Well, except for Troy. And even Lincoln could tell that Troy wasn’t the kind of guy you took to meet girls. Troy thought that everyone—really, everyone—wanted to talk about Babylon 5. He had a bushy yellow beard and metal-framed, math-teacher eyeglasses, and he liked to wear leather vests.
Maybe Eve was right. Maybe Lincoln needed to branch out.
He called Troy on Friday to tell him that he’d have to find another ride to this week’s D&D game. (Troy didn’t believe in owning a car.) And then Lincoln called Justin.
Justin was exactly the kind of guy you took to meet girls.
Lincoln and Justin had gone to high school together. They’d both played varsity golf and were chemistry lab partners, and when Lincoln transferred to Nebraska his sophomore year of college—or for what would have been his sophomore year—they’d ended up in the same dormitory.
Justin immediately welcomed Lincoln into his pack of college friends. They used to hang out in each other’s rooms, playing Sega Genesis and ordering terrible pizza. Sometimes, they’d go to women’s gymnastics meets. Sometimes, somebody would score a case of beer.
Justin’s friends probably weren’t the kind of guys Lincoln would have sought out on his own. But they accepted him without question, and he was grateful. He started wearing a baseball cap every day and got really good at “Sonic the Hedgehog.”
The next year, the rest of the guys got an apartment together off campus. Lincoln stayed in the dorm because his scholarship covered it. He didn’t see them as much after that …He hadn’t talked to Justin for at least two years, which was also how long it had been since he’d been in a bar.
“Legend of Linc! Dude. What is up, you evil-fucking-genius?”
“You know, the usual.” Lincoln had called Justin at the hospital where he worked in marketing. Lincoln didn’t get why a hospital needed a marketing department; who did it market to, sick people?
“Are you still in school?” Justin asked.
“No, I graduated …again. I’m back in town, living with my mom, you know, for now.”
“Hey, man, welcome home. Let’s get together. Let’s catch up. I’ll be honest with you, I could use the company. Are you married?”
“Not even close.”
“Good. I swear to God, every other fucker has flat-out deserted me. What am I supposed to do, go to the bars alone? Like some pervert? I’ve been partying with my little brother, and it’s no fucking good. He borrows money, and he always gets the girl. He still has hair, the little shit.”
“That’s why I was calling, actually,” Lincoln said, relieved that Justin was already taking charge. “I work a lot of nights now, so it’s hard to get out, but I thought we could try to get together, maybe …”
“Let’s do it, homeslice. Do you work tomorrow night?”
“No. Tomorrow night’s great.”
“I’ll pick you up at nine, is that cool? Is your mom still in the same place?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lincoln said, smiling into the phone. “Same place, same house. I’ll see you at nine.”
JUSTIN PULLED UP in the biggest sport-utility vehicle Lincoln had ever seen. Bright yellow. Tinted windows. Justin leaned out the driver’s side and shouted, “Dude, come on, you’re riding shotgun.”
There were three or four guys already sitting in the back. Lincoln thought he recognized Justin’s little brother. He looked like Justin, but a little taller, a little fresher. Justin himself hadn’t changed much since high school. A short guy with crinkly eyes and dirty-blond hair. Clean Polo shirt. No-nonsense jeans. An immaculate baseball cap. He used to have a contraption in his dorm room that would perfectly curve the bill of your cap.
“Look at you,” Justin said, smiling. He could smile and talk without ever taking the cigarette out of his mouth. “Just fucking look at you.”
“It’s good to see you,” Lincoln said, not quite loud enough to be heard over the car stereo. It was Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle.” Lincoln couldn’t see the speakers, but it felt like they were under him.
“What?” Justin yelled, leaning out the window to exhale some smoke. He was always really nice about that. If you were sitting across from Justin at a table, he would always blow the smoke behind him.
“Where are the speakers?” Lincoln shouted. “Are they in the seats?”
“Hell, yes. Fucking awesome, right? It’s like having Axl Rose in your asshole.”
“You wish,” someone shouted from the backseat. There were three backseats. Justin held up his middle finger and kept talking.
“Don’t mind these shitheads. I had to bring them, it’s my turn to be designated driver. They won’t kill our game, though, they hang in the kiddie section.”
“No worries,” Lincoln said.
“What?”
“No worries!” Lincoln wasn’t worried. He didn’t have any game to kill.
They drove into the suburbs and stopped at a strip mall, in front of a place called The Steel Guitar.
“Isn’t this a country bar?” Lincoln asked.
“It used to be, back when everybody was into line dancing. Now they only do that shit once a week. Thursdays, I think.”
“What do they do the rest of the week?”
“The usual. This is where the girls go, so this is where we go.”
The place was already packed. There were people on the dance floor, and loud hip-hop music was playing—the ugliest kind of hip-hop, all thumping and shouting about luxury cars. Justin found a tall table near the dance floor and motioned to one of the waitresses, a woman wearing a bandolier full of shot glasses. There were bottles of alcohol clipped to her belt. It all looked really heavy. “Two Jägermeisters, miss,” Justin said. “Thank you.”
