“Will you cut my hair?” he asked.
Saskia smiled at him, surprised. “Sure. But I think my mom should do it. She’s better than me.”
So early that evening, as Saskia fried breaded catfish in the kitchen, Andy sat on a wooden stool in the large bathroom with all its lights blazing while Ramona gave Andy his first real haircut in many years. First, she neatened up the right side, where the stitches had recently been removed, carefully combing the hair over the tender area. Then she clipped his wavy black locks, which fell in curled piles on the floor. She left his hair long over the collar in the back, suggesting a ducktail. The hair in front was allowed to fall down over his eyes so it could be brushed to the side in a dashing manner. She hoped it would fly around a bit when he played the violin. When he could play again.
Janey stood and watched the haircut happen. She did not approve, on principle, but she kept telling Andy how nice he looked. Ramona would have sent her out of the room for being annoying, except that for some reason Janey was the one person who could consistently get Andy to talk. Perhaps her semi-random style of discourse, irritating to most people, was stimulating to Andy’s mind.
“You know what I think?” said Janey. “I think all the soldiers in Vietnam, on both sides, should put down their guns all at once and just stand up and say, ‘We’re done and going home now,’ and all the generals would just spit and complain, but there’s nothing they could do about it. They couldn’t have a war if nobody came.”
“I suppose,” said Andy. “But there’s no way to get people to agree to do anything all at once.”
“We had a book drop at my school.”
“What’s a book drop?”
“Everybody drops their books at once. At lunch, everybody was whispering, ‘Drop your books at two o’clock.’ So when two o’clock came, there was this big bang that you could hear all around the school when everybody did it.”
“Did you drop your books?” asked Andy.
“No, but I would have. Mrs. Woods was looking right at me. But some people in our class did.”
“What was the point?”
“There was no point point. Just that the people have the power. The principal came on the loudspeaker and said, ‘Students, that was very disappointing behavior,’ but he couldn’t punish everybody. The people can drop their books all at once, or they can stop racism or stop having wars. They just have to get together.”
“That’s a stretch,” said Andy.
“Do you like football?” asked Janey.
“I liked Pop Warner,” said Andy. “My mom wouldn’t let me play in junior high because it’s rough. I might hurt my hands. I played Little League baseball, but I quit after I started playing violin.”
“I used to go to football games with my sister,” said Janey.
“With Saskia?”
“No, with Erycca. Saskia never liked school sports. Erycca was a cheerleader one year, but she said the cheerleaders were too stuck up.”
Ramona fished in a drawer and pulled out a hand mirror, giving it to Andy.
“How’s the back? Too long?”
Andy took a long time examining his ducktail in the mirror. “It makes me a conductor,” he said.
Saskia called from the other room. “Daddy’s here! Y’all ready for supper?”
They all went into the dining room, where Apollo was already seated, scanning his afternoon newspaper.
“Sit by me,” said Janey. Andy sat.
The Piedmans were a nontraditional family in almost every sense, but they did sit together at dinner most nights because Ramona insisted.
“Andy, would you say the blessing?” asked Apollo.
Andy looked over at Ramona, confused. Really?
Apollo burst out laughing. “It was a joke!” he roared.
“Daddy, stop it!” said Saskia.
“Let’s eat!” said Apollo. “Where’s my fish?”
– 23 –
Pinky Is the Last of His Kind
There was a time when Pinky Kaufman would have driven to see Jerry De Ghetto at his office, or at the very least met him halfway at a restaurant or a bar in some other town. Driving 140 miles was admittedly not something you’d expect a seventy-five-year-old man to do every day, but Pinky was still fairly spry and could have managed to meet Jerry in Rankin or Big Lake, making it a bit easier. It also would be a bit less conspicuous. Jerry was pretty sure somebody was always watching Pinky.
No, Jerry was expected to drive to San Angelo and meet Pinky at his office, the downtown headquarters of Daisy Kay Workover & Drilling Company. He was to come alone, which he probably would have done anyway, but he hated being elbowed around like that. It wasn’t fair.
