The Whip (2 page)

Two

The banker was twiddling his gold pocket watch which he had just removed from his well-stuffed vest with figured silk stripes. His fingers were like little juicy pork sausages dangling from the big well-dressed sausage of his body. Call him Mr. Sausage Man—all the children did.

He stood before the Wells Fargo Office in Santa Cruz, a red brick building with green shutters. He was waiting for a shipment from San Juan Bautista to arrive. Light from a gas lamp illuminated his round face and the round face of his watch.

It looked like the coach was going to be late, he noted. Mr. Perfect Parkhurst, always on time, was going to be late for once. That one-eyed high-and-mighty everybody idolized. That yard-bird his wife always asked after. He smiled with smug satisfaction.

But wait, damn it. He heard the whip’s bugle announcing the stagecoach arrival. The pounding of the team—he could hear it now—and way down the long street the smell of the rising dust. The stagecoach was coming. The whole world was dust and pounding, pounding and dust. And now, like filthy little fairies, the bloody children were coming. When Parkhurst arrived they always came. Their faces were gleaming like little planets through the dust—the nasty urchins.

The stagecoach approached at a dramatic gallop and stopped right in front of the banker. The horses grunted. There was dust everywhere. And in the midst of it, Charley Parkhurst. The whip raised his battered hat with a gallant flourish.

“Evening, Sir,” he said, with a grand broken-toothed stretching of his mouth. His face was open, a study of frank planes—but then there was that black eye patch and the dark mystery beneath.

The banker raised his hand limply in greeting, but the runny-nosed creatures had surrounded him and were jostling him on every side. He winced and retreated with some difficulty to the back edge of the crowd.

“Charley. Hey, Charley,” a scruffy towheaded boy shouted. “Got any candy today?”

As Charley reached into his coat pocket, something like pain crossed his weary face, followed hard by his usual two-chaptered smile: the quick smile, then the slow smile…taking his time at it.

Charley threw down a large handful of wrapped sweets.

“Candy,” shouted the boys.

The candies scattered every which way. One landed in the brim of the banker’s hat.

“Got it,” shouted one of the older boys as he jumped for it, knocking the hat off the banker’s head. “Sorry, Mr. Sausage Man.”

The banker seized his disrespected hat from the ground. “My name, Lester, is Mr. Middleton.” He glared all around him.

Boys were scuffling in the dust, grabbing candies from the dirt and from each other. They were tumbling over and wrestling each other.

“That’s it, boys. No more candy,” said Charley above the din. “Time to run along. It’s getting late. Must be past your dinner time.”

The boys began to wander off, the volume of their voices lowering little by little with the distance. Below and behind Charley, the passengers were departing the coach. A winsome female in her voluminous packaging was being extricated with the help of some of the male passengers. As she was lowered through the doorway and her feet touched the ground, she wilted, frail and exhausted from the grueling trip. Two of the men moved in closer to her sides and held her upper arms to buoy her.

She was whimpering. “Oh goodness, I was jigged, tossed, bounced to the ceiling, tumbled to the floor, wedged against a window, and scattered in all directions.”

The two young men ushered her down the street…doing the duty of obliging young men, holding between them a gratefully murmuring bouquet.

Charley watched them go for a moment.

Off to one side, two girls had arrived and stood in the outermost corolla of the glow cast by the gas lamp, their dresses drained of color in the darkness. They whispered and giggled and touched their hair. Charley glanced over at them. One of them was holding a covered plate. She met his eyes head on, and then, blushing, dropped her eyes down. Charley considered her, considered them both, a tolerant and amused expression on his face.

Byrne, still sitting on the spare end of the driver’s seat, was feeling his old self again.

“Now I know why you like being a whip, Charley. I see you have a couple of admirers waiting for your attentions. I have an idea. Why don’t you join me at the saloon for a drink…and bring the girls along with you.”

“You been drinking too many nips out of your little silver flask, Byrne. Hell, you don’t bring nice girls into a saloon. And look at me…I’m old and ugly enough to be their grandfather. Every run there’s always girls waiting with plates of cookies or some other damn thing. It happens to all the whips. Just part of the job.”

