“You could make an exception, couldn’t you?”
“No! Think of poor Melanie. She’ll have to wait on him hand and foot if he won’t get in his wheelchair, and how fair is that? If I start mollycoddling him, then everyone will start mollycoddling him and Melanie will never get any rest.”
“We just leave him helpless?”
“We figure out what he will accept. He doesn’t want the wheelchair, so what other solution is there?”
We thought about it for several hard minutes, then Briana brightened up. “How about a wheelbarrow?”
Jack snorted. “We can’t drive him around in a wheelbarrow.”
“Why not? They do things like that back home all the time. Nobody thinks twice about it.”
“I’ll bet he lets us take him around in a wheelbarrow,” said Burke. “It’s not like we’d be saying he’s crippled or anything, but he just needs a little help. We could fix it so it’s comfortable. A wheelbarrow is a manly thing, and he has one back of his house.”
“How has the doctor been doing?” Asked Linda, now that we’d solved the problem. I hadn’t told anyone of my affair with him and I didn’t see any reason to make an admission now. I kept silent, but Briana was her usual cheerful self.
“He’s been acting strangely,” she confided. “Strangely even for him. He hardly ever comes over anymore, and when he does, he acts likes he’s been caught in a house of ill repute.”
“Our reputes are very healthy,” said Linda. “I wonder what that’s all about? Did he take a dip in somebody’s pudding?”
“Not in mine!” Said Briana. Maybe he was secretly in love with you, Linda. He got all glum right after New Year’s.”
“That’s my vanilla pudding,” said Jack. “He can go look somewhere else.”
“It’s not me at all,” said Linda. “I’m sure of it. I hear the click when the gears grind together and there hasn’t been any clicking involved.”
“Maybe he has bi-polar personality disorder,” suggested Burke. We all raised our brows at him. “What? It’s all the rage, the way ADD was ten years ago. I have a sister who managed to get a bi-polar personality disorder diagnosis, and she’s very proud of it. He’s kind of a girly guy. I can see him having a girly disorder.”
“Is everything either girly or manly with you?” I asked.
“Sure it is. It keeps things simple. We can figure out how much of us is manly and how much is girly. You’re girly-girls because there aren’t many manly things you like. Simple.”
We smoked some more. We talked until the cows came home. We gathered all the finger foods we could find and ate them, then smoked another joint. “Oh,” said Linda a bit faintly. She seemed to be speaking from a vortex. “We learned something about your father while we were there. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Actually, I had learned enough that I was no longer sure I wanted to review his biography, but I invited her to speak, anyway.
Her story was a little strange, but consistent with the rumors. “He had a business deal going with one of the growers. They call him Buck Knife because of his knives, and to keep him separate from other guys named Buck. He was buying from him a pound or two at a time, and bringing it back to Seattle for sale. He reached the point where he was buying five pounds at a time, then told Buck Knife to front him on a one time, quick slam deal for ten pounds.
Since they had been doing business for a while, Buck Knife trusted him. He fronted the weed to your dad with the understanding he’d have his money inside three days. Your dad never returned.”
“They sent someone out to collect?”
“They did. They trailed him to a nightclub, where he was dealing drugs under the table and a stripper over the table. Now, here’s where it gets strange. They talk to the nightclub owner, see, and even threaten him if he doesn’t reveal where your dad is hiding, but it turns out, the owner had put a hit out on your dad as well. They turn the whole nightclub upside down. They can’t find him. They do find the stripper, however.
The stripper also has been trying to kill him. She tells the hit men and the nightclub owner that she had put a roofie in your daddy’s drink, and had two men waiting to finish him off the alley, but he had staggered out of her room and disappeared before passing out. They all looked for him. They combed the whole area but never found him. Two days later, he was hit by a plane while sleeping in a runaway baggage cart.”
“So we have a drug dealer, a nightclub owner and a stripper who all wanted him dead?” I asked.
“Yeah,” agreed Jack. “And two ex-wives, and several ex-girlfriends.”
