Reed strode through the electric door, waving a credit card sales slip. “They’re open till six,” he announced, his voice oddly bright. “We can pick it up on our way home. What’s the happening spot in Seattle?”
“Got me,” Earley said. “The ride on the ferry is my main event.”
“Don’t be such a slug. Let’s at least prowl around a bit, case the joint. Come on, pick a direction.” Zan looked at Earley, then pointed left.
“Cool.” Reed took off in that strange, lifting walk of his, without even looking to see if the others would follow. He led them down Yesler Way, towards Pioneer Square. It seemed like a marginal neighborhood, a lot like the ones where Earley had shacked up in Atlanta and Houston when he first left home. He wondered why buses and ferryboats always disgorged you in some part of town that nobody wanted to visit.
A man in a gray trenchcoat stood outside a gated-up dry-cleaners muttering, “Rolled smokes, weekend smokes. Pass me by, you won’t get high.”
“Wanna bet?” said Reed, turning to Earley. Earley grinned, wondering if Reed was holding. I’m probably too paranoid to light up a squiff in the city, he thought, but it surely would help take the edge off. Reed stopped in front of a faded brick building.
“Look at this!” The storefront was lettered, in stickers that looked as if they were intended for use on a mailbox, NORTHWEST BIGFOOT MUSEUM. The window was blocked with tan shelf paper, on which several newspaper clippings were posted, along with the legend, FIND OUT THE TRUTH! ADMISSION $3.00. “Check it out, World’s Largest Collection of Actual Photos and Plaster Casts! This is a must-see. My treat.”
You sure can find ways to waste money, thought Earley. “I’ll wait outside.”
“Me too,” said Zan.
“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? I want to Find Out the Truth.”
“I already know the truth,” Earley said. “I want a cigarette.”
Reed looked so disappointed that Zan said, “Oh fuck it, let’s go.”
“What the hell,” Earley said, and they followed Reed in.
The man at the counter looked up from his paperback mystery. He had a squared-off salt-and-pepper goatee but no mustache. He looked like an Amish nerd. “Three?” he said, his voice rising as if he could barely believe his good fortune.
“Yes, sir,” said Reed, counting out nine dollar bills. Earley noticed that they were the only customers. He wondered who paid for the rent on this place.
“Let me know if you have any questions,” the man with the goatee was saying.
Reed nodded. “Have you seen him?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Never close up,” said the man, “but my wife was abducted when we were out camping. She spent forty-eight hours with a Bigfoot clan near Lake Wenatchee.”
Uh-huh, Earley thought, they’re called bikers. He watched Reed pore over the “Who Is Sasquatch?” display, a wall full of blurry enlargements of black-and-white photographs. Most of them looked like your basic gorilla suit, obscured by some well-placed underbrush. Zan was standing in front of the “Artist’s Rendition of Family Grouping,” a primitive painting of several dark, hairy Bigfeet hunkering outside a cave. “It’s my treeplanting crew,” she said. “Look at Just Nick.” Reed hooted and clapped.
“Spitting image,” he said, and moved on to a table which featured a man’s loafer, a size 19 EEEEE basketball sneaker and an “actual cast” made of plaster of paris.
“This is so extravagantly fraudulent. Look at this thing. It’s a swimming flipper with toes. You can practically read the word Speedo.”
The man with the goatee was frowning, his brows knit together. Earley had the impression that they were invading his personal Lourdes. The guy was a wacko for sure, but he was a true believer in something. Maybe people just wanted to think that they might be related to something bigger than they were, something that hadn’t been tamed. “I’m ready to roll,” Earley said. “How about you?”
“No way in hell,” Reed grinned, gleeful. “I want to find out Why Scientists Haven’t Found Bones . . . Yet.”
Earley went out for a smoke. It annoyed him that Zan had stayed in the museum with Reed. This triangle thing was a pain in the ass, he reflected. You just couldn’t stop keeping score. Earley figured he had the edge in bed; Reed had it everywhere else. Especially here, in the city, where money did most of the talking.
