Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  “I’m sorry, Gwen, I am. I don’t want to be cruel, but I’m sorry. It just would be too difficult to have you here. Difficult for both of us.”

  They sat in silence and then she agreed, saying she had just enough money for train fare. He took out his wallet and gave her forty dollars.

  “I don’t need it,” she said.

  “Take it.”

  “I have enough money. I just wanted to see—”

  “To see what?”

  “Nothing,” she said, feeling tears just beginning to start up behind her voice. “Would you have someone go upstairs and get my suitcase? Nothing is unpacked. Both my coat and suitcase are lying on the bed.”

  “Don’t you want to stay one night, to rest up?”

  “No. I’d like to leave now.”

  He stood up, asking what her room number was. She told him. He walked away toward the desk. She stood up, smoothed her skirt, then walked fast to the ladies’ room. She felt dizzy and once inside she pushed open a toilet door and threw up into the bowl. She wiped her mouth with some paper then threw up again. The odor of her vomit assaulted her and other odors and she stood up, feeling better, yet drained, somehow outside her own body. She went to the outside door without washing her face. Douglas wasn’t in the lobby. She went back in, crying again. There was stuff on her blouse that she scraped at. It wouldn’t come out. She drenched it in water and tried to stop crying. She tore her blouse, going wild for a moment.

  “That filthy bastard,” she said, “that filthy rotten bastard.”

  Gradually she calmed down, her mind going quiet, then clear. She stared at her face in the mirror.

  “You’re not a bad-looking girl,” she said. “You’re not at all.”

  She felt a charge of tension everywhere around her but not inside. She felt quiet inside. She brushed back her hair with her hand and then went out.

  Douglas was standing by the couch, her coat draped over his arm. Her suitcase rested on the floor.

  “I’ve called the airport,” he said. “I’ve made reservations on a ten o’clock flight. Let’s go out to dinner and maybe a movie.”

  “A movie,” she said.

  “Something,” he said, “or walk around.”

  She took the coat from him, looking at his face, somehow looking at exactly what his face presented, capturing not his gestures or how he seemed to be, but exactly those few lines coming out from the corners of his eyes, lines she had never seen before, age lines, he had actually aged, she had never noticed it before.

  “No,” she said, “nothing. I don’t think I’d like to wait. I’d like to catch the train.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You go on.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “So am I,” she said.

  “Does the train leave this afternoon? I mean is there one?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “Please go.”

  Country Wedding in the City

  Then she walked over to the groom.

  “You fuck you shit you piss ass stink! Blow my hole!”

  “Weow!” said he. “Are you ever primed!”

  “Good luck, George,” friends called out.

  Did they all live in the country?

  Nope.

  Only Dave, the best man. Dave owned a Peugeot. That afternoon he got in the back and shot up 500 mgs of paraboxelynic, flew out the window and slowly rose up over the city into the country fair air of the sky.

  “Whatcha doing up there, Dave?” friends cried out.

  Smilin’, Dave waved.

  Seize the Time

  John, an active university revolutionary, learned Steven’s ideas of the world were different from his. Since John liked Steven’s style, his name, his ability to hustle chicks, he set out to educate Steven in revolutionary cause and rhetoric. Steven, he felt, would look good on the barricades.

  Steven, however, resisted, insisting against John’s personality. Yet he found himself naturally curious about a worldview of which he self-admittedly knew so little. And so, after a normal time resisting, Steven finally said, “Okay, I’ll go to the next meeting of the collective. I’ve nothing to lose. If there I see that what you believe helps man to become a better man, I’ll accept your arguments and join the movement.”

  John, however, when he heard this, far from being delighted, was deeply depressed, saying to himself, If Steven goes to a meeting, sees the inexperience on the faces of the kids, fails to see the humor in the almost inane repetition of all the raps going down, he’ll end up thinking all revolutionary ideas are frauds.

