Western Swing Page 4

  • • •

  A coyote howled a five-note pattern, three the same tone, then down, then up, more or less. Then silence. Then the first three again, down, back up for a hold. I tossed a chunk of green pine onto the fire. The log would smoke like crazy and mark my position, but I always feel safe when coyotes howl. Silence would mean something out there has them nervous, and whatever scares a coyote scares me.

  I draped one arm over the woodpile as if it was a loyal, tired dog keeping me company. With the other hand, I drank. Canteen water tasted better than the Fig Newtons. My fiberfill bag lay stretched on the back side of the fire. Flame-strobe action gave it an occupied look, like a woman tossing in her sleep, wishing I would come to bed and warm her bare feet. I pretended it was Lana Sue. Then I imagined Marcie VanHorn. Then Debra Winger. The Debra Winger fantasy worked pretty well, so I let it float awhile.

  A campfire is the only thing on earth that looks the same as it did a thousand years ago. Everything else, the land, the water, even the color of the sunset has changed this century. The only way to communicate with people from ages gone by is to gaze into the coals of a campfire. That’s why people write books and have babies. We want to communicate.

  I considered masturbation. Lana Sue had been gone four days now, and she hadn’t exactly been eager for mounting all last week. But I’ve never been comfortable with wilderness whack-offs because of my glasses. On, I feel formal, and off, I’m exposed.

  Another coyote answered, five notes, same pattern. Down the gully an owl nailed a rabbit or something. For ten seconds the night filled with screams. I jumped to look, but, naturally, I’d been staring into the coals and couldn’t see diddly for a full minute. The screams passed over my head and into the black. As they did, an entire set of coyotes went off like fire alarms up the ridge. I’ve always wondered if there’s not some Darwinistic reason why coyotes and crying babies sound so much alike.

  “More damn noise here than in Jackson.” I threw a stack of wood on the fire. Built myself a roaring pep-rally of a bonfire so hot I had to scoot back to the corner of the ledge where anything with claws could reach out from the depths of the gully and grab my ass.

  Every time I tried to consider the purpose of the Search, I either got horny or spooked. Time to concentrate. I drank more water, wishing it was Canadian whiskey. I think better on whiskey.

  I considered death: If my span of self-awareness is forty, fifty, at tops eighty years, with frigging eternity stretched out both before and after, then the odds against me sitting in front of this campfire are at least infinity to one. The chance of me being in this moment when the number of moments there are is considered—these odds are much lower than the odds that God lives in a centigrade thermometer in Joplin, Missouri. Any religion, no matter how farfetched, impractical, or flat bizarre, is more likely to be true, if you play the percentages, than the belief that my sixty-year portion of infinity just came up.

  Bring it down to the issues at hand. I was hungry. Some asshole shot at me. I was no closer to resolving the past and future than I’d been at home couch-potatoed by beer and TV baseball. Only now my Search had lost me the reason I started it—Lana Sue.

  I didn’t want to lose Lana Sue. She’s my partner. If I saw a three-legged cat, Lana Sue would be the one I would tell. There’d be no use in finding truth or even a good ice-cream cone if I couldn’t go say to Lana Sue, “Hey, guess what I found today?” Lana Sue thinks the people in Doonesbury are real. We had an argument about it once. She cares about the children of roadkill prairie dogs. She anticipates joy—no matter how bothered she gets by life, death, guilt, and grief, I can never picture Lana Sue losing her love of lunch.

  And purposely, consciously, just three days ago, I said, “Sorry, honey, this thing is more important than you,” and walked away from her.

  What is this thing that was worth starvation, solitude, confusion—now I’m being shot at, for Chrissake? What is all this in the name of? Truth. Am I a murderer? Where does a family go when it dies? Where will I go?

  Hell, let’s capitalize the whole fucking thing. TRUTH. THE SEARCH. GOD. Ta-da, “Loren Paul looks into his campfire and figures it all out.” If it was as simple as driving yourself nuts and wandering into the mountains, wouldn’t someone else have pulled the trick by now?

