Nobody Bats a Thousand (22 page)

“What’d you talk about?”

“Nothing special, probably mostly about the art of the harmonica.
I was just
a kid. I didn’t know much else.
” Del walked to the front of the truck, squatted against the bumper and stared straight ahead at the mesa beyond the small valley below them.

Jimmy scratched his head, licked his lips then leaned against the hoo
d of his truck.  “Ah, Uncle Del,”
Jimmy fought to get out the
words, “how
come you don’t stay in touch with the family?”

“That’s not true. I write mom at least twice a year, and I always
try to call her on her birthday.
” Del was silent for several seconds. He slowly shook his head. “I know it should be more, but it ain’t like I disappeared.”

“How come you never talk to my dad?  He says he hasn’t talked to you in fifteen years.”

Del remained still and seemed to sink into himself. He rubbed his chin and straightened his sunglasses. “I guess that would be about right. That’s just about how long it’s
been since your granddaddy died.” H
e took the water from Jimmy
took a drink then handed it back.

“So your daddy is blaming me for not staying in touch. I may be a little hard to get a hold of, but that phone still works both ways.”

“No, no, he wasn’t blaming anybody for anything. It’s just something that comes up every so often.”

“It’s nobody’s fault I guess. I think about your daddy a lot. I just never get around to calling him. Maybe it just nev
er seems like the right time.
” Del paused and looked out into space. “It’s just with the life I lead.
I got a little house in Texas just outside Austin. It’s about the only thing I got to keep after my last divorce. I bet I’m there five weeks a year tops. This life, down deep I love it, but you always seem rushed and busy, even though half the time it seems you’re doing nothing but wasting time. Like today, you showing up saved
me from a long boring afterno
on.” H
e walked three feet to the edge of the hill.
“You ready for a little adventure, nephew?
  Looks like a bit of a hike but right out there,” he said as he pointed, “
it
looks like a bit of a path worn through the sage brush to the mesa.
Ready to get your sneakers a little dusty?”

“Let’s go.”

“Bring the water.”

They carefully negotiated the face of the hill with slow steps to keep from sliding then started on the path twisting through the dry gnarled sage. For several minutes they did not seem to be gaining on the mesa still waiting in the distance. Another few
minute’s
travel through taller sage that hampered their view, and suddenly the trail ended, and they were there at the bas
e of the hill, looking up at
a cliff stopping them like a huge wall.

“I don’t know about this,
” Jimmy
said as he
turned to his uncle.

Del studied the area left and right. He started off to the left, “Come on.” They moved along a wash at the base of the cliff for about seventy yards until they came upon the rudiments of a path worked into the hillside.

“See. It’s easy. Just watch out for loose rocks.” Del looked at Jimmy.
“And sna
kes.”
H
e turned away, grinned, and pushed his hat down. The pathway worked upward gradually, wrapping back and forth across the hill until it ended on a large, flat, shaded spot just in front a huge round concave worn into the side of the butte.

Del, catching his breath, stood out away from the shade in a lane of sunshine. He lifted off his sunglasses and hung them on the collar of his T-shirt as he adjusted to the fresh spectacle before him. Ludlow, the buildings tiny but seemingly within reach of a good rock toss, was in full view.
All around it, spreading out in the sunshine, miles and miles of yellow or green grass, wild flowers, and sage.
Straight beyond that, resting more than a hundred miles away, the layers of mountains, purple-gray, cone-shaped backdrops still topped with snow.

“This is it. This is the
Caves
.
” Jimmy kicked at a dirty beer bottle. “Not really a whole lot to look at.”

“Fres
hest air I’ve tasted in a
while.
” Del contemplated the full horizon for another full minute before turning to walk back into the shade of the tall shallow cave. “The book said you could actually see In
dian drawings on the walls here.” W
ith Jimmy next to him Del walked fifty feet until he was flush with the back wall of the indenture. “I guess you really can’t call this a cave, but it’s deep enough to protect you from the
wind and rain and high up enough for defense,” he said as he walked along the wall, studying it. “I doubt that’s one of the draw
ings the book was talking about.
” Del pointed up to a portrayal in black spray paint of two stick people standing and having sex, and, not far from the drawing, the words ‘OZZY RULES’ painted in gold. “That book of mine is from the nineteen thirties. I guess we got here a little too late.”

They kicked around through the dirt and rocks and dead fire pits littered with crusty beer cans and bottles until Del stopped to pick something up.

“Hey, I guess you cou
ld call this a genuine artifact.” H
e held up a ring with a pear-shaped attachment, a disposable pop-top from
an aluminum
can.  “When’s the last time you saw one of these?”

Jimmy shook his head.

Del smiled as he looked at his discovery. “You ever heard of the guitar player Elmer Bloom?”

“I think my brother Bob had one of his albums.”

“The last time I saw one of these things, just a few years ago, we were playing a gig with old Elmer, and he had one of these, all shiny and new-looking, hanging
on a gold chain around his neck.
” Del looked at it then stuffed it into his back pocket. “I was curious, but I never got around to asking him what that was all about.”

“What’s he like?”

“Elmer?  Oh, he’s just a good old boy from Texas, a good old boy with a college degree.  Smarter than he puts on and mostly fun to be around, but he’s just like the rest of us I guess. He’s happy as hell and ready for a few cold ones if the show goes well but only ready for a club soda and a long bus ride to the next town when nobody shows.”

