The Water Museum (7 page)

A lone cloud sailed out of Colorado and evaporated in the Wyoming sky.

Hubbard popped open her glove box. Papers and whatnot tumbled out. Receipts, maps, registration, tampons, matches, ChapStick. He held a tampon and remembered. How she had dared him to insert one in her during her period. “Go on,” she had taunted. “I won't break.” How she'd stood with one foot on the toilet, and he had knelt there before her as if it were some ancient ritual, and he had tried to do it without somehow tearing secret woman-stuff in there. Thrilled and queasy in equal measure. It had seemed sacred at the time. He shook his head.

More clouds now, hanging above him as if they were pictures of clouds glued to a blue sheet of paper.

And that's when he found it. Her stash. A baggie full of pills and capsules. Pink ones. Blue ones. Red ones. A black one. White tabs with X's on them. AA, eh? Recovery, eh? Well, as the bluesmen said, well, well. Couples therapy. Sponsors. Al-Anon. And all the time she had this hidden in her car.

He fell back in the seat. He was done in. He laughed as he slapped the dash, his own head.

“Too much!” he cried.

After a while, it stopped being funny. Any of it. Cambridge. Harvard Extension. Who was he kidding? His day job was at a community college in Framingham. Harvard? One more ridiculous affectation. Everything in his life had ended up here, in the wasteland, with his engine burned to a crisp. How appropriate. This was the punch line of the cosmic joke. Hubbard the Absurd.

“To hell with it.”

He tipped the bagful of pills into his mouth and washed it down with tepid French water.

He arranged himself on the hood. Then hopped down and trotted to the back of the car and found a scarf. He wrapped it jauntily around his neck and got back on the hood.

The crows lost interest and flew away.

Come, death.

Come.

2. Serenity Contract

Don Her Many Horses was on his way from Pine Ridge to Boulder. The crazy dudes of the Oyate organization at the college were throwing their yearly party. He never missed it. The theme this year was “Dances with Nerds.” You were supposed to come as the biggest dweeb you could imagine.

Don had heard the term “big-time” in Rapid. A white biker had said it, and he liked it. He tried it now:
I'm going as a nerd, big-time.

He was trying to quit smoking, and it wasn't going all that well. But he worked that Doublemint gum and drummed his fingers on the wheel, listening to Skynyrd. He did his best to ignore the Marlboro Red hard pack tucked into the visor.

He spied a tan Volvo on the right shoulder. Slowed down to take a look. A white guy asleep on the hood. What's the deal with white boys, anyway? Getting a tan out here?

Horses stared as he passed, his head clicking in small increments like the Terminator. About fifty yards down the road, he stopped. He watched in the rearview. That was just squirrely, that scene. Guy looked dead. His feet in high-tops splayed out, unmoving. His head slumped to the side, mouth open.

Horses told himself it wasn't any of his business. If some wasichu decided to get out here and croak—well, more power to him. Nothing good was going to come of getting involved.

He pulled over and parked. Checked his cell phone. No signal. But he already knew that. He put it in reverse and slowly backed up. Came even with the man and hit the window button.

“Hey,” he said.

Nothing.

“Hey!”

Hubbard jumped, just a little.

“Hey! Wake up!”

Hubbard cracked his eyes open and cast around as if he were a scuba diver looking at a reef.

“Huh?” Hubbard said.

Don raised his hand.

“How,” he said.

He loved saying that to white boys.

Hubbard focused his eyes.

“Some truck,” he croaked.

“You all right?”

“Not exactly. All right. No.”

Don nodded. Now he'd tore it—had to pull over. Had to make sure. Now this clown was going to be on his hands.

Hubbard looked at the cottonwood in the field.

“Car broke,” he said.

Horses leaned over and stuck out his head to look at the Volvo. A thick braid tumbled down and hung there. “Let's take a look,” Don said.

“Gee, could you?” Hubbard said.

Don Her Many Horses parked, put down his size-thirteen black cowboy boot.

Horses reached back into the truck and extracted a big black cavalry hat. It had a high crown and an ample brim, curved down over his eyebrows. Braided horsehair hatband, and a feather attached by some kind of thong.

