Yellow Mesquite (12 page)

Harley got out with Berry and Moon and began shoveling sand up between the side bins with their tampers and bill-dookies. It was hot and within minutes they were again wet with sweat. Harley went around, opened the door to the cab and thumbed a salt pill from the dispenser on the dash. Pellerd pitched his shovel aside, pulled off his work gloves and followed.

 
“What’s the matter?” he said. “You ain’t getting any yet?” He grinned at Berry and Moon. “I ain’t surprised. I stopped by his place this morning, and the line was so long, I didn’t even get any myself.” Pellerd swaggered around the truck to the water keg mounted on the other side.

Harley set his shovel against the pickup’s rear fender. Berry and Moon paused as he tucked his gloves inside his hard hat and placed it on the ground alongside. He picked up his shovel again, firmed a grip on it and stood at the back of the pickup, the shovel lifted like a baseball bat.
 

“I’m driving this truck today,” he said. “Any fat-ass sonofabitchin’ wrestler don’t like it, he can go to hell.”

Berry and Moon began withdrawing. Pellerd came around behind the pickup, crunching a paper cup in his fist. “The fuck you say—”

Harley’s first impulse was to turn the blade sideways—cut the son of a bitch’s head off. He swung hard—
whump
! The flat of the blade caught Pellerd in the stomach. Pellerd doubled over and Harley brought the shovel down on his hardhat—
clang
!—with all his strength. The hardhat went spinning over the ground. Pellerd’s knees buckled. He folded face-first into the sand.

Berry and Moon stood back, slack-jawed, staring at Pellerd. Pellerd, moaning on the ground, trying to get his breath.
 

Harley pitched the shovel aside. He took his work gloves out of the hardhat, stuffed them in his back pocket, and tossed the hardhat into the back of the truck. He took out his wallet and handed Berry two dollars. “This should more than catch me up for rides. Thanks.”

Berry looked at Pellerd struggling to get to his knees. With a hint of a grin, Berry held the flat of his hand up at Harley in a gesture of refusal. “Forget it. On me.”

Harley struck off across the sandlot toward the bus stop.

HE CARRIED HIS
old cardboard suitcase across the backyard in the midday heat to the Ford, parked now in one of the spaces under the garage apartments.
 

He pitched the suitcase in the backseat and softly closed the door. He checked the oil and water, then lowered the hood as quietly as he could. Nevertheless, he heard feet on the floor above, then running down the enclosed outside staircase. Sherylynne appeared from around the corner in floppy house shoes, hair curlers bouncing, pulling a robe on over her flannel gown. He liked the disheveled homey look of her.

“Oh, shoot,” she said, blinking awake. “I overslept.”

He gestured up at the ceiling, one finger to his lips, whispering. “No, I’m early.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Everyone’s gone.”

“Oh. Good. I got fired.”

Her eyes widened. “What…?”

“I left you a note in the mail cupboard.”

“Fired?”
 

“I’m going out to Midland. Get that job, then I’ll come back for you and we’ll get married.”
 

She stared. “Fired? For
what
?”

He studied his feet. “I hit Tommy Pellerd over the head with a shovel.”

“You—”

“He had on a hard hat.”

“He—”

“Made a lot of noise, though.”

“But—”

“I’ll be back for you in a few days.”

“I… You…” She stopped.

“The cost of living’s prob’ly cheaper out there, too.”

“With a shovel?”

“He’s bigger’n me, or I’d’ve hit him with my fist.”

Sherylynne stared as though maybe she didn’t know him after all. “You said that job was over a year ago. What makes you think he’s still got it now?”
 

“He’s an oil man. They always got jobs.” He took out his wallet. “Look here,” he said, picking out the limp business card. “He told me to call him if I ever wanted a job.”

Sherylynne studied him, something working behind her eyes. “You’ve been carrying that all this time?”

“Listen,” he said, “I’ll be back for you in a couple of days. Okay?”

“I can’t even think straight.”

“Come here.”

“Harley…what’re you doing?”

“Come here.” He pressed her against the car, nuzzling around the plastic curlers, behind her ear. She smelled warmly of sleep and hospital.

