The Fool's Progress
II
He wanted her so much. For so long. He desired her so intensely over such a length of time that the longing became a malaise, a sickness. Desire—the word itself, in its very sound, with its dying fall of suspiration, resembled the enchanted misery of his fever. A fever in the blood, fever in the mind, fever of soul.
He tried to telephone her from a town called McCook in Nebraska, two hundred miles east of Denver. Stump Creek was a week behind him when he called the magic number and reached only her mother.
I’m afraid she’s not here, Mr. Lightcap. No she’s not. I said she’s not. She’s in Rhode Island now, visiting her grandmother. Spring break, you know. Where in Rhode Island? Does it really matter, Mr. Lightcap? Where are you, if I may ask? On your way to Utah, I suppose? That “seasonal” job, as you call it? I said she’s with her grandmother now. In Newport. No, I think I’d rather not divulge the address. There’s a quality of enthusiasm in you, Mr. Lightcap, that suggests madness. I think you’re a dangerous man, Mr. Lightcap, and frankly would prefer that you not see my daughter, frankly. Yes, frankly. I know you appreciate frankness. We have something in common then, don’t we? I’m sure that she’ll write to you from time to time, if she wishes. I’ve no control over that. But I will not encourage your interest in her. She sees various young men, you know. Young men, I said. Men her own age. Do you have difficulty hearing me? Your right ear? From what? Guns, you say? Gunnery? Mr. Lightcap, this information does not surprise me in the least, indeed it confirms my worst fears and suspicions. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Lightcap. Goodbye now. I said goodbye.
Thinking that the mother might be lying, he tried again when he reached the city, slunk about the Mellon house for two days and nights hoping for a glimpse of Claire; she did not appear. He called the secretary of the Symphony Association and learned only that the concert season was over and that Miss Mellon, like other members of the orchestra, had been furloughed for the spring and summer. He visited the music department at the University of Colorado in Boulder but found nobody there except a departmental assistant who refused to reveal any information whatsoever about any student. Henry left a message for her sealed in a departmental envelope:
Claire—
Come.
—Henry
III
That didn’t work.
IV
He wrote her letters, long rambling humorous and pathologic letters, often in blank verse, sometimes in rhyme, from his sun-cooked outpost in the Utah desert. Sent her pictures of himself in ranger suit, Smokey Bear hat, smug smirk, with views beyond of a rearing phallic monument silhouetted against the pure indigo of desert sky. Sent her sketches in his own hand of Navajo hogans, buckboard wagons, tired saddlehorses, sick cowboys vomiting in the horse trough. Sent her a sprig of sagebrush, a corsage of juniper, a mountain lupine wreathed in maidenhair fern. She acknowledged his gifts—some of them—with cryptic notes, highly delayed, that promised nothing.
Finally she agreed to meet him for a day, on his day off, at the town of Glenwood Springs in western Colorado, a midway point between Denver and Moab, Utah. She would not stay overnight with him, no she would not. Would not or could not? Both. She would arrive on the westbound morning train—Denver, Western & Rio Grande—and depart on the eastbound evening train. She owned no car of her own and preferred not to borrow one from her mother.
Wear that black velvet dress, he begged her on the telephone, with the lacy trim. Henry don’t be silly, she replied….
At five o’clock, official quitting time, on the day before the tryst, Henry retired to his plywood ranger hut among the juniper trees, stripped off his sweat-soaked uniform, and took a shower. Not in the little trailerhouse, a cramped bug-infested sweatbox with apologetic plumbing, but out back on the rock, in the sun, with two buckets of water, one soapy one clear. He bathed in the soapy bucket and poured the contents of the other over his shaggy head. Shivering with cold goosebumps, at a temperature of 102° F, as a fiery breeze swept down from the rosy, infernal cliffs. The humidity was 6 percent.