“Nice hat,” Hubbard said.

Horses walked past, saying nothing.

He rested his fists on his hips and observed the landscape. He didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to rescue Hubbard. “Pronghorn,” he said.

“Excuse me?” he shouted, barely maintaining.

“Pronghorn. Antelope. Right over there.”

Hubbard squinted.

“I mean. Really! For Christ's sake!” he declared.

“What?” said Horses, thinking:
Oh, wonderful—white boy's crazy.

Hubbard waved his hand as if to show Horses it was nothing.

“He's watching us,” Horses said.

“As we are watching him.” Hubbard smiled.

“You stretch out on the grass over there,” Horses said, pointing with his chin. “He won't be able to stay away. He'll be so curious, he'll walk over to take a look.”

“Do tell!” Hubbard enthused.

Horses said, “Watch this.”

He took off his hat, waved it above his head. Suddenly, like a tawny ICBM, the little antelope sprang straight into the air. He pogoed away, bouncing along and casting disapproving glances back at them.

“Hey!” Hubbard cried.

“Yeah,” Horses said. “Wish I had my rifle out.”

“Pronghorn steak,” said Horses. “Marinated in wild blueberries. That's good eatin'.”

Screw it. He reached into the cab. Grabbed out his red pack. Tapped out a smoke and hung it on his lip. “Smoke too much,” he said, lighting up. “That's my Indian name.” He rasped out a laugh, blew a stream of smoke at Hubbard. “Is that a bear claw?” he said.

Hubbard fingered his Chittimacha hoodoo on its thong.

“Gaaatorrr. Tooothhh.”

Horses fished out a chain from under his shirt.

“Grizzly,” he said. “Clawwww.”

Hubbard started weeping.

“What about the carrr?” he asked.

“The car?” said Horses. “It's a Volvo.”

Hubbard just stared at him, eyes wet.

White guys,
Horses thought.
They're just not that funny.

While Don Her Many Horses tried the ignition and listened to its screech, Hubbard's pills kicked off like cheap Fourth of July fireworks.
Pop! Pow!
He flew off the hood and bounced around on the blacktop. Holy SHIT! The SUN! It was SO BRIGHT! He hopped around like a pronghorn at a rave. He was WHOLE. He was fully REALIZED. His high-tops were full of freakin' Flubber.

He pointed at Horses.

“Hey, Smoke Too Much!” he said. “They call you boo in Louisiana!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Cajun guys say Poo-Yi before they kick your ass!”

“That right.”

“Boo!”

“Don't call me boo.”

“Right!” Hubbard agreed. “Right, right, right? Who, me? Never. Not once. Never said boo in my life. I'm so amped.”

“How's about that,” muttered Horses, fiddling with knobs and the ignition. He got out. He stretched his back. “Your car's broke, for sure,” he said.

“Not my car. Not really. I mean, I paid for it, sure. But it's hers. Still, I forked over the cash. Every cent! So it should be mine. Right? Did you see that crow? I own it now, I guess.” He patted the Volvo. “My war pony!”

Horses crossed his arms and leaned against the car. Butt on the fender.

“You done paid every cent,” he prodded.

“Right! Right-right. Every goddamned cent. Put her through
grad school.
How do you like that? Took her five years to get a stinking
M.A.!
Not to mention five years of couples therapy. Out of my pocket.”

Horses listened as the whole sad story fell out.

“Smoke. Can I call you Smoke? Or do you prefer Mr. Too Much? Have you ever been in therapy? Did I ask you that? Whatever. Probably not. What do you do? Sweat lodge, am I right? Can we do a sweat lodge? As I was saying: therapy. That was the key, you see. The key to everything. Second only to recovery. Recover this!” he cried, grabbing his crotch.

“Whoa, now. You're getting skittish.”

Hubbard sadly noted, “We'd even made out our serenity contract right before she left.”

Horses looked bored with this happy horseshit.

Horses said, “Pop the hood latch.”

Hubbard reached in and yanked the handle.

“Oh,” he sighed, starting his long descent. “I suppose it was all inner-child-related.”

Horses, bent into the maw of the car, said, “Inner child? You got an inner child?” He backed away. “What are you, pregnant?”

