The Never-Open Desert Diner (8 page)

I
t was dark by the time I reached my duplex. It had been a dark drive. The inside of my duplex was dark. If I had ever locked the place it would have been tough to find the keyhole. I'd lost the keys years before, back when I used to drink. Back then I couldn't get the key into the lock under a searchlight. I tried to remember the last time I had paid the electric bill. I held my breath while I fumbled for the light switch.

She was stretched out in my La-Z-Boy recliner snoring softly. The leg rest was up as high as it would go. There were small irregular holes on the worn bottoms of her pink high-top Converse Chuck Taylors. I concentrated on the shoes. I didn't care to extend my sight to her dark skirt, which was unfastened and hiked up in a bunch at her waist. The white tub of her belly was suspended beneath it. Below that were her laced fingers.

I covered her up with an old red Indian blanket off my bed and opened the refrigerator to see if the food fairy had stopped by. It hadn't. What few containers there were inside had reached the age of consent. I closed the door. She snuggled deeper under the blanket with a contented whimper.

The kitchen counter was littered with the signs of Ginny's foraging. She had gone through a mostly full jar of peanut butter and a whole box of saltines, and a cube of butter. My eyes followed the trail of white crumbs from the counter across the shabby carpet to the La-Z-Boy.

The last time that blanket had covered a baby, I was the infant. My mother abandoned me wrapped in that blanket at the clinic on the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon. It was the only possession I'd had my whole life, and it had held up well over the years, through two foster homes until I was six years old, then stayed with me when I was adopted. Now it covered two babies, one inside the other.

My living room, dining room, and kitchen were all one room. I took out a ruled tablet and hunted down a pencil before grabbing the cheap accordion folder with all my bills, past due notices, and accounts receivable. It was a thick, disorganized file. I reached into the folder and withdrew a random handful of papers and dropped them on the little kitchen table. Aces and eights. There was one unopened envelope from the IRS requesting payment for the last two quarters of estimated income tax, plus three threatening letters from the leasing company about my truck. I took the envelope I had received from Robert A. Fulwiler, Station Supervisor, and tossed it onto the pile. A busted flush.

Ginny moaned in her sleep. Her hands moved under the blanket, probably trying to lift her stomach for a little relief from the weight. That blanket, as far as I knew, hadn't been cleaned since it was made. I couldn't even guess when that had been. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, the older, childless couple who adopted me, had been savvy enough to never touch the blanket.

The subject of cleaning the blanket came up only once, at dinner a year or so after the adoption was final. Mrs. Jones said she would like to have my blanket cleaned for me. I told her something bad would happen to her if she ever touched that blanket. The two of them just nodded. A threat from a seven-year-old was serious if not dangerous. I asked them if they were Indians, too. Mrs. Jones said she wasn't, that she was just an old woman. Mr. Jones, a quiet man who rarely spoke and never raised his voice, volunteered that it wasn't a question he ever thought about one way or the other.

They asked me if I thought about it much, being Indian. I don't think I had, at least until I left the reservation school and came to live with them in Utah. In no uncertain terms I told them never to forget I was an Indian. Something I thought only because I had been with Indians at an Indian school, though without any tribal affiliation. Not having a tribe, and with no parents, I was an outcast.

Years later, in my early twenties, I tried to find out something about my birth parents. A retired nurse's aide I'd reached by phone in Seattle told me she was at the clinic the morning they discovered me. There was no note. She did remember that someone thought they had seen a young female, a Jewish social worker or college student, on the porch early that morning. The young woman had been volunteering at a reservation mental health clinic several miles away.

The nurse's aide said, “One of the bucks probably had at her. Poor thing.”

I asked her if anyone had ever tried to locate the young woman.

“No,” she said, in a hurry to end the conversation. “Or if they did, I didn't know about it. No one kept real records of volunteers on the reservation in those days. Every young person and their bleeding-heart brother wanted to help the noble savages.”

“So, you don't really know if I'm Indian or not?”

