by John Oakes
The well never ran dry on Bruce Latour stories, but at one point, when a lull hit the conversation, Kelly asked, "So what do you do for work Ricky?"
Ricky looked to Cody who gauged that, three beers into her black sheep initiation, Kelly was prepared for the truth. He gave a quick nod to Ricky.
"I deal in experiences," Ricky began slowly, "of a...intra-planar nature."
"Like you're a pilot?"
Cody chirruped. "Ha! A Pilot."
"In many ways I am," Ricky said.
"Ricky is a drug dealer, not to put too fine a point on it."
Kelly laughed, but then saw between their faces that neither man was joking.
"You're a drug dealer," Kelly responded, unbelieving.
"I deal in experiences," Ricky said again. "I don't peddle cheap highs. Well, I sell a little bit of that, but my real passion is psychotropics."
"Psychotropics?" Kelly asked and looked to Cody.
"Don't ask me about the big words," Cody said.
"Substances that allow the human mind to access deep parts of itself, parts that some say reach into a spiritual plane. I don't just sell, I help people on these journeys. I pilot them, as you say, while they are inside."
"Pilot them where?" Kelly asked.
"Peace and healing are built on perspective, and perspective is the shadow cast by greater experience. I pilot them through the experience, a far greater one than their minds have encountered. Needs to be done with care."
"Have you ever...?" she asked to Cody.
"Me?" Cody asked. "I once walked out of the dentist 'cause they tried to give me laughing gas. Shit scares me when I hear him tell his tales. I don't trust my deeper brain. Highly doubt anything good goes on there."
"I gave up long ago," Ricky said to Kelly. "The entrant must be an earnest seeker. Maybe it just isn't for everyone."
"I'll just stick to beer, thanks," Cody said and drank.
"Wow," Kelly said. "Well, that's remarkable. I thank you for your candor."
"Is that why you were here?" Cody asked? "Experimentation?"
Ricky nodded. "It helps to do that in a safe place, an old place, one with lots of good memories. Every memory acts as a homing beacon to guide me."
"You two have lots of good memories here?" Kelly asked.
They both nodded. "Grampa Bruce brought us here to fish and raise hell," Ricky said.
"Who owns this place?" Kelly asked. "I didn't see it listed in the estate."
"I guess I do," Ricky said. He took a slug of beer. "He signed the deed over to me last year."
"Oh, to you? Not to...not to Cody?" Kelly asked, trying to be delicate.
Cody smiled. "Ricky and Grampa were real close. They looked out for one another."
"That's so sweet," Kelly said with real fondness. "So is that what you brought me here for? Hell raising?"
"I was gonna see how inventive we could get with a bunch of M-80s and that bow and arrow in the closet. Plenty more ways to get creative with stuff around here. Trust me."
"Cody and I did things to the local bullfrog population as boys that are still only spoken about in hushed tones."
Kelly shook her head and she rose. "Say boys, is there a place where a bad girl can respectably do her business after drinking all these beers?"
"Respectably?" Cody asked. "Probably not. But there's an outhouse."
"I'm a bad girl, I'm a bad girl," Kelly repeated to herself with clenched fists. "I've been to jail."
"Take this." Ricky handed her a flashlight.
Kelly left, and Cody said, "Don't tell her about stuff like that. She'll think I'm weird."
"Cody, you attract weird the way a dead cat attracts flies. She's gotta get used to weird."
Kelly returned a minute later. She pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer out of her purse and slathered her hands in it. She shrugged Cody's reproachful look away and said, "Baby steps, remember?"
After one more beer, Kelly fell asleep, her head resting on Cody's lap. "You can't do that, kid," he said to her. He brushed a lock of her hair back out of her face. "No romance remember?"
"I'm not romancing you. I'm using you...as a pillow."
Cody smiled and continued looking at her. He realized after a few moments that Ricky was watching him adore her. He looked up. Ricky just titled back his beer and gave Cody a sideways glance past the rim of the can. His eyebrows shot up once. Cody sighed in response, rolled his eyes and nodded in self-deprecation. He looked down to Kelly.
