Cry Father (8 page)

18

jobs

J
unior’s driving. He’s been driving all day. When he doesn’t have any runs to make for Vicente, he ends up spending most of every day driving anyway. Knowing every minute of it that he should be with Casey.

Junior’s mother was a good mother. Broken and sad from having married a piece of shit, but a good mother. It was that goodness that made Junior feel guilty most of the time. He knew what Henry was, and even from a young age, he knew that he and Henry were partners in it, in making his mother cry. He knew because he could do it just as easy as Henry could. And did so, without even trying.

When Junior first saw Casey, was handed her at the hospital, that was one thing he knew he wasn’t going to do to her. He wasn’t going to put that kind of guilt in her. That’s what he thought back then, that children were some kind of little machines that ran on the guilt adults pumped into them. Now he knows better. Now he knows it’s exactly the other way around.

He drives north, Seventieth to Pecos, toward the heart of Denver, Federal Boulevard. The Rustic Ranch Mobile Home Park, Pyro Fireworks. Homeless bagsippers and lowrider pimps. Then back toward the empty backroads of unincorporated Adams County and Commerce City, watching the evening get suffocated by the fumes of the oil refinery.

From the street, Junior can see Jenny’s bedroom light burning behind the dirty box fan in her window. He spins the car around, parks out in front of her house. Slips a little in his cowboy boots as he steps out of the car. It’s been a long day of beer drinking and driving. When he gets up to her house, she’s sitting on the front stoop, smoking a cigarette. “I was betting you’d stop by tonight,” she says. “I still got that joint.”

“Light it,” he says. “I need something, and I can’t drink no more beer.”

“That was your excuse last time,” she says. “Too much beer.”

“Are you gonna light the joint?”

She pulls it out of her pack of cigarettes and sparks it. “My interview went real good, thanks for asking.” She exhales a stream of smoke up toward the streetlights, passes it to him. The night air has cleared out the big stink and the heat, leaving the neighborhood almost as cool and fresh as the San Luis Valley. “They already called me back for a second.”

Junior hits the joint and passes it back to her. “I’ve got plenty of money,” he says, exhaling. “May not have much else, but I got plenty of money.”

“That’s not the point,” she says. “Casey and I can’t live here forever.”

“So move,” Junior says. “You don’t need a fucking job to move.”

She pauses for a drag. “You know what I saw the other day? I saw
a pit bull walking down the street, loose. No owner, nobody around.” She pushes the joint toward him, he waves it off.

“You saw a loose dog,” he says. “That’s what started all this?”

“Casey can’t play outside. Can’t play in the yard, even when the air’s good. And I wouldn’t even think about letting one of her friends visit. I’d die first.”

Junior looks around the yard. A few islands of dry grass in a sea of dust, a rubbery black patch where the last tenant parked his car on blocks. “So move,” he says. “Start looking for a place right now. I got plenty of money.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But I want a job.” She finishes the joint, the moon wandering in and out of the night clouds. “What’s on your mind?” she asks. “Something’s wrong.”

He pulls his handkerchief out of his pocket with more flourish than he means to, puts it to his eye. “Hell if I know.”

“Do you ever get worried, Junior? How you never seem to know what’s wrong with you?”

He looks at her. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” she says. “I know what’s wrong with you.”

“Well. Whyn’t you tell me then?”

“You shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. It’s hurting you.”

“Driving?”

“Yes, driving.”

“What the hell else would I do? I sure as fuck ain’t going back to day labor.”

“It’s a question,” she says. “It’s a question for you to answer. All I know is that when I get a job, you will have time to answer it.”

“Shit,” Junior says.

“You’re scared of the idea, aren’t you?” Her eyes glitter, girlishly cruel, and she chews on her thumbnail.

Junior stands. “I’m leaving. I ain’t got time for this shit.”

The girlish twinkle disappears from her eyes. They’re mother now. “I mean it, Junior. You need to find something else to do.”

“There ain’t nothing,” Junior says, sitting again.

The moonlight washes some of the exhaustion clean from her face and she looks almost as young as she actually is. She rests her head on his shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she says, her voice bruised soft with exhaustion and marijuana. “I’m going to get this job and we’re gonna get the hell out of here.”

19

spider goats

I
t takes Patterson a few days to get over his trip to Denver. He’s too old for cocaine, and far too old for bar fights. But finally he makes the drive over to Henry’s that he knows he needs to make.

The old man’s poking around for something inside his Wild Mustang Mesa truck, parked up by the stables. He backs out of the driver’s door holding his computer, a chunky piece of hardware encased in black, military-grade polymer. “Hello, Patterson,” he says. His face is healing, the old skin flaking off and the new coming in pink and tender.

