In Search of the Great Horned Owl

LAST THURSDAY NIGHT, a few steps inside the slender park, and just out of the streetlamp’s reach, I paused to take a leak. The night was overcast, so I’m not sure if the moon had already risen, but it was light enough to see a faint mist rise from the issue.

I was on the lookout for horned owls, despite the early hour. It was not even nine yet. Annette had gone to the theater with her old library buddies, so I worked pretty late, left the car for her by the train station so she wouldn’t have to take a cab, and started to walk home. I could straighten up a little, do some reading. But approaching the pub, I recalled that Rick would be behind the bar tonight. Some bartenders pour scotch like it was nitroglycerine, so fearful they are of barely covering the bottom of your glass, but Rick serves you a double if not more. Because there was rain in the clouds, I ordered Laphroaig. But I digress.

It was Steve who—moments before—tipped me off on the horned owl. Steve lives on the corner, just outside the park, and has a keen eye for the local wildlife. He knows when the red fox goes on morning patrol, and keeps close tabs on the hawks—the coopers, the sharpshins, the redtailed and redshouldered—as they pass through the region.

Steve was out front as I walked by, with his ancient ginger cat weaving between his legs, tail erect. I stopped to tell him about the pair of dove-sized hawks I saw on my way in last week. He agreed that they were probably sharpshins—not redshouldered fledglings, as others suggested. Then he told me how he encountered a horned owl—twice in the past week—while riding his bike, just a few miles up the creek.

“Are you sure it was a horned?” I asked. Annette told me many times, of sleepless nights, listening to screech owls, hunting their way up the creek around midnight, and back down again before dawn. She’d repeat their call, that quavering whoo-oo-oo-oo-oo, in a descending tone.

And last year there was that barred owl—Annette recognized his call, which to me was just another dog, barking at passersby, from a yard backing up to the creek. But I stumbled into the bamboo and poison ivy, and caught him at close range in my 10x42’s—the breast as majestic as a Bourbon king in flecked ermine, the unmistakable headlamp eyes. When he took flight, revealing a wingspan nearly as great as Annette’s height, my heart paused.

“No, I saw his horns against the sky. No doubt. Second time, I came around this curve and he’s flying low, right towards me. I must have surprised him, because as he passes over my head, I see something fall, and plop! I look down and there’s a headless rabbit lying there, right smack in front of my bike.”

“No bull, man, that’s something else.”

I was searching for something meaningful to say when I felt something brush my pant leg. It’s the cat. I bent over and kneaded the flesh behind its ear, and smoothed the fur over its arthritic haunch. They were both just looking for some company, I guess, but it was time to get going. I said, “Dude, I’m half drunk and headed home,” and shoved off.

Still no rain. The Laphroaig was a good choice, however, because I was in shirtsleeves and the wind was picking up. It was going to be one drink at first. The bar was crowded, but quiet, because it was a solid, dreary line of men. I joined the line, and started watching a tennis match. Monofils edging out Nadal. I wanted to check out their moves, but the camera covered the whole court, and the only time it zoomed in was to show Monofils shaking his wild afro, slinging sweat in great arcs.

The scotch disappeared into the man, and the man into the match. Presently, a blistering forehand by Monofils drove Nadal far to the right--his backhand side--and the return was wide. Set over, glass drained. My feet were ready to find some sidewalk.

I caught Rick's eye and drew my forefinger across my throat. He came over and picked up my glass.

"Thanks, Rick."

"My pleasure. I hope things are going better for you."

"Well, things are starting to pick up. There's a good chance I'll be in the black by the end of the year."

I was reaching for my wallet when the guy next to me gently intruded.

"Pardon me, would you mind if I asked what business you are in?"

"Not at all. It's about the worst business you can have in a recession." I explained briefly what I did, but did not offer him a card. "What's your name?"

"Carter Adams. And you?"

I told him.

I had noted his presence earlier, working on a huge hanger steak and washing it down with a martini. He was a short, compact fellow--a wrestler once, perhaps, built for power and for speed. Wiry, closecropped black hair sprang from a round head. Dark eyes and a genuine smile displayed confidence. That he did not crush my hand when we shook intimated a refined temperament.

"And what do you do?"

"I teach and coach football."

"Public system?"

"Yes." He mentioned the name of a local high school.

"My cousins went there, late sixties and early seventies."

"Hah--that was before I was born, man."

“What do you teach, physed?

“Tenth grade English.”

“Wooohhh! Do I detect some cognitive dissonance here?”

I caught Rick's eye again, and lifted an imaginary glass to my lips. A new glass arrived.

