Wildside

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some predators dig.”

  “Uh. I hadn’t thought about that. What do you suggest?”

  “Uh, well, we can dig a trench, before we put the walls in, and pour a concrete foot.”

  “Ow. Take too long. Look, we have to berm it in back, to blend with the hillside around the door, right?” I pointed to where the walls would enclose the doorway so that it opened into our hangar.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t we berm it all the way around? Except at the doors, of course. We can pour a concrete foot there.”

  Joey looked at the plans. “As long as we seal the walls with plastic before we pile the dirt, that should work. But that’s a lot of dirt. Wouldn’t it be easier to do it my way?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll rent one of those minibulldozers.” I pointed out at the grass. “See that bump there, and that one? That’s where the airstrip goes. Gotta smooth it out. There’s also a buffalo wallow to fill.”

  “What’s a buffalo wallow?”

  “Well, it starts out as a puddle, then buffalo roll in it and it gets deeper. So, next time it rains, it collects more water and it becomes even more popular. Over and over, deeper and deeper.” I pointed to where the edges of a depression could be seen about 150 feet away. “The one that’s over there is six feet lower than the surrounding ground.”

  “Where does the dirt go?”

  “It goes away with the buffalo, caked in their hides.”

  We went back to working on the roof. We saw wolves or maybe coyotes that afternoon. Though they came as close as two hundred yards, they seemed disinclined to come closer, especially after we resumed hammering.

  We quit at five, all the plywood panels in place, the first row of tar paper tacked down, and the rest of the building materials moved under the roof. We had three more hours of good light, but Joey, Clara, and Rick had to be up early.

  All of us were sore. We caravaned back into town and ate at Pepe’s Tacos.

  “Ask him,” Clara said to Rick.

  Rick exhaled sharply and put his burrito down, then looked at me.

  “Ask me what?” I asked.

  Rick exchanged glances with Joey, then said, “What would you think about a roommate?”

  “At the ranch?”

  “Yeah. You have those rooms upstairs and I’m really anxious to get out of my place. My mom is about to drive me crazy.”

  I bit my lip. I’d thought about asking Rick and Joey if they wanted to stay out there, but I didn’t think they’d want to, so I hadn’t asked.

  He saw me hesitate. “You don’t have to, of course. At the rate I’m being paid, I could afford a small apartment, but I’d rather save the money. Of course I’d pay you rent.”

  “Don’t be silly. It makes sense, for the project. How about you, Joey?”

  Joey looked surprised. “You mean it?”

  “Why not? Don’t you share a room with your little brother?”

  “Yeah, the little twerp. But it’s air-conditioned.”

  “Oh.” I pushed a fragment of taco shell across the linoleum. “I think the project can come up with some window air conditioners.”

  Marie put her diet Coke down so hard it splashed out onto the tabletop. “It’s not fair!”

  “What isn’t?” said Clara.

  “It’s not fair that you guys get to move out, and we don’t.”

  I spread my hands. “You’re welcome, too. All of you are.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like my father is going to let me move in with three guys.”

  “Complain to him, not us. You’re eighteen, aren’t you?” I looked at Clara, who was frowning thoughtfully.

  “It’s not that easy, Charlie,” Clara said. “You know things are different for girls.”

  It was Rick’s turn to put his drink down hard. “You just screamed at me the other day for saying ‘girls’ instead of women. Is it different for women?”

  “It is. It is if we ever want to deal with our families again. Besides, how would your mother react if she thought I’d moved in with you? It’s bad enough that she hates me and doesn’t want you to see me. What do you think she’d be like then?”

  Rick raised his hands. “You’re right. Guys moving in with guys is not the same things as guys moving in with girls, er, women.”

  I leaned forward. “Well, then, why don’t you and Marie get an apartment together? There’s that complex just this side of the west bypass that’s a lot closer to the ranch than town. They have really low rent, don’t they, cause they’re so far from the university?” I scribbled some figures on a napkin. “I think we could budget the rent into the project without too much trouble.”