  Jesus Christ. And, in the process, I’d chased away my only shot at legitimate communication. And love. “Shit,” I said. “Next time I bring whiskey.”

  Part Two

  5

  You only have to talk to Loren Paul for two minutes to realize that his socks don’t match. I met him when I was seventeen and nauseatingly normal. Loren was fifteen, but he’s never passed for normal in his life. I was walking alone that day, which I know is rare for a girl of seventeen, but twenty minutes before Loren threw his first pass, I sat in a doctor’s office full of artsy mood posters being told I was pregnant.

  I held hands with myself and stared at a poster showing two beautiful people on the beach, arms around each other, gazing at the waves. The people, the sand, the sunset, all looked very fine and pure. The caption read, LOVE IS…BEAUTIFUL.

  Young Dr. Betts smiled and pulled his chair close to mine and touched my knee. He had the teeth of a television preacher, lots of turquoise jewelry around his neck, and hair as long as anyone in Houston in 1964.

  “Your tests are positive,” he smiled, putting pressure on my knee.

  “You mean I’m knocked up?”

  “Yes, Lana Sue, you are knocked up.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Walking down Bissonnet Road, I crossed the tracks and dazed my way up fast-food row. Pizza, burgers, roast beef slices, and ice cream, the franchise system was off and running in southwest Houston.

  The father’s name was Ron and the problem was that I liked him. He was kind of sexy, and he treated me nice. He always paid for everything we did. I just didn’t know if I wanted to have a baby by or with him. I wanted to be a country-western singer, and a kid would slow me down. They weren’t even allowed in places where country singers sing.

  My plan was to move fast. Patsy Cline died the March before, and no new supersexy superstar had stepped forward to take her place. Everyone was talking about the funny-dressing longhairs from England—Dave Clark Five and the Beatles—but I knew they wouldn’t last. Girls just liked the accents. No one could hit it big in music without fiddles.

  The music scene was ripe for a new champion—me. Only I couldn’t tour pregnant.

  At that time, women in Texas did not go in much for early termination. It was illegal, expensive, somewhat dangerous, and hard to pull off. Hell, I didn’t know anyone who had ever had one.

  Six years later, I didn’t know many who hadn’t, but at seventeen I was no trendsetter. I lived with my parents and wore cotton panties.

  This skinny, short kid stepped up beside me and said, “You look dejected.”

  “I am dejected.” I’d seen him before. He was several grades behind me in school, which made a lot of difference. Normally, I’d have run across the street before someone saw me talking to a little boy and told Ron, but I suppose impregnation mixed me up. I didn’t tell him to get lost.

  “You’re Lana Sue Goodwin,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I’m Loren Paul.”

  I kept walking.

  “I’m a Leo with my Venus in Scorpio,” he added.

  “What the fuck’s that mean?” Dr. Betts was the first adult I’d ever said “fuck” to. The power made me reckless.

  “It’s astrology. It means I’m sexy.”

  “You’re five feet two and your voice squeaks. That’s not sexy. I wouldn’t even talk to you if I wasn’t dejected.”

  He stuck both hands in his pockets and walked looking at the ground. I could tell he might cry at any moment.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just upset right now. I w
ould rather be alone.”

  “Lana Sue,” he said, not looking at me, “I think you have the nicest ass in Bellaire High School.”

  He was on my outside when we reached the corner and I did it on purpose. The twerp asked for it, playing the wounded little boy and not watching where he walked. I passed just to the left of a stop sign and Loren walked into the pole, knocking himself silly.

  Cute, huh? A nice how-I-met-Grandpa story to amuse the grandkids with on a rainy afternoon. Prove to them that Granny was once young and interesting. But there’s more. One extra bit that sets Loren apart from the thousands to millions of fifteen-year-old nerds who vow undying, unwanted love for the first girl who’s polite to them.

  Loren caught a cab downtown that night and had Lana Sue tattooed on his lower back. Directly over the kidney.

