Chapter 8 of the R.M. Dolin novel, "Trophic Cascade"
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When Chance left Wyoming, it was in a hurry, his life irreversibly altered. That it happened in a snowstorm only complicates matters and compounds the toll. His rapid departure from the high mountain town where he hoped to stake a claim, was in diametric contrast to the years it took to slowly meander away from Wisconsin, heading first slightly south before sliding west. How he wound up in Worland is as much a matter of debate as distraction. It was never his intention to stay long, in fact his plan when he arrived was to make some quick cash ahead of wintering in Arizona.
He met a girl in Sundance on his way from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally to wherever the road might take him. She talked about a Pepsi plant that produced over a million cans a day. Chance reasoned that the reason they put such a large plant in such a remote mountain town probably has more to do with corrupt politics than sound business principles because it makes no sense. Just the logistics of bringing flat rolls of aluminum in, and a million empty cans out each day consumes whatever available workforce the mountain town could possibly have.
Aside from logistics, which is a small portion of the total workforce, there’s the labor needed to run operations, the engineers and technicians required to optimize production while minimizing down time, and the accountants, managers, and clerical staff it takes to execute administrative functions. Most of which doesn’t exists within the rural resident population. The girl from Sundance who Chance fell in love with for the night, assured him they’re desperate for help, and he’ll be guaranteed a job. If he’s willing to work night shift and his Spanish wasn’t too bad, he can even get a higher paying Supervisor position. Because he rides a vintage Harley and dresses the part of an outlaw biker, she adds that they’ll pay in cash and not asks questions.
Chance, whose name wasn’t Chance when he arrives in Worland, does nothing to assuage her assumptions. He finds it helpful when girls think he’s someone other than he is even if he isn’t. He dresses like a bad-ass Harley dude with worn leathers, lineman’s boots, and blue bandanna holding back long sandy brown hair, because people don’t mess with him then and when you live on the road, not being messed with each time you arrive in a new town is much appreciated.
He doesn’t mind the litany of questions Pepsi will likely ask, it’s expecting truthful responses he’s not completely on board with. He has nothing to hide, at least not yet, it’s just after years of wandering he finds it comforting to come and go without being noticed and without the ability to be found later. The thing about Chance is that as smooth and easy as his ability to make friends and build relationships can be, good-byes are not something he excels at. You can easily draw a map of the places he’s been based on the women he’s left devastated, the husbands still searching, and boyfriends and fathers vowing justice. Chance finds truth to be a nasty bitch and a relative variable, something based on situational context. If the situation is seducing a woman, truth’s whatever’s necessary to achieve his objective. In matters regarding business and non-romantic relationships though, he holds himself to an unorthodox high standard, even when others don’t. It’s the “code of the West” he tells himself when resisting the temptation to take advantage of a situation. Maintaining high ethical standards in such matters is how Chance measures his manhood. His Dad brought him up to believe it matters so that’s how he behaves, even after that night in Worland when his life suddenly and dramatically goes to shit.
It takes Chance three days to ride from Sundance to Worland because he detours over to Devil’s Tower figuring he might never be this close again. He doesn’t need an excuse, being on his bike feeling the give and take of secondary roads and rural towns is as close to love as anything he’s ever felt. There’s a peace and the freedom of solitude he finds increasingly necessary as life on the road relentlessly grinds him down. He and his dad bought his 68 Shovelhead at a police auction when Chance was a high school junior. The bike had been in an incident and then impounded while the owner awaited sentencing. The frame was straight, even though pretty much everything else needed rebuilding but the potential to own an early model Shovelhead made the restoration worth it. With its air-cooled V-twin engine sitting at a 45-degree angle, the cylinder heads with rocker box covers looks like flipped over scoop shovels, which is how the classic ride got its name.
For reasons having to do with how engineers process the world, Chance’s dad can’t keep from laughing whenever he talks about the silliness of designing an engine to look like scoop shovels. The first thing they do is strip the bike down to the frame and paint it black, like Harley’s should be. The engine and pipes are chrome with old school spoke rim wheels. He doesn’t use a fairing, and his saddle bag leathers are soft and well-worn. Living on the requires constant optimizing and reducing, so everything he owns fits either in his saddlebags or the backpack he keeps strapped to the back bar.
