Cow Creek-Tradesmen-Business Dealings with Women-Deep Water Saloons.

"Jesus Christ, Solheim, ain't you ever slaked lime? Make a hole." Kemmerle shouldered in and went to work. Solheim stood aside, secretly satisfied. It was rope a dope with Kemmerle. Be inept and he would come running. That suited him fine. He hated the work. The trolley would come down and he could practically smell the leather, the hot wool, the sour perfume of the ladies come down to see the country. He came from Deep Water, where he came so close, but could not quite make the rent there. The saloons were the nonpareil. The ragtime he had heard was not fast but slow and elegant, the way it ought to be, no clog dance, as these shit kickers would have it.

"Look, Solheim. See the way I'm doing?" Kemmerle was huffing and puffing. He knew how to do it. Kemmerle had even showed him last week. But Kemmerle couldn't stand to watch a man work; he had to do everything himself. "You want those sacks Kemmerle?" Solheim said, all ears. Of course he was ready to help now, now that Kemmerle was doing the hard part. "Yeah, come on," Kemmerle grunted. Solheim fetched the sacks and brought them across the hardpan.

These were all to be housing for the gandy dancers, section gangs and laborers that would in turn lay the steel tongue of the trolley to bring more wool-suited, pink-faced workers from Deep River and their corseted wives deeper into the country, with their fried chicken, lemonade and flat soda. The trolley would spit these folk into the country like Solheim spit out watermelon seeds on his off days.

Sometimes he even saw beyond the oak gulches and hollow-stomached country stores and into the purple and pink desert, the badlands beyond the mountains, and sometimes past even those mesas and clear into the future: he had dreamed of horseless carriages with boat's wheels that you steered, and some devil inside whipped the carriage into a frenzy. These contraptions could fly twice, three times as fast as the fastest quarter horse he'd ever seen. And he'd seen many: his daddy used to take him to the races on Montauk Point when he was a boy in New York.

He never gave much thought to his own future; things worked themselves out in time and he preferred to work when it was required and rest when it was not required. It was stupid to fuss over the architecture of the tiny, insignificant niche of one man in the vast cathedral that was the world. He would watch the edifice rise while people like Kemmerle toiled red-faced in the sun.

"Say, you Solheim," Kemmerle began. "What do you make of this?" Solheim looked at the mix. "Why, it looks rather poor, Kemmerle," he said. Kemmerle smiled, gently, Solheim was surprised to see. "No, Solheim, you mule, let me finish. I say what do you think of this: a Ms. Symons I met at the grandstand entered into a deal for a carriage and requested my assistance." Solheim smiled, his hands on his knees. "Ah, a seduction." Kemmerle grinned and tapped the top of a brick with the butt of his trowel. Jos. Thorstein 1905, said the manufacturer's stamp. By God, the man could sweat, Solheim thought as he watched the dark spots covered by Kemmerle's expert buttering.

"Look sharp with those tongs," the older man muttered. Solheim brought another pair of tongs full of brick and laid them near. "She discovered a bent axle and some dunderheaded repairs in the chassis, but she told me merely that the thing required some repair and asked if the sale was honorable. 'Well,' I said to her, 'If the repairs are minor I would say you may accept without fear of embarrassment.' What does she do but accept without showing me the carriage? The next day we take a ride to her place and I give it to her straight. 'This is a jonah,' I tell her. 'It will take some doing. You paid too much.' Why, Solheim, she was outraged! Threatened me with the law! Me, as had never been anything but open and fair with her." Solheim nodded while Kemmerle assumed his 'business tone' and repeated the whole transaction as if it were a legal document. The poor man, he thought. So clever and so stupid at the same time. "Kemmerle, she has eyes for you. That's why she was so angry. Fix her wagon and take her as your wife." Kemmerle gave the brick a sharp tap and turned, one big hand gripping his knee. "Didn' you hear what I just said? She threatened me, Solheim!" Solheim smiled. "Yes." Kemmerle stared at him. "It's God's truth, Solheim," he said, shaking his head and turning back to his bricklaying. "I can't understand how you can be so clever and so stupid at the same time." Solheim only laughed cheerfully.