“Seems like it’d be fun to travel around and get paid to play music.”

“It has its u
ps and downs like anything else.
” Del kicked an empty Coors bottle into a pile of others. “Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m a fortunate man. Hell, I haven’t had a record on the charts for nearly twenty years, but thank god
there’s
still enough people still out there willing to pay to see us do our thing.”

“But you keep at it. You must like it.”

“Hell, I’m an entertainer. That’s what I’m all about, son. That’s just about all I know
how to do.
But these one-niter
s.
”
Del shook his head. “I don’t care if you’re traveling by bus or private plane, or even if you were flying from town to town in a damn spaceship, livin
g like this just wears you down,” h
e
said before he
paused and shook his head again. “I ain’t saying it’s all bad, but there’s too many times you pull into a strange town, tired and hungry, and a Big Mac looks as good to ya as a
steak dinner at the Fairmont.
It’s
times like that ya stop
and wonder if it’s all worth it.” H
e stuck his hands into his pockets, looked down, then looked up and smiled. 
The smile building until he was beaming, the deep lines in his face swelling with dignity and joy.
  “But then you’re up on stage and everything is working, and all those thoughts of doubt and gloom are a million miles away when you got the whole place rocking, and every
body is in to it and having fun,
man, it’s like
a damn revival sometimes. H
ey, you want to talk about painters or writers, hell, I dig art and books, but you’ll never see anybody who’s touring an art museum or reading a book up and boogying like at the shows we did in Portland and Seattle last week.  Without the people digging your sound, without the magic of nights like that, I doubt anybody could do this for long.”

Del walked from the shade into the sunshine near the verge of the mesa, Jimmy following.

“Maybe there ain’t much to see up here, but I’m glad we came,” Del said.  “Being up here helps you get the feeling of the people who lived here, not really that long ago, what a couple of hundred years ago?  That’s nothing if you think about it.” He dusted off the top of a large flat rock and sat, staring out at the vista.  Jimmy sat next to Del.

“The natives here, they knew something,” Del said.  “They didn’t have cell phones or the Stock Market or cable TV or any of all that other crap that makes us feel so civilized, but they knew there was more to life
than just what meets the eye. They knew as sure as the sun came up in the morning that there was something deeper to this existence, something subtle and pure, but with spirits and different dimensions and shit, something that could never be rationally explained.  They might have called it the Great Spirit, but they didn’t need to build the Vatican to convince ‘em they were right. They just didn’t hassle about it or fret about it, and they didn’t have to have everything explained to them in black and white. They just accepted it, appreciated what they were given and knew everything would work out if they just lived right and didn’t worry about it all. That’s pretty cool.”

A red-tailed hawk swooped in huge circles across the breath of their vision, diving then rising with the thermals. Below them, miles away, two kids
looking as small
as bugs played basketball on the blacktop of a small school.  Del and Jimmy passed the water until the can
teen was dry while an easy breeze as light as silk
brushed across them.

Del took his sunglasses from his shirt and again covered his eyes.  “You know, the thing is.” He sucked in a full breath and blew it out.  “The thing is, I’m afraid to call your daddy.”

“Afraid?”

“I guess that would
be the best way to describe it.
” Del leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his fists again his chin. “It’s because, because…well, I think I’ve lost his respect.”

“Dad never mentions your name ‘
cept
to say something good.”

“Carl never ran anybody down. That’s not his style. But this goes way back I
think.
” Del rubbed his neck with his left hand.

“Uncle
Del

”

“No, no, let me explain. You see ever since the time I was barely a teenager I used to hitch to Lincoln or Omaha or Kansas City and somehow sneak in to see all the bands I loved, like Eddie Adams and his band. And get my butt
whipped every time I came home.” H
e smiled at Jimmy then again looked straight ahead.  “I was a brash kid. A couple of times I snuck backstage and played my harp for Eddie, told him I was a singer and the best harp player in the state of Nebraska or some such nonsense. Well, as strange as it still seems, one year he was in a bind, and after I convinced him I was eighteen he hired me. I became part of the band.”

“Wow, how did that feel, being so young and all.”

“I was too damn young to know how it felt. I wasn’t even sixteen. But I do remember sitting in the backseat of one of those damn ugly green station wagons he used, my first night on the road, sitting there being both wildly excited and scared shitless at the same time.”

“But it worked out for you. My daddy’s proud of you uncle Del. He’s not the type to say it out loud, but I know he is.”

“It’s not that, it’s, well,
part of it is the way I left.  I just flat stole Papa’s truck, drove it to Denver to catch up with the band and left it parked there in Denver without a second thought. Worst, most thoughtless thing I’ve ever done…I’ve learned to not live with a lot of guilt, stuff happens, but when I thin
k about doing that...man oh man.
” Del’s attention drifted out into
the distance. He started again,
“Hell, I’ve sung for the Queen of England. I’ve been on stage in front of fifty thousand people without blinking, but that man
, that man,” Del
said as he
shook his head, “
I swear I tried, but I couldn’t ever muster enough courage to
go home and look him in the eye.
” Del glanced at his nephew.  “Oh, I’d stop back if I was in that part of the country.  I’d stay in
town,
see your dad and old friends.  I’d go out to the farm and visit Ma if I
knew the old man wasn’t around.” H
e straightened his posture and smiled.  “Shoot, I remember once I took your daddy with me to Denver
just before he married your mom.” H
e turned to Jimmy. “I bet he never told you about
that
weekend.”