Guano Tales
“The poet owns no land. He harvests hope humbly¾living by meager means amassed”
--Poetry Man Dave
Willy Offenheimer smoked too much. Yellow-gray nails and teeth caused him to resemble a gray-toothed hound more every year; but that was ok, yes, sireee, Bob, thought Willy, if you got ‘em, smoke ‘em. He’d lived alone since Daddy (whom he’d been thinking on all morning) told him just-where-he-could-go, years back when Willy, now 53, wouldn’t buckle under Daddy’s rule. He was happy¾long as there was work in the day and beer at night. He shook loose those old thoughts as he watched his tattooed right hand slide along the metal banister, making his way up the stairwell to the top¾ten floors¾eight to go, and he was already wheezing and coughing.
Ten minutes earlier he’d entered the cool, plant-filled lobby of the Palmas De Majorca condo plagued with a bat problem. The sign on the elevator read: “Out of Order.” Damn thing seemed to jeer him, he thought, as if to say, “Sorry Willy-boy, out of luck¾gotta bear a working man’s suffering today.” He sputtered out loud, “God-dammit…Jeeesuz-Almighty,” sending little droplets of Willy-spittle flying. The peeved exterminator thought it a cruelty at the end of a long, hard week. He was mindful in his thoughts, however, that on occasion, he could take a certain pride in being a bona fide entrepreneur, a man of a certain degree of success.
As he gave himself over to the verity that he was going to have to climb ten flights of stairs, he recalled the bar-talk of the night before. When he told a sweet little blonde he specialized in “bat extermination” the chickee laughed at him, started calling him “bat-man.” Hell, she was drunk, as he thought on it, and I wasn’t looking for no company anyhow.
Willy knew he was good at what he did, didn’t care much what folks thought. He used plastic owls, electronic sound-wave boxes, and one-way netting as deterrents. He’d scrub off the guano¾the fancy word he preferred to poop, shit or dung
Beyond the table in the lobby, he’d spotted the metal door to the stairwell, picked up his gear, and trudged through. As the door shut, the strike caught his sleeve at the elbow and he watched in that slow-but-too-fast-to-do-anything-about-it motion that people claim occurs during car wrecks and glassware falling from table edges. He saw the tear begin at the elbow and felt the metal take a nip-bite at his wrist. “Dammit¾dammit all” echoed up the stairwell. He pacified himself with thoughts of tacking damages onto the bill. Hell, he thought, these high-on-the-hog condo people can afford it.
Eighth floor now and Willy pursed his lips¾set his concentration on commanding his legs to move. His unwavering determination, he knew, sprang from a rebellious spirit, originating from a defiance against his mean, bear-of-a-father, who used to rip into him daily over the family business. Gas stations¾two of them, just north of Memphis¾a pea-sized town called Turrell. He knew the stories, how Daddy’s family used to be in the mule trading business prior to the automobile industry¾his Daddy’s people always were industrious¾but Willy felt he had a greater destiny and remained obstinately indifferent to Daddy’s rules. Daddy got to calling him Willy-mule, “has a ring to it,” Daddy said. So, when Daddy gave him an ultimatum, “Daddy’s way or “go away,” in the fall of 1969 he headed south, thirty-five years ago¾to Cocoa Beach.
Reaching the tenth floor, finally, he threw open the roof-hatch to clean, bright sky¾rooftops, he felt, were his own dominion¾no one to bother him as he worked. Setting up his equipment, he swore aloud again. “God-dammit¾where’s my mask?” Always careful to wear a mask around guano, (the stuff not only stank, but caused a respiratory condition, “histoplasmosis”, a long technical word he thought looked good inserted as a “risk-factor” on his job-quotes; made his work sound hazardous, the fee more justifiable. He was hot-fuming over the missing mask. “Dammit-all!” he said; but only the pelican on the ledge heard his proclamation. Willy-mule set to scrubbing and scouring, without his mask, thinking about lighting up a smoke, and where he might go for lunch as the sun rose high above the palms.
