Planet Willie (9 page)

11

Several hours still
remain in which to find myself a suitable charity ball for the evening. By
helping others I will help myself, as an acquaintance of mine, the
distinguished Lady Eralda, once put it. So I ease into my brand new wardrobe
and stroll out the patio door to the slopes, where the sun’s getting low over
the lift station up at the top of the hill, and a few last skiers are carving
their way down to the lodge. Incredible, I think, to still find so much snow in
spring. And man it’s quiet. Just the hum of the lift and some tree branches
cracking through the ice. Brother, I’m telling you I miss the trees. I miss
their shade, and I miss their leaves.

I jog a little
down the hill, then put on the brakes and see what I can make of it. My boot
soles being made of the finest buffed leather, turns out I really don’t need
those skis. Turns out I’m more or less a hand-tooled ski in Willie form. Just
bend the knees ever so slightly and take in that crisp mountain air. Tuck the
head a bit for the aerodynamics. Eliminate the drag. Coast down out of sight of
the hotel till I come to a fork in the slopes and stand there watching the
lights come on in the tony mansions up the mountain. I think of me up there
over all of America with the lights coming on. I wonder if God might be
watching me from above, and if he somehow understands that the only way I ever
knew to do anything was my way. I figure he does, because he did it his way
too.

The sun’s cold
and small and yellow now, not like those big orange evening suns over Texas
that demand a little accompaniment by Mister Jimmy Beam. This sun’s more like
the finest of white wines, and I’m more like a William than a Willie if you can
believe it. Then out of the sun a couple comes skiing down, slowly swinging out
wide to the edges of the slope. As they get closer I see they’re holding a
wooden baton between them. They’re taking turns in perfect coordination, and
she’s got her eyes fixed on the heavens like she’s trying to recollect
something she’s forgot. He says a little something as they bring it around, and
that’s when I realize she’s blind and he’s taking her down the slope. Here’s
some honest truth: in my four-plus years in heaven, I have never seen anything
so nice. I wonder if they’re married or just friends or maybe even co-workers
on an office excursion. I skate forward and try a few feet with my eyes closed,
and man you really feel that snow beneath the boots, every unique little flake,
but it’s not the same. With you it stops, but with her it just keeps going on
and on forever. The excitement must be almost more than he can bear, feeling
her on the other end of that wooden baton. Really I think I’d have a hard time
not falling in love with a girl like that. Good skier, too.

Once they’re
out of sight, I break out in a sprint just to see how far it’ll take me. Turns
out it’ll take you straight onto your tail and make a snowman out of you for a
bonus. May have to engage Consuela as a full-time assistant, I’m thinking – buy
a truck together and travel the country with a steam iron. But of course that’s
not happening. Saint Chief would have every available angel hot on our trail
within the week. But what the hell. We could just run till they caught us and
hole up for the final shootout like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Prepare
in advance some killer last lines. But then I realize the real tragedy, and
this may sound funny, but you only get to die once.

Tough to stay
blue for long, however, when you’re approaching Olympic glory. After further
experimentation I find my revolutionary new technique works better if you just
scoot along real fast like a crab, then stay down in a crouch for the glide.
Keep to the middle of the slope where the snow’s frozen over. Get up enough
speed and you can even take a little jump now and then. Like Skippy the Crab
out there. The problem with the crab technique, and this is something you need
to bear in mind, is that you’re going to sacrifice some control. Not that there
aren’t some obvious advantages to sacrificing control, such as doing your best
interpretation of the celebrated ice skater, Mister Dick Button. Not sure what
they’re called, but I’m bringing in the arms and spinning like a Tasmanian
devil up until the moment I spin clear off the slope and smash into a tree. Man
is it exhilarating. I’m half considering hoofing it up the slope for another
run, maybe get me some poles somehow, when a girl with a ponytail flying out
behind her slices up next to me as smooth as a scalpel to look down at yours
truly among the foliage.

