Journey to an 800 Number (8 page)

Iago came with Emmy. He didn’t act as if Manuelo had said anything to him either.

I gathered together all the dirty clothes that we had and wrapped them in a sheet. Emmy then went to the cupboard and got a box of detergent and handed it to me. I started out the door. Emmy called after me. “Wait for me. I’m sposed to take you.”

I thought that lugging a couple weeks’ supply of dirty clothes including an extra set of sheets plus a box of detergent was enough to do without babysitting, too. But Emmy came along. She reached up for my hand that I thought I needed to help support the load I had slung over my shoulder. She took me straight to the laundromat. The minute that I set the bundle of sheets down, she began sorting them according to some system that I had seen but never taken seriously on television commercials. She then looked over the four piles and lumped two of them together. “We won’t use bleach this week,” she said, “and we’ll use the heavy loaders.” Then
she asked me for nine quarters, which I gave her. She filled three washing machines, standing on a step stool that was nearby. She put three quarters, one after the other, in each of the three slots and came over to the row of chairs where I was sitting. She climbed into a chair next to me, turned, crossed her arms across her chest and said, “Let’s hope none of these suckers break down. The mother who runs this place screams and won’t give you your money back when they do.”

I scratched my head and said nothing. Emmy continued to sit there, her arms folded across her chest, staring at the washers while they filled up and began doing whatever it is they do.

“You can go home,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

“Mama told me to help.”

“Did Manuelo say anything to your mama about me?” I asked.

“About your checking on the money, you mean?”

“Well, about that or about anything else.”

“Manuelo just said that you’re a asshole, and Mama, she said that you’re young for your age and that we should remember that what we do is because we love your papa. No one said anything else. Jesus looked like he wanted to say something, but Mama told him to zip up and get to bed.”

We sat in silence until the machines finished their cycle, and then Emmy showed me how to dry the clothes and fold them when they were done. On
the way back to the camper, she held my hand again just like someone who is really her own age.

That night when Manuelo stopped by with the money, he just put it down on the counter. I said nothing, and he said nothing. Mama Rosita and Iago, or Jesus or Emmy came by at times during the day, and so did a lot of the Fair regulars. They brought gifts for Father. A man who had a hot dog concession brought a six-pack of beer. Two Indians from the Five Civilized Tribes Booth of Indian Folk Art brought Father a blanket from all of them. (It was a large booth.) Pete, a security guard, brought a cellophane pack of Tom’s cheese crackers. Fanny brought a basket of fruit from all of the game concession people. I had to thank each of them and give each a health report on Father. I now knew why when famous people get sick, they have a hospital spokesman give health bulletins at certain times during the day. I got tired of saying that Father had had a good night or that his fever was down. I got tired of saying the same things, and I got tired of hearing the same things.
So you’re Bo? How do you like our Fair? That’s some nice guy you have for a daddy. You take good care of that old man now, hear?

I got tired of it all.

I got tired of hearing how Father was one of the nicest guys in the world.

On the last day of the Fair, Father was feeling well enough to get dressed and shaved and sit for
short periods of time on the camper step. “Hey, Bo,” he said, “why don’t you take a day off and just wander around the fairgrounds and see what there is to see. I’ll be all right.” He reached inside his pocket and handed me ten dollars. I told him I didn’t want it. “Aw, go on,” he urged.

“I don’t want pay for my services,” I said. “I have fifty dollars that Mr. Malatesta gave me.”

Father put the ten back in his pocket. “Have it your way.” He shrugged.

“And now that you’re fully conscious, I would appreciate being called Maximilian.”

I walked away. I don’t know why I said that to Father. I really didn’t mind being called Bo. When people have names as strange as Jesus, it doesn’t much matter if you’re called Bo instead of Maximilian or Max.

Father told me that he was going over to the track to see Ahmed, and he invited me to come along, but I didn’t.

The sounds of the fairground were different that night. Everyone was breaking up camp, doing as much repacking as they could so that they could pull out early in the morning. Manuelo came by with the sign and the money. He told Father that he had locked the gear in the box in the truck, and he also told him that he was glad that he was feeling better.