“There are no Indians anymore, Mr. Jones. Just Native Americans. You had a head of thick coarse black hair and black eyes and reddish skin. You were a big newborn. Over thirteen pounds as I recall. If your mother gave birth to you alone, as I suspect she did, she had a tough go of it. That's all I can tell you.”

She hung up without saying good-bye or wishing me luck.

That was all I ever knew. Maybe my father was Indian and maybe my mother was Jewish, which I guessed meant white. Over the years my hair turned dark brown, though it was still coarse and thick, and my skin darkened into a perpetual tan. I grew to six foot three, an unnatural height for either Native American or Jew. To my way of thinking, the only thing left that made me an Indian, or Native American, was that red blanket, and it was, if only in that way, just an old red blanket to me. After that conversation with the retired nurse's aide, I just let it all alone.

Ginny was looking at me through one sleepy eye. “Sorry, Ben. Don't be mad at me, please?”

I told her I wasn't mad, but she couldn't stay with me. No discussion. I winked at her, and added, “But that kid of yours is going to be mad. Don't be surprised if he, or she, bears a strong resemblance to a Reese's peanut butter cup.”

She opened both eyes and stretched. “What time is it?”

I told her it was about eight. “When do you have to be at work?”

She yawned and closed her eyes. “Pretty soon. Did you have a chance to talk to anyone about a second job for me?”

Before I could answer she was snoring again.

When she left for work I was asleep, my head on a pillow of papers strewn over the dining table. It was three o'clock in the morning and I was hungry enough to wish I'd kept some of the Lacey brothers' jalapeño corn bread birthday cake. Out of habit I opened the refrigerator door again, not expecting anything to be different. But it was. The food fairy had come after all, the pregnant teenage food fairy. While I had slept Ginny must have made a run to a grocery store. I had bread and eggs and four new cubes of butter. On the clean counter was a new jar of peanut butter and a bag of ground coffee. The saltine crumbs were nowhere to be seen, the knife was washed and put away, the sink scoured, and the empty jar of peanut butter thrown in the trash.

I turned and looked at the empty recliner. “I don't care,” I said. “You can't stay here.” Then I noticed the red blanket was gone. I found it in the bedroom, folded in thirds across the end of my bed. Within a minute I was also folded across the bed, still dressed and still hungry, but filled with the pleasant anticipation of a hot breakfast when I woke up, which I hoped wouldn't be for a long time. The appointment with the truck shop wasn't until ten a.m.

A
lmost all of Thursday was eaten up in the lounge of the shop as the mechanic divided his time between my maintenance job and the drop-ins with quick-fix emergencies. I drank coffee and thumbed through years'-old issues of
Vanity Fair, Guns & Ammo, Esquire, Easyriders,
and
People
. They all covered topics of great interest to someone else who had way more money than I ever would. Usually I spent my time stewing over my finances, which is mostly what I thought about all day Friday as I made deliveries along 117.

I left the duplex only twice during the weekend; once on Saturday to get a new pencil and once on Sunday to buy a cheap digital calculator. The first pencil hadn't been working for me. I did pretty well in my math classes in high school, but the figures that kept coming up didn't make any sense.

The calculator didn't help. The numbers only got worse. If everyone who owed me money paid me, I was still over $30,000 in debt: $32,963.18 by pencil; $33,102.03 by calculator. I needed over $22,000 just to come current. Strips of adding-machine tape and balls of wadded-up paper lay everywhere from the dining room to the bedroom. A few had even made it into the bathroom.

There was nothing I could do but give Robert A. Fulwiler his yes. It was like grabbing onto a life preserver that was attached to an anchor. The thought of sharing my life and the lives of the people on 117 with a film crew and a television audience made me ill. I couldn't do it. I had to. My customers wouldn't stand for it either. Most of them didn't own television sets or computers, though that wouldn't matter to them. They lived where they did and the way they did because they liked it that way. Whatever trust we shared would disappear the moment they saw a camera. I was calling from the phone booth outside the diner. “Let me put you on speakerphone,” Bob said. “Mr. Arrons is here with me. Did I hear you say you'll do it?”

“Josh Arrons here.” The voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a tunnel. “We have a deal, then?”

“No,” I said. “We don't have shit.”

