Joe Burke's Last Stand

by John Moncure Wetterau

  “For sure,” Joe said. He hadn't seen it before.

  “Wedding present!” Kate called from the kitchen. “We brought it over to make the house seem more like home.” It was a Deer Isle scene. An apple tree in full bloom, crowded by woods behind it, leaned over the edge of a field and a stock car that was missing its hood and engine. The car's wheels were twisted strangely in the grass. A large yellow 90 was painted on a blue door. White blossoms lay scattered on the wreck. “`Memorial Day' is the name of the painting,” Kate said coming closer. “You like it?”

  “Pretty good,” Max said.

  “I think he's getting better,” Joe said. “Is he coming, Kate, by the way?”

  “No. He said he wanted to but he wasn't feeling up to the trip.”

  “Very artistic,” Gino said. “And this too.” He held up a knight from Jackson's chess set which was laid out on a table beneath the painting. He spun the piece slowly between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Jackson made those,” Joe said.

  “Very nice. Do you play chess, Joe?”

  “Yes, but . . . “

  “How about a game?”

  Joe didn't want to play. He had been too well taught, and he wanted to drink and drift around. “On the porch, yes?” Gino picked up the board and carried it to an outside table. Joe followed reluctantly. “Wine, Joe! Wine for chess! The Merlot.” He rubbed his hands together cheerfully. Joe gave up and fetched a bottle and two glasses from the kitchen.

  “Corkscrew,” Joe said to himself, but before he could move, Gino held up an elegantly curved pocket knife and corkscrew. He had the cork out by the time Joe sat down.

  “Families,” he toasted. Joe nodded. The wine was soft and bursting with flavor.

  “Oh, boy,” Joe said.

  “A small estate, a good year,” Gino said. He held out his fists, a pawn hidden in each. Joe pointed, received white, and opened pawn to king's four. Gino took a sip of wine and began a Sicilian defense. Monica or Jesse was taking her turn throwing the frisbee for the dog. About ten moves into a slowly developing game, Gino reached forward, drove his bishop through Joe's position, and leaned back. Joe was shocked. He didn't want to look at Gino. He didn't need to; the real man was on the board. He cleared his throat and breathed deeply. Gino had taken his knight. It was a forced exchange; he had no choice but to take Gino's bishop and wreck his own defense. Gino gathered for attack, and Joe went into full retreat, playing for time, hoping for a mistake. Twenty moves later he conceded.

  “Ah, nice game, Joe.” Gino tossed off the rest of his wine.

  “We must have another,” Joe said, “after I have a brain transplant and read a few books.”

  “Ha, ha. Very artistic,” Gino repeated, holding up a bishop. Joe retreated to the kitchen for a piece of bread.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said to Sally in a low voice.

  “You lasted longer than most,” she said. “I thought I saw him think a couple of times.” Rolf appeared and clunked a jar down on the counter.

  “Capers,” he said. “What for?”

  “Crab cakes,” Kate said. More people arrived. Kate's friends continued to pile food and dishes on the table in the back yard. One couple brought an enormous smoked salmon. Jackson's parents showed up. Joe was happy to see two more people over fifty.

  “Hi, I'm Joe, father of the bride,” he said extending his hand.

  “I'm Gunnar. This is Bonnie.” Gunnar Arendal was wide shouldered, a few inches shorter than Joe. He had a high forehead, blue eyes, a strong nose, and a trim blonde mustache. His hair was swept back, gray at the temples. Bonnie was spare, compact, and deeply tanned. Her hair was dark and short. Fine lines crisscrossed her face. A handsome builder and a power elf.

  “Jackson tells me you're a builder, down in the bay area.”

  “Yes.”

  “I did a little of that when I was a kid. I couldn't pick up a bundle of shingles now.”

  “They aren't getting any lighter,” Gunnar said mildly.

  “What do you do?” Bonnie asked.

  “Used to program computers. Gave it up. Now I'm learning how to write.”

  “Oh, what kind of writing?”

  “Stories.”

  “Bonnie couldn't live without her mysteries,” Gunnar said.

  “It's true,” she said.

