Eddie McCoy was an hour’s drive out of Battle Mountain, Nevada, heading north on U.S.
95 for the Oregon border, when he slowed his Ford pickup and eased it onto the
shoulder. He cut the engine, and the cylinders misfired and rattled on for a few seconds
more before a final, smoky cough belched from the exhaust pipe. Eddie opened the door
and stepped down into the sand, leaving his keys in the ignition. He limped around the
truck bed and on out into the desert, his head down, his hands clasped behind his back,
the look about him of a man who had reached the end of something.
A hundred yards from the truck Eddie came upon a shoulder-high boulder. He pulled
himself up and sat, his legs dangling over the edge. A crimson fan of light was unfolding
before the Rockies as the sun came up, blood red and as squat as a knifed-out heart
somebody had put his boot to.
Eddie reached into a shirt pocket for his Winstons and shook one out. He was edging a
thumbnail under the matchbook cover when he noticed her. Eddie took out his cigarette.
Pointed at him from the midnight-blue cover was a bent over, thonged bottom. Looking
around from in front of the bottom smiled a woman with shoulder-length hair the color of
dirty snow, Debbie’s Ranch etched above her head in an arc of pink script.
He shook his head. “Now, who in Hell ever heard of a cathouse advertising themselves
with matchbooks? Like they was a bar or a restaurant. Some filling station a dad might
consider stopping by for a Pepsi with his kids.”
Eddie rubbed a callused thumb over the woman’s bottom, shapely as any in a cowboy
dream. “Well, I guess there’s a somebody out there who’s thought of everything you ain’t
and are unlikely to ever will.”
He had gotten off I-80 a mile south of Battle Mountain the evening before, so dazed from
the day’s driving he almost missed the exit. Twenty-four hours earlier, the clerk behind
the desk in a Motel Six on the other side of Cheyenne had asked him when he checked in
if he cared to reserve the room for a second night. The Weather Service was calling for a
freak summer snowstorm to hit before the next nightfall.
“Room’s will be gone before you know it.” The clerk nodded at Eddie’s feet. “Hellfire, son.
We’ll have folks sleeping where you’re standing.”
Eddie showered, and after he came out he sat on the bed wrapped in the towel and
considered waiting out the storm in his room, catch up on some sleep. One turn through
the channels on the chained-to-the-wall television settled his decision for him otherwise.
Re-runs of sitcoms with no plots he thought dumb and had refused to watch the first
time they’d been on. Mindless game shows with mindless contestants. People jawing
about their problems who wouldn’t know a real one if it came up and kicked them in their
rumps grown wide from sitting around jawing about their problems. He was up and on the
road before dawn.
His truck had no air conditioning, and by evening Eddie was dehydrated from driving first
through the mountains and then the high desert. He hadn’t eaten anything since the jelly
doughnut he’d scarfed down in the motel lobby when he was checking out, and now he
could hear his stomach growling even with the wind blasting through both rolled-down
windows. The gas gauge needle was riding on “E” and had been for fifteen minutes. There
were no cars before him and none behind, and with his bum leg, unless somebody
stopped, he’d be crow bait before he limped into the next town.
Five days before, Eddie had blinked his eyes open at 4:44. The same time as he did every
morning. No alarm clock needed. He reached for Lisa, but because he was sleeping on the
couch, his hand found only air.
Eddie unwound the sheet he had wrapped himself into during the night and swung his
legs to the carpet and went into the quarter-bath off the kitchen. When he came out, he
switched on the overhead stove light and from a cupboard took out a can of Fancy Feast.
He stooped and divided it between Satchmoe and Sophie. The kitties were sitting by their
respective bowls, in no hurry to get at their food and instead watching him, their ears
perked, judging by his voice, his stroke of their coats, whether they would spend the day
napping on their sun nook or hiding out in closet corners. On his way to the sink, Eddie
emptied their water bowls in the one potted fern out of a dozen he’d not managed to kill.
He filled the bowls and returned them and walked back to the bedroom.
He opened the closet door and with his toe poked at the pile of clothes heaped on the
floor. He bent over and picked out a blue-denim shirt, and before he reached his arms into
its sleeves he held it to his nose. As Eddie buttoned up the front, he sucked in the Rolling-
Rock belly he’d been working on. He pulled on his gray canvas trousers, abraded and
threadbare at the knees, and reached for his steel-toed boots. Before lacing up the left,
he reached in a finger and traced the scar slicing his Achilles tendon.
“You ain’t dreamed of doin’ nothing since the day you bought this.” He took out his finger
and knotted the laces. “Maybe it’s time you started.”
Eddie returned to the kitchen and scooped uncooked oatmeal into a bowl and poured over
it last week’s milk. He walked out to the picture window in the living room and, as he ate,
watched a full moon set over the duck pond across the street.
At the midmorning break, Eddie shut down his arc weld and walked into the supervisor’s
office, his work cap in hand behind his back and asked for a couple of weeks off.
