Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  “So?”

  “So?”

  “So you didn’t remember.” Hoefer laughed.

  “Right.” Hansen laughed, both now laughing together, Hansen at one time Hoefer’s follower, a would-be surf mag, surf flick star, had wanted to accomplish in two years what Hoefer had taken six years to accomplish, had style, good wave judgment but no ability to finish, had fallen off on critical waves in three critical Single A contests and so decided he had no gift, Hansen now in this easy laughter feeling himself to be, for the first time, finally, Hoefer’s equal, and Hoefer feeling it too, both suddenly happy in their new understanding of each other.

  “But I’ll get it again,” Hansen said, “I will.”

  Outside, Gray sat in Hoefer’s panel truck, feet up on the dash, idly watching the after-work traffic. The freeway entrance three blocks ahead was jammed and two rows of cars were slowly rolling past the panel, feeding into the entrance. Gray was thinking about Stanley’s, wondering what kind of shape its wave would have, wondering whether the swell was too big for it, and thinking about Stanley’s took him into thinking about Hansen just as he saw Hoefer come out on the porch of the house, now remembering carrying his board up the rocks, remembering that that had been a high-tide day too with the outside reef pumping out at least a steady seven-foot with super hairy almost inside-out body-breaking rides, the last one sucking out so bad that sand off the bottom was coming up in the wall then everything exploding under him and after dragging himself in, body banged up, legs shaky going up the rocks, yet excited about the ride, there was Hansen, AWOL, sitting inside the car, a dark blue navy coat draped over his head covering his face; and, after sliding the board in the trunk, then getting in, saying hello, through the coat Hans said, “Hello, Chuck,” and all the way into town neither moved nor said more and only when they reached the point and the old house had Gray seen Hansen’s face and shaved slick as an egg, sunburned, peeling head (done by the screws at Long Beach Naval Station Brig), a laughable contrast from his former full sunbleached blond surfer’s natural . . .

  “Sorry, man,” Hoefer said, opening the door. He had his dark glasses on.

  “What he’d say?”

  “Nothing,” putting the key in the ignition.

  “He say anything about the syringe?”

  “Nope,” Hoefer said, looking in the side mirror. “I didn’t push anything.” Cars moved slowly across the glass. He started the engine.

  “He’s going to blow his mind up one of these days,” Gray said.

  “Well,” Hoefer said, “maybe that’s what he needs.”

  “Ha,” Gray said, “you know he’s a pretty good surfer when he wants to be.”

  “I haven’t really watched him,” Hoefer said.

  “He’s not as good as you but he’s pretty, you know, I mean he has a good style, kind of like Mickey’s.”

  There was an opening in the near lane and Hoefer let out the clutch, easing them into the traffic.

  “You know,” Gray said, “Deese has a kind of funny theory about Hans. Deese says everyone is born with a guardian angel, like, and he says Hans lost his a long time ago.”

  “Wow!” Hoefer laughed. He looked at Gray. Gray was grinning. Still laughing, Hoefer reached under the dash, clicking a plastic cartridge into the tape deck. Instantly, madrigal voices singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” filled the air.

  “The Beatles are too much.” Hoefer laughed, looking back at the road. The lane was open ahead and Hoefer shifted into second, then high, looking again over at Gray. Gray was slumped back, beating out the time on his thighs. Hoefer wondered who Gray’s angel was.

  Home

  “No,” he said. He got up. She watched him chewing and swallowing, walking off. He forgot the check and came back. She pushed it to him. He looked at her.

  “I’m coming,” she said. “I’m the best man,” he said. “I truly am. I truly love you.” “I know you do,” she said.

  “You’re not happy,” he said. “Please, David,” she said. She stood up, then walked on ahead.

  He paid the check and they went outside. “God,” he said, “I can’t believe it. It just isn’t true! It can’t be true! Do you know what this means? Do you?” He started to cry. They walked along the long windows of the restaurant.

