Dark Desert: The Old Man & the Goat
Short fiction from our favorite hi-desert singer/songwriter and funeral director. As with his songs, it's sometimes difficult to know where the fiction leaves off and fact weasels its way in.
Randy was fired from the funeral home five days earlier. One of his coworkers had fingered him at the local swap meet selling used hearing aids and an assortment of recycled dentures. It didn't take a high-ranking government official to figure out just where he had acquired his merchandise. The action came swiftly and his supply was suddenly cut off at the kneecaps. Things looked bleak. Rent money doesn't grow on trees. Nor does it come up out of the ground like potatoes.
Randy drove a 1984 piss-yellow Chevy Celebrity with two donut tires and a coat hanger antenna. Nothing worked on the dash except the cigarette lighter. The front windshield had been busted out by an over-zealous ex-husband that didn't take too kindly to it being parked out in front of his ex-old lady’s apartment at three in the morning. When he drove at high speeds, Randy wore an old dirt bike helmet with a face shield to keep the bugs out of his teeth.
As far back as he could remember times had been tough. Rocking back and forth on the bar stool, his memories would come back to him like runny watercolors. The images of tangled loves and stray bullets blurred and skewed on the hard-boiled canvas of life. That lonely honky-tonk up Pi-Town Road was his last sanctuary for a Sunday night of boozing. They tossed him out at a quarter to midnight after he tried to buy a round for the house with $2.63 in pocket change.
With a lead foot on the gas pedal and a head full of well whiskey, Randy steered an unsteady course down Pipe's Canyon Road. He made a left onto Old Woman Springs with no thought to the brake pedal and headed north. Cold air rushed all around the cab of the car from the exposed front windshield. This sobered him up enough to keep somewhat straight in the right lane. Randy knew that if he could make Lucerne Valley he might be able to hustle up some no charge lodgings. He had done certain "favors" for the night clerk at the Astro in the past, although he couldn't remember the experience to be all that pleasant. She was a 350 lb. island girl put together like a freight train with an upper lip hairier than bigfoot. And boy did she like to play rough! Well, at least she had a pretty face ... when you closed your eyes and pretended it was Sophia Loren.
Thunder clouds had invaded the dark Mojave night, unbeknownst to Randy. A light drizzle had begun to drop into his lap and the roadway seemed dizzy and derailed. His two eyes suddenly shot wide open and he swerved the car out of the path of a dark figure slowly crossing the two-lane highway. A hard right onto a dirt road at 70 MPH sent Randy careening out of control for a couple hundred yards until he split a Joshua Tree in half and came to an abrupt stop with the car turned over on its right side.
Randy crawled slowly out of the shotgun side window and dropped down to the ground. He stared confused and crestfallen at the overturned vehicle. He was shaken up but not too surprised. Tragedy seemed to follow him like a stray dog. The vicious vapors of draining gasoline intermingled with the dust and smoke causing Randy to gasp and choke. He limped a few feet away from the wreckage, tasting blood in his mouth. Removing the dirt bike helmet, he sighed and tossed it to the ground.
The face shield was broken. He held his hand up to his forehead and could feel a four-inch gash letting loose his hot, red life-force. His eyes tried to focus back towards the asphalt roadway. He saw the dark figure once again. It moved slowly down the dirt road seeming to limp on crutches. Randy heard a shrill voice call out to him.
"Ya damn near killed me, boy! I saw the white angels descending! Take me now lord ... oh, take me now!"
Randy took a few steps forward. His heavy eyelids squinted trying to adjust to the darkness. The rain was coming down in buckets. The stranger was only a few feet in front of him now. He was edging forward with the use of a large metallic walker that had a rope tied to one leg. There appeared to be some sort of animal following behind him.
"Shame 'bout yer car, boy," bleated an old man dressed in dirty camouflage fatigues. The animal, tethered to a frayed yellow rope, looked to be a rather fat and filthy goat.
Randy hissed his discontent through bloodstained teeth, "Hey, no problem man, I got five more just like it back at the Ponderosa! What in the hell were you doing out in the middle of the road, old man?"
"Crossin'! In da' state of California pedestrian gots right-a-way!"
"What's up with using that walker in the middle of the desert?"
