It wasn’t like any of us could refuse. The wheelchair was setup to give complete independence to the user, other than the inability to climb a flight of stairs. We set Ralph in the chair and Burke explained the functions to him. “Just like a motorcycle.” Ralph nodded impatiently. “Okay, buddy, be sure to take it easy on the gas. She’s got a lot of horsepower.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Ralph roared down the driveway. He whipped around the corner so fast, I thought the chair would tip over, but it righted and he sped off, straight into a row of garbage cans, into the middle of the street, and disappeared at another corner.
We could hear him though, roaring through the neighborhood. “Ralph!” Screamed Melanie. “Ralph,” we called, cupping our hands over our mouths. “Ralph!” bounced from one house to another, like an echo.
“The damned fool is going to kill himself,” muttered Melanie while she listened to the muted sounds of his collision course. “And then I’m going to kill him.”
I waited, wringing my hands, while Zeke gnawed at his fingernails, Briana jumped up and down and Linda tapped her foot. Finally, we heard the machine sputtering and winding slowly toward our block. “I think it’s about out of gas,” said Burke, relieved.
“All right,” said Melanie. “You’re coming home.”
Ralph shook his head. “Oh yes you are! You’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
He clung stubbornly to the arms of the chair. “Ralph, it’s not your chair anymore. You didn’t want it. These boys fixed it up and now it’s theirs.”
“It could be everybody’s,” said Zeke, shrugging.
“Sure, why not?” Agreed Burke. “It will give everyone a chance to get out more, even go down to the senior center or shopping.”
“It’s a death trap!” Scolded Melanie.
“I can put a smaller motor in it. I didn’t know Ralph would be trying it out.”
“How could you not know? You’re a kid! If something appeals to you, you know it’s going to appeal to other kids! What man in this community isn’t another kid?”
“The doctor?” Burke suggested.
“Ha. Don’t fool yourself. The doctor is the biggest kid of all. He just hasn’t learned how to play nicely.” Melanie winked at me. There wasn’t anything that escaped that woman’s surveillance.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to wash the doctor out of my system. I became convinced if I spent enough time in the wigwam, I could sweat him out. I could ease him out from under my skin. Apparently, a lot of other people were also trying to steam away their problems, as the lava rocks were torched up nearly every single day. It was a good place to hold pow-wow’s for planning out a summer that was already springing spontaneously around us. It was a good place to touch and feel without getting too carried away. It was just that wet, slithering bodies felt good close together, so it was okay to bump and slide and even pinch. Etiquette frowned on groping, but it still happened now and then among the old folk.
The worst of the gropers was Billy Rosenfield, but at least he groped indiscriminately. I began to observe a few of the things he had taught his great-nephew. Billy groped any feminine flesh that happened to be near him. He had absolutely no discriminations toward age or body size. If he could find a piece of female flesh to hold between his fingers for even a few seconds, it was well worth whatever retribution he would have to pay. Keeping him surrounded by men wasn’t an option simply because the men wouldn’t comply. They all wanted to be seated between women. We had to take turns with his abuses. It seemed irreverent, but I could see Zeke behaving exactly like Billy in forty years.
I began to learn something about sweat lodges. There was a spiritual side to them. There was a cleansing side to them. There was a communicative side to them. There was a sensual side to them. Sometimes, when there was just a few of us younger people lounging about inside, we would lie on our sides and run our hands up and down each other’s glistening bodies.
There was also a competitive side to them. It wasn’t measured by strength, agility or speed. It was measured by stamina. The champions were the ones who could endure the sweat lodge the longest, at soaring temperatures, then run out, the steam rolling off them like clouds, and stand under the garden hose, screaming under the shock of the cold water. This competition existed primarily among the young through middle age. The old folk had proven their stamina a long time ago and were proving it still just by crawling into the sweat lodge. That they stayed only ten minutes at a time didn’t matter.
I suppose, after Ralph’s high-speed race through the neighborhood, Billy was beginning to feel a little left out. He got to ride on the wheelchair, but by then Burke had modified it so its top speed was only twelve miles an hour. Billy was thoroughly disappointed and argued at length for a racier version.
