The Albuquerque Turkey: A Novel (5 page)

“Ouch, shit!” That was me savaging my thumb with a hammer instead of hitting the little wooden dowels that connected the kickboard bracket of the Reåd shelving system to the left and right support struts. And that’s because I was thinking more about my father than about hammers and dowels—and lying to Allie with my silence, which was making me edgier than I let on.

I don’t know why I didn’t just come right out and tell her. Maybe I thought she wouldn’t believe me, would just tab the revelation as “intrigue for the sake of intrigue.” Or if she did believe me, what then? She’s supposed to welcome my biggest inspiration and worst influence with open arms, just when we’re clinging to so frail a valence of normalcy? She didn’t know my father. Okay, hell, I didn’t know my father, either, but it seemed unlikely that he’d pack a whole big mess of normal in his Gladstone. That’s not how he rolled.

Plus, let’s not forget, he was wearing a dress.

But the alternative, I realized as I sucked the sting out of my thumb, was to deny Allie critical information about the goings-on inside my head. Not quite in the class of an alcoholic sneaking a drink, but sneakiness of a sort, just the same. I figured if I was so unwilling to clue in my beloved to the sudden strange appearance of my own flesh and blood, this in itself was a sign that I’d better come clean.

So I did. I was really afraid she’d see it as a setup of some kind, another Hoverlander effort to scrub Operation Citizen, but all she said was, “We’ll have to invite him to dinner.”

“Not a good idea,” I said.

“What, you don’t think he’ll like me?”

“Did you not hear the part about the dress?”

“So he’s trans. I’m not gonna hold that against him.”

“He’s not trans.”

“How do you know?”

How indeed? After all, after all these years, my dad was not much more than a faded and strangely edited VHS tape in my mind, the sum of my recollections and his reputation. Still, there are some things you know in your gut. I didn’t know Woody, but I
knew
him. Or let’s say that if the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, then the apple can learn much about the tree just by considering itself. Had I come to town looking for me, so garish a lady costume would not be transvestite plumage.

It would be camouflage.

Because the thing is, when most people look at you, they don’t really see you at all. They judge a book by its cover absolutely. Grifters know this, which is why you so often see them in costumes of one sort or another. Business suits. Coveralls with nametags. Uniforms. Whatever helps them sell whatever they want you to buy. Most people looking at my dad in a dress would reach the cursory conclusion I’d first reached: This is one serious frump. Then they’d look away, which would be exactly his goal. How do you hide in plain sight? You thwart the urge to seek.

From this I surmised that Woody was being sought. Not so huge a leap. Even from my dim and distant childhood, I could remember instances of him working very hard to deflect the attention of one irate mark or another, which need will arise from time to time when a grift slides sideways. One whole summer he never ventured out of the house without carefully cloaking himself in the fatigues and demeanor of a disabled Vietnam veteran, right on down to the shrapnel limp and loud colloquies with the voices in his head. I thought it was cool: Daddy plays dress-up. But the strategy was sound, for whoever might be after him would take one look at the post-traumatic stress
victim, think,
Well, that sad casualty’s not him
, and turn their searching eyes elsewhere.

I didn’t need to explain this to Allie. She arrived at the same conclusion once she’d given it a moment’s thought. “So we’ve got Dad on the lam,” I said. “From whom and for what we currently have no clue, but he’s working the shade and fade pretty hard.”

“Why is he even on the street at all?” asked Allie. “Wouldn’t it be safer just to lie low?”

“Safer, sure, but a trap of a different sort.”

“True,” said Allie. “Holing up just puts you in a hole.” She settled down onto the living room couch and I paced nearby, each of us doing what a grifter does when presented with a puzzle like this, mentally teasing the pieces into place. Presently, Allie said, “Since he’s not lying low, he must really want to see you.”

“Not want. Stronger than want.”

“How so?”

“We’ve been estranged forever. Now he gets wind of me on the six o’clock news or wherever, and maybe this sparks some father-son nostalgia in his mind. He can’t know how I’ll react to seeing him. If he has the time, he tests the water first. E-mail, phone call, maybe a jackalope postcard.”

“What kind of postcard?”

“Nothing. Never mind. All I’m saying is, no test, ergo, no time.”

“Does he know how good you are?”