While working, thoughts blew through Willy’s mind like swamp water through a busted levy¾why didn’t I ever take Peggy up on that dinner invite? How was I gonna get that muffler place to pay their overdue bill? A day of fishin’ down around Big Pine Key sounded real good. It was noon before he’d finished his first pack of smokes. He calculated three hours left to finish cleaning; he’d come back tomorrow, set the bat traps, and agreed with himself it was lunchtime. Descending the stairwell his feet moved to an even tempo¾what goes up must come down popped into his head. Once outside, he lit up a smoke and headed to the van with the impossible-to-ignore plastic bat fastened to the roof.
He knew where he’d eat¾Little Venice just off the beach on South Atlantic¾maybe Peggy’d be working. Willy steered the old VW to a spot across from the pizza place, checked yellow teeth in the mirror for debris, in reticent hope of Peggy, hopped out, and headed across the street.
A pimply faced kid named “Toby,” according to his nametag, was the only one working the counter besides a guy at the oven. Damn, no smiling Peggy, Willy thought.
“Gimme two pepperoni slices; extra cheese, a order of onion rings and a draft¾make that a light draft¾for here.”
“Seven dollars and eighty-nine cents total, sir¾about five minutes¾want the beer now?”
Willy gave him a what-in-the-Sam-hill-hell-do-you-think look. The kid got the message and poured the draft. Willy took a seat at the window. A favorite for lunch¾sure he saw the smudgy windows, cracked linoleum, and felt the sticky glass condiment shakers¾but he didn’t care. He liked to watch the tourists. Made him happy to think he lived where they vacationed. No back-up-north to some I-hate-my-job for me, he thought. The kid called him to the counter. A few minutes later, the triangle of cheese held to his mouth halted¾his hand froze. He couldn’t believe who was on the other side of the fly-swatted window. It had to be, he thought, naw, couldn’t be, it is¾Poetry Man Dave! Jesus-Christ-Almighty! Son-of-a-bitch!
Dumbstruck, he dropped the slice for a quick swig of beer. The old beatnik was dressed in scruffy corduroys, flannel shirt, scuffed boots, same old beret, and of all things, Willy thought, a fucking scarf¾95° in the shade and Dave had a fucking scarf on! The face he once knew as handsome was like sun-baked mud, the hawkish eyes now vague¾frail and old, he thought, damn, we’re the same age!
He watched Dave drop a backpack on the concrete, lean over a city garbage can, and place both hands on either side. Willy saw his expression contract, as if deciphering an important discovery. He sat mesmerized, too stunned to move. “Damn” he said, watching the old friend. What’s he doing? One arm extended into the depths of the can, fishing around¾then up it came with the prize¾seriousness on his face as he examined a fistful of cigarette butts. “Shit, Dave!” Willy said out loud.
“Anything wrong Mr.? Pizza too hot?”
“No, kid…it’s fine, it’s all fine….”
Sliding off the stool, Willy said, “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch.” He pushed the door open to his past, the tiny bell on the closure ringing¾a sign of restless spirits¾ he recalled mama always said, as he stepped outside.
Willy didn’t think twice, all he knew at the moment was what was before him.
“Dave?” He saw Dave’s body stiffen, head tilted down. Two seconds of nothing.
”David!” he repeated.
“I’m not bothering anyone man,” Dave said, irritation in his voice, covering shame on every word; but he didn’t raise his lowered head to face Willy, who glanced at Dave’s long fingers which rested on the top of the garbage can¾each finger tattooed just below the knuckles with a letter, same as his own.
“David, dammit, Christ, it’s me¾Willy! Willy-boy! Dave, for Chrissake, look at me!”
The man with a fistful of cigarette butts began to raise his head, in what looked like slow motion. He knew he’d got through to him.
“Willy? Sure, sure…sure! Willy. Well now…” he cleared his throat. Willy watched Dave raise his head a notch more than necessary¾each looking squarely into the other’s eyes. Willy instantly felt a rush of long settled memories resurface: met when they were eighteen¾two boys worrying about the draft, both had drifted south. Working odd jobs together. Dave always writing and reading those poems on the beach. Learning to surf¾Dave wouldn’t even try an ankle-buster till he smoked some dope. It was good till the biker club from Chicago got in with Italians from Jersey. Hell, he thought, it must be 30 years since Dave went missing. He looked hard at Dave, summing up the situation for what it appeared to be. He looks out of touch, he thought, a look to him¾wild-like and afraid.
