Refections on the Lucerne Valley, Grandfathers

Fiction:

Cooper Handly was a young man, a 20-year-old going on 21, and he was in love, or at least thought he was in love. But, you see, he didn't really know a peacock from a pigeon. The girl's name was Bethany Sarah. She was one of those girls with two first names, like a Catherine Kate, or a Sarah Collins, or a Molly Andrews -- one of those girls. 

The couple started dating in their freshman year at the University of Redlands. Cooper was the first in his family to pursue an higher education. He came from four generations of cattle ranchers in the Lucerne Valley. Bethany was from a family of lawyers and bankers. She went home to San Antonio, Texas, for the summer. Cooper was returning home to Apple Valley, California, about to pull into his grandfather's ranch.

After exiting Interstate 15 in Victorville and taking the side roads, Cooper was driving on a winding dirt road. The music by the Faces was playing on his car's stereo. The beat up blue Datson truck he drove rattled and the dirt and gravel beneath its tires kicked up dust. But the truck was good, like an old dog, it reliably kept on licking its way up the road to grandfather's house.

Cooper pulled up to the house and put the truck in park. Nothing had changed. The wooden cabin was no more worn than it was months earlier. The mountains behind the house are still growing, if only in a nominal way, like all mountains in the west, they shoot out of the arid earth like rooks out of chess board.

Grandfather sat on the porch. It was 3 p.m. His work was over for the day. He didn't do much anymore. Mostly just watched the hired hands round up the animals that needed rounding up.

"Cooh," grandfather said as Cooper approached the porch. "Go fetch us a couple beers and talk to me a bit."

Cooper did just that and sat on a wood bench beside his grandfather's rocking chair. They both opened their beers, taking a couple sips each. Grandfather lit a cigarette.

"When's mama get home?" Cooper asked.

"She'll be back in couple hours to make dinner."

Cooper's mother worked for a seamstress, sowing wedding dresses in Victorville. Cooper had not seen his father in five years. He was somewhere in the Arizona desert, but no one really knew.

"You learn anything from those classes down there in Redlands?"

"Yeah," Cooper said. "It's a good school, you know."

"What classes did you take?"

"A lot of introductory classes, like introduction to psychology, and a basic maths class -- Oh, but I took this great class about African American literature. I'm thinking about taking more literature class."

"Are ya?" Grandfather said.

The old man and the young man were quiet for a many moments. Grandfather put out his cigarette and reached for his beer. He also lit another cigarette.

"You learn anything from that girl you've been seeing?" Grandfather's face did not change, still as strong, serious and unmoving as the mountain behind the house.

"Maybe a thing of two," Cooper said.

Smiling now, Grandfather said, "Well, that's all that matters."