by Sandy Nathan
The cab dropped him off. Austin looked up at his two story colonial house, similar to every other edifice in Washington DC. He took a step toward the front door––his foot slid. “Oh, shit!” He barely kept himself from falling on the icy driveway. No one had shoveled that slab of asphalt all winter.
December was always lousy in Washington. The rest of the year was, too. Freeze your ass off in snow and slush during the winter; fight tropical bugs and swampy heat in the summer. He hated DC.
The big bag of Christmas presents he’d picked up at the airport didn’t help his balance. Coming home two days before Christmas was cutting it tight, but he’d made it. No one could sulk about his lack of commitment to his family.
“Hey, guys! I’m here.” He unlocked the front door. It swung open and he entered the silent foyer. “Sylvia? Jimmy? Hannah? It’s dad. I’m home. Today is the day I come home, remember?”
The place was empty. Austin put the presents under the tree, noting that his wife had done a good job of getting gifts for everyone in the family, except him. A couple of boxes that might have held socks had his name on them. He felt his spirits drop.
He followed his nose into the kitchen, finding a note from his wife on the table:
Austin,
It’s Jimmy’s solo performance at the talent round up. The winner gets an automatic shot at American Prodigy. He’s worked so hard with his guitar; I just had to root for him. I know you’ll understand.
I left a casserole in the oven, tuna-noodle, your favorite. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Hannah’s on an overnight at Carrie’s.
Sylvia
He’d hated tuna-noodle casserole since she fed it to him eight nights in a row. She was recovering from pneumonia; it’s true. But there was a time when nothing could have kept her from greeting him. In a see-through peignoir, too. She’d look at him in that cute, funny way, and they’d run to their bedroom.
He’d been in the field for six months. Didn’t she want to see him? He sure wanted to see her. He couldn’t stand it much longer.
You didn’t have to be a genius to know they were in trouble. Socks for Christmas? Sylvia’s note didn’t say “Dear Austin” or “Love” or even XOXO. Who was Carrie? He didn’t know any Carrie. And he didn’t know that Jimmy played guitar. Yeah, they were in bad shape.
He would figure out a way to fix their family. He fixed everything else; he could fix this.
Austin went to his study and sat behind his desk. He would make things so tight that nothing could break them apart. And then he’d tell Sylvia that he was going out in the field again soon, another classified job. He knew its duration this time: nine months.
What could he do that would bind them into an indivisible unit? The image of that clown diving into the barrel came to him. That’s what he needed: a last minute save that could cement their crumbling universe.
“He didn’t win, but he sure did do a good job,” Sylvia stood next to Jimmy, as the kid shoveled tuna-noodle casserole into his mouth. She glowed with pride for their offspring, patting his back and kissing the top of his head. Austin winced. How could she kiss that mass of greasy hair? He looked like Elvis. What kid wanted that in 1996?
“Maybe you’d like to play for me some time, Jimmy?” he asked pleasantly.
Jimmy sniffed and threw his head back as though he’d suggested water-skiing in the alligator infested Everglades.
“I’d like to hear you play.”
“Yeah, well …” His son got up, put his plate in the sink, and left the room.
“He’s shy about playing, Austin.” Sylvia watched her son retreat, beaming.
“Why do his pants hang down?” The kid’s jeans barely covered his ass. His boxer shorts showed. A looped steel chain was tucked into his pocket. “He wasn’t like that when I left.”
“It’s the latest thing, Austin. All the hip-hop musicians dress like that. Jimmy plays hip-hop.”
“You mean what those ghetto kids play on the street? All ‘mother fucker’ and words like that, disrespecting our society?”
“Jimmy’s not like that, Austin. He talks about social issues and bangs a rhythm on his guitar. Plus he plays the guitar. Those street kids don’t. The clothes are just to fit in.”
This happened in the six months he’d been gone? Sylvia had allowed this degeneration. How much farther would their household drop while he was on his next mission?
