Something Fierce

by Drayer, David

  The delight he took in saying this made Seth want to knock out the rest of his teeth. “That’s right. You still the garbage man?”

  “Sanitation engineer,” he said, with a big grin. “Speaking of,” he looked at his watch, “I got to high-tail it.” He dropped a couple crinkled bills on the bar and hiked up his filthy jeans. “I might be looking for some help if you ain’t afraid to get your hands dirty. Guarantee it pays better than anything else you’ll get around here, if’n you get anything at all.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He imagined himself hanging on the back of a garbage truck, taking orders from Frog Eyes. “Christ,” he mumbled and took another swallow of Jack, watching Frog mosey out the door.

  It had been easy enough to have his last classes covered. All the real teaching work of the semester had been done. He had originally planned a few fun activities for the last class that involved looking back at some of the semester’s best discussions and funniest moments but that was above and beyond what was required or expected. There needed to be someone there to give general guidance on the papers or maybe oversee a peer edit. Still, it bothered him that his students would arrive on their last day to find a stranger who would tell them Seth had been called away for a family emergency and instruct them to email him their final essay by the end of the week.

  He was letting his students down and was deeply sorry that he wouldn’t be there to tell them goodbye. Yet, he knew this was for the best. Even without the catastrophic outcomes of an inevitable encounter with Kerri, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. His moods were swinging between rage and despair leaving him drained, exhausted, and unfocused.

  He’d taken his sister’s advice and changed his phone number and personal email address, but Kerri hadn’t left his thoughts for an instant. What did she think when the phone calls and emails bounced back? Was she worried that something had happened to him, or did she just assume he’d finally figured out what an incredible liar she was? Did she miss him? Was she sorry? Did she ache for him the way he ached for her, or was she already on to the next guy? Or guys? And what about the journal? Did she really have it? Was she reading it right now? Had she been reading it all along? Would he ever truly know the answer to these questions or to any of the countless others that haunted him day and night?

  God, he hated, loved, despised, missed, and longed for her; he wanted her to track him down just so he could tell her to go to hell. He wanted to kiss her one last time. He wanted to fuck her into next week. He wanted to forget that she ever existed.

  He gulped down the rest of the whiskey and shouted toward the back room. “Jerry?” Nothing. “Yo! Stink Weed!” Still nothing. Fuck it. He reached over the bar and grabbed the whiskey bottle that had been left sitting out. He poured a generous amount and put the bottle back where he’d found it. He took another big drink, closed his eyes as it burned down his throat and exhaled deeply, feeling the fumes blow over his lips like a hot, summer breeze. That was the one, he thought, and felt himself relax a little.

  He walked around the place and wound up standing before the jukebox. He flipped through the selections, which were not only old and new Country, as one would expect, but a hodgepodge that included Classic Rock and Pop songs from the seventies to today. In the mood for Classic Country, he put in enough money for two songs and selected a couple that fit the moment well enough: “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and David Allan Coe’s “Jack Daniels, If You Please.”

  As Patsy’s sad, timeless voice filled the empty bar, he walked around Cherry Run’s only watering hole, remembering that this is where he’d gotten drunk for the very first time. He’d been barely legal but years behind the kids his own age who were seasoned drinkers by the time they were twenty-one. And it was that night that he’d weighed his options and decided that no one was going to show him the way to his dreams. No mentor was going to take him under his or her wing and help him understand how life worked and how good decisions were made. The only way out of Cherry Run and into the big, wide world beyond was to just go, which he did shortly thereafter.

  The place had been called the Ruffled Grouse back then, after the state bird. Well, sort of. The actual state bird was the Ruffed Grouse. There was no such thing as a Ruffled Grouse but most people around here never made the distinction and the old guy who had the place wasn’t aware of the error until he’d already had the sign made up so it had stayed the Ruffled Grouse until he died about ten years ago. It was called Mike’s Place now. (Mike McClain, AKA Hairy Mike, Stink Weed’s dad.)

  As the whiskey bathed his brain in that golden glow, Seth noticed the original sign hanging between the two coin-operated pool tables in back paying homage, he guessed, to the past. The sign was faded, weather-beaten, and splintered on one side with a spray of twelve-gauge shot that some bonehead had fired into it when it hung outside. As David Allan Coe was making his final plea to Jack Daniels, Seth went back to the bar and poured himself another drink.

  It was quiet then until he heard the old truck outside and had to smile. He’d know the sound of it anywhere. The driver’s door creaked open, slammed shut, and he could almost hear the rust raining down inside the door panel. “How ya doing?” his dad said behind him.

  “Well, I’m drinking whiskey at two in the afternoon.”

  Earl Hardy sat next to his son at the bar. “That could be good or bad.”

  “It’s not good, but I suppose it’s not as bad as it could be. Or has been in the recent past.” Seth pointed to the empty bartender chair. “It seems to be self-serve around here.”

  “Then it’s not Mike tending. He’d be out here talking your ear off. He always asks about me about you.”

  “He does?”