“Not in the least. Do you have something against English teachers?”

“No way. I’m the grateful product of some inspired public school English teachers. What books do you teach?”

Carter told me that his school gives the teachers wide discretion. At least a third of the kids are college bound, reading at adult levels. A similar proportion struggles at an elementary school level.

“There’s only one required book: 1984.”

“That’s a hoot. Not Silas Marner—which by the way, I faked my way through.”

“You and most of your classmates, for sure.”

“Still, Orwell seems a little edgy for a big school system.”

“If you think the book is edgy, let me tell you about how I taught it last year. I knew from previous years, that when you pass out the texts, and the kids see it’s 300 pages, you lose half of them before you even start.

“So I cooked up a little conspiracy with the school secretary and the security officer. The next day, I walk into class, looking and acting terrified. They pick up on it right away, because normally I’m pretty laid back, really happy to be in the classroom. Then I announce that there is concern about my teaching, and that I have been accused of violating chapter 451 in the teacher’s code—a failure to ‘adhere strictly to the prescribed curriculum.’ It’s totally bogus of course—but I explain that I might be at any point, ‘removed from the classroom.’"

"Holy smokes--I know what's coming."

"Right. I start to take attendance and the secretary walks into the classroom, up to the podium, and announces, 'I'm sorry to interrupt, class, but Mr. Adams will be leaving us. Your substitute will arrive shortly.'"

"She leaves, and I stand up, looking crushed. Before I can speak, the security office walks in, announcing that I am under arrest for 'a 451' and handcuffs me. Then he grabs my collar and walks me out."

"Cool. And the 451 reference is beautiful."

"I let a few moments go by, and then I walk back into the classroom. Several students are in tears; others are slackjawed. I explain the hoax, and then tell them that in the book we are about to read, incidents like that are a matter of routine. To the ones in tears, I ask, 'for heaven's sake, why didn't you protest?'

"Anyway, every one of those kids devoured that book. They all got it--that a population can be brainwashed, and subdued."

The conversation paused. The hanger steak was almost gone. I'm proud of this guy. I thought of Renfrow, who taught 9th grade English in my button-down junior high school. The first time I encountered him, I was a skinny undeveloped kid, fresh out of elementary school. Renfrow was serving as hall monitor, leaning back on a wooden chair, watching students on their way to home room. Two girls in front of me walked by him. "Skags!" he hissed. They giggled. Then I walked by.

"YOU!"

I stopped in my tracks.

"Where's your belt?"

Before I could reply, he snarled, "YOU! Report to me tomorrow morning wearing a belt. If you don‘t, I‘ll find you!"

Next morning I dug out the only belt I had, a hideous thing with beadwork on the back that spelled out Miami Beach, given to me by my mother's maiden aunt. I went to Renfrow's classroom, but he was not there. I asked a girl--my god, she was a woman--where he was. She started calling, “Mr. Renfrow, Mr. Renfrow,” and looking around, attracting the attention of the other students. She leaned over and opened the doors of a credenza, peered in and called, "Mr. Rennnn-frow!" As she leaned, I peered down the scoop neck of her top, deep between her breasts. The view made me lightheaded.

She closed the cabinet door. "He's not here." The classroom was ringing with laughter.

I blurted, "Could you please tell him I came by, and I'm wearing a belt?" Another peel of laughter. I spun on my heels and ducked back into the anonymous hall, unsure of where I was, or where to go, or how to take my next breath.

When I got to his English class, two years later, he was still working on me. In the middle of a session, with no warning, he'd fire out, coal black eyes blazing, "ABRAMS! WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INNOCENCE AND IGNORANCE?" But he'd also take me aside in the hall, putting his arm around me, and give me a copy of The Painted Bird, or A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. His breath reeked of tobacco, and the tweeded arm was scratchy.

Once I asked him why he gave me an "A" on a composition. "I really didn't think it was that good."

"It wasn't. But I grade on the curve, and your classmates are idiots."

The hanger steak was gone. The martini and the scotch were dwindling. I made a V with my fingers, and Rick brought up reinforcements.

We talked on, mostly about families. How his three nieces, each just a year apart, were so different in temperament.

“I used to think it was all about upbringing. These girls were brought up in the same household, same parents, same circumstance. But if you met them on the street, you’d never think they were sisters. It became clear to me that there’s something in our nature, that makes us who we are.”

I told him about Annette and her twin sister, who complete each other’s sentences, and of my own brother, so alien to me. Again, our glasses were empty.

