Chapter Twenty-One

“One day, while a half-blind old man was traveling on his burro, Billy the Kid and Sostenes the Bandit rode up. Sostenes said, ‘Billy, let’s kill this old blind man just to see how old blind men die.’

“‘Let him alone,’ commanded the Kid. ‘He’s doing no harm.’ The old man thought his day had come, and when the kid prevented Sostenes from killing him, El Chivato became the old man’s hero.”

- Guadalupe Baca De Gallegos161

I know I should sleep, but I also know it’s now or never. I’m beyond sleep anyway. I am not awake in the way that those who have slept are, but in the way that only those who have not slept can be. Attempting to sleep in bed would be pointless anyway. As soon as I slip into a deep sleep, my instincts shake me awake like a man driving at night along a dark empty highway nudged shockingly awake by his tires rubbing against the shoulder.

With an understanding beyond rationality, I sense that if I do give in to sleep, Morpheus, on his flight to the land of slumber, will simply drop me. Then, I’ll sink so deeply into the dark pool of subconscious space that I’ll never surface again and drown for all eternity. Some God is plotting against me. (Which God? There are too many from too many cultures to determine, who knows which one I’ve upset.) Still, there is one way to stop the demon that’s been suffocating me in my sleep. Thanks to another God, one who has mercy on my soul, I’ve been shown the road to redemption. I must complete my appointed task, however. Until then, bed is a place of peril. Out of the corners of my eyes, occasional flashes keep me alert for trouble. I jump as the phone rings. I pick up and listen.

“Hello … Hello … Hello …?”

That’s the last time I’ll ever have to listen to that.

“Have you anything to say,” asked Judge Bristol, “why the sentence of death should not be passed upon you?”

“No,” replied the Kid with conversational nonchalance, “and if I did have anything to say, it wouldn’t do me no good.”

“Then it is the order of the court that you be taken to Lincoln and confined in jail until May the thirteenth and that on that day, between the hours of sunrise and noon, you be hanged on a gallows until you are dead, dead, dead.

“And may God have mercy on your soul.”¹⁶²

The waiting room is empty today as I slide past orderlies loading the wheelchair-condemned onto a medical bus. The laughing lady occupies the front desk. Holding the phone with her shoulder, she moves papers about, occasionally filing one. I walk in as she cackles and spins on her chair to file a folder on the other side. With her back to me I slip by into the stairwell, where safe, I can take a deep breath and compose myself for the steep climb.

Some strange astringent has been used to clean the stairwell which stings my eyes. The two flights leave me breathless. Coming out, I’m disoriented. Easter decorations, sloppily hand-cut, haphazardly line the walls in a Matissian nightmare of cheap pink and light green construction paper. Trying to remember the room number, I follow my nose, figuratively of course because I’m breathing carefully through the mouth. I find the long hallway. Cluttered with abandoned human wrecks and faceless white-smocked orderlies, no one pays me any mind as I walk towards the room at the end. The door is slightly ajar again. I peak inside. Mercifilly, he’s asleep. I walk to his bed. He looks so peaceful—eyes half closed, mouth half open—he could be dead all ready, but he isn’t. This is the last look I’ll get of him, here, in this bright white hell and I’m filled with a sudden pride because I know that I will be the angel of his deliverance, me, Walter the nobody, former anonymous apartment dweller, former beautiful loser, former member of the living dead.

Carefully, without disturbing his sleep, I pull the pillow from under his head.

The report of a shotgun brought the townspeople to their doors up and down the street. News about some sort of tragedy at the courthouse spread quickly. Billy the Kid had done something terrible again. “I told you so,” ran from mouth to mouth. The desperado was loose; he might be planning other atrocities. Panic fell upon the town. Best for Lincoln to keep indoors. So the villagers, having rushed out, rushed in again, drew the bolts, and closed the shutters. Half-a-dozen men eating dinner in the Wortley Hotel crowded pell-mell out upon the porch. That was as far as their curiosity took them. Enthusiasm for investigation evaporated when they saw Olinger stretched dead across the street. They remained on the porch as spectators, awaiting the next act in the play.¹⁶³

“Great-grandfather?”

