by John Vigna
“You going to say anything?”
He considers challenging her, testing her with questions to get at the truth, but it would only give her an opportunity to take out her frustrations on him. He can’t afford another sleepless night in the spare room, his senses heightened and alert, listening for the sound of her moving around in the house.
“That’s great news, baby. We have to celebrate.” He picks up the plate and heads outside, slaps the steaks onto the grill, and stabs them with a fork on both sides as bursts of flame flash around the raw meat. From the small deck in the backyard, he can make out Dani inside the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine, drinking it in several deep gulps before pouring herself another. Lonnie closes the lid, turns the gas on high, and waits for the meat to cook.
V
Lonnie and Ricky sit at the bar, the Six at Six show just ended. Ricky’s favourite—six women on stage at the same time, stripping and fondling each other, their breasts like helium-puffed balloons brushing against one another’s backs. Lonnie finds it overwhelming, a depressing blur of too many naked bodies. Ricky reads the letter aloud.
Dear Romeo,
I’m a simple woman with simple tastes who’s wasting her English degree at a feedlot. Average height, average weight, winning smile, fabulous legs. I’m a closet-geek but I hide this by making fun of people I don’t know. I’m divorced but not a home-wrecker. I may or may not go gently into the good night. Short or long term, dating me will be a gamble. I’ll leave my toothbrush on your sink after our second date. I’ll be a bit of a gamble in the bedroom, too. I’m a little curious about bondage but we can never try it at my house because my ex-husband lives in the basement and will hear us. Oh yeah, I do a bit of stand-up comedy, so likely our relationship will end up in a joke. Still interested?
“That’s one crazy woman.” Ricky dumps the letter on the table, fixes his eyes on the empty stage.
Lonnie folds the letter and puts it in his pocket. The stripper talks to the DJ, hands him a cassette tape. She holds a glass of soda water, a red straw poking out. Lonnie is struck by how she has transformed herself from the woman at the laundromat. “She sounds honest. Upfront. No bullshit.”
“She sounds like a cow.”
Lonnie pulls the letter out of his pocket, re-reads it, searches for hidden meaning. He feels foolish for sharing the letter with Ricky, slips it back in his pocket. The stripper laughs with the DJ.
“I’m just messing with you.” Ricky puts his arm around Lonnie’s shoulder and squeezes him close, smacks him on the back. “Seriously, she sounds like a live one. You might have lucked out.”
Lonnie studies Ricky’s face for mockery.
“I’m not kidding.” Ricky nods toward the stage. “You should check her out. A guy like you needs a beer and a piece of tail to keep his sanity.”
The DJ cuts the canned music, taps his microphone. “Gentlemen, what you’ve all been waiting for, all the way from our own little valley down the road, you might call her your neighbour, if you’re lucky, let’s put your hands together and show some love for Ms Shelby Sweet.” Men whistle and clank their beer bottles against the tabletops. Lonnie turns. Shelby prances to “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
Schoolgirl theme. Tartan skirt, white dress shirt unbuttoned, tied in a knot at her navel, pink bra, red tie. Horn-rimmed glasses, her blonde hair tied up beneath a black beret. She glides around the stage, swings a stack of books tied together with twine. She sets them down and picks up a long ruler, strides along the stage-side seats, knocks ball caps off men. At a table of balding insurance brokers, she points to a red-faced man with thick jowls, slides her fingers along the ruler, holds up her thumb and index finger a couple of inches apart and pouts. The men laugh and clink their highball glasses together; their eyes glisten at the shared joke. Shelby spins away and points to Lonnie, squats down in front of him, lifts her skirt to expose pink lace panties. She slides her hand in front of the silk panel and taps it with her palm. He stares, silent, unblinking. She pulls his head forward and slips the skirt over him. She smells fragrant, like candy floss. He closes his eyes and feels a heat, a growing tension in his groin that pushes fiercely against the denim of his jeans. He shifts, relieved he’s got the cover of the table. She pushes him away, smacks the back of his wrist with her ruler. He yanks his hand back.
