The Crazy Horse Electric Game

  “Marty Cross is trouble,” Jenny says. “If something happens, I’m going to be really pissed at you, Johnny.”

  “Well, I don’t want you pissed at me, so I’ll make sure nothing happens.” As if to be sure, Johnny sticks his head into the kitchen to check on Marty and his friends.

  “Is it really okay if I dance once in a while?” Jenny asks. “I’ll stop if you want. It’s really no big deal…”

  Willie raises his hand. “It’s…okay…Best…really.”

  She runs her fingernails lightly over the back of his neck again and he feels tears welling up in his eyes. He looks away. “Bathroom,” he says. With the aid of the arm of the couch, he stands and limps off through the kitchen to the bathroom.

  On his return through the kitchen, he stands for a second at the door. Jenny is dancing with Johnny and he turns back toward the sink for a glass of water.

  “Hey, Willie Weaver,” Marty says from the table.

  Willie looks at him and nods.

  “Hey, man, really sorry about what happened to you. Tough break.”

  At first Willie thinks Marty is being sarcastic; chiding him. Marty has never been a friend of the jocks. But when he looks into his eyes, he sees Marty’s sincere.

  Marty catches his look. “Really, man. Hate to see anybody lose his best stuff. You were really somethin’, man. My big brother saw that championship baseball game. Still talks about your catch. Hate to see a guy lose his best stuff. Sorry, man.”

  Willie nods and starts to walk away, but feels a strange draw to Marty. He’s always seen Marty as a loser, never wanting anything to do with him; but at least he’s good at being a loser—he doesn’t have to run around hiding in toilet stalls. He just found himself some zoned-out rats to dance to his piper’s tune and goes around being their leader. That doesn’t look as bad to Willie as it did three months ago. And Marty hit the nail on the head: Willie’s a guy who’s lost his best stuff. He limps to the kitchen door again—Jenny is still dancing—then back to lean against the counter. Marty and his friends don’t know what to say, and almost none of them will look at him; except Marty, who says, “Hey, man, you’re not in training. Want a beer?”

  Willie automatically shakes his head, then, on impulse, nods. “…Sure. Why…not?”

  There’s an uneasiness as Willie drinks the beer. It doesn’t taste good and nobody knows what to say to him, so he guzzles most of it. Marty’s friends go back to their joint and their conversations and Willie slides off into his own head, staring at the stove; thinking about losing Jenny. He’s startled to see Marty standing beside him with something in his hand. “Look, man,” he says. “You look really bad. Take this. It’ll make you feel better. You been through a lot; you oughta give yourself a break.”

  Willie pushes his hand away, anger welling up in him. “Six…months ago…wasted…you.”

  “Yeah, man. I know,” Marty says, taking no offense. “Six months ago I wouldn’t have offered. This is just something that could make you feel better. You look like hell, man.”

  Willie looks him in the eye. Again Marty looks sincere. Willie looks at the pill in Marty’s hand. Marty puts it out. “You don’t have to take it now,” he says. “Save it for when you’re really hurtin’.”

  He thinks of Jenny; thinks of where his life is headed; sees himself bumbling through the early-morning darkness in his jogging outfit. Who cares? He shrugs and takes the pill out of Marty’s hand, drops it into his pocket and limps back to the living room.

  Jenny stands behind him, massaging his neck and shoulders, which are always tight now; out of balance from compensating for his new body design. He feels the beer and closes his eyes, relaxed for the first time in months. Jenny’s hands go to his head, work over his temples, lightly across his face, and he leans into them. He feels a deep sadness for how he’s going to miss her when she gets tired of this new Willie; and his loneliness is bottomless. He wants to ask her what’s going to happen; hear her say everything will be all right. But he knows better. Jenny whispers into his ear, “Gotta go to the bathroom. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  As Jenny disappears through the kitchen, Willie reaches into his pocket, finds the pill Marty gave him among his keys and change, and pops it into his mouth.

