Fathoms (Collected Writings)

by Jack Cady

  “These old boys are laughing now,” Brother Jesse told me, “but I predict a change in attitude. I reckon they’ll come around before first snowfall.”

  With his car dead, Jesse had to find a set of wheels. He swapped an old hay rake and a gang of discs for a ’49 Chevrolet.

  “It wouldn’t pull the doorknob off a cathouse,” he told me. “It’s just to get around in while I shop.”

  The whole deal was going to take some time. Knowing Jesse, I figured he’d go through half a dozen trades before finding something comfortable. And, I was right.

  He first showed up in an old Packard hearse that once belonged to a funeral home in Billings. He’d swapped the Chev for the hearse, plus a gilt-covered coffin so gaudy it wouldn’t fit anybody but a radio preacher. He swapped the hearse to Sam Winder, who aimed to use it for hunting trips. Sam’s dogs wouldn’t go anywhere near the thing. Sam opened all the windows and the back door, then took the hearse up to speed trying to blow out all the ghosts. The dogs still wouldn’t go near it. Sam said ‘to hell with it’ and pushed it into a ravine. Every rabbit and fox and varmint in that ravine came bailing out, and nobody has gone in there ever since.

  Jesse traded the coffin to old man Jefferson who parked the thing in his woodshed. Jefferson was supposed to be on his last legs, but figured he wasn’t ever, never, going to die if his poor body knew it would be buried in that monstrosity. It worked for several years, too, until a bad winter came along and he split it up for firewood. But, we still remember him.

  Jesse came out of those trades with a ’47 Pontiac and a Model T. He sold the Model T to a collector, then traded the Pontiac and forty bales of hay for a ’53 Studebaker. He swapped the Studebaker for a ratty pickup and all the equipment in a restaurant that went bust. He peddled the equipment to some other poor fellow who was hell-bent to go bust in the restaurant business. Then he traded the pickup for a motorcycle, plus a ’51 Plymouth that would just about get out of its own way. By the time he peddled both of them he had his pockets full of cash and was riding shank’s mare.

  “Jed,” he told me, “let’s you and me go to the big city.” He was pretty happy, but I remembered how scared I’d been at the funeral. I admit to being skittish.

  From the center of north Montana there weren’t a championship lot of big cities. West was Seattle, which was sort of rainy and mythological. North was Winnipeg, a cow town. South was Salt Lake City. To the east . . .

  “The hell with it,” Brother Jesse said, “we’ll go to Minneapolis.”

  It was about a thousand miles. Maybe fifteen hours, what with the roads. You could sail Montana and North Dakota, but those Minnesota cops were humorless.

  I was shoving a sweet old ’53 Desoto. It had a good bit under the bonnet, but the suspension would make a grown man cry. It was a beautiful beast, though. Once you got up to speed that front end would track like a cat. The upholstery was like brand new. The radio worked. There wasn’t a scratch or ding on it. I had myself a banker’s car, and there I was, only 19.

  “We may want to loiter,” Jesse told me. “Plan on a couple of overnights.”

  I had a job, but told myself that I was due for vacation; and so screw it. Brother Jesse put down food for the tabbies, and whistled up the dogs. Potato hopped into the back seat in his large, dumb way. He looked expectant. Chip sort of hesitated. He made a couple of jumps straight up, then backed down and started barking. Jesse scooped him up and shoved him in with old Potato-dog.

  “The upholstery,” I hollered. It was the first time I ever stood up to Jesse.

  Jesse got an old piece of tarp to put under the dogs. “Pee and you’re a goner,” he told Potato.

  We drove steady through the early summer morning. The Desoto hung in around eighty, which was no more than you’d want considering the suspension. Rangeland gave way to cropland. The radio plugged away with western music, beef prices, and an occasional preacher saying ‘grace’ and ‘gimmie.’ Highway 2 rolled straight ahead, sometimes rising gradual, so that cars appeared like rapid running spooks out of the blind entries. There’d be a little flash of sunlight from a windshield. Then a car would appear over the rise, and usually it was wailing.

  We came across a hell of a wreck just beyond Havre. A new Mercury station wagon rolled about fifteen times across the landscape. There were two nice-dressed people and two children. Not one of them ever stood a chance. They rattled like dice in a drum. I didn’t want to see what I was looking at.

