Joe Burke's Last Stand

by John Moncure Wetterau

  18

  Mo swirled special noodles around in her bowl. “So, did you find out? What's a story?”

  Joe handed her a manila envelope. “Here's one,” he said. “A story is about change, is of change. It's obvious, I guess, but I couldn't see it. My instructor, Roland, finally said, `Look, Joe, for God's sake—in a story, sooner or later, something has to happen to somebody.”' Joe shook his head. “I kept trying to stop time, like a painter. I've got it now; stories model, take place, in time. The meaning is embodied in the movement—like a dance—you can't separate them.” He sipped tea. “The school has been good, but I'm stopping after this semester. Too expensive. Diminishing returns. I just have to do it now—the writing.”

  “It has been good for you,” Mo said. “I have news.”

  “Aha,” Joe said.

  “Rob Wilcox. You remember? On Kauai? He's offered to go into business with me—a gallery and a fine art print shop with enough space to teach classes. He has a building on Queen Street. He'll supply the space and the money for equipment. I'll take care of the rest.”

  Joe's cheeks flushed slowly. So that was why she had been so hard to reach.

  “Rob and I have known each other a long time. Did I tell you that?”

  He tried to remember.

  “We've become—closer,” she said.

  “Lucky fellow.”

  “I hope you'll come to the grand opening. When I have a date I'll send you an invitation.”

  “Of course I will. It's a terrific idea. You'll do a great job.”

  “A lot of work,” she said into the middle distance. “But . . .” she shrugged and smiled. “Can't wait to read your story.”

  They split the bill and left Hee Hing's, promising to get together soon. Joe went straight to the Moana.

  “Gilbert, I've got trouble.”

  “What's her name?”

  Good old Gilbert.

  Joe was upset. He had thought of Mo as a possible partner, or lover. He had leaned on her without realizing it. It wasn't to be. Wilcox. Was it always about money? No, that wasn't fair. He had another drink and began to feel freer. “We're all grown up, here,” he said in the direction of the beach. He ordered one for the road and toasted, “Your problem now, Wilcox.” To hell with it. He declared the day over and ambled up Kalakaua Avenue smiling at strangers.

  When he got home, he found a letter with three British stamps and a London return address. It was from Sarah, the girl who had stuck to her story about Mike, the cat burglar. She had married a Brit and had two children of her own. “I read your letter to my daughters and told them that parents sometimes make mistakes. I can remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday,” she wrote. “I hope Mike has found another way to make a living. Please do thank him for being nice, if you should see him.” The thought of Sarah reading his words to her children filled Joe with pleasure. He immediately wrote to Alison, thanking her for encouraging him to write and deliver the story.

  A week later, a square envelope arrived from Madison, Wisconsin. It was a wedding announcement.

  Oh Joe, how nice to hear from you! I was just thinking about you. I am marrying another Joe, Joe Jurgens, next month. He is a wonderful man who lost his wife two years ago. He has a fourteen year old son and a twelve year old daughter, so I have a lot to do. I think of you often. Keep writing. You have a lot to do, too. Love, Alison.

  Well! Joe knocked on his wooden table top and wished her luck. He sent her a lavish congratulations card.

  A month later Joe finished his last school assignment. “We're on our own, Batman,” he said, carrying the packet for Roland out the door. He kept writing and submitted stories to The Paris Review, Manoa, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker. Things happened in each of them. He was making progress, but he wasn't satisfied. The stories were rejected with form letters, sometimes not even form letters, form scraps.

  Fortunately, there was more in the mail than rejection slips. Kate and Jackson found a house in the Ballard section of Seattle. Mo sent an invitation to an opening party for her new business. Max sent pictures of Stone Man watching over the valley. Joe taped the pictures on the wall near his father's painting.

  His steel company stock fell to .50, down by a third of his original investment. Buy more, he thought. But he was afraid of running out of money and being forced to sell at a loss. He kicked himself for buying so much at .75. If he'd bought half as much, he could have picked up some of these bargain shares. Remember that, he told himself, you don't have to buy it all at once.

