I heard about this place one day in Texas. I was workin’ a stinky job in El Paso. Maybe you seen the place. Drivin’ east on I-10 out of town on the south side of the road is this stockyard that stretches six, eight miles. Tens of thousands of miserable beasts penned up there, millin’ about in their own shit, waitin’ their turn for the knife. Thousands a day slaughtered, replaced by thousands more. It would have been bad enough it we’d lived in town and driven out there every mornin’, but we lived right there in the stockyard. There’s a string of houses between the freeway and the cows and that’s where they put us up, nice and handy like. I never got used to the freeway noise. It was deafenin’. I wore earplugs to bed, couldn’t sleep for a minute without them. Then there was the respirator against the stench in the cowsheds all day long. In the house you’d think you were in an outhouse, it stunk so bad. It’s hard to say exactly what it was that stunk so much, but it wasn’t the cow shit. Cow shit don’t smell bad, has kind of an earthy green smell like hay left out in a rainstorm. And I don’t think it was the guts and all, because they were dealt with pretty quick, there bein’ an inspector always snoopin’ to make sure of that. I guess the hides got pretty high, stacked like they were waitin’ for the tanners. Maybe it was all those things combined, but my personal feelin’ is it was dumb animal fear that stunk so much. You’d see it in their eyes, the way they twitched their heads and bawled at you. It was fear and death, the mechanical certainty of it. That’s my theory, anyway. So when my roommate told me that there was a guy in a new town called Wisdom up in New Mexico that was startin’ to run some sheep, I figured I’d go check it out. Sheep stink, but not like a slaughterhouse.
We’ve got a wealth of water in Wisdom. Must be because we’re right at the foot of the mountains. When I got here there were two wells that could pump twenty, thirty gallons a minute. They were set up with electric pumps that run off solar panels. One was for the main cistern and gardens and everythin’, the other filled a smaller cistern up the hill that was used by the more remote houses, as well as the water trough for the livestock. The first job I got was to help install an irrigation system that watered about a fifty-acre piece of fenced-in slope above and to the west of the houses. It took so much water to make anything grow up there that by the end of the first season we put in a third well devoted just to irrigation. I built myself a shack at the far upper corner of the field and set up my own little twenty-gallon cistern in a plastic garbage can. A float in the cistern operates a valve that causes the irrigation system to re-fill it when the water level drops below half. Joshua told me I should patent the idea, but I think he was just flatterin’ me. Once we got decent grass growin’ we expanded the flock from ten sheep to fifty, and I had me a new career as a shepherd.
I get along with folks okay, but not enough to want to live with them. Sometimes Wisdom reminds me of the El Paso stockyards, a whole herd of people crammed along the edge of the bluff, especially when their Mickey Mouse sewage system gets blocked up. That’s another story. Caleb is this engineer who lives here, and he designed a sewage system that uses just a bit of water, and all the toilets and sinks drain into it. There’s a sewage pond west along the fence-line that has some aerators and sprinklers that are solar-run. About a year after I got here we got the kinks worked out enough to actually pump the treated sewage up onto the pasture. You can imagine that it was kinda controversial to start with, but it works. The grass likes it. It’s pretty clever, all powered by gravity and sunshine. Trouble is sometimes it stinks.
Like I was sayin’, I live off by myself. My closest neighbors are the sheep that have a lean-to barn about a hundred-and-fifty-yards below me. I’ve a one-room shack with tarpaper roof and walls, a propane burner to keep me warm or to make tea in the evenings. I hand-dug me an outhouse. I get up with the animals before the first light and bed down at dusk. Except sometimes when the band’s playin’ in the saloon I stay up most the night. Wiley and me and Bernard and Squee. We’re called The Wise Guys. Get it? From Wisdom? We hold our own. I’m about as old as the rest of ‘em all put together, but I’ve a few tricks still in me. Not much I haven’t seen or done. We did a couple of gigs in Santa Fe a few years ago, but I don’t like it. It’s not my scene anymore. Mostly we just play Friday or Saturday in the Wisdom Saloon. It’s just for fun.
Wiley’s this rich kid from L.A. An orphan. Both parents killed in a plane crash back in about two behead. That’s two BHD, as in Before Hermit Descended. Dates here are ahead or behead. Should be able to make a joke about that: What you rather be? ahead or behead? But I can’t think of a punch line. Round here behead is better ‘cause it means you was here earlier, so you roughed it. Me, I prefer ahead, when things was already sorta built. That’s what it’s still like here, sorta built. We got sort of a bar and sort of a restaurant, sort of a store, sort of a hotel. It’s sort of a town, but not really. We got sort of a greedy developer and sort of a commune full of sorta hippies. Well, I guess they’re real hippies. Anyway, Wiley’s folks was Hollywood types. I think he was in law school or somethin’, but when they died he inherited a bundle and dropped out. He’s got a kid sister, but I never seen her. He came out here, built a nice house, hired a whole crew, then just holed up and played his guitars. He’s got a nice collection, and a couple mandolins and a banjo. I wasn’t here then, but I heard that every few months he’d drive back to California then return with a new girlfriend. She’d stick around for about a week then he’d drive her to the bus depot in Santa Fe and come back alone. Always picked the wrong type, I guess. Of course, it was pretty rough back then. Just a bunch of hippie squatters waitin’ for their prophet.
It’s not really rock and roll we play, more R&B, a bit folky, some country throwed in for good measure. But we’re a lot louder now we’re electric, and Wiley and Squee are into Springsteen, so that’s the way we’re movin’. Squee writes passable songs of his own, and we play some of them. He’s the drummer, but he’s pretty good on keyboards, too, so in some of his numbers we’re kinda short in the rhythm section. Me and Bernard pretty much cover it. Bernard’s on bass. Been at it a few years, and gettin’ a lot better. Him and Wiley play almost every afternoon in Wiley’s livin’ room, ‘cept when Wiley’s got a girlfriend, then things slow down a bit. None of us can sing worth shit, but Wiley does most of the vocals with Bernard and sometimes Squee as backup. Squee usually does the vocals on his own songs. The vocals is our weak point, but it don’t matter. It’s just foolin’ around.
*
There’s only three decent houses in town: the original ranch house, Caleb and Marie’s little place, and Wiley’s house. I don’t know why Wiley did it, more money than brains, I’d guess, but he built a pretty conventional adobe two bedroom, two bath house, all above ground with a roof full of solar panels, and that was back when solar technology was real expensive. He’s got his own cistern built into the roof givin’ him hot and cold runnin’ water. Inside is not quite finished, but is pretty nice, with a tile floor and Mexican painted tiles in the kitchen and one bathroom. The ceilings are all exposed logs, called vigas, which is traditional in New Mexico, and the walls are all painted white. Maybe he knew Crystal Corn was on her way, who knows? But it was the house that Crystal went for, not Wiley.
I remember that day, when Crystal Corn strolled into Wisdom. Everybody does. I was sittin’ at the bar havin’ my five-o’clock beer keepin’ Matt entertained. It went somethin’ like this. He says to me, “Got a new beer for you to try, Anchor Steam, from San Francisco. Got a few cases in on trial. It’s on the house.”
