Lone Rock

by Duane Lindsay

  Rudy introduced a pair of construction workers, an electrician and a plumber, all of indeterminate age, worn and weather beaten and tough. They wore clothes similar to Adrian’s, but theirs were tattered and well used. The contrast between them and Adrian’s bright newness was startling.

  He felt as if he carried a sign reading, fresh meat—come and get it.

  Adrian spent the day in the control room, afraid to go outside. He left long after the others did, when the sun stretched the shadows against the dirt, feeling ashamed at his lack of courage and glad that the day was over and he hadn’t been chewed apart.

  He drove thirty miles in the growing dusk before reaching a gas station, grocery and motel at the side of the road. An old woman rented him a room at the far end of a shabby courtyard and he watched the news on one of the only two stations available on the battered old TV.

  The days became as monotonous as the landscape. He avoided the crews, leaving alone after everyone left. Evenings he wandered, taking comfort among the slowly cooling rocks, the deeply shadowed valleys. He stayed out until dark as the moon rose, feeling an odd sense of belonging to this alien place. Eventually he’d wander back to the motel and fall asleep to grainy pictures on the battered TV.

  On the weekend Adrian traveled further, toward a low mountain range on the edge of the horizon. Cooler, with slightly more vegetation than the lowlands, the land rolled and climbed. He parked the car and walked on established trails that treated his injured leg gently.

  Cautiously working his way up a fair incline he sat in the shade of a twisted Pinion Pine as the sun sank over the desert far below.

  The walk relaxed him and he made the drive back to Cuchara Flats Sunday evening, stopping at the station for food and gas. His attention focused on soaking in the worn bathtub, he idly picked a bag of chips and grabbed a loaf of bread, thinking little, observing nothing.

  He paid and bumped open the screen door with his hip. Halfway to the car strong hands grabbed his arms and the bag fell to the hard dirt of the parking lot.

  “It’s the new engineer,” hissed a thick Spanish accent. Two of the plant workers stared at Adrian intently, their expressions mean and stupid with liquor. Both wore faded jeans and red flannel shirts with cut off sleeves. Black eyes glared from beneath dark hair.

  Though he’d never spoken to them, Adrian recognized them as heavy machine operators. He sagged weakly, trying to hold down panic.

  “Hey, Ramon,” the shorter of them said. “This is the guy who’s too good to talk to us.”

  Ramon leaned closer, spreading the harsh smell of tequila. “Too good for us,” he slurred.

  He crowded forward like a bull and Adrian stepped back, his shoes scraping on the gravel. The short man grabbed his arm and pushed him at Ramon who shoved him roughly back. Adrian fell to the ground, felt sharp pebbles dig into his knees. Ramon bent and grabbed his shirt. Grunting with drunken effort, he yanked Adrian to his feet.

  Not again. Adrian didn’t fight back as fear turned his muscles to jelly. His jaw ached with the tension of not screaming.

  Ramon dropped him and grabbed him again. It was like being mauled by an indifferent bear, helpless to do anything but be buffeted about. His head hit the asphalt and he saw an explosion of lights.

  It became clear that Ramon and his friend didn’t really want to kill him. Drunk and belligerent, they were looking for someone to push, and had found the new guy.

  When they shoved Adrian down for the fifth? Sixth? time they stood gasping for air. They swayed for a moment, leaving Adrian on the ground, huddled into himself.

  With a few muttered curses in Spanish they milled about like bulls in a field, then drifted away. Eyes closed, Adrian listened to the muted bang of truck doors, the whirring grind of an old engine struggling and finally he heard tires on gravel, followed by blessed silence.

  Eventually insects filled the air with timid noises and he stiffly rose to his feet. He gathered scattered bags and cans and shuffled to his room, aching inside and out. He filled the tub and had, not the hot soak he’d imagined, but a hotter one filled with bitterness and self-contempt. He fell across the bed and slept late through an unset alarm.

  Monday morning Adrian checked in late with Rudy who took one look and demanded to know what had happened.

