Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom

by A. L. Haskett

  “Give her some slack,” Sean Delaney urged.

  It felt good to have his old man beside him. Old was not accurate. Sean was twenty-nine in the dream, an age when death was a remote promise not worth pondering.

  “You’re playing her too hard,” Sean said. “You let her out and you reel her back. You play with her. You make her want to play with you. You never let her know what you’re thinking because you can bet your sweet ass she won’t let you know. When you’ve given her enough slack, you make her take the hook. Then you reel her in.”

  “Something tells me we’re not talking about fishing,” said Duncan in an uncharacteristically intuitive flash.

  “What do you think we’re talking about, boy?”

  Duncan fought the trout and the trout fought back, its beauty dazzling with each jump. It seemed a shame to catch. Sean touched his shoulder.

  “You’re afraid to catch her because you think you can’t hold on to her.”

  The line went limp. When he reeled it in all that remained of the trout was a small piece of flesh on the hook.

  “She threw your hook, son,” Sean said.

  “Duhh!” Duncan said. Sean smacked the back of his head. “Ouch!”

  “Don’t get smart. I may be dead but I’m still your father.”

  “Whatever.” Duncan got up.

  Sean pulled him down. “Giving up are you?”

  “I see what you’re doing. The fish is a metaphor for Pris, right?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It’s obvious.” Duncan took a beer from the cooler Sean had carried to the river’s edge. “And I don’t think she’d appreciate it. She’s not a fish.”

  “Of course not.” He took Duncan’s beer. “You drink too much.”

  “I’m twenty-one, Dad.”

  “Not in this dream you’re not.” Sean Delaney emptied the can into the water. He walked from the river towards the mountains. “You’re right about one thing though. The fish is a metaphor. But not about Pris.”

  Duncan followed. “I don’t understand.”

  “My god, you’re dense sometimes.” Sean Delaney knelt and pulled his child to him. “The metaphor is about you.” He kissed Duncan’s forehead and smiled sadly. “How do you expect to catch anything if you don’t keep casting your line?”

  Seven

  When Roscoe came up the next day, Duncan was eating a bowl of Cheerios and reading a note delivered by a messenger that morning. Sold Roscoe, the note said. Proceeds (less commission) enclosed.

  “I sold the painting of you for two thousand,” Duncan said.

  “Hell, I’m in the wrong business. Can I borrow some paint?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “How hard can it be? Art doesn’t have to look like anything. Some is just a bunch of colors smeared around.”

  Duncan could not refute the point. He gave him two splintered brushes, ten mashed paint tubes, an old pallet, and a canvas. He reassembled his broken easel with wire and duct tape. Roscoe set the canvas on the easel and smeared paint on the pallet.

  “Mind if I hang out and paint?”

  Duncan got his hat. “Just close the door when you leave.”

  Duncan cashed the check and bought six hundred dollars of canvasses, oils, brushes, and a new easel at an art supply store. He stopped at a café on Melrose and drank a cappuccino. The woman at the next table had ordered one so he thought he would try it. He forced the bitter brew down and inspected the bill left on his table by a gaunt waiter with a bleached crew cut and four silver earrings.

  “There’s been a mistake. I just had a cappuccino.”

  The waiter regarded the bill. “No, that’s right. Eight fifty.”

  Duncan was thankful he had forsaken the walnut brownie he eyed upon entering the café. He left ten dollars on the table and took a taxi home. He hauled his things upstairs and stopped in his doorway. Three bikers posed around a Harley that was parked behind his couch. Across the room, Roscoe bit his tongue and ran a brush against his canvas with the grace of a farmer painting a barn. The bikers stared at Duncan with faces cold as gravestones.

  “Hi,” Duncan said.

  “Duncan!” Roscoe set the brush down. “Come meet my friends.”

