Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (18 page)

He’s waited a long time for this moment. That swimming pool took a heck of a lot longer to put in the ground than he ever would’ve thought. He was out there for months, giving away free beers to all the backhoe operators and the pool tile specialists, trying to make sure the job got done right. Now he has what he wanted: a deep blue watery jewel in the shape of a pregnant kidney bean, hugging a Jacuzzi along its middle–all of it surrounded by a wide ribbon of adobe-colored Kool Deck.

It’s a thing of beauty.

Even though the weather is still a little cool, he’s got that sucker heated up to 82 degrees Fahrenheit–bathtub temperature. And the sun’s out, casting deep shadows from his big ol’ sombrero, so it’s a perfect day for the first swim. Earlier, scheming Mal had told Gordon he could invite Jimmy over for a dip, then he added as a sly afterthought, “And heck, tell Jimmy’s mom she can come along, too!” A few minutes later, Janice called Cynthia to say they would be right over–so now the party’s set. Cynthia is in the kitchen, mixing up some guacamole and smearing refried beans on Nacho Cheese Doritos. She has on her one-piece navy blue swimsuit with the white sailor’s anchor stitched above the hidden Control-Top girdle. It’s almost a miracle, but even
she
seems happy for once–although about an hour ago they got into it because she wants him to buy life insurance.

“Why?” he asked her, outraged. “So you can live like Jackie Onassis once I’m dead?” Mal had started in early on the mezcal, and even then, on his second drink of the day (okay… maybe it was his
third
), it was bringing out the warrior in him.

“Don’t you want us to be safe if something happens to you?” Cynthia wailed, looking like she needed to pop a pill.

With Cynthia it was always about being safe. That’s why he’d had to get rid of the speedboat, the go-karts, and his 1958 Corvette–which, by the way, would have been worth a small fortune if he’d held on to it.
That bitch!

“Sure, I want you to be safe,” Mal said, feeling a tightening vise of anger along his temples and the back of his neck. “You’re already safe. You don’t have to be
rich!”

“You just don’t care about us. It’s always about what’s best for you.”

“I don’t see you paying any of the bills around here.”

“
Money, money, money!
Is that all you ever think about?”

Around and around they went, until Mal got sick of it and decided to put on his sombrero and his leopard skin bathing suit. Then he sent Gordon off on his errand and Cynthia came out later to apologize after she got off the phone with Janice.

Now everything is right in Mal’s world. He has a half-full bottle of mezcal with a lumpy worm in the bottom of it; Herb Alpert’s trumpet is telling him it’s never too late to become a swinger; and the smell of burning cow meat is shooting straight up his nostrils, making his mouth water with a caveman’s hunger. He’s got it all right here–all the props he needs to feed, fight, and fuck.

He hears one of the sliding glass doors from the den roll open, hitting the end of its track with a dull
whoomp.
Gordon and Jimmy come jogging out of the house in their swim trunks, waving beach towels above their heads. “Hi, Dad!” Gordon shouts as he goes vaulting over the low wrought-iron fence in front of the Kool Deck. “Hey, Mr. Swannson!” says Jimmy, doing the same. And then they’re both jumping into the pool feet first, shouting like young gorillas. Their splashes leave Mal grinning. There was some acrimony when he sold the cabin in Morro Bay to finance the pool, but now he’s sure he did the right thing.

It’s a relief for Mal to see Gordon finally showing some pep. For a long time the poor kid’s asthma was so bad it was turning him into just a bump on a log, but those new pills that Doctor Smiley put him on really seem to be doing the trick. Now Gordon eats about three times as much as he used to and runs around like a house on fire. He’s gained about 20 pounds in the last month–most of it, unfortunately, in his cheeks. He looks like a crazed chipmunk, but at least he’s got energy.

Look at him now: splashing around like some kind of weird, bloated, hairless otter–Samantha barking at him from the edge of the Kool Deck. They should be on
The Wonderful World of Disney
in one of those nature episodes with the folksy voice-over narration, like “Charlie, The Lonesome Cougar.”

Hopefully that cheek thing is something Gordon will grow out of. He’s just hit puberty, after all. Maybe it’s a growth spurt. If those cheeks get any worse, he’ll have a hard time with the ladies.

Thinking of which, Mal turns to see Janice Marrsden stepping out onto the patio, covered up with some kind of summery shawl–but her legs are bare, so his dream of seeing her in a bikini still seems within reach. But then coming up from behind her–
oh shit!
–it’s her dang husband, Stan Marrsden, smiling in an Army green T-shirt and a pair of canary yellow madras shorts.

