by Callan Wink
“Sorry, dude, we’ve just heard the story about Milky literally millions of times.”
“Who was Milky?” August said.
Ramsay drained his beer, crunched the can on his thigh, and tossed it in the bottom of the raft. “Milky was my pet calf,” he said. There were simultaneous groans from Gaskill and Veldtkamp, which Ramsay didn’t acknowledge. “My mom’s mom is a really rich lady. A horse lady. Her second husband left her a bunch of money when he croaked. She bought one of those fancy horse trailer rigs with the little camper up front and stalls for the horses in the back, and she drives it all over the country. A hundred-thousand-dollar trailer, at least. She has a big house down in Santa Fe, too. I’ve never seen it in person, but she used to send us a Christmas card and a smoked turkey every year, even though she had disowned us. She’d send us a card with a picture of her and her two dogs in front of her house, a big fountain, the whole deal. And that turkey. I always liked it a lot. It was real smoky tasting, and it came from someplace in Texas.
“Anyway, she never liked my dad, and when my mom and him got married that was it. She disowned my mom. I’d never even seen her until the spring when I was ten. It was around Easter, and I think she’d started going to church, or was feeling guilty, or something, so she packed her horse trailer and drove up from Santa Fe unannounced. I remember her just showing up on the doorstep; we were living in View Vista still. All the way in the back, the crappiest cat-piss-smelling brown trailer in the place. This was before my dad started driving trucks and we moved out into the valley. Anyway, my mom went to the door and about collapsed when she opened it. My grandma was there with a big smile. She had on a black hat and black jeans and long gray hair and wore that stupid turquoise and silver jewelry all the rich old people down there wear, and she gave my mom a hug and told her that she looked like she’d gained about fifty pounds since she’d seen her last, and then bent down to shake me and my brother’s hands.
“We were being shy, but she was acting all excited and pretty much dragged us out to her horse trailer and had us get up in the back stall with her and she had a little brown and white calf in there with a red halter on it. Brown body, white face. Real small still. She said she’d brought it for us to raise, as a present, and told us to play with him in the yard while she talked to our mom in the house.
“We walked the calf around the park for a while, showing him off, then we started building a little corral for it out of some boards and stuff my dad had laying around. I don’t remember why, but we decided to call him Milky. After a while he laid down in the yard and let us pet him and then fell asleep. We were just hanging with him there when my grandma comes storming back out. She pulls Milky up by the halter and drags him back to the horse trailer. The calf is bawling now and we’re confused and asking her what she’s doing, but she just says that our mother is impossible and that she tried to do something nice and this was all she got in return and it would be the last time she tried anything like this again. And then she got into her rig, drove away, and I haven’t seen her since.
“I found out later that she’d been in there trying to convince my mom to leave my dad. To pack us up and move down to Santa Fe with her. At the time, though, I was just mad at my mom for making my grandma take Milky away. I told her that she’d probably gained more like a hundred pounds and then she slapped me off the porch and I ran away, but it was March and cold as shit so I only lasted for a few hours after it got dark and came back with my tail tucked. She made me a burrito and didn’t say anything about any of it.”
Ramsay rummaged in the cooler for another beer, cracked it, and drank long and deep. He looked out over the Bridgers in the far distance. “Ol’ Milky,” he said. “He’d follow you around like a dog. Barely had him for an afternoon, but you could tell he was a good one. That was the only time my mom ever hit me. Not the case with the old man, of course, but she only did it that one time and I guess I deserved it, so it is what it is. Whatever. It was a long time ago.”
“Sure was,” Veldtkamp said, rousing himself from where he’d slumped at the bottom of the raft. “You boys remember that time we floated down to Big Timber and caught up to all the girls from the MSU soccer team on inner tubes?”
“So, Ramsay, that’s it?” August said. “She took your pet calf that you had for half a day?”
“You’re killing me, Augie,” Veldtkamp said. “Goddamn, we need Richards here.”