Whenever Chance and his dad work on the Harley, his dad brings up poignant anecdotes, usually involving drugs or bike safety. He talks openly about what life was like growing up in the seventies. The sex, the parties, the revolutionary ideas he at times carries into action. His dad’s not the type to be ashamed of anything he’s done and believes it’s the journey that builds our character. ‘Looking back,’ he’ll say, ‘is for people with regrets. Everyone makes mistakes, but if it makes you better, then no regrets.’ His dad believes a person’s continually on the road toward who they’re supposed to be and everyone’s here for a purpose. On rare occasions he’ll talk about his struggles after Chance’s mom walks out, how easy it would be to feel sorry or surrender to the temptation to give up. He shares his pain in ways that never assessed judgment or blame, something Chance admires. ‘Life is, what it is,’ his dad likes to say ‘without filters or excuses.’
One night after too many beers, his dad shares his philosophy about how once a person finishes doing what they’re put on earth to do, they die. Its why people die at various stages of life. How you die is based on how you live. Those that live a righteous life die quicker and more peaceful. This philosophy keeps him upright after his wife leaves and he gets laid off at the auto plant. To his way of thinking, both are necessary tragedies he’s required to endure on his journey toward what he is he’s supposed to accomplish. It’s not that he’s procrastinating, he just hadn’t figured out his purpose yet. As strange as that philosophy is, it resonates with Chance, and whenever life on the run gets exceedingly hard, he falls back on those simple truths. Clarity and comfort come from having purpose. He has no idea what his purpose might be but knows he’s yet to accomplish it because he’s still around, and he knows his life on the road is a journey toward that destiny.
‘It’s the small things that make a man,’ his dad will say. ‘We celebrate the grandiose but men of grander lack substance, like politicians, and that’s what makes them bitter, petty, and unhappy.’ Jake admires his dad as much for his wisdom as his weaknesses, because both contain meaningful lessons. His dad will share how dumb he was as a teenager when it came to drinking, girls, and acting responsible, but always caveats that each misdirection taught him three essential lessons; never mess around with a married woman, always be honest in personal and professional dealings, and never do drugs. The more Chance fails at lesson one, the more he’s driven to adhere to lessons two and three as some form of irrational compensation.
Fall comes early to the Tetons; aspen trees cut swaths of gold and orange through emerald evergreens. If you’re camping, as Chance is his first week in Worland, you wake up with bones so cold it takes till noon to not need the comfort of campfire coffee. The girl from Sundance was right, the Plant manager, desperate for help, hires Chance halfway through their interview; provided he’ll work the night shift and speaks a little Spanish. Worland’s not as bad as Chance imagined and will possibly work just fine as a place to hole up till spring. On the plus side, both the mountains and people have a charm that make you feel at home. The job’s okay and the pay’s excellent. The cold is accommodating so long as you walk to work, the grocery store, and the local bar. The problem is everything about Chance stands out in contrast to the small cowboy town. It starts with his devilish charm, followed by the fact he rides a Harley and fits the outlaw biker mystic. His usual routine is to arrive in some town creating something of a stir. Before long he takes up with a local woman which ultimately leads to someone’s husband, boyfriend, or father in serious pursuit as he makes a hurried run to his next new something.
The same cycle occurs in cities, it just doesn’t become the whole town’s gossip, and no one really ever attaches a face or name to the scandal. This highly predictable pattern has a period ranging from a few weeks to a couple of months but always with the same predictable outcome. Each new town is an opportunity to become more the kind of man his dad would be proud of. Each time he leaves though, usually at night and in a hurry, it’s with a sense of disappointment at having once again failed to live up to his dad’s expectations.
“So, what happened?” Jake prods while relighting his cigar. He lets the glow illuminate his drawn face against the dark New Mexico sky. This is the first real opportunity they’ve have had to sit down and get to know each other. If Chance stays through Crush, as he committed, he’ll need to learn that bourbon and cigars are a requisite courtyard ritual.
“I decide to let fate decide,” Chance answers, taking a sip of black bottle bourbon. “Like I said, I’m on my way from Sioux Falls to San Diego to crew on a tuna boat, when I detour in Rapid City to Mount Rushmore. On the way back I stop at this little café in Keystone and read about job openings at a Pepsi plant in Worland, Wyoming, and think, what the hell, making soda cans sounds more interesting than gutting tuna.”
“No shit,” Jake says enjoying the last of his Bourbon. “I installed the heating system in that plant like thirty years ago. They broke ground in March, if you can believe it. The place was like a freaking tundra. The top six inches nothing but mud and after that, the ground’s frozen eight feet deep. We freaking had to jack-hammer dirt in order to run soil pipe. Our foreman works a deal with the electricians to co-rent equipment and since we can’t both use the equipment at the same time decide to cut cards to see which crew works graveyard. In three months, I never get used to working nights. What’s cool though, is discovering an entire society of people who live after hours.”
