Above the Law

by J. F. Freedman

  “What?” Pauline asked. The girls had moved to the bar, where they had a better view of the television. The news was on: pileups on the freeway, a bank robbery in Palm Springs, and of course, the sandstorm, which got most of the airplay.

  “I can’t go outside to smoke, ’cause of this storm, and I can’t smoke in here, ’cause of the stupid antismoking lobby and the chickenshits up in Sacramento.”

  Marilyn told her, “It’s brutal.”

  My group had been in the Brigadoon for a couple of hours now, the last to find refuge. Nothing was moving outside; nothing human, anyway. Time passed slowly. We’d eaten, including decent blueberry pie a la mode for dessert (homemade). Most of us were sprawled out around the room, watching The Simpsons, which the kids had turned to, except for the motor-homers, who had brought a Scrabble game in with them and were playing a spirited four-handed game, and the executives, who were playing liar’s poker.

  A general torpor permeated the place. Wally the bartender, Ray the cook, and Deedee had joined the rest of us in the restaurant proper. We had nowhere to go and nothing to do, and plenty of time for both. I wished I’d brought a book along, but who knew?

  Pauline leaned across the bar and helped herself to a draft. For the last hour, since everyone had finished their dinners, Wally had stopped bartending and had come around to the civilian side. Those who wanted a drink got their own and dropped bills, honor-system style, into a jug he’d placed on the counter.

  The room was close—the windows were shut as tightly as possible and the air-conditioning had gotten clogged up from sand blowing into the filter. We were beginning to breathe each other’s air, smell each other’s body odors. Before dinner I had given myself a half-assed sponge bath with paper towels, but I still felt grimy and oily. It was getting to be a ripe environment and would get more aromatic before it was over.

  The towheaded boy heard the noise outside first. He’d gotten bored with watching television and was standing near the door, staring at the patterns of sand blowing against the window, like snowflakes in a winter storm.

  “Daddy, come here.”

  His father walked over to him.

  “Do you see that. Dad?”

  “What, Roger?” The man looked out the window.

  “I thought I saw something outside.” The boy pressed his face to a pane of glass.

  His father leaned in next to him. “No, I don’t see…” He paused; then: “What is that?” he exclaimed, loudly enough that it caught my attention.

  I walked over to them.

  The father turned to me. “I thought I saw something moving.”

  I leaned forward and joined him, our heads almost touching. Then we looked at each other, startled expressions on our faces.

  Sheer visceral reaction—I tore open the door and rushed outside, the father hot on my heels. It was murky black out, no moon, no stars: only sand, an endless blowing veil. I hollered into the wind, “Where are you?”

  From somewhere, a man’s ragged voice answered, “Here.”

  “Where?” I was staggering forward, blind, my hands stretched out in front of me.

  “Here,” the voice feebly called again, and as I looked in what seemed to be the direction it was coming from, I saw a form.

  “We’re coming,” I yelled, my voice whipping back on me.

  The wind was howling. Fine grains of needle-sharp sand were stinging my face like wasps. It was almost impossible to remain erect; the father and I held onto each other for dear life. I had a hand over my eyes for protection, squinting out between my fingers.

  Two apparitions, so phantom-like in the turbid darkness they almost seemed to be holograms, not actual flesh and blood, were swaying in front of us. We rushed toward them, the force of the wind so strong it was like running through tar. As we reached the ghost-like figures, both of whom were men, they slowly collapsed to their hands and knees—they had managed, by force of will, to survive long enough to find help and now had nothing left in reserve.

  The father called back toward the doorway. “We need help out here!”

  His cry galvanized some of the others, who came running out. Pulling the bedraggled survivors to their feet, we dragged them into the restaurant, and safety.

  Their names were Joe and Bill. They looked to be in their late twenties; clean-shaven, decent-looking fellows. They were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, which were completely trashed.