A loud throat-clearing from the banker and Charley and Byrne began to clamber down from the coach.

As they disembarked, Charley continued, “But I’ll take you up on that drink. Always end my runs with a shot or two anyways. Tiny’s Saloon is just down the street on your left. Can’t miss it. I’ll be there soon as I’m done here.”

“Right. See you there after I check into the hotel.”

Byrne heaved his luggage off the back of the coach and headed down the street.

Two burly bank guards came out single-file through the door of the bank, reconfigured themselves to walk side by side to the stagecoach, and then stepped forward to remove the armored box from under the driver’s seat.

Charley walked a few steps to the lamp. He moved with a noticeable limp. Now off the coach and on solid ground, he seemed older, more fragile.

The guards, carrying the strongbox, vanished into the bank, followed by the banker. The door clicked shut. Now just the two young women were left. They were having a hurried whisper and then one of them, the bold-eyed one, stepped forward into the gaslight right beside Charley, holding out the cloth-covered plate. Her dress was deep blue that set off her eyes, with ribbons shiny and dark green.

Charley noticed her lips quivering.

“Hey, Charley,” she said. “I baked you some more biscuits.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Miss Abigail,” he said taking the plate.

Way back in the beginning, when he first clomped off a stagecoach, he would blush at the rosy pink attentions of women. There was no natural way to be. He was either rude or gruff with them, or on the other hand, erred by affecting a crude lasciviousness. Women thought him odd then. Now they found him to be a gentleman. They approached and he backed up, and they took his politeness and distance as respect for their sex.

The girl spun around, her face clouded with complicated emotions, and looked to her friend. They exchanged an anxious glance and rushed away in a fresh gale of giggles and whispers and swirling of cloth.

The wind sighed and Charley shivered, chilled to the bone. Now they were gone, too. Everyone was gone. The street was empty; it was as if all sound had leaked from the world.

One of the lead horses whinnied a quiet reminder and Charley moved to his side and stroked the damp flesh.

“Yeah, ole Jasper, I know. We both feel like shit. My bones are hurting too.”

Charley’s discourse with the horse was interrupted. Strident female voices were cutting through the night…singing…

“We were so happy till Father drank rum,

Then all our sorrow and trouble begun;

Mother grew paler, and wept ev’ry day,

Bessie and I were hungry to play.

Slowly they faded, and one Summer’s night

Found their dear faces all silent and white;

Then with big tears slowly dropping, I said:

Father’s a Drunkard, and Mother is dead!

Oh, is it too late? ‘men of Temp’rance,’ please try,

Or poor little Bessie may soon starve and die…”

Bang.

A door must have swung open down the street, for there was a brief cut-off roar of sound—glass clinking, people bellowing, loud, tinny piano music. A male voice screaming, “You damn singin’ sage-hens. You’re blocking the entrance. Get the fuck out of here.”

The door closed. Silence.

Charley looked up. The silhouette of the young stock tender was advancing down the street towards him. The boy approached, his features still cast in shadow. He nodded to Charley, and without a word climbed up onto the driver’s box and took hold of the reins. The tired horses clopped away. The stagecoach rolled lifelessly behind.

Charley sat for a minute on the steps of the bank, sweating in the chill air. He was sapped, depleted. His body felt like a stranger, his breath shallow and hard, his chest tight. He waited for his body to return to him. Shit. He’d been having these damn spells the last couple of months. It was time he went back to Doc Plumm. He had been putting it off. He would walk down to the doctor’s office and see if he was there before meeting Byrne at the saloon.

Three

Doc Plumm always seemed on the verge of narcolepsy
in mid-sentence. But today he was mindful and alert.

“The sore on your tongue is very serious Charley. Last time you were here I made a point to tell you to come back in two weeks if it didn’t go away. You didn’t follow my advice. It’s been well over five months since I’ve seen you.”

“Hell, it didn’t hurt, so I figured it wasn’t anything to worry about. It’s just these damn spells I’ve been having.”

“Well, they’re both something to worry about. You’ve got advanced tongue cancer. And your heart isn’t doing so well either.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m so sorry Charley. It means that if you don’t have an operation, your throat and tongue will swell up and you’ll suffocate. Or if you’re lucky, your heart will take you first.”

