“Poignant, Kinkstah,” he said. “Poignant. The guy lives such a fragile and isolated life to begin with and then he loses his bees and he’s all alone. It’s hard to believe people like this really can and do exist in the world.”
He handed me the letter. I folded it and put it back in my pocket. We crossed the street against the traffic and the rain.
“Try four men in an Indian restaurant,” I said.
“Start talkin’,” I said, as I picked up the blower on the left. It was later that night sometime after Cinderella’s curfew and I’d been looking through a copy of Cowpokes, a collection of work by the World’s Greatest Cowboy Cartoonist, Ace Reid.
“Hill Country update,” said a familiar voice. It was Marcie calling from Texas.
“Spit it,” I said, as I let my mind wander vaguely back to the ranch. I was smoking a cigar and some of the smoke drifted lazily over the cat as she slept under the desk lamp. She didn’t seem to mind.
“According to the Kerrville papers,” said Marcie, “Boyd Elder’s looking at life.”
“So am I,” I said.
“It’s really sick,” Marcie continued. “He’s starting to get marriage proposals and movie offers.”
“That’s more than I can say for myself.”
“Then there’s the news about Pam and Sam.”
“Don’t tell me they ran off together?”
“No. Pam is engaged to Wayne the wrangler.”
“Hell, if I sat around every night watching ceramic leaf ashtrays glaze in a kiln I'd probably be engaged to Wayne the wrangler.” I thought very fleetingly of Pam Stoner standing outside the green trailer in the moonlight. Where did summer romances go for the winter?
“What’s the matter with Sam?” I said.
“Well, there’s nothing really the matter with Sam,” said Marcie. “It’s just that he seems to have developed a rather unpleasant new habit. He’s started to spend an inordinate amount of his time rolling around in horse manure.”
“When did you first notice this behavior?” I said. “About a week ago when Sam walked into the house and the whole place has smelled like horseshit ever since.”
“I see.”
“You see,” said Marcie, “but you don’t smell.”
“Well, it’s just a suggestion,” I said, “but how about this possibility. Sam stays in the lodge and assumes responsibility for conducting ranch business from there. You know, closes up the place for the winter, mails out statements to parents. In the meantime Tom moves down to your white trailer and you move over to my green trailer. I don’t know. It’s just an idea.”
“We’ll take it under review,” said Marcie. “In the meantime, why do you think Sam is doing this? Is his inner child reaching out through such primitive behavior to express its rage and anger at his traumatic, dysfunctional early background? Do you think that could be it?”
“Hardly,” I said, just as Doc Phelps had replied when I suggested that the coast of California was as far away as you could run. “Hardly.
“You ask me why Sam is rolling in the horse manure?” I continued.
“Yes, O great Chief Fuckbrain.”
“The answer is very simple. To paraphrase old Slim: ‘He wants to see the World.’ ”
“You would’ve made a great philosopher, brother dear,” said Marcie. “Or at least an assistant professor at one of the larger Southern party schools. By the way, Pat Knox called for your address. She says she’s sending you a homemade fruitcake.”
“What does she mean by that?” I said.
Several hours later I’d just sailed into a peaceful dream riding upon the back of Dr. Doolittle’s giant pink sea snail. Into the dream came the unwelcome sound of a Japanese gardener with one of those leaf-blowing devices and I realized the blower by the bed was ringing. I collared the blower and heard a high-pitched, ridiculous, agitated voice.
“Help me!! Help me!!” screamed the faintly familiar macaw-like tones. “Help me!! There’s a giant swarm of bees right outside my window!!”
“Ratso, you nerd—” I said, but the line had been disconnected.
The cat yawned mightily and went back to sleep. I got up and walked over to the kitchen window and looked down at Vandam Street. I thought of what George Christy, the columnist for the Hollywood Reporter, had once told me. Years ago Christy had been in a cab with Truman Capote on their way to a Peggy Lee concert. Capote was wearily watching the streets flash by and then he turned to Christy and said, “You know, George, the more I see of life the more I know there are only 150 of us in this world.”
I looked up at the sky and there were about a million stars. A million stars for 150 people. Good odds, I thought, but a slow track.
