Joe Burke's Last Stand

by John Moncure Wetterau

  Daisy's hair was light brown and streaked with gray. Her eyes were grayish blue. She smiled often. They drank and then ate sandwiches, occasionally pausing in their conversation to watch the Pacific grow dark. When they were done, Joe walked with her up the steps and into the lobby. “I love the Moana,” he said. “Once, when Ingrid and Max and I were on vacation, Maxie disappeared in there.” He pointed to the men's room. When I went in to check on him, he was on the floor, pushing his toy rifle ahead of him, crawling out from under the last door in the line. He had locked them all from the inside.” Joe laughed, stalling.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “Told him, `retreat is the most difficult maneuver—let's get out of here.”'

  “I don't think I'm ready for sex,” Daisy said quietly.

  “It's overrated,” Joe said. And then, “It's not as if we haven't been there.” Disappointment hovered. “How about a back rub?”

  She read his eyes for a moment and said, “That would be nice.”

  “Oh, good.” They entered the elevator relieved to be still together. He took off his shoes in her room and lay down on the bed. Daisy slid next to him and turned on her side. He rubbed her shoulders and upper back for a long time, but she did not relax. He reached over and turned out the light. She said nothing. He continued and then, without thinking, he put his teeth on the muscle above one of her shoulder blades and shook her slightly. She winced and he bit harder. She cried out and spun around, drawing him tightly to her.

  “Hold me,” she said. “Hold me.” He put his arms around her as she began to shake and sob. She beat softly on his back with her fists, and he held her more tightly. Gradually, her shaking eased and she breathed more evenly. Without speaking, they undressed and lay side by side. She had helped him once in a similar way. How strange, he thought. And how right.

  “I've been brave,” she said.

  “I'll bet you have.” Her hand moved down his stomach, almost as an afterthought. She urged him over on top of her and guided him into her. They lay complete. Sometime later, out of no particular necessity, he began to move slowly in and out. It was better than talking. Reassuring. I am right here, he was saying. I love you. He went on and on.

  “Oh,” she cried. “Oh . . . Oh . . . Oh . . . “ Her head fell back on the pillow. “Oh . . . “ And then, “Joe?” She put her hands on his buttocks and pulled him deeper into her. “Joe?” He gave in. Near the top of the wave that picked him up, he put his mouth on her open mouth and felt her calling, drawing him over. He poured into her, tumbling, giving her everything.

  “My hero,” Daisy said. She was leaning on one elbow and looking into his face. It was morning.

  “Nah . . . “ Joe said.

  “I thought I'd forgotten how.”

  “No way,” he said, waking up. “Don't you look great! You look like a little girl.”

  “I've got a favor to ask,” she said. “I want to remember you like this. I can get myself to the airport.”

  “Uh—when will I see you again?” Joe asked.

  “I'm going home through France,” she said. “You know, I have a studio on the property in Woodstock.”

  “Woodstock,” Joe groaned. “Maybe you'd like to spend some of the winter out here?” They were too experienced to let the future spoil the moment. They smooched. Joe took a shower. He dressed, and they talked for a few minutes before he hugged her.

  “Goodbye, beautiful,” he said.

  “Goodbye, Launcelot, Lochinvar . . . “ He started toward the door and turned back a step toward her.

  “Strider,” he said.

  “Strider,” she drawled, smiling. They let go of each other with the total release that binds across any space or time.

  Joe walked along Kalakaua Avenue. It was still early; most of the tourists were in bed or eating breakfast. Daisy. How unexpected! How great! He wasn't going to live in her studio. She had her life, and he had his, now. But he would see her again, he was pretty sure of that. What was between them was real and had remained this long; it wasn't going to go away. He sang “Scarlet Ribbons” several times and was good and hungry by the time he reached the shopping center.