  Chronological time takes a vacation and there is only The Dream and variations on The Dream: The Dream that first revealed its ugly self sometime toward the end of Willie’s coma. The scene is Promontory Point; they’re driving the Golden Spike. Dignitaries in tall hats, railroad workers, a pile of railroad ties, a platform. Speeches. Chinese. Connecting east and west. Like in the history books, only Willie is a spectator. He’s there; no hint it’s a dream. The crowd gathers round, pinches closer as important men with no names or faces take turns driving the spike; like in the book. Then the crowd disappears. No one walks away; they simply dissolve, and Willie stares alone at the finished track. It’s off. The right rail from the west connects to the left rail from the east, leaving the two outside rails to end in the dust. Willie knows it’s him and his throat swells with panic; screams with no sound and falls to the dirt. When he looks up, he’s on the mound at the Crazy Horse Electric game. Sal Whitworth sneers at him from the plate with Big Will’s face. Willie fires the ball and in slow motion it adjusts itself to the middle of the plate, chest high to Sal Whitworth, who grins now; Willie’s father’s grin. The ball takes forever to get there; Sal roars and Willie hears the wind around the bat, but he’s falling out of balance. There is the crack of the bat and the dull thud as the ball screams into the back of Willie’s head. Sal circles the bases as the ball lies beside Willie sprawled near the mound. He screams at Willie and laughs. None of Willie’s teammates move to field the ball; they laugh and point, too. Runners are produced from thin air at third and streak for home; Crazy Horse Electric goes ahead by a hundred runs, maybe a thousand.

  Now Willie is screaming on the couch. Jenny holds his head, calling for Johnny, who rushes from the kitchen. People turn to stare, riveted to their spots. Willie convulses, eyes rolled back, screaming from a bottomless pit. Jenny and Johnny yell his name, but he hears nothing; only bounces helplessly back and forth between Promontory Point, Utah, and the Crazy Horse Electric game; there is no relief.

  Marty rushes in from the kitchen. “Oh, God,” he says, “he’s freakin’,” and Johnny’s head jerks up. “What?”

  “Freakin’ out,” Marty says again. “I think he took some acid.”

  Johnny leaps from the couch to Marty’s neck, throws him into a headlock and forces him to the ground, pounding his face with his free hand. Petey and two others try to pull him off, but Johnny throws them off like dolls, stands and kicks Marty hard in the stomach, then pulls him to his feet by the hair and runs him through the plate-glass window to the patio, where he leaves him bleeding.

  Three guys hold Willie now, and Jenny cradles his head. His screams go on. Someone has fought through the craziness to call Emergency, and sirens wail through the quiet neighborhood, coming to take Willie away.

  CHAPTER 7

  Willie sits in the small, darkened office just off the kitchen of the Community Center, nervously awaiting Cyril Wheat’s arrival. Cyril Wheat, M.A. The state of Montana has funded a pilot program in which a therapist spends one day a week in each of five small towns, offering mental-health services to people referred by certain county, state or city agencies.

  Willie notices the small rectangular sign tacked to the outside of the open door: WOULD YOU MIND IF I ASKED YOU TO TAKE YOUR SILLY-ASS PROBLEM DOWN THE HALL? Not a bit, Willie thinks. A guy gets a little twisted out of shape and everybody decides he’s crazy. He looks at his watch; he’ll give this Mr. Wheat, M.A., five more minutes. And he’ll tell him right off; it wasn’t his idea to see a shrink. Everything’s under control now.

  “Mr. Weaver, I presume.” Willie’s thoughts are broken by the appearance in the office doorway of a smallish blond man with horn-rimmed glasses. He wears a light-colored T-shirt with something
printed across the chest that Willie can’t read because it’s partially covered by his beige sport jacket, open down the front with the sleeves rolled up. His pants are old Levi cords and he wears running shoes with no socks. “I’m Cyril Wheat,” the man says, and puts out his hand, then, noticing Willie is staring at his get-up, “‘Miami Vice.’”

  Willie smiles. “Willie…Weaver,” he says, shaking the therapist’s hand.

  Cyril whips out of his sport jacket, laying it across the desk, and Willie reads his shirt: GAY VEGETARIAN NAZIS FOR JESUS. Cyril smiles and shrugs. “I’m a joiner,” he says.

