Big Picture: Stories

Squeeze

“You sure you ain’t got no Indian blood in you?” the heavily mustached Lucius Carter asked again.

Jack Winston castrated the bull and tossed the severed parts behind him where they landed in the dirt at the base of the shed wall.

Carter rubbed the neck of his bay, which chomped its bit and stamped the parched ground. He looked down at the man kneeling behind the young bull confined in the squeeze gate. “Just a touch?”

“Carter, if you weren’t studyin’ your ropes all the damn time, you’d see I’m black and nothing else.” He smiled at the man working the squeeze. Several men within earshot laughed while they worked, since Winston had insulted Carter’s ability as a cowboy.

Carter pushed his tongue into his cheek and stared hard at Winston for a second before spitting and walking away. He pushed the shoulder of another hand who said something to him as he passed.

“You got him a good one that time,” Kirby Dodds said and let the bull go.

Winston didn’t want to get him “a good one.” Winston didn’t want to say anything. He gave injections to and castrated three more bulls, watched them bolt away from the gate, then stood up, slapped at his dusty knees, and headed for the bunkhouse. He shed his smelly shirt, sat down on the foot of his bed, closed his eyes, and took a deep, dusty breath. He raised an arm and worked a kink out of his shoulder, then pulled off his boots and socks and wiggled his toes.

Jubal Dixon, the cook, a short, one-legged man, appeared at the doorway, looked past Winston out the window, then asked, “You eating here?”

“No, Jubal, I thought I’d drive into Deer Point, get a room and wash my filthy, stinking clothes. Maybe catch a ball game on television.”

Jubal nodded and turned away.

“Hey, Jubal,” Winston called after him. “Want to ride in with me?”

Jubal considered the offer as he leaned against the jamb and tapped the floor with his metal crutch.

“What do you say?”

“Split a room?”

“You bet.”

Winston showered and gathered together his dirty clothes in a couple of pillowcases. He put on his good boots and good hat and stood by his truck waiting for Jubal. Jubal came out with a small knapsack, wearing a brand new pair of jeans; the empty leg was neatly folded up and pinned behind him. He tugged at the lapels of his corduroy sports coat.

“Jubal, you’ve got to give the gals a fightin’ chance.”

“Ready?”

Winston watched as Jubal climbed in on the passenger side, then got in himself and started the engine. He pulled the Jeep pickup around past the corral, onto the wagon-rutted lane, and followed that to the gravel road.

“How do you like this thing?” Jubal asked.

“Can’t complain. I’ve gotten six years out of her.”

“I been thinking about getting me one of them Rangers. You like those?”

“Good trucks,” Winston said. “I wouldn’t turn one down.”

“Wouldn’t kick it out of bed, huh?” Jubal said and laughed. “Wouldn’t kick it out of bed,” he repeated more softly, shaking his head and grinning.

Winston smiled at the joke.

It was dusk and Jubal was just coming to from a nap with a jerking of his leg and coughing in a closed mouth. Winston had enjoyed the talkless time by just looking out at the countryside. Jubal cleared his throat and rustled around until Winston glanced over at him. The younger man wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. He did a double take, leaning over to see more clearly. Jubal had a rag in his hand and was rubbing it against something in his lap. It was his teeth. He had his dentures out of his face and in his lap and was polishing them with his hankerchief. Winston didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes forward on the road.

There wasn’t much to the town of Deer Point, but folks claimed it was a town. There was a hotel, a couple of bars, a Dairy Queen, a Sears catalog store, a traffic light that was turned off on the weekends, and a Chinese restaurant name Lung Luck’s. They registered at the New Deer Point Hotel, which had been built in 1892 and was called “New” even though no “Old” Deer Point Hotel had ever existed. Winston began up the wide stairway slowly, anticipating Jubal’s pace, but Jubal vaulted up the carpeted steps to the second-floor landing with his crutch swinging close to his leg.

“Easier to do it fast,” Jubal said, turning to face Winston at the top.

They dropped off their gear, left the hotel, and went down the street to Lung Luck’s. They sat at a table in the middle of the restaurant, placed their orders, and soon their food was brought to them. The kitchen radio was playing country music that became louder every time the waiter passed through the swinging door.

“Know what I heard a feller call this stuff once?” Jubal said, pointing at his food with his fork. “Chink Stink.”