  Portuguese sausage. Coffee. Ah. The waitress, fiftyish, smiled at him as though she understood perfectly where he had just been. Life was so fine, in fact, that after breakfast he put off going home and wandered over to Fisherman's Wharf. He sat with his feet dangling over the water and watched a man fish. His line went out between two high-bowed sampans, the San Carlos and the Woniya. He had short grizzled hair and a round head with compact Asian features. He was sitting on his heels, motionless. He could have been 55 or 75. A small cardboard box on the ground next to him was neatly packed—a can of soda, a knife, a bag that probably held his lunch. The sound of traffic on Ala Moana was muted. The sun was full but not yet hot. The straight dark fishing line met the end of its reflection wavering on the green harbor water. He fished in silence for nearly an hour.

  Joe finally stood up and stretched.

  “Three days now, not biting,” the man said.

  “You get 'em, huh,” Joe said and watched him turn back toward his line. He would never give up. The image of his bony head, his quiet eyes on the water, stayed with Joe.

  He wrote it down when he got home, and in the morning, after he ate a bowl of cereal, he crossed out words and added a few, holding the fisherman in front of him. While he was imagining the fisherman, the aging bus boy appeared with his cart. Alphonse jumped off his fork lift. Whistling Ed Swaney walked over, sweating. Jade Willow Lady turned toward him from the grill. The bottle saint kneeled. They watched him with interest and concern. My teachers, he realized with a rush of feeling. My teachers. All this time and I didn't know.

  He heard a noise at the door.

  “Never mind, Batman. I'll get it.” But no one was there, not even a baby in a basket. The morning air was vibrant. Doves called. His teachers and so many before him had done their best.

  He bent his head.

  “Aloha,” Joe Burke said and took his stand beside them.

  Every Story is a Love Story

  1

  A red MG came racketing around the corner. It passed, stopped, and reversed, one front fender swinging freely.

  “Where you going?” The driver had wild eyes and a two day growth.

  “Woodstock.”

  “Get in, get in.” Patrick lowered himself into the small seat, holding his AWOL bag on his lap. “Whisky in the JAR,” the driver sang to himself shifting through gears. “Musharingumgoogee . . . WAK for the Daddy-O . . . “ He turned and shouted over the engine, “Where you coming from?”

  “Wiesbaden.”

  “Germany?”

  “Yes,” Patrick shouted back.

  “WAK for the Daddy-O . . . Good beer, the Krauts.” They flew off bumps and jolted around curves for five or six miles. Conversation was impossible. They passed a golf course, rolling and open before a dark wall of mountain, then climbed a hill by three gas stations. “Woodstock!” the driver shouted, stopping at a narrow triangular green.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  The sound of the MG diminished in the distance as Patrick looked around at trees, a neatly painted white church, and a row of stores. He walked in the direction that the MG had gone until he reached a field about a mile from the green. He turned back and stopped at a house that had a large porch and a sign announcing “ROOMS.”

  An older woman answered his ring. Her hair was white, elaborately piled above her head.

  “I'd like to rent a room—if you have any vacancies.”

  “Hmmph.” She was shorter than Patrick but seemed to be looking down at him. “This is a quiet house.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “No smoking.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She opened the door and showed him a corner room with a matching bed and bureau and a small rocking chair. “Bathroom down the hall.” He paid for a week and signed the guest register. “O'Shaunes
sy?”

  “Yes.”

  She handed him two keys. “I lock the front door after dark.” Patrick nodded and retreated to the room. He unpacked his clothes and a paperback copy of The Origin of Species which he placed on the bedside table. He lay on the bed a few minutes adjusting to his new home, then left, closing the door silently behind him.

  In town, he decided to try the Cafe Espresso. He walked down wide stone steps, crossed a patio, and entered an open door. Two people at the end of a small bar leaned towards each other, laughing and talking in lowered tones. At the other end of the room, a young man was practicing on an upright piano.

  Patrick sat at a window table and waited until a tall woman emerged from the kitchen. She wore bead necklaces, a tight gray jersey, and a wrap around red and orange Indian print skirt. A thick blonde braid hung to her waist. Patrick ordered rice and vegetables and watched her hips move to a gentle repeating melody from the piano. The player varied the tempo and the emphasis, working further into the piece, exploring its edges without losing its rhythmic heart.

