Dove Season (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) Read Free Page A

was doing it so that when Pop got better and came home, he would have this great house to return to. But that kind of rationalization only reminded me of the truth. It was better if it was just a hobby and a way to pass the time.
    I got out of the shower and toweled off. Looking into the mirror, I decided not to shave my four-day growth. I’d shave it when it started to itch. With dark hair to my shoulders and a stubbly not-quite-a-beard, I wasn’t winning any beauty contests. But what I lacked in looks, I more than made up for with a complete absence of style. I got dressed in jeans, a frayed T-shirt, and my beat-up steel toes.
    I made a pass through the house. I wasn’t looking for anything, but convincing myself that I was back. Every piece of furniture and every book on the shelf was the same as it was twelve years ago. I could remember when Pop brought home the couch, brand-new and seventies orange. It was ugly, but comfortable. Now the stuffing was poking out and every edge was tattered. The objects were the same, but worn and dusty. It was like I had woken up in a museum dedicated to my childhood. Not a good museum, more like a back-of-a-gas-station roadside attraction dedicated to Spam or yarn.
    I decided to grab a bite to eat in Holtville before heading into El Centro. Driving down what used to be Orchard Road, but was now a four-lane NAFTA truck route, I let the fields of lettuce, alfalfa, and wheat blur past me. It’s about seven miles into town, a familiar straight line.
    Counting the rows, I was reminded that I had to check in with Mike about the farm. The moment Pop got sick, my cousin Mike had stepped up and took over the day-to-day of Pop’s crops. A helluva thing to do, considering he was my cousin on my mother’s side and my mother died when I was born. We weren’t close. We barely knew each other. But down here, family is family.
    I decided to put off seeing him until the next day. It’s not like farming held any urgency. And I wasn’t sure what I was going to do anyway. I hadn’t worked the fields since high school, and I wasn’t particularly a good farmer then. My friends in different cities found it charming, even romantic, that I grew up on a farm. It was neither. Ask a farmer.
     
    In my youth, Holtville had fought off the decay and erosion of the desert better than its neighboring towns. With only four thousand people, it had been able to maintain its all-American appearance. A big white gazebo shared space with large cedars in the two-block park that made up the center of town. Despite the box stores in El Centro and Calexico, the locals had still shopped at the small independent stores that circled the park. The older generation had been willing to spend a few extra bucks in an effort to keep their town from losing its personality.
    Not anymore. Times were tougher. Sammy’s Hardware, Walker’s Barbershop, Good Health Pharmacy, and the five-and-dime, all important parts of my childhood, were gone. Driving down Holt Road, there wasn’t much that I remembered. There weren’t many businesses still open, except the bars and churches.
    Luckily, one mainstay persevered. The J&M Café. From the outside, it looked like just another grease pit truck stop. And in the interest of full disclosure, that’s what it looked like on the inside, too. Because that’s exactly what it was. But to the truckers and locals, it was a social center. I had never been inside J&M without seeing someone I knew. Which isn’t saying much, as I knew all the waitresses. And these were waitresses that I would happily chat with, more like family, like great-aunts.
    The waitress with the big red wig seated me. She had been working there since I was a kid, and I’d never known her name. I called her “Ma’am.” I always imagined that her name was in the Gertie or Flossie family. I could have easily asked, but I didn’t care that much and Ma’am was a good nickname. Flirtatious and sassy with the truckers even into