PAINT IT, WAYNE

(this is the third entry in the "Oscar" series of stories.

Earlier Chapters: #1 Oscar and Someplace You Don't Want To Go - posted 4/13

#2 Moose and Molly And The Double Wide Bird of Paradise - posted 4/29)

Out in the hills the animals are the people and the people are the animals.

This is something Oscar was fond of saying for a time. Of course he would usually bring it up when we were having a discussion about eating spaghetti with or without parmesan, or while I was grinding the valves on a '39 Plymouth that actually needed new shocks instead of taking the old flathead all apart and screwing up something that didn't really need screwing up. I used to repair cars for people but the results were so unsatisfactory that I gave it up and went to just small engines like lawn mowers and rototillers. I'm particularly fond of two stroke engines. They don't even have valves.

Oscar used to help me when I worked on cars. I don't really have him helping me with mechanical stuff anymore, and not just because of all the cigarette smoke and the sparks and the gasoline fumes. He used to try and set the points using a piece of straw as a feeler gauge. The funny thing was when some of the cars ran better that way. And he also flipped a coin when setting the timing - he had some method for turning the distributor based on some mathematic formula he attributed to a column he claimed to have read in Hints From Heloise in the newspaper. Pretty sure that particular column was never actually published.

At one point a lot of cars around town stopped running all at once. Somebody was talking to Oscar down in front of the Rexall drug store when he started coughing, then reached into his pocket and took out a handful of rotors wrapped in a handkerchief, and gave them over. Then he reached into his other pocket and took out another handful. When he had passed all the rotors into the hands of his listener, Oscar said "Seven Up. You like it. It likes you." Then he went home. It ended up a guy who worked at the grain elevator and who had gotten several of his fingers cut off by a railroad car was able to sit down with the rotors and sort it all out and eventually everybody's car was on the road again. As far as I know, nobody ever really discussed this with Oscar at length. But somehow everybody's gas mileage was considerably better after this incident.

But I started out mentioning something about the animals. Now in a little farming town in the windy old flatlands of eastern Montana you are pretty close to a lot of different animals. It's a rare person who isn't comfortable around a lot of things that are constantly crapping where you might just haul off and step in it if you aren't careful. I don't know for sure but I expect that most city folks don't walk around stepping in huge piles of crap, or having to work real hard not to - I suppose some of them go out on the street and go down by the sidewalk cafe with a dainty parasol over their heads and slip on a little turd left behind by some dog named Fifi who regularly got trimmed at the poodle parlor and then accidentally let a little one go on the curb before she got loaded into the car to go home.

My old dad grew up with a lot of horses and cows and pigs and even sheep around. Also chickens, maybe some geese and turkeys. On our place we really didn't have that much livestock except for a pen full of chickens. I think my father was sick of certain animals by the time he came back from the War; after I was born he bought a place bordering the ranch where he grew up but he stuck with the farming pretty much and steered clear of working with large animals.

Two things he used to say to me when I was young. One: "Never work where other things have been shitting." And Two: "Never work with your head lower than your ass." I wish I could say that I had followed this advice, especially Number Two. But probably there's some advice that you get that you know isn't really meant to be taken.

I reckon that the point here is, in a place like this you can have a different type of interaction with the animal kingdom. It all kind of boils down to a different kind of approach I think - when you maybe know an animal that at some point you might end up eating, or in some other way owing your life to, it's kind of an equalizer. The society dame and her poodle are not going to be looking at each other that way.

Some people seem to develop a type of connection that goes way beyond what ordinary folks will experience or even believe. Maybe they are just born that way. We have a fella here who has kind of an understanding with a lot of the animals. His name is Wayne and I think I've mentioned something about him before.

* * * * * * *

One day I was standing around Wayne's garage as he was working on an old car. Rayland San Jose was there as well; he and Wayne had been drinking some beers and talking about flying single engine airplanes. Actually they got to talking more about building small airplanes, "kit planes" or "homebuilts" they called them. Both Rayland and Wayne were pilots; in the sense that, they could fly a variety of airplanes of different types and sizes. There really wasn't any discussion going on about anybody having, or not having, a pilot's license. Or anybody having had said license but having it been revoked. As Wayne tinkered, Rayland drank beer and I stood there wondering about what I was going to eat for supper. The old radio on the workbench was playing rock and roll music in the background and after awhile we all sort of lapsed into silence.

A car door slammed out by the road and we could hear the gravel crunch as someone with real hard soles on their city shoes stepped towards the garage.

Wayne looked over his shoulder and there was a man coming up behind him. There was a dog walking along a few feet behind the man.