“No, Augie,” Ramsay said. “Actually that wasn’t it. At Christmas, Grandma sent us the usual package. She always addressed the box to us boys and because I was the oldest I got to unwrap it, and even though I knew what it was I still got kind of excited about it because I really liked when my mom sliced the turkey up and made sandwiches. We’re all sitting around in our pajamas, Christmas morning in that shitty View Vista trailer, and I open up the turkey box and instead of a turkey there’s about ten packages wrapped in white butcher paper all soggy and leaking blood. There was a note on top that said, Merry Xmas. I hope you like my present better this time. XO Gram.”
“You’re shitting me,” August said. “Seriously? Milky?”
Ramsay shrugged. “Part of him at least.”
They were silent for a moment and Veldtkamp was doing something, covering his face. A snicker finally broke through and then a full-on guffaw. Ramsay didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” Veldtkamp said, holding up his hands. “That last bit about XO Gram just gets me every time. I mean, it’s sort of hilarious.” Veldtkamp was laughing uncontrollably now, and soon enough Gaskill caught it. Both of them were down in the bottom of the raft, guts heaving, slapping their legs, the raft, each other.
Ramsay was shaking his head, looking off toward the mountains, jaw clenched, and August found himself laughing, too.
At the first sound of this, Ramsay turned sharply. “What’s funny, August?” he said. Suddenly no one was laughing anymore. Gaskill and Veldtkamp stopped clowning and straightened themselves up.
“Huh?” August said. “I thought you guys were joking. That didn’t actually happen, did it?”
“I went to Veldtkamp’s house that day. I puked, and then I ran all the way across town in my pajamas and stayed at his house on Christmas because I hated my family. His mom cleaned me up and gave me one of his presents so I’d have something to open and wouldn’t feel left out. He and that other laughing asshole over there have known this shit since we were kids, but you don’t have that with me. So stuff it.”
August looked at Ramsay, trying to determine if he was being serious or not. He gave one more small experimental chuckle and Ramsay reached out, surprisingly fast, and gave him a hard slap on the side of the head.
“Shit, man,” August said. “We’re just joking.” Gaskill gave August a nudge with his knee and shook his head.
Ramsay’s face had gone red under his layer of zinc, and his fists were balled up at his sides. “I don’t care if you are bigger than me. You’re soft and everyone knows it. I will tear you down.”
August shrugged, stumbled out an apology. He thought Ramsay might really hit him, but then Veldtkamp submerged his head in the water and came up shaking like a dog to get them all wet. “And that, my friends, is why we don’t talk about Milky,” he said. “It never goes well. I think it’s about time to shotgun another one of those beers. What do you say, champ?” he said, sliding up next to Ramsay until their bare legs were touching.
Ramsay pushed him away. “God, I hate all you fuckers,” he said. But he took the beer he was offered, and not long after he was laughing with Veldtkamp, telling the story about the time they tipped Zwicky over when he was in the port-a-john behind the practice field taking a shit.
* * *
—
They floated. Chewed the stringy elk jerky Gaskill had brought. Drank beers. Jumped from outcropping ledges into deep emerald pools and then draped themselves on the hot rubber tubes
of the raft to dry. “How was basic, Ramsay?” Veldtkamp said.
Ramsay shrugged. “Humid and shitty. Not much worse than two-a-days, though.”
“Two-a-days sucked this year,” Gaskill said. “Zwicky is a damn Nazi. He was only giving us two water breaks a session. One of these years someone’s going to get heatstroke and die, and it’ll be his fault.”
“At basic, did they make you take those pills to stop you from getting boners?” Veldtkamp said.
“What?” Ramsay said.
“My cousin signed up, and he said they made them take these pills. Saltpeter. Keeps you from getting boners. He said the whole time he was there he didn’t get one single hard-on. No morning wood or nothing.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ramsay said. “You don’t get boners in basic because you’re dog-tired all the time and people are yelling at you constantly and you’re surrounded by dudes. I mean, why the fuck would you expect to get an erection in that sort of situation?”
“Erections just happen,” Veldtkamp said. “Doesn’t depend too much on your surroundings, in my experience. Did you get boners at basic, or not?”