“Huh …”

“Great-grandfather, are you awake?”

“¿Quien es? ¿Quien es?”

“It’s me.”

“¿Es Chavez?”

“No, Walter.”

“¿Quien es, Walter?”

“Walter, your great-grandson. Walter, the name you’ve got plastered all over your room, the number you’ve been calling for days, weeks, years. I’m here. I’ve come to save you. We’re going to make a break for it. You’re going to be free again.”

“Great-grandson? I have no great-grandson. Had a grandson though. Up and died in a motor car accident with his wife. His wife—a fine looking filly, she was.”

“We’re making a break for it, Great-grandfather. Are you game?”

His eyes light up. “Am I game? Am I game! Ain’t never been a man more game than me.” His brows furrow in confusion. “What’s all this talk about a game?”

“Do you want to break out of here or not, old-timer?”

“Break out! Are we bustin’ out of this damn jail? Terrible place to put a fellow in.”

“You bet we’re busting out. Are you ready to leave?”

“Where’s my horse?”

I toss the pillow on the seat of the wheelchair. “Right here, saddled up and ready to ride.”

“Good. I’m a little weak from doing so much time in this hell-hole. Help me mount up. Hey wait. This ain’t no horse. It’s a damn mule!”

“It’s all we got, Great-grandfather. Do you want to go or stay?”

“An army couldn’t keep me here. Let’s ride.”

He tries to roll over, but is held back by his left arm still shackled to the bed. My heart leaps into my mouth. How could I have forgotten?

“Looks like I’ll have to slip this cuff,” he remarks.

“But how?”

“Folding-palm technique—watch.”

Using his right hand, he folds his left palm inward and miraculously slips out.

“Ha! Never was a shackle made that could hold me.”

He rolls over but can’t get up. I have to help him—another part I hadn’t thought out. He seems as fragile as a boiled chicken wing. I’m afraid to touch him. He puts his right arm around my shoulders. His touch is clammy and ice-cold.

“What are you waiting for? You some kind of greenhorn? Swing my legs out.”

I hesitate.

“Are you getting paid in Arbuckle stamps? Drag my legs over the edge, pronto!”

I obey.

“Now lift me up and don’t drop me.”

Even though he looks light, he seems to weigh a ton. When I finally have him in the air, I realize the wheelchair is facing the wrong way.

“What’s holding your jerk line, son, got teeth in your saddle?”

I try to maneuver the wheelchair around, but shifting all the weight to one foot throws my balance off. My muscles begin to quiver. My back spasms and bends like a pencil ready to snap. With a last grunt, I toe the wheelchair. It spins around just as he slips off my shoulder. I lean his fall toward the chair and it catches him with a loud clang.

“Jesus-Lord have mercy, you want me to shake hands with St. Peter?”

An overwhelming dizziness flushes over me and I feel a chill like diving into a cool pool bathed in sweat. I lean against the bed, heart pounding, then sit. The bed sinks like a trampoline. I’ve just begun the long journey and I’m already too tired to continue. I turn toward my great-grandfather slumped in the wheelchair and mercifully he’s asleep—or is he? Hands shaking, I check his neck for a pulse. Where’s the jugular? I find it. He’s alive, just sleeping. Morpheus has finally come to my aid. I must move him before he wakes.

By Gods, I almost forgot the $100,000 underwear.

The front door in the second story of the courthouse opened. Out upon the porch high above the street stepped Billy the Kid. He still wore his leg irons, but the handcuffs had disappeared from his wrists; he had slipped them off without great difficulty over his remarkably small hands. The sheer bravado of his appearance was his gesture of drama. It made him a target for death from a dozen places of concealment; but no hidden foe ventured a shot to avenge Olinger and Bell. With the porch as his stage, he stood for a moment leaning upon his shotgun like an actor awaiting the applause of his audience at the close of a big scene.¹⁶⁴

Feedback permeates an announcement from a cheap speaker horn, “Easter dinner will be served at 5:45 sharp. Those who have requested room service must fill out their meal ticket by 12:30 in order to receive dinner. No ticket will be accepted after that time. This announcement will not be repeated.”