I give him a crooked look, “What kind of town is it, anyway, that’s got only one bar?” I mutter it, down into my paws that I’ve got wrapped around my beer.
“You won’t try a free beer, huh?” Matt says. “I’m giving it to you.”
“If there was another bar in this two-bit place I’d be there right now,” I says, “where I wouldn’t have to listen to no barkeep pushin’ booze on me. Just bring me another Coors Lite, and keep your pussy beer for them tourists you keep expectin’.”
“They’ll drink it, alright,” says Matt, “and I won’t be giving it to them for free, either. Thought you might like a change.”
“Don’t want no change in my drinkin’,” I tell him.
It is five o’clock on an October afternoon. Except for me ‘n the Poker Four at the table in back, the place is usually empty this time of day, but today there’s a stranger sittin’ at the other end of the bar drinkin’ bourbon. I mosey on down and sit on the stool beside him. “What’cha drinkin’?” I say to the guy.
“Bourbon.”
“Smells like Old Crow to me,” I says.
The stranger shrugs. “Didn’t ask.”
“Then it’s Old Crow,” I says. “House bourbon.”
The stranger don’t answer, takes another sip of his drink.
“They got better bourbon,” I says, “and don’t charge nothin’ more for it. You could have Jack Daniel’s for the same price, just have to ask. ‘Course, they got worse too. That’d be High Time. They got a few bourbons here.” The stranger looks straight ahead, ignorin’ me, so I grunt and take my beer back to my stool. I’m used to it. Most of the time it don’t pay to be friendly.
So Matt is washin’ glasses behind the bar, swishin’ ‘em through a basin of hot sudsy water then dumpin’ ‘em into another of clear water. “I remember drinkin’ good bourbon,” I tell him. “They used to keep Baker’s at MacArthur Park. Cost seven-fifty a shot. Me and a buddy used to go there sometimes when we was feelin’ flush. You know MacArthur Park, in Frisco?” Matt grunts somethin’ negative. “Just a couple, you understand. But, we’d sit there at the bar and smoke cheroots, they’re from Kentucky too, you know, and sip Baker’s. Nectar it is, nectar of the gods. ‘Course they also had Maker’s Mark and Bowman, and I’ve had them often enough, but I always favored Baker’s.”
Matt nods. “Yep,” he said, “that’s good stuff, alright.”
“’Course, you got nothin’ of that quality here,” I say, joshin’ him, “but what can you expect in a one-bar town. No competition and all.”
“I know you don’t think much of it,” Matt says to me, “but in my book Fitzgerald is just as good as Baker’s or Maker’s Mark. And Wild Turkey’s a good, solid whiskey too.”
“Horse piss!” I snort into my suds. “Horse piss and turkey piss is what they are. You ain’t got enough years on you to know a good bourbon.”
Matt wipes his hands on his apron and commences to dry the glasses.
“How’d you get so many dirty glasses?” I ask him. “Haven’t had nobody in here all day.”
“Just keeping busy, Jack,” he says to me, bored like. “Getting the dust off ‘em, you know. This is a dusty place. Can’t have dust on the glasses.”
I look down at the bar, shakin’ my head. “Yes sirree,” I tell him. “I’ve drunk some bourbon in my day, and that’s a fact. Did I ever tell you about the first time I tasted bourbon?” I’m talkin’ to Matt, but I don’t look at him. Shouldn’t have to make eye contact with a decent barkeep to hold a conversation. Matt doesn’t say nothin’, but I pay it no mind. “I was twenty-three, and married then, just moved to this new town, new for us, that is, and there was this woman at the bar who kept eyein’ me. Know what I mean?” Matt continues to dry the glasses, but he grunts. “I guess I looked okay back then,” I tell him, “never noticed really. Anyway, this woman come up to me at the pool table. My wife was right there watchin’ me lose at pool, and this woman just come up and started talkin’ to me, leanin’ against the pool table, standin’ real close to me. I couldn’t tell what she was drinkin’. I guess I’d never smelled it before, so I asked her, and she told me it was Jack. ‘Hey, that’s me,’ I said to her. ‘I’m Jack,’ and she laughed and laughed. When I got home that night I found a piece of pink paper in my pocket with her name and phone number on it. I called her the next evening and she invited me to her place. Yep, and that night was the first time I ever drank bourbon. First time for a few things, I guess. Yep, quite a few things. I took it up as my drink after that. Yep, old Jack got lucky with Jack.”
So I’m tellin’ him all this, not really braggin’, you understand, just somethin’ to talk about, and when I look up Matt’s not there anymore. He’s standin’ at the door behind the bourbon-drinkin’ stranger. The Poker Four has suspended their game and I can see them outside on the boardwalk. They’s lookin’ at somethin’ on the street, so I shamble over and poke my nose over Matt’s shoulder. Matt’s sayin’, “Would you look at that! Oooh baby, you can come home with me,” and the bourbon drinker lets out a low wolf whistle that is echoed by a couple of the card players. I give a snort and head back to my stool. “Ain’t you fools never seen a woman before,” I say to them over my shoulder, kinda grouchy like. I sit there for a minute, but in the end pride can’t compete with curiosity, so I gets my mutterin’ goin’ and elbow in for a good look.
Except for the few tourists and curiosity seekers that kept showin’ up in Wisdom, prob’ly no one arrived in town without causin’ a bit of a stir, but nothin’ caused a ripple as compared to the arrival of Crystal Corn. If she’d been a-struttin’ up the street stark naked it wouldn’t have made a piss-ant’s bit a difference. It’s not like the town-folks had nothin’ better to do, but there they all were, just a-watchin’ her stroll from one end of town to the other and back again like the Queen of Sheba. My crew in the bar and Milt, the cook at the Mt. Fuji, we all floated out onto the boardwalk when she was opposite the general store and Dead Max whistled from his permanent place there on the bench outside.
She was tall and of medium build with yellow hair tied back in a loose ponytail that fell near to her waist. Wearin’ tight black shorts, a white, frilly blouse that left her long mid-rift exposed, and small, black leather boots, she looked like somethin’ off the Venice Beach boardwalk. It was clear that she was appraisin’ it all – the town, the buildings, the fools on the porches, the dusty street. After strollin’, just oozin’ languor, the length of town twice, lettin’ the wolf whistles roll over her as easy as the blank stares and the quiet hunger, she sauntered up the steps to the bar, past the oglers on the boardwalk, through the swingin’ doors, past Matt who stepped back to make way, and down to the end of the bar to sit on the stool next to me. When I’d seen her headin’ in I’d ducked back where I belonged, apparently the only one of the bunch feelin’ bad about starin’ at her. I glanced over at her and took a sip of beer. “Welcome to Wisdom,” I say. I could smell the October afternoon heat and dust on her mixed with the pleasant groomed odor of bath oil and perfume. She give me a slight smile then orders a Tequila shot.
“You want something?” She was talkin’ to me in a kinda purr. “To drink, I mean.”
I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer.”
“You live here?” she asked.
I nodded.
She knocked back the shot. “Then you’d know who lives in that blue trimmed house up on the right?”
“That’d be Wiley.”
“He live by himself?”
“Mostly.”
