CHAPTER 21

21.

 

© 2010 GREG DUNAJ

              Trust.

              It’s an open slate. No prejudices. No pretension. It allows one to be vulnerable without flinching. It’s walking a tightrope without a net. It’s living without fear of repercussion. It is being a child. It is allowing the day to unfold.

              But, trust is a Nirvana, an Elysian field, an el Dorado, for what person walks through this life without a preconceived notion as to how things should be? What person goes through this life without manipulating the situation in order to attain that unattainable vision? There is always a glorious, ideal picture each one of us carries in our heads. It is the image, this notion of this perfected view of what we each want out of this god damned life that drives each and every one of us. It doesn’t matter that the pie in the sky dream is glossed over and the pits and false steps of the image are ignored. It doesn’t matter that we keep going for it despite our impoverished, fatalistic approach to all things, for we tell ourselves even as we rally forward that this is impossible. Yet, we prod and poke and stoke the fires of our desire with a moribund intensity that drives us without guilt, without conscience. How willing are we to tread heavily on the necks of those who oppose our dream? How many bodies will we be willing to step over? How many hearts can we rip from and tear asunder? How many shards can we leave clattering to the ground as we burst through window after window of opportunity?

              Which one of us can simply allow the day to unfold? Who can smile wanly at the slings and arrows of outrageous shit that are flung at us each and every day with nary a nod a feint a bob to avoid the onslaught? Who can resist the urge to put their imprimatur on the day, the dream, the sigh?

              Obsessively embellishing the present we contort and twist and muddle the lives we should be living for a stab at a glorious future that is somehow always over the next turn of the clock. The present is ruined.

              But, despite this fatalistic approach, none of it is impossible. Some successfully live their dreams, their psyches intact, their hearts pounding, their lungs swelling with pride with every breath at the level of happiness they have attained.

              For there are people who prefer happiness to being right.

              Releasing the desperate image of what life should be, they somehow get all they need out of life. Or, at least they get enough to make them happy and sated. There is an ease about them that is quite frankly disturbing to others who do not possess that sense of self, that sense of calmness.  Picking and choosing their battles for the truly important things is the secret. Rolling with the punches, etc. and all the rest. It is annoying to the white knuckled observer, who sees the indignities of such self effacement, but happiness wins out with these people and they leave others to desperately cling to their pipe dreams. Theirs is a freedom of letting go of the spirited defenses and of happiness, embracing nothing yet enjoying all.

              Still others find a measure of happiness in being alone.

              Solitude is more blissful than ignorance. With solitude there is no one nagging after the dreamer, changing the rules as they see fit. Life for them is a gentle current. The night is long. The days are open.

              To be alone allows one to howl at the moon and not have to sheepishly grin at being caught in a feral state. The world is theirs without having to explain anything. The intimacy of solitude is masturbatory though and though the days are right, they are open and sad.

              He stared out at the arid expanse, at the sparse grasses that passed for a fairway. He scratched his belly and a cigar twirled and danced in the corner of his mouth like a dark thought escaping his lips. Covering his eyes with his hand he glowered at a vulture in the distance that picked at something dead out there. “Som’bitch,” he growled lowly. He reached for a thermos of margaritas he kept in his golf cart and swilled the liquor and wiped away a dribble with his gloved hand. He teed a golf ball and after giving the vulture another dirty look and completely ignoring the fact the bird was simply doing what it was supposed to do, he attempted to scatter its brains by driving the ball in its direction.

              It aggressively hooked.

              The bird feasted on the carrion without pause, unaware that someone who once wrote popular and glowing songs of love and life just unsuccessfully tried to end his own life.

              “Som’bitch,” Dedalus murmured. The cigar nodded in agreement.

              Though the vulture survived, the hooked drive clattered into a thankfully empty golf cart. Two men who were playing the hole wheeled around at the noise. They were far enough away that their protests were indistinct.

              He chuckled lowly to himself and wiped the back of his hand across his lips, but ignored the pair and soon their complaints died on the soft wind that swirled dust across the driving range. He gazed out into the distance, at the sun just now peaking over the hills that surrounded the golf course. It was too hot to be out here in midday and tee times for those few that would travel to this distant course were arranged to begin predawn when the temperatures were significantly cooler. He went back to the thermos and swilled some more of the margarita. He then quickly teed up another ball and drove it towards the vulture, growling lowly as he swung.

              This time his drive sliced.

              The ball bounced into a small cemetery that housed the remains of early settlers to this valley. It caromed off a tombstone, then off a small crypt and then off a placard that spoke of the people who had lived and died here, sometimes at the hands of Indians, and were buried here.