“But nobody from this community?”
“He kept things lively. We didn’t have a quarrel with him. Only the doctor did.”
“And Julia,” put in Burke.
“Yeah. And Julia. There’s one good thing about it.”
“What’s that?”
“Buck Knife doesn’t hold you accountable for your father’s debt.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Yes, nineteen thousand dollars. A bit of relief. However, he says if you would do some distributing here and there until you’ve sold ten pounds for him, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“And if I chose not to do it?”
“I would wish that you did. It would be very sad if our Humboldt connection dried up in this community.”
“I see. They would boycott the whole neighborhood.”
“Yep.”
I was silent a moment, thinking things over. “Just here and there.”
“Until it’s covered. You won’t even have to handle it.”
That I didn’t doubt. There were enough willing participants here to cover the whole city of Seattle. Their biggest problem was finding someone who wasn’t selling. Even Billy would go wobbling out to the Space Needle if it meant dumping some of his under the kitchen sink grow op. The difference though, was that their home grown just didn’t compare to Humboldt and if Humboldt was withdrawn from their medicinal remedies, the outbreak of incurable ailing pains and illnesses would be enormous. Humboldt was the chocolate ice cream you waited for after eating plain yogurt for a week.
What Jack meant was that I was to buy weed from Buck Knife, sell it by the ounce and return all the profits until the nineteen thou was paid off. I could do this. I would be paying off my dad’s debt with only a single, nineteen hundred dollar investment. I could do that. Keeping your books balanced with the dealers is more important than keeping your utilities paid. It’s just the neighborly thing to do.
A few days later, Zeke returned, his complexion ruddy despite having been in the North Country. He must have spent his entire time outside. Little white lines scrunched up at the edges of his eyes, the way they do on skiers and sailors. His hands were rough, dirt embedded deep in his fingernails, but as Burke would say, it was a manly look.
“There’s a group going to Wrangell Mountains this summer,” he told me. “We should do it. You and me. All they are taking is a tent, sleeping bag, clothing, a few cooking items, and fishing poles. We’ll live off the wilderness and what we can catch.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” I said. “You go ahead. I can’t bear to be further than five miles from the nearest supermarket. Maybe Briana will go with you.”
“I doubt it,” said Briana. I need my beauty sleep and I’m not going to get from a rock and a patch of grass. I’m not a Spartacusan.”
“You mean a Spartan.”
“Yeah, the ones who followed Spartacus. I’m like the one who followed pompous pirates.”
“No, I don’t suppose we should have any pompous pirates in the wilderness,” murmured Zeke. He was in an especially good mood. He placed one arm around Briana and one around me, hugging us both, and gestured for Linda to join in. She wrapped her Amazon arms around all of us, squeezing. It was a very big mama moment that nearly suffocated poor Zeke, who really couldn’t imagine a better way to die.
He plopped down on the couch and we surrounded our favorite p
etting, stroking his hair, cuddling him while he gave us instructions on low-impact poop disposal in the wilderness. He’d finally come around to telling us how to build a rabbit snare with a pocket knife and showing us his new Leatherman tool when we heard a knock at the door.
It was late afternoon, which meant the catering services were over. “Looks like the neighbors have already discovered you’re back,” I told Zeke, getting up to see who it was.
“If it’s Mrs. Bowery, tell her I found some wild ginger, but it’s at the house. I came over to see my three beautiful babes.”
“What is she going to do with wild ginger this time of year?”
“Transplant it. I dug it up for her and was real careful with the roots.”
“I want some.”
“Go camping with me this spring and you can dig up all you want.”
I answered the door. It was Melanie. “I brought Ralph over for his haircut,” she told me. “But I can’t get him up the steps.”
I looked past her. There was Ralph, folded neatly into a wheelbarrow. It was quite a royal seat. Blankets had been spread inside, and pillows cushioned the sides. Ralph’s legs dangled over, but he drew himself up by propping his elbows against the sides of the wheelbarrow and clasping his hands together. His belly was somewhat thick, but his limbs gangling. He reminded me of a spider with only four legs.
