Desert Blues

by Bill Albert

  “Hey you boys,” someone had shouted, “what do you think you’re doing there?”

  It was one of the park attendants. He came hurrying over toward them. He was wearing a brown uniform and had a long-handled rake in one hand. They ran, not looking back, robbed of the final scene.

  Harold often wondered if the park guy had reached the cat before it was sucked under.

  . . . After All

  It seemed as if she had spent the entire night trying to get to sleep. She would doze off fitfully and then wake up again: two o’clock, three-thirty, four-fifteen. Every time she looked at the luminous dial of the Baby Ben on the bedside table it was too early to get up. Finally, the sound of the patio door opening woke her up. She looked at the clock again. It was six o’clock, late enough to stop fighting and get out of bed. But, what was Harold doing up so early? Then she remembered about her father and immediately was wide awake, her stomach churning.

  Hurriedly she showered and dressed, all the time rehearsing what she would say to him. What do you say to a father you haven’t seen since you were ten years old? A father who walked away without so much as a good-bye and left you and your mother and sister without a penny. Tell him what a bastard he had been? What a hard time her mother had had? No. What was the point after twenty-five years? He looked to be beyond recriminations, and in any case, she didn’t want a scene. There was always, “Hi, nice to see you.” No, that didn’t sound right, and anyway, it wasn’t particularly nice to see him. On the other hand, she was curious. She had to admit that it would be interesting to talk to him, find out things. But, if she did that, if she asked him about himself wouldn’t he take that as a sign that she was being friendly and forgiving? She didn’t want to put out signs like that. He would read them as “stay awhile.” Right. She would say how she was glad to see him, and . . . Glad? Why not a white lie? It wouldn’t hurt. OK. She was glad to see him, but no, she was sorry, as he could see it was a very small place. And there was Harold to think about. He would have to find somewhere else, she would tell him. Was there a YMCA? Surely not in Palm Springs. In Indio? If she gave him some money would he go away? How much cash did she have in the house? Maybe money wasn’t such a great idea. It might just encourage him to hang around, like putting out a saucer of milk for a stray cat. Muttering out loud to herself, she paced slowly back and forth across the small bathroom. Suddenly she caught sight of her face in the mirror. She stopped.

  Is this what he’s done to me already, she thought, seeing the lines of tension across her forehead, the corners of her mouth pulled down tight. Opening and closing her mouth as wide as she could, she tried to relax. It didn’t work, and as she watched, the lines seemed to etch their way deeper into her skin.

  “Holy God in Heaven!” she shouted at the face in the mirror. “You haven’t even spoken to him yet and already you’ve put on ten years.”

  Shadow, liner, mascara, a touch of powder, lipstick. If she stood back a step or two, she didn’t look so bad. She tried to smile. It looked as if she was in pain.

  The patio door was wide open. It made her angry. She was always so careful to close it so that the flies, spiders, beetles, and all the other things that crawled or slithered out of the desert wouldn’t get into the house. The old man had been there five minutes and had opened the floodgates. They’d be everywhere by now. In the drapes, under the sink, in the closets. Eating things, spinning webs, waiting to drop in her hair, to run across her face in the middle of the night. Archie hated bugs. She’d have to call in the exterminators. Damn!

  He was sitting in her chair by the pool, his back to the house. His shoes were off and he was dangling his feet in her water. She stepped out onto the patio, sliding the door closed behind her. Taking a deep breath, she walked toward him. The cement felt cool under her bare feet. He didn’t move until she was standing next to him.

  “That’s good,” he said, turning around and looking up at her. “Very good. An early riser just like your father.”

  “Good morning,” she said, trying to keep any emotion out of her voice.

  “Of course, good morning!” he said, struggling up from the chair. “After all this time, good morning, my little girl! Good morning!”

  He looked at her, his eyes moving up and down, cataloguing, assessing.

  “Not my little girl, huh? My big girl! Sure, all lovely and grown up. So lovely she is!”

  Smiling broadly, he stepped forward and put out his arms to embrace her. Seeing her stiffness and her cold stare, he stopped. His arms hung in the air for a second or two, then fell weakly to his sides.

  “Sure,” he said, with a shrug. “I understand. You don’t see me for twenty years and . . .”

  “Twenty-five years.”

  “Yeah, of course, twenty-five years and so maybe I shouldn’t expect a big welcome. I can see that. But it was so long ago, Enid honey, so long ago and I am your father, which has gotta be worth something to you, and I’ve come all this way here to see you and the boy and . . .”

  In the morning sunlight his face looked more ravaged than it had the night before. A fine patina of broken blood vessels under the gray stubble. The skin a pale yellow, like thin parchment. Wet, gelatinous eyes. A livid scar cut across his forehead. His hands trembled.

  “ . . . see how you’re doing.”

  She sat down by the side of the pool and put her feet in the water.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it? Cooling,” he said, settling back in the chair.

  She glanced at his feet. Like his face they were yellowish and red veined, the toenails thick and a deeper yellow. Yellow seemed to be his color—skin, teeth, nails. She looked away.

  “Why?” she asked, staring out into the water.

  “Why? Why what?” he replied.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Such a question! Why? Why did I come?”

