Planet Willie

by Josh Shoemake

  “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says, perking up a bit. “If you strike me, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Not bad.”

  “Not bad? That’s poetry.”

  “That’s the problem. I’m searching here, Darling. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

  “Cassidy or the Kid?”

  “Cassidy.”

  “For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.”

  “Pretty good.”

  “What the hell is this all about, Willie?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I wish I’d gone out with more style. Although the truth is that even till the end I couldn’t believe it was really happening.”

  “You lost me again there,” he says.

  “Story of my life,” I say as I hang up the phone.

  11

  Several hours still remain in which to find myself a suitable charity ball for the evening. By helping others I will help myself, as an acquaintance of mine, the distinguished Lady Eralda, once put it. So I ease into my brand new wardrobe and stroll out the patio door to the slopes, where the sun’s getting low over the lift station up at the top of the hill, and a few last skiers are carving their way down to the lodge. Incredible, I think, to still find so much snow in spring. And man it’s quiet. Just the hum of the lift and some tree branches cracking through the ice. Brother, I’m telling you I miss the trees. I miss their shade, and I miss their leaves.

  I jog a little down the hill, then put on the brakes and see what I can make of it. My boot soles being made of the finest buffed leather, turns out I really don’t need those skis. Turns out I’m more or less a hand-tooled ski in Willie form. Just bend the knees ever so slightly and take in that crisp mountain air. Tuck the head a bit for the aerodynamics. Eliminate the drag. Coast down out of sight of the hotel till I come to a fork in the slopes and stand there watching the lights come on in the tony mansions up the mountain. I think of me up there over all of America with the lights coming on. I wonder if God might be watching me from above, and if he somehow understands that the only way I ever knew to do anything was my way. I figure he does, because he did it his way too.

  The sun’s cold and small and yellow now, not like those big orange evening suns over Texas that demand a little accompaniment by Mister Jimmy Beam. This sun’s more like the finest of white wines, and I’m more like a William than a Willie if you can believe it. Then out of the sun a couple comes skiing down, slowly swinging out wide to the edges of the slope. As they get closer I see they’re holding a wooden baton between them. They’re taking turns in perfect coordination, and she’s got her eyes fixed on the heavens like she’s trying to recollect something she’s forgot. He says a little something as they bring it around, and that’s when I realize she’s blind and he’s taking her down the slope. Here’s some honest truth: in my four-plus years in heaven, I have never seen anything so nice. I wonder if they’re married or just friends or maybe even co-workers on an office excursion. I skate forward and try a few feet with my eyes closed, and man you really feel that snow beneath the boots, every unique little flake, but it’s not the same. With you it stops, but with her it just keeps going on and on forever. The excitement must be almost more than he can bear, feeling her on the other end of that wooden baton. Really I think I’d have a hard time not falling in love with a girl like that. Good skier, too.

  Once they’re out of sight, I break out in a sprint just to see how far it’ll take me. Turns out it’ll take you straight onto your tail and make a snowman out of you for a bonus. May have to engage Consuela as a full-time assistant, I’m thinking – buy a truck together and travel the country with a steam iron. But of course that’s not happening. Saint Chief would have every available angel hot on our trail within the week. But what the hell. We could just run till they caught us and hole up for the final shootout like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Prepare in advance some killer last lines. But then I realize the real tragedy, and this may sound funny, but you only get to die once.

  Tough to stay blue for long, however, when you’re approaching Olympic glory. After further experimentation I find my revolutionary new technique works better if you just scoot along real fast like a crab, then stay down in a crouch for the glide. Keep to the middle of the slope where the snow’s frozen over. Get up enough speed and you can even take a little jump now and then. Like Skippy the Crab out there. The problem with the crab technique, and this is something you need to bear in mind, is that you’re going to sacrifice some control. Not that there aren’t some obvious advantages to sacrificing control, such as doing your best interpretation of the celebrated ice skater, Mister Dick Button. Not sure what they’re called, but I’m bringing in the arms and spinning like a Tasmanian devil up until the moment I spin clear off the slope and smash into a tree. Man is it exhilarating. I’m half considering hoofing it up the slope for another run, maybe get me some poles somehow, when a girl with a ponytail flying out behind her slices up next to me as smooth as a scalpel to look down at yours truly among the foliage.