It always seems like there's craziness in the air on Thursday nights. Good craziness. But the craziness could turn bad with a fourth scotch. Monofils had shot his wad; Nadal had come back. I asked Carter how to find him again; he said “Come by the school anytime, I’ll be there.” I knew I probably never would.

***

After the piss, I was walking across the footbridge—the one where, whenever Annette and I cross together, I always embrace her and kiss her—and I thought of Killer.

Killer was a cat that belonged to a former girlfriend of mine, back in New Mexico. The name was meant to be ironic. Household mice and crickets were in little danger. I still have a snapshot of Anna Marie in her chair, reading a book, with the Killer asleep in her lap.
In the fall of 1974, we rented half of an old adobe house in Chimayo. The other half of the house, split down the middle with an adobe party wall, was owned by a family named Martinez. I never knew the parents very well, but the son introduced himself one day, while I was out front, replacing the ball joints of my truck. I saw his boots first, and slid out from under the truck. He greeted me with a 35mm film can of mota, and we got along fine until one night, when, like so many of his cohort, he drifted across the centerline of the twolane. It seemed like there was a wooden cross and a wreath of plastic flowers at every curve, all the way to Espanola.

Anyway, the Martinez’s had a big tomcat that would torment Killer. He’d come in with tattered ear, or a festering abscess. One afternoon, the tom caught Killer by surprise, and they went tumbling down the hand dug well that Mrs Martinez still pumped from every day. You could hear them fighting as they were falling, and two hellacious yowls as they thumped to the bottom. But it was Tom who bounded out of the hole first, with Killer in savage pursuit. I don’t think he was bothered much after that.

I concentrated on keeping my wobbly gait within the three center planks of the bridge. My right foot is freedom, my left is slavery. Right is innocence, left is ignorance. Right, nature; left, nurture. Killer B. Killed, I called him, after that journey down the well.

Above the dark rim of tree canopy, the moon winked through a gap in the clouds. Just then, a rushing shape hurtled over my head, heading up the creek.

“Who-whoo-oo-hoo,” it called.

The Self Portrait

Larry didn't leave a lot behind: the tab from the nursing home, a broken down wife, and an old camera.  I took a heaping pickup load of his stupid clothes and other god-awful stuff to Value Village.  Junk that'd been cluttering up the attic since they moved in with us nine years ago.  Pots and pans, table lamps—household stuff—like they were going to get their own place again.  As if.  Danielle kept the old photo albums.  The camera wasn't too bad, though; a Nikkormat, and some pretty nice lenses.  Those I stashed with my own gear.

I had to take off work, right in the middle of a big project.  Real quick I bought him a grave—a double decker.  When she kicks the bucket, Caroline will get the last laugh, laid out on top of his boney ass.  Maybe you already guessed, but Caroline's a big girl. The funeral parlor called to ask if anyone wanted to see him before they boxed him up, so I said what the hell.  Damn if he wasn't wearing my tie. Danielle had given it to them, because she couldn't find one of his.  He hated wearing ties.  But even so, he still looked a lot more peaceful than the night he died. 

Man, he was pissed—pissed when we got there, and even more pissed when we left.  I'll never forget the anger in his eyes.  There he was—almost 80 years old—and still feeling like he was cheated out of life.  He just wanted to be home.  For one thing, it was at least two hundred bucks a night, for a place that smelled worse than the monkey house.  But that's the way it had to be—I guess Danielle felt she had her hands full enough with her mother.  At least he had his own room and could do his dying in private.  He was moaning when we walked out of there.

Like the bonehead I must be, I hired a preacher to do the service.  We kind of knew each other, from when I patched the leak in the bell tower roof—but I'd never been to one of his services.  I mean, I hadn't gone to church since I was a kid, except for funerals and weddings.  None of us did, for that matter.  He probably felt about as uncomfortable as we did, praying over some guy he never met.  All that everlasting life BS—even Larry was probably sniggering about it.  Another two-fifty down the tubes. It was just us, anyway—except for Caroline, who of course had to sit in the car.

Most likely Larry tossed out his ties when he retired.  He couldn't stand his job; got out the day his social security kicked in.  Selling furniture for nearly forty years.  Then they sold their house and moved down to Saint Pete.
     

Big dreams he had, fishing every day.  A real place for family to come and visit.  I don't know what Caroline wanted—besides a recliner, a big TV, and a couple scoops of Rocky Road.  Larry could have bought a place in Paris France and I don't think she would have cared one way or the other.