"I think it's time I drove you home."
She picked her head up and said bleary-eyed, "But you can't drive me home. It might look date-like."
"I think we've had enough un-romance for one night. Come on."
Kelly made her way back to the car easy enough, but put an arm around Cody anyway. "In case I stumble," was her excuse. Cody put her in the car and waved goodbye to Ricky.
"But you've been drinking too," she said when he got in. "Is it safe to drive?"
"I'm twice your size. Four beers over two hours is what I call a light appetizer."
"I'm so impressed."
"I ain't bragging."
"No. Really. It's manly in a sort of caveman way. I can't help finding it attractive. I'm a bad girl now, you know..."
Kelly closed her eyes and they rode in silence. Cody turned the radio on and listened to a Gordon Lightfoot song. When the next song started, Kelly opened her eyes and breathed deep. She looked over at Cody, her drowsy face illuminated by the lights of dash. "When was the last time you kissed a girl?"
Cody's eyes shot up and his mouth hung open. "Uhh, I dunno." Cody thought about it, and then remembered the answer. "Couple months ago actually..." he admitted.
"Who did you kiss?" Kelly asked a little heatedly.
"Monica."
"What! You kissed Monica?" Kelly sat forward in her seat, eyes hard upon him. "Tell me you didn't."
"It wasn't like for real real. I...I played a sort of prank on her."
"What prank? Why did you kiss her?" Cody was concerned by the ardor in her voice but also a little pleased by it. He told her the whole story with Monica. By the time he got to the end, Kelly was rocking back and forth in her seat with merriment.
"So that's it. Now she even sends me little scripture blurbs. She's my highest spiritual adviser now, you could say."
"So she thinks the challenge was abstinence? And I'm a holy roller?" Kelly threw herself forward against the seatbelt and howled with laughter. "And now she thinks she can't have sex?"
"'Bout the size of it," Cody said with a chuckle. He was pleased she found the whole thing as funny as he did.
"And she thinks...she thinks she can't even...not even herself?"
"Nope. She's as chaste as the pastor's daughter right now."
Kelly was still chuckling when he pulled up in front of her place. But her eyes were closed again, and her head lolled from side to side against the headrest.
"This is your stop."
Kelly stopped smiling and made a pained face. Her hand moved to her seatbelt buckle but didn't press it. "I don't wanna go back, Cody." Her voice was like a kid trying to stay home from school.
"To what? Work? Being a good girl?"
"Any of it." She undid her seatbelt, but instead of getting out, slid over and placed her face on his shoulder. She nestled in and looked up at him with her big blue eyes. "Thank you for the least romantic un-date I could ever dream of. You're a valued client of Cafferty, Church and Espinoza."
"I'm not a client, rem—
Kelly put a finger to his lips. "Don't talk." Then she moved her hand down and rubbed it across his chest. "You know how long since I kissed anyone?
"You're drunk."
"I'm drunk. I'm a drunk girl who hasn't kissed anyone in five years."
"Shut the front door."
"It's true," she groaned.
"I don't believe you," Cody said. "Not you."
"Doesn't it make sense though? 'Career Kelly' doesn't have time for boys and k
isses." She ran her hand around his torso and held him. "And 'Good Girl Kelly' thinks too much and ruins everything."
"That's what my friends say about me too," Cody said. "I sure get accused of being an over-thinker a lot for a guy who, on multiple occasions, has lit his own pants on fire...while he was wearing them."
She looked up at him.
"You don't wanna know..."
"So, that's it then," Kelly said. "No more thinking. Lots more kissing." She moved her hand up to his face. She scratched at his week's growth of facial hair and tilted her face up.
"Kelly. Your job...I..."
"What? Don't tell me you've never kissed a drunk girl."
"Well, no one's ever offered sober."
"See!" She pointed to the dash clock. "It's past midnight. They won't be Valentine's kisses, just business kisses, like Europe. In France, I bet the lawyers can make out with any client they want."
"I want nothing more in the world. But I promised you an un-date. I don't wanna get you fired. You'd hate me forever."
