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Rudy Goes Against Nature

Dietrich Kalteis

    That she said yes in the first place was a wonder. Maybe blunder is a better word. A dancer’s lean with long limbs and long hair curling, she could have done a hell of a lot better than Rudy.
    Her name was Rochelle. Rudy met her in the Blue Room of the Holiday Inn, a good night for him, one where he wasn’t cracking the arms off chairs or blind drunk and getting tossed out on his ass. Rudy packed a lot of belly, but he was solid enough to be a two bouncer drunk. Just add booze and you had an ugly scene every time.
    The band that night was a local three-piece act called Cody that played that upbeat crap that was good to dance to. Rochelle came to dance, lived to dance, wore the skirt, the flat-soled shoes. Rudy came first for the eight buck buffet, next to prey on the girls that met for cocktails after eight hours of drudgery. He picked Rochelle out, left his peanuts on the bar went up to her table and plucked her from between the librarian hens.
    She danced all grace and rhythm, feeling the music, beautiful, her feet barely kissing the floor. Rudy threw up one arm, then the other, like he were chucking boxes, size fourteen shoes of lead shuffling a weary box step, all muscles and hair, knees dipping; here a spin, there a bop. His red, wet eyes searching hers, feeling their moons align, wanting to touch her hips, her back, to draw her close. Throwing Cody’s singer a look, willing him to play a clutching, slow one.
    The buffet of roast beef and gravy, dumplings, baked chicken, stuffing, french fries and apple cobbler did a good job soaking up the drink. Rudy managed to say enough of the right words over the music, or at least not too many of the wrong ones: exchanged names, come here often, nice band, that sort of empty talk. The music took the edge off his slur.
    Two nights later Rudy slipped past dinner and a movie, going easy on the booze. Rudy wore his dad’s blazer and striped tie and snuck the keys to his mom’s silver Volvo with the white Jesus on the dash, cross swinging from the rearview. An outstanding performance – a good catholic boy from a Christian home. Holding back, a peck on the cheek, he held her hand as they walked. A real gentleman coping with the low-minded call in the privacy of his bedroom after the lights went out.
    On Saturday evening, he met her dad, mouthwash breath, showed himself in his neighbor’s ivy league blazer framing a young man of culture and promise. The men laughed over a beer, the dad and the suitor. Rudy politely refused a second beer (which was really number six). Driving and all that, he told the dad. He asked what time the dad would like Rochelle home, then handshakes and smiles, then he had Rochelle to the door, back by eleven on the nose. A good night.
    It went like that for two months, Rudy of promise, Rudy of culture, Rudy at Sunday dinners, Rudy, a fine catch; then rudimentary Rudy, the Rudy of muscle and hair that lived in the depths of his soul couldn’t stay hidden. That Rudy started to peel the outer layer like an onion skin, needing to reveal himself.
    Rudy invited Rochelle along on the camping trip. Away from the rat race, hiking trails, portaging, sleeping under a starry blanket, lungfuls of air among the sweet pines, dinner over open flame and another couple, another girl to talk to. Rochelle hesitated, but this was Rudy, Rudy of culture, Rudy of character, Rudy of promise. It would be alright.
    Kat and I drove up in my Jeep, everything crammed in the back. Tent, sleeping bag, pillows, air mattress, lantern, camp stove, kerosene, fishing rods, beer, wine, canned food, pork chops and steaks.
    Rudy drove his converted bread truck, the kind with sliding front doors. A real gas guzzling camping machine, a shaggin’ wagon of the seventies. Airbrushed body, naugahyde panels, curtains, plush carpet, a monster sound system, ‘Don’t laugh; you’re daughter’s in here’ sticker pasted on the bumper.
    Rudy cracked the first of his travel beers shortly after the city traffic thinned, somewhere around Holland Marsh. Deep Purple blaring from the sound system, Rudy singing Nobody’s gonna beat my car, it’s gonna break the speed of sound, yeah, it’s a killing machine. Rochelle laughed, bopping on her seat, sipping a diet soda, unaware she was about to meet the Rudy that lived in the depths.
