Desert Discord

by Henry D. Terrell

  His number did come up—only two draws later—but it was still okay to relax. He was in the safe zone. That was a little too fucking close for comfort, but the important thing was he didn’t have to go!

  His friend and housemate Andy had been weirdly uninterested in the draft lottery, though he was as vulnerable as Douglas. While Douglas sweated bullets in front of the TV, Andy practiced scale runs in his room. Andy’s number came up a little later. It was 307.

  So, why did this letter come in the mail? It was clear and to the point:

  SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM

  ORDER TO REPORT FOR

  ARMED FORCES PHYSICAL EXAMINATION

  You are hereby directed to present yourself for Armed Forces Physical Examination by reporting at:

  Assembly Room, 4th Floor, Mirabeau B. Lamar Building, 1300 Congress Ave., Austin, Texas

  On AUG. 17, 1970, at 7:00 a.m.

  IMPORTANT NOTICE

  (read each paragraph carefully)

  TO ALL REGISTRANTS: When you report pursuant to this order you must hoodily boodily whatever, but if you don’t comply we will FIND you, motherfucker, and we’ll send your worthless malingering ass to the fucking jungle, where you will DIE, we promise …

  … Or words to that effect.

  Douglas couldn’t quite get his breath. No. No, this can’t be right.

  There was a phone number, but it was long distance, so he called the local army recruiting office in Duro and told them the draft board had made a mistake.

  “It’s got to be wrong,” said Douglas. “It says I have to report for a physical. My selective service number was 197. The cutoff was 195. That’s what they said.”

  “Yes sir, that may be,” said the monotone voice of a bored man, “but anyone with a number of 215 or lower still has to report for the physical.”

  “Why?”

  “In case they need you. That cutoff number was just a guideline, you know. You can still be drafted. The draft board can pick anybody. They probably didn’t get their quota in the first round.”

  “But what if I don’t have time for the physical? It’s in Austin. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on here at the moment …”

  “Son, take my advice. Do what it says. Get the physical.”

  “Um … okay … thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” CLICK.

  Douglas sat on the couch, staring at the floor. Then he put his head in his hands and sighed deeply, his own mortality sitting before him like a gaping door, unknown darkness beyond it. Okay, it wasn’t a draft notice, just a physical. But, still …

  “Hey man, what’s up? Got a headache?”

  It was Reed, passing through, carrying a ten-pound bag of Rapid-Gro.

  “I have to get my draft physical,” said Douglas. He nodded toward the letter on the table. Reed set down the fertilizer and picked up the paper.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “I thought you got a high number. Well, that definitely sucks. But it doesn’t say you have to go.”

  “It says I’ll be prosecuted if I don’t go.”

  “No, I mean it doesn’t say you have to go to Vietnam. Though you still might. That would definitely suck. I’ve been there. You’d hate it. But yep, you gotta get the once-over from the draft board. I’ve done it. They grab your balls and make you cough. Yeah, it sucks.” He put the paper down, picked up the bag, and continued out to the greenhouse. Douglas put his head back down and shut his eyes. A few moments later, he heard a panting sound. He looked up to find Leary standing in front of him, ears drooping, mildly curious.

  “You’re my friend, aren’t you, buddy?” asked Douglas. He reached over and scratched Leary behind his left ear. The dog wagged his tail and licked Douglas’s hand, then turned and trotted away, untrimmed toenails clicking on the floor.

  Out on the hot, dusty road called Saturn Lane, Tony Escocito sat in his City of Duro Water Department truck, engine idling, and tried to get his bearings. He had a map and knew approximately where he was in the middle of this incomplete neighborhood, but there were no reference points on the road, no numbers or signs, and he had no idea which properties were which.

  The guys at the department had figured out the general area of the leak, but finding it was tricky. All they knew for sure was that this neighborhood in far west Duro, called Edgewood, was half the size of an adjoining neighborhood, yet used twice the water. Tony’s boss Frank Hendrix told him the first solution was to go block by block and check for signs of flowing water. Tens of thousands of gallons were going unaccounted for, and if it was a surface leak, it would be obvious. Hendrix told Tony to look first for pools of surface water in or near the subdivision. If nothing was found, then they had to assume it was an underground rupture that might be spilling into the sewer line.

