Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty-Seven

The Return of Roo-bee

I’m back on the chessboard, but now the black and white squares are grassy fields on a hillside. One field grows white grass, the other grows black. They are neatly separated by a barbed wire fence. I am astride a white horse on the black field, bouncing along like the token cowgirl in a John Wayne movie (I’m picturing Ava Gardner). My steed is a mountain of smooth muscle, beautifully rideable. I spur him to a gallop and steer us toward a hedge, relishing the hiccup of gravity as we clear the crest.

On the far side, we come upon the fence, composed of pure silver. Across from us, at the center of the white field, stands a black horse. At first sight of us he charges, lips flaring. He’s about to hit the fence when a shot rings out. His legs buckle and he falls, sliding to a stop directly in front of us. This frightens the white horse, who bucks wildly, tossing me to the ground. When I gather my bearings, I am lying on my side, face to face with the black horse. As I watch, his red eyes fade away and the rest of him melts, turning the white field to black.

And then somebody barks. And I wake up next to a dead hand. It’s mine. I fell asleep in an odd position, and my left arm has gone completely numb. I use my still-living right hand to nudge it out of my way, then peer across the room to see the numbers 5:54. and a fuzzy pyramid of pooch.

“Java! How the fuck are you doing this?”

I am secretly happy to see him; in the face of such an obvious dream (where were the evil mimes? the radioactive pickles?), I am hungry for mystery. Java trots to my side, slips his snout under my hand, and I give him a thorough scalp massage. He is my favorite plush toy, and he knows it.

Then I notice the trail of muddy footprints he’s left on my white carpeting. At first I’m angry, but then I realize he’s just given up his secret. I creak to my feet and follow his tracks into the kitchen; they end at the sink. The cabinet door is unlatched. When I pull it open, I discover that my pipes now come with a backyard view. Evidently, John installed a hatch providing easier access to the plumbing, but neglected to close it when he fixed my garbage disposal last week. As if to demonstrate, Java ducks under the pipes and bounds into the yard, then turns to give me one of his Lassie-barks.

“Yeah-yeah. Very impressive.”

I reach for the rope tied to the hatch and pull it shut. But now I’m a little sad, because I have once again wiped my life clean of enigmas – I, who used to have so many. I also realize that I am not getting back to sleep, so I head for the shower.


My seven a.m. landscape is cold and foggy – no surprise there – so I grab a big black jacket that I haven’t used for a while. As I slide into my truck, I feel a lump in my breast pocket and reach in to discover a lone Swisher Sweet. This should probably be a disconcerting event, but it’s not. Lately, I’ve had this black-pit feeling of being Harvey’s accomplice – I did, after all, marry the murdering son-of-a-bitch – and the chance to perform an act of penance is quite welcome. And penance it will be – this thing looks like a core sample from the Mojave Desert.

I actually consider the long drive to Port Townsend, but ritual is hard to break, so I follow my ruts to Gig Harbor. I park at the Jerisich Dock, start my cigar with the fleur-de-lis lighter and trudge waterward, puffing like a freight train. The taste is truly awful, and I wonder if this is how great Catholic martyrs are born.

A strip of candy red extends from the end of the pier like a windsock, and some crazyperson is sitting in the middle of it. Faint Morse code blips into my brain: This would be a kayak. Kye-ack. As I draw closer, the crazyperson removes his knit cap to reveal a mop of hair that matches the boat. Some loony kayaking rocker teen with dyed hair. He spots me and calls out in a high voice.

“Christ! Are you smoking that thing on purpose?”

And I’m running, scanning the water for black horses and evil mimes, my sneakers slapping the planks. I’ve been waiting so long to speak these syllables that they come out in sing-song.

“Roo-bee!”

I skid to a halt. Ruby is laughing her head off.

“Well don’t kill yourself!”

I’m helpless. I can’t get to her without sending us both into the drink. All I can do is repeat my recitative.

“RoobeeRoobeeRoobee!”

She claps her hands together. “And your name is Channy!”

I’m all dicombobulated, so I stuff the cigar in my mouth and take a huge drag that sends me into a fit of coughing.

“Heh! What the… hemm! What the hell are you doing in that thing?”

“Why, I’m kayaking, honey. It’s a noun and a verb.”

“But you’re in Mexico!”

“You’re right. I’m in Mexico.” She gives me a wide smile. “Someone’s lost track of her mental calendar.”

“Entirely possible. Would you get your big luscious ass out of there so I can molest you?”

“Best offer I’ve had in six hours. I’ll meet you at that little landing next to the ramp.”

“Gotcha.” I walk the length of the pier as Ruby paddles beside me. She’s much better at this than I would have guessed, pivoting the paddle from one side to the other with nary a hitch. She rolls onto the landing, pulls up the kayak, and then I charge, yanking her to her feet for a huge hug. I can feel the icy water from her wetsuit as it penetrates by blue jeans. I’m also crying.

“Jesus, Channy. Are you all right?”

“I just missed you, you crazy bitch.”

She lets out a theater laugh – Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. “You’re getting so codependent. What’ll I do with you?”

I rediscover the cigar in my hand (nice thing about Swishers, they’d stay lit through Hurricane Katrina) and I take a final drag, pulling the spark all the way down to the tip and hurling it into the water. Amen.

“You’ll let me buy you some fresh-baked bread at Susanne’s.”

“Ay, lass. Now you’re talkin’.”

Ruby deposits her wetsuit in the trunk of her car, ties her kayak to the roof rack, and ducks into the bakery restroom to swap her shorts for a dry pair of jeans. I, meanwhile, obtain a loaf of Dutch crunch, warm from the oven, and a serrated knife. Ruby spreads a wad of butter on her first slice and watches with greedy eyes as it melts into the surface.

“This is pure genius,” she says.

I take a bite and adopt a rapturous expression. “I’m a carbohydrate Einstein. So. Mexico? Mexico?”

Ruby grins like a kid in front of a birthday cake.

“I have such a story for you! But first: appetizers. We went kayaking in Mazatlan, at this little island across from the big hotels. When we reached the tip of the island, we hit open ocean, and these long swells came in to lift us and then gently set us back down. As we were paddling back, this Mexican supermodel came strolling along the beach topless, with the most perfect set of gazongas I have ever set eyes on. Poor Harry was having a stroke trying not to look. I told him, ‘Honey, I’m going to stare at her, so go ahead already!’ As you may have guessed, I got totally hooked on the kayaking. We got in pretty late last night, but I was so jacked up I woke up at five, stole Harry’s kayak, and you know the rest.”

“And may I say, you look amazingly at home with that paddle.”

She laughs. “Perhaps in a previous life I was an Aleut.”

“I went to school with an Aleut.”

Ruby takes a huge bite of bread; it takes her a while to chew it down.

“Excuse my piggishness. Apparently I’ve worked up an appetite. So! Puerto Vallarta. We caught a bus to a ranchero, where we embarked on a rather advanced hike over these hills – sort of the beginnings of the Sierra Madre. The humidity was stunning; I felt like a human sponge being wrung out. We ended up at this little riverside park, where they had tile tubs fed by natural springs and an enormous iguana who stared at us from the crotch of a tree like a surly green security guard. We forded the river and discovered thousands of pastel butterflies, solid squares of pink, yellow, blue and white sunning themselves on the far bank. Our guide walked right into them, and they rose in a cloud, like backwards confetti.