  Turning to Steven, he said, “No, man, it’s not a good idea. Just listen to me, read what I have to give you, then think on it.”

  “No,” Steven answered, “I want to see for myself.”

  A few nights later Steven sat in on a meeting. At first, listening to the dialogues, he formed no opinions. But after a time he began to see the aura of romance about the revolutionaries: the boldest speakers had the best-looking girls. And, as he listened, he formed the conclusion that, without exception, the better speakers were completely certain their viewpoints were right, were morally correct, that contrary to what they were asking for—justice—they condemned all men not on their side as traitors to mankind.

  Steven was unhappy with what he saw. He left the meeting quietly, holding his complaints for an encounter with John.

  They met the next day.

  John, quickly scanning Steven’s face, had not the slightest hope of his conversion. They had coffee together and talked of academic affairs, both avoiding any discussion of the movement. Finally, though, John could stand it no longer.

  “So,” he asked, “what happened at the meeting?”

  “Well,” Steven said, “what I saw was a bunch of guys romantically in love with themselves, and, far from being involved in dreams that would make them better human beings, I only saw the same old shit: cats looking to be admired by their peer group.”

  “I thought that would happen,” John said.

  “But,” Steven continued, “what struck my imagination was that while the radicals were responding to new ideas in old human ways, it was obvious that the ideas they were trying to express were true and good; ideas that would hasten the end of a competitive society, notions of racial superiority, sound the death knell of the idea of heroes, leaders, supermen; ideas that would change the world for the good and joy of all, if enough people understood them.

  “In short, by participating I was converted and freed.”

  “Wow,” John said, smiling. He was suddenly the happiest of men. The revolution was working. Rushing Steven up from his seat, he took him across the street to the Id Bookstore and bought him a copy of Mao’s thoughts.

  When other revolutionaries heard of Steven’s conversion they quickly became friends, solid friends. And right now, at almost any time of the day, you can go up on the Avenue to the U District and see Steven standing in the street, a red Mao button in his lapel, waiting for the revolution to come.

  Stiff

  Charley Winterbourne drinks muscatel up on the third floor. Like they say, he says, Goodnight, Chet, Goodnight, David, and Walter, Walter Cronkite when he says that’s the way it was, Walter, Charley says. Charley sits stocking footed on the edge of the bed. He pours more wine into his glass. The wine pours gold and brown and clear. Walter, Walter Cronkite. Charley lifts his glass. No one else is in the room. Out the window the lights of San Francisco are yellow. The sky is a soft dark blue. Goodnight, folks, goodnight, that’s the way it was. Charley still has his hat on. His grin is sleepy and he is sleepy too. Goodnight, Chet, Goodnight, David, and Walter, Walter Cronkite when he says, Goodnight, folks, goodnight.

  Street

  He was peddling speed and coke, a very flashy dealer in tapestry bell-bottoms, yellow ruffled shirt, leather coat, leather headband, long hair flowing down to his sho
ulders. We walked together for a minute going up past City Lights Bookstore.

  “Naw, that’s bullshit, man, ’cause I’ve been hassled with again. If they come they’d better come in pairs ’cause one isn’t going to do it and if he shoots he’d better kill me ’cause I’ll shoot the fucker if he misses and if he kills me then I’m free ’cause when you’re dead you’re free.”

  Then: “I want to be free and we can’t be free as long as one of those pigs is alive.”

  Then: “No narc would come up here, man, ’cause if they did they’d be killed with fucking butcher knives.”

  Another cat with long hair and narrow stovepipe bells was standing at the corner waiting for the light. He overheard us.

  “With machine guns, man,” this guy said, “every fuckin’ one of them.”