  “I’ve heard that some of the guys were talking about you.” Rudy offered a battered cup filled with coffee as thick and black as tar, took one himself and perched on the edge of his desk. Adrian looked up at him with furtive glances, nervous at Rudy’s closeness, and sipped at the hot water to cover it.

  “They said they were going to take you down a little bit. You know what this is about?”

  “No,” Adrian said without looking at him. He wanted cream but couldn’t move himself to get it. He wanted to sleep for about a week. Mostly he wanted this conversation to stop.

  “Hearing the guys talk, and seeing you drag your ass in here I gotta think you met with some trouble.”

  Adrian stared at the white cup of brown liquid.

  “Adrian?”

  Adrian looked up, his head rising slowly on stiff neck muscles.

  The manager’s expression was almost gentle. “Did they do something to you?”

  Adrian almost laughed out loud. Did they do something? Hurt pride, wounded feelings; sagging shoulders, sore muscles and bloody scratches was all they’d done.

  “No.” He clenched his jaw and winced, rolling it around to hear the bones crack softly. “I went to the mountains and fell down. Got a little sore and slept in late. That’s all.”

  Rudy looked disbelieving for a moment, but shrugged and let it go. “All right. Let’s get to work.”

  Adrian ate lunch alone, staring at the hot wooden walls, regretting his lack of courage, regretting the throbbing bruises, regretting... He worked on programming until Rudy was ready to leave at six.

  The guard was long gone and Rudy waved him through the gate, locking the chain link fence behind him. Rudy climbed into his big yellow Chevy truck with the rusted white tool box in the back and drove away in a cloud of brown dust.

  Adrian went the other way, across the bumpy ruts to the narrow blacktopped road, alone with his thoughts. Long shadows stretched from stiff cacti. Rocks glowed with late sun on one side, cool darkness on the other. He breathed in and out and blinked slowly, watching the empty highway, and felt tired.

  Over dinner from a can and a warm Coke, he sat in his room until it became too dark to see. At 9:30 came a sharp rap against the door.

  Surprised and suddenly dry mouthed Adrian stared at the aged wood, wondering who it was, hoping they would go away. But the rapping came again and civilized behavior overcame primitive fear.

  Outside, the yellow lights glared and the darkness hid. Ramon stood with his short friend. They still wore the denims and torn shirts, but their expressions were no longer blank and dull. Adrian watched warily, afraid to move. Unable to speak, adrenalin demanded that he run, or fight or throw up.

  “You didn’t tell Rudy,” said the short man. Ramon stared silently, nodding his agreement. They waited for a response. Eventually the silence stretched too thin for them.

  “I am Ruiz,’ the man said, his voice stating pride in his name. “This is my cousin Ramon.” He paused for a long while. “You could have told Rudy what had happened and he would have fired us.”

  Again he paused, considering his words carefully. Behind him was endless desert, an eternity of darkness stretching out forever beyond this tiny oasis of 40-watt light.

  “Rudy knows we talked about you, but you didn’t say nothing. For that.” His voice trailed away but came back under the stern control of pride. “For that, we came to talk about last night. Ramon,” he commanded.

  “We won’t hurt you again,” Ramon’s voice was lower, the strain greater, pushed by a necessity Adrian didn’t understand.

  They stood for a time. A moth beat insanely against the yellow bulb over the door. They turned and shambled off into the
darkness.

  Again Adrian heard the doors slam, the old engine stall. But this night he stood in the wooden door frame and watched a scarred pickup drive away. Two faces stared moonlike at him, then disappeared.

  Adrian stood still, watching the night for several minutes before swallowing, trying to get moisture back into his dry throat.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. He turned from the door and closed it behind him. He walked across the room and turned off the television. In the remaining weeks spent in Arizona he never turned it on again.

  21 – Rocket Ship Galileo

  Corley Sayres opened the door to his apartment, set his suitcase on the tile entry and bent to pick up the two weeks accumulated mail. He walked to the kitchen and stood at the small counter, sorting the letters.