You could still see the effects of the stroke on one side of his face. It was slowly resuming to normal, but one end of his mouth turned down and his head tilted to one side. The side of his face that was working, spread into a big smile.
I called the troops. I only needed Linda’s help to get him up the steps, but the others tagged along as supervisors. Once inside the house, it was an easy matter to roll him inside Linda’s salon and transfer him to the barber chair. As Linda snipped, Zeke chatted with Melanie, giving her much of the same survival information he had given us, when he paused. “Say, what are you going to do about the wheelchair?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “It’s already paid for. I could donate it, I guess, or hold on to it. We’re not getting any younger. We’ll probably both need wheel chairs eventually.”
“Can I have it?”
“What would you want with a wheelchair?”
“I was thinking Uncle Billy might want to use it instead of hobbling all over the place.”
“Hah! If Ralph won’t use it, Billy damned sure won’t use it. Not unless they shoot both his legs off.”
Ralph nodded agreement, grinning.
“I just don’t think we should prepare to start carting all the elderly around in wheelbarrows,” shrugged Zeke. “Maybe there’s a way we can make them more appealing.”
Whatever Zeke was thinking, the wheelchair ended up in my garage, under the collaborative supervision of Zeke and Burke. Parts of the wheelchair disappeared, to reappear with inexplicable modifications, the wheels were replaced by what looked like Huffy tires, and a metal box was soldered to the back.
Most of the work in progress had been done by Burke. Zeke was the idea man, but he wasn’t giving away any of his ideas. In the meantime, he committed himself thoroughly to another project.
One early spring morning, I looked out in the yard and saw the skeletal structure of what could only be a wigwam. Some green saplings had been cut down from who knows where, and the bark stripped. They had been bent to crisscross over each other, and tied in place. Zeke had just finished tacking down the last bough, when I came to the porch. “What are you doing?”
He jumped up and brushed at his pants happily. “Do you like it? I picked up a shitload of old, wool army blankets the other day and started thinking about this.”
“Are you going to camp out in my yard?”
“No! This isn’t for camping. It’s going to be a sweat lodge. Do you have any old blankets? The more we use, the better it will be.”
“I’m not giving you my blankets.”
“Don’t be mad. You’ll love this. I’ve got lava rocks, a cast iron pot to put them in. We’ll even set the grate off the ground so we don’t kill the grass.”
I don’t know why I never argued with Zeke. His wigwam, or sweat lodge as he called it, was god-awful ugly. It was just this bulbous thing out there in the yard that began to look like a homeless man’s shelter as house after house dug their old blankets out of storage to cover sapling structure. I let him do it. I let the neighbors crawl in and out of the curtained door, dragging in the iron grate, the huge, cast iron cook pot, the lava rocks and even more blankets. My grass was going to be totally ruined.
Linda was more vocal. She followed behind Zeke, scolding him, and did everything she could to impede his progress. “Just try it out first,” he said. “If you don’t like it, we’ll move it. I just thought this was the best place to put it because you have the biggest yard and everyone likes to come here.”
I guess that’s why I don’t argue with Zeke. He doesn’t listen. Once he makes up his mind, he just goes ahead and does whatever it is he’s been thinking about. He heated up the rocks across the street in Liz’s fire pit, enlisted Burke’s help to bring them back on a grilling rack, and tongs to carry each one inside the wigwam. In a few minutes, I heard a triumphant shout. “Wha-hoo! Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Burke and Zeke popped out of the entrance and began stripping down to their shorts. “It’s ready! Do you want to put your bikini’s on, or you can just wear your underclothes if you want.”
Liz was already taking off her clothes. “I don’t know about you girls, but I’m ready.” In her underwear, she didn’t strike a very sexy figure. Her fat cells had clustered mainly around her upper arm, her belly, and her thighs, leaving the rest of her looking normal. She didn’t seem to care, and nobody else did either, as a couple of other middling types stripped off their clothes and crawled inside the do it yourself sweat lodge.
