by Jon Billman
We brake not to hit a family of mule deer crossing the highway in our high beams. Wayne downshifts and honks without breaking his line of thought.
“Yesterday, old guy at the gas station. His wife was younger—or just less sick—anyway, she looks spry and supple next to this guy she’s driving. She pulls up to the pumps, gets out, and pumps the gas. Ol’ passenger-side Methuselah must have had his prostate suctioned out two days before. But he puts all his energy, all his strength, into opening the car door, setting his feet on the concrete, and lifting himself upright so he can watch her pump his gas. This guy has had his life, but the wonderment was still there. I kinda smiled at him. That old man and me, warm sunshiny day, smell of high-octane unleaded, Antelope Street, Hams Fork. The meaning of existence passed between us right then and there.”
Wayne pauses for a moment, a bearded, contemplative pirate. “A guy like you,” he says, “women love you because they think you’re the kind that will evolve with them. They really believe that’s possible. Me? I’ve always been me, always will be. Wayne Kerr.” Wayne says his name like he’s the Emperor of Wyoming. “I think Harriet’s looking for someone to evolve with her. You’re pliable, still a pup. Plus she wants citizenship. All in one package, what a deal.”
“We’re fine just the way we are,” I say He knows I don’t like to talk about Harriet with him.
“Hey,” he says, “what are the chances of Harriet modeling for me?”
“Don’t go there, Wayne.” I’ve been ready for this. “Not happening. You can fire me and get someone else to make your mead, but I’d go back to chopping mackerel heads on a cannery barge off the coast of British Columbia before I’ll let Harriet be painted by you.” I know that Wayne’s models are more than just models. Wayne says the closer he is to his models, the more texture and dimension his paintings have.
“I didn’t say I wanted to paint her. I’ve been chewing on another idea,” Wayne says. “We can talk about this on our way back up the canyon.” Wayne lapses into song. He’s a taker, so he took her, ‘cause he could take her …
Though not nearly the highest, the Wellsville Mountains are some of the steepest in the world. They rise from the valley floor like steeples. Tucked up against the base of the Wellsvilles, across the range from Logan, and just east of Promontory, where a hundred and fifty years ago the golden railroad spike was driven that tied the East to the West and hurried this region on its way to hell, is the hamlet of Honeyville. Jersey and Holstein cows gather under streetlights along the roadside. Fields of dry corn and wheat stems butt against farmhouses along Main Street. The lighted marquee at the convenience store advertises three hot dogs for a dollar, ketchup available. Many apiaries. If not for the Wellsvilles and the neon absence of a bar or two, Honeyville could be in Illinois.
In the 1850s, Honeyville had been one of Brigham Young’s forts, the most northerly outpost in Utah. Now cottonwood trees surround the block-square ward house, a brick-and-mortar fortress with a parking lot the size of a Wal-Mart. What would ya do with a drunken sailor … Wayne cranks the wheel to starboard and we ease past the ward house, toward the railroad tracks, until a weather-bleached false-front general store comes into our headlights. On the side of the store a sign:
Tolman & Sons
GENERAL MDSE HARDWARE
&
COAL
“Time for business,” Wayne says as he gears down and turns the headlights off. Now we’re operating by moonlight. We pull our bandannas over our noses. The brakes squeak to a stop in front of the store. The figure of a man walks out of the shadows. He wears a western hat and a bandanna over his face. We’re all highwaymen here. The silhouette walks to my side of the truck. I slide the window open. “Who be you?” the man says. His voice is deep and coarse.
“Anama,” Wayne says. He had to explain it to me the first time I heard him use it. Wayne knows a lot more about Mormonism than some Mormons. “Anama” is a word used by special ops like the Sons of Dan a Mormon militia whose mission is to stop threats to the faith. Wayne says Mormons make up huge percentages of men in the FBI and CIA.
“All wheat,” the man says.
“All wheat,” Wayne says. “All’s wheat and honey.”
With that the man reaches me a thick Arby’s sack and the big door of the store slides open. Wayne takes the sack, looks inside, guns the engine, and the milk truck with us in it disappears inside the dark building. A swarm of men appear at the back of the truck and, excuse the metaphor, like bees, work at unloading the mead barrel by barrel. Bad-back Wayne and I step outside to wait.
