CHAPTER 24

© 2010

By Greg Dunaj

All Rights Reserved

24.

© 2010 GREG DUNAJ

              Harry was not that annoyed by the clanging bells behind them, but the goats, attached to the bells, were a different matter. They were really pissing him off. The evil slit-eyed critters kept gnawing on the shoelaces of his sneakers and standing on him. Each time he would flail his legs at them to shoo them away they would just hop off for a few moments. After indignantly ogling him for this transgression the creatures would casually return to their tormenting of Harry Days.

              It lessened the enormity of the moment.

              They were peering down from a hill on the Dedalus compound like assassins, lying in wait for a glimpse of the man.

              Would he emerge from the post and beam log cabin with soaring windows to do calisthenics on the lanai in the fresh air? Would they espy him from their extreme angle on the hill peering out the window and onto the great stretch of Texas hill country that he was able to call his own, sipping an iced-t and perhaps pondering his next ballad? Or, would they see him in the creative process itself, guitar astride his lap?! What joy that would be for Harry, Carlo and Charley to see this idol of theirs in the midst of an epiphany!

              With all the clamoring bells and ovine bleats and the occasional yelp from Harry, the group could not hear if there was any music wafting up from the house. They could go no further though. Ernie warned them before he brought them up here, that the ranch had explicit rules against intruding on the man’s house and anyone doing so would immediately be exiled from the group. They had to be content to lie there and look down upon Dedalus’ home from this great distance.

              For Harry, to be so close to the man he wanted to emulate for years and not be able to go any further, was torturous. He wiped away a tear, kicked away a goat and sighed. Still, as he peered down onto the house, his chin resting on the knuckles of his hands, the clanging bells could not begin to drown out the chords and lyrics that danced and swirled through Harry’s brain. The nips of the devil goats could not deaden the emotions his songs evoked so sharply still after all these years. As he laid there Harry knew he could not return home. All his life had been focused on moving forward to this very moment. He felt suddenly at ease laying here and thoughts of home and family and obligations, which were always on the fringe anyway with him, dissipated to a wisp and blown away by a gentle breeze. All those years of struggling with business endeavors and family issues were lost to him. He had the urge to create right then, to pluck at a guitar. As he lay in the grass with goats climbing on him, half way across the continent from home, Harry pondered how he had allowed his life’s dream to be swayed and interrupted.

              He then cried out in pain as one of the devil goats nipped his leg along with his cut-off shorts. Harry cried out and leaped to his feet, scattering the goats. Carlo and Charley admonished him to be quiet. Ernie laughed and slapped his knee. Ernie was sitting away from the promontory on a white rock. He had been here before and knew they would not see Dedalus. He knew Danny was nowhere to be found. He knew he was either playing golf or driving somewhere on his “exploring trips”, but they wanted to see the house.

              “They like you,” laughed Ernie.

              “It is good luck,” giggled Charley, peering along her bared shoulder at Harry.

              “No, it’s not,” Harry said, pausing long enough in his twitching to bask in the warm glow of Charley’s smile. He returned her smile and lay next to her and they kissed, their legs entwined around each other.

              Carlo squeezed one eye closed and shifted his gaze from Dedalus’ house to the canoodling pair. He was resting his chin on his hands, but flipped onto his side and rested his head on his palm. Carlo watched them for a few moments before talking to Ernie over his shoulder.

              “Maybe you should get a bucket of cold water?”

              Harry and Charley giggled, but Ernie was sitting there, mouth agape.           “Huh,” he said, obviously enjoying the show.

              “Aw, you crazy kids,” said Carlo. “You better stop, I think you’re gonna give Ernie here a heart attack.”

              Harry giggled again and came up for air. He sat up and as Charley stood she exposed to Ernie her bared chest beneath her shirt. Ernie’s eyes popped even wider than before.

              “Well,” he said, looking away suddenly when Charley caught him looking. She clutched at her loosely fitting shirt. “You certainly have grown up a lot since you left here Apple June.”

              “Thank you Ernie,” she said, exposing now only a bright smile, “but call me Charley. It’s Charley now. Okay?”

              “Well, you certainly have grown up kid. You were a little squirt when you left here and now you’re all grown up.”

              “Thank you, but just make sure you keep your eyes to yourself mister,” Charley said with a stern face that quickly softened into a big smile again and she started giggling. She leaped to her feet, grabbed Harry by the hand and pulled him down the hill, toward the house.

              “No!” Ernie cried out, but the two disappeared over the crest of the hill.

