Boonville (23 page)

“Don't take up poker, Squirrel Boy,” Hap had said, before assisting another customer. “You ain't got the face for it.”

Later, as John rethought Hap's caution, he heard a car in his driveway, followed by footsteps on his porch. Blindman filled the doorway, holding his squirrel cane in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. In place of his white clothing, he wore a Hawaiian shirt with a yellow parrot on the right shoulder and a pair of blue-and-green-striped pants. He sported the same black sunglasses. It was a tourist's outfit, one looking for a gay bar in Tahiti.

“You ready to do business?” Blindman said, addressing the door frame two feet to John's left.

John looked past Blindman to the car in his driveway, a late model Chrysler with a figure slouched behind the wheel, a woman either fiddling with the radio or intentionally leaning out of his sightline. John thought it must be Blindman's wife.

“I was ready two hours ago,” John replied, returning his attention to Blindman's outfit. “What were you doing? Looking for something special to wear?”

“Why do you say that?” Blindman asked, glancing over his shoulder in the general direction of his car. “I'm wearing white, ain't I?”

John saw the slouching woman shift in her seat. She looked at John and then the totem squirrels. She kissed something in her hand and begin to pray. Blindman's grip tightened on his cane. John could see the invisible world sending him signals, the Morse code inside sarcasm, the warning in a delayed response, the broken message of a stutter. Blindman was seething. He appeared ready to
tap a course back to his car. The figure in the front seat reached over to the passenger side and locked the door.

“Of course you're wearing white,” John said, and Blindman seemed to relax. “I've never seen you in anything else but an umpire's mask.”

“Sorry about the other day,” Blindman said. “Things haven't been the best on the home front. I'm getting ready for a run with some Robitussin. Either that or I'm calling Immigration and getting a new wife.”

Again Blindman turned to where he thought his wife had parked, but was actually staring in the direction of the woods. John wondered if certain reflexes were instinctual and you performed them even if you didn't have the senses to back them up, like trying to scratch the itch of an amputated leg. There was a threat in Blindman's gesture, but what was he going to do? Pin the tail on the donkey?

“Come in, Blindman,” John said, taking a step back into the cabin.

Blindman tapped past the threshold to the couch in the living room, knocking over several squirrel sculptures on his way. John shut the door. Blindman made himself comfortable while John reset the statues. John sat down in a chair opposite his guest.

“Squirrel Boy, I believe you have ten trash bags of Edna's product and it's as good as Sarah says it is, and in return, I have thirty grand,” Blindman said, recapping the deal. “But if you're trying to pull a fast one, recording this conversation or trying to shortchange or blackmail me in any way, I'll have you killed faster than you can say, ‘Who was that fat Spic with the knife?'”

John hadn't considered those options, except in regard to their being used against him. He wasn't going to say anything. He figured Blindman wouldn't either.

John's father wouldn't have approved of his son's trusting nature. “Never put all your cards on the table,” he used to say. “Something is worth what you get for it.” When John had refused to play their stock market game anymore, his father took him to work to get him interested in sales. For such an unscrupulous guy, his father's office sure was crappy. It was then that John realized there were other ways of knowing, the threadbare confidence in the cut of your suit, the frame surrounding your wife's photo, the cadence of your voice. His
father oozed the fumes of failure.

“I'm presuming you'd rather not have me make a phone call to Miami,” John said, hoping Blindman couldn't smell bluff. “Anything strange happens, it's your ass and the price of a plane ticket.”

Dueling tough guys. But whereas Blindman might have some south-of-the-border connection to do his dirty work, John would have to do it himself or call Bean Bean and try to set up an opportunity for him to bore Blindman to death, arrange what seemed to be an innocent luncheon and then unleash him over dessert with a speech on farm reports during the Truman era or the history of slippers.

“I'd expect nothing less,” Blindman said. “I'm easily found.”

With that gentleman's agreement, Blindman owned a permanent part of John's guilty conscience.

