The More Things Change

The saguaro that stands near the entrance to The Dust Devil has its arms raised, as if it’s being robbed.  Beneath the wooden ramada in the bar’s front yard, three people sit drinking beers.  I am one of them.  I’m waiting for a guy I met yesterday on the flight in from San Francisco.  I attended a geology conference at the state university there.  The man I met on the plane, Ricardo Villa, owns a vineyard in the Napa Valley, but he’s thinking about moving back here, the town where he was born forty-two years ago.  That makes him two years older than me.

I’m a man desperate for a friend.  All my good friends have moved away, never to be heard from again.  The people who call themselves friends I consider acquaintances.  They like me because I listen to them.  With me they dominate conversations, talk about their job problems, their screwed-up marriages.  My wife, who used to be my friend, says I’m too critical, that I expect too much of people.

Doreen and I haven’t been close in years, and recently we’ve been arguing a lot, mostly about our son, Sean.  I’m too hard on him, Doreen says.  He’s just a boy.  It’s true, but more and more I see Sean turning into her–overly emotional, unreflective.  Sean even resembles Doreen: translucent skin, watery blue eyes.  I dislike myself for the way I feel about the boy.

 The man I’m meeting, Ricardo Villa, has a fascinating life.  He told me his story somewhere over central California.  Twenty years ago Villa left his wife and two daughters to run away with a local singer who’d just taken a job in San Francisco.  He fell in love with her voice, he said.  One night he went to a club where she was singing and picked her up.  A few months later, he headed to California with her.  His oldest daughter, Iris, was five at the time.  Villa was an irresponsible kid who had married too young.  But he never got over the guilt he felt at leaving a wife and two little girls behind.

The affair with the singer didn’t last.  She supported him until they began to argue about money.  When she finally kicked him out he was forced to take a job as a laborer in one of the local vineyards.  For a while he toyed with the idea of going home, but the longer he waited, the more impossible it became.  Over the years, he worked hard at the wine business, eventually becoming the favorite foreman of one of the most powerful vintners in the valley.  When the vintner died, he left Villa a large sum of money which, through wise investment, soon doubled in size.  A few years later, he bought his own small vineyard.  He specialized in growing a special kind of grape that did particularly well in the northern California soils, and his wines consistently won blue ribbons at several of the big competitions.

From that day forward, his was a typical success story.  He ended up with more money than he ever imagined possible.  He constantly surprised himself with the amount of responsibility he could handle.  And for the longest time, he was able to forget the family he had left behind.  Until he got the first letter from Iris.  She started writing when she was sixteen, tracking him down through an old friend, Hector, who was the only person who knew where Villa lived.

At first he was reluctant to respond, but after receiving several letters from his daughter, he felt pressured to write.  It was an incredible release to be able to tell her his story, and though there was no defense for what he had done, he tried to explain exactly what had made him leave those many years ago.  And he told her what had happened to him since.  Her very next letter made it clear that, despite what her mother and sister thought, she didn’t blame him for anything.  In fact, Villa said, he got the feeling that Iris looked up to him, anxiously awaiting his letters–letters from a father whose life must have seemed exotic and exciting.

For a few years they corresponded regularly.  He followed her life carefully.  When she graduated from high school, he offered to help her financially if she decided to go to college.  But by then she had met a young man who had other plans for her.  They married and had a child.  After that, whenever Villa wrote, he mentioned the financial aid offer.  She could still attend college, he said, once the kid got a little older.  He was careful not to pressure her too much, but her letters grew sporadic and soon stopped altogether.  He imagined that he had interfered with her life, and that either she or her husband had put an end to the correspondence.

So he was surprised recently to get a letter from Iris, who wrote to say she had decided at last to go to college.  Would he, her father, still make good on the financial offer?  By the way, she said, she was leaving her family.  She’d realized some time ago that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.