Stan isn’t a big man–at least not compared to Mal’s six-foot-seven–but he’s broad-shouldered and muscular with dark features that make him look Greek. He has a square jaw, “
Don’t-mess-with-me
” eyes, and like Johnny Hoss, his neck looks bigger than his head. He used to play football for the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis; Mal’s heard he made a good defensive end. He’s not someone Mal would ever want to tangle with, anyway, but tangling with him now would be an especially bad idea since Stan happens to be Kingsburg’s Chief of Police.

Having thought that, Mal still wants to get a good look at Stan’s wife in a skimpy bathing suit.

“Mal! You’re looking festive today…” Stan says, indicating the sombrero.

Mal booms out a cheery greeting and shakes Stan’s hand, wondering if he can be arrested in his own backyard for being drunk and almost naked. He hadn’t anticipated another full-grown man seeing him this way. He’s kind of embarrassed. But then the opposite of that sensation, a spiteful pride, boils through Mal like a hot geyser. He thinks,
Why should I feel embarrassed? Look at me, a virile mountain of a man! So what if I’m wearing a tiny Speedo that looks like a hooker’s G-string? Check out the package that it’s barely holding back. I’ve got a dong on me like the clapper in the Liberty Bell. Can you measure up to that, Stan Marrsden? Huh? Maybe that’s why you came over in your faggy yellow golf pants.

But even Mal has to admit to himself that the sombrero might be a bit much.

To heck with it!
Mal offers Stan a drink. Hoisting a glass, he says, “What’ll you have, Stan? Beer,
vino
… or how about a little mezcal like our Mexicano brothers are drinking today?”

“What is that, a worm in there?” Stan asks, inspecting the mezcal bottle.

“That’s how you know it’s the real deal!” Mal exclaims. “Mezcal is made from fermented cactus juice, and these worms live right on the cactus plants. They’re called
gusanos
. There are three different kinds…” Mal is half making this stuff up as he goes along, but he’s enjoying himself–so why stop? “First there’s the
blanco gusano
, which lives on the agave cactus. It’s the most common. It just turns gray and dies when it gets dropped in the mezcal, so it only goes in the cheapest stuff. Next there’s the
rojo gusano
, which is a little rarer. Its skin is pale red because it feeds off the blossoms of the saguaro cactus. It can last up to six months in the bottle without dying, so it gets put in the better stuff. Then there’s the very rarest
gusano
, the
cielo gusano
, which lives on the peyote cactus–the same cactus the shamans eat so they can go on their vision quests. Peyote has this hallucinogen called mescaline in it, which is where mezcal gets its name. So the ol’
cielo gusano
only goes in the absolute very best mezcal–the stuff fermented from peyote cactus–which is what we’ve got here. You can tell it’s a
cielo gusano
because it’s blue, see? And because it’s still crawling around in there…” Mal taps the bottle to simulate movement. “The
cielo gusano
can live forever in mezcal–it’s immortal–and its body is so full of concentrated mescaline that if you eat it, they say you’ll hallucinate your ass off.”

“Sounds like that stuff should be illegal,” Stan says with a wink. “I’ll have a double.”

“Let me get this meat off the grill and I’ll get right to it,” says Mal, grabbing the flank steak with a pair of tongs. Turning to Janice–and Cynthia, just joining her with a tray full of chips, beans, and guacamole–he asks, “How about you gals? Something to wet your whistles?”

“Nothing with worms in it for me, thanks,” says Janice, taking a long drag off her cigarette. “I’ll just have a glass of gin–straight up.”

After the drinks are poured and the flank steak is cut up into finger-sized pieces, the four adults settle into the Jacuzzi. Trays of food and bottles of booze are set within easy reach. Janice finally sheds her shawl and Mal’s brooding patience is rewarded: she’s wearing the same sharp little white bikini that Ursula Andress wore in that James Bond movie. Even better, when it gets wet, it becomes almost see-through. Janice’s nipples show up underneath it like raspberries rising through cream. Her areolas, prominently outlined, look as big as buttermilk biscuits.

“So how’d you learn so much about mezcal?” Stan asks Mal.

Mal is having a hard time keeping his eyes away from Janice’s knockers. He turns to face her husband. “Cynthia didn’t tell you? I went in as a partner on a liquor store up in Fresno with Sammy Beaufont about six months ago.”

“Sammy Beaufont… his family owns Beaufont’s Restaurant, right?”

“Right. He’s their son.”

“Great food.”

“Yeah, it’s the only true gourmet restaurant in town. Sammy grew up in it. He knows more about wine than anyone.”

“Have you tried their frog legs?” Cynthia asks Janice.

“No. Why would I?”

“Oh, they’re scrumptious!” Cynthia pops a Dorito glopped with refried beans into her mouth, smacking her lips in a compulsive, grimacing way that’s most often seen in institutionalized schizophrenics after years of Thorazine treatment (
tardive dyskinesia
, the medical establishment calls it).

