The Headgum Podcast - 103: F*ck It

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Geoff says fuck it. Advertise on The Headgum Podcast via Gumball.fm Rate The Headgum Podcast 5-stars on Apple Podcasts. Rate The Headgum Podcast 5-stars on Spotify. Join the Headgum Discord.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Original. Hearts Kindred by Zona Gale Chapter One A hut of bark thatched with palm leaves, a gigantic rock at whose base lay old ashes, an open grassy space bordering a narrow mountain stream, and a little garden. These made the home of the Einger,

where a man might live and die as a man was meant, neither planning like a maniac nor yet idling like an idiot, but well content with what the day brought forth. Toward a June sunset, the Einger sat outside his doorway, fashioning a bowl from half a turtle shell. Before him, the ground sloped to the edge of the garden, and beyond dropped to the clearing's edge. When he lifted his eyes, he could look for miles along thick tops of live oaks and larches, and beyond to a white line of western sea. At his back rose the foothills, cleft by canyons, yet quite freshly green. Above them the monstrous mountains swept the sky, and here their flanks were shaggy with great pines.

The whole lay now in that glory of clear yellow by which the west gives to the evening some hint of a desert ancestry. The Einger worked in silence. He was not a man to sing or whistle. Those who live alone are seldom whistling men. Perhaps the silence becomes something definite, and not lightly to be shattered. A man camping alone will work away quietly, day long, and his dog understands. The Einger had no dog anymore. He had owned a wolfhound, whom, in a fit of passion, he had kicked so that the dog had died, and such was his remorse that he would own no other, and the sight of another man's dog pulled at him as at an old

wound. It was so still that presently in that clear air, the sound of a bell in the valley came up to him with distinctness. He looked to the south, and in a deep place in the trees, already lights twinkled out as if they, like the bells, would announce something. The anger remembered and understood. Hell, he said aloud. The wedding. He went on, scraping at his turtle shell, his mind on the man who would be married that night, early so that there would be ample time for much merrymaking and drunkenness before the eastbound train at midnight. Bunchy Haight was the man, the owner of the run-down inn in the village of Inch. The woman was the Moor girl, whose father, abetted by the Einger himself,

had killed a sheriff or two for interfering with his gambling place and had gone free because no one was sure whether it was he or the Einger who did the shooting. Moor's permissory notes had been accumulating in the hands of Bunchy Haight for a dozen years, and it was no secret that the wedding settled the long score. And in dead good luck to get a provider like Bunchy, the more girl is, was the way the Inch took it. Inch welcomed a wedding. In the old days, it had been different, and nobody cared whether anybody had a wedding

or not. For then, there had been a racetrack at Inch, and a summer hotel, and a fine glass front showing of saloons, and other magnificence. With the passing of the California law, the track had been closed, the resort keepers had moved away, and the bottom had fallen from inch. Mothers amused their children by telling of the traps, and the four-in hands, and the tally-hoes with rollicking horns, and the gaily-dressed strangers who used to throng the town for a fortnight in spring and in autumn, when inch knew no night and no darkness and no silence, and abundantly prospered. Now all this was changed. There were literally no excitements save shootings and weddings. Jem Moore, being

supposed to have achieved his share of the former, was prepared further to adorn his position by setting up drinks for the whole village and all strangers to celebrate his daughter's nuptial day. These things the anger turned over in his mind as he scraped away at his shell. When the dark had nearly fallen, he rose, shook out from the shell the last fragments, polished it with his elbow, balanced it between his hands to regard it, and came to his conclusion. Hell, he said again, I'm bust if I don't go to it. The next instant he laid down the shell, slipped to his door, and caught up the gun that lay inside on a shelf of the rude scantling. A wood duck had appeared over the lower treetops, flying languidly to its nest somewhere in the foothills. Long before it reached the wood's edge,

the anger was in his doorway. The bird's heavy flight led straight across the clearing. One moment the big body came sailing above the hut, then it seemed to go out in a dozen ugly angles and dropped like a stone to the edge of the garden. It lay fluttering strongly when the anger reached it. He lifted and examined it approvingly. One wing was shot almost clear of the body. That was the mark he liked to make. He swung the bird under his arm, took out his jackknife, pried open the mouth, slit the long tongue, tied the feet together, and hung it outside his door to bleed to death. This death, he had heard, improved the flavor. Without washing his hands, he prepared his supper. Salt pork and bacon fried together,

corn cakes soaked in the gravy, and coffee. The fire glowed in the hollow of the great rock, and the smell of the cooking crept about. The anger was almost ready to eat by the clear light of the transparent sky when he saw a figure coming across the clearing. He leapt for his rifle. Since the last sheriff had been shot, he was never perfectly at ease with any stranger. But before his hand had closed, it relaxed at the sound of a triple whistle. He wheeled and looked again. The stranger had almost reached the burn of the firelight. The stranger had almost reached the burn of the firelight. Blast my bones and blast me, cried the anger. Dad!

