West of Here (20 page)

LATE IN THE
evening, having left his sweet-and-sour chicken half eaten in front of the television, where the M’s were about to drop their third straight to Anaheim, Franklin found himself — contrary to the wisdom of Don Henley — looking back. A light mist shone in the purple streetlamps, as he walked his bull mastiff around the parking lot behind Port Bonita Lanes. He could hear the faint crack of pins, and the general hum of activity from within the sagging gray edifice. Farther off, he could hear the swishing of light traffic on Route 101.

He’d lied to that kid today. No getting around it.
Dare to
dream — as if anything were that easy.
Ground zero for your life
— as if anything were that definite. He should’ve tempered his optimism. He’d made all of Port Bonita seem like it actually gave a shit. He’d made it sound like he himself gave a shit. He should’ve given it to Tillman straight. He should’ve said, “Son, I ain’t gonna lie to you — it’s sink or swim. And keepin’ your head above water ain’t exactly the stuff of fairy tales. But it beats the joint.”

He should’ve done the practical thing — told the kid to keep his nose clean, told him to keep collecting a paycheck and stay out of bars. Told him this town was no different than any other town with a Wal-Mart and two Mexican restaurants. Instead, Franklin had inspired him, stirred up those dreamers and poets. He could see that green light in Tillman’s eyes, even as he left the office. But how soon would that fade? How soon before a shit job in a shit town seemed like a dead end street? Next time, Franklin decided, he’d tone things down a bit, prepare Tillman to lower his expectations slightly. Tell him his life may not look like Hugh Hefner’s right away — at least not for the foreseeable future — but it could look a sight better than three-square and a Ping-Pong table. A guy could buy his own groceries, watch TV on his own time, get an apartment behind Bonita Lanes. Boy like Tillman needed practical advice, not poetry.

FRANKLIN BELL’S PEP
talks actually worked for a while. Two sessions, anyway. On both occasions, Timmon had exhibited a slight spring in his step when he returned to High Tide from his two-hour lunch, donned his rubber apron, and took his place on the line. But after the third meeting, there was no spring in his step. Gutting fish, he tried to see the hole, tried to grip the rock. But the only hole he could see was so deep that he couldn’t see out of it, and the only thing he was gripping was a headless fish. And when Krig came up behind him and set a familiar hand on Timmon’s shoulder, inquiring whether he planned on joining him for happy hour, the die was cast. Timmon swept the hand off like a tarantula, shed his apron matter-of-factly, hung it on a peg, and walked calmly across the processing room toward the back entrance.

The instant Timmon strode out of High Tide and let the door close behind him with a metallic clatter, his future was delivered to him in a flash of weak sunlight. Surrendering to the one decision that could conceivably make his dream a foreseeable reality, a bitter little pellet dissolved in his stomach. Suddenly, he burned to throw himself headlong at the future. The solution to his life was right in front of him.

He had only to beat a trail to it. It was all so tangible. Risky, perhaps, dangerous — by no means a cakewalk — really, a cold hard business when you got down to it but thrilling and boundless. And it was his for the taking.

Timmon patted his wallet in his front pocket, still $618 thick. Plenty for where he was going. He smiled at the thought of it, marched with purpose and determination across the dirt parking lot, past the Goat, and across Marine without looking.

THE NEXT WEEK
, when Timmon failed to appear for his fourth parole meeting, Franklin left his office depressed and went home to his studio apartment. Arriving home, he plopped down on his bile colored sofa and patted Rupert’s big square head.

“Well, Rupe. We finally lost one.”

JUNE
2006

Bringing her mother had been a mistake. So had wearing khakis and a sweatshirt. Of course Beverly would disparage the place. Of course she’d focus on the negatives, batting her heavy eyelashes like Gloria Swanson as she commented innocuously on the overabundance of shade, puckering her bee-stung lips as she benignly observed the northern exposure or the proximity of a precarious alder to the carport. No matter, the roar of the river and the rugged mountain seclusion. Never mind that the place was a steal at $78,500, with owner financing.

“But Hill, honey, it’s not even a cabin,” observed Bev, standing beneath the shade of the badly weathered gazebo. “It’s a trailer.”

