Now Is the Hour (5 page)

But every day I came back, there he was. Tramp. His orange face on his black face, just smiling and happy to see me.

But I still wasn't sure. My last dog, Nikki, a terrier mix, I can't tell you how much I loved that dog. Two full months I had that dog.

Then one day, out of the blue, Nikki just started shaking and foaming at the mouth. I picked him up. His body was stiff like I'd picked up a piece of wood. I put him in the back of the pickup and drove like hell to Doc Hayden's.

Nikki was dead by the time I got there.

Doc Hayden said strychnine.

Believe me, in my world, there's plenty of men mean enough to poison a little dog.

But there was only one man who did it.

Early Sunday morning, all I wanted to do was get out of there fast, and there was Tramp in the back of the pickup. His tongue hanging out, smiling, ready to go for a ride.

I opened the tailgate, hooked the chains at both sides, sat down, dangled my legs over. Moonlight all over on the dark night. The moon on Tramp's black hair, a shine.

I took a breath, leaned over. Put my arm around my dog. My face in his face, on his face. I looked Tramp right in the eyes.

I told him: Tramp, I'm going somewhere where you can't go.

His big old pink tongue poked out his mouth. Tramp started panting, his lips the way so you could see his teeth.

In his eyes, you could see he knew something was up.

Then there went his paw, his tail.

That and the piano that morning about broke my fucking heart.

I hugged him big, put my face down in his hair, and smelled it. I scratched his ears, tickled his chin the way he liked. Nobody loves you the way your dog loves you.

I stood up, called Tramp down out of the pickup. He jumped down, walked obedient alongside of me to the pickup door. When I opened the pickup door, he thought he was going to get up front in the cab with me. His face went from obedient to happy just like that. I put my body in front of the door.

Sit! I said. Tramp, sit down!

And he sat. Tramp was a good dog.

Now stay! I said.

Tramp kept sitting, smiling, his tongue hanging out. I slid my butt up onto the seat. Tramp's tail back and forth, bam bam bam.

Tramp kept sitting while I started the pickup. He kept sitting while I put in the clutch, put it into first. He kept sitting while I drove slow on past him.

Any second, Tramp couldn't stand it any longer, so I rolled down the window. Said in my deep mean voice: Tramp! Sit down! Stay!

Tramp was a good dog.

I drove past the workshop, past the wood granary, past the light pole. Tramp kept sitting as I idled along the driveway past the pole fence, the wagon wheel, the Austrian Copper rose, to Tyhee Road.

Tramp in the rearview mirror, sitting, the moon a shine on his long black hair, his tail back and forth, bam bam bam.

When I got onto the tarmac of Tyhee Road, I floored the gas pedal.

A quarter mile up the road, in the rearview mirror, the moon on Tramp's long black hair, Tramp beating it around the corner like a bat out of hell.

That's when the pickup started to shake.

It was five miles down Philbin Road at the stand of cottonwoods when I couldn't see Tramp anywhere in the moonlight in the rearview mirror anymore.

Then I drove to Billie Cody's, and I've told you everything that happened at her house.

Out on the open highway, I was doing fine, just fine. The sunrise was orange and yellow and so bright I needed sunglasses. The pickup was running good, I was safe, fine out of there, no problem. My arm was out the window, the wing window open so the morning air was coming right at my face.

Then I turned on the radio again to see if I could find something. I found something all right.

Clear as a bell.

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

So many sad songs.

I cried all the way to Twin Falls.

Parked the pickup on Norby Street. On the corner of Norby and South Sward.

Started walking southwest. Only time I stopped was to pick this daisy.

So that's how I got here. Out here where there's nothing. Nothing but desert. Out here where everything's alive. Nothing but me and this night and this moon and stars so clear it's a Christmas card for “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Sagebrush. The smell of sagebrush and hot pavement and my own armpits. A ribbon of pavement shiny to
over the horizon, and just now, out of my backpack, I pulled out my porkpie hat, brushed it off, and put it on. Put the moon behind me, lifted my chin up, and now the shadow of my head looks like my head is an alien being's big round head.

Alien.

You can always tell how you're feeling by how your shadow looks.