“Let’s say he does.”

“Then he needs help.”

“And rates me as the Red Cross.”

“So, how do you feel about that?”

“Allie, I don’t know. I know I’m supposed to be carrying all these abandonment resentments, and maybe I am. But knowing what I know about him and about me, I figure that to hate him is to hate me. As far as I can tell, we’re chips off the same block.”

Boy ambled in from the kitchen and taunted me with the tennis
ball in his mouth. This particular slobbery brand of tug-of-war, where Boy chomped his ball in a death grip and Allie or I tried to pry it free, had emerged as one of his favorite games. He usually won, too, since the only way to get the ball out was misdirection, and Boy’s elemental brain did not respond too quickly to trickery. He was like a certain stripe of mook: too dumb to fool. I grabbed the ball and yanked to no particular avail. We growled at each other. It was fun.

“Part of me is flattered,” I said. “My dad was always kind of legendary, you know? I mean, highly regarded in his circles. The two words you mostly heard were
creative
and
fearless
. I guess if he’s coming to me for help …”

“Then that’s acceptance.”

“Acceptance, yeah. But trouble, too.” Allie’s arched eyebrow encouraged me to continue. No doubt she’d already formed her own hypothesis about what kind of trouble a runaway Hoverlander could cause, but she wanted to hear it from me. “We’re supposed to be going straight, right? I have no idea what direction Woody is headed, but I’ll bet my bankroll that straight isn’t it.”

Allie mulled this for a moment, then asked, “What’s that stupid thing I’ve heard you say? ‘Make the latest possible decision based on the best available information’?”

“Oh, that’s stupid, is it?”

“A little, yeah. But why don’t we do that? Wait awhile. See what happens. After all, he may not even contact you. Maybe he just wanted you to know he’s out there.”

“Maybe he just wanted a bunk bed.”

I deked Boy with disinterest. He let down his guard, the ball came free in my hand, and I’d won another round of How Dumb Is a Dog? This, however, left me holding a soggy tennis ball, so who’s to say who won? I threw the ball and Boy bolted after it with a dog’s abandon, scuttling across the hardwood floor and banging sidelong into the far wall. Then Allie took up the game and I returned to my Reåd. By midnight, I’d wrestled the bookshelf into shape, and it stood upright in the middle
of the room. On a handiness scale of ten, I’d rate myself a six; there were pieces left over. But Allie cast approval on my effort. We were just discussing placement options when a knock at the door startled us both.

It was Vic, as nine and a half times out of ten it would be, and he waltzed in with no thought to the hour, for Mirplovian logic held that if
he
was awake, then everyone was.

“It’s not like I didn’t check the lights,” he said. “My only concern was you two randy rabbits might be screwing, and who wants to see that?” At this point he noticed the bookshelf. “I like it,” he said, appraising it critically. “Very nice. Very conceptual.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“The installation.”

“Vic, it’s a bookshelf.”

“Against the wall it’s a bookshelf. In the middle of the room it’s art. You should drape it. Drapes are big right now.” Then without segue he said, “Hey, check it out,” and rolled up his left shirtsleeve to reveal on his arm a paisley-shaped teardrop with a hole in the middle, like the eye on a curvy sperm.

“Vic,” marveled Allie, “you got ink!”

“Yeah, I did,” he said proudly.

I didn’t bother asking why, for clearly this was the next iteration of his artist presentment. See what I mean about costumes? Meanwhile, I thought I recognized the image, but … “Vic,” I asked, “where’s the rest of it?”

“What rest? That’s it. A yin. Half a yin-yang. Totally conceptual.”

“Hurt that bad, huh?”

“Like a motherfuck. I couldn’t even finish. I thought I was gonna pass out.” He cast an admiring glance at his own shoulder. “It is conceptual, though.”

“It is,” I said. “I’ll grant you that. Have you named her?”

“Her?”

“Yin’s the female side.”

“Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.”

“I suggest Half Wit.”

“Ha-ha,” drawled Vic, then danced across topics again. “By the way, who’s the dude?”

“What dude?” I asked.

“The one across the street. If he’s trying to not be seen, he’s doing a lame-ass job.” Vic snickered. “About as lame as his drag.”

