David laughed. “About her boyfriend, Barney. I think that’s so sweet. A relationship! Is Barney her age?”
“Actually, he’s quite a bit younger.”
As Szabo drove back to the airport, he tried to concentrate on the outlandish news of Barney’s role in his mother’s life, but he didn’t get anywhere. He couldn’t stop thinking about David, and thought of him in terms of a proverb he had once heard from a Mexican man who had worked for him: “You have only one mother. Your father could be any son of a bitch in the world.” That’s me! I’m any son of a bitch in the world.
He did have a mother, however, there in God’s waiting room with a new companion. His late father, a hardworking tradesman, would have given Barney a wood shampoo with a rake handle. But my standing, thanks to my modest prosperity and education, means that I shall have to humor Barney, and no doubt my most earnest cautions about the forty-year age gap between Barney and my mother will be flung back in my face, Szabo thought. Suddenly tears burned in his eyes: he was back to David.
Drugs had swept through their small town one year. They’d always been around, but that year they were everywhere, and they had destroyed David’s generation. The most ordinary children had become violent, larcenous, pregnant, sick, lost, or dead. And then the plague had subsided. David, an excellent student, had injected the drugs between his toes, and his parents had suspected only that he suddenly disliked them. Instead of going to college, he had apprenticed with a chef for nearly a year, before heading to prison. David didn’t think that he would go back to drugs when he was released, and neither did his father. But his bitterness seemed to be here to stay, fed, likely, by his memory of the things that he had done in his days of using. Perhaps he blamed himself for the failure of his parents’ marriage. The body he had acquired in the weight room seemed to suit his current burdened personality. The way he looked, he could hardly go back to what he had been.
The tractor was wet and gleaming in the bright sunlight. Barney was gathering stray bits of baler twine and rolling them up into a neat ball. He hardly seemed to notice Szabo’s arrival, so Szabo carried his suitcase into the house without a word. Once inside, he glanced furtively through the hall window at Barney, then went back out.
“Good morning, Barney.”
“Hi.”
“This shoulder thing is behind me now. I think I’m ready to go back to work here.” Barney looked more quizzical than the situation called for. “So let’s square up and call it a day.”
“Meaning what?” Barney asked with an extravagantly inquisitive look.
“Meaning the job is over. Thank you very much. You’ve been a great help when I needed it most.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I think so. I’m quite sure of it.”
“It’s your call, Szabo. But there’s something about me you don’t know.”
“I’m sure that’s the case. That’s nearly always the case, isn’t it, Barney?”
Some ghastly revelation was at hand, and Szabo knew that there would be no stopping it. “But I’d be happy to know what it is, in your instance.”
Barney gazed at him a long time before he spoke. He said, “I am a respectable person.”
Szabo found this unsettling. Clearly, it was time to have a word with his mother. He asked her out to lunch, but she begged off, citing the new smoking rules that, she said disdainfully, were “sweeping the nation.” So he took her to the park near the river. Her size had been reduced by tobacco and her deplorable eating habits. She scurried along briskly, and any pause on Szabo’s part found her well ahead, poking into garden beds and uprooting the occasional weed to set an example. They found a bench and sat. Mrs. Szabo shook out a cigarette by tapping the pack against the back of her opposing hand, then raising the whole pack, with its skillfully protruded single butt, to her lips. There the cigarette hung, unlit, while she made several comments about the weather and dropped the pack back into her purse. Finally, she lit it, and the first puff seemed to satisfy her profoundly.
“How did you find David?”
“Fine, I think. The way I get to see him down there … it’s uncomfortable. Just a big empty room.”
“Is he still angry?”
“Not that I could see.”
“He was such an angry little boy.”
“Well, he’s not little anymore, Mom. He’s got big muscles.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t misuse them. He got that attitude from your wife. The nicest thing I can say about her is that she kept on going.”
“She married a decent, successful guy.”
“What else could she do? She didn’t have the guts to rob a bank.”
