Tomato Red (9 page)

Jamalee needed to borrow a desert of hot sand and scour it through our skulls so we could start over with scrubbed-clean skulls and build uncrippled brains to stock anew with useful thoughts and habits and intentions.

This process went on over a span of days.

Jamalee would bow her tomato head, dive into the warped pages of that book, then trot out more protocol you couldn’t imagine ever needing to know. She was teachy around many themes: learn this, taste this, become that different thing. She wanted us to become “civilized,” which I think to her meant to ape the quality folks right down to spit-tin’ at our own shadows.

The radio was kept tuned to the classical station, and I don’t care much for any music you’d go crazy if you tried to hum. I’d sit there agitated by the Great Foreign Masters and listen to her just enough to avoid arguments. Fairly often she’d use the book as a guide to construct place settings for a formal dinner, only without the right silverware or dishes, then run us over the whole course and chastise our imaginations if we mistook the white plastic knife for the consommé spoon.

At times Jason would get weary and impatient and she’d say, “Hey, I’m not doing this trying to torture you.”

“You don’t have to try,” he’d say. “I’m
easily
tortured.”

Usually we’d be in the yard as the month of May slid by, or in the kitchen, and that tiny hard-nosed girl worked away at us. She was my junior in years but probably three times smarter and older in every useful way. She’d come to solutions where I’d yet to note there was a question.

“Then,” she said eventually, “we must master the proper mode of treatment for, as it says, Those Who Are in Our Service. This is crucial, because the high and mighty judge the other high and mighty by how they treat their peons, dig?”

The girl put bubbles in my spirit with her dedication and hope. She tried to speak with curlicues in her language, fancy twists in her high-blown sentences. She usually leaned into whatever she said, worked it over in her head before letting
it fly, so the words she’d come out with would help her seem to be that other person, not the one she was but the one she was in training to become.

The world she aimed us at seemed like a child’s wish of a world, except, okay, for the male prostitution and the blackmail.

I, myself, often wished to be spared the expectation of better days ahead or such. On my own it basically never came up.

 

IT WAS SAID to me twice by Jamalee that Bev’s motto went, “Live fast, learn slow.” Once this motto had been quoted when we watched Bev spill from a Lincoln and stagger inside with two lovey-dovey paychecks in short-sleeve white shirts and fat neckties. Another time the motto came up when Bev fell by with a sack of burgers and shakes but had forgotten to get Jam’s built with no mustard or pickles. Jam flung the motto in Bev’s face and Bev just laughed back at her.

“You’ve got freedom of choice, hon. Your choice could be to go hungry. I sure do want you to suit yourself.”

On those off nights, nights when I knew Bev sat over there living fast and learning slow alone, I’d drift by sometime after dark-thirty and visit with her. Biscuit served as chaperone. A beer could generally be found there, and a doobie or two, and a bag of chips, maybe. Cigarettes are the one common vice I never did bond with, but now and again I’d bum a menthol from her and give that bad habit I lacked another chance to take hold. She always was easy to be around. Most often she’d be in a simple shift or a thin robe, and lots of times she had beauty gunks applied to her face. Her hair would either be strapped up by a turban or hanging down
plain. As to shoes she was partial to a casual barefoot state instead.

It was in a way a bit like a factory locker room after a twelve-hour shift. Bev kept her feet raised up and her mind kicked back. We watched a lot of funny-boy shows, and endless car-wax infomercials, and sitcoms from her childhood on that channel that shows nothing else.

If I introduced any interesting subjects she mostly waved them away.

“Sammy, your company is fine, and you’re welcome enough. I’d rather
not
drink alone. But I’m telling you for the umpteenth time—don’t ask me about my
day
. Don’t tell me about yours, either. Don’t go
prying
into my history which is
not
open to you. Drink a beer, huh?
In
-hale. Lay back and unwind, watch TV, and when you see a chance of it, go on and laugh.
That’s
what we’re here for.”

One time I asked who Jam’s daddy might be.

She answered, “What’s past is past. I don’t care to sit around and stare back at it.”

“Bev, don’t you have
any
regrets?”

