by Johnny Shaw
“You awake enough to play a little ‘Walks into a Bar’?” I asked.
“You really want more pain?” he said, talking a little smack.
“Bring it, old man.”
“Walks into a Bar” was a game that Pop and I had started playing in our phone conversations. It was based on a joke: “A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, ‘We don’t serve mushrooms here.’ The mushroom says, ‘But I’m a fungi.’” (“Fun guy,” get it?)
The point of the game was to pick a subject and then make up as many bad puns or wordplay punch lines that you could think of. Unlike the original joke that made sense (or of course, the classic “I’m a frayed knot”), it was less important that the punch line completely worked than how you incorporated the theme.
I challenged, so Pop picked the subject. “A boat,” he said.
There was no preparation time. One of the challenges was to see if you could come up with the punch line while you were reciting the setup. We always said the joke in its entirety.
I started. “A boat walks into a bar. The bartender says, ‘We don’t serve boats here.’ The boat says, ‘But I’m about to keel over.’”
Pop gave me a condescending smile, and then he gave his response. “A boat walks into a bar. The bartender says, ‘We don’t serve boats here.’ The boat says, ‘I’m just here to pick up a couple of oars.’”
“Round one to the old man,” I laughed. “You’ve been sitting on that one, haven’t you? When did you think it up?”
“A couple of days ago. Knew you’d eventually challenge me.” He smiled.
“Give yourself a point. How many boat punches do you have in the bank?”
“That was the only one.” He crossed his heart. “It popped into my head. Too good to pass up.”
“One, nothing. A boat walks into a bar,” and the game continued.
We played for the next half hour, Pop winning by a landslide. Fifteen to six. He usually won, this time coming up with “I heard you served schooners here,” “Looking for a small port,” and “If I’m not wanted, I can shore leave,” among many others. The best I could do was “I thought you were having a sail,” “Is that pier pressure?” and the embarrassed-as-I-said-it, “Just one drink, I’m full of seamen.” I’d blame my aching head, but Pop just had a quicker mind. The point wasn’t winning. The point was laughing. And in that way, we both won. But really, I lost.
“Your face got something to do with the snipe hunt I sent you on yesterday?” Pop asked.
“Nope,” I lied.
Pop turned toward me and looked me in the face. He reclined, his head in the center of his pillow, staring up at the cottage cheese ceiling. “I appreciate you lying, but you’ve never been good at it. You’ve never gotten away with it. Not with me. I know you think you have, but you haven’t. When you were in high school, every time you came home drunk, I knew. When you used to sneak out to raise hell with Bobby, I knew. You got good grades, were responsible, I trusted you. I mean, I trusted you to get in the right amount of trouble. I didn’t trust you to believe every word you said. I don’t mind you lying to me. I’d just hate to die knowing that you thought you got away with it.”
“Did I lie that much? Or that poorly?”
“No more than most.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself. Every time? Odds say I got away with it a couple times.”
“Every time. Sorry about whatever happened to your face.”
“This was essentially unrelated. I said I’d find her, and I’m on it. Got someone tracking her down. I should be getting a call soon. If she’s in Mexicali.”
Pop nodded.
“When I find her—and you’ll notice I said when—should I bring her here? Or I guess you could come out to the house, right? They’d let you?”
“Let me? They don’t have any say, but I don’t think I’m up for an overnight. You just bring her here and give us a little time.”
“Okay.”
Pop nodded, drifting somewhere else. After a moment he said, “Why haven’t you asked me about Yolanda? Aren’t you curious? I’d be if I were you.”
“None of my business. If you wanted to tell me you would.”
“I suppose.”
“So, do you want to tell me?”
“No.”
I headed out early. I was feeling a little better, although my ribs gave me reminders in the form of sharp pains every fifteen minutes. I probably should have gotten some rest and spent the day in bed, but I wanted to get some work done. Back at the house, I took four aspirin and went straight out to work on the water pump.