Something deep and big had come in his voice. As the two men met and shook hands, there was a gladness in them both. They moved apart in a minute. The anger took the pack, which the older man swung off, and went about cutting more salt pork and bacon. His father found the wash basin and washed, breathing noisily through the water cupped in his hands. Not much was said, but anyone would have known that the two were glad of the moment.

Not much grub, said his father. I ain't grub hungry, and flung himself on the ground before the campfire. I'm dead beat. My bones ache, he added. The anger filled his father's plate and went on frying the meat. In the firelight, their faces looked alike. The older man's skin was beginning to draw tightly, showing the rugged modeling of the thick bones.

His huge hands looked loose and ineffectual. Something welled up and flooded the anger when he saw his father's hand tremble as he lifted his tin cup. Larger in scale, more definite in drawing, and triumphantly younger the Einger was, brown-skinned and level-eyed and deep-chested, his naked, veined right arm grasping the handle of the skillet as if it were a battering ram. When the Einger registered in the inn at Inch were signed a check in his bank in the city, his pen bit through the paper like acid, because he did everything as if his tool were a battering ram. But his eyes, as they rested now on his father's hand that trembled, were soft and mute, like a dog's eyes. What kind of luck, Dad? he said. The older man looked across his wooden platter and smiled whimsically.

Same kind, he answered. None, but looky here, sonny, he added. I found out something. I bet you did, said the Iyengar. I ain't ever going to have any luck, said the old man. I'm done for. I'm done. A year or two more and I'll be spaded in. It's the darndest, funniest feeling, he said musingly, to get on to it that you're all in a back number. I gotta quit planning it. Not on your life, the anger began, but his father roared at him. Shut up, he said fondly. You dang and runt, you. You must have knowed it for two years back. Knowed nothing, said the anger stoutly. The older man put his plate on the ground and laid down beside it, his head on his hand.

It's a devil of a feel, he said. Don't feel it, said the anger. Cut it, said his father, almost sternly. I brought you up to kill a man if you have to, but not lie to him, ain't I? Well, don't you lie to me now. The Einger was silent, and his father went on. I was always so dead sure, he said, that I was cut out to be rich. When I was a kid in the tainery, I was dead sure. When I hit the trail for the mines, I thought the time was right ahead. That was 50 years ago. Quit, Dad, said the Einger uncomfortably. I've got it. What's the difference? The flagpole is good for all either of us. It'll ever want. I ain't forgot,

though, said the older man quickly. Now, you banked on the flagpole, gave my advice. If you'd done it as I said, you'd be grubbing yet, same as me. It's all luck, said the Einger. What can anybody tell? We're getting the stuff and there's a long sight more than we need. Ain't that enough? What do you want to wear yourself out for? His father leaned against the end of the warm rock and lighted his pipe. Did I say I wanted to? He asked. I'd done it so long I can't help myself. I'll be scheming how deals and being let in on the ground floor and finding a sure thing till I croak and getting took in regular. He regarded his son

curiously. What you gonna do with your pile? He inquired. The anger sat clasping his knees, looking up at the height of white face, thick black in the thin darkness. His face was relaxed, and there was a boyishness and a sweetness in his grave mouth. Nothing, he said, until I get the pool to leave here. To leave Anche, said his father incredulously. To leave here, the anger repeated, throwing out his arm to the wood. This is good enough for me, for a while yet. I thought maybe the society down there, said his father with a jerk of his head to the lights in the valley, was giving you some call to sit by.

The anger sprang up. So it is, he said. Tonight, Bunchy's getting spliced. Who's the antagonist, said the other. The moor girl, said the anger. Bunchy's a fine lot to draw her, he added. She's too good a hand for him. "'Wanna go down and see if it pulled off?' he asked.

