by Pat Price
"Want me to leave the money on the counter?" I asked the old man after I had turned the pump off. He nodded once and turned his attention back to his cigarette, which was mostly ash. I walked past him and stepped over the still sleeping dog into the interior of the station office. There was a counter on the left made from an old flat panel door sitting on two saw horses, a beer cooler on the right, and a twin burner propane hot plate on a stand at the end. The gas ran just under three dollars so I laid three one dollar bills on the counter. I lifted the top on the beer cooler and saw that it held six one quart glass bottles of milk and a couple of dozen tall cans of Budweiser beer. I pulled two cans of Bud from the cooler and laid a five-dollar bill on the counter next to the gas money. I stepped back over the dog and walked outside and sat in the empty chair. I popped the tab off of one of the cans and handed it to the old man.
"Have a beer with me Uncle?" I asked. He looked over and took the offered beer.
"Thank you nephew." he said. He took a sip of the beer and leaned back into the chair. He threw the now cold cigarette butt away and pulled another from the pack in his shirt pocket. He lit the cigarette and dropped the match.
I opened my can of beer and took a long drink and leaned back in the chair. The only sound were the chickadee beetles singing in the afternoon heat and the gentle puffing sound the old man made smoking his cigarette. He took a sip, I took a sip and we sat there watching the planet spin until the beers were almost gone.
"You know some Indians," he said, not as a question or a statement. It was mostly an observation.
"My partner is an Apache from the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. I have stayed with his family on the reservation outside of Phoenix. His father is one of the tribal elders," I, answered.
"What are you doing in Kingman?" he asked.
"Looking for a man."
He was silent for a minute and appeared to be looking out into nothing.
"Funny thing about looking for people nephew, they are not usually where you are looking." He sounded like an older uncle of Jimmy's on the reservation near Phoenix.
"Well," I said, "I know for sure he is not in California." I stood and crushed the now empty can and walked into the office. I dropped the can into the trash then bent over and petted the dog for a few seconds before I walked back outside and picked up my helmet.
"You have a good afternoon Uncle," I said before pulling the helmet on.
-18-
I rode the bike back to the Roadhouse. It was late in the afternoon and my room was still stuffy. I turned the swamp cooler on and opened the front window. The temperature inside the room dropped about 15 degrees in 15 minutes. I was going to have to establish a routine in Kingman in order to attract attention to myself. That meant that I was going to be visiting the local shooting ranges and gun shops. People in the militia are shooters. Shooters like to hang out where they can shoot and swap stories about guns. That meant gun ranges and gun shops.
I laid the gun bag and the hard shell case for the long gun on the floor in the kitchenette. On the small table I laid out the cleaning kits for my handgun and the long gun. I uncased the Colt Combat Commander first. The Commander is a great hand gun. Anyone with decent hand-eye coordination can field strip the Commander in about twenty seconds. The Colt breaks down into eight basic pieces including the clip. I stepped outside the door and sprayed all of the broken down parts with Powder-Blast, a chemical solvent that dissolves powder residue and lube. This leaves a bare metal surface without anything to gum up and inhibit the movement of one piece of metal against the other. After wiping off the excess Powder-Blast I waited a few minutes and watched the world's worst TV program. Then I was back outside with another spray can of chemicals. This time I used a can of Break-Free, another chemical designed to attack powder residue and leave a thin film of lube. Both sprays cleaned and one of them lubed. I learned in the Army, that when it comes to weapons, cleanliness is next to Godliness. When you pull a trigger you want the gun to fire, not hang because the mechanism is gummed up with powder and lube and God knows what else.
The long gun was next. I removed the stock, bolt, and trigger mechanism and repeated the double spray process with them. The beauty of the H & K is the same as the beauty with the Colt Commander. It can be broken down in very little time and cleaned. I've seen and owned weapons that require a gunsmith for anything other than wiping off the outer surfaces. I learned the hard way that they are more of a liability than an asset and despite how nice they were to look at and how accurate they were when shooting, I soon got rid of them because they would be worthless when I needed them the most.
Cleaning the weapons took about an hour and once completed it was time for dinner. I decided to try Connie's cooking once more and was not disappointed. I figured that for as few people as were there for the evening meal, she was not going to put on the dog, so to speak. Boy was I ever wrong. Connie cooks everything to order and the steak I had that night was as good as any that Jimmy ever broiled for us. And the company of Ray and the few other people who drove out from Kingman for dinner was outstanding.
No one spoke of new fast cars they didn't need or about political events in other countries that they had no control over or the fate of the stock market which none of them were vested in. They talked about local issues and their jobs driving long haul trucks, working in the local mines, or about raising their children. In short, the stuff real people talked about over dinner.