  Joe settled more deeply into his routine. One morning in a coffee shop, he looked up and realized that a young woman was watching him from a corner table. He had seen her before, sitting in the same corner, sketching. She was in her late teens, slightly built. Her hair was shoulder length, a fresh mahogany brushed back from her face. She had artist's eyes, open and steady, similar in color to her hair but lighter. She caught him looking and smiled—a knowing smile for someone so young. Her teeth were so white and her look was so proud and gentle, so female, that he felt a sharp pain. It was like being pierced by a thin hot wire. He smiled back as best he could and left quickly.

  The next morning, the young woman looked at him calmly from her usual seat in the corner of the coffee shop. “I did a drawing of you. Would you like it?”

  “Sure.” Joe rose from his table and walked over. She handed him a pencil drawing that showed him sitting, head forward, looking down. The lines were simplified but intense. His head was like a hatchet about to strike. It embarrassed Joe to realize that this maniacal stranger was him, or her perception of him. There was life in it.

  “It isn't very good,” she said.

  “I like it . . . Thanks. I'll trade; I'll give you some writing.” She seemed pleased. She had signed the drawing in one corner. “Rhiannon, that's a beautiful name. I've never heard it before.”

  “It's Welsh.”

  “Oh. I'm Joe Burke—Irish.” He meant it as a joke, but it sounded in his ears like a warning or an acknowledgment of kinship. “So, you work around here?”

  “Club 21, the clothing boutique on the corner. I don't start until ten, but I like to get up early, get out of the apartment.” That explained her stylish outfits. She put her sketch book, her pencils, and her CD player into a backpack and waved goodbye.

  The next day he gave her four poems, handwritten on heavy stock that he bought in the art store next to the coffee shop. “Awesome,” she said, putting them carefully in her pack.

  “I'm starting a novel,” he said.

  “I could never write a book.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “My mother has a place on Wilder Avenue.”

  “Not far from me—on Liholiho.” She smiled her unsettling smile and began drawing. Their conversations were short; each felt the other's need for privacy. The back tables of the coffee shop became their studio for an hour or two nearly every morning. Gradually, Joe saw that Rhiannon was beautiful. She had no spectacular features; it was the whole combo working together that was beautiful—hair, eyes, mouth, clear skin, proud compact walk. Feeling flickered on her face like firelight. She was stubborn; Joe could see that. But, at the same time, she laughed at herself. They were a lot alike, and she knew it. That was why her smile troubled him—to deny her was to deny himself.

  The coffee shop was cheerful in the early morning. Many of the customers were young and worked in the surrounding shops. Rhiannon joked with them but maintained a friendly distance. Once, a young man came over to her table and said, “I've been watching you draw.” He was important about it, as though he were a well-known judge of drawing.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Hobby? Or are you a student or a professional or something?”

  “Hobby,” she said and went back to work. The judge bent over her table.

  “Nice,” he said.

  Rhiannon said nothing, and he retreated. Joe avoided her eyes. He could feel her glance, and he was starting to grin
.

  One morning she asked for the bathroom key. The gal behind the counter tossed the key toward the bathroom door. It was attached to a large key ring and crashed loudly on the floor. “One of your most valued customers,” Rhiannon protested, bending over for the key. When she emerged from the bathroom, she drew herself up to her full five foot three and threw the key back on the floor. Joe couldn't help laughing—she was so intense and funny about it.

  She had said “Her mother had a place,” so he guessed that her father wasn't around. Her parents were probably divorced, maybe not so long ago. She was too self possessed not to have been well loved as a child.

  On the day of Mo's business opening, Rhiannon announced that she had the afternoon off. Joe had the invitation to the opening in his shoulder bag and showed it to her. “She's a terrific photographer,” he said. “Want to go?”

  Rhiannon looked down at her black cotton pants and touched her T-shirt. “I'll have to change.”

  “It's not until four o'clock. She's a working gal; it won't be fancy.” Rhiannon looked at him as though he were retarded and agreed to meet him there at four-thirty. Later, Joe went home and changed into one of his better aloha shirts. He waited for Rhiannon at the bus stop nearest to Mo's, but she surprised him by getting out of a Charley's cab in front of the door.