We did go down once or twice, but what a joke.  All of us packed into that house, Danielle and me sleeping on air mattresses in front of the fireplace—yeah, a fireplace—for when the temperature plummets to the sixties, I guess.  And Christmas morning, that little brat—her nephew—running around at the crack of dawn, ripping open his presents and squealing, while his parents were still sleeping in the spare room.

By that time, Caroline was pretty wracked up with Parkinson's.  It wasn’t long after, Larry had a massive heart attack, right on the table while they were doing his bypass.  Danielle and her sister would go down, one after the other, each staying for weeks.  Somehow, he got over it, doing those morning walks for seniors, before the mall officially opened.  I'm sure it was because they were mostly women.  He was a handsome old goat—and I do mean the goat part.

It was the goat thing that got him into that mess.  They were always coy about their anniversary, which didn't quite jive with big sister's birthday.  Right away he joined the Navy.  He had some college, so they put him in with the code breakers—spent the entire war in Hawaii. 

That was when he got seriously into cameras.  He showed me a shot he took of some mountain right at the edge of the water, all nice and framed.  Won a prize for it.  Son of a gun had balls enough to complain about his time there, chilling on the beach while my old man was shivering in some muddy foxhole in Belgium.

Larry never made it back to school, after the war.  Big sister was already four, and big momma must have gotten pregnant with Danielle the night he got back.  Or maybe that afternoon.  Can't blame him though—I've seen pictures of her, and she was hot, back then.  You could see, though, how she was going to fill out.

I never got all the details straight, but there were a couple of go-rounds in business with his old buddies.  Something about a roofing company, which led to installing TV antennas.  Larry was the ladder man.  Then one of the partners punched out the RCA dealer and things went south after that.  But the dealer hooked up Larry with the furniture store, and that was that.

Thirty eight years, I think it was.  The managers wouldn't let them sit down, even when nobody was in the store.  Said it made them look lazy.  All that standing gave him those plantar things.  I can't figure out why he never told his boss to shove it, but I guess he convinced himself he was stuck.
 

Big sister gave him grief, too.  Running off with the kid from the gas station when she was fifteen.  A year in reform school didn't do much good either.  I don't know if her current old man is her third or fourth husband—or even if they're really married.  Four kids, none of them with the same dad.

He took it out on Danielle.  She told me about how he'd come into her bedroom, and lecture her for hours, and if she looked away, he'd make her turn around and look him in the eye.  Then it was back to how the boys just had one thing on their mind—at least he was right about something.  But you’d think seeing what happened to her sister might have taught her enough already.  On the other hand, maybe it taught her a little too good.

What kept old Larry going were vacations.  As soon as they got back from one, they'd start planning the next one, but it was always the same.  Some ratty bungalow along Hatteras, and his surf fishing gear.  In the pictures he's always grinning, wearing a mashed up pork pie hat, dangling a string of croakers.  Two skinny girls in baggy swim suits, and big momma casting the wide shadow.

After the kids left, they started going down to the Gulf. Caroline couldn't sit very long, and she was afraid to fly, so he got her there by taking the car train.  That way she could lie in a bunk all the way down.  In the end, they wound up in Saint Pete. 

Maybe they had one good year together down there.   Then, the heart attack—and by the time he got back on his feet, Caroline had started going down the tubes.  Pretty soon she got to where he couldn't go out except a couple hours at a time, because she needed help going to the can.  They hung on another few years like that, but it was grinding him down.  Finally they called us and said they were throwing in the towel.

Danielle had me take them around to look at apartments—she doesn't drive either.  Just like her old lady.  They all looked the same to me, the ones they could afford.  Trampled lawns, too many kids running around, too many battered vans and pickups in the parking lot.  Too much like the places I used to live at.

Then I came up with my bright idea, and invited them to stay with us.  Puh-lease—if I ever come up with another brilliant idea like that, just get the Beretta and shoot me in the back of the head.  Danielle was shocked I said it.  But they ate it up, and just like that they were here.

They each had to have their own room.  I thought that was insane but Danielle said they were used to it, and that they would drive each other nuts because each of them had their own TV's and their own shows, and no way they could share a bathroom.  Jesus Christ—it's his own damn wife.  It wouldn't kill him to sleep with her.  No surprise that didn't go over well.  Every time I’d bring it up she’d give me that look—which means you’re already out of luck this week—do you want to go for two?

So big momma got my den, and Larry got the middle bedroom upstairs.  I fixed up the little room next to the boiler and moved Angie down there—but it was ok, because she liked being out of the way, and by that time she wasn't staying home all that much anyway.  Danielle didn't mind either, not being her mother and all.  They basically just tolerated each other. Not that it was easy for either of them. Me bringing Angie home when she was thirteen—right after Danielle and I finally got hitched—when her own bat-shit crazy mother couldn't handle her any more. 