“You forget what David was like before his problems. He didn’t have an attitude. He was a nice boy.”
He could see she wasn’t listening.
“Barney said you told him he was no longer needed.”
“He knew it was temporary from the start.”
“Well, he’s certainly got my place pulled together. My God, what a neatnik! And he made me insure the Russell, which I should have done a long time ago. He thinks that David’s in this pickle because he got away with murder while he was growing up.”
“What? He’s never met David!”
“Barney’s a very bright individual. He doesn’t have to know every last thing firsthand.”
“I think his views on how Karen and I raised David would be enhanced by actually meeting David.”
“Why?”
“Jesus Christ, Mom.”
“Of course you’re grumpy. Barney does so much for me, and you want me all to yourself. Can’t you just relax?”
Telling people to relax is not as aggressive as shooting them, but it’s up there. The first time Barney had driven the tractor, he’d nearly put it in the irrigation ditch. Szabo had cautioned him, and Barney had responded, “Is the tractor in the ditch?” Szabo had allowed that it was not. “Then relax,” Barney had said.
There was nothing like it: leaning on his shovel next to the racing water, the last sun falling on gentle hills crowned with bluestem and golden buffalo grass, cool air rising from the river bottom. Moon grazed and followed Szabo as he placed his dams and sent a thin sheet of alpine water across the hay crop. The first cutting had been baled and put neatly in the stack yard by Barney. The second cutting grew slowly, was denser in protein and more sought after by owners trying to make their horses run faster. All the way down through this minor economic chain, people lost money, their marvelous dreams disconnected from hopes of success.
Once winter was in the air, Szabo spent less time on his property and made an effort to do the things for his business that he was most reluctant to do. In November, he flew to Düsseldorf and stayed at the Excelsior, eating Düsseldorfer Senfrostbraten with Herr Schlegel while pricing robotic plasma welding on the small titanium objects that he was buying from him. The apparent murkiness of Germany was doubtless no more than a symptom of Szabo’s ignorance of the language. He wondered if all the elders he saw window-shopping on the boulevards were ex-Nazis. And the skinheads at the Düsseldorf railroad station gave him a sense of historical alarm. After a long evening in the Altstadt, Szabo found himself quite drunk at the bar of the Hotel Lindenhof, where he took a room with a beautiful Afro-Czech girl, called Amai, who used him as a comic, inebriated English instructor, her usual services being unnecessary, given his incapacity. Since Szabo appeared unable to navigate his way back to the Excelsior, Amai drove him there in return for the promise of a late breakfast in the Excelsior’s beautiful dining room. Afterward, she asked for his address so that they could stay in touch once he was home.
From Germany, Szabo flew directly to Denver. He slept most of the way and awoke to anxiety at the idea that this was probably the last visit he would have before David was released. In the chaotic year that preceded his son’s confinement, he had never known what David was doing or to what extent he was in danger; in the last weeks of his marriage, he and Karen had admitted to feel
ing some relief, now that David was in jail, simply at knowing where he was. Perhaps it was that relief that had allowed them to separate. Yet Cliff’s prompt appearance had aroused Szabo’s suspicion: he sensed that California had beckoned while his marriage was still seemingly intact.
David was warmer toward his father this time but more fretful than he had been on the previous visit. Szabo understood that David was probably as afraid of his impending freedom as Szabo was on his behalf. He seemed, despite the muscles, small and frightened, his previous sarcasm no more than a wishful perimeter of defense. And the glow of anger was missing. Szabo wondered if jet lag was contributing to his heartache. He hardly knew what to say to his son.
“In two weeks, you’ll be in California,” Szabo said.
“That was the plan.”
“Is it not anymore?”
“Mom and Cliff said they didn’t want me. I’ve got to go to Plan B.”
“I’m sorry, David. What’s Plan B?”
“Plan B is I don’t know what Plan B is.”
“What made your mom and Cliff change their minds?”
