Moonlight Water

by Win Blevins

  “Give me a break,” said Zahnie.

  “Seriously. There might be a girl he promised to meet up with if the shit hit the fan, or whatever.”

  Zahnie started to wonder. It was true. Damon without a girl following him around was unusual. And there might be one or two willing to help him hide his tracks. Still, she was dubious.

  “Listen to me—I know Damon,” Leeja said. “He’s partly mine. Plus, at a time like this we gotta do something or we’re gonna go nuts. He likes Delgado’s.”

  “We wanna go!” cried Sallyfene and Wandafene.

  Leeja whirled on her daughters. “You’re babysitting your brothers,” she snapped. “And your father.” Roqui was passed out with his feet under the kitchen table and his head curved against the refrigerator door like he was a crookneck squash.

  “Aw-w-w-w!” moaned the girls.

  “Leeja, it’s getting late,” said Zahnie.

  “All right, we’re hustling,” Leeja told Zahnie. Then Leeja bumped her belly against Gianni, a bright smile in her eyes. “You wanna go dancing? Few beers? Some fun? Make a little music, compadre?”

  “Sure,” said Gianni, turning lightly pink behind his ears.

  “Leeja…,” said Zahnie with hands on both hips.

  “We’ll find Damon and celebrate with music and dancing!”

  Red liked Leeja just fine, but he had a hard time believing the woman he loved was the sister of this woman, slightly nuts, transparent, and somehow not hard to forgive.

  “I want to go out,” said Winsonfred. Red hadn’t even noticed him until then, sitting in front of Leeja’s tube watching MTV with the sound off.

  Zahnie’s face sagged. Then she pulled him up and along.

  Leeja called on the way out the door, “You kids can have Pop-Tarts, but do not knock down all the ice cream!”

  * * *

  The joint called Delgado’s was just off the rez in yet another new direction. No Damon.

  “We’ll wait,” said Zahnie. She’s in a take-no-nonsense mode, observed Red.

  They slid onto stools at the bar next to the pool table and listened to the jukebox, waiting, hoping, out of ideas. The second song was a Hank Williams, Jr., tune, sung in Navajo. Red and Gianni relaxed and got silly slapping each other on the back at the weird-sounding lyrics.

  The third beer got Gianni started on one of his favorite stories of the musical wars, the tale of his own exit from the music biz.

  “Red and I got a gig to play this wedding, a big deal for us then—somebody was going to pay us actual money. The bride-to-be heard the band in a neighborhood club and hired us. We drive to the address, Atherton, pull into the circular drive of a stone house that is at least twenty thousand square feet of conspicuous consumption. Money oozed from the mortar. I figure pretty quick this is not gonna be any piece of cake.

  “We were wearing tie-dyed shirts and torn jeans. I had an American flag sewn on my ass. We drive around back and there’s an enormous white tent, caterers running around like crazy, florists breaking out in cold sweats over the tilt of their bird-of-paradise centerpieces. Then from the van’s rear window we see the Red Queen, the one who’s obviously causing all this crazy-making.”

  Red put in, “This would be the bride’s mother.”

  The fourth beer started going down. Even Zahnie was drinking, everyone but Red.

  Back to Gianni. “She’s scaring the living shit out of everyone, me included, and we haven’t even been introduced yet. And now I am certain that the daughter hired us as an act of rebellion against the mother, with us caught in the middle.

  “In the van we decide that before meeting the Red Queen we need all the fortification we can get. We roll a fat joint and start toking. The van fills with smoke. Surprise entrance by the Red Queen.

  “She’s alarmed, pissed, horrified, and hyperventilating like crazy. Of course, what she’s sucking up is Maui Zowie. The guys stumble out of the van to set up. I stay to chat up the Red Queen. She reclines on the cushions in the van stoned out of her gourd on secondhand smoke. She notices the flag on my ass, touches my buns, makes some off-color patriotic comment. I’m laughing, and she pulls me to her.

  “We spend the next hour giving the caterers a break and the band time to set up.

  “And the band”—here he threw a mock-hostile look at Red—“not knowing if I was going to emerge alive or dead or at all, found a more rocking vocalist than me right in the wedding party, the bride’s brother. He was more than happy to play my Fender Stratocaster. Charming the hosiery off that middle-aged woman was the real end of my rock-and-roll career!”