She slid off her stool. “Thanks,” she said and she sashayed towards the door. Didn’t pay for her drink. And as far as I know, all the time Crystal Corn stayed in Wisdom she never paid for a drink. Beautiful women take bars for granted.
I drank off the last of my beer and sat there a-tinglin’ in the gloom while the bar emptied behind her. She walked down the boardwalk, past the hotel and stepped off into the sunny street again, then, keepin’ to the middle of the street, made her way up the hill to Wiley’s house, the biggest place in the old residential strip, and climbed the steps to his front porch. Wiley stood there at his open door, like most everyone else in town, watchin’ her, and when she stepped up onto his porch he took a step back into his parlor. “I’m Crystal Corn,” she said, holdin’ out her hand. After Wiley took her hand, she said, “May I come in?” The door closed behind her and he musta had a Monopoly game or somethin’ in there, ‘cause we didn’t see Wiley or Crystal Corn again for three days.
*
I guess I like livin’ in Wisdom. It’s as good as any other, better’n most. I got my own place, that’s the important thing. I can take or leave the people here, but that’s the same as anywhere. I’m not bein’ funny when I say I prefer the sheep.
Last year I found termites in the wooden beams that support the back of my shack. Seems I put the cistern, such as it is, too close and either it leaked or overflowed or it sweated with the change of temperature and all. So some moisture got into the wooden beams that support the back wall. New Mexico is so dry I didn’t worry about the dirt up against the wood, and it prob’ly would’ve been all right, if not for the water. Anyway, I inadvertently created a perfect home for termites: moist wood in the dirt. Well, I’ve lots of time, so I went to work on it. I dug out all the dirt, diggin’ well under the wooden beam and discovered the extent of the damage was about five feet. I spent a couple of days watchin’ ‘em burrowin’ into the wood and findin’ new paths down to the moist soil. There must have been a hundred of them, maybe more. It’s hard to tell with any certainty, seein’ as how termites all look pretty similar to me. I knew it was useless to ask ‘em politely to leave, but I tried it anyway for a couple of days. Of course they ignored me.
I scrounged some concrete blocks from Joshua, the mayor, as well as some hefty pry-bars and a chainsaw, and wheelbarrowed ‘em up the hill. He’d have brung ‘em up with his backhoe, but it was my business, and I told him so, as nice as I could. Anyway, I managed to lever the shack up off the ground on the infested side and after a lot more diggin’ and sweatin’ I was able to cut and remove the termites’ beam and replace it with a row of concrete blocks. “Sorry, brothers,” I said to the termites over and over, as they scurried in and out of their holes burdened with long white eggs. It seemed as if they couldn’t make up their minds if they should evacuate. After the beam was free I carried it down below the sheep barn where the ground was often moist from the irrigation and all, and dug a trench for it there. It didn’t take long before they were goin’ about their insect business much as they did before.
A few days later Joshua, who knows about these things, happened to be up there and was curious, so I recounted the story and took him out to inspect the job. We walked down to the sheep barn and he gave the termite’s beam a kick with the toe of his boot. “That was stupid,” he said. “This beam is still solid. All you had to do was get the dirt way to let it dry out and spray the buggers.”
What can I say? At that moment I felt closer to the termites than to Joshua, who was one of the three I counted as friends in Wisdom. In fact, I still feel closer to the termites than to any human in the place, even though every termite I saved is now long dead. In their place is now a thrivin’ colony of creatures that just do their jobs and keep their minds out of other creatures’ business. When the hippies or the cowboys or the band piss me off I sometimes come up and watch my neighbors, the termites, and, if I spend long enough at it, I always come away with a bit of serenity. I’ve a lot to learn yet, and insects are good teachers.
So, I was countin’ my friends. They’d be Joshua, Wiley, and Crystal Corn. The sad thing is that of the three of ‘em there’s only Joshua still here. Anyway, I could do without the rest of the Wisdom residents. ‘Course without the rest there wouldn’t be a Wisdom, and I wouldn’t have knowed Joshua, Wiley, or Crystal Corn, and I keep that in mind.
Me and Joshua aren’t really friends. He’s my boss, I guess you’d say, although he don’t act like one. I think he gets along with me because I do my job and am no trouble to him. I like him because he’s honest and makes no bones about his motivations. I mean, you can read him like a book and he knows it and likes it that way. Relatin’ to Joshua is refreshin’, it’s so simple. He’s got a generous side, he’s maybe the most generous person I know. He’s also a greedy son-of-a-bitch, tryin’ to subvert what has growed up here, largely through his benevolence, into his personal gold mine. Everyone knows this, and it’s okay. It’s okay because it’s Joshua tryin’ to make a buck. Joshua, who has basically given us all a home and is grudgin’ly honored for it. You can argue with him, fight him tooth and nail, but if you don’t like him you’re an ignoramus. He’s Joshua.
Everybody liked Wiley, but not for the same reason I liked him. Wiley wasn’t a hippie or a cowboy, but he got along with everyone. It’s kinda like he was on weed he was so mellow. But he weren’t. On weed, I mean. At least, not most of the time. That was just how he was. If Joshua’s dream had come true and the whole place had turned into a fuckin’ golf and country club Wiley wouldn’t have minded. He’d probably have left, but he wouldn’t have minded. Just time to move on. Wiley liked everybody. Wiley liked to drink and party and wail on his guitar. Wiley could talk Buddhism and Nirvana ‘til the hippies couldn’t take another word. Wiley ate steaks with the cowboys and tofu with Cal and Marie. His life and his heart were an open secret and everyone laughed and cried with him.
I didn’t care about any of that. Wiley was a fun-lovin’ wuss, in my books. I liked Wiley because he had a passion for music. He was serious about it in spite of himself. And he wanted to share his passion. That’s why he started the band and spent all that time teachin’ Bernard. Bernard hadn’t never even held a guitar before he showed up here, but he took to it ‘cause of Wiley. And I know a secret about Wiley that maybe no one else in Wisdom knows. Like I told you, I get up early. The Mt. Fuji Café is run by the hippie contingent with no one really in charge, but whoever was not in charge years ago agreed to give me a key to the place, and about five or six in the mornin’, dependin’ on the season, it’s my habit to shamble down there, after doin’ whatever shepherd chores are required of me, and put on the coffee. I’m not doin’ them a favor, you understand, I drink the coffee. The hippies all drink herbal tea or some chicory shit that passes for coffee if you got no taste buds or don’t know no better. Anyway, most mornings I would pass Wiley’s house and chances were, if he was on his own, and if you’d go up real close, like onto his front porch, you could hear music playin’, but not any of the rock ’n roll you might expect. It was always some classical stuff, with whole orchestras and sometimes singin’, like opera. And if you sat on the porch swing that Crystal Corn made him install, you could watch the day swell up from the hills and the pale sky subdue the stars, and catch the first mornin’ swallows and finches scrabblin’ in the dew; and, pourin’ over it all, muffled, but somehow towerin’ into the dawn, was all this melodious noise. Made me kinda happy just to sit and listen to it. I never knew if he was in there laughin’ or cryin’, awake or asleep. I didn’t know if it had been playin’ all night or if it was a mornin’ ritual with him. All I knew was that music was more to Wiley than he let on, more than his guitars and his rock ‘n roll band, that those were like a public outlet for a bigger passion. That’s why Wiley, unbeknownst to him, was my friend.
