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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Rascal
By Larry Menlove
The scent of fall woke him. That particular dank aroma. Deke Faldergrass had tried to define it for seven decades, spirit out what that sodden smell was that let him know summer was over. It wasn’t a sad smell or a bad smell, though it may very well have been decay, rot, summer broken under the boot of autumn stepping in. Deke loved the smell. The wet old earth fragrance that tickled more than his olfactory imagination. One day out of the year smelled like fall. And Deke had breathed in 71 of them. Fall brought him up out of bed this morning.
He walked out into the living room and saw Ruellen’s pale canvas jacket draped over the back of the loveseat. He shuffled on over the flattened carpet and onto the cold kitchen linoleum. He fixed the coffeemaker with his daily portion and toggled the switch on. The white plastic fixture gurgled to life and began filling Deke’s kitchen with its own loyal aroma. While the coffeemaker spurted and spit, Deke got down a mug and set it next to the machine, touching it against the edge, imagining the warmth of the heat plate warming the mug a little. It was his habit. A habit as regular as the seasons. Or more. Deke brewed coffee everyday, all year.
He took his coffee and stepped out onto the back deck. The pinewood was slick with a thin skiff of morning frost. The night before he and Ruellen had stood there looking up at the stars in the thick darkness and sipped bourbon while the aspen leaves had quivered in a cold breeze. The chill of the night pulled the two of them together and they did not resist; Ruellen’s back leaning against Deke’s chest, Deke his one arm draped over her shoulder across her breasts and his hand resting on her opposite shoulder. Ruellen held his arm with one hand and her bourbon tumbler with the other. They leaned back and took in the constellations: Cassiopeia, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Leo. Deke sipped his drink and as the bourbon warmed him he pointed to Sirius, the Dog Star that had recently been behind the sun. Ruellen had acknowledged his point and leaned back, and Deke had felt a tingle in his belly that was not all liquor when her soft white hair had brushed his chin and neck.
This morning Deke was in his grey robe, which his shoulders still filled out. His lanky white legs were bare from the knee down and he had on his blue slippers. He stood on the deck and watched the few sparrows dart from the apple tree to the craggy old peach tree branches. One of the birds floated over onto the deck rail and watched Deke. Deke recognized this one, the grotesque way in which the middle toe of its left foot curled up and over the right toe as if the sparrow were crossing its fingers. Deke had courted this bird for three years, marveled at how it seemed to be the alpha of the canyon flock even with the defect of its tiny black phalange. The bird overcame its shortcoming with spunk. Or, maybe it was just plain good luck.
Deke knew even before he slid his free hand into his pocket that he had made a mistake that morning. He’d forgotten Rascal’s treat. No one knew, not even Ruellen, that he called this old bird Rascal. And this was one of only a handful of times since he had courted the bird that he had forgotten to bring Rascal something from the kitchenany bit of old toast, an egg white, peanuts or sunflower seeds. The bird took it all, even the stale beer he’d offered one morning from the bottle he’d left out the night before next to his white plastic yard chair on the deck. He had poured a dollop into the bottle cap and set it on the rail. Rascal bounced over to the cap after Deke had retreated to the cool shadow of the house awning where he stood with his coffee and watched. Rascal had stood stooped over the bottle cap and cocked his beak to the side looking at the cap and then raised his sad clown face and looked square at Deke. Deke sipped his coffee. Rascal had taken the rim of the bottle cap in his beak and flown off dripping beer in the grass as he disappeared around the west corner of the house.
This morning Deke’s hand was empty when he drew it out of his robe pocket. He looked at Rascal. Rascal looked at him. Deke slid the glass door aside and went back into the warmth of his kitchen. He set his coffee mug down on the counter and dumped cereal from a box in the pantry into his hand and went back out to the deck. Rascal was gone.
The sun was now shining on the deck and the frost was melting, the dew turning the treated pinewood a dark yellow like the hundreds of palm-sized sunflowers in the brush fields lining his drive. Deke stood there without his coffee holding the corn flakes, his slipper half askew on his foot having caught it on the door slide on his way back out to the deck. He poured the cereal out of his hand onto the rail and went back inside. He knew it would more likely be a chipmunk or his lazy cat, Doris, that got the treat today. Not Rascal. Rascal was no doubt just then darting off through the aspens over the hill and into the white pines chirping and warbling his disgust with Deke. But he’d be back. He always came back.
