by Joe Meno
“Why’d you tell me this?” I asked, not looking at her sweet round face.
“Thought you might wanna know. She was your girlfriend for a while, right? She lost her virginity to you and all.” She frowned, running her finger right past my hands along the thick brown branch.
“Is that what she told you?”
“Yes, she sure did. She had said you two were planning on getting married and all.”
“Christ!” I shouted. “That’s the worst lie I ever heard. Your sister lost her virginity a long time before me somewhere in someone else’s backseat.”
“Is that so? So I guess my sister is a liar, huh?” Her eyes flashed up, right into mine, full of anger and fire. I felt my chest and stomach tighten hard. I wanted to reach through the window and kiss her right there.
“So I’m supposed to believe you over my own sister? I think I should push you right off that branch for being so smug, don’t you?” Right there she could have asked any question and I would have said, “Yes.” She kind of flipped some of her curly brown hair over her shoulder and held her mouth closed.
“Are you gonna give me a kiss or not?” I asked.
“Not in a million years.”
“Fine.” I gave right in. I shook my head and began to climb down the tree.
“Where are you going?” she asked. The strap of her slip alighted from her shoulder down across the top of her arm. I could almost see the roundness of her smooth white breast.
“I’m going home.”
“Home? I didn’t think you’d just leave like that.”
“I’m sick of being called a hood. Good night.”
“Well, fine. Fine.”
“Fine,” I repeated, leaping off a lower branch down into the soft green grass.
“Fine!” Charlene shouted, slamming her window closed. That cool lush electrical light flickered off and left me standing alone in the dark by myself.
“FINE!!!” I shouted as loud as I could, then hopped over her parents’ lousy picket fence. “Always thought you were kind of a scrawny girl anyway! You old maid!”
I walked down the dark desolate street, still mumbling things to myself. Two cold headlight beams stopped right upon my face. A big red pickup truck pulled to a halt beside me. I could hear a gravelly voice over the rumble of the engine as it idled in park.
“You Luce Lemay, right?”
I nodded once, squinting hard to see who was behind the wheel. It was a dark face. I felt my innards turn cold. I felt like I was about to be shot down. The red door swung open. I saw someone’s white fist a few seconds before I felt the blow across my teeth.
“Stay the hell away from my girl!” he shouted. My head snapped back as the bastard swung again, cracking me hard in the jaw. Snap! I felt one of my back teeth roll up against my tongue like a tiny stone, dangling by a thin red string.
“Girl?” I mumbled, spitting out blood. “I don’t know no one’s girl.”
He cracked me in the mouth again. This time the loose tooth shot right out and did a little dance in blood as it hit the paved ground. I looked up at his face. It was big and white and square-shaped. There was a huge white scar just above his lip that still had a few stitches of thread left in the skin. His hair was reddish-brown and kind of black along the crown where it rose in twelve hundred greasy cowlicks.
“My name’s Earl Peet. Charlene’s my fiancée, you understand? A no-good like you crawling all over her makes me sick. Stay the hell away from her, you understand?”
Somehow this big juggernaut had his thick hands wrapped around my throat. Somehow I couldn’t throw a punch to save my life. It had been that girl. She had made me soft in the head. Earl Peet punched me square in my left eye and shook me again.
“Stay away from Charlene, you understand?!!”
“But she didn’t mention anything about being engaged.”
“Well, that girl doesn’t know what she wants right now. I don’t need you fouling things up between us.”
He squeezed my neck with his fat thick fingers, nearly making me choke. “Just stay the hell away.” He pushed me into an old brown sticker bush and I landed on my head in the dirt. I could hear him step back into his truck, shift the engine into first, and pull away before the ringing arrived somewhere in my ears.
I fell into my bed that night still dreaming of her face, hoping she’d somehow be standing over me when I could open my left eye right.
