Tree of Smoke (18 page)

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did you graduate?”

“I’d have to go one more year to graduate.”

“Ain’t nothing else to do besides graduate, is there?”

“Not where I can see. Or I was thinking about the army, maybe.”

“Why not the navy?”

“Too many sailors in the navy, pard.”

“You’re a wiseass, pard. Better join the army, pard. Because you’d just get your ass kicked daily in my branch of the service.”

James was at a loss. He didn’t actually know this guy.

The operator interrupted, and Bill had to deposit more coins.

James said, “Are you in a bar, or what?”

“Yeah, a bar. I’m in a bar in Honolulu, Hawaii.”

“Well, I guess that’s…” He didn’t know what it was.

“Yeah. I been in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Honolulu—let me see, where else, I don’t know—and the tropics ain’t no tropical paradise, I’m saying. It’s full of rot—bugs, sweat, stink, and I don’t know what-all else. And most of the beautiful tropical fruit you see, it’s rotten. It’s mashed on the street.”

James said, “Well…I’m glad you called.”

“Yeah,” Bill said.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Bill said. “Hey, tell Mom I called, okay? And tell her I said hi.”

“Okay.”

“Okay…Tell her I love her.”

“Okay. So long.”

“Hey. Hey. James.”

“Yeah?”

“You still there?”

“I’m still here.”

“Go in the Marines, man.”

“Aah, them are overrated.”

“The Marines get a sword.”

“The Marines are really the navy,” James said, “part of the navy.”

“Yeah…well…”

“Well…”

“Only the officers get a sword, anyway,” Bill Junior said.

“Yeah…”

“Well, I gotta go get laid,” Bill said.

“Get some!”

“What do you know about it?” his brother said, laughing as he hung up.

James searched the kitchen drawers and found half a pack of his mother’s Salems. Before he got out the door the phone rang—Bill Junior.

“Is it you again?”

“Last time I looked, yeah.”

“What’s up?”

“Say hi to South Mountain for me.”

“We don’t see South Mountain no more. We see the Papago Buttes.”

“On the east side?”

“We’re on East McDowell.”

“East McDowell?”

“Ain’t that the shits?”

“You’re out in the desert!”

“Mom’s working on a horse ranch.”

“I’ll be goddamned.”

“She knows about horses from when she was a little girl.”

“Watch out the gila monster don’t bite you.”

“There ain’t any shade, but it’s nice. We’re right up near the Pima Reservation.”

“And you’re in school.”

“I been at Palo Verde for a while, since about October, maybe.”

“Palo Verde?”

“Yeah.”

“Palo Verde?”

“Yeah.”

“When we lived over on South Central, our school used to play Palo Verde in basketball or something, or football. What was the name of our school that time?”

“I went to the elementary. Carson Elementary.”

“I’ll be goddamned. I can’t remember the name of my own high school I went to.”

“Ain’t that the shits?”

“Do you ever get to Florence?”

“Nope.”

“Do you ever see Dad?”

“Nope,” James said. “He ain’t my dad, is why.”

“Well, you stay out of trouble. Learn by his example.”

“I don’t follow none of his examples. I don’t even look at his examples.”

“Well,” Bill Junior said, “anyway…”

“Anyway. Yeah. Are you really on Waikiki Beach?”

“Not really. Not right now.”

“We’re right about at Fifty-second and McDowell. They have a zoo over here.”

“A what?”

“Yeah, a little zoo.”

“Hey, tell Mom something—when is she gonna be home?”

“Later. A couple hours.”

“Maybe I’ll call her. I want to tell her about something. There’s two guys on my ship from Oklahoma, so anyway, you know what they both said? Said I sound like Oklahoma. I said, ‘Well, sir, I’ve never been—but my people are.’ Tell Mom that, okay?”

“I’ll do that.”

“Tell her she started me in Oklahoma, and I come out like I’m from there.”

“Okay.”

“Okay!—that’s short for Oklahoma!”

“I’ll be goddamned,” James said.

“Yeah. Ain’t that the shits?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So long.”

They hung up.

Drunk as a lord, James thought. Probably an alkie like his father.

Burris marched in with his cap gun in one hand and a Popsicle in the other, wearing his short-pants and nothing else, looking like a little stick man. “I think I got a spark in my eye.”

