Yellow Mesquite

by John J. Asher

  “Your nose is bleeding,” Darlene said.

  In the same moment he became aware of a clattering noise on the other side of the car. He lowered his head, peering beneath the rental’s undercarriage. The bottom half of a pickup and a horse trailer were visible about twenty feet on the far side, a man’s booted feet, unloading two horses.

  “Aw, shit,” Harley whispered.

  “What?” Darlene scooted around so she could see. “My pants? Where’re my pants?”

  He could see them on the other side of the car, near the horse trailer, among the little dust clouds blooming up.

  He took his handkerchief from his back pocket, folded it in the cup of his underwear, and pulled his pants up. Then, still on his knees, he opened the rear door.

  “Here,” he said, “climb in and stay down. Hand me some of those tissues.”

  She scooted up into the footwell, her butt in his face, embedded with grit, what looked like a little birds nest tucked between her hips until she pulled her bikini panties up.

  Darlene passed a handful of tissues back to him. She watched as he tore pieces off, twisted them, and gently tucked them up his nose to quell the bleeding. He found the car keys half-buried in the powder and put them in his pocket. He stood, then tucked his shirttail in, buckled his belt, and sauntered around the car to where Darlene’s jeans lay flopped in the dirt.

  An old rancher of around seventy stood by the stock pond, stoic. He held the halter leads on a sorrel and a bay while they drank. He watched Harley through little wire-rimmed glasses from under the brim of a straw Stetson. His gaze shifted almost imperceptibly from Harley’s face—the dirty cup over his nose, the twists of tissue dangling out of each nostril—to the little puffs of dust rising from the vibrators in the powdered earth. The horses snorted and blew water and made big clean rings out across the pond.

  Harley nodded once, then he picked up Darlene’s jeans and snapped the dirt off. He went about picking up the vibrators, shutting them down, knocking the dust off on his pant legs before wrapping them in Darlene’s jeans. He tossed the bundle through the rear window onto the backseat above Darlene crouched in the footwell.

  The old man looked on, somber as a judge, as Harley got in behind the wheel, started the car and drove back out onto the pavement. Harley saw in the rearview mirror that the old man hadn’t moved, still watching all the way down the highway.

  Darlene climbed out of the rear floorboard, sat on the seat and began pulling her pants on. “Well, shit! That was a trip—as the beatniks say. Now what?”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  She leaned forward. “With you? New York? Hah! Not in a million years!”

  “You got that right.”

  She paused. “Oh…home…San Angelo. Then you’re just gonna leave? What about me?”

  “Another trip to Acuña with the railroaders you’ll be fine.”

  In the rearview mirror, he saw her snatch the coat hanger out of the footwell.

  He let off the accelerator. “You hit me with that coat hanger again, I’ll kill you.”

  She stiffened, holding his eyes in the mirror. Then slowly she lowered the hanger. “Fuck you, Jack!”

  He sped up again. “You just did.”

  Chapter 52

  —The Big Apple Again—

  Who Are You?

  HE LEFT DARLENE in San Angelo, Texas, cursing him for all she was worth. He carried the vibrators, tied up in one of her T-shirts, across the yard to her porch, lit now with a yellow bulb against the winter’s early night, and when Fran, her startled roommate, met them at the door, he set the bundle down on the concrete and left without so much as a good-bye.

  THE FRONTIER MOTEL consisted of a half dozen little dirt-blown cabins of native rock behind an arched entryway on the northern outskirts of San Angelo. The words DAILY and WEEKLY were burned as if with a branding iron into weathered wood above the arch. The registrar, a bony-faced young man wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and a well-worn frown, squinted at him across the check-in counter. “Fifteen bucks, plus twenty-five deposit. We run a clean place. No brawling and no partying.”

  Harley laid two twenties on the counter. “Yeah, anybody can see this is a first-class joint.”

  “Hey, there’s another motel over on the south side. Feel free.”

