The Dry Spell by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 5
May 21, 2006; Windy, cool late spring, fire in the gray sky, full with quickly moving rainless clouds. A measured response.
Daisy and I enter the still un-gated and un-protected Romero Road to see flames fifty feet above the tallest trees.
It looks like half the world is on fire. Not in imminent danger we continue our usual routine to eventually find police cars and fire trucks parked near the open gate at the end. I still can’t determine if the flames are on this side of the river or the other. A cop standing by his car tells me; “You can’t go in today.”
I ask; “Is the fire on this side?”
“Yes.” He points at the ditch path parallel to the Bosque and ads; “You can walk over there.”
“Is it under control?”
“I don’t know.”
We cross the small iron bridge and go where he indicated.
The path borders houses, open lots and a tree farm. The dreary day makes the flat land look even more mundane and abandoned than usual. Despite being blocked from a view of the Bosque trees, being on the wrong side of the levee, we can still see
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what seems like a sizeable flame, the only real illumination in evidence.
We walk slowly; as Daisy is hoping that I’ll change my mind, make a U-turn and go into the interesting part she loves.
We soon see smiling Nora with her two dogs, coming our way, walking the path on the opposite side of the ditch water. I have seen her ten or twenty times in the past, never making contact. It looks like today is my unavoidable lucky day. When Daisy sees the potential playmates she pulls me forward and to the edge of the water, wagging her tail and looking excitedly at the trio. A bit reticent to talk, I mumble “Hi.”
She brushes back her long gray hair and says, “Hi. Did you see the fire?”
“Sure, I couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.”
Trying to sound cool, blasé, or something only her mind could imagine she says dismissively; “Probably started by some kids.”
I would soon learn that this was only the first of her many opening lines I would find incomprehensible or silly, so I pause a few seconds, trying to think of a response, finally coming up with; “I don’t really care if it was kids or the geriatric set.
Fire scares the hell out of me. It’s my biggest fear and I think they ought to burn the one who set it ablaze.”
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She was probably taken aback, expecting the usual meaningless suburban chit-chat and paused a few seconds, then chose to say; “My mother was a burn nurse.”
“That’s the part that frightens me the most. If the fire killed me that would be bad enough, but I wouldn’t want to sit through months of painful bandage changing.”
“Yeah, she used to tell me about it sometimes. She did it during World War Two.” This was when she told me that her father was career military and when she was little they moved around all the time. She asked; “Why do you think people move so much?”
I thought for a while considering many answers and suspecting that the issue was one of her particular concerns, finally answering with; “The best one I can come up with is Bob Dylan; ‘Paupers exchange possessions, each one wishing for what the other has got’, but, for some reason, I don’t think this applies to you.” I don’t know why, but I’m beginning to like her. Despite her smiling appearance there seems to be something melancholy about her, maybe a member of my “club.” She sounds like she’s searching for something. I suppose we all are, but this seems somehow different.
Having obtained the quick uncalculated answer she probably sought from everyone, she changed the tone and asked; “Do you like Bob Dylan?”
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“He’s one of my favorites.”
“Isn’t he a little harsh?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure. He’s an observer who offers no solutions. I share his perceptions. He fortified many thoughts I had, that I didn’t want to say, thinking that I was the only one who had them. There was one time in my teenage years that I was very depressed, thinking ‘Why do all the bad things happen to me?’ When I heard him say; ‘You shouldn’t take it so personal. You just happened to be there, that’s all.’ I was finally relieved.”
Her expression told me that she was no Bob Dylan fan, but she said; “I saw a movie about his life a few years ago.”
“I didn’t even know they made one.”
“Yeah. It covered a long time period, so they had three different people playing the role. One was female. Do you have any idea why?”
I was surprised and eventually thought that most likely she looked like him, but said; “No”, thinking that her question had some deeper significance to her, but not knowing what. I was intrigued.
We heard a commotion at the gate and saw that the cops and firemen were leaving. I was later told that the fire was actually extinguished by the police, the first on the scene. A bit later I’d find that the fire that I thought gigantic was, in
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reality, only burning one ten foot dead cottonwood log lying on the ground, enhanced by an accelerant.
We started to walk back to the gate, apparently both of us desirous of entering the more interesting and wild location. I was pleasantly surprised at the conversation I initially expected to be pitiful. I also realized that Nora was doing the questioning and I was now curious to ask a few of my own, so I remembered what I thought was her nonchalance toward Dylan and asked; “Who did you like back then?”
“Laura Nyro.”
Now I was absolutely shocked. Laura Nyro was also one of my favorites and I didn’t think that she was very well known.
If I had previously thought about it, I would have guessed that no one else in New Mexico had ever heard of her. I excitedly said; “I love Laura Nyro and have all of her albums.”
Nora has a very expressive face. Her previous mellow, blasé, relaxed look unmistakably changed to one of concern. She said; “Well, I only know a couple of her songs.”
I picked one that was not the least bit commercial, that I liked a lot, curious to further pursue her stated interest and said; “How about ‘Poverty Train’?”
“Don’t know that one.”
