He nearly smiled again. It was nice to see him come so close to being human. After taking a quick drink of his beer, he continued.
“I thought my dad was going to whip that old man’s ass. He got right up in his face and said, ‘There ain’t nothing second-rate about having a broke air conditioner,’ The man shook his head. ‘If it’s broke? No, sir. Things break from time to time, and there ain’t nothing a man can do about it. Why? The air conditioner in your car broke?’”
He tried to take a drink, but realized the bottle was empty. He handed it to me.
I didn’t know where his story was going, but I didn’t care. He was telling me about something that was meaningful to him, and I appreciated it greatly.
I handed him a fresh bottle of beer. “So, what happened?”
“Well, my dad tells the guy we drove straight through from Marana to Fort Worth with a broken air conditioner. The guy asks where Marana is. My dad tells him it’s near Tucson, and the guy whistles through his teeth. ‘God damn,’ the old man said. ‘What’d that take? Sixteen hours?’ My dad agreed, and the old man shook his head and handed him the key to the motel room. ‘It was a 110 today,’ the old man said. ‘How much further you headed?’ ‘We’re here,’ my dad said. ‘This is it.’ It was the first time I’d been to a motel, and I remember thinking I can’t believe we drove sixteen fucking hours through the sweltering heart to just to go to sleep in a motel.”
I laughed. “Was that it? You went to a motel in Texas? That was your trip?”
He shook his head. “The next day we went to Six Flags.” He tilted the neck of his beer bottle toward me. “That was the last time I remember having fun.”
My heart sank. I wanted to hear more about his last recollection of his life being fun. “Did you ride the roller coaster?”
“Over and over.”
My imagination had conjured up Price’s youth as being awful. I was so excited that at least a part of it wasn’t. Even if he hadn’t had fun in thirty years, I wanted him to recall the last time he did with vigor.
“Did your parents ride it with you?” I asked.
“My dad did. Heights made my mother queasy, so she didn’t. She rode the tilt-a-whirl, and the thing that spins around and the bottom falls out of it. They had a go-cart track and we all rode them. Ate cotton candy and those hot dogs on a stick. Damned near puked when the day was over. Funny thing. On the way home, I didn’t look at one of those bank signs. I didn’t even care.”
“I bet you had fun.”
He glared. “That was the point of the story. It was fun.”
I wanted him to realize it was all a state of mind. That a person can ride the equivalent of a rollercoaster while sitting in the living room listening to their favorite song.
“I try to have fun every day,” I said. “No matter what.”
He coughed out a dry laugh. “I just try to get through mine without being arrested or killed.”
I grinned a reassuring smile. “Life’s only as bad as your last doctor’s appointment.”
His face contorted. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“If the doctor says I’m in good health, that’s all that matters. Until the day comes that she says, ‘Been nice knowing you, Gray. You’re going to be dead before your next checkup’, I’ve got nothing to worry about. The world can come apart as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t keep me from finding something to be happy about.”
“People like you make me want to puke,” he said flatly. “Generally speaking.”
I took exception to the comment. I laughed, nevertheless. “I make you want to vomit. That’s nice to hear.”
He gave me a cross look. “I said, ‘generally speaking, people like you make me want to puke.’ Not you, but people like you.”
“Give me a description.”
“Of?”
“The people you’re talking about.”
“They claim to be perpetually happy. Living in a bubble of denial with a little white puppy named Bear and an immigrant nanny that looks after their two-point-two kids, they drive their six-figure SUVs to the latest celebrity-endorsed restaurant and buy the overpriced raw tuna with a kale salad on the side because it’s Keto-friendly. On their way home they cut me off in traffic because their blind spot detection doesn’t pick up motorcycles and they never take time to look. Mad that they nearly killed me, I flip them off. They spend that night—and possibly the remainder of their life—angry that people like me exist. They wander this earth wearing their Rolex watches and Gucci loafers, blind as to what’s truly going on around them.”
He’d given the subject some serious thought. It was obviously a matter of contention with him. I decided to proceed with caution.
“I’m not like that,” I said. “My $2,500 SUV has a ‘look twice for bikers’ sticker on it, I don’t have a dog or kids, and I don’t care if an Instagram influencer says a place is ‘the bomb’, I eat where the locals eat, and I’m all too aware of what’s going on around me. But. Having that knowledge doesn’t prevent me from being happy.”
He raised his brows. “What’s going on around you?”
“What isn’t? The government’s corrupt on all levels. The police, our country’s mistreated youth, and angry spouses are unwilling to communicate and far too eager to shoot. I’m forced to have a healthcare plan that cost me a week’s wages per month—and I’m penalized on my taxes if I don’t maintain it. Our government is more concerned with preventing Mexicans from crossing our borders than they are drugs. Oh, and let’s talk taxes. Joe Schmoe doesn’t have the same loopholes at tax time that Jeff Bezos does.” I forced a dramatic sigh. “I don’t even know where to stop. It’s all so frustrating.”