No lonely old swollen eye or broken tooth could persuade a cruel mistress like Fate. I made no mistake with Earl’s unkind threats. But I ran into Charlene again just by chance. Just by luck Junior and I happened to stop by the Starlite Diner the next night after work.
“Do you know there’s something mysterious in that little shake of yours? Put a spell on a lonely man.” This square-faced trucker sweet-talked Charlene from his booth, scratching his red beard as it ran wild across his wide face.
“Rivals the mysterious bits of food left in your beard, I dare say.” Charlene smiled. This girl’s face was round and soft and mean whenever she spoke. Her hair was so curly and brown and shined and moved. Her hair smelled like a peach, like summer, like tender fruit. Charlene was tall and thin and wore this cute frilly blue-and-white-and-pink waitress uniform that showed off her great legs. Being honest here, when Junior and I walked through the silver doors, I couldn’t take my unloyal eyes off her. The way she moved, her shoulders were small and kind of hunched over a little as she carried a big order of burgers and coffees to a silver-trimmed table. She had a tiny run in her nude-colored stockings that shot up from her ankle to the middle of her thigh. I couldn’t have stopped looking at her to save my life. Her face was all hot from running around. She kind of sighed as me and Junior pushed through the doors. We took a seat at a booth, collapsing right into the red vinyl. Charlene came right up to our table and smiled. Her lips were red and caked hard in lipstick. Maybe she had just put it on. There was a little smudge of red on her white teeth. She came right up to the table and placed some menus in our hands.
“Hello,” I mumbled.
“Hello.”
Her mouth parted a little. “The soup today is chicken noodle,” she said. It sounded like the nicest thing I ever heard someone say. “What happened to your face?” she asked.
“Ran into a doorknob.” My left eye was still pretty swollen. My missing tooth had stopped hurting a few hours after it fell out. Now the side of my tongue was cut up from fiddling around with the sharp gap between my teeth.
“Oh? Some doorknob.” She leaned the serving tray against her hip and held her breath like she had something to say, but then just shook her head and walked away to take that trucker with the red beard’s order. My face was red. I could feel heat coming off my cheeks.
She glanced over her shoulder quickly, maybe to see if I was watching her. I dropped my eyes. Maybe not in time.
Charlene leaned behind the counter on one hand, staring right at me. She blew a big pink bubble of gum. It formed slowly from her lips, then grew and popped. She picked the gum from her mouth and slid it back inside, all while staring right at me.
“What are you doing?” Junior asked. I didn’t even know I was standing.
“Making a damn fool out of myself.” I shrugged my shoulders and walked up to her. Charlene dropped her eyes and ran her finger along the counter, humming to herself.
“You ready to order?” she asked.
“No, not yet,” I answered. “Let me ask you a question. Do you like working in this place?”
Charlene shrugged her shoulders and kept looking down at my hands.
“I don’t know. It’s OK.”
“It seems pretty lousy, that’s all,” I said. Right after I said it, I realized how awful it sounded. She kind of twisted her eyebrows up and leaned back against the counter. I couldn’t smell her hair anymore over the greasy food and cigarettes. I looked over my shoulder, around to that bearded trucker with a red cap and blackened teeth. He kind of curled up his upper lip and chok
ed down another piece of red cherry pie. “This just seems like a crummy place, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, looking away. “Did you ever eat here?”
“No … Well, once or twice.”
“Then how do you know if it’s crummy?”
I felt like I had made a mistake. I gave a little cough to it up. “That dress sure makes you look funny,” I mumbled.
“Is that so?” Her fingers smoothed over the cottony blue material, down to the pink frills. Her legs moved beneath as she shrugged her shoulders again.
“It’s just a ugly-looking color is all,” I said.
“I don’t remember ever asking you.” Her mouth was hard and small and round.
“Pink? Pink is a lousy-looking color. Especially with pale legs.” I grinned.
Charlene pushed her skirt down and kept her hands over her thighs.
