Last Call Lounge
Page 14
The drive from the bar to my house was short. You could walk it in fifteen minutes, but I never did. We went under the highway, with traffic thunking overhead, and turned into my neighborhood. Rows of white houses with yellow trim and front porches and chain link. Houses built in the forties and fifties. Developers were moving in, tearing down some of the more rundown buildings and putting up square town homes, two to a lot. Almost every block now had them and they stuck out like monoliths, towering over the wooden bungalows.
The streets were quiet, but at the gas station at the corner, a line of cars snaked into the street. I checked my gas gauge and it was three-quarters full.
Frank was staring out the window.
“What were you gonna do about the hurricane?” I asked, just to make conversation.
Frank breathed in, raised his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “You can always find someplace to hang out. I have friends I could call, I guess.” He drummed his fingers on his knees.
We turned on to my block, a tree-shaded stretch of older homes with ungroomed chows and work trucks in the yards. My house, hidden behind two large azalea bushes, was clean and kempt. Light blue with dark blue trim. Dad left it in great shape and I did my best to keep it that way.
I opened the door and cool air greeted us. Frank stepped in behind me, holding his duffel bag at his side. His eyes took in the room – the purple couch, the big square recliner. I reached around him to close the door.
“Have a seat,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”
He sat, gingerly, on the edge of the big ottoman, his bag at his feet. I went in the kitchen and came back with two beers. I gave him one, then opened mine and took it with me as I went to check the guest room. It had been my room, when Dad was alive, and it had been Jacob’s room, for the brief time that he and Sarah lived with me, after Dad died. She had taken almost everything Jacob-related with her when she left. All that remained was a simple brown crib, no mattress, and in the corner a single bed and a small wooden dresser. The bed had a blue fitted sheet. I grabbed a pillow and a blanket out of the closet.
Back in the living room, Frank was still balanced on the edge of the ottoman, sipping his beer. I sat down on the couch.
“I like your house,” Frank said, nodding at the room.
“Thanks,” I said. “My dad bought it when I was a kid.” Dad bought the house right after mom killed herself. Before that we lived in an apartment near the highway. When mom died, he tried to give me structure, some sort of normalcy. He moved us to the neighborhood, signed me up for little league, that kind of thing.
“Your Dad owned the bar, too?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Mitchell told me.” His eyes took in the furniture, the art on the walls, bright prints of roosters and horses that Dad had bought at thrift stores. “Is it ever weird?” he asked.
“Is what ever weird?” I asked.
“Living in your Dad’s place?” he said.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, holding my beer with both hands. Outside, a dog barked. The truth was it was weird, sometimes, living in my father’s house and running his business. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that I was in high school that Dad was asleep in his room. Then focus would come to my eyes and I would remember and the weight of it all, the reality of it all, would pin me to the bed.
“I guess,” I said. “Sometimes.”
Frank nodded, sucking in his lip. I held the cold beer bottle against my wrist.
“What about your mom?” Frank asked.
There are times when you want to answer that question, many more times when you don’t. When I didn’t feel like having the conversation, I would just say that she had died. Somehow, sitting there on my father’s couch, drinking a beer with Frank, whose whole world was in a dusty gym bag at his feet, somehow this was the right time.
“She killed herself,” I said. “When I was ten.”
Frank nodded. His lips pursed into a tight grimace. Not sympathy, exactly. But understanding.
“I hated her, for a long time,” I said. “Hated every thing about her.”
Frank nodded, blinked a few times, his face and eyes pinched. He pulled at the skin on his neck when he spoke.
“My Mom tried to kill herself, when I was like fourteen.” His sentence ended pitch up, like a question and I was reminded of how young he was. “She started hearing things. You know, voices and things? And then one day she cut her wrists.” He seemed less sad about this than embarrassed, as though the intimacy of the story were inappropriate. He sucked in his lip, then continued. “They put her in a hospital, so I took off, first to Austin, then here. She’s a lot better now. She’s in this kind of halfway house and she has a job at a cafeteria. She still can’t live by herself because she forgets to take her prescriptions.”
I took a sip of my beer and looked at the square of late afternoon light on the floor.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Little Rock,” Frank said. “I think when I get some money saved, I’m gonna move back. I could get an apartment so she could live with me. Her doctor said she would be okay. I’d just have to make sure she took her prescriptions.”
We sat for a long time, sipping our beers, both of us watching the square of sunlight make its way across the rug. A wind blew through the azaleas, rattling leaves against the windows. I finished my beer and stood up.
“You can take a shower if you want,” I said.
“That would be great.”
“The bathroom is at the end of the hallway,” I said, pointing.
When I heard the water turn on, I pushed out the back door and on to the porch.
On the back porch, I sat in the canvas lawn chair and lit a cigarette. The day was blue and crisp and the neighborhood quiet. I could hear my neighbor Archer pounding on something in his garage. I pulled out my cell phone and called Ruby. She answered on the second ring.
“Hi,” she said, letting out a breath.
“Hi,” I said. “Can you leave in the morning?” I lit a cigarette.
“Little John,” she said. My heart dropped.
“What?”