  Gianni laughed and clapped and everyone joined in. Red thought they were all so wound up about Damon that they were blowing off tension. Red tossed in, “However, this was the start of a brand-new career.”

  “Yep, she was my first client and in the middle of a big divorce. A really nice lady. She just had trouble being fun while hidden behind a strand of cultured pearls.”

  Red looked up at the ceiling, trying not to laugh. “I give you this, Gianni. She was the most radiant mother of the bride I’ve ever seen.”

  Leeja listened to the whole story with a big grin. When Gianni finished, she spoke to the bartender, pulled the plug on the jukebox, and strutted to a battered upright piano. Some ivories were even missing. The bench was a folding chair. “You guys wanna hear some music?” she called. “Real music?”

  Zahnie looked at Red. “It just runs in the family.” When Leeja’s hands hit the keys, he knew what she was talking about.

  Leeja’s honky-tonk was brassy, loud, and proud. Perfect for the mood, despite the instrument and no matter the wrong notes. She grinned back at Red, Gianni, Winsonfred, and her sister. The left hand made a strong beat to shake your booty by, and the right hand clamored strong as any man’s.

  Soon she switched to a Jerry Lee Lewis tune, raucous as a bar fight. It was so much fun Red grabbed Zahnie and began to swing her by the hands. Gianni walked over, pulled a chair next to Leeja’s, and gave her a sexy grin. Winsonfred sent up a fine little whoop. Zahnie spun away from Red and danced up a storm. He had never seen her so loosey-goosey. Little Turtle comes out to play.

  Zahnie passed a table where two women sat and into a door that read: BULLS and COWS. The two shook their heads, jumped up, and started dancing with each other. The big one might have been a Navajo or a Mexican or anything. Shaped like a Buddha, dressed in a lot of layers of cloth, a shawl, full skirts, and the like. Later Red picked up that her name was Briz.

  The other, the one Briz called Pinky Lee, was built like a stray cat that foraged in garbage cans. Her hair was white-blonde, and she showed off her slinky body with ultra-tight clothes. Red had a soft spot for strays, being one himself.

  The two women danced without touching, or even looking at each other, Briz a mountain whose grasses blew gently in the wind, Pinky Lee wound tight, quick and lithe. Gianni eyed them nervously.

  Pinky Lee was eyeing two white cowboys in big hats playing pool. The game felt intense. When they bent into the light to shoot, all you saw was blue-jeaned butts, back ends of pool cues, and big hats. Tens and twenties ornamented the rail.

  All of a sudden Pinky Lee pranced over to the pool table, waggling her ass. Some word or grunt came from behind the bar. Pinky Lee stilettoed a look at the barman. She held up some quarters and smacked them down on the wooden rail. Then she flashed a bright, brittle smile at the cowboys, pranced back to Briz, and danced.

  Declaration: I wanna break into your private game.

  Finished in the bathroom, Zahnie leaned across the bar to order more beer. The bar keep was staring at Pinky Lee too hard to notice. Gianni and Leeja joined Zahnie and hijacked the barman’s attention for another round.

  “You’re the life of the party,” Red told Leeja.

  Just then the hats started cussing up a storm.

  Whatever was wrong, Pinky Lee moved right in, took a cue stick from the hat who looked long and thin and hard as a folding knife. Re
d could see by the pool table that he’d scratched when he was five balls ahead. He glared while his opponent picked up the wad of bills and stuck them away. Hat number two looked like he was auditioning for one of those slick ads where a male model flashes five days of beard.

  “You want to put something on the game, little lady?” asked Five-Day. His voice was melting butter on corn bread.

  “Nope, I’m not very good,” she said. Red could see that. Pinky hadn’t even checked to see if her cue stick was straight.

  Folding Knife made an exaggerated sigh, but Five-Day smiled at her like a cat smiles at a canary. “You start us off, then.”

  “Oh, you break,” said Pinky Lee. “I never have any luck at that.”

  He hit the cue ball ferociously hard but didn’t drop any balls.

  Pinky Lee’s first shot showed her skill. The tip glanced off the cue ball, and it barely moved.

  Swiftly, Five-Day started sinking the striped balls. He ran seven and then missed a table-length bank shot on the cue ball because the table wasn’t level. He was showing off.