“Man, that was
some wipeout,” she says. About thirteen with red cheeks and wide eyes you’d
hate to disappoint. And I’m happy to report that from the way she’s looking at
me, I haven’t. “Where are your skis?” she says.

“I don’t know
how much you know about the varieties of North American hoot owl,” I say,
gazing real reflectively up into a pine, “but certain rare species are known to
habitate these here woods.”

She laughs and
picks a strand of brown hair from her face. “Come here,” she says. “You’ve
still got bark on your face.”

So I climb up
the little incline towards her. She puts her hand to my face and brushes away a
piece of pine bark about the size of a postage stamp.

“What’s your
name?” she asks. Kicks some snow from her skis and looks up at me real
scientifically, like I’m the North American hoot owl in person.

 “Willie Lee,”
I say. “As in White Pine Willie. As in Walking in a Willie Wonderland.”

“My name’s
Lenny,” she says, and pivots up on her poles to slip down the slope out of
sight. Takes a little bump as she goes and pops the skis up behind her like the
tail of a bunny rabbit. Inspirational, it is. Gets you to thinking you could be
a big ol’ bunny rabbit yourself. Rise from thee crabby state, ye people of the
earth. So man, I run. I just go, hopping right along. Stop for a moment to
glide – vroom! – hand to the chin like I’m contemplating Einstein’s theories as
I whip along there – and bam! – airborne Willie, and when I come down let’s
just say I wouldn’t want to be that mountain. No sir. I’m like a geological
disturbance in boots, a natural disaster, which is about how I’m feeling by the
time I get to the bottom of the hill.

Thankfully
Lenny skis over to the wreckage and helps me off the ground. She brushes off
some snow, but we may well have to wait for summer for the rest of it to thaw. The
super-100 wool’s looking more like sheepskin. Snow’s caked through my hair and
dripping down to my scalp. Feels like little arctic ants crawling around up
there. I can’t stop laughing but Lenny just looks terrified.

“You’re
bleeding,” she says, staring at my ear.

I nod my head
as if this is a fair enough point, but really she’s missing the big picture
here. “Price you pay for pushing the sport to the next level,” I say. Feels
like those ants have broken out in a jitterbug on my head. “Be honest with me
now, Lenny. Did you feel the loop-de-loop came off, or does it need some more
work before nationals?”

“You’re
totally crazy,” she says.

“You’ll go
far, sweetheart. You know how to talk to a man. Now what do you say we go up
there for another run. Strictly pyrotechnical, you understand. I may need to
borrow a pole.”

“They’re
closing the lifts,” she says, looking over at the little hut, which is churning
out empty seats like a bench factory.

“Then we’ll
just explain the situation,” I say, and march her over to the hut. There may be
a little limp in there, but you can’t be too particular. Just sort of evens out
the last limp, if you know what I mean.

They’ve
crossed two wooden poles over the entrance, but I step on over and Lenny
follows, grinning a little self-consciously to herself, slicing her skis up in
the air and over in a single movement graceful enough to send all of history’s
Madonnas back to finishing school.

“Willie Lee,”
I say, extending my hand to the kid sitting at the controls. It’s blood red from
the cold, and I get to shivering there in the shade.

“Step aside,
sir!” he shouts, and before I know it my legs are cut out from under me and I’m
sprawled on a bench moving out of that hut and up the Rocky Mountains. Lenny
reacts faster than the kid and scoots up around the bench on one ski to flop
down beside me.

“Jesus,
Lenny,” I say. “Just curious here, but have you ever known anyone to fall off
of one of these things?” She reaches up and pulls down this little thin iron
bar to the front of us that makes me even more nervous. It’s like a girl in a
bikini – she’s ten times sexier than the same girl in the nude. That’s this
bar, except I don’t mean sexy.

“What are you
doing
out here?” Lenny asks, looking down at her gloves as she bangs those poles
against the bar.

“Contemplating
the irony of my fear of heights,” I say. “How about you?”