  Bad wrecks always made me sick, but not sick to puking. That would not have been manly. I prayed for those people under my breath and got all shaky. We pulled into a crossroads bar for a sandwich and a beer. The dogs hopped out. Plenty of hubcaps were nailed on the wall of the bar. We took a couple of them down, and filled them with water from an outside tap. The dogs drank and peed.

  “I’ve attended a couple myself,” Brother Jesse said about the wreck. “Drove a Terraplane off a bridge back in ’53. Damn near drowned.” Jesse wasn’t about to admit to feeling bad. He just turned thoughtful.

  “This here is a big territory,” he said to no one in particular. “But you can get across her if you hustle. I reckon that Merc was loaded wrong, or blew a tire.” Beyond the windows of the bar eight metal crosses lined the highway. Somebody had tied red plastic roses on one of them. Another one had plastic violets and forget-me-nots.

  We lingered a little. Jesse talked to the guy at the bar, and I ran a rack at the pool table. Then Jesse bought a six pack while I headed for the can. Since it was still early in the day the can was clean; all the last night’s pee and spit mopped from the floor. Somebody had just painted the walls. There wasn’t a thing written on them, except that Road Dog had signed in.

  ROAD DOG

  HOW ARE THINGS IN GLOCCA MORA?

  His script was spidery and perfect, like an artist who drew a signature. I touched the paint and it was still tacky. We had missed The Dog by only a few minutes.

  ═

  Road Dog was like Jesse in a way. Nobody could say exactly when he showed up, but one day he was there. We started seeing the name ‘Road Dog’ written in what Matt Simons called ‘a fine, Spencerian hand.’ There was always a message attached, and Matt called them ‘cryptic.’ The signature and messages flashed from the walls of cans in bars, truck stops, and roadside cafes through four states.

  We didn’t know Road Dog’s route at first. Most guys were tied to work or home or laziness. In a year or two, though, Road Dog’s trail got mapped. His fine hand showed up all along highway 2, trailed east into North Dakota, dropped south through South Dakota, then ran back west across Wyoming. He popped north through Missoula and climbed the state until he connected with highway 2 again. Road Dog, whoever he was, ran a constant square of road that covered roughly two thousand miles.

  Sam Winder claimed Road Dog was a communist who taught social studies at U. of Montana. “Because,” Sam claimed, “that kind of writing comes from Europe. That writing ain’t U.S.A.”

  Mike Tarbush figured Road Dog was a retired cartoonist from a newspaper. He figured nobody could spot The Dog, because The Dog slipped past us in a Nash, or some other old granny car.

  Brother Jesse suggested that Road Dog was a truck driver, or maybe a gypsy, but sounded like he knew better.

  Matt Simons supposed Road Dog was a traveling salesman with a flair for advertising. Matt based his notion on one of the cryptic messages:

  ROAD DOG

  RINGLING BROS. BARNUM AND TOOTHPASTE

  I didn’t figure anything. Road Dog stood in my imagination as the heart and soul of highway 2. When night was deep and engines blazed, I could hang over the wheel and run down that tunnel of two lane into the night.

  The nighttime road is different than any other thing. Ghosts rise around the metal crosses, and ghosts hitchhike along the wide berm. All the mysteries of the world seem normal after dark. If imagination shows dead thumbs aching for a ride, those dead folk only prove the hot and spermy goodness of life. I’d
overtake some taillights, grab the other lane, and blow doors off some partygoer who tried to stay out of the ditches. A man can sing and cuss and pray. The miles fill with dreams of power, and women, and happy, happy times.

  Road Dog seemed part of that romance. He was the very soul of mystery; a guy who looked at the dark heart of the road and still flew free enough to make jokes and write that fine hand.

  In daytime it was different, though. When I saw Road Dog signed in on the wall of that can, it just seemed like a real bad sign.

  ═

  The guy who owned the bar had seen no one. He claimed he’d been in the back room putting bottles in his cold case. The Dog had come and gone like a spirit.

  Jesse and I stood in the parking lot outside the bar. Sunlight laid earthy and hot across new crops. A little puff of dust rose from a side road. It advanced real slow, so you could tell it was a farm tractor. All around us, meadowlarks and tanagers were whooping it up.