The water for the house came directly from the Ash Canal that ran behind Morales Bar. Not water you’d want to drink, but good enough for bathing, cleaning, and cooking. From the canal the water flowed through a pipe with no filtration system and filled an open cistern, essentially a buried concrete water stand that held the water and maintained the water pressure for the house, such as it was. It used to have a concrete lid, but that had cracked and fallen into the water below during one of the bigger earthquakes in the late seventies. It had been covered with a plastic tarp, and it was still covered with the same tarp, a little worse for the thirty-year wear.
Not knowing what I was doing, I looked at the ancient system for a while and tried to get a feel for the mechanics of it. I shook a few hoses and gave some connections the once-over. At one point, I gave the pump a solid bang with a wrench, hurting my hand. It was all procrastination and I knew it. I was avoiding the real problem. The most likely culprit was the pipe that connected the cistern to the house. To the best of my knowledge, it had never been cleaned, meaning it was probably filled with mud and gunk and Lord knows what. A clogged artery giving the house a heart attack.
Eventually I would have to get a ladder and climb down into the cistern and clean it. But looking into the dark well, it was eight feet down to the water level and I had no idea how deep to the pipe. I could snake it, but it was definitely a two-man job. And I didn’t want to be one of those men.
I tried to summon up my learned work ethic. According to Pop, you never hired someone to do something you could do yourself. His house, his rules. But I decided I could put this off a little longer and concentrate my attention on a nap. There was plenty to do. No need to prioritize. It would all eventually have to get done.
I had plenty of time.
It took a week for me to get the call about Yolanda. I was beginning to think that Tomás had made the promise, but never bothered to follow up. I wasn’t angry. I didn’t blame him. It was a crazy request. I was relieved and surprised when I got the call. The alternative was a return trip south of the border that I didn’t want to make. If I never went to Mexicali again, that would be dandy with me.
At nine o’clock that morning, I was calf-deep in the dark, flooded basement trying to fix the sump pump when my cell phone rang. I had already slipped once on a hidden frog under the murky water and wasn’t in the best of moods. The sludgy water smelled like rural Florida, and my flashlight was flickering on and off. Not surprisingly, Yolanda wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I answered.
“Hello?” I answered curtly, slipping on something slick and moving under the murky water.
“Jimmy?” the caller said. I didn’t recognize the accented voice.
“Yeah, this is Jimmy.”
“We found Yolanda,” the voice said.
It took a second to sink in. “Great. Who is this? Tomás said he’d call.”
“Tomás is filming today. You’re talking to Alejandro. Tomás told me to call this number. Tell you.”
“Should I arrange everything with you?”
“Tomás told me to help you,” he answered.
I carefully made my way to the basement steps so I had somewhere to sit. My foot hit frog and I slid about three feet, but maintained my balance.
I sat down on the steps. “Should I bring her down or can you bring her to me? I want to take her somewhere. On this side of th
e border. How do I do that? Do I pick her up? Or do you bring her? What do we do?”
“Tomás told me to bring her to his abuelo’s cantina tomorrow night. Wednesday. If that is what you want.”
“Sure. Is she…does she know why she’s coming? You’re not forcing her, are you?”
There was a long silence on the other end. The only sound I heard was something moving in the water at the far end of the basement. I shined my flashlight in the direction, but only saw the rippling of the water. The basement was starting to creep me out. At the first sign of tentacles, I would run upstairs.
Finally, Alejandro spoke. “Tomás does not force women. He asked. She agreed. She is a worker. This is her work.”
“What time on Wednesday?”
“Ten. Eleven, the latest. Depends on the border. The traffic.”
“That late, I’d need her to spend the night,” I said.
“Tomás told me that would be what you’d want. You can bring her back. Same time, same place, next day. If a day is enough.” He said the last sentence as if he were making a joke, but I didn’t get it.
“More than enough. Thank Tomás for me.”