              The vulture, having finished its meal of whatever critter that had died, stretched its wings. It was still unaware that someone had unsuccessfully tried to substitute its brains with a golf ball. The ugly bird tilted its head and eyed the carrion once more. It walked around the skeletal remains hoping for another morsel. Satisfied there was nothing left it flitted off, made a circling pass overhead and then allowed the wind to catch its wings and it drifted off towards the silhouetted hills. With his hand cupping his eyes Dedalus marveled at the gracefulness of the scavenger as it flew away. Without taking his eyes from the ascending fowl he put the thermos to his lips and gulped. A satisfied sigh passed his lips as they curled into a tight smile. The cigar clung desperately with this precarious, pinched position, teetering and fumbling, until it was safely cradled between gloved fingers.

              Another golf cart rattled and hummed up to where Dedalus watched the vulture disappear into the sunrise. The man driving the cart wore a soiled baseball cap that was once white and now looked like it was camouflaged and a green t-shirt that had a hole ripped into its left shoulder. Tufts of wiry, bristly, black hair poked through the hole. The driver of the cart came up so quickly that he bumped Dedalus’ cart in his haste, but Dedalus did not turn at the noise. Instead, he kept looking out at the distant hills alternating between puffing on his cigar and gulping at the thermos. The driver of the second cart did not say anything at first. He pulled off his hat revealing a very bald head. He ran a forearm over his sweaty scalp. The only hair on his head was below where his cap sat on his head.  He nodded once or twice at Dedalus and his mouth worked as he readied himself to say something to the singer/golfer. But Dedalus ignored him and he sighed heavily.

              After a minute of awkward silence, he finally worked up enough nerve to speak.

              “Er, good morning Danny…”

              Danny sighed again.           

              “Yeah, Tim,” Danny said flatly. “What is it?”

              “Er, yeah, er, you’re getting better.”

              Dedalus lifted his head, pointed his chin to the lightening sky. The cigar billowed smoke. He twisted his head a bit in Tim’s direction.

              “Thanks,” he said, with a nod. Still he did not turn around.

              “I mean, you are hitting them farther and almost straight.”

              Danny dropped his head and snorted. He reached under his cap and scratched his scalp. He then nodded his head and exhaled loudly. His lips puttered in the dry air.

              “Well, thank you. It’s kind of you to notice,” he said in a self satisfied way. Danny now turned around and approached Tim in his cart. Tim averted his eyes and looked at the steering wheel of the golf cart. He pulled off his hat again and wiped his brow with the cap. Some of the dirt that had clung to the fabric slipped onto Tim’s sweaty forehead and formed an island above his right eyebrow.

              Hoisting his driver over his shoulder Danny circled the two carts with a swagger and an exaggerated nodding of his head. He was proud of his game and Tim’s compliment certainly affirmed his belief that he had been improving.

              “Thank you Tim, my man,” Danny said a wide, white, toothsome grin. But, Tim still would not look back at Danny. He crumpled his cap in his hands and fingered the steering wheel.

              “What is it then… Tim,” said Danny. He leaned in close to the obviously nervous course attendant. He knew there was something else. It was very apparent. Tim was usually very happy and loud. Normally he would be slugging at his own thermos of whatever concoction he mixed that day and passing off-color comments about Danny’s swing.

              “It’s just that…”

              Danny stood up straight.

              “It’s just what?”

              He tramped a few feet away from the cart and stared out into the fairway. He began to rock back and forth on his heels as he listened to Tim hem and haw, his driver teetering on his shoulder.

              Tim’s voice gagged a bit. He was nervous and felt awkward.

              “…It’s just that…,” he said, swallowing hard. “…it’s just that… there have been complaints….”

              Danny stopped his rocking and now stood flatfooted.

              “…this isn’t the driving range…”

              Danny wheeled around and gestured with his cigar at the bald attendant. His voice was suddenly overly loud and agitated and given the time of day, far too loud despite the scarcity of anyone else.

              “Don’t you know I know that,“ he said, standing  on his toes with every other word, nearly hopping in the process. Everything attached to Danny’s body jittered and leapt. The driver waggled on his shoulder. The cigar twirled and spat ashes in Tim’s direction. Danny’s mirrored sunglasses did a cha cha down the bridge of his nose, and Danny’s favored sailor’s cap that had stitched on it the words: ‘It’s Better in the Bahamas,’ seemed to spin on his head like a propeller.

              “Fer cryin’ out loud, don’t you know I know that,” he repeated as he nearly fell over from his perch atop his toes. “Can’t a fellow have a couple of mulligans? What kind of course we running here?”

              “But, Danny,” said Tim, his brown eyes big and imploring. “You never play. You know that. You just come out here to the driving range. Why on earth are you over here playing the course? The least you can do is let Ken and Keith play through the hole before you start pelting them in their direction.”

              Danny screwed up his face like he was being forced to eat worms.

              “Who the fuck are Ken & Keith?”

              “The guys you almost whacked out there.”