They didn’t last long. They came out sputtering, but dripping with sweat and excitement. “Hose off! Hose off!” Cried one of the younger members, and applied the cold water stream directly to the top of his graying hair, yowling as the hairs on his chest curled tighter.
While I was still trying to make up my mind, Briana had gone into the house and came out again in one of her famous halters and a pair of sports shorts. She crawled inside, then popped her head out. “C’mon, Jenna. It’s way cool!”
I looked at Linda. She looked at me, and we both shrugged and began peeling our clothes. I had never been in a sweat lodge or a steam room or anything of the sort and didn’t really know what to expect.
It was a little surreal. The blankets blocked all natural daylight, so that the only visibility was created by a hurricane lantern set near the entrance. A small group sat in a circle around the pot of lava rocks that were glowing fiery red. They passed around a giant peace pipe filled with nature’s best. It mingled with the scent of smoldering sage, peppermint oil eucalyptus leaves. I found a spot for sitting cross-legged and wondered what was supposed to happen next. Nearly everyone seemed to be meditating.
It wasn’t that hot. It felt pretty comfortable, like basking in front of a fire on a cold day. Suddenly, somebody picked up a ladle of water and threw it on the rocks. The steam billowed out, filling the wigwam immediately, and I breathed in pure, searing heat. I gasped. The sweat rolled off me and plastered my hair against my scalp. I felt it bead up and roll down my legs. Through the steam, the faces all looked blurred. They shimmered as though they had stepped down from an ethereal dimension to take corporate bodies and were just now finding their way back to it.
After the initial shock, I began to relax. I don’t know if it’s true about steam baths drawing out all your toxins, but it sure felt like it was true. I felt incredibly clean as I splashed on a bit of cold water to cool me off, then continued to inhale the hot, fragrant air carrying me dreamily into another time and space.
The summer was taking on a flavor and characteristics of its own. Burke finished his wheelchair proje
ct and took it out for a spin. I mean that literally. I woke up one morning to hear a buzz like a lawn mower, except this busy engine left my yard, wandered up the street until its sound was so low you could no longer hear it, remained incommunicado for about ten minutes, then announced its existence once more with a faint hum that grew louder as it approached the house.
I went outside and found both Burke and Zeke hovering over the wheelchair. Beside the buff tires I mentioned earlier, the wheelchair now a motor cradled in the metal box, and some rubber wrapped wires leading to the arm rests. One of the arm rests had a control box with some simple switches. The other had a small lever. Burke pulled me over to show me his handiwork.
“Forward, reverse, turn wheels right or left, just like a motorcycle. And here,” he said, pointing at the lever. “That’s the brake. No accidental rolling.”
“Let’s go for a ride,” said Zeke.
“You and me? There’s not enough room for two people.”
“You can sit on my lap.” I gave him the look. At my best understatement, I was sixty pounds heavier than him. “Okay, I’ll sit on your lap.”
Somehow we managed to squeeze into the seat together, his legs crossing over mine, his butt almost on the seat of the wheelchair. We started down the street an amble. “You turn this to give it gas,” he said. “Just like a motorcycle.” He gave it some gas. It roared a little, then took off at a fast clip. He whipped around the corner of the block, and picked up more speed. “Ha, ha! He put some juice into this thing.”
Houses were flashing by so fast, I couldn’t even tell what street we were on. “Zeke, slow this thing down!” There’s a ten mile an hour speed limit in this residential zone and I’m pretty sure we were exceeding it three times over.
He obeyed, but his eyes were dancing with excitement. “Me, me! I want to try!” Said Briana when we got back. She played with the switches, doing a nicely paced solo run, then turned it over to Linda, who was even more conservative in her approach. We were still playing with our new toy when along came Melanie, carting Ralph in the wheelbarrow. “He wants to try it out,” she said, sighing with exasperation.
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