"Whelp, ya see it's like dis' ... got me a DUI a few weeks ago ... goin' down 247 drunk in an electric wheelchair. Couldn't afford to get the lil' bastard out of impound so I gots me this walker now." The old man grinned dully as the rain streamed over his sunken, sun-scarred face.
"Out taking your dog for a walk," slurred Randy, sarcastically.
"Dis' here goat named Gutneck. Lil' Tommy traded him to me for a rusted transmission and a homemade pipe bomb some years back. Yous can follow behind em'. Gots me a place bout a mile yonder ... over dat' hill." The old man pointed a long bony finger off towards the unseeable distance.
The three lone figures topped the rise in a moonless Mojave night overcome by rain and cold. The old man and his walker crawled violently along in front, cutting a deformed, menacing figure. The desert sands were turning to mud and Randy could feel the wet soaking up through the holes in his shoes. The goat stomped on beside Randy, occasional biting at his pant leg. A moment later a lone light flickered through the blackness. They had arrived at an old homesteader’s shack. The windows were boarded up with plywood and aluminum foil. The old man edged up quickly to the front porch. Leaning over his walker, he reached to unlock the door. Pushing past a twisted metal screen that hugged the front door like a torn pair of fish net stockings on a three dollar whore, the goat waddled in first, chewing on a piece of wet fabric torn from Randy's pant leg.
"Wait for me ... Goddamn it!" bleated the old man at the goat.
Inside Randy shivered and surveyed. The old man set his walker aside and moved across the small ramshackle room to a dilapidated card table which held several broken round bottom glass flasks, a slightly charred thermometer, and a dismantled Bunsen burner. The old man gingerly leaned forward and bent down. He pulled a large jug from underneath the table.
Turning unsteadily back towards Randy, the old man shouted, "This be my own special brew! Purple Passion!" handing the bottle to Randy. "Have a snort!"
Randy stumbled over and accepted the bounty. His head was pounding and he needed a stiff drink to take the edge off of the situation. He lifted the heavy jug up to his lips and took a long, mean pull that emptied half the bottle. The hooch went down burning.
"Shit this stuff will make your liver wanna stop drop and roll!"
"Careful, boy ..." whispered the old man. "There be powerful demons in that bottle!"
"Nothing I can't handle, mister!" said Randy, boisterously.
"Da' visions will creep up slowly on ya and extract a heavy toll! Beware! Beware!"
"What's in it, Pops?"
"Moonshine and LCD ... my own recipe!"
Randy felt a knot the size of Jupiter seize up in his stomach. "Very funny old man," he said uneasily.
"You'll see boy ... you'll see."
The effects came on quick. Randy suddenly felt very drunk. He reeled back and sat down on a metal folding chair in the corner, surrounded by a dozen or more scuffed, colorful bowling balls. His eyes rolled around listlessly in his sockets. He heard the old man talking loudly.
"I sees you found my collection. All dem' bowling bowels come from the Yucca Bowel after it done collapsed in the earthquake of 92'. 6.5 on the Richter scale ... shook the stuffing out of the place. Me and my wife were busier than a cat covered in shit trying to get all them balls in the pickup truck before the owners arrived."
"You gotta wife around here ..." mumbled Randy in a half daze.
"Yes sir! She be a-sleepin' in the master bedroom over yonder."
The old man motioned towards a door at the opposite side of the shack. Randy stared obliquely at it. The shadows cast from the overhead kerosene lamps shifted from light to dark and drew heavy lines across the room. Randy saw the old man get up and slowly waddle over to his walker.
"Gotta go out back to the tool shed now, boy. Cookin' up a batch to cure the eternal ache! Make ya dance all night this stuff ... and me ... an old man, lord! The boys be ridin' down from San Berdoo at this very moment. Gonna smoke right into town dragging severed heads from chains down the street! Yessir! Gonna cut a fat hog in the ass with this stuff!"
Before walking out the front door, the old man turned to look at Randy who had slid off the folding chair onto the concrete floor. "You best stay right there, boy. Have another slug off the jug. Don't be a goin' in da' master bedroom. My wife ... she’s so very tired. Cricket needs her sleep."
Less than an hour later Randy's eyes opened. The goat was tugging wildly at his left pant leg. Half the fabric of the lower calf had been eaten away. "Filthy beast," Randy muttered kicking the goat squarely between the eyes.
