skeletons (28 page)

“Writers Block.” Frequently fatal. This was my first. I sat at the desk endless days on end. I bought a new Scripto pencil. I changed ribbon and correcting tape on my IBM. I overheated my audio with everything from Shostakovich to the Eagles. I consulted my publishers, who were unsympathetic. A contract was a contract. My friends advised a change of scene, a long driving trip out West, for instance. The nights were no better than the days. And not because of the sirens. Chills. Sweats. The damnedest dreams. BONES. BEARDS. ABRASIONS. BLOOD. A BODY LYING ON A LANDING. In the worst of them I could see the muzzle of an old Colt revolver coming at me, closer and closer, till the steel impacted with my feverish brow. I disdained a blindfold, locked my eyes wide open. I knew she would pull the trigger.

That I was alive was a matter, I decided at length, not of miracle but of character. Buell Wood’s character. When, in our room at the Paso del Norte, she had pulled the trigger, Tyler had been psychologically prepared to kill me. And rather than tell her the terrible truth about her paternity, I had been morally prepared to die. But the gun was not loaded. Buell Wood, I came to believe, had removed the bullets from his matched pair before taking the weapons up into the tower with him that night in 1916. He had shot down three men with them in 1910, been tried, been declared innocent—a miscarriage of justice of which, as an attorney, he was brutally conscious. He would use the guns as threats, therefore, but never again as instruments of death. And so, aware of his instincts, wary of his reflexes, he emptied the revolvers. And in so doing, saved his granddaughter from killing sixty years later. It was the most valuable legacy he could have left her. And me.

Autumn. Winter. STILL BLOCKED. This was no mere creative constipation. I knew what had happened. I had come down with a terminal case of adulthood. Hank Snackenberg had died with his boots on. B. James Butters had died standing on iron steps, goggling into the clock chamber of a courthouse tower in New Mexico, in a pair of Gucci loafers. The child in me who had once communicated naturally with other children had now passed puberty, cut loose the kite of his imagination, stopped riding a bike of delight around the block, started shaving and smoking and masturbating himself into maturity. Oh, with an effort I could still summon up a roomful of kids to read aloud to—but there was nothing new to read. Instead, I’d say to them okay, you little bastards—grow up. Get wise—this is no fairyland of talking flies and intercontinental flights of fancy. This is a hard cruel world of murder and blackmail and hate and rape and incest and greed. So get ready for it. Quit reading books. Watch TV. And don’t, above all, believe anydamnbody.

I don’t know what became of Tyler. I thought of her often, particularly when I found, in my small change, a coin painted with a blood-red streak. I’d hold it to my ear, like a sea shell, and listen. Hello! See my mark? My name is Tyler Vaught! I’m beautiful! Do you write? If you do, let me tell you about two old trials! They’d make a super book! Are you interested? Yes? Then find me, sleep with me, let me tell you! I thought of her not with rancor but with sadness. A haunted, ridden woman. The past is not only a time but a place, and while she might live now in New York or Paris or wherever, she had always been, would always be, a prisoner of that past. Inside the woman was a girl locked behind an iron door. For toys she had guns, for friends, ghosts. For tales, stories of vengeance and slaughter. For playrooms, a terrible tower and the back seat of a police car. For parents, a mother who was mad and a father who was not her father. I wished her luck. I wished her peace. And one day, freedom.

In the autumn I began calling Annie Snackenberg every two weeks. Each conversation was a carbon of the others. “Annie? Jimmie Butters.”

“Oh, hello.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“How’s Ace?”

“Fine.”

“Are you still at the library?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Uh, how’s the weather out there?”

“All right.”

“It’s raining here.”

Pause.

“Well, I’m writing like mad.”

“That’s nice.

Pause.

“Uh, Annie, would you mind if I come out to see you and meet Ace?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Oh. All right.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“My pleasure.

“Goodbye, Annie.”

“Goodbye.”

I had several letters from Alvah Helms. There was no inquest on Pingo Chavez, hence I wouldn’t have to testify or depose or whatever. One of his deputies—the one named Harley—had confessed to participation in the murders of Philip Crossworth and Max Sansom, and had implicated two others. The three had been indicted, pleaded guilty, and were shipped to the state clink for life. What pleased Helms most, however, and would have pleased Hank Snackenberg most, was the demolition of Los Esqueletos. Border Patrol had made a number of arrests in Chicago, Denver, LA, convictions were sure, and south of the border the Mexican authorities had nailed a slew of recruiters. This wouldn’t completely choke off the flow of skilled illegal labor, but it would cut it down, temporarily, to a trickle, and a few thousand Americans could go off unemployment compensation. Helms thanked me again.