“I’d hang with bartenders and musicians,” Chance chimes in.
“Me too, plus the night staff at the hotel where we’re staying.” He tosses his remnant ice on the flagstone as Chance drains the last of his bourbon. “It’s odd how you adjust. All my life I get up and start work right away then play at night. Suddenly, playtime comes before work.”
“And eating’s wonky as shit,” Chance adds. “I’d eat a cheeseburger for breakfast, then an omelet for supper because I got off work in the morning.”
Jake opens the ice bucket measuring out the appropriate number of cubes recalling happy moments from Worland. He then pours the corresponding amount of bourbon in each glass. Chance swirls his glass allowing time for the liquid to reach temperature before sipping. “I might have used a little less ice,” he teases.
“That’s because you haven’t yet learned to appreciate good bourbon.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Jake relights his cigar. “So, then what?”
“I’m working twelve-hour days, six days a week, building my winter bankroll and staying out of trouble. Still though, San Diego remains my ultimate destination.”
“But fate felt otherwise?” All stories eventually have a plot twist, otherwise they’d never be retold; Jake has a feeling this story has been many times retold.
“As things turn out, yes and no. Like any story worth retelling, this one involves a girl, Deidra; she was gorgeous. I’m talking skip lunch to sit with gorgeous, sell the house and live on ramen kind of drop dead gorgeous.”
“Was she French?”
“No, why?”
“I met a woman like that once in Paris, we were together thirty-seven years.”
Chance has yet to learn about Emelia, but he can tell from the distant way Jake talks, her story’s tragic.
“All I know,” he gently continues, “is she’s the kind of woman a man rarely encounters. She smells like sunshine, a strange thing to remember, huh? And her voice, like whispers from heaven. She was troubled though. Even tormented I’d say, but in a way that makes her even more beautiful. Isn’t that weird?”
“Like Sympatico?” Jake flatly states without thinking.
“You dog,” Chance teases.
“I don’t mean like that!” Jake scolds. “She’s tormented, but the way she wears it is striking. There’s a dignity about her. Not a ‘hey look at me,’ kind of come hither, but one that says, ‘I endure.’”
“That’s it exactly!” Chance is amazed someone like Jake can so succinctly nail what most attracted him to Deidra. “Every night it seems she arrives at work looking more beautiful than I’m capable remembering. Like it isn’t even possible she can be real. And the thing is, she’s that way without trying. But here’s the deal, when you are able to look beyond her obvious beauty, she seems, I don’t know, dead inside. Like someone with no expectation anything good can happen and no hope anything can change. And those demons inside her, they make her real. Whenever I look in her eyes, I see her struggle, a struggle that makes her seem, I don’t know, like me.”
“I’ll give you this,” Jake says, aware Chance could easily be describing Sympatico, “you know women. After a lifetime of learning I’ve found the ‘stay away from’ women are the ones that look as shiny and smooth on the inside as they do outside. The ‘want to know you better’ ones capture the nature of the world in their eyes and find meaningful ways to make it seem comprehensible. Of all the women I’ve encountered, there’s been very few like that; I married one and am looking after another.”
Every topic has a natural conclusion usually reached following some sort of profound statement from which nothing more can be added. Jake sips his bourbon and without saying a word, reaches for the bottle and pours equal additions in both glasses. Chance watches Jake corrects his mistake and considers saying ‘I told you so,’ but out of respect chooses not to. “So, then what,” Jake restarts.
“I make a point to know her. It’s awkward at first because technically, I’m her boss, but why let technicalities stand in way.”
“You clearly haven’t spent much time in corporate America. Talk of ‘getting to know her,’ gets you fired faster than faking transcripts or selling trade secrets.”
“It wasn’t like that, at least not at first. I’m not an expert in art, but she was like the Mona Lisa, not a woman I want to sleep with, one I want to know better.”
“That’s da Vinci’s gift,” Jake interjects. “I saw the Mona Lisa once and it was powerful. I was at a conference in Paris and snuck away.” Jake doesn’t care that he’s driving their conversation in a different direction. The best part of Bourbon in the courtyard is having the freedom to follow your thoughts. “You wander around this huge museum seeing works by all the Masters, and then, you come around a corner and there she is, hanging unpretentiously on a side wall like hotel art. That’s what strikes me first. The most valued object in all humanity’s not in a room all to herself, not in a section of the gallery where you have to buy a special ticket, she’s just hanging on a nondescript wall as if she’s in your home. As if you’re friends with da Vinci and Mona might drop by for cocktails.