  Kid Colt Outlaw in Wyoming

  The ghosts of a hundred Pawnee warriors glared eerily from the ancient Indian burial grounds. Kid Colt, senses alert, the sound of motion whipping his head, was advancing into a phantom ambush, the oil-black rain sky alive with the possibility of psychic death. Suddenly the Kid’s mind flashed back to the strange events which led to this fateful encounter. Lightning bolted through the window onto the Kid’s crib bars, dancing about, then shot into a light socket, leaving the Kid peacefully sleeping, the room empty of fury, while outside it rained, inside, the Kid’s parents in shock had looked on, helpless to rescue the baby, it all took place so fast, and there was no need, strange child! A mystery to be unfolded! At eleven, strange currents said, Ask God to strike you dead, ask; at nineteen, Philosophy 101, some girl stood up saying, Who am I, so everyone laughed, everyone except the Kid then spreading his hands out into the inscrutable, while now, now, high above the clouds the unseen moon rose orangely over the earth, thus the evening found Kid Colt taking it all back home, hurtling through déjà vu, BAM! What was that? Ghosts, the Kid thought, looking back, don’t make noise. Something there was melting into the shadows. Wind was howling over the mesa. Then it happened! The Yamaha seized up! The back tire skidding out, screaming, he slid! Quick as a flash the Kid kicked it out of gear, controlled the slide, popping the clutch, headlight flaring dimly in the rain. He stopped and stomped. It wouldn’t kick over. He tried again. Voices floated to him: Kid, Kid, the spirits of the Pawnee were with you tonight, white brother, we saw you fight with the weapons of warriors long dead, all are grateful. The Kid dismounted, pushing up his visor, his breath fogging the air. He started rolling the bike off into the brush, the search for America breaking down, his real journey about to commence. Desperately, he longed for a Standard Station.

  Sather Gate

  She was a non-student, a runaway from smalltown lowclass Oklahoma, she said, come to Berkeley she didn’t know why, her boyfriend was into an off-the-wall movie trip, like we were into this thing where the camera is your brother so you’re free to do anything, do any thing, every thing you can think of, a sex thing, everybody was up on acid, and I began thinking, Shit, man, we’re into this thing where all learning is considered good, like that brought us the hydrogen bomb, you know.

  Later, leaving her apartment, That’s the real problem, she said, it’s too damn bad everything has to be so casual.

  Early Morning Wind

  In a terrible snowstorm when John was a boy they had brought a donkey-steam engine up that road and down into the creek bed, the hollar. John told that at the supper table, eating pan-fried chicken, beans, green salad. John’s farm was clean. Sarah had never seen the ocean. She asked Lee to send her some shells from the ocean, seashells. John said, “Well, we’ll go see the old place in the morning.”

  They rode on John’s big-wheeled tractor out along a high bank on a tilt along a long, high-staked turkeyfence, the turkeys all running hard and banging into each other when John crashed the horn. “They agitate me so I agitate them,” he said.

  It was a bright morning with the sky blue and the grass dry and dusty. The road disappeared as they came to what looked like a small farmhouse. Woods started in the back of the house and went away as far as you could see in a covering of endless hills. John stopped the tractor and got off. A man came out of the house to the fence.

  “Morning,” John said. “This here’s my cousin’s grandson from out west. I’d like to take him back into the hollar and show him where the old place was.”

  “Sure enough, John,” the man said. He unlocked the padlock on the aluminum gate and let them through.

  The road broke immediately into some trees, the tractor jouncing and shaking. Lee tried to imagine running a horse through. His grandfather had worn a diamond ring on his little finger and had a racing horse, the only one to go to school, too, the baby of the family. As they went on, Lee got John to talk about him. “They didn’t call him that,” John said, “they called him Faye, he was sure enough a rounder, one thing I recall was when he’d got himself and his guitar up in one of them limestone caves up near the ridge and started hooing in there at the boys out working in the corn around the bend—when they heard that sound they just took off, wasn’t till the afternoon that your great granddad rounded them up and when he found out it was Faye that had done it he gave him a solid whippin’—a rounder, for sure, that was him . . .”

