Kem Nunn - Tapping the Source

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Come home with me and I’ll make us some.”

Though he did not much care for coffee, he said okay. It seemed like the right thing to do. He pulled on his shirt and they went down the steps. There was a heavy overcast outside. The air was cool and smelled of the sea. It felt earlier than he had first thought and on the drive to her house they passed only a couple of cars.

When they got to the duplexes, the first thing he noticed was Morris’s bike standing at the curb. Morris was just coming down the walkway as they pulled up and got out of the truck. Ike thought that Morris stared at him for a moment with some surprise, then he looked back at Barbara. “The only thing they got him on now is drunk and disorderly,” Morris said. “They want him on the knifing, but nobody seems to be talking. I didn’t see it myself. I was at the other end of the bar. Frank and Hound were right there, but they ain’t said a word to the pigs.” He shook his shaggy head. “I don’t know,” he said. He looked tired and hung over. The sun was starting to burn through the overcast and it was starting to turn sticky. Ike could see the lines of sweat making trails across Morris’s big greasy face. There was a moment of slightly awkward silence. “I was going to make some coffee,” Barbara said. “Do you want any, Morris?”

Morris shook his head. “Just come by to let you know what was goin’ on,” he said. “Just thought you might be interested.” Ike thought he noticed a slightly sarcastic tone in Morris’s voice and he was beginning to get the idea that Morris thought there was something funny about Ike and Barbara being together at this time of day. Morris stood for a moment longer, then turned and swaggered off in the direction of his bike. Ike watched him go, then walked the rest of the way to Barbara’s door. But all of a sudden he just felt too funny being there. He didn’t want to go inside. “I think I’ll skip it this time,” he said. “I should check with Morris, see if he needs any help at the shop.”

She shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “But thanks. I needed to be around someone last night, somebody I could trust.” Then she went inside and closed the door.

He ran back down the sidewalk to see if he could catch up with Morris. He was too late; Morris was already pulling away as Ike reached the street. Ike suddenly felt very grimy and tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He decided to skip the shop and walked instead back to the Sea View apartments. The mailman was just leaving as Ike got there and Ike found that there was a letter in his box. It was the first piece of mail he had gotten and it was from San Arco. He carried it up to his room and read it seated by the window. The letter was from Gordon. Ike recognized the big, familiar scrawl right away. Gordon had apparently written a couple of letters, one to Washington, D.C., and the other to the American embassy in Mexico. Apparently there were no records of an Ellen Tucker having been found, either dead or in jail. Gordon wasn’t sure what this meant, but he said he figured Ike might want to know. That was it; Gordon not being much for small talk. Near the bottom of the page he told Ike to take care of himself.

Ike read the letter several times. When he was done, he folded it, slipped it back into the torn envelope and placed it near the scrap of paper with the three names on it. After that he walked to the window and rested his fingertips against the glass. He looked toward the ugly line of buildings that hid the sea and he imagined her here, in this town, walking the streets he walked now, seeing the same things, and thinking… what? He might have guessed that once. Because they were so alike then. It had been in fact one of their games—guessing what the other was thinking. Only it was somehow more than guessing, it was knowing and it was a special thing. He thought, as he had so many times before, how things had changed after that night on the flats. And how, when she’d left for the last time without bothering to say good-bye, he had by chance come to the front of the market and seen her go, in broad daylight, a ragged suitcase at the end of one arm, sun-bleached denims and red boots wading into those ribbons of dust and heat while he’d stood there on Gordon’s sagging porch, scared shitless of the loneliness to come.

He stood for a long time by the window, his fingers against the glass until the glass had gone warm and moist beneath them. He was struck by a sense of something he could not quite articulate. But it was connected to the way he had once felt in the desert, with Ellen, that he had helped to set something in motion—a chain of events he was linked to but unable to control. And it was like that again now, he thought, here, and he knew that Gordon’s letter had changed nothing, that he would not do as Preston had asked. He was reminded of those desert windstorms, a whirlwind kicked across the desert floor, only he could not say if the storm was outside himself, pulling him in, or inside himself driving him forward, just that he was locked in and that there was suddenly something more at stake here than his search for his sister. He could see that now for the first time. It was not only Ellen Tucker he pursued. It was himself as well. He stared out the window, across the small yard toward the ragged skyline of Huntington Beach, hearing once more in the dark recesses of his own mind the high electric whine of those neon letters above the Club Tahiti. And he saw again that dark stare he had been unable to meet.

Mazatlán, San Blas, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas. The names had magic in them. They hung in the smoke-filled air like some religious chant. Ike listened. He imagined tropical waters, steaming jungles split by rutted roads where green lizards curled in the shade.

When he opened his eyes, Hound Adams was looking at him. They were seated around a map spread on the living room floor. Michelle was by his side. She had locked her hands around his arm and was resting her chin on his shoulder. Hound Adams had at last thrown his party, and Michelle and Jill had been invited. Michelle had brought Ike. Now it was very late, or very early. Beyond the window Ike could see the sky beginning to lighten.

It had been a noisy party, but by now most of the guests had gone, leaving a small circle of admirers to sit on Hound’s living room floor, around the map upon which he outlined plans for the winter’s surf trip. The winter, like Preston had said.

Terry Jacobs was not at the party. He was still, after nearly a week, in intensive care at the Huntington Beach Community Hospital. The fight, however, had been a prominent topic of conversation during the party, and there seemed to be some confusion as to how it had started. Every story Ike heard was different. The only thing certain was that Preston Marsh was a marked man. Apparently Terry Jacobs had a bad family, some of whom had already arrived in Huntington Beach from the islands. Ike had had them pointed out to him, several hulking strangers in flowered shirts, quiet and dark.

Ike had seen Barbara only once since the night of the fight. She had stopped by briefly one afternoon to let him know Preston was still in jail, that there were still no witnesses to the knifing. Ike had thought then about Hound’s words, what he had said about wanting Preston on the street, and he thought about them again now as he observed one of Terry’s ominous-looking relatives draped over the couch.

He had not seen Morris since the morning after the fight, and he had put off going by the shop. He’d spent most of the week keeping to himself, thinking, watching the oil well, the dead grass, and the small brown birds beneath his window. And then Michelle had come by and invited him to the party.