Pinky had only one business responsibility, whereas Jerry had his sticky fingers in many, many pies, a lot of things to keep tabs on. He had a public stake in several businesses in Duro—convenience stores on the south side, one used-car dealership, a donut shop, a sporting-goods store in a decaying strip center. He was also a silent partner in several more, including a string of liquor stores that surrounded Midland County on three sides, just over the county line. (Midland was a dry county, and thirsty residents had to make the drive if they wanted the good stuff.) In addition, there were numerous private arrangements, favors and loans, loans and favors, to persons and entities that couldn’t secure regular vanilla credit at the local S&Ls and banks. Every single one of these business dealings, from the small to the large, the aboveboard to the hidden, took personal attention, and lots of driving. And none of them were ever going to make him rich.
Jerry was doing okay. In some circles, he was even considered well-off. He had a nice house on the northeast side and bought a new car every two years. He could afford to pay for college for his daughter, who never seemed any closer to a degree. His wife Billie didn’t have to work. They were members of the country club. But, still … the driving, the meetings, the parade of idiots he had to deal with, then more driving. Jerry was beginning to think he would be found in his car someday, dead from exhaustion.
Today, Jerry drove his white Oldsmobile convertible with the top up because of the dust. Highway 67 was a sparsely traveled road two lanes wide the whole way. Jerry could push it over ninety miles per hour with little fear of being stopped, though he kept a hundred-dollar bill right behind his driver’s license in case an incentive was required for the cop to make it a warning ticket.
He had no idea why Pinky had chosen this moment to put the squeeze on him. The old man was a partner in several of Jerry’s ventures but almost never interfered. He wasn’t sure what the old man wanted, but cash flow had always been an issue. In previous years, back when Jerry was in business with Sydney Kaufman, Pinky’s only child, they had operated on a more—well … not casual—but in a more family-like manner. Sometimes money moved inefficiently, but that was the nature of business. Patience reigned, and the people who needed to get paid got paid. Now, Sydney was gone, and it would have made perfect sense if Pinky had viewed Jerry as something like a son. Jerry could never replace Sydney in his affections, but at the very least he shouldn’t treat him like an insolent stepchild, or worse, a mere client. Jerry and the Kaufmans had a history.
Jerry drove into San Angelo just after lunchtime. He was hungry, but he wanted to get out to the Daisy Kay office before one o’clock, when Pinky would be finished with his own lunch (always eaten alone, at his desk), and maybe the old man would say whatever he had to say to Jerry and let him get back to his own neglected businesses. Which was the point, right, to keep the money moving?
Ten minutes till one, stomach growling, Jerry took the elevator to the eleventh floor and announced himself to the receptionist. He had hoped it would be Faith behind the desk. She had run the drilling office for three decades, but he had heard that Faith was finally retiring at sixty-nine. She would have been sweet to him and asked him about family and such. The new receptionist reflected a recent shift by Pinky toward younger, female office staff. Well, you couldn’t
really fault the old guy. Certainly, his late wife Daisy, for whom the company was named, would not have approved, but she had been gone twenty years. Let an old man smell some fresh hormones.
The receptionist was black-haired with heavy eye shadow, and not a day over twenty-two. She wore a conspicuous gold crucifix and was busy typing something with little enthusiasm when Jerry entered. She glanced up but kept typing.
“Jerry De Ghetto for Mr. Kaufman,” said Jerry. “He’s expecting me.”
“Mr. Kaufman is having his lunch,” said the receptionist. “Please be seated.”
He sat. One o’clock came, and the receptionist picked up her phone and punched a button.
“Mr. Kaufman, there is a Mr. Ghetto to see you.”
“De Ghetto,” Jerry said, but the girl didn’t pass on the correction.
“He’ll be with you in a few minutes,” she said.
Jerry flipped through a year-old copy of World Oil magazine, which was kept in the reception area because Pinky’s offshore oil rig, a semisubmersible, was on the cover. It was named, of course, the Daisy I. This implied the existence of a Daisy II, but after buying and renaming its first vessel five years ago, the company had made no further forays offshore.