“But, Mom, the river. Just look at it.”

“Isn’t the river dead? Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

“All that’s gonna change, Mom. That’s what I’ve been telling you. Once the rehab starts, things will be —”

“
If
the dam comes down.”

“The dam’s coming down, Mom.”

“That’s not what the
Register
thinks.”

“The
Register
is owned by a bunch of cronies trying to sway public opinion, Mom. As soon as the feds buy the dam, they’ll decommission the whole …” Hillary trailed off when she noticed her mother wasn’t really listening but looking in her compact.

“Honestly, Hill. You and your causes.”

Bev puckered her lips, and stepped cautiously down from the gazebo into the long grass. “It’s still a trailer, Hill. What’s wrong with your apartment?”

“It’s an apartment, Mom. For starters, I don’t own it, and on top of that, people walk on my ceiling. It’s claustrophobic.”

“Well now, Hill, this little …
place
can’t be over four hundred square feet.”

“Yeah, but look around you.”

Beverly cast a vague look around. “Is there electricity?”

“Of course, there’s electricity.”

“What about after the dam?”

“The dam isn’t a public utility, Mom. It has nothing to do with my electricity, or anyone else’s. And the truth is, I don’t even care if it has electricity. I
want
to diminish my carbon footprint. I
want
sustainability. I
like
that it’s rustic.”

“Your great-grandfather’s homestead was rustic. This is a trailer, Hill. It’s got no resale value. And just for the record, I know all about green living, dear. I don’t buy anything at Wal-Mart except for plants — Rory’s is just too damn expensive, and I don’t want to haul pampas grass all the away across town in the Suburban. So don’t think that I don’t know a thing or two about the environment. Listen, Hill, I’m not here to talk you out of this, but the trailer’s a teardown, and there’s a good reason why the lot is so cheap — it’s ten miles from town.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Oh, Hill, all this stubborn independence, all this feminine self- sufficiency. Have you really thought this out? How are you supposed to meet people? How are you supposed to entertain? Tell me you haven’t given up on men completely. Trust me, honey, you can learn to love them.”

“I’m not gay, Mom.”

“It’s okay if you are, Hill. The point is, you can learn to love them. The benefits of a —”

“I’m
not
gay.”

Doubtfully, Bev looked at Hillary in her square-cut khakis and sweatshirt, then over her shoulder at the muddy Silverado parked in the driveway, a mountain of filthy five-gallon buckets and a two-cycle gas genie heaped in the bed.

How was it possible that her own mother still wouldn’t believe her? No, Hillary hadn’t had a steady boyfriend in eight years or paid sixty dollars for a haircut. No, she didn’t wear makeup. Yes, she was
self-sufficient. Yes, she drove a pickup. Yes, her work clothes deemphasized her figure. But you try scrambling up riverbanks in a skirt and heels, you try navigating Forest Service Route 2880 in a Miata. Sometimes Hillary thought her mother was merely symptomatic of a bigger problem: Port Bonita, with its willful ignorance, and lack of imagination, its stubborn backwoods resistance to progress of any kind. Even the fashions arrived ten years late. Port Bonita, where orange juice was still just for breakfast, where mixed marriage was still divisive and gay marriage was a scourge, where any guy with an earring was a fag, where any woman who drove a pickup or cropped her hair short or embraced utility over design was a lesbo.

In a way, Hillary felt sorry for her mother. There was something admirable and sad in the way her mother strove so hard to resist the inevitable. Hillary could scarcely imagine the sheer force of will or the leap of imagination required to outrun a truth as pervasive as middle age, to convince oneself that dating a twenty-eight-year-old Motocross enthusiast, wearing seamless panties, or pumping your chest full of saline, made any sense at all, when you were three years shy of Social Security, and osteoporosis was just around the corner.

“Look, Mom, if it will make you feel better, I’ve got a date Saturday.” Beverly perked up. “With a guy?”

“Yes, Mom. With a guy.”

“Who is he? Where did you meet him?”

“I haven’t. Genie set it up.”

“DeMarini?”

“Of course.”

Bev fought off her disappointment at this news and kept the smile tacked to her face. She’d always suspected Genie DeMarini of being a lesbian. “Well, that sounds hopeful.”