Winston glanced at the waiter to see if he had heard. It seemed he hadn’t since he continued to wipe down a booth table without pause.

“Always liked it myself,” Jubal said. “Didn’t much care for that feller.”

Winston nodded and bit into an egg roll.

“That same guy would let his dog lick his dishes clean. I mean, that’s how he washed ’em.”

They ate on for a couple of minutes in silence. Jubal’s crutch, which was leaning against an empty chair, began to slide to the floor. The man caught it.

“I ever tell you how I lost my leg?”

Winston shook his head. “No occasion to hear that story, I’m afraid.”

“I was out lookin’ for cows on BLM land. I saw a steer and took off after it. I didn’t see the ravine and neither did the damn horse and we both flipped in the air and the son of a bitch landed on me.” He drank some iced tea. “Feller that was ridin’ with me went for help and forgot where in blazes I was. Can you believe some shit like that? Then, by the time they found me …” He paused. “Infection.”

“Hm,” Winston said.

“And you know who that feller was?” Jubal didn’t wait for a reply. “It was the idiot with the dish-licking pooch. Dog spit probably got into his brain and made him loco.”

They paid up and went down the street to a tavern called the Stirrup that held a big lighted sign with a tilted martini glass — the olive was rolling back and forth. Winston and Jubal drank beers and ate nuts and played pool. Jubal shot pool with his crutch and he was doing pretty good until the beers started to take hold; his balance became uncertain, his shooting got sloppy, and the rubber tip of his crutch threatened to scratch the cloth. They walked over to a booth and sat down. Jubal drummed his fingers on the Formica — his nails were in need of trimming — and drank beer from a bottle.

“I think that ought to be your last one,” Winston said.

Jubal didn’t seem to hear him and looked away at the door. “Jesus Christ,” he moaned, “Lookie what the cat drug in.”

Winston looked up to see Lucius Carter, in a new white hat, with another man and a broad-shouldered, heavily made-up woman. Her eye shadow was evident even from across the room and it extended well beyond her brows.

Lucius saw Winston and the one-legged man and made straight for their booth. “How you boys?” he asked.

Winston and Jubal nodded. Winston knew Jubal didn’t much like Carter.

“Couldn’t find no ladies, so you had to settle for each other, eh?” Carter said.

Jubal looked at the blond woman who had come in with the other man. “See you couldn’t find no ladies either.”

Carter smiled an evil smile. “What was that?”

“You heard me,” Jubal said, looking him in the eye.

Winston sighed.

“How do you think you’d get around with no legs, Hoppy?” Carter said.

Winston grabbed Jubal’s arm as he started to rise. “Steady, cowboy.”

“Yeah,” Carter said, “better keep your girlfriend under control.”

Jubal snatched free of Winston’s grasp, stood, and swung his crutch, which caused Lucius Carter to duck and step back. “Son of a bitch,” he shouted. Winston found himself standing, too. Jubal swayed there for a moment while the alcohol found his brain and then he passed out.

The blond and the second man came and stood with Carter over the unconscious man. Winston gathered him up, loaded him over his shoulder, grabbed his crutch, and walked out. He carried the man down the street and through the lobby of the New Deer Point Hotel, past a clump of tourists who probably thought this was a neat piece of local color, or maybe they thought the dusty black cowboy was taking the one-legged, unconscious, old man upstairs to have his way with him. He climbed the stairs and wedged Jubal between his shoulder and the wall while he got the door open. He dropped him onto one of the beds.

He sat at the window and looked out at the quiet street. It was a lonely life, he thought. Then he heard gurgling, coughing, and he saw that Jubal was having some kind of problem. He leaned over him. Jubal was choking because his dentures had gotten turned sideways in his mouth.

Winston sighed long. A cowboy touched a lot of things, he thought, blood, dung, placenta, but here he was, stone-chilled by the prospect of reaching in and pulling out the man’s dentures. But he did it. With a deep, held breath, he did it. He dropped the teeth on the nightstand between the beds and ran into the bathroom and washed his hands for a considerable time, nearly disappearing one of those little wafers of hotel soap.

He thought about turning on the television, but instead just undressed, opened the window wider, got into bed, and closed his eyes.

Next morning, Winston woke up and showered while Jubal was still unconscious, his snoring letting on that he was alive. Winston didn’t disturb him, just grabbed his sack of laundry and left the room.