“Surprised you hadn’t asked for any before now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You came in the day after the funeral.”
Eddie shifted his cap to his other hand. He looked at the office door window, its smoky,
pebbled glass opaque. “I like to stay busy. Keeps me from wandering where I shouldn’t.”
After his shift let out, Eddie gassed up the truck and from a rack of roadmaps took one
for the eastern half of the country. He’d have gotten one for the western states too, but
the attendant said there wasn’t sufficient demand for the station to justify stocking them.
When he got home, Eddie walked next door to Jude and Christina Hardy’s. In their
mailbox he laid a note with feeding instructions for the kitties and dropped his key on top
of the note and crossed back across their lawns. Eddie put a TV dinner in the oven and
went into the bedroom and packed a duffel bag and his toilet kit. At his dresser, Eddie
studied her photograph, twisting his wedding band back and forth on his finger as if it
were a lock whose combination he couldn’t quite get. He took it off and laid it before the
frame, a thumb resting for a moment on the gold rim. Ten minutes later Eddie had eaten
his half cooked supper and was in the truck, his Thermos of black coffee on the seat
beside him, headed up Route 7 toward the Turnpike.
* * *
At the Battle Mountain exit, Eddie turned right and followed the sign pointing to town and
stopped at the first filling station he came to. He pulled up to one of eight rows of pumps
and turned off the ignition and sat back in his seat. He looked at the gas gauge and
tapped it with a knuckle. The needle didn’t so much as flicker.
He got out of his truck and walked around to a pump and studied the prices before he
crossed the cement concourse and pushed open the door to the station. Behind the
counter were two teenage boys, one slouched against the cash register, the other, his
arms raised like a prize fighter, jabbing into the air with quick left stabs as he recounted a
street fight he had witnessed the night before. The two wore identical sky-blue shirts with
“Earl” stitched above the breast pocket of one and “Sam” above that of the other. Out of
each ink-stained pocket protruded an air gauge and half a dozen pens. All twenty of their
fingernails were broken and jagged and greasefilled.
They wore khaki-colored baseball caps, which bore above the bill a red and yellow
Sanderson’s Shell decal. Out from under the caps spilled their oily, collar-length hair. Earl
was cultivating a wispy mustache, and both were badly pimpled from a filling station fare
of Cokes and Snickers and Lays, their faces red-budded like cactus flowers ready to pop.
Sam, the boy behind the cash register, straightened when Eddie came in. “Yes, sir?”
continue reading here
95 for the Oregon border, when he slowed his Ford pickup and eased it onto the
shoulder. He cut the engine, and the cylinders misfired and rattled on for a few seconds
more before a final, smoky cough belched from the exhaust pipe. Eddie opened the door
and stepped down into the sand, leaving his keys in the ignition. He limped around the
truck bed and on out into the desert, his head down, his hands clasped behind his back,
the look about him of a man who had reached the end of something.
A hundred yards from the truck Eddie came upon a shoulder-high boulder. He pulled
himself up and sat, his legs dangling over the edge. A crimson fan of light was unfolding
before the Rockies as the sun came up, blood red and as squat as a knifed-out heart
somebody had put his boot to.
Eddie reached into a shirt pocket for his Winstons and shook one out. He was edging a
thumbnail under the matchbook cover when he noticed her. Eddie took out his cigarette.
Pointed at him from the midnight-blue cover was a bent over, thonged bottom. Looking
around from in front of the bottom smiled a woman with shoulder-length hair the color of
dirty snow, Debbie’s Ranch etched above her head in an arc of pink script.
He shook his head. “Now, who in Hell ever heard of a cathouse advertising themselves
with matchbooks? Like they was a bar or a restaurant. Some filling station a dad might
consider stopping by for a Pepsi with his kids.”
Eddie rubbed a callused thumb over the woman’s bottom, shapely as any in a cowboy
dream. “Well, I guess there’s a somebody out there who’s thought of everything you ain’t
and are unlikely to ever will.”
He had gotten off I-80 a mile south of Battle Mountain the evening before, so dazed from
the day’s driving he almost missed the exit. Twenty-four hours earlier, the clerk behind
the desk in a Motel Six on the other side of Cheyenne had asked him when he checked in
if he cared to reserve the room for a second night. The Weather Service was calling for a
freak summer snowstorm to hit before the next nightfall.
“Room’s will be gone before you know it.” The clerk nodded at Eddie’s feet. “Hellfire, son.
We’ll have folks sleeping where you’re standing.”
Eddie showered, and after he came out he sat on the bed wrapped in the towel and
considered waiting out the storm in his room, catch up on some sleep. One turn through
the channels on the chained-to-the-wall television settled his decision for him otherwise.
Re-runs of sitcoms with no plots he thought dumb and had refused to watch the first
time they’d been on. Mindless game shows with mindless contestants. People jawing
about their problems who wouldn’t know a real one if it came up and kicked them in their
rumps grown wide from sitting around jawing about their problems. He was up and on the
road before dawn.