  The rest of the trip continued rough, yet beautiful, they followed a barely discernable road, more a track, along the hillsides, often driving around huge boulders and fallen trees, and then they turned down and were in a draw where they went along a dry creek bed that wound around between wooded cliffs. John told him it might be hard to believe, but that back in the eighteen-nineties and during the turn of the century a lot of folks lived on those hillsides, farming down here in the bottom, hundreds of folks. It was hard to believe. The slopes were straight up and down in places, entirely covered with growth of all kinds. There were no houses nor did it look as if there ever could have been.

  After a time the creek bed opened into a near valley, about a hundred yards wide. John stopped the tractor and shut it off. The sound of thousands of cicadas droned off the hills. They walked across the dry rounded stones of the creek bed and went over to the slope. Lee had lost all sense of direction. It was extremely hot. John pointed left, high along the hillside.

  “The big house was up there,” he said. “That was the second house, the one I remember as a boy.”

  “Where was the first?”

  “Right where you’re standing,” John said.

  He showed Lee the outlines of the foundation. Actual square-cut blocks of limestone brought from Rogers forty miles away. The blocks were still in the ground, dirted over. Lee cleaned one off with the toe of his boot.

  “Three kids in this house, the other eight up there,” John said.

  That was all there was to it. They walked up to where the cornfield had been and then came back to the tractor.

  The next day John and Sarah took Lee into Claymore and then down to Rogers to see a man named Harnish. He’d been a pal of Faye’s and was now in the VA Hospital. John said maybe he could tell him more about the old days.

  The VA Hospital was new looking, recently constructed. The lawns looked old, though, and rich. They went inside and down a broad corridor. Harnish was in the end ward. The room was pleasant and sunny. Harnish was sitting up in his bed, two white pillows behind his back. Lee expected an old-looking man and was surprised. Harnish’s face was lean and tan and his hair was dark with only flecks of gray in it.

  “Bill,” John said.

  “Hello, John.”

  “Bill, this here is Lee Hatcher, Faye Hatcher’s boy’s boy. You remember Faye?”

  “Sure,” Harnish said. “I do.” He was silent for a moment, then he said, “It’s bad, John, they’ve got to operate.”

  “Well,” John said, “they’ll do all right.”

  “No, John, they won’t.”

  “Sure they will.”

  “No, it’s terminal, John.”

  “I don’t believe that, Bill,” Sarah said.

  “
Don’t tell Judy now. She doesn’t know.”

  “Has she been here?”

  “No, I haven’t let her.”

  On the way back John pulled into a Dairy Queen drive-in and bought them all double-decker ice cream cones. Sarah told Lee a nice story about Bill and Faye that she had heard of and then one about her grown kids and how Laurie, who would be Lee’s cousin twice removed, had learned about how babies were made and had him and herself laughing.

  That evening after supper John asked Lee to come outside with him and he’d show him the main barn, the only thing he hadn’t gotten around to doing. John was a large man, nearly six three and easily two hundred and thirty pounds. He’d worn Big Mac overalls, a blue work shirt, and a felt hat all four days Lee stayed there, even on the visit to the hospital. He was dressed this way now and Lee studied him as they walked out across the lawn and then into the barnyard. John was dark like Grandfather Hatcher had been, all the Hatchers had Indian blood in them.

  They went inside the barn and John walked over to a stall, then turned around.

  “Well, Lee, it’s been real nice havin’ you stay with us.”

  “Thank you, John. I’ve learned a lot.”

  “Tell me one thing, Lee. It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. You don’t have the true faith do you?”

  “No, sir,” Lee said. “You mean the Baptist, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “No, not right now,” Lee answered.

  “Have you any faith?”

  “No, sir, I guess I don’t.”

  “You think about it, son. It would make this old man mighty happy to think that someday you would.”

  “All right, John,” Lee said, “I will think about it.”

  “It would make me mighty happy,” John said.

  “I’ll try my best, John.”

  Becky: West Florida Romance