“My dad’s got
this charity thing,” she says, rolling her eyes. “At least I get to ski.”

“By helping
others we help ourselves,” I say, perking up at the word
charity
and
figuring I may have found my sidekick.

“Then my dad
must really like helping himself. He goes off for one of these things like
every month.” This month’s charity thing, I am pleased to learn from Lenny, is
being held at seven that evening in the finest hotel in town, which also conveniently
happens to be my home away from home, otherwise known as the Aurora Lodge and Resort Center. I ask Lenny about her father, she says he’s some kind of famous doctor and
travels way too much. Up over the mountains is one of the most beautiful
sunsets I have ever seen, and I realize how much I miss those too. Across the
mountain the pines are holding the last light of that Chardonnay sun, and down
below us the white snow, pure as Lenny sitting there beside me, is lighting her
face from underneath.

“Tell me more
about your dad,” I say.

“He wants me
to be a doctor too. Doctors make a lot of money. He’s going to kill me. I’m
late.” She looks off towards town, then back at me. “You wanna know what? I
think I might hate him. Watch out, Willie.”

Before I can
register this, Lenny has thrust up the bar and is skiing down this ramp that
has appeared beneath our feet, while I’m still in the chair revolving around
this big wheel to head back down the mountain again. They don’t really give you
much warning, but I just sort of just roll on off that bench and end up on the
snow with Lenny there standing over me.

“Are you
okay?” she says.

I give her my
best little dying Belmondo grin. You really need a cigarette to attempt this
kind of thing, but I think it comes off nicely. I’d call it the Dying Snowman
and put it in the catalogue if I thought there was any chance of me setting
foot on a ski slope again.

“The truth is,
Lenny,” I say. “I’m not much of a skier. This may come as a surprise to you, so
don’t take it hard. It’s just that my experience of the downhill has been
mostly metaphorical, so to speak. You read any philosophy?”

She shakes her
head and screws up her face, looking half-concerned and half-terrified.

“Maybe not,” I
say. “In any case, when you get there I’d recommend you checking out Mister
Ludwig Wittgenstein, and don’t ask me to spell it. He had a rough life, Mister
Wittgenstein, but after all was said and done, his last words were
Tell them
I’ve had a wonderful life.
That’s a pretty good last line, you have to
admit. Sort of puts it into perspective.”

“I have to go,
Willie,” she says, forehead scrunched up like she hates to leave me there in
such a state. I get to my feet and take her hand in mine. “Lenny,” I say. “The
pleasure has been all mine.” She laughs a little, pivots around on her poles,
turns back thinking maybe of some last words of her own, then changes her mind
and scoots off down the hill, curving down the virgin snow with that ponytail
flying. Once she’s gone, I walk down the mountain, too beat up now for
pyrotechnics, and attempt to find the Aurora Hotel. Leave a light on for me,
Consuela. I’m coming home.

12

Back at the
Aurora, Saudi Arabia has taken over the lobby. I mean the entire nation’s
checking in, lines of well-fed Saudi tourists in robes stretching out the front
door. Bellboys are scampering left and right like money’s raining from the sky,
which it more or less is. Unfortunately I’ve lost my key on the slopes, and as I
try to push my way up to the front desk, I’m not making much headway, especially
when you consider I’m not the only one pushing. Reminds me of scientific
studies I’ve read demonstrating that the average human being needs at least
eight hugs a day. Apparently there are places in the world, which must include Saudi Arabia, where you can get twice that many just walking down the street, and mister
that seems to me just all around healthful.

At the moment,
however, I want to get back to the room and see about repairing my ear, but
with the crowd in there it’s not looking likely anytime soon until this larger
woman in a blue headscarf not unlike that of my missing Madonna’s steps aside
with a smile to let me through. As I slide past, I show my appreciation by
digging deep and pulling up a little something called the Mozzarella. The
Mozzarella says: you be the pizza, I’ll be the cheese. You have to be standing
close, and then you just let that smile melt all over them. Start it up around
the hair follicles and slide it right down through the hair of your
chinny-chin-chin. I find it to be particularly effective in gratitude
situations with international visitors unaccustomed to our notions of personal
space.