Deke went into the kitchen and drank the last of the coffee gone tepid in his mug and fixed some eggs and toast and poured out the second cup of coffee from the pot into his mug and sat down at the old kitchen table in the squeaky vinyl chair and ate his breakfast.
#
Ruellen’s jacket was there in the front room draped over the back of the loveseat where she had left it in her awkward haste to leave the night before. Deke put his hand on it and leaned over against the loveseat which was in the middle of the room facing the little 24 inch video cassette player and TV combo sitting on a flat cut locust stump against the wall. He squeezed her jacket in his fingers and smiled despite himself when that tingle hit his belly again and then moved south a bit.
“You old rascal,” he said to the room.
Deke got dressed and went in the backyard off the deck carrying a paper egg carton and made his way up the path through the browning mule ears and cheat grass to the chicken run. He opened the feed closet door next to the run and popped the big metal lid off the fifty gallon oil drum barrel he used to store the chicken scratch feed. He set the lid on its side against the barrel and filled an old red coffee can that was resting on top of the feed. He had to lean over deep into the barrel, and he sneezed from the dust brought up from the dusty bottom half of the stock in the barrel. He went into the run and began spreading the feed on the hard pack ground while his dozen chickens gathered at his feet, scratching at the soil, pecking. The small kernels slipped between his fingers, spreading the straw colored wheat, rye and oats. It bounced off the backs of the chickens and slid down the smooth back feathers and off their wings tucked in tight against their compact solid bodies.
After he had spread all the feed in the can Deke went into the hen house and reached into the nests lining the east wall and gathered the new eggs. Most were warm. He collected a half dozen and carefully placed them in the empty coffee can. Back in the feed closet Deke transferred the eggs into carton. He dropped the coffee can into the barrel and replaced the lid.
There in the feed closet up along the exposed lap top under the ceiling sat a cat. Deke eyed the old feral tom. It was a brindled black and white, its whiskers were grizzled, loped short and misshapen. The cat had a mouse in its teeth. The mouse’s whip tail was twitching.
“I thank you, cat,” he said. “Good for you; good for the hens. What’s in it for me?”
He reached up towards the cat with a cautious hand. The cat twisted and fled along the two-by-four lapboard and leapt down to the ground and crawled under the bottom of a fur-worn wallboard into the weeds behind the building.
“That’s what I thought.”
He turned the spigot that was inside the feed closet. The spigot had a hose attached that went through the wall into the hen house and hung over the water trough. He let it run with practiced patience for thirty seconds and then turned off the water.
Deke went back into the house picked up his truck keys and Ruellen’s jacket and with the half-dozen fresh eggs went back outside to his truck. He drove down the long curving drive out to the road and just as he was rolling out onto the pavement of the canyon road he noticed out of the corner of his eye a silvery streak coming at him down the hill from the left. He looked over just in time to see a shopping cart crash into the front fender and wheel of the truck. The rattling clatter and crash coincided with the popping of his clutch and the spurting out of his engine as Deke killed the truck. And then a boy thudded heavily on his hood.
The teenager’s face was an inch from the windshield. He had a scraggly beard and fine tufts of blond-red hair poked from under a black beanie hat. His eyes bulged as he stared through the glass at Deke. His sleeveless arms with a downy covering of red hair were spread and he clung to the edge of the hood near the windshield with clenched fingers. Deke could see a red scar on his upper lip from a recent wound. He could see the boy’s dry lips and a pimple under his right eye that was white and ready to burst. They stared at each other in the sudden peculiar silence following cart clatter, thud and dead engine. Deke watched the blood rush into the boy’s face as he flushed and finally turned away, loosened his grip on the hood and slid off the front of the truck over the grill. The flesh of the boy’s belly squeaked on the paint. The boy pulled the shopping cart away from the truck and stood there looking stupidly in at Deke.
Deke stared at him through the window. Then he raised his eyes when he saw another boy come running down the hill with fat-toed, untied shoes slapping on the blacktop.
“Holy crow!” shouted the second boy, who was much smaller and younger looking than the first. He came up beside the first boy and stopped. “You were flyin’!”
The older boy looked at Deke and then down at the other boy and shushed him.
Deke got slowly out of the truck and stood there next to the boys standing in their baggy jeans and t-shirts.
