Skipper blanched, but recovered neatly. “The AG would laugh at you. He’s my brother-in-law.”
“Ah-hah.” Joe nodded circumspectly.
Abruptly solicitous, Skipper said, “Maybe we could work out a different deal. I hear you and Nancy Ryan have become pretty close. Let’s say you two actually tie a knot once you’re divested of Heidi and the kids. All right, now here’s a distinct possibility. We all know the Simian Foundation desires the land for the monkey shrine—that, quite frankly, is my concern with this whole botched caper. Should you choose to join the foundation, I’m sure that I could convince the board of directors to make you a voting member of the stockholders’ association. You turn over your item so that it can be disposed of properly, and in return you win a partial ownership of that property, which can then be promptly dedicated to the spiritual well-being of thousands of conscientious disciples throughout the valley and across the nation. I can’t in all conscience believe, Joe, that you’d allow narrow, self-seeking interests to conflict with the greater good.”
“If I don’t buy that land, Eloy certainly won’t sell to any of you.”
“‘Sell’? Joe, he’s not selling that land. He doesn’t even own it. He’s just squatting on it until the necessary paperwork can be done to hand the terrain over to whom it properly belongs.”
“But if that happens it’ll be divvied up into little pieces. A dozen creditors will chop it up like hungry barracudas, and it won’t be good for anything.”
“Hopefully we could avoid all that. Such a finale would be a real shame.”
“But the way I figure it is that I’m the only person, right now, who has an honest shot at obtaining the land whole.”
“What about this, then? You need money to buy from Eloy? Good. I’ll hand you the money—all of it—sixty thousand dollars, before the bank closes this afternoon. Naturally, we’ll sign an agreement that the land goes over to me. As a finder’s fee in the land deal, you get double the offer I just made to you for the purchase of that item. Naturally, I receive the item, in conjunction with the land, once Eloy Whosit signs over all the pertinent deeds and quitclaims to you.”
“Meaning you finagle land worth sixty grand for that price plus twenty-four Gs and some odd shekels over that ceiling, and then recoup that investment by unloading a hundred Gs of cocaine? And I wind up with no place to build a home for my future, and only twelve thousand dollars beyond my initial investment for all the risks I’ve endured?”
“Tell you what,” Skipper rebounded calmly. “You front for me on the land, and I’ll give you back your initial investment plus six thousand dollars. And you’re allowed to keep half of that certain item to do with as you please.”
“But you said every narc in the county is waiting to pounce. You just told me if they don’t get me, Joe Bonatelli or Ray Verboten, or God knows who else will. Right now, that cocaine is absolutely worthless to me.”
“Precisely. So why am I even talking deal with you, Joe? If you turn over that stuff to me, free of any charges whatsoever, and front the purchase of that land for me for the usual ten percent commission, perhaps—and this is even a long shot—I could at least save your ass. To go beyond that, frankly, I’m not at all prepared.”
“Then it’s all gibberish. You’re not proposing a thing.”
Skipper sighed, straightened back behind the wheel, and frowned morosely. “Ah, what the hell, Joe. You’re a pigheaded fool, and already I’m late for my flight to Ohio. My number is in the phone book. Call me whenever you change your mind.”
At the punch of a button, the passenger window hummed shut. Meekly, Joe waved, trying to figure out what, if anything, had just transpired. In the final analysis, only one thing seemed certain: he couldn’t win for losing in this game.
“‘Flight to Ohio…?’”
* * *
THE CASTLE OF GOLDEN FOOLS seemed deserted. Although on the surface apparently nothing had changed, everything Joe looked at bore an elliptical tinge, a foreign essence. Only a few hours down the road of separation, yet already the house, trees, battered vehicles, and yard were relating to him as if to a stranger. Even the air seemed indifferent. Joe coasted to a stop beside the Green Gorilla. For a spell longer he dared not dismount and approach the now-neutralized house. He was like a man approaching a disaster; no life existed here. Right around the corner, for sure, he would stumble upon bodies galore, blood-soaked shower curtains, and dripping red butcher knives on the kitchen floor.