James said, “I gotta get going.”

“Does it look like I got a spark in my eye?”

“No. Shut up, you peculiar little feller.”

“Can I ride in the back of the truck?”

“Not unless you want to get bumped out and killed.”

He showered and changed, and just as he was going out, the phone rang. His brother again.

“Hey…James.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey…James.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey. Hey. Hey…”

James hung up and left the house.

James picked up Charlotte, and then Rollo, and then a girl Rollo liked named Stevie—short for Stephanie—Dale, and they drove out toward the McDowell Mountains looking for a party they’d heard about, a wild unchaperoned outdoor affair, supposedly, off the road and out in the desert away from anything; but if such a gathering actually went on, it was lost in a maze of dry washes, and they steered back to the highway and sat in the back of the pickup drinking beer. “Couldn’t you get it no colder?” James asked.

“I stole it from the icebox in the barn,” Rollo said.

“Can’t even find a party on graduation night,” James said.

“This isn’t graduation night,” Charlotte said.

“What is it, then?”

“It’s the last day of school. I’m not graduating. Are you graduating?”

“Warm beer,” James said.

“I’ll never graduate,” Charlotte said. “I don’t care.”

Rollo said, “Yeah, who gives a flying fuck,” and they all laughed at his vulgarity, and he said, “We’re country kids.”

“No, we ain’t,” James said.

“Your mother works on a horse ranch. My dad messes with irrigation. And there’s a great big barn behind my house, pardner.”

“It’s nicer out here,” Stevie Dale said. “No cops.”

“That’s true,” James said, “ain’t nobody to bother you.”

“Just mind the snakes.”

“Mind this snake,” Rollo said, and the girls whooped and laughed.

It was a disappointment to James that when the two girls laughed, Charlotte had to be the one who forced beer out her nose. Stevie was younger, just a freshman, but she seemed simpler and not so nervous. Stevie kept her posture straight, and she smoked in a sexy way. What was he doing with Charlotte? Actually he liked Stevie.

He dropped Rollo off, and then he drove Charlotte home. Stevie kind of ended up still in the truck. He made sure of letting Charlotte off first.

He kissed Charlotte goodbye as they stood out front of her house. She locked her arms behind his neck and clung to him, her lips slack and wet. James held her without much strength, with his left arm only, and let his right arm hang. Charlotte’s older brother, out of work, came and stared from the doorway. “Shut the door or turn off the damn cooler, you fool,” her mother called from within.

In the truck James asked Stevie, “You need to go home?”

“Not exactly,” she said, “not really.”

“You want to drive around?”

“Sure. That might be nice.”

They ended up right back where they’d been with the others an hour before, looking out at the low mountains, listening to the radio.

“What’s your plans for the summer?” Stevie said.

“I’m waiting on a sign.”

“That means you don’t have any,” she said.

“Any what?”

“Any plans.”

“I don’t know if I should aim for just a summer job, or find something real and permanent—just not go back to school.”

“You mean drop out?”

“I was thinking I’d get in the service like my dad.”

She made no response to this idea. She placed her fingertip on the dashboard and rubbed it back and forth.

James had run out of conversation. His neck felt so taut he doubted he could even turn his head. Not one word to say occurred to him.

He wished she’d say something about Charlotte. All she said was, “What are you so sulky about?”

“Shit.”

“What.”

“I think I’ve gotta break up with Charlotte. I really have to.”

“Yeah…I’d say she probably feels it coming.”

“Really? She does?”

“You’re just not lit up around her, James, not at all.”

“You can tell, huh?”

“You’ve got a cloud raining down all around you.”

“What about right now this minute?”

“What.”

“Ain’t raining down on me right this minute, is it?”

“No.” She was smiling, she was the sun. “Are you really going into the service?”

“Yep. The army or the Marines. I guess you’re gonna let me kiss you now, ain’t you?”

She laughed. “You’re funny.”

He kissed her a long time and then she said, “That’s what I like about you. You’re funny when you’re happy. And you’re good-looking—that’s one thing too,” and they spent a while kissing, until a commercial came on the radio, and he spent some time with the dial.

“Hmmm,” she said.

“What is it, Stevie?”