  Pinky Lee shot with a bit of pink tongue caught between her lips and by accident put the five ball in a side pocket. She let out a little shriek of delight, stuck out her tongue again, and on the next shot missed everything with the cue ball.

  The eight ball, though, was behind the six on the rail. Unable to run the table on her, Five-Day got the eight ball halfway out of its bad spot.

  Red noticed that the bartender was edgy.

  Pinky Lee made another miserable shot, half-missing the cue ball and nudging three of her own balls around. Thing of it was, though, that the eight ball was now surrounded by all her solids. In fact, there wasn’t any way for Five-Day to touch the eight ball.

  Folding Knife barked a laugh. “Damned if the bitch ain’t gonna win on a scratch.”

  “Win? Me?!” Pinky Lee cocked her hips and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  “Damn!” said Five-Day.

  “Little lady wins on a scratch,” said Folding Knife. “Them’s the rules.”

  Five-Day explained to Pinky what a scratch was.

  Red grinned at Gianni and heard the barman grunt.

  “It ain’t over yet,” said Five-Day. He lined up and tried a trick shot where you shoot down on the cue ball hard and it jumps over other balls and bumps its target. World champions do it well. Five-Day poked the cue ball clear off the table.

  Pinky Lee flashed out a hand and caught it. She looked around at everybody like a dumb blonde. “What happened?” she asked in kind of a dazed way.

  The barkeep half-smothered a laugh behind the back of his hand.

  Five-Day slammed the butt of his cue stick on the floor.

  Folding Knife crowed, “The ‘little lady’ won.” He swaggered to the table. “Wanna try your luck again?”

  Five-Day slammed his butt into a chair.

  “Why, uh, sure!”

  “How about putting something on it this time? Ten bucks.” He fingered a sawbuck flat on the wooden rail.

  She looked at Briz. No help in that inscrutable face.

  “I guess that’d be okay!” she said brightly. She fished in her pocket and came up with a sawbuck.

  This time Red was not a bit surprised when she brought off a similar trick. Knife was not mentally quick, but he was plenty pissed off.

  She took the two bills and fluttered them in the air like pompoms. She high-fived Briz, who raised one impassive hand.

  “I think the little lady’s shuckin’ us.” This came from Five-Day, who was stroking his cue stick almost lecherously. “I think she’s takin’ us for a ride.”

  Pinky Lee turned on him and put an edge in her voice. “You backin’ that up, or you just talkin’?”

  “Pinky Lee!” said the barman.

  “A girl’s gotta have some fun,” she said in a lah-de-dah tone.

  “Backin’ it up.” Five-Day put a twenty on the rail.

  “You call that backin’?” Pinky Lee laid down two twenties and a ten.

  Five-Day studied her, then matched Pinky Lee’s bills.

  “My break, I believe,” said Pinky Lee.

  All of a sudden she had a nice stroke. She nodded to herself with satisfaction when the fourteen ball dropped. Then she ran the entire table. Five-Day never even had a chance to get his cue stick out.

  Pinky Lee put the hundred bucks in her rear jeans pocket quick. The air was thick with cowboy snortin’.

  A quick sixty bucks and as neat a job as I’ve ever seen, thought Red.

  The two hats eyed Pinky Lee’s form and considered the possibilities. Knife advanced on her. She backed off, but he pinned her against the bar. Red saw the barman reach for whatever fight-stopper he had, probably a baseball bat. Then he treated himself to a lopsided smile and put it back.

  Zahnie grabbed Red’s arm and squeezed.

  “I think we done been flimflammed,” said Knife.

  Five-Day stalked up beside Knife. “Yeah. Flimflammed.”

  Together the two hats made about four of Pinky Lee. Red considered evening up the odds, but Zahnie’s hold on his arm tightened.

  Knife leaned into Pinky Lee’s face now, forcing her to bend back. She was trying to keep her cue stick between herself and them. “I bet you come here every night. I bet you play this table every night. I bet you know every hair on that felt. And you sucker newcomers.”

  Pinky Lee glanced back at the barman. He just grinned at her and put his hands flat on the bar.

  Five-Day reached out and cupped her cheek with one big hand. “Since I missed a coupla pockets, think I’ll try for the hole with hair around it.” He grabbed one breast roughly.

