Return to Oakpine (23 page)

“An upscale place?” Frank said. “Nineteen-dollar martinis?”

“Sixteen,” Jimmy Brand said. “Yeah, it was pricey. You needed reservations a week out.”

“Just like the Antlers,” Frank said. “How'd you meet him?”

“Jimmy met him at a big party at a famous playwright's apartment. They met in the kitchen.” Mason said.

“Mason's done his homework,” Jimmy said. He'd finished half his pie, and he handed the plate to Larry, who stacked it on one of the impossible dish mountains. “I met Daniel at an opening-night party many years ago.” He smiled in the soft light. “It was as weird as anything I've known. I'd been in the city for a while, and it was strong stuff. For me. Anything you wanted—right there.” Marci leaned over and set a cup and saucer in Jimmy's hand, and he sipped the tea. “And it wasn't weird to be gay. I mean, for the first time in a long time, I felt normal. Imagine. I loved it, but I didn't think I'd fall in love. There was a lot of hooking up, and I thought the random energy was enough.

“But Daniel changed it all. With the restaurant, he was the center of a lot of stuff, and this party was about him as impresario as much as anything. People wanted to be with Daniel, and who was I? Sometimes,” he said to Larry, “it's like you never got out of high school. Anyway, at the party he told me to follow him into the kitchen, and I did. There was like a group headed that way, and after I got in the door . . .” Jimmy Brand paused and set his cup and saucer onto his leg with both hands. “He put his hand on the door and shut it, you know, with his hand straight out.” Jimmy extended his arm. “He was strong, and he just held the door shut, and these people were bumping the door, like knocking. I could feel it, the door bumping against me. And he kissed me there. It was this kiss where he held the door shut and kissed me there. No big sexual kiss, just the finest kiss you get, a true kiss, the door absolutely thumping. When we stopped kissing, he looked at me and said, ‘Do you understand?' And I saw his eyes, a look you don't forget, and I understood.” Jimmy Brand said to Frank, “That's what we do. Sorry for the speech.”

Kathleen moved onto the couch and put her arm around him.

“It's okay,” he whispered, and tried some more tea. “We were together for thirteen years. When he died, he weighed exactly one hundred pounds.”

There was a heavy stillness as they all sat in their places. The fire broke and a log fell and the light redoubled against the curved edge of plates and glasses. Mason was deep in the couch beside Kathleen, and he found and lifted his wineglass half full. “Oh, a toast,” he said, “to Daniel and to the writer Jimmy Brand.”

“To Jimmy,” Frank raised his glass of beer.

In the soft light the teacups and the goblets rose, and the members of the party drank. The room had settled on Jimmy like a shawl.

“You want me to take you home?” Mason asked Jimmy.

“Somebody's going to have to haul me,” Jimmy said.

“You can stay up here,” Larry said. “Camp in.”

“Absolutely,” Craig added. As he went to get up, he shifted the ottoman, and his knee hit one of the tiered plates, sending a shiver through the fragile architecture of dirty dishes. They all watched it rattle, shift, and settle, spoons rolling in every cup.

“Larry,” Jimmy said, “you and I are the lucky ones here. Because we're the only ones whose mothers still wait up.” He handed his teacup to Kathleen. “I've got to go home.”

Sonny had been sitting on the floor against Frank's knees. She climbed onto her knees and pointed at the clutter. “Shall we?”

Marci said, “Turn the music up, and let's clear the table.”

In the immediate clatter, Mason turned to Jimmy and helped him up gradually. They held each other steady there, looking down on the jumbled coffee table, and then they just embraced, Mason's arms around his neck. For Jimmy Brand it was like being on stilts far above the forbidden city. Whenever he moved these days, his blood took a minute to catch up.

Mason took his friend at both elbows. “You up?”

“Up.” Jimmy said. “Way up here.”

