That Old Ace in the Hole

  “What’s her name?” The woman had a phone directory in her hand, her thumb ready to skiffle the pages.

  Bob felt foolish saying the daughter’s name. “Shirley Brassleg. She’s Indian. He says she works as a nurse.” He could not suppress his tone of disbelief and sarcasm.

  “Is she in Trinidad?”

  “Yes, that’s what he says. And that she lives on a road somewhere off this one. He lost her letter with the name of the road.”

  “There’s no Brassleg listed here. You can try information,” and she handed a cordless handset to him. But information had no Brassleg either.

  “Thanks,” he said and went back out to the car. The old Indian was gone. He looked up and down the highway, checked the men’s room, went back into the store.

  “Did that old fellow come in here?”

  “Nobody since you.”

  “Well, he’s disappeared.”

  “I thought you said he’s a hitchhiker.”

  “He is.”

  “Then what do you care? Maybe he didn’t like riding with you, took a chance to get away.” Her expression showed she would not like riding with him either.

  “I gave him a ride,” he said, “he’s my responsibility,” and went back to the Saturn, started it and pulled out onto the highway. He thought that if he were a smoker he’d light one up now. He wished he had bought a candy bar back at the convenience store. He was really hungry and tired and his legs ached where the edge of the Saturn’s seat cut into his thighs. As he neared I-25 he saw a familiar shambling figure: it was the aged Indian, hoofing along. With a groan of exasperation he stopped.

  “How did you get down here?” he asked, his voice tight with irritation, despite trying to imagine what it was like to be an old Indian with all your possessions in a Neiman Marcus bag.

  “Got a ride. Lady said my daughter don’t live here. Lady been here all her life. White hair.”

  “So what is your plan now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bob expelled a deep breath. He was in it now. He thought of Brother Mesquite and something he had said about experiences that let us grow as human beings. Bob could feel himself shrinking smaller.

  “Get in.” He breathed deeply through his nostrils. “We know she’s a nurse, right? We know she works, right? We just don’t know where. So I suggest we go to the hospital in Trinidad and ask if she works there. And if she doesn’t, then it makes sense to try the sheriff. Sheriffs know everybody. They have to,” remembering Sheriff Hugh Dough. “How does that hit you?”

  “O.K. It hits O.K.” The old man put his head back and closed his eyes again.

  Bob drove like a fool, whipping in and out of lanes, riding the bumper of an old pickup until the driver pulled onto the shoulder after a few miles of this harassment, then trapped behind a road hog semi, Bob wishing he did have a cell phone so he could call the number on the back in response to the perky question stenciled there: HOW’S MY DRIVING?

  “Lousy,” he snapped at the truck. To his passenger he said, “Old man, if we find your daughter—” but he didn’t know what to say next.

  The hospital in Trinidad was a low-slung, modest affair and Bob guessed they dealt heavily in rodeo and horse accidents as it was ranch country all around. They went inside together, Bob determined that the old man would ask the questions this time.

  “Go ahead,” said Bob. “Ask them at the desk about your daughter. If she works here.”

  The old man had barely taken three slow steps toward the receptionist behind glass when a heavy woman in a magenta sweater set, pushing a wheelchaired man with a face like a creased paper bag, said “Father!” and turned sharply in his direction.

  “Daughter,” said the old man calmly. “I forgot your letter. We been looking.”

  She glanced at Bob, who shrugged.

  “He was hitchhiking. Down in Oklahoma. And I was on my way to Denver.”

  “Yes. This man gave me a long ride. He helped me look for you.”

  “But Father, you didn’t have to hitchhike. And what were you doing in Oklahoma? I sent you money for the bus.” She turned to Bob and said, “He lives on the Pine Ridge Res.”

  “I lost that money. Who is this man in the wheelchair? This is not your husband, is it?”

  “No, no. This is Mr. Gunnel. I work at the Trinidad Golden Age Home, and Mr. Gunnel has to come here for his dialysis treatments. I brought him in. It is certainly a surprise to see you here.” She turned to Bob Dollar. “Shirley Mason,” she said.

  “We were looking for Shirley Brassleg.”