  Clara blinked. “That’s closer to the stable, too.”

  Marie looked down at the table. “I’m not sure my father would let me. I mean, I’m all he has.”

  Joey scowled. “You can ask. Be sure and mention that it’s with Clara. He likes her.”

  “I’ll try,” said Marie.

  And Clara said, “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “GET OUT OF MY LIFE!”

  I taught Marie how to drive the tractor the next day, which was a challenge, since she doesn’t drive a car. Some of the concepts from flying carried over, though, since the tractor’s throttle was a lever you set and left alone, like an airplane’s. She practiced by mowing the airstrip.

  When she finished, it was noon and hot. We took a break for lunch, then filled up the tractor and took it through the tunnel to the wildside.

  I rode shotgun, literally, perched beside Marie on the rear fender, as she mowed the area under and around our unwalled roof, cutting the grass back in a hundred-foot radius.

  It was cooler on this side, though the sky was clear and the sun high. It seemed like it was always cooler. When we took a break, I mentioned it to her.

  “Maybe they’re right about global warming. I read somewhere that if you followed the geologic record of temperature change, our earth should be in a small ice age. Maybe this side is. It’s also drier here—did you notice? When a lot of water gets tied up in glacier ice, things dry out.”

  “That would explain why the Brazos is so much smaller on this side.”

  “Oh, is it? We haven’t been down there yet.”

  “I’ve explored that far. The floodplain is just as big, but the river itself looks more like the Little Brazos.”

  We mowed the grass for this side’s landing strip next, making it extra wide. We spooked rabbits, birds, and some small deer from our path, then some thin-legged red wolves. The noise from the diesel tractor seemed to puzzle them, and I relaxed a bit, not quite as worried about being jumped by something.

  After a while, it became clear that the wildside landing strip couldn’t go in the exact same location as its tame counterpart. Besides the buffalo wallow and the bumps I’d discovered before, a gully cut through one part, hidden by the grass.

  Fortunately, many of the obstacles that were on the tame side weren’t on this one. We mowed two wide strips at ninety degrees to each other, so we wouldn’t be as constrained in bad cross-winds. Zero one five/one nine five and one oh five/two eighty five.

  This took most of the afternoon. Afterward, I walked over the ground. It was hard soil and very dry, and, if it drained well enough, we could use it year-round.

  Against my better judgment, I asked Marie if she wanted to go see a movie, or something.

  “No, Charlie.” She looked troubled, and added gently, “Joey and the others will be back from school in an hour.”

  “Right. Don’t know what I was thinking.” We put the tractor back in the barn and I drove her into town.

  And so the week went.

  Dad and Mom arrived back, as planned, on Tuesday afternoon. Mom brought me a large geode, saying, “This is not a self-referential T-shirt.” She showed me a book she’d bought herself: The Effect of Ozone Layer Depletion on Transalpine Ecosystems.

  “Great.
I like the geode.” She seemed pleased, then I told them about Joey and Rick moving in.

  Dad was okay about it once I said they were paying rent, then rushed off to make a commuter flight to DFW.

  Evenings, the Five gathered in town or the ranch and, with ritual-like regularity, recounted the deeds of the day. First the students, with a steadily growing excitement about flying that Marie and I could both remember and envy. Then Marie and I would talk about the progress we’d made on the hangar.

  By Friday, we’d finished the walls and had assembled the doors, large sliding panels that hung on rails. When open, they’d stick out to each side of the building, opening nearly the entire front of the hangar.

  That night, at Pepe’s, we met again. Rick and Joey were mock-sulking. Clara had soloed that day, after ten hours’ instruction. Marie gave her a high five, followed by a hug.

  “So, lunkheads, what’s taking you so long?” I asked. Before either of them answered, I added, “Ten hours is really soon. It took me twenty and Marie did it in seventeen.”

  Joey abandoned the sulk and said, “My instructor said early next week, probably.”

  “Mine, too,” said Rick.