David smiled slightly. He said, “I’m trying to remember how Mom put it. She said that a new relationship requires so many adjustments that introducing a new element could be destabilizing. It was sort of abstract. She left it to me to figure out that I was the destabilizing new element. Then Cliff got on the phone and said that unfortunately closure called for the patience of all parties.”
“Did you say anything?”
“Yes, Dad, I did. I told Cliff to blow it out his ass.”
Szabo could have taken this as evidence of David’s unresolved anger. Instead, he enjoyed the feeling that they were in cahoots. “How did Cliff take that?”
“He said he was sorry I felt that way. I told him not to be. I told him I didn’t feel anything at all.”
They were quiet for long enough to suggest the inkling of comfort. Finally, David said, “Tell me about Barney.”
“Barney! What about him?”
“Why did you send him here to see me?”
Startling as this was, Szabo did not react at first. He was quiet for a long and awkward moment. Then he asked quite levelly, “When did Barney show up?”
“While you were still in wherever. He said you sent him.”
“Not exactly. Perhaps, based on our conversations, Barney thought it might be something I wanted him to do.”
Szabo had no idea why he was dissembling like this, unless it was to buy time.
He suddenly recalled, from David’s childhood, the purple dinosaur toy called Barney that was guaranteed to empower the child, a multimillion-dollar brainstorm for cashing in on stupid parents. “Did he explain what he was doing here? How did he get here?”
“He came in your car.”
“Of course. Well, that was cheaper than flying. What was the purpose of his trip?”
“Are you asking me?”
“David, cut me some slack. I’ve been halfway around the world.”
“Did you sleep in those clothes, Dad?”
Now Szabo was on the defensive, still in the clothes of his Düsseldorf night with Amai, whom, in this moment of bewilderment, he was certain he should have married. Escape was not so easy. If he hadn’t fallen off a tractor and injured himself, this squirrel Barney wouldn’t be in the middle of his life. What would he be doing? Living in Germany with Amai, siring octoroons and trying to keep her out of the bars? “I’m afraid I underpacked, David. I wore this suit at meetings and slept in it on the plane. So, Barney was here … for what?”
“I guess for counseling of some kind, to prepare me for the outside world.”
David winced at these last two words.
“Why would Barney think he was in a position to counsel you?”
“If you don’t know, Dad, I’m sure I don’t, either. At least he has a Ph.D.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Dad, I’m not following this! I didn’t send him here—you did!”
“I know, I know, and I’m sure it’s all to the good. Was Barney helpful?”
“You tell me. He said I should go home and take over the ranch.”
“It’s hardly a ranch, David. It’s just some property. What made him think you should do that?”
“Nothing you need to hear.”
“What do you mean by that? I want to hear what some jackass with a Ph.D. had to say.”
“You won’t like it.”
“David, I’m a big boy. Tell me.”
“He said that you’re incompetent and that it’s only a matter of time before you break your neck doing something you have no business doing.”
Furious, Szabo took this in with a false thoughtful air. Karen had said almost exactly the same thing. But her words had been motivated by a wish to replace the property with a winter home in San Luis Obispo, a town that had ranked number 1 in a Times survey of residential contentment.
“I trust you told Dr. Barney Q. Shitheel that you were not interested.”
“I didn’t tell him that, Dad.”
“What did you tell him?”
David smiled at his father. “I told him I wasn’t welcome there.”
“You could have come there anytime you wanted.”
“Right.”
“What’s this? Dave, why are you crying?”
David wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and spoke with odd detachment. “I knew I would never understand business, but I worked on a lot of ranches in high school. I was good at that.”
Not all the fight was gone out of Szabo. Nor had he given up on the story he’d been telling himself. But even as he asked his derisive question he was reminding himself how he might have been absent for his own child. “Did you think selling drugs was a way of learning business?”
David looked weary. He didn’t want to play anymore. “You’re right, Dad. What was I thinking?”
“I’m not saying I’m right.”
