Dastardly

by Lorraine Ray

Waking up after you’ve been hysterical during drunkenness plunges one in the depths of despair. The next day after the writers’ meeting at Mi Hawaiiano I am reminded of that again. A second later and I am also reminded of the fact I need to be at work in twenty minutes. I throw on my clothes, run out through the courtyard waving at the Canasta crowd, and speed away in the Subaru. I barely brake fast enough to miss colliding with a patch of prickly pear cactus at the back of the Quonset hut.

  Yes, idiots at the door, this is the fucking rodeo museum, you are right, and you can come in the door and stop acting like a coupla sheep lost on the side of a fucking mountain in a blizzard. I am ranting to myself about the two shy museum visitors lingering near the parking lot door. She is a she sheep and he is a ram. Faces perfect as long white-haired sheeple with pink skin and weird hanging noses over wrinkles and bad teeth, a preciousness of their elegant movements beyond all imagining. She grips her purse tightly to her side and he has polished dress shoes on. Come into my chamber, says the spider to the fly. A stiff couple, a coupla stiffs, seriously overdressed, the man in a suit and the woman in a woman’s suit, brown tasteful striping on his tie and her skirt. Oh god they are European weirdoes who immediately walk in behind me, almost stepping on my heels as Chet unlocks the door. They try to pay way too much for their admissions. A hundred dollars when they owe twelve!

  “This is too much money,” I say in all honesty, “you don’t owe this much, for heaven’s sake. Don’t you have any smaller bills with you? No, sheesh, well that’s a pity. I’ll get your change right away but I have to open the safe and it takes me forever. Go on it.”

  And the woman sheep says, “Oh, why don’t you put the difference in the donation box for us. We don’t worry about these trifles.”

  Oh, yeah, money is a trifle to those who have it dripping off their fingers and they tell me to drop the difference in the box for a donation which I do not do, of course, because I am desperate, well, maybe not after Marsha has helped me and my landlord has forgiven my missed rent and excused two months’ future rent, but I’ll be desperate soon enough, that’s for sure, and from now on I’m keeping any goddamn money I get my hands on, thank you very much. The two of them make me sick, trusting me like that with money for the museum. Why don’t they insist I give them the change and let them drop it in the donation box themselves? Why do they leave me in charge of the morality of the situation? Can’t they see I have no fucking morals? Isn’t that obvious?

  “We are charming with this place. And very much hoping to…er… see the wonderful coaches which you are having and all that we having read about online and your whole collection and as someone interesting in the old west, well, you know, it is sounding so very wonderful, I hope you understanding?” the man says, standing in front of my desk.

  What he says ended like that, his little lilting, weirdo speech of non-English with a lot of ing endings stuck randomly everywhere. And these European weirdoes natter on about the wonderfulness of this wonderful museum they have yet to see, in all its dusty junkiness, and I see, oh, god it is Oliver Jones, the resident nutcase blundering in the museum door as big, or as skinny, as you please, coming in and stinking up the place like a bad piece of overripe cheese. The only good thing is he scares the weirdoes away from my desk; they scuttle away looking worried by his grimy pants.

  Woo, this is one stinky old dude, of the highly fucking odiferous variety. I’m smelling the gentleman again after days. Living where I do, I have smelled many of them because those Canasta ladies are pretty stinky. And a lot of old guys go through our trash. But no, this guy is hella worse. Woo and woo, the body odor is knock-your-socks-off, A Number One, Stink-o.

  “Howdy. Mind if I sit?” asks Oliver.

  “Not at all,” I say, holding my breath slightly as I speak. My eyes sting and water from the stink emanating from the old dude. Fuck! Getting to work on my writing seems unlikely now. Where’s Chet to protect me? “Glad to see you again.”

  “Can I visit the museum?” Oliver asks. “For an hour or so. I won’t stay any longer, I suppose. Not any longer than that.” Oliver glances at me plaintively.