-19-
The next morning I suited up in my running shoes, shorts, and tee shirt and started out north on 66 I figured that an 8-mile run in the mornings would get me back into an exercise regimen which I desperately needed since I had not run at all during the last three weeks. I started out slow until I reached the first mile or so then picked up the pace. Highway 66 has large mile markers inter-spaced with smaller ones every tenth of a mile. It was an ideal road to run on because at 7:00 in the morning there is almost no traffic and the two cars that did pass by me crossed over the lane marker so that I did not have to get off of the hard surface. I kept an eye on my watch and tried to pace myself to eight minute miles. I can typically do the first mile in six minutes or less but that's when I'm running at least four or five times a week and before I started eating at Connie’s. I figured that I would work on training for a couple of weeks and I would get my time back. I tend to get into myself when I'm running and it didn't seem to take very long before I topped over the rise before the gas station. I slowed to a trot as I reached the dirt driveway, intending to turn around and start back.
The old man was sitting in his chair with a cup of coffee in his hand watching me. As I stepped onto the driveway he motioned to me with his free hand. I stopped the trot and walked over to him, completely out of breath.
"You are panting like that old dog nephew. Come and sit down and have a cup of coffee." he said, rising and walking into the office. I followed him inside, stepping over the old dog, and waited while he poured a piping hot cup of coffee from a pot on the propane stove. He handed me a tin cup with a handle and with his foot, he slid a milk crate toward me.
"Have a seat." he said. He turned around and pulled a wooden beer case away from the counter and sat down on it. I sat on the milk crate .and watched as he fished a cigarette out the pack in his shirt pocket. He tapped one end of the cigarette and placed the packed end in his mouth and lit it with a wooden match. He puffed and the end of the cigarette glowed.
"How is your search going?" he asked.
"To be truthful, I don't know the name of the man or what he looks like," I said, taking a sip from the coffee and burning my lips.
"Finding a man without a name or a face can be difficult," he observed, taking another puff from the cigarette. The old man was sitting with his back to the door. The only light in the room came through the doorway and one dirty window next to the doorway and illuminated the dust and smoke. The dust was dancing in the air and moving with the smoke as it slowly rose to the ceiling.
&
nbsp; "I thought if I made it known I was looking for him he might find me," I offered.
"That can be a dangerous way to find a man." he said. He was watching me and smoking his tobacco.
I thought for a few minutes, blowing on and drinking my coffee. A funny thought passed through my mind. If something is too hot or too cold we blow on it.
"Yes, that could work for you," he said, looking at me, eye to eye. "Remember nephew, sometimes getting what you want is not as good as not getting it at all."
"Yes Uncle,” I said, “that thought has crossed my mind at times as well."
The old man had good reasoning skills. Most people in this country do not recognize the intelligence of the American Indian, which is a big mistake. They usually choose not to participate with us but when they do, as Jimmy does, they usually excel.
"You can call me Howard," he said, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Thank you Uncle," I replied.
“And what is his name,” I asked nodding toward the dog still sleeping.
“I call him dog,” Howard said.
-20-
The sign said, "You needs no teeth to eat at Buc's". The wooden building was very wide and wedged between 6th Street on the East and a body and paint shop on the west. The right side of the structure faced 6th Street. Buc's establishment was a barbecue lunch diner. The roof was made of corrugated iron or steel sheets with rust showing in spots. A sheet metal chimney poking through the roof was blowing blue and gray smoke with a strong order of meat and sauce. The odors were mixed with the sharp smell of body putty and acrylic paint from the shop next door. Buc's place had a small gray gravel covered parking lot stuffed with cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Overflow from the parking area spilled out onto 6th Street. Signs posted on the telephone pole stated that parking on the street was prohibited and strictly enforced, but judging from the two city police cars and a Department of Public Safety car parked there, everyone ignored the sign.
Buc's place was about 40 feet wide, no windows on the front, and covered with wood siding. A single wood door located in the center of the front wall was the entrance. I opened the door and stepped inside to an immediate 20-degree drop in the temperature. There were 4 rows of picnic tables with attached benches running from the left wall to the right wall with an isle separating the ones on the left from those on the right. The isle ran from the front door back to the kitchen wall. The wall separating the kitchen from the dining area was just over waist high and the kitchen and everyone and everything in it was visible to the customers.
The dining area was crowded and the kitchen area looked to be close to capacity with people cooking, cleaning, and moving plates around. At the center of the mob in the kitchen was a giant of a man. He stood at least six foot three and probably tipped the scales around 230 to 250 pounds. He looked solid and I guessed there was not a lot of fat on his frame. He was wearing a tee shirt and his arms looked to be the size of my legs and I have a pretty good set of legs considering the amount of running and biking I do. His face was pock-marked and he wore a pencil thin mustache that was beginning to gray. His hair was dark, straight and beginning to thin on top. The sides were streaked with gray, which complimented his dark oaken colored face. He looked like an older version of Colin Powell. He was busy directing his troops in the kitchen in addition to those out on the dining room floor where the action was.
