by Joe Humphrey
Caroline danced up behind Charlie, wrapping her arms around the girl’s waist and swaying in time with her movements. Charlie turned around and looked up at her, grinning. They stood there, moving with the music, and then Charlie did something that Caroline never would have expected, or wanted. Charlie closed her eyes and kissed Caroline gently on the lips. Caroline pulled away, her eyes wide and her mouth dropped open.
After all this time, all the opportunities to discuss or even explore the idea of a romantic relationship, Charlie chose to do this in public. They’d gone so long in their established roles, Caroline had been sure that they’d managed to sidestep that entire conversation and was relieved for it. While it wasn’t unheard of, it was certainly uncommon for their kind to have romantic relationships. Partnerships, certainly, as was the case with Caroline and Charlie, but rarely romantic relationships. The conversion to their state stripped them of their physical sexuality, and with sexuality gone, often went romance with it.
So when Charlie kissed her, Caroline was genuinely surprised.
“Why did you do that?” Caroline asked, drawing back. She had the sudden urge to look around to see if they’d been noticed but was more concerned with how to respond to Charlie.
“I just felt like it. I don’t know, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” Charlie said, her smile faltering just a bit. Caroline felt panic rising in her chest. She didn’t want to upset Charlie and was suddenly worried that rejecting her advance would push the girl away. She hugged her, pulling Charlie’s head against her chest, and patted her hair.
“We can’t do that,” Caroline whispered. “I’m sorry, but we can’t.”
“Jesus Christ, get a fucking room!” a voice hissed from behind them. Caroline felt something flip over in her chest and spill white-hot rage into her body. She turned and looked at where the voice had come from. Two men sat in a booth on the table between them was a sizable collection of empty Coors bottles.
“Excuse me? What in the fuck did you say to me?” Caroline said. When Charlie put her hand on Caroline’s shoulder, she pushed it away.
The bigger man stood up from the booth, his big belly swaying, and stepped toward them. The second man followed.
“I said, get a fucking room. Nobody wants to see that shit here.”
The second man spoke, his voice was thin, and he had the kind of white trash accent that rang in Caroline’s ears like nails on a chalkboard.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt your little moment there, but this ain't San Francisco. We don’t tolerate dykism ‘round here. You need to leave before this gets ugly,” he said, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops like some kind of sheriff on a TV Western.
Caroline stared at the two men for a long moment before looking around and noticing that everyone in the bar was looking at them.
“Come on, let’s just go,” Charlie said, pulling at Caroline’s sleeve. Caroline looked back at Charlie, her left eye twitching slightly, and abruptly turned and strutted towards the door, Charlie close at her heels. She didn’t react when a glass bottle exploded against the floor just in front of them. The short, stocky man behind the bar yelled back at one of the two men.
“Dexter, that’s enough of that shit! They’re leaving. Don’t make me throw your ass out again. You know I’ll do it!”
Caroline stopped at the door and only stood, staring at the scraped paint on the wooden surface. She placed her hands against the door for a moment and looked at Charlie. Tears had left streaks of black makeup down Charlie’s cheeks. Caroline narrowed her eyes and reached for the handle of the door, then twisted the latch on the deadbolt.
- 3 -
Daniel Anderson noticed the two women as soon as they walked in. While it wasn’t entirely uncommon to see new faces, these two seemed particularly out of place. There was something about them that seemed false, as though they were wearing costumes from a movie set rather than real clothes. There were plenty of people who came through the bar that Daniel found suspicious to varying degrees, but something about these two seemed more than just suspicious but totally wrong. For one thing, they seemed to almost float across the floor when they entered, like angels or something. They almost had an inner light that could have been attractive if it wasn’t so strange. He felt compelled to watch them, but then when he really looked at the two women, he found that the skin on his arms and back crawled with goose flesh.
It didn’t help that the shorter one looked all of fourteen years old. When the taller (frankly, prettier) woman approached the bar and ordered two bottles of Budweiser, Daniel asked her for the younger girl’s identification. The taller woman with the bright blonde hair, teased up and hair-sprayed into place, smiled.
