Joe Burke's Last Stand

by John Moncure Wetterau

  “I didn't want any trouble with the law, but, as usual with me, curiosity won out. Several nights later Mike and I were seated at a table in Crazy Horse, a topless bar that catered to Marines. He was short and stocky, intense. After a couple of beers, I said, `So, I heard you were the cat burglar. That right?'.

  “`Guess so,' he said. I asked him how that had happened.

  “`It's so damned easy,' he said. He had been adopted by a well-to-do couple. The relationship hadn't worked out as they had hoped. He told me about robbing Aku over and over. Aku was a radio personality. Mike said he couldn't stand him. Mike had never been caught, even though the cops, by this time, knew. The island is small; word gets around.

  “`One time,' Mike said, `I was going along an upstairs hallway and I looked through a door: a little girl was sitting up in bed watching me. I didn't want to scare her—you know how they are, big eyes and all—so I went in and sat on her bed. I told her not to worry; I was just doing my job, looking for things at night. I told her that her job was to get a good sleep, have good dreams, and be ready to have a great day when she woke up. She settled back down and smiled, you know . . . I patted the bed and left. Some kind of bird let go with a giant scrawk, and I got the hell out of there, down over the lanai in back.'

  “`You're not going to believe this, Mike,' I said. I told him about the six foot bird cage in the atrium of that Kahala beach house and the little girl who stuck to her story.”

  Alison bounced in her chair and clapped. “Good for her!”

  “That was twenty years ago,” Joe said. “Mike got caught. The girl probably has her own children now.”

  “You must tell her,” Alison said. “She should know. The truth is important.” Alison had a point. Joe had felt guilty about that before.

  “The house is still there,” he said. “Maybe I'll see what happened to them.”

  “If they've moved, maybe you could find out where and send a letter.”

  “Aha,” Joe said as dinner arrived. He had gone crazy and ordered steak. Alison bent over her scampi and inhaled deeply. “Garlic,” she sighed.

  “Garlic!” They touched glasses again. Dark ruby light circled and glanced through his Cabernet Sauvignon. By dessert, Alison had told him that she was from a small town near Madison, Wisconsin, that her father had been an inventor, that her mother was still alive, aging and in need of care.

  “My father was hurt in an accident at work. I had to take care of him when I wasn't in school. My mother always had other jobs. He was strict. I couldn't go out like the other girls. I was taken in by our church; they gave me a scholarship.”

  “So you went from home to the church life—and you never got married?”

  “Never met anyone willing, Joe. Anyone right, that is.” She bent over the table and lowered her voice. “I'm a virgin—can you imagine?”

  “What!?” A head turned in their direction and Joe lowered his voice to match hers. “How on earth?”

  “I believe in the sacrament of marriage, Joe. Technically, I'm not a virgin because of something that happened a long time ago. But, actually, I am one.” He blinked several times as she continued, “I had a boyfriend for five years. He was divorced. He was afraid of commitment, Joe.” Joe took a large swallow of wine. “We used to fool around. Nothing below the waist,” she added.

  “Gurmpph.” He cleared his throat. No one seemed to be paying any attention. Alison was still leaning forward. His eyes were fixed on her swelling breast and the curve of black lace that rose and disappeared behind her blue-green blouse. “Coffee,” Joe said. “We must have coffee.”

  It had grown dark gradually, and Alison had her wish to look at city lights. Honolulu lies on a narrow plain between the mountains and the Pacific. Sharp ridges descend toward the water. The ridge faces have been developed; at night they are like jeweled fingers, reaching high, separated by vast darknesses. “Beautiful.” Joe swept his hand toward the window.

  “Even nicer than I hoped,” Alison said. “I didn't mean to embarrass you, Joe.”

  “I'm not embarrassed. It seems like a waste, that's all.”

  “That's sweet.” They had coffee and took a cab to her apartment, not far from the university. “Was it so bad being normal?” she asked.

  “No,” he admitted. She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek. He felt like Uncle, thanked for a birthday present.