So effective,
in this case, that the lady just keeps pushing along behind me to where they
keep the keys. I glance back a few times to find her shooting the Mozzarella
right back at me. We squeeze past a few men in head wraps, which I’m
considering as a solution to the damage I’ve sustained to my own head, but the
looks they’re giving me are none too friendly. Probably on account of me
skipping the line, which if I’m honest is probably how I’ve befriended the
headscarf. Either that or I may have somehow gotten myself involved in an
Arabian love triangle. I’ve heard they get four wives, but maybe with women’s
liberation sweeping across the globe they now get four husbands too. Then I get
to thinking that if they get four husbands, each of those husbands could have
four wives, and that’s when my brain really gets to hurting. What was hurting
before was maybe just one lobe – now I’ve a whole brain on my hands. Jesus, I
think – the whole nation of Saudi Arabia could technically be lawfully married.
I wish I spoke some Arabic to find out about this. Maybe the headscarf could
teach me some, I’m thinking, but if she did, and if her face is any indication,
the first phrase I’d have to learn is:
What’s so funny?

Once I finally
make it back to the room with my new key, I set about blow drying the suit. Comes
out a bit puffy, but at least it’s cozy and more or less habitable again. By
this time the clock on the bedside table says seven, so I put on the hat they
call The Kid and head out into the vast corridors of the Aurora Hotel, making
like an explorer until I start hearing a buzz. Soon enough that buzz becomes a
pleasant little cocktail chatter, and I come to a sign advertising a benefit
for what they call the Second Chance Society.

I present
myself to the lady at the door, who’s wearing a headdress of fresh foliage and
calls me sweetie, which I am pleased to call her in return. Can’t seem to find
my name on the list, the Headdress, so I slip a crisp hundred dollar bill through
the slot in the box on the table beside her. Still looks doubtful. I assure her
I’m available after midnight and have extensive experience in landscaping, and
then you better believe it’s welcome Mister Lee, and
do
come again.

The party is
being held in a large conference room crowded with chandeliers and rich people.
Cocktail dresses that make you want to drink lots of cocktails and see what
happens next. Suits that admittedly give my Italian special a run for its
money, but then nobody’s got a fourteen-carat silver belt buckle depicting the
skyline of our nation’s most populous city, so I stride right on in there
feeling pretty good about myself after all.

There’s a
stage set up on one side of the room, and scattered through the rest of it are round
tables covered with white tablecloths and flower arrangements. I look around
for Fernanda, as well as Kafka and Twiggy, just to be on the safe side, but I’m
not finding anybody I know. Gets me to wondering whether I may be supporting
the wrong charity, but I figure I’ll give it a half hour or so and take
advantage of the open bar in the meantime.

The
philanthropists are making witty conversation as I move towards the bar. None
of them need a second chance as far as I can tell. The name they’ve got, the Second
Chance Society, must refer to the group of local black kids aged six or so who
are doing wind sprints through the room in these little bow ties and patent
leather shoes. Used up their first chance, I guess, just being born black, and
as far as I’m concerned, they’re using up the second by flying through the air
like little animated piñatas. Everybody’s acting real Christian about it, of
course, sipping wine and grinning at the little lunatics, but I find it
difficult to be Christian when I’m more or less under attack. I’m talking spasmodic
little caterpillars wriggling through my legs, and though I can grin with the
best of them, I’m about up to my fifth or sixth chance before I actually manage
to get a drink in my hands, and it certainly does put a strain on the cheeks.