His truck had no air conditioning, and by evening Eddie was dehydrated from driving first
through the mountains and then the high desert. He hadn’t eaten anything since the jelly
doughnut he’d scarfed down in the motel lobby when he was checking out, and now he
could hear his stomach growling even with the wind blasting through both rolled-down
windows. The gas gauge needle was riding on “E” and had been for fifteen minutes. There
were no cars before him and none behind, and with his bum leg, unless somebody
stopped, he’d be crow bait before he limped into the next town.
Five days before, Eddie had blinked his eyes open at 4:44. The same time as he did every
morning. No alarm clock needed. He reached for Lisa, but because he was sleeping on the
couch, his hand found only air.
Eddie unwound the sheet he had wrapped himself into during the night and swung his
legs to the carpet and went into the quarter-bath off the kitchen. When he came out, he
switched on the overhead stove light and from a cupboard took out a can of Fancy Feast.
He stooped and divided it between Satchmoe and Sophie. The kitties were sitting by their
respective bowls, in no hurry to get at their food and instead watching him, their ears
perked, judging by his voice, his stroke of their coats, whether they would spend the day
napping on their sun nook or hiding out in closet corners. On his way to the sink, Eddie
emptied their water bowls in the one potted fern out of a dozen he’d not managed to kill.
He filled the bowls and returned them and walked back to the bedroom.
He opened the closet door and with his toe poked at the pile of clothes heaped on the
floor. He bent over and picked out a blue-denim shirt, and before he reached his arms into
its sleeves he held it to his nose. As Eddie buttoned up the front, he sucked in the Rolling-
Rock belly he’d been working on. He pulled on his gray canvas trousers, abraded and
threadbare at the knees, and reached for his steel-toed boots. Before lacing up the left,
he reached in a finger and traced the scar slicing his Achilles tendon.
“You ain’t dreamed of doin’ nothing since the day you bought this.” He took out his finger
and knotted the laces. “Maybe it’s time you started.”
Eddie returned to the kitchen and scooped uncooked oatmeal into a bowl and poured over
it last week’s milk. He walked out to the picture window in the living room and, as he ate,
watched a full moon set over the duck pond across the street.
At the midmorning break, Eddie shut down his arc weld and walked into the supervisor’s
office, his work cap in hand behind his back and asked for a couple of weeks off.
“Surprised you hadn’t asked for any before now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You came in the day after the funeral.”
Eddie shifted his cap to his other hand. He looked at the office door window, its smoky,
pebbled glass opaque. “I like to stay busy. Keeps me from wandering where I shouldn’t.”
After his shift let out, Eddie gassed up the truck and from a rack of roadmaps took one
for the eastern half of the country. He’d have gotten one for the western states too, but
the attendant said there wasn’t sufficient demand for the station to justify stocking them.
When he got home, Eddie walked next door to Jude and Christina Hardy’s. In their
mailbox he laid a note with feeding instructions for the kitties and dropped his key on top
of the note and crossed back across their lawns. Eddie put a TV dinner in the oven and
went into the bedroom and packed a duffel bag and his toilet kit. At his dresser, Eddie
studied her photograph, twisting his wedding band back and forth on his finger as if it
were a lock whose combination he couldn’t quite get. He took it off and laid it before the
frame, a thumb resting for a moment on the gold rim. Ten minutes later Eddie had eaten
his half cooked supper and was in the truck, his Thermos of black coffee on the seat
beside him, headed up Route 7 toward the Turnpike.
* * *
At the Battle Mountain exit, Eddie turned right and followed the sign pointing to town and
stopped at the first filling station he came to. He pulled up to one of eight rows of pumps
and turned off the ignition and sat back in his seat. He looked at the gas gauge and
tapped it with a knuckle. The needle didn’t so much as flicker.
He got out of his truck and walked around to a pump and studied the prices before he
crossed the cement concourse and pushed open the door to the station. Behind the
counter were two teenage boys, one slouched against the cash register, the other, his
arms raised like a prize fighter, jabbing into the air with quick left stabs as he recounted a
street fight he had witnessed the night before. The two wore identical sky-blue shirts with
“Earl” stitched above the breast pocket of one and “Sam” above that of the other. Out of
each ink-stained pocket protruded an air gauge and half a dozen pens. All twenty of their
fingernails were broken and jagged and greasefilled.
They wore khaki-colored baseball caps, which bore above the bill a red and yellow
Sanderson’s Shell decal. Out from under the caps spilled their oily, collar-length hair. Earl
was cultivating a wispy mustache, and both were badly pimpled from a filling station fare
of Cokes and Snickers and Lays, their faces red-budded like cactus flowers ready to pop.
Sam, the boy behind the cash register, straightened when Eddie came in. “Yes, sir?”
continue reading here
| r.kv.r.y. quarterly fall 2008 winter 2009 fiction debbie's ranch part ii by scott kauffman (read part i here) |