DESPERADOS

(Writer’s Note: I took inspiration for this story from a song that I have enjoyed for many years now. The song was written by a young Guy Clark and is titled “Desperados Waitin’ For A Train”. The story is totally fictional and I based it totally on the emotions that I felt in listening to the song. I want to thank Mr. Clark for a wonderful song and for helping me to write this story. I have included a version of Guy Clark’s song in the video below. I hope you will enjoy it.)

Mama’s funeral was set for 3:00 PM on Saturday afternoon. Things went off without a hitch but then I am not surprised in that Mama always had things planned down to the last detail, even her own death and funeral. God has been kind to her like she had been to others. She lived a long and mostly enjoyable life and then the Lord took her gently into the night without pain or fanfare.

I was an only child…a pre-World War II child. My father had gone off to fight Japanese in the Pacific at some point after the Pearl Harbor attack. Mama always said that he volunteered for duty after that terrible attack. I never knew him and he never came home. Mama received word that he had been killed in fighting on one of the islands but his remains were never recovered. Mama had a headstone placed into the cemetery plot for him as a reminder of his life and his service to our country. We laid her to rest beside that reminder today and soon a reminder will be in place over her remains to mark her contribution to life.

I step away from the pile of flowers adorning Mama’s freshly covered grave and look over at another headstone nearby the plot. The inscription read: “John Henry Hargreave 1888 – 1970 All Things Come To The Patient One”. I stood over the grave and thought back over the years. This was my first visit here since the old man had died some twenty years back. I am not sure I ever really knew his name because all I ever remember calling him was “Old Man”. The memories came rushing back as I stood there over his grave. He had been the only father-figure in my life though he seemed an old one when he arrived. It had been a long time but the memories were as fresh in my mind as though it were yesterday and I let them come to me; welcomed them.

2.

I remember the first day that I laid eyes on the old man. Before the war, my Mama’s family had passed on and left her a small amount of money. Her and dad used it to buy a little three story hotel near downtown Austin, TX. By today’s standards it would have been more like a bed & breakfast and that was pretty much what it was. In those days, there was not a hotel on every corner and Austin was not yet a bustling city. It was a fair size place and was the capitol so the business traffic into the town was good. Mom and dad felt the little hotel would be something that would bring in a steady living for many years to come so they took the money and bought it never realizing that the coming war would undermine their life’s dream and leave my mother alone with a child to run the place.

The little hotel was tucked away among a series of downtown buildings. It had three stories and a small elevator to get the customers up and down along with a stairwell for those less trusting of the elevator ride. Some customers were long-term residents and others were just in town for a night or two but normally were regulars on their monthly business or political rounds. Mama offered a clean room, crisp fresh sheets, plus a breakfast and dinner meal. She worked the front desk, helped out in the kitchen, and cleaned rooms when the need arose. She was everywhere it seemed and never stopped. I was small and always close by and in the way I would guess. She seemed to always have time for me and I stayed entertained just watching the coming and goings of the guest who frequented the hotel.

I first saw the old man come through the double doors in the lobby. He caught my eye right away. He was just over six feet tall but seemed taller in his cowboy boots. He wore a dark black suit with a matching black hat that was somewhere between a flat-brim cowboy hat and a fedora. It seemed to fit his head of neatly trimmed gray hair like it was made for him. His face was covered in a short salt ‘n pepper beard and moustache which he kept neatly trimmed. He wore a starched white shirt buttoned to the neck with no collar and no tie. He left the top button open. In his hand was a brown valise type bag. As he came through the door, he removed his hat, stepped directly toward the counter and greeted my mother.

I sat over to one side of the lobby area near the desk in a high wingback chair. I was small and the chair almost hid me from view of those moving about the lobby. The old man inquired of my mother about a room. I listened to the conversation between them as I looked the old man over. There was a fascination about him that seemed to draw my eyes to him and hold them there. I didn’t even know who he was but already, even at that tender age, I knew in that instant that I wanted to be like him.

The old man took a room long term indicating to my mother that he was retired from the oil business and planned to stay around Austin for a while until he saw something he liked better. As he gathered his key off the counter and picked up his valise, he seemed to sense my stare and turned to look at me sitting upon the chair with my feet barely hanging off the seat. He gave me a gentle smile and walked over my way.

”Say there, young sidekick, how would you like to help me get this bag on the elevator and show me up to my room. I’ll give you a dollar for your trouble,” said the old man as he turned and looked toward my mother for her approval. Mom smiled and nodded that it was okay.