  “Yo, Rhiannon.” He trotted up. “I thought you might come on the bus. God, you look great.” She was wearing white linen slacks, huaraches, and a close fitting top with three quarter sleeves and a high neckline. The top was silk, purple with subtle golds and browns. Flat, black, oblong earrings hung partially obscured by her hair. Lip gloss and touches of eye shadow sent the “I know how” message. “You should be standing in a gondola, holding flowers,” Joe said.

  “Thank you.”

  They walked into the store and were greeted immediately by Mo. She gave Joe a quick hug, saying, “How nice of you to come.” She stepped back and he introduced Rhiannon. Mo's eyebrows lifted as she looked down at her. “I'm glad you could come,” she said, extending her hand. “I hope you find some things you like.” She indicated the photographs hanging on the walls. “There are more in the next room. Rob?” She beckoned to a portly man with rimless glasses. “Rob, you must meet Joe and—his friend, Rhiannon. Joe and I are old buddies.”

  “How do you do.” They shook hands.

  “So,” Joe said to them both, “this is where you're going to make a stand—gallery and print shop?”

  “And classes,” Rob said. His smile broadened as he considered Rhiannon. “Help yourselves to wine and goodies.”

  “Hi, Wendell,” Mo said. They stepped away from the door. Joe recognized the gallery owner from Mo's show the previous year. People began arriving in numbers. He and Rhiannon made their way to the pupu table where he poured them wine.

  “I'm going to look around,” she said.

  “Good, good. See you later.” Joe stayed close to the kim chee and the shrimp. There was a platter of spanakopita, veggies, watercress and sour cream dip . . . Mo appeared. “Art can wait,” he mumbled around a mouthful of sourdough roll.

  “So, where did you find PrettyLocks?”

  “Just around the corner from MoneyBags,” Joe said, straightening. Mo tossed her head. “Look,” Joe said. “Pax. I like being your old buddy. Rob's a nice guy, actually.”

  “You can tell?”

  “Guaranteed. Joe Burke's seal of approval.”

  Mo thought. “She is pretty.”

  “Mmm.” Joe never knew what women meant when they discussed looks. “Dynamite kim chee,” he said.

  “Stay in touch, Joe.” Mo patted his arm and turned towards the crowd. Rhiannon was standing in front of a large photograph, head tipped back, absorbed.

  “Isn't Vermeer a painter?” she asked as he moved next to her.

  “Yep, Dutch, sixteen hundreds—I think. Not many paintings survive, but they're all great.”

  A tag on the wall beside the photograph read, Jade Willow Lady / Vermeer. She was wearing a white cook's jacket. Her glossy black hair was pulled back and pinned up behind her head. She held a spatula in front of her. Her free hand was palm up, ready to reach. It was as though she had seen Mo with the camera and had paused as she was turning toward the grill. Light fell on her face through wisps of steam. The print was taller than it was wide, cropped below her forearms. The background was distinct but shaded. The light was all on her face as she considered her balance in the act of maintaining it. She was magnificent. She rose above time by letting it go, holding nothing back.

  “He, uh . . . painted a girl, a young woman, in much the same way, although she wasn't cooking anything.”

  “Awesome,” Rhiannon said.

  “Jade Willow Lady.”

  “Who?”

  “She cooks at Tops in Kaneohe. Mo and I went to look at her once. That's what I called her.”

  “So beautiful,” Rhiannon said. Joe went for more wine.

  As he maneuvered to the table, he noticed a man, about seventy, with a familiar profile. Joe realized that he was Mo's father. “Excuse me,” Joe said, reaching for a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “I was just thinking about taxes during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Would you have an opinion on that?”

  “Ha, ha. A lot depended on who was doing the collecting. Are you looking for a system to replace the I.R.S.?”

  “It's time, don't you think? I'm Joe Burke, a friend of your daughter's. I read your book.”

  “Arthur Soule,” he said, shaking hands. “You've got endurance.”

  “I enjoyed it.”