Then he laughed:
HAW!

He walked around in a circle. Shook his head.
HAW!

He raised his hands as if warding off a blow.

“Just funnin',” he said.

He reached into the engine compartment and pulled out the oil dipstick.

“Got a rag?” he said.

Hubbard reached in his pocket and pulled out his wife's panties.

Horses said, “Jesus Christ! Get rid of that!”

But Horses didn't need a rag after all. The dipstick was clean. Shiny. Devoid of oil. He whirled upon Hubbard and brandished it like a fencer approaching with a foil.

“Look at that,” he said.

“What.”

“No oil.”

“So?”

“So—no oil.”

“So what?”

“How far did you drive this rig?”

“I don't know. Boston to Florida. Texas. Here.”

“Five thousand miles?” Horses cried. “Six? Are you kiddin' me?”

“It was a long journey,” Hubbard declaimed. “Perhaps epic in scope. Still, it had to encompass my grief and sense of…”

“Bud,” said Horses. “You drove six thousand miles and never checked your oil!”

Hubbard sneered.

“It's, like, a Volvo,” he said. “Built to last. Duh.”

Horses slammed the hood.

“I tell you what, kola,” he said. “You done toasted this engine dead.”

Hubbard, fully into his crash now, hung his head.

“Graveyard dead.” He said.

What Don Her Many Horses did not want to do was to give this clown a ride to Colorado. He could either head on out, or stall long enough for somebody else to come along and take over the rescue operation. Ol' Mr. White Bread could hop in their car and be on his way.

Hubbard had started in on his recent domestic crisis again.

Horses said, “Hey, get over it.”

“Excuse me—it's only been a week. Not even a week.”

“Yeah, and a week ought to be long enough for you to get over it. Way I see it, you came out ahead.”

“I. Was. Abandoned.”

“You was set free. She set your spirit free, man. You ought to say a prayer for her.”

Hubbard was silent.

“You owe her,” Horses said.

He was looking south. He might have seen a windshield sparkle down there. You never knew. Deliverance seemed at hand.

He was dismayed to see the sparkle veer left and cut across the plain, trailing a vague dust cloud.

“Mind if I borrow your rifle?” Hubbard blurted.

Horses blinked at him.

“Your rifle. Can I use it? Just for a minute.” Hubbard was riding back up the slope.

“What for?”

“I'm going to put my war pony out of its misery.”

“You can't shoot a car. It's a felony or something.”

“I already stole the damned thing.”

This was getting interesting again. Horses had seen a lot of things, but he'd never seen a guy kill a car with a rifle.

“You know how to work a rifle?” he said.

“Sure. I got a marksmanship merit badge in the Scouts.”

“He got a merit badge,” Horses muttered.

He retrieved the rifle, loaded a few rounds from a box under the seat. Worked the lever.

He handed the rifle to Hubbard. “One thing,” he said. “You even begin to aim that thirty-thirty at me, and I'm going to run you over.”

He trotted to his rig, jumped in, locked the doors, and fired her up.

Hubbard sauntered to the Volvo and tried to control the weapon. It wobbled and drifted. He braced the rifle against his shoulder and popped off a round. A headlight exploded. The car barely rocked. He turned to Horses and grinned. Gave a big thumbs-up.

Crack!

Hole in the windshield.

Horses tooted the horn.

Crack!

A rusted-out Datsun pickup with wire bundles and tools piled in the bed rolled up and sat there as Hubbard bushwhacked the Volvo.

The driver got out and tapped on Don's window.

“Yep?”

“Sir? What's the deal with this here?”

“Guy's killin' his wife's car.”

“Dang.”

“Yep.”

“What she do, step out?”

“Ran, sounds like.”

The driver called back to his bud, “Butch! Guy's killin' his wife's car.”

“Sweet!” hollered Butch.

Crack!

The kid spit some chaw and said, “There goes the mirror.”

“Yep.”

Butch joined the party.

“How you figure in this?” he asked.

“I am an observer of life's many pleasures,” Horses said.

“Shee-it.”

“Sir?” the first waddy said. “You think I could get in a shot?”