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Strange, I thought, for Nora’s first choice of a favorite, so I decided to pick a big hit commercial song and said; “How about ‘Wedding Bell Blues’?”
“Don’t know that one, either.”
Impossible, I thought. Most likely, this girl didn’t expect that I would know of Laura Nyro and when she found out I did, considered it too self-revealing to relate to her distinctive, bluesy and romantic music. She must have not planned her answer, perhaps not expecting a guy to ask about her, as most are quite content to go on forever about themselves, like writers. In subsequent conversations, I would again bring up Laura Nyro, but Nora would always stick to what she had already said; finally one day, saying; “The only song I know by her is ‘Eli’s Coming.’”
I considered it absurd to have picked a favorite artist and then say “I only know one song.” I liked ‘Incense and Peppermints’ a lot, but would never name the one-hit Strawberry Alarm Clock as one of my favorite groups. So, I concluded that for some reason this girl wanted me to talk about myself, but didn’t feel comfortable reciprocating. I was further intrigued by this mysteriously direct and at the same time evasive woman and the tight pants covering very full hips on an otherwise thin girl.
I didn’t want to lie to her, maybe due to some moral consideration my Catholic background instilled, or maybe because
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I found lies too difficult and migraine evoking to keep track of. I couldn’t be certain what prompted her to do this, but thought that I’d ask a few more questions and see where they went. Maybe she was just used to a lifetime of stupid guys babbling on about themselves, when a girl showed the least bit of curiosity. But, why bother sitting through a lot of exaggerated boring stories? Didn’t she have a television set or access to movies?
I asked; “Do you live near here?”
“Not too close. And you?”
“Not too close. Do you come here a lot?”
Her expression again changed to something between imploring, exasperation and anger. She looked right in my eyes and said; “Every day for eleven years. Where have you been?”
I didn’t know what to say. It seemed that she was strongly implying, or perhaps almost directly saying, that I was remiss in not finding her sooner.
The conversation died and we parted at the gate, she picking up speed and directing her dogs away from the scene of the fire. Daisy, though a “rescue” dog, was thought to be a full blooded Dalmatian at that time and maybe it was that aspect which made her seek out the smoke and fire. She ignored all the possible paths and pulled me through the moderately wooded land near the levee, where the ground held countless dead tree limbs,
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until we had covered about half a mile. She found the site of the extinguished conflagration and we saw the one blackened ten foot cottonwood log. She tried to conduct a paws-on inspection, but I considered it prudent to keep her a few feet away. I looked up at the live cottonwoods still standing nearby and saw no damage to any braches, even though a few must have overhung the sky reaching flame. I wondered how they avoided being injured, seemingly in the path of destruction.
As I struggled with Daisy, using a few choice words, the only ones I have any chance of her responding to, we were near the levee path and I saw a girl running along it in our direction. “Oh, my god”, I thought, “She can’t be in New Mexico.” From a few hundred feet it looked like a girl I knew in New York ten years prior and I had mixed feelings about being reacquainted with her, mostly negative. But it looked like I had little choice in the matter, so I temporarily and stupidly joined the Gawk family and said to Daisy, “That looks just like Barbara.” As the short black haired jogger got closer, I was glad to see that it wasn’t her, breathed a sigh of relief and looked the other way. Unfortunately, for me, the jogger stopped and, too, temporarily was adopted by the Gawk family.
I turned back in her direction, now afraid that it was indeed Barbara, which I could have mistaken, not being cognizant of what the last decade had done to her. I saw an angry,
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contorted face that looked like it wanted to kill somebody and quickly realized that there weren’t any other targets around.
When she continued the New Mexico custom of staring and not speaking, I thought that I’d lend some mannered sociability to the situation and said; “What the **** do you want?” I should have known the answer to that before I asked and soon found out that I had made one of the worst mistakes of my mistake-full life. When she continued with her New Mexico mores, I pulled Daisy in the other direction and after a minute or so, was out of sight. I saw the effect of mistakenly trying “to do what the Romans do in Rome,” and adding some New Jersey brilliance.
When I described the incident to a neighborhood associate, I was informed that I had just made an enemy of the current Billy the Kid of Corrales. I was told that this woman is avoided, when possible, by everyone, as she has a violent history, particularly against men. I shouldn’t attempt to be humorous about the matter. I have it on the usual good authority of the Corrales grapevine that my nemesis is super strong. Whatever the case, the next time I saw her running on the ditch path she rammed into me, attempting to knock Daisy and me into the water and then said; “I know you love me. There is help for you.” Before I could inquire as to the nature of the help I could get, eyeing her shorts and the strong straight legs beneath, garrulous people just happened to converge on the scene
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and my helpful friend was compelled to start moving her white legs, telling the audience; “Keep away from this man. He belongs in a loony bin.” The audience laughed, having had their previous thoughts confirmed.
Quite a day it was, as I had met two, or three, if I include myself, Bosque devotees, who were candidates for serious psychiatric help. This is indeed my home. Nora was right.
Time would tell that she always was, with one exception and maybe someday I’ll see that differently. I should have gotten here eleven years ago.
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