Desert Blues

by Bill Albert

  “Well, if it ain’t my old friend Harold Abel-Stein. You keeping outta trouble like I told you to, boy?”

  Enid looked questioning from the policeman to Harold and back. How did he know Harold, she wondered? More trouble? Those thoughts were swiftly pushed aside by the blinding anger which boiled up at the over-deliberate way the policeman had pronounced Harold’s last name. It was that anti-Semitic edge she had heard so often in Palm Springs. It was that edge and all that went with it which had made her trade in Cohen for Carlson. Nothing up front, no kike, hebe or sheeny, but a crystal clear message just the same. The Shadow Mountain Club, Smoke Tree Ranch, Thunderbird Country Club, The Tennis Club. The bastards! She had to choke back the frustration. There was really nothing she could say. How could she complain about an edge?

  “Yes, sir,” replied Harold, embarrassed and blushing.

  “That’s a good boy,” he said heartily, then turning to the others, “If you folks’ll excuse me.”

  He touched the peak of his cap and walked out.

  Big Jim and Big John. Now all we need to make a complete set, thought Harold despairingly, is Big Earl. He felt a lot better when the front door closed.

  He was also pleased that his aunt had come back, although it frightened him that she was so badly beaten up. Out of control almost. Unrecognizable. Then there was what Charlene had said. Some mysterious thing that Aunt Enid had to do and that Charlene was there to help her with.

  “Come and sit down, honey,” Charlene said, hovering next to her friend.

  Enid wanted to be by herself, but she let Charlene lead her over to the couch. She sat down stiffly. Her eyes were throbbing, her ankle hurt, and she was getting a headache. She also felt the familiar dull pulling ache low down in her belly.

  She’d been feeling premenstrual for a couple of days, but it hadn’t seemed as bad as usual. No tiredness or depression, not even any of the backache she often got. Maybe she had been too preoccupied to notice. She was still preoccupied but could no longer ignore the fact that her period was about to start.

  What a time to get the curse, she thought bitterly. Archie is going to he thrilled! . . . To hell with him! Selfish bastard! . . . It’s not really his fault . . . Oh shit!

  Despite everything she felt she had to go through at least some of the motions. It was expected. Archie expected it.

  “I’m really sorry, Archie,” Enid said with a tired sigh, “I was on my way and . . .”

  He held up his hands.

  “Hey, babe!” he said, coming over to her, “Please! It’s no problem at all. It’s you we got to worry about. Gee, you sure you’re OK?”

  He gave her a hesitant kiss on the check, his lips coming away blackened by mascara.

  She began to weep. Archie put his arm around her. His attention only made her more miserable.

  “Well,” said John, nervously smoothing his mustache with one finger, “if everything is under control, maybe we should hit the road? What do you say, Charlene?”

  “Oh, shut up, will you?” his wife shot back. “Can’t you see everything ain’t under no damn control?”

  “Please . . . Charlene,” Enid managed between sobs, “It’s OK . . . I’ll be alright. You go with John . . . I’ll call . . . later.”

  Charlene seemed unsure.

  “But, honey, your poor face . . .”

  “You heard the little lady, Charlene. Come on now, let’s just vamoose.”

  Big John took hold of his wife’s arm and tried gently to pull her toward the door. Charlene didn’t budge.

  Harold saw a stick insect hanging on to the side of a gigantic lamb chop and immediately let loose a snorting, high-pitched giggle.

  He put his hand to his mouth as soon he realized who it was he heard laughing. It became airlessly quiet. Everyone was staring at him, slack-jawed with disbelief, as if he had done something heinously sacrilegious. He stared back, similarly slack-jawed.

  “Harold! Harold!”

  Harold ducked his head and stumbled out of the room. He suddenly had an overwhelming desire to see his grandfather.

  “Let me at least call the doctor and have him come by and see you, babe? I don’t like the look of that lump.”

  “No, Archie. Please. I’ll be fine and I can tell there’s nothing broken. What’s the point?”

  “Maybe a concussion or something like that? Anyway, there’s no harm in the doctor having a look, is there?”

