Only Pretty Damned

by Niall Howell

  I walk the few blocks and see that it’s right where I left it last time I was in Dallas, and to my disappointment, but not my surprise, the bookshop’s windows are boarded up, its sign gone. On the door, a staple-riddled notice reads, Closed Indefinitely. I guess they sold smut to the wrong fella.

  I need a good spot to kill some time, so I wander until I find a little bakery that serves coffee. I buy a newspaper and make myself comfortable in a corner booth. There are a couple locals scattered about the place, so it’s not quite dead, but given the amount of vacant seats, I’d say it’s time to consider last rights. The waitress—a blonde girl with the wide eyes of a Walt Disney cartoon forest creature—is on me before I’ve read the first headline. I order a cup of coffee and a doughnut and work my way through the news. Every time I get near to the last mouthful of my coffee, the waitress zips over and makes sure I don’t see the bottom of the mug. Maybe there’s something crude written there, and she doesn’t want to offend the polite man who’s now become her only customer. I finish what must be my fourth cup, pay my bill, go take a piss, and then start walking back toward the Majestic. I’d gotten used to the air-conditioned bakery, so walking through the streets now feels extra hot, and I can hardly stand it. I could never live in a place this hot, this dry. When I finally spot the large red-and-white sign sticking out from the side of the Majestic, I’ve got my jacket slung over my shoulder and my shirt is clinging to me like a needy lover. It dawns on me that the theatre will be air-conditioned, too, so I quicken my pace.

  The first thing I do once I walk through the front doors is go to the concession and get myself the biggest, iciest soda a man can buy. Before even stepping away from the concession counter, I take a gulp so big it leaves me desperate for oxygen. I’m catching my breath when I notice the crater-faced kid who gave me the soda is looking at me like I’m from one of Saturn’s moons.

  I say, “What? You been outside at all? Or were you conceived, born, and raised behind this counter?” He gives a nervous smirk, then turns and starts pouring kernels into the popcorn machine.

  I grab a seat in the centre of the first balcony row. The place is aptly named: regal red seats, pillars capped with gold, wall fixtures that look like they were lifted from a European palace. The lighting of the room—sparse but deliberate—makes it feel like a Hollywood set, and as I let my gaze drift around, I start to imagine what I must look like right now, in this vast and grandiose room, from a dozen different camera angles. A couple necking on the lower level disrupts my fantasy just as the opening score in my head starts playing.

  When the lights dim, I sink into my seat and put my feet up on the rail in front of me. A stupid cartoon about a skunk that wants to screw a cat plays, and then the feature starts. I’d seen Farley Granger in a couple flicks before, and I like him okay in this one, but, my God, Robert Walker, what a performance! The guy plays a great creep. He’s this rich mama’s boy type who meets Farley Granger by coincidence on a train and then goes and kills Granger’s wife with the expectation that he’ll be owed a murder for it. Walker’s got these icy psychopath eyes that always look pained, even when he’s laughing and having a good time. He actually kind of reminds me of Andrew, but just superficially, because Walker seems like someone with a great deal of depth to him, whereas Andrew is more the shallow end of the swimming pool—the end where all the necks get broken.

  I quickly find myself smitten with the girl who plays the murder victim. I think the credits said her last name is Elliot. I haven’t seen her in anything before, and I’d sure as hell remember if I had. They have her fixed with these thick glasses, and she kind of looks like a goody-goody bookworm, but as the story progresses, you see that that’s not the case at all. I’m disappointed when she dies so soon, because I love watching her, but I can sure see why Granger’s character hates her so much—she’s downright cruel!

  The show ends where it started—on a train—and when the Warner Bros. logo flashes on the screen, I feel a little pang of sadness because the experience is over and I love the movies so goddamned much and I hardly ever go.

  When I step outside, the Majestic’s nocturnal neons are glowing and the temperature, while still warm, is bearable. I light a cigarette and find a good spot on the wall to lean. The locals have come out of their heat-induced hibernations and are buzzing about in the streets. Taking a taxi to the track seems less appealing now, for some reason. Maybe it’s all the activity surrounding me, making this area seem a lot more desirable than it was earlier when it was just hot, dry, and dead. I approach a few people who look like they might know where a game of cards is happening, but each of them brushes me off and tells me they don’t know about that sort of thing. One guy asks me if I’m a cop, and I tell him that if I’m a cop, I’m about as deep undercover as a cop can get.