  Tony checked the neighborhood block by block. The lanes went roughly north-south—Lynbrooke Lane, Collins Lane, Wedgefield, Maxine, Pine Forest. The numbered streets went east-west—81st, 82nd, 83rd. He checked every meter and all appeared normal—no rogue pools of water, no telltale patches of mud. It was a tedious job. After two weeks trying to narrow down and pinpoint the source of the anomaly, he had come up empty. The only possibility was that the water was going missing near one of the three semi-developed streets at the northwest corner of the subdivision, called preposterously Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The last had no development at all. This led Tony to guess that the ruptured pipe might be on that block, since there were no customers out there to report a problem.

  Fortunately, an underground leak should not be terribly difficult to find in an arid place like suburban Duro, because the countryside was so completely hostile to plant growth that a subsurface leak should reveal itself as one or more unusually green patches in the brown desert, depending on how long it had been going on. Tony drove back to the corner of 81st Street and Saturn and started driving slowly, peering out the side window, looking for suspicious swatches of luxurious mesquite or thistle growth. He drove the three long blocks, but nothing was apparent. He was disappointed, but he didn’t give up on the approach, because not all the land was visible—a low row of artificial hills and random stands of mesquite trees obscured large parts of the land, especially in the last block. He drove back slowly, craning his neck and sitting as high as he could. What he really needed was for somebody to stand up in the truck bed and look while Tony drove. Aside from that, the only alternative he could think of was to go around behind the properties and walk the half mile through the prickly pear and mesquite, and he wasn’t going to do that unless he had to.

  He had been out here for over two hours today and had to get back to the office. He decided he’d have to return in a day or two and bring one of the other guys. Admitting temporary defeat, Tony turned the truck around and headed back. He didn’t know it, but he was being watched.

  Crouching by the back fence of the Fairchild property lurked Reed Polk. When the city truck departed, Reed ended his surveillance mission and hurried back to the house.

  Douglas was there, still fretting over the prospect of his upcoming free but unwanted physical exam.

  He looked up when Reed came through the back door. “Hey,” said Douglas. “I got an idea. You know how I get a rash on my butt when it gets hot? What if I just let it go, don’t change my underwear or take a shower. The rash will flame up like hell. Really disgusting. When the army doctors see it, maybe they’ll write some bad stuff in my report about how fucked up my skin is …”

  “Doug!” Reed said. “Forget that shit for a minute. There’s a guy in a truck who was scoping out the land back by the field. He drove by twice, real slow. I don’t like it.”

  “Is he still there?” asked Douglas.

  “No, he left.”

  “You think he saw the crop?”

  “I don’t think so, but I still don’t like it. And it was a city truck. What the fuck are they doing back there? He was driving slow, like ten miles an hour. He was up to something. He had no business being there. He was checking things out
.”

  Doug thought for a moment. “It has to be the water,” he said. “There’s no other reason. I bet they’re on to the water. Shit!”

  “I told you we use too much water,” said Reed. “I told Jerry this wouldn’t work. I’ve been telling you that.”

  “I know, but what the hell were we supposed to do? The damn thing goes a million gallons a minute.”

  Doug walked outside, and Reed followed. They went back as far as the back fence, then Doug hesitated and turned around. “We have to disconnect the hose,” he said. “Not right now, but after we water tonight. We have to disconnect and move it. Throw some weeds and dirt into the hole so it doesn’t look like we used it. You can’t see the crop from where the meter is, at least not easily.”

  “If we don’t water the plants, then they’ll die.”

  “We have to think of something else,” said Douglas. “Either find another way to get water out there, or give up on the crop.”

  “Wait,” said Reed. “We don’t know for sure that’s why the guy was back there.”