“Then why are we talking?”

“You can do the ride-along. With a signed release. And a thousand
—
a day. In cash.”

“Can't do it, Mr. Jones.”

Bob broke in. “Jesus, Ben. A thousand a day to sit in your damn truck?”

“No, Bob,” I answered. “It's only a hundred a day to ride in my truck. But it's nine hundred to be sitting next to me while I drive it.”

“Okay, Mr. Jones,” the distant voice said, “I'll pay fifty for your truck and seven hundred for you. Take it or leave it.”

I thought it over. “Okay,” I said.

“Now do we have a deal?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. Three-day minimum. Four-day maximum. You stay inside the cab when I make my deliveries. You don't talk to my customers. You don't take anyone's photo but mine. But I'd prefer you didn't. You violate our agreement in any way, or just piss me off, I'll dump your television ass in the desert without so much as the sweat off my balls to drink.”

No one said anything for several seconds. “All right,” he said. “I don't like it, but I'll agree.”

“Then write it up just like we agreed,” I said. “Meet me at the transfer station at five a.m. tomorrow morning. If you're one minute late, I'll oil-spot you.”

Mr. Arrons wanted clarification from Bob on what “oil-spotting” meant.

“That means if you're late he'll leave you behind like an oil spot.”

“Agreed,” he said. “Have you worked in television before?” He laughed immediately and Bob joined him.

I didn't know why Mr. Josh Arrons was laughing, and I would have bet that Robert A. Fulwiler, Station Supervisor, didn't either. It didn't matter to Bob that he didn't know what he was laughing at.

It mattered to me. I hung up.

I hadn't sold my soul. I had just agreed to accept a down payment for a test drive. No commitment. No promises. In all those stories about people who sold their souls to the devil, I never quite understood why the devil was the bad guy, or why it was okay to screw him out of his soul. They got what they wanted: fame, money, love, whatever
—
though usually it turned out not to be what they really wanted or expected. Was that the devil's fault? I never thought so. Like John Wayne said, “Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid.”

I had no intention of doing any more than taking money for a ride-along. When that was done, I was done. I was only buying time anyway. I would still be broke and out of business. At least I'd have a little cash in my pocket. Or, if I got real lucky, I would figure a way to keep Ben's Desert Moon Delivery Service going and also have some extra cash. Either way, I got to keep my soul.

I pulled away from the diner explaining it that way to myself with the hope that by the end of the week it would seem like it had been a smart decision. If it didn't work out that way, I promised myself there would be no blaming the devil. When we mortals pray for a miracle and get one, why do we always assume it came from God? Strings. That's why. We think there are no strings attached to a miracle from God. But God has more strings than the devil. The devil at least tells you up front what the strings are.

My trailer was as packed as I could get it. If I was fast and stayed on schedule I wouldn't make it back to the transfer station until after seven. There were a lot of deliveries that could have waited until later in the week. My plan was to take as much as I could. The next day, when the television man started his ride-along, he wouldn't have much to do but enjoy the scenery. It was after five when I parked my truck in the turnout and trudged up the hill to deliver Claire's butter brickle.

I stood beneath the arch of Desert Home. She appeared on the porch and waved her spoon in the air as I started down the hill. The sun had been behind a layer of dark clouds all day, letting the heat in but not allowing it to escape. Without a breeze to move it around, the heat was scorching dry. If I had thrown a glass of water into the air it would have evaporated before it hit the ground.

I handed Claire her ice cream. “No need to pay me,” I said. “I'll just put it on your husband's account, ma'am.”

She didn't waste a minute and sat down on the porch step. The ice cream had been frozen solid five minutes earlier. Now it was the consistency of a milk shake. Three heaping spoonfuls had disappeared before she slowed down enough to talk.

“I pay my own bills, thank you.” She took another bite. “I paid almost all of his while we were married. Correction. Even before we were married.” The sweet ice cream had little effect on the bitterness when she spoke.

I apologized. “None of my business.”

“This time I am going to pay you. No more charity. How much?”

“Ten dollars.”