Solheim went up to Deep Water because it was too late for the little saloon in Cow Creek. He went to the source: a saloon that covered a whole block and whose bar ran the whole length of that space, manned by bartenders in white linen and pink carnations. When you ordered they would carefully lay out a linen napkin, reverently, as if they were covering a corpse. The drink would be mixed quickly and expertly, with a minimum of chatter. He had seen a man released for making conversation with a customer, though the customer had started it, a crusty navvy at that. There was a sloe gin cocktail he favored. It was especially welcome these days, when the sweat seethed through your clothes and the stink of the gutters was overpowering.

Kemmerle came in. "Ain't that a little high for you, Solheim?" he said, grinning. He put his foot up on the rail. "Whiskey," he said over the bar. They shook hands. "How are you today, Solheim? Taking your day off in the saloon?" Solheim nodded to the piano. "He's the best I've heard. A good rag is the equal or superior of any symphony." Kemmerle listened. He shrugged. "I'd as lief hear a good fiddle." Solheim saw to his drink. "What brings you, sir? I thought you would be courting Ms. Symons." Kemmerle snorted. "Ain't that some pumpkins? We met again at the grandstand and she apologized, said she had no right to be cross and told me she would be more than pleased if I would give her my honest opinion on a peach pie she was fixing up for the county fair." Solheim turned and held out his hand. "Why that's a cause for celebration, man!" Kemmerle took his hand but looked glum. "I congratulate you, Solheim. You divined the truth. But it seems a steep price to me. Give me a wall, with straight sides and square corners and no surprises." Kemmerle shook his head. "Whiskey," he called. "Another." He turned to Solheim with a grim look. "I'm going back there. I'm gonna taste her damn pie." Solheim smiled.

The man played "The Easy Winners." Solheim thought it was the best thing he ever heard.

Old Watson's Place, Deep Water: A Parable

Old Watson's Place, Deep Water




A Parable




Stanhope and DeVilliers had been tasked with the removal. "Put some barbecue in it," the Foreman had told them. "The navvies will be here at five sharp to knock down the place." Stanhope had saluted with two fingers. The weather had been fine and Stanhope would as lief; Burrage and them were stuck on road duty and he had seen it. He and DeVilliers had things easy compared to those poor bastards. The chiggers and no-see-ums were dreadful and Burrage's face had looked like the ass of one of the doxies they'd run the week before. That had been DeVilliers' education, the sort that he had promised when they first met over beer and tank whisky at the grocery on the corner. DeVilliers had gone bust in one of the gold camps and they shared road duty for a time. Burrage had said "He is dumb as a fucking rock but he works hard and he respects his elders in every way."




In Stanhope's view he extended the respect, perhaps, to those undeserving; the doxy old Rose had paired with the boy stole a twist of tobacco along with her fee. DeVilliers had drunkenly challenged him to a duel when he recommended a right-thinking plan of redress. He could only shrug and talk gentle to the young imbecile; what else could you do with a horse that was spooked? DeVilliers, too, was powerful, and though Stanhope knew he would finally have the best of a scrap, his fee might have been considerable, in a cracked jaw or missing teeth, perhaps even a loosened eye.




The cabin belonged to some old timer, said to be a pioneer and even written up in the dailies. Lodge had read him one of the items. That was Lodge, harking back. Mostly Stanhope just did not have time. There was barely time to sample all the doxies and drink all the tub whiskey and gin and work on top of it, let alone hark back to some skeleton that fucked an indian once. Those old timers knew how to clear a forest, he would give them that. No small thing with a hatchet and maybe a double-bitted axe. A forest like this one, marching up and down the gullies with the mud like slick black shit in the wintertime, the chiggers and the poison oak. There was reasons he was a townsman.




The cabin, too, was still snug after all these wet winters. The air was sweet and did not smell of mildew like some he had seen. "Lookee here, DeVilliers, gut on the widows. Ain't that something?" DeVilliers looked at the yellow squares. "He didn't need to see himself all the time like we do," the young man said. Stanhope grunted. "You could stand to see yourself oncet in a while," he said drily. "Today, fr' instance. You look a fright." DeVilliers smiled. "It was that damn' tub gin you gave me," he said. They hoisted an old chiffonier. "I keep tellin' ya, DeVilliers," Stanhope grunted, "It ain't the liquor. You just haven't cased your stomach yet. You get a good casing you can eat and drink anything. Look at me." They shuffled over the threshold. "I try not to," DeVilliers said into the side panel. "Talk about frights."




