One Must Choose to Relax
one small step at a time
Working on my damn taxes. That time of year.
I don’t have an accountant. Costs too much. They gouge your eyes out.
‘I just don’t get it, Gordy. Why don’t you give that to one of those tax services. You’re working yourself into a nervous wreck. You’re driving me crazy.’
‘Nope Hon. Won’t give the pleasure to those thieving accountants. I can do this by myself. Heck, if Roy can do it, so can I.’
‘Oh Gordy, Roy is as dumb as wood. It’s Melda who used to be an accountant who does it for him, I doubt he can tie his own shoes.’ Chuckled.
I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. Roy, my neighbor, had a sixth sense for finding all sorts of legal loopholes. When he was done, he bragged to me how much he saved himself by using the legal tricks.. He just laughs at me because he says my business doesn’t generate enough to get taxed. But for some reason, it all had to be reported. God, I hate this stuff.
Sure, I barely generated any added income from my rock business. Every week, me and Ma head up the hills near Tucson. The heat is from hell. One time I just flat out lost my energy and my legs gave out, just sat on a pile of rocks. Lester wouldn’t stop licking me all over my face. I’ll never forget it because I spooked a damn rattler from under me. Normally I’d a jumped six feet to get away. Not this time. I just didn’t care.
Me and Ma are no longer spring chickens. I’m seventy and she’s sixty eight.
The ambulance people told me and Ma that I’d had a heat stroke. I’d heard of these, but not until now did I experience it. Now on all sorts of meds and no more walking around the dessert in the middle of the day. It’s so hot out there you could fry an egg.
I still collect semi-precious rocks. Don’t know why they call them that. There’s nothing semi -precious about them. They’re easy enough to find. You get an eye for it. Out in the desert around Tucson, the rocky hills are full of them.
So once a month me and sometimes Ma will join me to Saturday Flea down there at the Trebol park. My dog Turb used to go with me. Must be a thousand vendors offering everything from vintage carburetor parts to fifty-year-old Christmas decorations. My trusty old Jeep Wagoneer serves me well still after twenty or so years.
Out come my boxes, one after the other, shoe boxes mostly, get them at the Foot Locker. Each one overflowing with different kinds of rocks.
I offer one box that contains at least two special finds. Call it ‘the lucky box’. The young rock collectors love it. Inside, I hide an unopened geode or some special agates, enough to warm any young rock collector’s heart. Lately some housewives have started to buy my rocks. I suppose in a day of sitting out there in that huge parking lot under the sun, I might go home with fifty bucks in my pocket. In the month that’s somewhere around six hundred, but it’s more like a thousand because every once in a while I find a good opal or a huge quartz. People snap them up.
The kids love my ‘fish a box’ thing. So from five different shoe boxes they can ‘fish’ out enough rocks to fill a cereal bowl size container. A buck fifty. I make sure every kid walks away with a little something special. I’ll tell the mom or dad to make sure they find the crystal or the agate, whatever.
I learned how to sand and polish stones too. I found a supplier of startup kits for polishing and sold them too. I wrote a two page brochure explaining how the polishing process went and how to identify certain stones and crystals. To pass the time away at the Flea Market, I polish stones and sell them from a velvet floored display on my table.
Every once in a while I find a good geode. I probably walked past a hundred of them before I learned how to ID them. I can get anywhere from two dollars all the way up to five hundred bucks for them. The average is more like thirty bucks.
Turb, our yellow lab, died a couple weeks ago. I cried like a baby. Didn’t know I’d do that. Cried in heaves, privately of course. Ma was beside herself, didn’t know what to do. That dog was with us fifteen years, even during rough times with our growing children. Buried her outside under the big fig tree. Even found a suitable headstone, almost looks hand chiseled. In dark purple I painted ‘Turb’ across the top. Turb went with me everywhere, even to Safeway's and Wal-Marts.
It was me and Turb in my old Ford pickup doing errands on this side of Tucson. I’ll never forget the pleasure he took sticking his big, kindly head out the window, squinted eyes, the breeze making his ears fly. I swear he’d have a big smile on.
Hell, several years ago when I’d hunt rattlers, the big ones Turb knew how to get around the back end and grab the sobs tail! He ran dragging the long snake, not giving it a chance to coil. As he’d pass, I’d pick him off with my .22 or my machete. The animal people declared rattler killing a crime. Oh, it was okay, after all, it was their habitat. Sooner or later Lester was going to get bit. Of course, now years later rattlers were everywhere, kids and dogs get bit.
The taxes were dragging me down. I was raised to do it all by the book, the holy book. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the damn forms. You’d think I was training to fly a rocket ship for NASA. They asked me for everything except the size of my shorts damn it.
‘Hell, hon, I don’t need this. I’m getting too slow for this stuff. It’s no wonder some of these people just keel over and die. Out of pure desperation. Julie and Glen, our grown children, keep telling me they’d be over to help me through it, and that was over a week ago. But when those kids of ours need something, why hell, they’re here before sun up making breakfast.’
‘I keep telling you that all you need to do is drive over to Wal- Marts and get all your tax stuff done at that office, H&R Block. Gordy, now that you’re retired and getting Social, you don’t need to do that anymore. I don’t think your stone business really needs to get reported, do you? Roy has to report his income because, after all, he sells over fifty of those mesquite root lamps he makes a week. That’s some serious money. At a hundred and fifty each lamp he makes, he’s doing pretty good.’
I know my wife didn’t want to rub my face in that my friend Roy was a better and smarter business man than me. She was probably right. But still, Roy did his own taxes. In all of my years of work, on a farm, then the oil fields doing everything, finally our little convenience super market I did my own tax returns. If I couldn’t do my own tax work with my tax business, then either I was getting too old or else I was just plain stupid.
Thursday I felt a sharp pain in the right side of my head. Unusual because it wasn’t anything like any headache I’d ever had, I didn’t tell Ma so as not to worry her. Something was building, though I could tell. The same feeling we’d get out drilling a new oil well.
Something just told you it was about to strike.
The doc told me to stop drinking coffee. That’s what I did. Instead, I started to keep a bottle of Rum in my bottom drawer of my tiny work shop. A little nip here and there felt good. Ma caught me out and chewed me out. Bottle was gone.
There was that time that my new friend Nestor and I went fishing for rock bass at Rillito. After we caught a few, he pulled a pipe from his beaded pouch and stuffed some hash into it. My first time, well, in many years anyway. I loved it. They say it helps us older folk with the pains of life. Hell yes. Ma found my special little adobe pipe and crushed it and my golf ball of hash got flushed down the toilet. She said these were the devil’s tools…
Maybe.
Ma started giving me a wonderful tea in the early afternoon. I’d swear she added something to it…
The little joys in life get taken away. I am sure this is a law of life somewhere.
The door chime rang. Ma was slaving away in the kitchen, so I got out of my recliner in front of the tv and opened the door. Speaking of the devils, well, at least one of them. Julie and her husband Robert.
‘Come on in, you two. You’re just in time for some chocolate chipped cookies Ma’s making, smell that?’ The house was full of the familiar chocolaty aroma. ’So to what do we owe this surprise visit?’ The young couple entered and placed a large plastic super market bag, tied at the top with twine on the floor right next to the front door.
We hugged and quickly settled in the living room chairs. ‘We were just over at the mall. Robert has the day off because of the holiday, so we went and got some supplies. Hey Ma, wait til you see the frying pan I picked up for you. It was on bargain, one of those stone wear things. You’ve got enough of those supermarket coupons saved, they’ve got a new bunch.’ Robert nodded and smiled, turned his attention to the game.
He was sort of a funny one. As long as he was good to my baby girl, I didn’t care. He had a good job as a buyer for the Safeway supermarket chain. A smart one too. He graduated from Arizona State University. Julie graduated from the same university, but her subject choice was journalism. Had a tough time finding work in that, too much sacrifice to get the good jobs in town.
Julie told me that Safeway took advantage of Robert and worked him fourteen-hour days. They cheated him out of the over time.
‘You see my radishes coming up? Those are the green peppers up and full about now and look at the cucumbers. So many we don’t know what to do with them. Robert you want to grab about ten sprigs of that coriander right there for Ma. This year I planted eight more rows of sweet corn so get ready for bags of them. The Dillard's accept only so much.’
‘Looks nice Pa.’ All he’d say. Like I say, he’s just a bit shy of having all his screws. Maybe a little. We went back inside. We could hear the girls in the kitchen talking up a storm pretty much about everything. I heard them talking about the water rights in this part of Tucson. Seems like the Native Americans were flexing muscles again. Of course, I don’t have anything against them. After all, this land was once theirs and we came and took it. But at the same time, we still need water.
‘Those cookies are delicious Ma, thanks a lot!’ Robert swallowed, then said. ’Well Julie, shall we?’
That got both me and Mas’ attention.
Julie walked to the front door and picked up the bag she’d left there upon entering. ‘Ma and Pa, now, before you say no, just think how wonderful it will be to have a new friend here at the house.’ And with that, Robert opened the tie and reached in, pulling out an adorable beagle puppy. A tri color, as they call them.
‘Oh my word, Gordy, would you take a look at that. Look at his eyes, he’s got to be the cutest thing in the world.’ Ma reached out and drew the little, sleepy eyed beagle to her and held it in a smothering hug. The little guy stirred and tried licking all over her face, his little tail now going non-stop.
‘Rattle snake bait.’ The last thing I needed was another dog that was too damn small. The rattlers that cover these lands would be on him the first day.
‘What?’ said Julie. ‘Oh come on Pa, look at his face, c’mon, take a hold of him. He’ll even sit on your lap when you’re watching football. ‘Ma, convince him it’s okay, c’mon Pa you need a new friend, you know you do.’
‘Oh you like him, Gordy, I can tell. Just say thankyou! What are you going to name him?’ Ma chuckled. ‘I’m going to the garage to find that old cage we used to have for that otter we had, remember Julie?’ Both went out the side door leading to the garage.
Robert said ‘Hey Pa, if you really don’t want him, the pet store said they’d take him back. But you will have to decide within seven days. He really is a handsome little critter, he’s a pure one, got papers and all.’
The football game was underway, and both men settled in. Robert dozed a bit. Pa thought: ‘the boy is dozing off during the Army-Navy game. Definitely something missing. Oh well, takes all types. Like I say, as long as he’s good with my baby girl.
Geronimo whined lightly, two small paws on my shins, ears flapped to the side like he could’ve flown up onto my lap. I reached and placed him on my lap. His small warmth brought a magical peace.
‘Geronimo? No Pa, today you can’t call him that, oh you already know that. Come on, you can come up with a better name. Want to name him Turb Two?’ Julie said that last bit carefully.
‘Hell no hon. I still haven’t really decided, I…’
‘Oh come on Pa, you already love the little guy and you know it, if you could see your face right now.’
Finally named him Max.
Suddenly it was all I could do to keep from tearing up, damn it. Why was this happening more and more?
A year later.
Nestor pulled out a pipe, this one a beautifully beaded piece with turquoise. We shared, a ceremony. This was the first time I saw Nestor with a feather. The late afternoon sun was dropping behind the western ridge. The creek flowed slowly past. A slight breeze stirred the sage near us. Early evening birds sang the night song. The gold light outlined the darkening saguaros. They looked like they walked around, just a bit. I’m certain they did. We shared the cool lemonade Ma made us.
‘So when are you and your wife and your four legged brother Max gonna visit my place near the reservation?’ Nestor asked, glancing at the mostly grown beagle nestled between us.
In the air there was a whistle. ‘That’s them calling Gordy, they will do that at times.’
I didn’t ask. But I knew it was something Nestor knew about. I just felt the ground, felt the outflow of the tide, no longer splashing against the sea wall, a settling.
