by Pat Henshaw
As the waitress bustled up saying the sheriff was on his way, the bully, now dripping blood, backed away.
He and his buddies were headed toward the exit when Sheriff Campbell and a deputy walked into the bakery.
Lloyd Campbell looked from me to the bully, who was trying to contain the blood with a wad of cloth napkins. Then Lloyd looked back at me.
“Fredi, you didn’t use your antique on him, did you?” Lloyd asked. “I thought you said it wasn’t a concealed weapon.”
“It’s not,” I answered, holding Boner up in one hand. “This idiot just acted like the kind of old boy who needed to see it because he was in the process of harassing and threatening me. I recorded part of it.”
“I’m sure you did,” the sheriff said with a smile. Then he turned to the bully. “And your part in all of this, Dwayne?”
“I didn’t do nothing, Sheriff. Me and the boys were just leaving after lunch and this pansy-ass waste of space attacked me,” Dwayne whined.
The sheriff looked at Dwayne and his posse. Lloyd turned back to me. There was no getting around the number and size differences.
“Do you want to press charges?” the sheriff asked me.
I studied the glowering man, his equally sullen cohorts, then the sheriff.
“What do you think? Where will it all end if I do? If I don’t?”
The sheriff and I shared a long look, and then I sighed. “Yeah, okay. We’ll do it like last time,” I conceded.
The sheriff glanced over his shoulder at the deputy, who was openly staring at the switchblade in my hand. I looked back at Max, who seemed stunned, as silent as the diners around us.
“How bad did you hurt him?” the sheriff asked me.
“Barely a flesh wound,” I answered. “I know how to use Boner.”
The sheriff nodded to me, then gestured to the deputy. “Joey, help Dwayne there get cleaned up and then take him down to the office and issue a warning.”
He turned and pointed to the other three, Dwayne’s friends. “Any of you want to make a statement?”
None of them looked at Dwayne while they shook their heads, not quite denying they knew their friend.
“We just come in for lunch, Sheriff,” one of them mumbled.
Dwayne glared at them as he was led out of the cafe.
“You ain’t heard the last of this,” he yelled over his shoulder—at whom, I wasn’t quite sure. It might have been to his friends as well as me.
“Kari and Max, guess I’m gonna have to ask you to come by the station and file a statement,” the sheriff said as he turned to follow his deputy and Dwayne.
I was cleaning off the knife point and putting my switchblade away when I felt Max’s breath behind me.
“Wow. I’m, uh, really surprised,” Max started, but I wheeled on him.
“Look, it’s been a weird day, and really, I don’t have any more to give it. I’ll see you when the project begins, okay?” Not waiting for a response, I walked up to the sheriff. “I’m going to your office now and writing out my statement, and then I’m going to find Jimmy and then go home. Okay?”
The sheriff nodded. “I’ll call you if I need anything. Take it easy. And put away the antique. We don’t need anybody else getting hurt today.”
I nodded. The sheriff put his hand on my shoulder. “You gonna be good to drive?”
I nodded again.
“Be careful,” Lloyd added.
Without looking back at Max, I left the diner.
It had been a hell of a day. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around what Max had done earlier. Nor could I remember the last time I’d had to pull out my grandfather’s knife.
I needed to talk to Jimmy.
5
JIMMY WAS in his office in the Old Town Penny’s Too coffee shop, so I drove there after signing my statement. I drove slowly, tentatively, knowing my concentration was shot. My mind was pinging from Max licking my fingers to the bully who wanted to attack me to my hard-to-soft in six seconds or less. The day had gotten away from me on a mega level.
Fortunately, after my incoherent phone call, Jimmy was waiting in the alley behind Penny’s next to the service entrance.
He put his arm around my shoulders and led me upstairs into his office.
“Guy’s on his way over,” he said. “We heard about the confrontation at the bakery. Guy’s bringing over something he said would help.”
I was shaking my head before Jimmy finished speaking.