“By the time we got to Cabo, we were a little worn out, so we took a boat into the waterfront for some low-impact shopping. We were immediately set upon by peddlers, so we sought refuge in this pirate bar, where this loco waiter brought us our drinks balanced on his head. He was good!”

“How was the food on the ship?”

“Oh!” she says. “Oh! I can’t even start. When I got to the final bite of our final meal, I held it up to Harry and said, ‘From now on, everything I eat will taste like shit.’ Tell you what, though. I saved copies of every single menu. Why don’t I bring them, next time we get together, and I’ll give you a detailed narration of each meal.”

With this, she takes another bite of bread, sips at her coffee and leans back in her chair. Her expression is one of utter contentment, like a woman who has fallen profoundly into love. But she seems in no hurry to explain.

“What?” I demand. “What?”

She closes her eyes, then opens them slowly. “I don’t know what I like best: the event itself, or the chance to tell you about it.”

“Yeah yeah. I’m flattered, I’m touched, yada yada. Now out with it!”

She smiles yet again, and indulges in one last pause before taking the plunge.


Next: In Pursuit of Britney Spears

Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1



Image by MJV

Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Twenty-Six, Part IV
Sanctuary

The week we moved into Sumner, I found a box of books in the basement with a note from the previous tenant: Sorry! Didn’t have enough room for this in the van – thought you might like something to read.

At the top was a book of Northwest hiking trails. I opened it to the bookmark and found a listing circled with a highlighter: the Nisqually Delta Bird Sanctuary. I had a profound itch to explore our new region, and this certainly fit into the category of Sign from God.

That Saturday, we had a lot of chores to catch up on – we were still hunting up shower curtains and a microwave oven – so by the time we found the sanctuary parking lot the sun was getting low in the west. We walked straight into it, down a wide gravel path bordered by tall wetland grasses the color of dried bamboo.

“Look,” I said. I gestured above us, where the swallows were swirling from one field to the next, a haphazard, aerial tennis match. But Harvey’s gaze was fixed on the long trail. Always the distance with this one. I had to take him by the shoulders and nearly put him into a headlock to get him to look. When he saw the swallows, though, I could feel his muscles relax.

“Absolutely stunning,” he said.

Harvey the human dichotomy. He was a tough climb, but there was something about the challenge of the ascent that made the view that much sweeter when you got to the top. But. This could be the last kind memory I have of him. Because he snapped. Because he killed people. To that dichotomy, there is no bright side.

I am back in that very spot, the swallows of yesteryear weaving circles above me. The tall grasses are now a milky green. The sun is low in the west, but setting much further south.

He stood right here. The hands that massaged my neck at the end of a long day were used to separate five innocent men from their lives. There are no birds in this sanctuary, and the sky is brewing up a football team of icy-looking clouds.

I watch my steps carefully, as if I will be asked to describe them in a deposition. I have begun yet another process – that of deciding if my so-called life partner was inherently evil, or just inherently weak. A violent streak waiting for an invitation, or an average man too harshly squeezed by mortality and frustration? Are we all just one exploded comrade from taking lives? I picture Hamster bisected by an orange burst, and try to channel my reaction.

I am angry at Harvey, I am terribly sorry for him. I will love him forever, I will never ever forgive him. And I am most sorry for myself, who will have to live with these fucking what-ifs for the rest of my life, who will never have a joy that is not cut in half by the sulfuric acid percolating from my memory banks.

Somewhere in there, I should have some anger for Kai. The man killed my husband. Justifiably, yes, nobly, yes – but there ought to be something. Instead I find only sorrow, so deep I can’t get my hands around it. I don’t know if I will ever have the strength to be his lover, to handle these explosive chemicals he carries around in his brain, but I want to hold him and say, You did the right thing. You did what your own humanity demanded of you. The beauty of friendship is its forfeitability, and Harvey gave up Kai’s the instant he pulled that trigger.

Oh, God. The world is too gray, too empty of wings and song. I crave a bald eagle, a blue heron, some shocking stroke of color to empty my thoughts for the smallest second, but all I have are workaday seagulls rioting over the marsh. I am grateful for my job, which even on the dreariest of days carries the possibility of beauty: a bent note from a blues guitar, a cascade of horns, the apple-ish bite of a hi-hat at the end of a phrase.

I turn and look back at the parking lot. I have covered, at most, a city block. I can still read the numbers on my license plate. It’s time to go to that job.


The evening is utterly rote. I’m not even certain who’s here but I sense that it’s a healthy crowd. I sit next to the pond as a familiar face rises to the surface, sings a song and then sinks back down. I do a lot of smiling and nodding.

But the songs stay with me. “Name,” “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” “The Sweater Song,” “It’s All Right With Me,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Smooth,” “Chasing Cars,” “Tender When I Want to Be,” “What Is This Thing Called Love?” The words drift in and out like a dream before dawn. I try to piece them together, looking for some clue on how a life is supposed to be lived. It’s not simply that nothing makes sense to me, it’s that I am now beyond sense.

There is a word in karaoke that I’ve never seen anywhere else: “Outro.” It’s basically a made-up antonym of “intro.” It comes up on the lyric screen to let you know that the singing’s over, but the music’s going to go on a little longer. You’re free to stay at the mic and wait it out, but you’re also free to leave. Either way, the music goes on without you.

“Channy?”

Big blonde hair, like Joan Osborne in that “One of Us” video. I think this is Shari.

“Hi.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong track, honey. It’s track twelve.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Smile, nod – nudge the track to twelve. An acoustic guitar comes in like a rowboat in gentle water. It’s called “Fade Into You” by a group called Mazzy Star. This must be one of Shari’s CDs, because the song is sad and otherworldly, and if I had ever heard it I would remember it. Shari’s whiskey voice could squeeze tears from “The Hokey-Pokey,” and now she’s throwing in this drowsy Patsy Cline lift that grabs at the fraying ends of my heartstrings. I am able to hit the escape valve just in time, and I turn to face my little squad of business card holders. Busywork. Busywork. Ah, that’s better – a wide gravel path full of trivia.


The end of the night comes quickly, and before I’m even aware that I’ve begun, I am piling my last CD case into the truck. It could be that I can sneak away quietly and continue ceasing to exist.

But then there’s my paycheck, and the rent that’s coming due, so I trudge back in. Hamster is leaning against the bar in a rascally fashion as he nurses an Irish coffee. He’s a sipper; that’s how he keeps from becoming a drunk in a trade that breeds them by the millions. He lends me a rakish smile, a little bit higher on the right, the one he uses on his bevy of barfly Mrs. Robinsons.

“Hey dollface. Good night tonight.”

“Yes.” I smile and nod, but I can hear how flat my voice is. “Can I get my check?”

“Sure.” He reaches into the cash register and pulls out a brown envelope. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks.” I start for the door, feeling suddenly panicky.