  “I’m not on the south side. In fact, I’m paying you full price just to get a quick shower and a clean change of clothes. I plan to be long gone before the resident roaches even know I’m here.”

  “Oh, good. A comedian.” The registrar pitched a key on a plastic tab on the counter. “Turn the key in, get your deposit back.”

  Harley opened the door on unit three to the chemical smell of bug killer, disinfectant and cigarette smoke. The room was paneled in dark imitation wood. The top half of a phony wagon wheel served as a headboard, the sand-colored bedspread decorated with cattle brands, cacti, windmills and cow skulls.

  He removed the bandage from his nose. His eyes had gone from bruise-black to lavender ringed with yellow. But the swelling had returned. A stripe was visible across his jaw where Darlene swatted him with the coat hanger. He took his time in the shower, trying to soak away more than just dirt.

  He was ashamed for being so angry with Darlene, for treating her so badly. She was who she was, and any expectations to the contrary were his problem.

  His nose began to bleed again. He blew it out as gently as possible, then swabbed it with hydrogen peroxide and Q-tips. He cleaned the cup and taped it back in place. The four scabbed-over indentions just above his ankle were healing nicely; he thanked Mavis again for the boots.

  HE DROVE BACK to Abilene, turned the car in at midnight, and took a Trans-Texas flight to Love Field. In Dallas, he had another two hours to kill before a connecting flight on Delta to New York.

  He downed two aspirin with a vodka and tonic in one of the crowded airport bars. A man in a business suit took the stool alongside. He glanced at Harley in the bar mirror. He took up his attaché case and left.

  “Looks like I’m running your customers off,” Harley said to the bartender. He paid out and took up his bag. At the departure gate he dozed fitfully in one of the molded plastic chairs. The chair was bolted to the concrete floor in a row with others, but he felt it moving, or thought he did, and kept jumping awake.

  He had two seats to himself on the Delta flight to New York. He slept again until a concerned flight attendant woke him at JFK. Everyone else had already taken their belongings and disembarked.

  IT WAS SIX in the morning when a taxi let him out in a slush of snow on Franklin Street. The air was cold, quiet out except for that faint underground rumble that was the pulse of the city. He felt himself beginning to cheer up now that he was home, dreaming of his own warm bed, his own kitchen, surrounded by his paintings, the smell of oil paint, turpentine, linseed oil. Frankie.

  Frankie. That was iffy.

  The freight elevator clanked up to the third floor. He rattled the cage door up and stepped out. With effort he unlocked the dead bolts. It was dark inside but for a first pale haze of daylight coming through the wall of windows.

  He was sure Frankie wasn’t present, otherwise the floor bar to the front door would have been locked in place from inside.

  Nevertheless, he turned the light on and shouted her name, just in case, so as not to scare her. He went searching, looking for a note, but there was nothing. Just Sherylynne’s letter to Whitehead lying on the kitchen table.

  Seeing his painting warmed him a little. He was almost too exhausted to move, but he took his bag upstairs and set it down.

  He saw that Frankie’s things were gone—clothes, books, the few items of makeup.

  He stood for a moment, trying to think, his mind having slipped into a void of exhaustion and despair before he sank across the bed with his clothes on.

  HE SLEPT FITFULLY, if at all. At 8:00 a.m. he went downstairs and put coffee on. It was just good light out. While the coffee perked, he fried three eggs and thre
e slices of bacon. He buttered toast and took apricot preserves from the fridge. He washed his dishes.

  He called Frankie.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Frankie, please don’t hang up.”

  Silence.

  “I owe you a huge apology. Please, if you’d just hear me out…”

  “Are you saying that you actually believe you have an excuse for such behavior?”

  His heart faltered, hearing the chill in her voice.

  “Frankie, there’s no excuse. I know that. But I would at least like to tell you what happened.”

  “Harley, I don’t care what happened.”

  She had never spoken harshly to him.