  “Always. He loved that book you wrote. When you write another one, he says he’ll be the first one in line.” Earl leaned forward and shouted toward the kitchen. “Jerry! Get your ass out here!” He winked at Seth and said in a low voice, “He’s a good kid. Just lost his way.”

  “It happens.”

  “What are ya having, Earl?” the slacker asked coming out from the back room.

  “Same damn thing I’ve been having here since your old man bought this place and probably thirty years before that.”

  Jerry nodded like yeah, he should have known that and took a can of Pabst out of the cooler, snapped it open, and sat it in front of Earl. He didn’t touch it. He looked at Jerry with disappointment.

  “What?”

  “You know what.”

  Jerry sighed and took a mug from the cooler. He poured the beer into it and Seth was surprised to see that he did it right, so as not to end up with half a glass of foam. He sat it in front of Earl again and ambled into the back room.

  Seth’s dad shook his head. “If that kid had to run for his life, he’d be dead.”

  Seth tried to picture Jerry running and came to the conclusion that—as with many observations on life—his dad was spot on. “I was just remembering. This is the first place I ever got drunk.”

  “That’s one of Mike’s favorite stories.”

  “There’s a story?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “That was almost twenty years ago. Mike didn’t even own the bar then.”

  “No, but he was there that night. I told you, he’s a fan. You’re an inspiration to old Mike. Anytime your name comes up he tells how you came in here that night, all fired up, telling the whole bar your plans for getting out of here and seeing the world.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “You’d never been in here before that, had you?”

  “Nope. It wasn’t only the first time I ever got drunk; it was the first time I ever drank, period.”

  Earl grinned. “You were always quiet so no one really knew you, other than your name and that you were my boy. Anyway, according to Mike, the barflies were getting a kick out of feeding you beers, and the more you had, the more you went on about how you were going to meet pretty girls and have adventures and write books
about all of it.”

  “Figures. Screw up in Cherry Run and no one ever forgets.”

  “That wasn’t a screw up. Not to hear Mike tell it. Sure, the guys egging you on were making fun and might have seen it that way at the time, but Mike—you know how animated he is—he said your eyes were shining and he saw this fire in you that was not just beer talk. And then, sure enough, you went out and did exactly what you said you were going to do, which was a hell of a lot more than any of those barflies ever even dreamed of doing.”

  Seth thought about this. “I did see quite a few places. Met a lot of women. Had adventures and wrote books about it. Hell, my last woman was an adventure.”

  “There you go!” Earl raised his beer. “My God, I think Mike was as proud as we were when you put yourself through college and that book came out.”

  “Huh. Maybe I did better than I thought. I just expected to be further along, more successful at this age.”

  “So does everyone. Something to keep in mind, though, forty sounds old when you’re forty, but trust me, it ain’t.”

  “I’ll try to remember that. What’s Mom up to today?”

  “Same old. She’s gotten into watching those stupid reality shows on the television. If it’s not that, it’s one of those goofy preachers or someone on trial for murder. I can’t stomach that crap. I had to get out for a while.”

  Seth took the last swallow of his whiskey. “You heading home?”

  “Soon as I finish my drink.”

  “Mind if I ride down with you?”

  “Been waiting on you to ask. Almost had to order another beer.”

  Barring the usual stragglers with sob stories, all of the final essays poured in via email on time. Seth had actually been looking forward to them because he was sure the mountain of work and quick turnaround time would get his mind off Kerri for a while. It did not. Though he was halfway through grading the papers, she rarely left his thoughts. Looking out the kitchen window, he was remembering her standing in front of the antique mirror, their eyes locked into each other’s, she telling him that he made her beautiful. Outside, the fog rose from the ground like ascending ghosts, vanishing into the morning sun. “Was none of it real?”

  “What’s that?” Mark, Tina’s husband, asked, coming into the kitchen, wearing a Budweiser shirt and pajama pants, his hair all over the place.

  “Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Okay,” Seth said, though he hadn’t slept much at all. The withdrawal symptoms from the prescription drugs were easing up but he was still unable to stay asleep for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. The whole night was like a series of short naps broken up by long periods of staring at the ceiling or changing positions. He nodded toward the counter and said, “I made coffee.”

  “Great.” Mark poured himself a cup. “You had any run-ins with Devil yet?”

  “Not since I left Ohio and changed my contact information.”

  “Not her,” he laughed. “The wild turkey. We named him Devil.”

  Devil, Mark explained, was a large, aggressive gobbler who was under the impression that the left half of their lawn belonged to him. Devil was known to unpredictably charge in from the forest bordering the yard and viciously defend his turf. “Scared the piss out of me the first time it happened,” Mark said. “I was carrying in a load of groceries and this big, goofy-looking bastard comes running right at me. And I mean right at me. I ended up dropping all the groceries and going a couple rounds with him. I’m kicking; he’s snapping. I finally got a good one in and he ran back to the woods. Next morning, I went out and there he was between me and my pickup, strutting around proud as hell, waiting on me, daring me to come on to his side of the yard.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I went back in the house for the shotgun. Figured I’d end that conversation once and for all. Of course, your sister caught me before I got out the door and wouldn’t let me shoot him. So I took a broom out with me and that did the trick. I didn’t see him for a while. He strikes at random. ”

  “Is it just you or does he go after Tina too?”