He dressed in his sportiest Dacron slacks and loudest Hawaiian shirt, filled his canvas waterbag and hung it on the front bumper of his pickup, loaded buckets, bedroll and cooking gear in bed of truck, tossed in a rag satchel with clean shirt and underwear, toothbrush and razor and comb, locked up his trailer and bolted off like a rabbit for the highway, ten miles away by sand and stone. He paused in Moab for oil, gasoline and beer, then headed northeast up the river road through the gorge past Nigger Bill Canyon, La Sal Creek, Castle Valley, Professor Valley, Onion Creek, Fisher Towers. Flaming with joy, fear, intolerable anticipation, he rumbled—engine faltering—over the Colorado River on the half-century-old one-lane Dewey Bridge. Stopped to fill a bucket and add water to his leaky radiator. Scalding his fingers in the steam. Draped a wet rag over the carburetor to soothe the vapor lock. And waited, walking irritably back and forth in the shade of the cotton-wood trees on the riverbank, switching impatiently at the heads of dried cheatgrass with his agave walking stick. Returned to his vehicle, added a quart of reprocessed oil and slammed down the hood, securing it to the grille with the leather latigo that hung from the hood ornament.
Henry drove on, passed the mouth of the Dolores (Sorrows) River, forded a stream that came down from the Roan Cliffs on the north, and entered the ghost slum of Cisco. From there it was but a mile to the paved highway—US 6-50—and an easy roll over the lonely lovely desert to the riverside Mormon towns of Mack, Loma, Fruita and Grand Junction. Only ninety-one miles to Glenwood Springs. And seven-thirty P.M.: only fifteen hours before her scheduled arrival.
Air cooling, engine cooling, sun well down behind him, he motored on through Palisade, De Beque, Rulison, Rifle, Antlers and Silt, following the river as the highway did, and entered the fine old resort town of Glenwood Springs. An odor of therapeutic sulfur floated from the baths and through the streets. Henry made sure, first of all, that he could find the railway station and passenger depot. Not hard. The railroad, like the highway, paralleled the river. Anything of any importance in Glenwood Springs ran along the river. He found another clock. He had thirteen hours to wait but at least he was here. Not there. He walked about the streets still flustered a bit from the six cans of beer he’d absorbed during the drive up from Moab but taking care not to attract the eye of the city police. This would be the wrong night to spend in a drunk tank.
Checked a clock in a jewelry store, another in a hotel lobby, a third in a supermarket. Twelve hours to go. He bought a can of sweet corn, some hamburger, an onion, a tomato, a jar of mustard and a package of sesame rolls and drove up into the hills north of town, into White River National Forest, parked his truck facing downhill, cooked his supper over a scrub-oak fire and made camp for the night.
He decided not to eat the onion. He brushed and flossed his teeth, had a long walk in the woods, took a shortcut coming back and got lost for two hours. Near midnight he slid into his sack and tried to sleep. Sleep came hard. About four in the morning, judging by the stance of the Big Dipper, he dozed off, dreaming of a symphony orchestra with one vital violinist missing.
A bird coughed. A daddy longlegs walked across his face. He rolled on his side and saw the bright green leaves on an aspen tree trembling before the morning light. A mountain bluebird swooped like an arc of electricity from the aspen into the shaggy dark arms of a spruce. He heard the sound of mountain water.
A worm fence four aspen poles high, looking fifty years old, zigged and zagged across one corner of the meadow. He thought of West Virginia. For a moment. He looked at the smooth white bark of the aspens and read the names of the sheepherders dead and gone—Garcia, Vargas, Barrutti—and the vague heart-shaped growth-expanded symbols of youthful love, enclosing the initials of brave lads and dark-eyed lasses long forgotten. His heart swelled with joy. Yes, he would bring her here for the day. They’d picnic in the shade at the edge of the trees, they’d drink from the mountain brook, they’d walk up that soft brown lane that
led into the depths of the aspen groves, he’d carve her name and his own
inside a heart for all the world to see.
My God! He shivered alert, dashed through the goldenrod, morning glory, dockweed and locoweed to the window of his pickup. A two-dollar Westclox pocket watch hung on the dashboard, suspended by a leather thong from the choke rod. The hands on the watch read ten after ten. Impossible. Horror and panic flashed through his nerves: the train was due at ten-thirty. He grabbed the watch, held it to his ear: no sound. He shook it, banged it on the roof of the cab. The thing began to tick then stopped again, dead. He hurled it over the trees, out of sight.