Spring. STILL BLOCKED. I went, I am sorry to say, slightly on the sauce. One night in the Oak Bar of the Plaza I buddied up to the guy on the stool next to me. He turned out to be a Madison Avenue adman who wrote radio and tube spots for a deodorant and who had been twice-divorced and lived at a subsistence level due to alimony and child support.

I heard his tale of woe, then said, “Lissen. S’pose I tol’ you that las’ year I was out Wes’ an’ one night I saw four skeletons which were lynched sixty years ago an’ were still hangin’ there? S’pose I tol’ you the las’ necktie party in the ol’ Wes’ took place in the tower of a county courthouse? D’you get it? In a courthouse? Sixty years? Still hangin’? Skeletons?”

“Balls,” he said.

“I shit you not,” I said.

“Still hangin’? Now?”

“Well no, not now. But las’ year—”

“I don’ like t’associate with drunks,” he said, and fell off his stool.

A misty night in May. AT THE END OF MY ROPE. I called the only Snackenberg in the El Paso phone book.

“Annie? William Bread.”

“Who?”

“Jimmie Butters.”

“Oh. Hello.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“How’s Ace?”

“Fine.”

“Are you still at the library?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

“Uh, how’s the weather out there?”

“All right.”

Pause.

“Well, I’m in mass production these days.”

“That s nice.”

“No, that’s a lie. I haven’t been able to write for a year. No sap in the Scripto. Not a damned word. I’m blocked.”

“I’ m sorry.”

Pause.

“Oh Annie, can I please come out and see you and meet Ace?” ‘

“Do you really want to?”

COMPREHEND.

“Annie, what did you say?”

“I said, do you really want to?”

COMPREHEND.

“Do you mean I can?”

“If you really want to.”

“Oh my God I do! Oh my God that’s great! I’ll be on a bird tomorrow! Will you get me a room at the Paso del Norte? May I take you and Ace to dinner tomorrow night? Can I stay awhile and talk to you and things? Can I come down to the library and sign my books? Oh my God Annie. Mercy buckets!”

A pure spring afternoon. The Chamber of Commerce had cordoned off traffic and cleared it of cars and dressed a block of Gold Street. A hardware store was false-fronted into the “Luna,” a saloon, a realtor’s office into the “Guarantee Electric Store.” Sears Catalogue Sales was now the “Crystal Theater,” a motion picture emporium, “Adults 25¢, Children 10¢.” Opposite, a Pontiac dealership had been transformed into a Ford by means of slogans in capital letters on both windows: “WATCH THE 4’DS GO BY!” and “20 HORSES UNDER YOUR HOOD-ALL HIGH-STEPPERS!”

Additionally, on the sidewalk in front of the agency, two Model T’s in excellent restoration were displayed, a Runabout and a Coupe. Near where we stood, close by a concrete watering trough, an antique Packard touring sedan was parked at the curb. And they had built a hitching rack to which were tied three saddled horses. A thousand people lined, crowded the sidewalks along the dressed block of the street. Talking, laughing, looking, waiting.

Hoofbeats.

Silence.

Suspense.

A horse and buggy trotted up Silver Street, turned the corner onto Gold. On the seat a young woman in crinoline costume, reins in hands, and beside her a baby, a doll swaddled in a shawl.

Out of the Luna three toughs in cowboy getups reeled. Tigh Gooding and the Pennington brothers discharged six-shooters in the air.

At the reports the horse reared, bolted, ran the right front wheel of the buggy into the watering trough. The young woman driver threw herself athletically out of the seat onto the concrete, lay as though lifeless. The doll in its cocoon of shawl was hurled from the buggy to the pavement. The horse hauled the buggy away, trotting down the street.

Applause.

Hollywood could not have done it better.

Intermission. A thousand men, women, children waited, breath held, heads craned, eyes wide.

A callow clerk in shirt sleeves, armbands, and yellow shoes burst from the Guarantee Electric Store, galloped frantically down the street to bear the tragic tidings to someone.

Silence.

Suspense.

I bit my knuckle.

