CROSSWINDS
A Darkly Comic Modern Western

I pulled my pickup into a spot of sun across from the house. A backhoe was knocking a big hole into the east kitchen wall. My marriage had fallen apart in that house and now the house was coming down.

The house was old. Billy the Kid had supposedly gunned a man down in that house. An artist who lived there later had blown his own brains out with a shotgun. When I lived there, Billy the Kid was being played by Kris Kristofferson and the artist's works were being peddled for big money. It had been a violent place.

The day was clear, light, and springtime windy. The trees were bare, and I hoped the backhoe wouldn't damage them. The operator wore a red baseball cap and did not look like he was very particular about what he knocked down. The machine worked without mercy. The light was drawn and hard-edged, not much warmth to it. Crows were setting up a racket. They ought to have moved north, or so it seemed to me. The screeching was drowning out the backhoe.

I once worked alongside a backhoe. I was the swamper. The operator was a humorless bastard named Slim. My job was to even out and fix up a sewer ditch Slim was cutting with the backhoe. I worked along with a Mexican fellow named Sammy, and we both thought Slim was a piss-ant. The ditch had to be five feet deep and it meant blasting. There was about four and a half feet of rock under five or six inches of dirt. We had to drill, blast, and then jackhammer the big pieces into bite-sized chunks for the backhoe. All the time we kept coming up with unexploded sticks of dynamite. Slim was too careless to bother testing the wires to see if the charges had gone. We worked our jack hammers with a kind of delicate touch. Slim thought it was funnier than hell and stayed away from the general area until we were done. He liked to find an electrician or form builder and lie about all the women he had. There is always someone who likes listening to lies better than working.

One day Sammy and I put a stick of dynamite in Slim's lunch bucket. We took out the cap and stuck in a note that said, "emergency dildo for limp pricks." We figured that he deserved it. He should have done the blasting better and at least checked for unblasted charges. He'd rather have us risking our asses jack-hammering than to get out in the rubble and scrounge around with a tester. Fuck him. That was our attitude. At least we took the cap out, which was a damned lot better than the way we had to handle it. He'd been a bus driver. "Worked the dog," as he said. I guess that's what did it. He was one of the sorriest bastards I ever worked for.

Thinking of him and watching the bastard on this hoe demolish what had been my house got me into a depressed sort of mood. It's bad to be outdoors on a permanent basis. It's nice to have a house to help break the afternoon wind. It's bad, though, to have to change your habits for folks just to stay at their place. It looked like I was going to have to put up with a level of discomfort either way. This seemed like a piss-poor state of affairs, and damned unjust.

I stayed there a while. I sat in my ratty old pickup across a vacant lot from the demolition. Figuring it later, I see that I made two mistakes that day. One was coming and sitting there in the first place. Something like that's bound to raise mean thoughts. The other was bringing some whiskey along. Mistakes like that get together and breed up a bunch more.

I nursed the whiskey along, watching that operator and thinking of Slim. Getting depressed verged on over into getting pissed off, and before too long I decided to run that old boy out of there.

When I got out of the truck, the whiskey bottle got loose somehow and ended up broke. That should've told me something, but it only got me more stirred up. I walked on over across the lot to where the fellow was knocking my house down. I watched the kitchen wall fall into the hen house, and then I yelled at the guy.

"Get down offa that backhoe, Mister. I'm gonna whip your ass!"

It wasn't particularly elegant or imaginative, but it made me feel pretty good. The operator kept right on going. I stood there a minute and began to feel stupid. The son-of-a-bitch was ignoring my existence. I can see now that what with the racket from the crows and the engine noise from the backhoe, he probably didn't hear. At the time, however, I thought the guy was trying to make me look like a horse's ass. I yelled something else, and still the guy kept at it, backing up, ramming forward, destroying a perfectly good little house. He was doing the devil's work, I figured, tearing up my house to make way for a Big Boy Family Restaurant. I commenced to waller in the injustice of it, having Joyce leave and then getting the old chinga from the landlord.

I was just about beside myself when I began noticing all the dirt clods around. What with all the backhoeing, the surface of the ground was all tore up, and there was sure plenty of them. I picked up one and threw it at the guy. It missed him by a good ten feet and he never saw it. He was intent on his work. In a few minutes the air was thick with clods. He finally stopped working and gave the situation a consideration. He seemed pretty well stumped. My aim was something short of wonderful, but I hit him every couple of minutes. He scratched his head trying to puzzle out a strategy. Finally, he crawled down and jogged out of range. He yelled something to the effect of me being a maniac and walked down the street in the direction of a 7-11 store.