He twisted the ends of his cigarette paper and looked up and down the street. Bleak, like the neighborhoods he’d lived in when he first left home. Narrow alleys and cobblestone streets, winos sleeping on benches. He spotted a neon cross over the Bread of Life mission and shuddered. I’d kill myself first, he thought.
The window next to the Bigfoot Museum belonged to a shoe repair stall, which was closed for the weekend. Earley peered through the glass. The cramped stall was just wide enough for a cobbler’s bench, every inch of available space crammed with shelves of old shoes, tins of polish and boot-blacking, stained wooden lasts. In a cage in one corner, a mangy capuchin monkey huddled next to a 40-watt bulb. I’m with you, bub, thought Earley. His feet hurt from walking on concrete. It was hard to believe there was earth somewhere under that pavement, that all this had been oldgrowth woods just a couple of lifetimes ago. Things get used up, he thought. We walk around thinking there’ll always be more, but there isn’t. He’d heard people talking about this at Gillies’ mill, that the woods around Forks were getting logged out; in another few years there’d be nothing to clearcut. A couple of pulp mills had already shut, and timber prices were down in the basement. End of an era, he’d heard people say, boomtown heading for bust.
Earley wondered if he’d have to figure out some other way to support himself sooner or later, and couldn’t imagine what that might be. One thing for sure, he thought, lighting a match: he would never move back to a place where his feet didn’t touch the earth.
SEVENTEEN
Reed and Zan came out of the Bigfoot Museum arm in arm, laughing. “Well, that was unique,” said Reed, grinning. “We’ve found out the truth. What’s next?”
“How about a beer?” said Zan.
“Bingo,” said Earley. “A beer and a place to sit.”
Reed looked around and then pointed across the street, towards a go-go bar decked out with window-length streamers of tinsel. “How about that place over there with the Totally Nude Live Girls?”
“No,” said Zan.
“Oh come on, it’ll be a hoot. There won’t be any girls in there like you.”
“They’re exactly like me,” Zan said curtly. “I won’t give those club owners money.” Reed looked at her, chastened. So he hadn’t known that about her, thought Earley. He’d guessed it as soon as Zan told him how young she was when she left home. How the hell did Reed figure an underage girl with a C-cup put food on the table? Must not have come up much in Marblehead, Earley figured, trust funds and all that. He wondered how Reed’s father would feel about his son and heir dropping out of college to live in the woods with an ex-go-go dancer. And me, he thought. Purebred white trash to your fortunate son.
“I could go for a totally nude live Bigfoot,” he said to let out the tension.
Zan punched his arm, grinning. “You are a live Bigfoot.”
“Should I get totally nude?”
“I dare you.”
Earley shrugged and started unbuttoning. “What do I get?”
“Mm,” said Zan, flicking her tongue. That was all Earley needed to hear. He dropped his wool shirt on the pavement and started to peel off his undershirt. A couple of businessmen looked at him, startled, and veered to the opposite sidewalk.
“You’re going to get busted for streaking,” said Reed.
“Would you bail me out?”
“No way in hell.”
Earley grinned and reached down to unzip his fly. He eased his jeans down to his hipbones, then paused with his hands on the waist of his briefs, aware of heads craning in passing cars. “I don’t think Seattle is ready for my Mo
unt Olympus.”
“Coward,” Zan smirked.
Earley shrugged and dropped his jeans down to his ankles. The cool air felt good on his skin. He wouldn’t have dreamed of exposing himself at, say, the Cedar Bar Lounge, but he didn’t know a damn soul in Seattle. There was something delicious about standing here in city traffic and flashing his dick at the skyscrapers.
“Pull up your pants,” said Reed. “You’ll get arrested.” Zan whipped her head around anxiously, scanning the street for police cars.
“Me and Jim Morrison,” Earley said, bending to grab his jeans.
“And look at what happened to him,” said Reed, watching Earley get dressed.
“Let’s get out of here.” Zan seized his arm. “I need a drink.” She looks worried, thought Earley, wondering why; Zan was the one who had dared him to strip, and now she was digging her fingernails into his arm, looking frantic. They ducked down a side street and started to wend their way back up First Avenue. There was nothing but warehouses and a few secondhand stores.
