Gabriel's Horn

 Fiction

When I heard that Gabriel was coming I just had to be there. It was Gabriel Zambrano, a classmate of mine from high school. If there was prank executed or a teacher flummoxed, Gabriel was in on it as the ringleader or the executioner. He was the innocent, put upon, smartass the teachers loved to hate. They couldn’t discount his brains or his grades but any teacher that had him lived with a bit of dread that he would lay some kind of trap that would ridicule gently but never with malice. Some teachers admired his skills at entrapment, tried mightily to avoid falling for the tricks, but didn’t always succeed.

The news came in a letter inviting me to the 47^th reunion of the class of ’65 from St. Thomas College Prep. The school was run by a religious order who’s charter was the education and development of young men. The tuition was fairly high but the student body had a mix of upper, middle, and lower class students. The tuition and remote location in the outskirts of El Paso kept the enrollment consistently under 400.

I had always declined (read refused) to attend the previous class reunions. Even though I had never attended one, I had some preconceived notions about what happened at those gatherings:

        A bunch of old farts who barely recognize each other try to recapture the camaraderie of the ‘old days’ when things were pure and simple, while at the same time sizing each other up, comparing themselves to the others. Who was up, who was down; who did better than the jocks, or did the jocks who always seemed to have things go their way actually go through life as charmed now as they were then? And what became of the geeks and nerds, the invisible ones who never seemed to do anything but read and become teachers’ pets?

Gabriel. In the Spring of our Senior year he and I had rigged the Fart Chair in Fr. Banford’s physics class. Actually, all I did was be his lookout while he modified the teacher’s hemorrhoid cushion. Fr. Banford’s battle with his ring of fire was such that he had to stand up and sit down at frequent intervals. After the modification, the pillow would emit a small amount of sulfurous gas every time the he sat down. Thirty minutes into the day’s lesson, the odor was in everyone’s nostrils. When the prank was uncovered, everyone, including the teachers, just “knew” that Gabriel had done it. But it was just a few days before graduation and the principal let it go. Gabriel never owned up to it and I kept that silly secret for 47 years.

Our English teacher, Fr. LeGrand, was fond of vocabulary building. He drilled us every day from his favorite book, “Word Power Made Easy.”

“Polymath,” he said. “Does anybody know what it means? Come, on. It was on the vocabulary list.”

Phil raised his hand and said that a polymath was someone who was highly skilled in many fields.

Fr. LeGrand was thinking of himself when he asked if anyone knew any polymaths. After all, he held PhD’s in English and Mathematics, a Doctorate in Music; and was an accomplished amateur musician, actor and athlete. But all of us turned to look at Gabriel who sat at his desk idly doodling in his notebook.

It was true. Gabriel was good at almost anything he tried. While the rest of us might know our lessons, he knew stuff that wasn’t in the text books. It was as though he could remember everything he ever read or heard about anything.

Yes, it would be good to see Gabriel again and finally, I had to admit to myself that I was curious about some of my ex-classmates. What became of the members of the Blue Rockers band; Alex, Vic, Jer, Bobby, and Sylvia?  I wasn’t that interested in the rest of the 60 or so members of the class. All I had to do to was look at myself in the mirror to see the changes five decades had made in me to imagine what time had done to them – less hair, more fat; less optimism, more wrinkles; less future, more past.

Bobby and Sylvia wouldn’t be there. They didn’t go to our school. Years ago I heard that Bobby was killed in Vietnam so I looked for his name on The Wall. It was there. Sylvia had disappeared when the band broke up; maybe Gabriel would know something. I made a mental note to ask him.

I mailed my RSVP and made reservations to go. My wife couldn’t go because she was in the throes of editing her latest book. She and her agent were down to arguing about commas. It was an old battle between them. The agent said she didn’t use enough commas, but my wife insisted that the number of commas in her work was exactly the number required.

“Commas! Jackson, all you have to know about them is what ONE comma and the Supreme Court did to the 2^nd Amendment. No more commas.” The argument would continue until one or the other capitulated. Then another “problem” would arise and the arguments would begin again. To my eyes, dealing with the editors was harder than writing the books.

When I checked in at the hotel there was a message from Gabriel to meet him in the bar. I left my bags unpacked in my room then went to look for him. He was sitting near the door drinking what looked like a Manhattan. Some things don’t change. That had been his drink since high school. Whenever we went drinking in Juarez he claimed that the night bartender at Curly’s was the only man who knew how to make a Manhattan. I’m sure the bartender was impressed to receive compliments from a 17 year old sophisticate.

“Viejo! How are you, man? If it wasn’t for that Manhattan I wouldn’t recognize you. How did you get so old?”

“Same as you. Went to sleep one day then woke up 50 years later looking like this.”