  More than anything else, they were badly dehydrated. The kitchen staff provided wet towels and pitcherfuls of water, while the girls immediately and efficiently took over the nursing chores, wiping them down, propping their heads up while they drank, cleaning the dozens of tiny pitted wounds on their faces, necks, and hands caused by the exposure to the storm. The rest of us hovered like a swarm of ants, until we were sure they were in no serious danger.

  After large doses of tender loving care from the girls, the two men recuperated sufficiently to tell us what had happened to them.

  They had been hiking for ten days in Death Valley, moving from location to location—Zabriskie Point, Telescope Peak, Funeral Peak, breathtakingly beautiful places, desolate and forlorn, where you can go for days without seeing anyone and you have to carry everything in, including your water. They were seasoned hikers, they went out on long, remote trips frequently.

  As hard-core hikers will do, they had brought precisely as much in the way of supplies as they’d figured they’d need, based on past experience (when you start out with sixty or seventy pounds on your back, you don’t want to carry any extra weight), so that on their last day, a long, strenuous hike back to their car, they had run out of supplies. No food, no water. That didn’t matter, in fact it proved they’d calculated their needs almost exactly, a point of pride. Within an hour they would be back in civilization and could stock up on what they needed—snacks, bottles of water, and gasoline—to get them home to San Diego.

  Two things went wrong. First, while trying to make better time by driving on an off-road shortcut to the main highway, they had run over some particularly rocky terrain and had punctured the gas tank on their old Wrangler, but they didn’t know it, until all of a sudden the needle on the fuel gauge had plunged to empty, and they were stopped dead in their tracks.

  That was a bitch, particularly since they hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink for almost a day. But they had a phone in the car, they could call for help.

  Except that out of nowhere, with virtually no warning, the sandstorm descended upon them with all of its immediate and terrible fury, as it had done to the rest of us.

  They were in an impossible situation, and they knew it. They had two options, both dismal: they could hunker down in their vehicle and hope to wait it out, or they could leave it and try to walk to safety. In reality, the first option was no choice at all. If they stayed in their old Jeep, especially without water, they would die, that was as absolute as if it were carved in stone tablets. Help wouldn’t get to them in time. The car would be covered, they’d be entombed. Maybe found in a week, maybe not for a month. Whatever the time, they would die.

  The girls shivered as they heard this. “Like we would have been,” Jo Ellen said.

  Joe looked at her. His partner was the principal storyteller; he’d sat there quietly, adding a detail here and there. He’d had his eye on Jo Ellen since he had recovered—she’d been his principal Florence Nightingale. She wasn’t bothered by the attention; she was a sexy young woman who had been ogled by men since before she was a teenager and could handle anything a Joe like this could throw at her.

  “You were lost out there, too?” Joe asked.

  “Luke saved us,” Pauline informed him, pointing at me. “Our car was stuck in a ditch.”

  Joe gave me the once-over. “You get a merit badge for that.”

  That was an unnecessary remark, but it was no big deal. He had inaccurately sized me up as a potential rival. He didn’t know what had happened, and it didn’t matter. Not to me, anyway.

 
“I never got past Webelos,” I said, smiling to defuse any possible tension. We were all stuck here together for a long time, there’d be enough natural uprightness without letting egos get in the way. At least my ego; I couldn’t speak for anyone else’s.

  “He saved you, too.” This from the father, who was a big guy, a good six-three, 225, oak-solid. If he’d said he played linebacker for the Vikings, I wouldn’t have been surprised. “In case you’d forgotten.”

  Joe blinked. He realized he’d overstepped himself. “I know. I appreciate it, believe me. We both do.”

  Bill went on with their story. They shouldered their packs, which didn’t weigh much now, but contained their wallets, Swiss Army knives, etc., and took off on foot. They walked on the highway, following the broken yellow line, at times actually crawling on their hands and knees away from the direction they’d come, because they knew there was nothing behind them for miles. Their only hope was that some civilized outpost lay ahead.

  “And you found it,” Deedee said.