    Rudy and I went at the tents and somehow got both tents up, Rudy’s breath holding off the black flies, better than citronella, Rudy on his fifth or sixth travel beer (after the ones at home). Rain clouds boiled overhead like an omen. A chill wind out of the north flapped the tent sides and guy ropes, Kat and Rochelle getting along, frying sirloins over the canned heat, corn and potatoes in the cans they came in, flies getting in the food. Beer and wine and woodsmoke.
    After we ate, Kat and I huddled with the sleeping bag around around shoulders, across from Rudy and Rochelle, talking over the small fire, warm on our faces and hands. Music from Rudy’s van, the crackling fire and the night sounds filled the woods. This time of the season, we were the only campers. The stars all over the place. Wine and beer going down. Rudy drinking two to our one. After a couple of styrofoam cups of wine, Rochelle switched to Club Soda.
    A white blaze caught my eye. It moved around the edge of our cleared campsite. I couldn’t be sure, I thought skunk or house cat, maybe a plastic bag blown in from someplace. It stayed still, then was gone, and I forgot about it, then caught it again on the far side of the camp, staying in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.
    Rudy pulled the second, then the third cork, popped another beer tab, the booze defeating the cold. The Rudy under wraps craving a hit of tequila. Kat and I sat with a sleeping bag over our knees. Me with my eye on the white blaze. Kat with her wine. Rudy with an arm around Rochelle who sat stiff with the cold.
    Then I caught the flash of the white thing moving across the edge of the campsite, a quick blaze showing in the firelight, then it was gone again. A few minutes and I saw it twenty feet to the right. It stayed still for a minute, my eyes on it. Then it shifted, showing a black head and black eyes. I didn’t want to alarm the girls, instead, I thumbed my nose, getting Rudy’s attention, pulling him aside, telling him about the bear.
    Rudy went ape shit. “Bear, fuck, where? run!” He dashed for his van. “Come on, Rochelle, hurry the fuck up.” He slid the door closed behind him. The bear bumbled into the clearing, showing itself, cutting Rochelle off from the van, its curious nose in the air catching a whiff. Rochelle got in the jeep with us, squeezed on the seat with Kat, our eyes on the bear.
    Rudy honked and yelled through his open window, threw an empty can, but the bear was intent on ripping open the garbage bag, flipping the coolers, clawing at them, eating down a pound of butter, a loaf of bread, the next night’s pork chops, eggs, bacon, spilled an open bottle of wine.
    Rudy started the van and drove at it, trying to catch it with the bumper, hitting a tent peg, blowing the front right tire. He called through his cracked window. “Yah yah hey yah.”
    Rochelle cracked her window and called to Rudy. “My insulin’s in the cooler.”
    “Insulin? What for?”
    “I’m a ... I just need it.”
    “Don’t worry. Bears don’t eat insulin.”
    The bear plowed its nose through everything, into both tents, then wandered into the night, a big bag of Lays between its teeth. We waited, then got out to the carnage. It looked like a hundred hillbillies threw down a moonshine shebang then left. Coolers tipped, food all over, Rudy’s front tire blown on the tent peg.
    Rochelle became female quiet, Rudy asking about the insulin, not picking up on her mood as he polished off Kat’s wine bottle that hadn’t been spilled. Then he rescued a beer from the spilled ice, getting out the jack and the airless spare.
    With the beer gone, Rudy opened the tequila, then with bottle in one hand and jack handle in the other, Rudy beat the woods; he went after bear, calling through the pines, growling in a language the bear would understand, calling his challenge, all muscle and hair.
    Rochelle hoisted herself up on the passenger seat of the van, wrapped a sleeping bag around her shoulders, as happy as a rain-soaked cat and closed her eyes.
    When Rudy stumbled back into the firelight, he tried to urinate out the campfire, splashing his pants, a reek sure to repel any bear; it was sure to repel Rochelle. Kat and I closed our eyes as Rudy tried to pump air into the spare with the pump used for his air mattress.