“No, no, you didn’t hear about everything,” I interrupted, moving to the sitting area Jimmy had a few feet away from his desk. I slumped into a chair and covered my face with one hand, then dragged it over my eyes and forehead. “It started okay, then got surreal, and then got Twilight Zone.”
Before Jimmy could ask what I meant, I could hear Guy’s biker boots taking the back stairs two at a time.
“What the hell, Fredi?” Guy boomed as he reached the top. “I can’t believe you’ve been carrying concealed all this time. Way to go, man!”
“Stone,” Jimmy said, shooting him a shut-the-fuck-up glare.
“What?” Guy looked from Jimmy to me. I was a frazzled mess nearly cowering in the elegant armchair. He put a bottle on Jimmy’s mini bar and came over to us. “You weren’t carrying concealed?”
“No, no, I’ve just got Boner,” I said almost apologetically.
“Boner?” Guy shouted and started laughing until he caught a look at Jimmy’s disapproving face. “Boner?” he asked, more subdued.
“Yeah, his grandfather’s fishing knife.” Jimmy frowned at Guy.
“Oh, uh, not a Mexican street knife?” Guy asked, as if not quite sure what he could and couldn’t say.
“No!” I yelped, then stopped and considered. “Well, no and yes.”
“Uh, which is it?” Guy asked.
“My granddad got it from one of his friends in the fields where they both worked when they were teens. Granddad didn’t use it for self-defense. He told us kids he used it mostly to clean his fish with.” I shrugged.
“Can I see it?” Guy asked softly, glancing at Jimmy, then back at me.
“Sure. Knock yourself out.” I took the switchblade out of my pocket and flicked it open. I handed it to him.
“Shit. You don’t call this a weapon?” Guy’s admiring tone startled me.
“Uh, no. It was declared an antique, like an old pocket watch, a long time ago,” I explained.
“After Fredi pulled it on a group of guys,” Jimmy added.
“Yeah, I thought this boy in college wanted to date me.” I shook my head sadly. “All he and his two meathead friends wanted to do was take me out to a scenic overlook and beat the shit out of me.”
Guy’s gaze flew from the knife to my face. “Did they?” he growled.
“No. See, I’ve always been on the short side and thin, so I’ve taken about every martial arts class I could,” I explained.
“He’s really, really good,” Jimmy added.
“So I managed to stop them, only most of them got cut up in the process.” I stopped and looked at the knife. “They wanted the cops to charge me with assault and carrying a concealed weapon even though there were three of them and they’d come at me with a baseball bat and brass knuckles.
“The judge was good, though, better than the one before, when I was in high school.” I sighed. “She chastised them for going after me, told them they got what they deserved, made them pay restitution for my cab ride back to town, my hospital visit, and distress, and then told me to get the knife declared an antique. In the end it was all good, but weird.”
“Jesus God,” Guy whispered, putting his finger up to touch the blade.
“Uh, don’t, honey,” I warned. “I keep it boning sharp, just like my granddad taught me.”
Guy’s finger quickly moved away from the blade, and he whistled through his teeth.
“What happened in high school? Can I ask?” He was talking to Jimmy, not me.
Jimmy looked at
me, and I nodded. But I wasn’t going to tell the story.
“A group of athletes almost hanged Fredi.” I fucking started to cry. I hated this story. True, it was my past. But…. “You can look it up on the Internet. They strung him up in an abandoned barn. After he was rescued, the judge said it was just boyish high jinks, the kind of stuff boys do in their senior year.”
“What?” Guy was livid. “What’d your folks say?”
He looked like he wanted to go out and stomp on my murderous classmates. What would he look like when he heard the rest of the story? I was so drained. Did I want to hear the rest?
“His parents said he was a troublemaker and sent him to live with his grandfather,” Jimmy said softly. He’d pulled me up and was hugging me now, rubbing my back as I sobbed.
As I cried, I saw Guy retract the blade and slip Boner into my front pocket. Then he wrapped his huge arms around both me and Jimmy and squeezed us to him.