He rose awkwardly to his feet. The old man was gone and the shack had changed dramatically in appearance. The room was stripped clean. Randy had the feeling that all the air had been sucked out of it and replaced with gasoline and dry sand. The walls now seemed to blister and pop! Spewing deep red hues of light that swirled quickly and began dissolving away like a toilet bowel flushing. Randy's equilibrium had suddenly shifted. The concrete floor felt as if he were standing on a very large helium balloon that was slowly expanding ... expanding ... expanding. Rising up towards the ceiling. Up towards a hard yellow glow that felt hot as a poker. His hair was suddenly on fire ... burning! And the red walls swirled and flushed, swirled and flushed, swirled and flushed.
Stricken numb with panic and paranoia, Randy stumbled quickly towards the only thing that was stationary ... the door to the master bedroom. He opened it quickly and leaped inside, slamming it behind him. The room was cool and calm, bathed in pastel blues and pinks. For a moment he thought he heard a bird chirping and the sounds of children playing far off in the distance. Soft, green grass grew up around his feet. Before him was a large bed. White silk sheets seemed to stretch out for an eternity. He watched dumbfounded as a female form seemed to rise up from the mattress. She was young, pale-skinned, and quite beautiful.
"Are you the wife? Cricket?"
"Yes."
"I almost killed your old man out on Old Woman Springs Road."
"I know."
"I wrecked my car."
"I know that too."
All Randy could think was that she was quite stunning. A vision of beauty and purity. He felt safe in her presence.
"Sit down on the bed." She waved her small hand out before him. Randy sat down uneasily. "The smell of wet creosote always turns me on."
Randy remembered the rain, "Me too," he whispered.
"The old man always keeps me locked up in this room. I so long to run naked in the rain. Feel the desert sand underneath my bare feet."
"Oh ..."
"Would you chase me naked across the Mojave?"
"Uh ... sure, absolutely!"
"That's a good boy." She began to pull back the sheets to expose herself. The wife wore an orange nightgown cut low around the breasts. Her long blonde hair flowed gently down around the nape of her neck. She reached toward her legs and began to lift the lace up over her knee exposing her bare white thigh.
"I'm your reward for a long life plagued by sorrow and loss, disappointment upon endless disappointment. Come to me Randy ... come to me!"
"But what about the old man?"
She did not reply. Randy crawled over on top of her. The goat stood dumbly at the edge of the bed, chewing its wet fabric and watching.
Suddenly there was light and the sound of a door being kicked off its hinges. Randy shot upright in the bed. The room was hot and stifling.
"Caught ya with yer pants down around your ankles ... eh!"
The old man was standing in the door with a double barrel shotgun pointed directly at him. "I told you to let my wife sleep! She's so very tired now'a'days."
Randy sat there naked and paralyzed. A horrid smell caught his nostrils. The odor was that of a damp wet dog who had been rolling around in rotten fruit. He felt the body next to him in bed. It was cold and leathery.
The old man's beady eyes jumped from one edge of the bed to the other. "Cricket! You been cattin' around on me with the dis' here fella?"
There was no answer. Randy looked over at the right side of the bed. It didn't seem real. Not even his surprise and horror seemed real. He leaped up from the bed and left the mummified corpse laying there. He pushed past the old man, ran through the shack and out the front door into the cool morning air. The sun was coming up. Shotgun blasts erupted overhead in the distance. A squealing laughter that sounded like an 18-wheeler hitting its air brakes on a downhill slide into jagged rocks, echoed through the canyons. Randy didn't stop running until he hit asphalt. He must've passed right by the wreck of his vehicle, but did not notice. Catching his breathe he realized he was still naked as the day he came into the world. He found an old Stater Bros. shopping bag stuck to some sagebrush. He promptly wrapped it around his mid section and crotch. He started walking slowly down the road toward Lucerne Valley. A cement truck pulled up behind him.
"Need a lift buddy?"
"Sure," said Randy, looking embarrassed and broken.
"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your clothes, son?"
"I wouldn't even believe it if I told it to myself." Randy closed his eyes and laid back in the seat as the truck faded slowly off into the desert mirage.