The first boy stammered, “I, I’m sorry about that. I couldn’t stop.” He looked feebly down at the shopping cart and smiled. “No brakes.”
“What in thee devil?” Deke checked the truck for any damage. But since the Chevy was getting on and battle worn he couldn’t tell what was old and what was new as far as dents and scrapes were concerned.
“How’d you get that thing all the way up here?” Deke asked, pointing at the shopping cart. Deke lived seven miles up canyon from town and the nearest grocery store.
“The backseat of my car,” the tall boy said, throwing his chin over his shoulder to gesture up the hill.
“How far’d you ride that thing?”
“Oh a mile,” said the tall boy. “It kept gettin’ stuck in dirt side the road.”
Deke shuffled his feet. “Well, be careful. Maybe you ought to get yourselves a helmet for that nonsense.” He started to get back in his truck.
“Hey mister,” the small boy said, “can you give us a ride back up?”
Deke muttered and lifted his hand, gesturing to the truck bed. “Go on then. Put it up there.”
The boys tossed the shopping cart up into Deke’s truck bed and then clambered into the cab with him. The smaller boy was pressed up against Deke and he held the carton of eggs on his skinny legs. Ruellen’s jacket was draped over the back of the seat between them. Deke started the truck and drove up canyon.
“What’s the eggs for?” the small boy asked looking up at Deke.
“For eatin’, I suppose,” said Deke. “What would you do with ‘em?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders.
“Takin’ them to a lady,” said Deke.
“What lady?”
“Boy, you are one inquisitive young man.”
“Are you taking them to your girlfriend?” the small boy asked.
Both boys snickered.He stopped at the boy’s car, an old grey Impala with a peeling vinyl roof, and the boys got out and banged the shopping cart out of the back of the truck.
They shouted, “Thanks mister,” as Deke bounced the truck back around the road in a tight turn and headed back down toward town.
#
He was about halfway between his house and Ruellen’s house when he saw the bulldozer and the big white sign on the right side of the canyon road. There were tall stakes in the ground with orange ribbons hanging from them waving on the gentle breeze. The stakes marched a couple of hundred yards across the flat of cheat grass and goldenrod, where the winter elk congregated, and on up the sharp slope of the mountain for about a hundred feet where the line took a ninety degree turn at the old Williamsons place and followed north into the oak brush for another two hundred yards and then back down to the road.
Deke slowed the truck and read the sign:
BLACKHAWK CONDOMINIUMS
by Underwood Construction Co.
Under this declaration there was a mapped plot of the buildings going in. They formed a jaunty flower pattern conjoining in the middle with a fountain and a roundabout. Under this was the phrase: “Canyon living. City amenities.”
Deke pulled over, his truck’s tires pushing down the paled weeds at the side of the road. He leaned over to look out the passenger window and could see that the stakes went right over the stream at the far end of the flat that was barely a trickle now at the end of summer. The big yellow bulldozer was sitting silent just off the road. Thick dusty grease oozed from every crack along its huge engine compartment. The gray blade was down and a pile of new dirt was cut and black under the weeds. Deke looked for any workers and could see no sign of anyone. A magpie hopped up out of the weeds onto a stake and picked at the orange ribbon with its beak. The bird lost its balance and spread its wings to regain equilibrium and then lifted off the stake and glided over the tops of the weeds to alight on the roll cage of the bulldozer. The magpie bounced up and turned to face Deke.
Deke pulled back onto the road and drove muttering, “Well that’s a fine kettle of rotted catfish.”
#
No one lived between Deke’s home and Ruellen’s which was down canyon and very near the canyon mouth where the delta spread out revealing Payson and Utah Lake across the valley and Lake Mountain rising up beyond the lake. Ruellen had lived in this house for going on four decades. It was small but adequate for her. She had never married. No children. She had her handful of friends and a sister who lived in Bountiful. And she had Deke.
From the road just outside her driveway Deke could see that she wasn’t at home. Her little orange Toyota pickup was not in its usual spot under the carport. He went ahead and pulled into her drive and got out of his truck. He carried the jacket and the eggs to the back porch through the carport. He climbed up the four short stairs and tried the back door. It was locked. He knew then the front door would be locked as well. He let the storm door nestle shut on its swooshing pneumatic closer and turned and looked off up the hillside away from the little patch of lawn Ruellen kept. There were sparrows flitting among the gray rocks and the gambol oak brush and mountain mahogany trees. He could hear the gurgling of the stream which ran along the far edge of the lawn. It sounded like conspiring whispers.