He chuckled. “I thought you were Miss Happy?”
“Just because I find it frustrating doesn’t mean I’m going to let it ruin my day.”
“One of these days, you’ll get a slice of life’s pie and you won’t like the taste of it,” he said. “In fact, it’ll taste so bad that it’ll slap ‘happy’ right off the long list of feelings at your disposal.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t.”
“Things happen that bother me,” I said. “All the time. There’s a big difference between it altering my life and altering the way I feel. There have been times where I’ve had to choose between paying for my healthcare plan and buying gas for my car. It’s frustrating as hell, but I’m not going to let it ruin the way I live my life. The only thing I can do is try to elect someone who I feel has a better idea the next time we get a chance. Even when I had to ride my stupid bike to work, I was happy.”
“Why?”
I laughed. “Because I knew if I got hit by a car that I had health insurance.”
He looked away for a moment. “I’m going to ask you something,” he said, returning his attention to me. “But the question’s different than it appears to be on the surface.”
“Okay.”
“You’re a porn star. Would you rather spend your entire career giving the first ten minutes of a blowjob, or the last ten seconds?”
I laughed. “That’s random as fuck.”
“I thought we were having an open-ended conversation,” he said in a serious tone. “A biker and a bartender, just killing time?”
I thought it was deeper than that. Disappointed that he seemed to think otherwise, I began wiping water spots from the countertop. “We are.”
“Alright. First ten minutes, or last ten seconds?”
It was a crazy question, but my response was easy. “The last ten seconds.”
“Why?”
“Everyone congratulates the man who makes the game-winning touchdown, but no one runs up and high-fives any of the players who made the drive toward the end zone.”
He wrung his hands together but didn’t offer his thoughts.
“Whatever I do, I try to do it well,” I explained. “I don’t need your recognition for a job well done, but I need to feel like I’ve accomplished my go
al.”
“You’re goal-oriented?”
I found it ironic that I was in the middle of struggling to rid the countertop of a stubborn stain. “I’d like to think so. I’m the type of person that comes to work when I’m sick. I get home at three in the morning and clean house. I even change my own oil in my car.”
His eyes narrowed. “How frequently?”
“As soon as it hits 5,000 miles.”
“You set a goal. You don’t reach it. How do you feel?”
Still rubbing the same stain incessantly, I laughed. “Driven.”
“To continue?”
“To continue until I either succeed or determine my goal was unrealistic.”
“What if your goal was realistic but you don’t succeed?”
I shrugged. “Sounds like I must be dead.”
“Your current goal that’s the most important to you?”
It was an easy question to answer. It was more than a goal, it was my life’s dream. “To have this bar, kitchen included, be a success.”
He glanced around. Seeming satisfied at what he saw, he pushed his empty beer bottle toward me. “Suppose I’ll get going.” He tossed a few bills on the bar and gestured to the door behind me. “I’m going to check on the fellas. See if that guy called about delivering that new equipment.”
“Oh my God. You heard about that?” I asked. “Someone donated that stuff.”
“I’ll be damned.” He smirked. “You must be living right.”
I grinned a guilty smile. “I must be.”
He sauntered to the door, opened, it, and paused. “See you tomorrow.”
Convinced the stain was an imperfection in the countertop’s finish, I tossed the rag aside. “Thanks for the warning.”
* * *
I meandered through what was once my kitchen, stepping over the pathways that had been cut in the floor for new plumbing. After a lingering look at the disastrous mess, I set the alarm, flipped off the light, and closed the door behind me.
I pushed the key into the lock and turned it, waiting for the tell-tale clunk of the bolt going all the way into the door frame.
At the same instant the mechanism locked, I heard a noise behind me. I clutched my keys to keep them from making noise and tried to identify it.
Then, I heard it again. Someone was stepping through the gravel behind me.
In an instant, he was behind me. I could sense it.
My muscles tensed. Fear got tangled in my throat. I tried to breathe but nothing worked. I was drowning in my thoughts. I’d made a mental map of my actions, should I ever be the victim of an assault. Knee to the groin. Kick the left shin. Kick the right shin. Thumbs to the eyes. Scream to catch the attention of anyone within earshot.
None of those things happened.
Facing the door, I froze like a startled animal. “The money’s inside,” I lied, hoping for a chance to go inside and sound the alarm. Although I’d unlocked the same door a thousand times, I fumbled to turn the key. “Just a minute…I think it’s right—”
“Shut the fuck up!” He shoved me against the door. I slammed into it like a rag doll. The air shot from my lungs. My purse’s contents spilled on the ground. “One more word,” he said, pressing the barrel of a gun against the small of my back. “and I’ll blow a hole in you big enough to drive a truck through.”
Becoming the victim of a robbery or rape was unthinkable. Being shot was the worse. I wouldn’t be found until after sunrise the following day, at which time I’d undoubtedly be dead.