Furtively, Joe reconnoitered the second-story windows. But no curtain fell back into place; no telltale sunlight glinted on a rifle barrel; no sign said TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY. And anyway, the bus was gone. So Heidi was out there somewhere seeing a divorce lawyer, getting stroked by Nikita Smatterling, crying on Suki Terrell’s shoulder … or buying a gun.
When he opened the door to their apartment, Joe was flabbergasted. No dirty socks, Tinkertoys, old newspapers, or vacuum-cleaner hoses were spread across the rug. No jelly knives, apple cores, or half-filled coffee cups littered the tables and ledges. No sleeping-bag “nests,” holdovers from Saturday’s cartoon time, cluttered the floor before the TV And somebody had actually vacuumed and scrubbed the rug: it didn’t smell of cat pee, it wasn’t filmed with squashed Play Doh, BBs, cornflakes, peashooter pea seeds, broken crayons, dust furries, and children’s dirty underwear. And in the kitchenette—miracle of all miracles—somebody had torn down half the grotesque kiddy pictures taped to the Frigidaire, the smudged black areas around cupboard and drawer handles had been Baboed clean, and three potholders, lost for two years, were hanging on hooks beside the newly scrubbed stove.
No question about it, the place was picked up, neat, positively spotless.
At first, Joe was stunned. Then, remembering all the times he had bitched about the bourgeois shitheap they inhabited, he felt touched, almost tearful. Too late, finally, they had heeded his words. In hopes of bringing him back? Or out of guilt, finally, for driving him away? Or had they only been able to get it together at this late date because previously his shabby personality among them, his presence, had been a catalyst that forged the mess despite his fervent desire for physical law and order in the limited space they occupied?
Cleaned up, the apartment also seemed cold and foreign. As if everything related to his former life had been eradicated overnight: the Khrushchevian deStalinization of Joe Miniver, by his wife and ungrateful kiddies. Had it been done deliberately to offend him? Probably. Joe could picture Heidi in Nazi cap, black boots, and a whip ordering the kids about. Michael worked the vacuum cleaner, Heather wielded dustrag and furniture polish. Frantically, they scrubbed as she screamed: “I don’t want any traces of him left, not even a herringbone footprint from his sneakers in the dust. And especially no trace of his smell! Nothing! Fini! Kaput! Michael, over here, quick! Suck up this feather from that damn jacket of his!”
Joe collapsed into their lone armchair. He cradled the tea box of either his salvation or his total perdition. Suddenly, he felt nauseatingly mortal, as if a major heart attack was already abuilding inside, his veins and vessels twitching, molecules in the blood around his heart metastasizing, coagulating, photosynthesizing—whatever all the coronary thrombotechnicians did just before the shit hit the fan: ten minutes from now he would be dead. And a half-hour from now, when Heidi and the kids came through the door, how would they react? Michael would be genuinely sorry: but his son was the only ally he could count on. Heather would take it in wiseass stride: “Oh dear, Daddy’s dead. I’m glad he didn’t die in bed.” Heidi would hold up one hand, advising caution before they launched the celebration. “Wait a minute, kids, maybe he’s only playing possum. Ever since I’ve known him he’s wanted to be accidentally declared dead, so that he can hear and read all the hosannas in his eulogies and obituaries, like Hemingway in Africa.”
So they would spend several minutes shooting his toes with the BB gun, applying lit matches to his fingertips, and sticking hatpins into his buttocks, ma
king sure he was deceased. Then Heidi would filch all the money from his pocket, split it three ways, greedily read aloud the benefits in his life insurance policy, and they’d dance around his carcass, shouting “Son of a bitch, we’re rich! We’ll bury Daddy in a ditch! We’re rich, you son of a bitch!”