“I don’t really remember. I was too tired to give a damn.”
“It’s that saltpeter. My cousin told me at some places they just put it in the water, so you don’t even know.”
“Whatever,” Ramsay said. He was looking over their heads at the slow scrawl of the riverbank passing by. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Tonight, we should find an island with a big pile of driftwood and torch the whole thing.”
“I like the way you think,” Veldtkamp said. “Do we have lighter fluid?”
“I brought a little can of diesel,” Gaskill said.
“Good man.”
“There’s burn restrictions in place right now,” August said. “Someone might call the fire department.”
“Fuck those fire department queers. I’m going to Afghanistan,” Ramsay said.
“Fair enough,” August said. He realized now that he should have immediately punched Ramsay in the face when he’d called him soft. Ramsay might have said the words, but it was August’s inaction that rendered them true.
* * *
—
When the sun started to dip toward the rimrock they found their island. It was a several-hundred-yard expanse of mid-river gravel, dotted with willows, and a huge, jackstrawed tangle of dead cottonwoods and gnarled root wads sitting on the upstream side, remnants from spring high water.
They unrolled their sleeping bags and didn’t bother with the tent because the night was clear. The river was loud around them. They made a small fire and roasted brats on willow sticks, waiting for it to get dark. When it was time, they let Ramsay do the honors. He emptied the can of diesel on one of the sun-dried root wads and got it going with his lighter. It didn’t take long before the flames were shooting up, crackling over their heads, the stink of diesel fading, sparks drifting out over the river.
“Always wanted to do that,” Ramsay said, raising his hands to the blaze.
“When that big cottonwood log in there gets going it’s probably going to burn for two days,” Veldtkamp said. They’d gone through all the beer and were now passing around the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that Gaskill had procured, at a highly inflated rate, from his older brother. They were silent, and the rush of the gathering fire joined the rush of the river, a great hollowing torrent of sound. They were in the middle of the current and somehow it seemed that they were in the middle of the fire as well, some middle place of the universe in general. “They’ve got spiders over there,” Ramsay said. “Camel spiders. They’re about a foot long and can run fast as a dog. Saw pictures of them on the Internet.”
“Seriously?” Gaskill said.
“Dead serious. Pass me that whiskey.”
They lurched and staggered. There were boasts and oaths. They were going to Vegas first thing when Ramsay got back. Burn that town to the ground. There were fist bumps and claps on the backs and eventually just silent contemplation, the clear wash of stars, tears that threatened to spill but never could. August was not really a part of it. He drank and tended the blaze. He knew Richards should have been there, not him, and he wished he wouldn’t have come. Eventually he pretended he was drunker than he was and stumbled away to sleep.
When he got up to piss, sometime in the early hours, Ramsay was still awake, back against a log, watching the fire. August sat next to him. Veldtkamp was passed out in the sand, snoring loudly.
“You good, man?”
“I’m fine. Can’t sleep.” Ramsay laughed, short and dry. “My mom told me she had a dream. The dream was that I come back from overseas, and I go on to get my law degree. I turn into a judge and then I get elected as a senator. My main campaign promise is that I’ll push for healthcare reform. Cheaper prescriptions.”
“She saw all of that in the same dream?”
“I guess it was a long one. My mom puts a lot of stake in dreams. She has eight prescriptions. I think she needs less prescriptions, personally. Not cheaper ones.”
“Well, I’d vote for you, man. If you ran, I’d help you put up signs and stuff.”
“Gee, thanks, pal. I had a dream, too. I dreamt I was in a giant canopy bed with seven black-haired virgins swarming all over me. Seven of the hottest virgins you’ve ever seen. Tits and ass everywhere, just smothering me.”
“Isn’t that what they believe? When they blow themselves up or whatever? They become martyrs and then they go to heaven and get a certain number of virgins?”
“Exactly. I dreamed a jihadist’s dream. If that’s not fucked up, I don’t know what is. Now I feel like he’s out there, dreaming my dreams, and when we meet over there one of us is going to have to kill the other to get things back to how they should be.”
