Desert Blues

by Bill Albert

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but don’t you think you’re too old for my daughter? At least, that’s my personal opinion, you know, for what it’s worth, that is. What are you, late fifties maybe? Sixty? Huh? Whatever. Still, that’s more than twenty years older. Twenty years! What’s the matter, you couldn’t find someone your own age?”

  He looked Archie up and down.

  “And, you’re too short for her. She’s a big woman, my Enid. A tall woman. What are you five-five? Five-six? She’s five-eight, maybe taller. Too short, too old. Doesn’t fit.”

  Archie stood at the foot of the bed with his mouth open. He moved his lips a few times but nothing came out.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Abe sharply, then in a more distracted tone, “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Listen,” said Archie finally finding his voice. “I’m not here for a damn lecture. I’m here to see if you need anything. And, I’m only here because Enid asked me.”

  “So what’s wrong with her? She can’t look after her own father? Or the boy, that Harold. What do I need with strangers?”

  “Harold’s out, Enid doesn’t feel well, so what you’ve got is me. Me. Short and old, but that’s all there is right now. OK?”

  “What’s the matter with her?” asked Abe suspiciously.

  “Nothing. She’s tired.”

  “Tired? That must be some kind of tired if she has to send a stranger?”

  “Listen, Mr. Cohen,” said Archie impatiently “Do you need anything or don’t you?”

  “Maybe I do,” he said haughtily, “then again, maybe I don’t.”

  Archie threw up his hands.

  “What is it? You want me to guess?”

  “I don’t like your tone,” complained Abe, sounding hurt.

  “My tone? My goddamn tone!? I come in here to ask if you need anything and what do I get? ‘You’re too old, you’re too short,’ and ‘I don’t like strangers.’ And now it’s my tone you don’t like. Give me a break, will you?”

  “From St. Louis?” Abe asked innocently.

  “What do you mean? . . . Yeah, St. Louis. So?”

  “Ever see Musial play?”

  “Baseball? I got a business to run. I don’t have time for baseball.”

  Abe ignored his answer.

  “I saw him play once. In Chicago, Wrigley Field. Yeah, he was really something that day. Two homers. Two. Yeah, Stan the Man . . . Stan the Man.”

  “Mr. Cohen?”

  “What?”

  “For the last time, do you need anything?”

  “I want to see Enid,” Abe said petulantly.

  Archie’s voice filled with tight impatience. He spoke very slowly, very deliberately.

  “I told you, she’s tired right now. Tell me and I’ll get whatever it is.”

  “Enid. I want to see Enid.”

  Abe folded his arms, and as best he could he turned his back on Archie.

  “Mr. Cohen! Be reasonable . . . Jesus H. Christ! I do not believe this is happening!”

  Abe began to sob.

  “I want Enid. I want Enid . . . Is that too much for a dying man to ask? I want my daughter. Enid! Enid!”

  Archie started to say something but didn’t. Defeated, he left the room without a backward glance at the old man.

  “OK, OK. You can stop it now, I’m here. What is it?”

  He beckoned to her with a feeble wave. She approached the bed. The smell of urine had become much worse. Like a fine mist, it enveloped her father. It seemed to Enid as if his body was becoming more insubstantial by the hour, evaporating into a cloud of urine.

  “Please, Enid,” he said in a whisper, looking over her shoulder at Archie, who was watching from the doorway, “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”

  Enid stared at her father, struggling with her annoyance and pity.

  “So, what’s wrong with Archie?”

  “I told him already,” replied Abe indignantly, “he’s too old, too short.”

  “You told him WHAT?” she asked incredulously.

  “Too old for you,” he repeated, “too short for you.”

  Enid looked at Archie. He nodded and gave a wry smile.

  “What!? . . . How!? . . .” she stammered.

  “Can I go to the bathroom now?”

  “It’s none of your damn business!” she shouted at him.

  Abe seemed puzzled. He licked his lips.

  “What do you mean none of my business? Please, Enid. I really must . . .”

  “I’d like to know where the hell do you come off with saying stuff like that?”

  Abe was staring intently at her.

  “Your face,” he said in a frightened voice. “What happened to your face?”

  “I asked you . . . What are . . . ? Nothing, I had a slight accident.”

  “You should be more careful,” he said, shaking his head dolefully, “Young people, they never see the dangers. Reckless. In a hurry. All the time in a hurry. What would happen to me? You’ve got obligations here, Enid. Obligations.”

  Enid sighed deeply. The only thing she wanted to do was lie down and have some peace and quiet. To concentrate on her own pain and discomfort and not have to worry about anyone else’s. No Harold, no Archie, and especially no Abe Cohen. Only herself, only Enid.

  “I didn’t want strangers,” Abe whined. “Why do I have to have strangers?”

  He is my father. He is dying.

  She helped him up. Although he weighed almost nothing, because of her own weakened condition Enid tottered slightly as he leaned against her. His fingers gripped tightly onto her arm. She could see his scalp through the damp strands of hair, feel the fluttering beat of his heart. She was suddenly overtaken by a dull, heavy sadness. It washed over her, blotting out the anger and the self-pity.

