Joe Burke's Last Stand

by John Moncure Wetterau

  “Are you a model?” Patrick asked.

  “Was,” Cree said and led Sally away. Parker put on a Dixieland album. Vassar? Gino was a Dartmouth graduate. Joe Burke was doing carpentry work but had dropped out of Hamilton College. He and Gino were writers of some kind. Patrick felt that he had stumbled into an alternative world; the more educated you were, the less money you made, or something. He didn't understand this world. It attracted him and put him off. It was free in a way that seemed good. But it was threatening, somehow. There was something overripe about it. He went outside and had a non-alternative hamburger, served to him by the older boy. The smell of meat cooking on the grill was delicious. Smoke rose, drawing Patrick's eyes up the dark green mountain to the ridge line, an hour's walk above them.

  “So, how do you like our fair town?” Hildy asked.

  “Very fair it is,” Patrick said. “Good burger!”

  “Plenty more where that came from.” Patrick heard a trace of Europe in her voice.

  “Are you from Woodstock?”

  “I was born in the Netherlands,” she said. “We came over not long after the war.”

  “I used to live in Germany,” Patrick said. “Very different.”

  “Ja,” Hildy said and yelled at Alden, the youngest, to get away from the road. She turned back to Patrick.

  “What brings you to Woodstock?”

  “I heard it was an interesting place. My father lived here for a couple of years, once.”

  “There are a lot of artists,” Hildy said. “Musicians, too. And writers. They're all artists, I guess. Parker likes having people on his crew he can talk to. Are you a painter?”

  “Nope. I'm not anything yet.”

  Hildy looked at him. “Hmmm,” she said. “I'm a mother. And a cook.”

  “I think I could learn to cook,” Patrick said.

  “Sure you could; it just takes practice—and you have to love it. That's the secret ingredient. You have to love it. ALDEN!”

  Patrick finished his burger, thanked Parker and Hildy, and walked down the road. As the sounds of the party faded behind him, he began to relax. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been. What's the matter with you? he asked himself. Parties are for fun, right? But he had to admit that it hadn't been fun, not really. Interesting, but not fun. What is fun? Is it when you don't care what happens?

  He turned down Rock City Road toward town. If you didn't care at all, you wouldn't be interested in what happened; it wouldn't matter. How could that be fun? But, if you cared a lot, you would be too tense to have fun. I guess, he thought, you have to care a little, enough to be interested, but not too much. He tended to be on or off; he cared intensely or he didn't care at all. In this case, he thought, he cared too much. He wanted a woman. He was just as good as Joe Burke or Gino Canzoni. They had women. Beauties. They were citizens or writers or artists or whatever they were. Who was he?

  Patrick couldn't answer that question. He just knew that he was as good as they were. That meant that somehow, someday, he would show up at a party with someone like Amber and make jokes and have fun. This was a cheerful thought. But, in the meantime, he had to learn more science. And art—what the hell was art all about? By the time he reached town, Patrick was singing songs from a Burl Ives record that his mother used to play when Patrick was a little boy. “How can there be a cherry that has no stone? How can there be a baby with no cryin'?”

  4

  Willow lifted groceries from the bicycle basket, took them inside, and set them on the counter with a satisfying thump. Onions, garlic, a green pepper, a red pepper, basil, a can of coconut milk, a can of chicken stock, a small can of curry paste, chicken, lettuce, and two bottles of Gewurztraminer. The wine was extravagant. No doubt about that. But, for once it was her money. Ann had given her a job mornings at the Deli. Willow took her first pay directly to the Grand Union supermarket. She had been to the library and copied a recipe for curry and the name of the recommended wine. She put the wine in the refrigerator. Amber owed Art a meal, and Willow had volunteered to cook.

  It was two in the afternoon, warm, too early to start. She was tempted to lie down and read, but instead she took a straw hat from a peg by the door and walked outside. Bees were buzzing in the roses. The tops of the trees were dark against a bright blue sky. Her feet led her into the pine woods on the far side of the studio where a deep layer of pine needles softened her steps. She walked for five minutes and stopped. In the distance, a chainsaw snarled twice and was silent. The air was still and resinous. Small sounds filtered through the branches above her. A young chickadee flew toward her, pausing briefly on low branches. Willow remained motionless. The tiny black and white bird hopped and flew directly to her shoulder. She felt its thin claws shift as its head turned first one way, then the other. It rested a moment as Willow filled with a mixture of elation and deep humility. A quick whirring of wings and the chickadee was ten yards farther on its way.