  “Can’t take a chance,” said Douglas. “We have to disconnect. And we can’t go out there in the daylight for any reason. Never. From here on, we only go out after dark. We watch during the day, but stay out of sight. If they come out again and find the crop, then we will have to give up and tell Jerry the field is busted. If they don’t come back, then maybe they were there for something else and we can hook the hose back up. But tonight we have to disconnect the hose, cover up the meter, and hide everything.”

  “Jerry is going to be pissed,” said Reed.

  “Fuck Jerry,” said Douglas. “It’s our lives that are on the line here.”

  Before dawn the next morning, Reed retrieved Leary from his nightly guard duty and came inside to give the dog his water and meat-flavored cereal product. Douglas was sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee.

  “I thought of something we can do to throw them off,” said Douglas. “We have to create a water leak somewhere else.”

  “How can we do that?” asked Reed. “You mean actually break the water main? That’s crazy.”

  “No, just make it look like the water problem is somewhere else. Where’s that iron thing, the water key?”

  The sun was just rising over the distant Duro skyline as Reed and Douglas walked north along Saturn. At another undeveloped property, two addresses up from Dope Farms, they found another water meter, brushed away the dirt and weeds from the iron cover, and pried it off. It took both men and considerable muscle, but they managed to open the valve with the water key. Water suddenly shot out of the hole in a brown geyser. Mud flying in their faces, they turned the valve back to the right to stem the flow. After several false attempts and a thorough soaking, they succeeded. The water flowed slowly but steadily, gradually filling the hole.

  “Okay,” said Douglas. “If the city truck comes back, they’ll think this is the problem.” They replaced the cover and kicked dirt back over it.

  “Even if it works, we still can’t just go back to stealing water,” said Reed. “They will figure out that something’s still happening out here.”

  “Let’s worry about that later. Shit, if I have to haul five-gallon buckets of water every night, I’ll do it. We’ve come too far to let the fucking fascist water department drive us out of business.”

  Reed and Douglas went back to the house. It was way too late in the morning to be out here, but they didn’t see anyone. Now they would wait, and watch.

  As they approached the back door, Reed saw something around the front of the house. It was an Oldsmobile 442, parked at an angle in the gravel driveway.

  “Hey!” said Reed. “I think Jerry De Ghetto is here. What does he want?”

  – 40 –

  What Bus Stations Are Really For

  It was a slow, yellow-green nightmare, the long layover in Abilene. There was no straight route south. The bus left Duro at nine thirty p.m. and arrived at the Abilene station just before midnight, which was at least forty-five minutes longer than it would have taken by car. The next bus, the one to Austin and on to Houston, was scheduled to leave at four thirty a.m.

  He sat in one of those smooth, hard chairs that they have in public waiting areas, stylish and curved, with no sharp angles. They were white plastic once but now were stained and yellow and chipped on the edges. Along the walls were wooden benches, much older than the plastic seats, worn and scarred and carved with initials for decades. Every few years they were lightly sanded down and revarnished, setting the overlapping letters and unreadable symbols into a permanent patina.

  He couldn’t lie down in the modern plastic seats, so after putting his head into different positions and trying to move his knapsack around to serve as a pillow, he gave up and moved to one of the ancient wooden benches and stretched out. In the daylight hours, somebody would have come over to tell him this wasn’t allowed. Between midnight and dawn, nobody cared. Here and there in the Abilene bus station, a few other representatives of the lowest strata of society did the same thing.

  The fluorescent lights were awful and harsh and made him feel like he lived in a void consisting of nothing but harsh light. Nobody could sleep under these conditions. Not a chance. But then, strangely, he did fall asleep, though it was fitful.

  Running away was Del Ray Dustin’s alternative to death. He wondered if he hadn’t made the wrong choice. By fleeing, he was running from the unsustainable known toward a terrifying unknown. Where he had been, at least, he had fit in some of the time.