When he was gone, I went over to the hoe and found that he'd left the key. He'd shut the son-of-a-bitch down but ended up leaving the key. That tickled me. It seemed funnier than hell at the time, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I cranked the hoe up and drove it around in back of the house. I aimed it west and slowed it way down, setting the automatic throttle and got off. In the middle of the yard was a septic tank about ten feet square and six or so feet deep. It was covered over by a sheet of half-inch plywood and a couple of inches of dirt. It was amazing how long that plywood held the weight of the backhoe. The hoe inched on out over the tank and the plywood held. Four, five, six feet the hoe went before the plywood gave. It was a wonderful thing to see that backhoe go into that tank. If I live to be ninety, I'll never forget it.

I walked over and was looking down into the hole admiring my work when the operator showed up again. In the mood I was in, I still would have liked to whip him. He had Duane McFeders with him. I went to high school with Duane and never had much use for him. He was the type that was always reaching down his shirt to pop pimples. Now he'd become one of the town cops and was as useless as it's possible for a person to be.

Duane put me in jail. When I was getting in the police car to get hauled off, the operator of the backhoe came over. He took off that red baseball cap and stuck his head in the window.

"Buddy," he said, "You're a crazy son-of-a-bitch." The way he said it tickled me, all serious, holding that red cocksucker hat in his hands. I just smiled and we took off for the courthouse.

I was in jail for a month. One day my old man came by to see me. I'd dreaded it so much; it was a real relief when he finally came.

"God-damn you, boy," he said. "God-damn you."

"Sit down," I said.

"Why in the hell did you do a damned fool thing like that?"

We didn't have much to say. He has a vein right in the middle of his forehead that stands out when he's mad. You could've stacked cord wood in that vein. Still, I could tell he was a little tickled.

He sat there on a folding chair just outside the bars. His neck muscles were all swollen up with the effort of trying not to laugh. He was sunburned like a tomato.

"Why? Why? The mournful cry," I said. "Hell, I don't know. Can't you let me pay my debt to society in peace?"

"Boy," he said, "I'm not going to grace that with an answer."

He didn't. He sat there all bunched and swollen and pissed off. Time passed and we both got restless. He got up.

"Tell Mama I'm fine," I said.

"Okay," he said and off he went.

The old man's visit was the only thing that really happened while I was in the pokey and that seemed like plenty. Aside from flogging the bishop about all I did was develop an exercise program. I did it to pass the time and it was strange. I never would have thought of it outside of jail because I always worked and doing exercises seemed like more work when I had plenty. Seeing guys jogging or working out always pissed me off. It always seemed like they had the money, they had the muscles and tans and they had time, time, time. I didn't have a damn thing but more work than I desired. In jail, though, I worked out and kind of liked it. Taking stock, it seemed to do me good. When I got out, the first thing I did was to look at myself in the men's room mirror at the courthouse. I looked good, considering. I was a little pale and peaked but tight, strong and wiry. I'm not real tall but I carry my weight well. No one ever called me short. My hair had grown out in jail and was a ball of black curls like sheep's wool. My belly was smooth and hard, and my eyes had a bit of fire. At least jail hadn't demoralized me totally. I wasn't even out the door, in fact, before I started realizing the advantages.

Except for being in jail I'd spent the month without worrying. Nothing I could do, I figured, so why worry? As I made my way out of the courthouse and into society, the situation hit me. I had troubles. Naturally, every time I even thought about Joyce I felt miserable. Nothing new there, and I had other concerns before I could apply myself to the project of feeling as terrible as the loss of my loving wife warranted. First off I had to apply myself to the problem of four walls. I had six or so hours to come up with my night's lodging. Also I had to think about work. Because of being in jail I hadn't showed up for work. Because of that I got fired. I was also saddled with a $300 debt for getting the backhoe pissanted out of the septic tank. Naturally, after sitting a month my truck wouldn't start. I managed in an hour or so to get it cobbled up, but it was a costly thing in patience. I had a twenty-seven dollar check from work, I was hot, dirty, cranky and had no particular prospects. It was already wearing on towards four in the afternoon.

Twenty-seven dollars is a poor sum. It is not enough to get a place to live. It is enough, though, to drink on and buy yourself space in a bar to exist unmolested and give things a consideration. I did this. They even cashed my check.

I was damned glad I wasn't poor. Lack of money is a terrible thing and lots of people face the dilemma of not having enough for rent but having plenty to drink on and make matters worse. I was able to see the whole line of events. Aside from being so glad I wasn't poor, I also got to thinking about Joyce. I finally had the leisure to let the hurt begin. It'd been there all along, of course, but in jail I managed to put it on hold along with everything else. Thinking of her was just about more than I could take. I recalled the way she used to take hold of my hand when we were sitting in the front room talking. We did love to talk. "Rodney," she'd say, "You won't bee-lieve what I saw transpiring down at the root beer stand this afternoon." She could tell a story about the most ordinary thing and make it so funny, I'd like to burst a primary blood vessel laughing. Thinking of that made my hand feel an actual burning pain that her hand wasn't in it. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn't figure why we had to split.