Leafing through the seventh envelope, each containing fifty bills with the face of Andrew Jackson looking blankly to his left, John realized he had never had this much cash in his hand before. The previous high had been 6,200 dollars, which he had carried on his person for two hours after he and Christina had withdrawn the amount from their savings to buy a used car. He had taken the wad from the bank's envelope, doubled it over and secured it with a rubber band, and then slipped it into the pocket of his khakis to pretend it was walk-around money. He put a ten at the center and went to eat breakfast. He had a secret crush on a waitress, sexily full-figured and unflappable, who never gave John more than a refill on his coffee. For some reason he wanted to impress her. He knew she wouldn't be impressed by a large sum of money, but maybe by the mystery surrounding where it had come from, a layer of intrigue suggesting John was a complex character. It was a careless move, even at John's breakfast nook where the toughest customers ordered eggs Florentine. But he felt like Scarface flashing the roll, until the waitress casually said, “Buying a used car today?”

John was up to twenty thousand, stacking the envelopes on the coffee table, when he thought about where he was going to hide it. He couldn't put the money in the bank, the IRS would think it was unclaimed inheritance. Coffee cans in the backyard seemed too retro. There weren't that many inventive hiding places thieves didn't know about, under the bed, in the Bible, a shoebox. If you had any idea about the person you were robbing, you knew
where the money had been hidden. There was an energy that drew you to that hollowed brick above the mantel. The same reason the most common combination for a briefcase lock was 666. The feng shui of secrets.

In college, John had friends that raided dorm rooms for pornography. Nine out of ten times they found it beneath the mattress. Then it was the embarrassing question of what that student had found arousing;
Playboy, Hustler, Juggs. National Geographic
photos of starving pygmies. The more off-beat it seemed, the more difficult it was to find; a tribute to the link between the sexual imagination and shame. In one room, they found a folder of historic pictures of Chairman Mao bathing in the Yangtze along with a specialty Aslan men's magazine called
Yellow Inches
, a tube of Vaseline and a package of plastic forks carefully hidden in an empty typewriter case. Someone knew what he liked. It was either the design major or the foreign exchange student from Austria. John never went on the raids and didn't purchase pornography he felt he had to conceal. Daryl's sex blooper video was safe. John was strictly a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue man, hidden in plain sight, just creased and kept around for an extra couple of months.

“It's all here,” John said, finished with his counting. “Do you want to test the product?”

“No way of me telling until I get it separated and dried,” Blindman said. “It's about trust, Squirrel Boy. Get me a drink. We'll close this thing.”

“What would you like?” John asked, returning the envelopes to the shopping bag, still uncertain where he was going to hide the money, but the problem of having too much cash wasn't something to complain about.

“Edna had a bottle of Germain-Robin in the cabinet above the refrigerator,” Blindman said. “We used to have a belt to finish our business. It was her favorite.”

“What is it?” John asked, moving to the kitchen.

He didn't like Blindman knowing more about the contents of his cabin or Grandma than he did. He hoped the bottle wasn't there. Blindman would realize he couldn't lay claim to memory in John's home. He also hoped Germain-Robin wasn't gin because unless gin was ice cold with a Greek festival's worth of olives in its midst, he couldn't stand the taste. Or the smell.

“It's brandy from Ukiah,” Blindman answered. “Supposed to be the best in the States. They serve it at the White House.”

John found the bottle. Above the name Germain-Robin was printed the word, ‘reserve.' He opened the cork and sniffed the caramel-colored liquid.

“I thought Grandma's favorite was gin,” John said, now looking for glasses.

“That was every day,” Blindman answered, as John set the bottle and glasses on the table. “This was special occasions.”

John didn't want to hear any more about Blindman and Grandma's special occasions. He poured what remained of the brandy into the glasses and handed one to Blindman who stuck his nose into the drink, then began swirling the liquid.

“Needs to warm up,” Blindman proclaimed. “You don't send your children off to school without putting clothes on them.”

Blindman leaned back into the couch holding his glass like it was a tin cup full of pencils. John didn't know whether he should slug his back and tell Blindman to do the same or wait to savor his grandma's favorite drink. Maybe it would take the bad taste from his mouth knowing she preferred something with a little more complexity and style than bargain gin.