“You are an asshole,” she whispered. Her eyes were bright and shiny like she was about to cry. I shrugged my shoulders and kept looking down at my hands.
“Forget it,” I murmured. Just for the hell of it, I looked up into her face, right into her eyes. Charlene raised her bare leg and ran it along the back of the other, peering down at the counter as I looked across the dull white linoleum to her hands. They were small and white and plain, no rings, just plain white digits, which looked really nice and clean and pretty. I looked down at her hands, she looked down at her hands, I couldn’t look up, I don’t know why, I couldn’t say a damn thing, all I could think about was her hands, about wanting to hold her hand and take her outside to kiss her, but I was pretty sure there was no way that was going to happen anytime soon, because no one was talking or even breathing now.
“Maybe we could go out … when you’re done working …” I heard myself kind of stammer.
“This is really a bad time. My boss is here. I have to get back to work. You should go.”
“Maybe …”
Her eyes lifted a little, right into mine. I thought I was going to burst into bloom, like flowers were going to blossom from behind my mouth and eyes, but then Charlene just kind of dashed from the counter and pulled away some dirty dishes and disappeared into the back behind a silver door. Then that was it. That was all. I rubbed the side of my face and then tapped the counter.
“OK, well, it was … ahh, nice talkin’ to you again,” I said to thin air. I turned and fell into the booth beside Junior.
“Did you just ask that girl out?” He smiled.
I nodded just once in reply. “Christ, yeah.”
“Well, how did it go?”
“Poorly.”
“That’s OK, pal.” Junior grinned. “There’s more than one pretty girl in town. The pretty ones are usually trouble, I’ve come to learn.”
that sweet young bird ain’t sweet no more
No dainty gloom could make a body feel more lonesome than missing a tooth. It made me feel improper to smile. Losing that molar over a girl who wouldn’t even spare me a kiss made me feel like the imperial king of all fools.
Nothing else could make me feel so low.
Then Dahlia did.
Trouble in a tight white skirt and bargain-basement makeup strode right in. There was a slender silhouette that appeared in front of the glass doors of the Gas-N-Go. The last thing a single man wanted to see. There was her tiny behind bobbing from side to side as she applied her thirty-second coat of red lipstick. I stared out that awful window looking up at Junior’s poor sign, trying to look away.
Road flares $1.00 ea
rosy n
fulmin-ating
as two cheeks
in folly’d spring
The glare from Dahlia’s purple eye shadow must have stunned me for a moment, because the next I knew, I could hear the bell above the door give its dull, pallid toll. There was nowhere to go. Dahlia had found me in my worst, most desperate state, missing a tooth and lonely as hell.
“Plum thought I was half mad. Thought you were some kind of oily dream standing there all heavenly like that.”
I knew it was her right away. That voice. That undeniable low honey-toned drawl. Dahlia spoke each word in a whisper designed to move any man she wanted inches closer. I don’t know if they teach that after you become the head cheerleader in a small town, but it was one of the many attributes that set Dahlia apart from the rest of the girls I had known. Dal had been born a woman and made every boy in her grade crazy until they were old enough to truly understand that an unsatiable belle breathed the same breath as them.
Dahlia stepped right up to the counter and looked straight into my eyes with the biggest, sweetest smile I had ever seen her wear, except when I had asked her to our Junior Promenade, which was, of course, against my will.
“Tell me now, what’s a body supposed to do when she finds her one true love’s back in town?”
“Christ Jesus,” I murmured, staring at the way the light from all the windows burned through her white skirt and showed her fine lines. There were her tight blue panties hidden somewhere beneath. The same blue pair of panties had kept me to Dahlia’s side for all of my junior year at La Harpie High and had assuaged me through the Junior Promenade, which had eventually ended with her bare white hips beside mine in a parked car somewhere down her parents’ street.
