Look, they can proceed to snakes, rats, burros and mosquitoes with very small pubic regions, after all. And cockroaches, many cockroaches, they’re so easy. Tony forms the bodies like loaves then flattens them out. The roaches are sexless. She praises his roaches, because a fellow needs a sense of purpose too, lest he feel used.
“Practice, practice, practice,” he replies. She smiles and touches his cheek, trailing glop with her fingers. It’s a tease, a come-on, a lead to follow. He follows to the floor so they won’t get paste on the sofa. He’s on bottom, where they prefer him, because he loves the view and she appreciates a man who doesn’t have to be on top all the time. She wonders if her own view will stay foggy, or if the sky will lift on real love, as seen on TV. How could he have her so often and not tire of her? How can he roll her over and drive her so thoroughly home if he doesn’t love her? What if camp crafts and mental imbalance are all they’ve been missing? She sings a song of joy.
Back on line, she paints the animals black with white bones, human bones, so the hipbone’s connected to the … thighbone, thighbone connected to the … kneebone, and so on, shinbone, anklebone, footbone, and up the other way, dickbone up to skullbone. He sings now. She winces like the skull in hand, teeth clenched, eyes wide. Soon the little house in the country populates in grim festivity.
One day she says no, she will not have a show. She knows about showing—the chitchat and the bullshit. He agrees; no show. He says, “Let’s drive to the tienda for beer.” Oh, boy, a ride in the truck, Tony and Taco agree.
Driving up the road she says she wants to understand the Mexicans. “We think they’re lazy.”
“Yes. They are. But we’re not,” he says.
“I first saw this place, I thought it was desolate. The rancho out here in the scrub. But people here keep busy.”
“Busy?” he asks.
“Look.” She indicates men in a field carrying odd rocks to a pile.
“Mm. Rocks,” he says.
“Sometimes they stay busy just staring at a thing.”
“I’ve seen you do that,” he says. She nods, lights a smoke and negotiates potholes another mile. He wonders how long a man standing on this road would wait for a ride. Not that he’s ready to leave, but still.
She nods at a man and a cow under a tree. “Like him. He’s doing it.”
“You mean he’ll go home tonight and say, ‘I had a good day under a tree with a cow.’ And tomorrow morning he might say, ‘I think I’ll go stand under that tree with that cow again.’ You mean like that?”
She laughs; he’s catching on. She pulls over where four boys play on a hill, pushing old tires up, then rolling them down. When a tire jumps the ditch and lands in the road, they howl. Heidi snuffs her smoke and calls, “Hola! Hey!” She jumps out, grabs a tire and runs up the hill. Taco runs after and barks. The boys stare. She rolls it down so hard it hits the ditch and jumps the road. Taco chases and holds it at bay. The boys want more, so Heidi makes a few more runs before the smokes catch up and she wheezes like a bellows. But her color is up. She slaps a mosquito from her face and leaves a mark, and she smiles. “Come on. Little fuckers’ll steal you blind if you don’t watch them. Get in the truck.” Taco says woof and jumps in. Tony says woof and slides in gently.
A few men hang out in front of the tienda. Seeing the giant gringa they hunker to maximum macho, third world body language for I will fuck you. I will fuck you good. I will fuck you in your ass. I will fuck you before you can deceive me or shame my pride. I will fuck you.
“Must be taking the day off,” Tony says. He likes the action, dirt peasants hungry for some giant white pussy. Oh, what they could do with their dicks. He wants to lay a hundred grand on the counter and buy out the beer.
“They only do what you do,” Heidi says. “Maybe not so slick.”
“You’re wrong. They want to fuck you for the glory. I’m way past that.”
She looks troubled. “What’s your m.o.?”
“That’s a complex question,” he says. “You’re willing. You look very good naked. You feel terrific.” He opens his door, ready for capitalist imperialism. “And we’re in love. Aren’t we?” She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if he’s only joking again, which, she suspects, is the fog on her mirror. “Come on. I’m America. Brass balls and tons o’dough.”
