Land Run. Mark Graham
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Councilman Ted Levin was speeding down Hays-Barton Road well past midnight. He was on his way to meet Rusty Watson at the south border of the Montgomery place and knew better than to be too late. Ted could never think on Rusty without playing over in his imagination what had happened to the man. He thought back to that day some months before, a regular day, when Rusty was grilling chicken in his backyard. It was the last time Ted was at Rusty’s home. Rusty was known as a community man then, a civic man. He had a life that could be envied by the less adventurous. His acclaim as a Desert Storm veteran and fairly good football player at Oklahoma State made him a kind of hometown hero. He was once very gregarious, even affable. But he watched how his friend had his own idol to worship. Everyone knew that Rusty counted all his acclaim as nothing compared to anything done by his three-year-old, three-foot-tall little man. The boy was everything to him. While Rusty grilled in his backyard on that one Saturday afternoon, his everything left him. Rusty had just told the boy not to play near the pool before going inside to get buns and more sauce. His son could not yet swim, and he just didn’t make it no matter how much his father prayed, no matter how much his mother screamed and wailed, no matter that sirens sounded, no matter the presence of diligent people with uniforms whose job it was to bring him back. His boy’s passing didn’t just leave a hole in the heart of the great man; it turned it hard and charcoal black. Ted was certain that Rusty was on a mission. And his mission was revenge on the unseen. Rusty knew who gave this life and was even grateful. Ted suspected his friend felt responsible for the boy, for what happened. But his days now were spent groping blindly through everything in front of him to get at this thing that stole his son from him, ripped him away. And because he was Rusty Watson, Ted knew he was intent on having his day.
Ted pulled his cherry red Miata convertible off to the side of the road. As he walked across the gully, he saw Rusty’s tall, square frame silhouetted between barbed-wire fence posts and the moonlit field. The air was hot but still and silent.
“Rusty, it’s very late.”
Rusty didn’t look back to him. “A lot riding on this, Ted.”
“When do you sleep, exactly? I’ll tell you straight. I don’t think this thing with the ITC is going to happen,” Ted said, noticing that Rusty still had not turned to look at him. He could have just phoned the bitter mess of a man.
“I don’t have time to keep you enthused, Ted. At this point, you are on board or you’re not.”
“I am on board. The meeting just didn’t get it, you know. Cort doesn’t like this guy. Just gonna have to find some other way.”
Rusty snapped his head around to Ted.
“I don’t give two squirts of duck crap what Cort thinks,” Rusty said through his clenched teeth.
Ted dropped his gaze to his boots and slowly put his hands in his pockets. He didn’t want this meeting. He wanted to be in bed. Rusty wouldn’t bite his suggestion, and he knew he wouldn’t. The man was obstinate, but Ted knew him when he was flexible and creative. They were friends from childhood, and he often hoped they could be friends again one day.
“I have all but contracted Frank Howard to start doing what he does.” Rusty was controlling his obvious anger now. “You know what he does, Ted? He gets results. That is what he does. You telling me he couldn’t sell this to Cort?”
“You don’t get Cort. You don’t sell ideas to Cort. You have to be…don’t know. Something,” Ted said.
“What is that supposed to mean, Ted?”
“I don’t know. Look. Jules can’t hardly get a dime from him, and she’s his wife.”
“I got other backers. I’ll shift every bit of my business from Sooner National. I’ll get on the phone and make it happen now.”
Ted held in his fear when Rusty began pacing the fence and feeling for his cell phone.
“Rusty, you know that Cort basically is the ITC and that’s gonna trump any bank. Let’s go home and get some sleep. It’s just different. This might all play out differently. That’s all.”
Rusty put away his cell phone and stared intensely at the dark tree line across the field as if it was a chessboard. Ted could tell the man was feeling boxed in and unusually aggressive. He watched him close his eyes tightly, probably picturing all the ITC board members hanging out at the gas station downtown.
“Okay then. Just two to focus on: Cort and the old man. You sleep on that, Ted.”
On Saturday morning, the gas station, Hugo’s, opened up at six o’clock sharp. There wasn’t any real business to speak of, just a weekly meeting. It wasn’t a mandatory meeting, but it had its regulars. The coffee was cheap, sixty cents, and refills were free. That is a big deal to this fixed-income crowd. They had money, for sure, but mostly because many of them had a fixed-income mentality instilled in them from their youth. The Saturday paper was already on the table, and the owner’s wife warmed the coffee when Cort eyed Marty Black walking in. He never said anything to the workers, didn’t even look their way. Marty grabbed the paper and took the back booth next to the pinball machine.
By a quarter past six, the booths were packed and the meeting was brought to order. To Cort, Ted seemed well-rested and ready for the social.
“Marty, did you fart or just say something?” Ted asked.
Cort didn’t laugh and noticed that Marty didn’t seem to know anyone else was in the place. Ted was obviously encouraged by the laughter he caused. Ted was tapping the tiny foil ashtray with his cigarette across the table from him. Cort resolved within himself, knowing what the subject of talk was sure to be. He knew Ted to be the helplessly hopeful sort who always had to get some closure. Reality always seemed to come hard to Ted.
“What ya think, Cort?”
“No, Ted.”
“You mean no to the Frank guy?”
“Yeah. No. I understand if we have to force the buy of that plot. But however it gets done, it gets done right.”
“No problem here, Cort. I agree. Anyhow, he could still sell. Just maybe get the price up there, something responsible for him to leave his family members.”
“Ted, do you understand land? His grandpa was a slave on that land to the American Indians. He worked the farm hard as a free man for thirty years and bought it. You told me yourself that Elijah said that. That’s a big deal.”
“Ah, but even sentiment has a price,” Ted said.
“Ted, you keep trying.” Cort shook his head, dropping his gaze. “Look, if it can go that way, get a price. And I’ll take it to the ITC.”
“Maybe you talk to him. He doesn’t talk much to me anyhow. Just goes on and on about the war or about his grandpa and wife.”
“Maybe. I should get a feel for the old man anyhow. It’s just progress, and I guess our town needs it.”
Some men Cort knew from the Kiwanis were in the next booth. He thought they seemed happy enough without some golf course to run to this morning, but maybe he was just being obstinate. He looked around the walls of Hugo’s and remembered the drama he had in financing the gas station. The owner worked at the telephone office and made way too much money. He was one of a handful of out-of-town carpet baggers that came to homestead in Willow Springs. He had lived there for seventeen years but still wasn’t from there. Cort remembered how the EPA really gave the man a hard time about the car wash. And the insurance company found more and more that he had to insure. He must have come back to Cort fifteen times before the deal was done. Eventually, the cost had doubled from his initial business plan presentation. But today, it was Hugo’s, and there was no other place like it. That was a hard deal, Cort thought, but this new venture was a different kind of hard. There was something else to it, and Cort feared it had something to do with ethics, the kind never covered by the statement,