THEN
Getting out of the truck to drop another gate, red dust scatters off my heels, blown and gone. In the truck bed, the dog crosses back and forth. She’s excited. She knows where she’s going. When we pass some cows, Angus-Hereford crosses, the dog barks and bounces to the tailgate, enjoying herself. At a T, I take a right, leaving the rutted red clay for a manicured gravel drive as we pass under a gate post reading Sentinel Lake Lodge. The brand is the double bar M. It’s not a large affair, but fashionable. A place for the wealthy to come, dine with world-class chefs, eating a fish they caught on a fly, after which going for an evening ride. The dog hops from the back and follows me to the porch, then lies in the shade while I continue up the steps.
She comes from behind bearing a tray with a blue porcelain coffee pot and two matching cups. She sets this on the table. It is a good place that serves coffee in the middle of a hot afternoon. Her hand slips away, dropping to the back of the other chair. It is brown, dry skin. The dog pops up at the abrupt sound of wood sliding on wood, the chair sliding back, decides the noise is nothing dangerous and lies back down with a groan.
Gloria is pretty, a decade older than I. Her husband, a retired Senior Executive Service administrator, tries hard at being type-A and is most often gone out of the state. He does not have much interest in the Lodge. Gloria tends to run things here and is content with what they did after his retirement, buying a small upscale resort in Montana. She pours into each cup and we sip the cinnamon-flavored coffee just out of sight of any god. It is pleasant taking our coffee with tension and no conversation.
After a few minutes, I ask, “Is Ben here?”
“No.” Her voice is scratchy and she repeats, “No.”
“Can you leave?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
We don’t invite the dog and drive from the Lodge, across the valley up to the Sentinel Mountains, the trailer rattling behind. In the rearview, Bonus, the big mare, is bug-eyed.
Crossing the valley, Gloria sits on the far side of the cab. She does reach across the seat and take my hand. I let her have it, and between her touch and the warm mug clamped between my legs, a ticklish ache swims from my adrenals to my testicles. Once into the foothills, she scoots over next to me. She knows the caught-in-the-open feeling too. Dust trails our outfit.
I give her the gelding, Little Jake on paper, Shorty everyday. He’s not very big, but goes well and never gets excited. Bonus, for a mare, also goes well. She’s called Bonus because her mother was unknowingly purchased out of wedlock. However, she’s a Belgian/Quarter horse cross, someone’s good idea for the mountains. Sitting on her is like sitting on a Zeppelin.
We ride into the hills, to a view, a place hidden from the open and the summer tourists. It’s not a magazine photo, just a lake butted against a mountain, rock rising vertical from the closed end. In the evening, moose wade in and feed in the shallows. We park the horses under aspen trees.
“Tie him off higher. He might step over the reins.”
“Here?”
“There you go.”
I pull a bottle Gloria took from her cellar and a blanket from the saddlebag. Bonus is head down, eyes closed, her left rear relaxed, up on its toe. Gloria takes the bottle and blanket and I go to the water. Though it’s 10 or 12 feet below the surface, the bottom—rocks, gravel, a snag—is clearly visible. It is crystal. I take off my shirt, and she’s seen all this, of course, but I am embarrassed by my burnt arms and baby-white chest. I finish undressing and swim, rinsing away sweat and dirt. It is a desirable place to swim with 2,000 feet of rock above you. Gloria stays on the blanket, jeans and a black sleeveless sweater. She has taken off her boots. When I leave the lake, the water dries almost before I get my pants on. Wadding the rest of my clothes, I go to the blanket. She doesn’t open her eyes, but points to the bottle. I cork it, pour a splash, give it a swirl, and taste, carbureting through my teeth.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes still closed, she unzips her jeans, hooks her thumbs in the waist, giggles when a thumb comes loose, lifts her rump and slides the denim off her hips. I bend forward, pull the jeans from her by the cuffs. She lies still. Her legs are brown up to her white panties, varicose map work on the top side of her calves. I touch the raised purple, imagine a trip to Denver.
“Do you want me to rub them?”