“You sure this is what you want to do?”

“This?” He pressed her against the Ford’s rear fender. “Pretty sure.”
 

She leaned around him to see past the car and through the open garage to Aunt Grace’s back door. “Harley Jay, stop that.”

“That what?”

“That.” She leaned back to look at him. “But what if he don’t have any jobs out there by now?”

“Then I’ll get one with somebody else. Those oilfield jobs pay pretty good. We can make enough to live on and save up to go to New York in a year, maybe even sooner.”

“I know you’re gonna be a good artist, Harley Jay. You already are.” She pressed against him, her breathing becoming heavy.
 

“Sherylynne!”
someone screamed from behind—a nail on galvanized tin.

Sherylynne jerked suddenly back, staring pop-eyed over his shoulder. His head swiveled, eyes locked on Aunt Grace standing at the foot of her back steps, one hand to her forehead, mouth open.
 

“Young lady,” she shouted, “you get back upstairs right this instant!”
 

“Aunt G-Grace,” Harley stuttered.

Aunt Grace stomped the ground once. Harley stumbled out of the garage—“Aunt Grace, we’re getting married”—but she was already lumbering up the steps, fighting her way in through the screen door.

Harley paused, heart hammering in the after-silence. Sherylynne buried her face in her hands.
 

“I’ll go talk to her,” he managed.
 

“No, wait. Let’s think.”
 

“It’s not like I had your britches off. What’s wrong with her, anyhow?”

“You know how she is…”
 

“Well, we’re gonna have to face her sooner or later.”

“No, you go on. I’ll talk to her.”
 

“Go on? Leave you here like this?”
 

“That’s the best thing for now.”
 

 
“I can’t do that…”
 

“Please.”

He looked toward the boardinghouse. “I feel bad, letting you talk to her by yourself…”

“I’ll give her a while to calm down. You go on.”

Reluctantly, he got in and started the car. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss through the window. He forced a small grin. “Don’t go anywhere now; I’ll be right back.”

“You’d better.”

He backed out into the sunlight. Sherylynne followed, her angular body swaying, one hand floating out at him in a good-bye wave as he eased down the driveway.

He cut his eyes toward the boardinghouse but saw no sign of Aunt Grace. There was only the morning glare, the crunch of the tires on the gravel, a light pinging in the engine.

THE CAR THREW
a rod around four that afternoon. It began to hammer a few miles out of Ranger on a stretch of the new Interstate 20. He managed to limp off the exit and into the edge of the bypassed town, doing about ten miles an hour with everybody looking, the engine hammering so loud you could hear it in the next county.

He pulled up alongside a gas station that had seen better days. A number of junked cars were visible out back behind a chain-link fence. Inside the station, two men in oily coveralls sprawled on an old car seat serving as a sofa, watching
Dragnet
on a TV. Another man sat on a stool behind the counter, where he could keep an eye on the gas pumps.

Harley said, “You all do mechanic work?”

“Sometimes,” said the man behind the counter.
 

“I just threw a rod in that Ford out there.”

“Yep. Heard you coming. That’s one of them old flat-head Fords for you.”

“You got a used ’forty-two Ford engine by any chance?”
 

“No, sir. Sure don’t.”

“Can you get one?”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Uh-huh. Any chance of turning the crankshaft down and putting a new rod in this one?”

“Can’t do ’er.”

Harley looked at the two men sprawled on the car seat. A two-year-old Vargas calendar hung on the wall behind.

“You did say you do mechanic work?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Just how busy things are,” the man said, one eye on the TV.

Harley grinned a little “Yeah, I can see you’re pretty backed up here.”

“Waitin’ on parts.”

“How much you think that car’s worth?”

“Not much.”
 

“Make me an offer?”

The man shrugged, tilted his head to one side. “Five, maybe ten dollars.”

 
“How about forty.”

 
The man shook his head, studied the TV. “I might go fifteen.”

 
“Listen, that car’s got good tires all around and a good radio. And look at that body, no rust, not a scratch on it.”

 
“Engine’s blowed.”

“Shoot. Engines are a dime a dozen. You know that. You can’t hardly find a good clean car like that anymore.”