“I didn’t think…I didn’t know if anyone would still be here…” Dave said, looking uncomfortable. Willy figured he’d best be to go slow, not ask too many questions.
“Oh hell yeah, there’s a few left,” he tried to give a laugh, “Peggy’s still here, Lavon Bayliner runs the strip club on South Orlando,” he took a breath, not quite believing it was Dave standing before him. “And remember Catfish and Dennis Wishy?” Dave stares at him blankly, Willy keeps on, “Those two lazy-asses take tourists, mostly foreigners, out on “river tours,” can you dig that man?”
Dave’s mouth is open a bit and Willy can’t look away from the spittle collecting in a corner¾threatening to spill over the side. Standing so still, barely blinking, Willy thought he looked like a poorly dressed store mannequin.
“…bought an old pontoon,” Willy continues, “tacked on tiki-thatch… they call it “Tropical Toucan Tours.”
He waits for Dave to speak, to move¾hell, he thought, I wish the dude would blink¾ something.
Cars whizz by on the strip. Groups of teens and camera-toting tourists walk by, crossing the street to the beach¾scent of suntan lotion hitting strong on the nose. Willy catches Dave’s furtive motion shoving the cigarette butts into his pant pocket. Dave clears his throat again as he pulls a full cigarette from behind an ear and lit up.
“Want a smoke brother?”
“Sure, sure,” Willy said, “but I got my own, thanks.”
“Still smoking Pall Malls?” Dave says, shoulders loosening.
“Yeah,” Willy says as he pulls the red and white pack from his shirt pocket, “don’t like change much, you know…keep it simple.”
“Yeah… simple.”
Willy heard the bitterness. What the fuck had happened, he wondered, can’t push him though, he thought. It hit Willy then. He understood that when he’d gone and left the two slices of pizza on the counter and walked out the door that it wasn’t a simple reunion here. Nope, he thought, I’ve done made myself involved. His mind justified that anything necessary would have to be. Shit, he thought, Dave and I were tight as brothers for years before he disappeared, and I owe him.
“Look Dave, you headin’ anywhere? I mean, are you busy? Hang with me a while if you can. Shit, lots a catchin’ up to do, right? Look, the kid at the counter in there gave me two slices of pizza by mistake¾it’ll go to waste¾c’mon, help me out, whaddya say?”
“I…uh...I was headed to the Cape…but suppose there’s time I could spare. Yes… yes indeed.” Dave’s voice sounded good and easy again to Willy’s ears¾not too citified, he’d always thought¾just proper and country at the same time.
Within an hour, the extra-large pizza Willy ordered was gone, along with enough beer for a decent afternoon buzz. Without asking, he just sort of steered dave towards the van. He was itching to ask point blank what the fuck happened? But he thought it best to see where things went. Willy scooped up an assortment of paperwork, candy wrappers and empty cigarette packs from the passenger seat before Dave slid in, and tossed them to the back.
“There’s a plastic bat on top of this van.”
“Yeah, Dave, I know.” Willy eyed Dave quick-like while he drove back to the condo. Dave slept during the five minute ride.
Willy finished scrubbing the guano off the overhang and parapet of the roof while Dave smoked near the edge of the east wall. He could see Dave’s lips move on occasion in private dialogue as he looked to be scanning the beach. Hours later Willy yelled out, “All right, bud, it’s quittin’ time, let’s pack it up.” Within twenty minutes the pair were headed up the open concrete steps to Willy’s second floor apartment just off the beach at the south end of the Cape.
Unlocking the door with his free hand, Willy dropped the scrub brushes and buckets on the floor as he entered. The sun still heated the place up good, despite air-conditioning, through the big west window. Willy looked back at Dave in the doorway thinking he looked like a barnyard dog at the threshold to the manor house.
“Dave…hey…the old photo of us all at the pier…that Labor Day thing…1974?” The bait worked; Dave stepped into the condo, reminding him of a bobblehead doll¾ taking the place in¾up, down, left and right. Willy wondered what he was going to do with him…he’s not a stray dog for chrissake. He stood in front of the desk where he did his paperwork, hands in pockets, while Dave carefully crossed the tiled floor like it was something delicate. He watched Dave peer into the black and white photo, eyes squinting inches from the glass.
