by Tim Sandlin
***
After that, the days ran together. I know I was sick. I know I made it to the rock every day—I never missed a one—but other than that, it’s hard to say what happened.
I lost the ability to distinguish between being awake and being asleep. My clothes were dirty. I lost some weight and grew a spotty beard. I ate brown rice and Everts’ thistle.
I talked to myself a lot.
Conversations with the water became very esoteric and filled with double meanings and extraneous verbs. I more or less blacked out for a couple of weeks.
10
Truman Everts was a man I can identify with. He should be enshrined somewhere in the Hall of Famous Losers.
In 1870, Truman came to the Yellowstone Plateau with one of the first parties of white men ever to explore the region. On the east side of Yellowstone Lake, he somehow lost track of his companions. His horse bucked him off and ran away. In the fall, Everts broke his spectacles.
I know the position. My glasses once sank in the Escatawpa River in southern Mississippi. The wilderness experience is not enjoyable for the newly blind.
Anyway, Everts stumbled around the forest, figuring he was dead or dying. Near starvation, he ate the root of a tall thistle with purple flowers. The root didn’t kill him or make him sick, so he ate another the next day. Everts lived on the thistle root for over a month.
Some prospectors found old, blind Everts and stuck him on a horse and headed for civilization—in this case Gardiner, Montana. Indians attacked and Everts took a shot in the leg. The prospectors loaded him into a wagon and promptly rolled the wagon off a cliff. In Gardiner, they put him in a bed in a room above the doctor’s office.
Just as the doctor arrived, the bed collapsed.
I don’t know what happened to Truman Everts after that—whether he lived a wonderfully happy life or continued his string of bad luck—but the explorers were so moved by his story they named the thistle after him.
Fame has its price. I think I eat Everts’ thistle more for Everts than the nutrition.
***
I take that other stuff back. It’s an exaggeration for dramatic effect to say I blacked out for two weeks. I mean, I wasn’t delirious or anything—at least not often. I was just confused. Thinking too many thoughts over and over, rehearsing tragedies, dwelling on the past, and living tiny details of the future. What would Colette and I name the kids? What albums would we buy? How would I behave when my dad died?
I developed the ability to watch scenes as graphically as if I was watching television. Sometimes I had lived the scenes or might live them someday. Other times I saw things I couldn’t possibly have been involved in.
I saw Alice in a cat fight in which she was killed.
A girl I invented for my fourth novel came alive and crawled into my tent and stretched out on me.
Grandpa Hawken crowed like a rooster and held his great prick with both hands, spewing come at the sunrise.
Cora Ann shot down the Grey’s River rapids in a silver kayak. She bounced over a boulder, took the bottom chute vertically, and landed right side up in a calm, willow-shaded pool.
They weren’t dreams, I was awake. And they weren’t visions, at least not the visions of religious fanatics who haven’t eaten in a week. Psychologists say the most important thing about sleeping is the dreams. If a person doesn’t sleep for a couple of days, he’ll begin dreaming while he’s awake.
I suggest that modern man is so dependent on television that if he doesn’t see a TV show for a few days, a set will click on in his head. It’s a theory, anyway.
***
One night I did go all-out, sweat-soaked, crazy-eyed delirious. Colette and Danny had been kissing in the backyard on the grass. It was nauseating. He put his hand on her stomach. At sunset, they stood up and went in the house, but no lights came on.
I crept down the hill. Thor was inside, so I figured it was safe to sneak up to the house and stand under their second-story window. I knew they were making love because I heard breathing and humping. I don’t think Colette enjoyed it that much. Danny made a lot more noise than she did, but still, it didn’t seem right. That loan officer was screwing my life mate. It made me feel strange.
I walked home and ate my brown rice, listening to the water replay the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera. I’ll never know for certain, but the creek probably intended the movie as some kind of criticism on my life.
That night as I lay in my sleeping bag, the top of the tent turned into a movie screen. Like a dying person, I saw it all and understood nothing.
I saw Mom leaning over the desk and pointing at the check with her right hand, saying, “It’s good. Call the bank. They’ll tell you it’s a good check.”
And the abortionist’s secretary, a young woman with short hair, saying, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Palamino. We cannot take personal checks.”
Mom points again. “Why not?”
The girl is patient. “This is an illegal business, Mrs. Palamino. We can’t leave records.”
“It’s a good check.”
The doctor, overweight, no gray hair in his hair, comes into the waiting room. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Mrs. Palamino wants to pay with a personal check.”
“We can’t accept checks.”
“But it won’t bounce. Would you like to see the deposit slip?”
Uncle Homer rocks back and forth, his left hand clutching at his right, his eyes focused on a gray spot on the baseboard. He’s rocking and listening, listening for the citizen’s-band signal that will kill him, the stray microwave floating through the atmosphere that will explode his heart.
I step over the body to pick up the derringer. I don’t even check to see if he’s dead. I step over the body, pick up the derringer, and put it in my pocket.
A highway patrolman in south Texas kicks a long-haired boy to his knees on the street and makes him bite the curb, then stomps the back of his head. I hold the boy’s head while he vomits and spits out blood, teeth, and bits of jawbone.