  Marco was tall and imperturbable, with a brown pony tail, soft blue eyes of two discrete shades, and a scar ranging from nose to jaw. Peewee was big and smiling with tan eyes, curly blond hair, a dense mustache, and a bloody dagger tattooed on his forearm above a Harley Davidson logo. Wilson was lean and reflective with grim brown eyes, hair black as Benjamin’s and cheeks as high, narrow cruel lips, and a keen hawk’s nose. They wore oily Levi’s, boots, and sleeveless denim jackets the back of which were embroidered with helmeted demon skulls above the words Satan’s Guardians. A bleached blond in a red tube top and cut off jeans exited the bathroom and settled on Peewee’s lap. Amber was Peewee’s not so private harlot. All were in their thirties, though weathered and wrinkled and eroded by life.

  “How did you get the bike up here?” Duncan asked.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Wilson said.

  Peewee laughed. Marco frowned. Duncan wondered if they were making fun of him. He did not pursue it. Roscoe pulled him to the easel.

  “What do you think?”

  Duncan had earned extra credit in high school teaching finger painting to first graders. Roscoe’s painting was a notch below that.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  Peewee came around and looked. “My dog paints better than that,” he said. “Ain’t that right, Amber?”

  “I don’t know.” Amber scrutinized the canvas. “I never seen your dog paint.”

  “What the hell do you know?” A vein pulsed on Roscoe’s forehead. The back of his neck flared red.

  “Anyone like a beer?” Duncan asked.

  “We drank them all,” Wilson said.

  Duncan reached for his hat. “There’s more downstairs.”

  “Wait a goddamn minute. You making fun of my painting, Peewee?”

  “Painting? I thought you puked on the canvas.”

  Roscoe seized Peewee and hoisted him over his head with inordinate strength. His eyes were wide and mad and froth edged his mouth.

  “Goddamn it, Roscoe,” Peewee yelped, “put me down!”

  Roscoe veered to the windows. Wilson extracted a knife and stationed himself between Roscoe and the street below. Marco took out a bicycle chain and stood close by. Duncan shut his eyes and ached for the Circle D.

  “Roscoe,” Wilson said, his voice calm and deep as the Hollywood Reservoir, “I love you man, but Peewee’s right. You can’t paint worth shit. And if you don’t put him down, I’ll have to cut you.”

  Roscoe turned on Duncan. “What do you say? Is he right?”

  Duncan gulped. “I’m afraid so.”

  Roscoe howled and threw Peewee onto the couch, upending it and Peewee and dumping him on the floor before the Harley.

  “Oommpph!” said Peewee.

  Wilson sheathed his knife in his boot. Marco wrapped the chain around his waist. Duncan let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. Peewee stood and up-righted the couch.

  “He could have put it better,” Roscoe said. “I got feelings.”

  “I know you do,” Wilson said.

  Peewee dusted himself off. “Sorry, man.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it.” Roscoe hugged Peewee. “Maybe I can’t paint. But I can tear down a Harley like a son of a bitch. Right, Marco?”

  Marco nodded.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Wilson said.

  “Wait.” Duncan placed a canvas on his new easel. “I’ll paint you.”

  “He’s good,” Roscoe said.

  Wilson slowly sank onto the couch, his wintry, stern eyes seeming to say he’d better be. Roscoe fetched two six packs from the Hollywood and passed the bottles out. Duncan painted, his brush a blur against the canvas. Hours later, as the sun set, he put down his pallet.

  “That’s all tonight. I ca
n finish it without you.”

  Peewee rose and looked at the canvas. “Hey, that’s good!”

  “I told you,” Roscoe said, “didn’t I tell you?”

  In the painting Roscoe sat on the Harley. Marco and Wilson sat at opposite ends of the couch, Amber’s feet across Marco’s knees and her head in Wilson’s lap, her eyes hard and her lips twisted in a tart’s vacuous smirk. Peewee sat on the floor in front of the couch, a dull normal grin on his cherub face, his arms clasped above his knees. Marco gazed out of the painting with psychopath eyes, callous and void. And Wilson looked like what he was, a pirate, a gunfighter, something novel each generation, but always the one giving the orders, and now an outlaw biker with codes cruel and essential as nature. Looking at the painting, Wilson wondered what had become of the child who once played catch with a father whose sole aspiration was that his son grow up to play ball in the big leagues. His childhood was contented but his soul had never been appeased. At fifteen he hopped a freight train on a dare and for ten new Harleys and a ranch in Idaho he could not say why he kept going. Twenty years separated then from now. The final report he had of his father was contained in the obituary his sister sent when Wilson was behind bars for trouncing the manager at a McDonald’s who had given him a cold bag of french fries. The painting touched him like the obituary had, and he did not know why.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “Mind if they leave the bike here a few days?” Roscoe asked.