  Willie’s a little amused but still not at ease, so he sits quietly on the edge of his chair and waits while Cyril flips through the pile of manila folders on the desk. “Let’s see,” Cyril says, mostly to himself. “Ripper, Jack; no, that ain’t you. Manson, Charlie; no, that ain’t you either. Gotta be in here somewhere. Hitler, Adolf…Speck, Richard…Rogers, Roy…Boop, Betty…Ah, here it is; Weaver, William Jr.” He opens the file and reads a minute. “Says here you think you’re Napoleon Bonaparte…No, wait; it says Napoleon Pullapart.”

  Willie laughs a little and starts to speak, but Cyril is scribbling something on his notepad, speaking as he writes. “Client believes himself to be a cinnamon roll.” He looks up again to Willie and shakes his head. “You’re the first one of these I’ve had.”

  Willie shakes his head and smiles, looking at his. knees. Cyril puts a hand on his shoulder and says gently, “But seriously now, folks…” and Willie eases back a little. Cyril flips again quickly through the information in the folder, closes it and plops it back onto the desk top. He’s read it before. He says, “Rough time, eh?”

  Willie shrugs. “…Sort of. I’m…better.”

  Cyril nods. “Well, let’s start at the middle, then we can work both ways. Tell me about freaking out.”

  “You mean…at…the party?”

  “At the party and afterward. Tell me everything you know about freaking out.”

  Willie describes, in his halting way, the feeling of pure lunacy that swept over him when the acid hit and how helpless he felt to stop it; how the horror took on a life of its own and smothered him; how he was transported out of Johnny’s house to Hell and how it seemed like it would last forever. The telling is difficult, but never once does the therapist try to push or speak for him.

  When he finally finishes, Cyril says, “Hoo-eee, that’s some heavy shit.”

  “And…then…these dreams.”

  Cyril’s hand shoots up, palm out. “Stop. I don’t do dreams.”

  “I…thought…I was…supposed…to…talk about…everything.”

  Cyril stops a second and closes his eyes, thinking. “Oh, that’s right,” he says, “it’s windows I don’t do. Go ahead.”

  So Willie describes the tracks at Promontory Point that only partially meet and the murderous hardball ripping into the back of his skull off Sal Whitworth’s bat; time and time and time again, until the anxiety and fear of the dream are matched by exhaustion.

  “And what really happened?” Cyril asks.

  Willie stares questioningly.

  “In the game. What really happened?”

  Tears fill Willie’s eyes as he remembers the magical moment when he heard the crack of Sal’s bat and, totally blind, knew where the ball would be; snatching it out of that tiny coordinate of time and space and speed. “It…wasn’t…just…luck,” he stammers. “I…knew…where the ball…was.”

  Cyril sits back, then says, as a statement of fact, “The game is a big deal to you.”

  Willie nods. Emptiness swells in him. He’d give anything to step back over that tiny sliver of time—the point of impact with the water ski—and be just a hair more cautious; back off the edge just enough. But the circumstances that allowed the Crazy Horse Electric game to be will never happen again, because he can’t step back.

  “Probably always will be a big deal,” Cyril says. “That’s the good news and the bad news.”

  Willie’s insides are completely wrenched. He’s glad in some way he came; glad he found a way to talk, and someone who would listen; but he wishes the time were up. There’s no clock and he has no idea how long they’ve been there.

  “So what other havoc has this wreaked in your life?” Cyril asks.

  “What…about the…dreams?” Willie says. They’ve been haunting him for months now and he’s not satisfied with just talking about them. He wants something; some information.

  “Ah, the dreams are a cinch,” Cyril says. “Even for a rookie like me. We’ll talk about ’em in a minute. Give me the rest.”

  Willie talks about his father; his rage when he found out Willie had taken the acid; the side of his father he’d never seen before; an uncontrollable side. And about how his mother had tried to stand in and protect him, but didn’t really have the power; how Willie thought he could see trouble in his parents’ lives that he thought he’d probably had glimpses of when Missy died, but that only now seemed real. “I…feel…so guilty,” he says. “I’m…not…a doper. I took…that…acid…because…I…don’t know.”