  “Man, that was some wipeout,” she says. About thirteen with red cheeks and wide eyes you’d hate to disappoint. And I’m happy to report that from the way she’s looking at me, I haven’t. “Where are your skis?” she says.

  “I don’t know how much you know about the varieties of North American hoot owl,” I say, gazing real reflectively up into a pine, “but certain rare species are known to habitate these here woods.”

  She laughs and picks a strand of brown hair from her face. “Come here,” she says. “You’ve still got bark on your face.”

  So I climb up the little incline towards her. She puts her hand to my face and brushes away a piece of pine bark about the size of a postage stamp.

  “What’s your name?” she asks. Kicks some snow from her skis and looks up at me real scientifically, like I’m the North American hoot owl in person.

  “Willie Lee,” I say. “As in White Pine Willie. As in Walking in a Willie Wonderland.”

  “My name’s Lenny,” she says, and pivots up on her poles to slip down the slope out of sight. Takes a little bump as she goes and pops the skis up behind her like the tail of a bunny rabbit. Inspirational, it is. Gets you to thinking you could be a big ol’ bunny rabbit yourself. Rise from thee crabby state, ye people of the earth. So man, I run. I just go, hopping right along. Stop for a moment to glide – vroom! – hand to the chin like I’m contemplating Einstein’s theories as I whip along there – and bam! – airborne Willie, and when I come down let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be that mountain. No sir. I’m like a geological disturbance in boots, a natural disaster, which is about how I’m feeling by the time I get to the bottom of the hill.

  Thankfully Lenny skis over to the wreckage and helps me off the ground. She brushes off some snow, but we may well have to wait for summer for the rest of it to thaw. The super-100 wool’s looking more like sheepskin. Snow’s caked through my hair and dripping down to my scalp. Feels like little arctic ants crawling around up there. I can’t stop laughing but Lenny just looks terrified.

  “You’re bleeding,” she says, staring at my ear.

  I nod my head as if this is a fair enough point, but really she’s missing the big picture here. “Price you pay for pushing the sport to the next level,” I say. Feels like those ants have broken out in a jitterbug on my head. “Be honest with me now, Lenny. Did you feel the loop-de-loop came off, or does it need some more work before nationals?”

  “You’re totally crazy,” she says.

  “You’ll go far, sweetheart. You know how to talk to a man. Now what do you say we go up there for another run. Strictly pyrotechnical, you understand. I may need to borrow a pole.”

  “They’re closing the lifts,” she says, looking over at the little hut, which is churning out empty seats like a bench factory.

  “Then we’ll just explain the situation,” I say, and march her over to the hut. There may be a little limp in there, but yo
u can’t be too particular. Just sort of evens out the last limp, if you know what I mean.

  They’ve crossed two wooden poles over the entrance, but I step on over and Lenny follows, grinning a little self-consciously to herself, slicing her skis up in the air and over in a single movement graceful enough to send all of history’s Madonnas back to finishing school.

  “Willie Lee,” I say, extending my hand to the kid sitting at the controls. It’s blood red from the cold, and I get to shivering there in the shade.

  “Step aside, sir!” he shouts, and before I know it my legs are cut out from under me and I’m sprawled on a bench moving out of that hut and up the Rocky Mountains. Lenny reacts faster than the kid and scoots up around the bench on one ski to flop down beside me.

  “Jesus, Lenny,” I say. “Just curious here, but have you ever known anyone to fall off of one of these things?” She reaches up and pulls down this little thin iron bar to the front of us that makes me even more nervous. It’s like a girl in a bikini – she’s ten times sexier than the same girl in the nude. That’s this bar, except I don’t mean sexy.

  “What are you doing out here?” Lenny asks, looking down at her gloves as she bangs those poles against the bar.

