by Bob Sanchez
His heart skipped a beat, if hearts really did such things, and he tipped his hat the way he’d seen in John Wayne movies. “Oh, I don’t know. Old Swifty left his wife and six little Durgins to fend for themselves. He died cheating at cards, and she died working at a bobbin. Worked sixteen hours a day, six days a week until she wore out.”
“You have an accent,” she said. “Boston?”
“Lowell. Your accent’s a little harder to place—mid-Atlantic, I’d guess.”
“Concord, Massachusetts, actually. Just a few miles from you.” She gave Mack a radiant smile and extended her hand. “My name’s Cal, and that’s where I’m going. Is it hot out here, or is it me?”
“Mack Durgin. It’s a hundred and five degrees, but it could be you.”
They chatted for a few minutes about Lowell and Concord, the textile mills turned to condos and small businesses, the “rude bridge that arched the flood,” and the Concord River that joined the two towns—well, Lowell was a city and Concord was a town, if you wanted to get technical about it, Mack said, but Cal didn’t. Lowell was hardscrabble and known for its resilience, like a fighter getting up from the canvas, the birthplace of textiles and Jack Kerouac. Concord was wealthier, the birthplace of the Revolution and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A loud bang came from the parking lot, like a firecracker or a gunshot. Cal flinched and looked around. Mack felt bold enough to brush her arm. “Backfire,” he said. “The gunfire’s long gone from this town.”
She laughed, apparently relieved. She had dark brown eyes, smooth skin with no obvious makeup, and a smile that was the loveliest he’d seen since—well, the loveliest he’d seen in a long while.
“Where are you going in California?” he asked.
“Don’t know, I’ve never been there. I’ll alight where the spirit tells me.”
“What do you do for work? May I ask?”
“Certainly. It’s a fine question that I ask myself daily. A writer, a waitress, a department-store clerk, an actress, an English tutor, a clown for birthday parties, a driver for a delivery service, a teacher’s aide and a few other forgettable things. Do you detect a lack of focus?”
“I detect a survivor,” Mack said. “And if you’ll pardon my brashness, an attractive one.”
“Thank you. I like how you slipped in that non sequitur. Are you single?” she asked.
“I’m widowed.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is your great-grandfather really buried here?”
Mack nodded. “Not universally mourned. Can I buy you a cold drink?”
A half hour later, Cal poked at a lime with her straw, making the ice clink at the bottom of her glass while he told her about the urn in the tote bag. She told him her full name, Calliope Vrattos.
“Calliope. What a gorgeous name,” Mack said.
“As a kid I hated it. Keep talking, though.”
“I have great memories of carnivals, sneaking under tent flaps to see the bearded lady or the eight-foot-tall man, sauntering down the fairway, tossing rings at milk bottles, eating cotton candy, riding The Whip and the bumper cars and the roller coaster while the calliope played and the merry-go-round gave the little kids the rides of their lives.”
“My dad was thinking more along classical Greek lines. It’s a word meaning beautiful voice—he must have liked the way I screamed as a newborn.”
Overhead, a ceiling fan rearranged the air that lifted heat from Mack’s skin. His eyes traced the contour of the tanned shoulder he thought would be so soft to the touch. She noticed his gaze, glanced at her shoulder and shrugged. “You’re staring at me,” she said.
“I’m busted.” Mack’s face warmed with embarrassment. “I was thinking along classical Greek lines.”
“And I assume Mack is a nickname for—?”
“Mackenzie. Scots-Irish heritage from way back. My mom called me Mackenzie when she caught me smoking or picking on my sister. To my friends I’ve always been Mack.”
“Then Mack it is. It’s sweet that you plan to spread your friend’s ashes over the Grand Canyon. Would you show me the urn?”
He held up a white ceramic cylinder with ornate red roses and gold trim painted around the circumference and on the lid. The design was definitely not George’s choice. He would have picked a manly motif, like a hunter in a duck blind. “Sweet? No. George Ashe didn’t do sweet, and he wouldn’t want sweet done to him. Seeing Arizona was his final wish.”
She touched the container. “I’ve never seen one of these before. This is beautiful.”
“Let me take you to dinner tonight,” he said.
She puckered her lips and whistled. “Nice segue,” she said.
Chapter 16
Back East
Just after midnight, Ace and Frosty bought their round-trip tickets to Tucson and boarded the Greyhound bus in Boston. The driver stowed their bags in an underneath compartment, no questions asked, already a plus compared to flying. They shuffled down the aisle and sat in the back of the bus where there was extra room and they could be near the john, which was important for a three-day trip. The bus was nearly full with people who mostly sat in their seats and read magazines or leaned their heads back to sleep. Ace and Frosty both scratched, and Ace wondered how long before the rash went away on its own. The itching drove him like totally bughouse.