“It’s been a year or so since I’ve taken it out of my pocket in public. Not since a couple of men jumped me one night after I moved here,” I said, wiping my eyes and backing away from them. I slumped into the chair. “I wish I hadn’t had to today.”
“Look, I brought something to help take the edge off,” Guy said, walking to the small bar in the back of Jimmy’s office. “I’ll get us drinks.”
As he went over to the bar, Jimmy squatted in front of me.
“So what else happened today to make you unhappy?” he asked.
I turned to Guy.
“You told me Max wasn’t gay,” I accused. “You told me!”
Guy looked up from where he was pouring drinks.
“He’s not, I don’t think.” Guy stood a minute, staring off into space. “Well, at least in high school he didn’t act particularly gay.”
Jimmy shook his head. “You didn’t either,” he told Guy. “Did you?”
Guy shook his head. “True enough.” He crossed to where Jimmy and I were sitting and handed us each a drink. “What makes you think maybe he is?”
As Guy went to retrieve his glass, I told him about when Max sucked on my finger.
“Yeah, well, sounds pretty gay to me,” Guy said, sitting in the chair next to Jimmy’s. He turned to his partner. “People do that? Suck on each other’s fingers? In public? In a bakery?”
Jimmy shrugged.
“I’m so confused,” I sighed. “Like there was this kid in college who took me out a few times, held my hand when we walked around campus, then turned on me at the overlook. Now I’ve got Max sucking on my fingers. What am I supposed to think? Is he gay or not?”
“Beats the shit outta me,” Guy said. “It’s not like we’re issued cards or anything.”
I shuddered. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“So what are you going to do?” Jimmy asked. “You’ve signed a contract with him, right?”
“Yeah, but there’s a termination clause, so I can just call it quits and fuck it.”
The three of us sat there in silence until I heard someone coming up the stairs.
“What the fuck, Fredi? Are you okay?” Felicity, the co-owner of Penny’s with Jimmy, asked. She, Jimmy, and I had gone to grade school together and were now together in the same town, tighter as friends than ever.
I stood, put down my drink, and folded myself in Felicity’s hug.
“It’s all good, sweetie,” I told her. “I’m just really confused.”
Jimmy and I caught her up to date about the day’s turmoil.
“I can’t believe you’ve still got Boner,” Felicity squealed. “I thought for sure you threw it away after the principal made such a drama about it when you were in ninth grade.”
“What? I’ve had the day from hell and all you care about is Boner?” I asked.
“Well, you gotta admit, it’s kinda a surprise, considering,” Guy answered, gesturing to me. “We go downstairs and ask people who they think is carrying, and I’ll bet all of them pick me.” He looked down at his leather pants and vest. “And I’ve got nothing, not even a paperclip.”
Felicity, who’d helped herself to the whiskey, came over and sat in Guy’s lap.
“Oh, baby, I’d say you aren’t just carrying, but packing,” she purred.
Guy laughed, but Jimmy hissed.
“I know, I know,” she said, getting up and sitting in the only empty chair. “He’s yours and get my hands off him. Don’t go all queen on me.”
I was sitting slumped over, not paying much attention to them.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I worried. I turned to Guy. “Maybe I should take you up on the hunk you want to fix me up with.”
“Too late, babe,” Guy answered. “He’s dating somebody else now.”
“Really?”
Before Guy could answer, Jimmy broke in. “Speaking of which. What are you going to do about Max’s contract?”
I slumped back down.
“I don’t know. If he’s really gay and flirting with me in his own diffident way, well, then I don’t mind finishing his cabin. And maybe having a little fun with him. But if this is college all over again and he’s setting me up, I want out yesterday.” I sighed and looked at my three friends. “But how can I tell? Why don’t I know these things? What should I do? And what’s with the idiot who attacked me? I thought you said this area was gay friendly?”
Jimmy and Guy exchanged a look.
“Well, it is and it isn’t,” Jimmy said. “A lot of us have moved here from the Bay Area in the last ten years. You know, housing prices and all. Only some of the older residents aren’t quite as welcoming as they could be.” He brightened. “It’s getting better.”
