Cole Dust Cole

by Micheal Maxwell

  “Ready!” Cole yelled as he turned to lock the front door.

  “What are you doing?” Ernie asked in disbelief.

  “Locking the door.”

  “You’re not in San Francisco! Leave the door be.”

  As he hopped in the pickup he noticed several gallon cans of paint, tarps and paint rollers on long poles.

  “Are we painting?”

  “Just a bit of touch up. Mostly cleaning. I sure appreciate your help.”

  “Turn about’s fair play, right?”

  “The hell you say. I never understood what that meant. Always imagined kids spinning around on the school yard.” Ernie laughed and turned up the radio.

  As they turned into the shopping center Cole could not believe his eyes. Above the door of the old doughnut shop was a new sign: ERNIE THE GREEK’S SANDWICHES AND STUFF.

  “Whadya think?” Ernie beamed.

  “It’s great!” Cole could not help but laugh. “Man, you don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “My buddy owns a sign shop. Did it after hours. Hundred bucks!”

  “Quite a bargain!”

  Ernie got out of the pickup and grabbed the tarps and a can of paint. “Wanna get the rollers and that other crap?”

  Cole gathered the rollers and the other can of paint and followed Ernie through the door. The neatly stacked chairs now lined the far wall. Ernie stacked the tables one atop the other and pushed them against the chairs.

  “This sissy paint’s got to go.” Ernie said, spreading the tarp at the base of the long wall. “I got the water and electricity all turned on so you can draw water or whatever.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “The back room could really use a scrubbin’. Wanna start there?”

  “Sure.” Cole complied with the request and headed for the back room.

  Moments later the sound of music exploded in the shop. Cole didn’t know what it was other than it was country and very loud. He poked around in the supply closet and found a new bucket and mop. A little more exploration uncovered an industrial size jug of floor cleaner. The tile was covered with a thick layer of dust and Cole decided a good sweeping would prevent a mud puddle when he tried to mop. Next to the back door was a broom and hanging on a nail was a large black enamel dustpan. Ernie kept busy setting things up, and the amount of thought he put into the supplies he purchased showed.

  The music twanged and thumped through the wall into the back room. A woman’s vocal soared above the frantic beat. Cole shook his head and kept sweeping. The back room was well lit and, apart from the need of dusting and mopping, was very clean. After making several piles of dirt Cole glanced around for a trashcan. Nothing in the back room, so he went out front to see if there was one behind the counter.

  A man was standing in the front door watching Ernie with a disgusted look on his face. As Cole moved behind the counter the man shouted something but Cole was in direct line of the radio’s blast and couldn’t hear him. He reached up and turned down the volume.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you people, you deaf?” the man shouted.

  Ernie whirled around and glared at the man in the doorway. “What’s your problem, tubby?”

  “Your goddamn radio, that’s my problem! I can’t hear myself think next door. Keep it down, will ya?”

  “You pay the rent on this space?” Ernie asked sharply.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then shut the hell up. I do and I’ll play my radio as loud as I want, as long as I want, until you start payin’ the rent.”

  “You’re not getting off to a very good start around here!” the man shouted.

  “I’m not the one trying to mind other people’s business. Now take your fat ass back wherever you came from and keep it there!” Ernie started to move toward the door. His jaw was set and his expression menacing.

  The man in the doorway pointed his finger at Ernie and in a last act of defiance shouted, “You don’t scare me! I know my rights and I’ll call the police!” And with that he scurried back to the Mail Box Express next door.

  Cole cleared his throat.

  “What?” Ernie yelled at Cole.

  “Hey, don’t yell at me or you can mop your own floor! He’s right. You’re burning bridges before you come to them. What’s your problem? You enjoy pissing people off? The radio is ridiculously loud! I can’t hear myself think either.”

  “He had no right to tell me what to do! I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Ernie said defensively.

  “You’re rude. Flat out obnoxious and rude! How would you like it if he played his radio so loud you couldn’t hear your customers in here?”

  Ernie just stared at Cole.

  “Your rights stop where his start. You ever heard that before?”

  Ernie didn’t answer.

  “Good job,” Cole said, looking around for the trashcan.

  Ernie moved across the room and lifted the lid on an ice chest that was sitting on a table near the counter. He took a cellophane wrapped sandwich and a soda from the chest and went out the front door.

  Cole heard shouting through the wall, then silence. A few moments later Ernie came back in with a broad smile and went back to his painting.

  “Well?” Cole asked.

  “Told him I was sorry. Told him I’m an asshole and he better get used to it if we were going to be neighbors. I gave him the samwich and soda. What fat guy can stay mad if you feed him? Now turn the radio back on.” Ernie dipped his roller into the tray without looking at Cole. “Well?”

  Cole reached and turned the radio’s volume to a loud but not window rattling level, took the trashcan and returned to the back room.

  The smell of Pine-sol filled the air, but the chrome shone brightly and the floor looked like you could eat off it. It took the better part of an hour and when he went into the main room Ernie finished painting the wall. To Cole’s eye it was not an improvement. As the paint dried it was nothing like the chip on the can. Somewhere between a jail cell and a chemical plant was this hideous shade of industrial green.