Minutes passed. The door opened and another man came in—middle-aged, blond-haired, and red-cheeked—wearing a yellow knit shirt under a brown sport coat. He gave the receptionist a puppy-dog grin.
“Hi, doll! Is he in?”
“Sure, Donnie, go on in,” she said.
He walked past Jerry and smiled. “How’s it going there?”
“Good,” said Jerry.
What the fuck is up with this?
Another fifteen minutes went by, and it was getting close to one thirty. Irritation gave way to anger. Is this how you treat people, you irrelevant old shylock? Your son’s old business partner, a guy who’s had dinner at your house? You keep him waiting while you chat up a golf buddy?
Jerry was about ready to walk, and he thought up the right amount of subtle sarcasm to lay on the receptionist, sitting there with her crucifix and bar dress.
Honey, please tell Mr. Kaufman that I had a further engagement I need to keep, but I’ll try to catch him next week, if he’s got the time.
But before Jerry could stand up, the door opened and yellow-shirt man came out with Pinky. Jerry hadn’t seen Pinky Kaufman in months and thought he looked thinner and older. Was he sick?
“Thanks, Donnie. I’ll talk to the SOCAL people and we’ll get moving on it. I’ll call you next week.” He turned to Jerry and stuck out his hand. “Sorry, Jerry. That took longer than I thought. I just wanted to get business out of the way before we talked. Come on in.” Jerry followed him into the spacious office.
Pinky had redecorated since the last time Jerry was here. The new chairs were upholstered in matching red leather, and a deep couch sat against one wall. The same old desk was there, enormous and dark, but it looked refinished. Conspicuously missing from the room was the big framed photograph that had hung on the wall of Pinky’s office for decades. It was of Pinky as a young man in the 1920s, standing next to a truck with a sign on the door that said “Patcher Petroleum, Lawton, Okla.” In the picture with Pinky were two other young men. All of them wore drivers’ caps, and all three had canary-eating grins. The oil truck was a fake. There had never been a Patcher Petroleum. The truck held barrels of unadulterated industrial-grade ethanol, on their way to becoming ersatz whiskey and gin.
Pinky was a former bootlegger, and proud. In his twenties, when other men worked long, dangerous shifts in the oilfields or followed the harvests from farm to farm, Pinky wore silk shirts and handmade boots. When the rest of the nation gave up on Prohibition as a failed experiment, Pinky and his fellow entrepreneurs donated generously to the Baptist and Methodist temperance leagues to help keep Oklahoma dry and the money flowing.
While farmers and ranchers were struggling for financial liquidity during the Great Depression, Pinky had become a “ten-percenter,” driving across Texas from county to county in his Auburn Speedster, offering landowners hard cash for a share of their mineral rights. He didn’t always guess right, but he was right often enough to get rich, and eventually to buy a struggling service company.
“Would you like a drink, Jerry?” Pinky asked. “My doctor says I can’t join you, but I still keep a bottle of good Canadian in the desk.”
“No thanks,” said Jerry. “How have you been, Mr. Kaufman?”
“Oh, you know,” said Pinky. “Getting old is not for sissies, I always say. Is your family well?”
“Angela’s doing pretty good. Taking college courses and going through boyfriends like breath mints.”
Pinky chuckled. “Girls. Never raised one myself, but I hear they can be harder than boys. How’s Billie?”
“She’s as mean as ever,” said Jerry. “Keeps trying to starve me into losing weight.”
Pinky leaned way back in his big office chair, so far that Jerry thought it might tip over. He sighed. “Always keep your wife and children close, Jerry. I was just thinking about Sydney. He would have been … what … fifty this year? He and I were never very close, but we always stayed … connected … by blood, you might say. It’s been ten years, but I miss him more than ever. I’d like to think we’d be best friends now.”
“I miss him too, Mr. Kaufman. He was like a big brother to me.”