  “Actually . . . “ He took a sip of wine. “I've come to believe that systems matter less than the people who run them.” He had a dapper air, amused and ironic.

  “I couldn't agree more,” Joe said.

  The two carried on, getting into the stock market and economics in general. Arthur seconded Henry Hazlitt's argument that selective tax breaks were almost always counterproductive when seen in the context of the society as a whole. From time to time Joe looked for Rhiannon. She was moving slowly about the main room, studying each picture and talking with men who were circling her like bees. When he and Arthur ran out of conversation, he caught her eye and pointed questioningly at the door. She nodded, and they slipped out into the early evening air.

  “I'll walk you home, if you're headed that way,” he offered.

  “I suppose I am,” she said. “That was fun.”

  “You looked like you were having fun. I noticed Wendell Sasaki paid you a lot of attention.”

  “He's nice.”

  “He has a gallery, did he tell you?”

  “Yes. He said to come by any time.”

  “I bet he did,” Joe teased. She pulled a light cotton sweater from her bag and put it on with lithe movements.

  “It's cooling off,” she said.

  “Good pictures, huh?”

  “I liked them,” Rhiannon said, “but I don't know anything about photography. Winifred is very nice.”

  “Mo—that's what I call her. She is.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  “No,” Joe laughed. He was going to brush off the question, but he saw that Rhiannon was serious. “Almost,” he said. “We are too much the same, I think. Too pigheaded, or self-centered, or something. She's connected to Rob, the guy we met when we first went in.” Rhiannon brightened. The afternoon cumulus clouds had dissipated in a pale blue sky. Pink wisps of cirrus trailed to the west. They walked down Kapiolani Boulevard and turned up Keaumoku.

  “Did you go to school here?” he asked.

  “Roosevelt. I graduated last year.”

  “You don't sound like you've been here all your life.”

  “Five years,” Rhiannon said. “My parents got divorced and I came out here with my mom.”

  “Oh. Where's your father?”

  “He's in New Haven. He's a chef in a great Italian restaurant. I'm going to see him soon; I've been saving up. I mean, he's paid for the ticket, but I want to
have my own money when I get there.”

  “Right,” Joe said. “I'm from Maine and upstate New York, originally. I've been in New Haven. I love those old Yale buildings.”

  “Awesome,” Rhiannon agreed. “My father doesn't think much of Yalies.”

  “Good man,” Joe said. “So, what does your mom do?”

  “She works in marketing,” Rhiannon said abruptly.

  “What's wrong with that?”

  “Oh, nothing. We're not getting along right now. I don't like her boyfriend.”

  “Uh, oh. That's hard,” Joe said.

  “He's such a creep. I'd get my own apartment but I'm leaving. I've never had an apartment.”

  “It's fun,” Joe said. “Do what you want. But you have to buy a lot of stuff—beds and toasters and things. Actually, I don't even have a bed. I sleep on a camping mattress.”

  “I wouldn't mind that,” Rhiannon said. “Would you show me your place some time?”

  “Sure.”

  “People should do what they want to,” she said fiercely.

  “Damn right—although, it's not so easy sometimes.” The more they talked, the more comfortable he felt with her.

  “Well,” she sighed when they reached her apartment building, “good night, Joe.”

  “Good night, Rhiannon. See you in the morning?”

  “I'll be there.”

  19

  Summer was almost gone. Joe and Rhiannon crossed the boulevard at the Ewa end of Ala Moana park and walked toward the beach. The weather was warm and overcast, for a change. Rhiannon chattered about her upcoming trip to see her father in Connecticut. Joe made his standard suggestion to pack only one carry-on bag. He offered the use of his Filson, but she wanted her own, and, besides, she wasn't sure when she was coming back. They were relaxed with each other—Joe from habit, and Rhiannon from instinct. Sometimes love is easy, he thought. It's just a given, just there. Why deny it? Even so, he was afraid to touch her, to open the door to pain and loss and sexual inadequacy. Old age was coming soon enough; he didn't have to have his nose rubbed in it. An admiring whistle cut through his thoughts.