“Jimmy’s fourteen?”
“No, he’s fifteen, Austin. His birthday was a month ago.” She had a mean look on her face. He had forgotten Jimmy’s birthday, but he didn’t mean to.
“He’s changed so much.”
“He’s becoming a man.” Sylvia smiled proudly.
Austin changed the subject, his eyes roaming over her lush form. “Hum. You look beautiful, Sylvia, as always.” Long brownish hair, gray eyes, chiseled nose. Great figure.
“I’ve been taking tai chi and Pilates almost every day. It shows, doesn’t it?”
It certainly did, whatever those were. He snuck up behind her and whispered, “Let’s go into our room, sugar. It’s been a long time.”
“You go ahead. I’ll clean up the sink.”
When Hannah came home the next day, words sputtered in his throat. She was wearing skin tight, shiny clothes. Her eyes were circled with black and blue Crayola. Her hair had stripes the same blue.
“Hannah,” he finally gasped. “How are you sweetie? It’s been a long time.”
“I’ve been fine, dad. I’ve gotta do homework.” She dashed in the direction of her room. No kiss, no hug.
“Wait …” He wanted to say something about the Crayola and blue hair. Obviously, Hannah didn’t want to hear it.
He turned to his wife, words sharp. “What’s the matter with the children, Sylvia?” She hadn’t been doing her job.
“They’re teenagers, Austin. Hannah is thirteen and Jimmy is fifteen. They changed almost overnight. All the kids look like that. I couldn’t stop them.”
“The children are allowed out of the house like that?”
“Yep. That’s how they go out every day.”
“Sylvia … look at them.”
“Austin, I do the best I can. I’m alone so much; I might as well be a single parent. If I can’t meet your standards …” He knew what was on her mind––divorce. “That’s too bad. I do the best I can, all by myself.” Sylvia’s face said she was looking for a fight.
Christmas came and went. He did get socks. The New Year, 1997, didn’t show much more promise than 1996. He would leave again in late March.
3
THE CABIN
The Golden Olden Days Rodeo was in late March, three months away. Time sat on Leroy’s hands like an eighteen-wheeler that had strayed from the freeway. Nothing he could do about it. They were snowed in as tight as ticks and could only get out by clearing the driveway with the tractor’s bucket.
His dad kept himself occupied, fixing up his clown suit and sorting through the plumbing and electrical parts that he’d gotten for his cabin. Leroy couldn’t get to the cabin due to the snow. But, if his pop could amuse himself using his hands, that was something. The treatment he’d been giving him for his arthritis was working, for the moment, anyway.
His breath made cloudy puffs even in the parlor. Leroy wished that the original Leroy Watches had claimed his land stipend around Palm Springs, instead of in the foothills near Yosemite National Park where he’d done part of his soldiering. He seemed to have forgotten the winter conditions when he was staking out his government land grant.
The first Leroy Watches was his grandfather five generations back. In the slavery days, he kept everything on the plantation running: watches, clocks, and the new sewing machines, anything mechanical. They called him Watches.
When freedom came, Watches was out of a job. When he found that the U.S. Army was paying former slaves $13 a month to be soldiers, he signed on. They wanted his first name, which he didn’t have. He made up one, “I’m Leroy Watches.”
He fought Indians, which Leroy thought was funny. Winning the West from its owners. The Indians called the African Americans in the Army “buffalo soldiers” because of their hair, and because they fought like wild buffalo.
A few of the best buffalo soldiers got land grants for meritorious service. Old Leroy chose this spot, the most beautiful place in the world in the summer. In the winter, it was like it was now. Frosty white. Beautiful, but deadly if you didn’t respect it.
He looked in the direction of his cabin. He had located it on the far end of the meadow, copying his many-times-great grandfather: he chose the most beautiful place in the summer, but the coldest and hardest to get to in the winter.