  “Sure. I’ll put money in the till again. What’s that you have?” I ask, noticing some notes the old man is bringing out of his pocket, though I am not actually wanting to know what they are.

  “Oh, these are some very interesting facts about the famous people in Arizona,” says the crazy nut.

  “Yeah?”

  “Take a copy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have you ever heard the truth about the corruption of Governor Wilkins, for example?” Oliver begins. Yikes, he’s planning to talk to me too!

  “Can’t say I have.” I wish I could sound more interested; this old guy might have some gems for stories, but my fight with Marsha at the writers’ workshop dinner torments me and those morose feelings chase away any thoughts of great stories. I wish I hadn’t said half the stupid things I blurted out at her. No use dwelling on it, I think, as I dwell on it once again.

  Oliver begins spouting ridonkulous ideas immediately about the terrible corruption of the famous old pioneers of the state, and as I have the misfortune to have to listen to him, Oliver wears my ear out with dumb tales about all the important people he knows from the history of this state and how they were corrupt in different ways.

  “Well, Governor Wilkins has a whole park named for him but nobody knows he stole every bit of property he owned and how he did was through lawyering…”

  Oliver sees through the whole world of wealthy and famous people, apparently. I am horribly bored, but I suffer along, smiling at pertinent points. Strange old man, a freak this damn Oliver. I only met him a few weeks ago and already he is driving me a little crazy. Oh, fuck, he stinks of urine and old trapped farts. Shows up at the wrong moment. Not sure I want to be around the stinky old dude. Fuck, he stinks to hell. Say something nice. Say something to make the old fool like you, I urge myself.

  “You’ve got some interesting stories here,” I say, trying to make heads or tails of the nonsense printed on the paper.

  What is this paper? Little bits of writing about people? Snippets from the past all over it. Crazy-ass writing covering the paper at different angles. “The famous men of Arizona’s past were all frauds!” I read aloud from the title. What a fucking kook! Written all in crazy big capital script and he puts his ideas randomly on the paper. A paper covered with every bit of crazy crap he can think of. Every line is a different scandalous fact about who did what to whom. He names the names of the culprits of various misdeeds. Who had a mistress he murdered. Those who were stupid. The stupid Southern bigots, and the cowards and those who had parks, elementary schools, and stadiums named for them. Famous scoundrels. The shams, the lies, those who didn’t keep faith or had a failing. The state’s various famous and powerful madmen. I have heard of a few of them. Some who were cruelly ignorant or ignorantly cruel…

  “Now you ought to hear about Mrs. Knight. She murdered about six people and got away with it scot-free and it was all hidden due to the fact that…”

  Say this old coot is fucking fun in an odd way with all his crazy accusations about the powerful and prominent. What a strange obsession to have late in your life, but you never know what will grab someone when their life is almost over and I suppose it’s normal to decide the best thing is to reveal some shocking details of the lives of one’s betters to even the score before checking out for the last time.

  Problem is I figure the members of the Arizona Historical Society won’t like to hear what this old coot is talking about and I sense there isn’t anything to the nonsense he has written on the paper saying they had illegitimate babies, unknown lovers, or had committed murders and depredations undercover. Letting this guy into the museum for free is probably a terrible idea! Some were accused of thievery and some of outright robbery. Some cases involved stealing land or the property of orphans or widows. Society, the paper says, wants to gloss over everything dark about peop
le who become prominent. People want to think the best of the town’s best. That is the idea. Sweep all the dirt under the carpet and stop the rattling skeletons. That’s all Oliver wants to do. Rattle the skeletons in the closets and make them grin and gamble about the stage for a while telling more about others than they want us to hear. Might have some good stories to tell if you could get past the craziness long enough to get a straight plot out of him without any side-stepping. Today I’m thinking in a practical vein.

