Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? (9 page)

The UPS driver was already out of the truck and on his way inside one of the
buildings. They may run the tightest ship in the shipping business, but they're
a pain in the ass in traffic. As far as UPS drivers are concerned, the world is
their parking lot.

I'd made up nearly four blocks by the time the pickup had managed to force
its way out into the left lane. I had no trouble making the light as he turned
right up University. He was heading for the freeway.

I stayed a respectful quarter mile back as we worked our way up I-5. He wove
in and out of traffic, missing no opportunity to make additional time,
zigzagging through the building stream of afternoon commuters. I had no choice
but to do likewise. When I was younger, I used to drive like this all the time.
Today I expected to be pulled over, pummeled, and summarily arrested at any
moment. I felt old and stodgy.

For the next fifteen miles only the constant thickening of the traffic
allowed me to keep him in sight. As we roared through the confluence of I-5 and
I-405, something was ejected from the truck window. It bounced several times
and came to a stop on the shoulder. The Rainer can was still spinning as I shot
past.

As the traffic thinned out on the north side of Everett, the driver put the
hammer own. He was cruising at a smooth eighty. Bits of debris parachuted from
the bed of the truck. The Fiat was flat out and losing ground. Another can was
thrown from the truck. I was standing on the accelerator. The little car didn't
have any more to give. Five more minutes and I was going to be history. I
backed off. No point in eating an engine in a lost cause.

As I crested the top of a small rise, I saw the Ford, now a half mile ahead,
veer sharply to the right and head down the Marysville exit ramp. There was
still hope. I got back on the gas.

It was better than that. The ramp was full. The light was red. The truck was
no more than a hundred yards ahead when I ran the yellow and made the turn
toward downtown Marysville. For the first time, I could make out the
red-and-blue flannel shirt of the driver through the dusty window.

We moved our way back out the east side of town, first through a
lower-income residential neighborhoods, then through a seedy commercial zone,
and finally, nearly at the edge of civilization itself, through an unpopulated
area of defunct sawmills and construction companies.

Without so much as tapping the brakes, the driver made a ninety-degree turn
into the gravel parking lot, spewing dust and stones at the truck fought for
traction. I continued up past the next building and turned right.

The narrow driveway led back past the building. I pulled to a stop. I was in
the back parking lot of Johnson Logging Supply. Several concrete dividers
separated this little lot from the big one next door. I had a perfect view of
the parking lot and the front door. The Ford was empty.

The Last Stand was a large bunkerlike bar surrounded by five acres of empty
gravel parking lot. Two tiny windows marred the otherwise smooth block front of
the building. They probably just needed a place to put the flashing beer signs.

They oversize lot was full of pickups and aging American sedans, parked here
and there in no discernible pattern, some north and south, some east and west,
some at odd angles like they'd died on the spot. Free-form parking. An affront
to civilized society.

The flannel shirt was standing to the left of the front door making
conversation with a couple of other Indians. He was no more than twenty, slim
but well put together. From what I could see, he was a good-looking kid. A
wide, smooth expanse of face accented by oversize dark eyes. His black hair was
cut longer than was presently fashionable downtown but was nowhere in the
ballpark of the flowing manes of the two guys he was talking to.

They could have been father and son. One was about the kid's age, his long
hair held down by a black-and-white baseball cap. The Raiders maybe. His back
was partially turned, but even from this distance I could see the acne scars
that dominated his ruined face. The other guy was about sixty and moved with
the lean stiffness of a cowboy. Three feet of graying hair sprouted from under
his battered cowboy hat. He kept his arms tightly folded over his chest.

It wasn't hard to read the body language. The kid I'd been following was
animated enough. He used his arms like an orchestra leader, punctuating his
points with a series of sweeps and jabs. The other two might as well have been
cast in bronze. They listened impassively, the older one occasionally turning
away to sweep the dirt with a boot tip, glancing my way once or twice. They
were otherwise unmoved and unmoving. While I was too far away to catch the
words, they sure as hell weren't catching up on old times. The kid was in their
faces about something serious, but they weren't going for it.

A one-ton flatbed roared into the lot and slid to a stop directly between my
position and the front door. Through the dust, I could see six or eight more
Indians, a couple of them women, climb down from the bed and start inside. The
truck zoomed off, showering dirt and gravel as it made a wide loop around the
lot, bounced back into the street, turned left, and headed back the way it had
come. The local Metro shuttle.

The two other guys had used the diversion to make their escape. By the time
the dust settled enough for me to see again, the pair were backing slowly
toward the nearest jumble of parked cars, agreeing as they retreated.

They got into a peeling puke-green Nova. The older guy was driving. He must
have missed the local driver's ed class. He pulled slowly from the lot, casting
a tentative wave at the Ford driver as he went by. The kid shook his head sadly
and went inside.

As the last of the dust settled to the ground, I considered my next move. It
seemed a good bet that the Last Stand was not the watering hole of choice of
the local yuppie set. I was betting on a full-scale, balls-to-the-wall,
shit-kicker Saturday-night Indian bar. I stayed put.