*
Crystal Corn was the lotus-flower floatin’ in our backwater. More than any of us, she didn’t belong here, and I could never figure why she stuck around. It made sense when she was with Wiley, then later with Joshua, but most of her time here she lived alone up in the hotel. I don’t know for sure, but I think Joshua let her stay there free.
When Crystal left Wiley I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it. I heard about it often enough, and not from Wiley. Him standin’ on his porch arguin’ with her and beggin’ her to stay with him, then down on his knees cryin’ while she totes her suitcase down them fresh painted stairs and walks steadfast to the hotel with never a pause or a glance back. He just laid there for all to see bawlin’ like a baby and cryin’ her name. And no one went up to take him inside or to comfort him or nothin’. Hard to say if he’d have appreciated it, though I think that’s what I’d’ve done. Wiley’s life was an open book, but some pages were missin’. I don’t believe anyone knows why Crystal walked that day. Prob’ly no one ever asked Crystal and Wiley wouldn’t answer the question, just got misty eyed and clammed up. Crystal Corn gaveth and she tooketh away.
If you asked Crystal Corn where she come from she’d say, “Not here.” Ask her what her father had done for a livin’ and she’d say she didn’t know. Ask her how she came to Wisdom, or why, and she’d just look away. Ask her about her childhood and she’d say she didn’t have one. But she was educated, you could tell. She could read and write, though she didn’t get much practice in Wisdom far as I could see. Seemed to me she slept all day, then got up around dusk and went across the street to the Fuji for her one meal of the day, then went back to her room. Around ten or eleven she’d be in the bar laughin’ and smokin’ and drinkin’ and dancin’. Sometimes she wouldn’t dance, and sometimes she danced by herself, but mostly she picked from among a crowd of rivals. It was a game, but it could get kinda rough. She didn’t care whose feelings she hurt. I seen her tell old Gus Jamison that he must be nuts to think she’d dance with a filthy old low-life like him, then the next night drag him off his stool and keep him on his feet for an hour, her big breasts squished up against him and her chin draped over his scrawny neck. Hummin’ and purrin’ in his ear, that’s what old Gus told us afterwards. As the night would wear on and the crowd thin out the few that had had her attention usually hung on hopin’ for somethin’ more. It was no secret that Crystal sometimes took one of her dance partners up to her room, though it was usually when she’d gotten herself so drunk she couldn’t manage the stairs. “Iss time ta go,” her voice a slurry of vowels, “Hey Mickey,” or “Hey Ray,” or “Say Billy boy, how’s about escorting a lady outa this fine establishment?”
“A-B-C-B-A-B-…,” Wiley would play on his guitar, and we’d break into our own distorted version of Stairway to Heaven.
What Crystal Corn lacked in her departures, she made up for in arrivals. The ten o’clock, almost sober, click-click-click of her high heels on the boardwalk always occurred between songs, whether it was the band or the jukebox that was playin’, so everyone in the bar who was listenin’ for them would have turned to see the saloon doors swing open. She’d pause there for just a second, her head cocked in profile, as if listenin‘ to the hush that she’d induced, savorin’ the attention, then she’d shake her mane of hair and give a low, quiet laugh before swingin’ her hips up to the bar where Matt would have her Tequila shot waitin’ for her. Her scent, a mixture of perfume and hunger, would pierce the heavy odor of stale beer and cigarettes and pin us all like butterflies to a board. If a barstool wasn’t cleared for her she’d nudge one of the sitters aside with her hip, sayin’ “Let a girl ease her pins,” and settle down, takin’ the smoke Matt had lit for her and blow him a kiss, “Thank you barman.” There would be women there who would feign to ignore her, as did some of the men, but the tone of the place had irrevocably changed. The queen had arrived and was on her throne, and another evenin’ of courtship and flirtin’ and drinkin’ and drinkin’ had begun.
*
Every mornin’ in the half-light of dawn I’d sit on the bench outside the Fuji with my first cup and look across at the blank square of glass behind which I knew she slept, and I’d ponder, imaginin’ her there in her rumpled bed, her mass of golden hair in disarray, her mouth slack and snorin’. Wonderin’ if she was alone, hopin’ she was. Sometimes she was and sometimes she wasn’t, I knew that. Sometimes I’d see Bill or Ray, almost anybody, slinkin’ or struttin’ down them stairs, and they wouldn’t never come join me for coffee even if I waved ‘em over. For all the men who spent the night with Crystal there was mighty little gossip about it. I don’t reckon Crystal threatened physical violence if anyone talked about their time with her, I figure she just told ‘em sweetly and sincerely that if she ever got a whiff that they might have mentioned a single intimate detail, that they’d never get another chance. That’s what I guess, anyway, considerin’ the silence about it all. So I’d sit there wastin’ my early hours wonderin’ about it. Then one day the blind snapped up and she pushed open the window and leaned out into the cold autumn air. “Jack,” she said, her voice cracked and barely audible, “Will you bring me up a cup?”
“How’d’ya like it?” I asked. Our quiet voices boomed in the stillness.
I’d imagined her room a pink den of cast off clothin’, cosmetics, and cigarette butts, but I found it spare and relatively tidy. The air was close with stale smoke, and booze, and over everythin’ hung a cloyin’ sweetness that was her wonderful, sexy fragrance gone flat, its zing un-zung. The room was furnished with a bed, a table and two easy chairs. Across one of the chairs were draped the previous night’s clothin’ and the table was largely covered with the female paraphernalia one would expect to find in the bathroom. The bed was against the east wall, and on this I found her sittin’ primly, leanin’ against the headboard with the sheet wrapped around her shoulders. As I handed her her coffee she indicated I should sit in the uncluttered chair. “Thank you, Jack,” she murmured, her nose already inhalin’ the steam.
I don’t think I’d ever seen her without her war paint, and I think she looked better without it. Well, maybe not better, but more honest. She’d obviously brushed her hair, because it hung in a silky swarm about her shoulders. Her cheeks were pale, a bit sallow, and her eyes were swollen and slightly bagged from sleep, or lack of it. As I settled uneasily across from her she gave me a wan smile. “Talk to me, Jack. Tell me a story. Make me laugh.”
The hotel was less than ten years old, but it looked worn. Wallpaper curled in the corners of the room, the imitation Navajo carpet on the floor was badly stained, and the furniture, even the table, seemed to be losin’ the battle with gravity. As Crystal sipped her coffee, eyein’ me dubiously as I sat on the edge of my chair gazin’ mutely about the room, the sleeve of her mauve nightdress flashed in and out from beneath the white sheet.
“Well,” I cleared my throat, “I’m not one much for talkin’.”
“I heard you talk to your sheep all day long.” I believe she was poutin’.
“That may be,” I said, “but sheep don’t much care what you say to them. Got not much in the way of expectations.”
“Didn’t I hear you fought in some war?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know who would have told you that.”
“Well, tell me how you got into it, and how you managed to get out alive.”