“Of course I do.”

“Like what?”

She turned and flicked a sharp glance at me.

“Like I should’ve went blond younger. I
regret
that I didn’t.”

“Geez, you sure are Madam Hardboiled, ain’t you?”

“Sammy, I do believe you’ve been
practicing
my motto.”

 

THE MUSIC CAME with dark and I went after it. I had to drive toward the square then backtrack in half a circle to reach the ridge above the holler. I pushed in a tape of “Monkey Beat” and twisted the volume high and frisky. The drive
took four or five minutes to arrive two hundred yards above where I’d started.

I slid in beside Mr. Hart’s wheels. This spot was a narrow overlook with a gray safety rail and a thinly graveled parking area. He drove a nice lime pickup truck, a Chevy from about 1970 or so, the best-looking truck era. I stayed in the Pinto until “Rockin’ Dog” raised my spirits and finished, then got out and went toward the clarinet.

I stepped over the gray guardrail and went down through a steep patch of woods toward the music. I sort of expected an audience to be sitting there, maybe drinking hot tea from thin brittle china cups, watching Mr. Hart’s fingers skitter over the clarinet, but there was only Mr. Hart, perched on a dead tree fallen lengthwise. He seemed to be wearing his gym clothes, basically. His hair was dark and longish and fell limp around his face. The instrument case lay open at his feet.

He saw me but finished the song, which damned if I know what it was, but it sounded like a Bugs Bunny soundtrack, before he said, “May I help you?”

“You keep droppin’ music down on Jason Merridew, man, and, like, what are your intentions, anyhow?”

“Who are you?”

“Let’s say I’m family.”

He bends over, then, and puts the clarinet in the case and latches it. He set the case on the log beside him.

“I’ve
met
his family. You’re not in it, as far as I know”

“Let’s say I’m the part of the family you
don’t
know. So, answer me what you’re up to, man, or maybe I’ll have to beat your ass. Hear?”

I could see he smiled at that.

I could see he stood up, and smiled again, too.

“With your fists?
You
think you’re going to beat
me
with your fists?”

“Or, if you make me, could be I’ll shoot your ass.”

“I don’t see a gun. Do you have a gun in your car? You look like somebody who might, but, I don’t know, do you?”

His attitude was getting interesting, so I looked on him a bit closer. He stood a nip shorter than me but was a double-hand-span wider. He wore a convincing smile that was relaxed and said he’d been here before and the memories weren’t all bad, I guess. I took note for the first time that he was one of those iron-pumping queers, which nobody had warned me about, arms big enough to square-dance upside down on. He probably was raised wrestling steers and playing fullback, one of those.

“All right, looky here.
Forget
the part about beatin’ your ass. Just
forget
that phrase. That wasn’t right of me to say. I
still
need to know what you’re up to.”

“I’ll tell
him
that when next I see him.”

“Well, his sister’s gettin’ anxious down there.”

Mr. Hart picked up the clarinet case and snagged it under an arm. We both started uphill, to the parking area.

“He’s been avoiding me.”

“He’s confused.”

“I know he likes me, but—”

“He’s confused, man, let’s let it lay right there, too, okay?”

We stood beside his truck, which was perfect, inside and out. A couple of cars rolled by and striped us with their headlights.

“You came on like such a bully,” he said. “You misjudged. That doesn’t work on me.”

“I’m just concerned. But I do sort of think he’s, you know, a little
young
for a goat your age.”

“What does he think?”

“I told you, he’s in a muddle on this.”

“I’ll be patient.”

“Well, your music ain’t doin’ on Jason exactly what it is you want it to do, man.”

He got in his truck, behind the wheel. That engine purred, sounded stroked, petted, doted on, ageless.

“So you think you
know
what I want.”

I said, “I know what you want
eventually
. That part I don’t expect is any mystery, Mr. Hart.”

His retort was that he drove away.

