Luke Goebel - Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours

“You don't have it. Not today,” Apache said. “You will have it, by Christ. But I won't hold my breath. You better find it. Fend for yourself. I'm going to blow off some spunk with my retard. She gives all of herself — every time. Not like you, who doesn't give shit. You faking fart.”

Kid knew talk from talk. He was feeling ready and would be more so when the day cleared and the clouds let go of the last rains. He felt himself in his body, good or bad, real or not real, ready to give all whether he deserved to or didn't deserve. He would. He'd race this afternoon and take it. But was what the man just said about Kid true? Could he have it? Could he practice to earn it? No. He had to have it right then, Apache said, matter now or fail. Count or be nothing.

The man was no Corporal, and most of what he said most often must be a lie. Still, the Apache was the fastest man at the ranch. The toughest. The little mean old shit, with the inspired face. He could speak with his bloodspeak to the Cayuse, to any horse, and didn't need words or even to kick.

In the sagging V of the man's oilcloth shirt, a small lump of something stuck to a hair, a single white chest hair. What was it? A chink of soap? The A/C had hardened it in the cold air on the hair? The Apache saw Kid staring and down. He pulled it off, in the rain, and rubbed it between his first two fingers and half of thumb. Made an old face, the old god. Soap? Spunk? As of when did he have a chink of anygoddamnthing stuck to him, the Apache's face seemed to ask? Never. Never did he have one lump of any chink of nothing stuck to any hair. It was too cold in the place? It was the retard's A/C?

“Let's go.” He chatted the Cayuse and Kid got his horse turned around and leading and fought to keep him from running back to the corral and they rode in in the hot rain. The Apache would head back in his rig to his squat. From the rain would come blanket flowers, Mexican poppies orange across the hills, hibiscus, lupine, wild onion, owl's clover — names of flowers Apache had said over again, pointing to the dry dead earth on their first rides, blue fiesta, brittlebush, creosote flower, signaling what would go where, as if by the magic of names he could summon colors from the earth's palette covering the land of dry dust, horses from his very heart, women from his very loins, bones from his bad hand, life from life, simply by naming, so great were his stocks in the whole thing.

Kid passed the gardens on the path to his room at the ranch. His suite. The day was a bust. Back by the buck and barrel and beavertail alongside the path, he kicked a clod with the toe of a boot and scattered it across the cement, dirt over the walkway the workers would have to clean when the rain stopped. Mexicanos. Mother's. Her workers. She owned the guest ranch. He thought of the man and his retard.

Hell of an idea was that retard. A show of a concept. Was that all he could get? Were they better in the sack? The Apache had stolen her, he'd said, from the only friend he had had, up in Colorado. The man who claimed himself real live Apache. Who'd lived everywhere. Lived in New York City and had a top office, somehow, wearing his hat, stiff greasecloth and feathers — lived in California in blue jeans, was in films, had bush galore, and was living now in a squat in Arizona near Mexico with a retard in A/C — and would soon be blowing his spunk, old man, in the A/C? Was this anywise the West?

Kid thought of his redhaired girl who just last night he was with in the purple flats beside a small fire he had made, the girl and her slick running shorts and thin shirt, her music of her blood he could sense, the southerly desert moon, the chill and hot rush of feeling inside her, in her running shorts, up high a little, higher inside, and her saying wait in a way he felt she too felt it, his desire bigger than that animal he rode, all that fear, all that glory. She felt it too but said wait… why, he couldn't know. Kid had waited. Then yes she whispered, “Let's go for it,” in the night flats, in the dust. What made her want Kid, he didn't know, but he wanted it all, the full holy and perverse merging, switching places and joining, the wild rush of heat and cool air, escaping everything wrong in favor of everything right in wrongness, beyond the world of their world, into the physical heat and new vision by fire.

Old Apache was going to blow his spunk? How ridiculous. In the A/C no less? Kid was not going to be in any A/C nor going to blow his spunk either. He wasn't fooling around. He was going to stay out of air-conditioning altogether and lift in the gym and be ready. He fit his key in the door and had an idea and certainly wasn't about to blow any spunk or sit in A/C breathing that A/C smell in the rain. He was going to get the jump on that Apache. He would get it following a plan he came up with in the rain before and while kicking the dirt clod, and fastening the plan as he stepped on the heel of his boot with his boot and pried his foot out.

He would be working out, pronto, not in the A/C. While keeping his spunk. This was getting a jump. He stood on the other heel with his socked foot and tried to wiggle his foot free and fell on the sofa. How ludicrous. How flopping and stupid and fake. This suite. This was not getting a jump. This was no jumping. The A/C came on. Not that he had asked for it.

He took off his jeans while sitting on the tacked cowhide sofa. He felt girlish doing it like this, looking at himself in undies. All that cow under him. So he stood up. He got them off. This was getting more like it. He went into the bathroom where the air was on. He put on his gym shorts and shirt. He had no hair buzzing any places. He looked at himself like a man about to get the jump on another man. Especially when that other man is a real old Apache with one hand half missing, and he considered his plan.

He checked it over with Brother in his heart.

He survived by keeping his brother in his heart to talk to. Nights Brother came to see him in his dreams and they both knew it wasn't true and he was still alive and they talked about it. Lately, he could tell in dreams that he knew better than to believe anyone was really there. He could see every detail of his face, hear him talk, grab hold of him. Days, Kid talked to him and believed Brother could hear his thoughts and see him, and it was going away. Even this was fading. It wasn't the best plan, but he could sense his need, surely. The Apache would see it as genius or see it as cowardlysome — but he would see. He had told Kid what Kid had to do, to take it no matter what. He would try to get it right. To not ruin anything — just to get the jump. Just to goddamn count.

Kid laced up his workout shoes and looked at himself. He did and didn't look like a man who had, but he saw in his eyes the look of one who knew how important it was to have it. To push one's self to take or push one's self to take but keep trying and never give one's self the permission — this was it. He either had to give it to himself. Permission right then. Or not.

He stepped outside, Jesus, Fuck, and there was Mother.

“Sonofabitch,” he said. There was the girl with her. The only girl, beside and a bit behind Mother. “Shit.”

They both stood there gawking at Kid, sun all over the wet place.

“Is that how you mightn't greet your mother?” Mother pretended to scold. Then she looked genuinely hurt. Then lost. Fuck. He didn't need anyone's permission. He loved her. He hated her. He loved and hated everyone. What was the redhead doing? Mother was wearing peach and looking old. She looked old and in peach and her hair was effervescent and cut short in a bowlish expensive cut.

Brother had been her first child and once she'd been a good mom. He felt loyalty to Brother who would not speak with her before he was gone. Now there was the redhead standing beside her, a bit behind, and all of it a trap.