  “Do you need me, babe?” Archie asked unsurely.

  “That’s a very interesting question,” she replied, forcing a laugh to hold off the tears.

  Caught in the late afternoon shade, Enid and Archie were lying in the pool side by side on half-submerged air mattresses. Water covered stomach and chest, arms and legs, only their heads and feet were exposed to the hot desert air. Aspirins had muffled the pains from the bruises and from her period and, as it always did, the cool water was soothing her.

  “Sure,” said Archie, “I know what you mean, babe. He’s a sick old man. They can talk crazy when they’re like that. Don’t worry about it, I understand.”

  Enid wondered if he did. She looked at him floating next to her. His air mattress was purple, and purple was obviously not Archie’s color. If she was honest, she also had to admit that her father was probably right. Archie was too old and too short, as well as too married, something which, thankfully, her father didn’t know about. Now she and Archie would have to pretend that he wasn’t too old or too short, that what had been said was nothing but the ravings of a dying man.

  “I know this wasn’t at all what you were expecting, Archie. I’m sorry. But, like I said, it’s only a temporary arrangement.”

  He pushed his hands through the water, the mattress swinging at right angles to Enid’s.

  “Yeah, I see that, babe. But, um . . . ah, about the kid, about Harold. After, well you know . . . after with your father, then he’s going to come back here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  She had explained it all to him before, but he was still probing, hoping somehow he would get a different answer. For Archie there was always the possibility of cutting the cloth another way so as to squeeze out one more garment.

  “But even there, I mean,” said Enid, not liking the pleading in her voice, “he is almost sixteen and he’s got only two more years of high school. That’s not much time, is it? Before we know it he’ll be gone.”

  Was sh
e apologizing or begging? Both, she decided and hated herself for it. Since Harold had arrived a few weeks before, the layers of protective skin which she had allowed to grow over her life had been peeled away one by one. With Archie’s arrival she was down to the raw flesh. She didn’t like what she felt or what she saw. If only, she thought, Norman hadn’t missed that stupid freeway turnoff none of this would be happening.

  “Sure,” Archie replied without much conviction. “You’re absolutely right, babe, that’s no time all.”

  They floated in silence for a while. She wished she could see his eyes. Enid could sense that Archie was working out his next move, trying to get his phrasing just right. After what had happened with Harold and her father she expected the worst. What would come after that was still unclear in her mind. Once in a while, if she let it move in close, she caught glimpses of herself in a waitress’s uniform, or with a green Safeway coat standing next to a cash register. A trailer, maybe out at that dump, the Sunshine Trailer Park, on the far side of Cathedral City. Harold filling up one narrow end of it with himself and his boxes of records. Her feet swollen from standing up all day, her skin going white. Getting fat and irritable in the heat. Lots of drinking in the local bar at night. No prospects. Old at forty. She tried for another set of images, but nothing came.

  She cupped her hand in the pool and splashed the water onto her face.

  If they call you a big man

  ‘Cause you gotta lotta bottom land

  If you kin to the President

  And you help run the government

  But if you’re getting no attention

  You’re better off on a pension

  If you ain’t loving, then you ain’t living.

  “Oh yeah,” said Harold, “she’s alright . . . Well, I mean, I suppose she’s not completely alright. That is, you see, she had sort of an accident this morning. Driving out to the airport.”

  Big Earl stopped drawing in the sand with a stick and looked a question over at Harold.

  The boy shrugged.

  “Just a bump on the head, I think, black eye, you know, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Big Earl, throwing the stick aside. “Damned good-looking woman, your aunt. Strung a little high though, don’t you reckon?”

  “I guess,” Harold replied unsurely.

  Faron Young faded out, and the radio announcer began talking about how everyone better get down to Blackstone Dodge before the end of the month if they didn’t want to miss some once-in-a-lifetime automotive bargains.

  “She ain’t married, is she?”

  “No.”

  “Divorced?”

  “No.”

  He picked up the stick again and began meticulously to scrape manure off the heels of his boots.

  “How is it a woman that pretty never got herself hitched? That sure is one hell of a waste.”

  Both Earls laughed. Harold squirmed.

  He didn’t like it when men talked about his aunt. There was always a sexual edge that made him uneasy. And they seemed to want something from him as well. He didn’t know what that was.

  He hoped she would settle down and it would be like before; once Archie left, once his grandfather died. Surely the old man couldn’t last much longer. The doctor had said a week at the most. Harold thought maybe he should feel guilty about wishing he was dead, but he didn’t. Anyway, he didn’t really wish he was dead, he just looked forward to getting away from John and Charlene and back into his own room. Aunt Enid had promised to paint over the roses.

  It was not as if Abe Cohen was anyone he actually knew. He wasn’t even a very nice person. In fact, thinking about it, Harold decided that he didn’t like him very much at all. The way he got at Aunt Enid bothered him. She had to spend a lot of her time looking after her father. The old man sucked it up. A real vampire. At least now he spent most of the time asleep rather than talking incessantly as he had at first. Aunt Enid said he was fading away. Harold hoped she was right. He liked the idea of his grandfather “fading away.” It sounded better than “dying.”