  “I married Bob Mason. I was Shirley Brassleg. My father here is Moony Brassleg. It’s nice of you to give him a ride and take such care to look for me. My husband and I ask you to dinner tonight. I am taking Mr. Gunnel back to the nursing home and then I’ll go to our house. If you could bring Father out it would be terribly helpful. Here, I’ll make you a map. We won’t take no for an answer. Bob—that’s my husband—got an elk and we’re having a nice roast.” She was already scratching lines on the back of a sheet of paper that proclaimed GET CONTROL OF YOUR BLADDER. She thrust the paper into his hand, told her father she would see him later and hurried toward the exit, pushing Mr. Gunnel at speeds he had not experienced for years.

  “That was lucky,” said Bob. He would have to call Uncle Tam and tell him he’d be very late. He wished Shirley Mason had taken her father with her. He looked at the old Indian. He was carefully unwrapping a red lollipop he had selected from the paper bucket on the reception desk. When he felt Bob’s eye on him he started a little, turned back to the bucket and chose a green lollipop, handed it to Bob.

  “Thanks,” said Bob, looking at the map. Yes, the Masons’ house was on Boncarbo Road off Highway 12.

  “That’s not her husband,” the old man said, licking the candy, “she says.”

  After a considerable search he found a pay phone at the end of a waxy-floored corridor and put in a collect call to Uncle Tam and explained the situation.

  “Elk roast? See if they’ll give you a little slice to bring home. I never tasted elk.”

  “You could if you go to that damn Buckhorn restaurant with the horrible waiters.”

  “Too expensive.”

  “What happened to the vegetarian thing?”

  “Nothing. I still eat vegetables. But I’m not a fanatic. Not when it comes to elk.”

  Following the map they turned off Route 12 onto the Boncarbo Road, then onto a smaller and dustier road labeled Mud Gate, and bumped up a long, washboard hill so badly ridged the car shuddered and hopped, dust seeped through invisible cracks. Shirley Mason’s directions read “2 mi log house on left red door.” It was a small house, far from the huge place Bob had expected from the old Indian’s description, but Brassleg seemed pleased and said, “Ah.”

  They pulled up behind a green Bronco and got out. The metal hood of the Bronco was still hot and ticking as the metal cooled. Shirley Mason came out on the porch and helped her father up the steps.

  “Do you have a suitcase?” she said. He shook his head. “You didn’t bring anything?” He held up the Neiman Marcus bag. She held the door open for them and Bob stepped into a glorious aroma of roasting meat and potatoes, of garlicky dressing, of fresh-peeled peaches simmering in a kind of cinnamon-stick homemade chutney.

  “This is my husband, Bob Mason,” she said, leading them to a fat, humming man in the kitchen where a mesquite fire crackled on a raised hearth, two rocking chairs in front of it. Bob Mason came forward with his hand outstretched, smiling and nodding. He shook Bob’s hand with his own damp, fat fingers, patted the old man’s shoulder, sat them before the fire and poured them cups of fresh coffee.

  “The roast ready in about thirty minutes, maybe a little longer,” he said. To Bob he said, “I am an unemployed teacher, my wife works, I stay home and cook and clean. So, Father-in-law, tell us your adventures.”

  The old man grinned and waved at Bob Dollar. “He is my adventure. He drive me from Oklah
oma to here even if I lost the letter with the address. He is a good man.”

  Bob blushed horribly, remembering his impatience, his anger, his irritation at the old man’s silence and apparent stupidity.

  Bob Mason beamed. “What a lucky day for you, Father-in-law. You could have been picked up by a robber or hate killer. You could have been kidnapped or pushed out on the roadside. But here you are, safe and at home.” He got up to baste the elk, stopped short and looked at the old man again. He asked, his voice suddenly grave and serious, “Did you not bring your medicine bag?”

  The old man half smiled, put his index finger to his right temple, then pointed to the Neiman Marcus sack.

  “Father,” said Shirley Brassleg Mason, “I don’t understand what you were doing in Oklahoma, but please come see your nice room. It’s all ready for you. There is your own television set and a table for writing or drawing.” She looked at Bob Dollar. “My father is well known for his skill in painting. Several museums have his work. Look, there over the fireplace is an example.”