“Channy? Are you okay? You seem a little…”

Oh God. That tone of courtly concern, it’s much too fatherly, avuncular, the vice principal, the elder psychologist, the softball coach, and it’s precisely this quality that snips the frayed ends of my heartstrings – the ones that held up the marionette. I sink to my knees and it all comes pouring out of me, a sobbing so deep that it sounds like some large, gray animal at the zoo. I’m melting into the freshly mopped ammonia-smelling floor, and then I’m aloft on a cloud of musky, old-fashioned cologne, Hamster’s day-old beard scratching my cheek. I land on the cold vinyl of a bar booth, where my strange new song just keeps spilling and spilling out.


In the great Northwest, gray is our color of choice, the raincloud our team mascot. Precipitation is such a dominant presence that we have invented a term for its temporary cessation: sunbreak. This morning is my sunbreak, ten minutes of slick beauty during which I have forgotten whatever it was that was plaguing me.

I follow the sunbreak across the room, where it lands on three fuzzy balls making their way along tubes of yellow, red and green. I quickly designate the lightswitch as their finish line and place my money on red. The second I do so, my steed is off, as if someone has turned a faucet and shot him forward on a rush of water. He reaches the switch and disappears around the corner, leaving his rivals to choke on his primary-colored dust.

Victory! Followed quickly by consciousness. I’m at Hamster’s. I’m at Hamster’s because…

Damn.

Sunbreak over. But it’s followed by a slowly spreading smile that smells like coffee. I take a steaming mug that says, It Must Be Love (either that or this coffee is really strong!).

“Thanks, boss.”

“I forget how you like it,” he says.

The first sip goes right to my head, sweeping aside the autumn leaves, prodding me into untoward flirtation.

“I like my coffee like I like my employers,” I say. “Hot and black.”

That sends us both into titters, and I notice that Hamster is fully groomed and dressed: jeans, tennis shoes, golf shirt. Apparently, I have slept in. He leans an elbow against the doorjamb and gives me an appraising look.

“You know, you’ve really got to cut this out. You’re ruining both sides of my reputation.”

I’ve got to latch onto something, and this seems like a solid opening.

“Well now right there! See? Yet another of your enigmatic pronouncements. What the hell do you mean, ‘both sides’? And what the hell is your last name?”

“Don’t you read your paychecks?”

“Have you seen your signature lately? It’s a freakin’ Jackson Pollock.”

Hamster cups a hand around his chin, considering how much of himself to divulge.

“Jenner. Hamilton Beauregard Jenner.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” I am pounding the top of my sleeping bag in disbelief.

“As for the other bit of information, that is a great big fat secret that can only be traded for a secret of similar proportions. Such as, perhaps, whatever it was that liquified you all over my floor last night.”

I take an overlong sip that scalds my tongue. I rub a finger along the hot-spot.

“Well. It’s a whopper. But seeing how that bitch Ruby has absconded to Mexico, I guess I gotta tell someone.”

He beckons me down the hall. “Join me in my breakfast nook.”

I smile. “Said the spider to the fly.”

Hamster’s nook is a key lime pie of white tiles and yellow trim, with a small blondewood table, white chairs and a bay window that looks across the harbor to Karz. I picture him here each morning, nibbling a piece of toast, hamster-like, as he ponders his greatest possession. I sit down and launch into my work, spitting out the whole miniseries, chunk by grisly chunk. My conclusion turns Hamilton Beauregard Jenner into a Catholic.

“Jesus Mary Joseph and Richard Nixon,” he says. “Channy! You should be in a mental ward by now. Certainly not doling out pop music in Gig Harbor. Are you seeing someone?”

“Well I just… broke up to-…”

“Seeing a therapist, sweetheart. It’s fine telling a friend, but eventually you need a professional. This is some grade-A shit.”

I keep forcing my genteel boss to swear, which only adds to my feelings of guilt.

“You got someone in mind?”

He takes a bite from his scone – his first bite, such was his fascination with my story – and smiles.

“How about mine?”

I roll out a finger like I’m laying a tiny carpet. “Which you’re seeing for…?”

He proffers a pinkie. I recognize this from childhood. It’s a pledge of secrecy. I hook my pink pinkie around his mocha pinkie and we pull them away like we’re unplug
ging a bathtub.

“Just for clarity,” he says, “absolute confidentiality.”

“Absolutely.”

“Your boss prefers men. And he got most of those stock tips during late-night rendezvouz on Amtrak.”

“Scandalous! So… why the closet?”

“Different times, honey. I didn’t need both races on my ass. So to speak. My youngers speak to me of rainbows, and Pride movements, but it’s just not my bag. Besides, I take great pleasure in the cash of all those Gig Harbor housewives who come to my bar to indulge their Harry Belafonte fantasies.”

I laugh out loud, which feels strange and lovely. “I was thinking Nat King Cole.”

Hamster lets out a sandpapery Belafonte laugh (I’ll be damned) and says “Nat King Cole! I’ll be damned.”

I stand from my chair, so touched by this long-delayed confidence that I must have an embrace.

“Mr. Jenner – Harry, Nat – give me a big, gay hug.”

“I will,” he says, and does. Wrapped in Hammie’s muscular limbs, I feel that perhaps the world will stop beating on me, at least for the duration of a sunbreak. A trio of cormorants slides by the window.


Next: The Return of Ruby

Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1



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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter 26, Part III

What Really Happened

Conrad

Harvey was out on patrol with Bucksy – I’m sure Harvey mentioned him. Man’s man, soldier’s soldier. Gave his orders straight out, undiluted, but you never felt like you were being jacked around, because he’d always paint the whole picture: reasons, danger, overall strategy. I mean, it’s the Army – when it comes down to it, you just do what you’re told. But Bucksy figured if he took the time to explain things, he could get ten percent more out of each of his men – and in combat, ten percent is life minus death.

Physically, he had your attention anyway. Six-five, 250, built like a freakin’ linebacker. And you know what he did as a civilian? Hairstylist. Fuckin’ hairstylist. I always had a hard time mashing that together as a concept. I imagine he didn’t get too many complaints about his work.

I used to call him “Captain Glue,” because I’ll tell you, it is an absolute pile of shit over there, and all the flies buzzing around that pile of shit have explosives strapped to their chests. You’re trying to save those people from their own damn selves, and they’d just as soon blow you to pieces as make you coffee. We had a lot of soldiers who were in danger of just plain losin’ it, but Bucksy had that magic way of knowing who needed a kick in the ass, who needed a dirty joke, who needed a good old-fashioned verbal takedown and who needed to be left alone. Bullseye, every time.


Conrad turns from the railing and looks at me, as if he wants me to get this next part, not as some colorful abstraction but as a physical object, something you can hold and feel.


Bucksy’s dead. Worse than dead. He was blown into two discrete pieces. Made me think of the Black Dahlia. I go to horror movies now and I laugh. They have no fucking idea.

It was your husband who drove that Humvee over that explosive. It was also your husband who escaped with a couple of scratches on his right elbow. Goddamnedest thing I’ve ever seen. Not that I actually saw it. I only saw the remains.