Pinky stared out the window for half a minute, and Jerry sat silent, looking at the side of his face. At that moment, in that light, Pinky was an old man, and death seemed to cover his face like a shadow.
Then he turned back to face Jerry, and the moment was over. He leaned forward, eyes sparkling.
“The past is gone, and I’ll never see my son again, not in this world. I accept that. But I’m not dead yet, and I’m hoping there is something you’ll do for me.”
“Anything. You know that,” said Jerry.
“My grandson. Timothy. You remember him.”
“Sure. I think he was fifteen years old the last time I saw him. How old is he now?”
“Twenty-eight. He still lives in Duro and won’t have anything to do with me. After he grew up, he never called his grandpops unless he was in trouble or couldn’t make the rent. Now he doesn’t even do that.”
“So, is he doing okay for money?” Jerry asked. “At least that’s something.”
“Shit, he doesn’t have any money, except what he manages to get from his lowlife friends or make selling pills. Mostly he just mooches off his girlfriend and lives for free in a hippie commune. Maybe if she kicks him out, he’ll come around looking for money. More likely he’ll just find another dumb slut to take him in.”
Pinky got up and walked around, sitting on the edge of the desk facing Jerry.
“I need help,” said Pinky.
“What can I do?” asked Jerry. “You want me to talk to him?”
“I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than that,” said Pinky. “I’ve tried to speak to him several times over the past year. I’ve had other people try and talk to him. He’s shut himself off completely from me, and I’m the only family he has left. Last month, I got the address, drove to Duro, and showed up at the door. A hippie girl answered, and I just said, ‘I’m Timothy’s grandfather, and I need to talk to him.’ She went away, came back thirty seconds later, and said, ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you,’ and shut the door in my face. Left me standing there like a fool. He doesn’t care.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that, Mr. Kaufman.”
“It makes me sick, just sick. That boy was brilliant, Jerry. Did you know he graduated from Duro in the top ten? He missed being salutatorian by a hair. He loved science, loved math. He could have gone to any college, been anything. Now he just smokes dope and takes pills and pisses his life away in a hippie commune … crash pad … whatever you call it.”
“I hate to be harsh, but you might have done all you can,” said Jerry. “In a few years, he may straighten up and come back
around. Or he might not, but either way, you can’t blame yourself.”
“You might be right, my friend,” said Pinky. “But he’s all the family I have left—and all I have left of Sydney. I can’t give up on him without a fight. I have an idea, and I’m hoping you can help me with it.”
“What can I do?”
Pinky walked back around the desk and picked up a magazine. US News. “There’s this story in here. It’s pretty strange, but it got me thinking. Have you heard about the case where a nineteen-year-old kid joined this weird … religion … you might say, which then brainwashed him, completely took over his mind. He wouldn’t come home, wouldn’t talk to anybody outside the religion, even his parents. So his father, an air force captain, hired these fellows to grab him and … I don’t know … un-brainwash him. They called it ‘deprogramming.’ Supposedly it worked, and the kid’s normal now and says it was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“How did they do it?”
“Well, it sounds terrible, but they snatched him when he was walking outside the church, took him to a motel, and put him in this room with nothing to do, no TV, nothing to read, just simple food and water, for days.”
“Sound like solitary confinement in prison,” said Jerry.
“Well … yeah, I know it does. But they said it caused him to go into … what’s the word? … a receptive state, where he was ready to listen. And when the time was right, this guy just sat him down, talked sense to him, and finally got through. The church sued the father and the guys he hired, but the boy is taking his dad’s side, so the lawsuit hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Jerry was not comfortable with what Pinky seemed to be suggesting.
“Mr. Kaufman, let me see if I understand you. You want me to kidnap Timothy, keep him prisoner, and then try to talk him out of being a lazy hippie?”
“Well … yes, basically,” said Pinky. “It’s not quite that simple. Tim is a good kid. Those hippies have taken over his mind, like a cult. Brainwashed him. I think he’d come around. I figure it’s at least worth a try.”
Desert Discord Page 13