The cabin gnawed on him. About a year after he came home, the urge to build it had come over him like an avalanche that didn’t let up. Once, he had to build it; now, he had to finish it. Leroy got a permit to cull standing deadwood from the Forest Service. Cedar and sequoia; weeds around there but prized elsewhere and damn good building material. He pulled the trees down and dragged them to the log cabin site two summers ago. Last summer, he started putting the cabin up according to plans he’d drawn up the winter before.
The neighbors helped raise the logs. Nothing like healing people and animals for free to create friendship. He didn’t care about that. He’d heal for nothing. That’s the only way his powers would work, anyway.
When he saw the frame standing, he realized he was building more than a cabin; the shell of a house stood in a meadow, tucked in among the trees. What had he been thinking?
He wanted to take the cabinets his dad had gotten out there right then, but why? If he hung them somehow, he couldn’t use them until the thaw. Leroy picked himself up and went to the back porch.
“Hey, pop. What are you up to?”
“I got all these doorknobs fixed and working first class. And the washer and dryer are fine.” The old man waved from a workbench placed against the wall.
“You’re a Watches, that’s for sure.”
“That’s right son. We can fix anything better than anyone.” His pop shot him a sly glance. “I knew I’d better hurry. You’ll be wanting to move into the cabin as soon as you can.”
He did want to move to his house. Leroy didn’t know why. He liked living with his dad, and he liked the old house. He looked up at the stained boards of the porch’s ceiling. This had been his home a good share of his life. An old wood house used by generations of Watches. He’d lived there until he was six and his mama died.
And then that terrible time when his father beat him and his grandpa came to get him came. He’d lived on the res until he was twenty, being taught by the greatest shaman ever to live, his grandpa, and ten of his shaman friends. They practically tore him up, trying to turn him into his grandfather. They couldn’t. He wasn’t of that caliber.
“My son,” his grandfather had said when he was twenty, “go home and make peace with your father. Work the ranch. See if that is your life. If it isn’t, come back to me.”
When he first got back, he found that his father was the roughest, toughest man he’d ever met. He could outwork anyone. He didn’t give compliments or talk much. Their ranch was the best in the county, and their cattle the healthiest. His father was hard, but he wasn’t mean. He didn’t drink like he did after mama died.
What made Leroy stay at the ranch was her clothes. His father had kept all of mama’s clothes in her closet, just like she’d gone to town for the afternoon and would be right back.
Losing his wife had made his daddy mean, but he’d found peace, somewhere. And he still loved her.
Leroy had been there four years. One summer flowed into another. He loved the ranch. And even though his father was the stubbornest man in the world, Leroy loved him, too.
His father was looking at him funny.
“What? What is it?”
“You don’t know why you’re building that cabin, do you?”
Leroy’s eyes widened. “I don’t suppose I do.”
“Well, what are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a twenty-four year old bull of a man, Leroy, living out here with your old pop. What do you really want?”
“I don’t know.” He thought he liked life the way it was.
“I know you’re a spirit warrior, son. I don’t know all of your granddad’s teachings, but I know that the warriors are pledged to live a certain way. You’re not supposed to mess around with a woman unless you’re married to her. An’ if you’re married, you’re not supposed to fool around on your wife. An’ most of all, if you ain’t married, it’s no nothin’ in that way.”
Leroy’s cheeks flamed. He’d never spoken to anyone about this.
“Since you been raised somewhat different than most boys,” his pop laughed. “You never had the chance to … No that’s not it, you were kept apart, for a higher purpose. That’s why you are the way you are. They’d say in church you’re a sanctified man. An’ you are, more’n anyone I know. I’ve never seen a man kinder or gentler or more loving than you.
“I hated your grandfather for taking you, but I can see from the way you turned out that what he did was right. You’re a sanctified man, and you’re a spirit warrior. And you’re a shaman yourself, aren’t you?” Leroy barely nodded.
“An because of that, and bein’ true to what you are, you’ve never been with a woman. Ain’t that right?”
Leroy practically fell on the floor. He nodded and cleared his throat.