"I'll just quit my stupid job. Kiss me." She gabbed his mouth and gave him fish lips. "You don't have a way home anyhow."
"I'm a resourceful guy, I'm finding lately," Cody said through fish lips. He pulled his mouth out of her grasp. "Don't worry about me."
She returned her hand to his face and stroked it.
"You still have a code," he said. "Remember? Bad girls can still have a code."
She buried her face in his shoulder and clutched at his collar. "Oh you're right. Why do you have to be right?" She hit him with his own balled up t-shirt collar. "But now of all times? Why did you have to talk?"
She looked up at his face, caressed it again, and groaned with remorse. "I have to do something to this face or I'll burst."
She slapped him hard on the jaw.
Kelly pushed herself away and out the door.
"I'll walk you in," he said, massaging his face. He got out of the car, but by the time he closed his door, she was already halfway across the lawn. She stepped to her door, unlocked and opened it. She turned back to glance at him and then closed the door behind her.
Cody closed the car door and stood in the street, hefting her car keys in his palm and chewing his lip. After a minute, he found the mailbox and put the keys inside.
Then he walked off into the night scratching his head.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bushido
The June sun scorched and seared Texas, whose inhabitants sought refuge at this time of year in the state's numerous lakes and reservoirs, municipal pools or even simple inflatable get-ups in the backyard filled with hose water. Lacking access to a nearby lake or pool, Cody Latour found himself in a water hazard on an unfinished golf course. He floated in an inflatable seat and had a beer in both cup holders. His tan was coming along nicely. His complexion was given to tanning, as long as he didn't over do it. This along with his brown eyes had come from his partly Hispanic mother's side.
Cody considered his mid-section. It was especially apparent now, when he was shirtless and in a semi-seated position, that it could use some work. Anyone could gather up a handful's-worth of flubber sitting in a chair, Cody decided. So he leaned as far back as the inflatable seat would let him. His stomach flattened, but still the area around his navel showed no trace of muscles below. They were in there, somewhere, but hidden like a brownie underneath a layer of ice cream.
Ice cream sounded good. So did brownies. Damn Jean Baptiste and his amazing cooking. If not for that, maybe all the work he'd done preparing the resort would have trimmed Cody up a bit. Best to keep the tan going, then, he decided. Fat always looked better tanned. Cody wondered if in a couple years, he would be one of those people who wore shirts in the pool. No, he could run his gut off in a week, he wagered to himself. But then Cody imagined the days to come, and in not a single one of those days did he envision himself actually going for a run.
He decided to think about something less depressing than his growing waistline. Today was a day of celebration, anyway. He cracked open a fresh beer in the left-side cup holder and took a cool drink. He kicked his feet slowly in the water, amongst tall weeds growing up from the muddy bottom of this glorified hole in the ground. In the years since it was dug, it had filled with run off and was now bustling with life. Maybe that was a metaphor for something philosophical. Like when you dig holes in the golf course of life...and then give it time...it...it fills up with duck crap and pond water...or something...
He'd have to ask Ricky.
Cody didn't know what had made him so thoughtful today. No, wait, he did. Either way, it was making his head hurt. Maybe it was best to get out of the sun before he went loopy. He paddled to the bank, gathered up his supplies and trekked back to the main house to stow his floaty.
"Hep-py Uh-Buuf-day!!!" thirty-five Japanese people screamed at Cody when he walked into the dining hall of the main house. One smiling Japanese man handed him a beer and a shot glass with clear liquid in it. Cody smiled back and thanked him. The Japanese man made a motion like drinking and then said, "Shoota! Shoota!"
Cody held up the shot glass to the crowd of people, many of whom were wearing black socks and thong sandals. They began clapping and singing a song. Someone was pounding on a table. Cody threw back the shot. Vodka. Cheers erupted, and the guests began clapping along to a new song as a cake appeared.
Cody had no idea how they'd found out it was his birthday, but it was no state secret either. The singing group was a combination of guests doing business with Hartnett Solutions and those in town to meet with Big Tex's company. Big Tex was nowhere to be seen, however.
