Watch the road, goddamnit. My political nightmares are leading me straight into the ditch. I stick my face out the window for a blast of cold air. That helps, for a minute.
Dirt road off on the right. I stop, reverse, stop, drive into an endless plantation of sorghum and soybeans. The road dead-ends at a water-pumping station. When I shut off my engine I hear the drone of electric motors. This won’t do. I return to the highway and continue east into a town named Copeland. Under looming cathedrals of grain I drive through two yellow lights and past the United Brethren Church.
Where there’s a church there’s the dead. Slowing down, I look for the cemetery, find it and steer down a grassy lane bounded by a fence of steel railings set in concrete posts. I turn a corner and park in the darkness under a tree, another Chinese elm—tree of the prairie.
Time to pill the dog. I give her her Nizoral, a pan of water, a bowl of Purina crunchy granola and spread her rug beneath the rear of my truck. The sky looks clear. The wind has stopped. The graveyard smells newly mown—a sweet odor of timothy hangs in the air. No mercury vapor lights here and no sounds either. No watchman prowling about. In Copeland the dead are allowed to sleep in peace. Bedroll under my arm, I slip through the bars of the fence and spread my sack on cool grass. I lie down among tombstones named Houck, Loucke, Starke, Miller, Harrison, Studebaker and Poole. Poole? I look again. Yes, my bedmate for the night is “Thyria Poole, 1872-1963.” Goodnight, Thyria. Sweet dreams.
I dream of Claire.
16
1970:
Henry at Work
Yes, it was a good sweet job. Old Gibbsie was a good superintendent. The United States government was a government. Henry Lightcap had found his niche, his slot, his cranny, his refuge in the vast vermiculate edifice of the American socioeconomy. And he kept it too, off and on, for the next fifteen years, working five, six months a year in various national parks and national forests, through national chaos and international calamity. Brother Will might disapprove, thinking such work unworthy of a full-grown man, little better than welfare, but for Henry Lightcap—a “fool-grown man,” as he liked to explain, such a part-time occupation made the ideal vocation. Henry Lightcap needed those half years free. Why? For what? For the sake of freedom itself, he told his inner critic. Liberty like virtue is its own reward, the only reward it’s likely to get. And for the sake of simplicity—la vie philosophique. Was he, Henry, a disgrace to the ancient name of Lightcap? Perhaps. But Henry had conceded, long before the end, that if he couldn’t grow up to be functional at least he could be ornamental—like tits on a motor. Like ticks on a dog. If not meant to be a wise man he’d settle for the role of wise guy. Every cobbler to his last? Exactly. Life is a bitch, his dark companion said—and then you die. Not so! cried Henry. Life is a glorious shining and splendid adventure—and then you die. Furthermore (there’s always that), Henry felt that by contributing nothing to the annual Gross National Product he was thereby subtracting even less from what was left of the Net National Heritage. He himself would carry out a private one-man revolution in the belly of the beast. Freedom begins between the ears. The Good Life starts where servitude ends. In a nation of sheep one brave man is a majority.
Theory. There was a flaw in the program. The program did not appeal to women, especially married women, especially those married women married to Henry Lightcap. No, screamed Myra (for example), I will not spend my life drifting from park to park, scraping by on unemployment checks, living in a nomadic state. How about Utah, he’d suggested. No! Arizona? Impossible! Alaska? Never! Well, he said, there’s Idaho. Why not Siberia? she said; at least then the misery would be permanent. I’ll apply, he said. The divorce papers followed soon after.
He liked the job. He even liked the uniform: the green and the gray, the forest green trousers and the cool gray shirts, the fawn-colored Stetson ranger hat, his badge with silver eagle, the arrowhead shoulder patch, the shiny boots and Smith & Wesson .38. He was good for the part and knew it. Henry Lightcap looked as a ranger should look—tall, dark, handsome, not too bright.