  He looked at her, but she wasn’t going to help him. Finally, he gave up.

  “Like I said Enid honey, to see you.”

  “But, why?”

  He patted the pockets of his jacket.

  “You don’t have a smoke, do you? I seem to be fresh out.”

  Enid put her hand in the pocket of her blouse and found a half empty pack of Salem. She tossed them to Abe.

  “Thanks. Salem, huh? Don’t really care for menthol,” he muttered under his breath. “You see it, son of . . .”

  “You don’t like ‘em,” she said through tight lips, “don’t smoke ‘em. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Hey, no, sure, ha, ha, don’t get me wrong, Enid honey. They’ll be fine, really. Just fine.”

  He lit a cigarette and put the pack on the ground by his chair. He inhaled deeply and began to cough. His body shook violently. After a minute the coughing stopped.

  “Excuse me. First one in the morning is always like that. Old lungs are a little bit rusty, if you hear what I’m saying.”

  With a grating, nimbly noise he cleared his throat, expertly directing the glob of spit into the nearby bushes. Enid shuddered and looked away.

  “Ah, that’s better, much better. Now what was it you were asking me?”

  Enid paused before answering. He was sitting too comfortably in her chair, shoes off, making himself at home. Her plan for getting rid of him was slipping away. She had to turn it all around and quickly.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked in a brisk businesslike voice. “What do you want with me? From me?”

  “Want? What do I want? I should want something? Isn’t it enough to see your daughter and your grandson? Enid honey, we’re family, aren’t we?”

  He rolled back one sleeve and pointed at his thin naked arm. It was covered in red tracks where he had been scratching.

  “Blood,” he said. “You’ve got my blood in your veins. So does that boy. Herman isn’t it?”

  “Harold. His name is Ha
rold.”

  “Harold, sure that’s it. I knew that. Harold. So you see,” he said with a shrug, “that’s all there is. In the end you’ve only got your family. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “I hear you. Loud and clear I hear you. What I want to know is why after twenty-five years all of a sudden family, blood, or whatever should become so important for you? Huh? Why so all-fired important?”

  Abe took the cigarette out of his mouth and waved it in the air. With his other hand he rubbed hard at his armpit.

  “You don’t think it’s always been important for me, Enid? You think I’ve got such a hard heart I didn’t worry about you and Sylvia, my poor baby, and your dear mother too? No, of course not. I worried. Sure, I did. Not a day passed when I didn’t think about you. Not a day, I swear to you.”

  He raised his right hand as if he was going to take a oath.

  “On my mother’s grave I swear to you.”

  “If you were so worried,” she said her voice starting to edge up, “Why the hell didn’t you just come back?”

  “OK,” he said leaning forward, hands on his knees. “I hear what you’re saying here. Sure. But you know, I started to come back. A lot of times I started. And always, always something happened. A chance of a job in another town. The money running out. This or that. You know, it was the Depression. It was hard to find work. Real hard.”

  He paused, fighting to capture enough air to continue. Enid waited, fighting to harden her heart.

  “You see, Enid, I was a salesman, and in the ‘30s it was tough for salesmen. No one had any money to buy things. So, no one wanted to employ salesmen, no matter how good you were, and I was good. You can write that down in your book. They all said that about Abe Cohen. A good salesman. Anything. Abe Cohen can sell anything. So, what did it do for me? Huh? What? Like everyone else, I had to move around looking for work. When I found it, it never lasted long. They’d get everything they could from me, suck me dry, then give me the gate. ‘Sorry, Abe, we’d love to keep you on, but you know how it is.’ I knew how it was. Everyone knew. I had to move on. You gotta believe me, Enid honey, I always planned to come back.”

  This is a mistake, she thought. I’ve started with the recriminations, getting involved. I have to cut him off and get him out of here. With every word he’s digging himself in. The longer he stays, the more he talks, the more difficult he’s going to be to move.

  “Yeah, OK, OK. So what? Hard times, hard luck, whatever, you didn’t come back and now you’re here.”

  “Sure, now I’m back,” he said with a big smile. “Back with the family.”

  “That’s great,” she said trying to find the right tone of voice, not wanting to get any closer to him. “But you’re too late. Twenty-five years too late. Too late for your wife, my mother, who worried and worked herself to an early death. Too late for your oldest daughter, who died with nothing but bitterness for you in her heart and too late for your ‘little girl’ who is, as you say, ‘grown up’ and who did the growing up without any help from you. There’s no family here for you now. No family at all.”

  He sat back and shook his head sadly.

  “You think I wanted that?” he asked, seemingly in genuine anguish. “You can’t think I wanted that? My poor Rachel and my first baby, my Sylvia, both dead?”

  He took a red-checked handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose.

  “I might not be the world’s greatest husband or the world’s greatest father. I give you that. Not the world’s greatest, but to wish them dead? Please, Enid honey, have some pity on an old man.”

  He gasped himself to a sudden, tearful halt. She could hear the air leaking into his chest.

  Good God! This is getting worse and worse, thought Enid. He’s starting to make me the heavy.

  “OK,” she said, “Now you’ve seen me, you’ve seen Harold. Now what?”