“I don’t get it,” said Reed. “We would have passed twelve bars by now if we were in Boston. What’s wrong with this town?” They were passing a glass-fronted pawnshop with signs hawking prices for guns, tools, kids’ bicycles. Reed stopped in front of the window. “That’s a Gibson,” he said. “Sunburst finish with f-holes.”
Earley followed his gaze. It was a teardrop-shaped instrument, smaller than a guitar. “What is that, a mandolin?” he said, guessing; he knew it was one of the things that Reed played.
Reed nodded. “I wonder what poor bastard had to put his axe in hock. If that sounds half as sweet as it looks, it’s not one I’d part with unless I was desperate.”
“Try it,” said Earley.
“Why?”
“Why not?” said Zan. “Want me to dare you?”
Reed shrugged and walked into the pawnshop. A muscle-bound black man with several gold necklaces looked up from his racing form. “Can I see that mandolin in the front window?” Reed asked.
“Point me at it,” the pawnbroker said as he lurched towards the window. His back was the size of a fridge, and he had a few bluish tattoos on the backs of his hands. I wouldn’t mess with that dude on a bet, Earley thought. I bet he’s done time.
“Right next to the SG Ferrari,” said Reed. “Um, that bright red electric. ” He winced as the pawnbroker grabbed the mandolin by its neck and handed it to him. Reed flipped over the price tag that dangled from one of the tuning pegs, then tested the double strings one at a time. He sat on a $35 desk chair to tune up.
It took a long time. Zan lost interest and started to browse through a rack of used clothes. Earley’s eye roved over the weapon case behind the counter. There were some fine-looking hunting knives.
“Look,” said Zan, “girl clothes.” She was holding a red dress in front of her body, and Earley realized he’d never seen her in anything other than jeans. The dress had a low neck and wide, filmy skirt; it looked like something a fifties starlet would wear. “How much is that?” said Earley. He wanted to see her dressed up in it, to fumble with buttons and zippers and peel that red fabric away from her skin.
“It’d go great with my treeplanting boots,” said Zan, hanging it back on the rack. Reed finished tuning and started to play. He picked out a gypsyish tune that sounded heartbroken and plaintive, then rose into a vibrating wail and a wild run of fast-picking. Earley stared as Reed’s fingers raced over the fretboard. It sounded like three men were playing. Reed’s eyes were squeezed shut and his head angled off to the right, so the cords in his neck stood out. He didn’t seem to be breathing.
Reed finished the tune and his body relaxed, as if he were leaving a trance. “Sweet sound,” he said, plucking a string.
The pawnbroker squinted at him. “Ever see that movie Deliverance?”
“That was a banjo,” said Reed. “Different mammal.” He laid the instrument down on the counter and walked towards the door.
“You don’t want it?” the broker said. “Give it to you for a hundred and twenty.”
“I’m not in the market,” Reed told him. “But thanks.”
“Why the hell don’t you—” Zan started, but Reed was already outside on the street. She sighed and went after him. Earley went too, with a nod to the pawnbroker. We didn’t earn that dude any more gold chains, he thought. What a weird life, selling castoffs that people want back. A cement mixer drove past, its rear chamber grinding.
“That guy doesn’t know what he’s got there,” said Reed. “That instrument’s stenciled The Gibson; it’s got to be prewar. Worth eight hundred, nine hundred easy.”
Zan stopped in her tracks. “And he’s letting it go for a hundred and twenty? Right back.” She turned towards the pawnshop.
“Don’t,” said Reed, grabbing her arm.
“It’s my money. What if I told you I wanted to go back and get that red dress?”
“I’ll buy it for you,” said Earley. “Come on.” He moved Reed’s hand off Zan’s arm and led her back into the pawnshop, holding the door open for her like a Southern gentleman. Reed clumped in after them, frowning.
