by Dale Herd
Paradise
As we walk by, a young girl steps out and hands us a pamphlet.
“Would you like to attend a meeting,” she says, “a Buddhist meeting? It will show you the way to peace on the earth and self-enlightenment?”
“No, thank you,” Lea said, “I already know the way.”
“Ah, c’mon,” the girl says, “you’re putting me on . . .”
from
WILD CHERRIES
(1980)
Cut Flowers
“Sex works exactly the same way. Listen to this. I was going out with this gal, right, gorgeous, gorgeous gal, a client of mine. Well, I never laid a finger on her, never. Knew better than that. That’s what everyone else would do. ’Cause she was fabulous. Totally. So we keep going out, getting to know each other better. I’m staying completely under control. It wasn’t conscious on my part. Not completely. It was just what I was doing. So this one time she’s over to pick me up. I’m in the bedroom fixing my tie. I turn around and there she is, sitting on the bed. I looked at her and said, What are you doing? We have a theater date in twenty minutes. Don’t you want me? she says. Sure, babe, I said, absolutely, and we will, I mean, we both know that. Now c’mon, get off there, we’ve gotta get going.
“Okay. We go out a few more times. Same thing. I don’t do a thing. So one night she’s here. I’m sitting here, she’s over there. So all of a sudden she just jumps across the couch and, well, so that was that.
“Now, okay; how does it end? Well, she ends it. She used to come over for the weekend. It was just great. She’d stay all weekend. We’d never go anywhere. We never went out for a minute. It was our refuge from the world. We didn’t do much, make love, sometimes just cook, watch TV, maybe do some barbecue, make love some more. She never wore anything. All she’d wear would be one of my shirts. It was really fine. Just perfect. And she’d say I just loved you all weekend. Just was the key to the whole situation. I just loved you this weekend. Just was the way we wanted it. It was really good. Well, then she did it. She changed it. She said, I love you. I said, What are you saying? She said, I do, I love you. I just looked at her. She said, What’s my future with you? I said, Babes, you just had your future with me.
“So that was it. I didn’t see her again. Then about a year later she calls. She wants a couple of hundred dollars, she says. Something has gone wrong, see, and she knows she’s not gonna make it. Sure, I tell her, c’mon over and pick it up. She comes over. I give her the money, but, like don’t tell me what it’s for, I tell her, just take it, you tell me what it’s for and I might not approve. Okay, she says, and I could use another fifty for running money. Take a hundred, I tell her. No, fifty more was all she wanted.
“And that was it. I gave it to her and that was it, see. Because if you borrow money then I’m involved in your personal life, right? That’s the way it is. I’m not a bank. I don’t want your personal life. Only a bank can give you money and not be involved in your personal life. She knew that.”
Bragging
The coat was folded lengthwise, and when he got in and laid it on my board I saw a rifle barrel emerge. He had a leather pack on the ground he had to squat to lift, and when he put it in back next to the coat I could smell blood. The pack was loaded with deer meat, 110 pounds of deer meat. He was Chet, he said, Chet the Jet of The Family Dog. He and his old lady had been with The Dog up in the Santa Lucias but she got pregnant, they’d moved down to Pacific Grove because of that. They were into macrobiotics but just brown rice wasn’t giving her the strength, she wanted meat, so he’d gone back up there and shot a doe, good blood, sweet blood, graceful blood to put into a baby. He’d like to be back up there now. It was the only country. The National Guard was up there trying to run them out, that was federal land, but they couldn’t find them. It was too rugged for helicopters, and The Dog had lookouts with walkie-talkies on the few roads in, that gave them a two-hour head start. They can’t get us, he said. I knew you’d stop when I saw your car, he said.
Then he asked about my board, he liked its color.
“Aqua green,” I said, “the color of clean winter surf. You know how a wave peaks over on itself, not breaking along all of its length at once, but peeling off down the line?”
I held up my hand, making a model of a breaking wave, curling the first two fingers to the base of my thumb, leaving the last two up.
“You interested in this?” I asked.
“Well,” I said, “there’s a pocket back under there, see, that’s where you’re trying to get, you sliding the board in, into the wall, its color going into the wave’s color, you choosing the track, tracking yourself toward it, toward the setup, the wave sets itself up, goes vertical, the wall goes vertical, see, you thinking you won’t make it, can’t make it, the fin won’t hold, can’t hold, then bam, it’s spilling over, the wave’s spilling itself out and over, completely over, and suddenly you’re there, the board has disappeared, it doesn’t exist, it’s just you moving fast on nothing, no sensation at all except light coming through the tunneling water enclosing you, you’re there, completely inside, right inside the jewel, you’ve got it, the heart of the universe . . .”
“Like music,” he said, “The Dog is into music. Like all the Avalon posters are Dog posters,” he said. “Everything is worked out in a group. We all sit in a circle and get stoned and fire sentences at each other. The further out we go, the more people we get off. The ones that get everyone off we write down, the ones written down become the poster, the best combinations.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and then bam, it blows you out, it has to blow you out, there’s trapped air in there, the wave has trapped air in behind you as it pours over, it has to blow it out, you blowing out with it.”