  When he was young, he had been like all the other guys. School, Little League, Cub Scouts, church youth groups, friendships, and fights. He was basically shy but still made friends, was accepted. When they all got a little older and started cracking jokes about girls and teasing them at school, Del Ray went along with it and gave it his best. It didn’t come naturally, but it was easy to imitate.

  He had girlfriends. Not the kissing and giggling kind, but regular friends. Especially Veronica Striker. They lived on the same block and attended elementary school and junior high together, and when they walked to and from school, they walked together. He liked her a lot. She was sarcastic in a funny way and told him stories about her friends and family that made her life sound far richer and more interesting than his could ever be. But she never looked down on him, and he could tell her anything.

  They drifted apart in high school, but not completely. He still talked to her sometimes in the school’s outdoor smoking area, an open patio between the cafeteria and the gym where you could smoke if your parents signed a permission form. Veronica’s mother had signed, and every day after lunch Veronica stood out there, puffing her Doral cigarettes with five or six other licensed smokers. Del Ray didn’t smoke, except the occasional puff he would sneak from Veronica, but he loved to stand with her, laughing and talking about anything and everything.

  Now that they were both older, they didn’t have as much to say to each other anymore. Still, she never rejected him, even when it was obvious he wasn’t going to be like the other guys. As far as Veronica was concerned, that was a plus. You’re not like those other guys.

  But he wasn’t like those other other guys either. There were a couple of them at school. Raymond Tubbs was one, pudgy and pale, with a girl voice. The guys were often cruel to Raymond, and sometimes Del Ray joined in the cruelty, but it made him feel bad later.

  Once, in the cold wind in front of the school, waiting in the morning for the doors to open, Del Ray stood with a pack of guys, milling around, moving to stay warm, and Chris Rhodes told a joke. It went like this:

  “A guy walks into a bar and says [Chris gave a full-on Raymond Tubbs imitation], ‘Hey bartender, where’s the boooooys?’

  “So the bartender says [Chris switched to his low, manly voice], ‘I think they’re out back.’

  “Guy walks out back and says [Raymond Tubbs voice], ‘Hi, boooooys, what-cha do-in?’

  “So one of the guys says [manly voice],
‘We’re hanging queers.’

  “The first guy says [manly voice], ‘Oh … never mind.’”

  The guys all howled with laughter. Hanging queers! Good one, Chris!

  Del Ray laughed too. He didn’t have the girly voice and hated guys who did. He might not feel the same as the regular guys, but he knew how to act normal. If he waited long enough, maybe he would start feeling normal, too.

  Then the thing happened with Neil Griffin. Neil didn’t have the voice either. And he didn’t seem as scared of himself as Del Ray was. How he spotted Del Ray as a kindred spirit was a mystery, but he did, and wasted no time letting him know that he shared his curiosities and inclinations.

  The two of them didn’t ever do anything, not much, not really, but what they did do, just fooling around, they usually did in the little hallway beside the locker room after school because they figured everybody was gone and they’d have privacy. The third time they fooled around, they had no way of knowing one of the basketball coaches was working quietly in his office just off the hallway. He had walked out so quickly and unexpectedly, they didn’t have time to scramble, pull themselves together, and look innocent.

  The coach stood glaring, disgust undisguised. “You boys straighten up your clothes and follow me,” he’d said. And they both did, and ended up in the principal’s office for the next two and a half hours as parents, administrators, and school medical authorities were called and assembled.

  Nobody yelled. Nobody even raised a voice. Everybody was serious. Del Ray’s mother cried quietly. Neil’s mother didn’t—she fumed and smoked and muttered about how the school administrators were idiots and were wasting her time. Del Ray’s dad wasn’t there, thank God.

  In the end, they said the boys needed counseling from a school psychologist. Del Ray went, spending an hour talking to an earnest man with a monk’s bald spot who acted like he was Del Ray’s best friend in the world and used the words “normal curiosity” a lot. In the end Del Ray figured out that if he just agreed with everything the school psychologist said, he’d let him go. He did, assuring Del Ray that anytime he felt confused about his feelings, he could come by and talk, as long as it was during normal school hours.