"Hello, Howard," Wayne said. "How's that sore leg that was messing you up?" Wayne turned back to the carburetor he was messing with as he spoke.

The dog stopped, looked at Wayne, and panted in that sort of way that kind of looks like a smile when it's on a dog's face.

The man stopped too but instead of smiling he just looked bewildered. He looked at Wayne, then at us, then at the dog. He cleared his throat a little and then sort of fidgeted with his shirt tail where it had come just a little bit untucked from his waist band.

"Hello, sir, may I have a moment of your time?" the man asked. For a long moment Wayne gave no indication that he had heard this question. We knew that he had, but wasn't decided as to whether it was worth acknowledging.

"Might depend on what you plan to do with it." Still looking down at the carburetor.

"Er - uh, my name is Garth Waters, I'm a writer for the Great Falls Tribune. I'm in town in search of what you might call a human interest story. Is your name Wayne Pittenger?"

Howard the dog sat down and acted like he was interested in watching to see what happened next.

As usual Wayne was dressed in dirty coveralls and had on a nondescript and well worn tan cap, a baseball cap I guess you'd say - everybody around here wears them but not much baseball ever gets played. "Human interest," was Wayne's eventual reply to the reporter's question

The man was youngish, a little overweight, actually a bit dumpy looking and not too tall. He was not dressed like a farmer, or rancher, or probably anybody who would have been from this place. Even in Great Falls he might have looked a bit out of place. He looked to me like somebody whose wife didn't own an ironing board because all the laundry got sent out; somebody who knew how to tie a necktie (as opposed to a bolo tie) and had had occasion to do so in the past 24 to 48 hours.

Taking Wayne's response as somehow affirmative, the man strode forward a couple steps, at the same time removing a small notepad and a pencil from the breast pocket of his jacket.

Nobody in this town of course actually ever wore anything that would be what you might describe as a "jacket" with a "breast pocket", unless somebody they knew was newly married or dead.

"Yes then; well, I'm here because there is some talk that you, sir, are somewhat of a local colloquial legend. That you have some rather, shall we say, unusual abilities that set you apart from the rest of us. I wondered if I could speak with you about this?" Garth Waters seemed to be picking up a bit of momentum as he spoke. Howard looked from Mr. Waters to Wayne, and then back again. I looked at Rayland but he was looking at the ground like he was carefully deciding whether or not the situation merited having another beer. I reached over and turned up the radio just a little bit.

Wayne chewed snoose. He was one of those guys who could chew tobacco without ever really having to spit. Unless he wanted to. At this point in the conversation (if that's what it was) he managed to spit within about a foot of Mr. Waters' shiny clean shoes. He did this without perceptively having turned his head or even looking towards the interviewer in any way.

Howard wagged his tail. He apparently was starting to like this.

"Set me apart from the rest of you," Wayne said. He was more muttering it than actually speaking, so the reporter was leaning forward to hear, in spite of his newfound concerns about the expectoration situation.

"Yes, sir, well I was told that you have an odd sort of rapport with members large and small of the animal kingdom, is this so? That you can relate to many animals on a very personal level - I was led to believe that you own a pet skunk who comes into your house at will and with which you are able to converse. Can you tell me anything about this remarkable claim?" The reporter's hand was poised over the little notebook as he said all this. He was holding both hands out in front of him and his eyes had narrowed a bit.

Wayne tapped his screwdriver handle on the float chamber of the carburetor. "Don't sound like it's stuck," he said. This observation appeared to be directed at Howard. In reply the dog stood up, turned around, and sat himself back down. His attention remained focused on Wayne.

"Mr. Pittenger?" the reporter said, just a bit tentatively. "Sir, did you hear what I asked you?"

Wayne still had his back to the reporter and there was no real evidence that he had ever looked at him directly since he arrived. He gave his head a quick jerk straight up and backwards, bending his neck back as he somehow simultaneously spit. It looked at first like he was spitting a great glob of tobacco juice straight up in the air, but in fact it looped over the top of his head, above his cap, and landed behind him, a few inches closer to the newspaper man's foot than the previous shot. Now Mr. Waters recoiled with a jerk and looked alarmed. There was a sort of FOOSH sound as Rayland San Jose popped the top on another can of beer.

"Don't own no skunk," Wayne said. "Nobody does."

Mr. Waters was looking a bit disgruntled, even though he was still somewhat intimidated by the display of tobacco juice marksmanship which he had witnessed. "Sir, I must say," he said. "I don't mean to bother you and if you don't wish to be interviewed, you can just say so and I will withdraw. I'm trying to be polite and I don't think rudeness is going to advance the conversation on either side." He shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. I could see he was starting to wish he had not set out to put together this particular human interest story - the human he wanted to talk to clearly had no interest.