At the Pronghorn

It was a road trip, and that's what Craig called out when he finally shut the tailgate of his Cherokee. He was ready for the showdown, and there was a definite bounce in his step, had been all morning. “It is time for us to get out of town!” he called. He went over to Frank, who sat with Sonny in his idling Explorer and put his hand on his forehead by the driver-side window. “Do we know what we're doing, Sonny?” he said. “Shouldn't you have prevented this?” He didn't wait for an answer but held up both hands to show he was done and ready, and he said, “Follow us.” His construction job with young Dr. Marchant had come through this week, and they had signed the contract. He was to build a large guesthouse, almost two thousand square feet, as well as remodel a kitchen and library in the main house. He'd even contracted the foundation work. It was top to bottom, and he was thrilled—the project he'd always wanted. At seven that morning Craig had ordered trusses and plywood and forty square Southwestern Rose tiles for the guesthouse roof. He was under way, and he'd periodically called out, “All right, Mama!” as they'd packed up. He came around the Cherokee as clouds pooled in charcoal banks over the gray town in the darkening afternoon. The forecast was snow, and the wind chittering through the bare scrub oak around the Ralstons' drive had the scent of ice in it. The SUV was running, the heater on, and everyone was aboard: Marci, Mason, Kathleen, and Larry.

“It takes a hardy man to be whistling about roofing all winter,” Mason said when Craig climbed in into the driver's seat.

“Not all winter. Two weeks, and we won't have that privilege until spring. As you know, I'm looking for a nonunion crew. Do you lawyers have a union?”

“Fraternity,” Mason said. “It's worse—it means we collude, party hearty, and cheat on the exams.”

Craig wheeled the car around in the driveway and started down the mountain. Marci sat in the front seat. “The best thing you can do with a beautiful new house like this is leave it,” Craig said. “It makes you a king.”

“Who is talking like this?” Marci said.

Mason sat in back with Kathleen and Larry. Frank and Sonny, who had been waiting in his idling Explorer, followed. The guitars and gear were stowed along with everyone's bags and two coolers full of drinks and lunch and candy.

“You in, Larry? Dr. Marchant's guesthouse. I'm doubling what you make at the store.”

“He's got school,” Marci said. “He doesn't want to be on a roof in the snow.”

“The great drama of American football is over, Mom. High school is closing down a chapter at a time. I'll have hours.”

“‘Ralston and Son Construction. Guesthouses, add-ons, decks, garages. The best work in Wyoming.'”

Larry said, “What about ‘Two Guys with Hammers'?”

“Or,” Mason said, “‘Son and Ralston.' I've never seen that, some kid carrying his father. You guys could make it work.” They wended through the frigid town to the highway and turned north past the hill and the cemetery and the ruined weed lots and wasteland and the turnoff of the reservoir, driving north under low clouds that all afternoon worked at a layer of pale yellow light between the dark sky and the dark earth, a car or two hurrying back toward Oakpine in the empty world.

“Seriously,” Larry said to Mason. “You've just landed on this planet, and we've picked you up as you look confused standing beside the highway. Now, look at it, sir. Those lines are the railroad, the rest is about to be snowed on. We have snow here. We have winter here. If you can see a bush big enough to hide behind, you can imagine an antelope hiding behind it. We have antelope on this planet. I'd like your answer now: do you want to stay?”

Mason smiled. “It's a cold night coming on. But I'll need to know one thing: what's an antelope?”

Kathleen laughed, and Larry said, “See. You get out of town twenty minutes, and it's a planet with real short days and long wind. It's getting dark already.”

“They'll have that big bar all warmed up,” Mason said. “Ask me then.”

Craig was slowly shaking his head.

“What?” Marci said.

“Oh my dear,” he said. “Battle of the bands. What are we doing?”

“When was the last time anybody did one extra thing, something weird? Something not pragmatic?” The dash lights glowed, and the heater warmed the vehicle as it was swallowed by the closing weather and the heavy winter twilight.

“I went—” Craig started.

“Not a fishing trip,” Kathleen said. “Something like this, a bona fide extra. Or are you planning on winning this thing and restarting your musical career?”

“Now she knows,” Craig said. “Hardware was fun for a while, but get real. That trophy is going to look good in the front window of the store.”