Then Danielle made me redo the downstairs bath for Caroline.  I put in a big roll-in shower.  Ripped down the joists so the tile was flush with the floor—came out real slick.  I think she used it maybe once.

At first, Larry wasn't too bad to be around.  Always cheery, full of jokes.  Whenever I came in, it was how ya doin, boss, but as soon as I'd start to tell him, right away he'd switch the subject and start talking about himself.  And after about the tenth time I heard the same old story I'd just grit my teeth and grin, and duck out as fast as I could.  Pretty soon I'd cringe just seeing him.  Always hanging out in the kitchen.  I had to give up cooking, it got so bad.

But we actually went fishing once, even though I stink at it, and it's about as boring as watching these ice cubes melt in this glass of Jack.  It was spring.  We took my brother's old Grumman canoe up the Potomac.  He’d wrapped it around a boulder one time, and had pounded it back out more or less straight, but the aluminum skin leaked through a dozen pinholes where it had buckled.  I tried stuffing the holes with that gummy stuff they use for lures, but it didn't do much good.  While I was fussing with that, we got caught in the current between some island and the river bank.  The bank was steep on both sides, with no place to land.  Besides, it had rained the night before, and the current was wicked.  I didn't know whether we'd sink first, or get washed ass over tea kettle down Great Falls. I was in back, chopping so hard I thought I would bust an artery—but Larry was up front, paddling away like a champ.  Long, smooth, powerful strokes.  That doc in Saint Pete must have done one hell of a job on his ticker, because we made it back to the landing ok.  I don't think I could have done it myself.

One time he talked me into going with him down Rock Creek to take pictures.  He liked this old stone bridge, near a hairpin bend in the road.  Stony outcroppings, big boulders in the stream bed.  I was more into the girls jogging by in their spandex tops, but Larry scrambled down the bank and tiptoed out on the stones into the creek.  What a sight, this goofy old geezer in his goofy crumpled hat, big camera bag swinging around his neck.  Still some spring in those skinny legs.

I figured Danielle would never let me forget it if he fell in and drowned, even though it wasn't hardly up to your knees.  So I caught up with him and we sat there on a boulder in the middle of the creek.  He started talking about the old days, when he had to work on his step father's ice wagon all summer long.  Sunday was his day off, and he'd take girls down here, and get them to pose on the bridge, taking their picture with his Brownie Bull's Eye.  Then he'd talk them into hiking up the slope to some spot he knew, where he’d bang them bare ass in the bushes.  If he was telling the truth, he screwed half the high school girls in Washington DC.

Suddenly he got up—he had to take a dump.  It was his damn diverticulitis.  I got him back in the car and we tore off to a public bathroom, a couple of miles up the road.  All the way I was praying he could hold it, or if he couldn't, that it wouldn't leak through his britches and ruin my seat.  Thank god we made it in time.

But sitting in the lot waiting for him, I recognized the hill behind the building.  It was the same place I'd parked with Jennie, that summer after high school was over.  It was drizzling that night, and we were really steaming up the windows.  But she didn't want to go all the way in the car, so we got out and walked up the hill to a flat spot, under some big trees where it was still dry. She'd done it before, but it was my first time.  That was the night she got pregnant with Angie.

Anyhow, it was no more school for me.  I got into framing, electrical work, even some plumbing—a little of everything at some time or another.  We stayed together a few years, and after she ditched me, I just wound up with one after the other. 

I've been with Danielle the longest, but no kids.  I wanted more, but I just couldn't see it with her.  There's something walled off about her, something out of whack.  Can't put my finger on it.  Plus we’ve hardly been doing it anymore—and then with Larry on the other side of the bedroom wall—damn!  Tell the truth, the way she is, it's better to take matters into your own hands, if you know what I mean.  At some point, you get tired of trying to please someone who just doesn't want to be pleased.

*   *   *

After some years went by, Caroline was no good for anything except lying in bed and being diapered and spoon fed.  Danielle would hang out with her and watch TV, every night, straight through Letterman.  Every so often, Larry would pop in for a minute or two, and ask, how ya doing, ma.  She'd reply, just ducky, Mr. Lucky, and he'd say that's good, ma, and go back to his room.  Unless there was some babe on, in a skimpy outfit.  Then he’d hang out for a while.  But no matter how good looking, he’d always say, why doesn’t she do something about that nose, or don’t ya think her eyes are kinda close together, or if I had legs like that I’d wear pants.  Jesus—as if any of them would even give him a second look.  Then Danielle would shoot him a dirty look and he’d go back up to his room.

