The Last Good Kiss

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he muttered, not noticing my irony.

  “Anything else?”

  “One more question,” I said, “which I hate to ask, but I really would appreciate an answer.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, then saw the two glasses in his hands. He still didn’t give me mine. “And why do you hate to ask it?”

  “I heard a rumor that Betty Sue had made some fuck films in San Francisco.”

  “That’s so absurd I won’t even bother to answer,” he said, and finally gave me my drink.

  “You don’t know anything about that, huh?” I asked as I stood up and put some ice in the warm whiskey.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, facing me across an expanse of Persian carpet.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you remember a girl named

  Peggy Bain?”

  “Of course. She was Betty Sue’s best friend. Only friend, I guess.”

  “You wouldn’t know where she’s living?”

  “Actually, I might,” he said. “I handled a divorce for her some years ago, and she sends me a Christmas card once in a while.” He stepped over to the desk and thumbed through his Rolodex, then wrote an address and telephone number on a card with his little gold pen. The simple chore had restored some of his facade, but his knuckles were white around his glass when he picked it up. “Two years ago she was living at this address in Palo Alto. If you see her, please give her my regards.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “I will.”

  “Say,” he said too loudly, “let’s sit down and have a drink. Pleasure instead of business.”

  “No thanks,” I said, setting my unfinished Scotch on the coffee table. “I’ve got a date.”

  “Me too,” he said sourly as he checked his watch. “With my wife.” We shook hands as he led me toward the door, then he held my hand and asked, “Would you do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you should, through some insane circumstance, find Betty Sue, would you let me know?”

  “Not for love or money,” I said, and took back my fingers.

  “Why’s that?” he asked, confused and nearly crying.

  “Let me tell you a story,” I said, which didn’t help his confusion. “When I was twelve, my daddy was working on a ranch down in Wyoming, west of a hole in the road called Chugwater, and I spent the summer up there with him—my momma and daddy didn’t live together, you see—and my daddy was crazy, had this notion, which he made up out of whole cloth, that he was part Indian. Hell, he took to wearing braids and living in a teepee and claiming he was a Kwahadi Comanche, and since I was his only son, I was too. And that summer I was twelve, he sent me on a vision quest. Three days and nights sitting under the empty sky, not moving, not eating or sleeping. And you know something? It worked.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re telling me,” he said seriously.

  “Well, it’s like this,” I said. “I had a vision. And I’ve been having them ever since.”

  “So?”

  “You know, when you were telling me about those Jane Does and those rubber sheets, I had another one,” I said.

  “Of what?”

  “I saw your face all scrunched up in disappointment every time you didn’t find her under that rubber sheet,” I said, and he understood immediately. After two years on the couch, he had begun to have visions of his own. “I know you’re a nice person and all that and that you didn’t mean to feel that way, but you did, and if I find her,-you’ll never hear about it from me.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” he screamed, but I shut the door in his face. I didn’t have a vision for that yet.

  As I opened the outside door, I held it for a thin, 66

  lovely woman with fragile features and a brittle smile. She thanked me with a voice so near to hysteria that I nearly ran to my El Camino. No visions, no poetry for her. Just a road beer for me. I sat for a bit, holding the beer from the small cooler sitting in the passenger seat like an alien pet, thinking about my mad daddy and those days and nights sitting cross-legged on a chalk bluff above Sybille Creek, sitting still like some dumb beast or a rock cairn marking a nameless grave. Of course I had visions. At first they were of starving to death, or being so bored I died for the simple variety of the act, then it was maybe freezing to death under the stars or finding myself permanently crippled, locked into my cross-legged stance like a freak on a creeper. Later, though, the visions came: a stone that flew, a star that spoke like an Oxford don, Virginia Mayo at my feet. I guess I wasn’t a very good Comanche; I had seen too many movies, and besides, my crazy daddy had made the whole thing up. But, by god, I had visions. And none of the drugs, or combinations thereof, I had ingested as an adult had ever matched those first ones. But I had never gone back up Sybille Creek to that chalk bluff either. And never would.

  6••••

  AS I DROVE BACK TO SONOMA, I WONDERED WHAT Gleeson and poor Albert had done to draw the meanness out of me. I had bullied Gleeson unmercifully and picked Albert open like a scabbed sore, left them both alone talking to empty drinks. Maybe I just had a natural-born mean streak. That’s what the last woman I loved had told me when she refused to marry me. She said that she had two children to raise and that she didn’t want them to learn about being mean from me. That, and other things. If it hadn’t made me feel so mean, I would have tried to feel guilty about Gleeson and poor Albert. Maybe even the lady who wouldn’t marry me. But I had washed her out of my system with the binge that had ended in Elko’s ashtrays and toilets. Then I went home and cleaned up my acct so well that I leaped at the chance to follow Trahearne on his reckless binge.

  If not forgiveness, at least I had found work again. I had even found Trahearne, though I knew I didn’t have a chance of finding Betty Sue Flowers. Not in a million years. So I drank my beer and pushed my El Camino down the road. That’s my act. And has been for years.