“You going to do any gardening next year?” Blindman asked. “Read a couple issues of
Sunset
magazine and the
Anarchist's Cookbook
, and you could set up a fine future for yourself.”

“I'm not planning on it,” John said, whose plan was not to plan anything for a while. “This was a one-time deal.”

“If you develop a taste for the easy green,” Blindman said, “you'll develop a green thumb.”

“I don't mind working,” John answered, and it was a good thing because he was no trust-fund baby. Forty grand of inheritance, twenty plants and a thousand squirrel sculptures was hardly a legacy to insure a secure future. But planting and tending a crop of marijuana seemed like more work, not to mention stress, than it was worth. He'd rather punch a clock.

“Think of it as a civil rights issue,” Blindman suggested. “Performing a community service in the face of tyranny.”

John tried to rationalize growing dope in this light but it wasn't the same as running a clean needles program, supplying AIDS testing in poor neighborhoods, or donating time at the YMCA. None of which he had ever done, but was more inclined to participate in
than farming cannabis for justice. He felt the freedom to cultivate marijuana was the sort of single issue that had already garnered too much focus, draining energy from pressing issues and larger problems. What was the end result anyway, smoking a joint? It was like worrying about suicide being outlawed, people were going to take the leap if they wanted to. There was no need spending your life building tall platforms for them to jump off.

“Not my battle,” John stated. “I'll sign a petition but I'm no permanent supplier.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Blindman pleaded. “Edna's gone, CAMP's killed my other perennials, and your pal Sarah's leaving town. If you can't count on hippies for grass anymore, who can you trust? I'll be back making opium from Cost Plus poppies.”

“Sarah's leaving town?” John said, skipping over the question of opium production. “Where's she going? When? How do you know?”

“Who woke you up?” Blindman said.

John had questions for Sarah, not to mention an extracurricular interest, despite the warnings and understanding that he needed time to reconcile his relationship with Christina, half the length of the relationship according to what he had gleaned from her woman's magazines. Three and a half years of soul searching. Christina was already rebounding with Good Neighbor Michael. Why shouldn't he start the healing process?

“How do you know Sarah's leaving?” John repeated, thinking he was going to be left having to get a shrink and keep a dream journal.

“Word is she's pregnant and moving to San Francisco,” Blindman explained. “I heard she ain't having the bambino. Cutting two cords with one snip.”

The report didn't seem right, even if it was a shock to John's infatuation. How many people had distorted the story before it had reached Blindman's ears? Leaving? Sarah had said she wanted to go, but that was quick. Maybe it had something to do with her talk with Daryl? Why hadn't Hap told him? Was this the evening edition of the news? But if it was true, no wonder Daryl was jealous. John had to admit, he didn't know Sarah very well. But pregnant? She certainly wasn't showing.

“Everybody should grow up once in a lifetime, Squirrel Boy,” Blindman said.

“Who's the father?” John asked, and noticed he had knocked back his drink without tasting or toasting anything. Germain-Robin my ass, he thought, moving his tongue to search for remnants of Grandma's favorite flavor, a fading burn of the alembic brandy in his throat tasting like another shot of something. John thought better than to refill his glass; no use creating the need to start counting days sober. The bottle was empty anyway.

“I'm assuming it's Daryl,” Blindman said. “Maybe somebody got her up at the Waterfall? I'm certain there's more than one trying. It ain't yours, is it, Squirrel Boy? You better looking than folks say, a lover not a fighter?”

“It's not mine,” John said.

“Cheers then,” Blindman said, raising his glass to John's empty one. “Otherwise you'd be blowing that money I gave you on child support.”

John waited for Blindman to finish his drink. He decided he would make a trip to the Waterfall after his guest left. He knew it was none of his business, but John believed that he and Sarah had a real connection, something beyond the present circumstances. But if Sarah was carrying Daryl's child, paying her a visit wouldn't be a move in the direction of self-preservation. He'd have to be careful. Like Hap had told him, “Leek bee'n.”