  “Contemplating the irony of my fear of heights,” I say. “How about you?”

  “My dad’s got this charity thing,” she says, rolling her eyes. “At least I get to ski.”

  “By helping others we help ourselves,” I say, perking up at the word charity and figuring I may have found my sidekick.

  “Then my dad must really like helping himself. He goes off for one of these things like every month.” This month’s charity thing, I am pleased to learn from Lenny, is being held at seven that evening in the finest hotel in town, which also conveniently happens to be my home away from home, otherwise known as the Aurora Lodge and Resort Center. I ask Lenny about her father, she says he’s some kind of famous doctor and travels way too much. Up over the mountains is one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, and I realize how much I miss those too. Across the mountain the pines are holding the last light of that Chardonnay sun, and down below us the white snow, pure as Lenny sitting there beside me, is lighting her face from underneath.

  “Tell me more about your dad,” I say.

  “He wants me to be a doctor too. Doctors make a lot of money. He’s going to kill me. I’m late.” She looks off towards town, then back at me. “You wanna know what? I think I might hate him. Watch out, Willie.”

  Before I can register this, Lenny has thrust up the bar and is skiing down this ramp that has appeared beneath our feet, while I’m still in the chair revolving around this big wheel to head back down the mountain again. They don’t really give you much warning, but I just sort of just roll on off that bench and end up on the snow with Lenny there standing over me.

  “Are you okay?” she says.

  I give her my best little dying Belmondo grin. You really need a cigarette to attempt this kind of thing, but I think it comes off nicely. I’d call it the Dying Snowman and put it in the catalogue if I thought there was any chance of me setting foot on a ski slope again.

  “The truth is, Lenny,” I say. “I’m not much of a skier. This may come as a surprise to you, so don’t take it hard. It’s just that my experience of the downhill has been mostly metaphorical, so to speak. You read any philosophy?”

  She shakes her head and screws up her face, looking half-concerned and half-terrified.

  “Maybe not,” I say. “In any case, when you get there I’d recommend you checking out Mister Ludwig Wittgenstein, and don’t ask me to spell it. He had a rough life, Mister Wittgenstein, but after all was said and done, his last words were Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life. That’s a pretty good last line, you have to admit. Sort of puts it into perspective.”

  “I have to go, Willie,” she says, forehead scrunched up like she hates to leave me there in such a state. I get to my feet and take her hand in mine. “Lenny,” I say. “The pleasure has been all mine.” She laughs a little, pivots around on her poles, turns back thinking maybe of some last words of her own, then changes her mind and scoots off down the hill, curving down the virgin snow with that ponytail flying. Once she’s gone, I walk down the mountain, too beat up now for pyrotechnics, and attempt to find the Aurora Hotel. Leave a light on for me, Consuela. I’m coming home.

  12

  Back at the Aurora, Saudi Arabia has taken over the lobby. I mean the entire nation’s checking in, lines of well-fed Saudi tourists in robes stretching out the front door. Bellboys are scampering left and right like money’s raining from the sky, which it more or less is. Unfortunately I’ve lost my key on the slopes, and as I try to push my way up to the front desk, I’m not making much headway, especially when you consider I’m not the only one pushing. Reminds me of scientific studies I’ve read demonstrating that the average human being needs at least eight hugs a day. Apparently there are places in the world, which must include Saudi Arabia, where you can get twice that many just walking down the street, and mister that seems to me just all around healthful.

  At the moment, however, I want to get back to the room and see about repairing my ear, but with the crowd in there it’s not looking likely anytime soon until this larger woman in a blue headscarf not unlike that of my missing Madonna’s steps aside with a smile to let me through. As I slide past, I show my appreciation by digging deep and pulling up a little something called the Mozzarella. The Mozzarella says: you be the pizza, I’ll be the cheese. You have to be standing close, and then you just let that smile melt all over them. Start it up around the hair follicles and slide it right down through the hair of your chinny-chin-chin. I find it to be particularly effective in gratitude situations with international visitors unaccustomed to our notions of personal space.