Wayne counts the money from the Arby’s sack. Satisfied, he takes a cigar from his shirt pocket, pulls his bandanna down, and bites the end off the cigar, spits, and goes about his lighting ritual of flame, puffs, and sucks.
“Here’s your cut,” he says. “There’s enough there to buy your boss a Christmas present and still get Harriet a nice ring.” Wind licks the bills he hands me. I have enough saved up where I could marry Harriet and put a down payment on a house. Wayne never asks what I do with my money.
Tall cottonwoods towering over the house next door block out most of the moonlight. The house is old, very old stone. The windows are small, as if designed to keep something out. “Those windows,” Wayne says, pointing with his cigar. “I bet those window frames flare and on the inside they’re normal size, maybe even larger than normal size. Meant to keep flaming arrows and mad Utes at bay.”
“Why wouldn’t they just be small inside, too?”
“So a Mormon with a rifle could set up shop inside one, a bastion. I bet those walls are four or five feet thick.”
“No way,” I say, pulling the bandanna off my nose. “It’s only a house.”
“Look,” Wayne says, “the Mormons knew what the hell they were doing when it came to defense. I say those walls are four or five feet thick, and I’m willing to bet on it.”
“Bet what?”
“I’m right, Harriet models for me.”
“No bet, Wayne. I told you not to step into that territory.” “Okay, then, dinner. Dinner at the Habanero.” “Deal.”
At that it is like we are powerless to resist taking a look. We have time. The noises from inside the building tell us they are still unloading mead and reloading the truck with honey. The dark house, like the gravitational pull of the moon, drags us toward it. Our running shoes slip in the heavy frost. We stand in a dormant flower bed—bad-back, beer-belly Wayne standing on my shoulders— when headlights sweep into the driveway and pan the house, less like a Hollywood opening than a searchlight at Point of the Mountain. A car pulls down the little lane. We just stand there, frozen. The lights stay on, the engine stops, the lights go out. The metered chime of a door-open bell. Dim glow of interior light. Hard heels click up the flagstone sidewalk to where I’m straining to keep Wayne Kerr on my shoulders. “My word,” says an older female voice, European, British. “Pirates!”
Another car door opens, then after a time closes. Soft footsteps—tennis shoes—run up the sidewalk. “Why look, Benjamin, pirates.” The man or boy breathes audibly. “There are pirates in our flower bed. Heavens. Did your car break down? Now, you two men, come along inside this minute.”
Wayne defies the confinements of his bad back and jumps off my shoulder with the agility of a gymnast and lands on a small bush. He rubs the cigar out against the sole of his running shoe, puts the stogie in his pocket, and looks around, nervously, as if watching grapeshot rain across his bow. The front door isn’t locked. The woman opens it and turns on a hallway switch. “Come along, I’ll fix us all some cider.” The boy—he is more boy than man—studies us, his eyes full of pirates! He wears thick glasses with heavy frames. In the light of the entryway I can see his eyes are milky and heavy, like oysters in stew. “Well, Benjamin, introduce yourself,” the woman says.
“Hello,” Benjamin says. The syllables are long and carefully thought out: hell-low. He holds out his hand to Wayne and Wayne looks at me, then shakes it
. Then I shake Benjamin’s hand. The boy’s fingers are short and thick, his grip soft.
We follow. I catch a glimpse of myself in a hallway mirror, flannel and running shoes. I look pale and worried. Then suddenly, I find myself with Wayne Kerr in the harsh light of this woman’s kitchen. Smell of detergent and candles. The window above the sink is wide, but tapers toward the outside. The walls are every inch of four feet thick. Wayne is right.
“I’m Margaret,” she says. “Margaret Cloud.” Mid-fifties I’d guess, maybe sixty. She wears a dress, like a meeting dress. “I’m originally from the Old Country, from Goole. Zion is our home now.” She takes a deep, appreciative breath. “Benjamin is my youngest son. It’s just the two of us in Honeyville now. Peaceful it is. I have an older boy in Brigham City and a daughter in Salt Lake.” She pours cider from a plastic milk jug into an aluminum pan on the stove. “Do you need to use the phone?”
Wayne shakes his head no. “Well then, you must have business at the Tolman building. You must be honey merchants.”