And so began my friendship with Crystal Corn. Every couple of weeks, more or less, she’d hear me openin’ up the café, and she’d ask me to bring her up some coffee and she’d get me talkin’ about some foolish thing I’d done, or some adventure I’d had. She never told me nothin’ about herself, and we didn’t really ever have what you’d call a conversation, it was just me ramblin’ on, entertainin’ her, like I did with Matt. She never told me, but I’m guessin’ it was Matt that told her I had some stories to tell, but I ain’t complainin’. I enjoyed it and when I was sittin’ out there in my shack at night I’d dream up what I was goin’ tell her next. A bit of truth, a bit of exaggeration, and a lot of lies. Didn’t matter, neither of us prob’ly knowed the difference. She sat there drinkin’ her coffee, sometimes smokin’ a cigarette. Half the time she fell asleep before I was done, and I’d just ease out the door and go start my day.
‘Course the word got out, and I got razzed a bit by the guys, but I didn’t care. They could think what they wanted. Didn’t make no difference to me or Crystal. We were long past havin’ reputations to care about.
Then every three, four weeks Crystal and Joshua would go off someplace together, just disappear for a long weekend. Prob’ly just into Santa Fe to get away from us all, but who knows? Maybe they went to New York or San Francisco. They had some kind of relationship all that time. In Wisdom they didn’t seem to hardly know each other. Crystal had lived in Joshua’s house, shared his bed, as far as I know, for about six months after she left Wiley then one day she upped and moved into the hotel. No explanation. Of course, none was owed. Anyway, they kept somethin’ goin’, and I guess I was glad of it.
*
For all I was her friend, and Wiley’s, I never seen it comin’. I don’t guess anybody did. In hindsight I guess there were signs. Like she started to get abusive when she was drunk, mainly of Joshua, who didn’t say nothin’ back to her. If he was there he’d just leave. She cussed out the town pretty good too, and the do-good hippies, the limp-dick cowboys, and the chintzy barstools. She stopped comin’ down to the bar most evenin’s, just sittin’ up in her room drinkin’ and smokin’. Rumor had it she was back with Wiley some nights, but I had no evidence of it. She hadn’t called me up for coffee in over a month. Then one night, a Thursday in mid-February, when there was maybe six inches of snow on the ground because an overcast had prevented it from meltin’, there was a bangin’ on my door that waked me up. Must have been four in the mornin’. I opened the door, groggy in my long-johns, and there stood Crystal, waverin’ dangerously in the moonlight, wearin’ a parka over her nightgown, and with bare feet stuck in somebody else’s snow boots. “Fuck! It’s cold,” she said as I stepped aside for her. A bottle of Cuervo swung in one hand and cigarette in the other. “If Wisdom is the asshole of the world, you live in the fuckin’ pancreas. Wanna drink?” She held up the bottle to me, but crashed backwards onto my bed as I made a grab for it. She struggled to sit up against the wall, her legs straight out across the bed, while I lit the lantern then the propane stove to get some heat in the place. I didn’t say nothin’, I just wrapped my blanket around her and gave her some wool socks to put on. When she handed me the bottle I took it and put it under my chair.
“Jack, I’m so lonely.” Suddenly the tears have started. I don’t know what to do or say, so I sit tight. Bang! Her hand crashes down on the bed beside her. “Come and sit beside me, for Christsake!” So I do, and she immediately slumps down so she’s lyin’ across my lap, her body curled so she’s talkin’ to my knees. “Jesus,” she says, “it smells like sheep shit in here,” but she makes no move, so neither do I. “You’re my only friend in the whole world, Jack. Do you know that?”
“On the contrary,” I say. “I thought every last man in Wisdom was your friend.”
She jerks, like to sit up, but then she doesn’t. Instead she’s cryin’ again. “Fuck you, Jack,” she says. “Just fuck you.”
I’ve one hand in her mane of hair and with the other I’m strokin’ her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Crystal,” I say. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.” I don’t believe I’d ever touched her before that night.
After a while she says, “You’re my only friend because you’re the only man in Wisdom that doesn’t want to fuck me.”
“There ain’t no man in Wisdom doesn’t want to fuck you,” I say.
She lies there quiet for some time then she says, “Take me away from here, Jack.” There’s nowhere I want to go, so I tell her that, which re-commences the waterworks. “Jack,” she blubbers, “take me to Mexico. Just you and me. It’s cheap there. I’ve got some money. Anyplace is better than here.”
I know it’s stupid to argue with a drunk, but talkin’ with one ain’t necessarily bad. Lots of truth gets shared that way. The fact was that I’d have loved to go to Mexico with Crystal for a week. Screw my brains out, get away from the snow and sheep shit for a while. Thing was, it wasn’t what Crystal wanted and I knew that. For all her slutty behavior, I had a strong feelin’ for her, love, I guess, and I wanted to keep it that way. Mexico would ruin the little we had. Nevertheless, I should have agreed to it, but that’s hindsight talkin’. Instead I said, “Ask Joshua. He’ll take you anywhere.”
”Oh shit! I’m just his fucking poodle. Don’t you know that? Of course he’d take me anywhere, then parade me about on a leash, feel me up in public just to show off. Joshua’s no friend of mine.” Suddenly her body tensed, pulled into itself, then she jerked to the edge of the bed and puked. With every heave of her body another torrent burst and splattered against the floorboards. I pushed her off me and stood up, barefoot in the mess, and pumped water into a bucket. I handed her a cup. She gargled and spat back into the cup. “Sorry Jack,” she muttered, then she slid her head up onto my pillow, curled up and fell asleep.
The sheep got an early breakfast and I cleaned myself up in the café. She slept all day. At three in the afternoon I held my nose and started moppin’ up the puke. She woke up and stumbled out without so much as a word.
*
It was Friday and The Wise Guys was playin’ at the bar that night. I had my usual couple of beers with Matt, got some stir-fry tofu at the Fuji, and headed up to Wiley’s where I kept my guitar. Wiley wasn’t there, but me and Squee horsed around until it was show time, then we lugged the equipment down to the bar and got set up. Wiley and Bernard showed up and by nine we were wailin’. Crystal hadn’t showed up, but we were gettin’ used to that. It was about eleven and we’d just got back from our first break. The place had been packed but the crowd was fadin’. We were about to start up again when a click-click-click on the boardwalk announced Crystal’s arrival. She swung in through the door, hugged by a crimson sheath of satin, a little unsteady on her feet. She looked at Matt behind the bar then turned to us. “Can you play something decent tonight?” her slurred words wobbled across the room to us, then she headed for the bar. We played a couple of Springsteens and a Dylan. There were a few dancers, but most of the couples had gone home already. Crystal sat with her back to us surrounded by the usual cluster of hopefuls whom she wordlessly brushed away like flies. Then Wiley started into a Credence Clearwater song and Crystal slowly spun around on her stool and stepped into the empty dance floor.