I was anxious to see how Father would handle this thank you because it was a big one. This is what
Father did: he punched Manuelo in the upper arm. It was what is called an
affectionate
punch, and he said, “Manuelo, whenever you want a job, you have one with me if you can find me.”

Manuelo said, “Sure, Woody, and whenever you want the best tacos in Texas, you can buy them at Mama Rosita’s at a discount.” Then he gave Father a light jab in the stomach.

“Now you wouldn’t dare try that if I were a healthy man.”

“No. Then it would be full of tacos.”

“I’m coming with you to your mama’s. I want to say goodbye until next year.”

Neither invited me to go along, so I didn’t.

Manuelo and Father left with the air between Manuelo and me still ugly enough to give cramps. I made certain that I was in bed before Father got back. I was glad that Father’s illness had made me move to the upper bunk because that way he didn’t have to see me when he came back. He took his old guitar down and started strumming and humming. I called down from my bunk, “I thought you said that we’d have a long drive tomorrow. Don’t you think you ought to get some sleep?”

“I’ve been sleeping a lot, Bo.”

I climbed down out of my top bunk. I had to know. “Did Manuelo say anything to you about me?”

“No. Should he have?”

“I just wondered if he mentioned anything about the money?”

Father said no, and then I told him what had happened. He said nothing. He said nothing for a long time. He just kept his hands on his guitar and continued to say nothing until finally I said, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Next time don’t be so anxious to show how smart you are.”

“That’s next time. What can I do about Manuelo?”

“Nothing. Except consider it a lesson for next time.”

“You sure don’t know anything about how to comfort someone.”

Father started strumming his guitar again. I waited. If Father could be good at saying nothing, I could be better at waiting. He stopped strumming, but he didn’t put his guitar down. He did look up at me and study me for a long, long time. I waited that out, too. At last he said, “Tell me, Bo, if you had your first choice of anything in the world to do for the rest of this month, what would it be?”

“I’d be on that cruise with Mother and F. Hugo Malatesta the First. I’d be eating in the first-class dining room and I’d be strolling around the first-class deck and I’d be swimming in the first-class pool.”

“Would you feel more at home there than you do here?”

“I don’t know if I would. How should I know if I would? All I know is that first class is something I was meant to get used to, and life with a camel isn’t any kind of training for it.”

Father laughed. He put his guitar down and said, “Come here, Bo.” I hesitated. He repeated, “Come here.” I did.

He put one arm around me and then the other. “Do you know what? I would like to be on that cruise, too. I would like to be going first class. And do you know why? Not because it’s something I want to get in practice for but because I’d like to watch those people. It would be like watching people from another country. And then ever afterwards, I’d know that I had seen something up close that I’d never seen before.” He pushed me away from him, just a little way. Our eyes were on the same level. He said, “Let me ask you this, Bo. Do you think you could visit with me, with Ahmed, as I would visit that cruise? Like a foreigner? Watching the customs and saying, ‘Oh, that’s strange. Oh, that’s new’—but remembering that you’re a visitor, and visitors don’t set the customs; they observe them. Do you think you could do that?”

“Sure. I could do that,” I said. “But you’re asking me to try to be something I’m not.”

“How do you know that Mr. Malatesta isn’t asking the same thing?”

I thought about that awhile before I realized that I didn’t really know what Mr. Malatesta was
asking. Father pulled me toward him. It was a hug.

“I’ll do it,” I said. He tightened his hold on me. “There’s just one thing more I want to say.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m really sorry about Manuelo.”

“I know, Bo. I know you are. You probably will be for a long time.”

“And I really don’t like camels.”

“That’s two things, Bo; that’s two things.”

We went to bed, and I felt ready to be a stowaway in Father’s summer. I even felt a little anxious to.

Our next stop was Oakes’ Dude Ranch outside Denver. We took two days getting there. Father’s strength was at about three-fourths, and remembering how the disease had wiped me out, I could tell that he was pushing it, so I made up a few extra hunger pangs and a few extra calls of nature that I described as urgent. Father never suspected what I was doing and never got impatient with me for doing it.