He pushed a shot toward Lincoln and held his own in the air.
“To you, Lincoln. The graduate!”
Lincoln clinked his glass and managed to down the shot.
“I thought you were the designated driver,” Lincoln said.
“I am.” Justin lit a new cigarette.
“I thought that meant you didn’t drink.”
“No, that means you don’t get drunk. Or you get drunk early, so it can wear off …” Justin was already ordering two more shots and scoping out the bar.
It was big, practically cavernous, and everything was painted black. There was a haze machine somewhere and black lights everywhere. An expensive-looking metal guitar sculpture hung in the dark above the dance floor.
That’s where all the girls were. Mostly dancing by themselves or with friends. There was a bachelorette party in the middle, dancing in a circle. It was terrible music to dance to; all you could really do was nod and hunch to the music. The girls all looked like they were listening to the same sad story. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s awful. Yes, yes, yes.”
A few girls had climbed onto raised black platforms at the back of the dance floor, beneath a row of green flashing lights. They were dancing with their hips together, mechanically riding each other’s thighs and arching their backs. It was unpleasantly arousing to watch. Like masturbating in a portable toilet.
Justin was watching them, too. “Nasty things,” he said, shaking his head. “When we were coming up, girls wouldn’t even dance with boys like that …
“Look over there,” Justin said, pointing to a table by the door. “Those are our girls. Too much self-esteem to dry hump their best friends, but not so much that they’ll turn down a drink from us.”
Justin was already walking, so Lincoln followed him. They stopped at a table where two women were sitting and nodding with the music. Lincoln couldn’t tell how old they were in this light. He could hardly tell them apart. They were both youngish, mostly blond, wearing the same Saturday-night costume—tank tops, candy-colored bra straps, shaggy shoulder-length hair and pale beige lips.
“Hey there,” Justin was saying, “do you mind if we join you? My friend Lincoln here is buying.”
The girls smiled and moved their black backpack purses out of th
e way. Lincoln sat in the seat Justin didn’t take and smiled at the nearest girl. Strangely, he wasn’t nervous. This place and this girl were so far outside his everyday life, they didn’t seem quite real. Definitely less real than the women he felt avoiding him on sidewalks and in hallways. Plus, he had Justin there taking the lead, breaking the ice and ordering the drinks. What was Justin’s thing with Jägermeister? And how many shots had Lincoln had so far? Two? Three? At least three.
“I’m Lisa,” the girl said, holding out a small manicured hand.
“Lincoln,” he said, smiling. “Can I get you something?”
“Your friend just ordered for us.”
“Oh, right, sorry, yeah …”
“I’ll take a cigarette if you have one.”
“Sorry,” he said, “I don’t smoke.”
“That’s okay. Me neither. I mean, I do, but only when I’m at a bar or a party or whatever. I hate the smell. But if I’m going to smell like smoke anyway, I figure I might as well have one.”
“My friend has cigarettes …” Lincoln turned to Justin, who was already leading his girl to the dance floor. Damn. Lincoln really didn’t want to dance.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lisa said.
“Do you want to dance?” Lincoln asked.
“Sort of. Do you?”
“I really don’t. Is that okay?”
“Totally,” she said. “You can’t talk out there anyway.”
Now Lincoln was nervous. Justin had taken all the night’s momentum with him to the dance floor. “So,” he asked the girl, “what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a dental hygienist. What about you?”
“Computers.”
She smiled and nodded. “Computers,” she said, “that’s great.” Her eyes started to drift away from him. They finished their drinks, and Lincoln ordered another round, just to have something to do. He should have eaten dinner. It’s too bad this wasn’t still a country bar, didn’t country bars always have peanuts? Or was that only in the movies, to give the actors something to do with their hands …
Lisa was tearing her coaster into tiny pieces and whisper-rapping along with the music. He thought about getting up, so that she’d have a chance to meet somebody else. She could definitely meet somebody else. She was pretty …probably. In this green and black light, she looked like a week-old bruise. Everyone did.
“This is a terrible place to meet people,” Lincoln said.
“What?” Lisa leaned forward.
“This is a terrible place to meet people,” he said, louder.
Lisa was sipping her drink through a tiny straw. She stopped, the straw still in her mouth, and looked at him like she was trying to decide whether to leave the table right then or to wait for her friend. It might be a long wait. Justin and the girl had moved off the dance floor into a corner. When the spotlight whipped around, Lincoln could see them kissing. Justin was still holding a lit cigarette and a bottle of beer.
“Sorry,” Lincoln said. “I didn’t mean that you’re a terrible person to meet. I meant that this is a terrible place to meet anyone.” Lisa’s eyes were still narrow. “Do you like this place?” he asked her.
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “It’s like every other bar.”
“Exactly. They’re all terrible.”
“How much have you had to drink?” she asked. “Are you one of those sad drunks?”
“I don’t know, I don’t get drunk that often. How can you help but be sad in here?”
“I’m not sad,” she said.
