Nothing but Blue Skies

3

Frank sat in the bleachers at the sale yard reading the Wall Street Journal and ignoring a bunch of black baldie heifers being steered under the auctioneer’s gavel. Bush’s heartbeat was back to normal, Croats attacked soldiers at Split and high winds diverted the space shuttle Discovery from California to Kennedy Space Center. It’s a bitch. Desperate new immigrants. Seventy-two percent of 3,500 police officers polled at John Jay College of Criminal Justice said they wear bulletproof vests. Image of Dan Quayle remains “bumbling.” Worker stress was climbing toward widespread burnout and Japanese auto towers were under construction in Detroit. Out at the ranch the sage buttercups were blooming, supplying the blue grouse with spring forage; and the great horned owl had a nestful of gold-eyed downy young. And this just in — a point of pride for all Americans — the first AIDS patient, it would seem, was a Frenchman identified by the initials LAI, placing the American HTLV–IIIB in the situation of being little more than a “contaminant” of LAI. In landing the Sony account, the Burnett advertising firm announced it wanted to “communicate not only our products, but the lifestyles and emotions that surround us as a company.” What sincerity there is out there in the business community, thought Frank, what personnel and marketing resources. Burnett claimed that its paternalistic and excellence-oriented approach to business helped land the thirty-five-million-dollar deal, that and changing the slogan “It’s a Sony” to “Be Sony.” Jesus fucking Christ.

Frank looked up. They were bidding on a group of steers. He raised his hand at seventy-eight dollars a hundredweight and went back out at eighty-six. Then immediately he thought, I should have bought them; it was scarcely a highly leveraged transaction for the dumb shit in the overalls who got them at eighty-eight. Bush’s heartbeat back to normal and the dollar up. How could you sleep knowing that? Home oxygen tanks all the rage among the elite of polluted Mexico City. Fuck. I can’t look at this.

This had been the year for Deadrock to lose its accustomed obscurity. It broke several winter weather records and got on national weather reports between the T-shirts, the giant cookies, the fire hall restorations and the jokes. Then in March, the weirdest of all months in the Rocky Mountains, a hijacker brought his shiny 747 to rest at the airport north of town. He didn’t trivialize his visit with negotiations or threats but simply refueled, resumed his voyage into the West, then over the Pacific where he jumped from the airplane without a comment or statement or, more to the point, a parachute: a Caucasian male around forty. The stewardesses liked him so much, and said so on TV, that the mayor of Deadrock told the press it was a shame to lose a fellow who was “more sensitive than a five-dollar rubber.” The plane went back to Seattle, but the big silver outlaw bird had brushed this small city with the wings of immortality.

There was plenty to be interested in but, living alone, Frank had found it hard to be interested in anything. He had set so many things in motion in his business that he could tap into that as he wished. He had several income properties scattered around the town, including the very remunerative clinic. He dabbled in yearling cattle and even owned a set of royally bred show pigs, though he never found time to go see them. The farmer who managed them, Jerry Drivjnicki, had sent him several postcards asking when he was coming to see the pigs.

He had a daughter, Holly, in college at Missoula and they went on liking each other tremendously; but the oddness of his house without Gracie made it a strangely formal place for them to spend time together. They did go fishing, but the season for that was closed eight months of the year, which left restaurants. He knew that Holly and Gracie often spoke, but Holly found it best not to discuss those conversations, a numbing artifice.

He’d had the Millmans over for drinks and it was a waste of time for everybody. Sandy Millman came in her hair all droopy with mousse, far too young for her. Frank could remember when Sandy was the young professionals’ town pump, famed for love noises few had ever heard. Darryl Millman had come to town clearly on a large private income and opened a ski shop; and Sandy clamped on to him. Between the all-nighters and the recreational drugs, Sandy was able to slide Darryl straight to the altar, where his wealthy, lewd face was seen to say all the things that conveyed not only hopes of a happy life but fifty percent of his fortune to Sandy.

But Darryl was on a back-to-the-earth mission and put everything he had into a huge grain farm. He spent most of his time in his Beechcraft, meeting farm managers and going to agricultural seminars. It seemed a long way from the sap who supplied all the cocaine in the waning days of the seventies.

Frank had seen more of them since Gracie’s departure because Gracie had barred them from Amazing Grease for attracting narco types, and then from the house itself for “character flaws.” This was after several bitter remarks exchanged between Gracie and Sandy, Gracie getting the worst of a series of inquiries about what “she had ever done.” Finally, the argument appeared to drift away when Gracie said, “All right, Sandy, let’s hear these famous noises that have taken you so far.”

A moment passed and Sandy spoke in a bell-like contralto: “Thanks for having us over. We see so little of each other. Next time, let’s not let it be so long. Good night!” There was not a trace of irony in her voice. It was wonderfully disconcerting and its effect lingered for a long time. They never saw the Millmans socially after that.

Once Gracie was gone, Sandy seemed determined that she never come back. She introduced Frank to out-of-town women — wanton lawyers, nervous potters, divorcées of unrelenting ferocity. Frank made no effort to get around. He didn’t have to.

But Frank’s loneliness had begun to take some peculiar forms.