  “There,” she said and got out. “Night, Joe.”

  “Goodnight, Alison.” The cab driver remained silent. “Oh, yeah,” Joe said. “Liholiho Street.”

  8

  The young beauty with the makeup was not at the Wailana the next morning. Joe ate a waffle and stared across the counter at the seat where she had been. As he reached for his notebook, he realized why she was sad. She was a perfect twenty-two, frozen in time; she would never be younger, more beautiful, or more beautifully made up to answer a man's fantasy. And it wasn't enough. We must begin again, he said to himself, identifying with her—begin again without shame. Sometimes you have to start over, even go backwards, in order to go forward in a different direction.

  He wrote the words down and nodded. It was a poem. He imagined someone reading his words, someone he didn't know. It was a good feeling. Lost mail—that's what a poem is, he decided. He made up his mind to submit it to the university literary publication. He had tried before to be published, without success, but he'd not put much effort into it. He'd written for himself, really.

  He walked home, prepared the lost mail, and left a message for Mo, “Let's have lunch.”

  An e-mail from Kate was waiting for him.

  “Dad, the big step! Jackson and I have decided to get married. We've rented a house on San Juan Island to be a central gathering place, the week of Sept. 14-21. The ceremony will be Saturday, outside at the county park, followed by a dinner at the yacht club. I'm hoping everyone will come—Mom, of course, and Ingrid and Maxie. The island is beautiful. I'm making a packet with maps, ferry schedules, and info on places to stay. More later. I wanted to tell you right away. Love, Kate.”

  “Big news, Batman!” It was a good marriage, but nothing would ever be the same. Sally and Ingrid on the same island? Yikes. He didn't have anything to wear.

  Joe reeled around the apartment and then e-mailed back, “Congratulations! I'll be there. More congratulations. Love, Dad.” He pulled an electric broom from the back of his closet and began pushing it back and forth across the carpet. Jackson was a good fellow. Kate was happy. He had never met Jackson's parents. He was going to have to be respectable. Where was San Juan Island, anyway? Reservations? The last dust crumb had disappeared into the electric broom when Joe stopped pacing. He put the vacuum cleaner away and decided that the sensible thing to do was to take a walk.

  The phone rang.

  “Hi, Joe.”

  “Uh, hey there.” It was Alison.

  “I enjoyed dinner last night.”

  “So did I.”

  “Joe, would you come exploring with me? I'm going to rent a car and see some of the island.”

  “Well, sure,” he said, “but I've got a lot to do.”

  “Me, too. It will be fun, Joe. I'm thinking about the end of the week, maybe Friday or Saturday.”

  “Saturday would be good,” he said, pushing it ahead.

  “I'll pick you up at ten. How do I get to your place?” He gave directions and then suggested that she meet him at Tops instead.

  “That way I can get some writing done early, and it won't matter if you get held up.”

  “Tops—near the Ilikai?”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K. Ten o'clock. Joe, have you written down the story about the girl and the cat burglar?”

  “No.”

  “It's your responsibility,”Alison said.

  “Mmm. My daughter's getting married! I just heard.”

  “Wonderful! You can tell me all about it, Saturday. What kind of car do you like to drive?”

  “Something heavy . . . with
a machine gun.”

  “Oh, Joe.”

  “If they're out of those, get the kind with the bumper tires lashed around.”

  “O.K.—if they have them,” she said. “See you Saturday.”

  Joe put a new notebook in his back pocket, and left for the second walk of the day. He found the San Juan Islands in an atlas at the main library. They were small, off the northernmost coast of Washington. He strolled to the Columbia Inn and ate a Reuben sandwich. It would be good to see everyone and to meet Jackson's family. All he had to do was show up in shape and not drink too much. He would buy an outfit that could travel in the Filson bag. A camera. The Edgewater, he thought. Stay there Thursday, stay on the island Friday and Saturday nights, and then go back to the Edgewater on Sunday—that would break up the trip. He made a list, and then he began to write about Mike and the little girl.