“Man they was some wild-boy times, yes, siree, Bob.” Willy said, feeling something coming on like uneasiness¾an unfamiliar closeness of proximity.
Dave side glanced back at him a second with a bewildered look. His gaze, Willy saw, then fell to the heap of unopened letters from his sister. Last one was three months old¾the pile about four inches high.
“Mary Kate still writes to you, and you still don’t answer?” Dave’s voice, Willy thought to himself, bounced off the walls a bit, coming back from further away from where they were spoke.
“No good reason to…don’t need nothin’ from Mary Kate…” he knew Dave knew about the beatings taken as a boy, the ones that continued till he rode off that summer in the old Ford panel truck. Damn, Willy thought.
He watched Dave slowly take in the desk area: the overflowing waste basket, a 1985 calendar nailed to the wall, jars filled with beer caps he’d pop off while doing his figures…he saw Dave’s eyes rest a minute on the stack of porn videos, left eyebrow rising.
“Saturday night dates?”
Willy felt his chest and neck rush with blood, “Hell no, I shine my buckle once in awhile on the weekends!” He shifted in his damp work boots.
Dave ventured into the living room while Willy stayed near the desk. He felt defensive seeing Dave touched an un-emptied ashtray, nodding at scattered fast-food containers; each with a solitary piece of used plasticware. Walls bare save for the dated calendar and old photo. Dust thick and illuminated by the lingering sun lay on surfaces. Pillow and blanket waited, rumpled, on the couch.
“No bedroom?” Dave asked.
“There’s two…I…well…I fall asleep to the TV…you know…dammit! I haven’t seen you in what…twenty five, thirty years? All you can do is pick at me?”
Damn, he thought, why’s this feel so weird? Come to think of it, he wondered, when was the last time anyone was up here? He felt a clarified bareness in the rooms. He didn’t like it.
“Willy-boy,” Dave said in measured hesitancy, “you haven’t asked…you have to be wondering about it¾”
“It?”
“Well, yes…you must be curious…wanting to ask, ‘Dave, what the fuck happened?’ Am I right?”
“Well…yeah…I figured you’d get to tellin’ me…shit, Dave…you looked scared and wild-eyed out there today! Truth now, you homeless? I mean, are you ok?”
Dave sat abruptly on the old orange couch¾Willy saw the dust billow out from the velveteen in the last of the sun’s rays. He looked straight at Willy, unblinking, expectant¾like waiting on a bus, Willy thought.
“Got any Jack?”
“Shit, Dave, maybe I ain’t got no wife to do my cleanin’ or much in the way of knicky-knackies…yeah, I see what you’re thinkin’…how you’re lookin’ round, up and down…but hell, I got money in the bank…,” a grin growing wide on his face, “…and I sure as hell got Jack in the cupboard!”
A smirk began to dance on Dave’s mouth as Willy spoke his mind and made his declarations. Stepping to the kitchen, he grabbed two plastic cups, and a nearly full bottle of whiskey. In a one armed sweep he cleared a spot on the sticky coffee table. Dave leaned back a bit, wearing road dust on his collar, but eyes settling down. Willy poured till each glass was full¾he knew not to bother with ice.
“Ever marry Willy?”
“What? No…what’s that got…look, get off me…what happened?”
“Ever wonder,” Dave said gently, taking a long drink in between his words, “why we ended up down here? Why we sort of slid down south…what we were looking for?”
Willy thought on it a minute. Dave never spoke about his folks, much as he’d talked about his own, other than he graduated early, spent a few years at some eastern college on a scholarship, dropped out and traveled south with artists from Chicago.
“Well,” Willy said, “you came down here with Melvin and his mamma…helped ‘em set up the kiln over on Merritt Island, where we met…I reckon we came down to be free, meet folks, make our own way.”
“We just didn’t know, Willy, we just didn’t know.”
“Know what? What in Sam-hill-hell are you talkin’ bout?”
“We didn’t know how to live, no guidance, we thought we’d find it in the waves, the sun, and the girls. We were like Wendy’s Peter…shit, like lost boys…didn’t even know it man! We thought we were free,” he shoved his fist out, knuckles tattooed, spelling out “FREE.” They’d inked each other when they were nineteen. “Free, yeah, we were free as swamp deer surrounded by damn sharpshooters!”