And that’s why Ricardo Villa was returning home.  He was coming, he said, to try to talk his daughter out of making the greatest mistake of her life.  Yes, he had done the same thing when he was young, and had succeeded, but if he had it do over again, he’d have done things differently.  There were so many regrets over the years.  But mostly he wanted to tell her about the guilt, how it never went away.  It would follow her the rest of her life.

He was telling me (a perfect stranger) all this, he said, because he had never been so nervous.  Iris was picking him up at the airport.  She’d already moved out on her husband and child, and Villa was going to stay with her at her apartment near the university.

By then the plane had begun its approach to the city, descending through turbulence caused by the thermals that rise constantly from the desert floor.  Villa felt uncomfortable about coming back, he said.  He didn’t have friends here anymore.  I suggested we get together for a beer the following night, an invitation Villa gladly accepted.  When he told me where his daughter lived, I said we could meet at The Dust Devil.  Later, we lost track of each other in the mob swarming out of the plane.  I might have seen Villa and his daughter in the baggage claim area, but I had only a carry-on bag, so I went straight to my car.

Villa is already fifteen minutes late, and I’m starting to feel as if I’ve been stood up.  Thinking about Villa’s situation makes me think about my own family again.  Mostly I think about Sean, who just turned twelve.  A few days ago Sean and his friend, Patrick, got into trouble for breaking windows in an old greenhouse out in the desert.  They stood on a small bluff throwing rocks at the building until they had broken almost every window in the roof.  They didn’t think the greenhouse belonged to anyone, but the man who owned it caught them and took their names and addresses.  He visited me that night.  Sean’s share of the damage was one hundred twenty-five dollars.  Sean tried to hide in the bathroom when Mr. Portillo showed up, but I made Sean attend the meeting.  First, I wanted Mr. Portillo to see that Sean was no hooligan.  And I wanted Sean to know that acting without thought has consequences.

 During the past year a pattern of behavior has developed in Sean, a series of thoughtless acts that has caused trouble in the family.  He has inherited Doreen’s way of seeing the world.  Whenever I chastise him, Doreen defends Sean, claiming I’m too harsh, that I only see things my way.  More and more I feel like a misfit in my own home.  It’s always two against one, or so it seems to me.

Over the years I have occasionally wondered what my life would have been like had I not married and had a kid.  When I once mentioned this to my friend, Al, he said, “You’d be a bitter man.”  He said it with such conviction I believed it for a while.  But I began to question his assertion.  Would I have been any more bitter than I am now?  What might I have accomplished as a single man?  Or am I the type who needs a wife and kid?  Sitting here waiting for Villa to show up, it seems to me a weakness to need a family.  Thinking about Villa’s freedom makes me resent him, and I decide to leave as soon as I finish my beer.

Two men whose ages differ by many years talk at a nearby table.  The young man’s short brown hair has a perfect part, a thin white path that travels from forehead to crown.  His thick eyebrows are knitted together in concentration.  The old man has a bony face, a complexion the color of modeling clay.  His dark eyes are magnified behind the bifocal lenses of his glasses.  At first I thought the men were father and son.  But the longer I watch them, the more certain I am they aren’t related.

A red-headed waitress brings beers to the two men.  The young man pays.  When she goes, he tilts the bottle to his mouth, drinks half of the contents.  I wish I could hear what the men are saying, but their voices are soft.  The old man, I imagine, is the young man’s professor at the university.  Perhaps the professor is lonely.  His wife died last year.  His kids live on the East Coast.  He’s hoping to find a friend in the student who sits across from him drinking beer.

Once in a while the wind picks up and carries a word or two from their conversation my way.  So far I’ve heard “commitment” and “responsibility.”  The professor is talking now.  His narrow lips barely move when he speaks.  The student nods.  The student lifts his bottle and takes a long swig.