It was good to see him. I had followed his life on the internet for years. After bumming around for a few years he had landed a job as a trouble shooter and consultant for a top manufacturer of really high end sound equipment. He had a gift for knowing exactly what was wrong with the sound of an amplifier and could describe it to the designers in such a way that they could make the necessary changes to the equipment or the room it was in. Technically, he was ‘on call’ 24/7 and was paid a retainer to carry a beeper should his ears be needed to satisfy an unhappy customer.

With no office and no boss he had time to do what he really loved, play his guitar and compose songs. He was good enough to play with several bands on the East Coast and played a bit of everything. For a while he played string bass for a Bluegrass band. Being Mexican-American, his color stood out among the band members, but he called himself Jay, played the slap bass well enough that he toured with them and another Country band for a four or five years. He made a couple of rock & roll CD’s of his original music and had modest success. Retired now, he lived with his wife, Juanita, in a remote part of New Mexico, playing occasionally at a local tourist hotel to keep his hand in.

I gave him the short version of my life since graduation, stopping before he went to sleep from boredom. Then I asked about Alex, Vic, Jer, and Sylvia.

“Let’s see. Alex is here so he can tell you about his teaching job at Eastwood High. Been there going on 20 years now. Vic went to LA to make the big time. Instead he met up with a girl who converted him to Mormonism. They moved to Salt Lake, blanded in and disappeared. I think Jer is here, too. He married a girl he met at St. Mary’s, became an accountant for big company. He’s doing well. I don’t know about Sylvia. She told me once that she just wanted to get married, raise kids and pigs. Maybe she did.

“This is my first reunion, too. I don’t like to travel without Juanita but she flat out said no, she didn’t want to have to talk to my buddy Dickshire. She didn’t actually say it that way. Juanita learned a lot of colorful words from the guys in the bands we traveled with.”

We ordered another drink as a group of guys walked into the bar. It looked like some bigshot surrounded by yes men or body guards. He made a show of entering the bar and ordering his retinue about, making sure everybody knew who the big dog was. I didn’t need to read his name tag. I knew it was Richard Dickshire. Except for being 50 lbs heavier and balding fast, he was still Big Dick Dick. He was the richest kid in our class and from the look of things he was still the richest among us. This guy wasn’t born on third base. At birth his toes were already touching Home Plate.

Gabriel picked his drink and said, “Let’s go outside.”

I was a non-entity in high school so nobody ever bothered me one way or another but Gabriel had been one of Dick’s targets for ridicule and humiliation. He came from very poor family who made enormous sacrifices to pay his tuition at St. Thomas. He didn’t dress well and rarely had any extra money. Dick and his pals would harass him and even push him around sometimes. I remember one time the Blue Rockers were playing at a school dance. Gabriel was paying the admission for himself and his date when he discovered that he had left his wallet at home. Dick gave the ticket taker a 20 to pay for the tickets then stuffed another 20 in his coat pocket, saying, “Now, Gabriel, you take Juanita to nice place tonight. Forget about the taco stand. Juanita’s dressed too nice to sit at Tiko’s Tacos. Buy her a big steak. Maybe you’ll get lucky in the bargain.” He looked Juanita up and down. “Juanita, you can do a sight better than this loser. Let me know when you’re ready for a winner.”

The fact was that Juanita was never his girl. She only had eyes for Gabriel and was still with him. Dick had tried everything to win her, throwing his money around; buying her gifts and disparaging Gabriel. Juanita was the one thing he couldn’t buy and it rankled.

She was one of those rare human beings who improved your mood just by saying hi in passing. Even the girls who hated everything liked her. She was beautiful, too. All of us had a crush on her at one time or another but even when she turned us down we didn’t feel all that bad. Once she had settled on Gabriel, nobody else had a chance in hell with her. I only met one other girl like her and I married her before she came to her senses.

The first day of the two day reunion began the next morning. At first everyone, meaning the 50 classmates and wives, milled around squinting at each others name tags. Nobody seemed to remember me except Alex and Jer. Mostly, Gabriel and I hung out together. People kept coming up to him, telling or retelling some story about his pranks and how they still laughed about them all these years later. I was having a good time just listening and remembering, too.

Unfortunately, Big Dick Dick would not allow himself to be ignored. He made the waiters set up a bigger table for him and his admirers. We could hear him above the chatter and the music from the pianist in the corner. Oh, yes, he had finally gotten rid of the six seater Lear Jet and had a 12 seater here; thinking about refitting a 727 next year.

A six piece rock band set up and began playing and the guys who had brought their wives began dancing. The stag guys catcalled and made innocuous, lewd remarks to the women who seemed to like the attention. Big Dick Dick tried to dance with one of the women but he got winded quickly and left the floor, leaving his partner stranded. Gabriel and I watched and talked about old times.