  Trahearne’s act, however, was turning up like a bad penny or an insistent insurance salesman. When I walked into my motel room, his hulk was beached on the other double bed. A half-gallon of vodka, tonic, and ice sat on the nightstand between the beds, and a scrawled note sat on my pillow. Stop me before I kill again. In the corner of the room, a motley heap of unopened magazines and paperbacks sat in a silent pile.

  I shook his shoulder and asked him what the hell he was doing in my room, but he just smiled like an obscene cherub between snores. I cleaned up, changed into my good Levis, and left him sleeping there without a comic note. My day hadn’t lent itself to comic notes at all.

  Bea had been raised in Sacramento, had never heard of Betty Sue Flowers, and didn’t find out I was a fraud until much too late in the evening to make any difference. We did the town, such as it was, entertained the nightlife with laughter, lies, some of her horne-grown grass, and some of my whiskey. Then we went stumbling back to the motel for the grandest lie of all. We also carried a stack of Trahearne’s books up to the room, but the great man couldn’t autograph them in his sleep.

  “We could wait until tomorrow morning,” I suggested, leaning toward my bed.

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Bea giggled. “I’ve got to drive to Sacramento before one tomorrow afternoon, and besides, I couldn’t do it with him sleeping right in the next bed.”

  “Want me to wake him up?”

  “No, silly,” she said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Don’t worry about that, love,” I whispered into a suddenly accessible ear. “The old boy sleeps like a stone. And there’s one other thing …”

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I should tell you.” “Do.”

  “Well, the old man can’t get it up anymore,” I said seriously. “Whiskey and war wounds, you understand. But he really likes to sleep right next to it while it’s happening.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not a bit,” I said. “He claims that the force of the sex
ual emanations gives him absolutely wonderful dreams. He says that’s just about the only pleasure left for him in life.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head but still leaning into me.

  “Yes,” I said into the soft little ear. “You never know, he might have a great dream tonight and write a poem about it tomorrow. I’ll make him dedicate it to you.” Then I had to fake a coughing fit to cover Trahearne’s badly stifled giggles.

  “You think he might do that?” she asked shyly.

  “I think I can arrange it.”

  She stepped back and smiled. “Do you do this sort of chore for him very often?” “Not nearly often enough.”

  “Okay,” she murmured, then stepped into my arms again, “but you have to turn out the lights.” “I won’t be able to see your freckles,” I said. “You can taste them, silly.”

  The next morning as the three of us breakfasted in our beds—hot-house strawberries and real cream, turkey crepes, and three bottles of California champagne—Trahearne sighed deeply and finished signing the last of Bea’s books, then said to her, “My dear, I’m certain that my faithful Indian companion there was terribly indiscreet last night, that he spoke to you of matters most private, matters too private to discuss in the light of day, matters I would consider it a personal favor if you mentioned to no living soul. If

  word got around, it might be embarrassing, you understand.”

  “Oh I’d die before I’d say a word, Mr. Trahearne,” Bea cooed, then popped a berry into her wonderful mouth.

  “Please call me Abraham,” Trahearne said formally. “I consider myself in your debt.”

  “Call me Isaac,” I muttered around a mouthful of turkey.

  “And what shall we call me?” Bea asked prettily.

  “The Rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, not black but nonetheless comely,” Trahearne said gravely.

  “How about the whore of Babylon?” I suggested.

  “Don’t be mean,” Bea said sweetly, then set a sharp elbow loose against my ribs as she glanced at her watch. “Whoever I am,” she said, “if I’m not at my mother’s house in Sacramento by one o’clock, my name will be mud.” Then, as if it were the most natural gesture in the world, she slipped from beneath the covers, buck-naked, gathered up her neatly folded clothes, and strolled slowly and unself-consciously into the bathroom, the morning sunlight glimmering off her un-tanned breasts as they bobbed, off her switching hips.

  “Absolutely beautiful,” Trahearne muttered as she closed the door. “And that routine of yours, Sughrue. I thought I’d heard them all—but sexual emanations and erotic dreams for the poor impotent old man! Where did you come up with that?”

  “Drugs,” I said. “You don’t think she bought that crap, do you?”

  “Women love that sort of lie,” he said, “they love the role of helpmate. That’s where they get their power over us, my boy, their victory in defeat, their ascendancy in submission.”

  “Should I write that down?”

  “You never stop playing the jaded detective, do 71

  you?” he said. “How do you like my sadly wise old man

  act?”

  “If a pig’s ass is pork, old man, how come they call it

  ham?”

  “Envy, my young friend, is such a mean, small emotion,” he said. “Did you hear me envy your lady friend’s inspired thrashing last night?”

  “I heard you breathing hard,” I said, “Does that

  count?”

  Trahearne laughed and I poured the champagne. When Bea stepped out of the bathroom, Traheame said, “Let me thank you, my dear, for that beautiful display. It warmed, as they say, the cockles of my

  heart—”

  “Is that anything like warming over your cliche?” I interrupted.

  “—and restored my faith in human nature. You’re simply too kind to an old, sick man.”