His father hesitated, looking down to the valley, to the humble sparkling of inch. "'I don't reckon I really want to get drunk tonight,' he said slowly. "'I'll save up till I do.' The yanger stretched prodigiously, bunching his great shoulders, lifting his tense arms, bearing their magnificent muscles. I gotta, I guess, he said, but gosh how I hate it. He carried the remnants of the food into the hut and made a simple preparation for festivity. As he emerged, he was arrested by a faint stirring and fluttering. He listened and it was near at hand, and then he saw the wood duck

writhing at the end of the string that bound its legs. Beneath it lay a little dark pool. No sense in bleeding all the good out of you, thought the Einger. And with the butt of the six-shooter that he was pocketing, he struck the bird a friendly blow on the head and stilled it. The forest lay in premature night, save where a little mountain brook caught and treasured the dying daylight. It was immensely still. The anger's tread and brushing at the thickets silenced whatever movement of tiny life had been stirring before him. The trail wound for half a mile down the incline, the never-broken growth. Once in the preceding winter, when the flagpole mine was at last known with certainty to be the sensation of the year,

the Einger had sewed out a neat sum in the lining of his coat and had gone to inspect San Francisco. He had wanted to see a library, and he saw one, and stood baffled among the books of which he had never heard, stammering before a polite young woman who said, Make out your card, please, over there, and presented at the further desk. Make out your card, please, over there, and present it at the further desk. He had wanted to see an art gallery, and he went confused among alien shapes and nameless figures and had obediently bought a catalog, of which he made nothing. Then he had gone to dinner with the family of one of the stockholders and had suffered anguish among slipping rugs and ambiguous silver.

The next night, the new collar and cravat discarded, he had turned up in one of his old haunts on the Barbary Coast. On his experience, he made only one comment. They know too damn much. And there's too damn much they don't know, he said. But the woods he understood. All that he had hoped to feel in the library, in the art gallery, and in that home, he felt when the woods had him. Out there, he was his own man. As he went, he shouted out a roaring music hall song. Then when he had ceased, as if he became conscious of some incongruity, he stood still, perhaps with some vague idea of restoring silence.

In a moment, he heard something move in the tree above his head. An anxious cheep-cheep in the leaves, as if some soft breast were beating in fear, and an inquiring head were poised listening. Instantly, he lifted his revolver and fired and fired again. He heard nothing. Had anything fallen, he could certainly not have come upon it the next day. It was the need to do something. As he cleared the wood, the lights of the town lay sparkling in a cup of the desert. At sight of them, there was something that he wanted to do or to be.

The vastness of the sky, the nearness of the stars, the imminence of people, these possessed him. He caught off his cap and broke into a run, tossing back his hair like a mane. Damn that little town. Damn it. Damn it, he chanted, like an invocation to the desert and to the night. Guys, taking care of your health isn't always easy, right? But it should be simple. That's why for the last three years I've been taking AG1, just one scoop and a cup of water mixed around every day, no exceptions. And it helps me feel, you know, energized, focused, ready to take on the day like I'm doing one powerfully healthy habit that's also powerfully simple.

I know that AG1 gives my body high quality nutrition because every batch goes through a rigorous testing process so that you know it's safe and their ingredients are sourced for potency, absorption, and nutrient density, all of which is very important and you don't always get with other leading nutrition brands. I like to drink it first thing in the morning. I'll have a glass of water.

I'll have my AG1 and then I'll have my coffee and it gets me set off to take on the day and to be centered and to feel like I did at least one good thing for my health. And if you do that every day, it has compounding effects. If there's one product I had to recommend to elevate your health, it's AG1. That's why we've partnered with them for so long. So if you want to take ownership of your health, start with AG1.

Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com slash what's that? Again, that's drinkag1.com slash what's that? Check it out. My friends, what you've just heard is chapter one, again, of Zona Gale's Heart's Kindred, which in a time like this for me is, well, everything. And a time like this for me is, well, everything. Fuck.

It's hard, you know. This whole show has been my whole life for almost two years now, or for over two years now. And I can feel the opportunity slipping. There are certain historical figures that are, you know, generational talents. You're looking at Zona Gale, Frankie Yale, Wiley Vale, Elvin Bale, Edgar Dale, etc. You know, these are people that, you know, they had their shot and they took it. And here I am pissing my shot away. So, Jake, Amir, Marika, Marty, everyone at HeadGum.

I hope that you hear this episode and think one or both of the following two things one Zona Gale was a generational talent an artist really a storyteller rivaled only maybe by well

me and two if you don't want the show to be shit like this every week then I think you'll have me back in studio and I think you'll rehire my ass on air

next week I don't know who I am. That was a Hiddem Original.