“I don’t think you need to see her ID,” she said and leaned forward, smiling up at him. Daniel leaned forward himself, bringing his face closer to hers.
“I kind of do,” he said, giving her a look that said that he was a nice guy, but that his patience for bullshit was thin.
Then a funny thing happened. She grinned again, and Daniel felt something inside of him let go. A memory floated up, first in the back of his mind and then almost completely occupying his thoughts. For just a moment, he was six years old again, running across the lawn of his childhood home back in Tucson. His dad stood on the porch with the hose, spraying it in a mist as little Danny ran back and forth under the water, laughing. He could almost smell the wet grass.
Daniel blinked and realized that, no, he really could smell fresh cut grass and water. He took a deep breath and sat down on the stool behind the bar, thinking about the last time he saw his dad before the heart attack. It had been fifteen years since his father’s death and Daniel still thought about him every day. But that memory of being sprayed with the hose on a summer afternoon was the most vivid and clear memory he’d had of his dad since he died.
It wasn’t until the younger girl walked up to the jukebox that Daniel even remembered that they were in the bar. They’d scooted off into a booth in the corner with their bottles of beer. He strained to remember if he’d carded the younger girl, and thought that he probably had, though he couldn’t be sure.
The girl browsed the songs on the juke, her butt bouncing with the beat, and he forced himself to look away. Even though he was almost certain he’d carded her, she still looked like a teenager, perhaps younger than his own daughter. He briefly thought that he should ask them to leave because even if he had carded her, there was no way she was over eighteen. That thought was replaced again with the awareness that he could smell fresh cut grass and he forgot about the girl entirely.
“Jesus Christ, get a fucking room!” a voice said, pulling Daniel out of his daydream of playing under the hose. It was that fucking idiot Dexter. He was pulling his fat ass up from the booth he and Gary Stigler were parked at. Gary was getting up as well.
That’s when he noticed the two women. They were dancing together. While it wasn’t uncommon for women to dance together, when it became more sexual than platonic, it did fall into a socially awkward place that Daniel would rather not deal with. The Roadhouse was a discrete kind of joint, but its clientele set the limits of what they could tolerate, and they were too close to Utah for any kind of acceptance for homosexuality. Personally, as long as the customers were buying drinks, he didn’t much care who danced with who and who went home with who. For instance, Daniel knew for a fact that Dexter had a wife at home who would probably be none too happy to see the way he hit on almost anything with a pulse and a snatch that came through the door.
More than just a pussy hound, Daniel knew that Dexter was a shit starter. Personally, Daniel hated the guy, but he spent a lot of money at The Roadhouse and Daniel loved getting paid more than he hated dealing with imbeciles.
The taller woman turned and looked at Dexter, and a chill went up Daniel’s back. He suddenly felt an urge to just leave the bar and never come back. Something bad was going to happen and he wanted no part of it.
“Excuse me?
What in the fuck did you say to me?” the tall one said. This was escalating, and the sense of control he usually enjoyed over the patrons of The Roadhouse suddenly felt like it was melting away. What was she going to do, fight him?
“I said, get a fucking room. Nobody wants to see that shit here.” Dexter said, stepping toward the woman. The younger girl said something Daniel couldn’t hear, and then Gary spoke.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt your little moment there, but this ain't San Francisco. We don’t tolerate dykism ‘round here. You need to leave before this gets ugly.”
Daniel briefly considered the sawed-off shotgun he kept under the bar, then shook his head, as though he were talking to himself. They weren’t there yet, regardless of the danger bells ringing in his head. It wasn’t the first time he’d been scared while working at a bar, but it was the first time he felt scared for seemingly no reason. He looked at the phone on the wall, ready to call the cops if he needed to. He didn’t know what they were going to do that would require the cops, but he felt like it needed to be an option regardless.
