Oh, Tim.
That was fabulous.
Thank you so much.
I don't know if I can even rise to that wonderful introduction.
I am very appreciative.
Thank you.
And thank you so much, Gail and Aurelie for inviting me.
It is a true pleasure to be here as an alum of the University
of Arizona creative writing program.
It is so good to be in Tucson.
I just feel like I'm coming home whenever I come here.
So very happy to be here.
And very happy to have the opportunity
to read with David Wojahn.
I feel like I was actually a student in this program twice.
I was sort of lurking around the edges
when Dave was a student here in 1978, '79
and watching his star rise very fast.
Going to readings.
I think I told him tonight I thought I first heard
him read at Cushing Street.
I don't know if you guys all know this,
but David and my friend Stephen Schwartz
were the first editors of Sonora Review.
So we also have them to thank for that wonderful literary
quarterly.
So very glad to be able to read tonight.
I'm going to--
I feel like I'm in hometown territory tonight.
So I'm going to try out a new story on you.
I don't even think this is really finished.
But you can tell me maybe afterwards
in the reception area.
This may be a story that will be part of a linked collection.
I know that I'm working with these characters in longer
work.
Not sure if this will actually make it into the longer work.
And the title for tonight is going to be Boop.
I head down the dirt road to Kah's trailer
and here come the dogs.
There are so many, too many to count, and they're mean.
I turn up the radio so I don't have to listen
to their nails scratch my car.
They're with me into the ravine, across the bridge,
and up the hill.
I stop at the edge of the lot next to Len's crippled up Jeep.
He rolled it last month bushwhacking
through the desert.
Kah's construction truck is in front of the trailer.
The trailer is temporary, a single wide up on cinder
blocks while they build Kah's dream house.
Roscoe, the pack leader, jumps on my hood.
He's blue gray, a desert mongrel, they all are.
I blast my horn and try to meet his eye
but he doesn't look at me.
He stands like some kind of sentry watching dust devils
whisk through the yard.
I blast the horn again.
At last, the trailer door opens.
Len stands there, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.
He looks great.
Sleepy, tousled.
He rolls his tongue under his upper lip
like he does and I glare at him.
Finally, he whistles and the dogs go wagging to him.
He takes his time walking over.
I'm mad at you, I say, rolling my window down.
He watches me, lids half closed.
You don't answer your phone anymore?
You called?
He pulls his cell phone from its holster.
Oh yeah, but he doesn't pretend to look.
I've been calling him all week.
I flick his arm.
He flicks me back.
I guess you're mad at me, I say.
Me?
Why would I be mad?
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
Last weekend, we went camping in the Chuskas
and we had ourselves a little tiff.
I just said maybe I should join the Peace Corps because there
are no jobs in this podunk place, which there aren't.
I moved west two years ago.
Got a sweet job doing archival work at Mesa Verde.
But the funds dried up.
Been dry everywhere.
So now, I'm temping for parks--
for the Park Service clearing trails for minimum wage.
Join the Marines, Len said.
They probably pay better.
The few, the proud.
Then he starts up with a million reasons
why I should join something and get out of here, which hurt me.
It did.
So I took off and left him in the middle of the Chuskas.
It was your fault, I say.
What did I do?
Anyway, I went back for you.
Where were you?
You went back for me?
You know I did.
You were hiding just to make me worry.
You were worried?
Yes.
No.
He smiles and flicks my cheek.
Kah comes out with a huge bag of Alpo.
Tell Kah you're sorry, he says.
Why?
Because after you abandoned me he had to come get me
and missed watching the Padres beat the Dodgers.
I'm sorry you missed your game last week, Kah I yelled.
Kah pours the dog food into big bowls.
How the fuck sorry are you?
Yikes.
Told you.
Let's go.
Where?
To the fair.
The Navajo fair is going on in Shiprock
30 miles south of here.
Corn roasted in husks sprinkled with salt and hot chili pepper.
That's what I want.
We can camp by the river.
OK, but I'm driving.
He snatches the keys from the ignition.
Not a chance.
You're not wrecking my car.
Then we're staying here.
Come on.
No way, Jose, he says.
I have abandonment issues now.
Last week I was perfectly fine.
But now, I've got these issues.
I reach for the keys.
He puts them in his pocket and starts toward the trailer.
Len.
He dashes away kicking up dirt.
When I enter the trailer, Dottie the dog
comes over to say hello.
She's the raggedy mom of the rascals outside.
Dottie has a crater in her right haunch, a tattered left ear,
and she probably once had a longer tail.
On the TV, Cab Calloway sings about Minnie the Moocher
while a ghosty walrus chases Betty Boop and her boyfriend
Bimbo.
Kah is a cartoon nut.
The trailer is littered with old cartoons on DVD.
I head down the hall toward Len's room and jump
in the middle of folded laundry on his bed.
Hey.
I turn on to my back, wave my arms and legs windmill-like,
and send the laundry to the floor.
Len jumps on me.
You smell rotten, he says.
Am I foul?
He buries his nose in my armpit.
I came here from work.
Didn't stop to shower.
Been worrying all day about how it would go with him.
The telephone begins to ring and the trailer
shakes when Kah enters.
Len scoots down pushing my shirt up
closing the bedroom door with his foot.
Stop it, Kah can hear.
Kah doesn't care.
He slips his fingers up the loose legs of my shorts.
I close my eyes and listen to Cab sing
about that good old hoochie coocher.
The door opens and Len rolls off pulling my shirt down.
I cross my ankles.
Let's go, Kah says.
Where?
Bid on a job.
What job, Kah?
Walks away.
Tonight, Len yells.
We stare at each other.
After a minute he comes back carrying a clipboard
in a battered leather case.
Never mind, he says, you stay.
Len closes his eyes.
I got to go.
No you don't.
It'll be fast.
Why do you have to go?
Just wait for me.
He sits up and begins pulling on his boots.
God, this is what I'm talking about.
Give me my keys.
I hold out my hand.
He squints and sucks his cheeks as if he's going to spit on it.
I didn't go off and leave you to the Coyotes last weekend.
He throws the keys on the bed.
How long?
I'm not sleeping in this trailer.
Since Len moved in with Kah last month,
we're basically homeless.
I can't take this coffin-sized room
and he can't take my roommates always
asking him about books he hasn't read and movies he hasn't seen.
Kah he yells, where is it?
In town, Maple Street, hour, hour and a half tops.
It's 5:00 o'clock.
I tell him if he's not back by 6:30 I'm leaving.
After that, it'll be too dark to camp.
He shrugs, starts down the hall, but then ducks back.
You can drive me to the fair, he says.
His eyes glitter as if he's just offered me a prize.
Like cave crystals, Len's eyes, the color of hematite.
I pull his pillow onto me and sniff this morning sleeping
head.
The curtain over the window flaps.
It's been a blowy day and it smells a little like rain.
But the monsoon clouds have been snagging on sleeping
Ute Mountain for weeks now.
We call this room the cowboy crypt
with its Roy Rogers bedspread and matching curtains.
There's also a bucking bronco lamp and Dale Evans
pin-ups on the wall.
When Len moved in, Kah unburied the paraphernalia
from their parents' house and decorated especially for him.
He wanted to see if Len could laugh about it.