  He saw a curious and disturbing painting, an empty field of yellow with two slender sticks near the lower right. He went closer and saw the sticks were arrows plunged into the earth, nearly buried to their feathered hafts as though they had been shot from a great height in the sky and had picked up speed as they fell. There was nothing more, yet the painting seemed full of meaning.

  The elk roast was superb, rich and with a faint wild tang. There was a small dark object in the gravy Bob Mason ladled onto his plate, and he thought it was a peppercorn but Bob Mason called it a juniper berry. Old man Brassleg refused the potatoes and salad and ate only meat. Bob noticed that his son-in-law cut the choicest morsels for him and kept his plate heaped. It was incredible how much meat the old man could stow away.

  “No wine, I’m afraid,” said Bob Mason. “This is a teetotal household. I’m a recovering alcoholic.”

  During the dinner, the firelight flickering over the table and reflecting in the dark meat juice on the platter, Shirley asked Bob what he did and, feeling comfortable and among friends, he began to tell them everything, about Horace Greeley Junior University and Orlando and Mr. Cluke and LaVon and the tarantulas and double-dealing Evelyn Chine and his failed efforts to get Jim Skin to agree to sell his land, his unsureness of what he should do with his life. The old man looked up from his mound of meat.

  “You, a rich white boy, eat good, drive a nice car, fancy clothes, expensive shoes, do not know where your life goes?”

  “I’m not exactly rich. In fact we’re poor. The car isn’t my car and my uncle runs a kind of junk shop and that’s where the shoes came from. I just don’t know what possibilities are best for me. I mean, should I go back to school or what? I don’t think I’m going to be a hog farm site scout much longer. I think Mr. Cluke is going to fire me.”

  “I heard the name Jim Skin,” the old man said. “Big fool. He’s part Cherokee and lies about it. His dad was half-Cherokee and he lied about it. The Skins are liars.”

  Bob could agree with him.

  “But,” said Brassleg, “there’s ways to make even a liar get honest.”

  “I wish I knew those ways,” said Bob.

  “This not-knowing thing is a young man’s question, to find out who and what and where. But you are lucky. There are chances for you, a white young man. How you like it on the reservation, forty to eighty-five percent unemployment, no jobs at all, no money to get out, no school, nothing but get drunk, make babies, use the ADC check for bottle? Young men there do not think, What am I going to be in my life? Answer: a drunk, die young and miserable, leave damaged chirdren behind. They think, How long will I live?”

  Bob flushed with shame, for it did seem he was rich and awful.

  “More elk, Father-in-law?” Bob Mason lifted a dripping slice on the serving fork. The tender meat swayed. But the old man had fixed on Bob.

  “You will have to find your way alone. Maybe this uncle you speak of will help you.”

  “Maybe,” said Bob, subdued and miserable.

  The old man said to the ceiling, “Have pity. Help this poor man to lead a good life.”

  For Bob the pleasant evening had gone sour. As soon as he could he left. As he started the Saturn he saw a light come on in the old man’s room, saw Shirley Mason turn on the television set and set the trembling images in motion.

  28

  USED BUT NOT ABUSED

  It was after midnight when Bob walked into the little apartment above the shop. All was silent and unchanged, a few dishes in the drainer, the countertops clean and shining, the chairs neatly aligned around the table, a small stack of bills squared next to Uncle Tam’s checkbook and pen, the honey bear bottle in the center. Bob looked inside the checkbook and saw the balance was $91.78. Unless the bills were minuscule none would be paid in full. In the refrigerator he saw bundles of carrots, two cabbages, rotting bananas, a plastic bag of kale and, next to some senescent apples, a bunch of leeks and a container of mushrooms. A plastic sack of salad greens proclaimed fourteen times that the leaves within were “Organic!” It looked unpromising until he saw the ball of pizza dough and a square of mozzarella. Uncle Tam must be planning a mushroom and onion pizza, Bob’s favorite. Looking around the pokey kitchen he knew that if he were fired he could not come back and live with Uncle Tam.