This was their first big bus trip, in fact their first trip anywhere out of the state if you didn’t count sneaking up to New Hampshire to dodge the sales taxes. Ace felt he saved even more money by stealing from a tax-free establishment, though he wasn’t altogether positive that logic worked. It was Frosty’s contention that stealing in New Hampshire was how you saved the five percent sales tax.
Frosty closed his eyes, and the lights from the bus station shined on his face. Ace remembered the old family arguments when he was growing up, when Dad used to ask Mom if Frosty was really his kid, or if she had been knocked up by the dumb, ugly bagger at the Food Mart. Ace sighed, stretched his feet on the space next to Frosty, and closed his eyes. It had been a long day, but now they had a plan. They still both itched like a pair of mangy dogs hosting a flea convention, but sleep fell over them like a baby blanket as the bus began to move and the engine hummed a steady lullaby.
After a while, he felt a hand lifting his leg, and he dreamt that Britney Spears was trying to get in his pants. She’d have to ask nice, he thought, as a girl with a cute ass and pouty lips danced across his eyelids. His foot thumped to the floor, and he just moved it out of the way without waking.
There was a heavy whoosh as somebody sat down between him and Frosty, and Ace thought that Britney needed to see Jenny Craig real bad. A couple bars of Irish Spring wouldn’t hurt either, that or some Formula 409.
He hit the Pause button on his dream.
Ace opened his eyes and saw a large man with his hat pulled down over his face and the streetlights flicking across his ugly bulk. The guy slumped in the seat, his hands clasped on top of his head, an armpit aimed at Ace like one of those chemical weapons Iraq was supposed to have. He had a beard and a ponytail, and a green earring on the ear Ace could see. Frosty curled in the other corner, fast asleep. Ace turned away and gratefully smelled the old plastic on the seat, the hint of diesel exhaust, the touch of someone’s cologne. Probably not Britney’s, not on this bus. The idea made him smile, though, and he closed his eyes to look for the Play button on his last dream.
Ace and Frosty switched buses in New York at some ungodly hour when the skies were only hinting at dawn. They walked zombie-like with their coffee cups to where the bus lady pointed them, appalled at the number of people already awake but grateful not to be near that smelly guy on the bus. Taxicab drivers leaned on their horns and shook their fists, crowds jostled for space on the sidewalks and threaded their way across the street while cars kept trying to move. And the buildings, Ace couldn’t even see the tops of some of them. Man, this city was Boston on ‘roids.
They sat in the back of the bus again, and Frosty pulled a Sp
iderman comic book from under his shirt. The lights were bright inside the bus, and Ace watched as people found their seats: an old black couple, three college-type girls (two babes and a dog, in Ace’s opinion), some nuns, a guy with a long beard and a little round hat on top of his head, a bald guy in a bright yellow robe. A few rows up, a gray-haired lady found her seat and opened what was either a large purse or a small duffel bag. She took out some silverware and a cloth napkin rolled up and tied with a ribbon, then spread it on her lap. Then she took out a large plate, peeled off the aluminum foil and started to eat a turkey dinner complete with gravy and cranberry sauce. Ace looked at them like they were all silent partners in a great adventure, then turned to Frosty and said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dodo.”
“We never were,” Frosty said, annoyed. “And it’s Toto.”
“You boys off to see the wizard? Move over.”
Ace looked up, startled, as the same ugly guy grinned and sat down between them. Ace held his breath and recognized the man’s face. This was the guy they’d seen in the housebreaking, who’d beaten the living crap out of somebody over the missing whatsit! He hadn’t used his time in the bus terminal washing himself, so Ace and Frosty pressed themselves into the corners. The guy sat down and placed a bag between his feet. “Where you two clowns headed?”
“Miami,” Ace said.
“Then you’re on the wrong bus.” The big man laughed, then pulled out a box of donuts and opened it. They were all the same, with big gobs of white stuff oozing out. “You’re lying anyway. I seen your tickets to Arizona. Take a donut and tell me your names.”
Ace and Frosty hesitated. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I’m Diet Cola. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Ace, and he’s Frosty.” They took donuts.
“What kind of stupid names are those?”
“We’re named after saints,” Ace said. “We’re going to see our sick mother in Tucson.”
Diet Cola turned to his left. “Did you catch that, Frosty? You’re going to see your sick mom in Tucson. Pay attention so you two can keep your lies straight.” His laugh seemed to filter through a gob of fluid lodged deep inside his lungs. “You don’t even look like brothers. Ace, you’re all gangles and angles. Frosty, you’re a stumpy white-haired mutant.”