She says, “YesIdo,” all one word, “later,” and sits up. Crossing her arms at the waist, she pulls the sweater over her head. Then with the sweater on her arms, she pauses looking at the lake. A white t-shirt still covers her. She tosses the sweater aside, and I hand her a glass. She sips then lies her head on my lap. I put a hand on her shoulder and she answers something positive but muffled. Over the rim of my glass I see wartime and angry bureaucrats, paper shields and pencil swords, charging a hill. But when I pull the glass away, I see a woman with the weathered attractiveness and reserved intelligence only years and some hard mileage can yield. With her left hand she hugs my waist, then lies on her back once more, an arm behind her head, eyes closed. A few tiny stretch marks and hysterectomy scars have little to do with this.
“Are you alright?”
I tell her, yes.
“It’s good to have this arrangement before I turn old.”
“It is good for me too.” Then I tell her, “I think that I am caught in my own brain.”
She laughs, “What?”
“I think that I spend too much time in my head.”
“Daydreams?”
“Yes, and a shit ton of rumination.”
“That’s all I’ve had for the last twenty years.”
“Is that satisfying?”
“No, but it got me by.”
“Why didn’t you do something about it?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Seemingly confident, attractive, intelligent. Why?”
“Don’t know.”
NOW: Day 1
I get a call from Gloria. It’s not long, “Kev, I’m going out of town tomorrow. I need to spend some time with Ben. We’ve got something to settle.”
I hated hearing this but this was our deal: no drama, ”When will you be back?”
“I don’t know, a week?”
“K.” Except for her husband, we had a solid relationship.
DAY 7: Insecure and money in my pocket. Aye, aye, aye.
Day 8: Waking Up
I twist coming from a cotton-mouthed sleep in the bunched, scratchy sheets of self-consciousness, chagrin, and convoluted images needing a storyline. There’s a wood stove with ball-and-claw feet. There’s a 13″color TV tuned to music videos. In the foreground, a woman with short red hair dances alone in a black spandex mini. She wears black pumps. The story floods back in pieces still lacking coherence. I roll over, careful not to pull my head from the horizontal, but sleep is gone. Making coffee, continuity comes as the pressure in my skull drops. When there’s an inch in the bottom of the pot, I fill my cup. Renegade drops hiss on the warmer, memory boiled away by alcohol. And then I remember her saying, “My boyfriend’s being such a shit heel lately. He’s a state trooper. I think it’s his job.” Turns out waking up with a hangover was not the worst I’d feel. Gloria had called. She was trying to get back. But I had been left to my own devices, a poor choice on her part.
No, no, no. Wait.
In my truck’s headlights, I see a frustrated red-haired woman on her porch, obviously angry that I’m leaving. Water is dripping, running everywhere. She’s still in that black spandex mini. I had left. I’m a hero.
But why with all the water? Then I remember, a wind started blowing yesterday, a wind unique to this side of the Rockies. My town is a hard town to over winter. It lies high on the Rockies’ eastern slope, dark when you rise, dark when you get off work, temperatures that rival Alaska. Some winters we tunnel up out of our homes through the snow. Summer is the lesser season. But yesterday, a Chinook started blowing, warm air pushed east from the Pacific. It was ten degrees yesterday morning, by the evening it was 45. On the west side of the Rockies, the wind will have brought rain and snow. Here, on the eastern slope, it drives down on us as a dry, gusty breeze. Chinooks can raise temperatures by 40 degrees, blow 50 mph, and melt two feet of snow in a day. For a place that has two and a half months of winter to go it’s both a respite and a nasty trick. Chinooks blow misgivings for days. But with each warm lungful the possibility of re-greening is inhaled and felt. Change may not be in the cards for me, but for a few more hours, maybe a day or two, it will feel like a possibility, remote and slight, but nonetheless, a possibility.
Day 8: Breakfast with Jeff
When I get around, still not feeling great, I meet my friend, Jeff, at the F&E Cafe. The F&E is like any other small town cafe in America. Honestly, exactly the same. It won’t get described. Jeff doesn’t drink, used to. There’s some history there but I never needed to ask. I only have a few good friends in this town. He’s one of them. He also thinks Gloria is one of the most beautiful women he’s ever met. He doesn’t disappoint when he comes out of the gate with, “How’s Gloria doing?”
“Good , I think.”
“How’s that?”