Our MC, Chuck Kelly, called us to order and made some remarks about old age, time passing, the good old days, etc. He made a few comments about the organizers and named some of the attendees who were there for the first time and others who had not missed a single reunion. They each stood and got polite applause. He read off the agenda for the day and for tomorrow. He ended by officially ending the party and inviting everyone to the bar for a nightcap.

The next day we toured our old high school. The interior hadn’t changed too much except for updated desks and labs. We recalled dozens of events large and small. A new gymnasium complete with a weight room had been built thanks to Dick Dickshire. In an inspired moment of originality, he had made it clear that the facility was to be named the Richard Dickshire Athletic Center. He posed for pictures in front of the barbells rack. Irony and self awareness were not his strong suits. If one were to guess, he weighed more than the combined mass of pig iron stacked behind him. 

The intramural baseball game was called off because we couldn’t find enough people fit enough to make two teams. Instead, we had a picnic by the river, drinking beer and dining off paper plates. Someone brought out a guitar and Gabriel played and sang the folk songs that had been popular years and years ago. By evening we were very mellow and we headed back to the hotel for the closing ceremonies of our reunion.

Chuck, the MC, proceeded to read the names of people whom he had not been able to reach and asked us to help look for them. He announced that after his remarks we would have another dance, dinner and drinks afterwards. Finally, he was just absolutely delighted (!) to announce that Richard Dickshire had generously paid all of our hotel expenses including the hall, music, meals, and our individual rooms. Applause!

Chuck was just beginning to call Big Dick Dick to the stage to say a few words but Dick was already going up the steps to the stage. He took over the microphone and began to speak.

“Hello, everybody. It sure is nice to see all of you here. I see a lot of smiles and I guess I know why. It’s not everyday that Santa pays your bills for you. Well, I’ll tell you when a man is successful he feels he owes something to others so I’m happy to let go of some of my loot once in awhile.

“My daddy left me a beer distributorship that was only grossing five million a year. I sold it, first thing. My mother said it would break my father’s heart if he knew what I did but I’ll tell you what. I smelled the future and it smelled like crude oil. I invested in a couple of oil wells and before you know it I doubled the 5 million, then doubled it again. I’m not a bragging man but I do love my comforts. There’s a brand new Lamborghini Aventador in the parking lot. You might have seen it. It’s the red one with the two guys standing next to it. They’re guarding it for me everywhere I go. Damn thing cost me $449,500 and it goes like scat. I’m having it shipped to Germany so I can take it on the Autobahn. For those of you that don’t know it, there’s no speed limits on that road!

“No doubt about it I’ve been blessed more than most. But for all that, I didn't get somehing I really wanted. Do you all remember Juanita Moreno? Beautiful girl. Gabriel, back there” pointing now, “stole her away from me and I never forgave him for it. That said, I’m going to be big about it and let bygones by bygones. Gabriel, I love you, man.

“Thank you all. Now let’s all have a good time.”

Dick left the stage and began working the crowd, stopping, saying a few words to each person. He reminded me of an old freighter cruising slowly into the harbor with seabirds circling and following. When he got to Gabriel he dropped anchor and spoke.

“So how’s Juanita doing these days? As long as I live I’ll never figure out why she picked you. She’d been better off with me. She could be driving her own Lamborginhi to Neiman-Marcus every day instead of trailing you around the country like a camp follower. You know it. I know it. And I’ll bet she’s thought about it time and again all her life.”

Hearing that, we all drew in our breath expecting Gabriel to explode. But he didn’t.

“Dick, Juanita is fine. She’s more beautiful than ever. But in case you didn’t know, she isn’t here because she can’t stand you. She was nice to you but she was always nice to everybody, even to creeps like you.”

Now it was Dick’s turn to explode but he didn’t. He puffed out his chest and tried to whisper but didn’t seem to know how. No one had ever heard him whisper. Leaning in, he said,

“Gabriel, do you know why you never got any recording contracts? Do you know why you spent your whole life going nowhere? It was because of me. I have friends everywhere. They do what I say. If I say Gabriel doesn’t get a contract he doesn’t get it. If I say his CD’s don’t get on the shelves, they don’t get on the shelves.

“You might think money can’t buy everything. Maybe you’re right but I sure bought you your miserable life.”

Everyone was looking at Gabriel, including me. He was shaking with fury as he remembered all the doors slammed in his face; the sure things that fell apart at the last minute. All those years waiting for the breaks that would never come. Thank you, Richard Dickshire.

He started moving and I thought he was going to charge Dick but he turned on his heel and walked out fast. I followed him out and led him to my rental car. We got in and headed to the freeway just to go somewhere, anywhere.