  “You obviously haven’t seen the doctor,” she said.

  She took his handkerchief and dabbed at her face and looked down at the residue of lipstick and mascara staining the white cloth.

  John and Charlene had gone, and Harold was in with Abe. They were alone together. He moved closer to her on the couch until their legs were touching and put his hand on her thigh.

  “Gee, babe, I missed you,” he whispered in the special, childlike voice he reserved for their lovemaking.

  Tired, sore and premenstrual, Enid was definitely not in the mood.

  “Please, Archie,” she said testily, pulling away, “let me clean up and change, OK? Then we’ve got to talk about things.”

  He pulled his hand away as if he had had an electric shock, stood up and glanced uneasily toward the hall. There was no one there.

  “Oh, sure, babe. Yeah. You go ahead. Sorry.”

  Abe shouted as she passed his room.

  “Enid! Will you come here a minute? I got . . .”

  “Not now, please!”

  She went into her room and pushed the door closed.

  It was worse than in the car mirror. The bump was now the size of a golf ball and the swelling around her eyes had gone a livid purple black. Mascara streaks, her mouth an untidy puddle of lipstick, hair clotted and tangled. Terrified, she backed away from her reflection, afraid it might step out of the mirror and follow her. Her legs hit the edge of the bed and she sat down heavily. A monster, she thought. An ugly, ugly monster!

  It was about five minutes before she calmed down enough to look at herself again. Not a monster this time, more like a battered clown. Still it wasn’t good.

  Well, she told herself, maybe it’s not all that terrible. After all, Archie had seemed affectionate enough—too affectionate—after he got over the initial shock. Why? . . . Horny? That was alright, she could understand horny, but what she didn’t understand was why he would want her, looking like she did. It was disgusting. She wouldn’t want her.

  In the bathroom she bathed her face, washing off all the damaged makeup. The cool water made the bruises hurt but it was refreshing. Sitting on the toilet, eyes closed, she brushed out her hair, counting the strokes on each side as her mother had done. Although it pulled at her sore face, the slow repetitive action relaxed her. When she finished, she tied up her hair and applied fresh lipstick. A very large pair of sunglasses covered the bruised eyes. She took off her torn dress and put on slacks and a blouse. The monster had been temporarily vanquished.

  Now the only thing left to do was to explain everything to Archie. He had met Harold, had seen her father, but how much did he know about what was going on? Had he pumped Harold for information? If he had, she couldn’t imagine he had much success. To get the time of day out of Harold was virtually impossible.

  It was not working out as she had planned. She hadn’t even had the five minutes from the airport.

  Archie Blatt.

  Had he had his usual erection when he got off the plane? All the way from Los Angeles, thinking about making love to his woman, Archie Blatt’s woman. And what happens? The woman doesn’t turn up. Waiting, having to take a cab, his erection drooping in the desert heat. Maybe starting to rise again as the cab turns off the main road, stiffening in anticipation, getting harder as they pull up to the house. Then bang! Major collapse. The house is full of strangers, one of them dying, the other an oversized kid who doesn’t say
two words and giggles out of context. Charlene and John. A leering anti-Semitic cop who resembles King Kong. And her, Archie Blatt’s fancy woman, looking as if she’d just gone ten rounds with a clothes dryer. Sexy. Very sexy. Just what he paid for. Gift wrapped. She smiled. It was so terrible it had to be funny.

  A clutching stomach cramp unexpectedly hit. It wasn’t at all funny.

  “Not now!” she cried out loud, doubling over.

  She went back into the bathroom, inserted a Tampax and took three aspirins. Then she lay down on the bed, pulled her knees to her chest and waited for the pain to recede. Muffled voices, Abe’s mostly, came from across the hall mixed with the low unsyncopated clatter of the water cooler. At least, she thought thankfully, there’s no loud music. Just a dying old man blabbering. She tried to weigh it up, but couldn’t. Another cramp interrupted her thoughts.

  “Damn! Damn!”

  It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to go through this crap every month? She knew why. It was still unfair.

  And outside her room?

  Abe and Archie and Harold. All waiting for her. She felt grindingly tired. She closed her eyes.