  She flashed a foot into Five-Day’s belly and shoved him into Knife. Right quick, Five-Day got his balance and grabbed the cue stick out of her hand. With a look of slow malice, he raised the stick, brought it down, and splintered it on the bar. Now he held a truly nasty weapon, a wooden pole about four feet long with a jagged point.

  Pinky Lee looked nearly as scared as she should have been.

  Enough. Thanks to the U.S. military, Red was an old hand at just such bar fights. He grabbed fast and hard and got both ends of the cue stick. One quick spin twisted it out of Five-Day’s hands. Holding Five-Day’s eyes hard, Red hurled it against the back bar.

  Pinky Lee screamed.

  Knife was waving a switchblade in her face.

  Red grabbed a jar of hot sausages and broke it over Knife’s head.

  At the same time, Briz raised the eight ball and with a roundhouse swing coldcocked Knife right behind the ear. He slithered to the floor.

  Five-Day was trying to head-butt Pinky Lee. Red lowered a shoulder and rammed him clear across the pool table and off the other side.

  Unluckily, they rolled and Red landed on the bottom. He had a bad moment getting his breath while Five-Day clobbered his gut with a massive fist.

  Briz broke a wooden chair over Five-Day’s head.

  While he was dazed, Red hit him hard with the base of his palm on the base of the nose.

  Blood gushed like Red had clipped a fire hydrant with a truck. He pushed the bleeder off quick. Five-Day’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he zonked out. The barman came out with bar towels to stop the bleeding.

  Red creaked to his feet. They looked at one another, Pinky Lee, Briz, and Red, triumphant. “Think I owe you, Superman,” said Pinky Lee. “Big-time.”

  Red and Pinky Lee stumbled to the bar, leaving their enemies snoozing. Zahnie threw her arms around Red. Gianni clapped his friend on the back.

  All of a sudden Red remembered Winsonfred. The old man sat on a bar stool, drinking a Coke, quiet as a boiled egg. Though he was thin and dry as a wisp of straw, his eyes were enormous. He was watching Gianni. Then Winsonfred beckoned to Red with a finger. “Gianni didn’t fight for you,” he said.

  “I taught him way back in the army to stay out of my fights.”

  Winsonfred seemed to sip and swallow these words. “You don’t s
ee,” he said.

  Pinky Lee ripped Red’s attention away. “Randy,” she said to the bartender, “you’re fired.” She looked at Red. “You and your friends, the rest of the evening’s on the house.”

  Leeja said, “That’s okay, Pinky, we’ll pass.” She grabbed Red’s sleeve and they all headed for the door.

  Pinky hollered at their backs, “I’ll keep an eye out for the kid.”

  Red said over his shoulder, “You own this place?”

  “Yeah,” called Pinky Lee. “Like I said—a girl has to have a little fun.”

  “Night,” said Red.

  The deep, dark air was deliciously cool. “Not the first time I’ve seen the whole thing,” said Leeja, “including Randy getting fired.”

  Gianni and Red looked at each other and chuckled.

  As they got to the car, Leeja nodded at Red and whispered to Zahnie, “This guy is a keeper. Don’t blow it.”

  34

  CONFESSION

  Don’t kill a deer without leaving part of it. You’ll never get another one.

  —Navajo saying

  When they left Leeja’s place, with nowhere to wait for news of Damon other than home, the night was very black and the stars unnaturally bright. Red and Zahnie lay on the bed built into the back of his van so they could cuddle. Red wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lightly. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he pictured the vast, empty spaces beyond the moon, where there are no human beings to love each other. Some stars glimmered a tinge of mystical blue, and he wondered if there was some sort of love out there anyway, maybe the stars loving one another. How else could it be so beautiful, even in the middle of pain and worry?

  From the front passenger seat, Winsonfred gave driver Gianni the eye, as if to say, Get with it, buster.

  Gianni said, “Hey, don’t look—”

  Winsonfred stopped him with a soft hand on the shoulder. “That is not,” said the Ancient One, “what you are feeling guilty about.”

  Silence. Cold, rigid silence.

  Red and Zahnie didn’t know how long the silence lasted, because they wrapped up in each other and fell asleep.

  When Gianni stopped in Tony’s driveway, Winsonfred said to him, “Now’s the time. Own up. Tell everyone why your face is that color.” This was a high, quavery old man’s version of a command.