She pulled two twenty-dollar bills from the pocket of the same denim dress she had worn on Friday. “Here's twenty for this one and the first one. And another twenty in advance for the two you're going to deliver this week.”

I handed one of the twenties back to her. “I can't make any more deliveries to you this week.”

She took the twenty back and nibbled her lower lip. “Not worth it? Or tired of me?”

I debated with myself whether to tell her about the television producer and decided not to say anything. “Busy week,” was all I said. “Maybe next week.”

“I'll be dead from sugar withdrawal by then.” She held the cold half-gallon container against her forehead. “Damn this heat today.”

I hunkered down on my heels. We were a few feet apart and eye to eye. “I don't know if your name is really Claire, but let's assume it is. Claire,” I said, “I don't know how long you've been here. I don't know how you've managed out here as long as you have. You have no running water. No electricity. As far as I know ice cream is what you've been living on. Any day now I figure you'll decide to move on, either back to your husband or to someplace with room service and air-conditioning.”

She peeked out from behind the ice cream. “Is that what you figure?”

I stood up. “If you don't move on somewhere else soon, you'll die out here. Is that what you want? If it is, if he's hurt you that bad, you've come to the right place. Things aren't always as bad as they seem.”

“Then again,” she said, “sometimes they're worse.” She placed the ice cream on the porch, got up, and reached inside the door. The porch light came on and off. “You're right about running water, though. But the reservoir is full. For a while longer anyway.” She pointed to the south, to what I had thought had been a mirage. “Take a walk with me, Ben.” She picked up her ice cream and started walking toward the mirage. I followed her, shaking my head, still baffled by the display of electricity.

It was a short, hot walk. Within a few minutes we had crested a small rise and looked out over a beautiful expanse of shimmering blue water, two or three acres at least.

“It's a self-cleaning reservoir
—
fed by those hills over there.” She pointed to a few bare spikes of earth a mile or so away. “When it rains the water fills the reservoir. The bottom is built at an angle so the dirt and sand wash out over there into a settling pond, and what's left is stored in an underground cistern.”

I was stunned, both by the reservoir's existence and her knowledge of its design. “How do you know all that?” I asked.

“I just do.”

We began the walk back to the house. “And the electricity?” I asked.

“It's run off an old-style solar array. There's a backup gas generator behind the house. It has a full tank. I try not to use it very much.”

The ice cream was just a puddle by the time we got back to the house. She poured it out onto the dirt next to the porch. “As you can see, I have no intention of dying out here. I can't explain it, but I'm at home here. Sometimes I feel happier here than I've ever been in my life.”

“Food?” I asked.

“Enough to last for a while. Except for ice cream. There's a refrigerator with a small freezer. I can keep things cool but not frozen.”

“So you're going to be around for a while?”

“I could be. I don't know. When I leave, it will be my choice.”

What she said about choice reminded me of one more obstacle she hadn't mentioned. “This place might be abandoned,” I said, “but someone owns it. He
—
”

“Or she,” Claire interrupted.

“Or she,” I added, “could show up anytime. What then?”

“You think too much, Ben.”

That was true. I usually waited until there was very little I could do, and then I gave the matter a lot of thought. I needed to think ahead, which was what I was trying to do for Claire.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “If the owner shows up you won't be the one making the choice about leaving.”

She still didn't appear concerned. “Well, that will be my problem, won't it?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

We were both sweating from the heat and the walk. Perspiration had settled into the small wrinkles around her eyes. A dark object fluttered above us and squeaked before veering off. It was dead quiet. You could almost hear the sweat seeping through the pores of our skin as we stood beneath the oppressive sky. It was dusk and the surrounding hills had begun to fade into brown silhouettes. I wanted to kiss her, and I could feel myself beginning to lean helplessly toward her. The dark object returned and darted between us.

She jumped backward and swatted at the air. “What was that? A bird?”

“A bat.”

She shivered. “Oh God!”

My urge to kiss her had been broken. I was suddenly relieved to be reminded of why I was there and why I was leaving. I began walking away. “Remember,” I said. “You're happy here.”

There was something in her that liked to wait until I was a safe distance away, as if she found joy in calling my name and seeing me turn toward her.