I didn’t bother looking out a window to confirm this, for even a Mirplo at his most conceptual couldn’t conjure a cross-dressing lurker out of thin imagination. Then again, just how off my game was I that Vic caught on to the gaff quicker than I had? This business of going straight had its downside in terms of staying sharp. I turned to Allie. “New information, doll. Now what?”

Before Allie could reply, the doorbell rang. Allie shrugged. “Now?” she said. “Now we answer the door.”

I
t’s funny what comes back to you. Suddenly I’m seven years old, reading comic books on the living room floor when Woody comes in in the company of cronies. They’re celebrating something, doubtless a con gone right. Times like these, Woody’d come in high off the grift. And then he liked to quiz me.

Hey, Radar
, he says,
tell me this. What message could you put on someone’s answering machine that would get them to mail you fifty bucks?

Am I my age?

What do you mean?

No one believes kids. It’d be easier for a grown-up
.

Woody elbows his friends.
What’d I tell you? Smart kid
. He turns to me.
Okay
, he says,
let’s say you’re an adult
.

Can I have a list of grandmas? And a post office box? Anything you want, son. It’s your grift
.

Then I call the grandmas and tell them their grandson’s been popped for shoplifting. No charges have been filed yet, and fifty bucks to the drop box makes it all go away
.

They won’t all have grandsons
.

I shrug.
Some will
.

Again to the cronies,
See, boys? That’s what’s called casting a net
.

Honest to God, I hadn’t thought of that moment in twenty years. As it came back to me now, I found myself wondering,
What else have I learned from him that I don’t know I know?
Then Allie opened the door,
and here came Woody Hoverlander, pulling off his wig and kicking off his shoes before the door even shut behind him. “I’m sorry, Radar,” he said. “I couldn’t wait any longer. The ol’ bladder’s not what it once was.” He blew through the living room, found the bathroom by dead reckoning, and disappeared inside. We three exchanged looks.

“Vic,” I said, “check the street.”

“What for?”

“Probably nothing.” I figured if Woody was chary enough to go around in drag, he was also canny enough not to draw a tail. “But check anyhow.” Vic went outside to have a look around.

About the time Vic returned, Woody emerged from the bathroom. He’d shed the dress—had gym shorts and a T-shirt underneath—and washed the makeup off his face. “All quiet on the Westin front,” Vic reported. “Clean as a baby’s behind.” I looked at Woody. He seemed to understand that this was not humor on Vic’s part, but genuine allusional miscues.

I hadn’t seen my father in two decades but hadn’t forgotten what he looked like. He was rounder now, balder, too, and though the years had softened his features—turtle-beak mouth and ball-peen chin—they hadn’t yet added wrinkles. He was shorter than I, not fat, yet not the rail I remembered. I did the quick math. He was now over fifty, and while he wouldn’t get carded buying booze anymore, he seemed to be wearing it well.

And he had that energy. That smile and that energy. I won’t say he was impish. I’ve already called him roguish. Neither word does justice to the casual electricity he generated just by being there. He charmed without words, perhaps because he seemed so relaxed within himself, or maybe that’s just how a grifter rolls when he’s gotten that good at the game. You’re meant to like guys like him, right? Woody made it easy. Even I felt it, and I was supposedly the boy with the twenty-year tantrum to throw.

Still, it was an awkward tableau. Too many years and too many questions built a wall of silence between us. Woody chipped away at
it first. “Can we all sit down?” he asked. “And I wouldn’t say no to a beer.” Because drinking other people’s beer is religion to a Mirplo, Vic instantly bustled off to the fridge to fill the order for them both. We others sat. Woody regarded the bookshelf but offered no comment.

“This is Allie Quinn,” I said, by way of introduction.

Woody looked her over carefully and said, “Kitten Caboodle, too, yes?”

Allie laughed and grimaced at the same time. “Oh, God,” she said. “You know about that?” She looked embarrassed—cute, I mean, schoolgirl embarrassed. I hadn’t ever seen that expression on her, but it lit her up.

“Know about what?” asked Vic, returning to the room. “A dancing school I ran,” said Allie.

“Kitten Caboodle’s House of Odalisque,” said Woody. “In Palo Alto, California.”

I was perplexed. “Taxi dancing, Allie? That doesn’t seem like your line.”