 
“Eighteen years old.”

 
“That’s what’s good about it. Where you gonna find a clean body like that, that old?”

 
“Fifteen dollars. Take it or leave it.”

 
“I can take it to the junkyard and get more’n that.”
 

 
“Take it then.”

 
“I’ll drive the damn thing up a tree before I sell it for fifteen dollars.” He started for the door.

 
“What’s the least you take fer it?”

 
“Twenty-five.”

 
“Um. Too much. You got a title?”

 
“Sure do.”

 
“Hershel, go take a look at that car. If it’s as clean as the man says, write him a check for twenty-five dollars.”

 
“I don’t have time for checks. Twenty-five dollars cash.”
 

 
“Hershel, get twenty-five dollars outta your billfold there, will you?”
 

 
“There a bus station around here?”

 
“Downtown, ’bout a block north from the Piggly Wiggly.”

Chapter 13

Unannounced

I
T WAS NEAR
midnight when the bus pulled up at the curb in front of the Greyhound bus station in Midland. Wind blew red grit down the empty streets. A few glimmers of light flickered behind paper-shaded windows. Two Mexican men and a tough looking blonde with narrow hips and broad shoulders got off the bus with him.
 

The terminal’s waiting room was open, but the ticket window was closed. He took his suitcase in and settled into one of the molded plastic chairs. The two Mexicans disappeared. The blonde called a cab and stood near the phone until it came. Then he was alone.
 

 
He looked about at the interior of the bus station. It depressed him to think that after a year on his own this was what he had come to. A year ago he would have expected that by now he would be reasonably successful, making a career for himself as a painter. Of course, back then he hadn’t realized how hard it was. Back then he would have been happy painting realistic little landscapes and still-lifes. At least now he had some inkling about real art. Sidney had him studying the great artists of the past, the thinkers and philosophers, and what would have suited him two years ago didn’t cut it today. If nothing else, Sidney convinced him that whatever was good enough yesterday would never be good enough today. In fact,
good enough
itself was a term he had come to think of as distasteful. Was this job he hoped to get with Whitehead merely “good enough”? He looked over the bus schedules chalked on the blackboard. There was nothing to keep him from getting on the next bus for New York. Nothing but Sherylynne. Sherylynne pregnant. He loved her. He was ashamed for even thinking such a thing. He put the suitcase across his lap, folded his arms over it and laid his head down.

He woke at 4:00 a.m. when a policeman came in. The policeman gave him the once-over, nodded and left. Harley dozed until the ticket agent came in at 5:30. Then a bus pulled in and an elderly couple got off. A young couple met them and after a lot of handshaking and hugging, they all packed into the cab of a pickup and drove off. The ticket agent closed up and left.

Harley took his suitcase into the men’s room and locked the door. He washed up and dried with paper towels, shaved, brushed his teeth and put on a clean shirt.
 

Outside the wind had slowed. It was quiet except for an occasional oilfield truck rumbling past. He had forgotten how thin the West Texas air was; and the light, already crackling bright at this time of morning. The French painter Matisse once said the light in North America was “marvelously crystalline.” And Midland more so than Dallas. Here the whites were whiter, the yellow ochers and clay reds richer. He liked that word,
crystalline
.

He walked, looking for a place to eat, stopping now and then to set his suitcase down and square off a picture with his thumbs and forefingers. The strong contrasts of light and dark reminded him of the painter, Edward Hopper.

He came upon a cluster of pickups and oilfield trucks nosed up to a café. Inside, a long counter ran before a few Formica tables and vinyl booths. On the walls, calendars advertised drilling equipment and feedlots. A few snapshots of a bowling team were taped to the cash register, a couple of dollar bills under yellowed cellophane stapled to the wall behind.

Men slouched along the counter in jeans and khakis and overalls, plaid shirts and khaki shirts and cowboy shirts, Wellington boots and lace-up boots and run-down-at-the-heels cowboy boots, hard hats and cowboy hats and billed gimme caps with Caterpillar and John Deere logos. The men sipped coffee and clattered knives and forks over plates of steak and eggs, fried potatoes and biscuits with creamed gravy.