  “Hi, Dad, Mom. You've met Joe.” Jackson put an arm around each of them.

  “Hello, dear,” Bonnie said.

  “The food is mostly out,” Jackson said. “Beer, wine, hard stuff—help yourselves.

  Joe could see where Jackson got his energy and talent. People make more sense when you've met their parents. Jackson and Kate would have problems, Joe thought. Who doesn't? But they were a good match and off to a fine start. What more could a parent ask?

  He staked out a position by the keg and had a sociable time. He kept expecting to see Ingrid, but she didn't appear. Finally, a couple of hours after dark, he hitched a ride into town and went to bed. He slept restlessly and dreamed that a group of beautiful young people were enjoying themselves on a lawn. He was watching through thick glass; he couldn't hear them.

  12

  Joe slept late at the Friday Harbor Inn. He walked down the hill and ate pancakes in the midst of an argument about a town construction project. Money. Politics. It was comfortably familiar. He went back to bed and didn't wake up until noon.

  His new clothes had survived nicely, folded at the bottom of the Filson bag. The shirt was in its original box. He removed the pins, dressed, and tied his tie several times before he got it right. He took a bus to the county park. The bus sped through shady woods, up and down hills, and past horses grazing in uneven fields. It stopped at a resort by a narrow harbor choked with pleasure boats. Three women boarded. As the bus left the harbor, they told the driver about a tourist who had died of a heart attack pedaling his bicycle up that very hill an hour earlier. “He was in his fifties,” one said.

  “Too soon,” another said cheerfully.

  “Grover and Henry are playing golf, but they're walking,” said the third.

  The driver stopped at the turnoff to the park. Joe skipped out gratefully. The grim reaper was sure to stay with the interested audience. There was a parking lot and a grassy area by the water. Jackson and several friends were carrying folding tables and chairs up a rocky path. Joe took two chairs and followed them to a clearing on a bluff above the water. Chairs were arranged in the traditional bride and groom groups, a center aisle leading towards the edge of the bluff. Rows of champagne glasses covered most of a table set up beside the chairs. Coolers waited auspiciously on the ground behind the tables.

  “You guys have thought of everything,” Joe said to Jackson.

  “Kate could run NATO,” he said.

  “Probably run it better,” Joe said. “Gorgeous view.”

  “We were camping out here last year, and we thought it would be the perfect place to get married.”

  They returned for the last of the chairs. A musician arrived carrying a guitar case and a battery powered amp. He unpacked and began plunking away at Bach and Vivaldi. A minister with a neatly trimmed beard stood by a large madrone oak. He was well dressed, quiet, and non-denominational to the point of disappearance. Joe, who was finding himself increasingly fond of people over fifty, engaged him in conversation. He looked as though he'd been created whole that morning in the image of the Northwest, but he admitted to being from Vermont. That was as far as Joe could get. The minister evaded all questions about his youth, as though he had left a bad record behind—or maybe just an uncouth one.

  “Hi, stranger!” Joe turned to the familiar voice.

  “Ingrid,” he said, opening his arms. She advanced and held him tightly for a moment before backing away with a satisfied smile. “You are looking well,” Joe said, “and don't tell me it's because of your happy sex life.”

  “It's the Mediterranean diet.”

  “Olive oil,” he said. Ingrid had lost a few pounds, although she
didn't need to. Her thick blonde hair was cut short and away from her even features. Her expression was practical and good-natured, dominated by eyes the color of transparent jade.

  “You don't look so bad yourself,” she said.

  “Ah, well.”

  “More serious,” she said, “more gray in your mustache, thinner.”

  “Time's getting shorter.”

  “Tell me about it. I'm so happy for Kate.”

  “Yes, this is a good thing. It is so nice for her to have you and Max here. Did you see Maxie's giant sculpture?”

  “He showed me the picture. I love it. I haven't been over to Vermont to see his land, yet. So, what have you been up to?”

  Joe straightened. “This and that. I'm pretty well settled in Hawaii. I miss Portland sometimes, but . . . I've been writing a lot.”

  “Good,” Ingrid said. “You always wanted to.”

  “And you?” Joe asked.