  “So brisk, she is, so brisk with her father. We haven’t even had a chance to talk, Enid, really talk. There’s so much to tell you, to ask you. Do you think maybe we could have a cup of coffee?”

  She gave him a hard look and didn’t answer. She felt she’d already said too much. He looked at her searchingly.

  “I don’t feel so good,” he said, his voice suddenly weaker and more shaky.

  He began to cough again, shoulders heaving up and down with the effort. Enid got to her feet.

  “OK, OK,” she said impatiently, “you don’t have to show me, I’ll get you a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar?”

  He gave a feeble smile and nodded.

  “Thanks, Enid honey. You always were such a good girl. Thank you very much.”

  The noise from the shower woke Harold a little after six o’clock. He waited until he heard Aunt Enid go out on the patio and then, as quietly as he could, he opened his door. No one was in the living room. Putting his head cautiously around the corner of the drapes he looked into the back yard. He saw them talking out by the pool. The old man was gesticulating. Aunt Enid didn’t seem to be paying much attention.

  If he could just stay out of the way long enough maybe Aunt Enid would get rid of the old man and he wouldn’t have to get involved. Drastic action was needed. He would take a walk. It was still early enough, the sun wouldn’t be a problem. He could go into town, find a cafe and have breakfast. He liked having breakfast in a restaurant. He could order scrambled eggs and hash browns. A rare treat.

  “Hash browns? You must be joking, right? I don’t have enough to do? What is it, you don’t get enough to eat here? You can’t wait to eat hash browns when you go out with your little friends?”

  Why, thought Harold, had his mother refused to make hash brown potatoes? And why had she constantly talked to him in questions?

  After checking that he had enough money he went through the kitchen and out of the house.

  Harold was getting so he could almost tolerate the early morning desert. At least it wasn’t so blistering hot. About half a mile to the west, high granite mountains rose straight up from the desert floor. In the opposite direction, far across the flat expanse of sand, was a long line of giant yellow dunes. Behind them were another range of softly rounded mountains, dusky purple in color. Not bad to look at, he thought, but what can you do with them? In the city it was just the opposite. No pretty scenery, but always lots of things going on and, best of all, you could hide out in the crowds. There were no crowds in Palm Springs. There was nothing but dumb scenery. He kicked at the sand and then started to walk toward the center of town.

  He hadn’t gone more than a few yards when a horn sounded behind him. It was Earl’s white pickup. Garf was in the passenger seat. The truck stopped next to him and Earl leaned out the window.

  “Hey, Harold old buddy, how they hangin’?”

  “Oh, yeah. Hi, guys.”

  “How you feeling today?” asked Earl.

  “Oh,” replied Harold, “I’m OK.”

  “Really tied one on the other night,” said Earl. “We had to near pour you outta the pickup.”

  Earl laughed and pushed his hat back revealing a thin white strip across his forehead.

  “Yeah,” added Garf, craning his head around in the cab so he could see Harold, “Y’all was one fucking smashed dude and that’s for damn sure.”

  “I guess,” replied Harold.

  “I reckon I ain’t never seen anyone puke so much,” said Earl, admiringly. “Damn me if I have.”

  “That’s right enough,” added Garf.

  Harold couldn’t decide whether they were complimenting him. He wanted to ask about his socks but didn’t.

  “You wanna ride or something?” asked Earl.

  “Well, uh, dunno,” said Harold, remembering his resolution to steer clear of Earl and his friends. “Just going up into town is all.”

  “Come on. No need to walk it. Remember what happened the last time.”r />
  “Right. Thanks.”

  Reluctantly, Harold went around and climbed into the truck next to Garf.

  “You is one big fucking critter for sure,” said the smaller boy as he slid to the middle of the seat.

  “What you doing today?” asked Earl, as he put the truck in gear and started off.

  “Me? Not a lot, I guess.”

  “Listen, me and Garf here are fixing to get something to eat then to head up to the high desert to check on some horses they got for sale. You wanna come along for the ride or what?”

  He didn’t really want to go, but if he stayed in town he was sure he would get tangled up in the mess between his grandfather and his aunt, and he figured that their problems weren’t really his problems.

  He glanced over at Earl. That he was a cowboy and liked to mess around with horses, that he drank crappy beer in crappy drive-ins and listened to hick music didn’t seem to matter. Earl was so effortlessly self-confident that he just about put Harold at ease. There was a comforting kind of competence and solidness about him. Here was a guy who would survive if he got stranded in the desert and make sure you survived as well. And Harold was definitely stranded. He had also made up his mind that he wanted to survive, even if he had to do it with horse shit and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

  Garf, however, was another matter. Edgy, with a little-man’s chip on his shoulder, he made Harold nervous. He watched Earl’s every move and kept in step. He could go in any direction and Harold felt he was friendly with him only because of Earl. But they weren’t going to the drive-in, the Jew-loving, tattooed Jingles wasn’t with them, and there were unlikely to be any confrontations with the motorcycle gang or Tody’s ex-girl’s new boyfriend, the animal from the football team. “Look at some horses,” that was all. Carefully Harold weighed up his options.