“Hello, Henry,” Patterson says, stepping out of his truck. “That’s a hell of a computer.”

“It’s indestructible,” Henry says. “They bought it for the horses. We track them now using wireless sensors. We can even tell if they’re being mounted.”

“Mounted?”

“To make sure they’re breeding.”

“Damn,” Patterson says, impressed.

Henry looks at Patterson for a minute, like he’s deciding whether or not to tell him something. Then he makes up his mind. “Spider goats,” he says.

“Say what?”

Henry sets the computer on the hood of his truck and opens it. “I just heard about ’em on the radio. Brother Joe says they’re goats that spin silk like spiders. Only instead of being regular spider silk it’s stronger than Kevlar. The feds are going to start making body armor out of it.”

Patterson doesn’t say anything.

“There ain’t no need for that shit,” Henry says. “I can see what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking the altitude is affecting your brain,” Patterson says.

Henry pushes a button on the computer. It clunks to life and he punches a few buttons more. Then he swivels the computer screen around so Patterson can see it. “See?”

Patterson squints at the screen. “Looks like a regular goat.”

“Well, it ain’t,” Henry says. “It’s a spider goat.” He turns the screen back around and shuts the computer.

“I’d have thought it’d look like a spider,” Patterson says.

“I don’t know why I show you anything,” Henry says. He shoves the computer back in the truck. “What do you want?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you that I went up to Denver.”

Henry’s face doesn’t exactly change expression, but every line in it deepens, threatening to fissure completely. “Why’d you do that?”

“To talk to Junior.”

Henry leans against his truck. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“At least he didn’t kill you,” he says.

“I helped him put a deck on his house. And then we got drunk.”

“Well. That should teach him.”

“We came to an agreement,” Patterson says. “He’s going to call me if he gets it in his head to see you. He’s going to stop by my place first and we’ll talk it over.”

“You can’t trust him.” Henry shakes his head. “I was hard on him, but it wasn’t all me. You never could trust him.”

“I can trust him. I’m not sure I ever want to get drunk with him again, but I can trust him to keep his word.”

Henry smoothes his beard with his hand, a smile toying around with his mouth. “Bit off more’n you could chew?”

Patterson shakes his head. “I’m lucky to be alive.”

Henry laughs. “He’s a wild one, that’s for sure.”

“I heard you were, too.”

“I was,” Henry says. “Someday I’ll have to tell you the whole story.”

“That’s all right.”

“Thanks for keeping me informed, anyway.” Henry claps him on the shoulder. “Now, I got something to show you. Follow me.” He picks up his crutches and leads Patterson around back of his cabin. “That’s what you need.” He points with his cane at a series of solar panels mounted on a PVC frame on the roof. “There ain’t nothing to it. A little PVC, a few panels, golf batteries, a charge controller, and an AC to DC inverter. It’s a sweet little setup, and it won’t cost you more than a few hundred bucks.”

Patterson squints up at the panels, the sun reflecting off them in a hard, black-yellow burst. “You build it yourself?”

“I paid a Mexican boy off our crew to do most of the actual work. Been meaning to show it to you.”

A gust of wind throws dust across the mesa. Patterson lifts his Avrilla ball cap from his head and uses it to shield the side of his face
from it, looking up at the solar panel. Then he reseats his cap on his head. “Just the laptop?”

“A little refrigerator, too. And I’ve got plenty left over for a radio and a lamp at night. Even got a little television with a DVD player if I want it. More than that, I don’t need. We could set you up in a weekend.”

“Living off the grid,” Patterson says.

“Living off the grid,” Henry repeats. “You know what you ought to do?”

“Bet you’re gonna tell me.”

“You ought to let your wife add your name to that lawsuit. Get you enough money you can stay here full-time.”

“She’s not my wife anymore.” Then, “And how the hell do you know anything about it?”

“She came up looking for you while you were in Denver. I was happening by your cabin to show you the solar setup. We talked.”

Patterson sticks his thumbs in his pockets and eyes the hardware. Then he looks away. Up ahead, a golden eagle playing across the washed-out sky. Here disappearing in a flash of sun, there emerging against a strip of thin cloud. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated,” Henry says. His face crowds with whatever he’s thinking. Then he says it. “Believe me, Patterson, I know how much you miss your son. But it’s about time. And that gal thinks the world of you.”

Patterson does what he can to throttle his pulse and just nods. “What would you suggest I do for work?”

“I could talk to Paulson. You could clear brush for home pads and keep the roads clear.”

“It’s complicated,” Patterson says again, lamely. The eagle screams. It dives fifty or sixty feet and levels off, soaring out of sight.