Ricky laughs. “Jesus Christ, if you don’t tie the blocks to her, I will.”
Lonnie locks in the scent of her, the softness of her inner thighs, the gleam of her anklet.
Shelby unties her shirt when the song ends, slips it off her shoulders. Lonnie stares at the silver key around her neck as the next song plays, the damp skin at the base of her throat pulses. He memorizes her act, tries to fit her into his mind, his life, so that by the time she shakes out the blanket, crawls toward him on her hands and knees, the key dangling and swinging back and forth between her breasts, spins onto her back, and smiles at him through legs spread apart high in the air, he’s decided that she’s his girl.
After the music finishes, she sits up and saunters around the stage, takes her time to bend and pick up the tips scattered around. Crumpled five-and ten-dollar notes. Some folded in half, one folded in the shape of an airplane. “Christ.” Ricky shakes his head. “Makes you wish you were a young buck, huh?”
“I better get a move on.”
“You cooking dinner again?” Ricky laughs. “Go on. Get out of here. Don’t keep her waiting.”
“We still on for tomorrow?”
“Only if you get a day pass from the warden.”
When Lonnie gets home, Johnson’s youngest son is pushing his dump truck around the yard. The dog wags his tail and barks. Johnson’s wife rushes out of the house; her face is pale, her eyes red as if she’s been crying. The boy throws a fistful of dirt at her legs. She picks him up by the armpits, nudges him toward the house where Johnson yells from inside. The dog cowers, wags its tail slowly. She strokes its face and ears and it licks her hand. She smiles, continues to pet it. Johnson yells again.
Lonnie nods to her before he goes inside and closes the door. Although it’s not late, Dani has turned off the lights. She will grill him about his whereabouts, and he’ll make up a story. She’ll be too tired to argue, and they’ll sleep in their separate rooms, their lies like a wedge jammed between them throughout the night.
VI
The next day Lonnie and Ricky lay on top of a rise in the Flathead Valley that affords them a view of a meadow crowded with bursts of bright wildflowers. Behind it, a bench of striated rock.
“Just as wild as when the Kootenai wandered through here,” Lonnie says.
“Enjoy it while it lasts, big man. They’re going to start ripping the top off that mountain over there, create an open-pit mine. Word is, they’re going to start developing sections, too. Like at home. Buy stock in coal, my friend. Coal is the future.”
“It don’t make any sense.”
“You’ve hauled timber from the other side of that ridge. Didn’t hear you complaining then.” Ricky peers through the scope, glassing the tree line.
“The rocks are over a billion years old. The trees ain’t.”
“Aren’t you full of folklore and facts.”
“Going to make a mess of it all.” Lonnie picks at the moss on the ground, glances across the valley. “You ever going to get married, settle down?”
Ricky sets the scope down. “Now why in the hell would you ask me a thing like that?”
“Just making conversation.”
Ricky picks up the scope and glasses the tree line where it doglegs to the right. “Easier said than done.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Hang on a sec.” Ricky lays still. “Jesus.” He hands Lonnie the scope.
The buck nibbles on the grass, his muscles ripple with each step. Lonnie counts seven tips on the antlers.
“It’s yours, big man.”
Lonnie raises his rifle, adjusts the scope, and waits for a clean
shot on his neck, just behind the shoulder. The buck is going about his life, simply grazing, unaware that these are his last moments. The thought depresses Lonnie.
“Easy pickings.” Ricky stares straight ahead.
Lonnie squints into the scope, his finger against the trigger. He tries to breathe, waits for his pulse to slow.
“Christ, hit him.”
Lonnie lowers the gun, shakes his head.
“Since when did you become such a chickenshit?”
“I can’t.”
The buck darts into the woods.
Ricky groans and shakes his head. “You’re fucking weak.”
Lonnie winces. “Sorry, bud. Next time. I promise.”
“I’m not your wife.”