While I fumbled to decide who may attend my funeral, he taped my mouth and wrists without opposition. A blindfold was tied tightly over my eyes. Something was slipped over my head. Blind to my surroundings, I was led to a vehicle and tossed inside. Enveloped in darkness, I counted the seconds, hoping I could later tell detectives how far away we’d traveled. We drove so far that the numbers became jumbled. I tried to identify a distinct sound, or a voice. All I could hear was the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires.
Convinced that in a matter of minutes I’d be raped and left for dead in the middle of the desert, I began to cry. It was the first time in as long as I could remember that I’d wept. With the tears came memories, and with them came more tears. In no time, I was a breathless blubbering mess.
Price was right. The moment had arrived.
Happy was nowhere to be found.
14
Price
Panzer poked his head through the door opening. Upon seeing me, he stepped inside. He nodded toward my desk. “What’s wrong?”
“Other than you being in here harassing me?” I licked the sugar from my fingertips. “Nothing.”
“You didn’t answer your phone.”
“Don’t know where it is.”
He looked at me like I was lying. He took a seat along the glass wall of windows. “Don’t feel like talking, huh?”
“I’m sitting in here trying to drink a cup of fucking coffee in peace,” I insisted. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
He laughed. “Maybe some of the fellas don’t realize it, but I do.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He nodded toward the half-eaten box of donuts that was in front of me. “You eat those things for a couple of reasons. When you’re thinking about doing something you don’t want to do, and when you’re pissed off about something that you can’t change.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” I said. “I eat these fuckers all the goddamned time.”
“Maybe your life has spiraled out of control.”
“Maybe you’re an idiot.” I reached for a jelly filled. “Why are you here?”
“Have you talked to Ol’ Girl?”
“Gray?”
“Yep.”
“Not since yesterday morning when I was in there. Why?”
“She didn’t bother coming in. Some of the fellas are in there working, but I don’t really want to let them stay all day without supervision if she’s not there. My work’s done for now.”
“They’ll be fine without you.” I reached for a donut. “She gave you a key?”
“Yeah. We wanted to start earlier than she does.” He nodded toward my desk. “Mind calling her and asking when she’ll be in?”
“What part of I don’t know where my phone is don’t you understand?”
He tossed his phone onto my desk. It slid to a stop beside the donuts. “Use mine.”
“I don’t have her number.”
“You’re telling me she didn’t give you her phone number?”
I took a bite, and then another. “I’m telling you it’s programmed in my phone, and my phone is somewhere that I’m not.”
He leaned over and picked up his phone. While he hovered over the desk, he pointed to the box of donuts. “You mind?”
“Help yourself,” I said in a sarcastic tone.
He took the only maple glazed. “I love these fuckers.”
“Donuts?”
“The ones with this icing. Reminds me of when I was a kid. My mom would buy a dozen of those long skinny fuckers. Half chocolate and half with this shit on them. Me and my brother would fight over them. Both of us wanted these, and neither of us wanted the chocolate.” He shoved half the donut in his mouth in one bite. “Never understood why she didn’t just buy a dozen of these.”
“Maple glazed Long John,” I said. “That’s what it’s called.”
“The long skinny fuckers?”
“No,” I said snidely. “That one you’re holding.”
“See?” He poked the rest of the donut in his mouth. “Something’s bothering you.”
I reached for another donut. “What time did you leave the bar?”
“Yesterday? About 7:00. Maybe 7:30. In time to get here for the meeting.”
“Today, goddamn it. When did you leave? Today?”
He shrugged. “Ten minutes ago.”
“You’ve been here licking that icing off your fingers for ten minute
s,” I argued.
“Okay. Fifteen.”
I looked at the clock. It was 11:30. “Not like her to be late,” I said. “Hell, if anything, she’s always early.”
“That’s part of the problem,” he said. “I was telling her that yesterday. She needs to hire some help. She can’t run that fucker by herself. Maybe she’s sick, or something. Know where she lives?”
If what she told me on the previous day was correct, the only way she’d dip out on work was if she was dead.
“I don’t know where she lives.” I tossed the box of donuts in the trash and stood. “Let’s go to the bar. I’ll see if I can find something with her home address on it.”
He looked at the trash can, and then at me. “Why’d you toss those fuckers?”
“Because,” I said. “I’m done thinking about what it was I was thinking about.”
* * *
There were six hospitals that could be considered local, and Gray wasn’t in any of them. She wasn’t in jail, nor was her car in the city or county impound. Normally I wouldn’t consider a bartender’s absence any of my business, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that Gray was much more than a bartender in my eyes.
She’d been “missing” for all of twelve hours. The time and effort I devoted to finding her was no different than if she were one of the patched members of my club. I didn’t quite understand why I was doing what I was doing, but I did it without abandon.
It wasn’t driven by a feeling of love, loyalty, or necessity. Her presence in my life certainly wasn’t needed. I’d been a loner my entire life, and I intended on remaining that way. All that mattered was that she was safe. Once that fact was determined, I was convinced I’d turn and walk away, promptly returning to my life’s normal patterns. For the time being, however, I was on a mission.
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