             

*                                                                     *                                             *

              She looked out the window of the main house, holding her elbows. She was nervous, but her face was serene, masking the feelings that were raging inside her. This was a defining moment for the ranch. There was no question the lives they had built for themselves here would end if Dedalus sold the ranch. They would be forced to move back to whatever shards of former lives they had abandoned. She stood stone still there before the window, afraid to move, afraid to utter a statement or rallying cry.

              “Mistress Allen,” said a woman who offered her a cup of tea.

              Allen smiled weakly and sighed. She took the hot tea and held it before her face, but did not drink. She looked out the window again. The sun was bright, but there were violent thunderstorms forecast for later that day and even a tornado watch was in effect.

              This was a critical time. Nothing could go wrong. They could ill afford the consequences. She nervously tapped a toe and she bit her lower lip. There was something wrong though, she could feel it. Wheeling around, she placed the mug of tea on a table near the window and then went outside and stood on the porch. Sniffing the air, she stepped off the porch and looked up at the sky. She grimaced and hopped back onto the porch, her boots making a dull thudding sound as she landed. Allen clomped back into the house.

              “John,” she called out.

              John was there immediately.

              “Where did they go?”

              “Ernie was driving them around the property.”

              “Is Liz with them?”

              “No. Her kid whacked his knee and …”

              “Wait! Is Apple June with them?”

              “Well, she showed up with the two guys, I figure she’s with…”

              Mistress Allen pounded out the door and onto the porch. She kicked at something on the porch and left a scuff mark on the pine plank. John stood at the door, holding it open. Allen turned to him and snapped.

              “Shut it, the air won’t work with the door open!”

              John quickly shut the door and walked over to the mistress. He was just barely taller than Allen. He admired her for a moment. His eyes traced her profile and then her collarbone and then her bared shoulder with the coverall strap nearly slipping off.

              “I said, ‘go find them!’”

              John stammered an apology to Allen and hopped off the porch. Allen held her elbows again as she watched the short, round man trot to the jeep and drive off. She bit her lower lip again.

*                                                                     *                                             *

              The old man caressed the guitar with his untrustworthy fingers. Gnarled and knobby hands held the guitar firmly, like an aged midwife holding a newborn, but he could no longer pluck the strings with alacrity. Reduced to strumming, he nevertheless coaxed a tune from his instrument. Sitting in the shade cast by the overhang of an orange stucco building, he sat on a bench, his feet tapping in time with his song.

              Sitting in the dust a few feet away from him was another man. His back was against the wall, the brim of his hat covered his eyes. Resting his hands on his knees that were drawn up to his chest, the man looked like he was sleeping. A dog lay in the shade on the other side of the old man. It was asleep, on its side, legs outstretched.

              He sang in Spanish as he strummed. His deeply creviced face looked like a landscape eroded by incessant tears. His song was about a lost love. His voice was a garroted warble. The dog’s ear twitched every time the man hit a relatively high note in his sad love song. The old man’s withered straw cowboy hat sat on the back of his head, the feather that sprouted from the band waved in the hot air, happy with its view of the world. The man nodded in time with his strumming and the feather danced and danced.

              The other man sitting in the Texan dust seemed oblivious to the effects of the evidently emotional song. Tears coursed the sweaty face of the old man and his voice became an anguished cry, but, the other fellow sat motionless, his face still covered by his sailor’s cap.

              The old man’s song was a sad lament of a scarred past. It asked how someone could continue without true love in their heart, without someone to share memories, without someone to share a bed. As an old man the song was a nod to the past, a hobbled life, a weary soul. ‘How shall I survive such a life,’ he wondered in his song, perhaps shocked that he had lived through the pain. A younger man would have taken the emotions of the song and turned it into a fresh, bleeding wound and a fear of a future that was empty and devoid of hope.

              As if mocking the old man and his sadness the feather danced with abandon now as he strummed the guitar with more of a flourish. His hands moved along the frets quickly, the tears flowed, the feather nodded happily in agreement that the world turned on a woman‘s hip and bared shoulder. The old man strummed and cried and was lost in the moment, his voice a painful, lonely cry in the desert. The dog’s ear twitched.

              Finishing, the old man slapped the guitar and laughed, waking the dog. The filthy cur popped its head up and peered at the old man suspiciously with rheumy eyes before settling down again in the shade. The old man reached for a nearly empty bottle of mescal that was at his feet and drained it. The man sitting nearby in the dust finally stirred. He nodded slowly and clapped his hands twice. He pushed the hat back off his eyes and looked at the old man approvingly. The old man nodded back and motioned with his empty bottle of mescal at him.