Two young men and a woman, whose voices grow louder as they advance down the sidewalk, enter the ramada.  The men could be clones–blond hair, angular jaws, white cotton shirts, jeans and jogging shoes.  The woman’s hair is auburn.  Light from a pole lamp sparkles in it.  She wears a green t-shirt and short denim skirt.  The three newcomers stop at the table where the professor and student sit.

The conversation is loud, and I hear everything.

“Hello, Paul,” the young woman says to the dark-haired student.  “Here we are.”

One of the standing blonde men says, “He didn’t think we’d come.”

“Well?” the woman says.  “Did you finally tell her, or did you chicken out again?”

Paul says, “Wait for me inside.  Get a booth.  I’ll be right in.”

The woman nods as if to say, ‘I knew it.’  She walks quickly toward the yellow light that spills from the front door of The Dust Devil.  The two blonde men follow.  Before they go inside, one of them says loudly, for Paul’s benefit, “What did you expect, Janine?”

Paul stands, reaches across the table and shakes the professor’s hand.  The professor says something I can’t hear.  Then Paul turns and hurries toward the bar, nearly running.

 The professor finishes his beer.  He takes change out of his pocket and arranges it on the table.  The light from the lamp reflects off his glasses.  He stands, shoving the chair away with the backs of his knees.  When he leaves the ramada, he crosses the street, disappearing into darkness.

I’m about to get up and follow the professor out when an attractive brunette enters the ramada and walks straight toward me.  She wears a white silk shell that shows off the bounce of her breasts.  Her olive shorts end just above her knees.  Her long silver earrings glitter in the artificial light.  When she stops in front of me, I see that the earrings are lizards.  “Dr. Marik?” she says.  When I nod, she says, “I’m Iris Merced–Ricardo Villa’s daughter.  My father sent me to meet you.”  I try to see her father in her face, but she looks nothing like him.  This means to me that she resembles her mother, and I try to picture a young Ricardo Villa walking out on such a beautiful woman.

“I hope nothing’s wrong,” I say.

She says, “No.  He’s with my mother.  He called to say he’ll be late.  He asked that I bring you to my place, to keep you company until he gets there.”

“Did he say how long he’d be?”

She shakes her head, the soft curls beside her face bouncing with the movement.

“Shall we drive?” I say.  “My car’s parked around the corner.”

“We can walk.  I live nearby.”

As we stroll down the sidewalk toward the school, the wind carries the scent of her perfume to my nose.  Like a drug, it goes straight to my head.  Other students walk along the street, coming and going between classes.  I feel like a college kid, walking with my best girl.  I glance at Iris’s body, realizing I’m attracted to her.  This scares me.  My lungs feel tight, unable to capture air.

She says, “My father tells me you teach at the university.”

“Yes–geology.”

“The study of rocks,” she says.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“I’m attending school now,” she says, “majoring in psychology.”

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of head cases end up becoming psychologists.

“Here we are,” she says, leading me through an old adobe arch at the front of a run-down apartment complex.  It’s a two-story building with a tiny, empty kidney-shaped pool inside the entranceway.  Staring boldly at her rear end, I follow her up creaky wooden stairs to the second floor.  I realize I’m under the influence of alcohol.  As I stand at her side watching while she slips a bronze key into a deadbolt lock, a scene from my past plays in my mind.  I’m in the navy, in the Philippines, and I stand like this at an apartment complex in Olongopo City waiting for a whore to open the door to her room.

The inside is like other college apartments I have seen, sparse furnishings, bookshelves made of boards across concrete blocks.  “Sit down,” she says, gesturing to a ragged brown couch.  “Can I get you something–a beer?”

Another beer will push me to the brink, but I accept anyway.  When she brings it back from the tiny kitchen and leans to set it down on the anemic coffee table in front of me, her blouse hangs open, and I catch a glimpse of her full breasts.  She excuses herself, going down a short hallway to an open door she shuts behind herself.