Burke insisted he had fabricated the last of his high-speed wheelchairs. The only excitement left for Ralph was sitting in the sweat lodge, pinching fannies. He began frequenting the sweat lodge so much, we no longer really noticed him. He was staying in for longer and longer periods of time, his face turning astounding shades of red, the veins pumping thick and blue in his arms.
We ignored him. Summer was moving in, driving ahead of it the passions that fill the heads of youth, and we basked in it, letting the steam haze away any need to rush, letting the heat fan the low burning flames of the future. He didn’t register on us at all until one evening, long after the majority of the users were sprawled out on the grass to cool down or had gone home, and only a few remained inside, he lurched out, gasping for breath, his hands clawing the ground in front of him.
He tried to cry out. I think he was saying, “water”, but the words strangled in his throat. He rasped. He inched forward. He went into a convulsion, then laid still. “Mr. Rosenfield? Billy?” I asked. I shook him. He was breathing, but the sound was raspy. I pulled his head into my lap, while Zeke wrapped a blanket around him.
“He’s going into shock,” said Zeke, rubbing the old man’s arms and legs. “Somebody get the doctor.”
I couldn’t see who ran over to the house next door because all my attention was centered on Billy. He looked absolutely drained of blood. “Hey, don’t die on me,” I said, bending over him. Billy’s teeth began to chatter, then he began shivering. By the time the doctor arrived, he had begun to stir. He moved his head back and forth, breathing in the cool, sweet air, then slowly opened his eyes.
He gazed up at my bosom, the crevice just an inch or two above his nose, and shifted his eyes from one mound to the other. An enormous smile curved across his face. “Wow!” He said. “What a rush!”
The doctor grunted and gave him a quick examination. “He looks like he will be okay. We’ll take him to the clinic for overnight observation. You’re lucky. It was probably heat stroke but he could have had a heart attack.”
Somebody peered inside the sweat lodge. That somebody had a woman’s athletic legs, clad in a pair of Docker’s shorts, folded over socks and tennis shoes. She had a strident voice. “How long was he in that rat hole?”
“I don’t know,” mumbled Zeke. “He doesn’t usually stay any more than ten minutes at a time.”
“This is a health hazard. Remove it.”
“You can’t tell me what to do on my land,” I said heatedly.
“Oh yes, I can. There are land use laws, and this thing is unsightly and hazardous.”
“Nobody else has complained.”
“That’s because they’re all idiots.”
Dr. Andrews took her arm. “We agreed not to start this again.” He drew her out where I could see her face. I had already suspected I disliked her. Now I knew for sure. She had California sun-streaked light brown hair, wrapped in a twisted ponytail, with the ends growing out like spikes. Her eyes were small and straight, her mouth even straighter, her chin and nose just a little sharp. She was a witch, the kind who made men think she was pretty and smart, just by blinking her eyes or twitching her nose. In actuality, th
ere was nothing remarkable about her. Her looks were average, her figure nearly flat, but there were those would never see that. She had created an illusion of flawless perfection and intellectual superiority. That’s what they would remember.
“Jenna, I’d like you to meet Julia Hastings. Julia, meet Jenna Lange.”
“Your father was Henry Lange?” She asked.
“Appears so.”
“My condolences.” The way she said made it sound more like she was consoling me for having Henry Lange as a dad than in offering sympathy for his death. The competitive side of me awoke. The side that could take the heat. The side that had stamina. This was going to be a long summer but I was ready to let the fireworks begin.
Chapter Eight
If there was a perfect day, with an eggshell blue sky, a flower-scented breeze and little birds calling from the trees to celebrate, Julia Hastings would ruin it by dragging in a storm. Three days after meeting Julia, we received one of those Seattle rain spells that drizzled all day long, received reinforcements for the evening, then lightened up for three hours only to begin raining again. The blankets over the wigwam began to sag and smell moldy. The owners removed them. Who knows if anybody tried to salvage them or simply threw them in the garbage. The saplings were hacked up for firewood and tossed in the pit next door.
