“I brought bottles,” he says.
“Oh! Fuck bottles.” Inez offloads trash with efficient deference. Heidi cops her weekly shower, rifles her closet and medicine shelf and is back out with bandages, ointments and clean clothing. Kensho humps a fifty-pounder, beans. “Are you coming?” she asks him.
“Yes.”
“We gotta hurry. It’s crazy. He cut himself.” She demonstrates on her high thigh. “Tearing a bottle. It sliced him and it’s bleeding like crazy. I don’t think it’s the artery but I don’t know. I made a tourniquet above the cut. But it might be infected. He’s feverish.”
“Does he care?” Tony asks.
“I care,” she says. “I thought you’d care too.” She gets in and fires into a reverse brodie to the top of the drive where she gets out and pulls more trash from the cab—empties, bags and crud.
“That’s enough,” Tony says, sliding in. He calls over to Kensho, “We’ll need two cars in case we want to leave early.” Kensho nods or bows and falls in behind, opening his other door for Inez, who wants to play too. He nods at her, because love translates loosely between Anthony Drury and Inez Lucida Ruiz. “It’s shaping up like a party. You got enough sauce to entertain?” Heidi ignores him. Taco jumps in too like old times, but not, because he picks up vibes easy as the next guy, but what’s he supposed to do, stay home? He whines, and they’re off, up the road again.
“Aw, shit!” Heidi says.
“How indelicate.”
“I forgot the reefer.” She hits the brakes for another brodie, but he pulls a spliff from his pocket, so she doesn’t turn the wheel, so Kensho passes on the right but doesn’t roll into the ditch. Engulfed in another cloud she torches the joint and pulls hard for the difference it will make, for the cloud within a cloud.
“Back in the action,” he says, bracing with one hand, holding Taco with the other, hoping Kensho sees her coming. Up the road to nowhere they accelerate with purpose, getting closer all the time. She slows when the road narrows, so he lights the joint again to slow her some more. Stoned to the gills will best suit arrival at Camp Crud. He offers Taco a hit but Taco blows his nose at it. “Dare to keep your dogs off drugs,” Tony says, but both Taco and Heidi are in no mood for humor.
Charles waits front and center with a reasonable Lawrence Welk: “Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to another fabulous show. We’ve got a great one lined up for you this a week, so sit back. Relax. And we’ll be right back.” He hobbles around Kensho’s car. “You got bottles.” Kensho squints at the dazzling truth: Charles looks like Lon Chaney fresh from make-up—sleep crusting down his cheeks, neck skin peeling away over bumpy splotches. “Bottles …” Effusing funky bliss for bottles and the people who brought them, Charles comes on like bad acid. He ambles uphill to the junk piles on either side of the path. A pile of rags sits in the middle with two wet spots for eyes.
“Jorge!” Tony calls, flinging coins.
“He’s not Jorge!” Charles yells.
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony says. “And Cotton ain’t a monkey.” Charles hobbles down for bottles.
“That’s not help.” Heidi says.
“What is?”
“We have to get him out of here. I just …” She just doesn’t know how.
“What? Check him into Stanford psychiatric?”
“No. That’s too far away.”
Charles wallows in bottles. Inez knows what to do. She carries the new bottles to the junk piles and piles them near the old bottles. The piles are cardboard, burlap, metal scrap, wood, rubbish and many plastic bottles. The interiors are supported with sticks and boards, each with room for a person to sit. The smaller one is decorated with a dead scorpion in a beer bottle, red cloth strips, bottle caps and broken glass sprightly displayed among other totems of mental disturbance. Tony sits inside for the feel of it. Taco declines with another whine.
The other apparent pyramid is bigger with livelier décor. Rhonda sits inside looking not so good, her scuzzy patina a testament to what love comes to. Accepted at last by the man of her dreams, she coos, “I knew I’d come to grief in, believin’ in a thief in the night.”
“Good morning, Rhonda. You always loved the outdoors.” She stirs, hopeful as a chronic romantic. Can this be it, fulfillment at last? Maybe love will conquer all; maybe blueberries are on the menu.
“You came without a warnin’ and left before mornin’…” Her singing lends a lovely air to the set. A bonfire will best end this show. It’s run too long.
“She’s supposed to help,” Heidi says. “She’s gaga. What a bitch.”