The group, almost all men and two women, continued to cheer, until hushes sounded around, and the din died down to a confused chatter. A very young-looking man with shaggy hair and glasses whispered in the ear of the man Cody knew as Mr. Kazuko, the most senior executive in the room. He could never remember all the names of the guests, since many only stayed for a few days, never to return. He had learned, however, that it was very useful to remember the head honcho's name.
Japanese businessmen from separate, even competing companies were like different branches of the military. You may be a sailor, but when an army colonel walks in the room, you still salute. Thus, when Mr. Kazuko began leading the mixed group in his sonorous, if not on pitch, baritone, everyone followed suit dutifully.
"Happy Uh-birf-day to uh-you..."
The ruckus had attracted some of the workers who joined the singing.
He had wondered in the days before his birthday how the Japanese celebrated the occasion. He even asked one of the English-speaking guests about it. He told Cody that they were usually quiet affairs, just dinner with friends followed by a cake.
Despite this, Cody's Japanese birthday was shaping up to be a real shit show.
In the two months since the resort opened, Cody had witnessed that Japanese people were indeed the tenacious capitalists that Tex had pegged them for, but it wasn't all that simple. They also knew how to let off steam. It was a Saturday. People were wearing shorts, and Japanese dudes were passing around beers, barely after noon. Cody had never considered himself a worldly lad, but maybe all these years he had been embracing aspects of Japanese culture and just hadn't known it.
The passing afternoon and party atmosphere presented further evidence that there seemed to be little shame in getting absolutely fall down shitty in front of your coworkers. In America, a CEO might lose face if he was so drunk by the end of the night that he was hugging a potted plant and crying inconsolably. But for the Japanese it amounted to a sort of quiet dignity.
If you partied so hard that you shit your pants, it sort of went to prove how much stress you had built up by working your ass off for 16 hours a day. Instead of making you look like a lush, it spoke more of your sacrifice in a paradoxical way. Cody had been reading about Eastern philosophy, but this notion was the closest he'd come to understanding yin and yang.
Cody was teaching Shinya, Ak
ihiro and Kenji how to play beer pong when they all heard a loud church bell ringing outside.
The Old West was open.
Everyone bustled from the hall to his or her respective rooms. They emerged minutes later in all manner of western or cowboy dress they'd acquired form the General Store at the resort. All the resort attendants changed costume too.
There was no single job description for the attendants. They served meals, cleaned up messes and bussed tables. Some gave informational sessions, some gave dance lessons, and one even led yoga. Each attendant was encouraged to improve guest experience in his or her own unique way, all under the direction of Glen, who had taken a full-time position as the concierge. But at performance times like this, everyone worked in concert to set the scene and involve the guests in the charade.
The attendants led the guests to the Old West Main Street, which sat to the east of the main house. Cody, following along, was stopped by Tanya, one of the original Tiny Tacklers. She was a full-time P.E. teacher in San Antonio, but had come to work at the resort for the summer.
She twirled in her billowing dress and corset in front of him with a huge smile on her face.
"I love the new duds!" she said. "I'd never be caught dead in a dress normally, but I've always wanted to wear a hoop-skirt!"
Once inside the saloon, drink service began again. Bowls of peanuts in the shell were placed on the tables, and Ramon, dressed in sleeve garters and waistcoat, began to play the piano. Tanya and an attendant named Mariana worked their way up onto the bar and led the room in a raucous set of drinking songs specially modified for the non-native speaker of English.
Cody was singing along with the rest of them from his perch at the bar, when the music stopped on a dime. He heard a clink of spurs making slow, deliberate footfalls outside. A set of swinging doors burst open.
Texas Joe Whitlock stood in the doorway, four feet tall and spitting mad. The saloon grew quiet. He surveyed the room, slowly working on his chaw. He spat a big long stream onto the saloon floor. Texas Joe Whitlock took a step, then another and another. Everyone cleared back out of his way. A man in the corner stood up and took a picture with a flash. But Texas Joe was unfazed.