  “Sure.”

  “One thing.” Wilson smeared the license plate in the painting. “Change that before you show it to anyone.”

  From his window Duncan observed the Guardians mount their Harleys and ride off. He watched Roscoe enter the Hollywood. He searched the street for a white Cadillac. All he saw were three Hondas, two Toyotas, a Dodge Dakota, and a Subaru wagon. He turned from the window, opened a beer, and changed the license in the painting.

  Hours later, Duncan’s phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “Duncan?”

  “Pris?” His heart grew legs and kicked his ribs. His heart had been doing things like that ever since he met her. “How did you get my number?”

  “The phone company has this thing. It’s called information.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be bitchy.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I called to apologize. I know you weren’t trying anything. I’m just so tired of hearing that crap. The creeps who come into the Hollywood think because they throw money at me they can say whatever they want. All I can do is smile when what I really want is to rip their hearts out with a claw hammer.”

  “Ummm . . .”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “I know,” Duncan said. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  “Can’t. I’m working. But you could come in for a drink.”

  Duncan did not want to be equated with the other creeps or have cardiac surgery performed upon him with a carpentry tool. His desire to see her naked was tempered by an equal desire that when this vision occurred that he also be naked and that they be alone.

  “I better not,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do.”

  “That’s probably best. Somebody stole Sheila’s Harley. She’s in a mood to kick ass.” Only Women Bleed began in the background. “I have to go,” she said. “But I get off at one. Maybe I could come up. We could talk.”

  “Sure!”

  “Just talk. I’m serious, Duncan.”

  “I understand.”

  “All right. Maybe I’ll see you tonight.”

  Duncan hung up and stared at the bike. He was not vain, but he believed he owned too nice a face for jail and possessed an inadequate desire to participate in shower room acrobatics.

  Mr. Delaney, exactly how did this stolen motorcycle get up here?

  Beats the hell out of me, sir.

  The police would flay him with rubber hoses and jab him with electric cattle prods until he ratted on the Guardians whose tattooed Aryan jail house brothers would hunt him down and fillet him with sharpened bed springs like so much vermin. He covered the Harley with a sheet in a vain attempt to make it look like something other than a motorcycle.

  He put on his hat, walked to a liquor store, and bought two bottles of champagne for fifty dollars. He bought a picnic basket of cheese, meat, bread, and crackers at an all-night deli. He bought grapes and a cantaloupe at a market. He bought a bag of ice, a plastic bucket, and two candles from Assan. He returned home and put all but the candles, the basket, and the bucket in the refrigerator. He swept the floor and laid a tablecloth in front of the couch. He wedged candles in shot glasses and put them on the cloth. He sliced the cantaloupe and set the pieces on a plate with the grapes and put the plate in the refrigerator. He stripped, showered, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair. He tried six shirts and three pairs of jeans before he hit a combination that suited him. He looked at his watch.

  Ten thirty. Two and one half hours to go.

  He tried to paint but he could not focus. He shut off the lights and picked up Cat. He sat in the window and watched people come and go from the Hollywood. At midnight he put the ice and a bottle of champagne in the bucket. He returned to the window. At twelve twenty he opened the picnic basket and laid out the cheese, meat, and bread. He returned to the window. At twelve forty he put the plate of cantaloupe and grapes on the table cloth and lit the candles.

  He returned to the window.