We were destroyed, useless. We spent the day either crying like babies or punching holes in the walls. All except Harvey. Harvey spent the day sitting straight-backed on his bunk, staring into space. He had this huge bottle of water, and every few minutes he would take a swig, and then go back to staring. It seemed like some kind of internal strategy session, like he was working something out. I cannot conceive of the visual information that must have registered on his brain that day, or what happens when something like that starts tunneling around in your head. I’m thinking there also had to be guilt. Nothing rational – there wasn’t a damn thing he could have done about it. But maybe the irrational kind is harder, because you have to keep wrestling with it. Especially when you’re the one who got away scot-free.

We didn’t have much time for grieving. We were desperately short on personnel, the new division wasn’t due for two weeks, and the insurgents in the village were getting bolder. There were rumors about an attack on the local mosque. So there we were, two days later, walking around like zombies, a squadron that had literally had its head cut off. The command came down to me, but frankly Harvey would have been better suited. I was off my nut. I envisioned an IED under my every step, and you just can’t operate that way.

We had a lead through one of our translators that a house in the northern sector might be serving as a hideout for insurgents. I was still setting up my men around the perimeter when Harvey bolted past me and busted through the front door. Really threw me – for all I knew he had just barged in on a room full of armed terrorists. He could be gunned down any second. But then I heard him inside, yelling things in Arabic. Stay down. Hands behind your head. That sort of thing. Then I heard a shot, so I told Kai to cover me as I went in after Harvey. From the entryway, I had only a narrow slice of vision into the main room. There were men, maybe thirty of them, all ages, kneeling on prayer mats. This made sense – they were avoiding the mosque, because of the rumors. But what the hell was Harvey doing?

Then I saw their faces. They were terrified, breathing hard. There was another shot, and the sound of a body falling to the floor. A man who was kneeling near the opening tried to stand and run. Another shot. He fell into the hallway in front of me, a hole in his throat. It was then that I realized what was happening.

“Lebeque!” I shouted. “It’s Conrad! Listen to me! It’s the wrong house! These are not insurgents!”

Harvey’s response was belligerent but strangely calm. “The hell they’re not! If ya hadn’t noticed, Dixon, these people are not too particular about who they kill. Well, neither am I! What about you, pal? Kill any Americans today? Did ya kill my friend? Huh?”

Another shot. Another body.

“Sergeant! You must cease firing! That’s an order!”

I leaned into the opening to see him raising the muzzle of his rifle to the head of an old man. He looked at me and said, “I only take orders from Bucksy, and Bucksy’s gone. This ain’t no fucking Zero Squadron. Zero Squadron has rules. No rules in this fucking country. Alice in fucking Wonderland out here.”

He fired. The old man slumped forward.

My teachers had told me how a military mind operates in extreme situations, but this was the first time I really felt it. My thoughts were dividing, half of them scattered and shocked, the other half remarkably calm and rational. The calm half noticed that Harvey was being methodical. He was working his way down the line, front row first. The next was a young boy, maybe nine, ten years old, and this meant that I was about to come to a crisis point. I wasn’t going to let him kill that kid.

It was then that Kai stepped into the back of the room.

“Harvey,” he said. “You can’t do this.”

“I can do this all day long,” said Harvey. “Motherfuckers blew my friend in half. In half! This is a pleasure.”

“Fuck them!” said Kai. “It’s not about them. I’m with you. But if you can stop right now, we can get you out of here, cover our tracks and everything’s fine, okay? You get a couple kills, get your payback, couple more weeks you go back to the States, back to Channy, everything’s fine. But you gotta stop right now, Harve. It won’t work unless you stop right now.”

Harvey stood there for a second, staring at the back of that little boy’s head, and he seemed to calm down. Thank God, I thought. He’s talked him out of it.

“No,” he said, and raised his rifle to the boy’s head. Another shot, and Harvey fell to the floor.

When I looked back toward Kai, I had this fanciful idea that he had just turned himself into a statue, his rifle still on his shoulder, his eyes getting bigger and bigger. I walked slowly toward him and spoke in my calmest military voice.

“Soldier, hand me your weapon.”

I took it from him and continued giving orders. I didn’t want him to think about what had just happened. I was afraid of what he might do to himself. I put a hand on his shoulder and shook him a little to get his attention. His face was just wide open with fear.

“Soldier! Go outside right now. Get O’Reilly and Benson.” Then I lowered my voice. “Kai, you are not to say a word about this. Let me handle it.”

I guess if I had to justify what I did next, I would say that your husband did commit suicide. He gave Kai no choice, and I’m sorry, but every time Kai has a week like this one, I wish Harvey had killed himself. We carried the body back to the base and reported that Harvey had gotten separated from the squad, that we found him in that eucalyptus grove. The story made sense; it was an American bullet, Harvey’s weapon had been fired – his feelings about Bucksy were well-known. Any cursory forensics investigation would have proved us all a bunch of liars, but we were counting on chaos, and we won – no one had the luxury of looking into it any further. And, thank God, those Iraquis were evidently too scared to report the killings.

I got a call yesterday from CID, and I agreed to tell them the whole story. Politically speaking, they’ll probably have to release this to the press. And… well, especially with you and Kai being… a couple, I figured I better tell you. I’m very sorry about all of this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone over that day in my head and tried to figure out something I could have done to prevent it. But reliving it, it’s all pretty fucking useless.


I’m feeling grateful for the way the human body operates, the way everything numbs up, because otherwise this would kill me. I stare at the masts, bobbing in the wind like a leafless forest. Then I feel Conrad’s hand around my shoulder.

“What can I do for you, Channy? Are you gonna be okay – I mean, right now? You want to call someone? Could I drive you home? It’s no problem – I’m the boss.”

I’m surprised at the clarity of my own voice. “No. That’s okay. I’ve got a place to go. A thinking place.”

He nudges my face toward his and gives me a teacherly scrutiny.

“Nothing foolish?”

“Nothing foolish,” I say. “I don’t operate that way. Besides, I’ve got a job tonight.”

“You sure you’re up to it?”

I realize I never knew his last name before, and I feel the need to speak it. “This is what you do, Sergeant Dixon. You keep going.”

“Good girl.”

“And you – you keep a watch on Kai.”

“Always,” he says. “That’s my job.”

Next: Sanctuary


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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter 26, Part II

The Ship Sails at Midnight

“Okay, this might seem a little odd, but please don’t turn around. I need you to play a little game with me. I’m going to leave the coffeehouse and take a right down the sidewalk. I’d like you to count to twenty and follow me, but I want you to stay a block behind me until we get to the Harbor Walk.”

The voice is coming over my left shoulder. At first, I suspect ventriloquism. But I am a dedicated follower of instructions, so I face forward until I see the back of a tall man with a blond buzz-cut, headed for the door. Everyone is so eager to leave me. Rousting the molecules in my brain, I realize that this is Conrad, captain of our ski squad, manager of the Olympia branch of Jenalyn Sports.