“Don’t put that back in the window,” Zan said to the broker. “I’ll take it.” He laid the mandolin onto the counter and went to the window to pick up its case. Earley turned to the clothing rack, hoping the dress didn’t cost too much. He picked up the hanger and flipped the tag over. Reed watched, a strange smile on his face.
“So Zan’s buying something for me, you’re buying something for her . . . I guess I buy something for Earley. What floats your boat, man?”
“How about that Bowie knife there with the scrimshaw?”
Reed took out his wallet. “How much?”
“Shit,” Earley said. “I was kidding.”
“Three hundred,” the broker said. “It’s a collectible. Numbered and signed.”
“Out of my league,” said Earley.
“I’ll take it,” said Reed, his voice clipped. “You take traveler’s checks?”
“I don’t want it,” said Earley. “That’s way too much money.”
“I don’t want a mandolin,” Reed said. “But Zan’s buying me one.”
“Reed?” Zan sounded worried.
“What? Early Christmas. Or call it a birthday. We all do have birthdays,” said Reed. “This’ll give us something to remember each other by. Zan can dress like a hooker, Earley can stab me, and I’ll write a ballad about it.”
Zan’s arm swung around like a club, her fist landing under Reed’s chin with a crack. He staggered and fell against Earley, who caught him instinctively.
“Jesus!” said Earley. Reed moaned.
“Did I break his jaw?” Zan asked.
“Don’t think so,” Reed mumbled.
“Too bad,” said Zan. She turned and walked out of the store, slamming the door so hard the glass rattled.
Earley helped Reed to his feet. “You okay?”
“I guess.”
Earley turned to the pawnbroker, who stood frowning, his massive arms folded. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to be buying anything.”
“What are you, kidding?” said Reed. “I’ll pay for all of them. And buy the drinks at someplace that has ice.” He seemed almost giddy as he rubbed his jaw. As though he’s just landed some blue-collar Merit Badge, Earley thought, ten points for brawling. He’s lucky that Zan was the one who punched him; I would have broken his jaw, not to mention the rest of his body. He looked outside, wondering if she was all right. Fuck Reed and his wallet, he thought, I’m going to take care of her.
Zan was walking away very fast, heading back towards the ferry dock. Earley caught up with her at the next light. She kept her arms folded across her chest.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“I’m not doing anything,” Earley said. “I’m just here.”
Zan didn’t look at him. “Give me a cigarette.”
Earley reached into his pocket and gave her a loosely rolled Drum. “
It’s not a thing of beauty,” he said, clicking his lighter a couple of times till it sparked. Zan leaned into his hands and lit up. Earley watched her drag deep and send smoke through her nostrils. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Used to,” she said, and her whole face dissolved into tears. Earley drew her against his chest, folding his arms around her as she shook with sobs. Her breath was uneven and ragged, but she didn’t make a sound. Earley was struck by how small she felt. He was so used to being a head or more taller than people that it barely registered most of the time, and Zan looked so strong that he thought of her as a big woman. But standing with her in his arms, on a street corner next to the sewer grate, he suddenly felt as if he were trying to comfort a child.
“Damn,” Zan said. “Damn. I hate crying.” She fumbled to drag on her cigarette once more, then dropped it into the gutter and leaned against Earley, her shoulders still shaking, her face burrowed into his wool shirt. He wished she’d make noise. She was crying the way people cry when they’ve had too much practice in keeping things secret. It sounded as if it must hurt her throat, swallowing back so much feeling. Who did this to you? he wondered. Who hurt you so much that you can’t even show it, and how can I get you to trust me? He wrapped his big arms around Zan’s heaving body, trying to still her. She flinched and drew back.
“It’s okay,” Earley mumbled, knowing that he sounded lame, but what else could he say? He’d been trying to work his way up to “I love you,” but he knew that this wasn’t the moment. He wondered what Zan would do. Kiss him with all her might, push him away, send a roundhouse to his jaw? He had a wild impulse to blurt it and see, but he was afraid it would backfire. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so many different emotions at once. It was like coming into city traffic fresh out of the clearcut, more input than he could contain. “It’s okay,” he muttered again to the top of Zan’s head, “it’s okay.”
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