20

smaller

T
hey sit in the garage, eating pizza and drinking beer out of brown bottles, the last yellow light of day striking through the bay doors and dust-washed windows. Junior’s never known two men as different as these two. Vicente small and wiry and bespectacled, his hair cropped close on his skull, erratic in speech and movement. Eduardo built more like a small mountain, heavily tattooed, with long black hair and the demeanor of a warrior king out of a children’s book. They sit shoulder to shoulder together, and it occurs to Junior that he’s never known them to have any friends other than him. That they live almost entirely in isolation, moving together with the familiarity of old dogs.

“You still thinking about getting out of the speed business?” Junior asks.

“I’m still thinking about it,” Vicente says. He looks at Junior, his eyes blinking rapidly. “I am sick of hearing about methamphetamines.
All this you see on television, that methamphetamines are some new scourge. There’s nothing new.”

“I don’t watch television,” Junior says.

“That is wise.” Vicente nods. “It’s better to play chess. Or even do what you do, drink beer and snort cocaine. Television will make you stupid. The things they say about methamphetamines, this is evidence.”

“Go ahead,” Junior says.

“This drug that is now the worst drug ever invented, do you know where it came from? I will tell you. It was invented as a diet drug, prescribed to housewives to control their weight. And now everyone is supposed to be scared of it. Why do you think that is?”

“No idea,” Junior says.

“They want everyone in prison, that’s why. Everyone they can’t make a use for. There are no new drugs, so they repackage old drugs. The worst drug ever, they say. They invented crack from cocaine to lock away the niggers, now they’re locking you gringos away over diet pills.”

“I never asked where you get it from, the meth,” Junior says. “I just pick it up. I know I ain’t the only driver, can’t be, don’t care. And as to the rest of your operation, it don’t mean shit to me.”

“True,” Vicente says. “You never ask anything. That is one of the things I like about you.”

Junior removes his eye patch and presses the heel of his hand against the bad eye. His hand comes away wet and he wipes it on his jeans. Then he thinks another minute before he asks what he knows he’s going to ask. “Is it La Familia?”

Vicente nods. “That’s who produces it, yes. Those are the people I was speaking of the other day.”

“Do you have any of those books? The ones they carry around with their sayings.”

“No,” Vicente says. “The books are written by their leader. He is known as El Más Loco.”

“El Más Loco?” Junior repeats.

“That’s right,” Vicente says.

“Does that mean the most crazy one?”

“That’s what it means. They are not subtle, this family.”

“Just a moment,” Eduardo says. He stands and walks back through the cars and parts and toolboxes, disappearing for a minute, and then returning with a grease-stained paperback in his hand. “Here.” He hands the book to Junior.

Junior turns it over in his hand. “
Brave of Heart
,” he reads. “Like the movie?”

“No.” Eduardo shakes his head. “This is about the heart you share with God. The heart that must be brave to be shared.”

“What is it?” Vicente asks.

“It’s the book they get their sayings from,” Eduardo says.

“Is that true?” Vicente asks. “Who wrote it?”

“A preacher in Colorado Springs.” Eduardo stuffs most of a slice of pizza in his mouth and swallows it in a lump. “A gringo who climbs mountains. They carry the book of sayings, but they must read this one before they are allowed to be members of La Familia.”

“The preacher lives in Colorado Springs?” Vicente asks.

“It’s globalization,” Eduardo says, nodding. “The world gets smaller every day.”

“Read something from it,” Vicente says to Junior.

Junior opens a page and reads at random. “Most Christians live by archaic laws,” he reads. “They live Jeremiah 17:9, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure,’ and give their hearts away to those that are not worthy of it. They waste their hearts on television and newspapers, they squander it in kitchenettes and malls. The only
questions that matter are buried in your heart, and it is a heart worthy of God. Brave, wild, bloody, and most of all free. And, yes, all of our hearts have been broken, but you must trust Him to heal them.”

“Gibberish,” says Vicente. “Craziness.”

“You can keep it,” Eduardo says to Junior.

“You can borrow it,” Vicente corrects. “I will read it when you’re done.”

“All right,” Junior says.

Vicente removes his glasses and wipes them on his shirt. He still looks a little rattled, but when he returns his glasses to his face, he is recovered. “Now I have a question for you,” he says.

“Shoot.”

“Do you know a man named Patterson Wells?”

“Yeah, I know him,” Junior says, reading the book’s back matter.

“There is a man looking for him.”

Junior looks up from the book. “What man?”

“I don’t know,” Vicente says. “His name is Chase. He has been all over Denver, giving out his phone number. He claims Patterson Wells has stolen crystal meth from him, a large amount. He is offering a thousand-dollar reward to anyone who will tell him where Patterson Wells lives.”

Junior holds the book against his leg. “Did you get his phone number?”