  She started to touch him then didn’t. “I know what you want,” she said, “but I don’t know if I can feel that way again.”

  “The truth,” he said, “just tell me the truth.”

  “I really don’t,” she said. Then she said, “There is no truth.”

  “Jesus!” he said. “What is happening to me? I’m crying, for Christ’s sakes. I’m goddamn crying!”

  They were at the car. He opened her door. “You cried the time you asked for a divorce,” she said, “the time right after you married me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I remember. Here. Take the keys. I’m going to walk.”

  “No,” she said, “don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I can’t stay where I’m not loved,” he said. “I won’t.” He was looking down at the asphalt of the parking lot.

  “No,” she said bitterly, “I suppose not. I suppose you can’t.”

  He looked up at her. “I can’t,” he said.

  “Do what you want,” she said. “You always have. Do anything. I’m tired. I’m going home.”

  He looked at her. She didn’t move. He looked down at his shoes. “Good Christ,” he said.

  The Uses of the Past

  She had long straight brown hair and a face like a child’s, a gentle face. As they danced he told her she looked like his first wife, a beautiful girl. She seemed flattered and said that was nice and funny too because for some reason she felt like his first wife, like they were married.

  When they left the bar they went home to her apartment. They shared a number she had and went to bed and for a moment he thought she was his first wife and said so but she didn’t mind and told him to relax, just let things happen. He tried to and wanted to but he couldn’t, it wasn’t any use, her body wouldn’t fit his, it wasn’t the same.

  Afterward she brought him a drink but he got up and dressed, saying he was sorry but he couldn’t stay, did she mind, could he call her, he really did like her. She said yes, call anytime, and she wrote him out the number but he never did.

  Thirty

  “Do you think there’s someone like that? I mean someone who would know how to be with me when they were with me? That’s not being sentimental, is it? I mean someone who really wanted what I have to give. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I mean they wouldn’t have to stay or anything. I’m not silly enough to ask that. I mean I’m not the only woman in the world, am I. I certainly don’t think that.”

  from

  DIAMONDS

  (1976)

  Ho-Hum

  She wouldn’t get up in the mornings. He had had to make his own breakfast. She always took her mother’s advice over his advice. It was her family always telling her what to do. She couldn’t leave the house except for church, school, and Rainbow. That was how they got married. She had to get pregnant and she did. She always said she was glad about it. She always said she hated that house and she hated this town. She always said that, but both times when he had moved her away she would complain of loneliness and make him move her back. And that was really it, her always doing what her folks told her to do, the only one not telling him what to do was their little girl, age four, but she wanted to know why he wasn’t at home. He wasn’t at home because of the fighting, no hitting or that, just orneriness, angriness, constantly orneriness that made him too tired at work. And that was it, that was the main thing, a lot of his poor performance at work was the result of her not backing him up.

  Now he didn’t know what to do.

  His wife still loved him, he knew she did, but earlier this morning he found evidence that a Terry Hammond, age twenty-two, had moved into the family house. He accused his wife of it but she denied it, saying only th
at a girlfriend had moved in, but said she was smoking marijuana now and, in general, just having a ball.

  What he wanted to know was what he could do.

  Was that sufficient grounds for custody?

  Whitefolks

  Besides, she had a good time up there, she felt free, really free. Why shouldn’t she have? I told her that. What she did was not show up Friday and go on up with some guy she’d met the weekend before. She didn’t come back till last night so you know who starts calling around, where is she, has anybody seen her. And all day yesterday he’s over here, so concerned and all, so much the gentleman. And when she gets here and sees his car she can’t make up her mind whether to come in or not because she knows she’s going to get it. Well, he’s so nice, treats her so nice, telling her he won’t hit her, that he’ll never ever hit her, that he won’t even touch her unless she asks him to. Then comes the big pronouncement, he loves her, he says, he’s finally realized he loves her. I get her in the kitchen and say that’s bullshit and you know it, there’s only one thing he loves and that’s his old lady and two kids back in Chicago, that doesn’t all the money you make go back there? That all you’re doing is supporting some other chick and that chick can do anything she wants, but you, you can’t even go on up to Frisco, that all that love shit he’s giving you is just for Mom’s sake so he can get you out of the house.