Suddenly, it’s Hoedown Night at Echo Hill and the same stars are looking down on music and dancing and bales of hay and saddles scattered across the old tennis court; and there are pigtails and ponytails and counselors with packs of non-filter cigarettes rolled up in the sleeves of their T-shirts; and Uncle Tom and Aunt Min are all dressed up in their western clothes and smiling, Uncle Floyd is smoking his cigar, and Slim Dodson is serving up glazed donuts and apple juice; Doc and Hilda Phelps are standing by, stately in their Navajo finery; Dot is clapping her hands to the music and shouting encouragement from the shadows; Earl Buckelew comes riding over on horseback and our neighbor Cabbie is watching from his Jeep with his old dog Rip; and Aunt Joan is teaching the smallest girls a dance.
They stand in a line facing Aunt Joan with their arms around one another’s waists, tragically fragile, impossibly young. And the stars shine down and they dance beneath the constellation of my childhood.
There were ten pretty girls
in the village school
There were ten pretty girls
in the village school
Some were short, some were tall
and the boy loved them all
But you cant marry ten pretty girls.
Five were blondes and four brunettes
and one was a saucy little redhead
The girls grew up, the boy left school
And in ’39 he married—
the saucy little redhead.
As dawn hustled the stars out of the Manhattan sky I was still sitting at my desk holding the letter from the beekeeper.
Dear Kinky,
As you've probably guessed I’m not one for writing letters. I just wanted you to know that 1'm sorry I hung you out to dry that day.
I also wanted to thank you. I’ve heard that the sheriff saved your life but I believe it was you who saved mine. There's not a lot of people who'd give a damn about saving my life. I’m the kind of person most people call a character or maybe a loner or maybe worse. But I’m really a man who's seen the world and knows that he never wants to be a part of it.
I’m sad to say my bees have never returned. They cannot really be replaced. It may sound funny to most people but I’ve lived by myself all my life and the bees were like friends and family to me. Now I am truly alone in this place. I'm thinking of going to Africa as a mercenary or going to Hawaii and raise orchids. If you ever go to one of those places, I hope you'll try to look me up. If you can find me.
Your friend,
Willis Hoover
P.S.: Small world department—Hattie Blocker died in her sleep last night. My mama's now the last surviving debutante.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank the following Americans: Don Imus, longtime imaginary childhood friend and toboggan companion, for his continuing encouragement and support, up to and including plugging Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola from the intensive care unit of New York Hospital; Mike McGovern, my favorite Irish poet, who, over dim sum in Chinatown one morning, came up with the tide Armadillos & Old Lace; Chuck Adams, my discerning and dedicated editor, and Joann DiGenarro, Maya Rutherford, and all the folks at Simon & Schuster for believing in me and working to help me achieve my personal goals of becoming fat, famous, and financaily fixed by fifty; Esther “Lob
ster” Newburg, my literary agent, for repeatedly telling people, many of whom already disliked me intensely, that I was a genius; Elisa Petrini, who survived being my editor once and, God love her, is my editor again for Elvis, Jesus & Coca Cola in paperback (Bantam); and Jim Landis, Jane Meara, and Lori Ames, whom I’m no longer “with,” as they say, but to whom I’m forever grateful for so generously helping me on my way.
Also, a tip of the ol’ cowboy hat to Steve Rambam, long-suffering technical advisor; Jay Wise; Max Swafford; the drop-dead gorgeous Stephanie DuPont for petulantly sitting this one out; Dennis Laviage, for supplying the Jesus joke on page 3; and, last but not least, Rudyard Kipling, for providing the particularly apt similes for the three occasions in which Sambo the dog smiles. May Rudyard continue to inspire and Sambo continue to smile.
P.S.: I’d like to thank two fine ladies, both good Americans and good sports, for their help and indulgence in this obvious work of fiction: Frances A. Kaiser, Sheriff, Kerr County; and the Hon. Patricia E. Knox, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1, Kerrville, Texas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KINKY FRIEDMAN, former leader of the band The Texas Jewboys, lives on a ranch in the Texas Hill Country with two dogs, two cats, and one armadillo. He is the author of eight internationally acclaimed mystery novels and six country-music albums; his latest CD is From One Good American to Another. Whenever possible, he still sings the songs that made him infamous and reads from the books that made him respectable.
Table of Contents
Inside flap
PRAISE FOR KINKY FRIEDMAN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Armadillos & Old Lace Page 17