BACK WHEN I
was a kid, back in the early days, there was this one afternoon. I was looking out the front-room window. Blue sky was everywhere up above, the bright sun shining down, not a cloud. The wash on the wash line was flapping in the breeze. It wasn't the wash I was looking at, though. It was the shadows of the wash on the grass. There was one shadow in particular that turned into a magic black dog all afternoon doing circus tricks.

That shadow was everything to me. An ordinary white T-shirt hanging from a pair of clothespins turning into a magic black dog on the yellow-green grass was nothing short of a miracle. When you're living in a skinny white house in the middle of an alfalfa field in the middle of Idaho and all your family knows how to do is work, you learn to look for miracles. Anything that breaks the routine, anything that comes along and makes you see what's in front of your eyes a little differnt, is magic.

Myself, I've been looking for magic my whole life. Still looking. That's exactly why I'm out here on Highway 93. I had to leave Pocatello because everything I knew — my home, my family, my friends — just up and ran out of magic the way you run out of gas. All that's left to do now is stick my thumb out and start walking.

I'm not saying it's easy. Hell, I've been crying for two weeks now, still crying, wish to Christ I'd stop. Crying for Mom mostly. Sis and
Dad will be all right. I sure as hell won't miss Scardino, may he rest in peace. I'm crying for Billie Cody too. Who the hell's going to make me laugh? But most of all, it's Georgy Girl. Georgy Girl's the dark hole in my heart.

It's hard to leave your whole life. Whatever your life was. And any life, even my life, had its moments.

Especially in the beginning, before my brother, Russell, was born and before he died, before Dad bulldozed down our skinny white house, the early days, when the Portneuf River still flowed through our farm. When my mother's eyes were the only show in town, almond-shaped and hazel. What was happening in those eyes was usually what was happening in the world. And in the early days, what the world was, was me.

Mom's hazel eyes were gold when she was happy. When her eyes were gold I could find myself inside them. In those early days, I did a lot to keep her eyes gold. One time I remember I told Sis I was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho. That's not the truth, of course. I was born in a hospital like everybody else. Saint Anthony's Hospital, but I said that to Sis because Mom was listening, and I thought it would make Mom laugh, which it did.

You got to understand, sometimes on the farm, finding magic was so hard you had to make the magic up yourself. A
vivid imagination,
Mom called it. Dad called it lying. He was always on my ass for showing off. Making a spectacle of myself. Me, I never saw it as lying. I was just making the world a more livable place. For her. And then of course, because of her, for me.

Plus I
was
born there, in Pocatello. The Princess Theater wasn't there anymore by the time I came on the scene. By the time I came around to it, it was the Chief Theater, and
JUDY GARLAND
was in smaller blue capital letters under
THE WIZARD OF OZ
, which was in big red capital letters on the marquee. I was wearing my brown suit just like my dad's suit with a matching hat like Dad's too, like men used to wear in the thirties and forties. The day was cold and bright, and Sis held my hand and helped me sound out the big red capital letters. That's how I learned the letter
Z.
Neon red and yellow arrows were going around and around the marquee, and people were everywhere. Mom bought Sis a Cup o Gold candy bar and me Milk Duds. Inside the theater it was dark. I sat next to Mom, and Sis was
on the other side of Mom, and I was so little that in the seat my Buster Brown shoes stuck out right in front of me.

When the curtains opened, it was a black-and-white Dorothy and Toto and Auntie Em on the screen. A ways into the movie, in a moment, my mother put her hand inside my hand. She leaned over to me. Her perfume. The sound of her dress against her nylons.

Now watch closely, Mom whispered. This next part is magic.

When I looked back up at the screen, the black and white had turned to color.

Magic. That's just what it was. Magic.

Movies and music and church. Before Russell, mostly that's what I remember. Not so much the things themselves, but shadows, the way they were inside me, the magic of them.

Since we lived twelve miles from town, it took a lot of gas to get there and back, so we used the gas for church. Every Sunday, church — nine o'clock Mass, come rain or sleet or snow, hell or high water. The fourth commandment. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Seven o'clock Sunday Mass during harvest.

When we did go to movies, which was hardly ever, usually it was just Mom and me and Sis after Tuesday evening Mother of Perpetual Help devotions. Tuesday evening devotions we could kill two birds with one stone, church
and
the movies, plus save on gas. But only if it was a decent movie that the
Idaho Catholic Register
said wasn't condemned and was suitable for kids to go to too, which it hardly ever was.