He loved the work itself, driving the dusty roads in his dusty new government pickup, patrolling the rocky trails on foot and on horseback, rescuing fat men in distress, answering questions from admiring tourists, and best of all delivering the weekly Campfire Talk—he loved to talk—among a circle of pretty girls, admiring matrons, dozing children, aware of the play of firelight and shadow on his eagle beak nose, his Shawnee cheekbones and his haggard axhewn jaw:
“These ancient ontological rocks,” he’d explain, “were laid down eons ago in the Sedimentary Era by an aquarian sea that oceanographers call Lake Wittgenstein, after the noted paleontologist of the same name. Opinions differ, of course, as to the exact age of these monumental formations. Deep-time eschatologists such as Dr. Wilhelm Reich of Harvard College (the ‘Stanford of the East’) believe they were deposited during the shifting of Teutonic Plates in the great Triassic hullabaloo, when the diplodocus, the brontosaurus and the giant trilobite romped like happy children in the primordial sleaze. Others, such as the well-known biblical scholar Archbishop Ussher of Dublin College, Belfast, assert paragorically that the deposition took place a mere 4004 years B.C. during the last Jurassic Period. However—questions? Yes, miss?”
One pale hand had risen, spontaneously, from the lap of a maid with flaxen braids and bright bold blue-gray eyes in a face of heart-troubling ellipsoidal symmetry. Henry had noticed her at once, from the beginning. She sat cross-legged on the sand near the ceremonial fire of juniper, her skirt hiked up far enough to expose a pair of glossy kneecaps to the light. Beyond those knees would be sleek convergent thighs leading—who knows where? Straight into trouble, that’s for certain. Smiling, the girl asked her question.
Henry paused, also smiling, and repeated the question for the benefit of those sitting on the far benches. “The young lady’s question was, Am I married?” Henry gave the crowd his big toothy loose and goofy grin. “To which I can only reply, in the words of the immortal Benedict Spinoza, ‘You better ask my wife.’” (Laughter.) “Seriously, folks, a married philosopher could only be a figure of fun. Right?” (Silence.) “Actually I live alone. Not necessarily by choice. Now where was I?” He continued his lecture on the monoliths, the holes, the bores, the natural and human history of the park, the cactus, the forest, concluding with his standard peroration. “Now I want everybody to have a good time while you’re here. If you get lost, report to me at once. Please don’t stone the bunny rabbits and if you see a rattlesnake lurking about, hobble the sonofabitch. Don’t sit on the cactus; this is a national heritage natural monument and all flora and fauna were placed here for your enjoyment and are protected by law. Take only pictures, leave only Kleenex, goodnight and God bless you all.”
The crowd rose, murmuring, and drifted away, flashlights winking on, campers finding their way back to tents, trailers, motorhomes. The girl with the braids remained behind, facing Henry, a sly smile on her rosy face. “Have any Band-Aids?” she asked.
He tried to ignore the spurt of adrenaline to his heart. “What’s wrong?”
She showed him a red slash across her bare calf. “This. I guess I backed into something.” It was only a scratch; the blood had already clotted and dried.
“That looks serious,” Henry said. “Good thing I’m a doctor.”
“You’re a doctor of malarkey.” She was grinning at him. “I never heard such a line of bull as you gave those nice people.”
“I improvise a bit.”
“A bit? You’re outrageous. My father’s a professor of geology. If he was here you’d be in deep trouble.”
Henry looked around. The fire had died down. They were alone. “What’s your name?”
“Claire Mellon. What’s yours?” He pointed to the official name tag above his right shirt pocket. “Henry H. Lightcap,” she read aloud, leaning close. He smelled the fragrance of apple blossoms. “What’s the H. stand for?”
“Holyoak. We’re a
n old Druid family.”
“You’re a kidder and a wise guy. But that’s all right, I like you anyway.” She paused. His move. But for the moment he could think of nothing to say. She hesitated, about to turn away. “Guess I’d better go….”
“Wait….” O stay, stay, fair maiden. “Would you like a beer? Something to eat, maybe? We could—we could go to my trailerhouse.” He gestured into the dark. “Right over there.” Anxiety.
“Well…” she said. And looked around. They were surrounded by night, a few distant lanterns. The constellations of the desert hung above them like flaming chandeliers. “Actually I don’t much like beer. Do you have any white wine?”