“No,” she shrugs. “Beer ain’t candy, and these ain’t kids.” She steps on it; he hangs on. They turn around and head home beerless, back to the cards, reading, carrots and cabbage, tortillas and beans. They agree that a sensible diet is good. Taco sighs, moans and sleeps.
Tony stays up with The Tibetan Book of the Dead: think here, exit there, the visions. He laughs, “I’ve done this. Piece of cake.” She lays her noggin on the cards and sleeps. A sensible night leads to early rising on a brisk morning with no hangover. They pour their own coffee and stroll out the front door to face the dirt-clean plains. In a minute he says, “Look, I think I better …”
“Come on.” She double times it back to the kitchen because the day is too sweet for thinking. She rolls a doobie, packs some cukes and a few beers and they hike northeast, circling in a loop. He follows in four directions. They find sticks piled with old boards and scrap metal as palapas, sun shelters. Coastal people make them with palm fronds. Scrub plains peasants build them from junk. They’re a means of self-expression, she says. People sit inside, staring out. Heidi calls it Mexican meditation, without the rules and regulations Kensho is wrapped up in. Nobody tells these people to sit in their palapas or how or why. They do it for the contentment inside. He asks how she knows these things. She says, “Just look at them.” He looks. She asks, “What are you going to do, spend your life without knowing what’s going on around you?”
She walks off, regretting the abuse, but if she doesn’t help him, who will? He ducks into a vacant palapa and wonders what’s going on around him.
One dusk they track a drumming they’ve heard since noon. A girl in a clearing beats a primitive drum, a jimba—the girl is a bruja, a witch, but she’s also fair game, stopping suddenly at the approach of predators. They offer feeble greeting and continue, and in time the pulse resumes, then intensifies with moonrise. Heidi says the mountain brujas make magic, some white, some black, and she leads the way round the hill through a thicket, across a ravine, over a fence and into the campo from the rear. Children play in the dirt, women yak by their dwellings but also stop when two gringos walk by, as if to ask, Dios mio, what next?
Heidi leads to a house where she greets an old woman in broken Spanish. The old woman says to wait while she goes inside for a pitcher and some cups. Pulque is an acquired taste, but the old woman assures freshness; this batch was drawn today from the century plants just there. The dinosaur succulents stand in silhouette against the moon like tusks in a cluster. The fermented milk can make a gringo cringe, but Tony drinks it down because nausea and disorientation lead often as not to mind expansion on the plateau. Heidi sips and smiles. Nopole comes next, another gift from the plains, paddle cacti that grow like weeds in barren conditions, plentiful as manna to a wayward tribe. The needles pierce painlessly then draw up like spun glass. The pulp gets sliced and eaten, nevermind the slime. But the old woman senses cultural saturation and throws the rest in the hot grease, because fried nopole is easy for gringos and settles the pulque, kind of.
The old woman serves enchiladas and frijoles and watches her guests eat. Heidi explains that the girl who helped clear the grounds at the rancho took cucumbers and carrots from the refrigerator. The old woman is Rinita’s mother and asked for the visit to make up for the theft. She comes back out with more to eat and drink but Heidi begs off, muchas gracias and hasta luego and enough already. They drink a few beers at the tienda because the macho men are gone, and walking home by the road, long way around, recalls a man and a woman under the stars and the way it was supposed to be. Taco runs ahead and back, happy as a night scout.
In the days ahead they cross fields, traver
se walls, go up the road and hike the hills for twilight fires and a snort or two. The golden sauce is dominatrix no more, but the friendship endures. They walk to the outskirts of town and in blessed contrition turn around and walk home. With a placing on of feet they touch the plains. Dialogue stays sparse but the silence changes as the cards and camp crafts fade away. Sexual intercourse stone sober in daylight is another eye opener with emphasis on the heart. She thinks him a sensitive and thorough fuck. He admires her equally. They wonder what and when but don’t press, because pressing jumbles it up. And what can they do, stop?
Taco becomes a country dog but can still work a crowd, even if it’s down to a couple of hindleggers. He got oohs and ahs in town, jumping onto truck beds or barstools, and a nose thrust in a crotch was good for laughs. The new action is jumping up to sniff some burro ass, until a burro kicks him on the way up. He flies ten feet and lands hard but is up quick with a face-saving grin, looking for the burro. “Where did he learn that?” Tony asks. “That’s disgusting.”
