The Nirvana Blues (33 page)

“Heather—!”

“I'm going. Don't get a hernia.…”

The phone clattered, banged, clunked. A high, static-filled crackle entered the airwaves. Joe felt sick and apprehensive—then he heard breathing on the other end. “Hello?”

Michael replied shyly, “Hi, Daddy.”

“Oh, hey, Michael. How you doing?”

“I'm okay.”

“What's happening over there?”

“Oh … nothing.”

“Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘Oh nothing'? Heather just told me Mommy drank a bottle of Jack Daniel's last night and got sick as hell. That isn't ‘nothing,' is it?”

“I guess not. Are you coming home?”

A plaintive note in his son's voice suggested Michael was close to crying. Immediately, Joe felt weepy himself. He said, “I dunno yet. Sure. Probably. That's why I gotta talk to your mother. What's Heather doing in there, reading her her constitutional rights?”

“Mommy's awake, but she just ran into the bathroom.”

Oh Lord! The universe, a relatively stable conglomeration of potentially volatile atoms for eleventy (as Heather would say) billion years, had chosen the last three days in which to finally collapse.

Michael asked, “Where are you, Daddy? Are you over at her house?”

“‘Her'? I'm in Ralph's office on the plaza, where do you think I am?”

An embarrassed, choking silence bristled on the other end.

Joe said, “What's this about shooting a chickadee?”

“It wasn't a chickadee. Heather don't know shit.”

“She ‘doesn't' know shit.”

“I know. It was actually—”

“‘Doesn't,'” Joe interrupted. “Don't say ‘don't' know shit, the proper word is ‘doesn't' know shit.”

“Oh, all right.”

“Well, say it.”

“Say what?” He was totally confused.

“Say ‘doesn't.'”

“Doesn't.”

For some insane reason over which he had no control, Michael's thickness made Joe furious; he could barely contain his temper. “The goddam sentence, Michael, should have been, ‘She doesn't know shit!'”

Sounding like something from a gloom-riddled nether region beyond the Styx, Heidi's voice came over the line. “
Who
doesn't know shit? Me? What did you call up for, Joey, to rub salt in our wounds?”

“I was talking to Michael. He acts like good grammar is illegal. How come they aren't in school? You figured it was more educational to stay home and kill chickadees and watch Mommy vomit?”

“It wasn't a chickadee, it was a stupid English sparrow.”

“Well, who gave him a license to terrorize nature with his BB gun? As soon as I leave the premises for ten minutes, suddenly there's a total breakdown in discipline, and it's open season on every little animal in the valley?”

“He's upset, Joey. When he shot the bird I asked him how come, and he said he just felt like killing things. Frankly, I don't blame him. I feel like killing things myself, right now.”

“I don't feel so hot either.”

“Oh, the poor widdle icky-tums. Did you stop a bullet or something in that bus-station shootout last night?”

“No, but I could have.”

“Don't you mean ‘should' have?”

“You don't have to be totally nasty. Aren't things tough enough without the Cleopatra act?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“What's what supposed to mean?”

“‘The Cleopatra act'? It's just another one of your meaningless references to some kind of historical or glamorous thing or person or metaphor that's supposed to gloss over the fact you have nothing relevant to say. Not only that, but how in God's name can you pimp around accusing Michael of immorality, when you're creeping through gunfights trying to steal a hundred thousand dollars worth of illegal cocaine. Some gall!”

Joe waited a beat before asking, “You through?”

“I don't know. Give me a minute.…”

“It doesn't interest you, I don't suppose, that last night I actually wound up with the stuff Peter sent, does it?”

“Isn't that a double negative? ‘It doesn't,' and ‘I don't suppose,' and ‘does it,' all in the same sentence?”

“Ha ha.”

“Well, I can't believe your cruelty, Joey! Why don't you dance on over here and pour boiling oil on the heads of your two little babies? Because when you left yesterday you hadn't quite finished the job!”

“Heidi, if we tear each other apart like this we won't get anywhere.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don't know. That's why I called. I mean, it's stupid to stay apart like this. The whole thing started as a simple accident.…”

“Oh no you don't! As long as you're sleeping with that mongoose, I sure as hell don't want you near my house, my bed, or hanging out around my children.”

“In case you forgot, they're my children also.”

“Oh, excuse me. Of course. Why don't you come over and pick them up, then, and lead them over to Miss Spiritual America's place, and let them watch the two of you doing your celestial carnal act?”

“Heidi, what is the matter with you?”

“I'm pissed. Didn't you ever hear that expression, ‘Hell's got no fury like a woman scorned'?”