“Hey. She’s singing.”
Charles gimps up with an armload of plastic bottles. He drops a few but doesn’t mind. He can go back and pick them up. He drops the rest and holds one up. “Isn’t that the way it goes?” he asks.
“Damn near every time,” Tony says. “Just when you thought you had it dicked.”
“Yeah,” Charles agrees. “In front of you all the time. Just when you thought you’d have to … Just when you thought you … You know. Like you said.”
“Yes. I know.”
Charles is very pleased, waxing over new bottles. “They’re stronger than you think, if you get the caps. Amazing, the caps. No caps … Oh, hell you can use them. But with caps … Watch.”
“Yes. Amazing. With the caps,” Tony says. Charles limps away. Heidi fritters; Tony doesn’t get it. Kensho gets it. He brought the caps. Charles ambles like the prisoner of Zenda on freedom Sunday, laying bottles side by side in two rows. He walks on them, grinning. They crunch.
“It bothered me at first. But the shape they want. They hold it. They know. You mash them into who they want to be. And the caps!” He places the new bottles on the piles.
“I am impressed,” Tony says, thinking old Charles might flare off after all, wishing him God speed.
Charles works with happy eyes. “Insulation,” he says. “They keep you warm. When it’s cold. You know me. I wouldn’t kid you. Would I?”
Heidi laughs. Tony says, “You must be feeling good. Warm nights now, with insulation.”
Charles nods vigorously and confides, “And! Combustability. Fuel cells, every one.” Jorge coughs.
“You’re off your rocker, Chuck,” Tony says. Heidi frowns. Kensho shakes his head. Inez looks down. Charles turns as Tony says, “It’s air. You want combustion, you need gasoline. These things might melt, but you want to roar. Don’t you? You need gasoline. We can siphon some. It’s hell on the first pull, but it’ll bring your color up.”
“Oh, you …” Heidi grumbles, like she never heard a bluff called.
“Yes,” Charles gasps. “You’re right.” He sees the bet and calls, “Gasoline!”
He seems eager, honest and sincere. Well, if a guy goes honestly crazy it’s best over quickly. Tony doesn’t come out and say so, but he feels certain that everyone understands.
XV
All Around Town
Charles achieves liberation. Most of his old friends agree it was all he ever wanted. Tony sees Jorge in town soon after Charles blazes. He rides a child’s bicycle with little wheels and a little seat two feet off the ground. His knees stick out, and he waves at gringo pedestrians as if they know of his celebrity. With some floppy shoes and a big red schnoz, he could be a clown. The fat tires get him easily over the cobblestones. He stole the bicycle or bought it with Charles’ money. His jumpsuit used to be blue but now blends with his mottled skin. He got the jumpsuit from Arturo, el mechanico, in exchange for staying away from Arturo’s garage. Now he pedals the streets he once scratched, waving, drooling, grunting, calling, “It not time! It not time!” Or he wags a finger and calls, “Secret life in you!” Tourists point at the colorful old man on a bicycle. If they wave back, he rushes in for a photo op for only a hundred pesos. Some pay a grand, because who has a hundred? When he sees Tony Drury, he turns away. It’s a comedy of errors, not a drama. It ended in mortal consequence, but Tony was only a bystander. We all die sooner or later. I am no more
responsible for Charles’ suicide than I was for the eclipse. He feels this; it is so obvious to everyone.
But Jorge painfully restates the lingering innuendo. Nobody accuses, but the eyes have it. Jorge now has a tube of Preparation-H more than half full. He applies it discreetly on the curb in front of the coffeehole. Because a man who makes his living on a bicycle must have comfort.
Two blocks down, business booms for the original jumpsuiter. Arturo, el mechanico, knows that gringos pay big for the health of their cars. An enterprising mechanico can sell U-joints, front-end alignments and gasket seal bearing refit compression overhauls by the kilo. Arturo wrenches all day to meet growing demand. “Puta! Puta madre!” he yells when his ratchet fails.
The pubescent boys now living in town with their mothers taught Arturo to say puta madre. Arturo goes along because the boys get their mothers to bring their forty-thousand-dollar cars in for repair. Arturo leaves a gram of flesh on a pesky alternator mount and yells over the WJZS request line blaring BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And so on with the lyric, All she wantsta doo-az, all she wantsta doo-az, all she wantsta doo-az DANCE! DANCE! DANCE! Bleeding like a punctured ketchup pacquette, he doesn’t really mind, not with the cash rolling in. Arturo denies the pain. In awhile it will go away.