  I throw in the towel and decide to head back to the King James. I’ll get myself a room and then kill the rest of the night at the pub.

  I move through the nighttime crowd, walking against the grain. There’s lots of shoulder-bumping and pardon me-ing, but everyone is so friendly. People are tipping cowboy hats as they walk by, men’s mouths bulge with chaw, women’s smiles are Texas-sized, the air is filled with chatter and laughter. The cordiality proves contagious. Next thing I know, I’m wishing everyone I pass a good evening, substituting hat-tips with nods and two-finger salutes; my delight isn’t content with behind-the-scenes stuff, so it forces its way to the surface. I think maybe I like it here.

  The flow of people slows to a drip the further I distance myself from the Majestic. I pass three giddy teenagers doing a terrible job of hiding a flask. I move aside to let an old couple by. Maybe I could reach the King James by continuing straight, but I turn right because it looks familiar, so I figure I came from there earlier on my way to the theatre. The drip has become a drought by the time I reach the King James. All the night’s action is either on other streets or shut away behind closed doors. I feel a push coming from the other side as I pull the tavern’s door handle, so I step back to let whoever it is out. She’s better at sweeping her surprise under the rug than I am.

  “Why, hello,” she says as if she were expecting me all along.

  “Evening, Genevieve,” I manage after a couple seconds.

  For a moment, we just stand there, seeing who can hold their stare longer, but then some drunk stumbles out of the tavern and Genevieve has to step closer to me to avoid his graceless line. Now, the two of us sharing the same gash of streetlight, she looks almost spectral—her pale skin, glowing lunar in stark contrast to her bottom-of-the-well black hair, her burgundy evening dress and matching halo hat—as if she were a photograph brought to life, but they ran out of colour somewhere in the transfer.

  “Are you staying here?” she asks.

  “No. I might be. Yourself?”

  “Yes, we’re on the tenth floor.”

  I nod. I look down at the ground and kick a couple of pebbles onto the street. “Where, um, not that it’s any of my business, but where are you off to?”

  She snickers at that and then digs a cigarette out of her purse. I go to offer her my lighter, but she rushes to whip hers out. She displays it with a ta-da gesture, then lights up, blowing smoke out of one side of her mouth as she stands there, making no effort to hide the fact that she’s regarding me.

  “Well, you’re right that it’s not any of your business, but I don’t mind telling you. Andrew spent some time at the track today. We’re going to meet up at a bar near there.”

  “Pretty nice place in there,” I say, nodding to the tavern she’d just stepped out from.

  “It’s not so terrible. I had a cocktail, but one felt like enough.”

  “One’s never enough.”

  “For you, Toby? You’re damn right it isn’t.”

  The moment I notice the silence returning, I walk—almost push—past her and into the King James. The person who terminates an uncomfortable conversation like that is usually the one who leaves with the most d
ignity. With Genevieve, I always walk away with less, but you can’t blame me for trying, so I won’t blame me either.

  It’s packed in the tavern. The air is high voltage; I can almost hear Victor Frankenstein screaming, It’s alive! It’s alive! Clinking glasses, slamming glasses, uproarious laughter, a thick layer of chatter poured onto a foundation of screeching chair legs, throats clearing, flint wheels sparking, and matches hissing through flame-births. I head for the bar. Julia, the waitress I had earlier with Rupert, has a full tray raised high above her head. Noticing that the liquid in the glasses barely quivers as she and I dance around each other, I can’t help but think of the circus and wonder how Julia would take to the nomadic life. I squeeze onto a stool at the bar (the only empty seat in the place, as far as I can tell), and Max the Bartender nods in recognition.

  “Bourbon?” he shouts above the din.

  I mouth ‘Yup’ at him, feeling that I don’t need to add to the noise myself. A second later, he slides a coaster my way, all smooth, as if he’s got an ounce of finesse in him or something, and then places my drink on top of it.