“I stand there for what seems like moments, but is actually hours, trying to figure out what it is about her that so holds me. It’s clearly not her beauty because she’s a seriously unattractive woman. Her smile’s a path to nowhere, and it’s not her eyes or even her hands. I look and look and then it hits me, in the entirety of her image she captures the whole of humanity. The Germans call it gestalt; the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. In the simplest and most non-assuming way she’s me, she’s you, she’s anyone who’s ever understood they matter. So rare is a talent having the ability to capture the essence of a soul on canvas.” Jake takes a long draw on his cigar. “She’s the reason I got married ya know.”
“Really,” Chance teases glad to not be the only one making up stories.
“Two days after the Louvre, I’m sitting at a sidewalk café playing this game where every time a beautiful French woman walks by, I imagine what I’d say if I had the courage to say something. Then I’d imagine her response to my incredibly cleaver intro, and based on that, I’d extrapolate to the life we’ll have together.”
“One fairy book ending after another,” Chance concludes having also played this game.
“Not necessarily,” Jake cautions. “Sometimes it ends well, but not always.” He relights his cigar. “Stories of imagined love have to go where they go.” He pauses to reload his story. “All of a sudden, this beautiful woman strolls by, and I’m stunned. You know the type, right?” Jake asks smiling coyly as Chance who grins back. “And this after being intoxicated for days on the beauty of French women. They’re like a recursive dessert, the more you see the more you look. This woman though, is beyond all that. I mean I can’t take my eyes off her as she saunters down the sidewalk disappearing into some shop.” Jake stares into the darkness watching his French beauty escape. He waits to make sure she’s really gone before returning. “Then it’s back to a continual barrage of high heels, high fashion, and beauty beyond belief. Every five seconds a gorgeous girl walks by but, this woman who sashayed in, then out of my life, hers is the memory that won’t be superseded.”
“You followed her, right?”
“Unrefined prairie cowboys don’t follow beautiful Parisian women. I’m pretty certain there’s laws the Police will be more than happy to explain on my ride to jail.”
“Been there.”
“So, I bury myself in an equation I’ve been trying to solve for months hoping that’s a sufficient enough distraction to allow her to slip silently into memory. I can’t tell you if it’s moments or hours later, but I get this sense someone’s staring at me. I look up and there stands this woman I’m trying to forget asking if it’d be okay to use my extra chair for the empty table next to me. I’m so stunned I can’t even respond, like some sort of incapacitated monkey I nod, gesture, and grunt some incoherent something.”
“You should have invited her to join you.”
“I know that now!” Jake jams back. “In that moment when I look up and see her, I see all the miraculous things da Vinci captured in Mona Lisa, and I’m completely devoid of speech.”
“But you do eventually make your move, right?”
“Not exactly, we sit beside each other at our separate tables for as long as forever can be crammed into a tiny-ass espresso cup. I want to talk to her but can’t think of anything to say; damn the French and their tiny coffee cups. If only she’d ordered a café Americano, there’d be time to figure things out. Then, in the midst of strategizing how to become brilliant and charming, she just matter-of-factly starts up. The rest, is a life well lived.” Jake again stares into the darkness as it reaches all the way from New Mexico to Paris.
“Things start that way with me and Deidre,” Chance states, “but definitely not how they ended. And it isn’t that she rejects my advances, I can overcome that. She isn’t interested, not even in flirting, which intrigues me because I’ve never known a woman who isn’t at least interested in flirting. I try all my moves, and let me assure you, I got game. We become friends but that’s as far as things get. We have lunch together every midnight and talk. Slowly, and I mean melting snow slow, she reveals how she came to be working the night shift at such an out of the way place.
“No one wanders up to Worland by accident, that’s for sure.”
“It’s funny how frail fate is. My life is simple and I pretty much roll with the punches, but that’s because I never really lost anything I care about. Well, some stuff,” he caveats while attempting to decide if his mom should be on that short list. “I’m a guy who easily lets things go, ‘no encumbrances – no regrets,’ that’s my motto. The thing is though, she isn’t running from anything or moving toward something, she isn’t hiding but also wants to be far away from a past she needs to escape. And it isn’t just escape, I’ve been with plenty of women who want that; some out of boredom, others for a chance to change, or some to find adventure. Her deal’s different. I ask her once if she’s married and she says it’s complicated. I ask if she’s been abused and she says, ‘who hasn’t,’ that’s messed up right?