“I’m trying to think, does this man kiss like the army, or like the Marines? Hmmmm,” she said while kissing him. She broke away. “Maybe the U.S. Air Force.”

He kissed her and very gently touched her arms, her cheeks, her neck. He knew better than to put his hands where he wanted to. “I’ve got one warm beer left,” he said.

“Go ahead. I’m not thirsty.”

He sat against the driver’s door, and she against hers. He was glad the sun was setting so he didn’t have to worry what he looked like. Sometimes he wasn’t sure the expression on his face made any sense.

Now he had to burp. He just went ahead and did it loudly and said, “Greetings from the interior.”

Stevie said, “Your dad’s in prison, isn’t he?”

“Where’d you get
that
one?”

“Is he?”

“No, that’s more my stepdad,” James said. “Just some guy, really. He’s my mother’s fault, not mine.”

“And your real dad’s in the service, huh?”

James draped his arms over the wheel and rested his chin on them, staring out…So now she suddenly thought they should tell their worst secrets to each other.

He got out and went behind some scrub and took a leak. The sun had dropped behind Camelback Mountain southwest of them. The sky was still pure blue above and then at the horizon tinted some other color, a rosy yellow that went away when you looked at it.

Beside her again in the truck he said, “Well, I just made up my mind: I’m joining the army infantry.”

“Really? The infantry, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Then what? Specialize in something?”

“I’m going to get over there to Vietnam.”

“And then what?”

“I’m going to fuck up a whole lot of people.”

“God,” she said. “You’re not with the guys here, you know. I’m a female.”

“Sorry about that, chief.”

She put her hand on the back of his neck and touched his hair tenderly with her fingers. To stop her doing it, he sat up straight.

“That’s an awful thing to say, James.”

“What.”

“What you said.”

“It just came out. I didn’t mean it, I don’t think.”

“Then don’t say it.”

“Shit. Do you think I’m that evil?”

“Everybody’s got a mean side. Just don’t feed it till it grows.”

They kissed some more.

“Well, anyhow,” he said, “what do you feel like doing at the moment?”

“What…I don’t know. Do we have gas?”

“Yep.” It thrilled him she’d said “we.”

“Let’s drive around and see what’s going on.”

“Let’s take the long way.” That meant he’d make a serious pass at her.

“Okay.” That meant she wouldn’t mind.

James stood out front of the house in the dark as his mother came home from work in Tom Mooney’s convertible Chevy, staring out of the passenger side with her mouth lagging open, her face hidden by a ragged straw hat, a bandanna protecting her neck. Mooney waved to James, and James dropped his cigarette butt to the earth and stomped it out and waved. By then the Chevy had gone.

She went on inside without a word for her son, this silence both unusual and welcome.

It lasted until he followed her into the kitchen. “If you don’t think that ranch has about wore me out, just come feel the muscle a-quivering on this arm. If I heat a can of soup, you better eat it. Don’t make me fuss and then just sit there dreaming your dreams.” She turned on the kitchen light and stood under it looking small and spent. “I’ve got baloney and I’ve got tomaters. Do you want a sandwich? Sit down, and I’ll make us soup and sandwiches. Where’s Burris?”

“Who?”

“He’ll be around. He’s always hungry. I lost weight while I carried him to term. I started out one-nineteen, and in my ninth month I was down to one-eleven. He fed on me from the inside.” Wiping at her face, she smeared it with dirt from her hand.

“Mom. Wash up before you cook.”

“Oh, Lord,” she said. “I’m just so tired I forget I’m alive. Open the can for me, hon.”

They ate peanut butter and jelly and Campbell’s soup.

“I’ll cut up this tomater.”

“I just ate. I don’t want it.”

“You’ve got to have vegetables.”

“There’s vegetables in the soup. That’s why it’s ‘Vegetable Soup.’”

“Don’t run away. I mean to talk to you. When is your school done for the summer?”

“It finished up today.”

“Come to work at the ranch, then.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What don’t you know? Do you know a dollar when you don’t see one? Because
I
don’t see one.”

“I was thinking about the military. Maybe the army.”

“When? Now?”

“I’m seventeen.”

“Seventeen and crazy.”

“Bill Junior was seventeen. You signed for him.”