  I take a big gulp. I’ve got Genevieve on the brain. I’m about to take a second gulp when the guy sitting next to me swivels around on his stool to face me. Like half the people in here, he’s got a cowboy hat on. His jacket is this goofy beige-plaid and brown-leather crossbreed; I’m tempted to ask him if he dabbles in clowning. He’s quite a bit older than me—grey dominating black in the hair poking out from the sides of his hat—and he’s got one eyebrow cocked, as if he’s puzzling over something. At first, I think maybe he came to one of our shows and he’s trying to determine where he knows me from. This doesn’t happen often, on account of me performing in makeup now, but it has happened once or twice since I started the Freddy Folly shtick.

  “I know you from somewhere?” I ask.

  “Doubt it,” he says, more to himself than to me.

  I shrug and turn back to my drink. I can see him in my periphery, not moving, just staring away. I take another sip, then another, then I notice I’m gripping my glass maybe a little too hard, so I turn to face him.

  “There a problem, pal?”

  He mutters, “Shouldn’t be,” though I can hardly hear him over the clamour.

  “Then may I ask just what the hell you’re gawking at?”

  “Ain’t gawkin’.”

  “No?” I slam my glass down on the bar hard enough to get a few looks shot at me. “Because it sure looks like you’re gawking at me.”

  “I’m just trying to figure something out,” he tells me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m trying to figure out if you actually apologized to me, and maybe I just didn’t hear it on account of it being so loud in here, or if you didn’t say nothin’ to me at all.”

  “Apologize for what?” I shove the words through my teeth.

  “When you grabbed that spot,” he says, gesturing at my stool, “you caught my back with that bony elbow right as I was sipping my drink. Sent about half of it spilling down my chin. So, like I said, I’m trying to figure out if you apologized and I just didn’t hear you, or if you just carried on like you’re the only one in here who matters at all.”

  The funny thing, I’m told, about me being rather pale and bald is that when I start to get worked up, you can see the red rising through me, making me look like a human thermometer. I can feel it now, that growing internal boil, as my mercury climbs past my shirt collar, up my throat, onto my chin. But looking around the bar, a noisy tapestry of unfamiliar faces, I realize that this is a bad place to pop. Anger loves a struggling victim. But that’s the key to beating it when you feel it coiling itself around you. Don’t thrash out at it, don’t tense up, simply breathe and keep yourself loose and it’ll get bored and move on. This heaping pile of melodrama sitting next to me really wants to feel like a big man. He wants me to protest and tell him where he should go, so he can slug me with one of his meaty old fists and walk out of here feeling like he just told the world that while he may be getting older, he’s sure not getting any softer. That’s what he wants, but there’s something powerful about denying someone else’s wants, so I say, “Shit, I’m really sorry about that, pal. I hadn’t even noticed. Let me buy you a drink.”

  He’s taken aback. Maybe he’s disappointed, but the outcomes for him were either hit me and feel like a tough guy, or, failing that, get a free drink, so either way, he’s sitting okay.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  Christ, he even tips his hat. What a ham.

  I wave to get Max’s attention, point to my new friend, then hold up two fingers: one for each of us. Max gets our drinks fast—maybe he’s got another kid on the way and he figures that a man with two college graduates in the family is pretty set. Putting on the kind of smile that Rowland would love me to bring into the big top, I raise my glass to the man next to me, getting a raised glass back. We both take a drink.

  “Jay Holden.” He extends a hand and I shake it. The man’s got a gorilla grip.

  “Freddy.”

  “No last name?”

  “Freddy Truman. I’m Harry’s handsomer kid brother.”

  That gets a howl out of him. He slaps one hand on the bar, commanding a round of looks, and then claps the other hand on my back. I guess we’re pals now. We get chatting, and I soon learn that Jay is the kind of man who likes to talk at people, but not necessarily with them.