  “You’re right, of course. I was just so… I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I read the note from Sherylynne,” she said evenly. “I can understand why you were upset. And, yes, you have my sympathy, to a point, but rushing off like that, and with a gun? This is a side of you I can’t deal with. Psychotic.”

  “Psychotic?”

  “Just as with the two women in Martin’s gallery. I can’t handle that kind of unpredictable behavior.”

  “Can I come up? Just for ten minutes? Then I’ll leave. Promise.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please don’t lock me out,” he said quickly, and hung up.

  He took a hurried shower and redressed his nose. He put on his Navy pea coat and walked a couple of blocks over to the subway near Canal. The cold February air cleared his head for the moment.

  He went down the subway steps. Below, on the landing where the stairs turned, a vagrant squatted on his haunches. His clothes and flesh were greasy, dark with filth. He grinned up at Harley—deranged, toothless, tongue lolling in the wet cup of his lower lip. He cradled a pink balloon against his chest, fondling its smoothness.

  “Who are you?” the derelict asked, staring intently, a note of urgency in his hoarse voice.

  Harley skirted around the man, watching over his shoulder. He saw the irony: it was him, not the vagrant, people were keeping their distance from.

  He got off on Fifty-first and walked to Frankie’s building on Fifty-fourth. The old doorman didn’t recognize him until Harley said hello. Even then the poor guy looked confused.

  “Good to see you,” Harley said.

  “You g–got mugged?”

  “Indeed I did.” He pressed the button by Frankie’s number.

  “Yes?” Frankie said over the intercom.

  “It’s Harley. Please, just five minutes.”

  A long moment passed; then the usual buzz and clack as with relief he pushed the door open.

  He rode up and stepped out of the elevator.

  Frankie swung her door open. She took a step back and appeared to wilt a little with shock. “My god,” she whispered.

  In black slacks, black patent leather flats, and a tangerine blouse, she looked even more stunning than he remembered. But it was more than looks. Darlene had once impressed him with her sexy strut; Sherylynne had a cute, loose-gaited walk; but Frankie, she comported herself with assuredness and a natural ease that incorporated both sexuality and intelligence. He wondered how he could ever have taken Darlene and Sherylynne seriously when Frankie was everything he’d ever dreamed of. At the moment he was bone-weary, incapable of rational thought, but he had presence of mind enough to see how shallow he had been. He wondered again what Frankie could have seen in him.

  “Do I get to come in?”

  She stood locked in place, staring with what might be either concern or revulsion before moving back to let him inside.

  “Five minutes,” she mumbled, regaining her composure.

  He started to take his pea coat off.

  “Don’t bother,” she said, closing the door after him. She glanced at her watch. “You won’t be here that long.”

  “Oh…right…”

  Her gaze lingered on his face. “What happened to you?”

  “That’s a long story. I doubt I can tell it in five minutes.”

  Her face tightened. “Try.”

  The last thing he wanted was to relive again everything he’d been through since leaving her in the street.

  “I don’t know where to start,” he mumbled.

  “When did you get back? Start with that.”

  “Around six this morning. I saw you’d moved your things out. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Good,” she said flatly. “Now you know how I’ve felt.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “So? What happened? Your nose?”

  “May I please sit down?”

  She studied him a moment, then nodded at the sofa. “Only because you look like you’re about to collapse.” She looked at her watch again. “Four minutes.”

  He remained standing. I… I don’t think I can…”

  “Your nose. Start with that.”

  “I drove Whitehead’s Mercedes into a pump-jack, slammed my face against the steering wheel. I was going to kill him…but…but when it came right down to it, I couldn’t do it.”

  A flicker passed behind her eyes. “You…what…? Kill him…?”

  “I’d planned to.”

  She listened, watching in something like disbelief as he told about the confrontation with Whitehead, then how he had tracked Sherylynne down in Louisiana, the squalid conditions she and Leah were living in, the alcohol, how he tried to take Leah and how he was arrested. “I retained an attorney and filed for custody. He says it’s all but hopeless.