“I wish Jimmy could have come,” Marci said. The car was quiet, and after half a minute Larry said, “I'm going to give him the report, which means you better all behave.”

Jimmy's name had come over the car, and in the dark day they drove quietly through the plains. Larry had visited the little garage the day before and, with the Fender guitar, had shown Jimmy his four new chords, playing the muted strings in the gray light. Unplugged like that, it sounded like a ukulele. When he looked up, Jimmy was out, his neck arched back as if in pain. Larry checked his breathing and was relieved when Kathleen arrived. She checked Jimmy's vital signs while Larry watched. She adjusted Jimmy on the pillow and arranged the covers and left without speaking. Larry quickly followed her into the winter afternoon. “What?” he had said.

“Jimmy won't be going to Gillette tomorrow,” she said. “He's too weak.” They were standing on the Brands' old driveway, and Larry felt the news for what it was. You go along knowing, but when you do know, it still is a surprise.

Now, in the car with these people, Larry felt it again and felt it as a test. He was happy to have had this fall knowing his father in a new way, and he didn't plan on making a new friend and losing him. He listened to Mason talking to Marci about fund-raising and long-term issues at the museum—a donor strategy. And then Kathleen quizzed Mason about when he was returning to Denver. His only answer: “Whenever feels too soon.” And then, unable to be glib about it, he added, “I don't know. The clock's off.” Craig was silent, driving, laying out in his head his plan of attack on the construction job he had ahead. Larry wondered if these people would ever be together in this way again, five in a car in the snow late in the year on the old highway. Finally Larry said, “Jimmy taught me four new chords yesterday, and I gave my word to try them in public.”

When they neared Gillette in the gloom, Craig drove right past the Pronghorn. “Dad,” Larry said from the backseat, “that's it.” Off to the left there had been a sixty or seventy cars parked in a jumble, the pink neon beer signs almost obscured.

“Really,” Craig said. “All those cars? I thought it was a junkyard.”

“No,” Mason said from the backseat, where he sat with Larry and Kathleen. “That's it. He's got a crowd tonight.” Everyone in the car was quiet, and he added, “When I was a kid, every time we drove by Mangum's junkyard west of town, my dad would say, “Oh boy, Agnes must have a roast on—they've got company.”

Craig slowed and waited for Frank's black Explorer. As they pulled U-turns on the two-lane, Frank lowered his window and called out. “I thought the crowd scared you off. We're going to have an audience!”

As they approached the Pronghorn now, the huge sign lit up suddenly and began to flash, blue and white, the profile of an antelope, and as the two vehicles picked through the overfilled parking lot, snow began to fall, as a sudden graphic mist of a billion dots.

There were eleven bands. Three were from Gillette, three from greater Sheridan, two up from Laramie, one each from Casper and the hamlet of Sojourn, and Life on Earth in their reunion gig. The owner of the Pronghorn was Bobby Peralta, who had taken the place over from his dad. He wore a black satin shirt with silver button covers and a silver cow-skull bolo tie. They'd all met before. The Pronghorn was a place where you stopped on the way home from the antelope hunt, and all season you could see pickups parked there with game in the beds. Bobby had been in high school in Gillette and had actually heard the band the one time they'd played here thirty years before.

“This place used to be out of town,” Craig said as he shook Bobby's hand.

“You can't get out of town in this sorry state,” Bobby said. “It's all found out and built up. How you been?”

“Busy. Oakpine's exploded, and I supply the paint.” He introduced everybody: Marci, Kathleen, Larry, Mason, Sonny, and Frank, whom Bobby knew because of his brewery.

“We're only playing,” Frank told the man, “if you can guarantee that there're no talent scouts here. We're not interested in being plucked from obscurity.”

“You're safe on that count. Here.” Bobby gave them all string necklaces with yellow passes looped on each. “All your drinks are mine, including as much of Frank's new lager as you can drink. And I've got a table for you up front.” He looked at his clipboard. “We'll start at seven and do four bands, break, four more, break and then finish with three. Craig, why don't you meet me on stage at about ten to, and we'll draw the order.”