  “Better, don’t you think?” Ernie said, reaching in his pocket and taking out a quarter. “Heads or tails?”

  “For what?”

  “Windows or floor.”

  “I lose, which do I do?”

  “I didn’t flip yet!” Ernie protested.

  “No matter, so what, I do the windows?”

  “As a matter of fact the loser does do the windows.”

  They worked for another couple of hours. During that time the mailman brought a fistful of junk mail and some catalogs, a radio station salesman came to sell ads, and a hungry pair of teenagers actually wanted sandwiches.

  Ernie gave the boys each a sandwich from the ice chest. He told them it was a free sample for the first customers, even if he wasn’t open. The deal was they got the sandwiches free if they promised to tell five of their friends. The boys agreed and then stood on the sidewalk in front of the shop to eat. Several times they showed passersby the sandwiches, pointed inside and gave Ernie a thumbs up.

  Around four-thirty Ernie dropped Cole off at the end of the driveway. Cole checked the mail and made his way to the house. The flowers that Kelly planted were in need of watering, so Cole got the hose from the back of the house and watered the flowerbeds, then washed off the small section of sidewalk. The smell of damp redwood chips seemed foreign to this dry cottonwood country. Cole turned off the water and went into the house and got the cell phone. Just looking at the flowers made him miss Kelly.

  The LED screen blinked “two missed calls.” The first number Cole didn’t recognize but the second was Kelly. He punched in her number and she answered on the second ring.

  “Is this Eliza Doolittle?”

  “Yes, and you had better be watering my flowers! How are you?”

  Cole could see her smile as if she were in the room. “I’m great. Worked on Ernie’s new sandwich shop all afternoon. Wait, you don’t know about that yet
! Yikes. I gave Ernie one of my “to thine own self be true” speeches, and he took it to heart. Quit the sewer plant the next day and rented an old doughnut shop and is going to open “Ernie the Greek’s Sandwiches and Stuff”.

  “The hell you say!” Kelly gave a long delighted laugh at her joke.

  “Nooooooo!” Cole gave a mock cry of terror. He missed Kelly terribly and wasn’t sure if hearing her voice helped or made their separation worse.

  “So how’s the Sage Saga coming?” she asked in a bubbly tone that still sparkled with the aftermath of her laughter.

  “Well, ol’ George won a Ford dealership in Colorado Springs in a poker game,” Cole paused for dramatic effect, “then promptly lost it. I’m down to the last fifteen or so notebooks, and the last week and a half before I can come home.

  “I sure miss you.” Kelly sighed.

  “You, too.”

  “Come on, let’s not get gloomy,” Kelly said softly.

  “Chuck Waddell called and I told him my idea for the book. He suggested an article on the finding of the trunk and writing of the book. Sure beats his ‘thank God I’m a country boy’ idea.”

  “Before I forget,” Kelly interrupted, “I went by and scooped up all your mail and sent it to you. I left out the obvious junk mail stuff and just sent the forty-six offers for 0% credit cards.”

  “They’re like postcards from friends you don’t know.”

  Cole walked out to the porch and listened as Kelly talked and laughed and told him of Jenny staying overnight. They toasted marshmallows and made s’mores on the deck over the clay fire pot. Kelly told Jenny stories of the fairy princess that lived in “Twinkle City” across the water. Each time, Jenny would insist she tell her again. Jenny fell asleep as they watched the lights of San Francisco in the distance. They ate Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast with chocolate chips for the eyes and smile. Kelly laughed as she explained how she tried to make the “fairy princess” in pancake batter and how Jenny thought it was a sea lion.

  “Oops, got a call coming in. Hold on.” There was a long pause before she came back on the line. “It’s Erin, can I call you back?”

  “Sure, say hi for me!” Cole clicked the phone closed and stood very much alone, wishing he was in San Francisco.

  NINETEEN

  The house seemed even quieter than before when he went back to the kitchen. Cole busied himself rinsing out the coffee pot and washing the few dishes in the sink. He gathered the trash and took it out back to the burn barrel. The match sparked and crackled on the rusty side of the fifty-five gallon oil drum and Cole touched it to the edge of a grocery bag. Within seconds the orange flames danced above the rim of the barrel, then just as quickly died away.

  Cole walked back to the house and sat on the back steps and watched the sprinklers next door in Ernie’s field. The rhythmic motion and the phoot-phoot of the water shooting from the sprinkler heads was a sound he knew he would miss. A huge flock of birds dipped and rolled across the late afternoon sky, like a black bed sheet rippling in the wind, and settled on the strands of power lines that divided the two properties.

  Not thinking, not moving, Cole sat motionless, just surrendering to the gentle breeze and sound of the sprinklers until the cement steps cutting into his backside brought him back to earth. He didn’t know how long he sat there and didn’t much care. He found great rest in those times when he just went blank and completely relaxed. He thought of it as a soul nap. He tried to explain it to a couple at a dinner party once and they acted as if he was trying to explain an out of body experience and gave him a patronizing “that’s nice” kind of look then walked away. He never mentioned it to anyone again. Whatever the explanation or whatever someone else might call it, there was an invigorating, recharging of something deep inside that Cole needed and wanted.

