Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer Page B

story.”
    “That’s all right.”
    “Thanks for keeping me informed, anyway.” Henry claps him on the shoulder. “Now, I got something to show you. Follow me.” He picks up his crutches and leads Patterson around back of his cabin. “That’s what you need.” He points with his cane at a series of solar panels mounted on a PVC frame on the roof. “There ain’t nothing to it. A little PVC, a few panels, golf batteries, a charge controller, and an AC to DC inverter. It’s a sweet little setup, and it won’t cost you more than a few hundred bucks.”
    Patterson squints up at the panels, the sun reflecting off them in a hard, black-yellow burst. “You build it yourself?”
    “I paid a Mexican boy off our crew to do most of the actual work. Been meaning to show it to you.”
    A gust of wind throws dust across the mesa. Patterson lifts his Avrilla ball cap from his head and uses it to shield the side of his facefrom it, looking up at the solar panel. Then he reseats his cap on his head. “Just the laptop?”
    “A little refrigerator, too. And I’ve got plenty left over for a radio and a lamp at night. Even got a little television with a DVD player if I want it. More than that, I don’t need. We could set you up in a weekend.”
    “Living off the grid,” Patterson says.
    “Living off the grid,” Henry repeats. “You know what you ought to do?”
    “Bet you’re gonna tell me.”
    “You ought to let your wife add your name to that lawsuit. Get you enough money you can stay here full-time.”
    “She’s not my wife anymore.” Then, “And how the hell do you know anything about it?”
    “She came up looking for you while you were in Denver. I was happening by your cabin to show you the solar setup. We talked.”
    Patterson sticks his thumbs in his pockets and eyes the hardware. Then he looks away. Up ahead, a golden eagle playing across the washed-out sky. Here disappearing in a flash of sun, there emerging against a strip of thin cloud. “It’s complicated.”
    “It’s always complicated,” Henry says. His face crowds with whatever he’s thinking. Then he says it. “Believe me, Patterson, I know how much you miss your son. But it’s about time. And that gal thinks the world of you.”
    Patterson does what he can to throttle his pulse and just nods. “What would you suggest I do for work?”
    “I could talk to Paulson. You could clear brush for home pads and keep the roads clear.”
    “It’s complicated,” Patterson says again, lamely. The eagle screams. It dives fifty or sixty feet and levels off, soaring out of sight.

20
    smaller
    T hey sit in the garage, eating pizza and drinking beer out of brown bottles, the last yellow light of day striking through the bay doors and dust-washed windows. Junior’s never known two men as different as these two. Vicente small and wiry and bespectacled, his hair cropped close on his skull, erratic in speech and movement. Eduardo built more like a small mountain, heavily tattooed, with long black hair and the demeanor of a warrior king out of a children’s book. They sit shoulder to shoulder together, and it occurs to Junior that he’s never known them to have any friends other than him. That they live almost entirely in isolation, moving together with the familiarity of old dogs.
    “You still thinking about getting out of the speed business?” Junior asks.
    “I’m still thinking about it,” Vicente says. He looks at Junior, his eyes blinking rapidly. “I am sick of hearing about methamphetamines.All this you see on television, that methamphetamines are some new scourge. There’s nothing new.”
    “I don’t watch television,” Junior says.
    “That is wise.” Vicente nods. “It’s better to play chess. Or even do what you do, drink beer and snort cocaine. Television will make you stupid. The things they say about methamphetamines, this is evidence.”
    “Go ahead,” Junior says.
    “This drug that is now the worst drug ever invented, do you