  “You took that acid because it was there and because you were hurting about your girl. And your life.”

  Willie nods. “Stupid.”

  “It’s a mistake if you do it once,” Cyril says. “It’s stupid if you do it again.”

  Willie smiles.

  “So what else?”

  Willie talks about the worst thing. “My dad…won’t…come…close…to me. There’s…something wrong. Something…I…don’t…know about. It…almost feels…like…he…hates me. But…not…the acid. Before.”

  “Any guesses?”

  Willie shakes his head.

  “Well, pay attention to it. Maybe you’ll come up with something by next week. If you want your dad to come in with you…”

  Willie shakes his head again.

  “Okay,” Cyril says. “Anything else before we wrap it up for the day?”

  Willie dumps the last thing he’s willing to let go of for the day: that they’re wanting to put him in Special Ed classes at school; they think there’s something wrong with his brain. He says he’s pretty sure he’s as smart as he ever was because he thinks the same, really, but he just can’t get it out.

  “Did you tell them that?”

  “What good…would…it…do? Look…at…me. I…look brain-damaged.” He goes on to say he doesn’t think he can make it in Special Ed classes; that he just couldn’t stand it.

  “Special Ed, huh?” Cyril says.

  Willie nods.

  “A friend of mine and I were thinking about writing a television series once. It was going to be about a talking horse with an IQ of fifty. We were going to call it ‘Special Ed.’”

  Willie stares a second before he gets it, and laughs. “I…have…a friend…you’d…like.”

  “Send him around. I could use the business.” Cyril looks at his watch. “Uh-oh,” he says. “Ran us right on past dinner. That’s why they don’t let me stay in one place with an office of my own. I can’t get the hang of the fifty-minute hour. That’s the most important thing you have to learn at counselor’s school, you know. You have to learn to wrap everything up in fifty minutes. Then you can get a whole bunch of people in every day and become fabulously well-to-do. I didn’t do well at counselor’s school.”

  Willie stares at him, smiling and shaking his head.

  “So,” Cyril says. “I’ll bet you’re figuring, ‘If this guy’s a fer-real counselor, why the hell isn’t he counseling?’”

  Willie raises his eyebrows.

  “That’s a fair question.” Cyril pushes his wooden chair onto its back legs and folds his arms. “I got no magic, Willie. If I did, I’d go on Carson. I can’t make any of the things that have happened to you go away, but I might be able to find some ways to help you with them. First, don’t take any more drugs.”

  “Don’t…worry,” Willie says. “I…may…look stupid…”

  Cyril no
ds and goes on. “A lot of what happens now depends on truth. When you’re afraid your girlfriend is going away or your friends are keeping you around just because they feel sorry for you, you have to say that to them. You have to do something with your life that doesn’t set you up for that in the first place. If you present something for people to feel sorry for, they’ll feel sorry for you. You have to set goals just like you always did and bust your ass going after them.”

  Right, Willie thinks. I’ll set goals. Let’s see, STOP DROOLING, that could be one, but he just looks at the counselor and nods.

  “I know you think that’s not possible right now,” Cyril says, “but it is, and we can work on it. Now, if you’re having trouble with your family, bring ’em in and we’ll have some sessions together. If you want to have some sessions with your girlfriend, bring her in. Hell, bring in Sal Whitworth if you want to.”

  Willie smiles and nods. “The…dreams…”

  “You’re not gonna let me get out of here till I don my swami’s hat, are you? Like I said, the dreams are easy. You dream better than most people talk. I would guess the tracks are just exactly what they appear to be. They don’t come together, just like your system doesn’t come together right now. That’s your fear, and your dream just plays it out. And if you played the Crazy Horse Electric game again right now, the ball would hit you in the back of the head. You’re not what you used to be, and you’re resisting the hell out of it. Your dream is just telling you what you already know.”

  Willie looks disappointed.

  “No magic, remember? But you can get a leg up on the dreams. Just tell yourself before you go to sleep that you already know that crap and you don’t need to be reminded. Get it in your head that if you dream it, you’re going to recognize it for what it is. That can take some of the power out.”