  Willow remained still, her eyes misty, her mouth slightly open. She let the special feeling spread through to her fingertips and the soles of her feet. No words for this, she thought. As if in answer, the chickadee called. That's it, Willow said to herself—two notes descending, a major third. She repeated the two notes in her mind. The call and the feeling and the quiet beating of her heart wove together like a shawl to be saved for the future. Hers. Her.

  “God,” she said. She was thirsty. She continued slowly through the woods, working her way downhill. At some point she would meet the lower road, and she could walk back to the beginning of AhnRee's driveway. She came to the top of a ledge which she followed until she found a place to scramble down. At the base of the ledge, she straightened and listened. Banjo notes were picking their way through the trees. An easy deliberate rhythm drew her along and down the hill, farther from AhnRee's drive. The notes grew louder. Willow could see a clearing and part of a roof line through the trees. Someone was playing in the back yard.

  She paused. The player was practicing “Cripple Creek,” getting into it further and further. My day for music, she thought. When it stopped, she clapped with pleasure and emerged from the trees onto a rough lawn. The banjo player was sitting under a birch tree on a wooden kitchen chair. “Right on! Excuse me,” she said, “I was walking and I stopped to listen. Where am I?”

  “Cripple Creek,” he said and smiled. “My back yard. My mother's, actually.” He was tall and thin with shoulder length reddish hair and a wispy mustache that was supposed to make him look older. His hands were large. Long fingers wrapped around the neck of the banjo he was holding upright on his lap.

  “I'm Willow. I live up there in AhnRee's studio,” She pointed up the mountain.

  “Ah, yes—AhnRee. I'm Martin. Lower Byrdcliffe Road is just down at the end of the driveway.” Willow couldn't decide whether he was shy or busy. He seemed to be telling her to hoof it. The Devil made me do it, that's what she told Amber later.

  “I can play Cripple Creek.

  “Oh yeah?” He held the banjo toward her.

  “Not on that. Do you have a violin, umm, fiddle?”

  “Strangely enough . . . “ He stood up, leaned the banjo against the chair, and said, “Be right back.” Now what have I done? Willow asked herself. She hadn't touched a violin in two years. He brought her an old violin, nothing special, but the strings and the bow were in good shape. She played a few notes.

  “Been a while,” she said. She played the first bars of Cripple Creek. Such an easy melody. It sounded horrible. She stopped. “Just a second.” She took two deep breaths and let the feel come back to her. She played one long slow note, listening. Better. She played the note again. She played two notes. Her body began to wake up. It was surprising how you played the violin with your whole body. I mean, God, she'd been playing since she was three. She began again, more slowly. She had now forgotten Martin. She played it through. Then again, a little faster. Yes, she thought, and took it at a tempo close to the one she'd heard through the trees. Halfway through, sh
e heard a few tentative notes from the banjo. She smiled, eased back, and let Martin lead. They played until they had managed a decent version and stopped. There was another burst of applause. A woman with short blonde hair and a heart shaped face was clapping by the corner of the house.

  “Hi, Mom. This is my mother, Heidi, ah, Willow.”

  “How do you do,” his mother said. “Very nice.”

  “Willow appeared out of the woods,” Martin said.

  “Ah,” his mother said, “a wood nymph. This is the time of year. Although, I must say, musical wood nymphs are rare.”

  “Well,” Willow said, handing the violin and bow to Martin, “I'm off to gather mushrooms, back to my dwelling of twigs and pine cones.” She smiled at Martin's mother, the pretty bitch, and walked into the woods without looking back, damned if she was going to go down their driveway. A few moments later, she heard Cripple Creek, as if in apology. Or was he just going back to work?