              Danny set his jaw and pushed his mirrored sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. The cigar wagged angrily at Tim from its perch between Danny’s fingers.

              “I’m supposed to care about those two?” Danny leveled the driver in Ken and Keith’s general direction.

              Tim didn’t answer him and just sat there for a few seconds dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe what he just heard.

              “Fer cryin‘out loud Tim, there was that damned vulture out there eating something and I only wanted to scoot it away. He was crummying up the place. It was probably Ken and Keith killed that critter, but they don’t get yelled at…”

              “Danny, come on…I’m not yelling at you, and you know it. I just want you to use the driving range.”

              “I was going to use the driving range, but I saw that damned vulture. I thought I’d help you out….”

              Tim patted the steering wheel of the golf cart and nodded his head. He looked directly at Dedalus for the first time. His brown eyes were flecked with gold in the morning light.

              “Much obliged Dan,” he said, a thin smile crawled across his lips. “You are too kind. You are always thinking of me….and I appreciate it. Too bad I missed a choice hunk of road kill. Hmmm Hmmm, finger-licking good.”

              Tim rolled his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.

              Dedalus lifted his sunglasses and propped them on his brow and gave him the once over. For a moment the two of them stood glowering at the other in silence until finally Dedalus’ face softened and a wide toothsome grin returned. He wrinkled his brow and his sunglasses fell onto the bridge of his nose.

              “All right Tim, I’ll behave,” he said pointing his chin to the sky and smiling ever wider.

              Tim blinked slowly.

              “Thank you,” he said.

              Tim watched Dedalus for a few seconds as the man turned away from the cart and placed a palm over his eyes to view the dusty fairway. When he started up the golf cart again Dedalus wheeled around and waved a hand at him.

              “Say, Tim, did you mean what you said about my game? That it’s improving? That I’m hitting them straighter and farther?”

              It was now Tim who grinned widely. He flashed a gap-toothed jack-o-lantern array, but the rest of his face held no mirth. His eyes were narrowed and intent.

              “Of course,” he said, his eyes not wavering from Dedalus. The singer’s own smile had crept into a pursed clench. Tim maneuvered the cart away and headed down the fairway to clean up the carcass left by the vulture. Dedalus stood and watched Tim pull away and he absently sipped at his thermos of margarita. He stood in this way for a long while.

              “Ah nuts,” Dedalus said suddenly. He threw his driver into the cart and had to pick it up again because it bounced out and fell to the ground. He got in the cart and drove rapidly, kicking up a lot of dust, towards the parking lot and his car. The cloud of dirt he raised in his haste billowed into the old cemetery, giving it a misty, eerie look.

              With tires squealing as he left the River Oaks golf course and cemetery, Dedalus weaved his battered jeep into the town of Utopia. There was no one walking along the dusty streets and no one driving either. The town was empty, but it was still early. The sun was just splashing onto the main street as Dedalus pulled into the local Supermarket. The store had four aisles of tightly packed shelves.

              He flashed his wild, edgy, toothsome grin when he entered the store. A petite woman with a mullet and a convoy of studs decorating both ears looked up from her nail file as he entered, giving him a precursory look. She was waiting at her check out register in the otherwise empty store.

              “Hey, Danny,” she said as she filed. “Coffee’s brewing.”

              “Good morning Trixie,” he said, trailing fingers along her conveyor belt. It was more to steady himself as he walked than to get close to Trixie.

              He passed the little kiosk with coffee and went to the rear of the market and plucked a bottle of tequila and two bottles of diet soda from the shelf. Cradling the containers in his arms, his eyes peering widely over the brim of his mirrored sunglasses, he grabbed at a box of Triscuits. As he weaved towards the front of the market he somehow managed to wedge the crackers under his arm without too much fumbling. He lost it at the kiosk though. Stopping there on the way back he attempted to pour a cup of coffee and put a lid on the cup without putting down the bottles. Thankfully the diet sodas were in plastic bottles and when they bounced and rolled onto the floor the only damage was to a single bag of tortilla chips. The bottle did not barrel into it, but Dedalus, in a feeble attempt to stop the bottle’s deadly rolling, stepped fully onto the chips. The bag swelled and popped, the chips gasped its last collective breath and exhaled onto the floor.

              Dedalus looked up at Trixie with a dumb look on his face. He pulled his lower lip back and bared his teeth in a silly grin. Trixie looked up from her nail file, gave Danny a glance and then rolled her eyes. She stood up from her leaning position at the register and walked over to Danny, who had also spilled the coffee all over the counter of the kiosk.

              “Danny,” she said, without a hint of anger, “next time just grab a cart.”

              “Oh, Darling,” he said, affecting a twang, “I don’t have a license for one of them things.”