  By the time our fourth set of bourbons arrives, I’ve had about enough of Jay Holden. He’s got a whole lot to say about Koreans, local politics, certain Hollywood actors and actresses who are definitely communists, and his late wife, who he’s certain is the only woman he will ever love. The booze seems to really be getting to him. And as if he weren’t hard enough to understand to begin with—with all the noise in here and his thick Texas drawl—the lake of alcohol sloshing around inside of him has given his voice a sort of sluggish, melting quality. I pay my bill, and as I stand up to leave, he grasps my arm and says something I can’t make out. It takes three strained repetitions (drunk or not, his gorilla grip remains, so I’m forced to stay until he lets me go) before I’m able to decipher his words.

  “Tell yer brother, the president, Jay Holden from Texas says hello!”

  I assure him that I will, and his laughter follows me to the door that connects to the hotel lobby. I pass through, shutting the door behind me, sealing away the tavern’s buzz. It’s likely the fresh quiet that makes me realize that the steps I’m taking to the front desk feel a little funny—I’m half drunk. Maybe a little more than half, but measurements can be tricky when you’ve had a few. The lobby floor is covered with a checkered burgundy and gold carpet, and I use its pattern to aid me in walking a straight line to the desk. The guy manning the place has a waxy look to him. For the job, he appears a bit young, but maybe he’s just well preserved. I tell him I’d like a room. He gets me to fill out a form, and then he takes my money and gives me a key to room 616. Anything that’s not on the tenth floor is fine by me.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d be staying the night, so I’m short one toothbrush and one razor,” I tell him.

  “That’s not a problem, sir. We supply our guests with such amenities.”

  “Geez, what a place.”

  He smiles and nods at that. “Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “Nope. Have a good night,” I tell him.

  “You as well, sir.”

  I turn and start walking across the lobby toward the elevator, but as I pass the door to the tavern, I peer through one of the panes and notice that Jay Holden has gotten up from his stool and looks to be heading toward the men’s room. I walk back to hotel’s front desk, patting my pockets as if I’m looking for something.

  “Did I leave a cigarette case up here?” I ask. “A silver case with a golden fleur de lis on it?”

  The man behind the desk looks up at me with wellpractised urgency lighting his eyes. He eyes the top of the desk, then bends down
and checks the floor behind the desk, then pops back up and peers over to my side of the floor. “I don’t think so, sir. If I come across it, I’ll be sure to set it aside for you.”

  “You know, maybe I left it in the tavern there,” I say, still fumbling through all my pockets except for the breast pocket of my jacket, where my cigarette case actually is.

  “Perhaps. The bartender’s name is Max. If one of the waitresses found it, she would have brought it to him.”

  “Max? Thanks.”

  I walk back into the tavern, moving quickly past the bar. Max is reaching for a bottle, so his back is turned to me. The men’s room is at the far end of the place. I push the doors open and slide in. Jay’s standing at the urinal, one hand on the wall for support. The other one appears to be trying to manoeuvre his dick out. He’s muttering to himself. There are two stalls in the room and both have their doors open—it’s just the two of us.

  I hear piss trickling into the urinal now as I walk up behind him. I cradle the back of his head with my hand, and before the old drunk even has time to get one syllable out, I shove his head forward into the wall, leaving a spider-web crack in the tile. He falls to his knees, and—poor son of a bitch—smashes his mouth against the edge of the urinal on the way down. A couple of yellowing teeth drop from his mouth onto the floor. He’s lying on his side, looking up at me, all wide-eyed and clueless and pathetic. His mouth is bloody, the little gash on his head is just beginning to seep, and his shaking hands are frozen into two harsh, gnarled claws, as if rigor mortis were setting in.

  He’s trying to say something to me, but I could barely understand him earlier, so my chances now are pretty scant. I reach down and pluck the cowboy hat off his head.

  It’s a little big on me, but I have enough postcards from Dallas.

  HIS SHADOW FELL OVER ME WHEN I WAS SITTING ON THE front step of my trailer, trying to rip a loose thread from my sweater without unravelling the whole thing. It was a trailer I shared with two other boys—Chester Ames and Paul Frum, both part of the Sledge Gang, a group who took care of pounding stakes into the ground during setup and, when nothing needed pounding, would be called upon for any sort of labour that needed to be done—the more mindless, the better.