After she goes, I smell a man’s cologne.  The scent is so strong, I trace it to the sofa pillow behind me.  I turn to sniff the fabric.  This is the stuff Ricardo Villa wears.  When Villa sat next to me on the airplane, I was overwhelmed by the fragrance.  I take a sip of beer, suddenly succumbing to an eerie thought.  What if Villa is here now?  What if this whole thing is a set-up?  Perhaps Villa’s story was just a ruse, a way to win my confidence.  And Iris isn’t his daughter at all, but an accomplice whose job it was to bring me here, where they can rob me.  Anxious, I long for the secure boredom of my life with Doreen and Sean.

A toilet flushes down the hall, and I shake my head, cursing my imagination.  When Iris returns, she sits across from me in a black vinyl chair whose corners appear to have been nibbled by mice.  “I really don’t know when my father will be here,” she says.  “He and my mother haven’t seen each other in years.  They divorced when I was young.”

I nod, glancing down at my beer.  “I’m afraid I can’t finish this,” I say.  “I think I’ve had enough already.”

After an awkward moment of silence, she says, “Do you know anything about psychology?”

“Not much.”

“We’re learning about bimodal consciousness–how the left side of the brain is the logical one, and the right side emotional.”

“I’ve heard of that.”

“Why is it important which side of the brain does what?”

Before I can answer, a car door slams outside, and she jumps up to look through the window.  After glancing out, she returns to sit down.  “I thought that might be him now.  I’m a little worried about my car.  He hasn’t driven a stick in years.”

I look at my watch.  “I really can’t stay much longer,” I say.  “Perhaps I can call your father tomorrow, arrange for another meeting.”

“He’ll be disappointed if you’re not here when he comes.”

“Still,” I say, rising, “I’d better go.”

She stands, too, walking to a table where the telephone sits.  At first I’m afraid she’ll call her father, but she picks up a small white pad and a pencil.  “At least give me your number,” she says.

I say it slowly, dreading the lie I tell when I give the wrong last digit.

She hands me a slip of paper with her number on it.  “Who knows,” she says, shrugging her shapely shoulders, “maybe we can get together sometime?”

This casts a new light on the moment, and suddenly I’m not in such a hurry to leave.  But I’ve made my move.  I have to go now.  She follows me to the second-floor landing.  The smell of oleanders is thick in the night air.  As I walk down the stairs, I find myself wishing her father would show up, stop me from leaving.  I wander up the street to my car, thinking what a fool I am.

Doreen and Sean are in the living room watching a sitcom when I walk in.  Their uninhibited laughter makes me feel odd.  I go to my study, where I sit at my desk thinking about Iris.  As much as I’d like to call her, I know I never will.

During a commercial, Doreen comes in.  “You’ll never guess who called,” she says.  I suffer a momentary shock, unable to think of anyone but Ricardo Villa and his daughter.  When I shake my head, Doreen says, “Gary Kearns.  He’s in town, and wanted to know if you could get together for beers.  He said he’d call again tomorrow.”

From the other room, Sean yells that the show is back on.

When Doreen goes, I begin thinking about Gary Kearns, who was in a History of Western Civ class with me in college.  Our history professor, Dr. Woodruff, looked like the comedian George Burns.  But unlike George Burns, Dr. Woodruff had no sense of humor.  He took his subject seriously.  The only thing I remember about that class–other than earning an A–was an exchange between Dr. Woodruff and Gary Kearns.  Dr. Woodruff had been discussing the importance of Darwin’s theory of evolution, about how it had radically altered people’s perception of the world, when Gary raised his hand to ask a question.  When Dr. Woodruff called on him, Gary said, “So where does all this leave Adam and Eve?”

“Young man,” Dr. Woodruff said, hostility evident in his tone, “I cannot believe that in this day and age, after all of our scientific discoveries, you still believe in Adam and Eve.”