Yet suddenly he was struck a poignant blow. After all, if life was tragic, wasn’t it also truly rich? And chock full of beauty and vitality also? Abruptly, Joe wanted to live forever! Come hell or high water he absolutely must acquire Eloy Irribarren’s 1.7 acres of land! On it he would create a magnificent garden like the one Monet tended for the latter half of his life. Wisteria trellises and grape arbors! Japanese bridges over the irrigation ditch! Blooming orchards! Delphiniums! Eight-foot-tall sunflowers! Rose bushes! Poplar trees! From the mountains he would retrieve little aspens and make a grove. On transplanted spruce trees, come wintertime, he’d hang suet balls for the chickadees. A little nirvana on earth! He would build a bunch of birdhouses to specification and nail them up in the chinese elms: wren, starling, and bluebird houses, also flicker boxes. And beehives for honey. A backhoe would excavate a small pond; he’d plant cattails and lily pads, and stock a few trout, a handful of snail darters. Redwing blackbirds would warble in the rushes, a virginia rail would appear. Come autumn, ruddy ducks, mallards, and goldeneye would spend a few days on their way south. Muskrats would build a domed lodge. Wood ducks would nest in a box on a pole in the middle of the water. When it froze in December, they’d have skating parties. Long ago, he and Heidi had frequented Central Park’s Wollman Rink: courting days. Joe flashed briefly on being young, madly in love, and loaded with dough … stroking around that rink, flaunting his hips at each stride.
For a beat, he felt soft and muted and lazy—tranquil and private. At the core of existence, despite all the heartaches and woe, lay such a private dream.
All his life Joe had wanted a pond. All his life he had hoped to see a bald eagle in the wild. All his life he had looked for bears in the forests. All his life he had fantasized about making love to a Hollywood sex symbol (female gender). All his life he had been a jerk.
Glumly, Joe reached over and picked up the telephone, staring at it. Then, of a giddy impulse, he placed the mouthpiece against his crotch, and, making his voice low and mollifying like a professional newscaster’s, he said:
“Hello out there, sex fans, this is John Cameron Miniver bringing you exclusive interviews with erotic celebrities. Today, it’s our good fortune to have with us here in the studios Mr. Paul Withington Penis, noted authority on cloacal spelunking and author of the well-known bestseller Vaginal Troglodytes I Have Known. Say hello to the folks out there, Mr. Penis. I’ll have you know, by the way, that this broadcast is being beamed by satellite to over twenty-one different countries overseas including portions of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, and is being carried live on all armed-services networks for our fighting boys en outre. So we are facing an audience even larger than the one that tuned in for the Thrilla in Manila, that last incredible Ali-Frazier fight.”
Adopting a high, prissy voice, Joe said, “Hello, folks. It’s a pleasure to be here with you tonight, John … Doc … Ed … a real pleasure.”
“Okay, thank you, Paul. Now, as I was saying at the top of this show, we’ve got one of the largest audiences out there ever to tune into a program like this. And I’m sure a lot of those people have personal problems that fall within the sexual realm. So for my first question this evening, I’m gonna put it to you straight and hard and I sure hope you won’t give me any limp answers.”
In a falsetto voice, Joe replied: “Tee-hee, tee-hee. Oh that’s funny, John, that’s a real gas. ‘Limp answers.’ You’d really ‘prick’ my balloon if you could, wouldn’t you? Tee-hee.”
Assuming his newscaster’s voice, Joe said, “Actually, Paul, I’m not out to ‘prick’ any balloons. But when you came into the studio tonight and we were talking just before we went on camera, you seemed so ‘cocky’.…”
From the open doorway, Heather said, “Daddy, what in hell are you doing?”
“Doing?” Oh help, trapped again!
One of Joe’s strongest childhood illusions had been that grown-ups were actually Grown-up People. In Control. He had believed, for example, that they had order in their lives, and that their personal worlds hummed along smoothly. He had firmly believed that come adulthood not only would he not be afraid of the dentist, but that when he did go, it wouldn’t ever hurt. He had also suspected that grown-ups never cried. Most of all he had admired grown-ups and been awed by them because they weren’t flawed and weak and confused like kids.
His children, anyway, wouldn’t have that illusion to kick around when they matured!
“Heather, how long have you been standing in the doorway?”