“Eh, I don’t know. She’s been in LA with Ben”
“Well, you don’t know, besides you get what you get.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s eating you?”
“Ah, just don’t know if she’s finalizing the divorce or getting back together with him.”
“Which one’s bothering ya.”
“Well,” I smile at myself, “both. I liked the stasis.”
“What?”
“I liked it the way it was. It’s been a good arrangement for both of us. Without stasis, fearing I could lose Gloria worries me. Fearing what I’d gain worries me, too, but without the pain.”
“Well, I would’ve liked to have tried it, just once, just so I could say I’d been there.”
“Asshole.”
“What? We always share.”
“Fuck you.”
“What are ya gonna do if it’s finalized.”
“The divorce?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatya mean what am I gonna do? She’ll get the Lodge and some money. I’m gonna become legitimate, become static. I’ll teach dudes how to cast a fly, saddle a horse, be set for life, I guess. I don’t think I can do that.”
“Christ, why not?”
“Can’t, I’d be rolling over.”
“Don’t,” Jeff says, “keep after it.”
Jeff always did keep after it in a way I couldn’t. I didn’t understand what, exactly, he was keeping after. The guy worked, though, all the time. I knew I was not keeping after it. I didn’t and still don’t know what it is. I’ve never known what it is. It’s hard to keep after a hole. Someday maybe I’ll bump into it. But, honestly, the feeling’s been with me for so long that if or when I do bump into it, it’ll be such a revelation that I’ll shave my head, put on sackcloth, find a cave in the Little Gravelies, and take on the Guru life. Pilgrims will sit at my feet while I dispense relationship advice. The View will lose market share.
The conversation turns to helping him do a quick fix on something under Newt Dovgun’s cabin while the weather’s warm. I pencil it into my afternoon schedule. The evening’s still wide open though.
Day 8: Wanted to Relax a Minute Before Going Home
The Shill’s Bar is a small place, two motel units built in the 1950s that stand alone and away from the new Brandin’ Iron Motel. When they converted the units to the bar, Naugahyde lounge chairs, brown and white calfskin, cactus lamps with Charlie Russell’s West chasing its tail around the shade, bookends made with Number 2 horseshoes, surprised glass eyes with carved wooden antlers Krazy Glued above their brows, hinged cedar trinket boxes, lids shellacked with words of Western wisdom, and other artifacts of a distant America on vacation were all tossed out. The wall between the units was removed. A portion of 21 became a walk-in cooler, the remainder accommodated the pool table. 22 became the bar proper.
Two mirrors previously sharing separate wall space were hung side by side horizontally on the unit’s rear wall. A bar was put here. It came from the defunct Frontier Club a few blocks away. Other than the new furniture and fixtures, which included chrome and Naugahyde bar stools, a few Charlie Russell prints hung variously, KENO and Montana Draw poker machines, a glass rack made from Number 2 horseshoes, and neon for the windows, nothing else was done to the old motel units. Even the Jackalope made it, hung next to the tip bell behind the bar.
A slow economy was key to the creation and preservation of the Shill’s Bar—a hole where locals could go and drink cheap ditches with friends.
When I enter, it’s not too crowded, not too smoky yet, and the electronic music of the KENO and poker machines competes with the house music, which is classic rock and new country. I sit on a Naugahyde stool next to Norm, a punch-drunk old fighter whose speech lacks stops. His ears are truly cauliflowered. No one serves him alcohol anymore as he leans toward meanness when on a runner. Sober he’s an addled but harmless brute who led a tough life. His fists are like pork roasts. He punches my arm, “Where’s Jeh?” Loud and like listening through a Mason jar.
“What, Norm?”
“Where’s Jeh?”
“What?”
“Whah?” He cups his ear while a cigarette burns clamped between the rough skin of his first and second digits. His misshapen ears are hairy, waxy. “Where’s Jeh?”
“Oh, oh. He’ll be here.”
“Whah?”
“He’ll be here.” I raise my voice. “He’ll be here, he’ll be here soon. Is he taking you somewhere?”
“Yah, to my mothahs,” His mother was long gone but this was not something strange to hear from Norm.