  “You’re more than welcome, Mr. Trahearne,” she answered, then leaned over to kiss his plump cheek. His great hand slipped up her thigh to fondly stroke her rump. “Also, you’re a terrible old fraud,” she added, and her firm nurse’s hand shot under the covers and give his unit a ferocious honk. “Gotcha,” she giggled. Trahearne actually blushed, then sputtered around trying to regain his dignity. She came over to my bed and presented me with a kiss that was supposed to make me long for home and hearth, to give up my wandering ways—for a few days at least—then she said, “And you, C.W., you’re the most terrible liar in the whole world—sexual emanations, my ass—but you’re sweet, too. Give me a call anytime.” Then she swept out of the room, her books under her arm, scattering bright laughter like coins, leaving a faint trace of woman scent lush in the air.

  “By god, that’s an exceptional young lady,” Tra-hearne harrumped.

  “You old guys are too easily impressed.”

  “Ah ha! Do I hear the strains of true love hidden behind the bite of tired cynicism?”

  “True love, my ass,” I mocked. “It’s the sexual revolution, the open marriage, the growing-together-apart relationship. She’s meeting her boyfriend, the doctor, at her mother’s house. He spent last night pranging his second ex-wife, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, and a bisexual Airedale.”

  “If that’s true, that’s sad.”

  “It’s fairly accurate,” I said.

  “That’s sad, then,” he said. “I remember true love.” “You mean the old days when you had to get engaged before you could show your girl’s ass to your

  buddies?”

  “Cynicism doesn’t become you,” he said blithely. “I’m sorry; it’s the champagne, I guess.” “That’s odd,” he said. “It always fills me with romance.”

  “No shit.”

  “Where in the world did Catherine find you, boy?” he asked “Surely not in the Yellow Pages or something as mundane as that.”

  “I’m listed,” I said, “but she found out about mein a

  bar.”

  “Of course,” he said, raising an eyebrow built like a woolly worm. “Where?”

  “The Sportsman in Cauldron Springs,” I said. “The guy who owns it is an old Army buddy of mine.”

  “Bob Dawson?”

  “Right. She went in to see if anybody had seen you, and he told her he had a friend who found lost things, like ex-husbands, and one thing led to another.”

  “I’ll just bet it did.” he said, oddly bitter, then I understood.

  “She’s your ex-wife, isn’t she?” I said. “So what the hell do you care?”

  “For myself, I don’t,” he said. “It’s just that it embarrasses my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Catherine lives with my mother. In her house,” he said, “and it upsets her when Catherine whores her way across the state.”

  “You live with your mother?”

  “My house is within a stone’s throw of hers.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it,” I said.

  “Sometimes I’m not.”

  “Move.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” he said. “She’s an old woman now, crippled with arthritis, and I promised her I’d live on the ranch until she died. I certainly owe her that, you understand, at least that. And besides, every place is the same,” he said.

  “The people are different,” I said, but he ignored me as he took a long drink from the champagne bottle, drank until he choked, then he smiled at me with wet eyes.

  “If I had known how much fun we were going to have, Sughrue,” he said, “I would have let you catch up with me sooner.”

  “Pretty expensive fun,” I said.

  “Worth every penny,” he said as he tossed the empty bottle on the carpet. “I would have spent it all just to see that lady walk across the room.” He eased himself upright, propped on his good buttock. “Wonderful naked ladies, by god, I love them,” he said. “I’ve seen a horde of them in my time, boy, but I just can’t get used to it.” He shook his head and grinned. “Pop the cork on that other bot
tle,” he said, “and let’s drink to naked ladies.”

  When I did, the cork bounced off the ceiling and skittered across the carpet like a small. rabid animal. Then I filled our glasses, and Trahearne held his up into a soft beam of sunlight that had filtered through the eucalyptus trees, watching the bubbles rise like floating jewels.

  “That’s funny,” he said.

  “What?”

  Then he told me about naked women and sunlight. And that he was a bastard.

  His mother had been an unmarried schoolteacher in Cauldron Springs when she was impregnated by a local rancher, who was married, and the school board had run her out of town. She had moved to Seattle to have the baby and stayed there after he was born, working at menial jobs to provide for them. By the time he started school, his mother had begun to publish stories in the Western pulps and free-lance articles in newspaper supplements and magazines, so they moved uptown into a tenement neighborhood on the edge of Capitol Hill. After school Trahearne walked home through the alleys to talk to the people his mother wrote about, the unemployed seamen and loggers, the old men who knew about violent times and romantic faraway places.

  Sometimes, though, on these aimless walks, he saw a woman standing naked in front of her second-story back window. Only when it rained, though, as if the gray rain streaked on her dark window made her invisible. But the child could see her, dim but clearly visible beyond the reflections of the windows and stairways across the alley. In the rain, at the window, sometimes lightly touching her dark nipples, sometimes holding the full weight of her large, pale breasts in her white hands, always staring into the cold rain. Never in sunlight, always in rain. Sometimes she tilted her face slowly downward, then she smiled, her gray eyes locked on his through the pane, and hefted her breasts as if they were stones she meant to hurl at him. And sometimes she laughed, and he felt the rain like cold tears on his hot face. At nights he dreamed of sunlight in the alley, and woke to the insistent quiet rush of the gentle rain.