“Sí. Mañana.” He hung up.
I held the phone to my ear, frozen. I stared over the brown water that filled the basement. Where did all the water come from? I was in the middle of the desert and there was a wading pool inside the house.
I looked up the stairs. I should probably do a little more cleaning. I was going to have company.
During the previous week, I had divided all my time between visiting Pop and working on the house. A heat wave had hit the Valley. Temperatures rose into the 120s. Believe it or not, there is a big difference between 112 degrees and 122 degrees. Ten degrees, to be exact. I focused my attention on the inside of the house: cleaning, picking up, and organizing. If I kept all the curtains closed and kept the fans running, it was bearable. Heat or no heat, my injuries kept me moving at a snail’s pace. Luckily, I wasn’t in any hurry.
I worked slowly and inefficiently. I would start to organize the books, but end up reading for a couple of hours instead. I’d begin to throw away a stack of thirty-year-old catalogs when I’d realize that thirty-year-old catalogs were fascinating. Every room was like a sunken pirate ship filled with weird treasure. Pop’s pop had built the house, and Pop had lived in it his whole life. Every room was filled with layers of dust-covered history. Even in the bathroom, I found some electric-blue aftershave that was in an unopened cut-glass bottle shaped like a Dachshund. I sloshed the Slurpee-colored liquid around, fashioning a story in my head about how one ends up with a wiener dog full of cologne. It had to be a gift. From whom? I could see why it was so hard for Pop to throw anything out. Everything Pop owned was a story.
When organizing Pop’s closet, I accidentally stumbled on his porn stash. It was just two magazines. Thankfully nothing extravagant or creepy, just a couple of skin mags. They were twenty years old and probably had been forgotten. I put the magazines back exactly where I found them, making sure they were in the exact same position. I consciously avoided looking inside them. Those were Pop’s tits, not something I wanted to share.
I only saw Bobby once during that week, although I talked to him a couple times on the phone. I had forgotten that we agreed to help Buck Buck and Snout bale hay, but it’s not like my dance card was full, so I put in a night’s work.
It felt good to be working in the fields. It had been such a long time. Hard work, laughing with friends, getting filthy and sweaty. It reminded me that while I was focused on my dying father, the rest of the world continued happening. It was a reminder that the real world would still be waiting when my personal bubble finally exploded.
After the call from Alejandro, I went into a cleaning frenzy. Yolanda was going to have to spend the night. I wanted to make sure that at least one of the bedrooms was presentable. It didn’t matter whether or not she lived in worse environs. She was going to be my guest, and I wanted her to feel comfortable. I washed some sheets by hand and hung them on the line in the back. Desert perk, they were dry in ten minutes.
As he was integral in the trip to Mexicali, I called Bobby to tell him about Yolanda.
“Tomás came through. Good deal,” Bobby replied to the news.
“Yeah, I think he felt like he owed me. From the past.”
“That’s awesome. You got your dad the hooker he asked for.”
“Can that be the last time you say that sentence?” I laughed. “Thanks again, Bobby. For your help. I’ll buy you some beers next week.”
“Anytime, brother. I like beers.”
It had been too late in the day to call Pop with the news. So the next day, Wednesday, I dropped in on Pop earlier than usual. He was eating his breakfast.
“You want my oatmeal?” Pop asked in the form of a greeting. He didn’t seem surprised to see me, but I’m not sure how aware of time he was, having no real use for it.
“I ate breakfast. And I hate oatmeal,” I answered.
“Yeah, so do I,” Pop said, pushing the tray away from his body and then taking a piece of dry toast and biting at its corner. “They honestly don’t care what I want. It’s like they think old people eat for texture, not taste. If they put a soft turd in front of me, I think they’d expect me to gobble it down. Hell, I don’t know what’s worse, eating something I hate or the cooks ruining something I like.”
“You want me to get you something else?”
“Wish I still had some of those tamales Marta Quihuis brought by,” he said, looking disdainfully at his toast.