              Trixie giggled as he stood cradling the Tequila and the one remaining bottle of diet soda, holding them as if they were children. The second soda bottle was resting with the tortilla chips on a lower shelf.  He watched with a steady gaze Trixie’s every movement as she retrieved the soda bottle from the shelf, gathered up the chips, wiped up the spillage and pour him another cup of coffee.

              “Black, right?”

              “Like my humor,” he said, flashing his broad toothy grin again.

              Trixie carried the coffee and the second bottle of soda back to the register and he followed with his bottles and his box of Triscuits still snuggled warmly beneath his left arm.

              Trixie Darling,” said Danny still using a twang as he followed her back to the register. “I would never have gotten out of here alive without your help! I’m sure I would have met my demise amongst the tomatoes!”

              Trixie smiled as she rang up the items, but did not look up.

              “If I had just let you fumble your way through there, Big Earl would have lost his shop quick enough! I had to help you. “

              She giggled as she said this, but still did not look up at Dedalus. He stood there wagging his head with a slight grin on his face and he rocked on his heels again.

              “Don’t want to piss off Big Earl,” he said, looking down on her. “He’s like a runaway freight train when he’s pissed, huh?”

              “Oh no…,” she smiled, her eyes turning to big ovals as she looked down an aisle, “he’s not like that at all.”

              Giggling, she rang up the total.

              “$34.75,” she said, finally looking up at him after bagging the bottles and the box of crackers.

              He handed her two twenties and told her to keep the change. Trixie grabbed his coffee and offered to follow him out to his jeep. They stepped out from the air conditioning into a heat that was shocking. His sunglasses fogged up immediately and reached the jeep like a seasoned drunk tacking his way home from an all night bender, using his hand like an antennae feeling for objects that might hinder his path. Trixie patiently stood outside the car as she waited for Dedalus to put his bags in the back seat and to get in behind the wheel.

              “Gonna miss you Danny,” she said handing him the coffee through his opened window.

              “Hmmm, thanks,” he said. He started trying to peel back the lid so he could sip the coffee and managed to spill some onto his lap. Trixie grabbed the cup back and opened the lid for him as Dedalus daubed at the spill with a crumbled tissue that had been watching all this from its perch on the dashboard.

              “Yeah, well,” he said, “it’s time to move on I guess. I’ve been here long enough.”

              He pushed his sunglasses up the brim of his nose with a forefinger and sipped at his coffee. Trixie leaned an elbow on the car’s window sill and tucked her chin into the crook of her arm. Dedalus furrowed his brow for a moment at this move, but his big grin slithered across his face soon enough. He shifted in the driver’s chair of the Jeep and smiled widely at Trixie.

              “You look disappointed darling,” he said.

              “Yeah, well, you’re the biggest thing to come through these parts….like...ever!”

              Dedalus looked out through the windshield and at the faded painted brick wall that said, ‘Big Larls’ because the top of the letter ’E’ was chipped and fading away.            “Well thank you darling. But, hey, I’m sorry, but I am getting antsy again.” He flashed his smile at the ceiling of the vehicle and then threatened to blind her with his brilliant array when he aimed it right at the clerk. Little flickers of light glinted off his teeth and then off the gaggle of earrings that studded the tops of her ears.

              “What is gonna happen to all those people living up there with you?”

              Danny rolled his eyes and wagged his head a bit and said he didn’t know.

              “It’s not like I don’t care,” he said tapping the steering column. He pursed his lips and glowered at the wall some more in silence. But the dour smirk lasted only a second and quickly Danny’s face loosened up again and he smiled broadly at the petite clerk that stared up at him with round eyes. “But, I understand they want to stay, make the place their own, even after I leave.”

              Danny leaned closer to Trixie and whispered, “I think they figure that I’d stay if they refuse to leave.”

              “Really? How about if I just hang onto this car door…then you ain’t gonna be able to leave,” she said, giggling.

              Danny sighed, took off his sunglasses and leaned closer to Trixie. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and puckered up her lips. Danny kissed her on the forehead. With eyes still closed she pursed her lips all the more and leaned forward to meet him. Danny rolled his eyes again and after hesitating for a moment kissed her lightly on her trembling lips. He sat back in the car seat and looked at Trixie poised there in mid-pucker. He cleared his throat lightly and tapped the steering wheel again. She lingered there for a moment before her eyes fluttered and opened wide, doe-eyed to stare at the singer. She sighed.

              “You want me to come over tonight?”

              He stretched his lips back in a mock grin.

              “Sure,” he said unconvincingly. “But, I may have to run into San Antonio on an errand.” He nodded his head and looked out over his glasses at her. “Call you later, okay?”

              Trixie lolled her head to one side and closed her eyes. She sighed, patted the door lightly with two hands and said, “Sure, call me.” She then wheeled around on her heels and walked back into Big Earls without looking back at the Jeep.

              Danny nodded his head slowly, took a sip of his coffee, started the car up and headed back to his ranch.