“I have something I feel like I have to talk to you about, before we go,” she said. Always, there was this part of Ruby, this side of her that she didn’t want to share. The few times she did offer to open up, I was overcome, with fear and with a kind of lust. I wanted her, wanted to consume her, all of her. That this inner core existed, that I was allowed to know it existed but never allowed to see it, this is what drove me mad about Ruby.
“Do you still want to go?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Very much.”
“Then, whatever it is, I don’t care,” I said.
“Still,” she said. “I have to tell you.”
I wanted to hear it, but anything that endangered the trip, the escape with Ruby, I wanted to delay, avoid.
“Meet me at the bar tonight,” I said. “Tell me there. I have to go up and help close. Come have a drink with me and tell me there.” I heard her pull in a long breath. I could picture her, sitting on the edge of her chair, brushing her ragged bangs with her long with hand, nodding.
“Okay,” she said finally.
I felt myself smile, felt my shoulders release.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there at midnight.”
“Okay,” Ruby said again. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Another crisp, blue day on this porch, a long time ago, around Thanksgiving, shortly after my father had died, when Jacob was still a baby.
It had not been a good time for me and Sarah, not that we had many good times in our marriage. But my father’s death and the holidays layered on top of the everyday stresses of a baby in the house had been pretty damaging. I stayed at the bar as late as I could as often as I could. Usually, by the time I woke up around noon, Sarah would have tired of waiting for me and she and Jacob would be dressed and out of the house.
&nb
sp; She was, in retrospect, patient with my habits. But I worked pretty hard at finding the limits to that patience. Given the choice, almost every time I chose the bar and the whiskey and Worm over her and Jacob.
But that day, that crisp blue day, I had woken up early – early for me, anyway – and made coffee. It was the first cool morning of the fall and the brisk air came in through the window screens like a sigh. It was the kind of morning you feel in your lungs. The kind of morning when you decide to buy a bike or join a gym.
I poured two cups of coffee, then joined Sarah on the front porch. We sat and watched Jacob. He was splay-legged on the lawn, pulling at tufts of green grass. Each time a blade came free, he would hold it up and look to Sarah for confirmation, his face wrinkled with studiousness.
Then, later, Sarah put him down for his nap and we had another cup of coffee, this time on the back porch, in the low-slung blue canvas lawn chairs. I lit a cigarette. Sarah held her cup with both hands.
Archer was in his back yard, erecting some kind of sports net for his kids. He was wearing a golf shirt with some gold equipment company’s logo on the chest. His shirt was tucked into belted shorts and he wore big brown sandals. When he saw us on the porch, he tossed down the wrench, stood, and wiped his knees. Then he strode to the chainlink fence that separated our yards.
Sarah liked Archer and his wife, Jennifer. Jennifer and Sarah often walked the kids together. Sarah and Archer teased each other about politics, though I think Sarah’s political convictions were stronger than Archer’s and Archer played up his conservative side just for the game of it.
“How y’all doing,” Archer said. His black hair was slick with sweat and his reflective sunglasses wrapped around his temples.
“Good, Archer, how are you?” Sarah asked with a smile.
Archer nodded as an answer, then pulled his sunglasses off.
“He treating you all right?” he asked, gesturing at me with the glasses. This was part of his normal banter, but something – the way he avoided looking at me, maybe – made me wonder what Sarah had told Jennifer about me.
“Today,” Sarah said.
“Well, you ever decide you’ve had enough, you come live with me and Jenn,” he said. “I’ll have me a harem. Like a Muslim.”
Sarah laughed. “Archer,” she said, her voice a mock-scold. “The vast majority of Muslims don’t have harems.”
“I know that,” he said, drawing out his words. “But I wanna be one of the ones that does.”
He put his sunglasses back on and went back to his sports net. Sarah reached over and took my hand. Her palm was warm from the mug. She watched Archer and her mouth relaxed into a small smile.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I really love this house.”
And that was the moment I knew my marriage was over. I didn’t say anything right then, but I knew what she meant. She meant sometimes. And I knew what that meant about the rest of the time.
I held her hand and sipped my coffee. It hadn’t been much of a marriage ever, really, but right then I felt the loss of it as a heaviness on my back and my face. I didn’t say anything and when Jacob called for her from his bedroom, the little room at the back of the house that had been my room growing up, Sarah got up and kissed me on the head.
That night, I got drunk and started a fight, about nothing I can remember now. But it was that afternoon, that moment, that I gave up on that marriage.
Today, this crisp blue day, Archer was again in his back yard, stacking plywood on his driveway after cutting it on the table saw in his garage. He had sweated through his golf shirt – a dark triangle of sweat spread from his shoulders to a point at his lower back. He saw me and ambled to the fence.
“Must be nice,” he said, wiping his forehead on his short sleeve. “Not giving a shit. Makes for a lot less work.”
I was tired and scratchy. I wanted to smoke in peace and contemplate the fact that, among other things, Worm was dead and Ruby was consenting to run away with me. I didn’t want to have my neglected responsibilities listed out for me. I didn’t get up. I took a long drag on my cigarette and let it burn deep in my throat.
“I give a shit. I just don’t believe a half-inch sheet of plywood is gonna stop a hurricane.”