“I could get you some more tamales. Sneak in a Special Q.”
“If my doctor saw me eating a Special Quesadilla, she’d shit herself.” Pop laughed. A Special Quesadilla was an Imperial Valley original. I’ve never seen it served anywhere else. Where a quesadilla is melted cheese inside of a tortilla, to make a special quesadilla you fill tortilla dough with cheese, crimp the ends, and then deep-fry the whole magilla. The melted cheese and doughy inside offset the crispy exterior. Artery-cloggingly delicious. It made a Luther Vandross Burger look healthy. Even without hot sauce, I broke a sweat eating that much saturated fat, my heart pleading surrender.
“How about a chile relleno from Camacho’s?”
“No. It’s not a big deal. I’m just in a complaining mood, I suppose.”
“Well, I got good news. I found Yolanda. Going to bring her by tomorrow. What do you think about that?”
Pop took another bite of his toast, chewing slowly. He dusted a couple of crumbs off his chest and waited until he swallowed before saying, “Where did you find her?”
“I didn’t. Not really. I got someone to find her. Mr. Morales’s grandson, actually. You remember Tomás. I’m picking her up tonight. She spends the night at the house. I bring her here tomorrow morning.”
“So you haven’t seen her?”
“No. Not even a picture.”
“But you’re sure it’s her?”
“I gave the description you gave me. They seemed to know her,” I said, feeling some slight apprehension that maybe I had screwed up.
“She’s beautiful,” he said.
“I figured she would be.”
“Don’t bring her by until noon, the earliest. I have some things to do in the morning.”
Now I was curious. “Sure. Anything I can help with?”
Pop shook his head. “I should have it under control. Just things I’ve been putting off. No more time to procrastinate. The upside of dying, better time management.”
I nodded. Death jokes from the dying were generally not funny, but I didn’t want to appear uncomfortable.
“And you’re sure it’s her?” Pop asked.
“Not anymore. But they seemed sure. If it’s not her, then we’ll go from there.”
“Yolanda,” Pop said, not to me.
“I’m going to take off. I just wanted to tell you in person,” I said, sensing that Pop wanted to be alone. “I need to get the hous
e clean. Run some errands. Stuff like that. You going to be okay without me?”
Pop nodded, although I wasn’t convinced he heard me. He was somewhere else. And from the look on his face, it was somewhere better. Somewhere where hookers cured cancer. Heaven, maybe.
I found Angie at the nurse’s station. She was talking on the phone, the receiver cradled in the crook of her neck as she thumbed through what were probably insurance forms. Or something just as boring. She looked up when she saw me. I gave her a nod.
She let the receiver drop away from her mouth. “I’m on hold. You want something?”
“You got five minutes?”
“Son of a bitch cocksucker,” she yelled. Angie had always had a potty mouth. But in my experience, nurses have the foulest mouths of any profession. Ask one. They’ll fucking tell you.
“I thought we were past that,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender.
She laughed. “Not you, stupid. The ass monkeys at the insurance company hung up on me.” She set the phone in its cradle. “So, what do you want?”
“It’s a little embarrassing.”
“You’re not going to tell me you love me or some bullshit like that, are you?”
“No. Here goes. Can you score me some Viagra?”
Angie took a second to let my question sink in. Then she lost it, bringing her hand to her mouth to hold back her laughter.
“Is there somewhere we can talk? Somewhere more private?” I said.
She kept a chuckle going. “You’re not going to convince me to steal dick pills for you. So there’s no reason for us to go anywhere.”
“It’s for Pop. Why would I need Viagra?”
“Maybe you can’t get a boner. That’s usually the reason. If so, using your sick father as a front for your droop is sad.”
“Even if I couldn’t get it up, which I assure you I can, it’s not for me. And if I was asking for Viagra to jerk it with, then that’s so goddamn pathetic, I would think that pity would command a couple of pills.”