Gary smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders, not letting on about whether the professor had offended him.  But afterwards, while students stood in the hallway during break, Gary said to me (a near total stranger), “I don’t believe in Adam and Eve.  I was just asking a question.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

“I don’t know,” Gary said.  “He kind of intimidates me.”

It was hard to imagine Gary Kearns being intimidated by anyone.  He was big-boned–solid and imposing–with an upper torso like a football player.  He and I became acquaintances, meeting once in a while before class for coffee.  We found out later we both played racquetball, and we got together a few times for a set or two.  Gary said he was good, but I had no trouble beating him.  The last time we played, Gary made a point of commenting on my physique.  “You really are in good shape,” he said, looking me over.  Thinking back on it now it seems a harmless enough comment, but then I was sure Gary was gay and coming on to me.

I thought that until one night before history class, about a month later, when I met Gary’s girlfriend, Cynthia.  Gary and Cynthia were standing outside the classroom arguing.  I had been ducking Gary, hoping to avoid an awkward situation.  I felt relieved when Gary introduced me to his girl.  But Cynthia was hard to like, a solid little barrel with a bad attitude.  She made no attempt to disguise the argument, and picked right up with it after looking at me.  Embarrassed for Gary, I went in and took an early seat.

After class, as if nothing had happened, Gary suggested that he and Cynthia, Doreen and I get together some night for pizza and beer.  For some reason I agreed, and we all went out the following weekend.  It was the most awkward double date Doreen and I had ever been on.  Cynthia didn’t like either one of us, and the feeling was mutual.  I made an excuse about having to get up early the next morning, and we all split up after a few hours.  The four of us never got together again, but Gary and I saw each other once in a while during the rest of our college days.  We never pretended to be friends, and we never expected anything from each other.

After we graduated, Gary spent some time teaching English in Spain.  He called from New York a few years later to tell me he’d moved back to the States.  That was the last I heard from him.  I never really missed him.  Once in a while, though, a strange nostalgia would grip me, and I’d think kindly of Gary Kearns.

But now that he’s in town, I feel uncomfortable at his presence.  What does he want after all these years?  Has he moved here?  I start worrying about what I’ll say when Gary calls tomorrow, how I’ll get out of meeting with him.  But every excuse I fabricate sounds phony.

* * *

The acoustic guitarist at The Dust Devil, a pale young man with shoulder-length straw hair, plays a spirited rendition of “Light My Fire,” but his voice barely rises above the noise of people talking and laughing in the ramada.  Glasses clink together like wind chimes.  I sit at a table across from Gary Kearns, who was already here when I came half an hour ago.  I had imagined Gary as an overweight, middled-aged man with a receding hairline, but Gary looks much the way he did the last time I saw him.  In fact, Gary’s gotten better looking over the years.  He lives in Palo Alto now, where he owns several computer stores.  He’s here in town for a computer convention.  He never married Cynthia Landsdowne.  He never married.  “I don’t know what I ever saw in that woman,” he said when we had begun reminiscing.

So far the meeting is much less painful than I thought it would be.  Gary has changed a lot.  He’s more interesting than I remember.  The guitarist has just begun his version of “Vincent” when Iris walks up to the table.  Her hair is moussed to her head, swept boldly across her skull from a razor-sharp part on the right.  She wears a tight, red satin blouse tucked into a black leather miniskirt.  All the men in the ramada eye her, including the ones with dates.  Gary’s jaw falls open when she begins speaking to me.

“May I join you?” she says.

“Yes–of course.”

I had picked The Dust Devil on the outside chance that Iris would come here again, but I really didn’t expect to see her.

When she sits, the waiter who’s been neglecting our table streaks over.  We order three beers.  Men continue to ogle Iris.  To me she says, “There was a problem at the vineyard, and my father had to return to San Francisco this morning.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He called you twice last night, but an old woman answered both times.  She’s never heard of you.  325-0578, isn’t it?”

I feel the blood flush into my face.  Before I can say anything, Gary says, “0577–right, Stu?”