Archer gave me a hooded look, like he was trying to decide if I was worth the fight. Then he shook his head and put his hands on his hips.
“So, your plan is what, exactly?” he asked.
“I don’t have a plan,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
I tried to stare him down. I could feel the vein in my temple throbbing with my pulse.
“I came out here for a cigarette,” I said, standing. “Not a fucking lecture.”
Archer looked at the ground and shook his head again. The wind rustled around the bushes. A dog barked. I stubbed out my cigarette and when I looked back up, Archer was still staring at me. His jaw was clenched. It occurred to me that it was the first time I had ever seen him angry. Then he rolled his eyes and his mouth pulled into a thin grin.
“Fine, no lecture,” he said. He turned away, but then shouted to me over his shoulder. “But ask yourself something, dummy – if you really don’t give a shit about that house of yours, why’re smoking outside instead of in?”
Back in the living room, Frank was on the couch in a clean shirt, his work pants, and his cracked shoes. His wet hair was slicked straight back.
“What size shoes do you wear?” I asked.
He looked down at his feet.
“Eleven,” he said.
I went into my room. In the back of my closet were a few pairs of Dad’s shoes. I picked up a pair of black work boots.
“Here,” I said, putting them on the floor next to him. “These were my Dad’s. You can have them if you want.”
“Thanks,” he said. He pulled off the old shoes and set them neatly on the floor. I sat down on the couch. When he finished lacing up Dad’s shoes, he picked up the old pair and carried them out of the room. He came back and sat on the edge of the recliner. I tried to breathe into my shoulders and calm down, but Archer had left me worked up. So I just said it.
“Worm is dead,” I said.
I was reminded again of how young Frank must have been. His eyebrows shot up in shock and tears filled his eyes almost immediately. His mouth dropped open a little and his lip quivered. I swallowed and looked away.
“He was shot. In his truck,” I said. I looked up again and Frank was wiping at his eyes with his fingers. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Fuck,” Frank said and put his hand over his mouth. “Fuck.” He was drawing in deep breaths, his face was red. “Do you think, do you think they’ll come after me?”
I turned my head and scratched at the back of my neck. Outside, the wind brushed through the azaleas.
“I don’t know, Frank,” I said. He covered his mouth with his hand again. “I doubt it. Worm stole something from them. I don’t see why they should think you had anything to do with it.” He nodded, his hand still on his mouth. “I told the cops about Oscar. They’ll probably pick him up soon. But, the truth is, they might come here. Worm told them I had the money. I think they broke into the bar looking for it, so they might try to find it here. I wanted you to know, in case you wanted to stay somewhere else.” Frank pressed his fingers into his eyelids, blew out through his teeth. “It’s gonna be okay,” I said.
Frank sat for a moment, his eyes pressed into his hands. Then he looked up at the ceiling, blinked hard to clear the tears.
“I’m sorry about Worm,” he said. “I know he was your friend.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. A wave of fatigue hit me and I tasted metal.
An afternoon when I was trying to get together with Worm to buy off him, a sweat-stuck, summer afternoon. My truck overheated. I pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store, two miles from my house. I called Worm, told him what had happened and that I wouldn’t be able to meet him.
“Where are you?” he asked.
r /> Ten minutes later, Worm thundered up in his white truck, the windows shaking under the bass power of some Kid Rock song. He pulled into the space next to me and I felt a flush of embarrassment at being publicly associated with this redneck. He climbed down from the cab with two tall boy cans in paper bags and handed me one.
“You need a ride?” he asked, sipping.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m just gonna wait for it to cool down so I can drive it to the mechanic.” I was leaning against the side of my truck, squinting in the afternoon light. Worm leaned next to me. “You don’t have to stick around,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll keep you company.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I repeated.
“What’re friends for?” he asked.
I looked at Frank, wearing my father’s shoes, crying in my living room.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry, too.”
SIXTEEN
We rode to the bar together later, just before midnight. I had to go screw the back door shut and Frank wanted to come along. He was scared, I guessed, and probably didn’t want to be left alone in a strange house, with what had happened to Worm. I grabbed one of the bottles of Blanton’s out of the cabinet in my living room, to replace the one that had been broken in the office.
The streets were empty and quiet. Some people had evacuated, some had just hunkered down. A few houses had their windows covered with plywood. Some had their windows taped, big x’s of painters tape that was supposed to keep the glass from shattering. Frank and I didn’t talk. Water dripped from the air conditioner vent onto Frank’s shoes.
Down the street from the bar, there was a tattoo parlor, its big front windows covered in cheap plywood. Someone with bad handwriting and a can of black spray paint had written on the wood, “Fuck Allison. Fuck Katrina. Fuck Rita.” Then, below that, in red spray paint, “You Loot, We Shoot!”
Tracy was working. She poured two shots when she saw me walk in. She smiled at me over the rim of the shot glass as she drank hers. She hadn’t heard about Worm yet and I wasn’t going to tell her. Frank might tell her, but I didn’t feel like getting into it. Tim Cole was there, too, shooting pool by himself, a little wobbly but grinning. He waved to me when he saw me. I turned away.