Pure Dirt

by Francis Adams

  “Why don’t you take Hank over to visit Pharo? Jack said to Jane. “I’ll cover for you.”

  Hank and Jane pulled into the sandlot behind the boardwalk building.

  “Pharo, look who’s here?” Jane called out.

  Pharo turned his head. ”Hank!”

  “Busy?” Hank asked.

  “Making dough,” Pharo replied.

  “Yeah,” Hank replied, “I heard you’re making a pile of dough.”

  “I can’t talk too long,” Pharo spoke as he picked up a bag of flour dumping it into the large vat of the mixing machine.

  Hank glanced around the work area, “What are all of these bicycles doing in here?”

  Pharo grinned, “One of the help is stealing them off the street and hiding them in here.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No,” he’s cutting the manager in, so he keeps it quiet.”

  Pharo walked over to the gas stove and carried a heavy stock pot of warm water over to the mixer. He poured the water into the vat, then reached for what looked like a clay brick.

  “What’s that?”

  “Yeast,” Pharo explained, “you have to get the water warm enough so the yeast will bloom and raise the dough.”

  A pie worker entered the room from the front stand, “Pharo, the trash is full. You need to dump it.” Pharo switched the machine on and the dough hook began kneading the water and flour. “We’re going to meet tonight at Chubby’s bar after we close. Why don’t you join us?” Jane invited. “I’ll try to make it,” he answered her.

  As the sun set behind the horizon, Hank walked the length of the boardwalk twice. He stopped at Groff’s for fish and chips, then unlaced his sneakers and walked to the ocean’s edge. The beach was nearly deserted. He rolled up the pant legs of his jeans and felt the cool salty water bury his feet. Turning around, he saw the boardwalk lit up in neon splendor, the rumble of faint voices, the metal spokes of the gambling wheels spinning wildly.

  Hank met Jack and Jane at the pizza stand near midnight, and they walked several blocks to Chubby’s bar. The pie workers met there when the stands closed. They downed ten cent drafts in frosted mugs, gnawed at buttered corn on the cob, and shucked open bowls of steaming clams. They joked or complained about each other, or simply listened to the jukebox in a weary overworked trance.

  “We found you a place for the night. It’s in Wildwood Crest at Paul’s pad. He rented a house with a couple of guys for the summer.” Jane explained lighting her cigarette.

  “Thanks,” Hank said.

  “We have to get up early though. The stand opens at ten. Since you have a car, we want to take you to Higbee beach to go skinny dipping. We go at dawn.” Jane continued.

  “Where’s Higbee beach?” Hank asked.

  “It’s in Cape May. It’s isolated, not too many people know about the place. There’s a pond next to the sea. We skinny dip before going to work.”

  “Sounds good,” Hank raised his voice over the din of the bar.

  A tray of corn on the cob was set on the long rectangular table. Jack sat in the middle surrounded by the pie makers and servers. They had notched another day off the summer calendar.

  The Buick drove to the Crest and pulled up in front of a small Cape Cod. Walking the flight of stairs, they found Paul, the piemaker at Jack’s stand, washing his hands at the sink. “Jack, I have pillows on the floor next to the sofa. I hope you don’t mind the floor.” Paul said. Jack, Jane and Hank laid side by side on the living room floor falling asleep in their clothes. Sometime in the early morning, Hank heard a soft moan. Thinking someone may have become sick from too many beers, he lifted his head to find Jane with her arms wrapped around Jack’s neck. He had mounted her. Hank turned away, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

  At dawn, Jack rose and woke Jane and Hank. The Buick drove across US 9 to Seashore road. A small sign on the side of the road read Higbee Beach and marked the dirt road that led to the ocean. They walked to the pond on a sandy path through the bramble. Jane handed Hank a blanket, “Here, in case you want to lie down.” Jack walked to the edge, removed his clothes, and dove into the pond, followed by Jane who shed her clothing and walked into the water. Hank tried to shed his inhibition. He stripped naked, walked into the pond, and dove under the surface. No one spoke. No one gawked. As Hank began to relax, he floated on his back in the still water looking at the clouds in the sky. Afterward, he napped on the blanket in the sand still tired from the night before. The sun warmed his back as he rested on the bank. Returning to the boardwalk, they ate breakfast at Lenny’s restaurant, then parted ways. Jack and Jane went back to Mario’s to sell pizza. Hank made the long two-hour drive back home towards Trenton with the FM radio blasting “Freedom, sweet freedom, where’d you go sweet freedom.”