Glancing again at the sun for reassurance, he skinned on a pair of Levi’s blue jeans. No underwear for Henry. Then remembered the baggy slacks with the drape shape and the reat pleats at the waistband—only fifteen years old. His Eisenhower pants, 100 percent virgin Dacron. His wino pants. His dress-up pants. He peeled off the tight jeans and stepped into the slacks and tried to see himself in the side mirror of the truck. Wrong. This would not do. He dropped the slacks, balled them up and stuffed them down a badger hole. Again he pulled on the Levi’s jeans—old and faded and not very clean but at least they fit. Then reevaluated what he had long ignored, that the crotch was frayed to a frazzle. If he sat with legs spread his scrotum could be seen, leaking out like some obscure form of marine polyp.
He looked at the badger hole. Decisions. He dug up the slacks, shook off the dirt, considered and reconsidered. Meanwhile the sun was rising, soaring like the fire of his hopes well into early morning. That Amtrak train would already be coming down the grade from Loveland Pass, bearing in its Vista-Vu dome car the bonniest colleen in the Golden West.
Haste! He counted his money: twenty-one dollars. (No credit card.) Enough to buy a pair of decent pants at Sears or J. C. Penney maybe, but what about the feast he planned for her, the imported Danish cheese, the Prague pilsener, the Swedish flatbread, the grapes, the Italian salami, a pair of filet mignons (mignones? mignoneaux? mignoni?) with bacon and mushrooms or else some lamb, marinated in a garlic lemon wine sauce, skewered with peppers and onions and tomatoes on a spit and broiled over the fire and—and of course the wine, two bottles of a fine Bordeaux perhaps, one red one white, one served at forest temperature the other chilled in ice pourquoi non?
He rehearsed the plan, rolling down the mountain toward Glenwood Springs, where he arrived to find that the time of day, Rocky Mountain Daylight Saving Time, was 6:04 A.M. He drove to the railway station anyhow, double-checking, but found the passenger depot locked. Peering through the dusty glass of the windows he read the chalked writing on the blackboard inside, the schedule of arrivals. Ten-thirty, said the board.
He had time for a cup of coffee. He located a cowboy and truckers’ café, ordered coffee, flapjacks and pigmeat. Might need the strength later. For what? Who could say? For a rescue operation, perhaps: pretty Claire treed by a bear or frozen with fear on a crag of rock or swept by chance down a raging torrent toward a thundering waterfall, who knows? Henry the Ranger would be prepared.
He left the café. Seven o’clock. Three and a half hours yet to go. He walked around the block five times, drove to the biggest food store in town, parked, waited. Made notes in his diary. Played a few tunes on his harmonica, wondering which might most impress a professional musician. None, probably. He bought a copy of the morning newspaper and read the same old news. Nothing new. Same rotten war dragging on and on, same scoundrels still in office, same derailed freight trains and overturned truck-tankers spreading chlorine gases, flammable fluids, alarums, confusion and terror. What else is new?
Finally the supermarket was opened. Henry entered, first customer of the day, and pushed his cart up and down the quiet aisles. He found most of the items on his list. When the cashier at the check-out counter added things up, Henry had only enough money left for gasoline to return to Moab and his job.
Poverty. Lacking an icebox, he buried the perishables inside his sleeping bag, insulating them from the sun, and drove once again to the railroad station. The passengers’ waiting room was open. He entered, looked at the clock on the wall above the ticket windows then at the schedule board. The westbound train would be twenty minutes late. Fifty minutes yet to go. He went into the men’s room with his satchel in hand, peeled off his sweaty shirt and bathed himself from the waist up with soap and cold water. He dried himself with paper towels, took out his razor and shaved his bristling jaw, his blue-gray chin and upper lip. Trimmed his eyebrows. With thumb and forefinger plucked a few hairs from his nostrils. He ran a hand through his black hair, finding it greasy again; just another greaseball hillbilly. He shampooed his hair for the second time in less than twenty-four hours and slicked it down with a comb, then fingerwaved his standing pompadour. He brushed his teeth and deodorized his hairy armpits.
Now what?
