Edge (10 page)

“It just seems like a wasted life,” I said.

He rolled down the window as far as it would go.

I heard myself keep talking, the Amazing Nuclear Mouth. “You spend most of your time keeping your bills of lading in alphabetical order and snipping your receipts together with that little yellow stapler.”

He made a point of watching a crow abandon a telephone wire and flap over the road. For a long time his driving was a way of responding to me, his eyes shifting from the speedometer to the road to the sky, keeping us right on the speed limit.

The truck lumbered up a gravel road toward a pink stucco house, balconies hanging off every wall, a view east, west, and north of the flat, empty landscape. A man waited for us, so little happening in his life that our arrival was enough to make him stand and watch us for the last half mile, a little figure in the middle of all that heat.

An excavation showed where we were supposed to leave the hot tub, one of the health club models, compact but heavy grade, made to last.

“The Lord has been good to me and my wife,” said the tall man with white hair all over his chest. In a cowboy hat and a pair of tartan plaid shorts he looked like an ad for skin cancer, how to get it. He was already going red, a man probably sixty who needed his mother to tell him to go get a shirt.

“Beautiful out here,” said Chief, the country scenery making him drop the beginning of his sentences. “Big sky, fresh air.”

“Blessed us with five healthy kids and seven grandchildren to date,” said the man, signing one of Chief's forms.

“They'll have fun in that hot tub,” said Chief.

“Oh, this is mainly for medical reasons,” said the man as he put his fingers on the line where he had signed his name, feeling the contours of his own handwriting. “Reasons of health,” he elaborated, like maybe we hadn't understood what he meant. “My hips,” he added.

“I hear nothing but good things from people with hip trouble,” said Chief, accepting his clipboard, examining the form, making sure all the little blank spaces were scribbled in.

“Bone spurs,” said the man.

“Nothing like hot water to ease the body,” said Chief. He had a gift with people, agreeing with them with a smile. “Hot water and enough time to take it easy.”

“Easy does it,” said the man.

I couldn't stand it when grown men did this, open their mouths and fire inane statements at each other, like a contest, who can say the dumbest things.

I found a pebble in the path and gave it a kick, not able to just stand there and listen to Chief practically promise the man a cure for bone spurs, whatever they were, deteriorating calcium in the man's limbs.

S
EVENTEEN

Sometimes I forgot for a few heartbeats, and it was just another day, two lanes, the sky clear, all the way to the horizon.

We rolled north along the two-lane, a drift of sprinkler mist touching me through the open window. The almond orchards were irrigated by sprinklers on high poles, white plumes of water.

“Let me know if you want to stop,” Chief said.

Chief had a citizen's band radio, a veteran Magnavox with two knobs missing. I never saw him use it, and he didn't carry a phone. If I wanted to call the hospital, I would have to trek across a plain of petrified cow pies and knock on a door. “Doesn't it get on your nerves when someone says how the Lord has blessed him?”

“He was just being friendly.” He looked over at me, a question in his eyes, the passing scenery reflected in his glasses.

“Thinking that God is wrapping up presents for you and you alone,” I heard myself saying. “A new house, a big new lime-green fiberglass hot tub, little skin cancers on your shoulders.”

“You're just mad because he didn't give you a tip,” said Chief. He worked the transmission out of fourth and into third, the gear box grumbling somewhere under our feet. Chief never complained, but I knew the old truck was a bitch.

As we slowed down something made me want to break Chief's clipboard into tiny pieces. Maybe it was the bantering Chief kept up, able to pretend things were normal. I hated him for it, but at the same time I was grateful. I had written my GED essay about Chief, the person who had influenced my life. I should have written about my father.

Chief swung the truck up onto a rutted dirt road, fighting with the steering wheel. He let the truck lurch to a stop. For a moment I thought he was going to say, That's enough out of you, Zachary, get out.

He turned off the engine, but even that was not a smooth operation. The key turned stiffly, and when the engine died the truck began to roll a little. Chief pulled on the parking brake and the truck steadied, stopping. The quiet was punctured by the sounds from under the hood, hot metal falling still, cooling. He climbed out of the truck, and I followed, up to a barbed-wire fence.