              The man rose from the dust.  Standing, his lips drawn back in a wide, toothsome grin, he removed his sailor’s cap that had stitched on it, ‘It’s Better in the Bahamas,’ and wiped his brow with his forearm. He walked the couple of feet over to the old man and shook his arthritic hand.

              The dog did not move when the man started his jeep and drove off into the Texas afternoon. Clouds were gathering in the distance. Winds were picking up.

*                                                                     *                                             *

              She wanted to be angry. She really wanted to be angry. He had been an anchor throughout her life with him and today, today of all days, he was really an anchor. Of all days! Of all opportunities to be squashed by the kid, he had to pick this day.

              When the stranger looked at her earlier she felt her heart flutter. Was it one of those love-at-first-sight things? She wasn’t sure, but she knew she was strongly attracted to the dark haired stranger that showed up and caused that ruckus before. There was something there, she reasoned. She was assured of it, especially the way he looked at her with that broad smile and coal black eyes. It made her feel like a kid again. All right, not as young as her kid, the pain in the ass, but she felt like a schoolgirl. There was a heat rush that tickled her spine and fired her loins when he smiled at her. She was smitten. She was horny. She was saddled with Robert.

              But, how could she be angry with Robert? He had run off and tripped and whacked his knee on a rock and here she was tending to the kid, again. Again!

              She really wanted to be angry with Robert, though what she really wanted was to be taken by that fellow. She wanted to feel his hands all over her body. She wanted to feel his lips and tongue in every crevice, she wanted to feel his strong arms enveloping her, and she wanted to feel her body tremble with delight at his slightest touch. She sighed and looked at Robert, his knee bandaged up with an ice pack.

              The kid smiled wanly, his tanned skin blending with the dark corner of the dorm. Only his blonde hair kept him from disappearing altogether, his face an ethereal form in the shadows.

              Oh, disappear, she thought right then, please, for once, and then caught herself thinking such terrible thoughts. She got up from the bed that Robert was laying in and peered out a window. She could see the road that led to town. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. Liz was always fiercely protective of Robert, but today, today of all days, she wanted to run away from him.

              He called out for some water and Liz muttered a curse under her breath.

Fetching the pitcher she sloshed water into a cup, spilling water in the process. It splashed onto the floor and onto Robert.

              “Hey, watch it,” said Robert sharply. “Ma, what’re ya doing?”

              “Here’s your water. Shut up.”

              “Ma!”

              “I said, ‘shut up!’”

              She struck him; slapped him on the ear. Robert cupped his offended face and cried out. The glass fell to the floor and shattered.

              “Look what you did,” Liz yelled.      

              Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. She had never hit him before. Despite his difficult way she had never, even in her most angry snit, ever raised her hand to Robert. It dissolved everything. All trust was lost. His puzzled face was a rainbow of emotions. He flopped off the bed, cutting his other knee on a piece of glass and he cried out again. Whimpering, the boy crawled a few feet on his bandaged knee before rising to this feet and limping out of the room and down the stairs. Liz heard him stumble down the last step before she even reacted. She was trembling herself; frightened at the amount of volatile emotion she had been able to muster, and, for what, the loss of an afternoon with a stranger? Embarrassed and angry with herself, with tears welling in her eyes, Liz scrambled after her son and ran down the stairs.

*                                                                     *                                             *

              John drove to the one place he knew Ernie would take them, the hill overlooking Danny’s place. Everyone who came to the ranch wanted to see the house, though this was vehemently frowned upon by Mistress Allen.  At their weekly meetings she would rail the members of the ranch about going up there. Her harangues though did not prevent people from abandoning chores around the ranch to ogle their idol’s abode. One of John’s jobs at the ranch was to drive up to the hill and chase errant members away. Mission accomplished, he would then linger on the hill to wile away the rest of the afternoon. Armed with binoculars, he would peer down on the empty house and ponder what it would be like to be Dedalus.

              Three years ago John arrived from Massachusetts in a coffee infused haze. He had driven half the length of the continent in less than two days. Under his arm were tucked sheaves of lyrics and his pockets bulged obscenely with audio cassettes. John drove here because he was absolutely sure his luck would change if only he could meet Dedalus. He was sure the world would finally open up for him and he would be allowed to showcase his talents. Though he had no formal musical training and could really only slap manically at bongo drums, John had the notion his words could be the key to the hearts of people everywhere. He felt he had a finger on the pulse of America and if Dedalus would listen to his words he would readily agree. If only Dedalus would listen to John’s spoken word cassettes, the singer/songwriter would quickly transform them into chart-topping hits that would enrich the world as well as their pockets. John was so sure. He was so sure his luck would change here in the Texas hills.