Spy games. Why not? I have absolutely nothing better to do. I head outside and look around to find him on the far corner, looking casual, waiting to confirm that I’m “tailing” him. I’m fully invested now, so I make no signal before starting down the sidewalk, working up a backstory as I go. Recently divorced mom with a free hour, looking for the downtown spa with the great handmade soaps. Keeping an occasional eye on Conrad turns out to be pretty easy, because he’s taking a straight shot down Fourth, crossing a bridge in front of the loopy capital-city fountain then heading for a grocery store next to the marina. He takes a sudden right and stops two blocks later on a wide path constructed of clean, baked-out timbers. This must be the Harbor Walk; I know this because I am a brilliant detective, and also because I can read the words on the large, gray municipal sign that says Harbor Walk.

I join Conrad at a railing overlooking the water. Our near horizon is a field of ship’s masts that reminds me, for the most transparent of reasons, of a signpost forest. Even now, when I am ready to change my mailing address to End of Her Rope, WA, I cannot resist an attempt at humor.

“The ship sails at midnight.”

“The albatross is a mighty bird,” he recites back. Conrad is a helpful playmate. He gives me a chuckle. “Didn’t mean to go all James Bond on your ass, but Kai’s pretty fragile right now, and it’s a real bitch these days finding replacement Sherpas.”

“What? He’ll think we’re having an affair? As of about a half hour ago, it doesn’t really fucking matter.” The f-word feels good on my teeth, and my heart is frosty with abandon. Hell, I would take Conrad right now; it would be a nice, vengeful screw. But Conrad is shaking his head.

“Oh, man. I was hoping he would hold off on that. But that’s Kai – he’s got this overwhelming affection for a clean slate.”

Conrad is still talking in code, but I guess I knew from the espionage that this would take a while.

“We got the word yesterday: they’ve started the investigation. We’re all pretty jumpy. Kai thought that this might all pass over, that life would go on. Tough warrior, that one. Not me. I always knew the shit would come down, and here it is, every gory fucking chapter, ready to fall. I think he also thought that we were doing this to protect you, but it’s better you hear it from me than some anchorman. Oh Jesus, now I’m just freaking you out. Why don’t I just shut up and tell you the fucking story?”

Next: The Truth

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter 26, Part I

The Rediscovery of Kai

Twenty-Six

I have a powerful fetish for the rosetta figures etched into lattes by Northwest baristas. My knowledge of the process is limited to stolen counterside glances, but here’s my understanding of the basic steps: you lay down two shots of espresso, suffuse them with milk foam to create a dirty sienna canvas, and then pour a narrow stream of hot milk in a zig-zag weave, creating a ski trail of white that is then seamed into a rough symmetricality by a quick pour down the center. The result is an ivory sword fern, often with branches into the teens. And then you get to destroy the poor thing (philistine!) by drinking it.

I’m lying to you. None of this is important. I am seated in a corner of the Caffe Vita in downtown Olympia, and I am stalling. After staring at my ten-limbed rosetta for ten minutes, I move on to a chessboard balanced on the windowsill. The knights are staring at each other. I turn them so they’re back-to-back, pacing off a duel.

“Hello. Is there a guy named Kong in the mountaineering department?”

“Oh, you mean Kai. He’s not in today. Would you like someone else from that department?”

“Um, no. It has to be Kai.”

“Steve’s back there. Steve knows everything about…”

“Nope. Has to be Kai. He’s a Sherpa, you know…”

The man laughed. “I swear, that guy has more groupies than the Foo Fighters. Well, listen. He’ll be in tomorrow afternoon, um…” – sound of shuffling papers – “noon to six. So call back then, I guess.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

“No prob.”

That’s how I found him. Apparently, he transferred from Tacoma to Olympia as a way of staying out of my sights. As if I were some kind of threat. It’s three-thirty-five, and I’m running a mental preview of every possible confrontation, like an improv group doing the same sketch over and over in different theatrical styles. Tennessee Williams. Shakespeare. Gilbert & Sullivan. None of them have the tiniest relationship to reality.

The weather has decided to directly contradict my mood. The air is laced with a brilliant lemon-sorbet sharpness. A bevy of college students, clothed in the latest thrift-store fashions, are cavorting on the sidewalk, taking in the UV rays like they’re spoonfuls of caviar. My foamy rosetta has completed its elevator ride to the bottom of my cup. It’s go time. I dig out the last bit of foam with my finger and lick it off, and then I fight off years of parental training and leave my cup and saucer on the table for somebody else to pick up.

The sidewalk rolls away before me. I cross the intersection and pass the old State Theater. On the far side, an old-fashioned storefront space plays host to Jenalyn Sports, the windows covered in red banners declaring fifty percent off cleats. Lest I lose my nerve, I keep right on, through the double glass doors, past the cashiers, gun counter, baseball gloves, and then I look up to find spools of rope in fluorescent colors. Kai, my ghost, is demonstrating a locking carabiner for a tall man in a business suit.

“See, you lock that in, pull it tight just to double-check, and there’s no way in the world that…”

He stops when he sees me, and our eyes lock in for a long time. Those dark irises are hard to read. I imagine him bolting like a frightened buck, three giant leaps into the stockroom.

“Excuse me a moment, would you?” He leaves the businessman with a dozen carabiners and comes to take my hands.

“Hi. I’ve got a lunch break right after this customer. Can I buy you a latte?”

There’s no reason to say no. And I’m back at Caffe Vita, deflating another rosetta. Kai is five times more calm than he should be.

“I’m sorry, Channy. I’m sorry for the way I took off like that. And I’m sorry I haven’t called you. I’ve been meaning to, but the more I put it off, the harder it gets to pick up that phone.”

“You can always talk to me, Kai. I’ve been through everything. Nothing’s going to kill me.”

He glances outside at the college kids, as if he’s looking for spies.

“The thing is, after that weirdness at the bar, I had to talk to my therapist. Army guy. Sal. Unbelievably cool dude. The thing is, I can’t see you anymore.”

I’m not surprised, but it sounds a little too much like Scootie’s breakup with Ruby. I’m imagining what a bottle of crème de menthe Torani syrup would look like, emptied over Kai’s head.

“I know he’s… gone, Channy. I know he shouldn’t play into this. But he does. He was my best friend. I let him down. I should have seen it coming. The sight of you will always remind me of what happened, of how I failed. There is a real, concrete limit to how much I can recover from that, of how far I can get back to normal. It’s just not realistic to carry around this living reminder of…”

He runs out of words, but I get the idea. I’m the reminder. I am Kai’s souvenir from Iraq. He buys a little time by taking a drink from his latte, then sets down his cup as a marker.

“I can’t do it. I can’t see you any more. I’m sorry.”

I’m fairly sick of my emotions playing dogpile with me, so I’m holding firmly to my rational demeanor. I glance at the chessboard and find that someone has turned the knights back around. I speak at them so I don’t have to look at Kai.

“I think you and I are missing out on something pretty great, and frankly I’m pissed off at Harvey for taking this away from me, too. I think he’s done enough fucking damage. But there’s no way I’m going to talk you into anything. I can’t begin to imagine the things you’ve gone through, the things you might have seen. But Kai, I do want you to consider one other thing. We were friends before all of this, and I know it might take you a while to straighten things out, but if you come out on the other end, I’d like to think we can be friends again.. You don’t even have to call, just… show up at Karz some night.”

He waits for more, but that’s all I’ve got. I watch a skateboarder with dreadlocks grinding a curb. I’m feeling suddenly exhausted, and I can’t understand why this man cares about my dead husband more than I do.