“If anybody ever threatens you again, you just call me,” Guy added.
I shook my head. Not going to happen. I take care of me.
“Maybe you shouldn’t use Boner again,” Jimmy said.
“Unless I have to,” I agreed.
Felicity walked over, pulled me up, gave me another hug, and said, “I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to go home and pack a bag.”
She broke away from me and turned to Guy.
“Keys to your cabin,” she demanded, her hand out. When he pulled them from his pocket and handed them to her, she passed them to me.
“You’re going to go to Guy’s cabin, relax, and think.” She gave me another hug. “A couple of days by yourself should give you all the answers.”
She was right. I needed me time.
6
I’D BEEN to Guy’s cabin once before, for a barbecue, but hadn’t spent the night. So I collected my overnight gear and a change of clothes, then called him to get directions. After I’d driven from town to the cabin, I was beat.
It had been a hell of a day. I liked it best when Boner was insurance: not to be taken from my pocket, but a reminder that I could defend myself if I had to. I didn’t like confrontation or mixed messages. Unfortunately, I’d had a day of both.
After putting my gear in the guest bedroom, I wandered out to the deck with a chaise cushion to put on the PVC frame. I lay in the dappled sunshine listening to the birds, basking in the soft breeze blowing through the pines in the late afternoon. At first my mind zinged from Max to the confrontation and my fear-induced adrenaline.
But the bird calls and breeze soothed me, and I finally fell asleep.
At sundown I awoke, hungry and regretting that I hadn’t shopped for groceries on my way up.
The lure of the Rock Bottom Cafe’s food hooked me. I called Guy, who walked me through how to get to the cafe.
“You’re not gonna like the decor,” Guy warned. “It’s a little gnarly in there.”
“I know. Thanks for the loan of the cabin. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I answered quickly, not wanting to get into why I knew about the Rock Bottom.
“Yeah. Whatever.” Guy hung up before I could. Typical.
As I walked into the cafe wearing the most sedate casual clothes I owned, I could have sworn I’d barged into a lumberjack c
onvention. He-men were sitting at the tables and in the booths, and a group of five was greeting a group of two at the door. I felt like a jittery squirrel weaving my way through the trees to the front of the line to add my name to the waiting list.
A testosterone haze hung over the foyer as the deep voices barked and shouted tall tales, each one trying to best the others in outrageousness. A wake of silence followed me to the sign-in desk. As I neared it, I could hear a low murmuring behind me. I sighed, straightened my shoulders, and walked on, head held high. Surely they’d heard about Boner and wouldn’t attack me, right?
“Hey there, cutie!” the waitress who’d been working the lunch hours when Max and I’d eaten there greeted me. “Got you your table over here.”
“My table?”
She grabbed one of the plastic menus and, with a wave of her hand, moved to the back booth near the kitchen door.
I could hear murmurs and growls behind me. I turned and shrugged as if to say I didn’t know why I was getting preferential treatment. I had no idea why she acted as if she expected me to come in tonight, but I was hungry enough not to question her about it. I really, really didn’t want to stand in the foyer and wait for a table. No way.
“Thanks,” I said to the waitress, sliding into the booth and looking down at the menu.
“No problem, sweetie. The meatloaf and the pot roast are the best choices tonight. Iced tea, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks. You’re a doll,” I answered, watching her walk away.
She turned and pulled a cell phone from her pocket. I shook my head as she seemed to make a short, terse call. I’d definitely wandered into a strange and alien land.
After I’d ordered the pot roast and was alternately wondering why the natives seemed so restless and what I was going to do about Max, who should walk in but the man himself. He cut through the lumberjack contingent. Outwardly he was dressed as if he were one of them. Like the rest, his face was set with a determined frown. Even his droopy mustache looked serious.
While I started to scoot out of the booth, Max passed the waitress, stuck a twenty into her apron pocket, and nodded.