“That’s what I figured. I’ll tell you what you want: You want to get married, Leroy. You built that place for you and your wife and little ones.”
His father smiled, eyes crinkled up. “And I say, ‘It’s about time.’ This place is too lonesome and quiet by half. Some little ones runnin’ around and yellin’ would make me happier than anything has since you were born.
“Go find her, son. Bring her home.”
Leroy stood, dumbstruck. He wanted a wife? He wanted children? That was why he built the cabin? The life coursing through him leapt forward, filling his body and mind with joy––and desire. His father wasn’t the dumbest Watches, wanting to fight bulls at his age. He was for not knowing what was going on inside himself.
4
YOUR DREAMS AREN’T MY DREAMS
The answer came while he was watching the National Finals Rodeo again. Austin recorded it every year, reveling in details he’d missed. The kids refused to watch it with him that year. They’d always watched it together in the past. It was a ritual. Sylvia was at Pilates. She’d never watch the rodeo. Too much of a wuss. He sat alone, watching the pageant he loved most. His home had become a strange world.
Austin knew that his family was in trouble. He knew that his marriage was beyond that. His nights with Sylvia proved that. She could have been a refrigerator for all the passion she showed. But it could be salvaged! Everything could be saved. They needed a change, something new.
A vacation would cure the Zemsky family’s woes.
He set about planning their trip with all the attention to detail you’d expect from a special agent in the FBI. He wanted to give his family a trip they would never forget; a trip that would make up for his lengthy absences and inability to talk about what he had done once he’d gotten home. He wanted to pick a place that would make Sylvia so happy that he could tell her that he was leaving again and she wouldn’t get upset.
This vacation had to be unforgettable.
He planned it in his home office, deliberating like a general. Involving his family in the planning never occurred to him. He’d never included them in anything he did. And he wanted to surprise them.
Brochures covered his big desk. They were the bricks and mortar of his plan. He felt like he was counting treasure in the sanctity of his den. The room was triple locked and sound proofed. Ages ago, he’d installed a window that could withstand an assault weapon. He scanned his office for bugs twice a day. Austin didn’t consider this any odder than keeping
his family in the dark about their vacation.
One leaflet caught Austin’s eye: a photo of a neon sign in the shape of a rearing horse covered the front. It was styled to look like the 1950s. Paper brochures were old fashioned, but he liked to hold them and gaze at the exotic escapes that they portrayed. He had augmented the flyers with information from his laptop. He wanted glamour and adventure; adults only part of the time and parents and kids the rest. Also, he didn’t want to spend much money. Frugality was a virtue that Austin had plenty of.
Scanning a map of the United States, Austin’s finger kept returning to one place. Again and again, his personal Ouija board showed him where to go: Las Vegas, Nevada.
Everything came together in a way that spoke of miracles. The kids were out of school the week before Easter. Easter Sunday, March 30th, was three days before he left on his mission, a perfect time to tell Sylvia if she was warmed up by the idyllic interlude. At that point, the stinking slush of spring in Washington DC would have reached its peak. Austin would escape a week of slogging mucky, half-melted snow.
Even Vegas’ climate was wonderful. In March, the area had an average low of 45 and a high of 75 degrees––toasty compared to DC. In Vegas, it never snowed and seldom rained.
Those were all good reasons to go to Las Vegas, but they weren’t the penultimate one. The burgeoning Internet brought him a glorious piece of intelligence. There was a rodeo in Vegas March 22th and 23th. It wasn’t the National Finals, but it was a respectable show with some good cowboys.
And a bullfighter he loved above all others: Leroy Watches, Sr. The guy was practically a giant, towering over everyone in the arena. Austin had been his fan for years. They were planning a retirement ceremony and party for him. He’d spent forty years in the rodeo arena, saving cowboys’ lives. Maybe the family could meet an American hero. The family was going to Las Vegas and the Golden Olden Days Rodeo. That was final.