I rummaged around in the cooler, came up with a turkey sandwich and a Pepsi.
I punched the button for KPLU and was rewarded with an old Quebec tune. One of
those excuse-me-while-I-slip-into-something-more-comfortable saxophone riffs
that speaks of jagged skylines, wet streets, and slippery lingerie. I sat back,
munching slowly, and waited it out.

For the first few hours arrivals far outnumbered departures. By ten-thirty
the trend had reversed itself, and the lot began to clear. When the midnight
NPR news interrupted my reverie, the big Ford pickup was but one of a dozen or
so cars left in the lot. The Last Stand was getting down to the hard core.
People with no better place to be. I was getting itchy.

I got out and stretched for the umpteenth time. I wandered over to the
chain-link fence at the back of Johnson's little lot and pissed on the fence.

Loud talk and laughter rolled across the lot as two more cars filled up and
headed elsewhere. The Ford stayed put.

I considered going inside but discarded the idea again. My initial
impression had proved correct. The clientele had been exclusively Native
American. I wondered whether my assumption that I should not be welcome was the
product of prejudice or just common sense. Either way I'd stick out like a sore
thumb, and the kid was almost certain to get a look at me. I stayed put.

It was one-twelve by the dashboard clock when the kid came out, walking a
crooked path, and ambled over to his truck. He was carrying one for the road in
his left hand. The stillness, I could hear him pumping the gas pedal. The truck
roared to life on the fourth try. I backed the Fiat into the fence, shot up the
narrow drive, and was waiting at the street when the Ford came into view. The
kid wasn't taking any chances. He drove like he was looking for an address.
Staying well within the posted limits, using his signals. I followed at a
respectful distance as we wound our way back along the path we'd traveled
earlier.

We cut under the freeway, past the Tulalip Cultural Center, and out toward
the reservation. Traffic was light. I slowed and left more distance between us.
He tooled along at forty for another five miles. Traffic was now nonexistent.
We were the only two people out here. As the Ford disappeared around a sweeping
left turn, I cut my lights and sped up. I stayed just far enough back to be
invisible, hoping there were no cops around.

Another mile and the brake lights on the pickup flashed briefly and then
came on full-bore. I slowed. He turned left into a dirt driveway. I pulled the
Fiat to the right-hand shoulder, got out, and sprinted across the road. I had
no way of knowing how far back the driveway ran or if there was a turnaround.
The only safe course was to follow on foot.

As I started down the lane, I could see the pickup roll to a stop about a
quarter mile down. I relaxed. The Ford's dome light came on briefly. I stepped
into the thick bushes that lined the roadway. The kid got out, walked around
the back of the truck, and leisurely took a piss in his driveway. He didn't
bother to rearrange himself. Holding his sagging britches with one hand, he
wobbled out of view to the right of the truck.

I started up the rutted track. House lights appeared through the thick
branches that lined the road. I stumbled and nearly went to one knee. I moved
from the wheel ruts, which were potholed and uneven, up to the berm of the road
where the native grasses had been systematically mowed by the truck's
undercarriage. The going got both easier and quieter.

I was nearly to the truck. I walked as quietly as I could. A small cabin,
surrounded by a pole fence, sat diagonally across a hacked-out clearing in the
forest. The builder had left one tree at each end of the yard. The kid was
using them to anchor a clothesline. Several flannel shirts and a couple of pair
of jeans moved slowly in the night breeze. One of the shirts was split completely
up the back. I wondered why he'd bothered to wash it. No women. No kids. I
could see the kid moving around inside the house.

When he came by the front window for the second time, he was stripped down
to a yellowed pair of jockey shorts. He left the lighted living room and
wandered toward the darkened end of the house. Through the window on the far
right, I saw the refrigerator door open, its light casting dim shadows on the
ceiling. The door closed. He turned out the lights on his way back through the
houses. The place was dark. He'd gone to bed. I envied him.

I walked back toward the Fiat.  When I reached the main road, I went
hunting for his mailbox. No such luck. No mailbox of any kind was to be found
within a quarter mile in any direction. Either he didn't get much mail or he
had a box in town. I wandered back to the Fiat.

Sleeping in the Fiat was no-the-job training for curvature of the spine, to
be avoided at all costs. While trudging up and down the road in search of the
mailbox, I'd noticed a small turnout, big enough to hide the little car, about
a hundred yards up on the right. I backed her in until the overhanging willow
branches folded back over the front end. I forced the door open, grabbed my
sleeping bag from behind the seat, and, using the sleeping bag as a shield for
my face, rammed my way back out to the road.

About thirty yards short of the cabin, I once again stepped off into the
bushes and pushed another twenty yards through the dense underbrush. I was in a
small clearing, shielded from the driveway by a thick row of bushes but close
enough so that there was no way he could drive by me without waking me up. I
spread the ground cloth and then the bag. I took off my jacket and rolled it
into a pillow. Fully dressed, I slid into the bag.

A few misguided clouds roamed about an otherwise perfect sky. Somebody once
said that living in Seattle was like being married to a beautiful woman who was
sick all the time. The lady was feeling fine tonight. I'd probably wake to
snow.