“Kai? Could you just… go? I’m not up to all the niceties.”

He’s gentleman enough to not say another word. He seems to think it’s a good idea to take my hand from the table and give it a squeeze, and I’m too tired not to let him. And then he’s gone, the front door swinging in his wake. I stare at my caffeine rosetta for a long, long time. When I get around to my next sip, I’m surprised to find that it’s cold.


Next: Secret Agent Man

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty-Five

Floy and the Phantom Poodle

Judging by the things I’ve read, the part of a dream that we remember is the part that comes right before we wake up. That way, it’s still fresh on our short-term memories, like words spelled out in flour that have not yet blown away on the wind.

If you picture my dream-world as a stage, the left half is a small apartment in which everything – furniture, draperies, appliances – has been fashioned from a pure, snow-white material. The right half is an identical apartment in which everything is pure black. (That bastard Scootie would call it mars black.) There is no wall between these two apartments, but there is a sort of clear, fluid separation. Viewed from either side, this divide resembles the surface of a swimming pool.

The residents of these apartments are horses – a white horse in the black apartment, a black horse in the white. Both horses are made of polished stone, and both wear expressions of utter neutrality. Their sole occupation seems to be to stare at each other, and despite the blank expressions you can feel hostility rolling from the stage like heat from a furnace.

When I wake, my eyes are fixed on a pencil-thick hole in the ceiling, previously occupied by a hook for hanging plants. Cottage cheese texturing spreads to all sides in a sparkly moonfield flecked with mica.

And immediately, I have my answer. On a chessboard, the figure of a horse represents a knight. Knights in adjacent squares can do nothing to capture each other, since their moves are limited to a combination of one and two squares (for instance, two forward, one to the side). For these two, however, the stony, hateful faceoff has become their all-consuming occupation, so they’ve decided to set up permanent apartments.

My epiphany arrives with the sound of panting. I look up to find an actual horse, sitting on its haunches in the center of my room.

“Java?”

Java comes to my bedside and spatulas his long snout under my hand.

“Young dog! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Jah-vah!”

This is a muted call, coming through the hole in my ceiling. It sounds a lot like Floy. I take my phone from my nightstand, hit #1 on my speed dial and get Floy’s puzzled response.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I don’t know if there’s a drip in my ceiling, but there seems to be a big poodle in the middle of my floor.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious!” says Floy. “But how the heck did he get there?”

“Doggy dumbwaiter? Extra-terrestrials?”

“I’m so sorry, Channy! I’ll come down and get him. If that’s okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s fine.”

A minute later, there’s a rap on my French doors, and Java rushes over to inspect. I slip on my robe and undo the lock.

“Hi!” says Floy. I’m surprised to find her in her nursing uniform. Java pokes his head through the doorway, and she gives him a playful bop. “You goof! How did you get down here? Have you invented teletransportation?”

“Going to work?” I ask.

“Just got back.”

“You are kidding me.”

The ol’ Sunday morning six to ten. We call it Hell Shift. This morning, however, we delivered triplets.”

“Wow! That’s gotta be rare.”

“Only the second for me, and that’s forty years of maternity.”

“Damn.”

Something else is on Floy’s mind, but she’s not coming out with it. We sprawl into one of those awkward silences where the only option is to play the housepet card. I scratch Java on the neck and say, “So how do we get him to reveal his secret passage?”

Floy runs a finger under her frosty-blonde bangs and rightfully ignores my question.

“Is there anything the matter, Channy?”

“No, everything’s fine. Since John fixed the garbage disposal, I…”

“No, no. Not the apartment. I mean, with you.” She laughs, a nervous piece of birdsong. “I don’t know, all that time around the birth canal seems to have endowed me with gyno-radar, and you seem sort of… flat lately. Like you’re really not here. Boy trouble?”

The housepet card is gone, so I hallucinate a piece of lint on my sleeve and pick at it.

“Hard to have boy trouble when ya got no boy.”

Floy’s expression is immediately swamped with disappointment. “You broke up with Kai?”

“Well, I’m not… sure. It was weird – like, off-the-charts weird. And my pal Ruby’s off on a cruise, so I haven’t had a chance to… Well, you know, sometimes you really can’t process something until you tell a friend about it.”

“Pancakes,” says Floy.

In my fuzzy state, I take this as a synonym for “Pshaw!” or “Nonsense!”

“No, really, I…”

“No!” says Floy, snorting into her hand. “Why don’t you shower up, and I’ll make some gooseberry pancakes. John’s off to Bremerton to use the gym, so we’ll have a nice unhindered session of gyno-psychology.

“Floy, I… Yes! I’ll be up in fifteen minutes.”


The Craigs’ living room is bright and playful, a canvas of beige carpeting and ivory tiles underpinning shelves and windowsills of beach objects: driftwood, seashells, a vase filled with frosted glass. They spend a lot of weekends cruising the Oregon coast, hunting new pieces for Floy’s assemblage. The item that always gets my attention is a brass pendulum that swings over a shallow pit filled with sand. When you pull it to one side and let go, it inscribes a Celtic flower of close-knit lines, drawing closer to the center with each small dose of gravity.

“Ah!” says Floy. “You found our favorite toy. Java managed to topple that over once. We had to search every shop in Northwest Oregon to find the right kind of sand for it.”

“He’s a rambunctious critter,” I say.

“Too long-limbed for his own good. He’s also just crazy for French B-R-E-A-D, which I think is just painfully cliché.”

Java cocks his head, which in this case means, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but at least you’re paying attention to me. When I turn back to the table, Floy has loaded me up with a steaming stack of pancakes, spotted here and there with igneous burstings of gooseberry.

“Oh Floy! I can’t tell you how many different parts of my body appreciate this.”

Floy runs a gob of butter along her cakes like she’s waxing a surfboard. “Ha-HA! What makes you think I’m doing this for you?” She cuts out a triangle and forks it into her mouth. “Mmph! Oh! So how did karaoke go last night?”

“Well. Much as I appreciate all the care and concern being tossed my way, the whole fleeing-boyfriend thing was way too public, and I guess I’m feeling the scorch of the microscope.”

“Yes, my family does that to me all the time. Which is endearing, when it isn’t utterly annoying. So how did this little spectacle come about?”

It takes me a whole stack of pancakes to fill her in. She follows with great interest – this, after all, being the woman who lives beneath her floor. But I forget some of the things I haven’t told her.

“…so I can’t figure out if this is coming from a run-of-the-mill relationship thing, or a post-traumatic thing – or if it has something to do with Harvey’s suicide.”

Floy holds up a hand. “Wait a minute. Who’s Harvey?”

“My husband. Kai’s best friend. Who died in Iraq.”

Floy’s expressions freezes into place.

“Oh God,” I say. “Oh God. I never told you this.”

Floy reaches a hand to mine on the tabletop. Her fingers are shaking.

“Channy! So that’s… All this time. God, I’m so sorry.”

I’ve had almost a year and a half to deal with Harvey’s death. For Floy, he has just appeared and then died within a paragraph.