  “And what’s she say? Tells me to fuck off. Thinks I want him or something like that.

  “Not that I’d mind, but the real thing is he doesn’t like himself. ’Cause he’s real light, right, all the darker blacks pick on him. So where does he fit in? You see what I mean? There’s no way he can like himself. And if she likes him then what good is she? The only reason he wants her is because she makes him look good, but since he knows he’s no good how can she be any good? That’s why he’s all the time pushing at her, all the time accusing her of coming on with these different guys she’s out with, guys he sets her up with! Isn’t that nuts? See what I mean?

  “We’ve gotta work it so you can see them when they’re out partying together, when she’s not working. I mean, you won’t believe it. Right at his side every second. Always looking up at him. Always nodding at everything he says. And does he watch her? She’s locked! If she’s got to pee she’s got to ask! And he won’t say a thing. Just keeps her waiting. I’ve seen him keep her as long as a couple of minutes, her sitting there all pinched-up looking with that little pinched-up smile on her face.

  “It’s just incredible! I’m just glad he doesn’t like himself. He’d be just terrible if he did. You know how good-looking he is. He is really good-looking. He could get away with anything if he weren’t such an asshole. I mean anything! I don’t know anyone as good-looking as he is . . .”

  I Tried My Best

  She fucked this spade dude, him saying, You know you need it, you know you do, you know you haven’t been getting it right; a professional dancer and photographer from New York who said, Wow, who are you, I can’t believe there’s someone like you in a place like this; this big guy, a bearded cocaine dealer who wore Big Mac coveralls and drove a vw van, trying three times with him before deciding he was both a chauvinist and impotent; a younger guy from France, an architectural student at USC who lived in a terraced house in Topanga Canyon and who drove a Mercedes-Benz.

  “We went camping and watched the sunset and, well, I’ve sort of gotten involved.”

  “That’s nice,” he said, a weak sick feeling starting to leak out into his voice. “I think that’s good.”

  “It’s not serious or anything, don’t get the wrong idea, but I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I think we should try this a while longer.”

  “All right,” he said.

  There was a silence.

  “You’ll call?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Okay, I’m glad you called.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to take this too seriously. You won’t, will you?”

  “No,” he said, “of course not.”

  “It isn’t serious.”

  “All right,” he said.

  There was another silence.

  “Well, I’ve got to go now,” he said.

  “All right. You call me now.”

  “I will,” he said.

  “You know I couldn’t sleep at night after you left. I tried to be there. I did try.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I tried my best.”

  “All right,” he said. “G’bye.”

  “Bye.”

  He hung up the phone. The change kicked down and vibrated inside the box.

  “What she have to tell me all that shit for?”

  The Pecking Order

  In the eighth grade sixty-five boys tried out for the basketball team. John Beck, one of the shortest boys, survived Coach Wooten’s first cut. That gave John hope.

  Each night after practice for the next two weeks he walked home in the cold and dark, praying the same prayer:

  Dear God, he prayed, please may I make the first fifteen; dear God, please may I make the first fifteen; dear, dear God, please may I make the first fifteen. He always stopped after the fifteenth repetition.

  John made it through the second cut, and after practice on the day of the final cut, he was called into Coach Wooten’s office.

  “Beck,” Coach Wooten said, “what am I going to do with you? You aren’t tall and you aren’t fast. I don’t even know if you can shoot.”

  “I don’t know, Coach,” John said. “Does that mean I’m cut?”

  “No,” Coach Wooten said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you stick it out on the practice squad. Maybe you can work your way into a few road games.”

  So John was on the squad as the seventeenth man. Twice Coach Wooten let him suit up for trips to other schools. He never let him suit up for a home game. John didn’t log enough playing time for the felt letter he could wear on his athletic jacket.