And I went on, you use that speed to let you turn down the wave face, the speed from the drop giving you the juice to turn right back up into it again, see, the peak moving on down the line all this time, you organizing your attack again, playing variations on it, maybe going into it higher on the wall this time, this time sticking your arm into it, into the face to suck yourself back in even farther, deeper, trying to see how far in you can go and still make it out.
“Like music,” he said, “just trying to get higher and higher. Just pour your mind at it and it opens up, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s it, that’s where you want to live, that’s where all the energy is. Some guys come out of there screaming,” I said, “I mean they literally scream when they come out.”
“That is far out,” he said.
“Not everyone is into surfing that way, though. Most people just paddle out and get stoked if they get a ride.”
He said he could understand that.
I said it’s not something you can get right away, you have to work at it.
Like everything else, was his comment.
We rode in silence after that.
Coming into Pacific Grove he said he’d like to offer me a place to sleep but he hadn’t seen his old lady in six days. I told him I didn’t need a place to sleep.
He showed me where to turn, and we drove up a couple of blocks and stopped alongside a rusted Ford panel in gray primer coat, its left front hub resting on a wheel laid flat on the street.
He got out.
Beyond the panel was a two-story wood-frame house, white paint peeling off the sides, unpainted steps going up to a porch.
He reached in the back and pulled out the pack, then the coat with the rifle and said, “That’s our place, take care now.”
I watched him go across the lawn and up the stairs, then turn and wave and go inside.
I drove off up the street.
Sad Ending
He was going out with the younger girl when he took the older girl out. He had liked this girl for two years and knew she liked him but he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Finally she said, I don’t know about you, you’re sleeping with the Hartley girl, aren’t you, do you sleep with her? How about you, he said, you
sleep with Muncy, don’t you? She didn’t answer right away. When it came, all she said was, Do you know what he tells me afterward, he tells me he loves me, he always tells me that.
And the ending with the younger girl was just the same.
He said it wasn’t that he didn’t love her, it was that he wanted to see other places and have other experiences first. She said, All right, and pulled him down to her. No, he said, it’s the wrong time, you’ll get pregnant. She didn’t say anything, just sat up and dressed.
Whose Car Are We Riding In?
“That kind of talk makes me sick! I mean it! It does! I never took your power! If I took anything it’s only because you gave it to me. People only take the power you give them. They can’t take it from you! They can’t! You’re always talking about that, his power, her power. That’s not important. ’Cause it’s not! All you’re talking about is your image, nothing else. That’s all you’re concerned about, how you look to others. You don’t care about me. You don’t. You don’t want me to succeed in what I’m doing unless it’s a compliment to you. Well, I don’t care about that. Not anymore. If something bad happens to me I tell people about it. So what if they think I’ve lost something. We all lose something. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t. You’d just die if you thought people knew I talk to you this way, wouldn’t you? You would. See what I mean? Yeah, you would.”
Elko
“These are the songs: ‘Hey, What Did the Blue Jay Say?’; ‘Oh, My Goodness!’; ‘Animal Crackers in My Soup’; ‘At the Codfish Ball’; ‘Polly Wolly Doodle’; ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop.’ Under his clothes he wore a bra and panties. When he got soaked with dishwater we could see them. He carried a hat to work but never wore it; he’d come in with snow on his hair, the hat inside his coat covering the cassette player. That player was his baby. No one knew where he was staying. Someone said one of the motels. We’ve got a big metal automatic that, once loaded, both washes and rinses all the plates. It takes about three minutes to cool down once it stops. You can’t open it until then. While it cooled was when he’d play his tapes. Only Shirley Temple tapes. ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ was the one we would hear the most. It got so we knew all the words by heart and would make jokes with them. He never reacted to it. Everyone thought they knew why. As a joke someone said they thought he was from New York. Even though we made fun of him we tried to protect him. He always rejected it, though. He wasn’t weak and he wasn’t stupid. When he got killed no one knew who to contact. He was hit in the street after work. It was one in the morning and in the dark some drunken kids in a pickup slid on the snow through a red light and ran him over. When we came to work that morning we all went out in the street to see where it happened. There was nothing to show where he’d died. The plows had come early and pushed all the snow away. Dickie found a couple of black plastic pieces that probably were off the cassette player. He gave them to Charles. Charles took it the hardest. He tossed them in the trash. I got one of them out, a piece of gray plastic with an indent that probably was from one of the push buttons, and put it on top of the dishwasher. It sat there for a couple of weeks and then one morning when I came in it was gone.”
Justice
“This guy got his money stolen and there weren’t any lights there. It was an old joint, see, with only an electric bulb hanging out in the hall. He saw the guy go out of his room but only saw the back of his head. The cops came and asked for a description. He said, How the hell can I describe him, it was dark, I only saw the back of his head.
“Well, you know how a lineup works, it’s always the guy in the middle that’s guilty.
“So the cops got hold of some guy, threw him in the lineup, and told the guy that’d been robbed to make a positive on him.
