who drank buttermilk.