“He’s a ranch dog,” Heidi says. “He owes his livelihood to those burros. He’s showing his gratitude.”
“I thought he was showing off.”
“Nah. Nobody has to do anything they don’t want to do around here.” She lets him reflect on the natural order of country life and says, “Life on the farm.” He wonders if he’s settling in.
They walk about, often in pitch dark around potholes and rocks. Meandering like young streams, they cover the countryside. A bit of elixir helps things flow, and the rancho becomes home as well, its ancient cacti warming the darkness with open arms, soft shadows. The burros and chickens whinny and coo when familiars approach; it’s only the feeders who might stop and pat heads, cooing and whinnying too.
They walk inside and walk apart, Heidi to the kitchen to slice a cucumber and sprinkle it with lime and cayenne for a hot tangy reminder of what’s going on around her, then to the sofa to read next to him. Tony reads of misfits on the troubled path and considers his own lack of direction but feels plotted as the next sailor. Where in the hell is Heidi going? Or any of them? The dreamers and bum poets gather in Heidi’s library as he feels gathered, as if a reading by Nurse Goode will assuage their restlessness through understanding. He treads lightly because he understands how quickly self-abuse can lead to self-indulgence, but he feels homeless all the same. His luck holds for now, in the care of a woman who values sexual convenience. What man would decline, for awhile anyway? He will soon ask her opinion on what a man of obvious intelligence can do. He falls asleep contemplating weakness and change and awakens later with his head in her lap. He squeezes her thigh. She pats his head. Amazed, he asks, “Will we grow old together?” She pats again, because she’s on a really good part, so hush; or maybe everything is simply okay, if you let it be.
Sexual activity wanes, perhaps in natural regression, until infrequency characterizes fulfillment of the bio-need. Tequila and a joint help get things going, but still. Who can fuck every day? Who could ever be married?
In dispassion and propriety they stumble onto new thrills like walkers in the dark. The air chills with courtesy. She is Miss Heller; he is Jeeves. It’s good for a chuckle and a whimper in a nine-minute script that plays weekends only, until the strangers know each others’ lines and default to plot summary; I’ll scratch yours, you scratch mine, up, to the right, farther, no back, up more, ooh, ooh, right there. Good.
He drives to town for more chicken wire and begins a coop annex for more chickens for more eggs for something to do. She paints her craft animals inside. They hike and talk of old movies, old books, old times. With tedious practicality, they trade friction politely; she washes while he takes out the trash. He knows she loves him, because women change with intimacy. He knows as well that he lives on a margin where carnal exchange is only a screw leading to sleep. It’s a good screw and a sound sleep, but these things boil down to minimums. In April, when the sky brightens and warms the earth with promise, she goes off alone one morning. “See you,” she says, letting the screen door slam.
“See you,” he says.
She comes back. “Taco. Vamonos!”
“Ah. A girl and her dog.” She smiles and leaves again, and he know it will never end but ended awhile ago. Time has come again. He spends the morning scanning Mexico. Brunch is over North America. The whole wide world eases him into siesta.
Waking around three, thinking till half past, stretching, sitting up, gazing off, wondering what, he goes out, walks the grounds, consults the burros and chickens. The daylight left is spent on the sofa with Nelson Algren on the mean streets of Chicago, where a guy can’t be a sap over a woman because they’re all the same in the end.
Sometime after dark he gets up and slices a cucumber and decides a few cukes will be good for the road tomorrow on the bus to Mexico City, which is good as any place for a man to begin. It’s easy. Some lime and cayenne make it fit. He’ll miss Heidi and her dog and the rancho where he got control over the sauce that might one day kill him but not today or tomorrow. Next time he’ll pick his friends wisely and avoid the bars. Maybe he’ll age alone.
But she returns with two bags of groceries and a smile. He smiles too, relieved with his resolve, until she sets the bags down and comes to his side and beams idiotically, like a woman after shopping or love. He senses change in the air, which is simply the happiness she emotes in his presence. He declines remembering when last it was but asks, “Tequila or not tequila? That is the question.”