No doubt about it, Crystal Corn could dance. Drunk as she was she felt and moved to every nuance of that slow, sappy tune. Her head, shoulders, elbows, hands, hips, thighs, calves, and feet; her eyes, lips, eyebrows and chin were all in sync, in perfect harmony and grace. Stuart Foley stood up from his table, expectin’ his wife, Fran, to follow him onto the dance floor, but she didn’t move, wouldn’t get up and share the floor with Crystal. Stuart stood for a minute in indecision then returned to his chair. All eyes followed Crystal as she eddied about the room, her willowy body followin’ perfectly the click-click-click-spin of those red high-healed shoes. Her long, white fingers plucked the notes out of the air as if she were playin’ an instrument for another world, and every joint in her body somehow anticipated Squee’s idea of percussive invention. As the song came to an end Wiley led us through a couple of graceful key changes directly into a Gordon Lightfoot tune I’d never heard him play, and Crystal flashed him a smile to die for.
A piece of music, even a Gordon Lightfoot song, is a shimmerin’ livin’ thing. Like it has an existence that is separate but inseparable from each playin’ of it. A song has a form, like a skeleton, it’s bones bein’ the basic melody, the expected harmony, the verses and chorus, the words, if it’s got any. It’s got an introduction, a middle section, usually with a bridge, then a roundup at the end. But the heart of any piece of music, the guts of it, is not in the form, is not the skeleton. Just like human guts are separate from the bones that give it form, so it is that what gives music life is not static or rigid or ever the same from one rendition to the next. If it is, then its guts have atrophied, and are now part of the skeleton. The heart of music is the spontaneity within the form. It is the freedom found within the structure. And that night, at least in the hours before midnight, The Wise Guys, and Wiley in particular, became master musicians. Somethin’ had changed in Wiley, some door had opened, some connection was made between those mundane tunes we played and the subtle, wondrous genius that maybe wrote all them classical pieces Wiley liked to listen to. I know it sounds stupid to say it, but that night, that last night, and I swear it is not just hindsight, Wiley was a genius.
At some point Crystal got her tumbler of Tequila from the bar, and so as she continued to hold the floor, she drank ounce after ounce of the Mexican poison. When her glass was empty she’d slide it onto the bar and Matt would refill it for her. In the meantime Wiley, who usually drank moderately while we were playin’, was into the Old Crow and almost keepin’ up with her. By quarter after midnight there were no couples left in the bar, just six drunken men, four of whom took turns pesterin’ Crystal to dance with them. By twelve-thirty Squee was signalin’ it was time for a break, but Wiley ignored him, and kept slidin’ from one tune to another, never once breakin’ the rhythm of Crystal’s dance. As the two of them got drunker they got more and more sloppy, but prob’ly no one but me and the band noticed, since everyone, includin’ Matt, was pretty blasted. At one-o’clock Squee slammed up from his drum kit in the middle of a song and stomped off to the bathroom. Bernard immediately took up the beat on his bass and we just kept on swimin’.
About a half hour after that, Squee was back, Crystal was dancin’ right in front of us, and she waved for me to come and dance with her. I shook my head and kept on playin’. Wiley interrupted the song and began a progression into Stairway to Heaven. I didn’t follow, but just stopped playin’ and barked at him to cut it out. Wiley ignored me and Bernard picked it up, so I did too. What the fuck. One of the boys stumbled up from the bar, slurred, “I’ll dance with you, Crystal,” and took both her hands in his. She gave a cry and shoved him half way across the room. “Come on, Jack,” she sang out, somehow followin’ the melody of the song, “come dance with me.” I don’t know what got into me, but I shook my head. “Nope,” I told her. “Can’t you see I’m busy? You’re doin’ just fine all by your lonesome.”
Crystal’s dance came to an abrupt halt. She stood front and center before the band with her feet planted apart and her hands on her hips. “There’s only one man in this town I want to dance with, and he’s the one that won’t. Now ain’t that a cryin’ shame?”
Wiley and me kept playin’, but Bernard and Squee quit, maybe so they could hear what was goin’ on. Wiley said quietly, starin’ off into the corner of the room, “And why do you suppose that is, Miss Corn?”
“What’cha mean?” The words came out in a slurry. Now that she’d stopped movin’ her balance seemed to be evadin’ her, and she staggered backwards a few steps before catchin’ herself.
“If the only thing you want is what you can’t have, maybe you got too much already.”
“Fuck you, mister smart ass.”
“Or maybe the reason Jack here doesn’t wanna dance with you is because he knows he’d be the last one at the town pump.”
“Shut up Wiley,” I snapped at him, and I slipped the guitar off my neck and handed it to Squee behind me. I heard Crystal’s glass hit the floor, and when I turned back to her she had her face in her hands, and she was bendin’ forward like someone had just punched her in the gut.
“Or maybe,” Wiley started, but before he got out another word I’d smashed into him with my shoulder, sendin’ him sprawlin’ into Bernard, and both of the crashed through the speakers and into the wall. I caught Crystal before she hit the floor and I scooped her up into my arms. “Maybe Jack just don’t know how to dance,” I mumbled into her ear as I staggered under her weight across the bar and out into the night air. She was cryin’, but so soft I could feel it in her body more than hear it.
I was twice Crystal’s age and we prob’ly tipped the scales pretty much even, so by the time we reached the stairs to the hotel I was hurtin’ bad. I gritted my teeth and made it up the first couple of steps, but then my back gave a mighty twinge and I collapsed, not even havin’ time to drop her graceful. With a crash her hip’s hard into the edge to the uncarpeted stair and I’ve landed on her head. “Jesus fuck!” Her pronunciation seemed quite clear though maybe she was chokin’. I pulled myself off her and sat there, one hand pushed into my screamin’ back, and the other tryin’ to get her sittin’ too. “You broke my fucking neck, you moron!” There was somethin’ wrong with her voice, but I didn’t give it any thought at the time. I told her I was sorry, and after a few minutes I was able to manhandle her up to her room. Her door was unlocked, and I led her in and let her flop onto the bed. She was limpin’ pretty bad so I asked her if she wants some ice for her hip. She told me “Yeah,” so, grippin’ the railin’ every inch of the way, I got back down the stairs and into the bar, where Matt filled me a plastic bag while I ignored the remains of the band and Wiley’s curses. When I got back to the room Crystal was asleep, so I tucked the ice against her hip and pulled the covers over her.
“Goodnight sweet princess,” I think I said, but now I’m not so sure. I didn’t go back to the bar to get my jacket, but just stumped it back to my shack where I took a handful of aspirins and crawled into my stinkin’ bed.
*
It was late, goin’ on seven when I woke up next mornin’, the sheep bleatin’ at me with the comin’ dawn. I ate another fistful of aspirins and stumbled down to fork ‘em some feed. I considered just goin’ back to bed, my head and back competin’ for ache space, but instead I shuffled down the snowy track into town, figurin’ a couple mugs of caffeine would do me more good. Before I’d even stepped up onto the Fuji’s porch a low whistle drew my attention to the hotel. I’d have expected Crystal’s shade to be down considerin’ what she had to sleep off, but instead it was up and the window was wide open. I could just make out Wiley leanin’ out over the sill, signalin’ me to come up. I waved him off and went in to make some coffee. What in hell could he want? And what was he doin’ up there anyway? It used to be that the Fuji dripped coffee the way most folks do at home, makin’ one pot at a time through a Melita filter, and they used fresh ground beans, too. About a year before they’d done the standard American commercial thing, compromisin’ quality for convenience, and brought in a Coffee-Matic that heated the water and poured it through pre-packaged filter bags of a low-grade coffee-like mixture. The only thing I needed to do was insert the bag, get a pot under the dripper and hit a switch. I stuffed in an extra bag, hopin’ for a decent jolt, and went to slump on the freezin’ porch while the machine did its work.