  “We’ll likely pass him,” Jesse said, “if we crowd a little.” Jesse pretended he didn’t care, but anyone would. We loaded the dogs, and even hung the hubcaps back up where we got them, because it was what a gentleman would do. The Desoto acted as eager as any Desoto could. We pushed the top end, which was 89, and maybe 92 downhill. At that speed brakes don’t give you much, so you’d better trust your steering and your tires.

  If we passed The Dog we didn’t know it. He might have parked in one of the towns, and of course we dropped a lot of revs passing through towns; that being neighborly. What with a little loafing, some pee stops, and general fooling around, we did not hit Minneapolis until a little after midnight. When we checked into a motel on the strip Potato was sleepy and grumpy. Chip looked relieved.

  “Don’t fall in love with that bed,” Jesse told me. “Some damn salesman is out there waitin’ to do us in. It pays to start early.”

  Car shopping with Jesse turned out as fascinating as anybody could expect. At 7 a.m. we cruised the lots. Cars stood in silent rows like advertising men lined up for group pictures. It being Minneapolis, we saw a lot of high-priced iron. Cadillacs and Packards and Lincolns sat beside Buick convertibles, hemi-Chryslers, and Corvettes (“nice c-hars,” Jesse said about the Corvettes, “but no room to ’em. You couldn’t carry more than one sack of feed.”) Hudsons and Studebakers hunched along the back rows. On one lot was something called ‘Classic Lane.’ A Model A stood beside a ’37 International pickup. An L29 Cord sat like a tombstone, which it was because it had no engine. But, glory be, beside the Cord nested a ’39 LaSalle coupe just sparkling with threat. That LaSalle might have snookered Jesse, except something highly talented sat buried deep in the lot.

  It was the last of the fast and elegant Lincolns, a ’54 coupe as snarly as any man could want. The ’53 model had taken the Mexican Road Race. The ’54 was a refinement. After that, the marque went downhill. It started building cars for businessmen and rich grannies.

  Jesse walked round and round the Lincoln, which looked like it was used to being cherished. Matchless and scratchless. It was a little less than fire engine red, with a white roof and a grill that could shrug off a cow. That Linc was a solid set of fixings. Jesse got soft lights in his eyes. This was no Miss Molly, but this was Miss somebody. There were a lot of crap crates running out there, but this Linc wasn’t one of them.

  “You prob’ly can’t even get parts for the damn thing,” Jesse murmured, and you could tell he was already scrapping with a salesman. He turned his back on the Lincoln. “We’ll catch a bite to eat,” he said. “This may take a couple days.”

  I felt sort of bubbly. “The Dog ain’t gonna like this,” I told Jesse.

  “The Dog is gonna love it,” he said. “Me and The Dog knows that road.”

  By the time the car lots opened at 9 a.m. Jesse had a trader’s light in his eyes. About all that needs saying is that never before, or since, did I ever see a used car salesman cry.

  The poor fellow never had a chance. He stood in his car lot most of the day while me and Jesse went through every car lot on the strip. We waved to him from a sweet little ’57 Cad, and we cruised past real smooth in a mama-san ’56 Imperial. We kicked tires on anything sturdy while he was watching, and we never even got to his lot until fifteen minutes before closing. Jesse and I climbed from my Desoto. Potato and Chip tailed after us.

  “I always know when I get to Minneapolis,” Jesse said to me, but loud enough the salesman could just about hear. “My woman wants to lay a farmer, and my dogs start pukin’.” When we got within easy hearing range Jesse’s voice got humble. “I expect this fella can help a cowboy in a fix.”

  I followed, experiencing considerable admiration. In two sentences Jesse had his man confused.

  Potato was dumb enough that he trotted right up to the Lincoln. Chip sat and panted, pretending indifference. Then he ambled over to a ragged-out Pontiac and peed on the tire. “I must be missing something,” Jesse said to the salesman, “because that dog has himself a dandy nose.” He looked at the Pontiac. “This thing got an engine?”

  We all conversed for the best part of an hour. Jesse refused to even look at the Lincoln. He sounded real serious about the LaSalle, to the point of running it around a couple of blocks. It was a darling. It had ceramic covered manifolds to protect against heat and rust. It packed a long stroke V8 with enough torque to bite rubber in second gear. My Desoto was a pretty thing, but until that LaSalle I never realized that my car was a total pussycat. When we left the lot the salesman looked sad. He was late for supper.

