The Dry Spell by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 14
February 6, 2010; Wild, piercing, frigid winds seeming to come from all directions, carrying dust, dead plants and old garbage. The gray winter sky is not threatening, but rather seems calmly triumphant and doesn’t have to show off. Tree skeletons swaying as best they can, but huge broken branches are already covering the ground at the trunks. The drought is well into its second year.
Daisy and I do the usual, though it’s an unusual day as we make the trip without any petty annoyances. They must have decided to stay home a while longer. When we get to the eleva-tion of the levee path I take my customary glance at the river.
I can make out its flowing texture, but the Bosque and the Rio Grande don’t have any color, unless you consider shades of gray an adequate substitute. Nora’s is the only car in the parking area. She has a pattern of being out on the most miserable days, perhaps finding that the best chance of not being bothered. I see her about half a mile away on the levee path by the drain field. She sees me and walks in the other direction.
Stupidly, I don’t pay any attention to the obvious omen, body language and hint, as I’m over-anxious to see her. I lead Daisy in her direction, despite balking and protestations. Nora has her back to me and the binoculars to her eyes in the frigid
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wind. When I get next to her, she looks very annoyed that I’m there. She doesn’t look well; pale, puffy face and skinny. I thought that we had such a good time a week prior that I'm shocked and worried. I say; “Are you okay?”
She tersely says; “I’m fine.”
I should have found some reason, like Daisy’s preference, to keep moving and do so myself, but I just had to say some spacey thing about the speed of time and its reverse gear. She said; “You know I don’t feel the same way about you.”
The words make me feel as if my insides dropped out, but I don’t advertise it and say; “It’s gone too far. Throw any kind of water on me you’d like. I’ll just convert it to something else before it hits me.”
She gives me one of her “Ooh, you” looks and then we proceed to chat about various nonsense like the liner notes on a 1960’s CD collection, favorite songs and singers and our horrible childhoods, though she is much more evasive on the latter subject, today. When we get back to her car I say;
“Nora, you’re wilder than I am.”
As she gets in the driver’s seat and is closing the door she almost pleadingly says; “I just want to come here to watch the birds and be left alone.”
She backs out of the parking space and drives uncharacteristically fast down bumpy Romero Road. I think she
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was crying. I watch her car kicking up dust until it’s out of sight, not knowing that this would be the last time I’d see her.
“China Bird” seems the appropriate song of the day.
July 15, 2006; Summer heat has set in, a typical year.
White clouds dot the beautiful blue sky, developing gray edges as they get overhead. Rocks mirror the day orb’s work, magni-fying it. To be where the breeze blows free is salvation.
I’m going to have some fun today. My little ten year old friend Richard is visible to me, walking toward me on the levee path with his two dogs. He’s the most miserable kid I’ve known since I was his age and I won’t feel obliged to smile and nod approvingly at how wonderful Corrales and the weather are.
When we’re ten feet away, I see that he still has his blonde hair in a crew cut and I say; “Richard, I’ve told you a million times that your hairstyle is only worn by old ladies out here.”
He gives me his customary discerning look and says; “And yours hasn’t been worn by anybody since about 1975.”
“Don’t tell me. Your parents are fighting again.”
“You guessed it, Ace.”
“Why do you care? At least their preoccupation prevents them from watching you like a hawk or a Gawk.”
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Richard turns serious and says; “I wish they would pay more attention to me.” Realizing how direct a sad statement he has made, he changes tone and adds; “And the arguments can give you a headache. They both think they know everything, or have access to it on the internet.”
“Try not listening.”
“I’m cursed with a compulsion to and then I feel like playing referee. I don’t think they play by the same rules or speak the same language.”
“They’re a male and female couple?”
“Of course, what kind of stupid question is that?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve found that nowadays you have to ask.
Well, there’s your simple answer, genius. You said it yourself.”
“What?”
“Males and females don’t speak the same language.”
Richard sighed, knowing the degree of truth and falsehood in that statement.
“I said; “Are you still playing tennis?”
“Yeah, I’m getting good at it. I’ve been invited to play....”
I cut him off; “Sure, sure. Point is that you like to compete, right?”
“Everyone does.”
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“Right. Can you imagine a tennis match with no winner or loser?”
“No, nobody would want to play or watch it. They’d be bored to death.”
“Right. That’s exactly what your mother and father are doing. Each is trying to win a game to keep things exciting, except this game has no rules. Can you imagine a tennis game where each person is playing by different or no rules?”
Richard’s youthful exuberance causes him to perk up and says; “So, the trick is to establish rules when each person speaks a different language.”
"Yes. Don’t you notice that with your girlfriends?"
“I won’t care about girls until I reach puberty.”
I laughed, but he didn’t. I said; “Imagine having an argument with your wife. The issue of the day leads each to bring up things from the past and that always goes nowhere. So, you both establish a rule of ‘No past stuff.’ The problem is continued by the fact that you now have to define ‘past.’ Was two sentences ago the past? Was yesterday? Was last week? On and on.”
“It’s possible.”
“That’s only one word. There are millions of others.”
Richard shrugged, thinking that there are indeed more, but probably not millions, but he took the discussion in another
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direction with; “Well, how about men? Don’t they have the same problem with each other? Why do you specify male-female relationships?”
“A lot of men do have the same problem with each other, but up until recently they weren’t raising kids together. Some guys get involved in sports. You play tennis, I used to play baseball.”
“That wasn’t invented until 1870 or so.”
“I could say a few things to that, but my point is that many men play games where everyone is playing by the same rules administered by umpires or referees. They get this “competition thing” out of their system and leave it on the court, where it belongs.”
Richard thought about that a bit, relating his own sports experience and softly said; “Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”
I said; “No,” to which he made his first laugh of the day.
I gave him a little slap in the side of the head and ran away, Richard in mock yelling pursuit.
When he caught up with me, I said; “I’ve got a problem you’ve got to figure out for me. Daisy will not fight back under any circumstances and got attacked and bitten eleven times when I first started walking her around in friendly Corrales.
So, I felt I had to protect her by carrying a crowbar and acting
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like a bigger nut than I am. The attacks did stop, but after a few years of that I wanted to try acting as the wonderful person I truly am. Things were fine about a year and then the friendly people started letting their dogs loose around her again. She got bitten two days ago and we got chased yesterday. So, the conclusion I came to is that my desire to be perceived as a
“nice guy” results in jeopardy for my flower child, Daisy. That doesn’t seem fair to her. What should I do?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I said; “Consider this. Move out of Corrales to a place not populated by slobs prone to predictable ‘accidents’?”
He said; “Where’s that?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
When I get home I play and re-play and re-play my all-time favorite song; “My Blakean Year” by, you guessed it, Patti Smith.
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