James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

I’m supposed to believe all that? he wondered. A busful of sacked state employees washed into a sinkhole? Stanley Tulendij clinging for dear life to a juniper bush? All of them in business attire?

“They died with their boots on,” Paul murmured, and smiled to himself. He started his engine, and the car shook itself like an old dog. Through the windshield glare he squinted over the embankment and across the river. Some of his coworkers’ vehicles were already lumbering across the Travis Street Bridge in a haze of heat and exhaust, past insane Texas joggers pounding along the pedestrian walkway during the worst heat of the day. One pedestrian, however, had stopped on the bridge. He was not a stalled jogger: He wore trousers, a shirt and tie, and glasses, and he seemed to be looking this way. His features were hard to make out with the sun behind him, but the shape was unmistakable — a small oval atop a larger oval. It’s the homeless guy from yesterday, realized Paul, the egg-shaped man, Señor Huevo, what was his name? Boy G — that was it! Mr. Are We Not Men himself! Paul leaned forward and tilted his hand against the glare. Is he looking at me? he thought, and just then the figure on the bridge lifted his hand and waved.

Paul snapped back in his seat as if he’d been struck across the face. Another movement caught his eye through the driver’s side window, and he turned to see Stanley Tulendij step out from behind the tree. Without a glance back, the old man spidered up the embankment on his long legs, and in a moment he had crested the rise and disappeared down the other side.

Paul fumbled at the latch and heaved his door open on its whining hinges. He hesitated, then dashed through the heat up the slope. At the top of the embankment Paul was halted by the sour reek of the river. On the far side of the sluggish water lay the unfashionable end of Lamar’s hike-and-bike trail, but on this side, the yellowed grass sloped directly into the weeds at the water’s edge, with no interruption but the humped concrete back of a storm drain that emptied into the river. Paul looked both ways; to his left, the embankment curved away around a bend in the river, to his right, it ran unbroken to the bridge. Stanley Tulendij was nowhere to be seen in either direction. Paul turned and looked back down at the nearly empty parking lot. His own car trembled below him, motor running, door open. He turned towards the bridge and shaded his eyes with his palm. The figure at the railing, the oval-on-oval silhouette, was gone. All Paul saw were candy-colored SUVs, nose to tail along the bridge, and the lean silhouettes of joggers, pounding through the Texas glare.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, surveying the crowded lunchroom for an empty table, Paul was about to turn away and take his sandwich up to his cube again when the Colonel beckoned to him from the far corner. Paul pretended he hadn’t noticed and swung his gaze round the room once more — he’d never seen Callie here during lunch, but then he’d never really looked. Then his gaze drifted back to the Colonel, who sat with his chin lifted and his wattles pulled tight, and he lifted his hand over his head, as if signaling a waiter. Before Paul could make up his mind, he was halfway across the room. Bob Wier gave him a sad smile and pushed back the empty chair. Paul took the seat with a shrug.

“Glad you could join us, Professor.” The Colonel’s eyes twinkled.

“Carrot stick?” said Bob Wier, proffering a Tupperware dish of crudités.

“Thanks, no.” Paul emptied his lunch bag one item at a time — cheese sandwich, no-brand chips, pickle.

J.J. worked a burger into his mouth with both hands. “Mmmph,” he said.

“We were just discussing the life and work of Marion Morrison.” With his chopsticks the Colonel skillfully plucked a crumbling bit of sushi from his beautifully enameled Japanese lunch box.

“The Duke!” said Bob Wier. “The Big Guy!”

“Fuckin’ A,” said J.J., plucking a soggy bit of lettuce off his lower lip.

“Ah.” Paul peeled the baggie off his sandwich. Was he supposed to know who Marion Morrison was? Was he another decrepit, downsized TxDoGS legend like Stanley Tulendij?

The Colonel gave Paul a wry smile across the table. “No doubt you’re familiar with Morrison’s œuvre.” Oove , he pronounced it.

“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “He must have been before my time.”

Bob Wier and the Colonel burst out laughing. J.J. gagged on his burger and thumped his fist against his sternum. Through a full mouth, he said, “John Wayne, dickhead.”

“Pardon me?” Paul glowered back at J.J.

“Forgive our friend’s choler.” The Colonel reached around the table and squeezed J.J.’s bicep manfully. “It’s his way of showing fellowship. Isn’t that right, J.J.?” He squeezed a little harder, and J.J. winced and said, “Sorry.”

“Sure.” Paul felt his face get hot, and he took a big bite of his sandwich.

Bob Wier said, “I was just saying what a blessing the Duke’s example was to the American man. A paragon of strength”—Bob Wier balled up his fist—“and tenderness.” He opened his hand. It was as if he were gesturing for the benefit of the parishioners in the pews all the way in the back. “Why, even my wife, Barb,” Bob went on, “was a fan of the Duke.”

The Colonel and J.J. froze and glared at Bob Wier, J.J. crushing his burger, the Colonel squeezing his chopsticks so tightly that a pink fleck of sushi shot across the table. Even Paul froze, involuntarily, his gaze shifting back and forth as he clutched his sandwich halfway to his lips.

“Bob,” warned J.J.

“Time to move on, son,” intoned the Colonel.

“Right.” Bob Wier’s face drained of color, and he dropped his gaze to the Tupperware dish before him. He rolled a fat little carrot between thumb and forefinger. “Of course. You’re absolutely right.”

Still watching Bob Wier, J.J. slowly fed the burger into his mouth. The Colonel dipped his chopsticks into his lunch box. Paul took a cautious bite of his cheese sandwich.

Bob Wier drew a deep, shuddering breath and soldiered on. “It’s just that when I think of how John Wayne bore Natalie Wood up in his arms at the end of The Searchers—”

“Fuuuuck,” said J.J. in a dismissive diminuendo.

Bob Wier widened his eyes. “No?” he said.

“Well, I don’t fucking get it!” whined J.J. “Check out her eyebrows, for chrissake! You ever see an Indian with lipstick and blush?”

“The Lord’s name, J.J.,” said Bob Wier, smiling ferociously.

“Okay, sorry, but Jesus, Bob, what about that other guy, whatshisname, the bad guy, the evil Comanche—”

“Scar,” said Paul, without thinking. What am I doing? he thought. He was still wondering what had just happened.

“Yeah, Scar.” J.J. rolled his eyes. “Fucker had five o’clock shadow, for cry yi. He was sucking in his gut for the whole movie.”

“Gentlemen, please.” The Colonel laughed, reaching to either side to grasp the wrists of Bob Wier and J.J. “A little decorum, if you please. Our guest here will think we’re savages ourselves.”

Paul wondered if it was too late to get up and sit somewhere else. Meanwhile, Bob Wier squeezed his eyes shut and moved his lips in silent prayer. Across the table J.J. sighed and dropped his sullen gaze to his paper plate.

“All I was trying to say,” Bob Wier said, opening his eyes, “was what a splendid role model the Duke was. Especially as he got older.” He poked a celery stick at the tabletop for emphasis. “The very picture of a man aging gracefully.” He crunched off the end of the celery stick. “In great movies like Big Jake and Cahill: U.S. Marshall.”