  “Same old,” she said cheerfully. “Selling quite a bit. I'm down to teaching one class.”

  Joe bent over and looked at her earrings. A tiny woman swung from a trapeze on one ear; an elephant waited patiently under the other. “Pretty good,” he said. “A circus.”

  “A golden circus,” Ingrid said. “I made a series. The clown is my favorite, but he's too sad for a wedding.”

  The chairs were filling. Joe took his seat next to Sally in the front row. Ingrid sat behind them with Max. A bridesmaid, six months pregnant, wearing a light blue flowered dress, stood prettily on the bluff, her hands clasped around lace and a bouquet of white roses. After some minutes of suspense, Kate and Jackson walked down the aisle. Kate was lovely in white; Jackson wore a smashing gray suit. Sally wiped away a tear. The minister smiled gravely. Vows were exchanged. Spectacular rings, made by Jackson and a friend, were pushed on. Kate and Jackson kissed. Cameras flashed. Simple and touching. A rainbow or a pod of breaching orcas would have been too much.

  They moved to the champagne table and drank toasts before departing in a convoy for the yacht club in Friday Harbor. Designated cleaners stayed behind; they would join them later.

  In the club, a long table took up most of the main room. Vases of flowers were regularly spaced along the white tablecloth. Places were set for at least sixty people, name cards at each setting. In a corner of the room, band instruments waited by empty stools.

  Joe repaired to the bar in the next room. A short intense woman pouted when he ordered Glenlivet. “That's so easy.”

  “Are you bored? Want to practice something complicated?”

  “No, that's all right.” She put the whiskey in front of him with a quick smile. One Scotch and then wine. If he didn't go back to the hard stuff after dinner, he'd survive.

  Roasted yellow pepper soup was followed by a salad of spinach and scallops, salmon with a thyme sauce, and risotto with wild mushrooms. Wine servers patrolled vigilantly. Joe had a conversation about education with a teacher Kate had met on a vacation in Tibet. There were sentimental toasts, and then the band began to play. He remembered that he could dance, and he took a turn around the floor with the mother of the bride. Sally and he moved easily together out of old habit.

  Time went backwards and then into slow motion as the band worked through hits of the 60's and 70's. Joe danced with anyone available, and when no one was available he danced alone. Occasionally, he went outside on a long porch to cool off in a fine drizzle that was drifting in from the harbor.

  A group gathered around the wedding cake on a table at the far end of the room. Sally and Ingrid stood together looking mellow and nostalgic. Gunnar and Bonnie were talking with friends. Max was taking pictures. It was time to go, Joe realized. He had told Kate earlier that he would fade away at the appropriate time. He walked through the bar and said to the woman who had served him the Scotch, “Your little girl only gets married once.” He went out the door and down the steps.

  “Are you from around here? Seattle?”

  Joe turned and looked back up at the bartender who had followed him onto the porch. “Hawaii.”

  “Uh-what do you do?” She was urgent. He remembered that she had been watching him dance.

  “I'm a poet,” he said. The words fell through the air like a sentence.

  “Oh, a good one, I'm sure.”

  “There are only a couple of us,” Joe said, drunkenly. “I've got to go now.” A musician on break, watching from a corner of the porch, drew on his cigarette. The glow lit his face, a witness, someone Joe would never know. “I've got to go,” Joe said. He turned and walked into the dark and the rain, leaving the younger generation and most of his life behind.

  13

  Joe was thirsty the next day, fuzzy, but not totaled. Dancing had worked off a lot of the booze. He caught the Clipper back to Seattle and sat silently for three hours while images and conversations flowed through his mind. The wedding had been a great success—well organized, yes—but mostly because Kate and Jackson were a good match and because they and their friends all had the same attitude: let's have a good time; let's do it right. It was a relief after the weddings he'd been to that were dominated by ancient family feuds and personal problems. On the other hand, no flying plates, no loud exits, no sobbing? He wondered if maybe he hadn't missed something. It was too bad that his father and Ann hadn't been there. Probably, he should call and see how they were. Kate would check in, no doubt; she and his father had a warm and easy relationship.