Deke laid the jacket down on the sturdy log swing on the porch where on the rare occasion he came to Ruellen’s they would sit and spot deer and wild turkey on the hillside and drink the Red Dog beer Ruellen preferred and once in a while if they were feeling sassy pass a fat cigar with a big red coal on the tip between them.
He didn’t dare leave the eggs for fear they would spoil in the heat that was rising with the day, and he went back to his truck with the carton and drove on down into town.
In town Deke drove to the IFA feed store on Highway 198 that went right through town. He backed his truck up against the loading dock until his back bumper nudged softly against the hard black rubber of the safety rail.
Inside, the store smelled of musty feeds, leather and wool. Deke made his way to the back of the store. There were two other men in coveralls, flannel shirts and ball caps leaning against the order counter like they were saddling up to a bar. Deke knew one of the men.
“Hey ya, LeGrand,” said Deke, and he laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed.
LeGrand turned around in a startled manner and took a few seconds to register his recognition of Deke.
“Why old Faldergrass, what are you up to?” An easy smile bloomed on his wrinkled red face and spread up into his eyes.
“I’m comin’ into town for some chicken scratch,” said Deke. “How you been?”
LeGrand had turned and taken Deke’s hand in his. Deke’s hand swallowed the other man’s, but he held it like it was a bird, firm but with care to keep the life inside, the bones intact, respect for flight.
“I’m the same ol’ ornery cuss ya saw the last time, and I’m gettin’ some scratch too,” said LeGrand. “I say Deke, it’s good to see you.”
“You too Grand. You too.”
“Hey, you and Ru still see much of each other?”
“Oh, we keep tabs on each other when we can.”
“I bet you keep tabs, you old smooth dog, you.”
“Yeah, she’s a good ol’ gal.”
There was a pause in their conversation as the attendant, a stout middle-aged man with a curly dark halo around his pale head, came up from the back of the store through the stacks and shelves and gave the second man at the counter his order receipt and told him it would be up shortly.
“That’s in the Dodge isn’t it?”
“Yeah, uhum,” replied the man. He turned and walked towards the feed store entrance.
The stout man said, “LeGrand, yours’ll be up in a minute. Deke, you need three bags?”
“Yut. Three’ll do me. Thanks Bart.”
LeGrand and Deke were left alone at the counter. LeGrand was staring at a middle-aged lady going through a circle rack of Wrangler shirts across the store. He said, “I like that Bart. He’s a good feller.”
“Yut.”
“Why didn’t you ever tie the knot with Ruellen, Deke?” LeGrand still watched the lady who had moved around the clothes rack and had her back to the men.
“Yut, that’s a good question.” Deke offered nothing more, and there was a silence between them again.
And then LeGrand asked, “Say, what do ya think about them condos going in up there on the Walker’s old land?”
“I saw that on my way down. Gad. I had no idea. Who’s doin’ that?”
“I hear it’s some development outfit out a Salt Lake. Bought up most of the flat, I hear.”
“Gad,” said Deke.
“I know.”
“Who gave approval of that?”
“I guess Childress, who else?”
“Politicians. I didn’t vote for that greenhorn son-of-a-gun.” Deke shook his head and waved his hand in front of his face like he was swatting at gnats.
“Naa, me neither. Hasn’t been the same since ol’ Doc stepped down.”
Bart came up the aisle and said, “Yours is up LeGrand, and yours too, Deke. Here you go.”
He handed the two men receipts, and Deke and LeGrand paid for their orders at the cashier near the entrance. They walked out into the sunshine and stood above their trucks on the dock and waited for the worker to load their orders on. Cars and trucks went back and forth on the highway.
LeGrand said, “Well I think we need to get together and have us a beer.”
“Yut, it’s been a long while hasn’t it?”
A young man wheeled four long flat white sacks of chicken feed out onto the dock. “This one?” The young man pointed at LeGrand’s truck next to Deke’s.
“That’s right,” said LeGrand, and then he turned back to Deke. “You’ll say hey to Ruellen for me won’t you?”
“Sure will. Give mine to Renay. How she doing anyway?”
LeGrand chuckled. “Just fine. Her and Adelade’s gone up to Park City for the day doing some shopping in them fancy stores.”