  “Stay with what you’ve got,” Jesse told me as he climbed in my Desoto. “The clock has run on that LaSalle. Let a collector have it. I hate it when something good dies for lack of parts.”

  I wondered if he was thinking of Miss Molly.

  “Because,” Jesse said, and kicked the tire on a silly little Volkswagen, “the great, good cars are dying. I blame it on the Germans.”

  Next day we bought the Lincoln and made the salesman feel like one proud pup. He figured he foisted something off on Jesse that Jesse didn’t want. He was so stuck on himself that he forgot that he had asked a thousand dollars, and come away with five-fifty. He even forgot that his eyes were swollen, and that maybe he crapped his pants.

  We went for a test drive, but only after Jesse and I crawled around under the Linc. A little body lead lumped in the left rear fender, but the front end stood sound. Nobody had pumped any sawdust into the differential. We found no water in the oil, or oil in the water. The salesman stood around, admiring his shoeshine. He was one of those easterners who can’t help talking down to people, especially when he’s trying to be nice. I swear he wore a white tie with little red ducks on it. That Minnesota sunlight made his red hair blond, and his face pop with freckles.

  Jesse drove real quiet until he found an interesting stretch of road. The salesman sat beside him. Me and Potato and Chip hunkered in the back seat. Chip looked sort of nauseated, but Potato was pretty happy.

  “I’m afraid,” Jesse said regretful, “that this thing is gonna turn out to be a howler. A fella gets a few years on him and he don’t want a screamy car.” Brother Jesse couldn’t have been much more than thirty, but he tugged on his nose and ears like he was ancient. “I sure hope,” he said real mournful, “that nobody stuck a boot in any of these here tires.” Then he poured on some coal.

  There was a most satisfying screech. That Linc took out like a roadrunner in heat. The salesman’s head snapped backward, and his shoulders dug into the seat. Potato gave a happy, happy woof and stuck his nose out the open window. I felt like yelling hosannah, but knew enough to keep my big mouth shut. The Linc shrugged off a couple of cars that were conservatively motoring. It wheeled past a hay truck as the tires started humming. The salesman’s freckles began to stand up like warts while the airstream howled. Old Potato kept his nose sticking through the open window and the wind kept drying it. Potato was so dam’ dumb he tried to lick it wet while his nose stayed in the airstream. His tongue bl
ew sideways.

  “It ain’t nothing but speed,” Jesse complained. “Look at this here steering.” He jogged the wheel considerable, which at ninety got even more considerable. The salesman’s tie blew straight backward. The little red ducks matched his freckles. “Jee-sus-Chee-sus,” he said, “Eight hundred and slow down.” He braced himself against the dash.

  When it hit the century mark the Linc developed a little float in the front end. I expect all of us were thinking about the tires.

  You could tell Jesse was jubilant. The Linc still had some pedal left.

  “I’m gettin’ old,” Jesse hollered above the wind. “This ain’t no car for an old man.”

  “Seven hundred,” the salesman said, “And Mother-of-God, slow it down.”

  “Five-fifty,” Jesse told him, and dug the pedal down one more notch.

  “You got it,” the salesman hollered. His face twisted up real tear-y. Then Potato got all grateful and started licking the guy on the back of the neck.

  So Jesse cut the speed and bought the Linc. He did it diplomatic, pretending he was sorry he’d made the offer. That was kind of him. After all, the guy was nothing but a used car salesman.

  ═

  We did a second night in that motel. The Linc and Desoto sat in an all-night filling station. Lube, oil change, and wash, because we were riding high. Jesse had a heap of money left over. In the morning we got new jeans and shirts, so as to ride along like gentlemen.

  “We’ll go back through South Dakota,” Jesse told me. “There’s a place I’ve heard about.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “We’re checking on The Dog,” Jesse told me, and would say no more.

  We eased west to Bowman, just under the North Dakota line. Jesse sort of leaned into it, just taking joy from the whole occasion. I flowed along as best the Desoto could. Potato rode with Jesse, and Chip sat on the front seat beside me. Chip seemed rather easier in his mind.