  The Clipper docked mid-afternoon, and he checked in at his home away from home. His mind was too busy for sleep, so he took his notebook down to the bar and sipped a beer by the window.

  “The writer,” a voice said in a husky contralto. Joe looked up. The woman in a wheelchair who had watched him on Thursday was rolling slowly by.

  “Hi,” Joe said. Her face was sad and intense. Her eyes were large, brown, and circular behind round glasses. Her hair was light brown, shoulder length. Her coloring was warm, slightly flushed, whether from makeup or not he couldn't tell. She wore a light cotton blouse with bark colored buttons down the front. Her lap was covered by a blanket with a Southwestern motif.

  She stopped. “I saw you in here the other night. What are you writing, if you don't mind my asking?”

  “Oh, nothing,” he said, closing the notebook. “Just notes. My daughter got married this weekend.”

  “Ah.”

  “Want a beer or something?” He felt like talking. She turned towards the table, and he moved a chair out of the way.

  “Thank you.” The bartender came over. “The usual,” she said. He brought her a glistening martini. “I like a vodka martini about this time. Was it a nice wedding?”

  “Very. Out on the San Juan's”

  “Lovely. Here's to their happiness.” It was what Joe had spent the last two days doing. He drank the last of his beer and ordered another.

  “I was working on a story the other night,” he offered.

  “Have you been writing long?”

  “No. Well—depends. I've always kept notebooks. I've written some poems, and now I'm trying to write stories.”

  “I used to,” she said.

  “Write stories?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a sec, I'm Joe Burke. What's your name?”

  “Call me Isabelle,” she said wryly.

  “Isabelle! Call me Ishmael. My God, I spent a whole winter reading Moby Dick. I was working in San Francisco. Read a couple of pages every night sitting in a circle of lamp light with my back to a heater.”

  “Nice town—great book,” Isabelle said, “although no one can really say why.” She seemed quite experienced, in her early forties, maybe.

  “You want to know the trouble I'm having?” Joe asked. She looked amused. “Writing,” he added.

  “Sure.”

  “I can't make the jump into fiction. I use something from real life, and then, if I leave anything out, I feel like a liar—like I haven't told the truth.”

  “Quilt,” she said, looking
across the gray water. “Patchwork quilt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The story is the quilt. Made of patches: this person's face, that person's love, a cat you knew . . . You make up the quilt—the design—but the strength of it, its integrity, comes from the patches.” She finished her martini.

  Joe's eyes opened wide. “I have to think about that.”

  “The quilt's the thing,” she said offhandedly. “You have to care about it.” She swiveled her chair and held her arm in the air. “Another round,” she said. “On me.”

  He agreed and considered what she'd said. “A patchwork quilt. I can see it. What do you do now? Are you writing?”

  “Not much. I've been working on songs.”

  “Oh great,” Joe said. “I wish I could play an instrument.”

  “I have a keyboard that I take with me.”

  “Take with you? Do you travel a lot?”

  “I keep moving,” she said. “Do you live in Seattle?”

  “No, Hawaii.”

  “Long flight,” she said.

  “I love it there. Have you been?”

  “Once. I stayed in the Royal Hawaiian. Sunsets. A woman in white, like a queen, who sang ballads.”

  “Yeah, Emma—something, I can't remember. She's famous there. I live in Honolulu, but I don't get to the Royal Hawaiian very often. Can't afford it.” Isabelle flicked a wrist dismissively. “You're not missing much.”

  “You're right about the sunsets. Wonderful.” They drank to Hawaiian sunsets.

  “So, Joe, you heading back soon?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, Isabelle.” He was beginning to like her. “Come on over; we'll have a drink and listen to the Queen sing `Aloha Oe.”' She held his eye for a moment.

  “Maybe I'll do that. I'm going to Banff next—for the music festival. This is a nice time to be in the Canadian Rockies.”

  “You want something to eat?” he asked. They ordered two salads. Joe switched to wine. Isabelle started laughing more. Apparently she had all the money she needed to live in hotels, traveling slowly around a familiar route. It seemed like an hour, but it was probably two hours later when she pushed back from the table.