  “Bills,” he mused aloud. “Junk, more junk, more bills.” He put the letters into piles: to keep, to throw out, to read later. Magazines were glanced at until he reached Book Collector’s Digest. His eyes ran across the cover as he idly plucked a goblet from an upper cabinet. He removed the cork from a cheap bottle of California wine. While he considered himself an expert on books—an avid collector—he saw no reason to overspend on wine. A Cabernet was a Cabernet whether it was made in France or Napa Valley.

  Books though... He took his magazine and left the tiny kitchen, leaving only the counter lights glowing in the gloom. His flight from Atlanta had arrived late. As usual, the drive from the airport was a major pain and he didn’t reach his own door until nearly nine. Now the darkness had fully settled in and it was too late for dinner. But wine and a good book magazine would set things right.

  He settled into a deep lounge chair next to a gas fireplace and turned on the reading lamp. The room glowed with a warm light and Corley kicked off his shoes without untying them. He stretched his feet, feeling the muscles relax after the long day of traveling. A sense of peace settled around him as he swirled the goblet beneath his nose and breathed in the vapors. Always coat the sides of the glass before sipping; he remembered the advice from some wine show in New York, it made the bouquet sweeter.

  The magazine, dedicated to collectors of vintage first edition novels, had an excellent article about James Fennimore Cooper, an author Corley found to be overrated and dry. American classic, indeed. Cooper was as boring to Corley now as he had been back at Northwestern University.

  Before he’d been blacklisted and expelled.

  Corley looked up at the bookcases covering his entire wall. At least fifty signed first editions sat on those shelves. most of them newer, but a dozen genuine antiques. He nodded to himself, seeing a nearly complete set of Mark Twain, a first edition Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, a complete set Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz stories, even a T.S. Eliot. And his pride, a first edition—signed— Tarzan of the Apes.

  lf they could see me now, he thought. Successful businessman, traveler, bridge player, book collector; a successful man in all regards. A criminal.

  The thought jarred him and he sipped his wine without tasting it, the magazine forgotten on his lap. Criminal, no...well yes; technically.

  Criminal. The idea neither pleased nor displeased. He did what he had to do. Everybody just did what they had to do. He shook a cigarette from the pack on the table, lit it and stared through the dancing smoke. The smell of the cigarette mixed with the earthy odor of the wine, making a sublime combination. He could quit anytime he thought automatically, but why would he want to?

  He inhaled, he sipped, he savored. The robberies weren’t completely a bad thing. Control-logics got what it needed and a whole lot of salesmen got fat commissions for sales that never happened. Probably they got commissions. He hadn’t thought that deeply on how the after-the-crime scene played out.

  The insurance companies got screwed of course, and the manufactures probably had to raise the numbers on their ‘loss by theft’ column. But so what? That’s what insurance was for.

  It wasn’t as if he had a choice. With workman’s comp and government interference, not to mention Wally and his damn cars, it cost a fortune to run an engineering company these days. Corley remembered how tough it had been in the beginning. Wally had had a good idea, buying the tiny company, but it had been Corley who pushed to make it grow. “The bigger we are,” he’d explained to an always perplexed Wally Clooner, “The more money can be made to work for us. The easier it is to let it do the work for us.”

  Wally had bought into it. It wasn’t as if Corley had pushed him, made him do it. Wally was a grown up, he made his own decisions. But the best decisions had been Corley’s own. The company would have gone out of business that second year if it hadn’t been for him; that was a fact.

  It was getting late and the wine was gone. Corley dropped the magazine into a box on the floor and hoisted himself out of the chair’s embrace. He picked up his shoes—everything in its place—and walked slowly upstairs.

  Saturday morning, he read the paper over a pot of Columbian Decaf coffee and Eggs Benedict he made himself. The Béarnaise sauce dripped on the financial page and he wiped it up with a cotton napkin.

  Later he went to the indoor pool at the athletic center and swam laps alone for nearly an hour, back and forth, tirelessly, like a machine. He sat in the sauna for another half hour and returned to his apartment feeling clean and flushed.

  It wasn’t until nearly two in the afternoon that he sat down at the desk in his office and turned on the computer. He had mail which he curiously checked while stacking the regular letters. He sat up suddenly.