“Trust me, it’s not.”

“Oh, Hill.”

“Mom, there’s more to life than men,” said Hillary, immediately realizing she was not helping her cause. “What I mean is, just because I’m not with somebody doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to be with the right person. I’ve just chosen not to make it my life’s work.”

“Well, you could at least try
attracting
someone, Hill.”

Hillary knew that the comment was not intended to be cruel — there was the note of well-intentioned suggestion to it, which made it all the sadder to her ears.

“You hate it, don’t you?” Hillary said. “This place.”

Bev waved at a mosquito and looked around vaguely, her eyes landing on the Silverado in the driveway. “Oh, I don’t hate it, Hill. I’m just not sure it’s a good investment, dear. I just think you should look into something closer to town.”

JANUARY
1890

Thomas remained on the ground for a moment and listened to the footsteps of the dark Makah receding. Groping in the mud all about him, Thomas dredged the broken mirror out from beneath the boardwalk. He tried to wipe the reflection clear with the palm of his bleeding hand but succeeded only in smudging the glass still further. The tool had been rendered useless; the world it revealed was cracked and muddy and bleeding. But the boy continued to clutch it anyway as he clambered to his feet. In spite of an instinct to flee, Thomas felt the stronger pull of his hatred. The boy’s heart was still racing as he followed the Makah’s path to the far edge of the Belvedere and down the alley. His breathing had quieted by the time he reached the head of the alley, at which point he could hear Stone Face talking to his companion, the little one, whom Thomas recognized as the one called Small Fry. A third man’s voice silenced them both. Thomas could not decipher his words. Ducking under the building once more, down among the pilings, he drew closer. He could see two sets of legs at the base of the steps. The third voice came from above, from the top of the steps. He could hear it now. And he recognized it as the Belvedere Man.

“You best have the same idea of taking care of something that I do. If this comes back to me, you’re finished. Do you hear?”

Stone Face consented with a grunt. The two sets of legs walked away. Bottles rattled and clinked in the wooden box. Thomas crawled out from beneath the building and hurried after the two Indians. They trudged the length of town along the base of the muddy hillside, with Thomas trailing them at a safe distance. The wind kicked up, and it began spitting rain. The tar paper roof of the Olympic Hotel set to flapping here and there.

When the boy drew too close, his footsteps — ginger though they were — finally betrayed his presence. Stone Face stopped in his tracks and swung around.

“What’s that?” he said, to Small Fry.

“What’s what?”

“Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Shhhh.”

Thomas was flat on his belly in the mud. The grit of soil was on his tongue, and the lingering taste of blood. He was still clutching the tool, reflective side down, in his outstretched hand.

Stone Face started creeping back in Thomas’s direction.

“It was nothing,” said Small Fry, holding the box of bottles.

“Shhhh.”

Stone Face crept closer still.

“This is getting heavy,” said Small Fry.

“Shhhh.”

“It was only the wind.”

Stone Face stopped abruptly and stood perfectly still not twenty feet from where Thomas lay. The wind was blowing fiercely in the treetops up the hill. Limbs clattered in the understory. The roof of the Olympic Hotel flapped its intermittent signal.

“Told you it was the wind,” said the little man. “C’mon. You carry this.”

Satisfied, Stone Face turned around and rejoined his companion. When they reached the base of the hogback, the two men hunkered down in the mud, leaned against the hillside, and uncapped one of the bottles. Stone Face drank greedily. After a few passes with the whiskey, the two Indians rose to their feet, and Stone Face hefted the box of bottles. Thomas could see the difference in their comportment almost immediately as they proceeded up the hogback. They bumped each other occasionally as they shuffled along, and the bottles jumped around in the box. They said nothing, as they trudged up the hill. Thomas did not venture after them until the two men had crested the rise on the colony side, at which point he made a mad dash up the
hogback. By the time he crested the hill, he could see the shadowy figures of the two men cutting behind the boat shed toward the strait.

Thomas caught up to the men just as they began hiking through a field of long grass. He squatted low, listening to their whisking progress. Now and again, he sprang to his feet and shot forward through the grass in bursts like a jackrabbit.