With his lap full of old boxer shorts, no one seems to notice us as I roll him down the hall. Light blue orderlies go about their business pushing carts with breakfast trays stacked on top and steel potty pans below. Some, with rough nonchalance, pull stretchers with swinging I.V. units jabbed into pale yellow arms. A young man and woman talk, smiling and laughing as if they were in the park on a picnic rather than at work surrounded by the rotting flesh of dumped grandpappies and grannies wheezing last gasps of germ-infested air. Lying in helpless heaps beneath starch-stiff sheets, they’re like iced-souls in Dante’s ninth. Clouded eyes, frozen open, transfix upon the fluorescent phosphorescence swirling above. Reaching into the smoky hue of fogged memory, a flaccid arm grasps the air as fading faces of youth circle above in a mad dance of projected phantoms.

As we pass by, I feel heads turn and eyes clawing me and it takes all my energy to keep from shivering uncontrollably, but I don’t dare look behind for fear of being dragged back into Hades. Why doesn’t anyone say anything? Are they waiting to nab me outside as soon as I pass the final threshold?

Great-grandfather wakes up and demands, “Where am I?”

An elevator opens just in time.

Billy then addressed his audience watching intently from across the street on the porch of the Wortley hotel. “I have command of eight revolvers, six rifles, and this here shotgun courtesy of Bob Olinger who you see before you. When I grabbed Bell’s revolver, I told him that I intended only to lock him in the armory, but he ran and I had to kill him. I do not wish to kill anyone else, but I’m standing pat against the world and if anyone interferes with my escape I shall be forced to shoot him dead.”

Godfrey Gauss, the fatherly, white bearded German who was once the cook at the Tunstall ranch, had been standing there stunned before Olinger’s riddled corpse. He was about to turn and run when he heard the Kid’s voice stopping him in his tracks.

“Don’t run, Gauss. I’d never hurt you old man. I will clear out as soon as I free myself of these shackles. Pitch me up that old pick-axe lying out there and while I loosen these shackles from my legs, I want you to fetch Billy Burt’s pony from the pasture out back and saddle him.”¹⁶⁵

The lobby is busy now and I pass through with ease as Great-grandfather sleeps peacefully, but outside, it darkens as if ready to rain. Great Zeus, please hold back the lightning! The doors present a formidable obstacle. I try to back out by propping the door open with my leg as I pull the wheelchair through. Stretching as far as I can without moving my leg, I give the chair a last pull before releasing the door, but the door swings violently, closing too quickly for the tip of Great-grandfather’s foot to clear.

“Owwwww!”

The desk nurse jerks her head. Orderlies turn. The waiting room goes silent as faces pop up from magazines.

I rush Great-grandfather howling to the Pinto as countless eyes aim a fusillade at my back.

Saddling the black pony proved difficult for Gauss. The kindly cook was old and stiff and the pony, young and skittish. Meanwhile back at the courthouse, Billy gave up after painfully breaking off one leg iron. Tucking the loose end of the chain into his waistbelt, he stepped back out on the porch with two pistols, two fully loaded cartridge belts, a Winchester carbine, and Olinger’s shotgun. He sat down, leaned back and coolly rolled a cigarette. He paused from smoking to entertain his audience with songs and jokes while waiting patiently for Burt’s pony and even rose to dance a jig or two when the spirit moved him.

When Billy comes marching home again,

hurrah, hurrah,

We’ll give him a hearty welcome then,

hurrah, hurrah,

The men will cheer and the boys will shout,

the good town ladies will all turn out,

and we’ll all feel gay when

Billy comes marching home.

“Hey,” shouted the Kid to his Wortley porch audience, “did you hear the saying: a fool for luck and a poor man for children? Well, Pat Garrett takes them all in, ha, ha!”