You know, I think Caroline enjoys being cared for.  Like she’s entitled.  I'll bet if she was offered back her health she'd say no thanks.  And the more helpless she gets, the more Danielle gets sucked into it.  Look at the stuff she feeds her—nothing but cookies, candy, cake and ice cream.  Chips are out because she might choke.  She says she just wants her to be happy.  But if I was the one rolling her big butt around to change her sheets and her diapers, it would be nothing but dry toast and iceberg lettuce.  I just don't get it.  Danielle's starting to sprawl a little herself, like it’s contagious.  What I can’t figure is how she stands it, night after night after night.  She even calls her mommie, in this little girlie voice.  It’s like she gets some kind of comfort out of it all.  Go figure is all I can say.

When we first hooked up, Danielle was different.  She was working for some hotshot stock broker—as his secretary, basically.  A big outfit.  He was a real lech, in my humble opinion.  According to her, the most he ever did was stick his tongue in her mouth during a Christmas party.  I don't know if I believe her—or even if I care—I mean, that was a long time ago.  And, you know, she was actually kind of uptight, even with her boobs swinging free under those silky blouses.  So maybe she didn't.  Still, we had some good times, back then.  She was proud of the closet full of shoes and dresses, her fancy little coke scale.  Her apartment was funky, but it was close to where I was working, so we started hanging out pretty steady.

She did real good at the firm. Making real money—more than you'd expect for a secretary.  Of course, she was picking up his dry cleaning and booking his flights, and writing school papers for his daughters.  By the time she quit, she was making more than what I did in a good year—which, by the way, I haven't had since way back when we bought the house.

And there’s two more mistakes I ought to be shot for.  One's buying that house, when we had that perfectly good little shack in Old Town.  It had a concrete foundation and nice, meaty joists.  A nine millimeter would probably bounce off the stucco.  But Danielle got in a feud with the neighbors when they built that big addition, sucking me into all that pure stupidity over nothing.  With this huge crumbling piece of crap we have now, the mortgage is killing me.  Plus if it wasn't so big, maybe I wouldn't have invited Larry and Lard Butt as permanent overnight guests.

The other was letting Danielle quit her job.  She'd been working there for twenty two years, and was doing all kinds of stuff, like analyzing trends, talking to clients, talking about portfolios.  If I ever had two dimes to rub together, I’d have given it to her to invest.  The big boss even gave her an office all by herself. But the shit hit the fan when he hired a new girl, some babe who should have easily been a model or a movie star if she wanted. Of course, she had a master's degree, and Danielle didn't even finish junior college.  It was bad enough when the boss would take Miss Smart Ass to lunch and leave Danielle to answer the phone, or write up his daughter's college application--but when the new babe bumped Danielle out of her own office it was the end.

All that seniority, she could have transferred somewhere else and hung on another eight years, to make out like a bandit.  But to hear all about it, day after day, got me riled up too—so I finally told her to tell them to shove it, and she did.  Never got a real job after that.  Now look at us, this house falling apart, and I can barely pay the taxes.

*   *   *

Larry started falling apart, too.  Prostate cancer began eating him up, and all kinds of bizarre things happened to his heart.  Nobody seemed to have a handle on it.  Between the two of them, it seems like all I did was shuttle them around to doctors and chemo and ER's.  When he couldn't make it up the steps anymore, I moved him into Caroline’s room, and made a new bedroom for her in the dining room.  Of course I had to build another damn bathroom right there in the front corner.  It broke my heart to drill through those beautiful oak planks.  You can't get wood like that anymore.   But you know how the story goes—no way they could share the one room or the one bath.  I put it all together with screws, so it'd come apart easy whenever she goes—although she's taking her sweet time of it.  Who knows, she might outlast me.

Anyway, back to his Nikkormat.  Damn if there wasn't a roll of film in it, half exposed.  So I wound it back up and had it developed.  When I picked up the prints, there he was, that son of a gun, staring right back at me.  His eyes all hollow; his cheeks sunken in.  The shots are dark and blurry, like he was having trouble aiming, because some were just his mouth or just his forehead and eyes.  You can't imagine anything creepier.

What the hell were you trying to tell me, old man?  You damn sure knew where things were at.  And you knew I'd find them.  Well I guess it's only fair—I did my best to duck you while you were kicking, now you get me back by shoving your face back at me again.  In a crazy way, it’s like looking in a mirror.