“It’s just a dream. Probably doesn’t mean anything at all. How’d you know they were virgins?”
“They told me so. They said they’d been waiting forever, saving themselves, just for me. Scared me shitless, and now I can’t sleep.”
With football, the headaches resumed. On the second game of the year versus Big Timber, August covered the kick returner, the two of them meeting near the middle of the field at the point of top speed. There was an explosion of light and the clap of pads, then the returner, a small, quick kid, flopping on the turf like a carp, out cold and in the throes of seizure. Play was halted and the Big Timber team took a knee. A stretcher materialized, and although the kid was awake enough now to sit up, they still carted him away, ambulance lights flashing down the road toward the clinic. Coach Zwicky was incensed, ecstatic, red-faced, with spit flying. “That was a hit!” he screamed, grabbing August’s face mask. “That was a goddamn hit, son. Jesus Christ! That kid’s mother felt that. The whole town felt that!” August looked at the big lights above the field and saw tracers, black spots swirling.
That night there was a bonfire after the game, but his head was pounding and he left early. When he got home the house was empty, and he was glad. That fall his mother had started dating a man she’d met at work. A teacher. He lived in Bozeman, and often on the weekends she would stay over with him. August had only met him once. He wore glasses and had longish graying hair. He’d moved to Montana from Southern California, and he had August’s mother taking yoga classes with him. She was trying to quit smoking, supposedly.
August took a long shower, gingerly probing all the lumps and scrapes and sore spots on his arms and shins. He was lying on the couch in his boxers, half drowsing in front of the TV, when the doorbell rang. August sat up, moved the curtain aside to see who it was. In his surprise, he opened the door before really thinking it through. He realized he should have gone and put some pants on, but it was too late and he stood there awkwardly in the threshold.
“Julie?” he said.
She’d cut her hair shorter, and she looked
slightly heavier than the last time he’d seen her. She wore a sundress, although it was a cool evening, and she was holding a bag of fried chicken in one hand and a bottle of Cook’s champagne in the other. She was smiling, but it was obvious that she had just finished crying. She made a show of squinting at him, stepping back as if to get a better look. “Is that Augie?” she said. “Jesus Christ, you turned into a giant.”
He opened the door all the way, and she gave him a hug as she came in. It was a substantial hug, her arms across his bare back, fingers digging in. He could feel his face reddening. “Am I interrupting?” she said, already settling on the couch. He shook his head, mumbled something about putting some clothes on, and headed to the bedroom. “Don’t feel like you have to get dressed up on my account,” she said with a laugh. When he came back in jeans and a T-shirt, he sat on the opposite side of the couch from her. She told him that she’d come to see Ethan, that she’d finished her Peace Corps assignment and the whole time she’d been gone they’d been writing each other. “He told me all the stuff he was doing to the house. He said he got the new siding finished just before winter hit and that he was going to put in a hammered-copper countertop because he saw one in a house he was working on in Big Sky and he thought it looked really good. He said he couldn’t wait to see me and to show me all the stuff he was doing. He said he was putting French doors out to the patio. He was going to do some landscaping in the backyard this summer.”
She shook her head. Sniffed, and then sat up a little straighter on the couch. She tore the foil from the champagne bottle and popped the cork so it shot out and bounced off the ceiling. “So, I show up,” she said. She drank directly from the bottle. “I wanted to surprise him. The first time we ever met, when he’d just bought the house, I came over and I brought fried chicken and Cook’s champagne. Tonight I did that again because it was such a good memory. I was coming down the street, and I was so excited to see him. And then I get here and it looks like the place has been abandoned. The siding’s falling off. There’s a FOR SALE sign down in the mud. He was sending me these complete bullshit emails, for two years, and I don’t even understand why. It just seems vindictive. Cruel. Weird.” She had her legs crossed. Thick thighs. Long, bare legs with a few red bumps near her ankles. Bug-bite scars, he thought. African mosquito bites.