Julie has her hands pressed against the small of my back. My face is burrowed in her shoulder while I grind myself into her. I look up and her eyes are wide open, staring at the ceiling, bored.
During the hippie period, I overdosed on codeine once. That night, lying stiff in my bag and staring at my past and future, I felt the same numbness and terror I had known on the codeine. I couldn’t possibly move my head or arms. They were weighted down as if I was under a couple of feet of snow. I was very frightened someone might walk up to the tent and I’d have to talk or cope.
The night was not enjoyable. I saw—felt—family fights and picnics, meaningless conversations, meaningless days. I’ve heard the mind never releases anything. You just have to touch the right nerve end in the brain to remember the smell of the delivery-room nurse or the color of socks every kid in your first-grade class wore on opening day. Something must have scampered all over my nerve ends that night, because I remembered it all.
***
Meanwhile, between fits of relative insanity, I watched the Hart Ranch. I didn’t miss a move down there. John Hart kicked Thor for no reason one day, just because he thought no one was looking. Colette scraped one of the Powerwagons with her Subaru and drove away without telling anybody. On a Monday when everyone else was gone, Mrs. Hart stood in the garden and cried.
I may have been a neurotic schizoid with tendencies toward psychotic paranoia and stage-four anxiety attacks, but I was observant. Nobody on that ranch could pick his nose without my knowing which finger he used and whether or not he came up dry.
***
There is a second abortion in my life. One I generally forget or choose not to remember. Three months before Julie left, I came home from work late one afternoon and found her lying on the couch, reading The Bell Jar.
“You loo
k pale,” I said.
Julie glanced up from the book, “I feel pale.”
It was January and cold. I must have had on five layers of sweaters, vests, and coats. I asked, “What did you do today?”
She set the book in her lap and looked right at me. I stopped in the middle of pulling off my down vest. At that time, Julie didn’t look at me very often, hardly ever, and I knew something had happened.
“I had an abortion this afternoon,” she said.
“An abortion?”
“Yes.”
I finished taking off the vest and dropped it onto a chair. “Are you pregnant?”
“Not anymore.” That done, she picked up the book and started reading again.
I stood in the center of the room, watching her. Julie concentrated on the book. Her hair was kind of dirty and her eyes seemed tired. Other than that, she appeared the same as ever. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’d have made a big deal out of it,” she said without glancing up.
“It was half my child. I deserved to know.”
“See. I knew you’d whine and moan and make it into a moral crisis, and I would have ended up having the abortion anyway. I saved you all that poetic soul-wrenching. Be thankful.”
“I’m not thankful. I deserve my poetic soul-wrenching.” I sat in the chair and stared at her. She licked her thumb and turned the page. Nothing I said or felt could have affected Julie one way or another.
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“I went to the doctor’s office and he took care of it right there. They gave me two shots that hurt like shit.”
“How did you get home?”
“Rick drove me.”
“You told Rick you were pregnant, but not me?”
She marked her place in the book with one finger and looked at me again. “Rick understands. You wouldn’t have.”
“Oh.” We stared at each other for a while. I had lots of questions, but none of them mattered much. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, just a little tired. I’ll be in top shape tomorrow.”
“You want a pizza or something?”
“Sounds good to me. Italian sausage and mushroom?”
“Okay.”
So I went out and bought a pizza and we sat on the couch, watching M*A*S*H and chewing.
The subject of the abortion never came up again. Like the marriage itself, I bet Julie’s completely forgotten it by now.
***
We tried for two years to persuade Rick to move west. He was living a turbulent drugs-and-sex life with a fiery little woman in New Orleans. She left him every three months or so, and he would send us a letter saying it was all over and he had to leave New Orleans, would we put him up for a few days?
We’d write back and say, Come on, we’d love to have you. We’ll feed you and keep you in alcohol through the crisis. He never answered, but three months later she would leave again and he would write another letter. This went on for two years. Once he even spent three hundred dollars on a tent so he could camp out with us, but he didn’t have enough cash left for the trip, and by the time he made the money, she was back.
Then, one day in July, I walked into the Cowboy after work and there Rick was, sitting on a saddle, chugging an Oly, and looking pleased with himself. He jumped off the saddle and hugged me—the only time in my life a man has ever hugged me—and said he was so happy to see me he could shit.
We proceeded to drink ourselves near comatose and rolled home to Julie. I threw up in the sink while he threw up in the toilet. Julie wiped us both off with paper towels and carried me to bed and him to the couch.
When she left, I kind of figured Julie would drift over to Rick, but I didn’t mind. He’d been nothing but honorable while she lived with me, and I didn’t figure Julie could handle solitude any better than I could. Being from New Orleans, Rick was the logical choice in this town full of Californians and Yankees.
However, something happened along the way. After she left, we were all still friends. They got together, like I expected. I got drunk. I harbored ill feelings, but I must have done something awful because soon people asked, “Why does Rick hate you so much?” and six months later it was, “Why does Julie hate you so much?”