I’ve got Blatz and Schlitz, he thought; chablis with a head on it. “Yes,” he lied. “Of course.”
“Well…” Again she hesitated. “But only for a minute. My mother’s waiting for me in our tent. You sure it’s okay?”
“Come on.” He touched her elbow, led her away from the glow of the embers. He was supposed to drown that fire dead before leaving. But what could burn in this place? The sand? The rock? His blood was burning.
They walked down the winding dirt road toward the little government housetrailer, a half mile off, where Henry lived. She seemed to be leaning toward him, looking up at the stars. He named a few constellations for her but she knew them better than he did. He longed to put his arm around that small firm waist not six inches from his right hand. But dared not. The panicky angels of love panted in his ear. He felt like a teenage acne-cursed gland-enslaved, girl-haunted adolescent. He tried to think of something intelligent, something clever, something engaging to say. Say something, he thought. But what? “Where’s your father?”
“My parents are separated. It’s pretty awful.”
“It’s like an amputation,” Henry agreed. In more ways than one, he thought; costs you an arm and a leg. However, the limbs grow back. “How old are you?”
“I’m nineteen,” she said. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-nine and a half,” he lied. He was forty-three.
“I thought so. You have that mature look.”
He was disappointed; he thought he looked at least ten years younger. Maybe he should shave off the moustache, chew gum, play a guitar, sing folk songs. Cultivate some pimples.
“I suppose you get awfully lonely out here?”
“Oh—yes and no. Sometimes. How about you?”
“I don’t live here. Remember?” She laughed. “You’re the one that lives here. I live in Denver.”
Love, he thought, I’m in love again. It’s horrible.
“Tell me,” she asked, “do you think I’m beautiful?”
“What?” The sweat trickled from his armpits.
“Don’t be vague.”
“Well Jesus Christ….” What’s her name? “Jesus Christ, Claire, what kind of question is that? Why do girls always ask that?”
“Because it’s hard to be sure. Because it seems to be so important. I’m sick of it.”
“You know you’re beautiful. Don’t you?”
“That’s what they say. And I’m supposed to be grateful. Actually I’m sick of it. Sometimes I wish I was fat and ugly, life would be simpler.”
Beauty, he thought, is only skin-deep. Ugliness goes all the way through. His mind raced forward, upward, sideways, sprayed out in all directions, a fountain of foolishness. He was painfully aware, as always, of the sheer impossibility of saying exactly what he thought, of saying everything he felt. Candor was impossible but sincerity essential. He compromised, as usual, on the facetious. “Ugliness is only skin-deep. Beauty goes all the way through.”
“You are a kidder and a wise guy.”
“I was a philosophy major. Well, a second lieutenant. That’s why I’m totally confused. Ask me a question, I think of sixteen possible answers, all false. The result is a kind of infantile paralysis.”
“I like you anyway. I think I’ll major in veterinary medicine.”
“You love horses,” he said. Should I grab her, he wondered, kiss her right now? Or later? God but it’s horrible.
“All girls love horses. I suppose I’ll grow out of it. But why philosophy? You look more like one of those country-western music types.”
A banjo picker? His vanity was hurt. But he said, in simple honesty, “I wanted to know something about everything.”
“Everything?”
“What else is there?”
That made her laugh. And as she laughed he pulled her close and kissed her square on her small neat mouth. She tasted as sweet and warm as she looked. He wanted more but she averted her face and pulled away. “Why’d you do that?”
Why did I do that? Sixteen good sound reasons flashed like neon signs across his brain, none requiring analysis. “It seemed like a good idea. A seminal idea.”
She smiled. “Well don’t get any ideas.”
He was disappointed by the commonplace expression. But reassured by the expression on her face, the sly smile on her lips. She’s teasing me and she knows it. And I love it. And she knows it. In what country but America could a girl expect to play a man this way and hope—expect—to get away with it, unpollinated? If she did. Did she? Her mere presence, being here alone with him, was all the invitation a man needed. And if she objected, tried to run away, that would be the most provocative movement of any, triggering in a man—as in a bear—the instinctive reflex of pursuit, capture, ravishment, assault with a friendly weapon. For what could be more provocative to a man than the dorsal view of a female in flight? Origin of The Chase. But how could you explain any of this to any girl, any woman? Well, you didn’t have to; they understood it well enough, deep inside, down there in the molten core of the female sexual organism. To be sexually attractive is to be perpetually on guard. A pretty girl lives in a state of constant siege. And how we loved it—the tension, the conflict, the promise of delight. Such were the notions that sped, within seconds, like rush-hour traffic, through the imagination of Henry Lightcap.