We stood at the intersection of Gold and Silver Streets, Ace in front of Annie, Annie in front of me. Close. So close that I could sniff myself high on her blond hair, could press my pelvis to hers till we were as inseparable as Siamese twins. It was either this adjacency or my haberdashery which had earlier attracted notice. I wore a purple velvet jacket with gold cloisonne buttons by Brioni, a white silk shirt adorned at the open throat by a simple gold chain, a pair of Cantoni’s velvet stained-glass-print slacks, and light blue patent-leather pumps.

Annie had pointed out to me the ad in the El Paso morning paper. Harding, New Mexico, invited all and sundry to its annual “Buell Wood Day,” featuring a rodeo, a buffalo barbecue, bargain sales by local merchants, and in the afternoon, an authentic re-enactment of the most dramatic day in Harding’s history, the tenth of May, 1910. She asked if I would like to go. Hell no I won’t go, I said. I’d spend a year selling Jesús in Jerusalem before I’d spend another second in Harding. Then immediately changed my mind. Sure, I said, yes, maybe it would test my mettle. Show me if I really had become the average programmed American male adult. And I had an ulterior motive. I wanted the pleasure of their company by day. She was at the library, Ace was in school, I saw them only in the evening.

“Annie Snackenberg I love you,” I had remarked to her last night, apropos of nothing in particular.

She lived in a small brick house on the heights overlooking El Paso not far, naturally, from Border Patrol HQ. We were on her patio, the stars were out, Ace was in. Reading in his room.

“I love you by God,” I said. “The first time I saw you, a year ago, I offered you my hand in marriage. A year later I still love you, so the offer is still good. I can’t write without you, I can’t live without you. So please wed me and come to New York and bed me and let’s have offspring right away so I can read to kids of my own and if you go up the wall with me around the apartment every day you can seclude yourself in some library and do my research.”

She frowned. “Love or guilt,” she said. “I wonder which.”

“Guilt?”

“Henry. If you still feel responsible. I’ve had some long talks with Alvah Helms, and he assures me you shouldn’t.”

“It’s love.”

“What about the damsel in distress?”

“She tried to shoot me.”

“Shoot you?”

“Marry me?”

She scanned me as she might have a bibliography. “You’ve changed. I don’t know why. When you came out here last year I warned you about small towns in the Southwest. About opening closets in their pasts. Did you open one in Harding?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Skeletons.”

“Tell me.”

“Marry me?”

“Dammit,” she said.

“Dammit,” I said. “Say yes or no. Quit beating about the stacks.”

Annie smiled. Eyes as baby blue as mine, teeth like pearls, lips like roses. Dimples, too. DEFINITELY EDIBLE.

“Well?” I demanded.

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“Don’t. You’re nubile as hell and as lonely as I am and you must be interested or you wouldn’t have let me off the hook a little.”

“I’m not husband-hunting, if that’s what you imply. There’s a problem.”

“What?”

“I have to find a father.”

FIND A FATHER.

My ears almost fell off.

“Find a father!”

“Not for me. For Ace.”

“Oh.” I sat down on a chair. Hard. “Oh, for Ace. Thank God.”

“He needs one. He’s ten now, and turning out well, but he grieves for Henry, I can tell. Deeply. I can’t just say Ace, dear, meet Mr. Butters, your new father, and be happy. He must accept you, Jimmie.”

“Well, I have to accept him, too. And I don’t know thing one about boys.”

“You should. You write for them.”

“Imaginaries. But real?”

“Well, for a start, you might stop calling him Ace. I suspect he resents it. That’s what Henry called him. Try something else.”

“Jason?”

“He hates that. Jimmie, I am interested. More than. You’re—you’re—you are unique.”

“Don’t stop.”

“But I worry. So far I’m certain the two of you aren’t clicking. Before I marry you I have to have some sign it will work—the three of us. That he accepts you. And that you really want him.”

“I want you.”

“He goes with the territory.”

I groaned. “Oh God. I can give you ivory, apes, and peacocks. But this I don’t know.”

It seemed to me I had become a goddamned Bureau of Missing Persons. I’d already located a father and a grandfather and four Villistas and the remains of two writers and a murderer who smuggled aliens on the side. Now I was supposed to supply a substitute sire for a ten-year-old Texan. Which was possibly impossible. Then, on the night air, her perfume. A blend of books and yellow roses and decency and love true love that would last a lifetime if I could win it. I slid off the chair, went down on one knee before her.