We began receiving less visitors. The ones who came over looked furtively at the doctor’s house before stepping into our yard. “She cuts points with ya if you don’t follow her instructions,” grumbled Billy Rosenfield. “She’ll hold back on things like pain medicine sleep aids until you behave. “She don’t want us drinking or eating sugar or doing anything that’s fun. What’s the good of living a long life if you can’t enjoy it? I say, fuck you, Dr. Rosenfield!” He pulled down his pants in back and stuck his butt in the direction of the doctor’s house.
I hastened him inside. “Aren’t you afraid of losing your pain medicine?”
“She don’t dare take it from me. I’m a vet! Besides, you’re a dealer now. You’ve got all the medicine I need.”
“It’s just a temporary situation. I’m a chef.”
“Damned straight. We gotta do something about that woman.”
He had taken a seat in the comfortable arm chair but batted his cane against the floor. “She tried to take me away from Zeke, the old hag. Like I would want her hatchet face breathing down my neck twenty-four seven.”
I looked at him dubiously. “Not that way,” he said, pounding his cane again. It was a good thing I had carpeting or he would have made a terrible racket. “She wanted to put me in an apartment at the Senior Center after that sweat lodge thing. She said Zeke wasn’t capable of being my caretaker and I wasn’t capable of caring for myself because of risky behavior. Where did I learn risky behavior, eh? Popping bullets at the Cong while trudging through stinking rice paddies. Then I come home and it’s all ‘rah, rah! Let’s drop acid and make love.’ Now they tell me I’m old and can’t be doing risky behavior anymore. I suppose when a seaman retires, he never goes back out on another boat.”
He didn’t want the coffee I offered but accepted a glass of iced tea. “Crack out that stash you’ve got hidden,” he coaxed.
I rolled up a joint. This was going to be a long visit, although I didn’t mind. Linda and Jack had taken another trip to Humboldt. Briana was in the driveway pretending to help Burke investigate the undercarriage of the Bronco, by passing him tools. She took an enormous amount of time selecting the tools he asked for, and when she found them, she kept her legs straight while she bent over; her butt pointed, her cleavage spilling from her halter; and stayed in that position until he called for the next tool.
“One thing I learned in life. When you’ve got a good attorney and a good psychiatrist, keep them. I’ve had the same attorney and the same psychiatrist going on twenty-five years. I don’t use them all the time. They’re like old friends I stop by to see sometimes and leave a donation at their doors. They pulled me out of this one. My psychiatrist said it would be detrimental to by over-all well-being to remove me from my home and that I had the mental competence to choose my own caretaker. Damned straight,” he repeated with satisfaction.
The more he smoked, the more he loosened up. “I know a secret about Julia Hastings, though I can’t prove it. I know why Henry Lange had a hold on her.” He waited until the joint passed back to him before he continued. “She likes cocaine.”
“My daddy was selling her cocaine?”
“Sort of a partnership. He was selling her the pure stuff, one hundred percent, and she cut it down for the customers. But she was getting hooked and she knew it, and she wanted out. Your daddy doesn’t let people out that easily.”
“You think she killed him because of his hold on her?”
“I think she was asked to leave because someone already suspected. And I think, now that the key witness is dead, those suspicions have been laid to rest. I think we need to bring them back up again.”
“How? I don’t know anything about cocaine.”
“Buck Knife does. Invite him over.”
“No, no. Look here. That’s where I draw the line. I’m not getting into that shit, Mr. Rosenfield.”
“You don’t have to! Nobody does. We won’t be dealing it.” And he told me his idea.
It was a rather bold idea, but once I met Buck Knife face to face, I felt it could work. He returned with Linda and Jack after I texted them the plan. It wasn’t the easiest text message to work out because half the words had to be coded. Once they figured it out though, Buck Knife was all for it.