  That spring John decided he liked a pretty girl named Susan. He thought she was classy. The first time he walked her home he felt she wanted a kiss. He almost did, then he didn’t. They had a date to go to a Y teen dance on Saturday. He thought he could kiss her then. When he went to her house on Saturday she wasn’t ready to go. Her mother said she would be ready in a minute and went in the bedroom to talk to her. John could hear Susan crying in the bedroom. He didn’t know why. A few minutes passed and Susan came out as if she hadn’t been crying and they went to the dance. John had a good time at the dance and thought Susan did too. He didn’t get a chance to kiss her but asked her out for the next Saturday. She said she couldn’t. Later that week he asked her out again and she said to please not ask her.

  Two years later, while a sophomore in high school, John began dating a girl named Karen, even though she wasn’t one of the popular girls.

  Five years later, one sunny spring day, John read African Genesis. He was now a sophomore in college and beginning to read on his own.

  “The social order of the jackdaw,” he read, “an extremely intelligent bird, indicates that a social animal does not only seek to dominate his fellows but the degree to which he succeeds obtains for him in the eyes of others his social ranking.

  “Further,” he read, “once established this ranking remains permanent throughout one’s lifetime regardless of how early it was established in one’s lifetime.”

  John couldn’t believe what he had read. For three days, refusing all talk to leave his room, he lay in bed listening to rock ’n’ roll on his radio.

  A Classic Case

  “A classic case, my doctor said, that’s what he said I was. I stayed around my mother. My father was stern and distant, prone to violence. I spent all my time making female decisions. Doesn’t that sound about right? They put me to work in the family business. A dead end. I couldn’t be competitive with other males. Walking down the street I would
imagine myself with breasts and hips, that I had a vagina, trying to confront it directly, telling my head to leave me alone, telling it to let me live. The more I fought it the worse it got. I started hearing whispers, from within and from without. Something had to be done. I couldn’t go on. I had to be that which I was really to be. If I wasn’t the one, I had to be the other. If all women were destructive, then why not take it up with guys? Become a screaming limp-wristed nelly queen. Certainly no more wife and Brentwood Country Club, house, furniture, and car. So I did. Quit. Walked out. Broke loose. Started the new life. Total disappointment! That wasn’t me at all. Just another country club scene again but flopped over. The same games but in reverse. Even my doctor didn’t know what to say. So on my own I started dropping those little psychic A-bombs in me, phoosss! Reprogramming the program. Fantastic! I remember it so clearly! The first time I dropped, just phoosss! You know. All the pain I thought was going to kill me, the revelations of self that would destroy me, were revealed as just my pain, pain from the inside, not the outside, that if I just rode with it I would live, nothing more than that pain was going to happen! I mean, I learned! Just accept your thoughts. Don’t direct them. Don’t take them into anything that is painful, don’t take them into anything that is not. Your mind can take care of itself. It’s a fantastic machine, and already knows everything it needs to know if you just let it alone. I mean that was beyond belief. I’d always been so damn busy worrying about what I should do, and the whole thing was just revelation, gospel, instant church. I must of dropped eight or nine times with nothing but good experiences, nothing in my head scaring me. So good-bye to Hollywood. That was the end of those scenes. I moved back over here. Got this job. Started building back up. Up from my instincts. Following the true me talking to myself. What you do is listen to yourself. You listen to yourself and get it surrounded with logic and take it out in the world. BAM! It gets blown to hell! Another lesson learned! Another defense changed! What’s that change? Nothing! Nothing at all! You just take it from there. You’re still you. I’m still me. I just charge right out into things now and see what happens. And that’s me. I’m back. I’ve planted myself. When I was little I used to plant a garden. I loved to watch it grow. Now I’ve planted myself. It’s tremendous. Like the other day I was talking with this woman who works with me and realized I was using the same kind of trip on her that I used to use to come on to guys with! Isn’t that fantastic! I couldn’t believe it!”