Wayne clears his throat. “Honey merchants, yes, ma’am. We buy honey.”
“Oh, yes,” Margaret says. “And what ward are you from?”
Wayne is taken aback. “Oh, ah, Montgomery Ward. It’s in Wyoming.” Margaret smiles warmly and nods.
Magazines and newspapers cover the table. On the walls are antique kitchen tools and curios—a hanging plate with a portrait of Charles and Di. A thimble collection. Ceramic egg cups. Tin flour and sugar canisters. Cereal boxes. A plastic bear half full of honey. A yellowed print of a sloop in a storm. Taped to the refrigerator, childish crayon drawings and a computer printout:
BENJAMIN’S HUG LIST
Mother
Aunt Evelyn
Uncle Earl
Brother Hyrum
Sister Rachel
“They’re beautiful.” It’s Wayne. Margaret and I turn to see him studying a pair of old sailing-ship prints on the far wall.
“My father built sailing ships in Goole. Those are two he built,” Margaret says. “Do you men like history? Sit down, please.” She leaves the kitchen for the dining room. In a moment she returns, carrying a gin bottle, sideways. She hands the bottle delicately, like a baby, to Wayne. Inside the bottle is a minute and intricately detailed schooner. “I always thought of this as magic. My father built these at home, though he didn’t allow me to watch. Bottled magic. It’s done with thread, you know.”
I sit next to Wayne, whose head hangs slightly, eyes wide, as he studies the ship in the bottle. I hadn’t planned on being ambushed by a British Mormon. We had no Plan B for this.
“It’s so real,” Wayne says, and I know he’s forgotten the mead, the money, and the men next door. “It’s all there.”
Margaret leaves again and returns with a large book she sets before us. Then she pours cider from the steaming pan into coffee mugs on the counter. “Well, this house was built in 1856.” Wayne sets the bottle down, gently, like a baby, and opens the book to the first page. He points to an old photo of the house. “Honeyville was a fort then. Call’s Fort, they called it. The Indians used to come out of the mountains and pillage. Upset the peaceful balance we have here today, you see.” She sets the warm mugs in front of us. Mine has a unicorn on it. Wayne’s has a big red heart embossed with MOM. I look at Wayne and we commence sipping. I put the mug to my lips when a bright flash of light fills the room.
“Benjamin! You should have asked these gentlemen if they wanted their picture taken.”
Benjamin smiles wide, eyes big and round. He’s captured us. He’s captured our smugglers’ clumsiness on his Polaroid. The white negative spits out the bottom of the camera and the instant chemicals go to work, Benjamin’s smile turns to a confused frown. Wayne and I take shape on the negative like ghosts. “May I please take your picture?” Benjamin says. Wayne and I look at each other. Wayne shrugs and says, Sure, hell, why not. Benjamin snaps more photos and arranges them on the table like solitaire cards. Wayne sets his cider down and gathers the photos like a folded hand of cards.
The boy walks over to his mother and whispers something in her ear. Margaret nods her head. “Well, I guess you’ll have to ask them, won’t you.”
Benjamin takes a deep breath and raises his chin. “May I please have my picture taken with you?” Wayne and I look at each other. Margaret raises her eyebrows with pride. Wayne smiles and says, Hell, why not. He has ships in his eyes and nothing else matters. I can tell for the next few weeks, Wayne will be obsessed with working on his masterpiece.
We stand and Benjamin knocks into a chair positioning himself between us. I put my hands in my pocket because I don’t know if I’m expected to put my arm around him. I feel a piece of paper between my fingers, a grocery list Harriet gave me in case we have time to stop off in Logan, but we’re always so full of money, honey, and paranoia that we never stop on the way home.
Margaret aims the camera. “All right, say ‘cheese.’” Out of habit, I almost say “whiskey.”
“Cheese!”
This is the first word I’d said since coming into the Cloud home, and the word felt awkward in my teeth. The battery-powered motor rolls out the negative. Benjamin holds it, hands shaking, while we watch it develop, a face here, another, like children watching chickens hatch.
Yes, it looks like a mug shot—FBI photos in the post office.
“Hey, you’re quite a photographer,” Wayne says. “May we have them?”