Green grow the lilacs all sparkling with dew,

I’m lonely my darling since parting with you,

But by our next meeting I’ll hope to prove true,

and change the green lilacs to the Red, White,

and Blue.

After an hour, the pony finally grew bored with the game and gave in to Gauss. When he brought the horse around, he apologized to Billy for taking so long.

“No bother, Grandpa” replied the Kid smiling. “I’m in no hurry.”

On passing the body of Bell, the Kid said, “I’m sorry I had to kill you, but it couldn’t be helped.” Then smashing Olinger’s shotgun in two, he threw it on the mangled corpse. “You can take that to hell with you; you will hound me with it no longer.” Then he leaned over and took a gold watch and fob from the corpse’s waist. “This can go to hell with me.”

When he mounted the small horse with his load of weapons and heavy chain, the pony bucked sending Billy sprawling to the ground, but nobody in the audience dared to laugh as Billy rose quickly, Winchester cocked and level. He called one of the Wortley gallery to fetch the horse, an order promptly followed, and remounted. Before riding off into the sunset, his last words were, “Tell Billy Burt I will send his horse back to him.” Sure enough, to most everyone’s surprise, the pony arrived at the Lincoln courthouse the next morning, safe and sound, trailing its long lariat.¹⁶⁶

I fumble keys and finally find the one for the passenger door, but it doesn’t open. The lock turns but the door latch fails to pop up. In the meantime, Great-grandfather has turned his attention from his pained foot to attempting to free himself from the chair’s grip, but can’t raise himself from the saddle. None of the keys budge the passenger door so I must chance leaving him. Rushing around the back, I bang my injured knee on the bumper and limp to the driver’s door. Spying Great-grandfather’s wheelchair shifting on the slight hill, I frantically try keys until one works. No time to lose. I swing the door open and hurl my weight through scraping my body along the steering wheel. I reach out, and bearly touch the passenger latch. With one last push, I rock my weight forward enough to lift the latch as a searing pain runs up my left side. I look up and see Great-grandfather’s head floating passed the side windows. The hill! Bruising every vulnerable part of my body, I jostle myself back out and stumble to the back of the Pinto just in time to catch the wheelchair before it rolls down Independence Avenue. I pull him back and pry open the passenger door whose metal has caught on the front panel. Before trying to get him in, I lift a handful of underwear from his lap.

“Hey you!”

My heart jumps into my mouth. Still clutching his underwear, I look up to see a guard standing at the entrance.

“What are you doing there?”

“I’m bringing Great-grandfather home for his birthday,” and to my amazement the man just stands there. I toss the underwear in back and try to lift Great-grandfather from the chair, but he resists me with a sudden source of superhuman strength.

The guards yells, “Hey you, hold on a minute now.”

“Great-grandfather!”

He looks up to me his eyes flaring.

“Amigo,” I say, “This is Chavez. Do you want to escape from jail or go back to that hell-hole for the rest of your life?”

“¡Chavez!”

“Let me help you El Chivato. You are weak from the rotten food they have fed you all these years.”

“Chavez, I knew you’d come.”

Smiling with toothless glee, he puts an arm on my shoulder and finds enough strength to help me get him in.

The guard shouts, “Hey, I said wait!”

I kick the wheelchair away, rush around to the other side, and wedge myself between the steering wheel and driver’s seat.

“Stop, I said, Stop!”

My right glove gets caught on the windshield wiper lever and I drop the keys. Frantically, I rip the glove off and search for the key ring. I locate it but bump the back of my head on the steering wheel. I jam the keys into the ignition and, miraculously, the motor starts right up. Helios smiles upon us as the sun suddenly breaks out from the clouds and shines off Allamanda’s dappled hood.

“Giddiyap,” Great-grandfather yells.

I slip it into drive and spin the wheels before jerking into traffic without looking. A bus screeches to a halt directly behind us and I hear the crunch of metal as cars plow into it, but there’s no time to look back. We rumble beneath the bridge, make a quick u-turn, and swerve onto the West Side Highway heading South by Southwest.