VII
Lonnie drops a stick of wood on the fire and fans it to life. The flames curl in the breeze, the wood burns orange and blue. Ricky has been quiet since they saw the deer, grunts now and then. Lonnie offers him a beer, which he waves off. Lonnie warms his hands, takes a pull from a bottle of Wild Turkey, and pokes at the embers as he clears his throat.
“Sorry, man,” Lonnie says.
“Let it go already. It happens.”
“Has it happened to you?”
“No. We’re different.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t marry.”
Lonnie looks at his friend, but Ricky stares at the fire.
“And I mean that as a compliment, so don’t go twisting it into something otherwise.”
“All right.”
“You got someone, at least. She may not be perfect, but she’s someone to look after.” He pokes the fire.
“She’s not the woman I married.”
“They never are.”
“I can’t do right by her. I’m pretty sure she finds me revolting.” He wants to tell Ricky what she’s really like, but Lonnie is afraid he’ll laugh at him, think he’s joking.
“So what are you going to do about it? Run to another chick you meet in the personals? I’m sure that’s gonna work a whole lot better once the sex dies down.”
“What’s gnawing at you? You’ve been in a crap mood all day.”
Ricky spits into the fire. “I’m tired of getting old before I’m supposed to get old.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“All this. The peelers. Hunting. Work. Getting pissed. Just a bunch of short trips that lead nowhere. What about the long haul? The epic trip. Terribly flawed but awesome, the ups and downs, the road forking here and there, which fork to take, which to leave behind, never knowing if you made the right choice but always wondering if you did and that wonder hanging like a faint shadow over your life until you make peace with it. Hell, I don’t know. I know jack-shit. Maybe I’m having an early mid-life crisis. My point is, I’ve got no one to take care of me when I’m old. I’ve got no home. Jesus, it makes me old just thinking about it.”
Lonnie laughs. “You’re drunk.” The fire crackles; Lonnie rubs his hands over the flame. “Have another.”
Ricky gulps down the rest of the bourbon. “You just don’t get it, do you? Why watch the peelers with me when you’ve got a wife at home? I’m still alone, big man. I stay and watch the peelers by myself long after you’re gone, go home alone, eat alone.” Ricky’s voice is sad in a way Lonnie hasn’t heard before. Ricky kicks a log. “What’s your excuse?”
Lonnie sips his beer. “The long haul isn’t all it’s built up to be.”
“How do you know? You aren’t even there yet. Hell, you’re looking to cut it short and abandon ship.”
Lonnie tips back his beer, gulps it down, and reaches for another in the cooler behind him. He presses the can against his neck, feels his pulse throb against the coolness of the can. He pries it open, fills his mouth, and swallows. “Yeah, well, I’m on my way and I don’t like where we’re headed. Maybe it’s time to try another route.”
“I hear that. Fair enough.” Ricky rummages through his pack and pulls out his Smith & Wesson. He turns the pistol around in his palm, the short black barrel dull in the firelight, smooth stock, polished wood finish. He sets it next to himself. “Beer me.”
They clink cans and guzzle. Ricky crushes the empty can against the log. He picks up the gun, sticks the barrel in his mouth, unlocks the safety with a click. His eyes are wide open, calm; his index finger steady against the trigger.
“Jesus Christ, Ricky, quit screwing around.” A log pops and fizzles in the fire. Lonnie jumps. “Put it down. No more jokes.”
Ricky winks and presses the trigger. The gun clicks, its hol-lowness fills the air. He smiles, dark with regret. He takes the gun out of his mouth, wipes the barrel on his sleeve.
“’Least I’ve got the balls to pull the trigger.” He lifts the pistol, trains it on a tree a few yards away, and shoots. The gun booms out and kicks back Ricky’s arm, startling them both. A dull, sucking thud in the tree, the echo of the gun blast reverberates across the valley.
Lonnie lunges at Ricky and snatches the gun. He grabs Ricky beneath the jaw and squeezes on his throat. “That was a sick fucking joke.”