As I walk over
to a corner table and take a seat, I’m thinking they may have to keep changing
that name up to about the twentieth chance to make it through the night. The
Twentieth Chance Society. That’s the kind of venture I might consider joining.
Chipping together to help out all the Twentieth Chancers, and little Jeffrey,
as he’s introduced himself, is definitely not invited, considering how he’s already
about doubled that. He’s as black as a piano key and has plopped down on the chair
next to me just as pleased as pie. Kid’s eyeing me like he’s trying to figure
what it’ll take to get my hat on his head. He’s got his little polka dot bowtie
tied around his forehead and is calling it his propeller.

“Where’s your
propeller, mister?” he says, grinning up at the hat.

“That’s not
polite conversation, kid.”

Starts making
these helicopter noises – chop chop chop – till it appears he may actually get
up there and do some levitating.

“May need to
ease back on that bourbon, Jeffrey,” I say. “And don’t tell me you’re not
driving.”

“Hell no,
mister,” he shouts up at the hat, making this twisty face I really do wish I
could pocket. “I don’t drink that stuff.”

“Wise man,
Jeffrey,” I say. “Wise man. They probably wouldn’t give you a second chance if
you did. The good news is that I’m off the charts chance-wise, and there’s
really nothing stopping you from chop-chopping over to that bar over there and
bringing back some reserves for yours truly.”

“You let me
wear the hat?” he says.

“You let me
wear the propeller?” I say. Hit him with a bit of the ol’ Socratic method here.

“Nope,” he
says, kicking his legs up under the table such that my glass is looking like a windup
toy.

“What I can
offer, though,” I say, seeing he’s got me at an advantage here, “is to turn you
into a helicopter. Make it official, so to speak.”

He sucks on
his thumb to give himself a little time to consider. “Okay mister,” he eventually
says, hopping down from the chair without breaking anything and sprinting off through
a crowd of broads in big tits and optimistic dye jobs who could give us all a
second chance with the rocks they’ve got hung around their necks.

“I’m a
helicopter,” Jeffrey explains as he takes out a plastic walker.

“
Aren’t
you though,” the ladies coo, which presents me a few peaceful moments to study
the surroundings. Up on the stage a fella in a mustache and a tuxedo is
announcing that the auction will now begin. All proceeds from the auction will
go to the Second Chance Society, the tuxedo says, and the first items are two
little copper bookends in the form of cocker spaniels. Most of the crowd
settles down at the tables, so I take the occasion to move around the edges of
the room past these heavy red velvet curtains behind which some of the kids
have apparently set up forts. Curtains jerk around like celebrated salsa
dancers in long red dresses, ammunition flying out occasionally in the form of
olives and little cheese wedges. It’s difficult to stay incognito in the
circumstances, and sure enough, Fernanda finds me fending off hors d’oeuvres
before I’ve even got her on my radar.

She’s wearing
a slinky black silk dress that presents another side of Miss Shore entirely. The side that wears the black dress is also less than pleased to see yours
truly. She manages to do both a double-take and a death stare in the span of
milliseconds, then chugs the rest of her drink and turns back to her table,
attempting to ignore me. I take a seat two tables over, figuring I’ll just wait
her out. Private investigating. It’s not always as glamorous as people make it
out to be. The good news is that the cocker spaniels go for two hundred bucks,
and we move on to a crystal nativity scene.

The men at
Fernanda’s table make that nativity worth more than fifty bucks within seconds.
A man in a grey sharkskin suit with matching sharkskin hair pulls her close to
say something charming, but our little sinner doesn’t even crack a smile.
Another suit doubles the bid, and I can’t help but wondering whether all of
this is more for Fernanda’s benefit than for the kids. With the kind of attention
these fellas are paying her, the tuxedo could put her up on the block and immediately
make enough to solve world hunger.