You win, you old bastard, you win.

The High-Way Is My Home

Just past the outskirts of Espanola, I caught a glimpse of a pair of boots, sticking out of a culvert that went under the road. It was cloudy over the Sangre de Cristos, and a flash flood sweeping down that arroyo could wash a body all the way to the Rio.

But dammit, I had a load of unprotected sheetrock in the truck bed, and Big Jim would be sore if any of it got ruined. Two weeks ago I messed up a prefab panel--cut the roof angle backwards, so the inside panel wanted to go on the outside. Big Jim took the cost of the replacement out of my paycheck. So I continued north on 68.

Even so, the thought of leaving that sorry-ass sucker to drown in a gullywasher was gnawing on me. I started looking for a cut in the median, to turn around. 

And wouldn’t you know, the turnaround was right across from Ray Smith’s store. Old Ray was an original, son of an Okie who never made it to California. Ray was lean and sunscorched as a cornstalk in a drought, with a face shaped like a worn-out shovel. He’d married a local gal, and his Spanish was as good as any who was born speaking it. His store, however, was not really a store, just three 48 foot-long trailer houses, completely gutted out, and parked side by side, to make what was arguably one building. Mostly it was full of junk. Stuff that the tenants in his trailer park had left behind, or that he dragged back from the dump, or begged or swapped for or bought for peanuts from the other hard luck cases in the Valley. But once in a while, there would be a decent arc welder, or a usable well pump, or a nice Skilsaw--which more likely than not was hot. You don’t ask about provenance in Ray’s store.

And as luck would have it, Ray was out front, greasing his ancient Farmall. He recognized my truck and waved at me. I’d asked him to be on the lookout for a swamp cooler for my own trailer, because the pan was rusting out and water was always dribbling down over the front door. The wife was on my case on a daily basis, ruining her hair every time she let the dog out.

I pulled into his front yard, and he came up to the passenger side window and leaned in. He said, “Sixty five bucks. Hardly a scratch in the paint.”

“How big?” I said.

“Thousand CFM. Oughta do for your little place.”

“Sixty,” I said, and pulled out my wallet. “Here’s ten; I’ll come around with the rest after payday. Don’t sell it to anyone else in the meantime.”       

“Thanks, but don’t go past Saturday.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Thanks for keeping me in mind.”

The clouds were getting darker, and I could see rain on the horizon. Likely it was evaporating before it fell, but I nailed it anyway, fast as I dared, with my ass end swaying under its load. 

By the time I got back to the arroyo, there were lightning flashes in the foothills. Sure enough, the boots had not budged.  The legs they were attached to belonged the man in the culvert, peacefully asleep.

I kicked the nearer boot several times, harder and harder, until he stirred. I said, “Yo! You wanna ride home?”

He was noncommittal about the offer, so I said, “C’mon, let's get in the truck.” He slowly extracted himself from the pipe, stood up, and gazed around, sun dazzled. Finally, he stumbled up the bank to the idling truck and clambered in. He wore rumpled jeans and plaid shirt, and threadbare blue bandana on his head. “Where do you live, my friend?” I asked.

He replied with his eyes closed, sing-songy, “The high-way is my home.”

“C’mon, man, which way do we go?” He just pointed north.

So I continued rolling up 68, past Velarde, veering east, almost to goddam Pilar, when he chanted again, “The high-way is my home.”

“Please, just give me some direction.” He pointed left. I took the turn onto a sunbleached, crumbling stretch of asphalt that led due north. We meandered along the gorge, to this rusty iron bridge over the Rio. At the yonder end of the bridge was a cattle guard, and as my overloaded truck rumbled over the rails I said a little prayer for my sidewalls.

Finally, after another five miles, we got to a decent state road that went west, and continued until we finally hit the four lane heading south. Black Mesa loomed to the east. When we reached the Chama, he repeated his mantra, again pointing left. That took us through San Juan Pueblo, and back to 68.

“The high-way is my home”, he sang again, and I took one more left. When we reached the culvert where I found him, he pointed to the east and said, “That’s my house.”

Fifty yards off the road, hard along the arroyo, it was one of those little ramblers, frame with fake adobe finish, that the feds build for the Pueblos. 

Again I pulled out my wallet, and found that I still had a five and three ones. I stuffed the ones in his shirt pocket. As he got out, I said, “Good luck, High-wayman.”  As he slammed the door, lightning struck just beyond the cluster of houses, followed by almost a simultaneous thunderclap. 