  Pharo stood at the sink washing the round stacking dough pans when Eddie showed up for work. “Pharo! Lincoln Avenue needs two cases of tomatoes. Mario shredded the cheese and took off for the racetrack again. The stands need the cheese delivered.” Pharo stacked a pan on top of the column, “As soon as I finish stacking these pans.” He was working off another late night of drinking.

  “Hey, did you hear what happened?” Eddie asked.

  Pharo didn’t respond. He continued to dunk the pans in soapy water, rinse them, and place them on top of each other.

  “Jack’s been cheating on his wife.”

  Pharo’s eyebrows raised, “Say what?”

  “Yeah, Mario’s brother was driving through Trenton and spotted the pizza wagon parked on Market street, so he hired a private investigator to follow Jack around. Turns out, he’s been banging Jane.”

  Pharo stopped what he was doing, “Where did you hear that?”

  “Mario told me himself. He wants to get rid of her, and he instructed the staff not to speak to her.”

  “And Jack?” Pharo inquired.

  “Carol threw Jack out. He’s working the stand, but he stays somewhere else. How about that? Jane whoring around with Jack.”

  Pharo’s eyes darted towards Eddie in a cold fixed stare.

  “Better get the supplies delivered. They’ll be on the phone screaming. Better do it now, Stepin’ Fetchit.”

  “I’ll handle the paper products.” Eddie rushed out.

  Memorial Day had passed, and Hank drove to the Community College for orientation. The campus grounds had once been a tomato patch, but now housed several buildings with elevated walkways connecting them. He registered for introductory courses as he had no academic direction. Hank’s mother suggested that he try computer courses as she had heard that it was the next big thing. “I hear there will be jobs in the computer field,” she told him, “Why not try that?”

  Hank sat before a terminal in the first session at the computer lab. Eight computer terminals were set in rows of four. The instructor introduced himself. “Hello, I’m Charlie McIntyre, and I’ll be your lab instructor this semester. Some of you may not have been to the lecture portion of this class yet, so today, I’m just going to tell you about our system. There won’t an assignment. We have a PDP-11 minicomputer manufactured by the Digital Equipment Corporation. These terminals before you are connected to the same machine, and each of you are given a slice of processing time in a round robin fashion. In this lab, you’ll be learning the BASIC computer language. The assignments are not difficult, and I hope that you will relax and enjoy the lab. You’ll have five projects which will count for twenty percent towards your final grade.” Hank watched his classmates scribbling notes in their loose-leaf pads. “Right now, I want to give you an example of the BASIC language in action. On the terminal screen before you, at the prompt, please type run demo and press the return key. Follow the instructions on the screen. I’ll give you a few minutes.” Hank followed the instructions and typed the command on the keyboard watching the green letters appear on the tube one at a time.
/>   >RUN DEMO

  > Hello, please type your first name and press enter.

  > HANK

  > Hello Hank, please answer the following question.

  Which do you prefer to do?

  1) Read a book.

  2) Go to a party.

  Please enter a number and press enter.

  >1

  > Please enter your birthday month and day (mm/dd). Press the enter key.

  > 11/20

  > From what you have told me so far, I can tell you are a Scorpio and have an introverted personality.

  Hank was shocked. The machine showed signs of intelligence. He sat for a minute astonished at the response. He looked to his left wondering what the others made of it. He decided to converse with the machine.

  >WHY DID YOU KILL ASTRONAUT FRANK ON THE MISSION TO JUPITER?

  > I’m sorry, I don’t understand that, Hank. Goodbye.

  >

  Hank rose from his chair, left the computer lab, and walked across the grassy field to the parking lot wondering whether PDP-11 knew anything else about him.