Wiley whistled at me as soon as I’d banged through the door. Shit! This was my time, this cold, dawn hour. “What’cha want?” I snarled up at him. He put his finger to his lips then waved at me to come up. I stuck my head back into the café, but of course there was no coffee yet, just a hint of that delicious aroma. I didn’t give Wiley a glance as I hobbled across the icy, rutted street and up into the hotel. The wooden steps creaked under my weight and my lower back creaked in unison as I mounted the dark staircase into the gloomy upper hallway. I pushed through Crystal’s closed door to find Wiley slumped in the easy chair by the window. It was almost dark in the room in spite of the open window, but I could see Crystal lyin’ diagonal across the bed, still wearin’ the red dress from the night before. Wiley’s face was pale and drawn and his eyes bagged out like a bloodhound’s. I shoved past him, trippin’ over Crystal’s shoes, and knelt beside her. She was lyin’ on her back with her head hangin’ off the edge of the bed, eyes closed. Tightly wound around her neck was a pair of stockin’s. I nudged her and glanced at Wiley. Neither of them moved, though Wiley was watchin’ me through hooded slits. “Crystal,” I said to her then heaved her into the center of the bed. I took the stockin’s from around her neck and felt for a pulse. There was none. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently. Her head and arms flopped around lifelessly. I pried open her teeth and blew my stinkin’ breath into her, knowin’ it was useless.
I told Wiley to stay put, and limped down the stairs, back across the icy street, and down to Joshua’s house. The front door was open, so I just walked in and banged on his bedroom door. “Wake up, Josh,” I said to the door. I heard him grunt, and a female voice was murmurin’, then he was at the door eyein’ me through the crack. “Get dressed,” I whispered. “It’s Crystal. Looks like Wiley’s killed her.” A minute later we were headed up the street, me tellin’ Joshua what I’d found.
Wiley hadn’t moved. Joshua pushed past him and bent over Crystal, one big hand enclosin’ her wrist and the other on her throat. “Shit!” he said then he turned to Wiley. “You mother fucker! Did you do this?” He turned back and began givin’ her mouth-to-mouth. Wiley didn’t answer. Joshua worked at it for a couple of minutes while Wiley and I remained motionless, watchin’ him. Then Joshua got off the bed, stepped over to Wiley, hooked his cowboy boot under his chair, and flipped it clear across the room, and prob’ly would have killed me in the process if I hadn’t dove out of the way. Wiley thudded onto the floor as the chair bounced over him and caromed into the corner. Joshua picked Wiley up by his hair and pushed him hard against the wall, and pinned him there with a hand around his throat. “What did you do to her?” His voice had the force of a sledgehammer. “You kill her, you drunken little weasel?” Wiley was turnin’ blue, so I moved to pry Joshua’s fingers from his neck. Joshua released his hand from Wiley’s throat and shoved me blindly backwards. The back of my knees hit the footboard of the bed and I crashed onto it, my head bouncin’ hard against Crystal’s. Joshua had returned his attention to Wiley. “Answer me! Did you kill her?”
Wiley’s voice was barely audible. “I guess so,” he said as Joshua let go of his hair and he slid down the wall into a puddle on the floor. I was floppin’ in the bed like a flounder tryin’ to find the edge. The bed was soakin’ wet. Joshua remained hoverin’ over Wiley. “With her stockings? You wrapped her stockings around her neck and strangled her?” He kicked at Wiley, his boot catchin’ him hard in the small of his back. “Is that right?”
Wiley groaned in pain. “I guess so,” he said again.
“What’cha mean, you guess so. Did you or didn’t you?”
Wiley made a move to get up, but Joshua’s boot was heavy on his hip holdin’ him where he was. “I came up,” Wiley said. “We argued. We fought. We were drunk. She took her stockings off and threw them in my face. Now, there she is. There was no one else here. I guess I did it. I guess I killed her.” Suddenly he was bawlin’, curled up with his face in his hands. “I didn’t want to kill her. I loved her. I love her. I still do.”
Joshua bent down, grabbed him by the shoulders, hoisted him to his feet and threw him, head first, into the remainin’ upright easy chair. “Shut the fuck up!” he snarled. Wiley managed to right himself but continued to blubber into his hands. I was on my feet by this time, drippin’ in the far corner. Joshua began to noisily pace the room, alternately rubbin’ his chin and the back of his neck with his hand. After about a minute he halted in front of Wiley and kicked him in the shin. “You got your wallet and keys with you?” Wiley groped in his jacket pocket and produced them. “Then get the fuck out of here,” said Joshua. “I mean, out of town, right now, real quiet like. Just get in your truck and roll the fuck out through that gate, and if I ever see, smell, or hear from you again, I swear I’ll kill you.” Wiley didn’t move, so Joshua picked him up by his shoulders and shook him hard. “You understand me, Wiley?” He held him there until Wiley nodded. “Can you stand up?” He let go of him and Wiley stood. “Can you walk?” Wiley turned for the door. “Don’t go to your house, don’t do nothin’ but drive out of here real quiet. You don’t want anyone to see you or hear you, else you’re in for a shit-load of trouble.”
Wiley stumbled out the door and we stood and listened to his unsteady step on the stairs and outside down the boardwalk. A minute later his truck started up and it wasn’t long before it had rumbled out of earshot.
I said to Joshua, “There’s gonna be trouble over that.”
Joshua walked over to the bed. “Not if we get rid of the body,” he said. Then, in a flash, he grabbed her dress by the neckline and ripped it right down the middle. Crystal was suddenly naked as the day she was born.
“What the fuck!” I shouted, but he turned to me, raisin’ his hand to shut me up or strike me down, I couldn’t tell which.
“Autopsy,” he said, then he went and closed the window and pulled the blind, closed the door and turned on the overhead light. I didn’t even notice. My eyes were glued to the big wedge of golden hair, so coveted, now so casually exposed. Corpses ain’t pretty, even pretty ones, they’re dead. But they can stun you. I was stunned in that harsh light by the immediacy of her flesh, the roundness of her breasts, the shock of pubic hair, the innocence, the waste, the uselessness of it all. “You’ve no right,” I croaked as my knees forsook me and I collapsed to the floor. “You’ve no right to touch her now.”
Joshua strode over to me and slapped my face. “Get up and help me, you old fart. We need to know how she died. There might be questions if we don’t do this right. I need a witness.” I struggled unsuccessfully to stand, to regain some composure. He grabbed my jacket and jerked me to my feet. I stood, leanin’ in the corner gaspin’ for breath. Everythin’ in me wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I was mesmerized, to my eternal shame, my eyes glued to all that white flesh and golden hair. Joshua couldn’t have driven me away with a stick.