              It had to change.

              It had to.

              John left no one behind in Massachusetts. They had already left him.

              His wife had moved out of the apartment one day while he was at work. She took the kids and the furniture and moved to another part of the state. The day the divorce papers arrived in the mail was the day John made a pot of coffee, two ham and cheese sandwiches on rye bread, gathered up his reams of notes and poems and lyrics, grabbed his portable cassette recorder and drove towards salvation.

              As he hurtled westward John jabbered and spat into one cassette after another. Interspersed with vitriol leveled at his wife, John recited lyrics he had committed to memory or read from papers as he weaved down the macadam. By the time he arrived at what he thought was Dedalus’ house he had filled 30 cassettes.

              He had arrived at the ranch.

              They tried to hand him a broom, but John would have none of that. Defiantly, he stood at the gate for days and waited for Dedalus to show. He avoided sitting in his car, for fear he would fall asleep and miss the opportunity to meet the man. He endured hot days, rainy days and cold nights. True to form though, Dedalus never showed. The reclusive performer used a back entrance that ran through a neighbor’s property to get to his house. No one knew about it at the time. After several days of waiting, to no avail, tired, hungry and frustrated, John timidly knocked on the door of the main house and asked for a broom.

              Though he had yet to meet Dedalus, the dream was still strong in John. He continued to record his words over the years he was at the ranch. Whenever he made the long trip into San Antonio John bought more cassettes. He had to keep working, creating. He was driven. Someday. Someday he’d be lucky, he thought. He kept the cassettes and recorder in a footlocker at his bed, but dragged them out with him in his jeep when he made his rounds. He never knew when inspiration would hit. The others at the ranch knew about John’s passion, but none dared to ask the fiery little man to hear his work.

              John slowly maneuvered the jeep along the pocked trail that led up the hill and parked it near Ernie’s jeep. He got out, binoculars in one hand and his cassette recorder in the other, and walked the last couple of yards to the top. John felt magnanimous today. Mistress Allen stressed they were to be nice to this new fellow. He evidently would help buy the ranch if Dedalus was to sell, thereby preserving the little life they had set up for themselves here as squatters. John was prepared to share his binoculars with the fellow and his friend; anything to help the cause.

              Why, he’d show them with his binoculars things they could not possibly see with their naked eyes from this vantage point. He’d point out the Grammy Dedalus had received as best new artist decades ago that stood guard at a window, half hidden by a curtain. Gleefully trilling, John would point the neck of a guitar on a couch, the magazines on a counter and the empty bottle of tequila sitting in the recycling container.              

              Oh, what a life Dedalus had John would sigh daily. What an extraordinary life. How John wanted to be a part of that life. He felt persistence would counter his lack of talent, and, he had the tolerance and temperament for such persistence. In any event, his back was against the wall. Returning to Massachusetts was not an option. This helped propel him and keep him focused. This place was it and whatever dream that was created here had to remain alive. There was nowhere else to go.

              John did not notice that Ernie and the newcomers were not at the summit of the hill. Instead he stood for a moment and looked out onto the beautiful Texas hills. It always gave him pause to be here and he sighed.

              “Here I stand baby at this special point of view,” John half sang into his cassette recorder draped over his shoulder. “No one to share it with, not even with you,” he said as he brought the binoculars to his eyes. “There are birds circling ‘round my heart and the clouds are getting angry / For my heart is afire without your love and…”

              Still seemingly unaware that Ernie and the visitors were not up there on the hill; John slowly scanned the horizon with his binoculars and murmured into his microphone. He sighed, “what a special view. That‘s going to be a hit.” He then turned his binoculars down and peered down at Dedalus’ house.

              “Why, there’s Ernie on the front porch,” sighed John calmly.

              John pulled the binoculars away and cocked his head as if listening to the wind. He heard a faint banging coming from the direction of the house. He looked down again through his binoculars and there was Ernie banging on the window and peering into the dark house, his hands cupping his eyes.

              John giggled.

              “Somebody’s going to get in trouble,” John said in a soft sing song voice.  If the Mistress found out someone had gone down to the house there would be hell to pay. Someone would be thrown out of the ranch. John himself could even be held liable; it was his job to chase people away.

              In all the years he’d been here at the ranch this had never happened. He had never dared to go down there himself. He was afraid of the consequences. Someone was going to get in trouble, but rather than getting angry himself, John began to hoot loudly for joy. He kicked up his heels and then started negotiating his way down the hill towards Dedalus’ house.