“It’s just that… Well, I wasn’t able to talk about it for the longest time. The last few months, I finally found someone – Ruby – to listen to the whole miserable story. And now – God, look at me, blurting out suicides over breakfast. I’m so sorry.”

Floy seems to recover a bit, but her eyes are still damp.

“I don’t mean to be dramatic, honey. But you don’t know how many times I’ve imagined this kind of thing with John. There was this one night, terribly late, when he got a call, rushed into his flight suit and headed off – and he couldn’t tell me what it was. We all knew what it was – it was the October Missile Crisis, and John was flying a P-3 Orion over the Atlantic to look for Russian subs – but I played along, kissed him goodbye, wished him luck. And then spent the night torturing myself with every possible scenario, up to and including nuclear holocaust. At daybreak, he woke me on the couch, still in uniform, and the feeling of relief was so overwhelming that I went a little delirious. I think I cried for an hour straight.”

“Floy, I’m so sor…”

“Stop apologizing!” She’s crying now, too. “God, honey. I just wish I could have been there to help you.”

“But Floy – you were.”

These are the words that send her into speechlessness. She holds up a hand, excusing herself, and goes to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. She takes a long time to stir the sugar and cream, and then returns to the table, ready to deliver her summation.

“You need to find Kai. You cannot afford to let this hang. He probably needs to get some therapy. And you need to figure out if you’re up for this kind of drama. You’ve already had enough for someone three times your age.”

It almost seems like I’m getting a homework assignment from a stern-but-caring teacher. So I say, “Yes, ma’am.” And I get back to my pancakes.

Next: Spywork

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter 24

Part IV

The Standoff

I have noticed Ruby’s tears, but I was struggling to stick to my story, like a marathoner closing in on the finish line. When I return my focus to our little fireside, I find her holding a soggy wad of Kleenex and trailing streams of mascara. I feel like I’ve been a sadist, intentionally inflicting pain on her, and I kneel at the foot of her chair to beg forgiveness.

“I’m so sorry, Ruby.”

“You’re sorry,” she sniffles. “You’re sorry. Jesus. I knew it was coming all along, and yet… I’m destroyed. This image of you in the living room with that poor Army kid. Channy! How can you stand it?”

“But Ruby…”

“And me! Me with my petty bohemian dump stories. Boo-hoo for Ruby, she lost her boyfriend. I am such a dork!”

“It’s all the same… stuff, Ruby. It’s all grief and loss. It’s not a competition.”

She manages a laugh. “It was on Halloween.”

“That was different,” I say. “You were being a flaming bitch. Did I ever thank you for that?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Thank you, Ruby, for being a flaming bitch.”

She manages to laugh and cry at the same time. “My standard fee is forty percent.” She pulls out a fresh tissue and rubs it all over her face, like she’s erasing a chalkboard. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with her.

“Want a cookie?”

Ruby peers above her Kleenex with wide eyes. “Cheesecake?”

I stand up and muss her cutesy hair. “Cheesecake it is.”

I have officially proclaimed my widowhood, and I’m feeling like Ruby did about her euthanized career – relieved, liberated, and determined that my next dream had better behave itself. I nibble on a peanut butter cookie and feel the waves of heat from the fireplace as Ruby cleans up her plate. She wipes her mouth, touches up her lipstick, and gives me a grateful smile.

“Do we have time for dinner?” she asks. “Let me buy you dinner.”

“Sure. Mexican?”

I gather my jacket and purse, Ruby deposits her sob-wad in the trash, and we head outside, where it’s already dark.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she says, “but I invited David to karaoke.”

“Why would I mind?”

“Oh, there could be reasons,” she says, and flips her hair in the manner of a young Shirley MacLaine.


As a matter of fact, there is something awry about David. He isn’t smoking. At all. And then he turns in a song slip: “Unchain My Heart,” the Joe Cocker version. Fortunately, I’ve got some time to adjust to this new reality. All my regulars are here, as well as a few newcomers, and we have a rotation that is downright robust. It could be that everyone has finally recovered from the holidays, and decided it’s okay to get on with regular life.

I’m about to get things rolling when I’m approached by a tall, stout man with gentle silver trimmings. He bears the expression of a schoolboy about to request a hall pass.

“Hi. Our book only had one song slip. Do you have a stash up here?”

“Sure.” I pull a dozen from my shelf. “Here. What do you sing?”

He smiles, almost shyly. “Oh, I don’t. I mean, not here. I’m an opera coach. I’m here with my partner, Russ, who sings Elton John, Neil Diamond, those kind of things.”

“Does he sing opera?”

This brings another sort of smile, close-mouthed, sly. “Won’t even go to the opera.”

“A gay man who doesn’t like opera?”

“I know! Another perfectly good stereotype, shot to hell. My name’s Cordell, by the way.”

A few singers in, it’s readily apparent what Cordell sees in Russ. He is a quiet man, in every way – moves quietly, stands quietly – but once the lyric screen comes on he’s in his element, giving a thoughtful, polished reading of Neil Diamond’s “The Story of My Life.”

The boyfriend – my boyfriend – is sitting in the deep corner, next to the jukebox. I’ve been adding up the high school musicals, the way he dances, the lovely tenor resonance of his speaking voice, and hoping he might turn out to be a singer, but so far he’s given no indications. Tonight, he seems content to sit and admire, and to be prepared should I sneak his way for a kiss.

But it’s back to work for the heartstricken. After Ruby knocks us out with “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” up comes little brother, looking disheveled despite his neatly combed coif and brand-new ultrasuede shirt. When the piano breaks in, he reels out one arm and it begins to shake. Then he raises the other arm like a revival preacher, sings the first line in a throaty rasp, cranks his neck hard against one shoulder and rolls his eyes back in his head.

This is all making me nervous, but then I catch Ruby wearing a mischievous grin, and it comes to me. David is having no epileptic fit, he’s simply doing an excellent Joe Cocker impression. He also has a great voice – which, considering his gene pool, should be no surprise at all. After screaming the last note, he receives an uproarious applause and exits the stage, back to his shy, off-kilter self.

Still, something’s amiss. As Shari claws her way through “Piece of My Heart,” the ice cubes of déjà vu are tobogganing my spine. David’s playful freakout seems weirdly familiar. It only gets worse when Kai appears at my side, wearing a look of intense awareness that is wholly out of context.

“Keep an eye on that dude,” he says. “Something very unstable about him.”

I turn my face to sneak a kiss – which is all that I truly care about at this moment – and find myself watching Kai’s butt, traveling away from me. Not an unpleasant sight, but not what I had in mind. Wednesday Thursday Friday!

The snub continues when I sing “Not Too Much to Ask” by Mary-Chapin Carpenter – a wise, tender love song meant expressly for my boyfriend’s ears. When I turn to aim the crucial line at Kai’s table, Kai is staring at David, and wearing an expression like a guard dog on the point. What is this? Is this National Guard Sunday?

Fortunately, David heads outside for a smoke (finally!), which scatters the tension – although I’m likely the only person who knows the tension’s there. In any case, at least I’m able to finish my goddamn song, and get my goddamn applause (although I’m feeling pretty goddamn surly about it). When Russ sings “Your Song,” and Cordell gives him an adoring gaze, I’m feeling more than a little jealous.