“When I was a kid, Gerald and I used to spear frogs for the Beaufonts out on the Kings River,” says Mal. “We’d go out late at night with flashlights and when we saw the reflections in their eyes we’d take a frog gig and–
whammo
! We’d get bullfrogs big as rabbits. Some nights whole gunnysacks full of ‘em.”

“What’d they pay you for ‘em?” Stan wants to know.

“I don’t know… maybe a nickel apiece. We were doing it more for sport.”

“Men…” says Janice, with a look of cool disgust.

“They’re always trying to spear
some
thing,” Cynthia says with the air of one who knows.

“Hey, I’ve never speared anything,” Stan protests.

“Oh, you’re just as bad, running around everywhere with your gun sticking out,” says Janice. “We all know what Freud would’ve had to say about
that
.”

“Let’s not start in with the penis envy again,” says Stan.

“Who’s?” Janice shoots back. “Yours or mine?”

Mal senses tension and like a good host he attempts to defuse it by saying, “Hey, how about another
Señorita’s Menses
there,
compadre?”

“Is that what you call these things?” says Stan, staring with deadened eyes at his empty glass. “Sure, fill ‘er up.”

“Even the drinks around here are sexist…” Janice says, tamping out her cigarette on a soggy Dorito near the gin bottle. She and Cynthia have been attending women’s consciousness raising meetings, about ten years too late. Trends have a way of skipping over the San Joaquin Valley, then boomeranging back a decade later. Late or not, it’s still been hell on the husbands, just like it must have been for those guys in New York City and Marin County back in the sixties. They’ve gotten themselves all wrapped up in something called the Four-P Club, which Mal is pretty sure stands for
P
osturing,
P
ussy-Empowered,
P
issed-Off
P
enis-Haters.

“Marco!” Jimmy shouts from the deep end of the swimming pool, where he’s bobbing in the water with his eyes squinched shut.

“Polo!” Gordon shouts back, standing in the shallows near the pool’s edge. Sam sits like a basset hound version of the Sphinx on the Kool Deck behind Gordon, licking the chlorinated water off his ears.

Mal runs through the last of the mezcal as he mixes Stan and himself another round of drinks. “Whoops!” he says. “This bottle’s a goner. Anyone up for eating the worm?”

“Oh,
ick!”
says Cynthia.

“I’ll pass,” says Janice, lighting a new cigarette.

“Stan?”

“You go ahead, Mal. I’m an officer of the law. It wouldn’t look too good if I was caught hallucinating my rear end off.”

“Chicken…” Janice says, blowing smoke.

“Okay, so I guess it’s up to me then. You guys don’t know what you’re missing….” Mal dangles the chubby blue worm above his lips, for effect, then drops it onto his tongue and gulps. It stalls in his throat like a wad of gum. He stifles a gag and thumps his sternum with the heel of his palm to help the blind creature on its way down. Halfway convinced by his own mythologizing, Mal says in a low croak:

“Hope I don’t see Quetzalcoatl.”

“What’s that?” Stan asks.

“A feathered serpent the Aztec medicine priests used to see on their shamanic journeys. Sometimes Quetzalcoatl would show up with his twin and answer all their questions about the universe.”

“
Sheesh!
How do you know about all this stuff, Mal?”

“Like I said, I own a liquor store. Oh… and Gordon’s been reading stuff to me.”

After he gets home from work, Mal likes to sit down in his big blue La-Z-Boy recliner in the den and look at the newspaper.
The Fresno Bee
almost never has anything in it worth reading, but for some reason he finds it soothing. For almost as long as he can remember, Gordon has sat on the couch next to him doing the same thing, only he gets through
The Bee
in about five minutes, and then he’s on to magazines–like
Time
and
Newsweek
, and even his mother’s
Cosmopolitan
–and after that it’s library books. Sometimes Gordon will interrupt Mal’s reading to say something like, “Hey Dad, did you know that the right hemisphere of a dolphin’s brain can sleep while its left hemisphere stays awake, and vice-versa, so that a dolphin never completely falls asleep like we do?” Or: “Hey Dad, did you know that neural DNA is non-metabolizing? Every other cell in our bodies gets replaced at least once every seven years, but we’ve got the same neural DNA we had as babies. Some people think it acts as an antenna for memory. Not just personal memory, but the whole collective unconscious, like Carl Jung wrote about.” And: “Hey, did you know that ninety-five percent of a person’s brain can be destroyed without impairing memory function? This guy named Karl Pribram has a theory that memory isn’t stored in any specific part of the brain. He thinks memory works like a hologram, and any tiny piece of it can recreate the whole thing. Maybe a single strand of neural DNA is all it takes.”