The pants. He took the slacks from the satchel and held them up to the window. They were so thin at the seat the light shone through. And completely wrinkled—Dacron or not—smeared with damp earth, smelling of roots, rocks, rat turds and badger dung. Unsuitable for the occasion. He would have to wear what he was wearing, the little boy blue jeans with the peekaboo crotch. He stuffed the slacks into a garbage can, thought for a moment, pulled the blue bandana from his hip pocket and lined the inside of the Levi’s crotch. The effect was curious but would pass. He put on a fresh white shirt, his finest, and snapped shut the pearly buttons one by one. Looking himself over in the mirror, forcing a grin, tilting his head first right then left, he found little to admire but hoped that little would suffice. He took his spare bandana, a red one, from the satchel and knotted it loosely about his throat. Nice. But it seemed an affectation—with the clean shirt, the lean jeans, the high-heeled pointy-toe boots on his feet, he looked too much like a dude-ranch cowboy. Perhaps she preferred the urban existential type, the subbohemian verité, a touch of defiant squalor from the student ghetto. Retrieve the Dacron slacks once more?
No! Enough of the waffling. Train’s a-coming, boy. Henry joined the crowd outside on the loading docks and watched the train come around the bend uptrack, headlight glaring, power units puffing smoke. A trickle of sweat crept down his ribs. The engines grumbled past, champing steel, smelling of burning oil and hot iron, air brakes hissing. The tall bilevel blue-and-silver passenger cars glided along the platform, slowed, stopped. The conductor’s assistant in his brass buttons and suit of navy blue swung down from the gangway holding the steel step-box in hand.
Henry looked for Claire’s rosy face, bright eyes, golden head of hair but the tinted windows allowed no positive identification. He saw a few hands waving and waved his own in return. He watched as the first passenger descended the steps—a blue-haired lady in a print dress, followed by a pink-cheeked gentleman wearing a Panama hat. Two little boys in suits got off and rushed into the arms of a waiting mother. Three more elderly couples descended, then a pretty girl with red hair; Henry envied the young man who stepped quickly forward to hug, kiss and take her away—but she was nothing, a drab and a dormouse compared to his Claire, his Honeydew, his radiant ripe and unplucked Mellon.
He waited. He watched. But no one else came out. The conductor was already attending to the tickets of five passengers about to board. Moments later the engine whistled once, twice, thrice, the heavy wheels began to turn. Next stop Thompson Springs, Utah. The Amtrak rumbled off, rattled away and dwindled out of sight, airhorns wailing through the valley….
Slowly, carefully, Henry sat down on a bench, his bag between his feet. He was alone on the platform. He licked his dry lips, felt the shocked slow thumping of his heart. Something like a paralyzing drug spread through his nervous system. He felt dazed, cold, hollow. He felt empty and useless and worthless. He stared at the vacant tracks of the railway, at the trees of the park along the river, at the spas and hotels on the other side and saw nothing. Nothing at all.
He sat there for some time—five minutes? fifteen?—then bestirred
himself, picked up his bag and walked on numb legs and nerveless feet into the waiting room. He shuffled to the clerk’s window and inquired after a message for Henry H. Lightcap.
The clerk looked. There was nothing.
Henry shuffled outside into the hearty sunlight. He saw dozens of happy people moving about, couples arm in arm, young lovers snuggled close on the front seat of automobiles. He raised his eyes to the dark conifers and pale green aspens crowding the mountainsides, to the gray scree of the peaks, to the snowfields and the first thick clouds forming out of nothing, ex nihilo, on the skyline. Stunned, he waited another hour, then drove slowly out of town.
He was ten miles west before he remembered to shift from second into third, twenty miles farther before he remembered the beer and the two bottles of wine, one red one white, wrapped in his bedroll.
Somewhere along the river road to Moab, under the beaked gods and visored goddesses of Fisher Towers, he turned aside up a rocky ravine, plowed firmly into the boughs of a juniper tree and stalled. Little blue-green berries rained down on cab and hood of truck. Henry kicked open the door to let his legs hang out, stretched lengthwise on the bench seat, pillowed his head on his forearm and subsided into the nirvana of unconsciouness.
V
On the afternoon of the following day he checked in at Park Headquarters for mail. Among the letters, bills and junk in his box he found a memo.
Lightcap: Some female named Claire phoned long-distance yesterday to say she could not keep her date. Asked us to relay the message. We called you on the radio but you were already gone. Hope everything turned out all right.
—Gibbs
VI
He found other diversions.
But the pain lingered for weeks, months, years. He did not write to her again until her letter came, a week after his happy journey to Glenwood Springs and back.
Dear Henry,