Buck Knife was all muscle, but they were long and lean, and fit neatly into anything he wore. His clothing of preference was denim and tee shirts. He had a close cropped beard and long hair groomed back into a ponytail. He had Latin eyes, dark, flashing yet somehow dreamy and a slightly detached smile on a wide, darkly colored mouth.
The sky was still dripping liquid sunshine when they returned, but it finally began clearing by the next morning. Briana was so pleased to meet him that she offered him her room, but he was satisfied with a bed roll in the living room. Like Zeke, he traveled a lot and wasn’t very particular about his shelter.
He was an early riser. He sat out on the porch getting stoned until the rest of us rolled out of bed and joined him. I carried out a giant coffee pot and some mugs and set them on the table. Briana chirped, “Did you sleep well, sweetie?”
“After a little intervention.”
She giggled and I glanced over at her. I thought I had heard some huffing and puffing in the living room last night.
“I guess you couldn’t say it was a wasted trip no matter what happens, can you?”
“Just meeting you made the trip worthwhile,” he answered.
Oh, that was smooth. I was going to have to apply armor plating against this guy. He was definitely a love ‘em and leave ‘em, and I’ll bet once he left, they had a hard time getting him out their heads. Of course, I didn’t have to worry about that with Briana. She was the world’s best expert at shaking guys off and was always ready to leap in the saddle again. Not me. I was stuck because I wanted to fall in love.
We hadn’t said anything about our plan to Briana because she has a big mouth, but it was time to cue her in. “Buck Knife is here for a specific reason,” I explained to her. I whispered across the table. “We have reason to believe Dr. Hastings likes cocaine.”
Predictably, Briana jumped up and shouted, “She likes…”
“Sh! Sh!” We motioned her back down. “You’re gonna blow it. Buck Knife thinks he can get her to approach him.”
“Of course she can. Who wouldn’t?” Briana asked, squeezing his arm.
“For a score.”
“Ooh. Do you have?”
“Do you want?”
“Probably not. Maybe a little bit here and there, you know, but I don’t want to get addicted.” One thing we had learned growing up was never accept a recreational drug you had to either snort up your nose or sh
oot into your arm. We didn’t see just classmates fall by the wayside, but a whole other generation as well.
“I won’t give you enough to addict you. Hell, I can’t afford it either. I’m paying off a boat and have been thinking of buying an airplane. A few tiny grains and that’s it. Just enough to make her think we’re using.”
“What if she turns us in?”
Buck Knife raised his brows at me. “You’ll get a chance to observe her in about ten minutes. She’s in one of those clusters of duplexes up the street about four blocks. Whenever it isn’t raining, she jogs over to the doctor’s house and they run together.”
“Keeps him on a short leasH, does she?”
“She’s keeping everyone on a short leasH! Ralph is depressed and won’t take his medicine. Liz is talking about selling her house and moving in with her daughter. She tried to get Zeke kicked out of the community. The neighbors across the street never even come out of their house anymore. She’s really got to go.”
Jack Jones nodded his head. “She’s got a point there, jefe. Lee has a stick up his ass, no doubt about it, but he’s all bark and no bite. Everyone says he came to our parties to spy on us, but it was more to make sure we didn’t kill ourselves by doing something stupid. And I think he got sweet on the girls. Real sweet on them.”
“If you can’t be charmed by Southern hospitality, you don’t have red blood.”
“That’s what I tell my peppermint schnapps,” said Jack, squeezing Linda’s waist.
As I had promised, Julia showed up a few minutes later, her head down, her arms in front of her like a boxing stance as she pounded up the driveway to the doctor’s front door. She jogged in place while he kissed her, then took off like a sprite, Lee striving dutifully to keep up.
She always bolted ahead of him but lagged on the final laps leading home, trailing behind, and slowing to a walk as she passed my fence. I guess she never learned how to pace herself. It was one of the things I noticed about Lee. Every movement was measured and fit into compartments of time. He never really hurried, only moved as quickly as necessary, because every miscalculation made in haste is a wasted movement. She shot ahead. He kept a steady rhythm. When she tired, he passed by her like the rabbit and the tortoise.
Housekeeping Page 58