  Bill nodded solemnly. “We found it.” He smiled at Roger, the little boy who had first seen them through the window. “It found us.”

  Roger grinned, ducking his head, shy and self-conscious.

  “You’re safe now,” said one of the executives. “That’s the important thing.”

  Deedee, garrulous and inquisitive, asked, “How long were you out there, out of your car?”

  Bill turned to her. “What time is it now?”

  She craned her neck to look at a wall clock that hung over the kitchen stove, back in the service area. “Five till ten.”

  “And we’ve been in here about forty-five minutes?”

  “About that.”

  Bill calculated in his head. “About three hours. Three hours and change.”

  The collective gasp sucked all the air out of the room.

  “Praise be to God,” one of the lady motor-homers sang out fervently from where she was sitting with her husband and friends. They, like everyone else, had stopped what they were doing when we brought the two in and were listening intently.

  Joe looked at her. “Amen.”

  The new arrivals cleaned up as best they could. Ray the cook, a heavyset man with a high, squeaky voice who reminded me of Andy Devine, the old western-movie character actor, fixed two chicken-fried steak specials. They devoured the food, washing it down with pitchers of beer.

  It was getting late. The parents laid out makeshift beds for their children. Most of the rest of us would be up all night, zombie-watching a succession of talk shows and old movies.

  Deedee had brought out her manicure kit and was polishing the girls’ nails. “I used to do this for a living,” she told Marilyn as she carefully applied a coat of dark crimson lacquer. “I’ve done a bunch of things in my time.”

  “Why’d you quit?” Marilyn examined the nails of one hand as Deedee switched to the other. “You’re good.”

  “Of course I am.” Deedee snipped a piece of cuticle. “I got tired of it, especially feet. Sooner or later you get tired of everything, then it’s time to pack up and move on.”

  Bill and Joe finished their dinners and carried the dishes into the kitchen. Ray made a move for them, but they stopped him.

  “Least we can do, after all your hospitality.”

  They washed their plates and glasses and set them in the drain. Then they came back into the main room. Joe wandered over to the jukebox, scanned the titles. “ ‘Blue Suede Shoes’? ‘That’ll Be the Day’? Don’t you have anything more modern?”

  “It’s a fifties jukebox,” Deedee instructed him. “It plays fifties music.”

  Joe fished a quarter out of his pocket, dropped it in the slot, punched up some titles. He walked over to Pauline. “Want to dance?”

  She glanced at her friends. “Sure.”

  A slow ballad came on. Joe pushed a few tables to the side to clear room and pulled Pauline to him. They started gliding around the floor, barely moving. More pelvis-grinding than dancing. Bill, not to be left out, cocked his head at Marilyn. She blew on her nails to make sure they were dry, then slid onto the floor with him.

  It was real honky-tonk, the whole scene. The fellows kept feeding the jukebox. They switched off dancing with the girls, fast ones as well as ballads. They were all decent swing dancers—the activity was hot and heavy and fun to watch. Between each selection they were all knocking down the beers with regularity. The men held their alcohol fine, but the girls were getting sloppy.

  “You’re not going to be able to sleep if you drink too much,” I mentioned casually to Marilyn, during one of the times when she was the odd dancer out.

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway,” she replied, taking a swallow off a fresh cold one. “This is like being at a fraternity party. You’re not supposed to sleep, don’t you remember? Or was it too long ago?” she joshed me.

  “The memories are growing faint, but yes,” I said.

  A slow song started up. She grabbed my hand. “Dance with me.”

  She had a lush, womanly body, which she pressed tighter against me than I needed. Her head rested against my shoulder, her lips brushing against my ear. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I won’t tell your wife on you.”

  I was getting aroused in spite of myself. Mercifully, the song ended before she could feel anything; I hoped.

  “Another?” she asked, her hand moving lightly in mine.

  A couple of the executives had been watching us—enviously, I realized, with a hit of ego-stroking. I’d been body to body with this lovely young thing, and they hadn’t. That was enough.