It was dark in the bar. It was one of these lounges with no windows. I like a bar with windows. I had a couple of beers and decided to go by and give Joyce a visit. I went out and got in the truck fumbling around blinded by the sun. I hate those lounges. A person's better off to just have a beer or two at home. All that sun reminded me of not having a home, and it was a pretty low-down feeling. I'd hate like hell to have to drag on into my folks' place, twenty-six years old and all. Without any deep thinking about it I decided to put off worrying about where to stay. I'd give Joyce a visit first.

Joyce was at her Mom's and the two of them were outside washing windows. It didn't do me any particular good to see Edna out there. She always had seemed to bear me a grudge and I'd done a few mean things in the misery of the split-up. Joyce'd probably told her. I rattled up in my of pickup and the old gal bristled. Joyce looked good. She had a bandana around her head and had her sleeves all rolled up to wash windows. Both women had red old lobster hands from cold water and ammonia.

"Let you out of jail, did they?" Edna had to say. Edna was like that. Edna was also a threatening sight for a man so fresh from jail to have to behold. She had her hair drawn back away from her face in a ponytail. This seemed to emphasize that tight jaw, that steely gaze that just radiated mean-spiritedness and wrath.

"Yes, ma'am, they did and it's nice to be back in society. I'd like to talk to Joyce if l might."

"Talk away, Rodney. It's a free country." Edna went on around to the side of the house. I guess she wanted to at least make it look like she was being fair.

Joyce took up a sponge and began washing windows to beat the band. I eased out of the pickup and walked over watching her wash, like I was interested in window washing.

"Joyce," I said, "Why'd we ever had to split like that?"

She answered me without looking at me.

"We've been over this a hundred times, Rodney. Aren't you ever going to get it through your head? It doesn't matter why anymore. We're split and that's the way it's going to stay. Everything either of us does just makes it more sure. For a long time I didn't want it that way, and maybe you didn't want it that way either, but it makes no difference. All I want to do now is just get over it. All the time you were in jail I dreaded you getting out because I knew this would happen."

I ought to have said a friendly, non-argumentative word or two and just left. There was plenty I could have said along those lines. I was glad to see her and glad to see her full of spunk. I could have said so and begun the long task of mending fences. Somehow, though, I wasn't able to rally the good sense that the situation required.

"Well," I said, "I don't get it. If you didn't want it and I didn't want it, then why the hell did it have to happen? It don't compute. I'm sorry." I said, "I'm sorry," not like, "I'm sorry I don't understand," but like, "I'm sorry you're too damned dumb to make any sense."

"This is why," she said. "Just what is going on now is exactly why. Get in your pickup and leave, Rodney. In two or three more minutes we'll be fighting again. I don't know what it takes to convince you. You are dense, Rodney, really dense."

"Well, I came for Corky," I said. "I decided I want to have Corky."

"Well, you can't have Corky. Corky's my dog, he's always been my dog. I always fed him and took care of him. All you did was laugh at him and cuss about how useless he was."

"I paid for his food," I said lamely. Here I stood arguing with Joyce about Corky. I didn't want Corky. I don't know why I even mentioned it. I didn't back down though, and it ended up in a big fight with Joyce crying and Edna ordering me off the property. I went and stood across the street for a while to show Edna that I knew my rights. She could order me off of her property, but I didn't have to leave the vicinity until I damned well felt like it. Naturally I felt rotten. I loved my wife and figured we could work things out if I ever developed the talent of keeping my bazoo shut occasionally.

A little later I was at my folks'. They'd lived in town most of my life, but I always felt that the old man had never got used to it. A terrible dust storm had blown up. Late as it was, I thought for a while about going out to help the old man mend fences or doctor cattle but decided against it. It's funny but out of town there's no dust, just a hard south wind that's almost pleasant. The trouble was that if I found my dad and tried to give him a hand, he'd start up with his comments and criticism.

It was easier to eat dust than put up with that. The trouble was, I had no place to go. The only place where I could expect a welcome was my folks'. I drove around town aimlessly for a while eating dust and feeling low. It's hard to understand how dust can get into the cab of a truck. One of nature's wonders I guess. The dust mingled with the usual gas smell of the cab. There was a hose leak I'd repaired in my half-assed fashion with duct tape. A person gets sick of the smell of it.

I got a bottle before heading over to the house. A feeling came over me that I needed to show them I wasn't cowed or hangdog. I figured that walking into the house with a bottle and setting it just casually on the dining room table was about all the demonstration I could muster. A six-pack just wouldn't do. A fifth of bourbon said something. It said something my mom didn't particularly like, but that didn't matter. From time to time a person has to take a stand.

I walked on in, set the bottle on the dining room table, and poured myself a dram.

"Typical spring day," I said to my mother, who came in from the back part of the house.