They tipped it into the wagon, not too gently. "You just jealous 'cause I'm such a handsome devil," Stanhope said. DeVilliers shrugged. "If you say so, Stanhope." Stanhope squinted at him. "You ain't no catch. Lookee here." the older man took DeVillier's arm. "Lookit my nose. That is a Roman nose. That is the nose all them East Coast sculptors chase after for their commissions." DeVilliers peered at it. "That is a broken nose, Stanhope. Didn' that doxy bust it with a chair at the grocery?" Stanhope made a noise in his throat and swept his hand down in a gesture of final, irretrievable disgust. "You just a fillistine, that's what you are. You just--" DeVilliers pointed at the ground. "Look there, Stanhope," he said. "It must have fallen from the chiffonier."




Stanhope picked it up. "Oh yeah, you're right. That's who he was, Watson." DeVilliers stood near. "Watson you said?" Stanhope handed him the picture. "Yeah, Watson. The old timer Lodge told me about. I just remembered that was his name." DeVilliers gazed at the picture. The man was standing in front of his cabin with a small, dark woman with a round, gentle face but fierce eyes. "That musta been his wife," Stanhope said. "Indian woman." DeVilliers sat on a stump, his forearms on his knees and both hands on the photo. For a moment Stanhope thought he might weep. "Say, DeVilliers, what's wrong?" DeVilliers would only look at the photo. Then he spoke, after a long silence.




"I knew him," he said. "The old man fought under Little Phil at Chickamauga. He liked to ride into town and see the wharf, the barques with their deliveries for the grocery. I always thought it so strange he liked the noise and carts and shit in the gutters, an old-timer like him. The first time I saw him I was afraid of him. But he made friends with me-- I was just a boy-- used to buy me penny candy and once he showed me how to tie a fly. Damn, but I haven't thought of him in years. He was a fine old man." Then DeVilliers let the picture fall. He strode to the porch and slapped his hand against a log post. "You mean this is all that left of him? And the navvies are tearing it down?" Stanhope picked up the photo. "Well look here, DeVilliers--"




DeVilliers turned to him. His face was twisted. "Well fuck, Stanhope, he'll be gone, he'll be all gone!" Stanhope could only stare at him. DeVilliers never used such language around him. DeVilliers rushed to the edge of the clearing and kicked a tree. Good God, he got some bad gin, Stanhope thought, he's got the brain fever and any minute he'll keel over dead. "And the- some East Coast prig'll be eating oysters on his old place!" DeVilliers kicked the tree again. Now he was shouting. Stanhope was glad they were alone. "Some- East Coast fuckass!" Then Stanhope was mortified to see the boy start crying. He crossed the yard. "Come on now, son," he said. "It's gonna happen to us all sometime. Look, I'll keep his photo safe." The man put his hand on the other's shoulder. "He'll not be forgotten." Stanhope looked at him sideways. "You all right, DeVilliers? You don't have the clap or some plague, do ya?" DeVilliers sighed and looked into the forest marching up the hills and over the hogbacks and on and on. "I love this place," he said. To Stanhope it was what a lunatic would say. He watched DeVilliers closely the rest of the day.




They cleared the place in record time.




That night Stanhope had a dream: He was in a canoe, laying down, and DeVilliers was weeping and packing old clothes, twists of tobacco and pictures of all the doxies he'd fucked in around him. He was twisting from side to side against the truck and cursing, asking DeVilliers just what the hell he thought he was doing, but DeVilliers would only weep and keep packing. Pretty soon there was so much truck he couldn't move. Then DeVilliers pushed him out into the river and he watched the forest and the barques and the stores glide by. On a point stood old Watson and his wife. The wife just stared at him but Watson gave him a salute. Then he saw a train and there were fireworks over the river. Then he passed under a bridge, a massive thing with feet of stone and arms of steel, bigger than any thing-- any building, any ship, any thing-- that he'd seen in his life. Over the bridge drove buggies without horses, buggies pulled by phantoms, and the drivers sat inside of them where the passenger would sit with their hands on a thing like a boat's wheel but it had no spokes. Then he saw ships made of iron, so big they were like floating forts, and the men like ants, and then the ocean and the sun like a drop of amber. "This all there is?" he said. There was no answer.




The next day was Saturday. He met Burrage at the grocery and they got started early. "They found the squaw I heard tell," Burrage told him, when talk turned to Watson's old place. "They was a headstone and everything," he said contemptuously. "You feature that?" Stanhope gave him a hard look. "You just watch your mouth, Burrage," he said.




Burrage snorted but said no more about it.