In the hall, the band started playing but everybody was buzzing about Dick, Gabriel, and Juanita.

We drove over the bridge to Juarez and stopped at the first bar we saw. Inside we ordered beers. Gabriel gulped his beer down, ordered two more and started laughing hard. Oh, oh, I thought, here it comes. The breakdown.

“Damn, that’s good beer. Viejo, bring me two more and two for my friend. Our horses are outside. Take them some beer, too.” The confused bartender actually looked out the window to see if there were any horses. "Gringos", he muttered and went back behind the bar.

Gabriel looked at me, staring hard. “That fat sonofabitch owes me but I don’t know what. I’m happy with what I have. Remember how Fr. Tippington showed us how to make a decision tree? If you do this, what are the consequences? If you do that, what are the consequences? You go through all the possibilities and you choose the one with the least negative consequences. All the time we were driving around tonight I was thinking how I could pay Dick back. Then that first beer hit my mouth and I realized something. I’ve had a damned good life. Why would I screw it up now by killing that asshole?

“Juanita loves me the same as she did 44 years ago. We had two great kids, 5 grandkids. My pension and savings are good enough to last me years. I live in a nice cabin in the mountains. I play my music at the hotel when I want to. And look at my job. For god’s sake, I never had a boss or an office I had to be in every day. If the beeper didn’t go off I could do whatever I wanted with my time. And the pay was damn good, too. Best of all, I have Juanita.”

It was only 9:00 o’clock. We decided to return to the reunion hall for the closing. On the way back Gabriel had me stop at a Walmart and wait for him in the car. He came back holding a plastic sack. “Some beer for my room,” he said. Yeah, right. He was up to something. His innocent look didn’t fool me in high school either.

As we approached the hotel he said he had a plan. I knew it! In an instant I stopped being 65 year old never-been and became 16 year old gonna-be again. It made me giddy until I heard the plan.

My part of the scheme was to start a fight with the guy wearing an earpiece at the entrance to the hall. He was one of Dick’s guards. I was skeptical.

“Don’t worry! Just make enough fuss so that the goons guarding the Lamborginhi have to come over to see what’s going on.”

I was still skeptical. “Look, as soon as they start running towards you, run into the hall. Trust me. They won’t come after you.”

Ok. Ok. I went up to the guard acting drunk and bumped him harder than I intended.

“Get out of my way you cheap rent-a-cop!” Whether it was the bump or the insult that motivated him, he stiff armed me on the chest and sent me flying. I staggered back.

“Come on. Come over here and try that again you Mother something. Did I just call you Mother something? Mother Superior? Mother Jones? Whatever Mother you are, game on!”

By the time I got that out the guard had radioed his buddies at the car. They came running and, suddenly sober, I ran into the hall where everybody was creaking around the dance floor to “Mustang Sally.”

Meanwhile, Gabriel snuck up to the car. As soon as the guards sprinted off he put a portable air horn under the car, turned it on, and scrambled away into the bushes.

Portable air horns are used by boaters and sea going ships to signal their presence from a long distance. The ear piercing sound can travel more than half a mile at sea. The sound level has been compared to that of a jet engine measured close up. Sustained exposure to a sound that loud makes it impossible to think. The automatic reflex is to do something, anything, to make it stop.

The blaring horn brought the guards back to the car. It was locked so one of them ran to the hall to find Dick and the keys. Dick stormed out, yelling at the guards to stop the car alarm. They couldn’t hear him over the horn’s blast. Finally, they got the keys, opened the door, but couldn’t find any way to stop the noise.

Dick was screaming at the guards and they were yelling at each other. Finally, resorting to sign language, the opened the hood to disable the klaxon. Still the horn blared. More Dick yelling. More sign language. They disconnected the battery. The horn blared.

Someone in the hotel called the Sheriff who pulled up with his siren going which didn’t help matters. Dick yelling in the Sheriff’s ear. Dick yelling at his men.

The opened the engine compartment and frantically pulled at the wires but the noise didn’t stop. The Sheriff brought out his heavy duty bolt cutters and went to work on the wire harnesses, tossing them over his shoulder as he worked. Nothing stopped the blaring horn. By this time Dick’s men had taken the dashboard apart, ripped out the seats and interior door panels. The Sheriff cut more harnesses. The car looked like a chop shop victim, parts scattered all around.

The horn got softer and softer. It gave up a last tweet then went quiet. The Sheriff peeked under the car and found the exhausted air horn canister.

Dick was so bewildered he couldn’t speak. His mouth was working but no words came out. His half million dollar car was ruined.

He saw Gabriel in the crowd that gathered around the car. And he knew. He just knew who did it.

Only $450,000, give or take

$19.95 plus tax