“What are you doing to the phone?” she insisted. “Why are you talking to yourself?”
For a split second he actually fantasized that he could explain, in some rational manner, the fact that he was conducting an interview with his cock in front of a hundred million viewers worldwide. Then he opted for a more logical explanation:
“Actually, I was just sitting here being stupid.”
“That’s a relief,” the precocious little brat said. “At least you weren’t doing anything different than you usually do.”
“Come over here.” Joe hung up the phone. “I wanna knock your block off.”
“No thanks.”
“Come over here then because I wanna hug you and give you a kiss.”
“You’ll just hug me and say sweet things to get in my pants, then you’ll run away with somebody else,” she said crassly. “No dice.”
“Hey! Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Oh, that sassy punkette! Flouncing her butt as she approached, Heather started to walk on by, heading for her room. But Joe reached out, fast as a rattlesnake, and grabbed one arm:
“Hey, Miss World Snootiverse—hold on a sec. This is your daddy begging for a smack!”
He swung her into a bear hug and went for a kiss. But she squirmed powerfully, twisting her head away. Joe persisted, until suddenly he realized that she meant it. In fact, Heather was crying. Horrified, he relaxed his hold. “Wait a minute,” he mumbled. “What’s the matter, sweetie? I love you.”
“No you don’t, you motherfucker! Otherwise you never would have run away!”
“I didn’t run away.” Joe shook his head, vividly convinced that he was creating one of those indelible psychological scars on his daughter that would brand her an emotional cripple for life—she’d become a lesbian, an alcoholic, a photographer like Diane Arbus. “But watch the language, would you?”
“You say ‘motherfucker’ all the time!”
“I don’t call you a motherfucker.”
“Yes you do, you called me motherfucker plenty of times!”
“When I’m playing around, maybe I call you a motherfucker—sometimes. But I would never call you that when I’m serious.”
“Well, you’re a son of a bitch then,” she sobbed.
“No I’m not, you don’t understand—”
“Yes you are!”
“No I’m not, dammit!”
“Yes you are! I hate you! You stink!”
“Shuttup Heather, or I’ll spank you!”
“Go ahead and spank me! I don’t care!”
“But I don’t want to spank you, sweetie. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
“You’re chickenshit, then! Mommy says you’re chickenshit!”
“Well, the next time you see Mommy, tell her to go fuck herself and keep her goddam opinions to herself.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Heidi said calmly from the doorway. “Or are you too afraid?”
Joe let go of Heather: she roared away in a defiant, miserable bound.
“Hello, everybody,” Joe said morosely. “It was awfully nice of you to invite me into your happy home like this. But I??
?m afraid I can only stay a minute.”
“Oh Joey, Jesus, would you lay off the cute theatrics for once?” Heidi crossed the room and dumped groceries on the kitchenette table. “As maybe you noticed, some of us are a trifle edgy today.”
“Where’s Michael?”
“How should I know? I think he ran away.”
“What do you mean, you think he ran away?”
“We had a fight. He called me a whore, took his BB gun, jumped on his bicycle, and pedaled off to who-knows-where?”
“You got to be kidding.”
Heidi sighed, snapped open a beer, and sank into a chair at the kitchenette table. “It’s the truth, Joey. I was so furious I just let him go. I figured he’d return as soon as he shot a sparrow, or put a BB through somebody’s chicken-coop window, or shattered a half-dozen pop bottles alongside the road. Then, when he didn’t show up, I went out searching. I checked Eloy Irribarren’s, thinking he went there looking for you—but no dice. Then for about half an hour Heather and I drove all around. We covered La Ciénega, La Lomita, Borregas Negras, and Lower Ranchitos, stopped for some groceries, and came home: still no Michael.”
“Did you check out Ralph’s float tank? If that little son of a bitch snuck in there again and peed in the salt water—”
“It’s the first place we looked. When I lifted the hatch, Ralph was inside, floating on top of a plump woman with an emerald in her nose.”
Joe groaned, “I don’t believe it. What happens now?”