“You betcha…Can I have my dollar now? I’d rather not have to wait for it!” I said climbing down out of the chair and holding my hand out toward the old man. I wasn’t planning on helping him out and then finding out that he forgot that he promised that dollar to me…that was a lot of money in that day.

“Now hold on there little sidekick. You got to be patient and trust your instincts. You and I is about to enter into a contract. I’m gonna hold out my hand to you and you hold out yours. We’ll shake hands and seal the deal. Now the deal is that you will help me with the bag and show me to my room. In turn, if you do the job correctly, I will give you that dollar. That’s what we call a contract and we can seal the deal like two gentlemen with a handshake. I’ll promise and so will you. We’ll give our word and that’s a might strong thing between men like us. But you got to be patient and wait for the outcome boy. It’s just like them desperados waiting to rob a train. You got to wait until the train gets there first before the robbery can start.” He extend his hand for the shake and I grabbed it. We had ourselves a contract.

3.

After that first day when the old man caught my eye, I was never far from him. He stayed pretty close to the hotel either in his room or down in the lobby reading newspapers. Sometimes, he would just sit and talk with me about things he had done and seen. He told me that he had been a wildcat driller for most of his days…something he learned as a young boy when the oil boom broke out in Texas. He would spend long amounts of time telling me the intricate details of how to find a good drill site and how to properly put the well down so that the oil would come in. He used terms like “gusher” and “black gold”. When I seemed impatient and ready to move on, he would refocus my attention back to the drilling process and remind me that we could not get the cart ahead of the horse. He kept turning back to that first example about outlaws robbing trains…patience, he would say, patience!

Months and years ticked away little by little. He seemed to stay the same; always neatly dressed in his black suit with the starched while shirt and his hat close at hand. As I got a little older, he would take me with him on his errands around town. Sometimes, we would just go out and entertain ourselves. He liked old western movies because he said that it reminded him of a time when he was a young boy like me. He and I would head down to the theater and watch them on Saturday afternoon. One thing about westerns, there always seems to be outlaws in them and they are always trying to rob something.

One Saturday afternoon we had finished our movie watching and started walking back toward the hotel. As we came to a cross street the old man signaled for us to turn right and follow the sidewalk. I had no idea where we were going but just remained patient and took my cues from him. Soon, we were standing in front of a little place called “The Green Frog”. We walked inside and there were old men everywhere playing cards, checkers, and dominoes as they drank beer. Most of them seemed to know the old man too.

Everyone looked up as we walked into the “Green Frog”. The old man stopped and said, “This here’s my little sidekick so you boys treat him good.” I felt pretty good that the old man was looking out for me like that. I also felt pretty grown up to be in a place like this with all these grown up fellas playing all these games.

As we left the “Green Frog” and headed back toward the hotel, I stopped walking and turned to the old man and said, “We’s like desperados ain’t we old man…we’s just waitin’ for the train together?” He looked at me rather quizzically for just a second and then chuckled saying, “I guess we are sidekick, I guess we are.” The old man placed his right hand on my shoulder and we walked home.

4.

My trips to the “Green Frog” became about as frequent as my trips to the movie with the old man. As I grew older, he would let me experiment a little here and there giving me a sip of his beer or coffee. He had an old black Chevrolet sedan which he kept parked behind the hotel. One day, he offered me a ride in it and to my surprise, he let me drive it. Eventually, he taught me to drive pretty well and by the time I was of age, I was more than ready to get my license and make it legal. After that, the old man would let me drive him around Austin and even out into the country where he would take me to an oil drilling site and tell me all about the process one more time. He drank more now often pulling a little silver spooker from his suit pocket and nipping on it as the day went along.

He always had a little money in his pocket for me, especially when I got old enough to notice the girls and want to do thing with them. He would wink and hand me a couple of dollars and the keys to the car then say, “Go see what you can do with that little philly, sidekick.”



I was getting older but the old man seemed to remain just like he was that first day that I saw him. He was always neat and well-groomed but never too formal in his approach. He was a gentleman in every respect and his tongue only got loose when he had sipped a bit too much whiskey out of that silver spooker. Even then, he was still a gentleman. With all the years which had past and all the experiences that I had with him, one thing I knew for sure, I wanted to be like him, just like I always did from that first day.