"Son," she said, "don't it seem a bit early on this 'typical spring day' to start in drinking whiskey?"

"I figure that's my business," I shot back. "At any rate I'm just going to wash a bit of the dust off my gullet, no harm in that."

"No virtue in it either, that I can see," she said. "Anyway come on in the kitchen and talk to me while I start supper. It's been this month, that I haven't got to talk to you."

I took my glass and followed her into the kitchen leaving the bottle behind. I'd made my point, no need to prod her.

We talked a while about the weather, my sister's husband and other things, taking care to avoid the touchy topic of jail. I began to relax and enjoy myself. My mother was quite an old gal. She had strong opinions and an inclination to state them as it pleased her. She had this prejudice against daylight savings time, and it had just switched over. Naturally, I had to prod her a bit on the topic. She went for it and held forth with quite a dissertation. Then, just as I was enjoying the entire situation, she dropped her bombshell.

"I suppose you heard, Rodney, that Joyce is three months pregnant." She shot me a grey-eyed sideways look as she was grating carrots.

"Edna called to let me know and told me not to tell anyone. I guess she wanted the pleasure of telling everyone herself since that's exactly what she did. Surely it got around to you?" She shot me another one of her looks that was just soaked with meaning. My ignorance hung out all over my face.

"Sure," I said as smooth as I could. "I've known for quite a while."

I sat there knocked just about daft and trying to act casual, unconcerned. Mama mixed some raisins into the grated carrots and opened the refrigerator to get out the mayonnaise. She whistled, "How much is that doggie in the window?" between her teeth. She knew I was lying and knew I knew she knew. It's things like that, that make me hate her guts.

"It's time," she said, spooning big dollops of mayonnaise into the carrots, "for you to straighten up, boy, or you're going to really lose that girl and that little baby that's on the way." She slammed the jar down on the counter and turned to look me in the eye. "And you'd just better think twice before you lose me a grandkid. I'm here to tell you that, like it or not."

She turned on her heel and began to stir the mayonnaise. Her idea of stirring was pretty athletic. When she finished she turned again and pointed at me with the spoon. "And I don't want Joyce to ever have to explain to her child that his daddy is in jail."

Jail. When I thought of jail, it kind of made me homesick. Joyce, Edna, and my mom - now there was a trio for you. Edna and Mama hated each other like poison, and the way they showed it was by being meaner than hell to me and just nicey-nice to Joyce. The bitchier Joyce was with me the more they liked it, and I have to admit that with all her fine qualities Joyce does have the capacity to be bitchy. She got a lot of encouragement in that direction growing up, and I sure did what I could to arouse it on a regular basis. Still, it's a wonderful thing to be the last person in town to learn your wife's pregnant. I was also feeling put out with the old man. The least he could've done was told me when he came by the jail.

"Your father doesn't know yet," my mom went on, seeming to read my mind. "I couldn't bear to see what it would've done to him to learn it while you were imprisoned."

'Imprisoned'! Boy, I've got to admit my mom has a way with words. 'Imprisoned'! That does put the best possible face on the situation. The woman is a genius at flinging recrimination and guilt. Joyce ought to take lessons.

"I think," she continued, "it's up to you to tell him." The carrot salad was finished, and I was just about finished along with it: She'd been saving up for a whole month, and by golly she knew how to let go. I drank my whiskey down and felt that warm nauseating fist form in my stomach.

"I'm going to go watch TV," I said, and went into the front room and switched it on. It was MASH, one of the ones I'd seen a couple of times before. It made me feel good to know the lines, kind of a comfort. In the kitchen Mama, made a good deal more noise with pots and pans than was probably necessary.

At six, like clockwork, just as MASH was over, the old man came in. I heard the kitchen door slam and knew he was home. He strode on through the dining room into the front.

"I guess you wasn't out of jail ten minutes before you bought that bottle," he said. "Go ahead, drink it down, for God's sake, don't be shy. You can't make yourself into any more of a horse's ass than you already have. Maybe you'll come up with another brilliant stunt. Maybe you'll drive my horse trailer into an irrigation ditch."

I sat there and wondered how on earth I could have ever supposed that my drafty, dusty old pickup cab was any less comfortable than my folks' place.

I told him that night that Joyce was pregnant. To my surprise he didn't light into me and he didn't give me a big lecture. He just kind of smiled. "I guess," he said, "your marriage problems wasn't the old turkey-neck anyhow. Looks like it's time for you to take a consideration in your life, son. Good luck to you."

The next morning at five I heard the clock-radio come on in my folks' room. I couldn't make out the song; it just seemed to fade in and out and was distorted by the walls. I laid there and thought about how wonderful it would be to never have to hear a human voice or see a human face, to suddenly have them all gone, disappeared from the face of the earth. I yearned for the peace of slowly forgetting over the years that people with their lies and their bad smells had ever existed.... [continued]