  Big Earl stood up and brushed off his Levis.

  “Well,” he said, “Can’t sit around here all day jawing. Gotta be gettin’ on. Now don’t you forget to say howdy to your aunt for me, Harold.”

  “You bet,” Harold replied.

  He tapped his son on the arm.

  “You going to clean up them saddles, boy?”

  “I’m thinking on it, yes, sir.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Big Earl laughed. “You think on it real good now. And when you’re through thinking on it, then get your lame ass in there and put something down.”

  Little Earl grinned at his father and threw a punch which the older man easily ducked. He waved at the boys, got in his pickup and drove away.

  Harold watched the exchange with envy. He and his father had never shared any kind of rough physical intimacy. The Abelsteins were neither a rough nor a particularly intimate family. Never before had Harold thought he might have wanted it to be. But, watching Earl and his father he suddenly missed his own father and all the things they hadn’t been together and hadn’t done together. He figured that was just about most things there were to be or to do.

  Earl got up and put his hand on Harold’s shoulder. He squeezed hard.

  “Come on, Harold, ol’ son, teach you how to clean up a saddle. Never know when it might come in handy for you to know something like that.”

  The boys went into the tack room. Earl stopped in front of the radio and held up his hand for Harold to be quiet.

  “Stop right there. Now this here is a real good one, Harold,” said Earl turning up the volume. “You listen up. Get yourself some music edu-cating.”

  Harold listened. It was Hank Thompson, who apparently didn’t know God made honky-tonk angels.

  It wasn’t bad, Harold thought, at least not for a hick country song. A hell of a lot better than “Sixteen Tons” or “Dear John.” He wondered if Earl knew what year it had come out and what color the label was.

  “Gee,” said Archie crinkling up his nose, “the kid smells awful bad. What’s he been doing?”

  Harold had just left the living room.

  “Oh, that. The stables. Remember?”

  Enid knew what he was thinking. “Horse shit in the living room, piss in the hall.” It was all sliding away from her, gathering momentum and there was nothing she could do.

  Harold had returned about ten minutes before. He asked if he could go out with Earl that night.

  “You know, just driving around, maybe go up to town or something like that.”

  Reluctantly she had said yes. She didn’t really approve of Earl, and that feeling had strengthened since she met his father. A typical cowboy. Very polite, some might say handsome too, but with a kind of knowing, overconfident smile she found disconcerting. That cowboy smile carried with it an assumption of his manly power over her. All he had to do was ask. She was only a woman after all.

  Archie wasn’t like that exactly, but he carried around other assumptions about their relationship. With him they were more money than manly. Even Harold, young as he was, assumed too much, acting as if she actually owed him something. She supposed there was no way to escape from them—goddamn men and their goddamn assumptions.

  Archie checked his watch.

  “Hey, babe, excuse me for a couple of minutes, will you. I have to call the office.”

  It was six o’clock. That meant eight o’clock in St. Louis. Enid knew he couldn’t be calling his office. Something was up. It made her uneasy. All the more so because her headache had returned and she was nauseous.

  Archie was gone about fifteen minutes. When he returned he looked drained, as if something cataclysmic had happened.

  “Everything OK?” she asked, anxiously

  “Yeah. Great. Ah,
fine . . . How do you feel?”

  “Better,” she lied. “Thanks.”

  “Good. That’s very good.”

  He was ill at ease. His gaze strayed unsteadily around the room, eyes not focusing on anything for more than a second or two. He’s trying to get himself together to deliver the bad news she told herself. Her stomach fluttered and dull throbbing behind her eyes intensified. Archie put his hands together in front of him as if to pray.

  “Listen, babe . . .”

  She closed her eyes. Safeway and the trailer park, here I come.

  “Listen, you know when I called from St. Louis? From the airport? I said I had something to talk to you about. Well, it’s sort of difficult really. I’ve been trying to think of how to explain it and uh . . . Well, I suppose the first thing to say is that I’m selling up, getting out of the business. You see, I’ve had this very good offer. A big company from out of town. Wants everything. The factory, the outlets. Everything.”

  He pointed toward the bedroom.

  “My lawyer. They just signed the papers. I wanted to wait, to make sure before I said anything. So now I guess you could say I’m a free man.”

  He looked directly at Enid and gave her an exploratory smile.

  “Or, anyway, sort of a free man, if you know what I mean.”

  Enid realized she had been holding her breath. She let go.

  “I suppose I should be happy, you know? No more cutters, no more work rooms, no more unions, no more tightwad bankers, no more faygeleh designers, no more tsouris. Ha! And you know what else? No more smart-ass button makers! So, I should be a very happy man. Should be, but I’m not. Isn’t that funny. I’m just not happy. Why do you think that is, babe?”

  Archie sat on the couch, hands dangling between his knees, shoulders slumped.

  It’s not about me and him at all, Enid said to herself. It’s about his goddamned business! His fucking dress business! The sawed-off old bastard!

  Too old, too short.

  Echoes of her father’s indelicate judgment. A ghostly curse on their relationship.