  “Devil doesn’t discriminate,” Tina said, coming into the kitchen, dressed and ready for the day. “He’s come at me a couple of times.”

  Mark kissed his wife on the cheek. “And she still won’t let me shoot him.”

  She mussed his hair and said, “You’re running late, mister.”

  “I am?” He looked at his watch. “Crap. I am.”

  Tina went for the coffee. “We called the game warden to get them to relocate him, but so far, Devil is still at large.”

  “Anyway,” Mark said on his way out of the kitchen, “beware. If the bird does come at you, don’t run. Face him head on. Show him you’re not afraid. Clobber him with whatever you can get your hands on. If Devil sees fear, you’re screwed.”

  “Got it. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “You didn’t sleep worth a dang last night, did you?” Tina asked Seth.

  “Yeah, you know…not really. I can’t get her off of my mind. It’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “But it’s not like I haven’t been around the block. Several times. It’s not like I’ve never been lied to or had my heart kicked around, for God’s sake.”

  “You’ve never been through anything like this before. Your life with her was not normal. Ecstasy one minute, agony the next. No in-between. Kerri was like a drug firing off all kinds of chemicals in your brain. Add the booze, prescription drugs, and insomnia to the mix and it’s a miracle you held it together at all. Good or bad, it was always exciting. Part of you is missing that.”

  This was a hard thing to acknowledge, but it was true. He’d fully expected her to track him down. He’d entertained countless scenarios of her begging his forgiveness, making promises. He’d been prepared to deal with the possibility of violence or suicidal threats. He’d been ready for anything except her just giving up and letting him go. Her sudden and complete absence left him empty, restless…bored, longing for one more peek into her life, to see what she was doing, what she was thinking, what all this had meant to her, if it meant anything at all. “I thought she’d at least try to contact me.”

  “You changed all your contact information.”

  “I know, but that wouldn’t stop Kerri if she really wanted to reach me.”

  “So something derailed her. Be thankful for that.”

  “I suppose,” he sighed. “Do you really think she’s mentally ill?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Of course, it matters.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for one thing, if she’s sick, I should be…I don’t know. Helping her.”

  “You’re a psychologist now? A psychiatrist? You keep making this all about her which conveniently keeps you from focusing on you. Besides, from what you’ve told me, she doesn’t want help. Even if she’s mad as a hatter, that doesn’t absolve her of responsibility. If she managed the discipline and focus it took to do what she did to you, she could have certainly gotten some help. She didn’t.”

  “I still don’t know what actually happened. Not for sure.”

  “And you probably never will. That sucks because we need closure, but the only closure you are going to get here is what you give yourself. The only meaning this will have is the meaning you assign it. It’s that simple and that complicated. But you already know all that. It’s why you’re here.” She rinsed her coffee cup and on her way out of the kitchen, stopped and kissed the top of his head. “I have to run. Hang in there.”

  He sat alone in the kitchen for a while. It was true, whether Kerri was crazy or not, whether she’d hurt him consciously or unconsciously was irrelevant. Why was he drawn to her in the first place? Why did he miss the red flags or choose to ignore them? These were the real questions. Kerri opened the door to a room in his mind that he didn’t eve
n know existed. A secret room full of things he needed to go through and sort out. Going through them all was going to take time, maybe a very long time. The important thing was that the door was open now, and as a result of this mad love affair, Seth Hardy had the opportunity to get to know Seth Hardy a little better.

  This was a good thing. But it hurt like hell.

  Seth spent the day grading essays. Despite everything, the semester had been successful from a teaching standpoint. The papers were pretty good overall and a few were excellent. Some of the students had included personal notes with their papers, thanking him for making a class they’d been dreading into something they’d looked forward to each week, wishing him well, asking if he’d be back next semester and if so, what he’d be teaching. Eliot from Creative Writing wrote to tell Seth that he’d landed a summer job writing for a small town newspaper. Seth had written him a letter of recommendation for the position earlier in the semester. “Way to go, Eliot.”

  By late afternoon, there were only a dozen essays left to go, but his brain was worn out for the day. He should go for a run or something, start putting his body back in shape. He should look for a paying job. He should do something constructive.

  But he didn’t want to.

  So what did he want?

  A drink. Probably several.

  Mike’s Place was empty when Seth walked in. He saddled up to the bar and considered helping himself to the whiskey but decided he should at least give Stink Weed a chance to do his job. “Hello! Anybody home?”

  The front door opened behind him and he turned to see a small, red-headed woman of indiscriminate age striding in. She walked like a guy, shoulders back and arms out to her sides. Vaguely familiar, she wore jeans, a red flannel shirt, and work boots. “What are you having?” she asked, going behind the bar.

  “Jack Daniels. Neat.” His mind was a beehive of activity which was the wrong kind of buzz. He figured he was about four shots away from replacing bad buzzing with good. “Make it a double.”

  She studied him for a moment as if she didn’t hear him or maybe like she knew him from somewhere and was trying figure out where. “No can do,” she said, finally. “Sorry.”