“Yes–77.”

I see the look in Iris’s eyes.

After the beers come, Gary says to Iris, “You said your father’s from San Francisco?”

“The Napa Valley, actually.  He owns a small vineyard there.”

“Which one?” Gary says.  “I know the area well.”  When she gives the name, Gary says, “Of course–they put out a fine Cabernet Sauvignon.”

Iris’s face lights up.  “You’ve been to the Napa Valley?”

“Many times,” he says.  “I live in Palo Alto.”

“Palo Alto,” she says, tasting the name.

When she asks him to talk about northern California, Gary launches into an impassioned description that would make any Chamber of Commerce president proud, and I know it’s more than love of land that motivates him.  Iris is enthralled, listening intently to every word.  I feel like a high-school kid intruding on a conversation between the varsity quarterback and the head cheerleader.

By the time I finish my beer the feeling is overwhelming, and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.  They hardly notice.  While I stand at a urinal in the men’s room, I try to think of an excuse to leave.  But an abrupt departure seems too contrived.  Still, I can’t imagine sitting through more of the same.  Later, while I walk back to the table, I struggle for something to say.  I’m practically on top of them when I realize they don’t see me.

On a whim I slip right past them, out onto the sidewalk and down around the corner to my car.  It’s not until I get inside that I know I’m actually going to leave, that I won’t go back to explain.  When I turn the key in the ignition, and the engine catches, I feel a sense of relief.  I drive down the street past Iris’s apartment, hoping I’ll never bump into her on campus.  Will Gary Kearns ever call to ask what happened?  Or will I get a postcard from him in a week or so, thanking me for getting out of his way that night at The Dust Devil, where he and Iris really hit it off?  She’s visiting right now, Gary’ll say, thinking about moving permanently to northern California.

I park in my driveway and sit in the car for a while, but it’s a warm desert night, and I have to get out.  The smell of orange blossoms in the front yard is as strong as cheap perfume.  I hear the television blaring in the living room, so I go around to the kitchen door.  Inside, before I head down the hall to my study, I stand at the entrance to the living room, watching Sean and Doreen on the couch laughing at the TV set.  They ignore me.  For a moment I consider asking Doreen if she wants to hear about Gary Kearns, but decide against it.

I close the door to my study behind me, then go to the closet where I keep my luggage.  It’s all just play-acting, but I take the largest suitcase out and open it on the floor in the center of the room.  Empty, the case resembles the trunk of a small car.  I picture a spare tire and a jack inside.  In my mind, I make several trips to the bedroom, retrieving piles of clothing which I organize carefully into the case.  When it’s full I close the lid, grasp the handle, and carry it down the hall to the kitchen.  I step out the back door, open the car trunk, and put the suitcase inside.  Then I drive down to campus.  I’ll spend the night on the couch in my office.  In the morning, after classes, I’ll look for an apartment.

When the game is over, I close the suitcase and return it to the closet.  Then I walk to the far wall, to the shelves that support my rock collection.  I lift a large geode and weigh it in my hand, fighting an impulse to throw the rock through one of the windows.

While I stand there, the door opens behind me.  I turn to see Doreen, who looks as if something unpleasant has just happened.  I start to ask what’s wrong when she says, “Now’s as good a time as any to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m going to stay with my mother for a while.”

“For how long?” I say.

She shrugs, looking away.

“Are you taking Sean with you?”

“Yes.”

While I try to think of something to say, she slips out of the room.  After she’s gone, I examine the geode in my hand.  It’s my favorite, the size of a baseball cut directly in half.  The crystals are a unique color, an odd blend of watermelon and caramel.  I look at the window again, picture myself throwing the rock through it.  I cross the room to put the geode back on its shelf.

I suddenly realize what Doreen is telling me.  For a moment I’m delirious with freedom.  The feeling passes quickly as I wonder how I’ll survive without them.