  There was something familiar about Martin, an intangible set to his attitude, a stubbornness. She thought back over her friends but couldn't come up with the match. Memory is strange, she thought. It's all in there, but you lose the keys, the entry ways. It's like a city that keeps growing and growing. I mean, you have to go back and back to the old neighborhoods? Lennie Rosenbloom, Mr. Rosenbloom to her, encouraging but firm as she struggled through that Mozart sonata, his hurt smile directing her to feel the music—he was shorter than Martin and his hair was sandy colored. God, the light on his neck and chest. She was 13, so close to blushing all the time that she had to act like a zombie to keep herself under control. Played like one, too. God. No, it wasn't Mr. Rosenbloom. The road appeared beyond a clump of bushes. She pushed through and turned toward AhnRee's.

  She had walked farther than she thought. By the time she reached the driveway, she was worrying about dinner. She planned as she hurried up the hill toward the studio: first, the onions and the peppers, get them going in the large cast iron frying pan; second, the chicken, cut in chunks; then the chicken stock and the coconut milk, the curry and the basil. Whoops, forgot the rice. Start that right after the onions and the peppers; give it time to steam a little and not be so wet. She placed the straw hat on its peg, drank a large glass of water, and played “Highway 61 Revisited.”

  “Like a rolling stone . . . “ she sang along as she cut up onions. “To be on your own . . . “ Whack, whack. “How does it feel? . . . “ Whack, whack. Amber and Art arrived in the middle of “Desolation Row.”

  “Listen to that,” she said as Bob Dylan's harmonica blew out the pain and isolation.

  “Damn,” Art said, “that smells good.”

  “Listen!” Willow said, turning up the volume.

  “Don't send me no more letters, no—not unless you mail them from Desolation Row.” Dylan's intensity, the smell of curry, Amber's perfect body next to Art's shoulders, and her own unnamed passion coalesced into another moment she would never forget. “Too much,” she said when the piece ended. “Want some wine?” She busied herself with dinner. Earlier, with the chickadee on her shoulder, she was a child of the universe. Now, she felt reborn as an adult. It was so lonely and sad, so—terminal.

  She looked at Amber and Art. They did not appear to be in crisis. Art was lighting up a joint. Willow took a few hits out of politeness. She didn't mind getting high once in awhile, but the smoke in her lungs felt foreign and unhealthy. Amber, who smoked cigarettes occasionally, dragged away with gusto, the little pothead. Art was following her around with his eyes as though he were chained.

  She served and poured; they ate and drank. The evening got blurry. Willow told them about the chickadee and about playing Cripple Creek.

  “Yeah,” Art said. “He lives in a house behind his mother's. She's got money, or the family does. Don't know much about Martin; he went to private school, was only around summers. His father was a pilot. He died about ten years ago.”

  “He plays banjo pretty well,” Willow said.

  “Yeah, I guess. How come you stopped playing the violin?”

  Willow scratched one knee. “I love the old greats,” she said. “I mean they are great souls, but . . . “

  “They weren't your soul,” Art said.

  “No. I mean, they are, but they aren't.” She put her hands behind her head into her hair and paused, spreading her arms out slowly, letting long dark strands run through her fingers and fan across her shoulders. She shook her head. “I didn't want to be stuck in that scene forever. Doors were closing.”

  “Willow's father is a music prof,” Amber said.

  “My mother plays, too,” Willow said. “A nice Jewish musical family with perfect children who know how to get along.”

  “What's wrong with getting along?” Amber smiled meaningfully in Art's direction.

  “Maybe you could sing; you look a little like Joan Baez.” Art was a decent guy, really. And he had those shoulders. Willow's ears were buzzing.

  “I wish,” she said.

  “You got any Coltrane?” The guy was full of surprises.

  “We do.” She rose slowly and flipped through the albums that Amber had borrowed from AhnRee. “Night music,” she said, putting it on the stereo. Amber was smiling broadly and wiggling her toes.

  “Ice cream,” she said. Willow remembered that she had to work in the morning.

  “Bedtime for me,” she said. Amber promised to do the dishes.

  “Great dinner,” Art said.