Incredibly, he heard himself saying, “‘Hell
hath
no fury like a woman scorned.'”

“What did you say?”

“Hell ‘hath.' Listen—”

“No, wait a minute. What were you doing,
correcting
me?”

“It's not important. Really. Now listen—”

“No, stop. I want to get this straight. You were correcting me, weren't you? ‘Hell
hath
no fury like a woman scorned'—is that it? I hope so, Joey. I really don't want to have any imperfections that might cause you to look askance at me or—”

“Stop!” he hollered. “Didn't you hear me? I got the coke! What am I supposed to do next?”

“Shove it up your ass, Frankenstein!”

In a rage, gasping for air yet once again, Joe slammed down the instrument, waking Diana.

“Hey,” she muttered groggily. “Take it easy.” Closing her eyes, then, she smiled and resumed snoring.

The phone jangled: Joe jumped a mile. “Hello?”

The Marlene Dietrich of the Perry Kahn Subdivision # 4 unleashed her tantalizingly breathy salutation: “Hi…”

“Who's this?”

“What do you mean, ‘Who's this'? It's me.”

“Who's—oh. You. What are you … how did you…”

“I called the Prince of Whales. Darlene gave me this number. How are you?”

“Fine, wonderful. Hey Nancy—”

“I miss you. I'm still glowing all over.…”

“Look, I'm sorry, I'm waiting for an important call, I'll talk to you later.”

“Anything wrong?”

“No, everything's fine. Hunky-dory squared. It's just things are also a little, you know, complicated. I mean, in my life right now there's a certain amount of sturm and drang going down. Like for starters, yesterday Michael shot a chickadee.”

“Do you have pills? Are you breathing okay?”

Joe realized that inside of perhaps a week her equanimity would drive him either insane or to murder.

“I'm sorry, Nancy, I got to hang up. Good-bye.…”

Diana opened one eye, croaking, “Who was that?”

“Jimmy Carter.”

“Oh.” Adjusting her diving weights, she floated under again. Her face was pink from sleep. Flushed, warm, and innocent, she seemed an angelic little bum. Enormous and tragic feelings of love moved Joe for a second. They could hijack a plane to Cuba together. Or else scurry away from Chamisaville under cover of darkest night, buy a cozy farm up around Bozeman, Montana, and spend the rest of their days trout fishing on the Bitterroot River.

Joe found his dilemma hard to believe. Played by Ray Milland, he could see himself slumped over a shiny mahogany bar in his own
Lost Weekend,
a burnt-out case before forty. Incredible to reflect that only forty-eight hours ago he had been halfway certain that they could convert the drug deal, buy the land, and gloat (as a family) over a future thus assured.

Instead, with the unsparing brutality of a shtetl pogrom, everything seemed to be collapsing. It only remained for him to bumble into a life sentence while trying to unload the coke, and the tragic farce would be complete!

Joe sighed loudly. The paragraph on the typing paper in the machine before him focused. After contemplating it for a moment, he decided to complete the sentence which began “In a cage on the nearby table the myna bird…” Three minutes later he wrote: “… was caught in a paroxysm of heinous and deleterious anticommunism that threatened to cauterize the only friendship it had ever had.”

“Are you okay?” Solicitously, Diana sat up, circling arms around her knees. She rested her chin on her arms. “You don't look so hot.”

“Oh, I feel like a million dollars.”

“Bullshit.”

It was impossible to face Diana. Joe harbored a mixture of hostility and sexual attraction for her. And fear, also. What did she want? Kicked out of her own digs, had she attached herself to him like a waifling puppy?

Joe said, “Now that you have no place to stay, what will you do?”

“I'm not worried. I never expected anything better. I have friends. I'll get along just fine.”

“How come you came to Chamisaville in the first place?”

“I just drifted here with a guy. He made jewelry and wore a turquoise turban. Then he split and I stayed. I lived with a couple of girls for a while—Josie and Patty. But they were crazy. Patty was only sixteen and pregnant: she'd been up at Alexander's Ragtime Crash Pad. Josie was eighteen—she came here from Santa Cruz with a People's Templer who ditched. She was into booze, and any kind of dope, and boys. The house was like the men's restroom at a football game, only instead of lining up for the urinals, they were lining up for Josie. She hated it, but said it was punishment because in a former life she had been an Egyptian gypsy who had stolen an emerald goblet from King Tut's tomb. One night she cut her wrists and ran up to the plaza covered with blood and singing ‘money can't buy you love'—the Beatles' song. About that time I got it on with Angel. It was a little better than the house with Josie and Patty, but not much. Angel gets off on being mean. In his previous incarnation, by the way, he claims to have been a mild-mannered Negro clerk in Bloomington, Indiana, who'd been unjustly imprisoned for embezzlement by a jealous Caucasian lover who happened to be the local DA, and he was stabbed to death in jail by a Communist faggot. So this time around he's determined not to let anybody make any moves on him, not ever. And I must say he's certainly a surly son of a bitch.”