  The telephone call was from St. Louis. It woke her up. She called Archie into the bedroom, and he yelled down the phone for ten minutes. Each word vibrated in Enid’s head like a steel ball dropped into an empty metal bucket.

  “Can you believe that?” he said, slamming down the receiver.

  He gave Enid a questioning stare. She tried to look sympathetic. It wasn’t easy. She felt awful.

  “You leave them alone for a couple of days and the whole operation goes haywire. Fabric doesn’t come in, suddenly cutters I’ve had for twenty-five years, they can’t cut patterns. The workrooms don’t deliver. The button man sends all the wrong sizes. ‘So, cut the holes a little bigger,’ he says. A real joker, huh? And, the designer? The designer won’t talk to me. He’s too upset. He’s upset! Jesus! You know, babe, if I had it all to do over it wouldn’t be in the rag trade. You can bet your ass on that. Not the rag trade. You gotta be completely meshugge to be in this business.”

  He got up from the bed and started to pace.

  “You know what it would be?”

  Enid knew. She nodded. It didn’t spare her the explanation.

  “Banking. That’s it, banking. You know why?”

  She knew why. What’s more, Archie knew she knew why. That wasn’t the point.

  “Because the bastards own everything. Who do you think I work for? Right. The bank. That’s who I work for. Paying off the goddamned overdraft! Begging them for one more month. And what do they do? Do they have to worry if the Spring collection sells? Do they my ass! Can you see them staying up nights thinking what they’ll do if the union makes trouble? Hell no they don’t! Nine to five. That’s what they got. Nine to five. Push some papers, make some calls, hassle a few poor schmucks like me and then home to the wife and kids. Easy. Yeah, babe, banking is definitely what I should have done.”

  He sat on the bed and then immediately was on his feet again.

  “Then there’s all the other people I work for, I stay up nights for. You know. Yeah. What would they do if I didn’t find their damn salaries on the tenth of every damn month? Right out of a job they’d be. In the street. But, do they appreciate that? Do they take care of things when I’m away? . . . Then to top it off . . .”

  Enid tuned him out. Was he always like this she wondered? It hadn’t occurred to her before how much Archie complained about his business. To her surprise, she found herself getting angry with him. Here I am, she thought, bruised and battered and bleeding and that’s all he can talk about.

  “’ . . . Mr. Blatt? Melvin,’ I said, ‘Melvin you don’t’ . . . Aah, what the hell. Who cares? Why should I care anymore? You know something, babe? I got something to tell you . . . I . . .”

  His voice trailed off and as if a fog had lifted he seemed to see Enid for the first time. He smiled sheepishly.

  “Oh, hey, babe, I’m sorry. Going on like that and you lying there all banged up, feeling lousy.”

  He went over, sat next to her on the bed and took her hand.

  “How do you feel, babe? Any better?”

  “I got my period.”

  “Oh,” he replied nonplussed. “That’s uh . . . tough at a time like this, if you know what I mean.”

  He let go of her hand. She gave a short harsh laugh. Archie fidgeted uneasily with the end of his tie.

  “So,” he said, “I see your father’s turned up out of the blue, huh?”

  She wasn’t ready. Here it was on the line and she was not even close to ready.

  “Will you shut the blinds, Archie. The light’s hurting my eyes.”

  The thin wire dug into his hands as he lifted the bale. He balanced it on his knees just like Earl had shown him, bent his legs and threw the hay forward onto the top of the stack.

  “Don’t fight it, son,” Big Earl had said. “Let the weight work for you.”

  It hadn’t taken him long to learn the technique. Once the rhythm came, it felt good swinging the bales up.

  “You sure are one strong dude,” Little Earl had commented as they worked side by side building the stack outside the tin-roofed barn. “Now we just gotta get you fixed up with a halfway decent hat.”

  They both laughed.

  They were almost finished and Harold felt great. Tired, sweaty, and itchy from the dust and the hay, but unexpectedly great. Like the horseback riding and helping clean out the stalls, such physical satisfaction was a completely new experience. If he hadn’t been forced to do it he would never have believed he could enjoy it. This time he hadn’t even minded the static rumble of the country music coming from the radio in Earl’s truck. It seemed to fit.