  We toasted Clara and talked about the weekend—we planned to move Rick and Joey into my place. I’d picked up two window air conditioners from Sears the day before. Joey was going to install them.

  Marie told us, then, that her father had said yes. She looked a little troubled.

  “What’s the matter—didn’t you want him to?”

  She looked down at the table. “He’s thinking of returning to Vietnam—to look for family. He was grateful that I wouldn’t be here alone.”

  “Well, great…I think,” said Joey. “Are you okay?”

  She shrugged and the corners of her mouth turned down suddenly. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.” She stood abruptly and walked off, stiff-legged.

  Without saying anything, Clara rose and followed her.

  Joey looked baffled. “What was it?”

  I was a little angry with him. I knew what was the matter—why didn’t he? He was the one involved with her after all.

  Rick said, “You’ve got a big family, Joey. Marie only has her father and it might not be that safe for him to go back to Vietnam. They might not let him leave again.”

  “Oh.” Joey said, and looked back toward the bathroom, brow furrowed. My anger lessened somewhat.

  We talked in a subdued fashion about moving the guys that weekend. After a while, Clara and Marie came back.

  “We’ll go look at the apartments tomorrow morning while you guys are packing,” Clara announced. She pointed at Rick and said, “He hasn’t packed anything yet.”

  “I have too! All my records and all my videotapes,” said Rick.

  “…and no clothes and no books and no toiletries,” added Clara.

  Joey laughed. “Hell, my brother’s been helping me pack. He can’t wait. I tell him what’s going and he puts it in boxes. He’ll do anything to get his own room.” He didn’t look at Marie, but he sidled next to her and put his arm around her and pulled her close.

  Marie didn’t look at him either, but she put her hand on his leg.

  Peace, of sorts. Inside, I bled.

  Clara, Marie, and I checked out the apartments the next morning. They picked a two-bath, two-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and a decent-sized living room. I used the business checkbook to pay the deposit and three months’ rent. They arranged to move in the first of the month, in two weeks. The manager asked what “Wildside Investments” was.

  “We’re an autonomous collective,” I said, and left.

  From there we went to the ranch and swept and dusted Joey’s and Rick’s rooms. Clara dragged the mattresses downstairs and beat them with a broom.

  “I didn’t think they were so bad,” I told her.

  “Well I’m not sleeping on it unless this dust is dealt with,” she said.

  “But you’re not…” I felt my ears go hot. “Oh.”

  She blushed, also. “You might as well know. It’s going to be obvious once Rick is living with you.”

  I was having trouble talking. “Y-your business,” I finally managed.

  She smiled and slammed the broom into the mattress.

  We were under instructions to come for Rick when he called—no sooner. We didn’t move Joey—he arrived with his entire family. Joey and his dad were in the lead, with Joey’s belongings in his father’s pickup. The rest of the crowd followed in the station wagon and when they unloaded, it seemed like a clown car from a circus, an improbably large number of persons climbing forth to stand in the barnyard looking about.

  There were so many of them that it only took one trip to carry Joey’s stuff up to his room. He gave them a quick tour and I offered ice tea in the kitchen. I had to resort to mason jars when the glasses gave out, and Marie chased children away from the barn and hangar.

  When they left, the silence was palpable. “Whew!” said Clara. “I can’t imagine that much noise around all the time.”

  Joey blinked. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  Rick called then and we drove out to his place in my truck, Marie and Joey in back. He had most of the stuff stacked on the porch or already loaded in his junker, a ‘78 Camaro with broad swaths of primer brown streaked across it. I say junker but now that the project had paid for some mechanical work, it ran fine. Joey, Clara, and he used it to get to flight school every day.

  “Let’s go!” he said, lifting three boxes at once and heading for the truck.

  “Whoa, Samson,” said Joey. “We can help too.”

  “Well, do it then,” Rick snapped.

  “Your mom home?” asked Clara, frowning.

  He shook his head, dumped the boxes in the truck, and went back for more. Marie took a stack of clothes on hangers that were draped over the porch rail and I grabbed his boxed stereo.