  A man in his thirties with a round face and curly hair came in and sat at the next table. He placed black and white stones on a Go board, studying each move.

  “That is Go, isn't it? I've read about it,” Patrick offered.

  “Go is an ancient Japanese game,” the player said without looking up. “It requires intelligence and concentration.”

  “That leaves me out,” Patrick said. The couple at the bar walked out. As the woman passed through the door, she looked back at Patrick and smiled. Her eyes were gray, her shoulders half-turned, her weight evenly balanced. She was about 21, his age. He smiled back, surprised.

  Women didn't usually pay attention to Patrick. He was compact, medium sized. He had reddish-brown hair and a square face with high cheekbones and traces of freckles. His blue eyes were set deeply behind thick eyebrows. He had been called “cute” a couple of times. Mostly he got sympathetic smiles as women pushed past him, going for the tall, dark, and handsomes, or the ones with money, or the major losers. It was a mystery to him how people got coupled up.

  “My name is Eve,” the waitress said in a luxurious voice as she bent forward with his plate. She had goddess breasts and smelled of patchouli.

  “I'm Patrick,” he said and choked. “King of repartee,” he added, regaining his voice. She smiled as if she had known him deeply in another life, and then she swayed away into the kitchen. The Go player remained immersed in study, an air of relief emanating from his face. Perhaps he was recovering from the attentions of dark beauties with trust funds. Don't be jealous, Patrick told himself. When the gods want a good laugh, they give you what you want. “Try me,” another voice in him said. “Long dark hair.”

  He ate dinner and began to confront the next problem. He had a few travelers checks in reserve, but he'd always found work before he had to cash them. He had paid for his own flight back to Wiesbaden.

  “Come on, Pat, let me pay,” his father offered.

  “Nope.”

  “You're a hard case, Patrick.”

  It had been a good visit, but Patrick was ready to go after a week. “I thought I'd try Woodstock, New York,” he told his father. “You used to talk about it.”

  “My old stomping grounds,” his father said. “I have a friend there, Heidi Merrill. Haven't heard from her since her husband died. She has a son. Look her up for me, Pat—give her my best.”

  “Will do.”

  Patrick checked around the cafe for a pay phone, wondering whether there was a listing for his father's friend. No phone. On his way out of the cafe, he changed his mind and ordered a beer at the bar. The room was filling. A Van Morrison album had replaced the piano player. Attractive women crowded around guys who wore hammer hooks and Stanley tapes like jewelry on their belts, totems of a better way.

  “Feels good to stand up,” he said to the guy next to him. “This is a happening place.”

  “You just get here?”

  “Yep. Any work around?”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Wash dishes, construction, paint houses . . . “

  “Hey Parker, you need anybody?” A heavyset fellow came over. He had a pleasant ironic expression.

  “For what?” There were white paint stains on his button-down blue shirt.

  “Says he's looking for work.”

  “Patrick O'Shaunessy.” Patrick extended his hand.

  “Parker Ives.” He looked Patrick over as they shook hands. “Ladders, Patrick. Wasps,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  “Good. Meet me in the News Shop at 8; we'll see how it goes.”

  “Tomorrow?” Patrick asked.

  “And tomorrow and—yes.” Parker drained the glass of beer he was holding. “Tomorrow.” He put his glass on the bar and left.

  “Parker's all right. My name is Claude, by the way.”

  “Aieee, Claude! A thin blonde with green eye shadow and exaggerated cherry red lipstick put her arms around his neck.

  “Excuse me, Patrick.”

  Two young women entered and came over to the bar. One of them bent over, removed a sandal, and shook it. She had waist length dark brown hair and was wearing Levi's and a blue chambray shirt. She had long legs and long arms that made interesting angles out from the crouching curve of her hips. “There,” she said, straightening. The top three buttons of her shirt were undone. Sensitive, Patrick thought. Her eyes were unusually clear, light hazel with flecks of gray and green. Her blonde friend was shorter, narrow waisted, and well built. The blonde caught him looking. Patrick, reddening, thought he saw a flash of understanding. She was a thinker, might even have read a book lately.