While his clothes were in the machine he read back issues of Sports Illustrated and Newsweek and McCall’s and smiled at a little Indian girl who kept running down the aisle away from her mother, rolling a plastic bottle of fabric softener.

“How are you?” Winston asked the girl as he folded a pair of jeans.

The four-year-old just stared at him. She had big dark eyes and straight black hair that fell down her back in two braids. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a bear on it.

“My name is Jack. What’s yours?” He smiled at the woman who didn’t seem to mind him talking to the child.

“Mary Dreamer.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

The girl ran back to her mother, pausing to pick up a fabric-softener sheet off the floor. Her mother snatched it from her and threw it into the trash.

A man in a dirty coat with greasy, matted hair came in and pushed through the magazines on the counter before asking the woman for change. The woman pulled her daughter behind her and told him to go away. He walked over to Winston, smiled big, and showed a mouth with two lonely teeth. Winston could smell the whisky and, before the man could ask, gave him two quarters.

“Thanks, pard,” the man said in a loud voice, flashed the smile again, and went away.

The woman frowned at Winston, he assumed because he had given the scary man some money. Still, he said good-bye to the girl as he left.

When he got back to the room he saw that it had been ransacked. The sheets were off the bed and lying on the floor. One side of the drapes had been yanked down. Jubal was hopping around on his leg and pulling at his hair.

“What’s happening here?” Winston asked, dropping his laundry inside the door. He glanced quickly, nervously behind him and shut the door. “What are you doing?”

“My grinners. I can’t find my grinners.” Jubal looked at Winston with a pathetic face.

“You were choking on them last night, Jubal, so I took them out.”

Jubal looked sick. Here was a man who once sucked milk from a cow’s teat on a dare, but the idea of a man reaching into his mouth was about to make him ill.

“You were choking,” Winston said.

Jubal hopped back and sat on his bed.

“I put them on the nightstand.” Winston pointed and started toward the table.

“Well, they ain’t there now,” Jubal said and he shot up. “Jesus H. Christ on TV, somebody done stole my grinners.”

Winston was confused, dizzy, and he didn’t know what he was saying, but words came out. “I’ll go look outside.” With that he hurried out. He stood in the hallway looking at the closed door. There was no reason for him to go outside in search of the dentures, but he went anyway. It was someplace other than in that room.

He went out, leaned against the outside wall of the building, looked up at the sky, and let the sun hit his face. He blew out a breath, then found himself looking at the sidewalk and gutter and street. He heard humming coming from down the block and he glanced over to spot the lean man from the Laundromat walking his way. He looked back into the gutter.

“Howthodo,” the man said.

Winston studied the man and frowned.

“Howthodo.”

Winston leaned in close. “Say something else.”

“Wha thu wa ma sa?” The drunk’s mouth seemed peculiar. He had teeth, more that just the lonely two he’d shown before, weird teeth that seemed to move around.

Winston pointed at his mouth. “Where’d you get those?” he asked.

The man spat the dentures out into his dirt-crusted hand. “I bought ’em.”

Winston looked up at the window of his room. “How much did you pay for them?”

“A buck.”

“I’ll give you five for them,” Winston said.

The man pondered, then said, “Hell, they don’t fit no way.” He took the five-dollar bill from Winston and placed the teeth in his open palm.

Winston nearly fainted, actually swayed before collecting himself enough to sprint across the hotel lobby, and into the public rest room. He set the teeth on the sink and began to wash his hands furiously. One of the tourists standing at a neighboring sink seemed frightened. “Found my friend’s teeth,” Winston said. The man ran out. Winston washed for many minutes. He grabbed the dentures in a couple of paper towels and took them upstairs to the room.

“Found them,” he said as he stepped in.

Jubal let out a sigh. “Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you,” he said. He took them from Winston and paused. “Where’d you find them?”

Winston coughed, cleared his throat. “I found them in the street, Jubal, just lying there.”

Jubal blew out a whistle between bare gums. “Good.” He took them to the bathroom and held them under the water. He loaded them into his face and worked his jaw a bit.

Winston went to the window and started to put the room back together. He slipped the curtain hooks through the rod eyes. Below he could see the derelict turn the corner and pass out of sight.

“Just lying in the street, huh?” Jubal asked.

“Just lying there.”

“Funny. Wonder how they got down there.”