Before Russell, besides
The Wizard of Oz,
the only movies I can remember are
Bambi, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Dumbo, Pinocchio,
and
Peter Pan.

Seven years and seven movies.

Still, though, those movies were enough.

The magic feeling all through me when we walked under the bright flashing neon marquee into the foyer of the Chief Theater with its thick, curvy adobe walls. The strange Indian blanket carpet, red and orange and brown and yellow under your feet. The rows of candy bars in the fluorescent-light glass case, the smell of popcorn, the sound of ice cubes, fizzing Coke. Then through the double doors into the theater and the sloping corridor. The big red velvet curtain with
gold fringe hanging in folds with the spotlights on it. Everything around you always so dark at first. Then only when you were in your chair, your butt square on the mohair cushion, did your eyes start to see the paintings of the Indians shooting buffalo with bows and arrows on the walls, and the little alcove on each side, with the red and green lights, that looked like a Romeo and Juliet balcony with a wrought-iron fence.

Magic all around you everywhere waiting for the movie to start. Magic when the lights went dark. The dimmer the lights, the more the something inside so covered up and careful in you came up and out. Sitting next to Mom, my chest got big and full of air, like I was smart and rich and welcome in the world.

The newsreel, all the people in the faraway world doing cool stuff. Then Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse. Then the movie.

There's No Place Like Home. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall. Bambi lost in the forest fire without his mother. Pinocchio a real boy. Cinderella's asshole stepsisters. Tinkerbell dust.

To this day, if I had one wish, I'd be flying.

Looks like my thumb out on Highway 93, waving down the next truck, is the closest I'm going to get.

Music's another way magic came into our life. My mother was born to make music. She could play the piano by ear. Mom was the sixth child and the fourth daughter of Joseph and Mary Schmidt. Joseph Schmidt, her father, died in 1933, the middle of the Great Depression. Mom was thirteen.

All Mom's older sisters got to take piano lessons because it wasn't the Depression yet, but when it came to be Mom's turn for piano lessons, there wasn't any money and her father was already sick.

Mom tells the story this way. She couldn't sleep because she kept having piano dreams. In her dreams, her sister Alma was playing the piano and Mom was watching her. Then, like in dreams the way things usually go, all of a sudden it wasn't Alma but Mom who was playing the piano.

Mom got up slow and quiet and slipped out of bed. She was just a girl, maybe nine or ten. It was in the middle of the night, but she had something important to figure out. She walked slow, step by step
down the stairs, through the dining room and into the parlor, where nobody could sit except when there was company. Mom pulled the piano stool out, opened up the piano, and just like in her dream Mom started playing “A Bicycle Built for Two.”

It wasn't until Grandma and Grandpa and all Mom's brothers and sisters were standing around her at the piano — all of them in their nightgowns and nightshirts, Grandpa holding a candle up because they didn't have 'lectricity — that Mom woke up and realized she was really playing the piano and it wasn't a dream.

Mein Gott im Himmel,
my grandfather said.
Kleine Mary spielt das Klavier.

And that's the way it was after that. All you'd have to do is sing a few lines for Mom, and just like magic there she'd be playing the song for you.

Back in the early days, it was long afternoons playing on the brown flowered carpet with my Lincoln Logs or my Tinkertoys or Bill Ding, and Mom playing her old piano, burnt black up one side and smelling of burnt hardwood, the Steinway, on the round piano stool you could sit on and spin. Wintertime, the oil stove in the front room too hot to touch with the porcelain pan of water on top. Down the hallway, in the kitchen, fire in the cookstove, and the kindling, pine sap, cut wood, and chunks of coal stacked by the stove. Always a fire in the cookstove so the pipes didn't freeze in the kitchen sink. The door open to the bathroom, always open unless you were in there, so as to keep those pipes from freezing too. When Mom was playing the piano, you didn't want to go to the bathroom. Farther down the hallway, other rooms, Mom and Dad's bedroom and the bedroom I shared with Sis, during the day the doors closed. Way too cold to go in there except to sleep. Even in the winter, though, with frost on the windows, Mom's playing could warm up the whole house.