Ricky’s hand shakes until he lets go. “Didn’t think it was loaded. Christ.”
Lonnie empties the clip in his palm, the casings cool against his skin, and slips them in his pocket.
Ricky laughs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“It’s not funny. I should take it out of your hide. Jesus.”
“It’s not in you to fight back.”
Lonnie tosses the gun at Ricky and reaches for another beer, slams the cooler shut, squeezes the beer can. He wants to pulverize it, feel the metal rip in his palm, the hot ooze of blood run off his elbow. He can’t tell Ricky how each night he wakes up in the guest room bed, drenched in sweat, certain that he’s heard a kitchen drawer open, Dani lurking in the dark. That he sits up, his hand under the bed frame, gripping the baseball bat, his ears and skin electric, listening for the slightest creak before he can ease back down and lie awake until his alarm clock rings, startling him just the same. He hands the can to Ricky. “You gave me one helluva scare. Long haul, my ass.”
VIII
A few days later, when Lonnie’s supposed to meet Dani and friends for a drink to celebrate her pregnancy, he parks his rig behind Robin’s Donuts, changes into clean clothes in the front seat. He knows it’s a lie; he’s seen the opened boxes of tampons, the wrappers tossed in the bathroom garbage basket, but he knows Dani will carry on the deceit for as long as she can. The donut shop is empty, canned music plays overhead. He washes his face, shaves, and wets his hair in the washroom. Satisfied with the way he looks, Lonnie sits down in a booth, taps a teaspoon on the tabletop. Two teenage girls with bad acne gossip behind the counter. A Native woman wearing a hairnet comes out of the kitchen with a load of fresh honey-glazed doughnuts. The door jangles open and a tall, brown-haired woman enters, looks around, notices Lonnie’s over-sized beige shirt, smiles. He stands, shakes her hand.
“You must be Romeo.” She laughs. “My friends call me Karen.” Her grip is firm. She looks him in the eye before glancing over him.
“Lonnie. Can I buy you a coffee?”
“Tea. Please.”
At the counter, one girl hands him a pot of tea; the other takes his money. Lonnie feels their eyes on him; their razor-quick teenage judgments ridiculing him. They look past him at Karen.
He slides the teapot across the table. She wears a fleece vest and tight jeans. Angular face, nice teeth. He admires her thin wrists, long fingers, short nails. No makeup. He’s grateful that the table hides the folds in his stomach. “Well, isn’t this awkward.”
She lifts the lid, moves the teabag back and forth, snaps the lid closed, pours a cup. “What do you want to know? Ask anything.”
“I’ve never done this before. It feels strange.”
“Listen, honey, who are we kidding? It is strange.” She laughs. “I’ll start then. What happened to your eye?”
He’s silen
t.
“You a fighting man? I don’t mind tough guys. Really. Come on, give me all the gory details. Did you kick his ass?”
He leans back. “What made you reply to my letter?”
“I liked the humour in it. You wouldn’t believe the things guys say. Your letter was refreshing. Sweet, naïve.” She sips her tea. “You really put yourself out there, you know? Are you looking for a one-off type of thing? Because if you are, that might be okay. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Her directness startles him, makes him feel uneasy. Yet he knows if he tells her about Dani, she’ll suspect he’s lying; a tactic to win her over. Or she’ll be speechless, think him a coward. He sits up and clears his throat. “I drive a logging truck and live over in Bull Head. My wife’s a social worker, but don’t let that fool you. She says she’s pregnant, but it’s a lie to keep me around because she knows I want to leave her. I like playing pool and hunting. My only friend is a guy named Ricky, but he almost whacked himself playing a prank the other night.” Speaking plain and honest invigorates him.
“And your eye?”
“My wife has let herself go. She doesn’t give a damn anymore.”
“What does that have to do with your eye?”
“That’s personal.”
Karen shakes her head. “Personal, huh?” She fidgets with the teabag label, looks around the donut shop, glances at her watch.