Willy saw veins straining against the skin on his neck. Damn, he thought, it’s too hot in here.
“Remember Cowboy?” Dave asked.
“Yeah,” he remembered, one of the bikers from Chicago¾always wore cowboy boots with shorts¾“course I remember, what of him?”
Willy’s mind pulled it all back before Dave spoke¾the early seventies, bikers setting up a club house in Cocoa, the pot dealing, pills, girls—nothing too bad, until the Italians from Jersey hooked up. They knew about it—smack, snuff movies—bad stuff. They worked construction daytime and bartended in the thick of it.
“He wasn’t what we thought.”
“No? I mean…what?”
“He was undercover with the feds.”
Willy sat up, “What the fuck Dave, that big scraggly mutt of a dude? Him? A fed? Hell, he was more of a half wit than anything!”
“All an act man, he was undercover,” Dave paused, “he approached me.”
“Approached you? For what?”
“They had something on me they could use…get me to be an informant.”
“What?…what the hell could they have on you? We didn’t deal, saw it, kept our mouths shut—poured drinks, dammit, that’s all…”
“Exactly,” said Dave, we saw it.”
He’s sitting so still, Willy thought, he could see David’s Adam’s apple working¾up and down.
“My number came up.”
“Your number? Number? Dave…what the hell you talking about?”
Willy looked at the man across from him, dressed so oddly, like he was as once familiar yet as foreign as a greenhorn off a boat. Dave sat stoic, hands shaking though, as he lit up a smoke¾and it hit Willy¾oh God, sweet Jesus in Heaven, he thought, his number!
“Oh God…why didn’t you tell me…me, Dave?”
“Afraid…panicked…didn’t want anyone to know. I was a frightened kid…ashamed, man, I was fucking ashamed!”
Willy distressed at the wet drops running down the lines framing Dave’s mouth. Yeah, he thought miserably, he remembered…sick feeling we’d get, watching for our numbers, always the two of us, together. Vague wisps of rice field, helicopter, napalm and flag draped coffin kept them edgy.
“When?”
“What’s it matter now…it came up and I didn’t tell you…but they had me. Snitch or federal prison…I held on for a few months, but after the indictments started…I was afraid all the time.”
“You should have told me.”
“Didn’t want you to know I’d dodged the draft…or put you into it too…couldn’t do that to you Will, not after what you’d been through, man, you were getting it together…loans were going to come through from the bank…”
Willy saw it clear then. Dave had helped him articulate his plan to the bank for his business…then Dave sort of retreating, fading away before he actually disappeared.
“Fuck that Dave! You should have told me!”
“No.” He looked down. Willy filled the cups again, stubbed out his smoke.
“We went to the police you know…searched the beaches, thought you bein’ a hido you took your board and got caught in a bad wave…I went out every morning,” Willy paused, taking a breath, lighting another smoke, “Ok…so where have you fucking been?”
“All over…always working cash jobs…when Carter declared us amnesty…I wanted to come back…I wasn’t free to…still had to watch my back.”
He told Willy how he’d kept moving through the years, restless and fearful. How a few months back he started having blackouts, finding himself in strange places, with strange people. He became fixated on getting back to Cocoa Beach despite risk. He was hoping to find Willy.
6 6 6 6 6
Months passed. Willy was finishing up a hotel job as the sun eased low in the west. Willy had seen Dave scribbling on again, off again all day in a little notebook, while half attempting to scrub off guano. Most days were ok for Dave, some not so good.
“Willy, listen to this,” he flipped open the pad, “…the poet owns no land, he harvests hope humbly, living by meager means amassed.”
“Nice Dave, I like it.”
Willy listened as Dave read, watching the sun sink behind the old poet, his silhouette darkening and erasing age, pelicans coming in for the night to roost. Willy thought about Peggy, maybe I will take her up on that home-cooking offer. The sun disappeared, but Willy thought the sky held a particular brightness. He could hear a band down on the beach playing “Miserlou.” Damn, he thought, it could be 1969.
“…the poet does not own himself,” Dave reading on as dusk settled around him, “his identity includes tomorrow¾his reason resonated today¾his will walks willowing forever.”