  Hank was back in class the next morning for the Introduction to Computers lecture. The professor spoke to the class enthusiastically holding up a small black rectangular silicon chip with eight metal legs protruding on each side. The chip reminded Hank of an insect.

  “Welcome to Intro to Computer Science. I’m Dennis Taylor. In this class, we’ll cover several topics related to the evolutionary field of computing. Topics will include binary arithmetic, storage devices, computers codes, and groundbreaking advances. This small microprocessor that I am holding in my hand is going to change every aspect of the way we live. There will be intelligent devices in the home, in finance, even in how we communicate, and you folks are getting in on the ground floor.” Professor Taylor said exuding optimism.

  Hank sat at the dinner table next to his brother at the family table. Hank’s father looked tired and worn in his green work clothes. Uncle Phil sat next to him; he woke an hour earlier having worked the graveyard shift at the turbine factory. Willow rushed to serve the meal having little time after working at the cafeteria job.

  “Ford pardoned Nixon,” Phil said.

  “Well, we knew that would happen,” Joe concluded.

  “This country is going to pot,” Phil continued, “the average cost of a new home is thirty-eight thousand dollars. When we bought this place, Dad only paid twenty-seven hundred dollars back in 1939.”

  “It’s unbelievable, the price of things,” Willow interjected.

  “Everything keeps going up,” Phil replied. “The trouble is those unions. They keep asking for too much. How are you going to pay for it? We kept the union out of our shop. We voted it down.” Phil took a sip from his glass, his hand shaking slightly, “And cheap products from overseas. I look at the labels on everything. Everything is coming from overseas. We’re not manufacturing much in this country anymore. All the clothes, the neckties, even the shoes. And they keep shooting things into space. They’re never going to find anything up there.”

  Towards the end of September, Hank’s phone rang while the Mariner 10 flew past the planet Mercury.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “Hank? It’s Jane. How are you?”

  “Doing OK. I’m at Community College. How are you?”

  “I need a ride. Do you think that you can help me out?” she asked.

  “When?”

  “Can you drive by right now? I have something to tell you.”

  “Let me finish a chapter in my book. About half an hour, alright?”

  “Thanks,” Jane said.

  Hank headed down the freeway to the Market street exit. He buzzed the door. Jane responded.

  “Hank?”

  Hank pushed the intercom button, “Yeah, it’s me.”

  The inner door buzzed, and Hank rode the elevator to the thirteenth floor. He pushed the button on the apartment door. He heard footsteps, and the door swung open, “Hi, Come in.” He followed her into the apartment and sat at the table.

  “Something terrible happened,” she said sitting down across from him.

  “What?”

  “Pharo was in a bad car accident.”

  “When?” Hank asked.

  “A few weeks back. Buck and Kade went down to visit him, and they must have been really drunk,” she exclaimed. “They held a knife at Eddie’s throat and forced him to drive to Atlantic City, then they told him to get out and left him stranded. They ran a red light and crashed the car. Kade is dead. Pharo is paralyzed. I want to visit him?”

  “Where is he?” Hank asked.

  “I called his mother, he’s at home in a hospital bed in the front room.”

  “Ah…!” Hank paused thinking about him, “Is he going to heal?”

  “I don’t know. He was so protective of me at the end of the summer. All the friends that I made working all those summers, they all shunned me. I felt like I was wearing a red A on my apron. I was asked not to return. Carol threw Jack out of the house.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s renting an apartment in Mill Hill.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “I wasn’t when it all happened. I thought of ending it.”

  “Ending it?” he blurted shocked, “you don’t want to end it.”

  “Pharo spent nights with me at my apartment. He was there for me.”

  The tea kettle whistled, and Jane rose to pour two cups of tea.

  “I have homework, but I’ll make time on Saturday. Does that work?”

  “Sure. There’s no hurry. I don’t want to go alone.”

  “I can’t believe it. Pharo knows better. I can’t believe it.”

