East of Denver

by Gregory Hill

  “There’s always the chance that he could die of natural causes before it comes to that. A heart attack is a natural death. Fatty foods increase the risk of a heart attack.”

  “And?”

  “A heart attack isn’t a bad way to die.”

  * * *

  In the pickup, driving back from Strattford, Pa said, “Wish I had a comb.”

  I patted my shirt pocket. “No comb here. You’re gonna have to lick your hand and wipe it on your head.”

  “Wipe it on your ass.”

  I said, “Good one.”

  A few minutes later, Pa said, “Wish I had a comb.”

  I patted my shirt pocket. “No comb here. You’re gonna have to lick your hand and wipe it on your head.”

  “Wipe it on your ass.”

  I said, “Good one.”

  * * *

  When we got home, he wanted to walk around, so we did. We walked around the property and got cheatgrass in our socks. I pointed out the work I’d done. The granary window was fixed. The front doorknob was fixed. The garden was weeded. He approved. It wasn’t so bad, having him back.

  I took him to the shed and showed him the Rocket. “Say!” he said. “That’s a good-lookin’ little dude you have there.”

  “You and me. We put it together.”

  “That so?”

  I said, “I can’t get the damn thing to start.”

  “I bet I can.”

  He squatted down. Pa’s ass never touched the ground. At sixty-two, straight out of the hospital, he could still squat like a Hindu holy man. He ran his hands over the engine. I watched with squinted eyes. I knew he couldn’t explain what he was doing but I figured if I paid close enough attention, I’d see the precise moment when he worked his sleight of hand.

  He wiggled the spark plug cable and then made a yip sound. Must have pinched his finger. Blood started flowing. The cut wasn’t any bigger than a mouse bite. But that dark red blood went drip, drip on the floor.

  He was unconcerned. “You got something that could mop this mess up?”

  I turned to fetch a rag. I wasn’t two steps away before the Rocket revved up.

  He was holding his hand above his head, finger wrapped in his hankie, a little river of blood creeping down his forearm. He didn’t care. He waved me over. The Rocket chattered, leaning hard on its kickstand. He’s home half an hour and just like that.

  He said, “Give it a go.”

  “You sure? It’s your bike.”

  “Get on.”

  I straddled the Rocket. Old-fashioned fatso seat. The throttle was a knob bolted to the frame. I revved the engine. It putted like a Briggs & Stratton washing machine engine should.

  “Ride it!”

  I didn’t know what to expect. You get your expectations up and then they fall. This here was a bicycle with an engine on it. It wasn’t a magic carpet. I put some weight on the clutch pedal.

  The Rocket flew. My ass slid halfway off the seat before I pulled myself back into position. Headed right toward the house, I took my foot off the pedal and the bike came to a stop. I eased back the throttle. I walked the bike around. Dad was watching me from the shed, hands on his hips. He shouted something at me. I gave him a thumbs-up and engaged the clutch real gentle. The bike drove much better now. I took it around the shed, between the grain bins. The seat springs were the only suspension. An anthill felt like a molehill. Mounds of bunchgrass jerked the handlebars. The whole frame felt like it was flexing. But I held on and that old, heavy iron held together.

  I cruised the farm with gentle wind cooling the sweat in my armpits. When I’d had enough, I rode back to the shed and stopped easy, right in front of Pa. The hankie was tied around his finger. The blood had dried.

  I said, “Your turn.”

  I climbed off the bike and he climbed on. He revved the engine, stomped the clutch. The rear wheel showered me with gravel. The bike reared up with a roar. A lesser man would have panicked and dumped it right then. Pa leaned forward, put the front wheel back on the ground, and took off like a rabbit. He sped past the house and onto the road. He headed north, face crouched into the handlebars, elbows wide like wings.

  A quarter mile down the road, I saw him turn right at the intersection. He was circumnavigating the section. A four-mile trip, it was a required test run for any homebuilt motorized device. The bike got smaller and smaller and then disappeared behind a rise. Blackout time. I would not hear from him until he reappeared rounding the corner three-quarters of a mile south of the house.

  The dirt roads of Strattford County were on the grid system. Instead of city blocks, they used sections. A section is a square mile. Every mile, another intersection. In spite of the uniform design, every road had its own personality. Some held their shape in the rain, some sank your car up to its axles. Some roads were solid, some were washboarded, some were soft and sandy. The road that Dad was roaring down was terribly soft. Even in dry weather, the sand could wrench the front wheels of a pickup and squirrel it into the ditch.

  I scratched some calculations in the dirt. The blackout zone was a little less than three miles. If he was traveling twenty miles an hour, those three miles should take him around nine minutes.

  Twenty minutes later, he still hadn’t showed up at the south corner. I wasn’t worried exactly. Still, I got in the pickup and followed his route. The tire tracks weaved back and forth across the road. On that sand, the Rocket must have been meaner than a snake. I wondered if all that bouncing didn’t dislodge a blood clot, give him another stroke. Pass out, veer into a barbed-wire fence. Death by Rocket would have been faster than feeding him fatty foods by a long shot. I became a little worried.