  The message light was blinking when he got home. “Joe, are you there?” It was Mo. “No? I'm afraid lunch will have to wait. My sister has talked me into going on a retreat with her. I'm going to combine the trip with work, and then we're both going to Vermont for my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. I won't be back until Labor Day.” She paused. “Maybe we can get together then. Bye.” Damn. Joe had been hoping that she would be a buffer against Alison's attention. He made tea, sat at the computer, and began to enter the cat burglar story.

  The next days were filled with writing and shopping. His money was draining away, but Kate's wedding was important. How could he skimp? The San Juan Islands would probably be cool in September. He bought a silk and wool blend jacket—olive, gray, and brown in a quiet weave. A pair of lightweight wool pants, neutral gray green, a silvery tan Italian dress shirt, and a dark brown tie complemented the jacket. He bought an Olympus camera that had a sliding lens cover and would fit in a pocket. His shoes had been re-soled twice and were ragged. He bought another pair, the same style, trusty Clarks. The outfit was expensive, but he wanted to dress honestly.

  “I want to feel like myself,” he told Alison on Saturday.

  “I'm sure your daughter will be proud of you,” Alison said.

  “The clothes should last—if I don't climb a tree or fall into a vat of red wine.” They were headed out of town toward Nanakuli. It was raining on and off; the weather was likely to be better on the leeward side.

  “How's your course?” Joe asked.

  “Interesting. Zen is so different in its practice—from Christianity, I mean. It makes me want to go to Japan and visit the monasteries, find a teacher. You need a teacher to learn what counts, to become one yourself.”

  Alison was so positive that Joe found it hard to imagine her having had job troubles. “Why did you get fired, if you don't mind my asking?”

  “It was troubling. I did my undergraduate work at a bible college, but I'm well educated, Joe. I have a masters in communication from Columbia and a PhD. The students were trained to go out and do the Lord's work, but they were only getting one point of view in their education. The books in the curriculum dealt with science from a fundamentalist point of view, presenting arguments as though they were objective and unbiased. The students graduated thinking that they were educated when they really weren't. It made them confident and more able to face the work, but I didn't like it. The Lord is not afraid of different points of view, Joe.”

  Joe had not met any one on such comfortable terms with the Lord. She was absolutely unaffected. “It's funny,” she said, “what triggered the final blow up was an editing job I did on an article for the school publication. The writer—one of the trustees—insisted on capitalizing the word `bible' in places where it was not appropriate.”

  “Good heavens,” Joe said.

  Alison giggled. “Really. In the light of eternity, what difference does it make?”

  “I think they lost a good person,” Joe said.

  “I did my best,” she said. “I brought lunch.”

  “Great!” They drove up a narrow rocky valley and ate by the side of the road in the company of two horses. Alison had packed a bottle of wine to wash down sandwiches of red peppers, goat cheese, and watercress. “You went to a lot of trouble,” Joe said. “Terrific sandwiches.”

  “I should have brought glasses for the wine.”

  “We're roughing it,” Joe said, pouring more into his paper cup. “I wrote the cat burglar story,” he remembered.

  “Oh, good!”

  “Yeah, I took it to the house in Kahala. An old guy answered the door and told me that the family had sold him the house and moved to California. He was nice. He gave me their address, so I sent the story. You were right; it was my responsibility. It felt good to drop the letter in the mail. Hope it gets to her.” Alison clapped her hands. The horses ears picked up. “I used to work with someone who lived around here,” Joe said. “The horses reminded me. Her name was Lovena. Her family took care of horses.”

  “Where did you work?”

  “In a warehouse. She was slim, like a boy, with short black hair and brown skin. She was strong—beautiful, really. I was falling in love with her, but I was married.” Alison sighed.

  “Lovena was great, very shy and quiet, hard working. Sometimes she talked to me when the orders were packed and shipped. She talked about horses and barracuda and manta rays. I guess there's one time of year when mantas come into shallow water to mate or lay eggs or something. People can step on them by accident and get hurt.” Joe paused, remembering. “When Lovena said `manta' or `barracuda,' the words weren't just names; they were respectful. A `bar-ra-cu-da' was important, important as any life.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Don't know. I quit. I hated to say goodbye. In fact, the last day there, I asked if I could come see her. She was feeling bad, too. She looked me in the eye and said, `Yeah—and you bring your wife and that pretty little girl with you.”'