  Then, the little bastard never told me. What’s the use of mutilating yourself over someone if you don’t tell them? Eighteen years later, two husbands for me, a wife for Loren, three children between us, and enough frustration, boredom, grief, and nausea for six families, we met again and completed the pass in an eight-dollar-a-night motor court on the south side of Denver.

  The sex wasn’t that good. We were both blotto drunk and Loren took forever in coming. I found myself listening to Dick Cavett interview a pretentious Gore Vidal on the TV in the next room. To be fair, Loren took so long because he made sure I got off before letting himself turn loose, and I wasn’t easy to arouse. I finally managed it, though, and twenty minutes later, so did he.

  Lightning didn’t strike and the earth didn’t shake, but I wasn’t looking for lightning and quakes. I was looking to forget Ace and what a mess I’d made of my life. I sure as hell wasn’t looking for a new husband.

  Loren relaxed me, and at the time I needed relaxation more than passion.

  Afterwards, he mumbled something like, “Gee, thanks,” and rolled over to sleep. I thought that was odd, but all men are odd, so I answered, “You’re welcome.” I was wide awake. Wide awake, alone, and drunk in a sleazebag motel bed after making sweaty sex with a virtual stranger, knowing my husband was probably in the same situation, and not caring.

  How’s that for a depressing scenario—American as Valium and ancient as recreational love.

  Time for postcoital nicotine. I groped around the night stand for cigarettes and matches. To me, afterglow means the coal moving up and down in the darkness beside a snoring man. Making love depresses me sometimes.

  One-handed, I lit a match and there it was, my own name staring at me from the back of what I thought was a one-night painkiller.

  The match burnt my finger. With two hands this time, I lit another and cupped it close to his skin—LANA SUE in faded red with what had long ago been a black outline.

  I hit him on the ass. “Hey.”

  Loren raised his head. “Whassamattah?”

  “My name’s on your back.”

  He lowered his head again. “Oh, yeah, I forgot.”

  “What’s my name doing on your body?”

  “I paid a black man fifteen dollars to put it there.”

  The match went out. I could burn him with the smoking stub or go to sleep and ignore everything.

  Loren sighed and rolled over and slid his arm around my shoulders. I dropped the unlit cigarette and cuddled close with my hands under my chin. It felt nice.

  He said, “Remember that day you walked me into the pole on Bissonnet?”

  “Sure. I had a lot on my mind that day.”

  “Well, you hurt my feelings. I knelt on the sidewalk, holding my bleeding nose and watching your beautiful ass swish away, and I swore that someday I’d get you.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “I swore I’d seduce you and you wouldn’t be such a high-and-mighty senior who humiliates freshmen just because they have feelings.”

  “So you carved my name on your back?”

  “A black artist drew your name on my back. Years and years from then, when I conquered your body, I wanted you to find that tattoo and know I’d been lying in wait for you all that time. I wanted you to know Loren Paul is something special.”

  “That’s hard to deny.”

  “Yeah, I’m not like other guys.”

  Hell, after that I had to marry Loren just to get back at him for what he did to get back at me.

  • • •

  I know what you’re thinking. I thought it too. The night Loren returned from his Flannery O’Connor grave trip, he drank himself comatose and I searched his entire body, hair roots to toe jamb. I’m the only name on it.

  • • •

  Once I asked Loren what his first wife thought of the tattoo.

  “I told her it was a birthmark.”

  “And she believed you?”

  He shrugged. “She wanted to.”

  Loren’s first wife, Ann, committed suicide while he was writing a book. Loren finished the book, which is why we’re rich and don’t have to do things we don’t want to do.

  • • •

  Before Loren, I’d been rich enough not to do the things I don’t want to do three times. All three times, I walked away from the man who came with the money. Being rich isn’t necessary. I also left a poor man, but I kind of regret that one.

  The decision to go or stay never tears me apart or anything. I don’t think about it at all. One day, I’m fine, the next, I’m unhappy, the next, I’m gone. None of my formers ever suspects trouble because I don’t dream of leaving until the Crack. That’s what I call it—the Crack.