  I found him on the homestretch. Walking the bike. When I pulled up, he stuck out his thumb. I rolled down the window. “Need a ride?”

  He nodded. “Got any gas?”

  * * *

  After a trip to the fuel tank, we spent the rest of the day riding the Rocket. Up and down the road, scaring up pheasants. Down the old runway, where the badger mounds would bounce you right up off the seat. It was glorious. Just before sunset, we went in to the house, ate canned food, watched TV, and slept wonderfully.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE POSTMAN DELIVERS BAD NEWS

  Dad wasn’t much good for chores, but there was one job he did and he did it well. He could get the mail. Several times a day, he’d go to the mailbox, which was up the driveway, next to the road. Once a day, excepting Sundays, he’d actually bring something back. He’d put the mail on the counter, where I’d go thru it and sort out the good from the bad.

  Since the mail usually arrived around noon, I’d cook lunch while he read random snippets from catalogs, brochures, anything. From one flyer advertising a Hawaiian vacation he read, “Kobe Japanese Steakhouse,” “Easy Rider,” “Meteor Shower Night Trip.” Very serious. I don’t think he knew what he was reading. He was just impressed with himself for being able to translate letters into sounds. Words that were composed by an ad agency in New York were being recited with zero context in a farmhouse in Strattford County, Colorado. It was the opposite of poetry.

  The day after we rode the Rocket, Pa went to the mailbox and brought back the hospital bill. Of course we didn’t have any insurance. At sixty-two, he was too young for Medicare. We were too ignorant to apply for Medicaid or take advantage of any other program that could have possibly helped us. Five days in the hospital plus a bunch of tests came out to $87,332.23.

  I stuffed the bill in my back pocket and we spent the rest of the day working in the garden. Weeds. They grow so damned quick.

  The sun was cooking pretty good. We wore long-sleeved shirts. Most people think you should wear a T-shirt in the hot sun. Or go shirtless. Bullshit. You want a worn-out, long-sleeved button-down shirt. Keeps the burn off your arms. A good shirt and a mesh f
arm cap and you’re safe from everything but the flies.

  I dug a hole and dropped the hospital bill into it. I buried it. I had failed to pay bills before. I wasn’t worried. You always get plenty of warning before they send someone after you. Letters, sneaky phone calls. In the end, it wasn’t going to matter. There was no way we’d be paying that bill.

  All Pa and I had was the farm. We could have sold it, maybe, but I doubt it’d bring in eighty-seven thousand dollars. And even if it did, we’d have no farm and no money.

  A process had started, and there wasn’t any stopping it. Eventually we were going to lose the farm on account of my dad having a conversation with his dead wife in the middle of the night. I dug up the letter and put it back in my pocket.

  * * *

  That evening, after Dad was in bed, I called Clarissa.

  “Mind if I come over?”

  She said, “It’s been a while.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought you were all done with me, Stacey Williams.”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  “It’s your name.”

  “I got a question.”

  She said, “It’s late.”

  “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “I have to be at the bank tomorrow morning.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  She sighed right into the receiver. “Come over.”

  I made sure Pa was asleep and then drove my car the eight miles to her place.

  * * *

  Clarissa lived in a trailer. It was solid in the ground. The windows and the front door were open, hoping to catch a breeze. I walked in. Clarissa had the TV tuned to a program where sexy cops sliced open sexy cadavers. She turned down the volume and offered me a drink.

  I said, “You got any root beer?”

  “Did you give up on the real kind?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  She went to the kitchen and poured me a cup of iced tea. We sat on her couch while an oscillating fan ruffled the edges of her nightgown. She’d lost some weight.

  “What’s the emergency?”

  I handed her the envelope. “You know anything about things like this?”

  She looked at the bill. Raised her eyebrows. “If I’d of known Emmett was sick, I would have sent a card.”

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  “I usually do.” She tapped the letter. “Take this, for instance. It’s called a bill. It’s a request for money in exchange for services rendered.”

  “It’s not right to charge that much just to keep a guy in a bed.”

  “It’s a hospital. What do you expect?”

  “What if I don’t have any money?”

  “They’ll let you do it in payments.”

  “We aren’t going to get any money any time soon. Dad can’t work. I don’t know how to farm. There’s no jobs here, at least none that I can do.”

  “Then move back to Denver.”

  “I’d have to hire someone to take care of Dad. That’s expensive. And anyway, I can’t take him off the farm. He’d be lost.”

  She shrugged. “Then you’re screwed. They’ll take the farm and sell it and you and your Pa will end up in a shack like this.”

  “They’re not going to take the farm.”

  “Unless you’ve got some plan for earning eighty thousand dollars real quick, they damn sure will.”