Big splats of rain were hitting my windshield as I arrived at Big Jim’s shop. I was about an hour and a half late. As I backed onto the apron, the overhead door went up. There he was, pissed off written all over his face. 

But when I explained why I was late, Big Jim asked, “Was he wearing a black and red checkered shirt, and a blue bandana?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said, with a grin struggling to break out across his stony face. “That’s the same guy who stopped me at the Post Office yesterday morning. I gave him a lift to his house. It was about 10AM and he was already drunk as a skunk. “Well, don’t just stand there, let’s get this truck unloaded.” 

the poet's secrets

It’s late, Li Po, but I’ve some questions, as the moon rises behind a veil of mist, shapely

yet demure: How did she guide your pen? And

how many lovers did your verses win you?

Were they wealthy, were they married? Who
was your favorite? Did she ride you, with her robe loosely tied round her pale, plump belly, until she smiled like the young moon?

I beg you, Li Po-- share your secrets with me.

On The Road

On a spring morning in 1974 I bungeed a sleeping bag over the rear fender of my R60/2 and packed my saddle bags. A toothbrush, an extra pair of jeans, two hits of acid, and enough hand tools to meet almost any mechanical need. I was bound for Alaska, to work on the pipeline. 

It was the impulse of Ishmael for water, of Dean Moriarity for asphalt. The communion of the highway: this is my engine, this is my oil. The harmony of twin unbaffled exhaust pipes. The living, galloping creature between my legs. The meditative anonymity of the interstate.

No, that’s all a lie. I was lonely.

The details of the journey are tangled with other cross country ramblings.  A few crystalize through the fog of the decades. The turbulence from a car hauling trailer that knocked me halfway across my lane. A brief stop on Bourbon Street, where the offering of sensual pleasures promptly delivered me back to the saddle. Deep into that deep black night, the blacktop string line from Lafayette to Lake Charles. Nothing distinguishable except the white line along the shoulder, and the illusion of continuously descending for 60 miles. Manic rush hour traffic between Dallas and Ft Worth. Most of all, the shimmering of Santa Fe, coming into view, as night fell while rounding the toe of the Sangre de Cristos. Where I stopped for a visit, and stayed 6 years.

SHAME

I REMEMBER THE GIDDY DELIGHT at hearing the news that Nixon had resigned. It was with some friends--new friends--for I was new to New Mexico. Mostly guys from Boddy’s Honda, where I went to work the day after landing in Santa Fe. Nixon had given us the claim of Peace With Honor, which gave Vietnam no peace, and gave America no honor. It took 30 more years, and the nearly 60,000 names carved in black granite, to at least honor those who struggled and died in Vietnam.

August of 1974 was a good time for me, in good company, and in a good place, to celebrate. Santa Fe, bustling and growing--but still human in scale. And human in character. To walk any street--or to drive on any two-lane--was to make eye contact and wave to the ones you crossed paths with. On a walk after sun-set, when the air instantly chills, you could feel the adobe walls radiate back the sunshine they had absorbed through the afternoon. There was camaraderie in the bike shop.

And the city's setting--like God on the eighth day had scooped a great bench out of the west slope of the Sangre de Cristos--so that He could sprawl on it, languidly, and meditate on the sunset beyond the Jemez.

Tonight, however, there is no giddy delight for me, not after officialdom’s (but not its chief official's) acknowledgment of the end of this shameful administration. I am among friends even if not in their physical presence, in a community that is warm, if not human scale. The great majority of the community is pleased at this outcome. But then I think of so many communities where the majorities and minorities are reversed, where this news brings them sadness.

My delight is tempered by shame, that our country could do this to itself. Like the shame of Peace With Honor, the rancor that Make America Great Again generated fills me with shame. Like the Vietnam Wall, it will take us a generation for the rancor to dissipate.

That day in August of ‘74 was a happy day, in a happy time. On the run--from a wife and child, a family, the law--but mostly from myself. I had nothing but a competent tool chest, a strong motorcycle, and a loyal girlfriend. Shame had not caught up yet. Today, I stop at every stop sign. There is nothing material that I lack or long for. I live with my soulmate. But my country is sick--and I feel sick for my country's sake.

Secret Wishes

 

IF YOU COULD PROWL the forest, so stealthy,
that you would not arouse a browsing doe—
or linger by slow waters, to gaze upon Diana bathing,
yet not stir her wary hounds—
and if only you could stand so silent, that you could hear the clouds collide—
if only wings would sprout, from where your arms are swinging,
then you could leave your cares along the path
and with the eagles fly.