Charley stared down at his worn boots for a minute, as if taking in each crack that creased the old leather.

“What’s this operation of yours?”

“Well my procedure can cure the cancer but the operation will swell the throat up so you can’t breathe. We’ll have to order a silver tube from San Francisco, have it inserted in the windpipe below the cancer, so you can breathe during the operation.”

“Fucking tube stuck in my throat? You know what Doc? I sure as hell ain’t doing that. It’s liable to kill me anyways, so what the hell. Pray for me that my heart stops before this fucking cancer suffocates me to death.”

“You’re wrong Charley. I advise that you have this operation. Your neck is swollen pretty bad on both sides now and your heartbeat is erratic.”

“How long do I have if I don’t do it?”

“If you’re lucky, about four or five months. If you insist on not having the procedure, I’d say that you better put your affairs in order. I’ll give you some opium tablets for the pain. You’ll need to find a doctor closer to you in Watsonville, who can give you more as you need them and take care of you. And when the time comes and it gets bad, you’ll want some morphine. Come and see me whenever you need to.”

There was a long silence as Charley stared out the doctor’s window.

“Are you okay Charley? What can I do for you? You want a whiskey?”

“Shit, no. I’m not okay…But hell, I’ve had much worse things happen to me. Maybe I’ll survive this too. Never gave up in my life. I’m just gonna continue down the road I’ve been living. And if and when it’s time to go, it’s goddamned time to go. Nothing I can do about it. Nothing any of us can do about it. Just do what you have to do to survive. Give me the goddamn fucking opium tablets and let me pay my bill. You’re a good guy Doc. I appreciate your offer of the operation and the silver tube and all. But I want to go all in one piece…no holes, no parts missing.”

Charley tried to laugh but then the tears came.

***

It’s true that we’re all children disguised as adults…When age and illness embrace our body…when disease and pain overcome, our eternal youth within begins raging, stamping, praying. Please dear God who lays me down to sleep…an awful mistake has been made…I was just now learning to feel safe beneath this fragile skin, trust within this prison cell. Just now my eyes are open to the world…Just now I feel the earth beneath my feet.

Four

I
n God we trust. All others pay cash. Two young
boys
had positioned themselves under the sign beside the doorway to Tiny’s Grand Central Saloon. They darted round and craned their heads inside with longing and inquisitiveness each time anyone came in or out of the swinging door. Bright lights and glassware, shouting and spitting and music. Little tables and rich spilling aromatics. And, most curious, were the women. Women of a new sort, women with pillows of soft dimpling flesh quivering out of the tops of their tight, low-cut bodices. The children saw a man with his face buried in the cushiony breast of a woman, and the woman’s face looking straight towards the door when they peeked in. She was smirking and grinning and most unlike any mother either of them had ever seen. It was thrilling. It was bewildering. It was wonderful.

Then out of the darkness, Charley appeared. “Lester…hey, Weldon. You boys still around? I told you to go home to dinner. Nothing in here for you…not yet anyways. Now get going.”

Charley put out his right hand to enter—with his left hand he carried the covered plate of biscuits. But at that very moment the door swung outward with a shock wave of brilliance and loudness exploding towards him, and a flood of liquid pouring over his boots. He jumped back. “What the hell—”

The barkeeper was advancing with vigor, wielding a large jug before him, sloshing beer over the floorboards at the saloon entrance. He looked up.

“Oh shit, sorry about that, Charley. Have one on me. It’s just them goddamned Daughters of Temperance females. Won’t none of them be kneeling in prayer or song out here again tonight. Worth the damn beer not to have them disrupting business and the good times.”

Inside, the long mahogany bar was lined with lonely drinking men, huddled together like cattle along a stream. Off to the side, Tiny Crutwell, the proprietor, all three foot ten inches of him, was pounding with gusto on an old upright piano. Charley passed behind him, greeting him with a pat on the shoulder. He continued on to the bar and set down the biscuit plate. In an instant, the biscuits disappeared, snatched up by rough weathered hands. He plunked himself down on an empty stool.

Behind him at a nearby table was a preacher in black tails and a stovepipe hat. Lit to the gills, the preacher raised his glass.