But all he said, opening the door to his trailer, was “Come on in.” Like the spider to the fly.
She hesitated again, reluctant to proceed through any door, whether in or out. And with good reason. “Don’t you have any lights? It’s dark in there.”
“I’ll light a candle.”
“No electricity?”
“It’s kind of a humble abode. We’re twenty miles from the nearest powerline.”
“You go in first.”
He went in first, fumbled about, found and lit the stub of candle stuck to a saucer on the table. Sound of mice in a scurry of flight. Bending over the low flame, lean face illuminated from below, Lightcap appeared as inviting as Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein’s monster. “Come in,” he repeated, as the girl remained half in half out the open doorway, feline and cautious as a pussycat. A moth fluttered in above her shining hair and dove headfirst into the flame. Showing off. Passed through and bashed itself against the wall, sticking there, wondering What the hell happened?
“I’m not sure I should do this.”
“Do what?”
“Come into your—whatever this is. You look like a giant spider.”
He grinned at her and held open his arms. The effect was ghastly. “Me? Look—two arms, two legs. I’m only half a spider. Come in for godsake and shut the door and sit down.”
Slowly she did as invited. After all, she was an American girl; she’d risk a lot for a small adventure. In her nineteen years she had yet to encounter a man she couldn’t handle. But she left the door open and sat close to it. Nervous but interested she stared around at the compact interior of the little housetrailer. A machine for living.
Henry, much more nervous than Miss Mellon, groped through the unlit propane refrigerator, emerging with two cans of beer. He found the magnetic church key, two cone-shaped beer glasses, and sat down at the table opposite his guest.
“What’s this?”
“Beer. Blatz beer—it was on sale.”
“You said you had wine.”
He opened her can with two deft thrusts of the opener—no college education is entirely wasted—and filled her glass, spilling a little as the foam slopped over. “I lied,” he confessed. “I never did that before.” All generalizations are false.
“I’d prefer chablis.”
He filled his own glass. “This is chablis with character. Blatz chablis.”
“How plebeian.”
“It was on sale—a whole case for $1.98.” He tipped his glass against hers. “Skoal!” He gulped down a throatful. Christ, you’d think an old-timer like him, veteran of marriage, divorce, a dozen love affairs, would have more grace. But it was always like this; and I’m operating under terrific pressure, he reminded himself.
She took a sip, made a grimace of distaste. “I really don’t like beer.”
“I’ve got some Jim Beam.”
“What’s that?”
He paused for a moment, touched by her innocence. But innocence is the wickedest of aphrodisiacs. “Well, Beam’s a type of Kentucky wine made from corn.” Fidgeting about, his knee touched hers beneath the narrow table and he felt a galvanic spark leap between them. My God! His heart swelled, his heartstrings tightened, and as they did his penis rose. Indeed there is, there must be a direct physical linkage between the two organs. But which is the marionette, which the player?
“Beam goes good with Coca-Cola; you’d like that.”
“All right, I’ll have a Coke.”
“As a matter of fact I don’t have any.”
“You are absolutely the worst liar I ever met.”
“You’re only nineteen.” Good God! he thought, unable to think at all. I’m fucking up royally here. He blathered on, trying to conceal his desperation. He hadn’t made love to a woman for—two months. An age. A geological epoch. “Well now tell me all about yourself. You live in Denver? What school are you going to? What’s your middle name? Do you like Kurt Vonnegut? Norman Mailer? William Faulkner? Walt Whitman? Play any musical instruments? Which? The violin? Do you like Mozart? Roy Acuff? Bartók? George Jones? Carl Orff? The Sons of the Pioneers? The Champs? The Comets? Bob Dylan? Dylan Thomas?”