 

BY DAY I tried to slave-drive myself back into physical shape. Rod had a rusty old weight bench and a stack of weights, so I dragged it all outside under the tree in the side yard. For me to be truly useful as a goon involved in blackmail I needed to inflate my muscles just a tad. I didn’t have any fat on me, but that was mostly due to a recent crank hobby and not very regular mealtimes. I laid on the bench in the heated shade and grunted and heaved and sweated like a beer bottle at a church picnic.

A few times Jason became intrigued and joined in. He’d grunt along with me and break a comely sweat, then go sit at Jamalee’s side on the stoop and look gorgeous. I’d have my shirt off and he’d be sitting there studying on me as if he knew someday he’d have to describe me to a police sketch artist. His gaze lounged and lingered on my bare chest and, truth to tell, I’d be driven squirmy by it.

“Jason, damn it, will you stop starin’?”

“Was I staring, Sammy, sir?”

“Like a robin at a worm.”

“My mind wandered,” he said. “I was sitting here, thinking about
Eng
-land.”

“Well, face the other way and think about England, huh?”

During that spell we lived a nutty life. I was getting my rights and wrongs from Jamalee’s head. Two and two was makin’ five, sexual blackmail of rich horny women was merely a career option, and the future figured to be a swank banquet spread in our honor, with dwarves for waiters and lambs on spits.

It felt crazy, but so what?

Everybody among us on earth has their own cherished horsefeathers that they try and try and try to believe in.

I COULD SEE a John Law focus on the ass end of my Pinto when I drove us past him into the parking lot. He sat comfy in his air-conditioned cop car watching for sweaty citizens he could make sweat extra. This occurred at the Willis and Oates grocery store on the near side of town, and the lot that stretched wide had the color of oil. Quite a number of vehicles parked there, a big percentage belonging to folks at a wedding in the church across the street.

“We” entailed Bev and me and Jamalee, and we came after some special smoked bacon for Jason’s favorite meal. It apparently involved noodles and garlic and sprinkle cheese as accomplices, but wasn’t all it could be without that special bacon as ringleader. This store was the store that carried it.

We got out and stood on that dark lot, and you could feel the hot pavement through the soles of your boots. All three of us made weary sounds. The mean part of July had bumrushed town early, in the final week of May, and was souring plans everywhere it went. I’ve known Easters that were close on to one hundred degrees, so you can’t predict the weather too fine in this part of the map.

I allowed myself a phony li’l cough and shot a glance at John Law. He wore shades, but I know his eyes were entirely on me.

“Let’s split up,” Jam said. “I’m looking for some items for me, also.”

“Now, don’t you—,” Bev started, but Jam waved her quiet before she spoke any farther.

This clerk started to stalk me as soon as I came inside the store. I had on a clean tropical shirt, and I’d shaved and all, but there’s a flavor to my scent that acts as an early warning, I suppose. He wore a butcher’s bib and khaki pants, and he was down in age yet, down in age to where his face skin still erupted ugly on him. Every aisle I turned up interested him, too. I inspected the labels on canned goods, got to almost be able to pronounce the more scientific ingredients, then lifted melons and thumped them and so forth like somebody with purchasing power. He just stood there constantly in the corner of my eye. I reckon he was hoping I’d spot him and recognize his serious intentions and not pull anything so he wouldn’t be forced to discover if he truly
could
handle a dude of my ilk, or would he toss up his hands and run. I lingered inside the lines of the law, though, and let the fella go on preaching to himself about how he surely would have slapped me silly if I’d made a desperate gangster move on so much as a licorice stick.

I linked up with Jamalee and Bev in the meat lane, and in my eye corner that clerk called forth a disgusted look and smeared it on his face. It would seem he knew them and knew their story.

“This store,” Jam said, “gets on my nerves.” She looked toward this older gal in a pale green clerk’s smock who chewed gum and leaned against a freezer staring toward the ceiling like she saw a weeping Jesus there invisible to all others. “They almost don’t allow you to shop, hanging over your shoulder all the time.”

“You’re lucky they still let you in, hon.”

“I’m not lucky about nothin’.”

“Just let the cool air cool you,” Bev said. She fluffed her hair loose and shook. The temperature influenced her nipples in a kindly direction. “This cool air works real good on me.”