  The Crack is the moment the situation turns impossible and I go from satisfied to dissatisfied. Dissatisfied to out the door takes about an hour. Sometimes I don’t want to go. Lord knows, I wanted to stay with Loren. I think. I just don’t have much control over my life.

  Take my pal and ex-true love, Mickey Thunder. Way back in 1963—the morning after our last gig in an awful low-ceilinged club full of drunken soldiers in Fort Smith, Arkansas—my daddy and a hired investigator kicked in an unlocked door at the Fox Box Motel and found Mickey passed out on me and four other band members in stages of degeneracy on the floor. A week’s worth of beer cans, apple cores, butts, and slut magazines lay scattered around like we’d forgotten our upbringing. None of us wore any clothes. It was a real unpleasant scene and completely out of Daddy’s background.

  Daddy was shocked. Screaming, “Statutory,” “Whore,” and “Oh my God,” he dragged me out of bed, out the door, then back in the door to throw a blanket over my body.

  Mickey said, “Aw, Christ.”

  Choosie said, “Tell him to fuck off, Lannie.”

  I didn’t say anything. The fun was over.

  But the second time, sixteen years later, after Ron and the twins and God knows how many dinner parties, tennis lessons, and charitable functions, I ran away with Mickey again.

  This time I knew Mickey was the one for life. He’s such a drunk, I didn’t figure for life meant for my life, but I loved him and sure never figured on leaving him unburied.

  I lasted fourteen months. One morning in a slum shack of a motel in Brigham City, Utah, life with Mickey wasn’t fun.

  The room could have been the Fox Box held in a museum for future generations. That’s how much Mickey’s life had progressed. Mine too, come to think of it. The only difference was, the band members slept next door. Not much growth for all those years.

  Mickey woke up with his usual hangover and his usual breath. He wasn’t as appetizing as he’d been at twenty. The long, bony face had become a waxy color—corpselike. His hand shook when he poured the first Jim Beam of the day.

  “Are we going to make that album for Ace?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve made albums.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “It’s not something
you want to do.”

  “You got something against success?”

  “Yep.” He lay back, covering his face with one arm. “Lannie, you’re not that good. You’re fine for our band and what we do, but Ace would throw you to that Nashville zoo, he’d have you dressing like Daisy Mae and bending over on Hee Haw. That’s not our style.”

  “I am, too, good.”

  He opened his eyes at me. “For you to make it in this business, you’re gonna have to suck some dicks, and I don’t want to be around to watch.”

  Hell of a thing to say.

  Mickey staggered into the bathroom to throw up. I followed and sat on the edge of the tub, pulling Mickey’s hair behind his ears so he wouldn’t puke on it.

  He didn’t care I kept puke out of his hair because he didn’t care if he puked on it. I looked at his sharp nose and high cheekbones, the dent at his temple. Mickey hadn’t gained a pound of flesh since the first time I held his hair back while he hugged a toilet. Still looked like a death’s mask. Nothing changes but me.

  Crack. I didn’t want to be there anymore. “I’ll do the album without you,” I said.

  Mickey dry-heaved a couple of times and pulled himself up to the sink. He drank from the cold water tap before looking over at me. “That mean the partnership is over?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Suit yourself.” He stood, facing the mirror. “I have to hit you now.”

  “Why?” The man could hardly stand without help. In a fair fight, I’d have knocked his lights out.

  “So you won’t be tempted to come back if you get lonely.”

  “Okay.” Mickey hit me, though not very hard. He’s hit me a lot harder when we were making love.

  That was that. I closed my suitcase and left.

  • • •

  More to the point, I didn’t want to leave Loren. I never want to leave, but I have no patience with insanity. Daddy burned me out on sensitive men. I could have handled the eccentric-novelist act, the buttoning-his-shirt-and-zipping-him-up-before-we-went-out-the-door routine. I could even have handled the silly fantasy with Marcie. Someday he’d luck out with her and I’d catch him and he’d spend the next twenty years paying the debt. One transgression makes a powerful weapon in the hands of a true bitch—which is what I suppose I am.