  He heard Uncle Tam’s bedroom door open and turned to face his relative.

  “Bob! I didn’t hear you drive up. Want some decaf?”

  “Sure.” He examined his uncle critically. He had the same cat face as Bob, a genetic gift from Slavic ancestors unphotographed and long ago perished, their features persisting through the generations. Uncle Tam looked smaller, greyer, less able in some sad way. He had lost enough weight that his pajamas, printed with green moose, hung on him like old curtains.

  “You still on the vegetarian kick?”

  “I am. But carrots have lost their thrill. Now I’m trying the exotics—chayote, cactus leaves, persimmons. There’s some new kiwis, real, real small and sweet, they don’t have those hairy rinds. Smooth. They taste like grapes. Probably genetically modified. But there’s times when I think about eating a whole standing rib roast by myself. The first slice would probably kill me. Anyway, I thought about making pizza. If it’s not too late. If you got any appetite. How was the elk?”

  “The elk was wonderful. I did bring you a slice. And pizza sounds good. For tomorrow, right? I’ll help you make it. What’s been going on in the neighborhood?”

  “Oh, the big news is Dickie Van Hose, remember him? Ran the drugstore? Van Hose Pharmacy?” He had been fitting in the coffee filter while he talked and measuring the coffee and water.

  “Sure. Fat kind of guy with big eyebrows. What happened to him?”

  “He invested all his money with a brokerage firm downtown. All tech stocks. And he took a bath. Lost everything, mortgaged the house, lost that, sold drugs under the counter, lost the store. He was wiped out. And apparently he got despondent. He killed his wife and the three kids, left a note saying he was sparing them pain, then he went to the broker’s office, Handfull and Palp down on Lincoln. He shot five people in the office including the brokers. Then he went home and shot himself. In the note he said Handfull and Palp ‘destroyed me with their merciless greed.’”

  “God, that’s lousy.” He poured milk in his coffee, added a little honey from the honey bear bottle. “And what do you hear from Bromo these days?”

  Uncle Tam looked at him until Bob began to feel uncomfortable.

  “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever asked about him?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Yes, it is. You never really got along with him. He thought you were smart, Bob, but that wasn’t a compliment. The crossword puzzle thing upset him. All that vying over ‘ibex’ and ‘aorta’ and ‘Ares’ and ‘Oona.’”

  “There was always a pattern to them. You had to find the pattern. He thought it was only individual words and that lou
sed him up. Anyway, I never asked about him because—well, you know.”

  “No, Bob, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—you’re right, we never got along. He—I always thought he resented me. Like jealousy.”

  There was a long silence.

  “You’re falling all over yourself. Well, anyway, I appreciate your asking. Wayne is doing very well in New York. He’s been taking classes in design and the history of furniture for the last few years. Mornings he works at a classy antique store in the World Trade Center, down on a lower level. It’s a beautiful shop, he says. I forget the name. He invited me to come there for a visit at the end of the summer. And he wants to come back here for Thanksgiving or Christmas, some holiday. He sent you another book—if I can find where I put it. It might be in my office downstairs.”

  “How’s business, the shop?”

  “So-so. This isn’t really a very good location. I’m sorely tempted to get rid of everything except the Art Plastic. Start over somewhere else.”

  “I wish I could,” said Bob. “I kind of hate this hog site job. I think it would be fun to have a little bookstore somewhere.”

  “That’s how I started out,” his uncle said. “It just grew into all-around junk. I still got most of the books in boxes in the storage space. Anyway, let’s change the subject,” he muttered. “Got something I want to show you.” He left the kitchen and went downstairs to the shop. Bob poured more coffee into the familiar old Toby mugs. When his uncle came back he was carrying a Bible and Bob felt his heart sink. No doubt the vegetarian diet had stirred some dormant religious volcano in Uncle Tam and the lava would start to flow in a minute. But Uncle Tam passed him the Bible and told him to look in the map envelope inside the back cover. Bob withdrew the map and behind it saw a sheaf of hundred dollar bills. He counted them. There were twelve.

  “What’s this all about?” he said.