Frosty tended to be sensitive about his looks, so he said, “Look who’s talking, Crisco Boy. If you ever take a hot shower, you’ll melt away. You and whatever those colonies are you’re growing in your armpits.”
A couple of passengers looked at them before going back to their business. Diet Cola gripped Frosty’s ear between his thumb and forefinger, then twisted hard. Frosty squealed like a mewling kitten, and then his eyes began to water. No one looked around.
“What did you call me?” Diet Cola said quietly.
“Crisco,” Ace said, thinking quickly. “An action hero. You heard of the Count of Monte Crisco?”
“No, he meant Crisco, as in one of the major food groups. He’s calling me fat.” Diet Cola frowned as he let go of Frosty’s ear. The bus started on its way, and soon Ace was looking out the grimy window at the highway as the bus went kaplack-kaplack-kaplack over concrete sections. “You two didn’t grow up in the same test tube,” Diet Cola said as he reached for another donut. He was right, Ace thought. Frosty had hair the color of road salt, cheeks like dumplings and the body of a pear. Ace, on the other hand, had a good-looking smile and a wiry build he was sure that girls secretly loved. In actual fact, their mother even refused to say if they were brothers, half-brothers, or a couple of strays an alley cat had dragged onto her front porch.
“Ace and me are brothers,” Frosty said, “no matter how we look. Plus we’re roomies. You got a problem with that, you can kiss my glutes.”
Diet wiped white frosting from his mouth, then took still another donut from the box on his lap. He tried to wipe powdered sugar off his knees, but only made a pair of white smudges. “Myself, I’m heading for Tucson to get laid by Lady Luck.”
“For her sake,” Frosty said, “she’d better be on top.”
God knows Frosty didn’t have Ace’s suaveness, but Ace marveled at his roomatoid’s talent for insulting people and making them smile. Diet Cola gave Frosty a friendly poke on the shoulder that knocked him backwards. Ace’s stomach felt queasy from the motion of the bus, the smell of their new traveling companion and the sudden thought that they all wanted the same thing.
Whatever that was.
Two thousand miles away, Poindexter slept fitfully in the desert, dreaming of Brussels sprouts and teddy bear cholla, of the human girl who had fed him, hugged him and thrown him away, of a luscious lady javelina who had turned up her snout at him yesterday. When he opened his eyes, the sky was an old blanket with light shining through a million holes. He felt deeply lonely. Unable to articulate any of this, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Chapter 17
In Tombstone, Mack sipped coffee at the restaurant table as waiters hurried by with steaming platters trailing the scents of fried beef and onions. He glanced hopefully at the door where customers lined up all the way out to the sidewalk, waiting to be seated. A candle flickered in its holder and reflected on the window next to him. Cactus-shaped menus sat next to a basket of tortilla chips and salsa. Was he right to be seeing a woman? There had been no excuse for his tumbling with Juanita the other night, no excuse for hanging out in a bar and getting drunk while he mentally measured women’s chest sizes (Juanita had come up a glands-down winner in that category).
Cal showed up right on time, and he stood up, delighted to have a second look at her, maybe a chance for a third. She wore earrings and pale lipstick, jeans and a nicely fitting flowered blouse, and she had undone her hair and let it cascade over her shoulders. She had dark brown eyes and smile-crinkled cheeks. God help him, she was beautiful.
“Is that whole smile all for me?” Mack asked.
Cal curled an eyebrow and placed her leather purse on the floor. “A Diet Coke, please,” she told the waiter. “Tombstone is a long way from Kerouac’s home town,” she said to Mack.
“Actually, it’s a long way from everywhere.” Except Pincushion. Except my bedroom. The thought was unbidden, God knew. Was he as transparent as he felt right now? “I met Mary at Lowell High,” he said suddenly. “The first time I carried her books, I knew I was in love.”
You moron, you’ve done it now. It’s more than she wants to know.
They scanned their menus and ordered enchiladas.
“I’ll bet she was beautiful.”
Mack nodded and smiled. “Venus with arms.”
“Well, they don’t get any better than that,” she said, squeezing his hand—and then letting go.
Change the subject, you fool. Say anything. “Pretty state, isn’t it?” That should be safe to say.
“Too hot.”
“Dry, though.”
“Too many thorny plants. Give me oaks and maples and changing seasons.”
“I don’t miss shoveling snow.” Mack shoveled salsa with a tortilla chip and took a bite, hoping he wasn’t being a slob about it.
“Think you’ll ever go back?”
“Have to. There’s a tombstone with my name and a blank space for the year. But I’m in no hurry to fill it in. What about you?”
“I’m in no hurry to die either.” Her Diet Coke arrived, and she removed the remainder of the paper cover from the end of her straw. “It’s one reason I came out here. God, never date an Elvis impersonator.”