“Oh,” I say. He frowns and waves his pork roast. The cigarette loses an ash onto my thigh. Then I tease him, “Hey, Norm, where’s your girlfriend?”
“Whah?”
“Where’s your girlfriend?”
He smiles a straight-cut white denture smile. “I ain gah no girlfren.”
“Oh, come on, Norm. Jeff said you had some lady on the back of your snow machine yesterday.”
He smiles again and looks away toward the back bar. “I ain got no girlfren.”
“Ah, sure ya do.”
He punches my arm. I hold up my hands in surrender. He says, “Ah, ya ah pussies.” As I laugh, he again holds a pork roast to my face, smiling, waving it slow.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I turn to who I expect is Jeff. White flash above my left eye. My head goes down, bouncing from the bar. White flash. I’m on the floor watching a MHP windbreaker walk away. Fucking humans. Why was he mad? Because I didn’t sleep with her?
As I climb back to my perch, the bartender, Jim, reads my mind, “Kev, we get what we get, deserve or not. You’re gonna need some ice.” I shove my glass his way.
“No, for your head.”
I look to the mirror behind the bottles. Symmetry. Over each eye, at their outside corners, subtle goose eggs rise. Horns. The other guys are supposed to grow horns. Also in the mirror, Norm holds his fist up, waving it slow. I turn to him. He says, “Thas why I ain got no girlfren. Hah, hah, hah, hah.”
Jim plops some ice wrapped in a towel in front of me, smiles through a stiff mustache. Alcohol and drugs leading to conflict and violence. Same as it ever was. While innocent of unfaithfulness, I was guilty of cynical mischief and a not-well-thought-out runner. Waking up with memory holes was a sure sign bad decisions were made, consequences would be forthcoming. With his arms crossed over his chest, Jim raises a finger, indicating that I have another visitor. I raise my eyebrows and shake my head slightly. Not expecting good news, I turn.
Ben Evans says, “Kev, we’re gonna have a talk.”
It is not, in fact, good news.
“They’re all friends here, Ben.”
“I won’t do this here.”
“Table?”
“Outside.”
I turn away from Ben, “When I get back could this be topped up? Thank you.”
“You sticking to scotch?”
“Yes, yes, I am.”
Water drops on my head as I pass under the eave, that warm wind lifts my jacket, a few steps to the bed of Ben’s rig, where he stands with his hands on his hips. “Kevin, here’s the deal. Gloria and I have divorced.”
“Okay.”
“Hell, I haven’t been happy for years. She has the Lodge. She’ll be fine.”
“She’s a competent woman.”
“Shut up.” It’s drawn out, impatient, “Now, I’ve been getting my own on the side, most know that. But lately, it’s been with a woman who has her own life. It’s good.”
“You been drinking tonight, Ben?”
“Some.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were an asshole all the time or just when you were drinking.”
“Shut up,” exactly as he said it before, drawn out and impatient, “Here’s the point, she’s an old hide. Make her happy, will ya?”
“That’s insulting, Ben. She was good to you. She’s not an old hide. And, truth be told, she is more than capable of making herself happy. She has done that. I am so not critical to her happiness.”
“What?” He hesitates, then waves a hand in dismissal, “Shut up.” It’s even more emphatic.” Here’s the other point. Everyone in this town knows you’ve been with her. I’ve known it for a long time.”
“I wasn’t sneaky about it.”
“Listen, I guess I don’t really care, not really. I know I haven’t been present. But still, I can’t let go of this urge.”
White flash. I watch his rig pull away from the cold wet cinder surface. It’s comfortable down here for a moment. Gloria’s friendship and company has value well worth this lie down in the parking lot. I can smell her perfume and feel her skin. I’m lucky. Not in the sense of I wasn’t shot. I’m just lucky to have spent time with her. I don’t want to get up. I’m reminiscing. I’m comfortable. I’m warm and comfortable. Your own bed is a good thing on a cold night. When I realize Jim’s got a hand in my armpit, holding me up as I stumble toward the dark interior of the bar, I brush off my clothes and the cinders from my cheek. From somewhere on my face blood is running. I was not, it turns out, in my own bed.