The two women spoke, and Daniel felt himself relax slightly as they turned and started towards the door, the older woman holding her purse to her chest as though it would protect her. That’s when Dexter threw a bottle at them. Thankfully it narrowly missed the younger girl and smashed on the floor in front of them. Something inside of Daniel snapped him back into focus and he yelled at the moron who’d thrown it.
“Dexter, that’s enough of that shit! They’re leaving. Don’t make me throw your ass out again. You know I’ll do it!” Daniel shouted, that fear springing up in his chest again. He just wanted the women to leave and for things to go back to normal. That feeling of wrongness was back and he was genuinely afraid now.
It was when the tall one locked the door that Daniel panicked. He strode out from behind the bar and towards the women, not even sure what he was going to do. That sense of danger wasn’t gone, but an even stronger sense of duty took over, and he was going to deescalate this situation.
“Hold on a second,” Daniel said as he approached the women, his hands up to show that he wasn’t coming at them aggressively. The taller one was still holding her purse, one hand inside the main pocket. Something flashed silver and Daniel had the odd sensation as though he’d been stung on the hand by a bee, the instant before three of the fingers on his right hand tumbled to the floor. Blood spilled down his wrist and he let out a shaky, startled scream. The woman was holding a straight edge shaving razor clenched in her fingers. The younger one was staring at him, her eyes wide and her mouth dropped in startled surprise.
The taller woman stepped towards him and Daniel instinctively pulled away, but not quickly enough, because she whipped her arm out in a horizontal arc that slashed the razor across his neck and down the front of his chest, slicing through flesh and shirt. For half a second, he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but then when he felt warm blood splash down his right side, soaking his shirt and running into his Levis, he knew she’d gotten him and gotten him good.
The younger girl jumped forward and grabbed Daniel’s wrist as he fell first to his knees, and then face-first on the floor. He tried to speak, to ask her why she’d done that awful thing she’d done, but he felt so weak and his mouth simply wouldn’t produce the words. As blood pooled around Daniel’s face, the last breaths he drew smelled of grass and hose water and his father’s aftershave.
- 4 -
Everything happened very quickly after that. Charlie looked at Caroline, who was surveying the rest of the customers in the bar. There were five people there, not including the bartender who was dying on the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Charlie whispered to Caroline.
“Go to the back of the bar and stop anyone from leaving,” Caroline said, colder than Charlie had ever heard her. Something inside of Charlie compelled her to do as she was told, even though she guessed that whatever was about to happen was going to be awful, and all she wanted was to leave as quickly as possible.
Charlie let go of the bartender’s wrist and ran towards where the bathrooms were, and where she guessed there was a door that led to the parking lot behind the bar. She avoided looking at the other customers as she blew past them. A hand fell onto her shoulder as she entered the hallway that led to the back door and Charlie reacted instinctually, grabbing the hand and turning around, twisting as she did. There was a sickening crunch as Gary, the thinner of the two men, screamed. Charlie let go of his hand and pressed her palm against his chest and pushed. He stumbled backward and fell onto his ass, holding his hand and moaning. Charlie turned and looked at the back door. There was a simple thumb lever on the doorknob and a sliding lock higher up on the door. She locked these and turned back to the bar.
- 5 -
Caroline stepped back from the body in front of her as blood began to pool under the bartender’s face and hand. He wasn’t dead yet, but the gurgling noises that were coming from his freshly opened throat were slowing. Caroline stepped around the puddle of blood and looked at the razor in her gloved hand. It had slipped through the bartender’s flesh so efficiently that there wasn’t a drop of blood on it.
A woman sitting at a table in the dark corner of the bar finally caught on to what was happening and screamed. Caroline closed her eyes for only a second or two, but it was enough. The woman had a friendly face, but the red blooms of broken blood vessels in her cheeks and nose suggested she drank more than her share. That face, which had been amiable up to this point, twisted into a mask of horror, her mouth opened to reveal yellowed teeth that suggested a lifelong smoking habit. She got up from her table and ran past Caroline and behind the bar.