“Yes,” Benjamin says and snaps another Polaroid. “I’ll keep this one.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I’ll need to have that one too,” Wayne says. I always knew a time like this was coming. It’s an inevitability in any below-board profession. This is where Wayne and I become Dick and Perry, violence where we hadn’t planned any. “I’ll buy all your photos of us,” Wayne tells him.
“No, sir,” Benjamin says.
“See, Benjamin, we’re like Indians and you’ve captured our souls. You wouldn’t want to keep our souls, would you?” “No, sir, just your picture.”
Wayne lunges for the photo but Benjamin dodges him and shoots out the back door into the Utah night. “Goodness,” Margaret says, looking up from her history book. “He collects Polaroids. Shares them with his friends.” Wayne looks at me and I raise my hands in surrender and thumb toward the door.
And when Benjamin passes the photos around the ward house on Sunday, the men in bandannas will receive visions of these particular pirates and our deliveries will no longer be wanted in Honeyville. I can’t stop thinking about Wayne’s love story—the old man watching his woman pump gas. Our latest career is over but I am thinking of Harriet, imagining I’m sitting at Habaneros watching her deliver steaming plates of greasy enchiladas with lots of Sonoran farmer cheese and onions. I somehow talk Wayne into stopping in Logan and we spend almost an hour wandering through the isles of Smiths, carefully checking off items from Harriet’s list: organic vegetables, special cheese, marmalade made with limes.
The Wagnerian fat lady, the operatic Valkyrie, has sung over this state. It’s over for us here. Like wild yeast, love lives here in the folds of Utah, and love shows itself to be more powerful than mead.
The rest is the scud up the canyon.
Back home Wayne stands at the bowsprit and works from memory, a photograph in his head. He clears the bark first, the Stihl chain saw wound like an eight-day clock, blue two-cycle smoke filling the air. Wood chips fly as he cuts toward the heart of a figurehead with a long, elegant neck, motherly breasts, eyes that are portals to the sea, a sensuous overbite. Hips develop, and strong, slender arms. The morning sun rises higher and brightens the snow on the Tropic of Kerr, though I can feel the barometric pressure drop inside me: a storm is coming. Wayne cuts the engine on the saw. His hot breath replaces the Teutonic smoke that drifts slowly eastward, toward Illinois. Heck slithers around the ribs, watching Wayne work, hunting for dark meat. With quiet, easy strokes of a rasp, Wayne smooths her full lips, high cheekbones, sharp nose, shoulders
, breasts. I watch him work, and this seems to distract him.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell Wayne, rubbing the wooden smoothness of Harriet’s cheek. He nods at me apologetically, blood rising to his head.
Like our Utah, the wild honeybees are no more. They have been replaced by domesticated apiary bees. But they too are being killed by the Chinese bee mite that lodges itself in the bee’s breathing tube. The mites came over in ships full of shit stamped MADE IN CHINA.
Utah has driven me closer to Harriet, and Harriet loves bread. But Wyoming may be a memory for her soon because I have not yet asked her to marry me. What I wish I could brew is a stronger mead, a mead fermented from the blood of an artist. And if I drank this mead I would be the wise one.
Wayne says marriage is an island, and sooner or later even Greenland becomes small. It is Robins spring break and she sits in a chair in the yard reading and watching Wayne.
Sometimes I have nightmares of Harriet playing a blues song on her sax while sailing back to England on a cattle ship. She’s in the pulpit, where she can blow something Leadbelly and raw and tempt fate as if it were icebergs. Sometimes in my recent dreams I’m married to a Valkyrie.
Wayne’s figurehead has the power to determine fate, both mine and Harriet’s, I suppose. Wayne sails on, testing his own, a fearless Leif Eriksson, Jason, Noah, Captain Bly. While my fate seems stuck.
Snow knocks at the window. An April storm. We’re not going anywhere tonight: the roads in and out of Hams Fork are closed. I knead the bread dough. The smell of warm yeast and rye blankets the apartment, fending off the foreign fumes from downstairs. While more dough rises, Harriet makes tea. She knows I take honey in my tea and she sometimes puts in too much. I watch her let the honey drip from the spoon into my cup and I can tell it’s too much but I don’t care. She is so beautiful standing there. I could watch her forever. Let it snow for forty days and forty nights.