“No, Dad, you’re one hundred percent right.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m right some of the time.”
This exchange, more than anything, troubled Szabo. Here was David, broken down, imprisoned, soon to be released with his stigma. And Szabo was only adding to his insecurity, instead of trying to make the situation better.
There was plenty to do when he got home. And there was something to learn when he visited his mother: Barney had absconded with the Charlie Russell painting. The next morning, Szabo met the detective who was interviewing his mother while fanning away the smoke with his clipboard. She only glanced at Szabo, crestfallen, defeated. From the detective, a handsome fellow in a short-sleeved shirt, too young for his mustache, Szabo learned that his ranch hand’s name wasn’t Barney; it was Ronny—Ronny Something. Ronny’s gift was for slipping into a community with one of his many small talents: the sculptural woodpile had taken him far. The painting would go to a private collector, not likely to be seen again. “This isn’t Ronny’s first rodeo,” the detective said. “The only thread we’ve got is the Ph.D. There is no actual Ph.D., but it’s the one thing Ronny drops every time. There’s been a string of thefts, and they all lead into the same black hole. I don’t know why everyone is so sure that Ronny wants to help them.” When Szabo repeated this to Melinda and saw her wide eyes, he just shrugged and shook his head. Maybe to change the subject, she asked after David, and Szabo told her that he would soon be coming home.
Only the very treetops caught the first light as Jessica started up Cascade Creek, a sparkling crevice in a vast bed of spruce needles. As she walked, the light descended the trunks and ignited balsamic forest odors, awakening the birds and making it easy to find stepping-stones to cross the narrow creek. She’d found this trail on a Forest Service map; the contour lines had suggested a climb she could manage, and by scrutinizing images on Google Earth she had seen the small watershed open into what looked like a meadow or a strip of saturated ground. Jays were foraging in the hawthorns and, as day emerged
, the hurrying clouds signaled fast-changing weather. Jessica’s pack held a spare down vest, a windbreaker, and an apple.
She came to a spot where the creek fell through a tangle of evergreen roots to form a plunge pool. Sitting for a moment, she followed the movement of bubbles into its crystalline depths, lost in her thoughts, free of history. Time was not the same dimension here that it was in the rest of her life, and floating like this was something to be savored. The bubbles in the plunge pool reminded her of the stars she had fallen in love with so long ago, years before she became an astronomer and began to spend her days analyzing solar data from the Yohkoh satellite or the RHESSI spectroscopic imager. The stars were no longer a mystery to her; these bubbles would have to do.
After the plunge pool, the trail became steeper, and it pleased Jessica to feel her attention shift to her aching calves. She surprised a hawk on a low branch, not a soaring hawk but one that flashed through trees and seemed to take her with it. As she followed its search for an opening wide enough to ascend through, she saw a bright, grassy area ahead, a gap of light in the evergreens. She would explore there, then retrace her steps down the creek.
Once she’d reached the edge of the meadow, she stopped, unable at first to understand what she was seeing: two figures, proximate and mutually wary, one circling the other. Without moving, she grasped that a man, pistol dangling from one hand, was contemplating a wolf he had trapped; and the wolf, its foreleg secured in the jaws of a trap, was watching the man as he looked for a shot. Then the wolf turned and faced the forest in what seemed a despairing gesture. Jessica began to shout, running toward the man. She called, “You’re not going to do that!”
The man turned, startled. “I sure am,” he said gently. He was of an indeterminate age, tall and bareheaded in a canvas coat. His lace-up boots had undershot heels. A hat lay on the ground by his foot; his face was slick with sweat. “If this isn’t something you’d like to watch, you might just want to be elsewhere.”
Jessica was taken aback by his soft voice and by his peculiar tidiness. She noticed a mule tied in the trees, plywood panniers lashed to its ribs. Looking back at the terrified wolf, which was trying now to fling itself away from the trap, she heard herself say, “I’d rather shoot you than that animal.”
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