“Shoot.”
“Ah, it’s mostly just the ride they like, I imagine. Can’t get me up there.”
“Na, me neither.”
#
Deke drove on through town to the Food King and picked up a supply of groceries. He tried to keep his drives into town limited to just once or maybe twice a month. Ruellen helped fill in the cracks of his sustenance for him, though he most often complained when she did. Ruellen was always bringing him the odd loaf of home baked bread or cake, a case of beer, a bag of chips. She brought wine or champagne on special occasion, with fancy crackers and cheeses with names that made Deke shake his head in amazement. He always crabbed about how he didn’t need her help keeping food on his table, but he never put his foot down, never out and out forbad her from showing up as the sun was setting with a Tupperware container of hot pesto with diced chicken breast, a hard baguette tucked under her arm and a bottle of Johnnie Walker nestled in her inside jacket pocket. About once every change of season he returned the favor by showing up at her house with a pork or beef roast with carrots, potatoes and steamed cabbage sloshing in a heavy pan. It was a give and take of sorts, but Deke always grumbled nonetheless for the assuagement of his fashioned if not genuine pride.
With his four or five grocery sacks filled with cereal, coffee, sugar, Tabasco, ketchup, mayo, a twelve pack of cheap beer and various other odds and ends he could remember he needed and others that just appealed to him at the moment stacked in the seat next to him, Deke started back for the cut in the mountains and home.
He drove slowly past Ruellen’s place and saw that her little truck was still gone. And he felt a little twinge of something. It was feathery in his chest and floated up into his throat. It was formless but very much there, like summer passing into fall. Something lost but something found.
He was trying to sort out his mood when he rounded a slight bend in the road and saw the boys off to the side of the road on the thin pavement. The bigger teenager was pushing the smaller boy uphill in the shopping cart.
Deke pulled up next to them and stopped. He reached over the groceries and rolled down the passenger window.
“You boys ride that thing all the way back down to here?”
“Yeah,” the smaller boy said. “Can you give us another ride up?”
“Yut, I guess. Just mind the feed bags you don’t put a hole in any of ‘em.”
The boys put the shopping cart back up into the bed of the truck, and the bigger boy got in with it and sat on the edge of the bed since there was only room for one of them in the cab. Deke pulled the groceries across the seat and the smaller boy climbed up into the cab. His hair was tousled and his face was dirty with a persistent layer of exuberant sweat and the dust that makes up a carefree day. Deke started the truck rolling up the canyon.
“Did some shoppin’, huh?”
“Yut.”
The boy noticed the carton of eggs tucked between the gear shift and the floor AC blower. “You didn’t deliver your eggs?” he said.
“No. She wasn’t home.”
“What you gonna do with them?”
“Take them home for the fridge.”
The boy looked up and watched the road for a few minutes. Suddenly he leaned over and reached for the egg carton and asked, “Mind if I have one of these?”
He set the carton on the seat beside him and opened it. He took one egg in his hand and lifted himself up out through the open window of the truck and sat on the edge of the door. He shouted, “Whooo-hoo! Bombs away!”
Deke was driving past the development sign and the big yellow bulldozer. The boy’s torso in the window twisted and then there was yolk and clear whites with little bits of shell splattering on the windshield. Deke saw a broken half of egg shell with its contents streaming behind make a slow arc away from the truck and disappear into the weeds near the sign.
“Whooo-hoo!” the boy shouted again, and he banged his fist on the roof of the cab. The two boys shouted at each other as Deke drove on up the road another hundred yards or so until he could find a turnout wide enough to where he could pull over. He stopped the truck.
The boy slid back down into the cab and looked at Deke. Deke’s face was drawn and slightly flushed. He was looking at the open carton of eggs. He took in a deep breath and ran his long fingers through his thick grey hair. He scratched at his face. He needed a shave.
“Now look,” said Deke.
“I’m sorry mister,” said the boy. “It was just an egg.”
“When you’re throwin’ these eggs you gotta use a lighter touch. My hens lay ‘em soft.”
Deke was still scratching at his chin.
“What?” asked the boy.
“You gotta hold it softer. A little care. Get it where you want it to go without breakin’ it in your hand.”
The boy looked at Deke for a moment, and then a smile swelled on his dirty face. “Can I try it again?”
“Yut. I think you better.”
And Deke turned his truck around.
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