“But I mean, why did you come
here?
What did you
want?
”

“‘Want'?” She shrugged. “An alternate life-style? Pie in the sky? I don't know. Adventure?” She smiled wistfully. “I had some friends back in Indiana who said Chamisaville was far-out.”

“But what do you want to be when you grow up?”

She uncorked her captivating lustrous smile. “It doesn't matter. Whatever happens, I'll adjust. You only make yourself miserable messing around with a lot of phony goals.”

“What about marriage? Kids?”

“Someday I might have a kid. But I'll never get married. For sure, I won't worry myself sick wondering how my life is gonna turn out.”

“You're depressing me.”

Standing, she walked behind him, put her arms around his neck, and touched her lips to his earlobe, imparting a delicate kiss. “I'm okay, Joe—honest. I'm a pretty tough cookie and I like my life. Don't shed any tears for this lady. Save them for yourself.”

Reaching up, Joe took her hand. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, you seem like a semifragile soul. You're old-fashioned, also hip, and you don't believe in either one.”

“Screw you. Let's get out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don't know about you, but I'm heading out to Tribby's castle. I have to talk with Heidi and see my kids. Then—I dunno. I need a place to stay. I have to move this coke.…”

“I own a tent.”

“So what?”

“Maybe you would let me pitch it on your land for a while?”

“It isn't my land yet.”

“But you put up the earnest money.”

“Granted. But it might look funny.…”

“To who?”

“Oh, who cares anymore? You're welcome to try. Just ask the old man—Eloy Irribarren—for permission, okay?”

“Hey, thanks.” She gave him another hug, another sweet kiss. “You're a gentleman and a scholar, Joe Miniver.”

“In my previous incarnation they called me Mr. Big.”

“Don't beshry.…”

She was gone, leaving him alone again and terrified of this Brave New World into which he had floundered, a swingler's madhouse with liberty, if not justice, for all. Though Joe started by thinking about Heidi and the kids, he wound up, split seconds later, fantasizing about Diana in bed. Her white thighs considerately muffled his hearing; her fingers plucked at his lips; she smelled like snow when it was still falling. Her cheeks were like unutterably soft ice. Her heavy breasts fell into his hands, and he molded them with trembling fingers into near-bursting happy globes The phone rang, and without thinking he answered.

Nancy Ryan said, “Will you be home for dinner tonight?”

“Will I be
where
for
what?
”

*   *   *

W
HEN HE PEDALED
as surreptitiously as possible past their lair, Mimsy and Tuckums remained beneath the Laidlaw pickup, nursing their broken ribs, punctured lungs, and dreams of revenge. Joe heard a disheartened snarl and caught an ambiguous glower from the darkness under there. Assailed by guilt, he also gave them the finger, wondering why he had never summoned the guts in his simpering lifetime to punt an animal—a child, a wife, an enemy—as had Bertram Laidlaw yesterday. No matter how they misbehaved, Joe's kids would never know the humiliation of being battered children. No matter how she taunted and tormented him, Heidi would never be able even remotely to conceive of what it was like to be an abused and battered spouse. Often Joe wished he could liberate the King Kong inside his fumbling, semicompassionate, quasi-gentle body.
CIRCUS ELEPHANT GOES AMOK, TRAMPLES WORLD-FAMOUS CUB SCOUT
! The release offered by murder, maiming, and other
m
-words (marauding, maliciousness, and malevolence to name a few) had to be wonderful. He admired the ability, nay, the passion, of a Nikita Smatterling, who could, in defense of his principles (and his child), stick the snout of a loaded .38 into the plump belly of such a goon as Ephraim Bonatelli and pull the trigger. My God, what a purge! Dig those lurid headlines! Flee those police dragnets! “Using a machine gun borrowed from a black disc jockey, Joe Miniver, age thirty-eight, a Caucasian drug kingpin, went on a rampage last night. After blasting his wife and kiddies while they were watching a ‘Kojak' television program, Mr. Miniver assassinated his paramour, one Nancy Ryan, her child Bradley, and the Ryans' pet monkey, Sasha. Then, leaving a swath of death and destruction across Chamisa County, Mr. Miniver escaped on foot into the thickly forested Midnight Mountains.…”