  “Good for her,” Alison said.

  “Mmm.”

  “It looks like the rain might be stopping. Let's find a beach,” Alison suggested.

  “Yes.” Joe corked the wine and called to the horses. “Say hi to Lovena for me, will you?”

  Alison drove out to the highway, and they spent the afternoon poking around, reaching the end of the road and turning back. Neither was in a hurry to return to the city. At the end of the day, they were standing in a beach park as the sun slipped toward the horizon.

  “I think a front just went through,” Joe said. “Wow!” A dark cloud layer caught fire, lit from below by the setting sun. Purple and crimson flares rolled across the bottom of the ragged sky. Two hundred yards away, a painted flagpole split the clouds with a brilliant white line. It was like a crack in the universe, a glimpse of the beyond.

  Alison moved closer and they stared at the energy that seemed to pour through the crack.

  “Too much,” Joe said.

  “Oh, Joe.” They walked to the rental car in the parking lot and got in. He reached for her. It was spontaneous and all wrong. Alison was not the right woman. They hugged, their bodies twisting awkwardly in the small seats as they tried to get closer. As they clung to each other, ordinary as cloth, as dogs in a parking lot, Joe was unexpectedly transported with relief. He was a tiny speck in a universe of stars and specks and emptiness. Nothing kept happening to him like a tap in the head, like shells falling away. He could have howled with laughter or cried in utter gratitude—if it mattered.

  “Would you drive?” Alison asked.

  “Sure.” They rode in silence back to Honolulu. Joe stopped by his building and got out of the car. Alison opened her door and came around to the driver's side. Joe put his arms around her, and she settled her head against his chest. They stood for a moment. “Bye,” Joe said. She turned her face up. He took her shoulders in his hands, kissed her quietly, and turned away.

  “Bye, Joe.”

  He waved and walked slowly inside. Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones . . . The Dylan line echoed in his mind as he cl
imbed the stairs. It was true. Something was happening. It didn't feel like love, exactly. Or sex, exactly. He was still shocked by the freedom and relief that had overwhelmed him in the parking lot.

  Three days later, Alison cooked dinner for them in her apartment. They were sitting on her couch when Joe tried to describe what he had felt during their hug by the beach.

  “Sounds like what the zen people call `little satori,”' she said.

  “I don't know,” he said. “I think I've been messed up.” His eyes were fixed on the front of her blouse.

  “Help yourself,” she said comfortably.

  He undid four buttons, slid down on the couch, and laid his hand on her breast. His mind began to sign off as her nipple responded. Slow spasms moved up his body, stopping his breath and tightening his stomach muscles. Alison tuned right in, moving with him, sighing. In a few minutes they were lying on her bed, marriage considerations and the below-the-waist rule suspended. She came easily and gratefully. They were like two thirsty people sharing a glass of water.

  Alison got up some time later. Joe was lying with his eyes closed, arms outstretched, when he felt a washcloth gently but firmly applied. He jumped. “Just cleaning up,” she said cheerfully. “Go back to sleep.” Joe pictured his apartment. He rolled over on his side.

  “Alison . . . “ he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You take to this like a duck to water.”

  “It must be the Swedish,” she said seriously.

  “Alison, that was wonderful, but I have to go home.”

  “Oh.” She was disappointed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K., Joe.”

  He dressed, hugged her, and stepped outside. Widely separated streetlights cast circles of blue light; hedges and trees were dark green in the shadows. He was only forty minutes from home and he wanted to walk in the cool air. Alison was going to make up for lost time. She was in love with him and linking fast. He didn't want to hurt her.

  “Complications,” he told Batman, on duty at his post on the lanai. “Nothing we can't handle.” But he wasn't so sure.