  In Patrick's second year at Florida State, a biology professor named Ted Williams had turned him on to science. Patrick was an Army brat; he had lived in Florida, the Philippines, Panama, and Germany. He spoke passable Spanish and German. His parents were readers. Patrick had been around books all his life and felt as though he were ahead of the other students. Once he found a direction—that he wanted to learn more about science—he decided to go right at it. He didn't have to be a university student to read the books. It would be cheaper, and, besides, people were on the move. Work was easy to come by.

  His father, raised in the depression and caught up in World War II, had stayed in the army. “Never underestimate the importance of a good billet,” he had told Patrick more than once, an edict laid on him by Sergeant Donald, a mythic presence from the days before Officer Candidate School. Patrick's father never tired of quoting Sergeant Donald as they moved from base to base.

  His parents were patient and generally good humored about military life. They escaped into books. When Patrick announced that he was dropping out, his father seemed to think it was fine. “Don't burn any bridges, Pat. You can go back to school later, if you want. Or come work with me.” His father was about to retire from the Army and was planning to settle in Florida and work for himself as a handyman. When his father wasn't reading, he enjoyed fixing things; he looked forward to becoming a sort of anti-hero—Major O'Shaunessy to the rescue, the tools, the truck, the little boxes of washers and screws and finishing nails, the retirement checks punctually in the mail.

  Patrick's mother fussed about Patrick's eating habits, but she wasn't really worried. Patrick's sister, Molly, had earned a commercial pilot's license before she settled down in Atlanta to teach English, married to a hard working good old boy. Patrick, his mother felt, would find his own way if he ate right and got enough sleep. Both parents suggested books for his reading list.

  Patrick was well along in the list. When he finished books, he mailed them to Molly for safekeeping. Building the library, he would tell himself as he doled out postage money. Another few days and he would send the Darwin.

  He was still looking at the blonde. She smiled slightly, and he said, “I'm Patrick.”

  “Amber,” she said. “This is my friend, Willow.” Patrick nodded at them both and moved a s
tep closer.

  “I like this place,” he said.

  “First time in the Depresso?”

  Patrick laughed. “Is that what you call it?”

  “That's what everybody calls it,” Amber said. “How long have you been in town?”

  “About four hours.”

  Amber touched Willow's arm. “We're old timers.”

  “We've been here a month,” Willow said in a low voice. There was a brief drop in the noise level as the piano player crossed the room with quick steps and went out the door. “There he goes,” Amber said.

  “Who's he?” asked Patrick.

  “Dylan. He's Willow's hero.”

  “Dylan?”

  “Bob Dylan,” Willow said.

  “No shit,” Patrick said.

  “He's one of the reasons we're in this whistle stop,” Amber said. “Willow heard he was here.”

  “And Joan Baez and Van Morrison,” Willow said.

  Patrick snorted. “Where's Beethoven?”

  “He's watching, maybe,” Willow said.

  “My man,” Patrick said. “He sure rattled his cage.” Willow flushed.

  “Van Morrison rattles my cage,” Amber said, and Patrick forgot about Beethoven.

  “So, what do you do?” he asked her.

  “I go to Stanford. We both do.”

  “I went to Florida State for a while. What are you studying?”

  “Pre-med, I guess. My father's a doc.”

  “I'm reading a lot of science,” Patrick said. “Just finishing Darwin.”

  “Yeah, Darwin,” Amber said. “I was in the Galapagos Islands once.”

  “What! What were they like?”

  “Kind of rocky. Foggy in the mornings when I was there. Nothing to do.”

  Patrick was impressed. “Darwin was good. He kept track. He thought about what he was seeing . . . those finch.”

  “Yeah,” Amber said. She looked around the room. “The usual suspects,” she said to Willow. “Long-tailed carpenters,” she added for Patrick. It had been a full day. Things were happening too fast; Patrick wanted to slow down.