Silence. Hot wind. The
crush crush crush
of our footsteps.

“Can you believe having a head that small?” he was asking, his voice loud in all that quiet.

An ostrich peered at us from behind the fence. It had to turn its head sideways to observe us, like any bird, its head bare of feathers except for a few white hairlike filaments. Its ear was a fuzzy hole in its skull. Its feet were gray talons, huge, dinosaur prints in the dust.

“They buy these ostrich eggs for two thousand dollars each,” said Chief, holding out his hands to show the size and shape. “Keep hoping a demand for ostrich enchiladas will sweep the nation.”

Chief liked this, stories about people blowing their cash in a stupid investment. His father had been a pit boss in Vegas. Chief said most people were hopeless when it came to handling money, thinking they could beat the odds. But there was some kindness in his tone, too, as though people couldn't help dreaming.

A woman stepped down back steps in the distance and made her way toward wash hanging on a line. The line itself was invisible, mirage rippling the air. She saw us and smiled, the whiteness of her teeth across the distance, friendly, someone we would never know.

“Maybe they like the birds,” I said. “As pets.”

“Would you?” But he wanted to agree with me. I could tell by the way he picked up a spine of weeds and held it out to the ostrich. Another bird marched from behind a shed, wending its way across the trampled earth.

As the second fowl cocked its small, dark eye, a dog scrambled from the back porch of the house. The woman called to it, but the dog ignored her, barreling across the drought-yellow lawn, swinging wide to avoid the angle of the barbed-wire fence, running hard down the road to stop right before us.

Half German shepherd and half haystack, he exposed his teeth at us and released a long, low growl. He gave us an especially ugly display, peeling back the skin of his snout, showing every single tooth.

The woman was calling, a name that sounded like Nero. I have a theory about dealing with angry dogs, and it includes speaking in a gentle voice and holding out a hand the dog can sniff. Nero stretched his neck toward my hand and barked, dog breath on my fingers. He was sour-smelling.

Each bark shook something in me, and as I began to back away Nero bristled, a ridge of hair up and down his spine. He crept after me, one step after another, an iron-edged growl backing me toward the center of the road.

Chief wore one of his merry little smiles. “Look here, Zero,” he said. He wrenched open the truck door, reached in across the seat and rummaged, bringing forth half a sandwich.

My essay had been about the time Chief broke up a fight between two massive Tongans on the loading dock, two cousins who had just been joking around and suddenly pushed with a little too much weight. Chief had insinuated himself between the two men with a laugh.

It was the laugh, the carefree manner, that had killed the fight. “If you're going to show off your choke holds, make us buy tickets.” And the time he parked the truck in a driveway in San Leandro, and a furious man stormed down at us, holding up his pants with one fist, shouting that if we left our truck there he would have us arrested. Chief agreed that sloppy parking should be punished by the firing squad, and the man ended by leading us to a pony keg of beer and saying he could nuke another plate of nachos in the microwave.

And here was Chief, offering bug bread with grape jam seeping through, cottage cheese crumbling at the edges. The dog nosed the air. Chief put the half sandwich down beside an ant colony, cinnamon brown harvester ants, a hole with a halo of ant-processed earth.

I'm glad I'm not an animal. But for a moment Chief and I were silent, enjoying the dog's pleasure. He lapped the bread, taking the sandwich apart, tossing it so he could wedge it into his jaws. He wolfed the last crust, eyeing us with little of his former aggressiveness, his tail beginning to jerk from side to side.

“Zero the Hero,” said Chief.

E
IGHTEEN

“Dad, you look great,” I said.

For a rare instant I was alone with him, no nurse, no Mom or Sofia. I tried to convince myself that I was not lying: he looked much better.

A machine sucked in and sucked out. It was too warm in the room. My dad's face was flushed and I was sweating inside my shirt. It was Thursday afternoon, the fifth day after the shooting. A box of Swipes, white tissues like Kleenex, perched on a half table swung to one side. I touched one to his forehead, blotting moisture.