“He said, How can I do that?
“They said, Just do it, we know it’s him.
“So he went downtown and sat in there and the cops said, Just take our word for it.
“Well, you know how it is, all those lights shining on the suspects, you can see them but they can’t see you. I was younger then and everyone older looked old to me, and this guy they had up there was about maybe forty, but just some poor old guy to me, he didn’t look like much.
“Well? the cops said, and the guy who was to finger him says, No, I can’t be sure, I don’t know.
“That’s him. Do it.
“No, he still wasn’t going along with it, but they kept working on him and finally he says, Well, maybe it is.
“Do it, one of the cops says.
“When? the guy says.
“Now, this cop says.
“The man in the middle, the guy says.
“Louder, the cop says.
“So he says it again.
“And this poor old guy up there, he says, Mister you’ve got it wrong, I never robbed you, you’re making a mistake.
“So the guy turns to the cops and says, I told you, what do I say now?
“Just repeat it.
“Well, he did, and the guy was made and sent to court and the judge gave him up to five and sent him to Quentin.
“Now it didn’t seem right to me, but he was some guy they wanted to get so they got him. You know how it is, if they want you, they’ll get you.
“Anyway, now it was my luck to be the one that had to drive him out to Quentin, me, and a cop named O’Brian. Now O’Brian was a square cop, he was on the straight, see, and I put it to him, I told him about it, that it didn’t seem right to me.
“O’Brian listened to me and said, Well, the judge said he was guilty, didn’t he?
“O’Brian wouldn’t commit himself, see, but I still didn’t think it was right and I said so.
“O’Brian didn’t say anything, and we just took him out there, Knudson, I think his name was, and delivered him.
“Well, we’re handing him over and while we’re doing it O’Brian says to the guard, How’s Hamilton doing? How’s he been?
“Fine, the guard says.
“Can I talk to him? O’Brian says.
“Sure, Bill, the guard says. Whatever you want.
“That was his name, see, Bill, Bill O’Brian.
“So they called upstairs and had this Hamilton guy come down and O’Brian starts in talking with him, how’s this, how’s that, and so on. Well, this guy is in for rape, he’s already done ten of it, and, Yes, everything’s still the same, I’m still innocent, but it doesn’t look like it’s gonna do me any good. He’s very polite about it, very gentlemanly, seems like a hell of a nice guy, and when we leave I tell O’Brian that, and O’Brian says, I know. Then he says, Listen, do you want to go downtown?
“Do I want to go downtown?
“I say, I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, Bill, but that guy doesn’t seem very guilty to me.
“I know, O’Brian says, and I’m going to get him out.
“So we go downtown and O’Brian pulls this guy’s files and reads them over. I read along with him and when we’re done I say, Bill, he sure seems all right to me.
“He does, O’Brian says, and he gets up and goes and calls a judge.
“Now this judge listens and says, What the hell, O’Brian, you’re always sticking out for some guy who’s not guilty.
“Well, read his record, O’Brian says, and tell me then.
“And that’s what happened, he ordered the records over, read them, and freed the guy.”
Baby
“Do you want a baby?”
“I don’t know, do you?”
“I asked you.”
“I do if you do.”
“No, not yet. I’m not ready for that yet.”
“All right, I’m not either.”
“C’mere.”
“No.”
“C’mon!”
“No!”
“What the hell! One minute you’re asking me if I want a baby and then the next you’re cranky. Don’t be so goddamn cranky.”
“That’s just the way I am. One minute I’m happy, the next I�
��m not.”
What’s to Be Done
“Going in the car I didn’t think about it. I didn’t start thinking about it until we’d already started running. Thinking isn’t supposed to happen when you’re in action, but that’s not true. It isn’t true at all. I’m thinking I don’t like the way he shoots pool. Some guys when they shoot, they just don’t win. They shoot good until the money shot, the eight-ball shot, then they choke. He’s like that. Also, he won’t say where he got the caps and crimpers, things you just can’t buy! So there it is, I’m running my ass off, my heart up in my mouth, and that’s what I’m thinking. I’ve told Tom what I think. He said, So what, man? What if he is? Our karma’s too strong. What we’re doing is right. Even if he is a snitch, no way he’ll turn us over. But that’s what I’m thinking when I hear it. I’m running like a son of a bitch and I hear it. I’m already off the fucking campus sprinting for the car and I hear it. First there’s a thud, a really heavy thud, then a crackle, a long going-on-and-on crackle, then nothing, and I’m at the car scrambling to get in. Jesus Christ, Willy! John is yelling, We fucking did it! William! Tom is yelling at me. EEEEEEEYOW! he’s yelling. Get this fucker going! I’m yelling. The car is already going. EEEEEEEEYOW, Tom is yelling, we did it! We fucking did it! No shit! I’m yelling. John is pounding the seat. Willy, he yells, no shit! No fucking shit! I start yelling, too. Tom is driving like a son of a bitch.”
So Long, John Wayne
They were married to different people but she got wet talking to him and he said, “Okay but afterward I won’t be able to see you again.”