  “I’ll sit this one out.”

  “Chicken.”

  “You betcha.”

  She segued over to Joe as the next number came on. I took a stool next to Wally, at the bar. He poured me a couple of fingers of my favorite libation. I was drinking moderately; I wanted to stay sharp.

  “Give me twenty years,” he said, hoisting his own drink. “Hell, give me ten.” He watched the dancers.

  “Maybe you should turn off the tap soon,” I suggested.

  He looked at me. “You think?”

  “They’re underage. It’s going to hit them all of a sudden.”

  “Okay.” He glanced around the room. Everyone else was settled in for the night, as best they could. “It’s only them, anyway.” He sipped his vodka slowly, still watching the action. “Those guys’re sure lucky to be alive. They’re pretty damn tough, to have survived what they did.” He grinned. “Holding on to a pretty girl, I’ll bet that was the last thing on their minds.” He watched them dance some more. “So what’d you think of that crappy-ass story they laid on us?”

  “What story?”

  “Hard-core hikers out in the wilds for ten days, fighting their way back to civilization, all that jazz.”

  “What’s not to believe?”

  He shook his head. “You’re out ten days, you don’t have any food or water, but you take the time to shave and change clothes? Then your ride breaks down and you leave it and walk three hours in this blizzard?”

  He had a point there.

  “Know what I think?”

  I shook my head.

  “They’re weekend pleasure hikers who got in over their heads and panicked,” he said. “But they don’t want to look like doofuses, especially in front of these luscious young babes, so they concoct a symphony out of an eight-bar riff.”

  Something had been tickling the back of my brain, the incongruity between their story and their appearance, now that I thought about it.

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Not that it matters.”

  “Life’s eternal mating ritual. Mine’s bigger than his. Ten days is ten times more macho than one. It has been forever thus,” said he, the sagebrush philosopher.

  The song ended. Wally wiped the bar dry. “Last call,” he announced.

  Joe turned to him in surprise. “What for?”

  Wally leaned up against the bar. “ ’Cause I want to
, that’s why. In my establishment, I make the rules.” He smiled friendly-like at Joe. “And you follow them.”

  “You don’t have to barkeep,” Bill said, seconding his friend. “We can pour our own. You want to grab some sleep or whatever, don’t worry.” He smiled back at Wally. “We won’t shortchange you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Wally shook his head. “Bar’s closed in five minutes. If this was how things are normally, you’d all be saying your Good Night Irenes and making your graceful exits.”

  “But it’s not a normal night,” Bill persisted.

  Wally stood his ground. “The rules’re still the same.”

  Bill started to say something in return, then held his tongue. “It’s your place, man. You say those are the rules, fine. I think they’re dumb, but I’m not going to fight you about it.”

  “That’s good,” Wally said, “ ’cause fighting ain’t permitted in here. Last call,” he announced loudly. He walked back around to the other side of the bar.

  People drifted over, calling their preferences. Wally dispensed on the house. Without my asking, he took down a dusty bottle of Courvoisier XO and poured me a snifterful. “For special company.” He winked.

  “I’ll have a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks,” Joe said. He didn’t like being dictated to, particularly by a fossil like Wally. “A double.” Then he asked, “What happens when there is a fight in here?”

  “I call the cops. They get here lickety-split.”

  Joe was leaning away from the bar. “They wouldn’t be getting here lickety-split tonight.” He shook his head. “They wouldn’t be able to get here at all.”

  Wally put a glass with ice on the bar in front of Joe, poured him his drink. “Then I’d have to call on my ol’ pal Brewster,” Wally said, turning away and replacing the bottle on the back-bar.

  “Who’s Brewster?” Joe asked, bringing his glass to his lips.

  “This.” With a motion as fluid and sudden as a magician’s, Wally reached under the counter and pulled out a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun.

  Joe almost jumped out of his clothes. Half his drink spilled down his shirtfront. “Jesus, man!”