I graduated from high school and started attending college locally in Austin. I saw less of the old man during the day but we were still close. Ironically, I had decided to study petroleum engineering and take up oil drilling as my profession. The old man was pleased and took every opportunity to tell me the details of good drilling practices. As he had taught me time and again, I listened intently and patiently hanging on his every word.

My studies eventually required that I leave Austin and go out to west Texas to finish my degree at Texas Tech. Now I would see even less of the old man and the fellas down at the Green Frog. I had developed a lot of habits that included these people and I knew that I would miss them dearly but my Mom and even the old man would remind me that my education came ahead of other things in life. So off to Lubbock I went to finish my schooling.

My visits back to Austin were infrequent now. In the summer, I took a job in the oilfields of west Texas to help out with my educational expenses and to learn more first hand about the drilling business. In those three or four years, I saw very little of the old man but Mama kept me advised of his comings and goings in her letters.

5.

I was home for the Christmas holidays in late 1969. Things seemed different. The old man was not as sharp as his image in my mind. Chewing tobacco juice now stained his beard and his shirt was often wrinkled. He seemed too much like an old man and even though I had always thought of him as an old man, it was different now. He was somewhat indifferent too. Mama said that he slowly started to change once I left for west Texas. He drank more and spent less time taking care of himself. His mind was not as sharp. But he was my friend and I admired him greatly. I just did not know what to do for him. While I was there, I attempted to do things with him. We would see a western, drink some beer and play a game of Moon down at the Green Frog but some of the magic was gone. We still cared for each other very much but the old man had lost the gleam in his eye and I didn’t know how to get it back in there. My heart was breaking.

I got the call from Mama in late February of the next year. It was colder than hell and we had just had an ice storm the day before. Mama said the old man was sick, really sick, and she didn’t know how much longer he would last. She told me that I needed to come home to Austin and see him so that he could be with me one last time before he departed. I packed up and headed that way not knowing what to do or say.

When I arrived in Austin, back at the little hotel, Mama indicated that the old man was up in his room in the bed. She told me that the doctor had been there and that there was nothing else we could do for him except to make him comfortable. She waved me toward the elevator to go see him but warned me not to stay too long and wear him out. Never in all the years of heading down to the old man’s room on the second floor had I gone there with such a sad and empty feeling in my stomach. I was about to lose the one man in my life who I had looked up to for years and I didn’t know how to do it.

I slowly opened the door to the room and looked into the dimly lit surroundings. The old man lay on his back on the bed with a comforter over him extending up to his chest. Mama had made sure that he had on his beloved starched white shirt. He didn’t feel dressed without it. I moved to the side of the bed and sat down in the chair. The old man’s eyes were closed and there was not a sound in the room.

“Is that you, sidekick” He asked without opening his eyes or turning toward me.

“Yeah, it’s me, old man. I hear you are not feeling real spunky these days.” I replied and tried to smile just a bit.

I saw just a bit of smile break across his face but his eyes remained closed. Slowly he held out his right hand and extended it from the bed toward me. I took his hand into both of my hands and held it tightly.

“I don’t know what to say, old man. You know I need you around to help me get through this old world. You have always been there for me since I was a sprout and we made our first deal for that dollar. I don’t what I am going to do if you are not around.” With that I lost it and broke into tears as I fell silent.

“We’re gonna make us another deal right now, sidekick. You shake my hand and promise me that you will always be an upstanding forthright man and the best oil driller that Texas ever saw. I’ll promise you that no matter where you go or what you do, I won’t be far away. All you have to do is look up and talk to me just like you always have since you were a boy. I’ll be there for ya. After all, we’s desperados, you and me.” With that, he shook my hand and fell silent.

I remember as I rose from the chair and walked over to the door to leave. I turned and paused for a second to take one more look at the old man while he was still among the living. As I did, he opened his eyes and looked straight into mine and said, “Get ready Jack, that sum-bitch is comin’” and then he smiled at me. In that instant I knew that he could see that train coming that we had so patiently waited on…us two desperados. It was only time in my life I ever heard him speak my name…Jack.

6.

I stepped back from the old man’s grave and put the memories away for another day. I glanced over for one more look at the flowers atop my mother’s grave. She would be in safekeeping with the old man nearby here like he was. I felt a little better just thinking about it. I put on the old black hat and adjusted it to fit precisely on my head just like the old man would have in his day. I then turned and walked from the cemetery strolling confidently in my black suit and starched white open collar shirt knowing full-well that the old man was watching over me as well.

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