Finally, I just ask her point blank, why Worland? This is a bit eerie, but she asks if I can imagine hell? Not the pain and agony part, but the grinding emotional deadness that beats the breath out you before you even breathe.” Chance pauses, he usually doesn’t allow himself to get too deep but sitting here with Jake and hearing his story, causes him to retrace his destiny with rare openness. “She says she’s been in Worland longer than she needs, but has no place to go and no reason to leave. I can tell her story’s bullshit but figure when she’s ready to tell me more she will. I do however, believe the part about hell, no one can describe something like that unless it’s real.”
Jake recalls his time in Worland as he exhales a long steady stream of cigar smoke. He watches it rise in the cold night air like a diffusing memory. “The thing that strikes me most is how emotionally blank she is,” Chance continues. “Not in the dramatic way that begs attention, but in a quiet way that seeks anonymity. And that’s how things remain, sort of stuck, like the way Worland was starting to wear on me”
Chance takes a healthy sip of bourbon. The art of good story telling lays in instilling believable pathos. As any skilled storyteller knows, that requires well positioned dramatic pauses. “That’s when things diverge,” he solemnly restarts. “One evening she late for work and by first break has managed to avoid me. When she doesn’t meet for lunch, I go looking and find her on her way out of the plant with all her personal stuff. She’s won’t stop walking or tell me what’s wrong. Of course, something’s wrong, so I follow, and just as she’s about to get in her car, I grab her arm and tell her she can’t leave, at least not like this. She’s tries to avoid my eyes, but I won’t let her. She’s about to tell me something, I can see she wants to share and is just starting when her cell phone rings. She looks at the caller’s ID but doesn’t answer. Then, without any explanation, gets in her car and drives off.
“I know something’s wrong just as certain as I know I can’t let her leave, not like this. So, I do what any man would, I hop on my Harley and follow. By the time I get going though, she’s long gone, and I only have a vague idea where she lives. Working in my favor though, is Worland’s a small town, and it takes half an hour to find her car in this apartment complex. Unfortunately, I don’t know which apartment’s hers; the good news is it won’t take long to find out. I start banging on every door, and about four doors in, she steps out of another. For an instant she’s glad I’m there, but then, overcome by events I suppose she scurries past without saying a word. I pursue, demanding to know what’s going on. She refuses to say anything and gets really angry when I attempt to block her escape.
“She yells at me to move, beats her fist on my chest a few times, and then, just collapses into my arms crying. I hold her for what seems like forever but is less than a minute. In that minute though, everything feels right. She begs me to let her go but I can’t. She promises that as soon as she finishes what she needs to do she’ll meet me. I insist on going with her, but she’s equally adamant that whatever needs doing, has to be done alone. She says she can’t come back to Worland, so we agree to meet in Denver in one week.
“She promises to call, but-” Chance takes a strong drink of bourbon, staring longingly into a night that could never be as dark as his mood. “I shouldn’t have let her go; it’s the biggest regret of a life filled with regrets. I ride all the way to Denver, but she doesn’t show or ever call. I return to Worland and stay through winter just in case she returns.” He finishes his bourbon. “The thing is, we never even kissed. Up to the moment of good-bye, never even touched. But in all my years, through all the women I’ve known, she’s the only one I ever loved – still love. Is that stupid or what?”
“No,” Jake answers softly his voice rattled with unspoken regret. “Nothing about love is stupid. It’s a dimensionless force no one can figure out. It doesn’t tell us when to start or even when to end. It doesn’t provide meaningful feedback, or any information about our state, it just is what it is, and we have to accept it.”
When Chance left Wyoming, it was in a hurry, his life irreversibly altered. That it happened in a snowstorm only complicates matters and compounds the toll. The thing about Chance though, is he’ll say anything to get a girl in bed and doesn’t mind if you ask him questions about his past, just so long as you don’t expect an honest answer. His story of Deidra the night his life went to shit, is not the most eloquent version he’s spun, but the one thing all his stories about Worland have in common is, they always end with a confession to himself about how much he loves her, and how much it hurts that she’s gone. He always finishes with a vow to someday find her, even after everything that happened the moment she stepped out of her apartment, and they walked into the parking lot where their lives forever changed.
Jake knows Chance’s story is bullshit, but in a strange and perhaps chivalrous way, he doesn’t need to know what really happened. They live in the world of men, and in this world, there are few rules, the primary one being that it’s not for one man to judge another man’s truth.