"Wayne looked over at Rayland. "So you're pretty much a Pitts man - do you think a Pitts would be a better plane for flying under power lines? Seems to me like being a biplane it might make it tougher. Not that that's all bad. I like it when them cars hear me comin' but I don't want 'em to hear me too soon or else when I come under that power line and cross the highway right in front of 'em it don't surprise them as much as I'd like. So d'you think like a Model 14, or an S 1?"

Rayland and Wayne started to casually debate the best type of homebuilt aircraft to use when harassing unsuspecting drivers. Wayne was apt to fly a plane anywhere, land it anywhere, maybe if he was lucky even take off from about anywhere - not sure he thought that much about the takeoff until he was already landed. Rayland's methods were a bit different and didn't involve the seat-of-the-pants landings and so forth, unless it was absolutely necessary. When we were in high school he and his cousin Stu had hooked the landing gear on a Citabria on a power line while buzzing Rayland's old man out in the yard at their farm. Good thing that wire broke and didn't wrap around. It was a close one. Nowadays Rayland's favorite trick was to fly over somebody's house on their birthday and drop a German chocolate cake on the doorstep or maybe the roof.

Meanwhile Garth Waters was now looking pretty much exasperated by the whole situation. He stomped his feet a couple times and when there was a gap in the conversation was quick to speak up one more time.

"Well the fellow who directed me to come up and talk with you was apparently mistaken when he said it would make an interesting story. It's clear that you don't really want to talk to me or maybe anybody else who would like to know more about you. I don't know what is wrong with you people around here."

I noticed that a Rolling Stones song was just starting on the radio. It was one of my favorite old rock songs, with a very distinctive driving beat. Somehow the beat always made me think of a bullfight. I tuned into it to listen a bit.

I see a red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore I want them to turn black

"Howard," Wayne spoke to the dog. "Would you go see if you can find Jane? I want to know who's been telling all these people all this crap about me." I knew that Jane was the name of one of the skunks that Wayne sometimes let into his house.

The dog stood up and trotted off towards the road.

Next Wayne spoke to Rayland, still not paying any attention to the reporter. "Somebody I think turned me in to those FAA bastards after I flew in front of them from under the power lines out on Clacker Highway. They didn't know who I was but I think they gave a description of my plane."

Rayland frowned. "What were you flying? That bright yellow Deuce?"

"Yup." Wayne had built, and now flew, a Bakeng Deuce, a homebuilt with a colorful and distinctive yellow and red paint job. His was the only one in the area, as far as I knew.

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black

With flowers and my love, both never to come back

Mr. Waters the news reporter started to take a step forward, towards where Wayne was standing. He also started to say something. It began "I'm sorry I wasted my time --".

Wayne, still not turning around, cut him off.

"Hell, no problem. Waste all your time you want. But maybe you can help me with something while your doin' it. Take a look at this carburetor for me will you? Would you say this is an updraft or a downdraft?" About as fast as lightning Wayne threw the carburetor over his shoulder, a blind shot heading straight for the reporter's head.

Well I saw that guy's eyes open to about five times their normal size and then his whole head just sort of dropped out of sight. This was on account of when he jumped because of the projectile rocketing towards him, his fancy shoe slipped in one of the big globs of tobacco juice that was on the concrete floor where he was standing. That silly looking bastard slipped and went down like a bundle of rocks through a tub of feathers - or as we would say around here, it dropped him flatter than a wet turd from a tall cow's ass. Somehow the music cut into my thoughts again.

I look inside myself and see my heart is black

I see my red door and it has been painted black

His head bounced just a little bit when his back hit the floor; not too bad by the sound of it. I looked him over but he was still moving around and groaning some, and I figured he would wake up on the concrete and get himself put back together before too long. I was just wondering if Wayne would have closed the shop door and driven off in the man's car by the time that happened.

Wayne's attention, which was momentarily directed at the writer, now turned back to Rayland. "So what the hell should I do? If them Feds get a look at that plane it's gonna be a hard thing for me trying to steer them off the track."

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts

It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

Rayland glanced down at the prone figure of the reporter in the driveway and sort of shook his head. He really got a kick out of Wayne. We had all been in the first grade together, but somewhere around second or third, they had decided to hold Wayne back. I'm not sure when he actually graduated.

"Wayne," Rayland said. "for Christ's sake. Even you ought to be able to figure that one out."

I still didn't know what I was going to do about supper but I wondered if in addition to all the beer maybe there was a bottle of Seven Up around there somewhere that I might get my hands on.