All of the waitresses were older women or “mature” as they like to be called these days. All of them were dressed in what was probably the latest style in 1940 with bright fabric bows in their hair. I made eye contact with one of them and nodded.
"Just sit down anywhere sweetheart." she yelled to me then turned away.
I looked around and spied an empty spot between two good-sized boys in the second row to my left. I shuffled sideways between the two rows and stepped over the bench then stuffed myself between my lunch partners both of whom gave a half hearted attempt at giving me some more room without actually doing it. The table had several glass pitchers filled with various colored fluids, one of which looked like it could be iced tea.
I looked over at the man sitting opposite me and said, "How do you get a menu here?"
The conversation around me stopped. Suddenly it seemed like the cone of silence had descended on my table then over the next ten seconds it spread across the dining room.
The men nearest me started laughing. "Hell son," one of the older men I had spoken to said, "Buck ain't got no menus in here. He only serves one thang.”
"And that would be ribs?" I said, making it a question.
"Is there anything else worth serving?" the man replied.
"Mabel," a voice booming out from the kitchen causing me to look up. It was Buck speaking. "Git dat skinny white boy over dare a plate."
About a minute later a waitress who looked old enough to have served the last supper appeared behind me and dropped a large oval shaped bone white plate in front of me. The plate contained more than a small fractional part of a piglet. Fighting for space on the plate was one of the largest ears of corn I had ever seen and a pile of baked beans drenched in a heavy sauce. My mouth instantly started salivating. A fork and butter knife were peeking out from under the pile of ribs but judging from my neighbors no one was really using utensils. Mabel sat a tall empty amber colored plastic water glass in front of me and disappeared. I suddenly knew why the place was packed. Who could not love an old fashion diner where menus were not needed and the waitress was named Mabel. I leaned over the plate and dug into the ribs with my hands. The cone of silence had been lifted and noise returned to the room.
The noise level inside Buc's was something else. It was loud enough that you had to talk as though the person listening was hard of hearing. It was almost like Sunday afternoon at my grandparent's home. Everyone in the family assumed my grandfather was deaf because Grandma bought him a mail order hearing aid, the old fashion kind you kept in a shirt pocket with a wire leading up to the ear piece. The old man confided to me years later after I had left home that he had switched the pocket piece for a portable radio shortly after Grandma gave it to him and he was only deaf when he wanted to be. That was how eating lunch at Buc's was. I was about half-way through the pile of ribs when the man across from me spoke.
"Where you from son?"
I looked up. I was dressed in jeans, black cowboy boots, white tee shirt and a basket weave belt that was wide enough to hang a holster on, and a folding knife clipped to the belt. In short, I looked like two thirds of the other men my age residing in Kingman.
"I'm from, California?" I made the statement sound like a question, with much the same accent someone from Texas would have. Might as well throw some humor into the mix, I thought.
I looked around for a napkin and saw that there were none. The closest thing approximating a napkin were several rolls of paper towels sitting on end on each of the tables. The man speaking to me from across the table pulled two sheets off of a roll and handed them to me.
He looked at me and said with a smile, "Kind of reminds you of Sunday supper when poor relations show up don't it boy?"
"More like Thanksgiving in the Army." I replied.
"Where'd y’all serve?" he said, leaning over against the table so both of us could hear each other
"Gulf war, ‘91."
"Whole thang?"
"Yup, whole thing." I paused for a second. "Right down to the turkey shoot."
"Them A-rabs just went belly up on you boys didn’t they?" he said.
"Well, what with the Air Force dumping thousands of tons of shit on top of them every day, all day, then the Army tagging them a mile off with the Bradley’s and hosing their armor down with the Warthogs they didn't have much of a choice." I said.
He continued looking at me for several seconds while he chewed on the inside of his cheek.
"What was your job?" he asked.
This seemed like more than a casual conversation.
"I was a Lieutenant in the Rangers. I led
a team of forward observers. What we really were, were snipers."
"Snipers huh?" he said frowning. Conversation around us had quieted down and others were listening.
"Yeah, I was a sniper. Our motto was 'if you run you'll only die tired'. We mostly took down Iraqi officers and command personnel." I looked around. About half of those listening were smiling. I also noticed that about a third of the customers had finished and Mabel and the other "girls" were picking up the plates.
"That's good son." he said, “that’s real good.”
I wiped the heavy sauce off my hands, wadded up the paper towels and placed them in front of my plate. I was looking down at the remaining ribs and thinking I was going to need another towel to wipe off the knife and fork when a movement in front of me caught my eye.
"Pleased to meet yah son, my name's Dan Burton." he said, his hand reaching across the table. I reached out and shook his hand. Maybe eating at Buc's was a rite of passage in Kingman.