  “They used Leah,” he continued, “holding me hostage out there. Then I was broke here in New York, and there she was, wasting the money Mavis left me for school, sleeping with…sleeping with…” He paused, swim-headed, emotionally worked up again. “Mavis told you about Sherylynne and Whitehead, that Leah wasn’t mine. And you didn’t tell me.”

  “No,” Frankie said. “I gathered that she didn’t care for Sherylynne, but she never actually said so, or why. I was just as surprised as you were.”

  He watched her closely. “Then, if you really didn’t know, I owe you another apology.” He lowered his gaze. “Mavis wouldn’t be happy, knowing how I’ve mistreated you. I’m really sorry.”

  “Disappointed? Yes. But then she was much more forgiving than I am,” Frankie said in a dispassionate voice. She looked at her watch. “One minute.”

  “So? This is it?”

  She glanced at her watch again. “Forty-five seconds.”

  “Frankie, we can’t just end it like this.”

  “Good-bye, Harley.”

  He was muddled, half stumbling as he turned and made his way to the entrance. She followed and held the door open.

  He turned to her in the doorway, but she took a step back. “Good-bye,” she said again. He glimpsed her eyes filling as she ducked her head and closed the door. The lock clicked.

  Downstairs, he went past the old doorman, the old man visibly uncomfortable, smacking his lips, rheumy eyes shifting.

  Harley made his way to the subway on Fifty-third. The other passengers snuck curious glances and gave him room. But he was barely aware of his surroundings, his mind in a ferment.

  Even as his stomach clenched over Frankie, miserable over the separation, guilt ridden for how he had mistreated her; darkly troubled regarding the situation with Sherylynne and Leah; disgusted with himself over Darlene, he began to wonder, briefly and against his will, how he might turn such conundrums into works on canvas.

  He realized that during the last few days he had at some level been grinding real-life events into a pictorial soup, struggling with how he might translate each ordeal into a graphic experience.

  Picasso had painted the events of his daily life, almost like a journal, and while Harley wasn’t interested in appropriating Picasso’s heavy, color-book black line, he had no qualms about making use of his diary concept. Picasso himself said: “I never borrow from other artists; I steal from th
em; I take it and make it my own.”

  A muddle of thoughts and impressions jimmied his mind as he took the stairs out of the subway near Canal.

  The vagrant was still there, perched on the landing, fondling his pink balloon. Again Harley skirted around the man. He was twenty yards from the entrance when someone called, “Hey!” He turned to see the blackened derelict standing in the mouth of the subway entrance, one hand cradling the balloon, the other clutching the banister.

  “Who are you?” the man shouted, his tone urgent, as if he desperately needed to know.

  Harley watched him a moment, then went on his way.

  He picked up his mail on the ground floor of his building, took the elevator up and let himself in. A certain comfort settled over him now that he was home, back among his paintings.

  He looked at the works lined up along the back wall, and while none satisfied him entirely, he was pleased with the direction the work was taking, especially My Mother’s Kitchen and My Father is a Farmer. Each suggested a facet of existence as he had known it. These works had to be teased out of nothing other than experience and knowledge—a process of exploration by way of anticipation and uncertainty.

  Blissful moments he’d had with Frankie collided in his mental vision—the best moments he’d ever had. How to paint something so impossibly elusive? Vaguely he began to envision soft, interlocking organic shapes, subdued flesh tones tempered in moonlight… The Sensual Bed.

  There had been tears in her eyes. He could only hope they were tears of sorrow and regret and not unforgivable anger. He wasn’t going to let her go so easily. They would run into each other again. He would paint The Sensual Bed in homage. Exhausted as he was, he was eager to get started.

  If, as some pundits claimed, art was dead, that had little to do with him.

  Art. That’s what he did. That’s who he was.

  —o—