Father said that I would like Oakes. It was a big place where conventions brought people by the busload for an evening’s or an afternoon’s entertainment. They had a big ranch meal with steaks grilled on the outdoor grills. In the evening some of the ranch hands would sing around a campfire. And the people would ride horses. Father had been bringing Ahmed for the past five years because being that there were more Eastern city folk at these conventions than almost anything else, they felt awkward about riding horses. But since no one knew how to ride a camel and everyone looked
awkward doing it, Ahmed had been a big hit, and they had invited Father back year after year. We would be eating with the conventioneers, he said. Gave them a better feeling to be eating with the ranch hands. They thought it was more authentic, and it gave them a chance to talk to someone who didn’t do the same daily things they did. The ranch hands all doubled at waiting tables plus something else: like singing or helping people on the horses or doing rope tricks.

“Conventions are funny things, Bo,” he said. Father had taken to calling me Bo all the time now, and I hardly reminded him about it anymore. Actually, I had altogether stopped reminding him.

“Conventions are a way of life,” he said.

Sabrina had said the same thing.

“Everyone comes together united by something. They’re all doctors or they’re all doctors of cancer or they’re all doctors of cancer of the pancreas. Or the liver or the esophagus. But, here’s the funny thing about the people. I’ve never seen them at their meetings, but they never talk about what it is that unites them when they’re not at a meeting. Houses. They talk a lot about houses and the cost of them. And the stock market. And the cost of stocks. That’s what they talk about mainly: what things cost.

“We’ll have good meals, but it will be the same thing every time. The people will be different.

There are certain types that always show up at any convention, and you’ll get to meet some of each type.”

We plugged in at the ranch about noon. Father unleashed and fed Ahmed while I made sandwiches for lunch. Then we drove into town and Father bought me two western shirts and two bandannas for around my neck. I already had jeans. I decided to buy boots with part of the money Mr. Malatesta had given me. I discovered that the boots I really wanted took all of it. Father said, why not? And I said that meant the boots were worth fifty kiddy rides on Ahmed, and Father said, so what? And so I bought them. After all, I had promised Mr. Malatesta to spend the fifty dollars foolishly, and boots didn’t seem foolish unless they were expensive, and I explained my thinking to Father.

He didn’t agree. “To buy fancy and expensive boots is not foolish, but talking about it is.”

I understood what he meant.

We got back to the dude ranch before the first bus of conventioneers arrived from town. Father introduced me (as Bo) to the people who worked at the ranch. One of them was Ruth Britten, and she seemed more glad to see Father than any of the others. I watched her a lot. The first convention group that came were social workers, and I have never seen a more sincere bunch of people. Ruthie Britten asked one man if he would like another cup
of coffee. He did not say, “Yes, thank you” or “No thanks,” he said, “How kind of you to ask,” and then he turned to the person sitting next to him and asked, “How do you feel about another cup of coffee, Sam?” And Sam said, “Do you think it’s decaffeinated?” and the first man said, “Good question. Shall we ask?” Sam said, “I suppose we should.” The first man turned to Ruthie, who was standing there holding the coffeepot, and asked, “May I ask, please, is the coffee decaffeinated?” and she said, “No, it isn’t, but I’ll speak to the management about it. You decaffeinated drinkers need more representation.” The man smiled at her and then smiled at his friend and said, “That’s true. This young lady has made a good point.” Then Ruthie Britten lifted her coffeepot and said, “How about it, boys? Feeling brave?” They both nodded and took seconds.

I liked that Ruthie Britten, and on the way back to the camper that night, I told Father about how she had handled those two men. “What’s she do besides wait on tables?”

“She drives the bus to Denver to pick them up. She’s smart all right,” Father said. “She’s a school librarian down in Lafayette, Louisiana, the rest of the year. She works here summers during the height of the convention season. We’ve been meeting at Oakes’ Ranch for about four years now. Tonight will start our fifth.”