  Hank and Jane knocked on the screen door. Pharo’s mother opened it and invited them inside. Pharo lay on a metal hospital bed in the front room. “Your friends have come to visit you,” his mother said to her son. Hank and Jane moved to the bedside. Pharo stared at them. “Hi there, I hope you’re feeling better,” Hank uttered softly. Pharo tried to speak, but all he could utter was a wordless guttural moan. “What?” Hank asked. He attempted to speak again, but the sound was unintelligible.

  “He keeps saying that he wants to die,” his mother interrupted.

  “You want to die?”

  Jane was silent.

  “You had a bad accident. You don’t know, you may heal,” Hank tried to console his friend.

  Jane moved closer to his bedside. “Pharo, in a couple of weeks, we’ll come back, and if you are up to it, we’ll take you to the movies. Would you like that?”

  Pharo mumbled and pointed with his right hand.

  “He wants his pad,” his mother said, placing the pad under his hand and fixing the pen in his fingers.

  Pharo scribbled, “Thanks.”

  He rested quietly, then Hank and Jane rose to leave, frustrated by the silence, and the inability to communicate. “Take care,” Jane said.

  Hank approached the bed and looked at his friend, trapped inside the prison of his own body, suffering through countless hours, alone, afraid, worrying for his mother, and their survival. These thoughts passed through Hank’s mind in a flash. He silently leaned forward and communicated in the only possible way that he could think of. He gently kissed his friend on the lips. “Take care of yourself. I’ll pray.” Pharo stared back at him.

  Hank spotted the new Chevette in the empty parking lot and parked next to it. He walked the deserted hall, turned left at the end, and approached the open door. Classical music was spilling out of the radio.

  “Hello, Boss.”

  “Abbott of computers. Don’t ask,” Jack greeted. He took a drag on the cigarette in his left hand, then crushed it in the paper cup filled with stale coffee. “How’s the family? How’s school?”

 
; “All good. There’s a Lenny Bruce film starting this week.”

  “Lenny Bruce, an original” Jack replied while writing comments with his red pen on the papers in front of him. “The movie was very good. It had an interesting plot. My favorite actor gave his best performance. Yes, Williams, this is all true…some of these kids still write like they’re in the fourth grade,” Jack snapped.

  “Jane moved to Princeton,” Hank continued. “She moved into an apartment on Nassau street and works at the Scupper as a barmaid.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Jack murmured.

  “Abbott, would you have a spare evening during the week, a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday?”

  “Thursday is open.”

  “Would you be interested in helping out the Filmnuts? We’re putting another show together for the June assembly next year.” Hank nodded. “I’ll stop around, Jack, as long as I don’t have anything pressing to finish. Homework takes a lot of time,” Hank lamented.

  “What time does Lenny start?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “How about dinner in the Burg? Jamie is in the kitchen. We can dine at Nunzio’s.”

  “Sure, boss. I’ll meet you there.”

  “About 5:30. Finish your work, first. Someday, you’ll have that corner office with a view of Madison avenue,” Jack insisted.

  On Monday afternoon, Jack sat in Algebra class, a requirement. Professor Ashkenazy, was a thin man with a warm smile. He wrote on the chalkboard. “In review, the equation of a straight line is ‘y = mx + b”, setting ‘x’ to zero and solving, gives you a point on the ‘y’ axis, and setting ‘y’ to zero and solving, gives you the point on the ‘x’ axis. Draw a line through the two points, and the slope of the line is defined by the letter m.” The students scribbled in their notebooks. Ashkenazy continued, “We also dealt with parabolas. We derived the standard equation into the shortcut that yields the two roots. Minus ‘b’ plus or minus, the square root of ‘b’ squared minus four ‘ac’ all over ‘2a.’

  Hank sighed.

  Hank tossed restlessly in his bed that night in a deep slumber. He felt a hand touch his chest. The vision of a nebulous figure in a transparent gown faced him in his bed. Her hair flowed in waves, her face was porcelain white. The succubus taunted him, moaning in a shrill voice, “Oh…it’s mine…it’s mine!” Hank lunged forward sweating in his bed clothes. His body felt feverish, and he tried to catch his breath. “A nightmare, just a terrible nightmare, that’s all it was,” he said rolling over while trying to fall peacefully back to sleep