  She closed the porch door behind her and stepped out of her clothes, feeling the cool night air on her skin. She stretched, reaching high with her fingers, and then slid her hands appraisingly down her sides and hips. This feeling of aloneness, this new sense of herself, wasn't so bad. Whatever it was, it was real. She pulled a blue broadcloth nightshirt over her head and lay in bed, drifting away from the muffled tenor sax, out toward the trees and the summer night. The quiet lured her, not so much for itself, although it was wonderful, but for what might arise within it.

  In the morning, Art's truck was gone; Amber was nowhere to be seen; and the dishes were dry, upside down in neat piles. Willow ate a bowl of cold cereal with milk and then rode into town. The first thing she did at Ann's was to make a pot of coffee. Drinking too much wine gave her a headache, but dope left her head filled with a dull cloudiness that drove her nuts. It didn't hurt, but she couldn't think. It was as if she'd watched a dumb television show all night. “Dumb, dumb, dumb,” she sang. “I'm dumb, dumb, dumb-deedoo-dumb, dumb, dumb. Where's my bass man?” she asked the coffee pot. “There we go,” she said as coffee began running into the Silex pot. “Dumb, dumb, deedoo.”

  “So it's a canary I hired?”

  “Tweet. What are you doing up?”

  “Couldn't sleep—smelled the coffee. We had a late delivery; see if you can get the stuff out before it gets busy.”

  “Tweet, tweet.” Ann acted grumpy, was grumpy, especially early in the day, but there was no edge to it. The feeling was directed more at herself. Willow did what she was told without resentment, agreeing with Ann's pronouncements whenever possible. Ann wasn't around that much. The whole idea was that Willow would open the Deli and let her sleep.

  Ann took a cup of coffee upstairs, grumbling about the Pentagon and Johnson's war. Willow began pricing cans of delicacies. Stocking was easy; it was the little price stickers that slowed her down.

  She was in the back room, looking down into a carton, when a voice called out, “Anybody home?” She saw a familiar head of red hair. Patrick, she realized as she came to the front of the store.

  “Hi, I was in the back.” Now that was intelligent, she thought. Patrick was considering the meat and cheese on display in the counter cooler. “Is it Patrick?” Brilliant. He straightened and turned.

  “Himself,” he said. “Good morning, Willow. What are you doing here?”

  “Working, natch.” She saw him start to grin; probably he thought she was a little rich girl.

  “Oh,” he said. “Could you make me
a roast beef sandwich? To go?”

  “White, wheat, pumpernickel, light rye, dark rye? . . . “

  “Dark rye.”

  “You want some horseradish in there? Mayo? What?” Patrick rubbed his chin.

  “Hell of a decision,” he said. He turned his face up to the universe for guidance. “Horseradish?”

  “Horseradish,” she said firmly. “And a little mayo on the other side. I'll wrap the pickle separately, so it won't get soggy.”

  “Pickles are supposed to be soggy.” He was grinning again.

  “The sandwich, Patrick.”

  “Ah.” He was altogether pleased with himself. She made the sandwich, mumbling like a junior Ann, and at the last moment included an extra pickle.

  “There,” she said. As he gave her a five dollar bill, the edge of his palm brushed her fingers. She put the change on the counter between them, not wanting to touch him again; she was still feeling his hand, pleasantly hard against hers, and she wanted to go on enjoying it. “Off you go,” she said.

  “Gotta put the paint on the wall. That's what Wilson says.” He took the bag and the change. “Maybe I'll see you and Amber at the Depresso.” Damn him.

  “Maybe.” She gave him her best Mona Lisa smile and flicked some hair back over her shoulder. A horn honked.

  “Speaking of Wilson . . . “ he said. “Thanks.”

  He's cute, she thought. Her hand was still warm where he had touched her. Like the ocean, his eyes darkened, the deeper she looked.

  The next morning, Patrick was back. “Good sandwich,” he said. He meant it, and she felt a warm stirring. God, not a blush!

  “Let's do that again.” She hadn't wanted him to think of her as a useless rich girl; now she didn't want to be Mother Earth. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it. Confusing. Fortunately, he had turned to the drinks cooler. She made the sandwich, including the extra pickle, and took his money from the counter. As she reached toward him with the change, her arm dipped and her hand rested for a moment on his palm. “Thanks, Willow. Have to run.”