- 6 -
Andrea Christiansen was drunk well before she made it to The Roadhouse. On a good day, she drank nearly a pint of vodka from the gas station just over the border in Colorado City. She made the twenty-minute drive every morning and then most nights she made it again to The Roadhouse to get her socializing in. Everyone at The Roadhouse knew her, and most nights she was familiar with everyone who came to drink and listen to the jukebox. She was familiar enough with Danny the bartender that he didn’t hassle her about how much she drank. He knew where his bread was buttered, and he knew she was a loyal customer, so it worked out alright for both of them. She liked a beer or five before heading home to bed.
It was a Thursday night and she knew that she had a long day of sneaking drinks from her bottle at work on Friday. She worked for the city, directing traffic through construction on municipal streets. It was hot, sweaty, long work, but it paid well, and she got benefits and could smoke as much as she wanted. She’d been busted twice for drinking at work, so she had to be careful, but Andrea had developed something of an understanding with Seth, her boss. She worked as a middle man between Seth and a guy she knew who was known for being able to find certain illicit powders. While Seth wasn’t in a bad way with the coke, he did host modest parties once or twice a month and liked to have all the expected supplies. Andrea provided him with the coke and he looked the other way when she needed a nip of juice now and then. Of course, Andrea was never invited to any of these parties, but she wouldn’t have gone if she had been. She was more of a bar girl and liked her two or three dives she kept in rotation. The Roadhouse was her favorite.
Andrea could tell immediately that the two women who came into The Roadhouse on Thursday night were going to be trouble. Women who dressed like that and who walked with that air of importance and arrogance were better suited to the clubs down in Phoenix. The Roadhouse was no place for uppity bitches like them. Besides, one of them looked like a baby. The shorter one couldn't have been old enough to drive, much less buy a beer. Not that Andrea could say anything about that. She’d started drinking heavily when she was 12, stealing shots of Southern Comfort from the bottles her father kept on top of the refrigerator.
It was when the younger girl went to the jukebox and started dancing that Andrea started getting
really uncomfortable. Her dancing was awkward and jangling, and when the older woman (her mother? Surely not) joined her on the modest dance floor, Andrea became disgusted. She wasn’t a religious woman, but she believed that homosexuality was against nature and fundamentally wrong. There’s a basic formula, and it’s Tab A and Slot B. She was beginning to suspect that these two strange women dancing together were of the lesbian persuasion and it was starting to her piss her off.
So, when Dexter stood up and told them to cut it out, she fell in love with him just a little bit. He was her kind of guy. Big, strong, funny, a man’s man. Dexter was going to take care of the bitches for her. And she would have, eventually, taken care of it herself. She wasn’t a stranger to throwing down when someone needed to get smacked. Seeing these two women dancing and kissing up on each other was more than she needed to motive her to help escort them out of the establishment. Lucky for her, Dexter was on top of it.
It wasn’t until the tall one locked the front door that Andrea got scared. Suddenly she thought maybe they weren’t lesbians but were something else entirely. Something Andrea wanted nothing to do with.
When Danny approached the woman, Andrea had something like a premonition. She saw the woman with her hand in her purse and knew she was going to pull out a gun or a knife or something else that would finish Danny off.
So, when she flipped that razor out and first took the fingers off Danny’s right hand and then opened his throat, Andrea was strangely unsurprised. It wasn’t until Danny fell to the floor, dying in a pool of his own blood, that Andrea’s fear caught up with her. She screamed. Not a horror movie scream, but a gut-wrenching yowl that came from the bottom of her chest.
The thing is, though, Andrea was a survivor. She’d always been a survivor. That’s why when five years ago her husband Tommy decided (for the last time) to teach her a lesson in manners with his fists, she put him in the fucking hospital with a ruptured spleen and a fractured skull. A baseball bat was the tool that had done that particular bit of work, and Andrea remembered another tool of self-defense at her disposal. Once she stopped screaming, she gathered her willpower and made a run for the bar.