  A notice from E-Bay: his bid on Rocket Ship Galileo. Robert A. Heinlein’s first novel, published in 1947 by Scribner’s! An extremely rare, first edition, described in the auction as near mint. Corley could hardly swallow as he pushed the mouse around.

  He got it! The successful bid. Nine hundred and twenty-seven dollars and worth every cent. Corley gloated happily as he stared at the screen. touching the bidding history button. He’d beaten out ‘Litpix’, ‘bigreader’, and half a dozen other peculiar web names over a month long bidding war. The original bid had been a mere four hundred—what a bargain that would have been!

  The E-Bay notice included a personal message from the seller and Corley wasted no time in E-mailing ‘SuMac’. “Dear SuMac,” he typed. “Pleased to hear I won the bid. How do we proceed?”

  He leaned forward to start Springsteen on the compact bookshelf stereo. Moments later ‘Born to Run’ was blaring. He lit another cigarette and settled back, happy with his life. Clarence Clemmons had barely finished his sax solo when the computer beeped.

  “You’ve got mail,” Corley said aloud. He punched a key and read. “Dear Corsair; care to go instant?”

  He typed, “sure,” and went through the procedures to set up instant messaging. The first he received said, “Corsair: Do you have a real name?”

  “Corley Sayres,” he typed. “And you?”

  “Susan MacDougal. Get it? SuMac?”

  “Got it.” Corley was enjoying himself hugely. He felt as if he was flirting. The stereo began playing a loud old jazz piece, Midnight over Moscow, by Kenny Ball. “How do we proceed?” he typed.

  “Send me money, I’ll send you the book.”

  “How soon can you get it to me?” Corley could picture the treasure on the bookshelf.

  “If you use a credit card, I can get it to UPS. You’ll have it Monday before ten.”

  “Works for me.” He typed in his address and Visa number and Sumac typed it back to confirm,

  “It’s on its way. Congratulations.”

  Corley clicked off the computer and smiled. Life was very, very good.

  22 – What Color We Gonna Paint It?

  “What color we gone paint it?” Toby stared with rapt attention at a house paint chip sample card from Home Depot.

  “We gone?” Adrian laughed out loud.

  “Ebonics,” Toby explained, not moving his eyes from Vermillion Mist. “Mrs. Delatre— my Speech and Language Arts teacher—she says that
black people have their own distinct language patterns and it’s okay for to talk like that. She says that’s why Rap is so popular.”

  “But you’re not black.”

  “I figure it’s a whole minority thing. See, if my black brothers can get away with somethin’, I think we should too.” He paused at Eggplant Mist, the color of bruised purple.

  “Uh-huh. Did she say this with a straight face?”

  “Who looks? What do you think of this?” He held up the sample—Oriental Fire Mist. It looked like the fingernails of a cheap hooker.

  “I think if you painted a house that color the neighbors would burn it down. You do know that’s a house book, right?”

  “Uh-huh. So when are we go-ing,” he grinned as he over pronounced the word. “To get the car painted?”

  “As soon as you get off the work bench and help me with this fender. We’ll take the truck over to Englewood. There’s an auto paint store there.”

  “Yeah? Cool.” Toby jumped down and picked up a large wrench like a sword, ready to do battle.

  “Under there, Hagar. Tighten the bolts while I hold it.”

  The store clerk was impressed. “A sixty Studebaker? Is that the bullet nosed model?”

  They always asked that. Toby looked blank and Adrian said, “No, that’s the fifty-one.”

  The clerk, a middle aged man with brown glasses and a red apron, wore a look of perpetual vague interest, as if he really wanted to know but didn’t care all that much. “My aunt had one of those; a great car, so far ahead of its time.”

  They always said that, too. Adrian’s aunt had also owned a bullet nosed Champion, with a front grill that looked like an artillery shell stuck out from it. She’d won it in a raffle in nineteen fifty-one at a carnival and had been unbearably delighted. Her husband, Adrian’s uncle Tim, had a heart attack and died the same day they delivered the car, which took away a lot of the fun.

  It had succumbed to an oil leak—something else typical of Studebaker—and Aunt Anne had remarried and bought a Chevy.

  “We want to see paint samples,” Adrian said.