  “I’m going to get a glass of water,” Joey said, and started to open the front door.

  “No!” shouted Rick. “Uh, I mean, we’ll go by Pepe’s and get something on the way, okay?”

  Rick’s voice pitched high, and he was licking his lips.

  “Joey,” I said. “I think we better grab the stuff and get going.”

  “Why?” asked Marie.

  “ ‘Cause I don’t think Rick’s mom knows he’s moving out.”

  Clara dropped her box on the lawn. “You said you asked her!”

  “I did,” said Rick. “She said no. I left a note. She gets off work soon, guys. Can. We. Go?”

  We loaded up so fast that I was afraid the neighbors would think we were robbing the place and call the cops.

  The next day the Five went to the mall, crowding into Rick’s junker. We’d been issued the paychecks on Wednesday, direct deposited to our personal accounts. Luis had a local accountant handling that, as well as withholding, social security, and insurance payments. We’d found an okay insurance plan through the Chamber of Commerce. Of course this meant Wildside Investments had to join the Chamber. I did not go to any of their lunches.

  Anyway, what with flight school, work on the hangar, and moving the day before, none of us had had a chance to spend some “mad money.”

  I ended up with a few shirts picked out with Clara and Marie’s help. They bought some jewelry and some house stuff for their apartment-to-be. Joey and Rick spent their time in the record store.

  We did the food court thing and a movie, then went back to the ranch, where the two couples vanished upstairs. Two different stereos played different music through closed doors.

  For a while I tried to work on my lists, things to be done, materials to be purchased. My imagination, though, was too concerned with what was going on up in Joey’s room, so I grabbed my flight bag, pushed the Mooney out of the hangar, and went flying.

  The wind was slightly from the south and east, so I did a left climbing turn on takeoff, glancing around for other traffic and following the dirt road from the gate. Th
at’s when I saw her.

  I didn’t realize it was a “her” at first. There was a vaguely familiar white Volkswagen Rabbit parked at the padlocked gate, just off the main road, and a figure was climbing over the gate. I throttled back and trimmed for level flight and took a closer look. Not only was it a “her,” but a “her” I recognized.

  I popped the landing gear down, engaged three-quarter flaps, and did an abbreviated landing checklist while completing a very tight rectangular pattern. I turned final in a thirty-degree bank, watching my airspeed to keep from stalling, chopped most of my throttle, engaged the last notch of flaps, and put it down, quicker than I would’ve thought possible, straight and smooth, slipping automatically to handle the crosswind.

  I shut down, jumped out of the plane, and ran for the house. I figured I had five minutes before the woman finished the mile walk from the gate.

  “Rick!” I shouted as I pounded up the stairs. His door was shut and I could hear music from both rooms. I pounded on the door. “Rick!”

  After about ten long seconds the stereo was turned down, then the door opened a crack. Rick, apparently wearing no clothes, was standing with the door shielding most of his body. Behind him I could see the corner of his bed. Clara’s bare foot stuck out from under a sheet. “What is it?” He sounded very annoyed.

  “Your mother is walking up the road from the gate.”

  His eyes widened. “She’s what? Here?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I suggest you put on a tie.”

  “How do you know?” he said. Clara’s foot disappeared and I heard the rustle of sheets.

  “I went flying. I saw her. I landed quick.”

  “Uh, I’ll get dressed. Uh, do me a favor and hide Clara’s motorcycle, okay? It’ll be bad enough, but if she finds her here…“

  “Okay.” I didn’t wait for him to finish.

  Clara’s motorcycle, a 550 dirt bike, was by the front porch, and luckily she’d left the steering unlocked—I held the clutch in and pushed it across to the hangar. It was heavy—I nearly dropped it as I turned the corner and strained for a moment to hold it up. Then it was balanced with the kickstand down and I went outside and shut the hangar doors. I could see Mrs. Bockrath, then, coming around the turn in the road, past the live oak trees that shield the house and barn from the road.