“You’re bleeding pretty good there, Kev,” Jim says as he hands me another bar towel and puts me on my stool. Clarity comes. I edge around the bar—kind of a no no—so I can take a look in the mirror. It’s going to need help staying closed. Back around the bar with the rag pressed against my head.
I sit, slump forward, shake my head, look up and, “You got any butterflies in that first aid kit there?”
“I think so.”
“I hate to ask, can you try to fix me up?”
“Yeah, you bet. I’ll give it a whirl. It’ll be fun!”
“Uh huh.”
Then Norm says, “Tha’s why I ain gah no girlfren, hah, hah, hah, hah.” I don’t sit long. I’ll miss Jeff, but I don’t feel well. I say goodbye to Norm and thank Jim. As is the custom around here, he hands me a go cup to make the drive home.
Once there, I get the wood stove hot, close down the damper. At the bathroom mirror I survey the damage. I pull the butterflies from my skin. The cut opens, spreading a quarter inch or so, revealing a glistening white tissue for a quick moment before the blood comes. With a small hesitation, I quickly scrub it with a soapy washcloth, the terry loops pulling the cinder particles away. It is painful. I put my head under the bathtub faucet, rinsing, pull my head away and quickly put a clean t-shirt on the wound. Back in front of the mirror, I pull the cloth away. Facial wounds bleed so much, and I only get a glimpse before the blood, but it looks clean. So I sit on the couch with one eye open watching Mel Gibson do Saturday Night Live, pressing the t-shirt over the other. After twenty minutes or so the bleeding stops. I cut my own butterflies from white cloth tape and close it as tight as possible.
Day 9: Maybe the Last Time
I go to bed and through the open bedroom doorway watch the fire’s reflection flicker on the paneling. Before long the front door opens. I hear the dog’s tail slapping against the wall. At least she knows who it is.
“Kev?” It’s Gloria.
“Yeah, just a second.”
“Are you alright?”
“Absolutely, you bet.”
“Jesus Christ,” she says as I step into the living room.
“Yeah, not good.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, stop it. Are you alright?”
“Yes,”she says.
“Yeah?”
“No, but… sure, you bet.”
Not feeling like pressing the issue, I say, “Okay.”
“This is my fault.”
“No,”I tell her, “ There’s a saying, at least I think it’s a saying, heard it in a movie, but it goes, blame’s for small children and God.”
She laughs, “What the hell’s that mean?”
“Don’t know. But I know this,” and I point to my face, “is not your fault.”
We’re quiet, standing there, the fire popping with pine sap.
Then she says, “I am a decent person, right?”
“Yes, you are a good person, one of the better ones, and I desire the comfort of your arms.”
“I just plain ol’ want you.”
“That is a fine offer.”
Afterward, lying in the fire’s light, I think to sleep with her, her brown body, her intelligence, is a devastating warmth. But when sleep comes, it comes like a blanket sewn from isolation, and the daydream of us running Gloria’s Lodge and growing old together seems far-fetched.
Sometime in the night, I roll onto the cut. Gloria wakes and in the dim light says, “You’re bleeding.” She kisses the place, and then says, “Not fatally, “smiles, and puts her head on my chest, squeezes. She is a good person.
When I wake, I wake with space beside me. Her body’s impression still in the bedding. I trace her outline with a fingertip. Her scent or perfume or shampoo or soap or pheromones or whatever it is opens a door through which loneliness enters. Like the Chinook that’s been blowing, the smell leaves me wanting something that wasn’t ever really there. But it’s beginning to sit alright with me. When I was a kid, I would call the Chinooks the wind of the sad goodness. For lack of a better word, it blew hope. But you paid a price for hope, one you couldn’t calculate exactly. You knew it was going to be expensive though. Outside, there is no snow melting. The Chinook is done blowing and all is frozen. There’s blood on the pillows and sheets. That also makes an impression.
I build a pot of coffee, slopping water as I do. You’d think I’d be able to pour water by now. When I find my mug, there’s a note taped to it. It reads, “Kev, I’ve reached a satisfactory destination. You haven’t. I’m still here. Love you, Glo.” Perceptive, bright, and good with herself. I’ll carry the re-greening feeling with me for a stupidly unhealthy period of time. Someday, not soon, it will fade. Keeping after what I do not know.