    In the morning, I opened my eyes to the grey, the sky full of heavy clouds. Rudy squatted by the fire, near empty tequila bottle at his side, a blanket draped around his shoulders. The jack handle lay in the dirt. Tire still flat.
    “Hey,” I said, coming over, wondering if I could salvage coffee fixings.
    “You got to help me,” he said, looking into the ashes.
    “What’s up?” I figured he wanted help getting air in the spare.
    “Accident.”
    “Huh?”
    “Had a bit of an accident.” He opened the blanket, his pants completely soaked.
    “God.”
    “Fucking tequila.”
    “Guess so. So go change.”
    “Didn’t bring extra pants.”
    “Don’t look at me. Mine won’t fit you.”
    “Can’t let Rochelle see me like this. Aren’t things bad enough?”
    “Let’s get you in the lake.”
    “Fucking freezing.”
    “Wash your pants, then dry them on the truck’s vent.”
    “Get real.”
    “Got a better idea.”
    “Fuck me.”
    “Or stay like that, smells great by the way.
    He sighed and climbed to his feet. “Come with me.”
    “Gotta make coffee.”
    “Do it later. Just come with.”
    I stood on the rickety dock while Rudy dunked into the ice water, splashing around, getting the urine from his briefs and pants, the tequila from his head. He got out, shriveled, shaking, wringing the water from his pants. I almost felt sorry for him.
    He walked the stony path in his saggy briefs, barefooted, stones hurting his soles, his sneakers and jeans in his hand.
    “Think Rochelle’s pissed?”
    “She’s a saint if she’s not.”
    That was pretty much the instant we saw it. Standing on its haunches in the middle of the path, forty yards away, white blaze on its nose. We froze.
    “Fucker’s not that big,” Rudy said.
    “It’s still a bear.”
    “Let’s nail it with a rock.”
    “Let’s not. Let’s just take another path.”
    Rudy didn’t want to give ground, but we backed up and made it to the dock. The bear didn’t follow.
    The beach was stony all the way to the point. Rudy limped along. No sign of another path. We retraced our steps, Rudy with an armload of good-sized stones, jeans and sneakers. The bear was gone. When we got to the camp, the girls were gone.
    I remembered the rest room on the way in. Rudy piled his stones beside the cold ashes of the fire, squeezed into his sneakers and wet pants, his lips blue from the cold. Then we took the path in the other direction, eyes going this way and that, ears straining for sounds other than rustling leaves. We came to the brick structure from the rear and rounded the corner, face to face with the bear. Ten yards felt like ten feet. The bear sniffed the air.
    Kat called from inside.
    “Just stay put,” I called back, knowing bears could run, bears could climb, bears had teeth. The girls watched from the one window.
    “Get the girls,” Rudy said to me, grabbing up a stick and throwing it, missing by a mile, then charging, rebel yelling, hoisting his arms wide, all muscle and hair. The bear turned and bolted into the woods. Rudy went in after it, me calling him to stop, me ushering the girls out of there and back to the camp.
    I got the fire going, got coffee on, tried to figure out how to get air into Rudy’s spare. By noon, we were plenty worried, ate some canned spagetti, had the camp cleaned and packed up. Everybody wanted to go home.
    Rudy came out of the woods from the north side, limping, a stick for a crutch, feet muddy, face muddy, shirt and pants ripped. From drunkard to Rambo, he looked like he had gone four rounds with the bear.
    There had been a cutbank he didn’t see, slid down it, rolling over brambles and stones. As he lay there trying to catch his wind, the bear came to the top of the cutbank, looking down at him, its red, wet eyes searching his, all muscle and hair. Rudy, injured, backed up, scrambled on hands and size fourteen feet barely touching the ground, through the stream, through the woods, thinking the bear was behind him. Lost among the trees, lost in nature. With flies biting him, he ran until he came to a road, running this way, running that way, finally finding his way back.
    The look on Rochelle’s face said she would be running, too. Rudy’s eyes said he knew it, knew there was no way back. Nothing learned. Nothing more to say.

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