  So effective, in this case, that the lady just keeps pushing along behind me to where they keep the keys. I glance back a few times to find her shooting the Mozzarella right back at me. We squeeze past a few men in head wraps, which I’m considering as a solution to the damage I’ve sustained to my own head, but the looks they’re giving me are none too friendly. Probably on account of me skipping the line, which if I’m honest is probably how I’ve befriended the headscarf. Either that or I may have somehow gotten myself involved in an Arabian love triangle. I’ve heard they get four wives, but maybe with women’s liberation sweeping across the globe they now get four husbands too. Then I get to thinking that if they get four husbands, each of those husbands could have four wives, and that’s when my brain really gets to hurting. What was hurting before was maybe just one lobe – now I’ve a whole brain on my hands. Jesus, I think – the whole nation of Saudi Arabia could technically be lawfully married. I wish I spoke some Arabic to find out about this. Maybe the headscarf could teach me some, I’m thinking, but if she did, and if her face is any indication, the first phrase I’d have to learn is: What’s so funny?

  Once I finally make it back to the room with my new key, I set about blow drying the suit. Comes out a bit puffy, but at least it’s cozy and more or less habitable again. By this time the clock on the bedside table says seven, so I put on the hat they call The Kid and head out into the vast corridors of the Aurora Hotel, making like an explorer until I start hearing a buzz. Soon enough that buzz becomes a pleasant little cocktail chatter, and I come to a sign advertising a benefit for what they call the Second Chance Society.

  I present myself to the lady at the door, who’s wearing a headdress of fresh foliage and calls me sweetie, which I am pleased to call her in return. Can’t seem to find my name on the list, the Headdress, so I slip a crisp hundred dollar bill through the slot in the box on the table beside her. Still looks doubtful. I assure her I’m available after midnight and have extensive experience in landscaping, and then you better believe it’s welcome Mister Lee, and do come again.

  The party is being held in a large conference room crowded with chandeliers and rich people. Cocktail dress
es that make you want to drink lots of cocktails and see what happens next. Suits that admittedly give my Italian special a run for its money, but then nobody’s got a fourteen-carat silver belt buckle depicting the skyline of our nation’s most populous city, so I stride right on in there feeling pretty good about myself after all.

  There’s a stage set up on one side of the room, and scattered through the rest of it are round tables covered with white tablecloths and flower arrangements. I look around for Fernanda, as well as Kafka and Twiggy, just to be on the safe side, but I’m not finding anybody I know. Gets me to wondering whether I may be supporting the wrong charity, but I figure I’ll give it a half hour or so and take advantage of the open bar in the meantime.

  The philanthropists are making witty conversation as I move towards the bar. None of them need a second chance as far as I can tell. The name they’ve got, the Second Chance Society, must refer to the group of local black kids aged six or so who are doing wind sprints through the room in these little bow ties and patent leather shoes. Used up their first chance, I guess, just being born black, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re using up the second by flying through the air like little animated piñatas. Everybody’s acting real Christian about it, of course, sipping wine and grinning at the little lunatics, but I find it difficult to be Christian when I’m more or less under attack. I’m talking spasmodic little caterpillars wriggling through my legs, and though I can grin with the best of them, I’m about up to my fifth or sixth chance before I actually manage to get a drink in my hands, and it certainly does put a strain on the cheeks.

  As I walk over to a corner table and take a seat, I’m thinking they may have to keep changing that name up to about the twentieth chance to make it through the night. The Twentieth Chance Society. That’s the kind of venture I might consider joining. Chipping together to help out all the Twentieth Chancers, and little Jeffrey, as he’s introduced himself, is definitely not invited, considering how he’s already about doubled that. He’s as black as a piano key and has plopped down on the chair next to me just as pleased as pie. Kid’s eyeing me like he’s trying to figure what it’ll take to get my hat on his head. He’s got his little polka dot bowtie tied around his forehead and is calling it his propeller.