  “Okay. And say I did have a plan for earning eighty thousand dollars real quick?”

  “Yeah. What are you gonna do? Rob a bank?”

  “Yep.”

  She pointed to the door. “Out.”

  I stayed on the couch. “That bastard stole my dad’s airplane.”

  Clarissa said, “I’m not helping you rob the bank.”

  “I bet ol’ Mike Crutchfield is a prick to work for.”

  “It’s a job. And anyway, he’s only in one day a week. I hardly ever see him.”

  “You live in a shitty trailer house in a rotten town. You’re thirty-six years old, you’re afraid of vomit, you’re anorexic, and nobody loves you.” I picked up a book off her end table. “And you’re reading something called Furious Desire?”

  She pulled the book out of my hands. “I read it because it’s funny.” She was defensive. “You know, telling me I’m pathetic isn’t news. I know all that shit. I know I’m a nobody doing nothing in nowhere. I know people laugh at me. Fuck. I know Crutchfield is a dripping asshole of a man. He’s everybody’s best buddy until he repossesses their house. He’s the world’s best boss until he slaps your ass. But you know what? You better get over it because if you whine, you can say good-bye to your job. Next stop, you’ll be commuting forty miles to Strattford to wait tables at Billy’s for three bucks an hour and zero tips. So, yes. I’d love to rob that place. Who the hell wouldn’t? But it’s impossible. Never happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, there’s a gun behind the counter and instructions for the employees to shoot first and then shoot again.”

  I said, “Nobody’s gonna shoot us. Except for Saturdays when Mr. Crutchfield comes in, there’s only three people who work in that bank. Not you, nor Neal Koenig, nor Charlotte Sackett would shoot anybody. But that doesn’t matter since we’re going to do it at night when there’s nobody around.”

  Clarissa said, “Which brings me to point number two. If you try to break in at night, you’ve got to deal with a fancy alarm system whose code I am not privy to.”

  “We’ll figure that out.”

  “If you think I’m gonna sleep with Crutchfield in order to get that code, you’re a shit-tongued moron.”

  “You won’t have to sleep with anyone. I promise. We can cut the power or something. Alarms can be tricked. Look at your TV show. They do it all the time.”

  Clarissa shut off the television. She said, “Thirdly—and, may I point out, most significantly—it’s a vault. With a lock and a combination and everything.”

  “That’ll be the easy part.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “We have a secret weapon.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Emmett Williams. He’s a genius. Well, he was. He still is. You just gotta get him started. We’ll put him in front of the vault with a stethoscope and wait. He’s automatic.”

  “We’re going to base our entire plan on your senile father’s ability to crack a safe?”

  “Yep.”

  “Emmett’s got morals. He’ll never agree.”

  “He doesn’t have to know we’re breaking the law. I’ll lie to him. He’s gullible.”

  “That’s taking advantage of him.”

  “Coming from a woman who slept with him while he was drunk.”

  “I was drunk, too.” She winked at me.

  “And it’s not taking advantage. It’s just using him to retake what the banker stole.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She said, “Lucky for you, I do care.”

  “You’re looking skinny.”

  “Don’t flatter me.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Yes.”

  She threw Furious Desire at the TV. The pages spread out in a way that made the book appear to fly for a moment just before it bounced off the screen.

  * * *

  On the way back from Clarissa’s, I drove thru Dorsey to make sure Vaughn Atkins’s mom was working at the liquor store. She was; thru the window, I could see her leaning on the counter with a cigarette on her lips.

  I went to Vaughn’s house. He was in the basement, eating fudge, watching TV. The same show Clarissa had been watching.

  He said,
“The prodigal son of a bitch returns.”

  “After that night.”

  “My mom.”

  “What happened? Did she ground you?”

  “Nah. She forgot the whole thing. Drunk. She even got my TV rigged up again.”

  “I see that,” I said.

  He shut off the television. “You could have called.”

  “I wanted to spend some time with my pa.”

  “I heard he almost died.”

  “I thought nobody knew.”

  “Everybody knows everything.”

  “It was just a little stroke.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “No.”

  He said, “You want something.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “You want some fudge?”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Opium. But it must have cooked out in the oven because I’ve had half a pan of this shit and I can’t feel a thing.”

  He offered me a cube. I waved it away.

  He said, “Have some fudge.”

  “I don’t want any fudge.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course I can.”

  I said, “Are you telling me you can keep a secret because you really can keep a secret or because you’re a liar?”

  “What’s it matter? You’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Let me guess what you’re going to tell me. If I get it right, then all you have to do is nod.”

  “Okay.”

  “You want to rob the bank.”

  “Good guess.”

  “It wasn’t really a guess. Clarissa just called.”

  “Goddamn. That bull—”

  “Hold on. She said she thought you were going to drive over here and ask me to help you rob the bank and that I should say yes because she totally has faith in you.”