  With a tall glass of ice water in hand, Cole made his way to the kitchen table where the tattered notebook still lay face down. He took a long drink of the cold water and flipped the notebook over.

  September 6, 1936

  It is two-thirty in the morning. I have just returned home from the hospital. This afternoon on the way home, Effie was hit by a car while crossing the street. Her friends said she was laughing and running and didn’t look and ran right in front of the car.

  She is badly hurt. Her hip and shoulder are shattered and she is fairly skinned. The car drug her for half a block before it stopped. The woman driving panicked and claims she couldn’t find the brake.

  It breaks my heart that her sweet face is skinned to the bone on the right side. The nurses made me come home to get some rest. It won’t happen. I am so worried about my girl I could never sleep. I will wash up and put on a clean shirt, then go back.

  September 7, 1936

  Effie still has not woken up. Even in her sleep and with the medicine they are giving her she moans in pain. Twice she has said “Mama” and I know she does not mean Alma.

  I sit alone and hold her hand. Alma says she is too busy with the other children to come to the hospital. Damn her to hell. She has a heart of shit and splinters.

  September 9, 1936

  The doctor says Effie has pneumonia. The skinned places have become infected and she screams when they try to dress them. They can’t put a cast on her shoulder because of the open sores. The doctor said he is afraid it won’t heal right because she twists and jerks when they try to clean the skinned places. He said if they put on a cast there is no way to know if the raw places are infected. He is more afraid of infection than the breaks. But I think if they don’t fix the breaks she will be deformed or crippled.

  The nurse said I should have her mother and brothers and sister come see her, “just in case.”

  Alma won’t come. I won’t ask again. Josie stayed with her mother. Paula came and is very upset because they fought over a hairbrush before school and the last thing she said to Effie was that she hated her. I told her Effie knows she didn’t mean it. She cried and told Effie she loved her. There is more to that girl than I gave her credit for. I won’t bring Georgie, he is too young. Connie came but just stood at the door and cried. I held her for a long time. She is a very gentle child.

  Please God, don’t take my Effie from me.

  September 13, 1936

  My Effie is gone.

  September 15, 1936

  The principal at Effie’s school said we should use the gymnasium for a service. He said Effie was loved by one and all. The boys and girls from Effie’s class decorated the room with fresh flowers from their yards. They all sang “The Lord’s Prayer”.

  The preacher from the Baptist Church said a few words and told the students how short life is. The lady who hit Effie came and had to be taken out by her husband because she was overcome. She seems a fine lady and it was not her fault.

  Alma sat like a stone.

  September 17, 1936

  I have nothing to offer anyone. I have no job and no prospects. I don’t really care either. My darling Effie is gone and with her my last slender thread to Mattie. My life is a living hell with Alma. I can stand it no more. I have two hundred and fifty dollars left after the funeral. I will take fifty and leave the rest. Tomorrow before dawn I am leaving. It is for the best.

  September 20, 1936

  My great dream was always to follow in the footsteps of the great Charles Dickens. Twice I began books and twice Alma destroyed them. I have gone on the road to find my life again. The morning of September 18, I took fifty dollars and hopped a south bound freight. Tonight I sit in a hobo camp outside of Fort Smith, Arkansas. I shall once again find a voice to tell the stories I want to tell. I am tired, dirty and hungry, but I am free!

  September 24, 1936

  Fort Smith is a crazy town. Always has been. Used to be the last civilization before you entered the Indian Territory. Last stop for outlaws and ne’er do wells. There is always a game and always somebody buying rounds for the house. Cathouses are open around the clock and the painted ladies bid you come in from the
windows and doors. Flop houses offer beds for four bits, but I hear the bugs take more than that out of your hide so I’m stickin’ with the great outdoors for a while.

  Oilmen come to blow off steam when they get a few days off. The rowdy nightlife is more in tune with their needs than the more refined cities of Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Lots of money and liquor, I hope to help relieve them of a little of both.

  September 26, 1936

  Met a fella from Okemah last night. He played the guitar and French harp. Sang songs about the dust storms and folks making their way out to California. He said he wrote most of the songs he sings. The music is borrowed I think, ‘cause I recognized some of the tunes, but the words are his. He talks a lot about Unions and the rights of the workingman. Curious fella. He’s little and wiry but he is almost sparking with electric energy. He talks real country but that bumpkin act didn’t fool me one little bit, he’s sharp as a tack and has a head full of ideas. He sang some old hymns and dancehall tunes. I bought him a couple of drinks and sang a tune or two with him. We talked a good long while. I told him I was going to write a book. He said he was working on one too.

  He said he was heading out to California. Seems he’s seen a lot of hard traveling. There is a bitter edge to his happy go lucky charm. All the same, he’s a likeable cuss and we hit it off pretty well. He said he had an idea for a song and asked me if I had any paper. He used the opposite page to write down what he was thinking and then forgot to tear it out. Later on when I reminded him he said, “Plenty more where that one came from.” So I had him sign his name. I think he’s on to something and may wind up famous.

  Cole looked in awe at the name underneath the three stanzas written across the page.