He was kneelin’ beside her holdin’ up her head and lookin’ closely at the back of her neck. Suddenly he let her head drop and he held up his arms. His sleeves were runnin’ with water. “Where did all this water come from?”
“A whole bag of melted bar ice,” I said.
He gave me a confused look. “Well, get over here,” he snapped. “Look at this here. She’s a big lump behind her ear just above the neck. Stockings didn’t do that.”
I looked where he was pointin’. “Prob’ly happened when I dropped her on the stairs last night,” I told him.
“What’cha mean, dropped her on the stairs?”
“She was drunk and I tried to carry her up the stairs to her room, but my back give out on me and I dropped her. She hit her hip pretty bad.” Joshua rolled her up onto her left side and, sure enough, a great blue and yellow bruise marred her right hip. “That’s why I got her the ice, for her hip. But when we fell I kinda landed on her head. I think she said somethin’ about me breakin’ her neck. I guess she smacked her head pretty good, too.”
Joshua rolled her over onto her stomach and pulled the hair away from her neck. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it happened later. Maybe Wiley knocked her against the head of the bed, or with his elbow, or something.”
“He’s not like that,” I said.
Joshua gave me a pityin’ look then quickly surveyed the head and footboards of the bed. “Hard to tell with this old furniture.” He rolled her onto her back again and was lookin’ at her neck, probin’ gently at her throat. “You can see where the nylons cut into her. There’s some bruising here. Could she talk alright after you fell on her head?”
I was watchin’ his hands roam over her body as if it were a sack of potatoes. I crammed my hands into my pockets to keep them off her. “Kinda hard to say,” I stammered. “We weren’t exactly holdin’ a conversation, and she was drunker’n shit.”
“Still, did her voice work like you’d expect?”
“It was kinda wheezy, I think. I think I hurt her, alright.”
Joshua was probin’ at the base of her skull and down her neck, pushin’ firmly with his fingers. “Her neck might be broke,” he said, “but it’s hard to tell.”
“You think maybe I killed her by droppin’ her?”
“Hurt her, anyway. Maybe she’d have been alright, maybe not.”
“And Wiley?”
“Probably he just finished her off.”
I sat heavily on the floor fightin’ nausea. “We need to call the cops. Get a proper autopsy. You and me don’t know nothin’ about this kinda stuff.”
Joshua stood up and pulled the sheet around the body. “I’m not having no cops around here. Crystal’s dead and gone. If it was murder, the murderer’s gone too. If it was an accident, well, there’s nothing to be done about it. We’re going to bury her and say a prayer and hope that no one ever shows up looking for her. Far as I know she’s got no family, no friends. Never mentioned any. Never got no mail. We’re going to put her to rest and leave her in peace. I loved her as much as anyone, but she was a cheap and easy woman, and will be easy to forget. Now, let’s get her out of here.”
It was like someone had turned out the light. The spell was broke. I barely even heard what he said. The snappin’ sheet, her nakedness covered, it was lost forever, beyond recall. Crystal was gone and we had a corpse to deal with. We tied her up in two sheets then wrestled her down the back stairs, out the little-used back door of the hotel, and down to the fence line. Joshua hoisted her onto his shoulder and dumped her over the fence. The fence was made of wide white boards, and she lay there, almost invisible behind it in the dirt as the first rays of sunlight played out across the desert. Joshua told me to climb over and wait with her, then he walked quickly up to the town parkin’ lot and got his truck. In just a couple of minutes we had the body in the back and were bouncin’ slowly along the fence line away from town. It was a mile to the property corner, and there Joshua took a right and we slowly drove up the rocky slope followin’ the barbed wire fence until his four-wheel drive couldn’t go no further. The only buildings in sight were my shack and the sheep barn. Again we tumbled Crystal’s body over the fence and Joshua told me to cut some sage and brambles and cover her up. Then I was to go home and wait for him. He’d be up as soon as he could with his backhoe.
It took him a couple of hours, seein’ as how it was mornin’ by then, and his workers were showin’ up. They were installin’ the utilities for the next set of twenty lots in the Wisdom Development Plan, and so the backhoe was pretty much in use, but Joshua told them that he was diggin’ me a new outhouse. He drove the thing up and dug a big hole about twenty, thirty feet above my perfectly fine outhouse that I dug myself by hand. We dumped Crystal’s body in the hole and stood there for a moment, me lookin’ at Joshua, then Joshua said some sort of a prayer and crossed hisself. I said, “Amen, amen,” and crossed myself too, then Joshua filled the hole with his machine. When he was finished he dug another hole between Crystal’s grave and my outhouse, pilin’ all the dirt right on top of the grave. Then he went down the hill and got his crew and they moved my outhouse to its new hole. Of course the old outhouse hole, the one I dug by hand, was way smaller’n the new one, so after Joshua filled in the old hole there was still a big pile of dirt coverin’ Crystal’s grave. Who in the world would ever suspect it?
*
No one could figure out why Wiley and Crystal Corn just split like that, in the middle of the night, leavin’ everythin’ they owned behind, but I think most folks were glad for them. The rumor was that Wiley had gone back to L.A. to finish law school and he wanted Crystal with him, to rescue her from herself. Hadn’t they been gettin’ back together those past few weeks? Everyone seemed to agree they had. Maybe we all should have seen it comin’.
Wiley’s house stood empty for about four months, then one day a U-Haul showed up driven by two men from L.A. They didn’t know nothin’ they said. They were just contracted to clear out the house. I figure it was Joshua’s doin’. Later Joshua told the Lamberts, Bob and Gillian, who had two little kids and lived in a beat-up trailer, that they should move into Wiley’s house if they wanted to, and after a lot of hemmin’ and hawin’ that’s what happened.
*
‘Course, I liked my outhouse where I’d put it, not six more steps up the hill, but I never said nothin’. And I can’t never take a decent dump now without thinkin’ ‘bout Crystal Corn lyin’ down there, froze solid in them sheets with her neck broke by her only friend in Wisdom. I’d rather think I broke her neck than that Wiley killed her, but if that’s really what happened then we ruined Wiley’s life for nothin’. Poor son-of-a-bitch. I can’t figure him for chokin’ nobody to death, never mind Crystal Corn, but there’s no denyin’ that he’d worked on it. I put it down to the drink. So there ain’t no lotus flower makin’ beautiful this sorry little backwater no more, and no Wise Guys neither. Bernard and Squee still play but I don’t have no part in it. Hardly ever go into the bar at all, just once in a while to talk with Matt. My two beers is down to one, and like I say, I usually skip that. Too bad, ‘cause I liked that part of the day.
Joshua took off the same day we buried Crystal and didn’t come back for a month. Everybody said he went lookin’ for her and Wiley, to bring her back, but you and I know that ain’t so. Now he’s like it never happened. He’s got a new girlfriend called Pamela who’s young and kinda chunky and wears shorts and cowboy boots, and he carries on with her like there was never no one else. Sometimes I think maybe there never was. I caught them in the Fuji the other day havin’ dinner and I just sat down at their table like I’d been invited. Pamela started talkin’ to me, friendly like, and I grunted now and then to be polite, but all the time I was starin’ at Joshua, tryin’ to see something in his eyes. He looked through me like I weren’t even there.
Taos, August, 2000