  At one, Pris left the Hollywood with a long haired, leather wearing, anorexic rock star. She wore black tights, a black halter, and her biker’s jacket. Her hair was tied in long yellow braids. She sat on the rock star’s motorcycle and put her arms around his waist. They rode west down Sunset towards Beverly Hills. Duncan’s heart flew east to the Chicago stockyards where it was ground into dog meat. When it was clear neither Pris nor his heart would return he put Cat down and blew out the candles.

  Later that night, Duncan brought a bottle downstairs to where the bum slept fitfully in his rags, snoring and dreaming of gin. He was maybe fifty, with light green eyes flecked with gold. His hair was mostly gray with random strands of brown. Wrinkles like small scars edged his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He had ample wear on the rest of his chassis and a stench that could drive lice to suicide. Duncan nudged him with his foot until he woke and cocked a wrinkled red eye.

  “Yes, Mr. Getty,” he said, “what can you do for me?”

  Duncan gave him the champagne. “Thought you might like this.”

  He looked at the bottle. “French too. What’s the occasion?”

  “Just a broken promise.”

  “Could be worse. Could be a broken heart.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Some might disagree.”

  “That cost twenty-five dollars.” Duncan chose not to argue his love life with a wino. “Maybe you can trade it at a liquor store for something stronger.”

  “No, they’d think I stole it. They’d take it from me and I’d end up with nothing.” He popped the cork and took a long drink. He wiped his lips with a dirty sleeve and smiled. “Besides. I used to like champagne.”

  Something in his tone moved Duncan. “Do you want to get out of the cold for a while? You can use my shower and I’ll find you some clothes.”

  “Sure,” the bum said, “why not?”

  Duncan led him upstairs. “The bathroom’s in there.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Getty.”

  “My name’s not Getty. It’s Duncan.”

  “Sure it is.” He shook Duncan’s hand. “I’m Edward.”

  Edward retreated to the bathroom and turned on the water. Duncan went to the kitchen and washed his hand. The water stopped in the bathroom and splashing began. Edward sang in a sweet, strong tenor as he bathed. It sounded like Italian opera, though Duncan could not have identified it as such if it were Caruso himsel
f singing in the tub.

  I used to like champagne.

  What would Duncan say he once liked when entropy finally caught up with his quivering molecules? Would his regrets merit remembering and his joys be impossible to forget? Would he recall Tiffy behind the barn and the fullness of his chest and shorts when she lay back in the hay and raised her skirt to reveal the interior of her tan, naked thighs? Would he remember Fiona’s smile and his hand in hers as they crossed busy Cheyenne streets? Would he remember his father beside a river or anywhere else other than in his dreams? And would he remember a girl with dandelion hair and eyes blue and stormy as any ocean?

  “About them clothes?”

  Edward stood in the bathroom door, naked but for a towel circling his waist. His skin was scrubbed pink and the air was sweeter than when he first graced Duncan’s studio. Duncan gave him a pair of jeans, shorts, a wool shirt, cotton socks, and an old sweater.

  “The pants might be long, but the shirt should fit.”

  “Thanks.” Edward dropped the towel and dressed. “I’ll just roll up the cuffs.” He was thin and scarred and white like death. He smiled a skull’s weary grin. “Left your tub a bit dirty.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Duncan saw him eye the spread on the sheet by the couch. “You want to eat?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  He sat on the floor and stuffed a cheese wedge in his mouth. He ate for five minutes. When he was done only the salami remained.

  “Gives me gas,” he explained.

  Duncan said, “Listen, think you could do me a favor?”

  “I wondered if you’d get to this. Ok. What do you want me to do?”

  Duncan put a canvas on his easel. “Just sit there.”

  Edward sat on the couch. “That’s it?”

  “Sure.” Duncan began sketching.

  “That’s a relief. I thought you wanted me to blow you or something. Don’t look so shocked. I done worse. A man in my situation can’t afford pride. Don’t think I like it, though.”

  “I don’t imagine you would.”

  Duncan was staggered that there were men desperate enough to pay a foul-smelling bum to fellate them. He did not object to the desire or preference, merely to the hygiene of the service provider, though he was bothered that Edward judged him such a person with such a craving who would desire such a service.