They'd been standing in the back hallway beside the kitchen and could hear the crowd in the main barroom. “I believe I'll use the house drum kit,” Craig said. “No sense showing everybody what Larry did to my snare way back when.”

“This is going to require a drink,” Mason said. He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes to live. This is going to require two.”

As he stepped toward the barroom, Kathleen took his elbow. “I'll go with,” she said.

“Hey, Kathleen,” Frank said to his ex-wife.

“Hey, Frank. Sonny.”

“Can you believe we're here, we're going to do this?”

“I have no trouble believing anything, Frank. My credibility has been tested.”

“You sour bitch,” Sonny said. It was crowded in the passageway, and everybody stood still.

Kathleen stopped and smiled. “I know,” she said. “But I'm working on it, Sonny. It's not permanent.” She touched the young woman's wrist. “Listen, I just said your name.”

Craig and Marci were already at the bar when Mason and Kathleen came up. There was no place to sit or stand, but Marci had winnowed between two guys and got an elbow in and was talking to the bartender. The cowboy she'd leaned over looked to Craig and said, “She act this way at home?”

She turned to the man and rubbed his cheek with the back of her knuckles, smiling. “I'm only going to be a minute, darlin'.” Craig liked this side of her, the cowgirl, although she'd hidden it for some time now. He hadn't heard her say darlin' for years. It had been too long since he'd done anything with Marci except go over the household accounts or call her parents. He was having fun—it was a road trip. This day was crazy, and then he was going to build a guesthouse in town.

Marci handed back beers to the men and lifted two white wines to her group, one for Kathleen.

The Pronghorn had been a little tavern three miles south of Gillette, a place the roughnecks could stop on the way back to town. Over the years it had grown, first with a room on one side for four pool tables and then a large quonset in the rear with a hardwood floor for dancing. This area was lined with tables behind a low wooden corral. There were neon beer signs everywhere, red and blue and green, so the general glow added to the odd effect of having three ceilings of different heights in the gerrymandered room. Tonight all the tables were full, two and three pitchers of beer on each, four, and the dance floor too was packed with a fluid, partisan crowd, groups of people churning forward, cheering their friends, under a glacial slip of cigarette smoke that drifted toward the high center.

Marci was lit, feeling her nerves ebb and flow as a physical thing. Ever since her long flirtation with Stewart, she'd been out of her life, beside it, and everything seemed simplified. She could easily shed one life and pick up another; there were times every day when it felt she already had. She could leave tomorrow. Craig was strong enough for any new thing, and she'd finished her work with Larry. He was a good kid and had been self-reliant for these last two years. There were times when she felt Craig would understand—she had to move on. And there were times some nights when she started awake in bed, seized by a terror that made her put her teeth into her lip. What was she doing?

Now, as they weaved though the tight throng toward their table, her face burned. She felt a charge she couldn't contain. This was better than being numb, she guessed, but god. She kept looking at Craig for a clue. If he gave her an opening, she'd tell him, but she was out of sync, and people knew it. On the way up she'd been silent in the car, afraid that if she spoke, her sentences would go right off the edge.

As they'd been packing the lunch, Kathleen had asked her what was the matter. Marci wanted to say that the matter was that she was in love. There were times, when she was alone in her car driving home from the museum, when she said that aloud, “I'm in love.” It sounded good, and it felt good to say, but later she'd look at Craig when he came in or when they were watching television, and all the rush was gone. She wasn't in love; that was something from a cheap refrain. Stewart would have leaned her against his desk, closing his eyes as he did, and pulled at her needfully, whispering, “I want all of this. When I can I have all of this?” They burrowed against each other. It thrilled her and repelled her and ultimately made her tentative, and she'd straighten until they both stood and adjusted their clothing. She felt brave and stupid. It was too late to be doing this; it was never too late. In the Pronghorn, she ducked under the rope where the bands had their tables and sat down with Larry. The others were just arriving too, and Craig was already on the stage. She looked at her son. “You're not drinking, are you?” she asked.