Winston turned to look at Jubal, thinking that the man didn’t believe him. But Jubal showed nothing but puzzlement as he began to help put the room back together. Winston was pretty sure that Lucius Carter had come into the room and taken the teeth, but he wasn’t going to talk about it with Jubal.

“You know, a man can walk in his sleep,” Jubal said. “Won’t have a notion in the morning of where he’s been.”

“Not uncommon,” Winston said.

“I ain’t never known myself to walk in my sleep.”

“Hmmm,” Winston said.

Jubal had the sheets and covers on top of the two beds and he sat down on his. “I want to thank you for helping me out last night. When I was choking, I mean.”

“You bet.”

“A dentist suggested I use some of that sticky stuff, you know, to hold my teeth firm, but I can’t stand it. Too much maintenance.”

Winston nodded, putting up the second curtain.

Jubal went to the window and looked at the street. “Just lyin’ there,” he said more to himself than to Winston. “Top and bottom together?”

“Mere inches apart.”

“Flat out luck.”

Winston worked a kink out of his shoulder. “Could be that I got them stuck to my sack or sleeve or something when I went to do my laundry and they fell off outside.”

The presence of even a lame explanation seemed to relax Jubal. He worked his bite. “Sun must have warped them a little.”

“Sorry.”

The older man waved it off. “Just glad to have ’em back. They’ll mold back. Besides, if I’d choked to death …” He stopped. “What do you say we grab some chow and shoot some pool?”

“Okay.”

It was ten o’clock in the morning, but late enough for burgers. Winston had a mug of milk with his food and talked a frowning Jubal into the same. They ate and shot a game and watched a boring baseball game on the set behind the bar. Every bite seemed an exercise for Jubal and Winston began to worry that the bum had damaged the dentures. He wondered if he needed to say something.

“Hey there, girls,” Lucius Carter called to them.

Jubal had made up his mind to ignore the man. He went off to the rest room.

Lucius came to the table with a big ugly smile on his face.

Winston looked at him. “Funny stunt with a man’s teeth.”

Lucius laughed and looked at the two half-eaten burgers. “No harm done. He found ’em, didn’t he?”

“Found them?” Winston felt hollow and a bit sick. “I wasn’t there when he found them. Where were they?”

Lucius looked at Winston with a crooked smile. “Don’t recall now.”

“That sort of shit make you feel like a big man?” Winston was on the prod.

“Like I said, no harm done.”

Winston slammed his cue stick down on the table. “Get the hell outta here!” His hand buzzed, he wanted to raise the stick high, but instead he let go.

The bartender called over, “No trouble.”

“Out, Carter.”

Lucius raised his hands. “Fine.” He looked over at the bartender. “No trouble.” He turned to Winston, smiled again and said, “Life’s hard, but then the pay is low.”

When Jubal came back out, Lucius was gone. “Where’s the dung bank?”

“He left.”

Jubal sat down behind his burger and rubbed his temples.

“How do your teeth feel?”

“Feel okay.” Jubal looked at Winston. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“How come you ain’t eatin’?” Jubal asked. “I’m not too hungry.”

They left the tavern and got into Winston’s truck. The sun was just past straight up and beating down on the cab. Winston looked before pulling out into the traffic.

“What do you think makes a fella end up like Lucius?” Winston asked.

“You mean, what makes him act the way he does?”

“Yeah.” Winston switched on the radio.

“Too much sun,” Jubal said. “Hell, I don’t know. He must have been drowned at birth.”

“Yeah, well.”

“He sure hates you,” Jubal said.

“Yep.”

Jubal was looking at Winston. “He hates you ‘cause you’re colored.”

“Black.”

“Whatever. But that’s why he hates you. Don’t make no sense to me. You can’t help what you are.”

Winston looked at the man. “I don’t need to help it.”

“Whatever.”

“How do you feel about the fact that I’m black?” Winston felt stupid asking the question.

“Don’t make me no never mind. You could be purple for all I fuckin’ care. Why all the questions?”

“I don’t know.”

They didn’t say much during the rest of the drive. Winston watched the road and Jubal gazed out the window at the landscape. As they rolled to a stop near the bunkhouse, Winston said, “You know I don’t mind that you’re white, Jubal.”

“Glad to hear it.” Jubal paused before opening his door. “What made you think to say that?”

“Just lookin’ at you,” Winston said.