The auction
goes on, offering up Persian carpets, Japanese fans, and Swiss cuckoo clocks. After
a while I spot Lenny slouching across the room in a flowered dress that’s
obviously been picked out for her. She heads for Fernanda’s table and slumps
down next to the sharkskin, which gets me wondering if he might be her famous
father. That mystery becomes a minor one, however, when the tuxedo goes real
quiet before announcing a very special item. There’s a piece of cloth draped
over an easel beside him, and as he whips it off he says, “
The Blue Madonna!
This is an anonymous donation, but it is apparently the work of the school of Botticelli and dates to the fifteenth century. The bidding for this exquisite
piece will begin at fifty thousand dollars. Do I hear fifty thousand?”

He hears fifty
thousand quick, and he may also hear the sound of my jaw hitting the table. Case
closed, I’m thinking. Fernanda’s a goner. But maybe not so fast. What about the
eyes? Maybe they’re turquoise, maybe she’s a fake, and maybe there’s still some
hope of saving Miss Shore. Twiggy said something about there being more than a
few fakes out there. ALF had apparently gotten on a reproduction kick. But does
Fernanda know that, I wonder? She’s glancing around the room as the sharkskin
takes the bidding to sixty thousand.

Fake or not,
the Madonna’s generating quite a bit of interest. The sharkskin has found a
pretty effective way to impress Fernanda, and Lenny gets to rolling her eyes
all over the place, clearly not too impressed by her father’s new love
interest. She’s squirming around in her chair like she’d rather be just about
anyplace else, and as she does she catches sight of me. This gets me a little
wave as the tuxedo says, “Seventy thousand dollars to the young lady in the
flowered dress.” The young lady’s father turns to her and barks something
unpleasant even from a distance. Lenny rolls her eyes at me, I give her a
thumbs up, and the tuxedo says eighty thousand to the man in the hat. Takes me
a bit by surprise, but on further reflection, I think Shore might be only too happy
to get back his prized possession for a measly eighty grand. Unfortunately I’m
outbid before I can figure how I might put this to him in the most positive
light.

Lenny comes
over and sits down next to me. “That was fun,” she says. “Let’s do it again.” I
raise a hand simply to keep her entertained, and we’re at ninety-five thousand.

“I forgot,”
she says. “I’m mad at you.”

“And why’s
that, sweetheart,” I say, as I stare down a frantic Fernanda, who’s trying to
figure out where this thing’s going and why.

“Because you
made me late,” Lenny says. “And so my
father
made me come to this thing.
He’s being a jerk. Do you think she’s pretty?”

“Who’s that,
Lenny?”

“That woman
he’s sitting with.”

“Pretty’s on
the inside,” I say. “You should know that by now.”

“I’m not some
total idiot, Willie,” she says. “Pretty’s on the outside or they wouldn’t call
it pretty.”

“Fair enough,”
I say, as I wave down the tuxedo and make it a cool hundred and ten thousand.
“So yes, she’s pretty, and you’re pretty too.”

Deep sighs
from Lenny, and nothing pretty-looking from Fernanda. I’m getting a little out
of my depth, I’m thinking. I need a plan, but the best one I’ve come up with so
far is to keep bidding until I come up with a better plan. Another name for
that, to borrow a phrase from the great Mister Wittgenstein, is getting the bug
out of the box. Stirring things up in hopes of arriving at the holy truth. Forcing
Miss Shore to show her cards, though admittedly I’m betting one hell of a
bluff. Then again, she may be too.

Things get so
out of control in there at the charity ball of the Second Chance Society, Vail,
Colorado chapter, that they may well have to call in the World Bank to sort
things out. I’m in for a hundred and fifty thousand, Fernanda’s table is in for
a hundred seventy. Everybody’s getting in on it. A waiter even pauses as he
makes his rounds with the vegetable dip to put in a bid for one ninety.
Considering the state of affairs in there, I wouldn’t find that so surprising,
except that on second glance I realize that the waiter get-up is just a
disguise, and that under the disguise is none other than everybody’s favorite
Albanian, Kafka the kid. Honestly I don’t have too much time to take this in,
considering Fernanda’s table has notched up the price a bit further, and at
this point there’s no chance in hell I’m letting that woman get her hands on my
Madonna.