Another festive occasion at La Mexa will officially begin in five hours, so the place is packed with patrons prepping for the big one. Cisco yells over the din, “It didn’t used to be … my ass … fuckers …” He is drowned out by good cheer. He shuts up because the opposition prevails. It’s Cinco de fuckin’ Mayo, Man.
Tony can’t stay because of the crowd, the noise, the airless stink and hopeless wait for a goddamn drink. Yet he sits and stews. La Mexa has been rediscovered; it’s old and original, like it used to be. Celebrity Downhill booms on the dish-fed tube. We outlive the world, Tony thinks. Celebrity Downhill matches a professional skier with a celebrity. They ski together between commercials to the bottom of the hill, where the real skier says, “Ya. Dat vas a gude von, mit der schnow unt der schelebghity.”
The celebrity says, “Wow. It sure was.” Then it’s back to the top for another exciting run of overlapping realities in a thrilling new format. Next comes a survey of football players who agree they could not play so well without Jesus in their lives. A former cocaine-addict offensive lineman says Jesus is big, bigger than football. An opposing linebacker whose all-time records are matched only by his arrest record, BC, says Jesus is the man, the man with the plan. He says his team won on account of Jesus.
“Fuck this,” is the farewell Tony Drury rehearsed, but nobody hears it. Bobby and Earl already left for the coast, from where they plan a southerly drift, a study of liquor dispensaries by night, coffee and cigarette places by day. At last the Marines will land with a soft touch.
Mal was down to pure grunt when he met a divorcée from Dallas. She admits to sixty-one and dolls up with beehive hair and chromium highlights. Tiny crystals sparkle in the great nest and big crystals shine around her neck. She has scads o’ dough, and seeks realization, visualization and actualization. She’s a poster girl for nips, tucks, fills, lifts, spreads and separations. Bar talk for a month was that she wanted a man, a young one, and the interview included advanced foreplay but vaginal and/or oral copulation were absolutely not in the picture for anyone short of fiancé status. Worse yet, a simple feel of her stupendous tits required a vow to take the vow.
Mal knew in his heart that Tomàs—that squirrelly little fucker—would ruin everything again. But he made his play anyway and stands straighter since the day she said yes, she would join him for dinner at his house. She found football in Mexico amusing, and his hand in her panties may have further improved his posture. You can only speculate. They announced betrothal three days after dinner, each promising everything to the other. His pride is hard to watch. Some say it’s his first sex in twenty years, her sixth husband in half that time.
Suey and Whippet are tight again because Lawrence is a bad drunk who becomes someone else, someone loud and hostile. Tony doesn’t care. He wishes them uncritical love and new pantyhose for years to come.
Rhonda rediscovered painting, whimsical landscapes much different than Bill Maxwell’s but certainly viable according to Bill, Rhonda’s art liaison and dinner companion. Some say they look natural together, a great match, a good-looking couple, and what a refreshing change of pace to see two people falling in love. Some wonder what took them so long to find each other. Some say Bill is on the wagon, kind of, because of Rhonda. Some say Rhonda has grown beautiful because of Bill, and she’s more stable now as well, applying her background in art to the filmfest, becoming an integral part of the community.
Tony Drury wishes her continuing stability and wonders if she might one night weaken his way.
Marylin plans her third big year and looks like she might pull it off this time. Ticket sales approach modified projections from Year I, and the town is catching on, not yet a springbreak Mecca, but the college kids trickle in. Marylin was discovered by Jonathon Baywood Tremain, discoverer and world-renowned producer who happened along in Year II, who loves the town, loves the idea of a filmfest and frankly loves the caballero with the undiscovered script.
Tomàs and Marylin are tight, reconciling needs and aspirations. Jonathon Baywood Tremain hasn’t felt so confident in years. A Mexican production tickles his fancy, makes him feel young again, on the new frontier again with a rediscovered passion, the rock opera. He will produce, underwrite and promote ¡Hola Cabrón!, the all new smash hit written, scored and directed by Tomàs. Perfection looms with Tomàs rising in show biz, adapting easily to the flourish, the savoir faire, the new clothing, the cuisine and so many waiters eager to jump. The cash advance on his masterpiece is big enough to change life forever for a third-worlder. Tony hopes he hasn’t taken it in the ass, unless he wanted to, of course. Tony hopes he won’t wind up on Celebrity Downhill.