  Once again, his visit to the stables had been prompted by the need to get away. This time from his grandfather and the added tension which Archie seemed to have brought with him. Harold didn’t understand exactly what it was all about, but Aunt Enid was uncharacteristically edgy and bad-tempered.

  His grandfather had fallen asleep in the middle of some rambling incoherent account of an unemployed butcher, the thirty-eighth person, he said, to have admitted dismembering the Black Dahlia in LA in 1947. He was on the point of giving Harold the full details of the other thirty-seven when he dozed off.

  The door to Aunt Enid’s room was closed. Harold stood in the hallway listening. He could hear them talking in low voices. He knocked softly. It went quiet inside. There was no answer. He waited and then knocked a little harder. After a minute or so Archie opened the door, but only a couple of inches. He looked extremely annoyed.

  “What’s the problem, Harold?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Uh, can I talk to my Aunt Enid?”

  “She’s resting right now. Can I do something for you?”

  “No. That’s alright, forget it.”

  Harold turned away. He didn’t see why he should have to go through Archie to get to his aunt. The guy had been there only a couple of hours and already he was blocking the door. He knew then that he could never be “good friends” with him. Anyway, Harold told himself, he’s too old to have as a real friend.

  “Harold?”

  It was Aunt Enid. Reluctantly, Archie opened the door fully. She was lying on the bed. The room was dark.

  “What is it now, Harold?” she asked in an exasperated voice.

  “I wanna go out for a while,” he said, staring doggedly at his shoes. “The stables.”

  There was a pause.

  “In case you didn’t notice, Harold, I’m feeling like death here. Can’t you see that? And, who’s going to take care of . . . Oh, I don’t care! Go! Go! Go out if you want to. Just leave me alone now. Please!”

  More and more like his mother. The voice, the mode of attack, the guilt, the whole routine. He had wanted to tell her that whate
ver it was, it wasn’t his fault, that he hadn’t done anything. Experience told him the only thing to do was go. He went.

  He thought he might be able to ride, but Earl and his father were stacking hay. He couldn’t refuse to help.

  “You stack a mean bale, cowboy,” said Big Earl, smacking him roughly on the back. “Come on, let me buy you two boys a drink.”

  They sat on the steps of the tack room in the shade and sipped their Cokes. No one said a word. Harold felt comfortable with that. He couldn’t say the same about what was coming from the Philco.

  Now the ceremony has started

  And I’ll wed your bother, Don.

  Would you wish us happiness forever

  . . . Dear John.

  Harold had knocked as she was explaining to Archie about him and her father. She felt terrible for yelling at him. Mouth dropped open, eyes widened, poor Harold had been dumbstruck by her outburst. Pushed further away, deeper into his teenage shell. She could see that Archie, too, was taken aback. A harridan with the curse. An awful, totally irredeemable woman.

  Why am I doing this to myself? she asked, resenting her own thoughts. What have I done to either of them? Really done? Nothing. A bad mother? A bad wife? Or for that matter, a bad daughter? Impossible. I’m not Harold’s mother, not Archie’s wife and not really Abe Cohen’s daughter. That’s just how they treat me. And even if I was? Where’s my return from it all? Only on empties, maybe. Sure, she thought, you only get a real return on empties. Her womb was still sore with cramp, and her head ached.

  Not looking up, shoulders slumped against the world, Harold left the room. He didn’t close the door.

  “Well,” said Archie, with an uneasy laugh, “that’s that, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” Enid echoed bleakly.

  They fell silent. The back door slammed shut. Harold had gone out.

  “Alright,” said Archie thoughtfully.

  “So, what else could I do? I am his only relative.”

  He hesitated.

  “Nothing, babe, you did right, I guess.”

  It sounded hollow to Enid, as if he had resigned himself to making the buttonholes bigger. She couldn’t be sure. But, for the moment she didn’t care. She was relieved to have finally told him about Harold and her father. Now it was his move.