Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [32]
Red smiled. “You’d be surprised what sobriety does for basic, chronic misanthropy.”
Lewis glowered at the passing groves. This was the first time he had been off Round Rock’s premises during the daylight. A river ran on the left, the water swift and green among willows and naked cottonwoods, the riverbed wide and filled with smooth, pale rocks. Lewis rolled down his window. The air was heavy with dampness and oxygen. “It’s nice up here,” he said.
Red ducked his chin as if accepting a compliment, then waved to an old man riding a bicycle. “Rafael Flores,” said Red. “The local curandero—witch doctor. The old gal who used to own my ranch supposedly swore by him. Said he kept her alive for years with a special tea. Whenever we kill a rattlesnake, we save it for him. He makes some kind of powder from the skins.”
“No shit?” Lewis twisted in his seat to get a better look at the elderly rider, whose long white hair fanned out behind him like a veil. “Think he does peyote and mushrooms?”
Red chuckled. “That, I wouldn’t know,” he said, and turned at a mailbox with “DAW” painted on it in red nail polish. The gravel spur climbed steeply through a silvery olive grove and up to a grassy plateau where a house trailer sat between two willows. A squad car was parked behind a Ford Falcon. Frank was leaning against the Falcon’s back door and smoking. Red said, “He does look like he lives in a pumpkin patch, don’t you think?”
The deputy was standing on the deck, talking to a woman in a flowered skirt and a down vest. The woman rubbed her arms. When Red parked, she put her hands on her hips and glared at the truck.
She was not unattractive—slim legs, shiny brown hair—but the allure of uneducated females had dimmed for Lewis after five years of dating checkout girls at the parts store. This woman looked like the kind you hear screaming at a loser boyfriend through the flimsy walls of a fleabag apartment. And what were trailer houses if not the rural version of fleabag lodgings? This one in particular, an older white model with a broad turquoise stripe, looked like a large, discarded laundry-soap box.
Lewis sat in the truck as Red tried to cajole Frank into leaving. Frank didn’t so much as blink. The deputy stood by until another call came in, and he backed down the drive. The woman stood out on the deck for a while, still rubbing her arms, then went back inside her trashy home. Frank took a few steps, only to stop, pull a cigarette from his pocket to his mouth, and point at its unlit tip.
Bored, Lewis got out and walked to the edge of the olive groves. The sun was burning through the mist. A breeze gusted through the trees and tiny fruit hit the ground. He tried to imagine life without another glass of wine or pull of mescal or ice-cold beer on a hot summer day. Who could camp without a whiskey bottle? Or endure a hard day’s work without the promise of a good stiff drink? Or face conversation without a little lube? How could he write papers without bourbon to ease him through the hard spots? Who would he even be without alcohol’s rambunctious energy? He could just see himself in thirty years, a wizened monkey out in suburbia, pushing a lawn-mower while sucking sports bottles of headache-sweet ice tea. A fat wife. Casseroles. Golf on TV. A library filled with National Geographics.
Something large and brown rustled in the olive trees. Lewis threw a stone and the thing turned into a rabbit and bounded out of range.
Almost 7:45 and I’m still home! The famous Frank is from the drunk farm up the road. Brain damaged, apparently. His mahout arrived, but Frank isn’t ready to leave. Some other guy is down by the olive trees, maybe taking a leak. Why is it the men you want to stay leave, and the men you want to leave won’t budge?
She could go to work now, obviously, but she wanted to see everybody cleared out first. Actualize the departure, as they say in the mortuary biz. Who knows? she wrote. Maybe I’ll sit here all day writing dreck in this journal. My last great remaining pleasure in life,