I had never done anything like this for my father. I almost expected one of us to need a joke, something to counter embarrassment. But there was no embarrassment, only his look of acknowledgment.

His eyes crinkled, asking.

“I took the test,” I said, sure he wouldn't remember. The memory of the previous Saturday morning was a dim historical scrap, unattached to anything happening in this room. But I meant it as an offering, good news from the ordinary world. Only as I spoke did I feel the flimsiness of the report, how little it must matter to him now.

His eyes were on mine, looking into me, full of questions. A blue tube led to a button in his throat.

The words tightened up on me, but I said them anyway. “I'm pretty sure I did okay,” I said, trying to make it sound casual. I wasn't sure at all.

He blinked. The blink meant something. His eyes rolled, taking in the room.

“A lot of equipment,” I said. “A busy place. A nice place,” I said, giddy, eager to have even a one-sided conversation with him. I almost mentioned how hard it was to park with all the cars everywhere, as though I was making small talk about shopping downtown.

His tongue licked his lips, his lips parting, then shutting again, and I could read his eyes. When I was out in the corridor again, the bustle of hospital routine passing by, I could hear what he was thinking.

Daniel put a small plastic figure into my open palm and closed my fingers around it. The space warrior was completely hidden. I wiggled my fingers so the head of the cosmic combatant stuck out of my fist. My half-brother laughed and tried to poke the helmeted head back into my grasp.

“You don't have to draw pictures,” my mother was saying. She was already starting her spell of weight loss, a new wrinkle in her cheek. Some people balloon under stress; Mom does just the opposite. After a while she starts to look worn and dry, like a long distance runner who has been pounding marathons in Death Valley.

“It helps me as much as it helps you,” said Dr. Monrovia. A white, smooth surface of the drawing board squeaked as his marker added lines and arcs, chirping softly when he shaded in, cross-hatching carefully. The marker ink smelled like alcohol. “I always think better when I have something in my hand,” he added, trying to disarm my mother: I'm just another person doing a difficult job.

“You draw very well,” said Sofia. She was dressed in tight black pants and a full-cut flowery blouse with long, oversized sleeves, a shiny material, black and rose satin. It made her look big on top and puny below, armor that went only halfway. I found it hard to dislike Sofia now. A truce had been declared in my brain, negative thoughts piled like weapons under UN supervision.

“Red is for the spinal column,” said Dr. Monrovia.

“And black represents bone,” said my mother, swinging her foot,
kick kick
against nothing.

Dr. Monrovia was hard at work on the outline of the skull, blunt nose, sharp chin. “I haven't discussed this with Mr. Madison, but I will. I have a theory about the ability of patients to absorb bad news during post-trauma recovery.”

“Tell me about your theory,” said my mother. Not us. Me. Mom always hated a certain type of person, turning on the mute whenever a weatherman blew a line, pointed to a smiling sun and saying “in this area of severe thunderstorms.”

“My views aren't exactly the issue here,” said Dr. Monrovia. He looked even less like my dad today and seemed to have lost hair since I had seen him last, fluorescent lights gleaming off his scalp.

Mom looked into her purse, took out a bottle of Advil.

“People during trauma,” said the doctor, “are more able to absorb bad news than people generally think. The psyche goes into crisis mode, and in this frame of mind the patient can take in bad news with a calm that would be very unusual in a healthy patient.” He gave a little tilt of his head: my theory, take it or leave it.

Mom popped three of the pills, without water, like someone snapping up M & M's, swallowing with no difficulty, practiced at this sort of thing.

“Mr. Madison is recovering from surgery, fighting infection successfully, vital signs in good shape.” He snapped the cap back onto a marker, and arranged the markers in a long convoy in the tray at the bottom of the drawing board. “He was in good physical condition before this event, and that's a blessing.” He selected one more marker, with an air of someone putting the last, finishing touches on a work of art.

I experienced a flicker of pride. My father had always jogged, every afternoon, around San Francisco's Lake Merced, plodding along even in the drizzle. When it rained he jockeyed in place on his exercise bike, an Airgometer that sounded like a wind machine, a digital gauge counting the calories he was burning.