Saturday, December 21, 2013
Then he made inquiries after Louanne, since she’d been in Denver
recently. I sat over a glass of beer remembering Denver 1947 and
wondering. Then Jack Daly arrived---a wiry curly-haired man of thirty
five with work-gnarled hands. Neal stood in awe before him. “No,” said
Jack Daly “I don’t drink any more.” “See? see?” whispered Neal in my ear
“he doesn’t drink any more and he used to be the biggest whiskeyleg in
town; he’s got religion now, he told me over the phone, dig him, dig the
change in a man. My hero has become so strange.” Jack Daly was
suspicious of his young stepbrother. He took us out for a spin in his
old rattly coupe and in the car first thing he made his position clear
as regards Neal. “Now look Neal, I don’t believe you any more or
anything you’re going to try and tell me---I came to see you tonight
because there’s a paper I want you to sign for the family. Your father
is no longer mentioned among us and we want absolutely nothing to do
with him, and I’m sorry to say with you either any more.” I looked at
Neal. His face dropped and darkened. “Yass, yass” he said. The brother
condescended to drive us around and even bought us ice cream pops.
Nevertheless Neal plied him with innumerable questions about the past
and he supplied the answers and for a moment Neal almost began to sweat
again with excitement. Oh where was his raggedy father that night? The
brother dropped us off at the sad lights of a carnival on Alameda Blvd.
at Federal. He made an appointment with Neal for the paper-signing next
afternoon and left. I told Neal I was sorry he had nobody in the world
to believe him. “Remember that I believe in you. I’m infinitely sorry
for the foolish grievance I held against you yesterday afternoon.”
“All right man, it’s agreed” said Neal. We dug the carnival together.
There were merry-go-rounds, sad ferris wheels, popcorn, roulette wheels,
sawdust and hundreds of young Denver kids in Levis wandering around.
Dust rose to the stars together with every sad music on earth. Neal was
wearing extremely tight Levis and a T-shirt and looked suddenly like a
real Denver character again. There were motorcycle kids with visors and
mustaches and beaded jackets hanging around the shrouds in back of the
tents with pretty girls in Levis and rose shirts. There were
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment