Truckee Meadows Community College

It was Dishwater Martin and I hiding in the bushes outside of my old college roommate’s window. We’d both hit the bottle early that morning so we were really buzzing. Our plan was to slip in undetected, pound Frank McKee into mincemeat, and snag his dog. Pinto was a good dog. He deserved better. Martin and I both agreed. Fraternity was spreading across our nation like a plague and Frank McKee was the leading example. Back slapping and beer guzzling, shirts tucked and collared, unnaturally induced bulk; we wanted none of it. So that’s why we were crouched there, content for the moment to just watch a frat-boy in its natural element.

A few hours earlier I was in a bar called Muriel’s looking at familiar faces. Whenever there’s a big winner in the casinos around here, someone takes their picture and puts it on the wall. When I first came through town the most recent picture was just three days old. I remember asking a woman what she thought about how everybody gambled so much.

It’s theirs to gamble, she said. Winning the big one is sort of like a miracle. Deliverance from the everydayness that nags at us all.

It was like a party inside Muriel’s that day. It felt like one of those slow, warm afternoons that’s like an electric blanket was placed over the world and everyone had thawed out a little.

Then I saw Dishwater Martin from across the room. He appeared like a vision in a nightmare: his hair was cut short and his pants were pressed, but his silver tooth still shone. Martin walked right up to me holding two drinks and nodded.

Jesus, he said, getting a good look. What are you doing here?

But I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be in prison. Dishwater Martin was the one who was supposed to be in prison.

I bought a whiskey, I told him.

You’ve got a lot of work to do.

I drank it down.

I’ve just been set free, Martin said. It was a party, it turns out, a sort of “welcome home” from his stint in Ely State Prison.

How was it in there? I asked. Soon it began to snow heavily outside.

He waved his hand through the air. I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s talk about freedom.

I’m thinking about going to visit an old friend, I said.

Where?

In Colorado.

Colorado? Now that sounds like a good slice of freedom.

So what do you think? I asked. Should I go?

How should I know?

I’m lonely, amigo, I said. Then I took out the letter I’d received that morning and handed it to him. Freedom, I said. Martin took it and began to read out loud:

Dear Friend,

I was much too dumb for school and much too lazy for a job, so that’s why I’m still stuck here in Brant. But I like to tell myself that it’s no measure of good health to be well adjusted to such a sick society, don’t you think?

The thought of you coming back home to visit reminds me that so much has changed. I surely have missed smelling like campfire with you, Dick, Martin, and the boys. But what you said about the police having taken your car away makes me think that everything stays the same. I believe that jocks suck and gangs suck, but cops are both. It is just like my mother used to say: cria cuervos y sacaran los ojos. Raise crows and they will peck at your eyes out. Maybe someday we’ll live in a world where people can just suck it up and get along once in a while.

Well, I remember the times we all shared, many of them the best and worst I’ve had. It’s too bad you are all gone but makes me step back and think maybe I will begin to make some changes in life. Maybe I will go back to see my family in Mexico as it has been some years. That's all I have to say. Take care.

Signed, Cesar Mendoza.

How about that? I asked Martin. I should go, right?

Probably, he said and handed the letter back to me.

But I don’t have the money. Or a car. See, I said, they’ve taken it from me in a cowardly act of state sanctioned robbery but nowhere can I find the necessary ninety five dollars for the bus.

Dishwater Martin smiled. He placed a hand on my shoulder and tapped, tapped it. I was in there for a long time, he said. I got plenty of ways to make a buck and they’re all up here, he said while tapping his forehead three or four times.

We both took a drink.

What’s the plan? I asked.

Martin didn’t answer right away. He placed his drink on the counter and fumbled with a cigarette. Ok, he said. I’ve got a plan. I’ve got a plan for us, old buddy. We’re in it to win it now, Lee Williams.

I waited for him to go on.

Pinto, he said.

Pinto?

Pinto was a terrier, white with brown spots.

A pure breed, Martin said.

You want to sell it?

I could get you a grand easy.

And before I’d even finished my drink we were outside, on our way in the snow to Frank McKee’s apartment. See, we were under the spell of the drunkard’s salvation, believed it was around every corner. All we really needed to feel right in life was the shell of a plan.

We were peeking in the window. A cigarette dangled from Martin’s mouth, burning orange at the end. We drank from a bottle of Old Crow. Ulysses S. Grant drank Old Crow. He was a Truckee Meadows kind of guy. At Truckee Meadows Community College, where I’d met Frank, they taught us to affirm the beauty and reason of the world, to encourage a life of faith and recognize the dignity and uniqueness of each and every person. Ulysses S. Grant: a hero. Ethical and noble and would never have stolen what belonged to another man, no matter the circumstances. A fool.

From the bushes we watched Frank sit, then stand, stretch, pour a fresh cup of coffee, and sit again. He worked tapping away at a typewriter. He said he wanted to be an author but wrote stories like he was the last and littlest bitch in Tinseltown. I’d read one or two; they were all about important issues. I even showed Martin, a true artist, one and he laughed me out of the room.

All of a sudden we were inside. And there was Frank’s face, sad, tired, weighing his future, and Dishwater Martin was there and he was hitting Frank in the face, the cigarette still burning at the end. I closed my eyes. I’d never seen anything like it. The confusion is what I mean.

When I opened my eyes again, Pinto sat in the hallway watching us. Martin was over at the kitchen sink fixing himself something to drink. Frank sat silently at his desk, bloodied, a sour look on his face. He sighed. Jesus, man, he said to no one in particular. You’ve got to meet some new friends.

Pinto left his spot in the hallway and trotted up to me. He tilted his head up into my crotch and waited to be petted. His aura overwhelmingly radiated love into the room.

Then Martin came crashing back into the room with an armload of stuff, CD’s, DVD player, stereo, toaster, electric chords trailing behind him. He threw it down on the kitchen table. He had brought it all to me, but I didn’t want to have to pawn any of that stuff. I wanted the dog. I picked up a little black notebook and opened it to see long lists of numbers and strange symbols.

He’s in bad shape, I said, nodding at Frank. I think he’s in shock.

It’s complicated, Dishwater Martin said.

So, of course, by then Frank was crying. I sat and poured him a drink while Pinto lay down at my feet. Frank turned away and looked out the window like he was embarrassed at me. We were good friends once. It was like the old tale of Kemosabe gone rogue. Or, hero betrayed by sidekick. You could say I grew a big head.

Then Martin came back into the room dragging a suitcase with a lock on it. He demanded Frank open it. Frank refused. So Martin did what he knew best and in only a few minutes he had Frank entering the combination to the lock. When Frank finally popped it open, well, there must have been forty thousand dollars in there.

Well, well, well, Martin said. Where’d this come from?

I don’t know.

Hey, look here, I said to Martin. I showed him the notebook, the symbols: a heart, a clover, a diamond and a spade.

I won it, Frank said. I won it fair and square.

Counting cards, eh? Martin asked. Then he turned to me: We’re rich. We can take it all.

But I wanted the dog. The money? Sure, the money would have been nice, the money was Old Crow whiskey, a sizable amount, the money was booze and a beach vacation dream. But the dog, the dog was… I thought back to what Martin had said in the bar: freedom.

Pinto acted as if he knew the way home, leading me the entire time. When we reached the apartment he ran up the steps to my door and waited at the top barking and barking. When I reached the top of the stairs I heard someone say, What’s that?

Mitsch, the landlord, opened his door a crack. A symphony blared into the hall with oomph’s and hurrah’s.

Sorry, Mitsch. Only the dog, I said.

What? What are you saying?

It was a dog, I repeated.

Of course it was a dog. You don’t have a bark like that in you. Over here, boy, Mitsch said and rubbed Pinto underneath his ear. I glanced down at his desk.

What are you writing? I asked.

Letters, he said.

Who to?

What does that matter? he asked.

I think a lot.

Well, if you must know, to my dead wife. To my lost son. To you.

And then what?

And then I will put them in my drawer and they will stay there forever.

I smelled the whiskey on his breath. When I looked down at the paper I saw that the last thing Mitsch had written was: To Jove – Sam the me loko, sail away, and bod hod for enmil.

You know, you’re crazy, Mitsch, I said.

You’re not one to have a dog. Get that goddamn mutt out of here. I don’t even have a dog.

Back in my room I began a letter.

Dear Cesar, I wrote.

Well, guys our age have certain duties. That’s why I’ve delayed coming home. Been so busy I forgot about my friends. But expect the sight of me coming overtop the nearest hill in Brant.

I have been struggling lately with a great moral dilemma, one that dates back to the earliest of times: should I pay the parking tickets on my car or should I not? I decided the latter and consider it my duty as an American to encourage others to do the same. I lost my beauty not long after. Then the trouble of transportation arose, but I’ve made short time in acquiring the necessary ninety five dollars to fund the bus back home, so that is, as they say, that. I now feel I am Columbus standing atop the bow of his ship, looking out across the Truckee River, and the bus that takes me shall be my Pocahontas. I can already see the lost city of home rising in the distance, and oh how sweet it seems.