Ruby gets me back on track when she does a Sinatra arrangement of “Let’s Fall in Love,” complete with the old-fashioned Broadway intro. Then the Coast Starlight (a tribute to Hamster’s previous career) rolls in with a snifter of brandy – an unusual choice, but heaven on the throat. It’s also got a note, which reads, simply, Everything OK? Which means that I’m not the only one picking up on the strange vibe.

With all this subterranean hullabaloo, I am savoring my secret knowledge of David’s next selection. I am forever astonished at the ability of certain rock guitarists to develop their own instantly recognizable sound, and this one is a prime example: “Whole Lotta Rosie” by AC/DC, featuring the thumbprint vinegar explosions of Angus Young. The buzz of my small arena is immediate. Fortunately for everyone, David opts for the better part of valor, staying on the low octave instead of attempting the savage upward leap of the heavily drugged Bon Scott.

Then comes the solo, and I’m beginning to catch on to David’s game. He prefers to mimic people who have a proclivity for spazzing out. All in a sweep, he grabs our toy guitar and hustles to the dance floor, striking each imaginary note as he matches Angus’s waggling, tremorous gait, lacking only a foot less height and the shorts-and-tie schoolboy uniform to complete the illusion. Karz is rustling with appreciation, and it escalates when David falls to his knees for a finishing back-bend. Then he has to get up and relocate the microphone so he can get on with the vocals. He ends the song by retrieving the guitar and delivering Angus’s final fussilade like he’s raking the crowd with gunfire.

Bedlam. Absolute bedlam. In what is supposed to be a non-competitive forum, there are times when a particular singer is master of the evening, and David has already won tonight’s crown. He exposes an actual symmetrical grin and departs the stage. Ruby greets him with a hug, and I sense that there’s something more in David’s performance than singing, antics and fake guitar. It’s a kind of coming-out party.

“Shari,” I say. “Get up here and calm these people down.”

“Oh thanks,” says Shari. “What’m I? Boring?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.” I punch the button on “You Can Sleep While I Drive” by Melissa Etheridge, and Shari responds with her predictable excellence. Alex hits the floor with his latest partner, an astonishing Latina with raven hair down to her waist, and they manage to turn an acoustic ballad into a tango. I always wonder if Alex is getting any sex out of these excursions. I hope so. But then, perhaps it’s the nature of those who are having sex to be generous in their carnal wishes for others. I look around for my partner, and can’t seem to find him. Then the Starlight pulls in again with a one-word note: Sidebar, which means I need to report to Hamster for a conference. I wait until I’ve got Harry going with “Devil Woman” by Marty Robbins, then head for a stool next to our mini-Rainier, where the boss is blending a strawberry margarita. He speaks in his inside voice.

“I’m a little worried about your boyfriend.”

“Kai? What for?”

Hamster tugs at his soul patch (a recent project). “During David’s little guitar-god act – very entertaining, by the way – Kai came over here like the watchman on the Titanic and insisted that I call the cops. I laughed, of course, and I said, ‘Come on, he’s not that bad.’ And Kai said, ‘But can’t you see? He’s about to blow a gasket – there’s no telling what he might do. No one ever catches this shit until it’s too late.’ And he was completely serious. I told him if he really wanted to report a crime that had not yet happened, he was free to go outside and make use of the pay phone. I don’t think he did, but now he’s out in the parking lot, pacing back and forth like he’s on fucking guard duty.”

For your average citizen, the use of the f-word is no big deal (especially in a bar), but for genteel Hamster, it’s a signifier of greater-than-usual anxiety. At the moment, however, I can do nothing, because Harry has reached his ending, and the applause is tugging at my leash. I catch the briefest glimpse of Kai, pacing the perimeter of his T-bird, huffing a loop of vapored breaths, then I get Caroleen started on her ever-apt standby, “Mama, He’s Crazy.”

At this point, I’m getting a little pissed off. It’s a busy night, dammit, and mama’s gotta pay the rent. Psycho boyfriend will just have to wait. So I take solace in the rising green tide of my tip jar, and try my damnedest not to look out the window. Meanwhile, David’s next turn is rapidly approaching.

On the other hand, I’m rather looking forward to David’s turn, because it’s “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. He delivers an impressive take on David Byrne’s radioactive vocal style, and then begins to incorporate the wacked-out choreography from the concert film: the repeated forehead-smack, the construction-site arm-crank, the long-armed snake-wave from right hand to left. He even evokes the Paul Bunyan-size suit by draping his corduroy sportcoat over his head. He’s winning ever more brownie points from the congregation, who begin to clap as he performs a Devo-style pogo across the dance floor. His journey comes to an abrupt halt, however, when he arrives at a strange obstacle.

It’s Kai. He’s standing utterly rigid, like a man trying to explode himself from the inside out. His arms are out and down in an inverted vee, his back bolt-stiff, and I can see the veins in his forehead. He is two feet from David, staring so intently you would think he was attempting telekinesis. David is frozen, afraid to look away. The song fades out, and silence seeps into the room like a cold tide. Kai raises one arm in a threatening manner, but then he seems to snap out of it. He looks around the room, all of us plastered in our places like a snapshot, then discovers his own right hand held in a fist over his head, and suddenly he’s off for the door in a quick-march. I rush to the window to see him jump into his T-bird and squeal from the lot.

It’s a hard sell, but I decide to pretend that nothing has happened, and I line up “Black Horse and a Cherry Tree” for Shari. The rest of the night is a long, musical blur.


Ruby does me the great favor of seeing her brother off (apparently, he also drives!) and waiting till I’ve loaded up my CDs before coming to my truck for the post-op.

“What the hell was that?”

“Wish I had the least idea,” I say. “You got a smoke?”

“You smoke?”

“I do now.”

She pulls out a couple of her “recreational” cigarettes and lights us up. I try my best to look like a veteran.

“I realize that David makes people nervous,” she says. “But I’ve never seen him turn someone into a statue. Any luck with the cell phone?”

I take a deep, poisonous drag and let it out with my words. “Nothing but voicemail. He’s not answering, Ruby. What the fuck?”

“Don’t get upset now. I’m sure there’s a…”

“I’m not upset. I’m pissed off!”

I am a one-woman meteorology course, smoldering like a volcano even as I watch the plains of water beneath our vantage point and feel like I’m under the surface, dying of hypothermia. But reason arrives like the good cop and talks me back down. There are no answers here, no legitimate evidence. So perhaps it’s time to change the starting point.

“Roo-bee?”

“Yes’m?”

“Do I know your brother from somewhere?”

She leans against the seawall and sends out a stream of smoke. “The boy does cause a ruckus everywhere he goes. The night they finally arrested him, in fact, was right here in Gig Harbor.”

“Really?”

“And, let’s see… what else? Oh yeah, in his homeless days, he had a friend who worked in the merchandising department of the Seattle Supersonics. Whenever they traded a player, he’d give some of the replica jerseys to David.”

I toss my cigarette and take Ruby by the shoulders. “Super!”

Ruby looks at me with great puzzlement. “Yes, it was… very nice of him.”


Next: The Black Horse and the Cherry Tree


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