She squares his shoulders, presses her lips to his and says, “I love you. It came to me today. Tequila. Tall ones for you and me.” She unbags groceries and announces a celebration.
He doesn’t press; Tony Drury and tumbleweed can roll with it. The tequila goes down warm and eases him up, because tomorrow and love look better than a bus ride to the city. He’s weak but comfortable. And now he is loved. He knew it all along.
“On the trail?” he asks, sliding her glass over and topping it. She raises it and peers over the rim like a playful lover. He foresees a terrific sexual exchange. He sniffs the breeze and asks, “Where’s Taco?”
“I sold him.”
“What?”
She laughs. “Relax. He has a bone of his own outside, where dogs are supposed to eat.”
“Where did you go?”
She repours. “On the trail.”
“What trail?”
“Yippeeokayay. Get along little doggies. You know, the trail.” She sorts the groceries. “I appreciate you. I need time to myself. You let me have it. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“That and love. What else do you want?” Taco whines at the door. Dinner and drinks pass as usual, except for the new spirit in the sparse talk. They hit the sack with love in the air, and a little snore floats from her pursed lips as her face settles on the pillow. Ah, she means that kind of love.
A few hours later he eases out. The clock says 3:18. He stands in the footprints of twenty-four hours ago to the minute and wonders if the moment is now or last night or tomorrow and the dream curves in on itself. “So?” he asks in the dark, shuffling back to bed. Yet tonight will stand out, for Tony Drury lies awake in utter awareness of death—not in the act of dying but the non-act of nonexistence. How can that be, when time takes so long until you’ve lived it, and then you wonder where it went? In the middle of the night he knows what he’s always known but never made his move on, which is love.
A few hours later in the caffienated mist he recalls his passage from town and his night on the trail. His night of exodus bore a strange but blessed semblance to the old nights under the stars in the dirt by the fire. For the firmament is home to a restless soul, and home is what he most loves. She loves it too, she says, a few miles on the trail. She smiles uncertainly, as women in transition sometimes do.
He suggests going again, out where the old days wait.
She says yes, maybe. They’re certainly in striking distance now. So he grabs paper a
nd pen and begins the list. “This could be what I’ll do,” he says awkwardly, not knowing what the hell he’s talking about being or doing, blushing profusely for baring his confusion to the landlady of his dreams. Her smile is sweet with sympathy now, because it’s not easy for a man like Tony Drury to be awkward or confused. He hasn’t the heart to look at her but writes: beans, bread, wine, beer, reefer, pickles, coffee—“What do you think? Cookies?”
She stands beside him, arm around him, rubbing his head like a school nurse. He can’t look up because he’s crying now and only wanted to share his insight of the deep night, and though tears may certainly lead to an excellent fuck, a man is not a boy, and this isn’t candy. He feels foolish, planning an outing to where something used to count, to where a feeling was last had, or maybe it was only imagined. She fires a joint and pours an eye-opener to ease the strain. Because she is driven to make it all better for a grown man with such an acute analytical mind, who might not know what’s going on around him but can sure tell you what’s going on with you and needs to ditch the rigor growing from himself. So, yes, she will allow the downtrodden to disrobe and leave their troubles in the repository between Nurse Goode’s legs.
In the slip and slide he tells a story as she once did, though his is very short and hardly as dramatic. He went to a chiropractor up north not so long ago and the questionnaire asked: When was the last time you felt really good?_______ “I wrote midnight, December thirty-first, nineteen sixty-nine.” They laugh. She wipes a tear from his cheek. “I was on acid,” he says and allows, “And now. I could write in now. I feel really good with you. Now. I … Thank you.” He knows real love should not be measured in the thick of an excellent fuck, and it’s a mercy fuck anyway, Nurse Goode making it all better for little Tony Misfit. Not that his fit is any less than hers or anyone’s, he just has a harder time accepting it—never mind; grateful is how he feels, and since women rarely come while mercy fucking, he goes ahead and cuts loose with a half smile and another tear. This, too, she wipes away, clearing what she can of his sadness.
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