I guess I miss him more than her. There’s an old saying I read in the men’s room under the rodeo stands in Pocatello, Idaho: You can replace a lover, but you can’t replace a friend. I’ve had plenty of lovers since Julie, but I haven’t had a friend since Rick.
***
A couple of mornings after my psychic flashback, I almost got myself killed. The hike down the ridge was the usual carnival of air, dirt, trees, and stones all vying for attention. As I walked, I worked on my gums and teeth with a blue spruce needle. Spruce needles are stiff like toothpicks, and fir needles are soft like floss, which is a problem because spruce needles don’t slide into the spaces between the teeth, and if you force them in, they break off and stick straight out. On the other hand, fir needles fit the gaps, but they’re too short to hold on to at both ends. You can solve both problems by going with blades of grass, but then your teeth turn green.
A baby moose trotted from a willow patch and stood in the trail, staring brown-eyed at me. She was young and cute in a lovable but ugly sort of way—all feet, joints, and skull. A frond hung out the right side of her chewing lips.
Like many people, I lower animals to my level by treating them as Peter Rabbit characters. “Good morning, Miss Moose,” I said. “Fine day for eating weeds, isn’t it?”
The baby bounced into the woods and stopped again, this time staring past me into the trees.
A branch cracked and I looked back into the frontal view of a charging mother moose. I yelped and dived left into a chokecherry thicket. She whirled and came on again. Hooves the size of Macintosh speaker cabinets thundered by my ear.
I clawed upright and ran for the nearest tree, a lodgepole pine without a branch below thirty feet. The mama wheeled and barreled back, head down.
Rangers claim that moose charge with their eyes closed, and to avoid them, all you do is step aside. Never believe a forest ranger. No animal with its eyes closed would chase me two full circles around the lodgepole before snorting and coming to a rest. I ran another ten feet, then turned around to face her.
She pawed the ground, eyeing me. The baby chewed a bush twenty yards down the hill. My legs shook and my chest hurt like shit. Lungs heaving, breath coming in choked sobs, I gasped, “This is bizarre.”
She laid her ears back, flared her nostrils into huge black cavities, and charged again. I felt like a penny on a railroad track. I waited the way rodeo clowns and bullfighters wait for bulls, and at the last possible moment I cheated death by leaping into the dirt. Then I ran like hell.
This time I reached a climbable tree before she did. Bloodied my fingers, ripped my only shirt, and scraped my chest raw—but I made it.
Perched on a limb, hugging the trunk with both arms,
I looked down at the mother moose and stuck out my tongue and sang, “Nonnie-nonnie-pooh-pooh, you ugly bitch.”
It was an awful thing to say, childish and disrespectful, but I see it this way: Although her motives were instinctive and maternal, the moose tried to kill me. If others have the right to protect their security by harming me, I have the right to nonnie-nonnie-pooh-pooh a little when they don’t succeed.
***
It took a while to notice, but as the days went by, my personal appearance began falling apart. I suppose the torn shirt tipped me off. Rags seem shabby even for me. I had jumped in the creek a few times, but that could hardly be called adequate hygiene for two weeks of camping. My clothes felt damp and moldy. My hair hadn’t been anywhere near a brush or comb since I left Jackson.
Something had to happen soon or the Harts would smell me from the rock.
I lay in my little groove, watching the silent ranch and fingering my beard. I don’t grow much of a beard. The right side comes out fine, black and bristly, but the left side grows in small Canadian-dime-size patches that never quite come together.
The food supply was running low and I was sick of Everts’ thistle. My clothes and I stunk. I couldn’t shake the fever, and the delusions or hallucinations or whatever they were were starting to frighten me. Hard as I tried not to notice, my present lifestyle couldn’t last much longer.
Colette bounced out of the house and drove away. For three days, all I had seen were people walking from houses to cars and cars to houses. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as I had hoped it might be.
After Colette left, I settled in to wait for the next Hart to drive in or away. As the phrase smorgasbord slips by rolled around my head, I faced the unpleasant situation.
Two facts could not be ignored. I could not continue in this fashion, and I would not leave Colette. These facts made all alternatives impossible.
I had vaguely figured on sneaking back to Cora Ann’s every month or so for a bath and a change of clothes, but that plan only put off any decisions until winter, and winter would cut down my choices considerably. Besides, one more week on that mountain, eating roots and watching nightly mind movies, and I might lose touch forever—transmute into a mass murderer or public defecator or any number of antisocial things that don’t even have names.
I set the binoculars on the rock and rolled over on my back to search the sky for solutions. My brain was in disarray. I knew if I could only think straight, the answer would be obvious. The answer is almost always obvious if you stop long enough to think.
Here was my list of choices: (1) Return to Jackson; (2) leave the area; (3) go higher into the mountains; (4) commit suicide; or (5) kidnap Colette.
What lousy choices. Every one was either awful or tedious. The first three were definitely out. They involved leaving Colette to the sharks. So did number four, but it appealed to my sense of drama and escapist attitude. However, I lacked the necessary energy for suicide. The effort would not be worth the result.