  “Another little known fact on that paper in front of you concerns the business of Mr. Franklin Grant. He amassed a fortune in jewels but he took most of them from a chest that belonged to a Mexican lady whose husband had died. She didn’t have a soul to protect her and he left her penniless. He became a prominent citizen in Los Angeles.”

  Besides the stink, maybe I do enjoy Oliver’s company. Even if some of his accusations are a little unbelievable, the outlines of these stories are thrilling and provide me with more grist for the literary mill I’m running. Yes, fucking yes, more grist for the damn unsuccessful literary mill. I’m so glad I looked that up, the grist thing, when I was with Rod.

  Eventually, Oliver bores himself.

  “I think I’ll take a tour around the museum,” he says.

  “Go ahead,” I reply.

  In a few minutes I can hear Oliver talking to the Europeans.

  “This wagon was use-ed in the mines, they say here on the tag, dear. Shall I reading it to you? Are you interesting? My, my interesting. I haven’t seen one of this construction.” The two weird Europeans talk loudly about a display.

  “I used to know a lot about mining,” says Oliver, sneaking up on the pair of European weirdoes.

  “Did you now, sir, I must say that is most interesting indeed. What was your capacity? In what capacity, I mean to saying?” asks the European man.

  Oh, this is going to be good; I laugh quietly. I want to write, but it’s impossible with this funny scene going on near me.

  “Well, I invested in them,” says Oliver Jones cheerfully. “And I collected legends of lost gold. Strange stories I’ve heard over the years. I’ve kept them all these years. I might be the only one who still knows them.”

  I chuckle to myself. Oh, good lord, more strange stories? Lost mines. Doesn’t he mean lost minds?

  “That is interesting. So you know about lost mines and such, hmm?” says the woman sheep.

  Ho, ho, yes, siree, I want to hear these tall tales! I’ve got to get up and hear these!

  “You could say I do, ma’am, yes. I have collected the tales of such things. For example, there is the tale of the Babbling Nun. She came into a camp of hunters in 1912 and told them she had seen a fabulous cave of gold in the Wetstone Mountains, but the sight of nuggets as wide as your fingers had driven her mad, and all she could do was babble about the fabulous nuggets.”

  “Well, I’m impressing,” says the sheep woman.

  Here I snicker even louder at the absurdity of Oliver Jones talking to these European weirdoes. Even though I’m laughing, I feel myself trying to hear a little better what the old stinky nut is talking about with his lost mines.

  Oh, but what a bunch of nonsense! It’s hysterical to listen to him, talking about lumps of gold the width of your finger and a babbling nun. And these idiots are eating it up, swallowing it hook, line and sinker. I stop writing and listen to old Oliver talking. Then I write the conversation so I can remember it for a good comedy book about a gold-obsessed old man.

  “I tell you, a better story, though, which I got firsthand is the tale of the pot of Apache gold in the Huachucas!”

  “Well, how fascinating,” says the ram.

  “Sure. It is.”

  “Firsthand? You mean you knew the person telling the story?” says the ram.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  Ha! They are idiots to fall for this idiot’s story.

  “He told me he had seen the treasure and left it where he found it due to the fact too many people were around. When he came back, he never could locate the exact ridge, but he had pretty good directions. Afterwards he had a car accident and he couldn’t convince anyone to go back there.”

  I stop writing and let my hearing focus so I can remember later what the weird Europeans reply to Oliver. This is going to be rich, but the whole group is moving away! How can I get closer to hear what they are saying? There’s a little dust on the old Conestoga, for sure, I think I might get up and use that as a ploy to get closer to them. And to think I’ve been trying to get away from Oliver (because he smells so bad and talks nonsense) and it takes these two weirdoes from Europe talking to him to discover he has some funny stories.

  Those two morons eat up everything Oliver says, though they are horrified by his stink. If I take a rag and wipe it casually, I can walk around them. Do the old rub-a-dub-dub let’s make this place spic and span routine. But I decide against it. The whole thing is such nonsense!