Parting ways with Kensho is more difficult. His quest for moderation is a compulsion, his taste for the sauce immoderate. His fixed smile comes from no joy but lingers from the laugh to keep from crying. Tony and Kensho know the old times come and go. Maybe they doubt another coming. Maybe this is it, last call.
Migration is the topic of the hour. They review the nature of leaving, of getting on, unattached. Heading out seems short on odds and so demanding.
Kensho says he wants to reach his destination without going anywhere. He says town allows him to change on a daily basis. But his regimen is day in, day out. He dreads the routine, fears the rut. “The difficulty is that an event can occur only when its time arrives.”
Tony agrees; an event cannot be separate from its time, but pondering such nonsense will lead to no more events. “By the way, did you ever do the do with Whippet?” Kensho says yes, once, for the feel of it, which was good and bad. Tony understands. Kensho opens himself to what comes along. Whippet came along with her need. She and Kensho conjoining was good for one thing if not for another. So he opened more and along came Leanne of the road-mapped and heavily traveled body. Her young date left or got thrown out or fell in a hole; she would only elaborate on her attraction to a man like Kensho. He calls her affection profuse and undeniable but his experience with Leanne is also good and wanting. He laughs, because she is monumental when viewed from the bottom, but when they roll over her mountains stand tall where breasts would settled seaward. He laughs. She cried; another transition. She comes to town once a week now. He sometimes drives out to her place.
He feels kinship with his training partners like never before. He came to town after years of trying to get something right. Now he feels right but can’t say why. Maybe staying is best for him. The action picks up every day, and he looks more and more like ever since when. He might grow old here, or Ms. Right will finally find her man. Tony thinks she will or she won’t.
Tony can’t stay on the treadmill without running himself to death, and besides, Kensho staying means he can come back to a friend if he gets lo
st and needs a homecoming. But it’s time to go somewhere else and be someone new. Possibilities jumble like glass splinters in a foggy kaleidoscope. He can’t see a job at Ashland Gas & Electric, but he wants to see something, something steady and gainful. Because a man dependent on luck must one day hold still long enough to find it.
Cisco is tough and easy. He knows what’s up. Two grown males shouldn’t live together, but maybe he wouldn’t mind a man of Tony’s social skills tagging along. It could be trailblazing, after a fashion. They could ride in the same direction like scouts. Drinking and drugging would be a problem, but what else is there? Cisco shakes his head on what’s what. “One day you’re choking for another breath and then you’re dead.” Then he gathers himself to take his leave, more deliberately than usual, leaving bar talk in his wake.
Stanton Runnymeade says it’s fine and good of Dalton and Lauren Snow to buy up the old Velasquez casa on Barranquilla for a song and then pour half a million dollars into rehab and reinvention. But Dalton wants to be be the richest man in town, and a half-million dollar house simply should not earn the title.
Cisco orders una grande for the road.
“A half a million dollars,” Stanton says in disbelief.
Cisco hoists his daypack, pours his firewater down the hatch and heads out at twilight with a low-spoken, “Adios, amigos,” like the cowboy he wants to be.
“What was that?”
“Cisco leaving?”
“He’s upset.”
“He’s upsetting, you mean.”
Then he’s gone. Maybe he gives Tony a lead to follow. Tony knows it’s time, real time. He just doesn’t know what he always didn’t know but hoped to find out. He fears it’s been known all along and is simple as left right left.
He loves Inez. She fooled him. Everyone does, but nobody gives like she gave. He sees her at the chores, loving the beginning, middle and end of each chore. He sees her pounding a skinhead drum by the fire in the night. He can’t change the setup halfway through Act III. She knows it, nevermind her jimba dance or his fetal soul; they shared an interlude, then it was time for a change. She was way too pregnant for ficky fick, and with Heidi back at the ranch it was time to let the road fork like it needed to. Inez went home. He told her what a gringa would want to hear, something about life and lasting love. And maybe he’d see her again soon.
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