“Then you’re not paying attention.” He was shouting to be heard over the noise, but the shouting made his words come out angry. “I mean, look at this place. Listen to this music.”
“Don’t you like rap? They do country on Thursdays.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head broadly. “It’s not the music,” he said. “It’s that, well, you came here to meet somebody, right? To meet a guy?”
“Right.”
“To maybe meet the guy, right?”
She looked down at her drink. “Right.”
“Well, when you think about that guy—who, by the way, we both know isn’t me—when you think about meeting him, do you think about meeting him in a place like this? In a place this ugly? This loud? Do you want him to smell like Jägermeister and cigarettes? Do you want your first dance to be to a song about strippers?”
She looked around the bar and shrugged again. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? No, of course you don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” Lisa said, digging in her friend’s purse for a cigarette.
“You’re right,” Lincoln said. “I’m sorry.”
She found a cigarette and put it in her mouth. It hung there, unlit. “Where else am I supposed to meet a guy?” she asked, watching the dancers. “Like, in a garden?”
“A garden would be nice,” he said. “I’d pay a cover charge at a singles garden.”
“That sounds like something they’d have at my mom’s church.” She went back to digging in her friend’s purse. “I think if I met a guy, you know, that guy, I wouldn’t care where I was or what he smelled like. I’d just be, like, happy …
“Look,” she said, standing up, “it was nice to meet you. I’m going to try to find a light.”
“Oh …um, right …” He started to stand, knocked his head against a neon Bud Light sign and sat back down. “It was nice to meet you, too,” he said.
He felt like apologizing again, but didn’t.
And he didn’t watch her walk away.
LINCOLN WAS STILL sitting at the table an hour later when Justin came back. “Dude, I need a favor. I’m too fucked-up to drive. Can you take my truck home?”
“Um, I’m not sure if …”
“Linc, for real”—Justin set his keys on the table—“I’m going home with Dena.”
“But what about those other guys, your brother …”
“I think they’re gone.”
“What?”
“I’ll pick up the truck tomorrow. Leave the keys under the mat and lock the doors.”
“I really don’t think …” Lincoln picked up the keys and tried to hand them back to Justin. But Justin was already gone.
EVE WAS SITTING at the kitchen table when Lincoln came downstairs the next afternoon. He’d spent the night in one of Justin’s backseats, then driven home sometime after dawn. His neck still felt like it was folded over an armrest, and his mouth tasted like licorice and sour meat. “What are you doing here?” he asked his sister.
“Well, good morning, sunshine. I brought the boys over to play with Mom.”
He looked around the kitchen, then settled heavily into the chair next to his sister.
“They’re in the backyard, building a fort,” she said. “There are egg rolls on the stove. And fried rice, are you hungry?”
Lincoln nodded, but didn’t move. He was already thinking about all the things he was going to do when he had the energy to stand up again. Like, go back to bed. That was the first thing.
“Geez,” his sister said, getting up to make him a plate. “You must have had some night.”
Standing at the stove, stirring the rice, Eve looked like a younger version of their mother—an older younger version. At thirty-six, Eve looked like their mother at forty-five. “Being responsible gives you wrinkles,” his sister would say when their mother wasn’t around. “Doesn’t Eve look tired?” his mother would say, whether Eve was around or not.
“Mom says you didn’t come home until seven,” Eve said, handing him a plate. “She’s livid, by the way.”
“Why is she livid?”
“Because you didn’t call. Because she stayed up half the night waiting for you.”
Lincoln took a bite and waited to see whether his stomach had forgiven him yet. “What’s in these egg rolls?” he asked.
“Goat cheese, I think, and maybe salmon.”
“They’re really good.”
“I know
,” she said, “I ate four. Now, stop stalling, and tell me where you were all night.”
“I went to a bar with Justin.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
“Strictly speaking?” he said with his mouth full. “Yes.”
“Were you with a girl last night?”
“No. I was asleep and drunk in the back of Justin’s truck. Is there still a yellow SUV in the driveway?”
“No.” Eve looked disappointed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Lincoln was feeling better already. Maybe he’d even take a shower before he went back to bed. “Would you really rather hear that I’d spent the night having premarital sex with a girl I’d just met at The Steel Guitar?”
“You went to a country bar?”
“It’s only country on Thursday nights.”
“Oh. Well.” Eve took one of his egg rolls. “You could have stayed up all night talking to a girl you’d met at The Steel Guitar. I would love to hear that.”
“Okay,” he said, getting up for more, “next time, that’s what I’ll tell you.”
CHAPTER 13
From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Mon, 09/06/1999 10:14 AM
Subject: ALL HAIL THE GOLDEN VIKINGS!
I know how you devour the Sports section, so you’ve probably already read how the North High Vikings trounced the Southeast Bunnies Friday night. The only thing missing from our coverage was the way the Viking defense rallied when the band played “Whoomp! (There it is).” You missed quite a night.
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1. Why is every school in this city named after a direction? Would it kill them to name something after John F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln or Boutros Boutros-Ghali?
2. Mitch has them playing Jock Jams? Has he no shame?
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