Ophelia’s Darling
Eddie was still in a snit with himself over his lack of life skills when his scanner squawked again.
“This is Tango Tyler, Gopher. What kinda rig you driving, Podner.”
“Got me a two box Kenworth, Tango, hauling scrap metal bound for China. Why do you ask me that?”
“Cuz you talk purdier than a ten-dollar whore.”
Though he might have broken up in laughter, Eddie was caught off guard. The people he was talking to may not have been well schooled, but they still had the mother wit to be a challenge for him. He needed a rejoinder fast, and he wasn’t sure he had one. Then he recalled the horror stories he’d heard in his A.C.O.A.1 meeting days. “That’s the way my Pappy raised me,” Eddie said, after a pause. “That old bastard slapped me silly, I didn’t make him laugh.”
“I can relate to that,” Tango Tyler said. “What did you say that handle was?”
“Ophelia’s Darling.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard it none. You say he’s a livin legend? Sounds like a legend in his own mind.”
Damn, Eddie said to himself. He’d never known his racetrack friends to give him any sass whenever he got into character and launched into one of his spiels. He’d livened up parties for years that way, ever since he could remember, and no one ever second guessed him. He’d always thought the whole point was making people believe the lies, even when they knew he was lying.
“Is that a fact? Maybe you’d know Ophelia then…” Eddie paused a second, trying to picture Ophelia. He peered down his nose at the Hank Janson novel his songwriter buddy had given him before he’d left his homestead. The tawdry portrait of a near naked lady left a lasting impression of what lurked between the folds.”
“Tell stories like that to the boys on the road, you’ll get along just fine,” his songwriting friend had said.
Not quite what I’m after, Eddie concluded, glancing again at the cover art. He looked around at the idling cars and there, next to him, in a pickup truck was a woman as big as a boathouse.
“…used to be a truck stop waitress outside Tuscaloosa, plain as an old sow she was, wen coming out left side of her nose, eyes like flea-bit hound. Had the hots for this Denver boy, used to come in regular, making his run to Jacksonville. He always took Ophelia’s spot whenever he came through, and when she’d come to pour his coffee he’d start flirting in on her like she was a Playboy bunny or something. She’d be saying, you don’t mean it, stop giving me such sass, and stuff, but we knew she was pleased about it cuz it always showed by the light in her eyes and how she primped when he come in -”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Hairless Harry. What the hell you talkin about? You readin from a book or somethin?”
He’d seen his share of flamers and trolls and knew it was best to ignore them. “Anyway, some of the local boys, they didn’t like that trucker much, and being the practical joking sort, they done wrote a letter up, addressed it to Ophelia, signed it lover boy, and mailed it down the road apiece. Said they’d go out dancing next time he come through. That was always Thursday night, first and third week of each month, round about nine o’clock -”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Hairless Harry. Had enough of yer Jaw Jackin, boy.”
“…Woman gets her big night off, wears that new red dress she’d bought just for the occasion and goes to the stop to meet her man. He rolls in about eleven, sidles up to the service counter and takes his regular seat. Girl that took Ophelia’s place, she come over to pour his coffee. He says where’s Ophelia, and why ain’t she waiting on me, or did she go home already -”
“Breaker One Nine, Sheboygan Shorty. Take it private, ya know there hey. This is the main channel, over.”
“…Girl points out Ophelia to him, hair done up with bows and ringlets, wearing that bright red dress she’d bought just for the occasion, makes her look like a fire truck. Lover Boy, he’s sipping coffee, and just then the waitress says, ‘I do believe she’s waiting on you, seeing as how ya’ll had a date tonight.’ Lover Boy chokes and sprays his coffee all over that gal’s uniform, and then he says, the hell we did, and puts his dollar down and walks.”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Hairless Harry. Anybody sees this guy, shut him the fuck up, will ya?”
“…Woman sees him leave, of course, gets all teary-eyed and weepy, pumps that girl that waited on him for every word they’d said. Only makes her cry some more. Fellow hired to do the cooking, he comes over to sympathize, sees her dressed like a Christmas package waiting to be unwrapped, feeds her some of that pot roast chili, and makes a happy woman of her right there on the salad counter, never did unwrap his present -”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Sultry Sue. You some kind of woman hater?”
“Who you calling a woman hater? I’m just telling what happened is all. Ain’t gonna give it no sugar coating -”
“Sexist fucking pig.”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Sam I Am. Shut up and let him finish, bitch.”
“I appreciate that, Sam. Cain’t imagine I hate women half as much as she hates men, and I got plenty of reason to… But anyway, like I was saying, after that cook was done with her that Denver boy never crossed her mind. That cook, he saw where things was going, way she tried to make him over. He done hit the road again, and took another job -”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Tango Tyler, you’re breakin up real bad there, Gopher, but you sure tell one hell of a yarn for a feller that might be lyin. Tango Tyler over and out.”
“…and ever since then that cooking fellow’s been known as Ophelia’s Darling.”
Godammit, Gofer, you got carried away again. Just give them the words from the sponsor, will you.
“You’d have known him if you’d seen him, always dressed in black, he was, unpressed jeans, and a slub silk shirt, red bandanna round his neck, belt made out of rubber with bottle caps around it, fastened with an old seat belt buckle from a General Motors car, ain’t never seen the like. Boots with silver toe caps on them, initials done in lizard skin. Never wears nothing else that boy, except them cooking whites, that is.”
“Breaker One Nine, it’s Hairless Hairy. What the hell is a slub-silk shirt?”
“Breaker Breaker, Sheboygan Shorty, I think we got a four-wheeler, don’t ya know there, hey, talkin up some pipe dream, hey.”
Eddie was staggered the remark, and wodered if he’d heard it right. His parents died of opium poisoning.
Spurred by Sheboygan Shorty’s remark, Eddie sat there jamming until the roadway cleared, telling stories with no moral and no meaning whatsoever. He felt he should do a better job, but what would be the point? Someone was bound to deconstruct it into a doctrinal diatribe with which to flog his biases. He chattered on for another hour, pausing only at the realization that he was becoming a Striver — of all the boring, contemptible types — or even worse, a Wannabe. He was aghast at the horror of it. He’d started out life in overdrive, going at it freestyle, and here he was by the side of the road unable even to idle. He’d taken a dive, like a Kamikaze, from one leisure class to the other. But he’d go knocking on doors himself, and make his own opportunities, thank you, rather than depend on others to gain admittance for him.2 Thus determined, his mouth kept moving, barking out that yarn of his, like he was shilling a carnival. By the time he arrived in Pensacola, where he finally stopped to find some work, it was all about Ophelia’s chili and Darling doing the eating of it.
2In his paper on Saul Bellow, the author contends that Augie March makes a lie of his opening words. All his opportunities come to him at the instigation of others. Augie never lifts a finger on his own behalf.