“Proverbs 31, verses 6 and 7,” he intoned. “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more!”

A roar of cheering and clinking of glasses swelled up.

Someone down the bar reached behind the shoulders of his stool-mates to offer Charley a cigar. “It’s a Partagas…your favorite,” the man said.

Charley nodded his appreciation—he didn’t recognize the man—but accepted the cigar anyway, leaning forward to tuck it into his pocket for later.

A short heavy glass of whiskey, delivered by the barkeep, appeared before him.

“Thanks J.D.” Charley raised it in a silent toast and downed it in a single gulp. He thumped the glass back down onto the bar.

But who was that?
Who was that
?
With a sudden moment of shock he’d caught sight of his own worn and unfamiliar face in the large gilt-edged mirror in front of him. Oh. Yes. That’s himself. Charley. Charley. The edges of the crowd pushed into his vision and the swirling of all his senses ensued. He downed another shot.

Then he heard a cheery voice. Byrne, with two shots of whiskey in hand, appeared next to him at the bar.

“Here I am Charley. What the hell took you so long?”

“Hey Byrne…you roostered yet?”

“Sorry?”

“Drunk. You drunk yet?”

“Not yet…but well on my way. Roostered. I like that. Going to use that in my article.”

He handed Charley one of the shots and raised his glass high.

“Here’s to being single…drinking doubles…and seeing triple!”

They tossed back their drinks.

“Hell then, come on,” said Charley. “Let’s get your damn questions over with. If you keep buying the booze, I’ll keep answering the questions.”

“Deal,” Byrne said, and ordered another round. As he pulled pencil and paper out of his jacket, he observed Charley staring into the mirror. What was he looking at? He looked like he was in a bad mood.

“Alright Charley, so how much longer are you planning on coaching?”

“Shit…apparently not much longer,” muttered Charley.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Don’t mean nothing…I’m an old-timer, Byrne. Don’t travel like a colt no more. Besides…not much coaching left with the railroads ’n’ all. You can get from New York to San Francisco in eight days now. Imagine that. Took me four months to get here in ’49. Had to sail down to Panama and back up the west coast. I was so goddamn drunk the whole time, I don’t even remember most of it.”

“Four months on a ship. Hell. My stomach wouldn’t have made the trip. Why’d you put yourself through that? What made you come out west?”

Charley hesitated, fiddling with his shot glass.

“All I knew and loved were horses. So I took a job as a whip. I wanted the freedom. I wanted the adventure. You know?” He downed his shot.

Byrne noticed Charley’s unease…he seemed to be having a conversation with the glass in front of him instead of with Byrne. Something odd and melancholy about this man. Couldn’t put his finger on it. He decided to change the subject.

“So what are you going to do with yourself when you give up stage coaching?”

“Give up? Fuck, I bet I’ll die still holding the reins on some damn coach somewhere.” He motioned for another drink. He was starting to feel warm and relaxed.

“Hell, there were a few times I damn well thought I would die holding the reins. There was this fucking cholera epidemic in ’50. Killed over a thousand people in three weeks they say. Me and the boys must have driven half the population of Sacramento fleeing that goddamned plague. And then there was that fucking fire that scorched the city.”

He threw back another drink. “Yeah, a couple of friends went that way.”

Charley looked like he was going to pass out for a minute, but rallied. “Where was I? What did you ask?”

“I just wanted to know what you were going to do when you can’t coach anymore.”

“Oh that’s right. Point of fact, I’m not coaching much these days anyways. I tend to my horses and my apple orchard, and when the sciatica isn’t laying me low, I do a little lumberjacking for the extra dollar. And I’m a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.”

“You’re an Odd Fellow? What the hell are Odd Fellows?”

“Hey don’t laugh Byrne; we do all kinds of charitable shit. It’s a great group of men who love to be of service. It’s an honor. Have to be invited to join. We just raised enough money to help a young widow and her kids from losing their place.”

“You’re not as tough as you appear to be, are you Charley?”

The barkeep appeared once again and refilled both of their glasses.

“Here’s to you changing the world. One widow at a time.” Byrne winked at him and laughed at his own joke as they downed the shot.