“Luce Lemay, God’s insufferable improvement for any of my wildest dreams.” Dal glimmered. “How come you don’t call me to get yourself off anymore?” Dal hadn’t changed in the three years I’d been away. I had called her a few times from the prison up in Pontiac during the first months, overcome with lust, dying to hear her voice dripping with dirty talk. I would call her up and then she’d say something like, “I have on only a wet white blouse,” then I’d nearly faint. Soon enough I found out all the lies she spun around me, and the whole sordid affair made me sick. No man needs a dishonest lover, imprisoned or not.
“How have you been, sweet tart?” Dahlia whispered, leaning way over the counter. Her big white sweater hung way off her bare white shoulder and I could see the fabric of her blue brassiere strap poking out from beneath. “Tell me I’m the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.”
“That might not be a lie,” I mumbled.
“Good enough for me.” She smiled. “How long has it been since you took me in the backseat of a car and made mad passionate love to me?”
I shook my head and looked down at her nimble soft hands.
“Dal, you’re wearing a wedding ring,” I mumbled. There right on her left ring finger was a huge diamond that sparkled nearly as bright as Dahlia’s blue eyes.
“That’s right. I’m spoken for now.” She sighed. “Missed your one great chance.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“You could have had me. Who knows what would have been?”
“So who’s the lucky feller?” I asked.
“Favor Muller. Damn near made an honest woman out of me.”
“Well, that’s sweet. Captain of the football team and head cheerleader getting hitched.” Favor Muller was dumb as a rotten log. Much worse off, too. He ran the garbage dump at the end of town. Inherited his fine fortune from his old man. Poor Dal was now the Princess of the Trash Removal Kingdom of La Harpie, Illinois. It seemed like a just post.
“Was only a matter of time before we got together, I guess.”
Dal smiled. “I’d still let you take me in the back to show you what you missed.”
“That’s awful sweet, Dal.”
“Don’t know any other way, puddin’. So you’re working here now, huh?” Her eyes sparkled kind of emptily as she looked around. “You like it here?”
“It’s not so bad. Clutch trusts me with the place by myself. Not too many men would do the same.”
Dal blushed a little, then looked away. “So where are you living now? With a friend?”
“I live at the hotel down the street.”
“With that crazy old lady? Well, that isn’t right. A sugarplum like you shouldn’t have to turn to th
e pity of strangers.”
“I don’t mind so much. I’ve got a pal of mine who lives in the building. It’s not so lonesome since I started working nights.”
“Don’t you lie to me, Luce. Remember, I know you. You must be feeling awful living there in that ugly old hotel. Which reminds me, what happened to your poor face?”
“Fell down a flight of stairs.”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard you ran right into the end of Earl Peet’s fist. Messing around with his girl.”
“We just happen to be old friends,” I said.
“That’s not what I heard at all. I heard Earl caught you climbing out her bedroom window one night, grinning.”
“You know me better than that.” I sighed. “I’m not one to mess with another man’s girl.”
“That is too bad.” Dahlia grinned, running her fingers over my hand. I smiled, feeling her breath move all across my neck and face. “Because we could meet sometime. Me and you. You and me. We could get together and see what there is to see.”
I swallowed, forcing all the spit from my lips down my throat.
“Christ, Dal, you sure know how to make a man feel all right. That Favor is a lucky man.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” She frowned, brushing some hair out of her eyes. “Call on me during the day if you ever wanna learn the rest.”
Lord.
Dahlia blew me a kiss and shook on out back into the heat. I tried to light a cigarette but my fingers were trembling too much. The square kept slipping out of my hands. This was all from the same woman who had led me to that luckless state. Somehow I was an awful forgiving man where lust was concerned.
The bell above the door gave another ring.
These two young, dirty-faced, round-headed kids kind of weaseled in. They had their hands dug deep into their jeans pockets and their eyes were down at their feet. They crept up to the counter and stared me right in my eye. There was one red-faced kid with freckles and red hair and the other had greasy black hair and pink lips. They looked like they had just got done wrestling with each other in the dirt.