“Changing the world,” Charley slurred. “Oh, shit yes…if I was young and strong again, I’d run for bloody President.”

“What would you do if you were President Charley Parkhurst?”

“There’s lots of bad things out there I’d fix. Stomp out what’s left of the fucking Ku Klux Klan for one.”

They were then interrupted by a thin, crusty-faced man. “Hate to tell you gents but I just overheard what you said, and you’re fucking misinformed.”

The stranger was already in his cups, sitting slouched on the bar stool behind Charley.

“The great Klan is gone,” the man said. “Fucking Republicans took them down…threw ’em all in jail. When I get back home to Louisiana, I’m going to join the White League and help the good ole white Democrats get these fucking Republicans out of office. No matter what it takes. Long live the White League. Goddamnit, we sure as hell won’t lose
this
war.”

“Is that right?” Charley growled.”I say, long live the Republicans. About time we took the fucking Klan down.” He turned his back on the man and continued his train of thought to Byrne.

“Goddamned stranger…You know, first time I ever voted was Republican. For the great General Grant back in ’68. Took a bath, slicked back my hair, put on my best suit and headed into Soquel.”

He stared into space.

Byrne waited.

Out of the clear blue Charley started laughing. “Yeah, got to the Tom Mann Hotel and there was this gaggle of suffragettes screaming in my ear.”

Byrne wished he knew what was so funny.

Charley continued on, “You know what? Put my first mark on a ballot at the ripe old age of 56. Would’ve voted for Lincoln back in ’60 too, but always seemed to be on the road voting time.”

The stranger leaned toward Charley and interrupted again.

“Lincoln? Grant? Those cocksuckers. Horatio Seymour should have won against Grant. He had a great slogan…
This is a white man’s country, let white men rule
.”

Charley turned back, his voice quiet and cold. “Guess you’re not too happy about the 14th Amendment then are you? I hasten to remind you, Negroes are full American citizens now.”

“If you’re not careful you piece of shit, with your nancy-boy politics, I’m gonna have to shut you up…gonna shove my fist down your fucking throat.”

The man stood up knocking the bar stool over, and stepped forward towards Charley. But as he raised his fist, he lost focus, stumbled backwards, and collapsed into a drunken unconscious heap on the floor.

A few men began to gather around Charley and Byrne.

“Hey J.D.,” Charley shouted to the barkeep. “Get out your broom. Somebody here needs to sweep up the white man who rules.”

Byrne started to hoot.

Tiny, who had stopped playing piano in all the commotion, hopped up on the bar, and walked along the top of it pouring a round of celebratory drinks for everyone.

“Free shots for all Republicans,” he yelled to the crowd. “And a double for my buddy Parkie.”

After the double, Charley tipped himself down from the stool. His eyes caught the empty biscuit plate sitting there. He grabbed it. With Byrne in tow he staggered through the crowd of men towards the door. He caught sight of a nice-looking young man, a regular he knew from the saloon, and he thrust the plate at him.

“Hey William, do me a favor and see to it that Abigail Simmons gets her plate back.”

The man looked up surprised, his hands accepting the plate. “Abigail Simmons? Are you sure Charley?”

“Oh yeah, I’m all set that way myself,” Charley said.

The young man gave an insinuating smile and thanked him. Charley stumbled onwards through the door, Byrne right behind him.

“I’m going this way to my hotel Charley. Where you headed?”

“Gonna bunk down in the stable tonight. Ride home in the morning.”

“Well…thanks for the terrifying coach ride and almost getting me beat up in the bar. I’ll never forget it or you. Oh, and I’ll get a copy of the article to you when it’s published.”

“Hell, don’t worry about that. Just be sure you make me look good.”

Charley turned and tottered off in the direction of the stables and his horse, away from the noisy brightness and loneliness of the saloon.

***

And Byrne began his article this way: Imagine, he wrote. Imagine if you will, the last of the great stagecoaches thundering by in the dark of night: the whip and horses as one; the words “Wells Fargo” gleaming above the door, stenciled in gold. Two lamps swing from hooks on the front. No one sees the stagecoach but a lone wild dog pacing through the scrub.